diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 32267-8.txt | 19570 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 32267-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 463795 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 32267.txt | 19570 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 32267.zip | bin | 0 -> 463681 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 39156 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/32267-8.txt b/32267-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53136ea --- /dev/null +++ b/32267-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Century of English Essays, by Various, +Edited by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + + +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: A Century of English Essays + An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + +Release Date: May 5, 2010 [eBook #32267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CENTURY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS*** + + +E-text prepared by David Clarke, Chandra Friend, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Transcriber's note: + + A very small number of printer's errors have been corrected + by reference to other editions. + + Footnotes have been moved from the bottom of the original + page to just below the referring paragraph, or in a few cases, + to just after the referring sentence. + + Author attribution lines have been regularized so that all + appear one line below the essay to which they apply. + + See also the detailed transcriber's note at the end of the work. + + + + + +Everyman's Library + +Edited by Ernest Rhys + +ESSAYS + +A Century of English Essays Chosen by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + + * * * * * + +This is No. 653 of _Everyman's Library_. The publishers will be +pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and +projected volumes arranged under the following sections: + + TRAVEL * SCIENCE * FICTION + + THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY + + HISTORY * CLASSICAL + + FOR YOUNG PEOPLE + + ESSAYS * ORATORY + + POETRY & DRAMA + + BIOGRAPHY + + REFERENCE + + ROMANCE + +In four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather, +round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin. + + LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. + NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: Most current ... For that they come home to men's +business & bosoms.--Lord Bacon] + + +[Illustration: A CENTURY of ENGLISH ESSAYS: an ANTHOLOGY RANGING FROM +CAXTON TO R. L. STEVENSON & THE WRITERS OF OUR OWN TIME. + +LONDON TORONTO & PARIS: J.M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON AND +CO.] + + + + +First Issue of this Edition 1913 +Reprinted 1915, 1916 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This is a book of short essays which have been chosen with the full +liberty the form allows, but with the special idea of illustrating +life, manners and customs, and at intervals filling in the English +country background. The longer essays, especially those devoted to +criticism and to literature, are put aside for another volume, as +their different mode seems to require. But the development of the art +in all its congenial variety has been kept in mind from the beginning; +and any page in which the egoist has revealed a mood, or the gossip +struck on a vein of real experience, or the wise vagabond sketched a +bit of road or countryside, has been thought good enough, so long as +it helped to complete the round. And any writer has been admitted who +could add some more vivid touch or idiom to that personal half +meditative, half colloquial style which gives this kind of writing its +charm. + +We have generally been content to date the beginning of the Essay in +English from Florio's translation of Montaigne. That work appeared +towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's time, in 1603, and no doubt it +had the effect of setting up the form as a recognized _genre_ in +prose. But as we go back behind Florio and Montaigne, and behind +Francis Bacon who has been called our "first essayist," we come upon +various experiments as we might call them--essays towards the essay, +attempts to work that vein, discursively pertinent and richly +reminiscent, out of which the essay was developed. Accordingly for a +beginning the line has been carried back to the earliest point where +any English prose occurs that is marked with the gossip's seal. A leaf +or two of Chaucer's prose, a garrulous piece of the craftsman's +delight in his work from Caxton, and one or two other detachable +fragments of the same kind, may help us to realize that there was a +predisposition to the essay, long before there was any conscious and +repeated use of the form itself. By continuing the record in this way +we have the advantage of being able to watch its relation to the whole +growth in the freer art of English prose. That is a connection indeed +in which all of us are interested, because however little we write, +whether for our friends only, or for the newspapers, we have to +attempt sooner or later something which is virtually an essay in +everyday English. There is no form of writing in which the fluid idiom +of the language can be seen to better effect in its changes and in its +movement. There is none in which the play of individuality, and the +personal way of looking at things, and the grace and whimsicality of +man or woman, can be so well fitted with an agreeable and responsive +instrument. When Sir Thomas Elyot in his "Castle of Health" deprecates +"cruel and yrous[1] schoolmasters by whom the wits of children be +dulled," and when Caxton tells us "that age creepeth on me daily and +feebleth all the body," and that is why he has hastened to ordain in +print the Recule of the Historeys of Troyes, and when Roger Ascham +describes the blowing of the wind and how it took the loose snow with +it and made it so slide upon the hard and crusted snow in the field +that he could see the whole nature of the wind in that act, we are +gradually made aware of a particular fashion, a talking mode (shall we +say?) of writing, as natural, almost as easy as speech itself; one +that was bound to settle itself at length, and take on a propitious +fashion of its own. + +[Footnote 1: Irascible.] + +But when we try to decide where it is exactly that the bounds of the +essay are to be drawn, we have to admit that so long as it obeys the +law of being explicit, casually illuminative of its theme, and germane +to the intellectual mood of its writer, then it may follow pretty much +its own devices. It may be brief as Lord Verulam sometimes made it, a +mere page or two; it may be long as Carlyle's stupendous essay on the +Niebelungenlied, which is almost a book in itself. It may be grave and +urbane in Sir William Temple's courtly style; it may be Elian as Elia, +or ripe and suave like the "Spectator" and the "Tatler." The one +clause that it cannot afford to neglect is that it be entertaining, +easy to read, pleasant to remember. It may preach, but it must never +be a sermon; it may moralize, but it must never be too forbidding; it +may be witty, high-spirited, effervescent as you like, but it must +never be flippant or betray a mean spirit or a too conscious clever +pen. + +Montaigne, speaking through the mouth of Florio, touched upon a nice +point in the economy of the essay when he said that "what a man +directly knoweth, that will he dispose of without turning still to his +book or looking to his pattern. A mere bookish sufficiency is +unpleasant." The essayist, in fact, must not be over literary, and +yet, if he have the habit, like Montaigne or Charles Lamb, of +delighting in old authors and in their favourite expressions and great +phrases, so that that habit has become part of his life, then his +essays will gain in richness by an inspired pedantry. Indeed the essay +as it has gone on has not lost by being a little self-conscious of its +function and its right to insist on a fine prose usage and a choice +economy of word and phrase. + +The most perfect balance of the art on its familiar side as here +represented, and after my Lord Verulam, is to be found, I suppose, in +the creation of "Sir Roger de Coverley." Goldsmith's "Man in Black" +runs him very close in that saunterer's gallery, and Elia's people are +more real to us than our own acquaintances in flesh and blood. It is +worth note, perhaps, how often the essayists had either been among +poets like Hazlitt, or written poetry like Goldsmith, or had the +advantage of both recognizing the faculty in others and using it +themselves, like Charles Lamb; and if we were to take the lyrical +temperament, as Ferdinand Brunetičre did in accounting for certain +French writers, and relate it to some personal asseveration of the +emotion of life, we might end by claiming the essayists as dilute +lyrists, engaged in pursuing a rhythm too subtle for verse and +lifelike as common-room gossip. + +And just as we may say there is a lyric tongue, which the true poets +of that kind have contributed to form, so there is an essayist's style +or way with words--something between talking and writing. You realize +it when you hear Dame Prudence, who is the Mother of the English +essay, discourse on Riches; Hamlet, a born essayist, speak on acting; +T.T., a forgotten essayist of 1614, with an equal turn for homily, +write on "Painting the Face"; or the "Tatler" make good English out of +the first thing that comes to hand. It is partly a question of art, +partly of temperament; and indeed paraphrasing Steele we may say that +the success of an essay depends upon the make of the body and the +formation of the mind, of him who writes it. It needs a certain way of +turning the pen, and a certain intellectual gesture, which cannot be +acquired, and cannot really be imitated. + +It remains to acknowledge the friendly aid of those living essayists +who are still maintaining the standards and have contributed to the +book. This contemporary roll includes the Right Hon. Augustine +Birrell, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. G.K. Chesterton, Mr. Austin Dobson, +Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. E.V. Lucas, Mrs. Meynell, Mr. Edward Thomas and +Mr. W.B. Yeats. In addition a formal acknowledgment is due to Messrs. +Chatto and Windus for leave to include an essay by Robert Louis +Stevenson; to Messrs. Longmans and Co. for an essay of Richard +Jefferies; and Messrs. Methuen and Co. for two by Mr. Lucas, and one +by Mr. Belloc. Mr. A.H. Bullen has very kindly given his free consent +in the case of "The Last of the Gleemen,"--a boon to be grateful for. +Without these later pages, the book would be like the hat of Tom +Lizard's ceremonious old gentleman, whose story, he said, would not +have been worth a farthing if the brim had been any narrower. As to +the actual omissions, they are due either to the limits of the volume, +or to the need of keeping the compass in regard to both the subjects +and the writers chosen. American essayists are left for another day; +as are those English writers, like Sir William Temple and Bolingbroke, +Macaulay and Matthew Arnold, who have given us the essay in literary +full dress. + + E.R. + + * * * * * + +The following is a bibliography in brief of the chief works drawn upon +for the selection: + +Caxton, Morte D'Arthur, 1485; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1532; Bacon, +Essays, 1740; Thos. Dekker, Gull's Horn Book, 1608; Jeremy Taylor, +Holy Dying, 1651; Thos. Fuller, Holy and Profane States, 1642; Cowley, +Prose Works, Several Discourses, 1668; The Guardian, 1729; The +Examiner, 1710; The Tatler, 1709; Wm. Cobbett, Rural Rides, 1830; +Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, 1762; Addison and Steele, The +Spectator, 1711; The Rambler, 1750-52; The Adventurer, 1753; Lamb, +Essays of Elia, 1823, 1833; Hazlitt, Comic Writers, 1819; Table Talk, +1821-22; The New Monthly Magazine, 1826-27; Coleridge, Literaria +Biographia, 1817; Wordsworth, Prose Works, 1876; John Brown, Rab and +his Friends, 1858; Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, 1863; Carlyle, +Edinburgh Review, 1831; Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, 1857; +Shelley, Essays, 1840; Leigh Hunt, The Indicator, 1820; Mary Russell +Mitford, Our Village, 1827-32; De Quincey, Collected Works, 1853-60; +R.L. Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, 1887; Edmund Gosse (The +Realm), 1895; Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1892; Alice +Meynell, Colour of Life, 1896; G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant, 1901; +E.V. Lucas, Fireside and Sunshine, 1906, Character and Comedy, 1907; +Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta (second series), 1887; W.B. Yeats, +Celtic Twilight, 1893; Edward Thomas, The South Country, 1909; Hilaire +Belloc, First and Last, 1911. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + Introduction vii + + 1. A Printer's Prologue + Wm. Caxton, _Morte D'Arthur_ 1 + + 2. Dame Prudence on Riches + Geoffrey Chaucer, _Tale of Melibeus_ 4 + + 3. Of Painting the Face + T.T., _New Essays_, 1614 8 + + 4. Hamlet's Advice to the Players + Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ 10 + + 5. Of Adversity + Francis Bacon, _Essays_ 11 + + 6. Of Travel + " " " 12 + + 7. Of Wisdom for a Man's Self + " " " 14 + + 8. Of Ambition + " " " 15 + + 9. Of Gardens + " " " 17 + + 10. Of Studies + " " " 22 + + 11. The Good Schoolmaster + Thomas Fuller, _Holy and Profane States_ 24 + + 12. On Death + Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Living and Holy Dying_ 27 + + 13. Of Winter + Thomas Dekker 30 + + 14. How a Gallant should behave himself in a Play-house + Thomas Dekker, _Gull's Horn Book_ 31 + + 15. Of Myself + Abraham Cowley, _Discourses_ 35 + + 16. The Grand Elixir + Pope, _The Guardian_, No. 11 39 + + 17. Jack Lizard + Steele, _The Guardian_, No. 24 43 + + 18. A Meditation upon a Broomstick, According to the Style and + Manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's Meditations + Swift, _Prose Writings_ 47 + + 19. Pulpit Eloquence + Swift, _The Tatler_, No. 66 48 + + 20. The Art of Political Lying + Swift, _The Examiner_, No. 15 51 + + 21. A Rural Ride + Wm. Cobbett, _Rural Rides_ 56 + + 22. The Man in Black (1) + Goldsmith, _Citizen of the World_, No. 25 58 + + 23. " " " (2) + " " " " No. 26 61 + + 24. Old Maids and Bachelors + " " " " No. 27 66 + + 25. The Important Trifler + " " " " No. 53 69 + + 26. The Trifler's Household + " " " " No. 54 72 + + 27. Westminster Hall + " " " " No. 97 75 + + 28. The Little Beau + " " " " No. 98 78 + + 29. The Club + Steele, _The Spectator_ 80 + + 30. The Meeting of the Club + Addison " " 85 + + 31. Sir Roger de Coverley at Home (1) + " " " 88 + + 32. " " " " (2) + " " " 91 + + 33. " " " " (3) + Steele " " 94 + + 34. " " " " (4) + Addison " " 97 + + 35. Sir Roger at Church + " " " 100 + + 36. Sir Roger on the Widow + Steele " " 103 + + 37. Sir Roger in the Hunting Field + Addison " " 107 + + 38. Sir Roger at the Assizes + " " " 110 + + 39. Gipsies + " " " 114 + + 40. Witches + " " " 117 + + 41. Sir Roger at Westminster Abbey + " " " 120 + + 42. Sir Roger at the Play + " " " 123 + + 43. Sir Roger at Spring-Garden + " " " 126 + + 44. Death of Sir Roger + " " " 129 + + 45. A Stage Coach Journey + Steele " " 131 + + 46. A Journey from Richmond + " " " 135 + + 47. A Prize Fight + " " " 139 + + 48. Good Temper + " " " 144 + + 49. The Employments of a Housewife in the Country + Samuel Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 51 147 + + 50. The Stage Coach + " " _The Adventurer_, No. 84 152 + + 51. The Scholar's Complaint of His Own Bashfulness + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 157 156 + + 52. The Misery of a Modish Lady in Solitude + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 42 160 + + 53. The History of an Adventurer in Lotteries + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 181 164 + + 54. Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago + Lamb, _Essays of Elia_ 168 + + 55. All Fools' Day + " " 180 + + 56. Witches, and Other Night-Fears + " " 184 + + 57. My First Play + " " 190 + + 58. Dream-Children; a Reverie + " " 194 + + 59. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers + " " 198 + + 60. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig + " " 205 + + 61. Poor Relations + " " 211 + + 62. The Child Angel + " " 218 + + 63. Old China + " " 220 + + 64. Popular Fallacies (I) + " " 226 + + 65. " " (II) + " " 227 + + 66. " " (III) + " " 228 + + 67. Whitsun-Eve + Mary Russell Mitford, _Our Village_ 230 + + 68. On Going a Journey + Hazlitt, _Essays_ 234 + + 69. On Living to One's-Self + " " 244 + + 70. Of Persons One would wish to have seen + " " 257 + + 71. On a Sun-Dial + " " 271 + + 72. Of the Feeling of Immortality in Youth + Hazlitt, _The New Monthly Magazine_ 280 + + 73. A Vision + Coleridge, _A Lay Sermon_, 1817 292 + + 74. Upon Epitaphs + Wordsworth 297 + + 75. Jeems the Doorkeeper + John Brown, _Rab and His Friends_ 311 + + 76. On Life + Shelley, _Essays_ 323 + + 77. Walking Stewart + De Quincey, _Notes of an Opium Eater_ 327 + + 78. On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth + De Quincey, _Collected Essays_ 340 + + 79. The Daughter of Lebanon + " " " 345 + + 80. Getting up on Cold Mornings + Leigh Hunt, _Essays_, _Indicator_, 1820 351 + + 81. The Old Gentleman + " " " " 355 + + 82. The Old Lady + " " " " 359 + + 83. The Maid-Servant + " " " " 363 + + 84. Characteristics + Carlyle, _Miscellanies_ 366 + + 85. Tunbridge Toys + Thackeray, _Roundabout Papers_ 404 + + 86. Night Walks + Dickens, _The Uncommercial Traveller_ 410 + + 87. "A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured" + R. L. Stevenson, _Memories and Portraits_ 419 + + 88. July Grass + Richard Jefferies, _Field and Hedgerow_ 425 + + 89. Worn-out Types + Augustine Birrell, _Obiter Dicta_ 428 + + 90. Book-buying + " " " " 433 + + 91. The Whole Duty of Woman + Edmund Gosse, _The Realm_, 1895 436 + + 92. Steele's Letters + Austin Dobson, _Eighteenth Century Vignettes_ 441 + + 93. A Defence of Nonsense + G. K. Chesterton, _The Defendant_ 446 + + 94. The Colour of Life + Alice Meynell, _The Colour of Life_ 450 + + 95. A Funeral + E. V. Lucas, _Character and Comedy_ 453 + + 96. Fires + " " _Fireside and Sunshine_ 456 + + 97. The Last Gleeman + W. B. Yeats, _The Celtic Twilight_ 462 + + 98. A Brother of St. Francis + Grace Rhys, _The Vineyard_ 467 + + 99. The Pilgrim's Way + Edward Thomas, _The South Country_ 469 + + 100. On a Great Wind + H. Belloc, _First and Last_ 471 + + + + +A CENTURY OF ESSAYS + + + + +A PRINTER'S PROLOGUE + + +After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well +of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great +conquerors and princes, and also of certain books of ensamples and +doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England, +came and demanded me, many and ofttimes, why that I did not cause to +be imprinted the noble history of the Sancgreal, and of the most +renowned Christian king, first and chief of the three best Christian +and worthy, King Arthur, which ought most to be remembered among us +Englishmen, before all other Christian kings; for it is notoriously +known, through the universal world, that there be nine worthy and the +best that ever were, that is, to wit, three Paynims, three Jews, and +three Christian men. As for the Paynims, they were before the +Incarnation of Christ, which were named, the first, Hector of Troy, of +whom the history is common, both in ballad and in prose; the second, +Alexander the Great; and the third, Julius Cęsar, Emperor of Rome, of +which the histories be well known and had. And as for the three Jews, +which also were before the Incarnation of our Lord, of whom the first +was Duke Joshua, which brought the children of Israel into the land of +behest; the second was David, King of Jerusalem; and the third Judas +Maccabeus. Of these three, the Bible rehearseth all their noble +histories and acts. And, since the said Incarnation, have been three +noble Christian men, stalled and admitted through the universal world, +into the number of the nine best and worthy: of whom was first, the +noble Arthur, whose noble acts I purpose to write in this present book +here following; the second was Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, of +whom the history is had in many places, both in French and in English; +and the third, and last, was Godfrey of Boulogne, of whose acts and +life I made a book unto the excellent prince and king, of noble +memory, King Edward the Fourth. + +The said noble gentlemen instantly required me for to imprint the +history of the said noble king and conqueror, King Arthur, and of his +knights, with the history of the Sancgreal, and of the death and +ending of the said Arthur, affirming that I ought rather to imprint +his acts and noble feats, than of Godfrey of Boulogne, or any of the +other eight, considering that he was a man born within this realm, and +king and emperor of the same; and that there be in French divers and +many noble volumes of his acts, and also of his knights. To whom I +have answered, that divers men hold opinion that there was no such +Arthur, and that all such books as be made of him be but feigned and +fables, because that some chronicles make of him no mention, nor +remember him nothing, nor of his knights. Whereto they answered, and +one in especial said, that in him that should say or think that there +was never such a king called Arthur, might well be aretted great folly +and blindness; for he said there were many evidences to the contrary. +First ye may see his sepulchre in the monastery of Glastonbury. And +also in Policronicon, in the fifth book, the sixth chapter, and in the +seventh book, the twenty-third chapter, where his body was buried, and +after found, and translated into the said monastery. Ye shall see also +in the History of Bochas, in his book _De Casu Principum_, part of his +noble acts, and also of his fall. Also Galfridus, in his British book, +recounteth his life. And in divers places of England, many +remembrances be yet of him, and shall remain perpetually of him, and +also of his knights. First, in the Abbey of Westminster, at St. +Edward's shrine, remaineth the print of his seal in red wax closed in +beryl, in which is written--"Patricius Arthurus Britannię, Gallię, +Germanię, Dacię Imperator." Item in the castle of Dover ye may see Sir +Gawaine's skull, and Cradok's mantle: at Winchester, the Round Table: +in other places Sir Launcelot's sword, and many other things. Then all +these things considered, there can no man reasonably gainsay but that +there was a king of this land named Arthur: for in all the places, +Christian and heathen, he is reputed and taken for one of the nine +worthies, and the first of the three Christian men. And also he is +more spoken beyond the sea, and more books made of his noble acts, +than there be in England, as well in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and +Greek, as in French. And yet of record, remaineth in witness of him in +Wales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones, and the marvellous +works of iron lying under the ground, and royal vaults, which divers +now living have seen. Wherefore it is a great marvel why that he is no +more renowned in his own country, save only it accordeth to the word +of God, which saith, that no man is accepted for a prophet in his own +country. Then all things aforesaid alleged, I could not well deny but +that there was such a noble king named Arthur, and reputed for one of +the nine worthies, and first and chief of the Christian men. And many +noble volumes be made of him and of his noble knights in French, which +I have seen and read beyond the sea, which be not had in our maternal +tongue. But in Welsh be many, and also in French, and some in English, +but nowhere nigh all. Wherefore, such as have late been drawn out +briefly into English, I have, after the simple cunning that God hath +sent me, under the favour and correction of all noble lords and +gentlemen enprised to imprint a book of the noble histories of the +said King Arthur, and of certain of his knights after a copy unto me +delivered; which copy Sir Thomas Malory did take out of certain books +of French, and reduced it into English. And I, according to my copy, +have down set it in print, to the intent that noble men may see and +learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous deeds that +some knights used in those days, by which they came to honour, and how +they that were vicious were punished, and oft put to shame and rebuke; +humbly beseeching all noble lords and ladies, with all other estates +of what state or degree they be of, that shall see and read in this +present book and work, that they take the good and honest acts in +their remembrance, and follow the same. Wherein they shall find many +joyous and pleasant histories, and the noble and renowned acts of +humanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For, herein may be seen noble +chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, +friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the +good, and leave the evil, and it shall bring you unto good fame and +renown. And, for to pass the time, this book shall be pleasant to read +in, but for to give faith and belief that all is true that is +contained herein, ye be at your own liberty. But all is written for +our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but +to exercise and follow virtue, by the which we may come and attain to +good fame and renown in this life, and after this short and transitory +life to come unto everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant us +that reigneth in heaven, the blessed Trinity. Amen. + + _William Caxton._ + + + + +DAME PRUDENCE ON RICHES + + +When Prudence had heard her husband avaunt himself of his riches and +of his money, dispreising the power of his adversaries, she spake and +said in this wise: Certes, dear sir, I grant you that ye ben rich and +mighty, and that riches ben good to 'em that han well ygetten 'em, and +that well can usen 'em; for, right as the body of a man may not liven +withouten soul, no more may it liven withouten temporal goods, and by +riches may a man get him great friends; and therefore saith Pamphilus: +If a neatherd's daughter be rich, she may chese of a thousand men +which she wol take to her husband; for of a thousand men one wol not +forsaken her ne refusen her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou be +right happy, that is to sayn, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find a +great number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, that +thou wax poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt be +all alone withouten any company, but if[2] it be the company of poor +folk. And yet saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that ben bond +and thrall of linage shuln be made worthy and noble by riches. And +right so as by riches there comen many goods, right so by poverty come +there many harms and evils; and therefore clepeth Cassiodore, poverty +the mother of ruin, that is to sayn, the mother of overthrowing or +falling down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse: One of the greatest +adversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, is +constrained by poverty to eaten the alms of his enemy. And the same +saith Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful and +mishappy is the condition of a poor beggar, for if he ax not his meat +he dieth of hunger, and if he ax he dieth for shame; and algates +necessity constraineth him to ax; and therefore saith Solomon: That +better it is to die than for to have such poverty; and, as the same +Solomon saith: Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to liven +in such wise. By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by many +other reasons that I could say, I grant you that riches ben good to +'em that well geten 'em and to him that well usen tho' riches; and +therefore wol I shew you how ye shulen behave you in gathering of your +riches, and in what manner ye shulen usen 'em. + +[Footnote 2: Except.] + +First, ye shuln geten 'em withouten great desire, by good leisure, +sokingly, and not over hastily, for a man that is too desiring to get +riches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other evils; and +therefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to wax rich, +he shall be non innocent: he saith also, that the riches that hastily +cometh to a man, soon and lightly goeth and passeth from a man, but +that riches that cometh little and little, waxeth alway and +multiplieth. And, sir, ye shuln get riches by your wit and by your +travail, unto your profit, and that withouten wrong or harm doing to +any other person; for the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich, +if he do harm to another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendeth +and forbiddeth by right, that no man make himself rich unto the harm +of another person. And Tullius saith: That no sorrow, ne no dread of +death, ne nothing that may fall unto a man, is so muckle agains nature +as a man to increase his own profit to harm of another man. And though +the great men and the mighty men geten riches more lightly than thou, +yet shalt thou not ben idle ne slow to do thy profit, for thou shalt +in all wise flee idleness; for Solomon saith: That idleness teacheth a +man to do many evils; and the same Solomon saith: That he that +travaileth and busieth himself to tillen his lond, shall eat bread, +but he that is idle, and casteth him to no business ne occupation, +shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And he that is idle and +slow can never find convenable time for to do his profit; for there is +a versifier saith, that the idle man excuseth him in winter because of +the great cold, and in summer then by encheson of the heat. For these +causes, saith Caton, waketh and inclineth you not over muckle to +sleep, for over muckle rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; and +therefore saith St. Jerome: Doeth some good deeds, that the devil, +which is our enemy, ne find you not unoccupied, for the devil he +taketh not lightly unto his werking such as he findeth occupied in +good werks. + +Then thus in getting riches ye musten flee idleness; and afterward ye +shuln usen the riches which ye ban geten by your wit and by your +travail, in such manner, than men hold you not too scarce, ne too +sparing, ne fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; for +right as men blamen an avaricious man because of his scarcity and +chinchery, in the same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; +and therefore saith Caton: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast +ygeten in such manner, that men have no matter ne cause to call thee +nother wretch ne chinch, for it is a great shame to a man to have a +poor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: The goods that thou hast +ygeten, use 'em by measure, that is to sayn, spend measureably, for +they that folily wasten and despenden the goods that they han, when +they han no more proper of 'eir own, that they shapen 'em to take the +goods of another man. I say, then, that ye shuln flee avarice, using +your riches in such manner, that men sayen not that your riches ben +yburied, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding; for +a wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two verse: +Whereto and why burieth a man his goods by his great avarice, and +knoweth well that needs must he die, for death is the end of every man +as in this present life? And for what cause or encheson joineth he +him, or knitteth he him so fast unto his goods, that all his wits +mowen not disseveren him or departen him fro his goods, and knoweth +well, or ought to know, that when he is dead he shall nothing bear +with him out of this world? and therefore saith St. Augustine, that +the avaricious man is likened unto hell, that the more it swalloweth +the more desire it hath to swallow and devour. And as well as ye wold +eschew to be called an avaricious man or an chinch, as well should ye +keep you and govern you in such wise, that men call you not +fool-large; therefore, saith Tullius: The goods of thine house ne +should not ben hid ne kept so close, but that they might ben opened by +pity and debonnairety, that is to sayen, to give 'em part that han +great need; ne they goods shoulden not ben so open to be every man's +goods. + +Afterward, in getting of your riches, and in using of 'em, ye shuln +alway have three things in your heart, that is to say, our Lord God, +conscience, and good name. First ye shuln have God in your heart, and +for no riches ye shuln do nothing which may in any manner displease +God that is your creator and maker; for, after the word of Solomon, it +is better to have a little good, with love of God, than to have muckle +good and lese the love of his Lord God; and the prophet saith, that +better it is to ben a good man and have little good and treasure, than +to be holden a shrew and have great riches. And yet I say furthermore, +that ye shulden always do your business to get your riches, so that ye +get 'em with a good conscience. And the apostle saith, that there nis +thing in this world, of which we shulden have so great joy, as when +our conscience beareth us good witness; and the wise man saith: The +substance of a man is full good when sin is not in a man's conscience. +Afterward, in getting of your riches and in using of 'em, ye must have +great business and great diligence that your good name be alway kept +and conserved; for Solomon saith, that better it is and more it +availeth a man to have a good name than for to have great riches; and +therefore he saith in another place: Do great diligence (saith he) in +keeping of thy friends and of thy good name, for it shall longer abide +with thee than any treasure, be it never so precious; and certainly he +should not be called a gentleman that, after God and good conscience +all things left, ne doth his diligence and business to keepen his good +name; and Cassiodore saith, that it is a sign of a gentle heart, when +a man loveth and desireth to have a good name. And therfore saith +Seint Augustyn, that ther ben two thinges that ben necessarie and +needful; and that is good conscience and good loos; that is to sayn, +good conscience in thin oughne persone in-ward, and good loos of thin +neghebor out-ward. And he that trusteth him so muckle in his good +conscience, that he despiseth or setteth at nought his good name or +los, and recketh not though he kept not his good name, n'is but a +cruel churl. + + _Chaucer._ + + + + +OF PAINTING THE FACE + + +If that which is most ancient be best, then the face that one is borne +with, is better than it that is borrowed: Nature is more ancient than +Art, and Art is allowed to help Nature, but not to hurt it; to mend +it, but not to mar it; for perfection, but not for perdition: but this +artificiall facing doth corrupt the naturall colour of it. Indeed God +hath given a man oil for his countenance, as He hath done wine for his +heart, to refresh and cheere it; but this is by reflection and not by +plaister-worke; by comforting, and not by dawbing and covering; by +mending and helping the naturall colour, and not by marring or hiding +it with an artificiall lit. What a miserable vanity is it a man or +woman beholding in a glasse their borrowed face, their bought +complexion, to please themselves with a face that is not their owne? +And what is the cause they paint? Without doubt nothing but pride of +heart, disdaining to bee behind their neighbour, discontentment with +the worke of God, and vaine glory, or a foolish affectation of the +praise of men. This kind of people are very hypocrites, seeming one +thing and being another, desiring to bee that in show which they +cannot be in substance, and coveting to be judged that, they are not: +They are very grosse Deceivers; for they study to delude men with +shewes, seeking hereby to bee counted more lovely creatures than they +are, affecting that men should account that naturall, which is but +artificiall. I may truly say they are deceivers of themselves; for if +they thinke they doe well to paint, they are deceived; if they think +it honest and just to beguile men, and to make them account them more +delicate and amiable, then they are in truth, they are deceived; if +they thinke it meete that that should bee counted God's worke, which +is their owne, they are deceived: If they thinke that shall not one +day give account unto Christ of idle deeds, such as this, as well as +of idle words, they are deceived; if they thinke that God regards not +such trifles, but leaves them to their free election herein; they are +deceived. Now they that deceive themselves, who shall they be trusted +with? A man, that is taken of himselfe, is in a worse taking than he +that is caught of another. This self-deceiver, is a double sinner: he +sinnes in that he is deceived, hee sinnes again in that he doth +deceive himself. To bee murdered of another is not a sin in him that +is murdered; but for a man to be deceived in what he is forbidden, is +a sinne; it were better to bee murdered, than so to be deceived: For +there the body is but killed, but here the soule herself is +endangered. Now, how unhappy is the danger, how grievous is the sin, +when a man is merely of himself indangered? It is a misery of miseries +for a man to bee slaine with his owne sword, with his owne hand, and +long of his owne will: Besides, this painting is very scandalous, and +of ill report; for any man therefore to use it, is to thwart the +precept of the Holy Ghost in Saint Paul, who saith unto the +Phillippians in this wise, Whatsoever things are true (but a painted +face is a false face) whatsoever things are venerable (but who esteems +a painted face venerable?) whatsoever things are just (but will any +man of judgement say, that to paint the face is a point of justice? +Who dare say it is according to the will of God which is the rule of +justice? + +Doth the law of God command it? Doth true reason teach it? Doth lawes +of men enjoyne it?) whatsoever things are (chaste and) pure: (but is +painting of the face a point of chastity? Is that pure that proceeds +out of the impurity of the soule, and which is of deceipt, and tends +unto deceipt? Is that chaste, which is used to wooe mens eyes unto +it?) _whatsoever things are lovely_ (but will any man out of a well +informed judgement say, that this kinde of painting is worthy love, or +that a painted face is worthy to be fancied?) _whatsoever things are +of good report: If there bee any vertue, if there bee any praise, +think on these things_. But I hope to paint the face, to weare an +artificiall colour, or complexion, is no vertue; neither is it of good +report amongst the vertuous. I read that Iezabel did practise it, but +I find not that any holy Matrone or religious Virgine ever used it: +And it may perhaps of some be praised, but doubtlesse not of such as +are judicious, but of them rather hated and discommended. A painted +face is the devils _Looking-glasse_: there hee stands peering and +toying (as an Ape in a looking-glasse) joying to behold himselfe +therein; for in it he may reade pride, vanity, and vaine-glory. +Painting is an enemy to blushing, which is vertues colour. And indeed +how unworthy are they to bee credited in things of moment, that are so +false in their haire, or colour, over which age, and sicknesse, and +many accidents doe tyrannize; yea and where their deceipt is easily +discerned? And whereas the passions and conditions of a man, and his +age, is something discovered by the face, this painting hindereth a +mans judgement herein, so that if they were as well able to colour the +eyes, as they are their haire and faces, a man could discerne little +or nothing in such kind of people. In briefe, these painters are +sometimes injurious to those, that are naturally faire and lovely, and +no painters; partly, in that these are thought sometimes to bee +painted, because of the common use of painting; and partly, in that +these artificial creatures steal away the praise from the naturall +beauty by reason of their Art, when it is not espyed, whereas were it +not for their cunning, they would not bee deemed equall to the other. +It is great pitty that this outlandish vanity is in so much request +and practise with us, as it is. + + _T. T._ + + + + +HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS + + +Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on +the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as +lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much +with your hand, thus; but use all gently, for in the very torrent, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must +acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it +offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear +a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the +groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but +inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped +for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. Be +not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit +the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special +observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything +so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the +first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to +nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the +very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone +or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make +the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your +allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players +that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not +to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians +nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and +bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made +men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. O, +reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no +more than is set down for them: for there be of them that will +themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to +laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play +be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful +ambition in the fool that uses it. + + _Shakespeare._ + + + + +OF ADVERSITY + + +It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics): +_That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but +the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum +secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia._ Certainly, if miracles be +the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a +higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen): _It +is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the +security of a god. Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, +securitatem dei._ This would have done better in poesy, where +transcendences are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy +with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that +strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without +mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian: +that _Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus_ (by whom human +nature is represented), _sailed the length of the great ocean in an +earthen pot or pitcher_: lively describing Christian resolution, that +saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. +But to speak in a mean. The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the +virtue of adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical +virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is +the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and +the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, +if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs +as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in +describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Salomon. +Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is +not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and +embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and +solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a +lightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the +pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most +fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best +discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF TRAVEL + + +Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a +part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath +some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. +That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow +well; so that he be such a one that hath the language and hath been in +the country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what things +are worthy to be seen in the country where they go; what acquaintances +they are to seek; what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth. For +else young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is a +strange thing that in sea-voyages, where there is nothing to be seen +but sky and sea, men should make diaries, but in land-travel, wherein +so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if +chance were fitter to be registered than observation. Let diaries, +therefore, be brought in use. The things to be seen and observed are: +the courts of princes, specially when they give audience to +ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes, +and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, +with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and +fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours; +antiquities and ruins; libraries; colleges, disputations, and +lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of +state and pleasure, near great cities; armories; arsenals; magazines; +exchanges; burses; warehouses; exercises of horsemanship, fencing, +training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the +better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; +cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in +the places where they go. After all which the tutors or servants ought +to make diligent enquiry. As for triumphs, masques, feasts, weddings, +funerals, capital executions, and such shews, men need not to be put +in mind of them; yet are they not to be neglected. If you will have a +young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to +gather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he must have some +entrance into the language, before he goeth. Then he must have such a +servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Let +him carry with him also some card or book describing the country where +he travelleth; which will be a good key to his enquiry. Let him keep +also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less +as the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one city +or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town +to another; which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let him +sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such +places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth. +Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure +recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither +he removeth; that he may use his favour in those things he desireth to +see or know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As for +the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel; that which is most +of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed +men of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he shall suck +the experience of many. Let him also see and visit eminent persons in +all kinds, which are of great name abroad; that he may be able to tell +how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care +and discretion to be avoided: they are commonly for mistresses, +healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth company +with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into +their own quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave +the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but +maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance +which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his +discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let +him be rather advised in his answers than forwards to tell stories; +and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for +those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath +learned abroad into the customs of his own country. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF + + +An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an +orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of +themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and +society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, +specially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's +actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon +his own centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens +move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of +all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because +themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the +peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant +to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass +such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs +be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore let +princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except +they mean their service should be made but the accessory. That which +maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It +were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferred +before the master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little +good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the +master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, +ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set +a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the +overthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for the +most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their +own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model +of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme +self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to +roast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with their +masters, because their study is but to please them and profit +themselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their +affairs. + +Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved +thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house +somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out +the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of +crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is +specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) +are _sui amantes sine rivali_, are many times unfortunate. And whereas +they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the +end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings +they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF AMBITION + + +Ambition is like choler; which is an humour that maketh men active, +earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped. But if +it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby +malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open for +their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than +dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become +secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, +and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worst +property in a servant of a prince or state. Therefore it is good for +princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so as they be still +progressive and not retrograde: which because it cannot be without +inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they +rise not with their service, they will take order to make their +service fall with them. But since we have said it were good not to use +men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we +speak in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars +must be taken, be they never so ambitious: for the use of their +service dispenseth with the rest; and to take a soldier without +ambition is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use of +ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger and +envy: for no man will take that part, except he be like a seeled dove, +that mounts and mounts because he cannot see about him. There is use +also of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness of any subject +that overtops: as Tiberius used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus. +Since therefore they must be used in such cases, there resteth to +speak how they must be bridled, that they may be less dangerous. There +is less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they be +noble; and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious and +popular; and if they be rather new raised, than grown cunning and +fortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weakness in +princes to have favourites; but it is of all others the best remedy +against ambitious great-ones. For when the way of pleasuring and +displeasuring lieth by the favourite, it is impossible any other +should be over-great. Another means to curb them, is to balance them +by others as proud as they. But then there must be some middle +counsellors, to keep things steady; for without that ballast the ship +will roll too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure some +meaner persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As for +the having of them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures, +it may do well; but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate +their designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down, +if the affairs require it, and that it may be done with safety +suddenly, the only way is the interchange continually of favours and +disgraces; whereby they may not know what to expect, and be, as it +were, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful, the ambition to +prevail in great things, than that other, to appear in every thing; +for that breeds confusion, and mars business. But yet it is less +danger to have an ambitious man stirring in business, than great in +dependences. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a +great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to +be the only figure amongst cyphers is the decay of an whole age. +Honour hath three things in it: the vantage ground to do good; the +approach to kings and principal persons; and the raising of a man's +own fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when he +aspireth, is an honest man; and that prince that can discern of these +intentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, let +princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty +than of rising; and such as love business rather upon conscience than +upon bravery: and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF GARDENS + + +God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of +human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; +without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks: and a +man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men +come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening +were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of +gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; in +which, severally, things of beauty may then be in season. For December +and January and the latter part of November, you must take such things +as are green all winter: holly; ivy; bays; juniper; cypress-trees; +yew; pine-apple-trees; fir-trees; rosemary; lavender; periwinkle, the +white, the purple, and the blue; germander; flags; orange-trees, +lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm +set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the +mezereon-tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow and +the gray; primroses; anemones; the early tulippa; hyacinthus +orientalis; chamaļris; fritillaria. For March, there come violets, +specially the single blue, which are the earliest; the yellow +daffodil; the daisy; the almond-tree in blossom; the peach-tree in +blossom; the cornelian-tree in blossom; sweet briar. In April follow, +the double white violet; the wall-flower; the stock-gillyflower; the +cowslip; flower-delices, and lilies of all natures; rosemary flowers; +the tulippa; the double piony; the pale daffadil; the French +honeysuckle; the cherry-tree in blossom; the dammasin and plum-trees +in blossom; the white-thorn in leaf; the lilac-tree. In May and June +come pinks of all sorts, specially the blush pink; roses of all kinds, +except the musk, which comes later; honeysuckles; strawberries; +bugloss; columbine; the French marygold; flos Africanus; cherry-tree +in fruit; ribes; figs in fruit; rasps; vine flowers; lavender in +flower; the sweet satyrian, with the white flower; herba muscaria; +lilium convallium; the apple-tree in blossom. In July come +gillyflowers of all varieties; musk-roses; the lime-tree in blossom; +early pears and plums in fruit; ginitings; quadlins. In August come +plums of all sorts in fruit; pears; apricocks; berberries; filberds; +musk-melons; monkshoods, of all colours. In September come grapes; +apples; poppies of all colours; peaches; melocotones; nectarines; +cornelians; wardens; quinces. In October and the beginning of November +come services; medlars, bullises; roses cut or removed to come late; +hollyokes; and such like. These particulars are for the climate of +London; but my meaning is perceived, that you may have _ver +perpetuum_, as the place affords. + +And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it +comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, +therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be +the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and +red, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole +row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though it be in +a morning's dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow. Rosemary +little; nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields the +sweetest smell in the air, is the violet; specially the white double +violet, which comes twice a year; about the middle of April, and about +Bartholomewtide. Next to that is the musk-rose. Then the +strawberry-leaves dying, which [yield] a most excellent cordial smell. +Then the flower of the vines; it is a little dust, like the dust of a +bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Then +sweet-briar. Then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set +under a parlour or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gillyflowers, +specially the matted pink and clove gillyflower. Then the flowers of +the lime-tree. Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of +bean flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers. But those +which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, +but being trodden upon and crushed, are three: that is, burnet, wild +thyme, and water-mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, +to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. + +For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like, as we +have done of buildings), the contents ought not to be well under +thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts: a green in +the entrance; a heath or desert in the going forth; and the main +garden in the midst; besides alleys on both sides. And I like well +that four acres of ground be assigned to the green; six to the heath; +four and four to either side; and twelve to the main garden. The green +hath two pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the +eye than green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it will +give you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon +a stately hedge, which is to enclose the garden. But because the alley +will be long, and, in great heat of the year or day, you ought not to +buy the shade in the garden by going in the sun thorough the green, +therefore you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, +upon carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may +go in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots or figures +with divers-coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of +the house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys: you +may see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be +square; encompassed, on all the four sides, with a stately arched +hedge. The arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work, of some ten +foot high and six foot broad; and the spaces between of the same +dimension with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be +an entire hedge, of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter's +work; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, with +a belly, enough to receive a cage of birds; and over every space +between the arches some other little figure, with broad plates of +round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I +intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some +six foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand that this square of +the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to +leave, on either side, ground enough for diversity of side alleys; +unto which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you. But +there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great +enclosure: not at the hither end, for letting your prospect upon this +fair hedge from the green; nor at the further end, for letting your +prospect from the hedge, through the arches, upon the heath. + +For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to +variety of device; advising; nevertheless, that whatsoever form you +cast it into, first, it be not too busy or full of work. Wherein I, +for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden +stuff: they be for children. Little low hedges, round, like welts, +with some pretty pyramides, I like well; and in some places, fair +columns upon frames of carpenter's work. I would also have the alleys +spacious and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, +but none in the main garden. I wish also, in the very middle, a fair +mount, with three ascents, and alleys, enough for four to walk +abreast; which I would have to be perfect circles, without any +bulwarks or embossments; and the whole mount to be thirty foot high; +and some fine banqueting-house, with some chimneys neatly cast, and +without too much glass. + +For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment; but pools mar +all, and make the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs. +Fountains I intend to be of two natures: the one, that sprinkleth or +spouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or +forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the first, +the ornaments of images gilt, or of marble, which are in use, do well: +but the main matter is, so to convey the water, as it never stay, +either in the bowls or in the cistern; that the water be never by rest +discoloured, green or red or the like, or gather any mossiness or +putrefaction. Besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the +hand. Also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it, doth +well. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathing +pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will not +trouble ourselves: as, that the bottom be finely paved, and with +images; the sides likewise; and withal embellished with coloured +glass, and such things of lustre; encompassed also with fine rails of +low statuas. But the main point is the same which we mentioned in the +former kind of fountain; which is, that the water be in perpetual +motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by +fair spouts, and then discharged away under ground, by some equality +of bores, that it stay little. And for fine devices, of arching water +without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers, +drinking glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to +look on, but nothing to health and sweetness. + +For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be +framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would have +none in it; but some thickets, made only of sweet-briar and +honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with +violets, strawberries, and primroses. For these are sweet, and prosper +in the shade. And these to be in the heath, here and there, not in any +order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as +are in wild heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme; some with pinks; +some with germander, that gives a good flower to the eye; some with +periwinkle; some with violets; some with strawberries; some with +cowslips; some with daisies; some with red roses; some with lilium +convallium; some with sweet-williams red; some with bear's-foot; and +the like low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of which +heaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, +and part without. The standards to be roses; juniper; holly; +berberries (but here and there, because of the smell of their +blossom); red currants; gooseberries; rosemary; sweet-briar; and such +like. But these standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not +out of course. + +For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys, +private, to give a full shade, some of them, wheresoever the sun be. +You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind +blows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery. And those alleys must be +likewise hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind; and these closer +alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going +wet. In many of these alleys likewise, you are to set fruit-trees of +all sorts; as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this would be +generally observed, that the borders, wherein you plant your +fruit-trees, be fair and large, and low, and not steep; and set with +fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. At +the end of both the side grounds, I would have a mount of some pretty +height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad +into the fields. + +For the main garden, I do not deny but there should be some fair +alleys, ranged on both sides with fruit-trees; and some pretty tufts +of fruit-trees, and arbours with seats, set in some decent order; but +these to be by no means set too thick; but to leave the main garden so +as it be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I +would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to +walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make +account that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the +year; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, or +over-cast days. + +For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as +they may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them; +that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no +foulness appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a platform +of a princely garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing, not a +model, but some general lines of it; and in this I have spared no +cost. But it is nothing for great princes, that, for the most part, +taking advice with workmen, with no less cost set their things +together; and sometimes add statuas, and such things, for state and +magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF STUDIES + + +Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief +use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in +discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of +business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of +particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and +marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To +spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for +ornament is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules is +the humour of the scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by +experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need +proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too +much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men +contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for +they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and +above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; +nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; +but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be +swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books +are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; +and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some +books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; +but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner +sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, +flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and +writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had +need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a +present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to +seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; +the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic +and rhetoric able to contend. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Nay, there is +no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit +studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. +Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and +breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the +like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; +for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he +must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find +differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are _cymini +sectores_: if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call one +thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' +cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER + + +There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, +which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be +these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, +perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, +commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were +required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. +Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to better +preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can +provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. +Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the +miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to +their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown +rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the +proxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. + +His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had +as well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as +Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk +therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are +bunglers in this. But God, of His goodness, hath fitted several men +for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in all +conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric +thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in +this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth +most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, +undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with +dexterity and happy success. + +He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; +and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may +seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all +particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar +of boys' natures, and reduce them all--saving some few exceptions--to +these general rules: + +1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two +such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a +frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their +master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such +natures he useth with all gentleness. + +2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in the +fable, that running with snails--so they count the rest of their +schoolfellows--they shall come soon enough to the post, though +sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would +finely take them napping. + +3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, the +more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till +they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. +Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature, +and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough +and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth, acquit +themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their +dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That +schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy +for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can +make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before +the hour nature hath appointed. + +4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may +reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world +can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such +boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and +boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other +carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics +which will not serve for scholars. + +He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them +rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children +to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his +scholars may go along with him. + +He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. If +cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons' exemption +from his rod--to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of their +master's jurisdiction--with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the +late custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and +ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn +youth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting +with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy +hath infected others. + +He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster +better answereth the name _paidotribes_ than _paidagogos_, rather +tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good +education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented +unto them in the shape of fiends and furies. + +Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes. Their tyranny hath +caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose +stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their +speech at their master's presence; and whose mauling them about their +heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master. + +He makes his school free to him who sues to him _in formā pauperis_. +And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he is +a beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays +the scholar in his whipping; rather are diligent lads to be encouraged +with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard +concerning Mr. Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who would +never suffer any wandering begging scholar--such as justly the statute +hath ranked in the fore-front of rogues--to come into his school, but +would thrust him out with earnestness--however privately charitable +unto him--lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books, +by seeing some scholars after their studying in the university +preferred to beggary. + +He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to +teach his scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an action +of trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, +syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are +forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they +had before. + +Out of his school he is no way pedantical in carriage or discourse; +contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not gingle with +it in every company wherein he comes. + +To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters +careful in their place--that the eminences of their scholars have +commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who, +otherwise in obscurity, had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever +heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned +Ascham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly School, in the same +county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr. Whitaker? +Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as his +scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the +Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their founder, +to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his schoolmaster, that +first instructed him. + + _Thomas Fuller._ + + + + +ON DEATH + + +Nature calls us to meditate of death by those things which are the +instruments of acting it; and God by all the variety of His +providence, makes us see death everywhere, in all variety of +circumstances, and dressed up for all the fancies, and the expectation +of every single person. Nature hath given us one harvest every year, +but death hath two; and the spring and the autumn send throngs of men +and women to charnel-houses; and all the summer long, men are +recovering from their evils of the spring, till the dog-days come, and +then the Sirian star makes the summer deadly; and the fruits of autumn +are laid up for all the year's provision, and the man that gathers +them eats and surfeits, and dies and needs them not, and himself is +laid up for eternity; and he that escapes till winter, only stays for +another opportunity, which the distempers of that quarter minister to +him with great variety. Thus death reigns in all the portions of our +time. The autumn with its fruits provides disorders for us, and the +winter's cold turns them into sharp diseases, and the spring brings +flowers to strew our hearse, and the summer gives green turf and +brambles to bind upon our graves. Calentures and surfeit, cold and +agues, are the four quarters of the year; and you can go no whither, +but you tread upon a dead man's bones. + +The wild fellow in Petronius, that escaped upon a broken table from +the furies of a shipwreck, as he was sunning himself upon the rocky +shore, espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves, ballasted +with sand in the folds of his garment, and carried by his civil enemy, +the sea, towards the shore to find a grave. And it cast him into some +sad thoughts, that peradventure this man's wife, in some part of the +continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return; +or, it may be, his son knows nothing of the tempest; or his father +thinks of that affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good old +man's cheek, ever since he took a kind farewell, and he weeps with joy +to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the +circle of his father's arms. These are the thoughts of mortals; this +is the end and sum of all their designs. A dark night and an ill +guide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, a hard rock and a rough +wind, dashed in pieces the fortune of a whole family; and they that +shall weep loudest for the accident are not yet entered into the +storm, and yet have suffered shipwreck. Then, looking upon the +carcass, he knew it, and found it to be the master of the ship, who, +the day before, cast up the accounts of his patrimony and his trade, +and named the day when he thought to be at home. See how the man +swims, who was so angry two days since! His passions are becalmed with +the storm, his accounts cast up, his cares at an end, his voyage done, +and his gains are the strange events of death, which, whether they be +good or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble themselves +concerning the interest of the dead. + +It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and +it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness +of youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood; from the +vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, to +the hollowness and deadly paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of +a three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very +great and very strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing from +the clefts of its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, and +full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece; but when a ruder +breath hath forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too +youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to +decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the +head, and broke its stalk; and at night, having lost some of its +leaves, and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and +out-worn faces. The same is the portion of every man and every woman; +the heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and cold dishonour, and +our beauty so changed, that our acquaintance quickly knew us not; and +that change mingled with so much horror, or else meets so with our +fears and weak discoursings, that they who, six hours ago, tended upon +us either with charitable or ambitious services, cannot, without some +regret, stay in the room alone, where the body lies stripped of its +life and honour. I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who, +living, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity of +his friends' desire by giving way, that after a few days' burial, they +might send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for it, draw +the image of his death unto the life. They did so, and found his face +half eaten, and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; and so he +stands pictured among his armed ancestors. So does the fairest beauty +change; and it will be as bad with you and me; and then what servants +shall we have to wait upon us in the grave? what friends to visit us? +what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud +reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, which +are the longest weepers for our funeral? + +A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man +preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. In the +same Escurial where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, +and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where +their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more; +and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, +and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. +There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest +change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from +living like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flames +of lust, to abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch of +covetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of a +lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the +peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the +despised princes mingle their dust, and pay down their symbol of +mortality, and tell all the world that, when we die, our ashes shall +be equal to kings', and our accounts easier, and our pains for our +crowns shall be less. + + _Jeremy Taylor._ + + + + +OF WINTER + + +Winter, the sworne enemie to summer, the friend to none but colliers +and woodmongers: the frostbitten churl that hangs his nose still over +the fire: the dog that bites fruits, and the devil that cuts down +trees, the unconscionable binder up of vintners' faggots, and the only +consumer of burnt sack and sugar: This cousin to Death, father to +sickness, and brother to old age, shall not show his hoary bald-pate +in this climate of ours (according to our usual computation) upon the +twelfth day of December, at the first entering of the sun into the +first minute of the sign Capricorn, when the said Sun shall be at his +greatest south declination from the equinoctial line, and so forth, +with much more such stuff than any mere Englishman can understand--no, +my countrymen, never beat the bush so long to find out Winter, where +he lies, like a beggar shivering with cold, but take these from me as +certain and most infallible rules, know when Winter plums are ripe and +ready to be gathered. + +When Charity blows her nails and is ready to starve, yet not so much +as a watchman will lend her a flap of his frieze gown to keep her +warm: when tradesmen shut up shops, by reason their frozen-hearted +creditors go about to nip them with beggary: when the price of +sea-coal riseth, and the price of men's labour falleth: when every +chimney casts out smoke, but scarce any door opens to cast so much as +a maribone to a dog to gnaw; when beasts die for want of fodder in the +field, and men are ready to famish for want of food in the city; when +the first word that a wench speaks at your coming into the room in a +morning is, "Prithee send for some faggots," and the best comfort a +sawyer beats you withal is to say, "What will you give me?"; when +gluttons blow their pottage to cool them; and Prentices blow their +nails to heat them; and lastly when the Thames is covered over with +ice and men's hearts caked over and crusted with cruelty: Then mayest +thou or any man be bold to swear it is winter. + + _Thomas Dekker._ + + + + +HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN A PLAY-HOUSE + + +The theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, upon which their Muses, (yt +are now turnd to Merchants,) meeting, barter away that light commodity +of words for a lighter ware then words, _Plaudites_, and the _breath_ +of the great _Beast_; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards) +vanish all into air. _Plaiers_ and their _Factors_, who put away the +stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis their +parts so to doe) your Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten had wont +to be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surest +chapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale +upon this comical freight by the grosse: when your _Groundling_, and +_gallery-Commoner_ buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a _Hagler_, +is glad to utter it againe by retailing. + +Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole +as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard +has the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which +your sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime as +strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the +plaies life and death, as well as the prowdest _Momus_ among the +tribe[s] of _Critick_: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bils +do make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll) +casd up in a corner. + +Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house +stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid +it) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meane +not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No, +those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women +and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnes +of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new +Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on +the very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under the +state of _Cambises_ himselfe must our fethered _Estridge_, like a +piece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating +downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality. + +For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up by +sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous _Eminence_ is gotten; by +which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good +cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a +tollerable beard) are perfectly revealed. + +By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the whole +commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand +at the helme to steere the passage of _scęnes_; yet / no man shall +once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, +overweening Coxcombe. + +By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the +very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that _Quest_ of +_Inquiry_, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know +not ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behave +your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you. + +By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a +Mistress: if a mere _Fleet-street_ Gentleman, a wife: but assure +yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall +man in election to begin the number of _We three_. + +By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice in +examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true +_scęnical_ authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his +Muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at a +taverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both +their suppers. + +By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere +acquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any time +know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match +lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers upon +laying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a +Justice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawcocke, a +knave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, or +counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light +and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the +Scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea, +throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience to +endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the +_Rabble_, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were +worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the foole +should never sit on the Stage together. + +Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, +like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / not +your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking +prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to +give the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for then +it is time, as though you were one of the _properties_, or that you +dropt out of ye _Hangings_, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your +_Tripos_ or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted +betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should +bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but +halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the +proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it were +served up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you would +the Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh +alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the +terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so +high, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords use it; your +Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is +Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limping +after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, till +you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man +in a Morris) you heap _Pelion_ upon _Ossa_, glory upon glory: As +first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the +Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches +up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall +into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for +you: heele cry _Hees such a gallant_, and you passe. Secondly, you +publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort +thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as +a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe +nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and +disgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst +hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet to +take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring +you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth. + +If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging by +the water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shun +Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the +morning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thence +to the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that) +worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares +are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice +together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to +Gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore +watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: No +matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in +twentie of their boates over the river upon _Ticket_: marry, when +silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make +your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe +not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne +another daie. + +Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as +_Fencers_ doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet +share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the +_Raggamuffins_ that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards +(having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, just +upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the +foure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none +such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go +off, better knaves than they will fall into the company. + +Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or +hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, +or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall +disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him +the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it +Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd and +discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the +Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast +them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but +salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the +rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the +stage after you: the _Mimicks_ are beholden to you, for allowing them +elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care +not for that, theres no musick without frets. + +Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you +to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a +rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make +other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at +merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action, +whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas +the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt +and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within +two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage, +when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that +morning. + +To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which +your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when +the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues +sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke) +is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is +but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after +the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a +Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must +be beaten out to make up another. + + _Thomas Dekker._ + + + + +OF MYSELF + + +It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates +his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears +to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of +offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my +fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for +my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous, +or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here +speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent +discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, +than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can +return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of +guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the +natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from +them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an +antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's +understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of +running about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to +steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, +or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I +was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could +never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn, +without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed +with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual +exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the +same mind as I am now--which, I confess, I wonder at myself--may +appear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I was but +thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many other +verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I here +set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much +ashamed. + + This only grant me, that my means may lie + Too low for envy, for contempt too high. + Some honour I would have, + Not from great deeds, but good alone; + Th' unknown are better than ill-known. + Rumour can ope the grave; + Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends + Not on the number, but the choice of friends. + + Books should, not business, entertain the light, + And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. + My house a cottage, more + Than palace, and should fitting be + For all my use, no luxury. + My garden painted o'er + With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield, + Horace might envy in his Sabine field. + + Thus would I double my life's fading space, + For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. + And in this true delight, + These unbought sports, that happy state, + I would not fear nor wish my fate, + But boldly say each night, + To-morrow let my sun his beams display, + Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. + +You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets, for the +conclusion is taken out of Horace; and perhaps it was the immature and +immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, the +characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young +tree, which, with the tree, still grow proportionably. But how this +love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe +I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with +such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for I +remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was +wont to lie in my mother's parlour--I know not by what accident, for +she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion--but there +was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was +infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and +monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there--though my +understanding had little to do with all this--and by degrees, with the +tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had +read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections +of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the +university; but was soon torn from thence by that public violent +storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up +every plant, even from the princely cedars, to me, the hyssop. Yet I +had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I +was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into +the court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I +was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my +life; that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a +daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant--for that was +the state then of the English and the French courts--yet all this was +so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation +of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw +plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; +and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I +knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it +was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very +well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to +be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in +a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A +storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage; +though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, +though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat +at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present +subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in +banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from +renewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same +effect: + + Well, then, I now do plainly see + This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c. + +And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his +majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately +convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I +might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no +greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary +fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself, +and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the +elegance of it-- + + Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, + Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; + Content thyself with the small barren praise + Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c. + +However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not +quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a +_corpus perditum_, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of +fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: I +met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, +but with so much sickness--a new misfortune to me--as would have +spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither +repent nor alter my course; _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_.[3] +Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, +and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich +portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her. + +[Footnote 3: I have not falsely sworn.] + + _Nec vos dulcissima mundi + Nomina, vos musę, libertas, otia, libri, + Hortique, sylvęque, animā remanente relinquam_. + + Nor by me e'er shall you, + You of all names the sweetest and the best, + You muses, books, and liberty, and rest; + You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, + As long as life itself forsakes not me. + + _Cowley._ + + + + +THE GRAND ELIXIR + + +There is an oblique way of Reproof, which takes off from the Sharpness +of it; and an Address in Flattery, which makes it agreeable though +never so gross: But of all Flatterers, the most skilful is he who can +do what you like, without saying any thing which argues you do it for +his Sake; the most winning Circumstance in the World being the +Conformity of Manners. I speak of this as a Practice necessary in +gaining People of Sense, who are not yet given up to Self-Conceit; +those who are far gone in admiration of themselves need not be treated +with so much Delicacy. The following Letter puts this Matter in a +pleasant and uncommon Light: The Author of it attacks this Vice with +an Air of Compliance, and alarms us against it by exhorting us to it. + + _To the GUARDIAN._ + +"Sir, + +"As you profess to encourage all those who any way contribute to the +Publick Good, I flatter my self I may claim your Countenance and +Protection. I am by profession a Mad Doctor, but of a peculiar Kind, +not of those whose Aim it is to remove Phrenzies, but one who makes it +my Business to confer an agreeable Madness on my Fellow-Creatures, for +their mutual Delight and Benefit. Since it is agreed by the +Philosophers, that Happiness and Misery consist chiefly in the +Imagination, nothing is more necessary to Mankind in general than this +pleasing Delirium, which renders every one satisfied with himself, and +persuades him that all others are equally so. + +"I have for several Years, both at home and abroad, made this Science +my particular Study, which I may venture to say I have improved in +almost all the Courts of _Europe_; and have reduced it into so safe +and easie a Method, as to practise it on both Sexes, of what +Disposition, Age or Quality soever, with Success. What enables me to +perform this great Work, is the Use of my _Obsequium Catholicon_, or +the _Grand Elixir_, to support the Spirits of human Nature. This +Remedy is of the most grateful Flavour in the World, and agrees with +all Tastes whatever. 'Tis delicate to the Senses, delightful in the +Operation, may be taken at all Hours without Confinement, and is as +properly given at a Ball or Play-house as in a private Chamber. It +restores and vivifies the most dejected Minds, corrects and extracts +all that is painful in the Knowledge of a Man's self. One Dose of it +will instantly disperse itself through the whole Animal System, +dissipate the first Motions of Distrust so as never to return, and so +exhilerate the Brain and rarifie the Gloom of Reflection, as to give +the Patients a new flow of Spirits, a Vivacity of Behaviour, and a +pleasing Dependence upon their own Capacities. + +"Let a Person be never so far gone, I advise him not to despair; even +though he has been troubled many Years with restless Reflections, +which by long Neglect have hardened into settled Consideration. Those +that have been stung with Satyr may here find a certain Antidote, +which infallibly disperses all the Remains of Poison that has been +left in the Understanding by bad Cures. It fortifies the Heart against +the Rancour of Pamphlets, the Inveteracy of Epigrams, and the +Mortification of Lampoons; as has been often experienced by several +Persons of both Sexes, during the Seasons of _Tunbridge_ and the +_Bath_. + +"I could, as farther Instances of my Success, produce Certificates and +Testimonials from the Favourites and Ghostly Fathers of the most +eminent Princes of _Europe_; but shall content myself with the Mention +of a few Cures, which I have performed by this my _Grand Universal +Restorative_, during the Practice of one Month only since I came to +this City." + + +_Cures in the Month of February_, 1713. + +"_GEORGE SPONDEE_, Esq; Poet, and Inmate of the Parish of St. _Paul's +Covent-Garden_, fell into violent Fits of the Spleen upon a thin Third +Night. He had been frighted into a Vertigo by the Sound of Cat-calls +on the First Day; and the frequent Hissings on the Second made him +unable to endure the bare Pronunciation of the Letter S. I searched +into the Causes of his Distemper; and by the Prescription of a Dose of +my _Obsequium_, prepared _Secundum Artem_, recovered him to his +Natural State of Madness. I cast in at proper Intervals the Words, +_Ill Taste of the Town_, _Envy of Criticks_, _bad Performance of the +Actors_, and the like. He is so perfectly cured that he has promised +to bring another Play upon the Stage next Winter. + +"A Lady of professed Virtue, of the Parish of St. _James's +Westminster_, who hath desired her Name may be concealed, having taken +Offence at a Phrase of double Meaning in Conversation, undiscovered by +any other in the Company, suddenly fell into a cold Fit of Modesty. +Upon a right Application of Praise of her Virtue, I threw the Lady +into an agreeable waking Dream, settled the Fermentation of her Blood +into a warm Charity, so as to make her look with Patience on the very +Gentleman that offended. + +"_HILARIA_, of the Parish of St. _Giles's in the Fields_, a Coquet of +long Practice, was by the Reprimand of an old Maiden reduced to look +grave in Company, and deny her self the Play of the Fan. In short, she +was brought to such Melancholy Circumstances, that she would sometimes +unawares fall into Devotion at Church. I advis'd her to take a few +_innocent Freedoms with occasional Kisses_, prescribed her the +_Exercise of the Eyes_, and immediately raised her to her former State +of Life. She on a sudden recovered her Dimples, furled her Fan, threw +round her Glances, and for these two _Sundays_ last past has not once +been seen in an attentive Posture. This the Church-Wardens are ready +to attest upon Oath. + +"_ANDREW TERROR_, of the _Middle-Temple, Mohock_, was almost induced +by an aged Bencher of the same House to leave off bright Conversation, +and pore over _Cook upon Littleton_. He was so ill that his Hat began +to flap, and he was seen one Day in the last Term at _Westminster-Hall_. +This Patient had quite lost his Spirit of Contradiction; I, by the +Distillation of a few of my vivifying Drops in his Ear, drew him from +his Lethargy, and restored him to his usual vivacious Misunderstanding. +He is at present very easie in his Condition. + +"I will not dwell upon the Recital of the innumerable Cures I have +performed within Twenty Days last past; but rather proceed to exhort +all Persons, of whatever Age, Complexion or Quality, to take as soon +as possible of this my intellectual Oyl; which applied at the Ear +seizes all the Senses with a most agreeable Transport, and discovers +its Effects, not only to the Satisfaction of the Patient, but all who +converse with, attend upon, or any way relate to him or her that +receives the kindly Infection. It is often administered by +Chamber-Maids, Valets, or any the most ignorant Domestick; it being +one peculiar Excellence of this my Oyl, that 'tis most prevalent, the +more unskilful the Person is or appears who applies it. It is +absolutely necessary for Ladies to take a Dose of it just before they +take Coach to go a visiting. + +"But I offend the Publick, as _Horace_ said, when I trespass on any of +your Time. Give me leave then, Mr. _Ironside_, to make you a Present +of a Drachm or two of my Oyl; though I have Cause to fear my +Prescriptions will not have the Effect upon you I could wish: +Therefore I do not endeavour to bribe you in my Favour by the Present +of my Oyl, but wholly depend upon your Publick Spirit and Generosity; +which, I hope, will recommend to the World the useful Endeavours of, + + "_Sir,_ + + "_Your most Obedient, most Faithful, most Devoted, + most Humble Servant and Admirer_, + + "GNATHO. + +"***Beware of Counterfeits, for such are abroad. + +"_N.B._ I teach the _Arcana_ of my Art at reasonable Rates to +Gentlemen of the Universities, who desire to be qualified for writing +Dedications; and to young Lovers and Fortune-hunters, to be paid at +the Day of Marriage. I instruct Persons of bright Capacities to +flatter others, and those of the meanest to flatter themselves. + +"I was the first Inventor of Pocket Looking-Glasses." + + _Pope._ + + + + +JACK LIZARD + + +_Jack Lizard_ was about Fifteen when he was first entered in the +University, and being a Youth of a great deal of Fire, and a more than +ordinary Application to his Studies, it gave his Conversation a very +particular Turn. He had too much Spirit to hold his Tongue in Company; +but at the same time so little Acquaintance with the World, that he +did not know how to talk like other People. + +After a Year and half's stay at the University, he came down among us +to pass away a Month or two in the Country. The first Night after his +Arrival, as we were at Supper, we were all of us very much improved by +_Jack's_ Table-Talk. He told us, upon the Appearance of a Dish of +Wild-Fowl, that according to the Opinion of some natural Philosophers +they might be lately come from the Moon. Upon which the _Sparkler_ +bursting out into a Laugh, he insulted her with several Questions +relating to the Bigness and Distance of the Moon and Stars; and after +every Interrogatory would be winking upon me, and smiling at his +Sister's Ignorance. _Jack_ gained his Point; for the Mother was +pleased, and all the Servants stared at the Learning of their young +Master. _Jack_ was so encouraged at this Success, that for the first +Week he dealt wholly in Paradoxes. It was a common Jest with him to +pinch one of his Sister's Lap-Dogs, and afterwards prove he could not +feel it. When the Girls were sorting a Set of Knots, he would +demonstrate to them that all the Ribbands were of the same Colour; or +rather, says _Jack_, of no Colour at all. My Lady _Lizard_ her self, +though she was not a little pleas'd with her Son's Improvements, was +one Day almost angry with him; for having accidentally burnt her +Fingers as she was lighting the Lamp for her Tea-pot; in the midst of +her Anguish, _Jack_ laid hold of the Opportunity to instruct her that +there was no such thing as Heat in Fire. In short, no Day pass'd over +our Heads, in which _Jack_ did not imagine he made the whole Family +wiser than they were before. + +That part of his Conversation which gave me the most Pain, was what +pass'd among those Country Gentlemen that came to visit us. On such +Occasions _Jack_ usually took upon him to be the Mouth of the Company; +and thinking himself obliged to be very merry, would entertain us with +a great many odd Sayings and Absurdities of their College-Cook. I +found this Fellow had made a very strong Impression upon _Jack's_ +Imagination; which he never considered was not the Case of the rest of +the Company, 'till after many repeated Tryals he found that his +Stories seldom made any Body laugh but himself. + +I all this while looked upon _Jack_ as a young Tree shooting out into +Blossoms before its Time; the Redundancy of which, though it was a +little unseasonable, seemed to foretel an uncommon Fruitfulness. + +In order to wear out the vein of Pedantry which ran through his +Conversation, I took him out with me one Evening, and first of all +insinuated to him this Rule, which I had my self learned from a very +great Author, _To think with the Wise, but talk with the Vulgar_. +_Jack's_ good Sense soon made him reflect that he had often exposed +himself to the Laughter of the Ignorant by a contrary Behaviour; upon +which he told me, that he would take Care for the future to keep his +Notions to himself, and converse in the common received Sentiments of +Mankind. He at the same time desired me to give him any other Rules of +Conversation which I thought might be for his Improvement. I told him +I would think of it; and accordingly, as I have a particular Affection +for the young Man, I gave him next Morning the following Rules in +Writing, which may perhaps have contributed to make him the agreeable +Man he now is. + +The Faculty of interchanging our Thoughts with one another, or what we +express by the Word _Conversation_, has always been represented by +Moral Writers as one of the noblest Privileges of Reason, and which +more particularly sets Mankind above the Brute Part of the Creation. + +Though nothing so much gains upon the Affections as this _Extempore +Eloquence_, which we have constantly Occasion for, and are obliged to +practice every Day, we very rarely meet with any who excel in it. + +The Conversation of most Men is disagreeable, not so much for Want of +Wit and Learning, as of Good-Breeding and Discretion. + +If you resolve to please, never speak to gratifie any particular +Vanity or Passion of your own, but always with a Design either to +divert or inform the Company. A Man who only aims at one of these, is +always easie in his Discourse. He is never out of Humour at being +interrupted, because he considers that those who hear him are the best +Judges whether what he was saying could either divert or inform them. + +A modest Person seldom fails to gain the Good-Will of those he +converses with, because no body envies a Man, who does not appear to +be pleased with himself. + +We should talk extreamly little of our selves. Indeed what can we say? +It would be as imprudent to discover our Faults, as ridiculous to +count over our fancied Virtues. Our private and domestick Affairs are +no less improper to be introduced in Conversation. What does it +concern the Company how many Horses you keep in your Stables? Or +whether your Servant is most Knave, or Fool? + +A man may equally affront the Company he is in, by engrossing all the +Talk, or observing a contemptuous Silence. + +Before you tell a Story it may be generally not amiss to draw a short +Character, and give the Company a true Idea of the principal Persons +concerned in it. The Beauty of most things consisting not so much in +their being said or done, as in their being said or done by such a +particular Person, or on such a particular Occasion. + +Notwithstanding all the Advantages of Youth, few young People please +in Conversation; the Reason is, that want of Experience makes them +positive, and what they say is rather with a Design to please +themselves than any one else. + +It is certain that Age it self shall make many things pass well +enough, which would have been laughed at in the Mouth of one much +younger. + +Nothing, however, is more insupportable to Men of Sense, than an empty +formal Man who speaks in Proverbs, and decides all Controversies with +a short Sentence. This piece of Stupidity is the more insufferable, as +it puts on the Air of Wisdom. + +A prudent Man will avoid talking much of any particular Science, for +which he is remarkably famous. There is not methinks an handsomer +thing said of Mr. _Cowley_ in his whole Life, than that none but his +intimate Friends ever discovered he was a great Poet by his Discourse: +Besides the Decency of this Rule, it is certainly founded in good +Policy. A Man who talks of any thing he is already famous for, has +little to get, but a great deal to lose. I might add, that he who is +sometimes silent on a Subject where every one is satisfied he could +speak well, will often be thought no less knowing in other Matters, +where perhaps he is wholly ignorant. + +Women are frightened at the Name of Argument, and are sooner convinced +by an happy Turn, or Witty Expression, than by Demonstration. + +Whenever you commend, add your Reasons for doing so; it is this which +distinguishes the Approbation of a Man of Sense from the Flattery of +Sycophants, and Admiration of Fools. + +Raillery is no longer agreeable than while the whole Company is +pleased with it. I would least of all be understood to except the +Person rallied. + +Though Good-humour, Sense and Discretion can seldom fail to make a Man +agreeable, it may be no ill Policy sometimes to prepare your self in a +particular manner for Conversation, by looking a little farther than +your Neighbours into whatever is become a reigning Subject. If our +Armies are besieging a Place of Importance abroad, or our House of +Commons debating a Bill of Consequence at home, you can hardly fail of +being heard with Pleasure, if you have nicely informed your self of +the Strength, Situation, and History of the first, or of the Reasons +for and against the latter. It will have the same Effect if when any +single Person begins to make a Noise in the World, you can learn some +of the smallest Accidents in his Life or Conversation, which though +they are too fine for the Observation of the Vulgar, give more +Satisfaction to Men of Sense, (as they are the best Openings to a real +Character) than the Recital of his most glaring Actions. I know but +one ill Consequence to be feared from this Method, namely, that coming +full charged into Company, you should resolve to unload whether an +handsome Opportunity offers it self or no. + +Though the asking of Questions may plead for it self the specious +Names of Modesty, and a Desire of Information, it affords little +Pleasure to the rest of the Company who are not troubled with the same +Doubts; besides which, he who asks a Question would do well to +consider that he lies wholly at the Mercy of another before he +receives an Answer. + +Nothing is more silly than the Pleasure some People take in what they +call _speaking their Minds_. A Man of this Make will say a rude thing +for the meer Pleasure of saying it, when an opposite Behaviour, full +as Innocent, might have preserved his Friend, or made his Fortune. + +It is not impossible for a Man to form to himself as exquisite a +Pleasure in complying with the Humour and Sentiments of others, as of +bringing others over to his own; since 'tis the certain Sign of a +Superior Genius, that can take and become whatever Dress it pleases. + +I shall only add, that besides what I have here said, there is +something which can never be learnt but in the Company of the Polite. +The Virtues of Men are catching as well as their Vices, and your own +Observations added to these, will soon discover what it is that +commands Attention in one Man and makes you tired and displeased with +the Discourse of another. + + _Steele._ + + + + +A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK, ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OF +THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS + + +This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that +neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it +was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain +does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that +withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but +the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on +the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty +wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of +fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; at +length, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is +either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a +fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surely +mortal man is a broomstick! nature sent him into the world strong and +lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the +proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of +intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered +trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself +upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never +grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter +the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all +covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, +we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges +that we are of our own excellences, and other men's defaults! + +But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree +standing on its head: and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy +creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, +his head where his heels should be--grovelling on the earth! and yet, +with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and +corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's +corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises +a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the +while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last +days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; +till, worn to the stumps, like his brother-besom, he is either kicked +out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm +themselves by. + + _Swift._ + + + + +PULPIT ELOQUENCE + + +The subject of the discourse this evening was eloquence and graceful +action. Lysander, who is something particular in his way of thinking +and speaking, told us, "a man could not be eloquent without action; +for the deportment of the body, the turn of the eye, and an apt sound +to every word that is uttered, must all conspire to make an +accomplished speaker. Action in one that speaks in public is the same +thing as a good mien in ordinary life. Thus, as a certain +insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and +jest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to +great sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your +undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; but when you +are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the +more you will move others. + +"There is," said he, "a remarkable example of that kind. Ęschines, a +famous orator of antiquity, had pleaded at Athens in a great cause +against Demosthenes; but having lost it, retired to Rhodes. Eloquence +was then the quality most admired among men, and the magistrates of +that place, having heard he had a copy of the speech of Demosthenes, +desired him to repeat both their pleadings. After his own he recited +also the oration of his antagonist. The people expressed their +admiration of both, but more of that of Demosthenes. 'If you are,' +said he, 'thus touched with hearing only what that great orator said, +how much would you have been affected had you seen him speak? for he +who hears Demosthenes only, loses much the better part of the +oration.' Certain it is that they who speak gracefully are very lamely +represented in having their speeches read or repeated by unskilful +people; for there is something native to each man, so inherent to his +thoughts and sentiments, which it is hardly possible for another to +give a true idea of. You may observe in common talk, when a sentence +of any man's is repeated, an acquaintance of his shall immediately +observe, 'That is so like him, methinks I see how he looked when he +said it.' + +"But of all the people on the earth, there are none who puzzle me so +much as the clergy of Great Britain, who are, I believe, the most +learned body of men now in the world: and yet this art of speaking, +with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, is wholly neglected +among them; and I will engage, were a deaf man to behold the greater +part of them preach, he would rather think they were reading the +contents only of some discourse they intended to make, than actually +in the body of an oration, even when they were upon matters of such a +nature as one would believe it were impossible to think of without +emotion. + +"I own there are exceptions to this general observation, and that the +dean we heard the other day together is an orator[4]. He has so much +regard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he is +to say to them; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, that it must +attract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no small +recommendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that +advantage; and adding to the propriety of speech, which might pass the +criticism of Longinus, an action which would have been approved by +Demosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has charmed many +of his audience, who could not be intelligent hearers of his discourse +were there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art of +his is useful with the most exact and honest skill: he never attempts +your passions until he has convinced your reason. All the objections +which he can form are laid open and dispersed before he uses the least +vehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he has your head, he very +soon wins your heart; and never pretends to show the beauty of +holiness until he has convinced you of the truth of it. + +[Footnote 4: Steele says that this amiable character of the dean was +drawn for Dr. Atterbury, and mentions it as an argument of his +impartiality in his Preface to the "Tatler," vol. iv.] + +"Would every one of our clergymen be thus careful to recommend truth +and virtue in their proper figures, and show so much concern for them +as to give them all the additional force they were able, it is not +possible that nonsense should have so many hearers as you find it has +in dissenting congregations, for no reason in the world but because it +is spoken extempore; for ordinary minds are wholly governed by their +eyes and ears; and there is no way to come at their hearts but by +power over their imaginations. + +"There is my friend and merry companion Daniel;[5] he knows a great +deal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well as +any orthodox neighbour. But he knows very well that to bawl out, 'My +beloved!' and the words 'grace! regeneration! sanctification! a new +light! the day! the day! ay, my beloved, the day! or rather the night! +the night is coming!' and 'judgment will come when we least think of +it!' and so forth. He knows, to be vehement is the only way to come at +his audience. Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, can +give a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! the +regenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all the +incoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan, +and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parish +goes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, it is not the +shepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows. + +[Footnote 5: The celebrated Daniel Burgess, whose meeting-house near +Lincoln's Inn was destroyed by the high-church mob upon occasion of +Sacheverell's trial.] + +"Another thing, very wonderful this learned body should omit, is +learning to read; which is a most necessary part of eloquence in one +who is to serve at the altar; for there is no man but must be sensible +that the lazy tone and inarticulate sound of our common readers +depreciates the most proper form of words that were ever extant in any +nation or language, to speak their own wants, or his power from whom +we ask relief. + +"There cannot be a greater instance of the power of action than in +little parson Dapper, who is the common relief to all the lazy pulpits +in town. This smart youth has a very good memory, a quick eye, and a +clean handkerchief. Thus equipped, he opens his text, shuts his book +fairly, shows he has no notes in his Bible, opens both palms, and +shows all is fair there too. Thus, with a decisive air, my young man +goes on without hesitation; and though from the beginning to the end +of his pretty discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet, at +the conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his hands; +'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of action +is such, that it is more prevalent, even when improper, than all the +reason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concluded +his discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers would +learn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time we +should not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in Great +Britain." + + "The Tatler," No. 66. + + + + +THE ART OF POLITICAL LYING + + +We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the +beginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and, +which is more, his first Essay of it was purely political, employed in +undermining the authority of his prince, and seducing a third part of +the subjects from their obedience: for which he was driven down from +heaven, where (as Milton expresses it) he had been viceroy of a great +western province; and forced to exercise his talent in inferior +regions among other fallen spirits, poor or deluded men, whom he still +daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so, till he be chained +in the bottomless pit. + +But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other +great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual +improvements that have been made upon him. + +Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is +not so clear from history, although I have made some diligent +inquiries. I shall therefore consider it only according to the modern +system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in the +southern part of our own island. + +The poets tell us that, after the giants were overthrown by the gods, +the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame. And +the fable is thus interpreted: that when tumults and seditions are +quieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through a +nation. So that, by this account, lying is the last relief of a +routed, earth-born, rebellious party in a state. But here the moderns +have made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of power +and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they have +lost it; as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feed +themselves when they are hungry, and to bite those that tread upon +them. + +But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying; +I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some +circumstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is sometimes +born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be +nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster, +and licked into shape: at other times it comes into the world +completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an +infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often +it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. +Sometimes it is of noble birth, and sometimes the spawn of a +stock-jobber. Here it screams aloud at the opening of the womb, and +there it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbs +half the kingdom with its noise, [of] which, although too proud and +great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood. +To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world +without a sting it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting it +dies. + +No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be destined +for great adventures; and accordingly we see it has been the guardian +spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquer +kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle. It +gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and +raise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years at +committees of elections; can wash a blackmoor white; make a saint of +an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign +ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the +nation. This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, to +dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, their +ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In this +glass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered with +_fleurs de lis_ and triple crowns; their girdles hung round with +chains, and beads, and wooden shoes; and your worst enemies adorned +with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, moderation, and a +cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of a +flying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she therefore +dips them in mud, and, soaring aloft, scatters it in the eyes of the +multitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced to +stoop in dirty ways for new supplies. + +I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second +sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, +how admirably he might entertain himself in this town, by observing +the different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies which +buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's ears +in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon in +Exchange-alley, enough to darken the air; or over a club of +discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scattered +at elections. + +There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from +others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which +is necessary according to the various occasions he meets with every +hour of differing from himself and swearing to both sides of a +contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has to +deal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it is +convenient, upon every article, to have some eminent person in our +eye, from whom we copy our description. I have strictly observed this +rule, and my imagination this minute represents before me a certain +great man famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which he +owes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in England +for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius +consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, +which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an +unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the +next half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were +true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute +or company to affirm or deny it; so that, if you think fit to refine +upon him by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the +contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally +deceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to suppose +that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at +all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to +conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every +proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any +justice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, because +he has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes +in neither. + +Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of no +great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often +practised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few +lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth +may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as +the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his +believers; and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an +hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. +Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men +come to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale +has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee when +the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician +who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead. + +Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in +multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that +maxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at last +prevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty +years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose +principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our +understanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution +both in church and state, and we at last were brought to the very +brink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have +never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We +have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of +those who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend no +higher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit, +quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to +the Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, but +loaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and +pensioners to France; while truth, who is said to lie in a well, +seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I remember +it was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of the landed +men was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on as +an ill omen; and we saw it was with the utmost difficulty that they +could preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on their +side, till they had learned those admirable expedients for deciding +elections and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from +the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld +by most dexterous artifice and management, until the people began to +apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in +danger; when we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion to +interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the people +I shall discourse more at large in some following paper: wherein I +shall endeavour to undeceive or discover those deluded or deluding +persons who hope or pretend it is only a short madness in the vulgar, +from which they may soon recover; whereas, I believe it will appear to +be very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences; +and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned, +that truth (however sometimes late) will at last prevail. + + _Swift._ + + + + +A RURAL RIDE + + + Brighton, + _Thursday, 10 Jan. 1822._ + +Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles +distance, to the south-south-west or thereabouts. There is a great +extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a +model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the +very outskirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and +clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls +remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round +faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright +eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr. +Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a _farmer's account book_, +which is a very complete thing of the kind. The inns are good at +Lewes, the people civil and not servile, and the charges really +(considering the taxes) far below what one could reasonably +expect.--From Lewes to Brighton the road winds along between the hills +of the South Downs, which, in this mild weather, are mostly +beautifully green even at this season, with flocks of sheep feeding on +them.--Brighton itself lies in a valley cut across at one end by the +sea, and its extension, or _Wen_, has swelled up the sides of the +hills and has run some distance up the valley.--The first thing you +see in approaching Brighton from Lewes, is a splendid _horse-barrack_ +on one side of the road, and a heap of low, shabby, nasty houses, +irregularly built, on the other side. This is always the case where +there is a barrack. How soon a reformed parliament would make both +disappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a _wen_ remarkably +so. The _Kremlin_, the very name of which has so long been a subject +of laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of the valley, and +amongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which cannot, I +think, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a wall +neither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in +sorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" as +the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all upon +the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, you +think you see a parcel of _cradle-spits_, of various dimensions, +sticking up out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters. +Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and +the height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the +green of the leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these round +with a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the +middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, +treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. +Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the +narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the +leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less according +to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but +pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at your +architecture. There! That's "_a Kremlin_!" Only you must cut some +church-looking windows in the sides of the box. As to what you ought +to put _into_ the box, that is a subject far above my cut.--Brighton +is naturally a place of resort for _expectants_, and a shifty, +ugly-looking swarm is, of course, assembled here. Some of the fellows, +who had endeavoured to disturb our harmony at the dinner at Lewes, +were parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may always know +them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners round their necks, their +hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false shoulders, hips and +haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins, colour of veal +kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with dirty +dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very fine +figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The +houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and +bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this +to be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the +open sea on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no +swamps.--I have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of +reformers, who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite +satisfied more about the questions that agitate the country than any +equal number of lords. + + _William Cobbett._ + + + + +THE MAN IN BLACK + + +_1._ + +Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with a +few. The man in black whom I have often mentioned is one whose +friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem. +His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange +inconsistencies; and he may be justly termed an humourist in a nation +of humourists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to +be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his +conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his +heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known him +profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with +compassion; and while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard +him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect +humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from +nature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his +natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as +any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every +unguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the most +superficial observer. + +In one of our late excursions into the country, happening to discourse +upon the provision that was made for the poor in England, he seemed +amazed how any of his countrymen could be so foolishly weak as to +relieve occasional objects of charity, when the laws had made such +ample provision for their support. "In every parish house," says he, +"the poor are supplied with food, clothes, fire, and a bed to lie on; +they want no more, I desire no more myself; yet still they seem +discontented. I am surprised at the inactivity of our magistrates, in +not taking up such vagrants, who are only a weight upon the +industrious; I am surprised that the people are found to relieve them, +when they must be at the same time sensible that it, in some measure, +encourages idleness, extravagance, and imposture. Were I to advise any +man for whom I had the least regard, I would caution him by all means +not to be imposed upon by their false pretences: let me assure you, +sir, they are impostors, every one of them, and rather merit a prison +than relief." + +He was proceeding in this strain earnestly, to dissuade me from an +imprudence of which I am seldom guilty, when an old man, who still had +about him the remnants of tattered finery, implored our compassion. He +assured us, that he was no common beggar, but forced into the shameful +profession, to support a dying wife and five hungry children. Being +prepossessed against such falsehoods, his story had not the least +influence upon me; but it was quite otherwise with the man in black; I +could see it visibly operate upon his countenance, and effectually +interrupt his harangue. I could easily perceive, that his heart burned +to relieve the five starving children, but he seemed ashamed to +discover his weakness to me. While he thus hesitated between +compassion and pride, I pretended to look another way, and he seized +this opportunity of giving the poor petitioner a piece of silver, +bidding him at the same time, in order that I should not hear, go work +for his bread, and not tease passengers with such impertinent +falsehoods for the future. + +As he had fancied himself quite unperceived, he continued, as we +proceeded, to rail against beggars with as much animosity as before; +he threw in some episodes on his own amazing prudence and economy, +with his profound skill in discovering impostors; he explained the +manner in which he would deal with beggars were he a magistrate, +hinted at enlarging some of the prisons for their reception, and told +two stories of ladies that were robbed by beggarmen. He was beginning +a third to the same purpose, when a sailor with a wooden leg once more +crossed our walks, desiring our pity, and blessing our limbs. I was +for going on without taking any notice, but my friend looking +wistfully upon the poor petitioner, bid me stop, and he would show me +with how much ease he could at any time detect an impostor. + +He now, therefore, assumed a look of importance, and in an angry tone +began to examine the sailor, demanding in what engagement he was thus +disabled and rendered unfit for service. The sailor replied, in a tone +as angrily as he, that he had been an officer on board a private ship +of war, and that he had lost his leg abroad in defence of those who +did nothing at home. At this reply, all my friend's importance +vanished in a moment; he had not a single question more to ask; he now +only studied what method he should take to relieve him unobserved. He +had, however, no easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve the +appearance of ill-nature before me, and yet relieve himself by +relieving the sailor. Casting, therefore, a furious look upon some +bundles of chips which the fellow carried in a string at his back, my +friend demanded how he sold his matches; but not waiting for a reply, +desired, in a surly tone, to have a shilling's worth. The sailor +seemed at first surprised at his demand, but soon recollected himself, +and presenting his whole bundle, "Here, master," says he, "take all my +cargo, and a blessing into the bargain." + +It is impossible to describe, with what an air of triumph my friend +marched off with his new purchase; he assured me, that he was firmly +of opinion that those fellows must have stolen their goods, who could +thus afford to sell them for half value. He informed me of several +different uses to which those chips might be applied; he expatiated +largely upon the savings that would result from lighting candles with +a match instead of thrusting them into the fire. He averred, that he +would as soon have parted with a tooth as his money to those +vagabonds, unless for some valuable consideration. I cannot tell how +long this panegyric upon frugality and matches might have continued, +had not his attention been called off by another object more +distressful than either of the former. A woman in rags, with one child +in her arms and another on her back, was attempting to sing ballads, +but with such a mournful voice, that it was difficult to determine +whether she was singing or crying. A wretch who, in the deepest +distress, still aimed at good humour, was an object my friend was by +no means capable of withstanding; his vivacity and his discourse were +instantly interrupted; upon this occasion his very dissimulation had +forsaken him. Even in my presence he immediately applied his hands to +his pockets, in order to relieve her; but guess his confusion when he +found he had already given away all the money he carried about him to +former objects. The misery painted in the woman's visage was not half +so strongly expressed as the agony in his. He continued to search for +some time, but to no purpose, till, at length recollecting himself, +with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had no money, he put into +her hands his shilling's worth of matches. + + +_2._ + +As there appeared something reluctantly good in the character of my +companion, I must own it surprised me what could be his motives for +thus concealing virtues which others take such pains to display. I was +unable to repress my desire of knowing the history of a man who thus +seemed to act under continual restraint, and whose benevolence was +rather the effect of appetite than reason. + +It was not, however, till after repeated solicitations he thought +proper to gratify my curiosity. "If you are fond," says he, "of +hearing _hair-breadth escapes_, my history must certainly please; for +I have been for twenty years upon the very verge of starving, without +ever being starved. + +"My father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small +living in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his +generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his +flatterers still poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them, +they returned an equivalent in praise; and this was all he wanted. The +same ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of an army, +influenced my father at the head of his table; he told the story of +the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two +scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that; +but the story of Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table in +a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he +gave; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved him. + +"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it; +he had no intentions of leaving his children money, for that was +dross; he was resolved they should have learning; for learning, he +used to observe, was better than silver or gold. For this purpose he +undertook to instruct us himself; and took as much pains to form our +morals, as to improve our understanding. We were told that universal +benevolence was what first cemented society; we were taught to +consider all the wants of mankind as our own; to regard the _human +face divine_ with affection and esteem; he wound us up to be mere +machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the +slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress: in a +word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thousands +before we were taught the more necessary qualifications of getting a +farthing. + +"I cannot avoid imagining, that thus refined by his lessons out of all +my suspicion, and divested of even all the little cunning which nature +had given me, I resembled, upon my first entrance into the busy and +insidious world, one of those gladiators who were exposed with armour +in the amphitheatre at Rome. My father, however, who had only seen the +world on one side, seemed to triumph in my superior discernment; +though my whole stock of wisdom consisted in being able to talk like +himself upon subjects that once were useful, because they were then +topics of the busy world; but that now were utterly useless, because +connected with the busy world no longer. + +"The first opportunity he had of finding his expectations +disappointed, was at the very middling figure I made in the +university: he had flattered himself that he should soon see me rising +into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was mortified to +find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His disappointment might have +been partly ascribed to his having over-rated my talents, and partly +to my dislike of mathematical reasonings, at a time when my +imagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new +objects, than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This did not, +however, please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little +dull, but at the same time allowed, that I seemed to be very +good-natured, and had no harm in me. + +"After I had resided at college seven years, my father died, and left +me--his blessing. Thus shoved from shore without ill-nature to +protect, or cunning to guide, or proper stores to subsist me in so +dangerous a voyage, I was obliged to embark in the wide world at +twenty-two. But, in order to settle in life, my friends, advised (for +they always advise when they begin to despise us) they advised me, I +say, to go into orders. + +"To be obliged to wear a long wig, when I liked a short one, or a +black coat, when I generally dressed in brown, I thought was such a +restraint upon my liberty, that I absolutely rejected the proposal. A +priest in England is not the same mortified creature with a bonze in +China; with us, not he that fasts best, but eats best, is reckoned the +best liver; yet I rejected a life of luxury, indolence, and ease, from +no other consideration but that boyish one of dress. So that my +friends were now perfectly satisfied I was undone; and yet they +thought it a pity for one who had not the least harm in him, and was +so very good-natured. + +"Poverty naturally begets dependance, and I was admitted as flatterer +to a great man. At first I was surprised, that the situation of a +flatterer at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable; there +was no great trouble in listening attentively when his lordship spoke, +and laughing when he looked round for applause. This even good manners +might have obliged me to perform. I found, however, too soon, that his +lordship was a greater dunce than myself; and from that very moment +flattery was at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, than +at receiving his absurdities with submission: to flatter those we do +not know is an easy task; but to flatter our intimate acquaintances, +all whose foibles are strongly in our eye, is drudgery insupportable. +Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to my +conscience; his lordship soon perceived me to be very unfit for +service: I was, therefore, discharged: my patron at the same time +being graciously pleased to observe, that he believed I was tolerably +good-natured, and had not the least harm in me. + +"Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse to love. A young lady, who +lived with her aunt, and was possessed of a pretty fortune in her own +disposal, had given me, as I fancied, some reason to expect success. +The symptoms by which I was guided were striking. She had always +laughed with me at her awkward acquaintance, and at her aunt among the +number; she always observed, that a man of sense would make a better +husband than a fool; and I as constantly applied the observation in my +own favour, she continually talked, in my company, of friendship and +the beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. Shrimp, my rival's +high-heeled shoes, with detestation. These were circumstances which I +thought strongly in my favour; so, after resolving and re-resolving, I +had courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal with +serenity, seeming at the same time to study the figures of her fan. +Out at last it came. There was but one small objection to complete our +happiness: which was no more, than----that she was married three +months before to Mr. Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes! By way of +consolation, however, she observed, that, though I was disappointed in +her, my addresses to her aunt would probably kindle her into +sensibility; as the old lady always allowed me to be very +good-natured, and not to have the least share of harm in me. + +"Yet still I had friends, numerous friends, and to them I was resolved +to apply. O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee +we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succour; on +thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind +assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be ever sure +of--disappointment! My first application was to a city-scrivener, who +had frequently offered to lend me money when he knew I did not want +it. I informed him, that now was the time to put his friendship to the +test; that I wanted to borrow a couple of hundreds for a certain +occasion, and was resolved to take it up from him. 'And pray, sir,' +cried my friend, 'do you want all this money?'--'Indeed, I never +wanted it more,' returned I. 'I am sorry for that,' cries the +scrivener, 'with all my heart; for they who want money, when they come +to borrow, will always want money when they should come to pay.' + +"From him I flew with indignation to one of the best friends I had in +the world, and made the same request. 'Indeed, Mr. Dry-bone,' cries my +friend, 'I always thought it would come to this. You know, sir, I +would not advise you but for your own good; but your conduct has +hitherto been ridiculous in the highest degree, and some of your +acquaintance always thought you a very silly fellow. Let me see, you +want two hundred pounds. Do you only want two hundred, sir, exactly?' +'To confess a truth,' returned I, 'I shall want three hundred; but +then I have another friend, from whom I can borrow the rest.'--'Why +then,' replied my friend, 'if you would take my advice, (and you know +I should not presume to advise you but for your own good) I would +recommend it to you to borrow the whole sum from that other friend, +and then one note will serve for all, you know.' + +"Poverty now began to come fast upon me; yet instead of growing more +provident or cautious as I grew poor, I became every day more indolent +and simple. A friend was arrested for fifty pounds; I was unable to +extricate him except by becoming his bail. When at liberty he fled +from his creditors, and left me to take his place: in prison I +expected greater satisfactions than I had enjoyed at large. I hoped to +converse with men in this new world simple and believing like myself; +but I found them as cunning and as cautious as those in the world I +had left behind. They spunged up my money while it lasted, borrowed my +coals and never paid for them, and cheated me when I played at +cribbage. All this was done because they believed me to be very +good-natured, and knew that I had no harm in me. + +"Upon my first entrance into this mansion, which is to some the abode +of despair, I felt no sensations different from those I experienced +abroad. I was now on one side of the door, and those who were +unconfined were on the other; this was all the difference between us. +At first, indeed, I felt some uneasiness, in considering how I should +be able to provide this week for the wants of the week ensuing; but +after some time, if I found myself sure of eating one day, I never +troubled my head how I was to be supplied another. I seized every +precarious meal with the utmost good-humour; indulged no rants of +spleen at my situation; never called down Heaven and all the stars to +behold my dining upon an halfpenny-worth of radishes; my very +companions were taught to believe that I liked salad better than +mutton. I contented myself with thinking, that all my life I should +either eat white bread or brown; considered that all that happened was +best; laughed when I was not in pain, took the world as it went, and +read Tacitus often, for want of more books and company. + +"How long I might have continued in this torpid state of simplicity I +cannot tell, had I not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, whom +I knew to be a prudent blockhead, preferred to a place in the +government. I now found that I had pursued a wrong track, and that the +true way of being able to relieve others, was first to aim at +independence myself; my immediate care, therefore, was to leave my +present habitation, and make an entire reformation in my conduct and +behaviour. For a free, open, undesigning deportment, I put on that of +closeness, prudence, and economy. One of the most heroic actions I +ever performed, and for which I shall praise myself as long as I live, +was the refusing half a crown to an old acquaintance, at the time when +he wanted it, and I had it to spare; for this alone I deserve to be +decreed an ovation. + +"I now, therefore, pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldom +wanted a dinner, and was, consequently, invited to twenty. I soon +began to get the character of a saving hunks that had money, and +insensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my advice in the +disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken care not to give +any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman, only by +observing, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds, it will +be a thousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker's +table, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now actually upon treaty of +marriage with a rich widow, for only having observed that the bread +was rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I know it or not, +instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a charity is +proposed, I go about with the hat, but put nothing in myself. If a +wretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is filled with +impostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived, by never +relieving. In short, I now find the truest way of finding esteem even +from the indigent, is _to give away nothing, and thus have much in our +power to give_." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +OLD MAIDS AND BACHELORS + + +Lately in company with my friend in black, whose conversation is now +both my amusement and instruction, I could not avoid observing the +great numbers of old bachelors and maiden ladies with which this city +seems to be over-run. "Sure marriage," said I, "is not sufficiently +encouraged, or we should never behold such crowds of battered beaux +and decayed coquettes still attempting to drive a trade they have been +so long unfit for, and swarming upon the gaiety of the age. I behold +an old bachelor in the most contemptible light, as an animal that +lives upon the common stock, without contributing his share: he is a +beast of prey, and the laws should make use of as many stratagems, and +as much force to drive the reluctant savage into the toils, as the +Indians when they hunt the rhinoceros. The mob should be permitted to +halloo after him, boys might play tricks on him with impunity, every +well-bred company should laugh at him, and if, when turned of sixty, +he offered to make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or, what +would be perhaps a greater punishment, should fairly grant the favour. + +"As for old maids," continued I, "they should not be treated with so +much severity, because I suppose none would be so if they could. No +lady in her senses would choose to make a subordinate figure at +christenings and lyings-in, when she might be the principal herself; +nor curry favour with a sister-in-law, when she might command an +husband; nor toil in preparing custards, when she might lie a-bed and +give directions how they ought to be made; nor stifle all her +sensations in demure formality, when she might with matrimonial +freedom shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink at a double +entendre. No lady could be so very silly as to live single, if she +could help it. I consider an unmarried lady declining into the vale of +years, as one of those charming countries bordering on China that lies +waste for want of proper inhabitants. We are not to accuse the +country, but the ignorance of its neighbours, who are insensible of +its beauties, though at liberty to enter and cultivate the soil." + +"Indeed, sir," replied my companion, "you are very little acquainted +with the English ladies, to think they are old maids against their +will. I dare venture to affirm, that you can hardly select one of them +all but has had frequent offers of marriage, which either pride or +avarice has not made her reject. Instead of thinking it a disgrace, +they take every occasion to boast of their former cruelty; a soldier +does not exult more when he counts over the wounds he has received, +than a female veteran when she relates the wounds she has formerly +given: exhaustless when she begins a narrative of the former +death-dealing power of her eyes. She tells of the knight in gold lace, +who died with a single frown, and never rose again till--he was +married to his maid; of the squire, who being cruelly denied, in a +rage flew to the window, and lifting up the sash, threw himself in an +agony--into his arm chair; of the parson who, crossed in love, +resolutely swallowed opium, which banished the stings of despised love +by--making him sleep. In short, she talks over her former losses with +pleasure, and, like some tradesmen, finds some consolation in the many +bankruptcies she has suffered. + +"For this reason, whenever I see a superannuated beauty still +unmarried, I tacitly accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, or +affectation. There's Miss Jenny Tinderbox, I once remember her to have +had some beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder sister happened to +marry a man of quality, and this seemed as a statute of virginity +against poor Jane. Because there was one lucky hit in the family, she +was resolved not to disgrace it by introducing a tradesman. By thus +rejecting her equals, and neglected or despised by her superiors, she +now acts in the capacity of tutoress to her sister's children, and +undergoes the drudgery of three servants, without receiving the wages +of one. + +"Miss Squeeze was a pawnbroker's daughter; her father had early taught +her that money was a very good thing, and left her a moderate fortune +at his death. She was so perfectly sensible of the value of what she +had got, that she was resolved never to part with a farthing without +an equality on the part of her suitor: she thus refused several offers +made her by people who wanted to better themselves, as the saying is; +and grew old and ill-natured, without ever considering that she should +have made an abatement in her pretensions, from her face being pale, +and marked with the small-pox. + +"Lady Betty Tempest, on the contrary, had beauty, with fortune and +family. But fond of conquest, she passed from triumph to triumph; she +had read plays and romances, and there had learned that a plain man of +common sense was no better than a fool: such she refused, and sighed +only for the gay, giddy, inconstant, and thoughtless; after she had +thus rejected hundreds who liked her, and sighed for hundreds who +despised her, she found herself insensibly deserted: at present she is +company only for her aunts and cousins, and sometimes makes one in a +country-dance, with only one of the chairs for a partner, casts off +round a joint-stool, and sets to a corner-cupboard. In a word, she is +treated with civil contempt from every quarter, and placed, like a +piece of old-fashioned lumber, merely to fill up a corner. + +"But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia, how shall I mention her? She +was taught to love Greek, and hate the men from her very infancy: she +has rejected fine gentlemen because they were not pedants, and pedants +because they were not fine gentlemen; her exquisite sensibility has +taught her to discover every fault in every lover, and her inflexible +justice has prevented her pardoning them: thus she rejected several +offers, till the wrinkles of age had overtaken her; and now, without +one good feature in her face, she talks incessantly of the beauties of +the mind." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE IMPORTANT TRIFLER + + +Though naturally pensive, yet I am fond of gay company, and take every +opportunity of thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this motive I +am often found in the centre of a crowd; and wherever pleasure is to +be sold, am always a purchaser. In those places, without being +remarked by any, I join in whatever goes forward, work my passions +into a similitude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, and +condemn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for a while +below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as +those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour. + +Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately went +to gaze upon the company in one of the public walks near the city. +Here we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beauty +of such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing else +to recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for some +time, when stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, and +led me out of the public walk; I could perceive by the quickness of +his pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attempting +to avoid somebody who followed; we now turned to the right, then to +the left; as we went forward he still went faster, but in vain; the +person whom he attempted to escape, hunted us through every doubling, +and gained upon us each moment; so that at last we fairly stood still, +resolving to face what we could not avoid. + +Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of an +old acquaintance. "My dear Drybone," cries he, shaking my friend's +hand, "where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively I +had fancied you were gone down to cultivate matrimony and your estate +in the country." During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveying +the appearance of our new companion; his hat was pinched up with +peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his +neck he wore a broad black ribbon, and in his bosom a buckle studded +with glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his +side a sword with a black hilt, and his stockings of silk, though +newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged +with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter +part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the +taste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance: "Psha, psha, +Will," cried the figure, "no more of that if you love me, you know I +hate flattery, on my soul I do; and yet to be sure an intimacy with +the great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison will +fatten; and yet faith I despise the great as much as you do; but there +are a great many damn'd honest fellows among them; and we must not +quarrel with one half, because the other wants weeding. If they were +all such as my Lord Muddler, one of the most good-natured creatures +that ever squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of +their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of +Piccadilly's, my lord was there. Ned, says he to me, Ned, says he, +I'll hold gold to silver I can tell where you were poaching last +night. Poaching, my lord, says I; faith you have missed already; for I +staid at home, and let the girls poach for me. That's my way; I take a +fine woman as some animals do their prey; stand still, and swoop, they +fall into my mouth." + +"Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow," cried my companion, with looks +of infinite pity, "I hope your fortune is as much improved as your +understanding in such company?"--"Improved," replied the other; "You +shall know,--but let it go no further,--a great secret--five hundred a +year to begin with.--My lord's word of honour for it--his lordship +took me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tete-a-tete +dinner in the country; where we talked of nothing else."--"I fancy you +forget, sir," cried I, "you told us but this moment of your dining +yesterday in town!"--"Did I say so," replied he coolly, "to be sure if +I said so it was so--dined in town; egad now I do remember, I did dine +in town; but I dined in the country too; for you must know, my boys, I +eat two dinners. By the by, I am grown as nice as the devil in my +eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that: We were a select +party of us to dine at Lady Grogram's, an affected piece, but let it +go no further; a secret: well, there happened to be no assafoetida in +the sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I, I'll hold a thousand +guineas, and say done first, that--but, dear Drybone, you are an +honest creature, lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just +till--but hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be +twenty to one but I forget to pay you." + +When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon so +extraordinary a character. His very dress, cries my friend, is not +less extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him this day you find +him in rags, if the next in embroidery. With those persons of +distinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, he has scarcely a +coffee-house acquaintance. However, both for the interests of society, +and perhaps for his own, heaven has made him poor, and while all the +world perceive his wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. An +agreeable companion because he understands flattery, and all must be +pleased with the first part of his conversation, though all are sure +of its ending with a demand on their purse. While his youth +countenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarious +subsistence, but when age comes on, the gravity of which is +incompatible with buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken by +all. Condemned in the decline of life to hang upon some rich family +whom he once despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of studied +contempt, to be employed only as a spy upon the servants, or a +bug-bear to frighten the children into obedience. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE TRIFLER'S HOUSEHOLD + + +I am apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance whom it will be +no easy matter to shake off. My little beau yesterday overtook me +again in one of the public walks, and slapping me on the shoulder, +saluted me with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress was +the same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a +dirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. + +As I knew him to be an harmless amusing little thing, I could not +return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward on +terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all the +usual topics preliminary to particular conversation. + +The oddities that marked his character, however, soon began to appear; +he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who, by their manner of +returning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he +drew out a pocket-book, seeming to take memorandums before all the +company, with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me +through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, and +fancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator. + +When we were got to the end of our procession, "Blast me," cries he, +with an air of vivacity, "I never saw the park so thin in my life +before; there's no company at all to-day. Not a single face to be +seen."--"No company," interrupted I peevishly; "no company where there +is such a crowd; why man, there's too much. What are the thousands +that have been laughing at us but company!"--"Lard my dear," returned +he, with the utmost good-humour, "you seem immensely chagrined; but +blast me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and +so we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I, +sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a +thousand things for the joke. But I see you are grave, and if you are +for a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my +wife to-day, I must insist on't; I'll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, a +lady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred, but +that's between ourselves, under the inspection of the Countess of +All-night. A charming body of voice, but no more of that, she will +give us a song. You shall see my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelma +Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature: I design her for my Lord +Drumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go no +further; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and +plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as +perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll +make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that +language purposely to instruct her; but let that be a secret." + +Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and +hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways; +for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particular +aversion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to the +door of a dismal looking house in the outlets of the town, where he +informed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. + +We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably +open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking stair-case, when, as +he mounted to show me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in +prospects, to which answering in the affirmative, "Then," says he, "I +shall show you one of the most charming in the world out of my +windows; we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country for +twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten +thousand guineas for such a one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tell +him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may +see me the oftener." + +By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to +ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the +first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from +within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered, that it was him. +But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the +demand: to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was +opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. + +When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, +and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady? "Good troth," +replied she, in a peculiar dialect, "she's washing your two shirts at +the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending out the +tub any longer."--"My two shirts," cries he in a tone that faultered +with confusion, "what does the idiot mean!"--"I ken what I mean well +enough," replied the other, "she's washing your two shirts at the next +door, because----"--"Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid +explanations," cried he,--"Go and inform her we have got company. Were +that Scotch hag to be for ever in the family, she would never learn +politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or +testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is +very surprising too, as I had her from a parliament-man, a friend of +mine, from the highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but +that's a secret." + +We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval I +had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; +which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he +assured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had been +once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the +other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head were stuck +over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry, unframed +pictures, which he observed, were all his own drawing: "What do you +think, sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? +there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though there +happens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for its +fellow; I refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you +know." + +The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquet; +much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made +twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped +to be excused, as she had staid out all night at the gardens with the +countess, who was excessively fond of the horns. "And, indeed, my +dear," added she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank your +health in a bumper."--"Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-natured +creature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have given +orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there +are but three of us, something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, +an ortolan, or a----" "Or what do you think, my dear," interrupts the +wife, "of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with +a little of my own sauce."--"The very thing," replies he, "it will eat +best with some smart bottled beer; but be sure to let's have the sauce +his grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat, that is +country all over; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least +acquainted with high life." + +By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase; +the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never +fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a +prior engagement, and after having shown my respect to the house, +according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old servant a +piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs assuring me +that dinner, if I staid, would be ready at least in less than two +hours. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +WESTMINSTER HALL + + +I had some intentions lately of going to visit Bedlam, the place where +those who go mad are confined. I went to wait upon the man in black to +be my conductor; but I found him preparing to go to Westminster Hall, +where the English hold their courts of justice. It gave me some +surprise to find my friend engaged in a law-suit, but more so, when he +informed me that it had been depending for several years. "How is it +possible," cried I, "for a man who knows the world to go to law? I am +well acquainted with the courts of justice in China; they resemble +rat-traps every one of them; nothing more easy than to get in, but to +get out again is attended with some difficulty, and more cunning than +rats are generally found to possess!" + +"Faith," replied my friend, "I should not have gone to law, but that I +was assured of success before I began; things were presented to me in +so alluring a light, that I thought by barely declaring myself a +candidate for the prize, I had nothing more to do than to enjoy the +fruits of the victory. Thus have I been upon the eve of an imaginary +triumph every term these ten years; have travelled forward with +victory ever in my view, but ever out of reach; however, at present I +fancy we have hampered our antagonist in such a manner, that without +some unforeseen demur, we shall this day lay him fairly on his back." + +"If things be so situated," said I, "I do not care if I attend you to +the courts, and partake in the pleasure of your success. But prithee," +continued I, as we set forward, "what reasons have you to think an +affair at last concluded, which has given so many former +disappointments?"--"My lawyer tells me," returned he, "that I have +Salkeld and Ventris strong in my favour, and that there are no less +than fifteen cases in point."--"I understand," said I, "those are two +of your judges who have already declared their opinions."--"Pardon +me," replied my friend, "Salkeld and Ventris are lawyers who some +hundred years ago gave their opinions on cases similar to mine; these +opinions which make for me my lawyer is to cite, and those opinions +which look another way are cited by the lawyer employed by my +antagonist; as I observed, I have Salkeld and Ventris for me, he has +Coke and Hale for him, and he that has most opinions is most likely to +carry his cause."--"But where is the necessity," cried I, "of +prolonging a suit by citing the opinions and reports of others, since +the same good sense which determined lawyers in former ages may serve +to guide your judges at this day? They at that time gave their +opinions only from the light of reason; your judges have the same +light at present to direct them, let me even add a greater, as in +former ages there were many prejudices from which the present is +happily free. If arguing from authorities be exploded from every other +branch of learning, why should it be particularly adhered to in this? +I plainly foresee how such a method of investigation must embarrass +every suit, and even perplex the student; ceremonies will be +multiplied, formalities must increase, and more time will thus be +spent in learning the arts of litigation than in the discovery of +right." + +"I see," cries my friend, "that you are for a speedy administration of +justice; but all the world will grant that the more time that is taken +up in considering any subject the better it will be understood. +Besides, it is the boast of an Englishman, that his property is +secure, and all the world will grant that a deliberate administration +of justice is the best way to _secure his property_. Why have we so +many lawyers, but _to secure our property_? why so many formalities, +but _to secure our property_? Not less than one hundred thousand +families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by _securing our +property_." + +"To embarrass justice," returned I, "by a multiplicity of laws, or to +hazard it by a confidence in our judges, are, I grant, the opposite +rocks on which legislative wisdom has ever split; in one case the +client resembles that emperor, who is said to have been suffocated by +the bed-clothes, which were only designed to keep him warm: in the +other, to that town which let the enemy take possession of its walls, +in order to show the world how little they depended upon aught but +courage for safety:----But, bless me, what numbers do I see here--all +in black--how is it possible that half this multitude find +employment?"--"Nothing so easily conceived," returned my companion, +"they live by watching each other. For instance, the catchpole watches +the man in debt; the attorney watches the catchpole; the counsellor +watches the attorney; the solicitor the counsellor; and all find +sufficient employment." "I conceive you," interrupted I, "they watch +each other; but it is the client that pays them all for watching: it +puts me in mind of a Chinese fable, which is intituled, 'Five animals +at a meal.' + +"A grasshopper, filled with dew, was merrily singing under a shade; a +whangam, that eats grasshoppers, had marked it for its prey, and was +just stretching forth to devour it; a serpent, that had for a long +time fed only on whangams, was coiled up to fasten on the whangam; a +yellow bird was just upon the wing to dart upon the serpent; a hawk +had just stooped from above to seize the yellow bird; all were intent +on their prey, and unmindful of their danger: so the whangam eat the +grasshopper, the serpent eat the whangam, the yellow bird the serpent, +and the hawk the yellow bird; when sousing from on high, a vulture +gobbled up the hawk, grasshopper, whangam, and all in a moment." + +I had scarcely finished my fable, when the lawyer came to inform my +friend that his cause was put off till another term, that money was +wanted to retain, and that all the world was of opinion that the very +next hearing would bring him off victorious. "If so, then," cries my +friend, "I believe it will be my wisest way to continue the cause for +another term, and, in the mean time, my friend here and I will go and +see Bedlam." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE LITTLE BEAU + + +I lately received a visit from the little beau, who I found had +assumed a new flow of spirits with a new suit of clothes. Our +discourse happened to turn upon the different treatment of the fair +sex here and in Asia, with the influence of beauty in refining our +manners and improving our conversation. + +I soon perceived he was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Asiatic +method of treating the sex, and that it was impossible to persuade +him, but that a man was happier who had four wives at his command, +than he who had only one. "It is true," cries he, "your men of fashion +in the East are slaves, and under some terrors of having their throats +squeezed by a bow-string; but what then? they can find ample +consolation in a seraglio; they make indeed an indifferent figure in +conversation abroad, but then they have a seraglio to console them at +home. I am told they have no balls, drums, nor operas, but then they +have got a seraglio; they may be deprived of wine and French cookery, +but they have a seraglio; a seraglio, a seraglio, my dear creature, +wipes off every inconvenience in the world. + +"Besides, I am told, your Asiatic beauties are the most convenient +women alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing in +Nature I should like so much as ladies without souls; soul here is the +utter ruin of half the sex. A girl of eighteen shall have soul enough +to spend an hundred pounds in the turning of a trump. Her mother shall +have soul enough to ride a sweepstake match at a horse-race; her +maiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the furniture of a +whole toyshop, and others shall have soul enough to behave as if they +had no souls at all." + +"With respect to the soul," interrupted I, "the Asiatics are much +kinder to the fair sex than you imagine; instead of one soul, Fohi the +idol of China gives every woman three, the Bramins give them fifteen; +and even Mahomet himself no where excludes the sex from Paradise. +Abul-feda reports, that an old woman one day importuning him to know +what she ought to do in order to gain Paradise? 'My good lady,' +answered the prophet, 'old women never get there.'--'What, never get +to Paradise!' returned the matron, in a fury. 'Never,' says he, 'for +they always grow young by the way.' + +"No, sir," continued I, "the men of Asia behave with more deference to +the sex than you seem to imagine. As you of Europe say grace, upon +sitting down to dinner, so it is the custom in China to say grace, +when a man goes to bed to his wife." "And may I die," returned my +companion, "but a very pretty ceremony; for seriously, sir, I see no +reason why a man should not be as grateful in one situation as in the +other. Upon honour, I always find myself much more disposed to +gratitude, on the couch of a fine woman, than upon sitting down to a +surloin of beef." + +"Another ceremony," said I, resuming the conversation, "in favour of +the sex amongst us, is the bride's being allowed, after marriage, her +three days of freedom. During this interval a thousand extravagancies +are practised by either sex. The lady is placed upon the nuptial bed, +and numberless monkey tricks are played round to divert her. One +gentleman smells her perfumed handkerchief, another attempts to untie +her garters, a third pulls off her shoe to play hunt the slipper, +another pretends to be an idiot, and endeavours to raise a laugh by +grimacing; in the mean time, the glass goes briskly about, till +ladies, gentlemen, wife, husband, and all are mixed together in one +inundation of arrack punch." + +"Strike me dumb, deaf, and blind," cried my companion, "but very +pretty; there is some sense in your Chinese ladies' condescension; but +among us, you shall scarcely find one of the whole sex that shall hold +her good humour for three days together. No later than yesterday I +happened to say some civil things to a citizen's wife of my +acquaintance, not because I loved, but because I had charity; and what +do you think was the tender creature's reply? Only that she detested +my pigtail wig, high-heeled shoes, and sallow complexion. That is all. +Nothing more! Yes, by the heavens, though she was more ugly than an +unpainted actress, I found her more insolent than a thorough-bred +woman of quality." + +He was proceeding in this wild manner, when his invective was +interrupted, by the man in black, who entered the apartment, +introducing his niece, a young lady of exquisite beauty. Her very +appearance was sufficient to silence the severest satyrist of the sex; +easy without pride, and free without impudence, she seemed capable of +supplying every sense with pleasure; her looks, her conversation were +natural and unconstrained; she had neither been taught to languish nor +ogle, to laugh without a jest, or sigh without sorrow. I found that +she had just returned from abroad, and had been conversant in the +manners of the world. Curiosity prompted me to ask several questions, +but she declined them all. I own I never found myself so strongly +prejudiced in favour of apparent merit before; and could willingly +have prolonged our conversation, but the company after some time +withdrew. Just, however, before the little beau took his leave, he +called me aside, and requested I would change him a twenty pound bill, +which as I was incapable of doing, he was contented with borrowing +half a crown. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE CLUB + + +The first of our Society is a Gentleman of _Worcestershire_, of +antient Descent, a Baronet, his Name Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY. His great +Grandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'd +after him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with the +Parts and Merits of Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singular +in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense, +and are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinks +the World is in the wrong. However, this Humour creates him no +Enemies, for he does nothing with Sourness or Obstinacy; and his being +unconfined to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and more +capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he +lives in _Soho-Square_: It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelor by +reason he was crossed in Love, by a perverse beautiful Widow of the +next County to him. Before this Disappointment, Sir Roger was what you +call a fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord _Rochester_ and +Sir _George Etherege_, fought a Duel upon his first coming to Town, +and kick'd Bully _Dawson_ in a publick Coffee-house for calling him +Youngster. But being ill used by the above-mentioned Widow, he was +very serious for a Year and a half; and though, his Temper being +naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, +and never dressed afterwards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet +of the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, +which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve +Times since he first wore it. He is now in his Fifty sixth Year, +cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House both in Town and +Country; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful Cast +in his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed: His Tenants +grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women profess +Love to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he comes +into a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all the +way up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a Justice +of the _Quorum_; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session with +great Abilities, and three Months ago gain'd universal Applause by +explaining a Passage in the Game-Act. + +The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another +Batchelor, who is a Member of the _Inner Temple_; a man of great +Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place of +Residence rather to obey the Direction of an old humoursom Father, +than in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was placed there to study +the Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House in +those of the Stage. _Aristotle_ and _Longinus_ are much better +understood by him than _Littleton_ or _Cooke_. The Father sends up +every Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and +Tenures, in the Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with an +Attorney to answer and take care of in the Lump: He is studying the +Passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the Debates +among Men which arise from them. He knows the Argument of each of the +Orations of _Demosthenes_ and _Tully_, but not one Case in the Reports +of our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, except +his intimate Friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This Turn makes +him at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his Thoughts +are drawn from Business, they are most of them fit for Conversation. +His Taste of Books is a little too just for the Age he lives in; he +has read all, but approves of very few. His Familiarity with the +Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a +very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World. He +is an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play is his Hour of +Business; exactly at five he passes thro' _New-Inn_, crosses thro' +_Russel-Court_, and takes a turn at _Will's_ till the play begins; he +has his Shoes rubbed and his Perriwig powder'd at the Barber's as you +go into the _Rose_. It is for the Good of the Audience when he is at a +Play, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him. + +The Person of next Consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a Merchant of +great Eminence in the City of _London_. A Person of indefatigable +Industry, strong Reason, and great Experience. His Notions of Trade +are noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some sly +Way of Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a rich +Man) he calls the Sea the _British Common_. He is acquainted with +Commerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and +barbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got +by Arts and Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of our +Trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and if +another, from another. I have heard him prove, that Diligence makes +more lasting Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruined more +Nations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, among +which the greatest Favourite is, "A Penny saved is a Penny got." A +General Trader of good Sense, is pleasanter company than a general +Scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the +Perspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in +another Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that _England_ +may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself +is richer than other Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him, +that there is not a point in the Compass but blows home a Ship in +which he is an Owner. + +Next to Sir Andrew in the Club-room sits Captain SENTRY, a Gentleman +of great Courage, good Understanding, but invincible Modesty. He is +one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting +their Talents within the Observation of such as should take Notice of +them. He was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with great +Gallantry in several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having a +small Estate of his own, and being next Heir to Sir Roger, he has +quitted a Way of Life in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit, +who is not something of a Courtier as well as a Soldier. I have heard +him often lament, that in a Profession where Merit is placed in so +conspicuous a View, Impudence should get the better of Modesty. When +he has talked to this Purpose I never heard him make a sour +Expression, but frankly confess that he left the World, because he was +not fit for it. A strict Honesty and an even Regular Behaviour, are in +themselves obstacles to him that must press through Crowds, who +endeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of a Commander. He +will however in his Way of Talk excuse Generals, for not disposing +according to Mens Desert, or inquiring into it: For, says he, that +great Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break through to +come at me, as I have to come to him: Therefore he will conclude, that +the Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military Way, must +get over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against the +Importunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his own +Vindication. He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward in +asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be +slow in attacking when it is your Duty. With this Candour does the +Gentleman speak of himself and others. The same Frankness runs through +all his Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnish'd him +with many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to +the Company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command +Men in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an +Habit of obeying Men highly above him. + +But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquainted +with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us the +gallant WILL. HONEYCOMB, a Gentleman who according to his Years should +be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful of +his Person, and always had a very easie Fortune, Time has made but +very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces +in his Brain. His Person is well turn'd, of a good Height. He is very +ready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertain +Women. He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits as +others do Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. +He knows the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which of +the _French_ King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this Manner of +curling their Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; and whose Vanity +to show her Foot made Petticoats so short in such a Year. In a Word, +all his Conversation and Knowledge has been in the female World: As +other Men of his Age will take Notice to you what such a Minister said +upon such and such an Occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of +_Monmouth_ danced at Court such a Woman was then smitten, another was +taken with him at the Head of his Troop in the _Park_. In all these +important Relations, he has ever about the same Time received a Glance +or a Blow of a Fan from some celebrated Beauty, Mother of the Present +Lord such-a-one. This way of Talking of his very much enlivens the +Conversation among us of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is not +one of the Company but my self, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of +him as that Sort of Man, who is usually called a well-bred fine +Gentleman. + +I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, +as one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does +it adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is a +Clergyman, a very philosophick Man, of general Learning, great +Sanctity of Life, and the most exact good Breeding. He has the +Misfortune to be of a very weak Constitution, and consequently cannot +accept of such Cares and Business as Preferments in his Function would +oblige him to: He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-Counsellor +is among Lawyers. The Probity of his Mind, and the Integrity of his +Life, create him Followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. +He seldom introduces the Subject he speaks upon; but we are so far +gone in Years, that he observes, when he is among us, an Earnestness +to have him fall on some divine Topick, which he always treats with +much Authority, as one who has no Interests in this World, as one who +is hastening to the Object of all his Wishes, and conceives Hope from +his Decays and Infirmities. These are my ordinary Companions. + + _Steele._ + + + + +THE MEETING OF THE CLUB + + +The Club of which I am a Member is very luckily composed of such +Persons as are engaged in different Ways of Life, and deputed as it +were out of the most conspicuous Classes of Mankind: By this Means I +am furnished with the greatest Variety of Hints and Materials, and +know every thing that passes in the different Quarters and Divisions, +not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My Readers too +have the Satisfaction to find, that there is no rank or Degree among +them who have not their Representative in this Club, and that there is +always some Body present who will take Care of their respective +Interests, that nothing may be written or published to the Prejudice +or Infringement of their just Rights and Privileges. + +I last Night sat very late in Company with this select Body of +Friends, who entertained me with several Remarks which they and others +had made upon these my Speculations, as also with the various Success +which they had met with among their several Ranks and Degrees of +Readers. WILL. HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest manner he could, that +there were some Ladies (but for your Comfort, says Will., they are not +those of the most Wit) that were offended at the Liberties I had taken +with the Opera and the Puppet-Show: That some of them were likewise +very much surprised, that I should think such serious Points as the +Dress and Equipage of Persons of Quality, proper Subjects for +Raillery. + +He was going on, when Sir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up short, and told +him, that the Papers he hinted at had done great Good in the City, and +that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: And +further added, that the whole City thought themselves very much +obliged to me for declaring my generous Intentions to scourge Vice and +Folly as they appear in a Multitude, without condescending to be a +Publisher of particular Intreagues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir +Andrew, if you avoid that foolish beaten Road of falling upon Aldermen +and Citizens, and employ your Pen upon the Vanity and Luxury of +Courts, your Paper must needs be of general Use. + +Upon this my Friend the TEMPLER told Sir Andrew, That he wondered to +hear a Man of his Sense talk after that manner; that the City had +always been the Province for Satyr; and that the Wits of King +_Charles's_ Time jested upon nothing else during his whole Reign. He +then shewed, by the Examples of _Horace_, _Juvenal_, _Boileau_, and +the best Writers of every age, that the Follies of the Stage and Court +had never been accounted too sacred for Ridicule, how great soever the +Persons might be that patroniz'd them. But after all, says he, I think +your Raillery has made too great an Excursion, in attacking several +Persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any +Precedent for your Behaviour in that Particular. + +My good friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, who had said nothing all this +while, began his Speech with a Pish! and told us, That he wondered to +see so many Men of Sense so very serious upon Fooleries. Let our good +Friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it: I would only +advise you, Mr. SPECTATOR, applying himself to me, to take care how +you meddle with Country Squires: they are the Ornaments of the +_English_ Nation; Men of Good Heads and sound Bodies! and let me tell +you, some of them take it ill of you, that you mention Fox-hunters +with so little Respect. + +Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this Occasion. What he said was +only to commend my Prudence in not touching upon the Army, and advised +me to continue to act discreetly in that Point. + +By this time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken away +from me, by one or other of the Club; and began to think my self in +the Condition of the good Man that had one Wife who took a Dislike to +his grey Hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out +what each of them had an Aversion to, they left his Head altogether +bald and naked. + +While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy Friend the Clergyman, +who, very luckily for me, was at the Club that Night, undertook my +Cause. He told us, that he wondered any Order of Persons should think +themselves too considerable to be advis'd: That it was not Quality, +but Innocence, which exempted Men from Reproof: That Vice and Folly +ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially +when they were placed in high and conspicuous Stations of Life. He +further added, That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the Pains +of Poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depress'd, and +in some measure turned into Ridicule, by the Meanness of their +Conditions and Circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take Notice +of the great Use this paper might be of to the Publick, by +reprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the Chastisement of +the Law, and too fantastical for the Cognizance of the Pulpit. He then +advised me to prosecute my Undertaking with Chearfulness; and assured +me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by +all those whose Praises do Honour to the Persons on whom they are +bestowed. + +The whole Club pays a particular Deference to the Discourse of this +Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid +ingenuous Manner with which he delivers himself, as by the Strength of +Argument and Force of Reason which he makes use of. Will. Honeycomb +Immediately Agreed, That What He Had Said Was right; and that for his +Part, he would not insist upon the Quarter which he had demanded for +the Ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the City with the same Frankness. The +Templer would not stand out; and was followed by Sir Roger and the +Captain: Who all agreed that I should be at Liberty to carry the War +into what Quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with +Criminals in a Body, and to assault the Vice without hurting the +Person. + +This Debate, which was held for the Good of Mankind, put me in mind of +that which the _Roman_ Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their +Destruction. Every Man at first stood hard for his Friend, till they +found that by this Means they should spoil their Proscription: And at +length, making a Sacrifice of all their Acquaintance and Relations, +furnished out a very decent Execution. + +Having thus taken my Resolutions to march on boldly in the Cause of +Virtue and good Sense, and to annoy their Adversaries in whatever +Degree or Rank of Men they may be found: I shall be deaf for the +future to all the Remonstrances that shall be made to me on this +Account. If _Punch_ grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very +freely: If the Stage becomes a Nursery of Folly and Impertinence, I +shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, If I meet with +any thing in City, Court, or Country, that shocks Modesty or good +Manners, I shall use my utmost Endeavours to make an Example of it. I +must however intreat every particular Person, who does me the Honour +to be a Reader of this Paper, never to think himself, or any one of +his Friends or Enemies, aimed at in what is said: For I promise him, +never to draw a faulty Character which does not fit at least a +Thousand People; or to publish a single Paper, that is not written in +the Spirit of Benevolence, and with a love to Mankind. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (1) + + +Having often received an Invitation from my Friend Sir ROGER DE +COVERLEY to pass away a Month with him in the Country, I last week +accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some Time at his +Country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing +Speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my Humour, +lets me rise and go to Bed when I please, dine at his own Table or in +my Chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding +me be merry. When the Gentlemen of the County come to see him, he only +shews me at a distance: As I have been walking in his Fields I have +observed them stealing a Sight of me over an Hedge, and have heard the +Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be +stared at. + +I am the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of +sober and staid Persons; for as the Knight is the best Master in the +World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all +about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: By this Means his +Domesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. You +would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is +grey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have ever +seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see +the Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, and in a gray +Pad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and tenderness out of +Regard to his past Services, tho' he has been useless for several +Years. + +I could not but observe with a great deal of Pleasure the Joy that +appeared in the Countenances of these ancient Domesticks upon my +Friend's Arrival at his Country-Seat. Some of them could not refrain +from Tears at the Sight of their old Master; every one of them press'd +forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were +not employed. At the same Time the good old Knight, with a Mixture of +the Father and the Master of the Family, tempered the Enquiries after +his own affairs with several kind Questions relating to themselves. +This Humanity and Good nature engages every Body to him, so that when +he is pleasant upon any of them, all his Family are in good Humour, +and none so much as the Person whom He diverts himself with: On the +Contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any Infirmity of old Age, it is +easy for a Stander-by to observe a secret Concern in the Looks of all +his Servants. + +My worthy Friend has put me under the particular Care of his Butler, +who is a very prudent Man, and, as well as the rest of his +Fellow-Servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they +have often heard their Master talk of me as of his particular Friend. + +My chief Companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the Woods +or the Fields, is a very venerable Man who is ever with Sir Roger, and +has lived at his House in the Nature of a Chaplain above thirty Years. +This Gentleman is a Person of good Sense and some Learning, of a very +regular Life and obliging Conversation: He heartily loves Sir Roger, +and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's Esteem; so that he +lives in the Family rather as a Relation than a Dependant. + +I have observed in several of my Papers that my Friend Sir Roger, +amidst all his good Qualities, is something of an Humourist; and that +his Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by a +certain Extravagance, which makes them particularly _his_, and +distinguishes them from those of other Men. This Cast of Mind, as it +is generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his Conversation +highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same Degree of Sense +and Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary Colours. As I was +walking with him last Night, he ask'd me how I liked the good Man whom +I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my Answer, told me, +That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own +Table; for which Reason, he desired a particular Friend of his at the +University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than much +Learning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, if +possible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. "My friend," +says Sir Roger, "found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the +Endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar though he +does not shew it. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; and +because I know his Value, have settled upon him a good Annuity for +Life. If he out-lives me, he shall find that he was higher in my +Esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty +Years; and though he does not know I have taken Notice of it, has +never in all that Time asked any thing of me for himself, tho' he is +every Day solliciting me for something in Behalf of one or other of my +Tenants his Parishioners. There has not been a Law-Suit in the Parish +since he has lived among them: If any Dispute arises, they apply +themselves to him for the Decision; if they do not acquiesce in his +Judgment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most, +they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a Present +of all the good Sermons which have been printed in _English_, and only +begged of him that every _Sunday_ he would pronounce one of them in +the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, that +they follow one another naturally, and make a continued System of +practical Divinity." + +As Sir Roger was going on in his Story, the Gentleman we were talking +of came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to +Morrow (for it was _Saturday_ Night) told us, the Bishop of St. +_Asaph_ in the Morning, and Doctor _South_ in the Afternoon. He then +shewed us his List of Preachers for the whole Year, where I saw with a +great deal of Pleasure Archbishop _Tillotson_, Bishop _Saunderson_, +Doctor _Barrow_, Doctor _Calamy_, with several living Authors who have +published Discourses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw this +venerable Man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my Friend's +insisting upon the Qualifications of a good Aspect and a clear Voice; +for I was so charmed with the Gracefulness of his Figure and Delivery, +as well as with the Discourses he pronounced, that I think I never +passed any Time more to my Satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after this +Manner, is like the Composition of a Poet in the Mouth of a graceful +Actor. + +I could heartily wish that more of our Country-Clergy would follow +this Example; and instead of wasting their Spirits in laborious +Compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution, +and all those other Talents that are proper to enforce what has been +penned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easy to +themselves, but more edifying to the People. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (2) + + +As I was Yesterday Morning walking with Sir ROGER before his House, a +Country-Fellow brought him a huge Fish, which, he told him, Mr. +_William Wimble_ had caught that very Morning; and that he presented +it, with his Service, to him, and intended to come and dine with him. +At the same Time he delivered a Letter, which my Friend read to me as +soon as the Messenger left him. + + "_Sir Roger_, + +I Desire you to accept of a Jack, which is the best I have caught this +Season. I intend to come and stay with you a Week, and see how the +Perch bite in the _Black River_. I observed, with some Concern, the +last Time I saw you upon the Bowling-Green, that your Whip wanted a +Lash to it: I will bring half a Dozen with me that I twisted last +Week, which I hope will serve you all the Time you are in the Country. +I have not been out of the Saddle for six Days last past, having been +at _Eaton_ with Sir _John's_ eldest Son. He takes to his Learning +hugely. + + _I am, + Sir, + Your humble Servant,_ + Will. Wimble." + +This extraordinary Letter, and Message that accompanied it, made me +very curious to know the Character and Quality of the Gentleman who +sent them; which I found to be as follows: _Will. Wimble_ is younger +Brother to a Baronet, and descended of the ancient Family of the +_Wimbles_. He is now between Forty and Fifty: but being bred to no +Business and born to no Estate, he generally lives with his elder +Brother as Superintendant of his Game. He hunts a Pack of Dogs better +than any Man in the Country, and is very famous for finding out a +Hare. He is extremely well versed in all the little Handicrafts of an +idle Man: He makes a May-fly to a miracle; and furnishes the whole +Country with Angle-Rods. As he is a good-natur'd officious Fellow, and +very much esteemed upon Account of his Family, he is a welcome Guest +at every House, and keeps up a good Correspondence among all the +Gentlemen about him. He carries a Tulip-Root in his pocket from one to +another, or exchanges a Puppy between a couple of Friends that live +perhaps in the opposite Sides of the Country. _Will._ is a particular +Favourite of all the young Heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a +Net that he has weaved, or a Setting-dog that he has _made_ himself: +He now and then presents a Pair of Garters of his own knitting to +their Mothers or Sisters; and raises a great deal of Mirth among them, +by enquiring as often as he meets them _how they wear?_ These +Gentleman-like Manufactures and obliging little Humours, make _Will._ +the Darling of the Country. + +Sir Roger was proceeding in the Character of him, when we saw him make +up to us, with two or three Hazel-twigs in his Hand that he had cut in +Sir Roger's Woods, as he came through them, in his Way to the House. I +was very much pleased to observe on one Side the hearty and sincere +Welcome with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other the secret +Joy which his Guest discovered at Sight of the good old Knight. After +the first Salutes were over, _Will._ desired Sir ROGER to lend him one +of his Servants to carry a Set of Shuttlecocks he had with him in a +little Box to a Lady that liv'd about a Mile off, to whom it seems he +had promised such a Present for above this half Year. Sir Roger's back +was no sooner turn'd, but honest _Will._ began to tell me of a large +Cock-Pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbouring Woods, +with two or three other Adventures of the same Nature. Odd and +uncommon Characters are the Game that I look for, and most delight in; +for which Reason I was as much pleased with the Novelty of the Person +that talked to me, as he could be for his Life with the springing of a +Pheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than ordinary +Attention. + +In the Midst of his Discourse the Bell rung to Dinner, where the +Gentleman I have been speaking of had the Pleasure of seeing the huge +Jack, he had caught, served up for the first Dish in a most sumptuous +Manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long Account how he +had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out +upon the Bank, with several other Particulars that lasted all the +first Course. A Dish of Wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished +Conversation for the rest of the Dinner, which concluded with a late +Invention of _Will.'s_ for improving the Quail Pipe. + +Upon withdrawing into my Room after Dinner, I was secretly touched +with Compassion towards the honest Gentleman that had dined with us; +and could not but consider with a great deal of Concern, how so good +an Heart and such busy Hands were wholly employed in Trifles; that so +much Humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much +Industry so little advantageous to himself. The same Temper of Mind +and Application to Affairs might have recommended him to the publick +Esteem, and have raised his Fortune in another Station of Life. What +Good to his Country or himself might not a Trader or Merchant have +done with such useful tho' ordinary Qualifications? + +_Will. Wimble_'s is the Case of many a younger Brother of a great +Family, who had rather see their Children starve like Gentlemen, than +thrive in a Trade or Profession that is beneath their Quality. This +Humour fills several Parts of _Europe_ with Pride and Beggary. It is +the Happiness of a trading Nation, like ours, that the younger Sons, +tho' uncapable of any liberal Art or Profession, may be placed in such +a Way of Life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of +their Family: Accordingly we find several Citizens that were launched +into the World with narrow Fortunes, rising by an honest Industry to +greater Estates than those of their elder Brothers. It is not +improbable but _Will._ was formerly tried at Divinity, Law, or +Physick; and that finding his Genius did not lie that Way, his Parents +gave him up at length to his own Inventions: But certainly, however +improper he might have been for Studies of a higher Nature, he was +perfectly well turned for the Occupations of Trade and Commerce. As I +think this is a Point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall +desire my Reader to compare what I have here written with what I have +said in my Twenty first Speculation. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (3) + + +I was this Morning walking in the Gallery, when Sir ROGER enter'd at +the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said, he was glad to +meet me among his Relations the DE COVERLEYS, and hoped I liked the +Conversation of so much good Company, who were as silent as my self. I +knew he alluded to the Pictures, and as he is a Gentleman who does not +a little value himself upon his ancient Descent, I expected he would +give me some Account of them. We were now arrived at the upper End of +the Gallery, when the Knight faced towards one of the Pictures, and as +we stood before it, he entered into the Matter, after his blunt way of +saying things, as they occur to his Imagination, without regular +Introduction, or Care to preserve the Appearance of Chain of Thought. + +"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the Force of Dress; and how +the Persons of one Age differ from those of another, merely by that +only. One may observe also that the General Fashion of one Age has +been follow'd by one particular Set of People in another, and by them +preserved from one Generation to another. Thus the vast Jetting Coat +and small Bonnet, which was the Habit in _Harry_ the Seventh's time, +is kept on in the Yeoman of the Guard; not without a good and Politick +View, because they look a Foot taller, and a Foot and an half broader: +Besides, that the Cap leaves the Pace expanded, and consequently more +Terrible, and fitter to stand at the Entrance of Palaces. + +"This Predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this Manner, and +his Cheeks would be no larger than mine were he in a Hat as I am. He +was the last Man that won a Prize in the Tilt-Yard (which is now a +Common Street before _Whitehall_). You see the broken Lance that lyes +there by his right Foot: he shivered that Lance of his Adversary all +to pieces; and bearing himself, look you Sir, in this manner, at the +same time he came within the Target of the Gentleman who rode again +him, and taking him with incredible Force before him on the Pummel of +his Saddle, he in that manner rid the Turnament over, with an Air that +shewed he did it rather to perform the Rule of the Lists, than Expose +his Enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a Victory, +and with a gentle Trot he marched up to a Gallery where their Mistress +sat (for they were Rivals) and let him down with laudable Courtesy and +pardonable Insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where the +Coffee-house is now. + +"You are to know this my Ancestor was not only of a military Genius +but fit also for the Arts of Peace, for he play'd on the Base-viol as +well as any Gentleman at Court; you see where his Viol hangs by his +Basket-hilt Sword. The Action at the Tilt-yard you may be sure won the +Fair Lady, who was a Maid of Honour, and the greatest Beauty of her +time; here she stands, the next Picture. You see, Sir, my Great Great +Great Grandmother has on the new-fashioned Petticoat, except that the +Modern is gathered at the Waste; my Grandmother appears as if she +stood in a large Drum, whereas the Ladies now walk as if they were in +a Go-Cart. For all this Lady was bred at Court, she became an +Excellent Country-Wife, she brought ten Children, and when I shew you +the Library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for the +Difference of the Language) the best Receipt now in _England_ both for +an Hasty-Pudding and a Whitepot. + +If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to look +at the three next Pictures at one View; these are three Sisters. She +on the right Hand, who is so very beautiful, dyed a Maid; the next to +her, still handsomer, had the same Fate, against her Will; this homely +thing in the middle had both their Portions added to her own, and was +Stolen by a neighbouring Gentleman, a Man of Stratagem and Resolution, +for he poisoned three Mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two +Dear-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all Families: +The Theft of this Romp and so much Money, was no great matter to our +Estate. But the next Heir that possessed it was this soft Gentleman +whom you see there: Observe the small buttons, the little Boots, the +Laces, the Slashes about his Cloaths, and above all the Posture he is +drawn in, (which to be sure was his own chusing); you see he sits with +one Hand on a Desk writing, and looking as it were another way, like +an easie Writer, or a Sonneteer: He was one of those that had too much +Wit to know how to live in the World; he was a man of no Justice, but +great good Manners; he ruined every body that had any thing to do with +him, but never said a rude thing in his Life; the most indolent Person +in the World, he would sign a Deed that passed away half his Estate +with his Gloves on, but would not put on his Hat before a Lady, if it +were to save his Country. He is said to be the first that made Love by +squeezing the Hand. He left the Estate with ten thousand Pounds Debt +upon it, but however by all Hands I have been informed that he was +every way the finest Gentleman in the World. That Debt lay heavy on +our House for one Generation, but it was retrieved by a Gift from that +Honest Man you see there, a Citizen of our Name, but nothing at all +a-kin to us. I know Sir ANDREW FREEPORT has said behind my Back, that +this Man was descended from one of the ten Children of the Maid of +Honour I shewed you above. But it was never made out; we winked at the +thing indeed, because Money was wanting at that time." + +Here I saw my Friend a little embarrassed, and turned my Face to the +next Portraiture. + +Sir Roger went on with his Account of the Gallery in the following +manner. "This man" (pointing to him I look'd at) "I take to be the +Honour of our House. Sir HUMPHREY DE COVERLEY; he was in his Dealings +as punctual as a Tradesman, and as generous as a Gentleman. He would +have thought himself as much undone by breaking his Word, as if it +were to be followed by Bankruptcy. He served his Country as Knight of +this Shire to his dying Day: He found it no easie matter to maintain +an Integrity in his Words and Actions, even in things that regarded +the Offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own +Affairs and Relations of Life, and therefore dreaded (tho' he had +great Talents) to go into Employments of State, where he must be +exposed to the Snares of Ambition. Innocence of Life and great Ability +were the distinguishing Parts of his Character; the latter, he had +often observed, had led to the Destruction of the former, and used +frequently to lament that Great and Good had not the same +Signification. He was an Excellent Husbandman, but had resolved not to +exceed such a degree of Wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret +Bounties many Years after the Sum he aimed at for his own use was +attained. Yet he did not slacken his Industry, but to a decent old Age +spent the Life and Fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the +Service of his Friends and Neighbours." + +Here we were called to Dinner, and Sir Roger ended the Discourse of +this Gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the Servant, that this +his Ancestor was a Brave Man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the +Civil Wars; "for," said he, "he was sent out of the Field upon a +private Message the Day before the Battle of _Worcester_." The Whim of +narrowly escaping, by having been within a Day of Danger; with other +Matters above mentioned, mixed with good Sense, left me at a Loss +whether I was more delighted with my Friend's Wisdom or Simplicity. + + _Steele._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (4) + + +At a little Distance from Sir RORGER's House, among the Ruins of an +old Abbey, there is a long Walk of aged Elms; which are shot up so +very high, that when one passes under them, the Rooks and Crows that +rest upon the Tops of them seem to be Cawing in another Region. I am +very much delighted with this Sort of Noise, which I consider as a +kind of a natural Prayer to that Being who supplies the Wants of his +whole Creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the _Psalms_, +feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him. I like this Retirement +the better, because of an ill Report it lies under of being _haunted_; +for which Reason (as I have been told in the Family) no living +Creature ever walks in it besides the Chaplain. My good Friend the +Butler desired me with a very grave Face not to venture myself in it +after Sun-set, for that one of the Footmen had been almost frighted +out of his Wits by a Spirit that appeared to him in the Shape of a +black Horse without an Head; to which he added, that about a month ago +one of the Maids coming home late that Way with a Pail of Milk upon +her Head, heard such a Rustling among the Bushes that she let it fall. + +I was taking a Walk in this Place last Night between the Hours of Nine +and Ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper Scenes in +the World for a Ghost to appear in. The Ruins of the Abbey are +scattered up and down on every Side, and half covered with Ivy and +Elder-Bushes, the Harbours of several solitary Birds which seldom make +their Appearance till the Dusk of the Evening. The Place was formerly +a Church-yard, and has still several Marks in it of Graves and +Burying-Places. There is such an Eccho among the old Ruins and Vaults, +that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary you hear the Sound +repeated. At the same Time the Walk of Elms, with the Croaking of the +Ravens which from time to time are heard from the Tops of them, looks +exceeding solemn and venerable. These Objects naturally raise +Seriousness and Attention; and when Night heightens the Awfulness of +the Place, and pours out her supernumerary Horrours upon every thing +in it, I do not at all wonder that weak Minds fill it with Spectres +and Apparitions. + +Mr. _Locke_, in his Chapter of the Association of Ideas, has very +curious Remarks to shew how by the Prejudice of Education one Idea +often introduces into the Mind a whole Set that bear no Resemblance to +one another in the Nature of things. Among several Examples of this +Kind, he produces the following Instance. _The Ideas of Goblins and +Sprights have really no more to do with Darkness than Light: Yet let +but a foolish Maid inculcate these often on the Mind of a Child, and +raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate +them again so long as he lives; but Darkness shall ever afterwards +bring with it those frightful Ideas, and they shall be so joyned, that +he can no more bear the one than the other._ + +As I was walking in this Solitude, where the Dusk of the Evening +conspired with so many other Occasions of Terrour, I observed a Cow +grazing not far from me, which an Imagination that was apt to +_startle_ might easily have construed into a black Horse without an +Head: and I dare say the poor Footman lost his Wits upon some such +trivial Occasion. + +My Friend Sir Roger has often told me with a good deal of Mirth, that +at his first coming to his Estate he found three Parts of his House +altogether useless; that the best Room in it had the Reputation of +being haunted, and by that Means was locked up; that Noises had been +heard in his long Gallery, so that he could not get a Servant to enter +it after eight a Clock at Night; that the Door of one of his Chambers +was nailed up, because there went a Story in the Family that a Butler +had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his Mother, who lived to a +great Age, had shut up half the Rooms in the House, in which either +her Husband, a Son, or Daughter had died. The Knight seeing his +Habitation reduced to so small a Compass, and himself in a Manner shut +out of his own House, upon the Death of his Mother ordered all the +Apartments to be flung open, and _exorcised_ by his Chaplain who lay +in every Room one after another, and by that Means dissipated the +Fears which had so long reigned in the Family. + +I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous Horrours, +did not I find them so very much prevail in all Parts of the Country. +At the same Time I think a Person who is thus terrify'd with the +Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who +contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient +and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the +Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give my +self up to this general Testimony of Mankind, I should to the +relations of particular Persons who are now living, and whom I cannot +distrust in other Matters of Fact. I might here add, that not only the +Historians, to whom we may joyn the Poets, but likewise the +Philosophers of Antiquity have favoured this Opinion. _Lucretius_ +himself, though by the Course of his Philosophy he was obliged to +maintain that the Soul did not exist separate from the Body, makes no +Doubt of the Reality of Apparitions, and that Men have often appeared +after their Death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed +with the Matter of Fact which he could not have the Confidence to +deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd +unphilosophical Notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the +Surfaces of all Bodies are perpetually flying off from their +respective Bodies, one after another; and that these Surfaces or thin +Cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the Body +like the Coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are +separated from it; by which Means we often behold the Shapes and +Shadows of Persons who are either dead or absent. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT CHURCH + + +I am always very well pleased with a Country _Sunday_; and think, if +keeping holy the Seventh Day were only a human Institution, it would +be the best Method that could have been thought of for the polishing +and civilizing of Mankind. It is certain the Country-People would soon +degenerate into a kind of Savages and Barbarians, were there not such +frequent Returns of a stated Time, in which the whole Village meet +together with their best Faces, and in their cleanliest Habits, to +converse with one another upon indifferent Subjects, hear their Duties +explained to them, and join together in Adoration of the Supreme +Being. _Sunday_ clears away the Rust of the whole Week, not only as it +refreshes in their Minds the Notions of Religion, but as it puts both +the Sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable Forms, and exerting +all such Qualities as are apt to give them a Figure in the Eye of the +Village. A Country-Fellow distinguishes himself as much in the +_Churchyard_, as a Citizen does upon the _Change_; the whole +Parish-Politicks being generally discuss'd in that Place either after +Sermon or before the Bell rings. + +My Friend Sir ROGER being a good Churchman, has beautified the Inside +of his Church with several Texts of his own chusing: He has likewise +given a handsome Pulpit-Cloth, and railed in the Communion-Table at +his own Expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his +Estate he found his Parishioners very irregular; and that in order to +make them kneel and join in the Responses, he gave every one of them a +Hassock and a Common-prayer Book: and at the same Time employed an +itinerant Singing-Master, who goes about the Country for that Purpose, +to instruct them rightly in the Tunes of the Psalms; upon which they +now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the Country +Churches that I have ever heard. + +As Sir Roger is Landlord to the whole Congregation, he keeps them in +very good Order, and will suffer no Body to sleep in it besides +himself; for if by Chance he has been surprized into a short Nap at +Sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, +and if he sees any Body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or +sends his Servants to them. Several other of the old Knight's +Particularities break out upon these Occasions: Sometimes he will be +lengthening out a Verse in the Singing-Psalms, half a Minute after the +rest of the Congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is +pleased with the Matter of his Devotion, he pronounces _Amen_ three or +four times to the same Prayer; and sometimes stands up when every Body +else is upon their Knees, to count the Congregation, or see if any of +his Tenants are missing. + +I was yesterday very much surprized to hear my old Friend, in the +Midst of the Service, calling out to one _John Matthews_ to mind what +he was about, and not disturb the Congregation. This _John Matthews_ +it seems is remarkable for being an idle Fellow, and at that Time was +kicking his Heels for his Diversion. This Authority of the Knight, +though exerted in that odd Manner which accompanies him in all +Circumstances of Life, has a very good Effect upon the Parish, who are +not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his Behaviour; +besides that, the general good Sense and Worthiness of his Character, +make his friends observe these little Singularities as Foils that +rather set off than blemish his good Qualities. + +As soon as the Sermon is finished, no Body presumes to stir till Sir +Roger is gone out of the Church. The Knight walks down from his Seat +in the Chancel between a double Row of his Tenants, that stand bowing +to him on each Side; and every now and then enquires how such an one's +Wife, or Mother, or Son, or Father do whom he does not see at Church; +which is understood as a secret Reprimand to the Person that is +absent. + +The Chaplain has often told me, that upon a Catechizing-day, when Sir +Roger has been pleased with a Boy that answers well, he has ordered a +Bible to be given him next Day for his Encouragement; and sometimes +accompanies it with a Flitch of Bacon to his Mother. Sir Roger has +likewise added five Pounds a Year to the Clerk's Place; and that he +may encourage the young Fellows to make themselves perfect in the +Church-Service, has promised upon the Death of the present Incumbent, +who is very old, to bestow it according to Merit. + +The fair Understanding between Sir Roger and his Chaplain, and their +mutual Concurrence in doing Good, is the more remarkable, because the +very next Village is famous for the Differences and Contentions that +rise between the Parson and the 'Squire, who live in a perpetual State +of War. The Parson is always preaching at the 'Squire, and the 'Squire +to be revenged on the Parson never comes to Church. The 'Squire has +made all his Tenants Atheists and Tithe-Stealers; while the Parson +instructs them every _Sunday_ in the Dignity of his Order, and +insinuates to them in almost every Sermon, that he is a better Man +than his Patron. In short, Matters are come to such an Extremity, that +the 'Squire has not said his Prayers either in publick or private this +half Year; and that the Parson threatens him, if he does not mend his +Manners, to pray for him in the Face of the whole Congregation. + +Feuds of this Nature, though too frequent in the Country, are very +fatal to the ordinary People; who are so used to be dazled with +Riches, that they pay as much Deference to the Understanding of a Man +of an Estate, as of a Man of Learning; and are very hardly brought to +regard any Truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to +them, when they know there are several Men of five hundred a Year who +do not believe it. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER ON THE WIDOW + + +In my first Description of the Company in which I pass most of my +Time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great Affliction which +my Friend Sir ROGER had met with in his Youth, which was no less than +a Disappointment in Love. It happened this Evening, that we fell into +a very pleasing Walk at a Distance from his House: As soon as we came +into it, "It is," quoth the good old Man, looking round him with a +Smile, "very hard, that any Part of my Land should be settled upon one +who has used me so ill as the perverse Widow did; and yet I am sure I +could not see a Sprig of any Bough of this whole Walk of Trees, but I +should reflect upon her and her Severity. She has certainly the finest +Hand of any Woman in the World. You are to know this was the Place +wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that Custom I can never come +into it, but the same tender Sentiments revive in my Mind, as if I had +actually walked with that beautiful Creature under these Shades. I +have been Fool enough to carve her Name on the Bark of several of +these Trees; so unhappy is the Condition of Men in Love, to attempt +the removing of their Passions by the Methods which serve only to +imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest Hand of any Woman in +the World." + +Here followed a profound Silence; and I was not displeased to observe +my Friend falling so naturally into a Discourse, which I had ever +before taken Notice he industriously avoided. After a very long Pause, +he entered upon an Account of this great Circumstance in his Life, +with an Air which I thought raised my _Idea_ of him above what I had +ever had before; and gave me the Picture of that chearful Mind of his, +before it received that Stroke which has ever since affected his Words +and Actions. But he went on as follows. + +"I came to my Estate in my Twenty second Year, and resolved to follow +the Steps of the most worthy of my Ancestors, who have inhabited this +spot of Earth before me, in all the Methods of Hospitality and good +Neighbourhood, for the Sake of my Fame; and in Country Sports and +Recreations, for the Sake of my Health. In my Twenty third Year I was +obliged to serve as Sheriff of the County; and in my Servants, +Officers, and whole Equipage, indulged the Pleasure of a young Man +(who did not think ill of his own Person) in taking that publick +Occasion of shewing my Figure and Behaviour to Advantage. You may +easily imagine to your self what Appearance I made, who am pretty +tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the Head of a whole +County, with Musick before me, a Feather in my Hat, and my Horse well +bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind +Looks and Glances I had from all the Balconies and Windows, as I rode +to the Hall where the Assizes were held. But when I came there, a +beautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court, to hear the Event +of a Cause concerning her Dower. This commanding Creature (who was +born for Destruction of all who behold her) put on such a Resignation +in her Countenance, and bore the Whispers of all around the Court with +such a pretty Uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered her self +from one Eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meeting +something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a +Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner met +it, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause to +be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated Calf as I was, +Make Way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality made +all the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave to +the fine Widow. During the Time her Cause was upon Trial, she behaved +her self, I warrant you, with such a deep Attention to her Business, +took Opportunities to have little Billets handed to her Counsel, then +would be in such a pretty Confusion, occasioned, you must know, by +acting before so much Company, that not only I but the whole Court was +prejudiced in her Favour; and all that the next Heir to her Husband +had to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it +came to her Counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every +one besides in the Court thought he could have urged to her Advantage. +You must understand, Sir, this perverse Woman is one of those +unaccountable Creatures that secretly rejoyce in the Admiration of +Men, but indulge themselves in no further Consequences. Hence it is +that she has ever had a Train of Admirers, and she removes from her +Slaves in town to those in the Country, according to the Seasons of +the Year. She is a reading Lady, and far gone in the Pleasures of +Friendship: She is always accompanied by a Confident, who is Witness +to her daily Protestations against our Sex, and consequently a Bar to +her first Steps towards Love, upon the Strength of her own Maxims and +Declarations. + +However, I must needs say this accomplished Mistress of mine has +distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir +Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most human of all the Brutes in +the Country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; +but upon the Strength of this Slender Encouragement of being thought +least detestable, I made new Liveries, new paired my Coach-Horses, +sent them all to Town to be bitted, and taught to throw their Legs +well, and move altogether, before I pretended to cross the Country and +wait upon her. As soon as I thought my Retinue suitable to the +Character of my Fortune and Youth, I set out from hence to make my +Addresses. The particular Skill of this Lady has ever been to inflame +your Wishes, and yet command Respect. To make her Mistress of this +Art, she has a greater Share of Knowledge, Wit, and good Sense, than +is usual even among Men of Merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the +Race of Women. If you won't let her go on with a certain Artifice with +her Eyes, and the Skill of Beauty, she will arm her self with her real +Charms, and strike you with Admiration instead of Desire. It is +certain that if you were to behold the whole Woman, there is that +Dignity in her Aspect, that Composure in her Motion, that Complacency +in her Manner, that if her Form makes you hope, her Merit makes you +fear. But then again, she is such a desperate Scholar, that no +Country-Gentleman can approach her without being a Jest. As I was +going to tell you, when I came to her House I was admitted to her +Presence with great Civility; at the same Time she placed her self to +be first seen by me in such an Attitude, as I think you call the +Posture of a Picture, that she discovered new Charms, and I at last +came towards her with such an Awe as made me speechless. This she no +sooner observed but she made her Advantage of it, and began a +Discourse to me concerning Love and Honour, as they both are followed +by Pretenders, and the real Votaries to them. When she discussed these +Points in a Discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the +best Philosopher in _Europe_ could possibly make, she asked me whether +she was so happy as to fall in with my Sentiments on these important +Particulars. Her Confident sat by her, and upon my being in the last +Confusion and Silence, this malicious Aide of hers turning to her +says, I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this Subject, +and seems resolved to deliver all his Sentiments upon the Matter when +he pleases to speak. They both kept their Countenances, and after I +had sat half an Hour meditating how to behave before such profound +Casuists, I rose up and took my Leave. Chance has since that Time +thrown me very often in her Way, and she as often has directed a +Discourse to me which I do not understand. This Barbarity has kept me +ever at a Distance from the most beautiful Object my Eyes ever beheld. +It is thus also she deals with all Mankind, and you must make Love to +her, as you would conquer the Sphinx, by posing her. But were she like +other Women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must +the Pleasure of that Man be, who could converse with a Creature---- +But, after all, you may be sure her Heart is fixed on some one or +other; and yet I have been credibly informed; but who can believe half +that is said! After she had done speaking to me, she put her Hand to +her Bosom and adjusted her Tucker. Then she cast her Eyes a little +down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings +excellently: Her Voice in her ordinary Speech has something in it +inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a publick Table +the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some Tansy in the +Eye of all the Gentlemen in the Country: She has certainly the finest +Hand of any Woman in the World. I can assure you, Sir, were you to +behold her, you would be in the same Condition; for as her Speech is +Musick, her form is Angelick. But I find I grow irregular while I am +talking of her; but indeed it would be Stupidity to be unconcerned at +such Perfection. Oh the excellent Creature, she is as inimitable to +all Women, as she is inaccessible to all Men!" + +I found my Friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the +House, that we might be joined by some other Company; and am convinced +that the Widow is the secret Cause of all that Inconsistency which +appears in some Parts of my Friend's Discourse; tho' he has so much +Command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to +that of _Martial_, which one knows not how to render into _English_, +_Dum tacet hanc loquitur._ I shall end this Paper with that whole +Epigram, which represents with much Humour my honest Friend's +Condition. + + _Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Nęvia Rufo: + Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur: + Cęnat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est + Nęvia: si non sit Nęvia, mutus erit. + Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem, + Nęvia lux, inquit, Nęvia numen, ave._ + + _Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, + Still he can nothing but of Nęvia talk; + Let him eat, drink, ask Questions, or dispute, + Still he must speak of_ Nęvia _or be mute. + He writ to his Father, ending with this Line, + I am, my Lovely_ Nęvia, _ever thine_. + + _Steele._ + + + + +SIR ROGER IN THE HUNTING FIELD + + +Bodily Labour is of two kinds, either that which a Man submits to for +his Livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his Pleasure. The +latter of them generally changes the Name of Labour for that of +Exercise, but differs only from ordinary Labour as it rises from +another Motive. + +A Country Life abounds in both these kinds of Labour, and for that +Reason gives a Man a greater Stock of Health and consequently a more +perfect Enjoyment of himself, than any other way of Life. I consider +the Body as a System of Tubes and Glands, or to use a more Rustick +Phrase, a Bundle of Pipes and Strainers, fitted to one another after +so wonderful a manner as to make a proper Engine for the Soul to work +with. This Description does not only comprehend the Bowels, Bones, +Tendons, Veins, Nerves and Arteries, but every Muscle and every +Ligature, which is a Composition of Fibres, that are so many +imperceptible Tubes or Pipes interwoven on all sides with invisible +Glands or Strainers. + +This general Idea of a Human Body, without considering it in its +Niceties of Anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary Labour is +for the right Preservation of it. There must be frequent Motions and +Agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the Juices contained in it, +as well as to clear and cleanse that Infinitude of Pipes and Strainers +of which it is composed, and to give their solid Parts a more firm and +lasting Tone. Labour or Exercise ferments the Humours, casts them into +their proper Channels, throws off Redundancies, and helps Nature in +those secret Distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in +its Vigour, nor the Soul act with Chearfulness. + +I might here mention the Effects which this has upon all the Faculties +of the Mind, by keeping the Understanding clear, the Imagination +untroubled, and refining those Spirits that are necessary for the +proper Exertion of our intellectual Faculties, during the present Laws +of Union between Soul and Body. It is to a Neglect in this Particular +that we must ascribe the Spleen, which is so frequent in Men of +studious and sedentary Tempers, as well as the Vapours to which those +of the other Sex are so often subject. + +Had not Exercise been absolutely necessary for our Well-being, Nature +would not have made the Body so proper for it, by giving such an +Activity to the Limbs, and such a Pliancy to every Part as necessarily +produce those Compressions, Extensions, Contortions, Dilatations, and +all other kinds of Motions that are necessary for the Preservation of +such a System of Tubes and Glands as has been before mentioned. And +that we might not want Inducements to engage us in such an Exercise of +the Body as is proper for its Welfare, it is so ordered that nothing +valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention Riches and Honour, +even Food and Raiment are not to be come at without the Toil of the +Hands and Sweat of the Brows. Providence furnishes Materials, but +expects that we should work them up our selves. The Earth must be +laboured before it gives its Encrease, and when it is forced into its +several Products, how many Hands must they pass through before they +are fit for Use? Manufactures, Trade, and Agriculture, naturally +employ more than nineteen Parts of the Species in twenty; and as for +those who are not obliged to Labour, by the Condition in which they +are born, they are more miserable than the rest of Mankind, unless +they indulge themselves in that voluntary Labour which goes by the +Name of Exercise. + +My Friend Sir ROGER has been an indefatigable Man in Business of this +kind, and has hung several Parts of his House with the Trophies of his +former Labours. The Walls of his great Hall are covered with the Horns +of several kinds of Deer that he has killed in the Chace, which he +thinks the most valuable Furniture of his House, as they afford him +frequent Topicks of Discourse, and shew that he has not been Idle. At +the lower end of the Hall, is a large Otter's Skin stuffed with Hay, +which his Mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight +looks upon with great Satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine +Years old when his Dog killed him. A little Room adjoining to the Hall +is a kind of Arsenal filled with Guns of several Sizes and Inventions, +with which the Knight has made great Havock in the Woods, and +destroyed many thousands of Pheasants, Partridges and Wood-Cocks. His +Stable Doors are patched with Noses that belonged to Foxes of the +Knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that for +Distinction sake has a Brass Nail stuck through it, which cost him +about fifteen Hours riding, carried him through half a dozen Counties, +killed him a brace of Geldings, and lost above half his Dogs. This the +Knight looks upon as one of the greatest Exploits of his Life. The +perverse Widow, whom I have given some account of, was the Death of +several Foxes; For Sir Roger has told me that in the Course of his +Amours he patched the Western Door of his Stable. Whenever the Widow +was cruel, the Foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his +Passion for the Widow abated, and old Age came on, he left off +Fox-hunting; but a Hare is not yet safe that sits within ten Miles of +his House. + +There is no kind of Exercise which I would so recommend to my Readers +of both Sexes as this of Riding, as there is none which so much +conduces to Health, and is every way accommodated to the body, +according to the _Idea_ which I have given of it. Doctor _Sydenham_ is +very lavish in its Praises; and if the _English_ Reader would see the +Mechanical Effects of it described at length, he may find them in a +Book published not many Years since, under the Title of _Medicina +Gymnastica_. For my own part, when I am in Town, for want of these +opportunities, I exercise my self an Hour every Morning, upon a dumb +Bell that is placed in a Corner of my Room, and pleases me the more +because it does everything I require of it in the most profound +Silence. My Landlady and her Daughters are so well acquainted with my +Hours of Exercise, that they never come into my Room to disturb me +whilst I am ringing. + +When I was some Years younger than I am at present, I used to employ +my self in a more laborious Diversion, which I learned from a _Latin_ +Treatise of Exercises that is written with great Erudition: It is +there called the [Greek: skiomachai], or the Fighting with a Man's own +Shadow; and consists in the brandishing of two short Sticks grasped in +each Hand, and Loaden with Plugs of Lead at either end. This opens the +Chest, exercises the Limbs, and gives a Man all the Pleasure of +Boxing, without the Blows. I could wish that several Learned Men would +lay out that Time which they employ in Controversies and Disputes +about nothing, in _this method_ of fighting with their own Shadows. It +might conduce very much to evaporate the Spleen, which makes them +uneasy to the Publick as well as to themselves. + +To conclude, As I am a Compound of Soul and Body, I consider my self +as obliged to a double Scheme of Duties; and think I have not +fulfilled the Business of the Day, when I do not thus employ the one +in Labour and Exercise, as well as the other in Study and +Contemplation. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES + + +A man's first Care should be to avoid the Reproaches of his own Heart; +his next, to escape the Censures of the World: If the last interferes +with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise, +there cannot be a greater Satisfaction to an honest Mind, than to see +those Approbations which it gives itself seconded by the Applauses of +the Publick: A Man is more sure of his Conduct, when the Verdict which +he passes upon his own Behaviour is thus warranted, and confirmed by +the Opinion of all that know him. + +My worthy Friend Sir ROGER is one of those who is not only at Peace +within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives +a suitable Tribute for his universal Benevolence to mankind, in the +Returns of Affection and Good-will, which are paid him by every one +that lives within his Neighbourhood. I lately met with two or three +odd Instances of that general Respect which is shewn to the good old +Knight. He would needs carry _Will. Wimble_ and myself with him to the +County-Assizes: As we were upon the Road _Will. Wimble_ joined a +couple of plain Men who rid before us, and conversed with them for +some Time; during which my Friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their +Characters. + +The first of them, says he, that has a spaniel by his Side, is a +Yeoman of about an hundred Pounds a Year, an honest Man: He is just +within the Game-Act, and qualified to kill an Hare or a Pheasant: He +knocks down a Dinner with his Gun twice or thrice a Week; and by that +Means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an Estate as +himself. He would be a good Neighbour if he did not destroy so many +Partridges: in short, he is a very sensible Man; shoots flying; and +has been several Times Foreman of the Petty-jury. + +The other that rides along with him is _Tom Touchy_, a Fellow famous +for _taking the Law_ of every Body. There is not one in the Town where +he lives that he has not sued at a Quarter-Sessions. The Rogue had +once the Impudence to go to Law with the _Widow_. His head is full of +Costs, Damages, and Ejectments: He plagued a couple of honest +Gentlemen so long for a Trespass in breaking one of his Hedges, till +he was forced to sell the Ground it enclosed to defray the Charges of +the Prosecution: His Father left him fourscore Pounds a Year; but he +has _cast_ and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I +suppose he is going upon the old Business of the Willow-Tree. + +As Sir Roger was giving me this Account of _Tom Touchy_, _Will. +Wimble_ and his two Companions stopped short till we came up to them. +After having paid their Respects to Sir Roger, _Will._ told him that +Mr. _Touchy_ and he must appeal to him upon a Dispute that arose +between them. _Will._ it seems had been giving his Fellow Traveller an +Account of his Angling one Day in such a Hole; when _Tom Touchy_, +instead of hearing out his Story, told him, that Mr. such an One, if +he pleased, might _take the law of him_ for fishing in that Part of +the River. My Friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round Trot; and +after having paused some Time told them, with the Air of a Man who +would not give his Judgment rashly, that _much might be said on both +Sides_. They were neither of them dissatisfied with the Knight's +Determination, because neither of them found himself in the Wrong by +it: Upon which we made the best of our Way to the Assizes. + +The Court was sat before Sir Roger came, but notwithstanding all the +Justices had taken their Places upon the Bench, they made Room for the +old Knight at the Head of them; who for his Reputation in the Country +took Occasion to whisper in the Judge's Ear, That _he was glad his +Lordship had met with so much good Weather in his Circuit_. I was +listening to the Proceedings of the Court with much Attention, and +infinitely pleased with that great Appearance and Solemnity which so +properly accompanies such a publick Administration of our Laws; when, +after about an Hour's Sitting, I observed to my great Surprize, in the +midst of a Trial, that my Friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I +was in some Pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two +or three Sentences, with a Look of much Business and great +Intrepidity. + +Upon his first Rising the Court was hushed, and a general Whisper ran +among the Country-People that Sir Roger _was up_. The Speech he made +was so little to the Purpose, that I shall not trouble my Readers with +an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the Knight +himself to inform the Court, as to give him a Figure in my Eye, and +keep up his Credit in the Country. + +I was highly delighted, when the Court rose, to see the Gentlemen of +the Country gathering about my old Friend, and striving who should +compliment him most; at the same Time that the ordinary People gazed +upon him at a Distance, not a little admiring his Courage, that was +not afraid to speak to the Judge. + +In our Return home we met with a very odd Accident; which I cannot +forbear relating, because it shews how desirous all who know Sir Roger +are of giving him Marks of their Esteem. When we were arrived upon the +Verge of his Estate, we stopped at a little Inn to rest our selves and +our Horses. The Man of the House had it seems been formerly a Servant +in the Knight's Family; and to do Honour to his old Master, had some +Time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a Sign-post before the +Door; so that the _Knight's Head_ had hung out upon the Road about a +Week before he himself knew anything of the Matter. As soon as Sir +Roger was acquainted with it, finding that his Servant's Indiscretion +proceeded wholly from Affection and Good-will, he only told him that +he had made him too high a Compliment; and when the Fellow seemed to +think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive Look, That it +was too great an Honour for any Man under a Duke; but told him at the +same time that it might be altered with a very few Touches, and that +he himself would be at the Charge of it. Accordingly they got a +Painter by the Knight's Directions to add a pair of Whiskers to the +Face, and by a little Aggravation of the Features to change it into +the _Saracen's Head_. I should not have known this Story, had not the +Inn-keeper upon Sir Roger's alighting told him in my Hearing, That his +Honour's head was brought back last Night with the alterations that he +had ordered to be made in it. Upon this my Friend with his usual +Chearfulness related the Particulars above-mentioned, and ordered the +Head to be brought into the Room. I could not forbear discovering +greater Expressions of Mirth than ordinary upon the Appearance of this +monstrous Face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and +stare in a most extraordinary Manner, I could still discover a distant +Resemblance of my old Friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired +me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know him +in that Disguise. I at first kept my usual Silence; but upon the +Knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still more like +himself than a _Saracen_, I composed my Countenance in the best Manner +I could, and replied, _That much might be said on both Sides._ + +These several Adventures, with the Knight's Behaviour in them, gave me +as pleasant a Day as ever I met with in any of my Travels. + + _Addison._ + + + + +GIPSIES + + +As I was Yesterday riding out in the Fields with my Friend Sir ROGER, +we saw at a little Distance from us a Troop of Gypsies. Upon the first +Discovery of them, my Friend was in some Doubt whether he should not +exert the _Justice of the Peace_ upon such a Band of lawless Vagrants; +but not having his Clerk with him, who is a necessary Counsellor on +these Occasions, and fearing that his Poultry might fare the worse for +it, he let the Thought drop: But at the same Time gave me a particular +Account of the Mischiefs they do in the Country, in stealing People's +Goods and spoiling their Servants. If a stray Piece of Linen hangs +upon an Hedge, says Sir Roger, they are sure to have it; if a Hog +loses his Way in the Fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their +Prey; our Geese cannot live in Peace for them; if a Man prosecutes +them with Severity, his Hen-roost is sure to pay for it: They +generally straggle into these Parts about this Time of the Year; and +set the Heads of our Servant-Maids so agog for Husbands, that we do +not expect to have any Business done, as it should be, whilst they are +in the Country. I have an honest Dairy-Maid who crosses their Hands +with a Piece of Silver every Summer, and never fails being promised +the handsomest young Fellow in the Parish for her Pains. Your Friend +the Butler has been Fool enough to be seduced by them; and though he +is sure to lose a Knife, a Fork, or a Spoon every Time his Fortune is +told him, generally shuts himself up in the Pantry with an old Gypsie +for about half an Hour once in a Twelvemonth. Sweet-hearts are the +things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all +those that apply themselves to them. You see now and then some +handsome young Jades among them: The Sluts have often very white Teeth +and black Eyes. + +Sir Roger observing that I listened with great Attention to his +Account of a People who were so entirely new to me, told me, That if I +would they should tell us our Fortunes. As I was very well pleased +with the Knight's Proposal, we rid up and communicated our Hands to +them. A _Cassandra_ of the Crew, after having examined my Lines very +diligently, told me, That I loved a pretty Maid in a Corner, that I +was a good Woman's Man, with some other Particulars which I do not +think proper to relate. My Friend Sir Roger alighted from his Horse, +and exposing his Palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled +it into all Shapes, and diligently scanned every Wrinkle that could be +made in it; when one of them who was older and more Sun-burnt than the +rest, told him, That he had a Widow in his Line of Life: Upon which +the Knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle Baggage, and at the same +time smiled upon me. The Gypsie finding he was not displeased in his +Heart, told him, after a further Enquiry into his Hand, that his +True-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to Night. My +old Friend cryed pish, and bid her go on. The Gypsie told him that he +was a Batchelour, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to +some Body than he thought: the Knight still repeated, She was an idle +Baggage, and bid her go on. Ah Master, says the Gypsie, that roguish +Leer of yours makes a pretty Woman's Heart ake; you ha'n't that Simper +about the Mouth for Nothing---- The uncouth Gibberish with which all +this was uttered, like the Darkness of an Oracle, made us the more +attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the Money with her that +he had crossed her Hand with, and got up again on his Horse. + +As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me, that he knew several +sensible People who believed these Gypsies now and then foretold very +strange things; and for Half an Hour together appeared more jocund +than ordinary. In the Height of his good Humour, meeting a common +Beggar upon the Road who was no Conjuror, as he went to relieve him he +found his Pocket was pickt: That being a Kind of Palmistry at which +this Race of Vermin are very dexterous. + +I might here entertain my Reader with Historical Remarks on this idle +profligate People, who infest all the Countries of _Europe_, and live +in the Midst of Governments in a kind of Commonwealth by themselves. +But instead of entering into Observations of this Nature, I shall fill +the remaining part of my Paper with a Story which is still fresh in +_Holland_, and was printed in one of our Monthly Accounts about twenty +Years ago. "As the _Trekschuyt_, or Hackney-boat, which carries +Passengers from _Leiden_ to _Amsterdam_, was putting off, a Boy +running along the Side of the Canal, desir'd to be taken in; which the +Master of the Boat refused, because the Lad had not quite Money enough +to pay the usual Fare. An eminent Merchant being pleased with the +Looks of the Boy, and secretly touched with Compassion towards him, +paid the Money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upon +talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily in +three or four Languages, and learned upon further Examination that he +had been stolen away when he was a Child by a Gypsy, and had rambled +ever since with a gang of those Strolers up and down several Parts of +_Europe_. It happened that the Merchant, whose heart seems to have +inclined towards the Boy by a secret kind of Instinct, had himself +lost a Child some Years before. The Parents, after a long Search for +him, gave him for drowned in one of the Canals with which that Country +abounds; and the Mother was so afflicted at the Loss of a fine Boy, +who was her only Son, that she died for Grief of it. Upon laying +together all Particulars, and examining the several Moles and Marks by +which the Mother used to describe the Child when he was first missing, +the Boy proved to be the Son of the Merchant, whose Heart had so +unaccountably melted at the Sight of him. The Lad was very well +pleased to find a Father, who was so rich, and likely to leave him a +good Estate; the Father, on the other Hand, was not a little delighted +to see a Son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a +Strength of Constitution, Sharpness of Understanding, and skill in +Languages." Here the printed Story leaves off; but if I may give +credit to Reports, our Linguist having received such extraordinary +Rudiments towards a good Education, was afterwards trained up in every +thing that becomes a Gentleman; wearing off by little and little all +the vicious Habits and Practices that he had been used to in the +Course of his Peregrinations: Nay, it is said, that he has since been +employed in foreign Courts upon National Business, with great +Reputation to himself and Honour to those who sent him, and that he +has visited several Countries as a publick Minister, in which he +formerly wandered as a Gypsy. + + _Addison._ + + + + +WITCHES + + +There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, without +engaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith as +this, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutely +necessary in a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors and +Prepossessions. When the Arguments press equally on both sides in +Matters that are indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give up +ourselves to neither. + +It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject of +Witchcraft. When I hear the Relations that are made from all Parts of +the World, not only from _Norway_ and _Lapland_, from the _East_ and +_West Indies_, but from every particular Nation in _Europe_, I cannot +forbear thinking that there is such an Intercourse and Commerce with +Evil Spirits, as that which we express by the Name of Witchcraft. But +when I consider that the ignorant and credulous Parts of the World +abound most in these Relations, and that the Persons among us who are +supposed to engage in such an Infernal Commerce are People of a weak +Understanding and crazed Imagination, and at the same time reflect +upon the many Impostures and Delusions of this Nature that have been +detected in all Ages, I endeavour to suspend my Belief till I hear +more certain Accounts than any which have yet come to my Knowledge. In +short, when I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in +the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two +opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe +in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but +at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it. + +I am engaged in this Speculation, by some Occurrences that I met with +Yesterday, which I shall give my Reader an Account of at large. As I +was walking with my Friend Sir ROGER by the side of one of his Woods, +an old Woman applied her self to me for my Charity. Her Dress and +Figure put me in mind of the following Description in _Otway_. + + _In a close Lane as I pursu'd my Journey, + I spy'd a wrinkled_ Hag, _with Age grown double, + Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self. + Her Eyes with scalding Rheum were gall'd and red; + Cold Palsy shook her Head: her Hands seem'd wither'd; + And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrapp'd + The tatter'd Remnants of an old striped Hanging, + Which serv'd to keep her Carcass from the Cold: + So there was nothing of a-piece about her. + Her lower Weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd + With diff'rent-colour'd Rags, black, red, while, yellow, + And seem'd to speak Variety of Wretchedness._ + +As I was musing on this Description, and comparing it with the Object +before me, the Knight told me, that this very old Woman had the +Reputation of a Witch all over the Country, that her Lips were +observed to be always in Motion, and that there was not a Switch about +her House which her Neighbours did not believe had carried her several +hundreds of Miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found Sticks +or Straws that lay in the Figure of a Cross before her. If she made +any Mistake at Church, and cryed _Amen_ in a wrong Place, they never +failed to conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. There +was not a Maid in the Parish that would take a Pin of her, though she +should offer a Bag of Money with it. She goes by the name of _Moll +White_, and has made the Country ring with several imaginary Exploits +which are palmed upon her. If the Dairy Maid does not make her Butter +come so soon as she would have it, _Moll White_ is at the bottom of +the Churn. If a Horse sweats in the Stable, _Moll White_ has been upon +his Back. If a Hare makes an unexpected Escape from the Hounds, the +Huntsman curses _Moll White_. Nay, (says Sir Roger) I have known the +Master of the Pack, upon such an Occasion, send one of his Servants to +see if _Moll White_ had been out that Morning. + +This Account raised my Curiosity so far, that I begged my Friend Sir +Roger to go with me into her Hovel, which stood in a solitary Corner +under the side of the Wood. Upon our first entring Sir Roger winked to +me, and pointed at something that stood behind the Door, which upon +looking that way I found to be an old Broomstaff. At the same time he +whispered me in the Ear to take notice of a Tabby Cat that sat in the +Chimney-Corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a +Report as _Moll White_ her self; for besides that _Moll_ is said often +to accompany her in the same Shape, the Cat is reported to have spoken +twice or thrice in her Life, and to have played several Pranks above +the Capacity of an ordinary Cat. + +I was secretly concerned to see Human Nature in so much Wretchedness +and Disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear +Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old Woman, advising her +as a Justice of the Peace to avoid all Communication with the Devil, +and never to hurt any of her Neighbours' Cattle. We concluded our +Visit with a Bounty, which was very acceptable. + +In our Return home Sir Roger told me, that old _Moll_ had been often +brought before him for making Children spit Pins, and giving Maids the +Night-Mare; and that the Country People would be tossing her into a +Pond and trying Experiments with her every Day, if it was not for him +and his Chaplain. + +I have since found, upon Enquiry, that Sir Roger was several times +staggered with the Reports that had been brought him concerning this +old Woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the County +Sessions, had not his Chaplain with much ado perswaded him to the +contrary. + +I have been the more particular in this Account, because I hear there +is scarce a Village in _England_ that has not a _Moll White_ in it. +When an old Woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a Parish, she +is generally turned into a Witch, and fills the whole Country with +extravagant Fancies, imaginary Distempers, and terrifying Dreams. In +the meantime the poor Wretch that is the innocent Occasion of so many +Evils begins to be frighted at her self, and sometimes confesses +secret Commerce and Familiarities that her Imagination forms in a +delirious old Age. This frequently cuts off Charity from the greatest +Objects of Compassion, and inspires People with a Malevolence towards +those poor decrepid Parts of our Species, in whom Human Nature is +defaced by Infirmity and Dotage. + + _Addison._ + + + + + +SIR ROGER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + +My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY told me t'other Night, that he had +been reading my Paper upon _Westminster-Abbey_, in which, says he, +there are a great many ingenious Fancies. He told me at the same Time, +that he observed I had promised another Paper upon _the Tombs_, and +that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited +them since he had read History. I could not at first imagine how this +came into the Knight's Head, till I recollected that he had been very +busy all last Summer upon _Baker's_ Chronicle, which he has quoted +several Times in his Disputes with Sir ANDREW FREEPORT since his last +coming to Town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next +Morning, that we might go together to the _Abbey_. + +I found the Knight under his Butler's Hands, who always shaves him. He +was no sooner dressed, than he called for a Glass of the Widow +_Trueby's_ Water, which he told me he always drank before he went +abroad. He recommended to me a Dram of it at the same Time, with so +much Heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I +had got it down I found it very unpalatable, upon which the Knight +observing that I had made several wry Faces, told me that he knew I +should not like it at first, but that it was the best Thing in the +World against the Stone or Gravel. + +I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the Virtues +of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had +done was out of Good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked +upon it to be very good for a Man whilst he staid in Town, to keep off +Infection, and that he got together a Quantity of it upon the first +News of the Sickness being at _Dantzick_: When of a sudden turning +short to one of his Servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call an +Hackney-Coach, and take Care it was an elderly Man that drove it. + +He then resumed his Discourse upon Mrs. _Trueby's_ Water, telling me +that the Widow _Trueby_ was one who did more Good than all the Doctors +and Apothecaries in the County: That she distilled every poppy that +grew within five Miles of her, that she distributed her Water _gratis_ +among all sorts of People; to which the Knight added, that she had a +very great Jointure, and that the whole Country would fain have it a +Match between him and her; and truly, says Sir Roger, if I had not +been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better. + +His Discourse was broken off by his Man's telling him he had called a +Coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his Eye upon the +Wheels, he asked the Coachman if his Axle-tree was good; upon the +Fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the Knight turned to me, +told me he looked like an honest Man, and went in without further +Ceremony. + +We had not gone far, when Sir Roger popping out his Head, called the +Coachman down from his Box, and upon his presenting himself at the +Window, asked him if he smoaked; as I was considering what this would +end in, he bid him stop by the Way at any good Tobacconist's, and take +in a Roll of their best _Virginia_. Nothing material happen'd in the +remaining Part of our Journey, till we were set down at the West-End +of the _Abbey_. + +As we went up the Body of the Church, the Knight pointed at the +Trophies upon one of the new Monuments, and cry'd out, A brave Man I +warrant him. Passing afterwards by Sir _Cloudsly Shovel_, he flung his +Hand that Way, and cry'd Sir _Cloudsly Shovel!_ a very gallant Man! As +we stood before _Busby's_ Tomb, the Knight utter'd himself again after +the same Manner, Dr. _Busby_, a great Man, he whipp'd my Grandfather, +a very great Man. I should have gone to him my self, if I had not been +a Blockhead, a very great Man! + +We were immediately conducted into the little Chappel on the Right +Hand. Sir Roger planting himself at our Historian's Elbow, was very +attentive to every Thing he said, particularly to the Account he gave +us of the Lord who had cut off the King of _Morocco's_ Head. Among +several other Figures, he was very pleased to see the Statesman +_Cecil_ upon his Knees; and, concluding them all to be great Men, was +conducted to the Figure which represents that Martyr to good +Housewifry, who died by the Prick of a Needle. Upon our Interpreter's +telling us, that she was a Maid of Honour to Queen _Elizabeth_, the +Knight was very inquisitive into her Name and Family, and, after +having regarded her Finger for some Time, I wonder, says he, that Sir +_Richard Baker_ has said Nothing of her in his Chronicle. + +We were then convey'd to the two Coronation Chairs, where my old +Friend, after having heard that the Stone underneath the most ancient +of them, which was brought from _Scotland_, was called _Jacob's +Pillar_, sat himself down in the Chair, and looking like the Figure of +an old _Gothic_ King, asked our Interpreter, What authority they had +to say, that _Jacob_ had ever been in _Scotland_? The Fellow, instead +of returning him an Answer, told him, that he hoped his Honour would +pay his Forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being +thus trapanned; but our Guide not insisting upon his Demand, the +Knight soon recovered his good Humour, and whispered in my Ear, that +if WILL. WIMBLE were with us, and saw those two Chairs, it would go +hard but he would get a Tobacco-Stopper out of one or t'other of them. + +Sir Roger, in the next Place, laid his Hand upon _Edward_ III's Sword, +and leaning upon the Pommel of it, gave us the whole History of the +_Black Prince_; concluding, that in Sir _Richard Baker's_ Opinion, +_Edward_ the Third was one of the greatest Princes that ever sate upon +the _English_ Throne. + +We were then shewn _Edward_ the Confessor's Tomb; upon which Sir Roger +acquainted us, that he was the first who touched for the Evil; and +afterwards _Henry_ the Fourth's, upon which he shook his Head, and +told us, there was fine Reading in the Casualties of that Reign. + +Our Conductor then pointed to that Monument, where there is the Figure +of one of our _English_ Kings without an Head; and upon giving us to +know, that the Head, which was of beaten Silver, had been stolen away +several Years since: Some Whig, I warrant you, says Sir Roger; You +ought to lock up your Kings better: They will carry off the Body too, +if you don't take Care. + +The glorious Names of _Henry_ the Fifth and Queen _Elizabeth_ gave the +Knight great Opportunities of shining, and of doing Justice to Sir +_Richard Baker_, who, as our Knight observed with some surprize, had a +great many Kings in him, whose Monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. + +For my own Part, I could not but be pleased to see the Knight shew +such an honest Passion for the Glory of his Country, and such a +respectful Gratitude to the Memory of its Princes. + +I must not omit, that the Benevolence of my good old Friend, which +flows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind to +our Interpreter, whom he looked upon as an extraordinary Man; for +which Reason he shook him by the Hand at Parting, telling him, that he +should be very glad to see him at his Lodgings in _Norfolk-Buildings_, +and talk over these Matters with him more at Leisure. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY + + +My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at the +Club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy with me, +assuring me at the same Time, that he had not been at a Play these +twenty Years. The last I saw, says Sir Roger, was the _Committee_, +which I should not have gone to neither, had I not been told +before-hand that it was a good Church of _England_ Comedy. He then +proceeded to enquire of me who this Distress'd Mother was, and upon +hearing that she was _Hector's_ Widow, he told me, that her Husband +was a brave Man, and that when he was a School-Boy, he had read his +Life at the end of the Dictionary. My Friend asked me, in the next +Place, if there would not be some Danger in coming home late, in case +the _Mohocks_ should be abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I had +fallen into their hands last Night, for I observ'd two or three lusty +black Men that followed me half way up _Fleet-street_, and mended +their Pace behind me, in Proportion as I put on to get away from them. +You must know, continued the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had a +mind to _hunt_ me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in my +Neighbourhood, who was serv'd such a Trick in King _Charles_ the +Second's Time; for which Reason he has not ventured himself in Town +ever since. I might have shown them very good Sport, had this been +their Design, for as I am an old Fox-hunter, I should have turned and +dodged, and have play'd them a thousand Tricks they had never seen in +their Lives before. Sir Roger added, that if these Gentlemen had any +such Intention, they did not succeed very well in it; for I threw them +out, says he, at the End of _Norfolk-street_, where I doubled the +Corner, and got Shelter in my Lodgings before they could imagine what +was become of me. However, says the Knight, if Captain SENTRY will +make one with us to Morrow Night, and if you will both of you call +upon me about Four a-Clock, that we may be at the House before it is +full, I will have my own Coach in Readiness to attend you, for _John_ +tells me he has got the Fore-Wheels mended. + +The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed Hour, +bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same Sword +which he made use of at the Battel of _Steenkirk_. Sir Roger's +Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had, I found, +provided themselves with good oaken Plants, to attend their Master +upon this Occasion. When we had plac'd him in his Coach, with my self +at his Left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the Head +of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoy'd him in Safety to the +Play-house; where, after having march'd up the Entry in good Order, +the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the +Pit. As soon as the House was full, and the Candles lighted, my old +Friend stood up and looked about him with that Pleasure, which a Mind +seasoned with Humanity naturally feels in it self, at the Sight of a +Multitude of People who seem pleased with one another, and partake of +the same common Entertainment. I could not but fancy to my self, as +the old Man stood up in the Middle of the Pit, that he made a very +proper Center to a Tragick Audience. Upon the Entring of _Pyrrhus_, +the Knight told me, that he did not believe the King of _France_ +himself had a better Strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old +Friend's Remarks, because I looked upon them as a Piece of Natural +Criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the Conclusion of +almost every Scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the Play +would end. One while he appear'd much concerned for _Andromache_; and +a little while after as much for _Hermione_; and was extremely puzzled +to think what would become of _Pyrrhus_. + +When Sir Roger saw _Andromache's_ obstinate Refusal to her Lover's +Importunities, he whispered me in the Ear, that he was sure she would +never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary +Vehemence, You can't imagine, Sir, what 'tis to have to do with a +Widow. Upon _Pyrrhus_ his threatening afterwards to leave her, the +Knight shook his Head, and muttered to himself, Ay, do if you can. +This Part dwelt so much upon my Friend's Imagination, that at the +Close of the Third Act, as I was thinking of something else, he +whispered in my Ear, These Widows, Sir, are the most perverse +Creatures in the World. But pray, says he, you that are a Critick, is +the Play according to your Dramatick Rules, as you call them? Should +your People in Tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not +a single Sentence in this Play that I do not know the Meaning of. + +The Fourth Act very luckily begun before I had Time to give the old +Gentleman an Answer; Well, says the Knight, sitting down with great +Satisfaction, I suppose we are now to see _Hector's_ Ghost. He then +renewed his Attention, and, from Time to Time, fell a praising the +Widow. He made, indeed, a little Mistake as to one of her Pages, whom +at his first Entring, he took for _Astyanax_; but he quickly set +himself right in that Particular, though, at the same time, he owned +he should have been very glad to have seen the little Boy, who, says +he, must needs be a very fine Child by the Account that is given of +him. Upon _Hermione's_ going off with a menace to _Pyrrhus_, the +Audience gave a loud Clap, to which Sir Roger added, On my Word, a +notable Young Baggage. + +As there was a very remarkable Silence and Stillness in the Audience +during the whole Action, it was natural for them to take the +Opportunity of these Intervals between the Acts, to express their +Opinion of the Players, and of their respective Parts. Sir Roger +hearing a Cluster of them praise _Orestes_, struck in with them, and +told them, that he thought his Friend _Pylades_ was a very sensible +Man; As they were afterwards applauding _Pyrrhus_, Sir Roger put in a +second time, And let me tell you, says he, though he speaks but +little, I like the old Fellow in Whiskers as well as any of them. +Captain Sentry, seeing two or three Waggs who sat near us lean with an +attentive Ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoak +the Knight, pluck'd him by the Elbow, and whispered something in his +Ear, that lasted till the Opening of the Fifth Act. The Knight was +wonderfully attentive to the Account which _Orestes_ gives of +_Pyrrhus_ his Death, and at the Conclusion of it, told me it was such +a bloody Piece of Work, that he was glad it was not done upon the +Stage. Seeing afterwards _Orestes_ in his raving Fit, he grew more +than ordinary serious, and took Occasion to moralize (in his Way) upon +an evil Conscience, adding that _Orestes, in his Madness, looked as if +he saw something_. + +As we were the first that came into the House, so we were the last +that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear Passage for our +old Friend, whom we did not care to venture among the Justling of the +Crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfy'd with his Entertainment, and +we guarded him to his Lodgings in the same manner that we brought him +to the Play-house; being highly pleased, for my own Part, not only +with the Performance of the excellent Piece which had been presented, +but with the Satisfaction which it had given to the good old Man. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT SPRING-GARDEN + + +As I was sitting in my Chamber, and thinking on a Subject for my next +_Spectator_, I heard two or three irregular Bounces at my Landlady's +Door, and upon the opening of it, a loud chearful Voice enquiring +whether the Philosopher was at Home. The Child who went to the Door +answered very Innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately +recollected that it was my good Friend Sir ROGER's Voice: and that I +had promised to go with him on the Water to _Spring-Garden_, in case +it proved a good Evening. The Knight put me in mind of my Promise from +the Bottom of the Stair-Case, but told me that if I was Speculating he +would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down I found all the +Children of the Family got about my old Friend, and my Landlady +herself, who is a notable prating Gossip, engaged in a Conference with +him, being mightily pleased with his stroaking her little Boy upon the +Head, and bidding him be a good Child, and mind his Book. + +We were no sooner come to the _Temple_ Stairs, but we were surrounded +with a crowd of Watermen, offering us their respective Services. Sir +Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with +a Wooden-leg, and immediately gave him Orders to get his Boat ready. +As we were walking towards it, _You must know,_ says Sir Roger, _I +never make use of any Body to row me that has not either lost a Leg or +an Arm. I would rather bate him a few Strokes of his Oar, than not +employ an honest Man that has been wounded in the Queen's Service. If +I was a Lord or a Bishop, and kept a Barge, I would not put a Fellow +in my Livery that had not a Wooden-Leg._ + +My old Friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the Boat with +his Coachman, who, being a very sober Man, always serves for Ballast +on these Occasions, we made the best of our way for _Fox-Hall_. Sir +Roger obliged the Waterman to give us the History of his Right Leg, +and hearing that he had left it at _La Hogue_, with many Particulars +which passed in that glorious Action, the Knight in the Triumph of his +Heart made several Reflections on the Greatness of the _British_ +Nation; as, that one _Englishman_ could beat three _Frenchmen_; that +we could never be in Danger of Popery so long as we took care of our +Fleet; that the _Thames_ was the noblest River in _Europe_; that +_London-Bridge_ was a greater Piece of Work than any of the Seven +Wonders of the World; with many other honest Prejudices which +naturally cleave to the Heart of a true _Englishman_. + +After some short Pause, the old Knight turning about his Head twice or +thrice, to take a Survey of this great Metropolis, bid me observe how +thick the City was set with Churches, and that there was scarce a +single Steeple on this side _Temple-Bar_. _A most Heathenish Sight!_ +says Sir Roger: _There is no Religion at this End of the Town. The +Fifty new Churches will very much mend the Prospect; but Church-work +is slow, Church-work is slow!_ + +I do not remember I have any where mentioned, in Sir Roger's +Character, his Custom of saluting every Body that passes by him with a +Good-morrow, or a Good-night. This the old Man does out of the +Overflowings of his Humanity though at the same time it renders him so +popular among all his Country Neighbours, that it is thought to have +gone a good way in making him once or twice Knight of the Shire. He +cannot forbear this Exercise of Benevolence even in Town, when he +meets with any one in his Morning or Evening Walk. It broke from him +to several Boats that passed by us upon the Water; but, to the +Knight's great Surprize, as he gave the Good-night to two or three +young Fellows a little before our Landing, one of them, instead of +returning the Civility, asked us what queer old Putt we had in the +Boat; and whether he was not ashamed to go a Wenching at his Years? +with a great deal of the like _Thames_-Ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a +little shocked at first, but at length assuming a Face of Magistracy, +told us, _That if he were a_ Middlesex _Justice, he would make such +Vagrants know that her Majesty's Subjects, were no more to be abused +by Water than by Land._ + +We were now arrived at _Spring-Garden_, which is exquisitely pleasant +at this Time of the Year. When I considered the Fragrancy of the Walks +and Bowers, with the Choirs of Birds that sung upon the Trees, and the +loose Tribe of People that walk'd under their Shades, I could not but +look upon the Place as a kind of _Mahometan_ Paradise. Sir Roger told +me it put him in mind of a little Coppice by his House in the Country, +which his Chaplain us'd to call an Aviary of Nightingales. _You must +understand,_ says the Knight, _there is nothing in the World that +pleases a Man in Love so much as your Nightingale. Ah_, Mr. SPECTATOR! +_The Many Moonlight Nights that I have walked by my self, and thought +on the Widow by the Musick of the Nightingale!_ Here he fetch'd a deep +Sigh, and was falling into a Fit of musing, when a Mask, who came +behind him, gave him a gentle Tap upon the Shoulder, and asked him if +he would drink a Bottle of Mead with her? But the Knight being +startled at so unexpected a Familiarity, and displeased to be +interrupted in his Thoughts of the Widow, told her, _She was a wanton +Baggage_, and bid her go about her Business. + +We concluded our Walk with a Glass of _Burton-Ale_, and a Slice of +Hung-Beef. When we had done eating our selves, the Knight called a +Waiter to him, and bid him carry the Remainder to the Waterman that +had but one Leg. I perceived the Fellow stared upon him at the Oddness +of the Message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the +Knight's Commands with a peremptory Look. + +As we were going out of the Garden, my old Friend thinking himself +obliged, as a Member of the _Quorum_, to animadvert upon the Morals of +the Place, told the Mistress of the House, who sat at the Bar, That he +should be a better Customer to her Garden, if there were more +Nightingales, and fewer bad Characters. + + _Addison._ + + + + +DEATH OF SIR ROGER + + +We last Night received a Piece of ill News at our Club, which very +sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my Readers +themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no +longer in Suspense, Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY _is dead_. He departed this +Life at his House in the Country, after a few Weeks' Sickness. Sir +ANDREW FREEPORT has a Letter from one of his Correspondents in those +Parts, that informs him the old Man caught a Cold at the County +Sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an Address of his own +penning, in which he succeeded according to his Wishes. But this +Particular comes from a Whig Justice of Peace, who was always Sir +Roger's Enemy and Antagonist. I have Letters both from the Chaplain +and Captain _Sentry_ which mention Nothing of it, but are filled with +many Particulars to the Honour of the good old Man. I have likewise a +Letter from the Butler, who took so much Care of me last Summer when I +was at the Knight's House. As my Friend the Butler mentions, in the +Simplicity of his Heart, several circumstances the others have passed +over in Silence, I shall give my Reader a Copy of his Letter without +any Alteration or Diminution. + + "_Honoured Sir,_ + +"Knowing that you was my old Master's good Friend, I could not forbear +sending you the melancholy News of his Death, which has afflicted the +whole Country, as well as his poor Servants, who loved him, I may say, +better than we did our Lives. I am afraid he caught his Death the last +County Sessions, where he would go to see Justice done to a poor Widow +Woman, and her Fatherless Children that had been wronged by a +Neighbouring Gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good Master was always +the poor Man's Friend. Upon his coming home, the first Complaint he +made was, that he had lost his Roast-Beef Stomach, not being able to +touch a Sirloin, which was served up according to Custom; and you know +he used to take great Delight in it. From that Time forward he grew +worse and worse, but still kept a good Heart to the last. Indeed we +were once in great Hope of his Recovery, upon a kind Message that was +sent him from the Widow Lady whom he had made Love to the forty last +Years of his Life; but this only proved a Light'ning before Death. He +has bequeathed to this Lady, as a Token of his Love, a great Pearl +Necklace, and a Couple of Silver Bracelets set with Jewels, which +belonged to my good old Lady his Mother; He has bequeathed the fine +white Gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his Chaplain, +because he thought he would be kind to him, and has left you all his +Books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the Chaplain a very pretty +Tenement with good Lands about it. It being a very cold Day when he +made his Will, he left for Mourning, to every Man in the Parish, a +great Frize Coat, and to every Woman a black Riding-hood. It was a +most moving Sight to see him take Leave of his poor Servants, +commending us all for our Fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a +Word for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our Dear +Master's Service, he has left us Pensions and Legacies, which we may +live very comfortably upon, the remaining Part of our Days. He has +bequeathed a great Deal more in Charity, which is not yet come to my +Knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the Parish, that he has left +Money to build a Steeple to the Church; for he was heard to say some +Time ago, that if he lived two Years longer _Coverley_ Church should +have a Steeple to it. The Chaplain tells every Body that he made a +very good End, and never speaks of him without Tears. He was buried, +according to his own Directions, among the Family of the _Coverleys_, +on the left Hand of his Father Sir _Arthur_. The Coffin was carried by +Six of his Tenants, and the Pall held up by Six of the _Quorum_: The +whole Parish followed the Corps with heavy Hearts, and in their +Mourning-Suits, the Men in Frize, and the Women in Riding-hoods. +Captain _Sentry_, my Master's Nephew, has taken Possession of the +Hall-House, and the whole Estate. When my old Master saw him a little +before his Death, he shook him by the Hand, and wished him Joy of the +Estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good Use +of it, and to pay the several Legacies, and the Gifts of Charity which +he told him he had left as Quit-rents upon the Estate. The Captain +truly seems a courteous Man, though he says but little. He makes much +of those whom my Master loved, and shews great Kindness to the old +House-dog, that you know my poor Master was so fond of. It wou'd have +gone to your Heart to have heard the Moans the dumb Creature made on +the Day of my Master's Death. He has ne'er joyed himself since; no +more has any of us. 'Twas the melancholiest Day for the poor People +that ever happened in _Worcestershire_. This being all from, + + _Honoured Sir,_ + _Your most sorrowful Servant,_ + Edward Biscuit. + +_P.S._ My Master desired, some Weeks before he died, that a Book which +comes up to you by the Carrier should be given to Sir _Andrew +Freeport_, in his Name." + +This Letter, notwithstanding the poor Butler's Manner of Writing it, +gave us such an Idea of our good old Friend, that upon the Reading of +it there was not a dry Eye in the Club. Sir _Andrew_ opening the Book +found it to be a Collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in +Particular the Act of Uniformity, with some Passages in it marked by +Sir _Roger's_ own Hand. Sir _Andrew_ found that they related to two or +three Points, which he had disputed with Sir _Roger_ the last Time he +appeared at the Club. Sir _Andrew_, who would have been merry at such +an Incident on another Occasion, at the Sight of the Old Man's +Handwriting burst into Tears, and put the Book into his Pocket. +Captain _Sentry_ informs me, that the Knight has left Rings and +Mourning for every one in the Club. + + _Addison._ + + + + +A STAGE-COACH JOURNEY + + +Having notified to my good Friend Sir ROGER that I should set out for +_London_ the next Day, his Horses were ready at the appointed Hour in +the Evening; and, attended by one of his Grooms, I arrived at the +County Town at Twilight, in order to be ready for the Stage-Coach the +Day following. As soon as we arrived at the Inn, the Servant who +waited upon me, enquired of the Chamberlain in my Hearing what Company +he had for the Coach? The Fellow answered, Mrs. _Betty Arable_, the +great Fortune, and the Widow her Mother, a recruiting Officer (who +took a Place because they were to go), young Squire _Quickset_ her +Cousin (that her Mother wished her to be married to), _Ephraim_ the +Quaker, her Guardian, and a Gentleman that had studied himself dumb +from Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY'S. I observed by what he said of my self, +that according to his Office he dealt much in Intelligence; and +doubted not but there was some Foundation for his Reports of the rest +of the Company, as well as for the whimsical Account he gave of me. +The next Morning at Day-break we were all called; and I, who know my +own natural Shyness, and endeavour to be as little liable to be +disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no +one wait. The first Preparation for our Setting out was, that the +Captain's Half-Pike was placed near the Coach-man, and a Drum behind +the Coach. In the mean Time the Drummer, the Captain's Equipage, was +very loud, that none of the Captain's things should be placed so as to +be spoiled; upon which his Cloak-bag was fixed in the Seat of the +Coach: And the Captain himself, according to a frequent, tho' +invidious Behaviour of military Men, ordered His Man to look sharp, +that none but one of the Ladies should have the Place he had taken +fronting to the Coach-box. + +We were in some little Time fixed in our Seats, and sat with that +Dislike which People not too good-natured, usually conceive of each +other at first Sight. The Coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort +of Familiarity; and we had not moved about two Miles, when the Widow +asked the Captain what Success he had in his Recruiting? The Officer, +with a Frankness he believed very graceful, told her, "That indeed he +had but very little Luck, and suffered much by Desertion, therefore +should be glad to end his Warfare in the Service of her or her fair +Daughter. In a Word," continued he, "I am a Soldier, and to be plain +is my Character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take +me your self, Widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your +Disposal. I am a Soldier of Fortune, ha!" This was followed by a vain +Laugh of his own, and a deep Silence of all the rest of the Company. I +had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all +Speed. "Come," said he, "resolve upon it, we will make a Wedding at +the next Town: We will wake this pleasant Companion who is fallen +asleep, to be the Bride-man, and" (giving the Quaker a Clap on the +Knee) he concluded, "This sly Saint, who, I'll warrant understands +what's what as well as you or I, Widow, shall give the Bride as +Father." The Quaker, who happened to be a Man of Smartness, answered, +"Friend, I take it in good Part that thou hast given me the Authority +of a Father over this comely and virtuous Child; and I must assure +thee, that if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. +Thy Mirth, Friend, savoureth of Folly: Thou art a Person of a light +Mind; thy Drum is a Type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty. +Verily, it is not from thy Fullness, but thy Emptiness, that thou hast +spoken this Day. Friend, Friend, we have hired this Coach in +Partnership with thee, to carry us to the great City; we cannot go any +other Way. This worthy Mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utter +thy Follies; we cannot help it Friend, I say; if thou wilt, we must +hear thee: But if thou wert a Man of Understanding, thou wouldst not +take Advantage of thy couragious Countenance to abash us Children of +Peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a Soldier; give Quarter to us, who +cannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our Friend, who feigned +himself asleep? he said nothing, but how dost thou know what he +containeth? If thou speakest improper things in the Hearing of this +virtuous young Virgin, consider it as an Outrage against a distressed +Person that cannot get from thee: To speak indiscreetly what we are +obliged to hear, by being hasped up with thee in this publick Vehicle, +is in some Degree assaulting on the high Road." + +Here _Ephraim_ paused, and the Captain with an happy and uncommon +Impudence (which can be convicted and support it self at the same +time) crys, "Faith, Friend, I thank thee; I should have been a little +impertinent if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I see, a +smoaky old Fellow, and I'll be very orderly the ensuing Part of the +Journey. I was going to give myself Airs, but Ladies I beg Pardon." + +The Captain was so little out of Humour, and our Company was so far +from being sowered by this little Ruffle, that _Ephraim_ and he took a +particular Delight in being agreeable to each other for the future; +and assumed their different Provinces in the Conduct of the Company. +Our Reckonings, Apartments, and Accommodation, fell under _Ephraim_; +and the Captain looked to all Disputes on the Road, as the good +Behaviour of our Coachman, and the Right we had of taking Place as +going to _London_ of all Vehicles coming from thence. The Occurrences +we met with were ordinary, and very little happen'd which could +entertain by the Relation of them: But when I consider'd the Company +we were in, I took it for no small good Fortune that the whole Journey +was not spent in Impertinences, which to one Part of us might be an +Entertainment, to the other a Suffering. What therefore _Ephraim_ said +when we were almost arrived at _London_, had to me an Air not only of +good Understanding, but good Breeding. Upon the young Lady's +expressing her Satisfaction in the Journey, and declaring how +delightful it had been to her, _Ephraim_ delivered himself as follows: +"There is no ordinary Part of humane Life which expresseth so much a +good Mind, and a right inward Man, as his Behaviour upon Meeting with +Strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companions +to him: Such a Man when he falleth in the Way with Persons of +Simplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways of +Men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his +Superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My good +Friend," continued he, turning to the Officer, "thee and I are to part +by and by, and peradventure we may never meet again: But be advised by +a plain Man; Modes and Apparels are but Trifles to the real Man, +therefore do not think such a Man as thy self terrible for thy Garb, +nor such a one as me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee and +I meet, with Affections as we ought to have towards each other, thou +shouldst rejoice to see my peaceable Demeanour, and I should be glad +to see thy Strength and Ability to protect me in it." + + _Steele._ + + + + +A JOURNEY FROM RICHMOND + + +It is an inexpressible Pleasure to know a little of the World, and be +of no Character or Significancy in it. To be ever unconcerned, and +ever looking on new Objects with an endless Curiosity, is a Delight +known only to those who are turned for Speculation: Nay, they who +enjoy it, must value things only as they are the Objects of +Speculation, without drawing any worldly Advantage to themselves from +them, but just as they are what contribute to their Amusement, or the +Improvement of the Mind. I lay one Night last Week at _Richmond_; and +being restless, not out of Dissatisfaction, but a certain basic +Inclination one sometimes has, I arose at Four in the Morning, and +took Boat for _London_, with a Resolution to rove by Boat and Coach +for the next Four and twenty Hours, till the many different Objects I +must needs meet with should tire my Imagination, and give me an +Inclination to a Repose more profound than I was at that time capable +of. I beg People's Pardon for an odd Humour I am guilty of, and was +often that Day, which is saluting any Person whom I like, whether I +know him or not. This is a Particularity would be tolerated in me, if +they considered that the greatest Pleasure I know I receive at my +Eyes, and that I am obliged to an agreeable Person for coming abroad +into my View, as another is for a Visit of Conversation at their own +Houses. + +The Hours of the Day and Night are taken up in the Cities of _London_ +and _Westminster_ by People as different from each other as those who +are Born in different Centuries. Men of Six-a-Clock give way to those +of Nine, they of Nine to the Generation of Twelve, and they of Twelve +disappear, and make Room for the fashionable World, who have made +Two-a-Clock the Noon of the Day. + +When we first put off from Shoar, we soon fell in with a Fleet of +Gardiners bound for the several Market-Ports of _London_; and it was +the most pleasing Scene imaginable to see the Chearfulness with which +those industrious People ply'd their Way to a certain Sale of their +Goods. The Banks on each Side are as well Peopled, and beautified with +as agreeable Plantations, as any Spot on the Earth; but the _Thames_ +it self, loaded with the Product of each Shoar, added very much to the +Landskip. It was very easie to observe by their Sailing, and the +Countenances of the ruddy Virgins, who were Supercargos, the Parts of +the Town to which they were bound. There was an Air in the Purveyors +for _Covent-Garden_, who frequently converse with Morning Rakes, very +unlike the seemly Sobriety of those bound for _Stocks-Market_. + +Nothing remarkable happened in our Voyage; but I landed with Ten Sail +of Apricock Boats at _Strand-Bridge_, after having put in at +_Nine-Elmes_, and taken in Melons, consigned by Mr. _Cuffe_ of that +Place, to _Sarah Sewell_ and Company, at their Stall in +_Covent-Garden_. We arrived at _Strand-Bridge_ at Six of the Clock, +and were unloading; when the Hackney-Coachmen of the foregoing Night +took their Leave of each other at the _Dark-House_, to go to Bed +before the Day was too far spent. Chimney-Sweepers pass'd by us as we +made up to the Market, and some Raillery happened between one of the +Fruit-Wenches and those black Men, about the Devil and _Eve_, with +Allusion to their several Professions. I could not believe any Place +more entertaining than _Covent-Garden_; where I strolled from one +Fruit-shop to another, with Crowds of agreeable young Women around me, +who were purchasing Fruit for their respective Families. It was almost +Eight of the Clock before I could leave that Variety of Objects. I +took Coach and followed a young Lady, who tripped into another just +before me, attended by her Maid. I saw immediately she was of the +Family of the _Vainloves_. There are a Sett of these, who of all +things affect the Play of _Blindman's-Buff_, and leading Men into Love +for they know not whom, who are fled they know not where. This sort of +Woman is usually a janty Slattern; she hangs on her Cloaths, plays her +Head, varies her Posture, and changes place incessantly, and all with +an Appearance of striving at the same time to hide her self, and yet +give you to understand she is in Humour to laugh at you. You must have +often seen the Coachmen make Signs with their Fingers as they drive by +each other, to intimate how much they have got that Day. They can +carry on that Language to give Intelligence where they are driving. In +an Instant my Coachman took the Wink to pursue, and the Lady's Driver +gave the Hint that he was going through _Long-Acre_ towards St. +_James's_: While he whipp'd up _James-Street_, we drove for _King +Street_, to save the Pass at St. _Martin's-Lane_. The Coachmen took +care to meet, justle, and threaten each other for Way, and be +intangled at the End of _Newport-Street_ and _Long-Acre_. The Fright, +you must believe, brought down the Lady's Coach Door, and obliged her, +with her Mask off, to enquire into the Bustle, when she sees the Man +she would avoid. The Tackle of the Coach-Window is so bad she cannot +draw it up again, and she drives on sometimes wholly discovered, and +sometimes half-escaped, according to the Accident of Carriages in her +Way. One of these Ladies keeps her Seat in a Hackney-Coach as well as +the best Rider does on a managed Horse. The laced Shooe on her Left +Foot, with a careless Gesture, just appearing on the opposite Cushion, +held her both firm, and in a proper Attitude to receive the next Jolt. + +As she was an excellent Coach-Woman, many were the Glances at each +other which we had for an Hour and an Half in all Parts of the Town by +the Skill of our Drivers; till at last my Lady was conveniently lost +with Notice from her Coachman to ours to make off, and he should hear +where she went. This Chace was now at an End, and the Fellow who drove +her came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to come again in an +Hour, for that she was a Silk-Worm. I was surprized with this Phrase, +but found it was a Cant among the Hackney Fraternity for their best +Customers, Women who ramble twice or thrice a Week from Shop to Shop, +to turn over all the Goods in Town without buying any thing. The +Silk-Worms are, it seems, indulged by the Tradesmen; for tho' they +never buy, they are ever talking of new Silks, Laces and Ribbands, and +serve the Owners in getting them Customers, as their common Dunners do +in making them pay. + +The Day of People of Fashion began now to break, and Carts and Hacks +were mingled with Equipages of Show and Vanity; when I resolved to +walk it out of Cheapness; but my unhappy Curiosity is such, that I +find it always my Interest to take Coach, for some odd Adventure among +Beggars, Ballad-Singers, or the like, detains and throws me into +Expence. It happened so immediately; for at the Corner of +_Warwick-Street_, as I was listening to a new Ballad, a ragged Rascal, +a Beggar who knew me, came up to me, and began to turn the Eyes of the +good Company upon me, by telling me he was extream Poor, and should +die in the Streets for want of Drink, except I immediately would have +the Charity to give him Six-pence to go into the next Ale-House and +save his life. He urged, with a melancholy Face, that all his Family +had died of Thirst. All the Mob have Humour, and two or three began to +take the Jest; by which Mr. _Sturdy_ carried his Point, and let me +sneak off to a Coach. As I drove along it was a pleasing Reflection to +see the World so prettily chequered since I left _Richmond_, and the +Scene still filling with Children of a new Hour. This Satisfaction +encreased as I moved towards the City; and gay Signs, well disposed +Streets, magnificent publick Structures, and Wealthy Shops, adorned +with contented Faces, made the Joy still rising till we came into the +Centre of the City, and Centre of the World of Trade, the _Exchange_ +of _London_. As other Men in the Crowds about me were pleased with +their Hopes and Bargains, I found my Account in observing them, in +Attention to their several Interests. I, indeed, looked upon my self +as the richest Man that walked the _Exchange_ that Day; for my +Benevolence made me share the Gains of every Bargain that was made. It +was not the least of the Satisfactions in my Survey, to go up Stairs, +and pass the Shops of agreeable Females; to observe so many pretty +Hands busie in the Foldings of Ribbands, and the utmost Eagerness of +agreeable Faces in the Sale of Patches, Pins, and Wires, on each Side +the Counters, was an Amusement, in which I should longer have indulged +my self, had not the dear Creatures called to me to ask what I wanted, +when I could not answer, only _To look at you_. I went to one of the +Windows which opened to the Area below, where all the several Voices +lost their Distinction, and rose up in a confused Humming; which +created in me a Reflection that could not come into the Mind of any +but of one a little studious; for I said to my self, with a kind of +Punn in thought, _What Nonsense is all the Hurry of this World to +those who are above it?_ In these, or not much wiser Thoughts, I had +like to have lost my Place at the Chop-House; where every Man, +according to the natural Bashfulness or Sullenness of our Nation, eats +in a publick Room a Mess of Broth, or Chop of Meat, in dumb Silence, +as if they had no Pretence to speak to each other on the Foot of being +Men, except they were of each other's Acquaintance. + +I went afterwards to _Robin's_ and saw People who had dined with me at +the Five-Penny Ordinary just before, give Bills for the Value of large +Estates; and could not but behold with great Pleasure, Property lodged +in, and transferred in a Moment from such as would never be Masters of +half as much as is seemingly in them, and given from them every Day +they live. But before Five in the Afternoon I left the City, came to +my common Scene of _Covent-Garden_, and passed the Evening at _Will's_ +in attending the Discourses of several Sets of People, who relieved +each other within my Hearing on the Subjects of Cards, Dice, Love, +Learning and Politicks. The last Subject kept me till I heard the +Streets in the Possession of the Bell-man, who had now the World to +himself, and cryed, _Past Two of Clock_. This rous'd me from my Seat, +and I went to my Lodging, led by a Light, whom I put into the +Discourse of his private Oeconomy, and made him give me an Account of +the Charge, Hazard, Profit and Loss of a Family that depended upon a +Link, with a Design to end my trivial Day with the Generosity of +Six-pence, instead of a third Part of that Sum. When I came to my +Chambers I writ down these Minutes; but was at a Loss what Instruction +I should propose to my Reader from the Enumeration of so many +Insignificant Matters and Occurrences; and I thought it of great Use, +if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to Gratification, +and ready to receive it from any thing it meets with. This one +Circumstance will make every Face you see give you the Satisfaction +you now take in beholding that of a Friend; will make every Object a +pleasing one; will make all the Good which arrives to any Man, an +Encrease of Happiness to your self. + + _Steele._ + + + + +A PRIZE FIGHT + + +Being a Person of insatiable Curiosity, I could not forbear going on +_Wednesday_ last to a Place of no small Renown for the Gallantry of +the lower Order of _Britons_, namely, to the Bear-Garden at _Hockley +in the Hole_; where (as a whitish brown Paper, put into my Hands in +the Street, inform'd me) there was to be a Tryal of Skill to be +exhibited between two Masters of the Noble Science of Defence, at two +of the Clock precisely. I was not a little charm'd with the Solemnity +of the Challenge, which ran thus: + +"_I_ James Miller, _Serjeant, (lately come from the Frontiers of_ +Portugal) _Master of the Noble Science of Defence, hearing in most +Places where I have been of the great Fame of_ Timothy Buck _of_ +London, _Master of the said Science, do invite him to meet me, and +exercise at the several Weapons following,_ viz. + + _Back-Sword_, _Single Falchon_, + _Sword and Dagger_, _Case of Falchons_, + _Sword and Buckler_, _Quarter-Staff_." + +If the generous Ardour in _James Miller_ to dispute the Reputation of +_Timothy Buck_, had something resembling the old Heroes of Romance, +_Timothy Buck_ return'd Answer in the same Paper with the like Spirit, +adding a little Indignation at being challenged, and seeming to +condescend to fight _James Miller_, not in regard to _Miller_ himself, +but in that, as the Fame went out, he had fought _Parkes_ of +_Coventry_. The Acceptance of the Combat ran in these Words: + +"_I_ Timothy Buck _of_ Clare-Market, _Master of the Noble Science of +Defence, hearing he did fight Mr._ Parkes _of_ Coventry, _will not +fail (God willing) to meet this fair Inviter at the Time and Place +appointed, desiring a clear Stage and no Favour._ + + Vivat Regina." + +I shall not here look back on the Spectacles of the _Greeks_ and +_Romans_ of this Kind, but must believe this Custom took its Rise from +the Ages of Knight-Errantry; from those who lov'd one Woman so well, +that they hated all Men and Women else; from those who would fight +you, whether you were or were not of their Mind; from those who +demanded the Combat of their Contemporaries, both for admiring their +Mistress or discommending her. I cannot therefore but lament, that the +terrible Part of the ancient Fight is preserved, when the amorous Side +of it is forgotten. We have retained the Barbarity, but lost the +Gallantry of the old Combatants. I could wish, methinks, these +Gentlemen had consulted me in the Promulgation of the Conflict. I was +obliged by a fair young Maid whom I understood to be called _Elisabeth +Preston_, Daughter of the Keeper of the Garden, with a Glass of Water; +whom I imagined might have been, for Form's sake, the general +Representative of the Lady fought for, and from her Beauty the proper +_Amarillis_ on these Occasions. It would have ran better in the +Challenge; _I_ James Miller, _Serjeant, who have travelled Parts +abroad, and came last from the Frontiers of_ Portugal, _for the Love +of_ Elizabeth Preston, _do assert, That the said_ Elizabeth is the +Fairest of Women. Then the Answer; _I_ Timothy Buck, _who have stay'd +in_ Great Britain _during all the War in Foreign Parts for the Sake +of_ Susanna Page, _do deny that_ Elizabeth Preston _is so fair as the +said_ Susanna Page. Let _Susanna Page_ look on, and I desire of _James +Miller_ no Favour. + +This would give the Battel quite another Turn; and a proper Station +for the Ladies, whose Complexion was disputed by the Sword, would +animate the Disputants with a more gallant Incentive than the +Expectation of Mony from the Spectators; though I would not have that +neglected, but thrown to that Fair One whose Lover was approved by the +Donor. + +Yet, considering the Thing wants such Amendments, it was carried with +great Order. _James Miller_ came on first; preceded by two disabled +Drummers, to shew, I suppose, that the Prospect of maimed Bodies did +not in the least deter him. There ascended with the daring _Miller_ a +Gentleman, whose Name I could not learn, with a dogged Air, as +unsatisfied that he was not Principal. This Son of Anger lowred at the +whole Assembly, and weighing himself as he march'd around from Side to +Side, with a stiff Knee and Shoulder, he gave Intimations of the +Purpose he smothered till he saw the Issue of this Encounter. _Miller_ +had a blue Ribbond tyed round the Sword Arm; which Ornament I conceive +to be the Remain of that Custom of wearing a Mistress's Favour on such +Occasions of old. + +_Miller_ is a Man of six Foot eight Inches Height, of a kind but bold +Aspect, well-fashioned, and ready of his Limbs; and such Readiness as +spoke his Ease in them, was obtained from a Habit of Motion in +Military Exercise. + +The Expectation of the Spectators was now almost at its Height, and +the Crowd pressing in, several active Persons thought they were placed +rather according to their Fortune than their Merit, and took it in +their Heads to prefer themselves from the open Area, or Pit, to the +Galleries. This Dispute between Desert and Property brought many to +the Ground, and raised others in proportion to the highest Seats by +Turns for the Space of ten Minutes, till _Timothy Buck_ came on, and +the whole Assembly giving up their Disputes, turned their Eyes upon +the Champions. Then it was that every Man's Affection turned to one or +the other irresistibly. A judicious Gentleman near me said, _I could, +methinks, be_ Miller's _Second, but I had rather have_ Buck _for +mine._ _Miller_ had an audacious Look, that took the Eye; _Buck_ a +perfect Composure, that engaged the Judgment. _Buck_ came on in a +plain Coat, and kept all his Air till the Instant of Engaging; at +which Time he undress'd to his Shirt, his Arm adorned with a Bandage +of red Ribband. No one can describe the sudden Concern in the whole +Assembly; the most tumultuous Crowd in Nature was as still and as much +engaged, as if all their Lives depended on the first blow. The +Combatants met in the Middle of the Stage, and shaking Hands as +removing all Malice, they retired with much Grace to the Extremities +of it; from whence they immediately faced about, and approached each +other. _Miller_ with an Heart full of Resolution, _Buck_ with a +watchful untroubled Countenance; _Buck_ regarding principally his own +Defence, _Miller_ chiefly thoughtful of annoying his Opponent. It is +not easie to describe the many Escapes and imperceptible Defences +between two Men of quick Eyes and ready Limbs; but _Miller's_ Heat +laid him open to the Rebuke of the calm _Buck_, by a large Cut on the +Forehead. Much Effusion of Blood covered his Eyes in a Moment, and the +Huzzas of the Crowd undoubtedly quickened the Anguish. The Assembly +was divided into Parties upon their different ways of Fighting; while +a poor Nymph in one of the Galleries apparently suffered for _Miller_, +and burst into a Flood of Tears. As soon as his Wound was wrapped up, +he came on again with a little Rage, which still disabled him further. +But what brave Man can be wounded into more Patience and Caution? The +next was a warm eager Onset which ended in a decisive Stroke on the +left Leg of _Miller_. The Lady in the Gallery, during this second +Strife, covered her Face; and for my Part, I could not keep my +Thoughts from being mostly employed on the Consideration of her +unhappy Circumstance that Moment, hearing the Clash of Swords, and +apprehending Life or Victory concerned her Lover in every Blow, but +not daring to satisfie herself on whom they fell. The Wound was +exposed to the View of all who could delight in it, and sewed up on +the Stage. The surly Second of _Miller_ declared at this Time, that he +would that Day Fortnight fight Mr. _Buck_ at the same Weapons, +declaring himself the Master of the renowned _Gorman_; but _Buck_ +denied him the Honour of that courageous Disciple, and asserting that +he himself had taught that Champion, accepted the Challenge. + +There is something in Nature very unaccountable on such Occasions, +when we see the People take a certain painful Gratification in +beholding these Encounters. Is it Cruelty that administers this Sort +of Delight? or is it a Pleasure which is taken in the Exercise of +Pity? It was methought pretty remarkable, that the Business of the Day +being a Trial of Skill, the Popularity did not run so high as one +would have expected on the Side of _Buck_. Is it that People's +Passions have their Rise in Self-love, and thought themselves (in +Spite of all the Courage they had) liable to the Fate of _Miller_, but +could not so easily think themselves qualified like _Buck_? + +_Tully_ speaks of this Custom with less Horrour than one would expect, +though he confesses it was much abused in his Time, and seems directly +to approve of it under its first Regulations, when Criminals only +fought before the People. _Crudele Gladiatorum spectaculum & inhumanum +nonnullis videri solet; & haud scio annon ita sit ut nunc fit; cum +vero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidem +nulla, poterat esse fortior contra dolorem & mortem disciplina. The +Shows of Gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhumane, and I know +not but it is so as it is now practised; but in those Times when only +Criminals were Combatants, the Ear perhaps might receive many better +Instructions, but it is impossible that any thing which affects our +Eyes, should fortifie us so well against Pain and Death._ + + _Steele._ + + + + +GOOD TEMPER + + +It is an unreasonable thing some Men expect of their Acquaintance. +They are ever complaining that they are out of Order, or displeas'd, +or they know not how; and are so far from letting that be a Reason for +retiring to their own Homes, that they make it their Argument for +coming into Company. What has any Body to do with Accounts of a Man's +being indispos'd but his Physician? If a man laments in Company, where +the rest are in Humour enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take +it ill if a Servant is order'd to present him with a Porringer of +Cawdle or Posset-drink, by way of Admonition that he go home to Bed. +That Part of Life which we ordinarily understand by the Word +Conversation, is an Indulgence to the sociable Part of our Make; and +should incline us to bring our Proportion of good Will or good Humour +among the Friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with Relations +which must of Necessity oblige them to a real or feign'd Affliction. +Cares, Distresses, Diseases, Uneasinesses, and Dislikes of our own, +are by no Means to be obtruded upon our Friends. If we would consider +how little of this Vicissitude of Motion and Rest, which we call Life, +is spent with Satisfaction; we should be more tender of our Friends, +than to bring them little Sorrows which do not belong to them. There +is no real Life, but chearful Life; therefore Valetudinarians should +be sworn, before they enter into Company, not to say a Word of +themselves till the Meeting breaks up. It is not here pretended, that +we should be always sitting with Chaplets of Flowers round our Heads, +or be crowned with Roses, in order to make our Entertainment agreeable +to us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to be +merry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be well +pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. +Whatever we do we should keep up the Chearfulness of our Spirits, and +never let them sink below an Inclination at least to be well pleased: +The Way to this, is to keep our Bodies in Exercise, our Minds at Ease. +That insipid State wherein neither are in Vigour, is not to be +accounted any Part of our Portion of Being. When we are in the +Satisfaction of some innocent Pleasure, or Pursuit of some laudable +Design, we are in the Possession of Life, of human Life. Fortune will +give us Disappointments enough, and Nature is attended with +Infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy Side of our +Account by our Spleen or ill Humour. Poor _Cottilus_, among so many +real Evils, a chronical Distemper and a narrow Fortune, is never heard +to complain: That equal Spirit of his, which any Man may have that, +like him, will conquer Pride, Vanity, and Affectation, and follow +Nature, is not to be broken, because it has no Points to contend for. +To be anxious for nothing but what Nature demands as necessary, if it +is not the way to an Estate, is the way to what Men aim at by getting +an Estate. This Temper will preserve Health in the Body, as well as +Tranquility in the Mind. _Cottilus_ sees the World in an Hurry, with +the same Scorn that a sober Person sees a Man drunk. Had he been +contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a +one have met with such a Disappointment? If another had valued his +Mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her +Power: If her Virtue had had a Part of his Passion, her Levity had +been his Cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the +same Time. + +Since we cannot promise our selves constant Health, let us endeavour +at such a Temper as may be our best Support in the Decay of it. +_Uranius_ has arrived at that Composure of Soul, and wrought himself +up to such a Neglect of every thing with which the Generality of +Mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute Pains can give him +Disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate Friends +he has a Secret which gives him present Ease. _Uranius_ is so +thoroughly perswaded of another Life, and endeavours so sincerely to +secure an Interest in it, that he looks upon Pain but as a quickening +of his Pace to an Home, where he shall be better provided for than in +his present Apartment. Instead of the melancholy Views which others +are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is +mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the Time of +his Birth he entered into an eternal Being; and the short Article of +Death he will not allow an Interruption of Life, since that Moment is +not of half the Duration as is his ordinary Sleep. Thus is his Being +one uniform and consistent Series of chearful Diversions and moderate +Cares, without Fear or Hope of Futurity. Health to him is more than +Pleasure to another Man, and Sickness less affecting to him than +Indisposition is to others. + +I must confess, if one does not regard Life after this Manner, none +but Idiots can pass it away with any tolerable Patience. Take a fine +Lady who is of a delicate Frame, and you may observe from the Hour she +rises a certain Weariness of all that passes about her. I know more +than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such +strange frightful People that they meet; one is so awkward and another +so disagreeable, that it looks like a Penance to breathe the same Air +with them. You see this is so very true, that a great Part of Ceremony +and Good-breeding among the Ladies turns upon their Uneasiness; and +I'll undertake, if the How-d'ye Servants of our Women were to make a +weekly Bill of Sickness, as the Parish Clerks do of Mortality, you +would not find in an Account of Seven Days, one in thirty that was not +downright Sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she +was, and so forth. + +It is certain, that to enjoy Life and Health as a constant Feast, we +should not think Pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at an +Equality of Mind. It is as mean to be overjoy'd upon Occasions of good +Fortune, as to be dejected in Circumstances of Distress. Laughter in +one Condition, is as unmanly as weeping in the other. We should not +form our Minds to expect Transport on every Occasion, but know how to +make Enjoyment to be out of Pain. Ambition, Envy, vagrant Desire, or +impertinent Mirth will take up our Minds, without we can possess our +selves in that Sobriety of Heart which is above all Pleasures, and can +be felt much better than described: But the ready Way, I believe, to +the right Enjoyment of Life, is by a Prospect towards another to have +but a very mean Opinion of it. A great Author of our Time has set this +in an excellent Light, when with a philosophick Pity of human Life he +spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following Manner. + +_For what is this Life but a Circulation of little mean Actions? We +lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work +or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the Circle +returns. We spend the Day in Trifles, and when the Night comes we +throw our selves into the Bed of Folly, amongst Dreams and broken +Thoughts and wild Imaginations. Our Reason lies asleep by us, and we +are for the Time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls or +in the Field. Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these? and +ought not his Ambition and Expectations to be greater? Let us be +Adventurers for another World: 'Tis at least a fair and noble Chance; +and there is nothing in this worth our Thoughts or our Passions. If we +should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our +Fellow-Mortals; and if we succeed in our Expectations, we are +eternally happy._ + + _Steele._ + + + + +THE EMPLOYMENTS OF A HOUSEWIFE IN THE COUNTRY + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from +the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of +your attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness +and diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this +sober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the +employments of those who look with contempt on the pleasures and +diversions of polite life, and employ all their powers of censure and +invective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly of dress, visits, +and conversation. + +When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to +the house where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together, +had at last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after the +civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and +tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if well +conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care and a +tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded and +every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation, +was, indeed, very full of the happiness which she received from my +visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, insisted that +I should recompense the long delay of my company with a promise not to +leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and caresses, she +very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxious +earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed to send +them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would +not suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must leave me +for a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but was again +disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the same +trepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of business +and solicitude. + +However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, and +however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as +naturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to +gratify myself with inquiries; but, finding none of the family in +mourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather see a +wedding than a funeral. + +At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the +young ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to inquire, was +under a necessity of attending some affair that could not be +neglected: soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity +of her family and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let +me know that they had purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was +usual, because they were to rise early in the morning to make +cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my chamber, to which I was +accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excuse some large +sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds of the floor, for +they intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no other +room that so conveniently received the rising sun. + +The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I rose +early in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I +stole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found +nothing either more great or elegant than in the same number of acres +cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that his +lady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I +was come hither at the time in which I might learn to make more +pickles and conserves than could be seen at any other house a hundred +miles round. + +It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities +of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own +accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some +sweetmeats which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two +long hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods of +conserving, reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with +great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these +terms were very often confounded; and hinted how much she should be +ashamed to set before company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark +a colour as she had often seen at Mistress Sprightly's. + +It is, indeed, the great business of her life to watch the skillet on +the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch +it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which she +has bred her daughters are to turn rose leaves in the shade, to pick +out the seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without +bruising it, and to extract bean flower water for the skin. Such are +the tasks with which every day, since I came hither, has begun and +ended, to which the early hours of life are sacrificed, and in which +that time is passing away which never shall return. + +But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has +settled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own +performances with all the firmness of stupidity accustomed to be +flattered. Her daughters, having never seen any house but their own, +believe their mother's excellence on her own word. Her husband is a +mere sportsman, who is pleased to see his table well furnished, and +thinks the day sufficiently successful in which he brings home a leash +of hares to be potted by his wife. + +After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me +that none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never +loved to see young women give their minds to such follies, by which +they would only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to +understand a house, and who ever should marry them, if they knew +anything of good cookery, would never repent it. + +There are, however, some things in the culinary science too sublime +for youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be +initiated till the years of serious maturity, and which are referred +to the day of marriage as the supreme qualification for connubial +life. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all the +neighbourhood, and which she has hitherto found means of mixing and +baking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its +flavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this great +affair with all the caution that human policy can suggest. It is never +known beforehand when this pudding will be produced; she takes the +ingredients privately into her own closet, employs her maids and +daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven to be +heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands: the +mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all inquiries are vain. + +The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda, +that if she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told without +reserve. But the art of making English capers she has not yet +persuaded herself to discover, but seems resolved that secret shall +perish with her, as some alchymists have obstinately suppressed the +art of transmuting metals. + +I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which she +left upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of gooseberry +wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event +sufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of the +danger to which her secrets were exposed, I was not able to make use +of the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was +so well concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, +her mother, and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it, +and lost the opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowing +the language in which its answers were returned. + +It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship's +esteem, that I should apply myself to some of these economical +accomplishments; for I overheard her, two days ago, warning her +daughters, by my mournful example, against negligence of pastry, and +ignorance in carving; for you saw, said she, that, with all her +pretensions to knowledge, she turned the partridge the wrong way when +she attempted to cut it, and, I believe, scarcely knows the difference +between paste raised and paste in a dish. + +The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's character +before you, is a desire to be informed whether in your opinion it is +worthy of imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which I +have hitherto thought it my duty to read, for _The Lady's Closet +opened_, _The complete Servant-maid_, and _The Court Cook_, and resign +all curiosity after right and wrong for the art of scalding damascenes +without bursting them, and preserving the whiteness of pickled +mushrooms. + +Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to fruits and +flowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herself +free from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. She +has no curiosity after the events of a war, or the fate of heroes in +distress; she can hear without the least emotion the ravage of a fire, +or devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, come +into the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is pressing +the jelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive that +she is more free from disquiet than those whose understandings take a +wider range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are often +scattered by the wind, the rain sometimes falls upon fruit when it +ought to be gathered dry. While her artificial wines are fermenting, +her whole life is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are not +always bright, and the maid sometimes forgets the just proportion of +salt and pepper, when venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, her +wines sour, and pickles mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, she +is every day mortified with the defeat of her schemes and the +disappointment of her hopes. + +With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. She +has no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has no +desire to be praised but for her cookery; nor wishes any ill to the +rest of mankind, but that whenever they aspire to a feast, their +custards may be wheyish, and their pie-crusts tough. + +I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladies +as the great pattern of our sex, and to consider conserves and pickles +as the business of my life; whether the censures which I now suffer be +just, and whether the brewers of wines, and the distillers of washes, +have a right to look with insolence on the weakness of + + CORNELIA. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE STAGE COACH + + + To _The Adventurer_. + + Sir, + +It has been observed, I think, by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, and after him by +almost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety of +characters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the liberty +prevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of being +wise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity of +hypocrisy or the servility of imitation. + +That the position itself is true, I am not completely satisfied. To be +nearly acquainted with the people of different countries can happen to +very few; and in life, as in every thing else beheld at a distance, +there appears an even uniformity: the petty discriminations which +diversify the natural character, are not discoverable but by a close +inspection; we, therefore, find them most at home, because there we +have most opportunities of remarking them. Much less am I convinced, +that his peculiar diversification, if it be real, is the consequence +of peculiar liberty; for where is the government to be found that +superintends individuals with so much vigilance, as not to leave their +private conduct without restraint? Can it enter into a reasonable mind +to imagine, that men of every other nation are not equally masters of +their own time or houses with ourselves, and equally at liberty to be +parsimonious or profuse, frolic or sullen, abstinent or luxurious? +Liberty is certainly necessary to the full play of predominant +humours; but such liberty is to be found alike under the government of +the many or the few, in monarchies or in commonwealths. + +How readily the predominant passion snatches an interval of liberty, +and how fast it expands itself when the weight of restraint is taken +away, I had lately an opportunity to discover, as I took a journey +into the country in a stage coach; which, as every journey is a kind +of adventure, may be very properly related to you, though I can +display no such extraordinary assembly as CERVANTES has collected at +DON QUIXOTE'S inn. + +In a stage coach the passengers are for the most part wholly unknown +to one another, and without expectation of ever meeting again when +their journey is at an end; one should, therefore, imagine, that it +was of little importance to any of them, what conjectures the rest +should form concerning him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselves +secure from detection, all assume that character of which they are +most desirous, and on no occasion is the general ambition of +superiority more apparently indulged. + +On the day of our departure, in the twilight of the morning, I +ascended the vehicle with three men and two women, my fellow +travellers. It was easy to observe the affected elevation of mien with +which every one entered, and the supercilious civility with which they +paid their compliments to each other. When the first ceremony was +dispatched, we sat silent for a long time, all employed in collecting +importance into our faces, and endeavouring to strike reverence and +submission into our companions. + +It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the +longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any +thing to say. We began now to wish for conversation; but no one seemed +inclined to descend from his dignity, or first to propose a topic of +discourse. At last a corpulent gentleman, who had equipped himself for +this expedition with a scarlet surtout and a large hat with a broad +lace, drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then held it +dangling at his finger. This was, I suppose, understood by all the +company as an invitation to ask the time of the day, but no body +appeared to heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so far +overcame his resentment, that he let us know of his own accord that it +was past five, and that in two hours we should be at breakfast. + +His condescension was thrown away; we continued all obdurate; the +ladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching their +behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in +counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over +his eyes and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew +that he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune and beat time +upon his snuff-box. + +Thus universally displeased with one another, and not much delighted +with ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for our +repast; and all began at once to recompense themselves for the +constraint of silence, by innumerable questions and orders to the +people that attended us. At last, what every one had called for was +got, or declared impossible to be got at that time, and we were +persuaded to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in the red +surtout looked again upon his watch, told us that we had half an hour +to spare, but he was sorry to see so little merriment among us; that +all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it +was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember," +says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my lord +Mumble and the duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at +a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, +not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, +and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all +ready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to +overhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was so +surprised and confounded that we could scarcely get a word from her; +and the duke never met me from that day to this, but he talks of the +little house, and quarrels with me for terrifying the landlady." + +He had scarcely had time to congratulate himself on the veneration +which this narrative must have procured him from the company, when one +of the ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part of the +table, began to remark the inconveniences of travelling, and the +difficulty which they who never sat at home without a great number of +attendants found in performing for themselves such offices as the road +required; but that people of quality often travelled in disguise, and +might be generally known from the vulgar by their condescension to +poor inn-keepers, and the allowance which they made for any defect in +their entertainment; that for her part, while people were civil and +meant well, it was never her custom to find fault, for one was not to +expect upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own house. + +A General emulation seemed now to be excited. One of the men, who had +hitherto said nothing, called for the last news paper; and having +perused it a-while with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible," says he, +"for any man to guess how to act with regard to the stocks: last week +it was the general opinion that they would fall; and I sold out twenty +thousand pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risen +unexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my return to London I shall +risk thirty thousand pounds amongst them again." + +A young man, who had hitherto distinguished himself only by the +vivacity of his look, and a frequent diversion of his eyes from one +object to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that +"he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges on +the subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to be +well acquainted with the principles on which they were established, +but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in +their produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been +advised by three judges his most intimate friends, never to venture +his money in the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till he +could light upon an estate in his own country." + +It might be expected that upon these glimpses of latent dignity, we +should all have began to look round us with veneration; and have +behaved like the princes of romance, when the enchantment that +disguises them is dissolved, and they discover the dignity of each +other: yet it happened, that none of these hints made much impression +on the company; every one was apparently suspected of endeavouring to +impose false appearances upon the rest; all continued their +haughtiness, in hopes to enforce their claims; and all grew every hour +more sullen, because they found their representations of themselves +without effect. + +Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence perpetually +increasing, and without any endeavour but to outvie each other in +superciliousness and neglect; and when any two of us could separate +ourselves for a moment, we vented our indignation at the sauciness of +the rest. + +At length the journey was at an end; and time and chance, that strip +off all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords and +dukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the money +he has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is the clerk +of a broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed her +quality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man, who +is so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribes +for bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I could +make no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed no +character, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, without +any struggle for distinction or superiority. + +I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud, +which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often to +succeed, and by the success of which no advantage could have been +obtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; and +of claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with the +breath that paid them. + +But, MR. ADVENTURER, let not those who laugh at me and my companions, +think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journey +of life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow +travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears those +praises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him for +accepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceiving +others; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shall +cease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and ALL must be +shown to ALL in their real estate. + + I am, Sir, + Your humble Servant, + VIATOR. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE SCHOLAR'S COMPLAINT OF HIS OWN BASHFULNESS + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +Though one of your correspondents has presumed to mention with some +contempt that presence of attention and easiness of address, which the +polite have long agreed to celebrate and esteem, yet I cannot be +persuaded to think them unworthy of regard or cultivation; but am +inclined to believe that as we seldom value rightly what we have never +known the misery of wanting, his judgment has been vitiated by his +happiness; and that a natural exuberance of assurance has hindered him +from discovering its excellence and use. + +This felicity, whether bestowed by constitution, or obtained by early +habitudes, I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under a +man of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignity +of knowledge and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonition +and confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe that the +splendour of literature would always attract reverence, if not +darkened by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessant +industry, and avoided everything which I had been taught to consider +either as vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt and +reproach as inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation the +greatest calamity. + +At the university I found no reason for changing my opinion; for +though many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a more +remiss discipline to gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved her +natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect, were not +suffered to insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments found +its way into the receptacles of learning, but was observed to seize +commonly on those who either neglected the sciences or could not +attain them; and I was therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my old +master, and thought nothing worthy of my care but the means of gaining +and imparting knowledge. + +This purity of manners and intenseness of application soon extended my +renown, and I was applauded by those whose opinion I then thought +unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of +future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province, +and my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours that +were added to their family. + +I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with +criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity, +and my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To +please will always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be +the constant aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as +about to receive the reward of my honest labours, and to find the +efficacy of learning and of virtue. + +The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who +had summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration of +his wedding day. I set forward with great exultation, and thought +myself happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge to +so numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, till +going upstairs to the dining-room, I heard the mingled roar of +obstreperous merriment. I was, however disgusted rather than +terrified, and went forward without dejection. The whole company rose +at my entrance; and when I saw so many eyes fixed at once upon me, I +was blasted with a sudden imbecility; I was quelled by some nameless +power which I found impossible to be resisted. My sight was dazzled, +my cheeks glowed, my perceptions were confounded; I was harassed by +the multitude of eager salutations, and returned the common civilities +with hesitation and impropriety; the sense of my own blunders +increased my confusion, and before the exchange of ceremonies allowed +me to sit down, I was ready to sink under the oppression of surprise; +my voice grew weak, and my knees trembled. + +The assembly then resumed their places, and I sat with my eyes fixed +upon the ground. To the questions of curiosity, or the appeals of +complaisance, I could seldom answer but with negative monosyllables, +or professions of ignorance; for the subjects on which they conversed +were such as are seldom discussed in books, and were therefore out of +my range of knowledge. At length an old clergyman, who rightly +conjectured the reason of my conciseness, relieved me by some +questions about the present state of natural knowledge, and engaged +me, by an appearance of doubt and opposition, in the explication and +defence of the Newtonian philosophy. + +The consciousness of my own abilities roused me from depression, and +long familiarity with my subject enabled me to discourse with ease and +volubility; but however I might please myself, I found very little +added by my demonstrations to the satisfaction of the company; and my +antagonist, who knew the laws of conversation too well to detain their +attention long upon an unpleasing topic, after he had commended my +acuteness and comprehension, dismissed the controversy, and resigned +me to my former insignificance and perplexity. + +After dinner I received from the ladies, who had heard that I was a +wit, an invitation to the tea table. I congratulated myself upon an +opportunity to escape from the company, whose gaiety began to be +tumultuous, and among whom several hints had been dropped of the +uselessness of universities, the folly of book learning, and the +awkwardness of scholars. To the ladies, therefore, I flew as to a +refuge from clamour, insult and rusticity; but found my heart sink as +I approached their apartment, and was again disconcerted by the +ceremonies of entrance, and confounded by the necessity of +encountering so many eyes at once. + +When I sat down I considered that something pretty was always said to +ladies, and resolved to recover my credit by some elegant observation +or graceful compliment. I applied myself to the recollection of all I +had read or heard in praise of beauty, and endeavoured to accommodate +some classical compliment to the present occasion. I sunk into +profound meditation, revolved the character of the heroines of old, +considered whatever the poets have sung in their praise, and after +having borrowed and invented, chosen and rejected a thousand +sentiments, which, if I had uttered them, would not have been +understood, I was awakened from my dream of learned gallantry by the +servant who distributed the tea. + +There are not many situations more incessantly uneasy than that in +which the man is placed who is watching an opportunity to speak +without courage to take it when it is offered, and who, though he +resolves to give a specimen of his abilities, always finds some reason +or other for delaying it to the next minute. I was ashamed of silence, +yet could find nothing to say of elegance or importance equal to my +wishes. The ladies, afraid of my learning, thought themselves not +qualified to propose any subject to prattle to a man so famous for +dispute, and there was nothing on either side but impatience and +vexation. + +In this conflict of shame, as I was reassembling my scattered +sentiments, and, resolving to force my imagination to some sprightly +sally, had just found a very happy compliment, by too much attention +to my own meditations, I suffered the saucer to drop from my hand, the +cup was broken, the lapdog was scalded, a brocaded petticoat was +stained, and the whole assembly was thrown into disorder. I now +considered all hopes of reputation as at an end, and while they were +consoling and assisting one another, stole away in silence. + +The misadventures of this happy day are not yet at an end; I am afraid +of meeting the meanest of them that triumphed over me in this state of +stupidity and contempt, and feel the same terrors encroaching upon my +heart at the sight of those who have once impressed them. Shame, above +any other passion, propagates itself. Before those who have seen me +confused I can never appear without new confusion, and the remembrance +of the weakness which I formerly discovered hinders me from acting or +speaking with my natural force. + +But is this misery, Mr. Rambler, never to cease? Have I spent my life +in study only to become the sport of the ignorant, and debarred myself +from all the common enjoyments of youth to collect ideas which must +sleep in silence, and form opinions which I must not divulge? Inform +me, dear sir, by what means I may rescue my faculties from these +shackles of cowardice, how I may rise to a level with my fellow +beings, recall myself from this languor of involuntary subjection to +the free exertion of my intellects, and add to the power of reasoning +the liberty of speech. + + I am, sir, etc., + VERECUNDULUS. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE MISERY OF A MODISH LADY IN SOLITUDE + + + To _The Rambler_. + + MR. RAMBLER, + +I am no great admirer of grave writings, and therefore very frequently +lay your papers aside before I have read them through; yet I cannot +but confess that, by slow degrees, you have raised my opinion of your +understanding, and that, though I believe it will be long before I can +be prevailed upon to regard you with much kindness, you have, however, +more of my esteem than those whom I sometimes make happy with +opportunities to fill my teapot, or pick up my fan. I shall therefore +choose you for the confident of my distresses, and ask your counsel +with regard to the means of conquering or escaping them, though I +never expect from you any of that softness and pliancy which +constitutes the perfection of a companion for the ladies: as, in the +place where I now am, I have recourse to the mastiff for protection, +though I have no intention of making him a lapdog. + +My mamma is a very fine lady, who has more numerous and more frequent +assemblies at our house than any other person in the same quarter of +the town. I was bred from my earliest infancy to a perpetual tumult of +pleasure, and remember to have heard of little else than messages, +visits, playhouses, and balls; of the awkwardness of one woman, and +the coquetry of another; the charming convenience of some rising +fashion, the difficulty of playing a new game, the incidents of a +masquerade, and the dresses of a court night. I knew before I was ten +years old all the rules of paying and receiving visits, and to how +much civility every one of my acquaintance was entitled: and was able +to return, with the proper degree of reserve or vivacity, the stated +and established answer to every compliment; so that I was very soon +celebrated as a wit and a beauty, and had heard before I was thirteen +all that is ever said to a young lady. My mother was generous to so +uncommon a degree as to be pleased with my advance into life, and +allowed me, without envy or reproof, to enjoy the same happiness with +herself; though most women about her own age were very angry to see +young girls so forward, and many fine gentlemen told her how cruel it +was to throw new claims upon mankind, and to tyrannize over them at +the same time with her own charms and those of her daughter. + +I have now lived two and twenty years, and have passed of each year +nine months in town, and three at Richmond; so that my time has been +spent uniformly in the same company and the same amusements, except as +fashion has introduced new diversions, or the revolutions of the gay +world have afforded new successions of wits and beaux. However, my +mother is so good an economist of pleasure that I have no spare hours +upon my hands; for every morning brings some new appointment, and +every night is hurried away by the necessity of making our appearance +at different places, and of being with one lady at the opera, and with +another at the card-table. + +When the time came of settling our scheme of felicity for the summer, +it was determined that I should pay a visit to a rich aunt in a remote +county. As you know the chief conversation of all tea-tables, in the +spring, arises from a communication of the manner in which time is to +be passed till winter, it was a great relief to the barrenness of our +topics to relate the pleasures that were in store for me, to describe +my uncle's seat, with the park and gardens, the charming walks and +beautiful waterfalls; and everyone told me how much she envied me, and +what satisfaction she had once enjoyed in a situation of the same +kind. + +As we are all credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine some +latent satisfaction in any thing which we have not experienced, I will +confess to you, without restraint, that I had suffered my head to be +filled with expectations of some nameless pleasure in a rural life, +and that I hoped for the happy hour that should set me free from +noise, and flutter, and ceremony, dismiss me to the peaceful shade, +and lull me in content and tranquility. To solace myself under the +misery of delay, I sometimes heard a studious lady of my acquaintance +read pastorals, I was delighted with scarce any talk but of leaving +the town, and never went to bed without dreaming of groves, and +meadows, and frisking lambs. + +At length I had all my clothes in a trunk, and saw the coach at the +door; I sprung in with ecstasy, quarreled with my maid for being too +long in taking leave of the other servants, and rejoiced as the ground +grew less which lay between me and the completion of my wishes. A few +days brought me to a large old house, encompassed on three sides with +woody hills, and looking from the front on a gentle river, the sight +of which renewed all my expectations of pleasure, and gave me some +regret for having lived so long without the enjoyment which these +delightful scenes were now to afford me. My aunt came out to receive +me, but in a dress so far removed from the present fashion that I +could scarcely look upon her without laughter, which would have been +no kind requital for the trouble which she had taken to make herself +fine against my arrival. The night and the next morning were driven +along with inquiries about our family; my aunt then explained our +pedigree, and told me stories of my great grandfather's bravery in the +civil wars; nor was it less than three days before I could persuade +her to leave me to myself. + +At last economy prevailed; she went in the usual manner about her own +affairs, and I was at liberty to range in the wilderness, and sit by +the cascade. The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for a +while, but after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon began +to perceive that the country was not my element; that shades, and +flowers, and lawns, and waters had very soon exhausted all their power +of pleasing, and that I had not in myself any fund of satisfaction +with which I could supply the loss of my customary amusements. + +I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that I +had leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only are yet gone, and how +shall I live through the remaining four? I go out and return; I pluck +a flower, and throw it away; I catch an insect, and when I have +examined its colours, set it at liberty; I fling a pebble into the +water, and see one circle spread after another. When it chances to +rain I walk in the great hall, and watch the minute-hand upon the +dial, or play with a litter of kittens which the cat happens to have +brought in a lucky time. + +My aunt is afraid I shall grow melancholy, and therefore encourages +the neighbouring gentry to visit us. They came at first with great +eagerness to see the fine lady from London, but when we met we had no +common topic on which we could converse; they had no curiosity after +plays, operas, or music; and I find as little satisfaction from their +accounts of the quarrels or alliances of families, whose names, when +once I can escape, I shall never hear. The women have now seen me, +know how my gown is made, and are satisfied; the men are generally +afraid of me, and say little, because they think themselves not at +liberty to talk rudely. + +Thus am I condemned to solitude; the day moves slowly forward, and I +see the dawn with uneasiness, because I consider that night is at a +great distance. I have tried to sleep by a brook, but find its murmurs +ineffectual; so that I am forced to be awake at least twelve hours, +without visits, without cards, without laughter, and without flattery. +I walk because I am disgusted with sitting still, and sit down because +I am weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object of +love, or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot dress with spirit, +for I have neither rival nor admirer. I cannot dance without a +partner, nor be kind, or cruel, without a lover. + +Such is the life of Euphelia, and such it is likely to continue for a +month to come. I have not yet declared against existence, nor called +upon the destinies to cut my thread; but I have sincerely resolved not +to condemn myself to such another summer, nor too hastily to flatter +myself with happiness. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those who +never thought themselves so much at ease as in solitude, and cannot +but suspect it to be some way or other my own fault, that, without +great pain, either of mind or body, I am thus weary of myself: that +the current of youth stagnates, and that I am languishing in a dead +calm for want of some external impulse. I shall, therefore, think you +a benefactor to our sex, if you will teach me the art of living alone; +for I am confident that a thousand and a thousand and a thousand +ladies, who affect to talk with ecstasies of the pleasures of the +country, are, in reality, like me, longing for the winter, and wishing +to be delivered from themselves by company and diversion. + + I am, sir, yours, + EUPHELIA. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE HISTORY OF AN ADVENTURER IN LOTTERIES + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +As I have passed much of life in disquiet and suspense, and lost many +opportunities of advantage by a passion which I have reason to believe +prevalent in different degrees over a great part of mankind, I cannot +but think myself well qualified to warn those, who are yet +uncaptivated of the danger which they incur by placing themselves +within its influence. + +I served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, with uncommon reputation +for diligence and fidelity; and at the age of three-and-twenty opened +a shop for myself with a large stock, and such credit among all the +merchants, who were acquainted with my master, that I could command +whatever was imported curious or valuable. For five years I proceeded +with success proportionate to close application and untainted +integrity; was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notes +before they were due; and advanced so fast in commercial reputation +that I was proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, and +every one expected that a few years would make me an alderman. + +In this course of even propensity, I was one day persuaded to buy a +ticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, part was to be +repaid though fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore my +established maxims of frugality did not restrain me from so trifling +an experiment. The ticket lay almost forgotten till the time at which +every man's fate was to be determined; nor did the affairs even then +seem of any importance, till I discovered by the public papers that +the number next to mine had conferred the great prize. + +My heart leaped at the thoughts of such an approach of sudden riches, +which I considered myself, however contrarily to the laws of +computation, as having missed by a single chance; and I could not +forbear to revolve the consequences which such a bounteous allotment +would have produced, if it had happened to me. This dream of felicity, +by degrees, took possession of my imagination. The great delight of my +solitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations with +money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but +I spoiled their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck. + +At length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated my +imagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressed +among the first purchasers, had not my ardour been withheld by +deliberation upon the probability of success from one ticket rather +than another. I hesitated long between even and off; considered the +square and cubic numbers through the lottery; examined all those to +which good luck had been hitherto annexed; and at last fixed upon one, +which, by some secret relation to the events of my life, I thought +predestined to make me happy. Delay in great affairs is often +mischievous; the ticket was sold, and its possessor could not be +found. + +I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication, +fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Never did +captive, heir, or lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace of +time, as I suffered between the purchase of my ticket and the +distribution of the prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as well as I +could, by frequent contemplations of approaching happiness; when the +sun arose I knew it would set, and congratulated myself at night that +I was so much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket +appeared, and rewarded all my care and sagacity with a despicable +prize of fifty pounds. + +My friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success, were very coldly +received; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrin +might fume away without observation, and then returning to my shop, +began to listen after another lottery. + +With the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now found +the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I resolved to +take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not +omitting, however, to divide them between the even and odd numbers, +that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form, +and many experiments did I try to determine from which of those +tickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable +to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon +dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing +them in a garret; and examining the event by an exact register, found, +on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers +had been turned up five times more than any of the rest in three +hundred and thirty thousand throws. + +This experiment was fallacious; the first day presented the hopeful +ticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different fortune, +and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds by this great adventure. + +I had now wholly changed the cast of my behaviour and the conduct of +my life. The shop was for the most part abandoned to my servants, and +if I entered it, my thoughts were so engrossed by my tickets that I +scarcely heard or answered a question, but considered every customer +as an intruder upon my meditations, whom I was in haste to dispatch. I +mistook the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgot +to file my receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. My +acquaintances by degrees began to fall away; but I perceived the +decline of my business with little emotion, because whatever +deficience there might be in my gains I expected the next lottery to +supply. + +Miscarriage naturally produced diffidence; I began now to seek +assistance against ill luck, by an alliance with those that had been +more successful. I inquired diligently at what office any prize had +been sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; solicited +those who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me +in my new tickets, and whenever I met with one that had in any event +of his life been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a larger +share. I had, by this rule of conduct, so diffused my interest, that I +had a fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and a +sixteenth of ninety. + +I waited for the decision of my fate with my former palpitations, and +looked upon the business of my trade with the usual neglect. The wheel +at last was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long succession +of sorrows and disappointments. I indeed often partook of a small +prize, and the loss of one day was generally balanced by the gain of +the next; but my desires yet remained unsatisfied, and when one of my +chances had failed, all my expectation was suspended on those which +remained yet undetermined. At last a prize of five thousand pounds was +proclaimed; I caught fire at the cry, and inquiring the number, found +it to be one of my own tickets, which I had divided among those on +whose luck I depended, and of which I had retained only a sixteenth +part. + +You will easily judge with what detestation of himself a man thus +intent upon gain reflected that he had sold a prize which was once in +his possession. It was to no purpose that I represented to my mind the +impossibility of recalling the past, or the folly of condemning an +act, which only its event, an event which no human intelligence could +foresee, proved to be wrong. The prize which, though put in my hands, +had been suffered to slip from me, filled me with anguish; and knowing +that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up +silently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest. + +My indisposition soon became visible: I was visited by my friends, and +among them by Eumathes, a clergyman, whose piety and learning gave him +such an ascendant over me that I could not refuse to open my heart. +There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in the +hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate +futurity, and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind +of casual adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate to +his hope. You have long wasted that time which, by a proper +application, would have certainly, though moderately, increased your +fortune, in a laborious and anxious pursuit of a species of gain which +no labour or anxiety, no art or expedient, can secure or promote. You +are now fretting away your life in repentance of an act against which +repentance can give no caution but to avoid the occasion of committing +it. Rouse from this lazy dream of fortuitous riches, which if +obtained, you could scarcely have enjoyed, because they could confer +no consciousness of desert; return to rational and manly industry, and +consider the mere gift of luck as below the care of a wise man. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO + + +In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a +magnificent eulogy on my old school,[6] 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. + +[Footnote 6: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.] + +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 penniless (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 print-shops, 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 cruellest penalties, forbade 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----,[7] 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. Kitts,--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. + +[Footnote 7: Hodges.] + +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 _by 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.[8] This was the penalty for +the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of +him in the next degree? + +[Footnote 8: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, +accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of 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.] + +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 schoolfellows, +whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforward to share no more; +the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time; 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 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 Pyrenees. 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 stayed 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 stayed, 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 operation; 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 Phędrus. 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.[9] 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." + +[Footnote 9: Cowley.] + +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 cramped to +barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those +periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[10]--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 different omen. The one serene, smiling, +fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old discoloured, +unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe 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 headlong entry into the schoolroom, 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. + +[Footnote 10: In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his +coadjutor. 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_.] + +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.[11] +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----,[12] 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----,[13] +ill-fated M----![14] of these the Muse is silent. + +[Footnote 11: Trollope.] + +[Footnote 12: Thornton.] + +[Footnote 13: Scott; died in Bedlam.] + +[Footnote 14: Maunde; dismissed school.] + + Finding some of Edward's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of 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, entranced 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----,[15] "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." + +[Footnote 15: Charles Valentine Le Grice.] + +Nor shalt 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 _Nireus +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----;[16] 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----,[17] the present master of Hertford, with +Marmaduke T----,[18] mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends +still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. + +[Footnote 16: Favell; left Cambridge, ashamed of his father, who was a +housepainter there.] + +[Footnote 17: Franklin.] + +[Footnote 18: Thompson.] + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 we 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 Ętna. 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 Slipshod--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----,[19] 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----,[20] thy last patron, is flown. + +[Footnote 19: Ramsay.] + +[Footnote 20: Granville Sharp.] + + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapt in lead.-- + +Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, 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, had 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_. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 +_ą 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 symbolised 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 nighttime 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 +realised 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 bedfellow, 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 daylight, 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.[21] 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. + +[Footnote 21: Thornton Hunt.] + +Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimęras--dire stories of Celęno 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.[22] + +[Footnote 22: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.] + +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 +ante-mundane 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, marketplaces, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an +inexpressible sense of delight--a map-like distinctness of trace--and +a daylight 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 Abora, 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 familiarisation 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 humourist, +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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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.[23] 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. + +[Footnote 23: Field.] + +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 versā_--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 Anglicised, +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 Shakespeare--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. I 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 twelvemonths--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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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[24] (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. [Footnote 24: Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, is meant, +where Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper.] 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 eyebrows 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 Cęsars, 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 panels, 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 slily 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 over +half 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 everybody, 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 +quarrelled 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 call 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 +armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget +unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS + + +I like to meet a sweep--understand me--not a grown sweeper--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 toward 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 ventured +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, quick-reaching +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 pie-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 but now 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[25] BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. [Footnote +25: John Fenwick.] 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG + + +Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M.[26] 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. [Footnote 26: Thomas +Manning.] 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 +Cook's 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 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 crumbs 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 hailstones, 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 morning, 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 +immunditię_, 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 _pręludium_, +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 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 to 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 chickens (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 everything." 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 sweetmeat, 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 crumbs, 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 our +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 +birthdays--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." Everyone 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 suffiaminandus 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 choses the former--because he +does. She calls the servant _Sir_; and insists on not troubling him to +hold her plate. The housekeeper patronises her. The children's +governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the +piano for harpsichord. + +Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a noticeable instance of the +disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity +constituting a claim to an acquaintance_, may subject the spirit of a +gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and a +lady with a 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 to 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 depths 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 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 anything 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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, wrapt 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 around, +watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which, +when it did, first one, and then the other--with a solicitude and +apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dim 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 entertainments 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 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +OLD CHINA + + +I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see +any great house, I enquire 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, had 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 +overshade 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 daybreak--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 overworn +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 came 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 savoury 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 woman 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 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 a 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 straighten--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 fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once more +struggling up those inconvenient stair cases, pushed about, and +squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble or 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-Madonaish chit of a lady in that very blue summer house." + + _Lamb._ + + + + +POPULAR FALLACIES + + +I + +THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST + +Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who 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 envelopes 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. + + +II + +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. + + +III + +THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK + +At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night gear, +and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are 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. We 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 +headaches; 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 choose 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 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? + + _Lamb._ + + + + +WHITSUN-EVE + + +The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our +house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might, +with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf or hung up in a +tree, would be utterly unbearable in wet weather were it not that we +have a retreat out of doors, and a very pleasant retreat it is. To +make my readers comprehend it I must describe our whole territories. + +Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage at +one end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court +running along one side; and a long thatched shed, open towards the +garden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the other. The bottom is +bounded half by an old wall and half by an old paling, over which we +see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and +paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honeysuckles, and +jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between +them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent +bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts, +breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the +buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of +rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds +by a row of geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room. + +I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with +the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting +up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as +thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, +intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we +may guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I +know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower, +with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted so +gloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the little +birds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests--for there are +always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry of +cherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which covers our +walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as they +sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which the +country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[27] that +bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest +flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the +jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the geranium, +whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast: that +insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest; +always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-supported, and whose +wings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so +lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture +of rich flowers and leaves, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty +to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily it +resembles a picture in more qualities than one--it is fit for nothing +but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framed +canvas. There are walks, to be sure--tiny paths of smooth gravel, by +courtesy called such--but they are so overhung by roses and lilies, +and such gay encroachers--so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease, +and mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edge +through them occasionally for the purpose of planting, or weeding, or +watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of +walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and +trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footed +denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go +out for a walk towards sunset, just as if we had not been sitting in +the open air all day. + +[Footnote 27: Sphinx lugustri, privet hawk-moth.] + +What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday +night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is +Whitsun-Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London +journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit +their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and +liveliest of any; for even the gambols and merry-makings of Christmas +offer but a poor enjoyment compared with the rural diversions, the +Mayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide. + +We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by the +men, who, since a certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I +am sorry to say, rather chop-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for +the honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben +Kirby, marched in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday after +our melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and +beat them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory. +Our boys enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it had +like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the +Beech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stone, enraged +past all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at +Ben Kirby with so true an aim that if that sagacious leader had not +warily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probably +have been a coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would have +been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that the +cricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards +off, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum, +the umpires, both say they never saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos +Stone live to be a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'll +be a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday with his party to play +the return match, the umpires having respectively engaged Farmer +Thackum that Amos shall keep the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall give +no unnecessary or wanton provocation--a nicely worded and lawyer-like +clause, and one that proves that Tom Coper hath his doubts of the +young gentleman's discretion; and, of a truth, so have I. I would not +be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the security is worded--no! not +for a white double dahlia, the present object of my ambition. + +This village of ours is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all +the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to +call them together. I must try to give some notion of the various +figures. + +First, there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door +customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table +smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's +fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are +surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their +ball is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint +superintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing much verbal +respect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment and +experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all; +whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less trusted +commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting +the waxed twine round the handles of the bats--the poor bats, which +please nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little and +too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and too large. +Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greater +delight--even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the street is +the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a day's +holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery, whom +she is trying to curtsy off before her deaf grandmother sees him. I +wonder whether she will succeed! + +Ascending the hill are two couples of a different description. Daniel +Tubb and his fair Valentine, walking boldly along like licensed +lovers; they have been asked twice in church, and are to be married on +Tuesday; and closely following that happy pair, near each other but +not together, come Jem Tanner and Mabel Green, the poor culprits of +the wheat-hoeing. Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The course +of true love doth not yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodges +along, whistling "Cherry-ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and to +be thinking of nobody; but every now and then he pauses in his +negligent saunter, and turns round outright to steal a glance at +Mabel, who, on her part, is making believe to walk with poor Olive +Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even affecting to talk and to +listen to that gentle, humble creature, as she points to the wild +flowers on the common, and the lambs and children disporting amongst +the gorse, but whose thought and eyes are evidently fixed on Jem +Tanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing smile, and +half springs forward to meet him: whilst Olive has broken off the +conversation as soon as she perceived the pre-occupation of her +companion, and begun humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or three +lines of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," and "Gi'e +me a glance of thy bonny black e'e," were never better exemplified +than in the couple before her. Really, it is curious to watch them, +and to see how gradually the attraction of this tantalising vicinity +becomes irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his pretty +mistress like the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to the +deepening twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humour +of the happy lads and lasses who are passing and repassing on all +sides--or rather, perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the +kind villagers, the squinting lover, and the whole world. On they +trip, arm in arm, he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing face +under her bonnet, and she hanging down her head, and avoiding his gaze +with a mixture of modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the rural +beauty. On they go, with a reality and intensity of affection which +must overcome all obstacles; and poor Olive follows her with an +evident sympathy in their happiness which makes her almost as enviable +as they; and we pursue our walk amidst the moonshine and the +nightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart looming in the distance, and the +merry sounds of Whitsuntide, the shout, the laugh, and the song, +echoing all around us, like "noises of the air." + + _Mary Russell Mitford._ + + + + +ON GOING A JOURNEY + + +One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I +like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, +nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when +alone. + + "The fields his study, nature was his book." + +I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I +am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for +criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to +forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this +purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I +like more elbow-room, and fewer incumbrances. I like solitude, when I +give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for + + "----a friend in my retreat, + Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet." + +The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do +just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all +impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much +more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little +breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation + + "May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, + That in the various bustle of resort + Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd," + +that I absent myself from the town for awhile, without feeling at a +loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a +post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary +the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with +impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green +turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' +march to dinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start +some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for +joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past +being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into +the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten +things, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon my +eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead +of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull +common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which +alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, +antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes +had rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I have +just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is +with me "very stuff of the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet +without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its +coat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that +has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better then +keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to +yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant +horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore +prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody +fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries. +But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you +are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out +upon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either entirely +to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be +silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was +pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that "he thought it a +bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an +Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time." So I cannot talk and +think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits +and starts, "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, "were it +but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It is +beautifully said: but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes +interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, +and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of +dumb show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a +toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature, without being +perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of +others. I am for the synthetical method on a journey, in preference to +the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to +examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions +float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have +them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I +like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are +alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to +argue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not +for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a beanfield crossing the +road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a +distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his +glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the +colour of a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you +are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy +craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, +and in the end probably produces ill humour. Now I never quarrel with +myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it +necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you +may not be of accord on the objects and circumstances that present +themselves before you--these may recal a number of objects, and lead +to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated +to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly +clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way +to our feelings before company, seems extravagance or affectation; and +on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at +every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise +the end is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We must +"give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend C----, +however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful +explanatory way over hill and dale, a summer's day, and convert a +landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far above +singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, +I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling +theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to +hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had "that fine +madness in them which our first poets had;" and if they could have +been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains +as the following. + + "----Here be woods as green + As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet + As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet + Face of the curled stream, with flow'rs as many + As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; + Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, + Arbours o'ergrown with woodbine, caves and dells; + Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing, + Or gather rushes to make many a ring + For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love, + How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, + First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes + She took eternal fire that never dies; + How she convey'd him softly in a sleep, + His temples bound with poppy, to the steep + Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, + Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, + To kiss her sweetest."---- + + Faithful Shepherdess. + +Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake +the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening +clouds: but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and +closes up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out +on the spot:--I must have time to collect myself.-- + +In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be +reserved for Table-talk. L---- is for this reason, I take it, the +worst company in the world out of doors; because he is the best +within. I grant, there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk +on a journey; and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get +to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation +or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every +mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the +end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted +just at the approach of night-fall, or to come to some straggling +village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and +then after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place +affords, to "take one's ease at one's inn!" These eventful moments in +our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt +happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I +would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: they +will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicate +speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea, + + "The cups that cheer, but not inebriate," + +and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what +we shall have for supper--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in +onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once +fixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is +not to be disparaged. Then in the intervals of pictured scenery and +Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the +kitchen--_Procul, O procul este profani!_ These hours are sacred to +silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed +the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in +idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I +would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes his +hue and character from the time and place; he is a part of the +furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West +Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to +sympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. I associate nothing +with my travelling companion but present objects and passing events. +In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself. +But a friend reminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, and +destroys the abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciously +between us and our imaginary character. Something is dropped in the +course of conversation that gives a hint of your profession and +pursuits; or from having some one with you that knows the less sublime +portions of your history, it seems that other people do. You are no +longer a citizen of the world: but your "unhoused free condition is +put into circumscription and confine." The _incognito_ of an inn is +one of its striking privileges--"lord of one's-self, uncumber'd with a +name." Oh! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and of +public opinion--to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting +personal identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature +of the moment, clear of all ties--to hold to the universe only by a +dish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the score of the +evening--and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt, +to be known by no other title than _the Gentleman in the parlour_! One +may take one's choice of all characters in this romantic state of +uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitely +respectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice and +disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be +objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more +those hackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the world: an inn +restores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! I +have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns--sometimes when I +have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some +metaphysical problem, as once at Witham-common, where I found out the +proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas--at +other times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. +Neot's, (I think it was) where I first met with Gribelin's engravings +of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn on +the borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some of +Westall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I +had, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had +ferried me over the Severn, standing up in the boat between me and the +twilight--at other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with a +peculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night +to read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, +after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got +through two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the tenth +of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the +inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The +letter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as +he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de +Vaud, which I had brought with me as a _bon bouche_ to crown the +evening with. It was my birth-day, and I had for the first time come +from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The +road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing +a certain point, you come all at once upon the valley, which opens +like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on +either side, with "green upland swells that echo to the bleat of +flocks" below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the +midst of them. The valley at this time "glittered green with sunny +showers," and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the +chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high road +that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which I +have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems. But besides the prospect +which opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight, +a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope +could make them, these four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE; +which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idle +gaze. + + "The beautiful is vanished, and returns not." + +Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; but I +would return to it alone. What other self could I find to share that +influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which I +could hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken and +defaced! I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice +of years that separates me from what I then was. I was at that time +going shortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. Where is he +now? Not only I myself have changed; the world, which was then new to +me, has become old and incorrigible. Yet will I turn to thee in +thought, O sylvan Dee, in joy, in youth and gladness as thou then +wert; and thou shalt always be to me the river of Paradise, where I +will drink of the waters of life freely! + +There is hardly any thing that shows the short-sightedness or +capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With +change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings. +We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves to old and +long-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again; +but we forget those that we have just left. It seems that we can think +but of one place at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of a +certain extent, and if we paint one set of objects upon it, they +immediately efface every other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we +only shift our point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the +enraptured eye, we take our fill of it, and seem as if we could form +no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think no more of +it: the horizon that shuts it from our sight, also blots it from our +memory like a dream. In travelling through a wild barren country, I +can form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me that +all the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we +forget the town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond Hyde +Park," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "all is a desert." All that part of +the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in our +conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not one +prospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom to +kingdom, lands to seas, making an image voluminous and vast;--the mind +can form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a single +glance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of +arithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of that +immense mass of territory and population, known by the name of China +to us? An inch of paste-board on a wooden globe, of no more account +than a China orange! Things near us are seen of the size of life: +things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding. +We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend the texture +of our own being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember an +infinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechanical +instrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must play them +in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at the same time +excludes all others. In trying to renew old recollections, we cannot +as it were unfold the whole web of our existence; we must pick out the +single threads. So in coming to a place where we have formerly lived +and with which we have intimate associations, every one must have +found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach the +spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression: we remember +circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names, that we had not +thought of for years; but for the time all the rest of the world is +forgotten!--To return to the question I have quitted above. + +I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, in +company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the +former reason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and will bear +talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but communicable and +overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will +bear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. In +setting out on a party of pleasure, the first consideration always is +where we shall go to: in taking a solitary ramble, the question is +what we shall meet with by the way. "The mind is its own place;" nor +are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself do +the honours indifferently well to works of art and curiosity. I once +took a party to Oxford with no mean _eclat_--shewed them that seat of +the Muses at a distance, + + "With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd"-- + +descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadrangles +and stone walls of halls and colleges--was at home in the Bodleian; +and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Ciceroni that attended +us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to common-place beauties in +matchless pictures.--As another exception to the above reasoning, I +should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign +country without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear the +sound of my own language. There is an involuntary antipathy in the +mind of an Englishman to foreign manners and notions that requires the +assistance of social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from +home increases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a +passion and an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find +himself in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen: there +must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome that +claims the utterance of speech; and I own that the Pyramids are too +mighty for any simple contemplation. In such situations, so opposite +to all one's ordinary train of ideas, one seems a species by +one's-self, a limb torn off from society, unless one can meet with +instant fellowship and support.--Yet I did not feel this want or +craving very pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing +shores of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. The +confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine poured into +my ears; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was sung from the top of an +old crazy vessel in the harbour, as the sun went down, send an alien +sound into my soul. I only breathed the air of general humanity. I +walked over "the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France," erect +and satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down and chained to +the foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at no loss for language, for that +of all the great schools of painting was open to me. The whole is +vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom, all are fled: +nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people!--There is +undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts that is to be +had nowhere else: but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It +is too remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic of +discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state of +existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an +animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort to +exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse of +our old transports revive very keenly, we must "jump" all our present +comforts and connexions. Our romantic and itinerant character is not +to be domesticated. Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign travel +added to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad. +In fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful and in one +sense instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial, +downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not the +same, but another, and perhaps more enviable individual, all the time +we are out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves, as well as +our friends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings, + + "Out of my country and myself I go." + +Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent +themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recal them: but +we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us +birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of +my life in travelling abroad, if I could any where borrow another life +to spend afterwards at home! + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +ON LIVING TO ONE'S-SELF[28] + + "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, + Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po." + +[Footnote 28: Written at Winterslow Hut, January 18th-19th, 1821.] + + +I never was in a better place or humour than I am at present for +writing on this subject. I have a partridge getting ready for my +supper, my fire is blazing on the hearth, the air is mild for the +season of the year, I have had but a slight fit of indigestion to-day +(the only thing that makes me abhor myself), I have three hours good +before me, and therefore I will attempt it. It is as well to do it at +once as to have it to do for a week to come. + +If the writing on this subject is no easy task, the thing itself is a +harder one. It asks a troublesome effort to ensure the admiration of +others: it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's own +thoughts. As I look from the window at the wide bare heath before me, +and through the misty moon-light air see the woods that wave over the +top of Winterslow, + + "While Heav'n's chancel-vault is blind with sleet," + +my mind takes its flight through too long a series of years, supported +only by the patience of thought and secret yearnings after truth and +good, for me to be at a loss to understand the feeling I intend to +write about; but I do not know that this will enable me to convey it +more agreeably to the reader. + +Lady G. in a letter to Miss Harriet Byron, assures her that "her +brother Sir Charles lived to himself:" and Lady L. soon after (for +Richardson was never tired of a good thing) repeats the same +observation; to which Miss Byron frequently returns in her answers to +both sisters--"For you know Sir Charles lives to himself," till at +length it passes into a proverb among the fair correspondents. This is +not, however, an example of what I understand by _living to +one's-self_, for Sir Charles Grandison was indeed always thinking of +himself; but by this phrase I mean never thinking at all about +one's-self, any more than if there was no such person in existence. +The character I speak of is as little of an egotist as possible: +Richardson's great favourite was as much of one as possible. Some +satirical critic has represented him in Elysium "bowing over the +_faded_ hand of Lady Grandison" (Miss Byron that was)--he ought to +have been represented bowing over his own hand, for he never admired +any one but himself, and was the god of his own idolatry. Neither do I +call it living to one's-self to retire into a desert (like the saints +and martyrs of old) to be devoured by wild beasts, nor to descend into +a cave to be considered as a hermit, nor to get to the top of a pillar +or rock to do fanatic penance and be seen of all men. What I mean by +living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it +is as if no one knew there was such a person, and you wished no one to +know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, +not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, +anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the +slightest inclination to make or meddle with it. It is such a life as +a pure spirit might be supposed to lead, and such an interest as it +might take in the affairs of men, calm, contemplative, passive, +distant, touched with pity for their sorrows, smiling at their follies +without bitterness, sharing their affections, but not troubled by +their passions, not seeking their notice, not once dreamt of by them. +He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busy +world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to mingle +in the fray. "He hears the tumult, and is still." He is not able to +mend it, nor willing to mar it. He sees enough in the universe to +interest him without putting himself forward to try what he can do to +fix the eyes of the universe upon him. Vain the attempt! He reads the +clouds, he looks at the stars, he watches the return of the seasons, +the falling leaves of autumn, the perfumed breath of spring, starts +with delight at the note of a thrush in a copse near him, sits by the +fire, listens to the moaning of the wind, pores upon a book, or +discourses the freezing hours away, or melts down hours to minutes in +pleasing thought. All this while he is taken up with other things, +forgetting himself. He relishes an author's style, without thinking of +turning author. He is fond of looking at a print from an old picture +in the room, without teasing himself to copy it. He does not fret +himself to death with trying to be what he is not, or to do what he +cannot. He hardly knows what he is capable of, and is not in the least +concerned whether he shall ever make a figure in the world. He feels +the truth of the lines-- + + "The man whose eye is ever on himself, + Doth look on one, the least of nature's works; + One who might move the wise man to that scorn + Which wisdom holds unlawful ever"-- + +he looks out of himself at the wide extended prospect of nature, and +takes an interest beyond his narrow pretensions in general humanity. +He is free as air, and independent as the wind. Woe be to him when he +first begins to think what others say of him. While a man is contented +with himself and his own resources, all is well. When he undertakes to +play a part on the stage, and to persuade the world to think more +about him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where +he will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and +disappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years of +my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve +some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, +or wander by the pebbled sea-side-- + + "To see the children sporting on the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." + +I cared for nothing, I wanted nothing. I took my time to consider +whatever occurred to me, and was in no hurry to give a sophistical +answer to a question--there was no printer's devil waiting for me. I +used to write a page or two perhaps in half a year; and remember +laughing heartily at the celebrated experimentalist Nicholson, who +told me that in twenty years he had written as much as would make +three hundred octavo volumes. If I was not a great author, I could +read with ever fresh delight, "never ending, still beginning," and had +no occasion to write a criticism when I had done. If I could not paint +like Claude, I could admire "the witchery of the soft blue sky" as I +walked out, and was satisfied with the pleasure it gave me. If I was +dull, it gave me little concern: if I was lively, I indulged my +spirits. I wished well to the world, and believed as favourably of it +as I could. I was like a stranger in a foreign land, at which I looked +with wonder, curiosity, and delight, without expecting to be an object +of attention in return. I had no relations to the state, no duty to +perform, no ties to bind me to others: I had neither friend nor +mistress, wife or child. I lived in a world of contemplation, and not +of action. + +This sort of dreaming existence is the best. He who quits it to go in +search of realities, generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets. His time, thoughts, and feelings are +no longer at his own disposal. From that instant he does not survey +the objects of nature as they are in themselves, but looks asquint at +them to see whether he cannot make them the instruments of his +ambition, interest, or pleasure; for a candid, undesigning, +undisguised simplicity of character, his views become jaundiced, +sinister, and double: he takes no farther interest in the great +changes of the world but as he has a paltry share in producing them: +instead of opening his senses, his understanding, and his heart to the +resplendent fabric of the universe, he holds a crooked mirror before +his face, in which he may admire his own person and pretensions, and +just glance his eye aside to see whether others are not admiring him +too. He no more exists in the impression which "the fair variety of +things" makes upon him, softened and subdued by habitual +contemplation, but in the feverish sense of his own upstart +self-importance. By aiming to fix, he is become the slave of opinion. +He is a tool, a part of a machine that never stands still, and is sick +and giddy with the ceaseless motion. He has no satisfaction but in the +reflection of his own image in the public gaze, but in the repetition +of his own name in the public ear. He himself is mixed up with, and +spoils every thing. I wonder Buonaparte was not tired of the N.N.'s +stuck all over the Louvre and throughout France. Goldsmith (as we all +know), when in Holland, went out into a balcony with some handsome +Englishwomen, and on their being applauded by the spectators, turned +round, and said peevishly--"There are places where I also am admired." +He could not give the craving appetite of an author's vanity one day's +respite. I have seen a celebrated talker of our own time turn pale and +go out of the room when a showy-looking girl has come into it, who for +a moment divided the attention of his hearers. Infinite are the +mortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity; +numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still the +vicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success-- + + "Whose top to climb + Is certain falling, or so slippery, that + The fear's as bad as falling." + +"Would to God," exclaimed Oliver Cromwell, when he was at any time +thwarted by the Parliament, "that I had remained by my wood-side to +tend a flock of sheep, rather than have been thrust on such a +government as this!" When Buonaparte got into his carriage to proceed +on his Russian expedition, carelessly twirling his glove, and singing +the air--"Malbrook to the wars is going"--he did not think of the +tumble he has got since, the shock of which no one could have stood +but himself. We see and hear chiefly of the favourites of Fortune and +the Muse, of great generals, of first-rate actors, of celebrated +poets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glittering +eminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same tempting +career:--not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants are +in vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with +"the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of the +unworthy takes;" how many half-starved strolling-players are doomed to +penury and tattered robes in country-places, dreaming to the last of a +London engagement; how many wretched daubers shiver and shake in the +ague-fit of alternate hopes and fears, waste and pine away in the +atrophy of genius, or else turn drawing-masters, picture-cleaners, or +newspaper critics; how many hapless poets have sighed out their souls +to the Muse in vain, without ever getting their effusions farther +known than the Poets' Corner of a country newspaper, and looked and +looked with grudging, wistful eyes at the envious horizon that bounded +their provincial fame! Suppose an actor, for instance, "after the +heart-aches and the thousand natural pangs that flesh is heir to," +_does_ get at the top of his profession, he can no longer bear a rival +near the throne; to be second or only equal to another, is to be +nothing: he starts at the prospect of a successor, and retains the +mimic sceptre with a convulsive grasp: perhaps as he is about to seize +the first place which he has long had in his eye, an unsuspected +competitor steps in before him, and carries off the prize, leaving him +to commence his irksome toil again: he is in a state of alarm at every +appearance or rumour of the appearance of a new actor: "a mouse that +takes up its lodging in a cat's ear"[29] has a mansion of peace to +him: he dreads every hint of an objection, and least of all can +forgive praise mingled with censure: to doubt is to insult, to +discriminate is to degrade: he dare hardly look into a criticism +unless some one has _tasted_ it for him, to see that there is no +offence in it: if he does not draw crowded houses every night, he can +neither eat nor sleep; or if all these terrible inflictions are +removed, and he can "eat his meal in peace," he then becomes surfeited +with applause and dissatisfied with his profession: he wants to be +something else, to be distinguished as an author, a collector, a +classical scholar, a man of sense and information, and weighs every +word he utters, and half retracts it before he utters it, lest if he +were to make the smallest slip of the tongue, it should get buzzed +abroad that _Mr. ---- was only clever as an actor_! If ever there was +a man who did not derive more pain than pleasure from his vanity, that +man, says Rousseau, was no other than a fool. A country gentleman near +Taunton spent his whole life in making some hundreds of wretched +copies of second-rate pictures, which were bought up at his death by a +neighbouring Baronet, to whom + + "Some demon whisper'd, L----, have a taste!" + +[Footnote 29: Webster's _Duchess of Malfy_.] + +A little Wilson in an obscure corner escaped the man of _virtł_, and +was carried off by a Bristol picture-dealer for three guineas, while +the muddled copies of the owner of the mansion (with the frames) +fetched thirty, forty, sixty, a hundred ducats a piece. A friend of +mine found a very fine Canaletti in a state of strange disfigurement, +with the upper part of the sky smeared over and fantastically +variegated with English clouds; and on enquiring of the person to whom +it belonged whether something had not been done to it, received for +answer "that a gentleman, a great artist in the neighbourhood, had +retouched some parts of it." What infatuation! Yet this candidate for +the honours of the pencil might probably have made a jovial fox-hunter +or respectable justice of the peace, if he could only have stuck to +what nature and fortune intended him for. Miss ---- can by no means be +persuaded to quit the boards of the theatre at ----, a little country +town in the West of England. Her salary has been abridged, her person +ridiculed, her acting laughed at; nothing will serve--she is +determined to be an actress, and scorns to return to her former +business as a milliner. Shall I go on? An actor in the same company +was visited by the apothecary of the place in an ague-fit, who, on +asking his landlady as to his way of life, was told that the poor +gentleman was very quiet and gave little trouble, that he generally +had a plate of mashed potatoes for his dinner, and lay in bed most of +his time, repeating his part. A young couple, every way amiable and +deserving, were to have been married, and a benefit-play was bespoke +by the officers of the regiment quartered there, to defray the expense +of a licence and of the wedding-ring, but the profits of the night did +not amount to the necessary sum, and they have, I fear, "virgined it +e'er since!" Oh for the pencil of Hogarth or Wilkie to give a view of +the comic strength of the company at ----, drawn up in battle-array in +the Clandestine Marriage, with a _coup d'oeil_ of the pit, boxes, and +gallery, to cure for ever the love of the _ideal_, and the desire to +shine and make holiday in the eyes of others, instead of retiring +within ourselves and keeping our wishes and our thoughts at home! + +Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, +how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands +of others! Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the +bitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance. Old companions +are like meats served up too often that lose their relish and their +wholesomeness. He who looks at beauty to admire, to adore it, who +reads of its wondrous power in novels, in poems, or in plays, is not +unwise: but let no man fall in love, for from that moment he is "the +baby of a girl." I like very well to repeat such lines as these in the +play of Mirandola-- + + --"With what a waving air she goes + Along the corridor. How like a fawn! + Yet statelier. Hark! No sound, however soft, + Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads, + But every motion of her shape doth seem + Hallowed by silence"-- + +but however beautiful the description, defend me from meeting with the +original! + + "The fly that sips treacle + Is lost in the sweets; + So he that tastes woman + Ruin meets." + +The song is Gay's, not mine, and a bitter-sweet it is.--How few out of +the infinite number of those that marry and are given in marriage, wed +with those they would prefer to all the world; nay, how far the +greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, +accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by the +very fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination: +yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or +death: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as +mind) chained to another, in spite of himself-- + + "Like life and death in disproportion met." + +So Milton (perhaps from his own experience) makes Adam exclaim, in the +vehemence of his despair, + + "For either + He never shall find out fit mate, but such + As some misfortune brings him or mistake; + Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain + Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd + By a far worse; or if she love, withheld + By parents; or his happiest choice too late + Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound + To a fell adversary, his hate and shame; + Which infinite calamity shall cause + To human life, and household peace confound." + +If love at first sight were mutual, or to be conciliated by kind +offices; if the fondest affection were not so often repaid and chilled +by indifference and scorn; if so many lovers both before and since the +madman in Don Quixote had not "worshipped a statue, hunted the wind, +cried aloud to the desert;" if friendship were lasting; if merit were +renown, and renown were health, riches, and long life; or if the +homage of the world were paid to conscious worth and the true +aspirations after excellence, instead of its gaudy signs and outward +trappings:--then indeed I might be of opinion that it is better to +live to others than one's-self: but as the case stands, I incline to +the negative side of the question.[30] + +[Footnote 30: Shenstone and Gray were two men, one of whom pretended +to live to himself, and the other really did so. Gray shrunk from the +public gaze (he did not even like his portrait to be prefixed to his +works) into his own thoughts and indolent musings; Shenstone affected +privacy, that he might be sought out by the world; the one courted +retirement in order to enjoy leisure and repose, as the other +coquetted with it, merely to be interrupted with the importunity of +visitors and the flatteries of absent friends.] + + "I have not loved the world, nor the world me; + I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd + To its idolatries a patient knee-- + Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles--nor cried aloud + In worship of an echo; in the crowd + They could not deem me one of such; I stood + Among them, but not of them; in a shroud + Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, + Had I not filed my mind which thus itself subdued. + + "I have not loved the world, nor the world me-- + But let us part fair foes; I do believe, + Though I have found them not, that there may be + Words which are things--hopes which will not deceive, + And virtues which are merciful nor weave + Snares for the failing: I would also deem + O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; + That two, or one, are almost what they seem-- + That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." + +Sweet verse embalms the spirit of sour misanthropy: but woe betide the +ignoble prose-writer who should thus dare to compare notes with the +world, or tax it roundly with imposture. + +If I had sufficient provocation to rail at the public, as Ben Jonson +did at the audience in the Prologues to his plays, I think I should do +it in good set terms, nearly as follows. There is not a more mean, +stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful +animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is +afraid of itself. From its unwieldy, overgrown dimensions, it dreads +the least opposition to it, and shakes like isinglass at the touch of +a finger. It starts at its own shadow, like the man in the Hartz +mountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has a +lion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleepless eyes. +It stands "listening its fears." It is so in awe of its own opinion, +that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, +lest it should be behind-hand in its judgment, and echoes it till it +is deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what the +public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and +acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that in short +the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who +chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret +whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a +thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and +the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the "still, small +voice" of reason. We may believe or know that what is said is not +true: but we know or fancy that others believe it--we dare not +contradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and therefore +give up our internal, and, as we think, our solitary conviction to a +sound without substance, without proof, and often without meaning. Nay +more, we may believe and know not only that a thing is false, but that +others believe and know it to be so, that they are quite as much in +the secret of the imposture as we are, that they see the puppets at +work, the nature of the machinery, and yet if any one has the art or +power to get the management of it, he shall keep possession of the +public ear by virtue of a cant-phrase or nickname; and, by dint of +effrontery and perseverance, make all the world believe and repeat +what all the world know to be false. The ear is quicker than the +judgment. We know that certain things are said; by that circumstance +alone we know that they produce a certain effect on the imagination of +others, and we conform to their prejudices by mechanical sympathy, and +for want of sufficient spirit to differ with them. So far then is +public opinion from resting on a broad and solid basis, as the +aggregate of thought and feeling in a community, that it is slight and +shallow and variable to the last degree--the bubble of the moment--so +that we may safely say the public is the dupe of public opinion, not +its parent. The public is pusillanimous and cowardly, because it is +weak. It knows itself to be a great dunce, and that it has no opinions +but upon suggestion. Yet it is unwilling to appear in leading-strings, +and would have it thought that its decisions are as wise as they are +weighty. It is hasty in taking up its favourites, more hasty in laying +them aside, lest it should be supposed deficient in sagacity in either +case. It is generally divided into two strong parties, each of which +will allow neither common sense nor common honesty to the other side. +It reads the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and believes them +both--or if there is a doubt, malice turns the scale. Taylor and +Hessey told me that they had sold nearly two editions of the +Characters of Shakespeare's Plays in about three months, but that +after the Quarterly Review of them came out, they never sold another +copy. The public, enlightened as they are, must have known the meaning +of that attack as well as those who made it. It was not ignorance then +but cowardice that led them to give up their own opinion. A crew of +mischievous critics at Edinburgh having fixed the epithet of the +_Cockney School_ to one or two writers born in the metropolis, all the +people in London became afraid of looking into their works, lest they +too should be convicted of cockneyism. Oh brave public! This epithet +proved too much for one of the writers in question, and stuck like a +barbed arrow in his heart. Poor Keats! What was sport to the town was +death to him. Young, sensitive, delicate, he was like + + "A bud bit by an envious worm, + Ere he could spread his sweet leaves to the air, + Or dedicate his beauty to the sun"-- + +and unable to endure the miscreant cry and idiot laugh, withdrew to +sigh his last breath in foreign climes.--The public is as envious and +ungrateful as it is ignorant, stupid, and pigeon-livered-- + + "A huge-sized monster of ingratitudes." + +It reads, it admires, it extols only because it is the fashion, not +from any love of the subject or the man. It cries you up or runs you +down out of mere caprice and levity. If you have pleased it, it is +jealous of its own involuntary acknowledgment of merit, and seizes the +first opportunity, the first shabby pretext, to pick a quarrel with +you, and be quits once more. Every petty caviller is erected into a +judge, every tale-bearer is implicitly believed. Every little low +paltry creature that gaped and wondered only because others did so, is +glad to find you (as he thinks) on a level with himself. An author is +not then, after all, a being of another order. Public admiration is +forced, and goes against the grain. Public obloquy is cordial and +sincere: every individual feels his own importance in it. They give +you up bound hand and foot into the power of your accusers. To attempt +to defend yourself is a high crime and misdemeanour, a contempt of +court, an extreme piece of impertinence. Or, if you prove every charge +unfounded, they never think of retracting their error, or making you +amends. It would be a compromise of their dignity; they consider +themselves as the party injured, and resent your innocence as an +imputation on their judgment. The celebrated Bub Doddington, when out +of favour at court, said "he would not _justify_ before his sovereign: +it was for Majesty to be displeased, and for him to believe himself in +the wrong!" The public are not quite so modest. People already begin +to talk of the Scotch Novels as overrated. How then can common authors +be supposed to keep their heads long above water? As a general rule, +all those who live by the public starve, and are made a bye-word and a +standing jest into the bargain. Posterity is no better (not a bit more +enlightened or more liberal), except that you are no longer in their +power, and that the voice of common fame saves them the trouble of +deciding on your claims. The public now are the posterity of Milton +and Shakespeare. Our posterity will be the living public of a future +generation. When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect +monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday +in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? +No!--I was complaining of this to a Scotchman who had been attending a +dinner and a subscription to raise a monument to Burns. He replied, he +would sooner subscribe twenty pounds to his monument than have given +it him while living; so that if the poet were to come to life again, +he would treat him just as he was treated in fact. This was an honest +Scotchman. What _he_ said, the rest would do. + +Enough: my soul, turn from them, and let me try to regain the +obscurity and quiet that I love, "far from the madding strife," in +some sequestered corner of my own, or in some far-distant land! In the +latter case, I might carry with me as a consolation the passage in +Bolingbroke's Reflections on Exile, in which he describes in glowing +colours the resources which a man may always find within himself, and +of which the world cannot deprive him. + +"Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order in +the world, that of all which belongs to us, the least valuable parts +can alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is best is safest; +lies out of the reach of human power; can neither be given nor taken +away. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such +is the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world whereof +it makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours, and as long as +we remain in one we shall enjoy the other. Let us march therefore +intrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. +Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we +shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall feel the same +revolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon[31] will guide the +course of our year. The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will +be every where spread over our heads. There is no part of the world +from whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, in +different orbits round the same central sun; from whence we may not +discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars +hung up in the immense space of the universe, innumerable suns whose +beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them; +and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my +soul is thus raised up to heaven, imports me little what ground I +tread upon." + +[Footnote 31: Plut. of Banishment. He compares those who cannot live +out of their own country, to the simple people who fancied the moon of +Athens was a finer moon than that of Corinth, + + ----_Labentem coelo quę ducitis annum._ + VIRG., _Georg._] + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN + + +B---- it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the +defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he +would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both--a task for which he +would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the +felicity of his pen-- + + "Never so sure our rapture to create + As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." + +Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece of +business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and +besides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it. +I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other +people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox +or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like, +or than seems fair and reasonable. + +On the question being started, A---- said, "I suppose the two first +persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in +English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this A----, as +usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at +the expression of B----'s face, in which impatience was restrained by +courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, "but +they were not persons--not persons."--"Not persons?" said A----, +looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be +premature. "That is," rejoined B----, "not characters, you know. By +Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the Essay on the Human +Understanding, and the _Principia_, which we have to this day. Beyond +their contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But +what we want to see any one _bodily_ for, is when there is something +peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from +their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and +Newton were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paint +Shakspeare?"--"Ay," retorted A----, "there it is; then I suppose you +would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?"--"No," said B----, +"neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on +book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantle-pieces, that I am quite +tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face, the +impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too +starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the +manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the +precisian's band and gown."--"I shall guess no more," said A----. "Who +is it, then, you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if you +had your choice of the whole range of English literature?" B---- then +named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip +Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure +to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown and +slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this A---- +laughed outright, and conceived B---- was jesting with him; but as no +one followed his example, he thought there might be something in it, +and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. B---- +then (as well as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty +years ago--how time slips!) went on as follows: "The reason why I +pitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, and +they themselves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble the +soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and +I should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but +themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson, I have +no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell +together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed +through his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently +explicit: my friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb, +(were it in my power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable. + + 'And call up him who left half-told + The story of Cambuscan bold.' + +"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (the +_Urn-burial_) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the +bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a +stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would +invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who +would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having +himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like +trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own +'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly +formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical, +cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for +the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an +encounter with so portentous a commentator!"--"I am afraid in that +case," said A----, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the +merit might be lost;"--and turning to me, whispered a friendly +apprehension, that while B---- continued to admire these old crabbed +authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was +mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting +countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was often +quite as _uncomeatable_, without a personal citation from the dead, as +that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while +some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the +portrait prefixed to the old edition, A---- got hold of the poetry, +and exclaiming "What have we here?" read the following:-- + + "'Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there, + She gives the best light to his sphere, + Or each is both and all, and so + They unto one another nothing owe.'" + +There was no resisting this, till B----, seizing the volume, turned to +the beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her from +accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and a +faltering tongue. + + "'By our first strange and fatal interview, + By all desires which thereof did ensue, + By our long starving hopes, by that remorse + Which my words' masculine persuasive force + Begot in thee, and by the memory + Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me, + I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath, + By all pains which want and divorcement hath, + I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I + And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy + Here I unswear, and overswear them thus, + Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous. + Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage, + Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page; + I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind + Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind. + Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before, + My soul from other lands to thee shall soar. + Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move + Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love, + Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read + How roughly he in pieces shivered + Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. + Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd + Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery, + That absent lovers one with th' other be. + Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change + Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange + To thyself only. All will spy in thy face + A blushing, womanly, discovering grace. + Richly cloth'd apes are called apes, and as soon + Eclips'd as bright we call the moon the moon. + Men of France, changeable cameleons, + Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions, + Love's fuellers, and the rightest company + Of players, which upon the world's stage be, + Will quickly know thee.... O stay here! for thee + England is only a worthy gallery, + To walk in expectation; till from thence + Our greatest King call thee to his presence. + When I am gone, dream me some happiness, + Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess, + Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse + Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse + With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh, + Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go, + O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, + Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die. + Augur me better chance, except dread Jove + Think it enough for me to have had thy love.'" + +Some one then inquired of B---- if we could not see from the window +the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; and on his +name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a +general sensation in his favour in all but A----, who said something +about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness +of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss, +pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked +"if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had +first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of English +literature; to see the head, round which the visions of fancy must +have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch +those lips that "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"--as by a +miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had +been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to +modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing +before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist +withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his +time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and +would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His interview +with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seen +Chaucer in company with the author of the Decameron, and have heard +them exchange their best stories together, the Squire's Tale against +the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Prologue against the +Adventures of Friar Albert. How fine to see the high mysterious brow +which learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of +the world, and by the courtesies of genius. Surely, the thoughts and +feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers of +learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have +stamped an expression on their features, as different from the moderns +as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I continued, "is +as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineaments +curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit, +and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. There +is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's; light, +Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's large +colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the kind +that has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty dead,' and this is +truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." B---- put it to me if I should +like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered without +hesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not +palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity +about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo +round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual +might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the +mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could +vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our +apprehensions) rather 'a creature of the element, that lived in the +rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal. +Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one +of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like a +dream or sound-- + + ----'_That_ was Arion crown'd: + So went he playing on the wat'ry plain!'" + +Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted at the +Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the first +made over to the New World. + +"I should like," said Miss D----, "to have seen Pope talking with +Patty Blount; and I _have_ seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to +look at Miss D----, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of +Goldsmith. + +"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years +1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any +account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland +with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the +Highlands in company with Boswell many years after 'with lack-lustre +eye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind +with interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an +additional reason for my liking him; and I would give something to +have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, +and penning the Proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of the +legitimate Government." + +"I thought," said A----, turning short round upon B----, "that you of +the Lake School did not like Pope?"--"Not like Pope! My dear sir, you +must be under a mistake--I can read him over and over for ever!"--"Why +certainly, the 'Essay on Man' must be a masterpiece."--"It may be so, +but I seldom look into it."--"Oh! then it's his Satires you +admire?"--"No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his +compliments."--"Compliments! I did not know he ever made any."--"The +finest," said B----, "that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of +them is worth an estate for life--nay, is an immortality. There is +that superb one to Lord Cornbury: + + 'Despise low joys, low gains; + Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; + Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' + +"Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And then +that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however little +deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds-- + + 'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh, + (More silent far) where kings and poets lie; + Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) + Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!' + +"And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord +Bolingbroke-- + + 'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, + Oh! all accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?' + +"Or turn," continued B----, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his +eye glistening, "to his list of early friends: + + 'But why then publish? Granville the polite, + And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; + Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, + And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays: + The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, + Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head; + And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before) + Received with open arms one poet more. + Happy my studies, if by these approved! + Happier their author, if by these beloved! + From these the world will judge of men and books, + Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.'" + +Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he +said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a +man as this?" + +"What say you to Dryden?"--"He rather made a show of himself, and +courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-house, so +as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on the +contrary, reached the very _beau ideal_ of what a poet's life should +be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that +which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and +one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that +he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward +on this side of the tomb, who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem +of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who +found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime which +they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. Read +Gay's verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after his +translation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladly +join the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once more +land at Whitehall-stairs."--"Still," said Miss D----, "I would rather +have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a +coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!" + +E----, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room, +whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to +invoke from the dead. "Yes," said B----, "provided he would agree to +lay aside his mask." + +We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned +as a candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition. +"Richardson?"--"By all means, but only to look at him through the +glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the +most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author +and his works), but not to let him come behind his counter lest he +should want you to turn customer, nor to go upstairs with him, lest he +should offer to read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, +which was originally written in eight and twenty volumes octavo, or +get out the letters of his female correspondents, to prove that Joseph +Andrews was low." + +There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any +one expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, +frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy;--and one enthusiast, John +Bunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed that +if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each +person would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," a +canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer. + +Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the +greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F----. He presently +superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then +it was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the +play and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What a _sight +for sore eyes_ that would be! Who would not part with a year's income +at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it? +Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory +things, what a troop he must bring with him--the silver-tongued Barry, +and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of +whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he was +young! This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of +art; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism +mingled with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, that +though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the +writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what +people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimony +to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our +misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a +Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and +laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with +my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever +moved by the true histrionic _ęstus_, it was Garrick. When he followed +the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors do +behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so +fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight +of his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord +----'s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was +become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive +screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on +the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing a +turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, +and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party +only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed +as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old +favourite. + +We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful +speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to +make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the +neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries +and rivals of Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection +when he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of +caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference +to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. +Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to +Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and +even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting +the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on the +contrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley's words, was "a vast +species alone." Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a +lord, which rather startled B----, but he said a _ghost_ would perhaps +dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his +title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were +afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to +defend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, +"there is G---- can match him." At length, his romantic visit to +Drummond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his +favour. + +B---- inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would +choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[32] The name of the +"Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of +_waste_ talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. +This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who +declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and +accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as +vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.--_Admirable Crichton!_ +H---- laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think +he has done for many years. + +[Footnote 32: See Newgate Calendar for 1758.] + +The last-named Mitre-courtier[33] then wished to know whether there +were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the +wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving +the name--Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and +perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusets man.[34] As to the French, +who talked fluently of having _created_ this science, there was not a +title in any of their writings, that was not to be found literally in +the authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might have a claim to +come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] None of these +names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for the +reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted by the +abstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual and +disembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, were +nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A---- with an uneasy +fidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and +Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C. who observed, "If J---- was +here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and +redoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this +might be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read the +original works, but I did not see how we could have any right to call +up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till we +had looked into their writings. + +[Footnote 33: B---- at this time occupied chambers in Mitre court, +Fleet Street.] + +[Footnote 34: Lord Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know +where he should come in. It is not easy to make room for him and his +reputation together. This great and celebrated man in some of his +works recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of a +morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes +enriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic +spirit of his genius. His "Essays" and his "Advancement of Learning" +are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The last, though it +contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of human intellect, +and a guide to all future inquirers.] + +By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical +deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the _irritabile genus_ in +their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidates +that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation, +though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come and bring in his +hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addison +left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift +came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as +abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite +side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay +Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back +again--and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old +companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that +he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show, +only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where +he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative--the +hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously. + +The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters. +While we were debating whether we should demand speech with these +masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it +seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated +themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo with +his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes +before him; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the +Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, +golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on +the table before him; Corregio had an angel at his side; Titian was +seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido was +accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claude +held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in +by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and +Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains and jewels, which Sir Joshua +eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word +was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the +same surface to the view. Not being _bonā-fide_ representations of +living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and +dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud +noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and +Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire +to see their illustrious successors-- + + "Whose names on earth + In Fame's eternal records live for aye!" + +Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and +mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B----, "those are the very fellows I +should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to +paint when all was dark around them?" + +"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J----, "to the +Legend of Good Women?"--"Name, name, Mr. J----," cried H---- in a +boisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please, +without reserve or fear of molestation!" J---- was perplexed between +so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice +expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and B---- impatiently declared +for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, +than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous +on this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as +there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all +respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their lives! +"I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos," said that +incomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind that we had +neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of the +Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father +of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit), +Moličre and that illustrious group that are collected round him (in +the print of that subject to hear him read his comedy of the Tartuffe +at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St. +Evremont, etc.). + +"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather +see than all these--Don Quixote!" + +"Come, come!" said H----; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or +fabulous. What say you, Mr. B----? Are you for eking out your shadowy +list with such names as Alexander, Julius Cęsar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis +Khan?"--"Excuse me," said B----, "on the subject of characters in +active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet +of my own, which I beg leave to reserve."--"No, no! come, out with +your worthies!"--"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?" +H---- turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full +of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all +sides; and A---- thought that B---- had now fairly entangled himself. +"Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, +"that Guy Faux, that poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and +rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him +sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels +of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to +Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is +that fellow G---- will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, +my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him, who, having +dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards +betray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen +any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the least +idea of it."--"You have said enough, Mr. B----, to justify your +choice." + +"Oh! ever right, Menenius,--ever right!" + +"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this," +continued H----; but without mentioning a name that once put on a +semblance of mortality. "If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we +should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into +it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!" + +As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the +conversation had taken, we rose up to go.[35] The morning broke with +that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must +have seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet again +and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night after +that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same +event, in truth, broke up our little Congress that broke up the great +one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never been +resumed. + +[Footnote 35: There are few things more contemptible than the +conversation of mere _men of the town_. It is made up of the +technicalities and cant of all professions, without the spirit or +knowledge of any. It is flashy and vapid, or is like the rinsings of +different liquors at a night-cellar instead of a bottle of fine old +port. It is without body or clearness, and a heap of affectation. In +fact, I am very much of the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman who +owned that "he preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the most +brilliant conversation it had ever fallen to his lot to hear!"] + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +ON A SUN-DIAL + + +_Horas non numero nisi serenas_--is the motto of a sun-dial near +Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the +thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. +"I count only the hours that are serene." What a bland and +care-dispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on the +dial-plate as the sky lours, and time presents only a blank unless as +its progress is marked by what is joyous, and all that is not happy +sinks into oblivion! What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind--to +take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles +and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and +gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, and +letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten! +How different from the common art of self-tormenting! For myself, as I +rode along the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, +slimy waves, my sensations were far from comfortable; but the reading +this inscription on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restored +me to myself; and still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it has the +power of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction. +I cannot help fancying it to be a legend of Popish superstition. Some +monk of the dark ages must have invented and bequeathed it to us, who, +loitering in trim gardens and watching the silent march of time, as +his fruits ripened in the sun or his flowers scented the balmy air, +felt a mild languor pervade his senses, and having little to do or to +care for, determined (in imitation of his sun-dial) to efface that +little from his thoughts or draw a veil over it, making of his life +one long dream of quiet! _Horas non numero nisi serenas_--he might +repeat, when the heavens were overcast and the gathering storm +scattered the falling leaves, and turn to his books and wrap himself +in his golden studies! Out of some mood of mind, indolent, elegant, +thoughtful, this exquisite device (speaking volumes) must have +originated. + +Of the several modes of counting time, that by the sun-dial is perhaps +the most apposite and striking, if not the most convenient or +comprehensive. It does not obtrude its observations, though it "morals +on the time," and, by its stationary character, forms a contrast to +the most fleeting of all essences. It stands _sub dio_--under the +marble air, and there is some connexion between the image of infinity +and eternity. I should also like to have a sunflower growing near it +with bees fluttering round.[36] [Footnote 36: Is this a verbal +fallacy? Or in the close, retired, sheltered scene which I have +imagined to myself, is not the sun-flower a natural accompaniment of +the sun-dial?] It should be of iron to denote duration, and have a +dull, leaden look. I hate a sun-dial made of wood, which is rather +calculated to show the variations of the seasons, than the progress of +time, slow, silent, imperceptible, chequered with light and shade. If +our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little +note of them, as the dial does of those that are clouded. It is the +shadows thrown across, that gives us warning of their flight. +Otherwise our impressions would take the same undistinguishable hue; +we should scarce be conscious of our existence. Those who have had +none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been +obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to enliven +the prospect before them. Most of the methods for measuring the lapse +of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious +recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some +pains to see how they got rid of it. The hour-glass is, I suspect, an +older invention; and it is certainly the most defective of all. Its +creeping sands are not indeed an unapt emblem of the minute, countless +portions of our existence; and the manner in which they gradually +slide through the hollow glass and diminish in number till not a +single one is left, also illustrates the way in which our years slip +from us by stealth: but as a mechanical invention, it is rather a +hindrance than a help, for it requires to have the time, of which it +pretends to count the precious moments, taken up in attention to +itself, and in seeing that when one end of the glass is empty, we turn +it round, in order that it may go on again, or else all our labour is +lost, and we must wait for some other mode of ascertaining the time +before we can recover our reckoning and proceed as before. The +philosopher in his cell, the cottager at her spinning-wheel must, +however, find an invaluable acquisition in this "companion of the +lonely hour," as it has been called,[37] which not only serves to tell +how the time goes, but to fill up its vacancies. What a treasure must +not the little box seem to hold, as if it were a sacred deposit of the +very grains and fleeting sands of life. What a business, in lieu of +other more important avocations, to see it out to the last sand, and +then to renew the process again on the instant, that there may not be +the least flaw or error in the account! What a strong sense must be +brought home to the mind of the value and irrecoverable nature of the +time that is fled; what a thrilling, incessant consciousness of the +slippery tenure by which we hold what remains of it! Our very +existence must seem crumbling to atoms, and running down (without a +miraculous reprieve) to the last fragment. "Dust to dust and ashes to +ashes" is a text that might be fairly inscribed on an hour-glass: it +is ordinarily associated with the scythe of Time and a Death's-head, +as a _Memento mori_; and has, no doubt, furnished many a tacit hint to +the apprehensive and visionary enthusiast in favour of a resurrection +to another life! + +[Footnote 37: + + "Once more, companion of the lonely hour, + I'll turn thee up again." + + _Bloomfield's Poems--The Widow to her Hour-glass._] + +The French give a different turn to things, less _sombre_ and less +edifying. A common and also a very pleasing ornament to a clock, in +Paris, is a figure of Time seated in a boat which Cupid is rowing +along, with the motto, _L'Amour fait passer le Tems_--which the wits +again have travestied into _Le Tems fait passer L'Amour_. All this is +ingenious and well; but it wants sentiment. I like a people who have +something that they love and something that they hate, and with whom +everything is not alike a matter of indifference or _pour passer le +tems_. The French attach no importance to anything, except for the +moment; they are only thinking how they shall get rid of one sensation +for another; all their ideas are _in transitu_. Every thing is +detached, nothing is accumulated. It would be a million of years +before a Frenchman would think of the _Horas non numero nisi serenas_. +Its impassioned repose and _ideal_ voluptuousness are as far from +their breasts as the poetry of that line in Shakspeare--"How sweet the +moonlight sleeps upon that bank!" They never arrive at the +classical--or the romantic. They blow the bubbles of vanity, fashion, +and pleasure; but they do not expand their perceptions into +refinement, or strengthen them into solidity. Where there is nothing +fine in the ground-work of the imagination, nothing fine in the +superstructure can be produced. They are light, airy, fanciful (to +give them their due)--but when they attempt to be serious (beyond mere +good sense) they are either dull or extravagant. When the volatile +salt has flown off, nothing but a _caput mortuum_ remains. They have +infinite crotchets and caprices with their clocks and watches, which +seem made for anything but to tell the hour--gold-repeaters, watches +with metal covers, clocks with hands to count the seconds. There is no +escaping from quackery and impertinence, even in our attempts to +calculate the waste of time. The years gallop fast enough for me, +without remarking every moment as it flies; and farther, I must say I +dislike a watch (whether of French or English manufacture) that comes +to me like a footpad with its face muffled, and does not present its +clear, open aspect like a friend, and point with its finger to the +time of day. All this opening and shutting of dull, heavy cases (under +pretence that the glass-lid is liable to be broken, or lets in the +dust or air and obstructs the movement of the watch), is not to +husband time, but to give trouble. It is mere pomposity and +self-importance, like consulting a mysterious oracle that one carries +about with one in one's pocket, instead of asking a common question of +an acquaintance or companion. There are two clocks which strike the +hour in the room where I am. This I do not like. In the first place, I +do not want to be reminded twice how the time goes (it is like the +second tap of a saucy servant at your door when perhaps you have no +wish to get up): in the next place, it is starting a difference of +opinion on the subject, and I am averse to every appearance of +wrangling and disputation. Time moves on the same, whatever disparity +there may be in our mode of keeping count of it, like true fame in +spite of the cavils and contradictions of the critics. I am no friend +to repeating watches. The only pleasant association I have with them +is the account given by Rousseau of some French lady, who sat up +reading the _New Heloise_ when it first came out, and ordering her +maid to sound the repeater, found it was too late to go to bed, and +continued reading on till morning. Yet how different is the interest +excited by this story from the account which Rousseau somewhere else +gives of his sitting up with his father reading romances, when a boy, +till they were startled by the swallows twittering in their nests at +day-break, and the father cried out, half angry and ashamed--"_Allons, +mons fils; je suis plus enfant que toi!_" In general, I have heard +repeating watches sounded in stage-coaches at night, when some +fellow-traveller suddenly awaking and wondering what was the hour, +another has very deliberately taken out his watch, and pressing the +spring, it has counted out the time; each petty stroke acting like a +sharp puncture on the ear, and informing me of the dreary hours I had +already passed, and of the more dreary ones I had to wait till +morning. + +The great advantage, it is true, which clocks have over watches and +other dumb reckoners of time is, that for the most part they strike +the hour--that they are as it were the mouth-pieces of time; that they +not only point it to the eye, but impress it on the ear; that they +"lend it both an understanding and a tongue." Time thus speaks to us +in an audible and warning voice. Objects of sight are easily +distinguished by the sense, and suggest useful reflections to the +mind; sounds, from their intermittent nature, and perhaps other +causes, appeal more to the imagination, and strike upon the heart. But +to do this, they must be unexpected and involuntary--there must be no +trick in the case--they should not be squeezed out with a finger and a +thumb; there should be nothing optional, personal in their occurrence; +they should be like stern, inflexible monitors, that nothing can +prevent from discharging their duty. Surely, if there is anything with +which we should not mix up our vanity and self-consequence, it is with +Time, the most independent of all things. All the sublimity, all the +superstition that hang upon this palpable mode of announcing its +flight, are chiefly attached to this circumstance. Time would lose its +abstracted character, if we kept it like a curiosity or a +jack-in-a-box: its prophetic warnings would have no effect, if it +obviously spoke only at our prompting, like a paltry ventriloquism. +The clock that tells the coming, dreaded hour--the castle bell, that +"with its brazen throat and iron tongue, sounds one unto the drowsy +ear of night"--the curfew, "swinging slow with sullen roar" o'er +wizard stream or fountain, are like a voice from other worlds, big +with unknown events. The last sound, which is still kept up as an old +custom in many parts of England, is a great favourite with me. I used +to hear it when a boy. It tells a tale of other times. The days that +are past, the generations that are gone, the tangled forest glades and +hamlets brown of my native country, the woodsman's art, the Norman +warrior armed for the battle or in his festive hall, the conqueror's +iron rule and peasant's lamp extinguished, all start up at the +clamorous peal, and fill my mind with fear and wonder. I confess, +nothing at present interests me but what has been--the recollection of +the impressions of my early life, or events long past, of which only +the dim traces remain in a smouldering ruin or half-obsolete custom. +That _things should be that are now no more_, creates in my mind the +most unfeigned astonishment. I cannot solve the mystery of the past, +nor exhaust my pleasure in it. The years, the generations to come, are +nothing to me. We care no more about the world in the year 2300 than +we do about one of the planets. Even George IV is better than the Earl +of Windsor. We might as well make a voyage to the moon as think of +stealing a march upon Time with impunity. _De non apparentibus et non +existentibus eadem est ratio._ Those who are to come after us and push +us from the stage seem like upstarts and pretenders, that may be said +to exist _in vacuo_, we know not upon what, except as they are blown +up with vain and self conceit by their patrons among the moderns. But +the ancients are true and _bonā-fide_ people, to whom we are bound by +aggregate knowledge and filial ties, and in whom seen by the mellow +light of history we feel our own existence doubled and our pride +consoled, as we ruminate on the vestiges of the past. The public in +general, however, do not carry this speculative indifference about the +future to what is to happen to themselves, or to the part they are to +act in the busy scene. For my own part, I do; and the only wish I can +form, or that ever prompts the passing sigh, would be to live some of +my years over again--they would be those in which I enjoyed and +suffered most! + +The ticking of a clock in the night has nothing very interesting nor +very alarming in it, though superstition has magnified it into an +omen. In a state of vigilance or debility, it preys upon the spirits +like the persecution of a teazing pertinacious insect; and haunting +the imagination after it has ceased in reality, is converted into a +death-watch. Time is rendered vast by contemplating its minute +portions thus repeatedly and painfully urged upon its attention, as +the ocean in its immensity is composed of water-drops. A clock +striking with a clear and silver sound is a great relief in such +circumstances, breaks the spell, and resembles a sylph-like and +friendly spirit in the room. Foreigners, with all their tricks and +contrivances upon clocks and time-pieces, are strangers to the sound +of village-bells, though perhaps a people that can dance may dispense +with them. They impart a pensive, wayward pleasure to the mind, and +are a kind of chronology of happy events, often serious in the +retrospect--births, marriages, and so forth. Coleridge calls them "the +poor man's only music." A village-spire in England peeping from its +cluster of trees is always associated in imagination with this +cheerful accompaniment, and may be expected to pour its joyous tidings +on the gale. In Catholic countries, you are stunned with the +everlasting tolling of bells to prayers or for the dead. In the +Apennines, and other wild and mountainous districts of Italy, the +little chapel-bell with its simple tinkling sound has a romantic and +charming effect. The Monks in former times appear to have taken a +pride in the construction of bells as well as churches; and some of +those of the great cathedrals abroad (as at Cologne and Rouen) may be +fairly said to be hoarse with counting the flight of ages. The chimes +in Holland are a nuisance. They dance in the hours and the quarters. +They leave no respite to the imagination. Before one set has done +ringing in your ears, another begins. You do not know whether the +hours move or stand still, go backwards or forwards, so fantastical +and perplexing are their accompaniments. Time is a more staid +personage, and not so full of gambols. It puts you in mind of a tune +with variations, or of an embroidered dress. Surely, nothing is more +simple than time. His march is straightforward; but we should have +leisure allowed us to look back upon the distance we have come, and +not be counting his steps every moment. Time in Holland is a foolish +old fellow with all the antics of a youth, who "goes to church in a +coranto, and lights his pipe in a cinque-pace." The chimes with us, on +the contrary, as they come in every three or four hours, are like +stages in the journey of the day. They give a fillip to the lazy, +creeping hours, and relieve the lassitude of country-places. At noon, +their desultory, trivial song is diffused through the hamlet with the +odour of rashers of bacon; at the close of day they send the toil-worn +sleepers to their beds. Their discontinuance would be a great loss to +the thinking or unthinking public. Mr. Wordsworth has painted their +effect on the mind when he makes his friend Matthew, in a fit of +inspired dotage, + + "Sing those witty rhymes + About the crazy old church-clock + And the bewilder'd chimes." + +The tolling of the bell for deaths and executions is a fearful +summons, though, as it announces, not the advance of time but the +approach of fate, it happily makes no part of our subject. Otherwise, +the "sound of the bell" for Macheath's execution in the "Beggar's +Opera," or for that of the Conspirators in "Venice Preserved," with +the roll of the drum at a soldier's funeral, and a digression to that +of my Uncle Toby, as it is so finely described by Sterne, would +furnish ample topics to descant upon. If I were a moralist, I might +disapprove the ringing in the new and ringing out the old year. + + 'Why dance ye, mortals, o'er the grave of Time?' + +St. Paul's bell tolls only for the death of our English kings, or a +distinguished personage or two, with long intervals between.[38] + +[Footnote 38: Rousseau has admirably described the effect of bells on +the imagination in a passage in the Confessions, beginning "_Le son +des cloches m'a toujours singuličrement affecté_," &c.] + +Those who have no artificial means of ascertaining the progress of +time, are in general the most acute in discerning its immediate signs, +and are most retentive of individual dates. The mechanical aids to +knowledge are not sharpeners of the wits. The understanding of a +savage is a kind of natural almanac, and more true in its +prognostication of the future. In his mind's eye he sees what has +happened or what is likely to happen to him, "as in a map the voyager +his course." Those who read the times and seasons in the aspect of the +heavens and the configurations of the stars, who count by moons and +know when the sun rises and sets, are by no means ignorant of their +own affairs or of the common concatenation of events. People in such +situations have not their faculties distracted by any multiplicity of +inquiries beyond what befalls themselves, and the outward appearances +that mark the change. There is, therefore, a simplicity and clearness +in the knowledge they possess, which often puzzles the more learned. I +am sometimes surprised at a shepherd-boy by the roadside, who sees +nothing but the earth and sky, asking me the time of day--he ought to +know so much better than any one how far the sun is above the horizon. +I suppose he wants to ask a question of a passenger, or to see if he +has a watch. Robinson Crusoe lost his reckoning in the monotony of his +life and that bewildering dream of solitude, and was fain to have +recourse to the notches in a piece of wood. What a diary was his! And +how time must have spread its circuit round him, vast and pathless as +the ocean! + +For myself, I have never had a watch nor any other mode of keeping +time in my possession, nor ever wish to learn how time goes. It is a +sign I have had little to do, few avocations, few engagements. When I +am in a town, I can hear the clock; and when I am in the country, I +can listen to the silence. What I like best is to lie whole mornings +on a sunny bank on Salisbury Plain, without any object before me, +neither knowing nor caring how time passes, and thus "with +light-winged toys of feathered Idleness" to melt down hours to +moments. Perhaps some such thoughts as I have here set down float +before me like motes before my half-shut eyes, or some vivid image of +the past by forcible contrast rushes by me--"Diana and her fawn, and +all the glories of the antique world;" then I start away to prevent +the iron from entering my soul, and let fall some tears into that +stream of time which separates me farther and farther from all I once +loved! At length I rouse myself from my reverie, and home to dinner, +proud of killing time with thought, nay even without thinking. +Somewhat of this idle humour I inherit from my father, though he had +not the same freedom from _ennui_, for he was not a metaphysician; and +there were stops and vacant intervals in his being which he did not +know how to fill up. He used in these cases, and as an obvious +resource, carefully to wind up his watch at night, and "with +lack-lustre eye" more than once in the course of the day look to see +what o'clock it was. Yet he had nothing else in his character in +common with the elder Mr. Shandy. Were I to attempt a sketch of him, +for my own or the reader's satisfaction, it would be after the +following manner:----but now I recollect, I have done something of the +kind once before, and were I to resume the subject here, some bat or +owl of a critic, with spectacled gravity, might swear I had stolen the +whole of this Essay from myself--or (what is worse) from him! So I had +better let it go as it is. + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +OF THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH + + +No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my +brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, +which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of +the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown--the other half +remains in store for us with all its countless treasures; for there is +no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make +the coming age our own.---- + + "The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." + +Death, old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by us like the +idle air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still +be liable to them--we "bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn all +such sickly fancies. As in setting out on a delightful journey, we +strain our eager gaze forward-- + + "Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail,"-- + +and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as +we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our +inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying +them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it +seems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world, +full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in +ourselves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not +foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the +natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the +grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were _abstractedness_ of our +feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and +(our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us into +a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lived connection with +existence, we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting +union--a honey-moon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. +As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward +fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around +us--we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, +instead of which it only overflows the more--objects press around us, +filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires +that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of +death. From that plenitude of our being, we cannot change all at once +to dust and ashes, we cannot imagine "this sensible, warm motion, to +become a kneaded clod"--we are too much dazzled by the brightness of +the waking dream around us to look into the darkness of the tomb. We +no more see our end than our beginning: the one is lost in oblivion +and vacancy, as the other is hid from us by the crowd and hurry of +approaching events. Or the grim shadow is seen lingering in the +horizon, which we are doomed never to overtake, or whose last, faint, +glimmering outline touches upon Heaven and translates us to the skies! +Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to detach our +thoughts from present objects and pursuits, even if we would. What is +there more opposed to health, than sickness; to strength and beauty, +than decay and dissolution; to the active search of knowledge than +mere oblivion? Or is there none of the usual advantage to bar the +approach of Death, and mock his idle threats; Hope supplies their +place, and draws a veil over the abrupt termination of all our +cherished schemes. While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, ere +the "wine of life is drank up," we are like people intoxicated or in a +fever, who are hurried away by the violence of their own sensations: +it is only as present objects begin to pall upon the sense, as we have +been disappointed in our favourite pursuits, cut off from our closest +ties, that passion loosens its hold upon the breast, that we by +degrees become weaned from the world, and allow ourselves to +contemplate, "as in a glass, darkly," the possibility of parting with +it for good. The example of others, the voice of experience, has no +effect upon us whatever. Casualties we must avoid: the slow and +deliberate advances of age we can play at _hide-and-seek_ with. We +think ourselves too lusty and too nimble for that blear-eyed decrepid +old gentleman to catch us. Like the foolish fat scullion, in Sterne, +when she hears that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is--"So +am not I!" The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence, +rather seems to strengthen and enhance our possession and our +enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves, or be mowed +down like flowers by the scythe of Time: these are but tropes and +figures to the unreflecting ears and overweening presumption of youth. +It is not till we see the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy, withering +around us, and our own pleasures cut up by the roots, that we bring +the moral home to ourselves, that we abate something of the wanton +extravagance of our pretensions, or that the emptiness and dreariness +of the prospect before us reconciles us to the stillness of the grave! + + "Life! thou strange thing, that hast a power to feel + Thou art, and to perceive that others are."[39] + +[Footnote 39: Fawcett's Art of War, a poem, 1794.] + +Well might the poet begin his indignant invective against an art, +whose professed object is its destruction, with this animated +apostrophe to life. Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges +are most miraculous. Nor is it singular that when the splendid boon is +first granted us, our gratitude, our admiration, and our delight +should prevent us from reflecting on our own nothingness, or from +thinking it will ever be recalled. Our first and strongest impressions +are taken from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we very +innocently transfer its durability as well as magnificence to +ourselves. So newly found, we cannot make up our minds to parting with +it yet and at least put off that consideration to an indefinite term. +Like a clown at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have +no thoughts of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know our +existence only for external objects, and we measure it by them. We can +never be satisfied with gazing; and nature will still want us to look +on and applaud. Otherwise, the sumptuous entertainment, "the feast of +reason and the flow of soul," to which they were invited, seems little +better than a mockery and a cruel insult. We do not go from a play +till the scene is ended, and the lights are ready to be extinguished. +But the fair face of things still shines on; shall we be called away, +before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of what +is going on? Like children, our stepmother Nature holds us up to see +the raree-show of the universe; and then, as if life were a burthen to +support, lets us instantly down again. Yet in that short interval, +what "brave sublunary things" does not the spectacle unfold; like a +bubble, at one minute reflecting the universe, and the next, shook to +air!--To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, +to walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures, +to look down giddy precipices or over distant flowery vales, to see +the world spread out under one's finger in a map, to bring the stars +near, to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history, +and witness the revolutions of empires and the succession of +generations, to hear of the glory of Sidon and Tyre, of Babylon and +Susa, as of a faded pageant, and to say all these were, and are now +nothing, to think that we exist in such a point of time, and in such a +corner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the moving +scene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, to +hear + + ----"The stockdove plain amid the forest deep, + That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale"---- + +to traverse desert wildernesses, to listen to the midnight choir, to +visit lighted halls, or plunge into the dungeon's gloom, or sit in +crowded theatres and see life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold, +pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, to study the +works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worship fame +and to dream of immortality, to have read Shakspeare and belong to the +same species as Sir Isaac Newton;[40] to be and to do all this, and +then in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one like +a juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria; there is something revolting and +incredible to sense in the transition, and no wonder that, aided by +youth and warm blood, and the flush of enthusiasm, the mind contrives +for a long time to reject it with disdain and loathing as a monstrous +and improbable fiction, like a monkey on a house-top, that is loath, +amidst its fine discoveries and specious antics, to be tumbled +head-long into the street, and crushed to atoms, the sport and +laughter of the multitude! + +[Footnote 40: Lady Wortley Montagu says, in one of her letters, that +"she would much rather be a rich _effendi_, with all his ignorance, +than Sir Isaac Newton, with all his knowledge." This was not perhaps +an impolitic choice, as she had a better chance of becoming one than +the other, there being many rich effendis to one Sir Isaac Newton. The +wish was not a very intellectual one. The same petulance of rank and +sex breaks out everywhere in these "_Letters_". She is constantly +reducing the poets or philosophers who have the misfortune of her +acquaintance, to the figure they might make at her Ladyship's levee or +toilette, not considering that the public mind does not sympathize +with this process of a fastidious imagination. In the same spirit, she +declares of Pope and Swift, that "had it not been for the +_good-nature_ of mankind, these two superior beings were entitled, by +their birth and hereditary fortune, to be only a couple of link-boys." +Gulliver's Travels, and the Rape of the Lock, go for nothing in this +critical estimate, and the world raised the authors to the rank of +superior beings, in spite of their disadvantages of birth and fortune, +_out of pure good-nature_! So, again, she says of Richardson, that he +had never got beyond the servants' hall, and was utterly unfit to +describe the manners of people of quality; till, in the capricious +workings of her vanity, she persuades herself that Clarissa is very +like what she was at her age, and that Sir Thomas and Lady Grandison +strongly resembled what she had heard of her mother and remembered of +her father. It is one of the beauties and advantages of literature, +that it is the means of abstracting the mind from the narrowness of +local and personal prejudices, and of enabling us to judge of truth +and excellence by their inherent merits alone. Woe be to the pen that +would undo this fine illusion (the only reality), and teach us to +regulate our notions of genius and virtue by the circumstances in +which they happen to be placed! You would not expect a person whom you +saw in a servants' hall, or behind a counter, to write Clarissa; but +after he had written the work, to _pre-judge_ it from the situation of +the writer, is an unpardonable piece of injustice and folly. His merit +could only be the greater from the contrast. If literature is an +elegant accomplishment, which none but persons of birth and fashion +should be allowed to excel in, or to exercise with advantage to the +public, let them by all means take upon them the task of enlightening +and refining mankind: if they decline this responsibility as too heavy +for their shoulders, let those who do the drudgery in their stead, +however inadequately, for want of their polite example, receive the +meed that is their due, and not to be treated as low pretenders who +have encroached on the province of their betters. Suppose Richardson +to have been acquainted with the great man's steward, or valet, +instead of the great man himself, I will venture to say that there was +more difference between him who lived in an _ideal world_, and had the +genius and felicity to open that world to others, and his friend the +steward, than between the lacquey and the mere lord, or between those +who lived in different rooms of the same house, who dined on the same +luxuries at different tables, who rode outside or inside of the same +coach, and were proud of wearing or of bestowing the same tawdry +livery. If the lord is distinguished from his valet by any thing else, +it is by education and talent, which he has in common with our author. +But if the latter shows these in the highest degree, it is asked what +are his pretensions? Not birth or fortune, for neither of these would +enable him to write a Clarissa. One man is born with a title and +estate, another with genius. That is sufficient; and we have no right +to question the genius for want of _gentility_, unless the former ran +in families, or could be bequeathed with a fortune, which is not the +case. Were it so, the flowers of literature, like jewels and +embroidery, would be confined to the fashionable circles; and there +would be no pretenders to taste or elegance but those whose names were +found in the court list. No one objects to Claude's Landscapes as the +work of a pastrycook, or withholds from Raphael the epithet of +_divine_, because his parents were not rich. This impertinence is +confined to men of letters; the evidence of the senses baffles the +envy and foppery of mankind. No quarter ought to be given to this +_aristocratic_ tone of criticism whenever it appears. People of +quality are not contented with carrying all the external advantages +for their own share, but would persuade you that all the intellectual +ones are packed up in the same bundle. Lord Byron was a later instance +of this double and unwarrantable style of pretension--_monstrum +ingens, biforme_. He could not endure a lord who was not a wit, nor a +poet who was not a lord. Nobody but himself answered to his own +standard of perfection. Mr. Moore carries a proxy in his pocket from +some noble persons to estimate literary merit by the same rule. Lady +Mary calls Fielding names, but she afterwards makes atonement by doing +justice to his frank, free, hearty nature, where she says "his spirits +gave him raptures with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was +starving in a garret, and his happy constitution made him forget every +thing when he was placed before a venison-pasty or over a flask of +champagne." She does not want shrewdness and spirit when her petulance +and conceit do not get the better of her, and she has done ample and +merited execution on Lord Bolingbroke. She is, however, very angry at +the freedoms taken with the Great; _smells a rat_ in this +indiscriminate scribbling, and the familiarity of writers with the +reading public; and inspired by her Turkish costume, foretells a +French or English revolution as the consequence of transferring the +patronage of letters from the _quality_ to the mob, and of supposing +that ordinary writers or readers can have any notions in common with +their superiors.] + +The change, from the commencement to the close of life, appears like a +fable, after it has taken place; how should we treat it otherwise than +as a chimera before it has come to pass? There are some things that +happened so long ago, places or persons we have formerly seen, of +which such dim traces remain, we hardly know whether it was sleeping +or waking they occurred; they are like dreams within the dream of +life, a mist, a film before the eye of memory, which, as we try to +recall them more distinctly, elude our notice altogether. It is but +natural that the lone interval that we thus look back upon, should +have appeared long and endless in prospect. There are others so +distinct and fresh, they seem but of yesterday--their very vividness +might be deemed a pledge of their permanence. Then, however far back +our impressions may go, we find others still older (for our years are +multiplied in youth); descriptions of scenes that we had read, and +people before our time, Priam and the Trojan war; and even then, +Nestor was old and dwelt delighted on his youth, and spoke of the +race, of heroes that were no more;--what wonder that, seeing this long +line of being pictured in our minds, and reviving as it were in us, we +should give ourselves involuntary credit for an indeterminate period +of existence? In the Cathedral at Peterborough there is a monument to +Mary, Queen of Scots, at which I used to gaze when a boy, while the +events of the period, all that had happened since, passed in review +before me. If all this mass of feeling and imagination could be +crowded into a moment's compass, what might not the whole of life be +supposed to contain? We are heirs of the past; we count upon the +future as our natural reversion. Besides, there are some of our early +impressions so exquisitely tempered, it appears that they must always +last--nothing can add to or take away from their sweetness and +purity--the first breath of spring, the hyacinth dipped in the dew, +the mild lustre of the evening-star, the rainbow after a storm--while +we have the full enjoyment of these, we must be young; and what can +ever alter us in this respect? Truth, friendship, love, books, are +also proof against the canker of time; and while we live, but for +them, we can never grow old. We take out a new lease of existence from +the objects on which we set our affections, and become abstracted, +impassive, immortal in them. We cannot conceive how certain sentiments +should ever decay or grow cold in our breasts; and, consequently, to +maintain them in their first youthful glow and vigour, the flame of +life must continue to burn as bright as ever, or rather, they are the +fuel that feed the sacred lamp, that kindle "the purple light of +love," and spread a golden cloud around our heads! Again, we not only +flourish and survive in our affections (in which we will not listen to +the possibility of a change, any more than we foresee the wrinkles on +the brow of a mistress), but we have a farther guarantee against the +thoughts of death in our favourite studies and pursuits, and in their +continual advance. Art we know is long; life, we feel, should be so +too. We see no end of the difficulties we have to encounter: +perfection is slow of attainment, and we must have time to accomplish +it in. Rubens complained that when he had just learnt his art, he was +snatched away from it: we trust we shall be more fortunate! A wrinkle +in an old head takes whole days to finish it properly: but to catch +"the Raphael grace, the Guido air," no limit should be put to our +endeavours. What a prospect for the future! What a task we have +entered upon! and shall we be arrested in the middle of it? We do not +reckon our time thus employed lost, or our pains thrown away, or our +progress slow--we do not droop or grow tired, but "gain new vigour at +our endless task;"--and shall Time grudge us the opportunity to finish +what we have auspiciously begun, and have formed a sort of compact +with nature to achieve? The fame of the great names we look up to is +also imperishable; and shall not we, who contemplate it with such +intense yearnings, imbibe a portion of ethereal fire, the _divinę +particula aurę_, which nothing can extinguish? I remember to have +looked at a print of Rembrandt for hours together, without being +conscious of the flight of time, trying to resolve it into its +component parts, to connect its strong and sharp gradations, to learn +the secret of its reflected lights, and found neither satiety nor +pause in the prosecution of my studies. The print over which I was +poring would last long enough; why should the idea in my mind, which +was finer, more impalpable, perish before it? At this, I redoubled the +ardour of my pursuit, and by the very subtlety and refinement of my +inquiries, seemed to bespeak for them an exemption from corruption and +the rude grasp of Death.[41] + +[Footnote 41: Is it not this that frequently keeps artists alive so +long, _viz._ the constant occupation of their minds with vivid images, +with little of the _wear-and-tear_ of the body?] + +Objects, on our first acquaintance with them, have that singleness and +integrity of impression that it seems as if nothing could destroy or +obliterate them, so firmly are they stamped and rivetted on the brain. +We repose on them with a sort of voluptuous indolence, in full faith +and boundless confidence. We are absorbed in the present moment, or +return to the same point--idling away a great deal of time in youth, +thinking we have enough and to spare. There is often a local feeling +in the air, which is as fixed as if it were of marble; we loiter in +dim cloisters, losing ourselves in thought and in their glimmering +arches; a winding road before us seems as long as the journey of life, +and as full of events. Time and experience dissipate this illusion; +and by reducing them to detail, circumscribe the limits of our +expectations. It is only as the pageant of life passes by and the +masques turn their backs upon us, that we see through the deception, +or believe that the train will have an end. In many cases, the slow +progress and monotonous texture of our lives, before we mingle with +the world and are embroiled in its affairs, has a tendency to aid the +same feeling. We have a difficulty, when left to ourselves, and +without the resource of books or some more lively pursuit, to "beguile +the slow and creeping hours of time," and argue that if it moves on +always at this tedious snail's-pace, it can never come to an end. We +are willing to skip over certain portions of it that separate us from +favourite objects, that irritate ourselves at the unnecessary delay. +The young are prodigal of life from a superabundance of it; the old +are tenacious on the same score, because they have little left, and +cannot enjoy even what remains of it. + +For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, and that +event had considerable influence on my early feelings, as on those of +others. Youth was then doubly such. It was the dawn of a new era, a +new impulse had been given to men's minds, and the sun of Liberty rose +upon the sun of Life in the same day, and both were proud to run their +race together. Little did I dream, while my first hopes and wishes +went hand in hand with those of the human race, that long before my +eyes should close, that dawn would be overcast, and set once more in +the night of despotism--"total eclipse!" Happy that I did not. I felt +for years, and during the best part of my existence, _heart-whole_ in +that cause, and triumphed in the triumphs over the enemies of man! At +that time, while the fairest aspirations of the human mind seemed +about to be realized, ere the image of man was defaced and his breast +mangled in scorn, philosophy took a higher, poetry could afford a +deeper range. At that time, to read the "Robbers," was indeed +delicious, and to hear + + "From the dungeon of the tower time-rent, + That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry," + +could be borne only amidst the fulness of hope, the crash of the fall +of the strongholds of power, and the exulting sounds of the march of +human freedom. What feelings the death-scene in Don Carlos sent into +the soul! In that headlong career of lofty enthusiasm, and the joyous +opening of the prospects of the world and our own, the thought of +death crossing it, smote doubly cold upon the mind; there was a +stifling sense of oppression and confinement, an impatience of our +present knowledge, a desire to grasp the whole of our existence in one +strong embrace, to sound the mystery of life and death, and in order +to put an end to the agony of doubt and dread, to burst through our +prison-house, and confront the King of Terrors in his grisly +palace!... As I was writing out this passage, my miniature-picture +when a child lay on the mantle-piece, and I took it out of the case to +look at it. I could perceive few traces of myself in it; but there was +the same placid brow, the dimpled mouth, the same timid, inquisitive +glance as ever. But its careless smile did not seem to reproach me +with having become a recreant to the sentiments that were then sown in +my mind, or with having written a sentence that could call up a blush +in this image of ingenuous youth! + +"That time is past with all its giddy raptures." Since the future was +barred to my progress, I have turned for consolation to the past, +gathering up the fragments of my early recollections, and putting them +into a form that might live. It is thus, that when we find our +personal and substantial identity vanishing from us, we strive to gain +a reflected and substituted one in our thoughts: we do not like to +perish wholly, and wish to bequeath our names at least to posterity. +As long as we can keep alive our cherished thoughts and nearest +interests in the minds of others, we do not appear to have retired +altogether from the stage, we still occupy a place in the estimation +of mankind, exercise a powerful influence over them, and it is only +our bodies that are trampled into dust or dispersed to air. Our +darling speculations still find favour and encouragement, and we make +as good a figure in the eyes of our descendants, nay, perhaps, a +better than we did in our life-time. This is one point gained; the +demands of our self-love are so far satisfied. Besides, if by the +proofs of intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this world, +by exemplary virtue or unblemished faith, we are taught to ensure an +interest in another and a higher state of being, and to anticipate at +the same time the applauses of men and angels. + + "Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries; + Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." + +As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. +Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers +in this respect. We try to arrest its few last tottering steps, and to +make it linger on the brink of the grave. We can never leave off +wondering how that which has ever been should cease to be, and would +still live on, that we may wonder at our own shadow, and when "all the +life of life is flown," dwell on the retrospect of the past. This is +accompanied by a mechanical tenaciousness of whatever we possess, by a +distrust and a sense of fallacious hollowness in all we see. Instead +of the full, pulpy feeling of youth, everything is flat and insipid. +The world is a painted witch, that puts us off with false shows and +tempting appearances. The ease, the jocund gaiety, the unsuspecting +security of youth are fled: nor can we, without flying in the face of +common sense, + + "From the last dregs of life, hope to receive + What its first sprightly runnings could not give." + +If we can slip out of the world without notice or mischance, can +tamper with bodily infirmity, and frame our minds to the becoming +composure of _still-life_, before we sink into total insensibility, it +is as much as we ought to expect. We do not in the regular course of +nature die all at once: we have mouldered away gradually long before; +faculty after faculty, attachment after attachment, we are torn from +ourselves piece-meal while living; year after year takes something +from us; and death only consigns the last remnant of what we were to +the grave. The revulsion is not so great, and a quiet _euthanasia_ is +a winding-up of the plot, that is not out of reason or nature. + +That we should thus in a manner outlive ourselves, and dwindle +imperceptibly into nothing, is not surprising, when even in our prime +the strongest impressions leave so little traces of themselves behind, +and the last object is driven out by the succeeding one. How little +effect is produced on us at any time by the books we have read, the +scenes we have witnessed, the sufferings we have gone through! Think +only of the variety of feelings we experience in reading an +interesting romance, or being present at a fine play--what beauty, +what sublimity, what soothing, what heart-rending emotions! You would +suppose these would last for ever, or at least subdue the mind to a +correspondent tone and harmony--while we turn over the page, while the +scene is passing before us, it seems as if nothing could ever after +shake our resolution, that "treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing +could touch us farther!" The first splash of mud we get, on entering +the street, the first pettifogging shop-keeper that cheats us out of +twopence, and the whole vanishes clean out of our remembrance, and we +become the idle prey of the most petty and annoying circumstances. The +mind soars by an effort to the grand and lofty: it is at home, in the +grovelling, the disagreeable, and the little. This happens in the +height and heyday of our existence, when novelty gives a stronger +impulse to the blood and takes a faster hold of the brain, (I have +known the impression on coming out of a gallery of pictures then last +half a day)--as we grow old, we become more feeble and querulous, +every object "reverbs its own hollowness," and both worlds are not +enough to satisfy the peevish importunity and extravagant presumption +of our desires! There are a few superior, happy beings, who are born +with a temper exempt from every trifling annoyance. This spirit sits +serene and smiling as in its native skies, and a divine harmony +(whether heard or not) plays around them. This is to be at peace. +Without this, it is in vain to fly into deserts, or to build a +hermitage on the top of rocks, if regret and ill-humour follow us +there: and with this, it is needless to make the experiment. The only +true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the +repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference +whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with +graceful resignation. + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +A VISION + + +A feeling of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont to take +possession of me alike in spring and in autumn. But in spring it is +the melancholy of hope: in autumn it is the melancholy of resignation. +As I was journeying on foot through the Apennines, I fell in with a +pilgrim in whom the spring and the autumn and the melancholy of both +seemed to have combined. In his discourse there were the freshness and +the colours of April: + + "Qual ramicel a ramo, + Tal da pensier pensiero + In lui germogliava." + +But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethought me of the not +unlovely decays, both of age and of the late season, in the stately +elm, after the clusters have been plucked from its entwining vines, +and the vines are as bands of dried withies around its trunk and +branches. Even so there was a memory on his smooth and ample forehead, +which blended with the dedication of his steady eyes, that still +looked--I know not, whether upward, or far onward, or rather to the +line of meeting where the sky rests upon the distance. But how may I +express--the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?--on the lustre of the +pilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with their +slow and reluctant movement, whenever he turned them to any object on +the right hand or on the left? It seemed, methought, as if there lay +upon the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments now unfelt, +but never forgotten. It was at once the melancholy of hope and of +resignation. + +We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sudden tempest of wind +and rain forced us to seek protection in the vaulted doorway of a lone +chapelry: and we sat face to face, each on the stone bench alongside +the low, weather-stained wall, and as close as possible to the massy +door. + +After a pause of silence: "Even thus," said he, "like two strangers +that have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not seldom do +despair and hope meet for the first time in the porch of death!" "All +extremes meet," I answered; "but yours was a strange and visionary +thought." "The better then doth it beseem both the place and me," he +replied. "From a visionary wilt thou hear a vision? Mark that vivid +flash through this torrent of rain! Fire and water. Even here thy +adage holds true, and its truth is the moral of my vision." I +entreated him to proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yet +averting his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his words: +till listening to the wind that echoed within the hollow edifice, and +to the rain without, + + "Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound, + The clash hard by and the murmur all round," + +he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his own purpose, and +amid the gloom of the storm and in the duskiness of that place he sat +like an emblem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like an aged mourner on +the sodded grave of an only one, who is watching the waned moon and +sorroweth not. Starting at length from his brief trance of +abstraction, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed his +discourse, and commenced his parable: + +"During one of those short furloughs from the service of the body, +which the soul may sometimes obtain even in this, its militant state, +I found myself in a vast plain, which I immediately knew to be the +Valley of Life. It possessed an astonishing diversity of soils: and +here was a sunny spot, and there a dark one, forming just such a +mixture of sunshine and shade as we may have observed on the +mountain's side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds are +scattered over heaven. Almost in the very entrance of the valley stood +a large and gloomy pile, into which I seemed constrained to enter. +Every part of the building was crowded with tawdry ornaments and +fantastic deformity. On every window was portrayed, in glaring and +inelegant colours, some horrible tale or preternatural incident, so +that not a ray of light could enter, untinged by the medium through +which it passed. The body of the building was full of people, some of +them dancing in and out, in unintelligible figures, with strange +ceremonies and antic merriment, while others seemed convulsed with +horror, or pining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, I +observed a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes, who appeared +now to marshal the various groups and to direct their movements; and +now, with menacing countenances, to drag some reluctant victim to a +vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the same +time an immense cage, and the form of a human Colossus. + +"I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things might mean; when +lo! one of the directors came up to me, and with a stern and +reproachful look bade me uncover my head; for that the place, into +which I had entered, was the temple of the only true religion, in the +holier recesses of which the great goddess personally resided. Himself +too he bade me reverence, as the consecrated minister of her rites. +Awe-struck by the name of religion, I bowed before the priest, and +humbly and earnestly intreated him to conduct me into her presence. He +assented. Offerings he took from me, with mystic sprinklings of water +and with salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he exorcised +me; and then led me through many a dark and winding alley, the +dew-damps of which chilled my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my +feet, mingled, methought, with moanings, affrighted me. At length we +entered a large hall where not even a single lamp glimmered. It was +made half visible by the wan phosphoric rays which proceeded from +inscriptions on the walls, in letters of the same pale and sepulchral +light. I could read them, methought; but though each one of the words +taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I took them in +sentences, they were riddles and incomprehensible. As I stood +meditating on these hard sayings, my guide thus addressed me: 'The +fallible becomes infallible, and the infallible remains fallible. Read +and believe: these are mysteries!' In the middle of the vast hall the +goddess was placed. Her features, blended with darkness, rose out to +my view, terrible, yet vacant. No definite thought, no distinct image +was afforded me: all was uneasy and obscure feeling. I prostrated +myself before her, and then retired with my guide, soul-withered, and +wondering, and dissatisfied. + +"As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deep buzz as of +discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or +steady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, +above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed by meditative +thought, and a much larger number who were enraged by the severity and +insolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected in +one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry of 'This is the +Temple of Superstition!' after much contumely, and turmoil, and cruel +mal-treatment on all sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, +joined them. + +"We speeded from the temple with hasty steps, and had now nearly gone +round half the valley, when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyond +the stature of mortals, and with a something more than human in her +countenance and mien, which yet could by mortals be only felt, not +conveyed by words or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, +animated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them; and hope, without +its uncertainty, and a something more than all these, which I +understood not; but which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine +unity of expression. Her garments were white and matronly, and of the +simplest texture. We inquired her name. My name, she replied, is +Religion. + +"The more numerous part of our company, affrighted by the very sound, +and sore from recent impostures or sorceries, hurried onwards and +examined no farther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition of +her form and manner to those of the living Idol, whom we had so +recently abjured, agreed to follow her, though with cautious +circumspection. She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, +from the top of which we could command the whole plain, and observe +the relation of the different parts, of each to the other, and of each +to the whole, and of all to each. She then gave us an optic glass +which assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and enabled +us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley of Life; though our eye +even thus assisted permitted us only to behold a light and a glory, +but what we could not descry, save only that it _was_, and that it was +most glorious. + +"And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I had overtaken and +rejoined the more numerous party, who had abruptly left us, indignant +at the very name of religion. They journeyed on, goading each other +with remembrances of past oppressions, and never looking back, till in +the eagerness to recede from the Temple of Superstition they had +rounded the whole circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us the +mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and almost +perpendicular rock, the interior side of which, unknown to them, and +unsuspected, formed the extreme and backward wall of the temple. An +impatient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was the +only perforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cave sat two +figures; the first, by her dress and gestures, I knew to be +Sensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour, and +the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared himself to be the +monster Blasphemy. He uttered big words, and yet ever and anon I +observed that he turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some +remained in the opening of the cave, with the one or the other of its +guardians. The rest, and I among them, pressed on, till we reached an +ample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the +place was unnaturally cold. + +"In the furthest distance of the chamber sat an old dim-eyed man, +poring with a microscope over the torso of a statue, which had neither +base, nor feet, nor head; but on its breast was carved, Nature! To +this he continually applied his glass, and seemed enraptured with the +various inequalities which it rendered visible on the seemingly +polished surface of the marble. Yet evermore was this delight and +triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and vehement railing +against a Being who yet, he assured us, had no existence. This mystery +suddenly recalled to me what I had read in the holiest recess of the +Temple of _Superstition_. The old man spoke in divers tongues, and +continued to utter other and most strange mysteries. Among the rest he +talked much and vehemently concerning an infinite series of causes and +effects, which he explained to be--a string of blind men, the last of +whom caught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of the next, +and so on till they were all out of sight; and that they all walked +infallibly straight, without making one false step, though all were +alike blind. Methought I borrowed courage from surprise, and asked +him--Who then is at the head to guide them? He looked at me with +ineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry suspicion, and then +replied, 'No one;--the string of blind men went on for ever without +any beginning: for although one blind man could not move without +stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight.' I burst +into laughter, which instantly turned to terror--for as he started +forward in rage, I caught a glance of him from behind; and lo! I +beheld a monster biform and Janus-headed, in the hinder face and shape +of which I instantly recognised the dread countenance of +Superstition--and in the terror I awoke." + + _Coleridge._ + + + + +UPON EPITAPHS + + +It needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument, +upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished that +certain external signs should point out the places where their Dead +are interred. Among savage Tribes unacquainted with Letters, this has +mostly been done either by rude stones placed near the Graves, or by +Mounds of earth raised over them. This custom proceeded obviously from +a twofold desire; first, to guard the remains of the deceased from +irreverent approach or from savage violation: and, secondly, to +preserve their memory. "Never any," says Camden, "neglected burial but +some savage Nations; as the Bactrians, which cast their dead to the +dogs; some varlet Philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to be +devoured of fishes; some dissolute Courtiers, as Męcenas, who was wont +to say, Non tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos. + + "I'm careless of a Grave:--Nature her dead will save." + +As soon as Nations had learned the use of letters, Epitaphs were +inscribed upon these Monuments; in order that their intention might be +more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived Monuments and +Epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve +themselves into one. The invention of Epitaphs, Weever, in his +Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, "proceeded from the +presage or fore-feeling of Immortality, implanted in all men +naturally, and is referred to the Scholars of Linus the Theban Poet, +who flourished about the year of the World two thousand seven hundred; +who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, in +doleful verses, then called of him OElina, afterwards Epitaphia, for +that they were first sung at burials, after engraved upon the +Sepulchres." + +And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of Immortality +in the human soul, Man could never have had awakened in him the desire +to live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere love, or the yearning +of Kind towards Kind, could not have produced it. The Dog or Horse +perishes in the field, or in the stall, by the side of his companions, +and is incapable of anticipating the sorrow with which his surrounding +Associates shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannot +pre-conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and therefore +cannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrance +behind him. Add to the principle of love, which exists in the inferior +animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone; will the +conjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it is a +necessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not I think as a direct +result, but only to be come at through an intermediate thought, viz. +That of an intimation or assurance within us, that some part of our +nature is imperishable. At least the precedence, in order of birth, of +one feeling to the other, is unquestionable. If we look back upon the +days of childhood, we shall find that the time is not in remembrance +when, with respect to our own individual Being, the mind was without +this assurance; whereas the wish to be remembered by our Friends or +Kindred after Death, or even in Absence, is, as we shall discover, a +sensation that does not form itself till the _social_ feelings have +been developed, and the Reason has connected itself with a wide range +of objects. Forlorn, and cut off from communication with the best part +of his nature, must that Man be, who should derive the sense of +immortality, as it exists in the mind of a Child, from the same +unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal Spirits with which the Lamb +in the meadow, or any other irrational Creature, is endowed; who +should ascribe it, in short, to blank ignorance in the Child; to an +inability arising from the imperfect state of his faculties to come, +in any point of his being, into contact with a notion of Death; or to +an unreflecting acquiescence in what had been instilled into him! Has +such an unfolder of the mysteries of Nature, though he may have +forgotten his former self, ever noticed the early, obstinate, and +unappeasable inquisitiveness of Children upon the subject of +origination? This single fact proves outwardly the monstrousness of +those suppositions: for, if we had no direct external testimony that +the minds of very young Children meditate feelingly upon Death and +Immortality, these inquiries, which we all know they are perpetually +making concerning the _whence_, do necessarily include correspondent +habits of interrogation concerning the _whither_. Origin and tendency +are notions inseparably co-relative. Never did a Child stand by the +side of a running Stream, pondering within himself what power was the +feeder of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources the +body of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelled +to follow this question by another: "towards what abyss is it in +progress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?" And the +spirit of the answer must have been, though the word might be Sea or +Ocean, accompanied perhaps with an image gathered from a Map, or from +the real object in Nature--these might have been the _letter_, but the +_spirit_ of the answer must have been _as_ inevitably,--a receptacle +without bounds or dimensions;--nothing less than infinity. We may, +then, be justified in asserting, that the sense of Immortality, if not +a co-existent and twin birth with Reason, is among the earliest of her +Offspring: and we may further assert, that from these conjoined, and +under their countenance, the human affections are gradually formed and +opened out. This is not the place to enter into the recesses of these +investigations; but the subject requires me here to make a plain +avowal, that, for my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that the +sympathies of love towards each other, which grow with our growth, +could ever attain any new strength, or even preserve the old, after we +had received from the outward senses the impression of Death, and were +in the habit of having that impression daily renewed and its +accompanying feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we love; +if the same were not counteracted by those communications with our +internal Being, which are anterior to all these experiences, and with +which revelation coincides, and has through that coincidence alone +(for otherwise it could not possess it) a power to affect us. I +confess, with me the conviction is absolute, that, if the impression +and sense of Death were not thus counterbalanced, such a hollowness +would pervade the whole system of things, such a want of +correspondence and consistency, a disproportion so astounding betwixt +means and ends, that there could be no repose, no joy. Were we to grow +up unfostered by this genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit, +so penetrating and powerful, that there could be no motions of the +life of love; and infinitely less could we have any wish to be +remembered after we had passed away from a world in which each man had +moved about like a shadow.--If, then, in a Creature endowed with the +faculties of foresight and reason, the social affections could not +have unfolded themselves uncountenanced by the faith that Man is an +immortal being; and if, consequently, neither could the individual +dying have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his fellows, +nor on their side could they have felt a wish to preserve for future +times vestiges of the departed; it follows, as a final inference, that +without the belief in Immortality, wherein these several desires +originate, neither monuments nor epitaphs, in affectionate or +laudatory commemoration of the Deceased, could have existed in the +world. + +Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange Country, found the +Corse of an unknown person, lying by the Sea-side; he buried it, and +was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that Act. Another +ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body, +regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, "see the +Shell of the flown Bird!" But it is not to be supposed that the moral +and tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of +thought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while his +soul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the other +hand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human Body was of no more +value than the worthless Shell from which the living fowl had +departed, would not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected +by those earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poet +to the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latter +we may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability of +communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to human +Nature, he would have cared no more for the Corse of the Stranger than +for the dead body of a Seal or Porpoise which might have been cast up +by the Waves. We respect the corporeal frame of Man, not merely +because it is the habitation of a rational, but of an immortal Soul. +Each of these Sages was in Sympathy with the best feelings of our +Nature; feelings which, though they seem opposite to each other, have +another and a finer connection than that of contrast.--It is a +connection formed through the subtle progress by which, both in the +natural and the moral world, qualities pass insensibly into their +contraries, and things revolve upon each other. As, in sailing upon +the orb of this Planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun +sets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed +to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage +towards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, +leads finally to the quarter where the Sun is last seen when he +departs from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the +direction of mortality, advances to the Country of everlasting Life; +and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those cheerful +tracts, till she is brought back, for her advantage and benefit, to +the land of transitory things--of sorrow and of tears. + +On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and feelings +of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast, does the Author +of that species of composition, the Laws of which it is our present +purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to the +twofold desire of guarding the Remains of the deceased and preserving +their memory, it may be said that a sepulchral Monument is a tribute +to a Man as a human Being; and that an Epitaph, (in the ordinary +meaning attached to the word) includes this general feeling and +something more; and is a record to preserve the memory of the dead, as +a tribute due to his individual worth, for a satisfaction to the +sorrowing hearts of the Survivors, and for the common benefit of the +living: which record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, +but, where it can, in _close connection with the bodily remains of the +deceased_: and these, it may be added, among the modern Nations of +Europe are deposited within, or contiguous to their places of worship. +In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to bury the dead +beyond the Walls of Towns and Cities; and among the Greeks and Romans +they were frequently interred by the waysides. + +I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulge +with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended +such a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which the +Monuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding images +of Nature--from the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream running +perhaps within sight or hearing, from the beaten road stretching its +weary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these objects have +presented to the mind of the Traveller leaning upon one of the Tombs, +or reposing in the coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from +weariness or in compliance with the invitation, "Pause, Traveller!" so +often found upon the Monuments. And to its Epitaph also must have been +supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate +impressions, lively and affecting analogies of Life as a +Journey--Death as a Sleep overcoming the tired Wayfarer--of Misfortune +as a Storm that falls suddenly upon him--of Beauty as a Flower that +passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered--of +Virtue that standeth firm as a Rock against the beating Waves;--of +Hope "undermined insensibly like the Poplar by the side of the River +that has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a Pine-tree by the +stroke of lightning upon the Mountain-top--of admonitions and +heart-stirring remembrances, like a refreshing Breeze that comes +without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected Fountain. +These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to the +language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the +benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.--We, in modern +times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small +degree counterbalanced to the Inhabitants of large Towns and Cities, +by the custom of depositing the Dead within, or contiguous to, their +places of worship; however splendid or imposing may be the appearance +of those Edifices, or however interesting or salutary the +recollections associated with them. Even were it not true that Tombs +lose their monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the Notice of Men +occupied with the cares of the World, and too often sullied and +defiled by those cares, yet still, when Death is in our thoughts, +nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences of +Nature, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay, +which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and +contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man +only compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our +Monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost +grassless Church-yard of a large Town, with the still seclusion of a +Turkish Cemetery, in some remote place; and yet further sanctified by +the Grove of Cypress in which it is embosomed. Thoughts in the same +temper as these have already been expressed with true sensibility by +an ingenious Poet of the present day. The subject of his Poem is "All +Saints Church, Derby": he has been deploring the forbidding and +unseemly appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish, that in +past times the practice had been adopted of interring the Inhabitants +of large Towns in the Country.-- + + Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot, + Where healing Nature her benignant look + Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when, + With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, + She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man, + Her noblest work (so Israel's virgins erst, + With annual moan upon the mountains wept + Their fairest gone), there in that rural scene, + So placid, so congenial to the wish + The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within + The silent grave, I would have strayed: + + * * * * * + + --wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven + Lay on the humbler graves around, what time + The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds, + Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse, + 'Twere brooding on the Dead inhumed beneath. + There while with him, the holy man of Uz, + O'er human destiny I sympathized, + Counting the long, long periods prophecy + Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives + Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring + Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove, + Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer + The Patriarch mourning over a world destroyed: + And I would bless her visit; for to me + 'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links + As one, the works of Nature and the word + Of God.-- + + JOHN EDWARDS. + +A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of Nature, may +indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a Town of crowded +Population; and Sepulture therein combines many of the best tendencies +which belong to the mode practised by the Ancients, with others +peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheerfulness, which attend +the celebration of the Sabbath-day in rural places, are profitably +chastised by the sight of the Graves of Kindred and Friends, gathered +together in that general Home towards which the thoughtful yet happy +Spectators themselves are journeying. Hence a Parish Church, in the +stillness of the Country, is a visible centre of a community of the +living and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred the +nearest concerns of both. + +As, then, both in Cities and in Villages, the Dead are deposited in +close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition +of an Epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the Nations of +Antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human +mind; upon departed Worth--upon personal or social Sorrow and +Admiration--upon Religion, individual and social--upon Time, and upon +eternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure a +composition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing that +shall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle an +Epitaph to praise, more than this is necessary. It ought to contain +some Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part of +our Nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however general +or even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read +the words with pleasure and gratitude. A Husband bewails a Wife; a +Parent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost Child; a Son +utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed Father or +Mother; a Friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the +companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the Tenant of the +Grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a +pious admonition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christian +confidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand Church-yards; +and it does not often happen that any thing, in a greater degree +discriminate or appropriate to the Dead or to the Living, is to be +found in them. This want of discrimination has been ascribed by Dr. +Johnson, in his Essay upon the Epitaphs of Pope, to two causes; first, +the scantiness of the Objects of human praise; and, secondly, the want +of variety in the Characters of Men; or, to use his own words, "to the +fact, that the greater part of Mankind have no character at all." Such +language may be holden without blame among the generalities of common +conversation; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist speaking +seriously upon a serious Subject. The objects of admiration in +Human-nature are not scanty, but abundant; and every Man has a +Character of his own, to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The +real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchral +memorials is this: That to analyse the Characters of others, +especially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural +employment of Men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to +understand the constitution of the Minds of those who have soothed, +who have cheered, who have supported us: with whom we have been long +and daily pleased or delighted. The affections are their own +justification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory +evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends or +kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thought +of placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each other +in the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation +to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is +discriminated in them from an excellence known by the same general +name as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do we +incline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow, +Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which +incite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by +records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalizing +Receptacle of the Dead. + +The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, in +a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of +humanity as connected with the subject of Death--the source from which +an Epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die are +the two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute +coincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as to +entitle an Epitaph to high praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the +highest unless other excellencies be superadded. Passing through all +intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what these +excellencies are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species +of composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the +common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a +distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of the +Individual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be +preserved; at least of his character as, after Death, it appeared to +those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to +be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts, +actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life, +prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he had +been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into +one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper, +restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and what +the Man was whom he is called to think upon with interest. A distinct +conception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than +explicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an Epitaph +is not an Anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is +not even a Painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entire +tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by the +side of the Grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he loves +and admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, the +image of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character of +a deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no--nor ought to be +seen, otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminous +mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed, +but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear +more dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall we +say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that +accordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?--It _is_ +truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are not +apparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at through this +medium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view, which +before had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is truth +hallowed by love--the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and the +affections of the Living?--This may easily be brought to the test. Let +one, whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover +what was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his +death, and what a change is wrought in a moment!--Enmity melts away; +and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity, +vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a harmony of love +and beauty succeeds. Bring such a Man to the Tombstone on which shall +be inscribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the spirit which +we have recommended. Would he turn from it as from an idle tale! +No--the thoughtful look, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear, +would testify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; and +that on the Writer's mind had remained an impression which was a true +abstract of the character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces +were remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be +remembered. The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man, +contemplated by the side of the Grave where his body is mouldering, +ought to appear, and be felt as something midway between what he was +on Earth walking about with his living frailties, and what he may be +presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven. + +It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of the +Worth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Any +further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if this +be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably +frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to this +conclusion,--either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribed +to him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, and +must therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him, +were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act +of composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding having +been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the +Mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the +fault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, the +Memorial is unaffecting and profitless. + +Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue it +too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so much +disposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, wherein +all Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universal +Father is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers all +Human Beings to itself, and "equalizes the lofty and the low." We +suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious for +one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and the +virtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, as +patience, meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, are +in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then, +contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let +the sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite +qualities or minute distinctions in individual character; which if +they do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined, +resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are +true and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as +it is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human +nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But +an Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it is +exposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant; it is +condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story +and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and +indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired; the stooping +old Man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;--the Child +is proud that he can read it--and the Stranger is introduced by its +mediation to the company of a Friend: it is concerning all, and for +all:--in the Churchyard it is open to the day; the sun looks down upon +the stone, and the rains of Heaven beat against it. + +Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy is bound in this case +more than in any other, to give proof that he himself has been moved, +it is to be remembered, that to raise a Monument is a sober and a +reflective act; that the inscription which it bears is intended to be +permanent, and for universal perusal; and that, for this reason, the +thoughts and feelings expressed should be permanent also--liberated +from that weakness and anguish of sorrow which is in nature +transitory, and which with instinctive decency retires from notice. +The passions should be subdued, the emotions controlled; strong +indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemliness +requires this, and truth requires it also: for how can the Narrator +otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a Grave is a tranquillizing object: +resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as the +wild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or +gathering round the monument by which it is defended. The very form +and substance of the monument which has received the inscription, and +the appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow and +laborious hand they must have been engraven, might seem to reproach +the Author who had given way upon this occasion to transports of mind, +or to quick turns of conflicting passion; though the same might +constitute the life and beauty of a funeral Oration or elegiac Poem. + +These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps unconsciously, have +been one of the main causes why Epitaphs so often personate the +Deceased, and represent him as speaking from his own Tombstone. The +departed Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains are +gone; that a state of rest is come; and he conjures you to weep for +him no longer. He admonishes with the voice of one experienced in the +vanity of those affections which are confined to earthly objects, and +gives a verdict like a superior Being, performing the office of a +Judge, who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose decision +cannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death disarmed of its sting, and +affliction unsubstantialized. By this tender fiction, the Survivors +bind themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of +the imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language +earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This shadowy +interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of the Living +and the Dead by their appropriate affections. And I may observe, that +here we have an additional proof of the propriety with which +sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the consciousness of +Immortality as their primal source. + +I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an Epitaph should be cast +in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in which what +is said comes from the Survivors directly; but rather to point out how +natural those feelings are which have induced men, in all states and +ranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. And this I have +done chiefly in order that the laws, which ought to govern the +composition of the other, may be better understood. This latter mode, +namely, that in which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seems +to me upon the whole greatly preferable: as it admits a wider range of +notices; and, above all, because, excluding the fiction which is the +groundwork of the other, it rests upon a more solid basis. + +Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect Epitaph; but it +must be observed that one is meant which will best answer the +_general_ ends of that species of composition. According to the course +pointed out, the worth of private life, through all varieties of +situation and character, will be most honourably and profitably +preserved in memory. Nor would the model recommended less suit public +Men, in all instances save of those persons who by the greatness of +their services in the employments of Peace or War, or by the +surpassing excellence of their works in Art, Literature, or Science, +have made themselves not only universally known, but have filled the +heart of their Country with everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here +pause to correct myself. In describing the general tenour of thought +which Epitaphs ought to hold, I have omitted to say, that, if it be +the _actions_ of a Man, or even some _one_ conspicuous or beneficial +act of local or general utility, which have distinguished him, and +excited a desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, ought +the attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act; and +such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it. +Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.--The mighty +benefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the immediate +Survivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to latest +Posterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches, in such a +place; nor of delineations of character to individualize them. This is +already done by their Works, in the Memories of Men. Their naked names +and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic Gratitude, patriotic +Love, or human Admiration; or the utterance of some elementary +Principle most essential in the constitution of true Virtue; or an +intuition, communicated in adequate words, of the sublimity of +intellectual Power,--these are the only tribute which can here be +paid--the only offering that upon such an Altar would not be unworthy! + + What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones, + The labour of an age in piled stones, + Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid + Under a starry-pointing pyramid? + Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame, + What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? + Thou in our wonder and astonishment + Hast built thyself a live-long Monument, + And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, + That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. + + _Wordsworth._ + + + + +JEEMS THE DOORKEEPER + + +When my father was in Broughton Place Church, we had a doorkeeper +called _Jeems_, and a formidable little man and doorkeeper he was; of +unknown age and name, for he existed to us, and indeed still exists to +me--though he has been in his grave these sixteen years--as _Jeems_, +absolute and _per se_, no more needing a surname than did or do +Abraham or Isaac, Samson or Nebuchadnezzar. We young people of the +congregation believed that he was out in the '45, and had his drum +shot through and quenched at Culloden; and as for any indication on +his huge and grey visage, of his ever having been young, he might +safely have been _Bottom_ the Weaver in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, +or that excellent, ingenious, and "wise-hearted" Bezaleel, the son of +Uri, whom _Jeems_ regarded as one of the greatest of men and of +weavers, and whose "ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and +purple, and scarlet, each of them with fifty loops on the edge of the +selvedge in the coupling, with their fifty taches of gold," he, in +confidential moments, gave it to be understood were the sacred +triumphs of his craft; for, as you may infer, my friend was a man of +the treddles and the shuttle, as well as the more renowned grandson of +Hur. + +_Jeems's_ face was so extensive, and met you so formidably and at +once, that it mainly composed his whole; and such a face! Sydney Smith +used to say of a certain quarrelsome man, "His very face is a breach +of the peace." Had he seen our friend's, he would have said he was the +imperative mood on two (very small) legs, out on business in a blue +greatcoat. It was in the nose and the keen small eye that his strength +lay. Such a nose of power, so undeniable, I never saw, except in what +was said to be a bust from the antique, of Rhadamanthus, the +well-known Justice-Clerk of the Pagan Court of Session! Indeed, when I +was in the Rector's class, and watched _Jeems_ turning interlopers out +of the church seats, by merely presenting before them this tremendous +organ, it struck me that if Rhadamanthus had still been here, and out +of employment, he would have taken kindly to _Jeems's_ work,--and that +possibly he was that potentate in a U. P. disguise. + +Nature having fashioned the huge face, and laid out much material and +idea upon it, had finished off the rest of _Jeems_ somewhat scrimply, +as if she had run out of means; his legs especially were of the +shortest, and, as his usual dress was a very long blue greatcoat, made +for a much taller man, its tails resting upon the ground, and its +large hind buttons in a totally preposterous position, gave him the +look of being planted, or rather after the manner of Milton's beasts +at the creation, in the act of emerging painfully from his mother +earth. + +Now, you may think this was a very ludicrous old object. If you had +seen him, you would not have said so; and not only was he a man of +weight and authority,--he was likewise a genuine, indeed a deeply +spiritual Christian, well read in his Bible, in his own heart, and in +human nature and life, knowing both its warp and woof; more peremptory +in making himself obey his Master, than in getting himself obeyed, and +this is saying a good deal; and, like all complete men, he had a +genuine love and gift of humour,[42] kindly and uncouth, lurking in +those small, deep-set grey eyes, shrewd and keen, which, like two +sharpest of shooters, enfiladed that massive and redoubtable bulwark, +the nose. + +[Footnote 42: On one occasion a descendant of Nabal having put a crown +piece into "the plate" instead of a penny, and staring at its white +and precious face, asked to have it back, and was refused--"In once, +in for ever." "A weel, a weel," grunted he, "I'll get credit for it in +heaven." "Na, na," said _Jeems_, "ye'll get credit only for the +penny!"] + +One day two strangers made themselves over to _Jeems_ to be furnished +with seats. Motioning them to follow, he walked majestically to the +farthest in corner, where he had decreed they should sit. The couple +found seats near the door, and stepped into them, leaving _Jeems_ to +march through the passages alone, the whole congregation watching him +with some relish and alarm. He gets to his destination, opens the +door, and stands aside; nobody appears. He looks sharply round, and +then gives a look of general wrath "at lairge." No one doubted his +victory. His nose and eye fell, or seemed to fall, on the two +culprits, and pulled them out instantly, hurrying them to their +appointed place; _Jeems_ snibbed them slowly in, and gave them a +parting look they were not likely to misunderstand or forget. + +At that time the crowds and the imperfect ventilation made fainting a +common occurrence in Broughton Place, especially among "_thae young +hizzies_," as _Jeems_ called the servant girls. He generally came to +me, "the young Doctor," on these occasions with a look of great +relish. I had indoctrinated him in the philosophy of _syncopes_, +especially as to the propriety of laying the "_hizzies_" quite flat on +the floor of the lobby, with the head as low as the rest of the body; +and as many of these cases were owing to what _Jeems_ called "that +bitter yerkin" of their boddices, he and I had much satisfaction in +relieving them, and giving them a moral lesson, by cutting their +stay-laces, which ran before the knife, and cracked "like a +bowstring," as my coadjutor said. One day a young lady was our care. +She was lying out, and slowly coming to. _Jeems_, with that huge +terrific visage, came round to me with his open _gully_ in his hand, +whispering, "Wull oo ripp 'er up noo?" It happened not to be a case +for ripping up. The gully was a great sanitary institution, and made a +decided inroad upon the _yerking_ system--_Jeems_ having, thanks to +this and Dr. Coombe, every year fewer opportunities of displaying and +enjoying its powers. + +He was sober in other things besides drink, could be generous on +occasion, but was careful of his siller; sensitive to fierceness +("we're uncommon _zeelyous_ the day," was a favourite phrase when any +church matter was stirring) for the honour of his church and minister, +and to his too often worthless neighbours a perpetual moral protest +and lesson--a living epistle. He dwelt at the head of big Lochend's +Close in the Canongate, at the top of a long stair--ninety-six steps, +as I well know--where he had dwelt, all by himself, for +five-and-thirty years, and where, in the midst of all sorts of +flittings and changes, not a day opened or closed without the +well-known sound of _Jeems_ at his prayers,--his "exercise,"--at "the +Books." His clear, fearless, honest voice in psalm and chapter, and +strong prayer, came sounding through that wide "_land_," like that of +one crying in the wilderness. + +_Jeems_ and I got great friends; he called me John, as if he was my +grandfather; and though as plain in speech as in feature, he was never +rude. I owe him much in many ways. His absolute downrightness and +_yaefauldness_; his energetic, unflinching fulfilment of his work; his +rugged, sudden tenderness; his look of sturdy age, as the thick +silver-white hair lay on his serious and weatherworn face, like +moonlight on a stout old tower; his quaint Old Testament exegetics, +his lonely and contented life, his simple godliness,--it was no small +privilege to see much of all this. + +But I must stop. I forget that you didn't know him; that he is not +your _Jeems_. If it had been so, you would not soon have wearied of +telling or of being told of the life and conversation of this "fell +body." He was not communicative about his early life. He would +sometimes speak to me about "_her_," as if I knew who and where she +was, and always with a gentleness and solemnity unlike his usual gruff +ways. I found out that he had been married when young, and that "she" +(he never named her) and their child died on the same day,--the day of +its birth. The only indication of married life in his room, was an old +and strong cradle, which he had cut down so as to rock no more, and +which he made the depository of his books--a queer collection. + +I have said that he had what he called, with a grave smile, _family_ +worship, morning and evening, never failing. He not only sang his +psalm, but gave out or chanted _the line_ in great style; and on +seeing me one morning surprised at this, he said, "Ye see John, _oo_," +meaning himself and his wife, "began that way." He had a firm, true +voice, and a genuine though roughish gift of singing, and being +methodical in all things, he did what I never heard of in any one +else,--he had seven fixed tunes, one of which he sang on its own set +day. Sabbath morning it was _French_, which he went through with great +_birr_. Monday, _Scarborough_, which, he said, was like my father +cantering. Tuesday, _Coleshill_, that soft exquisite air,--monotonous +and melancholy, soothing and vague, like the sea. This day, Tuesday, +was the day of the week on which his wife and child died, and he +always sang more verses then than on any other. Wednesday was _Irish_; +Thursday, _Old Hundred_; Friday, _Bangor_; and Saturday, _Blackburn_, +that humdrummest of tunes, "as long, and lank, and lean, as is the +ribbed sea-sand." He could not defend it, but had some secret reason +for sticking to it. As to the evenings, they were just the same tunes +in reversed order, only that on Tuesday night he sang _Coleshill_ +again, thus dropping _Blackburn_ for evening work. The children could +tell the day of the week by _Jeems's_ tune, and would have been as +much astonished at hearing _Bangor_ on Monday, as at finding St. +Giles's half-way down the Canongate. + +I frequently breakfasted with him. He made capital porridge, and I +wish I could get such butter-milk, or at least have such a relish for +it, as in those days. Jeems is away--gone over to the majority; and I +hope I may never forget to be grateful to the dear and queer old man. +I think I see and hear him saying his grace over our bickers with +their _brats_ on, then taking his two books out of the cradle and +reading, not without a certain homely majesty, the first verse of the +99th Psalm, + + "Th' eternal Lord doth reign as king, + Let all the people quake; + He sits between the cherubims, + Let th' earth be mov'd and shake;" + +then launching out into the noble depths of _Irish_. His chapters were +long, and his prayers short, very scriptural, but by no means +stereotyped, and wonderfully real, _immediate_, as if he was near Him +whom he addressed. Any one hearing the sound and not the words, would +say, "That man is speaking to some one who is with him--who is +present,"--as he often said to me, "There's nae glide dune, John, till +ye get to close _grups_." + +Now, I dare say you are marvelling--_first_, Why I brought this grim, +old Rhadamanthus, Belzaleel, U. P. Naso of a doorkeeper up before you; +and _secondly_, How I am to get him down decorously in that ancient +blue greatcoat, and get at my own proper text. + +And first of the _first_. I thought it would do you young men--the +hope of the world--no harm to let your affections go out toward this +dear, old-world specimen of homespun worth. And as to the _second_, I +am going to make it my excuse for what is to come. One day soon after +I knew him, when I thought he was in a soft, confidential mood, I +said: "_Jeems_, what kind of weaver are you?" "_I'm in the fancical +line_, maister John," said he somewhat stiffly; "I like its +_leecence_." So _exit Jeems_--_impiger, iracundus, acer--torvus +visu--placide quiescat_! + +Now, my dear friends, I am in the _fancical_ line as well as _Jeems_, +and in virtue of my _leecence_, I begin my exegetical remarks on the +pursuit of truth. By the bye, I should have told Sir Henry that it was +truth, not knowledge, I was to be after. Now all knowledge should be +true, but it isn't; much of what is called knowledge is very little +worth even when true, and much of the best truth is not in a strict +sense knowable,--rather it is felt and believed. + +Exegetical, you know, is the grand and fashionable word now-a-days for +explanatory; it means bringing out of a passage all that is in it, and +nothing more. For my part, being in _Jeems's_ line, I am not so +particular as to the nothing more. We _fancical_ men are much given to +make somethings of nothings; indeed, the noble Italians, call +imagination and poetic fancy _the little more_; its very function is +to embellish and intensify the actual and the common. Now you must not +laugh at me, or it, when I announce the passage from which I mean to +preach upon the pursuit of truth, and the possession of wisdom:-- + + "On Tintock tap there is a Mist, + And in the Mist there is a Kist, + And in the Kist there is a Cap; + Tak' up the Cap and sup the drap, + And set the Cap on Tintock tap." + +And as to what Sir Henry[43] would call the context, we are saved all +trouble, there being none, the passage being self-contained, and as +destitute of relations as Melchisedec. + +[Footnote 43: This was read to Sir Henry W. Moncreiff's Young Men's +Association, November 1862.] + +_Tintock_, you all know, or should know, is a big porphyritic hill in +Lanarkshire, standing alone, and dominating like a king over the Upper +Ward. Then we all understand what a _mist_ is; and it is worth +remembering that as it is more difficult to penetrate, to illuminate, +and to see through mist than darkness, so it is easier to enlighten +and overcome ignorance, than error, confusion, and mental mist. Then a +_kist_ is Scotch for chest, and a _cap_ the same for _cup_, and _drap_ +for drop. Well, then, I draw out of these queer old lines-- + +_First_, That to gain real knowledge, to get it at firsthand, you must +go up the Hill Difficulty--some Tintock, something you see from +afar--and you must _climb_; you must energize, as Sir William Hamilton +and Dr. Chalmers said and did; you must turn your back upon the plain, +and you must mainly go alone, and on your own legs. Two boys may start +together on going up Tinto, and meet at the top; but the journeys are +separate, each takes his own line. + +_Secondly_, You start for your Tintock top with a given object, to get +into the mist and get the drop, and you do this chiefly because you +have the truth-hunting instinct; you long to know what is hidden +there, for there is a wild and urgent charm in the unknown; and you +want to realize for yourself what others, it may have been ages ago, +tell they have found there. + +_Thirdly_, There is no road up; no omnibus to the top of Tinto; you +must zigzag it in your own way, and as I have already said, most part +of it alone. + +_Fourthly_, This climbing, this exaltation, and buckling to of the +mind, of itself does you good;[44] it is capital exercise, and you +find out many a thing by the way. Your lungs play freely; your mouth +fills with the sweet waters of keen action; the hill tries your wind +and mettle, supples and hardens your joints and limbs; quickens and +rejoices, while it tests your heart. + +[Footnote 44: "In this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our +game, the chase is certainly of service."--BURKE.] + +_Fifthly_, You have many a fall, many a false step; you slip back, you +tumble into a _moss-hagg_; you stumble over the baffling stones; you +break your shins and lose your temper, and the finding of it makes you +keep it better the next time; you get more patient, and yet more +eager, and not unoften you come to a stand-still; run yourself up +against, or to the edge of, some impossible precipice, some insoluble +problem, and have to turn for your life; and you may find yourself +over head in a treacherous _wellee_, whose soft inviting cushion of +green has decoyed many a one before you. + +_Sixthly_, You are for ever mistaking the top; thinking you are at it, +when, behold! there it is, as if farther off than ever, and you may +have to humble yourself in a hidden valley before reascending; and so +on you go, at times flinging yourself down on the elastic heather, +stretched panting with your face to the sky, or gazing far away +athwart the widening horizon. + +_Seventhly_, As you get up, you may see how the world below lessens +and reveals itself, comes up to you as a whole, with its just +proportions and relations; how small the village you live in looks, +and the house in which you were born; how the plan of the place comes +out; there is the quiet churchyard, and a lamb is nibbling at that +infant's grave; there, close to the little church, your mother rests +till the great day; and there far off you may trace the river winding +through the plain, coming like human life, from darkness to +darkness,--from its source in some wild, upland solitude to its +eternity, the sea. But you have rested long enough, so, up and away! +take the hill once again! Every effort is a victory and joy--new skill +and power and relish--takes you farther from the world below, nearer +the clouds and heavens; and you may note that the more you move up +towards the pure blue depths of the sky--the more lucid and the more +unsearchable--the farther off, the more withdrawn into their own clear +infinity do they seem. Well, then, you get to the upper story, and you +find it less difficult, less steep than lower down; often so plain and +level that you can run off in an ecstasy to the crowning cairn, to the +sacred mist--within whose cloudy shrine rests the unknown secret; some +great truth of God and of your own soul; something that is not to be +gotten for gold down on the plain, but may be taken here; something +that no man can give or take away; something that you must work for +and learn yourself, and which, once yours, is safe beyond the chances +of time. + +_Eighthly_, You enter that luminous cloud, stooping and as a little +child--as, indeed, all the best kingdoms are entered--and pressing on, +you come in the shadowy light to the long-dreamt-of ark,--the chest. +It is shut, it is locked; but if you are the man I take you to be, you +have the key, put it gently in, steadily, and home. But what is the +key? It is the love of truth; neither more nor less; no other key +opens it; no false one, however cunning, can pick that lock; no +assault of hammer, however stout, can force it open. But with its own +key a little child may open it, often does open it, it goes so +sweetly, so with a will. You lift the lid; you are all alone; the +cloud is round you with a sort of tender light of its own, shutting +out the outer world, filling you with an _eerie_ joy, as if alone and +yet not alone. You see the cup within, and in it the one crystalline, +unimaginable, inestimable drop; glowing and tremulous, as if alive. +You take up the cup, you sup the drop; it enters into, and becomes of +the essence of yourself; and so, in humble gratitude and love, "in +sober certainty of waking bliss," you gently replace the cup. It will +gather again,--it is for ever gathering; no man, woman, or child ever +opened that chest, and found no drop in the cup. It might not be the +very drop expected; it will serve their purpose none the worse, often +much the better. + +And now, bending down, you shut the lid, which you hear locking itself +afresh against all but the sacred key. You leave the now hallowed +mist. You look out on the old familiar world again, which somehow +looks both new and old. You descend, making your observations over +again, throwing the light of the present on the past; and past and +present set against the boundless future. You hear coming up to you +the homely sounds--the sheepdog's bark, "the cock's shrill +clarion"--from the farm at the hill-foot; you hear the ring of the +blacksmith's _study_, you see the smoke of his forge; your mother's +grave has the long shadows of evening lying across it, the sunlight +falling on the letters of her name, and on the number of her years; +the lamb is asleep in the bield of the infant's grave. Speedily you +are at your own door. You enter with wearied feet, and thankful heart; +you shut the door, and you kneel down and pray to your Father in +heaven, the Father of lights, your reconciled Father, the God and +Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and our God and Father in +and through him. And as you lie down on your own delightful bed, +before you fall asleep, you think over again your ascent of the Hill +Difficulty,--its baffling heights, its reaches of dreary moorland, its +shifting gravel, its precipices, its quagmires, its little wells of +living waters near the top, and all its "dread magnificence;" its +calm, restful summit, the hush of silence there, the all-aloneness of +the place and hour; its peace, its sacredness, its divineness. You see +again the mist, the ark, the cup, the gleaming drop, and recalling the +sight of the world below, the earth and all its fulness, you say to +yourself,-- + + "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, + Almighty, thine this universal frame, + Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then! + Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens." + +And finding the burden too heavy even for these glorious lines, you +take refuge in the Psalms-- + + "Praise ye the Lord. + Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. + Praise him in the firmament of his power. + Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. + Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. + Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps; + Fire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: + Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; + Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: + Kings of the earth, and all people; princes and all judges of the + earth: + Both young men and maidens; old men and children: + Let them praise the name of the Lord: + For his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and + heaven. + Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. + Bless the Lord, O my soul!" + +I need hardly draw the moral of this, our somewhat _fancical_ +exercitation and exegesis. You can all make it out, such as it is. It +is the toil, and the joy, and the victory in the search of truth; not +the taking on trust, or learning by rote, not by heart, what other men +count or call true; but the vital appropriation, the assimilation of +truth to ourselves, and of ourselves to truth. All truth is of value, +but one truth differs from another in weight and in brightness, in +worth; and you need not me to tell you that spiritual and eternal +truth, the truth as it is in Jesus, is the best. And don't think that +your own hand has gotten you the victory, and that you had no unseen, +and it may be unfelt and unacknowledged hand guiding you up the hill. +Unless the Lord had been at and on your side, all your labour would +have been in vain, and worse. No two things are more inscrutable or +less uncertain than man's spontaneity and man's helplessness,--Freedom +and Grace as the two poles. It is His doing that you are led to the +right hill and the right road, for there are other Tintocks, with +other kists, and other drops. Work out, therefore, your own knowledge +with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to +will and to do, and to know of His good pleasure. There is no +explaining and there is no disbelieving this. + +And now, before bidding you good-bye, did you ever think of the +spiritual meaning of the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of +fire by night, as connected with our knowledge and our ignorance, our +light and darkness, our gladness and our sorrow? The everyday use of +this divine alternation to the wandering children of Israel, is plain +enough. Darkness is best seen against light, and light against +darkness; and its use, in a deeper sense of keeping for ever before +them the immediate presence of God in the midst of them, is not less +plain; but I sometimes think, that we who also are still in the +wilderness, and coming up from our Egypt and its fleshpots, and on our +way let us hope, through God's grace, to the celestial Canaan, may +draw from these old-world signs and wonders, that, in the mid-day of +knowledge, with daylight all about us, there is, if one could but look +for it, that perpetual pillar of cloud--that sacred darkness which +haunts all human knowledge, often the most at its highest noon; that +"look that threatens the profane;" that something, and above all, that +sense of _Some One_,--that Holy One, who inhabits eternity and its +praises, who makes darkness His secret place, His pavilion round +about, darkness and thick clouds of the sky. + +And again, that in the deepest, thickest night of doubt, of fear, of +sorrow, of despair; that then, and all the most then--if we will but +look in the right _airt_, and with the seeing eye and the +understanding heart--there may be seen that Pillar of fire, of light +and of heat, to guide and quicken and cheer; knowledge and love, that +everlasting love which we know to be the Lord's. And how much better +off are we than the chosen people; their pillars were on earth, divine +in their essence, but subject doubtless to earthly perturbations and +interferences; but our guiding light is in the heavens, towards which +we take earnest heed that we are journeying. + + "Once on the raging seas I rode, + The storm was loud, the night was dark; + The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed + The wind that toss'd my foundering bark. + + Deep horror then my vitals froze, + Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem, + When suddenly a star arose, + It was the Star of Bethlehem! + + It was my guide, my light, my all, + It bade my dark foreboding cease; + And through the storm and danger's thrall + It led me to the port in peace. + + Now safely moored, my perils o'er, + I'll sing first in night's diadem, + For ever and for evermore + The Star, the Star of Bethlehem!" + + _John Brown._ + + + + +ON LIFE + + +Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is +an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the +wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its +transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What are +changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which +supported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and +of political systems to life? What are the revolutions of the globe +which we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it is +composed, compared with life? What is the universe of stars, and suns, +of which this inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and their +destiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not, +because it is so miraculous. It is well that we are thus shielded by +the familiarity of what is at once so certain and so unfathomable, +from an astonishment which would otherwise absorb and overawe the +functions of that which is its object. + +If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in +his mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and planets, they not +existing, and had painted to us in words, or upon canvas, the +spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, and illustrated +it by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had +he imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas, and +the rivers; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety of the forms +and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours which attend +the setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the atmosphere, turbid +or serene, these things not before existing, truly we should have been +astonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said of +such a man, "Non merita nome di creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta." +But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to be +conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the +distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person. The +multitude of men care not for them. It is thus with Life--that which +includes all. + +What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or without our will, +and we employ words to express them. We are born, and our birth is +unremembered, and our infancy remembered but in fragments; we live on, +and in living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it to +think that words can penetrate the mystery of our being! Rightly used +they may make evident our ignorance to ourselves, and this is much. +For what are we? Whence do we come? and whither do we go? Is birth the +commencement, is death the conclusion of our being? What is birth and +death? + +The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, +which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which +the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in +us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of +things. I confess that I am one of those who am unable to refuse my +assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that +nothing exists but as it is perceived. + +It is a decision against which all our persuasions struggle, and we +must be long convicted before we can be convinced that the solid +universe of external things is "such stuff as dreams are made of." The +shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind and matter, its +fatal consequences in morals, and their violent dogmatism concerning +the source of all things, had early conducted me to materialism. This +materialism is a seducing system to young and superficial minds. It +allows its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking. But I +was discontented with such a view of things as it afforded; man is a +being of high aspirations, "looking both before and after," whose +"thoughts wander through eternity," disclaiming alliance with +transience and decay; incapable of imagining to himself annihilation; +existing but in the future and the past; being, not what he is, but +what he has been and shall be. Whatever may be his true and final +destination, there is a spirit within him at enmity with nothingness +and dissolution. This is the character of all life and being. Each is +at once the centre and the circumference; the point to which all +things are referred, and the line in which all things are contained. +Such contemplations as these, materialism and the popular philosophy +of mind and matter alike forbid; they are only consistent with the +intellectual system. + +It is absurd to enter into a long recapitulation of arguments +sufficiently familiar to those inquiring minds, whom alone a writer on +abstruse subjects can be conceived to address. Perhaps the most clear +and vigorous statement of the intellectual system is to be found in +Sir William Drummond's Academical Questions. After such an exposition, +it would be idle to translate into other words what could only lose +its energy and fitness by the change. Examined point by point, and +word by word, the most discriminating intellects have been able to +discern no train of thoughts in the process of reasoning, which does +not conduct inevitably to the conclusion which has been stated. + +What follows from the admission? It establishes no new truth, it gives +us no additional insight into our hidden nature, neither its action +nor itself. Philosophy, impatient as it may be to build, has much work +yet remaining, as pioneer for the overgrowth of ages. It makes one +step towards this object; it destroys error, and the roots of error. +It leaves, what it is too often the duty of the reformer in political +and ethical questions to leave, a vacancy. It reduces the mind to that +freedom in which it would have acted, but for the misuse of words and +signs, the instruments of its own creation. By signs, I would be +understood in a wide sense, including what is properly meant by that +term, and what I peculiarly mean. In this latter sense, almost all +familiar objects are signs, standing, not for themselves, but for +others in their capacity of suggesting one thought which shall lead to +a train of thoughts. Our whole life is thus an education of error. + +Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a distinct and +intense apprehension had we of the world and of ourselves! Many of the +circumstances of social life were then important to us which are now +no longer so. But that is not the point of comparison on which I mean +to insist. We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt, +from ourselves. They seemed as it were to constitute one mass. There +are some persons who, in this respect, are always children. Those who +are subject to the state called reverie, feel as if their nature were +dissolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the surrounding +universe were absorbed into their being. They are conscious of no +distinction. And these are states which precede, or accompany, or +follow an unusually intense and vivid apprehension of life. As men +grow up this power commonly decays, and they become mechanical and +habitual agents. Thus feelings and then reasonings are the combined +result of a multitude of entangled thoughts, and of a series of what +are called impressions, planted by reiteration. + +The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of the +intellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it is +perceived. The difference is merely nominal between those two classes +of thought, which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas and +of external objects. Pursuing the same thread of reasoning, the +existence of distinct individual minds, similar to that which is +employed in now questioning its own nature, is likewise found to be a +delusion. The words _I_, _you_, _they_, are not signs of any actual +difference subsisting between the assemblage of thoughts thus +indicated, but are merely marks employed to denote the different +modifications of the one mind. + +Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the monstrous +presumption that I, the person who now write and think, am that one +mind. I am but a portion of it. The words _I_, and _you_, and _they_ +are grammatical devices invented simply for arrangement, and totally +devoid of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. It +is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle a conception +as that to which the Intellectual Philosophy has conducted us. We are +on that verge where words abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy +to look down the dark abyss of how little we know. + +The relations of _things_ remain unchanged, by whatever system. By the +word _things_ is to be understood any object of thought, that is any +thought upon which any other thought is employed, with an apprehension +of distinction. The relations of these remain unchanged; and such is +the material of our knowledge. + +What is the cause of life? that is, how was it produced, or what +agencies distinct from life have acted or act upon life? All recorded +generations of mankind have wearily busied themselves in inventing +answers to this question; and the result has been,--Religion. Yet, +that the basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philosophy +alleges, mind, is sufficiently evident. Mind, as far as we have any +experience of its properties, and beyond that experience how vain is +argument! cannot create, it can only perceive. It is said also to be +the cause. But cause is only a word expressing a certain state of the +human mind with regard to the manner in which two thoughts are +apprehended to be related to each other. If any one desires to know +how unsatisfactorily the popular philosophy employs itself upon this +great question, they need only impartially reflect upon the manner in +which thoughts develop themselves in their minds. It is infinitely +improbable that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar +to mind. + + _Shelley._ + + + + +WALKING STEWART + + +Mr. Stewart the traveller, commonly called "Walking Stewart," was a +man of very extraordinary genius. He has generally been treated by +those who have spoken of him in print as a madman. But this is a +mistake; and must have been founded chiefly on the titles of his +books. He was a man of fervid mind and of sublime aspirations; but he +was no madman; or, if he was, then I say that it is so far desirable +to be a madman. In 1798 or 1799, when I must have been about thirteen +years old, Walking Stewart was in Bath--where my family at that time +resided. He frequented the pump-room, and I believe all public +places--walking up and down, and dispersing his philosophic opinions +to the right and the left, like a Grecian philosopher. The first time +I saw him was at a concert in the Upper Rooms; he was pointed out to +me by one of my party as a very eccentric man who had walked over the +habitable globe. I remember that Madame Mara was at that moment +singing; and Walking Stewart, who was a true lover of music (as I +afterwards came to know), was hanging upon her notes like a bee upon a +jessamine flower. His countenance was striking, and expressed the +union of benignity with philosophic habits of thought. In such health +had his pedestrian exercises preserved him, connected with his +abstemious mode of living, that though he must at that time have been +considerably above forty, he did not look older than twenty-eight; at +least the face which remained upon my recollection for some years was +that of a young man. Nearly ten years afterwards I became acquainted +with him. During the interval I had picked up one of his works in +Bristol,--viz. his _Travels to discover the Source of Moral Motion_, +the second volume of which is entitled _The Apocalypse of Nature_. I +had been greatly impressed by the sound and original views which in +the first volume he had taken of the national characters throughout +Europe. In particular he was the first, and so far as I know the only +writer who had noticed the profound error of ascribing a phlegmatic +character to the English nation. "English phlegm" is the constant +expression of authors when contrasting the English with the French. +Now the truth is, that, beyond that of all other nations, it has a +substratum of profound passion; and, if we are to recur to the old +doctrine of temperaments, the English character must be classed not +under the _phlegmatic_ but under the _melancholic_ temperament; and +the French under the _sanguine_. The character of a nation may be +judged of in this particular by examining its idiomatic language. The +French, in whom the lower forms of passion are constantly bubbling up +from the shallow and superficial character of their feelings, have +appropriated all the phrases of passion to the service of trivial and +ordinary life; and hence they have no language of passion for the +service of poetry or of occasions really demanding it; for it has been +already enfeebled by continual association with cases of an +unimpassioned order. But a character of deeper passion has a perpetual +standard in itself, by which as by an instinct it tries all cases, and +rejects the language of passion as disproportionate and ludicrous +where it is not fully justified. "Ah Heavens!" or "Oh my God!" are +exclamations with us so exclusively reserved for cases of profound +interest,--that on hearing a woman even (_i.e._ a person of the sex +most easily excited) utter such words, we look round expecting to see +her child in some situation of danger. But, in France, "Ciel!" and "Oh +mon Dieu!" are uttered by every woman if a mouse does but run across +the floor. The ignorant and the thoughtless however will continue to +class the English character under the phlegmatic temperament, whilst +the philosopher will perceive that it is the exact polar antithesis to +a phlegmatic character. In this conclusion, though otherwise expressed +and illustrated, Walking Stewart's view of the English character will +be found to terminate; and his opinion is especially valuable--first +and chiefly, because he was a philosopher; secondly, because his +acquaintance with man civilized and uncivilized, under all national +distinctions, was absolutely unrivalled. Meantime, this and others of +his opinions were expressed in language that if literally construed +would often appear insane or absurd. The truth is, his long +intercourse with foreign nations had given something of a hybrid +tincture to his diction; in some of his works for instance he uses the +French word _hélas!_ uniformly for the English _alas!_ and apparently +with no consciousness of his mistake. He had also this singularity +about him--that he was everlastingly metaphysicizing against +metaphysics. To me, who was buried in metaphysical reveries from my +earliest days, this was not likely to be an attraction; any more than +the vicious structure of his diction was likely to please my +scholarlike taste. All grounds of disgust, however, gave way before my +sense of his powerful merits; and, as I have said, I sought his +acquaintance. Coming up to London from Oxford about 1807 or 1808 I +made enquiries about him; and found that he usually read the papers at +a coffee-room in Piccadilly; understanding that he was poor, it struck +me that he might not wish to receive visits at his lodgings, and +therefore I sought him at the coffee-room. Here I took the liberty of +introducing myself to him. He received me courteously, and invited me +to his rooms--which at that time were in Sherrard-street, +Golden-square--a street already memorable to me. I was much struck +with the eloquence of his conversation; and afterwards I found that +Mr. Wordsworth, himself the most eloquent of men in conversation, had +been equally struck when he had met him at Paris between the years +1790 and 1792, during the early storms of the French revolution. In +Sherrard-street I visited him repeatedly, and took notes of the +conversations I had with him on various subjects. These I must have +somewhere or other; and I wish I could introduce them here, as they +would interest the reader. Occasionally in these conversations, as in +his books, he introduced a few notices of his private history; in +particular I remember his telling me that in the East Indies he had +been a prisoner of Hyder's; that he had escaped with some difficulty; +and that, in the service of one of the native princes as secretary or +interpreter, he had accumulated a small fortune. This must have been +too small, I fear, at that time to allow him even a philosopher's +comforts; for some part of it, invested in the French funds, had been +confiscated. I was grieved to see a man of so much ability, of +gentlemanly manners, and refined habits, and with the infirmity of +deafness, suffering under such obvious privations; and I once took the +liberty, on a fit occasion presenting itself, of requesting that he +would allow me to send him some books which he had been casually +regretting that he did not possess; for I was at that time in the +hey-day of my worldly prosperity. This offer, however, he declined +with firmness and dignity, though not unkindly. And I now mention it, +because I have seen him charged in print with a selfish regard to his +own pecuniary interest. On the contrary, he appeared to me a very +liberal and generous man; and I well remember that, whilst he refused +to accept of anything from me, he compelled me to receive as presents +all the books which he published during my acquaintance with him; two +of these, corrected with his own hand, viz. the _Lyre of Apollo_ and +the _Sophiometer_, I have lately found amongst other books left in +London; and others he forwarded to me in Westmoreland. In 1809 I saw +him often; in the Spring of that year, I happened to be in London; and +Mr. Wordsworth's tract on the Convention of Cintra being at that time +in the printer's hands, I superintended the publication of it; and, at +Mr. Wordsworth's request, I added a long note on Spanish affairs which +is printed in the Appendix. The opinions I expressed in this note on +the Spanish character at that time much calumniated, on the retreat to +Corunna then fresh in the public mind, above all, the contempt I +expressed for the superstition in respect to the French military +prowess which was then universal and at its height, and which gave way +in fact only to the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, fell in, as it +happened, with Mr. Stewart's political creed in those points where at +that time it met with most opposition. In 1812 it was I think that I +saw him for the last time; and by the way, on the day of my parting +with him, had an amusing proof in my own experience of that sort of +ubiquity ascribed to him by a witty writer in the London Magazine: I +met him and shook hands with him under Somerset-house, telling him +that I should leave town that evening for Westmoreland. Thence I went +by the very shortest road (_i.e._ through Moor-street, Soho--for I am +learned in many quarters of London) towards a point which necessarily +led me through Tottenham-court-road; I stopped nowhere, and walked +fast; yet so it was that in Tottenham-court-road I was not overtaken +by (_that_ was comprehensible), but overtook Walking Stewart. +Certainly, as the above writer alleges, there must have been three +Walking Stewarts in London. He seemed no ways surprised at this +himself, but explained to me that somewhere or other in the +neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road there was a little theatre, at +which there was dancing and occasionally good singing, between which +and a neighbouring coffee-house he sometimes divided his evenings. +Singing, it seems, he could hear in spite of his deafness. In this +street I took my final leave of him; it turned out such; and, +anticipating at the time that it would be so, I looked after his white +hat at the moment it was disappearing, and exclaimed--"Farewell, thou +half-crazy and most eloquent man! I shall never see thy face again." I +did not intend, at that moment, to visit London again for some years; +as it happened, I was there for a short time in 1814; and then I +heard, to my great satisfaction that Walking Stewart had recovered a +considerable sum (about £14,000 I believe) from the East India +Company; and from the abstract given in the London Magazine of the +Memoir by his relation I have since learned that he applied this money +most wisely to the purchase of an annuity, and that he "persisted in +living" too long for the peace of an annuity office. So fare all +companies East and West, and all annuity offices, that stand opposed +in interest to philosophers! In 1814, however, to my great regret, I +did not see him; for I was then taking a great deal of opium, and +never could contrive to issue to the light of day soon enough for a +morning call upon a philosopher of such early hours; and in the +evening I concluded he would be generally abroad, from what he had +formerly communicated to me of his own habits. It seems, however, that +he afterwards held _converzations_ at his own rooms; and did not stir +out to theatres quite so much. From a brother of mine, who at one time +occupied rooms in the same house with him, I learned that in other +respects he did not deviate in his prosperity from the philosophic +tenor of his former life. He abated nothing of his peripatetic +exercises; and repaired duly in the morning, as he had done in former +years, to St. James's Park,--where he sate in contemplative ease +amongst the cows, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing his +philosophic reveries. He had also purchased an organ, or more than +one, with which he solaced his solitude and beguiled himself of uneasy +thoughts, if he ever had any. + +The works of Walking Stewart must be read with some indulgence; the +titles are generally too lofty and pretending and somewhat +extravagant; the composition is lax and unprecise, as I have before +said; and the doctrines are occasionally very bold, incautiously +stated, and too hardy and high-toned for the nervous effeminacy of +many modern moralists. But Walking Stewart was a man who thought nobly +of human nature; he wrote therefore at times in the spirit and with +the indignation of an ancient prophet against the oppressors and +destroyers of the time. In particular I remember that in one or more +of the pamphlets which I received from him at Grasmere he expressed +himself in such terms on the subject of Tyrannicide (distinguishing +the cases in which it was and was not lawful) as seemed to Mr. +Wordsworth and myself every way worthy of a philosopher; but, from the +way in which that subject was treated in the House of Commons, where +it was at that time occasionally introduced, it was plain that his +doctrine was not fitted for the luxuries and relaxed morals of the +age. Like all men who think nobly of human nature, Walking Stewart +thought of it hopefully. In some respects his hopes were wisely +grounded; in others they rested too much upon certain metaphysical +speculations which are untenable, and which satisfied himself only +because his researches in that track had been purely self-originated +and self-disciplined. He relied upon his own native strength of mind; +but in questions, which the wisdom and philosophy of every age +building successively upon each other have not been able to settle, no +mind however strong is entitled to build wholly upon itself. In many +things he shocked the religious sense--especially as it exists in +unphilosophic minds: he held a sort of rude and unscientific +Spinosism; and he expressed it coarsely and in the way most likely to +give offence. And indeed there can be no stronger proof of the utter +obscurity in which his works have slumbered than that they should all +have escaped prosecution. He also allowed himself to look too lightly +and indulgently on the afflicting spectacle of female prostitution as +it exists in London and in all great cities. This was the only point +on which I was disposed to quarrel with him; for I could not but view +it as a greater reproach to human nature than the slave-trade or any +sight of wretchedness that the sun looks down upon. I often told him +so; and that I was at a loss to guess how a philosopher could allow +himself to view it simply as part of the equipage of civil life, and +as reasonably making part of the establishment and furniture of a +great city as police-offices, lamplighting, or newspapers. Waiving, +however, this one instance of something like compliance with the +brutal spirit of the world, on all other subjects he was eminently +unworldly, child-like, simple-minded, and upright. He would flatter no +man; even when addressing nations, it is almost laughable to see how +invariably he prefaces his counsels with such plain truths uttered in +a manner so offensive as must have defeated his purpose if it had +otherwise any chance of being accomplished. For instance, in +addressing America, he begins thus: "People of America! since your +separation from the mother-country your moral character has +degenerated in the energy of thought and sense; produced by the +absence of your association and intercourse with British officers and +merchants; you have no moral discernment to distinguish between the +protective power of England and the destructive power of France." And +his letter to the Irish nation opens in this agreeable and +conciliatory manner--"People of Ireland! I address you as a true +philosopher of nature, foreseeing the perpetual misery your +irreflective character and total absence of moral discernment are +preparing for," &c. The second sentence begins thus:--"You are +sacrilegiously arresting the arm of your parent kingdom fighting the +cause of man and nature, when the triumph of the fiend of French +police terror would be your own instant extirpation." And the letter +closes thus:--"I see but one awful alternative--that Ireland will be a +perpetual moral volcano, threatening the destruction of the world, if +the education and instruction of thought and sense shall not be able +to generate the faculty of moral discernment among a very numerous +class of the population, who detest the civic calm as sailors the +natural calm--and make civic rights on which they cannot reason a +pretext for feuds which they delight in." As he spoke freely and +boldly to others, so he spoke loftily of himself; at p. 313 of "The +Harp of Apollo," on making a comparison of himself with Socrates (in +which he naturally gives the preference to himself,) he styles "The +Harp," &c., "this unparalleled work of human energy." At p. 315, he +calls it "this stupendous work;" and lower down on the same page he +says--"I was turned out of school at the age of fifteen for a dunce or +blockhead, because I would not stuff into my memory all the nonsense +of erudition and learning; and if future ages should discover the +unparalleled energies of genius in this work, it will prove my most +important doctrine--that the powers of the human mind must be +developed in the education of thought and sense in the study of moral +opinion, not arts and science." Again, at p. 225 of his Sophiometer, +he says:--"The paramount thought that dwells in my mind incessantly is +a question I put to myself--whether, in the event of my personal +dissolution by death, I have communicated all the discoveries my +unique mind possesses in the great master-science of man and nature." +In the next page he determines that he _has_, with the exception of +one truth,--viz. "the latent energy, physical and moral, of human +nature as existing in the British people." But here he was surely +accusing himself without ground; for to my knowledge he has not failed +in any one of his numerous works to insist upon this theme at least a +billion of times. Another instance of his magnificent self-estimation +is--that in the title pages of several of his works he announces +himself as "John Stewart, the only man of nature[45] that ever +appeared in the world." + +[Footnote 45: In Bath he was surnamed "the Child of Nature;"--which +arose from his contrasting on every occasion the existing man of our +present experience with the ideal or Stewartian man that might be +expected to emerge in some myriads of ages, to which latter man he +gave the name of the Child of Nature.] + +By this time I am afraid the reader begins to suspect that he was +crazy; and certainly, when I consider every thing, he must have been +crazy when the wind was at N.N.E.; for who but Walking Stewart ever +dated his books by a computation drawn--not from the creation, not +from the flood, not from Nabonassar, or _ab urbe conditā_, not from +the Hegira--but from themselves, from their own day of publication, as +constituting the one great ęra in the history of man by the side of +which all other ęras were frivolous and impertinent? Thus, in a work +of his given to me in 1812 and probably published in that year, I find +him incidentally recording of himself that he was at that time +"arrived at the age of sixty-three, with a firm state of health +acquired by temperance, and a peace of mind almost independent of the +vices of mankind--because my knowledge of life has enabled me to place +my happiness beyond the reach or contact of other men's follies and +passions, by avoiding all family connexions and all ambitious pursuits +of profit, fame, or power." On reading this passage I was anxious to +ascertain its date; but this, on turning to the title-page, I found +thus mysteriously expressed: "In the 7000th year of Astronomical +History, and the first day of Intellectual Life or Moral World, from +the ęra of this work." Another slight indication of craziness appeared +in a notion which obstinately haunted his mind that all the kings and +rulers of the earth would confederate in every age against his works, +and would hunt them out for extermination as keenly as Herod did the +innocents in Bethlehem. On this consideration, fearing that they might +be intercepted by the long arms of these wicked princes before they +could reach that remote Stewartian man or his precursor to whom they +were mainly addressed, he recommended to all those who might be +impressed with a sense of their importance to bury a copy or copies of +each work properly secured from damp, &c. at a depth of seven or eight +feet below the surface of the earth; and on their death-beds to +communicate the knowledge of this fact to some confidential friends, +who in their turn were to send down the tradition to some discreet +persons of the next generation; and thus, if the truth was not to be +dispersed for many ages, yet the knowledge that here and there the +truth lay buried on this and that continent, in secret spots on Mount +Caucasus--in the sands of Biledulgerid--and in hiding-places amongst +the forests of America, and was to rise again in some distant age and +to vegetate and fructify for the universal benefit of man,--this +knowledge at least was to be whispered down from generation to +generation; and, in defiance of a myriad of kings crusading against +him, Walking Stewart was to stretch out the influence of his writings +through a long series of [Greek: lampadophoroi] to that child of +nature whom he saw dimly through a vista of many centuries. If this +were madness, it seemed to me a somewhat sublime madness; and I +assured him of my co-operation against the kings, promising that I +would bury "The Harp of Apollo" in my own orchard in Grasmere at the +foot of Mount Fairfield; that I would bury "The Apocalypse of Nature" +in one of the coves of Helvellyn, and several other places best known +to myself. He accepted my offer with gratitude; but he then made known +to me that he relied on my assistance for a still more important +service--which was this: in the lapse of that vast number of ages +which would probably intervene between the present period and the +period at which his works would have reached their destination, he +feared that the English language might itself have mouldered away. +"No!" I said, "_that_ was not probable; considering its extensive +diffusion, and that it was now transplanted into all the continents of +our planet, I would back the English language against any other on +earth." His own persuasion, however, was that the Latin was destined +to survive all other languages; it was to be the eternal as well as +the universal language; and his desire was that I would translate his +works, or some part of them into that language.[46] This I promised; +and I seriously designed at some leisure hour to translate into Latin +a selection of passages which should embody an abstract of his +philosophy. This would have been doing a service to all those who +might wish to see a digest of his peculiar opinions cleared from the +perplexities of his peculiar diction and brought into a narrow compass +from the great number of volumes through which they are at present +dispersed. However, like many another plan of mine, it went +unexecuted. + +[Footnote 46: I was not aware until the moment of writing this passage +that Walking Stewart had publicly made this request three years after +making it to myself: opening the Harp of Apollo, I have just now +accidentally stumbled on the following passage, "This stupendous work +is destined, I fear, to meet a worse fate than the Aloe, which as soon +as it blossoms loses its stalk. This first blossom of reason is +threatened with the loss of both its stalk and its soil; for, if the +revolutionary tyrant should triumph, he would destroy all the English +books and energies of thought. I conjure my readers to translate this +work into Latin, and to bury it in the ground, communicating on their +death-beds only its place of concealment to men of nature." + +From the title page of this work, by the way, I learn that the "7000th +year of Astronomical History" is taken from the Chinese tables, and +coincides (as I had supposed) with the year 1812 of our computation.] + +On the whole, if Walking Stewart were at all crazy, he was so in a way +which did not affect his natural genius and eloquence--but rather +exalted them. The old maxim, indeed, that "Great wits to madness sure +are near allied," the maxim of Dryden and the popular maxim, I have +heard disputed by Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth, who maintain that +mad people are the dullest and most wearisome of all people. As a +body, I believe they are so. But I must dissent from the authority of +Messrs. Coleridge and Wordsworth so far as to distinguish. Where +madness is connected, as it often is, with some miserable derangement +of the stomach, liver, &c. and attacks the principle of pleasurable +life, which is manifestly seated in the central organs of the body +(i.e. in the stomach and the apparatus connected with it), there it +cannot but lead to perpetual suffering and distraction of thought; and +there the patient will be often tedious and incoherent. People who +have not suffered from any great disturbance in those organs are +little aware how indispensable to the process of thinking are the +momentary influxes of pleasurable feeling from the regular goings on +of life in its primary functions; in fact, until the pleasure is +withdrawn or obscured, most people are not aware that they _have_ any +pleasure from the due action of the great central machinery of the +system; proceeding in uninterrupted continuance, the pleasure as much +escapes the consciousness as the act of respiration; a child, in the +happiest state of its existence, does not _know_ that it is happy. And +generally whatsoever is the level state of the hourly feeling is never +put down by the unthinking (i.e. by 99 out of 100) to the account of +happiness; it is never put down with the positive sign, as equal to _+ +x_; but simply as = 0. And men first become aware that it _was_ a +positive quantity, when they have lost it (i.e. fallen into _- x_). +Meantime the genial pleasure from the vital processes, though not +represented to the consciousness, is _immanent_ in every +act--impulse--motion--word--and thought; and a philosopher sees that +the idiots are in a state of pleasure, though they cannot see it +themselves. Now I say that, where this principle of pleasure is not +attached, madness is often little more than an enthusiasm highly +exalted; the animal spirits are exuberant and in excess; and the +madman becomes, if he be otherwise a man of ability and information, +all the better as a companion. I have met with several such madmen; +and I appeal to my brilliant friend, Professor W----, who is not a man +to tolerate dulness in any quarter, and is himself the ideal of a +delightful companion, whether he ever met a more amusing person than +that madman who took a post-chaise with us from ---- to Carlisle, long +years ago, when he and I were hastening with the speed of fugitive +felons to catch the Edinburgh mail. His fancy and his extravagance, +and his furious attacks on Sir Isaac Newton, like Plato's suppers, +refreshed us not only for that day but whenever they recurred to us; +and we were both grieved when we heard some time afterwards from a +Cambridge man that he had met our clever friend in a stage coach under +the care of a brutal keeper.--Such a madness, if any, was the madness +of Walking Stewart; his health was perfect; his spirits as light and +ebullient as the spirits of a bird in springtime; and his mind +unagitated by painful thoughts, and at peace with itself. Hence, if he +was not an amusing companion, it was because the philosophic direction +of his thoughts made him something more. Of anecdotes and matters of +fact he was not communicative; of all that he had seen in the vast +compass of his travels he never availed himself in conversation. I do +not remember at this moment that he ever once alluded to his own +travels in his intercourse with me except for the purpose of weighing +down by a statement grounded on his own great personal experience an +opposite statement of many hasty and misjudging travellers which he +thought injurious to human nature; the statement was this, that in all +his countless rencontres with uncivilized tribes he had never met with +any so ferocious and brutal as to attack an unarmed and defenceless +man who was able to make them understand that he threw himself upon +their hospitality and forbearance. + +On the whole, Walking Stewart was a sublime visionary; he had seen and +suffered much amongst men; yet not too much, or so as to dull the +genial tone of his sympathy with the sufferings of others. His mind +was a mirror of the sentient universe.--The whole mighty vision that +had fleeted before his eyes in this world,--the armies of Hyder-Ali +and his son with oriental and barbaric pageantry,--the civic grandeur +of England, the great deserts of Asia and America,--the vast capitals +of Europe,--London with its eternal agitations, the ceaseless ebb and +flow of its "mighty heart,"--Paris shaken by the fierce torments of +revolutionary convulsions, the silence of Lapland, and the solitary +forests of Canada, with the swarming life of the torrid zone, together +with innumerable recollections of individual joy and sorrow, that he +had participated by sympathy--lay like a map beneath him, as if +eternally co-present to his view; so that, in the contemplation of the +prodigious whole, he had no leisure to separate the parts, or occupy +his mind with details. Hence came the monotony which the frivolous and +the desultory would have found in his conversation. I however, who am +perhaps the person best qualified to speak of him, must pronounce him +to have been a man of great genius; and, with reference to his +conversation, of great eloquence. That these were not better known and +acknowledged was owing to two disadvantages; one grounded in his +imperfect education, the other in the peculiar structure of his mind. +The first was this: like the late Mr. Shelley he had a fine vague +enthusiasm and lofty aspirations in connexion with human nature +generally and its hopes; and like him he strove to give steadiness, a +uniform direction, and an intelligible purpose to these feelings, by +fitting to them a scheme of philosophical opinions. But unfortunately +the philosophic system of both was so far from supporting their own +views and the cravings of their own enthusiasm, that, as in some +points it was baseless, incoherent, or unintelligible, so in others it +tended to moral results, from which, if they had foreseen them, they +would have been themselves the first to shrink as contradictory to the +very purposes in which their system had originated. Hence, in +maintaining their own system they both found themselves painfully +entangled at times with tenets pernicious and degrading to human +nature. These were the inevitable consequences of the [Greek: proton +pseudos] in their speculations; but were naturally charged upon them +by those who looked carelessly into their books as opinions which not +only for the sake of consistency they thought themselves bound to +endure, but to which they gave the full weight of their sanction and +patronage as to so many moving principles in their system. The other +disadvantage under which Walking Stewart laboured was this: he was a +man of genius, but not a man of talents; at least his genius was out +of all proportion to his talents, and wanted an organ as it were for +manifesting itself; so that his most original thoughts were delivered +in a crude state--imperfect, obscure, half developed, and not +producible to a popular audience. He was aware of this himself; and, +though he claims everywhere the faculty of profound intuition into +human nature, yet with equal candour he accuses himself of asinine +stupidity, dulness, and want of talent. He was a disproportioned +intellect, and so far a monster; and he must be added to the long list +of original-minded men who have been looked down upon with pity and +contempt by common-place men of talent, whose powers of mind--though a +thousand times inferior--were yet more manageable, and ran in channels +more suited to common uses and common understandings. + +N.B. About the year 1812 I remember seeing in many of the print-shops +a whole-length sketch in water-colours of Walking Stewart in his +customary dress and attitude. This, as the only memorial (I presume) +in that shape of a man whose memory I love, I should be very glad to +possess; and therefore I take the liberty of publicly requesting as a +particular favour from any reader of this article, who may chance to +remember such a sketch in any collection of prints offered for sale, +that he would cause it to be sent to the Editor of the LONDON +MAGAZINE, who will pay for it. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH + + +From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point +in Macbeth: it was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to +the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I +never could account: the effect was--that it reflected back upon the +murder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity: yet, however +obstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to comprehend this, +for many years I never could see _why_ it should produce such an +effect.---- + +Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any +attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any +other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and +indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most +to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to +nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic +purposes. Of this, out of ten thousand instances that I might produce, +I will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever, who is not previously +prepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective, to draw in the +rudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon the laws of +that science--as for instance, to represent the effect of two walls +standing at right angles to each other, or the appearance of the +houses on each side of a street, as seen by a person looking down the +street from one extremity. Now in all cases, unless the person has +happened to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce these +effects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximation +to it. Yet why?--For he has actually seen the effect every day of his +life. The reason is--that he allows his understanding to overrule his +eyes. His understanding, which includes no intuitive knowledge of the +laws of vision, can furnish him with no reason why a line which is +known and can be proved to be a horizontal line, should not _appear_ a +horizontal line: a line, that made any angle with the perpendicular +less than a right angle, would seem to him to indicate that his houses +were all tumbling down together. Accordingly he makes the line of his +houses a horizontal line, and fails of course to produce the effect +demanded. Here then is one instance out of many, in which not only the +understanding is allowed to overrule the eyes, but where the +understanding is positively allowed to obliterate the eyes as it were: +for not only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding in +opposition to that of his eyes, but (which is monstrous!) the idiot is +not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not know that +he has seen (and therefore _quoad_ his consciousness has _not_ seen) +that which he _has_ seen every day of his life. But to return from +this digression,--my understanding could furnish no reason why the +knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect direct or +reflected: in fact, my understanding said positively that it could +_not_ produce any effect. But I knew better: I felt that it did: and I +waited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable +me to solve it.--At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams made his _début_ on +the stage of Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleled +murders which have procured for him such a brilliant and undying +reputation. On which murders, by the way, I must observe, that in one +respect they have had an ill effect, by making the connoisseur in +murder very fastidious in his taste, and dissatisfied with any thing +that has been since done in that line. All other murders look pale by +the deep crimson of his: and, as an amateur once said to me in a +querulous tone, "There has been absolutely nothing _doing_ since his +time, or nothing that's worth speaking of." But this is wrong: for it +is unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists, and born with +the genius of Mr. Williams.--Now it will be remembered that in the +first of these murders (that of the Marrs) the same incident (of a +knocking at the door soon after the work of extermination was +complete) did actually occur which the genius of Shakspeare had +invented: and all good judges and the most eminent dilettanti +acknowledged the felicity of Shakspeare's suggestion as soon as it was +actually realized. Here then was a fresh proof that I had been right +in relying on my own feeling in opposition to my understanding; and +again I set myself to study the problem: at length I solved it to my +own satisfaction; and my solution is this. Murder in ordinary cases, +where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the murdered +person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; and for this +reason--that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural but +ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life; an instinct which, as +being indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is the +same in kind (though different in degree) amongst all living +creatures; this instinct therefore, because it annihilates all +distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the level of "the +poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most +abject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit +the purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw the +interest on the murderer: our sympathy must be with _him_; (of course +I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into +his feelings, and are made to understand them,--not a sympathy[47] of +pity or approbation:) in the murdered person all strife of thought, +all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by one +overwhelming panic: the fear of instant death smites him "with its +petrific mace." [Footnote 47: It seems almost ludicrous to guard and +explain my use of a word in a situation where it should naturally +explain itself. But it has become necessary to do so, in consequence +of the unscholarlike use of the word sympathy, at present so general, +by which, instead of taking it in its proper use, as the act of +reproducing in our minds the feelings of another, whether for hatred, +indignation, love, pity, or approbation, it is made a mere synonyme of +the word _pity_; and hence, instead of saying, "sympathy _with_ +another," many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of "sympathy +_for_ another."] But in the murderer, such a murderer as a poet will +condescend to, there must be raging some great storm of +passion,--jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred,--which will create a +hell within him; and into this hell we are to look. In Macbeth, for +the sake of gratifying his own enormous and teeming faculty of +creation, Shakspeare has introduced two murderers: and, as usual in +his hands, they are remarkably discriminated: but though in Macbeth +the strife of mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not +so awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her,--yet, +as both were finally involved in the guilt of murder, the murderous +mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both. This was to be +expressed; and on its own account, as well as to make it a more +proportionable antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, +"the gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound "the deep damnation +of his taking off," this was to be expressed with peculiar energy. We +were to be made to feel that the human nature, _i.e._ the divine +nature of love and mercy, spread through the hearts of all creatures, +and seldom utterly withdrawn from man,--was gone, vanished, extinct; +and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this effect +is marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and soliloquies +themselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient under +consideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the reader's +attention. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter, or +sister, in a fainting fit, he may chance to have observed that the +most affecting moment in such a spectacle, is _that_ in which a sigh +and a stirring announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, if +the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on the day when +some great national idol was carried in funeral pomp to his grave, and +chancing to walk near to the course through which it passed, has felt +powerfully in the silence and desertion of the streets and in the +stagnation of ordinary business, the deep interest which at that +moment was possessing the heart of man,--if all at once he should hear +the death-like stillness broken up by the sound of wheels rattling +away from the scene, and making known that the transitory vision was +dissolved, he will be aware that at no moment was his sense of the +complete suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and +affecting as at that moment when the suspension ceases, and the +goings-on of human life are suddenly resumed. All action in any +direction is best expounded, measured, and made apprehensible, by +reaction. Now apply this to the case in Macbeth. Here, as I have said, +the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart +was to be expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in; +and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things, human +purposes, human desires. They are transfigured: Lady Macbeth is +"unsexed;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman; both are +conformed to the image of devils; and the world of devils is suddenly +revealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable? In order +that a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. +The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated--cut off by an +immeasurable gulph from the ordinary tide and succession of human +affairs--locked up and sequestered in some deep recess: we must be +made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly +arrested--laid asleep--tranced--racked into a dread armistice: time +must be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and all +must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly +passion. Hence it is that when the deed is done--when the work of +darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a +pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it +makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has +made its reflux upon the fiendish: the pulses of life are beginning to +beat again: and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in +which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful +parenthesis that had suspended them. + +Oh! mighty poet!--Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident! + +N.B. In the above specimen of psychological criticism, I have +purposely omitted to notice another use of the knocking at the gate, +viz. the opposition and contrast which it produces in the porter's +comments to the scenes immediately preceding; because this use is +tolerably obvious to all who are accustomed to reflect on what they +read. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON + + +Damascus, first-born of cities, _Om el Denia_,[48] mother of +generations, that wast before Abraham, that wast before the Pyramids! +what sounds are those that, from a postern gate, looking eastwards +over secret paths that wind away to the far distant desert, break the +solemn silence of an oriental night? Whose voice is that which calls +upon the spearmen, keeping watch for ever in the turret surmounting +the gate, to receive him back into his Syrian home? Thou knowest him, +Damascus, and hast known him in seasons of trouble as one learned in +the afflictions of man; wise alike to take counsel for the suffering +spirit or for the suffering body. The voice that breaks upon the night +is the voice of a great evangelist--one of the four; and he is also a +great physician. This do the watchmen at the gate thankfully +acknowledge, and joyfully they give him entrance. His sandals are +white with dust; for he has been roaming for weeks beyond the desert, +under the guidance of Arabs, on missions of hopeful benignity to +Palmyra;[49] and in spirit he is weary of all things, except +faithlessness to God, and burning love to man. + +[Footnote 48: '_Om el Denia_':--Mother of the World is the Arabic +title of Damascus. That it was before Abraham--_i.e._, already an old +establishment much more than a thousand years before the siege of +Troy, and than two thousand years before our Christian era--may be +inferred from Gen. xv. 2; and by the general consent of all eastern +races, Damascus is accredited as taking precedency in age of all +cities to the west of the Indus.] + +[Footnote 49: Palmyra had not yet reached its meridian splendour of +Grecian development, as afterwards near the age of Aurelian, but it +was already a noble city.] + +Eastern cities are asleep betimes; and sounds few or none fretted the +quiet of all around him, as the evangelist paced onward to the +market-place; but there another scene awaited him. On the right hand, +in an upper chamber, with lattices widely expanded, sat a festal +company of youths, revelling under a noonday blaze of light, from +cressets and from bright tripods that burned fragrant woods--all +joining in choral songs, all crowned with odorous wreaths from Daphne +and the banks of the Orontes. Them the evangelist heeded not; but far +away upon the left, close upon a sheltered nook, lighted up by a +solitary vase of iron fretwork filled with cedar boughs, and hoisted +high upon a spear, behold there sat a woman of loveliness so +transcendent, that, when suddenly revealed, as now, out of deepest +darkness, she appalled men as a mockery, or a birth of the air. Was +she born of woman? Was it perhaps the angel--so the evangelist argued +with himself--that met him in the desert after sunset, and +strengthened him by secret talk? The evangelist went up, and touched +her forehead; and when he found that she was indeed human, and +guessed, from the station which she had chosen, that she waited for +some one amongst this dissolute crew as her companion, he groaned +heavily in spirit, and said, half to himself, but half to her, "Wert +thou, poor ruined flower, adorned so divinely at thy birth--glorified +in such excess that not Solomon in all his pomp--no, nor even the +lilies of the field--can approach thy gifts--only that thou shouldest +grieve the holy spirit of God?" The woman trembled exceedingly, and +said, "Rabbi, what should I do? For behold! all men forsake me." The +evangelist mused a little, and then secretly to himself he said, "Now +will I search this woman's heart--whether in very truth it inclineth +itself to God, and hath strayed only before fiery compulsion." Turning +therefore to the woman, the Prophet[50] said, "Listen: I am the +messenger of Him whom thou hast not known; of Him that made Lebanon +and the cedars of Lebanon; that made the sea, and the heavens, and the +host of the stars; that made the light; that made the darkness; that +blew the spirit of life into the nostrils of man. His messenger I am: +and from Him all power is given me to bind and to loose, to build and +to pull down. Ask, therefore, whatsoever thou wilt--great or +small--and through me thou shalt receive it from God. But, my child, +ask not amiss. For God is able out of thy own evil asking to weave +snares for thy footing. And oftentimes to the lambs whom He loves, He +gives by seeming to refuse; gives in some better sense, or" (and his +voice swelled into the power of anthems) "in some far happier world. +Now, therefore, my daughter, be wise on thy own behalf; and say what +it is that I shall ask for thee from God." But the Daughter of Lebanon +needed not his caution; for immediately dropping on one knee to God's +ambassador, whilst the full radiance from the cedar torch fell upon +the glory of a penitential eye, she raised her clasped hands in +supplication, and said, in answer to the evangelist asking for a +second time what gift he should call down upon her from Heaven, "Lord, +that thou wouldest put me back into my father's house." And the +evangelist, because he was human, dropped a tear as he stooped to kiss +her forehead, saying, "Daughter, thy prayer is heard in heaven; and I +tell thee that the daylight shall not come and go for thirty times, +not for the thirtieth time shall the sun drop behind Lebanon, before I +will put thee back into thy father's house." + +[Footnote 50: "_The Prophet_":--Though a Prophet was not _therefore_ +and in virtue of that character an Evangelist, yet every Evangelist +was necessarily in the scriptural sense a Prophet. For let it be +remembered that a Prophet did not mean a _Pre_dicter, or _Fore_shower +of events, except derivatively and inferentially. What _was_ a Prophet +in the uniform scriptural sense? He was a man, who drew aside the +curtain from the secret counsels of Heaven. He declared, or made +public, the previously hidden truths of God: and because future events +might chance to involve divine truth, therefore a revealer of future +events might happen so far to be a Prophet. Yet still small was that +part of a Prophet's functions which concerned the foreshowing of +events; and not necessarily _any_ part.] + +Thus the lovely lady came into the guardianship of the evangelist. She +sought not to varnish her history, or to palliate her own +transgressions. In so far as she had offended at all, her case was +that of millions in every generation. Her father was a prince in +Lebanon, proud, unforgiving, austere. The wrongs done to his daughter +by her dishonourable lover, because done under favour of opportunities +created by her confidence in his integrity, her father persisted in +resenting as wrong's done by this injured daughter herself; and, +refusing to her all protection, drove her, whilst yet confessedly +innocent, into criminal compliances under sudden necessities of +seeking daily bread from her own uninstructed efforts. Great was the +wrong she suffered both from father and lover; great was the +retribution. She lost a churlish father and a wicked lover; she gained +an apostolic guardian. She lost a princely station in Lebanon; she +gained an early heritage in heaven. For this heritage is hers within +thirty days, if she will not defeat it herself. And, whilst the +stealthy motion of time travelled towards this thirtieth day, behold! +a burning fever desolated Damascus, which also laid its arrest upon +the Daughter of Lebanon, yet gently, and so that hardly for an hour +did it withdraw her from the heavenly teachings of the evangelist. And +thus daily the doubt was strengthened--would the holy apostle suddenly +touch her with his hand, and say, "Woman, be thou whole!" or would he +present her on the thirtieth day as a pure bride to Christ? But +perfect freedom belongs to Christian service, and she only must make +the election. + +Up rose the sun on the thirtieth morning in all his pomp, but suddenly +was darkened by driving storms. Not until noon was the heavenly orb +again revealed; then the glorious light was again unmasked, and again +the Syrian valleys rejoiced. This was the hour already appointed for +the baptism of the new Christian daughter. Heaven and earth shed +gratulation on the happy festival; and, when all was finished, under +an awning raised above the level roof of her dwelling-house, the +regenerate daughter of Lebanon, looking over the rose-gardens of +Damascus, with amplest prospect of her native hills, lay in blissful +trance, making proclamation, by her white baptismal robes, of +recovered innocence and of reconciliation with God. And, when the sun +was declining to the west, the evangelist, who had sat from noon by +the bedside of his spiritual daughter, rose solemnly, and said, "Lady +of Lebanon, the day is already come, and the hour is coming, in which +my covenant must be fulfilled with thee. Wilt thou, therefore, being +now wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new Father, to give by +seeming to refuse; to give in some better sense, or in some far +happier world?" But the Daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at these words; +she yearned after her native hills; not for themselves, but because +there it was that she had left that sweet twin-born sister with whom +from infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst the everlasting +cedars. And again the evangelist sat down by her bedside; while she by +intervals communed with him, and by intervals slept gently under the +oppression of her fever. But, as evening drew nearer, and it wanted +now but a brief space to the going down of the sun, once again, and +with deeper solemnity, the evangelist rose to his feet, and said, "O +daughter! this is the thirtieth day, and the sun is drawing near to +his rest; brief, therefore, is the time within which I must fulfil the +word that God spoke to thee by me." Then, because light clouds of +delirium were playing about her brain, he raised his pastoral staff, +and pointing it to her temples, rebuked the clouds, and bade that no +more they should trouble her vision, or stand between her and the +forests of Lebanon. And the delirious clouds parted asunder, breaking +away to the right and to the left. But upon the forests of Lebanon +there hung a mighty mass of overshadowing vapours, bequeathed by the +morning's storm. And a second time the evangelist raised his pastoral +staff, and, pointing it to the gloomy vapours, rebuked them, and bade +that no more they should stand between his daughter and her father's +house, and immediately the dark vapours broke away from Lebanon to the +right and to the left; and the farewell radiance of the sun lighted up +all the paths that ran between the everlasting cedars and her father's +palace. But vainly the lady of Lebanon searched every path with her +eyes for memorials of her sister. And the evangelist, pitying her +sorrow, turned away her eyes to the clear blue sky, which the +departing vapours had exposed. And he showed her the peace that was +there. And then he said, "O daughter! this also is but a mask." And +immediately for the third time he raised his pastoral staff, and, +pointing it to the fair blue sky, he rebuked it, and bade that no more +it should stand between her and the vision of God. Immediately the +blue sky parted to the right and to the left, laying bare the infinite +revelations that can be made visible only to dying eyes. And the +Daughter of Lebanon said to the evangelist, "O father! what armies are +these that I see mustering within the infinite chasm?" And the +evangelist replied, "These are the armies of Christ, and they are +mustering to receive some dear human blossom, some first-fruits of +Christian faith, that shall rise this night to Christ from Damascus." +Suddenly, as thus the child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty vision, +she saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in gratulation +to herself, the one countenance for which she hungered and thirsted. +The twin sister, that should have waited for her in Lebanon, had died +of grief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in rapture +she soared upwards from her couch; immediately in weakness she fell +back; and being caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms around +his neck; whilst he breathed into her ear his final whisper, "Wilt +thou now suffer that God should give by seeming to refuse?"--"Oh +yes--yes--yes," was the fervent answer from the Daughter of Lebanon. +Immediately the evangelist gave the signal to the heavens, and the +heavens gave the signal to the sun; and in one minute after the +Daughter of Lebanon had fallen back a marble corpse amongst her white +baptismal robes, the solar orb dropped behind Lebanon; and the +evangelist, with eyes glorified by mortal and immortal tears, rendered +thanks to God that had thus accomplished the word which he spoke +through himself to the Magdalen of Lebanon--that not for the thirtieth +time should the sun go down behind her native hills, before he had put +her back into her Father's house. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS + + +An Italian author--Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit--has written a poem upon +insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and +abominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and that +they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the north may +dispute this piece of theology; but on the other hand, it is clear as +the snow on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity of +shaving; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious bower, she did +not step upon ice three inches thick. + +Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning. +You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing is +done. This may be very true; just as a boy at school has only to take +a flogging, and the thing is over. But we have not at all made up our +minds upon it; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss the +matter, candidly, before we get up. This at least is not idling, +though it may be lying. It affords an excellent answer to those, who +ask how lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning being,--a +rational creature. How? Why with the argument calmly at work in one's +head, and the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh--it is a fine way of +spending a sensible, impartial half-hour. + +If these people would be more charitable, they would get on with their +argument better. But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert so +dogmatically, that one could wish to have them stand round one's bed +of a bitter morning, and lie before their faces. They ought to hear +both sides of the bed, the inside and out. If they cannot entertain +themselves with their own thoughts for half an hour or so, it is not +the fault of those who can. If their will is never pulled aside by the +enticing arms of imagination, so much the luckier for the +stage-coachman. + +Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides the greater or less +privileges to be allowed a man in proportion to his ability of keeping +early hours, the work given his faculties, etc., will at least concede +their due merits to such representations as the following. In the +first place, says the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm all +night, and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to a +warm-blooded animal. To get out of this state into the cold, besides +the inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the transition, is so +unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, refining upon the +tortures of the damned, make one of their greatest agonies consist in +being suddenly transported from heat to cold,--from fire to ice. They +are "haled" out of their "beds," says Milton, by "harpy-footed +furies,"--fellows who come to call them. On my first movement towards +the anticipation of getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets +and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the room, are stone-cold. On +opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath +rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage +chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see +the window all frozen over. Think of that. Then the servant comes in. +"It is very cold this morning, is it not?"--"Very cold, Sir."--"Very +cold indeed, isn't it?"--"Very cold indeed, Sir."--"More than usually +so, isn't it, even for this weather?" (Here the servant's wit and +good-nature are put to a considerable test, and the inquirer lies on +thorns for the answer.) "Why, Sir ... I think it _is_." (Good +creature! There is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.) +"I must rise, however--get me some warm water."--Here comes a fine +interval between the departure of the servant and the arrival of the +hot water; during which, of course, it is of "no use" to get up. The +hot water comes. "Is it quite hot?"--"Yes, Sir."--"Perhaps too hot for +shaving: I must wait a little?"--"No, Sir; it will just do." (There is +an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a +little troublesome.) "Oh--the shirt--you must air my clean +shirt;--linen gets very damp this weather."--"Yes, Sir." Here another +delicious five minutes. A knock at the door. "Oh, the shirt--very +well. My stockings--I think the stockings had better be aired +too."--"Very well, Sir."--Here another interval. At length everything +is ready, except myself. I now, continues our incumbent (a happy word, +by the bye, for a country vicar)--I now cannot help thinking a good +deal--who can?--upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving: +it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)--so effeminate (here I +recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)--No +wonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against the +degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage +with a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed the +luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the +flowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture--at Michael +Angelo's--at Titian's--at Shakespeare's--at Fletcher's--at +Spenser's--at Chaucer's--at Alfred's--at Plato's--I could name a great +man for every tick of my watch.--Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose +people.--Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan.--Think of +Wortley Montagu, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the +prejudice of his time.--Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is +ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are +so much finer than our own.--Lastly, think of the razor itself--how +totally opposed to every sensation of bed--how cold, how edgy, how +hard! how utterly different from anything like the warm and circling +amplitude, which + + Sweetly recommends itself + Unto our gentle senses. + +Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, a +quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he that +says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate, +that he has no merit in opposing it. + +Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons-- + + Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake? + +used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive in +getting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could +also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be +allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the +argument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn out +of his bed by three and four pence; but this will not suffice for a +student. A proud man may say, "What shall I think of myself, if I +don't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive this +prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. The +mechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the +barometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter of +discussion even on the score of health and longevity. He will ask us +for our proofs and precedents of the ill effects of lying later in +cold weather; and sophisticate much on the advantages of an even +temperature of body; of the natural propensity (pretty universal) to +have one's way; and of the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep +all the winter. As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest life +is of necessity the best; and whether Holborn is the handsomest street +in London. + +We only know of one confounding, not to say confounded argument, fit +to overturn the huge luxury, the "enormous bliss"--of the vice in +question. A lier in bed may be allowed to profess a disinterested +indifference for his health or longevity; but while he is showing the +reasonableness of consulting his own or one person's comfort, he must +admit the proportionate claim of more than one; and the best way to +deal with him is this, especially for a lady; for we earnestly +recommend the use of that sex on such occasions, if not somewhat +_over_-persuasive; since extremes have an awkward knack of meeting. +First then, admit all the ingeniousness of what he says, telling him +that the bar has been deprived of an excellent lawyer. Then look at +him in the most good-natured manner in the world, with a mixture of +assent and appeal in your countenance, and tell him that you are +waiting breakfast for him; that you never like to breakfast without +him; that you really want it too; that the servants want theirs; that +you shall not know how to get the house into order, unless he rises; +and that you are sure he would do things twenty times worse, even than +getting out of his warm bed, to put them all into good humour and a +state of comfort. Then, after having said this, throw in the +comparatively indifferent matter, to _him_, about his health; but tell +him that it is no indifferent matter to you; that the sight of his +illness makes more people suffer than one; but that if, nevertheless, +he really does feel so very sleepy and so very much refreshed by---- +Yet stay; we hardly know whether the frailty of a---- Yes, yes; say +that too, especially if you say it with sincerity; for if the weakness +of human nature on the one hand and the _vis inertię_ on the other, +should lead him to take advantage of it once or twice, good-humour and +sincerity form an irresistible junction at last; and are still better +and warmer things than pillows and blankets. + +Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in, as occasion requires. +You may tell a lover, for instance, that lying in bed makes people +corpulent; a father, that you wish him to complete the fine manly +example he sets his children; a lady, that she will injure her bloom +or her shape, which M. or W. admires so much; and a student or artist, +that he is always so glad to have done a good day's work, in his best +manner. + +_Reader._ And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do _you_ behave yourself in +this respect? + +_Indic._ Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course; like all advisers. + +_Reader._ Nay, I allow that your mode of argument does not look quite +so suspicious as the old way of sermonising and severity, but I have +my doubts, especially from that laugh of yours. If I should look in +to-morrow morning-- + +_Indic._ Ah, Madam, the look in of a face like yours does anything +with me. It shall fetch me up at nine, if you please--_six_, I meant +to say. + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN + + +Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must be either +a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former. We do not mention his +precise age, which would be invidious:--nor whether he wears his own +hair or a wig; which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is +a compromise between the more modern scratch and the departed glory of +the toupee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favourite +grandson, who used to get on the chair behind him, and pull the silver +hairs out, ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hairdresser, +hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes care to +give the bald place as much powder as the covered; in order that he +may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing indistinctness of idea +respecting the exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean and +neat; and, in warm weather, is proud of opening his waistcoat half-way +down, and letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to show his +hardiness as well as taste. His watch and shirt-buttons are of the +best; and he does not care if he has two rings on a finger. If his +watch ever failed him at the club or coffee-house, he would take a +walk every day to the nearest clock of good character, purely to keep +it right. He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it out +of fashion with his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for +gala days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one, +when made a bow to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for the +neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The +pocket-book, among other things, contains a receipt for a cough, and +some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovely +Duchess of A., beginning-- + + "When beauteous Mira walks the plain." + +He intends this for a common-place book which he keeps, consisting of +passages in verse and prose, cut out of newspapers and magazines, and +pasted in columns; some of them rather gay. His principal other books +are Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost; the Spectator, the +History of England, the Works of Lady M. W. Montagu, Pope and +Churchill; Middleton's Geography; the Gentleman's Magazine; Sir John +Sinclair on Longevity; several plays with portraits in character; +Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical +Amusements at Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts; Junius as +originally published; a few pamphlets on the American War and Lord +George Gordon, etc., and one on the French Revolution. In his +sitting-rooms are some engravings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an +engraved portrait of the Marquis of Granby; ditto of M. le Comte de +Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny; +and a portrait of himself, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's portrait +is in his chamber, looking upon his bed. She is a little girl, +stepping forward with a smile, and a pointed toe, as if going to +dance. He lost her when she was sixty. + +The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to live at +least twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for breakfast, in +spite of what is said against its nervous effects; having been +satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. Johnson's criticism on +Hanway, and a great liking for tea previously. His china cups and +saucers have been broken since his wife's death, all but one, which is +religiously kept for his use. He passes his morning in walking or +riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his India bonds or some +such money securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by his +excellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a new old print for his +portfolio. He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see them +till after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or +so; the fishmonger soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with a +profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner. + +His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the accustomed +hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. If +William did not bring it, the fish would be sure to be stale, and the +flesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures on a little, takes +cheese with it. You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of his +senses, as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes port; and +if he has drunk more than usual, and in a more private place, may be +induced by some respectful inquiries respecting the old style of +music, to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as-- + + "Chloe, by that borrowed kiss," + +or + + "Come, gentle god of soft repose," + +or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning-- + + "At Upton on the hill, + There lived a happy pair." + +Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room: but he +will canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or discuss the +weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits of "my lord +North" or "my lord Rockingham;" for he rarely says simply, lord; it is +generally "my lord," trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If alone +after dinner, his great delight is the newspaper; which he prepares to +read by wiping his spectacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, +and drawing the candle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt +his ocular aim and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm's +length, and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, +takes cognizance of the day's information. If he leaves off, it is +only when the door is opened by a new-comer, or when he suspects +somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On these +occasions he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes. + +In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the theatre, or +of having a game of cards. If he enjoys the latter at his own house or +lodgings, he likes to play with some friends whom he has known for +many years; but an elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and +scientific; and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters; +who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser, but to +win money at cards is like proving his victory by getting the baggage; +and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his not being able to +beat him at rackets. He breaks up early, whether at home or abroad. + +At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit. He comes early, if he +can do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently waiting +for the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands placidly lying one +over the other on the top of his stick. He generously admires some of +the best performers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, +Woodward, and Clive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the +little boy should see. + +He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes it still +less than he did years back, and cannot bear it in comparison with +Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, flaring, and jaded. "Ah!" +says he, with a sort of triumphant sigh, "Ranelagh was a noble place! +Such taste, such elegance, such beauty! There was the Duchess of A., +the finest woman in England, Sir; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine creature; +and Lady Susan what's her name, that had that unfortunate affair with +Sir Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans." + +The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers ready for +him at the fire, when he comes home. He is also extremely choice in +his snuff, and delights to get a fresh boxful in Tavistock-street, in +his way to the theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. He calls +favourite young ladies by their Christian names, however slightly +acquainted with them; and has a privilege also of saluting all brides, +mothers, and indeed every species of lady, on the least holiday +occasion. If the husband for instance has met with a piece of luck, he +instantly moves forward, and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The +wife then says, "My niece, Sir, from the country;" and he kisses the +niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says, +"My cousin Harriet, Sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He "never +recollects such weather," except during the "Great Frost," or when he +rode down with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows young again in +his little grandchildren, especially the one which he thinks most like +himself; which is the handsomest. Yet he likes the best perhaps the +one most resembling his wife; and will sit with him on his lap, +holding his hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together. He +plays most tricks with the former, and makes him sneeze. He asks +little boys in general who was the father of Zebedee's children. If +his grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them; and makes them +blush by telling the master or the upper-scholars, that they are fine +boys, and of a precocious genius. He is much struck when an old +acquaintance dies, but adds that he lived too fast; and that poor Bob +was a sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, Sir; mightily set upon a +short life and a merry one." + +When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say +little or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the +housekeeper)--"_She_'ll talk." + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE OLD LADY + + +If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her +condition and time of life are so much the more apparent. She +generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rustling as she +moves about the silence of her room; and she wears a nice cap with a +lace border, that comes under the chin. In a placket at her side is an +old enamelled watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet, +for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and trim than +otherwise, as she had a fine one when young; and she is not sorry if +you see a pair of her stockings on a table, that you may be aware of +the neatness of her leg and foot. Contented with these and other +evident indications of a good shape, and letting her young friends +understand that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wears +pockets, and uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, and +any heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the +change of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment, +consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a +spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a +smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple, +which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, to give to some +little child that has well behaved itself. She generally occupies two +rooms, in the neatest condition possible. In the chamber is a bed with +a white coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and with +curtains of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of large +plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are more +shepherds and shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in +coloured ware: the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of ribbons +at his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand, and +with the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking +tenderly at the shepherdess: the woman holding a crook also, and +modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a very +slender waist, with petticoat and hips to _counteract_, and the +petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show the +trimness of her ankles. But these patterns, of course, are various. +The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with a +snow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various boxes, mostly +japan; and the set of drawers are exquisite things for a little girl +to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,--containing ribbons and +laces of various kinds; linen smelling of lavender, of the flowers of +which there is always dust in the corners; a heap of pocket-books for +a series of years; and pieces of dress long gone by, such as +head-fronts, stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with enormous +heels. The stock of _letters_ are under especial lock and key. So much +for the bedroom. In the sitting-room is rather a spare assortment of +shining old mahogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with +chintz draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, with +Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces perking +sideways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too +much for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantelpiece, in a +coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly inserted +in the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall, is a piece of +embroidered literature, framed and glazed, containing some moral +distich or maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with two trees of +parrots below, in their proper colours; the whole concluding with an A +B C and numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, expressing it +to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest of the furniture consists of +a looking-glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for the +feet, a mat for the little dog, and a small set of shelves, in which +are the "Spectator" and "Guardian," the "Turkish Spy," a Bible and +Prayer Book, Young's "Night Thoughts" with a piece of lace in it to +flatten, Mrs. Rowe's "Devout Exercises of the Heart," Mrs. Glasse's +"Cookery," and perhaps "Sir Charles Grandison," and "Clarissa." "John +Buncle" is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. The clock is +on the landing-place between the two room doors, where it ticks +audibly but quietly; and the landing-place, as well as the stairs, is +carpeted to a nicety. The house is most in character, and properly +coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with +wainscot rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Before +the windows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Lady +receives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game of +cards: or you may see her going out on the same kind of visit herself, +with a light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivory +handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love to her and +captious antipathy to strangers. Her grandchildren dislike him on +holidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures to give him a sly kick +under the table. When she returns at night, she appears, if the +weather happens to be doubtful, in a calash; and her servant in +pattens, follows half behind and half at her side, with a lantern. + +Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergyman a nice +man. The Duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great man; but +she has a secret preference for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks the +young women of the present day too forward, and the men not respectful +enough; but hopes her grandchildren will be better; though she differs +with her daughter in several points respecting their management. She +sets little value on the new accomplishments; is a great though +delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery; +and if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breeding +of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir Charles +Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real person. She likes a +walk of a summer's evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, etc., +and sometimes goes through the churchyard, where her other children +and her husband lie buried, serious, but not melancholy. She has had +three great epochs in her life:--her marriage--her having been at +court, to see the King and Queen and Royal Family--and a compliment on +her figure she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom she +describes as a sad, loose man, but engaging. His plainness she thinks +much exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it is +still the court; but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last time +but one that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg; and most +probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess Charlotte and +Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned with the same +admiration as ever for the fine comely appearance of the Duke of York +and the rest of the family, and great delight at having had a near +view of the Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted +mittens, clasping them as passionately as she can together, and +calling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine +royal young creature, and "Daughter of England." + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE MAID-SERVANT[51] + + +Must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the +butler, or _her cousin_, or has otherwise settled into a character +distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly +called the domestic. The Maid-servant, in her apparel, is either +slovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times +snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter +case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and +a neck-handkerchief pinned cornerwise behind. If you want a pin, she +just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and +holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings +for white, puts on a gown of better texture and fine pattern, sets her +cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a +high-body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is +something very warm and latent in the handkerchief--something easy, +vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like +a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She +looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her +chucked out of doors into a cart, with as little remorse as a couple +of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the +handkerchief, and is to the other what the young lady is to the +servant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in Sir Richard +Steele; the other of Fanny in "Joseph Andrews." + +[Footnote 51: In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait +must be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty years ago.] + +But to return. The general furniture of her ordinary room, the +kitchen, is not so much her own as her Master's and Mistress's, and +need not be described: but in a drawer of the dresser or the table, in +company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her +property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissors, a thread-case, +a piece of wax much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of +"Pamela," and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as "George Barnwell," or +Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking-glass in the +window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find +a good looking-glass on the table, and in the window a Bible, a comb, +and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the +mighty mystery,--the box,--containing, among other things, her +clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the +penny; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet; the "Whole Nature of +Dreams Laid Open," together with the "Fortune-teller" and the "Account +of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;" the "Story of the Beautiful Zoa" "who was +cast away on a desart island, showing how," etc.; some half-crowns in +a purse, including pieces of country-money, with the good Countess of +Coventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver penny +wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before +she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten or been +forgotten by her, she is not sure which;--two little enamel boxes, +with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "a +Trifle from Margate;" and lastly, various letters, square and ragged, +and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters +for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school, +is directed "Miss." + +In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her young +mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and +occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and +condition overcome all sophistications of this sort: her shape, +fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and +exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her +temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is +over-saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or +when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty +shoes,--or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she +much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; and +sometimes she catches herself saying, "Drat that butcher," but +immediately adds, "God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with their +compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The +milkman bespeaks her good-humour for the day with "Come, pretty +maids:"--then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, etc., all +with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to +the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from +its roller with more than the ordinary whirl, and tosses his parcel +into a tie. + +Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and +grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected +with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the +area-steps or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a +troop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out of +a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house, +when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary +obstacles between. If the Maid-servant is wise, the best part of her +work is done by dinner-time; and nothing else is necessary to give +perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she +calls it "a bit o' dinner." There is the same sort of eloquence in her +other phrase, "a cup o' tea;" but the old ones, and the washerwomen, +beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other +servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts-like, and tells Mr. +John to "have done then;" or if there is a ball given that night, they +throw open the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. +In smaller houses, she receives the visits of her aforesaid cousin; +and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks of +her young master or mistress and Mr. Ivins (Evans); or else she calls +to mind her own friends in the country; where she thinks the cows and +"all that" beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she +snuffs the candle with her scissors; or if she has eaten more heartily +than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks +that tender hearts were born to be unhappy. + +Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad, +to be anything but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The Maid-servant, +the sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy a +holiday beyond all the rest of the world;--and all for the same +reason,--because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of +being with persons of circumstances or thoughts above them, give them +all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of the +money-getters is a vegetable compared with them. The Maid-servant when +she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all +pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play or the +music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of +apples and gingerbread, which she and her party commence almost as +soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy, +because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general; +and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in the +love-scenes. Her favourite play is "Alexander the Great, or the Rival +Queens." Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to +look at the pictures in the windows, and the fine things labelled with +those corpulent numerals of "only 7_s._"--"only 6_s._ 6_d._" She has +also, unless born and bred in London, been to see my Lord Mayor, the +fine people coming out of Court, and the "beasties" in the Tower; and +at all events she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which she +comes away, equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at +the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most. +One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an +endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and +wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous and well-dressed people, +as if she were a mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, where +the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white, +calls her Ma'am; and says to John by her side, in spite of his laced +hat, "Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady." + +Ah! may her "cousin" turn out as true as he says he is; or may she get +home soon enough and smiling enough to be as happy again next time. + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +CHARACTERISTICS + + +The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the +Physician's Aphorism; and applicable in a far wider sense than he +gives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral, intellectual, +political, poetical, than in merely corporeal therapeutics; that +wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can be +named _vital_ are at work, herein lies the test of their working right +or working wrong. + +In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first +condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its function +unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separate +existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, +then already has one of those unfortunate "false centres of +sensibility" established itself, already is derangement there. The +perfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collective bodily +activities seem one; and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, +but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his +system is in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit; +but the true Peptician was that Countryman who answered that, "for his +part, he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement is always silent, +or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So +long as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour +forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and +unison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial +music and diapason,--which also, like that other music of the spheres, +even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and +without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus too, in +some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term +expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that +we are _whole_. + +Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with that +felicity of "having no system;" nevertheless, most of us, looking back +on young years, may remember seasons of a light, aėrial translucency +and elasticity and perfect freedom; the body had not yet become the +prison-house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement, like a +creature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knew +not that we had limbs, we only lifted, hurled and leapt: through eye +and ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings from +without, and from within issued clear victorious force; we stood as in +the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in harmony with it all; +unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, "too happy _because_ we did not know our +blessedness." In those days, health and sickness were foreign +traditions that did not concern us; our whole being was as yet One, +the whole man like an incorporated Will. Such, were Rest or +ever-successful Labour the human lot, might our life continue to be: a +pure, perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of perfect white light, +rendering all things visible, but itself unseen, even because it was +of that perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction had yet broken +it into colours. The beginning of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if +we consider well, as it must have originated in the feeling of +something being wrong, so it is and continues to be but Division, +Dismemberment, and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old +written, the Tree of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears +fruits of good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had been +no Anatomy and no Metaphysics. + +But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, "Life itself is a disease; a +working incited by suffering;" action from passion! The memory of that +first state of Freedom and paradisaic Unconsciousness has faded away +into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious of many +things: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even do +our best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and at +rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest the fierce +jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what we will, there is +no disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still the wish of Nature on our +behalf; in all vital action, her manifest purpose and effort is, that +we should be unconscious of it, and, like the peptic Countryman, never +know that we "have a system." For indeed vital action everywhere is +emphatically a means, not an end; Life is not given us for the mere +sake of Living, but always with an ulterior external Aim: neither is +it on the process, on the means, but rather on the result, that +Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to entrust us with insight and +volition. Boundless as is the domain of man, it is but a small +fractional proportion of it that he rules with Consciousness and by +Forethought: what he can contrive, nay what he can altogether know and +comprehend, is essentially the mechanical, small; the great is ever, +in one sense or other, the vital; it is essentially the mysterious, +and only the surface of it can be understood. But Nature, it might +seem, strives, like a kind mother, to hide from us even this, that she +is a mystery: she will have us rest on her beautiful and awful bosom +as if it were our secure home; on the bottomless boundless Deep, +whereon all human things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will have +us walk and build, as if the film which supported us there (which any +scratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder, any sputter of a +pistol-shot instantaneously burn up) were no film, but a solid +rock-foundation. Forever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable Death, +man can forget that he is born to die; of his Life, which, strictly +meditated, contains in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he can +conceive lightly, as of a simple implement wherewith to do day-labour +and earn wages. So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all highest +Art, which only apes her from afar, body forth the Finite from the +Infinite; and guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more by +endowing him with vision, than, at the right place, with blindness! +Under all her works, chiefly under her noblest work, Life, lies a +basis of Darkness, which she benignantly conceals; in Life too, the +roots and inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to the +regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence, and +only the fair stem with its leaves and flowers, shone on by the fair +sun, shall disclose itself, and joyfully grow. + +However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly asking +Why and How, in things where our answer must needs prove, in great +part, an echo of the question, let us be content to remark farther, in +the merely historical way, how that Aphorism of the bodily Physician +holds good in quite other departments. Of the Soul, with her +activities, we shall find it no less true than of the Body: nay, cry +the Spiritualists, is not that very division of the unity, Man, into a +dualism of Soul and Body, itself the symptom of disease; as, perhaps, +your frightful theory of Materialism, of his being but a Body, and +therefore, at least, once more a unity, may be the paroxysm which was +critical, and the beginning of cure! But omitting this, we observe, +with confidence enough, that the truly strong mind, view it as +Intellect, as Morality, or under any other aspect, is nowise the mind +acquainted with its strength; that here as before the sign of health +is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our outward world, what is +mechanical lies open to us: not what is dynamical and has vitality. Of +our Thinking, we might say, it is but the mere upper surface that we +shape into articulate Thoughts;--underneath the region of argument and +conscious discourse, lies the region of meditation; here, in its quiet +mysterious depths, dwells what vital force is in us; here, if aught is +to be created, and not merely manufactured and communicated, must the +work go on. Manufacture is intelligible, but trivial; Creation is +great, and cannot be understood. Thus if the Debater and Demonstrator, +whom we may rank as the lowest of true thinkers, knows what he has +done, and how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the highest, +knows not; must speak of Inspiration, and in one or the other dialect, +call his work the gift of a divinity. + +But on the whole, "genius is ever a secret to itself;" of this old +truth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes no +airs for writing _Hamlet_ and the _Tempest_, understands not that it +is anything surprising: Milton, again, is more conscious of his +faculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On the other hand, what +cackling and strutting must we not often hear and see, when, in some +shape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article, this or +the other well-fledged goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite +measurable value, were it the pink of its whole kind; and wonders why +all mortals do not wonder! + +Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at Walter +Shandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could nevertheless argue; +and not knowing the name of any dialectic tool, handled them all to +perfection. Is it the skilfullest anatomist that cuts the best figure +at Sadler's Wells? Or does the boxer hit better for knowing that he +has a _flexor longus_ and a _flexor brevis_? But indeed, as in the +higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer, +the true force is an unconscious one. The healthy Understanding, we +should say, is not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive; for +the end of Understanding is not to prove and find reasons, but to know +and believe. Of logic, and its limits, and uses and abuses, there were +much to be said and examined; one fact, however, which chiefly +concerns us here, has long been familiar: that the man of logic and +the man of insight; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or even Knower, +are quite separable,--indeed, for most part, quite separate +characters. In practical matters, for example, has it not become +almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot prosper? This is he +whom business-people call Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger; +his _vital_ intellectual force lies dormant or extinct, his whole +force is mechanical, conscious: of such a one it is foreseen that, +when once confronted with the infinite complexities of the real world, +his little compact theorem of the world will be found wanting; that +unless he can throw it overboard, and become a new creature, he will +necessarily founder. Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the most +ineffectual of all characters, generally speaking, is your dialectic +man-at-arms; were he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and +perfect master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him! Consider +the old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards Truth: the +faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often great +natural vigour; only no progress: nothing but antic feats of one limb +poised against the other; there they balanced, somersetted and made +postures; at best gyrated swiftly, with some pleasure, like Spinning +Dervishes, and ended where they began. So is it, so will it always be, +with all System-makers and builders of logical card-castles; of which +class a certain remnant must, in every age, as they do in our own, +survive and build. Logic is good, but it is not the best. The +Irrefragable Doctor, with his chains of induction, his corollaries, +dilemmas and other cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast +you a beautiful horoscope, and speak reasonable things; nevertheless +your stolen jewel, which you wanted him to find you, is not +forthcoming. Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is, +of a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split +asunder, and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with all +his logical tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on +all hands too hard for him. + +Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as indeed +everywhere in that superiority of what is called the Natural over the +Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The Orator persuades and +carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that +he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him: the one is in a +state of healthy unconsciousness, as if he "had no system;" the other, +in virtue of regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels at best that "his +system is in high order." So stands it, in short, with all the forms +of Intellect, whether as directed to the finding of truth, or to the +fit imparting thereof: to Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of Insight, +which is the basis of both these; always the characteristic of right +performance is a certain spontaneity, an unconsciousness; "the healthy +know not of their health, but only the sick." So that the old precept +of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his ambitious disciple, +might contain in it a most fundamental truth, applicable to us all, +and in much else than Literature: "Whenever you have written any +sentence that looks particularly excellent, be sure to blot it out." +In like manner, under milder phraseology, and with a meaning purposely +much wider, a living Thinker has taught us: "Of the Wrong we are +always conscious, of the Right never." + +But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the Intellectual +power of man, much more is it with regard to Conduct, and the power, +manifested chiefly therein, which we name Moral. "Let not thy left +hand know what thy right hand doeth:" whisper not to thy own heart, +How worthy is this action; for then it is already becoming worthless. +The good man is he who _works_ continually in welldoing; to whom +welldoing is as his natural existence, awakening no astonishment, +requiring no commentary; but there, like a thing of course, and as if +it could not but be so. Self-contemplation, on the other hand, is +infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it not the sign of +cure. An unhealthy Virtue is one that consumes itself to leanness in +repenting and anxiety; or, still worse, that inflates itself into +dropsical boastfulness and vain-glory: either way, there is a +self-seeking; an unprofitable looking behind us to measure the way we +have made: whereas the sole concern is to walk continually forward, +and make more way. If in any sphere of man's life, then in the Moral +sphere, as the inmost and most vital of all, it is good that there be +wholeness; that there be unconsciousness, which is the evidence of +this. Let the free, reasonable Will, which dwells in us, as in our +Holy of Holies, be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as is its +right and its effort: the perfect obedience will be the silent one. +Such perhaps were the sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual, +but the half of a truth: To say that we have a clear conscience, is to +utter a solecism; had we never sinned, we should have had no +conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated +by songs of triumph. + +This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; yet ever +the goal towards which our actual state of being strives; which it is +the more perfect the nearer it can approach. Nor, in our actual world, +where Labour must often prove _in_effectual, and thus in all senses +Light alternate with Darkness, and the nature of an ideal Morality be +much modified, is the case, thus far, materially different. It is a +fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is +acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate +acquaintance with. Above all, the public acknowledgment of such +acquaintance, indicating that it has reached quite an intimate +footing, bodes ill. Already, to the popular judgment, he who talks +much about Virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspect; it is +shrewdly guessed that where there is a great preaching, there will be +little almsgiving. Or again, on a wider scale, we can remark that ages +of Heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy; Virtue, when it can be +philosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and beginning +to decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of Chivalrous +Valour shrinks together, and perks itself up into shrivelled Points of +Honour; humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind dwindle into punctilious +Politeness, "avoiding meats;" "paying tithe of mint and anise, +neglecting the weightier matters of the law." Goodness, which was a +rule to itself, must now appeal to Precept, and seek strength from +Sanctions; the Freewill no longer reigns unquestioned and by divine +right, but like a mere earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards +and Punishments: or rather, let us say, the Freewill, so far as may +be, has abdicated and withdrawn into the dark, and a spectral +nightmare of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that mysterious +Self-impulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired, and in all senses +partaking of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in a finite +dialect, and answering, as it needs must, by silence,--is conceived as +non-extant, and only the outward Mechanism of it remains acknowledged: +of Volition, except as the synonym of Desire, we hear nothing; of +"Motives," without any Mover, more than enough. + +So too, when the generous Affections have become well-nigh paralytic, +we have the reign of Sentimentality. The greatness, the +profitableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental nature of +high feeling, and the luxury of doing good; charity, love, +self-forgetfulness, devotedness and all manner of godlike +magnanimity,--are everywhere insisted on, and pressingly inculcated in +speech and writing, in prose and verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim +"Benevolence" to all the four winds, and have TRUTH engraved on their +watch-seals: unhappily with little or no effect. Were the limbs in +right walking order, why so much demonstrating of motion? The +barrenest of all mortals is the Sentimentalist. Granting even that he +were sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us, or without first +deceiving himself, what good is in him? Does he not lie there as a +perpetual lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarian +impotence? His is emphatically a Virtue that has become, through every +fibre, conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were +made of glass, and durst not touch or be touched: in the shape of +work, it can do nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing and +caudling, keeps itself alive. As the last stage of all, when Virtue, +properly so called, has ceased to be practised, and become extinct, +and a mere remembrance, we have the era of Sophists, descanting of its +existence, proving it, denying it, mechanically "accounting" for +it;--as dissectors and demonstrators cannot operate till once the body +be dead. + +Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which indeed is but +a lower phasis thereof, "ever a secret to itself." The healthy moral +nature loves Goodness, and without wonder wholly lives in it: the +unhealthy makes love to it, and would fain get to live in it; or, +finding such courtship fruitless, turns round, and not without +contempt abandons it. These curious relations of the Voluntary and +Conscious to the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the small proportion +which, in all departments of our life, the former bears to the +latter,--might lead us into deep questions of Psychology and +Physiology: such, however, belong not to our present object. Enough, +if the fact itself become apparent, that Nature so meant it with us; +that in this wise we are made. We may now say, that view man's +individual Existence under what aspect we will, under the highest +spiritual, as under the merely animal aspect, everywhere the grand +vital energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen unconscious one; +or, in the words of our old Aphorism, "the healthy know not of their +health, but only the sick." + +* * * * * + +To understand man, however, we must look beyond the individual man and +his actions or interests, and view him in combination with his +fellows. It is in Society that man first feels what he is; first +becomes what he can be. In Society an altogether new set of spiritual +activities are evolved in him, and the old immeasurably quickened and +strengthened. Society is the genial element wherein his nature first +lives and grows; the solitary man were but a small portion of himself, +and must continue forever folded in, stunted and only half alive. +"Already," says a deep Thinker, with more meaning than will disclose +itself at once, "my opinion, my conviction, gains _infinitely_ in +strength and sureness, the moment a second mind has adopted it." Such, +even in its simplest form, is association; so wondrous the communion +of soul with soul as directed to the mere act of Knowing! In other +higher acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in that portion of +our being which we name the Moral: for properly, indeed, all communion +is of a moral sort, whereof such intellectual communion (in the act of +knowing) is itself an example. But with regard to Morals strictly so +called, it is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins; +here at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every side, as +in living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man to himself, to +what is Highest in himself, make but the First Table of the Law: to +the First Table is now superadded a Second, with the Duties of Man to +his Neighbour; whereby also the significance of the First now assumes +its true importance. Man has joined himself with man; soul acts and +reacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union establishes +itself; Life, in all its elements, has become intensated, consecrated. +The lightning-spark of Thought, generated, or say rather +heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens its express likeness in +another mind, in a thousand other minds, and all blaze up together in +combined fire; reverberated from mind to mind, fed also with fresh +fuel in each, it acquires incalculable new light as Thought, +incalculable new heat as converted into Action. By and by, a common +store of Thought can accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlasting +possession: Literature, whether as preserved in the memory of Bards, +in Runes and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of written or +printed paper, comes into existence, and begins to play its wondrous +part. Polities are formed; the weak submitting to the strong; with a +willing loyalty, giving obedience that he may receive guidance: or say +rather, in honour of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the wise; +for so it is in all even the rudest communities, man never yields +himself wholly to brute Force, but always to moral Greatness; thus the +universal title of respect, from the Oriental _Sheik_, from the +_Sachem_ of the Red Indians, down to our English _Sir_, implies only +that he whom we mean to honour is our _senior_. Last, as the crown and +all-supporting keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The devout +meditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like a +transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, acquires certainty, +continuance, when it is shared-in by his brother men. "Where two or +three are gathered together" in the name of the Highest, then first +does the Highest, as it is written, "appear among them to bless them;" +then first does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way from +Earth to Heaven; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's-ladder, the +heavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings and unspeakable +gifts for men. Such is Society, the vital articulation of many +individuals into a new collective individual: greatly the most +important of man's attainments on this earth; that in which, and by +virtue of which, all his other attainments and attempts find their +arena, and have their value. Considered well, Society is the standing +wonder of our existence; a true region of the Supernatural; as it +were, a second all-embracing Life, wherein our first individual Life +becomes doubly and trebly alive, and whatever of Infinitude was in us +bodies itself forth, and becomes visible and active. + +To figure Society as endowed with life is scarcely a metaphor; but +rather the statement of a fact by such imperfect methods as language +affords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, Nature's highest work +with man, wherein man's volition plays an indispensable yet so +subordinate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so mysteriously and +indissolubly out of the infinite Dynamical, like Body out of +Spirit,--is truly enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears the +distinguishing character of life. In the same style also, we can say +that Society has its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth, +manhood, decrepitude, dissolution and new-birth; in one or other of +which stages we may, in all times, and all places where men inhabit, +discern it; and do ourselves, in this time and place, whether as +coöperating or as contending, as healthy members or as diseased ones, +to our joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question, What is the +actual condition of Society? has in these days unhappily become +important enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that question; but +for the majority of thinking men a true answer to it, such is the +state of matters, appears almost as the one thing needful. Meanwhile, +as the true answer, that is to say, the complete and fundamental +answer and settlement, often as it has been demanded, is nowhere +forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is impossible, any honest +approximation towards such is not without value. The feeblest light, +or even so much as a more precise recognition of the darkness, which +is the first step to attainment of light, will be welcome. + +This once understood, let it not seem idle if we remark that here too +our old Aphorism holds; that again in the Body Politic, as in the +animal body, the sign of right performance is Unconsciousness. Such +indeed is virtually the meaning of that phrase, "artificial state of +society," as contrasted with the natural state, and indicating +something so inferior to it. For, in all vital things, men distinguish +an Artificial and a Natural; founding on some dim perception or +sentiment of the very truth we here insist on: the artificial is the +conscious, mechanical; the natural is the unconscious, dynamical. +Thus, as we have an artificial Poetry, and prize only the natural; so +likewise we have an artificial Morality, an artificial Wisdom, an +artificial Society. The artificial Society is precisely one that knows +its own structure, its own internal functions; not in watching, not in +knowing which, but in working outwardly to the fulfilment of its aim, +does the wellbeing of a Society consist. Every Society, every Polity, +has a spiritual principle; is the embodiment, tentative and more or +less complete, of an Idea: all its tendencies of endeavour, +specialties of custom, its laws, politics and whole procedure (as the +glance of some Montesquieu, across innumerable superficial +entanglements, can partly decipher), are prescribed by an Idea, and +flow naturally from it, as movements from the living source of motion. +This Idea, be it of devotion to a man or class of men, to a creed, to +an institution, or even, as in more ancient times, to a piece of land, +is ever a true Loyalty; has in it something of a religious, paramount, +quite infinite character; it is properly the Soul of the State, its +Life; mysterious as other forms of Life, and like these working +secretly, and in a depth beyond that of consciousness. + +Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages of a Roman Republic that +Treatises of the Commonwealth are written: while the Decii are rushing +with devoted bodies on the enemies of Rome, what need of preaching +Patriotism? The virtue of Patriotism has already sunk from its +pristine all-transcendant condition, before it has received a name. So +long as the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it cares not to +dabble in anatomy. Why teach obedience to the Sovereign; why so much +as admire it, or separately recognise it, while a divine idea of +Obedience perennially inspires all men? Loyalty, like Patriotism, of +which it is a form, was not praised till it had begun to decline; the +_Preux Chevaliers_ first became rightly admirable, when "dying for +their king" had ceased to be a habit with chevaliers. For if the +mystic significance of the State, let this be what it may, dwells +vitally in every heart, encircles every life as with a second higher +life, how should it stand self-questioning? It must rush outward, and +express itself by works. Besides, if perfect, it is there as by +necessity, and does not excite inquiry: it is also by nature infinite, +has no limits; therefore can be circumscribed by no conditions and +definitions; cannot be reasoned of; except _musically_, or in the +language of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of. + +In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at heart. Not +indeed without suffering enough; not without perplexities, difficulty +on every side: for such is the appointment of man; his highest and +sole blessedness is, that he toil, and know what to toil at: not in +ease, but in united victorious labour, which is at once evil and the +victory over evil, does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no deeper +than such superficial perplexities of the early Time, historians have +taught us that it was all one mass of contradiction and disease; and +in the antique Republic, or feudal Monarchy, have seen only the +confused chaotic quarry, not the robust labourer, or the stately +edifice he was building of it. If Society, in such ages, had its +difficulty, it had also its strength: if sorrowful masses of rubbish +so encumbered it, the tough sinews to hurl them aside, with +indomitable heart, were not wanting. Society went along without +complaint; did not stop to scrutinise itself, to say, How well I +perform, or, Alas, how ill! Men did not yet feel themselves to be "the +envy of surrounding nations;" and were enviable on that very account. +Society was what we can call _whole_, in both senses of the word. The +individual man was in himself a whole, or complete union; and could +combine with his fellows as the living member of a greater whole. For +all men, through their life, were animated by one great Idea; thus all +efforts pointed one way, everywhere there was _wholeness_. Opinion and +Action had not yet become disunited; but the former could still +produce the latter, or attempt to produce it; as the stamp does its +impression while the wax is not hardened. Thought, and the voice of +thought were also a unison; thus, instead of Speculation, we had +Poetry; Literature, in its rude utterance, was as yet a heroic Song, +perhaps too a devotional Anthem. Religion was everywhere; Philosophy +lay hid under it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as in the +life-centre of all, lay the true health and oneness. Only at a later +era must Religion split itself into Philosophies; and thereby, the +vital union of Thought being lost, disunion and mutual collision in +all provinces of Speech and Action more and more prevail. For if the +Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired thinker may be +named, is the sign of vigour and well-being; so likewise is the +Logician, or uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, probably of +decrepitude and decay. Thus, not to mention other instances, one of +them much nearer hand,--so soon as Prophecy among the Hebrews had +ceased, then did the reign of Argumentation begin; and the ancient +Theocracy, in its Sadducecisms and Phariseeisms, and vain jangling of +sects and doctors, give token that the _soul_ of it had fled, and that +the _body_ itself, by natural dissolution, "with the old forces still +at work, but working in reverse order," was on the road to final +disappearance. + +* * * * * + +We might pursue this question into innumerable other ramifications; +and everywhere, under new shapes, find the same truth, which we here +so imperfectly enunciate, disclosed; that throughout the whole world +of man, in all manifestations and performances of his nature, outward +and inward, personal and social, the Perfect, the Great is a mystery +to itself, knows not itself; whatsoever does know itself is already +little, and more or less imperfect. Or otherwise, we may say, +Unconsciousness belongs to pure unmixed life; Consciousness to a +diseased mixture and conflict of life and death: Unconsciousness is +the sign of creation; Consciousness, at best, that of manufacture. So +deep, in this existence of ours, is the significance of Mystery. Well +might the Ancients make Silence a god; for it is the element of all +godhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness; at once the source +and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends. In the same sense too, +have Poets sung "Hymns to the Night;" as if Night were nobler than +Day; as if Day were but a small motley-coloured veil spread +transiently over the infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform and +hide from us its purely transparent, eternal deeps. So likewise have +they spoken and sung as if Silence were the grand epitome and complete +sum-total of all Harmony; and Death, what mortals call Death, properly +the beginning of Life. Under such figures, since except in figures +there is no speaking of the Invisible, have men endeavoured to express +a great Truth;--a Truth, in our Times, as nearly as is perhaps +possible, forgotten by the most; which nevertheless continues forever +true, forever all-important, and will one day, under new figures, be +again brought home to the bosoms of all. + +But indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest mind has still some +intimation of the greatness there is in Mystery. If Silence was made a +god of by the Ancients, he still continues a government-clerk among us +Moderns. To all quacks, moreover, of what sort soever, the effect of +Mystery is well known: here and there some Cagliostro, even in latter +days, turns it to notable account: the blockhead also, who is +ambitious, and has no talent, finds sometimes in "the talent of +silence," a kind of succedaneum. Or again, looking on the opposite +side of the matter, do we not see, in the common understanding of +mankind, a certain distrust, a certain contempt of what is altogether +self-conscious and mechanical? As nothing that is wholly seen through +has other than a trivial character; so anything professing to be +great, and yet wholly to see through itself, is already known to be +false, and a failure. The evil repute your "theoretical men" stand in, +the acknowledged inefficiency of "paper constitutions," and all that +class of objects, are instances of this. Experience often repeated, +and perhaps a certain instinct of something far deeper that lies under +such experiences, has taught men so much. They know beforehand, that +the loud is generally the insignificant, the empty. Whatsoever can +proclaim itself from the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and for +those multitudes that must needs buy of him; but for any deeper use, +might as well continue unproclaimed. Observe too, how the converse of +the proposition holds; how the insignificant, the empty, is usually +the loud; and, after the manner of a drum, is loud even because of its +emptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner Calefactor can be bruited +abroad over the whole world in the course of the first winter; those +of the Printing Press are not so well seen into for the first three +centuries: the passing of the Select-Vestries Bill raises more noise +and hopeful expectancy among mankind than did the promulgation of the +Christian Religion. Again, and again, we say, the great, the creative +and enduring is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barren +and transient is otherwise. + +* * * * * + +If we now, with a practical medical view, examine, by this same test +of Unconsciousness, the Condition of our own Era, and of man's Life +therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is nowise of a flattering sort. +The state of Society in our days is, of all possible states, the least +an unconscious one: this is specially the Era when all manner of +Inquiries into what was once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of man's +existence, find their place, and, as it were, occupy the whole domain +of thought. What, for example, is all this that we hear, for the last +generation or two, about the Improvement of the Age, the Spirit of the +Age, Destruction of Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and the March +of Intellect, but an unhealthy state of self-sentience, self-survey; +the precursor and prognostic of still worse health? That Intellect do +march, if possible at double-quick time, is very desirable; +nevertheless, why should she turn round at every stride, and cry: See +you what a stride I have taken! Such a marching of Intellect is +distinctly of the spavined kind; what the Jockeys call "all action and +no go." Or at best, if we examine well, it is the marching of that +gouty Patient, whom his Doctors had clapt on a metal floor +artificially heated to the searing point, so that he was obliged to +march, and did march with a vengeance--nowhither. Intellect did not +awaken for the first time yesterday; but has been under way from +Noah's Flood downwards: greatly her best progress, moreover, was in +the old times, when she said nothing about it. In those same "dark +ages," Intellect (metaphorically as well as literally) could invent +_glass_, which now she has enough ado to grind into _spectacles_. +Intellect built not only Churches, but a Church, _the_ Church, based +on this firm Earth, yet reaching up, and leading up, as high as +Heaven; and now it is all she can do to keep its doors bolted, that +there be no tearing of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. She +built a Senate-house likewise, glorious in its kind; and now it costs +her a well-nigh mortal effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get the +roof made rain-tight. + +But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most other things, we are +now passing from that first or boastful stage of Self-sentience into +the second or painful one: out of these often-asseverated declarations +that "our system is in high order," we come now, by natural sequence, +to the melancholy conviction that it is altogether the reverse. Thus, +for instance, in the matter of Government, the period of the +"Invaluable Constitution" must be followed by a Reform Bill; to +laudatory De Lolmes succeed objurgatory Benthams. At any rate, what +Treatises on the Social Contract, on the Elective Franchise, the +Rights of Man, the Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions, +Constitutions, have we not, for long years, groaned under! Or again, +with a wider survey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts on Man, +Inquiries concerning Man; not to mention Evidences of the Christian +Faith, Theories of Poetry, Considerations on the Origin of Evil, which +during the last century have accumulated on us to a frightful extent. +Never since the beginning of Time was there, that we hear or read of, +so intensely self-conscious a Society. Our whole relations to the +Universe and to our fellow man have become an Inquiry, a Doubt; +nothing will go on of its own accord, and do its function quietly; but +all things must be probed into, the whole working of man's world be +anatomically studied. Alas, anatomically studied, that it may be +medically aided! Till at length indeed, we have come to such a pass, +that except in this same _medicine_, with its artifices and +appliances, few can so much as imagine any strength or hope to remain +for us. The whole Life of Society must now be carried on by drugs: +doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum, of Coöperative +Societies, Universal Suffrage, Cottage-and-Cow systems, Repression of +Population, Vote by Ballot. To such height has the dyspepsia of +Society reached; as indeed the constant grinding internal pain, or +from time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all Society do +otherwise too mournfully indicate. + +Far be it from us to attribute, as some unwise persons do, the disease +itself to this unhappy sensation that there is a disease! The +Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of France; but the +troubles of France produced the Encyclopedists, and much else. The +Self-consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it is also the attempt +towards cure. We record the fact, without special censure; not +wondering that Society should feel itself, and in all ways complain of +aches and twinges, for it has suffered enough. Napoleon was but a +Job's-comforter, when he told his wounded Staff-officer, twice +unhorsed by cannon-balls, and with half his limbs blown to pieces: +"_Vous vous écoutez trop!_" + +On the outward, as it were Physical diseases of Society, it were +beside our purpose to insist here. These are diseases which he who +runs may read; and sorrow over, with or without hope. Wealth has +accumulated itself into masses; and Poverty, also in accumulation +enough, lies impassably separated from it; opposed, uncommunicating, +like forces in positive and negative poles. The gods of this lower +world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than Epicurus's +gods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the boundless living chaos +of Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, in its dark fury, under +their feet. How much among us might be likened to a whited sepulchre; +outwardly all pomp and strength; but inwardly full of horror and +despair and dead-men's bones! Iron highways, with their wains +firewinged, are uniting all ends of the firm Land; quays and moles, +with their innumerable stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our pliant +bearer of burdens; Labour's thousand arms, of sinew and of metal, +all-conquering everywhere, from the tops of the mountain down to the +depths of the mine and the caverns of the sea, ply unweariedly for the +service of man: yet man remains unserved. He has subdued this Planet, +his habitation and inheritance; yet reaps no profit from the victory. +Sad to look upon: in the highest stage of civilisation, nine-tenths of +mankind must struggle in the lowest battle of savage or even animal +man, the battle against Famine. Countries are rich, prosperous in all +manner of increase, beyond example: but the Men of those countries are +poor, needier than ever of all sustenance outward and inward; of +Belief, of Knowledge, of Money, of Food. The rule, _Sic vos non +vobis_, never altogether to be got rid of in men's Industry, now +presses with such incubus weight, that Industry must shake it off, or +utterly be strangled under it; and, alas, can as yet but gasp and +rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one in the final deliration. Thus +Change, or the inevitable approach of Change, is manifest everywhere. +In one Country we have seen lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelop all +things; Government succeed Government, like the phantasms of a dying +brain. In another Country, we can even now see, in maddest +alternation, the Peasant governed by such guidance as this: To labour +earnestly one month in raising wheat, and the next month labour +earnestly in burning it. So that Society, were it not by nature +immortal, and its death ever a new-birth, might appear, as it does in +the eyes of some, to be sick to dissolution, and even now writhing in +its last agony. Sick enough we must admit it to be, with disease +enough, a whole nosology of diseases; wherein he perhaps is happiest +that is not called to prescribe as physician;--wherein, however, one +small piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest in the +Commonwealth, by the sole method yet known or thought of, to come +together and with their whole soul consult for it, might, but for late +tedious experiences, have seemed unquestionable enough. + +But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the Spiritual +condition of Society, and see what aspects and prospects offer +themselves there. For after all, it is there properly that the secret +and origin of the whole is to be sought: the Physical derangements of +Society are but the image and impress of its Spiritual; while the +heart continues sound, all other sickness is superficial, and +temporary. False Action is the fruit of false Speculation; let the +spirit of Society be free and strong, that is to say, let true +Principles inspire the members of Society, then neither can disorders +accumulate in its Practice; each disorder will be promptly, faithfully +inquired into, and remedied as it arises. But alas, with us the +Spiritual condition of Society is no less sickly than the Physical. +Examine man's internal world, in any of its social relations and +performances, here too all seems diseased self-consciousness, +collision and mutually-destructive struggle. Nothing acts from within +outwards in undivided healthy force; everything lies impotent, lamed, +its force turned inwards, and painfully "listens to itself." + +To begin with our highest Spiritual function, with Religion, we might +ask, Whither has Religion now fled? Of Churches and their +establishments we here say nothing; nor of the unhappy domains of +Unbelief, and how innumerable men, blinded in their minds, must "live +without God in the world;" but, taking the fairest side of the matter, +we ask, What is the nature of that same Religion, which still lingers +in the hearts of the few who are called, and call themselves, +specially the Religious? Is it a healthy religion, vital, unconscious +of itself; that shines forth spontaneously in doing of the Work, or +even in preaching of the Word? Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr +Conduct, and inspired and soul-inspiring Eloquence, whereby Religion +itself were brought home to our living bosoms, to live and reign +there, we have "Discourses on the Evidences," endeavouring, with +smallest result, to make it probable that such a thing as Religion +exists. The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not preach a Gospel, but +keep describing how it should and might be preached: to awaken the +sacred fire of faith, as by a sacred contagion, is not their +endeavour; but, at most, to describe how Faith shows and acts, and +scientifically distinguish true Faith from false. Religion, like all +else, is conscious of itself, listens to itself; it becomes less and +less creative, vital; more and more mechanical. Considered as a whole, +the Christian Religion of late ages has been continually dissipating +itself into Metaphysics; and threatens now to disappear, as some +rivers do, in deserts of barren sand. + +Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-spread maladies, why speak? +Literature is but a branch of Religion, and always participates in its +character: however, in our time, it is the only branch that still +shows any greenness; and, as some think, must one day become the main +stem. Now, apart from the subterranean and tartarean regions of +Literature;--leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous statistics +of Puffing, the mystery of Slander, Falsehood, Hatred and other +convulsion-work of rabid Imbecility, and all that has rendered +Literature on that side a perfect "Babylon the mother of +Abominations," in very deed making the world "drunk" with the wine of +her iniquity;--forgetting all this, let us look only to the regions of +the upper air; to such Literature as can be said to have some attempt +towards truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not poetical, to +hold of the poetical. Among other characteristics, is not this +manifest enough: that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness to the +object, being wholly possessed by the object, what we can call +Inspiration, has well-nigh ceased to appear in Literature. Which +melodious Singer forgets that he is singing melodiously? We have not +the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness. Hence +infinite Affectations, Distractions; in every case inevitable Error. +Consider, for one example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature, the +sin that has been named View-hunting. In our elder writers, there are +no paintings of scenery for its own sake; no euphuistic gallantries +with Nature, but a constant heartlove for her, a constant dwelling in +communion with her. View-hunting, with so much else that is of kin to +it, first came decisively into action through the _Sorrows of Werter_; +which wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many senses be regarded as +the progenitor of all that has since become popular in Literature; +whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and tendency, it still offers +the most instructive image; for nowhere, except in its own country, +above all in the mind of its illustrious Author, has it yet fallen +wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till that late epoch, did any +worshipper of Nature become entirely aware that he was worshipping, +much to his own credit; and think of saying to himself: Come, let us +make a description! Intolerable enough: when every puny whipster draws +out his pencil, and insists on painting you a scene; so that the +instant you discern such a thing as "wavy outline," "mirror of the +lake," "stern headland," or the like, in any Book, you must timorously +hasten on; and scarcely the Author of Waverley himself can tempt you +not to skip. + +Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state of Literature disclosed +in this one fact, which lies so near us here, the prevalence of +Reviewing! Sterne's wish for a reader "that would give up the reins of +his imagination into his author's hands, and be pleased he knew not +why, and cared not wherefore," might lead him a long journey now. +Indeed, for our best class of readers, the chief pleasure, a very +stinted one, is this same knowing of the Why; which many a Kames and +Bossu has been, ineffectually enough, endeavouring to teach us: till +at last these also have laid down their trade; and now your Reviewer +is a mere _taster_; who tastes, and says, by the evidence of such +palate, such tongue, as he has got, It is good, It is bad. Was it thus +that the French carried out certain inferior creatures on their +Algerine Expedition, to taste the wells for them, and try whether they +were poisoned? Far be it from us to disparage our own craft, whereby +we have our living! Only we must note these things: that Reviewing +spreads with strange vigour; that such a man as Byron reckons the +Reviewer and the Poet equal; that at the last Leipzig Fair, there was +advertised a Review of Reviews. By and by it will be found that all +Literature has become one boundless self-devouring Review; and as in +London routs, we have to _do_ nothing, but only to _see_ others do +nothing.--Thus does Literature also, like a sick thing, +superabundantly "listen to itself." + +No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest, if we cast a glance on our +Philosophy, on the character of our speculative Thinking. Nay already, +as above hinted, the mere existence and necessity of a Philosophy is +an evil. Man is sent hither not to question, but to work: "the end of +man," it was long ago written, "is an Action, not a Thought." In the +perfect state, all Thought were but the picture and inspiring symbol +of Action; Philosophy, except as Poetry and Religion, would have no +being. And yet how, in this imperfect state, can it be avoided, can it +be dispensed with? Man stands as in the centre of Nature; his fraction +of Time encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth of Space encircled by +Infinitude: how shall he forbear asking himself, What am I; and +Whence; and Whither? How too, except in slight partial hints, in kind +asseverations and assurances, such as a mother quiets her fretfully +inquisitive child with, shall he get answer to such inquiries? + +The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is a perennial one. In all +ages, those questions of Death and Immortality, Origin of Evil, +Freedom and Necessity, must, under new forms, anew make their +appearance; ever, from time to time, must the attempt to shape for +ourselves some Theorem of the Universe be repeated. And ever +unsuccessfully: for what Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite render +complete? We, the whole species of Mankind, and our whole existence +and history, are but a floating speck in the illimitable ocean of the +All; yet _in_ that ocean; indissoluble portion thereof; partaking of +its infinite tendencies: borne this way and that by its deep-swelling +tides, and grand ocean currents;--of which what faintest chance is +there that we should ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the +goings and comings? A region of Doubt, therefore, hovers forever in +the background; in Action alone can we have certainty. Nay properly +Doubt is the indispensable inexhaustible material whereon Action +works, which Action has to fashion into Certainty and Reality; only on +a canvas of Darkness, such is man's way of being, could the +many-coloured picture of our Life paint itself and shine. + +Thus if our eldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the _Book of +Genesis_, our latest is that of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only within +the current year. It is a chronic malady that of Metaphysics, as we +said, and perpetually recurs on us. At the utmost there is a better +and a worse in it; a stage of convalescence, and a stage of relapse +with new sickness: these forever succeed each other, as is the nature +of all Life-movement here below. The first, or convalescent stage, we +might also name that of Dogmatical or Constructive Metaphysics; when +the mind constructively endeavours to scheme out, and assert for +itself an actual Theorem of the Universe, and therewith for a time +rests satisfied. The second or sick stage might be called that of +Sceptical or Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind having widened its +sphere of vision, the existing Theorem of the Universe no longer +answers the phenomena, no longer yields contentment; but must be torn +in pieces, and certainty anew sought for in the endless realms of +denial. All Theologies and sacred Cosmogonies belong, in some measure, +to the first class; in all Pyrrhonism, from Pyrrho down to Hume and +the innumerable disciples of Hume, we have instances enough of the +second. In the former, so far as it affords satisfaction, a temporary +anodyne to doubt, an arena for wholesome action, there may be much +good; indeed in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than of +Metaphysics, might be called Inspiration rather than Speculation. The +latter is Metaphysics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from time to +time a necessary evil. + +For truly, if we look into it, there is no more fruitless endeavour +than this same, which the Metaphysician proper toils in: to educe +Conviction out of Negation. How, by merely testing and rejecting what +is not, shall we ever attain knowledge of what is? Metaphysical +Speculation, as it begins in No or Nothingness, so it must needs end +in Nothingness; circulates and must circulate in endless vortices; +creating, swallowing--itself. Our being is made up of Light and +Darkness, the Light resting on the Darkness, and balancing it; +everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a perpetual Contradiction +dwells in us: "where shall I place myself to escape from my own +shadow?" Consider it well, Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to +rise above the mind; to environ, and shut in, or as we say, +_comprehend_ the mind. Hopeless struggle, for the wisest, as for the +foolishest! What strength of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable the +stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his arms, and, by lifting, +lift up _himself_? The Irish Saint swam the Channel "carrying his head +in his teeth;" but the feat has never been imitated. + +That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the proper, or sceptical +Inquisitory sense; that there was a necessity for its being such an +age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. From many causes, the +arena of free Activity has long been narrowing, that of sceptical +Inquiry becoming more and more universal, more and more perplexing. +The Thought conducts not to the Deed; but in boundless chaos, +self-devouring, engenders monstrosities, fantasms, fire-breathing +chimeras. Profitable Speculation were this: What is to be done; and +How is it to be done? But with us not so much as the What can be got +sight of. For some generations, all Philosophy has been a painful, +captious, hostile question towards everything in the Heaven above, and +in the Earth beneath: Why art thou there? Till at length it has come +to pass that the worth and authenticity of all things seems dubitable +or deniable: our best effort must be unproductively spent not in +working, but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and so much as +whether we are to work at all. Doubt, which, as was said, ever hangs +in the background of our world, has now become our middle-ground and +foreground; whereon, for the time, no fair Life-picture can be +painted, but only the dark air-canvas itself flow round us, +bewildering and benighting. + +Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here; not to ask +questions, but to do work: in this time, as in all times, it must be +the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Action lie dormant, and +only that of sceptical Inquiry exert itself. Accordingly, whoever +looks abroad upon the world, comparing the Past with the Present, may +find that the practical condition of man in these days is one of the +saddest; burdened with miseries which are in a considerable degree +peculiar. In no time was man's life what he calls a happy one; in no +time can it be so. A perpetual dream there has been of Paradises, and +some luxurious Lubberland, where the brooks should run wine, and the +trees bend with ready-baked viands; but it was a dream merely; an +impossible dream. Suffering, contradiction, error, have their quite +perennial, and even indispensable abode in this Earth. Is not labour +the inheritance of man? And what labour for the present is joyous, and +not grievous? Labour, effort, is the very interruption of that ease, +which man foolishly enough fancies to be his happiness; and yet +without labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable. +Thus Evil, what we call Evil, must ever exist while man exists: Evil, +in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered +material out of which man's Freewill has to create an edifice of order +and Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour; and only in free Effort +can any blessedness be imagined for us. + +But if man has, in all ages, had enough to encounter, there has, in +most civilised ages, been an inward force vouchsafed him, whereby the +pressure of things outward might be withstood. Obstruction abounded; +but Faith also was not wanting. It is by Faith that man removes +mountains: while he had Faith, his limbs might be wearied with +toiling, his back galled with bearing; but the heart within him was +peaceable and resolved. In the thickest gloom there burnt a lamp to +guide him. If he struggled and suffered, he felt that it even should +be so; knew for what he was suffering and struggling. Faith gave him +an inward Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith to front a world +of Difficulty. The true wretchedness lies here: that the Difficulty +remain and the Strength be lost; that Pain cannot relieve itself in +free Effort; that we have the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faith +strengthens us, enlightens us, for all endeavours and endurances; with +Faith we can do all, and dare all, and life itself has a thousand +times been joyfully given away. But the sum of man's misery is even +this, that he feel himself crushed under the Juggernaut wheels, and +know that Juggernaut is no divinity, but a dead mechanical idol. + +Now this is specially the misery which has fallen on man in our Era. +Belief, Faith has well-nigh vanished from the world. The youth on +awakening in this wondrous Universe, no longer finds a competent +theory of its wonders. Time was, when if he asked himself, What is +man, What are the duties of man? the answer stood ready written for +him. But now the ancient "ground-plan of the All" belies itself when +brought into contact with reality; Mother Church has, to the most, +become a superannuated Stepmother, whose lessons go disregarded; or +are spurned at, and scornfully gainsaid. For young Valour and thirst +of Action no Ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, prescribes what is +heroic: the old ideal of Manhood has grown obsolete, and the new is +still invisible to us, and we grope after it in darkness, one +clutching this phantom, another that; Werterism, Byronism, even +Brummelism, each has its day. For Contemplation and love of Wisdom, no +Cloister now opens its religious shades; the Thinker must, in all +senses, wander homeless, too often aimless, looking up to a Heaven +which is dead for him, round to an Earth which is deaf. Action, in +those old days, was easy, was voluntary, for the divine worth of human +things lay acknowledged; Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged +itself as the handmaid of Action; what could not so range itself died +out by its natural death, by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed +obedience, and made rule noble; there was still something to be loyal +to: the Godlike stood embodied under many a symbol in men's interests +and business; the Finite shadowed forth the Infinite; Eternity looked +through Time. The Life of man was encompassed and overcanopied by a +glory of Heaven, even as his dwelling-place by the azure vault. + +How changed in these new days! Truly may it be said, the Divinity has +withdrawn from the Earth; or veils himself in that wide-wasting +Whirlwind of a departing Era, wherein the fewest can discern his +goings. Not Godhead, but an iron, ignoble circle of Necessity embraces +all things; binds the youth of these times into a sluggish thrall, or +else exasperates him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralysed; for +what worth now remains unquestionable with him? At the fervid period +when his whole nature cries aloud for Action, there is nothing sacred +under whose banner he can act; the course and kind and conditions of +free Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt storms-in on him through +every avenue; inquiries of the deepest, painfullest sort must be +engaged with; and the invincible energy of young years waste itself in +sceptical, suicidal cavillings; in passionate "questionings of +Destiny," whereto no answer will be returned. + +For men, in whom the old perennial principle of Hunger (be it Hunger +of the poor Day-drudge who stills it with eighteenpence a-day, or of +the ambitious Placehunter who can nowise still it with so little) +suffices to fill up existence, the case is bad; but not the worst. +These men have an aim, such as it is; and can steer towards it, with +chagrin enough truly; yet, as their hands are kept full, without +desperation. Unhappier are they to whom a higher instinct has been +given; who struggle to be persons, not machines; to whom the Universe +is not a warehouse, or at best a fancy-bazaar, but a mystic temple and +hall of doom. For such men there lie properly two courses open. The +lower, yet still an estimable class, take up with worn-out Symbols of +the Godlike; keep trimming and trucking between these and Hypocrisy, +purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous intermediate class end +in Denial; and form a theory that there is no theory; that nothing is +certain in the world, except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant; so +they try to realise what trifling modicum of Pleasure they can come +at, and to live contented therewith, winking hard. Of these we speak +not here; but only of the second nobler class, who also have dared to +say No, and cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No they dwell as +in a Golgotha, where life enters not, where peace is not appointed +them. Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men; the harder the +nobler they are. In dim forecastings, wrestles within them the "Divine +Idea of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal itself. They have +to realise a Worship for themselves, or live unworshipping. The +Godlike has vanished from the world; and they, by the strong cry of +their soul's agony, like true wonder-workers, must again evoke its +presence. This miracle is their appointed task; which they must +accomplish, or die wretchedly: this miracle has been accomplished by +such; but not in our land; our land yet knows not of it. Behold a +Byron, in melodious tones, "cursing his day:" he mistakes earthborn +passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Freewill; without heavenly +loadstar, rushes madly into the dance of meteoric lights that hover on +the mad Mahlstrom; and goes down among its eddies. Hear a Shelley +filling the earth with inarticulate wail; like the infinite, +inarticulate grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A noble Friedrich +Schlegel, stupefied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silenced +battle-field, flies back to Catholicism; as a child might to its slain +mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower regions, how many a poor +Hazlitt must wander on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest on +burning deserts; passionately dig wells, and draw up only the dry +quicksand; believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among +endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with spectre-hosts; and +die and make no sign! + +To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial has long since +ceased: the problem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and perform. +Once in destroying the False, there was a certain inspiration; but now +the genius of Destruction has done its work, there is now nothing more +to destroy. The doom of the Old has long been pronounced, and +irrevocable; the Old has passed away; but, alas, the New appears not +in its stead; the Time is still in pangs of travail with the New. Man +has walked by the light of conflagrations, and amid the sound of +falling cities; and now there is darkness, and long watching till it +be morning. The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim: "As yet +struggles the twelfth hour of the Night: birds of darkness are on the +wing, spectres up-rear, the dead walk, the living dream.--Thou, +Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to dawn!"[52] + +[Footnote 52: Jean Paul's _Hesperus_. Vorrede.] + +Such being the condition, temporal and spiritual, of the world at our +Epoch, can we wonder that the world "listens to itself," and struggles +and writhes, everywhere externally and internally, like a thing in +pain? Nay, is not even this unhealthy action of the world's +Organisation, if the symptom of universal disease, yet also the +symptom and sole means of restoration and cure? The effort of Nature, +exerting her medicative force to cast out foreign impediments, and +once more become One, become whole? In Practice, still more in +Opinion, which is the precursor and prototype of Practice, there must +needs be collision, convulsion; much has to be ground away. Thought +must needs be Doubt and Inquiry, before it can again be Affirmation +and Sacred Precept. Innumerable "Philosophies of Man," contending in +boundless hubbub, must annihilate each other, before an inspired Poesy +and Faith for Man can fashion itself together. + +* * * * * + +From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylonish confusion of tongues, we +have here selected two Voices; less as objects of praise or +condemnation, than as signs how far the confusion has reached, what +prospect there is of its abating. Friedrich Schlegel's _Lectures_, +delivered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's _Essay_, published in London, are +the latest utterances of European Speculation: far asunder in external +place, they stand at a still wider distance in inward purport; are, +indeed, so opposite and yet so cognate that they may, in many senses, +represent the two Extremes of our whole modern system of Thought; and +be said to include between them all the Metaphysical Philosophies, so +often alluded to here, which, of late times, from France, Germany, +England, have agitated and almost overwhelmed us. Both in regard to +matter and to form, the relation of these two Works is significant +enough. + +Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let us remark, not without +emotion, one quite extraneous point of agreement; the fact that the +Writers of both have departed from this world; they have now finished +their search, and had all doubts resolved: while we listen to the +voice, the tongue that uttered it has gone silent forever. But the +fundamental, all-pervading similarity lies in this circumstance, well +worthy of being noted, that both these Philosophers are of the +Dogmatic or Constructive sort: each in its way is a kind of Genesis; +an endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's Universe once more under +some theoretic Scheme: in both there is a decided principle of unity; +they strive after a result which shall be positive; their aim is not +to question, but to establish. This, especially if we consider with +what comprehensive concentrated force it is here exhibited, forms a +new feature in such works. + +Under all other aspects, there is the most irreconcilable opposition; +a staring contrariety, such as might provoke contrasts, were there far +fewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's Work is the apotheosis of +Spiritualism; Hope's again is the apotheosis of Materialism: in the +one, all Matter is evaporated into a Phenomenon, and terrestrial Life +itself, with its whole doings and showings, held out as a Disturbance +(_Zerrüttung_) produced by the _Zeitgeist_ (Spirit of Time); in the +other, Matter is distilled and sublimated into some semblance of +Divinity: the one regards Space and Time as mere forms of man's mind, +and without external existence or reality; the other supposes Space +and Time to be "incessantly created," and rayed-in upon us like a sort +of "gravitation." Such is their difference in respect of purport: no +less striking is it in respect of manner, talent, success and all +outward characteristics. Thus, if in Schlegel we have to admire the +power of Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might almost be said, +at the want of an articulate Language. To Schlegel his Philosophic +Speech is obedient, dextrous, exact, like a promptly-ministering +genius; his names are so clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost +(sometimes altogether) become things for him: with Hope there is no +Philosophical Speech; but a painful, confused stammering, and +struggling after such; or the tongue, as in dotish forgetfulness, +maunders, low, long-winded, and speaks not the word intended, but +another; so that here the scarcely intelligible, in these endless +convolutions, becomes the wholly unreadable; and often we could ask, +as that mad pupil did of his tutor in Philosophy, "But whether is +Virtue a fluid, then, or a gas?" If the fact, that Schlegel, in the +city of Dresden, could find audience for such high discourse, may +excite our envy; this other fact, that a person of strong powers, +skilled in English Thought and master of its Dialect, could write the +_Origin and Prospects of Man_, may painfully remind us of the +reproach, that England has now no language for Meditation; that +England, the most calculative, is the least meditative, of all +civilised countries. + +It is not our purpose to offer any criticism of Schlegel's Book; in +such limits as were possible here, we should despair of communicating +even the faintest image of its significance. To the mass of readers, +indeed, both among the Germans themselves, and still more elsewhere, +it nowise addresses itself, and may lie forever sealed. We point it +out as a remarkable document of the Time and of the Man; can recommend +it, moreover, to all earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their best +regard; a work full of deep meditation, wherein the infinite mystery +of Life, if not represented, is decisively recognised. Of Schlegel +himself, and his character, and spiritual history, we can profess no +thorough or final understanding; yet enough to make us view him with +admiration and pity, nowise with harsh contemptuous censure; and must +say, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of his being "a +renegade," and so forth, is but like other outcries, a judgment where +there was neither jury, nor evidence, nor judge. The candid reader, in +this Book itself, to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces of +a high, far-seeing, earnest spirit, to whom "Austrian Pensions," and +the Kaiser's crown, and Austria altogether, were but a light matter to +the finding and vitally appropriating of Truth. Let us respect the +sacred mystery of a Person; rush not irreverently into man's Holy of +Holies! Were the lost little one, as we said already, found "sucking +its dead mother, on the field of carnage," could it be other than a +spectacle for tears? A solemn mournful feeling comes over us when we +see this last Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the unwearied seeker, end +abruptly in the middle; and, as if he _had not_ yet found, as if +emblematically of much, end with an "_Aber--_," with a "But--!" This +was the last word that came from the Pen of Friedrich Schlegel: about +eleven at night he wrote it down, and there paused sick; at one in the +morning, Time for him had merged itself in Eternity; he was, as we +say, no more. + +Still less can we attempt any criticism of Mr. Hope's new Book of +Genesis. Indeed, under any circumstances, criticism of it were now +impossible. Such an utterance could only be responded to in peals of +laughter; and laughter sounds hollow and hideous through the vaults of +the dead. Of this monstrous Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped and +huddled together, and the principles of all are, with a childlike +innocence, plied hither and thither, or wholly abolished in case of +need; where the First Cause is figured as a huge Circle, with nothing +to do but radiate "gravitation" towards its centre; and so construct a +Universe, wherein all, from the lowest cucumber with its coolness, up +to the highest seraph with his love, were but "gravitation," direct or +reflex, "in more or less central globes,"--what can we say, except, +with sorrow and shame, that it could have originated nowhere save in +England? It is a general agglomerate of all facts, notions, whims and +observations, as they lie in the brain of an English gentleman; as an +English gentleman, of unusual thinking power, is led to fashion them, +in his schools and in his world: all these thrown into the crucible, +and if not fused, yet soldered or conglutinated with boundless +patience; and now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amorphous, +unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most melancholy must we name the whole +business; full of long-continued thought, earnestness, loftiness of +mind; not without glances into the Deepest, a constant fearless +endeavour after truth; and with all this nothing accomplished, but the +perhaps absurdest Book written in our century by a thinking man. A +shameful Abortion; which, however, need not now be smothered or +mangled, for it is already dead; only, in our love and sorrowing +reverence for the writer of _Anastasius_, and the heroic seeker of +Light, though not bringer thereof, let it be buried and forgotten. + +* * * * * + +For ourselves, the loud discord which jars in these two Works, in +innumerable works of the like import, and generally in all the Thought +and Action of this period, does not any longer utterly confuse us. +Unhappy who, in such a time, felt not, at all conjunctures, +ineradicably in his heart the knowledge that a God made this Universe, +and a Demon not! And shall Evil always prosper, then? Out of all Evil +comes Good; and no Good that is possible but shall one day be real. +Deep and sad as is our feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful Night; +equally deep, indestructible is our assurance that the Morning also +will not fail. Nay already, as we look round, streaks of a day-spring +are in the east; it is dawning; when the time shall be fulfilled, it +will be day. The progress of man towards higher and nobler +developments of whatever is highest and noblest in him, lies not only +prophesied to Faith, but now written to the eye of Observation, so +that he who runs may read. + +One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in actual +circumstances, was this same; the clear ascertainment that we are in +progress. About the grand Course of Providence, and his final Purposes +with us, we can know nothing, or almost nothing: man begins in +darkness, ends in darkness; mystery is everywhere around us and in us, +under our feet, among our hands. Nevertheless so much has become +evident to every one, that this wondrous Mankind is advancing +somewhither; that at least all human things are, have been and forever +will be, in Movement and Change:--as, indeed, for beings that exist in +Time, by virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might have been long +since understood. In some provinces, it is true, as in Experimental +Science, this discovery is an old one; but in most others it belongs +wholly to these latter days. How often, in former ages, by eternal +Creeds, eternal Forms of Government and the like, has it been +attempted, fiercely enough, and with destructive violence, to chain +the Future under the Past: and to say to the Providence, whose ways +with man are mysterious, and through the great deep: Hitherto shalt +thou come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt; and for man +himself, could it prosper, the frightfullest of all enchantments, a +very Life-in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny of every +individual man, is to be in turns Apprentice and Workman; or say +rather, Scholar, Teacher, Discoverer: by nature he has a strength for +learning, for imitating; but also a strength for acting, for knowing +on his own account. Are we not in a world seen to be Infinite; the +relations lying closest together modified by those latest discovered +and lying farthest asunder? Could you ever spell-bind man into a +Scholar merely, so that he had nothing to discover, to correct; could +you ever establish a Theory of the Universe that were entire, +unimprovable, and which needed only to be got by heart; man then were +spiritually defunct, the Species we now name Man had ceased to exist. +But the gods, kinder to us than we are to ourselves, have forbidden +such suicidal acts. As Phlogiston is displaced by Oxygen, and the +Epicycles of Ptolemy by the Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism give +place to Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy, and Feudalism to +Representative Government,--where also the process does not stop. +Perfection of Practice, like completeness of Opinion, is always +approaching, never arrived; Truth, in the words of Schiller, _immer +wird, nie ist_; never _is_, always _is a-being_. + +Sad, truly, were our condition did we know but this, that Change is +universal and inevitable. Launched into a dark shoreless sea of +Pyrrhonism, what would remain for us but to sail aimless, hopeless; or +make madly merry, while the devouring Death had not yet engulfed us? +As indeed, we have seen many, and still see many do. Nevertheless so +stands it not. The venerator of the Past (and to what pure heart is +the Past, in that "moonlight of memory," other than sad and holy?) +sorrows not over its departure, as one utterly bereaved. The true Past +departs not, nothing that was worthy in the Past departs; no Truth or +Goodness realised by man ever dies, or can die; but is all still here, +and, recognised or not, lives and works through endless changes. If +all things, to speak in the German dialect, are discerned by us, and +exist for us, in an element of Time, and therefore of Mortality and +Mutability; yet Time itself reposes on Eternity: the truly Great and +Transcendental has its basis and substance in Eternity; stands +revealed to us as Eternity in a vesture of Time. Thus in all Poetry, +Worship, Art, Society, as one form passes into another, nothing is +lost: it is but the superficial, as it were the _body_ only, that +grows obsolete and dies; under the mortal body lies a _soul_ which is +immortal; which anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation; and the +Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past. + +In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural: +on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot and life in +this world. Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our +Works and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue +always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful: and if +Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we look +well to it, what is all Derangement, and necessity of great Change, in +itself such an evil, but the product simply of _increased resources_ +which the old _methods_ can no longer administer; of new wealth which +the old coffers will no longer contain? What is it, for example, that +in our own day bursts asunder the bonds of ancient Political Systems, +and perplexes all Europe with the fear of Change, but even this: the +increase of social resources, which the old social methods will no +longer sufficiently administer? The new omnipotence of the +Steam-engine is hewing asunder quite other mountains than the +physical. Have not our economical distresses, those barnyard +Conflagrations themselves, the frightfullest madness of our mad epoch, +their rise also in what is a real increase: increase of Men; of human +Force; properly, in such a Planet as ours, the most precious of all +increases? It is true again, the ancient methods of administration +will no longer suffice. Must the indomitable millions, full of old +Saxon energy and fire, lie cooped up in this Western Nook, choking one +another, as in a Blackhole of Calcutta, while a whole fertile +untenanted Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare, cries: Come +and till me, come and reap me? If the ancient Captains can no longer +yield guidance, new must be sought after: for the difficulty lies not +in nature, but in artifice; the European Calcutta-Blackhole has no +walls but air ones and paper ones.--So too, Scepticism itself, with +its innumerable mischiefs, what is it but the sour fruit of a most +blessed increase, that of Knowledge; a fruit too that will not always +continue _sour_? + +In fact, much as we have said and mourned about the unproductive +prevalence of Metaphysics, it was not without some insight into the +use that lies in them. Metaphysical Speculation, if a necessary evil, +is the forerunner of much good. The fever of Scepticism must needs +burn itself out, and burn out thereby the Impurities that caused it; +then again will there be clearness, health. The principle of life, +which now struggles painfully, in the outer, thin and barren domain of +the Conscious or Mechanical, may then withdraw into its inner +sanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and miracle; withdraw deeper than +ever into that domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite and +inexhaustible; and that creatively work there. From that mystic +region, and from that alone, all wonders, all Poesies and Religions, +and Social Systems have proceeded: the like wonders, and greater and +higher, lie slumbering there; and, brooded on by the spirit of the +waters, will evolve themselves, and rise like exhalations from the +Deep. + +Of our Modern Metaphysics, accordingly, may not this already be said, +that if they have produced no Affirmation, they have destroyed much +Negation? It is a disease expelling a disease: the fire of Doubt, as +above hinted, consuming away the Doubtful; that so the Certain come to +light, and again lie visible on the surface. English or French +Metaphysics, in reference to this last stage of the speculative +process, are not what we allude to here; but only the Metaphysics of +the Germans. In France or England, since the days of Diderot and Hume, +though all thought has been of a sceptico-metaphysical texture, so far +as there was any Thought, we have seen no Metaphysics; but only more +or less ineffectual questionings whether such could be. In the +Pyrrhonism of Hume and the Materialism of Diderot, Logic had, as it +were, overshot itself, overset itself. Now, though the athlete, to use +our old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift up his own body, he may +shift it out of a laming posture, and get to stand in a free one. Such +a service have German Metaphysics done for man's mind. The second +sickness of Speculation has abolished both itself and the first. +Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the fruitlessness, the tumult and +transiency of German as of all Metaphysics; and with reason. Yet in +that wide-spreading, deep-whirling vortex of Kantism, so soon +metamorphosed into Fichteism, Schellingism, and then as Hegelism, and +Cousinism, perhaps finally evaporated, is not the issue visible +enough, That Pyrrhonism and Materialism, themselves necessary +phenomena in European culture, have disappeared; and a Faith in +Religion has again become possible and inevitable for the scientific +mind; and the word _Free_-thinker no longer means the Denier or +Caviller, but the Believer, or the Ready to believe? Nay, in the +higher Literature of Germany, there already lies, for him that can +read it, the beginning of a new revelation of the Godlike; as yet +unrecognised by the mass of the world; but waiting there for +recognition, and sure to find it when the fit hour comes. This age +also is not wholly without its Prophets. + +Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarianism, or Radicalism, or the +Mechanical Philosophy, or by whatever name it is called, has still its +long task to do; nevertheless we can now see through it and beyond it: +in the better heads, even among us English, it has become obsolete; as +in other countries, it has been, in such heads, for some forty or even +fifty years. What sound mind among the French, for example, now +fancies that men can be governed by "Constitutions;" by the never so +cunning mechanising of Self-interests, and all conceivable adjustments +of checking and balancing; in a word, by the best possible solution of +this quite insoluble and impossible problem, _Given a world of Knaves, +to produce an Honesty from their united action_? Were not experiments +enough of this kind tried before all Europe, and found wanting, when, +in that doomsday of France, the infinite gulf of human Passion +shivered asunder the thin rinds of Habit; and burst forth +all-devouring as in seas of Nether Fire? Which cunningly-devised +"Constitution," constitutional, republican, democratic, sansculottic, +could bind that raging chasm together? Were they not all burnt up, +like paper as they were, in its molten eddies; and still the fire-sea +raged fiercer than before? It is not by Mechanism, but by Religion; +not by Self-interest, but by Loyalty, that men are governed or +governable. + +Remarkable it is, truly, how everywhere the eternal fact begins again +to be recognised, that there is a Godlike in human affairs; that God +not only made us and beholds us, but is in us and around us; that the +Age of Miracles, as it ever was, now is. Such recognition we discern +on all hands and in all countries: in each country after its own +fashion. In France, among the younger nobler minds, strangely enough; +where, in their loud contention with the Actual and Conscious, the +Ideal or Unconscious is, for the time, without exponent; where +Religion means not the parent of Polity, as of all that is highest, +but Polity itself; and this and the other earnest man has not been +wanting, who could audibly whisper to himself: "Go to, I will make a +religion." In England still more strangely; as in all things, worthy +England will have its way: by the shrieking of hysterical women, +casting out of devils, and other "gifts of the Holy Ghost." Well might +Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth hour of the Night, "the living +dream"; well might he say, "the dead walk." Meanwhile let us rejoice +rather that so much has been seen into, were it through never so +diffracting media, and never so madly distorted; that in all dialects, +though but half-articulately, this high Gospel begins to be preached: +Man is still Man. The genius of Mechanism, as was once before +predicted, will not always sit like a choking incubus on our soul; but +at length, when by a new magic Word the old spell is broken, become +our slave, and as familiar-spirit do all our bidding. "We are near +awakening when we dream that we dream." + +He that has an eye and a heart can even now say: Why should I falter? +Light has come into the world; to such as love Light, so as Light must +be loved, with a boundless all-doing, all enduring love. For the rest, +let that vain struggle to read the mystery of the Infinite cease to +harass us. It is a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only read +here a line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that the +name of the Infinite is GOOD, is GOD? Here on Earth we are as +Soldiers, fighting in a foreign land; that understand not the plan of +the campaign, and have no need to understand it; seeing well what is +at our hand to be done. Let us do it like Soldiers, with submission, +with courage, with a heroic joy. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, +do it with all thy might." Behind us, behind each one of us, lie Six +Thousand Years of human effort, human conquest: before us is the +boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered Continents +and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and from +the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars. + + "My inheritance how wide and fair! + Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir." + + _Carlyle._ + + + + +TUNBRIDGE TOYS + + +I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable +almanac at the butt-end are still favourite implements with boys, and +whether pedlars still hawk them about the country? Are there pedlars +and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal +with them? Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not +of much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was +constantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would work from its +moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you +would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 23-1/2 of the month +(which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word your +cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this +a matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's +pocket. You had hardbake in it; marbles, kept in your purse when the +money was all gone; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly and +supplied with a little bit of gold, long since--prodigal little +son!--scattered amongst the swine--I mean amongst brandy-balls, open +tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top +and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a +"Little Warbler"; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable +period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, +for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket);--with all +these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your +pockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual +movement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twisted +out of its place now and again--your pencil-case to be bent--your +liquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax, +your bull's eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, and +so forth? + +In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one of those +pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in my +form. Is he dead? Is he a millionaire? Is he a bankrupt now? He was an +immense screw at school, and I believe to this day that the value of +the thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was +in reality not one-and-nine. + +I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myself +with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off. +The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and +violent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant +remark was, "When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence? +What sneaks your relations must be! They come to see you. You go out +to them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you anything! +Don't tell _me_, you little humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that +my relations were respectable; but my parents were making a tour in +Scotland; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, were +most kind to me, certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, of +May to August 1823, passed in agonies, then, in consequence of my debt +to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in +comparison with the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the sense +of the debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling eyes +and gloomy coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out of +sixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some one come to see me, and +tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, go +and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss the +sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't +fancy they are too old--try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless +you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary +after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness +are scant. Oh mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me, +Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very +term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched +from school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker +of this circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a +pound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected +at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the +dear fellow!... There was Hawker when I came back--of course there he +was. As he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He +muttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My +relation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, +asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard me +construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I +was then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school; +upon my word of honour, without so much as a half-crown! It is all +very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expecting +tips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so +forth. Avaricious! fudge! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee +eating, which they do not carry into after life. On the contrary, I +wish I _did_ like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one could have now +for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook's +tray! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with your +half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the little +fleeting joys of their age. + +Well, then. At the beginning of August 1823, Bartlemytide holidays +came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My +place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants--"Bolt-in-Tun," +Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning was the word. My tutor, the +Reverend Edward P----, to whom I hereby present my best compliments, +had a parting interview with me: gave me my little account for my +governor: the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my +own expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an old account +which had been over-paid, and was to be restored to my family. + +Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight it +was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs. +Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate--but that is not to the point.) The next +morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boy +shared a hackney-coach, two-and-six; porter for putting luggage on +coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, my +companion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a good +breakfast. I couldn't: because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings +of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see. + +I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember how +strongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour to +wait. A beautiful August morning--I am very hungry. There is +Rasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as +sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I +turn into a court by mere chance--I vow it was by mere chance--and +there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window. "Coffee, +Twopence, Round of buttered toast, Twopence." And here am I hungry, +penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money in my +pocket. + +What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in +that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were a +trust--by me to be handed over. + +But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without +breakfast? Having this money and being so hungry, so _very_ hungry, +mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I +chose? + +Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember the +taste of the coffee and toast to this day--a peculiar, muddy, +not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee--a rich, rancid, yet +not-buttered-enough, delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At any +rate, fourpence, I know, was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, +I got on the coach a guilty being. + +At the last stage,--what is its name? I have forgotten in +seven-and-thirty years,--there is an inn with a little green and trees +before it; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is our +carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my +parents in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days until +this one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But +there was that fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked +me, and the coffee poisoned me. + +I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot +the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pulled out +the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand. + +"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P---- owes you, all but +fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a +pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and +had some coffee at a shop." + +I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession. + +"My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast at +the hotel?" + +"He must be starved," says my mother. + +I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken back to my +parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very +long career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a +pin which is not his own, will take a thousand pounds when occasion +serves, brings his parents' grey heads with sorrow to the grave, and +carry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon +whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by +playing pitch-and-toss on a tombstone: playing fair, for what we know: +and even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bamboo +was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses out of him. From +pitch-and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary: to highway +robbery; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah! Heaven be thanked, my +parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine still out of the +noose. + +As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks, +the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys +saunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop +by on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is "Cramp, Riding +Master," as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur +Cramp must be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman +with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as _our_ +novels? Oh! how delightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost +of Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeus +of Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict +you in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as for +Corinthian Tom in light blue pantaloons and hessians, and Jerry +Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendour +of real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the +wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, +with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparkling +vivacious rattle? + +Who knows? They _may_ have kept those very books at the library +still--at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell +that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I wend my +way to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, a +hundred years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure. +Is it possible, that in the past century, gentlefolks of the first +rank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the _Cornhill +Magazine_) assembled here and entertained each other with gaming, +dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, and +trumpeters performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but +where is the fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, bishops, +and magnificent embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children and +their nurses are listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a +poke bonnet passes; and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting +population of native tradesmen. As for the library, its window is full +of pictures of burly theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, +and so forth. Can I go in and ask the young ladies at the counter for +"Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the +Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esquire, and their +friend Bob Logic"?--absurd. I turn away abashed from the +casement--from the Pantiles--no longer Pantiles--but Parade. I stroll +over the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills around, +twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have sprung up over +this charming ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene of +peace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes over the heath, blows +the cloud-shadows across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees! +Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a +portion of it when I look up from the window at which I write. But +fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming in sunshine, and +purple clouds swollen with summer rain--nay, the very pages over which +my head bends--disappear from before my eyes. They are looking +backwards, back into forty years off, into a dark room, into a little +house hard by on the Common here, in the Bartlemytide holidays. The +parents have gone to town for two days: the house is all his own, his +own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated at night +in the lonely drawing-room, poring over "Manfroni, or the One-handed +Monk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round. + + _Thackeray._ + + + + +NIGHT WALKS + + +Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a +distressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night, +for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long +time to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but, +it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly +after lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise. + +In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fair +amateur experience of houselessness. My principal object being to get +through the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic +relations with people who have no other object every night in the +year. + +The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold. The sun +not rising before half-past five, the night perspective looked +sufficiently long at half-past twelve: which was about my time for +confronting it. + +The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles and +tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first +entertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It +lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the +late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust +the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and +stray people were left us, after that. If we were very lucky, a +policeman's rattle sprang and a fray turned up; but, in general, +surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Except in the +Haymarket, which is the worst kept part of London, and about +Kent-street in the Borough, and along a portion of the line of the Old +Kent-road, the peace was seldom violently broken. But, it was always +the case that London, as if in imitation of individual citizens +belonging to it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness. After +all seemed quiet, if one cab rattled by, half-a-dozen would surely +follow; and Houselessness even observed that intoxicated people +appeared to be magnetically attracted towards each other: so that we +knew when we saw one drunken object staggering against the shutters of +a shop, that another drunken object would stagger up before five +minutes were out, to fraternise or fight with it. When we made a +divergence from the regular species of drunkard, the thin-armed, +puff-faced, leaden-lipped gin-drinker, and encountered a rarer +specimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one but that specimen +was dressed in soiled mourning. As the street experience in the night, +so the street experience in the day; the common folk who come +unexpectedly into a little property, come unexpectedly into a deal of +liquor. + +At length these flickering sparks would die away, worn out--the last +veritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman or +hot-potato man--and London would sink to rest. And then the yearning +of the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, any lighted +place, any movement, anything suggestive of any one being up--nay, +even so much as awake, for the houseless eye looked out for lights in +windows. + +Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would walk +and walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle of +streets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen in +conversation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men. Now +and then in the night--but rarely--Houselessness would become aware of +a furtive head peering out of a doorway a few yards before him, and, +coming up with the head, would find a man standing bolt upright to +keep within the doorway's shadow, and evidently intent upon no +particular service to society. Under a kind of fascination, and in a +ghostly silence suitable to the time, Houselessness and this gentleman +would eye one another from head to foot, and so, without exchange of +speech, part, mutually suspicious. Drip, drip, drip, from ledge and +coping, splash from pipes and water-spouts, and by-and-by the +houseless shadow would fall upon the stones that pave the way to +Waterloo-bridge; it being in the houseless mind to have a halfpenny +worth of excuse for saying "Good night" to the toll-keeper, and +catching a glimpse of his fire. A good fire and a good great-coat and +a good woollen neck-shawl, were comfortable things to see in +conjunction with the toll-keeper; also his brisk wakefulness was +excellent company when he rattled the change of halfpence down upon +that metal table of his, like a man who defied the night, with all its +sorrowful thoughts, and didn't care for the coming of dawn. There was +need of encouragement on the threshold of the bridge, for the bridge +was dreary. The chopped-up murdered man, had not been lowered with a +rope over the parapet when those nights were; he was alive, and slept +then quietly enough most likely, and undisturbed by any dream of where +he was to come. But the river had an awful look, the buildings on the +banks were muffled in black shrouds, and the reflected lights seemed +to originate deep in the water, as if the spectres of suicides were +holding them to show where they went down. The wild moon and clouds +were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed, and the very +shadow of the immensity of London seemed to lie oppressively upon the +river. + +Between the bridge and the two great theatres, there was but the +distance of a few hundred paces, so the theatres came next. Grim and +black within, at night, those great dry Wells, and lonesome to +imagine, with the rows of faces faded out, the lights extinguished, +and the seats all empty. One would think that nothing in them knew +itself at such a time but Yorick's skull. In one of my night walks, as +the church steeples were shaking the March winds and rain with strokes +of Four, I passed the outer boundary of one of these great deserts, +and entered it. With a dim lantern in my hand, I groped my well-known +way to the stage and looked over the orchestra--which was like a great +grave dug for a time of pestilence--into the void beyond. A dismal +cavern of an immense aspect, with the chandelier gone dead like +everything else, and nothing visible through mist and fog and space, +but tiers of winding-sheets. The ground at my feet where, when last +there, I had seen the peasantry of Naples dancing among the vines, +reckless of the burning mountain which threatened to overwhelm them, +was now in possession of a strong serpent of engine-hose, watchfully +lying in wait for the serpent Fire, and ready to fly at it if it +showed its forked tongue. A ghost of a watchman, carrying a faint +corpse candle, haunted the distant upper gallery and flitted away. +Retiring within the proscenium, and holding my light above my head +towards the rolled-up curtain--green no more, but black as ebony--my +sight lost itself in a gloomy vault, showing faint indications in it +of a shipwreck of canvas and cordage. Methought I felt much as a diver +might, at the bottom of the sea. + +In those small hours when there was no movement in the streets, it +afforded matter for reflection to take Newgate in the way, and, +touching its rough stone, to think of the prisoners in their sleep, +and then to glance in at the lodge over the spiked wicket, and see the +fire and light of the watching turnkeys, on the white wall. Not an +inappropriate time either, to linger by that wicked little Debtors' +Door--shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw--which has +been Death's Door to so many. In the days of the uttering of forged +one-pound notes by people tempted up from the country, how many +hundreds of wretched creatures of both sexes--many quite +innocent--swung out of a pitiless and inconsistent world, with the +tower of yonder Christian church of Saint Sepulchre monstrously before +their eyes! Is there any haunting of the Bank Parlour, by the +remorseful souls of old directors, in the nights of these later days, +I wonder, or is it as quiet as this degenerate Aceldama of an Old +Bailey? + +To walk on to the Bank, lamenting the good old times and bemoaning the +present evil period, would be an easy next step, so I would take it, +and would make my houseless circuit of the Bank, and give a thought to +the treasure within; likewise to the guard of soldiers passing the +night there, and nodding over the fire. Next, I went to Billingsgate, +in some hope of market-people, but it proving as yet too early, +crossed London-bridge and got down by the waterside on the Surrey +shore among the buildings of the great brewery. There was plenty going +on at the brewery; and the reek, and the smell of grains, and the +rattling of the plump dray horses at their mangers, were capital +company. Quite refreshed by having mingled with this good society, I +made a new start with a new heart, setting the old King's Bench prison +before me for my next object, and resolving, when I should come to the +wall, to think of poor Horace Kinch, and the Dry Rot in men. + +A very curious disease the Dry Rot in men, and difficult to detect the +beginning of. It had carried Horace Kinch inside the wall of the old +King's Bench prison, and it had carried him out with his feet +foremost. He was a likely man to look at, in the prime of life, well +to do, as clever as he needed to be, and popular among many friends. +He was suitably married, and had healthy and pretty children. But, +like some fair-looking houses or fair-looking ships, he took the Dry +Rot. The first strong external revelation of the Dry Rot in men, is a +tendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street-corners without +intelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many +places rather than at any; to do nothing tangible, but to have an +intention of performing a variety of intangible duties to-morrow or +the day after. When this manifestation of the disease is observed, the +observer will usually connect it with a vague impression once formed +or received, that the patient was living a little too hard. He will +scarcely have had leisure to turn it over in his mind and form the +terrible suspicion "Dry Rot," when he will notice a change for the +worse in the patient's appearance: a certain slovenliness and +deterioration, which is not poverty, nor dirt, nor intoxication, nor +ill-health, but simply Dry Rot. To this, succeeds a smell as of strong +waters, in the morning; to that, a looseness respecting money; to +that, a stronger smell as of strong waters, at all times; to that, a +looseness respecting everything; to that, a trembling of the limbs, +somnolency, misery, and crumbling to pieces. As it is in wood, so it +is in men. Dry Rot advances at a compound usury quite incalculable. A +plank is found infected with it, and the whole structure is devoted. +Thus it had been with the unhappy Horace Kinch, lately buried by a +small subscription. Those who knew him had not nigh done saying, "So +well off, so comfortably established, with such hope before him--and +yet, it is feared, with a slight touch of Dry Rot!" when lo! the man +was all Dry Rot and dust. + +From the dead wall associated on those houseless nights with this too +common story, I chose next to wander by Bethlehem Hospital; partly, +because it lay on my road round to Westminster; partly, because I had +a night fancy in my head which could be best pursued within sight of +its walls and dome. And the fancy was this: Are not the sane and the +insane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming? Are not all of us +outside this hospital, who dream, more or less in the condition of +those inside it, every night of our lives? Are we not nightly +persuaded, as they daily are, that we associate preposterously with +kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and notabilities of all +sorts? Do we not nightly jumble events and personages and times and +places, as these do daily? Are we not sometimes troubled by our own +sleeping inconsistencies, and do we not vexedly try to account for +them or excuse them, just as these do sometimes in respect of their +waking delusions? Said an afflicted man to me, when I was last in a +hospital like this, "Sir, I can frequently fly." I was half ashamed to +reflect that so could I--by night. Said a woman to me on the same +occasion, "Queen Victoria frequently comes to dine with me, and her +Majesty and I dine off peaches and maccaroni in our nightgowns, and +his Royal Highness the Prince Consort does us the honour to make a +third on horseback in a Field-Marshal's uniform." Could I refrain from +reddening with consciousness when I remembered the amazing royal +parties I myself had given (at night), the unaccountable viands I had +put on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting myself on +those distinguished occasions? I wonder that the great master who knew +everything, when he called Sleep the death of each day's life, did not +call Dreams the insanity of each day's sanity. + +By this time I had left the Hospital behind me, and was again setting +towards the river; and in a short breathing space I was on +Westminster-bridge, regaling my houseless eyes with the external walls +of the British Parliament--the perfection of a stupendous institution, +I know, and the admiration of all surrounding nations and succeeding +ages, I do not doubt, but perhaps a little the better now and then for +being pricked up to its work. Turning off into Old Palace-yard, the +Courts of Law kept me company for a quarter of an hour; hinting in low +whispers what numbers of people they were keeping awake, and how +intensely wretched and horrible they were rendering the small hours to +unfortunate suitors. Westminster Abbey was fine gloomy society for +another quarter of an hour; suggesting a wonderful procession of its +dead among the dark arches and pillars, each century more amazed by +the century following it than by all the centuries going before. And +indeed in those houseless night walks--which even included cemeteries +where watchmen went round among the graves at stated times, and moved +the tell-tale handle of an index which recorded that they had touched +it at such an hour--it was a solemn consideration what enormous hosts +of dead belong to one old great city, and how, if they were raised +while the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's point +in all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not only +that, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleys +beyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows how +far. + +When a church clock strikes, on houseless ears in the dead of the +night, it may be at first mistaken for company and hailed as such. +But, as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive at +such a time with great clearness, go opening out, for ever and ever +afterwards widening perhaps (as the philosopher has suggested) in +eternal space, the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness is +profounder. Once--it was after leaving the Abbey and turning my face +north--I came to the great steps of St. Martin's church as the clock +was striking Three. Suddenly, a thing that in a moment more I should +have trodden upon without seeing, rose up at my feet with a cry of +loneliness and houselessness, struck out of it by the bell, the like +of which I never heard. We then stood face to face looking at one +another, frightened by one another. The creature was like a +beetle-browed hair-lipped youth of twenty, and it had a loose bundle +of rags on, which it held together with one of its hands. It shivered +from head to foot, and its teeth chattered, and as it stared at +me--persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it thought me--it made with its +whining mouth as if it were snapping at me, like a worried dog. +Intending to give this ugly object money, I put out my hand to stay +it--for it recoiled as it whined and snapped--and laid my hand upon +its shoulder. Instantly, it twisted out of its garment, like the young +man in the New Testament, and left me standing alone with its rags in +my hands. + +Covent-garden Market, when it was market morning, was wonderful +company. The great waggons of cabbages, with growers' men and boys +lying asleep under them, and with sharp dogs from market-garden +neighbourhoods looking after the whole, were as good as a party. But +one of the worst night sights I know in London, is to be found in the +children who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fight +for the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay their +thieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge the +constables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on the +pavement of the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet. A painful +and unnatural result comes of the comparison one is forced to +institute between the growth of corruption as displayed in the so much +improved and cared for fruits of the earth, and the growth of +corruption as displayed in these all uncared for (except inasmuch as +ever-hunted) savages. + +There was early coffee to be got about Covent-garden Market, and that +was more company--warm company, too, which was better. Toast of a very +substantial quality, was likewise procurable: though the +towzled-headed man who made it, in an inner chamber within the +coffee-room, hadn't got his coat on yet, and was so heavy with sleep +that in every interval of toast and coffee he went off anew behind the +partition into complicated cross-roads of choke and snore, and lost +his way directly. Into one of these establishments (among the +earliest) near Bow-street, there came one morning as I sat over my +houseless cup, pondering where to go next, a man in a high and long +snuff-coloured coat, and shoes, and, to the best of my belief, nothing +else but a hat, who took out of his hat a large cold meat pudding; a +meat pudding so large that it was a very tight fit, and brought the +lining of the hat out with it. This mysterious man was known by his +pudding, for on his entering, the man of sleep brought him a pint of +hot tea, a small loaf, and a large knife and fork and plate. Left to +himself in his box, he stood the pudding on the bare table, and, +instead of cutting it, stabbed it, over-hand, with the knife, like a +mortal enemy; then took the knife out, wiped it on his sleeve, tore +the pudding asunder with his fingers, and ate it all up. The +remembrance of this man with the pudding remains with me as the +remembrance of the most spectral person my houselessness encountered. +Twice only was I in that establishment, and twice I saw him stalk in +(as I should say, just out of bed, and presently going back to bed), +take out his pudding, stab his pudding, wipe the dagger, and eat his +pudding all up. He was a man whose figure promised cadaverousness, but +who had an excessively red face, though shaped like a horse's. On the +second occasion of my seeing him, he said huskily to the man of sleep, +"Am I red to-night?" "You are," he uncompromisingly answered. "My +mother," said the spectre, "was a red-faced woman that liked drink, +and I looked at her hard when she laid in her coffin, and I took the +complexion." Somehow, the pudding seemed an unwholesome pudding after +that, and I put myself in its way no more. + +When there was no market, or when I wanted variety, a railway terminus +with the morning mails coming in, was remunerative company. But like +most of the company to be had in this world, it lasted only a very +short time. The station lamps would burst out ablaze, the porters +would emerge from places of concealment, the cabs and trucks would +rattle to their places (the post-office carts were already in theirs), +and, finally, the bell would strike up, and the train would come +banging in. But there were few passengers and little luggage, and +everything scuttled away with the greatest expedition. The locomotive +post-offices, with their great nets--as if they had been dragging the +country for bodies--would fly open as to their doors, and would +disgorge a smell of lamp, an exhausted clerk, a guard in a red coat, +and their bags of letters; the engine would blow and heave and +perspire, like an engine wiping its forehead and saying what a run it +had had; and within ten minutes the lamps were out, and I was +houseless and alone again. + +But now, there were driven cattle on the high road near, wanting (as +cattle always do) to turn into the midst of stone walls, and squeeze +themselves through six inches' width of iron railing, and getting +their heads down (also as cattle always do) for tossing-purchase at +quite imaginary dogs, and giving themselves and every devoted creature +associated with them a most extraordinary amount of unnecessary +trouble. Now, too, the conscious gas began to grow pale with the +knowledge that daylight was coming, and straggling work-people were +already in the streets, and, as waking life had become extinguished +with the last pieman's sparks, so it began to be rekindled with the +fires of the first street-corner breakfast-sellers. And so by faster +and faster degrees, until the last degrees were very fast, the day +came, and I was tired and could sleep. And it is not, as I used to +think, going home at such times, the least wonderful thing in London, +that in the real desert region of the night, the houseless wanderer is +alone there. I knew well enough where to find Vice and Misfortune of +all kinds, if I had chosen; but they were put out of sight, and my +houselessness had many miles upon miles of streets in which it could, +and did, have its own solitary way. + + _Dickens._ + + + + +"A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED" + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile +Drama. That national monument, after having changed its name to +Park's, to Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has +now become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like +Stonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may be the +Museum numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her +gracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; but to the plain +private person they are become, like Raphaels, unattainable. I have, +at different times, possessed _Aladdin_, _The Red Rover_, _The Blind +Boy_, _The Old Oak Chest_, _The Wood Dęmon_, _Jack Sheppard_, _The +Miller and his Men_, _Der Freischütz_, _The Smuggler_, _The Forest of +Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, _The Waterman_, _Richard I._, _My Poll and my +Partner Joe_, _The Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and _Three-Fingered +Jack, the Terror of Jamaica_; and I have assisted others in the +illumination of _The Maid of the Inn_ and _The Battle of Waterloo_. In +this roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of a happy +childhood; and though not half of them are still to be procured of any +living stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all survive, +kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the +city of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a +party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those +days I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of +itself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In +the Leith Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed a +theatre in working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few +"robbers carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold +to me! the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one +upon another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. +One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of +characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the +clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom +Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! +how--if the name by chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he +figured, and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange +apparel! And then to go within, to announce yourself as an intending +purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and +breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic +combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses and +prison vaults--it was a giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smelt +of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy. +They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a +place besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding Salem, had a +double task. They kept us at the stick's end, frowned us down, +snatched each play out of our hand ere we were trusted with another; +and, incredible as it may sound, used to demand of us upon our +entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. Old +Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, once swept +the treasures from before me, with the cry: "I do not believe, child, +that you are an intending purchaser at all!" These were the dragons of +the garden; but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the +Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was another +lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowing +in the raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare with it +save now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain +unwrit stones of adventure, from which I awake to find the world all +vanity. The _crux_ of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the +uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on these +bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the sight and +touch of them which he would jealously prolong; and when at length the +deed was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman had +brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth again, +a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue +winter's even, and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or some kindred drama +clutched against his side--on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed +aloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all the +years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with +these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me the +_Arabian Entertainments_ in the fat, old, double-columned volume with +the prints. I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I +remember, when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty +stiff) came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of +ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to +be called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not +much appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The +Blind Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and +once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what +was it all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number +of banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent +kitchen in the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen +in a deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite +forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to +"twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of +it--crimson lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the +ear)--with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be +compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The +latter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite +pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day my +heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness the very +aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure +in the painting. But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it, +all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; +but to cut the figures out was simply sacrilege; nor could any child +twice court the tedium, the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantment +of an actual performance. Two days after the purchase the honey had +been sucked. Parents used to complain; they thought I wearied of my +play. It was not so: no more than a person can be said to have wearied +of his dinner when he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got the +marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study +that enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true child +of Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much +as I have travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon +that map or abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of +memory, and are still but names. _The Floating Beacon_--why was that +denied me? or _The Wreck Ashore_? _Sixteen-String Jack_ whom I did not +even guess to be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my +slumbers; and there is one sequence of three from that enchanted +calender that I still at times recall, like a loved verse of poetry: +_Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, _Echo of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare +names, are surely more to children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated +fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the +charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept +into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now we +have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of +Skelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to +design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It +is even to be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of +nature. The stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, +home-bred staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, +but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: a +peculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a +tone of voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist +upon the art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters that +once so thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly +engines and incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the +extreme hard favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with +pain; the villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the +scenes themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the +efforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other +side the impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great +unity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead +and buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom--or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?--had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland +as in _The Blind Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or +Italy with _The Old Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist +could tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, running +wild in deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and +overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus +Skeltica_--brave growths. The caves were all embowelled in the +Surreyside formation; the soil was all betrodden by the light pump of +T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet another, an oriental string: +he held the gorgeous east in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyčres, +say, in the garden of the Hōtel des Īles d'Or, you may behold these +blessed visions realised. But on these I will not dwell; they were an +outwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt was all himself. +It had a strong flavour of England; it was a sort of indigestion of +England and drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How the +roads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates +from behind the cloud, and how the congregated clouds themselves +uproll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the usual +first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the +gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama +must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with +the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there +again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to +colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, +glimpses of the navigable Thames--England, when at last I came to +visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for +the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there +the horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the +ripe age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to +load it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own +ideal, radiating pure romance--still I was but a puppet in the hand of +Skelt; the original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the +antitype of all the bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, +had adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild. "This is mastering me," as +Whitman cries, upon some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, +art, letters, the world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped +himself upon my immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a +poor penny world; but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go +to the theatre to see a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little +faded. If I visit a bold scene in nature, Skelt would have been +bolder; there had been certainly a castle on that mountain, and the +hollow tree--that set piece--I seem to miss it in the foreground. +Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive, and +infantile art, I seem to have learned the very spirit of my life's +enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I was to read about +and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der Freischütz_ long +ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of +scenes and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain, +I might enact all novels and romances; and took from these rude cuts +an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader--and yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest +readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the +bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, or to Clarke's of Garrick +Street. In Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my +ancient aspirations: _Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I +cherish the belief that when these shall see once more the light of +day, B. Pollock will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have a +dream at times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in +a ghostly street--E. W., I think, the postal district--close below the +fool's-cap of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of +the Abbey bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling +strong of glue and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with +great Skelt himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy, +with what a choking heart--I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I +pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust. + + _R. L. Stevenson._ + + + + +THE JULY GRASS + + +A July fly went sideways over the long grass. His wings made a burr +about him like a net, beating so fast they wrapped him round with a +cloud. Every now and then, as he flew over the trees of grass, a +taller one than common stopped him, and there he clung, and then the +eye had time to see the scarlet spots--the loveliest colour--on his +wings. The wind swung the burnet and loosened his hold, and away he +went again over the grasses, and not one jot did he care if they were +_Poa_ or _Festuca_, or _Bromus_ or _Hordeum_, or any other name. Names +were nothing to him; all he had to do was to whirl his scarlet spots +about in the brilliant sun, rest when he liked, and go on again. I +wonder whether it is a joy to have bright scarlet spots, and to be +clad in the purple and gold of life; is the colour felt by the +creature that wears it? The rose, restful of a dewy morn before the +sunbeams have topped the garden wall, must feel a joy in its own +fragrance, and know the exquisite hue of its stained petals. The rose +sleeps in its beauty. + +The fly whirls his scarlet-spotted wings about and splashes himself +with sunlight, like the children on the sands. He thinks not of the +grass and sun; he does not heed them at all--and that is why he is so +happy--any more than the barefoot children ask why the sea is there, +or why it does not quite dry up when it ebbs. He is unconscious; he +lives without thinking about living; and if the sunshine were a +hundred hours long, still it would not be long enough. No, never +enough of sun and sliding shadows that come like a hand over the table +to lovingly reach our shoulder, never enough of the grass that smells +sweet as a flower, not if we could live years and years equal in +number to the tides that have ebbed and flowed counting backwards four +years to every day and night, backward still till we found out which +came first, the night or the day. The scarlet-dotted fly knows nothing +of the names of the grasses that grow here where the sward nears the +sea, and thinking of him I have decided not to wilfully seek to learn +any more of their names either. My big grass book I have left at home, +and the dust is settling on the gold of the binding. I have picked a +handful this morning of which I know nothing. I will sit here on the +turf and the scarlet-dotted flies shall pass over me, as if I too were +but a grass. I will not think, I will be unconscious, I will live. + +Listen! that was the low sound of a summer wavelet striking the +uncovered rock over there beneath in the green sea. All things that +are beautiful are found by chance, like everything that is good. Here +by me is a praying-rug, just wide enough to kneel on, of the richest +gold inwoven with crimson. All the Sultans of the East never had such +beauty as that to kneel on. It is, indeed, too beautiful to kneel on, +for the life in these golden flowers must not be broken down even for +that purpose. They must not be defaced, not a stem bent; it is more +reverent not to kneel on them, for this carpet prays itself. I will +sit by it and let it pray for me. It is so common, the bird's-foot +lotus, it grows everywhere; yet if I purposely searched for days I +should not have found a plot like this, so rich, so golden, so glowing +with sunshine. You might pass by it in one stride, yet it is worthy to +be thought of for a week and remembered for a year. Slender grasses, +branched round about with slenderer boughs, each tipped with pollen +and rising in tiers cone-shaped--too delicate to grow tall--cluster at +the base of the mound. They dare not grow tall or the wind would snap +them. A great grass, stout and thick, rises three feet by the hedge, +with a head another foot nearly, very green and strong and bold, +lifting itself right up to you; you must say, "What a fine grass!" +Grasses whose awns succeed each other alternately; grasses whose tops +seem flattened; others drooping over the shorter blades beneath; some +that you can only find by parting the heavier growth around them; +hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands. The kingly poppies on +the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their +subjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are, +the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, but +raising up a brilliant blazon of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. They +are useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison and +everlasting night; yet they are forgiven because they are not +commonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppies +commonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and they +are saved. Even when they take the room of the corn we must admire +them. The mighty multitude of nations, the millions and millions of +the grass stretching away in intertangled ranks, through pasture and +mead from shore to shore, have no kinship with these their lords. The +ruler is always a foreigner. From England to China the native born is +no king; the poppies are the Normans of the field. One of these on the +mound is very beautiful, a width of petal, a clear silkiness of colour +three shades higher than the rest--it is almost dark with scarlet. I +wish I could do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and gold +and crimson and green, something more than see it, not exactly to +drink it or inhale it, but in some way to make it part of me that I +might live it. + +The July grasses must be looked for in corners and out-of-the-way +places, and not in the broad acres--the scythe has taken them there. +By the wayside on the banks of the lane, near the gateway--look, too, +in uninteresting places behind incomplete buildings on the mounds cast +up from abandoned foundations where speculation has been and gone. +There weeds that would not have found resting-place elsewhere grow +unchecked, and uncommon species and unusually large growths appear. +Like everything else that is looked for, they are found under unlikely +conditions. At the back of ponds, just inside the enclosure of woods, +angles of corn-fields, old quarries, that is where to find grasses, or +by the sea in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow by +the mere road-side; you may look for others up the lanes in the deep +ruts, look too inside the hollow trees by the stream. In a morning you +may easily garner together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut the +larger stems aslant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green glass. +You must consider as you gather them the height and slenderness of the +stems, the droop and degree of curve, the shape and colour of the +panicle, the dusting of the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind. +The sheaf you may take home with you, but the wind that was among it +stays without. + + _Richard Jeffries._ + + + + +WORN-OUT TYPES + + +It is now a complaint of quite respectable antiquity that the types in +which humanity was originally set up by a humour-loving Providence are +worn out and require recasting. The surface of society has become +smooth. It ought to be a bas-relief--it is a plane. Even a Chaucer (so +it is said) could make nothing of us as we wend our way to Brighton. +We have tempers, it is true--bad ones for the most part; but no +humours to be in or out of. We are all far too much alike; we do not +group well; we only mix. All this, and more, is alleged against us. A +cheerfully disposed person might perhaps think that, assuming the +prevailing type to be a good, plain, readable one, this uniformity +need not necessarily be a bad thing; but had he the courage to give +expression to this opinion he would most certainly be at once told, +with that mixture of asperity and contempt so properly reserved for +those who take cheerful views of anything, that without well-defined +types of character there can be neither national comedy nor whimsical +novel; and as it is impossible to imagine any person sufficiently +cheerful to carry the argument further by inquiring ingenuously, "And +how would that matter?" the position of things becomes serious, and +demands a few minutes' investigation. + +As we said at the beginning, the complaint is an old one--most +complaints are. When Montaigne was in Rome in 1580 he complained +bitterly that he was always knocking up against his own countrymen, +and might as well have been in Paris. And yet some people would have +you believe that this curse of the Continent is quite new. More than +seventy years ago that most quotable of English authors, Hazlitt, +wrote as follows: + +"It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all literature to generalize +and dissipate character by giving men the same artificial education +and the same common stock of ideas; so that we see all objects from +the same point of view, and through the same reflected medium; we +learn to exist not in ourselves, but in books; all men become alike, +mere readers--spectators, not actors in the scene and lose all proper +personal identity. The templar--the wit--the man of pleasure and the +man of fashion, the courtier and the citizen, the knight and the +squire, the lover and the miser--Lovelace, Lothario, Will Honeycomb +and Sir Roger de Coverley, Sparkish and Lord Foppington, Western and +Tom Jones, my Father and my Uncle Toby, Millament and Sir Sampson +Legend, Don Quixote and Sancho, Gil Bias and Guzman d'Alfarache, Count +Fathom and Joseph Surface--have all met and exchanged commonplaces on +the barren plains of the _haute littérature_--toil slowly on to the +Temple of Science, seen a long way off upon a level, and end in one +dull compound of politics, criticism, chemistry, and metaphysics." + +Very pretty writing, certainly[53]; nor can it be disputed that +uniformity of surroundings puts a tax upon originality. To make bricks +and find your own straw are terms of bondage. Modern characters, like +modern houses, are possibly built too much on the same lines. +Dickens's description of Coketown is not easily forgotten: + +"All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe +characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, +the infirmary might have been the jail, the town hall might have been +either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the +contrary in the graces of their construction." + +[Footnote 53: Yet in his essay _On Londoners and Country People_ we +find Hazlitt writing: "London is the only place in which the child +grows completely up into the man. I have known characters of this +kind, which, in the way of childish ignorance and self-pleasing +delusion, exceeded anything to be met with in Shakespeare or Ben +Jonson, or the Old Comedy."] + +And the inhabitants of Coketown are exposed to the same objection as +their buildings. Every one sinks all traces of what he vulgarly calls +"the shop" (that is, his lawful calling), and busily pretends to be +nothing. Distinctions of dress are found irksome. A barrister of +feeling hates to be seen in his robes save when actually engaged in a +case. An officer wears his uniform only when obliged. Doctors have +long since shed all outward signs of their healing art. Court dress +excites a smile. A countess in her jewels is reckoned indecent by the +British workman, who, all unemployed, puffs his tobacco smoke against +the window-pane of the carriage that is conveying her ladyship to a +drawing-room; and a West End clergyman is with difficulty restrained +from telling his congregation what he had been told the British +workman said on that occasion. Had he but had the courage to repeat +those stirring words, his hearers (so he said) could hardly have +failed to have felt their force--so unusual in such a place; but he +had not the courage, and that sermon of the pavement remains +unpreached. The toe of the peasant is indeed kibing the heel of the +courtier. The passion for equality in externals cannot be denied. We +are all woven strangely in the same piece, and so it comes about that, +though our modern society has invented new callings, those callings +have not created new types. Stockbrokers, directors, official +liquidators, philanthropists, secretaries--not of State, but of +companies--speculative builders, are a new kind of people known to +many--indeed, playing a great part among us--but who, for all that, +have not enriched the stage with a single character. Were they to +disappear to-morrow, to be blown dancing away like the leaves before +Shelley's west wind, where in reading or playgoing would posterity +encounter them? Alone amongst the children of men the pale student of +the law, burning the midnight oil in some one of the "high lonely +towers" recently built by the Benchers of the Middle Temple (in the +Italian taste), would, whilst losing his youth over that interminable +series, _The Law Reports_, every now and again strike across the old +track, once so noisy with the bayings of the well-paid hounds of +justice, and, pushing his way along it, trace the history of the bogus +company, from the acclamations attendant upon its illegitimate birth +to the hour of disgrace when it dies by strangulation at the hands of +the professional wrecker. The pale student will not be a wholly +unsympathetic reader. Great swindles have ere now made great +reputations, and lawyers may surely be permitted to take a pensive +interest in such matters. + + "Not one except the Attorney was amused-- + He, like Achilles, faithful to the tomb, + So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause, + Knowing they must be settled by the laws." + +But our elder dramatists would not have let any of these characters +swim out of their ken. A glance over Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont +and Fletcher, is enough to reveal their frank and easy method. Their +characters, like an apothecary's drugs, wear labels round their necks. +Mr. Justice Clement and Mr. Justice Greedy; Master Matthew, the town +gull; Sir Giles Overreach, Sir Epicure Mammon, Mr. Plenty, Sir John +Frugal, need no explanatory context. Are our dramatists to blame for +withholding from us the heroes of our modern society? Ought we to +have-- + + "Sir Moses, Sir Aaron, Sir Jamramagee, + Two stock-jobbing Jews, and a shuffling Parsee"? + +Baron Contango, the Hon. Mr. Guinea-Pig, poor Miss Impulsia Allottee, +Mr. Jeremiah Builder--Rare Old Ben, who was fond of the City, would +have given us them all and many more; but though we may well wish he +were here to do it, we ought, I think, to confess that the humour of +these typical persons who so swell the _dramatis personę_ of an +Elizabethan is, to say the least of it, far to seek. There is a +certain warm-hearted tradition about their very names which makes +disrespect painful. It seems a churl's part not to laugh, as did our +fathers before us, at the humours of the conventional parasite or +impossible serving-man; but we laugh because we will, and not because +we must. + +Genuine comedy--the true tickling scene, exquisite absurdity, +soul-rejoicing incongruity--has really nothing to do with types, +prevailing fashions, and such-like vulgarities. Sir Andrew Aguecheek +is not a typical fool; he _is_ a fool, seised in fee simple of his +folly. + +Humour lies not in generalizations, but in the individual; not in his +hat nor in his hose, even though the latter be "cross-gartered"; but +in the deep heart of him, in his high-flying vanities, his low-lying +oddities--what we call his "ways"--nay, in the very motions of his +back as he crosses the road. These stir our laughter whilst he lives +and our tears when he dies, for in mourning over him we know full well +we are taking part in our own obsequies. "But indeed," wrote Charles +Lamb, "we die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I +think that such a hold as I had of you is gone." + +Literature is but the reflex of life, and the humour of it lies in the +portrayal of the individual, not the type; and though the young man in +_Locksley Hall_ no doubt observes that the individual withers, we have +but to take down George Meredith's novels to find the fact is +otherwise, and that we have still one amongst us who takes notes, and +against the battery of whose quick wits even the costly raiment of +Poole is no protection. We are forced as we read to exclaim with +Petruchio: "Thou hast hit it; come sit on me." No doubt the task of +the modern humorist is not so easy as it was. The surface ore has been +mostly picked up. In order to win the precious metal you must now work +with in-stroke and out-stroke after the most approved methods. +Sometimes one would enjoy it a little more if we did not hear quite so +distinctly the snorting of the engine, and the groaning and the +creaking of the gear as it painfully winds up its prize: but what +would you? Methods, no less than men, must have the defects of their +qualities. + +If, therefore, it be the fact that our national comedy is in decline, +we must look for some other reasons for it than those suggested by +Hazlitt in 1817. When Mr. Chadband inquired, "Why can we not fly, my +friends?" Mr. Snagsby ventured to observe, "in a cheerful and rather +knowing tone, 'No wings!'" but he was immediately frowned down by Mrs. +Snagsby. We lack courage to suggest that the somewhat heavy-footed +movements of our recent dramatists are in any way due to their not +being provided with those twin adjuncts indispensable for the genius +who would soar. + + _Augustine Birrell._ + + + + +BOOK-BUYING + + +The most distinguished of living Englishmen, who, great as he is in +many directions, is perhaps inherently more a man of letters than +anything else, has been overheard mournfully to declare that there +were more book-sellers' shops in his native town sixty years ago, when +he was a boy in it, than are to-day to be found within its boundaries. +And yet the place "all unabashed" now boasts its bookless self a city! + +Mr. Gladstone was, of course, referring to second-hand bookshops. +Neither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about new +books. When a new book is published, read an old one, was the advice +of a sound though surly critic. It is one of the boasts of letters to +have glorified the term "second-hand," which other crafts have "soiled +to all ignoble use." But why it has been able to do this is obvious. +All the best books are necessarily second-hand. The writers of to-day +need not grumble. Let them "bide a wee." If their books are worth +anything, they, too, one day will be second-hand. If their books are +not worth anything there are ancient trades still in full operation +amongst us--the pastrycooks and the trunkmakers--who must have paper. + +But is there any substance in the plaint that nobody now buys books, +meaning thereby second-hand books? The late Mark Pattison, who had +16,000 volumes, and whose lightest word has therefore weight, once +stated that he had been informed, and verily believed, that there were +men of his own University of Oxford who, being in uncontrolled +possession of annual incomes of not less than £500, thought they were +doing the thing handsomely if they expended £50 a year upon their +libraries. But we are not bound to believe this unless we like. There +was a touch of morosity about the late Rector of Lincoln which led him +to take gloomy views of men, particularly Oxford men. + +No doubt arguments _a priori_ may readily be found to support the +contention that the habit of book-buying is on the decline. I confess +to knowing one or two men, not Oxford men either, but Cambridge men +(and the passion of Cambridge for literature is a by-word), who, on +the plea of being pressed with business, or because they were going to +a funeral, have passed a bookshop in a strange town without so much as +stepping inside "just to see whether the fellow had anything." But +painful as facts of this sort necessarily are, any damaging inference +we might feel disposed to draw from them is dispelled by a comparison +of price-lists. Compare a bookseller's catalogue of 1862 with one of +the present year, and your pessimism is washed away by the tears which +unrestrainedly flow as you see what _bonnes fortunes_ you have lost. A +young book-buyer might well turn out upon Primrose Hill and bemoan his +youth, after comparing old catalogues with new. + +Nothing but American competition, grumble some old stagers. + +Well! why not? This new battle for the books is a free fight, not a +private one, and Columbia has "joined in." Lower prices are not to be +looked for. The book-buyer of 1900 will be glad to buy at to-day's +prices. I take pleasure in thinking he will not be able to do so. Good +finds grow scarcer and scarcer. True it is that but a few short weeks +ago I picked up (such is the happy phrase, most apt to describe what +was indeed a "street casualty") a copy of the original edition of +_Endymion_ (Keats's poem--O subscriber to Mudie's!--not Lord +Beaconsfield's novel) for the easy equivalent of half-a-crown--but +then that was one of my lucky days. The enormous increase of +booksellers' catalogues and their wide circulation amongst the trade +has already produced a hateful uniformity of prices. Go where you will +it is all the same to the odd sixpence. Time was when you could map +out the country for yourself with some hopefulness of plunder. There +were districts where the Elizabethan dramatists were but slenderly +protected. A raid into the "bonnie North Countrie" sent you home again +cheered with chap-books and weighted with old pamphlets of curious +interests; whilst the West of England seldom failed to yield a crop of +novels. I remember getting a complete set of the Brontė books in the +original issues at Torquay, I may say, for nothing. Those days are +over. Your country bookseller is, in fact, more likely, such tales +does he hear of London auctions, and such catalogues does he receive +by every post, to exaggerate the value of his wares than to part with +them pleasantly, and as a country bookseller should, "just to clear my +shelves, you know, and give me a bit of room." The only compensation +for this is the catalogues themselves. You get _them_, at least, for +nothing, and it cannot be denied that they make mighty pretty reading. + +These high prices tell their own tale, and force upon us the +conviction that there never were so many private libraries in course +of growth as there are to-day. + +Libraries are not made; they grow. Your first two thousand volumes +present no difficulty, and cost astonishingly little money. Given £400 +and five years, and an ordinary man can in the ordinary course, +without undue haste or putting any pressure upon his taste, surround +himself with this number of books, all in his own language, and +thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is +possible to be happy. But pride is still out of the question. To be +proud of having two thousand books would be absurd. You might as well +be proud of having two top-coats. After your first two thousand +difficulty begins, but until you have ten thousand volumes the less +you say about your library the better. _Then_ you may begin to speak. + +It is no doubt a pleasant thing to have a library left you. The +present writer will disclaim no such legacy, but hereby undertakes to +accept it, however dusty. But good as it is to inherit a library, it +is better to collect one. Each volume then, however lightly a +stranger's eye may roam from shelf to shelf, has its own +individuality, a history of its own. You remember where you got it, +and how much you gave for it; and your word may safely be taken for +the first of these facts, but not for the second. + +The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate +himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own +existence. No other man but he would have made precisely such a +combination as his. Had he been in any single respect different from +what he is, his library, as it exists, never would have existed. +Therefore, surely he may exclaim, as in the gloaming he contemplates +the backs of his loved ones, "They are mine, and I am theirs." + +But the eternal note of sadness will find its way even through the +keyhole of a library. You turn some familiar page, of Shakespeare it +may be, and his "infinite variety," his "multitudinous mind," suggests +some new thought, and as you are wondering over it you think of +Lycidas, your friend, and promise yourself the pleasure of having his +opinion of your discovery the very next time when by the fire you two +"help: waste a sullen day." Or it is, perhaps, some quainter, tenderer +fancy that engages your solitary attention, something in Sir Philip +Sydney or Henry Vaughan, and then you turn to look for Phyllis, ever +the best interpreter of love, human or divine. Alas! the printed page +grows hazy beneath a filmy eye as you suddenly remember that Lycidas +is dead--"dead ere his prime"--and that the pale cheek of Phyllis will +never again be relumined by the white light of her pure enthusiasm. +And then you fall to thinking of the inevitable, and perhaps, in your +present mood, not unwelcome hour, when the "ancient peace" of your old +friends will be disturbed, when rude hands will dislodge them from +their accustomed nooks and break up their goodly company + + "Death bursts amongst them like a shell, + And strews them over half the town." + +They will form new combinations, lighten other men's toil, and soothe +another's sorrow. Fool that I was to call anything _mine_! + + _Augustine Birrell._ + + + + +THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN + + +It is universally conceded that our great-grandmothers were women of +the most precise life and austere manners. The girls nowadays display +a shocking freedom; but they were partly led into it by the relative +laxity of their mothers, who, in their turn, gave great anxiety to a +still earlier generation. To hear all the "Ahs" and the "Well, I +nevers" of the middle-aged, one would fancy that propriety of conduct +was a thing of the past, and that never had there been a "gaggle of +girls" (the phrase belongs to Dame Juliana Berners) so wanton and +rebellious as the race of 1895. Still, there must be a fallacy +somewhere. If each generation is decidedly wilder, more independent, +more revolting, and more insolent than the one before, how exceedingly +good people must have been four or five generations ago! Outside the +pages of the people so sweetly advertised as "sexual female +fictionists," the girls of to-day do not strike one as extremely bad. +Some of them are quite nice; the average is not very low. How lofty, +then, must have been the standard one hundred years ago, to make room +for such a steady decline ever since! Poor J. K. S. wrote:-- + + "If all the harm that's been done by men + Were doubled and doubled and doubled again, + And melted and fused into vapour, and then + Were squared and raised to the power of ten, + There wouldn't be nearly enough, not near, + To keep a small girl for a tenth of a year." + +This is the view of a cynic. To the ordinary observer, the "revolting +daughters," of whom we hear so much, do not revolt nearly enough to +differentiate them duly from their virtuous great-grandmothers. + +We fear that there was still a good deal of human nature in girls a +hundred, or even two hundred, years ago. That eloquent and animated +writer, the author of _The Whole Duty of Man_, published in the reign +of Charles II, a volume which, if he had had the courage of his +opinions, he would have named _The Whole Duty of Woman_. Under the +tamer title of _The Ladies' Calling_ it achieved a great success. In +the frontispiece to this work a doleful dame, seated on what seems to +be a bare altar in an open landscape, is raising one hand to grasp a +crown dangled out of her reach in the clouds, and in the other, with +an air of great affectation is lifting her skirt between finger and +thumb. A purse, a coronet, a fan, a mirror, rings, dice, coins, and +other useful articles lie strewn at her naked feet; she spurns them, +and lifts her streaming eyes to heaven. This is the sort of picture +which does its best to prevent the reader from opening the book; but +_The Ladies' Calling_, nevertheless, is well worth reading. It excites +in us a curious wish to know more exactly what manner of women it was +addressed to. How did the great-grandmothers of our great-grandmothers +behave? When we come to think of it, how little we know about them! + +The customary source of information is the play-book of the time. +There, indeed, we come across some choice indications of ancient +woman's behaviour. Nor did the women spare one another. The woman +dramatists outdid the men in attacking the manners of their sex, and +what is perhaps the most cynical comedy in all literature was written +by a woman. It will be some time before the Corinnas of _The Yellow +Book_ contrive to surpass _The Town Fop_ in outrageous frankness. Our +ideas of the fashions of the seventeenth century are, however, taken +too exclusively, if they are taken from these plays alone. We conceive +every fine lady to be like Lady Brute, in _The Provok'd Wife_, who +wakes about two o'clock in the afternoon, is "trailed" to her great +chair for tea, leaves her bedroom only to descend to dinner, spends +the night with a box and dice, and does not go to bed until the dawn. +Comedy has always forced the note, and is a very unsafe (though +picturesque) guide to historic manners. Perhaps we obtain a juster +notion from the gallant pamphlets of the age, such as _The Lover's +Watch_ and _The Lady's Looking-Glass_; yet these were purely intended +for people whom we should nowadays call "smart," readers who hung +about the outskirts of the Court. + +For materials, then, out of which to construct a portrait of the +ordinary woman of the world in the reign of Charles II, we are glad to +come back to our anonymous divine. His is the best-kept secret in +English literature. In spite of the immense success of _The Whole Duty +of Man_, no one has done more than conjecture, more or less vaguely, +who he may have been. He wrote at least five works besides his most +famous treatise, and in preparing each of these for the press he took +more pains than Junius did a century later to conceal his identity. +The publisher of _The Ladies' Calling_, for example, assures us that +he knows no more than we do. The MS. came to him from an unknown +source and in a strange handwriting, "as from the Clouds dropt into my +hands." The anonymous author made no attempt to see proofs of it, nor +claimed his foundling in any way whatever. In his _English Prose +Selections_, the recent third volume of which covers the ground we are +dealing with, Mr. Craik, although finding room for such wretched +writers as Bishop Cumberland and William Sherlock, makes no mention of +the author of _The Whole Duty_. That is a curious oversight. There was +no divine of the age who wielded a more graceful pen. Only the +exigencies of our space restrain us from quoting the noble praise of +the Woman-Confessor in the preface to _The Ladies' Calling_. It begins +"Queens and Empresses knew then no title so glorious"; and the reader +who is curious in such matters will refer to it for himself. + +The women of this time troubled our author by their loudness of +speech. There seems some reason to believe that with the Restoration, +and in opposition to the affected whispering of the Puritans, a +truculent and noisy manner became the fashion among Englishwomen. This +was, perhaps, the "barbarous dissonance" that Milton deprecated; it +is, at all events, so distasteful to the writer of _The Ladies' +Calling_ that he gives it an early prominence in his exhortation. "A +woman's tongue," he says, "should be like the imaginary music of the +spheres, sweet and charming, but not to be heard at distance." +Modesty, indeed, he inculcates as the first ornament of womanhood, and +he intimates that there was much neglect of it in his day. We might +fancy it to be Mrs. Lynn Linton speaking when, with uplifted hands, he +cries, "Would God that they would take, in exchange for that virile +Boldness, which is now too common among many even of the best Rank," +such a solidity and firmness of mind as will permit them to succeed +in--keeping a secret! Odd to hear a grave and polite divine urging the +ladies of his congregation not to "adorn" their conversation with +oaths and imprecations, of which he says, with not less truth than +gallantry, that "out of a woman's mouth there is on this side Hell no +noise that can be more amazingly odious." The revolting daughters of +to-day do not curse and swear; at all events, they do not swear in +print, where only we have met the shrews. On the other hand, they +smoke, a contingency which does not seem to have occurred to the +author of _The Ladies' Calling_, who nowhere warns the sisterhood +against tobacco. The gravity of his indictment of excess in wine, not +less than the evidence of such observers as Pepys, proves to us that +drunkenness was by no means rare even among women of quality. + +There never, we suppose, from the beginning of the world was a +man-preacher who did not warn the women of his congregation against +the vanity of fair raiment. The author of _The Ladies' Calling_ is no +exception; but he does his spiriting in a gentlemanlike way. The +ladies came to listen to him bedizened with jewels, with all the +objects which lie strewn at the feet of his penitent in the +frontispiece. He does not scream to them to rend them off. He only +remonstrates at their costliness. In that perfectly charming record of +a child's mind, the Memoir of Marjorie Fleming, the delicious little +wiseacre records the fact that her father and mother have given a +guinea for a pineapple, remarking that that money would have sustained +a poor family during the entire winter. We are reminded of that when +our divine tells his auditors that "any one of the baubles, the +loosest appendage of the dress, a fan, a busk, perhaps a black patch, +bears a price that would warm the empty bowels of a poor starving +wretch." This was long before the days of very elaborate and expensive +patches, which were still so new in Pepys's days that he remarked on +those of Mr. Penn's pretty sister when he saw her in the new coach, +"patched and very fine." Our preacher is no ranter, nor does he shut +the door of mercy on entertainments; all he deprecates is their +excess. His penitents are not forbidden to spend an afternoon at the +theatre, or an evening in dancing or at cards; but they are desired to +remember that, delightful as these occupations are, devotion is more +delightful still. + +The attitude of the author to gaming is curious. "I question not the +lawfulness of this recreation," he says distinctly; but he desires his +ladies not to make cards the business of their life, and especially +not to play on Sundays. It appears that some great ladies, in the +emptiness of their heads and hearts, took advantage of the high pews +then always found in churches to play ombre or quadrille under the +very nose of the preacher. This conduct must have been rare; the +legends of the age prove that it was not unknown. The game might be +concealed from every one if it was desisted from at the moment of the +sermon, and in many cases the clergyman was a pitiful, obsequious +wretch who knew better than to find fault with the gentlefolks "up at +the house." It was not often that a convenient flash of lightning came +in the middle of service to kill the impious gamester in his pew, as +happened, to the immense scandal and solemnization of everybody, at +Withycombe, in Devonshire. + +On the whole, it is amusing to find that the same faults and the same +dangers which occupy our satirists to-day were pronounced imminent for +women two hundred years ago. The ladies of Charles II's reign were a +little coarser, a little primmer, a good deal more ignorant than those +of our age. Their manners were on great occasions much better, and on +small occasions much worse, than those of their descendants of 1895; +but the same human nature prevailed. The author of _The Ladies' +Calling_ considered that the greatest danger of his congregation lay +in the fact that "the female Sex is eminent for its pungency in the +sensible passion of love"; and, although we take other modes of saying +it, that is true now. + + _Edmund Gosse._ + + + + +STEELE'S LETTERS + + +On the 19th of May, 1708, Her Majesty Queen Anne being then upon the +throne of Great Britain and Ireland, a coach with two horses, gaudy +rather than neat in its appointments, drew up at the door of my Lord +Sunderland's office in Whitehall. It contained a lady about thirty, of +considerable personal attractions, and dressed richly in cinnamon +satin. She was a brunette, with a rather high forehead, the height of +which was ingeniously broken by two short locks upon the temples. +Moreover, she had distinctly fine eyes, and a mouth which, in its +normal state, must have been arch and pretty, but was now drawn down +at the corners under the influence of some temporary irritation. As +the coach stopped, a provincial-looking servant promptly alighted, +pulled out from the box-seat a large case of the kind used for +preserving the voluminous periwigs of the period, and subsequently +extracted from the same receptacle a pair of shining new shoes with +square toes and silver buckles. These, with the case, he carried +carefully into the house, returning shortly afterwards. Then ensued +what, upon the stage, would be called "an interval" during which time +the high forehead of the lady began to cloud visibly with impatience, +and the corners of her mouth to grow more ominous. At length, about +twenty minutes later, came a sound of laughter and noisy voices; and +by-and-by bustled out of the Cockpit portal a square-shouldered, +square-faced man in a rich dress, which, like the coach, was a little +showy. He wore a huge black full-bottomed periwig. Speaking with a +marked Irish accent, he made profuse apologies to the occupant of the +carriage--apologies which, as might be expected, were not well +received. An expression of vexation came over his good-tempered face +as he took his seat at the lady's side, and he lapsed for a few +minutes into a moody silence. But before they had gone many yards, his +dark, deep-set eyes began to twinkle once more as he looked about him. +When they passed the Tilt-Yard a detachment of the Second Troop of +Life Guards, magnificent in their laced red coats, jack boots, and +white feathers, came pacing out on their black horses. They took their +way towards Charing Cross, and for a short distance followed the same +route as the chariot. The lady was loftily indifferent to their +presence; and she was, besides, on the further side of the vehicle. +But her companion manifestly recognized some old acquaintances among +them, and was highly gratified at being recognized in his turn, +although at the same time it was evident he was also a little +apprehensive lest the "Gentlemen of the Guard," as they were called, +should be needlessly demonstrative in their acknowledgment of his +existence. After this, nothing more of moment occurred. Slowly +mounting St. James's Street, the coach turned down Piccadilly, and, +passing between the groups of lounging lackeys at the gate, entered +Hyde Park. Here, by the time it had once made the circuit of the Ring, +the lady's equanimity was completely restored, and the gentleman was +radiant. He was, in truth, to use his own words, "no undelightful +Companion." He possessed an infinite fund of wit and humour; and his +manner to women had a sincerity of deference which was not the +prevailing characteristic of his age. + +There is but slender invention in this little picture. The gentleman +was Captain Steele, late of the Life Guards, the Coldstreams, and +Lucas's regiment of foot, now Gazetteer, and Gentleman Waiter to Queen +Anne's consort, Prince George of Denmark, and not yet "Mr. Isaac +Bickerstaff" of the immortal Tatler. The lady was Mrs. Steele, _née_ +Miss Mary Scurlock, his "Ruler" and "absolute Governesse" (as he +called her), to whom he had been married some eight months before. If +you ask at the British Museum for the Steele manuscripts (Add. MSS. +5,145, A, B, and C), the courteous attendant will bring you, with its +faded ink, dusky paper, and hasty scrawl, the very letter making +arrangements for this meeting ("best Periwigg" and "new Shoes" +included), at the end of which the writer assures his "dear Prue" +(another pet name) that she is "Vitall Life to Yr. Oblig'd +Affectionate Husband & Humble Sernt. Richd. Steele." There are many +such in the _quarto_ volume of which this forms part, written from all +places, at all times, in all kinds of hands. They take all tones; they +are passionate, tender, expostulatory, playful, dignified, lyric, +didactic. It must be confessed that from a perusal of them one's +feeling for the lady of the chariot is not entirely unsympathetic. It +can scarcely have been an ideal household, that "third door right hand +turning out of Jermyn Street," to which so many of them are addressed; +and Mrs. Steele must frequently have had to complain to her +_confidante_, Mrs. (or Miss) Binns (a lady whom Steele is obviously +anxious to propitiate), of the extraordinary irregularity of her +restless lord and master. Now a friend from Barbados has stopped him +on his way home, and he will come (he writes) "within a Pint of Wine"; +now it is Lord Sunderland who is keeping him indefinitely at the +Council; now the siege of Lille and the proofs of the "Gazette" will +detain him until ten at night. Sometimes his vague "West Indian +business" (that is, his first wife's property) hurries him suddenly +into the City; sometimes he is borne off to the Gentleman Ushers' +table at St. James's. Sometimes, even, he stays out all night, as he +had done not many days before the date of the above meeting, when he +had written to beg that his dressing-gown, his slippers, and "clean +Linnen" might be sent to him at "one Legg's," a barber "over against +the Devill Tavern at Charing Cross," where he proposes to lie that +night, chiefly, it has been conjectured from the context, in order to +escape certain watchful "shoulder-dabbers" who were hanging +obstinately about his own mansion in St. James's. For--to tell the +truth--he was generally hopelessly embarrassed, and scarcely ever +without a lawsuit on his hands. He was not a bad man; he was not +necessarily vicious or dissolute. But his habits were incurably +generous, profuse, and improvident; and his sanguine Irish nature led +him continually to mistake his expectations for his income. Naturally, +perhaps, his "absolute Governesse" complained of an absolutism so +strangely limited. If her affection for him was scarcely as ardent as +his passion for her, it was still a genuine emotion. But to a coquette +of some years' standing, and "a cried-up beauty" (as Mrs. Manley calls +her), the realities of her married life must have been a cruel +disappointment; and she was not the woman to conceal it. "I wish," +says her husband in one of his letters, "I knew how to Court you into +Good Humour, for Two or Three Quarrells more will dispatch me quite." +Of her replies we have no knowledge; but from scattered specimens of +her style when angry, they must often have been exceptionally scornful +and unconciliatory. On one occasion, where he addresses her as +"Madam," and returns her note to her in order that she may see, upon +second thoughts, the disrespectful manner in which she treats him, he +is evidently deeply wounded. She has said that their dispute is far +from being a trouble to her, and he rejoins that to him any +disturbance between them is the greatest affliction imaginable. And +then he goes on to expostulate, with more dignity than usual, against +her unreasonable use of her prerogative. "I Love you," he says, +"better than the light of my Eyes, or the life-blood in my Heart but +when I have lett you know that, you are also to understand that +neither my sight shall be so far inchanted, or my affection so much +master of me as to make me forgett our common Interest. To attend my +businesse as I ought and improve my fortune it is necessary that my +time and my Will should be under no direction but my own." Clearly his +bosom's queen had been inquiring too closely into his goings and +comings. It is a strange thing, he says, in another letter, that, +because she is handsome, he must be always giving her an account of +every trifle, and minute of his time. And again--"Dear Prue, do not +send after me, for I shall be ridiculous!" It had happened to him, no +doubt. "He is governed by his wife most abominably, as bad as +Marlborough," says another contemporary letter-writer. And we may +fancy the blue eyes of Dr. Swift flashing unutterable scorn as he +scribbles off this piece of intelligence to Stella and Mrs. Dingley. + +In the letters which follow Steele's above-quoted expostulation, the +embers of misunderstanding flame and fade, to flame and fade again. A +word or two of kindness makes him rapturous; a harsh expression sinks +him to despair. As time goes on, the letters grow fewer, and the +writers grow more used to each other's ways. But to the last Steele's +affectionate nature takes fire upon the least encouragement. Once, +years afterwards, when Prue is in the country and he is in London, and +she calls him "Good Dick," it throws him into such a transport that he +declares he could forget his gout, and walk down to her at Wales. "My +dear little peevish, beautiful, wise Governess, God bless you," the +letter ends. In another he assures her that, lying in her place and on +her pillow, he fell into tears from thinking that his "charming little +insolent might be then awake and in pain" with headache. She wants +flattery, she says, and he flatters her. "Her son," he declares, "is +extremely pretty, and has his face sweetened with something of the +Venus his mother, which is no small delight to the Vulcan who begot +him." He assures her that, though she talks of the children, they are +dear to him more because they are hers than because they are his +own.[54] And this reminds us that some of the best of his later +letters are about his family. Once, at this time of their mother's +absence in Wales, he says that he has invited his eldest daughter to +dinner with one of her teachers, because she had represented to him +"in her pretty language that she seemed helpless and friendless, +without anybody's taking notice of her at Christmas, when all the +children but she and two more were with their relations." So now they +are in the room where he is writing. "I told Betty," he adds, "I had +writ to you; and she made me open the letter again, and give her +humble duty to her mother, and desire to know when she shall have the +honour to see her in town." No doubt this was in strict accordance +with the proprieties as practised at Mrs. Nazereau's polite academy in +Chelsea; but somehow one suspects that "Madam Betty" would scarcely +have addressed the writer of the letter with the same boarding-school +formality. Elsewhere the talk is all of Eugene, the eldest boy. "Your +son, at the present writing, is mighty well employed in tumbling on +the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a +most delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a +very great scholar: he can read his Primer; and I have brought down my +Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks upon the pictures. We are very +intimate friends and play-fellows." Yes: decidedly Steele's children +must have loved their clever, faulty, kindly father. + +[Footnote 54: A few sentences in this paper are borrowed from the +writer's "Life of Steele," 1886.] + + _Austin Dobson._ + + + + +A DEFENCE OF NONSENSE + + +There are two equal and eternal ways of looking at this twilight world +of ours: we may see it as the twilight of evening or the twilight of +morning; we may think of anything, down to a fallen acorn, as a +descendant or as an ancestor. There are times when we are almost +crushed, not so much with the load of the evil as with the load of the +goodness of humanity, when we feel that we are nothing but the +inheritors of a humiliating splendour. But there are other times when +everything seems primitive, when the ancient stars are only sparks +blown from a boy's bonfire, when the whole earth seems so young and +experimental that even the white hair of the aged, in the fine +biblical phrase, is like almond-trees that blossom, like the white +hawthorn grown in May. That it is good for a man to realize that he is +"the heir of all the ages" is pretty commonly admitted; it is a less +popular but equally important point that it is good for him sometimes +to realize that he is not only an ancestor, but an ancestor of primal +antiquity; it is good for him to wonder whether he is not a hero, and +to experience ennobling doubts as to whether he is not a solar myth. + +The matters which most thoroughly evoke this sense of the abiding +childhood of the world are those which are really fresh, abrupt and +inventive in any age; and if we were asked what was the best proof of +this adventurous youth in the nineteenth century we should say, with +all respect to its portentous sciences and philosophies, that it was +to be found in the rhymes of Mr. Edward Lear and in the literature of +nonsense. "The Dong with the Luminous Nose," at least, is original, as +the first ship and the first plough were original. + +It is true in a certain sense that some of the greatest writers the +world has seen--Aristophanes, Rabelais and Sterne--have written +nonsense; but unless we are mistaken, it is in a widely different +sense. The nonsense of these men was satiric--that is to say, +symbolic; it was a kind of exuberant capering round a discovered +truth. There is all the difference in the world between the instinct +of satire, which, seeing in the Kaiser's moustaches something typical +of him, draws them continually larger and larger; and the instinct of +nonsense which, for no reason whatever, imagines what those moustaches +would look like on the present Archbishop of Canterbury if he grew +them in a fit of absence of mind. We incline to think that no age +except our own could have understood that the Quangle-Wangle meant +absolutely nothing, and the Lands of the Jumblies were absolutely +nowhere. We fancy that if the account of the knave's trial in "Alice +in Wonderland" had been published in the seventeenth century it would +have been bracketed with Bunyan's "Trial of Faithful" as a parody on +the State prosecutions of the time. We fancy that if "The Dong with +the Luminous Nose" had appeared in the same period every one would +have called it a dull satire on Oliver Cromwell. + +It is altogether advisedly that we quote chiefly from Mr. Lear's +"Nonsense Rhymes." To our mind he is both chronologically and +essentially the father of nonsense; we think him superior to Lewis +Carroll. In one sense, indeed, Lewis Carroll has a great advantage. We +know what Lewis Carroll was in daily life: he was a singularly serious +and conventional don, universally respected, but very much of a pedant +and something of a Philistine. Thus his strange double life in earth +and in dreamland emphasizes the idea that lies at the back of +nonsense--the idea of _escape_, of escape into a world where things +are not fixed horribly in an eternal appropriateness, where apples +grow on pear-trees, and any odd man you meet may have three legs. +Lewis Carroll, living one life in which he would have thundered +morally against any one who walked on the wrong plot of grass, and +another life in which he would cheerfully call the sun green and the +moon blue, was, by his very divided nature, his one foot on both +worlds, a perfect type of the position of modern nonsense. His +Wonderland is a country populated by insane mathematicians. We feel +the whole is an escape into a world of masquerade; we feel that if we +could pierce their disguises, we might discover that Humpty Dumpty and +the March Hare were Professors and Doctors of Divinity enjoying a +mental holiday. This sense of escape is certainly less emphatic in +Edward Lear, because of the completeness of his citizenship in the +world of unreason. We do not know his prosaic biography as we know +Lewis Carroll's. We accept him as a purely fabulous figure, on his own +description of himself: + + "His body is perfectly spherical, + He weareth a runcible hat." + +While Lewis Carroll's Wonderland is purely intellectual, Lear +introduces quite another element--the element of the poetical and even +emotional. Carroll works by the pure reason, but this is not so strong +a contrast; for, after all, mankind in the main has always regarded +reason as a bit of a joke. Lear introduces his unmeaning words and his +amorphous creatures not with the pomp of reason, but with the romantic +prelude of rich hues and haunting rhythms. + + "Far and few, far and few, + Are the lands where the Jumblies live," + +is an entirely different type of poetry to that exhibited in +"Jabberwocky." Carroll, with a sense of mathematical neatness, makes +his whole poem a mosaic of new and mysterious words. But Edward Lear, +with more subtle and placid effrontery, is always introducing scraps +of his own elvish dialect into the middle of simple and rational +statements, until we are almost stunned into admitting that we know +what they mean. There is a genial ring of common sense about such +lines as, + + "For his aunt Jobiska said 'Every one knows + That a Pobble is better without his toes,'" + +which is beyond the reach of Carroll. The poet seems so easy on the +matter that we are almost driven to pretend that we see his meaning, +that we know the peculiar difficulties of a Pobble, that we are as old +travellers in the "Gromboolian Plain" as he is. + +Our claim that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a new +sense) would be quite indefensible if nonsense were nothing more than +a mere ęsthetic fancy. Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out +of mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has ever +arisen out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soil +for any great ęsthetic growth. The principle of _art for art's sake_ +is a very good principle if it means that there is a vital distinction +between the earth and the tree that has its roots in the earth; but it +is a very bad principle if it means that the tree could grow just as +well with its roots in the air. Every great literature has always been +allegorical--allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The +"Iliad" is only great because all life is a battle, the "Odyssey" +because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a +riddle. There is one attitude in which we think that all existence is +summed up in the word "ghosts"; another, and somewhat better one, in +which we think it is summed up in the words "A Midsummer Night's +Dream." Even the vulgarest melodrama or detective story can be good if +it expresses something of the delight in sinister possibilities--the +healthy lust for darkness and terror which may come on us any night in +walking down a dark lane. If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the +literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos +to offer; the world must not only be the tragic, romantic, and +religious, it must be nonsensical also. And here we fancy that +nonsense will, in a very unexpected way, come to the aid of the +spiritual view of things. Religion has for centuries been trying to +make men exult in the "wonders" of creation, but it has forgotten that +a thing cannot be completely wonderful so long as it remains sensible. +So long as we regard a tree as an obvious thing, naturally and +reasonably created for a giraffe to eat, we cannot properly wonder at +it. It is when we consider it as a prodigious wave of the living soil +sprawling up to the skies for no reason in particular that we take off +our hats, to the astonishment of the park-keeper. Everything has in +fact another side to it, like the moon, the patroness of nonsense. +Viewed from that other side, a bird is a blossom broken loose from its +chain of stalk, a man a quadruped begging on its hind legs, a house a +gigantesque hat to cover a man from the sun, a chair an apparatus of +four wooden legs for a cripple with only two. + +This is the side of things which tends most truly to spiritual wonder. +It is significant that in the greatest religious poem existent, the +Book of Job, the argument which convinces the infidel is not (as has +been represented by the merely rational religionism of the eighteenth +century) a picture of the ordered beneficence of the Creation; but, on +the contrary, a picture of the huge and undecipherable unreason of it. +"Hast Thou sent the rain upon the desert where no man is?" This simple +sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant +independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial +definitions, is the basis of spirituality as it is the basis of +nonsense. Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are +the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the +soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out +Leviathan with a hook. The well-meaning person who, by merely studying +the logical side of things, has decided that "faith is nonsense," does +not know how truly he speaks; later it may come back to him in the +form that nonsense is faith. + + _G. K. Chesterton._ + + + + +THE COLOUR OF LIFE + + +Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the +true colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of +life broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the +colour of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Once +fully visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act of +betrayal and of waste. Red is the secret of life, and not the +manifestation thereof. It is one of the things the value of which is +secrecy, one of the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. The +true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the +covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and +the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood. So +bright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life is +outdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it is +white, but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth; +red, but less red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucid +than the colour of lilies. It has the hint of gold that is in all fine +colour; but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive. Under +Sicilian skies, indeed, it is deeper than old ivory; but under the +misty blue of the English zenith, and the warm grey of the London +horizon, it is as delicately flushed as the paler wild roses, out to +their utmost, flat as stars, in the hedges of the end of June. + +For months together London does not see the colour of life in any +mass. The human face does not give much of it, what with features, and +beards, and the shadow of the top-hat and _chapeau melon_ of man, and +of the veils of woman. Besides, the colour of the face is subject to a +thousand injuries and accidents. The popular face of the Londoner has +soon lost its gold, its white, and the delicacy of its red and brown. +We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in +great numbers out-of-doors. You get it in some quantity when all the +heads of a great indoor meeting are turned at once upon a speaker; but +it is only in the open air, needless to say, that the colour of life +is in perfection, in the open air, "clothed with the sun," whether the +sunshine be golden and direct, or dazzlingly diffused in grey. + +The little figure of the London boy it is that has restored to the +landscape the human colour of life. He is allowed to come out of all +his ignominies, and to take the late colour of the midsummer +north-west evening, on the borders of the Serpentine. At the stroke of +eight he sheds the slough of nameless colours--all allied to the hues +of dust, soot, and fog, which are the colours the world has chosen for +its boys--and he makes, in his hundreds, a bright and delicate flush +between the grey-blue water and the grey-blue sky. Clothed now with +the sun, he is crowned by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes to +bathe, and the reflection of an early moon is under his feet. + +So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature. They +are so quickly restored. There seems to be nothing to do, but only a +little thing to undo. It is like the art of Eleonora Duse. The last +and most finished action of her intellect, passion, and knowledge is, +as it were, the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken for +art by other actors, some little obstacle to the way and liberty of +Nature. + +All the squalor is gone in a moment, kicked off with the second boot, +and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking +colour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he +still shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and +elastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, +his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening +midsummer sun, he gives his colours to his world again. + +It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, where +Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature. It is always to do, by the +happily easy way of doing nothing. The grass is always ready to grow +in the streets--and no streets could ask for a more charming finish +than your green grass. The gasometer even must fall to pieces unless +it is renewed; but the grass renews itself. There is nothing so +remediable as the work of modern man--"a thought which is also," as +Mr. Pecksniff said, "very soothing." And by remediable I mean, of +course, destructible. As the bathing child shuffles off his +garments--they are few, and one brace suffices him--so the land might +always, in reasonable time, shuffle off its yellow brick and purple +slate, and all the things that collect about railway stations. A +single night almost clears the air of London. + +But if the colour of life looks so well in the rather sham scenery of +Hyde Park, it looks brilliant and grave indeed on a real sea-coast. To +have once seen it there should be enough to make a colourist. O +memorable little picture! The sun was gaining colour as it neared +setting, and it set not over the sea, but over the land. The sea had +the dark and rather stern, but not cold, blue of that aspect--the dark +and not the opal tints. The sky was also deep. Everything was very +definite, without mystery, and exceedingly simple. The most luminous +thing was the shining white of an edge of foam, which did not cease to +be white because it was a little golden and a little rosy in the +sunshine. It was still the whitest thing imaginable. And the next most +luminous thing was the little child, also invested with the sun and +the colour of life. + +In the case of women, it is of the living and unpublished blood that +the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed. See the +curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution. +On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of +party. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a trifle +when you consider how generously she was permitted political death. +She was to spin and cook for her citizen in the obscurity of her +living hours; but to the hour of her death was granted a part in the +largest interests, social, national, international. The blood +wherewith she should, according to Robespierre, have blushed to be +seen or heard in the tribune, was exposed in the public sight +unsheltered by her veins. + +Against this there was no modesty. Of all privacies, the last and the +innermost--the privacy of death--was never allowed to put obstacles in +the way of public action for a public cause. Women might be, and were, +duly suppressed when, by the mouth of Olympe de Gouges, they claimed a +"right to concur in the choice of representatives for the formation of +the laws"; but in her person, too, they were liberally allowed to bear +political responsibility to the Republic. Olympe de Gouges was +guillotined. Robespierre thus made her public and complete amends. + + _Alice Meynell._ + + + + +A FUNERAL + + +It was in a Surrey churchyard on a grey, damp afternoon--all very +solitary and quiet, with no alien spectators and only a very few +mourners; and no desolating sense of loss, although a very true and +kindly friend was passing from us. A football match was in progress in +a field adjoining the churchyard, and I wondered, as I stood by the +grave, if, were I the schoolmaster, I would stop the game just for the +few minutes during which a body was committed to the earth; and I +decided that I would not. In the midst of death we are in life, just +as in the midst of life we are in death; it is all as it should be in +this bizarre, jostling world. And he whom we had come to bury would +have been the first to wish the boys to go on with their sport. + +He was an old scholar--not so very old, either--whom I had known for +some five years, and had many a long walk with: a short and sturdy +Irish gentleman, with a large, genial grey head stored with odd lore +and the best literature; and the heart of a child. I never knew a man +of so transparent a character. He showed you all his thoughts: as some +one once said, his brain was like a beehive under glass--you could +watch all its workings. And the honey in it! To walk with him at any +season of the year was to be reminded or newly told of the best that +the English poets have said on all the phenomena of wood and hedgerow, +meadow and sky. He had the more lyrical passages of Shakespeare at his +tongue's end, and all Wordsworth and Keats. These were his favourites; +but he had read everything that has the true rapturous note, and had +forgotten none of its spirit. + +His life was divided between his books, his friends, and long walks. A +solitary man, he worked at all hours without much method, and probably +courted his fatal illness in this way. To his own name there is not +much to show; but such was his liberality that he was continually +helping others, and the fruits of his erudition are widely scattered, +and have gone to increase many a comparative stranger's reputation. +His own _magnum opus_ he left unfinished; he had worked at it for +years, until to his friends it had come to be something of a joke. But +though still shapeless, it was a great feast, as the world, I hope, +will one day know. If, however, this treasure does not reach the +world, it will not be because its worth was insufficient, but because +no one can be found to decipher the manuscript; for I may say +incidentally that our old friend wrote the worst hand in London, and +it was not an uncommon experience of his correspondents to carry his +missives from one pair of eyes to another, seeking a clue; and I +remember on one occasion two such inquirers meeting unexpectedly, and +each simultaneously drawing a letter from his pocket and uttering the +request that the other should put everything else on one side in order +to solve the enigma. + +Lack of method and a haphazard and unlimited generosity were not his +only Irish qualities. He had a quick, chivalrous temper, too, and I +remember the difficulty I once had in restraining him from leaping the +counter of a small tobacconist's in Great Portland Street, to give the +man a good dressing for an imagined rudeness--not to himself, but to +me. And there is more than one 'bus conductor in London who has cause +to remember this sturdy Quixotic passenger's championship of a poor +woman to whom insufficient courtesy seemed to him to have been shown. +Normally kindly and tolerant, his indignation on hearing of injustice +was red hot. He burned at a story of meanness. It would haunt him all +the evening. "Can it really be true?" he would ask, and burst forth +again to flame. + +Abstemious himself in all things, save reading and writing and helping +his friends and correspondents, he mixed excellent whisky punch, as he +called it. He brought to this office all the concentration which he +lacked in his literary labours. It was a ritual with him; nothing +might be hurried or left undone, and the result, I might say, +justified the means. His death reduces the number of such convivial +alchemists to one only, and he is in Tasmania, and, so far as I am +concerned, useless. + +His avidity as a reader--his desire to master his subject--led to some +charming eccentricities, as when, for a daily journey between Earl's +Court Road and Addison Road stations, he would carry a heavy hand-bag +filled with books, "to read in the train." This was no satire on the +railway system, but pure zeal. He had indeed no satire in him; he +spoke his mind and it was over. + +It was a curious little company that assembled to do honour to this +old kindly bachelor--the two or three relatives that he possessed, and +eight of his literary friends, most of them of a good age, and for the +most part men of intellect, and in one or two cases of world-wide +reputation, and all a little uncomfortable in unwonted formal black. +We were very grave and thoughtful, but it was not exactly a sad +funeral, for we knew that had he lived longer--he was sixty-three--he +would certainly have been an invalid, which would have irked his +active, restless mind and body almost unbearably; and we knew, also, +that he had died in his first real illness after a very happy life. +Since we knew this, and also that he was a bachelor and almost alone, +those of us who were not his kin were not melted and unstrung by that +poignant sense of untimely loss and irreparable removal that makes +some funerals so tragic; but death, however it come, is a mystery +before which one cannot stand unmoved and unregretful; and I, for one, +as I stood there, remembered how easy it would have been oftener to +have ascended to his eyrie and lured him out into Hertfordshire or his +beloved Epping, or even have dragged him away to dinner and whisky +punch; and I found myself meditating, too, as the profoundly +impressive service rolled on, how melancholy it was that all that +storied brain, with its thousands of exquisite phrases and its perhaps +unrivalled knowledge of Shakespearean philology, should have ceased to +be. For such a cessation, at any rate, say what one will of +immortality, is part of the sting of death, part of the victory of the +grave, which St. Paul denied with such magnificent irony. + +And then we filed out into the churchyard, which is a new and very +large one, although the church is old, and at a snail's pace, led by +the clergyman, we crept along, a little black company, for, I suppose, +nearly a quarter of a mile, under the cold grey sky. As I said, many +of us were old, and most of us were indoor men, and I was amused to +see how close to the head some of us held our hats--the merest +barleycorn of interval being maintained for reverence' sake; whereas +the sexton and the clergyman had slipped on those black velvet +skull-caps which God, in His infinite mercy, either completely +overlooks, or seeing, smiles at. And there our old friend was +committed to the earth, amid the contending shouts of the football +players, and then we all clapped our hats on our heads with firmness +(as he would have wished us to do long before), and returned to the +town to drink tea in an ancient hostelry, and exchange memories, +quaint, and humorous, and touching, and beautiful, of the dead. + + _E. V. Lucas._ + + + + +FIRES + + +A Friend of mine making a list of the things needed for the cottage +that he had taken, put at the head "bellows." Then he thought for some +minutes, and was found merely to have added "tongs" and "poker." Then +he asked someone to finish it. A fire, indeed, furnishes. Nothing +else, not even a chair, is absolutely necessary; and it is difficult +for a fire to be too large. Some of the grates put into modern houses +by the jerry-builders would move an Elizabethan to tears, so petty and +mean are they, and so incapable of radiation. We English people would +suffer no loss in kindliness and tolerance were the inglenook restored +to our homes. The ingle humanises. + +Although the father of the family no longer, as in ancient Greece, +performs on the hearth religious rites, yet it is still a sacred spot. +Lovers whisper there, and there friends exchange confidences. Husband +and wife face the fire hand in hand. The table is for wit and good +humour, the hearth is for something deeper and more personal. The +wisest counsels are offered beside the fire, the most loving sympathy +and comprehension are there made explicit. It is the scene of the best +dual companionship. The fire itself is a friend, having the prime +attribute--warmth. One of the most human passages of that most human +poem, _The Deserted Village_, tells how the wanderer was now and again +taken by the memory of the hearth of his distant home:-- + + "I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, + Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ... + Around my fire an evening group to draw, + And tell of all I felt, and all I saw...." + +Only by the fireside could a man so unbosom himself. A good fire +extracts one's best; it will not be resisted. FitzGerald's "Meadows in +Spring" contains some of the best fireside stanzas:-- + + "Then with an old friend + I talk of our youth-- + How 'twas gladsome, but often + Foolish, forsooth: + But gladsome, gladsome! + + Or to get merry + We sing some old rhyme, + That made the wood ring again + In summer time-- + Sweet summer time! + + Then we go to drinking, + Silent and snug; + Nothing passes between us + Save a brown jug-- + Sometimes! + + And sometimes a tear + Will rise in each eye, + Seeing the two old friends + So merrily-- + So merrily!" + +The hearth also is for ghost stories; indeed, a ghost story demands a +fire. If England were warmed wholly by hot-water pipes or gas stoves, +the Society for Psychical Research would be dissolved. Gas stoves are +poor comforters. They heat the room, it is true, but they do so after +a manner of their own, and there they stop. For encouragement, for +inspiration, you seek the gas stove in vain. Who could be witty, who +could be humane, before a gas stove? It does so little for the eye and +nothing for the imagination; its flame is so artificial and restricted +a thing, its glowing heart so shallow and ungenerous. It has no voice, +no personality, no surprises; it submits to the control of a gas +company, which, in its turn, is controlled by Parliament. Now, a fire +proper has nothing to do with Parliament. A fire proper has whims, +ambitions, and impulses unknown to gas-burners, undreamed of by +asbestos. Yet even the gas stove has advantages and merits when +compared with hot-water pipes. The gas stove at least offers a focus +for the eye, unworthy though it be; and you can make a semicircle of +good people before it. But with hot-water pipes not even that is +possible. From the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat whose +source is invisible is hardly to be coveted at all. Moreover, the heat +of hot-water pipes is but one remove from stuffiness. + +Coals are a perpetual surprise, for no two consignments burn exactly +alike. There is one variety that does not burn--it explodes. This kind +comes mainly from the slate quarries, and, we must believe, reaches +the coal merchant by accident. Few accidents, however, occur so +frequently. Another variety, found in its greatest perfection in +railway waiting-rooms, does everything but emit heat. A third variety +jumps and burns the hearthrug. One can predicate nothing definite +concerning a new load of coal at any time, least of all if the +consignment was ordered to be "exactly like the last." + +A true luxury is a fire in the bedroom. This is fire at its most +fanciful and mysterious. One lies in bed watching drowsily the play of +the flames, the flicker of the shadows. The light leaps up and hides +again, the room gradually becomes peopled with fantasies. Now and then +a coal drops and accentuates the silence. Movement with silence is one +of the curious influences that come to us: hence, perhaps, part of the +fascination of the cinematoscope, wherein trains rush into stations, +and streets are seen filled with hurrying people and bustling +vehicles, and yet there is no sound save the clicking of the +mechanism. With a fire in one's bedroom sleep comes witchingly. + +Another luxury is reading by firelight, but this is less to the credit +of the fire than the book. An author must have us in no uncertain grip +when he can induce us to read him by a light so impermanent as that of +the elfish coal. Nearer and nearer to the page grows the bended head, +and nearer and nearer to the fire moves the book. Boys and girls love +to read lying full length on the hearthrug. + +Some people maintain a fire from January to December; and, indeed, the +days on which a ruddy grate offends are very few. According to +Mortimer Collins, out of the three hundred and sixty-five days that +make up the year only on the odd five is a fire quite dispensable. A +perennial fire is, perhaps, luxury writ large. The very fact that +sunbeams falling on the coals dispirit them to greyness and +ineffectual pallor seems to prove that when the sun rides high it is +time to have done with fuel except in the kitchen or in the open air. + +The fire in the open air is indeed joy perpetual, and there is no +surer way of renewing one's youth than by kindling and tending it, +whether it be a rubbish fire for potatoes, or an aromatic offering of +pine spindles and fir cones, or the scientific structure of the gipsy +to heat a tripod-swung kettle. The gipsy's fire is a work of art. "Two +short sticks were stuck in the ground, and a third across to them like +a triangle. Against this frame a number of the smallest and driest +stick were leaned, so that they made a tiny hut. Outside these there +was a second layer of longer sticks, all standing, or rather leaning, +against the first. If a stick is placed across, lying horizontally, +supposing it catches fire, it just burns through the middle and that +is all, the ends go out. If it is stood nearly upright, the flame +draws up to it; it is certain to catch, burns longer, and leaves a +good ember." So wrote one who knew--Richard Jefferies, in _Bevis_, +that epic of boyhood. Having built the fire, the next thing is to +light it. An old gipsy woman can light a fire in a gale, just as a +sailor can always light his pipe, even in the cave of Ęolus; but the +amateur is less dexterous. The smoke of the open-air fire is charged +with memory. One whiff of it, and for a swift moment we are in +sympathy with our remotest ancestors, and all that is elemental and +primitive in us is awakened. + +An American poet, R. H. Messinger, wrote-- + + "Old wood to burn!-- + Ay, bring the hillside beech + From where the owlets meet and screech, + And ravens croak; + The crackling pine, the cedar sweet; + Bring, too, a clump of fragrant peat, + Dug 'neath the fern; + The knotted oak, + A faggot, too, perhaps, + Whose bright flame, dancing, winking, + Shall light us at our drinking; + While the oozing sap + Shall make sweet music to our thinking." + +There is no fire of coals, not even the blacksmith's, that can compare +with the blazing fire of wood. The wood fire is primeval. Centuries +before coals were dreamed of, our rude forefathers were cooking their +meat and gaining warmth from burning logs. + +Coal is modern, decadent. Look at this passage concerning fuel from an +old Irish poem:--"O man," begins the lay, "that for Fergus of the +feasts does kindle fire, whether afloat or ashore never burn the king +of woods.... The pliant woodbine, if thou burn, wailings for +misfortunes will abound; dire extremity at weapons' points or drowning +in great waves will come after thee. Burn not the precious apple +tree." The minstrel goes on to name wood after wood that may or may +not be burned. This is the crowning passage:--"Fiercest heat-giver of +all timber is green oak, from him none may escape unhurt; by +partiality for him the head is set on aching, and by his acrid embers +the eye is made sore. Alder, very battle-witch of all woods, tree that +is hottest in the fight--undoubtedly burn at thy discretion both the +alder and the white thorn. Holly, burn it green; holly, burn it dry; +of all trees whatsoever the critically best is holly." Could anyone +write with this enthusiasm and poetic feeling about Derby Brights and +Silkstone--even the best Silkstone and the best Derby Brights? + +The care of a wood fire is, in itself, daily work for a man; for far +more so than with coal is progress continuous. Something is always +taking place and demanding vigilance--hence the superiority of a wood +fire as a beguiling influence. The bellows must always be near at +hand, the tongs not out of reach; both of them more sensible +implements than those that usually appertain to coals. The tongs have +no pretensions to brightness and gentility; the bellows, quite apart +from their function in life, are a thing of beauty; the fire-dogs, on +whose backs the logs repose, are fine upstanding fellows; and the +bricks on which the fire is laid have warmth and simplicity and a +hospitable air to which decorative tiles can never attain. Again, +there is about the logs something cleanly, in charming contrast to the +dirt of coal. The wood hails from the neighbouring coppice. You have +watched it grow; your interest in it is personal, and its interest in +you is personal. It is as keen to warm you as you are to be warmed. +Now there is nothing so impersonal as a piece of coal. Moreover, this +wood was cut down and brought to the door by some good-humoured +countryman of your acquaintance, whereas coal is obtained by +miners--bad-tempered, truculent fellows that strike. Who ever heard of +a strike among coppicers? And the smoke from a wood fire!--clean and +sweet and pungent, and, against dark foliage, exquisite in colour as +the breast of a dove. The delicacy of its grey-blue is not to be +matched. + +Whittier's "Snow Bound" is the epic of the wood-piled hearth. +Throughout we hear the crackling of the brush, the hissing of the sap. +The texture of the fire was "the oaken log, green, huge, and thick, +and rugged brush":-- + + "Hovering near, + We watched the first red blaze appear, + Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam + On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, + Until the old, rude-furnished room + _Burst flower-like into rosy bloom_. + +That italicised line--my own italics--is good. For the best fire (as +for the best celery)--the fire most hearty, most inspired, and +inspiring--frost is needed. When old Jack is abroad and there is a +breath from the east in the air, then the sparks fly and the coals +glow. In moist and mild weather the fire only burns, it has no +enthusiasm for combustion. Whittier gives us a snowstorm:-- + + "Shut in from all the world without, + We sat the clean-winged hearth about, + Content to let the north wind roar + In baffled rage at pane and door, + While the red logs before us beat + The frost line back with tropic heat; + And ever, when a louder blast + Shook beam and rafter as it passed, + The merrier up its roaring draught + _The great throat of the chimney laughed_." + +But the wood fire is not for all. In London it is impracticable; the +builder has set his canon against it. Let us, then--those of us who +are able to--build our coal fires the higher, and nourish in their +kindly light. Whether one is alone or in company, the fire is potent +to cheer. Indeed, a fire _is_ company. No one need fear to be alone if +the grate but glows. Faces in the fire will smile at him, mock him, +frown at him, call and repulse; or, if there be no faces, the smoke +will take a thousand shapes and lead his thoughts by delightful paths +to the land of reverie; or he may watch the innermost heart of the +fire burn blue (especially if there is frost in the air); or, poker in +hand, he may coax a coal into increased vivacity. This is an agreeable +diversion, suggesting the medięval idea of the Devil in his domain. + + _E. V. Lucas._ + + + + +THE LAST GLEEMAN + + +Michael Moran was born about 1794 off Black Pitts, in the Liberties of +Dublin, in Faddle Alley. A fortnight after birth he went stone blind +from illness, and became thereby a blessing to his parents, who were +soon able to send him to rhyme and beg at street corners and at the +bridges over the Liffey. They may well have wished that their quiver +were full of such as he, for, free from the interruption of sight, his +mind became a perfect echoing chamber, where every movement of the day +and every change of public passion whispered itself into rhyme or +quaint saying. By the time he had grown to manhood he was the admitted +rector of all the ballad-mongers of the Liberties. Madden, the weaver, +Kearney, the blind fiddler from Wicklow, Martin from Meath, M'Bride +from heaven knows where, and that M'Grane, who in after days, when the +true Moran was no more, strutted in borrowed plumes, or rather in +borrowed rags, and gave out that there had never been any Moran but +himself, and many another, did homage before him, and held him chief +of all their tribe. Nor despite his blindness did he find any +difficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose, +for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dear +to the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventional +herself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. Nor did +he lack despite his rags many excellent things, for it is remembered +that he ever loved caper sauce, going so far indeed in his honest +indignation at its absence upon one occasion as to fling a leg of +mutton at his wife. He was not, however, much to look at, with his +coarse frieze coat with its cape and scalloped edge, his old corduroy +trousers and great brogues, and his stout stick made fast to his wrist +by a thong of leather: and he would have been a woeful shock to the +gleeman MacConglinne could that friend of kings have beheld him in +prophetic vision from the pillar stone at Cork. And yet though the +short cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a true +gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. In the +morning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbour +would read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until he +interrupted with, "That'll do--I have me meditations;" and from these +meditations would come the day's store of jest and rhyme. He had the +whole Middle Ages under his frieze coat. + +He had not, however, MacConglinne's hatred of the Church and clergy, +for when the fruit of his meditations did not ripen well, or when the +crowd called for something more solid, he would recite or sing a +metrical tale or ballad of saint or martyr or of Biblical adventure. +He would stand at a street corner, and when a crowd had gathered would +begin in some such fashion as follows (I copy the record of one who +knew him)--"Gather round me, boys, gather round me. Boys, am I +standin' in puddle? am I standin' in wet?" Thereon several boys would +cry, "Ah, no! yez not! yer in a nice dry place. Go on with _St. Mary_; +go on with _Moses_"--each calling for his favourite tale. Then Moran, +with a suspicious wriggle of his body and a clutch at his rags, would +burst out with "All me buzzim friends are turned backbiters;" and +after a final "If yez don't drop your coddin' and deversion I'll lave +some of yez a case," by way of warning to the boys, begin his +recitation, or perhaps still delay, to ask, "Is there a crowd around +me now? Any blackguard heretic around me?" The best-known of his +religious tales was _St. Mary of Egypt_, a long poem of exceeding +solemnity, condensed from the much longer work of a certain Bishop +Coyle. It told how a fast woman of Egypt, Mary by name, followed +pilgrims to Jerusalem for no good purpose, and then, turning penitent +on finding herself withheld from entering the Temple by supernatural +interference, fled to the desert and spent the remainder of her life +in solitary penance. When at last she was at the point of death, God +sent Bishop Zozimus to hear her confession, give her the last +sacrament, and with the help of a lion, whom He sent also, dig her +grave. The poem has the intolerable cadence of the eighteenth century, +but was so popular and so often called for that Moran was soon +nicknamed Zozimus, and by that name is he remembered. He had also a +poem of his own called _Moses_, which went a little nearer poetry +without going very near. But he could ill brook solemnity, and before +long parodied his own verses in the following ragamuffin fashion: + + "In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile, + King Pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in style. + She tuk her dip, then walked unto the land, + To dry her royal pelt she ran along the strand. + A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw + A smiling babby in a wad o' straw. + She tuk it up, and said with accents mild, + ''Tare-and-agers, girls, which av yez owns the child?'" + +His humorous rhymes were, however, more often quips and cranks at the +expense of his contemporaries. It was his delight, for instance, to +remind a certain shoemaker, noted alike for display of wealth and for +personal uncleanness, of his inconsiderable origin in a song of which +but the first stanza has come down to us: + + "At the dirty end of Dirty Lane, + Liv'd a dirty cobbler, Dick Maclane; + His wife was in the old king's reign + A stout brave orange-woman. + On Essex Bridge she strained her throat, + And six-a-penny was her note. + But Dikey wore a bran-new coat, + He got among the yeomen. + He was a bigot, like his clan, + And in the streets he wildly sang, + O Roly, toly, toly raid, with his old jade." + +He had troubles of divers kinds, and numerous interlopers to face and +put down. Once an officious peeler arrested him as a vagabond, but was +triumphantly routed amid the laughter of the court, when Moran +reminded his worship of the precedent set by Homer, who was also, he +declared, a poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman. He had to face a +more serious difficulty as his fame grew. Various imitators started up +upon all sides. A certain actor, for instance, made as many guineas as +Moran did shillings by mimicking his sayings and his songs and his +get-up upon the stage. One night this actor was at supper with some +friends, when a dispute arose as to whether his mimicry was overdone +or not. It was agreed to settle it by an appeal to the mob. A +forty-shilling supper at a famous coffee-house was to be the wager. +The actor took up his station at Essex Bridge, a great haunt of +Moran's, and soon gathered a small crowd. He had scarce got through +"In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile," when Moran himself came up, +followed by another crowd. The crowds met in great excitement and +laughter. "Good Christians," cried the pretender, "is it possible that +any man would mock the poor dark man like that?" + +"Who's that? It's some imposhterer," replied Moran. + +"Begone, you wretch! it's you'ze the imposhterer. Don't you fear the +light of heaven being struck from your eyes for mocking the poor dark +man?" + +"Saints and angels, is there no protection against this? You're a most +inhuman blaguard to try to deprive me of my honest bread this way," +replied poor Moran. + +"And you, you wretch, won't let me go on with the beautiful poem. +Christian people, in your charity won't you beat this man away? he's +taking advantage of my darkness." + +The pretender, seeing that he was having the best of it, thanked the +people for their sympathy and protection, and went on with the poem, +Moran listening for a time in bewildered silence. After a while Moran +protested again with: + +"Is it possible that none of yez can know me? Don't yez see it's +myself; and that's some one else?" + +"Before I proceed any further in this lovely story," interrupted the +pretender, "I call on yez to contribute your charitable donations to +help me to go on." + +"Have you no sowl to be saved, you mocker of heaven?" cried Moran, put +completely beside himself by this last injury. "Would you rob the poor +as well as desave the world? O, was ever such wickedness known?" + +"I leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give +to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that +schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence. +While he was doing so, Moran started his _Mary of Egypt_, but the +indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, when +they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself. +The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of that +villain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" They led +him over to Moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a few +shillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them he +was indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and so +departed amid much enthusiasm, to eat the supper he had won. + +In April 1846 word was sent to the priest that Michael Moran was +dying. He found him at 15 (now 14-1/2) Patrick Street, on a straw bed, +in a room full of ragged ballad-singers come to cheer his last +moments. After his death the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and the +like, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to the +merriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, or +quaint rhyme. He had had his day, had said his prayers and made his +confession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? The +funeral took place the next day. A good party of his admirers and +friends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet and +nasty. They had not gone far when one of them burst out with "It's +cruel cowld, isn't it?" "Garra'," replied another, "we'll all be as +stiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "Bad cess to +him," said a third; "I wish he'd held out another month until the +weather got dacent." A man called Carroll thereupon produced a +half-pint of whiskey, and they all drank to the soul of the departed. +Unhappily, however, the hearse was over-weighted, and they had not +reached the cemetery before the spring broke, and the bottle with it. + +Moran must have felt strange and out of place in that other kingdom he +was entering, perhaps while his friends were drinking in his honour. +Let us hope that some kindly middle region was found for him, where he +can call dishevelled angels about him with some new and more +rhythmical form of his old + + "Gather round me, boys, will yez + Gather round me? + And hear what I have to say + Before ould Salley brings me + My bread and jug of tay;" + +and fling outrageous quips and cranks at cherubim and seraphim. +Perhaps he may have found and gathered, ragamuffin though he be, the +Lily of High Truth, the Rose of Far-sight Beauty, for whose lack so +many of the writers of Ireland, whether famous or forgotten, have been +futile as the blown froth upon the shore. + + _W. B. Yeats._ + + + + +A BROTHER OF ST. FRANCIS + + +When talking to a wise friend a while ago I told her of the feeling of +horror which had invaded me when watching a hippopotamus. + +"Indeed," said she, "you do not need to go to the hippopotamus for a +sensation. Look at a pig! There is something dire in the face of a +pig. To think the same power should have created it that created a +star!" + +Those who love beauty and peace are often tempted to scamp their +thinking, to avoid the elemental terrors that bring night into the +mind. Yet if the fearful things of life are there, why not pluck up +heart and look at them? Better have no Bluebeard's chamber in the +mind. Better go boldly in and see what hangs by the wall. So salt, so +medicinal is Truth, that even the bitterest draught may be made +wholesome to the gentlest soul. So I would recommend anyone who can +bear to think to leave the flower garden and go down and spend an hour +by the pigstye. + +There lies our friend in the sun upon his straw, blinking his clever +little eye. Half friendly is his look. (He does not know that +I--Heaven forgive me!--sometimes have bacon for breakfast!) Plainly, +with that gashed mouth, those dreadful cheeks, and that sprawl of his, +he belongs to an older world; that older world when first the mud and +slime rose and moved, and, roaring, found a voice: aye, and no doubt +enjoyed life, and in harsh and fearful sounds praised the Creator at +the sunrising. + +To prove the origin of the pig, let him out, and he will celebrate it +by making straight for the nearest mud and diving into it. So strange +is his aspect, so unreal to me, that it is almost as if the sunshine +falling upon him might dissolve him, and resolve him into his original +element. But no; there he is, perfectly real; as real as the good +Christians and philosophers who will eventually eat him. While he lies +there let me reflect in all charity on the disagreeable things I have +heard about him. + +He is dirty, people say. Nay, is he as dirty (or, at least, as +complicated in his dirt) as his brother man can be? Let those who know +the dens of London give the answer. Leave the pig to himself, and he +is not so bad. He knows his mother mud is cleansing; he rolls partly +because he loves her and partly because he wishes to be clean. + +He is greedy? In my mind's eye there rises the picture of human +gormandisers, fat-necked, with half-buried eyes and toddling step. How +long since the giant Gluttony was slain? or does he still keep his +monstrous table d'hōte? + +The pig pushes his brother from the trough? Why, that is a commonplace +of our life. There is a whole school of so-called philosophers and +political economists busied in elevating the pig's shove into a social +and political necessity. + +He screams horribly if you touch him or his share of victuals? I have +heard a polite gathering of the best people turn senseless and rave at +a mild suggestion of Christian Socialism. He is bitter-tempered? God +knows, so are we. He has carnal desires? The worst sinner is man. He +will fight? Look to the underside of war. He is cruel? Well, boys do +queer things sometimes. For the rest, read the blacker pages of +history; not as they are served up for the schoolroom by private +national vanity, but after the facts. + +If a cow or a sheep is sick or wounded and the pig can get at it, he +will worry it to death? So does tyranny with subject peoples. + +He loves to lie in the sun among his brothers, idle and at his ease? +Aye, but suppose this one called himself a lord pig and lay in the sun +with a necklace of gold about his throat and jewels in his ears, +having found means to drive his brethren (merry little pigs and all) +out of the sun for his own benefit, what should we say of him then? + +No; he has none of our cold cunning. He is all simplicity. I am told +it is possible to love him. I know a kindly Frenchwoman who takes her +pig for an airing on the sands of St. Michel-en-Grčve every summer +afternoon. Knitting, she walks along, and calls gaily and endearingly +to the delighted creature; he follows at a word, gambolling with +flapping ears over the ribs of sand, pasturing on shrimps and seaweed +while he enjoys the salt air. + +Clearly, then, the pig is our good little brother, and we have no +right to be disgusted at him. Clearly our own feet are planted in the +clay. Clearly the same Voice once called to our ears while yet +unformed. Clearly we, too, have arisen from that fearful bed, and the +slime of it clings to us still. Cleanse ourselves as we may, and +repenting, renew the whiteness of our garments, we and the nations are +for ever slipping back into the native element. What a fearful command +the "Be ye perfect" to earth-born creatures, but half-emerged, the +star upon their foreheads bespattered and dimmed! But let us (even +those of us who have courage to know the worst of man) take heart. In +the terror of our origin, in the struggle to stand upon our feet, to +cleanse ourselves, and cast an eye heavenward, our glory is come by. +The darker our naissance, the greater the terrors that have brooded +round that strife, the more august and puissant shines the angel in +man. + + _Grace Rhys._ + + + + +THE PILGRIMS' WAY + + +In the morning a storm comes up on bellying blue clouds above the pale +levels of young corn and round-topped trees black as night but gold at +their crests. The solid rain does away with all the hills, and shows +only the solitary thorns at the edge of an oak wood, or a row of +beeches above a hazel hedgerow and, beneath that, stars of stitchwort +in the drenched grass. But a little while and the sky is emptied and +in its infant blue there are white clouds with silver gloom in their +folds; and the light falls upon round hills, yew and beech thick upon +their humps, the coombes scalloped in their sides tenanted by oaks +beneath. By a grassy chalk pit and clustering black yew, white beam +and rampant clematis, is the Pilgrims' Way. Once more the sky empties +heavy and dark rain upon the bright trees so that they pant and quiver +while they take it joyfully into their deep hearts. Before the eye has +done with watching the dance and glitter of rain and the sway of +branches, the blue is again clear and like a meadow sprinkled over +with blossoming cherry trees. + +The decent vale consists of square green fields and park-like slopes, +dark pine and light beech: but beyond that the trees gather together +in low ridge after ridge so that the South Country seems a dense +forest from east to west. On one side of the hill road is a common of +level ash and oak woods, holly and thorn at their edges, and between +them and the dust a grassy tract, sometimes furzy; on the other, oaks +and beeches sacred to the pheasant but exposing countless cuckoo +flowers among the hazels of their underwood. Please trespass. The +English game preserve is a citadel of woodland charm, and however +precious, it has only one or two defenders easily eluded and, when +met, most courteous to all but children and not very well dressed +women. The burglar's must be a bewitching trade if we may judge by the +pleasures of the trespasser's unskilled labour. + +In the middle of the road is a four-went way, and the grassy or white +roads lead where you please among tall beeches or broad, crisp-leaved +shining thorns and brief open spaces given over to the mounds of ant +and mole, to gravel pits and heather. Is this the Pilgrims' Way, in +the valley now, a frail path chiefly through oak and hazel, sometimes +over whin and whinberry and heather and sand, but looking up at the +yews and beeches of the chalk hills? It passes a village pierced by +straight clear waters--a woodland church--woods of the willow +wren--and then, upon a promontory, alone, within the greenest mead +rippled up to its walls by but few graves, another church, dark, +squat, small-windowed, old, and from its position above the world +having the characters of church and beacon and fortress, calling for +all men's reverence. Up here in the rain it utters the pathos of the +old roads behind, wiped out as if writ in water, or worn deep and then +deserted and surviving only as tunnels under the hazels. I wish they +could always be as accessible as churches are, and not handed over to +land-owners--like Sandsbury Lane near Petersfield--because straight +new roads have taken their places for the purposes of tradesmen and +carriage people, or boarded up like that discarded fragment, +deep-sunken and overgrown, below Colman's Hatch in Surrey. For +centuries these roads seemed to hundreds so necessary, and men set out +upon them at dawn with hope and followed after joy and were fain of +their whiteness at evening: few turned this way or that out of them +except into others as well worn (those who have turned aside for +wantonness have left no trace at all), and most have been well content +to see the same things as those who went before and as they themselves +have seen a hundred times. And now they, as the sound of their feet +and the echoes, are dead, and the roads are but pleasant folds in the +grassy chalk. Stay, traveller, says the dark tower on the hill, and +tread softly because your way is over men's dreams; but not too long; +and now descend to the west as fast as feet can carry you, and follow +your own dream, and that also shall in course of time lie under men's +feet; for there is no going so sweet as upon the old dreams of men. + + _Edward Thomas._ + + + + +ON A GREAT WIND + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel +in those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save +their ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a +person than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of +way, in the largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, +it seems to mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind +comes roaring over the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving +over the Fens and the Wringland, it is like something of this island +that must go out and wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game +or a battle; and when, upon the western shores, the clouds come +bowling up from the horizon, messengers, outriders, or comrades of a +gale, it is something of the sea determined to possess the land. The +rising and falling of such power, its hesitations, its renewed +violence, its fatigue and final repose--all these are symbols of a +mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! It is the shouting +and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better +we can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength +is the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there +is no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is +strength too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as +fear; and that strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in +our own souls. For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the +abyss or panic at remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of +the succours of the mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with +all the forms of that Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the +savour of disease. It is an error to think of such things as power set +up in equality against justice and right living. We were not made for +them, but rather for influences large and soundly poised; we are not +subject to them but to other powers that can always enliven and +relieve. It is health in us, I say, to be full of heartiness and of +the joy of the world, and of whether we have such health our comfort +in a great wind is a good test indeed. No man spends his day upon the +mountains when the wind is out, riding against it or pushing forward +on foot through the gale, but at the end of his day feels that he has +had a great host about him. It is as though he had experienced armies. +The days of high winds are days of innumerable sounds, innumerable in +variation of tone and of intensity, playing upon and awakening +innumerable powers in man. And the days of high wind are days in which +a physical compulsion has been about us and we have met pressure and +blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us with the simulacrum of +war by which nations live, and in the just pursuit of which men in +companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to +him under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of +horses being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome +wood and stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; +and even of stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of +saying these things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank +God!) mere folly; for man will always at last tend to his end, which +is happiness, and he will remember again to do all those things which +serve that end. So it is with the uses of the wind, and especially the +using of the wind with sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his +own boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most +to do with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of +it all along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself +again against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it +fails him, denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every +manner conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument +for crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, +either they have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. +It is not an accident that the tall ships of every age of varying +fashions so arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of +man went into their creation, and they expressed him very well; his +cunning, and his mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind +is in nothing more capitally our friend than in this, that it has +been, since men were men, their ally in the seeking of the unknown +and in their divine thirst for travel which, in its several +aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, and, in general, +enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They +pushed their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of +the beach at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they +breasted and they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove +under this master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a +sort of captain, and looking always out to the sea line to find what +they could find. It was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon +the sea even more surely than they feel it upon the land. They were +men whose eyes, pale with the foam, watched for a landfall, that +unmistakable good sight which the wind brings us to, the cloud that +does not change and that comes after the long emptiness of sea days +like a vision after the sameness of our common lives. To them the land +they so discovered was wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and +the picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any +man to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the +high seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand +years; and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such +discoveries is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I +have sailed, over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon +an island far away, mapped and well known, and visited for the +hundredth time. + + _H. Belloc._ + + + + +The Temple Press Letchworth England + + + + + * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Punctuation has been added to the title pages and publisher +information so as to clarify meaning. + +The Table of Contents has been reformatted for clarity. + +"Addison" has been added as the author attribution at the end +of the essay entitled "Gipsies," per the Table of Contents. + +In "Steele's Letters," superscripted abbreviations have been +changed to full-stopped, as in "Yr." for "Your," originally +printed as Y^r, where the "r" is superscript. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CENTURY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 32267-8.txt or 32267-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/2/6/32267 + + + +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 +http://www.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 are 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +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. 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +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 checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is 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. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://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. + diff --git a/32267-8.zip b/32267-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..24d6a50 --- /dev/null +++ b/32267-8.zip diff --git a/32267.txt b/32267.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9022ece --- /dev/null +++ b/32267.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Century of English Essays, by Various, +Edited by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + + +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: A Century of English Essays + An Anthology Ranging from Caxton to R. L. Stevenson & the Writers of Our Own Time + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + +Release Date: May 5, 2010 [eBook #32267] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CENTURY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS*** + + +E-text prepared by David Clarke, Chandra Friend, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Transcriber's note: + + A very small number of printer's errors have been corrected + by reference to other editions. + + Footnotes have been moved from the bottom of the original + page to just below the referring paragraph, or in a few cases, + to just after the referring sentence. + + Author attribution lines have been regularized so that all + appear one line below the essay to which they apply. + + See also the detailed transcriber's note at the end of the work. + + + + + +Everyman's Library + +Edited by Ernest Rhys + +ESSAYS + +A Century of English Essays Chosen by Ernest Rhys and Lloyd Vaughan + + * * * * * + +This is No. 653 of _Everyman's Library_. The publishers will be +pleased to send freely to all applicants a list of the published and +projected volumes arranged under the following sections: + + TRAVEL * SCIENCE * FICTION + + THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY + + HISTORY * CLASSICAL + + FOR YOUNG PEOPLE + + ESSAYS * ORATORY + + POETRY & DRAMA + + BIOGRAPHY + + REFERENCE + + ROMANCE + +In four styles of binding: cloth, flat back, coloured top; leather, +round corners, gilt top; library binding in cloth, & quarter pigskin. + + LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd. + NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: Most current ... For that they come home to men's +business & bosoms.