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LITERATURE 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE; 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 ifoe Selections from 
 
 ALSO LISTS OF 
 
 CONTEMPORANEOUS WEITEES AND THEIE PEINCIPAL WOBKS. 
 
 BY E. HUNT, LL.D., 
 
 HEAD MASTER GIRLS' HIGH AND NORMAL SCHOOL, BOSTON. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & COMPANY, 
 
 138 & 140 GRAND STREET. 
 CHICAGO: 133 & 135 STATE STREET. 
 
 1872. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, 
 
 BY EPHRAIM HUNT, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 MEMORIAM 
 
 BOSTON : 
 ELECTROTYPED AND'PRJNTED BY RAND, AVHRY, & FRYE. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 WE believe no man should make a new text-book without sufficient ex- 
 cuse. The object of this book is to illustrate the power and growth of the 
 English language by representative selections from some of the most suc- 
 cessful authors, and to introduce the student to those whose contributions 
 to its literature are worthy his attention. It is believed, that by carefully 
 studying and thoroughly committing to memory these selections, and 
 other gems of thought and expression by the same authors, or others 
 named, and of easy access, the pupil will not only make acquisitions of 
 lifelong value, but by the daily repetition and frequent imitation of them 
 in his own compositions, in the class-room, and out of it, he will also/orrn 
 habits of expressing his own thoughts with greater force and elegance. 
 In no branch of modern education is economy of time more important 
 than in the study of English literature. The heterogeneous character of 
 the language ; its wonderful flexibility ; its rapid assimilation of foreign 
 elements ; its almost perfect reproduction of what is excellent in other 
 languages, ancient and modern; the activity of the English-speaking 
 mind in finding out all kinds of knowledge, or in appropriating it when 
 found out by others, all conspire to make our literature a vast storehouse 
 of the treasures of the past, and of the infinitely-diversified products of 
 the present. To enable the student to enter this storehouse with pleas- 
 ure, to distinguish the valuable from the worthless and indifferent, to 
 economize his intellectual forces in the acquisition of knowledge, to re- 
 fine his taste, to increase his love for all that is good, beautiful, and true, 
 are the proper aims for school-discipline in the study of English litera- 
 ture. To attain them, it must not be forgotten that all study is exhaus- 
 tive of mental energy ; that the brain works best by habit, like any other 
 organ ; and, to develop *a healthy activity of the faculties of the mind, 
 they must not be burdened with superfluous weights. Learning the 
 names and biographies of many authors whose complex relations with 
 society he can not yet appreciate; committing flippant, prejudiced, or 
 partial criticisms of them and their works, of which he knows little or 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 nothing, tend to give the student a certain dazzling affectation of literary 
 culture at the expense of an amount ^ of brain-work, that, properly util- 
 ized, would put him in possession of well-defined ideas of excellence 
 of style, and enable him to form an intelligent and just estimate of an 
 author's merit for himself, a substantial attainment as valuable as it is 
 rare. In the other great departments of learning, the student is not re- 
 quired at first to learn the history of them, or of their patrons and suc- 
 cessful promoters : on the contrary, his intellectual forces are at once 
 employed in learning the general results already obtained in them, and 
 the best methods of modern analysis and investigation. In chemistry, we 
 do not begin with alchemy and the alchemists ; in astronomy, we do not 
 begin with astrology and the absurd pretensions and aims of astrologers; 
 neither do we stop at every short poem in mathematics, or grand epic 
 in celestial mechanics, to learn the biography of the author, his relations 
 to society and to science. In a similar manner, and mindful of the great 
 influence of American thought and institutions upon the language, we 
 believe it advisable to introduce the pupil to our most distinguished mod- 
 ern authors first, and, while putting him in possession of the power and 
 spirit of the literature of to-day, lead him back to the classical period, 
 exciting his curiosity by the way to pursue its earlier history at liis 
 leisure. A few authors carefully studied would undoubtedly produce the 
 most valuable results ; but, since tastes differ as to which ones should be so 
 studied, it is thought a greater number, of unquestioned merit, ought to 
 find a place in a text-book designed for drill in acquiring the best style 
 of which the student is capable. The success of the plan, the selections 
 and arrangement, is left to the judgment of my fellow-teachers, whose 
 suggestions as to modifications in either will be gratefully acknowledged 
 in any future edition. The want of a proper text-book to carry out the 
 plan above indicated of teaching English literature is the only excuse for 
 making thij. Notes and criticisms are in the main omitted, since these 
 selections are to be studied critically, the pupil using the dictionary and 
 encyclopaedias with an industry equal to that given to the study of Greek 
 and Latin. Our thanks are due to Messrs. Fields, Osgood, & Co., for 
 special permission to select from their copyright editions of the works of 
 Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Bry- 
 ant's translation of Homer's Iliad ; also to Messrs- Harper & Bros., 
 D. Appleton & Co., George P. Putnam & Son, for extracts from Motley, 
 
 Bryant, and Irving, whose works they publish. 
 
 THE COMPILER. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THEORY OF BEAUTY 
 
 PAGE. 
 1 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE... 16 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT: 
 
 Thanatopsis 40 
 
 The Conqueror's Grave 42 
 
 The Past 43 
 
 The Evening Wind 45 
 
 The Battle-Field ' 46 
 
 The Antiquity of Freedom 47 
 
 Homer 48 
 
 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW: 
 
 A Psalm of Life 54 
 
 The Reaper and the Flowers 55 
 
 Footsteps of Angels 56 
 
 The Beleagured City 57 
 
 Maidenhood 58 
 
 Excelsior 59 
 
 The Building of the Ship 60 
 
 Hiawatha's Wooing 63 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.. 67 
 
 The Eternal Goodness 68 
 
 The Angels of Buena Vista 70 
 
 The Barefoot Boy 72 
 
 Snowbound 74 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: 
 Extract from Poetry: A Metrical 
 
 Essay 77 
 
 The Last Leaf 78 
 
 Extract from the Autocrat of the 
 
 Breakfast-Table 79 
 
 NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS: 
 
 The Dying Alchemist 86 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: 
 
 Notices of an Independent Press. . 89 
 A Second Letter from B. Sawin, 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE : 
 
 The Raven... .. 100 
 
 PAGE. 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER: 
 
 The Months.. 104 
 
 A Discourse of Flowers 107 
 
 Norwood. Stories for Children . . 114 
 
 The Anxious Leaf 116 
 
 The Fairy Flower 117 
 
 Coming and Going 120 
 
 A New-England Sunday 122 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON: 
 
 Napoleon, or the Man of the World, 131 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING 147 
 
 Rip Van Winkle 143 
 
 The Widow's Retinue 161 
 
 Biography of Oliver Goldsmith . . . 163 
 History of New York 170 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE : 
 
 A Rill from the Town-Pump 175 
 
 A Select Party 178 
 
 WRITERS ON RELIGION, &c 189 
 
 SCHOLARS, ESSAYISTS, AND 
 
 CRITICS 190 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: 
 
 The Capture of a Whale 192 
 
 The Wreck of " The Ariel 196 
 
 AMERICAN NOVELISTS 200 
 
 WRITERS ON PHILOSOPHY AND 
 
 SCIENCE 201 
 
 HISTORIANS, LAWYERS, POLITI- 
 CIANS, AND BIOGRAPHERS, 202 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS: 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop 203 
 
 Pickwick. The Dilemma 209 
 
 Speech of Serjeant Buzfuz 213 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 WILLIAM M. THACKERAY 215 
 
 Charity and Humor 216 
 
 EMIXEXT EXGLISH NOVELISTS, 225 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON: 
 
 In Memoriam 227 
 
 The Charge of the Light Brigade. . 235 
 Ode on the Death of the Duke of 
 Wellington 236 
 
 "WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: 
 
 Milton 242 
 
 Despondency Corrected 243 
 
 Thoughts on revisiting the Wye . . . 250 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWX- 
 IXG: 
 
 Mother and Poet 251 
 
 Aurora Leigh 254 
 
 EXGLISH POETS AXD DRAMA- 
 TISTS '. 264 
 
 JOHX LOTHROP MOTLEY: 
 
 William of Orange 266 
 
 CHARLES SUMXER: 
 
 Finger-Point from Plymouth Rock, 275 
 Expenses of War and Education 
 
 compared 279 
 
 Judicial Tribunals 280 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT: 
 
 Dudley Observatory 281 
 
 Address before the New- York Ag- 
 ricultural Society 283 
 
 DAXTEL WEBSTER: 
 
 Eloquence 286 
 
 Bunker-hill Monument 286 
 
 Crime revealed by Conscience 288 
 
 Reply to Hayne 289 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: 
 
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner . 293 
 Hymn, before Sunrise, in the Vale 
 of Chamounix 301 
 
 THOMAS HOOD: 
 
 The Song of the Shirt 303 
 
 The Bridge of Sighs 3C5 
 
 A Parental Ode to my Infant Son. . 308 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL: 
 Pleasures of Hope. . . . 
 
 THOMAS BABIXGTON MACAU- 
 LAY: 
 
 The Prophecy of Capys 321 
 
 Milton 328 
 
 HISTORIAXS, BIOGRAPHERS, 
 
 AXD TRAVELERS 343 
 
 THEOLOGIAXS AXD SCHOLARS, 345 
 
 ESSAYISTS AXD CRITICS 345 
 
 WRITERS OX SCIEXCE 346 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE: 
 
 Oliver Cromwell 347 
 
 THOMAS DE QUTXCEY: 
 
 The Palimpsest 361 
 
 CHARLES LAMB: 
 
 A Quakers' Meeting 338 
 
 The Two Races of Men 372 
 
 Modern Gallantry 374 
 
 ESSAYISTS AXD CRITICS 378 
 
 SCIEXTTFIC WRITERS AXD 
 
 SCHOLARS 378 
 
 GEORGE GORDOX, LORD BYRON : 
 
 The Dying Gladiator 379 
 
 Apostrophe to the Ocean 380 
 
 Lake Geneva 381 
 
 Destruction of Sennacherib 382 
 
 Darkness 383 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT: 
 
 The Lady of the Lake 385 
 
 IHSTORIAXS AXD TRAVELERS. 397 
 XOVELISTS 398 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER: 
 
 The Timepiece 399 
 
 ROBERT BURNS: 
 
 The Cotter's Saturday Xight 407 
 
 To a Mountain Daisy 411 
 
 To Mary in Heaven 413 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VI 1 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 POETS AND DRAMATISTS 413 
 
 EDMUND BURKE: 
 
 Character of Junius 415 
 
 Terror a Source of the Sublime. . . . 417 
 Sympathy a Source of the Sublime, 418 
 Uncertainty a Source of the Sub- 
 lime 418 
 
 Of Words 419 
 
 The Common Effect of Poetry, not 
 
 by raising Ideas of Things 419 
 
 General Words before Ideas 421 
 
 The Effects of Words 422 
 
 JUNTUS: 
 
 To the English Nation 423 
 
 To the Duke of Bedford 424 
 
 Encomium on Lord Chatham 426 
 
 To Lord Camden 427 
 
 From his Letter to the King 428 
 
 SAMUEL. JOHNSON: 
 
 Letter to Lord Chesterfield 431 
 
 Extract from Preface to the Dic- 
 tionary 432 
 
 The Voyage of Life 433 
 
 The Right Improvement of Time . . 437 
 
 The Duty of Forgiveness 438 
 
 Parallel between Dryden and Pope, 440 
 Shakspeare 442 
 
 DAVID HUME: 
 
 Of the Standard of Taste 445 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: 
 
 The Way to Wealth 452 
 
 A Parable against Persecution 455 
 
 The Whistle 456 
 
 Turning the Grindstone 458 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH 458 
 
 The Deserted Village 459 
 
 THOMAS GRAY: 
 
 Elegy written in a Country Church- 
 yard 467 
 
 POETS AND PROSE WRITERS... 470 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE: 
 
 Essay on Man 472 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT 483 
 
 Gulliver's Travels to Brobdingnag. 484 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 DANIEL DEFOE: 
 
 Robinson Crusoe 408 
 
 Robinson Crusoe discovers the 
 Footprint 502 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISON: 
 
 Bickerstaff learning Fencing 506 
 
 On the Use of the Fan 507 
 
 The Lover's Leap 510 
 
 Dissection of a Bcaii's Head 512 
 
 Dissection of a Coquette's Heart.. . 514 
 
 Visit to Sir Roger in the Country. . 516 
 
 Sir Roger at Church 518 
 
 DISTINGUISHED WRITERS 520 
 
 JOHN DRYDEN: 
 
 Translation of Virgil. 
 
 521 
 
 JOHN BUNYAN: 
 
 Valiant's Story 532 
 
 SAMUEL BUTLER: 
 
 Description of Huclibras 543 
 
 DISTINGUISHED WRITERS 547 
 
 JOHN MILTON: 
 Paradise Lost . . . 
 
 DISTINGUISHED WRITERS. 
 
 548 
 
 558 
 
 FRANCIS BACON: 
 
 Studies 559 
 
 Of Boldness 560 
 
 Of Goodness, and Goodness of Na- 
 ture 501 
 
 THE BIBLE: 
 
 David 563 
 
 Isaiah 563 
 
 St. Paul 564 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE 565 
 
 Julius Caesar 566 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER: 
 
 The Knight and the Lady 619 
 
 DISTINGUISHED WRITERS 622 
 
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER: 
 
 The Parson . . 625 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 EARLY WRITERS. 
 
 (i'JG 
 
 SIR JOHN DE MANDEVILLE 628 
 
 The Prologue 629 
 
 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LAN- 
 GUAGE 629 
 
 SOURCES OF ENGLISH LITERA- 
 TURE.. . .. 633 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THEORY OF BEAUTY. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, May, 1811. 
 
 I. 
 
 OBJECTIONS against the notion of beauty being a simple sen- 
 sation or the object of a separate and peculiar faculty : 
 
 1. The first is the want of agreement as to the presence and 
 existence of beauty in particular objects among men whose organ- 
 ization is perfect, and who are plainly possessed of the faculty, 
 whatever it may be, by which beauty is discerned. Now, no 
 such thing happens, we imagine, or can be conceived to happen, 
 in the case of any other simple sensation, or the exercise of any 
 other distinct faculty. Where one man sees light, all men who 
 have eyes see light also. All men allow grass to be green, and sugar 
 to be sweet, and ice to be cold; and the unavoidable inference 
 from any apparent disagreement in such matters necessarily is, 
 that the party is insane, or entirely destitute of the sense or 
 organ concerned in the perception. With regard to beauty, how- 
 ever, it is obvious at first sight that the case is entirely different. 
 One man sees it perpetually, where to another it is quite invisible, 
 or even where its reverse seems to be conspicuous. How can we 
 believe, then, that beauty is the object of a peculiar sense or 
 faculty, when persons undoubtedly possessed of the faculty, and 
 even in an eminent degree, can discover nothing of it in objects 
 where it is distinctly felt and perceived by others with the same 
 use of the faculty ? 
 
 This one consideration appears to us conclusive against the 
 supposition of beauty being a real property of objects, addressing 
 itself to the power of taste as a separate sense or faculty ; and it 
 seems to point irresistibly to the conclusion, that our sense of it 
 is the result of other more elementary feelings, into which it may 
 be analyzed or resolved. 
 
2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 2. A second objection, however, if possible of still greater force, 
 is suggested by c^sjdjj^hig the prodigious and almost infinite 
 vark-ty of things to which this property of beauty is ascribed, 
 and the iii[)o>si;>ility of imagining any one inherent quality 
 which can belong to them all, and yet at the same time p- 
 
 so much unity as to pass universally by the same name, a:,. I he 
 recognized as the peculiar object of a separate sense or faculty. 
 The form of a fine tree is beautiful, and the form of a fine wo- 
 man, and the form of a column, and a vase, and a chandelier. 
 Yet how can it be said that the form of a woman has any thing 
 in common with that of a tree or a temple ? or to which of 
 the senses by which forms are distinguished can it be supposed to 
 appear that they have any resemblance or affinity ? 
 
 3. The matter, however, becomes still more inextricable when 
 we recollect that beauty does not belong merely to forms or colors, 
 but to sounds, and perhaps to the objects of other senses ; nay, 
 that, in all languages and in all nations, it is not supposed to 
 reside exclusively in material objects, but to belong also to senti- 
 ments and ideas, and intellectual and moral existences. Not 
 only is a tree beautiful, as well as a palace or a waterfall ; but a 
 poem is beautiful, and a theorem in mathematics, and a contri- 
 vance in mechanics. But, if things intellectual and totally segre- 
 gated from matter may thus possess beauty, how can it possibly 
 be a quality of material objects ? or what sense or faculty can 
 that be whose proper office it is to intimate to us the existence of 
 some property which is common to a flower and a demonstration, 
 a valley and an eloquent discourse ? 
 
 4. It may be said, then, in answer to the questions we have 
 suggested above, that all these objects, however various and dis- 
 similar, agree at least in being agreeable; and that this agreeable- 
 ness, which is the only quality they possess in common, may 
 probably be the beauty which is ascribed to them all. Now, to 
 those who are accustomed to such discussions, it would be quite 
 enough to reply, that, though the agreeableness of such objects 
 depends plainly enough upon their beauty, it by no means follows, 
 but quite the contrary, that their beauty depends upon their 
 agreeableness ; the latter being the more comprehensive or generic 
 term, under which beauty must rank as one of the species. Its 
 nature, therefore, is no more explained, nor is less absurdity sub- 
 stantially committed, by saying that things are beautiful because 
 they are agreeable, than if we were to give the same explanation 
 of the sweetness of sugar; for no one, we suppose, will dispute, 
 that, though it be very true that sugar is agreeable because it is 
 sweet, it would be manifestly preposterous to say that it was 
 sweet because it was agreeable. 
 
 5. In the first place, then, it seems evident that agreeableness 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 3 
 
 in general can not be the same with beauty, because there are 
 very many things in the highest degree agreeable that can in no 
 sense be called beautiful. Moderate heat, and savory food, and rest 
 and exercise, are agreeable to the body ; but none of these can be 
 called beautiful: and, among objects of a higher class, the love 
 and esteem of others, and fame, and a good conscience, and 
 health and riches and wisdom, are all eminently, agreeable, but 
 none at all beautiful according to any intelligible use of the 
 word. It is plainly quite absurd, therefore, to say that beauty 
 consists in agreeableness, without specifying in consequence of 
 what it is agreeable ; or to hold that any thing whatever is 
 taught as to its nature by merely classing it among our pleasura- 
 ble emotions. 
 
 6. In the second place, however, we may remark, that among all 
 the objects that are agreeable, whether they are also beautiful or 
 not, scarcely any two are agreeable on account of the same quali- 
 ties, or even suggest their agreeableness to the same faculty or 
 organ. Most certainly there is no resemblance or affinity what- 
 ever between the qualities which make a peach agreeable to the 
 palate, and a beautiful statue to the eye ; which soothe us in an 
 easy-chair by the fire, or delight us in a philosophical discovery. 
 The truth is, that agreeableness is not properly a quality of any 
 object whatsoever, but the effect or result of certain qualities, the 
 nature of which, in every particular instance, we can generally 
 define pretty exactly, or of which we know at least with certainty 
 that they manifest themselves respectively to some one particular 
 sense or faculty, and to no other ; and, consequently, it would be 
 just as obviously ridiculous to suppose a faculty or organ whose 
 office it was to perceive agreeableness in general, as to suppose 
 that agreeableness was a distinct quality that could thus be 
 perceived. 
 
 7. The words "beauty" and "beautiful," in short, do and must 
 mean something, and are universally felt to mean something, 
 much more definite than agreeableness or gratification in general ; 
 and, while it is confessedly by no means easy to describe or define 
 what that something is, the force and clearness of our perception 
 of it is demonstrated by the readiness with which we determine, 
 in any particular instance, whether the object of a given pleas- 
 urable emotion is or is not properly described as beautj 7 . 
 
 8. In our opinion, our sense of beauty depends entirely on our 
 previous experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and con- 
 sists in the suggestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with 
 which we had formerly been made familiar by the direct and 
 intelligible agency of our common sensibilities; and that vast 
 variety of objects to which we give the common name of beauti- 
 ful become entitled to that appellation merely because they all 
 
4 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 possess the power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of 
 which they have been the accompaniments, or with which they 
 have been associated in our imagination by any other more casual 
 bond of connection. According to this view of the matter, there- 
 fore, beauty is not an inherent property or quality of objects at 
 all, but the result of the accidental relations in which they may 
 stand to our experience of pleasures or emotions ; and does not 
 depend upon any particular configuration of parts, proportions, or 
 colors, in external things, nor upon the unity, coherence, or sim- 
 plicity of intellectual creations, but merely upon the associations, 
 which, in the case of every individual, may enable these inherent 
 and otherwise indifferent qualities to suggest or recall to the 
 mind emotions of a pleasurable or interesting description. It 
 follows, therefore, that no object is beautiful in itself, or could 
 appear so antecedent to our experience of direct pleasures or emo- 
 tions ; and that, as an infinite variety of objects may thus reflect 
 interesting ideas, so all of them may acquire the title of beauti- 
 ful, although utterly diverse and disparate in their nature, and 
 possessing nothing in common but this accidental power of re- 
 minding us of other emotions. 
 
 9. This theory, which, we believe, is now very generally adopted, 
 though under many needless qualifications, shall be further de- 
 veloped and illustrated in the sequel: but at present we shall 
 only remark, that it serves, at least, to solve the great problem 
 involved in the discussion, by rendering it easily conceivable how 
 objects which have no inherent resemblance, nor, indeed, any one 
 quality in common, should yet be united in one common relation, 
 and consequently acquire one common name ; just as all the 
 things that belonged to a beloved individual may serve to remind 
 us of him, and thus to awake a kindred class of emotions, though 
 just as unlike each other as any of the objects that are classed 
 under the general name of Beautiful. 
 
 By the help of the same consideration, we get rid of all the 
 mystery of a peculiar sense or faculty, imagined for the express 
 purpose of perceiving beauty; and discover that the power of 
 taste is nothing more than the habit of tracing those associations 
 by which almost all objects may be connected with interesting 
 emotions. 
 
 10. The beauty which we impute to outward objects is nothing 
 more than the reflection of our own inward emotions, and is 
 made up entirely of certain little portions of love, pity, or other 
 affections, which have been connected with these objects, and still 
 adhere, as it were, to them, and move us anew whenever they are 
 presented to our observation. Before proceeding to bring any 
 proof of the truth of this proposition, there are two things that 
 it may be proper to explain a little more distinctly : First, what 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 5 
 
 are the primary affections, by the suggestion of which we think 
 the sense of beauty is produced ? and, secondly, What is the 
 nature of the connection by which we suppose that the objects 
 we call beautiful are enabled to suggest these affections ? 
 
 11. With regard to the first of these points, it fortunately is 
 not necessary either to enter into any tedious details, or to have* 
 recourse to any nice distinctions. All sensations that are not 
 absolutely indifferent, and are, at the same time, either agreeable 
 when experienced by ourselves, or attractive when contemplated 
 in others, may form the foundation of the emotions of sublimity 
 or beauty. 
 
 The sum of the whole is, that every feeling which it is agree- 
 able to experience, to recall, or to witness, may become the source 
 of beauty in external objects when it is so connected with them 
 as that their appearance reminds us of that feeling. 
 
 12. Our proposition, then, is, that these emotions are not origi- 
 nal emotions, nor produced directly by any material qualities in 
 the objects which excite them, but are reflections, or images, of 
 the more radical and familiar emotions to which we have already 
 alluded ; and are occasioned, not by any inherent virtue in the 
 objects before us, but by the accidents, if we may so express our- 
 selves, by ivhich these may have been enabled to suggest or recall 
 to us our own past sensations or sympathies. 
 
 13. We might almost venture, indeed, to lay it down as an 
 axiom, that, except in the plain and palpable case of bodily pain 
 or pleasure, we can never be interested in any thing but the for- 
 tunes of sentient beings; and that every thing partaking of the 
 nature of mental emotion must have for its object the feelings, 
 past, present, or possible, of something capable of sensation. In- 
 dependent, therefore, of all evidence, and without the help of any 
 explanation, we should have been apt to conclude that the emo- 
 tions of beauty and sublimity must have for their objects the 
 sufferings or enjoyments of sentient beings ; and to reject as in- 
 trinsically absurd and incredible the supposition that material 
 objects, which obviously do neither hurt nor delight the body, 
 should yet excite, by their mere physical qualities, the very pow- 
 erful emotions which are sometimes excited by the spectacle of 
 beauty. 
 
 II. 
 
 14. It appears to us, then, that objects are sublime or beautiful, 
 first, when they are the natural signs and perpetual concomitants 
 of pleasurable sensations, or, at any rate, of some lively feeling or 
 emotion in ourselves or in some other sentient beings ; or, secondly, 
 when they are the arbitrary or accidental concomitants of such 
 feelings ; or, thirdly, when they bear some analogy or fanciful 
 
6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 resemblance to things with which these emotions are necessarily 
 connected. 
 
 15. The most obvious and the strongest -association that can be 
 established between inward feelings and external objects is where 
 the object is necessarily and universally connected with the feeling 
 by the law of Nature, so that it is always presented to the senses 
 when the feeling is impressed upon the mind : as the sight or 
 the sound of laughter with the feeling of gayety 5 of weeping, 
 witli distress; of the sound of thunder, with ideas of danger and 
 power. Let us dwell for a moment on the last instance. Noth- 
 ing, perhaps, in the whole range of Nature, is more strikingly and 
 universally sublime than the sound we have just mentioned ; yet 
 it seems obvious that the sense of sublimity is produced, not by 
 any quality that is perceived by the ear, but altogether by the 
 impression of power and of danger that is necessarily made upon 
 the mind whenever that sound is heard. That it is not produced 
 by any peculiarity in the sound itself is certain, from the mistakes 
 that are frequently made with regard to it. The noise of a cart 
 rattling over the stones is often mistaken for thunder; and, as 
 long as the mistake lasts, this very vulgar and insignificant noise 
 is actually felt to be prodigiously sublime. It is so felt, however, 
 it is perfectly plain, merely because it is then associated with ideas 
 of prodigious power and undefined danger; and the sublimity is 
 accordingly destroyed the moment the association is dissolved, 
 though the sound itself, and its effect on the organ, continue 
 exactly the same. This, therefore, is an instance in which sub- 
 limity is distinctly proved to consist, not in any physical quality 
 of the object to which it is ascribed, but in its necessary connec- 
 tion with that vast and uncontrolled Power which is the natural 
 object of awe and veneration. 
 
 16. We may now take an example a little less plain and element- 
 ary. The most beautiful object in Nature, perhaps, is the counte- 
 nance of a young and beautiful woman ; and we are apt at first to 
 imagine, that, independent of all associations, the form and colors 
 which it displays are in themselves lovely and engaging, and 
 would appear charming to all beholders, with whatever other 
 qualities or impressions they might happen to be connected. A 
 very little reflection, however, will probably be sufficient to con- 
 vince us of the fallacy of this impression, and to satisfy us that 
 what we admire is not a combination of forms and colors (which 
 could never excite any mental emotion), but a collection of signs 
 and tokens of certain mental feelings and affections, which are 
 universally recognized as the proper objects of love and sympathy. 
 Laying aside the emotions arising from difference of sex, and sup- 
 posing female beauty to be contemplated by the pure and unen- 
 vying eye of a female, it seems quite obvious, that, among its 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 7 
 
 ingredients, we should trace the signs of two different sets of 
 qualities, that are neither of them the object of sight, but of a 
 far higher faculty, in the first place, of youth and health ; and, 
 in the second place, of innocence, gayety, sensibility, intelligence, 
 delicacy, or vivacity. 
 
 17. That the beauty of a living and sentient creature should de- 
 pend, in a great degree, upon qualities peculiar to such a creature, 
 rather than upon the mere physical attributes which it may pos- 
 sess in common with the inert matter around it, can not, indeed, 
 appear a very improbable supposition to any one. But it may be 
 more difficult for some persons to understand how the beauty of 
 mere dead matter should be derived from the feelings and sym- 
 pathies of sentient beings. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, 
 that we should give an instance or two of this derivation also. 
 
 18. It is easy enough to understand how the sight of a picture or 
 statue should affect us nearly in the same way as the sight of the 
 original ; nor is it much more difficult to conceive how the sight 
 of a cottage should give us something of the same feeling as the 
 sight of a peasant's family, and the aspect of a town raise many 
 of the same ideas as the appearance of a multitude of persons. 
 We may begin, therefore, with an example a little more compli- 
 cated. Take, for instance, the case of a common English land- 
 scape, green meadows, with grazing and ruminating cattle ; 
 canals or navigable rivers; well-fenced, well-cultivated fields; 
 neat, clean, scattered cottages ; humble antique churches, with 
 churchyard elms and crossing hedgerows, all seen under bright 
 skies and in good weather. There is much beauty, as every one 
 will acknowledge, in such a scene. But in what does the beauty 
 consist ? Not certainly in the mere mixture of colors and forms, 
 for colors more^pleasing, and lines more graceful (according to 
 any theory of grace that may be preferred), might be spread upon 
 a board or a painter's palette, without engaging the eye to a second 
 glance, or raising the least emotion in the mind, but in the pic- 
 ture of human happiness that is presented to our imaginations 
 and affections; in the visible and unequivocal signs of comfort, 
 and cheerful and peaceful enjoyment, and of that secure and 
 successful industry that insures its continuance ; and of the piety 
 by which it is exalted ; and of the simplicity by which it is con- 
 trasted with the guilt and the fever of a city life ; in the images 
 of health and temperance and plenty which it exhibits to every 
 eye ; and in the glimpses which it affords, to warmer imaginations, 
 of those primitive or fabulous times when man was uncorrupted 
 by luxury and ambition ; and of those humble retreats in which 
 we still delight to imagine that love and philosophy may find an 
 unpolluted asylum. At all events, however, it is human feeling 
 that excites our sympathy, and forms the true object of our enio- 
 
8 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 \ 
 
 tions. It is. man, and man alone, that we see in the beauties of 
 the earth which he inhabits ; or, if ,a more sensitive and extended 
 sympathy connect us with the lower families of animated nature, 
 and make us rejoice with the lambs that bleat on the uplands, or 
 the cattle that repose in the valley, or even with the living plants 
 that drink the bright sun and the balmy air beside them, it is 
 still the idea of enjoyment of feelings that animate the exist- 
 ence of sentient beings that calls forth all our emotions, and is 
 the parent of all the beauty with which we proceed to invest the 
 inanimate creation around us. 
 
 19. Instead of this quiet and tame English landscape, let us now 
 take a Welsh or a Highland scene, and see whether its beauties 
 will admit of being explained on the same principle. Here we 
 shall have lofty mountains, and rocky and lonely recesses; tufted 
 woods hung over precipices ; lakes intersected with castled prom- 
 ontories ; ample solitudes of unplowed and untrodden valleys ; 
 nameless and gigantic ruins ; and mountain-echoes repeating 
 the scream of the eagle and the roar of the cataract. This, too, 
 is beautiful ; and, to those who can interpret the language it 
 speaks, far more beautiful than the prosperous scene with which 
 we have contrasted it. Yet, lonely as it is, it is to the recollection 
 of man and the suggestion of human feelings that its beauty also 
 is owing. The mere forms and colors that compose its visible 
 appearance are no more capable of exciting any emotion in the 
 mind than the forms and colors of a Turkey carpet. It is sym- 
 pathy with the present or the past, or the imaginary inhabitants 
 of such a region, that alone gives it either interest or beauty ; and 
 the delight of those who behold it will always be found to be in 
 exact proportion to the force of their imaginations and the 
 warmth of their social affections. The leading impressions here 
 are those of romantic seclusion and primeval simplicity, lovers 
 sequestered in these blissful solitudes, "from towns and toils 
 remote ; " and rustic poets and philosophers communing with 
 Nature, and at a distance from the low pursuits and selfish malig- 
 nity of ordinary mortals. Then there is the sublime impression 
 of the mighty Power which piled the massive cliffs upon each 
 other, and rent the mountains asunder, and scattered their giant 
 fragments at their base ; and all the images connected with the 
 monuments of ancient magnificence and extinguished hostility, 
 the feuds and the combats and the triumphs of its wild and 
 primitive inhabitants, contrasted with the stillness and desolation 
 of the scenes where they lie interred ; and the romantic ideas 
 attached to their ancient traditions, and the peculiarities of the 
 actual life of their descendants, their wild and enthusiastic 
 poetry, their gloomy superstitions, their attachment to their 
 chiefs, the dangers and the hardships and enjoyments of their 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 9 
 
 lonely huntings and fishings, their pastoral shielings on the 
 mountains in summer, and the tales and the sports that amuse 
 the little groups that are frozen into their vast and trackless 
 valleys in the winter. 
 
 20. Kindred conceptions constitute all the beauty of childhood. 
 Tli* forms and colors that are peculiar to that age are not neces- 
 sarily or absolutely beautiful in themselves; for, in a grown 
 person, the same forms and colors would be either ludicrous or 
 disgusting. It is their indestructible connection with the engaging 
 ideas of innocence, of careless gayety, of unsuspecting confidence ; 
 made still more tender and attractive by the recollection of help- 
 lessness and blameless and happ}^ ignorance, of the anxious 
 affection that watches over all their ways, and of the hopes and 
 fears that seek to pierce futurity for those who have neither fears 
 nor cares nor anxieties for themselves. 
 
 21. The general theory must be very greatly confirmed by the 
 slightest consideration of the second class of cases, or those in 
 which the external object is not the natural and necessary, but 
 only the occasional or accidental, concomitant of the emotion 
 which it recalls. In the former instances, some conception of 
 beauty seems to be inseparable from the appearance of the 
 objects; and being impressed, in some degree, upon all persons to 
 whom they are presented, there is evidently room for insinuating 
 that it is an independent and intrinsic quality of their nature, and 
 does not arise from association with any thing else. In the 
 instances, however, to which we are now to allude, this perception 
 of beauty is not universal, but entirely dependent upon- the oppor- 
 tunities which each individual has had to associate ideas of 
 emotion with the object to which it is ascribed; the same thing 
 appearing beautiful to those who have been exposed to the 
 influence of such associations, and indifferent to those who have 
 not. Such instances, therefore, really afford an experimentum 
 crucis* as to the truth of the theory in question ; nor is it easy to 
 conceive any more complete evidence, both that there is no such 
 thing as absolute or intrinsic beauty, and that it depends 
 altogether on those associations with which it is thus found to 
 come and to disappear. 
 
 22. The accidental or arbitrary relations that may thus be 
 established between natural sympathies or emotions and external 
 objects may be either such as occur to whole classes of men, or 
 are confined to particular individuals. Among the former, those 
 that apply to different nations or races of men are the most 
 important and remarkable, and constitute the basis of those 
 peculiarities by which national tastes are distinguished. Take 
 
 * " A decisive experiment." 
 
10 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 again, for. example, the instance of female beauty, and think 
 what different and inconsistent standards would be fixed for it in 
 the different regions of the world, in Africa, in Asia, and in 
 Europe ; in Tartary and in Greece ; in Lapland, Patagonia, and 
 Circassia. If there was any thing absolutely or intrinsically 
 beautiful in any of the forms thus distinguished, it is inconceiv- 
 able that men should differ so outrageously in their conceptions 
 of it. If beauty were a real and independent quality, it seems 
 impossible that it should be distinctly and clearly felt by one set 
 of persons, where another set, altogether as sensitive, could see 
 nothing but its opposite ; and if it were actually and inseparably 
 attached to certain forms, colors, or proportions, it must appear 
 utterly inexplicable that it should be felt and perceived in the 
 most opposite forms and proportion in objects of the same 
 description. On the other hand, if all beauty consist in reminding 
 us of certain natural sympathies and objects of emotion with 
 which they have been habitually connected, it is easy to perceive 
 how the most different forms should be felt to be equally beautiful. 
 If female beauty, for instance, consist in the visible signs and 
 expressions of youth and health, and of gentleness, vivacity, 
 and kindness, then it will necessarily happen that the forms and 
 colors and proportions which Nature may have connected with 
 those qualities, in the different climates or regions of the world, 
 will all appear equally beautiful to those who have been accustomed 
 to recognize them as the signs of such qualities ; while they will 
 be respectively indifferent to those who have not learned to inter- 
 
 Eret them in this sense, and displeasing to those whom experience 
 as led to consider them as the signs of opposite qualities. 
 23. The case is the same, though perhaps to a smaller degree, as 
 to the peculiarity of national taste in other particulars. The style 
 of dress and architecture in every nation, if not adopted from mere 
 want of skill, or penury of materials, always appears beautiful to 
 the natives, and somewhat monstrous and absurd to foreigners; 
 and the general character and aspect of their landscape, in like 
 manner, if not associated with substantial evils and inconveni- 
 ences, always appears more beautiful and enchanting than the 
 scenery of any other region. The fact is still more striking, 
 perhaps, in the case of music, in the effects of those national 
 airs with which even the most uncultivated imaginations have 
 connected so many interesting recollections, and in the delight 
 with which a 1 .! persons of sensibility catch the strains of their 
 native melodies in strange or in distant lands. It is owing chiefly 
 to the same sort of arbitrary and national association that white 
 is thought a gay color in Europe, where it is used at weddings, 
 and a dismal color in China, where it is used for mourning ; that 
 we think yew-trees gloomy because they are planted in church- 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 11 
 
 yards, and large masses of powdered horse-hair majestic because 
 we see them on the heads of judges and bishops. 
 
 24. Next to those curious instances of arbitrary or limited as- 
 sociations that are exemplified in the diversities of national taste 
 are those that are produced by the differences of instruction or edu- 
 cation. If external objects were sublime and beautiful in them- 
 selves, it is plain that they would appear equally so to those who 
 were acquainted with their origin arid to those to whom it was 
 unknown. Yet it is not easy, perhaps, to calculate the degree to 
 which our notions of beauty and sublimity are now influenced, 
 over all Europe, by the study of classical literature ; or the number 
 of impressions of this sort which the well-educated consequently 
 receive from objects that are utterly indifferent to uninstructed 
 persons of the same natural sensibility. 
 
 25. The influences of the same studies may be traced, indeed, 
 through almost all our impressions of beauty, and especially in the 
 feelings which we receive from the contemplation of rural scenery, 
 where the images and recollections which have been associated 
 with such objects in the enchanting strains of the poets are 
 perpetually recalled by their appearance, and give an interest and 
 a beauty to the prospect of which the uninstructed can not have 
 the slightest perception. Upon this subject, also, Mr. Alison has 
 expressed himself with his usual warmth and elegance. After 
 observing, that, in childhood, the beauties of Nature have scarcely 
 any existence for those who have as yet but little general sym- 
 pathy with mankind, he proceeds to state that they are usually 
 first recommended to notice by the poets, to whom we are intro- 
 duced in the course of education, and who, in a manner, create 
 them for us by the associations which they enable us to form 
 with their visible appearance.* 
 
 26. Before entirely leaving this branch of the subject, however, 
 let us pause for a moment on the familiar but very striking and 
 decisive instance of our varying and contradictory judgments as 
 to the beauty of the successive fashions of dress that have existed 
 within our own remembrance. All persons who still continue to 
 find amusement in society, and are not old enough to enjoy only 
 the recollections of their youth, think the prevailing fashions 
 becoming and graceful, and the fashions of twenty or twenty-live 
 years old intolerably ugly and ridiculous. The younger they are, 
 and the more they mix in society, the stronger is this impression : 
 and the fact is worth noticing; because there is really' no one 
 thing as to which persons judging merely from their feelings, and 
 therefore less likely to be misled by any systems or theories, are 
 so very positive and decided, as that established fashions are 
 
 * See Alison on T^sto. 
 
12 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 beautiful in themselves, and that exploded fashions are intrinsic- 
 ally and beyond all question preposterous and ugly. We have 
 never yet met a young lady or gentleman, who spoke from their 
 hearts and without reserve, who had the least doubt on the sub- 
 ject, or could conceive how any person could be so stupid as not 
 to see the intrinsic elegance of the reigning mode, or not to be 
 struck with the ludicrous awkwardness of the habits in which 
 their mothers were disguised. 
 
 27. In all the cases we have hitherto considered, the external 
 object is supposed to have acquired its beauty by being actually 
 connected with the causes of our natural emotions, either as a 
 constant sign of their existence, or as being casually present on 
 the ordinary occasions of their excitement. There is a relation, 
 however, of another kind, to which also it is necessary to attend, 
 both to elucidate the general grounds of the theory, and to 
 explain several appearances that might otherwise expose it to 
 objections. This is the relation which external objects may bear 
 to our internal feelings, and the power they may consequently 
 acquire of suggesting them, in consequence of a sort of resem- 
 blance or analogy which they seem to have to their natural and 
 appropriate objects. The language of poetry is founded, in a 
 great degree, upon this analogy ; and all language, indeed, is 
 full of it, and attests, by its structure, both the extent to which 
 it is spontaneously pursued, and the effects that are produced by 
 its suggestion. 
 
 28. The great charm indeed, and the great secret, of poetical 
 diction, consists in thus lending life and emotion to all the objects 
 it embraces; and the enchanting beaut} T which we sometimes rec- 
 ognize in descriptions of very ordinary phenomena will be found to 
 arise from the force of imagination, by which the poet has con- 
 nected with human emotions a variety of objects to which com- 
 mon minds could not discover such a relation. What the poet 
 does for his readers, however, by his original similes and meta- 
 phors, in these higher cases, even the dullest of those readers do, 
 in some degree, every day, for themselves ; and the beauty which 
 is perceived, when natural objects are unexpectedly vivified by 
 the glowing fancy of the former, is precisely of the same kind 
 that is felt when the closeness of the analogy enables them to 
 force human feelings upon the recollection of all mankind. As 
 the poet sees more of beauty in Nature than ordinary mortals, 
 just because he perceives more of those analogies and relations to 
 social emotion in which all beauty consists; so other men see 
 more or less of this beauty exactly as they happen to possess that 
 fancy, or those habits, which enable them readily to trace out 
 these relations.. 
 
 29. Poems, and other compositions in vy T ords, are beautiful in pro- 
 
THEORY OF BEAUTY. 13 
 
 portion as they are conversant with beautiful objects, or as 
 they suggest to us, in a more direct way, the moral and social 
 emotions on which the beauty of all objects depends. Theorems 
 and demonstrations, again, are beautiful according as they excite 
 in us emotions of admiration for the genius and intellectual 
 power of their inventors, and images of the magnificent and 
 beneficial ends to which such discoveries may be applied; and 
 mechanical contrivances are beautiful when they remind us of 
 similar talents and ingenuity, and at the same time impress us 
 with a more direct sense of their vast utility to mankind, and of 
 tlie great additional conveniences with which life is consequently 
 adorned. In all cases, therefore, there is the/suggestion of some 
 interesting conception or emotion associated with a present per- 
 ception, in which it is apparently confounded and embodied ; 
 and this, according to the whole of the preceding deduction, is 
 the distinguishing characteristic of beauty. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 30. In the first place, then, we conceive that this theory estab- 
 lishes the substantial identity of the Sublime, the Beautiful, and 
 the Picturesque; and, consequently, puts a*i end to all controversy 
 that is not purely verbal as to the difference of those several quali- 
 ties. Every material object that interests us, without actually 
 hurting or gratifying our bodily feelings, must do so, according to 
 this theory, in one and the same manner; that is, by suggesting 
 or recalling some emotion or affection of ourselves or some other 
 sentient being, and presenting, to our imagination at least, some 
 natural object of love, pity, admiration, or awe. The interest of 
 material objects, therefore, is always the same, and arises in 
 every case, not from any physical qualities they may possess, but 
 from their association with some idea of emotion. But, though 
 material objects have but one means of exciting emotion, the 
 emotions they do excite are infinite. They are mirrors that may 
 reflect all shades and all colors ; and, in point of fact, do seldom 
 reflect the same hues twice. No two interesting objects, perhaps 
 whether known by the name of Beautiful, Sublime, or Pictu- 
 resque, ever produced exactly the same emotion in the beholder ; 
 and no one object, it is most probable, ever moved any two per- 
 sons to the very same conceptions. 
 
 31. The only other advantage which we shall specify as likely 
 to result from the general adoption of the theory we have been 
 endeavoring to illustrate is, that it seems calculated to put an end 
 to all those perplexing and vexatious questions about the stand- 
 ard of taste which have given occasion to so much impertinent 
 and so much elaborate discussion. If things are not beautiful in 
 
14 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 themselves, but only as they serve to suggest interesting concep- 
 tions to the mind, then every thing which does in point of fact 
 suggest such a conception to any individual is beautiful to that 
 individual ; and it is not only quite true that there is no room for 
 disputing ahout tastes, but that all tastes are equally just and 
 correct in so far as each individual speaks only of his own emo- 
 tions. 
 
 All tastes, then, are equally just and true in so far as concerns 
 the individual whose taste is in question ; and what a man feels 
 distinctly to be beautiful is beautiful to him, whatever other 
 people may think of it. All this follows clearly from the theory 
 no\v in question ; but it does not follow from it that all tastes are 
 equally good or desirable, or that there is an} 7 difficulty in de- 
 scribing that which is really the best, and the most to be envied. 
 The only use of the faculty of taste is to afford an innocent 
 delight, and to assist in the cultivation of a finer morality ; and 
 that man certainly will have the most delight from this faculty 
 who has the most numerous and the most powerful perceptions 
 of beauty. But if beauty consist in the reflection of our affec- 
 tions and sympathies, it is plain that he will always see the most 
 beauty whose affections are the warmest and most exercised, 
 whose imagination is tne most powerful, and who has most accus- 
 tomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded. 
 In so far as mere feeling and enjoyment are concerned, therefore, 
 it seems evident that the best taste must be that which belongs 
 to the best affections, the most active fancy, and the most atten- 
 tive habits of observation. It will follow pretty exactly, too, that 
 all men's perceptions of beauty will be nearly in proportion to 
 the degree of their sensibility and social sympathies; and that 
 those who have no affections towards sentient beings will be as 
 certainly insensible to beauty in external objects as he who can 
 not hear the sound of his friend's voice must be deaf to its 
 echo. 
 
 In so far as the sense of beauty is regarded as a mere source 
 of enjoyment, this seems to be the only distinction that deserves 
 to be attended to ; and the only cultivation that taste should ever 
 receive, with a view to the gratification of the individual, should 
 be through the indirect channel of cultivating the affections, and 
 powers of observation. If we aspire, however, to be creators as 
 well as observers of beaut} T , and place any part of our happiness 
 in ministering to the gratification of others, as artists, or poets, 
 or authors of any sort, then, indeed, a new distinction of tastes, 
 and a far more laborious system of cultivation, will be necessary. 
 A man who pursues only his own delight will be as much 
 charmed with objects that suggest powerful emotions in conse- 
 quence of personal and accidental associations as with those that 
 
THEOKY OF BEAUTY. 15 
 
 introduce similar emotions by means of associations that are 
 universal and indestructible. To him, all objects of the former 
 class are really as beautiful as those of the latter ; and, for his 
 own gratification, the creation of that sort of beauty is just as 
 important an occupation. But, if he conceive the ambition of 
 creating beauties for the admiration of others, he must be cau- 
 tious to employ only such objects as are the natural signs or the 
 inseparable concomitants of emotions of which the greater part 
 of mankind are susceptible ; and his taste will then deserve to be 
 called bad and false if he obtrude upon the public, as beautiful, 
 objects that are not likely to be associated in common minds with 
 airy interesting impressions. 
 
 For a man himself, then, there is no taste that is either bad or 
 false ; and the only difference worthy of being attended to is 
 that between a great deal and a very little. Some, who have 
 cold affections, sluggish imaginations, and no habits of observa- 
 tion, can with difficulty discern beauty in any thing ; while oth- 
 ers, who are full of kindness and sensibility, and who have been 
 accustomed to attend to all the objects around them, feel it almost 
 in every thing. It is no matter what other people may think of 
 the objects of their admiration ; nor ought it to be any concern 
 of theirs that the public would be astonished or offended if they 
 were called upon to join in that admiration. So long as no such 
 call is made, this anticipated discrepancy of feeling need give 
 them no uneasiness ; and the suspicion of it should produce no 
 contempt in any other persons. It is a strange aberration, indeed, 
 of vanity, that makes us despise persons for being happj r , for 
 having sources of enjoyment in which we can not share ; and yet 
 this is the true source of the ridicule which is so generally poured 
 upon individuals who seek only to enjoy their peculiar tastes 
 unmolested. For, if there be any truth in the theory we have 
 been expounding, no taste is bad for any other reason than 
 because it is peculiar ; as the objects in which it delights must 
 actually serve to suggest to the individual those common emotions 
 and universal affections upon which the sense of beauty is every- 
 where founded. 
 
 NOTE. [Whether he accept the foregoing views of Beauty or not, the critical 
 study of them can not fVul to improve the pupil. The same may be said of the next 
 selection, " The Philosophy of Style."] 
 
16 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 
 
 Westminster Review, 1852. 
 
 1. COMMENTING on the seeming incongruity between his 
 father's argumentative powers and his ignorance of formal logic, 
 Tristram Shandy says, " It was a matter of just wonder with my 
 worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society, that 
 a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools should be 
 able to work after that fashion with them." Sterne's intended 
 implication, that a knowledge of the principles of reasoning nei- 
 ther makes nor is essential to a good reasoner, is doubtless true. 
 Thus, too, is it with grammar. As Dr. Latham, condemning the 
 usual school-drill in Lindley Murray, rightly remarks, " Gross 
 vulgarity is a fault to be prevented ; but the proper prevention is 
 to be got from habit, not rules:" similarly there can be little ques- 
 tion that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaint- 
 ance with its laws than upon practice and natural aptitude. A 
 clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far 
 towards making all rhetorical precepts needless. He who daily 
 hears and reads well-framed sentences will naturally more or less 
 tend to use similar ones. And where there exists tiny mental 
 idiosyncrasy, where there is a deficient verbal memory, or but 
 little perception of order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity, 
 no amount of instruction will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, 
 some practical result may be expected from a familiarity with the 
 principles of style. The endeavor to conform to rules will tell, 
 though slowly; and if in no other way, yet as facilitating re- 
 vision, a knowledge of the thing to be achieved a clear idea of 
 what constitutes a beauty and what a blemish can not fail to 
 be of service. 
 
 2. No general theory of expression seems yet to have been 
 enunciated. The maxims contained in works on composition and 
 rhetoric are presented in an unorganized form. Standing as 
 isolated dogmas, as empirical generalizations, they are neither so 
 clearly apprehended nor so much respected as they would be 
 were they deduced from some simple first principle. We are told 
 that " brevity is the soul of wit." We hear styles condemned as 
 verbose or involved. Blair says that every needless part of a 
 sentence " interrupts the description, and clogs the image ; " and 
 again, that "long sentences fatigue the reader's attention." It 
 is remarked by Lord Kaimes, that, " to give the utmost force 
 to a period, it ought, if possible, to be closed with the word that 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 17 
 
 makes the greatest figure." That parentheses should be avoided, 
 and that Saxon words should be used in preference to those of 
 Latin origin, are established precepts. But, however influential 
 the truths thus dogmatically embodied, they would be much more 
 influential if reduced to something like scientific ordination. In 
 this, as in other cases, conviction will be greatly strengthened 
 when we understand the why. And we may be sure that a per- 
 ception of the general principle of which the rules of composi- 
 tion are partial expressions will not only bring them home to us 
 with greater force, but will discover to us other rules of like 
 origin. 
 
 3. On seeking for some clew to the law underlying these current 
 maxims, we may see shadowed forth in many of them the impor- 
 tance of economizing the reader's or hearer's attention. To so 
 present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least pos- 
 sible mental effort is the desideratum towards which most of the 
 rules above quoted point. When we condemn writing that is 
 wordy or confused or intricate ; when we praise this style as easy, 
 and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously 
 assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment. Regard- 
 ing language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of 
 thought, we may say, that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the 
 more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be 
 the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed 
 by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or listener 
 has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power avail- 
 able. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him 
 requires part of this power ; to arrange and combine the images 
 suggested requires a further part; and only that part which 
 remains can be used for the realization of the thought conveyed. 
 Hence the more time and attention it takes to receive and under- 
 stand each sentence, the less time and attention can be given to the 
 contained idea, and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. 
 
 4. How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to 
 thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly 
 perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple 
 ideas are communicated by mimetic signs. To say " Leave the 
 room" is less expressive than to point to the door. Placing a 
 finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, " Do not 
 speak." A beck of the hand is better than " Come here." No 
 phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the 
 eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would 
 lose much by translation into words. Again : it may be re- 
 marked, that, when oral language is employed, the strongest 
 effects are produced by interjections, which condense entire sen- 
 tences into syllables. And in other cases, where custom allows 
 
 2 
 
18 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 us to express thoughts by single words, as in " beware," 
 "heigho," ''fudge," much force would be lost by expanding 
 them into specific verbal propositions. Hence, carrying out the 
 metaphor that language is the vehicle of thought, there seems 
 reason to think, that, in all cases, the friction and inertia of the 
 vehicle deduct from its efficiency ; and that, in composition, the 
 chief if not the sole thing to be done is to reduce this friction 
 and inertia to the smallest possible amount. Let us, then, in- 
 quire whether economy of the recipient's attention is not the 
 secret of effect, alike in the right choice and collocation of words, 
 in the best arrangement of clauses in a sentence, in the proper 
 order of its principal and subordinate propositions, in the judi- 
 cious use of simile, metaphor, and other figures of speech, and 
 even in the rhythmical sequence of syllables. 
 
 CHOICE OF WORDS. 
 
 5. The superior forcibleness of Saxon English, or rather non- 
 Latin English, first claims our attention. The several special rea- 
 sons assignable for this may all be reduced to the general reason, 
 ECONOMY. The most important of them is early association. 
 A child's vocabulary is almost wholly Saxon, He says, " I have," 
 not " I possess ; " "I wish," not " I desire : " he does not " reflect," 
 he " thinks ; " he does not beg for " amusement," but for " play ; " 
 he calls things "nice "or "nasty," not "pleasant" or "disagree- 
 able." The synonyms which he learns in after-years never become 
 so closely, so organically connected with the ideas signified as do 
 these original words used in childhood ; and hence the association 
 remains less powerful. But in what does a powerful association 
 between a word and an idea differ from a weak one ? Simply in 
 the greater ease and rapidity of the suggestive action. It can 
 be in nothing else. Both of two words, if they be strictly 
 synonymous, eventually call up the same image. The expres- 
 sion, "It is acid" must, in the end, give rise to the same thought 
 as "It is sour;" but because the term "acid" was learnt later 
 in life, and has not been so often followed by the thought 
 symbolized, it does not so readily arouse that thought as the 
 term "sour."-. If we remember how slowly and with what labor 
 the appropriate ideas follow unfamiliar words in another lan- 
 guage, and how increasing familiarity with such words brings 
 greater rapidity and ease of comprehension, until, from its hav- 
 ing been a conscious effort to realize their meanings, their 
 meanings ultimately come without any effort at all ; and if we 
 consider that the same process must have gone on with the words 
 of our mother-tongue from childhood upwards, we shall clearly 
 see that the earliest learnt and oftenest used words will, other 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 19 
 
 tilings equal, call up images with less loss of time and energy 
 than their later learnt synonyms. 
 
 6. The further superiority possessed by Saxon English in its 
 comparative brevity obviously comes under the same generaliza- 
 tion. If it be an advantage to express an idea in the smallest num- 
 ber of words, then will it be an advantage to express it in the 
 smallest number of syllables. If circuitous phrases and needless 
 expletives distract the attention, arid diminish the strength of the 
 impression produced, then do surplus articulations do so. A certain 
 effort, though commonly an inappreciable one, must be required 
 to recognize every vowel and consonant. If, as we so commonly 
 find, the mind soon becomes fatigued when we listen to an indis- 
 tinct or far-removed speaker, or when we read a badly-written 
 manuscript ; and if, as we can not doubt, the fatigue is a cumula- 
 tive result of the attention required to catch successive syllables, 
 it obviously follows that attention is in such cases absorbed by 
 each syllable. And, if this be true when the syllables are difficult 
 of recognition, it will also be true, though in a less degree, when 
 the recognition of them is easy. Hence the shortness of Saxon 
 words becomes a reason for their greater force, as involving a 
 saving of the articulations to be received. 
 
 7. Again : that frequent cause of strength in Saxon and other 
 primitive words their imitative character may be similarly 
 resolved into the more general cause. Both those directly imita- 
 tive, as splash, bang, whiz, roar, &c., and those analogically imi- 
 tative, as rough, smooth, keen, blunt, thin, hard, crag, &c., by 
 presenting to the perceptions symbols having direct resemblance 
 to 'the things to be imagined, or some kinship to them, save part 
 of the effort needed to call up the intended ideas, and leave more 
 attention for the ideas themselves. 
 
 8. The economy of the recipient's mental energy into which we 
 thus find the several causes of the strength of Saxon English 
 resolvable may equally be traced in the superiority of specific 
 over generic words. That concrete terms produce more vivid im- 
 pressions than abstract ones, and should, when possible, be used 
 instead, is a current maxim of composition. As Dr. Campbell 
 says, " The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter : 
 the more special they are, the brighter." 
 
 We should avoid such a sentence as, 
 
 " In proportion as the manners, customs, and amusements of a 
 nation are cruel and barbarous, the regulations of their penal 
 code will be severe." 
 
 And in place of it we should write, 
 
 " In proportion as men delight in battles, tourneys, bull-fights, 
 and combats of gladiators, will they punish by hanging, behead- 
 ing, burning, and the rack." 
 
20 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 This superiority of specific expressions is clearly due to a 
 saving of the effort required to translate words into thoughts. 
 As we do not think in generals, but in particulars ; as, whenever 
 any class of things is referred to, we represent it to ourselves by 
 calling to mind individual members of it, it follows, that, when 
 an abstract word is used, the hearer or reader has to choose, from 
 among his stock of images, one or more by which he may figure 
 to himself the genus mentioned. In doing this, some delay must 
 arise, some force be expended; and if, by employing a specific 
 term, an appropriate image can be at once suggested, an economy 
 is achieved, and a more vivid impression produced. 
 
 COLLOCATION OF WORDS. 
 
 9. Turning now from the choice of words to their sequence, we 
 shall find the same general principle hold good. We have, a 
 priori, reason for believing that there is usually some one order 
 of words in a sentence more effective than every other, and that 
 this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposi- 
 tion in the succession in which they may be most readily put 
 together. As, in a narrative, the events should be stated in such 
 sequence that the mind may not have to go backwards and for- 
 wards in order to rightly connect them ; as, in a group of sen- 
 tences, the arrangement adopted should be such that each of them 
 may be understood as it conies, without waiting for subsequent 
 ones : so, in every sentence, the sequence of words should be 
 that which suggests the component parts of the thought conveyed, 
 in the order most convenient for the building up that thought. 
 To duly enforce this truth, and to prepare the way for applica- 
 tions of it, we must briefly inquire into the mental process by 
 which the meaning of a series of words is apprehended. 
 
 10. We can not more simply do this than by considering the 
 proper collocation of the substantive and adjective. Is it better to 
 place the adjective before the substantive, or the substantive before 
 the adjective ? Ought we to say, with the French, " Un cheval 
 Hoi,- " ? or to say, as we do, " A black horse " ? Probably most per- 
 sons of culture would decide that one order is as good as the other. 
 Alive to the bias produced by habit, they would ascribe to that 
 the preference they feel for our own form of expression. They 
 would suspect those educated in the use of the opposite form of 
 having an equal preference for that. And thus they would con- 
 clude that neither of these instinctive judgments is of any worth. 
 There is, however, a philosophical ground for deciding in favor of 
 the English custom. If " a horse black " be the arrangement 
 used, immediately on the utterance of the word "horse," there 
 arises, or tends to arise, in the mind, a picture answering to that 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 21 
 
 word ; and, as there has been nothing to indicate what kind of 
 horse, any image of a horse suggests itself. Very likely, how- 
 ever, the image will be that of a brown horse ; brown horses 
 being equally or more familiar. The result is, that, when the 
 word " black " is added, a check is given to the process of thought. 
 Either the picture of a brown horse already present in the imagi- 
 nation has to be suppressed, and the picture of a black one 
 summoned in its place ; or else, if the picture of a brown horse 
 be yet unformed, the tendency to form it has to be stopped. 
 Whichever be the case, a certain amount of hindrance results. 
 But if, on the other hand, " a black horse " be the expression 
 used, no such mistake can be made. The word " black," 
 indicating an abstract quality, arouses no definite idea. It 
 simply prepares the mind for conceiving some object of that 
 color; and the attention is kept suspended until that object is 
 known. If, then, by the precedence of the adjective, the idea is 
 conveyed without the possibility of error, whereas the precedence 
 of the substantive is liable to produce a. misconception, it follows 
 that the one gives the mind less trouble than the other, and is, 
 therefore, more forcible. 
 
 11. Possibly it will be objected that the adjective and substantive 
 come so close together, that, practically, they may be considered 
 as uttered at the same moment ; and that, on hearing the phrase, 
 " A horse black," there is not time to imagine a wrongly-colored 
 horse before the word " black " follows to prevent it. It must be 
 owned that it is not easy to decide by introspection whether this 
 be so or not. But there are facts collaterally implying that it is 
 not. Our ability to anticipate the words yet unspoken is one of 
 them. If the ideas of the hearer kept considerably behind the 
 expressions of the speaker, as the objection assumes, he could 
 hardly foresee the end of a sentence by the time it was half de- 
 livered ; yet this constantly happens. Were the supposition true, 
 the mind, instead of anticipating, would be continually falling 
 more and more, in arrear. If the meanings of words are not 
 realized as fast as the words are uttered, then the loss of time 
 over each word must entail such an accumulation of delays as to 
 leave a hearer entirely behind. But, whether the force of these 
 replies be or be not admitted, it will scarcely be denied that the 
 right formation of a picture will be facilitated by presenting its 
 elements in the order in which they are wanted ; and that, as in 
 forming the image answering to a red flower the notion of red- 
 ness is one of the components that must be used in the construc- 
 tion of the image, the mind, if put in possession of this notion 
 before the specific image to be formed out of it is suggested, will 
 more easily form it than if the order be reversed, even though it 
 should do nothing until it has received both symbols. 
 
22 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 What is here said respecting the succession of the adjective 
 and substantive is obviously applicable, by change of terms, to 
 the adverb and verb. And, without further explanation, it will 
 be at once perceived, that, in the use. of prepositions and other 
 particles, most languages spontaneously conform, with more or less 
 completeness, to this law. 
 
 ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES. 
 
 12. On applying a like analysis to the larger divisions of a 
 sentence, we find not only that the same principle holds good, 
 but that the advantage respecting it becomes marked. In the 
 arrangement of predicate and subject, for example, we are at once 
 shown, that, as the predicate determines the aspect under which 
 the subject is to be conceived, it should be placed first ; and the 
 striking effect produced by so placing it becomes comprehensible. 
 Take the often-quoted contrast between " Great is Diana of the 
 Ephesians " and " Diana of the Ephesians is great." When the 
 first arrangement is used, the utterance of the word " great " 
 arouses those vague associations of an impressive nature with 
 which it has been habitually connected; -the imagination is pre- 
 pared to clothe with high attributes whatever follows : and when 
 the words, "Diana of the Ephesians," are heard, all the appro- 
 priate imagery which can on the instant be summoned is used in 
 the formation of the picture ; the mind being thus led directly, 
 and without error, to the intended impression. When, on the 
 contrary, the reverse order is followed, the idea, " Diana of the 
 Ephesians," is conceived in any ordinary way, with no special 
 reference to greatness ; and, when the words " is great " are added, 
 the conception has to be entirely remodeled : whence arises a 
 manifest loss of mental energy, and a corresponding diminution 
 of effect. The following verse from Coleridge's " Ancient Mari- 
 ner," though somewhat irregular in structure, well illustrates the 
 same truth : 
 
 " Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
 
 Alone on a ici'Ie, wide sen! 
 And never a saint took pity on 
 My soul in agony." 
 
 13. Of course, the principle equally applies when the predicate ig 
 a verb or a participle. And as effect is gained by placing first all 
 words indicating the quality, conduct, or condition of the subject, 
 it follows that the copula also should have precedence. It is 
 true, that the general habit of our language resists this arrange- 
 ment of predicate, copula, and subject ; but we may readily find 
 instances of the additional force gained by conforming to it. 
 Thus in the line from " Julius Caesar," 
 
 " Then burst this mighty heart," 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 23 
 
 priority is given to a word embodying both predicate and copula. 
 In a passage contained in " The Battle of Flodden Field," the 
 like order is systematically employed with great effect : 
 
 " The Border slogan rent the sky ! 
 1 A Home ! a Gordon! ' ions the cry; 
 
 Loud were the clanging blows: 
 Advanced, forced back, nt>w low, now high, 
 
 The pennon sunk and rose. 
 As bends the bark's mast in the gale, 
 When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, 
 
 It wavered 'mid the foes." 
 
 14. Pursuing the principle yet further, it is obvious, that, for 
 producing the greatest effect, not only should the main divisions 
 of a sentence observe this sequence, but the subdivisions of these 
 should be similarly arranged. In nearly all cases, the predicate 
 is accompanied by some limit or qualification, called its comple- 
 ment : commonly, also, the circumstances of the subject which 
 form its complement have to be specified ; and, as these qualifi- 
 cations and circumstances must determine the mode in which the 
 ideas they belong to shall be conceived, precedence should be 
 given to them. Lord Kaimes notices the fact, that this order is 
 preferable, though without giving the reason. He says, " When 
 a circumstance is placed at the beginning of the period, or near 
 the beginning, the transition from it to the principal subject is 
 agreeable, is like ascending or going upwards." A sentence 
 arranged in illustration of this may be desirable. Perhaps the 
 following will serve : 
 
 " Whatever it may be in theory, it is clear, that, in practice, 
 the French idea of liberty is, the right of every man to be 
 master of the rest." 
 
 In this case, were the first two clauses, up to the word 
 " practice " inclusive, which qualify the subject, to be placed at 
 the end instead of the beginning, much of the force would be lost ; 
 as thus : 
 
 " The French idea of liberty is, the right of every man to be 
 master of the rest, in practice at least, if not in theory." 
 
 The effect of giving priority to the complement of the pr&di- 
 cate, as well as the predicate itself, is finely displayed in the 
 opening of " Hyperion : " 
 
 " Deep in the shady sndness of a vale. 
 Far-sunken from fhe healthy breath of morn, 
 Far from tne Jiery noon and eve's one star, 
 Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone." 
 
 Here it will be observed, not only that the predicate " sat " pre- 
 cedes the subject "Saturn," and that the three lines in Italics, 
 
24 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 constituting the complement of the predicate, come before it, but 
 that, in the structure of that complement also, the same order is 
 followed ; each line being so arranged that the qualifying words 
 are placed before the words suggesting concrete images. 
 
 SUCCESSION OF PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 15. The right succession of the principal and subordinate prop- 
 ositions in a sentence will manifestly be regulated by the same law. 
 Regard for economy of the recipient's attention, which, as we 
 find, determines the best order for the subject, copula, predicate, 
 and their complements, dictates that the subordinate proposition 
 shall precede the principal one when the sentence includes two. 
 Containing, as the subordinate proposition does, some qualifying 
 or explanatory idea, its priority must clearfy prevent misconcep- 
 tion of the principal one, and must therefore save the mental 
 effort needed to correct such misconception. This will be clearly 
 seen in the annexed example : 
 
 " Those who weekly go to church, and there have doled out to 
 them a quantum of belief which the}' have not energy to work out 
 for themselves, are simply spiritual paupers." 
 
 The subordinate proposition, or rather the two subordinate 
 propositions, contained between the first and second commas in 
 this sentence, almost wholly determine the meaning of the 
 principal proposition with which it ends ; and the effect would be 
 destroyed were they placed last instead of first. 
 
 16. The general principle of right arrangement in sentences, 
 which we have traced in its application to the leading divisions of 
 them, equally determines the normal order of their minor divisions. 
 The several clauses of which the complements to the subject and 
 predicate generally consist may conform more or less completely 
 to the law of easy apprehension. Of course, with these, as with 
 the larger members, the succession should be from the abstract to 
 the concrete. 
 
 Now, however, we must notice a further condition to be ful- 
 filled in the proper combination of the elements of a sentence, 
 but still a condition dictated by the same general principle with 
 the other; the condition, namely, that the words and expressions 
 most nearly related in thought shall be brought the closest 
 together. Evidently the single words, the minor clauses, and the 
 leading divisions, of every proposition, severally qualify each 
 other. The longer the time that elapses between the mention of 
 any qualifying member and the member qualified, the longer 
 must the mind be exerted in carrying forward the qualifying 
 member ready for use; and, the more numerous the qualifica- 
 tions to be simultaneously remembered and rightly applied, the 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 25 
 
 greater will be the mental power expended, and the smaller the 
 effect produced. Hence, other things equal, force will be gained 
 by so arranging the members of a sentence that these suspensions 
 shall at any moment be the fewest in number, and shall also be 
 of the shortest duration. The following is an instance of defec- 
 tive combination : 
 
 " A modern newspaper-statement, though probably true, would 
 be laughed at if quoted in a book as testimony ; but the letter of 
 a court-gossip is thought good historical evidence, if written some 
 centuries ago." 
 
 A re-arrangement of this, in accordance with the principle 
 indicated above, will be found to increase the effect. Thus : 
 
 " Though probably true, a modern newspaper-statement quoted 
 in a book Us testimony would be laughed at ; but the letter of a 
 court-gossip, if written some centuries ago, is thought good 
 historical evidence." 
 
 By making this change, some of the suspensions are avoided, 
 and others shortened; whilst there is less liability to produce 
 premature conceptions. The passage quoted below from " Para- 
 dise Lost " affords a fine instance of sentences well arranged, 
 alike in the priority of the subordinate members, in the avoidance 
 of long and numerous suspensions, and in the correspondence 
 between the order of the clauses and the sequence of the phe- 
 nomena described ; which, by the way, is a further prerequisite to 
 easy comprehension, and therefore to effect : 
 
 " As when a prowling wolf, 
 Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, 
 Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve 
 In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, 
 Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold; 
 Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash 
 Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
 Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
 In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles: 
 So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold; 
 So since into his Church lewd hirelings climb." 
 
 17. The habitual use of sentences in which all or most of the 
 'descriptive and limiting elements precede those described and 
 limited gives rise to what is called the inverted style, a title 
 which is, however, by no means confined to this structure, but is 
 often used where the order of the words is simply unusual. A 
 more appropriate title would be the " direct style : " as contrasted 
 with the other, or "indirect style:" the peculiarity of the one 
 being, that it conveys each thought into the mind step by step, 
 with little liability to error ; and of the other, that it gets the right 
 thought conceived by a series of approximations. 
 
 18. The superiority of the direct over the indirect form of sen- 
 
26 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tence, implied by the several conclusions that have been drawn, 
 must not, however, be affirmed without limitation. Though up to 
 a certain point it is well for all the qualifying clauses of a period to 
 precede those qualified, yet, as carrying forward each qualifying 
 clause costs some mental effort, it follows, that, when the number 
 of them and the time they are carried become great, we reach a 
 limit beyond which more is lost than is gained. Other things 
 equal, the arrangement should be such, that no concrete image 
 shall be suggested until the materials out of which it is to be 
 made have been presented. And yet, as lately pointed out, other 
 things equal, the fewer the materials to be held at once, and the 
 shorter the distance they have to be borne, the better. Hence in 
 some cases it becomes a question, whether most mental effort will 
 be entailed by the many and long suspensions, or by the correction 
 of successive misconceptions. 
 
 19. This question may sometimes be decided by considering the 
 capacity of the persons addressed. A greater grasp of mind is 
 required for the ready comprehension of thoughts expressed in 
 the direct manner, where the sentences are anywise intricate. 
 To recollect a number of preliminaries stated in elucidation of a 
 coming image, and to apply them all to the formation of it when 
 suggested, demands a considerable power of concentration, and a 
 tolerably vigorous imagination. To one possessing these, the 
 direct method will mostly seem the best ; whilst to one deficient 
 in them it will seem the worst. Just as it may cost a strong man 
 less effort to carry a hundred-weight from place to place at once 
 than by a stone at a time ; so to an active mind it may be easier 
 to bear along all the qualifications of an idea, and at once rightly 
 form it when named, than to first imperfectly conceive such idea, 
 and then carry back to it, one by one, the details and limitations 
 afterwards mentioned. Whilst, conversely, as for a boy the only 
 possible mode of transferring a hundred- weight is that of taking 
 it in portions ; so, for a weak mind, the only possible mode of 
 forming a compound conception may be that of building it up by 
 carrying separately its several parts. 
 
 20. That the indirect method the method of conveying the 
 meaning by a series of approximations is best fitted for the 
 uncultivated, may indeed be inferred from their habitual use 
 of it. The form of expression adopted by the savage, as in 
 "Water give me," is the simplest type of the approximative 
 arrangement. In pleonasms, which are comparatively prevalent 
 among the uneducated, the same essential structure is seen ; as, 
 for instance, in " The men, they were there." Again : the old 
 possessive case, "The king, his crown," conforms to the like order 
 of thought. Moreover, the fact that the indirect mode is called 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 27 
 
 the natural one implies that it is the one spontaneously employed 
 by the common people ; that is, the one easiest for undisciplined 
 minds. 
 
 21. Before dismissing this branch of our subject, it should be 
 remarked, that, even when addressing the most vigorous intellects, 
 the direct style is unfit for communicating thoughts of a complex 
 or abstract character. So long as the mind has not much to do, 
 it may be well able to grasp all the preparatory clauses of a sen- 
 tence, and to use them effectively ; but if some subtlety in the 
 argument absorb the attention, if every faculty be strained in 
 endeavoring to catch the speaker's or writer's drift, it may hap- 
 pen that the mind, unable to carry on both processes at once, 
 will break down, and allow all its ideas to lapse into confusion. 
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH. 
 
 22. Turning now to consider figures of speech, we may equally 
 discern the same general law of effect. Underlying all the rules 
 that may be given for the choice and right use of them, we shall 
 find the same fundamental requirement, economy of attention. 
 It is indeed chiefly because of their great ability to subserve this 
 requirement that figures of speech are employed. To bring the 
 mind more easily to the desired conception, is in many cases 
 solely, and in all cases mainly, their object. 
 
 23. Let us begin with the figure called Synecdoche. The ad- 
 vantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the whole is due 
 to the more convenient or more accurate presentation of the idea 
 thus secured. If, instead of saying, " A fleet of ten ships," we 
 say, " A fleet of ten sail" the picture of a group of vessels at sea 
 is more readily suggested, and is so because the sails constitute 
 the most conspicuous part of vessels so circumstanced ; whereas 
 the word "ships" would very likely remind us of vessels in dock. 
 Again, to say, "All hands to the pumps! " is better than to say, 
 " All men to the pumps ! " as it suggests the men in the special 
 attitude intended, and so saves effort. Bringing " gray hairs 
 with sorrow to the grave" is another expression, the effect of 
 which has the same cause. 
 
 24. The occasional increase of force produced by Metonymy may 
 be similarly accounted for. "The low morality of the bar" is a 
 phrase both briefer and more significant than the literal one it 
 stands for. A belief in the ultimate supremacy of intelligence 
 over brute force is conveyed in a more concrete, and therefore 
 more realizable form, if we substitute " the pen " and " the 
 sword " for the two abstract terms. To say, " Beware of drink- 
 ing!" is less effective than to say "Beware the bottle!" and is 
 so, clearly, because it calls up a less specific image. 
 
28 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 25. The Simile, though in many cases employed chiefly with a 
 view to ornament, yet, whenever it increases the force of a pas- 
 sage, does so by being an economy. Here is an instance : 
 
 " The illusion, that great men and great events came oftener in 
 early times than now, is partly due to historical perspective. As, 
 in a range of equidistant columns, the farthest off look the 
 closest, so the conspicuous objects of the past seem more thickly 
 clustered the more remote they are." 
 
 To construct, by a process of literal explanation, the thought 
 thus conveyed, would take many sentences; and the first ele- 
 ments of the picture would become faint whilst the imagination 
 was busy in adding the others. But, by the help of a compari- 
 son, all effort is saved : the picture is instantly realized, and its 
 full effect produced. 
 
 26. Of the position of the Simile,* it needs only to remark, that 
 what has been said respecting the order of the adjective and sub- 
 stantive, predicate and subject, principal and subordinate proposi- 
 tions, &c., is applicable here. As whatever qualifies should 
 precede whatever is qualified, force will generally be gained by 
 placing the simile before the object to which it is applied. That 
 this arrangement is the best, may be seen in the following pas- 
 sage from " The Lady of the Lake : " 
 
 "As wreath of snow, on mountain breast, 
 Slides from the rock that gave it rest, 
 Poor Ellen glided from her stay, 
 And at the monarch's feet she lay." 
 
 Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the effect con- 
 siderably. There are cases, however, even where the simile is a 
 simple one, in which it may with advantage be placed last ; as in 
 these lines from Alexander Smith's " Life Drama : " . 
 
 " I see the future stretch 
 All dark and barren as a rainy sea." 
 
 The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an idea as 
 that attaching to the "future" does not present itself to the 
 mind in any definite form ; and hence the subsequent arrival at 
 the simile entails no reconstruction of the thought. 
 
 27. Nor are such the only cases in which this order is the most 
 forcible. As the advantage of putting the simile before the 
 object depends on its being carried forward in the mind to assist 
 in forming an image of the object, it must happen, that if, from 
 length or complexity, it can not be so carried forward, the advan- 
 
 * Properly the term " simile " is applicable only to the entire figure, inclusive of the 
 two things compared and the comparison drawn between them. But, as there exists no 
 name for the illustrative member of the figure, there seems no alternative but to 
 employ " simile " to express this also. The context will in each case show in which 
 sense the word is used. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 29 
 
 tage is not gained. The annexed sonnet by Coleridge is defec- 
 tive from this cause : 
 
 " As when a child, on some long winter's night, 
 Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees 
 With eager wondering and perturbed delight 
 Listens strange tales of fearful, dark decrees, 
 Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell; 
 Or of those hags who at the witching time 
 Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, 
 And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell; 
 Cold horror drinks its blood ! anon the tear 
 More gentle starts to hear the beldam tell 
 Of pretty babes that loved each other dear, 
 Murdered by cruel uncle's mandate fell: 
 Even such the shivering joys thy tones impart; 
 Even so, thou, Siddons, meitest my sad heart." 
 
 Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of circum- 
 stances, the first part of the comparison becomes more or less dim 
 before its application is reached, and requires re-reading. Had 
 the main idea been first mentioned, less effort would have been 
 required to retain it, and to modify the conception of it in con- 
 formity with the comparison, than to retain the comparison, and 
 refer back to the recollection of its successive features for help in 
 forming the final image. 
 
 28. The superiority of the Metaphor to the Simile is ascribed by 
 Dr. Whately to the fact that "all men are more gratified at 
 catching the resemblance for themselves than in having it 
 pointed out to them." But, after what has been said, the great 
 economy it achieves will seem the more probable cause. If, 
 drawing an analog} 7 between mental and physical phenomena, we 
 say, " As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light 
 are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow; so, in traversing 
 the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed 
 into brightly-tinted poetry," it is clear, that, in receiving the 
 double set of words expressing the two portions of the compari- 
 son, and in carrying the one portion to the other, a considerable 
 amount of attention is absorbed. Most of this is saved, however, 
 by putting the comparison in a metaphorical form, thus : 
 
 " The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided, 
 transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry." 
 
 29. How much is conveyed in a few words by the help of the 
 Metaphor, and how vivid the effect consequently produced, may 
 be abundantly exemplified. From "A Life Drama" may be 
 quoted the phrase, 
 
 " I speared him with a jest," 
 
 as a fine instance among the many which that poem contains. 
 A passage in the " Prometheus Unbound " of Shelley displays 
 the power of the Metaphor to great advantage : 
 
28 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 25. The Simile, though in many cases employed chiefly with a 
 view to ornament, yet, whenever it increases the force of a pas- 
 sage, does so by being an economy. Here is an instance : 
 
 " The illusion, that great men and great events came oftener in 
 early times than now, is partly due to historical perspective. As, 
 in a range of equidistant columns, the farthest off look the 
 closest, so the conspicuous objects of the past seem more thickly 
 clustered the more remote they are." 
 
 To construct, by a process of literal explanation, the thought 
 thus conveyed, would take many sentences; and the first ele- 
 ments of the picture would become faint whilst the imagination 
 was busy in adding the others. But, by the help of a compari- 
 son, all effort is saved : the picture is instantly realized, and its 
 full effect produced. 
 
 26. Of the position of the Simile,* it needs only to remark, that 
 what has been said respecting the order of the adjective and sub- 
 stantive, predicate and subject, principal and subordinate proposi- 
 tions, &c., is applicable here. As whatever qualifies should 
 precede whatever is qualified, force will generally be gained by 
 placing the simile before the object to which it is applied. That 
 this arrangement is the best, may be seen in the following pas- 
 sage from "The Lady of the Lake : " 
 
 "As wreath of snow, on mountain breast, 
 Slides from the rock that gave it rest, 
 Poor Ellen glided from her stay, 
 And at the monarch's feet she'lay." 
 
 Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the effect con- 
 siderably. There are cases, however, even where the simile is a 
 simple one, in which it may with advantage be placed last ; as in 
 these lines from Alexander Smith's " Life Drama : " - 
 
 " I see the future stretch 
 All dark and barren as a rainy sea." 
 
 The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an idea as 
 that attaching to the "future" does not present itself to the 
 mind in any definite form ; and hence the subsequent arrival at 
 the simile entails no reconstruction of the thought. 
 
 27. Nor are such the only cases in which this order is the most 
 forcible. As the advantage of putting the simile before the 
 object depends on its being carried forward in the mind to assist 
 in forming an image of the object, it must happen, that if, from 
 length or complexity, it can not be so carried forward, the advan- 
 
 * Properly the term " simile " is applicable only to the entire figure, inclusive of the 
 two things compared and the comparison drawn between them. But, as there exists no 
 name for the illustrative member of the figure, there seems no alternative but to 
 employ " simile " to express this also. The context will in each case show in which 
 sense the word is used. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 29 
 
 tage is not gained. The annexed sonnet by Coleridge is defec- 
 tive from this cause : 
 
 " As when a child, on some long winter's night, 
 Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees 
 With eager wondering and perturbed delight 
 Listens strange tales of fearful, dark decrees, 
 Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell; 
 Or of those hags who at the witching time 
 Of murky midnight ride the air sublime, 
 And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell; 
 Cold horror drinks its blood ! anon the tear 
 More gentle starts to hear the beldam tell 
 Of pretty babes that loved each other dear, 
 Murdered by cruel uncle's mandate fell: 
 Even such the shivering joys thy tones impart; 
 Even so, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart." 
 
 Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of circum- 
 stances, the first part of the comparison becomes more or less dim 
 before its application is reached, and requires re-reading. Had 
 the main idea been first mentioned, less effort would have been 
 required to retain it, and to modify the conception of it in con- 
 formity witli the comparison, than to retain the comparison, and 
 refer back to the recollection of its successive features for help in 
 forming the final image. 
 
 28. The superiority of the Metaphor to the Simile is ascribed by 
 Dr. Whately to the fact that " all men are more gratified at 
 catching the resemblance for themselves than in having it 
 pointed out to them." But, after what has been said, the great 
 economy it achieves will seem the more probable cause. If, 
 drawing an analogy between mental and physical phenomena, we 
 say, " As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light 
 are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow ; so, in traversing 
 the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed 
 into brightly-tinted poetry," it is clear, that, in receiving the 
 double set of words expressing the two portions of the compari- 
 son, and in carrying the one portion to the other, a considerable 
 amount of attention is absorbed. Most of this is saved, however, 
 by putting the comparison in a metaphorical form, thus : 
 
 " The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided, 
 transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry." 
 
 29. How much is conveyed in a few words by the help of the 
 Metaphor, and how vivid the effect consequently produced, may 
 be abundantly exemplified. From "A Life Drama" may be 
 quoted the phrase, 
 
 "I speared him with a jest," 
 
 as a fine instance among the many which that poem contains. 
 A passage in the " Prometheus Unbound " of Shelley displays 
 the power of the Metaphor to great advantage : 
 
32 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 nobility is ' not transferable/ " besides the one idea expressed, 
 several are implied ; and, as these can be thought much sooner 
 than they can be put in words, there is gain in omitting them. 
 How the mind may be lad to construct a complete picture by the 
 presentation of a few parts, an extract from Tennyson's " Mari- 
 ana " will show : 
 
 " All day, within the dreamy house, 
 The door upon the hinges creaked ; 
 The blue fly sung i' the pane ; the mouse 
 Behind the moldering wainscot shrieked, 
 Or from the crevice peered about." 
 
 The several circumstances here specified bring with them hosts 
 of appropriate associations. Our attention is rarely drawn by 
 the buzzing of a fly in the window, save when every thing is still. 
 Whilst the inmates are moving about the house, mice usually 
 keep silence ; and it is only when extreme quietness reigns that 
 they peep from their retreats. Hence each of the facts men- 
 tioned, presupposing numerous others, calls up these with more or 
 less distinctness, and revives the feeling of dull solitude with 
 which they are connected in our experience. Were all these 
 facts detailed instead of suggested, the attention would be so 
 frittered away, that little impression of dreariness would be pro- 
 duced. And here, without further explanation, it will be seen, 
 that, be the nature of the sentiment conveyed what it may, this 
 skillful selection of a few particulars which imply the rest is the 
 key to success. In the choice of component ideas, as in the 
 choice of expressions, the aim must be to convey the greatest 
 quantity of thoughts with the smallest quantity of words. 
 
 34. Before inquiring whether the law of effect, thus far traced, 
 will account for the superiority of poetry to prose, it will be need- 
 ful to notice some supplementary causes of force in expression 
 that have not yet been mentioned. These are not, properly 
 speaking, additional causes, but rather secondary ones, origi- 
 nating from those already specified, reflex manifestations of 
 them. In the first place, then, we may remark, that mental ex- 
 citement spontaneously prompts the use of those forms of speech 
 which have been pointed out as the most effective. " Out with 
 him!" "Away with him!" are the natural utterances of angry 
 citizens at a disturbed meeting. A voyager, describing a terrible 
 storm he had witnessed, would rise to some such climax as, 
 " Crack went the ropes, and down carne the mast!" Astonish- 
 ment maybe heard expressed in the phrase, "Never was there 
 such a sight ! " All of which sentences are, it will be observed, 
 constructed after the direct type. Again : every one will recog* 
 nize the fact that excited persons are given to figures of speech. 
 The vituperation of the vulgar abounds with them ; often, in- 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 33 
 
 deed, consists of little else. " Beast," " brute," " gallows-rogue," 
 " cut-throat villain," these, and other like metaphors and meta- 
 phorical epithets, at once call to mind a street-quarrel. Further : 
 it may be remarked that extreme brevity is one of the character- 
 istics of passionate language. The sentences are generally in- 
 complete ; the particles are omitted; and frequently important 
 words are left to be gathered from the context. Great admira- 
 tion does not vent itself in a precise proposition, as " It is beauti- 
 ful," but in a simple exclamation, "Beautiful!" He who, when 
 reading a lawyer's letter, should say, " Vile rascal ! " would be 
 thought angry; whilst "He is a vile rascal" would imply com- 
 parative coolness. Thus we see, that, alike in the order of the 
 words, in the frequent use of figures, and in extreme conciseness, 
 the natural utterances of excitement conform to the theoretical 
 conditions of forcible expression. 
 
 35. Hence, then, the higher forms of speech acquire a secondary 
 strength from association. Having, in actual life, habitually 
 found them in connection with vivid mental impressions, and 
 having been accustomed to meet with them in the most powerful 
 writing, they come to have in themselves a species of force. The 
 emotions that have from time to time been produced by the 
 strong thoughts wrapped up in these forms are partially aroused 
 by the forms themselves. They create a certain degree of ani- 
 mation ; they induce a preparatory sympathy ; and, when the 
 striking ideas looked for are reached, they are the more vividly 
 realized. 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 36. The continuous use of those modes of expression that are 
 alike forcible in themselves and forcible from their associations 
 produces the peculiarly impressive species of composition which we 
 call poetry. Poetry, we shall find, habitually adopts those sym- 
 bols of thought, and those methods of using them, which instinct 
 and analysis agree in choosing as most effective, and becomes 
 poetry by virtue of doing this. On turning back to the various 
 specimens that have been quoted, it will be seen that the direct 
 or inverted form of sentence predominates in them, and that to a 
 degree quite inadmissible in prose. And not only in the fre- 
 quency, but in what is termed the violence, of the inversions, will 
 this distinction be remarked. In the abundant use of figures, 
 again, we may recognize the same truth. Metaphors, similes, 
 hyperboles, and personifications are the poet's colors, which he 
 has liberty to employ almost without limit. We characterize as 
 "poetical" the prose which repeats these appliances of Language 
 with any frequency, and condemn it as "over-florid" or "af- 
 fected " long* before they occur with the profusion allowed in 
 
 3 
 
34 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 verse. Further : let it be remarked, that, in brevity, the other 
 requisite of forcible expression which theory points out, and 
 emotion spontaneously fulfills, poetical phraseology similarly dif- 
 fers from ordinary phraseology. Imperfect periods are frequent ; 
 elisions are perpetual; and many of the minor words, which 
 would be deemed essential in prose, are dispensed with. 
 
 37. Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially 
 impressive, partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, 
 and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances 
 of excitement. Whilst the matter embodied is idealized emotion, 
 the vehicle is the idealized language of emotion. As the musical 
 composer catches the cadences in which our feelings of joy and 
 sympathy, grief and despair, vent themselves, and out of these 
 germs evolves melodies suggesting higher phases of these feel- 
 ings^ so the poet develops, from the typical expressions in 
 which men utter passion and sentiment, those choice forms of 
 verbal combination in which concentrated passion and sentiment 
 may be fitly presented. 
 
 38. There is one peculiarity of poetry, conducing much to its 
 effect, the peculiarity which is indeed usually thought its char- 
 acteristic one, still remaining to be considered : we mean its 
 rhythmical structure. This, unexpected as it may be, will be 
 found to come under the same generalization with the others. 
 Like each of them, it is an idealization of the natural language of 
 emotion, which is known to be more or less metrical if the emotion 
 be not violent; and, like each of them, it is an economy of the 
 reader's or hearer's attention. In the peculiar tone and manner 
 we adopt in uttering versified language may be discerned its rela- 
 tionship to the feelings ; and the pleasure which its measured move- 
 ment gives us is ascribable to the comparative ease with which 
 words metrically arranged can be recognized. This last position 
 will scarcely be at once admitted ; but a little explanation will show 
 its reasonableness. For if, as we have seen, there is an expendi- 
 ture of mental energy in the mere act of* listening to verbal artic- 
 ulations, or in that silent repetition of them which goes on in 
 reading ; if the perceptive faculties must be in active exercise 
 to identify every s}'llable, then any mode of combining words 
 so as to present a regular recurrence of certain traits which the 
 mind can anticipate will diminish that strain upon the atten- 
 tion required by the total irregularity of prose. In the same 
 manner that the body in receiving a series of varying concussions 
 must keep the muscles ready to meet the most violent of them, 
 as not knowing when such may come ; so the mind, in receiv- 
 ing unarranged articulations, must keep its perceptives active 
 enough to recognize the least easily caught sounds. And as, if 
 the concussions recur in a definite order, the body "may husband 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 35 
 
 its forces by adjusting the resistance needful for each concussion ; 
 so, if the syllables be rhythmically arranged, the mind may 
 economize its energies by anticipating the attention required for 
 each syllable. Far-fetched as this idea will perhaps be thought, 
 a little introspection will countenance it. That we do take ad- 
 vantage of metrical language to adjust our perceptive faculties to 
 the force of the expected articulations, is clear from the fact that 
 we are balked by halting versification. Much as, at the bottom 
 of a flight of stairs, a step more or less than we counted upon 
 gives us a shock; so, too, does a misplaced accent or a super- 
 numerary syllable. In the one case, we know that there is an 
 erroneous p re-adjustment ; and we can scarcely doubt that there is 
 one in the other. But, if we habitually pre-adjust our perceptions 
 to the measured movement of verse, the physical analogy lately 
 given renders it probable that by so doing we economize atten- 
 tion; and hence that metrical language is more effective than 
 prose, simply because it enables us to do this. 
 
 Were there space, it might be worth while to inquire whether 
 the pleasure we take in rhyme, and also that which we take in 
 euphony, are not partly ascribable to the same general cause. 
 
 ECONOMY OF THE SENSIBILITIES. 
 
 39. A few paragraphs only can be devoted to a second division 
 of our subject that here presents itself. To pursue in detail the 
 laws of effect, as seen in the larger features of composition, would 
 exceed both our limits and our purpose ; but we may fitly indi- 
 cate some further aspect of the general principle hitherto traced 
 out, and hint a few of its wider applications. 
 
 Thus far, then, we have considered only those causes of force 
 in language which depend upon economy of the mental energies : 
 we hav r e now briefly to glance at those which depend upon econ- 
 omy of the mental sensibilities. Indefensible though this diver- 
 sion may be as a psychological one, it will yet serve roughly to 
 indicate the remaining field of investigation. It will suggest, 
 that, besides considering the extent to which any faculty, or group 
 of faculties, is taken in receiving a form .of words, and realizing 
 its contained idea, we have to consider the state in which this 
 faculty, or group of faculties, is left, and how the reception of 
 subsequent sentences and images will be influenced by that state. 
 Without going at length into so wide a topic as the exercise of 
 faculties, and its re-active effects, it will be sufficient here to call 
 to mind that every faculty (when in a state of normal activity) is 
 most capable at the outset; and that the change in its condition 
 which ends in what we term exhaustion begins simultaneously 
 with its exercise. This generalization, with which we are all 
 
36 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 familiar in our bodily experiences, and which our daily language 
 recognizes as true of the mind as a whole, is equally true of each 
 mental power, from the simplest of the senses to the most com- 
 plex of the sentiments. If we hold a flower to the nose for a long 
 time, we become insensible to its scent. We say of a very brilliant 
 flash of lightning, that it blinds us; which means that our eyes 
 have for a time lost their ability to appreciate light. After eat- 
 ing a quantity of honey, we are apt to think our tea is without 
 sugar. The phrase, "A deafening roar/' implies that men find a 
 very loud sound temporarily incapacitates them for hearing faint 
 ones. Xow, the truth which we at once recognize in these, its 
 extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout; and it may 
 be shown, that alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagina- 
 tion, in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sub- 
 lime, in the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, 
 however we may classify them, action exhausts; and that, in 
 proportion as the action is violent, the subsequent prostration is 
 great. 
 
 40. Equally, throughout the whole nature, may be traced the law, 
 that exercised faculties are ever tending to resume their original 
 state. Not only, after continued rest, do they regain their full 
 power, not only do brief cessations partially re-invigorate them, 
 but, even whilst they are in action, the resulting exhaustion 
 is ever being neutralized. The two processes of waste and repair 
 go on together. Hence, with faculties habitually exercised, as the 
 senses in all or the muscles in a laborer, it happens, that, during 
 modern activity, the repair is so nearly equal to the waste, that 
 the diminution of power is scarcely appreciable; and it is only 
 when the activity has been long continued, or has been very 
 violent, that the repair becomes so far in arrear of the waste as 
 to produce a perceptible prostration. In all cases, however, when, 
 by the action of a faculty, waste has been incurred, some lapse of 
 time must take place before full efficiency can be re-acquired ; and 
 this time must be long in proportion as the waste has been great. 
 
 41. Keeping in mind these general truths, we shall be in a con- 
 dition to understand certain causes of effect in composition now to 
 be considered. Every perception received, and every conception 
 realized, entailing some amount of waste, or, as Liebig would 
 say. some change of matter in the brain, and the efficiency of 
 the faculties subject to this waste being thereby temporarily, 
 though often but momentarily, diminished, the resulting partial 
 inability must aftect the acts of perception and conception that 
 immediately succeed. And hence we may expect that the vivid- 
 ness with which images are realized will in many cases depend 
 on the order of their presentation, even when one order is as 
 convenient to the understanding as the other. _ We shall find 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 37 
 
 sundry facts which alike illustrate this, and are explained by 
 it. Climax is one of them. The marked effect obtained by 
 placing last the most striking of any series of images, and 
 the weakness often ludicrous weakness produced by revers- 
 ing this arrangement, depend on the general law indicated. 
 As, immediately after looking at the sun, we can not perceive 
 the light of a fire, whilst by looking at the fire first, and the 
 sun afterwards, we can perceive both; so, after receiving a 
 brilliant or weighty or terrible thought, we can not appreciate a 
 less brilliant, less weighty, or less terrible one, whilst, by revers- 
 ing the order, we can appreciate each. 
 
 42. In Antithesis, again, we may recognize the same general 
 truth. The opposition of two thoughts that are the reverse of 
 each other in some prominent trait insures an impressive effect, 
 and does this by giving a momentary relaxation of the faculties 
 addressed. If, after a series of images of an ordinary character, 
 appealing in a moderate degree to the sentiment of reverence or 
 approbation or beauty, the mind has presented to it a very insig- 
 nificant, a very unworthy, or a very ugly image, the faculty of 
 reverence or approbation or beauty, as the case may be, having 
 for the time nothing to do, tends to resume its full power, and 
 will immediately afterwards appreciate a vast, admirable, or beau- 
 tiful image better than it would otherwise do. Improbable as 
 these momentary variations in susceptibility will seem to many, 
 we can not doubt their occurrence when we contemplate the analo- 
 gous variations in the susceptibility of the senses. Keferring once 
 more to phenomena of vision, every one knows that a patch of 
 black on a white ground looks blacker, and a patch of white on 
 a black ground looks whiter, than elsewhere. As the blackness 
 arid the whiteness must really be the same, the only assignable 
 cause for this is a difference in their action upon us, dependent 
 upon the different states of our faculties. It is simply a visual 
 antithesis. 
 
 43. But this extension of the general principle of economy, this 
 further condition of effect in composition, that the power of the 
 faculties must be continuously husbanded, includes much more 
 than has been yet hinted. It implies, not only that certain 
 arrangements and certain juxtapositions of connected ideas are 
 best, but that some modes of dividing and presenting the subject 
 will be more effective than others, and that, too, irrespective of 
 its logical cohesion. It shows why we must progress from the 
 less interesting to the more interesting; and why not only the 
 composition as a whole, but each of its successive portions, should 
 tend towards a climax. At the same time, it forbids long con- 
 tinuity of the same species of thought, or repeated production of 
 the same effects. It warns us against the error committed both 
 
38 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 by Pope in his poems and by Bacon in his essays, the error, 
 namely, of constantly employing the most effective forms of ex- 
 ion ; and it points out, that as the easiest posture by and by 
 becomes fatiguing, and is with pleasure exchanged for one less 
 easy, so the most perfectly constructed sentences will soon weary, 
 and relief will be given by using those of an inferior kind. Fur- 
 ther, it involves that not only should we avoid generally com- 
 bining our words in one manner, however good, or working out 
 our figures and illustrations in one way, however telling, but we 
 should avoid any thing like uniform adherence even to the wider 
 conditions of effect. We should not make every section of our 
 subject progress in interest ; we should not always rise to a cli- 
 max. As we say, that, in single sentences, it is but rarely allow- 
 able to fulfill all the conditions of strength ; so, in the larger 
 portions of a composition, we must not often conform entirely to 
 the law indicated. We must subordinate the component effects 
 to the total effect. 
 
 44. In deciding how practically to carry out the principles of 
 artistic composition, we may derive help by bearing in mind a fact 
 already pointed out, the fitness of certain verbal arrangements 
 for certain kinds of thought. That constant variety in the mode 
 of presenting ideas which the theory demands will in a great 
 degree result from a skillful adaptation of the form to the matter. 
 W? saw how the direct or inverted sentence is spontaneously used 
 by excited people, and how their language is also characterized 
 by figures of speech and by extreme brevity. Hence these may 
 with advantage predominate in emotional passages, and HKiy 
 increase as the emotion rises. On the other hand, for complex 
 ideas, the indirect sentence seems the best vehicle. In conversa- 
 tion, the excitement produced by the near approach to a desired 
 conclusion will often show itself in a series of short, sharp sen- 
 tences; whilst, in impressing a view already enunciated, we gen- 
 erally make our periods voluminous by piling thought upon 
 thought. These natural .modes of procedure may serve as guides 
 in writing. Keen observation and skillful analysis would, in like 
 manner, detect many other peculiarities of expression produced 
 by other attitudes of mind ; and, by paying due attention to all 
 such traits, a writer possessed of sufficient versatility might make 
 some approach to a completely organized work. 
 
 45. This species of composition, which the law of effect points 
 out as the perfect one, is the one which high genius tends naturally 
 to produce. As we found that the kinds of sentence which are 
 theoretically best are those generally employed by superior minds, 
 and by inferior minds when excitement has raised them ; so we 
 shall find that the ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that 
 which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One iu 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE. 39 
 
 whom the powers of expression fully responded to the state of 
 mind would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of pre- 
 senting his thoughts which Art demands. This constant employ- 
 ment of one species of phraseology, which all have now to strive 
 against, implies an undeveloped faculty of language. To have a 
 specific style is to be poor in speech. If we glance back at the 
 past, and remember that men had once only nouns and verbs to 
 convey their ideas with, and that from then to now the growth 
 has been towards a greater number of implements of thought, 
 and, consequently, towards a greater complexity and variety in 
 their combinations, we may infer that we are now, in our use of 
 sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of 
 words ; and that a continuance of the process that has hitherto 
 gone on must produce increasing heterogeneity in our modes of 
 expression. 
 
 46. As, now, in a fine nature, the play of the features, the 
 tones of the voice and its cadences, vary in harmony with every 
 thought uttered ; so, in one possessed of a fully-developed power 
 of speech, the mold in which combination of words is cast will 
 similarly vary with, and be appropriate to, the sentiment. That 
 a perfectly endowed man must unconsciously write in all styles, 
 we may infer from considering how styles originate. Why is 
 Arldison diffuse, Johnson pompous, Goldsmith simple ? Why is 
 one author abrupt, another rhythmical, another concise ? Evi- 
 dently, in each case, the habitual mode of utterance must depend 
 upon the habitual balance of the nature. The predominant feel- 
 ings have by use trained the intellect to represent them. But, 
 whilst long though unconscious discipline has made it do this 
 efficiently, it remains, from lack of practice, incapable of doing 
 the same for the less powerful feelings; and, when these are ex- 
 cited, the usual modes of expression undergo but a slight modifi- 
 cation. Let the powers of speech be fully developed, however, 
 let the ability of the intellect to convey the emotions be complete, 
 and this fixity of style will disappear. The perfect writer will 
 express himself as Junius, when in the Junius frame of mind ; 
 when he feels as Lamb felt, will use a like familiar speech ; and 
 will fall into the ruggedness of Carlyle when in a Carlylean mood. 
 Now he will be rhythmical, and now irregular ; here his language 
 will be plain, and there ornate ; sometimes his sentences will be 
 balanced, and at other times unsymmetrical; for a while there 
 will be considerable sameness, and then, again, great variety. 
 From his mode of expression naturally responding to his state of 
 feeling, there will flow from his pen a composition changing to 
 the same degree that the aspects of his subject change. He will 
 thus, without effort, conform to what we have seen to be the laws 
 of effect. And, whilst his work presents to the reader that variety 
 
40 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 needful to prevent continuous exertion of the same faculties, it 
 will also answer to the description of all highly-organized prod- 
 ucts both of man and of nature : it will be, not a series of like 
 parts simply placed in juxtaposition, but one whole made up of 
 unlike parts that are mutually dependent. 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 
 
 BORN Nov. 3, 1794, CCMMINGTON, MASS. 
 
 It is eminently fitting for us to begin the study of English literature with the 
 name of this veteran poet and most accomplished master of pure English. 
 
 From 1808, the date of his first published literary effort, to the present time, 1870, 
 a period of more than sixty years, the power and beauty of the language have been 
 almost continuously illustrated by his genius. Combining in the rarest manner in 
 himself the true poet, the careful critic, and the political philosopher, it would be 
 difficult to say in which character he has performed the most distinguished services 
 to humanity. * For beauty and purity of thought and expression, his poems, and for 
 sound logic, and lucidity of style, his political writings, place him in the front rank 
 of modern authors. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 " Thanatopsis ; " "Inscription for an Entrance into a Wood;" " Letters of a 
 Traveler;" Second Series of " Letters of a Traveler;" " The Waterfowl ;" u The 
 Ages;" three volumes of Poems; Contributions as editor and correspondent of 
 "The New- York Evening Post" since 1826; "Translation of Homer," 1870. 
 
 THANATOPSia. 
 
 To him who, in the love of Nature, holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language : for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
 Into his darker musings with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals awny 
 Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud and pall, 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
 M ike thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, 
 Go forth under the open sky, and list 
 To Nature's teachings ; while from all around 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air 
 Comes a still voice : " Yet a few days, and thee 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 41 
 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground 
 
 Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again : 
 
 And lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 
 Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
 
 To mix for ever with the elements ; 
 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock, 
 
 And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 
 
 Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak 
 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. 
 
 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 
 Shalt thou retire alone ; nor couldst thou wish 
 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 
 With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, 
 
 The powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, 
 
 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
 
 All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, 
 
 Kock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales 
 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 
 The venerable woods ; rivers that move 
 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 
 That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
 
 Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste, 
 
 Are but the solemn decorations, all, 
 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 
 Are shining on the sad abodes of death 
 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 
 The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 
 Of morning ; traverse Barca's desert sands ; 
 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 
 
 Save its own dashings : yet the dead are there ; 
 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 
 In their last sleep : the dead reign there alone. 
 
 So shalt thou rest. And what if thou withdraw 
 
 In silence from the living, and no friend 
 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 
 When thou art gone ;* the solemn brood of care 
 
 Plod on ; and each one, as before, will chase 
 
 His favorite phantom : yet all these shall leave 
 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 
 Of ages glides away, the sons of men, 
 
 The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
 
 In the full strength of years, matron and maid, 
 
 And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, 
 
42 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side 
 By those who in their turn shall follow them. 
 
 So live, that, when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan which moves 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night 
 Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE. 
 
 WITHIX this lowly grave a conqueror lies ; 
 And yet the monument proclaims it not, 
 Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
 The emblems of a fame that never dies, 
 Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf, 
 Twined with the laurel's fair, imperial leaf. 
 A simple name alone, 
 To the great world unknown, . 
 Is graven here ; and wild-flowers rising round 
 Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground 
 Lean lovingly against the humble stone. 
 
 Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 
 No man of iron mold and bloody hands, 
 AVho sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
 The passions that consumed his restless heart ; 
 But one of tender spirit and delicate frame, 
 Gentlest in mien and mind 
 Of gentle womankind, 
 
 Timidly shrinking from the breath of blarno ; 
 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 
 Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May ; 
 Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade 
 Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. 
 
 Nor deem, that, when the hand that molders here 
 Was raised in menace, realms were chilled with fear, 
 
 And armies mustered at the sign, as when 
 Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy east, 
 
 Gray captains leading bands of veteran men 
 And fiery youths to be the vultures' feast. 
 Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave 
 The victory to her who fills this irrave. 
 Alone her task was wrought ; 
 Alone the battle fought : 
 
 Through that long strife her constant hope was stayed 
 On God alone, nor looked for other aid. 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 43 
 
 She met the hosts of sorrow with a look 
 
 That altere'd not beneath the frown they wore ; 
 And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took 
 
 Meekly her gentle rule, and frowned no more. 
 Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, 
 And calmly broke in twain 
 The fiery shafts of pain, 
 And rent the nets of passion from her path ; 
 
 By that victorious hand despair was slain. 
 With love she vanquished hate, and overcame 
 Evil with good in her Great Master's name. 
 
 Her glory is not of this shadowy state, 
 
 Glory that with the fleeting season dies ; 
 But, when she entered at the sapphire gate, 
 
 What joy was radiant in celestial eyes ! 
 How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung, 
 And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung ! 
 And He who, long before, 
 Pain, scorn, and .sorrow bore, 
 The mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, 
 Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat ; 
 He who, returning glorious from the grave, 
 Dragged Death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave. 
 
 See ! as I linger here, the sun grows low ; 
 
 Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near. 
 O gentle sleeper ! from thy grave 1 go 
 
 Consoled, though sad, in hope, and yet in fear. 
 Brief is the time, I know, 
 The warfare scarce begun ; 
 Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won : 
 Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee. 
 
 The victors' names are yet too few to fill 
 Heaven's mighty roll; the glorious armory 
 
 That ministered to thee is opened still. 
 
 THE PA S T. 
 
 THOU unrelenting Past ! 
 Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, 
 
 And fetters sure and fast 
 Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 
 
 Far in thy realm withdrawn, 
 Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom ; 
 
 And glorious ages gone 
 Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. 
 
44 ENGLISH L1TEEATUKE. 
 
 Childhood with all its mirth, 
 Youth, manhood, age that draws us to'the ground, 
 
 And, last, man's life on earth, 
 Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. 
 
 Thou hast my better years ; 
 Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind, 
 
 Yielded to thee with tears ; 
 The venerable form, the exalted mind. 
 
 My spirit yearns to bring 
 The lost ones back, yearns with desire intense, 
 
 And struggles hard to wring 
 Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. 
 
 In vain : thy gates deny 
 All passage save to those who hence depart ; 
 
 Nor to the streaming eye 
 Thou giv'st them back, nor to the broken heart. 
 
 In thy abysses hide 
 Beauty and excellence unknown : to thee 
 
 Earth's wonder and her pride 
 Are gathered as the waters to the sea, 
 
 Labors of good to man ; 
 Unpublished charity ; unbroken faith ; 
 
 Love that 'midst grief began, 
 And grew with years, and faltered not in death. 
 
 Full many a mighty name 
 Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered : 
 
 With thee are silent fame, 
 Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared. 
 
 Thine for a space are they : 
 Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last ; 
 
 Thy gates shall yet give way, 
 Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past ! 
 
 All that of good and fair 
 Has gone into thy womb from earliest time 
 
 Shall then come forth to wear 
 The glory and the beauty of its prime. 
 
 They have not perished : no ! 
 Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, 
 
 Smiles radiant long ago, 
 And features the great soul's apparent seat, 
 
 All shall come back ; each tie 
 Of pure affection shall be knit again : 
 
 Alone shall Evil die, 
 And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. 
 

 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 45 
 
 And then shall I behold 
 Him by whose kind, paternal side I sprung ; 
 
 And her who, still and cold, 
 Fills the next grave, the beautiful and young. 
 
 THE EVENING WIND. 
 
 SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou 
 That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day ! 
 
 Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow : 
 Thou hast been out upon the deep at play, 
 
 Riding all day the wild blue waves till now, 
 
 Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray, 
 
 And swelling the white sail. I welcome Jthee 
 
 To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea ! 
 
 Nor I alone : a thousand bosoms round 
 
 Inhale thee in the fullness of delight ; 
 And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound 
 
 Livelier, at coming of the wind of night ; 
 And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, 
 
 Lies the vast inland, stretched beyond the sight. 
 Go forth into the gathering shade ; go forth, 
 God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth ! 
 
 Go rock the little wood-bird in his nest ; 
 
 Curl the still waters bright with stars ; and rouse 
 The wide old wood from his majestic rest, 
 
 Summoning from the innumerable boughs 
 The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast : 
 
 Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows 
 The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, 
 And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. 
 
 The faint old man shall lean his silver head 
 To feel thee ; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, 
 
 And dry the moistened curls that overspread 
 
 His temples, while his breathing grows more deep ; 
 
 And they who stand about the sick man's bed 
 Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep, 
 
 And softly part his curtains to allow 
 
 Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. 
 
 Go : but the circle of eternal change, 
 
 Which is the life of Nature, shall restore, 
 With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range, 
 
 Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more ; 
 
46 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange, 
 
 Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore ; 
 And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem 
 He hears the rustling leaf and running stream. 
 
 THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, 
 Were trampled by a hurrying crowd ; 
 
 And fiery hearts and armed hands 
 Encountered in the battle-cloud. 
 
 Ah ! never shall the land forget 
 
 How gushed the life-blood of her brave, 
 Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet, 
 
 Upon the soil they fought to save ! 
 
 Now all is calm and fresh and still : 
 
 Alone the chirp of flitting bird, 
 And talk of children on the hill, 
 
 And bell of wandering kine, are heard. 
 
 No solemn host goes trailing by 
 
 The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain; 
 Men start not at the battle-cry : 
 
 Oh, be it never heard again ! 
 
 Soon rested those who fought ; but thou 
 Who minglest in the harder strife 
 
 For truths which men receive not now, 
 Thy warfare only ends with life, 
 
 A friendless warfare, lingering long 
 Through weary day and weary year : 
 
 A wild and many-weaponed throng 
 Hang on thy front and flank and rear. 
 
 Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 
 
 And blench not at thy chosen lot. 
 The timid good may stand aloof ; 
 
 The sage may frown : yet faint thou not, 
 
 Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, 
 The foul and hissing bolt of scorn ; 
 
 For with thy side shall dwell, at last, 
 The victory of endurance born. 
 
 Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 
 
 The eternal years of God are hers : 
 But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
 
 And dies among his worshipers. 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 47 
 
 Yea, though thou lie upon the dust 
 
 When they who helped thee flee in fear, 
 Die full of hope and manly trust 
 
 Like those who fell in battle here. 
 
 Another hand thy sword shall wield, 
 
 Another hand the standard wave, 
 Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed 
 
 The blast of triumph o'er thy grave. 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM. 
 
 O FREEDOM ! thou art not, as poets dream, 
 A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 
 And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 
 With which the Roman master crowned his slave 
 When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, 
 Armed to the teeth, art thou : one mailed hand 
 Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy brow, 
 Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 
 With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs 
 Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched 
 His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee : 
 They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven. 
 Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep ; 
 And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, 
 Have forged thy chain : yet, while he deems thee bound, 
 The links are shivered, and the prison-walls 
 Fall outward. Terribly thou springest forth, 
 As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
 And shoutest to the nations, who return 
 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 
 
 Thy birthright was not given by human hands : 
 Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, 
 While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him 
 To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
 And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
 Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
 Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
 His only foes ; and thou with him didst draw 
 The earliest furrow on the mountain-side 
 Soft with the Deluge. Tyranny himself, 
 Thy enemy, although of reverend look, 
 Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
 Is later born than thou ; and, as he meets 
 The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
 The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 
 
 Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years ; 
 But he shall fade into a feebler age, 
 
48 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares, 
 
 And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
 
 His withered hands, and from their ambush call 
 
 His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 
 
 Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms, 
 
 To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 
 
 To charm thy ear ; while his sly imps, bv stealth, 
 
 Twine round" thee threads of steel, light thread on thread, 
 
 That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms 
 
 With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh ! not yet 
 
 Mayst thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by 
 
 Thy sword ; nor yet. O Freedom ! close thy lids 
 
 In slumber : for thine enemy never sleeps ; 
 
 And thou must watch and combat till the day 
 
 Of the new earth and heaven. 
 
 HOSIER. 
 
 O GODDESS ! sing the wrath of Peleus' son, 
 Achilles ; sing the deadly wrath that brought 
 Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept 
 To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave 
 Their limbs a prey to dogs, and birds of air : 
 For so had Jove appointed, from the time 
 When the two chiefs Atrides, king of men, 
 And great Achilles parted first as toes. 
 
 Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs, 
 That they should thus contend ? Latona's son, 
 And Jove's. Incensed against the king, he bade 
 A deadly pestilence appear among 
 The army ; and the men were perishing. 
 For Atreus' son, with insult, had received 
 Chryses, the priest, who to the Grecian fleet 
 Came to redeem his daughter, offering 
 Uncounted ransom. In his hand he bore 
 The fillets of Apollo, archer-god, 
 Upon the golden scepter ; and he sued 
 To all the Greeks, but chiefly to the sons 
 Of Atreus, the two leaders of the host : 
 
 " Ye sons of Atreus, and ye other chiefs, 
 Well-greaved Achaians. may the gods who dwell 
 Upon Olympus give you to o'erthrow 
 The city of Priam, and in safety reach 
 Your homes ! But give me my beloved child, 
 And take her ransom; honoring him who sends 
 His arrows far, Apollo, son of Jove." 
 
 Then all the other Greeks, applauding, bade 
 Revere the priest, and take the liberal gifts 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 49 
 
 He offered. But the counsel did not please 
 
 Atrides Agamemnon : he dismissed 
 
 The priest with scorn, and added threatening words : 
 
 *' Old man, let me not find thee loitering here 
 Beside the roomy ships, or coming back 
 Hereafter, lest the fillet thou dost bear, 
 And scepter of thy god, protect thee not 
 This maiden I release not till old age 
 Shall overtake her in my Argive home, 
 Far from her native country, where her hand 
 Shall throw the shuttle and shall dress my couch. 
 Go ! chafe me not, if thou wouldst safely go." 
 
 He spake : the a^ed man in fear obeyed 
 The mandate, and in silence walked apart 
 Along the many-sounding ocean-side ; 
 And fervently he prayed the monarch-god, 
 Apollo, golden-haired Latona's son : 
 
 " Hear me, thou bearer of the silver bow, 
 Who jruardest Chrysa and the holy isle 
 Of Cilia, and art lord in Tenedos I 
 O Smintheus ! if I ever helped to deck 
 Thy glorious temple, if I ever burned 
 Upon thy altar the fat thighs of goats 
 And bullocks, grant my prayer, and let thy shafts 
 Avenge upon the Greeks the tears I shed." 
 
 So spake he, supplicating ; and to him 
 Phoebus Apollo hearkened. Down he came, 
 Down from the summit of the Olympian mount, 
 Wrathful in heart. His shoulders bore the bow 
 And hollow quiver : there the arrows rang 
 Upon the shoulders of the angry god, 
 As on he moved. He came as comes the night ; 
 And, seated from the ships aloof, sent forth 
 An arrow : terrible was heard the clang 
 Of that resplendent bow. At first he smote 
 The mules and the swift dogs ; and then on man 
 He turned the deadly arrow. All around 
 Glared evermore the frequent funeral-piles. 
 Nine days already had his shafts been showered 
 Among the host ; and now, upon the tenth, 
 Achilles called the people of the camp 
 To council. Juno, of the snow-white arms, 
 Had moved his mind to this ; for she beheld 
 With sorrow that the men were perishing. 
 And when the assembly met, and now was full, 
 Stood swift Achilles in the midst, and said, 
 
 " To me it seems, Atrides, that 'twere well, 
 Since now our aim is baffled, to return 
 4 
 
50 EXGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Homeward, if death o'ertake us not ; for war 
 And pestilence at once destroy the Greeks. 
 But let us first consult some seer or priest 
 Or dream-interpreter, for even dreams 
 Are sent by Jove, and ask him by what cause 
 Phoebus Apollo has been angered thus, 
 If by neglected vows or hecatombs ; 
 And whether savor of fat bulls and goats 
 May move the god to stay the pestilence." 
 
 He spake, and took again his seat. And next 
 Rose Calchas, son of Thestor, and the chief 
 Of augurs, one to whom were known things past 
 And present and to come. He, through the art 
 Of divination which Apollo gave, 
 Had guided Ilium-ward the ships of Greece. 
 With words well ordered warily he spake : 
 
 " Achilles, loved of Jove, thou biddest me 
 Explain the wrath of Phoebus, monarch-god, 
 Who sends afar his arrows. Willingly 
 Will I make known the cause : but covenant thou, 
 And swear to stand prepared, by word and hand, 
 To bring me succor; for my mind misgives 
 That he who rules the Argives, and to whom 
 The Achaian race are subject, will be wroth. 
 A sovereign is too strong for humbler men ; 
 And, though he keep his choler down a while, 
 It rankles, till he sate it, in his heart. 
 And now consider : wilt thou hold me safe ? " 
 
 Achilles, the swift-footed, answered thus : 
 " Fear nothing, but speak boldly out whate'er 
 Thou knowest, and declare the will of Heaven ; 
 For by Apollo, dear to Jove, whom thou, 
 Calchas, dost pray to when thou givest forth 
 The sacred oracles to men of Greece, 
 No man, while yet I live, and see the light 
 Of day, shall lay a violent hand on thee 
 Among our roomy ships ; no man of all 
 The Grecian armies, though thou name the name 
 Of Agamemnon, whose high boast it is 
 To stand in power and rank above them all." 
 
 Encouraged thus, the blameless seer went on : 
 " 'Tis not neglected vows or hecatombs 
 That move him , but the insult shown his priest, . 
 Whom Agamemnon spurned when he refused 
 To set his daughter free, and to receive 
 Her ransom. Therefore sends the archer-god 
 These woes upon us, and will send them still, 
 Nor ever will withdraw his heavy hand 
 From our destruction, till the dark-eyed maid, 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 51 
 
 Freely, and without ransom, be restored 
 To her beloved father, and with her 
 A sacred hecatomb to Chrysa sent : 
 So may we haply pacify the god." 
 
 Thus having said, the augur took his seat. 
 And then the hero-son of Atreus rose, 
 Wide-ruling Agamemnon, greatly chafed. 
 His gloomy heart was full of wrath ; his eyes 
 Sparkled like fire. He fixed a menacing look 
 Full on the augur Calchas, and began : 
 
 " Prophet of evil, never hadst thou yet 
 A cheerful word for me. To mark the signs 
 Of coming mischief is thy great delight. 
 Good dost thou ne'er foretell, nor bring to pass. 
 And now thou pratest, in thine auguries 
 Before the Greeks, how that the archer-god 
 Afflicts us thus because I would not take 
 The costly ransom offered to redeem 
 The virgin-child of Chryses. 'Twas my choice 
 To keep her with me ; for I prize her more 
 Than Clytemnestra, bride of my young years, 
 And deem her not less nobly graced than she, 
 In form and feature, mind, and pleasing arts. 
 Yet will I give her back if that be best ; 
 For gladly would I see my people saved 
 From this destruction. Let meet recompense, 
 Meantime, be ready, that I be not left 
 Alone of all the Greeks without my prize : 
 That were not seemly. All of you perceive 
 That now my share of spoil has passed from me." 
 
 To him the great Achilles, swift of foot, 
 Replied, " Renowned Atrides, greediest 
 Of men, where wilt thou that our noble Greeks 
 Find other spoil for thee, since none is set 
 Apart, a common store V The trophies brought 
 From towns which we have sacked have all been shared 
 Among us ; and we could not without shame 
 Bid every warrior bring his portion back. 
 Yield, then, the maiden to the god, and we, 
 The Achaians, freely will appoint for thee 
 Threefold and fourfold recompense when Jove 
 Gives up to sack this well-defended Troy." 
 
 Then the king Agamemnon answered thus : 
 " Nay, use no craft, all valiant as thou art, 
 Godlike Achilles : thou hast not the power 
 To circumvent nor to persuade me thus. 
 Think'st thou, that, while thou keepest safe thy prize, 
 I shall sit idly down, deprived of mine V 
 Thou bid'st me give the maiden back. 'Tis well 
 
52 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 If to my hands the noble Greeks shall bring 
 
 The worth of what I lose, and in a shape 
 
 That pleases me : else will 1 come myself, 
 
 And seize and bear away thy prize, or that 
 
 Of Ajax or Ulysses ; leaving him. 
 
 From whom I take his share to ra<*e at will. 
 
 Another time we will confer of this. 
 
 Now come, and forth into the great salt sea 
 
 Launch a black ship, and muster on the deck 
 
 Men skilled to row ; and put a hecatomb 
 
 On board ; and let the fair-cheeked maid embark, 
 
 Chryseis. Send a prince to bear command, 
 
 Ajax, Idomeneus, or the divine 
 
 Ulysses, or thyself, Pelides, thou 
 
 Most terrible of men, that with due rites 
 
 Thou soothe the anger of the archer-god." 
 
 Achilles, the swift-footed, with stern look 
 Thus answered : " Ha ! thou mailed in impudence 
 And bent on lucre ! Who of all the Greeks 
 Can willingly obey thee on the march, 
 Or bravely battling with the enemy ? 
 I came not to this war because of wrong 
 Done to me by the valiant sons of Troy. 
 No feud had I with them : they never took 
 My beeves or horses ; nor in Phthia's realm, 
 Deep-soiled and populous, spoiled my harvest-fields. 
 For many a shadowy mount between us lies, 
 And waters of the wide-resounding sea. 
 Man unabashed ! we follow thee, that thou 
 Mayst glory in avenging upon Troy 
 The grudge of Menelaus and thy own. 
 Thou shameless one ! and yet thou hast for this 
 Nor thanks nor care. Thou threatenest now to take 
 From me the prize for which I bore long toils 
 In battle ; and the Greeks decreed it mine. 
 I never take an equal share with thee 
 Of booty when the Grecian host has sacked 
 Some populous Trojan town. My hands perform 
 The harder labors of the fields in all 
 The tumult of the fight : but, when the spoil 
 Is shared, the largest share of all is thine ; 
 While I, content with little, see my ships 
 Weary with combat. I shall now go home 
 To Phthia : better were it to be there 
 With my beaked ships. But here, where I am held 
 In little honor, thou wilt fail, I think, 
 To gather, in large measure, spoil and wealth." 
 
 Him answered Agamemnon, king of men : 
 " Desert, then, if thou wilt : I ask thee not 
 To stay for me. There will be others left 
 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 53 
 
 To do me honor yet ; and, best of all, 
 
 The all-providing Jove is with me still. 
 
 Thee I detest the most of all the men 
 
 Ordained by him to govern. Thy delight 
 
 Is in contention, war, and bloody frays. 
 
 If thou art brave, some deity, no doubt, 
 
 Hath thus endowed thee. Hence, then, to thy home, 
 
 With all thy ships and men ! there domineer 
 
 Over thy myrmidons. I heed thee not, 
 
 Nor care I tor thy fury. Thus, in turn, 
 
 I threaten thee : Since Phoebus takes away 
 
 Chryseis, I will send her in my ship, 
 
 And with my friends ; and, coming to thy tent, 
 
 Will bear away the fair-cheeked maid, thy prize, 
 
 Briseis, that thou learn how far I stand 
 
 Above thee, and that other chiefs may fear 
 
 To measure strength with me and brave my power." 
 
 The rage of Peleus' son, as thus he spake, 
 Grew fiercer : in that shaggy breast his heart 
 Took counsel, whether from his thigh to draw 
 The trenchant sword, and, thrusting back the rest, 
 Smite down Atrides ; or subdue his wrath, 
 And master his own spirit. While he thus 
 Debated with himself, and half unsheathed 
 The ponderous blade, Pallas Athene came, 
 Sent from on high by Juno the white-armed, 
 Who loved both warriors, and watched over both. 
 Behind Pelides, where he stood, she came, 
 And plucked his yellow hair. The hero turned 
 In wonder ; and at once he knew the look 
 Of Pallas, and the awful-gleaming eye, 
 And thus accosted her with winged words : 
 " Why com'st thou hither, daughter of the god 
 Who bears the aegis ? Art thou here to see 
 The insolence of Agamemnon, son 
 Of Atreus ? Let me tell thee what I deem 
 Will be the event. That man may lose his life, 
 And quickly, too, for arrogance like this." 
 
 Book 1. 1-267. 
 
54 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 BORN FEB. 27, 1807, PORTLAND, ME. 
 
 As Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Bowdoin College from 
 1829 to 1835, and in Harvard University from 1835 to 1854, Mr. Longfellow has done 
 much to refine and polish the literary taste of his time, both as critic and poet. It 
 is superfluous to speak in praise of 'his numerous literary productions, since they 
 are sought with equal eagerness at home and abroad. A thorough student in the 
 polite literature of all nations, a welcome guest and intelligent observer in American 
 and European society, a poet of purest thought and expression, he ennobles life 
 with so much generous human sympathy in all his writings, that they are read and 
 admired as the thoughts of a cherished friend. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 "Outre Mer," 1835; "Hyperion," and "Voices of the Night," 1839; " Evan- 
 geline," 1847; "The Spanish Student," 1843; "The Golden Legend," 1845; 
 "Ballads and Poems," 1841; " Kavanagh." 1848; many minor Poems. "Poets 
 and Poetry of Europe," 1845; " Belfry of Bruges; " " Seaside and Fireside," 1849; 
 " The Song of Hiawatha," 1855; " The Courtship of Miles Standish," 1858. 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist. 
 
 TELL me not, in mournful numbers, 
 
 Life is but an empty dream ; 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 
 And things are not what they seem. 
 
 Life is real, life is earnest ; 
 
 And the grave is not its goal : 
 " Dust thou art, to dust returnest," 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 
 Find us farther than to-day. . 
 
 Art is long, and Time is fleeting ; 
 
 And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 
 Funeral-marches to the grave. 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of Life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle : 
 
 Be a hero in the strife. 
 
HENRY WADSWOKTH LONGFELLOW. 55 
 
 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ; 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead : 
 Act, act in the living Present, 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead. 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of Time, 
 
 Footprints that perhaps another, 
 
 Sailing o'er Life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 Learn to labor and to wait. 
 
 THE REAPER AND THE FLOWERS, 
 
 THERE is a Reaper whose name is Death ; 
 
 And with his sickle keen 
 He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 
 
 And the flowers that grow between. 
 
 " Shall I have naught that is fair ? " saith he ; 
 
 " Have naught but the bearded grain V 
 Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, 
 
 I will give them all back again." 
 
 He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes ; 
 
 He kissed their drooping leaves : 
 It was for the Lord of Paradise 
 
 He bound them in his sheaves. 
 
 " My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," 
 
 The Reaper said, and smiled : 
 " Dear tokens of the earth are they, 
 
 Where he was once a child. 
 
 They shall all bloom in fields of light, 
 
 Transplanted by my care ; 
 And saints upon their garments white 
 
 These sacred blossoms wear." 
 
 And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 
 
 The flowers she most did love : 
 She knew she should find them all again 
 
 In the fields of light above. 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Oh ! not in cruelty, not in wrath, 
 The Reaper came that day : 
 
 'Twas an angel visited tfye green earth, 
 And took the flowers away. 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS, 
 
 
 
 WHEN the hours of day are numbered^ 
 
 And the voices of the night 
 Wake the better soul, that slumbered, 
 
 To a holy, calm delight; 
 
 Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 
 And, like phantoms grim and tall, 
 
 Shadows from the fitful fire-light 
 Dance upon the parlor-wall, 
 
 Then the forms of the departed 
 
 Enter at the open door : 
 The beloved, the true-hearted, 
 
 Come to visit me once more. 
 
 He, the young and strong, who cherished 
 Noble longings for the strife, 
 
 By the roadside fell and perished, 
 Weary with the march of life. 
 
 They, the holy ones and weakly, 
 Who the cross of suffering bore, 
 
 Folded their pale hands so meekly ! 
 Spake with us on earth no more t 
 
 And with them the being beauteous, 
 Who unto my youth was given 
 
 More than all things else to love me, 
 And is now a saint in heaven. 
 
 With a slow and noiseless footstep 
 Comes that messenger divine, 
 
 T \es the vacant chair beside me, 
 Lays her gentle hand in mine. 
 
 And she sits and gazes at me 
 
 With those deep and tender eyes,. 
 
 lake the stars, so still and saint-like, 
 Looking downward from the skies. 
 
 tittered not, yet comprehended, 
 Is the spirit's voiceless prayer ; 
 
 Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, 
 Breathing from her lips of air. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 57 
 
 Oh ! though oft depressed and lonely, 
 All my lears are laid aside 
 
 If I but remember only, 
 
 Such as these have lived and died. 
 
 THE BELEAGUERED CITY. 
 
 I HAVE read, in some old, marvelous tale, 
 Some legend strange and vague-, 
 
 That a midnight host of specters pale 
 Beleaguered the walls of Prague. 
 
 Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, 
 
 With the wan moon overhead, 
 There stood, as in an awful dream, 
 
 The army of the dead. 
 
 White as a sea-fog landward bound, 
 
 The spectral camp was seen ; 
 And with a sorrowful, deep sound, 
 
 The river flowed between. 
 
 No other voice nor sound was there, , 
 
 No drum, nor sentry's pace : 
 The mist-like banners clasped the air 
 
 As clouds with clouds embrace. 
 
 But, when the old cathedral-bell 
 Proclaimed the morning prayer, 
 
 The white pavilions rose and fell 
 On the alarmed air. 
 
 Down the broad valley fast and far 
 
 The troubled army fled : 
 Up rose the glorious morning-star ; 
 
 The ghastly host was dead. 
 
 I have read, in the marvelous heart of man, 
 That strange and mystic scroll, 
 
 That an army of phantoms vast and wan 
 Beleaguer the human soul. 
 
 Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, 
 
 In Fancy's misty light, 
 Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam 
 
 Portentous through the night. 
 
58 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Upon its midnight battle-ground 
 The spectral camp is seen ; 
 
 And with a sorrowful, deep sound, 
 Flows the River of Lite between. 
 
 No other voice nor sound is there 
 
 In the army of the grave ; 
 No other challenge breaks the air 
 
 But the rushing of Life's wave. 
 
 And, when the solemn and deep church-bell 
 
 Entreats the soul to pray, 
 The midnight phantoms feel the spell, 
 
 The shadows sweep away. 
 
 Down the broad Vale of Tears afar 
 
 The spectral camp is fled : 
 Faith shineth as a morning-star ; 
 
 Our ghastly fears are dead. 
 
 MAIDENHOOD. 
 
 MAIDEN with the meek, brown eyes, 
 In whose orbs a shadow lies 
 Like the dusk in evening skies ! 
 
 Thou whose locks outshine the sun, 
 Golden tresses, wreathed in one, 
 As the braided streamlets run ! 
 
 Standing with reluctant feet 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 
 
 Gazing with a timid glance 
 On the brooklet's swift advance, 
 On the river's broad expanse ! 
 
 Deep and still, that gliding stream 
 Beautiful to thee must seem 
 As the river of a dream. 
 
 Then why pause with indecision, 
 When bright angels in thy vision 
 Beckon thee to fields Elysian ? 
 
 Seest thou shadows sailing by, 
 A? the dove, with startled eye, 
 Sees the falcon's shadow fly'? 
 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 59 
 
 Hear'st thou voices on the shore, 
 That our ears perceive no more, 
 Deafened by the cataract's roar ? 
 
 O thou child of many prayers ! 
 
 Lii'e hath quicksands, life hath snares : 
 
 Care and age come unawares. 
 
 Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
 Morning rises into noon, 
 May glides onward into June, 
 
 Childhood is the bough where slumbered 
 Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; 
 Age, that bough with snows encumbered. 
 
 Gather, then, each flower that grows 
 When the young heart overflows, 
 To embalm that tent of snows, 
 
 Bear a lily in thy hand : 
 
 Gates of brass can not withstand 
 
 One touch of that magic wand. 
 
 Bear, through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
 In thy heart the dew of youth, 
 On thy lips the smile of truth. 
 
 Oh! that dew, like balm, shall steal 
 Into wounds that can not heal, 
 Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ; 
 
 And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
 Into many a sunless heart : 
 For a smile of God thou art. 
 
 EXCELSIOR. 
 
 THE shades of night were falling fast 
 As through an Alpine village passed 
 A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, 
 A banner with the strange device, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 His brow was sad ; his eye beneath 
 Flashed like a falchion from its sheath ; 
 And like a silver clarion rung 
 The accents of that unknown tongue, * 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
GO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 In happy homes he saw the light 
 Of household-fires gleam warm and bright ; 
 Above, the spectral glaciers shone ; 
 And from his lips escaped a groan, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 ** Try not the pass ! " the old man said ; 
 " Dark lowers the tempest overhead ; 
 The roaring torrent is deep and wide ! " 
 And loud that clarion voice replied, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 " Oh, stay/' the maiden said, " and rest 
 Thy weary head upon this breast ! " 
 A tear stood in his bright blue eye ; 
 But still he answered with a sigh, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 " Beware the pine-tree's withered branch ! 
 Beware the awful avalanche ! " 
 This was the peasant's last good-night : 
 A voice replied, far up the hight, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 At break of day, as heavenward 
 The pious monks of Saint Bernard 
 Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, 
 A voice cried through the startled air, 
 " Excelsior ! " 
 
 A traveler by the faithful hound 
 Half buried in the snow was found, 
 Still grasping in his hand of ice 
 That banner with the strange device, 
 u Excelsior ! " 
 
 There in the twilight cold and gray, 
 Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay ; 
 And from the sky, serene and far, 
 A voice fell, like a falling star, 
 "Excelsior!" 
 
 THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 
 
 ALL is finished ; and at length 
 
 Has come the bridal day 
 
 Of beauty and of strength. 
 
 To-day the vessel shall be launched ! 
 
 With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched ; 
 
 And o'er the bay, 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 61 
 
 Slowly, in all his splendors dight, 
 
 The great sun rises to behold the sight. 
 
 The ocean old, 
 
 Centuries old, 
 
 Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 
 
 Paces restless to and fro 
 
 Up and down the sands of gold. 
 
 His beating heart is not at rest ; 
 
 And far and wide, 
 
 With ceaseless flow, 
 
 His beard of snow 
 
 Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 
 
 He waits impatient for his bride. 
 
 There she stands, 
 
 With her foot upon the sands, 
 
 Decked with flags and streamers gay, 
 
 In honor of her marriage-day ; 
 
 Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending, 
 
 Kound her like a vail descending, 
 
 Ready to be 
 
 The bride of the gray old sea. 
 
 On the deck another bride 
 Is standing by her lover's side. 
 Shadows from the flags and shrouds, 
 Like the shadows cast by clouds, 
 Broken by many a sunny fleck, 
 Fall around them on the deck. 
 
 The prayer is said, 
 
 The service read ; 
 
 The joyous bridegroom bows his head ; 
 
 And in tears the good old master 
 
 Shakes the brown hand of his son, 
 
 Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek 
 
 In silence, for he can not speak ; 
 
 And ever faster 
 
 Down his own the tears begin to run. 
 
 The worthy pastor 
 
 The shepherd of that wandering flock 
 
 That has the ocean for its wold, 
 
 That has the vessel for its fold, 
 
 Leaping ever from rock to rock 
 
 Spake, with accents mild and clear, 
 
 Words of warning, words of cheer, 
 
 But tedious to the bridegroom's ear. 
 
 He knew the chart 
 
 Of the sailor's heart, 
 
 All its pleasures and its griefs ; 
 
 All its shallows and rocky reefs ; 
 
 All those secret currents that flow 
 
 With such resistless undertow, 
 
C2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And lift and drift, with terrible force, 
 
 The will from its moorings and its course. 
 
 Therefore he spake, and fhus said he : 
 
 " Like unto ships far off at sea, 
 
 Outward or homeward bound, are we. 
 
 Before, behind, and all around, . 
 
 Floats and swings the horizon's bound ; 
 
 Seems at its distant rim to rise 
 
 And climb the crystal wall of the skies, 
 
 And then again to turn and sink, 
 
 As if we could slide from its outer brink. 
 
 Ah ! it is not the sea, 
 
 It is not the sea, that sinks and shelves, 
 
 But ourselves 
 
 That rock and rise 
 
 With endless and uneasy motion, 
 
 Now touching the very skies, 
 
 Now sinking into the depths of ocean. 
 
 Ah! if our souls but poise and swing 
 
 Like the compass in its brazen ring, 
 
 Ever level and ever true 
 
 To the toil and the task we have to do, 
 
 We shall sail securely, and safely reach 
 
 The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach 
 
 The sights we see and the sounds we hear 
 
 Will be those of joy, and not of fear. " 
 
 Then the master, 
 
 With a trc-slnre of command, 
 
 Waved his hand ; 
 
 And, at the word, 
 
 Loud and sudden there was heard, 
 
 All around them and below, 
 
 The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 
 
 Knocking away the shores and spurs. 
 
 And see 1 she stirs ! 
 
 She starts 1 she moves ! she seems to feel 
 
 The thrill of life along her keel ! 
 
 And, spurning with her foot the ground, 
 
 With one exulting, joyous bound 
 
 She leaps into the ocean's arms ! 
 
 And, lo ! from the assembled crowd 
 
 There rose a shout prolonged and loud, 
 
 That to the ocean seemed to say, 
 
 " Take her, O bridegroom old and gray, 
 
 Take her to thy protecting arms, 
 
 With all her youth and all her charms ! " 
 
 How beautiful she is ! How fair 
 She lies within those arms that press 
 Her form with many a soft caress 
 Of tenderness and watchful care ! 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 63 
 
 Sail forth into the sea, O ship ! 
 Through wind and wave right onwar,d steer 1 
 The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 
 Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 
 
 Sail forth into the sea of life, 
 O gentle, loving, trusting wife ! 
 And safe from all adversity 
 Upon the bosom of that sea 
 Thy comings and thy goings be ! 
 For gentleness and love and trust 
 Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ; 
 And in the wreck of noble lives 
 Something immortal still survives. 
 
 Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State I 
 
 Sail on, O UNION strong and great 1 
 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 
 With all the hopes of future years, 
 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 
 
 We know what master laid thy keel ; 
 
 What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
 
 Who made each mast and sail and rope ; 
 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat ; 
 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock : 
 
 'Tis of the wave, and not the rock ; 
 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
 
 And not a rent made by the gale. 
 
 In spite of rock, and tempest's roar, 
 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea : 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ; 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 
 Are all with thee, are all with thee ! 
 
 HI A WA TEA ' S WO OING. 
 
 " As unto the bow the cord is, 
 So unto the man is woman : 
 Though she bends him, she obeys him ; 
 Though she draws him, yet she follows: 
 Useless each without the other." 
 
 Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
 Said within himself, and pondered, 
 Much perplexed by various feelings ; 
 Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
 Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
 
64 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
 In the land of the Dakotahs. 
 
 " AVed a maiden of your people," 
 Warning said the old Nokomis : 
 " Go not eastward, go not westward, 
 For a stranger whom we know not. 
 Like a fire upon the hearth-stone 
 Is a neighbor's homely daughter ; 
 Like the starlight or the moonlight 
 Is the handsomest of strangers." 
 
 Thus dissuading spake Nokomis ; 
 And my Hiawatha answered 
 Only this : " Dear old Nokomis, 
 Very pleasant is the firelight ; 
 But I like the starlight better, 
 Better do I like the moonlight." 
 
 Gravely then said old Nokomis, 
 " Bring not here an idle maiden, 
 Bring not here a useless woman, 
 Hands unskillful, feet unwilling : 
 Bring a wife with nimble fingers, 
 Heart and hand that move together, 
 Feet that run on willing errands." 
 
 Smiling answered Hiawatha, 
 " In the land of the Dakotahs 
 Lives the arrow-maker's daughter, 
 Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
 Handsomest of all the women. 
 I will bring her to your wigwam : 
 She shall run upon your errands, 
 Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight, 
 Be the sunlight of my people." 
 
 Still dissuading said Nokomis, 
 " Bring not to my lodge a stranger 
 From the land of the Dacotahs. 
 Very fierce are the Dacotahs ; 
 Often is there war between us : 
 There are feuds yet unforgotten, 
 Wounds that ache, and still may open." 
 
 Laughing answered Hiawatha, 
 " For that reason, if no other, 
 Would I wed the fair Dacotah, 
 That our tribes might be united, 
 That old feuds might be forgotten, 
 And old wounds be healed for ever." 
 
 Thus departed Hiawatha 
 To the land of the Dacotahs, 
 To the land of handsome women ; 
 Striding over moor and meadow, 
 Through interminable forests, 
 Through uninterrupted silence. 
 
 With his moccasins of magic, 
 
HENKY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 65 
 
 At each stroke a mile he measured : 
 Yet the way seemed long before him, 
 And his heart outran his footsteps ; 
 And he journeyed without resting, 
 Till he heard the cataract's laughter, 
 Heard the Falls of Minnehaha 
 Calling to him through the silence. 
 " Pleasant is the sound," he murmured ; 
 " Pleasant is the voice that calls me." 
 
 On the outskirts of the forest, 
 'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine, 
 Herds of fallow-deer were feeding ; 
 But they saw not Hiawatha. 
 To his bow he whispered, " Fail not ! " 
 To his arrow whispered, " Swerve not 1 " 
 Sent it singing on its errand 
 To the red heart of the roebuck ; 
 Threw the deer across his shoulder, 
 And sped forward without pausing. 
 
 At the doorway of his wigwam 
 Sat the ancient arrow-maker, 
 In the land of the Dacotahs, 
 Making arrow-heads of jasper, 
 Arrow-heads of chalcedony. 
 At his side, in all her beauty, 
 Sat the lovely Minnehaha, 
 Sat his daughter, Laughing Water, 
 Plaiting mats of flags and rushes : 
 Of the past the old man's thoughts were; 
 And the maiden's, of the future. 
 
 He was thinking, as he sat there, 
 Of the days when with such arrows 
 He had struck the deer and bison 
 On the Muskoday, the meadow ; 
 Shot the wild-goose flying southward, 
 On the wing, the clamorous Wawa ; 
 Thinking of the great war-parties, 
 How they came to buy his arrows, 
 Could not fight without his arrows. 
 Ah ! no more such noble warriors 
 Could be found on earth as they were : 
 Now the men were all like women, 
 Only used their tongues for weapons ! 
 
 She was thinking of a hunter 
 From another tribe and country, 
 Young and tall and very handsome, 
 Who one morning, in the springtime, 
 Came to buy her father's arrows, 
 Sat and rested in the wigwam, 
 Lingered long about the doorway, 
 Looking back as he departed. 
 She had heard her lather praise him, 
 5 * 
 
66 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Praise his courage and his wisdom : 
 Would he come again for arrows 
 To the falls of Minnehaha? 
 On the mat her hands lay idle, 
 And her eyes were very dreamy. 
 
 Through their thoughts they heard a footstep, 
 Heard a rustling in the branches ; 
 And with glowing cheek and forehead, 
 With the deer across his shoulders, 
 Suddenly from out the woodlands 
 Hiawatha stood before them. 
 
 Straight the ancient arrow-maker 
 Looked up gravely from his labor, 
 Laid aside the unfinished arrow, 
 Bade him enter at the doorway ; 
 Saying, as he rose to meet him, 
 " Hiawatha, you are welcome ! " 
 
 At the feet of Laughing Water 
 Hiawatha laid his burden, 
 Threw the red deer from his shoulders ; 
 And the maiden looked up at him, 
 Looked up from her mat of rushes, 
 Said with gentle look and accent, 
 " You are welcome, Hiawatha ! " 
 
 Very spacious was the wigwam, 
 Made of deer-skin dressed and whitened, 
 With the gods of the Dacotahs 
 Drawn and painted on its curtains ; 
 And so tall the doorway, hardly 
 Hiawatha stooped to enter, 
 Hardly touched his eagle feathers 
 As he entered at the doorway. 
 Then uprose the Laughing Water, 
 From the ground fair Minnehaha, 
 Laid aside her mat unfinished, 
 Brought forth food and set before them, 
 Water brought them from the brooklet, 
 Gave them food in earthen vessels, 
 Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood, 
 Listened while the guest was speaking, 
 Listened while her father answered ; 
 But not once her lips she opened, 
 Not a single word she uttered. 
 
 Yes, as in a dream she listened 
 To the words of Hiawatha, 
 As he talked of old Nokomis, 
 Who had nursed him in his childhood, 
 As he told of his companions, 
 Chibiabos the musician, 
 And the very strong man, Kwasind, 
 And of happiness and plenty 
 In the land of the Ojibways, 
 In the pleasant land and peaceful. 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 67 
 
 " After many years of warfare, 
 Many years of strife and bloodshed, 
 There is peace between the Ojibways 
 And the tribe of the Dacotahs." 
 Thus continued Hiawatha ; 
 And then added, speaking slowly, 
 " That this peace may last for ever, 
 And our hands be clasped more closely, 
 And our hearts be more united, 
 Give me as my wife this maiden, 
 Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
 Loveliest of Dacotah women." 
 
 And the ancient arrow-maker 
 Paused a moment ere he answered, 
 Smoked a little while in silence, 
 Looked at Hiawatha proudly, 
 Fondly looked at Laughing Water, 
 And made answer very gravely : 
 " Yes, if Minnehaha wishes : 
 Let your heart speak, Minnehaha." 
 
 And the lovely Laughing Water 
 Seemed more lovely as she stood there, 
 Neither willing nor reluctant, 
 As she went to Hiawatha, 
 Softly took the seat beside him, 
 While she said, and blushed to say it, 
 " I will follow you, my husband." 
 
 This was Hiawatha's wooing : 
 Thus it was he won the daughter 
 Of the ancient arrow-maker, 
 In the land of the Dacotahs. 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 BORN 1808, NEAR HAVERHIIX, MASS. 
 
 Mr. Whittier, the Quaker Poet, has lived in Amesbury since 1840. As editor of 
 " The New-England Weekly Review," " Pennsylvania Review," and contributor to 
 " The National Era " and "' The Atlantic Monthly," he has everywhere devoted him- 
 self to the cause of truth and justice. No poet has spoken with more tenderness for 
 humanity, or waged war more constantly and more defiantly with error and 
 oppression. His intense hatred of wrong, and inexhaustible sympathy for struggling 
 manhood, are always expressed with remarkable force and beauty in his prose and 
 poetry. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 " Mogg Megom," 1836 ; " Tent on the Beach ; " " Voices of Freedom ; " Barefoot 
 Bov; " " Old Portraits and Modern Sketches; " " Songs of Labor, and Other Poems; " 
 " Snowbound." Poems in three volumes, or complete in one. 
 
68 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE ETERNAL GOODNESS. 
 
 FRIENDS with whom my feet have trod 
 The quiet aisles of prayer ! 
 
 Glad witness to your zeal for God 
 And love of man I bear. 
 
 1 trace your lines of argument : 
 Your logic, linked and strong, 
 
 I weigh as one who dreads dissent, 
 And fears a doubt as wrong. 
 
 But still my human hands are weak 
 
 To hold your iron creeds : 
 Against the words ye bid me speak 
 
 My heart within me pleads. 
 
 Who fathoms the Eternal Thought ? 
 
 Who talks of scheme and plan ? 
 The Lord is God : he needeth not 
 
 The poor device of man. 
 
 I walk, with bare, hushed feet, the ground 
 Ye tread with boldness shod : 
 
 I dare not fix with mete and bound 
 The love and power of God. 
 
 Ye praise his justice : even such 
 
 His pitying love I deem. 
 Ye seek a king : I fain would touch 
 
 The robe that hath no seam. 
 
 Ye see the curse which overbroods 
 
 A world of pain and loss : 
 I hear our Lord's beatitudes, 
 
 And prayer upon the cross. 
 
 More than your schoolmen teach, within 
 
 Myself, alas ! I know : 
 Too dark ye can not paint the sin, 
 
 Too small the merit show. 
 
 I bow my forehead to the dust ; 
 
 I vail mine eyes for shame ; 
 And urge, in trembling self<listrust, 
 
 A prayer without a claim. 
 
 I see the wrong that round me lies ; 
 
 I feel the guilt within ; 
 I hear, with groan and travail-cries, 
 
 The world confess its sin. 
 
JOHN GKEENLEAF WHITTIEB. 69 
 
 Yet, in the maddening maze of tilings, 
 
 And tossed by storm and flood, 
 To one fixed stake my spirit clings : 
 
 I know that God is good. 
 
 Not mine to look where cherubim 
 
 And seraphs may not see ; 
 But nothing can be good in him 
 
 Which evil is in me. 
 
 The wrong that pains my soul below 
 
 I dare not throne above. 
 I know not of his hate : I know 
 
 His goodness and his love. 
 
 I dimly guess, from blessings known, 
 
 Of greater out of sight ; 
 And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 
 
 His judgments, too, are right. 
 
 I long for household voices gone ; 
 
 For vanished smiles I long : 
 But God hath led my dear ones on, 
 
 And he can do no wrong. 
 
 I know not what the future hath 
 
 Of marvel or surprise, 
 Assured alone that life and death 
 
 His mercy underlies. 
 
 And, if my heart and flesh are weak 
 
 To bear an untried pain, 
 The bruised reed he will not break, 
 
 But strengthen and sustain. 
 
 No offering of my own I have, 
 
 Nor works my faith to prove : 
 I can but give the gifts he gave, 
 
 And plead his love for love. 
 
 And so beside the silent sea 
 
 I wait the muffled oar : 
 No harm from him can come to me 
 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 I know not where his islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air : 
 I only know I can not drift 
 
 Beyond his love and care. 
 
 O brothers ! if my faith is vain, 
 
 If hopes like these betray, 
 Pray for me that my feet may gain 
 
 The sure and safer way. 
 
70 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen 
 Thy creatures as they be, 
 
 Forgive me if too close I lean 
 My human heart on thee. 
 
 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 
 
 u SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away 
 O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, 
 Who is losing? who is winning? Are they far? or come they near? 
 Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear." 
 
 " Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls. 
 
 Blood is flowing ; men are dying : God have mercy on their souls ! " 
 
 " Who is losing ? who is winning ? " " Over hill and over plain 
 
 I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain-rain." 
 
 " Holy Mother, keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena ! look once more ! " 
 " Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, 
 Bearing on in strange confusion friend and foeman, foot and horse, 
 Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain- 
 course." 
 
 " Look forth once more, Ximena ! " " Ah ! the smoke has rolled away ; 
 And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the ranks of gray. 
 Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the troop of Minon wheels ; 
 There the Northern horses thunder with the cannon at their heels. 
 
 " Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat, and now advance ! 
 Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance ! 
 Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and foot together fall : 
 Like a plowshare in the fallow through them plows the Northern ball." 
 
 "Nearer came the storm, and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on. 
 " Speak, Ximena, speak, and tell us who has lost and who has won." 
 " Alas, alas ! I know not : friend and foe together fall : 
 O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, for them all ! 
 
 II Lo ! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed Mother, save my brain ! 
 I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. 
 
 Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they fall, and strive to rise : 
 Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes ! 
 
 " O my heart's love ! O my dear one ! lay thy poor head on my knee : 
 Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee ? Canst thou hear me ? canst 
 
 thou see ? 
 
 O my husband, brave and gentle ! O my Bernal ! look once more 
 On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy, mercy ! all is o'er ! " 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 71 
 
 " Drv thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear one down to rest ; 
 Let his hands be meekly folded ; lay the cross upon his breast : 
 Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said : 
 To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid." 
 
 Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay, 
 Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his life away ; 
 But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt, 
 She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt. 
 
 With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head ; 
 
 With a sad and bitter leeling looked she back upon her dead : 
 
 But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of 
 
 pain ; 
 And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again. 
 
 Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand, and faintly smiled : 
 Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she watch beside her child ? 
 All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied : 
 With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mother ! " murmured he, and died. 
 
 " A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth 
 From some gentle sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely in the North ! " 
 Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead, 
 And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled. 
 
 " Look forth once more, Ximena ! " " Like a cloud before the wind 
 Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind. 
 Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust the wounded strive : 
 Hide your faces, holy angels ! O thou Christ of God, forgive ! " 
 
 Sink, O Night ! among thy mountains ; let the cool gray shadows fall ; 
 Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all ! 
 Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled : 
 In its sheath the saber rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. 
 
 But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued : 
 
 Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint, and lacking 
 
 food, 
 
 Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung ; 
 And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. 
 
 Not wholly lost, O Father ! is this evil world of ^ 
 Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers ; 
 From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer ; 
 And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air. 
 
72 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE BAREFOOT BOY. 
 
 BLESSINGS on thee, little man, 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ; 
 With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
 And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
 With the sunshine on thy face 
 Through thy torn brim's* jaunty grace 1 
 From my heart I give thee joy : 
 I was once a barefoot boy. 
 Prince thou art : the grown-up man 
 Only is republican. 
 Let the million-dollared ride : 
 Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
 Thou hast more than he can buy 
 In the reach of ear and eye, 
 Outward sunshine, inward joy. 
 Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 
 
 Oh for boyhood's painless play, 
 Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
 Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
 Knowledge never learned of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's morning chase ; 
 Of the wild-flower's time and place; 
 Flight of fowl, and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood ; 
 How the tortoise bears his shell ; 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell ; 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
 How the robin feeds her young ; 
 How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
 Where the whitest lilies blow ; 
 Where the freshest berries grow ; 
 Where the groundnut trails its vine ; 
 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
 Of the black wasp's cunning way, 
 Mason of his walls of clay ; 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans ! 
 For, eschewing books and tasks, 
 Nature answers all he asks. 
 Hand in hand with her he walks, 
 Face to face with her he talks, 
 Part and parcel of her joy : 
 Blessings on the barefoot'boy ! 
 
 Oh for boyhood's time of June, 
 Crowding years in one brief moon,. 
 When alf things I heard or saw, 
 Me, their master, waited ibr ! 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 73 
 
 I was rich in flowers and trees, 
 Humming-birds and honey-bees; 
 For my sport the squirrel played, 
 Plied the snouted mole his spade; 
 For my taste the blackberry-cone 
 Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
 Laughed the brook for my delight 
 Through the day and through the night, 
 Whispering at the garden-wall, 
 Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel-pond j 
 Mine the walnut-slopes beyond ; 
 Mine, on bending orchard-trees, 
 Apples of Hesperides I 
 Still, as my horizon grew, 
 Larger grew my riches too: 
 All the world I saw or knew 
 Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 
 Fashioned for a barefoot boy. 
 
 Oh for festal dainties spread, 
 Like my bowl of milk and bread, 
 (Pewter spoon, and bowl of wood,) 
 On the door-stone gray and rude 1 
 O'er me, like a regal tent, 
 Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, 
 Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
 Looped in many a wind-swung Ibid ; 
 While for music came the play 
 Of the pied frogs' orchestra, 
 And to light the noisy choir 
 Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
 I was monarch : pomp and joy 
 Waited on the barefoot boy. 
 
 Cheerily, then, my little man, 
 Live and laugh, as boyhood can. 
 Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
 Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
 Every morn shall lead thee through 
 Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
 Every evening, from thy feet 
 Shall the cool wind kiss the heat: 
 All too soon these feet must hide 
 In the prison-cells of pride ; 
 Lose the freedom of the sod ; 
 Like a colt's, for work be shod ; 
 Made to tread the mills of toil, 
 Up and down in ceaseless moil. 
 Happy if their track be found 
 Never on forbidden ground ; 
 
74 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Happy if they sink not in 
 Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
 Ah that thou couldst Jcnow thy joy 
 Ere it passes, barefoot boy 1 
 
 SNOW-BOUND. 
 
 THE sun that brief December day 
 
 Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
 
 And, darkly cm-led, gave at noon 
 
 A sadder light than waning moon. 
 
 Slow tracing down the thickening sky 
 
 Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
 
 A portent seeming less than threat, 
 
 It sank from sight before it set. 
 
 A chill no coat, however stout, 
 
 Of homespun stuff, could quite shut out, 
 
 A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 
 
 That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
 
 Of life-blood in the sharpened face r 
 
 The coming of the snow-storm told. 
 
 The wind blew east : we heard the roar 
 
 Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 
 
 And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 
 
 Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 
 
 Meanwhile we did onr nightly chores, 
 Brought in the wood from out of doors ; 
 Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
 Raked down the herds-grass for the cows ; 
 Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 
 And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
 Impatient down the stanchion rows 
 The cattle shake their walnut-bows ; 
 While, peering from his early perch 
 Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 
 The cock his crested helmet bent, 
 And down his querulous challenge sent. 
 
 Unwarmed by any sunset light, 
 
 The gray day darkened into night, 
 
 A night made hoary with the swarm 
 
 And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 
 
 As zigzag wavering to and fro 
 
 Crossed and recrossed the winged snow ; 
 
 And, ere the early bedtime came, 
 
 The white drift piled the window-frame ; 
 
 And through the sjlass the clothes-line posts 
 
 Looked in "like tall and sheeted ghosts. 
 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 75 
 
 So all night long the storm roared on : 
 
 The morning broke without a sun. 
 
 In tiny spherule traced with lines 
 
 Of Nature's geometric signs, 
 
 In starry flake and pellicle, 
 
 All day the hoary meteor fell ; 
 
 And, when the second morning shone, 
 
 We looked upon a world unknown, 
 
 On nothing we could call our own. 
 
 Around the glistening wonder bent 
 
 The blue walls of the firmament ; 
 
 No cloud above, no earth below, 
 
 A universe of sky and snow ! 
 
 The old familiar sights of ours 
 
 Took marvelous shapes ; strange domes and towers 
 
 Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 
 
 Or garden wall, or belt of wood ; 
 
 A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed ; 
 
 A fenceless drift what once was road ; 
 
 The bridle-post an old man sat, 
 
 With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat ; 
 
 The well-curb had a Chinese roof; 
 
 And even the long sweep, high aloof, 
 
 In its slant splendor seemed to tell 
 
 Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 
 
 A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
 Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! " 
 Well pleased, (for when did farmer-boy 
 Count such a summons less than joy V) 
 Our buskins on our feet we drew. 
 With mittened hands, and caps drawn low 
 To guard our necks and ears from snow, 
 We cut the solid whiteness through ; 
 And, where the drift was deepest, made 
 A tunnel walled and overlaid 
 With dazzling crystal. We had read 
 Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave ; 
 And to our own his name we gave, 
 With many a wish the luck were ours 
 To test his lamp's supernal powers. 
 We reached the barn with merry din, 
 And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
 The old horse thrust his long head out, 
 And, grave with wonder, gazed about ; 
 The cock his lusty greeting said, 
 And forth his speckled harem led ; 
 The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 
 And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 
 The horned patriarch of the sheep, 
 Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 
 Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
 And emphasized with stamp of foot. 
 
76 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 All day the gusty north wind bore 
 
 The loosening drift its breath before ; 
 
 Low circling round its southern zone, 
 
 The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 
 
 No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
 
 To the savage air, no social smoke 
 
 Curled over woods of snow-hung oak, 
 
 A solitude made more intense 
 
 By dreary-voiced elements, 
 
 The shrieking of the mindless wind, 
 
 The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 
 
 And on the glass the unmeaning beat 
 
 Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. 
 
 Beyond the circle of our hearth 
 
 No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
 
 Unbound the spell, and testified 
 
 Of human life and thought outside. 
 
 We minded that the sharpest ear 
 
 The buried brooklet could not hear, 
 
 The music of whose liquid lip 
 
 Had been to us companionship, 
 
 And in our lonely life had grown 
 
 To have ah almost human tone. 
 
 As night drew on, and from the crest 
 Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
 The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank 
 From sight beneath the smothering bank, 
 We piled with care our nightly stack 
 Of wood against the chimney-back, 
 The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
 And on its top' the stout back-stick ; 
 The knotty forestick laid apart, 
 And filled* between with curious art 
 The ragged brush ; then, 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 ; 
 While radiant with a mimic flame 
 Outside the sparkling drift became, 
 And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
 Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
 The crane and pendent trammels showed ; 
 The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed ; 
 While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
 The meaning of the miracle, 
 Whispered the old rhyme : "Under the tree, 
 When jire outdoors burns merrily, 
 There the witches are making tea." 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 77 
 
 The moon above the eastern wood 
 
 Shone at its lull ; the hill-range stood 
 
 Transfigured in the silver flood, 
 
 Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
 
 Dead-white, save where some sharp ravine 
 
 Took shadow, or the somber green 
 
 Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
 
 Against the whiteness at their back. 
 
 For such a world and such a night 
 
 Most fitting that unwarming light, 
 
 Which only seemed, where'er it fell, 
 
 To make the coldness visible. [Lines 1 to 154. 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M.D. 
 