--Lord Bacon] + + +[Illustration: A CENTURY of ENGLISH ESSAYS: an ANTHOLOGY RANGING FROM +CAXTON TO R. L. STEVENSON & THE WRITERS OF OUR OWN TIME. + +LONDON TORONTO & PARIS: J.M. DENT & SONS LTD. NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON AND +CO.] + + + + +First Issue of this Edition 1913 +Reprinted 1915, 1916 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This is a book of short essays which have been chosen with the full +liberty the form allows, but with the special idea of illustrating +life, manners and customs, and at intervals filling in the English +country background. The longer essays, especially those devoted to +criticism and to literature, are put aside for another volume, as +their different mode seems to require. But the development of the art +in all its congenial variety has been kept in mind from the beginning; +and any page in which the egoist has revealed a mood, or the gossip +struck on a vein of real experience, or the wise vagabond sketched a +bit of road or countryside, has been thought good enough, so long as +it helped to complete the round. And any writer has been admitted who +could add some more vivid touch or idiom to that personal half +meditative, half colloquial style which gives this kind of writing its +charm. + +We have generally been content to date the beginning of the Essay in +English from Florio's translation of Montaigne. That work appeared +towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's time, in 1603, and no doubt it +had the effect of setting up the form as a recognized _genre_ in +prose. But as we go back behind Florio and Montaigne, and behind +Francis Bacon who has been called our "first essayist," we come upon +various experiments as we might call them--essays towards the essay, +attempts to work that vein, discursively pertinent and richly +reminiscent, out of which the essay was developed. Accordingly for a +beginning the line has been carried back to the earliest point where +any English prose occurs that is marked with the gossip's seal. A leaf +or two of Chaucer's prose, a garrulous piece of the craftsman's +delight in his work from Caxton, and one or two other detachable +fragments of the same kind, may help us to realize that there was a +predisposition to the essay, long before there was any conscious and +repeated use of the form itself. By continuing the record in this way +we have the advantage of being able to watch its relation to the whole +growth in the freer art of English prose. That is a connection indeed +in which all of us are interested, because however little we write, +whether for our friends only, or for the newspapers, we have to +attempt sooner or later something which is virtually an essay in +everyday English. There is no form of writing in which the fluid idiom +of the language can be seen to better effect in its changes and in its +movement. There is none in which the play of individuality, and the +personal way of looking at things, and the grace and whimsicality of +man or woman, can be so well fitted with an agreeable and responsive +instrument. When Sir Thomas Elyot in his "Castle of Health" deprecates +"cruel and yrous[1] schoolmasters by whom the wits of children be +dulled," and when Caxton tells us "that age creepeth on me daily and +feebleth all the body," and that is why he has hastened to ordain in +print the Recule of the Historeys of Troyes, and when Roger Ascham +describes the blowing of the wind and how it took the loose snow with +it and made it so slide upon the hard and crusted snow in the field +that he could see the whole nature of the wind in that act, we are +gradually made aware of a particular fashion, a talking mode (shall we +say?) of writing, as natural, almost as easy as speech itself; one +that was bound to settle itself at length, and take on a propitious +fashion of its own. + +[Footnote 1: Irascible.] + +But when we try to decide where it is exactly that the bounds of the +essay are to be drawn, we have to admit that so long as it obeys the +law of being explicit, casually illuminative of its theme, and germane +to the intellectual mood of its writer, then it may follow pretty much +its own devices. It may be brief as Lord Verulam sometimes made it, a +mere page or two; it may be long as Carlyle's stupendous essay on the +Niebelungenlied, which is almost a book in itself. It may be grave and +urbane in Sir William Temple's courtly style; it may be Elian as Elia, +or ripe and suave like the "Spectator" and the "Tatler." The one +clause that it cannot afford to neglect is that it be entertaining, +easy to read, pleasant to remember. It may preach, but it must never +be a sermon; it may moralize, but it must never be too forbidding; it +may be witty, high-spirited, effervescent as you like, but it must +never be flippant or betray a mean spirit or a too conscious clever +pen. + +Montaigne, speaking through the mouth of Florio, touched upon a nice +point in the economy of the essay when he said that "what a man +directly knoweth, that will he dispose of without turning still to his +book or looking to his pattern. A mere bookish sufficiency is +unpleasant." The essayist, in fact, must not be over literary, and +yet, if he have the habit, like Montaigne or Charles Lamb, of +delighting in old authors and in their favourite expressions and great +phrases, so that that habit has become part of his life, then his +essays will gain in richness by an inspired pedantry. Indeed the essay +as it has gone on has not lost by being a little self-conscious of its +function and its right to insist on a fine prose usage and a choice +economy of word and phrase. + +The most perfect balance of the art on its familiar side as here +represented, and after my Lord Verulam, is to be found, I suppose, in +the creation of "Sir Roger de Coverley." Goldsmith's "Man in Black" +runs him very close in that saunterer's gallery, and Elia's people are +more real to us than our own acquaintances in flesh and blood. It is +worth note, perhaps, how often the essayists had either been among +poets like Hazlitt, or written poetry like Goldsmith, or had the +advantage of both recognizing the faculty in others and using it +themselves, like Charles Lamb; and if we were to take the lyrical +temperament, as Ferdinand Brunetiere did in accounting for certain +French writers, and relate it to some personal asseveration of the +emotion of life, we might end by claiming the essayists as dilute +lyrists, engaged in pursuing a rhythm too subtle for verse and +lifelike as common-room gossip. + +And just as we may say there is a lyric tongue, which the true poets +of that kind have contributed to form, so there is an essayist's style +or way with words--something between talking and writing. You realize +it when you hear Dame Prudence, who is the Mother of the English +essay, discourse on Riches; Hamlet, a born essayist, speak on acting; +T.T., a forgotten essayist of 1614, with an equal turn for homily, +write on "Painting the Face"; or the "Tatler" make good English out of +the first thing that comes to hand. It is partly a question of art, +partly of temperament; and indeed paraphrasing Steele we may say that +the success of an essay depends upon the make of the body and the +formation of the mind, of him who writes it. It needs a certain way of +turning the pen, and a certain intellectual gesture, which cannot be +acquired, and cannot really be imitated. + +It remains to acknowledge the friendly aid of those living essayists +who are still maintaining the standards and have contributed to the +book. This contemporary roll includes the Right Hon. Augustine +Birrell, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. G.K. Chesterton, Mr. Austin Dobson, +Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. E.V. Lucas, Mrs. Meynell, Mr. Edward Thomas and +Mr. W.B. Yeats. In addition a formal acknowledgment is due to Messrs. +Chatto and Windus for leave to include an essay by Robert Louis +Stevenson; to Messrs. Longmans and Co. for an essay of Richard +Jefferies; and Messrs. Methuen and Co. for two by Mr. Lucas, and one +by Mr. Belloc. Mr. A.H. Bullen has very kindly given his free consent +in the case of "The Last of the Gleemen,"--a boon to be grateful for. +Without these later pages, the book would be like the hat of Tom +Lizard's ceremonious old gentleman, whose story, he said, would not +have been worth a farthing if the brim had been any narrower. As to +the actual omissions, they are due either to the limits of the volume, +or to the need of keeping the compass in regard to both the subjects +and the writers chosen. American essayists are left for another day; +as are those English writers, like Sir William Temple and Bolingbroke, +Macaulay and Matthew Arnold, who have given us the essay in literary +full dress. + + E.R. + + * * * * * + +The following is a bibliography in brief of the chief works drawn upon +for the selection: + +Caxton, Morte D'Arthur, 1485; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 1532; Bacon, +Essays, 1740; Thos. Dekker, Gull's Horn Book, 1608; Jeremy Taylor, +Holy Dying, 1651; Thos. Fuller, Holy and Profane States, 1642; Cowley, +Prose Works, Several Discourses, 1668; The Guardian, 1729; The +Examiner, 1710; The Tatler, 1709; Wm. Cobbett, Rural Rides, 1830; +Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, 1762; Addison and Steele, The +Spectator, 1711; The Rambler, 1750-52; The Adventurer, 1753; Lamb, +Essays of Elia, 1823, 1833; Hazlitt, Comic Writers, 1819; Table Talk, +1821-22; The New Monthly Magazine, 1826-27; Coleridge, Literaria +Biographia, 1817; Wordsworth, Prose Works, 1876; John Brown, Rab and +his Friends, 1858; Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, 1863; Carlyle, +Edinburgh Review, 1831; Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, 1857; +Shelley, Essays, 1840; Leigh Hunt, The Indicator, 1820; Mary Russell +Mitford, Our Village, 1827-32; De Quincey, Collected Works, 1853-60; +R.L. Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, 1887; Edmund Gosse (The +Realm), 1895; Austin Dobson, Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1892; Alice +Meynell, Colour of Life, 1896; G.K. Chesterton, The Defendant, 1901; +E.V. Lucas, Fireside and Sunshine, 1906, Character and Comedy, 1907; +Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta (second series), 1887; W.B. Yeats, +Celtic Twilight, 1893; Edward Thomas, The South Country, 1909; Hilaire +Belloc, First and Last, 1911. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + Introduction vii + + 1. A Printer's Prologue + Wm. Caxton, _Morte D'Arthur_ 1 + + 2. Dame Prudence on Riches + Geoffrey Chaucer, _Tale of Melibeus_ 4 + + 3. Of Painting the Face + T.T., _New Essays_, 1614 8 + + 4. Hamlet's Advice to the Players + Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ 10 + + 5. Of Adversity + Francis Bacon, _Essays_ 11 + + 6. Of Travel + " " " 12 + + 7. Of Wisdom for a Man's Self + " " " 14 + + 8. Of Ambition + " " " 15 + + 9. Of Gardens + " " " 17 + + 10. Of Studies + " " " 22 + + 11. The Good Schoolmaster + Thomas Fuller, _Holy and Profane States_ 24 + + 12. On Death + Jeremy Taylor, _Holy Living and Holy Dying_ 27 + + 13. Of Winter + Thomas Dekker 30 + + 14. How a Gallant should behave himself in a Play-house + Thomas Dekker, _Gull's Horn Book_ 31 + + 15. Of Myself + Abraham Cowley, _Discourses_ 35 + + 16. The Grand Elixir + Pope, _The Guardian_, No. 11 39 + + 17. Jack Lizard + Steele, _The Guardian_, No. 24 43 + + 18. A Meditation upon a Broomstick, According to the Style and + Manner of the Hon. Robert Boyle's Meditations + Swift, _Prose Writings_ 47 + + 19. Pulpit Eloquence + Swift, _The Tatler_, No. 66 48 + + 20. The Art of Political Lying + Swift, _The Examiner_, No. 15 51 + + 21. A Rural Ride + Wm. Cobbett, _Rural Rides_ 56 + + 22. The Man in Black (1) + Goldsmith, _Citizen of the World_, No. 25 58 + + 23. " " " (2) + " " " " No. 26 61 + + 24. Old Maids and Bachelors + " " " " No. 27 66 + + 25. The Important Trifler + " " " " No. 53 69 + + 26. The Trifler's Household + " " " " No. 54 72 + + 27. Westminster Hall + " " " " No. 97 75 + + 28. The Little Beau + " " " " No. 98 78 + + 29. The Club + Steele, _The Spectator_ 80 + + 30. The Meeting of the Club + Addison " " 85 + + 31. Sir Roger de Coverley at Home (1) + " " " 88 + + 32. " " " " (2) + " " " 91 + + 33. " " " " (3) + Steele " " 94 + + 34. " " " " (4) + Addison " " 97 + + 35. Sir Roger at Church + " " " 100 + + 36. Sir Roger on the Widow + Steele " " 103 + + 37. Sir Roger in the Hunting Field + Addison " " 107 + + 38. Sir Roger at the Assizes + " " " 110 + + 39. Gipsies + " " " 114 + + 40. Witches + " " " 117 + + 41. Sir Roger at Westminster Abbey + " " " 120 + + 42. Sir Roger at the Play + " " " 123 + + 43. Sir Roger at Spring-Garden + " " " 126 + + 44. Death of Sir Roger + " " " 129 + + 45. A Stage Coach Journey + Steele " " 131 + + 46. A Journey from Richmond + " " " 135 + + 47. A Prize Fight + " " " 139 + + 48. Good Temper + " " " 144 + + 49. The Employments of a Housewife in the Country + Samuel Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 51 147 + + 50. The Stage Coach + " " _The Adventurer_, No. 84 152 + + 51. The Scholar's Complaint of His Own Bashfulness + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 157 156 + + 52. The Misery of a Modish Lady in Solitude + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 42 160 + + 53. The History of an Adventurer in Lotteries + Johnson, _The Rambler_, No. 181 164 + + 54. Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago + Lamb, _Essays of Elia_ 168 + + 55. All Fools' Day + " " 180 + + 56. Witches, and Other Night-Fears + " " 184 + + 57. My First Play + " " 190 + + 58. Dream-Children; a Reverie + " " 194 + + 59. The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers + " " 198 + + 60. A Dissertation upon Roast Pig + " " 205 + + 61. Poor Relations + " " 211 + + 62. The Child Angel + " " 218 + + 63. Old China + " " 220 + + 64. Popular Fallacies (I) + " " 226 + + 65. " " (II) + " " 227 + + 66. " " (III) + " " 228 + + 67. Whitsun-Eve + Mary Russell Mitford, _Our Village_ 230 + + 68. On Going a Journey + Hazlitt, _Essays_ 234 + + 69. On Living to One's-Self + " " 244 + + 70. Of Persons One would wish to have seen + " " 257 + + 71. On a Sun-Dial + " " 271 + + 72. Of the Feeling of Immortality in Youth + Hazlitt, _The New Monthly Magazine_ 280 + + 73. A Vision + Coleridge, _A Lay Sermon_, 1817 292 + + 74. Upon Epitaphs + Wordsworth 297 + + 75. Jeems the Doorkeeper + John Brown, _Rab and His Friends_ 311 + + 76. On Life + Shelley, _Essays_ 323 + + 77. Walking Stewart + De Quincey, _Notes of an Opium Eater_ 327 + + 78. On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth + De Quincey, _Collected Essays_ 340 + + 79. The Daughter of Lebanon + " " " 345 + + 80. Getting up on Cold Mornings + Leigh Hunt, _Essays_, _Indicator_, 1820 351 + + 81. The Old Gentleman + " " " " 355 + + 82. The Old Lady + " " " " 359 + + 83. The Maid-Servant + " " " " 363 + + 84. Characteristics + Carlyle, _Miscellanies_ 366 + + 85. Tunbridge Toys + Thackeray, _Roundabout Papers_ 404 + + 86. Night Walks + Dickens, _The Uncommercial Traveller_ 410 + + 87. "A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured" + R. L. Stevenson, _Memories and Portraits_ 419 + + 88. July Grass + Richard Jefferies, _Field and Hedgerow_ 425 + + 89. Worn-out Types + Augustine Birrell, _Obiter Dicta_ 428 + + 90. Book-buying + " " " " 433 + + 91. The Whole Duty of Woman + Edmund Gosse, _The Realm_, 1895 436 + + 92. Steele's Letters + Austin Dobson, _Eighteenth Century Vignettes_ 441 + + 93. A Defence of Nonsense + G. K. Chesterton, _The Defendant_ 446 + + 94. The Colour of Life + Alice Meynell, _The Colour of Life_ 450 + + 95. A Funeral + E. V. Lucas, _Character and Comedy_ 453 + + 96. Fires + " " _Fireside and Sunshine_ 456 + + 97. The Last Gleeman + W. B. Yeats, _The Celtic Twilight_ 462 + + 98. A Brother of St. Francis + Grace Rhys, _The Vineyard_ 467 + + 99. The Pilgrim's Way + Edward Thomas, _The South Country_ 469 + + 100. On a Great Wind + H. Belloc, _First and Last_ 471 + + + + +A CENTURY OF ESSAYS + + + + +A PRINTER'S PROLOGUE + + +After that I had accomplished and finished divers histories, as well +of contemplation as of other historical and worldly acts of great +conquerors and princes, and also of certain books of ensamples and +doctrine, many noble and divers gentlemen of this realm of England, +came and demanded me, many and ofttimes, why that I did not cause to +be imprinted the noble history of the Sancgreal, and of the most +renowned Christian king, first and chief of the three best Christian +and worthy, King Arthur, which ought most to be remembered among us +Englishmen, before all other Christian kings; for it is notoriously +known, through the universal world, that there be nine worthy and the +best that ever were, that is, to wit, three Paynims, three Jews, and +three Christian men. As for the Paynims, they were before the +Incarnation of Christ, which were named, the first, Hector of Troy, of +whom the history is common, both in ballad and in prose; the second, +Alexander the Great; and the third, Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, of +which the histories be well known and had. And as for the three Jews, +which also were before the Incarnation of our Lord, of whom the first +was Duke Joshua, which brought the children of Israel into the land of +behest; the second was David, King of Jerusalem; and the third Judas +Maccabeus. Of these three, the Bible rehearseth all their noble +histories and acts. And, since the said Incarnation, have been three +noble Christian men, stalled and admitted through the universal world, +into the number of the nine best and worthy: of whom was first, the +noble Arthur, whose noble acts I purpose to write in this present book +here following; the second was Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, of +whom the history is had in many places, both in French and in English; +and the third, and last, was Godfrey of Boulogne, of whose acts and +life I made a book unto the excellent prince and king, of noble +memory, King Edward the Fourth. + +The said noble gentlemen instantly required me for to imprint the +history of the said noble king and conqueror, King Arthur, and of his +knights, with the history of the Sancgreal, and of the death and +ending of the said Arthur, affirming that I ought rather to imprint +his acts and noble feats, than of Godfrey of Boulogne, or any of the +other eight, considering that he was a man born within this realm, and +king and emperor of the same; and that there be in French divers and +many noble volumes of his acts, and also of his knights. To whom I +have answered, that divers men hold opinion that there was no such +Arthur, and that all such books as be made of him be but feigned and +fables, because that some chronicles make of him no mention, nor +remember him nothing, nor of his knights. Whereto they answered, and +one in especial said, that in him that should say or think that there +was never such a king called Arthur, might well be aretted great folly +and blindness; for he said there were many evidences to the contrary. +First ye may see his sepulchre in the monastery of Glastonbury. And +also in Policronicon, in the fifth book, the sixth chapter, and in the +seventh book, the twenty-third chapter, where his body was buried, and +after found, and translated into the said monastery. Ye shall see also +in the History of Bochas, in his book _De Casu Principum_, part of his +noble acts, and also of his fall. Also Galfridus, in his British book, +recounteth his life. And in divers places of England, many +remembrances be yet of him, and shall remain perpetually of him, and +also of his knights. First, in the Abbey of Westminster, at St. +Edward's shrine, remaineth the print of his seal in red wax closed in +beryl, in which is written--"Patricius Arthurus Britanniae, Galliae, +Germaniae, Daciae Imperator." Item in the castle of Dover ye may see Sir +Gawaine's skull, and Cradok's mantle: at Winchester, the Round Table: +in other places Sir Launcelot's sword, and many other things. Then all +these things considered, there can no man reasonably gainsay but that +there was a king of this land named Arthur: for in all the places, +Christian and heathen, he is reputed and taken for one of the nine +worthies, and the first of the three Christian men. And also he is +more spoken beyond the sea, and more books made of his noble acts, +than there be in England, as well in Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and +Greek, as in French. And yet of record, remaineth in witness of him in +Wales, in the town of Camelot, the great stones, and the marvellous +works of iron lying under the ground, and royal vaults, which divers +now living have seen. Wherefore it is a great marvel why that he is no +more renowned in his own country, save only it accordeth to the word +of God, which saith, that no man is accepted for a prophet in his own +country. Then all things aforesaid alleged, I could not well deny but +that there was such a noble king named Arthur, and reputed for one of +the nine worthies, and first and chief of the Christian men. And many +noble volumes be made of him and of his noble knights in French, which +I have seen and read beyond the sea, which be not had in our maternal +tongue. But in Welsh be many, and also in French, and some in English, +but nowhere nigh all. Wherefore, such as have late been drawn out +briefly into English, I have, after the simple cunning that God hath +sent me, under the favour and correction of all noble lords and +gentlemen enprised to imprint a book of the noble histories of the +said King Arthur, and of certain of his knights after a copy unto me +delivered; which copy Sir Thomas Malory did take out of certain books +of French, and reduced it into English. And I, according to my copy, +have down set it in print, to the intent that noble men may see and +learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtuous deeds that +some knights used in those days, by which they came to honour, and how +they that were vicious were punished, and oft put to shame and rebuke; +humbly beseeching all noble lords and ladies, with all other estates +of what state or degree they be of, that shall see and read in this +present book and work, that they take the good and honest acts in +their remembrance, and follow the same. Wherein they shall find many +joyous and pleasant histories, and the noble and renowned acts of +humanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For, herein may be seen noble +chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, +friendship, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the +good, and leave the evil, and it shall bring you unto good fame and +renown. And, for to pass the time, this book shall be pleasant to read +in, but for to give faith and belief that all is true that is +contained herein, ye be at your own liberty. But all is written for +our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but +to exercise and follow virtue, by the which we may come and attain to +good fame and renown in this life, and after this short and transitory +life to come unto everlasting bliss in heaven; the which He grant us +that reigneth in heaven, the blessed Trinity. Amen. + + _William Caxton._ + + + + +DAME PRUDENCE ON RICHES + + +When Prudence had heard her husband avaunt himself of his riches and +of his money, dispreising the power of his adversaries, she spake and +said in this wise: Certes, dear sir, I grant you that ye ben rich and +mighty, and that riches ben good to 'em that han well ygetten 'em, and +that well can usen 'em; for, right as the body of a man may not liven +withouten soul, no more may it liven withouten temporal goods, and by +riches may a man get him great friends; and therefore saith Pamphilus: +If a neatherd's daughter be rich, she may chese of a thousand men +which she wol take to her husband; for of a thousand men one wol not +forsaken her ne refusen her. And this Pamphilus saith also: If thou be +right happy, that is to sayn, if thou be right rich, thou shalt find a +great number of fellows and friends; and if thy fortune change, that +thou wax poor, farewell friendship and fellowship, for thou shalt be +all alone withouten any company, but if[2] it be the company of poor +folk. And yet saith this Pamphilus, moreover, that they that ben bond +and thrall of linage shuln be made worthy and noble by riches. And +right so as by riches there comen many goods, right so by poverty come +there many harms and evils; and therefore clepeth Cassiodore, poverty +the mother of ruin, that is to sayn, the mother of overthrowing or +falling down; and therefore saith Piers Alphonse: One of the greatest +adversities of the world is when a free man by kind, or of birth, is +constrained by poverty to eaten the alms of his enemy. And the same +saith Innocent in one of his books; he saith that sorrowful and +mishappy is the condition of a poor beggar, for if he ax not his meat +he dieth of hunger, and if he ax he dieth for shame; and algates +necessity constraineth him to ax; and therefore saith Solomon: That +better it is to die than for to have such poverty; and, as the same +Solomon saith: Better it is to die of bitter death, than for to liven +in such wise. By these reasons that I have said unto you, and by many +other reasons that I could say, I grant you that riches ben good to +'em that well geten 'em and to him that well usen tho' riches; and +therefore wol I shew you how ye shulen behave you in gathering of your +riches, and in what manner ye shulen usen 'em. + +[Footnote 2: Except.] + +First, ye shuln geten 'em withouten great desire, by good leisure, +sokingly, and not over hastily, for a man that is too desiring to get +riches abandoneth him first to theft and to all other evils; and +therefore saith Solomon: He that hasteth him too busily to wax rich, +he shall be non innocent: he saith also, that the riches that hastily +cometh to a man, soon and lightly goeth and passeth from a man, but +that riches that cometh little and little, waxeth alway and +multiplieth. And, sir, ye shuln get riches by your wit and by your +travail, unto your profit, and that withouten wrong or harm doing to +any other person; for the law saith: There maketh no man himself rich, +if he do harm to another wight; that is to say, that Nature defendeth +and forbiddeth by right, that no man make himself rich unto the harm +of another person. And Tullius saith: That no sorrow, ne no dread of +death, ne nothing that may fall unto a man, is so muckle agains nature +as a man to increase his own profit to harm of another man. And though +the great men and the mighty men geten riches more lightly than thou, +yet shalt thou not ben idle ne slow to do thy profit, for thou shalt +in all wise flee idleness; for Solomon saith: That idleness teacheth a +man to do many evils; and the same Solomon saith: That he that +travaileth and busieth himself to tillen his lond, shall eat bread, +but he that is idle, and casteth him to no business ne occupation, +shall fall into poverty, and die for hunger. And he that is idle and +slow can never find convenable time for to do his profit; for there is +a versifier saith, that the idle man excuseth him in winter because of +the great cold, and in summer then by encheson of the heat. For these +causes, saith Caton, waketh and inclineth you not over muckle to +sleep, for over muckle rest nourisheth and causeth many vices; and +therefore saith St. Jerome: Doeth some good deeds, that the devil, +which is our enemy, ne find you not unoccupied, for the devil he +taketh not lightly unto his werking such as he findeth occupied in +good werks. + +Then thus in getting riches ye musten flee idleness; and afterward ye +shuln usen the riches which ye ban geten by your wit and by your +travail, in such manner, than men hold you not too scarce, ne too +sparing, ne fool-large, that is to say, over large a spender; for +right as men blamen an avaricious man because of his scarcity and +chinchery, in the same wise he is to blame that spendeth over largely; +and therefore saith Caton: Use (saith he) the riches that thou hast +ygeten in such manner, that men have no matter ne cause to call thee +nother wretch ne chinch, for it is a great shame to a man to have a +poor heart and a rich purse; he saith also: The goods that thou hast +ygeten, use 'em by measure, that is to sayn, spend measureably, for +they that folily wasten and despenden the goods that they han, when +they han no more proper of 'eir own, that they shapen 'em to take the +goods of another man. I say, then, that ye shuln flee avarice, using +your riches in such manner, that men sayen not that your riches ben +yburied, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding; for +a wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two verse: +Whereto and why burieth a man his goods by his great avarice, and +knoweth well that needs must he die, for death is the end of every man +as in this present life? And for what cause or encheson joineth he +him, or knitteth he him so fast unto his goods, that all his wits +mowen not disseveren him or departen him fro his goods, and knoweth +well, or ought to know, that when he is dead he shall nothing bear +with him out of this world? and therefore saith St. Augustine, that +the avaricious man is likened unto hell, that the more it swalloweth +the more desire it hath to swallow and devour. And as well as ye wold +eschew to be called an avaricious man or an chinch, as well should ye +keep you and govern you in such wise, that men call you not +fool-large; therefore, saith Tullius: The goods of thine house ne +should not ben hid ne kept so close, but that they might ben opened by +pity and debonnairety, that is to sayen, to give 'em part that han +great need; ne they goods shoulden not ben so open to be every man's +goods. + +Afterward, in getting of your riches, and in using of 'em, ye shuln +alway have three things in your heart, that is to say, our Lord God, +conscience, and good name. First ye shuln have God in your heart, and +for no riches ye shuln do nothing which may in any manner displease +God that is your creator and maker; for, after the word of Solomon, it +is better to have a little good, with love of God, than to have muckle +good and lese the love of his Lord God; and the prophet saith, that +better it is to ben a good man and have little good and treasure, than +to be holden a shrew and have great riches. And yet I say furthermore, +that ye shulden always do your business to get your riches, so that ye +get 'em with a good conscience. And the apostle saith, that there nis +thing in this world, of which we shulden have so great joy, as when +our conscience beareth us good witness; and the wise man saith: The +substance of a man is full good when sin is not in a man's conscience. +Afterward, in getting of your riches and in using of 'em, ye must have +great business and great diligence that your good name be alway kept +and conserved; for Solomon saith, that better it is and more it +availeth a man to have a good name than for to have great riches; and +therefore he saith in another place: Do great diligence (saith he) in +keeping of thy friends and of thy good name, for it shall longer abide +with thee than any treasure, be it never so precious; and certainly he +should not be called a gentleman that, after God and good conscience +all things left, ne doth his diligence and business to keepen his good +name; and Cassiodore saith, that it is a sign of a gentle heart, when +a man loveth and desireth to have a good name. And therfore saith +Seint Augustyn, that ther ben two thinges that ben necessarie and +needful; and that is good conscience and good loos; that is to sayn, +good conscience in thin oughne persone in-ward, and good loos of thin +neghebor out-ward. And he that trusteth him so muckle in his good +conscience, that he despiseth or setteth at nought his good name or +los, and recketh not though he kept not his good name, n'is but a +cruel churl. + + _Chaucer._ + + + + +OF PAINTING THE FACE + + +If that which is most ancient be best, then the face that one is borne +with, is better than it that is borrowed: Nature is more ancient than +Art, and Art is allowed to help Nature, but not to hurt it; to mend +it, but not to mar it; for perfection, but not for perdition: but this +artificiall facing doth corrupt the naturall colour of it. Indeed God +hath given a man oil for his countenance, as He hath done wine for his +heart, to refresh and cheere it; but this is by reflection and not by +plaister-worke; by comforting, and not by dawbing and covering; by +mending and helping the naturall colour, and not by marring or hiding +it with an artificiall lit. What a miserable vanity is it a man or +woman beholding in a glasse their borrowed face, their bought +complexion, to please themselves with a face that is not their owne? +And what is the cause they paint? Without doubt nothing but pride of +heart, disdaining to bee behind their neighbour, discontentment with +the worke of God, and vaine glory, or a foolish affectation of the +praise of men. This kind of people are very hypocrites, seeming one +thing and being another, desiring to bee that in show which they +cannot be in substance, and coveting to be judged that, they are not: +They are very grosse Deceivers; for they study to delude men with +shewes, seeking hereby to bee counted more lovely creatures than they +are, affecting that men should account that naturall, which is but +artificiall. I may truly say they are deceivers of themselves; for if +they thinke they doe well to paint, they are deceived; if they think +it honest and just to beguile men, and to make them account them more +delicate and amiable, then they are in truth, they are deceived; if +they thinke it meete that that should bee counted God's worke, which +is their owne, they are deceived: If they thinke that shall not one +day give account unto Christ of idle deeds, such as this, as well as +of idle words, they are deceived; if they thinke that God regards not +such trifles, but leaves them to their free election herein; they are +deceived. Now they that deceive themselves, who shall they be trusted +with? A man, that is taken of himselfe, is in a worse taking than he +that is caught of another. This self-deceiver, is a double sinner: he +sinnes in that he is deceived, hee sinnes again in that he doth +deceive himself. To bee murdered of another is not a sin in him that +is murdered; but for a man to be deceived in what he is forbidden, is +a sinne; it were better to bee murdered, than so to be deceived: For +there the body is but killed, but here the soule herself is +endangered. Now, how unhappy is the danger, how grievous is the sin, +when a man is merely of himself indangered? It is a misery of miseries +for a man to bee slaine with his owne sword, with his owne hand, and +long of his owne will: Besides, this painting is very scandalous, and +of ill report; for any man therefore to use it, is to thwart the +precept of the Holy Ghost in Saint Paul, who saith unto the +Phillippians in this wise, Whatsoever things are true (but a painted +face is a false face) whatsoever things are venerable (but who esteems +a painted face venerable?) whatsoever things are just (but will any +man of judgement say, that to paint the face is a point of justice? +Who dare say it is according to the will of God which is the rule of +justice? + +Doth the law of God command it? Doth true reason teach it? Doth lawes +of men enjoyne it?) whatsoever things are (chaste and) pure: (but is +painting of the face a point of chastity? Is that pure that proceeds +out of the impurity of the soule, and which is of deceipt, and tends +unto deceipt? Is that chaste, which is used to wooe mens eyes unto +it?) _whatsoever things are lovely_ (but will any man out of a well +informed judgement say, that this kinde of painting is worthy love, or +that a painted face is worthy to be fancied?) _whatsoever things are +of good report: If there bee any vertue, if there bee any praise, +think on these things_. But I hope to paint the face, to weare an +artificiall colour, or complexion, is no vertue; neither is it of good +report amongst the vertuous. I read that Iezabel did practise it, but +I find not that any holy Matrone or religious Virgine ever used it: +And it may perhaps of some be praised, but doubtlesse not of such as +are judicious, but of them rather hated and discommended. A painted +face is the devils _Looking-glasse_: there hee stands peering and +toying (as an Ape in a looking-glasse) joying to behold himselfe +therein; for in it he may reade pride, vanity, and vaine-glory. +Painting is an enemy to blushing, which is vertues colour. And indeed +how unworthy are they to bee credited in things of moment, that are so +false in their haire, or colour, over which age, and sicknesse, and +many accidents doe tyrannize; yea and where their deceipt is easily +discerned? And whereas the passions and conditions of a man, and his +age, is something discovered by the face, this painting hindereth a +mans judgement herein, so that if they were as well able to colour the +eyes, as they are their haire and faces, a man could discerne little +or nothing in such kind of people. In briefe, these painters are +sometimes injurious to those, that are naturally faire and lovely, and +no painters; partly, in that these are thought sometimes to bee +painted, because of the common use of painting; and partly, in that +these artificial creatures steal away the praise from the naturall +beauty by reason of their Art, when it is not espyed, whereas were it +not for their cunning, they would not bee deemed equall to the other. +It is great pitty that this outlandish vanity is in so much request +and practise with us, as it is. + + _T. T._ + + + + +HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS + + +Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on +the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as +lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much +with your hand, thus; but use all gently, for in the very torrent, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must +acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it +offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear +a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the +groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but +inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped +for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. Be +not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit +the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special +observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything +so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the +first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to +nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the +very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone +or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make +the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your +allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players +that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not +to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians +nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and +bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made +men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. O, +reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no +more than is set down for them: for there be of them that will +themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to +laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play +be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful +ambition in the fool that uses it. + + _Shakespeare._ + + + + +OF ADVERSITY + + +It was an high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics): +_That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but +the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Bona rerum +secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia._ Certainly, if miracles be +the command over nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a +higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen): _It +is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the +security of a god. Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis, +securitatem dei._ This would have done better in poesy, where +transcendences are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy +with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that +strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without +mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian: +that _Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus_ (by whom human +nature is represented), _sailed the length of the great ocean in an +earthen pot or pitcher_: lively describing Christian resolution, that +saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. +But to speak in a mean. The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the +virtue of adversity is fortitude; which in morals is the more heroical +virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is +the blessing of the New; which carrieth the greater benediction, and +the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, +if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs +as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in +describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Salomon. +Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is +not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and +embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and +solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a +lightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the +pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most +fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best +discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF TRAVEL + + +Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a +part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath +some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. +That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow +well; so that he be such a one that hath the language and hath been in +the country before; whereby he may be able to tell them what things +are worthy to be seen in the country where they go; what acquaintances +they are to seek; what exercises or discipline the place yieldeth. For +else young men shall go hooded, and look abroad little. It is a +strange thing that in sea-voyages, where there is nothing to be seen +but sky and sea, men should make diaries, but in land-travel, wherein +so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it; as if +chance were fitter to be registered than observation. Let diaries, +therefore, be brought in use. The things to be seen and observed are: +the courts of princes, specially when they give audience to +ambassadors; the courts of justice, while they sit and hear causes, +and so of consistories ecclesiastic; the churches and monasteries, +with the monuments which are therein extant; the walls and +fortifications of cities and towns, and so the havens and harbours; +antiquities and ruins; libraries; colleges, disputations, and +lectures, where any are; shipping and navies; houses and gardens of +state and pleasure, near great cities; armories; arsenals; magazines; +exchanges; burses; warehouses; exercises of horsemanship, fencing, +training of soldiers, and the like; comedies, such whereunto the +better sort of persons do resort; treasuries of jewels and robes; +cabinets and rarities; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in +the places where they go. After all which the tutors or servants ought +to make diligent enquiry. As for triumphs, masques, feasts, weddings, +funerals, capital executions, and such shews, men need not to be put +in mind of them; yet are they not to be neglected. If you will have a +young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to +gather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he must have some +entrance into the language, before he goeth. Then he must have such a +servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Let +him carry with him also some card or book describing the country where +he travelleth; which will be a good key to his enquiry. Let him keep +also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town; more or less +as the place deserveth, but not long: nay, when he stayeth in one city +or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part of the town +to another; which is a great adamant of acquaintance. Let him +sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and diet in such +places where there is good company of the nation where he travelleth. +Let him, upon his removes from one place to another, procure +recommendation to some person of quality residing in the place whither +he removeth; that he may use his favour in those things he desireth to +see or know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much profit. As for +the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel; that which is most +of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and employed +men of ambassadors; for so in travelling in one country he shall suck +the experience of many. Let him also see and visit eminent persons in +all kinds, which are of great name abroad; that he may be able to tell +how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels, they are with care +and discretion to be avoided: they are commonly for mistresses, +healths, place, and words. And let a man beware how he keepeth company +with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into +their own quarrels. When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave +the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but +maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance +which are of most worth. And let his travel appear rather in his +discourse than in his apparel or gesture; and in his discourse, let +him be rather advised in his answers than forwards to tell stories; +and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for +those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers of that he hath +learned abroad into the customs of his own country. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF + + +An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an +orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of +themselves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and +society; and be so true to thyself, as thou be not false to others, +specially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's +actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon +his own centre; whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens +move upon the centre of another, which they benefit. The referring of +all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign prince; because +themselves are not only themselves, but their good and evil is at the +peril of the public fortune. But it is a desperate evil in a servant +to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs pass +such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends; which must needs +be often eccentric to the ends of his master or state. Therefore let +princes, or states, choose such servants as have not this mark; except +they mean their service should be made but the accessory. That which +maketh the effect more pernicious is that all proportion is lost. It +were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be preferred +before the master's; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a little +good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the +master's. And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, +ambassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants; which set +a bias upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the +overthrow of their master's great and important affairs. And for the +most part, the good such servants receive is after the model of their +own fortune; but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model +of their master's fortune. And certainly it is the nature of extreme +self-lovers, as they will set an house on fire, and it were but to +roast their eggs; and yet these men many times hold credit with their +masters, because their study is but to please them and profit +themselves; and for either respect they will abandon the good of their +affairs. + +Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved +thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house +somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out +the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of +crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is +specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) +are _sui amantes sine rivali_, are many times unfortunate. And whereas +they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the +end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings +they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF AMBITION + + +Ambition is like choler; which is an humour that maketh men active, +earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped. But if +it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby +malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open for +their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than +dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become +secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, +and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worst +property in a servant of a prince or state. Therefore it is good for +princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so as they be still +progressive and not retrograde: which because it cannot be without +inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they +rise not with their service, they will take order to make their +service fall with them. But since we have said it were good not to use +men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we +speak in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars +must be taken, be they never so ambitious: for the use of their +service dispenseth with the rest; and to take a soldier without +ambition is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use of +ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger and +envy: for no man will take that part, except he be like a seeled dove, +that mounts and mounts because he cannot see about him. There is use +also of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness of any subject +that overtops: as Tiberius used Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus. +Since therefore they must be used in such cases, there resteth to +speak how they must be bridled, that they may be less dangerous. There +is less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they be +noble; and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious and +popular; and if they be rather new raised, than grown cunning and +fortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weakness in +princes to have favourites; but it is of all others the best remedy +against ambitious great-ones. For when the way of pleasuring and +displeasuring lieth by the favourite, it is impossible any other +should be over-great. Another means to curb them, is to balance them +by others as proud as they. But then there must be some middle +counsellors, to keep things steady; for without that ballast the ship +will roll too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure some +meaner persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As for +the having of them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures, +it may do well; but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate +their designs, and prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down, +if the affairs require it, and that it may be done with safety +suddenly, the only way is the interchange continually of favours and +disgraces; whereby they may not know what to expect, and be, as it +were, in a wood. Of ambitions, it is less harmful, the ambition to +prevail in great things, than that other, to appear in every thing; +for that breeds confusion, and mars business. But yet it is less +danger to have an ambitious man stirring in business, than great in +dependences. He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a +great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to +be the only figure amongst cyphers is the decay of an whole age. +Honour hath three things in it: the vantage ground to do good; the +approach to kings and principal persons; and the raising of a man's +own fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when he +aspireth, is an honest man; and that prince that can discern of these +intentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, let +princes and states choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty +than of rising; and such as love business rather upon conscience than +upon bravery: and let them discern a busy nature from a willing mind. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF GARDENS + + +God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of +human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man; +without which, buildings and palaces are but gross handyworks: and a +man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegancy, men +come to build stately sooner than to garden finely; as if gardening +were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of +gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year; in +which, severally, things of beauty may then be in season. For December +and January and the latter part of November, you must take such things +as are green all winter: holly; ivy; bays; juniper; cypress-trees; +yew; pine-apple-trees; fir-trees; rosemary; lavender; periwinkle, the +white, the purple, and the blue; germander; flags; orange-trees, +lemon-trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved; and sweet marjoram, warm +set. There followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the +mezereon-tree, which then blossoms; crocus vernus, both the yellow and +the gray; primroses; anemones; the early tulippa; hyacinthus +orientalis; chamairis; fritillaria. For March, there come violets, +specially the single blue, which are the earliest; the yellow +daffodil; the daisy; the almond-tree in blossom; the peach-tree in +blossom; the cornelian-tree in blossom; sweet briar. In April follow, +the double white violet; the wall-flower; the stock-gillyflower; the +cowslip; flower-delices, and lilies of all natures; rosemary flowers; +the tulippa; the double piony; the pale daffadil; the French +honeysuckle; the cherry-tree in blossom; the dammasin and plum-trees +in blossom; the white-thorn in leaf; the lilac-tree. In May and June +come pinks of all sorts, specially the blush pink; roses of all kinds, +except the musk, which comes later; honeysuckles; strawberries; +bugloss; columbine; the French marygold; flos Africanus; cherry-tree +in fruit; ribes; figs in fruit; rasps; vine flowers; lavender in +flower; the sweet satyrian, with the white flower; herba muscaria; +lilium convallium; the apple-tree in blossom. In July come +gillyflowers of all varieties; musk-roses; the lime-tree in blossom; +early pears and plums in fruit; ginitings; quadlins. In August come +plums of all sorts in fruit; pears; apricocks; berberries; filberds; +musk-melons; monkshoods, of all colours. In September come grapes; +apples; poppies of all colours; peaches; melocotones; nectarines; +cornelians; wardens; quinces. In October and the beginning of November +come services; medlars, bullises; roses cut or removed to come late; +hollyokes; and such like. These particulars are for the climate of +London; but my meaning is perceived, that you may have _ver +perpetuum_, as the place affords. + +And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it +comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, +therefore nothing is more fit for that delight, than to know what be +the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and +red, are fast flowers of their smells; so that you may walk by a whole +row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness; yea, though it be in +a morning's dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow. Rosemary +little; nor sweet marjoram. That which above all others yields the +sweetest smell in the air, is the violet; specially the white double +violet, which comes twice a year; about the middle of April, and about +Bartholomewtide. Next to that is the musk-rose. Then the +strawberry-leaves dying, which [yield] a most excellent cordial smell. +Then the flower of the vines; it is a little dust, like the dust of a +bent, which grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Then +sweet-briar. Then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set +under a parlour or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gillyflowers, +specially the matted pink and clove gillyflower. Then the flowers of +the lime-tree. Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of +bean flowers I speak not, because they are field flowers. But those +which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, +but being trodden upon and crushed, are three: that is, burnet, wild +thyme, and water-mints. Therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, +to have the pleasure when you walk or tread. + +For gardens (speaking of those which are indeed prince-like, as we +have done of buildings), the contents ought not to be well under +thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts: a green in +the entrance; a heath or desert in the going forth; and the main +garden in the midst; besides alleys on both sides. And I like well +that four acres of ground be assigned to the green; six to the heath; +four and four to either side; and twelve to the main garden. The green +hath two pleasures: the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the +eye than green grass kept finely shorn; the other, because it will +give you a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon +a stately hedge, which is to enclose the garden. But because the alley +will be long, and, in great heat of the year or day, you ought not to +buy the shade in the garden by going in the sun thorough the green, +therefore you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, +upon carpenter's work, about twelve foot in height, by which you may +go in shade into the garden. As for the making of knots or figures +with divers-coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of +the house on that side which the garden stands, they be but toys: you +may see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be +square; encompassed, on all the four sides, with a stately arched +hedge. The arches to be upon pillars of carpenter's work, of some ten +foot high and six foot broad; and the spaces between of the same +dimension with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be +an entire hedge, of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenter's +work; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret, with +a belly, enough to receive a cage of birds; and over every space +between the arches some other little figure, with broad plates of +round coloured glass, gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I +intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some +six foot, set all with flowers. Also I understand that this square of +the garden should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to +leave, on either side, ground enough for diversity of side alleys; +unto which the two covert alleys of the green may deliver you. But +there must be no alleys with hedges at either end of this great +enclosure: not at the hither end, for letting your prospect upon this +fair hedge from the green; nor at the further end, for letting your +prospect from the hedge, through the arches, upon the heath. + +For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to +variety of device; advising; nevertheless, that whatsoever form you +cast it into, first, it be not too busy or full of work. Wherein I, +for my part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden +stuff: they be for children. Little low hedges, round, like welts, +with some pretty pyramides, I like well; and in some places, fair +columns upon frames of carpenter's work. I would also have the alleys +spacious and fair. You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, +but none in the main garden. I wish also, in the very middle, a fair +mount, with three ascents, and alleys, enough for four to walk +abreast; which I would have to be perfect circles, without any +bulwarks or embossments; and the whole mount to be thirty foot high; +and some fine banqueting-house, with some chimneys neatly cast, and +without too much glass. + +For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment; but pools mar +all, and make the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs. +Fountains I intend to be of two natures: the one, that sprinkleth or +spouteth water; the other, a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or +forty foot square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For the first, +the ornaments of images gilt, or of marble, which are in use, do well: +but the main matter is, so to convey the water, as it never stay, +either in the bowls or in the cistern; that the water be never by rest +discoloured, green or red or the like, or gather any mossiness or +putrefaction. Besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the +hand. Also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it, doth +well. As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathing +pool, it may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will not +trouble ourselves: as, that the bottom be finely paved, and with +images; the sides likewise; and withal embellished with coloured +glass, and such things of lustre; encompassed also with fine rails of +low statuas. But the main point is the same which we mentioned in the +former kind of fountain; which is, that the water be in perpetual +motion, fed by a water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by +fair spouts, and then discharged away under ground, by some equality +of bores, that it stay little. And for fine devices, of arching water +without spilling, and making it rise in several forms (of feathers, +drinking glasses, canopies, and the like), they be pretty things to +look on, but nothing to health and sweetness. + +For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be +framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would have +none in it; but some thickets, made only of sweet-briar and +honeysuckle, and some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with +violets, strawberries, and primroses. For these are sweet, and prosper +in the shade. And these to be in the heath, here and there, not in any +order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as +are in wild heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme; some with pinks; +some with germander, that gives a good flower to the eye; some with +periwinkle; some with violets; some with strawberries; some with +cowslips; some with daisies; some with red roses; some with lilium +convallium; some with sweet-williams red; some with bear's-foot; and +the like low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of which +heaps to be with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, +and part without. The standards to be roses; juniper; holly; +berberries (but here and there, because of the smell of their +blossom); red currants; gooseberries; rosemary; sweet-briar; and such +like. But these standards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not +out of course. + +For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys, +private, to give a full shade, some of them, wheresoever the sun be. +You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that when the wind +blows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery. And those alleys must be +likewise hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind; and these closer +alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going +wet. In many of these alleys likewise, you are to set fruit-trees of +all sorts; as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this would be +generally observed, that the borders, wherein you plant your +fruit-trees, be fair and large, and low, and not steep; and set with +fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive the trees. At +the end of both the side grounds, I would have a mount of some pretty +height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast high, to look abroad +into the fields. + +For the main garden, I do not deny but there should be some fair +alleys, ranged on both sides with fruit-trees; and some pretty tufts +of fruit-trees, and arbours with seats, set in some decent order; but +these to be by no means set too thick; but to leave the main garden so +as it be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I +would have you rest upon the alleys of the side grounds, there to +walk, if you be disposed, in the heat of the year or day; but to make +account that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the +year; and in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, or +over-cast days. + +For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness as +they may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them; +that the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no +foulness appear in the floor of the aviary. So I have made a platform +of a princely garden, partly by precept, partly by drawing, not a +model, but some general lines of it; and in this I have spared no +cost. But it is nothing for great princes, that, for the most part, +taking advice with workmen, with no less cost set their things +together; and sometimes add statuas, and such things, for state and +magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a garden. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +OF STUDIES + + +Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief +use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in +discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of +business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of +particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and +marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To +spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for +ornament is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules is +the humour of the scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by +experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need +proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too +much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men +contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for +they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and +above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; +nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; +but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be +swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books +are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; +and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some +books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; +but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner +sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, +flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and +writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had +need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a +present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to +seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; +the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic +and rhetoric able to contend. _Abeunt studia in mores._ Nay, there is +no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit +studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. +Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and +breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the +like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; +for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he +must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find +differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are _cymini +sectores_: if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call one +thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' +cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. + + _Francis Bacon._ + + + + +THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER + + +There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, +which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be +these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, +perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, +commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were +required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. +Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to better +preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can +provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. +Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the +miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to +their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown +rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the +proxy of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. + +His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had +as well be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school, as +Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk +therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are +bunglers in this. But God, of His goodness, hath fitted several men +for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in all +conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric +thereof, may say, God hewed out the stone, and appointed it to lie in +this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth +most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, +undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with +dexterity and happy success. + +He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; +and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may +seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all +particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar +of boys' natures, and reduce them all--saving some few exceptions--to +these general rules: + +1. Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two +such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a +frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death; yea, where their +master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such +natures he useth with all gentleness. + +2. Those that are ingenious and idle. These think with the hare in the +fable, that running with snails--so they count the rest of their +schoolfellows--they shall come soon enough to the post, though +sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would +finely take them napping. + +3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be, the +more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till +they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. +Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared, and pointed by nature, +and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough +and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures of youth, acquit +themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their +dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That +schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy +for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can +make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before +the hour nature hath appointed. + +4. Those that are invincibly dull, and negligent also. Correction may +reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world +can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such +boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and +boat-makers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other +carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics +which will not serve for scholars. + +He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them +rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children +to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his +scholars may go along with him. + +He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. If +cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons' exemption +from his rod--to live, as it were, in a peculiar, out of their +master's jurisdiction--with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the +late custom in some places of commuting whipping into money, and +ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn +youth, correction-proof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting +with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy +hath infected others. + +He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster +better answereth the name _paidotribes_ than _paidagogos_, rather +tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good +education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented +unto them in the shape of fiends and furies. + +Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes. Their tyranny hath +caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose +stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their +speech at their master's presence; and whose mauling them about their +heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master. + +He makes his school free to him who sues to him _in forma pauperis_. +And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he is +a beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays +the scholar in his whipping; rather are diligent lads to be encouraged +with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard +concerning Mr. Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who would +never suffer any wandering begging scholar--such as justly the statute +hath ranked in the fore-front of rogues--to come into his school, but +would thrust him out with earnestness--however privately charitable +unto him--lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books, +by seeing some scholars after their studying in the university +preferred to beggary. + +He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to +teach his scholars logic. For, besides that logic may have an action +of trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, +syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are +forced afterwards in the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they +had before. + +Out of his school he is no way pedantical in carriage or discourse; +contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not gingle with +it in every company wherein he comes. + +To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters +careful in their place--that the eminences of their scholars have +commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who, +otherwise in obscurity, had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever +heard of R. Bond, in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned +Ascham, his scholar? or of Hartgrave, in Brundly School, in the same +county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr. Whitaker? +Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as his +scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the +Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus, their founder, +to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas, his schoolmaster, that +first instructed him. + + _Thomas Fuller._ + + + + +ON DEATH + + +Nature calls us to meditate of death by those things which are the +instruments of acting it; and God by all the variety of His +providence, makes us see death everywhere, in all variety of +circumstances, and dressed up for all the fancies, and the expectation +of every single person. Nature hath given us one harvest every year, +but death hath two; and the spring and the autumn send throngs of men +and women to charnel-houses; and all the summer long, men are +recovering from their evils of the spring, till the dog-days come, and +then the Sirian star makes the summer deadly; and the fruits of autumn +are laid up for all the year's provision, and the man that gathers +them eats and surfeits, and dies and needs them not, and himself is +laid up for eternity; and he that escapes till winter, only stays for +another opportunity, which the distempers of that quarter minister to +him with great variety. Thus death reigns in all the portions of our +time. The autumn with its fruits provides disorders for us, and the +winter's cold turns them into sharp diseases, and the spring brings +flowers to strew our hearse, and the summer gives green turf and +brambles to bind upon our graves. Calentures and surfeit, cold and +agues, are the four quarters of the year; and you can go no whither, +but you tread upon a dead man's bones. + +The wild fellow in Petronius, that escaped upon a broken table from +the furies of a shipwreck, as he was sunning himself upon the rocky +shore, espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves, ballasted +with sand in the folds of his garment, and carried by his civil enemy, +the sea, towards the shore to find a grave. And it cast him into some +sad thoughts, that peradventure this man's wife, in some part of the +continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return; +or, it may be, his son knows nothing of the tempest; or his father +thinks of that affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good old +man's cheek, ever since he took a kind farewell, and he weeps with joy +to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the +circle of his father's arms. These are the thoughts of mortals; this +is the end and sum of all their designs. A dark night and an ill +guide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, a hard rock and a rough +wind, dashed in pieces the fortune of a whole family; and they that +shall weep loudest for the accident are not yet entered into the +storm, and yet have suffered shipwreck. Then, looking upon the +carcass, he knew it, and found it to be the master of the ship, who, +the day before, cast up the accounts of his patrimony and his trade, +and named the day when he thought to be at home. See how the man +swims, who was so angry two days since! His passions are becalmed with +the storm, his accounts cast up, his cares at an end, his voyage done, +and his gains are the strange events of death, which, whether they be +good or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble themselves +concerning the interest of the dead. + +It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and +it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness +of youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood; from the +vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, to +the hollowness and deadly paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of +a three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very +great and very strange. But so have I seen a rose newly springing from +the clefts of its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, and +full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece; but when a ruder +breath hath forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too +youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to +decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the +head, and broke its stalk; and at night, having lost some of its +leaves, and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and +out-worn faces. The same is the portion of every man and every woman; +the heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and cold dishonour, and +our beauty so changed, that our acquaintance quickly knew us not; and +that change mingled with so much horror, or else meets so with our +fears and weak discoursings, that they who, six hours ago, tended upon +us either with charitable or ambitious services, cannot, without some +regret, stay in the room alone, where the body lies stripped of its +life and honour. I have read of a fair young German gentleman, who, +living, often refused to be pictured, but put off the importunity of +his friends' desire by giving way, that after a few days' burial, they +might send a painter to his vault, and, if they saw cause for it, draw +the image of his death unto the life. They did so, and found his face +half eaten, and his midriff and backbone full of serpents; and so he +stands pictured among his armed ancestors. So does the fairest beauty +change; and it will be as bad with you and me; and then what servants +shall we have to wait upon us in the grave? what friends to visit us? +what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud +reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, which +are the longest weepers for our funeral? + +A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man +preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. In the +same Escurial where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, +and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where +their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more; +and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, +and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. +There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest +change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from +living like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flames +of lust, to abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch of +covetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of a +lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the +peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the +despised princes mingle their dust, and pay down their symbol of +mortality, and tell all the world that, when we die, our ashes shall +be equal to kings', and our accounts easier, and our pains for our +crowns shall be less. + + _Jeremy Taylor._ + + + + +OF WINTER + + +Winter, the sworne enemie to summer, the friend to none but colliers +and woodmongers: the frostbitten churl that hangs his nose still over +the fire: the dog that bites fruits, and the devil that cuts down +trees, the unconscionable binder up of vintners' faggots, and the only +consumer of burnt sack and sugar: This cousin to Death, father to +sickness, and brother to old age, shall not show his hoary bald-pate +in this climate of ours (according to our usual computation) upon the +twelfth day of December, at the first entering of the sun into the +first minute of the sign Capricorn, when the said Sun shall be at his +greatest south declination from the equinoctial line, and so forth, +with much more such stuff than any mere Englishman can understand--no, +my countrymen, never beat the bush so long to find out Winter, where +he lies, like a beggar shivering with cold, but take these from me as +certain and most infallible rules, know when Winter plums are ripe and +ready to be gathered. + +When Charity blows her nails and is ready to starve, yet not so much +as a watchman will lend her a flap of his frieze gown to keep her +warm: when tradesmen shut up shops, by reason their frozen-hearted +creditors go about to nip them with beggary: when the price of +sea-coal riseth, and the price of men's labour falleth: when every +chimney casts out smoke, but scarce any door opens to cast so much as +a maribone to a dog to gnaw; when beasts die for want of fodder in the +field, and men are ready to famish for want of food in the city; when +the first word that a wench speaks at your coming into the room in a +morning is, "Prithee send for some faggots," and the best comfort a +sawyer beats you withal is to say, "What will you give me?"; when +gluttons blow their pottage to cool them; and Prentices blow their +nails to heat them; and lastly when the Thames is covered over with +ice and men's hearts caked over and crusted with cruelty: Then mayest +thou or any man be bold to swear it is winter. + + _Thomas Dekker._ + + + + +HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN A PLAY-HOUSE + + +The theater is your Poets Royal Exchange, upon which their Muses, (yt +are now turnd to Merchants,) meeting, barter away that light commodity +of words for a lighter ware then words, _Plaudites_, and the _breath_ +of the great _Beast_; which (like the threatnings of two Cowards) +vanish all into air. _Plaiers_ and their _Factors_, who put away the +stuffe, and make the best of it they possibly can (as indeed tis their +parts so to doe) your Gallant, your Courtier, and your Capten had wont +to be the soundest paymaisters; and I thinke are still the surest +chapmen: and these, by meanes that their heades are well stockt, deale +upon this comical freight by the grosse: when your _Groundling_, and +_gallery-Commoner_ buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a _Hagler_, +is glad to utter it againe by retailing. + +Sithence then the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stoole +as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard +has the selfe-same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which +your sweet Courtier hath: and that your Car-man and Tinker claime as +strong a voice in their suffrage, and sit to give judgment on the +plaies life and death, as well as the prowdest _Momus_ among the +tribe[s] of _Critick_: It is fit that hee, whom the most tailors bils +do make roome for, when he comes, should not be basely (like a vyoll) +casd up in a corner. + +Whether therefore the gatherers of the publique or private Play-house +stand to receive the afternoones rent, let our Gallant (having paid +it) presently advance himselfe up to the Throne of the Stage. I meane +not into the Lords roome (which is now but the Stages Suburbs): No, +those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting-women +and Gentlemen-Ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousnes +of Sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new +Satten is there dambd, by being smothred to death in darknesse. But on +the very Rushes where the Comedy is to daunce, yea, and under the +state of _Cambises_ himselfe must our fethered _Estridge_, like a +piece of Ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently) beating +downe the mewes and hisses of the opposed rascality. + +For do but cast up a reckoning, what large cummings-in are pursd up by +sitting on the Stage. First a conspicuous _Eminence_ is gotten; by +which meanes, the best and most essenciall parts of a Gallant (good +cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Persian lock, and a +tollerable beard) are perfectly revealed. + +By sitting on the stage, you have a signd patent to engrosse the whole +commodity of Censure; may lawfully presume to be a Girder; and stand +at the helme to steere the passage of _scaenes_; yet / no man shall +once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, +overweening Coxcombe. + +By sitting on the stage, you may (without travelling for it) at the +very next doore aske whose play it is: and, by that _Quest_ of +_Inquiry_, the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking: if you know +not ye author, you may raile against him: and peradventure so behave +your selfe, that you may enforce the Author to know you. + +By sitting on the stage, if you be a Knight, you may happily get you a +Mistress: if a mere _Fleet-street_ Gentleman, a wife: but assure +yourselfe, by continuall residence, you are the first and principall +man in election to begin the number of _We three_. + +By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a Justice in +examining of plaies, you shall put your selfe into such true +_scaenical_ authority, that some Poet shall not dare to present his +Muse rudely upon your eyes, without having first unmaskt her at a +taverne, when you most knightly shal, for his paines, pay for both +their suppers. + +By sitting on the stage, you may (with small cost) purchase the deere +acquaintance of the boys: have a good stoole for sixpence: at any time +know what particular part any of the infants present: get your match +lighted, examine the play-suits lace, and perhaps win wagers upon +laying 'tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a +Justice of peace, or a Capten, a Lord-Mayors sonne, or a dawcocke, a +knave, or an under-Sherife; of what stamp soever you be, currant, or +counterfet, the Stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light +and lay you open: neither are you to be hunted from thence, though the +Scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hisse at you, spit at you, yea, +throw durt even in your teeth: 'tis most Gentlemanlike patience to +endure all this, and to laugh at the silly Animals: but if the +_Rabble_, with a full throat, crie, away with the foole, you were +worse then a madman to tarry by it: for the Gentleman, and the foole +should never sit on the Stage together. + +Mary, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest: or rather, +like a country-serving-man, some five yards before them. Present / not +your selfe on the Stage (especially at a new play) untill the quaking +prologue hath (by rubbing) got culor into his cheekes, and is ready to +give the trumpets their Cue, that hees upon point to enter: for then +it is time, as though you were one of the _properties_, or that you +dropt out of ye _Hangings_, to creepe from behind the Arras, with your +_Tripos_ or three-footed stoole in one hand, and a teston mounted +betweene a forefinger and a thumbe in the other: for if you should +bestow your person upon the vulgar, when the belly of the house is but +halfe full, your apparell is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the +proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured then if it were +served up in the Counter amongst the Powltry: avoid that as you would +the Bastome. It shall crowne you with rich commendation, to laugh +alowd in the middest of the most serious and saddest scene of the +terriblest Tragedy: and to let that clapper (your tongue) be tost so +high, that all the house may ring of it: your Lords use it; your +Knights are Apes to the Lords, and do so too: your Inne-a-court-man is +Zany to the Knights, and (mary very scurvily) comes likewise limping +after it: bee thou a beagle to them all, and never lin snuffing, till +you have scented them: for by talking and laughing (like a Plough-man +in a Morris) you heap _Pelion_ upon _Ossa_, glory upon glory: As +first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the +Players, and onely follow you: the simplest dolt in the house snatches +up your name, and when he meetes you in the streetes, or that you fall +into his hands in the middle of a Watch, his word shall be taken for +you: heele cry _Hees such a gallant_, and you passe. Secondly, you +publish your temperance to the world, in that you seeme not to resort +thither to taste vaine pleasures with a hungrie appetite: but onely as +a Gentleman to spend a foolish houre or two, because you can doe +nothing else: Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the Audience, and +disgrace the Author: marry, you take up (though it be at the worst +hand) a strong opinion of your owne judgement, and inforce the Poet to +take pity of your weakenesse, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring +you into a better paradice, onely to stop your mouth. + +If you can (either for love or money) provide your selfe a lodging by +the water-side: for, above the convenience it brings to / shun +Shoulder-clapping, and to ship away your Cockatrice betimes in the +morning, it addes a kind of-state unto you, to be carried from thence +to the staires of your Play-house: hate a Sculler (remember that) +worse then to be acquainted with one o' th' Scullery. No, your Oares +are your onely Sea-crabs, boord them, and take heed you never go twice +together with one paire: often shifting is a great credit to +Gentlemen; and that dividing of your fare wil make the poore +watersnaks be ready to pul you in peeces to enjoy your custome: No +matter whether upon landing, you have money or no: you may swim in +twentie of their boates over the river upon _Ticket_: marry, when +silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make +your Flounder-catchers to send more thankes after you, when you doe +not draw, then when you doe; for they know, It will be their owne +another daie. + +Before the Play begins, fall to cardes: you may win or loose (as +_Fencers_ doe in a prize) and beate one another by confederacie, yet +share the money when you meete at supper: notwithstanding, to gul the +_Raggamuffins_ that stand aloofe gaping at you, throw the cards +(having first torne foure or five of them) round about the Stage, just +upon the third sound, as though you had lost: it skils not if the +foure knaves ly on their backs, and outface the Audience; theres none +such fooles as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go +off, better knaves than they will fall into the company. + +Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or +hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather, +or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall +disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him +the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it +Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd and +discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the +Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast +them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but +salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the +rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the +stage after you: the _Mimicks_ are beholden to you, for allowing them +elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care +not for that, theres no musick without frets. + +Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you +to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a +rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make +other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at +merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action, +whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas +the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt +and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within +two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage, +when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that +morning. + +To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which +your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when +the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues +sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke) +is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is +but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after +the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a +Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must +be beaten out to make up another. + + _Thomas Dekker._ + + + + +OF MYSELF + + +It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates +his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears +to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of +offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my +fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for +my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous, +or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here +speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent +discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, +than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can +return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of +guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the +natural affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from +them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an +antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's +understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of +running about on holidays, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to +steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, +or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I +was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could +never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn, +without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed +with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual +exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the +same mind as I am now--which, I confess, I wonder at myself--may +appear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I was but +thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with many other +verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part which I here +set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much +ashamed. + + This only grant me, that my means may lie + Too low for envy, for contempt too high. + Some honour I would have, + Not from great deeds, but good alone; + Th' unknown are better than ill-known. + Rumour can ope the grave; + Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends + Not on the number, but the choice of friends. + + Books should, not business, entertain the light, + And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. + My house a cottage, more + Than palace, and should fitting be + For all my use, no luxury. + My garden painted o'er + With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield, + Horace might envy in his Sabine field. + + Thus would I double my life's fading space, + For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. + And in this true delight, + These unbought sports, that happy state, + I would not fear nor wish my fate, + But boldly say each night, + To-morrow let my sun his beams display, + Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. + +You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets, for the +conclusion is taken out of Horace; and perhaps it was the immature and +immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, the +characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young +tree, which, with the tree, still grow proportionably. But how this +love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe +I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with +such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for I +remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was +wont to lie in my mother's parlour--I know not by what accident, for +she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion--but there +was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was +infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and +monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there--though my +understanding had little to do with all this--and by degrees, with the +tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had +read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections +of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the +university; but was soon torn from thence by that public violent +storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up +every plant, even from the princely cedars, to me, the hyssop. Yet I +had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I +was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into +the court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I +was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my +life; that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a +daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant--for that was +the state then of the English and the French courts--yet all this was +so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation +of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw +plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; +and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I +knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it +was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very +well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to +be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in +a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A +storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage; +though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, +though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat +at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present +subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in +banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from +renewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same +effect: + + Well, then, I now do plainly see + This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c. + +And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his +majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately +convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I +might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no +greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary +fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself, +and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the +elegance of it-- + + Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, + Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; + Content thyself with the small barren praise + Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c. + +However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not +quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a +_corpus perditum_, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of +fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: I +met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, +but with so much sickness--a new misfortune to me--as would have +spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither +repent nor alter my course; _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_.[3] +Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, +and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich +portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her. + +[Footnote 3: I have not falsely sworn.] + + _Nec vos dulcissima mundi + Nomina, vos musae, libertas, otia, libri, + Hortique, sylvaeque, anima remanente relinquam_. + + Nor by me e'er shall you, + You of all names the sweetest and the best, + You muses, books, and liberty, and rest; + You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be, + As long as life itself forsakes not me. + + _Cowley._ + + + + +THE GRAND ELIXIR + + +There is an oblique way of Reproof, which takes off from the Sharpness +of it; and an Address in Flattery, which makes it agreeable though +never so gross: But of all Flatterers, the most skilful is he who can +do what you like, without saying any thing which argues you do it for +his Sake; the most winning Circumstance in the World being the +Conformity of Manners. I speak of this as a Practice necessary in +gaining People of Sense, who are not yet given up to Self-Conceit; +those who are far gone in admiration of themselves need not be treated +with so much Delicacy. The following Letter puts this Matter in a +pleasant and uncommon Light: The Author of it attacks this Vice with +an Air of Compliance, and alarms us against it by exhorting us to it. + + _To the GUARDIAN._ + +"Sir, + +"As you profess to encourage all those who any way contribute to the +Publick Good, I flatter my self I may claim your Countenance and +Protection. I am by profession a Mad Doctor, but of a peculiar Kind, +not of those whose Aim it is to remove Phrenzies, but one who makes it +my Business to confer an agreeable Madness on my Fellow-Creatures, for +their mutual Delight and Benefit. Since it is agreed by the +Philosophers, that Happiness and Misery consist chiefly in the +Imagination, nothing is more necessary to Mankind in general than this +pleasing Delirium, which renders every one satisfied with himself, and +persuades him that all others are equally so. + +"I have for several Years, both at home and abroad, made this Science +my particular Study, which I may venture to say I have improved in +almost all the Courts of _Europe_; and have reduced it into so safe +and easie a Method, as to practise it on both Sexes, of what +Disposition, Age or Quality soever, with Success. What enables me to +perform this great Work, is the Use of my _Obsequium Catholicon_, or +the _Grand Elixir_, to support the Spirits of human Nature. This +Remedy is of the most grateful Flavour in the World, and agrees with +all Tastes whatever. 'Tis delicate to the Senses, delightful in the +Operation, may be taken at all Hours without Confinement, and is as +properly given at a Ball or Play-house as in a private Chamber. It +restores and vivifies the most dejected Minds, corrects and extracts +all that is painful in the Knowledge of a Man's self. One Dose of it +will instantly disperse itself through the whole Animal System, +dissipate the first Motions of Distrust so as never to return, and so +exhilerate the Brain and rarifie the Gloom of Reflection, as to give +the Patients a new flow of Spirits, a Vivacity of Behaviour, and a +pleasing Dependence upon their own Capacities. + +"Let a Person be never so far gone, I advise him not to despair; even +though he has been troubled many Years with restless Reflections, +which by long Neglect have hardened into settled Consideration. Those +that have been stung with Satyr may here find a certain Antidote, +which infallibly disperses all the Remains of Poison that has been +left in the Understanding by bad Cures. It fortifies the Heart against +the Rancour of Pamphlets, the Inveteracy of Epigrams, and the +Mortification of Lampoons; as has been often experienced by several +Persons of both Sexes, during the Seasons of _Tunbridge_ and the +_Bath_. + +"I could, as farther Instances of my Success, produce Certificates and +Testimonials from the Favourites and Ghostly Fathers of the most +eminent Princes of _Europe_; but shall content myself with the Mention +of a few Cures, which I have performed by this my _Grand Universal +Restorative_, during the Practice of one Month only since I came to +this City." + + +_Cures in the Month of February_, 1713. + +"_GEORGE SPONDEE_, Esq; Poet, and Inmate of the Parish of St. _Paul's +Covent-Garden_, fell into violent Fits of the Spleen upon a thin Third +Night. He had been frighted into a Vertigo by the Sound of Cat-calls +on the First Day; and the frequent Hissings on the Second made him +unable to endure the bare Pronunciation of the Letter S. I searched +into the Causes of his Distemper; and by the Prescription of a Dose of +my _Obsequium_, prepared _Secundum Artem_, recovered him to his +Natural State of Madness. I cast in at proper Intervals the Words, +_Ill Taste of the Town_, _Envy of Criticks_, _bad Performance of the +Actors_, and the like. He is so perfectly cured that he has promised +to bring another Play upon the Stage next Winter. + +"A Lady of professed Virtue, of the Parish of St. _James's +Westminster_, who hath desired her Name may be concealed, having taken +Offence at a Phrase of double Meaning in Conversation, undiscovered by +any other in the Company, suddenly fell into a cold Fit of Modesty. +Upon a right Application of Praise of her Virtue, I threw the Lady +into an agreeable waking Dream, settled the Fermentation of her Blood +into a warm Charity, so as to make her look with Patience on the very +Gentleman that offended. + +"_HILARIA_, of the Parish of St. _Giles's in the Fields_, a Coquet of +long Practice, was by the Reprimand of an old Maiden reduced to look +grave in Company, and deny her self the Play of the Fan. In short, she +was brought to such Melancholy Circumstances, that she would sometimes +unawares fall into Devotion at Church. I advis'd her to take a few +_innocent Freedoms with occasional Kisses_, prescribed her the +_Exercise of the Eyes_, and immediately raised her to her former State +of Life. She on a sudden recovered her Dimples, furled her Fan, threw +round her Glances, and for these two _Sundays_ last past has not once +been seen in an attentive Posture. This the Church-Wardens are ready +to attest upon Oath. + +"_ANDREW TERROR_, of the _Middle-Temple, Mohock_, was almost induced +by an aged Bencher of the same House to leave off bright Conversation, +and pore over _Cook upon Littleton_. He was so ill that his Hat began +to flap, and he was seen one Day in the last Term at _Westminster-Hall_. +This Patient had quite lost his Spirit of Contradiction; I, by the +Distillation of a few of my vivifying Drops in his Ear, drew him from +his Lethargy, and restored him to his usual vivacious Misunderstanding. +He is at present very easie in his Condition. + +"I will not dwell upon the Recital of the innumerable Cures I have +performed within Twenty Days last past; but rather proceed to exhort +all Persons, of whatever Age, Complexion or Quality, to take as soon +as possible of this my intellectual Oyl; which applied at the Ear +seizes all the Senses with a most agreeable Transport, and discovers +its Effects, not only to the Satisfaction of the Patient, but all who +converse with, attend upon, or any way relate to him or her that +receives the kindly Infection. It is often administered by +Chamber-Maids, Valets, or any the most ignorant Domestick; it being +one peculiar Excellence of this my Oyl, that 'tis most prevalent, the +more unskilful the Person is or appears who applies it. It is +absolutely necessary for Ladies to take a Dose of it just before they +take Coach to go a visiting. + +"But I offend the Publick, as _Horace_ said, when I trespass on any of +your Time. Give me leave then, Mr. _Ironside_, to make you a Present +of a Drachm or two of my Oyl; though I have Cause to fear my +Prescriptions will not have the Effect upon you I could wish: +Therefore I do not endeavour to bribe you in my Favour by the Present +of my Oyl, but wholly depend upon your Publick Spirit and Generosity; +which, I hope, will recommend to the World the useful Endeavours of, + + "_Sir,_ + + "_Your most Obedient, most Faithful, most Devoted, + most Humble Servant and Admirer_, + + "GNATHO. + +"***Beware of Counterfeits, for such are abroad. + +"_N.B._ I teach the _Arcana_ of my Art at reasonable Rates to +Gentlemen of the Universities, who desire to be qualified for writing +Dedications; and to young Lovers and Fortune-hunters, to be paid at +the Day of Marriage. I instruct Persons of bright Capacities to +flatter others, and those of the meanest to flatter themselves. + +"I was the first Inventor of Pocket Looking-Glasses." + + _Pope._ + + + + +JACK LIZARD + + +_Jack Lizard_ was about Fifteen when he was first entered in the +University, and being a Youth of a great deal of Fire, and a more than +ordinary Application to his Studies, it gave his Conversation a very +particular Turn. He had too much Spirit to hold his Tongue in Company; +but at the same time so little Acquaintance with the World, that he +did not know how to talk like other People. + +After a Year and half's stay at the University, he came down among us +to pass away a Month or two in the Country. The first Night after his +Arrival, as we were at Supper, we were all of us very much improved by +_Jack's_ Table-Talk. He told us, upon the Appearance of a Dish of +Wild-Fowl, that according to the Opinion of some natural Philosophers +they might be lately come from the Moon. Upon which the _Sparkler_ +bursting out into a Laugh, he insulted her with several Questions +relating to the Bigness and Distance of the Moon and Stars; and after +every Interrogatory would be winking upon me, and smiling at his +Sister's Ignorance. _Jack_ gained his Point; for the Mother was +pleased, and all the Servants stared at the Learning of their young +Master. _Jack_ was so encouraged at this Success, that for the first +Week he dealt wholly in Paradoxes. It was a common Jest with him to +pinch one of his Sister's Lap-Dogs, and afterwards prove he could not +feel it. When the Girls were sorting a Set of Knots, he would +demonstrate to them that all the Ribbands were of the same Colour; or +rather, says _Jack_, of no Colour at all. My Lady _Lizard_ her self, +though she was not a little pleas'd with her Son's Improvements, was +one Day almost angry with him; for having accidentally burnt her +Fingers as she was lighting the Lamp for her Tea-pot; in the midst of +her Anguish, _Jack_ laid hold of the Opportunity to instruct her that +there was no such thing as Heat in Fire. In short, no Day pass'd over +our Heads, in which _Jack_ did not imagine he made the whole Family +wiser than they were before. + +That part of his Conversation which gave me the most Pain, was what +pass'd among those Country Gentlemen that came to visit us. On such +Occasions _Jack_ usually took upon him to be the Mouth of the Company; +and thinking himself obliged to be very merry, would entertain us with +a great many odd Sayings and Absurdities of their College-Cook. I +found this Fellow had made a very strong Impression upon _Jack's_ +Imagination; which he never considered was not the Case of the rest of +the Company, 'till after many repeated Tryals he found that his +Stories seldom made any Body laugh but himself. + +I all this while looked upon _Jack_ as a young Tree shooting out into +Blossoms before its Time; the Redundancy of which, though it was a +little unseasonable, seemed to foretel an uncommon Fruitfulness. + +In order to wear out the vein of Pedantry which ran through his +Conversation, I took him out with me one Evening, and first of all +insinuated to him this Rule, which I had my self learned from a very +great Author, _To think with the Wise, but talk with the Vulgar_. +_Jack's_ good Sense soon made him reflect that he had often exposed +himself to the Laughter of the Ignorant by a contrary Behaviour; upon +which he told me, that he would take Care for the future to keep his +Notions to himself, and converse in the common received Sentiments of +Mankind. He at the same time desired me to give him any other Rules of +Conversation which I thought might be for his Improvement. I told him +I would think of it; and accordingly, as I have a particular Affection +for the young Man, I gave him next Morning the following Rules in +Writing, which may perhaps have contributed to make him the agreeable +Man he now is. + +The Faculty of interchanging our Thoughts with one another, or what we +express by the Word _Conversation_, has always been represented by +Moral Writers as one of the noblest Privileges of Reason, and which +more particularly sets Mankind above the Brute Part of the Creation. + +Though nothing so much gains upon the Affections as this _Extempore +Eloquence_, which we have constantly Occasion for, and are obliged to +practice every Day, we very rarely meet with any who excel in it. + +The Conversation of most Men is disagreeable, not so much for Want of +Wit and Learning, as of Good-Breeding and Discretion. + +If you resolve to please, never speak to gratifie any particular +Vanity or Passion of your own, but always with a Design either to +divert or inform the Company. A Man who only aims at one of these, is +always easie in his Discourse. He is never out of Humour at being +interrupted, because he considers that those who hear him are the best +Judges whether what he was saying could either divert or inform them. + +A modest Person seldom fails to gain the Good-Will of those he +converses with, because no body envies a Man, who does not appear to +be pleased with himself. + +We should talk extreamly little of our selves. Indeed what can we say? +It would be as imprudent to discover our Faults, as ridiculous to +count over our fancied Virtues. Our private and domestick Affairs are +no less improper to be introduced in Conversation. What does it +concern the Company how many Horses you keep in your Stables? Or +whether your Servant is most Knave, or Fool? + +A man may equally affront the Company he is in, by engrossing all the +Talk, or observing a contemptuous Silence. + +Before you tell a Story it may be generally not amiss to draw a short +Character, and give the Company a true Idea of the principal Persons +concerned in it. The Beauty of most things consisting not so much in +their being said or done, as in their being said or done by such a +particular Person, or on such a particular Occasion. + +Notwithstanding all the Advantages of Youth, few young People please +in Conversation; the Reason is, that want of Experience makes them +positive, and what they say is rather with a Design to please +themselves than any one else. + +It is certain that Age it self shall make many things pass well +enough, which would have been laughed at in the Mouth of one much +younger. + +Nothing, however, is more insupportable to Men of Sense, than an empty +formal Man who speaks in Proverbs, and decides all Controversies with +a short Sentence. This piece of Stupidity is the more insufferable, as +it puts on the Air of Wisdom. + +A prudent Man will avoid talking much of any particular Science, for +which he is remarkably famous. There is not methinks an handsomer +thing said of Mr. _Cowley_ in his whole Life, than that none but his +intimate Friends ever discovered he was a great Poet by his Discourse: +Besides the Decency of this Rule, it is certainly founded in good +Policy. A Man who talks of any thing he is already famous for, has +little to get, but a great deal to lose. I might add, that he who is +sometimes silent on a Subject where every one is satisfied he could +speak well, will often be thought no less knowing in other Matters, +where perhaps he is wholly ignorant. + +Women are frightened at the Name of Argument, and are sooner convinced +by an happy Turn, or Witty Expression, than by Demonstration. + +Whenever you commend, add your Reasons for doing so; it is this which +distinguishes the Approbation of a Man of Sense from the Flattery of +Sycophants, and Admiration of Fools. + +Raillery is no longer agreeable than while the whole Company is +pleased with it. I would least of all be understood to except the +Person rallied. + +Though Good-humour, Sense and Discretion can seldom fail to make a Man +agreeable, it may be no ill Policy sometimes to prepare your self in a +particular manner for Conversation, by looking a little farther than +your Neighbours into whatever is become a reigning Subject. If our +Armies are besieging a Place of Importance abroad, or our House of +Commons debating a Bill of Consequence at home, you can hardly fail of +being heard with Pleasure, if you have nicely informed your self of +the Strength, Situation, and History of the first, or of the Reasons +for and against the latter. It will have the same Effect if when any +single Person begins to make a Noise in the World, you can learn some +of the smallest Accidents in his Life or Conversation, which though +they are too fine for the Observation of the Vulgar, give more +Satisfaction to Men of Sense, (as they are the best Openings to a real +Character) than the Recital of his most glaring Actions. I know but +one ill Consequence to be feared from this Method, namely, that coming +full charged into Company, you should resolve to unload whether an +handsome Opportunity offers it self or no. + +Though the asking of Questions may plead for it self the specious +Names of Modesty, and a Desire of Information, it affords little +Pleasure to the rest of the Company who are not troubled with the same +Doubts; besides which, he who asks a Question would do well to +consider that he lies wholly at the Mercy of another before he +receives an Answer. + +Nothing is more silly than the Pleasure some People take in what they +call _speaking their Minds_. A Man of this Make will say a rude thing +for the meer Pleasure of saying it, when an opposite Behaviour, full +as Innocent, might have preserved his Friend, or made his Fortune. + +It is not impossible for a Man to form to himself as exquisite a +Pleasure in complying with the Humour and Sentiments of others, as of +bringing others over to his own; since 'tis the certain Sign of a +Superior Genius, that can take and become whatever Dress it pleases. + +I shall only add, that besides what I have here said, there is +something which can never be learnt but in the Company of the Polite. +The Virtues of Men are catching as well as their Vices, and your own +Observations added to these, will soon discover what it is that +commands Attention in one Man and makes you tired and displeased with +the Discourse of another. + + _Steele._ + + + + +A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK, ACCORDING TO THE STYLE AND MANNER OF +THE HON. ROBERT BOYLE'S MEDITATIONS + + +This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that +neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it +was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain +does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that +withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but +the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on +the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty +wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of +fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; at +length, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is +either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a +fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surely +mortal man is a broomstick! nature sent him into the world strong and +lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the +proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of +intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered +trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself +upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never +grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter +the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all +covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, +we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity. Partial judges +that we are of our own excellences, and other men's defaults! + +But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree +standing on its head: and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy +creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, +his head where his heels should be--grovelling on the earth! and yet, +with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and +corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's +corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises +a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the +while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away. His last +days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; +till, worn to the stumps, like his brother-besom, he is either kicked +out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm +themselves by. + + _Swift._ + + + + +PULPIT ELOQUENCE + + +The subject of the discourse this evening was eloquence and graceful +action. Lysander, who is something particular in his way of thinking +and speaking, told us, "a man could not be eloquent without action; +for the deportment of the body, the turn of the eye, and an apt sound +to every word that is uttered, must all conspire to make an +accomplished speaker. Action in one that speaks in public is the same +thing as a good mien in ordinary life. Thus, as a certain +insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and +jest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to +great sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your +undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; but when you +are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the +more you will move others. + +"There is," said he, "a remarkable example of that kind. Aeschines, a +famous orator of antiquity, had pleaded at Athens in a great cause +against Demosthenes; but having lost it, retired to Rhodes. Eloquence +was then the quality most admired among men, and the magistrates of +that place, having heard he had a copy of the speech of Demosthenes, +desired him to repeat both their pleadings. After his own he recited +also the oration of his antagonist. The people expressed their +admiration of both, but more of that of Demosthenes. 'If you are,' +said he, 'thus touched with hearing only what that great orator said, +how much would you have been affected had you seen him speak? for he +who hears Demosthenes only, loses much the better part of the +oration.' Certain it is that they who speak gracefully are very lamely +represented in having their speeches read or repeated by unskilful +people; for there is something native to each man, so inherent to his +thoughts and sentiments, which it is hardly possible for another to +give a true idea of. You may observe in common talk, when a sentence +of any man's is repeated, an acquaintance of his shall immediately +observe, 'That is so like him, methinks I see how he looked when he +said it.' + +"But of all the people on the earth, there are none who puzzle me so +much as the clergy of Great Britain, who are, I believe, the most +learned body of men now in the world: and yet this art of speaking, +with the proper ornaments of voice and gesture, is wholly neglected +among them; and I will engage, were a deaf man to behold the greater +part of them preach, he would rather think they were reading the +contents only of some discourse they intended to make, than actually +in the body of an oration, even when they were upon matters of such a +nature as one would believe it were impossible to think of without +emotion. + +"I own there are exceptions to this general observation, and that the +dean we heard the other day together is an orator[4]. He has so much +regard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he is +to say to them; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, that it must +attract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no small +recommendation; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that +advantage; and adding to the propriety of speech, which might pass the +criticism of Longinus, an action which would have been approved by +Demosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has charmed many +of his audience, who could not be intelligent hearers of his discourse +were there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art of +his is useful with the most exact and honest skill: he never attempts +your passions until he has convinced your reason. All the objections +which he can form are laid open and dispersed before he uses the least +vehemence in his sermon; but when he thinks he has your head, he very +soon wins your heart; and never pretends to show the beauty of +holiness until he has convinced you of the truth of it. + +[Footnote 4: Steele says that this amiable character of the dean was +drawn for Dr. Atterbury, and mentions it as an argument of his +impartiality in his Preface to the "Tatler," vol. iv.] + +"Would every one of our clergymen be thus careful to recommend truth +and virtue in their proper figures, and show so much concern for them +as to give them all the additional force they were able, it is not +possible that nonsense should have so many hearers as you find it has +in dissenting congregations, for no reason in the world but because it +is spoken extempore; for ordinary minds are wholly governed by their +eyes and ears; and there is no way to come at their hearts but by +power over their imaginations. + +"There is my friend and merry companion Daniel;[5] he knows a great +deal better than he speaks, and can form a proper discourse as well as +any orthodox neighbour. But he knows very well that to bawl out, 'My +beloved!' and the words 'grace! regeneration! sanctification! a new +light! the day! the day! ay, my beloved, the day! or rather the night! +the night is coming!' and 'judgment will come when we least think of +it!' and so forth. He knows, to be vehement is the only way to come at +his audience. Daniel, when he sees my friend Greenhat come in, can +give a good hint, and cry out, 'This is only for the saints! the +regenerated!' By this force of action, though mixed with all the +incoherence and ribaldry imaginable, Daniel can laugh at his diocesan, +and grow fat by voluntary subscription, while the parson of the parish +goes to law for half his dues. Daniel will tell you, it is not the +shepherd, but the sheep with the bell, which the flock follows. + +[Footnote 5: The celebrated Daniel Burgess, whose meeting-house near +Lincoln's Inn was destroyed by the high-church mob upon occasion of +Sacheverell's trial.] + +"Another thing, very wonderful this learned body should omit, is +learning to read; which is a most necessary part of eloquence in one +who is to serve at the altar; for there is no man but must be sensible +that the lazy tone and inarticulate sound of our common readers +depreciates the most proper form of words that were ever extant in any +nation or language, to speak their own wants, or his power from whom +we ask relief. + +"There cannot be a greater instance of the power of action than in +little parson Dapper, who is the common relief to all the lazy pulpits +in town. This smart youth has a very good memory, a quick eye, and a +clean handkerchief. Thus equipped, he opens his text, shuts his book +fairly, shows he has no notes in his Bible, opens both palms, and +shows all is fair there too. Thus, with a decisive air, my young man +goes on without hesitation; and though from the beginning to the end +of his pretty discourse, he has not used one proper gesture, yet, at +the conclusion, the churchwarden pulls his gloves from off his hands; +'Pray, who is this extraordinary young man?' Thus the force of action +is such, that it is more prevalent, even when improper, than all the +reason and argument in the world without it." This gentleman concluded +his discourse by saying, "I do not doubt but if our preachers would +learn to speak, and our readers to read, within six months' time we +should not have a dissenter within a mile of a church in Great +Britain." + + "The Tatler," No. 66. + + + + +THE ART OF POLITICAL LYING + + +We are told the devil is the father of lies, and was a liar from the +beginning; so that, beyond contradiction, the invention is old: and, +which is more, his first Essay of it was purely political, employed in +undermining the authority of his prince, and seducing a third part of +the subjects from their obedience: for which he was driven down from +heaven, where (as Milton expresses it) he had been viceroy of a great +western province; and forced to exercise his talent in inferior +regions among other fallen spirits, poor or deluded men, whom he still +daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so, till he be chained +in the bottomless pit. + +But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other +great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual +improvements that have been made upon him. + +Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is +not so clear from history, although I have made some diligent +inquiries. I shall therefore consider it only according to the modern +system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in the +southern part of our own island. + +The poets tell us that, after the giants were overthrown by the gods, +the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame. And +the fable is thus interpreted: that when tumults and seditions are +quieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through a +nation. So that, by this account, lying is the last relief of a +routed, earth-born, rebellious party in a state. But here the moderns +have made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of power +and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they have +lost it; as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feed +themselves when they are hungry, and to bite those that tread upon +them. + +But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying; +I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some +circumstances of its birth and parents. A political lie is sometimes +born out of a discarded statesman's head, and thence delivered to be +nursed and dandled by the rabble. Sometimes it is produced a monster, +and licked into shape: at other times it comes into the world +completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking. It is often born an +infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it; and often +it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees. +Sometimes it is of noble birth, and sometimes the spawn of a +stock-jobber. Here it screams aloud at the opening of the womb, and +there it is delivered with a whisper. I know a lie that now disturbs +half the kingdom with its noise, [of] which, although too proud and +great at present to own its parents, I can remember its whisperhood. +To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world +without a sting it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting it +dies. + +No wonder if an infant so miraculous in its birth should be destined +for great adventures; and accordingly we see it has been the guardian +spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years. It can conquer +kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle. It +gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and +raise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years at +committees of elections; can wash a blackmoor white; make a saint of +an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign +ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the +nation. This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her hands, to +dazzle the crowd, and make them see, according as she turns it, their +ruin in their interest, and their interest in their ruin. In this +glass you will behold your best friends, clad in coats powdered with +_fleurs de lis_ and triple crowns; their girdles hung round with +chains, and beads, and wooden shoes; and your worst enemies adorned +with the ensigns of liberty, property, indulgence, moderation, and a +cornucopia in their hands. Her large wings, like those of a +flying-fish, are of no use but while they are moist; she therefore +dips them in mud, and, soaring aloft, scatters it in the eyes of the +multitude, flying with great swiftness; but at every turn is forced to +stoop in dirty ways for new supplies. + +I have been sometimes thinking, if a man had the art of the second +sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, +how admirably he might entertain himself in this town, by observing +the different shapes, sizes, and colours of those swarms of lies which +buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horse's ears +in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon in +Exchange-alley, enough to darken the air; or over a club of +discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be scattered +at elections. + +There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from +others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which +is necessary according to the various occasions he meets with every +hour of differing from himself and swearing to both sides of a +contradiction, as he finds the persons disposed with whom he has to +deal. In describing the virtues and vices of mankind, it is +convenient, upon every article, to have some eminent person in our +eye, from whom we copy our description. I have strictly observed this +rule, and my imagination this minute represents before me a certain +great man famous for this talent, to the constant practice of which he +owes his twenty years' reputation of the most skilful head in England +for the management of nice affairs. The superiority of his genius +consists in nothing else but an inexhaustible fund of political lies, +which he plentifully distributes every minute he speaks, and by an +unparalleled generosity forgets, and consequently contradicts, the +next half-hour. He never yet considered whether any proposition were +true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute +or company to affirm or deny it; so that, if you think fit to refine +upon him by interpreting everything he says, as we do dreams, by the +contrary, you are still to seek, and will find yourself equally +deceived whether you believe or not: the only remedy is to suppose +that you have heard some inarticulate sounds, without any meaning at +all; and besides, that will take off the horror you might be apt to +conceive at the oaths wherewith he perpetually tags both ends of every +proposition; although, at the same time, I think he cannot with any +justice be taxed with perjury when he invokes God and Christ, because +he has often fairly given public notice to the world that he believes +in neither. + +Some people may think that such an accomplishment as this can be of no +great use to the owner, or his party, after it has been often +practised and is become notorious; but they are widely mistaken. Few +lies carry the inventor's mark, and the most prostitute enemy to truth +may spread a thousand without being known for the author: besides, as +the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his +believers; and it often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an +hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. +Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men +come to be undeceived it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale +has had its effect: like a man who has thought of a good repartee when +the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician +who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead. + +Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in +multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that +maxim so frequent in everybody's mouth, that truth will at last +prevail. Here has this island of ours, for the greatest part of twenty +years, lain under the influence of such counsels and persons, whose +principle and interest it was to corrupt our manners, blind our +understanding, drain our wealth, and in time destroy our constitution +both in church and state, and we at last were brought to the very +brink of ruin; yet, by the means of perpetual misrepresentations, have +never been able to distinguish between our enemies and friends. We +have seen a great part of the nation's money got into the hands of +those who, by their birth, education, and merit, could pretend no +higher than to wear our liveries; while others, who, by their credit, +quality, and fortune, were only able to give reputation and success to +the Revolution, were not only laid aside as dangerous and useless, but +loaded with the scandal of Jacobites, men of arbitrary principles, and +pensioners to France; while truth, who is said to lie in a well, +seemed now to be buried there under a heap of stones. But I remember +it was a usual complaint among the Whigs, that the bulk of the landed +men was not in their interests, which some of the wisest looked on as +an ill omen; and we saw it was with the utmost difficulty that they +could preserve a majority, while the court and ministry were on their +side, till they had learned those admirable expedients for deciding +elections and influencing distant boroughs by powerful motives from +the city. But all this was mere force and constraint, however upheld +by most dexterous artifice and management, until the people began to +apprehend their properties, their religion, and the monarchy itself in +danger; when we saw them greedily laying hold on the first occasion to +interpose. But of this mighty change in the dispositions of the people +I shall discourse more at large in some following paper: wherein I +shall endeavour to undeceive or discover those deluded or deluding +persons who hope or pretend it is only a short madness in the vulgar, +from which they may soon recover; whereas, I believe it will appear to +be very different in its causes, its symptoms, and its consequences; +and prove a great example to illustrate the maxim I lately mentioned, +that truth (however sometimes late) will at last prevail. + + _Swift._ + + + + +A RURAL RIDE + + + Brighton, + _Thursday, 10 Jan. 1822._ + +Lewes is in a valley of the _South Downs_, this town is at eight miles +distance, to the south-south-west or thereabouts. There is a great +extent of rich meadows above and below Lewes. The town itself is a +model of solidity and neatness. The buildings all substantial to the +very outskirts; the pavements good and complete; the shops nice and +clean; the people well-dressed; and, though last not least, the girls +remarkably pretty, as, indeed, they are in most parts of Sussex; round +faces, features small, little hands and wrists, plump arms, and bright +eyes. The Sussex men, too, are remarkable for their good looks. A Mr. +Baxter, a stationer at Lewes, showed me a _farmer's account book_, +which is a very complete thing of the kind. The inns are good at +Lewes, the people civil and not servile, and the charges really +(considering the taxes) far below what one could reasonably +expect.--From Lewes to Brighton the road winds along between the hills +of the South Downs, which, in this mild weather, are mostly +beautifully green even at this season, with flocks of sheep feeding on +them.--Brighton itself lies in a valley cut across at one end by the +sea, and its extension, or _Wen_, has swelled up the sides of the +hills and has run some distance up the valley.--The first thing you +see in approaching Brighton from Lewes, is a splendid _horse-barrack_ +on one side of the road, and a heap of low, shabby, nasty houses, +irregularly built, on the other side. This is always the case where +there is a barrack. How soon a reformed parliament would make both +disappear! Brighton is a very pleasant place. For a _wen_ remarkably +so. The _Kremlin_, the very name of which has so long been a subject +of laughter all over the country, lies in the gorge of the valley, and +amongst the old houses of the town. The grounds, which cannot, I +think, exceed a couple or three acres, are surrounded by a wall +neither lofty nor good-looking. Above this rise some trees, bad in +sorts, stunted in growth, and dirty with smoke. As to the "palace" as +the Brighton newspapers call it, the apartments appear to be all upon +the ground floor; and, when you see the thing from a distance, you +think you see a parcel of _cradle-spits_, of various dimensions, +sticking up out of the mouths of so many enormous squat decanters. +Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and +the height a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk-turnip, cut off the +green of the leaves, leave the stalks 9 inches long, tie these round +with a string three inches from the top, and put the turnip on the +middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, +treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. +Then take a considerable number of bulbs of the crown-imperial, the +narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the +leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less according +to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but +pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at your +architecture. There! That's "_a Kremlin_!" Only you must cut some +church-looking windows in the sides of the box. As to what you ought +to put _into_ the box, that is a subject far above my cut.--Brighton +is naturally a place of resort for _expectants_, and a shifty, +ugly-looking swarm is, of course, assembled here. Some of the fellows, +who had endeavoured to disturb our harmony at the dinner at Lewes, +were parading, amongst this swarm, on the cliff. You may always know +them by their lank jaws, the stiffeners round their necks, their +hidden or _no_ shirts, their stays, their false shoulders, hips and +haunches, their half-whiskers, and by their skins, colour of veal +kidney-suet, warmed a little, and then powdered with dirty +dust.--These vermin excepted, the people at Brighton make a very fine +figure. The trades-people are very nice in all their concerns. The +houses are excellent, built chiefly with a blue or purple brick; and +bow-windows appear to be the general taste. I can easily believe this +to be a very healthy place: the open downs on the one side and the +open sea on the other. No inlet, cove, or river; and, of course, no +swamps.--I have spent this evening very pleasantly in a company of +reformers, who, though plain tradesmen and mechanics, know I am quite +satisfied more about the questions that agitate the country than any +equal number of lords. + + _William Cobbett._ + + + + +THE MAN IN BLACK + + +_1._ + +Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy only with a +few. The man in black whom I have often mentioned is one whose +friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem. +His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange +inconsistencies; and he may be justly termed an humourist in a nation +of humourists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to +be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his +conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his +heart is dilated with the most unbounded love. I have known him +profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with +compassion; and while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard +him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect +humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from +nature; but he is the only man I ever knew who seemed ashamed of his +natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as +any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every +unguarded moment the mask drops off, and reveals him to the most +superficial observer. + +In one of our late excursions into the country, happening to discourse +upon the provision that was made for the poor in England, he seemed +amazed how any of his countrymen could be so foolishly weak as to +relieve occasional objects of charity, when the laws had made such +ample provision for their support. "In every parish house," says he, +"the poor are supplied with food, clothes, fire, and a bed to lie on; +they want no more, I desire no more myself; yet still they seem +discontented. I am surprised at the inactivity of our magistrates, in +not taking up such vagrants, who are only a weight upon the +industrious; I am surprised that the people are found to relieve them, +when they must be at the same time sensible that it, in some measure, +encourages idleness, extravagance, and imposture. Were I to advise any +man for whom I had the least regard, I would caution him by all means +not to be imposed upon by their false pretences: let me assure you, +sir, they are impostors, every one of them, and rather merit a prison +than relief." + +He was proceeding in this strain earnestly, to dissuade me from an +imprudence of which I am seldom guilty, when an old man, who still had +about him the remnants of tattered finery, implored our compassion. He +assured us, that he was no common beggar, but forced into the shameful +profession, to support a dying wife and five hungry children. Being +prepossessed against such falsehoods, his story had not the least +influence upon me; but it was quite otherwise with the man in black; I +could see it visibly operate upon his countenance, and effectually +interrupt his harangue. I could easily perceive, that his heart burned +to relieve the five starving children, but he seemed ashamed to +discover his weakness to me. While he thus hesitated between +compassion and pride, I pretended to look another way, and he seized +this opportunity of giving the poor petitioner a piece of silver, +bidding him at the same time, in order that I should not hear, go work +for his bread, and not tease passengers with such impertinent +falsehoods for the future. + +As he had fancied himself quite unperceived, he continued, as we +proceeded, to rail against beggars with as much animosity as before; +he threw in some episodes on his own amazing prudence and economy, +with his profound skill in discovering impostors; he explained the +manner in which he would deal with beggars were he a magistrate, +hinted at enlarging some of the prisons for their reception, and told +two stories of ladies that were robbed by beggarmen. He was beginning +a third to the same purpose, when a sailor with a wooden leg once more +crossed our walks, desiring our pity, and blessing our limbs. I was +for going on without taking any notice, but my friend looking +wistfully upon the poor petitioner, bid me stop, and he would show me +with how much ease he could at any time detect an impostor. + +He now, therefore, assumed a look of importance, and in an angry tone +began to examine the sailor, demanding in what engagement he was thus +disabled and rendered unfit for service. The sailor replied, in a tone +as angrily as he, that he had been an officer on board a private ship +of war, and that he had lost his leg abroad in defence of those who +did nothing at home. At this reply, all my friend's importance +vanished in a moment; he had not a single question more to ask; he now +only studied what method he should take to relieve him unobserved. He +had, however, no easy part to act, as he was obliged to preserve the +appearance of ill-nature before me, and yet relieve himself by +relieving the sailor. Casting, therefore, a furious look upon some +bundles of chips which the fellow carried in a string at his back, my +friend demanded how he sold his matches; but not waiting for a reply, +desired, in a surly tone, to have a shilling's worth. The sailor +seemed at first surprised at his demand, but soon recollected himself, +and presenting his whole bundle, "Here, master," says he, "take all my +cargo, and a blessing into the bargain." + +It is impossible to describe, with what an air of triumph my friend +marched off with his new purchase; he assured me, that he was firmly +of opinion that those fellows must have stolen their goods, who could +thus afford to sell them for half value. He informed me of several +different uses to which those chips might be applied; he expatiated +largely upon the savings that would result from lighting candles with +a match instead of thrusting them into the fire. He averred, that he +would as soon have parted with a tooth as his money to those +vagabonds, unless for some valuable consideration. I cannot tell how +long this panegyric upon frugality and matches might have continued, +had not his attention been called off by another object more +distressful than either of the former. A woman in rags, with one child +in her arms and another on her back, was attempting to sing ballads, +but with such a mournful voice, that it was difficult to determine +whether she was singing or crying. A wretch who, in the deepest +distress, still aimed at good humour, was an object my friend was by +no means capable of withstanding; his vivacity and his discourse were +instantly interrupted; upon this occasion his very dissimulation had +forsaken him. Even in my presence he immediately applied his hands to +his pockets, in order to relieve her; but guess his confusion when he +found he had already given away all the money he carried about him to +former objects. The misery painted in the woman's visage was not half +so strongly expressed as the agony in his. He continued to search for +some time, but to no purpose, till, at length recollecting himself, +with a face of ineffable good-nature, as he had no money, he put into +her hands his shilling's worth of matches. + + +_2._ + +As there appeared something reluctantly good in the character of my +companion, I must own it surprised me what could be his motives for +thus concealing virtues which others take such pains to display. I was +unable to repress my desire of knowing the history of a man who thus +seemed to act under continual restraint, and whose benevolence was +rather the effect of appetite than reason. + +It was not, however, till after repeated solicitations he thought +proper to gratify my curiosity. "If you are fond," says he, "of +hearing _hair-breadth escapes_, my history must certainly please; for +I have been for twenty years upon the very verge of starving, without +ever being starved. + +"My father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small +living in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his +generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his +flatterers still poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them, +they returned an equivalent in praise; and this was all he wanted. The +same ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of an army, +influenced my father at the head of his table; he told the story of +the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two +scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that; +but the story of Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table in +a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he +gave; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved him. + +"As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it; +he had no intentions of leaving his children money, for that was +dross; he was resolved they should have learning; for learning, he +used to observe, was better than silver or gold. For this purpose he +undertook to instruct us himself; and took as much pains to form our +morals, as to improve our understanding. We were told that universal +benevolence was what first cemented society; we were taught to +consider all the wants of mankind as our own; to regard the _human +face divine_ with affection and esteem; he wound us up to be mere +machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the +slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress: in a +word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thousands +before we were taught the more necessary qualifications of getting a +farthing. + +"I cannot avoid imagining, that thus refined by his lessons out of all +my suspicion, and divested of even all the little cunning which nature +had given me, I resembled, upon my first entrance into the busy and +insidious world, one of those gladiators who were exposed with armour +in the amphitheatre at Rome. My father, however, who had only seen the +world on one side, seemed to triumph in my superior discernment; +though my whole stock of wisdom consisted in being able to talk like +himself upon subjects that once were useful, because they were then +topics of the busy world; but that now were utterly useless, because +connected with the busy world no longer. + +"The first opportunity he had of finding his expectations +disappointed, was at the very middling figure I made in the +university: he had flattered himself that he should soon see me rising +into the foremost rank in literary reputation, but was mortified to +find me utterly unnoticed and unknown. His disappointment might have +been partly ascribed to his having over-rated my talents, and partly +to my dislike of mathematical reasonings, at a time when my +imagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were more eager after new +objects, than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. This did not, +however, please my tutors, who observed, indeed, that I was a little +dull, but at the same time allowed, that I seemed to be very +good-natured, and had no harm in me. + +"After I had resided at college seven years, my father died, and left +me--his blessing. Thus shoved from shore without ill-nature to +protect, or cunning to guide, or proper stores to subsist me in so +dangerous a voyage, I was obliged to embark in the wide world at +twenty-two. But, in order to settle in life, my friends, advised (for +they always advise when they begin to despise us) they advised me, I +say, to go into orders. + +"To be obliged to wear a long wig, when I liked a short one, or a +black coat, when I generally dressed in brown, I thought was such a +restraint upon my liberty, that I absolutely rejected the proposal. A +priest in England is not the same mortified creature with a bonze in +China; with us, not he that fasts best, but eats best, is reckoned the +best liver; yet I rejected a life of luxury, indolence, and ease, from +no other consideration but that boyish one of dress. So that my +friends were now perfectly satisfied I was undone; and yet they +thought it a pity for one who had not the least harm in him, and was +so very good-natured. + +"Poverty naturally begets dependance, and I was admitted as flatterer +to a great man. At first I was surprised, that the situation of a +flatterer at a great man's table could be thought disagreeable; there +was no great trouble in listening attentively when his lordship spoke, +and laughing when he looked round for applause. This even good manners +might have obliged me to perform. I found, however, too soon, that his +lordship was a greater dunce than myself; and from that very moment +flattery was at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, than +at receiving his absurdities with submission: to flatter those we do +not know is an easy task; but to flatter our intimate acquaintances, +all whose foibles are strongly in our eye, is drudgery insupportable. +Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to my +conscience; his lordship soon perceived me to be very unfit for +service: I was, therefore, discharged: my patron at the same time +being graciously pleased to observe, that he believed I was tolerably +good-natured, and had not the least harm in me. + +"Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse to love. A young lady, who +lived with her aunt, and was possessed of a pretty fortune in her own +disposal, had given me, as I fancied, some reason to expect success. +The symptoms by which I was guided were striking. She had always +laughed with me at her awkward acquaintance, and at her aunt among the +number; she always observed, that a man of sense would make a better +husband than a fool; and I as constantly applied the observation in my +own favour, she continually talked, in my company, of friendship and +the beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. Shrimp, my rival's +high-heeled shoes, with detestation. These were circumstances which I +thought strongly in my favour; so, after resolving and re-resolving, I +had courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal with +serenity, seeming at the same time to study the figures of her fan. +Out at last it came. There was but one small objection to complete our +happiness: which was no more, than----that she was married three +months before to Mr. Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes! By way of +consolation, however, she observed, that, though I was disappointed in +her, my addresses to her aunt would probably kindle her into +sensibility; as the old lady always allowed me to be very +good-natured, and not to have the least share of harm in me. + +"Yet still I had friends, numerous friends, and to them I was resolved +to apply. O friendship! thou fond soother of the human breast, to thee +we fly in every calamity; to thee the wretched seek for succour; on +thee the care-tired son of misery fondly relies; from thy kind +assistance the unfortunate always hopes relief, and may be ever sure +of--disappointment! My first application was to a city-scrivener, who +had frequently offered to lend me money when he knew I did not want +it. I informed him, that now was the time to put his friendship to the +test; that I wanted to borrow a couple of hundreds for a certain +occasion, and was resolved to take it up from him. 'And pray, sir,' +cried my friend, 'do you want all this money?'--'Indeed, I never +wanted it more,' returned I. 'I am sorry for that,' cries the +scrivener, 'with all my heart; for they who want money, when they come +to borrow, will always want money when they should come to pay.' + +"From him I flew with indignation to one of the best friends I had in +the world, and made the same request. 'Indeed, Mr. Dry-bone,' cries my +friend, 'I always thought it would come to this. You know, sir, I +would not advise you but for your own good; but your conduct has +hitherto been ridiculous in the highest degree, and some of your +acquaintance always thought you a very silly fellow. Let me see, you +want two hundred pounds. Do you only want two hundred, sir, exactly?' +'To confess a truth,' returned I, 'I shall want three hundred; but +then I have another friend, from whom I can borrow the rest.'--'Why +then,' replied my friend, 'if you would take my advice, (and you know +I should not presume to advise you but for your own good) I would +recommend it to you to borrow the whole sum from that other friend, +and then one note will serve for all, you know.' + +"Poverty now began to come fast upon me; yet instead of growing more +provident or cautious as I grew poor, I became every day more indolent +and simple. A friend was arrested for fifty pounds; I was unable to +extricate him except by becoming his bail. When at liberty he fled +from his creditors, and left me to take his place: in prison I +expected greater satisfactions than I had enjoyed at large. I hoped to +converse with men in this new world simple and believing like myself; +but I found them as cunning and as cautious as those in the world I +had left behind. They spunged up my money while it lasted, borrowed my +coals and never paid for them, and cheated me when I played at +cribbage. All this was done because they believed me to be very +good-natured, and knew that I had no harm in me. + +"Upon my first entrance into this mansion, which is to some the abode +of despair, I felt no sensations different from those I experienced +abroad. I was now on one side of the door, and those who were +unconfined were on the other; this was all the difference between us. +At first, indeed, I felt some uneasiness, in considering how I should +be able to provide this week for the wants of the week ensuing; but +after some time, if I found myself sure of eating one day, I never +troubled my head how I was to be supplied another. I seized every +precarious meal with the utmost good-humour; indulged no rants of +spleen at my situation; never called down Heaven and all the stars to +behold my dining upon an halfpenny-worth of radishes; my very +companions were taught to believe that I liked salad better than +mutton. I contented myself with thinking, that all my life I should +either eat white bread or brown; considered that all that happened was +best; laughed when I was not in pain, took the world as it went, and +read Tacitus often, for want of more books and company. + +"How long I might have continued in this torpid state of simplicity I +cannot tell, had I not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, whom +I knew to be a prudent blockhead, preferred to a place in the +government. I now found that I had pursued a wrong track, and that the +true way of being able to relieve others, was first to aim at +independence myself; my immediate care, therefore, was to leave my +present habitation, and make an entire reformation in my conduct and +behaviour. For a free, open, undesigning deportment, I put on that of +closeness, prudence, and economy. One of the most heroic actions I +ever performed, and for which I shall praise myself as long as I live, +was the refusing half a crown to an old acquaintance, at the time when +he wanted it, and I had it to spare; for this alone I deserve to be +decreed an ovation. + +"I now, therefore, pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldom +wanted a dinner, and was, consequently, invited to twenty. I soon +began to get the character of a saving hunks that had money, and +insensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my advice in the +disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken care not to give +any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman, only by +observing, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds, it will +be a thousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker's +table, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now actually upon treaty of +marriage with a rich widow, for only having observed that the bread +was rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I know it or not, +instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a charity is +proposed, I go about with the hat, but put nothing in myself. If a +wretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is filled with +impostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived, by never +relieving. In short, I now find the truest way of finding esteem even +from the indigent, is _to give away nothing, and thus have much in our +power to give_." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +OLD MAIDS AND BACHELORS + + +Lately in company with my friend in black, whose conversation is now +both my amusement and instruction, I could not avoid observing the +great numbers of old bachelors and maiden ladies with which this city +seems to be over-run. "Sure marriage," said I, "is not sufficiently +encouraged, or we should never behold such crowds of battered beaux +and decayed coquettes still attempting to drive a trade they have been +so long unfit for, and swarming upon the gaiety of the age. I behold +an old bachelor in the most contemptible light, as an animal that +lives upon the common stock, without contributing his share: he is a +beast of prey, and the laws should make use of as many stratagems, and +as much force to drive the reluctant savage into the toils, as the +Indians when they hunt the rhinoceros. The mob should be permitted to +halloo after him, boys might play tricks on him with impunity, every +well-bred company should laugh at him, and if, when turned of sixty, +he offered to make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or, what +would be perhaps a greater punishment, should fairly grant the favour. + +"As for old maids," continued I, "they should not be treated with so +much severity, because I suppose none would be so if they could. No +lady in her senses would choose to make a subordinate figure at +christenings and lyings-in, when she might be the principal herself; +nor curry favour with a sister-in-law, when she might command an +husband; nor toil in preparing custards, when she might lie a-bed and +give directions how they ought to be made; nor stifle all her +sensations in demure formality, when she might with matrimonial +freedom shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink at a double +entendre. No lady could be so very silly as to live single, if she +could help it. I consider an unmarried lady declining into the vale of +years, as one of those charming countries bordering on China that lies +waste for want of proper inhabitants. We are not to accuse the +country, but the ignorance of its neighbours, who are insensible of +its beauties, though at liberty to enter and cultivate the soil." + +"Indeed, sir," replied my companion, "you are very little acquainted +with the English ladies, to think they are old maids against their +will. I dare venture to affirm, that you can hardly select one of them +all but has had frequent offers of marriage, which either pride or +avarice has not made her reject. Instead of thinking it a disgrace, +they take every occasion to boast of their former cruelty; a soldier +does not exult more when he counts over the wounds he has received, +than a female veteran when she relates the wounds she has formerly +given: exhaustless when she begins a narrative of the former +death-dealing power of her eyes. She tells of the knight in gold lace, +who died with a single frown, and never rose again till--he was +married to his maid; of the squire, who being cruelly denied, in a +rage flew to the window, and lifting up the sash, threw himself in an +agony--into his arm chair; of the parson who, crossed in love, +resolutely swallowed opium, which banished the stings of despised love +by--making him sleep. In short, she talks over her former losses with +pleasure, and, like some tradesmen, finds some consolation in the many +bankruptcies she has suffered. + +"For this reason, whenever I see a superannuated beauty still +unmarried, I tacitly accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, or +affectation. There's Miss Jenny Tinderbox, I once remember her to have +had some beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder sister happened to +marry a man of quality, and this seemed as a statute of virginity +against poor Jane. Because there was one lucky hit in the family, she +was resolved not to disgrace it by introducing a tradesman. By thus +rejecting her equals, and neglected or despised by her superiors, she +now acts in the capacity of tutoress to her sister's children, and +undergoes the drudgery of three servants, without receiving the wages +of one. + +"Miss Squeeze was a pawnbroker's daughter; her father had early taught +her that money was a very good thing, and left her a moderate fortune +at his death. She was so perfectly sensible of the value of what she +had got, that she was resolved never to part with a farthing without +an equality on the part of her suitor: she thus refused several offers +made her by people who wanted to better themselves, as the saying is; +and grew old and ill-natured, without ever considering that she should +have made an abatement in her pretensions, from her face being pale, +and marked with the small-pox. + +"Lady Betty Tempest, on the contrary, had beauty, with fortune and +family. But fond of conquest, she passed from triumph to triumph; she +had read plays and romances, and there had learned that a plain man of +common sense was no better than a fool: such she refused, and sighed +only for the gay, giddy, inconstant, and thoughtless; after she had +thus rejected hundreds who liked her, and sighed for hundreds who +despised her, she found herself insensibly deserted: at present she is +company only for her aunts and cousins, and sometimes makes one in a +country-dance, with only one of the chairs for a partner, casts off +round a joint-stool, and sets to a corner-cupboard. In a word, she is +treated with civil contempt from every quarter, and placed, like a +piece of old-fashioned lumber, merely to fill up a corner. + +"But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia, how shall I mention her? She +was taught to love Greek, and hate the men from her very infancy: she +has rejected fine gentlemen because they were not pedants, and pedants +because they were not fine gentlemen; her exquisite sensibility has +taught her to discover every fault in every lover, and her inflexible +justice has prevented her pardoning them: thus she rejected several +offers, till the wrinkles of age had overtaken her; and now, without +one good feature in her face, she talks incessantly of the beauties of +the mind." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE IMPORTANT TRIFLER + + +Though naturally pensive, yet I am fond of gay company, and take every +opportunity of thus dismissing the mind from duty. From this motive I +am often found in the centre of a crowd; and wherever pleasure is to +be sold, am always a purchaser. In those places, without being +remarked by any, I join in whatever goes forward, work my passions +into a similitude of frivolous earnestness, shout as they shout, and +condemn as they happen to disapprove. A mind thus sunk for a while +below its natural standard, is qualified for stronger flights, as +those first retire who would spring forward with greater vigour. + +Attracted by the serenity of the evening, my friend and I lately went +to gaze upon the company in one of the public walks near the city. +Here we sauntered together for some time, either praising the beauty +of such as were handsome, or the dresses of such as had nothing else +to recommend them. We had gone thus deliberately forward for some +time, when stopping on a sudden, my friend caught me by the elbow, and +led me out of the public walk; I could perceive by the quickness of +his pace, and by his frequently looking behind, that he was attempting +to avoid somebody who followed; we now turned to the right, then to +the left; as we went forward he still went faster, but in vain; the +person whom he attempted to escape, hunted us through every doubling, +and gained upon us each moment; so that at last we fairly stood still, +resolving to face what we could not avoid. + +Our pursuer soon came up, and joined us with all the familiarity of an +old acquaintance. "My dear Drybone," cries he, shaking my friend's +hand, "where have you been hiding this half a century? Positively I +had fancied you were gone down to cultivate matrimony and your estate +in the country." During the reply, I had an opportunity of surveying +the appearance of our new companion; his hat was pinched up with +peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round his +neck he wore a broad black ribbon, and in his bosom a buckle studded +with glass; his coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his +side a sword with a black hilt, and his stockings of silk, though +newly washed, were grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged +with the peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter +part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs on the +taste of his clothes, and the bloom in his countenance: "Psha, psha, +Will," cried the figure, "no more of that if you love me, you know I +hate flattery, on my soul I do; and yet to be sure an intimacy with +the great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison will +fatten; and yet faith I despise the great as much as you do; but there +are a great many damn'd honest fellows among them; and we must not +quarrel with one half, because the other wants weeding. If they were +all such as my Lord Muddler, one of the most good-natured creatures +that ever squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of +their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of +Piccadilly's, my lord was there. Ned, says he to me, Ned, says he, +I'll hold gold to silver I can tell where you were poaching last +night. Poaching, my lord, says I; faith you have missed already; for I +staid at home, and let the girls poach for me. That's my way; I take a +fine woman as some animals do their prey; stand still, and swoop, they +fall into my mouth." + +"Ah, Tibbs, thou art an happy fellow," cried my companion, with looks +of infinite pity, "I hope your fortune is as much improved as your +understanding in such company?"--"Improved," replied the other; "You +shall know,--but let it go no further,--a great secret--five hundred a +year to begin with.--My lord's word of honour for it--his lordship +took me down in his own chariot yesterday, and we had a tete-a-tete +dinner in the country; where we talked of nothing else."--"I fancy you +forget, sir," cried I, "you told us but this moment of your dining +yesterday in town!"--"Did I say so," replied he coolly, "to be sure if +I said so it was so--dined in town; egad now I do remember, I did dine +in town; but I dined in the country too; for you must know, my boys, I +eat two dinners. By the by, I am grown as nice as the devil in my +eating. I'll tell you a pleasant affair about that: We were a select +party of us to dine at Lady Grogram's, an affected piece, but let it +go no further; a secret: well, there happened to be no assafoetida in +the sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I, I'll hold a thousand +guineas, and say done first, that--but, dear Drybone, you are an +honest creature, lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just +till--but hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be +twenty to one but I forget to pay you." + +When he left us, our conversation naturally turned upon so +extraordinary a character. His very dress, cries my friend, is not +less extraordinary than his conduct. If you meet him this day you find +him in rags, if the next in embroidery. With those persons of +distinction, of whom he talks so familiarly, he has scarcely a +coffee-house acquaintance. However, both for the interests of society, +and perhaps for his own, heaven has made him poor, and while all the +world perceive his wants, he fancies them concealed from every eye. An +agreeable companion because he understands flattery, and all must be +pleased with the first part of his conversation, though all are sure +of its ending with a demand on their purse. While his youth +countenances the levity of his conduct, he may thus earn a precarious +subsistence, but when age comes on, the gravity of which is +incompatible with buffoonery, then will he find himself forsaken by +all. Condemned in the decline of life to hang upon some rich family +whom he once despised, there to undergo all the ingenuity of studied +contempt, to be employed only as a spy upon the servants, or a +bug-bear to frighten the children into obedience. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE TRIFLER'S HOUSEHOLD + + +I am apt to fancy I have contracted a new acquaintance whom it will be +no easy matter to shake off. My little beau yesterday overtook me +again in one of the public walks, and slapping me on the shoulder, +saluted me with an air of the most perfect familiarity. His dress was +the same as usual, except that he had more powder in his hair, wore a +dirtier shirt, a pair of temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm. + +As I knew him to be an harmless amusing little thing, I could not +return his smiles with any degree of severity; so we walked forward on +terms of the utmost intimacy, and in a few minutes discussed all the +usual topics preliminary to particular conversation. + +The oddities that marked his character, however, soon began to appear; +he bowed to several well-dressed persons, who, by their manner of +returning the compliment, appeared perfect strangers. At intervals he +drew out a pocket-book, seeming to take memorandums before all the +company, with much importance and assiduity. In this manner he led me +through the length of the whole walk, fretting at his absurdities, and +fancying myself laughed at not less than him by every spectator. + +When we were got to the end of our procession, "Blast me," cries he, +with an air of vivacity, "I never saw the park so thin in my life +before; there's no company at all to-day. Not a single face to be +seen."--"No company," interrupted I peevishly; "no company where there +is such a crowd; why man, there's too much. What are the thousands +that have been laughing at us but company!"--"Lard my dear," returned +he, with the utmost good-humour, "you seem immensely chagrined; but +blast me, when the world laughs at me, I laugh at all the world, and +so we are even. My Lord Trip, Bill Squash, the Creolian, and I, +sometimes make a party at being ridiculous; and so we say and do a +thousand things for the joke. But I see you are grave, and if you are +for a fine grave sentimental companion, you shall dine with me and my +wife to-day, I must insist on't; I'll introduce you to Mrs. Tibbs, a +lady of as elegant qualifications as any in nature; she was bred, but +that's between ourselves, under the inspection of the Countess of +All-night. A charming body of voice, but no more of that, she will +give us a song. You shall see my little girl too, Carolina Wilhelma +Amelia Tibbs, a sweet pretty creature: I design her for my Lord +Drumstick's eldest son, but that's in friendship, let it go no +further; she's but six years old, and yet she walks a minuet, and +plays on the guitar immensely already. I intend she shall be as +perfect as possible in every accomplishment. In the first place I'll +make her a scholar; I'll teach her Greek myself, and learn that +language purposely to instruct her; but let that be a secret." + +Thus saying, without waiting for a reply, he took me by the arm, and +hauled me along. We passed through many dark alleys and winding ways; +for, from some motives to me unknown, he seemed to have a particular +aversion to every frequented street; at last, however, we got to the +door of a dismal looking house in the outlets of the town, where he +informed me he chose to reside for the benefit of the air. + +We entered the lower door, which ever seemed to lie most hospitably +open; and I began to ascend an old and creaking stair-case, when, as +he mounted to show me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in +prospects, to which answering in the affirmative, "Then," says he, "I +shall show you one of the most charming in the world out of my +windows; we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country for +twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My Lord Swamp would give ten +thousand guineas for such a one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tell +him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may +see me the oftener." + +By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to +ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the +first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from +within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered, that it was him. +But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the +demand: to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was +opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance. + +When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, +and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady? "Good troth," +replied she, in a peculiar dialect, "she's washing your two shirts at +the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending out the +tub any longer."--"My two shirts," cries he in a tone that faultered +with confusion, "what does the idiot mean!"--"I ken what I mean well +enough," replied the other, "she's washing your two shirts at the next +door, because----"--"Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid +explanations," cried he,--"Go and inform her we have got company. Were +that Scotch hag to be for ever in the family, she would never learn +politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or +testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is +very surprising too, as I had her from a parliament-man, a friend of +mine, from the highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but +that's a secret." + +We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval I +had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; +which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he +assured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had been +once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the +other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head were stuck +over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry, unframed +pictures, which he observed, were all his own drawing: "What do you +think, sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? +there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though there +happens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for its +fellow; I refused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you +know." + +The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquet; +much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made +twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped +to be excused, as she had staid out all night at the gardens with the +countess, who was excessively fond of the horns. "And, indeed, my +dear," added she, turning to her husband, "his lordship drank your +health in a bumper."--"Poor Jack," cries he, "a dear good-natured +creature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have given +orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there +are but three of us, something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, +an ortolan, or a----" "Or what do you think, my dear," interrupts the +wife, "of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with +a little of my own sauce."--"The very thing," replies he, "it will eat +best with some smart bottled beer; but be sure to let's have the sauce +his grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat, that is +country all over; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least +acquainted with high life." + +By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase; +the company of fools may at first make us smile, but at last never +fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a +prior engagement, and after having shown my respect to the house, +according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old servant a +piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs assuring me +that dinner, if I staid, would be ready at least in less than two +hours. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +WESTMINSTER HALL + + +I had some intentions lately of going to visit Bedlam, the place where +those who go mad are confined. I went to wait upon the man in black to +be my conductor; but I found him preparing to go to Westminster Hall, +where the English hold their courts of justice. It gave me some +surprise to find my friend engaged in a law-suit, but more so, when he +informed me that it had been depending for several years. "How is it +possible," cried I, "for a man who knows the world to go to law? I am +well acquainted with the courts of justice in China; they resemble +rat-traps every one of them; nothing more easy than to get in, but to +get out again is attended with some difficulty, and more cunning than +rats are generally found to possess!" + +"Faith," replied my friend, "I should not have gone to law, but that I +was assured of success before I began; things were presented to me in +so alluring a light, that I thought by barely declaring myself a +candidate for the prize, I had nothing more to do than to enjoy the +fruits of the victory. Thus have I been upon the eve of an imaginary +triumph every term these ten years; have travelled forward with +victory ever in my view, but ever out of reach; however, at present I +fancy we have hampered our antagonist in such a manner, that without +some unforeseen demur, we shall this day lay him fairly on his back." + +"If things be so situated," said I, "I do not care if I attend you to +the courts, and partake in the pleasure of your success. But prithee," +continued I, as we set forward, "what reasons have you to think an +affair at last concluded, which has given so many former +disappointments?"--"My lawyer tells me," returned he, "that I have +Salkeld and Ventris strong in my favour, and that there are no less +than fifteen cases in point."--"I understand," said I, "those are two +of your judges who have already declared their opinions."--"Pardon +me," replied my friend, "Salkeld and Ventris are lawyers who some +hundred years ago gave their opinions on cases similar to mine; these +opinions which make for me my lawyer is to cite, and those opinions +which look another way are cited by the lawyer employed by my +antagonist; as I observed, I have Salkeld and Ventris for me, he has +Coke and Hale for him, and he that has most opinions is most likely to +carry his cause."--"But where is the necessity," cried I, "of +prolonging a suit by citing the opinions and reports of others, since +the same good sense which determined lawyers in former ages may serve +to guide your judges at this day? They at that time gave their +opinions only from the light of reason; your judges have the same +light at present to direct them, let me even add a greater, as in +former ages there were many prejudices from which the present is +happily free. If arguing from authorities be exploded from every other +branch of learning, why should it be particularly adhered to in this? +I plainly foresee how such a method of investigation must embarrass +every suit, and even perplex the student; ceremonies will be +multiplied, formalities must increase, and more time will thus be +spent in learning the arts of litigation than in the discovery of +right." + +"I see," cries my friend, "that you are for a speedy administration of +justice; but all the world will grant that the more time that is taken +up in considering any subject the better it will be understood. +Besides, it is the boast of an Englishman, that his property is +secure, and all the world will grant that a deliberate administration +of justice is the best way to _secure his property_. Why have we so +many lawyers, but _to secure our property_? why so many formalities, +but _to secure our property_? Not less than one hundred thousand +families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by _securing our +property_." + +"To embarrass justice," returned I, "by a multiplicity of laws, or to +hazard it by a confidence in our judges, are, I grant, the opposite +rocks on which legislative wisdom has ever split; in one case the +client resembles that emperor, who is said to have been suffocated by +the bed-clothes, which were only designed to keep him warm: in the +other, to that town which let the enemy take possession of its walls, +in order to show the world how little they depended upon aught but +courage for safety:----But, bless me, what numbers do I see here--all +in black--how is it possible that half this multitude find +employment?"--"Nothing so easily conceived," returned my companion, +"they live by watching each other. For instance, the catchpole watches +the man in debt; the attorney watches the catchpole; the counsellor +watches the attorney; the solicitor the counsellor; and all find +sufficient employment." "I conceive you," interrupted I, "they watch +each other; but it is the client that pays them all for watching: it +puts me in mind of a Chinese fable, which is intituled, 'Five animals +at a meal.' + +"A grasshopper, filled with dew, was merrily singing under a shade; a +whangam, that eats grasshoppers, had marked it for its prey, and was +just stretching forth to devour it; a serpent, that had for a long +time fed only on whangams, was coiled up to fasten on the whangam; a +yellow bird was just upon the wing to dart upon the serpent; a hawk +had just stooped from above to seize the yellow bird; all were intent +on their prey, and unmindful of their danger: so the whangam eat the +grasshopper, the serpent eat the whangam, the yellow bird the serpent, +and the hawk the yellow bird; when sousing from on high, a vulture +gobbled up the hawk, grasshopper, whangam, and all in a moment." + +I had scarcely finished my fable, when the lawyer came to inform my +friend that his cause was put off till another term, that money was +wanted to retain, and that all the world was of opinion that the very +next hearing would bring him off victorious. "If so, then," cries my +friend, "I believe it will be my wisest way to continue the cause for +another term, and, in the mean time, my friend here and I will go and +see Bedlam." + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE LITTLE BEAU + + +I lately received a visit from the little beau, who I found had +assumed a new flow of spirits with a new suit of clothes. Our +discourse happened to turn upon the different treatment of the fair +sex here and in Asia, with the influence of beauty in refining our +manners and improving our conversation. + +I soon perceived he was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Asiatic +method of treating the sex, and that it was impossible to persuade +him, but that a man was happier who had four wives at his command, +than he who had only one. "It is true," cries he, "your men of fashion +in the East are slaves, and under some terrors of having their throats +squeezed by a bow-string; but what then? they can find ample +consolation in a seraglio; they make indeed an indifferent figure in +conversation abroad, but then they have a seraglio to console them at +home. I am told they have no balls, drums, nor operas, but then they +have got a seraglio; they may be deprived of wine and French cookery, +but they have a seraglio; a seraglio, a seraglio, my dear creature, +wipes off every inconvenience in the world. + +"Besides, I am told, your Asiatic beauties are the most convenient +women alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing in +Nature I should like so much as ladies without souls; soul here is the +utter ruin of half the sex. A girl of eighteen shall have soul enough +to spend an hundred pounds in the turning of a trump. Her mother shall +have soul enough to ride a sweepstake match at a horse-race; her +maiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the furniture of a +whole toyshop, and others shall have soul enough to behave as if they +had no souls at all." + +"With respect to the soul," interrupted I, "the Asiatics are much +kinder to the fair sex than you imagine; instead of one soul, Fohi the +idol of China gives every woman three, the Bramins give them fifteen; +and even Mahomet himself no where excludes the sex from Paradise. +Abul-feda reports, that an old woman one day importuning him to know +what she ought to do in order to gain Paradise? 'My good lady,' +answered the prophet, 'old women never get there.'--'What, never get +to Paradise!' returned the matron, in a fury. 'Never,' says he, 'for +they always grow young by the way.' + +"No, sir," continued I, "the men of Asia behave with more deference to +the sex than you seem to imagine. As you of Europe say grace, upon +sitting down to dinner, so it is the custom in China to say grace, +when a man goes to bed to his wife." "And may I die," returned my +companion, "but a very pretty ceremony; for seriously, sir, I see no +reason why a man should not be as grateful in one situation as in the +other. Upon honour, I always find myself much more disposed to +gratitude, on the couch of a fine woman, than upon sitting down to a +surloin of beef." + +"Another ceremony," said I, resuming the conversation, "in favour of +the sex amongst us, is the bride's being allowed, after marriage, her +three days of freedom. During this interval a thousand extravagancies +are practised by either sex. The lady is placed upon the nuptial bed, +and numberless monkey tricks are played round to divert her. One +gentleman smells her perfumed handkerchief, another attempts to untie +her garters, a third pulls off her shoe to play hunt the slipper, +another pretends to be an idiot, and endeavours to raise a laugh by +grimacing; in the mean time, the glass goes briskly about, till +ladies, gentlemen, wife, husband, and all are mixed together in one +inundation of arrack punch." + +"Strike me dumb, deaf, and blind," cried my companion, "but very +pretty; there is some sense in your Chinese ladies' condescension; but +among us, you shall scarcely find one of the whole sex that shall hold +her good humour for three days together. No later than yesterday I +happened to say some civil things to a citizen's wife of my +acquaintance, not because I loved, but because I had charity; and what +do you think was the tender creature's reply? Only that she detested +my pigtail wig, high-heeled shoes, and sallow complexion. That is all. +Nothing more! Yes, by the heavens, though she was more ugly than an +unpainted actress, I found her more insolent than a thorough-bred +woman of quality." + +He was proceeding in this wild manner, when his invective was +interrupted, by the man in black, who entered the apartment, +introducing his niece, a young lady of exquisite beauty. Her very +appearance was sufficient to silence the severest satyrist of the sex; +easy without pride, and free without impudence, she seemed capable of +supplying every sense with pleasure; her looks, her conversation were +natural and unconstrained; she had neither been taught to languish nor +ogle, to laugh without a jest, or sigh without sorrow. I found that +she had just returned from abroad, and had been conversant in the +manners of the world. Curiosity prompted me to ask several questions, +but she declined them all. I own I never found myself so strongly +prejudiced in favour of apparent merit before; and could willingly +have prolonged our conversation, but the company after some time +withdrew. Just, however, before the little beau took his leave, he +called me aside, and requested I would change him a twenty pound bill, +which as I was incapable of doing, he was contented with borrowing +half a crown. + + _Goldsmith._ + + + + +THE CLUB + + +The first of our Society is a Gentleman of _Worcestershire_, of +antient Descent, a Baronet, his Name Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY. His great +Grandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'd +after him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with the +Parts and Merits of Sir Roger. He is a Gentleman that is very singular +in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense, +and are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinks +the World is in the wrong. However, this Humour creates him no +Enemies, for he does nothing with Sourness or Obstinacy; and his being +unconfined to Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and more +capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he +lives in _Soho-Square_: It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelor by +reason he was crossed in Love, by a perverse beautiful Widow of the +next County to him. Before this Disappointment, Sir Roger was what you +call a fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord _Rochester_ and +Sir _George Etherege_, fought a Duel upon his first coming to Town, +and kick'd Bully _Dawson_ in a publick Coffee-house for calling him +Youngster. But being ill used by the above-mentioned Widow, he was +very serious for a Year and a half; and though, his Temper being +naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, +and never dressed afterwards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet +of the same Cut that were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, +which, in his merry Humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve +Times since he first wore it. He is now in his Fifty sixth Year, +cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House both in Town and +Country; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful Cast +in his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed: His Tenants +grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women profess +Love to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he comes +into a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all the +way up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a Justice +of the _Quorum_; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session with +great Abilities, and three Months ago gain'd universal Applause by +explaining a Passage in the Game-Act. + +The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another +Batchelor, who is a Member of the _Inner Temple_; a man of great +Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place of +Residence rather to obey the Direction of an old humoursom Father, +than in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was placed there to study +the Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House in +those of the Stage. _Aristotle_ and _Longinus_ are much better +understood by him than _Littleton_ or _Cooke_. The Father sends up +every Post Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and +Tenures, in the Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with an +Attorney to answer and take care of in the Lump: He is studying the +Passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the Debates +among Men which arise from them. He knows the Argument of each of the +Orations of _Demosthenes_ and _Tully_, but not one Case in the Reports +of our own Courts. No one ever took him for a Fool, but none, except +his intimate Friends, know he has a great deal of Wit. This Turn makes +him at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his Thoughts +are drawn from Business, they are most of them fit for Conversation. +His Taste of Books is a little too just for the Age he lives in; he +has read all, but approves of very few. His Familiarity with the +Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the Antients, makes him a +very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in the present World. He +is an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play is his Hour of +Business; exactly at five he passes thro' _New-Inn_, crosses thro' +_Russel-Court_, and takes a turn at _Will's_ till the play begins; he +has his Shoes rubbed and his Perriwig powder'd at the Barber's as you +go into the _Rose_. It is for the Good of the Audience when he is at a +Play, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him. + +The Person of next Consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a Merchant of +great Eminence in the City of _London_. A Person of indefatigable +Industry, strong Reason, and great Experience. His Notions of Trade +are noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some sly +Way of Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a rich +Man) he calls the Sea the _British Common_. He is acquainted with +Commerce in all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and +barbarous Way to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got +by Arts and Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of our +Trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and if +another, from another. I have heard him prove, that Diligence makes +more lasting Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruined more +Nations than the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, among +which the greatest Favourite is, "A Penny saved is a Penny got." A +General Trader of good Sense, is pleasanter company than a general +Scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the +Perspicuity of his Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in +another Man. He has made his Fortunes himself; and says that _England_ +may be richer than other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself +is richer than other Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him, +that there is not a point in the Compass but blows home a Ship in +which he is an Owner. + +Next to Sir Andrew in the Club-room sits Captain SENTRY, a Gentleman +of great Courage, good Understanding, but invincible Modesty. He is +one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting +their Talents within the Observation of such as should take Notice of +them. He was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with great +Gallantry in several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having a +small Estate of his own, and being next Heir to Sir Roger, he has +quitted a Way of Life in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit, +who is not something of a Courtier as well as a Soldier. I have heard +him often lament, that in a Profession where Merit is placed in so +conspicuous a View, Impudence should get the better of Modesty. When +he has talked to this Purpose I never heard him make a sour +Expression, but frankly confess that he left the World, because he was +not fit for it. A strict Honesty and an even Regular Behaviour, are in +themselves obstacles to him that must press through Crowds, who +endeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of a Commander. He +will however in his Way of Talk excuse Generals, for not disposing +according to Mens Desert, or inquiring into it: For, says he, that +great Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break through to +come at me, as I have to come to him: Therefore he will conclude, that +the Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military Way, must +get over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against the +Importunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his own +Vindication. He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward in +asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be +slow in attacking when it is your Duty. With this Candour does the +Gentleman speak of himself and others. The same Frankness runs through +all his Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnish'd him +with many Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to +the Company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command +Men in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an +Habit of obeying Men highly above him. + +But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquainted +with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us the +gallant WILL. HONEYCOMB, a Gentleman who according to his Years should +be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful of +his Person, and always had a very easie Fortune, Time has made but +very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces +in his Brain. His Person is well turn'd, of a good Height. He is very +ready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertain +Women. He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits as +others do Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. +He knows the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which of +the _French_ King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this Manner of +curling their Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; and whose Vanity +to show her Foot made Petticoats so short in such a Year. In a Word, +all his Conversation and Knowledge has been in the female World: As +other Men of his Age will take Notice to you what such a Minister said +upon such and such an Occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of +_Monmouth_ danced at Court such a Woman was then smitten, another was +taken with him at the Head of his Troop in the _Park_. In all these +important Relations, he has ever about the same Time received a Glance +or a Blow of a Fan from some celebrated Beauty, Mother of the Present +Lord such-a-one. This way of Talking of his very much enlivens the +Conversation among us of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is not +one of the Company but my self, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of +him as that Sort of Man, who is usually called a well-bred fine +Gentleman. + +I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, +as one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does +it adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is a +Clergyman, a very philosophick Man, of general Learning, great +Sanctity of Life, and the most exact good Breeding. He has the +Misfortune to be of a very weak Constitution, and consequently cannot +accept of such Cares and Business as Preferments in his Function would +oblige him to: He is therefore among Divines what a Chamber-Counsellor +is among Lawyers. The Probity of his Mind, and the Integrity of his +Life, create him Followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. +He seldom introduces the Subject he speaks upon; but we are so far +gone in Years, that he observes, when he is among us, an Earnestness +to have him fall on some divine Topick, which he always treats with +much Authority, as one who has no Interests in this World, as one who +is hastening to the Object of all his Wishes, and conceives Hope from +his Decays and Infirmities. These are my ordinary Companions. + + _Steele._ + + + + +THE MEETING OF THE CLUB + + +The Club of which I am a Member is very luckily composed of such +Persons as are engaged in different Ways of Life, and deputed as it +were out of the most conspicuous Classes of Mankind: By this Means I +am furnished with the greatest Variety of Hints and Materials, and +know every thing that passes in the different Quarters and Divisions, +not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My Readers too +have the Satisfaction to find, that there is no rank or Degree among +them who have not their Representative in this Club, and that there is +always some Body present who will take Care of their respective +Interests, that nothing may be written or published to the Prejudice +or Infringement of their just Rights and Privileges. + +I last Night sat very late in Company with this select Body of +Friends, who entertained me with several Remarks which they and others +had made upon these my Speculations, as also with the various Success +which they had met with among their several Ranks and Degrees of +Readers. WILL. HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest manner he could, that +there were some Ladies (but for your Comfort, says Will., they are not +those of the most Wit) that were offended at the Liberties I had taken +with the Opera and the Puppet-Show: That some of them were likewise +very much surprised, that I should think such serious Points as the +Dress and Equipage of Persons of Quality, proper Subjects for +Raillery. + +He was going on, when Sir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up short, and told +him, that the Papers he hinted at had done great Good in the City, and +that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: And +further added, that the whole City thought themselves very much +obliged to me for declaring my generous Intentions to scourge Vice and +Folly as they appear in a Multitude, without condescending to be a +Publisher of particular Intreagues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir +Andrew, if you avoid that foolish beaten Road of falling upon Aldermen +and Citizens, and employ your Pen upon the Vanity and Luxury of +Courts, your Paper must needs be of general Use. + +Upon this my Friend the TEMPLER told Sir Andrew, That he wondered to +hear a Man of his Sense talk after that manner; that the City had +always been the Province for Satyr; and that the Wits of King +_Charles's_ Time jested upon nothing else during his whole Reign. He +then shewed, by the Examples of _Horace_, _Juvenal_, _Boileau_, and +the best Writers of every age, that the Follies of the Stage and Court +had never been accounted too sacred for Ridicule, how great soever the +Persons might be that patroniz'd them. But after all, says he, I think +your Raillery has made too great an Excursion, in attacking several +Persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any +Precedent for your Behaviour in that Particular. + +My good friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, who had said nothing all this +while, began his Speech with a Pish! and told us, That he wondered to +see so many Men of Sense so very serious upon Fooleries. Let our good +Friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it: I would only +advise you, Mr. SPECTATOR, applying himself to me, to take care how +you meddle with Country Squires: they are the Ornaments of the +_English_ Nation; Men of Good Heads and sound Bodies! and let me tell +you, some of them take it ill of you, that you mention Fox-hunters +with so little Respect. + +Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this Occasion. What he said was +only to commend my Prudence in not touching upon the Army, and advised +me to continue to act discreetly in that Point. + +By this time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken away +from me, by one or other of the Club; and began to think my self in +the Condition of the good Man that had one Wife who took a Dislike to +his grey Hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out +what each of them had an Aversion to, they left his Head altogether +bald and naked. + +While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy Friend the Clergyman, +who, very luckily for me, was at the Club that Night, undertook my +Cause. He told us, that he wondered any Order of Persons should think +themselves too considerable to be advis'd: That it was not Quality, +but Innocence, which exempted Men from Reproof: That Vice and Folly +ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially +when they were placed in high and conspicuous Stations of Life. He +further added, That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the Pains +of Poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depress'd, and +in some measure turned into Ridicule, by the Meanness of their +Conditions and Circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take Notice +of the great Use this paper might be of to the Publick, by +reprehending those Vices which are too trivial for the Chastisement of +the Law, and too fantastical for the Cognizance of the Pulpit. He then +advised me to prosecute my Undertaking with Chearfulness; and assured +me, that whoever might be displeased with me, I should be approved by +all those whose Praises do Honour to the Persons on whom they are +bestowed. + +The whole Club pays a particular Deference to the Discourse of this +Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid +ingenuous Manner with which he delivers himself, as by the Strength of +Argument and Force of Reason which he makes use of. Will. Honeycomb +Immediately Agreed, That What He Had Said Was right; and that for his +Part, he would not insist upon the Quarter which he had demanded for +the Ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the City with the same Frankness. The +Templer would not stand out; and was followed by Sir Roger and the +Captain: Who all agreed that I should be at Liberty to carry the War +into what Quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with +Criminals in a Body, and to assault the Vice without hurting the +Person. + +This Debate, which was held for the Good of Mankind, put me in mind of +that which the _Roman_ Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their +Destruction. Every Man at first stood hard for his Friend, till they +found that by this Means they should spoil their Proscription: And at +length, making a Sacrifice of all their Acquaintance and Relations, +furnished out a very decent Execution. + +Having thus taken my Resolutions to march on boldly in the Cause of +Virtue and good Sense, and to annoy their Adversaries in whatever +Degree or Rank of Men they may be found: I shall be deaf for the +future to all the Remonstrances that shall be made to me on this +Account. If _Punch_ grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very +freely: If the Stage becomes a Nursery of Folly and Impertinence, I +shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it. In short, If I meet with +any thing in City, Court, or Country, that shocks Modesty or good +Manners, I shall use my utmost Endeavours to make an Example of it. I +must however intreat every particular Person, who does me the Honour +to be a Reader of this Paper, never to think himself, or any one of +his Friends or Enemies, aimed at in what is said: For I promise him, +never to draw a faulty Character which does not fit at least a +Thousand People; or to publish a single Paper, that is not written in +the Spirit of Benevolence, and with a love to Mankind. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (1) + + +Having often received an Invitation from my Friend Sir ROGER DE +COVERLEY to pass away a Month with him in the Country, I last week +accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some Time at his +Country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing +Speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my Humour, +lets me rise and go to Bed when I please, dine at his own Table or in +my Chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding +me be merry. When the Gentlemen of the County come to see him, he only +shews me at a distance: As I have been walking in his Fields I have +observed them stealing a Sight of me over an Hedge, and have heard the +Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be +stared at. + +I am the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of +sober and staid Persons; for as the Knight is the best Master in the +World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all +about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: By this Means his +Domesticks are all in Years, and grown old with their Master. You +would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is +grey-headed, his Groom is one of the gravest Men that I have ever +seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see +the Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, and in a gray +Pad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and tenderness out of +Regard to his past Services, tho' he has been useless for several +Years. + +I could not but observe with a great deal of Pleasure the Joy that +appeared in the Countenances of these ancient Domesticks upon my +Friend's Arrival at his Country-Seat. Some of them could not refrain +from Tears at the Sight of their old Master; every one of them press'd +forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were +not employed. At the same Time the good old Knight, with a Mixture of +the Father and the Master of the Family, tempered the Enquiries after +his own affairs with several kind Questions relating to themselves. +This Humanity and Good nature engages every Body to him, so that when +he is pleasant upon any of them, all his Family are in good Humour, +and none so much as the Person whom He diverts himself with: On the +Contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any Infirmity of old Age, it is +easy for a Stander-by to observe a secret Concern in the Looks of all +his Servants. + +My worthy Friend has put me under the particular Care of his Butler, +who is a very prudent Man, and, as well as the rest of his +Fellow-Servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they +have often heard their Master talk of me as of his particular Friend. + +My chief Companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the Woods +or the Fields, is a very venerable Man who is ever with Sir Roger, and +has lived at his House in the Nature of a Chaplain above thirty Years. +This Gentleman is a Person of good Sense and some Learning, of a very +regular Life and obliging Conversation: He heartily loves Sir Roger, +and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's Esteem; so that he +lives in the Family rather as a Relation than a Dependant. + +I have observed in several of my Papers that my Friend Sir Roger, +amidst all his good Qualities, is something of an Humourist; and that +his Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by a +certain Extravagance, which makes them particularly _his_, and +distinguishes them from those of other Men. This Cast of Mind, as it +is generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his Conversation +highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same Degree of Sense +and Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary Colours. As I was +walking with him last Night, he ask'd me how I liked the good Man whom +I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my Answer, told me, +That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own +Table; for which Reason, he desired a particular Friend of his at the +University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than much +Learning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, if +possible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. "My friend," +says Sir Roger, "found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the +Endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar though he +does not shew it. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; and +because I know his Value, have settled upon him a good Annuity for +Life. If he out-lives me, he shall find that he was higher in my +Esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty +Years; and though he does not know I have taken Notice of it, has +never in all that Time asked any thing of me for himself, tho' he is +every Day solliciting me for something in Behalf of one or other of my +Tenants his Parishioners. There has not been a Law-Suit in the Parish +since he has lived among them: If any Dispute arises, they apply +themselves to him for the Decision; if they do not acquiesce in his +Judgment, which I think never happened above once, or twice at most, +they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a Present +of all the good Sermons which have been printed in _English_, and only +begged of him that every _Sunday_ he would pronounce one of them in +the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, that +they follow one another naturally, and make a continued System of +practical Divinity." + +As Sir Roger was going on in his Story, the Gentleman we were talking +of came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to +Morrow (for it was _Saturday_ Night) told us, the Bishop of St. +_Asaph_ in the Morning, and Doctor _South_ in the Afternoon. He then +shewed us his List of Preachers for the whole Year, where I saw with a +great deal of Pleasure Archbishop _Tillotson_, Bishop _Saunderson_, +Doctor _Barrow_, Doctor _Calamy_, with several living Authors who have +published Discourses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw this +venerable Man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my Friend's +insisting upon the Qualifications of a good Aspect and a clear Voice; +for I was so charmed with the Gracefulness of his Figure and Delivery, +as well as with the Discourses he pronounced, that I think I never +passed any Time more to my Satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after this +Manner, is like the Composition of a Poet in the Mouth of a graceful +Actor. + +I could heartily wish that more of our Country-Clergy would follow +this Example; and instead of wasting their Spirits in laborious +Compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution, +and all those other Talents that are proper to enforce what has been +penned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easy to +themselves, but more edifying to the People. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (2) + + +As I was Yesterday Morning walking with Sir ROGER before his House, a +Country-Fellow brought him a huge Fish, which, he told him, Mr. +_William Wimble_ had caught that very Morning; and that he presented +it, with his Service, to him, and intended to come and dine with him. +At the same Time he delivered a Letter, which my Friend read to me as +soon as the Messenger left him. + + "_Sir Roger_, + +I Desire you to accept of a Jack, which is the best I have caught this +Season. I intend to come and stay with you a Week, and see how the +Perch bite in the _Black River_. I observed, with some Concern, the +last Time I saw you upon the Bowling-Green, that your Whip wanted a +Lash to it: I will bring half a Dozen with me that I twisted last +Week, which I hope will serve you all the Time you are in the Country. +I have not been out of the Saddle for six Days last past, having been +at _Eaton_ with Sir _John's_ eldest Son. He takes to his Learning +hugely. + + _I am, + Sir, + Your humble Servant,_ + Will. Wimble." + +This extraordinary Letter, and Message that accompanied it, made me +very curious to know the Character and Quality of the Gentleman who +sent them; which I found to be as follows: _Will. Wimble_ is younger +Brother to a Baronet, and descended of the ancient Family of the +_Wimbles_. He is now between Forty and Fifty: but being bred to no +Business and born to no Estate, he generally lives with his elder +Brother as Superintendant of his Game. He hunts a Pack of Dogs better +than any Man in the Country, and is very famous for finding out a +Hare. He is extremely well versed in all the little Handicrafts of an +idle Man: He makes a May-fly to a miracle; and furnishes the whole +Country with Angle-Rods. As he is a good-natur'd officious Fellow, and +very much esteemed upon Account of his Family, he is a welcome Guest +at every House, and keeps up a good Correspondence among all the +Gentlemen about him. He carries a Tulip-Root in his pocket from one to +another, or exchanges a Puppy between a couple of Friends that live +perhaps in the opposite Sides of the Country. _Will._ is a particular +Favourite of all the young Heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a +Net that he has weaved, or a Setting-dog that he has _made_ himself: +He now and then presents a Pair of Garters of his own knitting to +their Mothers or Sisters; and raises a great deal of Mirth among them, +by enquiring as often as he meets them _how they wear?_ These +Gentleman-like Manufactures and obliging little Humours, make _Will._ +the Darling of the Country. + +Sir Roger was proceeding in the Character of him, when we saw him make +up to us, with two or three Hazel-twigs in his Hand that he had cut in +Sir Roger's Woods, as he came through them, in his Way to the House. I +was very much pleased to observe on one Side the hearty and sincere +Welcome with which Sir Roger received him, and on the other the secret +Joy which his Guest discovered at Sight of the good old Knight. After +the first Salutes were over, _Will._ desired Sir ROGER to lend him one +of his Servants to carry a Set of Shuttlecocks he had with him in a +little Box to a Lady that liv'd about a Mile off, to whom it seems he +had promised such a Present for above this half Year. Sir Roger's back +was no sooner turn'd, but honest _Will._ began to tell me of a large +Cock-Pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbouring Woods, +with two or three other Adventures of the same Nature. Odd and +uncommon Characters are the Game that I look for, and most delight in; +for which Reason I was as much pleased with the Novelty of the Person +that talked to me, as he could be for his Life with the springing of a +Pheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than ordinary +Attention. + +In the Midst of his Discourse the Bell rung to Dinner, where the +Gentleman I have been speaking of had the Pleasure of seeing the huge +Jack, he had caught, served up for the first Dish in a most sumptuous +Manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long Account how he +had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out +upon the Bank, with several other Particulars that lasted all the +first Course. A Dish of Wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished +Conversation for the rest of the Dinner, which concluded with a late +Invention of _Will.'s_ for improving the Quail Pipe. + +Upon withdrawing into my Room after Dinner, I was secretly touched +with Compassion towards the honest Gentleman that had dined with us; +and could not but consider with a great deal of Concern, how so good +an Heart and such busy Hands were wholly employed in Trifles; that so +much Humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much +Industry so little advantageous to himself. The same Temper of Mind +and Application to Affairs might have recommended him to the publick +Esteem, and have raised his Fortune in another Station of Life. What +Good to his Country or himself might not a Trader or Merchant have +done with such useful tho' ordinary Qualifications? + +_Will. Wimble_'s is the Case of many a younger Brother of a great +Family, who had rather see their Children starve like Gentlemen, than +thrive in a Trade or Profession that is beneath their Quality. This +Humour fills several Parts of _Europe_ with Pride and Beggary. It is +the Happiness of a trading Nation, like ours, that the younger Sons, +tho' uncapable of any liberal Art or Profession, may be placed in such +a Way of Life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of +their Family: Accordingly we find several Citizens that were launched +into the World with narrow Fortunes, rising by an honest Industry to +greater Estates than those of their elder Brothers. It is not +improbable but _Will._ was formerly tried at Divinity, Law, or +Physick; and that finding his Genius did not lie that Way, his Parents +gave him up at length to his own Inventions: But certainly, however +improper he might have been for Studies of a higher Nature, he was +perfectly well turned for the Occupations of Trade and Commerce. As I +think this is a Point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall +desire my Reader to compare what I have here written with what I have +said in my Twenty first Speculation. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (3) + + +I was this Morning walking in the Gallery, when Sir ROGER enter'd at +the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said, he was glad to +meet me among his Relations the DE COVERLEYS, and hoped I liked the +Conversation of so much good Company, who were as silent as my self. I +knew he alluded to the Pictures, and as he is a Gentleman who does not +a little value himself upon his ancient Descent, I expected he would +give me some Account of them. We were now arrived at the upper End of +the Gallery, when the Knight faced towards one of the Pictures, and as +we stood before it, he entered into the Matter, after his blunt way of +saying things, as they occur to his Imagination, without regular +Introduction, or Care to preserve the Appearance of Chain of Thought. + +"It is," said he, "worth while to consider the Force of Dress; and how +the Persons of one Age differ from those of another, merely by that +only. One may observe also that the General Fashion of one Age has +been follow'd by one particular Set of People in another, and by them +preserved from one Generation to another. Thus the vast Jetting Coat +and small Bonnet, which was the Habit in _Harry_ the Seventh's time, +is kept on in the Yeoman of the Guard; not without a good and Politick +View, because they look a Foot taller, and a Foot and an half broader: +Besides, that the Cap leaves the Pace expanded, and consequently more +Terrible, and fitter to stand at the Entrance of Palaces. + +"This Predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this Manner, and +his Cheeks would be no larger than mine were he in a Hat as I am. He +was the last Man that won a Prize in the Tilt-Yard (which is now a +Common Street before _Whitehall_). You see the broken Lance that lyes +there by his right Foot: he shivered that Lance of his Adversary all +to pieces; and bearing himself, look you Sir, in this manner, at the +same time he came within the Target of the Gentleman who rode again +him, and taking him with incredible Force before him on the Pummel of +his Saddle, he in that manner rid the Turnament over, with an Air that +shewed he did it rather to perform the Rule of the Lists, than Expose +his Enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a Victory, +and with a gentle Trot he marched up to a Gallery where their Mistress +sat (for they were Rivals) and let him down with laudable Courtesy and +pardonable Insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where the +Coffee-house is now. + +"You are to know this my Ancestor was not only of a military Genius +but fit also for the Arts of Peace, for he play'd on the Base-viol as +well as any Gentleman at Court; you see where his Viol hangs by his +Basket-hilt Sword. The Action at the Tilt-yard you may be sure won the +Fair Lady, who was a Maid of Honour, and the greatest Beauty of her +time; here she stands, the next Picture. You see, Sir, my Great Great +Great Grandmother has on the new-fashioned Petticoat, except that the +Modern is gathered at the Waste; my Grandmother appears as if she +stood in a large Drum, whereas the Ladies now walk as if they were in +a Go-Cart. For all this Lady was bred at Court, she became an +Excellent Country-Wife, she brought ten Children, and when I shew you +the Library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for the +Difference of the Language) the best Receipt now in _England_ both for +an Hasty-Pudding and a Whitepot. + +If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to look +at the three next Pictures at one View; these are three Sisters. She +on the right Hand, who is so very beautiful, dyed a Maid; the next to +her, still handsomer, had the same Fate, against her Will; this homely +thing in the middle had both their Portions added to her own, and was +Stolen by a neighbouring Gentleman, a Man of Stratagem and Resolution, +for he poisoned three Mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two +Dear-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all Families: +The Theft of this Romp and so much Money, was no great matter to our +Estate. But the next Heir that possessed it was this soft Gentleman +whom you see there: Observe the small buttons, the little Boots, the +Laces, the Slashes about his Cloaths, and above all the Posture he is +drawn in, (which to be sure was his own chusing); you see he sits with +one Hand on a Desk writing, and looking as it were another way, like +an easie Writer, or a Sonneteer: He was one of those that had too much +Wit to know how to live in the World; he was a man of no Justice, but +great good Manners; he ruined every body that had any thing to do with +him, but never said a rude thing in his Life; the most indolent Person +in the World, he would sign a Deed that passed away half his Estate +with his Gloves on, but would not put on his Hat before a Lady, if it +were to save his Country. He is said to be the first that made Love by +squeezing the Hand. He left the Estate with ten thousand Pounds Debt +upon it, but however by all Hands I have been informed that he was +every way the finest Gentleman in the World. That Debt lay heavy on +our House for one Generation, but it was retrieved by a Gift from that +Honest Man you see there, a Citizen of our Name, but nothing at all +a-kin to us. I know Sir ANDREW FREEPORT has said behind my Back, that +this Man was descended from one of the ten Children of the Maid of +Honour I shewed you above. But it was never made out; we winked at the +thing indeed, because Money was wanting at that time." + +Here I saw my Friend a little embarrassed, and turned my Face to the +next Portraiture. + +Sir Roger went on with his Account of the Gallery in the following +manner. "This man" (pointing to him I look'd at) "I take to be the +Honour of our House. Sir HUMPHREY DE COVERLEY; he was in his Dealings +as punctual as a Tradesman, and as generous as a Gentleman. He would +have thought himself as much undone by breaking his Word, as if it +were to be followed by Bankruptcy. He served his Country as Knight of +this Shire to his dying Day: He found it no easie matter to maintain +an Integrity in his Words and Actions, even in things that regarded +the Offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own +Affairs and Relations of Life, and therefore dreaded (tho' he had +great Talents) to go into Employments of State, where he must be +exposed to the Snares of Ambition. Innocence of Life and great Ability +were the distinguishing Parts of his Character; the latter, he had +often observed, had led to the Destruction of the former, and used +frequently to lament that Great and Good had not the same +Signification. He was an Excellent Husbandman, but had resolved not to +exceed such a degree of Wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret +Bounties many Years after the Sum he aimed at for his own use was +attained. Yet he did not slacken his Industry, but to a decent old Age +spent the Life and Fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the +Service of his Friends and Neighbours." + +Here we were called to Dinner, and Sir Roger ended the Discourse of +this Gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the Servant, that this +his Ancestor was a Brave Man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the +Civil Wars; "for," said he, "he was sent out of the Field upon a +private Message the Day before the Battle of _Worcester_." The Whim of +narrowly escaping, by having been within a Day of Danger; with other +Matters above mentioned, mixed with good Sense, left me at a Loss +whether I was more delighted with my Friend's Wisdom or Simplicity. + + _Steele._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT HOME (4) + + +At a little Distance from Sir RORGER's House, among the Ruins of an +old Abbey, there is a long Walk of aged Elms; which are shot up so +very high, that when one passes under them, the Rooks and Crows that +rest upon the Tops of them seem to be Cawing in another Region. I am +very much delighted with this Sort of Noise, which I consider as a +kind of a natural Prayer to that Being who supplies the Wants of his +whole Creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the _Psalms_, +feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him. I like this Retirement +the better, because of an ill Report it lies under of being _haunted_; +for which Reason (as I have been told in the Family) no living +Creature ever walks in it besides the Chaplain. My good Friend the +Butler desired me with a very grave Face not to venture myself in it +after Sun-set, for that one of the Footmen had been almost frighted +out of his Wits by a Spirit that appeared to him in the Shape of a +black Horse without an Head; to which he added, that about a month ago +one of the Maids coming home late that Way with a Pail of Milk upon +her Head, heard such a Rustling among the Bushes that she let it fall. + +I was taking a Walk in this Place last Night between the Hours of Nine +and Ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper Scenes in +the World for a Ghost to appear in. The Ruins of the Abbey are +scattered up and down on every Side, and half covered with Ivy and +Elder-Bushes, the Harbours of several solitary Birds which seldom make +their Appearance till the Dusk of the Evening. The Place was formerly +a Church-yard, and has still several Marks in it of Graves and +Burying-Places. There is such an Eccho among the old Ruins and Vaults, +that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary you hear the Sound +repeated. At the same Time the Walk of Elms, with the Croaking of the +Ravens which from time to time are heard from the Tops of them, looks +exceeding solemn and venerable. These Objects naturally raise +Seriousness and Attention; and when Night heightens the Awfulness of +the Place, and pours out her supernumerary Horrours upon every thing +in it, I do not at all wonder that weak Minds fill it with Spectres +and Apparitions. + +Mr. _Locke_, in his Chapter of the Association of Ideas, has very +curious Remarks to shew how by the Prejudice of Education one Idea +often introduces into the Mind a whole Set that bear no Resemblance to +one another in the Nature of things. Among several Examples of this +Kind, he produces the following Instance. _The Ideas of Goblins and +Sprights have really no more to do with Darkness than Light: Yet let +but a foolish Maid inculcate these often on the Mind of a Child, and +raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate +them again so long as he lives; but Darkness shall ever afterwards +bring with it those frightful Ideas, and they shall be so joyned, that +he can no more bear the one than the other._ + +As I was walking in this Solitude, where the Dusk of the Evening +conspired with so many other Occasions of Terrour, I observed a Cow +grazing not far from me, which an Imagination that was apt to +_startle_ might easily have construed into a black Horse without an +Head: and I dare say the poor Footman lost his Wits upon some such +trivial Occasion. + +My Friend Sir Roger has often told me with a good deal of Mirth, that +at his first coming to his Estate he found three Parts of his House +altogether useless; that the best Room in it had the Reputation of +being haunted, and by that Means was locked up; that Noises had been +heard in his long Gallery, so that he could not get a Servant to enter +it after eight a Clock at Night; that the Door of one of his Chambers +was nailed up, because there went a Story in the Family that a Butler +had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his Mother, who lived to a +great Age, had shut up half the Rooms in the House, in which either +her Husband, a Son, or Daughter had died. The Knight seeing his +Habitation reduced to so small a Compass, and himself in a Manner shut +out of his own House, upon the Death of his Mother ordered all the +Apartments to be flung open, and _exorcised_ by his Chaplain who lay +in every Room one after another, and by that Means dissipated the +Fears which had so long reigned in the Family. + +I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous Horrours, +did not I find them so very much prevail in all Parts of the Country. +At the same Time I think a Person who is thus terrify'd with the +Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who +contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and prophane, ancient +and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the +Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give my +self up to this general Testimony of Mankind, I should to the +relations of particular Persons who are now living, and whom I cannot +distrust in other Matters of Fact. I might here add, that not only the +Historians, to whom we may joyn the Poets, but likewise the +Philosophers of Antiquity have favoured this Opinion. _Lucretius_ +himself, though by the Course of his Philosophy he was obliged to +maintain that the Soul did not exist separate from the Body, makes no +Doubt of the Reality of Apparitions, and that Men have often appeared +after their Death. This I think very remarkable; he was so pressed +with the Matter of Fact which he could not have the Confidence to +deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd +unphilosophical Notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the +Surfaces of all Bodies are perpetually flying off from their +respective Bodies, one after another; and that these Surfaces or thin +Cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the Body +like the Coats of an Onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are +separated from it; by which Means we often behold the Shapes and +Shadows of Persons who are either dead or absent. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT CHURCH + + +I am always very well pleased with a Country _Sunday_; and think, if +keeping holy the Seventh Day were only a human Institution, it would +be the best Method that could have been thought of for the polishing +and civilizing of Mankind. It is certain the Country-People would soon +degenerate into a kind of Savages and Barbarians, were there not such +frequent Returns of a stated Time, in which the whole Village meet +together with their best Faces, and in their cleanliest Habits, to +converse with one another upon indifferent Subjects, hear their Duties +explained to them, and join together in Adoration of the Supreme +Being. _Sunday_ clears away the Rust of the whole Week, not only as it +refreshes in their Minds the Notions of Religion, but as it puts both +the Sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable Forms, and exerting +all such Qualities as are apt to give them a Figure in the Eye of the +Village. A Country-Fellow distinguishes himself as much in the +_Churchyard_, as a Citizen does upon the _Change_; the whole +Parish-Politicks being generally discuss'd in that Place either after +Sermon or before the Bell rings. + +My Friend Sir ROGER being a good Churchman, has beautified the Inside +of his Church with several Texts of his own chusing: He has likewise +given a handsome Pulpit-Cloth, and railed in the Communion-Table at +his own Expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his +Estate he found his Parishioners very irregular; and that in order to +make them kneel and join in the Responses, he gave every one of them a +Hassock and a Common-prayer Book: and at the same Time employed an +itinerant Singing-Master, who goes about the Country for that Purpose, +to instruct them rightly in the Tunes of the Psalms; upon which they +now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the Country +Churches that I have ever heard. + +As Sir Roger is Landlord to the whole Congregation, he keeps them in +very good Order, and will suffer no Body to sleep in it besides +himself; for if by Chance he has been surprized into a short Nap at +Sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, +and if he sees any Body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or +sends his Servants to them. Several other of the old Knight's +Particularities break out upon these Occasions: Sometimes he will be +lengthening out a Verse in the Singing-Psalms, half a Minute after the +rest of the Congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is +pleased with the Matter of his Devotion, he pronounces _Amen_ three or +four times to the same Prayer; and sometimes stands up when every Body +else is upon their Knees, to count the Congregation, or see if any of +his Tenants are missing. + +I was yesterday very much surprized to hear my old Friend, in the +Midst of the Service, calling out to one _John Matthews_ to mind what +he was about, and not disturb the Congregation. This _John Matthews_ +it seems is remarkable for being an idle Fellow, and at that Time was +kicking his Heels for his Diversion. This Authority of the Knight, +though exerted in that odd Manner which accompanies him in all +Circumstances of Life, has a very good Effect upon the Parish, who are +not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his Behaviour; +besides that, the general good Sense and Worthiness of his Character, +make his friends observe these little Singularities as Foils that +rather set off than blemish his good Qualities. + +As soon as the Sermon is finished, no Body presumes to stir till Sir +Roger is gone out of the Church. The Knight walks down from his Seat +in the Chancel between a double Row of his Tenants, that stand bowing +to him on each Side; and every now and then enquires how such an one's +Wife, or Mother, or Son, or Father do whom he does not see at Church; +which is understood as a secret Reprimand to the Person that is +absent. + +The Chaplain has often told me, that upon a Catechizing-day, when Sir +Roger has been pleased with a Boy that answers well, he has ordered a +Bible to be given him next Day for his Encouragement; and sometimes +accompanies it with a Flitch of Bacon to his Mother. Sir Roger has +likewise added five Pounds a Year to the Clerk's Place; and that he +may encourage the young Fellows to make themselves perfect in the +Church-Service, has promised upon the Death of the present Incumbent, +who is very old, to bestow it according to Merit. + +The fair Understanding between Sir Roger and his Chaplain, and their +mutual Concurrence in doing Good, is the more remarkable, because the +very next Village is famous for the Differences and Contentions that +rise between the Parson and the 'Squire, who live in a perpetual State +of War. The Parson is always preaching at the 'Squire, and the 'Squire +to be revenged on the Parson never comes to Church. The 'Squire has +made all his Tenants Atheists and Tithe-Stealers; while the Parson +instructs them every _Sunday_ in the Dignity of his Order, and +insinuates to them in almost every Sermon, that he is a better Man +than his Patron. In short, Matters are come to such an Extremity, that +the 'Squire has not said his Prayers either in publick or private this +half Year; and that the Parson threatens him, if he does not mend his +Manners, to pray for him in the Face of the whole Congregation. + +Feuds of this Nature, though too frequent in the Country, are very +fatal to the ordinary People; who are so used to be dazled with +Riches, that they pay as much Deference to the Understanding of a Man +of an Estate, as of a Man of Learning; and are very hardly brought to +regard any Truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to +them, when they know there are several Men of five hundred a Year who +do not believe it. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER ON THE WIDOW + + +In my first Description of the Company in which I pass most of my +Time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great Affliction which +my Friend Sir ROGER had met with in his Youth, which was no less than +a Disappointment in Love. It happened this Evening, that we fell into +a very pleasing Walk at a Distance from his House: As soon as we came +into it, "It is," quoth the good old Man, looking round him with a +Smile, "very hard, that any Part of my Land should be settled upon one +who has used me so ill as the perverse Widow did; and yet I am sure I +could not see a Sprig of any Bough of this whole Walk of Trees, but I +should reflect upon her and her Severity. She has certainly the finest +Hand of any Woman in the World. You are to know this was the Place +wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that Custom I can never come +into it, but the same tender Sentiments revive in my Mind, as if I had +actually walked with that beautiful Creature under these Shades. I +have been Fool enough to carve her Name on the Bark of several of +these Trees; so unhappy is the Condition of Men in Love, to attempt +the removing of their Passions by the Methods which serve only to +imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest Hand of any Woman in +the World." + +Here followed a profound Silence; and I was not displeased to observe +my Friend falling so naturally into a Discourse, which I had ever +before taken Notice he industriously avoided. After a very long Pause, +he entered upon an Account of this great Circumstance in his Life, +with an Air which I thought raised my _Idea_ of him above what I had +ever had before; and gave me the Picture of that chearful Mind of his, +before it received that Stroke which has ever since affected his Words +and Actions. But he went on as follows. + +"I came to my Estate in my Twenty second Year, and resolved to follow +the Steps of the most worthy of my Ancestors, who have inhabited this +spot of Earth before me, in all the Methods of Hospitality and good +Neighbourhood, for the Sake of my Fame; and in Country Sports and +Recreations, for the Sake of my Health. In my Twenty third Year I was +obliged to serve as Sheriff of the County; and in my Servants, +Officers, and whole Equipage, indulged the Pleasure of a young Man +(who did not think ill of his own Person) in taking that publick +Occasion of shewing my Figure and Behaviour to Advantage. You may +easily imagine to your self what Appearance I made, who am pretty +tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the Head of a whole +County, with Musick before me, a Feather in my Hat, and my Horse well +bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind +Looks and Glances I had from all the Balconies and Windows, as I rode +to the Hall where the Assizes were held. But when I came there, a +beautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court, to hear the Event +of a Cause concerning her Dower. This commanding Creature (who was +born for Destruction of all who behold her) put on such a Resignation +in her Countenance, and bore the Whispers of all around the Court with +such a pretty Uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered her self +from one Eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meeting +something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a +Murrain to her, she cast her bewitching Eye upon me. I no sooner met +it, but I bowed like a great surprized Booby; and knowing her Cause to +be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated Calf as I was, +Make Way for the Defendant's Witnesses. This sudden Partiality made +all the County immediately see the Sheriff also was become a Slave to +the fine Widow. During the Time her Cause was upon Trial, she behaved +her self, I warrant you, with such a deep Attention to her Business, +took Opportunities to have little Billets handed to her Counsel, then +would be in such a pretty Confusion, occasioned, you must know, by +acting before so much Company, that not only I but the whole Court was +prejudiced in her Favour; and all that the next Heir to her Husband +had to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it +came to her Counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every +one besides in the Court thought he could have urged to her Advantage. +You must understand, Sir, this perverse Woman is one of those +unaccountable Creatures that secretly rejoyce in the Admiration of +Men, but indulge themselves in no further Consequences. Hence it is +that she has ever had a Train of Admirers, and she removes from her +Slaves in town to those in the Country, according to the Seasons of +the Year. She is a reading Lady, and far gone in the Pleasures of +Friendship: She is always accompanied by a Confident, who is Witness +to her daily Protestations against our Sex, and consequently a Bar to +her first Steps towards Love, upon the Strength of her own Maxims and +Declarations. + +However, I must needs say this accomplished Mistress of mine has +distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir +Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most human of all the Brutes in +the Country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; +but upon the Strength of this Slender Encouragement of being thought +least detestable, I made new Liveries, new paired my Coach-Horses, +sent them all to Town to be bitted, and taught to throw their Legs +well, and move altogether, before I pretended to cross the Country and +wait upon her. As soon as I thought my Retinue suitable to the +Character of my Fortune and Youth, I set out from hence to make my +Addresses. The particular Skill of this Lady has ever been to inflame +your Wishes, and yet command Respect. To make her Mistress of this +Art, she has a greater Share of Knowledge, Wit, and good Sense, than +is usual even among Men of Merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the +Race of Women. If you won't let her go on with a certain Artifice with +her Eyes, and the Skill of Beauty, she will arm her self with her real +Charms, and strike you with Admiration instead of Desire. It is +certain that if you were to behold the whole Woman, there is that +Dignity in her Aspect, that Composure in her Motion, that Complacency +in her Manner, that if her Form makes you hope, her Merit makes you +fear. But then again, she is such a desperate Scholar, that no +Country-Gentleman can approach her without being a Jest. As I was +going to tell you, when I came to her House I was admitted to her +Presence with great Civility; at the same Time she placed her self to +be first seen by me in such an Attitude, as I think you call the +Posture of a Picture, that she discovered new Charms, and I at last +came towards her with such an Awe as made me speechless. This she no +sooner observed but she made her Advantage of it, and began a +Discourse to me concerning Love and Honour, as they both are followed +by Pretenders, and the real Votaries to them. When she discussed these +Points in a Discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the +best Philosopher in _Europe_ could possibly make, she asked me whether +she was so happy as to fall in with my Sentiments on these important +Particulars. Her Confident sat by her, and upon my being in the last +Confusion and Silence, this malicious Aide of hers turning to her +says, I am very glad to observe Sir Roger pauses upon this Subject, +and seems resolved to deliver all his Sentiments upon the Matter when +he pleases to speak. They both kept their Countenances, and after I +had sat half an Hour meditating how to behave before such profound +Casuists, I rose up and took my Leave. Chance has since that Time +thrown me very often in her Way, and she as often has directed a +Discourse to me which I do not understand. This Barbarity has kept me +ever at a Distance from the most beautiful Object my Eyes ever beheld. +It is thus also she deals with all Mankind, and you must make Love to +her, as you would conquer the Sphinx, by posing her. But were she like +other Women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must +the Pleasure of that Man be, who could converse with a Creature---- +But, after all, you may be sure her Heart is fixed on some one or +other; and yet I have been credibly informed; but who can believe half +that is said! After she had done speaking to me, she put her Hand to +her Bosom and adjusted her Tucker. Then she cast her Eyes a little +down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings +excellently: Her Voice in her ordinary Speech has something in it +inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a publick Table +the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some Tansy in the +Eye of all the Gentlemen in the Country: She has certainly the finest +Hand of any Woman in the World. I can assure you, Sir, were you to +behold her, you would be in the same Condition; for as her Speech is +Musick, her form is Angelick. But I find I grow irregular while I am +talking of her; but indeed it would be Stupidity to be unconcerned at +such Perfection. Oh the excellent Creature, she is as inimitable to +all Women, as she is inaccessible to all Men!" + +I found my Friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the +House, that we might be joined by some other Company; and am convinced +that the Widow is the secret Cause of all that Inconsistency which +appears in some Parts of my Friend's Discourse; tho' he has so much +Command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to +that of _Martial_, which one knows not how to render into _English_, +_Dum tacet hanc loquitur._ I shall end this Paper with that whole +Epigram, which represents with much Humour my honest Friend's +Condition. + + _Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est nisi Naevia Rufo: + Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur: + Caenat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est + Naevia: si non sit Naevia, mutus erit. + Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem, + Naevia lux, inquit, Naevia numen, ave._ + + _Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, + Still he can nothing but of Naevia talk; + Let him eat, drink, ask Questions, or dispute, + Still he must speak of_ Naevia _or be mute. + He writ to his Father, ending with this Line, + I am, my Lovely_ Naevia, _ever thine_. + + _Steele._ + + + + +SIR ROGER IN THE HUNTING FIELD + + +Bodily Labour is of two kinds, either that which a Man submits to for +his Livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his Pleasure. The +latter of them generally changes the Name of Labour for that of +Exercise, but differs only from ordinary Labour as it rises from +another Motive. + +A Country Life abounds in both these kinds of Labour, and for that +Reason gives a Man a greater Stock of Health and consequently a more +perfect Enjoyment of himself, than any other way of Life. I consider +the Body as a System of Tubes and Glands, or to use a more Rustick +Phrase, a Bundle of Pipes and Strainers, fitted to one another after +so wonderful a manner as to make a proper Engine for the Soul to work +with. This Description does not only comprehend the Bowels, Bones, +Tendons, Veins, Nerves and Arteries, but every Muscle and every +Ligature, which is a Composition of Fibres, that are so many +imperceptible Tubes or Pipes interwoven on all sides with invisible +Glands or Strainers. + +This general Idea of a Human Body, without considering it in its +Niceties of Anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary Labour is +for the right Preservation of it. There must be frequent Motions and +Agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the Juices contained in it, +as well as to clear and cleanse that Infinitude of Pipes and Strainers +of which it is composed, and to give their solid Parts a more firm and +lasting Tone. Labour or Exercise ferments the Humours, casts them into +their proper Channels, throws off Redundancies, and helps Nature in +those secret Distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in +its Vigour, nor the Soul act with Chearfulness. + +I might here mention the Effects which this has upon all the Faculties +of the Mind, by keeping the Understanding clear, the Imagination +untroubled, and refining those Spirits that are necessary for the +proper Exertion of our intellectual Faculties, during the present Laws +of Union between Soul and Body. It is to a Neglect in this Particular +that we must ascribe the Spleen, which is so frequent in Men of +studious and sedentary Tempers, as well as the Vapours to which those +of the other Sex are so often subject. + +Had not Exercise been absolutely necessary for our Well-being, Nature +would not have made the Body so proper for it, by giving such an +Activity to the Limbs, and such a Pliancy to every Part as necessarily +produce those Compressions, Extensions, Contortions, Dilatations, and +all other kinds of Motions that are necessary for the Preservation of +such a System of Tubes and Glands as has been before mentioned. And +that we might not want Inducements to engage us in such an Exercise of +the Body as is proper for its Welfare, it is so ordered that nothing +valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention Riches and Honour, +even Food and Raiment are not to be come at without the Toil of the +Hands and Sweat of the Brows. Providence furnishes Materials, but +expects that we should work them up our selves. The Earth must be +laboured before it gives its Encrease, and when it is forced into its +several Products, how many Hands must they pass through before they +are fit for Use? Manufactures, Trade, and Agriculture, naturally +employ more than nineteen Parts of the Species in twenty; and as for +those who are not obliged to Labour, by the Condition in which they +are born, they are more miserable than the rest of Mankind, unless +they indulge themselves in that voluntary Labour which goes by the +Name of Exercise. + +My Friend Sir ROGER has been an indefatigable Man in Business of this +kind, and has hung several Parts of his House with the Trophies of his +former Labours. The Walls of his great Hall are covered with the Horns +of several kinds of Deer that he has killed in the Chace, which he +thinks the most valuable Furniture of his House, as they afford him +frequent Topicks of Discourse, and shew that he has not been Idle. At +the lower end of the Hall, is a large Otter's Skin stuffed with Hay, +which his Mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight +looks upon with great Satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine +Years old when his Dog killed him. A little Room adjoining to the Hall +is a kind of Arsenal filled with Guns of several Sizes and Inventions, +with which the Knight has made great Havock in the Woods, and +destroyed many thousands of Pheasants, Partridges and Wood-Cocks. His +Stable Doors are patched with Noses that belonged to Foxes of the +Knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that for +Distinction sake has a Brass Nail stuck through it, which cost him +about fifteen Hours riding, carried him through half a dozen Counties, +killed him a brace of Geldings, and lost above half his Dogs. This the +Knight looks upon as one of the greatest Exploits of his Life. The +perverse Widow, whom I have given some account of, was the Death of +several Foxes; For Sir Roger has told me that in the Course of his +Amours he patched the Western Door of his Stable. Whenever the Widow +was cruel, the Foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his +Passion for the Widow abated, and old Age came on, he left off +Fox-hunting; but a Hare is not yet safe that sits within ten Miles of +his House. + +There is no kind of Exercise which I would so recommend to my Readers +of both Sexes as this of Riding, as there is none which so much +conduces to Health, and is every way accommodated to the body, +according to the _Idea_ which I have given of it. Doctor _Sydenham_ is +very lavish in its Praises; and if the _English_ Reader would see the +Mechanical Effects of it described at length, he may find them in a +Book published not many Years since, under the Title of _Medicina +Gymnastica_. For my own part, when I am in Town, for want of these +opportunities, I exercise my self an Hour every Morning, upon a dumb +Bell that is placed in a Corner of my Room, and pleases me the more +because it does everything I require of it in the most profound +Silence. My Landlady and her Daughters are so well acquainted with my +Hours of Exercise, that they never come into my Room to disturb me +whilst I am ringing. + +When I was some Years younger than I am at present, I used to employ +my self in a more laborious Diversion, which I learned from a _Latin_ +Treatise of Exercises that is written with great Erudition: It is +there called the [Greek: skiomachai], or the Fighting with a Man's own +Shadow; and consists in the brandishing of two short Sticks grasped in +each Hand, and Loaden with Plugs of Lead at either end. This opens the +Chest, exercises the Limbs, and gives a Man all the Pleasure of +Boxing, without the Blows. I could wish that several Learned Men would +lay out that Time which they employ in Controversies and Disputes +about nothing, in _this method_ of fighting with their own Shadows. It +might conduce very much to evaporate the Spleen, which makes them +uneasy to the Publick as well as to themselves. + +To conclude, As I am a Compound of Soul and Body, I consider my self +as obliged to a double Scheme of Duties; and think I have not +fulfilled the Business of the Day, when I do not thus employ the one +in Labour and Exercise, as well as the other in Study and +Contemplation. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES + + +A man's first Care should be to avoid the Reproaches of his own Heart; +his next, to escape the Censures of the World: If the last interferes +with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise, +there cannot be a greater Satisfaction to an honest Mind, than to see +those Approbations which it gives itself seconded by the Applauses of +the Publick: A Man is more sure of his Conduct, when the Verdict which +he passes upon his own Behaviour is thus warranted, and confirmed by +the Opinion of all that know him. + +My worthy Friend Sir ROGER is one of those who is not only at Peace +within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives +a suitable Tribute for his universal Benevolence to mankind, in the +Returns of Affection and Good-will, which are paid him by every one +that lives within his Neighbourhood. I lately met with two or three +odd Instances of that general Respect which is shewn to the good old +Knight. He would needs carry _Will. Wimble_ and myself with him to the +County-Assizes: As we were upon the Road _Will. Wimble_ joined a +couple of plain Men who rid before us, and conversed with them for +some Time; during which my Friend Sir Roger acquainted me with their +Characters. + +The first of them, says he, that has a spaniel by his Side, is a +Yeoman of about an hundred Pounds a Year, an honest Man: He is just +within the Game-Act, and qualified to kill an Hare or a Pheasant: He +knocks down a Dinner with his Gun twice or thrice a Week; and by that +Means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an Estate as +himself. He would be a good Neighbour if he did not destroy so many +Partridges: in short, he is a very sensible Man; shoots flying; and +has been several Times Foreman of the Petty-jury. + +The other that rides along with him is _Tom Touchy_, a Fellow famous +for _taking the Law_ of every Body. There is not one in the Town where +he lives that he has not sued at a Quarter-Sessions. The Rogue had +once the Impudence to go to Law with the _Widow_. His head is full of +Costs, Damages, and Ejectments: He plagued a couple of honest +Gentlemen so long for a Trespass in breaking one of his Hedges, till +he was forced to sell the Ground it enclosed to defray the Charges of +the Prosecution: His Father left him fourscore Pounds a Year; but he +has _cast_ and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I +suppose he is going upon the old Business of the Willow-Tree. + +As Sir Roger was giving me this Account of _Tom Touchy_, _Will. +Wimble_ and his two Companions stopped short till we came up to them. +After having paid their Respects to Sir Roger, _Will._ told him that +Mr. _Touchy_ and he must appeal to him upon a Dispute that arose +between them. _Will._ it seems had been giving his Fellow Traveller an +Account of his Angling one Day in such a Hole; when _Tom Touchy_, +instead of hearing out his Story, told him, that Mr. such an One, if +he pleased, might _take the law of him_ for fishing in that Part of +the River. My Friend Sir Roger heard them both, upon a round Trot; and +after having paused some Time told them, with the Air of a Man who +would not give his Judgment rashly, that _much might be said on both +Sides_. They were neither of them dissatisfied with the Knight's +Determination, because neither of them found himself in the Wrong by +it: Upon which we made the best of our Way to the Assizes. + +The Court was sat before Sir Roger came, but notwithstanding all the +Justices had taken their Places upon the Bench, they made Room for the +old Knight at the Head of them; who for his Reputation in the Country +took Occasion to whisper in the Judge's Ear, That _he was glad his +Lordship had met with so much good Weather in his Circuit_. I was +listening to the Proceedings of the Court with much Attention, and +infinitely pleased with that great Appearance and Solemnity which so +properly accompanies such a publick Administration of our Laws; when, +after about an Hour's Sitting, I observed to my great Surprize, in the +midst of a Trial, that my Friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I +was in some Pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two +or three Sentences, with a Look of much Business and great +Intrepidity. + +Upon his first Rising the Court was hushed, and a general Whisper ran +among the Country-People that Sir Roger _was up_. The Speech he made +was so little to the Purpose, that I shall not trouble my Readers with +an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the Knight +himself to inform the Court, as to give him a Figure in my Eye, and +keep up his Credit in the Country. + +I was highly delighted, when the Court rose, to see the Gentlemen of +the Country gathering about my old Friend, and striving who should +compliment him most; at the same Time that the ordinary People gazed +upon him at a Distance, not a little admiring his Courage, that was +not afraid to speak to the Judge. + +In our Return home we met with a very odd Accident; which I cannot +forbear relating, because it shews how desirous all who know Sir Roger +are of giving him Marks of their Esteem. When we were arrived upon the +Verge of his Estate, we stopped at a little Inn to rest our selves and +our Horses. The Man of the House had it seems been formerly a Servant +in the Knight's Family; and to do Honour to his old Master, had some +Time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put him up in a Sign-post before the +Door; so that the _Knight's Head_ had hung out upon the Road about a +Week before he himself knew anything of the Matter. As soon as Sir +Roger was acquainted with it, finding that his Servant's Indiscretion +proceeded wholly from Affection and Good-will, he only told him that +he had made him too high a Compliment; and when the Fellow seemed to +think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive Look, That it +was too great an Honour for any Man under a Duke; but told him at the +same time that it might be altered with a very few Touches, and that +he himself would be at the Charge of it. Accordingly they got a +Painter by the Knight's Directions to add a pair of Whiskers to the +Face, and by a little Aggravation of the Features to change it into +the _Saracen's Head_. I should not have known this Story, had not the +Inn-keeper upon Sir Roger's alighting told him in my Hearing, That his +Honour's head was brought back last Night with the alterations that he +had ordered to be made in it. Upon this my Friend with his usual +Chearfulness related the Particulars above-mentioned, and ordered the +Head to be brought into the Room. I could not forbear discovering +greater Expressions of Mirth than ordinary upon the Appearance of this +monstrous Face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and +stare in a most extraordinary Manner, I could still discover a distant +Resemblance of my old Friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired +me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know him +in that Disguise. I at first kept my usual Silence; but upon the +Knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still more like +himself than a _Saracen_, I composed my Countenance in the best Manner +I could, and replied, _That much might be said on both Sides._ + +These several Adventures, with the Knight's Behaviour in them, gave me +as pleasant a Day as ever I met with in any of my Travels. + + _Addison._ + + + + +GIPSIES + + +As I was Yesterday riding out in the Fields with my Friend Sir ROGER, +we saw at a little Distance from us a Troop of Gypsies. Upon the first +Discovery of them, my Friend was in some Doubt whether he should not +exert the _Justice of the Peace_ upon such a Band of lawless Vagrants; +but not having his Clerk with him, who is a necessary Counsellor on +these Occasions, and fearing that his Poultry might fare the worse for +it, he let the Thought drop: But at the same Time gave me a particular +Account of the Mischiefs they do in the Country, in stealing People's +Goods and spoiling their Servants. If a stray Piece of Linen hangs +upon an Hedge, says Sir Roger, they are sure to have it; if a Hog +loses his Way in the Fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their +Prey; our Geese cannot live in Peace for them; if a Man prosecutes +them with Severity, his Hen-roost is sure to pay for it: They +generally straggle into these Parts about this Time of the Year; and +set the Heads of our Servant-Maids so agog for Husbands, that we do +not expect to have any Business done, as it should be, whilst they are +in the Country. I have an honest Dairy-Maid who crosses their Hands +with a Piece of Silver every Summer, and never fails being promised +the handsomest young Fellow in the Parish for her Pains. Your Friend +the Butler has been Fool enough to be seduced by them; and though he +is sure to lose a Knife, a Fork, or a Spoon every Time his Fortune is +told him, generally shuts himself up in the Pantry with an old Gypsie +for about half an Hour once in a Twelvemonth. Sweet-hearts are the +things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all +those that apply themselves to them. You see now and then some +handsome young Jades among them: The Sluts have often very white Teeth +and black Eyes. + +Sir Roger observing that I listened with great Attention to his +Account of a People who were so entirely new to me, told me, That if I +would they should tell us our Fortunes. As I was very well pleased +with the Knight's Proposal, we rid up and communicated our Hands to +them. A _Cassandra_ of the Crew, after having examined my Lines very +diligently, told me, That I loved a pretty Maid in a Corner, that I +was a good Woman's Man, with some other Particulars which I do not +think proper to relate. My Friend Sir Roger alighted from his Horse, +and exposing his Palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled +it into all Shapes, and diligently scanned every Wrinkle that could be +made in it; when one of them who was older and more Sun-burnt than the +rest, told him, That he had a Widow in his Line of Life: Upon which +the Knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle Baggage, and at the same +time smiled upon me. The Gypsie finding he was not displeased in his +Heart, told him, after a further Enquiry into his Hand, that his +True-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to Night. My +old Friend cryed pish, and bid her go on. The Gypsie told him that he +was a Batchelour, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to +some Body than he thought: the Knight still repeated, She was an idle +Baggage, and bid her go on. Ah Master, says the Gypsie, that roguish +Leer of yours makes a pretty Woman's Heart ake; you ha'n't that Simper +about the Mouth for Nothing---- The uncouth Gibberish with which all +this was uttered, like the Darkness of an Oracle, made us the more +attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the Money with her that +he had crossed her Hand with, and got up again on his Horse. + +As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me, that he knew several +sensible People who believed these Gypsies now and then foretold very +strange things; and for Half an Hour together appeared more jocund +than ordinary. In the Height of his good Humour, meeting a common +Beggar upon the Road who was no Conjuror, as he went to relieve him he +found his Pocket was pickt: That being a Kind of Palmistry at which +this Race of Vermin are very dexterous. + +I might here entertain my Reader with Historical Remarks on this idle +profligate People, who infest all the Countries of _Europe_, and live +in the Midst of Governments in a kind of Commonwealth by themselves. +But instead of entering into Observations of this Nature, I shall fill +the remaining part of my Paper with a Story which is still fresh in +_Holland_, and was printed in one of our Monthly Accounts about twenty +Years ago. "As the _Trekschuyt_, or Hackney-boat, which carries +Passengers from _Leiden_ to _Amsterdam_, was putting off, a Boy +running along the Side of the Canal, desir'd to be taken in; which the +Master of the Boat refused, because the Lad had not quite Money enough +to pay the usual Fare. An eminent Merchant being pleased with the +Looks of the Boy, and secretly touched with Compassion towards him, +paid the Money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upon +talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily in +three or four Languages, and learned upon further Examination that he +had been stolen away when he was a Child by a Gypsy, and had rambled +ever since with a gang of those Strolers up and down several Parts of +_Europe_. It happened that the Merchant, whose heart seems to have +inclined towards the Boy by a secret kind of Instinct, had himself +lost a Child some Years before. The Parents, after a long Search for +him, gave him for drowned in one of the Canals with which that Country +abounds; and the Mother was so afflicted at the Loss of a fine Boy, +who was her only Son, that she died for Grief of it. Upon laying +together all Particulars, and examining the several Moles and Marks by +which the Mother used to describe the Child when he was first missing, +the Boy proved to be the Son of the Merchant, whose Heart had so +unaccountably melted at the Sight of him. The Lad was very well +pleased to find a Father, who was so rich, and likely to leave him a +good Estate; the Father, on the other Hand, was not a little delighted +to see a Son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a +Strength of Constitution, Sharpness of Understanding, and skill in +Languages." Here the printed Story leaves off; but if I may give +credit to Reports, our Linguist having received such extraordinary +Rudiments towards a good Education, was afterwards trained up in every +thing that becomes a Gentleman; wearing off by little and little all +the vicious Habits and Practices that he had been used to in the +Course of his Peregrinations: Nay, it is said, that he has since been +employed in foreign Courts upon National Business, with great +Reputation to himself and Honour to those who sent him, and that he +has visited several Countries as a publick Minister, in which he +formerly wandered as a Gypsy. + + _Addison._ + + + + +WITCHES + + +There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, without +engaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith as +this, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutely +necessary in a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors and +Prepossessions. When the Arguments press equally on both sides in +Matters that are indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give up +ourselves to neither. + +It is with this Temper of Mind that I consider the Subject of +Witchcraft. When I hear the Relations that are made from all Parts of +the World, not only from _Norway_ and _Lapland_, from the _East_ and +_West Indies_, but from every particular Nation in _Europe_, I cannot +forbear thinking that there is such an Intercourse and Commerce with +Evil Spirits, as that which we express by the Name of Witchcraft. But +when I consider that the ignorant and credulous Parts of the World +abound most in these Relations, and that the Persons among us who are +supposed to engage in such an Infernal Commerce are People of a weak +Understanding and crazed Imagination, and at the same time reflect +upon the many Impostures and Delusions of this Nature that have been +detected in all Ages, I endeavour to suspend my Belief till I hear +more certain Accounts than any which have yet come to my Knowledge. In +short, when I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in +the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two +opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe +in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but +at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it. + +I am engaged in this Speculation, by some Occurrences that I met with +Yesterday, which I shall give my Reader an Account of at large. As I +was walking with my Friend Sir ROGER by the side of one of his Woods, +an old Woman applied her self to me for my Charity. Her Dress and +Figure put me in mind of the following Description in _Otway_. + + _In a close Lane as I pursu'd my Journey, + I spy'd a wrinkled_ Hag, _with Age grown double, + Picking dry Sticks, and mumbling to her self. + Her Eyes with scalding Rheum were gall'd and red; + Cold Palsy shook her Head: her Hands seem'd wither'd; + And on her crooked Shoulders had she wrapp'd + The tatter'd Remnants of an old striped Hanging, + Which serv'd to keep her Carcass from the Cold: + So there was nothing of a-piece about her. + Her lower Weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd + With diff'rent-colour'd Rags, black, red, while, yellow, + And seem'd to speak Variety of Wretchedness._ + +As I was musing on this Description, and comparing it with the Object +before me, the Knight told me, that this very old Woman had the +Reputation of a Witch all over the Country, that her Lips were +observed to be always in Motion, and that there was not a Switch about +her House which her Neighbours did not believe had carried her several +hundreds of Miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found Sticks +or Straws that lay in the Figure of a Cross before her. If she made +any Mistake at Church, and cryed _Amen_ in a wrong Place, they never +failed to conclude that she was saying her Prayers backwards. There +was not a Maid in the Parish that would take a Pin of her, though she +should offer a Bag of Money with it. She goes by the name of _Moll +White_, and has made the Country ring with several imaginary Exploits +which are palmed upon her. If the Dairy Maid does not make her Butter +come so soon as she would have it, _Moll White_ is at the bottom of +the Churn. If a Horse sweats in the Stable, _Moll White_ has been upon +his Back. If a Hare makes an unexpected Escape from the Hounds, the +Huntsman curses _Moll White_. Nay, (says Sir Roger) I have known the +Master of the Pack, upon such an Occasion, send one of his Servants to +see if _Moll White_ had been out that Morning. + +This Account raised my Curiosity so far, that I begged my Friend Sir +Roger to go with me into her Hovel, which stood in a solitary Corner +under the side of the Wood. Upon our first entring Sir Roger winked to +me, and pointed at something that stood behind the Door, which upon +looking that way I found to be an old Broomstaff. At the same time he +whispered me in the Ear to take notice of a Tabby Cat that sat in the +Chimney-Corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a +Report as _Moll White_ her self; for besides that _Moll_ is said often +to accompany her in the same Shape, the Cat is reported to have spoken +twice or thrice in her Life, and to have played several Pranks above +the Capacity of an ordinary Cat. + +I was secretly concerned to see Human Nature in so much Wretchedness +and Disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear +Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old Woman, advising her +as a Justice of the Peace to avoid all Communication with the Devil, +and never to hurt any of her Neighbours' Cattle. We concluded our +Visit with a Bounty, which was very acceptable. + +In our Return home Sir Roger told me, that old _Moll_ had been often +brought before him for making Children spit Pins, and giving Maids the +Night-Mare; and that the Country People would be tossing her into a +Pond and trying Experiments with her every Day, if it was not for him +and his Chaplain. + +I have since found, upon Enquiry, that Sir Roger was several times +staggered with the Reports that had been brought him concerning this +old Woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the County +Sessions, had not his Chaplain with much ado perswaded him to the +contrary. + +I have been the more particular in this Account, because I hear there +is scarce a Village in _England_ that has not a _Moll White_ in it. +When an old Woman begins to doat, and grow chargeable to a Parish, she +is generally turned into a Witch, and fills the whole Country with +extravagant Fancies, imaginary Distempers, and terrifying Dreams. In +the meantime the poor Wretch that is the innocent Occasion of so many +Evils begins to be frighted at her self, and sometimes confesses +secret Commerce and Familiarities that her Imagination forms in a +delirious old Age. This frequently cuts off Charity from the greatest +Objects of Compassion, and inspires People with a Malevolence towards +those poor decrepid Parts of our Species, in whom Human Nature is +defaced by Infirmity and Dotage. + + _Addison._ + + + + + +SIR ROGER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + +My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY told me t'other Night, that he had +been reading my Paper upon _Westminster-Abbey_, in which, says he, +there are a great many ingenious Fancies. He told me at the same Time, +that he observed I had promised another Paper upon _the Tombs_, and +that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited +them since he had read History. I could not at first imagine how this +came into the Knight's Head, till I recollected that he had been very +busy all last Summer upon _Baker's_ Chronicle, which he has quoted +several Times in his Disputes with Sir ANDREW FREEPORT since his last +coming to Town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next +Morning, that we might go together to the _Abbey_. + +I found the Knight under his Butler's Hands, who always shaves him. He +was no sooner dressed, than he called for a Glass of the Widow +_Trueby's_ Water, which he told me he always drank before he went +abroad. He recommended to me a Dram of it at the same Time, with so +much Heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I +had got it down I found it very unpalatable, upon which the Knight +observing that I had made several wry Faces, told me that he knew I +should not like it at first, but that it was the best Thing in the +World against the Stone or Gravel. + +I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the Virtues +of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had +done was out of Good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked +upon it to be very good for a Man whilst he staid in Town, to keep off +Infection, and that he got together a Quantity of it upon the first +News of the Sickness being at _Dantzick_: When of a sudden turning +short to one of his Servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call an +Hackney-Coach, and take Care it was an elderly Man that drove it. + +He then resumed his Discourse upon Mrs. _Trueby's_ Water, telling me +that the Widow _Trueby_ was one who did more Good than all the Doctors +and Apothecaries in the County: That she distilled every poppy that +grew within five Miles of her, that she distributed her Water _gratis_ +among all sorts of People; to which the Knight added, that she had a +very great Jointure, and that the whole Country would fain have it a +Match between him and her; and truly, says Sir Roger, if I had not +been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better. + +His Discourse was broken off by his Man's telling him he had called a +Coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his Eye upon the +Wheels, he asked the Coachman if his Axle-tree was good; upon the +Fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the Knight turned to me, +told me he looked like an honest Man, and went in without further +Ceremony. + +We had not gone far, when Sir Roger popping out his Head, called the +Coachman down from his Box, and upon his presenting himself at the +Window, asked him if he smoaked; as I was considering what this would +end in, he bid him stop by the Way at any good Tobacconist's, and take +in a Roll of their best _Virginia_. Nothing material happen'd in the +remaining Part of our Journey, till we were set down at the West-End +of the _Abbey_. + +As we went up the Body of the Church, the Knight pointed at the +Trophies upon one of the new Monuments, and cry'd out, A brave Man I +warrant him. Passing afterwards by Sir _Cloudsly Shovel_, he flung his +Hand that Way, and cry'd Sir _Cloudsly Shovel!_ a very gallant Man! As +we stood before _Busby's_ Tomb, the Knight utter'd himself again after +the same Manner, Dr. _Busby_, a great Man, he whipp'd my Grandfather, +a very great Man. I should have gone to him my self, if I had not been +a Blockhead, a very great Man! + +We were immediately conducted into the little Chappel on the Right +Hand. Sir Roger planting himself at our Historian's Elbow, was very +attentive to every Thing he said, particularly to the Account he gave +us of the Lord who had cut off the King of _Morocco's_ Head. Among +several other Figures, he was very pleased to see the Statesman +_Cecil_ upon his Knees; and, concluding them all to be great Men, was +conducted to the Figure which represents that Martyr to good +Housewifry, who died by the Prick of a Needle. Upon our Interpreter's +telling us, that she was a Maid of Honour to Queen _Elizabeth_, the +Knight was very inquisitive into her Name and Family, and, after +having regarded her Finger for some Time, I wonder, says he, that Sir +_Richard Baker_ has said Nothing of her in his Chronicle. + +We were then convey'd to the two Coronation Chairs, where my old +Friend, after having heard that the Stone underneath the most ancient +of them, which was brought from _Scotland_, was called _Jacob's +Pillar_, sat himself down in the Chair, and looking like the Figure of +an old _Gothic_ King, asked our Interpreter, What authority they had +to say, that _Jacob_ had ever been in _Scotland_? The Fellow, instead +of returning him an Answer, told him, that he hoped his Honour would +pay his Forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon being +thus trapanned; but our Guide not insisting upon his Demand, the +Knight soon recovered his good Humour, and whispered in my Ear, that +if WILL. WIMBLE were with us, and saw those two Chairs, it would go +hard but he would get a Tobacco-Stopper out of one or t'other of them. + +Sir Roger, in the next Place, laid his Hand upon _Edward_ III's Sword, +and leaning upon the Pommel of it, gave us the whole History of the +_Black Prince_; concluding, that in Sir _Richard Baker's_ Opinion, +_Edward_ the Third was one of the greatest Princes that ever sate upon +the _English_ Throne. + +We were then shewn _Edward_ the Confessor's Tomb; upon which Sir Roger +acquainted us, that he was the first who touched for the Evil; and +afterwards _Henry_ the Fourth's, upon which he shook his Head, and +told us, there was fine Reading in the Casualties of that Reign. + +Our Conductor then pointed to that Monument, where there is the Figure +of one of our _English_ Kings without an Head; and upon giving us to +know, that the Head, which was of beaten Silver, had been stolen away +several Years since: Some Whig, I warrant you, says Sir Roger; You +ought to lock up your Kings better: They will carry off the Body too, +if you don't take Care. + +The glorious Names of _Henry_ the Fifth and Queen _Elizabeth_ gave the +Knight great Opportunities of shining, and of doing Justice to Sir +_Richard Baker_, who, as our Knight observed with some surprize, had a +great many Kings in him, whose Monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. + +For my own Part, I could not but be pleased to see the Knight shew +such an honest Passion for the Glory of his Country, and such a +respectful Gratitude to the Memory of its Princes. + +I must not omit, that the Benevolence of my good old Friend, which +flows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind to +our Interpreter, whom he looked upon as an extraordinary Man; for +which Reason he shook him by the Hand at Parting, telling him, that he +should be very glad to see him at his Lodgings in _Norfolk-Buildings_, +and talk over these Matters with him more at Leisure. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY + + +My Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at the +Club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy with me, +assuring me at the same Time, that he had not been at a Play these +twenty Years. The last I saw, says Sir Roger, was the _Committee_, +which I should not have gone to neither, had I not been told +before-hand that it was a good Church of _England_ Comedy. He then +proceeded to enquire of me who this Distress'd Mother was, and upon +hearing that she was _Hector's_ Widow, he told me, that her Husband +was a brave Man, and that when he was a School-Boy, he had read his +Life at the end of the Dictionary. My Friend asked me, in the next +Place, if there would not be some Danger in coming home late, in case +the _Mohocks_ should be abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I had +fallen into their hands last Night, for I observ'd two or three lusty +black Men that followed me half way up _Fleet-street_, and mended +their Pace behind me, in Proportion as I put on to get away from them. +You must know, continued the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had a +mind to _hunt_ me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in my +Neighbourhood, who was serv'd such a Trick in King _Charles_ the +Second's Time; for which Reason he has not ventured himself in Town +ever since. I might have shown them very good Sport, had this been +their Design, for as I am an old Fox-hunter, I should have turned and +dodged, and have play'd them a thousand Tricks they had never seen in +their Lives before. Sir Roger added, that if these Gentlemen had any +such Intention, they did not succeed very well in it; for I threw them +out, says he, at the End of _Norfolk-street_, where I doubled the +Corner, and got Shelter in my Lodgings before they could imagine what +was become of me. However, says the Knight, if Captain SENTRY will +make one with us to Morrow Night, and if you will both of you call +upon me about Four a-Clock, that we may be at the House before it is +full, I will have my own Coach in Readiness to attend you, for _John_ +tells me he has got the Fore-Wheels mended. + +The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed Hour, +bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same Sword +which he made use of at the Battel of _Steenkirk_. Sir Roger's +Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had, I found, +provided themselves with good oaken Plants, to attend their Master +upon this Occasion. When we had plac'd him in his Coach, with my self +at his Left hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the Head +of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoy'd him in Safety to the +Play-house; where, after having march'd up the Entry in good Order, +the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the +Pit. As soon as the House was full, and the Candles lighted, my old +Friend stood up and looked about him with that Pleasure, which a Mind +seasoned with Humanity naturally feels in it self, at the Sight of a +Multitude of People who seem pleased with one another, and partake of +the same common Entertainment. I could not but fancy to my self, as +the old Man stood up in the Middle of the Pit, that he made a very +proper Center to a Tragick Audience. Upon the Entring of _Pyrrhus_, +the Knight told me, that he did not believe the King of _France_ +himself had a better Strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old +Friend's Remarks, because I looked upon them as a Piece of Natural +Criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the Conclusion of +almost every Scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the Play +would end. One while he appear'd much concerned for _Andromache_; and +a little while after as much for _Hermione_; and was extremely puzzled +to think what would become of _Pyrrhus_. + +When Sir Roger saw _Andromache's_ obstinate Refusal to her Lover's +Importunities, he whispered me in the Ear, that he was sure she would +never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary +Vehemence, You can't imagine, Sir, what 'tis to have to do with a +Widow. Upon _Pyrrhus_ his threatening afterwards to leave her, the +Knight shook his Head, and muttered to himself, Ay, do if you can. +This Part dwelt so much upon my Friend's Imagination, that at the +Close of the Third Act, as I was thinking of something else, he +whispered in my Ear, These Widows, Sir, are the most perverse +Creatures in the World. But pray, says he, you that are a Critick, is +the Play according to your Dramatick Rules, as you call them? Should +your People in Tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not +a single Sentence in this Play that I do not know the Meaning of. + +The Fourth Act very luckily begun before I had Time to give the old +Gentleman an Answer; Well, says the Knight, sitting down with great +Satisfaction, I suppose we are now to see _Hector's_ Ghost. He then +renewed his Attention, and, from Time to Time, fell a praising the +Widow. He made, indeed, a little Mistake as to one of her Pages, whom +at his first Entring, he took for _Astyanax_; but he quickly set +himself right in that Particular, though, at the same time, he owned +he should have been very glad to have seen the little Boy, who, says +he, must needs be a very fine Child by the Account that is given of +him. Upon _Hermione's_ going off with a menace to _Pyrrhus_, the +Audience gave a loud Clap, to which Sir Roger added, On my Word, a +notable Young Baggage. + +As there was a very remarkable Silence and Stillness in the Audience +during the whole Action, it was natural for them to take the +Opportunity of these Intervals between the Acts, to express their +Opinion of the Players, and of their respective Parts. Sir Roger +hearing a Cluster of them praise _Orestes_, struck in with them, and +told them, that he thought his Friend _Pylades_ was a very sensible +Man; As they were afterwards applauding _Pyrrhus_, Sir Roger put in a +second time, And let me tell you, says he, though he speaks but +little, I like the old Fellow in Whiskers as well as any of them. +Captain Sentry, seeing two or three Waggs who sat near us lean with an +attentive Ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoak +the Knight, pluck'd him by the Elbow, and whispered something in his +Ear, that lasted till the Opening of the Fifth Act. The Knight was +wonderfully attentive to the Account which _Orestes_ gives of +_Pyrrhus_ his Death, and at the Conclusion of it, told me it was such +a bloody Piece of Work, that he was glad it was not done upon the +Stage. Seeing afterwards _Orestes_ in his raving Fit, he grew more +than ordinary serious, and took Occasion to moralize (in his Way) upon +an evil Conscience, adding that _Orestes, in his Madness, looked as if +he saw something_. + +As we were the first that came into the House, so we were the last +that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear Passage for our +old Friend, whom we did not care to venture among the Justling of the +Crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfy'd with his Entertainment, and +we guarded him to his Lodgings in the same manner that we brought him +to the Play-house; being highly pleased, for my own Part, not only +with the Performance of the excellent Piece which had been presented, +but with the Satisfaction which it had given to the good old Man. + + _Addison._ + + + + +SIR ROGER AT SPRING-GARDEN + + +As I was sitting in my Chamber, and thinking on a Subject for my next +_Spectator_, I heard two or three irregular Bounces at my Landlady's +Door, and upon the opening of it, a loud chearful Voice enquiring +whether the Philosopher was at Home. The Child who went to the Door +answered very Innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately +recollected that it was my good Friend Sir ROGER's Voice: and that I +had promised to go with him on the Water to _Spring-Garden_, in case +it proved a good Evening. The Knight put me in mind of my Promise from +the Bottom of the Stair-Case, but told me that if I was Speculating he +would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down I found all the +Children of the Family got about my old Friend, and my Landlady +herself, who is a notable prating Gossip, engaged in a Conference with +him, being mightily pleased with his stroaking her little Boy upon the +Head, and bidding him be a good Child, and mind his Book. + +We were no sooner come to the _Temple_ Stairs, but we were surrounded +with a crowd of Watermen, offering us their respective Services. Sir +Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with +a Wooden-leg, and immediately gave him Orders to get his Boat ready. +As we were walking towards it, _You must know,_ says Sir Roger, _I +never make use of any Body to row me that has not either lost a Leg or +an Arm. I would rather bate him a few Strokes of his Oar, than not +employ an honest Man that has been wounded in the Queen's Service. If +I was a Lord or a Bishop, and kept a Barge, I would not put a Fellow +in my Livery that had not a Wooden-Leg._ + +My old Friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the Boat with +his Coachman, who, being a very sober Man, always serves for Ballast +on these Occasions, we made the best of our way for _Fox-Hall_. Sir +Roger obliged the Waterman to give us the History of his Right Leg, +and hearing that he had left it at _La Hogue_, with many Particulars +which passed in that glorious Action, the Knight in the Triumph of his +Heart made several Reflections on the Greatness of the _British_ +Nation; as, that one _Englishman_ could beat three _Frenchmen_; that +we could never be in Danger of Popery so long as we took care of our +Fleet; that the _Thames_ was the noblest River in _Europe_; that +_London-Bridge_ was a greater Piece of Work than any of the Seven +Wonders of the World; with many other honest Prejudices which +naturally cleave to the Heart of a true _Englishman_. + +After some short Pause, the old Knight turning about his Head twice or +thrice, to take a Survey of this great Metropolis, bid me observe how +thick the City was set with Churches, and that there was scarce a +single Steeple on this side _Temple-Bar_. _A most Heathenish Sight!_ +says Sir Roger: _There is no Religion at this End of the Town. The +Fifty new Churches will very much mend the Prospect; but Church-work +is slow, Church-work is slow!_ + +I do not remember I have any where mentioned, in Sir Roger's +Character, his Custom of saluting every Body that passes by him with a +Good-morrow, or a Good-night. This the old Man does out of the +Overflowings of his Humanity though at the same time it renders him so +popular among all his Country Neighbours, that it is thought to have +gone a good way in making him once or twice Knight of the Shire. He +cannot forbear this Exercise of Benevolence even in Town, when he +meets with any one in his Morning or Evening Walk. It broke from him +to several Boats that passed by us upon the Water; but, to the +Knight's great Surprize, as he gave the Good-night to two or three +young Fellows a little before our Landing, one of them, instead of +returning the Civility, asked us what queer old Putt we had in the +Boat; and whether he was not ashamed to go a Wenching at his Years? +with a great deal of the like _Thames_-Ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a +little shocked at first, but at length assuming a Face of Magistracy, +told us, _That if he were a_ Middlesex _Justice, he would make such +Vagrants know that her Majesty's Subjects, were no more to be abused +by Water than by Land._ + +We were now arrived at _Spring-Garden_, which is exquisitely pleasant +at this Time of the Year. When I considered the Fragrancy of the Walks +and Bowers, with the Choirs of Birds that sung upon the Trees, and the +loose Tribe of People that walk'd under their Shades, I could not but +look upon the Place as a kind of _Mahometan_ Paradise. Sir Roger told +me it put him in mind of a little Coppice by his House in the Country, +which his Chaplain us'd to call an Aviary of Nightingales. _You must +understand,_ says the Knight, _there is nothing in the World that +pleases a Man in Love so much as your Nightingale. Ah_, Mr. SPECTATOR! +_The Many Moonlight Nights that I have walked by my self, and thought +on the Widow by the Musick of the Nightingale!_ Here he fetch'd a deep +Sigh, and was falling into a Fit of musing, when a Mask, who came +behind him, gave him a gentle Tap upon the Shoulder, and asked him if +he would drink a Bottle of Mead with her? But the Knight being +startled at so unexpected a Familiarity, and displeased to be +interrupted in his Thoughts of the Widow, told her, _She was a wanton +Baggage_, and bid her go about her Business. + +We concluded our Walk with a Glass of _Burton-Ale_, and a Slice of +Hung-Beef. When we had done eating our selves, the Knight called a +Waiter to him, and bid him carry the Remainder to the Waterman that +had but one Leg. I perceived the Fellow stared upon him at the Oddness +of the Message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the +Knight's Commands with a peremptory Look. + +As we were going out of the Garden, my old Friend thinking himself +obliged, as a Member of the _Quorum_, to animadvert upon the Morals of +the Place, told the Mistress of the House, who sat at the Bar, That he +should be a better Customer to her Garden, if there were more +Nightingales, and fewer bad Characters. + + _Addison._ + + + + +DEATH OF SIR ROGER + + +We last Night received a Piece of ill News at our Club, which very +sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my Readers +themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no +longer in Suspense, Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY _is dead_. He departed this +Life at his House in the Country, after a few Weeks' Sickness. Sir +ANDREW FREEPORT has a Letter from one of his Correspondents in those +Parts, that informs him the old Man caught a Cold at the County +Sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an Address of his own +penning, in which he succeeded according to his Wishes. But this +Particular comes from a Whig Justice of Peace, who was always Sir +Roger's Enemy and Antagonist. I have Letters both from the Chaplain +and Captain _Sentry_ which mention Nothing of it, but are filled with +many Particulars to the Honour of the good old Man. I have likewise a +Letter from the Butler, who took so much Care of me last Summer when I +was at the Knight's House. As my Friend the Butler mentions, in the +Simplicity of his Heart, several circumstances the others have passed +over in Silence, I shall give my Reader a Copy of his Letter without +any Alteration or Diminution. + + "_Honoured Sir,_ + +"Knowing that you was my old Master's good Friend, I could not forbear +sending you the melancholy News of his Death, which has afflicted the +whole Country, as well as his poor Servants, who loved him, I may say, +better than we did our Lives. I am afraid he caught his Death the last +County Sessions, where he would go to see Justice done to a poor Widow +Woman, and her Fatherless Children that had been wronged by a +Neighbouring Gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good Master was always +the poor Man's Friend. Upon his coming home, the first Complaint he +made was, that he had lost his Roast-Beef Stomach, not being able to +touch a Sirloin, which was served up according to Custom; and you know +he used to take great Delight in it. From that Time forward he grew +worse and worse, but still kept a good Heart to the last. Indeed we +were once in great Hope of his Recovery, upon a kind Message that was +sent him from the Widow Lady whom he had made Love to the forty last +Years of his Life; but this only proved a Light'ning before Death. He +has bequeathed to this Lady, as a Token of his Love, a great Pearl +Necklace, and a Couple of Silver Bracelets set with Jewels, which +belonged to my good old Lady his Mother; He has bequeathed the fine +white Gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his Chaplain, +because he thought he would be kind to him, and has left you all his +Books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the Chaplain a very pretty +Tenement with good Lands about it. It being a very cold Day when he +made his Will, he left for Mourning, to every Man in the Parish, a +great Frize Coat, and to every Woman a black Riding-hood. It was a +most moving Sight to see him take Leave of his poor Servants, +commending us all for our Fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a +Word for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our Dear +Master's Service, he has left us Pensions and Legacies, which we may +live very comfortably upon, the remaining Part of our Days. He has +bequeathed a great Deal more in Charity, which is not yet come to my +Knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the Parish, that he has left +Money to build a Steeple to the Church; for he was heard to say some +Time ago, that if he lived two Years longer _Coverley_ Church should +have a Steeple to it. The Chaplain tells every Body that he made a +very good End, and never speaks of him without Tears. He was buried, +according to his own Directions, among the Family of the _Coverleys_, +on the left Hand of his Father Sir _Arthur_. The Coffin was carried by +Six of his Tenants, and the Pall held up by Six of the _Quorum_: The +whole Parish followed the Corps with heavy Hearts, and in their +Mourning-Suits, the Men in Frize, and the Women in Riding-hoods. +Captain _Sentry_, my Master's Nephew, has taken Possession of the +Hall-House, and the whole Estate. When my old Master saw him a little +before his Death, he shook him by the Hand, and wished him Joy of the +Estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good Use +of it, and to pay the several Legacies, and the Gifts of Charity which +he told him he had left as Quit-rents upon the Estate. The Captain +truly seems a courteous Man, though he says but little. He makes much +of those whom my Master loved, and shews great Kindness to the old +House-dog, that you know my poor Master was so fond of. It wou'd have +gone to your Heart to have heard the Moans the dumb Creature made on +the Day of my Master's Death. He has ne'er joyed himself since; no +more has any of us. 'Twas the melancholiest Day for the poor People +that ever happened in _Worcestershire_. This being all from, + + _Honoured Sir,_ + _Your most sorrowful Servant,_ + Edward Biscuit. + +_P.S._ My Master desired, some Weeks before he died, that a Book which +comes up to you by the Carrier should be given to Sir _Andrew +Freeport_, in his Name." + +This Letter, notwithstanding the poor Butler's Manner of Writing it, +gave us such an Idea of our good old Friend, that upon the Reading of +it there was not a dry Eye in the Club. Sir _Andrew_ opening the Book +found it to be a Collection of Acts of Parliament. There was in +Particular the Act of Uniformity, with some Passages in it marked by +Sir _Roger's_ own Hand. Sir _Andrew_ found that they related to two or +three Points, which he had disputed with Sir _Roger_ the last Time he +appeared at the Club. Sir _Andrew_, who would have been merry at such +an Incident on another Occasion, at the Sight of the Old Man's +Handwriting burst into Tears, and put the Book into his Pocket. +Captain _Sentry_ informs me, that the Knight has left Rings and +Mourning for every one in the Club. + + _Addison._ + + + + +A STAGE-COACH JOURNEY + + +Having notified to my good Friend Sir ROGER that I should set out for +_London_ the next Day, his Horses were ready at the appointed Hour in +the Evening; and, attended by one of his Grooms, I arrived at the +County Town at Twilight, in order to be ready for the Stage-Coach the +Day following. As soon as we arrived at the Inn, the Servant who +waited upon me, enquired of the Chamberlain in my Hearing what Company +he had for the Coach? The Fellow answered, Mrs. _Betty Arable_, the +great Fortune, and the Widow her Mother, a recruiting Officer (who +took a Place because they were to go), young Squire _Quickset_ her +Cousin (that her Mother wished her to be married to), _Ephraim_ the +Quaker, her Guardian, and a Gentleman that had studied himself dumb +from Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY'S. I observed by what he said of my self, +that according to his Office he dealt much in Intelligence; and +doubted not but there was some Foundation for his Reports of the rest +of the Company, as well as for the whimsical Account he gave of me. +The next Morning at Day-break we were all called; and I, who know my +own natural Shyness, and endeavour to be as little liable to be +disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no +one wait. The first Preparation for our Setting out was, that the +Captain's Half-Pike was placed near the Coach-man, and a Drum behind +the Coach. In the mean Time the Drummer, the Captain's Equipage, was +very loud, that none of the Captain's things should be placed so as to +be spoiled; upon which his Cloak-bag was fixed in the Seat of the +Coach: And the Captain himself, according to a frequent, tho' +invidious Behaviour of military Men, ordered His Man to look sharp, +that none but one of the Ladies should have the Place he had taken +fronting to the Coach-box. + +We were in some little Time fixed in our Seats, and sat with that +Dislike which People not too good-natured, usually conceive of each +other at first Sight. The Coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort +of Familiarity; and we had not moved about two Miles, when the Widow +asked the Captain what Success he had in his Recruiting? The Officer, +with a Frankness he believed very graceful, told her, "That indeed he +had but very little Luck, and suffered much by Desertion, therefore +should be glad to end his Warfare in the Service of her or her fair +Daughter. In a Word," continued he, "I am a Soldier, and to be plain +is my Character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take +me your self, Widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your +Disposal. I am a Soldier of Fortune, ha!" This was followed by a vain +Laugh of his own, and a deep Silence of all the rest of the Company. I +had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all +Speed. "Come," said he, "resolve upon it, we will make a Wedding at +the next Town: We will wake this pleasant Companion who is fallen +asleep, to be the Bride-man, and" (giving the Quaker a Clap on the +Knee) he concluded, "This sly Saint, who, I'll warrant understands +what's what as well as you or I, Widow, shall give the Bride as +Father." The Quaker, who happened to be a Man of Smartness, answered, +"Friend, I take it in good Part that thou hast given me the Authority +of a Father over this comely and virtuous Child; and I must assure +thee, that if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. +Thy Mirth, Friend, savoureth of Folly: Thou art a Person of a light +Mind; thy Drum is a Type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty. +Verily, it is not from thy Fullness, but thy Emptiness, that thou hast +spoken this Day. Friend, Friend, we have hired this Coach in +Partnership with thee, to carry us to the great City; we cannot go any +other Way. This worthy Mother must hear thee if thou wilt needs utter +thy Follies; we cannot help it Friend, I say; if thou wilt, we must +hear thee: But if thou wert a Man of Understanding, thou wouldst not +take Advantage of thy couragious Countenance to abash us Children of +Peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a Soldier; give Quarter to us, who +cannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our Friend, who feigned +himself asleep? he said nothing, but how dost thou know what he +containeth? If thou speakest improper things in the Hearing of this +virtuous young Virgin, consider it as an Outrage against a distressed +Person that cannot get from thee: To speak indiscreetly what we are +obliged to hear, by being hasped up with thee in this publick Vehicle, +is in some Degree assaulting on the high Road." + +Here _Ephraim_ paused, and the Captain with an happy and uncommon +Impudence (which can be convicted and support it self at the same +time) crys, "Faith, Friend, I thank thee; I should have been a little +impertinent if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I see, a +smoaky old Fellow, and I'll be very orderly the ensuing Part of the +Journey. I was going to give myself Airs, but Ladies I beg Pardon." + +The Captain was so little out of Humour, and our Company was so far +from being sowered by this little Ruffle, that _Ephraim_ and he took a +particular Delight in being agreeable to each other for the future; +and assumed their different Provinces in the Conduct of the Company. +Our Reckonings, Apartments, and Accommodation, fell under _Ephraim_; +and the Captain looked to all Disputes on the Road, as the good +Behaviour of our Coachman, and the Right we had of taking Place as +going to _London_ of all Vehicles coming from thence. The Occurrences +we met with were ordinary, and very little happen'd which could +entertain by the Relation of them: But when I consider'd the Company +we were in, I took it for no small good Fortune that the whole Journey +was not spent in Impertinences, which to one Part of us might be an +Entertainment, to the other a Suffering. What therefore _Ephraim_ said +when we were almost arrived at _London_, had to me an Air not only of +good Understanding, but good Breeding. Upon the young Lady's +expressing her Satisfaction in the Journey, and declaring how +delightful it had been to her, _Ephraim_ delivered himself as follows: +"There is no ordinary Part of humane Life which expresseth so much a +good Mind, and a right inward Man, as his Behaviour upon Meeting with +Strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable Companions +to him: Such a Man when he falleth in the Way with Persons of +Simplicity and Innocence, however knowing he may be in the Ways of +Men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his +Superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My good +Friend," continued he, turning to the Officer, "thee and I are to part +by and by, and peradventure we may never meet again: But be advised by +a plain Man; Modes and Apparels are but Trifles to the real Man, +therefore do not think such a Man as thy self terrible for thy Garb, +nor such a one as me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee and +I meet, with Affections as we ought to have towards each other, thou +shouldst rejoice to see my peaceable Demeanour, and I should be glad +to see thy Strength and Ability to protect me in it." + + _Steele._ + + + + +A JOURNEY FROM RICHMOND + + +It is an inexpressible Pleasure to know a little of the World, and be +of no Character or Significancy in it. To be ever unconcerned, and +ever looking on new Objects with an endless Curiosity, is a Delight +known only to those who are turned for Speculation: Nay, they who +enjoy it, must value things only as they are the Objects of +Speculation, without drawing any worldly Advantage to themselves from +them, but just as they are what contribute to their Amusement, or the +Improvement of the Mind. I lay one Night last Week at _Richmond_; and +being restless, not out of Dissatisfaction, but a certain basic +Inclination one sometimes has, I arose at Four in the Morning, and +took Boat for _London_, with a Resolution to rove by Boat and Coach +for the next Four and twenty Hours, till the many different Objects I +must needs meet with should tire my Imagination, and give me an +Inclination to a Repose more profound than I was at that time capable +of. I beg People's Pardon for an odd Humour I am guilty of, and was +often that Day, which is saluting any Person whom I like, whether I +know him or not. This is a Particularity would be tolerated in me, if +they considered that the greatest Pleasure I know I receive at my +Eyes, and that I am obliged to an agreeable Person for coming abroad +into my View, as another is for a Visit of Conversation at their own +Houses. + +The Hours of the Day and Night are taken up in the Cities of _London_ +and _Westminster_ by People as different from each other as those who +are Born in different Centuries. Men of Six-a-Clock give way to those +of Nine, they of Nine to the Generation of Twelve, and they of Twelve +disappear, and make Room for the fashionable World, who have made +Two-a-Clock the Noon of the Day. + +When we first put off from Shoar, we soon fell in with a Fleet of +Gardiners bound for the several Market-Ports of _London_; and it was +the most pleasing Scene imaginable to see the Chearfulness with which +those industrious People ply'd their Way to a certain Sale of their +Goods. The Banks on each Side are as well Peopled, and beautified with +as agreeable Plantations, as any Spot on the Earth; but the _Thames_ +it self, loaded with the Product of each Shoar, added very much to the +Landskip. It was very easie to observe by their Sailing, and the +Countenances of the ruddy Virgins, who were Supercargos, the Parts of +the Town to which they were bound. There was an Air in the Purveyors +for _Covent-Garden_, who frequently converse with Morning Rakes, very +unlike the seemly Sobriety of those bound for _Stocks-Market_. + +Nothing remarkable happened in our Voyage; but I landed with Ten Sail +of Apricock Boats at _Strand-Bridge_, after having put in at +_Nine-Elmes_, and taken in Melons, consigned by Mr. _Cuffe_ of that +Place, to _Sarah Sewell_ and Company, at their Stall in +_Covent-Garden_. We arrived at _Strand-Bridge_ at Six of the Clock, +and were unloading; when the Hackney-Coachmen of the foregoing Night +took their Leave of each other at the _Dark-House_, to go to Bed +before the Day was too far spent. Chimney-Sweepers pass'd by us as we +made up to the Market, and some Raillery happened between one of the +Fruit-Wenches and those black Men, about the Devil and _Eve_, with +Allusion to their several Professions. I could not believe any Place +more entertaining than _Covent-Garden_; where I strolled from one +Fruit-shop to another, with Crowds of agreeable young Women around me, +who were purchasing Fruit for their respective Families. It was almost +Eight of the Clock before I could leave that Variety of Objects. I +took Coach and followed a young Lady, who tripped into another just +before me, attended by her Maid. I saw immediately she was of the +Family of the _Vainloves_. There are a Sett of these, who of all +things affect the Play of _Blindman's-Buff_, and leading Men into Love +for they know not whom, who are fled they know not where. This sort of +Woman is usually a janty Slattern; she hangs on her Cloaths, plays her +Head, varies her Posture, and changes place incessantly, and all with +an Appearance of striving at the same time to hide her self, and yet +give you to understand she is in Humour to laugh at you. You must have +often seen the Coachmen make Signs with their Fingers as they drive by +each other, to intimate how much they have got that Day. They can +carry on that Language to give Intelligence where they are driving. In +an Instant my Coachman took the Wink to pursue, and the Lady's Driver +gave the Hint that he was going through _Long-Acre_ towards St. +_James's_: While he whipp'd up _James-Street_, we drove for _King +Street_, to save the Pass at St. _Martin's-Lane_. The Coachmen took +care to meet, justle, and threaten each other for Way, and be +intangled at the End of _Newport-Street_ and _Long-Acre_. The Fright, +you must believe, brought down the Lady's Coach Door, and obliged her, +with her Mask off, to enquire into the Bustle, when she sees the Man +she would avoid. The Tackle of the Coach-Window is so bad she cannot +draw it up again, and she drives on sometimes wholly discovered, and +sometimes half-escaped, according to the Accident of Carriages in her +Way. One of these Ladies keeps her Seat in a Hackney-Coach as well as +the best Rider does on a managed Horse. The laced Shooe on her Left +Foot, with a careless Gesture, just appearing on the opposite Cushion, +held her both firm, and in a proper Attitude to receive the next Jolt. + +As she was an excellent Coach-Woman, many were the Glances at each +other which we had for an Hour and an Half in all Parts of the Town by +the Skill of our Drivers; till at last my Lady was conveniently lost +with Notice from her Coachman to ours to make off, and he should hear +where she went. This Chace was now at an End, and the Fellow who drove +her came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to come again in an +Hour, for that she was a Silk-Worm. I was surprized with this Phrase, +but found it was a Cant among the Hackney Fraternity for their best +Customers, Women who ramble twice or thrice a Week from Shop to Shop, +to turn over all the Goods in Town without buying any thing. The +Silk-Worms are, it seems, indulged by the Tradesmen; for tho' they +never buy, they are ever talking of new Silks, Laces and Ribbands, and +serve the Owners in getting them Customers, as their common Dunners do +in making them pay. + +The Day of People of Fashion began now to break, and Carts and Hacks +were mingled with Equipages of Show and Vanity; when I resolved to +walk it out of Cheapness; but my unhappy Curiosity is such, that I +find it always my Interest to take Coach, for some odd Adventure among +Beggars, Ballad-Singers, or the like, detains and throws me into +Expence. It happened so immediately; for at the Corner of +_Warwick-Street_, as I was listening to a new Ballad, a ragged Rascal, +a Beggar who knew me, came up to me, and began to turn the Eyes of the +good Company upon me, by telling me he was extream Poor, and should +die in the Streets for want of Drink, except I immediately would have +the Charity to give him Six-pence to go into the next Ale-House and +save his life. He urged, with a melancholy Face, that all his Family +had died of Thirst. All the Mob have Humour, and two or three began to +take the Jest; by which Mr. _Sturdy_ carried his Point, and let me +sneak off to a Coach. As I drove along it was a pleasing Reflection to +see the World so prettily chequered since I left _Richmond_, and the +Scene still filling with Children of a new Hour. This Satisfaction +encreased as I moved towards the City; and gay Signs, well disposed +Streets, magnificent publick Structures, and Wealthy Shops, adorned +with contented Faces, made the Joy still rising till we came into the +Centre of the City, and Centre of the World of Trade, the _Exchange_ +of _London_. As other Men in the Crowds about me were pleased with +their Hopes and Bargains, I found my Account in observing them, in +Attention to their several Interests. I, indeed, looked upon my self +as the richest Man that walked the _Exchange_ that Day; for my +Benevolence made me share the Gains of every Bargain that was made. It +was not the least of the Satisfactions in my Survey, to go up Stairs, +and pass the Shops of agreeable Females; to observe so many pretty +Hands busie in the Foldings of Ribbands, and the utmost Eagerness of +agreeable Faces in the Sale of Patches, Pins, and Wires, on each Side +the Counters, was an Amusement, in which I should longer have indulged +my self, had not the dear Creatures called to me to ask what I wanted, +when I could not answer, only _To look at you_. I went to one of the +Windows which opened to the Area below, where all the several Voices +lost their Distinction, and rose up in a confused Humming; which +created in me a Reflection that could not come into the Mind of any +but of one a little studious; for I said to my self, with a kind of +Punn in thought, _What Nonsense is all the Hurry of this World to +those who are above it?_ In these, or not much wiser Thoughts, I had +like to have lost my Place at the Chop-House; where every Man, +according to the natural Bashfulness or Sullenness of our Nation, eats +in a publick Room a Mess of Broth, or Chop of Meat, in dumb Silence, +as if they had no Pretence to speak to each other on the Foot of being +Men, except they were of each other's Acquaintance. + +I went afterwards to _Robin's_ and saw People who had dined with me at +the Five-Penny Ordinary just before, give Bills for the Value of large +Estates; and could not but behold with great Pleasure, Property lodged +in, and transferred in a Moment from such as would never be Masters of +half as much as is seemingly in them, and given from them every Day +they live. But before Five in the Afternoon I left the City, came to +my common Scene of _Covent-Garden_, and passed the Evening at _Will's_ +in attending the Discourses of several Sets of People, who relieved +each other within my Hearing on the Subjects of Cards, Dice, Love, +Learning and Politicks. The last Subject kept me till I heard the +Streets in the Possession of the Bell-man, who had now the World to +himself, and cryed, _Past Two of Clock_. This rous'd me from my Seat, +and I went to my Lodging, led by a Light, whom I put into the +Discourse of his private Oeconomy, and made him give me an Account of +the Charge, Hazard, Profit and Loss of a Family that depended upon a +Link, with a Design to end my trivial Day with the Generosity of +Six-pence, instead of a third Part of that Sum. When I came to my +Chambers I writ down these Minutes; but was at a Loss what Instruction +I should propose to my Reader from the Enumeration of so many +Insignificant Matters and Occurrences; and I thought it of great Use, +if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to Gratification, +and ready to receive it from any thing it meets with. This one +Circumstance will make every Face you see give you the Satisfaction +you now take in beholding that of a Friend; will make every Object a +pleasing one; will make all the Good which arrives to any Man, an +Encrease of Happiness to your self. + + _Steele._ + + + + +A PRIZE FIGHT + + +Being a Person of insatiable Curiosity, I could not forbear going on +_Wednesday_ last to a Place of no small Renown for the Gallantry of +the lower Order of _Britons_, namely, to the Bear-Garden at _Hockley +in the Hole_; where (as a whitish brown Paper, put into my Hands in +the Street, inform'd me) there was to be a Tryal of Skill to be +exhibited between two Masters of the Noble Science of Defence, at two +of the Clock precisely. I was not a little charm'd with the Solemnity +of the Challenge, which ran thus: + +"_I_ James Miller, _Serjeant, (lately come from the Frontiers of_ +Portugal) _Master of the Noble Science of Defence, hearing in most +Places where I have been of the great Fame of_ Timothy Buck _of_ +London, _Master of the said Science, do invite him to meet me, and +exercise at the several Weapons following,_ viz. + + _Back-Sword_, _Single Falchon_, + _Sword and Dagger_, _Case of Falchons_, + _Sword and Buckler_, _Quarter-Staff_." + +If the generous Ardour in _James Miller_ to dispute the Reputation of +_Timothy Buck_, had something resembling the old Heroes of Romance, +_Timothy Buck_ return'd Answer in the same Paper with the like Spirit, +adding a little Indignation at being challenged, and seeming to +condescend to fight _James Miller_, not in regard to _Miller_ himself, +but in that, as the Fame went out, he had fought _Parkes_ of +_Coventry_. The Acceptance of the Combat ran in these Words: + +"_I_ Timothy Buck _of_ Clare-Market, _Master of the Noble Science of +Defence, hearing he did fight Mr._ Parkes _of_ Coventry, _will not +fail (God willing) to meet this fair Inviter at the Time and Place +appointed, desiring a clear Stage and no Favour._ + + Vivat Regina." + +I shall not here look back on the Spectacles of the _Greeks_ and +_Romans_ of this Kind, but must believe this Custom took its Rise from +the Ages of Knight-Errantry; from those who lov'd one Woman so well, +that they hated all Men and Women else; from those who would fight +you, whether you were or were not of their Mind; from those who +demanded the Combat of their Contemporaries, both for admiring their +Mistress or discommending her. I cannot therefore but lament, that the +terrible Part of the ancient Fight is preserved, when the amorous Side +of it is forgotten. We have retained the Barbarity, but lost the +Gallantry of the old Combatants. I could wish, methinks, these +Gentlemen had consulted me in the Promulgation of the Conflict. I was +obliged by a fair young Maid whom I understood to be called _Elisabeth +Preston_, Daughter of the Keeper of the Garden, with a Glass of Water; +whom I imagined might have been, for Form's sake, the general +Representative of the Lady fought for, and from her Beauty the proper +_Amarillis_ on these Occasions. It would have ran better in the +Challenge; _I_ James Miller, _Serjeant, who have travelled Parts +abroad, and came last from the Frontiers of_ Portugal, _for the Love +of_ Elizabeth Preston, _do assert, That the said_ Elizabeth is the +Fairest of Women. Then the Answer; _I_ Timothy Buck, _who have stay'd +in_ Great Britain _during all the War in Foreign Parts for the Sake +of_ Susanna Page, _do deny that_ Elizabeth Preston _is so fair as the +said_ Susanna Page. Let _Susanna Page_ look on, and I desire of _James +Miller_ no Favour. + +This would give the Battel quite another Turn; and a proper Station +for the Ladies, whose Complexion was disputed by the Sword, would +animate the Disputants with a more gallant Incentive than the +Expectation of Mony from the Spectators; though I would not have that +neglected, but thrown to that Fair One whose Lover was approved by the +Donor. + +Yet, considering the Thing wants such Amendments, it was carried with +great Order. _James Miller_ came on first; preceded by two disabled +Drummers, to shew, I suppose, that the Prospect of maimed Bodies did +not in the least deter him. There ascended with the daring _Miller_ a +Gentleman, whose Name I could not learn, with a dogged Air, as +unsatisfied that he was not Principal. This Son of Anger lowred at the +whole Assembly, and weighing himself as he march'd around from Side to +Side, with a stiff Knee and Shoulder, he gave Intimations of the +Purpose he smothered till he saw the Issue of this Encounter. _Miller_ +had a blue Ribbond tyed round the Sword Arm; which Ornament I conceive +to be the Remain of that Custom of wearing a Mistress's Favour on such +Occasions of old. + +_Miller_ is a Man of six Foot eight Inches Height, of a kind but bold +Aspect, well-fashioned, and ready of his Limbs; and such Readiness as +spoke his Ease in them, was obtained from a Habit of Motion in +Military Exercise. + +The Expectation of the Spectators was now almost at its Height, and +the Crowd pressing in, several active Persons thought they were placed +rather according to their Fortune than their Merit, and took it in +their Heads to prefer themselves from the open Area, or Pit, to the +Galleries. This Dispute between Desert and Property brought many to +the Ground, and raised others in proportion to the highest Seats by +Turns for the Space of ten Minutes, till _Timothy Buck_ came on, and +the whole Assembly giving up their Disputes, turned their Eyes upon +the Champions. Then it was that every Man's Affection turned to one or +the other irresistibly. A judicious Gentleman near me said, _I could, +methinks, be_ Miller's _Second, but I had rather have_ Buck _for +mine._ _Miller_ had an audacious Look, that took the Eye; _Buck_ a +perfect Composure, that engaged the Judgment. _Buck_ came on in a +plain Coat, and kept all his Air till the Instant of Engaging; at +which Time he undress'd to his Shirt, his Arm adorned with a Bandage +of red Ribband. No one can describe the sudden Concern in the whole +Assembly; the most tumultuous Crowd in Nature was as still and as much +engaged, as if all their Lives depended on the first blow. The +Combatants met in the Middle of the Stage, and shaking Hands as +removing all Malice, they retired with much Grace to the Extremities +of it; from whence they immediately faced about, and approached each +other. _Miller_ with an Heart full of Resolution, _Buck_ with a +watchful untroubled Countenance; _Buck_ regarding principally his own +Defence, _Miller_ chiefly thoughtful of annoying his Opponent. It is +not easie to describe the many Escapes and imperceptible Defences +between two Men of quick Eyes and ready Limbs; but _Miller's_ Heat +laid him open to the Rebuke of the calm _Buck_, by a large Cut on the +Forehead. Much Effusion of Blood covered his Eyes in a Moment, and the +Huzzas of the Crowd undoubtedly quickened the Anguish. The Assembly +was divided into Parties upon their different ways of Fighting; while +a poor Nymph in one of the Galleries apparently suffered for _Miller_, +and burst into a Flood of Tears. As soon as his Wound was wrapped up, +he came on again with a little Rage, which still disabled him further. +But what brave Man can be wounded into more Patience and Caution? The +next was a warm eager Onset which ended in a decisive Stroke on the +left Leg of _Miller_. The Lady in the Gallery, during this second +Strife, covered her Face; and for my Part, I could not keep my +Thoughts from being mostly employed on the Consideration of her +unhappy Circumstance that Moment, hearing the Clash of Swords, and +apprehending Life or Victory concerned her Lover in every Blow, but +not daring to satisfie herself on whom they fell. The Wound was +exposed to the View of all who could delight in it, and sewed up on +the Stage. The surly Second of _Miller_ declared at this Time, that he +would that Day Fortnight fight Mr. _Buck_ at the same Weapons, +declaring himself the Master of the renowned _Gorman_; but _Buck_ +denied him the Honour of that courageous Disciple, and asserting that +he himself had taught that Champion, accepted the Challenge. + +There is something in Nature very unaccountable on such Occasions, +when we see the People take a certain painful Gratification in +beholding these Encounters. Is it Cruelty that administers this Sort +of Delight? or is it a Pleasure which is taken in the Exercise of +Pity? It was methought pretty remarkable, that the Business of the Day +being a Trial of Skill, the Popularity did not run so high as one +would have expected on the Side of _Buck_. Is it that People's +Passions have their Rise in Self-love, and thought themselves (in +Spite of all the Courage they had) liable to the Fate of _Miller_, but +could not so easily think themselves qualified like _Buck_? + +_Tully_ speaks of this Custom with less Horrour than one would expect, +though he confesses it was much abused in his Time, and seems directly +to approve of it under its first Regulations, when Criminals only +fought before the People. _Crudele Gladiatorum spectaculum & inhumanum +nonnullis videri solet; & haud scio annon ita sit ut nunc fit; cum +vero sontes ferro depugnabant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidem +nulla, poterat esse fortior contra dolorem & mortem disciplina. The +Shows of Gladiators may be thought barbarous and inhumane, and I know +not but it is so as it is now practised; but in those Times when only +Criminals were Combatants, the Ear perhaps might receive many better +Instructions, but it is impossible that any thing which affects our +Eyes, should fortifie us so well against Pain and Death._ + + _Steele._ + + + + +GOOD TEMPER + + +It is an unreasonable thing some Men expect of their Acquaintance. +They are ever complaining that they are out of Order, or displeas'd, +or they know not how; and are so far from letting that be a Reason for +retiring to their own Homes, that they make it their Argument for +coming into Company. What has any Body to do with Accounts of a Man's +being indispos'd but his Physician? If a man laments in Company, where +the rest are in Humour enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take +it ill if a Servant is order'd to present him with a Porringer of +Cawdle or Posset-drink, by way of Admonition that he go home to Bed. +That Part of Life which we ordinarily understand by the Word +Conversation, is an Indulgence to the sociable Part of our Make; and +should incline us to bring our Proportion of good Will or good Humour +among the Friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with Relations +which must of Necessity oblige them to a real or feign'd Affliction. +Cares, Distresses, Diseases, Uneasinesses, and Dislikes of our own, +are by no Means to be obtruded upon our Friends. If we would consider +how little of this Vicissitude of Motion and Rest, which we call Life, +is spent with Satisfaction; we should be more tender of our Friends, +than to bring them little Sorrows which do not belong to them. There +is no real Life, but chearful Life; therefore Valetudinarians should +be sworn, before they enter into Company, not to say a Word of +themselves till the Meeting breaks up. It is not here pretended, that +we should be always sitting with Chaplets of Flowers round our Heads, +or be crowned with Roses, in order to make our Entertainment agreeable +to us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to be +merry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be well +pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. +Whatever we do we should keep up the Chearfulness of our Spirits, and +never let them sink below an Inclination at least to be well pleased: +The Way to this, is to keep our Bodies in Exercise, our Minds at Ease. +That insipid State wherein neither are in Vigour, is not to be +accounted any Part of our Portion of Being. When we are in the +Satisfaction of some innocent Pleasure, or Pursuit of some laudable +Design, we are in the Possession of Life, of human Life. Fortune will +give us Disappointments enough, and Nature is attended with +Infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy Side of our +Account by our Spleen or ill Humour. Poor _Cottilus_, among so many +real Evils, a chronical Distemper and a narrow Fortune, is never heard +to complain: That equal Spirit of his, which any Man may have that, +like him, will conquer Pride, Vanity, and Affectation, and follow +Nature, is not to be broken, because it has no Points to contend for. +To be anxious for nothing but what Nature demands as necessary, if it +is not the way to an Estate, is the way to what Men aim at by getting +an Estate. This Temper will preserve Health in the Body, as well as +Tranquility in the Mind. _Cottilus_ sees the World in an Hurry, with +the same Scorn that a sober Person sees a Man drunk. Had he been +contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a +one have met with such a Disappointment? If another had valued his +Mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her +Power: If her Virtue had had a Part of his Passion, her Levity had +been his Cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the +same Time. + +Since we cannot promise our selves constant Health, let us endeavour +at such a Temper as may be our best Support in the Decay of it. +_Uranius_ has arrived at that Composure of Soul, and wrought himself +up to such a Neglect of every thing with which the Generality of +Mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute Pains can give him +Disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate Friends +he has a Secret which gives him present Ease. _Uranius_ is so +thoroughly perswaded of another Life, and endeavours so sincerely to +secure an Interest in it, that he looks upon Pain but as a quickening +of his Pace to an Home, where he shall be better provided for than in +his present Apartment. Instead of the melancholy Views which others +are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is +mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the Time of +his Birth he entered into an eternal Being; and the short Article of +Death he will not allow an Interruption of Life, since that Moment is +not of half the Duration as is his ordinary Sleep. Thus is his Being +one uniform and consistent Series of chearful Diversions and moderate +Cares, without Fear or Hope of Futurity. Health to him is more than +Pleasure to another Man, and Sickness less affecting to him than +Indisposition is to others. + +I must confess, if one does not regard Life after this Manner, none +but Idiots can pass it away with any tolerable Patience. Take a fine +Lady who is of a delicate Frame, and you may observe from the Hour she +rises a certain Weariness of all that passes about her. I know more +than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such +strange frightful People that they meet; one is so awkward and another +so disagreeable, that it looks like a Penance to breathe the same Air +with them. You see this is so very true, that a great Part of Ceremony +and Good-breeding among the Ladies turns upon their Uneasiness; and +I'll undertake, if the How-d'ye Servants of our Women were to make a +weekly Bill of Sickness, as the Parish Clerks do of Mortality, you +would not find in an Account of Seven Days, one in thirty that was not +downright Sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she +was, and so forth. + +It is certain, that to enjoy Life and Health as a constant Feast, we +should not think Pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at an +Equality of Mind. It is as mean to be overjoy'd upon Occasions of good +Fortune, as to be dejected in Circumstances of Distress. Laughter in +one Condition, is as unmanly as weeping in the other. We should not +form our Minds to expect Transport on every Occasion, but know how to +make Enjoyment to be out of Pain. Ambition, Envy, vagrant Desire, or +impertinent Mirth will take up our Minds, without we can possess our +selves in that Sobriety of Heart which is above all Pleasures, and can +be felt much better than described: But the ready Way, I believe, to +the right Enjoyment of Life, is by a Prospect towards another to have +but a very mean Opinion of it. A great Author of our Time has set this +in an excellent Light, when with a philosophick Pity of human Life he +spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following Manner. + +_For what is this Life but a Circulation of little mean Actions? We +lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work +or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the Circle +returns. We spend the Day in Trifles, and when the Night comes we +throw our selves into the Bed of Folly, amongst Dreams and broken +Thoughts and wild Imaginations. Our Reason lies asleep by us, and we +are for the Time as arrant Brutes as those that sleep in the Stalls or +in the Field. Are not the Capacities of Man higher than these? and +ought not his Ambition and Expectations to be greater? Let us be +Adventurers for another World: 'Tis at least a fair and noble Chance; +and there is nothing in this worth our Thoughts or our Passions. If we +should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our +Fellow-Mortals; and if we succeed in our Expectations, we are +eternally happy._ + + _Steele._ + + + + +THE EMPLOYMENTS OF A HOUSEWIFE IN THE COUNTRY + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from +the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of +your attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness +and diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this +sober season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the +employments of those who look with contempt on the pleasures and +diversions of polite life, and employ all their powers of censure and +invective upon the uselessness, vanity, and folly of dress, visits, +and conversation. + +When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to +the house where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together, +had at last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after the +civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and +tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if well +conducted, might always afford, a confused wildness of care and a +tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded and +every motion agitated. The old lady, who was my father's relation, +was, indeed, very full of the happiness which she received from my +visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete breeding, insisted that +I should recompense the long delay of my company with a promise not to +leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness and caresses, she +very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered, with anxious +earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed to send +them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience would +not suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must leave me +for a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but was again +disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the same +trepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of business +and solicitude. + +However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, and +however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as +naturally promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to +gratify myself with inquiries; but, finding none of the family in +mourning, I pleased myself with imagining that I should rather see a +wedding than a funeral. + +At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the +young ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to inquire, was +under a necessity of attending some affair that could not be +neglected: soon afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity +of her family and the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let +me know that they had purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was +usual, because they were to rise early in the morning to make +cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my chamber, to which I was +accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to excuse some large +sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds of the floor, for +they intended to distil them when they were dry, and they had no other +room that so conveniently received the rising sun. + +The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I rose +early in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I +stole unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found +nothing either more great or elegant than in the same number of acres +cultivated for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that his +lady was the greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I +was come hither at the time in which I might learn to make more +pickles and conserves than could be seen at any other house a hundred +miles round. + +It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities +of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own +accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some +sweetmeats which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two +long hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods of +conserving, reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with +great contempt of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these +terms were very often confounded; and hinted how much she should be +ashamed to set before company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark +a colour as she had often seen at Mistress Sprightly's. + +It is, indeed, the great business of her life to watch the skillet on +the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch +it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which she +has bred her daughters are to turn rose leaves in the shade, to pick +out the seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without +bruising it, and to extract bean flower water for the skin. Such are +the tasks with which every day, since I came hither, has begun and +ended, to which the early hours of life are sacrificed, and in which +that time is passing away which never shall return. + +But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has +settled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own +performances with all the firmness of stupidity accustomed to be +flattered. Her daughters, having never seen any house but their own, +believe their mother's excellence on her own word. Her husband is a +mere sportsman, who is pleased to see his table well furnished, and +thinks the day sufficiently successful in which he brings home a leash +of hares to be potted by his wife. + +After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me +that none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never +loved to see young women give their minds to such follies, by which +they would only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to +understand a house, and who ever should marry them, if they knew +anything of good cookery, would never repent it. + +There are, however, some things in the culinary science too sublime +for youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be +initiated till the years of serious maturity, and which are referred +to the day of marriage as the supreme qualification for connubial +life. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all the +neighbourhood, and which she has hitherto found means of mixing and +baking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its +flavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this great +affair with all the caution that human policy can suggest. It is never +known beforehand when this pudding will be produced; she takes the +ingredients privately into her own closet, employs her maids and +daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven to be +heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands: the +mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all inquiries are vain. + +The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda, +that if she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told without +reserve. But the art of making English capers she has not yet +persuaded herself to discover, but seems resolved that secret shall +perish with her, as some alchymists have obstinately suppressed the +art of transmuting metals. + +I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which she +left upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of gooseberry +wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event +sufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of the +danger to which her secrets were exposed, I was not able to make use +of the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was +so well concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, +her mother, and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it, +and lost the opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowing +the language in which its answers were returned. + +It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship's +esteem, that I should apply myself to some of these economical +accomplishments; for I overheard her, two days ago, warning her +daughters, by my mournful example, against negligence of pastry, and +ignorance in carving; for you saw, said she, that, with all her +pretensions to knowledge, she turned the partridge the wrong way when +she attempted to cut it, and, I believe, scarcely knows the difference +between paste raised and paste in a dish. + +The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's character +before you, is a desire to be informed whether in your opinion it is +worthy of imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which I +have hitherto thought it my duty to read, for _The Lady's Closet +opened_, _The complete Servant-maid_, and _The Court Cook_, and resign +all curiosity after right and wrong for the art of scalding damascenes +without bursting them, and preserving the whiteness of pickled +mushrooms. + +Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to fruits and +flowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herself +free from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. She +has no curiosity after the events of a war, or the fate of heroes in +distress; she can hear without the least emotion the ravage of a fire, +or devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, come +into the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is pressing +the jelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive that +she is more free from disquiet than those whose understandings take a +wider range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are often +scattered by the wind, the rain sometimes falls upon fruit when it +ought to be gathered dry. While her artificial wines are fermenting, +her whole life is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are not +always bright, and the maid sometimes forgets the just proportion of +salt and pepper, when venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, her +wines sour, and pickles mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, she +is every day mortified with the defeat of her schemes and the +disappointment of her hopes. + +With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. She +has no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has no +desire to be praised but for her cookery; nor wishes any ill to the +rest of mankind, but that whenever they aspire to a feast, their +custards may be wheyish, and their pie-crusts tough. + +I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladies +as the great pattern of our sex, and to consider conserves and pickles +as the business of my life; whether the censures which I now suffer be +just, and whether the brewers of wines, and the distillers of washes, +have a right to look with insolence on the weakness of + + CORNELIA. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE STAGE COACH + + + To _The Adventurer_. + + Sir, + +It has been observed, I think, by Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE, and after him by +almost every other writer, that England affords a greater variety of +characters than the rest of the world. This is ascribed to the liberty +prevailing amongst us, which gives every man the privilege of being +wise or foolish his own way, and preserves him from the necessity of +hypocrisy or the servility of imitation. + +That the position itself is true, I am not completely satisfied. To be +nearly acquainted with the people of different countries can happen to +very few; and in life, as in every thing else beheld at a distance, +there appears an even uniformity: the petty discriminations which +diversify the natural character, are not discoverable but by a close +inspection; we, therefore, find them most at home, because there we +have most opportunities of remarking them. Much less am I convinced, +that his peculiar diversification, if it be real, is the consequence +of peculiar liberty; for where is the government to be found that +superintends individuals with so much vigilance, as not to leave their +private conduct without restraint? Can it enter into a reasonable mind +to imagine, that men of every other nation are not equally masters of +their own time or houses with ourselves, and equally at liberty to be +parsimonious or profuse, frolic or sullen, abstinent or luxurious? +Liberty is certainly necessary to the full play of predominant +humours; but such liberty is to be found alike under the government of +the many or the few, in monarchies or in commonwealths. + +How readily the predominant passion snatches an interval of liberty, +and how fast it expands itself when the weight of restraint is taken +away, I had lately an opportunity to discover, as I took a journey +into the country in a stage coach; which, as every journey is a kind +of adventure, may be very properly related to you, though I can +display no such extraordinary assembly as CERVANTES has collected at +DON QUIXOTE'S inn. + +In a stage coach the passengers are for the most part wholly unknown +to one another, and without expectation of ever meeting again when +their journey is at an end; one should, therefore, imagine, that it +was of little importance to any of them, what conjectures the rest +should form concerning him. Yet so it is, that as all think themselves +secure from detection, all assume that character of which they are +most desirous, and on no occasion is the general ambition of +superiority more apparently indulged. + +On the day of our departure, in the twilight of the morning, I +ascended the vehicle with three men and two women, my fellow +travellers. It was easy to observe the affected elevation of mien with +which every one entered, and the supercilious civility with which they +paid their compliments to each other. When the first ceremony was +dispatched, we sat silent for a long time, all employed in collecting +importance into our faces, and endeavouring to strike reverence and +submission into our companions. + +It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the +longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any +thing to say. We began now to wish for conversation; but no one seemed +inclined to descend from his dignity, or first to propose a topic of +discourse. At last a corpulent gentleman, who had equipped himself for +this expedition with a scarlet surtout and a large hat with a broad +lace, drew out his watch, looked on it in silence, and then held it +dangling at his finger. This was, I suppose, understood by all the +company as an invitation to ask the time of the day, but no body +appeared to heed his overture; and his desire to be talking so far +overcame his resentment, that he let us know of his own accord that it +was past five, and that in two hours we should be at breakfast. + +His condescension was thrown away; we continued all obdurate; the +ladies held up their heads; I amused myself with watching their +behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in +counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over +his eyes and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew +that he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune and beat time +upon his snuff-box. + +Thus universally displeased with one another, and not much delighted +with ourselves, we came at last to the little inn appointed for our +repast; and all began at once to recompense themselves for the +constraint of silence, by innumerable questions and orders to the +people that attended us. At last, what every one had called for was +got, or declared impossible to be got at that time, and we were +persuaded to sit round the same table; when the gentleman in the red +surtout looked again upon his watch, told us that we had half an hour +to spare, but he was sorry to see so little merriment among us; that +all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it +was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember," +says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my lord +Mumble and the duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at +a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, +not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, +and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all +ready to burst with laughter. At last the good woman happening to +overhear me whisper the duke and call him by his title, was so +surprised and confounded that we could scarcely get a word from her; +and the duke never met me from that day to this, but he talks of the +little house, and quarrels with me for terrifying the landlady." + +He had scarcely had time to congratulate himself on the veneration +which this narrative must have procured him from the company, when one +of the ladies having reached out for a plate on a distant part of the +table, began to remark the inconveniences of travelling, and the +difficulty which they who never sat at home without a great number of +attendants found in performing for themselves such offices as the road +required; but that people of quality often travelled in disguise, and +might be generally known from the vulgar by their condescension to +poor inn-keepers, and the allowance which they made for any defect in +their entertainment; that for her part, while people were civil and +meant well, it was never her custom to find fault, for one was not to +expect upon a journey all that one enjoyed at one's own house. + +A General emulation seemed now to be excited. One of the men, who had +hitherto said nothing, called for the last news paper; and having +perused it a-while with deep pensiveness, "It is impossible," says he, +"for any man to guess how to act with regard to the stocks: last week +it was the general opinion that they would fall; and I sold out twenty +thousand pounds in order to a purchase: they have now risen +unexpectedly; and I make no doubt but at my return to London I shall +risk thirty thousand pounds amongst them again." + +A young man, who had hitherto distinguished himself only by the +vivacity of his look, and a frequent diversion of his eyes from one +object to another, upon this closed his snuff-box, and told us that +"he had a hundred times talked with the chancellor and the judges on +the subject of the stocks; that for his part he did not pretend to be +well acquainted with the principles on which they were established, +but had always heard them reckoned pernicious to trade, uncertain in +their produce, and unsolid in their foundation; and that he had been +advised by three judges his most intimate friends, never to venture +his money in the funds, but to put it out upon land security, till he +could light upon an estate in his own country." + +It might be expected that upon these glimpses of latent dignity, we +should all have began to look round us with veneration; and have +behaved like the princes of romance, when the enchantment that +disguises them is dissolved, and they discover the dignity of each +other: yet it happened, that none of these hints made much impression +on the company; every one was apparently suspected of endeavouring to +impose false appearances upon the rest; all continued their +haughtiness, in hopes to enforce their claims; and all grew every hour +more sullen, because they found their representations of themselves +without effect. + +Thus we travelled on four days with malevolence perpetually +increasing, and without any endeavour but to outvie each other in +superciliousness and neglect; and when any two of us could separate +ourselves for a moment, we vented our indignation at the sauciness of +the rest. + +At length the journey was at an end; and time and chance, that strip +off all disguises, have discovered, that the intimate of lords and +dukes is a nobleman's butler, who has furnished a shop with the money +he has saved; the man who deals so largely in the funds, is the clerk +of a broker in 'Change-alley; the lady who so carefully concealed her +quality, keeps a cook-shop behind the Exchange; and the young man, who +is so happy in the friendship of the judges, engrosses and transcribes +for bread in a garret of the Temple. Of one of the women only I could +make no disadvantageous detection, because she had assumed no +character, but accommodated herself to the scene before her, without +any struggle for distinction or superiority. + +I could not forbear to reflect on the folly of practising a fraud, +which, as the event shewed, had been already practised too often to +succeed, and by the success of which no advantage could have been +obtained; of assuming a character, which was to end with the day; and +of claiming upon false pretences honours which must perish with the +breath that paid them. + +But, MR. ADVENTURER, let not those who laugh at me and my companions, +think this folly confined to a stage coach. Every man in the journey +of life takes the same advantage of the ignorance of his fellow +travellers, disguises himself in counterfeited merit, and hears those +praises with complacency which his conscience reproaches him for +accepting. Every man deceives himself, while he thinks he is deceiving +others; and forgets that the time is at hand when every illusion shall +cease, when fictitious excellence shall be torn away, and ALL must be +shown to ALL in their real estate. + + I am, Sir, + Your humble Servant, + VIATOR. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE SCHOLAR'S COMPLAINT OF HIS OWN BASHFULNESS + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +Though one of your correspondents has presumed to mention with some +contempt that presence of attention and easiness of address, which the +polite have long agreed to celebrate and esteem, yet I cannot be +persuaded to think them unworthy of regard or cultivation; but am +inclined to believe that as we seldom value rightly what we have never +known the misery of wanting, his judgment has been vitiated by his +happiness; and that a natural exuberance of assurance has hindered him +from discovering its excellence and use. + +This felicity, whether bestowed by constitution, or obtained by early +habitudes, I can scarcely contemplate without envy. I was bred under a +man of learning in the country, who inculcated nothing but the dignity +of knowledge and the happiness of virtue. By frequency of admonition +and confidence of assertion, he prevailed upon me to believe that the +splendour of literature would always attract reverence, if not +darkened by corruption. I therefore pursued my studies with incessant +industry, and avoided everything which I had been taught to consider +either as vicious or tending to vice, because I regarded guilt and +reproach as inseparably united, and thought a tainted reputation the +greatest calamity. + +At the university I found no reason for changing my opinion; for +though many among my fellow-students took the opportunity of a more +remiss discipline to gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved her +natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect, were not +suffered to insult her. The ambition of petty accomplishments found +its way into the receptacles of learning, but was observed to seize +commonly on those who either neglected the sciences or could not +attain them; and I was therefore confirmed in the doctrines of my old +master, and thought nothing worthy of my care but the means of gaining +and imparting knowledge. + +This purity of manners and intenseness of application soon extended my +renown, and I was applauded by those whose opinion I then thought +unlikely to deceive me, as a young man that gave uncommon hopes of +future eminence. My performances in time reached my native province, +and my relations congratulated themselves upon the new honours that +were added to their family. + +I returned home covered with academical laurels, and fraught with +criticism and philosophy. The wit and the scholar excited curiosity, +and my acquaintance was solicited by innumerable invitations. To +please will always be the wish of benevolence, to be admired must be +the constant aim of ambition; and I therefore considered myself as +about to receive the reward of my honest labours, and to find the +efficacy of learning and of virtue. + +The third day after my arrival I dined at the house of a gentleman who +had summoned a multitude of his friends to the annual celebration of +his wedding day. I set forward with great exultation, and thought +myself happy that I had an opportunity of displaying my knowledge to +so numerous an assembly. I felt no sense of my own insufficiency, till +going upstairs to the dining-room, I heard the mingled roar of +obstreperous merriment. I was, however disgusted rather than +terrified, and went forward without dejection. The whole company rose +at my entrance; and when I saw so many eyes fixed at once upon me, I +was blasted with a sudden imbecility; I was quelled by some nameless +power which I found impossible to be resisted. My sight was dazzled, +my cheeks glowed, my perceptions were confounded; I was harassed by +the multitude of eager salutations, and returned the common civilities +with hesitation and impropriety; the sense of my own blunders +increased my confusion, and before the exchange of ceremonies allowed +me to sit down, I was ready to sink under the oppression of surprise; +my voice grew weak, and my knees trembled. + +The assembly then resumed their places, and I sat with my eyes fixed +upon the ground. To the questions of curiosity, or the appeals of +complaisance, I could seldom answer but with negative monosyllables, +or professions of ignorance; for the subjects on which they conversed +were such as are seldom discussed in books, and were therefore out of +my range of knowledge. At length an old clergyman, who rightly +conjectured the reason of my conciseness, relieved me by some +questions about the present state of natural knowledge, and engaged +me, by an appearance of doubt and opposition, in the explication and +defence of the Newtonian philosophy. + +The consciousness of my own abilities roused me from depression, and +long familiarity with my subject enabled me to discourse with ease and +volubility; but however I might please myself, I found very little +added by my demonstrations to the satisfaction of the company; and my +antagonist, who knew the laws of conversation too well to detain their +attention long upon an unpleasing topic, after he had commended my +acuteness and comprehension, dismissed the controversy, and resigned +me to my former insignificance and perplexity. + +After dinner I received from the ladies, who had heard that I was a +wit, an invitation to the tea table. I congratulated myself upon an +opportunity to escape from the company, whose gaiety began to be +tumultuous, and among whom several hints had been dropped of the +uselessness of universities, the folly of book learning, and the +awkwardness of scholars. To the ladies, therefore, I flew as to a +refuge from clamour, insult and rusticity; but found my heart sink as +I approached their apartment, and was again disconcerted by the +ceremonies of entrance, and confounded by the necessity of +encountering so many eyes at once. + +When I sat down I considered that something pretty was always said to +ladies, and resolved to recover my credit by some elegant observation +or graceful compliment. I applied myself to the recollection of all I +had read or heard in praise of beauty, and endeavoured to accommodate +some classical compliment to the present occasion. I sunk into +profound meditation, revolved the character of the heroines of old, +considered whatever the poets have sung in their praise, and after +having borrowed and invented, chosen and rejected a thousand +sentiments, which, if I had uttered them, would not have been +understood, I was awakened from my dream of learned gallantry by the +servant who distributed the tea. + +There are not many situations more incessantly uneasy than that in +which the man is placed who is watching an opportunity to speak +without courage to take it when it is offered, and who, though he +resolves to give a specimen of his abilities, always finds some reason +or other for delaying it to the next minute. I was ashamed of silence, +yet could find nothing to say of elegance or importance equal to my +wishes. The ladies, afraid of my learning, thought themselves not +qualified to propose any subject to prattle to a man so famous for +dispute, and there was nothing on either side but impatience and +vexation. + +In this conflict of shame, as I was reassembling my scattered +sentiments, and, resolving to force my imagination to some sprightly +sally, had just found a very happy compliment, by too much attention +to my own meditations, I suffered the saucer to drop from my hand, the +cup was broken, the lapdog was scalded, a brocaded petticoat was +stained, and the whole assembly was thrown into disorder. I now +considered all hopes of reputation as at an end, and while they were +consoling and assisting one another, stole away in silence. + +The misadventures of this happy day are not yet at an end; I am afraid +of meeting the meanest of them that triumphed over me in this state of +stupidity and contempt, and feel the same terrors encroaching upon my +heart at the sight of those who have once impressed them. Shame, above +any other passion, propagates itself. Before those who have seen me +confused I can never appear without new confusion, and the remembrance +of the weakness which I formerly discovered hinders me from acting or +speaking with my natural force. + +But is this misery, Mr. Rambler, never to cease? Have I spent my life +in study only to become the sport of the ignorant, and debarred myself +from all the common enjoyments of youth to collect ideas which must +sleep in silence, and form opinions which I must not divulge? Inform +me, dear sir, by what means I may rescue my faculties from these +shackles of cowardice, how I may rise to a level with my fellow +beings, recall myself from this languor of involuntary subjection to +the free exertion of my intellects, and add to the power of reasoning +the liberty of speech. + + I am, sir, etc., + VERECUNDULUS. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE MISERY OF A MODISH LADY IN SOLITUDE + + + To _The Rambler_. + + MR. RAMBLER, + +I am no great admirer of grave writings, and therefore very frequently +lay your papers aside before I have read them through; yet I cannot +but confess that, by slow degrees, you have raised my opinion of your +understanding, and that, though I believe it will be long before I can +be prevailed upon to regard you with much kindness, you have, however, +more of my esteem than those whom I sometimes make happy with +opportunities to fill my teapot, or pick up my fan. I shall therefore +choose you for the confident of my distresses, and ask your counsel +with regard to the means of conquering or escaping them, though I +never expect from you any of that softness and pliancy which +constitutes the perfection of a companion for the ladies: as, in the +place where I now am, I have recourse to the mastiff for protection, +though I have no intention of making him a lapdog. + +My mamma is a very fine lady, who has more numerous and more frequent +assemblies at our house than any other person in the same quarter of +the town. I was bred from my earliest infancy to a perpetual tumult of +pleasure, and remember to have heard of little else than messages, +visits, playhouses, and balls; of the awkwardness of one woman, and +the coquetry of another; the charming convenience of some rising +fashion, the difficulty of playing a new game, the incidents of a +masquerade, and the dresses of a court night. I knew before I was ten +years old all the rules of paying and receiving visits, and to how +much civility every one of my acquaintance was entitled: and was able +to return, with the proper degree of reserve or vivacity, the stated +and established answer to every compliment; so that I was very soon +celebrated as a wit and a beauty, and had heard before I was thirteen +all that is ever said to a young lady. My mother was generous to so +uncommon a degree as to be pleased with my advance into life, and +allowed me, without envy or reproof, to enjoy the same happiness with +herself; though most women about her own age were very angry to see +young girls so forward, and many fine gentlemen told her how cruel it +was to throw new claims upon mankind, and to tyrannize over them at +the same time with her own charms and those of her daughter. + +I have now lived two and twenty years, and have passed of each year +nine months in town, and three at Richmond; so that my time has been +spent uniformly in the same company and the same amusements, except as +fashion has introduced new diversions, or the revolutions of the gay +world have afforded new successions of wits and beaux. However, my +mother is so good an economist of pleasure that I have no spare hours +upon my hands; for every morning brings some new appointment, and +every night is hurried away by the necessity of making our appearance +at different places, and of being with one lady at the opera, and with +another at the card-table. + +When the time came of settling our scheme of felicity for the summer, +it was determined that I should pay a visit to a rich aunt in a remote +county. As you know the chief conversation of all tea-tables, in the +spring, arises from a communication of the manner in which time is to +be passed till winter, it was a great relief to the barrenness of our +topics to relate the pleasures that were in store for me, to describe +my uncle's seat, with the park and gardens, the charming walks and +beautiful waterfalls; and everyone told me how much she envied me, and +what satisfaction she had once enjoyed in a situation of the same +kind. + +As we are all credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine some +latent satisfaction in any thing which we have not experienced, I will +confess to you, without restraint, that I had suffered my head to be +filled with expectations of some nameless pleasure in a rural life, +and that I hoped for the happy hour that should set me free from +noise, and flutter, and ceremony, dismiss me to the peaceful shade, +and lull me in content and tranquility. To solace myself under the +misery of delay, I sometimes heard a studious lady of my acquaintance +read pastorals, I was delighted with scarce any talk but of leaving +the town, and never went to bed without dreaming of groves, and +meadows, and frisking lambs. + +At length I had all my clothes in a trunk, and saw the coach at the +door; I sprung in with ecstasy, quarreled with my maid for being too +long in taking leave of the other servants, and rejoiced as the ground +grew less which lay between me and the completion of my wishes. A few +days brought me to a large old house, encompassed on three sides with +woody hills, and looking from the front on a gentle river, the sight +of which renewed all my expectations of pleasure, and gave me some +regret for having lived so long without the enjoyment which these +delightful scenes were now to afford me. My aunt came out to receive +me, but in a dress so far removed from the present fashion that I +could scarcely look upon her without laughter, which would have been +no kind requital for the trouble which she had taken to make herself +fine against my arrival. The night and the next morning were driven +along with inquiries about our family; my aunt then explained our +pedigree, and told me stories of my great grandfather's bravery in the +civil wars; nor was it less than three days before I could persuade +her to leave me to myself. + +At last economy prevailed; she went in the usual manner about her own +affairs, and I was at liberty to range in the wilderness, and sit by +the cascade. The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for a +while, but after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon began +to perceive that the country was not my element; that shades, and +flowers, and lawns, and waters had very soon exhausted all their power +of pleasing, and that I had not in myself any fund of satisfaction +with which I could supply the loss of my customary amusements. + +I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that I +had leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only are yet gone, and how +shall I live through the remaining four? I go out and return; I pluck +a flower, and throw it away; I catch an insect, and when I have +examined its colours, set it at liberty; I fling a pebble into the +water, and see one circle spread after another. When it chances to +rain I walk in the great hall, and watch the minute-hand upon the +dial, or play with a litter of kittens which the cat happens to have +brought in a lucky time. + +My aunt is afraid I shall grow melancholy, and therefore encourages +the neighbouring gentry to visit us. They came at first with great +eagerness to see the fine lady from London, but when we met we had no +common topic on which we could converse; they had no curiosity after +plays, operas, or music; and I find as little satisfaction from their +accounts of the quarrels or alliances of families, whose names, when +once I can escape, I shall never hear. The women have now seen me, +know how my gown is made, and are satisfied; the men are generally +afraid of me, and say little, because they think themselves not at +liberty to talk rudely. + +Thus am I condemned to solitude; the day moves slowly forward, and I +see the dawn with uneasiness, because I consider that night is at a +great distance. I have tried to sleep by a brook, but find its murmurs +ineffectual; so that I am forced to be awake at least twelve hours, +without visits, without cards, without laughter, and without flattery. +I walk because I am disgusted with sitting still, and sit down because +I am weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object of +love, or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot dress with spirit, +for I have neither rival nor admirer. I cannot dance without a +partner, nor be kind, or cruel, without a lover. + +Such is the life of Euphelia, and such it is likely to continue for a +month to come. I have not yet declared against existence, nor called +upon the destinies to cut my thread; but I have sincerely resolved not +to condemn myself to such another summer, nor too hastily to flatter +myself with happiness. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those who +never thought themselves so much at ease as in solitude, and cannot +but suspect it to be some way or other my own fault, that, without +great pain, either of mind or body, I am thus weary of myself: that +the current of youth stagnates, and that I am languishing in a dead +calm for want of some external impulse. I shall, therefore, think you +a benefactor to our sex, if you will teach me the art of living alone; +for I am confident that a thousand and a thousand and a thousand +ladies, who affect to talk with ecstasies of the pleasures of the +country, are, in reality, like me, longing for the winter, and wishing +to be delivered from themselves by company and diversion. + + I am, sir, yours, + EUPHELIA. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +THE HISTORY OF AN ADVENTURER IN LOTTERIES + + + To _The Rambler_. + + Sir, + +As I have passed much of life in disquiet and suspense, and lost many +opportunities of advantage by a passion which I have reason to believe +prevalent in different degrees over a great part of mankind, I cannot +but think myself well qualified to warn those, who are yet +uncaptivated of the danger which they incur by placing themselves +within its influence. + +I served an apprenticeship to a linen-draper, with uncommon reputation +for diligence and fidelity; and at the age of three-and-twenty opened +a shop for myself with a large stock, and such credit among all the +merchants, who were acquainted with my master, that I could command +whatever was imported curious or valuable. For five years I proceeded +with success proportionate to close application and untainted +integrity; was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notes +before they were due; and advanced so fast in commercial reputation +that I was proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, and +every one expected that a few years would make me an alderman. + +In this course of even propensity, I was one day persuaded to buy a +ticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, part was to be +repaid though fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore my +established maxims of frugality did not restrain me from so trifling +an experiment. The ticket lay almost forgotten till the time at which +every man's fate was to be determined; nor did the affairs even then +seem of any importance, till I discovered by the public papers that +the number next to mine had conferred the great prize. + +My heart leaped at the thoughts of such an approach of sudden riches, +which I considered myself, however contrarily to the laws of +computation, as having missed by a single chance; and I could not +forbear to revolve the consequences which such a bounteous allotment +would have produced, if it had happened to me. This dream of felicity, +by degrees, took possession of my imagination. The great delight of my +solitary hours was to purchase an estate, and form plantations with +money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but +I spoiled their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck. + +At length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated my +imagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressed +among the first purchasers, had not my ardour been withheld by +deliberation upon the probability of success from one ticket rather +than another. I hesitated long between even and off; considered the +square and cubic numbers through the lottery; examined all those to +which good luck had been hitherto annexed; and at last fixed upon one, +which, by some secret relation to the events of my life, I thought +predestined to make me happy. Delay in great affairs is often +mischievous; the ticket was sold, and its possessor could not be +found. + +I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts of prognostication, +fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Never did +captive, heir, or lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace of +time, as I suffered between the purchase of my ticket and the +distribution of the prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as well as I +could, by frequent contemplations of approaching happiness; when the +sun arose I knew it would set, and congratulated myself at night that +I was so much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket +appeared, and rewarded all my care and sagacity with a despicable +prize of fifty pounds. + +My friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success, were very coldly +received; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrin +might fume away without observation, and then returning to my shop, +began to listen after another lottery. + +With the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now found +the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I resolved to +take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not +omitting, however, to divide them between the even and odd numbers, +that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form, +and many experiments did I try to determine from which of those +tickets I might most reasonably expect riches. At last, being unable +to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon +dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing +them in a garret; and examining the event by an exact register, found, +on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers +had been turned up five times more than any of the rest in three +hundred and thirty thousand throws. + +This experiment was fallacious; the first day presented the hopeful +ticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different fortune, +and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds by this great adventure. + +I had now wholly changed the cast of my behaviour and the conduct of +my life. The shop was for the most part abandoned to my servants, and +if I entered it, my thoughts were so engrossed by my tickets that I +scarcely heard or answered a question, but considered every customer +as an intruder upon my meditations, whom I was in haste to dispatch. I +mistook the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgot +to file my receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. My +acquaintances by degrees began to fall away; but I perceived the +decline of my business with little emotion, because whatever +deficience there might be in my gains I expected the next lottery to +supply. + +Miscarriage naturally produced diffidence; I began now to seek +assistance against ill luck, by an alliance with those that had been +more successful. I inquired diligently at what office any prize had +been sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; solicited +those who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me +in my new tickets, and whenever I met with one that had in any event +of his life been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a larger +share. I had, by this rule of conduct, so diffused my interest, that I +had a fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and a +sixteenth of ninety. + +I waited for the decision of my fate with my former palpitations, and +looked upon the business of my trade with the usual neglect. The wheel +at last was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long succession +of sorrows and disappointments. I indeed often partook of a small +prize, and the loss of one day was generally balanced by the gain of +the next; but my desires yet remained unsatisfied, and when one of my +chances had failed, all my expectation was suspended on those which +remained yet undetermined. At last a prize of five thousand pounds was +proclaimed; I caught fire at the cry, and inquiring the number, found +it to be one of my own tickets, which I had divided among those on +whose luck I depended, and of which I had retained only a sixteenth +part. + +You will easily judge with what detestation of himself a man thus +intent upon gain reflected that he had sold a prize which was once in +his possession. It was to no purpose that I represented to my mind the +impossibility of recalling the past, or the folly of condemning an +act, which only its event, an event which no human intelligence could +foresee, proved to be wrong. The prize which, though put in my hands, +had been suffered to slip from me, filled me with anguish; and knowing +that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up +silently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest. + +My indisposition soon became visible: I was visited by my friends, and +among them by Eumathes, a clergyman, whose piety and learning gave him +such an ascendant over me that I could not refuse to open my heart. +There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in the +hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate +futurity, and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind +of casual adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate to +his hope. You have long wasted that time which, by a proper +application, would have certainly, though moderately, increased your +fortune, in a laborious and anxious pursuit of a species of gain which +no labour or anxiety, no art or expedient, can secure or promote. You +are now fretting away your life in repentance of an act against which +repentance can give no caution but to avoid the occasion of committing +it. Rouse from this lazy dream of fortuitous riches, which if +obtained, you could scarcely have enjoyed, because they could confer +no consciousness of desert; return to rational and manly industry, and +consider the mere gift of luck as below the care of a wise man. + + _Samuel Johnson._ + + + + +CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO + + +In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I find a +magnificent eulogy on my old school,[6] 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. + +[Footnote 6: Recollections of Christ's Hospital.] + +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 penniless (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 print-shops, 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 cruellest penalties, forbade 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----,[7] 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. Kitts,--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. + +[Footnote 7: Hodges.] + +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 _by 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.[8] This was the penalty for +the second offence.--Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became of +him in the next degree? + +[Footnote 8: One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, +accordingly, at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of 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.] + +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 schoolfellows, +whose joint lessons and sports he was thenceforward to share no more; +the awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time; 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 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 Pyrenees. 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 stayed 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 stayed, 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 operation; 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.[9] 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." + +[Footnote 9: Cowley.] + +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 cramped to +barbarism. His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those +periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes.[10]--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 different omen. The one serene, smiling, +fresh powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old discoloured, +unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and bloody execution. Woe 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 headlong entry into the schoolroom, 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. + +[Footnote 10: In this and everything B. was the antipodes of his +coadjutor. 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_.] + +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.[11] +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----,[12] 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----,[13] +ill-fated M----![14] of these the Muse is silent. + +[Footnote 11: Trollope.] + +[Footnote 12: Thornton.] + +[Footnote 13: Scott; died in Bedlam.] + +[Footnote 14: Maunde; dismissed school.] + + Finding some of Edward's race + Unhappy, pass their annals by. + +Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of 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, entranced 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----,[15] "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." + +[Footnote 15: Charles Valentine Le Grice.] + +Nor shalt 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 _Nireus +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----;[16] 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----,[17] the present master of Hertford, with +Marmaduke T----,[18] mildest of Missionaries--and both my good friends +still--close the catalogue of Grecians in my time. + +[Footnote 16: Favell; left Cambridge, ashamed of his father, who was a +housepainter there.] + +[Footnote 17: Franklin.] + +[Footnote 18: Thompson.] + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 we 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 Slipshod--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----,[19] 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----,[20] thy last patron, is flown. + +[Footnote 19: Ramsay.] + +[Footnote 20: Granville Sharp.] + + King Pandion, he is dead, + All thy friends are lapt in lead.-- + +Nevertheless, noble R----, come in, and take your seat here, 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, had 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_. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 symbolised 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 nighttime 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 +realised 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 bedfellow, 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 daylight, 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.[21] 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. + +[Footnote 21: Thornton Hunt.] + +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.[22] + +[Footnote 22: Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.] + +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 +ante-mundane 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, marketplaces, shops, suburbs, ruins, with an +inexpressible sense of delight--a map-like distinctness of trace--and +a daylight 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 Abora, 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 familiarisation 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 humourist, +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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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.[23] 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. + +[Footnote 23: Field.] + +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 Anglicised, +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 Shakespeare--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. I 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 twelvemonths--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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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[24] (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. [Footnote 24: Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, is meant, +where Lamb's grandmother, Mary Field, was housekeeper.] 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 eyebrows 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 panels, 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 slily 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 over +half 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 everybody, 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 +quarrelled 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 call 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 +armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget +unchanged by my side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS + + +I like to meet a sweep--understand me--not a grown sweeper--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 toward 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 ventured +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, quick-reaching +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 pie-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 but now 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[25] BIGOD, ordinarily ministered to the other two. [Footnote +25: John Fenwick.] 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG + + +Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M.[26] 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. [Footnote 26: Thomas +Manning.] 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 +Cook's 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 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 crumbs 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 hailstones, 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 morning, 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 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 to 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 chickens (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 everything." 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 sweetmeat, 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 crumbs, 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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 our +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 +birthdays--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." Everyone 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 suffiaminandus 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 choses the former--because he +does. She calls the servant _Sir_; and insists on not troubling him to +hold her plate. The housekeeper patronises her. The children's +governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the +piano for harpsichord. + +Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a noticeable instance of the +disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of _affinity +constituting a claim to an acquaintance_, may subject the spirit of a +gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is betwixt him and a +lady with a 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 to 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 depths 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 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 anything 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +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, wrapt 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 around, +watching when the new-born should open its yet closed eyes; which, +when it did, first one, and then the other--with a solicitude and +apprehension, yet not such as, stained with fear, dim 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 entertainments 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 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. + + _Lamb._ + + + + +OLD CHINA + + +I have an almost feminine partiality for old china. When I go to see +any great house, I enquire 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, had 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 +overshade 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 daybreak--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 overworn +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 came 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 savoury 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 woman 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 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 a 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 straighten--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 fire-side, sitting on this luxurious sofa--be once more +struggling up those inconvenient stair cases, pushed about, and +squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest rabble or 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-Madonaish chit of a lady in that very blue summer house." + + _Lamb._ + + + + +POPULAR FALLACIES + + +I + +THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST + +Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall, who 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 envelopes 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. + + +II + +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. + + +III + +THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK + +At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his night gear, +and prepares to tune up his unseasonable matins, we are 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. We 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 +headaches; 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 choose 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 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? + + _Lamb._ + + + + +WHITSUN-EVE + + +The pride of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our +house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might, +with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf or hung up in a +tree, would be utterly unbearable in wet weather were it not that we +have a retreat out of doors, and a very pleasant retreat it is. To +make my readers comprehend it I must describe our whole territories. + +Fancy a small plot of ground with a pretty, low, irregular cottage at +one end; a large granary, divided from the dwelling by a little court +running along one side; and a long thatched shed, open towards the +garden, and supported by wooden pillars, on the other. The bottom is +bounded half by an old wall and half by an old paling, over which we +see a pretty distance of woody hills. The house, granary, wall, and +paling, are covered with vines, cherry-trees, roses, honeysuckles, and +jessamines, with great clusters of tall hollyhocks running up between +them; a large elder overhanging the little gate, and a magnificent +bay-tree, such a tree as shall scarcely be matched in these parts, +breaking with its beautiful conical form the horizontal lines of the +buildings. This is my garden; and the long pillared shed, the sort of +rustic arcade, which runs along one side, parted from the flower-beds +by a row of geraniums, is our out-of-door drawing-room. + +I know nothing so pleasant as to sit there on a summer afternoon, with +the western sun flickering through the great elder-tree, and lighting +up our gay parterres, where flowers and flowering shrubs are set as +thick as grass in a field, a wilderness of blossom, interwoven, +intertwined, wreathy, garlandy, profuse beyond all profusion, where we +may guess that there is such a thing as mould, but never see it. I +know nothing so pleasant as to sit in the shade of that dark bower, +with the eye resting on that bright piece of colour, lighted so +gloriously by the evening sun, now catching a glimpse of the little +birds as they fly rapidly in and out of their nests--for there are +always two or three birds'-nests in the thick tapestry of +cherry-trees, honeysuckles, and china-roses, which covers our +walls--now tracing the gay gambols of the common butterflies as they +sport around the dahlias; now watching that rarer moth, which the +country people, fertile in pretty names, call the bee-bird;[27] that +bird-like insect, which flutters in the hottest days over the sweetest +flowers, inserting its long proboscis into the small tube of the +jessamine, and hovering over the scarlet blossom of the geranium, +whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast: that +insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest; +always, even when feeding, self-poised and self-supported, and whose +wings, in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so +lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture +of rich flowers and leaves, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty +to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily it +resembles a picture in more qualities than one--it is fit for nothing +but to look at. One might as well think of walking in a bit of framed +canvas. There are walks, to be sure--tiny paths of smooth gravel, by +courtesy called such--but they are so overhung by roses and lilies, +and such gay encroachers--so overrun by convolvulus, and heart's-ease, +and mignonette, and other sweet stragglers, that, except to edge +through them occasionally for the purpose of planting, or weeding, or +watering, there might as well be no paths at all. Nobody thinks of +walking in my garden. Even May glides along with a delicate and +trackless step, like a swan through the water; and we, its two-footed +denizens, are fain to treat it as if it were really a saloon, and go +out for a walk towards sunset, just as if we had not been sitting in +the open air all day. + +[Footnote 27: Sphinx lugustri, privet hawk-moth.] + +What a contrast from the quiet garden to the lively street! Saturday +night is always a time of stir and bustle in our village, and this is +Whitsun-Eve, the pleasantest Saturday of all the year, when London +journeymen and servant lads and lasses snatch a short holiday to visit +their families. A short and precious holiday, the happiest and +liveliest of any; for even the gambols and merry-makings of Christmas +offer but a poor enjoyment compared with the rural diversions, the +Mayings, revels, and cricket-matches of Whitsuntide. + +We ourselves are to have a cricket-match on Monday, not played by the +men, who, since a certain misadventure with the Beech-hillers, are, I +am sorry to say, rather chop-fallen, but by the boys, who, zealous for +the honour of their parish, and headed by their bold leader, Ben +Kirby, marched in a body to our antagonists' ground the Sunday after +our melancholy defeat, challenged the boys of that proud hamlet, and +beat them out and out on the spot. Never was a more signal victory. +Our boys enjoyed this triumph with so little moderation that it had +like to have produced a very tragical catastrophe. The captain of the +Beech-hill youngsters, a capital bowler, by name Amos Stone, enraged +past all bearing by the crowing of his adversaries, flung the ball at +Ben Kirby with so true an aim that if that sagacious leader had not +warily ducked his head when he saw it coming, there would probably +have been a coroner's inquest on the case, and Amos Stone would have +been tried for manslaughter. He let fly with such vengeance, that the +cricket-ball was found embedded in a bank of clay five hundred yards +off, as if it had been a cannon shot. Tom Coper and Farmer Thackum, +the umpires, both say they never saw so tremendous a ball. If Amos +Stone live to be a man (I mean to say if he be not hanged first) he'll +be a pretty player. He is coming here on Monday with his party to play +the return match, the umpires having respectively engaged Farmer +Thackum that Amos shall keep the peace, Tom Coper that Ben shall give +no unnecessary or wanton provocation--a nicely worded and lawyer-like +clause, and one that proves that Tom Coper hath his doubts of the +young gentleman's discretion; and, of a truth, so have I. I would not +be Ben Kirby's surety, cautiously as the security is worded--no! not +for a white double dahlia, the present object of my ambition. + +This village of ours is swarming to-night like a hive of bees, and all +the church bells round are pouring out their merriest peals, as if to +call them together. I must try to give some notion of the various +figures. + +First, there is a group suited to Teniers, a cluster of out-of-door +customers of the Rose, old benchers of the inn, who sit round a table +smoking and drinking in high solemnity to the sound of Timothy's +fiddle. Next, a mass of eager boys, the combatants of Monday, who are +surrounding the shoemaker's shop, where an invisible hole in their +ball is mending by Master Keep himself, under the joint +superintendence of Ben Kirby and Tom Coper. Ben showing much verbal +respect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment and +experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all; +whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less trusted +commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting +the waxed twine round the handles of the bats--the poor bats, which +please nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little and +too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and too large. +Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greater +delight--even if to win it they be doomed! Farther down the street is +the pretty black-eyed girl, Sally Wheeler, come home for a day's +holiday from B., escorted by a tall footman in a dashing livery, whom +she is trying to curtsy off before her deaf grandmother sees him. I +wonder whether she will succeed! + +Ascending the hill are two couples of a different description. Daniel +Tubb and his fair Valentine, walking boldly along like licensed +lovers; they have been asked twice in church, and are to be married on +Tuesday; and closely following that happy pair, near each other but +not together, come Jem Tanner and Mabel Green, the poor culprits of +the wheat-hoeing. Ah! the little clerk hath not relented! The course +of true love doth not yet run smooth in that quarter. Jem dodges +along, whistling "Cherry-ripe," pretending to walk by himself, and to +be thinking of nobody; but every now and then he pauses in his +negligent saunter, and turns round outright to steal a glance at +Mabel, who, on her part, is making believe to walk with poor Olive +Hathaway, the lame mantua-maker, and even affecting to talk and to +listen to that gentle, humble creature, as she points to the wild +flowers on the common, and the lambs and children disporting amongst +the gorse, but whose thought and eyes are evidently fixed on Jem +Tanner, as she meets his backward glance with a blushing smile, and +half springs forward to meet him: whilst Olive has broken off the +conversation as soon as she perceived the pre-occupation of her +companion, and begun humming, perhaps unconsciously, two or three +lines of Burns, whose "Whistle and I'll come to ye, my lad," and "Gi'e +me a glance of thy bonny black e'e," were never better exemplified +than in the couple before her. Really, it is curious to watch them, +and to see how gradually the attraction of this tantalising vicinity +becomes irresistible, and the rustic lover rushes to his pretty +mistress like the needle to the magnet. On they go, trusting to the +deepening twilight, to the little clerk's absence, to the good humour +of the happy lads and lasses who are passing and repassing on all +sides--or rather, perhaps, in a happy oblivion of the cross uncle, the +kind villagers, the squinting lover, and the whole world. On they +trip, arm in arm, he trying to catch a glimpse of her glowing face +under her bonnet, and she hanging down her head, and avoiding his gaze +with a mixture of modesty and coquetry, which well becomes the rural +beauty. On they go, with a reality and intensity of affection which +must overcome all obstacles; and poor Olive follows her with an +evident sympathy in their happiness which makes her almost as enviable +as they; and we pursue our walk amidst the moonshine and the +nightingales, with Jacob Frost's cart looming in the distance, and the +merry sounds of Whitsuntide, the shout, the laugh, and the song, +echoing all around us, like "noises of the air." + + _Mary Russell Mitford._ + + + + +ON GOING A JOURNEY + + +One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I +like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, +nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when +alone. + + "The fields his study, nature was his book." + +I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I +am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for +criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to +forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this +purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I +like more elbow-room, and fewer incumbrances. I like solitude, when I +give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for + + "----a friend in my retreat, + Whom I may whisper solitude is sweet." + +The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do +just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all +impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much +more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little +breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation + + "May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, + That in the various bustle of resort + Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd," + +that I absent myself from the town for awhile, without feeling at a +loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a +post-chaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary +the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with +impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green +turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' +march to dinner--and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start +some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for +joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge into my past +being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into +the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten +things, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon my +eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead +of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull +common-places, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which +alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, +antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes +had rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I have +just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is +with me "very stuff of the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet +without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its +coat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that +has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better then +keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to +yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant +horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore +prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody +fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself, and indulge your reveries. +But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you +are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out +upon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either entirely +to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be +silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was +pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's, that "he thought it a +bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an +Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time." So I cannot talk and +think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits +and starts, "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, "were it +but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It is +beautifully said: but in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes +interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, +and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of +dumb show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a +toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature, without being +perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of +others. I am for the synthetical method on a journey, in preference to +the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to +examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions +float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have +them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I +like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are +alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to +argue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not +for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a beanfield crossing the +road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a +distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his +glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the +colour of a cloud which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you +are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy +craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, +and in the end probably produces ill humour. Now I never quarrel with +myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it +necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you +may not be of accord on the objects and circumstances that present +themselves before you--these may recal a number of objects, and lead +to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated +to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly +clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way +to our feelings before company, seems extravagance or affectation; and +on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at +every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise +the end is not answered) is a task to which few are competent. We must +"give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend C----, +however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful +explanatory way over hill and dale, a summer's day, and convert a +landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far above +singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, +I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling +theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to +hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had "that fine +madness in them which our first poets had;" and if they could have +been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains +as the following. + + "----Here be woods as green + As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet + As when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet + Face of the curled stream, with flow'rs as many + As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; + Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, + Arbours o'ergrown with woodbine, caves and dells; + Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing, + Or gather rushes to make many a ring + For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love, + How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, + First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes + She took eternal fire that never dies; + How she convey'd him softly in a sleep, + His temples bound with poppy, to the steep + Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, + Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, + To kiss her sweetest."---- + + Faithful Shepherdess. + +Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake +the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening +clouds: but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and +closes up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out +on the spot:--I must have time to collect myself.-- + +In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be +reserved for Table-talk. L---- is for this reason, I take it, the +worst company in the world out of doors; because he is the best +within. I grant, there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk +on a journey; and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get +to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation +or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every +mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the +end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted +just at the approach of night-fall, or to come to some straggling +village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and +then after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place +affords, to "take one's ease at one's inn!" These eventful moments in +our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heart-felt +happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I +would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: they +will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicate +speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea, + + "The cups that cheer, but not inebriate," + +and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what +we shall have for supper--eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in +onions, or an excellent veal-cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once +fixed upon cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is +not to be disparaged. Then in the intervals of pictured scenery and +Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the +kitchen--_Procul, O procul este profani!_ These hours are sacred to +silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed +the source of smiling thoughts hereafter. I would not waste them in +idle talk; or if I must have the integrity of fancy broken in upon, I +would rather it were by a stranger than a friend. A stranger takes his +hue and character from the time and place; he is a part of the +furniture and costume of an inn. If he is a Quaker, or from the West +Riding of Yorkshire, so much the better. I do not even try to +sympathise with him, and he breaks no squares. I associate nothing +with my travelling companion but present objects and passing events. +In his ignorance of me and my affairs, I in a manner forget myself. +But a friend reminds one of other things, rips up old grievances, and +destroys the abstraction of the scene. He comes in ungraciously +between us and our imaginary character. Something is dropped in the +course of conversation that gives a hint of your profession and +pursuits; or from having some one with you that knows the less sublime +portions of your history, it seems that other people do. You are no +longer a citizen of the world: but your "unhoused free condition is +put into circumscription and confine." The _incognito_ of an inn is +one of its striking privileges--"lord of one's-self, uncumber'd with a +name." Oh! it is great to shake off the trammels of the world and of +public opinion--to lose our importunate, tormenting, everlasting +personal identity in the elements of nature, and become the creature +of the moment, clear of all ties--to hold to the universe only by a +dish of sweet-breads, and to owe nothing but the score of the +evening--and no longer seeking for applause and meeting with contempt, +to be known by no other title than _the Gentleman in the parlour_! One +may take one's choice of all characters in this romantic state of +uncertainty as to one's real pretensions, and become indefinitely +respectable and negatively right-worshipful. We baffle prejudice and +disappoint conjecture; and from being so to others, begin to be +objects of curiosity and wonder even to ourselves. We are no more +those hackneyed commonplaces that we appear in the world: an inn +restores us to the level of nature, and quits scores with society! I +have certainly spent some enviable hours at inns--sometimes when I +have been left entirely to myself, and have tried to solve some +metaphysical problem, as once at Witham-common, where I found out the +proof that likeness is not a case of the association of ideas--at +other times, when there have been pictures in the room, as at St. +Neot's, (I think it was) where I first met with Gribelin's engravings +of the Cartoons, into which I entered at once, and at a little inn on +the borders of Wales, where there happened to be hanging some of +Westall's drawings, which I compared triumphantly (for a theory that I +had, not for the admired artist) with the figure of a girl who had +ferried me over the Severn, standing up in the boat between me and the +twilight--at other times I might mention luxuriating in books, with a +peculiar interest in this way, as I remember sitting up half the night +to read Paul and Virginia, which I picked up at an inn at Bridgewater, +after being drenched in the rain all day; and at the same place I got +through two volumes of Madame D'Arblay's Camilla. It was on the tenth +of April, 1798, that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the +inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. The +letter I chose was that in which St. Preux describes his feelings as +he first caught a glimpse from the heights of the Jura of the Pays de +Vaud, which I had brought with me as a _bon bouche_ to crown the +evening with. It was my birth-day, and I had for the first time come +from a place in the neighbourhood to visit this delightful spot. The +road to Llangollen turns off between Chirk and Wrexham; and on passing +a certain point, you come all at once upon the valley, which opens +like an amphitheatre, broad, barren hills rising in majestic state on +either side, with "green upland swells that echo to the bleat of +flocks" below, and the river Dee babbling over its stony bed in the +midst of them. The valley at this time "glittered green with sunny +showers," and a budding ash-tree dipped its tender branches in the +chiding stream. How proud, how glad I was to walk along the high road +that overlooks the delicious prospect, repeating the lines which I +have just quoted from Mr. Coleridge's poems. But besides the prospect +which opened beneath my feet, another also opened to my inward sight, +a heavenly vision, on which were written, in letters large as Hope +could make them, these four words, LIBERTY, GENIUS, LOVE, VIRTUE; +which have since faded into the light of common day, or mock my idle +gaze. + + "The beautiful is vanished, and returns not." + +Still I would return some time or other to this enchanted spot; but I +would return to it alone. What other self could I find to share that +influx of thoughts, of regret, and delight, the fragments of which I +could hardly conjure up to myself, so much have they been broken and +defaced! I could stand on some tall rock, and overlook the precipice +of years that separates me from what I then was. I was at that time +going shortly to visit the poet whom I have above named. Where is he +now? Not only I myself have changed; the world, which was then new to +me, has become old and incorrigible. Yet will I turn to thee in +thought, O sylvan Dee, in joy, in youth and gladness as thou then +wert; and thou shalt always be to me the river of Paradise, where I +will drink of the waters of life freely! + +There is hardly any thing that shows the short-sightedness or +capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With +change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings. +We can by an effort indeed transport ourselves to old and +long-forgotten scenes, and then the picture of the mind revives again; +but we forget those that we have just left. It seems that we can think +but of one place at a time. The canvas of the fancy is but of a +certain extent, and if we paint one set of objects upon it, they +immediately efface every other. We cannot enlarge our conceptions, we +only shift our point of view. The landscape bares its bosom to the +enraptured eye, we take our fill of it, and seem as if we could form +no other image of beauty or grandeur. We pass on, and think no more of +it: the horizon that shuts it from our sight, also blots it from our +memory like a dream. In travelling through a wild barren country, I +can form no idea of a woody and cultivated one. It appears to me that +all the world must be barren, like what I see of it. In the country we +forget the town, and in town we despise the country. "Beyond Hyde +Park," says Sir Fopling Flutter, "all is a desert." All that part of +the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in our +conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell. It is not one +prospect expanded into another, county joined to county, kingdom to +kingdom, lands to seas, making an image voluminous and vast;--the mind +can form no larger idea of space than the eye can take in at a single +glance. The rest is a name written in a map, a calculation of +arithmetic. For instance, what is the true signification of that +immense mass of territory and population, known by the name of China +to us? An inch of paste-board on a wooden globe, of no more account +than a China orange! Things near us are seen of the size of life: +things at a distance are diminished to the size of the understanding. +We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend the texture +of our own being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember an +infinity of things and places. The mind is like a mechanical +instrument that plays a great variety of tunes, but it must play them +in succession. One idea recalls another, but it at the same time +excludes all others. In trying to renew old recollections, we cannot +as it were unfold the whole web of our existence; we must pick out the +single threads. So in coming to a place where we have formerly lived +and with which we have intimate associations, every one must have +found that the feeling grows more vivid the nearer we approach the +spot, from the mere anticipation of the actual impression: we remember +circumstances, feelings, persons, faces, names, that we had not +thought of for years; but for the time all the rest of the world is +forgotten!--To return to the question I have quitted above. + +I have no objection to go to see ruins, aqueducts, pictures, in +company with a friend or a party, but rather the contrary, for the +former reason reversed. They are intelligible matters, and will bear +talking about. The sentiment here is not tacit, but communicable and +overt. Salisbury Plain is barren of criticism, but Stonehenge will +bear a discussion antiquarian, picturesque, and philosophical. In +setting out on a party of pleasure, the first consideration always is +where we shall go to: in taking a solitary ramble, the question is +what we shall meet with by the way. "The mind is its own place;" nor +are we anxious to arrive at the end of our journey. I can myself do +the honours indifferently well to works of art and curiosity. I once +took a party to Oxford with no mean _eclat_--shewed them that seat of +the Muses at a distance, + + "With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd"-- + +descanted on the learned air that breathes from the grassy quadrangles +and stone walls of halls and colleges--was at home in the Bodleian; +and at Blenheim quite superseded the powdered Ciceroni that attended +us, and that pointed in vain with his wand to common-place beauties in +matchless pictures.--As another exception to the above reasoning, I +should not feel confident in venturing on a journey in a foreign +country without a companion. I should want at intervals to hear the +sound of my own language. There is an involuntary antipathy in the +mind of an Englishman to foreign manners and notions that requires the +assistance of social sympathy to carry it off. As the distance from +home increases, this relief, which was at first a luxury, becomes a +passion and an appetite. A person would almost feel stifled to find +himself in the deserts of Arabia without friends and countrymen: there +must be allowed to be something in the view of Athens or old Rome that +claims the utterance of speech; and I own that the Pyramids are too +mighty for any simple contemplation. In such situations, so opposite +to all one's ordinary train of ideas, one seems a species by +one's-self, a limb torn off from society, unless one can meet with +instant fellowship and support.--Yet I did not feel this want or +craving very pressing once, when I first set my foot on the laughing +shores of France. Calais was peopled with novelty and delight. The +confused, busy murmur of the place was like oil and wine poured into +my ears; nor did the mariners' hymn, which was sung from the top of an +old crazy vessel in the harbour, as the sun went down, send an alien +sound into my soul. I only breathed the air of general humanity. I +walked over "the vine-covered hills and gay regions of France," erect +and satisfied; for the image of man was not cast down and chained to +the foot of arbitrary thrones: I was at no loss for language, for that +of all the great schools of painting was open to me. The whole is +vanished like a shade. Pictures, heroes, glory, freedom, all are fled: +nothing remains but the Bourbons and the French people!--There is +undoubtedly a sensation in travelling into foreign parts that is to be +had nowhere else: but it is more pleasing at the time than lasting. It +is too remote from our habitual associations to be a common topic of +discourse or reference, and, like a dream or another state of +existence, does not piece into our daily modes of life. It is an +animated but a momentary hallucination. It demands an effort to +exchange our actual for our ideal identity; and to feel the pulse of +our old transports revive very keenly, we must "jump" all our present +comforts and connexions. Our romantic and itinerant character is not +to be domesticated. Dr. Johnson remarked how little foreign travel +added to the facilities of conversation in those who had been abroad. +In fact, the time we have spent there is both delightful and in one +sense instructive; but it appears to be cut out of our substantial, +downright existence, and never to join kindly on to it. We are not the +same, but another, and perhaps more enviable individual, all the time +we are out of our own country. We are lost to ourselves, as well as +our friends. So the poet somewhat quaintly sings, + + "Out of my country and myself I go." + +Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent +themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recal them: but +we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us +birth. I should on this account like well enough to spend the whole of +my life in travelling abroad, if I could any where borrow another life +to spend afterwards at home! + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +ON LIVING TO ONE'S-SELF[28] + + "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, + Or by the lazy Scheldt or wandering Po." + +[Footnote 28: Written at Winterslow Hut, January 18th-19th, 1821.] + + +I never was in a better place or humour than I am at present for +writing on this subject. I have a partridge getting ready for my +supper, my fire is blazing on the hearth, the air is mild for the +season of the year, I have had but a slight fit of indigestion to-day +(the only thing that makes me abhor myself), I have three hours good +before me, and therefore I will attempt it. It is as well to do it at +once as to have it to do for a week to come. + +If the writing on this subject is no easy task, the thing itself is a +harder one. It asks a troublesome effort to ensure the admiration of +others: it is a still greater one to be satisfied with one's own +thoughts. As I look from the window at the wide bare heath before me, +and through the misty moon-light air see the woods that wave over the +top of Winterslow, + + "While Heav'n's chancel-vault is blind with sleet," + +my mind takes its flight through too long a series of years, supported +only by the patience of thought and secret yearnings after truth and +good, for me to be at a loss to understand the feeling I intend to +write about; but I do not know that this will enable me to convey it +more agreeably to the reader. + +Lady G. in a letter to Miss Harriet Byron, assures her that "her +brother Sir Charles lived to himself:" and Lady L. soon after (for +Richardson was never tired of a good thing) repeats the same +observation; to which Miss Byron frequently returns in her answers to +both sisters--"For you know Sir Charles lives to himself," till at +length it passes into a proverb among the fair correspondents. This is +not, however, an example of what I understand by _living to +one's-self_, for Sir Charles Grandison was indeed always thinking of +himself; but by this phrase I mean never thinking at all about +one's-self, any more than if there was no such person in existence. +The character I speak of is as little of an egotist as possible: +Richardson's great favourite was as much of one as possible. Some +satirical critic has represented him in Elysium "bowing over the +_faded_ hand of Lady Grandison" (Miss Byron that was)--he ought to +have been represented bowing over his own hand, for he never admired +any one but himself, and was the god of his own idolatry. Neither do I +call it living to one's-self to retire into a desert (like the saints +and martyrs of old) to be devoured by wild beasts, nor to descend into +a cave to be considered as a hermit, nor to get to the top of a pillar +or rock to do fanatic penance and be seen of all men. What I mean by +living to one's-self is living in the world, as in it, not of it: it +is as if no one knew there was such a person, and you wished no one to +know it: it is to be a silent spectator of the mighty scene of things, +not an object of attention or curiosity in it; to take a thoughtful, +anxious interest in what is passing in the world, but not to feel the +slightest inclination to make or meddle with it. It is such a life as +a pure spirit might be supposed to lead, and such an interest as it +might take in the affairs of men, calm, contemplative, passive, +distant, touched with pity for their sorrows, smiling at their follies +without bitterness, sharing their affections, but not troubled by +their passions, not seeking their notice, not once dreamt of by them. +He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busy +world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to mingle +in the fray. "He hears the tumult, and is still." He is not able to +mend it, nor willing to mar it. He sees enough in the universe to +interest him without putting himself forward to try what he can do to +fix the eyes of the universe upon him. Vain the attempt! He reads the +clouds, he looks at the stars, he watches the return of the seasons, +the falling leaves of autumn, the perfumed breath of spring, starts +with delight at the note of a thrush in a copse near him, sits by the +fire, listens to the moaning of the wind, pores upon a book, or +discourses the freezing hours away, or melts down hours to minutes in +pleasing thought. All this while he is taken up with other things, +forgetting himself. He relishes an author's style, without thinking of +turning author. He is fond of looking at a print from an old picture +in the room, without teasing himself to copy it. He does not fret +himself to death with trying to be what he is not, or to do what he +cannot. He hardly knows what he is capable of, and is not in the least +concerned whether he shall ever make a figure in the world. He feels +the truth of the lines-- + + "The man whose eye is ever on himself, + Doth look on one, the least of nature's works; + One who might move the wise man to that scorn + Which wisdom holds unlawful ever"-- + +he looks out of himself at the wide extended prospect of nature, and +takes an interest beyond his narrow pretensions in general humanity. +He is free as air, and independent as the wind. Woe be to him when he +first begins to think what others say of him. While a man is contented +with himself and his own resources, all is well. When he undertakes to +play a part on the stage, and to persuade the world to think more +about him than they do about themselves, he is got into a track where +he will find nothing but briars and thorns, vexation and +disappointment. I can speak a little to this point. For many years of +my life I did nothing but think. I had nothing else to do but solve +some knotty point, or dip in some abstruse author, or look at the sky, +or wander by the pebbled sea-side-- + + "To see the children sporting on the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." + +I cared for nothing, I wanted nothing. I took my time to consider +whatever occurred to me, and was in no hurry to give a sophistical +answer to a question--there was no printer's devil waiting for me. I +used to write a page or two perhaps in half a year; and remember +laughing heartily at the celebrated experimentalist Nicholson, who +told me that in twenty years he had written as much as would make +three hundred octavo volumes. If I was not a great author, I could +read with ever fresh delight, "never ending, still beginning," and had +no occasion to write a criticism when I had done. If I could not paint +like Claude, I could admire "the witchery of the soft blue sky" as I +walked out, and was satisfied with the pleasure it gave me. If I was +dull, it gave me little concern: if I was lively, I indulged my +spirits. I wished well to the world, and believed as favourably of it +as I could. I was like a stranger in a foreign land, at which I looked +with wonder, curiosity, and delight, without expecting to be an object +of attention in return. I had no relations to the state, no duty to +perform, no ties to bind me to others: I had neither friend nor +mistress, wife or child. I lived in a world of contemplation, and not +of action. + +This sort of dreaming existence is the best. He who quits it to go in +search of realities, generally barters repose for repeated +disappointments and vain regrets. His time, thoughts, and feelings are +no longer at his own disposal. From that instant he does not survey +the objects of nature as they are in themselves, but looks asquint at +them to see whether he cannot make them the instruments of his +ambition, interest, or pleasure; for a candid, undesigning, +undisguised simplicity of character, his views become jaundiced, +sinister, and double: he takes no farther interest in the great +changes of the world but as he has a paltry share in producing them: +instead of opening his senses, his understanding, and his heart to the +resplendent fabric of the universe, he holds a crooked mirror before +his face, in which he may admire his own person and pretensions, and +just glance his eye aside to see whether others are not admiring him +too. He no more exists in the impression which "the fair variety of +things" makes upon him, softened and subdued by habitual +contemplation, but in the feverish sense of his own upstart +self-importance. By aiming to fix, he is become the slave of opinion. +He is a tool, a part of a machine that never stands still, and is sick +and giddy with the ceaseless motion. He has no satisfaction but in the +reflection of his own image in the public gaze, but in the repetition +of his own name in the public ear. He himself is mixed up with, and +spoils every thing. I wonder Buonaparte was not tired of the N.N.'s +stuck all over the Louvre and throughout France. Goldsmith (as we all +know), when in Holland, went out into a balcony with some handsome +Englishwomen, and on their being applauded by the spectators, turned +round, and said peevishly--"There are places where I also am admired." +He could not give the craving appetite of an author's vanity one day's +respite. I have seen a celebrated talker of our own time turn pale and +go out of the room when a showy-looking girl has come into it, who for +a moment divided the attention of his hearers. Infinite are the +mortifications of the bare attempt to emerge from obscurity; +numberless the failures; and greater and more galling still the +vicissitudes and tormenting accompaniments of success-- + + "Whose top to climb + Is certain falling, or so slippery, that + The fear's as bad as falling." + +"Would to God," exclaimed Oliver Cromwell, when he was at any time +thwarted by the Parliament, "that I had remained by my wood-side to +tend a flock of sheep, rather than have been thrust on such a +government as this!" When Buonaparte got into his carriage to proceed +on his Russian expedition, carelessly twirling his glove, and singing +the air--"Malbrook to the wars is going"--he did not think of the +tumble he has got since, the shock of which no one could have stood +but himself. We see and hear chiefly of the favourites of Fortune and +the Muse, of great generals, of first-rate actors, of celebrated +poets. These are at the head; we are struck with the glittering +eminence on which they stand, and long to set out on the same tempting +career:--not thinking how many discontented half-pay lieutenants are +in vain seeking promotion all their lives, and obliged to put up with +"the insolence of office, and the spurns which patient merit of the +unworthy takes;" how many half-starved strolling-players are doomed to +penury and tattered robes in country-places, dreaming to the last of a +London engagement; how many wretched daubers shiver and shake in the +ague-fit of alternate hopes and fears, waste and pine away in the +atrophy of genius, or else turn drawing-masters, picture-cleaners, or +newspaper critics; how many hapless poets have sighed out their souls +to the Muse in vain, without ever getting their effusions farther +known than the Poets' Corner of a country newspaper, and looked and +looked with grudging, wistful eyes at the envious horizon that bounded +their provincial fame! Suppose an actor, for instance, "after the +heart-aches and the thousand natural pangs that flesh is heir to," +_does_ get at the top of his profession, he can no longer bear a rival +near the throne; to be second or only equal to another, is to be +nothing: he starts at the prospect of a successor, and retains the +mimic sceptre with a convulsive grasp: perhaps as he is about to seize +the first place which he has long had in his eye, an unsuspected +competitor steps in before him, and carries off the prize, leaving him +to commence his irksome toil again: he is in a state of alarm at every +appearance or rumour of the appearance of a new actor: "a mouse that +takes up its lodging in a cat's ear"[29] has a mansion of peace to +him: he dreads every hint of an objection, and least of all can +forgive praise mingled with censure: to doubt is to insult, to +discriminate is to degrade: he dare hardly look into a criticism +unless some one has _tasted_ it for him, to see that there is no +offence in it: if he does not draw crowded houses every night, he can +neither eat nor sleep; or if all these terrible inflictions are +removed, and he can "eat his meal in peace," he then becomes surfeited +with applause and dissatisfied with his profession: he wants to be +something else, to be distinguished as an author, a collector, a +classical scholar, a man of sense and information, and weighs every +word he utters, and half retracts it before he utters it, lest if he +were to make the smallest slip of the tongue, it should get buzzed +abroad that _Mr. ---- was only clever as an actor_! If ever there was +a man who did not derive more pain than pleasure from his vanity, that +man, says Rousseau, was no other than a fool. A country gentleman near +Taunton spent his whole life in making some hundreds of wretched +copies of second-rate pictures, which were bought up at his death by a +neighbouring Baronet, to whom + + "Some demon whisper'd, L----, have a taste!" + +[Footnote 29: Webster's _Duchess of Malfy_.] + +A little Wilson in an obscure corner escaped the man of _virtu_, and +was carried off by a Bristol picture-dealer for three guineas, while +the muddled copies of the owner of the mansion (with the frames) +fetched thirty, forty, sixty, a hundred ducats a piece. A friend of +mine found a very fine Canaletti in a state of strange disfigurement, +with the upper part of the sky smeared over and fantastically +variegated with English clouds; and on enquiring of the person to whom +it belonged whether something had not been done to it, received for +answer "that a gentleman, a great artist in the neighbourhood, had +retouched some parts of it." What infatuation! Yet this candidate for +the honours of the pencil might probably have made a jovial fox-hunter +or respectable justice of the peace, if he could only have stuck to +what nature and fortune intended him for. Miss ---- can by no means be +persuaded to quit the boards of the theatre at ----, a little country +town in the West of England. Her salary has been abridged, her person +ridiculed, her acting laughed at; nothing will serve--she is +determined to be an actress, and scorns to return to her former +business as a milliner. Shall I go on? An actor in the same company +was visited by the apothecary of the place in an ague-fit, who, on +asking his landlady as to his way of life, was told that the poor +gentleman was very quiet and gave little trouble, that he generally +had a plate of mashed potatoes for his dinner, and lay in bed most of +his time, repeating his part. A young couple, every way amiable and +deserving, were to have been married, and a benefit-play was bespoke +by the officers of the regiment quartered there, to defray the expense +of a licence and of the wedding-ring, but the profits of the night did +not amount to the necessary sum, and they have, I fear, "virgined it +e'er since!" Oh for the pencil of Hogarth or Wilkie to give a view of +the comic strength of the company at ----, drawn up in battle-array in +the Clandestine Marriage, with a _coup d'oeil_ of the pit, boxes, and +gallery, to cure for ever the love of the _ideal_, and the desire to +shine and make holiday in the eyes of others, instead of retiring +within ourselves and keeping our wishes and our thoughts at home! + +Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, +how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands +of others! Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the +bitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance. Old companions +are like meats served up too often that lose their relish and their +wholesomeness. He who looks at beauty to admire, to adore it, who +reads of its wondrous power in novels, in poems, or in plays, is not +unwise: but let no man fall in love, for from that moment he is "the +baby of a girl." I like very well to repeat such lines as these in the +play of Mirandola-- + + --"With what a waving air she goes + Along the corridor. How like a fawn! + Yet statelier. Hark! No sound, however soft, + Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads, + But every motion of her shape doth seem + Hallowed by silence"-- + +but however beautiful the description, defend me from meeting with the +original! + + "The fly that sips treacle + Is lost in the sweets; + So he that tastes woman + Ruin meets." + +The song is Gay's, not mine, and a bitter-sweet it is.--How few out of +the infinite number of those that marry and are given in marriage, wed +with those they would prefer to all the world; nay, how far the +greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, +accident, recommendation of friends, or indeed not unfrequently by the +very fear of the event, by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination: +yet the tie is for life, not to be shaken off but with disgrace or +death: a man no longer lives to himself, but is a body (as well as +mind) chained to another, in spite of himself-- + + "Like life and death in disproportion met." + +So Milton (perhaps from his own experience) makes Adam exclaim, in the +vehemence of his despair, + + "For either + He never shall find out fit mate, but such + As some misfortune brings him or mistake; + Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain + Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd + By a far worse; or if she love, withheld + By parents; or his happiest choice too late + Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound + To a fell adversary, his hate and shame; + Which infinite calamity shall cause + To human life, and household peace confound." + +If love at first sight were mutual, or to be conciliated by kind +offices; if the fondest affection were not so often repaid and chilled +by indifference and scorn; if so many lovers both before and since the +madman in Don Quixote had not "worshipped a statue, hunted the wind, +cried aloud to the desert;" if friendship were lasting; if merit were +renown, and renown were health, riches, and long life; or if the +homage of the world were paid to conscious worth and the true +aspirations after excellence, instead of its gaudy signs and outward +trappings:--then indeed I might be of opinion that it is better to +live to others than one's-self: but as the case stands, I incline to +the negative side of the question.[30] + +[Footnote 30: Shenstone and Gray were two men, one of whom pretended +to live to himself, and the other really did so. Gray shrunk from the +public gaze (he did not even like his portrait to be prefixed to his +works) into his own thoughts and indolent musings; Shenstone affected +privacy, that he might be sought out by the world; the one courted +retirement in order to enjoy leisure and repose, as the other +coquetted with it, merely to be interrupted with the importunity of +visitors and the flatteries of absent friends.] + + "I have not loved the world, nor the world me; + I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd + To its idolatries a patient knee-- + Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles--nor cried aloud + In worship of an echo; in the crowd + They could not deem me one of such; I stood + Among them, but not of them; in a shroud + Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, + Had I not filed my mind which thus itself subdued. + + "I have not loved the world, nor the world me-- + But let us part fair foes; I do believe, + Though I have found them not, that there may be + Words which are things--hopes which will not deceive, + And virtues which are merciful nor weave + Snares for the failing: I would also deem + O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; + That two, or one, are almost what they seem-- + That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream." + +Sweet verse embalms the spirit of sour misanthropy: but woe betide the +ignoble prose-writer who should thus dare to compare notes with the +world, or tax it roundly with imposture. + +If I had sufficient provocation to rail at the public, as Ben Jonson +did at the audience in the Prologues to his plays, I think I should do +it in good set terms, nearly as follows. There is not a more mean, +stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful +animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is +afraid of itself. From its unwieldy, overgrown dimensions, it dreads +the least opposition to it, and shakes like isinglass at the touch of +a finger. It starts at its own shadow, like the man in the Hartz +mountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has a +lion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleepless eyes. +It stands "listening its fears." It is so in awe of its own opinion, +that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour, +lest it should be behind-hand in its judgment, and echoes it till it +is deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what the +public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and +acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that in short +the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who +chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret +whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a +thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and +the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the "still, small +voice" of reason. We may believe or know that what is said is not +true: but we know or fancy that others believe it--we dare not +contradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and therefore +give up our internal, and, as we think, our solitary conviction to a +sound without substance, without proof, and often without meaning. Nay +more, we may believe and know not only that a thing is false, but that +others believe and know it to be so, that they are quite as much in +the secret of the imposture as we are, that they see the puppets at +work, the nature of the machinery, and yet if any one has the art or +power to get the management of it, he shall keep possession of the +public ear by virtue of a cant-phrase or nickname; and, by dint of +effrontery and perseverance, make all the world believe and repeat +what all the world know to be false. The ear is quicker than the +judgment. We know that certain things are said; by that circumstance +alone we know that they produce a certain effect on the imagination of +others, and we conform to their prejudices by mechanical sympathy, and +for want of sufficient spirit to differ with them. So far then is +public opinion from resting on a broad and solid basis, as the +aggregate of thought and feeling in a community, that it is slight and +shallow and variable to the last degree--the bubble of the moment--so +that we may safely say the public is the dupe of public opinion, not +its parent. The public is pusillanimous and cowardly, because it is +weak. It knows itself to be a great dunce, and that it has no opinions +but upon suggestion. Yet it is unwilling to appear in leading-strings, +and would have it thought that its decisions are as wise as they are +weighty. It is hasty in taking up its favourites, more hasty in laying +them aside, lest it should be supposed deficient in sagacity in either +case. It is generally divided into two strong parties, each of which +will allow neither common sense nor common honesty to the other side. +It reads the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and believes them +both--or if there is a doubt, malice turns the scale. Taylor and +Hessey told me that they had sold nearly two editions of the +Characters of Shakespeare's Plays in about three months, but that +after the Quarterly Review of them came out, they never sold another +copy. The public, enlightened as they are, must have known the meaning +of that attack as well as those who made it. It was not ignorance then +but cowardice that led them to give up their own opinion. A crew of +mischievous critics at Edinburgh having fixed the epithet of the +_Cockney School_ to one or two writers born in the metropolis, all the +people in London became afraid of looking into their works, lest they +too should be convicted of cockneyism. Oh brave public! This epithet +proved too much for one of the writers in question, and stuck like a +barbed arrow in his heart. Poor Keats! What was sport to the town was +death to him. Young, sensitive, delicate, he was like + + "A bud bit by an envious worm, + Ere he could spread his sweet leaves to the air, + Or dedicate his beauty to the sun"-- + +and unable to endure the miscreant cry and idiot laugh, withdrew to +sigh his last breath in foreign climes.--The public is as envious and +ungrateful as it is ignorant, stupid, and pigeon-livered-- + + "A huge-sized monster of ingratitudes." + +It reads, it admires, it extols only because it is the fashion, not +from any love of the subject or the man. It cries you up or runs you +down out of mere caprice and levity. If you have pleased it, it is +jealous of its own involuntary acknowledgment of merit, and seizes the +first opportunity, the first shabby pretext, to pick a quarrel with +you, and be quits once more. Every petty caviller is erected into a +judge, every tale-bearer is implicitly believed. Every little low +paltry creature that gaped and wondered only because others did so, is +glad to find you (as he thinks) on a level with himself. An author is +not then, after all, a being of another order. Public admiration is +forced, and goes against the grain. Public obloquy is cordial and +sincere: every individual feels his own importance in it. They give +you up bound hand and foot into the power of your accusers. To attempt +to defend yourself is a high crime and misdemeanour, a contempt of +court, an extreme piece of impertinence. Or, if you prove every charge +unfounded, they never think of retracting their error, or making you +amends. It would be a compromise of their dignity; they consider +themselves as the party injured, and resent your innocence as an +imputation on their judgment. The celebrated Bub Doddington, when out +of favour at court, said "he would not _justify_ before his sovereign: +it was for Majesty to be displeased, and for him to believe himself in +the wrong!" The public are not quite so modest. People already begin +to talk of the Scotch Novels as overrated. How then can common authors +be supposed to keep their heads long above water? As a general rule, +all those who live by the public starve, and are made a bye-word and a +standing jest into the bargain. Posterity is no better (not a bit more +enlightened or more liberal), except that you are no longer in their +power, and that the voice of common fame saves them the trouble of +deciding on your claims. The public now are the posterity of Milton +and Shakespeare. Our posterity will be the living public of a future +generation. When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect +monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday +in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? +No!--I was complaining of this to a Scotchman who had been attending a +dinner and a subscription to raise a monument to Burns. He replied, he +would sooner subscribe twenty pounds to his monument than have given +it him while living; so that if the poet were to come to life again, +he would treat him just as he was treated in fact. This was an honest +Scotchman. What _he_ said, the rest would do. + +Enough: my soul, turn from them, and let me try to regain the +obscurity and quiet that I love, "far from the madding strife," in +some sequestered corner of my own, or in some far-distant land! In the +latter case, I might carry with me as a consolation the passage in +Bolingbroke's Reflections on Exile, in which he describes in glowing +colours the resources which a man may always find within himself, and +of which the world cannot deprive him. + +"Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order in +the world, that of all which belongs to us, the least valuable parts +can alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is best is safest; +lies out of the reach of human power; can neither be given nor taken +away. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such +is the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world whereof +it makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours, and as long as +we remain in one we shall enjoy the other. Let us march therefore +intrepidly wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. +Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we +shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall feel the same +revolution of seasons, and the same sun and moon[31] will guide the +course of our year. The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will +be every where spread over our heads. There is no part of the world +from whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, in +different orbits round the same central sun; from whence we may not +discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars +hung up in the immense space of the universe, innumerable suns whose +beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them; +and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my +soul is thus raised up to heaven, imports me little what ground I +tread upon." + +[Footnote 31: Plut. of Banishment. He compares those who cannot live +out of their own country, to the simple people who fancied the moon of +Athens was a finer moon than that of Corinth, + + ----_Labentem coelo quae ducitis annum._ + VIRG., _Georg._] + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +OF PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN + + +B---- it was, I think, who suggested this subject, as well as the +defence of Guy Faux, which I urged him to execute. As, however, he +would undertake neither, I suppose I must do both--a task for which he +would have been much fitter, no less from the temerity than the +felicity of his pen-- + + "Never so sure our rapture to create + As when it touch'd the brink of all we hate." + +Compared with him I shall, I fear, make but a commonplace piece of +business of it; but I should be loth the idea was entirely lost, and +besides I may avail myself of some hints of his in the progress of it. +I am sometimes, I suspect, a better reporter of the ideas of other +people than expounder of my own. I pursue the one too far into paradox +or mysticism; the others I am not bound to follow farther than I like, +or than seems fair and reasonable. + +On the question being started, A---- said, "I suppose the two first +persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in +English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke?" In this A----, as +usual, reckoned without his host. Every one burst out a laughing at +the expression of B----'s face, in which impatience was restrained by +courtesy. "Yes, the greatest names," he stammered out hastily, "but +they were not persons--not persons."--"Not persons?" said A----, +looking wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be +premature. "That is," rejoined B----, "not characters, you know. By +Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, you mean the Essay on the Human +Understanding, and the _Principia_, which we have to this day. Beyond +their contents there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But +what we want to see any one _bodily_ for, is when there is something +peculiar, striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from +their writings, and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and +Newton were very like Kneller's portraits of them. But who could paint +Shakspeare?"--"Ay," retorted A----, "there it is; then I suppose you +would prefer seeing him and Milton instead?"--"No," said B----, +"neither. I have seen so much of Shakspeare on the stage and on +book-stalls, in frontispieces and on mantle-pieces, that I am quite +tired of the everlasting repetition: and as to Milton's face, the +impressions that have come down to us of it I do not like; it is too +starched and puritanical; and I should be afraid of losing some of the +manna of his poetry in the leaven of his countenance and the +precisian's band and gown."--"I shall guess no more," said A----. "Who +is it, then, you would like to see 'in his habit as he lived,' if you +had your choice of the whole range of English literature?" B---- then +named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip +Sidney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure +to encounter on the floor of his apartment in their nightgown and +slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this A---- +laughed outright, and conceived B---- was jesting with him; but as no +one followed his example, he thought there might be something in it, +and waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense. B---- +then (as well as I can remember a conversation that passed twenty +years ago--how time slips!) went on as follows: "The reason why I +pitch upon these two authors is, that their writings are riddles, and +they themselves the most mysterious of personages. They resemble the +soothsayers of old, who dealt in dark hints and doubtful oracles; and +I should like to ask them the meaning of what no mortal but +themselves, I should suppose, can fathom. There is Dr. Johnson, I have +no curiosity, no strange uncertainty about him: he and Boswell +together have pretty well let me into the secret of what passed +through his mind. He and other writers like him are sufficiently +explicit: my friends, whose repose I should be tempted to disturb, +(were it in my power) are implicit, inextricable, inscrutable. + + 'And call up him who left half-told + The story of Cambuscan bold.' + +"When I look at that obscure but gorgeous prose-composition (the +_Urn-burial_) I seem to myself to look into a deep abyss, at the +bottom of which are hid pearls and rich treasure; or it is like a +stately labyrinth of doubt and withering speculation, and I would +invoke the spirit of the author to lead me through it. Besides, who +would not be curious to see the lineaments of a man who, having +himself been twice married, wished that mankind were propagated like +trees! As to Fulke Greville, he is like nothing but one of his own +'Prologues spoken by the ghost of an old king of Ormus,' a truly +formidable and inviting personage: his style is apocalyptical, +cabalistical, a knot worthy of such an apparition to untie; and for +the unravelling a passage or two, I would stand the brunt of an +encounter with so portentous a commentator!"--"I am afraid in that +case," said A----, "that if the mystery were once cleared up, the +merit might be lost;"--and turning to me, whispered a friendly +apprehension, that while B---- continued to admire these old crabbed +authors, he would never become a popular writer. Dr. Donne was +mentioned as a writer of the same period, with a very interesting +countenance, whose history was singular, and whose meaning was often +quite as _uncomeatable_, without a personal citation from the dead, as +that of any of his contemporaries. The volume was produced; and while +some one was expatiating on the exquisite simplicity and beauty of the +portrait prefixed to the old edition, A---- got hold of the poetry, +and exclaiming "What have we here?" read the following:-- + + "'Here lies a She-Sun and a He-Moon there, + She gives the best light to his sphere, + Or each is both and all, and so + They unto one another nothing owe.'" + +There was no resisting this, till B----, seizing the volume, turned to +the beautiful "Lines to his Mistress," dissuading her from +accompanying him abroad, and read them with suffused features and a +faltering tongue. + + "'By our first strange and fatal interview, + By all desires which thereof did ensue, + By our long starving hopes, by that remorse + Which my words' masculine persuasive force + Begot in thee, and by the memory + Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me, + I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath, + By all pains which want and divorcement hath, + I conjure thee; and all the oaths which I + And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy + Here I unswear, and overswear them thus, + Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous. + Temper, oh fair Love! love's impetuous rage, + Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd Page; + I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind + Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind. + Thirst to come back; oh, if thou die before, + My soul from other lands to thee shall soar. + Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move + Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love, + Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read + How roughly he in pieces shivered + Fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. + Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have prov'd + Dangers unurg'd: Feed on this flattery, + That absent lovers one with th' other be. + Dissemble nothing, not a boy; nor change + Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange + To thyself only. All will spy in thy face + A blushing, womanly, discovering grace. + Richly cloth'd apes are called apes, and as soon + Eclips'd as bright we call the moon the moon. + Men of France, changeable cameleons, + Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions, + Love's fuellers, and the rightest company + Of players, which upon the world's stage be, + Will quickly know thee.... O stay here! for thee + England is only a worthy gallery, + To walk in expectation; till from thence + Our greatest King call thee to his presence. + When I am gone, dream me some happiness, + Nor let thy looks our long hid love confess, + Nor praise, nor dispraise me; nor bless, nor curse + Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse + With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh, + Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go, + O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, + Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die. + Augur me better chance, except dread Jove + Think it enough for me to have had thy love.'" + +Some one then inquired of B---- if we could not see from the window +the Temple-walk in which Chaucer used to take his exercise; and on his +name being put to the vote, I was pleased to find that there was a +general sensation in his favour in all but A----, who said something +about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected to the quaintness +of the orthography. I was vexed at this superficial gloss, +pertinaciously reducing everything to its own trite level, and asked +"if he did not think it would be worth while to scan the eye that had +first greeted the Muse in that dim twilight and early dawn of English +literature; to see the head, round which the visions of fancy must +have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch +those lips that "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"--as by a +miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had +been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to +modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing +before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist +withal, who has not only handed down to us the living manners of his +time, but had, no doubt, store of curious and quaint devices, and +would make as hearty a companion as Mine Host of Tabard. His interview +with Petrarch is fraught with interest. Yet I would rather have seen +Chaucer in company with the author of the Decameron, and have heard +them exchange their best stories together, the Squire's Tale against +the Story of the Falcon, the Wife of Bath's Prologue against the +Adventures of Friar Albert. How fine to see the high mysterious brow +which learning then wore, relieved by the gay, familiar tone of men of +the world, and by the courtesies of genius. Surely, the thoughts and +feelings which passed through the minds of these great revivers of +learning, these Cadmuses who sowed the teeth of letters, must have +stamped an expression on their features, as different from the moderns +as their books, and well worth the perusal. Dante," I continued, "is +as interesting a person as his own Ugolino, one whose lineaments +curiosity would as eagerly devour in order to penetrate his spirit, +and the only one of the Italian poets I should care much to see. There +is a fine portrait of Ariosto by no less a hand than Titian's; light, +Moorish, spirited, but not answering our idea. The same artist's large +colossal profile of Peter Aretine is the only likeness of the kind +that has the effect of conversing with 'the mighty dead,' and this is +truly spectral, ghastly, necromantic." B---- put it to me if I should +like to see Spenser as well as Chaucer; and I answered without +hesitation, "No; for that his beauties were ideal, visionary, not +palpable or personal, and therefore connected with less curiosity +about the man. His poetry was the essence of romance, a very halo +round the bright orb of fancy; and the bringing in the individual +might dissolve the charm. No tones of voice could come up to the +mellifluous cadence of his verse; no form but of a winged angel could +vie with the airy shapes he has described. He was (to our +apprehensions) rather 'a creature of the element, that lived in the +rainbow and played in the plighted clouds,' than an ordinary mortal. +Or if he did appear, I should wish it to be as a mere vision, like one +of his own pageants, and that he should pass by unquestioned like a +dream or sound-- + + ----'_That_ was Arion crown'd: + So went he playing on the wat'ry plain!'" + +Captain C. muttered something about Columbus, and M. C. hinted at the +Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and the first +made over to the New World. + +"I should like," said Miss D----, "to have seen Pope talking with +Patty Blount; and I _have_ seen Goldsmith." Every one turned round to +look at Miss D----, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of +Goldsmith. + +"Where," asked a harsh croaking voice, "was Dr. Johnson in the years +1745-6? He did not write anything that we know of, nor is there any +account of him in Boswell during those two years. Was he in Scotland +with the Pretender? He seems to have passed through the scenes in the +Highlands in company with Boswell many years after 'with lack-lustre +eye,' yet as if they were familiar to him, or associated in his mind +with interests that he durst not explain. If so, it would be an +additional reason for my liking him; and I would give something to +have seen him seated in the tent with the youthful Majesty of Britain, +and penning the Proclamation to all true subjects and adherents of the +legitimate Government." + +"I thought," said A----, turning short round upon B----, "that you of +the Lake School did not like Pope?"--"Not like Pope! My dear sir, you +must be under a mistake--I can read him over and over for ever!"--"Why +certainly, the 'Essay on Man' must be a masterpiece."--"It may be so, +but I seldom look into it."--"Oh! then it's his Satires you +admire?"--"No, not his Satires, but his friendly Epistles and his +compliments."--"Compliments! I did not know he ever made any."--"The +finest," said B----, "that were ever paid by the wit of man. Each of +them is worth an estate for life--nay, is an immortality. There is +that superb one to Lord Cornbury: + + 'Despise low joys, low gains; + Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; + Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.' + +"Was there ever more artful insinuation of idolatrous praise? And then +that noble apotheosis of his friend Lord Mansfield (however little +deserved), when, speaking of the House of Lords, he adds-- + + 'Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh, + (More silent far) where kings and poets lie; + Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) + Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!' + +"And with what a fine turn of indignant flattery he addresses Lord +Bolingbroke-- + + 'Why rail they then, if but one wreath of mine, + Oh! all accomplish'd St. John, deck thy shrine?' + +"Or turn," continued B----, with a slight hectic on his cheek and his +eye glistening, "to his list of early friends: + + 'But why then publish? Granville the polite, + And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; + Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise, + And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays: + The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, + Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head; + And St. John's self (great Dryden's friend before) + Received with open arms one poet more. + Happy my studies, if by these approved! + Happier their author, if by these beloved! + From these the world will judge of men and books, + Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.'" + +Here his voice totally failed him, and throwing down the book, he +said, "Do you think I would not wish to have been friends with such a +man as this?" + +"What say you to Dryden?"--"He rather made a show of himself, and +courted popularity in that lowest temple of Fame, a coffee-house, so +as in some measure to vulgarize one's idea of him. Pope, on the +contrary, reached the very _beau ideal_ of what a poet's life should +be; and his fame while living seemed to be an emanation from that +which was to circle his name after death. He was so far enviable (and +one would feel proud to have witnessed the rare spectacle in him) that +he was almost the only poet and man of genius who met with his reward +on this side of the tomb, who realized in friends, fortune, the esteem +of the world, the most sanguine hopes of a youthful ambition, and who +found that sort of patronage from the great during his lifetime which +they would be thought anxious to bestow upon him after his death. Read +Gay's verses to him on his supposed return from Greece, after his +translation of Homer was finished, and say if you would not gladly +join the bright procession that welcomed him home, or see it once more +land at Whitehall-stairs."--"Still," said Miss D----, "I would rather +have seen him talking with Patty Blount, or riding by in a +coronet-coach with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu!" + +E----, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room, +whispered to M. C. to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to +invoke from the dead. "Yes," said B----, "provided he would agree to +lay aside his mask." + +We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned +as a candidate: only one, however, seconded the proposition. +"Richardson?"--"By all means, but only to look at him through the +glass-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the +most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author +and his works), but not to let him come behind his counter lest he +should want you to turn customer, nor to go upstairs with him, lest he +should offer to read the first manuscript of Sir Charles Grandison, +which was originally written in eight and twenty volumes octavo, or +get out the letters of his female correspondents, to prove that Joseph +Andrews was low." + +There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any +one expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, +frank, rough, pimply face, and wily policy;--and one enthusiast, John +Bunyan, the immortal author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It seemed that +if he came into the room, dreams would follow him, and that each +person would nod under his golden cloud, "nigh-sphered in Heaven," a +canopy as strange and stately as any in Homer. + +Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the +greatest enthusiasm, who was proposed by J. F----. He presently +superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then +it was on condition that he should act in tragedy and comedy, in the +play and the farce, Lear and Wildair and Abel Drugger. What a _sight +for sore eyes_ that would be! Who would not part with a year's income +at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it? +Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory +things, what a troop he must bring with him--the silver-tongued Barry, +and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of +whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he was +young! This would indeed be a revival of the dead, the restoring of +art; and so much the more desirable, as such is the lurking scepticism +mingled with our overstrained admiration of past excellence, that +though we have the speeches of Burke, the portraits of Reynolds, the +writings of Goldsmith, and the conversation of Johnson, to show what +people could do at that period, and to confirm the universal testimony +to the merits of Garrick; yet, as it was before our time, we have our +misgivings, as if he was probably after all little better than a +Bartlemy-fair actor, dressed out to play Macbeth in a scarlet coat and +laced cocked-hat. For one, I should like to have seen and heard with +my own eyes and ears. Certainly, by all accounts, if any one was ever +moved by the true histrionic _aestus_, it was Garrick. When he followed +the Ghost in Hamlet, he did not drop the sword, as most actors do +behind the scenes, but kept the point raised the whole way round, so +fully was he possessed with the idea, or so anxious not to lose sight +of his part for a moment. Once at a splendid dinner-party at Lord +----'s, they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was +become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive +screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on +the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicing a +turkey-cock in the court-yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, +and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party +only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed +as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old +favourite. + +We were interrupted in the hey-day and mid-career of this fanciful +speculation, by a grumbler in a corner, who declared it was a shame to +make all this rout about a mere player and farce-writer, to the +neglect and exclusion of the fine old dramatists, the contemporaries +and rivals of Shakspeare. B---- said he had anticipated this objection +when he had named the author of Mustapha and Alaham; and out of +caprice insisted upon keeping him to represent the set, in preference +to the wild hair-brained enthusiast Kit Marlowe; to the sexton of St. +Ann's, Webster, with his melancholy yew-trees and death's-heads; to +Decker, who was but a garrulous proser; to the voluminous Heywood; and +even to Beaumont and Fletcher, whom we might offend by complimenting +the wrong author on their joint productions. Lord Brook, on the +contrary, stood quite by himself, or in Cowley's words, was "a vast +species alone." Some one hinted at the circumstance of his being a +lord, which rather startled B----, but he said a _ghost_ would perhaps +dispense with strict etiquette, on being regularly addressed by his +title. Ben Jonson divided our suffrages pretty equally. Some were +afraid he would begin to traduce Shakspeare, who was not present to +defend himself. "If he grows disagreeable," it was whispered aloud, +"there is G---- can match him." At length, his romantic visit to +Drummond of Hawthornden was mentioned, and turned the scale in his +favour. + +B---- inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would +choose to mention? And I answered, Eugene Aram.