 BORN AUG. 29, 1809, CAMBRIIKSE, MASS. 
 
 Popular writer of prose and poetry. Author of "Autocrat of the Breakfast- 
 Table," "Elsie Veuner," and " The Guardian Angel." Poems in two volumes. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM POETRY: A METRICAL ESSAY. 
 
 SOME prouder Muse, when comes the hour at last, 
 May shake our hillsides with her bugle-blast : 
 Not ours the task. But, since the lyric dress 
 Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, 
 Hear an old song, which some, perchance, have seen 
 In stale gazette, or cobwebbed magazine. 
 There was an hour when patriots dared profane 
 The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain ; 
 And one who listened to the tale of shame, 
 Whose heart still answered to that sacred name, 
 Whose eye still followed o'er his country's tides 
 Thy glorious flag, our brave " Old Ironsides 1 " 
 From yon lone attic, on a summer's morn, 
 Thus mocked the spoilers with his schoolboy scorn : 
 
 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 
 
 Long has it waved on high ; 
 And many an eye has danced to see 
 
 That banner in the sky. 
 Beneath it rung the battle-shout, 
 
 And burst the cannon's roar : 
 The meteor of the ocean-air 
 
 Shall sweep the clouds no more I 
 
78 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 
 
 Where knelt the vanquished ibe, 
 When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 
 
 And waves were white below, 
 No more shall feel the victor's tread, 
 
 Or know the conquered knee : 
 The harpies of the shore shall pluck 
 
 The eagle of the sea ! 
 
 Oh ! better that her shattered hulk 
 
 Should sink beneath the wave : 
 Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 
 
 And there should be her grave. 
 Nail to the mast her holy flag ; 
 
 Set every threadbare safl ; 
 And give her to the god of storms, 
 
 The lightning and the gale 1 
 
 THE LAST LEAF. 
 
 I SAW him once before 
 As he passed by the door; 
 
 And again 
 
 The pavement-stones resound 
 As he totters o'er the ground 
 
 With his cane. 
 
 They say, that in his prime. 
 Ere the pruning-knife of Time 
 
 Cut hiuj down, 
 Not a better man was found 
 By the crier on his round 
 
 Through the town. 
 
 But now he walks the streets, 
 And he looks at all he meets, 
 
 Sad and wan ; 
 
 And he shakes his feeble head, 
 That it seems as if he said, 
 
 " They are gone ! " 
 
 The mossy marbles rest 
 
 On the lips that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom ; 
 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb. 
 
 M\ grandmamma has said, 
 Poor old lady ! she is dead 
 Long ago, 
 
 , 
 
OLIVEPw. WENDELL HOLMES. 79 
 
 Tli at ho had a Roman nose, 
 And his cheek was like a rose 
 In the snow. 
 
 But now his nose is thin, 
 And it rests upon his chin 
 
 Like a staff; 
 
 And a crook is in his back, 
 And a melancholy crack 
 In his laugh. 
 
 I know it is a sin 
 For me to sit and grin 
 
 At him here; 
 
 But the old three-cornered hat, 
 And the breeches, and all that, 
 
 Are so queer 1 
 
 And, if I should live to be 
 The last leaf upon the tree 
 
 In the spring, 
 
 Let them smile, as I do now, 
 At the old forsaken bough 
 . Where I cling. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF. THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 
 
 I WAS just going to say, when I was interrupted, that one of 
 the many ways of classifying minds is under the heads of arith- 
 metical and algebraical intellects. All economical and practical 
 wisdom is an extension or variation of the following arithmetical 
 formula : 2-j-2=4. Every philosophical proposition has the more 
 general character of the expression a-\-b= c. We are mere opera- 
 tives, empirics, and egotists, until we learn to think in letters in- 
 stead of figures. 
 
 They all stared. There is a divinity-student lately come among 
 us, to whom I commonly address remarks like the above, allowing 
 him to take a certain share in the conversation, so far as assent 
 or pertinent questions are involved. He abused his libert}^ on 
 this occasion by presuming to say that Leibnitz had the same ob- 
 servation. " No, sir," I replied, " he has not. But he said a mighty 
 good thing about mathematics, that sounds something like it; and 
 you found it, not in the original, but quoted by Dr. Thomas Reid. 
 I will tell the company what he did say, one of these days." 
 
 If I belong to a Society of Mutual Admiration ? I 
 
 blush to say that I do not at this present moment. I once did, 
 however. It was the first association to which I ever heard the 
 
80 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 term applied, a body of scientific young men in a great foreign 
 city who admired their teacher, and, to some extent, each other. 
 Many of them deserved it : they have become famous since. It 
 amuses me to hear the talk of one of those beings described by 
 Thackeray 
 
 " Letters four do form his name " 
 
 about a social development which belongs to the very noblest 
 stage of civilization. All generous companies of artists, authors, 
 philanthropists, men of science, are, or ought to be, Societies of 
 Mutual Admiration. A man of genius, or any kind of superi- 
 ority, is not debarred from admiring the same quality in another, 
 nor the other from returning his admiration. They may even 
 associate together, and continue to think highly of each other. 
 And so of a dozen such men, if any one place is fortunate enough 
 to hold so many. The being referred to above assumes several 
 false premises. First, That men of talent necessarily hate each 
 other. Secondly, That intimate knowledge or habitual associa- 
 tion destroys our admiration of persons whom we esteemed high- 
 ly at a distance. Thirdly, That a circle of clever fellows, who 
 meet together to dine and have a good time, have signed a con- 
 stitutional compact to glorify themselves, a*nd to put down him 
 and the fraction of the human race not belonging to their num- 
 ber. Fourthly, That it is an outrage that he is not asked to join 
 them. 
 
 Here the company laughed a good deal; and the old gentleman 
 who sits opposite said, "That's it ! that's it ! " 
 
 I continued ; for I was in the talking vein. As to clever peo- 
 ple's hating each other, I think a little extra talent does some- 
 times make people jealous. They become irritated by perpetual 
 attempts and failures, and it hurts their tempers and dispositions. 
 Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a 
 weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detesta- 
 ble. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, 
 as the rinsings of an unwashed wineglass spoil a draught of fair 
 water. Xo wonder the poor fellow we spoke of, who always be- 
 longs to this class of slightly-flavored mediocrities, is puzzled and 
 vexed by the strange sight of a dozen men of capacity working 
 and playing together in harmony. He and his fellows are always 
 fighting. With them, familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If 
 they ever praise each other's bad drawings, or broken- winded 
 novels, or spavined verses, nobody ever supposed it was from ad- 
 miration : it was simply a contract between themselves and a 
 publisher or dealer. 
 
 If the Mutuals have really nothing among them worth admir- 
 ing, that alters the question. But, if they are men with noble 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 81 
 
 powers and qualities, let me tell you, that, next to youthful love 
 and family affections, there is no human sentiment better than 
 that which unites the Societies of Mutual Admiration. And 
 what would literature or art be without such associations ? Who 
 can tell what we owe to the Mutual Admiration Society of which 
 Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher, were 
 members? or to that of which Addison and Steele formed the 
 center, and which gave us "The Spectator"? or to that where 
 Johnson and Goldsmith and Burke and Reynolds and Beau- 
 clerc and Boswell, most admiring among all admirers, met to- 
 gether ? Was there any great harm in the fact that the Irvings 
 and Paulding wrote in company? or any unpardonable cabal in 
 the literary union of Verplanck and Bryant and Sands, and as 
 many more as they chose to associate with them ? 
 
 The poor creature does not know what he is talking about 
 when he abuses this noblest of institutions. Let him inspect its 
 mysteries through the knot-hole he has secured, but not use that 
 orifice as a medium for his popgun. Such a society is the crown 
 of a literary metropolis : if a town has not material for it, and 
 spirit and good feeling enough to organize it, it is a mere cara- 
 vansary, fit for a man of genius to lodge in, but not to live in. 
 Foolish people hate and dread and envy such an association of 
 men of varied powers and influence because it is lofty, serene, 
 impregnable, and, by the necessity of the case, exclusive. Wise 
 ones are prouder of the title M. S. M. A. than of all their other 
 honors put together. 
 
 All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly 
 
 called "facts." They are the brute beasts of the intellectual do- 
 main. Who does not know fellows that always have an ill-con- 
 ditioned fact or two which they lead after them into decent com- 
 pany like so many bull-dogs, ready to let them slip at every 
 ingenious suggestion, or convenient generalization, or pleasant 
 fancy ? I allow no " facts " at this table. What ! because 
 bread is good and wholesome and necessary and nourishing, shall 
 you thrust a crumb into my windpipe while I am talking? Do 
 not these muscles of mine represent a hundred loaves of bread ? 
 and is not my thought the abstract of ten thousand of these 
 crumbs of truth with which you would choke off my speech ? 
 
 [The above remark must be conditioned and qualified for the 
 vulgar mind. The reader will of course understand the precise 
 amount of seasoning which must be added to it before he adopts 
 it as one of the axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all re- 
 sponsibility for its abuse in incompetent hands.] 
 
 This business of conversation is a very serious matter. There 
 are men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a 
 day's fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say j for 
 
 6 
 
82 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 it is as good as a working professional man's advice, and costs 
 you nothing : It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins 
 than to have a nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous 
 force as it runs away, nor bandages your brain and marrow after 
 the operation. 
 
 There are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some 
 people. They are the talkers who have what may be called jerky 
 minds. Their thoughts do not run in the natural order of se- 
 quence. They say bright things on all possible subjects; but 
 their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with 
 one of these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords 
 great relief. It is like taking the cat in your lap after holding a 
 squirrel. 
 
 What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at 
 times! A ground-glass shade over a gas-lamp does not bring 
 more solace to our dazzled eyes than such a one to our minds. 
 
 " Do not dull people bore you ? " said one of the lady-boarders, 
 the same that sent me her autograph -book last week with a 
 request for a few original stanzas, not remembering that " The 
 Pucto] ian" pays me five dollars a line for every thing I write in 
 its columns. 
 
 " Madam," said I (she and the century were in their teens 
 together), " all men are bores, except when we want them. There 
 never was but one man whom I would trust with my latch-key." 
 
 " Who might that favored person be ? n 
 
 11 Zimmerman." 
 
 The men of genius that I fancy most have erectile heads 
 
 like the cobra-di-capelldt You remember what they tell of 
 William Pinkney, the great pleader; how, in his eloquent par- 
 ox3^sms, the veins of his neck would swell, and his face flush, and 
 his eyes glitter, until he seemed on the verge of apoplexy. The 
 hydraulic arrangements for supplying the brain with blood are 
 only second in importance to its own organization. The bul- 
 bous-headed fellows that steam well when they are at work are 
 the men that draw big audiences, and give us marrowy books and 
 pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet grow cold when he 
 is writing. A great writer and speaker once told me that he often 
 wrote with his feet in hot water: but for this, all his blood would 
 have run into his head, as the mercury sometimes withdraws into 
 the ball of a thermometer. 
 
 You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table 
 
 are like so many postage-stamps, do you, each to be only once 
 uttered? If you do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor 
 creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author 
 of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding 
 to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted exist- 
 
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 83 
 
 ence ! ~Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his 
 tools ; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same 
 plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his 
 hammer after it has driven its first nail ? I shall never repeat a 
 conversation, but an idea often. 1 shall use the same types when 
 I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is 
 often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It 
 has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train 
 of associations. 
 
 Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making the same 
 speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus a certain 
 lecturer, after performing in an inland city where dwells a lit- 
 teratrice of note, was invited to meet her and others over the 
 social teacup. She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings 
 in his new occupation. " Yes," he replied, " I am like the hurna, 
 the bird that never lights, being always in the cars, as he is 
 always on the wing." Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the 
 same place once more for the same purpose. Another social cup 
 after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distinguished 
 Luly. " You are constantly going from place to place," she said. 
 Yes," he answered, "lam like the huma," and finished 
 the sentence as before. 
 
 What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this 
 fine speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as 
 the lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embel- 
 lished his conversation with the huma daily during that whole 
 interval of years : on the contrary, he had never once thought 
 of the odious fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same cir- 
 cumstances brought up precisely the same idea. He ought to 
 have been proud of the accuracy of his mental adjustments. 
 Given certain factors, and a sound brain should always evolve 
 the same fixed product with the certainty of Babbage's calcu- 
 lating-machine, ft 
 
 What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere 
 
 mathematician! a Frankenstein-monster; a thing without 
 brains and without heart, too stupid to make a blunder ; that 
 turns out results like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser 
 or better, though it grind a thousand bushels of them. 
 
 I have an immense respect for a man of talents plus "the 
 mathematics." But the calculating power alone should seem to 
 be the least human of qualities, and to have the smallest amount 
 of reason in it; since a machine can be made to do the work of 
 three or four calculators, and better than any one of them. 
 Sometimes I have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive 
 apprehension of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of 
 the ciphering hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I cq,n 
 
84 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 hear the wheels clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of 
 dealing with numbers is a kind of ' detached-lever " arrange- 
 ment, which may be put into a mighty poor watch. I suppose it 
 is about as common as the power of moving the ears voluntarily, 
 which is a moderately rare endowment. 
 
 Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of spe- 
 cialized knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited 
 about. Nature is very wise : but for this encouraging principle, 
 how many small talents and little accomplishments would be 
 neglected ! Talk about conceit as much as you like : it is to hu- 
 man character what suit is to the ocean ; it keeps it sweet, and 
 renders it endurable. Say, rather, it is like the natural unguent 
 of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that 
 falls on him and the wave in which he dips. When one has had 
 all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illu- 
 sions, his feathers will soon soak through, and lie will fly no 
 more. 
 
 "So you admire conceited people, do yon?" said the young 
 lady who has come to the city to be finished off for. the duties 
 of life. 
 
 I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. 
 It does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I 
 like a salt-water plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as 
 natural a thing to human minds as a center is to a circle. But 
 little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles, that 
 five minutes 7 conversation gives 3*011 an arc long enough to deter- 
 mine their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large 
 intellect does not sensibly differ from a straight line. Even if 
 it have the third vowel as its center, it does not soon betray it. 
 The highest thought, that is, is the most seemingly impersonal: 
 it does not obviously imply any individual center. 
 
 Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always im- 
 posing. What resplendent beauty that- must have been which 
 could have authorized Phryne to "peel" in the way she did! 
 What fine speeches are those two! "Ifon omnis moriar" and 
 " I have taken all knowledge to be my province." . . . 
 
 Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe 
 swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote 
 Cowley or Burns or Wordsworth just now to show you what 
 thoughts were suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, 
 such as a flower or a leaf; but I will read 3*011 a few lines, if 3*011 
 do not object, suggested by looking at a section of one of those 
 chambered shells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. 
 We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction between this 
 and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The 
 
OLIVUR WENDELL HOLMES. 85 
 
 name applied to both shows that each has long been compared to 
 a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or the 
 " Encyclopedia," to which he refers. If you will look into Ko- 
 get's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these 
 shells, and a section of it. The last will show you the series of 
 enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that 
 inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. Can you 
 find no lesson in this ? 
 
 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 
 
 This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
 
 Sails the unshadowed main, 
 
 The venturous bark that flings 
 On the sweet summer-wind its purpled wings 
 In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, 
 
 And coral reefs lie bare ; 
 Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
 
 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl : 
 
 Wrecked is the ship of pearl; 
 
 And every chambered cell, 
 Where its dini dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
 As the frail tenant shaped hi* growing shell, 
 
 Before thee lies revealed, 
 Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 
 
 Year after year beheld the silent toil 
 
 That spread his lustrous coil: 
 
 Still, as the spiral grew, 
 He left the past year's dwelling for the new; 
 Stole with soft step its shining archway through ; 
 
 Built up its idle door; 
 Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 
 
 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
 
 Child of the wandering Sea, 
 
 Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
 Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 
 
 While on mine ear it rings, 
 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : 
 
 " Build thee more stately mansions, my soul! 
 
 As the swift seasons roll; 
 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past,; 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life's unresting sea ! " 
 
86 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 NATHANIEL PAEKER WILLIS. 
 
 BORN JAN. 20, 1807, PORTLAND, ME. 
 
 " Penciling* by the Way," " Inklings of Adventure," and " Letters from under 
 a Bridge," are among his principal prose-writings. He is best known for his sacred 
 poetry, and as editor of " The Home Journal." 
 
 THE DYING ALCHEMIST. 
 
 THE night-wind with a desolate moan swept by, 
 And the old shutters of the turret swung 
 Screaming upon their hinges ; and the moon, 
 As the torn edges of the clouds flew past, 
 Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes 
 So dimly, that the watchful eye of death 
 Scarcely was conscious when it went and came. 
 
 The fire beneath his crucible was low ; 
 Yet still it burned : and, ever as his thoughts 
 Grew insupportable, he raised himself 
 Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals 
 With difficult energy; and when the rod 
 Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye 
 Felt faint within its socket, he shrank back 
 Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips 
 Muttered a curse on death ! The silent room 
 From its dim corners mockingly gave back 
 His rattling breath ; the humming in the fire 
 Had the distinctness of a knell ; and, when 
 Duly the antique horologe beat one, 
 He drew a phial from beneath his head, 
 And drank. And instantly his lips compres ; 
 And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame, 
 He rose with supernatural strength, and sat 
 Upright, and communed with himself: 
 
 " I did not think to die 
 Till I had finished what I had to do; 
 I thought to pierce the eternal secret through 
 
 With this my mortal eye; 
 I f e lt O God ! 'it seemeth even now 
 This can not be the death-dew on mv brow ! 
 
NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 87 
 
 An'd yet it is : I feel, 
 Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid ! 
 And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade; 
 
 And something seems to steal 
 Over my bosom like a frozen hand, 
 Binding its pulses with an icy band. 
 
 And this is death ! But why 
 Feel I this wild recoil ? It can not be 
 The immortal spirit shuddereth to be free ! 
 
 Would it not leap to fly. 
 Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call ? 
 I fear, I fear, that this poor life is all 1 
 
 Yet thus to pass away ; 
 To live but for a hope that mocks at last ; 
 To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast, 
 
 To waste the light of day, 
 Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought, 
 All that we have and are, for this, for naught ! 
 
 Grant me another year, 
 God of my spirit ! but a day, to wiu 
 Something to satisfy this thirst within ! 
 
 I would know something here ! 
 Break for me but one seal that is unbroken ! 
 Speak for me but one word that is unspoken 1 
 
 Vain, vain ! My brain is turning 
 With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick, 
 And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick, 
 
 And I am freezing, burning, 
 Dying ! O God ! if I might only live ! 
 My phial ha ! it thrills me ! 1 revive ! 
 
 Ay, were not man to die, 
 He were too mighty for this narrow sphere ! 
 Had he but time to brood on knowledge here, 
 
 Could he but train his eye, 
 Might he but wait the mystic word and hour, 
 Only his Maker would transcend his power ! 
 
 Earth has no mineral strange, 
 The illimitable air no hidden wings, 
 Water no quality in covert springs, 
 
 And fire no power to change. 
 Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell, 
 Which the unwasting soul might not compel. 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Oh but for time to track 
 The upper stars into the pathless sky; 
 To see the invisible spirits eyp to eye; 
 
 To hurl the li^htninj bnclc; 
 To tread unhurt the Sea's dim-lighted halls; 
 To chase Day's chariot to the liorizon-walls ! 
 
 And more, much more ! for now 
 The lite-sealed i'ountains of iny nature move, 
 To nurse and purify this human love; 
 
 To clear the godlike brow 
 Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down, 
 Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one ! 
 
 This were indeed to feel 
 The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream ; 
 To live O God ! that life is but a dream 1 
 
 And death Aha! I reel, 
 
 Dim, dim, I faint ! darkness comes o'er my eye I 
 Cover me ! save me ! God of heaven ! I die ! " 
 
 'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone. 
 No friend had closed his eyelids ; and his lips, 
 Open and ashy pale, the expression wore 
 Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair 
 Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild ; 
 His irame was wasted, and his features wan 
 And haggard as with want ; and in his palm 
 His nails were driven deep, as if the throe 
 Of the last agony had wrung him sore. 
 
 The storm was raging still ; the shutters swung 
 Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind ; 
 And all without went on, as aye it will, 
 Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart 
 Is breaking, or has broken, in its change. 
 
 The fire beneath the crucible was out ; 
 The vessels of his mystic art lay round, 
 Useless and cold as the ambitious hand 
 That fashioned them ; and the small rod, 
 Familiar to his touch for threescore years, 
 Lay on the alembic's rim, as if it still 
 Mrdit vex the elements at its master's will. 
 
 And thus had passed from i f s unequal frame 
 A soul of fire, a sun-bent eagle stricken 
 From his high soaring down, an instrument 
 
JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL. 89 
 
 Broken with its own compass. Oh, how poor 
 Seems the rich gift of genius when it lies, 
 Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown 
 His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked ! 
 A thing the thrush might pity as she sits 
 Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest ! 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 BORN IN 1819, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
 Mr. Lowell resides in Cambridge. He has been Professor of Modern Languages 
 and Belles-Lettres in Harvard University since the resignation of Prof. Longfellow. 
 Of him the editor of the English edition of his ' Biglow Papers " says, " I can not 
 help thinking, that (leaving out of sight altogether his satirical works), fifty years 
 hence, he will be recognized as the greatest American poet of our day. "Greece 
 had her Aristophanes ; Rome, her Juvenal ; Spain, her Cervantes ; France, her Rabe- 
 lais, her Moliere, her Voltaire; Germany, her Jean Paul, her Heine; England, her 
 Swift, her Thackerav; and America has her Lowell." We have decided to select 
 from* " The Biglow Papers," not simply because they were written by a political 
 satirist of the first rank, but because they have reference to an important period of 
 the nation's history; and, besides their wholesome humor, the study of the Yankee 
 dialect will not be unprofitable to the pupil, as he will there find faults of articula- 
 tion iuto which he may unconsciously have fallen. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 " The Biglow Papers ; " " Sir Launfal ; " " Under the Willows," and other Poems ; 
 "The Cathedral;" and "Among my Books," prose-work. 
 
 NOTE. " Sam Slick," by Thomas C. Haliburton, "Major Jack Downing's Let- 
 ters," by Seba Smith, " Letters of Petroleum V. Nasby," by John Locke, " Pho3- 
 nixiana,'" by John Phoenix, " Letters of Doesticks," by Mortimer Thompson, and 
 " Orpheus C. Kerr," by R. H. Newell, are other productions, humorous and satirical, 
 of American society and politics. 
 
 NOTICES OP AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 
 
 From the Oldfogrumville Mentor. 
 
 " We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely-printed 
 volume ; but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur of Jaalam, will 
 afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its contents. . . . The paper is white, 
 the type clear, and the volume of a convenient and attractive size. ... In reading 
 this elegantly-executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have 
 been retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was suscep- 
 tible of a higher polish. . . . On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task 
 of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as 
 this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect, and turns of expression, a dash of 
 humor or satire might be thrown in with advantage. . . . The work is admirably 
 got up. ... This work will form an appropriate ornament to the center-table. It 
 is beautifully printed on paper of an excellent quality." 
 
90 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a Try weakly Family Journal). 
 
 " Altogether an admirable work. . . . Full of, humor boisterous, but delicate; of 
 wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew; 
 of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the cimeter of Saladin. 
 ... A work full of ' mountain-mirth,' mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as 
 Ariel. . . . We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive 
 concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of 
 style, at once both objective and subjective. . . . We might indulge in some criti- 
 cisms ; but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, 
 he has a wonderful pose, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader 
 irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the ' highest heaven of 
 invention.' . . . We love a book so purely objective. . . . Many of his pictures of 
 natural scenery have aa extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity. ... In 
 fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. 
 We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which 
 the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroostook and 
 the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid ' the 
 wreck of matter and the crush of worlds,' may point with bewildering scorn of 
 the punier efforts of enslaved Europe. . . . We hope soon to encounter our author 
 among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently capable of achiev- 
 ing enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position 
 in the bright galaxy of our American bards." 
 
 From the Onion Grove Phoenix. 
 
 " A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental tour, 
 and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly letters from 
 abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office yesterday. We learn 
 from him, that having enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an 
 introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that 
 eminent man with a copy of ' The Biglow Papers.' The next morning he received 
 the following note, which he has kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to 
 print verbatim, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into 
 which the illustrious writer has fallen through ignorance of our language. 
 
 " ' HIGH- WORTHY MISTER, I shall also now especially happy starve, because I 
 have more or less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so 
 deaf an interest ever taken fullworthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to be 
 *pset. 
 
 " ' Pardon my in the English-speech unpractice ! u 4 VQN HuMBUQ , 
 
 " He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on ' Cosmetic?,' to 
 be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our friend by the English cus- 
 tom-house officers, probably through a petty national spite. No doubt it has by this 
 time found its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed 
 in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the 
 State department Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we experience 
 at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on 
 the head by this venerable and world-renowned German. We love to see these 
 reciprocations of good feeling between the different branches of the gre*>t Anglo- 
 Saxon race." 
 
JAMES KUSSELL LOWELL. 91 
 
 From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss. 
 
 ..." But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in the 
 heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the presence of talents, 
 which, if properly directed, might give an innocent pleasure to many. As a proof 
 that he is competent to the production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our 
 readers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned 
 us by a friend. The title of it is ' The CourtinV " 
 
 ZEKLE crep' up, quite unbeknown, 
 
 An' peeked in thru the winder ; 
 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
 
 'ith no one nigh to hender. 
 
 Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung ; 
 
 An' in amongst 'em rusted 
 The ole queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young 
 
 Fetched back from Concord busted. 
 
 The wannut-logs shot sparkles out 
 
 Towards the pootiest, bless her ! 
 An' leetle fires danced all about 
 
 The chiny on the dresser. 
 
 The very room, coz she wuz in, 
 
 Looked warm frum floor to ceilin'; 
 An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
 
 Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'. 
 
 She heerd a foot, an' knowed it tu, 
 
 Araspin' on the scraper : 
 All ways to once her feelin's flew 
 
 Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 
 
 He kin' o' 1'itered on the mat, 
 
 Some doubtfle o' the seekle : 
 His heart kep' goin' pitypat, 
 
 But hern went pity Zekle. 
 
 It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And first it may be premised, in 
 a general way, that any one much read in the writings of the early colonists need 
 not be told that the far greater share of the words and phrases now esteemed pe- 
 culiar to New England, and local there, were brought from the mother-country. 
 A person familiar with the dialect of certain portions of Massachusetts will not fail 
 to recognize in ordinary discourse many words now noted in English vocabularies 
 as archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of the 
 King James translation of the Bible. Shakspeare stands less in need of a glossary 
 to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old Country. The peculiari- 
 ties of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing out. As there is no country where 
 reading is so universal, and newspapers are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains 
 long local, but is transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land. 
 
92 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of any other 
 nation. 
 
 The English have complained of us for coining new words. Many of those so 
 stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten; and all make now an unquestioned 
 part of the currency wherever English is spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right 
 to make new words as they are needed by the fresh aspects under which life pre- 
 sents itself here in the New World ; and indeed, wherever a language is alive, it 
 grows. It might be questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to 
 the ownership of the English tongue than the mother-islanders themselves. Here, 
 past all question, is to be its great home and center. And not onlv is it already 
 spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher popular average of correct- 
 ness, than in Britain. The great writers of it, too, we might claim as ours, were 
 ownership to be settled by the number of readers and lovers. 
 
 As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say that the 
 reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either native, or imported with 
 the early settlers; nor one which I have not with my own ears heard in familiar 
 use. In the metrical portion of the book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling 
 as nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the reader who 
 deems me over-particular remember this caution of Martial : 
 
 " Quern recitas, metis est, O Fidentine, libeUus; 
 Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus." 
 
 A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. 
 
 I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader's guidance. 
 
 1. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the r when he can help 
 it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoiding it even before a vowel. 
 
 2. He seldom sounds the final g ; a piece of self-denial, if we consider his par- 
 tiality for nasals. The same of the final d, as hari 1 and stari 1 for hand and stand. 
 
 3. The h in such words as while, when, where, he omits altogether. 
 
 4. In regard to , he shows some inconsistency; sometimes giving a close and 
 obscure sound, as hev for have, hendy for handy, ez for as, thet for that; and again 
 giving it the broad sound it has hi father, as hdnsome for handsome. 
 
 5. To the sound ouhe prefixes an e (hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). 
 The following passage in Shakspeare he would recite thus : 
 
 " Xcow is the winta uv eour discontent 
 Med glorious summa by this sun o' Yock ; 
 An* all the cleouds thet leowered upun eour heouse 
 In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried. 
 Neow air eour breows beound 'ith victorious wreaths; 
 Eour breused arms hung up fer monimunce ; 
 Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetin's, 
 Eour dreffle marches to delightful measures. 
 Grim-visaged War heth smeuthetl his wrinkled front; 
 An' neow, iustid o' mountin' barebid steeds 
 To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries, 
 He capers nimly in a lady's chamber 
 To the lascivious pleasin' uv a loot." 
 
 6. Au, in such words as daughter and slaughter, he pronounces ah. 
 
 7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl ad libitum. 
 
 [Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely fragmentary. C. N.] 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 93 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. 
 
 [In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a miles emeritus, to the 
 bosom of his family. Quantum mutatus! The good Father of us all had doubtless 
 intrusted to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a constructive kind. 
 He had put in him a share of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute 
 atom of which is necessary to the perfect development of humanity. He had given 
 him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings of 
 knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of 
 heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of his vicar, 
 the State. How stands the account of that stewardship? The State or Society 
 (call her by what name you will) had taken no manner of thought of him till she 
 saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with 
 cigar-ends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loath- 
 some next-morning of the bar-room, an own child of the Almighty God! I re- 
 member him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged babe : and now 
 there he wallows, reeking, seething. the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul; 
 a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Conies the wind of heaven, 
 that Good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss 
 those parched, cracked lips ; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying 
 sunshine; the sky yearns down to him: and there he lies fermenting. Sleep ! let 
 me not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber! 
 By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, " My poor, forlorn 
 foster-child ! behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for 
 me ! " Not so ; but, " Here is a recruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying 
 energy lying unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a 
 musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to 
 do duty as a destroyer. 
 
 I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and with the rest stood 
 gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that 
 sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And 
 while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involutions 
 of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy 
 fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall at 
 intervals a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, 
 " See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the 
 rude first effort of a child; a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels 
 in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future; a con- 
 trivance, not for turning out pins or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets 
 and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from 
 rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin; while 
 the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally 
 sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican .cannon-ball. Un- 
 thrifty Mother State ! " My heart burned within me for pity and indignation, and I 
 renewed this covenant with my own soul: In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemm 
 contra C/iristum, nan ita. H. W.] 
 
94 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I S'POSE you wonder ware I be ; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, 
 
 Exacly ware I be myself, meanin' by thet the holl o' me. 
 
 \Ven I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither, 
 
 (The scaliest trick they ever played wuz oringin' on me hither,) 
 
 Now one on 'em's I dunno ware ; they thought I wuz adyin', 
 
 An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin' : 
 
 I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther, 
 
 Wy one should take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other, 
 
 Sence both wuz equilly to blame ; but things is ez they be. 
 
 It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me ; 
 
 There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one, 
 
 The liquor can't git into it ez't used to in the true one ; 
 
 So it saves drink ; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg 
 
 A gretter blessin' then to hev one oilers sober peg ; 
 
 It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum, 
 
 But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come. 
 
 I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply 
 
 Out o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye ; 
 
 An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it, 
 
 To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it. 
 
 Off 'cers, I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickin's, 
 
 Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickin's ; 
 
 So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it, 
 
 An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it. 
 
 Now, le' me see, thet isn't all ; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalara, 
 
 To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em : 
 
 Ware's my left hand ? oh ! darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on't; 
 
 I hain't no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on't; 
 
 It ain't so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on't. 
 
 I've hed some ribs broke, six (I b'lieve), I hain't kep no account on 
 
 'em: 
 
 Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em. 
 An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind 
 One thet I couldn't never break, the one I lei* behind ; 
 Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention, 
 An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension, 
 An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be 
 Consoled) I ain't so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be ; 
 There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden 
 Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther' 's a puddin'. 
 
 I s'pose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 
 
 With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder : 
 
 Wal, 'tore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o' 
 
 Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land, flowin' with'rum an' water, 
 
 Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation, 
 
 An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation ; 
 
 Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin' ; 
 
 Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin* ; 
 
 Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em. 
 
 An' desput rivers run about abeggin' folks to dam 'em ; 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 95 
 
 Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver, 
 
 Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer, 
 
 Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told us 
 
 Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us; 
 
 I thought thet gold mines could be gut cheaper than china-asters, 
 
 An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors ; 
 
 But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot ; 
 
 I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot. 
 
 Although most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks, 
 
 Nor run no kin' o risks to fill your pocket full o' rocks. 
 
 I guess I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 
 
 O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs ; 
 
 But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded) 
 
 How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded. 
 
 The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter 
 
 Our Prudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her : 
 
 Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so 's not a drop 'ould dreen out, 
 
 Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out ; 
 
 The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea, an' kiver 
 
 'ould all come down kerswosh ! ez though the dam broke in a river. 
 
 Jest so 'tis here ; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 
 
 An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be alayin' heads together 
 
 Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot, 
 
 'T 'ould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot. 
 
 The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here, 
 
 One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever ; 
 
 It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one, 
 
 Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on ; 
 
 An' it's a consolation tu, although it doosn't pay, 
 
 To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way. 
 
 'T worn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin, 
 
 One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin', 
 
 One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes, 
 
 Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes. 
 
 But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed, 
 
 Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad ; 
 
 But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I oilers found the thanks 
 
 Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks. 
 
 The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on, 
 
 We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on ; 
 
 An', spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 
 
 Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits. 
 
 Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one, 
 
 You wouldn't git mor'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun ; 
 
 We git the licks, we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers; 
 
 Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers. 
 
 It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in't, 
 
 An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in't ; 
 
 But glory is a kin' o' thing / shan't pursue no furder, 
 
 Coz thet's the ofFcers parquisite, yourn's on'y jest the murder. 
 
 Wai, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 
 
 Thing in the bills we .aint hed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN ; 
 
96 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we 
 
 Alt day an' nijht shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy. 
 
 I'll tell ye wut my revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em : 
 
 We never gut inside the hall; the nighest'ever / come 
 
 Wuz stan'in sentry in the sun (an', fact, it seemed a cent'ry) 
 
 A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry, 
 
 An' hearin', ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repa- 
 
 A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses. 
 
 I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside ; 
 
 All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried, 
 
 An', not a hunderd miles away frum ware this child wuz posted, 
 
 A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted : 
 
 The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me 
 
 Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee. 
 
 They say the quarrel's settled now ; fer my part I've some doubt on't ; 
 
 'T '11 take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean out on't ; 
 
 At any rate, I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin', 
 
 The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin'. 
 
 Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 
 
 An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan ; 
 
 The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T, 
 
 An', ef I lose, 't wunt hurt my ears to lod^e another flea: 
 
 So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office, 
 
 (I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies ; 
 
 Fer ez to runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o'day, 
 
 You know thet's wut I never did, exeept the other way;) 
 
 Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich 1*1 better run, 
 
 Wut two leirs any wares about could keep up with my one? 
 
 There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 
 
 So useful ez a wooden leg, except a wooden head ; 
 
 There's nothin' aint so poppylar (wy, it's a parfect sin 
 
 To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin) -^ 
 
 Then I hain't gut no principles, an', sence I wuz knee-high, 
 
 I never did hev any gret, ez you can testify ; 
 
 I'm a decided peace-man tu, an' go agin the war, 
 
 Fer now the holl on't 's gone an' past, wut is there to go /or? 
 
 Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg 
 
 To know my views o' State affairs, jest answer, " WOODEN LEG 1 " 
 
 Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 
 
 An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say, " ONE EYE PUT OUT ! " 
 
 Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm, 
 
 An', wen you're druv tu niirh the wall, hoi' up my missin' arm ; 
 
 Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look, 
 
 An' tell 'em thet's percisely wut I never gin nor took ! 
 
 Then you can call me " Timbertoes ; " thet's wut the people likes, 
 
 Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes ; 
 
 Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please : 
 
 I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees. 
 
 " Old "Timbertoes." you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold on, 
 
 There's nothin' in't thy other side can any ways git hold on ; 
 
 It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin to embody 
 
 Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy ; 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 97 
 
 It gives a Party Platform tu, jest level with the mind 
 
 Of all right- thin kin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind. 
 
 Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em ; 
 
 Sech ez the ONE-YED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIKDOFREDUM : 
 
 Them's wut takes hold o* folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses, 
 
 An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes. 
 
 There's one thing I'm in doubt about ; in order to be Presidunt, 
 
 It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt ; 
 
 The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller 
 
 Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet-black, or brown, or yeller. 
 
 Now, I hain't no objections agin particklar climes, 
 
 Nor agin ownin any thin' (except the truth sometimes) ; 
 
 But ez I hain't no capital, up there among ye, maybe, 
 
 You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby ; 
 
 An' then, to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say 
 
 They hate an' cuss the very thing they vote fer every day, 
 
 Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion, 
 
 An' made the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion. 
 
 But golly ! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin' ! 
 
 I'll be more 'xplicit in my next. 
 
 Yourn, 
 
 BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 
 
 We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet stands 
 between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries to be set down 
 on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall arrive at 
 something like the following result : 
 
 Cr. B. SAWIN Esq., in account with (BLANK) GLORY. Dr. 
 
 By loss of one leg . 
 do. one arm . 
 do. four fingers 
 do. one eye . 
 the breaking of six ribs 
 
 20 To one 675th three cheers in Faneuil 
 
 15 Hall 30 
 
 5 ,, do. do. on 
 
 10 occasion of presentation of sword 
 
 6 to Colonel Wright . . .25 
 
 having served under Colonel Gush- one suit of gray clothes (ingo- 
 
 ing one month . . . .44 .niously unbecoming) . . 15 
 
 musical entertainments (drum 
 
 and fife six months) . . 5 
 
 one dinner after return . . 1 
 
 chance of pension . . .1 
 
 privilege of drawing longbow 
 
 during rest of natural life . 23 
 
 E. E. 100 100 
 
 It would appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the reverse of 
 the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. His primary object 
 seems to have been the making of his fortune. Qucerenda pecunia primum, virtus 
 post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. 
 Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames ? The speculation has sometimes 
 crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quar- 
 terly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might 
 have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We 
 read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees 
 we are assured of in South America; and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water- 
 
98 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I 
 have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-tree? with a fair show of fruit. A family- 
 tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite 
 tasteless and innutritions. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples ; as 
 those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, 
 that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious 
 crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the 
 philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous V In 
 the syha of our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my 
 attention to the china-tree. Xot to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list 
 the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a 
 virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, 
 therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of life, venerabile, 
 donum fatcdis virr/ce. That money-trees existed in the golden age, there want not 
 prevalent reasons for our believing ; fordoes not the old proverb, when it asserts 
 that money does not grow on every bush, imply, a fortiori, that there were certain 
 bushes which did produce it? Again: there is another ancient saw to the effect 
 that money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer 
 that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded 
 underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable expo- 
 sures, it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the 
 garden of the Hesperides ; and indeed what else could that tree in the Sixth ^Eneid 
 have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory 
 for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more 
 profitable (too) foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any 
 force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed imperti- 
 nent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an 
 indulgent posterity. That there were in more primitive and happier times shops 
 where money was sold. and that, too, on credit and at a bargain, I take to be 
 matter of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that JEolus who 
 supplied Ulysses w'ith motive power for his fleet in bags? what that Ericus, King 
 of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? what, in more recent 
 times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes? all which will 
 appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day, raising the wind 
 is proverbial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the 
 Venetians at a later period. 
 
 And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's 
 fortune in an adventure of my own ; for, shortly after 1 had first broached to myself 
 the before-stated natural-historical and archaeological theories, as I was passing, 
 htec negotia penitus mecum revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New- 
 England metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a sign-board: 
 CHEAP CASH-STOKE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations and 
 the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or 
 stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus 
 glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Saw in as he looked through the dirty 
 pane of the recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of that 
 rnirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning in raising up. Already 
 had my Alnaschar fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in 
 various useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a 
 proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of the 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 99 
 
 Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately but modestly commemorated in the 
 parish and town records; both, for now many years, kept by myself. Already had 
 my son Seneca completed his course at the university. Whether, for the moment, 
 we may not be considered as actually lording it over those Baratarias with the 
 viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed 
 as in our Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found 
 that sign-board to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Never- 
 theless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense 
 flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very 
 scales); which purchase I made not only with an eye to the little ones at home, 
 but also as a figurative reproof of that too-frequent habit of my mind, which, forget- 
 ting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me that the happy scepter 
 of Saturn is stretched over this Astraea-forsaken nineteenth century. 
 
 Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title Sawin, B., let us extend 
 our investigations, and discover if that instructive Volume does not contain some 
 charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more eco- 
 nomical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever 
 Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, 
 picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has 
 materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by 
 means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought 
 under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where 
 and how fast the money was -going, we should be less likely to commit extrava- 
 gances. At present, these things are managed in such a hugger-mugger way, 
 that we know not what we pay for; the poor man is charged as much as the rich; 
 and, while we are saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing 
 off at the bung. If we could know that a part of the money we- expend for tea and 
 coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which makes the 
 clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us a-thinking. During the 
 present fall, I have often pictured to myself a government official entering my study, 
 and handing me the following bill : 
 
 WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 1848. 
 KEV. HOMER WILBUR to Uncle Samuel, Dr. 
 
 To his share of work done in Mexico on partnership account, sundry jobs, as 
 
 below: 
 killing, maiming, and wounding about 5,000 Mexicans .... $2.00 
 
 slaughtering one woman carrying water to wounded . . . ... .10 
 
 extra work on two different sabbaths (one bombardment and one assault), 
 whereby the Mexicans were prevented from defiling themselves with 
 
 the idolatries of high mass 3.50 
 
 throwing an especially fortunate and Protestant bombshell into the Cathe- 
 dral at Vera Cruz, whereby several female Papists were slain at the 
 
 altar . 50 
 
 his proportion of cash paid for conquered territory ..... 1.75 
 
 do. do. for conquering do. ..... 1.50 
 
 manuring do. with new superior compost called " American Citizen " . .50 
 
 extending the area of Freedom and Protestantism 01 
 
 glory . . '-;: wl? . , jOl 
 
 $9.b7 
 
 Immediate payment is requested. 
 
 "N. B. Thankful for former favors, U. S. requests a continuance of patronage. 
 Orders executed with neatness and dispatch. Terms as low as those of any other 
 contractor for the same kind and style of work. 
 
100 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with, " Yes, sir; it looks 
 like a high charge, sir: but, in these day?, slaughtering is slaughtering." Verily, I 
 would that every one understood that it was >, for it goes about obtaining money 
 under the false pretence of being glory. For me, I have an imagination which plays 
 me uncomfortable tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his 
 way home from his day's work; and forthwith my imagination puts a cocked hat 
 upon his head, and epaulets upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a candidate for 
 the Presidency. So also, on a recent public occasion, as the place assigned to the 
 'Reverend Clergy" is just behind that of "Officers of the Army and Navy" in 
 processions, it was my fortune to be seated at the dinner-table over against one of 
 these respectable persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only 
 kings, court-officers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now, 
 what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip him of his 
 gay livery, and present him to me coatle.ssj his trousers thrust into the tops of a 
 pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a basket on his arm out of which lolled a 
 gore-smeared axe, thereby destroying my relish for the temporal mercies upon the 
 board before me ! H. w. 
 
 ED GAB 'ALLAH POE. 
 
 BORN JANUARY, 1811, BALTIMORE, MD. 
 
 A writer of undoubted poetical genius, but so prejudiced in his tastes, and so 
 
 erratic in his life, that he left no fitting monument of his power. " The Bells,'' 
 
 ' Annabel Lee," and " The Raven," are'his best-known pieces. He died in Balti- 
 more, Oct. 7, 1849. 
 
 THE RAVEN* 
 
 OXCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 As of some one gently rapping. rappinir at my chamber-door. 
 " "Us some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber-door, 
 Only this, and nothing more." 
 
 Ah ! distinctly I remember : it was in the bleak December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. 
 Eagerly I wished the" morrow : vainly I had sought to borrow 
 From my books surcease of sorrow. sorrow for the lost Lenore ; 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, 
 Nameless here for evermore. 
 
 * This poem is justly celebrated as unique in its expression, and unrivalled in the 
 wild, weird fancy of its conception. 
 
EDGAR ALLAN POE. 101 
 
 And the silken, sad, 'uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
 Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,, - 
 " 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my?cl',a<nber-door,<~-- - ' 
 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at 
 
 This it is, and, nothing inore." ,;'.',> ; ', ^ 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger: hesitating', tlien no longer,' 
 " Sir," said I, " or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is, I was napping ; and so gently you came rapping, 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chaniber-:door, 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door : 
 Parkness there, and nothing more. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, 
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before : 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token ; 
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, " Lenore ! " 
 This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, '-' Lenore ! " 
 Merely this, and nothing more. 
 
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
 Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before. 
 " Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window-lattice : 
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore | 
 Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore. 
 
 'Tis the wind, and nothing more ! " 
 
 Open here I flung the shutter; when, with many a flirt and flutter, 
 In there stepped a stately Haven of the saintly days of yore. 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not a minute stopped or staid he; 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber-door; 
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door; 
 Perched and sat, and nothing more. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
 " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,"I said, " art sure no craven, 
 Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore : 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore," 
 Quoth the R.aven, " ^Nevermore I " 
 
 Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
 Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy, bore ; 
 For we can not help agreeing, that no living human being 
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber-door 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-door 
 With such name as " Nevermore." 
 
 But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
 Nothing further then he uttered ; not a feather then he flattered ; 
 Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends have; down before : 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." 
 Then the bird said, " Nevermore ! " 
 
W'2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
 ' Doubtless." said I. " what it utters is its only stock and store, 
 Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster 
 Followe 1 1'usr and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore, 
 Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore 
 . , Of ' Never, nevermore.' " 
 
 . ; 
 
 But, the Raven still beguiling all rny sad soul into smiling, 
 
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and 
 
 door; 
 
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore 
 Meant in croaking " Nevermore." 
 
 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
 To the towl whose tiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core, 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
 ( )n the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er, 
 But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamplight gloating o'er, 
 She shall press ah, nevermore ! 
 
 Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer 
 
 Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. 
 
 4 - Wretch ! " I cried, " thy god hath lent thee, by these angels he hath 
 
 sent thee 
 
 Respite respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore ! 
 Quaff, oh ! quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore ! " 
 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!" 
 
 " Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! prophet still, if bird or devil, 
 Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, 
 Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted, 
 On this home by horror haunted, tell me truly, I implore. 
 Is there, is there, balm in Gilead ? tell me, tell me, I implore ! " 
 Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore ! " 
 
 " Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! prophet still, if bird or devil, 
 By that heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, 
 Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if within the distant Aiden 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore, 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore ! " 
 Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore ! " 
 
 w Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I shrieked, upstart- 
 ing : 
 
 " Get thee back into the tempest and the night's Plutonian shore ! 
 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! 
 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken ! quit the bust above my door ! 
 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my 
 door ! " 
 
 Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore ! " 
 
WILLIS, HOLMES, SAXE, ETC. 103 
 
 And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting, 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door ; 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 
 And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor ; 
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
 Shall be lifted nevermore ! 
 
 This volume is not intended to take the place of a Dictionary of Authors, whose 
 names alone would fill a greater number of pages than can be given to the whole 
 book; much less can it afford space for the exact enumeration of all the produc- 
 tions of those mentioned. More extended notices of them and their works can be 
 obtained by the pupil, as an excellent general exercise, from Allibone's " Diction- 
 ary of Authors" and "The Encyclopaedia Americana;" copies of which works 
 should be in every high-school library. To those who may be disappointed by not 
 finding the name of a favorite author in the contemporary lists, we can only say, 
 our space could not include everybody Undoubtedly, among modern authors 
 whose places in our literature have not yet been fixed permanently by time and 
 critics, some names of importance will have been overlooked: at the same time, it 
 is believed, that having studied carefully the selections here given, and become 
 acquainted with the authors and books referred to in this volume, the pupil will 
 have attended to the most important part of the literature of the language, and 
 been successfully introduced to its curiosities, philological and historical. 
 
 JOHN GODFREY SAXE. Born June 2, 1816, Highgate, Vt. The pun and fun 
 loving reader will find both in abundance in his two volumes of humorous and 
 satirical poems. 
 
 THEODORE TILTON. Editor of " The New- York Independent." A writer of. 
 great power and true poetic genius. One volume of poems. 
 
 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. " Marco Bozzaris," and many other poems. 
 
 JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. "Prometheus," "The Dream of Day, and Other 
 Poems." 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA. "The Buccaneer," " Poems and Prose Writings," two 
 volumes. 
 
 JOHN PIERPONT. " Airs of Palestine," volume of poems, and series of Eeaders. 
 
 JOSEPH HOPKINSON. "Hail Columbia." 
 
 FRANCIS S. KEY. " Star-spangled Banner." 
 
 JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. "Home, Sweet Home." 
 
 SAMUEL WOODWORTH. "Old Oaken Bucket." 
 
 SARAH JANE CLARKE, " Grace Greenwood," now Mrs. S. J. Lippincotf, has 
 written several very popular volumes of prose and poetry, and books for children. 
 
 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. Called the Mrs. Hemans of America. 
 
 MARIA BROOKS. " Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven." 
 
 CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. " The Vigil of Faith." 
 
 Other Americans who have written in verse of more or less poetical merit, 
 nearly all of whom have published one or more volumes : 
 
 PARK BENJAMIN. GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 CHARLES SPRAGUE. LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON. 
 
 JULIA WARD HOWE. MARY S. B. DANA. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. ANNA PYRE DINNIES. 
 
 GEORGE HENRY BOKER. MARY E. BROOKS. 
 
 ELIZABETH Ho WELL. ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. 
 
 AMKLIA B. WELBY. CARLOS WILCOX. 
 
104 
 
 ENGLISH LITEPwATUKE. 
 
 MARIA WHITE (LOWELL). 
 A. CLEVELAND CUXE. 
 LUCY HOOPER. 
 PHILIP PENDLETON COOK. 
 PHILIP FRENEAU. 
 JOHN TKUMBULL. 
 JOEL BARLOW. 
 SAMUEL J. SMITH. 
 GRENVILLE MELLEN. 
 JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 
 THOMAS MCKELLAR. 
 JONATHAN LAWRENCE. 
 JAMES G. BROOKS. 
 THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 ALICE and PHCEBE GARY. 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 HENRY THEO. TUCKERMAN. 
 WASH I NGTi >N A LL.STC )N. 
 WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH. 
 HANNAH F. GOULD. 
 RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 
 ALBERT B. STREET. 
 
 WILLIAM B. TAPPA.V. 
 
 JOHN G. C. BRAINARD. 
 
 ISAAC MC-LELLAN. 
 
 GEORGE \V. DOANE. 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 PHILLIS WIIEATLEY PETERS. 
 
 ALBERT PIKE. 
 
 WILLIAM GILMOKE SIMMS. 
 
 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICK. 
 
 WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 
 
 EDITH MAY. 
 
 SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. 
 
 EMMA C. EMBURY. 
 
 FRANCIS SARGENT OSGOOD. 
 
 ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER. 
 
 GEORGE \V. BETHUNE. 
 
 EDWARD C. PINKNEY. 
 
 ROBERF T. CONRAD. 
 
 ROBERT C. SANDS. 
 
 JOSEPH R. DRAKE. 
 
 RUFUS DAWES. 
 
 WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 BORN JUNE 24, 1813, IN LITCHFIELD, CONN. 
 
 Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., since 1847. Author of several 
 volumes, "Letters to Young Men," "Star Papers, or Experiences of Art and 
 Nature," and " Xorwo<Kl," which first appeared in " The New-York Ledger," a 
 healthy, vigorous presentation of New-England village-life. " Life -Thoughts, 
 gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher," by EDNA 
 DEAN PROCTOR, and "Notes from Plymouth Pulpit," by AUGUSTA MOORE, illus- 
 trate well the freshness and richness of his style. Sincerely in love with Nature 
 as well as with man, and untrammeled by traditions and dogmas, he speaks to his 
 fellow-man with the eloquence of truth, with appreciative sympathy ; aud is the 
 most popular pulpit orator iu America. 
 
 THE MONTHS. 
 
 1. JAXUARY ! Darkness and light reign alike. Snow is on 
 the ground. Cold is in the air. The winter is blossoming in 
 frost-flowers. Why is the ground hidden? Why is the earth 
 white ? So hath God wiped out the past, so hath he spread the 
 earth like an unwritten page for a new year ! Old sounds are 
 silent in the forest and in the air. Insects are dead, birds are 
 gone, leaves have perished, and all the foundations of soil remain. 
 Upon this lies, white and tranquil, the emblem of newness and 
 purity, the virgin robes of the yet unstained year. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECIIER. 105 
 
 2. FEBRUARY ! The day gains upon the night. The strife of 
 heat arid cold is scarce begun. The winds that come from the 
 desolate north wander through forests of frost-cracking boughs, 
 and shout in the air the weird cries of the northern bergs and 
 ice-resounding oceans. Yet, as the month wears on, the silent 
 work begins, though storms rage. The earth is hidden yet, but 
 not dead. The sun is drawing near. The storms cry out. But 
 the Sun is not heard in all the heavens. Yet he whispers words 
 of deliverance into the ears of every sleeping seed and root that 
 lies beneath the snow. The day opens ; but the night shuts the 
 earth with its frost-lock. They strive together; but the darkness 
 and the cold are growing weaker. On some nights they forget 
 to work. 
 
 3. MARCH ! The conflict is more turbulent ; but the victory is 
 gained. The world awakes. There come voices from long-hid- 
 den birds. The smell of the soil is in the air. The sullen ice, 
 retreating from open field and all sunny places, has slunk to the 
 north of every fence and rock. The knolls and banks that face 
 the east or south sigh for release, and begin to lift up a thousand 
 tiny palms. 
 
 4. APRIL ! The singing month. Many voices of many birds 
 call for resurrection over the graves of flowers, and they come 
 forth. Go see what they have lost. What have ice and snow 
 and storm done unto them ? How did they fall into the earth 
 stripped and bare? how do they come forth opening and glori- 
 fied ? Is it, then, so fearful a thing to lie in the grave ? In its 
 wild career, shaking and scourged of storms through its orbit, the 
 earth has scattered away no treasures. The Hand that governs 
 in April governed in January. You have not lost what God has 
 only hidden. You lose nothing in struggle, in trial, in bitter 
 distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves, if the 
 affections be driven back into the heart as the life of flowers to 
 their roots, yet be patient. Thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered 
 boughs again. Thou shalt shoot forth from thy roots new flowers. 
 Be patient. Wait. When it is February, April is not far off. 
 Secretly the plants love each other. 
 
 5. MAY ! flower-month ! perfect the harvests of flowers ; be 
 not niggardly. Search out the cold and resentful nooks that 
 refused the sun, casting back its rays from disdainful ice, and plant 
 flowers even there. There is goodness in the worst. There is 
 warmth in the coldness. The silent, hopeful, unbreathing sun, 
 that will not fret or despond, but carries a placid brow through 
 the un wrinkled heavens, at length conquers the very rocks ; and 
 lichens grow, and inconspicuously blossom. What shall not Time 
 do that carries in its bosom Love ? 
 
 G.JUNE! Rest! This is the year's bower. Sit down within 
 
106 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 it. Wipe from thy brow the toil. The elements are thy servants. 
 The dews bring thee jewels. The winds bring perfume. The 
 Earth shows thee all her treasure. The forests sing to thee. The 
 air is all sweetness, as if all the angels of God had gone through 
 it, bearing spices homeward. The storms are but as flocks of 
 mighty birds that spread their wings, and sing in the high heaven. 
 Speak to God now, and say, " Father ! where art thou ? " and 
 out of every flower and tree, and silver pool, and twined thicket, 
 a voice will come, " God is in me." The earth cries to the 
 heavens, " God is here ! " and the heavens cry to the earth, 
 " God is here ! " The sea claims him. The land hath him. His 
 footsteps are upon the deep. He sitteth up.on the circle of the 
 earth. sunny joys of the sunny month, yet soft and temper- 
 ate, how soon will the eager months that come burning from the 
 equator scorch you ! 
 
 7. JULY! E-ouse up! The temperate heats that filled the air 
 are raging forward to glow and overfill the earth with hotness. 
 Must it be thus in every thing, that June shall rush toward Au- 
 gust ? Or is it not that there are deep and unreached places for 
 whose sake the probing sun pierces down its glowing hands ? 
 There is a deeper work than June can perform. The Earth shall 
 drink of the heat before she knows her nature or her strength. 
 Then shall she bring forth to the uttermost the treasures of her 
 bosom ; for there are things hidden far down, and the deep things 
 of life are not known till the fire reveals them. 
 
 8. AUGUST! Reign, thou fire-month! What canst thou do? 
 Neither shalt thou destroy the earth, whom frosts and ice could 
 not destroy. The vines droop, the trees stagger, the broad-palmed 
 leaves give thee their moisture, and hang down ; but every night 
 the dew pities them. Yet there are flowers that look thee in the 
 eye, fierce Sun, all day long, and wink not. This is the rejoicing 
 month for joyful insects. If our unselfish eye would behold it, it 
 is the most populous and the happiest month. The herds plash 
 in the sedge; fish seek the deeper pools; forest fowl lead out 
 their young; the air is resonant of insect orchestras, each one 
 carrying his part in Nature's grand harmony. August, thou art 
 the ripeness of the year! Thou art the glowing center of the 
 circle ! 
 
 9. SEPTEMBER! There are thoughts in thy heart of death. 
 Thou art doing a secret work, and heaping up treasures for an- 
 other year. The unborn infant-buds which thou art tending are 
 more than all the living leaves. Thy robes are luxuriant, but 
 worn with softened pride. More dear, less beautiful, than June, 
 thou art the heart's month. Not till the heats of summer are 
 gone, while all its growths remain, do we know the fullness of life. 
 Thy hands are stretched out, and clasp the glowing palm of Au- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 107 
 
 gust and the fruit-smelling hand of October. Thou dividest 
 them asunder, anJ. art thyself molded of them both. 
 
 10. OCTOBEII ! Orchard of the year, bend thy boughs to the 
 earth, redolent of glowing fruit ! Ripened seeds shake in their 
 pods. Apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to let go 
 when no wind is out, and swing in long waverings to the earth, 
 which they touch without sound, and lie looking up, till winds 
 rake them, and heap them in fence-corners. When the gales 
 come through, the trees, the yellow leaves trail like sparks at 
 night behind the flying engine. The woods are thinner, so that 
 we can see the heavens plainer as we lie dreaming on the yet 
 warm moss by the singing spring. The days are calm. The 
 nights are tranquil. The Year's work is done. She walks in gor- 
 geous apparel, looking upon her long labor ; and her serene eye 
 saith, " It is good." 
 
 11. NOVEMBER ! Patient watcher, thou art asking to lay down 
 thy tasks. Life to thee now is only a task accomplished. In 
 the night-time thou liest down, and the messengers of winter deck 
 thee with hoar-frosts for thy burial. The morning looks upon thy 
 jewels, and they perish while it gazes. Wilt thou not come, O 
 December ? 
 
 12. DECEMBER ! Silently the month advances. There is noth- 
 ing to destroy, but much to bury. Bury, then, thou snow, that 
 slumberously fallest through the still air, the hedge-rows of leaves ! 
 Muffle thy cold wool about the feet of shivering trees ! Bury all 
 that the year hath known ! and let thy brilliant stars, that never 
 shine as they do in thy frostiest nights, behold the work ! But 
 know, month of destruction ! that in thy constellation is set that 
 Star, whose rising is the sign, for evermore, that there is life in 
 death. Thou art the 'month of resurrection. In thee the Christ 
 came. Every star that looks down upon thy labor and toil of 
 burial knows that all things shall come forth again. Storms 
 shall sob themselves to sleep. Silence shall find a voice. Death 
 shall live; Life .shall rejoice; Winter shall break forth, and blos- 
 som into Spring ; Spring shall put on her glorious apparel, and be 
 called. Summer. It is life, it is life, through the whole year ! 
 
 A DISCOURSE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 HAPPY is the man that loves flowers ! happy, even if it be a 
 love adulterated with vanity and strife ; for human passions 
 nestle in flower-lovers too. Some employ their zeal chiefly in 
 horticultural competitions, or in the ambition of floral shows. 
 Others love flowers as curiosities, and search for novelties, for 
 " sports," and vegetable monstrosities. We have been led through 
 
108 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 costly collections by men whose chief pleasure seemed to be in the 
 effect which their treasures produced on others, not on themselves. 
 Their love of flowers was only the love of being praised for hav- 
 ing them. But there is a choice in vanities and ostentations. A 
 contest of roses is better than of horses. We had rather be vain 
 of the best tulip, dahlia, or ranunculus, than of the best shot. Of 
 all fools, a floral fool deserves the eminence. 
 
 But, these aside, blessed be the man that really loves flowers ! 
 loves them for their own sakes, for their beauty, their associa- 
 tions, the joy they have given and always will grve ; so that he 
 would sit down among them as friends and companions, if there 
 was not another creature on earth to admire.or praise them. But 
 such men need no blessing of mine : the}* are blessed of God. 
 Did he not make the world for such men ? Are they not clearly 
 the owners of the world, and the richest of all men ? 
 
 It is the end of Art to inoculate men with the love of Nature. 
 But those who have a passion for Nature in the natural way need 
 no pictures nor galleries. Spring is their designer, and the whole 
 year their artist. 
 
 He who only does not appreciate floral beauty is to be pitied 
 like any other man who is born imperfect. It is a misfortune not 
 unlike blindness. But men who contemptuously reject flowers as 
 effeminate, and unworthy of manhood, reveal a certain coarseness. 
 Were flowers fit to eat or drink, were they stimulative of passions, 
 or could they be gambled with like stocks and public consciences, 
 they would take them up just where finer minds would drop them, 
 who love them as revelations of God's sense of beaut} 7 , as ad- 
 dressed to the taste, and to something finer and deeper than 
 taste, to that power within us which spiritualizes matter, and 
 communes with God through his work, and not for their paltry 
 market-value. 
 
 Many persons lose all enjoyment of many flowers by indulging 
 false associations. There be some who think that no weed can be 
 of interest as a flower. But all flowers are weeds where they 
 grow wildly and abundantly ; and somewhere our rarest flowers 
 are somebody's commonest. Flowers growing in noisome places, 
 in desolate corners, upon rubbish, or rank desolation, become dis- 
 agreeable by association. Roadside flowers, ineradicable, and hardy 
 beyond all discouragement, lose themselves from our sense of deli- 
 cacy and protection. And, generally, there is a disposition to 
 undervalue common flowers. There are few that will trouble 
 themselves to examine minutely a blossom that they have seen 
 and neglected from their childhood ; and yet, if they would but 
 question such flowers, and commune with them, they would often 
 be surprised to find extreme beauty where it had long been over- 
 looked. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 109 
 
 If a plant be uncouth, it has no attractions to us simply because 
 it has been brought from the ends of the earth, and is a " great 
 rarity ; " if it has beauty, it is none the less, but a grdat deal 
 more attractive to us because it is common. A very common 
 flower adds generosity to beauty. It gives joy to the poor, the 
 rude, and to the multitudes who could have no flowers were Na- 
 ture to charge a price for her blossoms. Is a cloud less beautiful, 
 or a sea, or a mountain, because often seen, or seen by millions ? 
 
 At any rate, while we lose no fondness for eminent and accom- 
 plished flowers, we are conscious of a growing respect for the floral 
 democratic throng. There is, for instance, the mullein, of but 
 little beauty in each floweret, but a brave plant, growing cheer- 
 fully and heartily out of abandoned soils, ruffling its root about 
 with broad-palmed, generous, velvet leaves, and erecting there- 
 from a towering spire that always inclines us to stop for a kindly 
 look. This fine plant is left by most people, like a decayed old 
 gentleman, to a good-natured pity; but in other countries it is, a. 
 flower, and called the " American velvet-plant." 
 
 We confess to a homely enthusiasm for clover, not the white 
 clover, beloved of honey-bees, but the red clover, It holds up 
 its round, ruddy face and honest head with such rustic innocence ! 
 Do you ever see it without thinking of a sound, sensible, country 
 lass, sun-browned and fearless, as innocence always should be ? 
 We go through a field of red clover like Solomon in a garden of 
 spices. 
 
 There is the burdock too, with its prickly rosettes, that has 
 little beauty or value except (like some kind, brown, good-natured 
 nurses) as an amusement to children, who manufacture baskets, 
 houses, and various marvelous utensils, of its burrs. The thistle 
 is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view 
 of the whole plant, and where will he see more expressive grace 
 and symmetry? and where is there a more kingly flower? To 
 be sure, there are sharp objections to it in a bouquet. Neither is 
 it a safe neighbor to the farm, having a habit of scattering its 
 seeds like a very heretic. But most gardeners feel toward a this- 
 tle as boys toward a snake; and farmers, with more reason, dread 
 it like a plagua. But it is just as beautiful as if it were a univer- 
 sal favorite. 
 
 What shall we say of mayweed, irreverently called dog-fennel 
 by some ? Its acrid juice, its heavy, pungent odor, make it dis- 
 agreeable ; and, being disagreeable, its enormous Malthusian 
 propensities to increase render it hateful to damsels of white 
 stockings, compelled to walk through it on dewy mornings. 
 Arise, scythe ! and devour it. 
 
 The buttercup is a flower of our childhood, and very brilliant 
 in our eyes. Its strong color, seen afar oil] often provoked its 
 
110 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 fate ; for through the mowing-lot we went after it, regardless of 
 orchard- grass and herd-grass, plucking down its long slendei 
 stems clowned with golden chalices, until the father, covetous of 
 hay, shouted to us, "Out of that grass, out of that grass, }*ou 
 rogue ! " 
 
 The first thing that defies the frost in spring is the chickweed. 
 It will open its floral eye, and look the thermometer in the face 
 at thirty-two degrees. It leads out the snowdrop and crocus. 
 Its blossom is diminutive : and no wonder ; for it begins so early 
 in the season, that it has little time to make much of itself. But, 
 as a harbinger and herald, let it not be forgotten. 
 
 You can not forget, if you would, those golden kisses all over 
 the cheeks of the meadow, queerly called daiiddioiis. There are 
 many greenhouse-blossoms less pleasing to us than these ; and 
 we have reached through many a fence since we were incarcerat- 
 ed, like them, in a city, to .pluck one of these yellow flower- 
 drops. Their passing-away is more spiritual than their bloom. 
 Nothing can be more airy and beautiful than the transparent 
 seed-globe, a fairy dome of splendid architecture. 
 
 As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous sunflowers, 
 we shall never have a garden without them, both for their own 
 sake, and for the sake of old-fashioned folks who used to love 
 them. Morning-glories, or, to call them by their city name, 
 the convolvulus, need no praising: the vine, the leaf, the 
 exquisite vase-formed flower, the delicate and various colors, will 
 secure it from neglect while taste remains. Grape-blossoms and 
 migiionnette do not appeal to the eye ; and, if they were selfish, no 
 man would care for them. Yet, because they pour their life out 
 in fragrance, the}* are always loved ; and, like homely people with 
 noble hearts, they seem beautiful by association. Nothing that 
 produces constant pleasure in us can fail to seem beautiful. We 
 do not need to speak for that universal favorite, the rose. As a 
 flower is the finest stroke of creation, so the rose is the happiest 
 hit among flowers. Yet, in the feast of ever-blooming roses and 
 of double roses, we are in danger of being perverted from a love 
 of simplicity as manifested in the wild, single rose. When a 
 man can look upon the simple wild-rose, and feel no pleasure, his 
 taste has been corrupted. 
 
 But we must not neglect the blossoms of fruit-trees. What a 
 great heart an apple-tree must have ! What generous work it 
 makes of blossoming ! It is not content with a single bloom for 
 each apple that is to be ; but a profusion, a prodigality of blossom 
 there must be. The tree is but a huge bouquet : it gives you 
 twenty times as much as there is need for, and evidently because 
 it loves to blossom. We will praise this virtuous tree, not 
 beautiful in form, often clumpy, cragged, and rude ; but it is glo- 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. Ill 
 
 rious in beauty when efflorescent. Nor is it a beauty only at a 
 distance and in the mass. Pluck down a twig, and examine as 
 closely as you will : it will bear the nearest looking. The sim- 
 plicity and purity of the white expanded flower, the half-open 
 buds slightly blushed, the little pink-tipped buds unopen, crowd- 
 ing up together like rosy children around an elder brother or 
 sister, can any thing surpass it? Wh}', here is a cluster more 
 beautiful than any you can make up artificially, even if you select 
 from the whole garden. Wear this family of buds for my sake. 
 It is all the better for being common. I love a flower that all 
 may have, that belongs to the whole, and not to a select and 
 exclusive few. Common, forsooth ! A flower can not be worn out 
 by much looking at as a road is by much travel. 
 
 How one exhales, and feels his childhood coming back to him, 
 when, emerging from the hard^ and hateful city-streets, he sees 
 orchards and gardens in sheeted bloom, plum, cherry, pear, 
 peach, and apple, waves and billows of blossoms rolling over the 
 hillsides, and down through the levels ! My heart runs riot. 
 This is a kingdom of glory. The bees know it. Are the blos- 
 soms singing ? or is all this humming sound the music of bees ? 
 The frivolous flies, that never seem to be thinking of any thing, 
 are rather sober and solemn here. Such a sight is equal to a 
 sunset, which is but a blossoming of the clouds. 
 
 We love to fancy that a flower is the point of transition at 
 which a material thing touches the immaterial : it is the sentient, 
 vegetable soul. We ascribe dispositions to it ; we treat it as we 
 would an innocent child. A stem or root has no suggestion of 
 life. A leaf advances toward it; and some leaves are as fine as 
 flowers, and have, moreover, a grace of motion seldom had by 
 flowers. Flowers have an expression of countenance as much 
 as men or animals. Some seem to smile ; some have a sad ex- 
 pression ; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, 
 honest, and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the holly- 
 hock. We find ourselves speaking of them as laughing, as gay 
 and coquettish, as nodding and dancing. No man of sensibility 
 ever spoke of a flower as he would of a fungus, a pebble, or a 
 sponge. Indeed, they are more life-like than many animals. 
 We commune with flowers ; we go to them if we are sad or glad : 
 but a toad, a worm, an insect, we repel, as if real life was not 
 half so real as imaginary life. What a pity flowers can utter no 
 sound ! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honey- 
 suckle, oU, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be ! 
 
 When we hear melodious sounds, the wind among trees; the 
 noise of a brook falling down into a deep, leaf-covered cavity; 
 birds' notes, especially at night; children's voices as you ride 
 into a village at dusk, far from your long-absent home, and 
 
112 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 quite homesick; or a flute heard from out of a forest, a silver 
 sound rising up among silver-lit leaves into the moon-lighted 
 air; or the low conversations of persons whom you love, that sit 
 at the fire in the room where you are convalescing, when we 
 think of these things, we are apt to imagine that nothing is per- 
 fect that has not the gift of sound. But we change our mind 
 when we dwell lovingly among flowers ; for they are always 
 silent. Sound is never associated with them. They speak to 
 you ; but it is as the eye speaks, - by vibrations of light, and not 
 of air. 
 
 It is with flowers as with friends, many may be loved, but 
 few much loved. Wild honeysuckles in the wood, laurel-bushes 
 in the very regality of bloom, are very beautiful to you; but 
 they are color and form only. They seem strangers to you. 
 You have no memories reposed in them. They bring back noth- 
 ing from time. They point to nothing in the future. But a 
 wild-brier starts a genial feeling : it is the country cousin of the 
 rose; and that has always been your pet. You have nursed it 
 and defended it ; you have had it for companionship as you wrote ; 
 it has stood by your pillow while sick ; it has brought remem- 
 brance to you, and conveyed your kindest feelings to others. 
 You remember it as a mother's favorite ; it speaks to you of your 
 own childhood, that white rosebush that snowed in the corner 
 by the door; that generous bush that blushed red in the garden 
 with a thousand flowers, whose gorgeousness was among the first 
 things that drew your childish eye, an 1 which always comes up 
 before you when you speak of childhood. You remember, too, 
 that your mother loved roses. As you walked to church, she 
 plucked off a bud and gave you, which you carried because you 
 were proud to do as she did. You remember how, in the listen- 
 ing hour of sermon, her roses fell neglected on her lap, and how 
 you slyly drew one and another of them ; and how, when she 
 came to, she looked for them under her handkerchief and on the 
 floor, until, spying the ill-repressed glee of your face, she smiled 
 such a look of love upon you as made a rose for ever after seem 
 to you as if it smiled a mother's smile. And so a wild rose, a 
 prairie-rose, or a sweet-brier, that at evening fills the air with 
 o<k>r (a floral nightingale, whose song is perfume), greets you as a 
 dear and intimate friend. You almost wish to get out as you 
 travel, and inquire after their health, and ask if they wish to 
 send any messages by you to their town friends. 
 
 But no flower can be so strange or so new that a friendliness 
 does not spring up at once between 3*011. You gather them up 
 along your rambles, and sit down to make their acquaintance on 
 some shaded bank, with your feet over the brook, where your 
 shoes feed their vanity as in a mirror. You assort them ; you 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 113 
 
 question their graces ; you enjoy their odor ; you range them on 
 the grass in a row, and look from one to another; you gather 
 them up, and study a tit gradation of colors, and search for new 
 specimens to till the degrees between too violent extremes. All 
 the while, and it is a long while, if the day be gracious and lei- 
 sure ample, various suggestions and analogies of life are darting 
 in and out of your mind. This flower is like some friend ; an- 
 other reminds you of mignonnette, and mignonnette always ma^es 
 you think of such a garden and mansion where it enacted spine 
 memorable part ; and that flower conveys some strange and unexr- 
 pected resemblance to certain events of society ; this one is a bold 
 soldier ; that one is a sweet lady dear ; the white-flowering blood- 
 root, trooping up by the side of a decaying log, recalls to your 
 fancy a band of white-bannered knights : and so your pleased at- 
 tention strays through a thousand vagaries of fancy or memory 
 or vaticinating hope. 
 
 Yet these are not home-flowers. You did not plant them, 
 You have not screened them. You have not watched their 
 growth, plucked away voracious worms or nibbling bugs 5 you 
 have not seen them in the same places year after year, children 
 of your care and love. Around such there is an artificial life, an 
 associational beauty, a fragrance and grace of the affections, that 
 no wild-flowers can have. 
 
 It is a matter of gratitude that this finest gift of Providence is 
 the most profusely given. Flowers can not be monopolized. The 
 poor can have them as much as the rich. It does not require 
 such an education to love and appreciate them as it would to ad- 
 mire a picture of Turner's or a statue of Thorwaldsen's. And 
 as they are messengers of affection, tokens of remembrance, and 
 presents of beauty, of universal acceptance, it is pleasant to think 
 that all men recognize a brief brotherhood in them. It is not 
 impertinent to offer flowers to a stranger. The poorest child can 
 proffer them to the richest. A hundred persons turned together 
 into a meadow full of flowers would be drawn together in a tran- 
 sient brotherhood. 
 
 It is affecting to see how serviceable flowers often are to the 
 necessities of the poor. If they bring their little floral gift to you, 
 it can not but touch your heart to think that their grateful affec- 
 tion longed to express itself as much as yours. You have books 
 or gems or services that you can render as you will. The poor 
 can give but little and do but little. Were it not for flowers, 
 they would be shut out from those exquisite pleasures which 
 spring from such gifts. I never take one from a child or from 
 the poor that I do not thank God in their behalf for flowers. 
 
 And then, when Death enters a poor man's house ! It may be, 
 the child was the only creature that loved the unbefr-jended 
 
114 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 father, really loved him, loved him utterly. Or it maybe it 
 
 is mi only son, and his mother a widow, who, in all his sickness, 
 felt the limitation of her poverty fon her darling's sake as she 
 never had for her own; and did what she could, but not what she 
 would had there been wealth. The coffin is pine. The under- 
 taker sold it with a jerk of indifference and haste, lest he should 
 lose the selling of a rosewood coffin trimmed with splendid silver 
 screws. The room is small. The attendant neighbors are few. 
 The shroud is coarse. Oh ! the darling child was fit for whatever 
 was most excellent ; and the heart aches to do for him whatever 
 could be done that should speak love. It takes money for fine 
 linen, money for costly sepulture ; but flowers, thank God. the 
 poorest may have : so put white buds in the hair, and honey- 
 dew and rnignorinette and half-blown roses on the breast. If it 
 be spring, a few white violets will do (and there is not a month 
 till November that will not give you something) : but if it is 
 winter, and you have no single pot of roses, then I fear your dar- 
 ling must be buried without a flower; for flowers cost money in 
 the winter. 
 
 And then, if you can not give a stone to mark his burial-place, 
 a rose may stand there; and from it you may every spring 
 pluck a bud for your bosom, as the child was broken off from you. 
 And, if it brings tears for the past, you will not see the flowers 
 fade and come again, and fade and come again, year by year, and 
 not learn a lesson of the resurrection, when that which perished 
 here shall revive again, never more to droop or to die. 
 
 NOR WOOD. 
 
 STORIES FOR CHILDREN. 
 
 IF a day in a country farmhouse is joyous to town people, 
 not less exhilarating to country friends is a day in a town man- 
 sion. Alice, in her silent and gentle way, seemed to absorb hap- 
 piness from the very air. That sensitive timidity which was 
 like an outer garment to her really courageous and resolute 
 nature suffered no embarrassment in Dr. Went worth's family. 
 Agate BisselFs plain speech and direct manner never left an 
 unfavorable impression. There was a flow of honesty and undis- 
 guised kindness which children instinctively recognized. Her 
 whole conduct was indulgent, though her language seemed moni- 
 torial and even magisterial. 
 
 Mrs. Went worth was one whose soul shone through her face, 
 and gave it an almost transparent look. She lived under the 
 influence of her best faculties : therefore her manner and influence 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 115 
 
 seemed to excite the best faculties of those who met her. Very 
 clear-headed was she, very cheerful, and very kind. Your first 
 glance upon her face would lead you to say, " Penetration is her 
 ruling trait." Your second glance would convince you that sym- 
 pathy was more strongly indicated. If she spoke, you would 
 conclude that no one feeling ruled, but many, and all of them 
 good. At first, you would think, " This woman sees through all 
 films, and can not be deceived ; " next you would feel, " There is 
 no need of hiding any thing from her : she is to be trusted." 
 
 As for Dr. Wentworfch, nobody saw through him, and every- 
 body trusted him. There was no dormant faculty in him: he 
 was alive all around his soul. There were no arctic and antarc- 
 tic zones. The whole globe of his nature was tropical, and J^et 
 temperate. 
 
 His moods ran through the whole scale of faculties. - He was 
 various as the separate days. He carried the germs of every 
 thing which bore fruit in other men's characters, and so could 
 put himself into sympathy with every kind of man. A great 
 talker at times; yet, even when most frank, he was more silent 
 than talkative, and left the impression of one who had only 
 blown the foam off from unfathomable thoughts. 
 
 What a place was his house for children! an old mansion, 
 quaint and voluminous, stored full of curious knick-knacks, more 
 carious books, and most curious engravings. Yet the interior of 
 the house was even less attractive to children than the grounds 
 about it. Such dainty nooks there were, such pet mazes among 
 the evergreens, such sweeps of flowers and tangles of blossoming 
 vines, such rows of fruit-laden trees, such discoveries to be made 
 here and there of new garden-plats of before-unseen beds of 
 flowers, such wildernesses of morning-glories, and tangles of 
 honeysuckles running over rocks, or matted in the grass, that, 
 once out, the children never wanted to go in ; and, once in, they 
 could hardly persuade themselves to go out. 
 
 When the afternoon was turning in the west, and the sunlight 
 began to shoot golden beams under the branches of the trees, and 
 the shadows stretched themselves every moment larger and larger 
 along the ground, as if the time were near for them to fall asleep, 
 Dr. Wentworth came in from his patients, and joined the chil- 
 dren. Then there was racing and frolicking ! Then you might 
 have seen three children indeed ! 
 
 But, after a time, Rose began to persuade her father to tell 
 some stories. Story-hunger in children is even more urgent 
 than bread-hunger. And so, at length, he suffered himself to be 
 led captive to his favorite tree, where scores of times he had been 
 wont to weave fables and parables for Rose, fictions that under 
 every form whatsoever still tended in his child's imagination to 
 
116 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 bring Nature home to her as God's wonderful revelation, vital 
 with sentiment and divine truth. Sitting upon the ground, with 
 one child on either side leaning upon >his knees and looking up 
 into his face, he began : 
 
 THE ANXIOUS LEAF. 
 
 " Once upon a time, a little leaf was heard to sigh and cry, as 
 leaves often do when a gentle wind is about. And the twig said, 
 ' What is the matter, little leaf?' And the leaf said, 'The wind 
 just told me that one day it would pull rne off, and throw me 
 do\yn to die on the ground ! ' The twig told it to the branch on 
 which it grew, and the branch told it to the tree : and, when 
 the tree heard it, it rustled all over, and sent back word to the 
 leaf, ' Do not be afraid; hold on tightly, and you shall not go till 
 you want to.' And so the leaf stopped sighing, but went on 
 nestling and singing. Every time the tree shook itself, and 
 stirred up all its leaves, the branches shook themselves, and the 
 little twig shook itself, ajicl the little leaf danced up and down 
 merrily as if nothing could ever pull it off. And so it grew all 
 summer long till October. And, when the bright days of autumn 
 came, the little leaf saw all the leaves around becoming very 
 beautiful. Some were yellow, and some scarlet, and some striped 
 with both colors. Then it asked the tree what it meant. And 
 the tree said, 'All these leaves are getting ready to fly away; 
 and they have put on these beautiful colors because of joy.' 
 Then the little leaf began to want to go, and grew very beautiful 
 in thinking of it, and, when it was very gay in color, saw that 
 the branches of the tree had no color in them ; and so the leaf 
 said, '0 branches! why are you lead-color, and we golden?' 
 'We must keep on our work-clothes, for our life is not done; but 
 your clothes are for holiday, because your tasks are over.' Just 
 then, a little puff of wind came, and the leaf let go without 
 thinking of it; and the wind took it up and turned it over and 
 over, and whirled it like a spark of fire in the air j and then it fell 
 gently down under the edge of the fence among hundreds of 
 leaves, and fell into a dream, and never waked up to tell what it 
 dreamed about." 
 
 How charming it is to narrate fables to children ! How dain- 
 tily do they carry on the conscious dramatic deception ! They 
 know that if the question were once got in upon them, "Are 
 these things true?" the bubble would burst, and all its fine 
 colors would disappear. Children are unconscious philosophers. 
 They refuse to pull to pieces their enjoyments to see what they 
 are made of. Rose knew as well as her father that leaves never 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 117 
 
 talked ; yet Rose never saw a leaf without feeling that there 
 was life and meaning in it. Flowers had stories in them. The 
 natural world stole in upon her with mute messages; and the 
 feelings which woke in her bosom she attributed to Nature ; and 
 the thoughts which started she deemed a revelation, and an inter- 
 pretation of truths that lay hidden in creation waiting for her. 
 What is one story ? a mere, provocation of another. 
 " Do tell us another, father. That was so short ! " 
 " Yes, doctor ; do tell us some more," said Alice. And then, 
 coloring a little, she said, " Rose can have them every day ; but I 
 can not, only once in a great while." 
 
 " Alice, you must make your father tell you stories." 
 " He does sometimes ; but they are always out of books, 
 and almost always Bible-stories; and I know them by heart 
 already." 
 
 After Dr. Wentworth had regaled himself enough with the 
 children's charming arts of coaxing, he began another story : 
 
 THE FAIRY FLOWER. 
 
 "Once there was a little girl whose name was Clara. She had 
 a very kind heart ; but she was an only child, and had been petted 
 so much that she was like to become very selfish. Too late her 
 mother lamented that she had indulged her so much, and strove 
 to repair the mischief, and to make Clara think of other people's 
 happiness, and not solely of her own. On some days, nothing 
 could be more charming than Clara's ways. She was gentle and 
 obliging, and sang all day long, and made every one who came 
 near her happy by her agreeable manners. Then everybod} r 
 admired her, and her mother and aunt were sure that she was 
 cured of her pettish dispositions. But, the very next day, all 
 her charming ways were exchanged. She carried a moody face. 
 She was no longer courteous ; and every one who came near her 
 felt the chill of her manner, as if an east wind were blowing 
 with her breath. One summer night, after such a miserable 
 day, Clara went to her room. The moon was at its full, and 
 poured through the window in such floods that she needed no 
 other light. Clara sat down by the window very unhappy. She 
 thought over the day, and wondered at herself, and tried to 
 imagine why it was that on some days she was so happy, and on 
 others so wretched. As she mused, she laid her head back on the 
 easy-chair. No sooner had she shut her eyes than a strange 
 thing happened. An old man, very feeble, came in ; and in his 
 basket, which- he seemed hardly able to bear, was a handful of 
 flowers and two great stones. He came to Clara, and said, 'My 
 daughter, will you help me.? for I am too old to carry this load. 
 
118 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Please make it lighter.' Then Clara looked at him with pout- 
 ing, and said, ' Go away ! ' Then he said, ' I am poor and suffer- 
 ing. Will you not lighten my load ? ' .* Then Clara condescended 
 to take the flowers out of his basket. They were very beautiful ; 
 and she laid them in her lap. 
 
 " The old man said, 
 
 "' My daughter, you have not lightened my basket : you have 
 only taken the pleasant things out of it, and left the heavy, 
 heavy stones. Oh, please lift one of them out of the basket ! ' 
 
 Then Clara was angry, and said, 
 
 " ( No : get you gone ! I will not touch those dirty stones.' 
 
 "No sooner had she said this than the old man began to 
 change before her, and became so bright and white, that he 
 looked like a column of crystal. Then he took one of the stones 
 and cast it out of the window, and it flew and flew and flew, and 
 fell down on the eastern side of a grove, where the sun shone 
 first every morning ; and close by it ran a brook that laughed and 
 loitered and sported all day and all night, and played with every 
 thing that would come to it. 
 
 " And then the crystal old man took the flowers out of her lap, 
 and they were wet with moisture ; and he shook them over her 
 head, and said, 
 
 " ' Change to a flower ! Go and stand by the stone till your 
 shadow shall be marked upon the rock.' 
 
 " In a second, Clara was growing by the side of a wide, flat 
 stone ; and the moon cast the shadow of a beautiful flower, with 
 long and slender stem, upon the rock. She was very wretched, 
 and the dew came and comforted her ; and in the morning she 
 could not help looking at herself in the brook that came close up 
 to the stone, and she saw how beautiful she was. All day her 
 shadow fell on the rock ; and, when the sun went away, the shadow 
 went away too. All night she threw a pale shadow on the rock ; 
 and in the morning, when the moon went away, the shadow went 
 away too. And the rock lay still all day and all night, and did 
 not care for the flower, nor feel its shadow. And she longed and 
 longed and longed ; but what could a tender flower do with a hard 
 rock ? And the flower asked the brook, f Can you help me ? ' 
 And the brook laughed out louder than it was laughing before, 
 and said, ' Ask the birds.' And so she asked a bobolink ; and he 
 came frisking to her with a wonderful speech, in Latin, Greek, 
 and Syriac, with some words from the great language that was 
 before all other languages. And he alit upon the flower, and 
 teetered up and down till she thought her back would, break; 
 but nothing could she learn how to make her shadow stay upon 
 the rock. 
 
 "Then she asked a spider ; and he spun a web from her bright 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 119 
 
 blossoms, and fastened it to the rock, and bent her over, and tied 
 her up, till she feared she should never get loose. But all his 
 nice lilms did her no good, and her shadow would not stay upon 
 the rock. 
 
 " Then she asked the wind to help her. And the wind blew 
 away the spiders web, and blew so hard, that the flower lay its 
 whole length upon the rock ; but when the wind left her, and she 
 rose up, there was no shadow there ! 
 
 " And she said, ' What is beauty worth if it grows by the side 
 of a stone that does not feel it nor care for it ? ' 
 
 " Then she asked the dew to help her. And the dew said, 
 1 How can I help you ? I live contentedly in darkness. I put on 
 my beauty only to please other things. I let the sun come 
 through my drops, though I know it will consume me.' 
 
 " The flower said, ( I wish I were dew. I would do some good. 
 Now my beauty does me no good, and I am wasting it every day 
 upon a rock.' When the flower breathed this benevolent wish, 
 there were flutters and whispers all around; but the flower 
 thought it was only the brook. 
 
 " The next day came that way a beautiful girl. She was 
 gathering ferns and mosses and flowers. Whenever she saw a 
 tuft of moss, she said, ' Please, dear moss, may I take you ? ' 
 And, when she saw a beautiful branch with scarlet leaves, she 
 said, f Dear bush, may I take these leaves ? ' And then she saw 
 a beautiful columbine growing by the edge of a rock ; and she 
 said, ' sweet columbine ! may I pluck you ? ' And the flower 
 said, 'Please, I must not go till my shadow is fastened on the 
 rock/ Then the young lady took from her case a pencil, and in a 
 moment traced the shadow of the columbine upon the rock ; and, 
 when she had done, she reached her hand and took the stem low 
 down, and broke it off. Then Clara sprang up from her chair by 
 the window, and there stood her mother, saying, 
 
 " ' My dear daughter, you should not fall asleep by an open 
 window, not even in summer, my child. How damp you are! 
 Come, hasten to bed.' 
 
 " It was many days before Clara could persuade herself that 
 she had only dreamed. It was many months before she told the 
 dream to her mother; and, when she did, her mother said, 
 
 " f Ah, Clara ! would that all girls might dream, if only it made 
 them as good as your dream has made you ! ' ' 
 
 The doctor seemed quite interested in his own story, and sat 
 silent for a moment, that the good impression might settle in the 
 girls' minds. He was awakened to attention by some little flutter, 
 and saw Hose nodding in a gravely humorous way to Alice, as if 
 she meant to say, 
 
 " I hope, Alice, that you will take this lesson to heart, and never 
 be naughty again." 
 
1-0 EXGLFSH LITERATURE. 
 
 " Ah, rogue Rose ! " said the doctor. " Is that the wa} T you pay 
 me for my trouble ? You shall " 
 
 Rose, without waiting for the whole sentence, darted off: and 
 in an instant the doctor was in full chase ; while Alice, hesitant, 
 followed in the distance, half laughing, and quite uneasy lest 
 some harm should come to Rose. Harm did come. She was, 
 after nimble turns and skillful evasions, so amused at her father's 
 mishap in rushing upon a sweet-brier when he thought to have 
 seized her, that her strength dissolved in laughter. She was 
 caught, and her hands tied with honeysuckle-vines, and her neck 
 was bound with flowers; and so she was carried away captive, 
 smothered with sweets, to be punished under the great tree. 
 There her father pronounced the sentence, that, for irreverence 
 and rebellion, she should be doomed to hear another story, which 
 he called 
 
 COMING AND GOING. 
 
 "Once came to our fields a pair of birds that had never built a 
 nest nor seen a winter. Oh, how beautiful was every thing ! The 
 fields were full of flowers, and the grass was growing tall, and the 
 bees were humming everywhere. Then one of the birds fell to 
 singing ; and the other bird said, ' Who told you to sing ? ' And he 
 answered) ' The flowers told me, and the bees told me, and the 
 winds and leaves told me, and the blue sky told me, and you told 
 me to sing.' Then his mate answered, ' When did I tell you to 
 sing?' And he said, 'Every time you brought in tender grass 
 for the nest, and every time your soft wings fluttered off again for 
 hair and feathers to line the nest.' Then his mate said, ' What 
 are you singing about?' And he answered, 'I am singing 
 about every thing and nothing. It is because I am so happy 
 that I sing.' 
 
 " By and by. five little speckled eggs were in the nest ; and his 
 mate said) * Is there any thing in all the world as pretty as my 
 eggs ?' Then they both looked down on some people that were 
 passing by, and pitied them because they were not birds, and had 
 no nests with eggs in them. Then the father-bird sang a melan- 
 choly song because he pitied folks that had no nests, but had to 
 live in houses. 
 
 "In a week or two, one day, when the father-bird came home, 
 the mother-bird said, 'Oh! what do you think has happened?' 
 ' What ? ' - ' One of my eggs has been peeping and moving ! ' 
 Pretty soon another egg moved under her feathers, and then 
 another and another, till five little birds were born. 
 
 Now the father-bird sung louder and louder than ever. The 
 mother-bird, too, wanted to sing ; but she had no time, and so she 
 turned her song into work. So hungry were these little birds, 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 121 
 
 that it kept both parents busy feeding them. Away each one 
 flew. The moment the little birds heard their wings fluttering 
 again among the leaves, five yellow mouths flew open so wide, that 
 nothing could be seen but five yellow mouths. 
 
 "'Can anybody be happier?' said the father-bird to the 
 mother-bird. ( We will live in this tree always ; for there is no 
 sorrow here. It is a tree that always bears joy.' 
 
 " The very next day, one of the birds dropped out of the nest, 
 and a cat ate it up in a minute, and only four remained ; and the 
 parent-birds were very sad, and there was no song all that day nor 
 the next. Soon the little birds were big enough to fly ; and great 
 was their parents' joy to see them leave the nest, and sit crumpled 
 up upon the branches. There was then a great time. One would 
 have thought the two old birds were two French dancing-masters, 
 talking and chattering, and scolding the little birds to make 
 them go alone. The first bird that tried flew from one branch 
 to another, and the parents praised him ; and the other little birds 
 wondered how he did it. And he was so vain of it, that he tried 
 again, and flew and flew, and couldn't stop flying, till he fell plump 
 down by the house-door ; and then a little boy caught him and 
 carried him into the house, and only three birds were left. Then 
 the old birds thought that the sun was not bright as it used to be, 
 and they did not sing as often. 
 
 " In a little time, the other birds had learned to use their wings ; 
 and they flew away and away, and found their own food, and made 
 their own beds; and their parents never saw them any more. 
 
 " Then the old birds sat silent, and looked at each other a long 
 while. 
 
 " At last, the wife-bird said, 
 
 " < Why don't you sing ? ' 
 
 " And he answered, 
 
 <( ( 1 can't sing : I can only think and think. 7 
 
 " ' What are you thinking of ? ' 
 
 "'lam thinking how every thing changes. The leaves are 
 falling down from off this tree, and soon there will be no roof 
 over our heads ; the flowers are all gone, or going ; last night 
 there was a frost; almost all the birds are flown away, and I am 
 very uneasy. Something calls me, and I feel restless as if I would 
 fly far away/ 
 
 " ' Let us fly away together ! 7 
 
 " Then they rose silently ; and, lifting themselves far up in the 
 air, they looked to the north : far away they saw the snow 
 coming. They looked to the south : there they saw green 
 leaves. All day they flew, and all night they flew and flew, till 
 they found a land where there was no winter; where there was 
 summer all the time; where flowers always blossom, and birds 
 always sing. 
 
122 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " But the birds that staid behind found the days shorter, the 
 nights longer, and the weather colder. Many of them died of 
 cold ; others crept into crevices and holes, and lay torpid. Then 
 it was plain that it was better to go than to stay." 
 
 A NEW-ENGLAND SUNDAY. 
 
 TIME waits for no man, and least of all for stor}*- writers. Our 
 readers must move six years forward at a step, and rest for one 
 Sunday in Norwood, where traveling on Sunday is yet against 
 the law. 
 
 It is worth all the inconveniences arising from the occasional 
 over-action of New-England sabbath observance to obtain the 
 full flavor of a New-England Sunday. But, for this, one should 
 have been born there ; should have found Sunday already waiting 
 for him, and accepted it with implicit and absolute conviction, as 
 if it were a law of Nature, in the same way that night and day, 
 summer and winter, are parts of Nature. He should have been 
 brought up by parents who had done the same thing, as tJiey 
 were by parents even more strict, if that were possible ; until not 
 religious persons peculiarly, but everybody, not churches alone, 
 but society itself and all its population, those who broke it as 
 much as those who kept it, were stained through with the color 
 of Sunday ; nay, until Nature had adopted it, and laid its com- 
 mands on all birds and beasts, on the sun and winds, and upon 
 the whole atmosphere : so that, without much imagination, one 
 might imagine in a genuine New-England Sunday of the Con- 
 necticut-river-valley stamp that God was still on that day resting 
 from all the work which he had created and made, and that all 
 his work rested with him. 
 
 Over all the town rested the Lord's peace. The saw was rip- 
 ping away yesterday in the carpenter's shop, and the hammer was 
 noisy enough . to-day there is not a sign of life there. The 
 anvil makes no music to-day. Tommy Taft's buckets and barrels 
 give forth no hollow, thumping sound. The mill is silent: only 
 the brook continues noisy. Listen ! In yonder pine-woods, what 
 a cawing of crows ! Like an echo in a wood still more remote, 
 other crows are answering. But even a crow's throat to-day is 
 musical. Do they think, because they have black coats on, that 
 they are parsons, and have a right to play pulpit with all the pine- 
 trees ? Nay, the birds will not have any such monopoly : 
 they are all singing, and singing all together; and no one cares 
 whether his song rushes across another's or not. Larks and 
 robins, blackbirds and orioles, sparrows and bluebirds, mocking 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 123 
 
 catbirds and wrens, were furrowing the air with such mixtures as 
 no other day but Sunday, when all artificial and human sounds 
 cease, could ever hear. Every now and then, a bobolink seemed 
 impressed with the duty of bringing these jangling birds into 
 more regularity ; and, like a country singing-master, he flew down 
 the ranks, singing all the parts himself in snatches, as if to stim- 
 ulate and help the laggards. In vain. Sunday is the birds' day, 
 and they will have their own democratic worship. 
 
 There was no sound in the village street. Look either way, not 
 a vehicle, not a human being. The smoke rose up soberly and 
 quietly, as if it said, " It is Sunday." The leaves on the great 
 elms hung motionless, glittering in dew, as if they too, like the 
 people who dwelt under their shadow, were waiting for the bell to 
 ring for meeting. Bees sung and flew as usual ; but honey-bees 
 have a Sunday way with them all the week, and could scarcely 
 change for the better on the seventh day. 
 
 But, oh, the sun ! It had sent before, and cleared every stain 
 out of the sky. The blue heaven was not dim and low as on 
 secular days, but curved and deep, as if on Sunday it shook off 
 all encumbrance which during the week had lowered and flat- 
 tened it, and sprang back to the arch arid symmetry of a dome. 
 All ordinary sounds caught the spirit of the day. The shutting 
 of a door sounded twice as far as usual. The rattle of a bucket 
 in a neighbor's yard, no longer mixed with heterogeneous noises, 
 seemed a new sound. The hens went silently about, and roosters 
 crowed in psalm-tunes. And, when the first bell rang, Nature 
 seemed overjoyed to find something that it might do without 
 breaking Sunday, and rolled the sound over and over, and pushed 
 it through the air, and raced with it over field and hill twice as 
 far as on week-days. There were no less than seven steeples in 
 sight from the belfry : and the sexton said, " On still Sundays 
 I've heard the bell, at one time and another, when the day was 
 fair, and the air moving in the right way, from every one of them 
 steeples ; and I guess likely they've all heard our'n." 
 
 " Come, Rose," said Agate Bissell, at an even earlier hour 
 than when Rose usually awakened, " come, Rose, it is the sab- 
 bath. We must not be late Sunday morning of all days in the 
 week. It is the Lord's day." 
 
 There was little preparation required for the day. Saturday 
 night, in some parts of New England, was considered almost as 
 sacred as Sunday itself. After sundown on Saturday night, no 
 play, and no work, except such as is immediately preparatory to 
 the sabbath, were deemed becoming in good Christians. The 
 clothes had been laid out the night before. Nothing was forgot- 
 ten. The best frock was ready; the hose and shoes were waiting.. 
 Every article of linen, every ruffle and ribbon, were selected on 
 
124 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Saturday night. Every one in the house walked mildly ; every 
 one spoke in a low tone: yet all were cheerful. The mother 
 had on her kindest face, and nobody laughed ; but everybody made 
 it up in smiling. The nurse smiled, and the children held on to 
 keep down a giggle within the lawful bounds of a smile ; and the 
 doctor looked rounder and calmer than ever ; and the dog flapped 
 his tail on the floor with a softened sound, as if he had fresh 
 wrapped it in hair for that very day. Aunt Toodie,, the cook (so 
 the children had changed Mrs. Sarah Good's name), was blacker 
 than ever and shinier than ever, and the coffee better, and the 
 cream richer, and the broiled chickens jucier and more tender, 
 and the biscuit whiter, and the corn-bread more brittle and sweet. 
 
 When the good doctor read the Scriptures at family prayer, the 
 infection of silence had subdued every thing except the clock. 
 Out of the wide hall could be heard in the stillness the old clock, 
 that now lifted up its voice with unwonted emphasis, as if, unno- 
 ticed through the bustling week, Sunday was its vantage-ground 
 to proclaim to mortals the swift flight of time; and, if the old 
 pedant performed the task with something of an ostentatious pre- 
 cision, it was because in that house nothing else put on official 
 airs, and the clock felt the responsibility of doing it for the whole 
 mansion. 
 
 And now came mother and catechism ; for Mrs. Wentworth fol- 
 lowed the old custom, and declared that no child of hers should 
 grow up without catechism. Secretly, the doctor was quite will- 
 ing ; though openly he played off upon the practice a world of 
 good-natured discouragement, and declared that there should be 
 an opposition set up, a catechism of nature, with natural laws 
 for decrees, and seasons for Providence, and flowers for graces. 
 The younger children were taught in simple catechism : but 
 Rose, having reached the mature age of twelve, was now mani- 
 festing her power over the Westminster Shorter Catechism ; and 
 as it was simply an achievement of memory, and not of the un- 
 derstanding, she had the book at great advantage, and soon sub- 
 dued every question and answer in it. As much as possible, the 
 doctor was kept aloof on such occasions. His grave questions 
 were not to edification ; and often they caused Rose to stumble, 
 and brought down sorely the exultation with which she rolled 
 forth, " They that are effectually called do in this life partake of 
 justification, adoption, sanctification, and the several benefits 
 which in this life do either accompany or flow from them." 
 
 " What do those words mean, Rose ? " 
 
 "Which words, pa?" 
 
 " Adoption, sanctification, and justification ? " 
 
 Rose hesitated, and looked at her mother for rescue. 
 
 " Doctor, why do you trouble the child ? Of course, she don't 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 125 
 
 know yet all the meaning ; but that will come to her when she 
 grows older." 
 
 " You make a nest of her memory, then, and put words there, 
 like eggs, for future hatching ? " 
 
 " Yes, that is it exactly. Birds do not hatch their eggs the 
 minute they lay them : they wait." 
 
 "Laying eggs at twelve to be hatched at twenty is subjecting 
 them to some risk, is it not ? " 
 
 " It might be so with eggs, but not with catechism. That will 
 keep, without spoiling, a hundred years." 
 
 " Because it is so dry ? " 
 
 " Because it is so good. But do, dear husband, go away, and 
 not put notions in the children's heads. It's hard enough al- 
 ready to get them through their tasks. Here's poor Arthur, 
 who has been two Sundays on one question, and has not got it 
 
 yet." 
 
 Arthur, aforesaid, was sharp and bright in any thing addressed 
 to his reason : but he had no verbal memory, and he was there- 
 fore wading painfully through the catechism like a man in a 
 deep, muddy road ; with this difference, that the man carries too 
 much clay with him, while nothing stuck to poor Arthur. Great 
 was the lad's pride and exultation on a former occasion when his 
 mother advanced him from the Smaller Catechism to the dignity 
 of the Westminster Catechism. He could hardly wait for Sunday 
 to begin his conquests. He was never known after the first Sun- 
 day to show any further impatience. He had been four weeks in 
 reaching the fourth question ; and two weeks already had he lain 
 before that luminous answer, beating or it like a ship too deeply 
 laden, and unable to cross the bar. 
 
 "What is God, Arthur?" said his mother. 
 
 " G-od is is a God is and God God is a " 
 
 Having got safely so far, the mother suggests " spirit ; " at which 
 he gasps eagerly, " God is a spirit." 
 
 " Infinite," says the mother. 
 
 " Infinite," says Arthur. 
 
 And then blushing, and twisting in his chair, he seemed unable 
 to extract any thing more. 
 
 " Eternal," says the mother. 
 
 " Eternal," says the boy. 
 
 " Well, go on. ' God is a spirit, infinite, eternal : ' what else ? " 
 
 " l God is a spirit, eternal, infinite : ' what else ? " 
 
 "Nonsense ! " says the startled mother. 
 
 "Nonsense !" goes on the boy, supposing it to be a part of the 
 regular answer. 
 
 " Arthur, stop ! What work you are making ! " 
 
 To stop was the very exercise in catechism at which he was 
 
126 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 most proficient ; and he stopped so fully and firmly, that nothing 
 more could be got out of him or into him during the exercise. 
 But his sorrow soon fled; for the second bell had rung, and it was 
 just time to walk; and " everybody was going," the servant re- 
 ported. The doctor had been called- away ; and his wife and the 
 children moved down the yard, Rose with demure propriety, 
 and Arthur and his eight-year-old brother, Charles, with less piety 
 manifest in deportment, but, on the whole, with decent demeanor. 
 The beauty of the day, the genial season of the year, brought 
 forth every one, old men and their feebler old wives, young and 
 hearty men and their plump and ruddy companions. Young 
 men and girls and children, thick as punctuation-points in He- 
 brew text, filled the street. In a low voice, they spoke to each 
 other in single sentences. 
 
 " A fine day. There'll be a good congregation out to-day." 
 
 " Yes : we may expect a house full. How is Widow Cheney : 
 have you heard ? " 
 
 ' Well, not much better : can't hold out many days. It will 
 be a great loss to the children." 
 
 " Yes : but we must all die ; nobody can skip his turn. Does 
 she still talk about them that's gone ? " 
 
 " They say not. I believe she's sVink into a quiet way ; and it 
 looks as if she would go off easy/' 
 
 "Sunday is a good day for dying: it's about the only journey 
 that speeds well on this day." 
 
 There was something striking in the outflow of people into the 
 street that till now had seemed utterly deserted. There was no 
 fevered hurry, no negligent or poorly-dressed people. Every 
 family came in groups, old folks and young children; and every 
 member blossomed forth in his best apparel, like a rose-bush in 
 June. Do 3*011 know that man in a silk hat and new black 
 coat? Probably it is some stranger. No: it is the carpenter, 
 Mr. Baggs, who was racing about yesterday with his sleeves 
 rolled up, and a dust-and-business look in his face. I knew you 
 would not know him. Adams Gardner, the blacksmith, does 
 he not look every inch a judge, now that he is clean-washed, 
 shaved, and dressed ? His eyes are as bright as the sparks that 
 fly from his anvil. 
 
 Are not the folks proud of their children ? See what groups 
 of them ! How ruddy and plump are most ! Some are roguish, 
 and cut clandestine capers at every chance. Otiiers seem like 
 wax figures, so perfectly proper are they. Little hands go slyly 
 through the pickets to pluck a tempting flower. Other hands 
 carry hymn-books or Bibles. But carry what they may, dressed 
 as each parent can afford, is there any thing the sun shines upon 
 more beautiful than these troops of Sunday children? 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 127 
 
 The old bell had it all its own way up in the steeple. It was 
 the licensed noise of the day. In a long shed behind the church 
 stood a score and half-score of wagons and chaises and carryalls, 
 the horses already beginning the forenoon's work of stamping, 
 and whisking the flies. More were coming. Hiram Beers had 
 " hitched up," and brought two loads with his new hack ; and 
 now, having secured the team, he stood with a few admiring 
 young fellows about him, remarking on the people as they 
 came up. 
 
 " There's Trowbridge : he'll git asleep afore the first prayer's 
 over. I don't b'lieve he's heerd a sermon in ten years. I've 
 seen him sleep standin' up in singiii'. 
 
 " Here comes Deacon Marble ! Smart old feller, ain't he ? 
 Wouldn't think it jest to look at him ! Face looks like an ear of 
 last summer's sweet-corn, all dried up ; but I tell ye he's got the 
 juice in him yit ! Aunt Polly's gittin' old, ain't she ? They say 
 she can't walk half the time ; lost the use of her limbs : but it's 
 all gone to her tongue. That's as good as a razor, and a sight 
 better'n mine ; for it never needs sharpenin'. 
 
 " Stand away, boys ! there's 'Biah Cathcart. Good horses ; 
 not fast, but mighty strong, just like the owner." 
 
 And with that Hiram touched his new Sunday hat to Mrs. 
 Cathcart and Alice ; and, as he took the horses by the bits, he 
 dropped his head, and gave the Cathcart boys a look of such 
 awful solemnity, all except one eye, that they lost their sobriety. 
 Barton alone remained sober as a judge. 
 
 " Here comes ( Dot-and-Go-One ' and his wife. They're my 
 kind o' Christians. She is a saint, at any rate. 
 
 " How is it with you, Tommy Taft ? "' 
 
 " Fair to middlin', thank'e. Such weather would make a hand- 
 spike blossom, Hiram ? " 
 
 " Don't you think that's a leetle strong, Tommy, for Sunday ? 
 P'raps you mean afore it's cut '? " 
 
 " Sartin : that's what I mean. But you mustn't stop me, 
 Hiram. Parson Buell '11 be lookin' for me. He never begins 
 till I git there." 
 
 " You mean' you always git there 'fore he begins ? " 
 
 Next Hiram's prying eyes saw Mr. Turfmould, the sexton and 
 undertaker, who seemed to be in a pensive meditation upon all 
 the dead that he had ever buried. He looked upon men in a 
 mild and pitying manner, as if he forgave them for being in 
 good health. You could not help feeling that he gazed upon 
 you with a professional eye, and saw just how you would look in 
 the condition which was to him the most interesting period of a 
 man's earthly state. He walked with a soft tread, as if he was 
 always at a funeral j and, when he shook your hand, his left 
 
128 ENGLISH LITEPwATURE. 
 
 hand half followed his right, as if he were about beginning to lay 
 you out. He was one of the few men absorbed by his business, 
 and who unconsciously measured all things from its standpoint. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Turfmould ! flow's your health ? How's 
 business with you ? " 
 
 " Good, the Lord be praised ! I've no reason to complain." 
 
 And he glided silently and smoothly into the church. 
 
 "There comes Judge Bacon, white and ugly," said the critical 
 Hiram. " I wonder what he comes to meetin' for. Lord knows 
 he needs it, sly, slippery old sinner ! Face's as white as a lily : 
 his heart's as black as a chimney-flue afore it's cleaned. He'll 
 get his flue burned out if he don't repent, that's certain. He 
 don't believe the Bible : they say he don't believe in God. 
 AVal, I guess it's pretty even between 7 em. Shouldn't wonder 
 if God didn't believe in him neither." 
 
 Hiram's prejudices were perhaps a little too severe. The 
 judge was very selfish, but not otherwise bad. He would not do 
 a positively bad deed if he could help it; but he neglected to 
 do a great many good ones which other men with warm hearts 
 would have done. But he made up in manner whatever he 
 lacked in feeling. Dressed with unexceptionable propriety, his 
 whole bearing was dignified and kind. Xo man in the village 
 spoke more musically and gently ; no one met you with a greater 
 cordiality. His expressions of kind wishes, and his anxiety to 
 serve you, needed only a single instance of hearty fulfillment to 
 make Judge Bacon seem sincerely and unusually kind. But 
 those who had most to do with him found that he was cold and 
 selfish at heart, inflexible and unfeeling when seeking his rights 
 or interests; and his selfishness was the more ghastly as it 
 clothed itself in the language and manners of gentle good will. 
 
 "He talks to you," said Hiram, "just as Black Sain lathers 
 you. A kind of smooth rubbing goes on, and you feel soft and 
 satisfied with yourself, and sort o' lean to him, when he takes 
 you by the nose, and shaves and shaves and shaves ; and it's so 
 smooth, that you don't feel the razor. But I tell you, when you 
 git away, you? skin smarts. You've been shaved. 
 
 "Here come the Bages and the Weekses, and a whole raft 
 from Hardscrabble," said Hiram, as five or six one-horse wagons 
 drove up. At a glance, one could see that these were farmers 
 who lived to work. They were spare in figure, brown in com- 
 plexion, every thing worn off but bone and muscle, like 
 ships with iron masts and wire rigging. They drove little nub- 
 bins of horses, tough and rough, that had never felt a blanket in 
 winter, or known a leisure day in summer. 
 
 " Them fellers," said Hirara, " is just like stones. I don't 
 believe there's any blood or innards in 'em inore'n in a crowbar. 
 
HENRY WARD BEECHER. 129 
 
 They work early, and work all day, and in the night, and keep 
 workin' ; and never seem to get tired except Sunday, when 
 they've nothin' to do. You know, when Fat Porter was buried, 
 they couldn't git him into the hearse, and had to carry him with 
 poles ; and Weeks was one of the bearers. And they had a pretty 
 heavy time of it, nigh about three hours, what with liftin' and 
 fixin' him at the house, and fetchin' him to the church-door, and 
 then carryin' him to the graveyard ; and Weeks said he hadn't 
 enjoyed a Sunday so much he couldn't tell when. 
 
 " ' Hiram/ sez he, ' I should like Sunday as well as week-days 
 if I could work on it ; but I git awful tired doin' nothin V 
 
 " They say," said Hiram, " that they never do exactly die up 
 in Hardscrabble. They work up and up, and grow thinner and 
 thinner like a knife-blade, till they git so small, that some day 
 they accidentally git misplaced or dropped, and nobody misses 
 ? em : so that they die off in a general way like pins, without any 
 one of 'em making a particular fuss about it. But I guess that 
 ain't so," added Hiram with a grave air, as if fearing that he 
 might mislead the young folks about him. Then, with demure 
 authority, he said, "Boys, go in: the bell's done tollin', and 
 meetin's goin' to begin. Go in, and don't make a noise; and see 
 you tell me where the text is. I've got to look after these 
 horses, or they'll get mixed up." 
 
 This remark was called forth by a squeal and a rattle and 
 backing of wagons, which showed that mischief was already 
 brewing. 
 
 Having got the people all safely into church, Hiram bestowed 
 his attention on the horses. The whole green was lined with 
 horses. Every hitch ing-post, and the railing along the sidewalk 
 and at the fronts of the stores, were closely occupied. 
 
 Seeing Pete leaning on Dr. Wentworth's gate, Hiram beck- 
 oned him over, and employed him in his general tour of inspec- 
 tion, as a bishop might employ his chaplain. Here the reins 
 had been pulled under a horse's feet ; next a horse had got his 
 bridle off; another had backed and filled till the wagon-wheels 
 were cramped; and at each position Hiram issued orders to 
 Pete, who good-naturedly, and as a matter indisputable, did as 
 he was ordered. If Hiram had told Pete to shoulder one of the 
 horses, he would have made the attempt. 
 
 " Look here, Pete, if that ain't a shame, then there ain't no 
 truth in the ten commandments ! A man that'll drive a horse with 
 a sore shoulder like that is a brute. Just feel how hot it is ! 
 Pete, you got a bucket of water, and put a little warm in it to 
 take off the chill, and wash that off, and take him out of harness. 
 I swow ! and I don't know but I ought to say I swear! for 
 it's Sunday work. Anyhow, if Blakesley don't know any better 
 
 9 
 
130 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 than that, he ought not to own a horse. There he is in church 
 a-hearin' the gospel, and feeliii' all over as comfortable as a cruller; 
 and he's left his horse out here to the flies and the sun, with a 
 shoulder that's a disgrace to Christianity. But that's the way with 
 us pretty much all round : if we are good here, we are bad there. 
 Folks's good and bad is like a board-teeter, if one end goes up, 
 t'other is sure to go down." 
 
 * It was curious to see Pete's superiority to Hiram in the matter 
 of dogs. In several wagons lay the master's dog; and Hiram was 
 not permitted to approach without dispute : but there was not a 
 dog, big or little, cross or affectionate, that did not own the myste- 
 rious power that Pete had over animals. Even dogs in whom 
 a sound conscience was bottomed on an ugly temper practiced a 
 surly submission to Pete's familiarity. 
 
 It was nearly twelve o'clock when Dr. Wentworth, returning 
 from his round of visits, found Hiram sitting on the fence, his 
 labors over, and waiting for Dr. Buell to finish. 
 
 " Not in church, Hiram ? I'm afraid you've not been a good 
 boy." 
 
 " Don't know. Somebody must take care of the outside as well 
 as inside of church. Dr. Buell rubs down the folks, and I rub the 
 horses : he sees that their tacklin' is all right in there, and I do 
 the same out here. Folks and animals are pretty much of a much- 
 ness ; and they'll bear a sight of takin' care of." 
 
 " Whose nag is that one, Hiram, the roan ? " 
 
 " That's Deacon Marble's." 
 
 " Why, he seems to sweat standing still." 
 
 Hiram's e}^e twinkled. 
 
 "You needn't say nothin', doctor; but I thought it a pity so 
 many horses shouldn't be doin' any thing. Of course, they don't 
 know any thing about Sunday (it ain't like workin' a creatur' 
 that reads the Bible) : so I just slipped over to Skiddy's widder 
 (she ain't been out doors this two months, and I knew she ought 
 to have the air), and I gave her about a mile. She was afraid 
 'twould be breakin' Sunday. 'Not a bit,' says I. ' Didn't the 
 Lord go out Sundays, and set folks off with their beds on their 
 backs ? and didn't he pull oxen and sheep out of ditches, and do 
 all that sort of thing ? ' If she'd knew that I took the deacon's 
 team, she'd been worse afraid. But I knew the deacon would 
 like it ; and if Polly didn't, so much the better. I like to spite 
 those folks that's too particular ! There, doctor, there's the last 
 hymn." 
 
 It rose upon the air, softened by distance and the inclosure of 
 the building. rose and fell in regular movement. Even Hiram's 
 tongue ceased. The vireo in the tops of the elm hushed its shrill 
 snatches. Again the hymn rose, and this time fuller and louder, 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 131 
 
 as if the whole congregation had caught the spirit. Men's and 
 women's voices, and little children's, were in it. Hiram said, 
 without any of his usual pertness, 
 
 " Doctor, there's somethin' in folks singin' when you are outside 
 the church that makes you feel as though you ought to be inside. 
 Mebbe a fellow will be left outside up there when they're singin', 
 if he don't look out." 
 
 When the last verse had ended, a pause and silence ensued. 
 Then came a gentle bustle, a sound of pattering feet. Out shot a 
 boy, and then two or three ; and close upon them a bunch of men. 
 The doors were wide open and thronged. The whole green was 
 covered with people, and the sidewalks were crowded. 
 
 Tommy Taft met the minister at the door, and put out his great 
 rough hand to shake. 
 
 " Thankee, doctor ; thankee : very well done. Coulcfti't do it 
 better myself. It'll do good, know it. Feel better myself. I 
 need just such preach in', mouldy old sinner, need a scourin' 
 about once a week. Drefful wicked to hev such doctrine, and not 
 be no better ; ain't it, doctor ? " 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSOK 
 
 BORN IN 1803, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 Mr. Emerson now lives in Concord, Mass., and writes and lectures at his leisure. 
 Many of his admirers regard him as the greatest thinker and philosopher of his time; 
 others, admitting the power of his genius and his great originality of thought and 
 expression, claim that one quality of a great writer and thinker is trie-ability to speak 
 to the comprehension of the greatest number, and so do not yield their admiration 
 freely to one whom they often can not fully understand. It is not to be denied that 
 he stands forth as one of the foremost thinkers of the age; and his keen analysis of 
 man and Nature, his comprehensive views of life and its issues, though expressed 
 frequently in a style above the level of the rapid or general reader, place him in the 
 front rank of philosophical essayists. He has published several volumes of lectures and 
 essays, and a volume of poems/ We select^from his " Representative Men," Napoleon, 
 or the Man of the Worll, as serving to illustrate the wonderful vigor of his style, and 
 at the same time being freest from metaphysical speculations and transcendentalism. 
 
 NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 AMONG the eminent persons of the nineteenth century, Bona- 
 parte is far the best known and the most powerful, and owes his 
 predominance to the fidelity with which he expresses the tone of 
 thought and belief, the aims of the masses of active and cultivated 
 men. It is Swcdenborg's theory, that every organ is made up of 
 
132 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 homogeneous particles ; or, as it is sometimes expressed, every 
 whole is made of similars : that is, the lungs are composed of infi- 
 nitely small lungs ; the liver, of infinitely small livers ; the kidney, 
 of little kidneys, &c. Following this analogy, if any man is found 
 to carry with him the power and affections of vast numbers, if 
 Napoleon is France, if Napoleon is Europe, it is because the people 
 whom he sways are little Napoleons. 
 
 In our society, there is a standing antagonism between the 
 conservative and the democratic classes; between those who have 
 made their fortunes, and the young and the poor who have 
 fortunes to make ; between the interests of dead labor, that is, 
 the labor of hands long ago still in the grave, which labor is now 
 entombed in money-stocks, or in land and buildings owned by idle 
 capitalists, and the interests of living labor, which seeks to 
 possess itself of land and buildings and money-stocks. The first 
 class is timid, selfish, illiberal, hating innovation, and continually 
 losing numbers by death. The second class is selfish also, 
 encroaching, bold, self-relying, always outnumbering the other, 
 and recruiting its numbers every hour by births : it desires to 
 keep open every avenue to the competition of all, and to multiply 
 avenues, the class of business-men in America, in England, in 
 France, and throughout Europe, the class of industry and skill. 
 Napoleon is its representative. The instinct of active, brave, able 
 men, throughout the middle class everywhere, has pointed out 
 Napoleon as the incarnate democrat. He had their virtues and 
 their vices ; above all, he had their spirit or aim. That tendency 
 is material, pointing at a sensual success, and emploj T ing the rich- 
 est and most various means to that end, conversant with mechan- 
 ical powers, highly intellectual, widely and accurately learned and 
 skillful, but .subordinating all intellectual and spiritual forces into 
 means to a material success. To be the rich man is the end. 
 " God has granted," says the Koran, " to every people, a prophet' 
 in its own tongue." Paris and London and New York, the 
 spirit of commerce, of money, and material power, were also to 
 have their prophet ; and Bonaparte was qualified and sent. 
 
 Every one of the million readers of anecdotes or memoirs or 
 lives of Xapoleou delights in the page, because he studies in it 
 his own history. Napoleon is thoroughly modern, and, at the 
 highest point of his fortunes, has the very spirit of the newspapers. 
 He is no saint ; to use his own word, " no capuchin : " and he is 
 no hero in the high sense. The man in the street finds in him 
 the qualities and powers of other men in the street. He finds 
 him, like himself, by birth a citizen, who by very intelligible 
 merits arrived at such a commanding position, that he could in- 
 dulge all those tastes which the common man possesses, but is 
 obliged to conceal and deny. Good society, good books, fast travel- 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 133 
 
 ing, dress, dinners, servants without number, personal weight, tho 
 execution of his ideas, the standing in the attitude of a benefactor 
 to all persons about him, the refined enjoyments of pictures, statues, 
 music, palaces, and conventional honors, precisely what is agree- 
 able to the heart of every man in the nineteenth century, this 
 powerful man possessed. 
 
 It is true that a man of Napoleon's truth of adaptation to the 
 mind of the masses around him becomes not merely representa- 
 tive, but actually a monopolizer and usurper of other minds. Thus 
 Mirabeau plagiarized every good thought, every good word, that 
 was spoken in France. Dumont relates that he sat in the gallery 
 of the Convention, and heard Mirabeau make a speech. It struck 
 Dumont that he could fit it with a peroration, which he wrote in 
 pencil immediately, and showed it to Lord Elgin, who sat by him. 
 Lord Elgin approved it ; and Dumont, in the evening, showed it 
 to Mirabeau. Mirabeau read it, pronounced it admirable, and 
 declared he would incorporate it into his harangue to-morrow to 
 the Assembly; "It is impossible," said Dumont, "as, unfor- 
 tunately, I have shown it to Lord Elgin." " If you have sho\vn 
 it to Lord Elgin, and to fifty persons beside, I shall still speak it 
 to-morrow." And he did speak it, with much effect, at the next 
 day's session; for Mirabeau, with his overpowering personality, 
 felt that these things which his presence inspired were as much 
 his own as if he had said them, and that his adoption of them gave 
 them their weight. Much more absolute and centralizing was the 
 successor to Mirabeau's popularity and to much more than his 
 predominance in France. Indeed, a man of Napoleon's stamp 
 almost ceases to have a private speech and opinion. He is so 
 largely receptive, and is so placed, that he comes to be a bureau 
 for all the intelligence, wit, and power of the age and country. 
 He gains the battle; he makes the code ; he makes the system of 
 weights and measures; he levels the Alps; he builds the road. 
 All distinguished engineers, savans, statists, report to him : so, 
 likewise, do all good heads in every kind. He adopts the best 
 measures, sets his stamp on them, and not these alone, but on every 
 happy and memorable expression. Every sentence spoken by 
 Napoleon, and every line of his writing, deserves reading, as it is 
 the sense of France. 
 
 Bonaparte was the idol of common men because he had in 
 transcendent degree the qualities and powers of common men. 
 There is a certain satisfaction in coming down to the lowest ground 
 of politics ; for we get rid of cant and hypocrisy. Bonaparte 
 wrought, in common with that great class he represented, for 
 power and wealth ; but Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple 
 as to the means. All the sentiments which embarrass men's 
 pursuit of these objects he set aside. The sentiments were for 
 
134 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 women and children. Fontanes, in 1804, expressed Napoleon's 
 own sense, when, in behalf of the Senate, he addressed him, 
 " Sire, the desire of perfection is the, worst disease that ev r er 
 afflicted the human mind." The advocates of liberty and of 
 progress are " ideologists," a word of contempt often in his 
 mouth. " Necker is an ideologist ; " " Lafayette is an ideologist." 
 
 An Italian proverb, too well known, declares, that, " if you 
 would succeed, you must not be too good." It is an advantage, 
 within certain limits, to have renounced the dominion of the senti- 
 ments of piety, gratitude, and generosity ; since what was an 
 impassable bar to us, and still is to others, becomes a convenient 
 weapon for our purposes, just as the river, which was a formi- 
 dable barrier, winter transforms into the smoothest of roads. 
 
 Napoleon renounced, once for all, sentiments and affections, and 
 would help himself with his hands and his head. With him is no 
 miracle and no magic. He is a worker in brass, in iron, in wood, 
 i.i earth, in roads, in buildings, in money, and in troops; and a very 
 consistent and wise master-workman. He is never weak and lite- 
 rary, but acts with the solidity and the precision of natural agents. 
 He has not lost his native sense, and sympathy with tilings. Men 
 give way before such a man as berore natural events. To be 
 sure, there are men enough who are immersed in things, as farm- 
 ers, smiths, sailors, and mechanics generally ; and we know how 
 real and solid such men appear in the presence of scholars and 
 grammarians: but these men ordinarily lack the power of arrange- 
 ment, and are like hands without a head. But Bonaparte super- 
 added to this mineral and a:iimal force insight and generalization; 
 so that men saw in him combined the natural and the intellectual 
 power, as if the sea and land had taken flesh, and begun to cipher. 
 Therefore the land and sea seem to presuppose him. He came 
 unto his own, and they received him. This ciphering operative 
 knows what he is working with, and what is the product. He 
 knew the properties of gold and iron, of wheels and ships, of 
 troops and diplomatists, and required that each should do after its 
 kind. 
 
 The art of war was the game in which he exerted his arith- 
 metic. It consisted, according to him, in having always more forces 
 than the enemy on the- point where the enemy is attacked, or 
 where he attacks ; and his whole talent is strained by endless 
 maneuver and evolution to march always on the enemy at an 
 angle, and destroy his forces in detail. It is obvious that a very 
 small force, skillfully and rapidly maneuvering, so as always to 
 bring two men against one at the point of engagement, will be an 
 overmatch for a much larger body of men. 
 
 The times, his constitution, and his early circumstances, com- 
 bined to develop this pattern democrat. He had the virtues of 
 
BALPH WALDO EMERSON. 135 
 
 his class, and the conditions for their activity. That common 
 sense, which no sooner respects any end than it finds the means 
 to effect it ; the delight in the use of means : in the choice, sim- 
 plification, and combining of means ; the directness and thorough- 
 ness of his work; the prudence with which all was seen, and the 
 energy with which all was done, make him the natural organ and 
 head of what I may almost call, from its extent, the modern 
 party. 
 
 Nature must have far the greatest share in every success ; and 
 so in his. Such a man was wanted, and such a man was born, 
 a man of stone and iron, capable of sitting on horseback sixteen 
 or seventeen hours, of going many days together without rest or 
 food except by snatches, and with the speed and spring of a tiger 
 in action ; a man not embarrassed by any scruples ; compact, in- 
 stant, selfish, prudent, and of a perception which did not suffer 
 itself to be balked or misled by any pretenses of others, or any 
 superstition, or any heat or haste of his own. " My hand of iron," 
 he said, " was not at the extremity of my arm : it was immediately 
 connected with my head." He respected the power of Nature and 
 Fortune, and ascribed to it his superiority, instead of valuing him- 
 self, like inferior men, on his opinionativeness, and waging war with 
 Nature. His favorite rhetoric lay in allusion to his star ; and he 
 pleased himself, as well as the people, when he styled himself the 
 " Child of Destiny." " They charge me," he said, " with the com- 
 mission of great crimes : men of my stamp do not commit crimes. 
 Nothing has been more simple than my elevation : 'tis in vain to 
 ascribe it to intrigue or crime. It was owing to the peculiarity of 
 the times, and to my reputation of having fought well against the 
 enemies of my country. I have always marched with the opinion 
 of great masses, and with events. Of what use, then, would crimes 
 be to me ? " Again he said, speaking of his son, " My son can 
 not replace me : I could not replace myself. I am the creature 
 of circumstances." 
 
 He had a directness of action never before combined with so 
 much comprehension. He is a realist, terrific to all talkers and 
 confused truth-obscuring persons. He sees where the matter 
 hinges, throws himself on the precise point of resistance, and 
 slights all other considerations. He is strong in the right manner; 
 namely, by insight. He never blundered into victory, but won 
 his battles in his head before he won them on the field. His 
 principal means are in himself. He asks counsel of no other. In 
 1796, he writes to the Directory, " I have conducted the campaign 
 without consulting any one. I should have done no good if I had 
 been under the necessity of conforming to the notions of another 
 person. I have gained some advantages over superior forces, and 
 when totally destitute of every thing, because, in the persua- 
 
136 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 sion that your confidence was reposed in me, my actions were as 
 prompt as my thoughts." 
 
 History is full, down to this day, of 'the imbecility of kings and 
 governors. They are a class of persons much to be pitied ; for they 
 know not what they should do. The weavers strike for bread ; 
 and the king and his ministers, not knowing what to do, meet 
 them with bayonets. But Xapoleon understood his business. 
 Here was a man who in each moment and emergency knew what 
 to do next. It is an immense comfort and refreshment to the 
 spirits, not only of kings, but of citizens. Few men have any 
 next ; they live from hand to mouth, without plan, and are ever 
 at the end of their line, and, after each action, wait for an impulse 
 from abroad. Xapoleon had been the first man of the world if his 
 ends had been purely public. As he is, he inspires confidence and 
 vigor by the extraordinary unity of his action. He is firm, sure, 
 self-denying, self- postponing, sacrificing every thing to his aim, 
 money, troops, generals, and his own safety also, to his aim ; not 
 misled, like common adventurers, by the splendor of his own 
 means. " Incidents ought not to govern policy," he said, " but 
 policy incidents." " To be hurried away by every event is to 
 have no political system at all." His victories were only so many 
 doors ; and he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in 
 the dazzle and uproar of the present circumstance. He knew what 
 to do, and he flew to his mark. He would shorten a straight line 
 to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes may no doubt be 
 collected from his history, of the price at which he bought his 
 successes : but he must not therefore be set down as cruel, but 
 only as one who knew no impediment to his will ; not bloodthirsty, 
 not cruel ; but woe to what thing or person stood in his way ! Not 
 bloodthirsty, but not sparing of blood, and pitiless. He saw 
 only the object : the obstacle must give way. " Sire, Gen. Clarke 
 can not combine with Gen. Junot for the dreadful fire of the 
 Austrian battery." "Let him carry the battery!" "Sire, 
 every regiment that approaches the heavy artillery is sacrificed. 
 Sire, what orders ? " " Forward, forward ! " Seruzier, a colonel 
 of artillery, gives in his " Military Memoirs" the following sketch 
 of a scene after the battle of Austerlitz : " At the moment in 
 which the Russian army was making its retreat, painfully, but in 
 good order, on the ice of the lake, the Emperor Xapoleon came 
 riding at full speed toward the artillery. * You are losing time,' 
 he cried. ' Fire upon those masses ! they must be ingulfed : fire 
 upon the ice ! ' The order remained unexecuted for ten minutes. 
 In vain several officers and myself were placed on the slope of a 
 hill to produce the effect: their balls and mine rolled upon the 
 ice without breaking it up. Seeing that, I tried a simple method 
 of elevating light howitzers. The almost perpendicular fall of the 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 137 
 
 heavy projectiles produced the desired effect. My method was 
 immediately followed by the adjoining batteries; and in less than 
 no time we buried" some* "thousands of .Russians and Austrians 
 under the waters of the lake." 
 
 In the plenitude of his resources, every obstacle seemed to van- 
 ish. " There shall be no Alps," he said ; and he built his perfect 
 roads, climbing by graded galleries their steepest precipices, until 
 Italy was as open to Paris as any town in France. He laid his 
 bones to, and wrought for his crown. Having decided what was 
 to be done, he did that with might and main. He put out all his 
 strength. He risked every thing, and spared nothing, neither 
 ammunition nor money nor troops nor generals nor himself. 
 
 We like to see every thing do its office after its kind, whether 
 it be a milch-cow or a rattle-snake ; and, if fighting be the best 
 mode of adjusting national differences (as large majorities of men 
 seem to agree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making it thor- 
 ough. "The grand principle of war," he said, "was, that an 
 army ought always to be ready, by day arid by night, and at all 
 hours, to make all the resistance it is capable of making." He 
 never economized his ammunition, but on a hostile position 
 rained a torrent of iron shells, balls, grape-shot to annihi- 
 late 'all defense. On any point of resistance, he concentrated 
 squadron on squadron in overwhelming numbers, until it was 
 swept out of existence. To a regiment of horse-chasseurs at 
 Lobenstein, two days before the battle of Jena, Napoleon said, 
 " My lads, you must not fear death : when soldiers brave death, 
 they drive him into the enemy's ranks." In the fury of assault, 
 he no more spared himself. He went to the edge of his possi- 
 bility. It is plain that in Italy he did what he could, and all 
 that he could. He came several times within an inch of ruin; 
 and his own person was all but lost. He was flung into the 
 marsh at Arcola. The Austrians were between him and his 
 troops in the melee, and he was brought off with desperate 
 efforts. At Lonato, and at other places, he was on the point of 
 being taken prisoner. He fought sixty battles. He had never 
 enough. Each victory was a new weapon. " My power would 
 fall were I not to support it by new achievements. Conquest 
 has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me." He 
 felt, with every wise man, that as much life is needed for conser- 
 vation as for creation. We are always in peril, always in a bad 
 plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to be saved by 
 invention and courage. 
 
 This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence 
 and punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, he was found in- 
 
 * As I quote at second-hand, and can not procure Seruzier, I dare not adopt the 
 high figure I find. 
 
138 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 vulnerable in his intrenchments. His very attack was never 
 the inspiration of courage, but the result of calculation. His 
 idea of the best defense consists in being still the attacking party. 
 " My ambition," he says, " was great, but was of a cold nature." 
 In one of his conversations with Las Casas, he remarked, " As to 
 moral courage, I have rarely met with the two-o'clock-in-the- 
 morning kind : I mean unprepared courage ; that which is neces- 
 sary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most 
 unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision." 
 And he did not hesitate to declare that he was himself eminently 
 endowed with this " two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage, and that 
 he had met with few persons equal to himself in this respect." 
 
 Every thing depended on the nicety of his combinations ; and 
 the stars were not more punctual than his arithmetic. His per- 
 sonal attention descended to the smallest particulars. " At Mon- 
 tebello, I ordered Kellermann to attack with eight hundred horse; 
 and with these he separated the six thousand Hungarian grena- 
 diers before the very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry 
 was half a league off, and required a quarter of an hour to arrive 
 on the field of action; and I have observed that it is always 
 these quarters of an hour that decide the fate of a battle." " Be- 
 fore he fought a battle, Bonaparte thought little about what he 
 should do in case of success, but a great deal about what he 
 should do in case of a reverse of fortune." The same prudence 
 and good sense mark all his behavior. His instructions to his 
 secretary at the Tuileries are worth remembering : " During the 
 night, enter my chamber as seldom as possible. Do not awake 
 me when you have any good news to communicate; witli that 
 there is no hurry: but, when you bring bad news, rouse me in- 
 stantly; for then there is not a moment to be lost," It was a 
 whimsical economy of the same kind which dictated his practice, 
 when general in Italy, in regard to his burdensome correspond- 
 ence. He directed Bourrienne to leave all letters unopened for 
 three weeks, and then observed with satisfaction how large a part 
 of the correspondence had thus disposed of itself, and no longer 
 required an answer. His achievement of business was immense, 
 and enlarges the known powers of man. There have been many 
 working kings from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who 
 accomplished a tithe of this man's performance. 
 
 To these gifts of Nature Napoleon added the advantage of 
 having been born to a private and humble fortune. In his later 
 days, he had the weakness of wishing to add to his crowns and 
 badges the prescription of aristocracy ; but he knew his debt to 
 his austere education, and made no secret of his contempt for the 
 born kings, and for " the hereditary asses," as he coarsely styled 
 the Bourbons. He said, that "in their exile they had learned 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 139 
 
 nothing, and forgot nothing." Bonaparte had passed through all 
 the degrees of military service; but also was citizen before he was 
 emperor, and so has the key to citizenship. His remarks and 
 estimates discover the information and justness of measurement 
 of the middle class. Those who had to deal with him found that 
 he was not to be imposed upon, but could cipher as well as another 
 man. This appears in all parts of his Memoirs, dictated at St. 
 Helena. When the expenses of the empress, of his household, 
 of his palaces, had accumulated great debts, Napoleon examined 
 the bills of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and errors, 
 and reduced the claims by considerable sums. 
 
 His grand weapon namely, tUe millions whom he directed 
 he owed to the representative character which clothed him. He 
 interests us as he stands for France and for Europe ; and he exists 
 as captain and king only as far as the E/evolution, or the inter- 
 est of the industrious masses, found an organ and a leader in 
 him. In the social interests, he knew the meaning and value of 
 labor, and threw himself naturally on that side. I like an inci- 
 dent mentioned by one of his biographers at St. Helena : " When 
 walking with Mrs. Balcombe, some servants, carrying heavy 
 boxes, passed by on the road ; and Mrs. Balcombe desired them, 
 in rather an angry tone, to keep back. Napoleon interfered, say- 
 ing, { Respect the burden, madam.' " In the time of the empire, 
 he directed attention to the improvement and embellishment of 
 the markets of the capital. " The market-place," he said, " is the 
 Louvre of the common people." The principal works that have 
 survived him are his magnificent roads. He filled the troops 
 with his spirit ; and a sort of freedom and companionship grew 
 up between him and them, which the forms of his court never 
 permitted between the officers and himself. They performed 
 under his eye that which no others could do. The best docu- 
 ment of his relation to his troops is the order of the day on the 
 morning of the battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon promises 
 the troops that he will keep his person out of reach of fire. 
 This declaration, which is the reverse of that ordinarily made by 
 generals and sovereigns on the eve of a battle, sufficiently ex- 
 plains the devotion of the army to their leader. 
 
 But, though there is in particulars this identity between Napo- 
 leon and the mass of the people, his real strength lay in their 
 conviction that he was their representative in his genius and aims, 
 not only when he courted, but when he controlled and even when 
 he decimated them by his conscriptions. He knew, as well as any 
 Jacobin in France, how to philosophize on liberty and equality; 
 and when allusion was made to the precious blood of centuries, 
 which was spilled By the killing of the Due d'Enghien, he sug- 
 gested, " Neither is my blood ditch-water." The people felt that 
 
 
140 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 no longer the throne was occupied, and the land sucked of its 
 nourishment, by a small class of legitimates secluded from all 
 community with the children of the *soil, and holding the ideas 
 and superstitions of a long-forgotten state of societ}-. In- 
 stead of that vampire, a man of themselves held in the Tuile- 
 ries knowledge and ideas like their own ; opening of course, to 
 them and their children, all places of power and trust. The day 
 of sleepy, selfish policy, ever narrowing the means and opportu- 
 nities of young men, was ended ; and a day of expansion and de- 
 mand was come. A market for all the powers and productions 
 of man was opened ; brilliant prizes glittered in the eyes of youth 
 and talent. The old, iron-bound, feudal France was changed into 
 a young Ohio or Xew York ; and those who smarted under the 
 immediate rigors of the new monarch pardoned them as the 
 necessary severities of the military system which had driven out 
 the oppressor. And, even when the majority of the people had 
 begun to ask whether they had really gained any thing under 
 the exhausting levies of men and money of the new master, 
 the whole talent of the country, in every rank and kindred, took 
 his part, and defended him as its natural patron. In 1814, when 
 advised to rely on the higher classes, Napoleon said to those 
 around him, " Gentlemen, in the situation in which I stand, niy 
 only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs." 
 
 Napoleon met this natural expectation. The necessity of his 
 position required a hospitality to every sort of talent, and its ap- 
 pointment to trusts; and his feeling went along with this policy. 
 Like every superior person, he undoubtedly felt a desire for men 
 and compeers, and a wish to measure his power with other mas- 
 ters, and an impatience of fools and underlings. In Italy, he 
 sought for men, and found none. "Good God!" he said, "how 
 rare men are ! There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have 
 with difficulty found two, Dandolo and Melzi." In later years, 
 with larger experience, his respect for mankind was not increased. 
 In a moment of bitterness, he said to one of his oldest friends, 
 " Men deserve the contempt with which they inspire me. I have 
 only to put some gold lace on the coat of my virtuous republicans, 
 and they immediately become just what I wish them." This im- 
 patience at levity was, however, an oblique tribute of respect to 
 those able persons who commanded his regard, not only when he 
 found them friends and coadjutors, but also when they resisted 
 his will. He could not confound Fox and Pitt, Carnot, Lafay- 
 ette, and Bernadotte, with the danglers of his court; and, in 
 spite of the detraction which his systematic egotism dictated 
 toward the great captains who conquered with and for him. ample 
 acknowledgments are made by him to Lannes, Duroc, Kleber, 
 Dessaix, Massena, Murat, Ney, and Augereau. If he felt him- 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 141 
 
 self their patron, and the founder of their fortunes, as when he 
 said, "I made my generals out of mud," he could not hide his 
 satisfaction in receiving from them a seconding and support com- 
 mensurate with the grandeur of his enterprise. In the Russian 
 campaign, he was so much impressed by the courage and resources 
 of Marshal Key, that he said, "I have two hundred millions in 
 my coffers, and I would give them all for Ney." The characters 
 which he has drawn of several of his marshals are discriminating, 
 and, though they did not content the insatiable vanity of French 
 officers, are no doubt substantially just. And, in fact, every 
 species of merit was sought and advanced under his government. 
 " I know," he said, " the depth and draught of water of every 
 one of my generals." Natural power was sure to be w r ell received 
 at his court. Seventeen men, in his time, were raised from com- 
 mon soldiers to the rank of king, marshal, duke, or general ; and 
 the crosses of his Legion of Honor were given to personal valor, 
 and not to family connection. " When soldiers have been bap- 
 tized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my 
 eyes." 
 
 When a natural king becomes a titular king, everybody is 
 pleased and satisfied. The Revolution entitled the strong popu- 
 lace of the Faubourg St. Antoine, and every horseboy and pow- 
 der-monkey in the army, to look on Napoleon as flesh of his 
 flesh, and the creature of his party. But there is something in 
 the success of grand talent which enlists a universal sympathy : 
 for, in the prevalence of sense and spirit over stupidity and mal- 
 versation, all reasonable men have an interest ; and, as intellect- 
 ual beings, we feel the air purified by the electric shock when 
 material force is overthrown by intellectual energies. As soon as 
 we are removed out of the reach of local and accidental partialities, 
 man feels that Napoleon fights for him ; these are honest victo- 
 ries ; this strong steam-engine does our work. Whatever appeals 
 to the imagination by transcending the ordinary limits of human 
 ability, wonderfully encourages and liberates us. This capacious 
 head, revolving and disposing sovereignly trains of affairs, and 
 animating such multitudes of agents; this eye, which looked 
 through Europe; this prompt invention; this inexhaustible re- 
 source, what events ! what romantic pictures ! what strange 
 situations ! when spying the Alps by a sunset in the Sicilian 
 Sea ; drawing up his army for battle in sight of the Pyramids, 
 and saying to his troops, " From the tops of those Pyramids forty 
 centuries look down on you ; " fording the Red Sea ; wading in 
 the gulf of the Isthmus of Suez. On the shore of Ptolemais, 
 gigantic projects agitated him. " Had Acre fallen, I should have 
 changed the face of the world." His army, on the night of the 
 battle of Austerlitz, which was the anniversary of his inaugura- 
 
142 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 tion as emperor, presented him with a houquet of forty standards 
 taken in the fight. Perhaps it is a little puerile the pleasure he 
 took in making these contrasts glaring; as when he pleased him- 
 self with making kings wait in his ante-chambers at Tilsit, at 
 Paris, and at Erfurt. 
 
 We can not, in the universal imbecility, indecision, and indo- 
 lence of men, sufficiently congratulate ourselves on this strong 
 and ready actor, who took occasion by the beard, and showed us 
 how much may be accomplished by the mere force of such virtues 
 as all men possess in less degrees; namely, by punctuality, by 
 personal attention, by courage and thoroughness. "The Aus- 
 trians," he said, "do not know the value of time." I should cite 
 him in his earlier years as a model of prudence. His power 
 does not consist in any wild or extravagant force; in any enthu- 
 siasm like Mahomet's, or singular power of persuasion ; but in 
 the exercise of common sense on each emergency, instead of abid- 
 ing by rules and customs. The lesson he teaches is that which 
 vigor always teaches, that there is always room for it. To 
 what heaps of cowardly doubts is not that man's life an answer! 
 When he appeared, it was the belief of all military men that 
 there could be nothing new in war ; as it is the belief of men to- 
 day that nothing new can be undertaken in politics, or in church, 
 or in letters, or in trade, or in fanning, or in our social manners 
 and customs; and as it is at all times the belief of society that 
 the world is used up. But Bonaparte knew better than society; 
 and, moreover, knew that he knew better. I think all men know 
 better than they do, know that the institutions we so volubly 
 commend are go-carts and baubles; but they dare not trust their 
 intiments. Bonaparte relied on his own sense, and did not 
 care a bean for other people's. The world treated his novelties 
 just as it treats everybody's novelties, made infinite objection, 
 mustered all the impediments ; but he snapped his finger at their 
 objections. " What creates great difficulty," he remarks, " in the 
 profession of the land-commander, is the necessity of feeding so 
 many men and animals. If he allows himself to be guided by 
 tin; commissaries, he will never stir, and all his expeditions will 
 fail." An example of his common sense is what he says of the 
 passage of the Alps in winter; which all writers, one repeating 
 ai v *-r the other, had described as impracticable. "The winter," 
 says Napoleon, " is not the most unfavorable season for the pas- 
 sage of lofty mountains. The snow is then firm, the weather set- 
 tlc<l; and there is nothing to fear from avalanches, the real and 
 only danger to be apprehended in the Alps. On those high 
 mountains, there are often very fine days in December, of a dry 
 cold, with extreme calmness in the air." Bead his account, too, 
 of the way in which battles are gained: "In all battles, a mo- 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 143 
 
 menfc occurs when the bravest troops, after having made the 
 greatest efforts, feel inclined to run. That terror proceeds from a 
 want of confidence in their own courage ; and it only requires a 
 slight opportunity, a pretense, to restore confidence to them. 
 The art is to give rise to the opportunity, and to invent the pre- 
 tense. At Arcola, I won the battle with twenty-five horsemen. 
 I seized that moment of lassitude, gave every man a trumpet, and 
 gained the day with this handful. You see that two armies are 
 two bodies which meet, and endeavor to frighten each other : a 
 moment of panic occurs, and that moment must be turned to 
 advantage. When a man has been present in many actions, he 
 distinguishes that moment without difficulty : it is as easy as 
 casting up an addition." 
 
 This deputy of the nineteenth century added to his gifts a ca- 
 pacity for speculation on general topics. He delighted in run- 
 ning through the range of practical, of literary, and of abstract 
 questions. His opinion is always original, and to the purpose. 
 On the voyage to Egypt, he liked, after dinner, to fix on three or 
 four persons to support a proposition, and as many to oppose it. 
 He gave a subject ; and the discussions turned on questions of 
 religion, the different kinds of government, and the art of war. 
 One day, he asked whether the planets were inhabited; on 
 another, what was the age of the world. Then he proposed to 
 consider the probability of the destruction of the globe, either by 
 water or by fire ; at another time, the truth or fallacy of presenti- 
 ments, and the interpretation of dreams. He was very fond of 
 talking of religion. In 1806, he conversed with Fournier, bishop 
 of Montpellier, on matters of theology. There were two points 
 on which they could not agree ; viz., that of hell, and that of sal- 
 vation out of the pale of the Church. The emperor told Jose- 
 phine that he disputed like a devil on these two points, on which 
 the bishop was inexorable. To the philosophers he readily yielded 
 all that was proved against religion as the work of men and time ; 
 but he would not hear of materialism. One fine night, on deck, 
 amid a clatter of materialism, Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and 
 said, " You may talk as long as you please, gentlemen ; but who 
 made all that ? " He delighted in the conversation of men of 
 science, particularly of Monge and Berthollet: but the men of 
 letters he slighted ; " they were manufacturers of phrases." 
 Of medicine, too, he was fond of talking, and with those of its 
 practitioners whom he most esteemed, with Corvisart at Paris, 
 and with Antonomarchi at St. Helena. "Believe me," he said to 
 the last, "we had better leave off all these remedies: life is a 
 fortress which neither you nor I know any thing about. Why 
 throw obstajles in the way of its defense ? Its own means are 
 superior to all the apparatus of your laboratories. Corvisart can- 
 
144 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 didly agreed with me that all your filthy mixtures are good for 
 nothing. Medicine is a .collection of uncertain prescriptions, the 
 results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to 
 mankind. Water, air, and cleanliness are the chief articles in 
 my pharmacopoaia." 
 
 His Memoirs, dictated to Count Montholon and Gen. Gourgaud 
 at St. Helena, have great value, after all the deduction that it 
 seems is to be made from them on account of his known disin- 
 genuousness. He has the good-nature of strength and conscious 
 superiority. I admire his simple, clear narrative of his battles, 
 good as Caesar s, his good-natured and sufficiently respectful 
 account of Marshal Wurmser and his other antagonists, and his 
 own equality as a writer to his varying subject. The most agree- 
 able portion is the campaign in Egypt. 
 
 He had hours of thought and wisdom. In intervals of leisure, 
 either in the camp or the palace, Napoleon appears as a man of 
 genius, directing on abstract questions the native appetite for truth, 
 and the impatience of words, he was wont to show in war. He 
 could enjoy every play of invention, a romance, a Ion-mot, as well 
 as a stratagem in a campaign. He delighted to fascinate Josephine 
 and her ladies in a dim-lighted apartment by the terrors of a fic- 
 tion, to which his voice and dramatic power lent every addition. 
 
 I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of 
 modern society ; of the throng who fill the markets, shops, count- 
 ing-houses, manufactories, ships, of the modern world, aiming to 
 be rich. He was the agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the 
 internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the inventor of means, 
 the opener of doors and markets, the subverter of monopoly and 
 abuse. Of course, the rich and aristocratic did not like him. 
 England, the center of capital, and Borne and Austria, centers 
 of tradition and genealogy, opposed him. The consternation of 
 the dull and conservative classes ; the terror of the foolish old men 
 and old women of the Roman conclave, who in their despair 
 took hold of any thing, and would cling to red-hot iron; the 
 vain attempts of statists to amuse and deceive him, of the Empe- 
 ror of Austria to bribe him ; and the instinct of the young, ar- 
 dent, and active men everywhere, which pointed him out as the 
 giant of the middle class, make his history bright and command- 
 ing. He had the virtues of the masses of his constituents : he 
 had also their vices. I am sorry that the brilliant picture has its 
 reverse. But that is the fatal quality which we discover in our 
 pursuit of wealth, that it is treacherous, and is bought by the 
 breaking or weakening of the sentiments ; and it is inevitable that 
 we should find the same fact in the history of this champion, who 
 proposed to himself simply a brilliant career without any stipula- 
 tion or scruple concerning the means. 
 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 145 
 
 Bonaparte was singularly destitute of generous sentiments. 
 The highest-placed individual in the most cultivated age and 
 population of the world, he has not the merit of common truth 
 and honesty. He is unjust to his generals ; egotistic and monop- 
 olizing; meanly stealing the credit of their great actions from 
 Kellermann, from Bernadotte ; intriguing to involve his faithful 
 Junot in hopeless bankruptcy in order to drive him to a distance 
 from Paris, because the familiarity of his manners offends the 
 new pride of his throne. He is a boundless liar. The official 
 paper, his " Moniteurs," and all his bulletins, are proverbs for 
 saying what lie wished to be believed; and, worse, he sat, in 
 his premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly falsifying facts 
 and dates and characters, and giving to history a theatrical eclat. 
 Like all Frenchmen, he has a passion for stage effect. Every 
 action that breathes of generosity is poisoned by this calculation. 
 His star, his love of glory, his doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul, are all French. " I must dazzle and astonish. If I were to 
 give the liberty of the press, my power could not last three days." 
 To make a great noise is his favorite design. " A great reputa- 
 tion is a great noise : the more there is made, the farther off it is 
 heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall ; but the 
 noise continues, and resounds in after-ages." His doctrine of im- 
 mortality is simply fame. His theory of influence is not flatter- 
 ing. "There are two levers for moving men, interest and 
 fear. Love is a silly infatuation, depend upon it. Friendship is 
 but a name. I love nobody. I do not even love my brothers : 
 perhaps Joseph a little, from habit, and because he is my elder; 
 and Duroc I love him too ; but why ? Because his character 
 pleases me : he is stern and resolute, and I believe the fellow 
 never shed a tear. For my part, I know very well that I have 
 no true friends. As long as I continue to be what I am, I may 
 have as many pretended friends as I please. Leave sensibility 
 to women ; but men should be firm in heart and purpose, or they 
 should have nothing to do with war arid government." He was 
 thoroughly unscrupulous. He would steal, slander, assassinate, 
 drown, and poison, as his interest dictated. He had no gener- 
 osity, but mere vulgar hatred ; he was intensely selfish ; he was 
 perfidious ; he cheated at cards ; he was a prodigious gossip, and 
 opened letters, and delighted in his infamous police ; and rubbed 
 his hands with joy when he had intercepted some morsel of intel- 
 ligence concerning the men and women about him, boasting that 
 "he knew every thing;" and interfered with the cutting the 
 dresses of the women; and listened after the hurrahs and the 
 compliments of the street incognito. His manners were coarse. 
 He treated women with low familiarity. He had the habit of 
 pulling their ears and pinching their cheeks when he was in 
 10 
 
146 . ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 good-humor, and of pulling the ears and whiskers of men, and of 
 striking and horse-play with them, to his last days. It does not 
 appear that he listened at keyholes, or at least that he was 
 caught at it. In short, when you have penetrated through all 
 the circles of power and splendor, you were not dealing with a 
 gentleman at last, but with an impostor and a rogue.. And he 
 fully deserves the epithet of Jupiter Scapin, or a sort of Scamp 
 Jupiter. 
 
 In describing the two parties into which modern society divides 
 itself, the democrat and the conservative, I said Bonaparte 
 represents the democrat, or the party of men of business, against 
 the stationary or conservative part)'. I omitted then to say 
 what is material to the statement; namely, that these two parties 
 differ only as young and old. The democrat is a young conserva- 
 tive : the conservative is an old democrat. The aristocrat is the 
 democrat ripe, and gone to seed, because both parties stand on 
 the one ground of the supreme value of property, which one en- 
 deavors to get, and the other to keep. Bonaparte may be said to 
 represent the whole history of this party, its youth and its age ; 
 yes, and, with poetic justice, its fate, in his own. The counter- 
 revolution, the counter-party, still waits for its organ and repre- 
 sentative in a lover and a man of truly public and universal 
 aims. 
 
 Here was an experiment, under the most favorable conditions, 
 of the powers of intellect without conscience. Never was such a 
 leader so endowed and so weaponed ; never leader found such 
 aids and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent 
 and power, of these immense armies, burned cities, squandered 
 treasures, immolated millions of men, of this demoralized Eu- 
 rope ? It came to no result. All passed away like the smoke of 
 his artillery, and left no trace. He left France smaller, poorer, 
 feebler, than he found it; and the whole contest for freedom was 
 to be begun again. The attempt was, in principle, suicidal. 
 France served him with life and limb and estate as long as it 
 could identify its interest with him : but when men saw that after 
 victory was another war ; after the destruction of armies, new 
 conscriptions ; and they who had toiled so desperately were never 
 nearer to the reward, they could not spend what they had 
 earned, nor repose on their down-beds, nor strut in their cha- 
 teaux; they deserted him. Men found that his absorbing ego- 
 tism was deadly to all other men. It resembled the torpedo, 
 which inflicts a succession of shocks on any one who takes hold 
 of it, producing spasms which contract the muscles of the hand, 
 so that the man can not open his fingers ; and the animal inflicts 
 new and more violent shocks, until he paralyzes and kills his vic- 
 tim. So this exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and ab- 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 147 
 
 sorbed the power and existence of those who served him; and 
 the universal cry of France and of Europe, in 1814, was, " Enough 
 of him ! " " Assez de Bonaparte ! " 
 
 It was not Bonaparte's fault. He did all that in him lay to 
 live and thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of 
 things, the eternal law of man and of the world, which balked 
 and ruined him ; and the result in a million experiments will be 
 the same. Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals, 
 that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail. The pacific Fourier 
 will be as inefficient as the pernicious Napoleon. As long as our 
 civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusive- 
 ness, it will be mocked by delusions. Our riches will leave us 
 sick; there will be bitterness in our laughter; and our wine will 
 burn our mouth. Only that good profits which we can taste with 
 all doors open, and which serves all men. 
 
 WASHINGTON IRVING. 
 
 BORN APRIL 3, 1783, NEW-YORK CITY. 
 DIED Nov. 28, 1859. 
 
 Leaving school at the age of sixteen, he commenced the study of law; but, after 
 having traveled in Europe for his health, he gave up the law, though he had been 
 admitted to the bar, and devoted himself to literary pursuits. Of all the kind re- 
 marks that all the critics have made of him, we will quote only the following : 
 
 " But allow me to speak what I honestly feel. 
 To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick Steele; 
 Throw in all of Addison, minus the chill ; 
 With the whole of that partnership's stock and good-will 
 Mix well; and, while stirring, hum o'er as a spell 
 The ' fine old English gentleman ; ' simmer it well ; 
 Sweeten just to your own private liking; then strain, 
 That only the finest and clearest remain ; 
 Let it stand out of doors till a soul it receives 
 
 From the warm, lazy sun, loitering down through green leaves, 
 And you'll find a choice nature, not wholly deserving 
 A name either English or Yankee, just Irving." 
 
 James Russell LowelVs Fable for the Critics. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 "Salmagundi;" " Sketch-Book ; " " History of New York, by Diedrich Knicker- 
 bocker;" "Bracebridge Hall;" "Tales of a Traveler;" "Life of Columbus;" 
 "Chronicles of Conquest of Grenada;" "Alhambra;" "Tour of the Prairies;" 
 " Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey;" "Legends of the Conquest of Spain;" " Asto- 
 ria;" "The Adventures of Captain Bonneville;" "Life of Goldsmith;" ' Lite of 
 Washington." 
 
148 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 RIP VAN WINKLE. 
 A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIETRICH KNICKERBOCKER. 
 
 [The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knicker, 
 bocker, an old gentleman of New York who was very curious in the Dutch history 
 of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. 
 
 His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among 
 men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topic: whereas lie found 
 the old burghers, and, still more, their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invalua- 
 ble to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, 
 snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked 
 upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a 
 book-worm. 
 
 The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign 
 of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been 
 various opinions as to the literary character of his work; and, to tell the truth, it is 
 not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, 
 which, indeed, was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been 
 completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections as a 
 book of unquestionable authority. 
 
 The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work; and, now that 
 he is dead and gone, it can not do much harm to his memory to say that his time 
 might have been much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt 
 to ride his hobby his own way: and though it did now and then kick up the dust a 
 little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends for whom he 
 felt the truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are remembered 
 "more in sorrow than in anger;" and it begins to be suspected that he never in- 
 tended to injure or offend. But, however his memory may be appreciated by critics, 
 it is still held dear by many folks whose good opinion is well worth having; particu- 
 larly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on 
 their New- Year cakes, and have thus given him a chance for immortality almost 
 equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo medal or a Queen Anne's farthing.] 
 
 WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember 
 the Gatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the 
 great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the 
 river, swelling up to a noble hight, and lording it over the sur- 
 rounding country. Every change of season, every change of 
 weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in 
 the magical hues and shapes of these mountains ; and they are 
 regarded by all the good-wives far and near as perfect barome- 
 ters. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in 
 blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening 
 sky ; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, 
 they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, 
 in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a 
 crown of glory. 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 140 
 
 At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have 
 descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle- 
 roofs. gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints -of the up- 
 land melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It 
 is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some 
 of the Dutch colonists in the early times of the province, just 
 about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuy- 
 vesant, (may he rest in peace !) and there were some of the houses 
 of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small 
 yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows, and 
 gable fronts surrounded with weathercocks. 
 
 In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, 
 to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), 
 there lived many years since, while the country was yet a prov- 
 ince of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name 
 of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles 
 who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyve- 
 sant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He 
 inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his an- 
 cestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured 
 man. He was, moreover, a kind neighbor, an obedient, hen- 
 pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be 
 owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal 
 popularity ; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and con- 
 ciliating abroad who are under the discipline of shrews at home. 
 Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the 
 fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and a curtain-lecture is 
 worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of pa- 
 tience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may therefore, in 
 some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing ; and, if so, Rip 
 Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 
 
 Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the good- 
 wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his 
 part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they 
 talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all 
 the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, 
 too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted 
 at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites 
 and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, 
 and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he 
 was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clam- 
 bering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with 
 impunitjr ; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aver- 
 sion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the 
 
1<">0 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 want of assiduity or perseverance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, 
 with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day, 
 without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by 
 a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder 
 for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up 
 hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild-pigeons. He 
 would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the roughest toil ; 
 and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking corn, or 
 building stone fences. The women of the village, too, used to 
 employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as 
 their less-obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, 
 Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own ; but 
 as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found 
 it impossible. 
 