[32] The name of the +"Admirable Crichton" was suddenly started as a splendid example of +_waste_ talents, so different from the generality of his countrymen. +This choice was mightily approved by a North-Briton present, who +declared himself descended from that prodigy of learning and +accomplishment, and said he had family-plate in his possession as +vouchers for the fact, with the initials A. C.--_Admirable Crichton!_ +H---- laughed or rather roared as heartily at this as I should think +he has done for many years. + +[Footnote 32: See Newgate Calendar for 1758.] + +The last-named Mitre-courtier[33] then wished to know whether there +were any metaphysicians to whom one might be tempted to apply the +wizard spell? I replied, there were only six in modern times deserving +the name--Hobbes, Berkeley, Butler, Hartley, Hume, Leibnitz; and +perhaps Jonathan Edwards, a Massachusets man.[34] As to the French, +who talked fluently of having _created_ this science, there was not a +title in any of their writings, that was not to be found literally in +the authors I had mentioned. [Horne Tooke, who might have a claim to +come in under the head of Grammar, was still living.] None of these +names seemed to excite much interest, and I did not plead for the +reappearance of those who might be thought best fitted by the +abstracted nature of their studies for their present spiritual and +disembodied state, and who, even while on this living stage, were +nearly divested of common flesh and blood. As A---- with an uneasy +fidgetty face was about to put some question about Mr. Locke and +Dugald Stewart, he was prevented by M. C. who observed, "If J---- was +here, he would undoubtedly be for having up those profound and +redoubted scholiasts, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus." I said this +might be fair enough in him who had read or fancied he had read the +original works, but I did not see how we could have any right to call +up these authors to give an account of themselves in person, till we +had looked into their writings. + +[Footnote 33: B---- at this time occupied chambers in Mitre court, +Fleet Street.] + +[Footnote 34: Lord Bacon is not included in this list, nor do I know +where he should come in. It is not easy to make room for him and his +reputation together. This great and celebrated man in some of his +works recommends it to pour a bottle of claret into the ground of a +morning, and to stand over it, inhaling the perfumes. So he sometimes +enriched the dry and barren soil of speculation with the fine aromatic +spirit of his genius. His "Essays" and his "Advancement of Learning" +are works of vast depth and scope of observation. The last, though it +contains no positive discoveries, is a noble chart of human intellect, +and a guide to all future inquirers.] + +By this time it should seem that some rumour of our whimsical +deliberation had got wind, and had disturbed the _irritabile genus_ in +their shadowy abodes, for we received messages from several candidates +that we had just been thinking of. Gray declined our invitation, +though he had not yet been asked: Gay offered to come and bring in his +hand the Duchess of Bolton, the original Polly: Steele and Addison +left their cards as Captain Sentry and Sir Roger de Coverley: Swift +came in and sat down without speaking a word, and quitted the room as +abruptly: Otway and Chatterton were seen lingering on the opposite +side of the Styx, but could not muster enough between them to pay +Charon his fare: Thomson fell asleep in the boat, and was rowed back +again--and Burns sent a low fellow, one John Barleycorn, an old +companion of his who had conducted him to the other world, to say that +he had during his lifetime been drawn out of his retirement as a show, +only to be made an exciseman of, and that he would rather remain where +he was. He desired, however, to shake hands by his representative--the +hand, thus held out, was in a burning fever, and shook prodigiously. + +The room was hung round with several portraits of eminent painters. +While we were debating whether we should demand speech with these +masters of mute eloquence, whose features were so familiar to us, it +seemed that all at once they glided from their frames, and seated +themselves at some little distance from us. There was Leonardo with +his majestic beard and watchful eye, having a bust of Archimedes +before him; next him was Raphael's graceful head turned round to the +Fornarina; and on his other side was Lucretia Borgia, with calm, +golden locks; Michael Angelo had placed the model of St. Peter's on +the table before him; Corregio had an angel at his side; Titian was +seated with his Mistress between himself and Giorgioni; Guido was +accompanied by his own Aurora, who took a dice-box from him; Claude +held a mirror in his hand; Rubens patted a beautiful panther (led in +by a satyr) on the head; Vandyke appeared as his own Paris, and +Rembrandt was hid under furs, gold chains and jewels, which Sir Joshua +eyed closely, holding his hand so as to shade his forehead. Not a word +was spoken; and as we rose to do them homage, they still presented the +same surface to the view. Not being _bona-fide_ representations of +living people, we got rid of the splendid apparitions by signs and +dumb show. As soon as they had melted into thin air, there was a loud +noise at the outer door, and we found it was Giotto, Cimabue, and +Ghirlandaio, who had been raised from the dead by their earnest desire +to see their illustrious successors-- + + "Whose names on earth + In Fame's eternal records live for aye!" + +Finding them gone, they had no ambition to be seen after them, and +mournfully withdrew. "Egad!" said B----, "those are the very fellows I +should like to have had some talk with, to know how they could see to +paint when all was dark around them?" + +"But shall we have nothing to say," interrogated G. J----, "to the +Legend of Good Women?"--"Name, name, Mr. J----," cried H---- in a +boisterous tone of friendly exultation, "name as many as you please, +without reserve or fear of molestation!" J---- was perplexed between +so many amiable recollections, that the name of the lady of his choice +expired in a pensive whiff of his pipe; and B---- impatiently declared +for the Duchess of Newcastle. Mrs. Hutchinson was no sooner mentioned, +than she carried the day from the Duchess. We were the less solicitous +on this subject of filling up the posthumous lists of Good Women, as +there was already one in the room as good, as sensible, and in all +respects as exemplary, as the best of them could be for their lives! +"I should like vastly to have seen Ninon de l'Enclos," said that +incomparable person; and this immediately put us in mind that we had +neglected to pay honour due to our friends on the other side of the +Channel: Voltaire, the patriarch of levity, and Rousseau, the father +of sentiment, Montaigne and Rabelais (great in wisdom and in wit), +Moliere and that illustrious group that are collected round him (in +the print of that subject to hear him read his comedy of the Tartuffe +at the house of Ninon; Racine, La Fontaine, Rochefoucault, St. +Evremont, etc.). + +"There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather +see than all these--Don Quixote!" + +"Come, come!" said H----; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or +fabulous. What say you, Mr. B----? Are you for eking out your shadowy +list with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Ghengis +Khan?"--"Excuse me," said B----, "on the subject of characters in +active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet +of my own, which I beg leave to reserve."--"No, no! come, out with +your worthies!"--"What do you think of Guy Faux and Judas Iscariot?" +H---- turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full +of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all +sides; and A---- thought that B---- had now fairly entangled himself. +"Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, +"that Guy Faux, that poor fluttering annual scare-crow of straw and +rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him +sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels +of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to +Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is +that fellow G---- will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, +my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him, who, having +dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards +betray him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen +any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the least +idea of it."--"You have said enough, Mr. B----, to justify your +choice." + +"Oh! ever right, Menenius,--ever right!" + +"There is only one other person I can ever think of after this," +continued H----; but without mentioning a name that once put on a +semblance of mortality. "If Shakspeare was to come into the room, we +should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into +it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment!" + +As a lady present seemed now to get uneasy at the turn the +conversation had taken, we rose up to go.[35] The morning broke with +that dim, dubious light by which Giotto, Cimabue, and Ghirlandaio must +have seen to paint their earliest works; and we parted to meet again +and renew similar topics at night, the next night, and the night after +that, till that night overspread Europe which saw no dawn. The same +event, in truth, broke up our little Congress that broke up the great +one. But that was to meet again: our deliberations have never been +resumed. + +[Footnote 35: There are few things more contemptible than the +conversation of mere _men of the town_. It is made up of the +technicalities and cant of all professions, without the spirit or +knowledge of any. It is flashy and vapid, or is like the rinsings of +different liquors at a night-cellar instead of a bottle of fine old +port. It is without body or clearness, and a heap of affectation. In +fact, I am very much of the opinion of that old Scotch gentleman who +owned that "he preferred the dullest book he had ever read to the most +brilliant conversation it had ever fallen to his lot to hear!"] + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +ON A SUN-DIAL + + +_Horas non numero nisi serenas_--is the motto of a sun-dial near +Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the words and in the +thought unparalleled. Of all conceits it is surely the most classical. +"I count only the hours that are serene." What a bland and +care-dispelling feeling! How the shadows seem to fade on the +dial-plate as the sky lours, and time presents only a blank unless as +its progress is marked by what is joyous, and all that is not happy +sinks into oblivion! What a fine lesson is conveyed to the mind--to +take no note of time but by its benefits, to watch only for the smiles +and neglect the frowns of fate, to compose our lives of bright and +gentle moments, turning always to the sunny side of things, and +letting the rest slip from our imaginations, unheeded or forgotten! +How different from the common art of self-tormenting! For myself, as I +rode along the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, +slimy waves, my sensations were far from comfortable; but the reading +this inscription on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restored +me to myself; and still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it has the +power of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction. +I cannot help fancying it to be a legend of Popish superstition. Some +monk of the dark ages must have invented and bequeathed it to us, who, +loitering in trim gardens and watching the silent march of time, as +his fruits ripened in the sun or his flowers scented the balmy air, +felt a mild languor pervade his senses, and having little to do or to +care for, determined (in imitation of his sun-dial) to efface that +little from his thoughts or draw a veil over it, making of his life +one long dream of quiet! _Horas non numero nisi serenas_--he might +repeat, when the heavens were overcast and the gathering storm +scattered the falling leaves, and turn to his books and wrap himself +in his golden studies! Out of some mood of mind, indolent, elegant, +thoughtful, this exquisite device (speaking volumes) must have +originated. + +Of the several modes of counting time, that by the sun-dial is perhaps +the most apposite and striking, if not the most convenient or +comprehensive. It does not obtrude its observations, though it "morals +on the time," and, by its stationary character, forms a contrast to +the most fleeting of all essences. It stands _sub dio_--under the +marble air, and there is some connexion between the image of infinity +and eternity. I should also like to have a sunflower growing near it +with bees fluttering round.[36] [Footnote 36: Is this a verbal +fallacy? Or in the close, retired, sheltered scene which I have +imagined to myself, is not the sun-flower a natural accompaniment of +the sun-dial?] It should be of iron to denote duration, and have a +dull, leaden look. I hate a sun-dial made of wood, which is rather +calculated to show the variations of the seasons, than the progress of +time, slow, silent, imperceptible, chequered with light and shade. If +our hours were all serene, we might probably take almost as little +note of them, as the dial does of those that are clouded. It is the +shadows thrown across, that gives us warning of their flight. +Otherwise our impressions would take the same undistinguishable hue; +we should scarce be conscious of our existence. Those who have had +none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been +obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to enliven +the prospect before them. Most of the methods for measuring the lapse +of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious +recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some +pains to see how they got rid of it. The hour-glass is, I suspect, an +older invention; and it is certainly the most defective of all. Its +creeping sands are not indeed an unapt emblem of the minute, countless +portions of our existence; and the manner in which they gradually +slide through the hollow glass and diminish in number till not a +single one is left, also illustrates the way in which our years slip +from us by stealth: but as a mechanical invention, it is rather a +hindrance than a help, for it requires to have the time, of which it +pretends to count the precious moments, taken up in attention to +itself, and in seeing that when one end of the glass is empty, we turn +it round, in order that it may go on again, or else all our labour is +lost, and we must wait for some other mode of ascertaining the time +before we can recover our reckoning and proceed as before. The +philosopher in his cell, the cottager at her spinning-wheel must, +however, find an invaluable acquisition in this "companion of the +lonely hour," as it has been called,[37] which not only serves to tell +how the time goes, but to fill up its vacancies. What a treasure must +not the little box seem to hold, as if it were a sacred deposit of the +very grains and fleeting sands of life. What a business, in lieu of +other more important avocations, to see it out to the last sand, and +then to renew the process again on the instant, that there may not be +the least flaw or error in the account! What a strong sense must be +brought home to the mind of the value and irrecoverable nature of the +time that is fled; what a thrilling, incessant consciousness of the +slippery tenure by which we hold what remains of it! Our very +existence must seem crumbling to atoms, and running down (without a +miraculous reprieve) to the last fragment. "Dust to dust and ashes to +ashes" is a text that might be fairly inscribed on an hour-glass: it +is ordinarily associated with the scythe of Time and a Death's-head, +as a _Memento mori_; and has, no doubt, furnished many a tacit hint to +the apprehensive and visionary enthusiast in favour of a resurrection +to another life! + +[Footnote 37: + + "Once more, companion of the lonely hour, + I'll turn thee up again." + + _Bloomfield's Poems--The Widow to her Hour-glass._] + +The French give a different turn to things, less _sombre_ and less +edifying. A common and also a very pleasing ornament to a clock, in +Paris, is a figure of Time seated in a boat which Cupid is rowing +along, with the motto, _L'Amour fait passer le Tems_--which the wits +again have travestied into _Le Tems fait passer L'Amour_. All this is +ingenious and well; but it wants sentiment. I like a people who have +something that they love and something that they hate, and with whom +everything is not alike a matter of indifference or _pour passer le +tems_. The French attach no importance to anything, except for the +moment; they are only thinking how they shall get rid of one sensation +for another; all their ideas are _in transitu_. Every thing is +detached, nothing is accumulated. It would be a million of years +before a Frenchman would think of the _Horas non numero nisi serenas_. +Its impassioned repose and _ideal_ voluptuousness are as far from +their breasts as the poetry of that line in Shakspeare--"How sweet the +moonlight sleeps upon that bank!" They never arrive at the +classical--or the romantic. They blow the bubbles of vanity, fashion, +and pleasure; but they do not expand their perceptions into +refinement, or strengthen them into solidity. Where there is nothing +fine in the ground-work of the imagination, nothing fine in the +superstructure can be produced. They are light, airy, fanciful (to +give them their due)--but when they attempt to be serious (beyond mere +good sense) they are either dull or extravagant. When the volatile +salt has flown off, nothing but a _caput mortuum_ remains. They have +infinite crotchets and caprices with their clocks and watches, which +seem made for anything but to tell the hour--gold-repeaters, watches +with metal covers, clocks with hands to count the seconds. There is no +escaping from quackery and impertinence, even in our attempts to +calculate the waste of time. The years gallop fast enough for me, +without remarking every moment as it flies; and farther, I must say I +dislike a watch (whether of French or English manufacture) that comes +to me like a footpad with its face muffled, and does not present its +clear, open aspect like a friend, and point with its finger to the +time of day. All this opening and shutting of dull, heavy cases (under +pretence that the glass-lid is liable to be broken, or lets in the +dust or air and obstructs the movement of the watch), is not to +husband time, but to give trouble. It is mere pomposity and +self-importance, like consulting a mysterious oracle that one carries +about with one in one's pocket, instead of asking a common question of +an acquaintance or companion. There are two clocks which strike the +hour in the room where I am. This I do not like. In the first place, I +do not want to be reminded twice how the time goes (it is like the +second tap of a saucy servant at your door when perhaps you have no +wish to get up): in the next place, it is starting a difference of +opinion on the subject, and I am averse to every appearance of +wrangling and disputation. Time moves on the same, whatever disparity +there may be in our mode of keeping count of it, like true fame in +spite of the cavils and contradictions of the critics. I am no friend +to repeating watches. The only pleasant association I have with them +is the account given by Rousseau of some French lady, who sat up +reading the _New Heloise_ when it first came out, and ordering her +maid to sound the repeater, found it was too late to go to bed, and +continued reading on till morning. Yet how different is the interest +excited by this story from the account which Rousseau somewhere else +gives of his sitting up with his father reading romances, when a boy, +till they were startled by the swallows twittering in their nests at +day-break, and the father cried out, half angry and ashamed--"_Allons, +mons fils; je suis plus enfant que toi!_" In general, I have heard +repeating watches sounded in stage-coaches at night, when some +fellow-traveller suddenly awaking and wondering what was the hour, +another has very deliberately taken out his watch, and pressing the +spring, it has counted out the time; each petty stroke acting like a +sharp puncture on the ear, and informing me of the dreary hours I had +already passed, and of the more dreary ones I had to wait till +morning. + +The great advantage, it is true, which clocks have over watches and +other dumb reckoners of time is, that for the most part they strike +the hour--that they are as it were the mouth-pieces of time; that they +not only point it to the eye, but impress it on the ear; that they +"lend it both an understanding and a tongue." Time thus speaks to us +in an audible and warning voice. Objects of sight are easily +distinguished by the sense, and suggest useful reflections to the +mind; sounds, from their intermittent nature, and perhaps other +causes, appeal more to the imagination, and strike upon the heart. But +to do this, they must be unexpected and involuntary--there must be no +trick in the case--they should not be squeezed out with a finger and a +thumb; there should be nothing optional, personal in their occurrence; +they should be like stern, inflexible monitors, that nothing can +prevent from discharging their duty. Surely, if there is anything with +which we should not mix up our vanity and self-consequence, it is with +Time, the most independent of all things. All the sublimity, all the +superstition that hang upon this palpable mode of announcing its +flight, are chiefly attached to this circumstance. Time would lose its +abstracted character, if we kept it like a curiosity or a +jack-in-a-box: its prophetic warnings would have no effect, if it +obviously spoke only at our prompting, like a paltry ventriloquism. +The clock that tells the coming, dreaded hour--the castle bell, that +"with its brazen throat and iron tongue, sounds one unto the drowsy +ear of night"--the curfew, "swinging slow with sullen roar" o'er +wizard stream or fountain, are like a voice from other worlds, big +with unknown events. The last sound, which is still kept up as an old +custom in many parts of England, is a great favourite with me. I used +to hear it when a boy. It tells a tale of other times. The days that +are past, the generations that are gone, the tangled forest glades and +hamlets brown of my native country, the woodsman's art, the Norman +warrior armed for the battle or in his festive hall, the conqueror's +iron rule and peasant's lamp extinguished, all start up at the +clamorous peal, and fill my mind with fear and wonder. I confess, +nothing at present interests me but what has been--the recollection of +the impressions of my early life, or events long past, of which only +the dim traces remain in a smouldering ruin or half-obsolete custom. +That _things should be that are now no more_, creates in my mind the +most unfeigned astonishment. I cannot solve the mystery of the past, +nor exhaust my pleasure in it. The years, the generations to come, are +nothing to me. We care no more about the world in the year 2300 than +we do about one of the planets. Even George IV is better than the Earl +of Windsor. We might as well make a voyage to the moon as think of +stealing a march upon Time with impunity. _De non apparentibus et non +existentibus eadem est ratio._ Those who are to come after us and push +us from the stage seem like upstarts and pretenders, that may be said +to exist _in vacuo_, we know not upon what, except as they are blown +up with vain and self conceit by their patrons among the moderns. But +the ancients are true and _bona-fide_ people, to whom we are bound by +aggregate knowledge and filial ties, and in whom seen by the mellow +light of history we feel our own existence doubled and our pride +consoled, as we ruminate on the vestiges of the past. The public in +general, however, do not carry this speculative indifference about the +future to what is to happen to themselves, or to the part they are to +act in the busy scene. For my own part, I do; and the only wish I can +form, or that ever prompts the passing sigh, would be to live some of +my years over again--they would be those in which I enjoyed and +suffered most! + +The ticking of a clock in the night has nothing very interesting nor +very alarming in it, though superstition has magnified it into an +omen. In a state of vigilance or debility, it preys upon the spirits +like the persecution of a teazing pertinacious insect; and haunting +the imagination after it has ceased in reality, is converted into a +death-watch. Time is rendered vast by contemplating its minute +portions thus repeatedly and painfully urged upon its attention, as +the ocean in its immensity is composed of water-drops. A clock +striking with a clear and silver sound is a great relief in such +circumstances, breaks the spell, and resembles a sylph-like and +friendly spirit in the room. Foreigners, with all their tricks and +contrivances upon clocks and time-pieces, are strangers to the sound +of village-bells, though perhaps a people that can dance may dispense +with them. They impart a pensive, wayward pleasure to the mind, and +are a kind of chronology of happy events, often serious in the +retrospect--births, marriages, and so forth. Coleridge calls them "the +poor man's only music." A village-spire in England peeping from its +cluster of trees is always associated in imagination with this +cheerful accompaniment, and may be expected to pour its joyous tidings +on the gale. In Catholic countries, you are stunned with the +everlasting tolling of bells to prayers or for the dead. In the +Apennines, and other wild and mountainous districts of Italy, the +little chapel-bell with its simple tinkling sound has a romantic and +charming effect. The Monks in former times appear to have taken a +pride in the construction of bells as well as churches; and some of +those of the great cathedrals abroad (as at Cologne and Rouen) may be +fairly said to be hoarse with counting the flight of ages. The chimes +in Holland are a nuisance. They dance in the hours and the quarters. +They leave no respite to the imagination. Before one set has done +ringing in your ears, another begins. You do not know whether the +hours move or stand still, go backwards or forwards, so fantastical +and perplexing are their accompaniments. Time is a more staid +personage, and not so full of gambols. It puts you in mind of a tune +with variations, or of an embroidered dress. Surely, nothing is more +simple than time. His march is straightforward; but we should have +leisure allowed us to look back upon the distance we have come, and +not be counting his steps every moment. Time in Holland is a foolish +old fellow with all the antics of a youth, who "goes to church in a +coranto, and lights his pipe in a cinque-pace." The chimes with us, on +the contrary, as they come in every three or four hours, are like +stages in the journey of the day. They give a fillip to the lazy, +creeping hours, and relieve the lassitude of country-places. At noon, +their desultory, trivial song is diffused through the hamlet with the +odour of rashers of bacon; at the close of day they send the toil-worn +sleepers to their beds. Their discontinuance would be a great loss to +the thinking or unthinking public. Mr. Wordsworth has painted their +effect on the mind when he makes his friend Matthew, in a fit of +inspired dotage, + + "Sing those witty rhymes + About the crazy old church-clock + And the bewilder'd chimes." + +The tolling of the bell for deaths and executions is a fearful +summons, though, as it announces, not the advance of time but the +approach of fate, it happily makes no part of our subject. Otherwise, +the "sound of the bell" for Macheath's execution in the "Beggar's +Opera," or for that of the Conspirators in "Venice Preserved," with +the roll of the drum at a soldier's funeral, and a digression to that +of my Uncle Toby, as it is so finely described by Sterne, would +furnish ample topics to descant upon. If I were a moralist, I might +disapprove the ringing in the new and ringing out the old year. + + 'Why dance ye, mortals, o'er the grave of Time?' + +St. Paul's bell tolls only for the death of our English kings, or a +distinguished personage or two, with long intervals between.[38] + +[Footnote 38: Rousseau has admirably described the effect of bells on +the imagination in a passage in the Confessions, beginning "_Le son +des cloches m'a toujours singulierement affecte_," &c.] + +Those who have no artificial means of ascertaining the progress of +time, are in general the most acute in discerning its immediate signs, +and are most retentive of individual dates. The mechanical aids to +knowledge are not sharpeners of the wits. The understanding of a +savage is a kind of natural almanac, and more true in its +prognostication of the future. In his mind's eye he sees what has +happened or what is likely to happen to him, "as in a map the voyager +his course." Those who read the times and seasons in the aspect of the +heavens and the configurations of the stars, who count by moons and +know when the sun rises and sets, are by no means ignorant of their +own affairs or of the common concatenation of events. People in such +situations have not their faculties distracted by any multiplicity of +inquiries beyond what befalls themselves, and the outward appearances +that mark the change. There is, therefore, a simplicity and clearness +in the knowledge they possess, which often puzzles the more learned. I +am sometimes surprised at a shepherd-boy by the roadside, who sees +nothing but the earth and sky, asking me the time of day--he ought to +know so much better than any one how far the sun is above the horizon. +I suppose he wants to ask a question of a passenger, or to see if he +has a watch. Robinson Crusoe lost his reckoning in the monotony of his +life and that bewildering dream of solitude, and was fain to have +recourse to the notches in a piece of wood. What a diary was his! And +how time must have spread its circuit round him, vast and pathless as +the ocean! + +For myself, I have never had a watch nor any other mode of keeping +time in my possession, nor ever wish to learn how time goes. It is a +sign I have had little to do, few avocations, few engagements. When I +am in a town, I can hear the clock; and when I am in the country, I +can listen to the silence. What I like best is to lie whole mornings +on a sunny bank on Salisbury Plain, without any object before me, +neither knowing nor caring how time passes, and thus "with +light-winged toys of feathered Idleness" to melt down hours to +moments. Perhaps some such thoughts as I have here set down float +before me like motes before my half-shut eyes, or some vivid image of +the past by forcible contrast rushes by me--"Diana and her fawn, and +all the glories of the antique world;" then I start away to prevent +the iron from entering my soul, and let fall some tears into that +stream of time which separates me farther and farther from all I once +loved! At length I rouse myself from my reverie, and home to dinner, +proud of killing time with thought, nay even without thinking. +Somewhat of this idle humour I inherit from my father, though he had +not the same freedom from _ennui_, for he was not a metaphysician; and +there were stops and vacant intervals in his being which he did not +know how to fill up. He used in these cases, and as an obvious +resource, carefully to wind up his watch at night, and "with +lack-lustre eye" more than once in the course of the day look to see +what o'clock it was. Yet he had nothing else in his character in +common with the elder Mr. Shandy. Were I to attempt a sketch of him, +for my own or the reader's satisfaction, it would be after the +following manner:----but now I recollect, I have done something of the +kind once before, and were I to resume the subject here, some bat or +owl of a critic, with spectacled gravity, might swear I had stolen the +whole of this Essay from myself--or (what is worse) from him! So I had +better let it go as it is. + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +OF THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH + + +No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my +brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, +which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of +the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown--the other half +remains in store for us with all its countless treasures; for there is +no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make +the coming age our own.---- + + "The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us." + +Death, old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by us like the +idle air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still +be liable to them--we "bear a charmed life," which laughs to scorn all +such sickly fancies. As in setting out on a delightful journey, we +strain our eager gaze forward-- + + "Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail,"-- + +and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as +we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our +inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying +them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it +seems that we can go on so for ever. We look round in a new world, +full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in +ourselves all the vigour and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not +foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the +natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the +grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were _abstractedness_ of our +feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and +(our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us into +a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lived connection with +existence, we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting +union--a honey-moon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. +As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward +fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around +us--we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, +instead of which it only overflows the more--objects press around us, +filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires +that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of +death. From that plenitude of our being, we cannot change all at once +to dust and ashes, we cannot imagine "this sensible, warm motion, to +become a kneaded clod"--we are too much dazzled by the brightness of +the waking dream around us to look into the darkness of the tomb. We +no more see our end than our beginning: the one is lost in oblivion +and vacancy, as the other is hid from us by the crowd and hurry of +approaching events. Or the grim shadow is seen lingering in the +horizon, which we are doomed never to overtake, or whose last, faint, +glimmering outline touches upon Heaven and translates us to the skies! +Nor would the hold that life has taken of us permit us to detach our +thoughts from present objects and pursuits, even if we would. What is +there more opposed to health, than sickness; to strength and beauty, +than decay and dissolution; to the active search of knowledge than +mere oblivion? Or is there none of the usual advantage to bar the +approach of Death, and mock his idle threats; Hope supplies their +place, and draws a veil over the abrupt termination of all our +cherished schemes. While the spirit of youth remains unimpaired, ere +the "wine of life is drank up," we are like people intoxicated or in a +fever, who are hurried away by the violence of their own sensations: +it is only as present objects begin to pall upon the sense, as we have +been disappointed in our favourite pursuits, cut off from our closest +ties, that passion loosens its hold upon the breast, that we by +degrees become weaned from the world, and allow ourselves to +contemplate, "as in a glass, darkly," the possibility of parting with +it for good. The example of others, the voice of experience, has no +effect upon us whatever. Casualties we must avoid: the slow and +deliberate advances of age we can play at _hide-and-seek_ with. We +think ourselves too lusty and too nimble for that blear-eyed decrepid +old gentleman to catch us. Like the foolish fat scullion, in Sterne, +when she hears that Master Bobby is dead, our only reflection is--"So +am not I!" The idea of death, instead of staggering our confidence, +rather seems to strengthen and enhance our possession and our +enjoyment of life. Others may fall around us like leaves, or be mowed +down like flowers by the scythe of Time: these are but tropes and +figures to the unreflecting ears and overweening presumption of youth. +It is not till we see the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy, withering +around us, and our own pleasures cut up by the roots, that we bring +the moral home to ourselves, that we abate something of the wanton +extravagance of our pretensions, or that the emptiness and dreariness +of the prospect before us reconciles us to the stillness of the grave! + + "Life! thou strange thing, that hast a power to feel + Thou art, and to perceive that others are."[39] + +[Footnote 39: Fawcett's Art of War, a poem, 1794.] + +Well might the poet begin his indignant invective against an art, +whose professed object is its destruction, with this animated +apostrophe to life. Life is indeed a strange gift, and its privileges +are most miraculous. Nor is it singular that when the splendid boon is +first granted us, our gratitude, our admiration, and our delight +should prevent us from reflecting on our own nothingness, or from +thinking it will ever be recalled. Our first and strongest impressions +are taken from the mighty scene that is opened to us, and we very +innocently transfer its durability as well as magnificence to +ourselves. So newly found, we cannot make up our minds to parting with +it yet and at least put off that consideration to an indefinite term. +Like a clown at a fair, we are full of amazement and rapture, and have +no thoughts of going home, or that it will soon be night. We know our +existence only for external objects, and we measure it by them. We can +never be satisfied with gazing; and nature will still want us to look +on and applaud. Otherwise, the sumptuous entertainment, "the feast of +reason and the flow of soul," to which they were invited, seems little +better than a mockery and a cruel insult. We do not go from a play +till the scene is ended, and the lights are ready to be extinguished. +But the fair face of things still shines on; shall we be called away, +before the curtain falls, or ere we have scarce had a glimpse of what +is going on? Like children, our stepmother Nature holds us up to see +the raree-show of the universe; and then, as if life were a burthen to +support, lets us instantly down again. Yet in that short interval, +what "brave sublunary things" does not the spectacle unfold; like a +bubble, at one minute reflecting the universe, and the next, shook to +air!--To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, +to walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures, +to look down giddy precipices or over distant flowery vales, to see +the world spread out under one's finger in a map, to bring the stars +near, to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history, +and witness the revolutions of empires and the succession of +generations, to hear of the glory of Sidon and Tyre, of Babylon and +Susa, as of a faded pageant, and to say all these were, and are now +nothing, to think that we exist in such a point of time, and in such a +corner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the moving +scene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, to +hear + + ----"The stockdove plain amid the forest deep, + That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale"---- + +to traverse desert wildernesses, to listen to the midnight choir, to +visit lighted halls, or plunge into the dungeon's gloom, or sit in +crowded theatres and see life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold, +pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, to study the +works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worship fame +and to dream of immortality, to have read Shakspeare and belong to the +same species as Sir Isaac Newton;[40] to be and to do all this, and +then in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one like +a juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria; there is something revolting and +incredible to sense in the transition, and no wonder that, aided by +youth and warm blood, and the flush of enthusiasm, the mind contrives +for a long time to reject it with disdain and loathing as a monstrous +and improbable fiction, like a monkey on a house-top, that is loath, +amidst its fine discoveries and specious antics, to be tumbled +head-long into the street, and crushed to atoms, the sport and +laughter of the multitude! + +[Footnote 40: Lady Wortley Montagu says, in one of her letters, that +"she would much rather be a rich _effendi_, with all his ignorance, +than Sir Isaac Newton, with all his knowledge." This was not perhaps +an impolitic choice, as she had a better chance of becoming one than +the other, there being many rich effendis to one Sir Isaac Newton. The +wish was not a very intellectual one. The same petulance of rank and +sex breaks out everywhere in these "_Letters_". She is constantly +reducing the poets or philosophers who have the misfortune of her +acquaintance, to the figure they might make at her Ladyship's levee or +toilette, not considering that the public mind does not sympathize +with this process of a fastidious imagination. In the same spirit, she +declares of Pope and Swift, that "had it not been for the +_good-nature_ of mankind, these two superior beings were entitled, by +their birth and hereditary fortune, to be only a couple of link-boys." +Gulliver's Travels, and the Rape of the Lock, go for nothing in this +critical estimate, and the world raised the authors to the rank of +superior beings, in spite of their disadvantages of birth and fortune, +_out of pure good-nature_! So, again, she says of Richardson, that he +had never got beyond the servants' hall, and was utterly unfit to +describe the manners of people of quality; till, in the capricious +workings of her vanity, she persuades herself that Clarissa is very +like what she was at her age, and that Sir Thomas and Lady Grandison +strongly resembled what she had heard of her mother and remembered of +her father. It is one of the beauties and advantages of literature, +that it is the means of abstracting the mind from the narrowness of +local and personal prejudices, and of enabling us to judge of truth +and excellence by their inherent merits alone. Woe be to the pen that +would undo this fine illusion (the only reality), and teach us to +regulate our notions of genius and virtue by the circumstances in +which they happen to be placed! You would not expect a person whom you +saw in a servants' hall, or behind a counter, to write Clarissa; but +after he had written the work, to _pre-judge_ it from the situation of +the writer, is an unpardonable piece of injustice and folly. His merit +could only be the greater from the contrast. If literature is an +elegant accomplishment, which none but persons of birth and fashion +should be allowed to excel in, or to exercise with advantage to the +public, let them by all means take upon them the task of enlightening +and refining mankind: if they decline this responsibility as too heavy +for their shoulders, let those who do the drudgery in their stead, +however inadequately, for want of their polite example, receive the +meed that is their due, and not to be treated as low pretenders who +have encroached on the province of their betters. Suppose Richardson +to have been acquainted with the great man's steward, or valet, +instead of the great man himself, I will venture to say that there was +more difference between him who lived in an _ideal world_, and had the +genius and felicity to open that world to others, and his friend the +steward, than between the lacquey and the mere lord, or between those +who lived in different rooms of the same house, who dined on the same +luxuries at different tables, who rode outside or inside of the same +coach, and were proud of wearing or of bestowing the same tawdry +livery. If the lord is distinguished from his valet by any thing else, +it is by education and talent, which he has in common with our author. +But if the latter shows these in the highest degree, it is asked what +are his pretensions? Not birth or fortune, for neither of these would +enable him to write a Clarissa. One man is born with a title and +estate, another with genius. That is sufficient; and we have no right +to question the genius for want of _gentility_, unless the former ran +in families, or could be bequeathed with a fortune, which is not the +case. Were it so, the flowers of literature, like jewels and +embroidery, would be confined to the fashionable circles; and there +would be no pretenders to taste or elegance but those whose names were +found in the court list. No one objects to Claude's Landscapes as the +work of a pastrycook, or withholds from Raphael the epithet of +_divine_, because his parents were not rich. This impertinence is +confined to men of letters; the evidence of the senses baffles the +envy and foppery of mankind. No quarter ought to be given to this +_aristocratic_ tone of criticism whenever it appears. People of +quality are not contented with carrying all the external advantages +for their own share, but would persuade you that all the intellectual +ones are packed up in the same bundle. Lord Byron was a later instance +of this double and unwarrantable style of pretension--_monstrum +ingens, biforme_. He could not endure a lord who was not a wit, nor a +poet who was not a lord. Nobody but himself answered to his own +standard of perfection. Mr. Moore carries a proxy in his pocket from +some noble persons to estimate literary merit by the same rule. Lady +Mary calls Fielding names, but she afterwards makes atonement by doing +justice to his frank, free, hearty nature, where she says "his spirits +gave him raptures with his cook-maid, and cheerfulness when he was +starving in a garret, and his happy constitution made him forget every +thing when he was placed before a venison-pasty or over a flask of +champagne." She does not want shrewdness and spirit when her petulance +and conceit do not get the better of her, and she has done ample and +merited execution on Lord Bolingbroke. She is, however, very angry at +the freedoms taken with the Great; _smells a rat_ in this +indiscriminate scribbling, and the familiarity of writers with the +reading public; and inspired by her Turkish costume, foretells a +French or English revolution as the consequence of transferring the +patronage of letters from the _quality_ to the mob, and of supposing +that ordinary writers or readers can have any notions in common with +their superiors.] + +The change, from the commencement to the close of life, appears like a +fable, after it has taken place; how should we treat it otherwise than +as a chimera before it has come to pass? There are some things that +happened so long ago, places or persons we have formerly seen, of +which such dim traces remain, we hardly know whether it was sleeping +or waking they occurred; they are like dreams within the dream of +life, a mist, a film before the eye of memory, which, as we try to +recall them more distinctly, elude our notice altogether. It is but +natural that the lone interval that we thus look back upon, should +have appeared long and endless in prospect. There are others so +distinct and fresh, they seem but of yesterday--their very vividness +might be deemed a pledge of their permanence. Then, however far back +our impressions may go, we find others still older (for our years are +multiplied in youth); descriptions of scenes that we had read, and +people before our time, Priam and the Trojan war; and even then, +Nestor was old and dwelt delighted on his youth, and spoke of the +race, of heroes that were no more;--what wonder that, seeing this long +line of being pictured in our minds, and reviving as it were in us, we +should give ourselves involuntary credit for an indeterminate period +of existence? In the Cathedral at Peterborough there is a monument to +Mary, Queen of Scots, at which I used to gaze when a boy, while the +events of the period, all that had happened since, passed in review +before me. If all this mass of feeling and imagination could be +crowded into a moment's compass, what might not the whole of life be +supposed to contain? We are heirs of the past; we count upon the +future as our natural reversion. Besides, there are some of our early +impressions so exquisitely tempered, it appears that they must always +last--nothing can add to or take away from their sweetness and +purity--the first breath of spring, the hyacinth dipped in the dew, +the mild lustre of the evening-star, the rainbow after a storm--while +we have the full enjoyment of these, we must be young; and what can +ever alter us in this respect? Truth, friendship, love, books, are +also proof against the canker of time; and while we live, but for +them, we can never grow old. We take out a new lease of existence from +the objects on which we set our affections, and become abstracted, +impassive, immortal in them. We cannot conceive how certain sentiments +should ever decay or grow cold in our breasts; and, consequently, to +maintain them in their first youthful glow and vigour, the flame of +life must continue to burn as bright as ever, or rather, they are the +fuel that feed the sacred lamp, that kindle "the purple light of +love," and spread a golden cloud around our heads! Again, we not only +flourish and survive in our affections (in which we will not listen to +the possibility of a change, any more than we foresee the wrinkles on +the brow of a mistress), but we have a farther guarantee against the +thoughts of death in our favourite studies and pursuits, and in their +continual advance. Art we know is long; life, we feel, should be so +too. We see no end of the difficulties we have to encounter: +perfection is slow of attainment, and we must have time to accomplish +it in. Rubens complained that when he had just learnt his art, he was +snatched away from it: we trust we shall be more fortunate! A wrinkle +in an old head takes whole days to finish it properly: but to catch +"the Raphael grace, the Guido air," no limit should be put to our +endeavours. What a prospect for the future! What a task we have +entered upon! and shall we be arrested in the middle of it? We do not +reckon our time thus employed lost, or our pains thrown away, or our +progress slow--we do not droop or grow tired, but "gain new vigour at +our endless task;"--and shall Time grudge us the opportunity to finish +what we have auspiciously begun, and have formed a sort of compact +with nature to achieve? The fame of the great names we look up to is +also imperishable; and shall not we, who contemplate it with such +intense yearnings, imbibe a portion of ethereal fire, the _divinae +particula aurae_, which nothing can extinguish? I remember to have +looked at a print of Rembrandt for hours together, without being +conscious of the flight of time, trying to resolve it into its +component parts, to connect its strong and sharp gradations, to learn +the secret of its reflected lights, and found neither satiety nor +pause in the prosecution of my studies. The print over which I was +poring would last long enough; why should the idea in my mind, which +was finer, more impalpable, perish before it? At this, I redoubled the +ardour of my pursuit, and by the very subtlety and refinement of my +inquiries, seemed to bespeak for them an exemption from corruption and +the rude grasp of Death.[41] + +[Footnote 41: Is it not this that frequently keeps artists alive so +long, _viz._ the constant occupation of their minds with vivid images, +with little of the _wear-and-tear_ of the body?] + +Objects, on our first acquaintance with them, have that singleness and +integrity of impression that it seems as if nothing could destroy or +obliterate them, so firmly are they stamped and rivetted on the brain. +We repose on them with a sort of voluptuous indolence, in full faith +and boundless confidence. We are absorbed in the present moment, or +return to the same point--idling away a great deal of time in youth, +thinking we have enough and to spare. There is often a local feeling +in the air, which is as fixed as if it were of marble; we loiter in +dim cloisters, losing ourselves in thought and in their glimmering +arches; a winding road before us seems as long as the journey of life, +and as full of events. Time and experience dissipate this illusion; +and by reducing them to detail, circumscribe the limits of our +expectations. It is only as the pageant of life passes by and the +masques turn their backs upon us, that we see through the deception, +or believe that the train will have an end. In many cases, the slow +progress and monotonous texture of our lives, before we mingle with +the world and are embroiled in its affairs, has a tendency to aid the +same feeling. We have a difficulty, when left to ourselves, and +without the resource of books or some more lively pursuit, to "beguile +the slow and creeping hours of time," and argue that if it moves on +always at this tedious snail's-pace, it can never come to an end. We +are willing to skip over certain portions of it that separate us from +favourite objects, that irritate ourselves at the unnecessary delay. +The young are prodigal of life from a superabundance of it; the old +are tenacious on the same score, because they have little left, and +cannot enjoy even what remains of it. + +For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, and that +event had considerable influence on my early feelings, as on those of +others. Youth was then doubly such. It was the dawn of a new era, a +new impulse had been given to men's minds, and the sun of Liberty rose +upon the sun of Life in the same day, and both were proud to run their +race together. Little did I dream, while my first hopes and wishes +went hand in hand with those of the human race, that long before my +eyes should close, that dawn would be overcast, and set once more in +the night of despotism--"total eclipse!" Happy that I did not. I felt +for years, and during the best part of my existence, _heart-whole_ in +that cause, and triumphed in the triumphs over the enemies of man! At +that time, while the fairest aspirations of the human mind seemed +about to be realized, ere the image of man was defaced and his breast +mangled in scorn, philosophy took a higher, poetry could afford a +deeper range. At that time, to read the "Robbers," was indeed +delicious, and to hear + + "From the dungeon of the tower time-rent, + That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry," + +could be borne only amidst the fulness of hope, the crash of the fall +of the strongholds of power, and the exulting sounds of the march of +human freedom. What feelings the death-scene in Don Carlos sent into +the soul! In that headlong career of lofty enthusiasm, and the joyous +opening of the prospects of the world and our own, the thought of +death crossing it, smote doubly cold upon the mind; there was a +stifling sense of oppression and confinement, an impatience of our +present knowledge, a desire to grasp the whole of our existence in one +strong embrace, to sound the mystery of life and death, and in order +to put an end to the agony of doubt and dread, to burst through our +prison-house, and confront the King of Terrors in his grisly +palace!... As I was writing out this passage, my miniature-picture +when a child lay on the mantle-piece, and I took it out of the case to +look at it. I could perceive few traces of myself in it; but there was +the same placid brow, the dimpled mouth, the same timid, inquisitive +glance as ever. But its careless smile did not seem to reproach me +with having become a recreant to the sentiments that were then sown in +my mind, or with having written a sentence that could call up a blush +in this image of ingenuous youth! + +"That time is past with all its giddy raptures." Since the future was +barred to my progress, I have turned for consolation to the past, +gathering up the fragments of my early recollections, and putting them +into a form that might live. It is thus, that when we find our +personal and substantial identity vanishing from us, we strive to gain +a reflected and substituted one in our thoughts: we do not like to +perish wholly, and wish to bequeath our names at least to posterity. +As long as we can keep alive our cherished thoughts and nearest +interests in the minds of others, we do not appear to have retired +altogether from the stage, we still occupy a place in the estimation +of mankind, exercise a powerful influence over them, and it is only +our bodies that are trampled into dust or dispersed to air. Our +darling speculations still find favour and encouragement, and we make +as good a figure in the eyes of our descendants, nay, perhaps, a +better than we did in our life-time. This is one point gained; the +demands of our self-love are so far satisfied. Besides, if by the +proofs of intellectual superiority we survive ourselves in this world, +by exemplary virtue or unblemished faith, we are taught to ensure an +interest in another and a higher state of being, and to anticipate at +the same time the applauses of men and angels. + + "Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries; + Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." + +As we advance in life, we acquire a keener sense of the value of time. +Nothing else, indeed, seems of any consequence; and we become misers +in this respect. We try to arrest its few last tottering steps, and to +make it linger on the brink of the grave. We can never leave off +wondering how that which has ever been should cease to be, and would +still live on, that we may wonder at our own shadow, and when "all the +life of life is flown," dwell on the retrospect of the past. This is +accompanied by a mechanical tenaciousness of whatever we possess, by a +distrust and a sense of fallacious hollowness in all we see. Instead +of the full, pulpy feeling of youth, everything is flat and insipid. +The world is a painted witch, that puts us off with false shows and +tempting appearances. The ease, the jocund gaiety, the unsuspecting +security of youth are fled: nor can we, without flying in the face of +common sense, + + "From the last dregs of life, hope to receive + What its first sprightly runnings could not give." + +If we can slip out of the world without notice or mischance, can +tamper with bodily infirmity, and frame our minds to the becoming +composure of _still-life_, before we sink into total insensibility, it +is as much as we ought to expect. We do not in the regular course of +nature die all at once: we have mouldered away gradually long before; +faculty after faculty, attachment after attachment, we are torn from +ourselves piece-meal while living; year after year takes something +from us; and death only consigns the last remnant of what we were to +the grave. The revulsion is not so great, and a quiet _euthanasia_ is +a winding-up of the plot, that is not out of reason or nature. + +That we should thus in a manner outlive ourselves, and dwindle +imperceptibly into nothing, is not surprising, when even in our prime +the strongest impressions leave so little traces of themselves behind, +and the last object is driven out by the succeeding one. How little +effect is produced on us at any time by the books we have read, the +scenes we have witnessed, the sufferings we have gone through! Think +only of the variety of feelings we experience in reading an +interesting romance, or being present at a fine play--what beauty, +what sublimity, what soothing, what heart-rending emotions! You would +suppose these would last for ever, or at least subdue the mind to a +correspondent tone and harmony--while we turn over the page, while the +scene is passing before us, it seems as if nothing could ever after +shake our resolution, that "treason domestic, foreign levy, nothing +could touch us farther!" The first splash of mud we get, on entering +the street, the first pettifogging shop-keeper that cheats us out of +twopence, and the whole vanishes clean out of our remembrance, and we +become the idle prey of the most petty and annoying circumstances. The +mind soars by an effort to the grand and lofty: it is at home, in the +grovelling, the disagreeable, and the little. This happens in the +height and heyday of our existence, when novelty gives a stronger +impulse to the blood and takes a faster hold of the brain, (I have +known the impression on coming out of a gallery of pictures then last +half a day)--as we grow old, we become more feeble and querulous, +every object "reverbs its own hollowness," and both worlds are not +enough to satisfy the peevish importunity and extravagant presumption +of our desires! There are a few superior, happy beings, who are born +with a temper exempt from every trifling annoyance. This spirit sits +serene and smiling as in its native skies, and a divine harmony +(whether heard or not) plays around them. This is to be at peace. +Without this, it is in vain to fly into deserts, or to build a +hermitage on the top of rocks, if regret and ill-humour follow us +there: and with this, it is needless to make the experiment. The only +true retirement is that of the heart; the only true leisure is the +repose of the passions. To such persons it makes little difference +whether they are young or old; and they die as they have lived, with +graceful resignation. + + _Hazlitt._ + + + + +A VISION + + +A feeling of sadness, a peculiar melancholy, is wont to take +possession of me alike in spring and in autumn. But in spring it is +the melancholy of hope: in autumn it is the melancholy of resignation. +As I was journeying on foot through the Apennines, I fell in with a +pilgrim in whom the spring and the autumn and the melancholy of both +seemed to have combined. In his discourse there were the freshness and +the colours of April: + + "Qual ramicel a ramo, + Tal da pensier pensiero + In lui germogliava." + +But as I gazed on his whole form and figure, I bethought me of the not +unlovely decays, both of age and of the late season, in the stately +elm, after the clusters have been plucked from its entwining vines, +and the vines are as bands of dried withies around its trunk and +branches. Even so there was a memory on his smooth and ample forehead, +which blended with the dedication of his steady eyes, that still +looked--I know not, whether upward, or far onward, or rather to the +line of meeting where the sky rests upon the distance. But how may I +express--the breathed tarnish, shall I name it?--on the lustre of the +pilgrim's eyes? Yet had it not a sort of strange accordance with their +slow and reluctant movement, whenever he turned them to any object on +the right hand or on the left? It seemed, methought, as if there lay +upon the brightness a shadowy presence of disappointments now unfelt, +but never forgotten. It was at once the melancholy of hope and of +resignation. + +We had not long been fellow-travellers, ere a sudden tempest of wind +and rain forced us to seek protection in the vaulted doorway of a lone +chapelry: and we sat face to face, each on the stone bench alongside +the low, weather-stained wall, and as close as possible to the massy +door. + +After a pause of silence: "Even thus," said he, "like two strangers +that have fled to the same shelter from the same storm, not seldom do +despair and hope meet for the first time in the porch of death!" "All +extremes meet," I answered; "but yours was a strange and visionary +thought." "The better then doth it beseem both the place and me," he +replied. "From a visionary wilt thou hear a vision? Mark that vivid +flash through this torrent of rain! Fire and water. Even here thy +adage holds true, and its truth is the moral of my vision." I +entreated him to proceed. Sloping his face toward the arch and yet +averting his eye from it, he seemed to seek and prepare his words: +till listening to the wind that echoed within the hollow edifice, and +to the rain without, + + "Which stole on his thoughts with its two-fold sound, + The clash hard by and the murmur all round," + +he gradually sank away, alike from me and from his own purpose, and +amid the gloom of the storm and in the duskiness of that place he sat +like an emblem on a rich man's sepulchre, or like an aged mourner on +the sodded grave of an only one, who is watching the waned moon and +sorroweth not. Starting at length from his brief trance of +abstraction, with courtesy and an atoning smile he renewed his +discourse, and commenced his parable: + +"During one of those short furloughs from the service of the body, +which the soul may sometimes obtain even in this, its militant state, +I found myself in a vast plain, which I immediately knew to be the +Valley of Life. It possessed an astonishing diversity of soils: and +here was a sunny spot, and there a dark one, forming just such a +mixture of sunshine and shade as we may have observed on the +mountain's side in an April day, when the thin broken clouds are +scattered over heaven. Almost in the very entrance of the valley stood +a large and gloomy pile, into which I seemed constrained to enter. +Every part of the building was crowded with tawdry ornaments and +fantastic deformity. On every window was portrayed, in glaring and +inelegant colours, some horrible tale or preternatural incident, so +that not a ray of light could enter, untinged by the medium through +which it passed. The body of the building was full of people, some of +them dancing in and out, in unintelligible figures, with strange +ceremonies and antic merriment, while others seemed convulsed with +horror, or pining in mad melancholy. Intermingled with these, I +observed a number of men, clothed in ceremonial robes, who appeared +now to marshal the various groups and to direct their movements; and +now, with menacing countenances, to drag some reluctant victim to a +vast idol, framed of iron bars intercrossed, which formed at the same +time an immense cage, and the form of a human Colossus. + +"I stood for a while lost in wonder what these things might mean; when +lo! one of the directors came up to me, and with a stern and +reproachful look bade me uncover my head; for that the place, into +which I had entered, was the temple of the only true religion, in the +holier recesses of which the great goddess personally resided. Himself +too he bade me reverence, as the consecrated minister of her rites. +Awe-struck by the name of religion, I bowed before the priest, and +humbly and earnestly intreated him to conduct me into her presence. He +assented. Offerings he took from me, with mystic sprinklings of water +and with salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he exorcised +me; and then led me through many a dark and winding alley, the +dew-damps of which chilled my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my +feet, mingled, methought, with moanings, affrighted me. At length we +entered a large hall where not even a single lamp glimmered. It was +made half visible by the wan phosphoric rays which proceeded from +inscriptions on the walls, in letters of the same pale and sepulchral +light. I could read them, methought; but though each one of the words +taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I took them in +sentences, they were riddles and incomprehensible. As I stood +meditating on these hard sayings, my guide thus addressed me: 'The +fallible becomes infallible, and the infallible remains fallible. Read +and believe: these are mysteries!' In the middle of the vast hall the +goddess was placed. Her features, blended with darkness, rose out to +my view, terrible, yet vacant. No definite thought, no distinct image +was afforded me: all was uneasy and obscure feeling. I prostrated +myself before her, and then retired with my guide, soul-withered, and +wondering, and dissatisfied. + +"As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deep buzz as of +discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or +steady, and whose ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, +above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed by meditative +thought, and a much larger number who were enraged by the severity and +insolence of the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected in +one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry of 'This is the +Temple of Superstition!' after much contumely, and turmoil, and cruel +mal-treatment on all sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, +joined them. + +"We speeded from the temple with hasty steps, and had now nearly gone +round half the valley, when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyond +the stature of mortals, and with a something more than human in her +countenance and mien, which yet could by mortals be only felt, not +conveyed by words or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, +animated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them; and hope, without +its uncertainty, and a something more than all these, which I +understood not; but which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine +unity of expression. Her garments were white and matronly, and of the +simplest texture. We inquired her name. My name, she replied, is +Religion. + +"The more numerous part of our company, affrighted by the very sound, +and sore from recent impostures or sorceries, hurried onwards and +examined no farther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition of +her form and manner to those of the living Idol, whom we had so +recently abjured, agreed to follow her, though with cautious +circumspection. She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, +from the top of which we could command the whole plain, and observe +the relation of the different parts, of each to the other, and of each +to the whole, and of all to each. She then gave us an optic glass +which assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and enabled +us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley of Life; though our eye +even thus assisted permitted us only to behold a light and a glory, +but what we could not descry, save only that it _was_, and that it was +most glorious. + +"And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I had overtaken and +rejoined the more numerous party, who had abruptly left us, indignant +at the very name of religion. They journeyed on, goading each other +with remembrances of past oppressions, and never looking back, till in +the eagerness to recede from the Temple of Superstition they had +rounded the whole circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us the +mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and almost +perpendicular rock, the interior side of which, unknown to them, and +unsuspected, formed the extreme and backward wall of the temple. An +impatient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave, which was the +only perforation of the precipice. At the mouth of the cave sat two +figures; the first, by her dress and gestures, I knew to be +Sensuality; the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanour, and +the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared himself to be the +monster Blasphemy. He uttered big words, and yet ever and anon I +observed that he turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some +remained in the opening of the cave, with the one or the other of its +guardians. The rest, and I among them, pressed on, till we reached an +ample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the +place was unnaturally cold. + +"In the furthest distance of the chamber sat an old dim-eyed man, +poring with a microscope over the torso of a statue, which had neither +base, nor feet, nor head; but on its breast was carved, Nature! To +this he continually applied his glass, and seemed enraptured with the +various inequalities which it rendered visible on the seemingly +polished surface of the marble. Yet evermore was this delight and +triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and vehement railing +against a Being who yet, he assured us, had no existence. This mystery +suddenly recalled to me what I had read in the holiest recess of the +Temple of _Superstition_. The old man spoke in divers tongues, and +continued to utter other and most strange mysteries. Among the rest he +talked much and vehemently concerning an infinite series of causes and +effects, which he explained to be--a string of blind men, the last of +whom caught hold of the skirt of the one before him, he of the next, +and so on till they were all out of sight; and that they all walked +infallibly straight, without making one false step, though all were +alike blind. Methought I borrowed courage from surprise, and asked +him--Who then is at the head to guide them? He looked at me with +ineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry suspicion, and then +replied, 'No one;--the string of blind men went on for ever without +any beginning: for although one blind man could not move without +stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of sight.' I burst +into laughter, which instantly turned to terror--for as he started +forward in rage, I caught a glance of him from behind; and lo! I +beheld a monster biform and Janus-headed, in the hinder face and shape +of which I instantly recognised the dread countenance of +Superstition--and in the terror I awoke." + + _Coleridge._ + + + + +UPON EPITAPHS + + +It needs scarcely be said, that an Epitaph presupposes a Monument, +upon which it is to be engraven. Almost all Nations have wished that +certain external signs should point out the places where their Dead +are interred. Among savage Tribes unacquainted with Letters, this has +mostly been done either by rude stones placed near the Graves, or by +Mounds of earth raised over them. This custom proceeded obviously from +a twofold desire; first, to guard the remains of the deceased from +irreverent approach or from savage violation: and, secondly, to +preserve their memory. "Never any," says Camden, "neglected burial but +some savage Nations; as the Bactrians, which cast their dead to the +dogs; some varlet Philosophers, as Diogenes, who desired to be +devoured of fishes; some dissolute Courtiers, as Maecenas, who was wont +to say, Non tumulum curo; sepelit natura relictos. + + "I'm careless of a Grave:--Nature her dead will save." + +As soon as Nations had learned the use of letters, Epitaphs were +inscribed upon these Monuments; in order that their intention might be +more surely and adequately fulfilled. I have derived Monuments and +Epitaphs from two sources of feeling: but these do in fact resolve +themselves into one. The invention of Epitaphs, Weever, in his +Discourse of Funeral Monuments, says rightly, "proceeded from the +presage or fore-feeling of Immortality, implanted in all men +naturally, and is referred to the Scholars of Linus the Theban Poet, +who flourished about the year of the World two thousand seven hundred; +who first bewailed this Linus their Master, when he was slain, in +doleful verses, then called of him OElina, afterwards Epitaphia, for +that they were first sung at burials, after engraved upon the +Sepulchres." + +And, verily, without the consciousness of a principle of Immortality +in the human soul, Man could never have had awakened in him the desire +to live in the remembrance of his fellows: mere love, or the yearning +of Kind towards Kind, could not have produced it. The Dog or Horse +perishes in the field, or in the stall, by the side of his companions, +and is incapable of anticipating the sorrow with which his surrounding +Associates shall bemoan his death, or pine for his loss; he cannot +pre-conceive this regret, he can form no thought of it; and therefore +cannot possibly have a desire to leave such regret or remembrance +behind him. Add to the principle of love, which exists in the inferior +animals, the faculty of reason which exists in Man alone; will the +conjunction of these account for the desire? Doubtless it is a +necessary consequence of this conjunction; yet not I think as a direct +result, but only to be come at through an intermediate thought, viz. +That of an intimation or assurance within us, that some part of our +nature is imperishable. At least the precedence, in order of birth, of +one feeling to the other, is unquestionable. If we look back upon the +days of childhood, we shall find that the time is not in remembrance +when, with respect to our own individual Being, the mind was without +this assurance; whereas the wish to be remembered by our Friends or +Kindred after Death, or even in Absence, is, as we shall discover, a +sensation that does not form itself till the _social_ feelings have +been developed, and the Reason has connected itself with a wide range +of objects. Forlorn, and cut off from communication with the best part +of his nature, must that Man be, who should derive the sense of +immortality, as it exists in the mind of a Child, from the same +unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal Spirits with which the Lamb +in the meadow, or any other irrational Creature, is endowed; who +should ascribe it, in short, to blank ignorance in the Child; to an +inability arising from the imperfect state of his faculties to come, +in any point of his being, into contact with a notion of Death; or to +an unreflecting acquiescence in what had been instilled into him! Has +such an unfolder of the mysteries of Nature, though he may have +forgotten his former self, ever noticed the early, obstinate, and +unappeasable inquisitiveness of Children upon the subject of +origination? This single fact proves outwardly the monstrousness of +those suppositions: for, if we had no direct external testimony that +the minds of very young Children meditate feelingly upon Death and +Immortality, these inquiries, which we all know they are perpetually +making concerning the _whence_, do necessarily include correspondent +habits of interrogation concerning the _whither_. Origin and tendency +are notions inseparably co-relative. Never did a Child stand by the +side of a running Stream, pondering within himself what power was the +feeder of the perpetual current, from what never-wearied sources the +body of water was supplied, but he must have been inevitably propelled +to follow this question by another: "towards what abyss is it in +progress? what receptacle can contain the mighty influx?" And the +spirit of the answer must have been, though the word might be Sea or +Ocean, accompanied perhaps with an image gathered from a Map, or from +the real object in Nature--these might have been the _letter_, but the +_spirit_ of the answer must have been _as_ inevitably,--a receptacle +without bounds or dimensions;--nothing less than infinity. We may, +then, be justified in asserting, that the sense of Immortality, if not +a co-existent and twin birth with Reason, is among the earliest of her +Offspring: and we may further assert, that from these conjoined, and +under their countenance, the human affections are gradually formed and +opened out. This is not the place to enter into the recesses of these +investigations; but the subject requires me here to make a plain +avowal, that, for my own part, it is to me inconceivable, that the +sympathies of love towards each other, which grow with our growth, +could ever attain any new strength, or even preserve the old, after we +had received from the outward senses the impression of Death, and were +in the habit of having that impression daily renewed and its +accompanying feeling brought home to ourselves, and to those we love; +if the same were not counteracted by those communications with our +internal Being, which are anterior to all these experiences, and with +which revelation coincides, and has through that coincidence alone +(for otherwise it could not possess it) a power to affect us. I +confess, with me the conviction is absolute, that, if the impression +and sense of Death were not thus counterbalanced, such a hollowness +would pervade the whole system of things, such a want of +correspondence and consistency, a disproportion so astounding betwixt +means and ends, that there could be no repose, no joy. Were we to grow +up unfostered by this genial warmth, a frost would chill the spirit, +so penetrating and powerful, that there could be no motions of the +life of love; and infinitely less could we have any wish to be +remembered after we had passed away from a world in which each man had +moved about like a shadow.--If, then, in a Creature endowed with the +faculties of foresight and reason, the social affections could not +have unfolded themselves uncountenanced by the faith that Man is an +immortal being; and if, consequently, neither could the individual +dying have had a desire to survive in the remembrance of his fellows, +nor on their side could they have felt a wish to preserve for future +times vestiges of the departed; it follows, as a final inference, that +without the belief in Immortality, wherein these several desires +originate, neither monuments nor epitaphs, in affectionate or +laudatory commemoration of the Deceased, could have existed in the +world. + +Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange Country, found the +Corse of an unknown person, lying by the Sea-side; he buried it, and +was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that Act. Another +ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body, +regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, "see the +Shell of the flown Bird!" But it is not to be supposed that the moral +and tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of +thought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while his +soul was intent only upon the indestructible being; nor, on the other +hand, that he, in whose sight a lifeless human Body was of no more +value than the worthless Shell from which the living fowl had +departed, would not, in a different mood of mind, have been affected +by those earthly considerations which had incited the philosophic Poet +to the performance of that pious duty. And with regard to this latter +we may be assured that, if he had been destitute of the capability of +communing with the more exalted thoughts that appertain to human +Nature, he would have cared no more for the Corse of the Stranger than +for the dead body of a Seal or Porpoise which might have been cast up +by the Waves. We respect the corporeal frame of Man, not merely +because it is the habitation of a rational, but of an immortal Soul. +Each of these Sages was in Sympathy with the best feelings of our +Nature; feelings which, though they seem opposite to each other, have +another and a finer connection than that of contrast.--It is a +connection formed through the subtle progress by which, both in the +natural and the moral world, qualities pass insensibly into their +contraries, and things revolve upon each other. As, in sailing upon +the orb of this Planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun +sets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed +to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage +towards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, +leads finally to the quarter where the Sun is last seen when he +departs from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the +direction of mortality, advances to the Country of everlasting Life; +and, in like manner, may she continue to explore those cheerful +tracts, till she is brought back, for her advantage and benefit, to +the land of transitory things--of sorrow and of tears. + +On a midway point, therefore, which commands the thoughts and feelings +of the two Sages whom we have represented in contrast, does the Author +of that species of composition, the Laws of which it is our present +purpose to explain, take his stand. Accordingly, recurring to the +twofold desire of guarding the Remains of the deceased and preserving +their memory, it may be said that a sepulchral Monument is a tribute +to a Man as a human Being; and that an Epitaph, (in the ordinary +meaning attached to the word) includes this general feeling and +something more; and is a record to preserve the memory of the dead, as +a tribute due to his individual worth, for a satisfaction to the +sorrowing hearts of the Survivors, and for the common benefit of the +living: which record is to be accomplished, not in a general manner, +but, where it can, in _close connection with the bodily remains of the +deceased_: and these, it may be added, among the modern Nations of +Europe are deposited within, or contiguous to their places of worship. +In ancient times, as is well known, it was the custom to bury the dead +beyond the Walls of Towns and Cities; and among the Greeks and Romans +they were frequently interred by the waysides. + +I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the Reader to indulge +with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended +such a practice. We might ruminate upon the beauty which the +Monuments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding images +of Nature--from the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream running +perhaps within sight or hearing, from the beaten road stretching its +weary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these objects have +presented to the mind of the Traveller leaning upon one of the Tombs, +or reposing in the coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from +weariness or in compliance with the invitation, "Pause, Traveller!" so +often found upon the Monuments. And to its Epitaph also must have been +supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate +impressions, lively and affecting analogies of Life as a +Journey--Death as a Sleep overcoming the tired Wayfarer--of Misfortune +as a Storm that falls suddenly upon him--of Beauty as a Flower that +passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered--of +Virtue that standeth firm as a Rock against the beating Waves;--of +Hope "undermined insensibly like the Poplar by the side of the River +that has fed it," or blasted in a moment like a Pine-tree by the +stroke of lightning upon the Mountain-top--of admonitions and +heart-stirring remembrances, like a refreshing Breeze that comes +without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected Fountain. +These, and similar suggestions, must have given, formerly, to the +language of the senseless stone a voice enforced and endeared by the +benignity of that Nature with which it was in unison.--We, in modern +times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small +degree counterbalanced to the Inhabitants of large Towns and Cities, +by the custom of depositing the Dead within, or contiguous to, their +places of worship; however splendid or imposing may be the appearance +of those Edifices, or however interesting or salutary the +recollections associated with them. Even were it not true that Tombs +lose their monitory virtue when thus obtruded upon the Notice of Men +occupied with the cares of the World, and too often sullied and +defiled by those cares, yet still, when Death is in our thoughts, +nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences of +Nature, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay, +which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and +contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man +only compare in imagination the unsightly manner in which our +Monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost +grassless Church-yard of a large Town, with the still seclusion of a +Turkish Cemetery, in some remote place; and yet further sanctified by +the Grove of Cypress in which it is embosomed. Thoughts in the same +temper as these have already been expressed with true sensibility by +an ingenious Poet of the present day. The subject of his Poem is "All +Saints Church, Derby": he has been deploring the forbidding and +unseemly appearance of its burial-ground, and uttering a wish, that in +past times the practice had been adopted of interring the Inhabitants +of large Towns in the Country.-- + + Then in some rural, calm, sequestered spot, + Where healing Nature her benignant look + Ne'er changes, save at that lorn season, when, + With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, + She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man, + Her noblest work (so Israel's virgins erst, + With annual moan upon the mountains wept + Their fairest gone), there in that rural scene, + So placid, so congenial to the wish + The Christian feels, of peaceful rest within + The silent grave, I would have strayed: + + * * * * * + + --wandered forth, where the cold dew of heaven + Lay on the humbler graves around, what time + The pale moon gazed upon the turfy mounds, + Pensive, as though like me, in lonely muse, + 'Twere brooding on the Dead inhumed beneath. + There while with him, the holy man of Uz, + O'er human destiny I sympathized, + Counting the long, long periods prophecy + Decrees to roll, ere the great day arrives + Of resurrection, oft the blue-eyed Spring + Had met me with her blossoms, as the Dove, + Of old, returned with olive leaf, to cheer + The Patriarch mourning over a world destroyed: + And I would bless her visit; for to me + 'Tis sweet to trace the consonance that links + As one, the works of Nature and the word + Of God.-- + + JOHN EDWARDS. + +A Village Church-yard, lying as it does in the lap of Nature, may +indeed be most favourably contrasted with that of a Town of crowded +Population; and Sepulture therein combines many of the best tendencies +which belong to the mode practised by the Ancients, with others +peculiar to itself. The sensations of pious cheerfulness, which attend +the celebration of the Sabbath-day in rural places, are profitably +chastised by the sight of the Graves of Kindred and Friends, gathered +together in that general Home towards which the thoughtful yet happy +Spectators themselves are journeying. Hence a Parish Church, in the +stillness of the Country, is a visible centre of a community of the +living and the dead; a point to which are habitually referred the +nearest concerns of both. + +As, then, both in Cities and in Villages, the Dead are deposited in +close connection with our places of worship, with us the composition +of an Epitaph naturally turns, still more than among the Nations of +Antiquity, upon the most serious and solemn affections of the human +mind; upon departed Worth--upon personal or social Sorrow and +Admiration--upon Religion, individual and social--upon Time, and upon +eternity. Accordingly it suffices, in ordinary cases, to secure a +composition of this kind from censure, that it contains nothing that +shall shock or be inconsistent with this spirit. But to entitle an +Epitaph to praise, more than this is necessary. It ought to contain +some Thought or Feeling belonging to the mortal or immortal part of +our Nature touchingly expressed; and if that be done, however general +or even trite the sentiment may be, every man of pure mind will read +the words with pleasure and gratitude. A Husband bewails a Wife; a +Parent breathes a sigh of disappointed hope over a lost Child; a Son +utters a sentiment of filial reverence for a departed Father or +Mother; a Friend perhaps inscribes an encomium recording the +companionable qualities, or the solid virtues, of the Tenant of the +Grave, whose departure has left a sadness upon his memory. This, and a +pious admonition to the Living, and a humble expression of Christian +confidence in Immortality, is the language of a thousand Church-yards; +and it does not often happen that any thing, in a greater degree +discriminate or appropriate to the Dead or to the Living, is to be +found in them. This want of discrimination has been ascribed by Dr. +Johnson, in his Essay upon the Epitaphs of Pope, to two causes; first, +the scantiness of the Objects of human praise; and, secondly, the want +of variety in the Characters of Men; or, to use his own words, "to the +fact, that the greater part of Mankind have no character at all." Such +language may be holden without blame among the generalities of common +conversation; but does not become a Critic and a Moralist speaking +seriously upon a serious Subject. The objects of admiration in +Human-nature are not scanty, but abundant; and every Man has a +Character of his own, to the eye that has skill to perceive it. The +real cause of the acknowledged want of discrimination in sepulchral +memorials is this: That to analyse the Characters of others, +especially of those whom we love, is not a common or natural +employment of Men at any time. We are not anxious unerringly to +understand the constitution of the Minds of those who have soothed, +who have cheered, who have supported us: with whom we have been long +and daily pleased or delighted. The affections are their own +justification. The Light of Love in our Hearts is a satisfactory +evidence that there is a body of worth in the minds of our friends or +kindred, whence that Light has proceeded. We shrink from the thought +of placing their merits and defects to be weighed against each other +in the nice balance of pure intellect; nor do we find much temptation +to detect the shades by which a good quality or virtue is +discriminated in them from an excellence known by the same general +name as it exists in the mind of another; and, least of all, do we +incline to these refinements when under the pressure of Sorrow, +Admiration, or Regret, or when actuated by any of those feelings which +incite men to prolong the memory of their Friends and Kindred, by +records placed in the bosom of the all-uniting and equalizing +Receptacle of the Dead. + +The first requisite, then, in an Epitaph is, that it should speak, in +a tone which shall sink into the heart, the general language of +humanity as connected with the subject of Death--the source from which +an Epitaph proceeds; of death and of life. To be born and to die are +the two points in which all men feel themselves to be in absolute +coincidence. This general language may be uttered so strikingly as to +entitle an Epitaph to high praise; yet it cannot lay claim to the +highest unless other excellencies be superadded. Passing through all +intermediate steps, we will attempt to determine at once what these +excellencies are, and wherein consists the perfection of this species +of composition. It will be found to lie in a due proportion of the +common or universal feeling of humanity to sensations excited by a +distinct and clear conception, conveyed to the Reader's mind, of the +Individual, whose death is deplored and whose memory is to be +preserved; at least of his character as, after Death, it appeared to +those who loved him and lament his loss. The general sympathy ought to +be quickened, provoked, and diversified, by particular thoughts, +actions, images,--circumstances of age, occupation, manner of life, +prosperity which the Deceased had known, or adversity to which he had +been subject; and these ought to be bound together and solemnized into +one harmony by the general sympathy. The two powers should temper, +restrain, and exalt each other. The Reader ought to know who and what +the Man was whom he is called to think upon with interest. A distinct +conception should be given (implicitly where it can, rather than +explicitly) of the Individual lamented. But the Writer of an Epitaph +is not an Anatomist who dissects the internal frame of the mind; he is +not even a Painter who executes a portrait at leisure and in entire +tranquillity: his delineation, we must remember, is performed by the +side of the Grave; and, what is more, the grave of one whom he loves +and admires. What purity and brightness is that virtue clothed in, the +image of which must no longer bless our living eyes! The character of +a deceased Friend or beloved Kinsman is not seen, no--nor ought to be +seen, otherwise than as a Tree through a tender haze or a luminous +mist, that spiritualizes and beautifies it; that takes away indeed, +but only to the end that the parts which are not abstracted may appear +more dignified and lovely, may impress and affect the more. Shall we +say, then, that this is not truth, not a faithful image; and that +accordingly the purposes of commemoration cannot be answered?--It _is_ +truth, and of the highest order! for, though doubtless things are not +apparent which did exist; yet, the object being looked at through this +medium, parts and proportions are brought into distinct view, which +before had been only imperfectly or unconsciously seen: it is truth +hallowed by love--the joint offspring of the worth of the Dead and the +affections of the Living?--This may easily be brought to the test. Let +one, whose eyes have been sharpened by personal hostility to discover +what was amiss in the character of a good man, hear the tidings of his +death, and what a change is wrought in a moment!--Enmity melts away; +and, as it disappears, unsightliness, disproportion, and deformity, +vanish; and, through the influence of commiseration, a harmony of love +and beauty succeeds. Bring such a Man to the Tombstone on which shall +be inscribed an Epitaph on his Adversary, composed in the spirit which +we have recommended. Would he turn from it as from an idle tale! +No--the thoughtful look, the sigh, and perhaps the involuntary tear, +would testify that it had a sane, a generous, and good meaning; and +that on the Writer's mind had remained an impression which was a true +abstract of the character of the deceased; that his gifts and graces +were remembered in the simplicity in which they ought to be +remembered. The composition and quality of the mind of a virtuous man, +contemplated by the side of the Grave where his body is mouldering, +ought to appear, and be felt as something midway between what he was +on Earth walking about with his living frailties, and what he may be +presumed to be as a Spirit in Heaven. + +It suffices, therefore, that the Trunk and the main Branches of the +Worth of the Deceased be boldly and unaffectedly represented. Any +further detail, minutely and scrupulously pursued, especially if this +be done with laborious and antithetic discriminations, must inevitably +frustrate its own purpose; forcing the passing Spectator to this +conclusion,--either that the Dead did not possess the merits ascribed +to him, or that they who have raised a monument to his memory, and +must therefore be supposed to have been closely connected with him, +were incapable of perceiving those merits; or at least during the act +of composition had lost sight of them; for, the Understanding having +been so busy in its petty occupation, how could the heart of the +Mourner be other than cold? and in either of these cases, whether the +fault be on the part of the buried Person or the Survivors, the +Memorial is unaffecting and profitless. + +Much better is it to fall short in discrimination than to pursue it +too far, or to labour it unfeelingly. For in no place are we so much +disposed to dwell upon those points, of nature and condition, wherein +all Men resemble each other, as in the Temple where the universal +Father is worshipped, or by the side of the Grave which gathers all +Human Beings to itself, and "equalizes the lofty and the low." We +suffer and we weep with the same heart; we love and are anxious for +one another in one spirit; our hopes look to the same quarter; and the +virtues by which we are all to be furthered and supported, as +patience, meekness, good-will, temperance, and temperate desires, are +in an equal degree the concern of us all. Let an Epitaph, then, +contain at least these acknowledgments to our common nature; nor let +the sense of their importance be sacrificed to a balance of opposite +qualities or minute distinctions in individual character; which if +they do not, (as will for the most part be the case) when examined, +resolve themselves into a trick of words, will, even when they are +true and just, for the most part be grievously out of place; for, as +it is probable that few only have explored these intricacies of human +nature, so can the tracing of them be interesting only to a few. But +an Epitaph is not a proud Writing shut up for the studious; it is +exposed to all, to the wise and the most ignorant; it is +condescending, perspicuous, and lovingly solicits regard; its story +and admonitions are brief, that the thoughtless, the busy, and +indolent, may not be deterred, nor the impatient tired; the stooping +old Man cons the engraven record like a second horn-book;--the Child +is proud that he can read it--and the Stranger is introduced by its +mediation to the company of a Friend: it is concerning all, and for +all:--in the Churchyard it is open to the day; the sun looks down upon +the stone, and the rains of Heaven beat against it. + +Yet, though the Writer who would excite sympathy is bound in this case +more than in any other, to give proof that he himself has been moved, +it is to be remembered, that to raise a Monument is a sober and a +reflective act; that the inscription which it bears is intended to be +permanent, and for universal perusal; and that, for this reason, the +thoughts and feelings expressed should be permanent also--liberated +from that weakness and anguish of sorrow which is in nature +transitory, and which with instinctive decency retires from notice. +The passions should be subdued, the emotions controlled; strong +indeed, but nothing ungovernable or wholly involuntary. Seemliness +requires this, and truth requires it also: for how can the Narrator +otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a Grave is a tranquillizing object: +resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as the +wild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or +gathering round the monument by which it is defended. The very form +and substance of the monument which has received the inscription, and +the appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow and +laborious hand they must have been engraven, might seem to reproach +the Author who had given way upon this occasion to transports of mind, +or to quick turns of conflicting passion; though the same might +constitute the life and beauty of a funeral Oration or elegiac Poem. + +These sensations and judgments, acted upon perhaps unconsciously, have +been one of the main causes why Epitaphs so often personate the +Deceased, and represent him as speaking from his own Tombstone. The +departed Mortal is introduced telling you himself that his pains are +gone; that a state of rest is come; and he conjures you to weep for +him no longer. He admonishes with the voice of one experienced in the +vanity of those affections which are confined to earthly objects, and +gives a verdict like a superior Being, performing the office of a +Judge, who has no temptations to mislead him, and whose decision +cannot but be dispassionate. Thus is Death disarmed of its sting, and +affliction unsubstantialized. By this tender fiction, the Survivors +bind themselves to a sedater sorrow, and employ the intervention of +the imagination in order that the reason may speak her own language +earlier than she would otherwise have been enabled to do. This shadowy +interposition also harmoniously unites the two worlds of the Living +and the Dead by their appropriate affections. And I may observe, that +here we have an additional proof of the propriety with which +sepulchral inscriptions were referred to the consciousness of +Immortality as their primal source. + +I do not speak with a wish to recommend that an Epitaph should be cast +in this mould preferably to the still more common one, in which what +is said comes from the Survivors directly; but rather to point out how +natural those feelings are which have induced men, in all states and +ranks of Society, so frequently to adopt this mode. And this I have +done chiefly in order that the laws, which ought to govern the +composition of the other, may be better understood. This latter mode, +namely, that in which the Survivors speak in their own Persons, seems +to me upon the whole greatly preferable: as it admits a wider range of +notices; and, above all, because, excluding the fiction which is the +groundwork of the other, it rests upon a more solid basis. + +Enough has been said to convey our notion of a perfect Epitaph; but it +must be observed that one is meant which will best answer the +_general_ ends of that species of composition. According to the course +pointed out, the worth of private life, through all varieties of +situation and character, will be most honourably and profitably +preserved in memory. Nor would the model recommended less suit public +Men, in all instances save of those persons who by the greatness of +their services in the employments of Peace or War, or by the +surpassing excellence of their works in Art, Literature, or Science, +have made themselves not only universally known, but have filled the +heart of their Country with everlasting gratitude. Yet I must here +pause to correct myself. In describing the general tenour of thought +which Epitaphs ought to hold, I have omitted to say, that, if it be +the _actions_ of a Man, or even some _one_ conspicuous or beneficial +act of local or general utility, which have distinguished him, and +excited a desire that he should be remembered, then, of course, ought +the attention to be directed chiefly to those actions or that act; and +such sentiments dwelt upon as naturally arise out of them or it. +Having made this necessary distinction, I proceed.--The mighty +benefactors of mankind, as they are not only known by the immediate +Survivors, but will continue to be known familiarly to latest +Posterity, do not stand in need of biographic sketches, in such a +place; nor of delineations of character to individualize them. This is +already done by their Works, in the Memories of Men. Their naked names +and a grand comprehensive sentiment of civic Gratitude, patriotic +Love, or human Admiration; or the utterance of some elementary +Principle most essential in the constitution of true Virtue; or an +intuition, communicated in adequate words, of the sublimity of +intellectual Power,--these are the only tribute which can here be +paid--the only offering that upon such an Altar would not be unworthy! + + What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones, + The labour of an age in piled stones, + Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid + Under a starry-pointing pyramid? + Dear Son of Memory, great Heir of Fame, + What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? + Thou in our wonder and astonishment + Hast built thyself a live-long Monument, + And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, + That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die. + + _Wordsworth._ + + + + +JEEMS THE DOORKEEPER + + +When my father was in Broughton Place Church, we had a doorkeeper +called _Jeems_, and a formidable little man and doorkeeper he was; of +unknown age and name, for he existed to us, and indeed still exists to +me--though he has been in his grave these sixteen years--as _Jeems_, +absolute and _per se_, no more needing a surname than did or do +Abraham or Isaac, Samson or Nebuchadnezzar. We young people of the +congregation believed that he was out in the '45, and had his drum +shot through and quenched at Culloden; and as for any indication on +his huge and grey visage, of his ever having been young, he might +safely have been _Bottom_ the Weaver in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, +or that excellent, ingenious, and "wise-hearted" Bezaleel, the son of +Uri, whom _Jeems_ regarded as one of the greatest of men and of +weavers, and whose "ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and +purple, and scarlet, each of them with fifty loops on the edge of the +selvedge in the coupling, with their fifty taches of gold," he, in +confidential moments, gave it to be understood were the sacred +triumphs of his craft; for, as you may infer, my friend was a man of +the treddles and the shuttle, as well as the more renowned grandson of +Hur. + +_Jeems's_ face was so extensive, and met you so formidably and at +once, that it mainly composed his whole; and such a face! Sydney Smith +used to say of a certain quarrelsome man, "His very face is a breach +of the peace." Had he seen our friend's, he would have said he was the +imperative mood on two (very small) legs, out on business in a blue +greatcoat. It was in the nose and the keen small eye that his strength +lay. Such a nose of power, so undeniable, I never saw, except in what +was said to be a bust from the antique, of Rhadamanthus, the +well-known Justice-Clerk of the Pagan Court of Session! Indeed, when I +was in the Rector's class, and watched _Jeems_ turning interlopers out +of the church seats, by merely presenting before them this tremendous +organ, it struck me that if Rhadamanthus had still been here, and out +of employment, he would have taken kindly to _Jeems's_ work,--and that +possibly he was that potentate in a U. P. disguise. + +Nature having fashioned the huge face, and laid out much material and +idea upon it, had finished off the rest of _Jeems_ somewhat scrimply, +as if she had run out of means; his legs especially were of the +shortest, and, as his usual dress was a very long blue greatcoat, made +for a much taller man, its tails resting upon the ground, and its +large hind buttons in a totally preposterous position, gave him the +look of being planted, or rather after the manner of Milton's beasts +at the creation, in the act of emerging painfully from his mother +earth. + +Now, you may think this was a very ludicrous old object. If you had +seen him, you would not have said so; and not only was he a man of +weight and authority,--he was likewise a genuine, indeed a deeply +spiritual Christian, well read in his Bible, in his own heart, and in +human nature and life, knowing both its warp and woof; more peremptory +in making himself obey his Master, than in getting himself obeyed, and +this is saying a good deal; and, like all complete men, he had a +genuine love and gift of humour,[42] kindly and uncouth, lurking in +those small, deep-set grey eyes, shrewd and keen, which, like two +sharpest of shooters, enfiladed that massive and redoubtable bulwark, +the nose. + +[Footnote 42: On one occasion a descendant of Nabal having put a crown +piece into "the plate" instead of a penny, and staring at its white +and precious face, asked to have it back, and was refused--"In once, +in for ever." "A weel, a weel," grunted he, "I'll get credit for it in +heaven." "Na, na," said _Jeems_, "ye'll get credit only for the +penny!"] + +One day two strangers made themselves over to _Jeems_ to be furnished +with seats. Motioning them to follow, he walked majestically to the +farthest in corner, where he had decreed they should sit. The couple +found seats near the door, and stepped into them, leaving _Jeems_ to +march through the passages alone, the whole congregation watching him +with some relish and alarm. He gets to his destination, opens the +door, and stands aside; nobody appears. He looks sharply round, and +then gives a look of general wrath "at lairge." No one doubted his +victory. His nose and eye fell, or seemed to fall, on the two +culprits, and pulled them out instantly, hurrying them to their +appointed place; _Jeems_ snibbed them slowly in, and gave them a +parting look they were not likely to misunderstand or forget. + +At that time the crowds and the imperfect ventilation made fainting a +common occurrence in Broughton Place, especially among "_thae young +hizzies_," as _Jeems_ called the servant girls. He generally came to +me, "the young Doctor," on these occasions with a look of great +relish. I had indoctrinated him in the philosophy of _syncopes_, +especially as to the propriety of laying the "_hizzies_" quite flat on +the floor of the lobby, with the head as low as the rest of the body; +and as many of these cases were owing to what _Jeems_ called "that +bitter yerkin" of their boddices, he and I had much satisfaction in +relieving them, and giving them a moral lesson, by cutting their +stay-laces, which ran before the knife, and cracked "like a +bowstring," as my coadjutor said. One day a young lady was our care. +She was lying out, and slowly coming to. _Jeems_, with that huge +terrific visage, came round to me with his open _gully_ in his hand, +whispering, "Wull oo ripp 'er up noo?" It happened not to be a case +for ripping up. The gully was a great sanitary institution, and made a +decided inroad upon the _yerking_ system--_Jeems_ having, thanks to +this and Dr. Coombe, every year fewer opportunities of displaying and +enjoying its powers. + +He was sober in other things besides drink, could be generous on +occasion, but was careful of his siller; sensitive to fierceness +("we're uncommon _zeelyous_ the day," was a favourite phrase when any +church matter was stirring) for the honour of his church and minister, +and to his too often worthless neighbours a perpetual moral protest +and lesson--a living epistle. He dwelt at the head of big Lochend's +Close in the Canongate, at the top of a long stair--ninety-six steps, +as I well know--where he had dwelt, all by himself, for +five-and-thirty years, and where, in the midst of all sorts of +flittings and changes, not a day opened or closed without the +well-known sound of _Jeems_ at his prayers,--his "exercise,"--at "the +Books." His clear, fearless, honest voice in psalm and chapter, and +strong prayer, came sounding through that wide "_land_," like that of +one crying in the wilderness. + +_Jeems_ and I got great friends; he called me John, as if he was my +grandfather; and though as plain in speech as in feature, he was never +rude. I owe him much in many ways. His absolute downrightness and +_yaefauldness_; his energetic, unflinching fulfilment of his work; his +rugged, sudden tenderness; his look of sturdy age, as the thick +silver-white hair lay on his serious and weatherworn face, like +moonlight on a stout old tower; his quaint Old Testament exegetics, +his lonely and contented life, his simple godliness,--it was no small +privilege to see much of all this. + +But I must stop. I forget that you didn't know him; that he is not +your _Jeems_. If it had been so, you would not soon have wearied of +telling or of being told of the life and conversation of this "fell +body." He was not communicative about his early life. He would +sometimes speak to me about "_her_," as if I knew who and where she +was, and always with a gentleness and solemnity unlike his usual gruff +ways. I found out that he had been married when young, and that "she" +(he never named her) and their child died on the same day,--the day of +its birth. The only indication of married life in his room, was an old +and strong cradle, which he had cut down so as to rock no more, and +which he made the depository of his books--a queer collection. + +I have said that he had what he called, with a grave smile, _family_ +worship, morning and evening, never failing. He not only sang his +psalm, but gave out or chanted _the line_ in great style; and on +seeing me one morning surprised at this, he said, "Ye see John, _oo_," +meaning himself and his wife, "began that way." He had a firm, true +voice, and a genuine though roughish gift of singing, and being +methodical in all things, he did what I never heard of in any one +else,--he had seven fixed tunes, one of which he sang on its own set +day. Sabbath morning it was _French_, which he went through with great +_birr_. Monday, _Scarborough_, which, he said, was like my father +cantering. Tuesday, _Coleshill_, that soft exquisite air,--monotonous +and melancholy, soothing and vague, like the sea. This day, Tuesday, +was the day of the week on which his wife and child died, and he +always sang more verses then than on any other. Wednesday was _Irish_; +Thursday, _Old Hundred_; Friday, _Bangor_; and Saturday, _Blackburn_, +that humdrummest of tunes, "as long, and lank, and lean, as is the +ribbed sea-sand." He could not defend it, but had some secret reason +for sticking to it. As to the evenings, they were just the same tunes +in reversed order, only that on Tuesday night he sang _Coleshill_ +again, thus dropping _Blackburn_ for evening work. The children could +tell the day of the week by _Jeems's_ tune, and would have been as +much astonished at hearing _Bangor_ on Monday, as at finding St. +Giles's half-way down the Canongate. + +I frequently breakfasted with him. He made capital porridge, and I +wish I could get such butter-milk, or at least have such a relish for +it, as in those days. Jeems is away--gone over to the majority; and I +hope I may never forget to be grateful to the dear and queer old man. +I think I see and hear him saying his grace over our bickers with +their _brats_ on, then taking his two books out of the cradle and +reading, not without a certain homely majesty, the first verse of the +99th Psalm, + + "Th' eternal Lord doth reign as king, + Let all the people quake; + He sits between the cherubims, + Let th' earth be mov'd and shake;" + +then launching out into the noble depths of _Irish_. His chapters were +long, and his prayers short, very scriptural, but by no means +stereotyped, and wonderfully real, _immediate_, as if he was near Him +whom he addressed. Any one hearing the sound and not the words, would +say, "That man is speaking to some one who is with him--who is +present,"--as he often said to me, "There's nae glide dune, John, till +ye get to close _grups_." + +Now, I dare say you are marvelling--_first_, Why I brought this grim, +old Rhadamanthus, Belzaleel, U. P. Naso of a doorkeeper up before you; +and _secondly_, How I am to get him down decorously in that ancient +blue greatcoat, and get at my own proper text. + +And first of the _first_. I thought it would do you young men--the +hope of the world--no harm to let your affections go out toward this +dear, old-world specimen of homespun worth. And as to the _second_, I +am going to make it my excuse for what is to come. One day soon after +I knew him, when I thought he was in a soft, confidential mood, I +said: "_Jeems_, what kind of weaver are you?" "_I'm in the fancical +line_, maister John," said he somewhat stiffly; "I like its +_leecence_." So _exit Jeems_--_impiger, iracundus, acer--torvus +visu--placide quiescat_! + +Now, my dear friends, I am in the _fancical_ line as well as _Jeems_, +and in virtue of my _leecence_, I begin my exegetical remarks on the +pursuit of truth. By the bye, I should have told Sir Henry that it was +truth, not knowledge, I was to be after. Now all knowledge should be +true, but it isn't; much of what is called knowledge is very little +worth even when true, and much of the best truth is not in a strict +sense knowable,--rather it is felt and believed. + +Exegetical, you know, is the grand and fashionable word now-a-days for +explanatory; it means bringing out of a passage all that is in it, and +nothing more. For my part, being in _Jeems's_ line, I am not so +particular as to the nothing more. We _fancical_ men are much given to +make somethings of nothings; indeed, the noble Italians, call +imagination and poetic fancy _the little more_; its very function is +to embellish and intensify the actual and the common. Now you must not +laugh at me, or it, when I announce the passage from which I mean to +preach upon the pursuit of truth, and the possession of wisdom:-- + + "On Tintock tap there is a Mist, + And in the Mist there is a Kist, + And in the Kist there is a Cap; + Tak' up the Cap and sup the drap, + And set the Cap on Tintock tap." + +And as to what Sir Henry[43] would call the context, we are saved all +trouble, there being none, the passage being self-contained, and as +destitute of relations as Melchisedec. + +[Footnote 43: This was read to Sir Henry W. Moncreiff's Young Men's +Association, November 1862.] + +_Tintock_, you all know, or should know, is a big porphyritic hill in +Lanarkshire, standing alone, and dominating like a king over the Upper +Ward. Then we all understand what a _mist_ is; and it is worth +remembering that as it is more difficult to penetrate, to illuminate, +and to see through mist than darkness, so it is easier to enlighten +and overcome ignorance, than error, confusion, and mental mist. Then a +_kist_ is Scotch for chest, and a _cap_ the same for _cup_, and _drap_ +for drop. Well, then, I draw out of these queer old lines-- + +_First_, That to gain real knowledge, to get it at firsthand, you must +go up the Hill Difficulty--some Tintock, something you see from +afar--and you must _climb_; you must energize, as Sir William Hamilton +and Dr. Chalmers said and did; you must turn your back upon the plain, +and you must mainly go alone, and on your own legs. Two boys may start +together on going up Tinto, and meet at the top; but the journeys are +separate, each takes his own line. + +_Secondly_, You start for your Tintock top with a given object, to get +into the mist and get the drop, and you do this chiefly because you +have the truth-hunting instinct; you long to know what is hidden +there, for there is a wild and urgent charm in the unknown; and you +want to realize for yourself what others, it may have been ages ago, +tell they have found there. + +_Thirdly_, There is no road up; no omnibus to the top of Tinto; you +must zigzag it in your own way, and as I have already said, most part +of it alone. + +_Fourthly_, This climbing, this exaltation, and buckling to of the +mind, of itself does you good;[44] it is capital exercise, and you +find out many a thing by the way. Your lungs play freely; your mouth +fills with the sweet waters of keen action; the hill tries your wind +and mettle, supples and hardens your joints and limbs; quickens and +rejoices, while it tests your heart. + +[Footnote 44: "In this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our +game, the chase is certainly of service."--BURKE.] + +_Fifthly_, You have many a fall, many a false step; you slip back, you +tumble into a _moss-hagg_; you stumble over the baffling stones; you +break your shins and lose your temper, and the finding of it makes you +keep it better the next time; you get more patient, and yet more +eager, and not unoften you come to a stand-still; run yourself up +against, or to the edge of, some impossible precipice, some insoluble +problem, and have to turn for your life; and you may find yourself +over head in a treacherous _wellee_, whose soft inviting cushion of +green has decoyed many a one before you. + +_Sixthly_, You are for ever mistaking the top; thinking you are at it, +when, behold! there it is, as if farther off than ever, and you may +have to humble yourself in a hidden valley before reascending; and so +on you go, at times flinging yourself down on the elastic heather, +stretched panting with your face to the sky, or gazing far away +athwart the widening horizon. + +_Seventhly_, As you get up, you may see how the world below lessens +and reveals itself, comes up to you as a whole, with its just +proportions and relations; how small the village you live in looks, +and the house in which you were born; how the plan of the place comes +out; there is the quiet churchyard, and a lamb is nibbling at that +infant's grave; there, close to the little church, your mother rests +till the great day; and there far off you may trace the river winding +through the plain, coming like human life, from darkness to +darkness,--from its source in some wild, upland solitude to its +eternity, the sea. But you have rested long enough, so, up and away! +take the hill once again! Every effort is a victory and joy--new skill +and power and relish--takes you farther from the world below, nearer +the clouds and heavens; and you may note that the more you move up +towards the pure blue depths of the sky--the more lucid and the more +unsearchable--the farther off, the more withdrawn into their own clear +infinity do they seem. Well, then, you get to the upper story, and you +find it less difficult, less steep than lower down; often so plain and +level that you can run off in an ecstasy to the crowning cairn, to the +sacred mist--within whose cloudy shrine rests the unknown secret; some +great truth of God and of your own soul; something that is not to be +gotten for gold down on the plain, but may be taken here; something +that no man can give or take away; something that you must work for +and learn yourself, and which, once yours, is safe beyond the chances +of time. + +_Eighthly_, You enter that luminous cloud, stooping and as a little +child--as, indeed, all the best kingdoms are entered--and pressing on, +you come in the shadowy light to the long-dreamt-of ark,--the chest. +It is shut, it is locked; but if you are the man I take you to be, you +have the key, put it gently in, steadily, and home. But what is the +key? It is the love of truth; neither more nor less; no other key +opens it; no false one, however cunning, can pick that lock; no +assault of hammer, however stout, can force it open. But with its own +key a little child may open it, often does open it, it goes so +sweetly, so with a will. You lift the lid; you are all alone; the +cloud is round you with a sort of tender light of its own, shutting +out the outer world, filling you with an _eerie_ joy, as if alone and +yet not alone. You see the cup within, and in it the one crystalline, +unimaginable, inestimable drop; glowing and tremulous, as if alive. +You take up the cup, you sup the drop; it enters into, and becomes of +the essence of yourself; and so, in humble gratitude and love, "in +sober certainty of waking bliss," you gently replace the cup. It will +gather again,--it is for ever gathering; no man, woman, or child ever +opened that chest, and found no drop in the cup. It might not be the +very drop expected; it will serve their purpose none the worse, often +much the better. + +And now, bending down, you shut the lid, which you hear locking itself +afresh against all but the sacred key. You leave the now hallowed +mist. You look out on the old familiar world again, which somehow +looks both new and old. You descend, making your observations over +again, throwing the light of the present on the past; and past and +present set against the boundless future. You hear coming up to you +the homely sounds--the sheepdog's bark, "the cock's shrill +clarion"--from the farm at the hill-foot; you hear the ring of the +blacksmith's _study_, you see the smoke of his forge; your mother's +grave has the long shadows of evening lying across it, the sunlight +falling on the letters of her name, and on the number of her years; +the lamb is asleep in the bield of the infant's grave. Speedily you +are at your own door. You enter with wearied feet, and thankful heart; +you shut the door, and you kneel down and pray to your Father in +heaven, the Father of lights, your reconciled Father, the God and +Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and our God and Father in +and through him. And as you lie down on your own delightful bed, +before you fall asleep, you think over again your ascent of the Hill +Difficulty,--its baffling heights, its reaches of dreary moorland, its +shifting gravel, its precipices, its quagmires, its little wells of +living waters near the top, and all its "dread magnificence;" its +calm, restful summit, the hush of silence there, the all-aloneness of +the place and hour; its peace, its sacredness, its divineness. You see +again the mist, the ark, the cup, the gleaming drop, and recalling the +sight of the world below, the earth and all its fulness, you say to +yourself,-- + + "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, + Almighty, thine this universal frame, + Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then! + Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these heavens." + +And finding the burden too heavy even for these glorious lines, you +take refuge in the Psalms-- + + "Praise ye the Lord. + Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights. + Praise him in the firmament of his power. + Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. + Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. + Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps; + Fire and hail; snow and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: + Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; + Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: + Kings of the earth, and all people; princes and all judges of the + earth: + Both young men and maidens; old men and children: + Let them praise the name of the Lord: + For his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and + heaven. + Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. + Bless the Lord, O my soul!" + +I need hardly draw the moral of this, our somewhat _fancical_ +exercitation and exegesis. You can all make it out, such as it is. It +is the toil, and the joy, and the victory in the search of truth; not +the taking on trust, or learning by rote, not by heart, what other men +count or call true; but the vital appropriation, the assimilation of +truth to ourselves, and of ourselves to truth. All truth is of value, +but one truth differs from another in weight and in brightness, in +worth; and you need not me to tell you that spiritual and eternal +truth, the truth as it is in Jesus, is the best. And don't think that +your own hand has gotten you the victory, and that you had no unseen, +and it may be unfelt and unacknowledged hand guiding you up the hill. +Unless the Lord had been at and on your side, all your labour would +have been in vain, and worse. No two things are more inscrutable or +less uncertain than man's spontaneity and man's helplessness,--Freedom +and Grace as the two poles. It is His doing that you are led to the +right hill and the right road, for there are other Tintocks, with +other kists, and other drops. Work out, therefore, your own knowledge +with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to +will and to do, and to know of His good pleasure. There is no +explaining and there is no disbelieving this. + +And now, before bidding you good-bye, did you ever think of the +spiritual meaning of the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of +fire by night, as connected with our knowledge and our ignorance, our +light and darkness, our gladness and our sorrow? The everyday use of +this divine alternation to the wandering children of Israel, is plain +enough. Darkness is best seen against light, and light against +darkness; and its use, in a deeper sense of keeping for ever before +them the immediate presence of God in the midst of them, is not less +plain; but I sometimes think, that we who also are still in the +wilderness, and coming up from our Egypt and its fleshpots, and on our +way let us hope, through God's grace, to the celestial Canaan, may +draw from these old-world signs and wonders, that, in the mid-day of +knowledge, with daylight all about us, there is, if one could but look +for it, that perpetual pillar of cloud--that sacred darkness which +haunts all human knowledge, often the most at its highest noon; that +"look that threatens the profane;" that something, and above all, that +sense of _Some One_,--that Holy One, who inhabits eternity and its +praises, who makes darkness His secret place, His pavilion round +about, darkness and thick clouds of the sky. + +And again, that in the deepest, thickest night of doubt, of fear, of +sorrow, of despair; that then, and all the most then--if we will but +look in the right _airt_, and with the seeing eye and the +understanding heart--there may be seen that Pillar of fire, of light +and of heat, to guide and quicken and cheer; knowledge and love, that +everlasting love which we know to be the Lord's. And how much better +off are we than the chosen people; their pillars were on earth, divine +in their essence, but subject doubtless to earthly perturbations and +interferences; but our guiding light is in the heavens, towards which +we take earnest heed that we are journeying. + + "Once on the raging seas I rode, + The storm was loud, the night was dark; + The ocean yawned, and rudely blowed + The wind that toss'd my foundering bark. + + Deep horror then my vitals froze, + Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem, + When suddenly a star arose, + It was the Star of Bethlehem! + + It was my guide, my light, my all, + It bade my dark foreboding cease; + And through the storm and danger's thrall + It led me to the port in peace. + + Now safely moored, my perils o'er, + I'll sing first in night's diadem, + For ever and for evermore + The Star, the Star of Bethlehem!" + + _John Brown._ + + + + +ON LIFE + + +Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is +an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the +wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its +transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What are +changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which +supported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and +of political systems to life? What are the revolutions of the globe +which we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it is +composed, compared with life? What is the universe of stars, and suns, +of which this inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and their +destiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not, +because it is so miraculous. It is well that we are thus shielded by +the familiarity of what is at once so certain and so unfathomable, +from an astonishment which would otherwise absorb and overawe the +functions of that which is its object. + +If any artist, I do not say had executed, but had merely conceived in +his mind the system of the sun, and the stars, and planets, they not +existing, and had painted to us in words, or upon canvas, the +spectacle now afforded by the nightly cope of heaven, and illustrated +it by the wisdom of astronomy, great would be our admiration. Or had +he imagined the scenery of this earth, the mountains, the seas, and +the rivers; the grass, and the flowers, and the variety of the forms +and masses of the leaves of the woods, and the colours which attend +the setting and the rising sun, and the hues of the atmosphere, turbid +or serene, these things not before existing, truly we should have been +astonished, and it would not have been a vain boast to have said of +such a man, "Non merita nome di creatore, se non Iddio ed il Poeta." +But now these things are looked on with little wonder, and to be +conscious of them with intense delight is esteemed to be the +distinguishing mark of a refined and extraordinary person. The +multitude of men care not for them. It is thus with Life--that which +includes all. + +What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or without our will, +and we employ words to express them. We are born, and our birth is +unremembered, and our infancy remembered but in fragments; we live on, +and in living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it to +think that words can penetrate the mystery of our being! Rightly used +they may make evident our ignorance to ourselves, and this is much. +For what are we? Whence do we come? and whither do we go? Is birth the +commencement, is death the conclusion of our being? What is birth and +death? + +The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, +which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which +the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in +us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of +things. I confess that I am one of those who am unable to refuse my +assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that +nothing exists but as it is perceived. + +It is a decision against which all our persuasions struggle, and we +must be long convicted before we can be convinced that the solid +universe of external things is "such stuff as dreams are made of." The +shocking absurdities of the popular philosophy of mind and matter, its +fatal consequences in morals, and their violent dogmatism concerning +the source of all things, had early conducted me to materialism. This +materialism is a seducing system to young and superficial minds. It +allows its disciples to talk, and dispenses them from thinking. But I +was discontented with such a view of things as it afforded; man is a +being of high aspirations, "looking both before and after," whose +"thoughts wander through eternity," disclaiming alliance with +transience and decay; incapable of imagining to himself annihilation; +existing but in the future and the past; being, not what he is, but +what he has been and shall be. Whatever may be his true and final +destination, there is a spirit within him at enmity with nothingness +and dissolution. This is the character of all life and being. Each is +at once the centre and the circumference; the point to which all +things are referred, and the line in which all things are contained. +Such contemplations as these, materialism and the popular philosophy +of mind and matter alike forbid; they are only consistent with the +intellectual system. + +It is absurd to enter into a long recapitulation of arguments +sufficiently familiar to those inquiring minds, whom alone a writer on +abstruse subjects can be conceived to address. Perhaps the most clear +and vigorous statement of the intellectual system is to be found in +Sir William Drummond's Academical Questions. After such an exposition, +it would be idle to translate into other words what could only lose +its energy and fitness by the change. Examined point by point, and +word by word, the most discriminating intellects have been able to +discern no train of thoughts in the process of reasoning, which does +not conduct inevitably to the conclusion which has been stated. + +What follows from the admission? It establishes no new truth, it gives +us no additional insight into our hidden nature, neither its action +nor itself. Philosophy, impatient as it may be to build, has much work +yet remaining, as pioneer for the overgrowth of ages. It makes one +step towards this object; it destroys error, and the roots of error. +It leaves, what it is too often the duty of the reformer in political +and ethical questions to leave, a vacancy. It reduces the mind to that +freedom in which it would have acted, but for the misuse of words and +signs, the instruments of its own creation. By signs, I would be +understood in a wide sense, including what is properly meant by that +term, and what I peculiarly mean. In this latter sense, almost all +familiar objects are signs, standing, not for themselves, but for +others in their capacity of suggesting one thought which shall lead to +a train of thoughts. Our whole life is thus an education of error. + +Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a distinct and +intense apprehension had we of the world and of ourselves! Many of the +circumstances of social life were then important to us which are now +no longer so. But that is not the point of comparison on which I mean +to insist. We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt, +from ourselves. They seemed as it were to constitute one mass. There +are some persons who, in this respect, are always children. Those who +are subject to the state called reverie, feel as if their nature were +dissolved into the surrounding universe, or as if the surrounding +universe were absorbed into their being. They are conscious of no +distinction. And these are states which precede, or accompany, or +follow an unusually intense and vivid apprehension of life. As men +grow up this power commonly decays, and they become mechanical and +habitual agents. Thus feelings and then reasonings are the combined +result of a multitude of entangled thoughts, and of a series of what +are called impressions, planted by reiteration. + +The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of the +intellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it is +perceived. The difference is merely nominal between those two classes +of thought, which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas and +of external objects. Pursuing the same thread of reasoning, the +existence of distinct individual minds, similar to that which is +employed in now questioning its own nature, is likewise found to be a +delusion. The words _I_, _you_, _they_, are not signs of any actual +difference subsisting between the assemblage of thoughts thus +indicated, but are merely marks employed to denote the different +modifications of the one mind. + +Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the monstrous +presumption that I, the person who now write and think, am that one +mind. I am but a portion of it. The words _I_, and _you_, and _they_ +are grammatical devices invented simply for arrangement, and totally +devoid of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. It +is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle a conception +as that to which the Intellectual Philosophy has conducted us. We are +on that verge where words abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy +to look down the dark abyss of how little we know. + +The relations of _things_ remain unchanged, by whatever system. By the +word _things_ is to be understood any object of thought, that is any +thought upon which any other thought is employed, with an apprehension +of distinction. The relations of these remain unchanged; and such is +the material of our knowledge. + +What is the cause of life? that is, how was it produced, or what +agencies distinct from life have acted or act upon life? All recorded +generations of mankind have wearily busied themselves in inventing +answers to this question; and the result has been,--Religion. Yet, +that the basis of all things cannot be, as the popular philosophy +alleges, mind, is sufficiently evident. Mind, as far as we have any +experience of its properties, and beyond that experience how vain is +argument! cannot create, it can only perceive. It is said also to be +the cause. But cause is only a word expressing a certain state of the +human mind with regard to the manner in which two thoughts are +apprehended to be related to each other. If any one desires to know +how unsatisfactorily the popular philosophy employs itself upon this +great question, they need only impartially reflect upon the manner in +which thoughts develop themselves in their minds. It is infinitely +improbable that the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar +to mind. + + _Shelley._ + + + + +WALKING STEWART + + +Mr. Stewart the traveller, commonly called "Walking Stewart," was a +man of very extraordinary genius. He has generally been treated by +those who have spoken of him in print as a madman. But this is a +mistake; and must have been founded chiefly on the titles of his +books. He was a man of fervid mind and of sublime aspirations; but he +was no madman; or, if he was, then I say that it is so far desirable +to be a madman. In 1798 or 1799, when I must have been about thirteen +years old, Walking Stewart was in Bath--where my family at that time +resided. He frequented the pump-room, and I believe all public +places--walking up and down, and dispersing his philosophic opinions +to the right and the left, like a Grecian philosopher. The first time +I saw him was at a concert in the Upper Rooms; he was pointed out to +me by one of my party as a very eccentric man who had walked over the +habitable globe. I remember that Madame Mara was at that moment +singing; and Walking Stewart, who was a true lover of music (as I +afterwards came to know), was hanging upon her notes like a bee upon a +jessamine flower. His countenance was striking, and expressed the +union of benignity with philosophic habits of thought. In such health +had his pedestrian exercises preserved him, connected with his +abstemious mode of living, that though he must at that time have been +considerably above forty, he did not look older than twenty-eight; at +least the face which remained upon my recollection for some years was +that of a young man. Nearly ten years afterwards I became acquainted +with him. During the interval I had picked up one of his works in +Bristol,--viz. his _Travels to discover the Source of Moral Motion_, +the second volume of which is entitled _The Apocalypse of Nature_. I +had been greatly impressed by the sound and original views which in +the first volume he had taken of the national characters throughout +Europe. In particular he was the first, and so far as I know the only +writer who had noticed the profound error of ascribing a phlegmatic +character to the English nation. "English phlegm" is the constant +expression of authors when contrasting the English with the French. +Now the truth is, that, beyond that of all other nations, it has a +substratum of profound passion; and, if we are to recur to the old +doctrine of temperaments, the English character must be classed not +under the _phlegmatic_ but under the _melancholic_ temperament; and +the French under the _sanguine_. The character of a nation may be +judged of in this particular by examining its idiomatic language. The +French, in whom the lower forms of passion are constantly bubbling up +from the shallow and superficial character of their feelings, have +appropriated all the phrases of passion to the service of trivial and +ordinary life; and hence they have no language of passion for the +service of poetry or of occasions really demanding it; for it has been +already enfeebled by continual association with cases of an +unimpassioned order. But a character of deeper passion has a perpetual +standard in itself, by which as by an instinct it tries all cases, and +rejects the language of passion as disproportionate and ludicrous +where it is not fully justified. "Ah Heavens!" or "Oh my God!" are +exclamations with us so exclusively reserved for cases of profound +interest,--that on hearing a woman even (_i.e._ a person of the sex +most easily excited) utter such words, we look round expecting to see +her child in some situation of danger. But, in France, "Ciel!" and "Oh +mon Dieu!" are uttered by every woman if a mouse does but run across +the floor. The ignorant and the thoughtless however will continue to +class the English character under the phlegmatic temperament, whilst +the philosopher will perceive that it is the exact polar antithesis to +a phlegmatic character. In this conclusion, though otherwise expressed +and illustrated, Walking Stewart's view of the English character will +be found to terminate; and his opinion is especially valuable--first +and chiefly, because he was a philosopher; secondly, because his +acquaintance with man civilized and uncivilized, under all national +distinctions, was absolutely unrivalled. Meantime, this and others of +his opinions were expressed in language that if literally construed +would often appear insane or absurd. The truth is, his long +intercourse with foreign nations had given something of a hybrid +tincture to his diction; in some of his works for instance he uses the +French word _helas!_ uniformly for the English _alas!_ and apparently +with no consciousness of his mistake. He had also this singularity +about him--that he was everlastingly metaphysicizing against +metaphysics. To me, who was buried in metaphysical reveries from my +earliest days, this was not likely to be an attraction; any more than +the vicious structure of his diction was likely to please my +scholarlike taste. All grounds of disgust, however, gave way before my +sense of his powerful merits; and, as I have said, I sought his +acquaintance. Coming up to London from Oxford about 1807 or 1808 I +made enquiries about him; and found that he usually read the papers at +a coffee-room in Piccadilly; understanding that he was poor, it struck +me that he might not wish to receive visits at his lodgings, and +therefore I sought him at the coffee-room. Here I took the liberty of +introducing myself to him. He received me courteously, and invited me +to his rooms--which at that time were in Sherrard-street, +Golden-square--a street already memorable to me. I was much struck +with the eloquence of his conversation; and afterwards I found that +Mr. Wordsworth, himself the most eloquent of men in conversation, had +been equally struck when he had met him at Paris between the years +1790 and 1792, during the early storms of the French revolution. In +Sherrard-street I visited him repeatedly, and took notes of the +conversations I had with him on various subjects. These I must have +somewhere or other; and I wish I could introduce them here, as they +would interest the reader. Occasionally in these conversations, as in +his books, he introduced a few notices of his private history; in +particular I remember his telling me that in the East Indies he had +been a prisoner of Hyder's; that he had escaped with some difficulty; +and that, in the service of one of the native princes as secretary or +interpreter, he had accumulated a small fortune. This must have been +too small, I fear, at that time to allow him even a philosopher's +comforts; for some part of it, invested in the French funds, had been +confiscated. I was grieved to see a man of so much ability, of +gentlemanly manners, and refined habits, and with the infirmity of +deafness, suffering under such obvious privations; and I once took the +liberty, on a fit occasion presenting itself, of requesting that he +would allow me to send him some books which he had been casually +regretting that he did not possess; for I was at that time in the +hey-day of my worldly prosperity. This offer, however, he declined +with firmness and dignity, though not unkindly. And I now mention it, +because I have seen him charged in print with a selfish regard to his +own pecuniary interest. On the contrary, he appeared to me a very +liberal and generous man; and I well remember that, whilst he refused +to accept of anything from me, he compelled me to receive as presents +all the books which he published during my acquaintance with him; two +of these, corrected with his own hand, viz. the _Lyre of Apollo_ and +the _Sophiometer_, I have lately found amongst other books left in +London; and others he forwarded to me in Westmoreland. In 1809 I saw +him often; in the Spring of that year, I happened to be in London; and +Mr. Wordsworth's tract on the Convention of Cintra being at that time +in the printer's hands, I superintended the publication of it; and, at +Mr. Wordsworth's request, I added a long note on Spanish affairs which +is printed in the Appendix. The opinions I expressed in this note on +the Spanish character at that time much calumniated, on the retreat to +Corunna then fresh in the public mind, above all, the contempt I +expressed for the superstition in respect to the French military +prowess which was then universal and at its height, and which gave way +in fact only to the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, fell in, as it +happened, with Mr. Stewart's political creed in those points where at +that time it met with most opposition. In 1812 it was I think that I +saw him for the last time; and by the way, on the day of my parting +with him, had an amusing proof in my own experience of that sort of +ubiquity ascribed to him by a witty writer in the London Magazine: I +met him and shook hands with him under Somerset-house, telling him +that I should leave town that evening for Westmoreland. Thence I went +by the very shortest road (_i.e._ through Moor-street, Soho--for I am +learned in many quarters of London) towards a point which necessarily +led me through Tottenham-court-road; I stopped nowhere, and walked +fast; yet so it was that in Tottenham-court-road I was not overtaken +by (_that_ was comprehensible), but overtook Walking Stewart. +Certainly, as the above writer alleges, there must have been three +Walking Stewarts in London. He seemed no ways surprised at this +himself, but explained to me that somewhere or other in the +neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road there was a little theatre, at +which there was dancing and occasionally good singing, between which +and a neighbouring coffee-house he sometimes divided his evenings. +Singing, it seems, he could hear in spite of his deafness. In this +street I took my final leave of him; it turned out such; and, +anticipating at the time that it would be so, I looked after his white +hat at the moment it was disappearing, and exclaimed--"Farewell, thou +half-crazy and most eloquent man! I shall never see thy face again." I +did not intend, at that moment, to visit London again for some years; +as it happened, I was there for a short time in 1814; and then I +heard, to my great satisfaction that Walking Stewart had recovered a +considerable sum (about L14,000 I believe) from the East India +Company; and from the abstract given in the London Magazine of the +Memoir by his relation I have since learned that he applied this money +most wisely to the purchase of an annuity, and that he "persisted in +living" too long for the peace of an annuity office. So fare all +companies East and West, and all annuity offices, that stand opposed +in interest to philosophers! In 1814, however, to my great regret, I +did not see him; for I was then taking a great deal of opium, and +never could contrive to issue to the light of day soon enough for a +morning call upon a philosopher of such early hours; and in the +evening I concluded he would be generally abroad, from what he had +formerly communicated to me of his own habits. It seems, however, that +he afterwards held _converzations_ at his own rooms; and did not stir +out to theatres quite so much. From a brother of mine, who at one time +occupied rooms in the same house with him, I learned that in other +respects he did not deviate in his prosperity from the philosophic +tenor of his former life. He abated nothing of his peripatetic +exercises; and repaired duly in the morning, as he had done in former +years, to St. James's Park,--where he sate in contemplative ease +amongst the cows, inhaling their balmy breath and pursuing his +philosophic reveries. He had also purchased an organ, or more than +one, with which he solaced his solitude and beguiled himself of uneasy +thoughts, if he ever had any. + +The works of Walking Stewart must be read with some indulgence; the +titles are generally too lofty and pretending and somewhat +extravagant; the composition is lax and unprecise, as I have before +said; and the doctrines are occasionally very bold, incautiously +stated, and too hardy and high-toned for the nervous effeminacy of +many modern moralists. But Walking Stewart was a man who thought nobly +of human nature; he wrote therefore at times in the spirit and with +the indignation of an ancient prophet against the oppressors and +destroyers of the time. In particular I remember that in one or more +of the pamphlets which I received from him at Grasmere he expressed +himself in such terms on the subject of Tyrannicide (distinguishing +the cases in which it was and was not lawful) as seemed to Mr. +Wordsworth and myself every way worthy of a philosopher; but, from the +way in which that subject was treated in the House of Commons, where +it was at that time occasionally introduced, it was plain that his +doctrine was not fitted for the luxuries and relaxed morals of the +age. Like all men who think nobly of human nature, Walking Stewart +thought of it hopefully. In some respects his hopes were wisely +grounded; in others they rested too much upon certain metaphysical +speculations which are untenable, and which satisfied himself only +because his researches in that track had been purely self-originated +and self-disciplined. He relied upon his own native strength of mind; +but in questions, which the wisdom and philosophy of every age +building successively upon each other have not been able to settle, no +mind however strong is entitled to build wholly upon itself. In many +things he shocked the religious sense--especially as it exists in +unphilosophic minds: he held a sort of rude and unscientific +Spinosism; and he expressed it coarsely and in the way most likely to +give offence. And indeed there can be no stronger proof of the utter +obscurity in which his works have slumbered than that they should all +have escaped prosecution. He also allowed himself to look too lightly +and indulgently on the afflicting spectacle of female prostitution as +it exists in London and in all great cities. This was the only point +on which I was disposed to quarrel with him; for I could not but view +it as a greater reproach to human nature than the slave-trade or any +sight of wretchedness that the sun looks down upon. I often told him +so; and that I was at a loss to guess how a philosopher could allow +himself to view it simply as part of the equipage of civil life, and +as reasonably making part of the establishment and furniture of a +great city as police-offices, lamplighting, or newspapers. Waiving, +however, this one instance of something like compliance with the +brutal spirit of the world, on all other subjects he was eminently +unworldly, child-like, simple-minded, and upright. He would flatter no +man; even when addressing nations, it is almost laughable to see how +invariably he prefaces his counsels with such plain truths uttered in +a manner so offensive as must have defeated his purpose if it had +otherwise any chance of being accomplished. For instance, in +addressing America, he begins thus: "People of America! since your +separation from the mother-country your moral character has +degenerated in the energy of thought and sense; produced by the +absence of your association and intercourse with British officers and +merchants; you have no moral discernment to distinguish between the +protective power of England and the destructive power of France." And +his letter to the Irish nation opens in this agreeable and +conciliatory manner--"People of Ireland! I address you as a true +philosopher of nature, foreseeing the perpetual misery your +irreflective character and total absence of moral discernment are +preparing for," &c. The second sentence begins thus:--"You are +sacrilegiously arresting the arm of your parent kingdom fighting the +cause of man and nature, when the triumph of the fiend of French +police terror would be your own instant extirpation." And the letter +closes thus:--"I see but one awful alternative--that Ireland will be a +perpetual moral volcano, threatening the destruction of the world, if +the education and instruction of thought and sense shall not be able +to generate the faculty of moral discernment among a very numerous +class of the population, who detest the civic calm as sailors the +natural calm--and make civic rights on which they cannot reason a +pretext for feuds which they delight in." As he spoke freely and +boldly to others, so he spoke loftily of himself; at p. 313 of "The +Harp of Apollo," on making a comparison of himself with Socrates (in +which he naturally gives the preference to himself,) he styles "The +Harp," &c., "this unparalleled work of human energy." At p. 315, he +calls it "this stupendous work;" and lower down on the same page he +says--"I was turned out of school at the age of fifteen for a dunce or +blockhead, because I would not stuff into my memory all the nonsense +of erudition and learning; and if future ages should discover the +unparalleled energies of genius in this work, it will prove my most +important doctrine--that the powers of the human mind must be +developed in the education of thought and sense in the study of moral +opinion, not arts and science." Again, at p. 225 of his Sophiometer, +he says:--"The paramount thought that dwells in my mind incessantly is +a question I put to myself--whether, in the event of my personal +dissolution by death, I have communicated all the discoveries my +unique mind possesses in the great master-science of man and nature." +In the next page he determines that he _has_, with the exception of +one truth,--viz. "the latent energy, physical and moral, of human +nature as existing in the British people." But here he was surely +accusing himself without ground; for to my knowledge he has not failed +in any one of his numerous works to insist upon this theme at least a +billion of times. Another instance of his magnificent self-estimation +is--that in the title pages of several of his works he announces +himself as "John Stewart, the only man of nature[45] that ever +appeared in the world." + +[Footnote 45: In Bath he was surnamed "the Child of Nature;"--which +arose from his contrasting on every occasion the existing man of our +present experience with the ideal or Stewartian man that might be +expected to emerge in some myriads of ages, to which latter man he +gave the name of the Child of Nature.] + +By this time I am afraid the reader begins to suspect that he was +crazy; and certainly, when I consider every thing, he must have been +crazy when the wind was at N.N.E.; for who but Walking Stewart ever +dated his books by a computation drawn--not from the creation, not +from the flood, not from Nabonassar, or _ab urbe condita_, not from +the Hegira--but from themselves, from their own day of publication, as +constituting the one great aera in the history of man by the side of +which all other aeras were frivolous and impertinent? Thus, in a work +of his given to me in 1812 and probably published in that year, I find +him incidentally recording of himself that he was at that time +"arrived at the age of sixty-three, with a firm state of health +acquired by temperance, and a peace of mind almost independent of the +vices of mankind--because my knowledge of life has enabled me to place +my happiness beyond the reach or contact of other men's follies and +passions, by avoiding all family connexions and all ambitious pursuits +of profit, fame, or power." On reading this passage I was anxious to +ascertain its date; but this, on turning to the title-page, I found +thus mysteriously expressed: "In the 7000th year of Astronomical +History, and the first day of Intellectual Life or Moral World, from +the aera of this work." Another slight indication of craziness appeared +in a notion which obstinately haunted his mind that all the kings and +rulers of the earth would confederate in every age against his works, +and would hunt them out for extermination as keenly as Herod did the +innocents in Bethlehem. On this consideration, fearing that they might +be intercepted by the long arms of these wicked princes before they +could reach that remote Stewartian man or his precursor to whom they +were mainly addressed, he recommended to all those who might be +impressed with a sense of their importance to bury a copy or copies of +each work properly secured from damp, &c. at a depth of seven or eight +feet below the surface of the earth; and on their death-beds to +communicate the knowledge of this fact to some confidential friends, +who in their turn were to send down the tradition to some discreet +persons of the next generation; and thus, if the truth was not to be +dispersed for many ages, yet the knowledge that here and there the +truth lay buried on this and that continent, in secret spots on Mount +Caucasus--in the sands of Biledulgerid--and in hiding-places amongst +the forests of America, and was to rise again in some distant age and +to vegetate and fructify for the universal benefit of man,--this +knowledge at least was to be whispered down from generation to +generation; and, in defiance of a myriad of kings crusading against +him, Walking Stewart was to stretch out the influence of his writings +through a long series of [Greek: lampadophoroi] to that child of +nature whom he saw dimly through a vista of many centuries. If this +were madness, it seemed to me a somewhat sublime madness; and I +assured him of my co-operation against the kings, promising that I +would bury "The Harp of Apollo" in my own orchard in Grasmere at the +foot of Mount Fairfield; that I would bury "The Apocalypse of Nature" +in one of the coves of Helvellyn, and several other places best known +to myself. He accepted my offer with gratitude; but he then made known +to me that he relied on my assistance for a still more important +service--which was this: in the lapse of that vast number of ages +which would probably intervene between the present period and the +period at which his works would have reached their destination, he +feared that the English language might itself have mouldered away. +"No!" I said, "_that_ was not probable; considering its extensive +diffusion, and that it was now transplanted into all the continents of +our planet, I would back the English language against any other on +earth." His own persuasion, however, was that the Latin was destined +to survive all other languages; it was to be the eternal as well as +the universal language; and his desire was that I would translate his +works, or some part of them into that language.[46] This I promised; +and I seriously designed at some leisure hour to translate into Latin +a selection of passages which should embody an abstract of his +philosophy. This would have been doing a service to all those who +might wish to see a digest of his peculiar opinions cleared from the +perplexities of his peculiar diction and brought into a narrow compass +from the great number of volumes through which they are at present +dispersed. However, like many another plan of mine, it went +unexecuted. + +[Footnote 46: I was not aware until the moment of writing this passage +that Walking Stewart had publicly made this request three years after +making it to myself: opening the Harp of Apollo, I have just now +accidentally stumbled on the following passage, "This stupendous work +is destined, I fear, to meet a worse fate than the Aloe, which as soon +as it blossoms loses its stalk. This first blossom of reason is +threatened with the loss of both its stalk and its soil; for, if the +revolutionary tyrant should triumph, he would destroy all the English +books and energies of thought. I conjure my readers to translate this +work into Latin, and to bury it in the ground, communicating on their +death-beds only its place of concealment to men of nature." + +From the title page of this work, by the way, I learn that the "7000th +year of Astronomical History" is taken from the Chinese tables, and +coincides (as I had supposed) with the year 1812 of our computation.] + +On the whole, if Walking Stewart were at all crazy, he was so in a way +which did not affect his natural genius and eloquence--but rather +exalted them. The old maxim, indeed, that "Great wits to madness sure +are near allied," the maxim of Dryden and the popular maxim, I have +heard disputed by Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth, who maintain that +mad people are the dullest and most wearisome of all people. As a +body, I believe they are so. But I must dissent from the authority of +Messrs. Coleridge and Wordsworth so far as to distinguish. Where +madness is connected, as it often is, with some miserable derangement +of the stomach, liver, &c. and attacks the principle of pleasurable +life, which is manifestly seated in the central organs of the body +(i.e. in the stomach and the apparatus connected with it), there it +cannot but lead to perpetual suffering and distraction of thought; and +there the patient will be often tedious and incoherent. People who +have not suffered from any great disturbance in those organs are +little aware how indispensable to the process of thinking are the +momentary influxes of pleasurable feeling from the regular goings on +of life in its primary functions; in fact, until the pleasure is +withdrawn or obscured, most people are not aware that they _have_ any +pleasure from the due action of the great central machinery of the +system; proceeding in uninterrupted continuance, the pleasure as much +escapes the consciousness as the act of respiration; a child, in the +happiest state of its existence, does not _know_ that it is happy. And +generally whatsoever is the level state of the hourly feeling is never +put down by the unthinking (i.e. by 99 out of 100) to the account of +happiness; it is never put down with the positive sign, as equal to _+ +x_; but simply as = 0. And men first become aware that it _was_ a +positive quantity, when they have lost it (i.e. fallen into _- x_). +Meantime the genial pleasure from the vital processes, though not +represented to the consciousness, is _immanent_ in every +act--impulse--motion--word--and thought; and a philosopher sees that +the idiots are in a state of pleasure, though they cannot see it +themselves. Now I say that, where this principle of pleasure is not +attached, madness is often little more than an enthusiasm highly +exalted; the animal spirits are exuberant and in excess; and the +madman becomes, if he be otherwise a man of ability and information, +all the better as a companion. I have met with several such madmen; +and I appeal to my brilliant friend, Professor W----, who is not a man +to tolerate dulness in any quarter, and is himself the ideal of a +delightful companion, whether he ever met a more amusing person than +that madman who took a post-chaise with us from ---- to Carlisle, long +years ago, when he and I were hastening with the speed of fugitive +felons to catch the Edinburgh mail. His fancy and his extravagance, +and his furious attacks on Sir Isaac Newton, like Plato's suppers, +refreshed us not only for that day but whenever they recurred to us; +and we were both grieved when we heard some time afterwards from a +Cambridge man that he had met our clever friend in a stage coach under +the care of a brutal keeper.--Such a madness, if any, was the madness +of Walking Stewart; his health was perfect; his spirits as light and +ebullient as the spirits of a bird in springtime; and his mind +unagitated by painful thoughts, and at peace with itself. Hence, if he +was not an amusing companion, it was because the philosophic direction +of his thoughts made him something more. Of anecdotes and matters of +fact he was not communicative; of all that he had seen in the vast +compass of his travels he never availed himself in conversation. I do +not remember at this moment that he ever once alluded to his own +travels in his intercourse with me except for the purpose of weighing +down by a statement grounded on his own great personal experience an +opposite statement of many hasty and misjudging travellers which he +thought injurious to human nature; the statement was this, that in all +his countless rencontres with uncivilized tribes he had never met with +any so ferocious and brutal as to attack an unarmed and defenceless +man who was able to make them understand that he threw himself upon +their hospitality and forbearance. + +On the whole, Walking Stewart was a sublime visionary; he had seen and +suffered much amongst men; yet not too much, or so as to dull the +genial tone of his sympathy with the sufferings of others. His mind +was a mirror of the sentient universe.--The whole mighty vision that +had fleeted before his eyes in this world,--the armies of Hyder-Ali +and his son with oriental and barbaric pageantry,--the civic grandeur +of England, the great deserts of Asia and America,--the vast capitals +of Europe,--London with its eternal agitations, the ceaseless ebb and +flow of its "mighty heart,"--Paris shaken by the fierce torments of +revolutionary convulsions, the silence of Lapland, and the solitary +forests of Canada, with the swarming life of the torrid zone, together +with innumerable recollections of individual joy and sorrow, that he +had participated by sympathy--lay like a map beneath him, as if +eternally co-present to his view; so that, in the contemplation of the +prodigious whole, he had no leisure to separate the parts, or occupy +his mind with details. Hence came the monotony which the frivolous and +the desultory would have found in his conversation. I however, who am +perhaps the person best qualified to speak of him, must pronounce him +to have been a man of great genius; and, with reference to his +conversation, of great eloquence. That these were not better known and +acknowledged was owing to two disadvantages; one grounded in his +imperfect education, the other in the peculiar structure of his mind. +The first was this: like the late Mr. Shelley he had a fine vague +enthusiasm and lofty aspirations in connexion with human nature +generally and its hopes; and like him he strove to give steadiness, a +uniform direction, and an intelligible purpose to these feelings, by +fitting to them a scheme of philosophical opinions. But unfortunately +the philosophic system of both was so far from supporting their own +views and the cravings of their own enthusiasm, that, as in some +points it was baseless, incoherent, or unintelligible, so in others it +tended to moral results, from which, if they had foreseen them, they +would have been themselves the first to shrink as contradictory to the +very purposes in which their system had originated. Hence, in +maintaining their own system they both found themselves painfully +entangled at times with tenets pernicious and degrading to human +nature. These were the inevitable consequences of the [Greek: proton +pseudos] in their speculations; but were naturally charged upon them +by those who looked carelessly into their books as opinions which not +only for the sake of consistency they thought themselves bound to +endure, but to which they gave the full weight of their sanction and +patronage as to so many moving principles in their system. The other +disadvantage under which Walking Stewart laboured was this: he was a +man of genius, but not a man of talents; at least his genius was out +of all proportion to his talents, and wanted an organ as it were for +manifesting itself; so that his most original thoughts were delivered +in a crude state--imperfect, obscure, half developed, and not +producible to a popular audience. He was aware of this himself; and, +though he claims everywhere the faculty of profound intuition into +human nature, yet with equal candour he accuses himself of asinine +stupidity, dulness, and want of talent. He was a disproportioned +intellect, and so far a monster; and he must be added to the long list +of original-minded men who have been looked down upon with pity and +contempt by common-place men of talent, whose powers of mind--though a +thousand times inferior--were yet more manageable, and ran in channels +more suited to common uses and common understandings. + +N.B. About the year 1812 I remember seeing in many of the print-shops +a whole-length sketch in water-colours of Walking Stewart in his +customary dress and attitude. This, as the only memorial (I presume) +in that shape of a man whose memory I love, I should be very glad to +possess; and therefore I take the liberty of publicly requesting as a +particular favour from any reader of this article, who may chance to +remember such a sketch in any collection of prints offered for sale, +that he would cause it to be sent to the Editor of the LONDON +MAGAZINE, who will pay for it. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH + + +From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point +in Macbeth: it was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to +the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I +never could account: the effect was--that it reflected back upon the +murder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity: yet, however +obstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to comprehend this, +for many years I never could see _why_ it should produce such an +effect.---- + +Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any +attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any +other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and +indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most +to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to +nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic +purposes. Of this, out of ten thousand instances that I might produce, +I will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever, who is not previously +prepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective, to draw in the +rudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon the laws of +that science--as for instance, to represent the effect of two walls +standing at right angles to each other, or the appearance of the +houses on each side of a street, as seen by a person looking down the +street from one extremity. Now in all cases, unless the person has +happened to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce these +effects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximation +to it. Yet why?--For he has actually seen the effect every day of his +life. The reason is--that he allows his understanding to overrule his +eyes. His understanding, which includes no intuitive knowledge of the +laws of vision, can furnish him with no reason why a line which is +known and can be proved to be a horizontal line, should not _appear_ a +horizontal line: a line, that made any angle with the perpendicular +less than a right angle, would seem to him to indicate that his houses +were all tumbling down together. Accordingly he makes the line of his +houses a horizontal line, and fails of course to produce the effect +demanded. Here then is one instance out of many, in which not only the +understanding is allowed to overrule the eyes, but where the +understanding is positively allowed to obliterate the eyes as it were: +for not only does the man believe the evidence of his understanding in +opposition to that of his eyes, but (which is monstrous!) the idiot is +not aware that his eyes ever gave such evidence. He does not know that +he has seen (and therefore _quoad_ his consciousness has _not_ seen) +that which he _has_ seen every day of his life. But to return from +this digression,--my understanding could furnish no reason why the +knocking at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect direct or +reflected: in fact, my understanding said positively that it could +_not_ produce any effect. But I knew better: I felt that it did: and I +waited and clung to the problem until further knowledge should enable +me to solve it.--At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams made his _debut_ on +the stage of Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleled +murders which have procured for him such a brilliant and undying +reputation. On which murders, by the way, I must observe, that in one +respect they have had an ill effect, by making the connoisseur in +murder very fastidious in his taste, and dissatisfied with any thing +that has been since done in that line. All other murders look pale by +the deep crimson of his: and, as an amateur once said to me in a +querulous tone, "There has been absolutely nothing _doing_ since his +time, or nothing that's worth speaking of." But this is wrong: for it +is unreasonable to expect all men to be great artists, and born with +the genius of Mr. Williams.--Now it will be remembered that in the +first of these murders (that of the Marrs) the same incident (of a +knocking at the door soon after the work of extermination was +complete) did actually occur which the genius of Shakspeare had +invented: and all good judges and the most eminent dilettanti +acknowledged the felicity of Shakspeare's suggestion as soon as it was +actually realized. Here then was a fresh proof that I had been right +in relying on my own feeling in opposition to my understanding; and +again I set myself to study the problem: at length I solved it to my +own satisfaction; and my solution is this. Murder in ordinary cases, +where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the murdered +person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; and for this +reason--that it flings the interest exclusively upon the natural but +ignoble instinct by which we cleave to life; an instinct which, as +being indispensable to the primal law of self-preservation, is the +same in kind (though different in degree) amongst all living +creatures; this instinct therefore, because it annihilates all +distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to the level of "the +poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human nature in its most +abject and humiliating attitude. Such an attitude would little suit +the purposes of the poet. What then must he do? He must throw the +interest on the murderer: our sympathy must be with _him_; (of course +I mean a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter into +his feelings, and are made to understand them,--not a sympathy[47] of +pity or approbation:) in the murdered person all strife of thought, +all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, are crushed by one +overwhelming panic: the fear of instant death smites him "with its +petrific mace." [Footnote 47: It seems almost ludicrous to guard and +explain my use of a word in a situation where it should naturally +explain itself. But it has become necessary to do so, in consequence +of the unscholarlike use of the word sympathy, at present so general, +by which, instead of taking it in its proper use, as the act of +reproducing in our minds the feelings of another, whether for hatred, +indignation, love, pity, or approbation, it is made a mere synonyme of +the word _pity_; and hence, instead of saying, "sympathy _with_ +another," many writers adopt the monstrous barbarism of "sympathy +_for_ another."] But in the murderer, such a murderer as a poet will +condescend to, there must be raging some great storm of +passion,--jealousy, ambition, vengeance, hatred,--which will create a +hell within him; and into this hell we are to look. In Macbeth, for +the sake of gratifying his own enormous and teeming faculty of +creation, Shakspeare has introduced two murderers: and, as usual in +his hands, they are remarkably discriminated: but though in Macbeth +the strife of mind is greater than in his wife, the tiger spirit not +so awake, and his feelings caught chiefly by contagion from her,--yet, +as both were finally involved in the guilt of murder, the murderous +mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both. This was to be +expressed; and on its own account, as well as to make it a more +proportionable antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, +"the gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound "the deep damnation +of his taking off," this was to be expressed with peculiar energy. We +were to be made to feel that the human nature, _i.e._ the divine +nature of love and mercy, spread through the hearts of all creatures, +and seldom utterly withdrawn from man,--was gone, vanished, extinct; +and that the fiendish nature had taken its place. And, as this effect +is marvellously accomplished in the dialogues and soliloquies +themselves, so it is finally consummated by the expedient under +consideration; and it is to this that I now solicit the reader's +attention. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter, or +sister, in a fainting fit, he may chance to have observed that the +most affecting moment in such a spectacle, is _that_ in which a sigh +and a stirring announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, if +the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on the day when +some great national idol was carried in funeral pomp to his grave, and +chancing to walk near to the course through which it passed, has felt +powerfully in the silence and desertion of the streets and in the +stagnation of ordinary business, the deep interest which at that +moment was possessing the heart of man,--if all at once he should hear +the death-like stillness broken up by the sound of wheels rattling +away from the scene, and making known that the transitory vision was +dissolved, he will be aware that at no moment was his sense of the +complete suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and +affecting as at that moment when the suspension ceases, and the +goings-on of human life are suddenly resumed. All action in any +direction is best expounded, measured, and made apprehensible, by +reaction. Now apply this to the case in Macbeth. Here, as I have said, +the retiring of the human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart +was to be expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in; +and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things, human +purposes, human desires. They are transfigured: Lady Macbeth is +"unsexed;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born of woman; both are +conformed to the image of devils; and the world of devils is suddenly +revealed. But how shall this be conveyed and made palpable? In order +that a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. +The murderers, and the murder, must be insulated--cut off by an +immeasurable gulph from the ordinary tide and succession of human +affairs--locked up and sequestered in some deep recess: we must be +made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly +arrested--laid asleep--tranced--racked into a dread armistice: time +must be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and all +must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly +passion. Hence it is that when the deed is done--when the work of +darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a +pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it +makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has +made its reflux upon the fiendish: the pulses of life are beginning to +beat again: and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in +which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful +parenthesis that had suspended them. + +Oh! mighty poet!--Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and +merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, +like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and +snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied +with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith +that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless +or inert--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more +we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where +the careless eye had seen nothing but accident! + +N.B. In the above specimen of psychological criticism, I have +purposely omitted to notice another use of the knocking at the gate, +viz. the opposition and contrast which it produces in the porter's +comments to the scenes immediately preceding; because this use is +tolerably obvious to all who are accustomed to reflect on what they +read. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON + + +Damascus, first-born of cities, _Om el Denia_,[48] mother of +generations, that wast before Abraham, that wast before the Pyramids! +what sounds are those that, from a postern gate, looking eastwards +over secret paths that wind away to the far distant desert, break the +solemn silence of an oriental night? Whose voice is that which calls +upon the spearmen, keeping watch for ever in the turret surmounting +the gate, to receive him back into his Syrian home? Thou knowest him, +Damascus, and hast known him in seasons of trouble as one learned in +the afflictions of man; wise alike to take counsel for the suffering +spirit or for the suffering body. The voice that breaks upon the night +is the voice of a great evangelist--one of the four; and he is also a +great physician. This do the watchmen at the gate thankfully +acknowledge, and joyfully they give him entrance. His sandals are +white with dust; for he has been roaming for weeks beyond the desert, +under the guidance of Arabs, on missions of hopeful benignity to +Palmyra;[49] and in spirit he is weary of all things, except +faithlessness to God, and burning love to man. + +[Footnote 48: '_Om el Denia_':--Mother of the World is the Arabic +title of Damascus. That it was before Abraham--_i.e._, already an old +establishment much more than a thousand years before the siege of +Troy, and than two thousand years before our Christian era--may be +inferred from Gen. xv. 2; and by the general consent of all eastern +races, Damascus is accredited as taking precedency in age of all +cities to the west of the Indus.] + +[Footnote 49: Palmyra had not yet reached its meridian splendour of +Grecian development, as afterwards near the age of Aurelian, but it +was already a noble city.] + +Eastern cities are asleep betimes; and sounds few or none fretted the +quiet of all around him, as the evangelist paced onward to the +market-place; but there another scene awaited him. On the right hand, +in an upper chamber, with lattices widely expanded, sat a festal +company of youths, revelling under a noonday blaze of light, from +cressets and from bright tripods that burned fragrant woods--all +joining in choral songs, all crowned with odorous wreaths from Daphne +and the banks of the Orontes. Them the evangelist heeded not; but far +away upon the left, close upon a sheltered nook, lighted up by a +solitary vase of iron fretwork filled with cedar boughs, and hoisted +high upon a spear, behold there sat a woman of loveliness so +transcendent, that, when suddenly revealed, as now, out of deepest +darkness, she appalled men as a mockery, or a birth of the air. Was +she born of woman? Was it perhaps the angel--so the evangelist argued +with himself--that met him in the desert after sunset, and +strengthened him by secret talk? The evangelist went up, and touched +her forehead; and when he found that she was indeed human, and +guessed, from the station which she had chosen, that she waited for +some one amongst this dissolute crew as her companion, he groaned +heavily in spirit, and said, half to himself, but half to her, "Wert +thou, poor ruined flower, adorned so divinely at thy birth--glorified +in such excess that not Solomon in all his pomp--no, nor even the +lilies of the field--can approach thy gifts--only that thou shouldest +grieve the holy spirit of God?" The woman trembled exceedingly, and +said, "Rabbi, what should I do? For behold! all men forsake me." The +evangelist mused a little, and then secretly to himself he said, "Now +will I search this woman's heart--whether in very truth it inclineth +itself to God, and hath strayed only before fiery compulsion." Turning +therefore to the woman, the Prophet[50] said, "Listen: I am the +messenger of Him whom thou hast not known; of Him that made Lebanon +and the cedars of Lebanon; that made the sea, and the heavens, and the +host of the stars; that made the light; that made the darkness; that +blew the spirit of life into the nostrils of man. His messenger I am: +and from Him all power is given me to bind and to loose, to build and +to pull down. Ask, therefore, whatsoever thou wilt--great or +small--and through me thou shalt receive it from God. But, my child, +ask not amiss. For God is able out of thy own evil asking to weave +snares for thy footing. And oftentimes to the lambs whom He loves, He +gives by seeming to refuse; gives in some better sense, or" (and his +voice swelled into the power of anthems) "in some far happier world. +Now, therefore, my daughter, be wise on thy own behalf; and say what +it is that I shall ask for thee from God." But the Daughter of Lebanon +needed not his caution; for immediately dropping on one knee to God's +ambassador, whilst the full radiance from the cedar torch fell upon +the glory of a penitential eye, she raised her clasped hands in +supplication, and said, in answer to the evangelist asking for a +second time what gift he should call down upon her from Heaven, "Lord, +that thou wouldest put me back into my father's house." And the +evangelist, because he was human, dropped a tear as he stooped to kiss +her forehead, saying, "Daughter, thy prayer is heard in heaven; and I +tell thee that the daylight shall not come and go for thirty times, +not for the thirtieth time shall the sun drop behind Lebanon, before I +will put thee back into thy father's house." + +[Footnote 50: "_The Prophet_":--Though a Prophet was not _therefore_ +and in virtue of that character an Evangelist, yet every Evangelist +was necessarily in the scriptural sense a Prophet. For let it be +remembered that a Prophet did not mean a _Pre_dicter, or _Fore_shower +of events, except derivatively and inferentially. What _was_ a Prophet +in the uniform scriptural sense? He was a man, who drew aside the +curtain from the secret counsels of Heaven. He declared, or made +public, the previously hidden truths of God: and because future events +might chance to involve divine truth, therefore a revealer of future +events might happen so far to be a Prophet. Yet still small was that +part of a Prophet's functions which concerned the foreshowing of +events; and not necessarily _any_ part.] + +Thus the lovely lady came into the guardianship of the evangelist. She +sought not to varnish her history, or to palliate her own +transgressions. In so far as she had offended at all, her case was +that of millions in every generation. Her father was a prince in +Lebanon, proud, unforgiving, austere. The wrongs done to his daughter +by her dishonourable lover, because done under favour of opportunities +created by her confidence in his integrity, her father persisted in +resenting as wrong's done by this injured daughter herself; and, +refusing to her all protection, drove her, whilst yet confessedly +innocent, into criminal compliances under sudden necessities of +seeking daily bread from her own uninstructed efforts. Great was the +wrong she suffered both from father and lover; great was the +retribution. She lost a churlish father and a wicked lover; she gained +an apostolic guardian. She lost a princely station in Lebanon; she +gained an early heritage in heaven. For this heritage is hers within +thirty days, if she will not defeat it herself. And, whilst the +stealthy motion of time travelled towards this thirtieth day, behold! +a burning fever desolated Damascus, which also laid its arrest upon +the Daughter of Lebanon, yet gently, and so that hardly for an hour +did it withdraw her from the heavenly teachings of the evangelist. And +thus daily the doubt was strengthened--would the holy apostle suddenly +touch her with his hand, and say, "Woman, be thou whole!" or would he +present her on the thirtieth day as a pure bride to Christ? But +perfect freedom belongs to Christian service, and she only must make +the election. + +Up rose the sun on the thirtieth morning in all his pomp, but suddenly +was darkened by driving storms. Not until noon was the heavenly orb +again revealed; then the glorious light was again unmasked, and again +the Syrian valleys rejoiced. This was the hour already appointed for +the baptism of the new Christian daughter. Heaven and earth shed +gratulation on the happy festival; and, when all was finished, under +an awning raised above the level roof of her dwelling-house, the +regenerate daughter of Lebanon, looking over the rose-gardens of +Damascus, with amplest prospect of her native hills, lay in blissful +trance, making proclamation, by her white baptismal robes, of +recovered innocence and of reconciliation with God. And, when the sun +was declining to the west, the evangelist, who had sat from noon by +the bedside of his spiritual daughter, rose solemnly, and said, "Lady +of Lebanon, the day is already come, and the hour is coming, in which +my covenant must be fulfilled with thee. Wilt thou, therefore, being +now wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new Father, to give by +seeming to refuse; to give in some better sense, or in some far +happier world?" But the Daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at these words; +she yearned after her native hills; not for themselves, but because +there it was that she had left that sweet twin-born sister with whom +from infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst the everlasting +cedars. And again the evangelist sat down by her bedside; while she by +intervals communed with him, and by intervals slept gently under the +oppression of her fever. But, as evening drew nearer, and it wanted +now but a brief space to the going down of the sun, once again, and +with deeper solemnity, the evangelist rose to his feet, and said, "O +daughter! this is the thirtieth day, and the sun is drawing near to +his rest; brief, therefore, is the time within which I must fulfil the +word that God spoke to thee by me." Then, because light clouds of +delirium were playing about her brain, he raised his pastoral staff, +and pointing it to her temples, rebuked the clouds, and bade that no +more they should trouble her vision, or stand between her and the +forests of Lebanon. And the delirious clouds parted asunder, breaking +away to the right and to the left. But upon the forests of Lebanon +there hung a mighty mass of overshadowing vapours, bequeathed by the +morning's storm. And a second time the evangelist raised his pastoral +staff, and, pointing it to the gloomy vapours, rebuked them, and bade +that no more they should stand between his daughter and her father's +house, and immediately the dark vapours broke away from Lebanon to the +right and to the left; and the farewell radiance of the sun lighted up +all the paths that ran between the everlasting cedars and her father's +palace. But vainly the lady of Lebanon searched every path with her +eyes for memorials of her sister. And the evangelist, pitying her +sorrow, turned away her eyes to the clear blue sky, which the +departing vapours had exposed. And he showed her the peace that was +there. And then he said, "O daughter! this also is but a mask." And +immediately for the third time he raised his pastoral staff, and, +pointing it to the fair blue sky, he rebuked it, and bade that no more +it should stand between her and the vision of God. Immediately the +blue sky parted to the right and to the left, laying bare the infinite +revelations that can be made visible only to dying eyes. And the +Daughter of Lebanon said to the evangelist, "O father! what armies are +these that I see mustering within the infinite chasm?" And the +evangelist replied, "These are the armies of Christ, and they are +mustering to receive some dear human blossom, some first-fruits of +Christian faith, that shall rise this night to Christ from Damascus." +Suddenly, as thus the child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty vision, +she saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in gratulation +to herself, the one countenance for which she hungered and thirsted. +The twin sister, that should have waited for her in Lebanon, had died +of grief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in rapture +she soared upwards from her couch; immediately in weakness she fell +back; and being caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms around +his neck; whilst he breathed into her ear his final whisper, "Wilt +thou now suffer that God should give by seeming to refuse?"--"Oh +yes--yes--yes," was the fervent answer from the Daughter of Lebanon. +Immediately the evangelist gave the signal to the heavens, and the +heavens gave the signal to the sun; and in one minute after the +Daughter of Lebanon had fallen back a marble corpse amongst her white +baptismal robes, the solar orb dropped behind Lebanon; and the +evangelist, with eyes glorified by mortal and immortal tears, rendered +thanks to God that had thus accomplished the word which he spoke +through himself to the Magdalen of Lebanon--that not for the thirtieth +time should the sun go down behind her native hills, before he had put +her back into her Father's house. + + _De Quincey._ + + + + +GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS + + +An Italian author--Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit--has written a poem upon +insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and +abominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and that +they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the north may +dispute this piece of theology; but on the other hand, it is clear as +the snow on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity of +shaving; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious bower, she did +not step upon ice three inches thick. + +Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning. +You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing is +done. This may be very true; just as a boy at school has only to take +a flogging, and the thing is over. But we have not at all made up our +minds upon it; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss the +matter, candidly, before we get up. This at least is not idling, +though it may be lying. It affords an excellent answer to those, who +ask how lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning being,--a +rational creature. How? Why with the argument calmly at work in one's +head, and the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh--it is a fine way of +spending a sensible, impartial half-hour. + +If these people would be more charitable, they would get on with their +argument better. But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert so +dogmatically, that one could wish to have them stand round one's bed +of a bitter morning, and lie before their faces. They ought to hear +both sides of the bed, the inside and out. If they cannot entertain +themselves with their own thoughts for half an hour or so, it is not +the fault of those who can. If their will is never pulled aside by the +enticing arms of imagination, so much the luckier for the +stage-coachman. + +Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides the greater or less +privileges to be allowed a man in proportion to his ability of keeping +early hours, the work given his faculties, etc., will at least concede +their due merits to such representations as the following. In the +first place, says the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm all +night, and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to a +warm-blooded animal. To get out of this state into the cold, besides +the inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the transition, is so +unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, refining upon the +tortures of the damned, make one of their greatest agonies consist in +being suddenly transported from heat to cold,--from fire to ice. They +are "haled" out of their "beds," says Milton, by "harpy-footed +furies,"--fellows who come to call them. On my first movement towards +the anticipation of getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets +and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the room, are stone-cold. On +opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath +rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage +chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see +the window all frozen over. Think of that. Then the servant comes in. +"It is very cold this morning, is it not?"--"Very cold, Sir."--"Very +cold indeed, isn't it?"--"Very cold indeed, Sir."--"More than usually +so, isn't it, even for this weather?" (Here the servant's wit and +good-nature are put to a considerable test, and the inquirer lies on +thorns for the answer.) "Why, Sir ... I think it _is_." (Good +creature! There is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.) +"I must rise, however--get me some warm water."--Here comes a fine +interval between the departure of the servant and the arrival of the +hot water; during which, of course, it is of "no use" to get up. The +hot water comes. "Is it quite hot?"--"Yes, Sir."--"Perhaps too hot for +shaving: I must wait a little?"--"No, Sir; it will just do." (There is +an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a +little troublesome.) "Oh--the shirt--you must air my clean +shirt;--linen gets very damp this weather."--"Yes, Sir." Here another +delicious five minutes. A knock at the door. "Oh, the shirt--very +well. My stockings--I think the stockings had better be aired +too."--"Very well, Sir."--Here another interval. At length everything +is ready, except myself. I now, continues our incumbent (a happy word, +by the bye, for a country vicar)--I now cannot help thinking a good +deal--who can?--upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving: +it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)--so effeminate (here I +recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)--No +wonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against the +degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage +with a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed the +luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the +flowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture--at Michael +Angelo's--at Titian's--at Shakespeare's--at Fletcher's--at +Spenser's--at Chaucer's--at Alfred's--at Plato's--I could name a great +man for every tick of my watch.--Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose +people.--Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan.--Think of +Wortley Montagu, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the +prejudice of his time.--Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is +ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are +so much finer than our own.--Lastly, think of the razor itself--how +totally opposed to every sensation of bed--how cold, how edgy, how +hard! how utterly different from anything like the warm and circling +amplitude, which + + Sweetly recommends itself + Unto our gentle senses. + +Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, a +quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he that +says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate, +that he has no merit in opposing it. + +Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons-- + + Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake? + +used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive in +getting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could +also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be +allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the +argument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn out +of his bed by three and four pence; but this will not suffice for a +student. A proud man may say, "What shall I think of myself, if I +don't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive this +prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. The +mechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the +barometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter of +discussion even on the score of health and longevity. He will ask us +for our proofs and precedents of the ill effects of lying later in +cold weather; and sophisticate much on the advantages of an even +temperature of body; of the natural propensity (pretty universal) to +have one's way; and of the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep +all the winter. As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest life +is of necessity the best; and whether Holborn is the handsomest street +in London. + +We only know of one confounding, not to say confounded argument, fit +to overturn the huge luxury, the "enormous bliss"--of the vice in +question. A lier in bed may be allowed to profess a disinterested +indifference for his health or longevity; but while he is showing the +reasonableness of consulting his own or one person's comfort, he must +admit the proportionate claim of more than one; and the best way to +deal with him is this, especially for a lady; for we earnestly +recommend the use of that sex on such occasions, if not somewhat +_over_-persuasive; since extremes have an awkward knack of meeting. +First then, admit all the ingeniousness of what he says, telling him +that the bar has been deprived of an excellent lawyer. Then look at +him in the most good-natured manner in the world, with a mixture of +assent and appeal in your countenance, and tell him that you are +waiting breakfast for him; that you never like to breakfast without +him; that you really want it too; that the servants want theirs; that +you shall not know how to get the house into order, unless he rises; +and that you are sure he would do things twenty times worse, even than +getting out of his warm bed, to put them all into good humour and a +state of comfort. Then, after having said this, throw in the +comparatively indifferent matter, to _him_, about his health; but tell +him that it is no indifferent matter to you; that the sight of his +illness makes more people suffer than one; but that if, nevertheless, +he really does feel so very sleepy and so very much refreshed by---- +Yet stay; we hardly know whether the frailty of a---- Yes, yes; say +that too, especially if you say it with sincerity; for if the weakness +of human nature on the one hand and the _vis inertiae_ on the other, +should lead him to take advantage of it once or twice, good-humour and +sincerity form an irresistible junction at last; and are still better +and warmer things than pillows and blankets. + +Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in, as occasion requires. +You may tell a lover, for instance, that lying in bed makes people +corpulent; a father, that you wish him to complete the fine manly +example he sets his children; a lady, that she will injure her bloom +or her shape, which M. or W. admires so much; and a student or artist, +that he is always so glad to have done a good day's work, in his best +manner. + +_Reader._ And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do _you_ behave yourself in +this respect? + +_Indic._ Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course; like all advisers. + +_Reader._ Nay, I allow that your mode of argument does not look quite +so suspicious as the old way of sermonising and severity, but I have +my doubts, especially from that laugh of yours. If I should look in +to-morrow morning-- + +_Indic._ Ah, Madam, the look in of a face like yours does anything +with me. It shall fetch me up at nine, if you please--_six_, I meant +to say. + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE OLD GENTLEMAN + + +Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must be either +a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former. We do not mention his +precise age, which would be invidious:--nor whether he wears his own +hair or a wig; which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is +a compromise between the more modern scratch and the departed glory of +the toupee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favourite +grandson, who used to get on the chair behind him, and pull the silver +hairs out, ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hairdresser, +hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes care to +give the bald place as much powder as the covered; in order that he +may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing indistinctness of idea +respecting the exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean and +neat; and, in warm weather, is proud of opening his waistcoat half-way +down, and letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to show his +hardiness as well as taste. His watch and shirt-buttons are of the +best; and he does not care if he has two rings on a finger. If his +watch ever failed him at the club or coffee-house, he would take a +walk every day to the nearest clock of good character, purely to keep +it right. He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it out +of fashion with his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for +gala days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one, +when made a bow to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for the +neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The +pocket-book, among other things, contains a receipt for a cough, and +some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovely +Duchess of A., beginning-- + + "When beauteous Mira walks the plain." + +He intends this for a common-place book which he keeps, consisting of +passages in verse and prose, cut out of newspapers and magazines, and +pasted in columns; some of them rather gay. His principal other books +are Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost; the Spectator, the +History of England, the Works of Lady M. W. Montagu, Pope and +Churchill; Middleton's Geography; the Gentleman's Magazine; Sir John +Sinclair on Longevity; several plays with portraits in character; +Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical +Amusements at Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts; Junius as +originally published; a few pamphlets on the American War and Lord +George Gordon, etc., and one on the French Revolution. In his +sitting-rooms are some engravings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an +engraved portrait of the Marquis of Granby; ditto of M. le Comte de +Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny; +and a portrait of himself, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's portrait +is in his chamber, looking upon his bed. She is a little girl, +stepping forward with a smile, and a pointed toe, as if going to +dance. He lost her when she was sixty. + +The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to live at +least twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for breakfast, in +spite of what is said against its nervous effects; having been +satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. Johnson's criticism on +Hanway, and a great liking for tea previously. His china cups and +saucers have been broken since his wife's death, all but one, which is +religiously kept for his use. He passes his morning in walking or +riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his India bonds or some +such money securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by his +excellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a new old print for his +portfolio. He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see them +till after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or +so; the fishmonger soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with a +profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner. + +His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the accustomed +hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. If +William did not bring it, the fish would be sure to be stale, and the +flesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures on a little, takes +cheese with it. You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of his +senses, as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes port; and +if he has drunk more than usual, and in a more private place, may be +induced by some respectful inquiries respecting the old style of +music, to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as-- + + "Chloe, by that borrowed kiss," + +or + + "Come, gentle god of soft repose," + +or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning-- + + "At Upton on the hill, + There lived a happy pair." + +Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room: but he +will canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or discuss the +weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits of "my lord +North" or "my lord Rockingham;" for he rarely says simply, lord; it is +generally "my lord," trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If alone +after dinner, his great delight is the newspaper; which he prepares to +read by wiping his spectacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, +and drawing the candle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt +his ocular aim and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm's +length, and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, +takes cognizance of the day's information. If he leaves off, it is +only when the door is opened by a new-comer, or when he suspects +somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On these +occasions he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes. + +In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the theatre, or +of having a game of cards. If he enjoys the latter at his own house or +lodgings, he likes to play with some friends whom he has known for +many years; but an elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and +scientific; and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters; +who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser, but to +win money at cards is like proving his victory by getting the baggage; +and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his not being able to +beat him at rackets. He breaks up early, whether at home or abroad. + +At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit. He comes early, if he +can do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently waiting +for the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands placidly lying one +over the other on the top of his stick. He generously admires some of +the best performers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, +Woodward, and Clive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the +little boy should see. + +He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes it still +less than he did years back, and cannot bear it in comparison with +Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, flaring, and jaded. "Ah!" +says he, with a sort of triumphant sigh, "Ranelagh was a noble place! +Such taste, such elegance, such beauty! There was the Duchess of A., +the finest woman in England, Sir; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine creature; +and Lady Susan what's her name, that had that unfortunate affair with +Sir Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans." + +The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers ready for +him at the fire, when he comes home. He is also extremely choice in +his snuff, and delights to get a fresh boxful in Tavistock-street, in +his way to the theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. He calls +favourite young ladies by their Christian names, however slightly +acquainted with them; and has a privilege also of saluting all brides, +mothers, and indeed every species of lady, on the least holiday +occasion. If the husband for instance has met with a piece of luck, he +instantly moves forward, and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The +wife then says, "My niece, Sir, from the country;" and he kisses the +niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says, +"My cousin Harriet, Sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He "never +recollects such weather," except during the "Great Frost," or when he +rode down with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows young again in +his little grandchildren, especially the one which he thinks most like +himself; which is the handsomest. Yet he likes the best perhaps the +one most resembling his wife; and will sit with him on his lap, +holding his hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together. He +plays most tricks with the former, and makes him sneeze. He asks +little boys in general who was the father of Zebedee's children. If +his grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them; and makes them +blush by telling the master or the upper-scholars, that they are fine +boys, and of a precocious genius. He is much struck when an old +acquaintance dies, but adds that he lived too fast; and that poor Bob +was a sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, Sir; mightily set upon a +short life and a merry one." + +When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say +little or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the +housekeeper)--"_She_'ll talk." + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE OLD LADY + + +If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her +condition and time of life are so much the more apparent. She +generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rustling as she +moves about the silence of her room; and she wears a nice cap with a +lace border, that comes under the chin. In a placket at her side is an +old enamelled watch, unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet, +for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather tight and trim than +otherwise, as she had a fine one when young; and she is not sorry if +you see a pair of her stockings on a table, that you may be aware of +the neatness of her leg and foot. Contented with these and other +evident indications of a good shape, and letting her young friends +understand that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wears +pockets, and uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, and +any heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the +change of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment, +consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a +spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a +smelling-bottle, and, according to the season, an orange or apple, +which after many days she draws out, warm and glossy, to give to some +little child that has well behaved itself. She generally occupies two +rooms, in the neatest condition possible. In the chamber is a bed with +a white coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, and with +curtains of a pastoral pattern, consisting alternately of large +plants, and shepherds and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are more +shepherds and shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in +coloured ware: the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of ribbons +at his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand, and +with the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking +tenderly at the shepherdess: the woman holding a crook also, and +modestly returning his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a very +slender waist, with petticoat and hips to _counteract_, and the +petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show the +trimness of her ankles. But these patterns, of course, are various. +The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied about with a +snow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are various boxes, mostly +japan; and the set of drawers are exquisite things for a little girl +to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,--containing ribbons and +laces of various kinds; linen smelling of lavender, of the flowers of +which there is always dust in the corners; a heap of pocket-books for +a series of years; and pieces of dress long gone by, such as +head-fronts, stomachers, and flowered satin shoes, with enormous +heels. The stock of _letters_ are under especial lock and key. So much +for the bedroom. In the sitting-room is rather a spare assortment of +shining old mahogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with +chintz draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, with +Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed, meek faces perking +sideways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too +much for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantelpiece, in a +coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly inserted +in the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall, is a piece of +embroidered literature, framed and glazed, containing some moral +distich or maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with two trees of +parrots below, in their proper colours; the whole concluding with an A +B C and numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, expressing it +to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762." The rest of the furniture consists of +a looking-glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a hassock for the +feet, a mat for the little dog, and a small set of shelves, in which +are the "Spectator" and "Guardian," the "Turkish Spy," a Bible and +Prayer Book, Young's "Night Thoughts" with a piece of lace in it to +flatten, Mrs. Rowe's "Devout Exercises of the Heart," Mrs. Glasse's +"Cookery," and perhaps "Sir Charles Grandison," and "Clarissa." "John +Buncle" is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. The clock is +on the landing-place between the two room doors, where it ticks +audibly but quietly; and the landing-place, as well as the stairs, is +carpeted to a nicety. The house is most in character, and properly +coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with +wainscot rather than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Before +the windows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Lady +receives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game of +cards: or you may see her going out on the same kind of visit herself, +with a light umbrella running up into a stick and crooked ivory +handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his love to her and +captious antipathy to strangers. Her grandchildren dislike him on +holidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures to give him a sly kick +under the table. When she returns at night, she appears, if the +weather happens to be doubtful, in a calash; and her servant in +pattens, follows half behind and half at her side, with a lantern. + +Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergyman a nice +man. The Duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great man; but +she has a secret preference for the Marquis of Granby. She thinks the +young women of the present day too forward, and the men not respectful +enough; but hopes her grandchildren will be better; though she differs +with her daughter in several points respecting their management. She +sets little value on the new accomplishments; is a great though +delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery; +and if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breeding +of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir Charles +Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real person. She likes a +walk of a summer's evening, but avoids the new streets, canals, etc., +and sometimes goes through the churchyard, where her other children +and her husband lie buried, serious, but not melancholy. She has had +three great epochs in her life:--her marriage--her having been at +court, to see the King and Queen and Royal Family--and a compliment on +her figure she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom she +describes as a sad, loose man, but engaging. His plainness she thinks +much exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it is +still the court; but she seldom stirs, even for that. The last time +but one that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtemberg; and most +probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess Charlotte and +Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned with the same +admiration as ever for the fine comely appearance of the Duke of York +and the rest of the family, and great delight at having had a near +view of the Princess, whom she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted +mittens, clasping them as passionately as she can together, and +calling her, in a transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine +royal young creature, and "Daughter of England." + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +THE MAID-SERVANT[51] + + +Must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the +butler, or _her cousin_, or has otherwise settled into a character +distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly +called the domestic. The Maid-servant, in her apparel, is either +slovenly and fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times +snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter +case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and +a neck-handkerchief pinned cornerwise behind. If you want a pin, she +just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and +holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings +for white, puts on a gown of better texture and fine pattern, sets her +cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a +high-body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is +something very warm and latent in the handkerchief--something easy, +vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like +a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She +looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her +chucked out of doors into a cart, with as little remorse as a couple +of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the +handkerchief, and is to the other what the young lady is to the +servant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in Sir Richard +Steele; the other of Fanny in "Joseph Andrews." + +[Footnote 51: In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait +must be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty years ago.] + +But to return. The general furniture of her ordinary room, the +kitchen, is not so much her own as her Master's and Mistress's, and +need not be described: but in a drawer of the dresser or the table, in +company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her +property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissors, a thread-case, +a piece of wax much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of +"Pamela," and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as "George Barnwell," or +Mrs. Behn's "Oroonoko." There is a piece of looking-glass in the +window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find +a good looking-glass on the table, and in the window a Bible, a comb, +and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the +mighty mystery,--the box,--containing, among other things, her +clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the +penny; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet; the "Whole Nature of +Dreams Laid Open," together with the "Fortune-teller" and the "Account +of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;" the "Story of the Beautiful Zoa" "who was +cast away on a desart island, showing how," etc.; some half-crowns in +a purse, including pieces of country-money, with the good Countess of +Coventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver penny +wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before +she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten or been +forgotten by her, she is not sure which;--two little enamel boxes, +with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "a +Trifle from Margate;" and lastly, various letters, square and ragged, +and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters +for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school, +is directed "Miss." + +In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her young +mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and +occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and +condition overcome all sophistications of this sort: her shape, +fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and +exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her +temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is +over-saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or +when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty +shoes,--or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she +much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; and +sometimes she catches herself saying, "Drat that butcher," but +immediately adds, "God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with their +compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The +milkman bespeaks her good-humour for the day with "Come, pretty +maids:"--then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, etc., all +with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to +the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from +its roller with more than the ordinary whirl, and tosses his parcel +into a tie. + +Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and +grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected +with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the +area-steps or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a +troop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out of +a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house, +when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary +obstacles between. If the Maid-servant is wise, the best part of her +work is done by dinner-time; and nothing else is necessary to give +perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she +calls it "a bit o' dinner." There is the same sort of eloquence in her +other phrase, "a cup o' tea;" but the old ones, and the washerwomen, +beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other +servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts-like, and tells Mr. +John to "have done then;" or if there is a ball given that night, they +throw open the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. +In smaller houses, she receives the visits of her aforesaid cousin; +and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid-servant, to work; talks of +her young master or mistress and Mr. Ivins (Evans); or else she calls +to mind her own friends in the country; where she thinks the cows and +"all that" beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she +snuffs the candle with her scissors; or if she has eaten more heartily +than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks +that tender hearts were born to be unhappy. + +Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, she scorns, when abroad, +to be anything but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The Maid-servant, +the sailor, and the schoolboy, are the three beings that enjoy a +holiday beyond all the rest of the world;--and all for the same +reason,--because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of +being with persons of circumstances or thoughts above them, give them +all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of the +money-getters is a vegetable compared with them. The Maid-servant when +she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all +pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play or the +music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of +apples and gingerbread, which she and her party commence almost as +soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy, +because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general; +and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in the +love-scenes. Her favourite play is "Alexander the Great, or the Rival +Queens." Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to +look at the pictures in the windows, and the fine things labelled with +those corpulent numerals of "only 7_s._"--"only 6_s._ 6_d._" She has +also, unless born and bred in London, been to see my Lord Mayor, the +fine people coming out of Court, and the "beasties" in the Tower; and +at all events she has been to Astley's and the Circus, from which she +comes away, equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at +the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most. +One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an +endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and +wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous and well-dressed people, +as if she were a mistress. Here also is the conjuror's booth, where +the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white, +calls her Ma'am; and says to John by her side, in spite of his laced +hat, "Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady." + +Ah! may her "cousin" turn out as true as he says he is; or may she get +home soon enough and smiling enough to be as happy again next time. + + _Leigh Hunt._ + + + + +CHARACTERISTICS + + +The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the +Physician's Aphorism; and applicable in a far wider sense than he +gives it. We may say, it holds no less in moral, intellectual, +political, poetical, than in merely corporeal therapeutics; that +wherever, or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can be +named _vital_ are at work, herein lies the test of their working right +or working wrong. + +In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first +condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its function +unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ announce its separate +existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, +then already has one of those unfortunate "false centres of +sensibility" established itself, already is derangement there. The +perfection of bodily wellbeing is, that the collective bodily +activities seem one; and be manifested, moreover, not in themselves, +but in the action they accomplish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his +system is in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit; +but the true Peptician was that Countryman who answered that, "for his +part, he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement is always silent, +or soft-voiced; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So +long as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour +forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and +unison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial +music and diapason,--which also, like that other music of the spheres, +even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and +without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus too, in +some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term +expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that +we are _whole_. + +Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed with that +felicity of "having no system;" nevertheless, most of us, looking back +on young years, may remember seasons of a light, aerial translucency +and elasticity and perfect freedom; the body had not yet become the +prison-house of the soul, but was its vehicle and implement, like a +creature of the thought, and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knew +not that we had limbs, we only lifted, hurled and leapt: through eye +and ear, and all avenues of sense, came clear unimpeded tidings from +without, and from within issued clear victorious force; we stood as in +the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in harmony with it all; +unlike Virgil's Husbandmen, "too happy _because_ we did not know our +blessedness." In those days, health and sickness were foreign +traditions that did not concern us; our whole being was as yet One, +the whole man like an incorporated Will. Such, were Rest or +ever-successful Labour the human lot, might our life continue to be: a +pure, perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of perfect white light, +rendering all things visible, but itself unseen, even because it was +of that perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction had yet broken +it into colours. The beginning of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if +we consider well, as it must have originated in the feeling of +something being wrong, so it is and continues to be but Division, +Dismemberment, and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as was of old +written, the Tree of Knowledge springs from a root of evil, and bears +fruits of good and evil. Had Adam remained in Paradise, there had been +no Anatomy and no Metaphysics. + +But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, "Life itself is a disease; a +working incited by suffering;" action from passion! The memory of that +first state of Freedom and paradisaic Unconsciousness has faded away +into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious of many +things: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even do +our best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and at +rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest the fierce +jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what we will, there is +no disregarding. Nevertheless, such is still the wish of Nature on our +behalf; in all vital action, her manifest purpose and effort is, that +we should be unconscious of it, and, like the peptic Countryman, never +know that we "have a system." For indeed vital action everywhere is +emphatically a means, not an end; Life is not given us for the mere +sake of Living, but always with an ulterior external Aim: neither is +it on the process, on the means, but rather on the result, that +Nature, in any of her doings, is wont to entrust us with insight and +volition. Boundless as is the domain of man, it is but a small +fractional proportion of it that he rules with Consciousness and by +Forethought: what he can contrive, nay what he can altogether know and +comprehend, is essentially the mechanical, small; the great is ever, +in one sense or other, the vital; it is essentially the mysterious, +and only the surface of it can be understood. But Nature, it might +seem, strives, like a kind mother, to hide from us even this, that she +is a mystery: she will have us rest on her beautiful and awful bosom +as if it were our secure home; on the bottomless boundless Deep, +whereon all human things fearfully and wonderfully swim, she will have +us walk and build, as if the film which supported us there (which any +scratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder, any sputter of a +pistol-shot instantaneously burn up) were no film, but a solid +rock-foundation. Forever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable Death, +man can forget that he is born to die; of his Life, which, strictly +meditated, contains in it an Immensity and an Eternity, he can +conceive lightly, as of a simple implement wherewith to do day-labour +and earn wages. So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all highest +Art, which only apes her from afar, body forth the Finite from the +Infinite; and guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more by +endowing him with vision, than, at the right place, with blindness! +Under all her works, chiefly under her noblest work, Life, lies a +basis of Darkness, which she benignantly conceals; in Life too, the +roots and inward circulations which stretch down fearfully to the +regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of their existence, and +only the fair stem with its leaves and flowers, shone on by the fair +sun, shall disclose itself, and joyfully grow. + +However, without venturing into the abstruse, or too eagerly asking +Why and How, in things where our answer must needs prove, in great +part, an echo of the question, let us be content to remark farther, in +the merely historical way, how that Aphorism of the bodily Physician +holds good in quite other departments. Of the Soul, with her +activities, we shall find it no less true than of the Body: nay, cry +the Spiritualists, is not that very division of the unity, Man, into a +dualism of Soul and Body, itself the symptom of disease; as, perhaps, +your frightful theory of Materialism, of his being but a Body, and +therefore, at least, once more a unity, may be the paroxysm which was +critical, and the beginning of cure! But omitting this, we observe, +with confidence enough, that the truly strong mind, view it as +Intellect, as Morality, or under any other aspect, is nowise the mind +acquainted with its strength; that here as before the sign of health +is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our outward world, what is +mechanical lies open to us: not what is dynamical and has vitality. Of +our Thinking, we might say, it is but the mere upper surface that we +shape into articulate Thoughts;--underneath the region of argument and +conscious discourse, lies the region of meditation; here, in its quiet +mysterious depths, dwells what vital force is in us; here, if aught is +to be created, and not merely manufactured and communicated, must the +work go on. Manufacture is intelligible, but trivial; Creation is +great, and cannot be understood. Thus if the Debater and Demonstrator, +whom we may rank as the lowest of true thinkers, knows what he has +done, and how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the highest, +knows not; must speak of Inspiration, and in one or the other dialect, +call his work the gift of a divinity. + +But on the whole, "genius is ever a secret to itself;" of this old +truth we have, on all sides, daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes no +airs for writing _Hamlet_ and the _Tempest_, understands not that it +is anything surprising: Milton, again, is more conscious of his +faculty, which accordingly is an inferior one. On the other hand, what +cackling and strutting must we not often hear and see, when, in some +shape of academical prolusion, maiden speech, review article, this or +the other well-fledged goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite +measurable value, were it the pink of its whole kind; and wonders why +all mortals do not wonder! + +Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's surprise at Walter +Shandy: how, though unread in Aristotle, he could nevertheless argue; +and not knowing the name of any dialectic tool, handled them all to +perfection. Is it the skilfullest anatomist that cuts the best figure +at Sadler's Wells? Or does the boxer hit better for knowing that he +has a _flexor longus_ and a _flexor brevis_? But indeed, as in the +higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the Speaker and Inquirer, +the true force is an unconscious one. The healthy Understanding, we +should say, is not the Logical, argumentative, but the Intuitive; for +the end of Understanding is not to prove and find reasons, but to know +and believe. Of logic, and its limits, and uses and abuses, there were +much to be said and examined; one fact, however, which chiefly +concerns us here, has long been familiar: that the man of logic and +the man of insight; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or even Knower, +are quite separable,--indeed, for most part, quite separate +characters. In practical matters, for example, has it not become +almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot prosper? This is he +whom business-people call Systematic and Theoriser and Word-monger; +his _vital_ intellectual force lies dormant or extinct, his whole +force is mechanical, conscious: of such a one it is foreseen that, +when once confronted with the infinite complexities of the real world, +his little compact theorem of the world will be found wanting; that +unless he can throw it overboard, and become a new creature, he will +necessarily founder. Nay, in mere Speculation itself, the most +ineffectual of all characters, generally speaking, is your dialectic +man-at-arms; were he armed cap-a-pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and +perfect master of logic-fence, how little does it avail him! Consider +the old Schoolmen, and their pilgrimage towards Truth: the +faithfullest endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often great +natural vigour; only no progress: nothing but antic feats of one limb +poised against the other; there they balanced, somersetted and made +postures; at best gyrated swiftly, with some pleasure, like Spinning +Dervishes, and ended where they began. So is it, so will it always be, +with all System-makers and builders of logical card-castles; of which +class a certain remnant must, in every age, as they do in our own, +survive and build. Logic is good, but it is not the best. The +Irrefragable Doctor, with his chains of induction, his corollaries, +dilemmas and other cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast +you a beautiful horoscope, and speak reasonable things; nevertheless +your stolen jewel, which you wanted him to find you, is not +forthcoming. Often by some winged word, winged as the thunderbolt is, +of a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see the difficulty split +asunder, and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with all +his logical tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on +all hands too hard for him. + +Again, in the difference between Oratory and Rhetoric, as indeed +everywhere in that superiority of what is called the Natural over the +Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The Orator persuades and +carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that +he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him: the one is in a +state of healthy unconsciousness, as if he "had no system;" the other, +in virtue of regimen and dietetic punctuality, feels at best that "his +system is in high order." So stands it, in short, with all the forms +of Intellect, whether as directed to the finding of truth, or to the +fit imparting thereof: to Poetry, to Eloquence, to depth of Insight, +which is the basis of both these; always the characteristic of right +performance is a certain spontaneity, an unconsciousness; "the healthy +know not of their health, but only the sick." So that the old precept +of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his ambitious disciple, +might contain in it a most fundamental truth, applicable to us all, +and in much else than Literature: "Whenever you have written any +sentence that looks particularly excellent, be sure to blot it out." +In like manner, under milder phraseology, and with a meaning purposely +much wider, a living Thinker has taught us: "Of the Wrong we are +always conscious, of the Right never." + +But if such is the law with regard to Speculation and the Intellectual +power of man, much more is it with regard to Conduct, and the power, +manifested chiefly therein, which we name Moral. "Let not thy left +hand know what thy right hand doeth:" whisper not to thy own heart, +How worthy is this action; for then it is already becoming worthless. +The good man is he who _works_ continually in welldoing; to whom +welldoing is as his natural existence, awakening no astonishment, +requiring no commentary; but there, like a thing of course, and as if +it could not but be so. Self-contemplation, on the other hand, is +infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it not the sign of +cure. An unhealthy Virtue is one that consumes itself to leanness in +repenting and anxiety; or, still worse, that inflates itself into +dropsical boastfulness and vain-glory: either way, there is a +self-seeking; an unprofitable looking behind us to measure the way we +have made: whereas the sole concern is to walk continually forward, +and make more way. If in any sphere of man's life, then in the Moral +sphere, as the inmost and most vital of all, it is good that there be +wholeness; that there be unconsciousness, which is the evidence of +this. Let the free, reasonable Will, which dwells in us, as in our +Holy of Holies, be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as is its +right and its effort: the perfect obedience will be the silent one. +Such perhaps were the sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual, +but the half of a truth: To say that we have a clear conscience, is to +utter a solecism; had we never sinned, we should have had no +conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated +by songs of triumph. + +This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible state of being; yet ever +the goal towards which our actual state of being strives; which it is +the more perfect the nearer it can approach. Nor, in our actual world, +where Labour must often prove _in_effectual, and thus in all senses +Light alternate with Darkness, and the nature of an ideal Morality be +much modified, is the case, thus far, materially different. It is a +fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is +acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate +acquaintance with. Above all, the public acknowledgment of such +acquaintance, indicating that it has reached quite an intimate +footing, bodes ill. Already, to the popular judgment, he who talks +much about Virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspect; it is +shrewdly guessed that where there is a great preaching, there will be +little almsgiving. Or again, on a wider scale, we can remark that ages +of Heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy; Virtue, when it can be +philosophised of, has become aware of itself, is sickly and beginning +to decline. A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of Chivalrous +Valour shrinks together, and perks itself up into shrivelled Points of +Honour; humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind dwindle into punctilious +Politeness, "avoiding meats;" "paying tithe of mint and anise, +neglecting the weightier matters of the law." Goodness, which was a +rule to itself, must now appeal to Precept, and seek strength from +Sanctions; the Freewill no longer reigns unquestioned and by divine +right, but like a mere earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards +and Punishments: or rather, let us say, the Freewill, so far as may +be, has abdicated and withdrawn into the dark, and a spectral +nightmare of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that mysterious +Self-impulse of the whole man, heaven-inspired, and in all senses +partaking of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in a finite +dialect, and answering, as it needs must, by silence,--is conceived as +non-extant, and only the outward Mechanism of it remains acknowledged: +of Volition, except as the synonym of Desire, we hear nothing; of +"Motives," without any Mover, more than enough. + +So too, when the generous Affections have become well-nigh paralytic, +we have the reign of Sentimentality. The greatness, the +profitableness, at any rate the extremely ornamental nature of +high feeling, and the luxury of doing good; charity, love, +self-forgetfulness, devotedness and all manner of godlike +magnanimity,--are everywhere insisted on, and pressingly inculcated in +speech and writing, in prose and verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim +"Benevolence" to all the four winds, and have TRUTH engraved on their +watch-seals: unhappily with little or no effect. Were the limbs in +right walking order, why so much demonstrating of motion? The +barrenest of all mortals is the Sentimentalist. Granting even that he +were sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us, or without first +deceiving himself, what good is in him? Does he not lie there as a +perpetual lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudinarian +impotence? His is emphatically a Virtue that has become, through every +fibre, conscious of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were +made of glass, and durst not touch or be touched: in the shape of +work, it can do nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing and +caudling, keeps itself alive. As the last stage of all, when Virtue, +properly so called, has ceased to be practised, and become extinct, +and a mere remembrance, we have the era of Sophists, descanting of its +existence, proving it, denying it, mechanically "accounting" for +it;--as dissectors and demonstrators cannot operate till once the body +be dead. + +Thus is true Moral genius, like true Intellectual, which indeed is but +a lower phasis thereof, "ever a secret to itself." The healthy moral +nature loves Goodness, and without wonder wholly lives in it: the +unhealthy makes love to it, and would fain get to live in it; or, +finding such courtship fruitless, turns round, and not without +contempt abandons it. These curious relations of the Voluntary and +Conscious to the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the small proportion +which, in all departments of our life, the former bears to the +latter,--might lead us into deep questions of Psychology and +Physiology: such, however, belong not to our present object. Enough, +if the fact itself become apparent, that Nature so meant it with us; +that in this wise we are made. We may now say, that view man's +individual Existence under what aspect we will, under the highest +spiritual, as under the merely animal aspect, everywhere the grand +vital energy, while in its sound state, is an unseen unconscious one; +or, in the words of our old Aphorism, "the healthy know not of their +health, but only the sick." + +* * * * * + +To understand man, however, we must look beyond the individual man and +his actions or interests, and view him in combination with his +fellows. It is in Society that man first feels what he is; first +becomes what he can be. In Society an altogether new set of spiritual +activities are evolved in him, and the old immeasurably quickened and +strengthened. Society is the genial element wherein his nature first +lives and grows; the solitary man were but a small portion of himself, +and must continue forever folded in, stunted and only half alive. +"Already," says a deep Thinker, with more meaning than will disclose +itself at once, "my opinion, my conviction, gains _infinitely_ in +strength and sureness, the moment a second mind has adopted it." Such, +even in its simplest form, is association; so wondrous the communion +of soul with soul as directed to the mere act of Knowing! In other +higher acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in that portion of +our being which we name the Moral: for properly, indeed, all communion +is of a moral sort, whereof such intellectual communion (in the act of +knowing) is itself an example. But with regard to Morals strictly so +called, it is in Society, we might almost say, that Morality begins; +here at least it takes an altogether new form, and on every side, as +in living growth, expands itself. The Duties of Man to himself, to +what is Highest in himself, make but the First Table of the Law: to +the First Table is now superadded a Second, with the Duties of Man to +his Neighbour; whereby also the significance of the First now assumes +its true importance. Man has joined himself with man; soul acts and +reacts on soul; a mystic miraculous unfathomable Union establishes +itself; Life, in all its elements, has become intensated, consecrated. +The lightning-spark of Thought, generated, or say rather +heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens its express likeness in +another mind, in a thousand other minds, and all blaze up together in +combined fire; reverberated from mind to mind, fed also with fresh +fuel in each, it acquires incalculable new light as Thought, +incalculable new heat as converted into Action. By and by, a common +store of Thought can accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlasting +possession: Literature, whether as preserved in the memory of Bards, +in Runes and Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of written or +printed paper, comes into existence, and begins to play its wondrous +part. Polities are formed; the weak submitting to the strong; with a +willing loyalty, giving obedience that he may receive guidance: or say +rather, in honour of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the wise; +for so it is in all even the rudest communities, man never yields +himself wholly to brute Force, but always to moral Greatness; thus the +universal title of respect, from the Oriental _Sheik_, from the +_Sachem_ of the Red Indians, down to our English _Sir_, implies only +that he whom we mean to honour is our _senior_. Last, as the crown and +all-supporting keystone of the fabric, Religion arises. The devout +meditation of the isolated man, which flitted through his soul, like a +transient tone of Love and Awe from unknown lands, acquires certainty, +continuance, when it is shared-in by his brother men. "Where two or +three are gathered together" in the name of the Highest, then first +does the Highest, as it is written, "appear among them to bless them;" +then first does an Altar and act of united Worship open a way from +Earth to Heaven; whereon, were it but a simple Jacob's-ladder, the +heavenly Messengers will travel, with glad tidings and unspeakable +gifts for men. Such is Society, the vital articulation of many +individuals into a new collective individual: greatly the most +important of man's attainments on this earth; that in which, and by +virtue of which, all his other attainments and attempts find their +arena, and have their value. Considered well, Society is the standing +wonder of our existence; a true region of the Supernatural; as it +were, a second all-embracing Life, wherein our first individual Life +becomes doubly and trebly alive, and whatever of Infinitude was in us +bodies itself forth, and becomes visible and active. + +To figure Society as endowed with life is scarcely a metaphor; but +rather the statement of a fact by such imperfect methods as language +affords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, Nature's highest work +with man, wherein man's volition plays an indispensable yet so +subordinate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so mysteriously and +indissolubly out of the infinite Dynamical, like Body out of +Spirit,--is truly enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears the +distinguishing character of life. In the same style also, we can say +that Society has its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth, +manhood, decrepitude, dissolution and new-birth; in one or other of +which stages we may, in all times, and all places where men inhabit, +discern it; and do ourselves, in this time and place, whether as +cooperating or as contending, as healthy members or as diseased ones, +to our joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question, What is the +actual condition of Society? has in these days unhappily become +important enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that question; but +for the majority of thinking men a true answer to it, such is the +state of matters, appears almost as the one thing needful. Meanwhile, +as the true answer, that is to say, the complete and fundamental +answer and settlement, often as it has been demanded, is nowhere +forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is impossible, any honest +approximation towards such is not without value. The feeblest light, +or even so much as a more precise recognition of the darkness, which +is the first step to attainment of light, will be welcome. + +This once understood, let it not seem idle if we remark that here too +our old Aphorism holds; that again in the Body Politic, as in the +animal body, the sign of right performance is Unconsciousness. Such +indeed is virtually the meaning of that phrase, "artificial state of +society," as contrasted with the natural state, and indicating +something so inferior to it. For, in all vital things, men distinguish +an Artificial and a Natural; founding on some dim perception or +sentiment of the very truth we here insist on: the artificial is the +conscious, mechanical; the natural is the unconscious, dynamical. +Thus, as we have an artificial Poetry, and prize only the natural; so +likewise we have an artificial Morality, an artificial Wisdom, an +artificial Society. The artificial Society is precisely one that knows +its own structure, its own internal functions; not in watching, not in +knowing which, but in working outwardly to the fulfilment of its aim, +does the wellbeing of a Society consist. Every Society, every Polity, +has a spiritual principle; is the embodiment, tentative and more or +less complete, of an Idea: all its tendencies of endeavour, +specialties of custom, its laws, politics and whole procedure (as the +glance of some Montesquieu, across innumerable superficial +entanglements, can partly decipher), are prescribed by an Idea, and +flow naturally from it, as movements from the living source of motion. +This Idea, be it of devotion to a man or class of men, to a creed, to +an institution, or even, as in more ancient times, to a piece of land, +is ever a true Loyalty; has in it something of a religious, paramount, +quite infinite character; it is properly the Soul of the State, its +Life; mysterious as other forms of Life, and like these working +secretly, and in a depth beyond that of consciousness. + +Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages of a Roman Republic that +Treatises of the Commonwealth are written: while the Decii are rushing +with devoted bodies on the enemies of Rome, what need of preaching +Patriotism? The virtue of Patriotism has already sunk from its +pristine all-transcendant condition, before it has received a name. So +long as the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it cares not to +dabble in anatomy. Why teach obedience to the Sovereign; why so much +as admire it, or separately recognise it, while a divine idea of +Obedience perennially inspires all men? Loyalty, like Patriotism, of +which it is a form, was not praised till it had begun to decline; the +_Preux Chevaliers_ first became rightly admirable, when "dying for +their king" had ceased to be a habit with chevaliers. For if the +mystic significance of the State, let this be what it may, dwells +vitally in every heart, encircles every life as with a second higher +life, how should it stand self-questioning? It must rush outward, and +express itself by works. Besides, if perfect, it is there as by +necessity, and does not excite inquiry: it is also by nature infinite, +has no limits; therefore can be circumscribed by no conditions and +definitions; cannot be reasoned of; except _musically_, or in the +language of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of. + +In those days, Society was what we name healthy, sound at heart. Not +indeed without suffering enough; not without perplexities, difficulty +on every side: for such is the appointment of man; his highest and +sole blessedness is, that he toil, and know what to toil at: not in +ease, but in united victorious labour, which is at once evil and the +victory over evil, does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no deeper +than such superficial perplexities of the early Time, historians have +taught us that it was all one mass of contradiction and disease; and +in the antique Republic, or feudal Monarchy, have seen only the +confused chaotic quarry, not the robust labourer, or the stately +edifice he was building of it. If Society, in such ages, had its +difficulty, it had also its strength: if sorrowful masses of rubbish +so encumbered it, the tough sinews to hurl them aside, with +indomitable heart, were not wanting. Society went along without +complaint; did not stop to scrutinise itself, to say, How well I +perform, or, Alas, how ill! Men did not yet feel themselves to be "the +envy of surrounding nations;" and were enviable on that very account. +Society was what we can call _whole_, in both senses of the word. The +individual man was in himself a whole, or complete union; and could +combine with his fellows as the living member of a greater whole. For +all men, through their life, were animated by one great Idea; thus all +efforts pointed one way, everywhere there was _wholeness_. Opinion and +Action had not yet become disunited; but the former could still +produce the latter, or attempt to produce it; as the stamp does its +impression while the wax is not hardened. Thought, and the voice of +thought were also a unison; thus, instead of Speculation, we had +Poetry; Literature, in its rude utterance, was as yet a heroic Song, +perhaps too a devotional Anthem. Religion was everywhere; Philosophy +lay hid under it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as in the +life-centre of all, lay the true health and oneness. Only at a later +era must Religion split itself into Philosophies; and thereby, the +vital union of Thought being lost, disunion and mutual collision in +all provinces of Speech and Action more and more prevail. For if the +Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired thinker may be +named, is the sign of vigour and well-being; so likewise is the +Logician, or uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, probably of +decrepitude and decay. Thus, not to mention other instances, one of +them much nearer hand,--so soon as Prophecy among the Hebrews had +ceased, then did the reign of Argumentation begin; and the ancient +Theocracy, in its Sadducecisms and Phariseeisms, and vain jangling of +sects and doctors, give token that the _soul_ of it had fled, and that +the _body_ itself, by natural dissolution, "with the old forces still +at work, but working in reverse order," was on the road to final +disappearance. + +* * * * * + +We might pursue this question into innumerable other ramifications; +and everywhere, under new shapes, find the same truth, which we here +so imperfectly enunciate, disclosed; that throughout the whole world +of man, in all manifestations and performances of his nature, outward +and inward, personal and social, the Perfect, the Great is a mystery +to itself, knows not itself; whatsoever does know itself is already +little, and more or less imperfect. Or otherwise, we may say, +Unconsciousness belongs to pure unmixed life; Consciousness to a +diseased mixture and conflict of life and death: Unconsciousness is +the sign of creation; Consciousness, at best, that of manufacture. So +deep, in this existence of ours, is the significance of Mystery. Well +might the Ancients make Silence a god; for it is the element of all +godhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness; at once the source +and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends. In the same sense too, +have Poets sung "Hymns to the Night;" as if Night were nobler than +Day; as if Day were but a small motley-coloured veil spread +transiently over the infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform and +hide from us its purely transparent, eternal deeps. So likewise have +they spoken and sung as if Silence were the grand epitome and complete +sum-total of all Harmony; and Death, what mortals call Death, properly +the beginning of Life. Under such figures, since except in figures +there is no speaking of the Invisible, have men endeavoured to express +a great Truth;--a Truth, in our Times, as nearly as is perhaps +possible, forgotten by the most; which nevertheless continues forever +true, forever all-important, and will one day, under new figures, be +again brought home to the bosoms of all. + +But indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest mind has still some +intimation of the greatness there is in Mystery. If Silence was made a +god of by the Ancients, he still continues a government-clerk among us +Moderns. To all quacks, moreover, of what sort soever, the effect of +Mystery is well known: here and there some Cagliostro, even in latter +days, turns it to notable account: the blockhead also, who is +ambitious, and has no talent, finds sometimes in "the talent of +silence," a kind of succedaneum. Or again, looking on the opposite +side of the matter, do we not see, in the common understanding of +mankind, a certain distrust, a certain contempt of what is altogether +self-conscious and mechanical? As nothing that is wholly seen through +has other than a trivial character; so anything professing to be +great, and yet wholly to see through itself, is already known to be +false, and a failure. The evil repute your "theoretical men" stand in, +the acknowledged inefficiency of "paper constitutions," and all that +class of objects, are instances of this. Experience often repeated, +and perhaps a certain instinct of something far deeper that lies under +such experiences, has taught men so much. They know beforehand, that +the loud is generally the insignificant, the empty. Whatsoever can +proclaim itself from the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and for +those multitudes that must needs buy of him; but for any deeper use, +might as well continue unproclaimed. Observe too, how the converse of +the proposition holds; how the insignificant, the empty, is usually +the loud; and, after the manner of a drum, is loud even because of its +emptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner Calefactor can be bruited +abroad over the whole world in the course of the first winter; those +of the Printing Press are not so well seen into for the first three +centuries: the passing of the Select-Vestries Bill raises more noise +and hopeful expectancy among mankind than did the promulgation of the +Christian Religion. Again, and again, we say, the great, the creative +and enduring is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barren +and transient is otherwise. + +* * * * * + +If we now, with a practical medical view, examine, by this same test +of Unconsciousness, the Condition of our own Era, and of man's Life +therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is nowise of a flattering sort. +The state of Society in our days is, of all possible states, the least +an unconscious one: this is specially the Era when all manner of +Inquiries into what was once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of man's +existence, find their place, and, as it were, occupy the whole domain +of thought. What, for example, is all this that we hear, for the last +generation or two, about the Improvement of the Age, the Spirit of the +Age, Destruction of Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and the March +of Intellect, but an unhealthy state of self-sentience, self-survey; +the precursor and prognostic of still worse health? That Intellect do +march, if possible at double-quick time, is very desirable; +nevertheless, why should she turn round at every stride, and cry: See +you what a stride I have taken! Such a marching of Intellect is +distinctly of the spavined kind; what the Jockeys call "all action and +no go." Or at best, if we examine well, it is the marching of that +gouty Patient, whom his Doctors had clapt on a metal floor +artificially heated to the searing point, so that he was obliged to +march, and did march with a vengeance--nowhither. Intellect did not +awaken for the first time yesterday; but has been under way from +Noah's Flood downwards: greatly her best progress, moreover, was in +the old times, when she said nothing about it. In those same "dark +ages," Intellect (metaphorically as well as literally) could invent +_glass_, which now she has enough ado to grind into _spectacles_. +Intellect built not only Churches, but a Church, _the_ Church, based +on this firm Earth, yet reaching up, and leading up, as high as +Heaven; and now it is all she can do to keep its doors bolted, that +there be no tearing of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. She +built a Senate-house likewise, glorious in its kind; and now it costs +her a well-nigh mortal effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get the +roof made rain-tight. + +But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most other things, we are +now passing from that first or boastful stage of Self-sentience into +the second or painful one: out of these often-asseverated declarations +that "our system is in high order," we come now, by natural sequence, +to the melancholy conviction that it is altogether the reverse. Thus, +for instance, in the matter of Government, the period of the +"Invaluable Constitution" must be followed by a Reform Bill; to +laudatory De Lolmes succeed objurgatory Benthams. At any rate, what +Treatises on the Social Contract, on the Elective Franchise, the +Rights of Man, the Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions, +Constitutions, have we not, for long years, groaned under! Or again, +with a wider survey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts on Man, +Inquiries concerning Man; not to mention Evidences of the Christian +Faith, Theories of Poetry, Considerations on the Origin of Evil, which +during the last century have accumulated on us to a frightful extent. +Never since the beginning of Time was there, that we hear or read of, +so intensely self-conscious a Society. Our whole relations to the +Universe and to our fellow man have become an Inquiry, a Doubt; +nothing will go on of its own accord, and do its function quietly; but +all things must be probed into, the whole working of man's world be +anatomically studied. Alas, anatomically studied, that it may be +medically aided! Till at length indeed, we have come to such a pass, +that except in this same _medicine_, with its artifices and +appliances, few can so much as imagine any strength or hope to remain +for us. The whole Life of Society must now be carried on by drugs: +doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum, of Cooperative +Societies, Universal Suffrage, Cottage-and-Cow systems, Repression of +Population, Vote by Ballot. To such height has the dyspepsia of +Society reached; as indeed the constant grinding internal pain, or +from time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all Society do +otherwise too mournfully indicate. + +Far be it from us to attribute, as some unwise persons do, the disease +itself to this unhappy sensation that there is a disease! The +Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of France; but the +troubles of France produced the Encyclopedists, and much else. The +Self-consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it is also the attempt +towards cure. We record the fact, without special censure; not +wondering that Society should feel itself, and in all ways complain of +aches and twinges, for it has suffered enough. Napoleon was but a +Job's-comforter, when he told his wounded Staff-officer, twice +unhorsed by cannon-balls, and with half his limbs blown to pieces: +"_Vous vous ecoutez trop!_" + +On the outward, as it were Physical diseases of Society, it were +beside our purpose to insist here. These are diseases which he who +runs may read; and sorrow over, with or without hope. Wealth has +accumulated itself into masses; and Poverty, also in accumulation +enough, lies impassably separated from it; opposed, uncommunicating, +like forces in positive and negative poles. The gods of this lower +world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less happy than Epicurus's +gods, but as indolent, as impotent; while the boundless living chaos +of Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, in its dark fury, under +their feet. How much among us might be likened to a whited sepulchre; +outwardly all pomp and strength; but inwardly full of horror and +despair and dead-men's bones! Iron highways, with their wains +firewinged, are uniting all ends of the firm Land; quays and moles, +with their innumerable stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our pliant +bearer of burdens; Labour's thousand arms, of sinew and of metal, +all-conquering everywhere, from the tops of the mountain down to the +depths of the mine and the caverns of the sea, ply unweariedly for the +service of man: yet man remains unserved. He has subdued this Planet, +his habitation and inheritance; yet reaps no profit from the victory. +Sad to look upon: in the highest stage of civilisation, nine-tenths of +mankind must struggle in the lowest battle of savage or even animal +man, the battle against Famine. Countries are rich, prosperous in all +manner of increase, beyond example: but the Men of those countries are +poor, needier than ever of all sustenance outward and inward; of +Belief, of Knowledge, of Money, of Food. The rule, _Sic vos non +vobis_, never altogether to be got rid of in men's Industry, now +presses with such incubus weight, that Industry must shake it off, or +utterly be strangled under it; and, alas, can as yet but gasp and +rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one in the final deliration. Thus +Change, or the inevitable approach of Change, is manifest everywhere. +In one Country we have seen lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelop all +things; Government succeed Government, like the phantasms of a dying +brain. In another Country, we can even now see, in maddest +alternation, the Peasant governed by such guidance as this: To labour +earnestly one month in raising wheat, and the next month labour +earnestly in burning it. So that Society, were it not by nature +immortal, and its death ever a new-birth, might appear, as it does in +the eyes of some, to be sick to dissolution, and even now writhing in +its last agony. Sick enough we must admit it to be, with disease +enough, a whole nosology of diseases; wherein he perhaps is happiest +that is not called to prescribe as physician;--wherein, however, one +small piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest in the +Commonwealth, by the sole method yet known or thought of, to come +together and with their whole soul consult for it, might, but for late +tedious experiences, have seemed unquestionable enough. + +But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the Spiritual +condition of Society, and see what aspects and prospects offer +themselves there. For after all, it is there properly that the secret +and origin of the whole is to be sought: the Physical derangements of +Society are but the image and impress of its Spiritual; while the +heart continues sound, all other sickness is superficial, and +temporary. False Action is the fruit of false Speculation; let the +spirit of Society be free and strong, that is to say, let true +Principles inspire the members of Society, then neither can disorders +accumulate in its Practice; each disorder will be promptly, faithfully +inquired into, and remedied as it arises. But alas, with us the +Spiritual condition of Society is no less sickly than the Physical. +Examine man's internal world, in any of its social relations and +performances, here too all seems diseased self-consciousness, +collision and mutually-destructive struggle. Nothing acts from within +outwards in undivided healthy force; everything lies impotent, lamed, +its force turned inwards, and painfully "listens to itself." + +To begin with our highest Spiritual function, with Religion, we might +ask, Whither has Religion now fled? Of Churches and their +establishments we here say nothing; nor of the unhappy domains of +Unbelief, and how innumerable men, blinded in their minds, must "live +without God in the world;" but, taking the fairest side of the matter, +we ask, What is the nature of that same Religion, which still lingers +in the hearts of the few who are called, and call themselves, +specially the Religious? Is it a healthy religion, vital, unconscious +of itself; that shines forth spontaneously in doing of the Work, or +even in preaching of the Word? Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr +Conduct, and inspired and soul-inspiring Eloquence, whereby Religion +itself were brought home to our living bosoms, to live and reign +there, we have "Discourses on the Evidences," endeavouring, with +smallest result, to make it probable that such a thing as Religion +exists. The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not preach a Gospel, but +keep describing how it should and might be preached: to awaken the +sacred fire of faith, as by a sacred contagion, is not their +endeavour; but, at most, to describe how Faith shows and acts, and +scientifically distinguish true Faith from false. Religion, like all +else, is conscious of itself, listens to itself; it becomes less and +less creative, vital; more and more mechanical. Considered as a whole, +the Christian Religion of late ages has been continually dissipating +itself into Metaphysics; and threatens now to disappear, as some +rivers do, in deserts of barren sand. + +Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide-spread maladies, why speak? +Literature is but a branch of Religion, and always participates in its +character: however, in our time, it is the only branch that still +shows any greenness; and, as some think, must one day become the main +stem. Now, apart from the subterranean and tartarean regions of +Literature;--leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous statistics +of Puffing, the mystery of Slander, Falsehood, Hatred and other +convulsion-work of rabid Imbecility, and all that has rendered +Literature on that side a perfect "Babylon the mother of +Abominations," in very deed making the world "drunk" with the wine of +her iniquity;--forgetting all this, let us look only to the regions of +the upper air; to such Literature as can be said to have some attempt +towards truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not poetical, to +hold of the poetical. Among other characteristics, is not this +manifest enough: that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness to the +object, being wholly possessed by the object, what we can call +Inspiration, has well-nigh ceased to appear in Literature. Which +melodious Singer forgets that he is singing melodiously? We have not +the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness. Hence +infinite Affectations, Distractions; in every case inevitable Error. +Consider, for one example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature, the +sin that has been named View-hunting. In our elder writers, there are +no paintings of scenery for its own sake; no euphuistic gallantries +with Nature, but a constant heartlove for her, a constant dwelling in +communion with her. View-hunting, with so much else that is of kin to +it, first came decisively into action through the _Sorrows of Werter_; +which wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many senses be regarded as +the progenitor of all that has since become popular in Literature; +whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and tendency, it still offers +the most instructive image; for nowhere, except in its own country, +above all in the mind of its illustrious Author, has it yet fallen +wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till that late epoch, did any +worshipper of Nature become entirely aware that he was worshipping, +much to his own credit; and think of saying to himself: Come, let us +make a description! Intolerable enough: when every puny whipster draws +out his pencil, and insists on painting you a scene; so that the +instant you discern such a thing as "wavy outline," "mirror of the +lake," "stern headland," or the like, in any Book, you must timorously +hasten on; and scarcely the Author of Waverley himself can tempt you +not to skip. + +Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state of Literature disclosed +in this one fact, which lies so near us here, the prevalence of +Reviewing! Sterne's wish for a reader "that would give up the reins of +his imagination into his author's hands, and be pleased he knew not +why, and cared not wherefore," might lead him a long journey now. +Indeed, for our best class of readers, the chief pleasure, a very +stinted one, is this same knowing of the Why; which many a Kames and +Bossu has been, ineffectually enough, endeavouring to teach us: till +at last these also have laid down their trade; and now your Reviewer +is a mere _taster_; who tastes, and says, by the evidence of such +palate, such tongue, as he has got, It is good, It is bad. Was it thus +that the French carried out certain inferior creatures on their +Algerine Expedition, to taste the wells for them, and try whether they +were poisoned? Far be it from us to disparage our own craft, whereby +we have our living! Only we must note these things: that Reviewing +spreads with strange vigour; that such a man as Byron reckons the +Reviewer and the Poet equal; that at the last Leipzig Fair, there was +advertised a Review of Reviews. By and by it will be found that all +Literature has become one boundless self-devouring Review; and as in +London routs, we have to _do_ nothing, but only to _see_ others do +nothing.--Thus does Literature also, like a sick thing, +superabundantly "listen to itself." + +No less is this unhealthy symptom manifest, if we cast a glance on our +Philosophy, on the character of our speculative Thinking. Nay already, +as above hinted, the mere existence and necessity of a Philosophy is +an evil. Man is sent hither not to question, but to work: "the end of +man," it was long ago written, "is an Action, not a Thought." In the +perfect state, all Thought were but the picture and inspiring symbol +of Action; Philosophy, except as Poetry and Religion, would have no +being. And yet how, in this imperfect state, can it be avoided, can it +be dispensed with? Man stands as in the centre of Nature; his fraction +of Time encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth of Space encircled by +Infinitude: how shall he forbear asking himself, What am I; and +Whence; and Whither? How too, except in slight partial hints, in kind +asseverations and assurances, such as a mother quiets her fretfully +inquisitive child with, shall he get answer to such inquiries? + +The disease of Metaphysics, accordingly, is a perennial one. In all +ages, those questions of Death and Immortality, Origin of Evil, +Freedom and Necessity, must, under new forms, anew make their +appearance; ever, from time to time, must the attempt to shape for +ourselves some Theorem of the Universe be repeated. And ever +unsuccessfully: for what Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite render +complete? We, the whole species of Mankind, and our whole existence +and history, are but a floating speck in the illimitable ocean of the +All; yet _in_ that ocean; indissoluble portion thereof; partaking of +its infinite tendencies: borne this way and that by its deep-swelling +tides, and grand ocean currents;--of which what faintest chance is +there that we should ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the +goings and comings? A region of Doubt, therefore, hovers forever in +the background; in Action alone can we have certainty. Nay properly +Doubt is the indispensable inexhaustible material whereon Action +works, which Action has to fashion into Certainty and Reality; only on +a canvas of Darkness, such is man's way of being, could the +many-coloured picture of our Life paint itself and shine. + +Thus if our eldest system of Metaphysics is as old as the _Book of +Genesis_, our latest is that of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only within +the current year. It is a chronic malady that of Metaphysics, as we +said, and perpetually recurs on us. At the utmost there is a better +and a worse in it; a stage of convalescence, and a stage of relapse +with new sickness: these forever succeed each other, as is the nature +of all Life-movement here below. The first, or convalescent stage, we +might also name that of Dogmatical or Constructive Metaphysics; when +the mind constructively endeavours to scheme out, and assert for +itself an actual Theorem of the Universe, and therewith for a time +rests satisfied. The second or sick stage might be called that of +Sceptical or Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind having widened its +sphere of vision, the existing Theorem of the Universe no longer +answers the phenomena, no longer yields contentment; but must be torn +in pieces, and certainty anew sought for in the endless realms of +denial. All Theologies and sacred Cosmogonies belong, in some measure, +to the first class; in all Pyrrhonism, from Pyrrho down to Hume and +the innumerable disciples of Hume, we have instances enough of the +second. In the former, so far as it affords satisfaction, a temporary +anodyne to doubt, an arena for wholesome action, there may be much +good; indeed in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than of +Metaphysics, might be called Inspiration rather than Speculation. The +latter is Metaphysics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from time to +time a necessary evil. + +For truly, if we look into it, there is no more fruitless endeavour +than this same, which the Metaphysician proper toils in: to educe +Conviction out of Negation. How, by merely testing and rejecting what +is not, shall we ever attain knowledge of what is? Metaphysical +Speculation, as it begins in No or Nothingness, so it must needs end +in Nothingness; circulates and must circulate in endless vortices; +creating, swallowing--itself. Our being is made up of Light and +Darkness, the Light resting on the Darkness, and balancing it; +everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a perpetual Contradiction +dwells in us: "where shall I place myself to escape from my own +shadow?" Consider it well, Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to +rise above the mind; to environ, and shut in, or as we say, +_comprehend_ the mind. Hopeless struggle, for the wisest, as for the +foolishest! What strength of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable the +stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his arms, and, by lifting, +lift up _himself_? The Irish Saint swam the Channel "carrying his head +in his teeth;" but the feat has never been imitated. + +That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the proper, or sceptical +Inquisitory sense; that there was a necessity for its being such an +age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. From many causes, the +arena of free Activity has long been narrowing, that of sceptical +Inquiry becoming more and more universal, more and more perplexing. +The Thought conducts not to the Deed; but in boundless chaos, +self-devouring, engenders monstrosities, fantasms, fire-breathing +chimeras. Profitable Speculation were this: What is to be done; and +How is it to be done? But with us not so much as the What can be got +sight of. For some generations, all Philosophy has been a painful, +captious, hostile question towards everything in the Heaven above, and +in the Earth beneath: Why art thou there? Till at length it has come +to pass that the worth and authenticity of all things seems dubitable +or deniable: our best effort must be unproductively spent not in +working, but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and so much as +whether we are to work at all. Doubt, which, as was said, ever hangs +in the background of our world, has now become our middle-ground and +foreground; whereon, for the time, no fair Life-picture can be +painted, but only the dark air-canvas itself flow round us, +bewildering and benighting. + +Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here; not to ask +questions, but to do work: in this time, as in all times, it must be +the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Action lie dormant, and +only that of sceptical Inquiry exert itself. Accordingly, whoever +looks abroad upon the world, comparing the Past with the Present, may +find that the practical condition of man in these days is one of the +saddest; burdened with miseries which are in a considerable degree +peculiar. In no time was man's life what he calls a happy one; in no +time can it be so. A perpetual dream there has been of Paradises, and +some luxurious Lubberland, where the brooks should run wine, and the +trees bend with ready-baked viands; but it was a dream merely; an +impossible dream. Suffering, contradiction, error, have their quite +perennial, and even indispensable abode in this Earth. Is not labour +the inheritance of man? And what labour for the present is joyous, and +not grievous? Labour, effort, is the very interruption of that ease, +which man foolishly enough fancies to be his happiness; and yet +without labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable. +Thus Evil, what we call Evil, must ever exist while man exists: Evil, +in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered +material out of which man's Freewill has to create an edifice of order +and Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour; and only in free Effort +can any blessedness be imagined for us. + +But if man has, in all ages, had enough to encounter, there has, in +most civilised ages, been an inward force vouchsafed him, whereby the +pressure of things outward might be withstood. Obstruction abounded; +but Faith also was not wanting. It is by Faith that man removes +mountains: while he had Faith, his limbs might be wearied with +toiling, his back galled with bearing; but the heart within him was +peaceable and resolved. In the thickest gloom there burnt a lamp to +guide him. If he struggled and suffered, he felt that it even should +be so; knew for what he was suffering and struggling. Faith gave him +an inward Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith to front a world +of Difficulty. The true wretchedness lies here: that the Difficulty +remain and the Strength be lost; that Pain cannot relieve itself in +free Effort; that we have the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faith +strengthens us, enlightens us, for all endeavours and endurances; with +Faith we can do all, and dare all, and life itself has a thousand +times been joyfully given away. But the sum of man's misery is even +this, that he feel himself crushed under the Juggernaut wheels, and +know that Juggernaut is no divinity, but a dead mechanical idol. + +Now this is specially the misery which has fallen on man in our Era. +Belief, Faith has well-nigh vanished from the world. The youth on +awakening in this wondrous Universe, no longer finds a competent +theory of its wonders. Time was, when if he asked himself, What is +man, What are the duties of man? the answer stood ready written for +him. But now the ancient "ground-plan of the All" belies itself when +brought into contact with reality; Mother Church has, to the most, +become a superannuated Stepmother, whose lessons go disregarded; or +are spurned at, and scornfully gainsaid. For young Valour and thirst +of Action no Ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, prescribes what is +heroic: the old ideal of Manhood has grown obsolete, and the new is +still invisible to us, and we grope after it in darkness, one +clutching this phantom, another that; Werterism, Byronism, even +Brummelism, each has its day. For Contemplation and love of Wisdom, no +Cloister now opens its religious shades; the Thinker must, in all +senses, wander homeless, too often aimless, looking up to a Heaven +which is dead for him, round to an Earth which is deaf. Action, in +those old days, was easy, was voluntary, for the divine worth of human +things lay acknowledged; Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged +itself as the handmaid of Action; what could not so range itself died +out by its natural death, by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed +obedience, and made rule noble; there was still something to be loyal +to: the Godlike stood embodied under many a symbol in men's interests +and business; the Finite shadowed forth the Infinite; Eternity looked +through Time. The Life of man was encompassed and overcanopied by a +glory of Heaven, even as his dwelling-place by the azure vault. + +How changed in these new days! Truly may it be said, the Divinity has +withdrawn from the Earth; or veils himself in that wide-wasting +Whirlwind of a departing Era, wherein the fewest can discern his +goings. Not Godhead, but an iron, ignoble circle of Necessity embraces +all things; binds the youth of these times into a sluggish thrall, or +else exasperates him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralysed; for +what worth now remains unquestionable with him? At the fervid period +when his whole nature cries aloud for Action, there is nothing sacred +under whose banner he can act; the course and kind and conditions of +free Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt storms-in on him through +every avenue; inquiries of the deepest, painfullest sort must be +engaged with; and the invincible energy of young years waste itself in +sceptical, suicidal cavillings; in passionate "questionings of +Destiny," whereto no answer will be returned. + +For men, in whom the old perennial principle of Hunger (be it Hunger +of the poor Day-drudge who stills it with eighteenpence a-day, or of +the ambitious Placehunter who can nowise still it with so little) +suffices to fill up existence, the case is bad; but not the worst. +These men have an aim, such as it is; and can steer towards it, with +chagrin enough truly; yet, as their hands are kept full, without +desperation. Unhappier are they to whom a higher instinct has been +given; who struggle to be persons, not machines; to whom the Universe +is not a warehouse, or at best a fancy-bazaar, but a mystic temple and +hall of doom. For such men there lie properly two courses open. The +lower, yet still an estimable class, take up with worn-out Symbols of +the Godlike; keep trimming and trucking between these and Hypocrisy, +purblindly enough, miserably enough. A numerous intermediate class end +in Denial; and form a theory that there is no theory; that nothing is +certain in the world, except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant; so +they try to realise what trifling modicum of Pleasure they can come +at, and to live contented therewith, winking hard. Of these we speak +not here; but only of the second nobler class, who also have dared to +say No, and cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No they dwell as +in a Golgotha, where life enters not, where peace is not appointed +them. Hard, for most part, is the fate of such men; the harder the +nobler they are. In dim forecastings, wrestles within them the "Divine +Idea of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal itself. They have +to realise a Worship for themselves, or live unworshipping. The +Godlike has vanished from the world; and they, by the strong cry of +their soul's agony, like true wonder-workers, must again evoke its +presence. This miracle is their appointed task; which they must +accomplish, or die wretchedly: this miracle has been accomplished by +such; but not in our land; our land yet knows not of it. Behold a +Byron, in melodious tones, "cursing his day:" he mistakes earthborn +passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Freewill; without heavenly +loadstar, rushes madly into the dance of meteoric lights that hover on +the mad Mahlstrom; and goes down among its eddies. Hear a Shelley +filling the earth with inarticulate wail; like the infinite, +inarticulate grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A noble Friedrich +Schlegel, stupefied in that fearful loneliness, as of a silenced +battle-field, flies back to Catholicism; as a child might to its slain +mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower regions, how many a poor +Hazlitt must wander on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest on +burning deserts; passionately dig wells, and draw up only the dry +quicksand; believe that he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among +endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as with spectre-hosts; and +die and make no sign! + +To the better order of such minds any mad joy of Denial has long since +ceased: the problem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and perform. +Once in destroying the False, there was a certain inspiration; but now +the genius of Destruction has done its work, there is now nothing more +to destroy. The doom of the Old has long been pronounced, and +irrevocable; the Old has passed away; but, alas, the New appears not +in its stead; the Time is still in pangs of travail with the New. Man +has walked by the light of conflagrations, and amid the sound of +falling cities; and now there is darkness, and long watching till it +be morning. The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim: "As yet +struggles the twelfth hour of the Night: birds of darkness are on the +wing, spectres up-rear, the dead walk, the living dream.--Thou, +Eternal Providence, wilt cause the day to dawn!"[52] + +[Footnote 52: Jean Paul's _Hesperus_. Vorrede.] + +Such being the condition, temporal and spiritual, of the world at our +Epoch, can we wonder that the world "listens to itself," and struggles +and writhes, everywhere externally and internally, like a thing in +pain? Nay, is not even this unhealthy action of the world's +Organisation, if the symptom of universal disease, yet also the +symptom and sole means of restoration and cure? The effort of Nature, +exerting her medicative force to cast out foreign impediments, and +once more become One, become whole? In Practice, still more in +Opinion, which is the precursor and prototype of Practice, there must +needs be collision, convulsion; much has to be ground away. Thought +must needs be Doubt and Inquiry, before it can again be Affirmation +and Sacred Precept. Innumerable "Philosophies of Man," contending in +boundless hubbub, must annihilate each other, before an inspired Poesy +and Faith for Man can fashion itself together. + +* * * * * + +From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylonish confusion of tongues, we +have here selected two Voices; less as objects of praise or +condemnation, than as signs how far the confusion has reached, what +prospect there is of its abating. Friedrich Schlegel's _Lectures_, +delivered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's _Essay_, published in London, are +the latest utterances of European Speculation: far asunder in external +place, they stand at a still wider distance in inward purport; are, +indeed, so opposite and yet so cognate that they may, in many senses, +represent the two Extremes of our whole modern system of Thought; and +be said to include between them all the Metaphysical Philosophies, so +often alluded to here, which, of late times, from France, Germany, +England, have agitated and almost overwhelmed us. Both in regard to +matter and to form, the relation of these two Works is significant +enough. + +Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let us remark, not without +emotion, one quite extraneous point of agreement; the fact that the +Writers of both have departed from this world; they have now finished +their search, and had all doubts resolved: while we listen to the +voice, the tongue that uttered it has gone silent forever. But the +fundamental, all-pervading similarity lies in this circumstance, well +worthy of being noted, that both these Philosophers are of the +Dogmatic or Constructive sort: each in its way is a kind of Genesis; +an endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's Universe once more under +some theoretic Scheme: in both there is a decided principle of unity; +they strive after a result which shall be positive; their aim is not +to question, but to establish. This, especially if we consider with +what comprehensive concentrated force it is here exhibited, forms a +new feature in such works. + +Under all other aspects, there is the most irreconcilable opposition; +a staring contrariety, such as might provoke contrasts, were there far +fewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's Work is the apotheosis of +Spiritualism; Hope's again is the apotheosis of Materialism: in the +one, all Matter is evaporated into a Phenomenon, and terrestrial Life +itself, with its whole doings and showings, held out as a Disturbance +(_Zerruettung_) produced by the _Zeitgeist_ (Spirit of Time); in the +other, Matter is distilled and sublimated into some semblance of +Divinity: the one regards Space and Time as mere forms of man's mind, +and without external existence or reality; the other supposes Space +and Time to be "incessantly created," and rayed-in upon us like a sort +of "gravitation." Such is their difference in respect of purport: no +less striking is it in respect of manner, talent, success and all +outward characteristics. Thus, if in Schlegel we have to admire the +power of Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might almost be said, +at the want of an articulate Language. To Schlegel his Philosophic +Speech is obedient, dextrous, exact, like a promptly-ministering +genius; his names are so clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost +(sometimes altogether) become things for him: with Hope there is no +Philosophical Speech; but a painful, confused stammering, and +struggling after such; or the tongue, as in dotish forgetfulness, +maunders, low, long-winded, and speaks not the word intended, but +another; so that here the scarcely intelligible, in these endless +convolutions, becomes the wholly unreadable; and often we could ask, +as that mad pupil did of his tutor in Philosophy, "But whether is +Virtue a fluid, then, or a gas?" If the fact, that Schlegel, in the +city of Dresden, could find audience for such high discourse, may +excite our envy; this other fact, that a person of strong powers, +skilled in English Thought and master of its Dialect, could write the +_Origin and Prospects of Man_, may painfully remind us of the +reproach, that England has now no language for Meditation; that +England, the most calculative, is the least meditative, of all +civilised countries. + +It is not our purpose to offer any criticism of Schlegel's Book; in +such limits as were possible here, we should despair of communicating +even the faintest image of its significance. To the mass of readers, +indeed, both among the Germans themselves, and still more elsewhere, +it nowise addresses itself, and may lie forever sealed. We point it +out as a remarkable document of the Time and of the Man; can recommend +it, moreover, to all earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their best +regard; a work full of deep meditation, wherein the infinite mystery +of Life, if not represented, is decisively recognised. Of Schlegel +himself, and his character, and spiritual history, we can profess no +thorough or final understanding; yet enough to make us view him with +admiration and pity, nowise with harsh contemptuous censure; and must +say, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of his being "a +renegade," and so forth, is but like other outcries, a judgment where +there was neither jury, nor evidence, nor judge. The candid reader, in +this Book itself, to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces of +a high, far-seeing, earnest spirit, to whom "Austrian Pensions," and +the Kaiser's crown, and Austria altogether, were but a light matter to +the finding and vitally appropriating of Truth. Let us respect the +sacred mystery of a Person; rush not irreverently into man's Holy of +Holies! Were the lost little one, as we said already, found "sucking +its dead mother, on the field of carnage," could it be other than a +spectacle for tears? A solemn mournful feeling comes over us when we +see this last Work of Friedrich Schlegel, the unwearied seeker, end +abruptly in the middle; and, as if he _had not_ yet found, as if +emblematically of much, end with an "_Aber--_," with a "But--!" This +was the last word that came from the Pen of Friedrich Schlegel: about +eleven at night he wrote it down, and there paused sick; at one in the +morning, Time for him had merged itself in Eternity; he was, as we +say, no more. + +Still less can we attempt any criticism of Mr. Hope's new Book of +Genesis. Indeed, under any circumstances, criticism of it were now +impossible. Such an utterance could only be responded to in peals of +laughter; and laughter sounds hollow and hideous through the vaults of +the dead. Of this monstrous Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped and +huddled together, and the principles of all are, with a childlike +innocence, plied hither and thither, or wholly abolished in case of +need; where the First Cause is figured as a huge Circle, with nothing +to do but radiate "gravitation" towards its centre; and so construct a +Universe, wherein all, from the lowest cucumber with its coolness, up +to the highest seraph with his love, were but "gravitation," direct or +reflex, "in more or less central globes,"--what can we say, except, +with sorrow and shame, that it could have originated nowhere save in +England? It is a general agglomerate of all facts, notions, whims and +observations, as they lie in the brain of an English gentleman; as an +English gentleman, of unusual thinking power, is led to fashion them, +in his schools and in his world: all these thrown into the crucible, +and if not fused, yet soldered or conglutinated with boundless +patience; and now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amorphous, +unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most melancholy must we name the whole +business; full of long-continued thought, earnestness, loftiness of +mind; not without glances into the Deepest, a constant fearless +endeavour after truth; and with all this nothing accomplished, but the +perhaps absurdest Book written in our century by a thinking man. A +shameful Abortion; which, however, need not now be smothered or +mangled, for it is already dead; only, in our love and sorrowing +reverence for the writer of _Anastasius_, and the heroic seeker of +Light, though not bringer thereof, let it be buried and forgotten. + +* * * * * + +For ourselves, the loud discord which jars in these two Works, in +innumerable works of the like import, and generally in all the Thought +and Action of this period, does not any longer utterly confuse us. +Unhappy who, in such a time, felt not, at all conjunctures, +ineradicably in his heart the knowledge that a God made this Universe, +and a Demon not! And shall Evil always prosper, then? Out of all Evil +comes Good; and no Good that is possible but shall one day be real. +Deep and sad as is our feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful Night; +equally deep, indestructible is our assurance that the Morning also +will not fail. Nay already, as we look round, streaks of a day-spring +are in the east; it is dawning; when the time shall be fulfilled, it +will be day. The progress of man towards higher and nobler +developments of whatever is highest and noblest in him, lies not only +prophesied to Faith, but now written to the eye of Observation, so +that he who runs may read. + +One great step of progress, for example, we should say, in actual +circumstances, was this same; the clear ascertainment that we are in +progress. About the grand Course of Providence, and his final Purposes +with us, we can know nothing, or almost nothing: man begins in +darkness, ends in darkness; mystery is everywhere around us and in us, +under our feet, among our hands. Nevertheless so much has become +evident to every one, that this wondrous Mankind is advancing +somewhither; that at least all human things are, have been and forever +will be, in Movement and Change:--as, indeed, for beings that exist in +Time, by virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might have been long +since understood. In some provinces, it is true, as in Experimental +Science, this discovery is an old one; but in most others it belongs +wholly to these latter days. How often, in former ages, by eternal +Creeds, eternal Forms of Government and the like, has it been +attempted, fiercely enough, and with destructive violence, to chain +the Future under the Past: and to say to the Providence, whose ways +with man are mysterious, and through the great deep: Hitherto shalt +thou come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt; and for man +himself, could it prosper, the frightfullest of all enchantments, a +very Life-in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny of every +individual man, is to be in turns Apprentice and Workman; or say +rather, Scholar, Teacher, Discoverer: by nature he has a strength for +learning, for imitating; but also a strength for acting, for knowing +on his own account. Are we not in a world seen to be Infinite; the +relations lying closest together modified by those latest discovered +and lying farthest asunder? Could you ever spell-bind man into a +Scholar merely, so that he had nothing to discover, to correct; could +you ever establish a Theory of the Universe that were entire, +unimprovable, and which needed only to be got by heart; man then were +spiritually defunct, the Species we now name Man had ceased to exist. +But the gods, kinder to us than we are to ourselves, have forbidden +such suicidal acts. As Phlogiston is displaced by Oxygen, and the +Epicycles of Ptolemy by the Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism give +place to Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy, and Feudalism to +Representative Government,--where also the process does not stop. +Perfection of Practice, like completeness of Opinion, is always +approaching, never arrived; Truth, in the words of Schiller, _immer +wird, nie ist_; never _is_, always _is a-being_. + +Sad, truly, were our condition did we know but this, that Change is +universal and inevitable. Launched into a dark shoreless sea of +Pyrrhonism, what would remain for us but to sail aimless, hopeless; or +make madly merry, while the devouring Death had not yet engulfed us? +As indeed, we have seen many, and still see many do. Nevertheless so +stands it not. The venerator of the Past (and to what pure heart is +the Past, in that "moonlight of memory," other than sad and holy?) +sorrows not over its departure, as one utterly bereaved. The true Past +departs not, nothing that was worthy in the Past departs; no Truth or +Goodness realised by man ever dies, or can die; but is all still here, +and, recognised or not, lives and works through endless changes. If +all things, to speak in the German dialect, are discerned by us, and +exist for us, in an element of Time, and therefore of Mortality and +Mutability; yet Time itself reposes on Eternity: the truly Great and +Transcendental has its basis and substance in Eternity; stands +revealed to us as Eternity in a vesture of Time. Thus in all Poetry, +Worship, Art, Society, as one form passes into another, nothing is +lost: it is but the superficial, as it were the _body_ only, that +grows obsolete and dies; under the mortal body lies a _soul_ which is +immortal; which anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation; and the +Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past. + +In Change, therefore, there is nothing terrible, nothing supernatural: +on the contrary, it lies in the very essence of our lot and life in +this world. Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our +Works and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue +always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful: and if +Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope. Nay, if we look +well to it, what is all Derangement, and necessity of great Change, in +itself such an evil, but the product simply of _increased resources_ +which the old _methods_ can no longer administer; of new wealth which +the old coffers will no longer contain? What is it, for example, that +in our own day bursts asunder the bonds of ancient Political Systems, +and perplexes all Europe with the fear of Change, but even this: the +increase of social resources, which the old social methods will no +longer sufficiently administer? The new omnipotence of the +Steam-engine is hewing asunder quite other mountains than the +physical. Have not our economical distresses, those barnyard +Conflagrations themselves, the frightfullest madness of our mad epoch, +their rise also in what is a real increase: increase of Men; of human +Force; properly, in such a Planet as ours, the most precious of all +increases? It is true again, the ancient methods of administration +will no longer suffice. Must the indomitable millions, full of old +Saxon energy and fire, lie cooped up in this Western Nook, choking one +another, as in a Blackhole of Calcutta, while a whole fertile +untenanted Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare, cries: Come +and till me, come and reap me? If the ancient Captains can no longer +yield guidance, new must be sought after: for the difficulty lies not +in nature, but in artifice; the European Calcutta-Blackhole has no +walls but air ones and paper ones.--So too, Scepticism itself, with +its innumerable mischiefs, what is it but the sour fruit of a most +blessed increase, that of Knowledge; a fruit too that will not always +continue _sour_? + +In fact, much as we have said and mourned about the unproductive +prevalence of Metaphysics, it was not without some insight into the +use that lies in them. Metaphysical Speculation, if a necessary evil, +is the forerunner of much good. The fever of Scepticism must needs +burn itself out, and burn out thereby the Impurities that caused it; +then again will there be clearness, health. The principle of life, +which now struggles painfully, in the outer, thin and barren domain of +the Conscious or Mechanical, may then withdraw into its inner +sanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and miracle; withdraw deeper than +ever into that domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite and +inexhaustible; and that creatively work there. From that mystic +region, and from that alone, all wonders, all Poesies and Religions, +and Social Systems have proceeded: the like wonders, and greater and +higher, lie slumbering there; and, brooded on by the spirit of the +waters, will evolve themselves, and rise like exhalations from the +Deep. + +Of our Modern Metaphysics, accordingly, may not this already be said, +that if they have produced no Affirmation, they have destroyed much +Negation? It is a disease expelling a disease: the fire of Doubt, as +above hinted, consuming away the Doubtful; that so the Certain come to +light, and again lie visible on the surface. English or French +Metaphysics, in reference to this last stage of the speculative +process, are not what we allude to here; but only the Metaphysics of +the Germans. In France or England, since the days of Diderot and Hume, +though all thought has been of a sceptico-metaphysical texture, so far +as there was any Thought, we have seen no Metaphysics; but only more +or less ineffectual questionings whether such could be. In the +Pyrrhonism of Hume and the Materialism of Diderot, Logic had, as it +were, overshot itself, overset itself. Now, though the athlete, to use +our old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift up his own body, he may +shift it out of a laming posture, and get to stand in a free one. Such +a service have German Metaphysics done for man's mind. The second +sickness of Speculation has abolished both itself and the first. +Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the fruitlessness, the tumult and +transiency of German as of all Metaphysics; and with reason. Yet in +that wide-spreading, deep-whirling vortex of Kantism, so soon +metamorphosed into Fichteism, Schellingism, and then as Hegelism, and +Cousinism, perhaps finally evaporated, is not the issue visible +enough, That Pyrrhonism and Materialism, themselves necessary +phenomena in European culture, have disappeared; and a Faith in +Religion has again become possible and inevitable for the scientific +mind; and the word _Free_-thinker no longer means the Denier or +Caviller, but the Believer, or the Ready to believe? Nay, in the +higher Literature of Germany, there already lies, for him that can +read it, the beginning of a new revelation of the Godlike; as yet +unrecognised by the mass of the world; but waiting there for +recognition, and sure to find it when the fit hour comes. This age +also is not wholly without its Prophets. + +Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarianism, or Radicalism, or the +Mechanical Philosophy, or by whatever name it is called, has still its +long task to do; nevertheless we can now see through it and beyond it: +in the better heads, even among us English, it has become obsolete; as +in other countries, it has been, in such heads, for some forty or even +fifty years. What sound mind among the French, for example, now +fancies that men can be governed by "Constitutions;" by the never so +cunning mechanising of Self-interests, and all conceivable adjustments +of checking and balancing; in a word, by the best possible solution of +this quite insoluble and impossible problem, _Given a world of Knaves, +to produce an Honesty from their united action_? Were not experiments +enough of this kind tried before all Europe, and found wanting, when, +in that doomsday of France, the infinite gulf of human Passion +shivered asunder the thin rinds of Habit; and burst forth +all-devouring as in seas of Nether Fire? Which cunningly-devised +"Constitution," constitutional, republican, democratic, sansculottic, +could bind that raging chasm together? Were they not all burnt up, +like paper as they were, in its molten eddies; and still the fire-sea +raged fiercer than before? It is not by Mechanism, but by Religion; +not by Self-interest, but by Loyalty, that men are governed or +governable. + +Remarkable it is, truly, how everywhere the eternal fact begins again +to be recognised, that there is a Godlike in human affairs; that God +not only made us and beholds us, but is in us and around us; that the +Age of Miracles, as it ever was, now is. Such recognition we discern +on all hands and in all countries: in each country after its own +fashion. In France, among the younger nobler minds, strangely enough; +where, in their loud contention with the Actual and Conscious, the +Ideal or Unconscious is, for the time, without exponent; where +Religion means not the parent of Polity, as of all that is highest, +but Polity itself; and this and the other earnest man has not been +wanting, who could audibly whisper to himself: "Go to, I will make a +religion." In England still more strangely; as in all things, worthy +England will have its way: by the shrieking of hysterical women, +casting out of devils, and other "gifts of the Holy Ghost." Well might +Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth hour of the Night, "the living +dream"; well might he say, "the dead walk." Meanwhile let us rejoice +rather that so much has been seen into, were it through never so +diffracting media, and never so madly distorted; that in all dialects, +though but half-articulately, this high Gospel begins to be preached: +Man is still Man. The genius of Mechanism, as was once before +predicted, will not always sit like a choking incubus on our soul; but +at length, when by a new magic Word the old spell is broken, become +our slave, and as familiar-spirit do all our bidding. "We are near +awakening when we dream that we dream." + +He that has an eye and a heart can even now say: Why should I falter? +Light has come into the world; to such as love Light, so as Light must +be loved, with a boundless all-doing, all enduring love. For the rest, +let that vain struggle to read the mystery of the Infinite cease to +harass us. It is a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only read +here a line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that the +name of the Infinite is GOOD, is GOD? Here on Earth we are as +Soldiers, fighting in a foreign land; that understand not the plan of +the campaign, and have no need to understand it; seeing well what is +at our hand to be done. Let us do it like Soldiers, with submission, +with courage, with a heroic joy. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, +do it with all thy might." Behind us, behind each one of us, lie Six +Thousand Years of human effort, human conquest: before us is the +boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered Continents +and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and from +the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars. + + "My inheritance how wide and fair! + Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir." + + _Carlyle._ + + + + +TUNBRIDGE TOYS + + +I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable +almanac at the butt-end are still favourite implements with boys, and +whether pedlars still hawk them about the country? Are there pedlars +and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal +with them? Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not +of much use. The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was +constantly getting loose. The 1 of the table would work from its +moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you +would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 23-1/2 of the month +(which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word your +cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this +a matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's +pocket. You had hardbake in it; marbles, kept in your purse when the +money was all gone; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly and +supplied with a little bit of gold, long since--prodigal little +son!--scattered amongst the swine--I mean amongst brandy-balls, open +tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top +and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a +"Little Warbler"; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable +period, a brass-barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, +for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket);--with all +these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your +pockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual +movement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twisted +out of its place now and again--your pencil-case to be bent--your +liquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax, +your bull's eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, and +so forth? + +In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one of those +pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall call Hawker, and who was in my +form. Is he dead? Is he a millionaire? Is he a bankrupt now? He was an +immense screw at school, and I believe to this day that the value of +the thing for which I owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was +in reality not one-and-nine. + +I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myself +with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off. +The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and +violent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant +remark was, "When are you going to pay me that three-and-sixpence? +What sneaks your relations must be! They come to see you. You go out +to them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you anything! +Don't tell _me_, you little humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that +my relations were respectable; but my parents were making a tour in +Scotland; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, were +most kind to me, certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, of +May to August 1823, passed in agonies, then, in consequence of my debt +to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in +comparison with the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the sense +of the debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling eyes +and gloomy coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out of +sixpence a week? ludicrous! Why did not some one come to see me, and +tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, go +and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss the +sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't +fancy they are too old--try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless +you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary +after life; and they shall meet you kindly when thanks for kindness +are scant. Oh mercy! shall I ever forget that sovereign you gave me, +Captain Bob? or the agonies of being in debt to Hawker? In that very +term, a relation of mine was going to India. I actually was fetched +from school in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker +of this circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving me a +pound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected +at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the +dear fellow!... There was Hawker when I came back--of course there he +was. As he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He +muttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My +relation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, +asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard me +construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I +was then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school; +upon my word of honour, without so much as a half-crown! It is all +very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expecting +tips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so +forth. Avaricious! fudge! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee +eating, which they do not carry into after life. On the contrary, I +wish I _did_ like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one could have now +for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastry-cook's +tray! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with your +half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the little +fleeting joys of their age. + +Well, then. At the beginning of August 1823, Bartlemytide holidays +came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My +place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants--"Bolt-in-Tun," +Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning was the word. My tutor, the +Reverend Edward P----, to whom I hereby present my best compliments, +had a parting interview with me: gave me my little account for my +governor: the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my +own expenses; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an old account +which had been over-paid, and was to be restored to my family. + +Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight it +was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs. +Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate--but that is not to the point.) The next +morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boy +shared a hackney-coach, two-and-six; porter for putting luggage on +coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, my +companion, went into the "Bolt-in-Tun" coffee-room, and had a good +breakfast. I couldn't: because, though I had five-and-twenty shillings +of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see. + +I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still remember how +strongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour to +wait. A beautiful August morning--I am very hungry. There is +Rasherwell "tucking" away in the coffee-room. I pace the street, as +sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I +turn into a court by mere chance--I vow it was by mere chance--and +there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window. "Coffee, +Twopence, Round of buttered toast, Twopence." And here am I hungry, +penniless, with five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money in my +pocket. + +What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in +that pencil-case affair. The five-and-twenty shillings were a +trust--by me to be handed over. + +But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without +breakfast? Having this money and being so hungry, so _very_ hungry, +mightn't I take ever so little? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I +chose? + +Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I remember the +taste of the coffee and toast to this day--a peculiar, muddy, +not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee--a rich, rancid, yet +not-buttered-enough, delicious toast. The waiter had nothing. At any +rate, fourpence, I know, was the sum I spent. And the hunger appeased, +I got on the coach a guilty being. + +At the last stage,--what is its name? I have forgotten in +seven-and-thirty years,--there is an inn with a little green and trees +before it; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It is our +carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my +parents in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days until +this one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But +there was that fourpence. All the journey down the toast had choked +me, and the coffee poisoned me. + +I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot +the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pulled out +the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand. + +"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. P---- owes you, all but +fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a +pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and +had some coffee at a shop." + +I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession. + +"My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast at +the hotel?" + +"He must be starved," says my mother. + +I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken back to my +parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very +long career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a +pin which is not his own, will take a thousand pounds when occasion +serves, brings his parents' grey heads with sorrow to the grave, and +carry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon +whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by +playing pitch-and-toss on a tombstone: playing fair, for what we know: +and even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. The bamboo +was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad courses out of him. From +pitch-and-toss he proceeded to manslaughter if necessary: to highway +robbery; to Tyburn and the rope there. Ah! Heaven be thanked, my +parents' heads are still above the grass, and mine still out of the +noose. + +As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks, +the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys +saunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop +by on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is "Cramp, Riding +Master," as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur +Cramp must be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman +with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as _our_ +novels? Oh! how delightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost +of Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeus +of Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict +you in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as for +Corinthian Tom in light blue pantaloons and hessians, and Jerry +Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendour +of real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the +wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, +with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparkling +vivacious rattle? + +Who knows? They _may_ have kept those very books at the library +still--at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell +that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I will go and see. I wend my +way to the Pantiles, the queer little old-world Pantiles, where, a +hundred years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure. +Is it possible, that in the past century, gentlefolks of the first +rank (as I read lately in a lecture on George II. in the _Cornhill +Magazine_) assembled here and entertained each other with gaming, +dancing, fiddling, and tea? There are fiddlers, harpers, and +trumpeters performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but +where is the fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, bishops, +and magnificent embroidered gamesters? A half-dozen of children and +their nurses are listening to the musicians; an old lady or two in a +poke bonnet passes; and for the rest, I see but an uninteresting +population of native tradesmen. As for the library, its window is full +of pictures of burly theologians, and their works, sermons, apologues, +and so forth. Can I go in and ask the young ladies at the counter for +"Manfroni, or the One-handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the +Adventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esquire, and their +friend Bob Logic"?--absurd. I turn away abashed from the +casement--from the Pantiles--no longer Pantiles--but Parade. I stroll +over the Common and survey the beautiful purple hills around, +twinkling with a thousand bright villas, which have sprung up over +this charming ground since first I saw it. What an admirable scene of +peace and plenty! What a delicious air breathes over the heath, blows +the cloud-shadows across it, and murmurs through the full-clad trees! +Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful? I see a +portion of it when I look up from the window at which I write. But +fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming in sunshine, and +purple clouds swollen with summer rain--nay, the very pages over which +my head bends--disappear from before my eyes. They are looking +backwards, back into forty years off, into a dark room, into a little +house hard by on the Common here, in the Bartlemytide holidays. The +parents have gone to town for two days: the house is all his own, his +own and a grim old maid-servant's, and a little boy is seated at night +in the lonely drawing-room, poring over "Manfroni, or the One-handed +Monk," so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn round. + + _Thackeray._ + + + + +NIGHT WALKS + + +Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a +distressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night, +for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long +time to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but, +it was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly +after lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise. + +In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fair +amateur experience of houselessness. My principal object being to get +through the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic +relations with people who have no other object every night in the +year. + +The month was March, and the weather damp, cloudy, and cold. The sun +not rising before half-past five, the night perspective looked +sufficiently long at half-past twelve: which was about my time for +confronting it. + +The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles and +tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first +entertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It +lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the +late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust +the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and +stray people were left us, after that. If we were very lucky, a +policeman's rattle sprang and a fray turned up; but, in general, +surprisingly little of this diversion was provided. Except in the +Haymarket, which is the worst kept part of London, and about +Kent-street in the Borough, and along a portion of the line of the Old +Kent-road, the peace was seldom violently broken. But, it was always +the case that London, as if in imitation of individual citizens +belonging to it, had expiring fits and starts of restlessness. After +all seemed quiet, if one cab rattled by, half-a-dozen would surely +follow; and Houselessness even observed that intoxicated people +appeared to be magnetically attracted towards each other: so that we +knew when we saw one drunken object staggering against the shutters of +a shop, that another drunken object would stagger up before five +minutes were out, to fraternise or fight with it. When we made a +divergence from the regular species of drunkard, the thin-armed, +puff-faced, leaden-lipped gin-drinker, and encountered a rarer +specimen of a more decent appearance, fifty to one but that specimen +was dressed in soiled mourning. As the street experience in the night, +so the street experience in the day; the common folk who come +unexpectedly into a little property, come unexpectedly into a deal of +liquor. + +At length these flickering sparks would die away, worn out--the last +veritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman or +hot-potato man--and London would sink to rest. And then the yearning +of the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, any lighted +place, any movement, anything suggestive of any one being up--nay, +even so much as awake, for the houseless eye looked out for lights in +windows. + +Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would walk +and walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle of +streets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen in +conversation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men. Now +and then in the night--but rarely--Houselessness would become aware of +a furtive head peering out of a doorway a few yards before him, and, +coming up with the head, would find a man standing bolt upright to +keep within the doorway's shadow, and evidently intent upon no +particular service to society. Under a kind of fascination, and in a +ghostly silence suitable to the time, Houselessness and this gentleman +would eye one another from head to foot, and so, without exchange of +speech, part, mutually suspicious. Drip, drip, drip, from ledge and +coping, splash from pipes and water-spouts, and by-and-by the +houseless shadow would fall upon the stones that pave the way to +Waterloo-bridge; it being in the houseless mind to have a halfpenny +worth of excuse for saying "Good night" to the toll-keeper, and +catching a glimpse of his fire. A good fire and a good great-coat and +a good woollen neck-shawl, were comfortable things to see in +conjunction with the toll-keeper; also his brisk wakefulness was +excellent company when he rattled the change of halfpence down upon +that metal table of his, like a man who defied the night, with all its +sorrowful thoughts, and didn't care for the coming of dawn. There was +need of encouragement on the threshold of the bridge, for the bridge +was dreary. The chopped-up murdered man, had not been lowered with a +rope over the parapet when those nights were; he was alive, and slept +then quietly enough most likely, and undisturbed by any dream of where +he was to come. But the river had an awful look, the buildings on the +banks were muffled in black shrouds, and the reflected lights seemed +to originate deep in the water, as if the spectres of suicides were +holding them to show where they went down. The wild moon and clouds +were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed, and the very +shadow of the immensity of London seemed to lie oppressively upon the +river. + +Between the bridge and the two great theatres, there was but the +distance of a few hundred paces, so the theatres came next. Grim and +black within, at night, those great dry Wells, and lonesome to +imagine, with the rows of faces faded out, the lights extinguished, +and the seats all empty. One would think that nothing in them knew +itself at such a time but Yorick's skull. In one of my night walks, as +the church steeples were shaking the March winds and rain with strokes +of Four, I passed the outer boundary of one of these great deserts, +and entered it. With a dim lantern in my hand, I groped my well-known +way to the stage and looked over the orchestra--which was like a great +grave dug for a time of pestilence--into the void beyond. A dismal +cavern of an immense aspect, with the chandelier gone dead like +everything else, and nothing visible through mist and fog and space, +but tiers of winding-sheets. The ground at my feet where, when last +there, I had seen the peasantry of Naples dancing among the vines, +reckless of the burning mountain which threatened to overwhelm them, +was now in possession of a strong serpent of engine-hose, watchfully +lying in wait for the serpent Fire, and ready to fly at it if it +showed its forked tongue. A ghost of a watchman, carrying a faint +corpse candle, haunted the distant upper gallery and flitted away. +Retiring within the proscenium, and holding my light above my head +towards the rolled-up curtain--green no more, but black as ebony--my +sight lost itself in a gloomy vault, showing faint indications in it +of a shipwreck of canvas and cordage. Methought I felt much as a diver +might, at the bottom of the sea. + +In those small hours when there was no movement in the streets, it +afforded matter for reflection to take Newgate in the way, and, +touching its rough stone, to think of the prisoners in their sleep, +and then to glance in at the lodge over the spiked wicket, and see the +fire and light of the watching turnkeys, on the white wall. Not an +inappropriate time either, to linger by that wicked little Debtors' +Door--shutting tighter than any other door one ever saw--which has +been Death's Door to so many. In the days of the uttering of forged +one-pound notes by people tempted up from the country, how many +hundreds of wretched creatures of both sexes--many quite +innocent--swung out of a pitiless and inconsistent world, with the +tower of yonder Christian church of Saint Sepulchre monstrously before +their eyes! Is there any haunting of the Bank Parlour, by the +remorseful souls of old directors, in the nights of these later days, +I wonder, or is it as quiet as this degenerate Aceldama of an Old +Bailey? + +To walk on to the Bank, lamenting the good old times and bemoaning the +present evil period, would be an easy next step, so I would take it, +and would make my houseless circuit of the Bank, and give a thought to +the treasure within; likewise to the guard of soldiers passing the +night there, and nodding over the fire. Next, I went to Billingsgate, +in some hope of market-people, but it proving as yet too early, +crossed London-bridge and got down by the waterside on the Surrey +shore among the buildings of the great brewery. There was plenty going +on at the brewery; and the reek, and the smell of grains, and the +rattling of the plump dray horses at their mangers, were capital +company. Quite refreshed by having mingled with this good society, I +made a new start with a new heart, setting the old King's Bench prison +before me for my next object, and resolving, when I should come to the +wall, to think of poor Horace Kinch, and the Dry Rot in men. + +A very curious disease the Dry Rot in men, and difficult to detect the +beginning of. It had carried Horace Kinch inside the wall of the old +King's Bench prison, and it had carried him out with his feet +foremost. He was a likely man to look at, in the prime of life, well +to do, as clever as he needed to be, and popular among many friends. +He was suitably married, and had healthy and pretty children. But, +like some fair-looking houses or fair-looking ships, he took the Dry +Rot. The first strong external revelation of the Dry Rot in men, is a +tendency to lurk and lounge; to be at street-corners without +intelligible reason; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many +places rather than at any; to do nothing tangible, but to have an +intention of performing a variety of intangible duties to-morrow or +the day after. When this manifestation of the disease is observed, the +observer will usually connect it with a vague impression once formed +or received, that the patient was living a little too hard. He will +scarcely have had leisure to turn it over in his mind and form the +terrible suspicion "Dry Rot," when he will notice a change for the +worse in the patient's appearance: a certain slovenliness and +deterioration, which is not poverty, nor dirt, nor intoxication, nor +ill-health, but simply Dry Rot. To this, succeeds a smell as of strong +waters, in the morning; to that, a looseness respecting money; to +that, a stronger smell as of strong waters, at all times; to that, a +looseness respecting everything; to that, a trembling of the limbs, +somnolency, misery, and crumbling to pieces. As it is in wood, so it +is in men. Dry Rot advances at a compound usury quite incalculable. A +plank is found infected with it, and the whole structure is devoted. +Thus it had been with the unhappy Horace Kinch, lately buried by a +small subscription. Those who knew him had not nigh done saying, "So +well off, so comfortably established, with such hope before him--and +yet, it is feared, with a slight touch of Dry Rot!" when lo! the man +was all Dry Rot and dust. + +From the dead wall associated on those houseless nights with this too +common story, I chose next to wander by Bethlehem Hospital; partly, +because it lay on my road round to Westminster; partly, because I had +a night fancy in my head which could be best pursued within sight of +its walls and dome. And the fancy was this: Are not the sane and the +insane equal at night as the sane lie a dreaming? Are not all of us +outside this hospital, who dream, more or less in the condition of +those inside it, every night of our lives? Are we not nightly +persuaded, as they daily are, that we associate preposterously with +kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and notabilities of all +sorts? Do we not nightly jumble events and personages and times and +places, as these do daily? Are we not sometimes troubled by our own +sleeping inconsistencies, and do we not vexedly try to account for +them or excuse them, just as these do sometimes in respect of their +waking delusions? Said an afflicted man to me, when I was last in a +hospital like this, "Sir, I can frequently fly." I was half ashamed to +reflect that so could I--by night. Said a woman to me on the same +occasion, "Queen Victoria frequently comes to dine with me, and her +Majesty and I dine off peaches and maccaroni in our nightgowns, and +his Royal Highness the Prince Consort does us the honour to make a +third on horseback in a Field-Marshal's uniform." Could I refrain from +reddening with consciousness when I remembered the amazing royal +parties I myself had given (at night), the unaccountable viands I had +put on table, and my extraordinary manner of conducting myself on +those distinguished occasions? I wonder that the great master who knew +everything, when he called Sleep the death of each day's life, did not +call Dreams the insanity of each day's sanity. + +By this time I had left the Hospital behind me, and was again setting +towards the river; and in a short breathing space I was on +Westminster-bridge, regaling my houseless eyes with the external walls +of the British Parliament--the perfection of a stupendous institution, +I know, and the admiration of all surrounding nations and succeeding +ages, I do not doubt, but perhaps a little the better now and then for +being pricked up to its work. Turning off into Old Palace-yard, the +Courts of Law kept me company for a quarter of an hour; hinting in low +whispers what numbers of people they were keeping awake, and how +intensely wretched and horrible they were rendering the small hours to +unfortunate suitors. Westminster Abbey was fine gloomy society for +another quarter of an hour; suggesting a wonderful procession of its +dead among the dark arches and pillars, each century more amazed by +the century following it than by all the centuries going before. And +indeed in those houseless night walks--which even included cemeteries +where watchmen went round among the graves at stated times, and moved +the tell-tale handle of an index which recorded that they had touched +it at such an hour--it was a solemn consideration what enormous hosts +of dead belong to one old great city, and how, if they were raised +while the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's point +in all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not only +that, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleys +beyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows how +far. + +When a church clock strikes, on houseless ears in the dead of the +night, it may be at first mistaken for company and hailed as such. +But, as the spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive at +such a time with great clearness, go opening out, for ever and ever +afterwards widening perhaps (as the philosopher has suggested) in +eternal space, the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness is +profounder. Once--it was after leaving the Abbey and turning my face +north--I came to the great steps of St. Martin's church as the clock +was striking Three. Suddenly, a thing that in a moment more I should +have trodden upon without seeing, rose up at my feet with a cry of +loneliness and houselessness, struck out of it by the bell, the like +of which I never heard. We then stood face to face looking at one +another, frightened by one another. The creature was like a +beetle-browed hair-lipped youth of twenty, and it had a loose bundle +of rags on, which it held together with one of its hands. It shivered +from head to foot, and its teeth chattered, and as it stared at +me--persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it thought me--it made with its +whining mouth as if it were snapping at me, like a worried dog. +Intending to give this ugly object money, I put out my hand to stay +it--for it recoiled as it whined and snapped--and laid my hand upon +its shoulder. Instantly, it twisted out of its garment, like the young +man in the New Testament, and left me standing alone with its rags in +my hands. + +Covent-garden Market, when it was market morning, was wonderful +company. The great waggons of cabbages, with growers' men and boys +lying asleep under them, and with sharp dogs from market-garden +neighbourhoods looking after the whole, were as good as a party. But +one of the worst night sights I know in London, is to be found in the +children who prowl about this place; who sleep in the baskets, fight +for the offal, dart at any object they think they can lay their +thieving hands on, dive under the carts and barrows, dodge the +constables, and are perpetually making a blunt pattering on the +pavement of the Piazza with the rain of their naked feet. A painful +and unnatural result comes of the comparison one is forced to +institute between the growth of corruption as displayed in the so much +improved and cared for fruits of the earth, and the growth of +corruption as displayed in these all uncared for (except inasmuch as +ever-hunted) savages. + +There was early coffee to be got about Covent-garden Market, and that +was more company--warm company, too, which was better. Toast of a very +substantial quality, was likewise procurable: though the +towzled-headed man who made it, in an inner chamber within the +coffee-room, hadn't got his coat on yet, and was so heavy with sleep +that in every interval of toast and coffee he went off anew behind the +partition into complicated cross-roads of choke and snore, and lost +his way directly. Into one of these establishments (among the +earliest) near Bow-street, there came one morning as I sat over my +houseless cup, pondering where to go next, a man in a high and long +snuff-coloured coat, and shoes, and, to the best of my belief, nothing +else but a hat, who took out of his hat a large cold meat pudding; a +meat pudding so large that it was a very tight fit, and brought the +lining of the hat out with it. This mysterious man was known by his +pudding, for on his entering, the man of sleep brought him a pint of +hot tea, a small loaf, and a large knife and fork and plate. Left to +himself in his box, he stood the pudding on the bare table, and, +instead of cutting it, stabbed it, over-hand, with the knife, like a +mortal enemy; then took the knife out, wiped it on his sleeve, tore +the pudding asunder with his fingers, and ate it all up. The +remembrance of this man with the pudding remains with me as the +remembrance of the most spectral person my houselessness encountered. +Twice only was I in that establishment, and twice I saw him stalk in +(as I should say, just out of bed, and presently going back to bed), +take out his pudding, stab his pudding, wipe the dagger, and eat his +pudding all up. He was a man whose figure promised cadaverousness, but +who had an excessively red face, though shaped like a horse's. On the +second occasion of my seeing him, he said huskily to the man of sleep, +"Am I red to-night?" "You are," he uncompromisingly answered. "My +mother," said the spectre, "was a red-faced woman that liked drink, +and I looked at her hard when she laid in her coffin, and I took the +complexion." Somehow, the pudding seemed an unwholesome pudding after +that, and I put myself in its way no more. + +When there was no market, or when I wanted variety, a railway terminus +with the morning mails coming in, was remunerative company. But like +most of the company to be had in this world, it lasted only a very +short time. The station lamps would burst out ablaze, the porters +would emerge from places of concealment, the cabs and trucks would +rattle to their places (the post-office carts were already in theirs), +and, finally, the bell would strike up, and the train would come +banging in. But there were few passengers and little luggage, and +everything scuttled away with the greatest expedition. The locomotive +post-offices, with their great nets--as if they had been dragging the +country for bodies--would fly open as to their doors, and would +disgorge a smell of lamp, an exhausted clerk, a guard in a red coat, +and their bags of letters; the engine would blow and heave and +perspire, like an engine wiping its forehead and saying what a run it +had had; and within ten minutes the lamps were out, and I was +houseless and alone again. + +But now, there were driven cattle on the high road near, wanting (as +cattle always do) to turn into the midst of stone walls, and squeeze +themselves through six inches' width of iron railing, and getting +their heads down (also as cattle always do) for tossing-purchase at +quite imaginary dogs, and giving themselves and every devoted creature +associated with them a most extraordinary amount of unnecessary +trouble. Now, too, the conscious gas began to grow pale with the +knowledge that daylight was coming, and straggling work-people were +already in the streets, and, as waking life had become extinguished +with the last pieman's sparks, so it began to be rekindled with the +fires of the first street-corner breakfast-sellers. And so by faster +and faster degrees, until the last degrees were very fast, the day +came, and I was tired and could sleep. And it is not, as I used to +think, going home at such times, the least wonderful thing in London, +that in the real desert region of the night, the houseless wanderer is +alone there. I knew well enough where to find Vice and Misfortune of +all kinds, if I had chosen; but they were put out of sight, and my +houselessness had many miles upon miles of streets in which it could, +and did, have its own solitary way. + + _Dickens._ + + + + +"A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED" + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile +Drama. That national monument, after having changed its name to +Park's, to Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has +now become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like +Stonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may be the +Museum numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her +gracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; but to the plain +private person they are become, like Raphaels, unattainable. I have, +at different times, possessed _Aladdin_, _The Red Rover_, _The Blind +Boy_, _The Old Oak Chest_, _The Wood Daemon_, _Jack Sheppard_, _The +Miller and his Men_, _Der Freischuetz_, _The Smuggler_, _The Forest of +Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, _The Waterman_, _Richard I._, _My Poll and my +Partner Joe_, _The Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and _Three-Fingered +Jack, the Terror of Jamaica_; and I have assisted others in the +illumination of _The Maid of the Inn_ and _The Battle of Waterloo_. In +this roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of a happy +childhood; and though not half of them are still to be procured of any +living stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all survive, +kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the +city of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a +party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those +days I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of +itself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In +the Leith Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed a +theatre in working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few +"robbers carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold +to me! the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one +upon another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. +One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of +characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the +clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom +Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! +how--if the name by chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he +figured, and what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange +apparel! And then to go within, to announce yourself as an intending +purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and +breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic +combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses and +prison vaults--it was a giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smelt +of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy. +They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a +place besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding Salem, had a +double task. They kept us at the stick's end, frowned us down, +snatched each play out of our hand ere we were trusted with another; +and, incredible as it may sound, used to demand of us upon our +entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. Old +Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, once swept +the treasures from before me, with the cry: "I do not believe, child, +that you are an intending purchaser at all!" These were the dragons of +the garden; but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the +Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was another +lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowing +in the raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare with it +save now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain +unwrit stones of adventure, from which I awake to find the world all +vanity. The _crux_ of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the +uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on these +bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the sight and +touch of them which he would jealously prolong; and when at length the +deed was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman had +brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy was forth again, +a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue +winter's even, and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or some kindred drama +clutched against his side--on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed +aloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all the +years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with +these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me the +_Arabian Entertainments_ in the fat, old, double-columned volume with +the prints. I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I +remember, when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty +stiff) came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of +ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to +be called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not +much appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The +Blind Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and +once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what +was it all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number +of banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent +kitchen in the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen +in a deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite +forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to +"twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of +it--crimson lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the +ear)--with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be +compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The +latter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite +pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day my +heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness the very +aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure +in the painting. But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it, +all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; +but to cut the figures out was simply sacrilege; nor could any child +twice court the tedium, the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantment +of an actual performance. Two days after the purchase the honey had +been sucked. Parents used to complain; they thought I wearied of my +play. It was not so: no more than a person can be said to have wearied +of his dinner when he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got the +marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study +that enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true child +of Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much +as I have travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon +that map or abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of +memory, and are still but names. _The Floating Beacon_--why was that +denied me? or _The Wreck Ashore_? _Sixteen-String Jack_ whom I did not +even guess to be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my +slumbers; and there is one sequence of three from that enchanted +calender that I still at times recall, like a loved verse of poetry: +_Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, _Echo of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare +names, are surely more to children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated +fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the +charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept +into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now we +have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of +Skelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to +design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It +is even to be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of +nature. The stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, +home-bred staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, +but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: a +peculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a +tone of voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist +upon the art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters that +once so thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly +engines and incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the +extreme hard favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with +pain; the villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the +scenes themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the +efforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other +side the impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great +unity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead +and buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom--or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?--had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland +as in _The Blind Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or +Italy with _The Old Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist +could tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, running +wild in deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and +overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus +Skeltica_--brave growths. The caves were all embowelled in the +Surreyside formation; the soil was all betrodden by the light pump of +T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet another, an oriental string: +he held the gorgeous east in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyeres, +say, in the garden of the Hotel des Iles d'Or, you may behold these +blessed visions realised. But on these I will not dwell; they were an +outwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt was all himself. +It had a strong flavour of England; it was a sort of indigestion of +England and drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How the +roads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates +from behind the cloud, and how the congregated clouds themselves +uproll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the usual +first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the +gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama +must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with +the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there +again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to +colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, +glimpses of the navigable Thames--England, when at last I came to +visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for +the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there +the horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the +ripe age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to +load it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own +ideal, radiating pure romance--still I was but a puppet in the hand of +Skelt; the original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the +antitype of all the bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, +had adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild. "This is mastering me," as +Whitman cries, upon some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, +art, letters, the world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped +himself upon my immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a +poor penny world; but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go +to the theatre to see a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little +faded. If I visit a bold scene in nature, Skelt would have been +bolder; there had been certainly a castle on that mountain, and the +hollow tree--that set piece--I seem to miss it in the foreground. +Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive, and +infantile art, I seem to have learned the very spirit of my life's +enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I was to read about +and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der Freischuetz_ long +ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of +scenes and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain, +I might enact all novels and romances; and took from these rude cuts +an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader--and yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest +readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the +bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, or to Clarke's of Garrick +Street. In Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my +ancient aspirations: _Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I +cherish the belief that when these shall see once more the light of +day, B. Pollock will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have a +dream at times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in +a ghostly street--E. W., I think, the postal district--close below the +fool's-cap of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of +the Abbey bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling +strong of glue and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with +great Skelt himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy, +with what a choking heart--I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I +pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust. + + _R. L. Stevenson._ + + + + +THE JULY GRASS + + +A July fly went sideways over the long grass. His wings made a burr +about him like a net, beating so fast they wrapped him round with a +cloud. Every now and then, as he flew over the trees of grass, a +taller one than common stopped him, and there he clung, and then the +eye had time to see the scarlet spots--the loveliest colour--on his +wings. The wind swung the burnet and loosened his hold, and away he +went again over the grasses, and not one jot did he care if they were +_Poa_ or _Festuca_, or _Bromus_ or _Hordeum_, or any other name. Names +were nothing to him; all he had to do was to whirl his scarlet spots +about in the brilliant sun, rest when he liked, and go on again. I +wonder whether it is a joy to have bright scarlet spots, and to be +clad in the purple and gold of life; is the colour felt by the +creature that wears it? The rose, restful of a dewy morn before the +sunbeams have topped the garden wall, must feel a joy in its own +fragrance, and know the exquisite hue of its stained petals. The rose +sleeps in its beauty. + +The fly whirls his scarlet-spotted wings about and splashes himself +with sunlight, like the children on the sands. He thinks not of the +grass and sun; he does not heed them at all--and that is why he is so +happy--any more than the barefoot children ask why the sea is there, +or why it does not quite dry up when it ebbs. He is unconscious; he +lives without thinking about living; and if the sunshine were a +hundred hours long, still it would not be long enough. No, never +enough of sun and sliding shadows that come like a hand over the table +to lovingly reach our shoulder, never enough of the grass that smells +sweet as a flower, not if we could live years and years equal in +number to the tides that have ebbed and flowed counting backwards four +years to every day and night, backward still till we found out which +came first, the night or the day. The scarlet-dotted fly knows nothing +of the names of the grasses that grow here where the sward nears the +sea, and thinking of him I have decided not to wilfully seek to learn +any more of their names either. My big grass book I have left at home, +and the dust is settling on the gold of the binding. I have picked a +handful this morning of which I know nothing. I will sit here on the +turf and the scarlet-dotted flies shall pass over me, as if I too were +but a grass. I will not think, I will be unconscious, I will live. + +Listen! that was the low sound of a summer wavelet striking the +uncovered rock over there beneath in the green sea. All things that +are beautiful are found by chance, like everything that is good. Here +by me is a praying-rug, just wide enough to kneel on, of the richest +gold inwoven with crimson. All the Sultans of the East never had such +beauty as that to kneel on. It is, indeed, too beautiful to kneel on, +for the life in these golden flowers must not be broken down even for +that purpose. They must not be defaced, not a stem bent; it is more +reverent not to kneel on them, for this carpet prays itself. I will +sit by it and let it pray for me. It is so common, the bird's-foot +lotus, it grows everywhere; yet if I purposely searched for days I +should not have found a plot like this, so rich, so golden, so glowing +with sunshine. You might pass by it in one stride, yet it is worthy to +be thought of for a week and remembered for a year. Slender grasses, +branched round about with slenderer boughs, each tipped with pollen +and rising in tiers cone-shaped--too delicate to grow tall--cluster at +the base of the mound. They dare not grow tall or the wind would snap +them. A great grass, stout and thick, rises three feet by the hedge, +with a head another foot nearly, very green and strong and bold, +lifting itself right up to you; you must say, "What a fine grass!" +Grasses whose awns succeed each other alternately; grasses whose tops +seem flattened; others drooping over the shorter blades beneath; some +that you can only find by parting the heavier growth around them; +hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands. The kingly poppies on +the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their +subjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are, +the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, but +raising up a brilliant blazon of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. They +are useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison and +everlasting night; yet they are forgiven because they are not +commonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppies +commonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and they +are saved. Even when they take the room of the corn we must admire +them. The mighty multitude of nations, the millions and millions of +the grass stretching away in intertangled ranks, through pasture and +mead from shore to shore, have no kinship with these their lords. The +ruler is always a foreigner. From England to China the native born is +no king; the poppies are the Normans of the field. One of these on the +mound is very beautiful, a width of petal, a clear silkiness of colour +three shades higher than the rest--it is almost dark with scarlet. I +wish I could do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and gold +and crimson and green, something more than see it, not exactly to +drink it or inhale it, but in some way to make it part of me that I +might live it. + +The July grasses must be looked for in corners and out-of-the-way +places, and not in the broad acres--the scythe has taken them there. +By the wayside on the banks of the lane, near the gateway--look, too, +in uninteresting places behind incomplete buildings on the mounds cast +up from abandoned foundations where speculation has been and gone. +There weeds that would not have found resting-place elsewhere grow +unchecked, and uncommon species and unusually large growths appear. +Like everything else that is looked for, they are found under unlikely +conditions. At the back of ponds, just inside the enclosure of woods, +angles of corn-fields, old quarries, that is where to find grasses, or +by the sea in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow by +the mere road-side; you may look for others up the lanes in the deep +ruts, look too inside the hollow trees by the stream. In a morning you +may easily garner together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut the +larger stems aslant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green glass. +You must consider as you gather them the height and slenderness of the +stems, the droop and degree of curve, the shape and colour of the +panicle, the dusting of the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind. +The sheaf you may take home with you, but the wind that was among it +stays without. + + _Richard Jeffries._ + + + + +WORN-OUT TYPES + + +It is now a complaint of quite respectable antiquity that the types in +which humanity was originally set up by a humour-loving Providence are +worn out and require recasting. The surface of society has become +smooth. It ought to be a bas-relief--it is a plane. Even a Chaucer (so +it is said) could make nothing of us as we wend our way to Brighton. +We have tempers, it is true--bad ones for the most part; but no +humours to be in or out of. We are all far too much alike; we do not +group well; we only mix. All this, and more, is alleged against us. A +cheerfully disposed person might perhaps think that, assuming the +prevailing type to be a good, plain, readable one, this uniformity +need not necessarily be a bad thing; but had he the courage to give +expression to this opinion he would most certainly be at once told, +with that mixture of asperity and contempt so properly reserved for +those who take cheerful views of anything, that without well-defined +types of character there can be neither national comedy nor whimsical +novel; and as it is impossible to imagine any person sufficiently +cheerful to carry the argument further by inquiring ingenuously, "And +how would that matter?" the position of things becomes serious, and +demands a few minutes' investigation. + +As we said at the beginning, the complaint is an old one--most +complaints are. When Montaigne was in Rome in 1580 he complained +bitterly that he was always knocking up against his own countrymen, +and might as well have been in Paris. And yet some people would have +you believe that this curse of the Continent is quite new. More than +seventy years ago that most quotable of English authors, Hazlitt, +wrote as follows: + +"It is, indeed, the evident tendency of all literature to generalize +and dissipate character by giving men the same artificial education +and the same common stock of ideas; so that we see all objects from +the same point of view, and through the same reflected medium; we +learn to exist not in ourselves, but in books; all men become alike, +mere readers--spectators, not actors in the scene and lose all proper +personal identity. The templar--the wit--the man of pleasure and the +man of fashion, the courtier and the citizen, the knight and the +squire, the lover and the miser--Lovelace, Lothario, Will Honeycomb +and Sir Roger de Coverley, Sparkish and Lord Foppington, Western and +Tom Jones, my Father and my Uncle Toby, Millament and Sir Sampson +Legend, Don Quixote and Sancho, Gil Bias and Guzman d'Alfarache, Count +Fathom and Joseph Surface--have all met and exchanged commonplaces on +the barren plains of the _haute litterature_--toil slowly on to the +Temple of Science, seen a long way off upon a level, and end in one +dull compound of politics, criticism, chemistry, and metaphysics." + +Very pretty writing, certainly[53]; nor can it be disputed that +uniformity of surroundings puts a tax upon originality. To make bricks +and find your own straw are terms of bondage. Modern characters, like +modern houses, are possibly built too much on the same lines. +Dickens's description of Coketown is not easily forgotten: + +"All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe +characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, +the infirmary might have been the jail, the town hall might have been +either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the +contrary in the graces of their construction." + +[Footnote 53: Yet in his essay _On Londoners and Country People_ we +find Hazlitt writing: "London is the only place in which the child +grows completely up into the man. I have known characters of this +kind, which, in the way of childish ignorance and self-pleasing +delusion, exceeded anything to be met with in Shakespeare or Ben +Jonson, or the Old Comedy."] + +And the inhabitants of Coketown are exposed to the same objection as +their buildings. Every one sinks all traces of what he vulgarly calls +"the shop" (that is, his lawful calling), and busily pretends to be +nothing. Distinctions of dress are found irksome. A barrister of +feeling hates to be seen in his robes save when actually engaged in a +case. An officer wears his uniform only when obliged. Doctors have +long since shed all outward signs of their healing art. Court dress +excites a smile. A countess in her jewels is reckoned indecent by the +British workman, who, all unemployed, puffs his tobacco smoke against +the window-pane of the carriage that is conveying her ladyship to a +drawing-room; and a West End clergyman is with difficulty restrained +from telling his congregation what he had been told the British +workman said on that occasion. Had he but had the courage to repeat +those stirring words, his hearers (so he said) could hardly have +failed to have felt their force--so unusual in such a place; but he +had not the courage, and that sermon of the pavement remains +unpreached. The toe of the peasant is indeed kibing the heel of the +courtier. The passion for equality in externals cannot be denied. We +are all woven strangely in the same piece, and so it comes about that, +though our modern society has invented new callings, those callings +have not created new types. Stockbrokers, directors, official +liquidators, philanthropists, secretaries--not of State, but of +companies--speculative builders, are a new kind of people known to +many--indeed, playing a great part among us--but who, for all that, +have not enriched the stage with a single character. Were they to +disappear to-morrow, to be blown dancing away like the leaves before +Shelley's west wind, where in reading or playgoing would posterity +encounter them? Alone amongst the children of men the pale student of +the law, burning the midnight oil in some one of the "high lonely +towers" recently built by the Benchers of the Middle Temple (in the +Italian taste), would, whilst losing his youth over that interminable +series, _The Law Reports_, every now and again strike across the old +track, once so noisy with the bayings of the well-paid hounds of +justice, and, pushing his way along it, trace the history of the bogus +company, from the acclamations attendant upon its illegitimate birth +to the hour of disgrace when it dies by strangulation at the hands of +the professional wrecker. The pale student will not be a wholly +unsympathetic reader. Great swindles have ere now made great +reputations, and lawyers may surely be permitted to take a pensive +interest in such matters. + + "Not one except the Attorney was amused-- + He, like Achilles, faithful to the tomb, + So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause, + Knowing they must be settled by the laws." + +But our elder dramatists would not have let any of these characters +swim out of their ken. A glance over Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont +and Fletcher, is enough to reveal their frank and easy method. Their +characters, like an apothecary's drugs, wear labels round their necks. +Mr. Justice Clement and Mr. Justice Greedy; Master Matthew, the town +gull; Sir Giles Overreach, Sir Epicure Mammon, Mr. Plenty, Sir John +Frugal, need no explanatory context. Are our dramatists to blame for +withholding from us the heroes of our modern society? Ought we to +have-- + + "Sir Moses, Sir Aaron, Sir Jamramagee, + Two stock-jobbing Jews, and a shuffling Parsee"? + +Baron Contango, the Hon. Mr. Guinea-Pig, poor Miss Impulsia Allottee, +Mr. Jeremiah Builder--Rare Old Ben, who was fond of the City, would +have given us them all and many more; but though we may well wish he +were here to do it, we ought, I think, to confess that the humour of +these typical persons who so swell the _dramatis personae_ of an +Elizabethan is, to say the least of it, far to seek. There is a +certain warm-hearted tradition about their very names which makes +disrespect painful. It seems a churl's part not to laugh, as did our +fathers before us, at the humours of the conventional parasite or +impossible serving-man; but we laugh because we will, and not because +we must. + +Genuine comedy--the true tickling scene, exquisite absurdity, +soul-rejoicing incongruity--has really nothing to do with types, +prevailing fashions, and such-like vulgarities. Sir Andrew Aguecheek +is not a typical fool; he _is_ a fool, seised in fee simple of his +folly. + +Humour lies not in generalizations, but in the individual; not in his +hat nor in his hose, even though the latter be "cross-gartered"; but +in the deep heart of him, in his high-flying vanities, his low-lying +oddities--what we call his "ways"--nay, in the very motions of his +back as he crosses the road. These stir our laughter whilst he lives +and our tears when he dies, for in mourning over him we know full well +we are taking part in our own obsequies. "But indeed," wrote Charles +Lamb, "we die many deaths before we die, and I am almost sick when I +think that such a hold as I had of you is gone." + +Literature is but the reflex of life, and the humour of it lies in the +portrayal of the individual, not the type; and though the young man in +_Locksley Hall_ no doubt observes that the individual withers, we have +but to take down George Meredith's novels to find the fact is +otherwise, and that we have still one amongst us who takes notes, and +against the battery of whose quick wits even the costly raiment of +Poole is no protection. We are forced as we read to exclaim with +Petruchio: "Thou hast hit it; come sit on me." No doubt the task of +the modern humorist is not so easy as it was. The surface ore has been +mostly picked up. In order to win the precious metal you must now work +with in-stroke and out-stroke after the most approved methods. +Sometimes one would enjoy it a little more if we did not hear quite so +distinctly the snorting of the engine, and the groaning and the +creaking of the gear as it painfully winds up its prize: but what +would you? Methods, no less than men, must have the defects of their +qualities. + +If, therefore, it be the fact that our national comedy is in decline, +we must look for some other reasons for it than those suggested by +Hazlitt in 1817. When Mr. Chadband inquired, "Why can we not fly, my +friends?" Mr. Snagsby ventured to observe, "in a cheerful and rather +knowing tone, 'No wings!'" but he was immediately frowned down by Mrs. +Snagsby. We lack courage to suggest that the somewhat heavy-footed +movements of our recent dramatists are in any way due to their not +being provided with those twin adjuncts indispensable for the genius +who would soar. + + _Augustine Birrell._ + + + + +BOOK-BUYING + + +The most distinguished of living Englishmen, who, great as he is in +many directions, is perhaps inherently more a man of letters than +anything else, has been overheard mournfully to declare that there +were more book-sellers' shops in his native town sixty years ago, when +he was a boy in it, than are to-day to be found within its boundaries. +And yet the place "all unabashed" now boasts its bookless self a city! + +Mr. Gladstone was, of course, referring to second-hand bookshops. +Neither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about new +books. When a new book is published, read an old one, was the advice +of a sound though surly critic. It is one of the boasts of letters to +have glorified the term "second-hand," which other crafts have "soiled +to all ignoble use." But why it has been able to do this is obvious. +All the best books are necessarily second-hand. The writers of to-day +need not grumble. Let them "bide a wee." If their books are worth +anything, they, too, one day will be second-hand. If their books are +not worth anything there are ancient trades still in full operation +amongst us--the pastrycooks and the trunkmakers--who must have paper. + +But is there any substance in the plaint that nobody now buys books, +meaning thereby second-hand books? The late Mark Pattison, who had +16,000 volumes, and whose lightest word has therefore weight, once +stated that he had been informed, and verily believed, that there were +men of his own University of Oxford who, being in uncontrolled +possession of annual incomes of not less than L500, thought they were +doing the thing handsomely if they expended L50 a year upon their +libraries. But we are not bound to believe this unless we like. There +was a touch of morosity about the late Rector of Lincoln which led him +to take gloomy views of men, particularly Oxford men. + +No doubt arguments _a priori_ may readily be found to support the +contention that the habit of book-buying is on the decline. I confess +to knowing one or two men, not Oxford men either, but Cambridge men +(and the passion of Cambridge for literature is a by-word), who, on +the plea of being pressed with business, or because they were going to +a funeral, have passed a bookshop in a strange town without so much as +stepping inside "just to see whether the fellow had anything." But +painful as facts of this sort necessarily are, any damaging inference +we might feel disposed to draw from them is dispelled by a comparison +of price-lists. Compare a bookseller's catalogue of 1862 with one of +the present year, and your pessimism is washed away by the tears which +unrestrainedly flow as you see what _bonnes fortunes_ you have lost. A +young book-buyer might well turn out upon Primrose Hill and bemoan his +youth, after comparing old catalogues with new. + +Nothing but American competition, grumble some old stagers. + +Well! why not? This new battle for the books is a free fight, not a +private one, and Columbia has "joined in." Lower prices are not to be +looked for. The book-buyer of 1900 will be glad to buy at to-day's +prices. I take pleasure in thinking he will not be able to do so. Good +finds grow scarcer and scarcer. True it is that but a few short weeks +ago I picked up (such is the happy phrase, most apt to describe what +was indeed a "street casualty") a copy of the original edition of +_Endymion_ (Keats's poem--O subscriber to Mudie's!--not Lord +Beaconsfield's novel) for the easy equivalent of half-a-crown--but +then that was one of my lucky days. The enormous increase of +booksellers' catalogues and their wide circulation amongst the trade +has already produced a hateful uniformity of prices. Go where you will +it is all the same to the odd sixpence. Time was when you could map +out the country for yourself with some hopefulness of plunder. There +were districts where the Elizabethan dramatists were but slenderly +protected. A raid into the "bonnie North Countrie" sent you home again +cheered with chap-books and weighted with old pamphlets of curious +interests; whilst the West of England seldom failed to yield a crop of +novels. I remember getting a complete set of the Bronte books in the +original issues at Torquay, I may say, for nothing. Those days are +over. Your country bookseller is, in fact, more likely, such tales +does he hear of London auctions, and such catalogues does he receive +by every post, to exaggerate the value of his wares than to part with +them pleasantly, and as a country bookseller should, "just to clear my +shelves, you know, and give me a bit of room." The only compensation +for this is the catalogues themselves. You get _them_, at least, for +nothing, and it cannot be denied that they make mighty pretty reading. + +These high prices tell their own tale, and force upon us the +conviction that there never were so many private libraries in course +of growth as there are to-day. + +Libraries are not made; they grow. Your first two thousand volumes +present no difficulty, and cost astonishingly little money. Given L400 +and five years, and an ordinary man can in the ordinary course, +without undue haste or putting any pressure upon his taste, surround +himself with this number of books, all in his own language, and +thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is +possible to be happy. But pride is still out of the question. To be +proud of having two thousand books would be absurd. You might as well +be proud of having two top-coats. After your first two thousand +difficulty begins, but until you have ten thousand volumes the less +you say about your library the better. _Then_ you may begin to speak. + +It is no doubt a pleasant thing to have a library left you. The +present writer will disclaim no such legacy, but hereby undertakes to +accept it, however dusty. But good as it is to inherit a library, it +is better to collect one. Each volume then, however lightly a +stranger's eye may roam from shelf to shelf, has its own +individuality, a history of its own. You remember where you got it, +and how much you gave for it; and your word may safely be taken for +the first of these facts, but not for the second. + +The man who has a library of his own collection is able to contemplate +himself objectively, and is justified in believing in his own +existence. No other man but he would have made precisely such a +combination as his. Had he been in any single respect different from +what he is, his library, as it exists, never would have existed. +Therefore, surely he may exclaim, as in the gloaming he contemplates +the backs of his loved ones, "They are mine, and I am theirs." + +But the eternal note of sadness will find its way even through the +keyhole of a library. You turn some familiar page, of Shakespeare it +may be, and his "infinite variety," his "multitudinous mind," suggests +some new thought, and as you are wondering over it you think of +Lycidas, your friend, and promise yourself the pleasure of having his +opinion of your discovery the very next time when by the fire you two +"help: waste a sullen day." Or it is, perhaps, some quainter, tenderer +fancy that engages your solitary attention, something in Sir Philip +Sydney or Henry Vaughan, and then you turn to look for Phyllis, ever +the best interpreter of love, human or divine. Alas! the printed page +grows hazy beneath a filmy eye as you suddenly remember that Lycidas +is dead--"dead ere his prime"--and that the pale cheek of Phyllis will +never again be relumined by the white light of her pure enthusiasm. +And then you fall to thinking of the inevitable, and perhaps, in your +present mood, not unwelcome hour, when the "ancient peace" of your old +friends will be disturbed, when rude hands will dislodge them from +their accustomed nooks and break up their goodly company + + "Death bursts amongst them like a shell, + And strews them over half the town." + +They will form new combinations, lighten other men's toil, and soothe +another's sorrow. Fool that I was to call anything _mine_! + + _Augustine Birrell._ + + + + +THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN + + +It is universally conceded that our great-grandmothers were women of +the most precise life and austere manners. The girls nowadays display +a shocking freedom; but they were partly led into it by the relative +laxity of their mothers, who, in their turn, gave great anxiety to a +still earlier generation. To hear all the "Ahs" and the "Well, I +nevers" of the middle-aged, one would fancy that propriety of conduct +was a thing of the past, and that never had there been a "gaggle of +girls" (the phrase belongs to Dame Juliana Berners) so wanton and +rebellious as the race of 1895. Still, there must be a fallacy +somewhere. If each generation is decidedly wilder, more independent, +more revolting, and more insolent than the one before, how exceedingly +good people must have been four or five generations ago! Outside the +pages of the people so sweetly advertised as "sexual female +fictionists," the girls of to-day do not strike one as extremely bad. +Some of them are quite nice; the average is not very low. How lofty, +then, must have been the standard one hundred years ago, to make room +for such a steady decline ever since! Poor J. K. S. wrote:-- + + "If all the harm that's been done by men + Were doubled and doubled and doubled again, + And melted and fused into vapour, and then + Were squared and raised to the power of ten, + There wouldn't be nearly enough, not near, + To keep a small girl for a tenth of a year." + +This is the view of a cynic. To the ordinary observer, the "revolting +daughters," of whom we hear so much, do not revolt nearly enough to +differentiate them duly from their virtuous great-grandmothers. + +We fear that there was still a good deal of human nature in girls a +hundred, or even two hundred, years ago. That eloquent and animated +writer, the author of _The Whole Duty of Man_, published in the reign +of Charles II, a volume which, if he had had the courage of his +opinions, he would have named _The Whole Duty of Woman_. Under the +tamer title of _The Ladies' Calling_ it achieved a great success. In +the frontispiece to this work a doleful dame, seated on what seems to +be a bare altar in an open landscape, is raising one hand to grasp a +crown dangled out of her reach in the clouds, and in the other, with +an air of great affectation is lifting her skirt between finger and +thumb. A purse, a coronet, a fan, a mirror, rings, dice, coins, and +other useful articles lie strewn at her naked feet; she spurns them, +and lifts her streaming eyes to heaven. This is the sort of picture +which does its best to prevent the reader from opening the book; but +_The Ladies' Calling_, nevertheless, is well worth reading. It excites +in us a curious wish to know more exactly what manner of women it was +addressed to. How did the great-grandmothers of our great-grandmothers +behave? When we come to think of it, how little we know about them! + +The customary source of information is the play-book of the time. +There, indeed, we come across some choice indications of ancient +woman's behaviour. Nor did the women spare one another. The woman +dramatists outdid the men in attacking the manners of their sex, and +what is perhaps the most cynical comedy in all literature was written +by a woman. It will be some time before the Corinnas of _The Yellow +Book_ contrive to surpass _The Town Fop_ in outrageous frankness. Our +ideas of the fashions of the seventeenth century are, however, taken +too exclusively, if they are taken from these plays alone. We conceive +every fine lady to be like Lady Brute, in _The Provok'd Wife_, who +wakes about two o'clock in the afternoon, is "trailed" to her great +chair for tea, leaves her bedroom only to descend to dinner, spends +the night with a box and dice, and does not go to bed until the dawn. +Comedy has always forced the note, and is a very unsafe (though +picturesque) guide to historic manners. Perhaps we obtain a juster +notion from the gallant pamphlets of the age, such as _The Lover's +Watch_ and _The Lady's Looking-Glass_; yet these were purely intended +for people whom we should nowadays call "smart," readers who hung +about the outskirts of the Court. + +For materials, then, out of which to construct a portrait of the +ordinary woman of the world in the reign of Charles II, we are glad to +come back to our anonymous divine. His is the best-kept secret in +English literature. In spite of the immense success of _The Whole Duty +of Man_, no one has done more than conjecture, more or less vaguely, +who he may have been. He wrote at least five works besides his most +famous treatise, and in preparing each of these for the press he took +more pains than Junius did a century later to conceal his identity. +The publisher of _The Ladies' Calling_, for example, assures us that +he knows no more than we do. The MS. came to him from an unknown +source and in a strange handwriting, "as from the Clouds dropt into my +hands." The anonymous author made no attempt to see proofs of it, nor +claimed his foundling in any way whatever. In his _English Prose +Selections_, the recent third volume of which covers the ground we are +dealing with, Mr. Craik, although finding room for such wretched +writers as Bishop Cumberland and William Sherlock, makes no mention of +the author of _The Whole Duty_. That is a curious oversight. There was +no divine of the age who wielded a more graceful pen. Only the +exigencies of our space restrain us from quoting the noble praise of +the Woman-Confessor in the preface to _The Ladies' Calling_. It begins +"Queens and Empresses knew then no title so glorious"; and the reader +who is curious in such matters will refer to it for himself. + +The women of this time troubled our author by their loudness of +speech. There seems some reason to believe that with the Restoration, +and in opposition to the affected whispering of the Puritans, a +truculent and noisy manner became the fashion among Englishwomen. This +was, perhaps, the "barbarous dissonance" that Milton deprecated; it +is, at all events, so distasteful to the writer of _The Ladies' +Calling_ that he gives it an early prominence in his exhortation. "A +woman's tongue," he says, "should be like the imaginary music of the +spheres, sweet and charming, but not to be heard at distance." +Modesty, indeed, he inculcates as the first ornament of womanhood, and +he intimates that there was much neglect of it in his day. We might +fancy it to be Mrs. Lynn Linton speaking when, with uplifted hands, he +cries, "Would God that they would take, in exchange for that virile +Boldness, which is now too common among many even of the best Rank," +such a solidity and firmness of mind as will permit them to succeed +in--keeping a secret! Odd to hear a grave and polite divine urging the +ladies of his congregation not to "adorn" their conversation with +oaths and imprecations, of which he says, with not less truth than +gallantry, that "out of a woman's mouth there is on this side Hell no +noise that can be more amazingly odious." The revolting daughters of +to-day do not curse and swear; at all events, they do not swear in +print, where only we have met the shrews. On the other hand, they +smoke, a contingency which does not seem to have occurred to the +author of _The Ladies' Calling_, who nowhere warns the sisterhood +against tobacco. The gravity of his indictment of excess in wine, not +less than the evidence of such observers as Pepys, proves to us that +drunkenness was by no means rare even among women of quality. + +There never, we suppose, from the beginning of the world was a +man-preacher who did not warn the women of his congregation against +the vanity of fair raiment. The author of _The Ladies' Calling_ is no +exception; but he does his spiriting in a gentlemanlike way. The +ladies came to listen to him bedizened with jewels, with all the +objects which lie strewn at the feet of his penitent in the +frontispiece. He does not scream to them to rend them off. He only +remonstrates at their costliness. In that perfectly charming record of +a child's mind, the Memoir of Marjorie Fleming, the delicious little +wiseacre records the fact that her father and mother have given a +guinea for a pineapple, remarking that that money would have sustained +a poor family during the entire winter. We are reminded of that when +our divine tells his auditors that "any one of the baubles, the +loosest appendage of the dress, a fan, a busk, perhaps a black patch, +bears a price that would warm the empty bowels of a poor starving +wretch." This was long before the days of very elaborate and expensive +patches, which were still so new in Pepys's days that he remarked on +those of Mr. Penn's pretty sister when he saw her in the new coach, +"patched and very fine." Our preacher is no ranter, nor does he shut +the door of mercy on entertainments; all he deprecates is their +excess. His penitents are not forbidden to spend an afternoon at the +theatre, or an evening in dancing or at cards; but they are desired to +remember that, delightful as these occupations are, devotion is more +delightful still. + +The attitude of the author to gaming is curious. "I question not the +lawfulness of this recreation," he says distinctly; but he desires his +ladies not to make cards the business of their life, and especially +not to play on Sundays. It appears that some great ladies, in the +emptiness of their heads and hearts, took advantage of the high pews +then always found in churches to play ombre or quadrille under the +very nose of the preacher. This conduct must have been rare; the +legends of the age prove that it was not unknown. The game might be +concealed from every one if it was desisted from at the moment of the +sermon, and in many cases the clergyman was a pitiful, obsequious +wretch who knew better than to find fault with the gentlefolks "up at +the house." It was not often that a convenient flash of lightning came +in the middle of service to kill the impious gamester in his pew, as +happened, to the immense scandal and solemnization of everybody, at +Withycombe, in Devonshire. + +On the whole, it is amusing to find that the same faults and the same +dangers which occupy our satirists to-day were pronounced imminent for +women two hundred years ago. The ladies of Charles II's reign were a +little coarser, a little primmer, a good deal more ignorant than those +of our age. Their manners were on great occasions much better, and on +small occasions much worse, than those of their descendants of 1895; +but the same human nature prevailed. The author of _The Ladies' +Calling_ considered that the greatest danger of his congregation lay +in the fact that "the female Sex is eminent for its pungency in the +sensible passion of love"; and, although we take other modes of saying +it, that is true now. + + _Edmund Gosse._ + + + + +STEELE'S LETTERS + + +On the 19th of May, 1708, Her Majesty Queen Anne being then upon the +throne of Great Britain and Ireland, a coach with two horses, gaudy +rather than neat in its appointments, drew up at the door of my Lord +Sunderland's office in Whitehall. It contained a lady about thirty, of +considerable personal attractions, and dressed richly in cinnamon +satin. She was a brunette, with a rather high forehead, the height of +which was ingeniously broken by two short locks upon the temples. +Moreover, she had distinctly fine eyes, and a mouth which, in its +normal state, must have been arch and pretty, but was now drawn down +at the corners under the influence of some temporary irritation. As +the coach stopped, a provincial-looking servant promptly alighted, +pulled out from the box-seat a large case of the kind used for +preserving the voluminous periwigs of the period, and subsequently +extracted from the same receptacle a pair of shining new shoes with +square toes and silver buckles. These, with the case, he carried +carefully into the house, returning shortly afterwards. Then ensued +what, upon the stage, would be called "an interval" during which time +the high forehead of the lady began to cloud visibly with impatience, +and the corners of her mouth to grow more ominous. At length, about +twenty minutes later, came a sound of laughter and noisy voices; and +by-and-by bustled out of the Cockpit portal a square-shouldered, +square-faced man in a rich dress, which, like the coach, was a little +showy. He wore a huge black full-bottomed periwig. Speaking with a +marked Irish accent, he made profuse apologies to the occupant of the +carriage--apologies which, as might be expected, were not well +received. An expression of vexation came over his good-tempered face +as he took his seat at the lady's side, and he lapsed for a few +minutes into a moody silence. But before they had gone many yards, his +dark, deep-set eyes began to twinkle once more as he looked about him. +When they passed the Tilt-Yard a detachment of the Second Troop of +Life Guards, magnificent in their laced red coats, jack boots, and +white feathers, came pacing out on their black horses. They took their +way towards Charing Cross, and for a short distance followed the same +route as the chariot. The lady was loftily indifferent to their +presence; and she was, besides, on the further side of the vehicle. +But her companion manifestly recognized some old acquaintances among +them, and was highly gratified at being recognized in his turn, +although at the same time it was evident he was also a little +apprehensive lest the "Gentlemen of the Guard," as they were called, +should be needlessly demonstrative in their acknowledgment of his +existence. After this, nothing more of moment occurred. Slowly +mounting St. James's Street, the coach turned down Piccadilly, and, +passing between the groups of lounging lackeys at the gate, entered +Hyde Park. Here, by the time it had once made the circuit of the Ring, +the lady's equanimity was completely restored, and the gentleman was +radiant. He was, in truth, to use his own words, "no undelightful +Companion." He possessed an infinite fund of wit and humour; and his +manner to women had a sincerity of deference which was not the +prevailing characteristic of his age. + +There is but slender invention in this little picture. The gentleman +was Captain Steele, late of the Life Guards, the Coldstreams, and +Lucas's regiment of foot, now Gazetteer, and Gentleman Waiter to Queen +Anne's consort, Prince George of Denmark, and not yet "Mr. Isaac +Bickerstaff" of the immortal Tatler. The lady was Mrs. Steele, _nee_ +Miss Mary Scurlock, his "Ruler" and "absolute Governesse" (as he +called her), to whom he had been married some eight months before. If +you ask at the British Museum for the Steele manuscripts (Add. MSS. +5,145, A, B, and C), the courteous attendant will bring you, with its +faded ink, dusky paper, and hasty scrawl, the very letter making +arrangements for this meeting ("best Periwigg" and "new Shoes" +included), at the end of which the writer assures his "dear Prue" +(another pet name) that she is "Vitall Life to Yr. Oblig'd +Affectionate Husband & Humble Sernt. Richd. Steele." There are many +such in the _quarto_ volume of which this forms part, written from all +places, at all times, in all kinds of hands. They take all tones; they +are passionate, tender, expostulatory, playful, dignified, lyric, +didactic. It must be confessed that from a perusal of them one's +feeling for the lady of the chariot is not entirely unsympathetic. It +can scarcely have been an ideal household, that "third door right hand +turning out of Jermyn Street," to which so many of them are addressed; +and Mrs. Steele must frequently have had to complain to her +_confidante_, Mrs. (or Miss) Binns (a lady whom Steele is obviously +anxious to propitiate), of the extraordinary irregularity of her +restless lord and master. Now a friend from Barbados has stopped him +on his way home, and he will come (he writes) "within a Pint of Wine"; +now it is Lord Sunderland who is keeping him indefinitely at the +Council; now the siege of Lille and the proofs of the "Gazette" will +detain him until ten at night. Sometimes his vague "West Indian +business" (that is, his first wife's property) hurries him suddenly +into the City; sometimes he is borne off to the Gentleman Ushers' +table at St. James's. Sometimes, even, he stays out all night, as he +had done not many days before the date of the above meeting, when he +had written to beg that his dressing-gown, his slippers, and "clean +Linnen" might be sent to him at "one Legg's," a barber "over against +the Devill Tavern at Charing Cross," where he proposes to lie that +night, chiefly, it has been conjectured from the context, in order to +escape certain watchful "shoulder-dabbers" who were hanging +obstinately about his own mansion in St. James's. For--to tell the +truth--he was generally hopelessly embarrassed, and scarcely ever +without a lawsuit on his hands. He was not a bad man; he was not +necessarily vicious or dissolute. But his habits were incurably +generous, profuse, and improvident; and his sanguine Irish nature led +him continually to mistake his expectations for his income. Naturally, +perhaps, his "absolute Governesse" complained of an absolutism so +strangely limited. If her affection for him was scarcely as ardent as +his passion for her, it was still a genuine emotion. But to a coquette +of some years' standing, and "a cried-up beauty" (as Mrs. Manley calls +her), the realities of her married life must have been a cruel +disappointment; and she was not the woman to conceal it. "I wish," +says her husband in one of his letters, "I knew how to Court you into +Good Humour, for Two or Three Quarrells more will dispatch me quite." +Of her replies we have no knowledge; but from scattered specimens of +her style when angry, they must often have been exceptionally scornful +and unconciliatory. On one occasion, where he addresses her as +"Madam," and returns her note to her in order that she may see, upon +second thoughts, the disrespectful manner in which she treats him, he +is evidently deeply wounded. She has said that their dispute is far +from being a trouble to her, and he rejoins that to him any +disturbance between them is the greatest affliction imaginable. And +then he goes on to expostulate, with more dignity than usual, against +her unreasonable use of her prerogative. "I Love you," he says, +"better than the light of my Eyes, or the life-blood in my Heart but +when I have lett you know that, you are also to understand that +neither my sight shall be so far inchanted, or my affection so much +master of me as to make me forgett our common Interest. To attend my +businesse as I ought and improve my fortune it is necessary that my +time and my Will should be under no direction but my own." Clearly his +bosom's queen had been inquiring too closely into his goings and +comings. It is a strange thing, he says, in another letter, that, +because she is handsome, he must be always giving her an account of +every trifle, and minute of his time. And again--"Dear Prue, do not +send after me, for I shall be ridiculous!" It had happened to him, no +doubt. "He is governed by his wife most abominably, as bad as +Marlborough," says another contemporary letter-writer. And we may +fancy the blue eyes of Dr. Swift flashing unutterable scorn as he +scribbles off this piece of intelligence to Stella and Mrs. Dingley. + +In the letters which follow Steele's above-quoted expostulation, the +embers of misunderstanding flame and fade, to flame and fade again. A +word or two of kindness makes him rapturous; a harsh expression sinks +him to despair. As time goes on, the letters grow fewer, and the +writers grow more used to each other's ways. But to the last Steele's +affectionate nature takes fire upon the least encouragement. Once, +years afterwards, when Prue is in the country and he is in London, and +she calls him "Good Dick," it throws him into such a transport that he +declares he could forget his gout, and walk down to her at Wales. "My +dear little peevish, beautiful, wise Governess, God bless you," the +letter ends. In another he assures her that, lying in her place and on +her pillow, he fell into tears from thinking that his "charming little +insolent might be then awake and in pain" with headache. She wants +flattery, she says, and he flatters her. "Her son," he declares, "is +extremely pretty, and has his face sweetened with something of the +Venus his mother, which is no small delight to the Vulcan who begot +him." He assures her that, though she talks of the children, they are +dear to him more because they are hers than because they are his +own.[54] And this reminds us that some of the best of his later +letters are about his family. Once, at this time of their mother's +absence in Wales, he says that he has invited his eldest daughter to +dinner with one of her teachers, because she had represented to him +"in her pretty language that she seemed helpless and friendless, +without anybody's taking notice of her at Christmas, when all the +children but she and two more were with their relations." So now they +are in the room where he is writing. "I told Betty," he adds, "I had +writ to you; and she made me open the letter again, and give her +humble duty to her mother, and desire to know when she shall have the +honour to see her in town." No doubt this was in strict accordance +with the proprieties as practised at Mrs. Nazereau's polite academy in +Chelsea; but somehow one suspects that "Madam Betty" would scarcely +have addressed the writer of the letter with the same boarding-school +formality. Elsewhere the talk is all of Eugene, the eldest boy. "Your +son, at the present writing, is mighty well employed in tumbling on +the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a +most delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a +very great scholar: he can read his Primer; and I have brought down my +Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks upon the pictures. We are very +intimate friends and play-fellows." Yes: decidedly Steele's children +must have loved their clever, faulty, kindly father. + +[Footnote 54: A few sentences in this paper are borrowed from the +writer's "Life of Steele," 1886.] + + _Austin Dobson._ + + + + +A DEFENCE OF NONSENSE + + +There are two equal and eternal ways of looking at this twilight world +of ours: we may see it as the twilight of evening or the twilight of +morning; we may think of anything, down to a fallen acorn, as a +descendant or as an ancestor. There are times when we are almost +crushed, not so much with the load of the evil as with the load of the +goodness of humanity, when we feel that we are nothing but the +inheritors of a humiliating splendour. But there are other times when +everything seems primitive, when the ancient stars are only sparks +blown from a boy's bonfire, when the whole earth seems so young and +experimental that even the white hair of the aged, in the fine +biblical phrase, is like almond-trees that blossom, like the white +hawthorn grown in May. That it is good for a man to realize that he is +"the heir of all the ages" is pretty commonly admitted; it is a less +popular but equally important point that it is good for him sometimes +to realize that he is not only an ancestor, but an ancestor of primal +antiquity; it is good for him to wonder whether he is not a hero, and +to experience ennobling doubts as to whether he is not a solar myth. + +The matters which most thoroughly evoke this sense of the abiding +childhood of the world are those which are really fresh, abrupt and +inventive in any age; and if we were asked what was the best proof of +this adventurous youth in the nineteenth century we should say, with +all respect to its portentous sciences and philosophies, that it was +to be found in the rhymes of Mr. Edward Lear and in the literature of +nonsense. "The Dong with the Luminous Nose," at least, is original, as +the first ship and the first plough were original. + +It is true in a certain sense that some of the greatest writers the +world has seen--Aristophanes, Rabelais and Sterne--have written +nonsense; but unless we are mistaken, it is in a widely different +sense. The nonsense of these men was satiric--that is to say, +symbolic; it was a kind of exuberant capering round a discovered +truth. There is all the difference in the world between the instinct +of satire, which, seeing in the Kaiser's moustaches something typical +of him, draws them continually larger and larger; and the instinct of +nonsense which, for no reason whatever, imagines what those moustaches +would look like on the present Archbishop of Canterbury if he grew +them in a fit of absence of mind. We incline to think that no age +except our own could have understood that the Quangle-Wangle meant +absolutely nothing, and the Lands of the Jumblies were absolutely +nowhere. We fancy that if the account of the knave's trial in "Alice +in Wonderland" had been published in the seventeenth century it would +have been bracketed with Bunyan's "Trial of Faithful" as a parody on +the State prosecutions of the time. We fancy that if "The Dong with +the Luminous Nose" had appeared in the same period every one would +have called it a dull satire on Oliver Cromwell. + +It is altogether advisedly that we quote chiefly from Mr. Lear's +"Nonsense Rhymes." To our mind he is both chronologically and +essentially the father of nonsense; we think him superior to Lewis +Carroll. In one sense, indeed, Lewis Carroll has a great advantage. We +know what Lewis Carroll was in daily life: he was a singularly serious +and conventional don, universally respected, but very much of a pedant +and something of a Philistine. Thus his strange double life in earth +and in dreamland emphasizes the idea that lies at the back of +nonsense--the idea of _escape_, of escape into a world where things +are not fixed horribly in an eternal appropriateness, where apples +grow on pear-trees, and any odd man you meet may have three legs. +Lewis Carroll, living one life in which he would have thundered +morally against any one who walked on the wrong plot of grass, and +another life in which he would cheerfully call the sun green and the +moon blue, was, by his very divided nature, his one foot on both +worlds, a perfect type of the position of modern nonsense. His +Wonderland is a country populated by insane mathematicians. We feel +the whole is an escape into a world of masquerade; we feel that if we +could pierce their disguises, we might discover that Humpty Dumpty and +the March Hare were Professors and Doctors of Divinity enjoying a +mental holiday. This sense of escape is certainly less emphatic in +Edward Lear, because of the completeness of his citizenship in the +world of unreason. We do not know his prosaic biography as we know +Lewis Carroll's. We accept him as a purely fabulous figure, on his own +description of himself: + + "His body is perfectly spherical, + He weareth a runcible hat." + +While Lewis Carroll's Wonderland is purely intellectual, Lear +introduces quite another element--the element of the poetical and even +emotional. Carroll works by the pure reason, but this is not so strong +a contrast; for, after all, mankind in the main has always regarded +reason as a bit of a joke. Lear introduces his unmeaning words and his +amorphous creatures not with the pomp of reason, but with the romantic +prelude of rich hues and haunting rhythms. + + "Far and few, far and few, + Are the lands where the Jumblies live," + +is an entirely different type of poetry to that exhibited in +"Jabberwocky." Carroll, with a sense of mathematical neatness, makes +his whole poem a mosaic of new and mysterious words. But Edward Lear, +with more subtle and placid effrontery, is always introducing scraps +of his own elvish dialect into the middle of simple and rational +statements, until we are almost stunned into admitting that we know +what they mean. There is a genial ring of common sense about such +lines as, + + "For his aunt Jobiska said 'Every one knows + That a Pobble is better without his toes,'" + +which is beyond the reach of Carroll. The poet seems so easy on the +matter that we are almost driven to pretend that we see his meaning, +that we know the peculiar difficulties of a Pobble, that we are as old +travellers in the "Gromboolian Plain" as he is. + +Our claim that nonsense is a new literature (we might almost say a new +sense) would be quite indefensible if nonsense were nothing more than +a mere aesthetic fancy. Nothing sublimely artistic has ever arisen out +of mere art, any more than anything essentially reasonable has ever +arisen out of the pure reason. There must always be a rich moral soil +for any great aesthetic growth. The principle of _art for art's sake_ +is a very good principle if it means that there is a vital distinction +between the earth and the tree that has its roots in the earth; but it +is a very bad principle if it means that the tree could grow just as +well with its roots in the air. Every great literature has always been +allegorical--allegorical of some view of the whole universe. The +"Iliad" is only great because all life is a battle, the "Odyssey" +because all life is a journey, the Book of Job because all life is a +riddle. There is one attitude in which we think that all existence is +summed up in the word "ghosts"; another, and somewhat better one, in +which we think it is summed up in the words "A Midsummer Night's +Dream." Even the vulgarest melodrama or detective story can be good if +it expresses something of the delight in sinister possibilities--the +healthy lust for darkness and terror which may come on us any night in +walking down a dark lane. If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the +literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos +to offer; the world must not only be the tragic, romantic, and +religious, it must be nonsensical also. And here we fancy that +nonsense will, in a very unexpected way, come to the aid of the +spiritual view of things. Religion has for centuries been trying to +make men exult in the "wonders" of creation, but it has forgotten that +a thing cannot be completely wonderful so long as it remains sensible. +So long as we regard a tree as an obvious thing, naturally and +reasonably created for a giraffe to eat, we cannot properly wonder at +it. It is when we consider it as a prodigious wave of the living soil +sprawling up to the skies for no reason in particular that we take off +our hats, to the astonishment of the park-keeper. Everything has in +fact another side to it, like the moon, the patroness of nonsense. +Viewed from that other side, a bird is a blossom broken loose from its +chain of stalk, a man a quadruped begging on its hind legs, a house a +gigantesque hat to cover a man from the sun, a chair an apparatus of +four wooden legs for a cripple with only two. + +This is the side of things which tends most truly to spiritual wonder. +It is significant that in the greatest religious poem existent, the +Book of Job, the argument which convinces the infidel is not (as has +been represented by the merely rational religionism of the eighteenth +century) a picture of the ordered beneficence of the Creation; but, on +the contrary, a picture of the huge and undecipherable unreason of it. +"Hast Thou sent the rain upon the desert where no man is?" This simple +sense of wonder at the shapes of things, and at their exuberant +independence of our intellectual standards and our trivial +definitions, is the basis of spirituality as it is the basis of +nonsense. Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are +the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the +soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out +Leviathan with a hook. The well-meaning person who, by merely studying +the logical side of things, has decided that "faith is nonsense," does +not know how truly he speaks; later it may come back to him in the +form that nonsense is faith. + + _G. K. Chesterton._ + + + + +THE COLOUR OF LIFE + + +Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the +true colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of +life broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the +colour of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Once +fully visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act of +betrayal and of waste. Red is the secret of life, and not the +manifestation thereof. It is one of the things the value of which is +secrecy, one of the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. The +true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the +covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and +the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood. So +bright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life is +outdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it is +white, but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth; +red, but less red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucid +than the colour of lilies. It has the hint of gold that is in all fine +colour; but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive. Under +Sicilian skies, indeed, it is deeper than old ivory; but under the +misty blue of the English zenith, and the warm grey of the London +horizon, it is as delicately flushed as the paler wild roses, out to +their utmost, flat as stars, in the hedges of the end of June. + +For months together London does not see the colour of life in any +mass. The human face does not give much of it, what with features, and +beards, and the shadow of the top-hat and _chapeau melon_ of man, and +of the veils of woman. Besides, the colour of the face is subject to a +thousand injuries and accidents. The popular face of the Londoner has +soon lost its gold, its white, and the delicacy of its red and brown. +We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in +great numbers out-of-doors. You get it in some quantity when all the +heads of a great indoor meeting are turned at once upon a speaker; but +it is only in the open air, needless to say, that the colour of life +is in perfection, in the open air, "clothed with the sun," whether the +sunshine be golden and direct, or dazzlingly diffused in grey. + +The little figure of the London boy it is that has restored to the +landscape the human colour of life. He is allowed to come out of all +his ignominies, and to take the late colour of the midsummer +north-west evening, on the borders of the Serpentine. At the stroke of +eight he sheds the slough of nameless colours--all allied to the hues +of dust, soot, and fog, which are the colours the world has chosen for +its boys--and he makes, in his hundreds, a bright and delicate flush +between the grey-blue water and the grey-blue sky. Clothed now with +the sun, he is crowned by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes to +bathe, and the reflection of an early moon is under his feet. + +So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature. They +are so quickly restored. There seems to be nothing to do, but only a +little thing to undo. It is like the art of Eleonora Duse. The last +and most finished action of her intellect, passion, and knowledge is, +as it were, the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken for +art by other actors, some little obstacle to the way and liberty of +Nature. + +All the squalor is gone in a moment, kicked off with the second boot, +and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking +colour of life. You are inclined to wonder that, even undressed, he +still shouts with a Cockney accent. You half expect pure vowels and +elastic syllables from his restoration, his spring, his slenderness, +his brightness, and his glow. Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening +midsummer sun, he gives his colours to his world again. + +It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, where +Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature. It is always to do, by the +happily easy way of doing nothing. The grass is always ready to grow +in the streets--and no streets could ask for a more charming finish +than your green grass. The gasometer even must fall to pieces unless +it is renewed; but the grass renews itself. There is nothing so +remediable as the work of modern man--"a thought which is also," as +Mr. Pecksniff said, "very soothing." And by remediable I mean, of +course, destructible. As the bathing child shuffles off his +garments--they are few, and one brace suffices him--so the land might +always, in reasonable time, shuffle off its yellow brick and purple +slate, and all the things that collect about railway stations. A +single night almost clears the air of London. + +But if the colour of life looks so well in the rather sham scenery of +Hyde Park, it looks brilliant and grave indeed on a real sea-coast. To +have once seen it there should be enough to make a colourist. O +memorable little picture! The sun was gaining colour as it neared +setting, and it set not over the sea, but over the land. The sea had +the dark and rather stern, but not cold, blue of that aspect--the dark +and not the opal tints. The sky was also deep. Everything was very +definite, without mystery, and exceedingly simple. The most luminous +thing was the shining white of an edge of foam, which did not cease to +be white because it was a little golden and a little rosy in the +sunshine. It was still the whitest thing imaginable. And the next most +luminous thing was the little child, also invested with the sun and +the colour of life. + +In the case of women, it is of the living and unpublished blood that +the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed. See the +curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution. +On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of +party. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a trifle +when you consider how generously she was permitted political death. +She was to spin and cook for her citizen in the obscurity of her +living hours; but to the hour of her death was granted a part in the +largest interests, social, national, international. The blood +wherewith she should, according to Robespierre, have blushed to be +seen or heard in the tribune, was exposed in the public sight +unsheltered by her veins. + +Against this there was no modesty. Of all privacies, the last and the +innermost--the privacy of death--was never allowed to put obstacles in +the way of public action for a public cause. Women might be, and were, +duly suppressed when, by the mouth of Olympe de Gouges, they claimed a +"right to concur in the choice of representatives for the formation of +the laws"; but in her person, too, they were liberally allowed to bear +political responsibility to the Republic. Olympe de Gouges was +guillotined. Robespierre thus made her public and complete amends. + + _Alice Meynell._ + + + + +A FUNERAL + + +It was in a Surrey churchyard on a grey, damp afternoon--all very +solitary and quiet, with no alien spectators and only a very few +mourners; and no desolating sense of loss, although a very true and +kindly friend was passing from us. A football match was in progress in +a field adjoining the churchyard, and I wondered, as I stood by the +grave, if, were I the schoolmaster, I would stop the game just for the +few minutes during which a body was committed to the earth; and I +decided that I would not. In the midst of death we are in life, just +as in the midst of life we are in death; it is all as it should be in +this bizarre, jostling world. And he whom we had come to bury would +have been the first to wish the boys to go on with their sport. + +He was an old scholar--not so very old, either--whom I had known for +some five years, and had many a long walk with: a short and sturdy +Irish gentleman, with a large, genial grey head stored with odd lore +and the best literature; and the heart of a child. I never knew a man +of so transparent a character. He showed you all his thoughts: as some +one once said, his brain was like a beehive under glass--you could +watch all its workings. And the honey in it! To walk with him at any +season of the year was to be reminded or newly told of the best that +the English poets have said on all the phenomena of wood and hedgerow, +meadow and sky. He had the more lyrical passages of Shakespeare at his +tongue's end, and all Wordsworth and Keats. These were his favourites; +but he had read everything that has the true rapturous note, and had +forgotten none of its spirit. + +His life was divided between his books, his friends, and long walks. A +solitary man, he worked at all hours without much method, and probably +courted his fatal illness in this way. To his own name there is not +much to show; but such was his liberality that he was continually +helping others, and the fruits of his erudition are widely scattered, +and have gone to increase many a comparative stranger's reputation. +His own _magnum opus_ he left unfinished; he had worked at it for +years, until to his friends it had come to be something of a joke. But +though still shapeless, it was a great feast, as the world, I hope, +will one day know. If, however, this treasure does not reach the +world, it will not be because its worth was insufficient, but because +no one can be found to decipher the manuscript; for I may say +incidentally that our old friend wrote the worst hand in London, and +it was not an uncommon experience of his correspondents to carry his +missives from one pair of eyes to another, seeking a clue; and I +remember on one occasion two such inquirers meeting unexpectedly, and +each simultaneously drawing a letter from his pocket and uttering the +request that the other should put everything else on one side in order +to solve the enigma. + +Lack of method and a haphazard and unlimited generosity were not his +only Irish qualities. He had a quick, chivalrous temper, too, and I +remember the difficulty I once had in restraining him from leaping the +counter of a small tobacconist's in Great Portland Street, to give the +man a good dressing for an imagined rudeness--not to himself, but to +me. And there is more than one 'bus conductor in London who has cause +to remember this sturdy Quixotic passenger's championship of a poor +woman to whom insufficient courtesy seemed to him to have been shown. +Normally kindly and tolerant, his indignation on hearing of injustice +was red hot. He burned at a story of meanness. It would haunt him all +the evening. "Can it really be true?" he would ask, and burst forth +again to flame. + +Abstemious himself in all things, save reading and writing and helping +his friends and correspondents, he mixed excellent whisky punch, as he +called it. He brought to this office all the concentration which he +lacked in his literary labours. It was a ritual with him; nothing +might be hurried or left undone, and the result, I might say, +justified the means. His death reduces the number of such convivial +alchemists to one only, and he is in Tasmania, and, so far as I am +concerned, useless. + +His avidity as a reader--his desire to master his subject--led to some +charming eccentricities, as when, for a daily journey between Earl's +Court Road and Addison Road stations, he would carry a heavy hand-bag +filled with books, "to read in the train." This was no satire on the +railway system, but pure zeal. He had indeed no satire in him; he +spoke his mind and it was over. + +It was a curious little company that assembled to do honour to this +old kindly bachelor--the two or three relatives that he possessed, and +eight of his literary friends, most of them of a good age, and for the +most part men of intellect, and in one or two cases of world-wide +reputation, and all a little uncomfortable in unwonted formal black. +We were very grave and thoughtful, but it was not exactly a sad +funeral, for we knew that had he lived longer--he was sixty-three--he +would certainly have been an invalid, which would have irked his +active, restless mind and body almost unbearably; and we knew, also, +that he had died in his first real illness after a very happy life. +Since we knew this, and also that he was a bachelor and almost alone, +those of us who were not his kin were not melted and unstrung by that +poignant sense of untimely loss and irreparable removal that makes +some funerals so tragic; but death, however it come, is a mystery +before which one cannot stand unmoved and unregretful; and I, for one, +as I stood there, remembered how easy it would have been oftener to +have ascended to his eyrie and lured him out into Hertfordshire or his +beloved Epping, or even have dragged him away to dinner and whisky +punch; and I found myself meditating, too, as the profoundly +impressive service rolled on, how melancholy it was that all that +storied brain, with its thousands of exquisite phrases and its perhaps +unrivalled knowledge of Shakespearean philology, should have ceased to +be. For such a cessation, at any rate, say what one will of +immortality, is part of the sting of death, part of the victory of the +grave, which St. Paul denied with such magnificent irony. + +And then we filed out into the churchyard, which is a new and very +large one, although the church is old, and at a snail's pace, led by +the clergyman, we crept along, a little black company, for, I suppose, +nearly a quarter of a mile, under the cold grey sky. As I said, many +of us were old, and most of us were indoor men, and I was amused to +see how close to the head some of us held our hats--the merest +barleycorn of interval being maintained for reverence' sake; whereas +the sexton and the clergyman had slipped on those black velvet +skull-caps which God, in His infinite mercy, either completely +overlooks, or seeing, smiles at. And there our old friend was +committed to the earth, amid the contending shouts of the football +players, and then we all clapped our hats on our heads with firmness +(as he would have wished us to do long before), and returned to the +town to drink tea in an ancient hostelry, and exchange memories, +quaint, and humorous, and touching, and beautiful, of the dead. + + _E. V. Lucas._ + + + + +FIRES + + +A Friend of mine making a list of the things needed for the cottage +that he had taken, put at the head "bellows." Then he thought for some +minutes, and was found merely to have added "tongs" and "poker." Then +he asked someone to finish it. A fire, indeed, furnishes. Nothing +else, not even a chair, is absolutely necessary; and it is difficult +for a fire to be too large. Some of the grates put into modern houses +by the jerry-builders would move an Elizabethan to tears, so petty and +mean are they, and so incapable of radiation. We English people would +suffer no loss in kindliness and tolerance were the inglenook restored +to our homes. The ingle humanises. + +Although the father of the family no longer, as in ancient Greece, +performs on the hearth religious rites, yet it is still a sacred spot. +Lovers whisper there, and there friends exchange confidences. Husband +and wife face the fire hand in hand. The table is for wit and good +humour, the hearth is for something deeper and more personal. The +wisest counsels are offered beside the fire, the most loving sympathy +and comprehension are there made explicit. It is the scene of the best +dual companionship. The fire itself is a friend, having the prime +attribute--warmth. One of the most human passages of that most human +poem, _The Deserted Village_, tells how the wanderer was now and again +taken by the memory of the hearth of his distant home:-- + + "I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, + Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ... + Around my fire an evening group to draw, + And tell of all I felt, and all I saw...." + +Only by the fireside could a man so unbosom himself. A good fire +extracts one's best; it will not be resisted. FitzGerald's "Meadows in +Spring" contains some of the best fireside stanzas:-- + + "Then with an old friend + I talk of our youth-- + How 'twas gladsome, but often + Foolish, forsooth: + But gladsome, gladsome! + + Or to get merry + We sing some old rhyme, + That made the wood ring again + In summer time-- + Sweet summer time! + + Then we go to drinking, + Silent and snug; + Nothing passes between us + Save a brown jug-- + Sometimes! + + And sometimes a tear + Will rise in each eye, + Seeing the two old friends + So merrily-- + So merrily!" + +The hearth also is for ghost stories; indeed, a ghost story demands a +fire. If England were warmed wholly by hot-water pipes or gas stoves, +the Society for Psychical Research would be dissolved. Gas stoves are +poor comforters. They heat the room, it is true, but they do so after +a manner of their own, and there they stop. For encouragement, for +inspiration, you seek the gas stove in vain. Who could be witty, who +could be humane, before a gas stove? It does so little for the eye and +nothing for the imagination; its flame is so artificial and restricted +a thing, its glowing heart so shallow and ungenerous. It has no voice, +no personality, no surprises; it submits to the control of a gas +company, which, in its turn, is controlled by Parliament. Now, a fire +proper has nothing to do with Parliament. A fire proper has whims, +ambitions, and impulses unknown to gas-burners, undreamed of by +asbestos. Yet even the gas stove has advantages and merits when +compared with hot-water pipes. The gas stove at least offers a focus +for the eye, unworthy though it be; and you can make a semicircle of +good people before it. But with hot-water pipes not even that is +possible. From the security of ambush they merely heat, and heat whose +source is invisible is hardly to be coveted at all. Moreover, the heat +of hot-water pipes is but one remove from stuffiness. + +Coals are a perpetual surprise, for no two consignments burn exactly +alike. There is one variety that does not burn--it explodes. This kind +comes mainly from the slate quarries, and, we must believe, reaches +the coal merchant by accident. Few accidents, however, occur so +frequently. Another variety, found in its greatest perfection in +railway waiting-rooms, does everything but emit heat. A third variety +jumps and burns the hearthrug. One can predicate nothing definite +concerning a new load of coal at any time, least of all if the +consignment was ordered to be "exactly like the last." + +A true luxury is a fire in the bedroom. This is fire at its most +fanciful and mysterious. One lies in bed watching drowsily the play of +the flames, the flicker of the shadows. The light leaps up and hides +again, the room gradually becomes peopled with fantasies. Now and then +a coal drops and accentuates the silence. Movement with silence is one +of the curious influences that come to us: hence, perhaps, part of the +fascination of the cinematoscope, wherein trains rush into stations, +and streets are seen filled with hurrying people and bustling +vehicles, and yet there is no sound save the clicking of the +mechanism. With a fire in one's bedroom sleep comes witchingly. + +Another luxury is reading by firelight, but this is less to the credit +of the fire than the book. An author must have us in no uncertain grip +when he can induce us to read him by a light so impermanent as that of +the elfish coal. Nearer and nearer to the page grows the bended head, +and nearer and nearer to the fire moves the book. Boys and girls love +to read lying full length on the hearthrug. + +Some people maintain a fire from January to December; and, indeed, the +days on which a ruddy grate offends are very few. According to +Mortimer Collins, out of the three hundred and sixty-five days that +make up the year only on the odd five is a fire quite dispensable. A +perennial fire is, perhaps, luxury writ large. The very fact that +sunbeams falling on the coals dispirit them to greyness and +ineffectual pallor seems to prove that when the sun rides high it is +time to have done with fuel except in the kitchen or in the open air. + +The fire in the open air is indeed joy perpetual, and there is no +surer way of renewing one's youth than by kindling and tending it, +whether it be a rubbish fire for potatoes, or an aromatic offering of +pine spindles and fir cones, or the scientific structure of the gipsy +to heat a tripod-swung kettle. The gipsy's fire is a work of art. "Two +short sticks were stuck in the ground, and a third across to them like +a triangle. Against this frame a number of the smallest and driest +stick were leaned, so that they made a tiny hut. Outside these there +was a second layer of longer sticks, all standing, or rather leaning, +against the first. If a stick is placed across, lying horizontally, +supposing it catches fire, it just burns through the middle and that +is all, the ends go out. If it is stood nearly upright, the flame +draws up to it; it is certain to catch, burns longer, and leaves a +good ember." So wrote one who knew--Richard Jefferies, in _Bevis_, +that epic of boyhood. Having built the fire, the next thing is to +light it. An old gipsy woman can light a fire in a gale, just as a +sailor can always light his pipe, even in the cave of Aeolus; but the +amateur is less dexterous. The smoke of the open-air fire is charged +with memory. One whiff of it, and for a swift moment we are in +sympathy with our remotest ancestors, and all that is elemental and +primitive in us is awakened. + +An American poet, R. H. Messinger, wrote-- + + "Old wood to burn!-- + Ay, bring the hillside beech + From where the owlets meet and screech, + And ravens croak; + The crackling pine, the cedar sweet; + Bring, too, a clump of fragrant peat, + Dug 'neath the fern; + The knotted oak, + A faggot, too, perhaps, + Whose bright flame, dancing, winking, + Shall light us at our drinking; + While the oozing sap + Shall make sweet music to our thinking." + +There is no fire of coals, not even the blacksmith's, that can compare +with the blazing fire of wood. The wood fire is primeval. Centuries +before coals were dreamed of, our rude forefathers were cooking their +meat and gaining warmth from burning logs. + +Coal is modern, decadent. Look at this passage concerning fuel from an +old Irish poem:--"O man," begins the lay, "that for Fergus of the +feasts does kindle fire, whether afloat or ashore never burn the king +of woods.... The pliant woodbine, if thou burn, wailings for +misfortunes will abound; dire extremity at weapons' points or drowning +in great waves will come after thee. Burn not the precious apple +tree." The minstrel goes on to name wood after wood that may or may +not be burned. This is the crowning passage:--"Fiercest heat-giver of +all timber is green oak, from him none may escape unhurt; by +partiality for him the head is set on aching, and by his acrid embers +the eye is made sore. Alder, very battle-witch of all woods, tree that +is hottest in the fight--undoubtedly burn at thy discretion both the +alder and the white thorn. Holly, burn it green; holly, burn it dry; +of all trees whatsoever the critically best is holly." Could anyone +write with this enthusiasm and poetic feeling about Derby Brights and +Silkstone--even the best Silkstone and the best Derby Brights? + +The care of a wood fire is, in itself, daily work for a man; for far +more so than with coal is progress continuous. Something is always +taking place and demanding vigilance--hence the superiority of a wood +fire as a beguiling influence. The bellows must always be near at +hand, the tongs not out of reach; both of them more sensible +implements than those that usually appertain to coals. The tongs have +no pretensions to brightness and gentility; the bellows, quite apart +from their function in life, are a thing of beauty; the fire-dogs, on +whose backs the logs repose, are fine upstanding fellows; and the +bricks on which the fire is laid have warmth and simplicity and a +hospitable air to which decorative tiles can never attain. Again, +there is about the logs something cleanly, in charming contrast to the +dirt of coal. The wood hails from the neighbouring coppice. You have +watched it grow; your interest in it is personal, and its interest in +you is personal. It is as keen to warm you as you are to be warmed. +Now there is nothing so impersonal as a piece of coal. Moreover, this +wood was cut down and brought to the door by some good-humoured +countryman of your acquaintance, whereas coal is obtained by +miners--bad-tempered, truculent fellows that strike. Who ever heard of +a strike among coppicers? And the smoke from a wood fire!--clean and +sweet and pungent, and, against dark foliage, exquisite in colour as +the breast of a dove. The delicacy of its grey-blue is not to be +matched. + +Whittier's "Snow Bound" is the epic of the wood-piled hearth. +Throughout we hear the crackling of the brush, the hissing of the sap. +The texture of the fire was "the oaken log, green, huge, and thick, +and rugged brush":-- + + "Hovering near, + We watched the first red blaze appear, + Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam + On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, + Until the old, rude-furnished room + _Burst flower-like into rosy bloom_. + +That italicised line--my own italics--is good. For the best fire (as +for the best celery)--the fire most hearty, most inspired, and +inspiring--frost is needed. When old Jack is abroad and there is a +breath from the east in the air, then the sparks fly and the coals +glow. In moist and mild weather the fire only burns, it has no +enthusiasm for combustion. Whittier gives us a snowstorm:-- + + "Shut in from all the world without, + We sat the clean-winged hearth about, + Content to let the north wind roar + In baffled rage at pane and door, + While the red logs before us beat + The frost line back with tropic heat; + And ever, when a louder blast + Shook beam and rafter as it passed, + The merrier up its roaring draught + _The great throat of the chimney laughed_." + +But the wood fire is not for all. In London it is impracticable; the +builder has set his canon against it. Let us, then--those of us who +are able to--build our coal fires the higher, and nourish in their +kindly light. Whether one is alone or in company, the fire is potent +to cheer. Indeed, a fire _is_ company. No one need fear to be alone if +the grate but glows. Faces in the fire will smile at him, mock him, +frown at him, call and repulse; or, if there be no faces, the smoke +will take a thousand shapes and lead his thoughts by delightful paths +to the land of reverie; or he may watch the innermost heart of the +fire burn blue (especially if there is frost in the air); or, poker in +hand, he may coax a coal into increased vivacity. This is an agreeable +diversion, suggesting the mediaeval idea of the Devil in his domain. + + _E. V. Lucas._ + + + + +THE LAST GLEEMAN + + +Michael Moran was born about 1794 off Black Pitts, in the Liberties of +Dublin, in Faddle Alley. A fortnight after birth he went stone blind +from illness, and became thereby a blessing to his parents, who were +soon able to send him to rhyme and beg at street corners and at the +bridges over the Liffey. They may well have wished that their quiver +were full of such as he, for, free from the interruption of sight, his +mind became a perfect echoing chamber, where every movement of the day +and every change of public passion whispered itself into rhyme or +quaint saying. By the time he had grown to manhood he was the admitted +rector of all the ballad-mongers of the Liberties. Madden, the weaver, +Kearney, the blind fiddler from Wicklow, Martin from Meath, M'Bride +from heaven knows where, and that M'Grane, who in after days, when the +true Moran was no more, strutted in borrowed plumes, or rather in +borrowed rags, and gave out that there had never been any Moran but +himself, and many another, did homage before him, and held him chief +of all their tribe. Nor despite his blindness did he find any +difficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose, +for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dear +to the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventional +herself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. Nor did +he lack despite his rags many excellent things, for it is remembered +that he ever loved caper sauce, going so far indeed in his honest +indignation at its absence upon one occasion as to fling a leg of +mutton at his wife. He was not, however, much to look at, with his +coarse frieze coat with its cape and scalloped edge, his old corduroy +trousers and great brogues, and his stout stick made fast to his wrist +by a thong of leather: and he would have been a woeful shock to the +gleeman MacConglinne could that friend of kings have beheld him in +prophetic vision from the pillar stone at Cork. And yet though the +short cloak and the leather wallet were no more, he was a true +gleeman, being alike poet, jester, and newsman of the people. In the +morning when he had finished his breakfast, his wife or some neighbour +would read the newspaper to him, and read on and on until he +interrupted with, "That'll do--I have me meditations;" and from these +meditations would come the day's store of jest and rhyme. He had the +whole Middle Ages under his frieze coat. + +He had not, however, MacConglinne's hatred of the Church and clergy, +for when the fruit of his meditations did not ripen well, or when the +crowd called for something more solid, he would recite or sing a +metrical tale or ballad of saint or martyr or of Biblical adventure. +He would stand at a street corner, and when a crowd had gathered would +begin in some such fashion as follows (I copy the record of one who +knew him)--"Gather round me, boys, gather round me. Boys, am I +standin' in puddle? am I standin' in wet?" Thereon several boys would +cry, "Ah, no! yez not! yer in a nice dry place. Go on with _St. Mary_; +go on with _Moses_"--each calling for his favourite tale. Then Moran, +with a suspicious wriggle of his body and a clutch at his rags, would +burst out with "All me buzzim friends are turned backbiters;" and +after a final "If yez don't drop your coddin' and deversion I'll lave +some of yez a case," by way of warning to the boys, begin his +recitation, or perhaps still delay, to ask, "Is there a crowd around +me now? Any blackguard heretic around me?" The best-known of his +religious tales was _St. Mary of Egypt_, a long poem of exceeding +solemnity, condensed from the much longer work of a certain Bishop +Coyle. It told how a fast woman of Egypt, Mary by name, followed +pilgrims to Jerusalem for no good purpose, and then, turning penitent +on finding herself withheld from entering the Temple by supernatural +interference, fled to the desert and spent the remainder of her life +in solitary penance. When at last she was at the point of death, God +sent Bishop Zozimus to hear her confession, give her the last +sacrament, and with the help of a lion, whom He sent also, dig her +grave. The poem has the intolerable cadence of the eighteenth century, +but was so popular and so often called for that Moran was soon +nicknamed Zozimus, and by that name is he remembered. He had also a +poem of his own called _Moses_, which went a little nearer poetry +without going very near. But he could ill brook solemnity, and before +long parodied his own verses in the following ragamuffin fashion: + + "In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile, + King Pharaoh's daughter went to bathe in style. + She tuk her dip, then walked unto the land, + To dry her royal pelt she ran along the strand. + A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw + A smiling babby in a wad o' straw. + She tuk it up, and said with accents mild, + ''Tare-and-agers, girls, which av yez owns the child?'" + +His humorous rhymes were, however, more often quips and cranks at the +expense of his contemporaries. It was his delight, for instance, to +remind a certain shoemaker, noted alike for display of wealth and for +personal uncleanness, of his inconsiderable origin in a song of which +but the first stanza has come down to us: + + "At the dirty end of Dirty Lane, + Liv'd a dirty cobbler, Dick Maclane; + His wife was in the old king's reign + A stout brave orange-woman. + On Essex Bridge she strained her throat, + And six-a-penny was her note. + But Dikey wore a bran-new coat, + He got among the yeomen. + He was a bigot, like his clan, + And in the streets he wildly sang, + O Roly, toly, toly raid, with his old jade." + +He had troubles of divers kinds, and numerous interlopers to face and +put down. Once an officious peeler arrested him as a vagabond, but was +triumphantly routed amid the laughter of the court, when Moran +reminded his worship of the precedent set by Homer, who was also, he +declared, a poet, and a blind man, and a beggarman. He had to face a +more serious difficulty as his fame grew. Various imitators started up +upon all sides. A certain actor, for instance, made as many guineas as +Moran did shillings by mimicking his sayings and his songs and his +get-up upon the stage. One night this actor was at supper with some +friends, when a dispute arose as to whether his mimicry was overdone +or not. It was agreed to settle it by an appeal to the mob. A +forty-shilling supper at a famous coffee-house was to be the wager. +The actor took up his station at Essex Bridge, a great haunt of +Moran's, and soon gathered a small crowd. He had scarce got through +"In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile," when Moran himself came up, +followed by another crowd. The crowds met in great excitement and +laughter. "Good Christians," cried the pretender, "is it possible that +any man would mock the poor dark man like that?" + +"Who's that? It's some imposhterer," replied Moran. + +"Begone, you wretch! it's you'ze the imposhterer. Don't you fear the +light of heaven being struck from your eyes for mocking the poor dark +man?" + +"Saints and angels, is there no protection against this? You're a most +inhuman blaguard to try to deprive me of my honest bread this way," +replied poor Moran. + +"And you, you wretch, won't let me go on with the beautiful poem. +Christian people, in your charity won't you beat this man away? he's +taking advantage of my darkness." + +The pretender, seeing that he was having the best of it, thanked the +people for their sympathy and protection, and went on with the poem, +Moran listening for a time in bewildered silence. After a while Moran +protested again with: + +"Is it possible that none of yez can know me? Don't yez see it's +myself; and that's some one else?" + +"Before I proceed any further in this lovely story," interrupted the +pretender, "I call on yez to contribute your charitable donations to +help me to go on." + +"Have you no sowl to be saved, you mocker of heaven?" cried Moran, put +completely beside himself by this last injury. "Would you rob the poor +as well as desave the world? O, was ever such wickedness known?" + +"I leave it to yourselves, my friends," said the pretender, "to give +to the real dark man, that you all know so well, and save me from that +schemer," and with that he collected some pennies and half-pence. +While he was doing so, Moran started his _Mary of Egypt_, but the +indignant crowd seizing his stick were about to belabour him, when +they fell back bewildered anew by his close resemblance to himself. +The pretender now called to them to "just give him a grip of that +villain, and he'd soon let him know who the imposhterer was!" They led +him over to Moran, but instead of closing with him he thrust a few +shillings into his hand, and turning to the crowd explained to them he +was indeed but an actor, and that he had just gained a wager, and so +departed amid much enthusiasm, to eat the supper he had won. + +In April 1846 word was sent to the priest that Michael Moran was +dying. He found him at 15 (now 14-1/2) Patrick Street, on a straw bed, +in a room full of ragged ballad-singers come to cheer his last +moments. After his death the ballad-singers, with many fiddles and the +like, came again and gave him a fine wake, each adding to the +merriment whatever he knew in the way of rann, tale, old saw, or +quaint rhyme. He had had his day, had said his prayers and made his +confession, and why should they not give him a hearty send-off? The +funeral took place the next day. A good party of his admirers and +friends got into the hearse with the coffin, for the day was wet and +nasty. They had not gone far when one of them burst out with "It's +cruel cowld, isn't it?" "Garra'," replied another, "we'll all be as +stiff as the corpse when we get to the berrin-ground." "Bad cess to +him," said a third; "I wish he'd held out another month until the +weather got dacent." A man called Carroll thereupon produced a +half-pint of whiskey, and they all drank to the soul of the departed. +Unhappily, however, the hearse was over-weighted, and they had not +reached the cemetery before the spring broke, and the bottle with it. + +Moran must have felt strange and out of place in that other kingdom he +was entering, perhaps while his friends were drinking in his honour. +Let us hope that some kindly middle region was found for him, where he +can call dishevelled angels about him with some new and more +rhythmical form of his old + + "Gather round me, boys, will yez + Gather round me? + And hear what I have to say + Before ould Salley brings me + My bread and jug of tay;" + +and fling outrageous quips and cranks at cherubim and seraphim. +Perhaps he may have found and gathered, ragamuffin though he be, the +Lily of High Truth, the Rose of Far-sight Beauty, for whose lack so +many of the writers of Ireland, whether famous or forgotten, have been +futile as the blown froth upon the shore. + + _W. B. Yeats._ + + + + +A BROTHER OF ST. FRANCIS + + +When talking to a wise friend a while ago I told her of the feeling of +horror which had invaded me when watching a hippopotamus. + +"Indeed," said she, "you do not need to go to the hippopotamus for a +sensation. Look at a pig! There is something dire in the face of a +pig. To think the same power should have created it that created a +star!" + +Those who love beauty and peace are often tempted to scamp their +thinking, to avoid the elemental terrors that bring night into the +mind. Yet if the fearful things of life are there, why not pluck up +heart and look at them? Better have no Bluebeard's chamber in the +mind. Better go boldly in and see what hangs by the wall. So salt, so +medicinal is Truth, that even the bitterest draught may be made +wholesome to the gentlest soul. So I would recommend anyone who can +bear to think to leave the flower garden and go down and spend an hour +by the pigstye. + +There lies our friend in the sun upon his straw, blinking his clever +little eye. Half friendly is his look. (He does not know that +I--Heaven forgive me!--sometimes have bacon for breakfast!) Plainly, +with that gashed mouth, those dreadful cheeks, and that sprawl of his, +he belongs to an older world; that older world when first the mud and +slime rose and moved, and, roaring, found a voice: aye, and no doubt +enjoyed life, and in harsh and fearful sounds praised the Creator at +the sunrising. + +To prove the origin of the pig, let him out, and he will celebrate it +by making straight for the nearest mud and diving into it. So strange +is his aspect, so unreal to me, that it is almost as if the sunshine +falling upon him might dissolve him, and resolve him into his original +element. But no; there he is, perfectly real; as real as the good +Christians and philosophers who will eventually eat him. While he lies +there let me reflect in all charity on the disagreeable things I have +heard about him. + +He is dirty, people say. Nay, is he as dirty (or, at least, as +complicated in his dirt) as his brother man can be? Let those who know +the dens of London give the answer. Leave the pig to himself, and he +is not so bad. He knows his mother mud is cleansing; he rolls partly +because he loves her and partly because he wishes to be clean. + +He is greedy? In my mind's eye there rises the picture of human +gormandisers, fat-necked, with half-buried eyes and toddling step. How +long since the giant Gluttony was slain? or does he still keep his +monstrous table d'hote? + +The pig pushes his brother from the trough? Why, that is a commonplace +of our life. There is a whole school of so-called philosophers and +political economists busied in elevating the pig's shove into a social +and political necessity. + +He screams horribly if you touch him or his share of victuals? I have +heard a polite gathering of the best people turn senseless and rave at +a mild suggestion of Christian Socialism. He is bitter-tempered? God +knows, so are we. He has carnal desires? The worst sinner is man. He +will fight? Look to the underside of war. He is cruel? Well, boys do +queer things sometimes. For the rest, read the blacker pages of +history; not as they are served up for the schoolroom by private +national vanity, but after the facts. + +If a cow or a sheep is sick or wounded and the pig can get at it, he +will worry it to death? So does tyranny with subject peoples. + +He loves to lie in the sun among his brothers, idle and at his ease? +Aye, but suppose this one called himself a lord pig and lay in the sun +with a necklace of gold about his throat and jewels in his ears, +having found means to drive his brethren (merry little pigs and all) +out of the sun for his own benefit, what should we say of him then? + +No; he has none of our cold cunning. He is all simplicity. I am told +it is possible to love him. I know a kindly Frenchwoman who takes her +pig for an airing on the sands of St. Michel-en-Greve every summer +afternoon. Knitting, she walks along, and calls gaily and endearingly +to the delighted creature; he follows at a word, gambolling with +flapping ears over the ribs of sand, pasturing on shrimps and seaweed +while he enjoys the salt air. + +Clearly, then, the pig is our good little brother, and we have no +right to be disgusted at him. Clearly our own feet are planted in the +clay. Clearly the same Voice once called to our ears while yet +unformed. Clearly we, too, have arisen from that fearful bed, and the +slime of it clings to us still. Cleanse ourselves as we may, and +repenting, renew the whiteness of our garments, we and the nations are +for ever slipping back into the native element. What a fearful command +the "Be ye perfect" to earth-born creatures, but half-emerged, the +star upon their foreheads bespattered and dimmed! But let us (even +those of us who have courage to know the worst of man) take heart. In +the terror of our origin, in the struggle to stand upon our feet, to +cleanse ourselves, and cast an eye heavenward, our glory is come by. +The darker our naissance, the greater the terrors that have brooded +round that strife, the more august and puissant shines the angel in +man. + + _Grace Rhys._ + + + + +THE PILGRIMS' WAY + + +In the morning a storm comes up on bellying blue clouds above the pale +levels of young corn and round-topped trees black as night but gold at +their crests. The solid rain does away with all the hills, and shows +only the solitary thorns at the edge of an oak wood, or a row of +beeches above a hazel hedgerow and, beneath that, stars of stitchwort +in the drenched grass. But a little while and the sky is emptied and +in its infant blue there are white clouds with silver gloom in their +folds; and the light falls upon round hills, yew and beech thick upon +their humps, the coombes scalloped in their sides tenanted by oaks +beneath. By a grassy chalk pit and clustering black yew, white beam +and rampant clematis, is the Pilgrims' Way. Once more the sky empties +heavy and dark rain upon the bright trees so that they pant and quiver +while they take it joyfully into their deep hearts. Before the eye has +done with watching the dance and glitter of rain and the sway of +branches, the blue is again clear and like a meadow sprinkled over +with blossoming cherry trees. + +The decent vale consists of square green fields and park-like slopes, +dark pine and light beech: but beyond that the trees gather together +in low ridge after ridge so that the South Country seems a dense +forest from east to west. On one side of the hill road is a common of +level ash and oak woods, holly and thorn at their edges, and between +them and the dust a grassy tract, sometimes furzy; on the other, oaks +and beeches sacred to the pheasant but exposing countless cuckoo +flowers among the hazels of their underwood. Please trespass. The +English game preserve is a citadel of woodland charm, and however +precious, it has only one or two defenders easily eluded and, when +met, most courteous to all but children and not very well dressed +women. The burglar's must be a bewitching trade if we may judge by the +pleasures of the trespasser's unskilled labour. + +In the middle of the road is a four-went way, and the grassy or white +roads lead where you please among tall beeches or broad, crisp-leaved +shining thorns and brief open spaces given over to the mounds of ant +and mole, to gravel pits and heather. Is this the Pilgrims' Way, in +the valley now, a frail path chiefly through oak and hazel, sometimes +over whin and whinberry and heather and sand, but looking up at the +yews and beeches of the chalk hills? It passes a village pierced by +straight clear waters--a woodland church--woods of the willow +wren--and then, upon a promontory, alone, within the greenest mead +rippled up to its walls by but few graves, another church, dark, +squat, small-windowed, old, and from its position above the world +having the characters of church and beacon and fortress, calling for +all men's reverence. Up here in the rain it utters the pathos of the +old roads behind, wiped out as if writ in water, or worn deep and then +deserted and surviving only as tunnels under the hazels. I wish they +could always be as accessible as churches are, and not handed over to +land-owners--like Sandsbury Lane near Petersfield--because straight +new roads have taken their places for the purposes of tradesmen and +carriage people, or boarded up like that discarded fragment, +deep-sunken and overgrown, below Colman's Hatch in Surrey. For +centuries these roads seemed to hundreds so necessary, and men set out +upon them at dawn with hope and followed after joy and were fain of +their whiteness at evening: few turned this way or that out of them +except into others as well worn (those who have turned aside for +wantonness have left no trace at all), and most have been well content +to see the same things as those who went before and as they themselves +have seen a hundred times. And now they, as the sound of their feet +and the echoes, are dead, and the roads are but pleasant folds in the +grassy chalk. Stay, traveller, says the dark tower on the hill, and +tread softly because your way is over men's dreams; but not too long; +and now descend to the west as fast as feet can carry you, and follow +your own dream, and that also shall in course of time lie under men's +feet; for there is no going so sweet as upon the old dreams of men. + + _Edward Thomas._ + + + + +ON A GREAT WIND + + +It is an old dispute among men, or rather a dispute as old as mankind, +whether Will be a cause of things or no; nor is there anything novel +in those moderns who affirm that Will is nothing to the matter, save +their ignorant belief that their affirmation is new. + +The intelligent process whereby I know that Will not seems but is, and +can alone be truly and ultimately a cause, is fed with stuff and +strengthens sacramentally as it were, whenever I meet, and am made the +companion of, a great wind. + +It is not that this lively creature of God is indeed perfected with a +soul; this it would be superstition to believe. It has no more a +person than any other of its material fellows, but in its vagary of +way, in the largeness of its apparent freedom, in its rush of purpose, +it seems to mirror the action of mighty spirit. When a great wind +comes roaring over the eastern flats towards the North Sea, driving +over the Fens and the Wringland, it is like something of this island +that must go out and wrestle with the water, or play with it in a game +or a battle; and when, upon the western shores, the clouds come +bowling up from the horizon, messengers, outriders, or comrades of a +gale, it is something of the sea determined to possess the land. The +rising and falling of such power, its hesitations, its renewed +violence, its fatigue and final repose--all these are symbols of a +mind; but more than all the rest, its exultation! It is the shouting +and the hurrahing of the wind that suits a man. + +Note you, we have not many friends. The older we grow and the better +we can sift mankind, the fewer friends we count, although man lives by +friendship. But a great wind is every man's friend, and its strength +is the strength of good-fellowship; and even doing battle with it is +something worthy and well chosen. If there is cruelty in the sea, and +terror in high places, and malice lurking in profound darkness, there +is no one of these qualities in the wind, but only power. Here is +strength too full for such negations as cruelty, as malice, or as +fear; and that strength in a solemn manner proves and tests health in +our own souls. For with terror (of the sort I mean--terror of the +abyss or panic at remembered pain, and in general, a losing grip of +the succours of the mind), and with malice, and with cruelty, and with +all the forms of that Evil which lies in wait for men, there is the +savour of disease. It is an error to think of such things as power set +up in equality against justice and right living. We were not made for +them, but rather for influences large and soundly poised; we are not +subject to them but to other powers that can always enliven and +relieve. It is health in us, I say, to be full of heartiness and of +the joy of the world, and of whether we have such health our comfort +in a great wind is a good test indeed. No man spends his day upon the +mountains when the wind is out, riding against it or pushing forward +on foot through the gale, but at the end of his day feels that he has +had a great host about him. It is as though he had experienced armies. +The days of high winds are days of innumerable sounds, innumerable in +variation of tone and of intensity, playing upon and awakening +innumerable powers in man. And the days of high wind are days in which +a physical compulsion has been about us and we have met pressure and +blows, resisted and turned them; it enlivens us with the simulacrum of +war by which nations live, and in the just pursuit of which men in +companionship are at their noblest. + +It is pretended sometimes (less often perhaps now than a dozen years +ago) that certain ancient pursuits congenial to man will be lost to +him under his new necessities; thus men sometimes talk foolishly of +horses being no longer ridden, houses no longer built of wholesome +wood and stone, but of metal; meat no more roasted, but only baked; +and even of stomachs grown too weak for wine. There is a fashion of +saying these things, and much other nastiness. Such talk is (thank +God!) mere folly; for man will always at last tend to his end, which +is happiness, and he will remember again to do all those things which +serve that end. So it is with the uses of the wind, and especially the +using of the wind with sails. + +No man has known the wind by any of its names who has not sailed his +own boat and felt life in the tiller. Then it is that a man has most +to do with the wind, plays with it, coaxes or refuses it, is wary of +it all along; yields when he must yield, but comes up and pits himself +again against its violence; trains it, harnesses it, calls it if it +fails him, denounces it if it will try to be too strong, and in every +manner conceivable handles this glorious playmate. + +As for those who say that men did but use the wind as an instrument +for crossing the sea, and that sails were mere machines to them, +either they have never sailed or they were quite unworthy of sailing. +It is not an accident that the tall ships of every age of varying +fashions so arrested human sight and seemed so splendid. The whole of +man went into their creation, and they expressed him very well; his +cunning, and his mastery, and his adventurous heart. For the wind +is in nothing more capitally our friend than in this, that it has +been, since men were men, their ally in the seeking of the unknown +and in their divine thirst for travel which, in its several +aspects--pilgrimage, conquest, discovery, and, in general, +enlargement--is one prime way whereby man fills himself with being. + +I love to think of those Norwegian men who set out eagerly before the +north-east wind when it came down from their mountains in the month of +March like a god of great stature to impel them to the West. They +pushed their Long Keels out upon the rollers, grinding the shingle of +the beach at the fjord-head. They ran down the calm narrows, they +breasted and they met the open sea. Then for days and days they drove +under this master of theirs and high friend, having the wind for a +sort of captain, and looking always out to the sea line to find what +they could find. It was the springtime; and men feel the spring upon +the sea even more surely than they feel it upon the land. They were +men whose eyes, pale with the foam, watched for a landfall, that +unmistakable good sight which the wind brings us to, the cloud that +does not change and that comes after the long emptiness of sea days +like a vision after the sameness of our common lives. To them the land +they so discovered was wholly new. + +We have no cause to regret the youth of the world, if indeed the world +were ever young. When we imagine in our cities that the wind no longer +calls us to such things, it is only our reading that blinds us, and +the picture of satiety which our reading breeds is wholly false. Any +man to-day may go out and take his pleasure with the wind upon the +high seas. He also will make his landfalls to-day, or in a thousand +years; and the sight is always the same, and the appetite for such +discoveries is wholly satisfied even though he be only sailing, as I +have sailed, over seas that he has known from childhood, and come upon +an island far away, mapped and well known, and visited for the +hundredth time. + + _H. Belloc._ + + + + +The Temple Press Letchworth England + + + + + * * * * * + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Punctuation has been added to the title pages and publisher +information so as to clarify meaning. + +The Table of Contents has been reformatted for clarity. + +"Addison" has been added as the author attribution at the end +of the essay entitled "Gipsies," per the Table of Contents. + +In "Steele's Letters," superscripted abbreviations have been +changed to full-stopped, as in "Yr." for "Your," originally +printed as Y^r, where the "r" is superscript. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CENTURY OF ENGLISH ESSAYS*** + + +******* This file should be named 32267.txt or 32267.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/2/6/32267 + + + +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 +http://www.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 are 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +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. 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 http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +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 http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +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 checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is 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. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://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. + diff --git a/32267.zip b/32267.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..10b76ac --- /dev/null +++ b/32267.zip 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..bd27ef8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #32267 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32267) |