 In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm : it 
 was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole coun- 
 try : every thing about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in 
 spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his 
 cows would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds 
 were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the 
 rain alwa} T s made a point of setting in just as he had some out- 
 door work to do : so that though his patrimonial estate had dwin- 
 dled away under his management, acre by acre, .until there was 
 little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, 
 yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 
 
 His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged 
 to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, 
 promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes, of his father. 
 He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, 
 equipped in a pair of his father's cast-oif galligaskins, which he 
 had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her 
 train in bad weather. 
 
 Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of 
 foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy; eat white 
 bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or 
 trouble ; and would rather starve on a penny than work for a 
 pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in 
 perfect contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in his 
 ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was 
 bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue 
 was incessantly going ; and every thing he said or did was sure to 
 produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way 
 of replying to all lectures of the kind; and that, by frequent use, 
 had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his 
 head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always 
 provoked a fresh volley from his wife : so that he was fain to draw 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 151 
 
 oT his forces, and take to the outside of the house, the only 
 side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked husband. 
 
 Kip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as 
 much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded 
 them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with 
 an evil eye, as the cause of his master's going so often astray.. 
 True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he 
 was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods ; but what 
 courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors 
 of a woman's tongue ? The moment Wolf entered the house, his 
 crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his 
 legs; he sneaked about with a gallows-air, casting many a side- 
 long glance at Dame Van Winkle ; and, at the least flourish of a 
 broomstick or ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping precipi- 
 tation. 
 
 Times grew worse and worse with Kip Van Winkle as years of 
 matrimony rolled on. A tart temper never mellows with age, and 
 a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with con- 
 stant use. For a long while, he used to console himself, when 
 driven from home,. by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the 
 sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village, 
 which held its sessions on a bench before a small .inn designated 
 by a rubicund portrait of his Majesty George the Third. Here 
 they used to sit in the shade through a long, lazy summer's day, 
 talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy 
 stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any states- 
 man's money to have heard the profound discussions that some- 
 times took place when by chance an old newspaper fell into their 
 hands from some passing traveler. How solemnly they would 
 listen to the contents as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, 
 the schoolmaster! a dapper, learned little man, who was not to 
 be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how 
 sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months 
 after they had taken place ! 
 
 The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nich- 
 olas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn; 
 at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, 
 just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade 
 of a large tree : so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his 
 movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely 
 heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, 
 however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly under- 
 stood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When any 
 thing that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to 
 smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, 'and 
 angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds ; and some- 
 times, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant 
 vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of 
 perfect approbation. 
 
 From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length 
 routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon 
 the tranquillity of the assemblage, and call the members all to 
 naught. Xor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, 
 sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged 
 him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness. 
 
 Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair ; and his only 
 alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his 
 wife was to take gun in hand, and stroll away into the woods. 
 Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and 
 share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympa- 
 thized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf!" he would 
 say : " thy mistress loads thee a dog's life of it. But never mind, 
 my lad: whilst I live, thou shalt never want a friend to stand by 
 thee." Wolf would wag his tail; look wistfully in his master's 
 face ; and, if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated 
 the sentiment with all his heart. 
 
 In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had 
 unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Cats- 
 kill Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel- 
 shooting; and the still solitudes had echoed with the reports of his 
 gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the after- 
 noon, on a green kuoll, covered with mountain-herbage, that 
 crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the 
 trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of 
 rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far 
 below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the re- 
 flection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and 
 there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the 
 blue highlands. 
 
 On the other side, he looked down into a deep mountain-glen, 
 wild, lonely, and shagged ; the bottom filled with fragments from 
 the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of 
 the setting sun. For some time, Rip lay musing on this scene. 
 Evening was gradually advancing: the mountains began to throw 
 their long blue shadows over the valleys. He saw that it would be 
 dark long before he could reach the village ; and he heaved a heavy 
 sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van 
 Winkle. 
 
 As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance 
 hallooing, "Rip Van Winkle, Rip Van Winkle!" He looked 
 round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 153 
 
 across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived 
 him, and turned again to descend ; when he heard the same cry 
 ring through the still evening air, " Rip Van Winkle, Rip Van 
 Winkle ! " and at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and, 
 giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully 
 down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing 
 over him. He looked anxiously in the same direction, and per- 
 ceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending 
 under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was 
 surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented 
 place ; but, supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in 
 need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. * 
 
 On nearer approach, he was still more surprised at the singular- 
 ity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old 
 fellow, with thick, bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress 
 was of the antique Dutch fashion, a cloth jerkin strapped round 
 the waist ; several pairs of breeches (the outer one of ample volume), 
 decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at 
 the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that seemed 
 full of liquor; and made signs for Rip to approach, and assist him 
 with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new 
 acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity ; and, mutually 
 relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, appar- 
 ently the dry bed of a mountain-torrent. As they ascended, Rip 
 every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like distant thun- 
 der, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, 
 between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. 
 He paused for an instant ; but, supposing it to be the muttering of 
 one of those transient thunder-showers which often take place in 
 mountain bights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they 
 came to a hollow, like a small amphitheater, surrounded by per- 
 pendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees 
 shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure 
 sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time, Rip 
 and his companion had labored on in silence ; for though the for- 
 mer marveled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg 
 of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something 
 strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired 
 awe, and checked familiarity. 
 
 On entering the amphitheater, new objects of wonder pre- 
 sented themselves. On a level spot in the center was a company 
 of odd -looking personages playing at ninepins. They were 
 dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion : some wore short doublets; 
 others jerkins, with long knives in their belts ; and most of them 
 had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guide's. 
 Their visages, too, were peculiar : oue had a large beard, broad 
 
154 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 face, and small, piggish eyes ; the face of another seemed to con- 
 sist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf 
 hat, set oft' with a little red cock's tail. , They all had beards, of 
 various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the 
 commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather- 
 beaten countenance : he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and 
 hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high- 
 heeled shoes, with roses on them. The whole group reminded 
 Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlor of 
 Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, and which had been 
 brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement. 
 
 What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these 
 folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the 
 gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the 
 most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Noth- 
 ing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the 
 balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the moun- 
 tains like rumbling peals of thunder. 
 
 As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly 
 desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue- 
 like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-luster countenances, 
 that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. 
 His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large 
 flagons, and made signs to him to wait on the company. He 
 obeyed witli fear and trembling. They quaffed the liquor in pro- 
 found silence, and then returned to their game. 
 
 13y degrees, Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even 
 ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, 
 which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. 
 He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat 
 the draught. One taste provoked another ; and he reiterated his 
 visits to the flagon so often, that at length his senses were over- 
 powered, his eyes swain in his head, his head gradually declined, 
 and he fell into a deep sleep. 
 
 On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had 
 first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes. It was 
 a bright, sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twitter- 
 ing among the bushes ; and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and 
 breasting the pure mountain-breeze. " Surely," thought Rip, " I 
 have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences 
 before he fell asleep, the strange man with a keg of liquor, 
 the niDuntain-ravine, the wild retreat among the rocks, the woe- 
 begone party at ninepins, the flagon. "Oh that flagon! that 
 wicked flagon ! w thought Rip. "What excuse shall I make to 
 Dame Van Winkle?" 
 
 He looked round for his gun ; but in place of the clean, well- 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 155 
 
 oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the 
 -barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock 
 worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisters of the 
 mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with 
 liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared ; 
 but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. 
 He whistled after him, and shouted his name; but all in vain. 
 The echoes repeated his whistle and shout ; but no dog was to be 
 seen. 
 
 He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gam- 
 bol, and, if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and 
 gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints,* 
 and wanting in his usual activity. "These mountain-beds do 
 not agree with me," thought Kip ; " and, if this frolic should lay 
 me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time 
 with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down 
 into the glen. He found the gully up which lie and his compan- 
 ion had ascended the preceding evening; but, to his astonishment, 
 a mountain-stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock 
 to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, how- 
 ever, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome 
 way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and 
 sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape-vines that 
 twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind 
 of network in his path. 
 
 At length, he reached to where the ravine had opened through 
 the cliffs to the amphitheater ; but no traces of such opening re- 
 mained. The rocks presented a high, impenetrable wall, over 
 which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and 
 fell into a broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the sur- 
 rounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. 
 He. again called and whistled after his dog. He was only an- 
 swered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in 
 air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice, and who, 
 secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the 
 poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? The morning 
 was passing away, and B-ip felt famished for want of his break- 
 fast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun ; he dreaded to 
 meet his wife : but it would not do to starve among the moun- 
 tains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, 
 with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps home- 
 ward. 
 
 As he approached the village, he met a number of people, but 
 none whom he knew; which somewhat surprised him, for he had 
 thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. 
 Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he 
 
156 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of 
 surprise, and, whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably 
 stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture in- 
 duced Rip involuntarily to do the same ; when, to his astonish- 
 ment, he found his beard had grown a foot long. 
 
 He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of 
 strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing 
 at his gray beard. The dogs too, not one of which he recognized 
 for ah old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very 
 village was altered: it was larger and more populous. There 
 were rows of houses which he had never seen before ; and those 
 which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange 
 names were over the doors, strange faces at the windows; every 
 thing was strange. His mind now misgave him : he began to 
 doubt whether both he and the world around him were not be- 
 witched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left 
 but the day before. There stood the Catskill Mountains: there 
 ran the silver Hudson at a distance ; there was every hill and 
 dale precisely as it had always been. Kip was sorely perplexed. 
 " That flagon last night," thought he, " has addled niy poor head 
 sadly." 
 
 It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own 
 house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every mo- 
 ment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found 
 the house gone to decay, the roof fallen in, the windows shat- 
 tered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that 
 looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by 
 name; but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. 
 This was an unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed poor 
 Rip, " has forgotten me ! " 
 
 He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van 
 Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, 
 and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his 
 connubial fears. He called loudly for his wife and children. 
 The lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice ; and then 
 all again was silence. 
 
 He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the 
 village inn ; but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden 
 building stood in its place, with great gaping windows (some of 
 them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats) ; and over 
 the door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." 
 Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little 
 Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall, naked pole, with 
 something on the top that looked like a red nightcap; and from 
 it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of 
 stars and stripes. All this was strange and incomprehensible. 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 157 
 
 He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King 
 George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe ; but 
 even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was 
 changed for one of blue and buff; a sword was held in the hand 
 instead of a scepter ; the head was decorated with a cocked hat ; 
 and underneath was painted in large characters, GEN. WASH- 
 INGTON. 
 
 There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none 
 that Hip recollected. The very character of the people seemed 
 changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about 
 it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. 
 He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad 
 face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco- 
 smoke instead of idle speeches ; or Van Burnmel, the school- 
 master, doling- forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In 
 place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets 
 full of hand-bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of 
 citizens, elections, members of Congress, liberty, Bunker's Hill, 
 heroes of seventy-six, and other words, which were a perfect 
 Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. 
 
 The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty 
 fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of \vomen and 
 children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern 
 politicians. They crowded round him, eying him from head to 
 foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, 
 drawing him partly aside, inquired on which side he voted. 
 Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little 
 fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in 
 his ear whether he was Federal or Democrat. Rip was 
 equally at a loss to comprehend the question ; when a knowing, 
 self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his 
 way through the crowd, putting them t\> the right and left 
 with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van 
 Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his 
 keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, 
 demanded in an austere tone what brought him to the election 
 with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels ; and whether 
 he meant to breed a riot in the village. " Alas ! gentlemen," 
 cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, " I am a poor, quiet man ; a 
 native of the place ; and a loyal subject of the king, God bless 
 him ! " 
 
 Here a general shout burst from the bystanders, "A Tory, a 
 Tory, a spy, a refugee ! Hustle him ! Away with him !" It was 
 with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked 
 hat restored order ; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity 
 of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what he came 
 
158 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 there for, and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly 
 assured him that he meant 110 harm, but merely came there in 
 search of some of his neighbors who ,used to keep about the 
 tavern. 
 
 " Well, who are they ? Name them." 
 
 Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's 
 Nicholas Vedder ? " 
 
 There was a silence for a little while ; when an old man replied 
 in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and 
 gone these eighteen years ! There was a wooden tombstone in 
 the churchyard that used to tell all about him ; but that's rotten 
 and gone too." 
 
 " Where's Brom Dutcher ? " 
 
 " Oh ! he went oft* to the army in the beginning of the war. 
 Some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point ; others 
 say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's Nose. I 
 don't know : he never came back again." 
 
 "Where's Van Bimmiel, the schoolmaster?" 
 
 " He went off to the wars too ; was a great militia general ; and 
 is now in Congress." 
 
 Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his 
 home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. 
 Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous 
 lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand, 
 war. Congress, Stony Point. He had no courage to ask after any 
 more friends, but cried out in despair, " Does nobody here know 
 Rip Van Winkle ? " 
 
 ;t Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "oh, to 
 be sure ! That's Rip Van Winkle } T onder, leaning against the 
 tree." 
 
 Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he 
 went up the mountain ; apparently as lazy, and certainly as 
 ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He 
 doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself, or another 
 man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked 
 hat demanded who he was, and what was his name. 
 
 " God knows ! " exclaimed he, at his wits' end. " I'm not 
 myself: I'm somebody else. That's me yonder no that's 
 somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself last night; but 
 I fell asleep on the mountain : and they've changed my gun; and 
 every thing's changed ; and I'm changed: and I can't tell what's 
 my name, or who I am ! " 
 
 The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink 
 significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. 
 There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun, and keeping 
 the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very suggestion of 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 159 
 
 which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some 
 precipitation. 
 
 At this critical moment, a fresh, comely woman pressed through 
 the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a 
 chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began 
 to cry. " Hush, E-ip ! " cried she, " hush, you little fool ! The 
 old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the 
 mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollec- 
 tions in his mind. " What is your name, my good woman ? " 
 asked he. 
 
 " Judith Gardenier." 
 
 " And your father's name ? " 
 
 " Ah, poor man ! Rip Van Winkle was his name ; but it's 
 twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and 
 never has been heard of since. His dog came home without him ; 
 but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, 
 nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." 
 
 Rip had but one question more to ask ; but he put it with a 
 faltering voice : 
 
 " Where's your mother ? " 
 
 "Oh ! she, too, had died but a short time since. She broke a 
 blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England peddler." 
 
 There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. 
 The honest man could contain himself no longer. He 
 caught his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your 
 father ! " cried he, " young Rip Van Winkle once, old Rip 
 Van Winkle now ! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle ? " 
 
 All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from 
 among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and, peering under it 
 in his face for a moment, exclaimed, 
 
 "Sure enough ! It is Rip Van Winkle ! it is himself! Wel- 
 come home again, old neighbor ! Why, where have you been 
 these twenty long years ? 
 
 Rip's story was soon told ; for the whole twenty years had been to 
 him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard 
 it : some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues 
 in their cheeks ; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, 
 who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed 
 down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head ; upon which 
 there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assem- 
 blage. 
 
 It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter 
 Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He 
 was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one 
 of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most 
 ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the won- 
 
160 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 derful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected 
 Kip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory 
 manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed 
 down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains 
 had always been haunted by strange beings; that it was 
 affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of 
 the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty 
 years with his crew of " The Half-Moon," being permitted in this 
 way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and to keep a guardian 
 eye on the river and the great city called by his name ; that his 
 father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at 
 ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had 
 heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant 
 peals of thunder. 
 
 To make a long story short, the company broke up, and 
 returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's 
 daughter took him home to live with her. She had a snug, well- 
 furnished house, and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband, whom 
 Kip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon 
 his neck. As to Kip's son and heir, who was the ditto of him- 
 self, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on 
 the farm, but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to any 
 thing but his business. 
 
 Kip now resumed his old walks and habits. He soon found 
 many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the 
 wear and tear of time ; and preferred making friends among the 
 rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor. 
 Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy 
 age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place 
 once more on the bench at the inn-door, and was reverenced as 
 one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old 
 times " before the war." It was some time before he could get 
 into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend 
 the strange events that had taken place during his torpor, how 
 that there had been a revolutionary war ; that the country had 
 thrown off the yoke of Old England; and that, instead of being 
 a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free 
 citizen of the United States. Kip, in fact, was no politician : 
 the changes of states and empires made but little impression on 
 him. But there was one species of despotism under which he had 
 long groaned, and that was petticoat government. Happily, that 
 was at an end. He had got his neck out of the yoke of matri- 
 mony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without 
 dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her 
 name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged 
 his shoulders, and cast up. his eyes ; which might pass either 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 1G1 
 
 for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliver- 
 ance. 
 
 He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. 
 Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some 
 points every time he told it ; which was, doubtless, owing to his 
 having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to 
 the tale I have related ; and not a man, woman, or child, in the 
 neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to 
 doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his 
 head, and that this was one point on which he always remained 
 flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally 
 gave it full credit. Even to this day, they never hear a thunder- 
 storm of a summer afternoon about the Catskill, but they say 
 Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins ; 
 and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neigh- 
 borhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might 
 have a quieting draught out of E/ip Van Winkle's flagon. 
 
 THE WIDOW'S RETINUE. 
 
 "Little dogs and all." Lear. 
 
 IN giving an account of the arrival of Lady Lillycraft at the 
 hall, I ought to have mentioned the entertainment which I 
 derived from witnessing the unpacking of her carriage, and the 
 disposing of her retinue. There is something extremely amusing 
 to me in the number of factitious wants, the loads of imaginary 
 conveniences, but real encumbrances, with which the luxurious 
 are apt to burden themselves. I like to watch the whimsical stir 
 and display about one of these petty progresses, the number 
 of robustious footmen and retainers of all kinds bustling about, 
 with looks of infinite gravity and importance, to do almost 
 nothing ; the number of heavy trunks and parcels and band- 
 boxes belonging to my lady; and the solicitude exhibited about 
 some humble, odd-looking box, by my lady's maid ; the cushions 
 piled in a carriage to make a soft seat still softer, and to prevent 
 the dreaded possibility of a jolt ; the smelling-bottles, the cordials, 
 the basket of biscuit and fruit, the new publications (all pro- 
 vided to guard against hunger, fatigue, or ennui) ; the led horses 
 to vary the mode of traveling, and all these preparations and 
 parade to move, perhaps, some very good-for-nothing personage 
 about a little space of earth. I do not mean to apply the latter 
 part of these observations to Lady Lillycraft, for whose simple 
 kind-heartedness I have a very great respect, and who is really 
 11 
 
162 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 a most amiable and worthy being. I can not refrain, however, 
 from mentioning some of the motley retinue she has brought 
 with her ; and which, indeed, bespeak- the overflowing kindness 
 of her nature, which requires her to be surrounded with objects 
 on which to lavish it. 
 
 In the first place, her ladyship has a pampered coachman, with 
 a red face, and cheeks that hang down like dew-laps. He evi- 
 dently domineers over her a little with respect to the fat hor.-i-s ; 
 and only drives out when he thinks proper, and when lie thinks 
 it will be " good for the cattle." 
 
 She has a favorite page to attend upon her person, a hand- 
 some boy of about twelve years of age, but a mischievous varlet, 
 very much spoiled, and in a fair way to be good for nothing. He 
 is dressed in green, with a profusion of gold cord and gilt buttons 
 about his clothes. She always has one or two attendants of the 
 kind, who are replaced by others as soon as they grow to fourteen 
 years of age. She has brought two dogs with her also, out of 
 a number of pets which she maintains at home. One is a fat 
 spaniel, called Zephyr; though Heaven defend me from such a 
 zephyr ! He is fed out of all shape and comfort ; his eyes are near- 
 ly strained out of his head; he wheezes with corpulency, and 
 can not walk without great difficulty. The other is a little, old, 
 gray, muzzled curmudgeon, with an unhappy eye, that kindles like 
 a coal if you only look at him ; his nose turns up ; his mouth is 
 drawn into wrinkles, so as to show his teeth : in short, he has 
 altogether the look of a dog far gone in misanthropy, and totally 
 sick of the world. When he walks, he has his tail curled up so 
 tight, that it seems to lift his feet from the ground ; and he seldom 
 makes use of more than three legs at a time, keeping the other 
 drawn up as a reserve. This last wretch is called Beauty. 
 
 These dogs are full of elegant ailments unknown to vulgar 
 . and are petted and nursed by Lady Lrillycraft with the 
 tenderest kindness. They are pampered and fed with delicacies 
 by their fellow-minion, the page; but their stomachs are weak 
 and out of order, so that they can not eat; though I have now 
 and then seen the page give them a mischievous pinch, or thwack 
 over the head, when his mistress was not by. The}' have cush- 
 ions for their express use, on which they lie before the fire, and 
 yet are apt to shiver and moan if there is the least draught of 
 air. When any one enters the room, they make a tyrannical 
 barking that is absolutely deafening. They are insolent to all 
 the other dogs of the establishment. There is a noble stag- 
 hound, a great favorite of the squire, who is a privileged visitor 
 to the parlor: but, the moment he makes his appearance, these 
 intruders fly at him with furious rage ; and I have admired the 
 sovereign indifference and contempt with which he seems to look 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 163 
 
 down upon his puny assailants. When her ladyship drives out, 
 these dogs are generally carried with her to take the air ; when 
 they look out of each window of the carriage, and bark at all 
 vulgar pedestrian dogs. These dogs are a continual source of 
 misery to the household, as they are always in the way ; and they 
 every now and then get their toes trod on, and then there is a 
 yelping on their part, and a loud lamentation on the part of their 
 mistress, that fill the room with clamor and confusion. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 THERE are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal 
 kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith ; for few have so eminently pos- 
 sessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. 
 We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar inti- 
 macy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams 
 throughout his works ; the whimsical yet amiable views of human 
 life and human nature ; the unforced humor, blending so happily 
 with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times 
 with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow 
 and flowing and softly-tinted style, all seem to bespeak his moral 
 as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at 
 the same time that we admire the author. While the productions 
 of writers of loftier pretension and more sounding names are suf- 
 fered to molder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished 
 and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them with ostentation ; 
 but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and har- 
 monize our thoughts : they put us in good humor with ourselves 
 and with the world ; and, in so doing, they make us happier and 
 better men. 
 
 An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith lets 
 us into the secret of his gifted pages. We there discover them 
 to be little more than transcripts o'f his own heart, and picturings 
 of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same kind, artless, 
 good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, intelligent being 
 that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an adventure or char- 
 acter is given in his works that may not be traced to his own 
 party-colored story. Many of his most ludicrous scenes and ridic- 
 ulous incidents have been drawn from his own blunders and mis- 
 chances ; and he seems really to have been buffeted into almost 
 every maxim imparted by him for the instruction of his reader. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728, at 
 the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in Ire- 
 
164 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 land. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a thrifty 
 stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and incompe- 
 tency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from generation to 
 generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. " They 
 were always," according to their own accounts, " a strange family : 
 they rarely acted like other people : their hearts were in the right 
 place, but their heads seemed to be doing any thing but what they 
 ought." " They were remarkable," says another statement, " for 
 their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways of the world." Oli- 
 ver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to inherit the virtues and 
 weaknesses of his race. 
 
 His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary im- 
 providence, married when very young and very poor, and starved 
 along for several years on a small country curacy and the assist- 
 ance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked out by the 
 produce of some fields which he farmed, and of some occasional 
 duties performed for his wife's uncle, the rector of an adjoining 
 parish, did not exceed forty pounds : 
 
 " And passing rich with forty pounds a year." 
 
 He inhabited an old, half-rustic mansion, that stood on a rising 
 ground in a rough, lonely part of the country overlooking a low 
 tract occasionally flooded by the River Inny. In this house Gold- 
 smith was born : and it was a birthplace worthy of a poet ; for, by 
 all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition handed down 
 among the neighboring peasantry states, that, in after-years, the 
 house, remaining for some time untenanted, went to decay, the 
 roof fell in, and it became so lonely and forlorn as to be a resort 
 for the " good people," or fairies, who, in Ireland, are supposed to 
 delight in old, crazy, deserted mansions for their midnight revels. 
 All attempts to repair it were in vain : the fairies battled stoutly 
 to maintain possession. A huge, misshapen hobgoblin used to be- 
 stride the house every evening with an immense pair of jackboots, 
 which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would thrust through the 
 roof, kicking to pieces all the work of the preceding day. The 
 house was therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin. 
 
 Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. 
 About two years after his birth, a change came over the circum- 
 stances of his father. Ity the death of his wife's uncle, he suc- 
 ceeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning the 
 old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of Weste- 
 rn eath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated on 
 the skirts of that pretty little village. 
 
 This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world 
 whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, 
 whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, and 
 
WASHINGTON IKYING. 1C5 
 
 which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the heart. Lis- 
 soy is confidently cited as the original of his "Auburn" in "The 
 Deserted Village." His father's establishment a mixture of 
 farm and parsonage furnished hints, it is said, for the rural econ- 
 omy of "The Vicar of Wakefield ; " and his father himself, with 
 his learned simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and 
 utter ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely portrayed in 
 the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause for a moment, and draw 
 from Goldsmith's writings one or two of those pictures, which, 
 under feigned names, represent his father and his family, and the 
 happy fireside of his childish days. 
 
 " My father," says the " Man in Black," who in some respects 
 is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, " 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 poorer 
 than himself. For every dinner he gave them, they returned him 
 an equivalent in praise ; and this was all he wanted. The same 
 ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of his army influ- 
 enced 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 intention of leaving his children money ; for 
 that was dross. He 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 care 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 ren- 
 dered 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 necessary qualifications of getting a farthing." 
 
 In "The Deserted Village" we have another picture of his 
 father and his father's fireside : 
 
 " His house was known to all the vagrant train : 
 He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain. 
 The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
 Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast; 
 
166 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
 Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; 
 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
 Sat by his fire, and talked the nighf away, 
 Wept* o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
 Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 
 Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
 And quite forgot their vices in their woe: 
 Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
 His pity gave ere charity began.'' 
 
 The family of the worthy pastor consisted of five sons and 
 three daughters. Henry, the eldest, was the good man's pride 
 and hope ; and he tasked his slender means to the utmost in edu- 
 cating him for a learned and distinguished career. Oliver was 
 the second son, and seven years younger than Henry, who 
 was the guide and protector of his childhood, and to whom he 
 was most tenderly attached throughout life. 
 
 Oliver's education began when he was about three years old ; 
 that is to say, he was gathered under the wings of one of those 
 good old motherly dames, found in every village, who cluck to- 
 gether the whole callow brood of the neighborhood to teach them 
 their letters, and keep them out of harm's way. Mistress Eliza- 
 beth Delap (for that was her name) flourished in this capacity for 
 upwards of fifty } T ears; and it was the pride and boast of her 
 declining days, when nearly ninety years of age, that she was the 
 first that had put a book (doubtless a hornbook) into Goldsmith's 
 hands. Apparently he did not much profit by it ; for she con- 
 fessed he was one of the dullest boys she had ever dealt with, in- 
 somuch that she had sometimes doubted whether it was possible 
 to make any thing of him, a common case with imaginative chil- 
 dren, who are apt to be beguiled from the dry abstractions of ele- 
 mentary study by the picturings of the fancy. 
 
 At six years of age he passed into the hands of the village 
 schoolmaster, one Thomas (or, as he was commonly and irrever- 
 ently named, Paddy) Byrne, a capital tutor for a poet. He had 
 been educated for a pedagogue, but had enlisted in the army, 
 served abroad during the wars of Queen Anne's time, and risen to 
 the rank of quartermaster of a regiment in Spain. At the return 
 of peace, having no longer exercise' for the sword, he resumed the 
 ferule, and drilled the urchin populace of Lissoy. Goldsmith is 
 supposed to have had him and his school in view in the following 
 sketch in his " Deserted Village : " 
 
 " Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way 
 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
 The village master taught his little school. 
 A man severe he was, and stem to view: 
 I knew him well, and every truant knew. 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 The day's disaster* in his morning face; 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 167 
 
 Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 At all his jokes (for many a joke had he); 
 Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. 
 Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught, 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
 The village all declared how much he knew: 
 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too; 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage; 
 And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. 
 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill; 
 For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still: 
 While words of learned length and thundering sound 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
 That one small head could carry all he knew." 
 
 There are certain whimsical traits in the character of Byrne 
 riot given in the foregoing sketch. He was fond of talking of his 
 vagabond wanderings in foreign lands; and had brought with him 
 from the wars a world of campaigning stories, of which he was 
 generally the hero, and which he would deal forth to his wonder- 
 ing scholars when he ought to have been teaching them their les- 
 sons. These traveler's tales had a powerful effect upon the vivid 
 imagination of Goldsmith, and awakened an unconquerable pas- 
 sion for wandering, and seeking adventure. Byrne was, moreover, 
 of a romantic vein, and exceedingly superstitious. He was deeply 
 versed in the fairy superstitions which abound in Ireland; all which 
 he professed implicitly to believe. Under his tuition, Goldsmith 
 soon became almost as great a proficient in fairy lore. From this 
 branch of good-for-nothing knowledge, his studies, by an easy 
 transition, extended to the histories of robbers, pirates, smugglers, 
 and the whole race of Irish rogues and rapparees. Every thing, 
 in short, that savored of romance, fable, and adventure., was con- 
 genial to his poetic mind, and took instant root there ; but the 
 slow plants of useful knowledge were apt to be overrun, if not 
 choked, by the weeds" of his quick imagination. 
 
 Another trait of his motley preceptor, Byrne, was a disposition 
 to dabble in poetry ; and this, likewise, was caught by his pupil. 
 Before he was eight years old, Goldsmith had contracted a habit 
 of scribbling verses on small scraps of paper, which, in a little 
 while, he would throw into the fire. A few of these sibylline 
 leaves, however, were rescued from the flames, and conveyed to his 
 mother. The good woman read them with a mother's delight, 
 and saw at once that her son was a genius and a poet. From 
 that time, she beset her husband with solicitations to give the boy 
 an education suitable to his talents. The worthy man was already 
 straitened by the costs of instruction of his eldest son Henry, 
 and had intended to bring his second son up to a trade. But the 
 mother would listen to no such thing : as usual, her influence pre- 
 vailed ; and Oliver, instead of being instructed in some humble 
 
168 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 but cheerful and gainful handicraft, was devoted to poverty and 
 the Muse. 
 
 A severe attack of the sinall-pox caused him to be taken from 
 under the care of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne. His malady 
 had nearly proved fatal ; and his face remained pitted through 
 life. On his recovery, he was placed under the charge of the Rev. 
 Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, in Roscommon ; and became 
 an inmate in the house of his uncle, John Goldsmith, Esq., of 
 Ballyonghter, in that vicinity. He now entered upon studies of 
 a higher order, but without making any uncommon progress. 
 Still a careless, easy facility of disposition, an amusing eccentri- 
 city of manners, and a vein of quiet and peculiar humor, rendered 
 him a general favorite ; and a trifling incident soon induced his 
 uncle's family to concur in his mother's opinion of his genius. 
 
 A number of young folks had assembled at his uncle's to dance. 
 One of the company, named Cummings, played on the violin. 
 In the course of the evening, Oliver undertook a hornpipe. His 
 short and clumsy figure, and his face pitted and discolored with 
 the small-pox, rendered him a ludicrous figure in the eyes of the 
 musician, who made merry at his expense, dubbing him his little 
 ^Esop. Goldsmith was nettled by the jest, and, stopping short in 
 the hornpipe, exclaimed, 
 
 " Our herald hath proclaimed this saying, 
 See JSsop dancing, and his monkey playing." 
 
 The repartee was thought wonderful for a boy of nine years 
 old; and Oliver became, forthwith, the wit and the bright genius 
 of the family. It was thought a pity he should not receive the 
 same advantages with his elder brother Henry, who had been sent 
 to the university ; and, as his father's circumstances would not 
 afford it, several of his relatives, spurred on by the representa- 
 tions of his mother, agreed to contribute towards the expense. 
 The greater part, however, was borne by his uncle, the Rev. 
 Thomas Cantarine. This worthy man had been the college com- 
 panion of Bishop Berkeley, and was possessed of moderate means, 
 holding the living of Carrick-on-Shannon. He had married the 
 sister of Goldsmith's father, but was now a widower, with an only 
 child, a daughter, named Jane. Cantarine was a kind-hearted 
 man, with a generosity beyond his means. He took Goldsmith 
 into favor from his infancy. His daughter Jane, two years older 
 than the poet, was his early playmate ; and Uncle Cantarine con- 
 tinued to the last one of his most active, unwavering, and gener- 
 ous friends. 
 
 Fitted out in a great measure by this considerate relative, Oli- 
 ver was now transferred to schools of a higher order to prepare 
 him for the university, first to one at Athlone, kept by the Rev. 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 169 
 
 Mr. Campbell ; and, at the end of two years, to one at Edge- 
 worthstovvn, under the superintendence of the Rev. Patrick 
 Hughes. Even at these schools, his proficiency does not appear 
 to have been brilliant. He was indolent and careless, however, 
 rather than dull; and, on the whole, appears to have been well 
 thought of by his teachers. In his studies, he inclined towards 
 the Latin poets and historians ; relished Ovid and Horace, and 
 delighted in Livy. He exercised himself with pleasure in read- 
 ing and translating Tacitus ; and was brought to pay attention to 
 style in his compositions by a reproof from his brother Henry, to 
 whom he had written brief and confused letters, and who told 
 him in reply, that, if he had but little to say, to endeavor to say 
 that little well. 
 
 The career of his brother Henry at the university was enough 
 to stimulate him to exertion. He seemed to be realizing all his 
 father's hopes, and was winning collegiate honors that the good 
 man considered indicative of his future success in life. 
 
 In the mean while, Oliver, if not distinguished among his teach- 
 ers, was popular among his schoolmates. He had a thoughtless 
 generosity extremely captivating to young hearts. His temper 
 was quick and sensitive, and easily offended ; but his anger was 
 momentary, and it was impossible for him to harbor resentment. 
 He was the leader of all boyish sports and athletic amusements, 
 especially ball-playing ; and he was foremost in all mischievous 
 pranks. Many years afterward, an old man, Jack Fitzsimmons, 
 one of the directors of the sports, and keeper of the ball-count, at 
 Ballymahon, used to boast of having been schoolmate of " Noll 
 Goldsmith," as he called him ; and would dwell with vain-glory on 
 one of their exploits in robbing the orchards of Tirlicken, an old 
 family residence of Lord Annaby. 
 
 The exploit, however, had nearly involved disastrous conse- 
 quences ; for the crew of juvenile depredators were captured, like 
 Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues : and nothing but 
 the respectability of Goldsmith's connections saved him from the 
 punishment that would have awaited more plebeian delinquents. 
 
 An amusing incident is related as occurring in Goldsmith's last 
 journey homeward from Edgeworthstovvn. His father's house 
 was about twenty miles distant : the road lay through a rough 
 country, impassable for carriages. Goldsmith procured a horse 
 for the journey; and a friend furnished him with a guinea for 
 traveling-expenses. He was but a stripling of sixteen ; and be- 
 ing thus suddenly mounted on horseback, with money in his 
 pocket, it is no wonder that his head was turned. He determined 
 to play the man, and to spend his money in independent travel- 
 er's style. Accordingly, instead of pushing directly for home, he 
 halted for the night at the little town of Andagh, and, accosting 
 
170 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the first person he met, inquired with somewhat of a consequen- 
 tial air for the best house in the place. Unluckily, the person 
 he had accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quar- 
 tered in a family of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of for- 
 tune. Amused with the self-consequence of the stripling, and 
 willing to pay off a practical joke at his expense, he directed him 
 to what was literally " the best house in the place ; " namely, the 
 family mansion of Mr. Featherstone. Goldsmith, accordingly, 
 rode up to what he supposed to be an inn ; ordered his horse to be 
 taken to the stable; walked into the parlor, seated himself by the 
 fire, and demanded what he could have for supper. On ordinary 
 occasions, he was diffident, and even awkward in his manners : but 
 here he was at ease in his inn ; and he felt called upon to show his 
 manhood, and enact the experienced traveler. His person was 
 by no means calculated to play off his pretensions ; for he was 
 short and thick, with a pock-marked face, and an air and carriage 
 by no means of a distinguished cast. The owner of the house, 
 however, soon discovered his whimsical mistake, and, being a nuiu 
 of humor, determined to indulge it, especially as he accidentally 
 learned that this intruding guest was the son of an old acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Accordingly, Goldsmith was "fooled to the top of his bent," 
 and permitted to have full sway throughout the evening. Never 
 was schoolboy more elated. When supper was served, he most 
 condescendingly insisted that the landlord, his wife and daughter, 
 should partake ; and ordered a bottle of wine to crown the repast, 
 and benefit the 'house. His last flourish was on going to bed, 
 when lie gave especial orders to have a hot cake at breakfast. 
 His confusion and dismay on discovering, the next morning, that 
 he had been swaggering in this free-and-easy way in the house 
 of a private gentleman, may be readily conceived. True to his 
 habit of turning the events of his life to literary account, we find 
 this chapter of ludicrous blunders and cross-purposes dramatized 
 many years afterward in his admirable comedy of " She Stoops to 
 Conquer ; or, The Mistakes of a Night." Chap. I. 
 
 HISTORY OF NEW YORK. 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE WOULD. 
 
 ACCORDING to the best authorities, the world in which we d\vdl 
 is a huge, opaque, reflecting, inanimate mass, floating in the vast 
 ethereal ocean of infinite space. It has the form of an orange, 
 being an oblate spheroid curiously flattened at opposite parts for 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 171 
 
 the insertion of two imagmar} 7 - poles, which are supposed to pene- 
 trate, and unite at the center ; thus forming an axis on which 
 the mighty orange turns with a regular diurnal revolution. 
 
 The transitions of light and darkness, whence proceed the 
 alternations of day and night, are produced by this diurnal revolu- 
 tion, successively presenting the different parts of the earth to 
 the rays of the sun. The latter is, according to the best, that is 
 to say the latest accounts, a luminous or fiery body of a prodi- 
 gious magnitude, from which this world is driven by a centrifugal 
 or repelling power, and to which it is drawn by a centripetal or 
 attractive force, otherwise called the attraction of gravitation ; 
 the combination, or rather the counteraction, of these two oppos- 
 ing impulses, producing a circular and annual revolution. Hence 
 result; the different seasons of the year; viz., spring, summer, 
 autumn, and winter. 
 
 This I believe to be the most approved modern theory on the 
 subject : though there be many philosophers who have enter- 
 tained very different opinions ; some, too, of them entitled to 
 much deference from their great antiquity and illustrious charac- 
 ter. Thus it was advanced by some of the ancient sages, that 
 the earth was an extended plain, supported by vast pillars ; and 
 by others, that it rested on the head of a snake or the back of a 
 huge tortoise : but, as they did not provide a resting-place for 
 either the pillars or the tortoise, the whole theory fell to the 1 
 ground for want of proper foundation. 
 
 The Brahmins assert that the heavens rest upon the earth, 
 and the sun and moon swim therein like fishes in the water, 
 moving from east to west by day, and gliding along the edge of 
 the horizon to their original stations during night: while, accord- 
 ing to the puranas of India, it is a vast plain, encircled by 
 seven oceans of milk, nectar, and other delicious liquids ; that it 
 is studded with seven mountains, and ornamented in the center 
 by a mountainous rock of burnished gold ; and that a great 
 dragon occasionally swallows up the moon, which accounts for the 
 phenomena of lunar eclipses. 
 
 Besides these and many other equally sage opinions, we have 
 the profound conjectures of ABOUL HASSAN-ALY, son of Al 
 Khan, son of Aly, son of Abderrahman, son of Abdallah, son of 
 Masoud-el-Hadheli, who is commonly called MASOUDI, and sur- 
 named Cothbiddin, but who takes the humble title of Laheb- 
 ar-rasoul, which means the companion of the ambassador of 
 God. He has written a universal history, entitled " Mourondge- 
 ed-dharab ; or, The Golden Meadows and the Mines of Precious 
 Stones." In this valuable work he has related the history of the 
 world, from the creation down to the moment of writing; which 
 was under the Khaliphat of Mothi Billah, in the month Dgiou- 
 
172 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 madi-el-aoual of the three hundred and thirty-sixth year of the 
 Hegira, or flight of the Prophet. He informs us that the earth 
 is a huge bird ; Mecca and Medina constituting the head, Persia 
 and India the right wing, the land of Eng the left wing, and 
 Africa the tail. He informs us, moreover, that an earth has 
 existed before the present (which he considers as a mere chicken 
 of seven thousand years) ; that it has undergone divers deluges ; 
 and that, according to the opinion of some well-informed Brah- 
 mins of his acquaintance, it will be renovated every seventy thou- 
 sandth hazarouam, each hazarouam consisting of twelve thousand 
 years. 
 
 These are a few of the many contradictory opinions of philoso- 
 phers concerning the earth ; and we find that the learned have 
 had equal perplexity as to the nature of the sun. Some of 
 the ancient philosophers have affirmed that it is a vast wheel of 
 brilliant fire ; others, that it is merely a mirror, or sphere, of trans- 
 parent crystal; and a third class, at the head of whom stands 
 Anaxagoras, maintained that it was nothing but a huge ignited 
 mass of iron or stone : indeed, he declared the heavens to be 
 merely a vault of stone, and that the stars were stones whirled 
 upward from the earth, and set on fire by the velocity of its 
 revolutions. But I give little attention to the doctrines of this 
 philosopher; the people of Athens having fully refuted them by 
 banishing him from their city, a concise mode of answering 
 unwelcome doctrines, much resorted to in former days. Another 
 sect of philosophers do declare that certain fiery particles exhale 
 constantly from the earth, which, concentrating in a single point 
 of the firmament by day, constitute the sun ; but being scattered, 
 and rambling about in the dark at night, collect in various points, 
 and form stars. These are regularly burnt out and extinguished, 
 not unlike to the lamps in our streets ; and require a fresh supply 
 of exhalatives for the next occasion. 
 
 It is even recorded, that at certain remote and obscure periods, 
 in consequence of a great scarcity of fuel, the sun has been com- 
 pletely burnt out, and sometimes not rekindled for a month at a 
 time, a most melancholy circumstance, the very idea of which 
 gave vast concern to Heraclitus, that worthy weeping philosopher 
 of antiquity. In addition to these various speculations, it was 
 the opinion of Herschel that the sun is a magnificent habitable 
 abode ; the light it furnishes arising from certain empyreal, lumi- 
 nous, or phosphoric clouds swimming in its transparent atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 But we will not enter further at present into the nature of 
 the sun ; that being an inquiry not immediately necessary to the 
 development of this history. Neither will we embroil ourselves 
 in any more of the endless disputes of philosophers touching the 
 
WASHINGTON IRVING. 173 
 
 form of this globe, but content ourselves with the theory 
 advanced in the beginning of this chapter ; and will proceed to 
 illustrate, by experiment, the complexity of motion therein 
 ascribed to this our rotatory planet. 
 
 Prof. Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead, as the name may be 
 rendered into English) was long celebrated in the University 
 of Leyden for profound gravity of deportment, and a talent at 
 going to sleep in the midst of examinations, to the infinite relief 
 of his hopeful students, who thereby worked their way through 
 college with great ease- and little study. In the course of one 
 of his lectures, the learned professor, seizing a bucket of water, 
 swung it around his head at arm's-length ; the impulse with 
 which he threw the vessel from him being a centrifugal force, 
 the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, and the 
 bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, describing a circular 
 orbit round about the globular head and ruby visage of Prof. 
 Von Poddingcoft, which formed no bad representation of the 
 sun. All of these particulars were duly explained to the class 
 of gaping students around him. He apprised them, moreover, 
 that the same principle of gravitation which retained the water 
 in the bucket restrains the ocean from flying from the earth in 
 its rapid revolutions ; and he further informed them, that, should 
 the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would inconti- 
 nently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of gravita- 
 tion, a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would 
 also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, the 
 solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant 
 geniuses who seem sent into the world merely to annoy men of 
 the Puddinghead order, desirous of ascertaining the correctness 
 of the experiment, suddenly arrested the arm of the professor 
 just at the moment that the bucket was in its zenith, which 
 immediately descended with astonishing precision upon the philo- 
 sophic head of the instructor of youth. A hollow sound and 
 a red-hot hiss attended the contact : but the theory was in the 
 amplest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket perished 
 in the conflict ; but the blazing countenance of Prof. Von 
 Poddingcoft emerged from amidst the waters, glowing fiercer 
 than ever with unutterable indignation, whereby the students 
 were marvelously edified, and departed considerably wiser than 
 before. 
 
 It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many 
 a painstaking philosopher, that Nature often refuses to second his 
 most profound and elaborate efforts; so that, after having in- 
 vented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, 
 she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his 
 system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is 
 
174 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure 
 of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher ; 
 whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is 
 unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of Dame Nature, 
 who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually 
 indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take 
 pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most 
 learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened 
 with respect to the foregoing satisfactory explanation of the 
 motion of our planet. It appears that the centrifugal force has 
 long since ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undi- 
 minished potency : the world, therefore, according to the theory 
 as it originally stood, ought in strict propriety to tumble into the 
 sun. Philosophers were convinced that it would do so, and awaited 
 in anxious impatience the fulfillment of their prognostics. But' 
 the untoward planet pertinaciously continued her course, notwith- 
 standing that she had reason, philosophy, and a whole university 
 of learned professors, opposed to her conduct. The philosophers 
 took this in very ill part ; and it is thought they would never have 
 pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon 
 them by the world, had not a good-natured professor kindty offi- 
 ciated as a mediator between the parties, and effected a reconcil- 
 iation. 
 
 Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, 
 he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world : 
 he therefore informed his brother philosophers that the cir- 
 cular motion of the earth round the sun was no sooner engen- 
 dered by the conflicting impulses above described than it became 
 a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it 
 origin. His learned brethren readily joined in the opinion, being 
 heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate 
 them from their embarrassment; and, ever since that memorable 
 era, the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve 
 around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper. chap. i. 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHOKNE. 175 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 1804-1864. 
 
 A writer of singular purity and simplicity. His writings are principally denoted 
 by their fine poetical imagery, originality of thought and expression. His pleasant 
 fancies are philosophical, and his keen reflections not too metaphysical. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 " Twice-told Tales; " " Our Old Home; " " Mosses from an Old Manse; " " The 
 Scarlet Letter; " " The House of the Seven Gables; " " True Stories from History 
 and Biography;" "The Blithedale Romance;" "A Wonder-Book for Boys and 
 Girls, in 1852 V "The Snow-Image and other Twice-told Tales;" " Tanglevvood 
 Tales, for Boys and Girls; " " The Marble Faun; " " Passages from the American 
 Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne." 
 
 A RILL FROM THE TOWN-PUMP. 
 SCENE. The corned of two principal streets. The TOWN-PUMP talking through its 
 
 nose. 
 
 Noox by the north clock ! Noon by the east ! High noon, 
 too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall scarcely aslope upon my 
 head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the 
 trough under my nose ! Truly, we public characters have a 
 tough time of it ! And, among all the town-officers chosen at 
 March meeting, where is he that sustains for a single year the 
 burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity 
 upon the Town-Pump ? The title of "Town Treasurer " is right- 
 fully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. 
 The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, 
 since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to 
 him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire-department, 
 and one of the physicians to the board of health. As a keeper 
 of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the 
 constable. I perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by 
 promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. 
 To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the munici- 
 pality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother- 
 officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial 
 discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand 
 to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain : for, 
 all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the 
 market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at 
 night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, 
 and keep people out of the gutters. 
 
176 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched popu- 
 lace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. 
 Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all 
 and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my 
 voice, " Here it is, gentlemen ! Here is the good liquor ! Walk 
 up, walk up, gentlemen ! walk up, walk up ! Here is the superior 
 stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam, better 
 than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any 
 price ! here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a 
 cent to pay ! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help your- 
 selves !"' 
 
 It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. 
 Here they come ! " A hot day, gentlemen ! Quaff, and away 
 again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my 
 friend, will need another cupful to wash the dust out of your 
 throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I 
 see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, 
 like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the 
 running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without 
 and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted 
 down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and 
 make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench 
 the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no 
 cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have 
 been great strangers hitherto ; nor, to confess the truth, will my 
 nose be anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your 
 breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man ! the water 
 absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite 
 to steam in the miniature Tophet which you mistake for a 
 stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, 
 did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend 
 the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious ? 
 Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of 
 cold water. Good-by ! and, whenever you are thirsty, remember 
 that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. Who next ? 
 my little friend ! you are let loose from school, and come 
 hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of 
 certain taps of the ferule and other schoolboy troubles, in a 
 draught from the Town-Pump. Take it, pure as the current of 
 your young life ! Take it, and may your heart and tongue never 
 be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear 
 child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gen- 
 tleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones, that I 
 suspect he- is afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by 
 without so much as thanking me; as if my hospitable offers were 
 meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir, 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 177 
 
 no harm done, I hope ! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter ; hut, 
 when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of 
 mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it 
 is all one to the Town-Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red 
 tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on 
 his hind-legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how 
 lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever 
 have the gout ? . . . 
 
 " Your pardon, good people ! I must interrupt my stream of 
 eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the 
 trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come 
 from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my 
 business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look ! how 
 rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, 
 till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two 
 apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in with sighs of calm 
 enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of 
 their monstrous drinking-vessel. An ox is your true toper. . . . 
 
 " Ahem ! Dry work this speechifying, especially to an unprac- 
 ticed orator. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance 
 lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the 
 business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke 
 or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir ! My dear 
 hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my 
 instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor- 
 casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honor of the 
 Town-Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my prede- 
 cessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, 
 richly sculptured, take my place upon the spot. Such monu- 
 ments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the 
 names of the distinguished champions of my cause." . . . 
 
 One o'clock ! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, 
 I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl 
 of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. 
 May she draw a husband while drawing her water, as Rachel did 
 of old ! " Hold out your vessel, my dear ! There it is, full to the 
 brim : so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the 
 pitcher as you go ; and forget not in a glass of my own liquor to 
 drink * SUCCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP ! ' " 
 
 From " Twice-told Tales." 
 12 
 
178 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 A SELECT PARTY. 
 
 A MAN OF FANCY made an entertainment at one of his castles 
 in the air, and invited a select number of distinguished person- 
 ages to favor him with their presence. The mansion, though less 
 splendid than many that have been situated in the same region, 
 was, nevertheless, of a magnificence such as is seldom witnessed 
 by those acquainted only with terrestrial architecture. Its strong 
 foundations and massive walls were quarried out of a ledge of 
 heavy and somber clouds which had hung brooding over the earth, 
 apparently as dense and ponderous as its own granite, throughout 
 a whole autumnal day. Perceiving that the general effect was 
 gloomy, so that the airy castle looked like a feudal fortress, or 
 a monastery of the middle ages, or a state-prison of our own 
 times, rather than the home of pleasure and repose which he in- 
 tended it to be, the owner, regardless of expense, resolved to 
 gild the exterior from top to bottom. Fortunately, there was just 
 then a flood of evening sunshine in the air. This being gathered 
 up, and poured abundantly upon the roof and walls, imbued them 
 with a kind of solemn cheerfulness; while the cupolas and pinna- 
 cles were made to glitter with the purest gold, and all the hun- 
 dred windows gleamed with a glad light, as if the edifice itself 
 were rejoicing in its heart. And now, if the people of the lower 
 world chanced to be looking upward out of the turmoil of their 
 petty perplexities, they probably mistook the castle in the air for 
 a heap of sunset clouds, to which the magic of light and shade 
 had imparted the aspect of a fantastically-constructed mansion. 
 To such beholders it was unreal, because they lacked the imagi- 
 native faith. Had they been worthy to pass within its portal, 
 they would have recognized the truth, that the dominions which 
 the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become a thousand 
 times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their feet, 
 saying, "This is solid and substantial: this may be called a 
 fact." 
 
 At the appointed hour, the host stood in his great saloon to re- 
 ceive the company. It was a vast and noble room, the vaulted 
 ceiling of which was supported by double rows of gigantic pillars 
 that had been hewn entire out of masses of variegated clouds. 
 So brilliantly were they polished, and so exquisitely wrought by 
 the sculptor's skill, as to resemble the finest specimens of emerald, 
 porphyry, opal, and chrysolite; thus producing a delicate richness 
 of effect which their immense size rendered not incompatible with 
 grandeur. To each of these pillars a meteor was suspended. 
 Thousands of these ethereal lusters are continually wandering 
 about the firmament, burning out to waste, yet capable of impart- 
 

 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 179 
 
 ing a useful radiance to any person who has the art of converting 
 them to domestic purposes. As managed in the saloon, they are 
 far more economical than ordinary lamplight. Such, however, 
 w r as the intensity of their blaze, that it had been found expedient 
 to cover each meteor with a globe of evening-mist; thereby muf- 
 fling the too-potent glow, and soothing it into a mild and com- 
 fortable splendor. It was like the brilliancy of a powerful yet 
 chastened imagination, a light which seemed to hide whatever 
 was unworthy to be noticed, and give effect to every beautiful 
 and noble attribute. The guests, therefore, as they advanced up 
 the center of the saloon, appeared to better advantage than ever 
 before in their lives. 
 
 The first that entered, with old-fashioned punctuality, was a 
 venerable figure in the costume of bj'gone days, with his white 
 hair flowing down over his shoulders, and a reverend beard upon 
 his breast. He leaned upon a staff, the tremulous stroke of which, 
 as he set it carefully upon the floor, re-echoed through the saloon 
 at every footstep. Recognizing at once this celebrated personage, 
 whom it had cost him a vast deal of trouble and research to dis- 
 cover, the host advanced nearly three-fourths of the distance 
 down between the pillars to meet and welcome him. 
 
 "Venerable sir," said the Man of Fancy, bending to the floor, 
 " the honor of this visit would never be forgotten were my term 
 of existence to be as happily prolonged as your own." 
 
 The old gentleman received the compliment with gracious con- 
 descension. He then thrust up his spectacles over his forehead, 
 and appeared to take a critical survey of the saloon. 
 
 " Never within my recollection," observed he, " have I entered 
 a more spacious and noble hall. But are you sure that it is built 
 of solid materials, and that the structure will be permanent ? " 
 
 " Oh, never fear, my venerable friend ! " replied the host. "In 
 reference to a lifetime like your own, it is true, my castle may 
 well be called a temporary edifice ; but it will endure long 
 enough to answer all the purposes for which it was erected." 
 
 But we forget that the reader has not yet been made acquainted 
 with the guest. It was no other than that universally-accredited 
 character so constantly referred to in all seasons of intense cold 
 or heat; he that remembers the hot Sunday and the cold Friday; 
 the witness of a past age, whose negative reminiscences find their 
 way into every newspaper, yet whose antiquated and dusky abode 
 is so overshadowed by accumulated years, and crowded back by 
 modern edifices, that none but the Man of Fancy could have 
 discovered it: it was, in short, the twin-brother of Time, and 
 great-grandsire of Mankind, and hand-and-glove associate of all 
 forgotten men and things, the Oldest Inhabitant, The host 
 would willingly have drawn him into conversation, but succeeded 
 
180 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 only in eliciting a few remarks as to the oppressive atmosphere of 
 this present summer evening compared with one which the guest 
 had experienced about fourscore years ago. The old gentleman, 
 in fact, was a good deal overcome ." by his journey among the 
 clouds ; which, to a frame so earth-incrusted by long continuance 
 in a lower region, was unavoidably more fatiguing than to 
 younger spirits. He was therefore conducted to an easy-chair, 
 well cushioned, and stuffed with vaporous softness, and left to take 
 a little repose. 
 
 The Man of Fancy now discerned another guest, who stood so 
 quietly in the shadow "of one of the pillars, that he might easily 
 have been overlooked. 
 
 " My dear sir," exclaimed the host, grasping him warmly by 
 the hand, " allow me to greet you as the hero of the evening. 
 Pray do not take it as an empty compliment ; for, if there were 
 not another guest in my castle, it would be entirely pervaded with 
 your presence." 
 
 " I thank you," answered the unpretending stranger. " But, 
 though you happened to overlook me, I have not just arrived. I 
 came very early; and, with your permission, shall remain after 
 the rest of the company have retired." 
 
 And who does the reader imagine was this unobtrusive guest ? 
 It was the famous performer of acknowledged impossibilities, 
 a character of superhuman capacity and virtue, and, if his ene- 
 mies are to be credited, of no less remarkable weaknesses and 
 defects. With a generosity with which he alone sets us an ex- 
 ample, we will glance merely at his nobler attributes. He it is, 
 then, who prefers the interests of others to his own, and a hum- 
 ble station to an exalted one. Careless of fashion, custom, the 
 opinions of men, and the influence of the press, he assimilates his 
 life to the standard of ideal rectitude, and thus proves himself 
 the one independent citizen of our free country. In point of 
 ability, many people declare him to be the only mathematician 
 capable of squaring the circle ; the only mechanic acquainted 
 with the principle of perpetual motion ; the only scientific philos- 
 opher who can compel water to run up hill; the only writer of 
 the age whose genius is equal to the production of an epic poem ; 
 and finally, so various are his accomplishments, the only professor 
 of gymnastics who has succeeded in jumping down his own throat. 
 With all these talents, however, he is so far from being considered 
 a member of good society, that it is the severest censure of any 
 fashionable assemblage to affirm that this remarkable individual 
 was present. Public orators, lecturers, and theatrical performers 
 particularly, eschew his company. For especial reasons, we are 
 not at liberty to disclose his name, and shall mention only one 
 other trait, a most singular phenomenon in natural philosophy, 
 

 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 181 
 
 that, when he happens to cast his eyes upon a looking-glass, 
 he beholds nobody reflected there. 
 
 Several other guests now made their appearance ; and among 
 them, chattering with immense volubility, a brisk little gentleman 
 of universal vogue in private society, and not unknown in the 
 public journals under the title of Monsieur On-Dit. The name 
 would seem to indicate a Frenchman ; but, whatever be his coun- 
 try, he is thoroughly versed in all the languages of the day, and 
 can express himself quite as much to the purpose in English as 
 in any other tongue. No sooner were the ceremonies of saluta- 
 tion over than this talkative little person put his mouth to the 
 host's ear, and whispered three secrets of state, an important 
 piece of commercial intelligence, and a rich item of fashionable 
 scandal. He then assured the Man of Fancy that he would not 
 fail to circulate in the society of the lower world a minute descrip- 
 tion of this magnificent castle in the air, and of the festivities at 
 which he had the honor to be a guest. So saying, Monsieur 
 On-Dit made his bow, and hurried from one to another of the 
 company, with all of whom he seemed to be acquainted, and to 
 possess some topic of interest or amusement for every individual. 
 Coming at last to the Oldest Inhabitant, who was slumbering 
 comfortably in the easy-chair, he applied his mouth to that ven- 
 erable ear. 
 
 "What do you say?" cried the old gentleman, starting from 
 his nap, and putting up his hand to serve the purpose of an ear- 
 trumpet. 
 
 Monsieur On-Dit went forward again, and repeated his commu- 
 nication. 
 
 " Never within my memory," exclaimed the Oldest Inhabitant, 
 lifting his hands in astonishment, "has so remarkable an incident 
 been heard of." 
 
 Now came in the Clerk of the Weather, who had been invited 
 out of deference to his official station ; although the host was well 
 aware that his conversation was likely to contribute but little to 
 the general enjoyment. He soon, indeed, got into a corner with 
 his acquaintance of long ago, the Oldest Inhabitant, and began 
 to compare notes with him in reference to the great storms, gales 
 of wind, and other atmospherical facts, that had occurred during 
 a century past. It rejoiced the Man of Fancy that his venerable 
 and much-respected guest had met with so congenial an associate. 
 Entreating them both to make themselves perfectly at home, he 
 now turned to receive the Wandering Jew. This personage 1 , 
 however, had latterly grown so common, by mingling in all sorts 
 of societjr, and appearing at the beck of every entertainer, that 
 he could hardly be deemed a proper guest in a very exclusive cir- 
 cle. Besides, being covered with dust from his continual wander- 
 
182 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ings along the highways of the world, he really looked out of 
 place in a dress-party : so that the host felt relieved of an incom- 
 inodity when the restless individual in question, after a brief stay, 
 took his departure on a ramble toward Oregon. 
 
 The portal was now thronged by a crowd of shadowy people 
 witli whom the Man of Fancy had been acquainted in his vision- 
 ary youth. He had invited them hither for the sake of observing 
 how they would compare, whether advantageously or otherwise, 
 with the real characters to whom his maturer life had introduced 
 him. They were beings of crude imagination, such as glide be- 
 fore a young man's eye, and pretend to be actual inhabitants of 
 the earth, the wise and witty with whom he would hereafter hold 
 intercourse ; the generous and heroic friends whose devotion would 
 be requited with his own ; the beautiful dream-woman who would 
 become the helpmate of his human toils and sorrows, and at once 
 the source and partaker of his happiness. Alas ! it is not good 
 for the full-grown man to look too closely at these old acquaint- 
 ances, but rather to reverence them at a distance through the 
 medium of years that have gathered duskily between. There 
 was something laughably untrue in their pompous stride and ex- 
 aggerated sentiment: they were neither human, nor tolerable 
 likenesses of humanity, but fantastic maskers, rendering heroism 
 and nature alike ridiculous by the grave absurdit} 1 of their pre- 
 tensions to such attributes. And as for the peerless Dream-Lady, 
 behold ! there advanced up the saloon, with a movement like a 
 jointed doll, a sort of wax figure of an angel, a creature as cold 
 as moonshine; an artifice in petticoats, with an intellect of pretty 
 phrases, and only the semblance of a heart, yet in all these par- 
 ticulars the true type of a young man's imaginary mistress. 
 Hardly could the host's punctilious courtesy restrain a smile as 
 he paid his respects to this unreality, and met the sentimental 
 glance with which the Dream sought to remind him of their for- 
 mer love-passages. 
 
 " No, no, fair lady," murmured he betwixt sighing and smil- 
 ing : "my taste is changed. I have learned to love what Nature 
 makes, better than my own creations in the guise of woman- 
 hood." 
 
 "Ah, false one!" shrieked the Dream-Lady, pretending to faint, 
 but dissolving into thin air, out of which came the deplorable 
 murmur of her voice, "your inconstancy has annihilated me." 
 
 "So be it," said the cruel Man of Fancy to himself; "and a 
 good riddance too." 
 
 Together with these shadows, and from the same region, there 
 came an uninvited multitude of shapes, which at any time during 
 his life had tormented the Man of Fancy in his moods of morbid 
 melancholy, or had haunted hi in in the delirium of fever. The 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 183 
 
 walls of his castle in the air were not dense enough to keep them 
 out; nor would the strongest of earthly architecture have availed 
 to their exclusion. Here were those forms of dim terror which 
 had beset him at the entrance of life, waging warfare with his 
 hopes ; here were strange uglinesses of earlier date, such as haunt 
 children in the nightmare. He was particularly startled by the 
 vision of a deformed old black woman, whom he imagined as lurk- 
 ing in the garret of his native home, arid who, when he was an in- 
 fant, had once come to his bedside and grinned at him in the crisis 
 of a scarlet-fever. This same black shadow, with others almost 
 as hideous, now glided among the pillars of the magnificent saloon, 
 grinning recognition, until the man shuddered anew at the forgot- 
 ten terrors of his childhood. It amused him, however, to observe 
 the black woman, with the mischievous caprice peculiar to such 
 beings, steal up to the chair of the Oldest Inhabitant, and peep 
 into his half-dreamy mind. 
 
 "Never within my memory," muttered that venerable person- 
 age, aghast, "did I see such a face." 
 
 Almost immediately after the unrealities just described, arrived 
 a number of guests whom incredulous readers may be inclined to 
 rank equally among creatures of imagination. The most note- 
 worthy were an incorruptible patriot, a scholar without pedantry, 
 a priest without worldly ambition, and a beautiful woman without 
 pride or coquetry, a married pair whose life had never been dis- 
 turbed by incongruity of feeling, a reformer uiitrammeled by his 
 theories, and a poet who felt no jealous} 7 toward other votaries 
 of the lyre. In truth, however, the host was not one of the cyn- 
 ics who consider these patterns of excellence without the fatal 
 flaw such rarities in the world; and he had invited them to his 
 select party chiefty out of humble deference to the judgment of 
 society, which pronounces them almost impossible to be met with. 
 
 " In my younger days," observed the Oldest Inhabitant, " such 
 characters might be seen at the corner of every street." 
 
 Be that as it might, these specimens of perfection proved to be 
 not half so entertaining companions as people with the ordinary 
 allowance of faults. 
 
 But now appeared a stranger, whom the host had no sooner 
 recognized, than, with an abundance of courtesy uiilavished on 
 any other, he hastened down the whole length of the saloon in 
 order to pay him emphatic honor. Yet he was a young man, in 
 poor attire, with no insignia of rank or acknowledged eminence, 
 nor any thing to distinguish him among the crowd, except a high, 
 white forehead, beneath which a pair of deepest eyes were glow- 
 ing with warm light. It was such a light as never illuminates 
 the earth save when a great heart burns as the household fire of 
 a grand intellect. And who was he ? who but the Master 
 
184 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Genius, for whom our country is looking anxiously into the mist 
 of Time, as destined to fulfil the great mission of creating an 
 American literature, hewing it, as it were, out of the unwrought 
 granite of our intellectual quarries ? From him, whether molded 
 in the form of an epic poem, or assuming a guise altogether new, 
 as the spirit itself may determine, we are to receive our first great 
 original work, which shall do all that remains to be achieved for 
 our glory among the nations. How this child of a mighty destiny 
 had been discovered by the Man of Fancy, it is of little conse- 
 quence to mention. Suffice it that he dwells as yet unhonored 
 among men, unrecognized by those who have known him from his 
 cradle. The noble countenance, which should be distinguished 
 by a halo diffused around it, passes daily amid the throng of peo- 
 ple, toiling, and troubling themselves about the trifles of a mo- 
 ment; and none pay reverence to the worker of immortality. 
 Nor does it matter much to him, in his triumph over all the ages, 
 though a generation or two of his own times shall do themselves 
 the wrong to disregard him. 
 
 By this time, Monsieur On-Dit had caught up the stranger's 
 name and destiny, and was busily whispering the intelligence 
 among the other guests. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said one : " there can never be an American 
 genius." 
 
 "Pish!" cried another: "we have already as good poets as 
 any in the world. For my part, I desire to see no better." 
 
 And the Oldest Inhabitant, when it was proposed to introduce 
 him to the Master Genius, begged to be excused; observing, that 
 a man who had been honored with the acquaintance of Dwight 
 and Freneau and Joel Barlow might be allowed a little austerity 
 of taste. 
 
 The saloon was now fast filling up by the arrival of other 
 remarkable characters, among whom were noticed Davy Jones, 
 the distinguished nautical personage, and a rude, carelessly- 
 dressed, harum-scarum sort of elderly fellow, known by the nick- 
 name of Old Harry. The latter, however, after being shown to a 
 dressing-room, re-appeared with his gray hair nicely combed, his 
 clothes brushed, a clean dicky on his neck, and altogether so changed 
 in aspect as to merit the more respectful appellation of Venerable 
 Henry. John Doe and Richard Roe came arm in arm, accompa- 
 nied by a man of straw, a fictitious indorser, and several persons 
 who had no existence except as voters in closely-contested elections. 
 The celebrated Seatsfield, who now entered, was at first supposed 
 to belong to the same brotherhood, until he made it apparent that 
 he was a real man of flesh and blood, and had his earthly domicile 
 in Germany. Among the latest coiners, as might reasonably be 
 expected, arrived a guest from the Far Future. 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 185 
 
 " Do you know him ? do you know him ? " whispered Mon- 
 sieur On-Dit, who seemed to be acquainted with everybody. 
 " He is the representative of posterity, the man of an age to 
 come." 
 
 " And how came he here ? " asked a figure who was evidently 
 the prototype of the fashion-plate in a magazine, and might be 
 taken to represent the vanities of the passing moment. "The 
 fellow infringes upon our rights by coming before his time." 
 
 " But you forget where we are," answered the Man of Fancy, 
 who overheard the remark. " The lower earth, it is true, will be 
 forbidden ground to him for many long years hence ; but a castle 
 in the air is a sort of No Man's Land, where posterity may make 
 acquaintance with us on equal terms." 
 
 No sooner was his identity known than a throng of guests 
 gathered about Posterity, all expressing the most generous in- 
 terest in his welfare, and many boasting of the sacrifices which 
 they had made, or were willing to make, in his behalf. Some, 
 with as much secrecy as possible, desired his judgment upon 
 certain copies of verses or great manuscript rolls of prose ; others 
 accosted him with the familiarity of old friends, taking it for 
 granted that he was perfectly cognizant of their names and char- 
 acters. At length, finding himself thus beset, Posterity was put 
 quite beside his patience. 
 
 (t Gentlemen, my good friends," cried he, breaking loose from a 
 misty poet who strove to hold him by the button, " I pray you 
 to attend to your own business, and leave me to take care of 
 mine ! I expect to owe you nothing, unless it be certain 
 national debts, and other encumbrances and impediments, physi- 
 cal and moral, which I shall find it troublesome enough to remove 
 from my path. As to your verses, pray send them to your con- 
 temporaries. Your names are as strange to me as your faces ; 
 and, even were it otherwise, let me whisper you a secret, the 
 cold, icy memory which one generation may retain of another is 
 but a poor recompense to barter life for. Yet, if your heart is 
 set on being known to me, the surest, the only method is to live 
 truly and wisely for your own age, whereby, if the native force 
 be in you, you may likewise live for posterity." 
 
 " It is nonsense," murmured the Oldest Inhabitant, who, as a 
 man of the past, felt jealous that all notice should be withdrawn 
 from himself to be lavished on the future, " sheer nonsense, to 
 waste so much thought on what only is to be." 
 
 To divert the minds of his guests, who were considerably 
 abashed by this little incident, the Man of Fancy led them 
 through several apartments of the castle, receiving their compli- 
 ments upon the taste and varied magnificence that were displayed 
 in each. One of these rooms was filled with moonlight, which 
 
186 ENGLISPI LITERATURE. 
 
 (lid not enter through the window, hut was the aggregate of till 
 the moonshine that is scattered around the earth on a summer 
 night while no eyes are awake to enjoy its beauty. Airy spirits 
 had gathered it up, wherever they found it gleaming on the broad 
 bosom of a lake, or silvering the meanders of a stream, or glim- 
 mering among the wind-stirred boughs of a wood, and had gar- 
 nered it in this one spacious hall. Along the walls, illuminated 
 by the mild intensity of the moonshine, stood a multitude of 
 ideal statues, the original conception of the great works of 
 ancient or modern art, which the sculptors did but imperfectly 
 succeed in putting into marble : for it is not to be supposed that 
 the pure idea of an immortal creation ceases to exist ; it is only 
 necessary to know where they are deposited in order to obtain 
 possession of them. In the alcoves of another vast apartment 
 was arranged a splendid library, the volumes of which were in- 
 estimable, because they consisted, not of actual performances, but 
 of the works which the authors onl\ T planned, without ever find- 
 ing the happy season to achieve them. To take familiar in- 
 stances, here were the untold tales of Chaucer's "Canterbury 
 Pilgrims," the unwritten cantos of the " Fairy Queen," the 
 conclusion of Coleridge's " Christabel," and the whole of Dry- 
 den's projected epic on the subject of King Arthur. The shelves 
 were crowded ; for it would not be too much to affirm that every 
 author has imagined and shaped out in his thought more and 
 far better works than those which actually proceeded from his 
 pen. And here, likewise, were the unrealized conceptions of 
 youthful poets who died of the very strength of their own genius, 
 before the world had caught one inspired murmur from their lips. 
 
 When the peculiarities of the library and statue gallery were 
 explained to the Oldest Inhabitant, he appeared infinitely per- 
 plexed, and exclaimed with more energy than usual, that he had 
 never heard of such a thing within his memory, and, moreover, 
 did not at all understand how it could be. 
 
 " But my brain, I think," said the good old gentleman, " is 
 getting not so clear as it used to be. You young folks, I suppose, 
 can see your way through these strange matters. For my part, 
 I give it up." 
 
 "And so do I," muttered the Old Many. "It is enough to 
 puzzle the ahem ! " 
 
 Making as little reply as possible to these observations, the 
 Man of Fancy preceded the company to another noble saloon, the 
 pillars of which were solid golden sunbeams taken out of the sky 
 in the first hour in the morning. Thus, as they retained all 
 their living luster, the room was filled with the most cheerful 
 radiance imaginable, yet not too dazzling to be borne with com- 
 fort and delight. The windows were beautifully adorned with 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 187 
 
 curtains made of the many-colored clouds of sunrise, all imbued 
 with virgin light, and hanging in magnificent festoons from the 
 ceiling to the floor. Moreover, there were fragments of rainbows 
 scattered through the room: so that the guests, astonished at 
 one another, reciprocally saw their heads made glorious by the 
 seven primary hues; or, if they chose, as who would not? 
 they could grasp a rainbow in the air, and convert it to their own 
 apparel and adornment. But the morning light and scattered 
 rainbows were only a type and symbol of the real wonders of the 
 apartment. By an influence akin to magic, yet perfectly natural, 
 whatever means and opportunities of joy are neglected in the 
 lower world had been carefully gathered up and deposited in the 
 saloon of morning sunshine. As may well be conceived, there- 
 fore, there was material enough to supply, not merely a joyous 
 evening, but also a happy lifetime, to more than as many people 
 as that spacious apartment could contain. The company seemed 
 to renew their youth ; while that pattern and proverbial standard 
 of innocence, the child unborn, frolicked to and fro among them, 
 communicating his own unwrinkled gayety to all who had the 
 good fortune to witness his gambols. 
 
 "My honored friends," said the Man of Fancy after they had 
 enjoyed themselves a while, " I am now to request your presence 
 in the banque ting-hall, where a slight collation is awaiting you." 
 
 " Ah, well said ! " ejaculated a cadaverous figure, who had 
 been invited for no other reason than that he was pretty con- 
 stantly in the habit of dining with Duke Humphrey. " I was 
 beginning to wonder whether a castle in the air were provided 
 with a kitchen." 
 
 It was curious, in truth, to see how instantly the guests were 
 diverted from the high moral enjoyments, which they had been 
 tasting with so much, apparent zest, by a suggestion of the more 
 solid as well as liquid delights of the festive board. They 
 thronged eagerly in the rear of the host, who now ushered them 
 into a lofty and extensive hall, from end to end of which was 
 arranged a table, glittering all over with innumerable dishes and 
 drinking-vessels of gold. It is an uncertain point whether these 
 rich articles of place were made for the occasion out of molten 
 sunbeams, or recovered from the wrecks of the Spanish galleons 
 that had lain for ages at the bottom of the sea. The upper end 
 of the table was overshadowed by a canopy, beneath which was 
 placed a chair of elaborate magnificence, which the host himself 
 declined to occupy, and besought his guests to assign it to the 
 worthiest among them. As a suitable homage to his incalculable 
 antiquity and eminent distinction, the post of honor was at first 
 tendered to the Oldest Inhabitant. He, however, eschewed it, 
 and requested the favor of a bowl of gruel at a side-table, where 
 
188 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 he could refresh himself with a quiet nap. There was some little 
 hesitation as to the next candidate, until Posterity took the Master 
 Genius of our country by the hand, and led him to the chair of state 
 heneath the princely canopy. When once they beheld him in his 
 true place, the company acknowledged the justice of the selection 
 by a long thunder-roll of vehement applause. 
 
 Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not all the deli- 
 cacies of the season, yet all the rarities which careful purveyors 
 had met with in the flesh, fish, and vegetable markets of the land 
 of Nowhere. The bill of fare being unfortunately lost, we can 
 only mention a phoenix roasted in its own flames, cold potted 
 birds-of-paradise, ice-creams from the Milky Way, and whip- 
 syllabubs and flummery from the Paradise of Fools, whereof there 
 was a very great consumption. As for drinkables, the temper- 
 ance people contented themselves with water as usual, but it was 
 the water of the Fountain of Youth ; the ladies sipped Nepenthe ; 
 the love-lorn, the care-worn, and the sorrow-stricken were supplied 
 with brimming goblets of Lethe ; and it was shrewdly conjec- 
 tured that a certain golden vase, from which only the more dis- 
 tinguished guests were invited to partake, contained nectar that 
 had been mellowing ever since the day of classical mythology. 
 The cloth being removed, the company, as usual, grew eloquent 
 over their liquor, and delivered themselves of a succession of 
 brilliant speeches ; the task of reporting which we resign to the 
 more adequate ability of Counselor Gill, whose indispensable 
 co-operation the Man of Fancy had taken the precaution to 
 secure. 
 
 When the festivity of the banquet was at its most ethereal 
 point, the Clerk of the Weather was observed to steal from the 
 table, and thrust his head between the purple and golden curtains 
 of one of the windows. 
 
 My fellow-guests," he remarked aloud, after carefully noting 
 the signs of the night, " I advise such of you as live at a distance 
 to be going as soon as possible ; for a thunder-storm is certainly 
 at hand." 
 
 " Mercy on me ! " cried Mother Carey, who had left her brood 
 of chickens, and come hither in gossamer drapery, with pink silk 
 stockings. " How shall I ever get home ? " 
 
 All now was confusion and hasty departure, with but little 
 superfluous leave-taking. The Oldest Inhabitant, however, true 
 to the rule of those long-past days in which his courtesy had 
 been studied, paused on the threshold of the meteor-lighted hall 
 to express his vast satisfaction at the entertainment. 
 
 "Never within my memory," observed the gracious old gen- 
 tleman, "has it been my good fortune to spend a pleasanter 
 evening, or in a more select society." 
 
THEOLOGY, METAPHYSICS, ETC. 189 
 
 The wind here took his breath away, whirled his three-cornered 
 hat into infinite space, and drowned what further compliments 
 it had been his purpose to bestow. Many of the company had 
 bespoken will-o'-the-wisps to convey them home ; and the host, in 
 his general beneficence, had engaged the Man in the Moon, with an 
 immense horn lantern, to be the guide of such desolate spinsters 
 as could do no better for themselves. But a blast of the rising 
 tempest blew out all their lights in the twinkling of an eye. 
 How, in the darkness that ensued, the guests contrived to get 
 back to earth, or whether the greater part of them contrived to 
 get back at all, or are still wandering among clouds, mists, and 
 puffs of tempestuous wind, bruised by the beams and rafters of 
 the overthrown castle in the air, and deluded by all sorts of un- 
 realities, are points that concern themselves much more than the 
 writer or the public. People should think of these matters 
 before they trust themselves on a pleasure-party into the realm 
 of Nowhere. 
 
 THEOLOGY, METAPHYSICS, RELIGION", 
 AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 1703-1758. The first and most eminent metaphysi- 
 cian of America. His most famous work is " The Freedom of the Will, and Moral 
 Agency." 
 
 FRANCIS WAYLAND. 1796. President of Brown University from 1827 to 1856. 
 "Occasional Discourses;" " Moral Science; " ''Political Economy;" "Thoughts 
 on Collegiate Education;" "Limitations of Human Responsibility;" "University 
 Sermons; " " Memoirs of Judson ; " " Intellectual Philosophy ; " " l^otes on the Prin- 
 ciples and Practices of the Baptists;" "Discourse on the Life and Character of 
 Hon. Nicholas Brown;" "Sermons to the Churches;" "Priesthood and Clergy 
 Unknown to Christianity." 
 
 WILLIAM B.' SPRAGUE. 1795. " Letters to a Daughter ; "." Letters from Europe ; " 
 "Lectures to Young People;" "Lectures on Revivals;" "Hints on Christian In- 
 tercourse;" " Contrast between True and False Religion;" "Life of Edward Dorr 
 Griffin;" "Life of President Dwight;" "Aids to Early Religion;" "Words to a 
 Young Man's Conscience;" "Letters to Young Men;" "European Celebrities;" 
 "Annals of the American Pulpit," invaluable volumes of their kind. 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. 1794. "Lexicon of New Testament;" "Biblical Re- 
 searches in Palestine," fourvols.; " Harmony of the Four Gospels in Greek;" "Har- 
 mony of the Four Gospels in English." Works of much learning and patient 
 research. 
 
 JOHN GORHAM PALFREY. 1796. "Evidences of Christianity," two vols.; 
 "Lectures on the Hebrew Scriptures," four vols. ;" Duties of Private Life;" 
 " Life of William Palfrey; " " A History of New England." 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 1780-1842. The works of this celebrated divine 
 are published by his nephew in six volumes. 
 
190 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 LEONARD BACON, D.D. Born Feb. 19, 1802, Detroit, Mich. "Thirteen His- 
 torical Discourses on the Completion of Two Hundred Years from the Beginning 
 of the First Church in New Haven; " also many addresses, essays, and articles lor 
 magazines and papers. A writer of great vigor' of thought and expression. 
 
 MARK HOPKINS, D.D. Born Feb. 4, 1802, Stockbridge, Mass. "Lectures on 
 the Evidences of Christianity," 1844; "Miscellaneous Essays and Discourses," 1847. 
 
 GEORGE W. BETIII.-XE, D.D. Born March 18, 1805, New York. "The Fniits 
 of the Spirit," 1839; "Early Lost, Early Saved," 1846; "Volume of Sermons," 
 1-47: 'Hi-tory of a Penitent, or Guide to an Inquirer," 1847; "Walton An- 
 gler," 1848; "'Lays of Love and Faith, with other Poems," 1848; "The British 
 Female Poets, 1 ' 1848; and numerous orations before literary societies. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. Essays and Sermons. 
 
 Rev. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D. Born in Beverly, Mass., 1811. " Lectures on 
 Christian Doctrine," 1S44; "Sermons on Consolation," 1847; besides many contri- 
 butions to " North-American Review " and "Christian Examiner." 
 
 Rev. GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D. Born April 17, 1807, Hallowell, Me. This 
 vigorous writer and eloquent preacher has published the following: "American 
 Commonplace Book of Prose," 1828; "American Commonplace Book of Poetry," 
 1829; "Studies in Poetry, with Sketches of the Poets," 1830; "Selections from 
 Archbishop Leighton, with Introductory Essay," 1832; "God's Hand in America," 
 1841; "The Argument for Punishment by Death," 1842; "Lectures on Pilgrim's 
 Progress," 1843; "Hierarchical Lectures," 1844; "Wanderings of a Pilgrim in 
 the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Yungfran Alp," 1846; "The Journal of the Pil- 
 .grims at Plymouth," 1848; "The Hill Difficulty and other Allegories," 1849; "The 
 Windings of the River of the Water of Life," 1849; "Voices of Nature to her 
 Poster-Child, the Soul of Man," 1852; " Reel in a Bottle, or Voyage to the Celestial 
 Country, by an Old Salt," 1853; "Right of the Bible in our'Common Schools," 
 1854; "Lectures on Cowper," 1856; '''The Powers of the World to Come," 1856; 
 " God against Slavery," 1857 ; besides many contributions to papers, periodicals, and 
 reviews. 
 
 HORACE BL T SHNELL, D.D. Born in Washington, Conn., 1804. An able and 
 independent thinker in theology. Has published "God in Christ;" "Views of 
 Christian Nurture;" "Christ in Theology ;" "Unconscious Influence;" "The 
 Day of Roads;'' "Barbarism the First Danger;" "Religious Music;" "Politics 
 under the Law of God;" "Nature and the Supernatural;" " The One System of 
 God;" "Noah Porter;" "The Human Intellect," 1869. 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 1798. "Notes on New Testament;" "Commentaries on 
 Books of the Old Testament;" many volumes of sermons. Eminent theologian 
 and an indefatigable author. 
 Among others of note are 
 
 ANDREWS NORTON. LYMAX BEECHER. 
 
 JAMES WALKER. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER. 
 
 HENRY WARE, Jun. TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 
 
 LEVI FRISBEE. JOHN WITHERSPOOX. 
 
 J. S. BfCKMINSTER. JOHN M. MASON. 
 
 GI-LIAX C. VERI-LANCK. CHARLES PETTIT MC!LVAIXE. 
 
 WILLIAM BARROWS. FREDERIC H. HEDGE. 
 
 SCHOLARS, ESSAYISTS, AND CRITICS. 
 
 JOHN JAY, JAMES MADISON. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, were the authors of "The 
 Federalist." Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 54, were written bv Jay; 10, 14, 37 to 38 inclusive, 
 by Madison; 18, 19, 20, by Madison and Hamilton; the rest, sixty-three in all, by 
 Hamilton. Political essays of highest ability. 
 
 JOHN MARSHALL. 1755-1835. The eminent Chief Justice of the United States. 
 "Life of Washington," five vols.; "History of the American Colonies;" "The Fed- 
 eral Constitution." 
 
SCHOLARS, ESSAYISTS, AND CRITICS. 191 
 
 LINDLEY MURRAY. 1745-1S26. Born in Suatora, near Lancaster, Penn. 
 Author of the famous English Grammar, and Reader; also an Introduction and a 
 Sequel to the Reader. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1743-1826. Author of "The Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence;" " No.es on Virginia." 
 
 FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 1737-1791. Author of several pieces of excellent wit 
 and satire. 
 
 NOAH WEBSTER. 1758-1843. "Spelling-Book;" "English Grammar;" and 
 "Dictionary." It is a little strange that the best dictionary of the English language 
 should have been made by an American. Begun in 1807 ; published in 1828. In 
 addition to this magnificent monument to his name, he has left various political 
 essays. 
 
 WILLIAM SULLIVAN. 1774-1839. "The Political Class-Book;" "The Moral 
 Class-Book ; " " Historical Class-Book ; " " Historical Causes and Effects, from Fall of 
 Roman Empire, 476, to Reformation, 1517;" "The Pub'ic Men of the Revolution, 
 including Events from Peace of 1783 to Peace of 1815, in a Series of Letters." 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 1722-1834. "The British Spy;" "The Old Bachelor;" 
 " Life of Patrick Henry." 
 
 WILLIAM TUDOR. 1779-1830. Founder of "The North- American Review;" 
 " Letters on the Eastern States ;" "Miscellanies;" "Life of James Otis." 
 JOSEPH DENNIE. 1768-1812. Established, in 1800, " The Portfolio." 
 THOMAS PAINE. 1736-1809. Author of "Common Sense;" "Rights of 
 Man," in answer to Burke's "Reflections;" "The Age of Reason;" and several 
 political tracts. 
 
 JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM. 1779. One of the first and ablest journalists of- 
 New England. Four volumes of "Personal Memoirs;" "Anecdotes and Recollec- 
 tions of Editorial Life." 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 1789-1858. " The Life and Writings of John Jay," two vols. 
 " An Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and 
 American Antislavery Societies;" "A View of the Action of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment in Behalf of Slavery;" " Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery;" "History 
 of the Mexican War;" all written with candor and charity. 
 
 ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. "Europe;" "America;" " New Ideas on Popula- 
 tion;" " Critical and Miscellaneous Essays," two vols. His writings are principally 
 of a political character, but of high literary merit. 
 
 H?:NRY REED. Born July 11, 1808, Philadelphia, Penn. Drowned in the steam- 
 ship "Arctic," Sept. 27, 1854. "Lectures on English Literature, from Chaucer to 
 Tennyson;" " Lectures on the British Poets," two vols.; " Lectures on English His- 
 tory and Tragic Poetry, as illustrated by Shakspeare ; " " Two Lectures on the 
 History of the American Union." 
 
 JOSEPH E. WORCESTER. The celebrated lexicographer; resided in Cambridge, 
 Mass. His quarto dictionary is an enduring monument of his industry and philo- 
 logical learning. 
 
 RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. Born 1815, Benson, Vt.; died 1857. "Poets and 
 Poetry of America," 1842; "Prose-Writers of America;" "The Female Poets of 
 America," 1848; "The Curiosities of American Literature;" "The Poets and 
 Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century; " and several other volumes. 
 
 HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN. Born April 20, 1813, Boston, Mass. " Artist- 
 Life, or Sketches of American Painters;" "The Italian Sketch-Book ; " "The 
 Optimist Essays ; " " Rambles and Reveries ; " " Sicily, a Pilgrimage ; " 
 "Thoughts on the Poets;"- "Characteristics of Literature;" "Memorial of 
 Greenough the Sculptor;" "Leaves from the Diary of a Dreamer; " "Biographi- 
 cal Essays; " and a volume of Poems, all genial and graceful. 
 
 MARGARET FULLER D'OSSOLI. 1810-1850. "Summer on the Lakes;" 
 " Woman in the Nineteenth Century," herself one of the ablest. 
 
 GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD. Born Sept. 22, 1808, Machias, Me. "Six 
 Months in Italy;" valuable articles to principal American reviews; and an ex- 
 cellent series of Readers. 
 
192 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND. Born July 24, 1*19, Belchertown, Mass. Editor 
 of " Springfield .Republican; " is well known as the author of " Timothv Titcomb's 
 Letters to Young People," 1858 (humorous and satirical); "Bitter-Sweet;" and 
 " The Bay Path." 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIFFLE. Born March 8, 1819, Gloucester, Mass. Has published 
 two volumes of "Essays and Reviews," and "Lectures on Subjects connected 
 with Literature and Life;" all of much value for their terse, vigorous style, and 
 keen analvsis. 
 
 China, and Japan;" "Northern Travel;" "Poems of the Orient;" " Poems of 
 Home and Travel; " " The Lawson Tragedy," 1870. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Born 1824, Providence, R.I. A brilliant and pop- 
 ular writer and orator; is now editor of "Harper's Monthly." Published in 1850 
 "Nile-Notes of a Howadji;" 1852, "The Howadji in Syria;" and " Lotus-Eating," 
 a summer book. " The Potiphar Papers " were very popular satirical sketches 
 of society. 
 
 C. C. FELTON. H. F. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 HORACE MANN. CHARLES ANTHON. 
 
 E. E. HALE. HENRY BARNARD. 
 
 HENRY D. THOREATT. ORESTES A. BROWNSON. 
 
 JOHN RUSSELL BARTLETT. GEORGE BURGESS. 
 
 CATHERINE BEECHER. ELIHU BURRITT. 
 
 HENRY BELLOWS. MARY H. EASTMAN. 
 
 SARAH STICKNEY. THOMAS H. BENTON. 
 
 CALEB CUSHING. . CHARLES D. CLEVELAND. 
 
 GEOBGE T. CURTIS. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 
 
 RITERS OF FICTIOK 
 
 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 1789-1851. This celebrated American novelist 
 
 elow, he h 
 in Europe; 
 
 . -. 
 
 was born in Burlington, N. J. Besides his novels named in the list below, he has 
 published a "History of the United-States Navy;" "Gleanings 
 
 " Sketches of Switzerland; " and other smaller works. 
 
 LIST OF NOVELS. 
 
 1823 
 "The 
 
 Precaution," 1821: "The Spy," 1821; "The Pioneers," 1823; "The Pilot," 
 ; "Lionel Lincoln," 1825; " Last of the Mohicans," 1826; "Red Rover," 1827; 
 e Prairie," 1827; "Traveling Bachelor," 1828; " Wept of Wish-ton-Wish," 
 
 1829; " The Water- Witch," 1830; " The Bravo," 1831; " The Heidenmauer," 1832; 
 
 "The Headsman," 1833; "The Monikins," 1835; "Homeward Bound," 1838; 
 
 "Home as Found," 1838; "The Pathfinder," 1840; "Mercedes of Castile," 1840; 
 
 "The Deerslayer," 1841; "The Two Admirals" 1842; " Wing-and-Wing," 1842; 
 
 "Ned Mvers," 1843; " Wyandotte," 1843; "Afloat and Ashore," 1844; "Miles 
 
 Wallinwford " 1844; "The Chainbearer," 1845; " Satanstoe," 1845; "The Red- 
 
 Skins," 1846; "The Crater," 1847; "Jack Tier," 1848; "Oak-Openings," 1848; 
 
 " The Sea Lions," 1849; " The W r ays of the Hour," 1850. 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF A WHALE. 
 
 " TOM," cried Barnstable, starting, " there is the blow of a 
 whale ! " 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ! " returned the cockswain with undisturbed com- 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 193 
 
 posure : " here is his spout, not half a mile to seaward. The east- 
 erly gale has driven the creator to leeward; and he begins to find 
 himself in shoal water. He's been sleeping while he should have 
 been working to windward." 
 
 " The fellow takes it coolly too. He's in no hurry to get an 
 offing." 
 
 " I rather conclude, sir," said the cockswain, rolling over his to- 
 bacco in his mouth very composedly, while his little sunken eyes 
 began to twinkle with pleasure at the sight, " the gentleman has 
 lost his reckoning, and don't know which way to head to take 
 himself back into blue water." 
 
 " 'Tis a fin-back ! " exclaimed the lieutenant. " He will soon 
 make headway, and be off." 
 
 "No, sir ; 'tis a right whale," answered Tom : " I saw his spout. 
 He threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish 
 to look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow ! " 
 
 Barnstable laughed, and exclaimed in joyous tones, 
 
 " Give strong way, my hearties ! There seems nothing better 
 to be done : let us have a stroke of a harpoon at that impudent 
 rascal." 
 
 The men shouted spontaneously ; and the old cockswain suffered 
 his solemn visage to relax into a small laugh, while the whale- 
 boat sprang forward like a courser for the goal. During the few 
 minutes they were pulling toward their game, Long Tom- arose 
 from his crouching attitude in *the stern-sheets, and transferred 
 his huge frame to the bows of the boat, where he made such prep- 
 aration to strike the whale as the occasion required. The tub, 
 containing about half of a whale-line, was placed at the feet of 
 Barnstable, who had been preparing an oar to steer with in place 
 of the rudder, which was unshipped, in order, that, if necessary, 
 the boat might be whirled round when not advancing. 
 
 Their approach was utterly unnoticed by the monster of the 
 deep, who continued to amuse himself with throwing the water 
 in two circular spouts high into the air; occasionally flourishing 
 the broad flukes of his tail with graceful but terrific force until 
 the hardy seamen were within a few hundred feet of him, when 
 he suddenly cast his head downwards, and, without apparent 
 effort, reared his immense body for many feet above the water, 
 waving his tail violently, and producing a whizzing noise that 
 sounded like the rushing of winds. The cockswain stood erect, 
 poising his harpoon, ready for the blow ; but, when he beheld the 
 creature assuming this formidable attitude, he waved his hand to 
 his commander, who instantly signed to his men to cease rowing. 
 In this situation the sportsman rested a few moments; while the 
 whale struck several blows on the water in rapid succession, the 
 noise of which re-echoed along the cliffs like the hollow reports 
 13 
 
194 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of so many cannon. After this wanton exhibition of his terrible 
 strength, the monster sank again into his native element, and 
 slowly disappeared from the eyes of his pursuers. 
 
 " Which way did he head, Tom ? " cried Barnstable the mo- 
 ment the whale was out of sight. 
 
 "Pretty much up and down, sir," returned the cockswain, 
 whose eye was gradually brightening with the excitement of the 
 sport. " He'll soon run his nose against the bottom if he stands 
 long on that course, and will be glad to get another snuff of pure 
 air. Send her a few fathoms to starboard, sir, and I promise we 
 shall not be out of his track." 
 
 The conjecture of the experienced old seaman proved true ; for 
 in a few minutes the water broke near them, and another spout 
 was cast into the air, when the huge animal rushed for half his 
 length in the same direction, and fell on the sea with a turbulence 
 and foam equal to that which is produced by the launching of a 
 vessel for the first time into its proper element. After this evo- 
 lution, the whale rolled heavily, and seemed to rest from further 
 efforts. 
 
 His slightest movements were closely watched by Barnstable 
 and his cockswain ; and, when he was in a state of comparative 
 rest, the former gave a signal to his crew to ply their oars once 
 more. A few long and vigorous strokes sent the boat directly up 
 to the broadside of the whale, with its bows pointing towards one 
 of the fins, which was at times, a^ the animal yielded sluggishly 
 to the action of the waves, exposed to view. The cockswain 
 poised his harpoon with much precision, and then darted it from 
 him with a violence that buried the iron in the body of their foe. 
 The instant the blow was made, Long Tom shouted with singular 
 earnestness, 
 
 " Starn, all ! " 
 
 " Stern, all ! " echoed Barnstable ; when the obedient seamen, 
 by united efforts, forced the boat in a backward direction, beyond 
 the reach of any blow from their formidable antagonist. The 
 alarmed animal, however, meditated no such resistance. Ignorant 
 of his own power, and of the insignificance of his enemies, he 
 sought refuge in flight. One moment of stupid surprise succeeded 
 the entrance of the iron; when he cast his huge tail into the air 
 with a violence that threw the sea around him into increased com- 
 motion, and then disappeared with the quickness of lightning 
 amid a cloud of foam. 
 
 " Snub him ! " shouted Barnstable. " Hold on, Tom ! he rises 
 already." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ! " replied the composed cockswain, seizing the line, 
 which was running out of the boat with a velocity that rendered 
 such a maneuver rather hazardous, and causing it to yield more 
 
JAME? FENIMORE COOPER. 195 
 
 gradually round the large loggerhead that was placed in the bows 
 of the boat for that purpose. Presently the line stretched for- 
 ward; and, rising to the surface with tremulous vibrations, it indi- 
 cated the direction in which the animal might be expected to 
 re-appear. Barnstablc had cast the bows of the boat towards that 
 point before the territied and wounded victim rose once more to 
 the surface, whose time was, however, no longer wasted in his 
 sports, but who cast the waters aside as he forced his way with 
 prodigious velocity along their surface. The boat was dragged 
 violently in his wake, and cut through the billows with a terrific 
 rapidity, that at moments appeared to bury the slight fabric in the 
 ocean. When Long Tom beheld his victim throwing his spouts 
 on high again, he pointed with exultation to the jetting fluid, 
 which was streaked with the deep red of blood, and cried, 
 
 " Ay, I've touched the fellow's life ! It must be more than two 
 foot of blubber that stops my iron from reaching the life of any 
 whale that ever sculled the ocean." 
 
 "I believe you have saved yourself the trouble of using the 
 bayonet you have rigged for a lance," said his commander, who 
 entered into the sport with all the ardor of one whose youth had 
 been chiefly passed in such pursuits. " Feel your line, Master 
 Coffin : can we haul alongside of our enemy ? I like not the 
 course he is steering, as he tows us from the schooner." 
 
 " 'Tis the creater's way, sir," said the cockswain. " You know 
 they need the air in their nostrils when they run, the same as a 
 mam But lay hold, boys, arid let us haul up to him." 
 
 The seamen now seized their whale-line, and slowly drew their 
 boat to within a few feet of the tail of the fish, whose progress 
 became sensibly less rapid as he grew weak with the loss of blood. 
 In a few minutes he stopped running, and appeared to roll un- 
 easily on the water, as if suffering the agony of death. 
 
 "Shall we pull in and finish him, Tom?" cried Barnstable. 
 " A few sets from your bayonet would do it." 
 
 The cockswain stood examining his game with cool discretion, 
 and replied to this interrogatory, 
 
 " No, sir ! no ! He's going into his flurry : there's no occasion 
 for disgracing ourselves by using a soldier's weapon in taking a 
 whale. Starn off, sir! starn off! the creater's in his flurry." 
 
 The warning of the prudent cockswain was promptly obeyed; 
 and the boat cautiously drew off to a distance, leaving to the ani- 
 mal a clear space while under its dying agonies. From a state 
 of perfect rest, the terrible monster threw its tail on high as when 
 in sport ; but its blows were trebled in rapidity and violence, till 
 all was hid from view by a pyramid of foam that was deeply 
 dyed with blood. The roarings of the fish were like the bellow- 
 ings of a herd of bulls ; and, to one who was ignorant of the fact, 
 
196 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 it would have appeared as if a thousand monsters were engaged 
 m deadly combat behind the bloody mist that obstructed the 
 view. Gradually these efforts subsided ; and, when the discolored 
 water again settled down to the long and regular swell of the 
 ocean, the fish was seen exhausted, and yielding passively to its 
 fate. As life departed, the enormous black mass rolled to one 
 side ; and, when the white and glistening skin of the belly became 
 apparent, the seamen well knew that their victory was achieved. 
 
 THE WRECK OF "THE ARIEL: 1 
 
 " Go, my boys, go ! " said Barnstable, as the moment of dreadful 
 uncertainty passed : "you have still the whale-boat; and she, at 
 least, will take you nigh the shore. Go into her, my boys ! God 
 bless you, God bless you all.! You have been faithful and honest 
 fellows ; and I believe he will not yet desert you. Go, my friends, 
 while there is a lull ! " 
 
 The seamen threw themselves in a mass of human bodies into 
 the light vessel, which nearly sunk under the unusual burden ; 
 but, when they looked around them, Barnstable and Merry, Dil- 
 lon and the cockswain, were yet to be seen on the decks of " The 
 Ariel." The former was pacing, in deep and perhaps bitter melan- 
 choly, the wet planks of the schooner; while the boy hung 
 unheeded on his arm, uttering disregarded petitions to his com- 
 mander to desert the wreck. Dillon approached the side where 
 the boat lay, again and again ; but the threatening countenances 
 of the seamen as often drove him back in despair. Tom had 
 seated himself on the heel of the bowsprit, where he continued 
 in an attitude of quiet resignation, returning no other answers to 
 the loud and repeated calls of his shipmates than by waving his 
 hand towards the shore. 
 
 "Now, hear me," said the boy, urging his request to tears: 
 " if not for my sake or for your own sake, Mr. Barnstable, or for 
 the hopes of God's mercy, go into the boat for the love of my 
 cousin Katherine." 
 
 The young lieutenant paused in his troubled walk ; and for a 
 moment he cast a glance of hesitation at the cliffs : but at the 
 next instant his eyes fell on the ruin of his vessel ; and he an- 
 swered, 
 
 " Xever, boy, never ! If my hour has come, I will not shrink 
 from my fate." 
 
 " Listen to the men, dear sir : the boat will be swamped along- 
 side the wreck ; and their cry is, that, without you, they will not 
 let her go." 
 
 Barnstable motioned to the boat to bid the boy enter it, and 
 turned away in silence. 
 
JAMES FEN1MORE COOPER. 197 
 
 " Well," said Merry with firmness, " if it be right that a lieu- 
 tenant shall stay by the wreck, it must also be right for a mid- 
 shipman. Shove off: neither Mr. Barnstable nor myself will 
 quit the vessel." 
 
 " Boy, your life has been intrusted to my keeping, and at my 
 hands will it be required," said his commander, lifting the strug- 
 gling youth, and tossing him into the arms of the seamen. 
 " Away with ye ! and God be with you ! There is more weight in 
 you now than can go safe to land." 
 
 Still the seamen hesitated : for they perceived the cockswain 
 moving with a steady tread along the deck ; and they hoped he 
 had relented, and would yet persuade the lieutenant to join his 
 crew. But Tom, imitating the example of his commander, seized 
 the latter suddenly in his powerful grasp, and threw him over 
 the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment, he 
 cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it ; and, lifting his 
 broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest. 
 
 "God's will be done with me!" he cried. "I saw the first 
 timber of ' The Ariel ' laid, and shall live just long enough to see it 
 turn out of her bottom ; after which I wish to live no longer." 
 
 But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his 
 voice before half these words were uttered. All command of the 
 boat was rendered impossible by the numbers it contained, as 
 well as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on the white crest 
 of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time. It 
 fell into a trough of the sea; and in a few moments more its frag- 
 ments were ground into splinters on the adjacent rocks. The 
 cockswain still remained where he had cast off the rope, and be- 
 held the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising at short 
 intervals on the waves : some making powerful and well-directed 
 efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide 
 fell ; and others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of helpless 
 despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy as he saw 
 Barnstable issue from the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety 
 to the sands, where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared 
 also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were car- 
 ried in a similar manner to places of safety ; though, as Tom 
 returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal from 
 his reluctant eyes the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, 
 driven against the rocks with a fury that soon left them but few 
 of the outward vestiges of humanity. 
 
 Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their 
 dreadful station. The former stood in a kind of stupid despair, 
 a witness of the scene we have related; but, as his curdled blood 
 began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept close 
 to the side of Tom with that sort of selfish feeling that makes 
 
198 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 even hopeless misery more tolerable when endured in participa- 
 tion with another. 
 
 " When the tide falls," he said in a voice that betrayed the 
 agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, 
 "we shall be able to walk to land." 
 
 " There was One, and only One, to whose feet the waters were 
 the same as a dry deck," returned the cockswain ; " and none but 
 such as have this power will ever be able to walk from these rocks 
 to the sands." The old seaman paused ; and turning his eyes, 
 which exhibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, 
 on his companion, he added with reverence, " Had you thought 
 more of him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied 
 in this tempest." 
 
 "Do you still think there is much danger?" asked Dillon. 
 
 " To them that have reason to fear death. Listen ! Do you 
 hear that hollow noise beneath ye ? " 
 
 "'Tis the wind driving by the vessel." 
 
 " 'Tis the poor thing herself," said the affected cockswain, 
 " giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks ; 
 and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut 
 a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in fram- 
 ing." 
 
 " Why, then, did you remain here ? " cried Dillon wildly. 
 
 " To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned 
 Tom. " These waves to me are what the land is to you : I was 
 born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my 
 grave." 
 
 " But I I," shrieked Dillon, "I am not ready to die ! I 
 can not die ! I will not die ! " 
 
 " Poor wretch ! " muttered his companion. "You must go, like 
 the rest of us. When the death-watch is called, none can skulk 
 from the muster." 
 
 " I can swim," Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness 
 to the side of the wreck. " Is there no billet of wood, no rope, 
 that I can take with me ? " 
 
 " None : every thing has been cut away, or carried oft' by the 
 sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout 
 heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God." 
 
 " God!" echoed Dillon in the madness of his frenzy : "I know 
 no God ! There is no God that knows me ! " 
 
 " Peace ! " said the deep tones of the cockswain in a voice that 
 seemed to speak in the elements; "blasphemer, peace !" 
 
 The heavy groaning produced by the water in the timbers of 
 " The Ariel," at that moment added its impulse to the raging feel- 
 ings of Dillon ; and he cast himself headlong into the sea. 
 
 The water thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach was 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. * 199 
 
 necessarily returned to the ocean in eddies, in different places 
 favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one 
 of these counter-currents, that was produced by the very rocks on 
 which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the "under- 
 tow," Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person ; and, when the 
 waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was 
 met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not over- 
 come. He was a light and powerful swimmer; and the struggle 
 was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his 
 eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, 
 to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. 
 The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with care- 
 less indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a 
 glance ; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a 
 voice that was driven over the struggling victim to the ears of 
 his shipmates on the sands, 
 
 " Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow ! sheer to the south- 
 ward ! " 
 
 Dillon heard the sounds; but his faculties were too much ob- 
 scured by terror to distinguish their object: he, however, blindly 
 yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction, until his 
 face was once more turned toward the vessel. The current swept 
 him diagonally by the rocks; and he was forced into an eddy, 
 where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whose 
 violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state he con- 
 tinued still to struggle, but with a force that was too much weak- 
 ened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around 
 him for a rope ; but not one presented itself to his hands : all had 
 gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At 
 this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the desper- 
 ate Dillon. Calm, and inured to horrors, as was the veteran sea- 
 man, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow as if to 
 exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment 
 afterwards, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking 
 form of the victim as it gradually settled in the ocean, still strug- 
 gling, with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to 
 gain the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had been so 
 much abused in its hour of allotted probation. 
 
 " He will soon know his God, and learn that his God knows 
 him," murmured the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, 
 the wreck of " The Ariel" yielded to an overwhelming sea; and, 
 after a universal shudder, her timbers and planks gave way, and 
 were swept towards the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple- 
 hearted cockswain among the ruins. 
 
200 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Born June 14. 1?12, Litchfield, Conn. Daughter 
 of Rev. Lymau lieecher, D.I)., and sister of Rev. Henry Ward Ueechur. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe's most remarkable work is '' Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the 
 Lowly." first published in numbers (weekly) in "The National Era," in book-form, 
 in 1852. Its great popularity is shown by the copies sold; no single production 
 ever having equaled it. Translated into all languages, dramatized in twenty differ- 
 ent forms, its sales were reckoned by millions instead of by thousands. Her writ- 
 ings, not wanting in deep pathos, originality of thought, and knowledge of human 
 nature, are vet more distinguished for their vigorous common sense. 
 
 Other Productions. '' "1 he Mayflower;" "Key to Uncle Tom;" "Sunny 
 Memories of Foreign Lauds;" " Dred, or a Tale of the Dismal Swamp;" "The 
 Minister's Wooing; " " House and Home Papers; " " The Pearl of Orr's Island;" 
 " Agnes of Sorrento; " " Men of our Times." 
 
 SAMUEL G. GOODRICH. Born Ridgefield, Conn., 1793. The renowned "Peter 
 Parlev " has published a hundred and seventy-seven volumes: 
 
 "Sketches from a Student's Window, " 1836; "Fireside Education," 1838; 
 " The Outcast, and other Poems," 1841; " Recollections of a Lifetime, or Men and 
 Things I have seen," 1856; Miscellaneous Works, thirty vols. ; School-Books, twenty- 
 seven vols. ; "Peter Parley's Tales," thirty-six vols.; "Parley's Historical Com- 
 pends," thirty-six vols. ; "Parley's Miscellanies," seventy vols.' Sales, ten million 
 volumes, indicate the popularity of his various works. 
 
 JACOB ABBOTT. 1803. " The Young Christian ; " " Corner-Stone ; " " Way to 
 do Good ; " " Hoary Head; " and the " Rollo Books." In all, about seventy volumes. 
 
 LYDIA MARIA CHILD. This noble woman is always graceful and interesting. 
 Has published " Hobomok; " "Rebels, a Tale of the Revolution;" " Frugal House- 
 wife;" " The Mother's Book; " " The Girl's Book; " the Lives of Madame de Stael 
 Roland, Guy on, and Lady Russell, for "Ladies' Family Library;" " Biography of 
 Good Wives;" " Condition of Women in all Ages," two vols.; "An Appeal for 
 that Class of American Citizens called Africans;" " Philothea; " "Letters from 
 New York; " " Fact and Fiction;" " The Progress of Religious Ideas, embracing a 
 View of every Form of Belief, from the Most Ancient Hindoo Records to the Com- 
 plete Establishment of the Papal Church;" "Looking toward Sunset;" "The 
 Freedmen's Book; " " A Romance of the Republic." 
 
 JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. 1778. Joint author, with Irving, of first " Salma- 
 gundi Papers;" sole author of second "Salmagundi;" " Lay of a Scotch Fiddle 
 and Jokcly;" "The United States and England;" "Letters from the South;" 
 " The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan ; " " Old Times in the 
 New World;" " John "Bull in America; " " Many Tales ot the Three Wi<e Men of 
 Gotham;" " The New Pilgrim's Progress;" " The Tales of a Good Woman, by a 
 Doubtful Gentleman;" "Dutchman's Fireside;" " Westward, Ho! " "Life 'of 
 Washington;" "Slavery in the United States;" "The Old Continental;" "The 
 Puritan's Daughter." 
 
 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. Born April 17, 1806, Charleston, S.C. Novelist, 
 historian, and poet. Of this truly original writer, we regret that we can give only 
 the names of his fifty-three volumes of poetry, fiction, history, and biography. 
 " Lyrical and other Poems;" "Early Lays;" "The Tricolor;" "Atalantis;" 
 "Martin Faber; " "Guy Rivers; "'" Yemassee; " "The Partisan;" " Melli- 
 champe; " " Pelayo; " " Carl Werner; " " Richard Hurdis; " " Damsel of Darien; " 
 "Beauchamp;" " The Kinsman; " " Katharine Walton ;" "Confession." 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM WARE. 1797-1816. "Zenobia;" "Aurelian;" "Julian;" 
 u Sketches of European Capitals." 
 
 LYDIA HUXTLEY SIGOUKXEY "Moral Pieces in Prose and Ver=e;" "Letters 
 to Pupils;" "Letters to Youns: Ladies;" "Whisper to a Bride;" "Letters to 
 Mothers ; " " Child's Book ; " " Girl's Book ; " " Boy's Book ; " " How to be Happy ; " 
 "Water-Drops;" "Olive-Leaves;" "Scenes in' Mv Xtive Land:" "Pleasant 
 Memories of Pleasant Lands; " " Sea and Sailor;" " Pocahontas; " 4 ' Weeping Wil- 
 low;" "Voice of Flowers;" "Sayings of the Little Ones, and Poems for their 
 Mothers;" " Past Meridian; " "Lucy Howard's Journal." 
 
 CATHERINE MARIA SEOGWICIV. " A Xe\\ --England Tale," 1822; "Redwood;" 
 "Hope Leslie, or Early Times in Massachusetts," two vols. ; "Clarence;" "The 
 Lin woods, or Sixty Years since in America;" "Home;" "The Poor Rich Man 
 
SCIENCE. 201 
 
 and the Rich Poor Man; " " Live and Let Live; " " Means and Ends, or Self-Train- 
 ing; " " A Love-Token for Children; " " Stories for Young Persons; " " Morals of 
 Manners;" ''Facts and Fancies;" "The Boy of Mount Rhigi;" "Letters from 
 Abroad to Kindred at Home; " " Life of Lucretia M. Davidson; " " Married or Sin- 
 gle." 
 
 Mrs. CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND. " New Home; Who'll Follow ?" by Mrs. May 
 Clavers, 1839; "Forest-Life," Ifc42; "Western Clearings;" "An Essay on the Life 
 and Writings of Spenser;" " Holidays Abroad, or Europe from the West;" "The 
 Evening Book, with Sketches of Western Life;" "Autumn Hours;" "The Home 
 Circle ;'" " The Book of Home Beauty ; " " Memoirs of Washington," all spirited, 
 and full of common sense. 
 
 CHAKLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 1771-1810. "Alarin;" "Wieland;" " Or- 
 mond;" "Arthur Mervyn," two vols. ; "Edgar Huntley;" "Clara Howard;" 
 " Jane Talbot." Portions of his novels unpleasantly terrific. 
 
 JOHN NEAT,. 1793. "Keep Cool;" "The Battle of Niagara, with other 
 Poems;" " Otho," five-act tragedy; " Goldau, the Maniac Harper;" "Logan;" 
 "Randolph;" "Errata;" "Seventy-Six;" " Brother Jonathan; " "Rachel Dyer, a 
 Story of Salem Witchcraft;" "Authorship, by a New-Englander over the Sea;" 
 /'Down-Easters;" and "Ruth Elder." 
 
 SEE A SMITH. 1792. "Letters of Major Jack Downing; " "Thirty Years out 
 of the United- States Senate, by Major Jack Downing;" " Way Down East;" "New 
 Elements of Geometry." 
 
 RICHARD H. DANA, Jun. T. W. HIGGINSON. 
 
 THEODORE WINTHROP. C. C. COFFIN ( " Carleton " ). 
 
 MARIA S. CUMMINS. KATE FIELD. 
 
 E. STUART PHELPS. MOSES COIT TYLER. 
 
 LOUISA M. ALCOTT. WILLIAM H. MURRAY. 
 
 " FANNY FERN " (Mrs. James Parton). ELIJAH KELLOGG. 
 
 "GAIL HAMILTON" (Mary E. Dodge). J. T. TROWBRIDGE. 
 
 THOMAS B. THORPE. W. T. ADAMS. 
 
 EDMUND FLAGG. 
 
 SCIENCE, 
 
 INCLUDING DISTINGUISHED PHYSICISTS AND NATURALISTS. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1706-1790. The world-renowned philosopher and states- 
 man, whose life and works are known, or ought to be, to every American. 
 BENJAMIN RUSH. 1745-1813. 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 1766-1813. 
 
 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 1782-1851. " Birds of America." 
 HENRY C. CAREY. 1793. " Laws of Wealth," three vols. ; " Harmony of Inter- 
 ests," &c.; "Principles of Social Science." 
 
 JOHN BACHMAN. ASA GRAY. 
 
 EDWIN HAMILTON DAVIS. ALPHONSO WOOD. 
 
 CHESTER DEWEY. A. D. BACHE. 
 
 SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON. MATTHEW F. MAURY. 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. EPHRAIM G. SQUIER. 
 
 JAMES HALL. WILLIAM A. ALCOTT. 
 
 EDWARD A. SAMUELS. WILLIAM CRANCH BOND. 
 
 Louis AGASSIZ. THOMAS EWBANK. 
 
 BENJAMIN PIERCE. J. C. FREMONT. 
 
 BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. JOSEPH HENRY 
 
 JAMES D. DANA. JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 The poetry of phvsics and the natural sciences, and the grand epics of mathe- 
 matics, terrestrial and celestial mechanics, are daily becoming familiar to a greater 
 number of pupils, and are destined to furnish the most brilliant ornaments of 
 modern style. 
 
202 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 HISTORY, LAW, POLITICS, AKD 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT. 1796. Salem, Mass. Died 1859. Four great 
 historical works, " The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; " " The Conquest of Mex- 
 ico; " " The Conquest of Peru; " " The History of Philip II." 
 
 GEORGE BANCROFT. 1800. Worcester, Mass. Author of the most elaborate 
 " Historv of the United States," of which ten volumes are now published; the rest 
 to follow. 
 
 RICHARD HILDRETH. 1897. "History of the United States," in six vols.; 
 "Japan as It Was and Is." 
 
 JAKKD SPARKS. 1789. President of Harvard University, 1849 -1852. " Letters 
 on the Ministry, Ritual, and Doctrines of the Protestant-Episcopal Church;" Editor 
 of " The Unitarian Miscellany and Christian Monitor;" "Collection of Essays and 
 Tracts in Theology, from Various Authors," six vols.; " An Inquiry into the Compar- 
 ative Moral Tendency of Trinitarian and Unitarian Doctrines;" ''Life of John Led- 
 yard;" "The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution," twelve 
 vols.; "The Life of Gouverneur Morris," three vols.; "Life and Writings of Wash- 
 ington," twelve vols. ; "The Works of Benjamin Franklin, with Notes, and a Life 
 of the Author," ten vols.; " Correspondence of the American Revolution, Letters 
 of Eminent Men to George Washington to the End of his Presidency," four vols. ; 
 eight of the six*y lives in " Library of American Biography; " and "A History of 
 the Foreign Relations of the United" States during the Revolution." 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY. 1772-1864. " Speeches in Congress, and Orations on Various 
 Occasions ; " " Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams ; " other memoirs and local 
 histories. 
 
 JOHN WINTHROP. 1587-1649. "Diary of Events in Massachusetts Colonv to 
 1644." 
 
 COTTON MATHER. 1663-1728. " Magnalia Christi Americana." 
 
 GEORGE TICKNOR. 1791. "The History of Spanish Literature," three vols.; 
 
 "The Remains of Nathaniel Appleton Haven, with a Memoir of his Life;" and 
 
 " Life of Lafayette." 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. BUTLER. 
 
 JAMK.S WILSON. McIvKxxEY AND HALL. 
 
 DAVID RAMSEY. JOHN ABBOTT. 
 
 JOSEPH STORY. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 
 
 HORACE B. WALLACE. WILLIAM ALLEX. 
 
 RICHARD H. WILDE. JAMES I). B l)EBow. 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY. SAMUEL KLIOT. 
 
 J. Q. ADAMS. GEORGE E. ELLIS. 
 
 FISHER AMES. RICHARD FROTHIXGHAM, Jun. 
 
 JOHN ADAMS. WILLIAM WILLIS. 
 
 GEORGE WASHIXGTON. J. F. KIRK. 
 
 WILLIAMSON. HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 CAMPBELL. GEORGE W. GREENE. 
 
 STEVENS. FRANCIS PARKMAN. 
 
 TRAVELERS. 
 
 JOHN L STEVENS. CHARLES WILKES. 
 
 EDWARD ROBINSON. CALEB GUSHING. 
 
 JOHN BARTRAM. GEORGE CHEEVER. 
 
 JOHN WOOLMAN. BAYARD TAYLOR. 
 
 TIMOTHY FLINT J. T. HEADLEY. 
 
 HENRY SOHOOLCRAFT. Dr. KANE. 
 
 JONATHAN < 'AKVEK. Dr. I. I. HAYES. 
 JOHN LEDYAUD. 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 203 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 BORN 1812, NEAR PORTSMOUTH, ENGLAND, 
 
 The first of living English novelists. No writer of fiction makes us more thor- 
 oughly acquainted with his characters. He is the most truthful painter of his 
 times; depicting life, however, in its humbler forms and in its darker shades. Hu- 
 mor and pathos are equally natural to his pen. He has visited America twice. On 
 his first visit, having met vulgarity, snobbery, and servility, where he expected to 
 find refinement, nobility, and sovereignty, the truthful portraits of the specimens 
 lie studied, set down in "American Notes" and "Martin Chuzzlewit," did not please 
 his American readers. But our honorable financial dealings with him on his second 
 visit (a reading-tour through our principal cities) moved him to admit, by uote to 
 the next edition of his books, that we are neither snobs nor fools nor knaves, taken 
 as a whole.* 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 "Pickwick Papers;" " David Copperfield ;" " Nicholas Nickleby; " " Barnaby 
 Rudge;" "Our Mutual Friend;" "Little Dorri^t;" "Great Expectations; 5 ' 
 " Dombey and Son ; " " Uncommercial Traveler; " " Old Curiosity Shop; " "Christ- 
 mas Books;" "Tale of Two Cities;" "Bleak House;" "Martin Chuzzlewit;" 
 " Sketches by Boz;" " Pictures from Italy; " " Oliver Twist; " " Mysteries of Ed- 
 win Drood," now publishing. 
 
 SCENES FROM THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 
 THE dull red glow of a wood-fire for no lamp or candle 
 burnt within the room showed him a figure, seated on the 
 hearth with its back towards him, bending over the fitful light. 
 The attitude was that of one who sought the heat. It was, and 
 yet was not. The stooping posture and the cowering form were 
 there ; but no hands were stretched out to meet the grateful 
 warmth, no shrug or shiver compared its luxury with the pier- 
 cing cold outside. With limbs huddled together, head bowed 
 down, arms crossed upon the breast, and fingers tightly clinched, 
 it rocked to and fro upon its seat without a moment's pause, 
 accompanying the action with the mournful sound he had heard. 
 
 The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance with a 
 crash that made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned 
 to look, nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having 
 heard the noise. The form was that of an old man, his white 
 head akin in color to the moldering embers upon which he 
 gazed. He, and the failing light and dying fire, the time-worn 
 room, the solitude, the wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellow-' 
 ship, ashes and dust and ruin ! 
 
 Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words ; though 
 what they were he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low 
 cry went on ; still the same rocking in the chair ; the same 
 
 * Charles .Dickens died suddenly, June 9, 1870; and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
204 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 stricken figure was there, unchanged, and heedless of his pres- 
 ence. 
 
 He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form 
 distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed up 
 arrested it. He returned to where he had stood before ; ad- 
 vanced a pace another another still. Another, and he saw 
 the face. Yes ! changed as it was, he knew it well. 
 
 Master!" he cried, stooping on one knee, and catching at his 
 hand, " dear master ! Speak to me ! " 
 
 The old man turned slowly toward him, and muttered in a 
 hollow voice, 
 
 " This is another ! How many of these spirits there have 
 been to-night ! " 
 
 Xo spirit, master; no one but your old servant. You know 
 me now, I am sure ? Miss Xell where is she ? where is she ? " 
 
 " They all say that ! " cried the old man. " They all ask the 
 same question. A spirit ! " 
 
 " Where is she ? " demanded Kit. " Oh ! tell me but that, 
 but that, dear master ! " 
 
 "She is asleep yonder ia there." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 "A} r , thank God!" returned the old man. "I have prayed 
 to him many and many and many a livelong night when she, 
 has been asleep, he knows. Hark ! Did she call ? " 
 
 " I heard no voice." 
 
 " You did. You hear her now. Do you tell rne that you don't 
 hear that ? " 
 
 He started up, and listened again. 
 
 ' Xor that?" he cried with a triumphant smile. "Can any- 
 body know that voice so well as I ? Hush ! hush ! " 
 
 Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another 
 chamber. After a short absence (during which he could be 
 heard to speak in a softened, soothing tone), he returned, bearing 
 in his hand a lamp. 
 
 " She is still asleep ! " he whispered. " You were right. She 
 did not call, unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to 
 me in her sleep before now, sir. As I have sat by, watching, I 
 have seen her lips move ; and have known, though no sound came 
 from them, that she spoke of me. I feared the light might 
 dazzle her eyes and wake her: so I brought it here. 
 
 He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor ; but, when he 
 had put the lamp upon the tablf, he took it up. as if impelled by 
 some momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his 
 face. Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he 
 turned away, and put it down again. 
 
 " he is sleeping soundly," he said ; " but no wonder. Angel- 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 205 
 
 hands have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest 
 footstep may be lighter yet ; and the very birds are dead, that 
 they may not wake her. She used to feed them, sir. Though 
 never so cold and hungry, the timid things would fly from us. 
 They never flew from her ! " 
 
 Again he stopped to listen, and, scarcely drawing breath, lis- 
 tened for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an 
 old chest, took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been 
 living tilings, and began to smooth and brush them with his hand. 
 
 " Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell," he murmured, 
 " when there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee 
 to pluck them ? Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little 
 friends come creeping to the door, crying, ( Where is Nell, sweet 
 Nell? 'and sob and weep because they do not see thee ? She 
 was always gentle with children. The wildest would do her bid- 
 ding. She had a tender way with them ; indeed she had." 
 
 Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were tilled with tears. 
 
 " Her little homely dress, her favorite," cried the old man, 
 pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shriveled hand. 
 " She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in 
 sport : but she shall have it ; she shall have it. I would not vex 
 my darling for the wide world's riches. See here, these shoes, 
 how worn they are ! She kept them to remind her of our last 
 long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the 
 ground. They told me afterwards that the stones had cut and 
 bruised them. S/ie never told me that. No, no, God bless her! 
 And I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I 
 might not see how lame she was ; but yet she had my hand in 
 hers, and seemed to lead me still." 
 
 He pressed them to his lips, and, having carefully put them 
 back again, went on communing with himself, looking wistfully 
 from time to time towards the chamber he had lately visited. 
 
 " She was not wont to be a lie-abed ; but she was well then. 
 We must have patience. When she is well again, she will rise 
 earty, as she used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morn- 
 ing-time. I often tried to track the way she had gone ; but her 
 small footstep left no print upon the dewy ground to guide me. 
 Who is that? Shut the door. Quick ! Have we not enough to 
 to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep her warm ? " 
 
 The door was indeed opened for the entrance of Mr. Garland 
 and his friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were 
 the schoolmaster and the bachelor. The former held a light 
 in his hand. He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to 
 replenish the exhausted lamp at the moment when Kit came up 
 and found the old man alone. 
 
 He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying 
 
206 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 aside the angry manner (if to any tiling so feeble and so sad the 
 term can be applied) in which he had spoken when the door 
 opened, resumed his former seat, and subsided by little and little 
 into the old action, and the old, dull," wandering sound. 
 
 Of the strangers he took no heed whatever. He had seen 
 them, but appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The 
 younger brother stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards 
 the old man, and sat down close beside him. After a long 
 silence, he ventured to speak. 
 
 " Another night, and not in bed ? " he said softly. " I hoped 
 you would be more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you 
 not take some rest ? " 
 
 " Sleep has left me," returned the old man. " It is all with 
 her." 
 
 " It would pain her very much to know that you were watching 
 thus," said the bachelor. "You would not give her pain?" 
 
 11 1 am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She 
 has slept so very long ! And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good 
 and happy sleep, eh ?" 
 
 "Indeed it is!" returned the bachelor; "indeed, indeed, it is!" 
 
 " That's well. And the waking ? " faltered the old man. 
 
 " Happy too, happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man 
 conceive." 
 
 They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other 
 chamber where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he 
 spoke again within its silent walls. They looked into the faces 
 of each other; and no man's cheek was free from tears. He came 
 back, whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought 
 she had moved. It was her hand, he said, a little, a very, 
 very little; but he was pretty sure she had moved it, perhaps 
 in seeking his. He had known her do that before now, though 
 in the deepest sleep the while. And, when he had said this, he 
 dropped into his chair again, and, clasping his hands above his 
 head, uttered a cry never to be forgotten. 
 
 The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would 
 come on the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked 
 his fingers, which he had twisted in his gray hair, and pressed 
 them in their own. 
 
 " He will hear me," said the schoolmaster, " I am sure. He will 
 hear either me or you if we beseech him. She would at all times." 
 
 " I will hear any voice she liked to hear," cried the old man. 
 " I love all she loved." 
 
 "I know you do," returned the schoolmaster: "lam certain 
 of it. Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you 
 have shared together, of all the trials and all the peaceful pleas- 
 ures you have jointly known." 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 207 
 
 "I do ; I do. I think of nothing else." 
 
 " I would have you think of nothing else to-night, of noth- 
 ing but those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, 
 and open it to old affections and old times. It is so that she 
 would speak to you herself; and in her name it is that I speak 
 now." 
 
 "You do well to speak softly," said the old man. "We will 
 not wake her. I should he glad to see her eyes again, and to see 
 her smile. There is a smile upon her young face now : but it is 
 fixed and changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall 
 be in Heaven's good time. We will not wake her." 
 
 " Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be 
 when you were journeying together, far away; as she was at 
 home, in the old house from which you fled together; as she was 
 in the old cheerful time," said the schoolmaster. 
 
 " She was always cheerful, very cheerful," cried the old man, 
 looking steadfastly at him. " There was ever something mild 
 and quiet about her, I remember, from the first ; but she was of 
 a happy nature." 
 
 "We have heard you say," pursued the schoolmaster, "that 
 in this, and in all goodness, she was like her mother. You can 
 think of and remember her ? " 
 
 He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer. 
 
 " Or even one before her?" said the bachelor. "It is many 
 years ago, and affliction makes the time longer ; but you have not 
 forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear 
 to you, even before you knew her worth, or could read her heart ? 
 Say that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant 
 days, to the time of your early life, when, unlike this fair 
 flower, you did not pass your youth alone. Say that you could 
 remember, long ago, another child who loved you dearly; you 
 being but a child yourself. Say that you had a brother, long 
 forgotten, long unseen, long separated from you, who now at last, 
 in your utmost need, came back to comfort and console you " 
 
 " To be to you what you were once to him," cried the younger, 
 falling on his knee before him; "to repay your old affection, 
 brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love ; to be, at 
 your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans 
 rolled between us ; to call to witness his unchanging truth, and 
 mindfulness of bygone days, whole years of desolation. Give 
 me but one word of recognition, brother ; and never no, never in 
 the brightest moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, 
 we thought to pass our lives together have we been half as dear 
 and precious to each other as we shall be from this time hence." 
 
 The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved ; but 
 no sound came from them in reply. 
 
208 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 "If we were knit together then," pursued the younger brother, 
 " what will be the bond between us now ! Our love and fellowship 
 began in childhood, when life was all before us; and will be re- 
 sumed when we have proved it, and are but children at the last. 
 As many restless spirits who have hunted fortune, fame, or 
 pleasure, through the world, retire in their decline to where they 
 first drew breath, vainly seeking to be children once again before 
 they die ; so we, less fortunate than they in early life, but happier 
 in its closing scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish 
 haunts, and going home with no hope realized that bad its 
 growth in manhood, carrying back nothing that we brought 
 away but our old yearnings to each other, saving no fragment 
 from the wreck of life but that which first endeared it, may be, 
 indeed, but children as at first. And even," he added in an 
 altered voice, "even if what I dread to name has come to pass, 
 even if that be so, or is to be, (which Heaven forbid and spare 
 us!) still, dear brother, we are not apart, and have that comfort in 
 our great affliction." 
 
 By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the 
 inner chamber while these words were spoken. He pointed 
 there as he replied with trembling lips, 
 
 " You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never 
 will do that; never while I have life! I have no relative or 
 friend but her ; I never had ; I never will have. She is all in all 
 to me. It is too late to part us now.'' 
 
 Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he 
 went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind drew 
 close together, and, after a few whispered words (not unbroken by 
 emotion, or easily uttered), followed him. They moved so gently, 
 that their footsteps made 110 noise ; but there were sobs from 
 among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning. 
 
 For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. 
 The solemn stillness was no marvel now. 
 
 She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from 
 trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh 
 from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life ; not 
 one who had lived, and suffered death. 
 
 Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter-berries 
 and green leaves gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. 
 " When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, 
 and had the sky above it always." Those were her words. 
 
 She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Xell was dead. 
 Her little bird, a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would 
 have crushed, was* stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong 
 heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless for ever. 
 
 Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 209 
 
 fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her; but peace 
 ami perfect happiness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty 
 and profound repose. 
 
 And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. 
 Yes ; the old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face ; it 
 had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care. 
 At the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, 
 before the furnace-fire upon the cold, wet night, at the still bed- 
 side of the dying boy, there had been the same mild, lovely look. 
 So shall we know the angels in their majesty after death. 
 
 The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small 
 hand tight folded to his breast for warmth. It was the hand 
 she had stretched out to him with her last smile, the hand that 
 led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon, he 
 pressed it to his lips ; then hugged it to his breast again, mur- 
 muring that it was warmer now ; and, as he said it, he looked in 
 agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help 
 her. 
 
 She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient 
 rooms she had seemed to till with life, even while her own was 
 waning fast ; the garden she had tended ; the eyes she had glad- 
 dened ; the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour; the paths 
 she had trodden as it were but yesterday, could know her never 
 more. 
 
 " It is not," said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her 
 on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, " it is not on earth 
 that Heaven's justice ends. Think what earth is compared with 
 the world to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; 
 and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above 
 this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it ? " 
 
 SCENES FROM "PICKWICK." 
 THE DILEMMA. 
 
 MR. PICKWICK'S apartments in Goswell Street, although on a 
 limited scale, were not only of a very neat and comfortable descrip- 
 tion, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his 
 genius and observation. His sitting-room was the first floor 
 front; his bed-room was the second floor front; and thus, whether 
 he was sitting at his desk in the parlor, or standing before the 
 dressing-glass in his dormitory, he had an equal opportunity of 
 contemplating human nature in all the numerous phases it ex- 
 hibits in that not more populous than popular thoroughfare. 
 
 His landlady, Mrs. Bardell, the relict and sole executrix of 
 
 14 
 
210 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 a deceased custom-house officer, was a comely woman of 
 bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural 
 genius for cooking, improved by study and long practice into an 
 exquisite talent. There were no children, no servants, no fowls. 
 The only other inmates of the house were a large man and a 
 small boy, the first a lodger, the second a production of Mrs. 
 Bardell's. The large man was always at home precisely at ten 
 o'clock at night, at which hour he regularly condensed himself 
 into the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the back parlor; 
 and the infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Master Bar- 
 dell were exclusively confined to the neighboring pavements and 
 gutters. Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house ; 
 and in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law. 
 
 To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic 
 economy of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable 
 regulation of Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behavior 
 on the morning previous to that which had been fixed upon for 
 the journey to Eatansvill would have been most mysterious and 
 unaccountable. He paced the room to and fro with hurried steps, 
 popped his head out of the window at intervals of about three 
 minutes each, constantly referred to his watch, and exhibited 
 niaii\' other manifestations of impatience very unusual with him. 
 It was evident that something of great importance was in con- 
 templation ; but what that something was, not even Mrs. Bardell 
 herself had been enabled to discover. 
 
 Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick at last, as that amiable 
 female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the 
 apartment. " Sir," said Mrs. Bardell.- "Your little boy is a very 
 long time gone/' " Why, it's a good long way to the borough, 
 sir," remonstrated Mrs. Bardell. "Ah!" said Mr. Pickwick, 
 " very true : so it is." Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence ; and 
 Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting. 
 
 Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick at the expiration of a few 
 minutes. li Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. " Do you think it's a 
 nvich greater expense to keep two people than to keep one?" 
 ' La. Mr. Pickwick ! " said Mrs. Bardell, coloring up to the very 
 border of her cap as she fannied she observed a species of matri- 
 monial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger, " la, Mr. Pickwick, 
 what a question!" "Well, but do you?" inquired Mr. Pick- 
 wick. " That depends," said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the 
 duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on 
 the table, ' that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, 
 Mr. Pickwick ; and whether it's a saving and careful person, 
 sir." " That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick. '' But the person I 
 have in my eye (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Banlell). I 
 think, possesses these qualities; and has, moreover, a considerable 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 211 
 
 knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. Bar- 
 dell, which may be of material use to me." 
 
 " La, Mr. Pickwick ! " said Mrs. Bardell, the crimson rising to 
 her cap-border again. " I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing 
 energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested 
 him, "I do indeed ; and to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I 
 have made up my mind." "Dear me, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. Bar- 
 dell. " You'll think it not very strange now," said the amiable 
 Mr. Pickwick with a good-humored glance at his companion, 
 "that I never consulted you about this matter, and never men- 
 tioned it till I sent your little boy out this morning, eh?" 
 
 Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long wor- 
 shiped Mr. Pickwick at a distance ; but here she was, all at once, 
 raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant 
 hopes had never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going 
 to propose : a deliberate plan too, sent her little boy to the 
 borough to get him out of the way. How thoughtful ! how 
 considerate ! " Well," said Mr. Pickwick, " what do you think ? " 
 " Mr. Pickwick ! " said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agi- 
 tation, " you're very kind, sir." " It will save you a great 
 deal of trouble, won't it ? " said Mr. Pickwick. " Oh ! I never 
 thought any thing of the trouble, sir, " replied Mrs. Bardell ; 
 " and, of course, I should take more trouble to please 3^011 then 
 than ever : but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so 
 much consideration for my loneliness ! " 
 
 " Ah ! to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick : " I never thought of 
 that. When I am in town, you'll always have somebody to sit 
 with you. To be sure, so you will." " I'm sure I ought to be a 
 very happy woman," said Mrs. Bardell. "And your little 
 boy," said Mr. Pickwick. " Bless his heart ! " interposed Mrs. 
 Bardell with a maternal sob. "He, too, will have a companion," 
 resumed Mr. Pickwick; "a lively one,, who'll teach him, I'll be 
 bound, more tricks in a week than he would ever learn in a 
 year." And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. 
 
 " Oh, you dear ! " said Mrs. Bardell. Mr. Pickwick started. 
 "Oh, you kind, good, playful dear ! " said Mrs. Bardell ; and, with- 
 out more ado, she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round 
 Mr. Pickwick's neck with a cataract of tears and a chorus of 
 sobs. " Bless my soul ! " cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick. 
 " Mrs. Bardell, my good woman ! dear me, what a situation ! 
 pray, consider. Mrs. Bardell, don't if anybody should come " 
 "Oh ! let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell frantically. " I'll 
 never leave you, dear, kind, good soul ! " and with these words 
 Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter. 
 
 "Mercy upon me!" said Mr. Pickwick struggling violently. 
 u I hear somebody coming up the stairs. Don't, don't, there's a 
 
212 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 good creature, don't ! " But entreaty and remonstrance were alike 
 unavailing : for Mrs. Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's 
 arms ; and, before he could gain time to deposit her on a chair, 
 Master Bardell entered the room, ushering in Mr. Tupmun. Mr. 
 Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless 
 and speechless. He stood with his lovely burden in his arms, 
 gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, without the 
 slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. They, in their 
 turn, stared at him ; and Master Bardell, in his turn, stared at 
 everybody. 
 
 The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and 
 the perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they 
 might have remained in exactly the same relative situation until 
 the suspended animation of the lady was restored, had it not been 
 for a most beautiful and touching expression of filial affection on 
 the part of her youthful son. Clad in a tight suit of corduroy, 
 spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable size, he at 
 first stood at the door astounded and uncertain : but, by degrees, 
 the impression that his mother must have suffered some personal 
 damage pervaded his partially-developed mind; and, considering 
 Mr. Pickwick the aggressor, he set up an appalling and semi- 
 earthly kind of howling, and, butting forward with his head, 
 commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the back 
 and legs with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm 
 and the violence of his excitement allowed. 
 
 "Take this little villain away !" said the agonized Mr. Pick- 
 wick: "he's mad!" "What is the matter?" said the three 
 tongue-tied Pickwickians. " I don't know," replied Mr. Pick- 
 wick pettishly. " Take away the boy ! " (here Mr. Winkle 
 carried the interesting boy, screaming and struggling, to the 
 farther end of the apartment : ) "now help me to lead this woman 
 down stairs." " Oil ! I'm better now," said Mrs. Bardell faintly. 
 " Let me lead you down stairs," said the ever-gallant Mr. Tup- 
 man. " Thank you, sir, 'thank you ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bardell 
 hysterically. And down stairs she was led accordingly, accompa- 
 nied by her affectionate son. 
 
 "I can not conceive," said Mr. Pickwick when his friend 
 returned, "I can not conceive what has been the matter with 
 that woman. I had merely announced to her my intention of 
 keeping a man-servant, when she fell into the extraordinary par- 
 oxysm in which you found her. Very extraordinary thing." 
 " Very," said his three friends. " Placed me in such an extremely 
 awkward situation ! " continued Mr. Pickwick. " Very," was the 
 reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and looked dubi- 
 ouslv at each other. 
 
 This behavior was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked 
 
CHARLES DICKENS. 213 
 
 their incredulity. They evidently suspected him. " There is a 
 man in the passage now," said Mr. Tupman. "It's the man 
 that I spoke to you about," said Mr. Pickwick : " I sent for him 
 to the borough this morning. Have the goodness to call him up, 
 Snodgrass." 
 
 SPEECH OF SERJEANT BUZFUZ. 
 
 "You heard from my learned friend, gentlemen of the jury, 
 that this is an action for a breach of promise of marriage, in 
 which the damages are laid at fifteen hundred pounds. The 
 plaintiff, gentlemen, is a 'widow ; yes, gentlemen, a widow. The 
 late Mr. Bardell, some time before his death, became the father, 
 gentlemen, of a little boy. With this little boy, the only pledge 
 of her departed exciseman, Mrs. Bardell shrank from the world, 
 and courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street ; 
 and here she placed in her front-parlor window a written placard 
 bearing this inscription : f APARTMENTS FURNISHED FOR A SIN- 
 GLE GENTLEMAN. INQUIRE WITHIN.' 
 
 " Mrs. Bardell's opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were 
 derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of 
 her lost husband. She had no fear; she had no distrust, all 
 was confidence and reliance. * Mr. Bardell,' said the widow, 
 ' was a man of honor ; Mr. Bardell was a man of his word ;. Mr. 
 Bardell was no deceiver ; Mr. Bardell was once a single gentle- 
 man himself. To single gentlemen I look for protection, for 
 assistance, comfort, and consolation ; in single gentlemen I shall 
 perpetually see something to remind me of what Mr. Bardell was 
 when he first won my young and untried affections ; to a single 
 gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.' 
 
 " Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the 
 best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely 
 and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished her first floor, 
 caught her innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill 
 tip in her parlor-window. Did it remain there long? No. 
 The serpent was on the watch ; the train was laid ; the mine was 
 preparing ; the sapper and miner was at work ! Before the bill had 
 been in the parlor-window three days, three days, gentlemen, 
 a being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward sem- 
 blance of a man, arid not of a monster, knocked at the door of 
 Mrs. Bardell's house. He inquired within ; he took the lodgings ; 
 and, on the very next day, he entered into possession of them. 
 This man was Pickwick, Pickwick, the defendant! 
 
 "Of this man I will say little. The subject presents but few 
 attractions ; and_ I, gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, 
 gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolting 
 
214 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 heartlessness and of systematic villainy. I say, ' systematic vil- 
 lainy,' gentlemen; and, when I say 'systematic villainy/ let me 
 tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court (as I am informed 
 he is), that it would have been more decent in him, more becom- 
 ing, if he had stopped away. Let me tell him, further, that a 
 counsel, in the discharge of his duty, is neither to be intimidated, 
 nor bullied, nor put down ; and that any attempt to do either the 
 one or the other will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he 
 plaintiff, or be he defendant ; be his name Pickwick or Noakes or 
 Stoakrs or Stiles or Brown or Thompson. 
 
 " I shall show you, gentlemen, that, for two years, Pickwick con- 
 tinued to reside constantly, and without interruption or intermis- 
 sion, at Mrs. BardelPs house. I shall show you that Mrs. Bar- 
 dell, during the whole of that time, waited on him ; attended 
 to his comforts ; cooked his meals ; looked out his linen for the 
 washerwoman when it went abroad ; darned, aired, and prepared 
 it for wear when it came home ; and, in short, enjoyed his fullest 
 trust and confidence. I shall show you, that, on many occasions, 
 he gave half-pence, and on some occasions even sixpence, to her 
 little boy. Lshall prove to you, that on one occasion, when he 
 returned from the country, he distinctly and in terms offered her 
 marriage (previously, however, taking special care that there 
 should be 110 witnesses to their solemn contract) ; and I am in a 
 situation to prove to you, on the testimony of three of his own 
 friends, most unwilling witnesses, gentlemen, most unwilling 
 witnesses, that on that morning he was discovered by them 
 holding the plaintiff in his arms, and soothing her agitation by 
 his caresses and endearments. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters have 
 passed between these parties ; letters that must be viewed with a 
 cautious and suspicious eye ; letters that were evidently in- 
 tended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any 
 third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let me read the 
 first: ' Garra way's, twelve o'clock. Dear Mrs. B. Chops and 
 tomato-sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Gentlemen, what does this 
 mean? { Chops and tomato-sauce. Yours, Pickwick.' Chops 
 (gracious Heavens !) and tomato-sauce ! Gentlemen, is the hap- 
 piness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by 
 sucli shallow artifices as these ? 
 
 " The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspicious : 
 ' Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home to-morrow. Slow coach.' 
 And then follows this very remarkable expression, ' Don't 
 trouble yourself about the warming-pan.' The ' warming-pan ' ! 
 Whv, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming-pan ? 
 Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not to agitate herself 
 about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the carfej it is a mere 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 215 
 
 cover for hidden fire, a mere substitute for some endearing word 
 or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, 
 artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated 
 desertion ? And what does this allusion to the slow coach mean ? 
 For aught I know, it may be a reference to Pickwick himself, 
 who has most unquestionably been a criminally slow coach during 
 the whole of this transaction, but whose speed will now be very 
 unexpectedly accelerated, and whose wheels, gentlemen, as he 
 will find to his cost, will very soon be greased, by you. 
 
 11 But enough of this, gentlemen. It is difficult to smile with 
 an aching heart. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined ; 
 and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone 
 indeed. The bill is down ; but there is .no tenant. Eligible 
 single gentlemen pass and repass ; but there is no invitation for 
 them to inquire within or without. All is gloom and silence in 
 the house. Even the voice of the child is hushed : his infant 
 sports are disregarded when his mother weeps. 
 
 " But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of 
 this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street, Pickwick, 
 who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward, 
 Pickwick, who conies before you to-day with his heartless tomato- 
 sauce and warming-pans, Pickwick still rears his head with 
 unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has 
 made. Damages, gentlemen, heavy damages, is the only pun- 
 ishment with which you can visit him, the only recompense 
 you can award to my client ; and for those damages she now 
 appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a con- 
 scientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative jury 
 of her civilized countrymen." 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 1811-1863. 
 
 Artist as well as author, he has painted human nature exactly as he saw it. 
 WiHi wit and humor, expressed in excellent English, he ruthlessly exposed the shams 
 and hypocrisies of fashionable society, and, fora time, about equally divided popular 
 fivor with Dickens as a novelist/ We select from his lectures "Charity and 
 Humor," which admirably represents the man; but the style of the distinguished 
 novelist must be learned by i-eading his 
 
 PRINCIPAL, PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 " Vanity Fair;" " Pendennis;" " The Newcomes; " " The Virginians; " "The 
 Adventures of Philip;" "Henry Esmond;" " Lovel the Widower;" "Miscella- 
 nies," five vole. 
 
216 ENGLISH LiTEKATUHE. 
 
 CHARITY AXD HUMOR. 
 
 SEVERAL charitable ladies of this city, to some of whom I am 
 under great personal obligation, having thought that a lecture of 
 mine would advance a benevolent end which they had in view, 
 I have preferred, in place of delivering a discourse, which many 
 of my hearers no doubt know already, upon a subject merely lite- 
 rary or biographical, to put together a few thoughts, which may 
 serve as a supplement to the former lectures, if }*ou like, and 
 which have this, at least, in common with the kind purpose which 
 l>les you here, that they rise out of the same occasion, and 
 treat of charity. 
 
 -;des contributing to our stock of happiness, to our harmless 
 laughter and amusement, to our scorn for falsehood and pretension, 
 to our righteous hatred of hypocrisy, to our education in the per- 
 ception of truth, our love of honesty, our knowledge of life, and 
 shrewd guidance through the world, have not our humorous 
 writers, our gay and kind week-day preachers, done much in sup- 
 port of that holy cause which has assembled you in this place, and 
 which you are all abetting? the cause of love and charity ; the 
 of the poor, the weak, and the unhappy ; the sweet mission 
 of love and tenderness, and peace and good-will toward men. 
 That same theme which is urged upon you by the eloquence and 
 example of good men to whom you are delighted listeners on 
 sabbath days is taught in his way, and according to his power, 
 by the humorous writer, the commentator on every-day life and 
 manners. 
 
 And as you are here assembled for a charitable purpose, giving 
 your contributions at the door to benefit deserving people who 
 need them without, I like to hope and think that the men of our 
 calling have done something in aid of the cause of charity, and 
 have helped with kind words and kind thoughts, at least, to con- 
 fer happiness and to do good. 
 
 If the humorous writers claim to be week-day preachers, have 
 they conferred any benefit by their sermons ? Are people hap- 
 pier, better, better disposed to their neighbors, more inclined to 
 do works of kindness, to love, forbear, forgive, pity, after reading 
 in Addison, in Steele, in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in Hood, in 
 Dickens? I hope and believe so, and fancy, that, in writing, they 
 are also acting charitably ; contributing, with the means which 
 Heaven supplies them, to forward the end which brings you, too, 
 together. A love of the human species is a very vague and 
 indefinite kind of virtue, sitting very easily on a man, not con- 
 fining his actions at all, shining in print, or exploding in para- 
 graphs ; after which efforts of benevolence, the philanthropist is 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 217 
 
 sometimes said to go home, and be no better than his neighbors. 
 Tartuffe and Joseph Surface, Stiggins and Chadband, who are 
 always preaching fine sentiments, and are no more virtuous than 
 hundreds of those whom they denounce and whom they cheat, 
 are fair objects of mistrust and satire ; but their hypocrisy (the 
 homage, according to the old saying, which vice pays to virtue) 
 has this of good in it, that its fruits are good. A man may 
 preach good morals, though he may be himself but a lax practi- 
 tioner : a Pharisee may put pieces of gold into the charity-plate 
 out of mere hypocrisy and ostentation ; but the bad man's gold 
 feeds the widow and fatherless as well as the good man's. The 
 butcher and baker must needs look, not to motives, but to money, 
 in return for their wares. I am not going to hint that we of the 
 literary calling resemble Monsieur Tartuffe or Monsieur Stiggins ; 
 though there may be such men in our body, as there are in all. 
 
 A literary man of the humoristic turn is pretty sure to be of a 
 philanthropic nature; to have a great sensibility; to be easily 
 moved to pain or pleasure ; keenly to appreciate the varieties of 
 temper of people round about him, and sympathize in their 
 laughter, love, amusement, tears. Such a man is philanthropic, 
 man-loving, by nature, as another is irascible or red-haired or six 
 feet high. And so I would arrogate 110 particular merit to lit- 
 erary men for the possession of this faculty of doing good, which 
 some of them enjoy. It costs a gentleman no sacrifice to be 
 benevolent on paper; and the luxury of indulging in the most 
 beautiful and brilliant sentiments never makes any man a penny 
 the poorer. A literary man is no better than another, as far as- 
 my experience goes ; and a man writing a book, no better nor no 
 worse than one who keeps accounts in a ledger, or follows any 
 other occupation. Let us, however, give him credit for the good, 
 at least, which he is the means of doing, as we give credit to a 
 man with a million for the hundred which he puts into the plate 
 at a charity-sermon. He never misses them : he has made 
 them in a moment, by a lucky speculation ; and parts with them, 
 knowing that he has an almost endless balance at his bank, 
 whence he can call for more. But, in esteeming the benefaction, 
 we are grateful to the benefactor too, somewhat. And so of men 
 of genius, richly endowed, and lavish in parting with their 
 mind's wealth : we may view them at least kindly and favorably, 
 and be thankful for the bounty of which Providence has made 
 them the dispensers. 
 
 I have said myself somewhere, I do not know with what cor- 
 rectness (for definitions never are complete), that humor is wit 
 and love : I am sure, at any rate, that the best humor is that 
 which contains most humanity, that which is flavored throughout 
 with tenderness and kindness. This love does not demand con- 
 
218 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 stant utterance or actual expression ; as a good father, in conver- 
 sation with his children or wife, is not perpetually embracing 
 them, or making protestations of his love; as a lover in the 
 society of his mistress is not, at least as far as I am led to be- 
 lieve, for ever squeezing her hand, or sighing in her ear, " My 
 soul's darling, I adore you ! " He shows his love by his conduct, 
 by his fidelity, by his watchful desire to make the beloved person 
 happy. It lightens from his eyes when she appears, though he 
 may not speak it ; it fills his heart when she is present or 
 absent ; influences all his words and actions ; suffuses his whole 
 being. It sets the father cheerily to work through the long day ; 
 supports him through the tedious labor of the weary absence or 
 journey ; and sends him happy home again, yearning towards the 
 wife and children. This kind of love is not a spasm, but a life. 
 It fondles and caresses at due seasons, no doubt ; but the fond 
 heart is always beating fondly and truly, though the wife is not 
 sitting hand in hand with him, or the children hugging at his 
 knee. And so with a loving humor. I think it is a genial 
 writer's habit of being ; it is the kind, gentle spirit's way of look- 
 ing out on the world, that sweet friendliness which fills his 
 heart and his style. You recognize it, even though there may 
 not be a single point of wit or a single pathetic touch in the 
 page, though you may not be called upon to salute his genius by 
 a laugh or a tear. That collision of ideas which provokes the 
 one or the other must be occasional. They must be like papa's 
 embraces, which I spoke of anon, who only delivers them now 
 and then, and can not be expected to go on kissing the children 
 all night. And so the writer's jokes and sentiment, his ebulli- 
 tions of feeling, his outbreaks of high spirits, must not be too 
 frequent. One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles 
 with points ; of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears 
 from his eyes or your own. One suspects the genuineness of the 
 tear, the naturalness of the humor: these ought to be true and 
 manly in a man, as every thing else in his life should be manly 
 and true ; and he loses his dignity by laughing or weeping out 
 of place, or too often. 
 
 When the Rav. Laurence Sterne begins to sentimentalize over 
 the carriage in Monsieur Dessein's courtyard, and pretends to 
 squeeze a tear out of a rickety old shandrydan ; when, presently, 
 he encounters the dead donkey on his road to Paris, and snivels 
 over that asinine corpse, I say, "Away, you drivelling quack ! do 
 not palm off these grimaces of grief upon simple folks who know 
 no better, and cry, misled by your hypocrisy." Tears are sacred. 
 The tributes of kind hearts to misfortune, the mites which gentle 
 souls drop into the collections made for God's poor and unhappy, 
 are not to be tricked out of them by a whimpering hypocrite 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 210 
 
 handing round a begging-box for jour compassion, and asking 
 your pity for a lie. When that same man tells me of Lefevre's 
 illness and Uncle Toby's charity, of the noble at Rennes com- 
 ing home and reclaiming his sword, I thank him for the generous 
 emotion, which, springing genuinely from his own heart, has 
 caused mine to admire benevolence, and sympathize with honor, 
 and to feel love and kindness and pity. 
 
 If I do not love Swift (as, thank God ! I do not, however im- 
 mensely I may admire him), it is because I revolt from the man 
 who placards himself as a professional hater of his own kind ; 
 because he chisels his savage indignation on his tombstone, as 
 if to perpetuate his protest against being born of our race, the 
 suffering, the weak, the erring, the wicked, if you will, but still 
 the friendly, the loving children of God our Father : it is because, 
 as I read through Swift's dark volumes, I never find the aspect 
 of Nature seems to delight him, the smiles of children to please 
 him, the sight of wedded love to soothe him. I do not remem- 
 ber, in any line of his writing, a passing allusion to a natural 
 scene of beauty. When he speaks about the families of his com- 
 rades and brother-clergymen, it is to assail them with gibes and 
 scorn, and to laugh at them brutally for being fathers and for 
 being poor. He does mention in the journal to Stella a sick 
 child, to be sure, a child of Lady Masham, that was ill of the 
 small-pox ; but then it is to confound the brat for being ill, and 
 the mother for attending to it when she should have been busy 
 about a court intrigue in which the dean was deeply engaged. 
 And he alludes to a suitor of Stella's, and a match she might 
 have made, and would have made, very likely, with an honorable 
 and faithful and attached man, Tisdall, who loved her ; and of 
 whom Swift speaks, in a letter to this lady, in language so foul, 
 that you would not bear to hear it. In treating of the good the 
 humorists have done, of the love and kindness they have taught 
 and left behind them, it is not of this one I dare speak. Heaven 
 help the lonely misanthrope ! be kind to that multitude of sins, 
 with so little charity to cover them. 
 
 Of Mr. Congreve's contributions to the English stock of 
 benevolence, I do not speak ; for, of any moral legacy to pos- 
 terity, I doubt whether that brilliant man ever thought at 
 all. He had some money, as I have told; every shilling of 
 which he left to his friend the Duchess of Maryborough, a lady 
 of great fortune and the highest fashion. He gave the gold 
 of his brains to persons of fortune and fashion too. There is 
 no more feeling in his comedies than in as many books of 
 Euclid. He no more pretends to teach love for the poor, and 
 good-will for the unfortunate, than a dancing-master does: he 
 teaches pirouettes and flic-fla'cs, and how to bow to a lady, 
 
220 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and to walk a minuet. In his private life, Congreve was im- 
 mensely liked, more so than any man of his age, almost, and, 
 to have been so liked, must have, been kind and good-natured. 
 His good nature bore him through extreme bodily ills and pain 
 with uncommon cheerfulness and courage. Being so gay, so 
 bright, so popular, such a grand seigneur, be sure he was kind to 
 those about him, generous to his dependants, serviceable to his 
 friends. Society does not like a man so long as it liked Congreve, 
 unless he is likable ; it finds out a quack very soon ; it scorns a 
 poltroon or a curmudgeon. We may be certain that this man was 
 brave, good-tempered, and liberal. So, very likely, is Monsieur 
 Pirouette, of whom we spoke : he cuts his capers, he grins, bows, 
 and dances to his fiddle. In private, he may have a hundred 
 virtues ; in public, he teaches dancing. His business is cotil- 
 lons, not ethics. 
 
 As much may be said of those charming and lazy epicureans, 
 Gay and Prior, sweet lyric singers, comrades of Anacreon, and 
 disciples of love and the bottle. " Is there any moral shut within 
 the bosom of a rose?" sings our great Tennyson. Does a night- 
 ingale preach from a bough, or the lark from his cloud ? Not 
 knowingly ; yet we may be grateful, and love larks and roses, and 
 the flower-crowned minstrels too, who laugh and who sing. 
 
 Of Addison's contributions to the charity of the world, I have 
 spoken before in trying to depict that noble figure, and say now, 
 as then, that we should thank him as one of the greatest bene- 
 factors of that vast and immeasurably spreading family which 
 speaks our common tongue. Wherever it\is spoken, there is no 
 man that does not feel and understand and use the noble 
 English word " gentleman." And there is no man that teaches 
 us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison, gentle in our 
 bearing through life ; gentle and courteous to our neighbors ; 
 gentle in dealing with his follies and weaknesses ; gentle in 
 treating his opposition ; deferential to the old ; kindly to the 
 poor, and those below us in degree (for people above us and 
 below us we must find, in whatever hemisphere we dwell, 
 whether kings or presidents govern us) : and in no republic or 
 monarchy that I know of is a citizen exempt from the tax of 
 befriending poverty and weakness, of respecting age, and of hon- 
 oring his father and mother. 
 
 It has just been whispered to me, I have not been three 
 months in the country, and, of course, can not venture to express 
 an opinion of my own, that, in regard to paying this latter tax 
 of respect and honor to age, some very few of the republican 
 youths are occasionally a little remiss. I have heard of young 
 sons of freedom publishing their Declaration of Independence 
 before they could well spell it ; and cutting the connection 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 221 
 
 between father and mother before they had learned to shave. 
 My own time of life having been stated by various enlightened 
 organs of public opinion at almost any figure from forty-five to 
 sixty, I cheerfully own that I belong to the Fogy interest, and 
 ask leave to rank in, and plead for, that respectable class. Now, 
 a gentleman can but be a gentleman in Broadway or the back- 
 woods, in Pall-Mali or California ; and where and whenever he 
 lives, thousands of miles away in the wilderness, or hundreds of 
 years hence, I am sure that reading the writings of this true 
 gentleman, this true Christian, this noble Joseph Addison, must 
 do him good. He may take Sir Roger de Coverley to the dig- 
 gings with him, and learn to be gentle and good-humored and 
 urbane and friendly in the midst of that struggle in which his 
 life is engaged. I take leave to say, that the most brilliant 
 youth of this city may read over this delightful memorial of a 
 bygone age, of fashions long passed away, of manners long 
 since changed and modified, of noble gentlemen, and a great 
 and a brilliant and polished society, and find in it much to 
 charm and polish, to refine and instruct him, a courteousness 
 which can be out of place at no time, and under no flag ; a polite- 
 ness and simplicity ; a truthful manhood ; a gentle respect and 
 deference, which may be kept as the unbought grace of life, and 
 cheap defence of mankind, long after its old artificial distinctions, 
 after periwigs and small-swords, and ruffles and red-heeled shoes, 
 and titles and stars and garters, have passed away. I will tell 
 you when I have been put in mind of two of the finest gentlemen 
 books bring us any mention of; I mean our books (not books 
 of history, but books of humor) ; I will tett you when I have 
 been put in mind of the courteous gallantry of the noble knight 
 Sir Roger de Coverley of Coverley Manor, of the noble Hidalgo 
 Don Quixote of La Mancha, here in your own omnibus- 
 carriages and railway-cars, when I have seen a woman step in, 
 handsome or not, well-dressed or not, and a workman in hobnail 
 shoes, or a dandy in the hight of the fashion, rise up and give 
 her his place. I think Mr. Spectator, with his short face, if he 
 had seen such a deed of courtesy, would have smiled a sweet 
 smile to the doer of that gentleman-like action, and have made 
 him a low bow from under his great periwig, and have gone home 
 and written a pretty paper about him. 
 
 I am sure Dick Steele would have hailed him, were he dandy 
 or mechanic, and asked, him to a tavern to share a bottle, or per- 
 haps half a dozen. Mind, I do not set down the five last flasks 
 to Dick's score for virtue, and look upon them as works of the 
 most questionable supererogation. 
 
 Steele, as a literary benefactor to the world's charity, must 
 rank very high indeed ; not merely from his givings, which were 
 
22-2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 abundant, but because his endowments are prodigiously increased 
 in value since he bequeathed them, as the revenues of the lands 
 bequeathed to our Foundling Hospital at London, by honest 
 Capt. Coram, its founder, are immensely enhanced by the houses 
 since built upon them. Steele was the founder of sentimental 
 writing in English ; and how the land has been since occupied ! 
 and what hundreds of us have laid out gardens and built up 
 tenements on Steele's ground ! Before his time, readers or hear- 
 ers were never called upon to cry except at a tragedy ; and com- 
 passion was not expected to express itself otherwise than in 
 blank verse, or for personages much lower in rank than a 
 dethroned monarch, or a wido\ved or a jilted empress. He 
 stepped off the high-heeled cothurnus, and came down into com- 
 mon life ; he held out his great hearty arms, and embraced 
 us all ; he had a bow for all women, a kiss for all children, a 
 shake of the hand for all men, high or low ; he showed us 
 heaven's sun shining every day on quiet homes, not gilded 
 palace-roofs only, or court processions, or heroic warriors fighting 
 for princesses and pitched battles. He took away comedy from 
 behind the fine lady's alcove, or the screen where the libertine 
 was watching her. He ended all that wretched business of 
 wives jeering at their husbands; of rakes laughing wives, and 
 husbands too, to scorn. That miserable, rouged, tawdry, spar- 
 kling, hollow-hearted comedy of the Restoration fled before him, 
 and, like the wicked spirit in the fairy-books, shrank, as Steele 
 let the daylight in, and shrieked and shuddered and vanished. 
 The stage of humorists has been common life ever since Steele's 
 and Addison's time, the joys and griefs, the aversions and sym- 
 pathies, the laughter and tears, of ^Nature. 
 
 And here, coining off the stage, and throwing aside the motley 
 habit or satiric disguise in which he had before entertained you, 
 mingling with the world, and wearing the same coat as his neigh- 
 bors, the humorist's service became straightway immensely more 
 available, his means of doing good infinitely multiplied, his 
 success, and the esteem in which he was held, proportionately 
 increased. It requires an effort, of which all minds are not capa- 
 ble, to understand Don Quixote: children and common people 
 still read Gulliver for the story merely. Many more persons are 
 sickened by Jonathan "Wyld than can comprehend the satire of 
 it. Each of the great men who wrote those books was speaking 
 from behind the satiric mask I anon mentioned. Its distortions 
 appall many simple spectators ; its settled sneer or laugh is unin- 
 telligible to thousands, who have not the wit to interpret the 
 meaning of the visored satirist preaching from within. Many a 
 man was at fault about Jonathan Wyld's greatness, who could 
 feel and relish Allworthy's goodness in Tom Jones, and Dr. 
 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 223 
 
 Harrison's in Amelia, and dear Parson Adams, and Joseph An- 
 drews. We love to read we may grow ever so old, but we love 
 to read of them still of love and beauty, of frankness and 
 bravery and generosity. We hate hypocrites and cowards ; we 
 long to defend oppressed innocence, and to soothe and succor 
 gentle women and children ; we are glad when vice is foiled, 
 and rascals punished ; we lend a foot to kick Blifil down stairs ; 
 and, as we attend the brave bridegroom to his wedding on the 
 happy marriage-day, we ask the groomsman's privilege to salute 
 the blushing cheek of Sophia. 
 
 A lax morality in many a vital point I own in Fielding ; but 
 a great hearty sympathy and benevolence, a great kindness for 
 the poor, a great gentleness and pity for the unfortunate, a 
 great love for the pure and good, these are among the contribu- 
 tions to the charity of the world with which this erring but 
 noble creature endowed it. 
 
 As for Goldsmith, if the youngest and most unlettered person 
 here has. not been happy with the family at Wakefield; has not 
 rejoiced when Olivia returned, and been thankful for her forgive- 
 ness and restoration ; has not laughed with delighted good humor 
 over Moses' gross of green spectacles; has not loved with all his 
 heart the good vicar, and that kind spirit which created these 
 charming figures, and devised the beneficent fiction which speaks 
 to us so tenderly, what call is there for me to speak? In this 
 place, and on this occasion, remembering these men, I claim 
 from you your sympathy for the good they have done, and for the 
 sweet charity which they have bestowed on the world. 
 
 As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kindnesses 
 which he has conferred upon us all, upon our children, upon 
 people educated and uneducated, upon the myriads here and at 
 home who speak our common tongue, have not you, have not I, 
 all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind friend, who soothed 
 and charmed so many hours ; brought pleasure and sweet laughter 
 to so many homes; made such multitudes of children happy; 
 endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair 
 fancies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments ? There are creations 
 of Mr. Dickens's which seem to me to rank as personal benefits, 
 figures so delightful, that one feels happier and better for know- 
 ing them, as one does for being brought into the society of very 
 good men and women. The atmosphere in which these people 
 live is wholesome to breathe in ; you feel that to be allowed to 
 speak to them is a personal kindness ; you come away better for 
 your contact with them ; your hands seem cleaner from having 
 the privilege of shaking theirs. Was there ever a better charity- 
 sermon preached in the world than Dickens's " Christmas 
 Carol " ? I believe it occasioned immense hospitality throughout 
 
224 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 England ; was the means of lighting up hundreds of kind fires 
 at Christmas time ; caused a wonderful outpouring of Christmas 
 good-feeling, of Christmas punch-brewing, an awful slaughter 
 of Christmas turkeys, and roasting" and basting of Christmas 
 beef. As for this man's love of children, that amiable organ at 
 the back of his honest head must be perfectly monstrous. All 
 children ought to love him. I know two that do, and read his 
 books ten times for once that they peruse the dismal preachments 
 of their father. I know one, who, when she is happy, reads 
 "Nicholas Nickleby ;" when she is unhappy, reads "Nicholas Nic- 
 kleby ; " when she is in bed, reads " Nicholas Nickleby ; " when she 
 has nothing to do, reads "Nicholas Nickleby;" and, when she has 
 finished the book, reads " Nicholas Nickleby " over again. This 
 candid young critic, at ten years of age, said, " I like Mr. Dick- 
 ens's books much better than your books, papa ; " and frequently 
 expressed her desire that the latter author should write a book 
 like one of Mr. Dickens's books. Who can ? Every man must 
 say his own thoughts in his own voice, in his own way : lucky is 
 he who has such a charming gift of Nature as this, which brings 
 all the children in the world trooping to him, and being fond of 
 him! 
 
 I remember, when that famous " Nicholas Nickleby " came out, 
 seeing a letter from a pedagogue in the north of England, which, 
 dismal as it was, was immensely comical. "Mr. Dickens's ill- 
 advised publication," wrote the poor schoolmaster, "has passed 
 like a whirlwind over the schools of the north." He was a pro- 
 prietor of a cheap school: Dotheboys Hall was a cheap school. 
 There were many such establishments in the northern counties. 
 Parents were ashamed, that never were ashamed before, until the 
 kind satirist laughed at them ; relatives were frightened ; scores 
 of little scholars were taken away ; poor schoolmasters had to 
 shut their shops up ; every pedagogue was voted a Squeers (and 
 many suffered, no doubt, unjustly) : but afterwards school-boys' 
 backs were not so much caned; school-boys' meat was less tough, 
 and more plentiful ; and school-boys' milk was not so sky-blue. 
 What a kind light of benevolence it is that plays round Crum- 
 mies and the Phenomenon, and all those poor theater-people, in 
 that charming book! What a humor ! and what a good humor! 
 I coincide with the youthful critic whose opinion has just been men- 
 tioned, and own to a family admiration for "Nicholas Nickleby." 
 
 One might go on, though the task would be endless and needless, 
 chronicling the names of kind folks with whom this kind genius 
 has made us familiar. Who does not love the Marchioness and 
 Mr. Richard Swiveller? Who does not sympathize, not only 
 with Oliver Twist, but his admirable young friend the Artful 
 Dodger ? Who has not the inestimable advantage of possessing 
 
OTHER EMINENT ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 225 
 
 a Mrs. Nickleby in his own family? Who does not bless Sairey 
 Gamp, and wonder at Mrs. Harris ? Who does not venerate the 
 chief of that illustrious family, who, being stricken by misfortune, 
 wisely and greatly turned his attention to "coals," the accom- 
 plished, the epicurean, the dirty, the delightful Micawber? 
 
 I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a thousand and a thou- 
 sand times: I delight and wonder at his genius; I recognize in 
 it I speak with awe and reverence a commission from that 
 Divine Beneficence, whose blessed task we know it will one day 
 be to wipe every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my 
 share of the feast of love and kindness which this gentle and 
 generous and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of 
 the world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction 
 for the meal. 
 
 OTHER EMINENT ENGLISH NOVELISTS. 
 
 Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. 1805. Politician, orator, and author of great 
 distinction. " Richelieu," " Lady of Lyons," and other plays; " Milton " and " King 
 Arthur," in verse; "The Siamese Twins" and "The New Timon," satires; "The 
 Last Days of Pompeii," "Rien/i," "The Last of the Barons," "The Caxtons," 
 " Mv Novel," and " What will he Do with It? " " Paul Clifford," " Eugene Aram," 
 and*" Falkland." 
 
 BENJAMIN DISRAELI. 1805. Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Derby, 
 and Premier in 1868. His brilliant novels have a political character, and give him 
 a high place in English literatm-e. " Vivian Grey," "The Young Duke," " Henri- 
 etta Temple," "Contarini Fleming," " Venetia," " The Wondrous Tale of Alroy," 
 "Coningsby," "Sybil," " Tancred," and " Loth air," "Vindication of the English 
 Constitution," " Biography of Lord Bentinck," &c. 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY. 1809. "Alton Locke," "Westward Ho!" "Yeast," 
 "Hypatia," " Phsethon," " Alexandria and her Schools," " Glaucus," " Two Years 
 Ago," "Water-Babies," "Saint's Tragedy," "Andromeda," "Miscellanies," "Ser- 
 mons," " Poems," &c., all of much merit. 
 
 FREDERICK MARRYATT. 1792-1848. Novelist of English sailor-life. "Frank 
 Mildmay," "Newton Forster," " Peter Simple," "Jacob Faithful," "King's Own," 
 " Pasha' of Many Tales," " Midshipman Easy," " Snarley Yow," " Poor Jack," 
 "Masterman Ready," and other works, popular of their kind. 
 
 G. P. R. JAMES. 1801-1860. "Richelieu," and a long list of novels. 
 
 DOUGLAS JERROLD. 1803-1857. His writings and conversation were full of 
 genuine wit. "The Caudle Curtain-Lectures," "St. Giles and St. James," and 
 " Story of a Feather," "Black-eyed Susan," "The Rent Day," "Men of Charac- 
 ter," "A Man made of Money," "The Chronicles of Clovernook," "The Bubbles 
 of a Day," and " Time works Wonders." 
 
 CHARLES LEVER. 1806. "The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer," "Charles 
 O'Malley," and "Jack Hinton," full of fun and frolic of Irish life; "Roland Cash- 
 el," "The Knight of Gwynne," and "The Dodd Family Abroad," and other popu- 
 lar fictions. 
 
 ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 1815. "The Macdermots of Ballycloran," " The War- 
 den," " Burchester Towers," " The West Indies and the Spanish Main," " Framley 
 15 
 
226 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Parsonage," " Can You forgive Her? " " The Last Chronicle of Barset," and several 
 other novels of great merit. "Ralph, the Heir," now publishing. 
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 1816-1855. Better known as " Currer Bell," a novelist 
 of original power, true genius. "The Professor," "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," and 
 " Villette." 
 
 WILKIE COLLINS. 1824. "Life of his Father," "Antonina," "The Frozen 
 Deep," a drama; "The Dead Secret," ' Xo Name," "Basil," "After Dark," 
 " Queen of Hearts," " Woman in White," and others of much popular favor. 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT (Miss Evans?). Very popular author of "Scenes of Clerical 
 Life," "Adam Bede," " The Mill on the" Floss," "Silas Warner," "Felix Holt," 
 " Romola," " The Spanish Gypsy," and " How Lisa loved the King." 
 
 WILLIAM CARLETOX. 1798. "Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry," 
 " Fardorougha the Miser," " Valentine McClutchy," " Willy Reilly," and others. 
 
 WILLIAM H. AIXSWOUTH. l.SO">. " Rockwood," "Jack Sheppard," "The 
 Tower of London," " Old St. Paul's," and " Windsor Castle," of an historical nature. 
 
 SAMUEL WARREN. 1807. "Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician," 
 " Ten Thousand a Year," and others. 
 
 DINAH MARIA MULOCK. 1826. "The Ogilvies," "John Halifax, Gentleman," 
 "Olive," and several others; also volume of poems. 
 
 JAMES HAXXAY. 1827. "Singleton Fontenoy," "Eustace Conyers," "Lec- 
 tures on Satire and'Satirists," and "Essays from Quarterly Review." 
 
 ELIZABETH GASKELL. "Mary Barton," and "Life of C. Bronte." 
 
 GEORGE GLEIG. 1796. " The Subaltern," "The Chelsea Pensioners." 
 
 SAMUEL LOVER. 1797. "Rory O'More," "Handy Andy," and Irish songs. 
 
 JOHN BAXIX. 1800-1842. " The O'Hara Tales." 
 
 AXXE MARSH. 1798. " Two Old Men's Tales," " Emilia Wyndham." 
 
 CATHERINE GORE. 1799-1861. " Mothers and Daughters ; " " Cecil, or the Ad- 
 ventures of a Coxcomb." 
 
 GERALD GRIFFIN. 1803-1840. " The Munster Tales," " The Collegians." 
 
 WILLIAM H. MAXWELL. 1850. " Stories of Waterloo," " Hector O'Halloran." 
 
 AXXA M. HALL. "The Buccaneer," "Marian." "Lights and Shadows of Irish 
 Life." 
 
 ALBERT SMITH. 1816-1860. "Mont Blanc and China," "Christopher Tad- 
 pole," and " Mr. LeJbury." 
 
 SHIRLEY BROOKS. 1816. "The Gordian Knot," "Aspen Court," " The Silver 
 Cord," and others. 
 
 ANGUS B. REACH. 1821-1856. "Clement Lorimer," "Leonard Lindsay," 
 "Natural History of Bores and Humbugs," " Claret and Olives." 
 
 JAMES GRANT. 1822. "Romance of War," "Jane Seton," "Memorials of 
 Edinburgh Castle." 
 
 . GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA, "Gaslight and Daylight in London," "Hogarth," 
 " Seven Sons of Mammon," and others. 
 
 CHARLES READE. " Peg W T offington," " Christie Johnston," " Never Too Late 
 to Mend," and several others. 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES. "Scouring of the White Horse," "Tom Brown's School- 
 Days," " Tom Brown at Oxford." 
 
 FRANK SMEDLEY. "Frank Fairlegh's Lewis Arundel." 
 
 MAYNE REID. " Scalp-Hunters." 
 
 GERALDINE JEWSBURY. "Zoe,"and "Half-Sisters." 
 
 Mrs. CATHARINE CROWE. "Susan Hopley," "The Night-Side of Nature." 
 
 And a legion, besides, of modern novelists. 
 
ALFKED TENNYSON. 227 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 BORN 1810. 
 
 Poet Laureate since 1850. Critics somewhat divided as to his merits. Resem- 
 bles Longfellow; and equally popular at home and abroad. The first of living 
 English poets. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PIECES. 
 
 " The May Queen ; " " In Memoriam ; " " Locksley Hal' r" " Mand ; " " The Idylls 
 of the King;'" u The Princess, a Medley; " " Morte d' Arthur; " " Godiva; " " Enoch 
 Arden ;" "The Holy Grail." 
 
 IN MEMORIAM* 
 I. 
 
 I HELD it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 
 Of their dead selves to higher things. 
 
 But who shall so forecast the years, 
 
 And find in loss a gain to match ? 
 
 Or reach a hand through time to catch 
 The far-oil' interest of tears ? 
 
 Let Love clasp Grief, lest both be drowned-; 
 
 Let Darkness keep her raven gloss : 
 
 Ah ! sweeter to be drunk with loss, 
 To dance with death, to beat the ground, 
 
 Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
 
 The long result of love, and boast, 
 
 " Behold the man that loved and lost ! 
 But all he was is overworn." 
 
 II. 
 
 OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones 
 
 That name the underlying dead, 
 
 Thy fibers net the dreamless head ; 
 Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 
 
 The seasons bring the flower again, 
 
 And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
 
 And, in the dusk of thee, the clock 
 Beats out the little lives of men. 
 
 Oh ! not for thee the glow, the bloom, 
 
 Who changest not in any gale ; 
 
 Nor branding summer suns avail 
 To touch thy thousand years of gloom. 
 
 * A hundred and thirty short poems in memory of the poet's friend, Arthur II. Hallam, 
 
228 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And gazing on thee, sullen tree, 
 Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
 I seem to fail from out my blood, 
 
 And grow incorporate into thee. 
 
 III. 
 
 SORROW, cruel fellowship ! 
 
 O Priestess in the vaults of Death ! 
 
 sweet and bitter in a breath ! 
 What whispers from thy lying lip ? 
 
 " The stars/' she whispers, " blindly run ; 
 
 A web is woven across the sky ; 
 
 From out waste places comes a cry, 
 And murmurs from the dying sun ; 
 
 " And all the phantom, Nature, stands, 
 With all the music in her tone, 
 A hollow echo of my own, 
 
 A hollow form with empty hands." 
 
 And shall I take a thing so blind ? 
 
 Embrace her as my natural good ? 
 
 Or crush her, like a vice of blood, 
 Upon the threshold of the mind ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 To Sleep I give my powers away ; 
 My will is bondsman to the dark : 
 
 1 sit within a helmless bark ; 
 
 And with my heart I muse, and say, 
 
 " O heart ! how fares it with thee now, 
 That thou shouldst fail from thy desire, 
 
 Who scarcely darest to inquire, 
 ' What is it makes me beat so low ? ' 
 
 " Something it is which thou hast lost ; 
 
 Some pleasure from thine early years. 
 
 Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 
 That grief hath shaken into frost ! " 
 
 Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
 All night below the darkened eyes : 
 With morning wakes the will, and cries, 
 
 " Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 
 
 V. 
 
 1 SOMETIMES hold it half a sin 
 
 To put in words the grief I feel ; 
 For words, like Nature, half reveal, 
 And half conceal, the soul within. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 229 
 
 But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
 
 A use in measured language lies ; 
 
 The sad mechanic exercise, 
 Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 
 
 In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 
 
 Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 
 
 But that large grief which these infold 
 Is given in outline, and no more. 
 
 VI. 
 
 OXE writes that " other friends remain," 
 
 That u loss is common to the race ; " 
 
 And common is the commonplace, 
 And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 
 
 That loss is common would not make 
 
 My own less bitter ; rather more : 
 
 Too common ! Never morning wore 
 To evening, but some heart did break. 
 
 O father, wheresoe'er thou be, 
 
 Who pledgest now thy gallant son ! 
 
 A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 
 Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. 
 
 O mother, praying God will save 
 
 Thy sailor ! while thy head is bowed, 
 
 His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
 Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 
 
 Ye know no more than I who wrought 
 
 At that last hour to please him well ; 
 
 Who mused on all I had to tell, 
 And something written, something thought : 
 
 Expecting still his advent home ; 
 
 And ever met him on his way 
 
 With wishes, thinking, " Here to-day, 
 Or here to-morrow, will he come." 
 
 Oh ! somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, 
 
 That sittest ranging golden hair, 
 
 And glad to find thyself so fair, 
 Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 
 
 For now her father's chimney glows 
 
 In expectation of a guest ; 
 
 And thinking, " This will please him best," 
 She takes a ribbon or a rose : 
 
 For he will see them on to-night ; 
 
 (And with the thought her color burns :) 
 
 And, having left the glass, she turns 
 Once more to set a ringlet right ; 
 
230 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And, even when she turned, the curse 
 
 "Had fallen, and her future lord 
 
 Was drowned in passing through the ford, 
 Or killed in tailing from his horse. 
 
 Oh ! what to her shall be the end ? 
 
 And what to me remains of good ? 
 
 To her, perpetual maidenhood ; 
 And unto me, no second friend. 
 
 VII. 
 
 DARK house, by which once more I stand 
 Here in the long, unlovely street ; 
 Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
 
 So quickly, waiting for a hand, 
 
 A hand that can be clasped no more, 
 Behold me ! for I can not sleep ; 
 And like a guilty thing I creep 
 
 At earliest morning to the door. 
 
 He is not here : but far away 
 
 The noise of life begins again ; 
 
 And ghastly through the drizzling rain 
 On the bald street breaks the blank day. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A HAPPY lover, who has come 
 
 To look on her that loves him well ; 
 Who 'lights, and rings the gateway-bell, 
 
 And learns her gone, and far from home ; 
 
 He saddens ; all the magic light 
 
 Dies off at once from bower and hall ; 
 And all the place is dark, and all 
 
 The chambers emptied of delight : 
 
 So find I every pleasant spot 
 
 In which we two were wont to meet, 
 The field, the chamber, and the street ; 
 
 For all is dark where thou art not. 
 
 Yet as that other, wandering there 
 In those deserted walk?, may find 
 A flower, beat with rain and wind. 
 
 Which once she fostered up with care : 
 
 So seems it in my deep re^et. 
 
 O my forsaken heart ! with thee ; 
 
 And this poor flower of poesy. 
 Which, little cared for, fades not yet. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 231 
 
 But, since it pleased a vanished eye, 
 
 I go to plant it on his tomb, 
 
 That, if it can, it there may bloom ; 
 Or, dying, there at least may die. 
 
 IX. 
 
 FAIR ship, that from the Italian shore 
 
 Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
 
 With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 
 Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 
 
 So draw him home to those that mourn 
 
 In vain : a favorable speed 
 
 Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead 
 Through prosperous floods his holy urn. 
 
 All night no ruder air perplex 
 
 Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
 
 As our pure love, through early light 
 Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 
 
 Sphere all your lights around, above ! 
 
 Sleep, gentle heavens ! before the prow ; 
 
 Sleep, gentle winds ! as he sleeps now, 
 My friend, the brother of my love; 
 
 My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
 
 Till all my widowed race be run ; 
 
 Dear as the mother to the son, 
 More than my brothers are to inc. 
 
 X. 
 
 I HEAR the noise about thy keel ; 
 
 I hear the bell struck in the night; 
 
 I see the cabin-window bright ; 
 I see the sailor at the wheel. 
 
 Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife, 
 
 And traveled men from foreign lands, 
 
 And letters unto trembling hands, 
 And thy dark freight, a vanished life. 
 
 So bring him. We have idle dreams : 
 
 This look of quiet flatters thus 
 
 Our home-bred fancies : oh ! to us, 
 The fools of habit, sweeter seems 
 
 To rest beneath the clover-sod 
 
 That takes the sunshine and the rains, 
 
 Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
 The chalice of the grapes of God, 
 
232 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Than if with thee the roaring wells 
 ^Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine, 
 *And hands so often clasped in mine 
 
 Should toss with tangle anil with shells. 
 
 XI. 
 
 CALM is the morn, without a sound ; 
 
 Calm as to suit a calmer grief; 
 
 And only through the faded leaf 
 The chestnut pattering to the ground. 
 
 Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
 And on these dews that drench the furze, 
 And all the silvery gossamers 
 
 That twinkle into green and gold. 
 
 Calm and still light on yon great plain, 
 That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
 And crowded farms and lessening towers, 
 
 To mingle with the bounding main. 
 
 Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
 These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
 And in my heart, if calm at all, 
 
 If any calm, a calm despair. 
 
 Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 
 
 And waves that sway themselves in rest ; 
 And dead calm in that noble breast, 
 
 Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 
 
 xn. 
 
 Lo ! as a dove when up she springs 
 
 To bear through heaven a tale of woe, 
 Some dolorous message knit below 
 
 The wild pulsations of her wings : 
 
 Like her I go ; I can not stay ; 
 I leave this mortal ark behind, 
 A weight of nerves without a mind, 
 
 And leave the cliffs, and haste away 
 
 O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 
 
 And reach the glow of southern skies, 
 And see the sails at distance rise, 
 
 And linger weeping on the marge, 
 
 And saying, " Comes he thus, my friend ? 
 Is this the end of all my care V " 
 And circle, moaning in the air, 
 
 " Is this the end ? is this the end ? " 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 233 
 
 And forward dart again, and play 
 
 About the prow, and back return 
 
 To where the body sits, and learn 
 That I have been an hour away. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand 
 Where he in English earth is laid, 
 And from his ashes may be made 
 
 The violet of his native land. 
 
 'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 
 As if the quiet bones were blest, 
 Among familiar names to rest, 
 
 And in the places of his youth. 
 
 Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
 That sleeps, or wears the mask of sleep ; 
 And come, whatever loves to weep, 
 
 And hear the ritual of the dead. 
 
 Ah ! yet, even yet, if this might be, 
 
 I, falling on his faithful heart, 
 
 Would, breathing through his lips, impart 
 The life that almost dies in me, 
 
 That dies not, but endures with pain, 
 And slowly forms the firmer mind, 
 Treasuring the look it can not find, 
 
 The words that are not heard again. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE Danube to the Severn gave 
 
 The darkened heart that beat no more : 
 They laid him by the pleasant shore, 
 
 And in the hearing of the wave. 
 
 There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 
 And makes a silence in the hills. 
 
 The Wye is hushed, nor moved along ; 
 And hushed my deepest grief of all,' 
 When, filled with tears that can not fall, 
 
 I brim with sorrow drowning song. 
 
 The tide flows down ; the wave again 
 
 Is vocal in its wooded walls : 
 
 My deeper anguish also falls, 
 And I can speak a little then. 
 
234 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 I ENVY not in any moods 
 
 The captive void of noble rage ; 
 The linnet born within the cage, 
 
 That never knew the summer woods : 
 
 I envy not the beast that takes 
 His license in the field of time, 
 Unfettered by the sense of crime, 
 
 To whom a conscience never wakes : 
 
 Nor, what may count itself as blest, 
 The heart that never plighted troth, 
 But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 
 
 Nor any want-begotten rest. 
 
 I hold it true, whate'er befall, 
 I feel it when I sorrow most, 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 CV. 
 
 RIXG out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
 The flying cloud, the frosty light: 
 The year is dying in the night ; 
 
 Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 
 
 Ring out the old, ring in the new ; 
 Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
 The year is going, let him go : 
 
 Ring out the false, ring in the true. 
 
 Ring out the grief that saps the mind 
 For those that here we see no more ; 
 Ring out the feud of rich and poor ; 
 
 Ring in redress to all mankind. 
 
 Ring out a slowly-dying cause, 
 
 And ancient forms of party strife ; 
 Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
 
 With sweeter manners, purer laws. 
 
 Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
 The faithless coldness, of the times ; 
 Ring out, rinse out, my mournful rhymes, 
 
 But ring the fuller minstrel in. 
 
 Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
 The civic slander and the spite ; 
 Ring in the love of truth and ri^ht ; 
 
 Ring in the common love of good. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 235 
 
 Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 
 
 Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
 
 Ring out the thousand wars of old ; 
 Ring in the thousand years of peace. 
 
 Ring in the valiant man and free, 
 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
 
 Ring out the darkness of the land ; 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be. 
 
 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 
 1. 
 
 HALF a league, half a league, 
 Half a league onward, 
 All in the valley of Death, 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 " Forward, the Light. Brigade ! 
 Charge for the guns ! " he said. 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 2. 
 
 " Forward, the Light Brigade ! " 
 Was there a man dismayed ? 
 Not though the soldier knew 
 
 Some one had blundered : 
 Theirs not to make reply, 
 Theirs not to reason why, 
 Theirs but to do and die. 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 3. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them, 
 
 Volleyed and thundered. 
 Stormed at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode and well : 
 Into the jaws of Death, 
 Into the mouth of Hell, 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 4. 
 
 Flashed all their sabers bare, 
 Flashed as they turned in air, 
 Sabering the gunners there, 
 
236 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Charging an army, while 
 
 All the world wondered : 
 Plunged in the battery-smoke, 
 Right through the line" they broke ; 
 Cossack and Russian 
 Reeled from the saber-stroke 
 
 Shattered and sundered. 
 Then they rode back; but not 
 Not the six hundred. 
 
 5. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon behind them, 
 
 Volleyed and thundered : 
 Stormed at with shot and shell, 
 While horse and hero fell, 
 They that had fought so well 
 Came through the jaws of Death 
 Back from the mouth of Hell, 
 All that was left of them, 
 
 Left of six hundred. 
 
 When can their glory fade ? 
 Oh the wild charge they made ! 
 
 All the world wondered. 
 Honor the charge they made ! 
 Honor the Light Brigade ! 
 
 Noble six hundred ! 
 
 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 1. 
 
 BURY the Great Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation ; 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, 
 Mourning when their leaders fall, 
 Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
 And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
 
 2. 
 
 Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
 Here, in streaming London's central roar, 
 Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
 And the feet of those he fought for, 
 Echo round his bones for evermore. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 237 
 
 3. 
 
 Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
 
 As fits a universal woe, 
 
 Let the long, long procession go, 
 
 And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
 
 And let the mournful martial music blow : 
 
 The last great Englishman is low. 
 
 4. 
 
 Mourn ; for to us he seems the last, 
 
 Remembering all his greatness in the past. 
 
 No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
 
 With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
 
 O friends ! our chief state-oracle is dead : 
 
 Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
 
 The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 
 
 Whole in himself, a common good ; 
 
 Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
 
 Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
 
 Our greatest, yet with least pretense, 
 
 Great in council and great in war, 
 
 Foremost captain of his time, 
 
 Rich in saving common sense, 
 
 And, as the greatest only are, 
 
 In his simplicity sublime. 
 
 O good gray head which all men knew ! 
 
 O voice from which their omens all men drew ! 
 
 O iron nerve to true occasion true ! 
 
 Oh, fallen at length that tower of strength 
 
 Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew ! 
 
 Such was he whom we deplore. 
 
 The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er : 
 
 The great world-victor's victor will be seen no more. 
 
 5. 
 
 All is over and done. 
 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 
 England, for thy son ; 
 
 Let the bell be tolled ; 
 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 
 And render him to the mold. 
 
 Under the cross of gold 
 
 That shines over city and river, 
 
 There he shall rest for ever 
 
 Among the wise and the bold. 
 
 Let the bell be tolled, 
 
 And a reverent people behold 
 
 The towering car, the sable steeds : 
 
 Bright let it be with his blazoned deeds, 
 
 Dark in its funeral fold. 
 
 Let the bell be tolled ; 
 
238 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And a deeper knell in the heart be knolled ; 
 
 And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rolled 
 
 Through the dome of the golden cross ; 
 
 And the volleying cannon thunder his loss. 
 
 He knew their voices of old ; 
 
 For many a time in many a clime 
 
 His captain's ear has heard them boom, 
 
 Uellowing victory, bellowing doom ; 
 
 When he with those deep voices wrought, 
 
 Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 
 
 With those deep voices our dead captain taught 
 
 The tyrant, and asserts his claim 
 
 In that dread sound to the great name 
 
 Which he has worn so pure of blame, 
 
 In praise and in dispraise the same, 
 
 A man of well-attempered frame. 
 
 O civic Muse ! to such a name, 
 
 To such a name for ages long, 
 
 To such a name, 
 
 Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
 
 And ever-ringing avenues of song. 
 
 6. 
 
 "Who is he that cometh, like an honored guest, 
 
 With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest, 
 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? " 
 
 " Mighty seaman, this is he 
 
 Was great by land as thou by sea. 
 
 Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man, 
 
 The greatest sailor since our world began. 
 
 Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 
 
 To thee the greatest soldier comes ; 
 
 For this is he 
 
 Was great by land as thou by sea. 
 
 His foes were thine ; he kept us free. 
 
 Oh I give him welcome : this is he, 
 
 Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
 
 And worthy to be laid by thee ; 
 
 For this is England's greatest son, 
 
 He that gained a hundred fights, 
 
 Nor ever lost an English gun ; 
 
 This is he, that far away, 
 
 Against the myriads of Assaye, 
 
 Clashed with his fiery few, and won ; 
 
 And underneath another sun, 
 
 Warring on a later day, 
 
 Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
 
 The treble works, the vast designs, 
 
 Of his labored rampart-lines, 
 
 Where he greatly stood at bay ; 
 
 Whence he issued forth anew, 
 
 And ever great and greater grew, 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 239 
 
 Beating from the wasted vines 
 
 Back to France her banded swarms, 
 
 Back to France with countless blows, 
 
 Till o'er the hills her eagles flew- 
 
 Past the Pyrenean pines, 
 
 Followed up in valley and glen 
 
 With blare of bugle, clamor of men, 
 
 Roll of cannon, and clash of arms, 
 
 And England pouring on her foes : 
 
 Such a war had such a close. 
 
 Again their ravening eagle rose 
 
 In anger, wheeled on Europe-shadowing wings, 
 
 And barking for the thrones of kings ; 
 
 Till one, that sought but Duty's iron crown, 
 
 On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down: 
 
 A day of onsets of despair ! 
 
 Dashed on every rocky square, 
 
 Their surging charges foamed themselves away. 
 
 Last, the Prussian trumpet blew : 
 
 Through the long-tormented air 
 
 Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray; 
 
 And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 
 
 So great a soldier taught us there 
 
 What long-enduring hearts could do 
 
 In that world's-earthquake, Waterloo! 
 
 Mighty seaman, tender and true, 
 
 And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 
 
 O savior of the silver-coasted isle ! 
 
 O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile ! 
 
 If aught of things that here befall 
 
 Touch a spirit among things divine, 
 
 If love of country move thee there at all, 
 
 Be glad because his bones are laid by thine 
 
 Ami through the centuries let a people's voice, 
 
 In full acclaim, 
 
 A people's voice, 
 
 The proof and echo of all human fame, 
 
 A people's voice, when they rejoice 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 Attest their great commander's claim 
 
 With honor, honor, honor to him, 
 
 Eternal honor to his name." 
 
 7. 
 
 A people's voice ! We are a people yet. 
 Though all men else their nobler dreams forget, 
 Confused by brainless mobs and lawless powers, 
 Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
 His Saxon in blown seas and storming showers, 
 We have a voice with which to pay the debt 
 Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
 To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
 
240 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And keep it ours, O God ! from brute control. 
 O statesmen ! guard us ; guard the eye, the soul, 
 Of Europe ; keep our noble England whole, 
 And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
 Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
 That sober freedom out of which there springs 
 Our loyal passion for our temperate kings : 
 For, saving that, ye help to save mankind, 
 Till public wrong be crumbled into dust ; 
 And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
 Till crowds at length be sane, and crowns be just. 
 But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
 Remember him who led your hosts : 
 He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 
 Your cannons molder on the seaward wall : 
 His voice is silent in your council-hall 
 For ever, and, whatever tempests lower, 
 For ever silent ; even if they broke 
 In thunder, silent : yet remember all 
 He spoke among you, and the man who spoke ; 
 Who never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 Nor paltered with Eternal God for power ; 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
 Through either babbling world of high and low ; 
 Whose life was work, whose language rife 
 With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
 Who never spoke against a foe ; 
 Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
 All great, self-seekers trampling on the right. 
 Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; 
 Truth-lover was our English Duke : 
 Whatever record leap to light, 
 He never shall he shamed. 
 
 8. 
 
 Lo ! the leader in these glorious wars 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 Followed by the brave of other lands, 
 He on whom from both her open hands 
 Lavish Honor showered all her stars, 
 And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 
 Yea, let all good things await 
 Him who cares not to be great 
 But as he saves or serves the State. 
 Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory. 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 Love of self, before his journey closes 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden-roses. 
 
ALFKED TENNYSON. 241 
 
 Not once or twice in our fair island-story, 
 
 The path of duty was the way to glory. 
 
 He that, ever following her commands, 
 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 
 Through the long gorge to the far light has won 
 
 His path upward, and prevailed, 
 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
 
 Are close upon the shininglable-lands 
 
 To which our God himself is moon and sun. 
 
 Such was he : his work is done. 
 
 But, while the races of mankind endure, 
 
 Let his great example stand 
 
 Colossal, seen of every land, 
 
 Arid keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, 
 
 Till in all lands, and through all human story, 
 
 The path of duty be the way to glory. 
 
 And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame, 
 
 For many and many an age proclaim 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 And when the long-illumined cities flame, 
 
 Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 
 
 With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 
 
 Eternal honor to his name. 
 
 9. 
 
 Peace ! his triumph will be sung 
 
 By some yet unmolded tongue 
 
 Far on in summers that we shall not see. 
 
 Peace ! it is a day of pain 
 
 For one about whose patriarchal knee 
 
 Late the little children clung. 
 
 Oh, peace ! it is a day of pain 
 
 For one upon whose hand and heart and brain 
 
 Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 
 
 Ours the pain : be his the gain ! 
 
 More than is of man's degree 
 
 Must be with us, watching here 
 
 At this our great solemnity. 
 
 Whom we see not we revere ; 
 
 We revere, and we refrain 
 
 From talk of battles loud and vain, 
 
 And brawling memories all too free 
 
 For such a wise humility 
 
 As befits a solemn fane : 
 
 We revere ; and, while we hear 
 
 The tides of Music's golden sea 
 
 Setting toward eternity, 
 
 Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 
 
 Until we doubt not that for one so true 
 
 There must be other, nobler work to do 
 
 Than when he fought at Waterloo ; 
 
 And victor he must ever be. 
 
 16 
 
242 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 For though the Giant Ages heave the hill r 
 And break the shore, and evermore 
 Make and break, and work their will ; 
 Though world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 Round us, each with different powers, 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 On God and Godlike men we build our trust- 
 Hush ! the Dead March wails in the people's ears ; 
 The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears 
 The black earth yawns ; the mortal disappears , 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to dust : 
 He is gone who seemed so great, 
 Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 
 Of the force he made his own 
 Being here ; and we believe him 
 Something far advanced in state, 
 And that he wears a truer crown 
 Than any wreath that man can weave him. 
 But speak no more of his renown : 
 Lay your earthly fancies down, 
 And in the vast cathedral leave him. 
 God accept him 1 Christ receive him I 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 
 
 1770-1850. 
 
 " The Lake school of poets " was contemptuously- so called because Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, and Sou they, its founders, lived by the English lakes. Catching their in- 
 spiration from the usually unheeded voices of Nature, and giving it utterance in 
 plain, simple English, they terribly excited the wrath and ridicule of the critics. 
 Though steadily gaining in favor, Wordsworth's position as a poet still divides 
 opinion. 
 
 PRINCIPAL. PP.ODUCTIOXS. 
 
 "Lyrical Ballads," 1798; "White Doe of Rylstone;" "Peter Bell;" "Sonnets 
 on the River Duddon;" "The Wagoner;" "Memorials of a Tour on the Conti- 
 nent;" "Ecclesiastical Sonnets;" "Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems;" "The 
 Excursion," part of an unfinished epic. " The Recluse " is his greatest work. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 MILTON, them shouldst be living at this hour! 
 England hath need of thee : she is a fen 
 Of stagnant waters. Altar, sword, and pen, 
 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 243 
 
 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
 
 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men : 
 
 Oh ! raise us up ; return to us again, 
 
 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
 
 Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart ; 
 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea ; 
 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free : 
 
 So didst thou travel on life's common way 
 
 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
 
 The lowliest duties on herself didst lay. 
 
 DESPONDENCY CORRECTED. 
 
 " ONE adequate support 
 For the calamities of mortal life 
 Exists ; one only, an assured belief 
 That the procession of our fate, howe'er 
 Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being 
 Of infinite benevolence and power, 
 Whose everlasting purposes embrace 
 All accidents, converting them to good. 
 The darts of anguish fix not where the seat 
 Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified 
 By acquiescence in the Will supreme, 
 For time and for eternity ; by faith, 
 Faith absolute in God, including hope, 
 And the defense that lies in boundless love 
 Of his perfections ; with habitual dread 
 Of aught unworthily conceived, endured 
 To the dishonor of his holy name. 
 Soul of our souls, and Safeguard of the world ! 
 Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart ; 
 Restore their languid spirits, and recall 
 Their lost affections unto thee and thine 1 " 
 
 Then, as we issued from that covert nook, 
 He thus continued, lifting up his eyes 
 To heaven : " How beautiful this dome of sky ! 
 And the vast hills in fluctuation fixed 
 At thy command, how awful ! Shall the soul, 
 Human and rational, report of thee 
 Even less than these ? Be mute who will, who can ; 
 Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice : 
 My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd, 
 Can not forget thee here, where thou hast built 
 For thy own glory, in the wilderness ! 
 Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine 
 In such a temple as we now behold 
 Reared for thy presence : therefore am I bound 
 To worship, here and everywhere, as one 
 
244 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread 
 From childhood up the ways of poverty ; 
 From unreflecting ignorance preserved, 
 And from debasement rescued. By thy grace 
 The particle divine remained unquenched ; 
 And, 'mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil, 
 Thy bounty caused to flourish deatnless flowers 
 From Paradise transplanted. Wintry age 
 Impends ; the frost will gather round my heart : 
 If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead ! 
 Come labor when the worn-out frame requires 
 Perpetual sabbath ; come disease and want, 
 And sad exclusion through decay of sense : 
 But leave me unabated trust in thee, 
 And let thy favor, to the end of life, 
 Inspire me with ability to seek 
 Repose and hope among eternal things, 
 Father of heaven and earth ! and I am rich, 
 And will possess my portion in content. 
 
 " And what are things eternal ? Powers depart," 
 The gray-haired wanderer steadfastly replied, 
 Answering the question which himself had asked, 
 " Possessions vanish, and opinions change, 
 And passions hold a fluctuating seat ; 
 But by the storms of circumstance unshaken, 
 And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, 
 Duty exists. Immutably survive, 
 For our support, the measures and the forms 
 Which an abstract intelligence supplies ; 
 Whose kingdom is where time and space are not. 
 Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart 
 Do with united urgency require, 
 
 What more that may not perish ? Thou dread Source, 
 Prime, self-existing Cause and End of all 
 That in the scale of being fill their place, 
 Above our human region, or below, 
 Set and sustained ; Thou who didst wrap the cloud 
 Of infancy around us, that Thyself 
 Therein with our simplicity a while 
 Mightst hold on earth communion undisturbed ; 
 Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, 
 Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, 
 And touch as gentle as the morning light, 
 Itestor'st us daily to the powers of sense 
 And reason's steadfast rule, Thou, Thou alone, 
 Art everlasting, and the blessed spirits, 
 Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves : 
 For adoration thou endurest ; endure 
 For consciousness the motions of thy will ; 
 For apprehension those transcendent truths 
 Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWOKTH. 245 
 
 (Submission constituting strength and power) 
 
 Even to thy being's infinite majesty 1 
 
 This universe shall pass away, a work 
 
 Glorious, because the shadow of thy might ; 
 
 A step, or link, for intercourse with thee. 
 
 Ah ! if the time must come in which my feet 
 
 No more shall stray where meditation leads, 
 
 By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild, 
 
 Loved haunts like these, the unimprisoned Mind 
 
 May yet have scope to range among her own, 
 
 Her thoughts, her images, her high desires. 
 
 If the dear faculty of sight should fail, 
 
 Still it may be allowed me to remember 
 
 What visionary powers of eye and soul 
 
 In youth were mine, when, stationed on the top 
 
 Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld 
 
 The sun rise up, from distant climes returned, 
 
 Darkness to chase and sleep, and bring the day, 
 
 His bounteous gift ; or saw him toward the deep 
 
 Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds 
 
 Attended : then my spirit was entranced 
 
 With joy exalted to beatitude ; 
 
 The measure of my soul was filled with bliss 
 
 And holiest love, as earth, sea, air, with light, 
 
 With pomp, with glory, with magnificence. 
 
 " Those fervent raptures are for ever flown ; 
 And, since their date, my soul hath undergone 
 Change manifold for better or for worse : 
 Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire 
 Heavenward, and chide the part of me that flags 
 Through sinful choice, or dread necessity 
 On human nature from above imposed. 
 'Tis, by comparison, an easy task 
 Earth to despise ; but to converse with heaven 
 This is not easy, To relinquish all 
 We have or hope of happiness and joy, 
 And stand in freedom loosened from this world, 
 I deem not arduous; but must needs confess 
 That 'tis a thing impossible to frame 
 Conceptions equal to the soul's desires, 
 And the most difficult of tasks to keep 
 Hights which the soul is competent to gain. 
 Man is of dust : ethereal hopes are his, 
 Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft, 
 Want due consistence ; like a pillar of smoke, 
 That with majestic energy from earth 
 Rises, but, having reached the thinner air, 
 Melts and dissolves, and is no longer seen. 
 From this infirmity of mortal kind 
 Sorrow proceeds, which else were not : at least, 
 If grief be something hallowed and ordained ; 
 
246 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 If, in proportion, it be just and meet, 
 
 Yet through this weakness of the general heart 
 
 Is it enabled to maintain its hold 
 
 In that excess which conscience disapproves. 
 
 For who could sink and settle to that point 
 
 Of selfishness, so senseless who could be, 
 
 As long and perseveringly to mourn 
 
 For any object of his love removed 
 
 From this unstable world, if he could fix 
 
 A satisfying view upon that state 
 
 Of pure, imperishable .blessedness 
 
 Which reason promises, and Holy Writ 
 
 Insures to all believers ? Yet mistrust 
 
 Is of such incapacity, methinks, 
 
 No natural branch ; despondency far less ; 
 
 And least of all is absolute despair. 
 
 " And if there be whose tender frames have drooped 
 Even to the dust, apparently through weight 
 Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power 
 An agonizing sorrow to transmute, 
 Deem not that proof is here of hope withheld 
 When wanted most, a confidence impaired 
 So pitiably, that, having ceased to see 
 With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love 
 Of what is lost, and perish through regret. 
 Oh, no ! the innocent sufferer often sees 
 Too clearly, feels too vividly, and longs 
 To realize, the vision with intense 
 
 And over-constant yearning : there, there lies 
 The excess by which the balance is destroyed. 
 Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, 
 This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs, 
 Though inconceivably endowed, too dim, 
 For any passion of the soul that leads 
 To ecstasy ; and, all the crooked paths 
 Of time and change disdaining, takes its course 
 Along the line of limitless desires. 
 I, speaking now, from such disorder free, 
 Nor rapt nor craving, but in settled peace, 
 I can not doubt that they whom you deplore 
 Are glorified, or, if they sleep, shall wake 
 From sleep, and dwell with God in endless love. 
 Hope below this consists not with belief 
 In mercy carried infinite degrees 
 Beyond the tenderness of human hearts; 
 Hope below this consists not with belief 
 In perfect wisdom, guiding mightiest power, 
 That finds no limits but her own pure will. 
 
 
 
 " Here, then, we rest, not fearing for our creed 
 The worst that human reasoning can achieve 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 247 
 
 To unsettle or perplex it ; yet with pain 
 
 Acknowledging, and grievous self-reproach, 
 
 That, though immovably convinced, we want 
 
 Zeal, and the virtue to exist by faith, 
 
 As soldiers live by courage ; as, by strength 
 
 Of heart, the sailor fights with roaring seas, 
 
 Alas! the endowment of immortal power 
 
 Is matched unequally with custom, time, 
 
 And domineering faculties of sense 
 
 In all ; in most, with superadded foes, 
 
 Idle temptations, open vanities, 
 
 Ephemeral offspring of the unblushing world, 
 
 And, in the private regions of the mind, 
 
 Ill-governed passions, ranklings of despite, 
 
 Immoderate wishes, pining discontent, 
 
 Distress, and care. What then remains ? To seek 
 
 Those helps for his occasions ever near 
 
 Who lacks not will to use them, vows renewed 
 
 On the first motion of a holy thought ; 
 
 Vigils of contemplation, praise, and prayer, 
 
 A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart 
 
 Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows 
 
 Without access of unexpected strength. 
 
 But, above all, the victory is most sure 
 
 For him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives 
 
 To yield entire submission to the law 
 
 Of conscience, conscience reverenced and obeyed 
 
 As God's most intimate presence in the soul, 
 
 And his most perfect image in the world. 
 
 Endeavor thus to live, these rules regard, 
 
 These helps solicit, and a steadfast seat 
 
 Shall then be yours among the happy few 
 
 Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air, 
 
 Sons of the morning. For your nobler part, 
 
 Ere disencumbered of her mortal chains, 
 
 Doubt shall be quelled, and trouble chased away, 
 
 With only such degree of sadness left 
 
 As may support longings of pure desire, 
 
 And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly 
 
 In the sublime attractions of the grave." 
 
 While in this strain the venerable sage 
 Poured forth his aspirations, and announced 
 His judgments, near that lonely house we paced 
 A plot of greensward, seemingly preserved 
 By Nature's care from wreck of scattered stones, 
 And from encroachment of encircling hearth : 
 Small space ! but, for reiterated steps, 
 Smooth and commodious as a stately deck 
 Which to and fro the mariner is used 
 To tread for pastime, talking with his mates, 
 Or haply thinking of far-distant friends, 
 
248 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 While the ship glides before a steady breeze. 
 
 Stillness prevailed around us; and the voice 
 
 That spake was capable to lift the soul 
 
 Toward regions yet more tranquil. But methought 
 
 That he whose fixed despondency had given 
 
 Impulse and motive to that strong discourse 
 
 Was less upraised in spirit than abashed ; 
 
 Shrinking from admonition like a man 
 
 Who feels that to exhort is to reproach. 
 
 Yet, not to be diverted from his aim, 
 
 The sage continued : 
 
 " For that other loss, 
 The loss of confidence in social man, 
 By the unexpected transports of our age 
 Carried so high, that every thought which looked 
 Beyond the temporal destiny of ^he kind 
 To many seemed superfluous, as no cause 
 Could e'er for such exalted confidence 
 Exist, so none is now for fixed despair. 
 The two extremes are equally disowned 
 By reason : if, with sharp recoil, from one 
 You have been driven far as its opposite, 
 Between them seek the point whereon to build 
 Sound expectations. So doth he advise 
 Who shared at first the illusion, but was soon 
 Cast from the pedestal of pride by shocks 
 Which Nature gently gave in woods and fields, 
 Nor unreproved .by Providence, thus speaking 
 To the inattentive children of the world : 
 ' Vainglorious generation ! what new powers 
 On you have been conferred, what gifts withheld 
 From- your progenitors have ye received, 
 Fit recompense of new desert, what claim 
 Are ye prepared to urge, that my decrees 
 For you should undergo a sudden change, 
 And, the weak functions of one busy day 
 Reclaiming and extirpating, perform 
 What all the slowly-moving years of time, 
 With their united force, have left undone ? 
 By Nature's gradual processes be taught ; 
 By story be confounded. Ye aspire 
 Rashly, to fall once more ; and that false fruit, 
 Which to your overweening spirits yields 
 Hope of a flight celestial, will produce 
 Misery and shame. But Wisdom of her sons 
 Shall not the less, though late, be justified.' 
 
 " Such timely warning," said the wanderer, 
 " Gave that visionary voice : and at this day, 
 When a Tartarean darkness overspreads 
 The groaning nations ; Avhen the impious rule, 
 By will or by established ordinance, 
 
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 249 
 
 Their own dire agents, and constrain the good 
 To acts which they abhor, though I bewail 
 This triumph, yet the pity of my heart 
 Prevents me not from owning that the law 
 By which mankind now suffers is most just. 
 For by superior energies, more strict 
 Affiance in each other, faith more firm 
 In their unhallowed principles, the bad 
 Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak, 
 The vacillating, inconsistent good. . 
 
 " Therefore, not unconsoled, I wait in hope 
 To see the moment when the righteous cause 
 Shall gain defenders zealous and devout 
 As they who have opposed her ; in which Virtue 
 Will to her efforts tolerate no bounds 
 That are not lofty as her rights, aspiring 
 By impulse of her own ethereal zeal. 
 That spirit only can redeem mankind ; 
 And when that sacred spirit shall appear, 
 Then shall our triumph be complete as theirs. 
 Yet, should this confidence prove vain, the wise 
 Have still the keeping of their proper peace ; 
 Are guardians of their own tranquillity. 
 They act or they recede, observe, and feel ; 
 ' Knowing the heart of man is set to be 
 The center of this world, about the which 
 These revolutions of disturbances 
 Still roll ; where all the aspects of misery 
 Predominate ; whose strong effects are such 
 As he must bear, being powerless to redress ; 
 And that, unless above himself he can 
 Erect himself, how poor a thing is man ! ' 
 
 " Happy is he who lives to understand 
 Not human nature only, but explores 
 All natures, to the end that he may find 
 The law that governs each, and where begins 
 The union, the partition where, that makes 
 Kind and degree among all visible beings ; 
 The constitutions, powers, and faculties 
 Which they inherit, can not step beyond, 
 And can not fall beneath ; that do assign 
 To every class its station and its office, 
 Through all the mighty commonwealth of things, 
 Up from the creeping plant to sovereign man. 
 Such converse, if directed by a meek, 
 Sincere, and humble spirit, teaches love : 
 For knowledge is delight, and such delight 
 Breeds love ; yet, suited as it rather is 
 To thought and to the climbing intellect, 
 It teaches less to love than to adore, 
 If that be not indeed the highest love." 
 
250 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON REVISITING THE WYE. 
 
 OH, how oft 
 
 In darkness, and amid the many shapes 
 Of joyless daylight, when the fretful tir 
 Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 
 Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, 
 How oft in spirit have I turned to thee, 
 
 sylvan Wye ! thou wanderer through the woods, 
 How often has my spirit turned to thee ! 
 
 And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 
 
 With many recognitions dim and faint, 
 
 And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 
 
 The picture of the mind revives again 
 
 While here I stand, not only with the sense 
 
 Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
 
 That in this moment there is life and food 
 
 For future years. And so I dare to hope, 
 
 Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 
 
 1 came among these hills ; when, like a roe, 
 I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
 Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 
 Wherever Nature led, more like a man 
 Flying from something that he dreads than one 
 Who sought the thing he loved. For Nature then 
 The coarser pleasures of my boyish days 
 
 And their glad animal movements all gone by 
 To me was all in all. I can not paint 
 What then I was. The sounding cataract 
 Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 Their colors and their forms, were then to me 
 An appetite, a feeling and a love 
 That had no need of a remoter charm 
 By thought supplied, or any interest 
 Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past ; 
 And all its aching joys are now no more, 
 And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 
 Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur : other gifts 
 Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, 
 Abundant recompense. For I have learned 
 To look on Nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
 The still sad music of humanity, 
 Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevati-d thoughts, a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 251 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 
 And mountains, and of all that we behold 
 
 From this green earth, of all the mighty world 
 
 Of eye and ear, both what they half create 
 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognize 
 
 In Nature, and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 
 The guide, the guardian, of my heart, and soul 
 
 Of all my moral being. 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 
 
 DIED 1861. 
 
 The most learned, and perhaps the most talented, of English female poets. Art, 
 life, politics, and religion are treated by her with great vigor of x thought, and sim- 
 plicity of language. 
 
 PRINCIPAL WRITINGS. 
 
 " Casa Guidi Windows," a political poem; "The Seraphim;" "A Drama of 
 Exile;" "The Duchess May;" "Lady Geraldine's Courtship;" "Bertha in the 
 Lane; " " The Cry of the Children ; " " Cowper's Grave; " " Prometheus Bound," 
 translation from ^Eschylus; and "Aurora Leigh," her greatest work. 
 
 MOTHER AND POET. 
 1. 
 
 DEAD ! one of them shot by the sea in the east, 
 And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
 
 Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast, 
 And are wanting a great song for Italy free, 
 Let none look at me ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Yet I was a poetess only last year ; 
 
 And good at my art, for a woman, men said. 
 But this woman, this, who is agonized here, 
 
 The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head 
 For ever instead. 
 
 3. 
 
 What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain ! 
 
 What art is she good at but hurting her breast 
 With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ? 
 
 Ah, boys, how you hurt ! You were strong as you pressed, 
 And I proud by that test. 
 
252 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 4. 
 
 What art's for a woman ? To hold "on her knees 
 
 Both darlings ; to feel all their arms round her throat 
 
 Cling, strangle a little ; to sew by degrees, 
 
 And 'broider the long clothes and neat little coat ; 
 To dream and to dote. 
 
 5. 
 
 To teach them. ... It stings there. I made them indeed 
 Speak plain the word " country." I taught them, no doubt, 
 
 That a country's a thing men should die for at need. 
 I prated of liberty, rights, and about 
 The tyrant turned out. 
 
 6. 
 
 And, when their eyes flashed, oh my beautiful eyes ! 
 I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels 
 
 Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise 
 When one sits quite alone ! then one weeps, then one kneels. 
 God ! how the house feels ! 
 
 7. 
 
 At first, happy news came, in gay letters, moiled 
 With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how 
 
 They both loved me ; and soon, coming home to be spoiled, 
 In return would Ian off every fly from my brow 
 With their green laurel-bough. 
 
 8. 
 
 Then was triumph at Turin. " Ancona was free ! " 
 And some one came out of the cheers in the street, 
 
 With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. 
 My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet 
 While they cheered in the street. 
 
 9. 
 
 I bore it : friends soothed me. My grief looked sublime 
 As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained 
 
 To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time 
 
 When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained 
 To the hight he had gained. 
 
 10. 
 
 And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, 
 Writ now but in one hand. I was not to faint. 
 
 One loved me for two ; . . . would be with me ere long : 
 And ' Viva Italia ' he died for, our saint, 
 Who forbids our complaint." 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWJSING. 253 
 
 11. 
 
 My Nanni would add, " He was safe, and aware 
 
 Of a presence that turned off the balls ; was imprest 
 
 It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear ; 
 
 And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed, 
 
 To live on for the rest." 
 
 12. 
 
 On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line 
 
 Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta, " Shot ! " 
 
 Tell his mother. Ah, ah ! " his," " their " mother, not " mine/' 
 No voice says " My mother " again to me. What ! 
 You think Guido forgot ? 
 
 13. 
 
 Are souls straight so happy, that, dizzy with heaven, 
 They drop earth's affection, conceive not of woe ? 
 
 I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven 
 Through that love and sorrow which reconciled so 
 The above and below. 
 
 14. 
 
 Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark 
 
 To the face of thy mother ! consider, I pray, 
 How we common mothers stand desolate ; mark 
 
 Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, 
 And no last word to say ! 
 
 15. 
 
 Both boys dead ! But that's out of nature. We all 
 
 Have been patriots ; yet each house must always keep one : 
 
 'Tvvere imbecile hewing* out roads to a wall. 
 
 And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done 
 If we have not a son ? 
 
 16. 
 
 Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ? 
 
 When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport 
 Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ; 
 
 When your guns of Cavalli with final retort 
 Have cut the game short ; 
 
 17. 
 
 When Venice and Home keep their new jubilee ; 
 
 When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red 
 When yon have your country from mountain to sea ; 
 
 When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, 
 (And I have my dead,) 
 
254 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 18. 
 
 What then ? Do not mock me. Ah ! ring your bells low, 
 And burn your lights faintly. l$y country is there, 
 
 Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow ; 
 My Italy's there with my brave civic pair, 
 To disfranchise despair. 
 
 19. 
 
 Forgive me ! Some women bear children in strength, 
 And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ; 
 
 But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length 
 Into wail such as this, and we sit on forlorn 
 When the man-child is born. 
 
 20. 
 
 Dead ! one of them shot by the sea in the west, 
 And one of them shot in tlie east by the sea, 
 
 Both, both my boys ! If, in keeping the feast, 
 You want a great song for your Italy free, 
 Let none look at me ! 
 
 AURORA LEIGH. 
 
 AND I I was a good child, on the whole, 
 A meek and manageable child. Why not ? 
 I did not live to have the faults of life : 
 There seemed more true life in my father's grave 
 Than in all England. Since that threw me off 
 Who fain would cleave (his latest will, they say, 
 Consigned me to his land), I only thought 
 Of lying quiet there where I was thrown 
 Like seaweed on the rocks, and suffering her 
 To prick me to a pattern with her pin, 
 Fiber from fiber, delicate leaf from leaf, 
 And dry out from my drowned anatomy 
 The last sea-salt left in me. 
 
 So it was. 
 
 I broke the copious curls upon my head 
 In braids, because, she liked smooth-ordered hair. 
 I left off saying my sweet Tuscan words, 
 Which still, at any stirring of the heart, 
 Came up to float across the English phrase, 
 As lilies (Bene ... or che eke), because 
 She liked my father's child to speak his tongue. 
 I learnt the collects and the catechism, 
 The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice, 
 The articles, the tracts against the times, 
 (By no means Buonaventure's " Prick of Love,") 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 255 
 
 And various popular synopses of 
 
 Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, 
 
 Because she liked instructed piety. 
 
 I learnt my complement of classic French 
 
 (Kept pure of Balzac and neologism) 
 
 And German also, since she liked a range 
 
 Of liberal education, tongues, not books. 
 
 I learnt a little algebra, a little 
 
 Of the mathematics, brushed with extreme flounce 
 
 The circle of the sciences, because 
 
 She misliked women who are frivolous. 
 
 I learnt the royal genealogies 
 
 Of Oviedo, the internal laws 
 
 Of the Burmese Empire, by how many feet 
 
 Mount Chimborazo outsoars Teneriffe, 
 
 What navigable river joins itself 
 
 To Lara, and what census of the year five 
 
 Was taken at Kla^enfurt, because she liked 
 
 A general insight into useful facts. 
 
 I learnt much music, such as would have been 
 
 As quite impossible in Johnson's day 
 
 As still it might be wished, fine sleights of hand 
 
 And unimagined fingering, shuffling off 
 
 The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes 
 
 To a noisy Tophet ; and I drew costumes 
 
 From French engravings, Nereids neatly draped, 
 
 With smirks of simmering godship ; I washed in 
 
 Landscapes from Nature (rather say, washed out) ; 
 
 I danced the polka and Cellarius ; 
 
 Spun glass, stuffed birds, and modelled flowers in wax, 
 
 Because she liked accomplishments in girls. 
 
 I read a score of books on womanhood, 
 
 To prove, if women do not think at all, 
 
 They may teach thinking (to a maiden aunt, 
 
 Or else the author), books that boldly assert 
 
 Their right of comprehending husbands' talk 
 
 When not too deep, and even of answering 
 
 With pretty " May it please you," or " So it is ; " 
 
 Their rapid insight and fine aptitude, 
 
 Particular worth and general missionariness, 
 
 As long as they keep quiet by the fire, 
 
 And never say " No " when the world says " Ay," 
 
 For that is fatal ; their angelic reach 
 
 Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn, 
 
 And fatten household sinners ; their, in brief, 
 
 Potential faculty in every thing 
 
 Of abdicating power in it. She owned 
 
 She liked a woman to be womanly ; 
 
 And English women she thanked God and sighed 
 
 (Some people always sigh in thanking God) 
 
 Were models to the universe. And, last, 
 
 I learnt cross-stitch, because she did not like 
 
 To see me wear the night with empty hands, 
 
256 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Adoing nothing. So my shepherdess 
 
 Was something after alf, (the pastoral saints 
 
 Be praised fbr't !) learning love-lorn with pink eyes 
 
 To match her shoes, when I mistook the silks ; 
 
 Her head uncrushed by that round weight of hat 
 
 So strangely similar to the tortoise-shell 
 
 Which slew the tragic poet. 
 
 By the way, 
 
 The works of women are symbolical. 
 We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight, 
 Producing what ? A pair of slippers, sir, 
 To put on when you're weary, or a stool 
 To tumble over and vex you ; (" Curse that stool ! ") 
 Or else, at best, a cushion, where you lean 
 And sleep, and dream of something we are not, 
 But would be for your sake. Alas, alas ! 
 This hurts most, this, that, after all, we are paid 
 The worth of our work, perhaps. 
 
 In looking down 
 
 Those years of education (to return), 
 I wonder if Brinvilliers suffered more 
 In the water torture, flood succeeding flood 
 To drench the incapable throat and split the veins, 
 Than I did. Certain of your feebler souls 
 Go out in such a process ;* many pine 
 To a sick, inodorous light : my own endured* 
 I had relations in the unseen/and drew 
 The elemental nutriment and heat 
 From Nature, as earth feels the sun at nights, 
 Or as a babe sucks surely in the dark : 
 I kept the life thrust on me, on the outside 
 Of the inner life with all its ample room 
 For heart and lungs, for will and intellect, 
 Inviolable by conventions. God, 
 I thank thee for that grace of thine ! 
 
 At first, 
 
 I felt no life which was not patience ; did 
 The thing she bade me, without heed to a thing 
 Beyond it ; sate in just the chair she placed, 
 With back against the window to exclude 
 The sight of the great lime-tree on the lawn, 
 Which seemed to have come on purpose from the woods 
 To bring the house a message ; ay, and walked 
 Demurely in her carpeted low rooms 
 As if I should not. hearkening my own steps, 
 Misdoubt I was alive. I read her books ; 
 Was civil to her cousin, Romney Leigh ; 
 Gave ear to her vicar, tea to her visitors, 
 And heard them whisper when I changed a cup 
 (I blushed for joy at that), " The Italian child, 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 257 
 
 For all her blue eyes and her quiet ways, 
 
 Thrives ill in England : she is paler yet 
 
 Than when we came the last time : she will die." 
 
 " Will die." My cousin, Romney Leigh, blushed too, 
 
 With sudden anger, and, approaching me, 
 
 Said low between his teeth, " You're wicked now ! 
 
 You wish to die, and leave the world a-dusk 
 
 For others, with your naughty light blown out ? " 
 
 I looked into his face defyingly. 
 
 He might have known, that, being what I was, 
 
 'Twas natural to like to get away 
 
 As far as dead folk can ; and then, indeed, 
 
 Some people make no trouble when they die. 
 
 He turned, and went abruptly, slammed the door, 
 
 And shut his dog out. 
 
 Romney, Romney Leigh: 
 I have not named my cousin hitherto ; 
 And yet I used him as a sort of friend, 
 My elder by few years, but cold and shy 
 And absent ; tender when he thought of it, 
 Which scarcely was imperative ; grave betimes, 
 As well as early master of Leigh Hall, 
 Whereof the nightmare sate upon his youth 
 Repressing all its seasonable delights, 
 And agonizing with a ghastly sense 
 Of universal hideous want and wrong 
 To incriminate possession. When he came 
 From college to the country, very oft 
 He crossed the hill on visits to my aunt, 
 With gifts of blue grapes from the hothouses ; 
 A book in one hand, mere statistics (if 
 I chanced to lift the cover), count of all 
 The goats whose beards grow sprouting down towards hell, 
 Against God's separative judgment-hour. 
 And she she almost loved him ; even allowed 
 That sometimes he should seem to sigh my way : 
 It made him easier to be pitiful ; 
 And sighing was his gift. So, undisturbed, 
 At whiles she let him shut my music p, 
 And push my needles down, and lead me out 
 To see in that south angle of the house 
 The figs grow black as if by a Tuscan rock, 
 On some light pretext. She would turn her head 
 At other moments, go to fetch a thing, 
 And leave me breath enough to speak with him, 
 For his sake : it was simple. 
 
 Sometimes, too, 
 
 He would have saved me utterly, it seemed, 
 He stood and looked so. 
 17 
 
258 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Once he stood so near, 
 He dropped a sudden hand upon mv head 
 Bent down on woman's work, as sol't as rain ; 
 But then I rose and shook it oft* as fire, 
 The stranger's touch that took my father's place, 
 Yet dared seem soft. 
 
 I used him for a friend 
 Before I ever knew him for a friend. 
 'Twas better, 'twas worse also, afterward : 
 We came so close, we saw our differences 
 Too intimately. Always Romney Leigh 
 Was looking for the worms, I for* the gods. 
 A godlike nature his : the gods look down 
 Incurious of themselves ; and certainly 
 'Tis well I should remember how, those days, 
 I was a worm too, and he looked on me. 
 
 A little by his act perhaps, yet more 
 
 By something in me, surely not my will, 
 
 I did not die. But slowly* as one'in swoon, 
 
 To whom life creeps back in the form of death, 
 
 With a sense of separation, a blind pain 
 
 Of blank obstruction, and a roar i' the ears 
 
 Of visionary chariots which retreat 
 
 As earth grows clearer, slowly, by degrees, 
 
 I woke, rose up. Where was I ? In the world : 
 
 For uses, therefore, I must count worth while. 
 
 I had a little chamber in the house, 
 
 As green as any privet-hedire a bird 
 
 Might choose to build in, though the nest itself 
 
 Could show but dead brown sticks and straws. The walls 
 
 Were green, the carpet was pure green, the straight 
 
 Small bed was curtained greenly, and the folds 
 
 Hung green about the window, which let in 
 
 The out-door world with all its greenery. 
 
 You could not push your head out, and escape 
 
 A dash of dawn-dew from the honeysuckle, 
 
 But so you were baptized into the grace 
 
 And privilege of seeing. . . . 
 
 First the lime 
 
 (I had enough there of the lime, be sure : 
 My morning dream was often hummed away 
 By the bees in it) ; past the lime, the lawn, 
 Which, after sweeping broadly round the house, 
 Went trickling through the shrubberies in a stream 
 Of tender turf, and wore and lost itself 
 Among the acacias, over which you saw 
 Tlie irregular line of elms by the deep lane 
 Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow 
 Of arbutus and laurel. Out of si^ht 
 The lane was ; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp, 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 259 
 
 Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales, 
 
 Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge 
 
 Dispensed such odors, though his stick, well crooked, 
 
 Might reach the lowest 'trail of blossoming brier 
 
 Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms, 
 
 And through their tops, you saw the folded hills 
 
 Striped up and down with hedges (burly oaks 
 
 Projecting from the line to show themselves), 
 
 Through which my cousin Romney's chimneys smoked 
 
 As still as when a silent mouth in frost 
 
 Breathes, showing where the woodlands hid Leigh Hall ; 
 
 While, far above, a jet of table-land, 
 
 A promontory without water, stretched. 
 
 You could not catch it if the days were thick, 
 
 Or took, it for a cloud ; but, otherwise, 
 
 The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve, 
 
 And use it for an anvil until he had filled 
 
 The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts, 
 
 Protesting against night and darkness ; then, 
 
 When all his setting trouble was resolved 
 
 To a trance of passive glory, you might see 
 
 In apparition on the golden sky 
 
 (Alas ! my Giotto's background) the sheep run 
 
 Along the fine clear outline, small as mice 
 
 That run along a witch's scarlet thread. 
 
 Not a grand nature. Not my chestnut-woods 
 Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs 
 To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps 
 Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear 
 In leaping through the palpitating pines, 
 Like a white soul tossed out to eternity 
 With thrills of time upon it. Not, indeed, 
 My multitudinous mountains, setting in 
 The magic circle, with the mutual touch 
 Electric, panting from their full deep hearts 
 Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for 
 Communion and commission. Italy 
 Is one thing ; England one. 
 
 On English ground, 
 
 You understand the letter, ere the Fall, 
 How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields 
 Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 
 The hills are crumpled plains ; the plains, parterres ; 
 The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped : 
 And, if you seek for any wilderness, 
 You find at best a park* A nature tamed 
 And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, 
 Which does not awe you with its claws and beak, 
 Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up, 
 But which in cackling sets you thinking of 
 Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast in the pause 
 Of finer meditation. 
 
260 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Rather say, 
 
 A sweet familiar nature, stealing in 
 As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand, 
 Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so 
 Of presence and affection, excellent 
 For inner uses, from the things without. 
 
 I could not be unthankful, I who was 
 
 Entreated thus and holpen. In the room 
 
 I speak of, ere the house was well awake, 
 
 And also after it was well asleep, 
 
 I sat alone, and drew the blessing in 
 
 Of all that nature. With a gradual step, 
 
 A stir among the leaves, a breath, a ray, 
 
 It came in softly, while the angels made 
 
 A place for it beside me. The moon came, 
 
 And swept my chamber clean of foolish thoughts. 
 
 The sun came, saying, " Shall I lift this light 
 
 Against the lime-tree, and you will not look ? 
 
 I make the birds sing : listen ! But, for you, 
 
 God never hears your voice, excepting when 
 
 You lie upon the bed at nights, and weep." 
 
 Then something moved me. Then I wakened up 
 
 More slowly than I verily write now ; 
 
 But wholly, at last, I wakened, opened wide 
 
 The window and my soul, and let the airs 
 
 And outdoor sights sweep gradual gospels in, 
 
 Regenerating what I was. O Life ! 
 
 How oft we throw it off, and think, " Enough, 
 
 Enough of Life in so much ! Here's a cause 
 
 For rupture ; herein we must break with Life, 
 
 Or be ourselves unworthy ; here we are wronged, 
 
 Maimed, spoiled for aspiration : farewell Life ! " 
 
 And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes, 
 
 And think all ended. Then Life calls to us 
 
 In some transformed, apocalyptic voice 
 
 Above us, or below us, or around : 
 
 Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, 
 
 Tricking ourselves because we are more ashamed 
 
 To own our compensations than our griefs : 
 
 Still Life's voice ; still we make our peace with Life. 
 
 And I, so young then, was not sullen. Soon 
 
 I used to get up early, just to sit 
 
 And watch the morning quicken in the gray, 
 
 And hear the silence open like a flower, 
 
 Leaf after leaf, and stroke with listless hand 
 
 The woodbine through the window, till at last 
 
 I came to do it with a sort of love. 
 
 At foolish unaware : where-U I smiled, 
 
 A melancholy smile, to catch myself 
 
 Smiling for joy. 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 261 
 
 Capacity for joy 
 
 Admits temptation. It seemed, next, worth while 
 To dodge the sharp sword set against my life ; 
 To slip down stairs through all the sleepy house, 
 As mute as any dream there, and escape, 
 As a soul from the body, out of doors, 
 Glide through the shrubberies, drop into the lane, 
 And wander on the hills an hour or two, 
 Then back again before the house should stir. 
 Or else I sat on in my chamber green, 
 And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, and prayed 
 My prayers without the vicar ; read my books, 
 Without considering whether they were fit 
 To do me good. Mark, there I We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
 And calculating profits ; ... so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty, and salt -of truth, 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 
 
 I read much. What my father taught before 
 
 From many a volume, Love re-emphasized 
 
 Upon the selfsame pages : Theophrast 
 
 Grew tender with the memory of his eyes ; 
 
 And ^Elian made mine wet. The trick of Greek 
 
 And Latin he had taught me as he would 
 
 Have taught me wrestling, or the game of fives, 
 
 If such he had known, most like a shipwrecked man 
 
 Who heaps his single platter with goats' cheese 
 
 And scarlet berries ; or like any man 
 
 Who loves but one, and so gives all at once, 
 
 Because he has it, rather than because 
 
 He counts it worthy. Thus my father gave ; 
 
 And thus, as did the women formerly 
 
 By young Achilles when they pinned the vail 
 
 Across the boy's audacious front, and swept 
 
 With tuneful laughs the silver-fretted rocks, 
 
 He wrapt his little daughter in his large 
 
 Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no. 
 
 But, after I had read for memory, 
 I read for hope. The path my father's foot 
 Had trod me out, which suddenly broke off 
 (What time he dropped the wallet of the flesh, 
 And passed), alone I carried on, and set 
 My child-heart 'gainst the thorny underwood, 
 To reach the grassy shelter of the trees. 
 Ah, babe i' the wood, without a brother-babe ! 
 My own self-pity, like the red-breast bird, 
 Flies back to cover all that past with leaves. 
 
262 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Sublimest danger, over which none weeps 
 
 When any young wayfaring soul goes forth 
 
 Alone, unconscious of the perilpus road, 
 
 The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eye?, 
 
 To thrust his own way, he an alien, through 
 
 The world of books ! * Ah, you ! you think it fine, 
 
 You clap hands, " A lair day ! " you cheer him on, 
 
 As if the worst could happen were to rest 
 
 Too long beside a fountain. Yet. behold, 
 
 Behold ! the world of books is still the world ; 
 
 And worldlings in it are less merciful 
 
 And more puissant. For the wicked there 
 
 Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes 
 
 Is edged from elemental fire to assail 
 
 A spiritual life. The beautiful seems right 
 
 By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong 
 
 Because of weakness. Power is justified, 
 
 Though armed against St. Michael. Many a crown 
 
 Covers bald foreheads. In the book-world, true, 
 
 There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings, 
 
 That shake the ashes of the grave aside 
 
 From their calm locks, and, undiscomfited, 
 
 Look steadfast truths against Time's changing mask. 
 
 True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ; 
 
 True, many a seer pulls down the flaming heavens 
 
 Upon his own head in strong martyrdom, 
 
 In order to light men a moment's space. 
 
 But stay ! who judges, who distinguishes, 
 
 'Twixt Saul and Nahash justly, at first sight, 
 
 And leaves King Saul precisely at the sin, 
 
 To serve Kin-j; David V Who discerns at once 
 
 The sound of the trumpets when the trumpets blow 
 
 For Alaric as well as Charlemagne '! 
 
 Who judges wizards, and can tell true seers 
 
 From conjurors V The child there? Would you leave 
 
 That child to wander in a battle-field, 
 
 And push his innocent smile against the guns? 
 
 Or even in a catacomb, his torch 
 
 Grown ragged in the fluttering air. and all 
 
 The dark a-mutter round him ? Not a child. 
 
 I read books bad and good, some bad and some good 
 
 At once (good aims not always make good books ; 
 
 "Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils 
 
 In digging vineyards even) ; books that prove 
 
 God's being so definitely, that man's doubt 
 
 Grows self-defined the other side the line, 
 
 Made atheist by suggestion ; moral books, 
 
 Exasperating to license ; genial books, 
 
 Discounting from the human dignity ; 
 
 And merry books, which set you weening when 
 
 The sun shines ; ay, and melancholy books, 
 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 263 
 
 Which make you laugh that any one should weep 
 In this disjointed life for one wrong more. 
 
 The world of books is still the world I write $ 
 And both worlds have God's providence, thank God ! 
 To keep and hearten. With some struggle, indeed, 
 Among the breakers, some hard swimming through 
 The deeps, I lost breath in rny soul sometimes, 
 And cried, " God save me, if there's any God ! " 
 But, even so, God saved me ; and, being dashed 
 From error on to error, every turn 
 Still brought me nearer to the central truth. 
 
 I thought so. All this anguish in the thick 
 Of men's opinions, press and counterpress, 
 Now up, now down, now underfoot, and now- 
 Emergent, all the best of it, perhaps, 
 But throws you back upon a noble trust 
 And use of your own instinct ; merely proves 
 Pure reason stronger than bare inference 
 At strongest. Try it ; fix against heaven's wall 
 Your scaling ladders of school logic ; mount 
 Step by step. Sight goes faster : that still ray 
 Which strikes out from you, how you can not tell, 
 And why you know not, (did you eliminate, 
 That such as you, indeed, should analyze ?) 
 Goes straight and fast as light, and high as God. 
 
 The cygnet finds the water ; but the man 
 Is born in ignorance of his element, 
 And feels out blind at first, disorganized 
 By sin i' the blood, his spirit-insight dulled 
 And crossed by his sensations. Presently 
 He feels it quicken in the dark sometimes ; 
 When mark, be reverent, be obedient ; 
 For such dumb motions of imperfect life 
 Are oracles of vital Deity, 
 Attesting the hereafter. Let who says, 
 " The soul's a clean white paper,'' rather say, 
 A palimpsest, a prophet's holograph 
 Defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's, 
 The apocalypse, by a Longus ! poring on 
 Which obscene text, we may discern perhaps 
 Some fair, fine trace of what was written once ; 
 Some upstroke of an alpha and omega 
 Expressing the old Scripture. 
 
 Books, books, books ! 
 I had found the secret of a garret-room 
 Piled high with cases in my father's name ; 
 Piled high, packed large, where, creeping in and out 
 Among the giant fossils of my past, 
 
264 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Like some small, nimble mouse between the ribs 
 Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there 
 At this or that box, pulling through the gap, 
 In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, 
 The first book first. And how I felt it beat 
 Under my pillow in the morning's dark, 
 An hour before the sun would let me read ! 
 My books ! 
 
 At last, because the time was ripe, 
 I chanced upon the poets. 
 
 As the earth 
 
 Plunges in fury when the internal fires 
 Have reached and pricked her heart, and throwing flat 
 The marts and temples, the triumphal gates, 
 And towers of observation, clears herself 
 To elemental freedom ; thus my soul, 
 At Poetry's divine first finger-touch, 
 Let go conventions, and sprang up surprised, 
 Convicted of the great eternities 
 Before two worlds. 
 
 OTHER MODERN ENGLISH POETS AND 
 DRAMATISTS. 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHKY. 1774-1843. Poet-laureate from 1813 to 1843. A writer 
 of great industry. His prose is superior to his poetry, which is of the lake 
 school mainly, and not of the highest order. 
 
 PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. 
 
 "Madoc;" "The Curse of Kehama;" " Thalaba, the Destroyer;" "Joan of 
 Arc;" "All for Love;" "The Pilgrim of Compostella;" "Life of Nelson;" "A 
 History of Brazil;" "Lives of Wesley, Chatterton, White, and Cowper; " "Lives 
 of the'British Admirals;" "Colloquies on Society." 
 
 SHERIDAN KNOWLES. 1784-1862. One of the most successful of modern 
 dramatists. His best known plays are "Gains Gracchus," "Virginius, " 
 "William Tell," "The Beggar of Bethnal Green," "The Hunchback," "The 
 Wife, a Tale of Mantua," and ''Love." Besides these, he wrote several other pop- 
 ular plays and other works. 
 
 WILLIAM E. AYTOUN. 1813, Edinburgh. "Lavs of the Scottish Cavaliers;" 
 " Bothwell; " " Firmilian; " and. with Theodore Martin, " Ballads by Bon Gaultier." 
 
 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. 1816. Author of "Festus," a work of remarkable 
 power, "The Angel World," "The Mystic," "The Age, a Colloquial Satire." 
 
 CAROLINE ANNE SOUTHEY. 1787-1854. Authoress of the beautiful tales, " The 
 Young Gray Head," "The Murder Glen," "Walter and William," and " The Even- 
 ing Walk;'" also "Ellen Fitzarthur," "Birthday and other Poems," "Solitary 
 Hours," and other pieces of prose and poetry of much merit. 
 
 MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER. 1810. " Proverbial Philosophy; " " An Author's 
 Mind; " " The Crock of Gold." 
 
OTHER MODERN ENGLISH POETS, ETC. 265 
 
 ELIZA COOK. 1817. "The Old Arm -Chair," and many other popular 
 pieces. 
 
 Miss JEAN INGELOW. " The High Tide." 
 WILLIAM THOM. 1789-1848. " Rhymes and Recollections." 
 BKYAN WALTEU PROCTER (better known as "BARKY CORNWALL"). 1790. 
 " Marcian Colonna; " " Flood of Thessaly ; " " Dramatic Scei.es; " " Mirandola; " 
 "The Sea;" - The Sequestration of a Bereaved Lover; " "A Pauper's Funeral;" 
 " A Petition to Time; " " A. Prayer in Sickness; " " The Stormy Petrel." 
 
 HENRY HART MILMAN. 1791-1868. " Fazio; " " Samor; " " The Fall of Jeru- 
 salem; " " The Martyr of Antioch; " " History of Latin Christianity." 
 
 JOHN CLARE. 1793. " Poems of Rural Life; " ' The Village Minstrel." 
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 1796-1849. "Lives of Northern Worthies;" "The 
 First Sound to the Human Ear; " " Night; " "A Vision; " " Sunday; " " Prayer." 
 
 DERWENT COLERIDGE. 1800. "Memoir of Hartley Coleridge." 
 
 SARA COLERIDGE. 1803-1852. " Phautasmion." 
 
 THOMAS HAYNES BAYLEY. 1797-1839. "The Soldier's Tear;" "I'd be a 
 Butterfly ; " ' The First Gray Hair ; " " I Never was a Favorite; " u Why don't the 
 Men propose ? " 
 
 WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. 1797-1835. "Scottish Minstrelsy;" "Jeanie Mor- 
 rison." 
 
 ALARIC ALEXANDER WATTS. 1799. "Poetical Sketches;" "Lyrics of the 
 Heart;" "Death of the Firstborn;" "To a Child blowing Bubbles;" "My Own 
 Fireside;" "The Gray Hair." 
 
 JOHN EDMUND READE. " Italy ;" "Revelations of Life;" "Cain and 
 Catiline." 
 
 WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. 1802-1839. "The Red Fisherman;" 
 " Quince." 
 
 RICHARD HENRY HORNE. 1803. "Orion;" "Cosmo de Medici;" "Death of 
 
 Marlowe." 
 
 CHARLES SWAIN. 1803. "The Mind;" "English Melodies;" "Letters of 
 Laura D'Auverne." 
 
 THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY. 1804-1859. Editor of "The Athenaeum;" " Aus- 
 
 tralia; "" Modern Sculpture;" " England's Helicon." 
 
 THOMAS RAGG. 1808. " The Deity : " " Martyr of Verulum ; " " Heber." 
 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. 1809. "Poems of Many Years;" "Palm- 
 
 Leaves;" "Life of Keats;" "Youth and Manhood;" "Labor;" "Rich and 
 
 Poor." 
 
 CHARLES MACKAY. 1812. "Voices from the Crowd;" "Town Lvrics;" 
 ".Egena;" "The Salamandrine; " "The Watcher on the Tower;" "The Good 
 lime Coming; " " The Three Preachers; " " What might be Done." 
 
 ROBERT NICOLL. 1814-1837. " Thoughts of Heaven ; " ' Death." 
 
 FRANCES BROWN. 1816. "The Star of Atteghei;" " Visioi of Schwartz;" 
 " Lrics." 
 
 ARNOLD ' ~ 1822 ' " The Strayed Reveler;" " Empedocles on 
 HousT" NTRY PATMORE - ~ 1823 ' " Tamerton Church-Tower; " " The Angel in the 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD. 1826. " Within and Without ; " " Phantastes." 
 GERALD MASSEY. 1828. " Babe Christabel ; " " Craigcrook Castle." 
 
 WILLIAM BENNETT 
 
 DENIS FLORENCE M'CARTHY. 
 
 WILLIAM ALLINGHAM. 
 ISA CRAIG. 
 BESSIE PARKES. 
 MARY HUME. 
 ADELAIDE PROCTER. 
 
 All of whom have written in a 
 style more or less worthy of 
 the pupil's attention. 
 
266 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 DRAMATISTS. 
 
 Sir THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. 1795-1854. "Ion;" "The Athenian Cap- 
 tive;" "Gieucoe, or the Fate of the Macdonalds ; " "The Castilian ; " " Life of 
 Charles Lainb." 
 
 HENRY TAYLOR. " Philip Van Artevelde; " " Edwin the Fair; " " The Eve of 
 the Conquest;" ".Notes from Life, and Notes from Books." 
 
 THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES. 1803 -1849. "The Bride's Tragedy." 
 RICHARD LALOR SHEIL. Died 1851. "Evadne; " " The Apostate." 
 GILBERT ABBOTT A BECKETT. 1810-1856. Many plays; also "Comic Black- 
 stone; " " Comic Histories of England and Rome." 
 
 TOM TAYLOR. 1817. Many comedies and farces; " Contributions to Punch;" 
 
 " Memorials of Haydon." 
 
 WESTLAXD MARSTON. 1825. " Heart of the World ; " " Patrician's Daughter." 
 
 ROBERT B. BROUGH. 1828. " What to Eat, Drink, and Avoid; " " Medea." 
 
 SHIRLEY BROOKS. " Our Governess ;" " The Creole." 
 
 WILKIE COLLINS. " The Frozen Deep." 
 
 MARK LEMON. Late editor of " Punch." Author of innumerable farces, &c. 
 
 HEXRY MAYHEW. "The Wandering Minstrel." 
 
 JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 
 
 BORN 1814, DORCHESTER, MASS. 
 
 This distinguished historian, author of " The Rise of the Dutch Republic," and 
 " The United Netherlands," is now (1870) minister at the court of St. James. 
 
 WILLIAM OF ORANGE. 
 
 THE life and labors of Orange had established the emancipated 
 commonwealth upon a secure foundation ; but his death rendered 
 the union of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless. 
 
 The efforts of the malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the 
 consummate ability (both political and military) of Parma, all 
 combined with the lamentable loss of William the Silent to sepa- 
 rate for ever the southern and Catholic provinces from the north- 
 ern confederacy. So long as the prince remained alive, he was 
 the father of the whole country ; the Netherlands, saving only the 
 two Walloon provinces, constituting a whole. 
 
 Notwithstanding the spirit of faction and the blight of the long 
 civil war, there was at least one country, or the hope of a country, 
 one strong heart, one guiding head, for the patriotic party 
 throughout the land. Philip and Granvelle were right in their es- 
 timate of the advantage to be derived from the prince's death ; in 
 
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 267 
 
 believing that an assassin's hand could achieve more than all the 
 wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship could teach, or all 
 the armies which Spain or Italy could muster. The pistol of the 
 insignificant Gerard destroyed the possibility of a united Nether- 
 land State ; while, during the life of William, there was union in 
 the policy, unity in the history, of the country. 
 
 In 'the following year, Antwerp, hitherto the center around 
 which all the national interests and historical events group them- 
 selves, fell before the scientific efforts of Parma. The city which 
 had so long been the freest as well as the most opulent capital in 
 Europe sank for ever to the position of a provincial town. With 
 its fall, combined with other circumstances which it is not neces- 
 sary to narrate in anticipation, the final separation of the Nether- 
 lands was completed. On the other hand, at the death of Orange, 
 whose formal inauguration as sovereign count had not yet taken 
 place, the States of Holland and Zealand re-assumed the sover- 
 eignty. T.he commonwealth which William had liberated for 
 ever from Spanish tyranny continued to exist as a great and flour- 
 ishing republic during more than two centuries, under the succes- 
 sive stadtholderates of his sons and descendants. 
 
 His life gave existence to an independent country ; his death 
 defined its limits. Had he lived twenty years longer, it is proba- 
 ble that the seven provinces would have been seventeen, and that 
 the Spanish title would have been for ever extinguished both in 
 Nether Germany and Celtic Gaul. Although there was to be the 
 length of two human generations more of warfare ere Spain ac- 
 knowledged the new government, yet, before the termination of that 
 period, the United States had become the first naval power, and one 
 of the most considerable commonwealths, in the world ; while the 
 civil and religious liberty, the political independence, of the land, 
 together with the total expulsion of the ancient foreign tyranny 
 from the soil, had been achieved ere the eyes of William were closed. 
 
 The republic existed, in fact, from the moment of the abju- 
 ration, in 1581. 
 
 The most important features of the polity which thus assumed 
 a prominent organization have been already indicated. There 
 was no revolution, no radical change. The ancient rugged tree of 
 Netherland liberty, with its moss-grown trunk, gnarled branches, 
 and deep-reaching roots, which had been slowly growing for 
 ages, was still full of sap, and was to deposit for centuries longer 
 its annual rings of consolidated and concentric strength. Though 
 lopped of some luxuriant boughs, it was sound at the core, and 
 destined for a still larger life than even in the healthiest moments 
 of its mediaeval existence. 
 
 The history of the rise of the Netherland Republic has been 
 at the same time the biography of William the Silent. This, 
 
268 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 while it gives unity to the narrative, renders an elaborate descrip- 
 tion of his character superfluous. That life was a noble Chris- 
 tian epic, inspired with one great >purpose from its commence- 
 ment to its close, the stream flowing ever from one fountain with 
 expanding fullness, but retaining all its original purity. A few 
 general observations are all which are necessary by way of con- 
 clusion. 
 
 In person, Orange was above the middle hight, perfectly well 
 made and sinewy, but rather spare than stout. His eyes, hair, 
 beard, and complexion were brown. His head was small, sym- 
 metrically shaped, combining the alertness and compactness char- 
 acteristic of the soldier with the capacious brow furrowed prema- 
 turely with the horizontal lines' of thought denoting the states- 
 man and the sage. His physical appearance was, therefore, in 
 harmony with his organization, which was of antique model. Of 
 his moral qualities, the most prominent was his piety. He was, 
 more than any thing else, a religious man. From his trust in God 
 he ever derived support and consolation in the darkest hours. Im- 
 plicitly relying upon Almighty Wisdom and Goodness, he looked 
 danger in the face with a constant smile, and endured incessant 
 labors and trials with a serenity which seemed more than human. 
 While, however, his soul was full of piety, it was tolerant of error. 
 Sincerely and deliberately himself a convert to the Reformed 
 Church, lie was ready to extend freedom of worship to Catholics 
 on one hand, and to Anabaptists on the other ; for no man ever 
 felt more keenly than he that the reformer who becomes in his 
 turn a bigot is doubly odious. His firmness was allied to his 
 piety. His constancy in bearing the whole weight of a struggle as 
 unequal as men have ever undertaken was the theme of admira- 
 tion even to his enemies. The rock in the ocean, " tranquil amid 
 raging billows," was the favorite emblem by which his friends ex- 
 pressed their sense of his firmness. From the time when, as a 
 hostage in France, he first discovered the plan of Philip to plant 
 the Inquisition in the Netherlands, up to the last moment of his 
 life, he never faltered in his determination to resist that iniqui- 
 tous scheme. This resistance was the labor of his life. To 
 exclude the Inquisition, to maintain the ancient liberties of his 
 country, was the task which he appointed to himself when a youth 
 of three and twenty. 
 
 Never speaking a word concerning a heavenly mission, never 
 deluding himself or others with the usual phraseology of enthu- 
 siasts, he accomplished the task through danger, amid toils, and 
 with sacrifices such as few men have ever been able to make on 
 their country's altar ; for the disinterested benevolence of the 
 man was as prominent as his fortitude. 
 
 A prince of high rank and with royal revenues, he stripped 
 
JOHN LOTIIROP MOTLEY. 269 
 
 himself of station, wealth, almost, at times, of the common neces- 
 saries of life, and became, in his country's cause, nearly a beggar 
 as well as an outlaw. Nor was he forced into his career by an ac- 
 cidental impulse from which there was no recovery. Retreat was 
 ever open to him. Not only pardon, but advancement, was urged 
 upon him again and again. Officially and privately, directly and 
 circuitously, his confiscated estates, together with indefinite and 
 boundless favors in addition, were offered to him on every great 
 occasion. On the arrival of Don John, at the Breda negotiations, 
 at the Cologne conferences, we have seen how calmly these offers 
 were waived aside, as if their rejection was so simple, that it hard- 
 ly required many words for its signification ; yet he had mortgaged 
 his estates so deeply, that his heirs hesitated at accepting their 
 inheritance, for fear it should involve them in debt. Ten years 
 after his death, the account between his executors and his brother 
 John amounted to one million four hundred thousand florins due 
 to the count, secured by various pledges of real and personal prop- 
 erty ; and it was finally settled upon this basis. He was, besides, 
 largely indebted to every one of his powerful relatives : so that the 
 payment of the encumbrances upon his estate very nearly justified 
 the fears of his children. While on the one hand, therefore, he 
 poured out these enormous sums like water, and firmly refused a 
 hearing to the tempting offers of the royal government, upon the 
 other hand he proved the disinterested nature of his services by 
 declining, year after year, the sovereignty over the provinces, and 
 by only accepting in the last days of his life, when refusal had 
 become almost impossible, the limited constitutional supremacy 
 over that portion of them which now makes the realm of his de- 
 scendants. He lived and died, not for himself, but for his country. 
 " God pity this poor people ! " were his dying words. 
 
 His intellectual faculties were various, and of the highest order. 
 He had the exact, practical, and combining qualities which make 
 the great commander ; and his friends claimed, that, in military 
 genius, he was second to no captain in Europe. This was, no 
 doubt, an exaggeration of partial attachment; but it is certain 
 that the Emperor Charles had an exalted opinion of his capacity 
 for the field. His fortification of Philippeville and Charlemont, 
 in the face of the enemy; his passage of the Meuse in Alva's 
 sight ; his unfortunate but well-ordered campaign against that 
 general ; his sublime plan of relief, projected and successfully 
 directed at last from his sick-bed, for the besieged city of Leyden, 
 will always remain monuments of his practical military skill. 
 
 Of the soldier's great virtues, constancy in disaster, devotion 
 to duty, hopefulness in defeat, no man ever possessed a larger 
 share. He arrived, through a series of reverses, at a perfect vic- 
 tory. He planted a free commonwealth under the very battery 
 
270 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of the Inquisition, in defiance of the most powerful empire exist- 
 ing. He was therefore a conqueror in the loftiest sense ; for he 
 conquered liberty and a national existence for a whole people. 
 The contest was long, and he fell in the struggle ; but the victory 
 was to the dead hero, not to the living monarch. It is to he 
 remembered, too, that he always wrought with inferior instru- 
 ments. His troops were usually mercenaries, who were but too 
 apt to mutiny upon the eve of battle ; while he was opposed by 
 the most formidable veterans of Europe, commanded successivelv 
 by the first captains of the age. That with no lieutenant of emi- 
 nent valor or experience save only his brother Louis, and with 
 none at all after that chieftain's death, William of Orange should 
 succeed in baffling the efforts of Alva, Requesens, Don John of 
 Austria, and Alexander Farnese, men whose names are among 
 the most brilliant in the military annals of the world, is in 
 itself sufficient evidence of his warlike ability. At the period of 
 his death, he had reduced the number of obedient provinces to 
 two; only Artois and Hainault acknowledging Philip, while the 
 other fifteen \rere in open revolt, the greater part having sol- 
 emnly forsworn their sovereign. 
 
 The supremacy of his political genius was entirely beyond ques- 
 tion. He was the first statesman pf the age. The quickness of 
 his perception was only equaled by the caution which enabled 
 him to mature the results of his observations. His knowledge of 
 human nature was profound. He governed the passions and sen- 
 timents of a great nation as if they had been but the keys and 
 chords of one vast instrument; and his hand rarely failed to evoke 
 harmony even out of the wildest storms. The turbulent city of 
 Ghent, which could obey no other master, which even the haughty 
 emperor could only crush without controlling, was ever responsive 
 to the master-hand of Orange. His presence scared away Imbize 
 and his bat-like crew, confounded the schemes of John Casimir, 
 frustrated the wiles of Prince Chimay; and, while he lived, Ghent 
 was what it ought always to have remained, the bulwark, as it 
 had been the cradle, of popular liberty. After his death, it became 
 its tomb. Ghent, saved thrice by the policy, the eloquence, the 
 self-sacrifices, of Orange, fell, within three months of his murder, 
 into the hands of Parma. The loss of this most important city, 
 followed in the next year by the downfall of Antwerp, sealed the 
 fate of the Southern Netherlands. Had the Prince lived, how dif- 
 ferent might have been the country's fate ! If seven provinces could 
 dilate in so brief a space into the powerful commonwealth which 
 the republic soon became, what might not have been achieved 
 by the united seventeen? a confederacy which would have 
 united the adamantine vigor of the Batavian and Frisian races with 
 the subtler, more delicate, and more graceful national elements, in 
 
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 271 
 
 which the genius of the Frank, the Roman, and the Romanized 
 Celt, were so intimately blended. As long as the father of the 
 country lived, such a union was possible. His power of managing 
 men was so unquestionable, that there was always a hope, even iii 
 the darkest hour; for men felt implicit reliance, as well on his 
 intellectual resources as on his integrity. This power of dealing 
 with his fellow-men he manifested in the various ways in which it 
 has been usually exhibited by statesmen. He possessed a ready 
 eloquence ; sometimes impassioned, oftener argumentative, always 
 rational. His influence over his audience was unexampled in the 
 annals of that country or age ; yet he never condescended to flat- 
 ter the people. He never followed the nation, but always led her 
 in the path of duty and of honor ; and was much more prone to 
 rebuke the vices than to pander to the passions of his hearers. 
 He never failed to administer ample chastisement to parsimony, 
 to jealousy, to insubordination, to intolerance, to infidelity, wher- 
 ever it was due; nor feared to confront the states or the people in 
 their most angry hours, and to tell them the truth to their faces. 
 This commanding position he alone could stand upon: for his 
 countrymen knew the generosity which had sacrificed his all for 
 them ; the self-denial which had eluded rather than sought politi- 
 cal advancement, whether from king or people ; and the untiring 
 devotion which had consecrated a whole life to toil and danger in 
 the cause of their emancipation. While, therefore, he was ever 
 ready to rebuke, and always too honest to flatter, he at the same 
 time possessed the eloquence which could convince or persuade. 
 He knew how to reach both the mind and the heart of his hear- 
 ers. His orations, whether extemporaneous or prepared; his 
 written messages to the states-general, to the provincial authori- 
 ties, to the municipal bodies ; his private correspondence with 
 men of all ranks, from emperors and kings down to secretaries, 
 and even children, all show an easy flow of language, a fullness 
 of thought, a power of expression rare in that age, a fund of histor- 
 ical allusion, a considerable power of imagination, a warmth of 
 sentiment, a breadth of view, a directness of purpose ; a range of 
 qualities, in short, which would in themselves have stamped him 
 as one of the master-minds of his century, had there been no 
 other monument to his memory than the remains of his spoken 
 or written eloquence. The bulk of his performances in this de- 
 partment was prodigious. Not even Philip was more industrious 
 in the cabinet. Not even Granvelle held a more facile pen. He 
 wrote and spoke equally well in French, German, or Flemish ; 
 and he possessed, besides, Spanish, Italian, Latin. The weight 
 of his correspondence alone would have almost sufficed for the 
 common industry of a lifetime ; and, although many volumes of 
 his speeches and letters have been published, there remain in the 
 
272 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 various archives of the Netherlands and Germany many docu- 
 ments from his hand which will probably never see the light. If 
 the capacity for uiireinitted intellectual labor in an honorable 
 cause be the measure of human greatness, few minds could be 
 compared to the "large composition" of this man. The efforts 
 made to destroy the Netherlands by the most laborious and pains- 
 taking of tyrants were counteracted by the industry of the most 
 indefatigable of patriots. 
 
 Thus his eloquence, oral or written, gave him almost boundless 
 power over his countrymen. He possessed, also, a rare perception 
 of human character, together with an iron memory, which never 
 lost a face, a place, or an event, once seen or known. He read 
 the minds, even the faces, of men, like printed books. No man 
 could overreach him, excepting only those to whom he gave his 
 heart. He might be mistaken where he had confided, never 
 where he had been distrustful or indifferent. He was deceived 
 by Renneberg, by his brother-in-law Van den Berg, by the Duke 
 of Anjou. Had it been possible for his brother Louis or his 
 brother John to have proved false, he might have been deceived 
 by them. He was never outwitted by Philip or Graiivelle or 
 Don John or Alexander of Parma. Anna of Saxony was false to 
 him, and entered into correspondence with the royal governors 
 and with the King of Spain : Charlotte of Bourbon, or Louisa de 
 Coligny, might have done the same, had it been possible for their 
 nature:, ilso to descend to such depths of guile. 
 
 As for the Aerschots, the Havre's, the Chimays, he was never 
 influenced either by their blandishments or their plots. He was 
 willing to use them when their interests made them friendly, or 
 to crush them wLen their intrigues against his policy rendered 
 them dangerous. The adroitness with which he converted their 
 schemes in behalf of Matthias, of Don John, of Anjou, into so 
 many additional weapons for his own cause, can never be too often 
 studied. It is instructive to observe the wiles of the Maehiavel- 
 ian school employed by a master of the craft, to frustrate, not to 
 advance, a knavish purpose. This character, in a great measure, 
 marked his whole policy. He was profoundly skilled in the 
 subtleties of Italian statesmanship, which he had learned as a 
 youth at the imperial court, and which he employed in his man- 
 hood in the service, not of tyranny, but of liberty. He fought 
 the Inquisition with its own weapons. He dealt with Philip on 
 his own ground. He excavated the earth beneath the king's 
 feet by a more subtle process than that practiced by the most 
 fraudulent monarch that ever governed the Spanish Empire ; and 
 Philip, chain-mailed as he was in complicated wiles, was pierced 
 to the quick by a keener policy than his own. 
 
 Ten years long, the king placed daily his most secret letters in 
 
 
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY. 273 
 
 hands which regularly transmitted copies of the correspondence 
 to the Prince of Orange, together with a key to the ciphers, and- 
 every other illustration which might be required. Thus the 
 secrets of the king were always as well known to Orange as to 
 himself; and, the prince being as prompt as Philip was hesitating, 
 the schemes could often be frustrated before their execution had 
 been commenced. The crime of the unfortunate clerk, John de 
 Castillo, was discovered in the autumn of the year 1581 ; and he 
 was torn to pieces by four horses. Perhaps his treason to the 
 monarch whose bread he was eating, while he received a regular 
 salary from the king's most determined foe, deserved even this 
 horrible punishment ; but casuists must determine how much 
 guilt attaches to the prince for his share in the transaction. 
 This history is not the eulogy of Orange ; although, in discussing 
 his character, it is difficult to avoid the monotony of panegyric. 
 Judged by a severe moral standard, it can not be called virtuous 
 or honorable to suborn treachery or any other crime, even to 
 accomplish a lofty purpose: yet the universal practice of mankind 
 in all ages has tolerated the artifices of war ; and no people has 
 ever engaged in a holier or more mortal contest than did the 
 Netherlands in their great struggle with Spain. Orange pos- 
 sessed the rare quality of caution, a characteristic by which he 
 was distinguished from his youth. At fifteen he was the confi- 
 dential counselor, as at twenty-one he became the general-in-chief, 
 to the most politic as well as the most warlike potentate of his 
 age ; and if he at times indulged in wiles which modern states- 
 manship, even while it practices, condemns, he ever held in his 
 hand the clew of an honorable purpose to guide him through the 
 tortuous labyrinth. 
 
 It is difficult to find any other characteristic deserving of grave 
 censure ; but his enemies have adopted a simpler process. They 
 have been able to find a few flaws in his nature, and therefore have 
 denounced it in gross. It is not that his character was here and 
 there defective, but that the eternal jewel was false ; the patri- 
 otism was counterfeit ; the self-abnegation and the generosity were 
 counterfeit ; he was governed only by ambition, by a desire of 
 personal advancement. They never attempted to deny his tal- 
 ents, his industry, his vast sacrifices of wealth and station ; but 
 they ridiculed the idea that lie could have been inspired by any 
 but unworthy motives. God alone knows the heart of man. He 
 alone can unweave the tangled skein of human motives, and de- 
 tect the hidden springs of human action ; but as far as can be 
 judged by a careful observation of undisputed facts, and by a dili- 
 gent collation of public and private documents, it would seem that 
 no man not even Washington has ever been inspired by a 
 purer patriotism. At any rate, the charge of ambition and self- 
 is 
 
274 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 seeking can only be answered by a reference to the whole picture 
 which these volumes have attempted to portray. The words, the 
 deeds, of the man, are there. As mucji as possible, his inmost soul 
 is revealed in his confidential letters ; and he who looks in a right 
 spirit will hardly fail to find what he desires. 
 
 Whether originally of a timid temperament or not, he was cer- 
 tainly possessed of perfect courage at last. In siege and battle, 
 in the deadly air of pestilential cities, in the long exhaustion of 
 mind and body which comes from unduly protracted labor and 
 anxiet\-, amid the countless conspiracies of assassins, he was daily 
 exposed to death in every shape. Within two years, five differ- 
 ent attempts against his life had been discovered. Rank and 
 fortune were offered to any malefactor who would compass the 
 murder. He had already been shot through the head, and almost 
 mortally wounded. Under such circumstances, even a brave man 
 might have seen a pitfall at every step, a dagger in every hand, 
 and poison in every cup. On the contrary, he was ever cheerful, 
 and hardly took more precaution than usual. "God, in his 
 mercy," said he with unaffected simplicity, " will maintain my 
 innocence and my honor during my life, and in future ages. As 
 to my fortune and my life, I have dedicated both, long since, to 
 his service. He will do therewith what pleases him for his glory 
 and my salvation." Thus his suspicions were not even excited 
 l>v the ominous face of Gerard when he first presented himself at 
 the dining-room door. The prince laughed off his wife's pro- 
 phetic apprehension at the sight of his murderer, and was as 
 cheerful as usual to the last. 
 
 He possessed, too, that which to the heathen philosopher seemed 
 the greatest good, the sound mind in the sound body. His 
 physical frame was after death found so perfect, that a long life 
 might have been in store for him, notwithstanding all which he 
 had endured. The desperate illness of 1574, the frightful gun- 
 shot wound inflicted by Jaureguy in 1582, had left no traces. 
 The physicians pronounced that his body presented an aspect of 
 perfect health. His temperament was cheerful. At table, the 
 pleasures of which, in moderation, were his only relaxation, he 
 was always animated and merry; and this jocoseness was partly 
 natural, partly intentional. In the darkest hours of his country's 
 trial, he affected a serenity which he was far from feeling; so that 
 his apparent gayety at momentous epochs was even censured by 
 dullards, who could not comprehend its philosophy, nor applaud 
 the flippancy of William the Silent. 
 
 He went through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows 
 upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name was the last 
 word upon his lips, save the simple affirmative with which the 
 soldier, who had been battling for the right all his lifetime, coin- 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 275 
 
 mended his soul, in dying, " to his great Captain, Christ." The 
 people were grateful and affectionate ; for they trusted the charac- 
 ter of their "Father William:" and not all the clouds which cal- 
 umny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of 
 that lofty mind to which they were accustomed, in the darkest 
 calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he was the 
 guiding-s'tar of a whole brave nation ; and, when he died, the little 
 children cried in the streets. 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER 
 
 BORN JAN. 6, 1811, MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Orator, statesman, and philanthropist. Every question of law, politics, or morals, 
 that this distinguished scholar touches upon, is treated in an ejoquent and exhaus- 
 tive manner. His essays, speeches, and orations are now publishing in several 
 volumes. 
 
 FINGER-POINT FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK. 
 
 . Mr. President, You bid me speak for the Senate of the 
 United States. But I can not forget that there is another voice 
 here, of classical eloquence, which might more fitly render this 
 service. As one of the humblest members of that bodj 7 , and asso- 
 ciated with the public councils for a brief period only, I should 
 prefer that my distinguished colleague [Mr. Everett], whose fame 
 is linked with a long political life, should speak for it. And there 
 is yet another here [Mr. Hale], who, though not at this moment 
 a member of the Senate, has throughout an active and brilliant 
 career, marked by a rare combination of ability, eloquence, and 
 good humor, so identified himself with it in the public mind, that 
 he might well speak for it always ; and, when he speaks, all are 
 pleased to listen. But, sir, you have ordered it otherwise. 
 
 From the tears and trials at Delft Haven, from the deck of " The 
 Mayflower," from the landing at Plymouth Rock, to the Senate 
 of the United States, is a mighty contrast, covering whole spaces 
 of history, hardly less than from the wolf that suckled Romulus 
 and Remus to that Roman Senate, which, on curule chairs, swayed 
 Italy and the world. From these obscure beginnings of poverty 
 and weakness, which you now piously commemorate, and on which 
 all our minds naturally rest to-day, you bid us leap to that marble 
 capitol, where thirty-one powerful republics, bound in indissoluble 
 union, a plural unit, are gathered together in legislative bod m y, 
 constituting a part of one government, which, stretching from 
 
276 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ocean to ocean, and counting millions of people beneath its majes- 
 tic rule, surpasses far in wealth and might any government of the 
 Old World when the little band of Pilgrims left it ; and now prom- 
 ises to be a clasp between Europe and Asia, bringing the most 
 distant places near together, so that there shall be no more Ori- 
 ent or Occident. It were interesting to dwell on the stages of 
 this grand procession ; but it is enough, on this occasion, merely 
 to glance at them, and pass on. 
 
 Sir, it is the Pilgrims that we commemorate to-day, not the 
 Senate. For this moment, at least, let us tread under foot all 
 pride of empire, all exultation in our manifold triumphs of 
 industry, of science, of literature, with all the crowding antici- 
 pations of the vast untold future, that we may reverently bow 
 before the forefathers. The day is tt eirs. In the contemplation 
 of their virtue we shall derive a lesson, which, like truth, may 
 judge us sternly; but it we cnn realty follow it, like truth, it 
 shall make us free. For myself, I accept the admonitions of the 
 day. It may teach us all, never by word or act, although we may 
 be few in numbers or alone, to swerve from those primal princi- 
 ples of duty, which, from the landing at Plymouth Rock, have 
 been the life of Massachusetts. Let me briefly unfold the lesson ; 
 though, to the discerning soul, it unfolds itself. 
 
 Few persons in history have suffered more from contemporary 
 misrepresentation, abuse, and 'persecution, than the English Puri- 
 tans. At first a small body, they were regarded with indifference 
 and contempt. But by degrees they grew in numbers, and drew 
 into their company men of education, intelligence, and even of 
 rank. Reformers in all ages have had little of blessing from the 
 world which they sought to serve ; but the Puritans were not dis- 
 h carter i d. Still they persevered. The obnoxious laws of con- 
 formity they vowed to withstand, till, in the fervid language of 
 the time, "they be sent back to the darkness from whence they 
 came." Through them, the spirit of modern freedom made itself 
 potently felt in :>s great warfare with authority in Church, in 
 Literature, and in the State ; in other words, for religious, intel- 
 lectual, and political emancipation. The Puritans primarily 
 aimed at religious freedr n : for this they contended in Parlia- 
 ment, under Elizabeth and James; for this they suffered. But so 
 connected are all these great and glorious interests, that the 
 struggles for one have always helped the others. Such service 
 did they do, that Hume, whose cold nature sympathized little with 
 their burning souls, is obliged to confess, that, to the Puritans 
 alone, "the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." 
 
 As among all reformers, so among them, there were differences* 
 of degree. Some continued within the pale of the national 
 Church, and there pressed their ineffectual attempts in behalf of 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 277 
 
 the good cause. Some, at length, driven by conscientious convic- 
 tions, and unwilling to be partakers longer in its enormities, stung 
 also by the cruel excesses of magisterial power, openly disclaimed 
 the National Establishment, and became a separate sect, first 
 under the name of Brownists, from the person who had led in this 
 new organization ; and then under the better name of Separatists. 
 I like this word, sir. It has a meaning. After long struggles in 
 Parliament and out of it, in Church and State, continued through 
 successive reigns, the Puritans finally triumphed ; and the de- 
 spised sect of Separatists, swollen in numbers, and now under the 
 denomination of Independents, with Oliver Cromwell at their head, 
 and John Milton as his secretary, ruled England. Thus is pre- 
 figured the final triumph of all, however few in numbers, who 
 sincerely devote themselves to truth. 
 
 The Pilgrims of Plymouth were among the earliest of the Sep- 
 aratists. As such, they knew by bitter experience all the sharp- 
 ness of persecution. Against them the men in power raged like 
 the heathen. Against them the whole fury of the law was 
 directed. Some were imprisoned; all were impoverished ; while 
 their name became a by-word of reproach. For safety and free- 
 dom, the little band first sought shelter in Holland, where they con- 
 tinued in indigence and obscurity for more than ten years ; when 
 they were inspired to seek a home in this unknown Western 
 world. Such, in brief, is their history. I could not say more of 
 it without intruding upon your time: I could not say less without 
 injustice to them. Rarely have austere principles been expressed 
 with more gentleness than from their lips. By a covenant with 
 the Lord, they had vowed to walk in all his ways, according to 
 their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them ; and also to 
 receive whatsoever truth should be made known from the written 
 word of God. Repentance and prayers, patience and tears, were 
 their weapons. " It is not with us," said they, " as with other 
 men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontent- 
 ments cause to wish themselves at home again." And then, 
 again, on another occasion, their souls were lifted to utterance 
 like this : " When we are in our graves, it will be all one whether 
 we have lived in plenty or penury; whether we have died in a bed 
 of down, or on locks of straw." Self-sacrifice is never in vain ; and 
 they foresaw with the clearness of prophecy, that out of their 
 trials should come a transcendent future. "As one small candle," 
 said an early Pilgrim governor, " may lio;ht a thousand, so the light 
 kindled here may in some sort shine even to the whole nation." 
 
 And yet these men, with such sublime endurance and such 
 lofty faith, are among those who are Sometimes called " Puritan 
 knaves" and "knaves-Puritans," and who were branded by King 
 James as the " very pests in the Church and Commonwealth." 
 
278 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The small company of our forefathers became the jest and gibe of 
 fashion and power. The phrase, "men of one idea," had not been 
 invented then; but, in equivalent language, they were styled 
 " the pinched fanatics of Ley den." A contemporary poet, and 
 favorite of Charles the First, Thomas Carew, lent his genius to 
 their defamation. A mask, from his elegant and careful pen, 
 was performed by the monarch and his courtiers, wherein the whole 
 plantation of Xe\v England was turned to royal sport. The jeer 
 broke forth in the exclamation, that it had "purged more virulent 
 humors from the politic bodies than guaiarum and all the West- 
 Indian drugs from the natural bodies of the kingdom." 
 
 And these outcasts, despised in their own day by the proud and 
 great, are the men whom we have met in this goodly number to 
 celebrate, not for any victory of war ; not for any triumph of 
 discovery, science, learning, or eloquence ; not for worldly success 
 of any kind. How poor are all these things by the side of that 
 divine virtue which made them, amidst the reproach, the obloquy, 
 and the hardness of the world, hold fast to freedom and truth ! 
 Sir, if the honors of this day are not a mockery ; if they do not 
 expend themselves in mere selfish gratulation; if they are a 
 sincere homage to the character of the Pilgrims (and I can not 
 suppose otherwise), then is it well for us to be here. Standing 
 on Plymouth Rock at their great anniversary, we can not fail to 
 be elevated by their example. We see clearly what it has done 
 for the world, and what it has done for their fame. No pusil- 
 lanimous soul here to-day will declare their self-sacrifice, their de- 
 viation from received opinions, their unquenchable thirst for liber- 
 ty, an error or illusion. From gush ing multitudinous hearts we 
 now thank these lowly men that they dared to be true and brave. 
 Conformity or compromise might, perhaps, have purchased for 
 them a profitable peace, but not peace of mind ; it might have 
 secured place anil power, but not repose ; it might have opened a 
 present shelter, but not a home in history and in men's hearts till 
 time shall be no more. All will confess the true grandeur of their 
 example, while, in vindication of a cherished principle, they stood 
 alone, against the madness of men, against the law of the land, 
 against their king. Better be the despised Pilgrim, a fugitive 
 for freedom, than the halting politician, forgetful of principle, 
 " with a senate at his heels." 
 
 Such, sir, is the voice from Plymouth Hock as it salutes my 
 ears. Others may not hear it ; but to me it comes in tones 
 which I can not mistake. I catch its words of noble cheer : 
 
 "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth. 
 They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of Truth: 
 Lo! before u* sleam her camp-fires. We ourselves mn<t Pilgrims be, 
 Launch our 'Mayflower,' and steer boldly through the de-nerate winter sea." 
 
 Speech at the Plymouth Ftstival, August, 1853. 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 279 
 
 EXPENSES OF WAR AND EDUCATION COMPARED. 
 
 IT appears from the last report of the treasurer of Harvard 
 University, that its whole available property the various accu- 
 mulations of more than two centuries of generosity amounts to 
 $703,175. 
 
 There now swings idly at her moorings in this harbor a ship 
 of the line, "The Ohio," carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 
 1836, for $547,888 ; repaired only two years afterwards, in 1838, 
 for $223,012 ; with an armament which has cost $53,945 ; mak- 
 ing an amount of $834,845 as the actual cost at this moment of 
 that single ship, more than $100,000 beyond all the available 
 accumulations of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in 
 the land ! Choose ye, my fellow-citizens of a Christian State, be- 
 tween the two caskets, that w r herein is the loveliness of knowl- 
 edge and truth, or that which contains the carrion death. 
 
 Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of the 
 captain of a ship like "The Ohio" is $4,500 when in service; 
 $3,500 when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the 
 president of Harvard University is $2,205, without leave of ab- 
 sence, and never being off duty. 
 
 If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by 
 a comparison with the expense of a single ship of the line, how 
 much more must it be so with those Of other institutions of learn- 
 ing and beneficence less favored by the bounty of many genera- 
 tions ! The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000; more, 
 probably, than all the endowments of those twin-stars of learning 
 in the western part of Massachusetts, the colleges at Williams- 
 town and Amhei'st; and of that single star in the east, the guide 
 to many ingenuous youth, the seminary at Andover. The yearly 
 cost of a sloop of war in service is above $50,000; more than the 
 annual expenditures of these three institutions combined. 
 
 Take all the institutions of learning and beneficence, the pre- 
 cious jewels of the Commonwealth, the schools, colleges, hospitals, 
 and asylums, and the sums by which they have been purchased 
 and preserved are trivial and beggarly compared with the treas- 
 ures squandered within the borders of Massachusetts in vain 
 preparations for war. There is the navy-yard at Charlestown, 
 with its stores on hand, all costing $4,741,000; the fortifications 
 in the harbors of Massachusetts, in which have been sunk already 
 incalculable sums, and in which it is now proposed to sink 
 $3,853,000 more ; and, besides, the arsenal at Springfield, con- 
 taining, in 1842, 175,118 muskets, valued at $2,999,998, and 
 which is fed by an annual appropriation of about $200,000, but 
 whose highest value will ever be, in the judgment of all lovers of 
 
280 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 truth, that it inspired a poem, which in its influence shall be 
 mightier than a battle, and shall endure when arsenals and forti- 
 fications have crumbled to the earth. 
 
 J UDI CIAL TR IB UNALS. 
 
 LET me here say, that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme 
 Court of the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with 
 the history of judicial proceedings to regard them with any super- 
 stitious reverence. Judges are but men, and, in all ages, have 
 shown a full share of human frailty. Alas, alas! the worst 
 crimes of history have been perpetrated under their sanction. 
 The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the ground, 
 summons them to judgment. It was a judicial tribunal which 
 condemned Socrates to drink the fatal hemlock, and which pu.-hed 
 the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of Jerusalem, bending 
 beneath his cross. It was a judicial tribunal, which, against the 
 testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair Vir- 
 ginia as a slave ; which arrested the teachings of the great apostle 
 to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judaea to Koine ; 
 which, in the name of the old religion, adjudged the saints and 
 fathers of the Christian Church to death in all its most dreadful 
 forms; and which afterwards, in the name of the new religion, 
 enforced the tortures of the Inquisition a ni-lst the shrieks an>l 
 agonies of its victims, while it compelled Galileo to declare, in 
 solemn denial of the great truth he had disclosed, that the earth 
 did not move round the sun. It was a julicial tribunal, which in 
 France, during the long reign of her monarch*, lent itself to be 
 the instrument of every tyranny, as, during the brief Reign of 
 Terror, it did not hesitate to stand forth the unpi tying accessory of 
 the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a judicial tribunal in 
 England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which sanctioned 
 every despotic caprice of Henry the Eighth, from the unjust 
 divorce of hi* queen to the beheading of Sir Thomas More; 
 which lighted the fires of persecution that glowed at Oxford and 
 Smithfield over the cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rogers; 
 which, after elaborate argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship- 
 money against the patriot resistance of Hampden ; which, in 
 defiance of justice and humanity, sent Sidney and Russell to the 
 block ; which persistently enforced the laws of conformity that 
 our Puritan Fathers persistently refused to obey; and which 
 afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of 
 English history with massacre and murder. even with the blood 
 of innocent woman. Ay, sir, and it was a judicial tribunal in our 
 
EDWARD EVERETT. 281 
 
 country, surrounded by all the forms of law, which hung Avitches 
 at Salem ; which affirmed the constitutionality of the Stamp Act, 
 while it admonished "jurors and the people " to obey ; and 
 which now, in our day, has lent its sanction to the unutterable 
 atrocity of the Fugitive-slave Bill. 
 
 Speech at Worcester, September, 1854. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 1794-1866. 
 
 This distinguished scholar, orator, and statesman was born in Dorchester, Mass. 
 Of a wonderful memory, he committed all his rhetorically faultless orations and 
 speeches, and declaimed them witii the most studied precision of gesture. What- 
 ever the subject or occasion, we find the same grace and elegance of manner in 
 style and speech. From the third volume of his works we make two selections. 
 
 DUDLEY OBSERVATORY, ALBANY, 1856. 
 
 WE derive from the observations of the heavenly bodies which 
 are made at an observatory our only adequate measures of time, 
 and our only means of comparing the time of one place witli the 
 time of another. Our artificial timekeepers, clocks, watches, 
 and chronometers, however ingeniously contrived and admira- 
 bly fabricated, are but a transcript, so to say, of the celestial mo- 
 tions, and would be of no value without the means of regulating 
 them by observation. It is impossible for them, under any cir- 
 cumstances, to escape the imperfection of all machinery, the work 
 of human hands ; and, the moment we remove with our time- 
 keeper east or west, it fails us. It will keep home-time alone, like 
 the fond traveler who leaves his heart behind him. The artifi- 
 cial instrument, is of incalculable utility, but must itself be regu- 
 lated by the eternal clockwork of the skies. 
 
 This single consideration is sufficient to show how completely 
 the daily business of life is affected and controlled by the heavenly 
 bodies. It is they, and not our main-springs, our expansion- 
 balances, and our compensation-pendulums, which give us our 
 time. To reverse the line of Pope, 
 
 '"Tis with our watches as our judgments: none 
 Go just alike; yet each believes his own." 
 
 But for all the kindreds and tribes and tongues of men, each 
 upon their own meridian, from the arctic pole to the equator, 
 
282 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 from the equator to the antarctic pole, the eternal sun strikes 
 twelve at noon, and the glorious constellations far up in the ever- 
 lasting belfries of the skies chime twelve at midnight, twelve 
 for the pale student over his flickering lamp ; twelve amid the 
 flaming wonders of Orion's belt, if he crosses the meridian at that 
 fated hour; twelve by the weary couch of laHguishing humanity; 
 twelve in the star-paved courts of the empyrean ; twelve for the 
 heaving tides of the ocean ; twelve for the weary arm of labor ; 
 twelve for the toiling brain; twelve for the watching, 'waking, 
 broken heart ; twelve for the meteor which blazes for a moment, 
 and expires; twelve for the comet whose period is measured by 
 centuries ; twelve for every substantial, for ever} 7 imaginary thing, 
 which exists in the sense, the intellect, or the fancy, and which 
 the speech or thought of man at the given meridian refers to the 
 lapse of time. 
 
 I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from 
 Providence to Boston, and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in 
 the morning. Every thing around was wrapped in darkness, and 
 hushed in silence, broken only b}^ what seemed at that hour the 
 unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene 
 midsummer's night : the sky was without a cloud ; the winds were 
 whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen ; and 
 the stars shone with a spectral luster but little affected by her 
 presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day ; 
 the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in 
 the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her 
 newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south ; the 
 steady Pointers far beneath the pole looked meekly up from the 
 depths of the north to their sovereign. 
 
 JSucl) was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we 
 proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more percepti- 
 ble ; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller 
 stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of 
 the Pleiades soon melted together: but the bright constellations 
 of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the won- 
 drous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from 
 mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens ; the glories of night 
 dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned 
 more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; 
 the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed 
 along the sky ; the whole celestial concave was filled with the in- 
 flowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down 
 from above in one great ocean of radiance ; till at length, as we 
 reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above 
 the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and It-af 
 
EDWARD EVERETT. 283 
 
 into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates 
 of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, ar- 
 rayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW-YORK AGRICULTURAL 
 SOCIETY, 1857. 
 
 A CELEBRATED skeptical philosopher of the last century the 
 historian Hume thought to demolish the credibility of the 
 Christian revelation by the concise argument, " It is contrary 
 to experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to 
 experience that testimony should be false." Contrary to experi- 
 rience that phenomena should exist which we can not trace to 
 causes perceptible to the human sense or conceivable by human 
 thought ! It would be much nearer the truth to say, that, within 
 the husbandman's experience, there are no phenomena which can 
 be rationally traced to any thing but the instant energy of crea- 
 tive power. 
 
 Did this philosopher ever contemplate the landscape at the close 
 of the year, when seeds and grains and fruits have ripened, and 
 stalks have withered, and leaves have fallen, and Winter has forced 
 her icy curb even into the roaring jaws of Niagara, and sheeted 
 half a continent in her glittering shroud, and all this teeming vege- 
 tation and organized life are locked in cold and marble obstruc- 
 tions ? And after week upon week, and month upon month, have 
 swept, with sleet, and chilly rain, and howling storm, over the 
 earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon the door of Nature's 
 sepulcher, when the sun at length begins to wheel in higher 
 circles through the sk}-, and softer winds to breathe over melting 
 snows, did he ever behold the long-hidden earth at length ap- 
 pear, and soon the timid grass peep forth, and anon the autumnal 
 wheat begin to paint the field, and velvet leaflets to burst from 
 purple buds throughout the reviving forest, and then the mellow 
 soil to open its fruitful bosom to every grain and seed dropped 
 from the planter's hand, buried, but to spring up again, clothed 
 with a new, mysterious being? And then, as more fervid suns in- 
 flame the air, and softer showers distill from the clouds, and 
 gentler dews string their pearls on twig and tendril, did he ever 
 watch the ripening grain and fruit, pendent from stalk and vine 
 and tree ; the meadow, the field, the pasture, the grove, each after 
 his kind, arrayed in myriad-tinted garments, instinct with circu- 
 lating life ; seven millions of counted leaves on a single tree, each 
 of which is a system whose exquisite complication puts to shame 
 the shrewdest cunning of the human, hand; every planted seed 
 
284 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and grain which had been loaned to the earth compounding its 
 pious usury thirty, sixty, a hundred fold, all harmoniously 
 adapted to the sustenance of living nature, the bread of a hungry 
 world ; here a tilled corn-field, whose yellow blades are nodding 
 with the food of man ; there an unplanted wilderness, the 
 great Father's farm, where He " who hears the raven's cry " 
 has cultivated with his own hand his merciful crop of berries 
 and nuts and acorns and seeds for the humbler families of ani- 
 mated nature, the solemn elephant; the browsing deer; the wild 
 pigeon, whose fluttering caravan darkens the sky; the merry 
 squirrel, who bounds from branch to branch in the joy of his 
 little life, has he seen all this ? Does he see it every year and 
 month and day ? Does he live and move and breathe and 
 think in this atmosphere of wonder, himself the greatest won- 
 der of all, whose smallest fiber and faintest pulsation is as much a 
 mystery as the blazing glories of Orion's belt ? And does he still 
 maintain that a miracle is contrary to experience ? If he has, 
 and if he does, then let him go, in the name of Heaven, and say 
 that it is contrary to experience that the august Power which turns 
 the clods of the earth into the daily bread of a thousand million 
 souls could feed five thousand in the wilderness. 
 
 One more suggestion, my friends, and I relieve your patience. 
 As a work of art, I know few things more pleasing to the eye, or 
 more capable of affording sctfpe and gratification to a taste for the 
 beautiful, than a well-situated, well-cultivated farm. The man of 
 refinement will hang with never-wearied gaze on a landscape by 
 Claude or Salvator : the price of a section of the most fertile land 
 in the West would not purchase a few square feet of the canvas 
 on which these great artists have depicted a rural scene. But 
 Xature has forms and proportions beyond the painter's skill : her 
 divine pencil touches the landscape with living lights and shadows 
 never mingled on his pallet. What is there on earth which can 
 more entirely charm the eye or gratify the taste than a noble 
 farm ? It stands upon a southern slope, gradually rising with 
 variegated ascent from the plain, sheltered from the north-western 
 winds by woody hights, broken here and there with moss-covered 
 bowlders, which impart variety and strength to the outline. The 
 native forest has been cleared from the greater part of the farm ; but 
 a suitable portion, carefully tended, remains in wood for economical 
 purposes, and to give a picturesque effect to the landscape. The 
 eye ranges round three-fourths of the horizon over a fertile ex- 
 panse bright with the cheerful waters of a rippling stream, a 
 generous river, or a gleaming lake dotted with hamlets, each 
 with its modest spire ; and, if the farm lies in the vicinity of the 
 coast, a distant glimpse, from the high grounds, of the mysterious, 
 everlasting sea, completes the prospect. It is situated off the high 
 
EDWARD EVERETT. 285 
 
 road, but near enough to the village to be easily accessible to the 
 church, the schoolhouse, the post-office, the railroad, a sociable 
 neighbor, or a traveling friend. It consists, in due proportion, of 
 pasture and tillage, meadow and woodland, field and garden. A 
 substantial dwelling, with every thing for convenience, and nothing 
 for ambition, with the fitting appendages of stable and barn 
 and corn-barn and other farm buildings, not forgetting a spring- 
 house with a living fountain of water, occupies upon a gravelly 
 knoll a position well chosen to command the whole estate. A 
 few acres on the front and on the sides of the dwelling, set apart 
 to gratify the eye, with the choicer forms of rural beauty, are 
 adorned with a stately avenue, with noble, solitary trees, with 
 graceful clumps, shady walks, a velvet lawn, a brook murmuring 
 over a pebbly bed, here and there a grand rock whose cool shadow 
 at sunset streams across the field; all displaying in the real love- 
 liness of Nature the original of those landscapes of which Art in 
 its perfection strives to give us the counterfeit presentment. 
 Animals of select breed, such as Paul Potter and Morland and 
 Landseer and Rosa Bonheur never painted, roam the pastures, or 
 fill the hurdles and the stalls ; the plow walks in rustic majesty 
 across the plain, and opens the genial bosom of the earth to the sun 
 and air; Nature's holy sacrament of seed-time is solemnized be- 
 neath the vaulted cathedral sky ; silent dews and gentle showers 
 and kindly sunshine shed their sweet influence on the teeming 
 soil ; springing verdure clothes the plain ; golden wavelets, driven 
 by the west wind, run over the joyous wheat-field; the tall maize 
 flaunts in her crispy leaves and nodding tassels. While we labor and 
 while we rest, while we wake and while we sleep, God's chemistry, 
 which we can not see, goes on beneath the clods; myriads and 
 myriads of vital cells ferment with elemental life ; germ and 
 stalk, and leaf and flower, and silk and tassel, and grain and fruit, 
 grow up from the common earth; the mowing-machine and the 
 reaper mute rivals of human industry perform their gladsome 
 task ; the well-piled wagon brings home the ripened treasures of 
 the year ; the bow of promise fulfilled spans the foreground of the 
 picture; and the gracious covenant is redeemed, that, while tlie 
 earth remaineth, summer and winter, and heat and cold, and day 
 and night, and seed-time and harvest, shall not fail. 
 
286 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 1782-1852. 
 
 Born in Salisbury, N. H. As a jurist, statesman, and orator, he had no superior, 
 and but few equals,* in ancient or modern times. His reply to Hayne in the United- 
 States Senate (1830) won him the title of the "Godlike Daniel." His life aud 
 speeches make several volumes. 
 
 ELOQUENCE. 
 
 WIIEX public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occa- 
 sions, when great interests are at stake and strong passions 
 excited, nothing is valuable in speech further than it is connected 
 with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, 
 and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. 
 
 True eloquence does not consist in speech. It can not be 
 brought from afar. Labor and learning may toil for it ; but they 
 will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every 
 way ; but they can not compass it. It must exist in the man, in 
 the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense ex- 
 pression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it: they 
 can not reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking 
 of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting-forth of volcanic 
 fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught 
 in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of 
 speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the 
 fate of their wives, their children, and their county, hang on the 
 decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power; rhetoric 
 is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius 
 itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of 
 higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion 
 is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of 
 logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, 
 speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every 
 feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his 
 object, this, this is eloquence : or, rather, it is something greater 
 and higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, 
 Godlike action. 
 
 B UNKER-HILL MON UMEN T. 
 
 WE know that the record of illustrious actions is most safely 
 deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know 
 that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it 
 reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surface would 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 287 
 
 still contain but part of that, which, in an age of knowledge, hath 
 already been spread over the earth, and which History charges 
 herself with making known to all future times. We know that 
 no inscription on entablatures less broad than the earth itself can 
 carry information of the events we commemorate where it has not 
 already gone ; and that no structure which shall not outlive the 
 duration of letters and knowledge among men can prolong the 
 memorial. But our object is, by this edifice, to show our deep 
 sense of the value and importance of the achievements of our an- 
 cestors ; and, by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to 
 keep alive similar sentiments, and to foster a similar regard to the 
 principles of the Revolution. Human beings are composed, not 
 of reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment ; and that 
 is neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the pur- 
 pose of giving right direction to sentiments, and opening proper 
 springs of feeling in the heart. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that our object in erecting this edifice is 
 to perpetuate national hostility, or even to cherish a mere military 
 spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to 
 the spirit of national independence ; and we wish that the light of 
 peace may rest upon it for ever. We rear a memorial of our con- 
 viction of that unmeasured benefit which has been conferred on 
 our own land, and of the happy influences which have been pro- 
 duced by the same events on the general interests of mankind. 
 We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must for ever be 
 dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all 
 coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place 
 is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolu- 
 tion was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the 
 magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every 
 age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection 
 from maternal lips ; and that weary and withered age may behold 
 it, and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We 
 wish that labor may look up here, and be proud, in the midst of 
 its toil. We wish, that in those days of disaster, which, as they 
 come on all nations, must be expected to come on us also, de- 
 sponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured 
 that the foundations of our national power still stand strong. We 
 wish that this column, rising toward heaven among the pointed 
 spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also 
 to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and grati- 
 tude. We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him 
 who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who 
 revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the lib- 
 erty and glory of his country. Let it rise till it meet the sun in 
 his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and part- 
 ing day linger and play on its summit. 
 
288 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 CRIME REVEALED BY CONSCIENCE. 
 
 THE deed* was executed with a degree of self-possession and 
 steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. 
 The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole 
 scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, 
 and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep 
 was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their 
 soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the win- 
 dow already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With 
 noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon. 
 He winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the 
 chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued 
 pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise ; and he enters, 
 and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly 
 open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper 
 was turned from the murderer; and the beams of the moon, rest- 
 ing on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to 
 strike. The fatal blow is given; and the victim passes, without 
 a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of 
 death. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work ; and he 
 yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been de- 
 stroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged 
 arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it 
 again over the wounds of the poniard. To finish the picture, he 
 explores the wrist for the pulse. He feels for it, and ascertains 
 that it beats no longer. It is accomplished. The deed is done. 
 He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through 
 it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder : no eye 
 has seen him ; no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and 
 it is safe. 
 
 Ah, gentlemen ! that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret 
 can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither 
 nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. 
 Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, and 
 beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of 
 guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, 
 generally speaking, that " murder will out." True it is, that 
 Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that 
 those who break the great law of heaven by shedding man's 
 blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially in a 
 case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and 
 will come sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to ex- 
 plore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with 
 
 * The murder of Joseph White, Esq., of Salc-m, Mass., ApriL6, 1830. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 289 
 
 the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thou- 
 sand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all 
 their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a 
 blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul can not keep its 
 own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible 
 impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its 
 guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human 
 heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It 
 finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowl- 
 edge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it; and it can ask no 
 sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret 
 which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like 
 the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him 
 whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to 
 his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world 
 sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its work- 
 ings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his 
 master. It betrays his discretion ; it breaks down his courage ; it 
 conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to 
 embarrass him, arid the net of circumstances to entangle him, the 
 fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It 
 must be confessed ; it will be confessed : there is no refuge from 
 confession but suicide ; and suicide is confession. 
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 IT was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it 
 were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member 
 from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems 
 to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language and an extraor- 
 dinary tone for the discussions of this body. Matches and over- 
 matches ! those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, 
 and fitter for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentleman 
 seems to forget where and what we are. This is a senate, a sen- 
 ate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, 
 and of absolute independence. We know no masters; we ac- 
 knowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation 
 and discussion ; not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I 
 offer myself, sir, as a match for no man. I throw the challenge 
 of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable 
 member has put the question in a manner that calls for an an- 
 swer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding 
 myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know noth- 
 ing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when 
 
 19 
 
290 . ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need 
 deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to 
 espouse, from debating whenever I n^ay choose to debate, or from 
 speaking whatever I may see fit to say on the floor of the Senate. 
 Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I 
 should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might 
 say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my 
 own. But, when put to me as a matter of taunt, I throw it back, 
 and say to the gentleman, that he could possibly say nothing less 
 likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal 
 character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from inten- 
 tional irony, which otherwise, probably, would have been its gen- 
 eral acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual 
 quotation and commendation ; if it be supposed that by casting 
 the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one 
 the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it be thought that by 
 a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are 
 to be won here ; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all of 
 these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the hon- 
 orable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that 
 he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet 
 much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself on this occasion to 
 be betrayed into anj' loss of temper ; but if provoked, as I trust I 
 never shall allow myself to be, into crimination and recrimination, 
 the honorable member may perhaps find, that in that contest 
 there will be blows to take as well as blows to give; that others 
 can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that 
 his impunity may, perhaps, demand of him whatever powers of 
 taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent 
 husbandry of his resources. 
 
 The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South 
 Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her revolutionary and 
 other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowl- 
 edge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for 
 whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South 
 Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor. I partake in 
 the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrj^men, one 
 and all, the Laurenses, Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sum- 
 ters, the Marions (Americans all), whose fame is no more to 
 be hemmed in by State lines than their talents and patriotism 
 were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow 
 limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the 
 country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treas- 
 ures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gen- 
 tleman bears himself does he suppose me less capable of grati- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER, 291 
 
 tude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his 
 eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of 
 South Carolina ? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit 
 a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? No, 
 sir! increased gratification and delight, rather. Sir, I thank 
 God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to 
 be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, 
 of that other spirit which would drag angels down. 
 
 When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or 
 elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happened to spring 
 up beyond the little limits of my own State and neighborhood ; 
 when I refuse for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage 
 due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion 
 to liberty and the country ; or if I see an uncommon endowment 
 of heaven, if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any 
 son of the South ; and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened 
 by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from 
 his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the 
 roof of my mouth ! Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections ; 
 let me indulge in refreshing remembrances of the past ; let me 
 remind you, that, in early times, no States cherished greater har- 
 mony, both of principle and of feeling, than Massachusetts and 
 South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again re- 
 turn! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution; 
 hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, 
 and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind 
 feeling (if it exist), alienation, and distrust, are the growth, unnat- 
 ural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, 
 the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachu- 
 setts : she needs none. There she is : behold her, and judge 
 for yourselves. There is her history: the world knows it by 
 heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Con- 
 cord and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will re- 
 main for ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle 
 for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State, 
 from New England to Georgia ; and there they will lie for ever. 
 And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where 
 its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the 
 strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord 
 and disunion shall wound it ; if party st'rife and blind ambition 
 shall hawk at and tear it ; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under 
 salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from 
 that union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will 
 stand in the end by the side of that cradle in which its infancy 
 
292 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor 
 it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it ; and it 
 will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of 
 its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. 
 
 Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent 
 to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I 
 am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much too 
 long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous delibera- 
 tion such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important 
 a subject : but it is a subject of which my heart is full ; and I 
 have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous 
 sentiments. I can not, even now, persuade myself to relinquish 
 it, without expressing once more my deep conviction, that, since 
 it respects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of most 
 vital and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, 
 sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the pros- 
 perity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of 
 our Federal Union. It is to that Union that we owe our safety at 
 home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that 
 Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most 
 proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the dis- 
 cipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its 
 origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate com- 
 mence, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these 
 great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang 
 forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed 
 with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although 
 our territory lias stretched out wider and wider, and our popula- 
 tion spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protec- 
 tion or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of 
 national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed my- 
 self, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden 
 in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances 
 of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall 
 be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over 
 the precipice of disunion to see whether, with my short sight, I 
 can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him 
 as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government whose 
 thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union 
 should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition 
 of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While 
 the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects 
 spread out before us for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek 
 not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that, in my day at least, that 
 curtain may not rise ! God grant, that on my vision never may be 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 293 
 
 opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to be- 
 hold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him 
 shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once-glo- 
 rious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a 
 land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal 
 blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold 
 the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
 throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and tro- 
 phies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or pol- 
 luted, nor a single star obscured ; bearing for its motto no such 
 miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth ? nor those 
 other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union after- 
 wards ; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living 
 light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and 
 over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that 
 other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, Liberty and 
 Union, now and forever, one and inseparable. 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 
 
 1772-1834. 
 
 Has left a few fragments of sufficient excellence to prove that he lacked the one 
 great element of successful genius, the decision of character to execute a plan. 
 His essays and fragments of poems are valued for the critical and imaginative power 
 shown. 
 
 THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. 
 
 IT is an ancient mariner, 
 
 And he stoppeth one of three : 
 
 " By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 
 
 Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 
 
 " The bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
 And I am next of kin ; 
 The guests are met, the feast is set : 
 Mayst hear the merry din." 
 
 He holds him with his skinny hand : 
 
 " There was a ship," quoth he. 
 
 " Hold off ! unhand me, gray-beard loon ! " 
 
 Eftsoons his hand dropped he. 
 
294 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 He holds him with his glittering eye : 
 The wedding-guest stood still, 
 And listens like a three-years' child : 
 The mariner hath his will. 
 
 The wedding-guest sat on a stone ; 
 He can not choose but hear ; 
 And thus spake on that ancient man, 
 The bright-eyed mariner : 
 
 " The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared : 
 
 Merrily did we drop 
 
 Below the kirk, below the hill, 
 
 Below the lighthouse top. 
 
 " The sun came up upon the left ; 
 Out of the sea came he ; 
 And he shone bright, and on the right 
 Went down into the sea. 
 
 " Higher and higher every day, 
 
 Till over the mast at noon " 
 
 The wedding-guest here beat his breast ; 
 
 For he heard the loud bassoon. 
 
 The bride hath paced into the hall ; 
 Red as a rose is she : 
 Nodding their heads, before her goes 
 The merry minstrelsy. 
 
 The wedding-guest he beat his breast, 
 Yet he can not choose but hear ; 
 And thus spake on that ancient man, 
 The bright-eyed mariner : 
 
 " And now the storm-blast came ; and he 
 Was tyrannous and strong : 
 He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
 And chased us south along. 
 
 " With sloping masts and dipping prow, 
 
 As who pursued with yell and blow 
 
 Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
 
 And forward bends his head, 
 
 The ship drove fast ; loud roared the blast ; 
 
 And southward aye we fled. 
 
 " And now there came both mist and snow ; 
 
 And it grew wondrous cold ; 
 
 And ice mast-high came floating by, 
 
 As green as emerald. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLEKIDGE. 295 
 
 ** And through the drifts the snowy cliffs 
 Did send a dismal sheen : 
 Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken, 
 The ice was all between. 
 
 " The ice was here, the ice was there, 
 
 The ice was all around : 
 
 It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
 
 Like noises in a swound. 
 
 *' At length did cross an albatross; 
 Thorough the fog it came : 
 As if it had been a Christian soul, 
 We hailed it in God's name, 
 
 4t It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
 And round and round it flew : 
 The ice did split with a thunder-fit ^ 
 The helmsman steered Us through. 
 
 " And .a good south wind sprung p behind : 
 
 The albatross did follow, 
 
 And every day, for food or play, 
 
 Came to the mariners' hollo, 
 
 " In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
 
 It perched for vespers nine ; 
 
 Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 
 
 Glimmered the white moonshine." 
 
 " God save thee, ancient mariner, 
 From the fiends that plague thee thus ! 
 Why look'st thou so ? " " With my cross-bow 
 I shot the albatross." 
 
 E sun now rose upon the right: 
 Out of the sea came he, 
 Still hid in mist, and on the left 
 Went down into the sea. 
 
 " And the good south wind still blew behind; 
 But no sweet bird did follow, 
 Nor any day, for food or play, 
 Came to the mariners' hollo. 
 
 " And I had dorve a hellish thing, 
 
 And it would work 'em woe ; 
 
 For all averred I had killed the bird 
 
 That made the breeze to blow. 
 
 1 Ah, wretch ! ' said they, ' the bird to slay 
 
 That made the breeze to blow j ' 
 
29G ENGLISH LJTEKATUKE, 
 
 " Nor dim nor red, like God's awn head, 
 The glorions sun uprist : 
 Then all averred I had killed the bird 
 That brought the fog and mist. 
 * "Twas right,' said they, ' such birds to slay- 
 That bring the fog and mist.' 
 
 " The fair breeze blew, the while foam flew, 
 
 The furrow followed free : 
 
 We were the first that ever burst 
 
 Into that silent sea- 
 
 " Down dropt the breeze ; the sails dropt down ; 
 'Twas sad as sad could be ; 
 And we did speak only to break 
 The silence of the sea. 
 
 " All in a hot and copper sky, 
 The bloody sun, at noon, 
 Right up above the mast did stand, 
 No bigger than the moon. 
 
 " Day after day, day after day, 
 We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 " Water, water, everywhere ! 
 And all the boards did shrink ; 
 Water, water, everywhere I 
 Nor any drop to drink. 
 
 " The very deep did rot : O Christ, 
 That ever this should be ! 
 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
 Upon the slimy sea. 
 
 " About, about, in reel and rout, 
 The death-fires danced at night : 
 The waters, like a witch's oils, 
 Burnt green and blue and white. 
 
 " And some in dreams assured were 
 Of the spirit that plagued us so : 
 Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
 From the land of mist and snow. 
 
 " And every tongue, through utter drought, 
 Was withered at the root : 
 We could not speak no more than if 
 We had been choked with soot. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 297 
 
 " Ah, well a-day ! what evil looks 
 Had I from old and young ! 
 Instead of the cross, the albatross 
 About my neck was hung. 
 
 " The naked hulk alongside came ; 
 And the twain were casting dice : 
 1 The game is done ; I've won, I've won 1 ' 
 Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 
 
 " The sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out ; 
 At one stride comes the dark : 
 With far-heard whisper o'er the sea, 
 Off' shot the specter-bark. 
 
 " We listened, and looked sideways up : 
 
 Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 
 
 My life-blood seemed to sip. 
 
 The stars were dim, and thick the night ; 
 
 The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white ; 
 
 From the sails the dew did drip ; 
 
 Till clomb above the eastern bar 
 
 The horned moon, with one bright star 
 
 Within the nether tip. 
 
 " One after one, by the star-dogged moon, 
 Too quick for groan or sigh, 
 Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, 
 And cursed me with his eye : 
 
 " Four times fifty living men, 
 (And I heard nor sigh nor groan,) 
 With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
 They dropped down one by one. 
 
 " The souls did from their bodies fly ; 
 They fled to bliss or woe ; 
 And every soul it passed me by 
 Like the whizz of my cross-bow." 
 
 " I fear thee, ancient mariner ; 
 
 I fear thy skinny hand ; 
 
 And thou art long and lank and brown 
 
 As is the ribbed sea-sand. 
 
 " I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
 And thy skinny hand so brown." 
 " Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest: 
 This body dropped not down. 
 
298 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
 Alone on a wide, wide sea ! 
 And never a saint took pity on 
 My soul in agony. 
 
 " The many men so beautiful ! 
 And they all dead did lie ; 
 And a thousand thousand slimy things 
 Lived on ; and so did I. 
 
 " I looked upon the rotting sea, 
 And drew my eyes away ; 
 I looked upon the rotting deck, 
 And there the dead men lay. 
 
 " I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ; 
 But, or ever a prayer had gusht, 
 A wicked whisper came, and made 
 My heart as dry as dust. 
 
 " I closed my lids, and kept them close, 
 
 And the balls like pulses beat ; 
 
 For the sky and the sea, and the sea an;l the sky, 
 
 Lay like a load on my weary eye ; 
 
 And the dead were at my feet. 
 
 " The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 
 Nor rot nor reek did they : 
 The look with which they looked on me 
 Had never passed away. 
 
 " An orphan's curse would drag to hell 
 
 A spirit from on high ; 
 
 But, oh ! more horrible than that 
 
 Is the curse in a dead man's eye. 
 
 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse ; 
 
 And yet I could not die. 
 
 " The moving moon went up the sky, 
 And nowhere did abide ; 
 Softly she was going up, 
 And a star or two beside. 
 
 " Her beams bcmocked the sultry main 
 
 Like April hoar-frost spread ; 
 
 But, where the ship's huge shadow lay, 
 
 The charmed water burnt alway 
 
 A still and awful red. 
 
 " Beyond the shadow of the ship 
 
 I watched the water-snakes : 
 
 They moved in tracks of shining white ; 
 
 And, when they reared, the elfish light 
 
 Fell off in hoary flakes. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOE COLERIDGE. 299 
 
 " Within the shadow of the ship 
 
 I watched their rich attire : 
 
 Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 
 
 They coiled and swam ; and every track 
 
 Was a flash of golden fire. 
 
 " O happy, living things ! no tongue 
 
 Their beauty might declare : 
 
 A spring of love gushed from my heart, 
 
 And I blessed them unaware : 
 
 Sure, my kind saint took pity on me, 
 
 And I blessed them unaware. 
 
 "The self-same moment I could pray; 
 And from my neck so free 
 The albatross fell off, and sank 
 Like lead into the sea." 
 
 " THIS hermit good lives in that wood 
 Which slopes down to the sea. 
 How loudly his sweet voice lie rears ! 
 He loves to talk with marineres 
 That come from a far countree. 
 
 " lie kneels at morn and noon and eve ; 
 
 He hath a cushion plump : 
 
 It is the moss that wholly hides 
 
 The rotted old oak-stump. 
 
 The skiff-boat neared : I heard them talk : 
 ' Why, this is strange, I trow ! 
 Where are those lights, so many and fair, 
 That signal made but now ? ' 
 
 " ' Strange, by my faith ! ' the hermit said; 
 
 ' And they answered not our cheer. 
 
 The planks looked warped; and see those sails, 
 
 How thin they are, nnd sear! 
 
 I never saw aught like to them, 
 
 Unless perchance it were 
 
 " ' Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 
 My forest-brook along, 
 When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 
 And the owlet whoops to the wolf below 
 That eats the she-wolfs young.' 
 
 " ' Dear Lord, it hath a fiendish look,' 
 (The pilot made reply :) 
 ' I am a-feared.' ' Push on, push on ! ' 
 Said the hermit cheerily. 
 
300 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " The boat came closer to the ship, 
 But I nor spake nor stirred : 
 The boat came close beneath the ship, 
 And straight a sound was heard. 
 
 " Under the water it rumbled on, 
 Still louder and more dread : 
 It reached the ship, it split the bay, 
 The ship went down like lead. 
 
 " Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound 
 
 Which sky and ocean smote, 
 
 Like one that hath been seven days drowned, 
 
 My body lay afloat ; 
 
 But, swift as dreams, myself I found 
 
 Within the pilot's boat. 
 
 " Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, 
 
 The boat spun round and round ; 
 
 And all was still, save that the hill 
 
 AVas telling of the sound. 
 
 I moved my lips, the pilot shrieked, 
 
 And fell down in a fit ; 
 
 The holy hermit raised his eyes, 
 
 And prayed where he did sit. 
 
 " T took the oars : the pilot's boy, 
 
 Who now doth crazy go, 
 
 Laughed loud and long, and all the while 
 
 His eyes went to and fro. 
 
 ' Ha, ha ! ' quoth he, ' full plain I see 
 
 The Devil knows how to row.' 
 
 " And now, all in my own countree, 
 I stood on the firm land : 
 The hermit stepped forth from the boat, 
 And scarcely he could stand. 
 
 " ' Oh, shrive me, shrive me, holy man ! ' 
 
 The hermit crossed his brow. 
 
 ' Say quick,' quoth he, * I bid thee say, 
 
 What manner of man art thou ? ' 
 
 Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 
 
 With a woful agony 
 
 Which forced me to begin my tale, 
 
 And then it left me free. 
 
 " Since then, at an uncertain hour, 
 That airony returns : 
 And, till my ghastly tale is told, 
 This Lueart within me burns. 
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 301 
 
 " I pass, like night, from land to land ; 
 I have strange power of speech : 
 That moment that his face I see, 
 I know the man that must hear me ; 
 To him my tale I teach. 
 
 " What loud uproar bursts from that door ! 
 The wedding- guests are there ; 
 But in the garden-bower the bride 
 And bride-maids singing are : 
 And, hark ! the little vesper-bell, 
 Which biddeth me to prayer ! 
 
 " O wedding-guest ! this soul hath been 
 Alone on a wide, wide sea : 
 So lonely 'twas, that God himself 
 Scarce seemed there to be. 
 
 " Oh ! sweeter than the marriage-feast, 
 
 'Tis sweeter far to me, 
 
 To walk together to the kirk 
 
 With a goodly company ; 
 
 " To walk together to the kirk, 
 
 And all together pray ; 
 
 While each to his great Father bends, - 
 
 Old men and babes, and loving friends, 
 
 And youths and maidens gay. 
 
 " Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
 
 To thee, thou wedding-guest, 
 
 He prayeth well who loveth well 
 
 Both man and bird and beast. 
 
 " He prayeth best who loveth best 
 All things, both great and small ; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all." 
 
 The mariner, whose eye is bright, 
 Whose beard with age is hoar, 
 Is gone ; and now the wedding-guest 
 Turned from the bridegroom's door. 
 
 He went like one that hath been stunned, 
 And is of sense forlorn : 
 A sadder and a wiser man 
 He rose the morrow morn. 
 
 HYMN 
 
 BEFORE SUNKISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNIX. 
 
 HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star 
 In his steep course ? So ion? he seems to pause 
 On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc 1 
 
302 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The Arve and Arveiron at thy br\sc 
 Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form, 
 Risest from forth thy silent, sea of pines 
 Ho\v silently ! Around thee and above 
 Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black, 
 An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it 
 As with a wedge ! But, when I look again, 
 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
 Thv habitation from eternity. 
 
 dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee, 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer, 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 
 
 Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody, 
 So sweet we know not we are listening to it, 
 Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, 
 Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy ;* 
 Till the dilating soul, in wrapt, transfused 
 Into the mighty vision passing, there, 
 As in her natural tbrm, swelled vast to heaven. 
 
 Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owest ; not alone these swelling tears, 
 Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake, 
 Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
 Green vales and icy cliffs, all. join my hymn ! 
 
 Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale ! 
 Oh ! struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars. 
 Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink ; 
 Companion of the morning-star at dawn, 
 Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Co-liL-rald, wake, oh ! wake, and utter praise ! 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth c i 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light 1 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams V 
 
 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 
 Who called you forth from night and utter death, 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 Down those precipitous, black, jag";e 1 rocks, 
 For ever shattered, and the same for ever t 
 Who crave you your invulnerable life, 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 
 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
 And who commanded (and the silence came), 
 " Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest" V 
 
 Ye icefalls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain : 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
 
THOMAS HOOD. 303 
 
 And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge, 
 Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
 Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven 
 Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
 Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? 
 "God!" let the torrents like a shout of nations 
 Answer ; and let the ice-plains echo, " God ! " 
 " God ! " sing, ye meadow-stream?, with gladsome voice ; 
 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ; 
 And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder, " God ! " 
 
 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ; 
 Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ; 
 Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm ; 
 Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ; 
 Ye signs and wonders of the element, 
 Utter forth " God ! " and fill the hills with praise ! 
 
 Thou too, hoar mount ! with thy sky-pointing peaks, 
 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene 
 Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast, 
 Thou too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou 
 That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
 In adoration, upward from thy base 
 Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, 
 Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, 
 To rise before me, rise, oh ! ever rise, 
 Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth, 
 Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills ; 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven : 
 Great hi erarch ! tell thou the silent sky, 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. 
 
 THOMAS HOOD. 
 
 1798-1845. 
 
 This distinguished wit and humorist had the remarkable power of giving a pun 
 the dignity of wit. " Eugene Aram's Dream," ' The Song of the Shirt," and " The 
 Bridge of Sighs," prove his power as a poet, and give him a permanent place in our 
 literature. 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 
 
 finders weary and worn, 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat in unwom-inly rags, 
 Plying her needle and thread. 
 
304 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Stitch, stitch, stitch, 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt ; 
 An:l still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, 
 
 She sang the " Song of the Shirt : " 
 
 " "Work, work, work, 
 
 While the cock is crowing aloof; 
 And work, work, work, 
 
 Till the stars shine through the roof I 
 It's, oh ! to be a slave 
 
 Along with the barbarous Turk, 
 Where woman has never a soul to save, 
 
 If THIS is Christian work ! 
 
 " Work, work, work, 
 
 Till the brain begins to swim ; 
 Work, work, work, 
 
 Till the eyes are heavy and dim ! 
 Seam and gusset and band, 
 
 Band and gusset and seam, 
 Till over the buttons I fall asleep, 
 
 And se\v them on in my dream ! 
 
 " men with sisters dear ! 
 
 O men with mothers and wives 1 
 It is not linen you're wearing out, 
 
 But human creatures' lives I 
 Stitch, stitch, stitch, 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt ; 
 Sewing at once, with a double thread, 
 
 A SHROUD as well as a shirt ! 
 
 " But why do I talk of Death, 
 
 That phantom of grisly bone ? 
 I hardly fear his terrible shape, 
 
 It seems so like my own ; 
 It seems so like my own, 
 
 Because of the fast I keep : 
 O God ! that bread should be so dear, 
 
 And flesh and blood so cheap ! 
 
 " Work, work, work : 
 
 My labor never flags. 
 And what are its wages ? a bed of straw, 
 
 A crust of bread, and rags ; 
 A shattered roof; and this naked floor ; 
 
 A table ; a broken chair ; 
 And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank 
 
 For sometimes falling there! 
 
 " Work, work, work, 
 
 From weary chime to chime ; 
 Work, work, work, 
 
 As prisoners work for crime ! 
 
THOMAS HOOD. 305 
 
 Band and gusset and seam, 
 
 Seam and gusset and band, 
 Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed, 
 
 As well as the weary hand. 
 
 " Work, work, work, 
 
 In the dull December light ; 
 And work, work, work, 
 
 When the weather is warm and bright ; 
 While underneath the eaves 
 
 The brooding swallows cling, 
 As if to show me their sunny backs, 
 
 And twit me with the spring. 
 
 " Oh but to breathe the breath 
 
 Of the cowslip and primrose sweet, 
 With the sky above my head, 
 
 And the grass beneath my feet ! 
 For only one short hour 
 
 To feel as I used to feel, 
 Before I knew the woes of want, 
 
 And the walk that costs a meal ! 
 
 " Oh but for one short hour, 
 
 A respite, however brief! 
 No blessed leisure for love or hope, 
 
 But only time for grief! 
 A little weeping would ease my heart : 
 
 But in their briny bed 
 My tears must stop ; for every drop 
 
 Hinders needle and thread ! " 
 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, 
 
 Plying her needle and thread ; 
 Stitch, stitch, stitch, 
 
 In poverty, hunger, and dirt ; 
 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 
 Would that its tone could reach the rich ! 
 
 She sang this " Song of the Shirt." 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 ONE more unfortunate, 
 Weary of breath, 
 
 Rashly importunate, 
 Gone to her death ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care, 
 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 20 
 
306 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Look at her garments, 
 Clinging like cerements ! 
 
 Whilst the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing : 
 
 Take her up instantly, 
 Loving, not loathing. 
 
 Touch her not scornfully ; 
 Think of her mournfully, 
 
 Gently, and humanly ; 
 Not of the stains of her : 
 All that remains of her 
 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny, 
 
 Rash and undutiful : 
 Past all dishonor, 
 Death has left on her 
 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 Still, for all slips of hers, 
 One of Eve's family, 
 
 Wipe those poor lips of hers 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 
 Loop up her tresses 
 
 Escaped from the comb, 
 Her fair auburn tresses : 
 Whilst wonderment guesses 
 Where was her home. 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 
 Who was her mother ? 
 
 Had she a sister ? 
 
 Had she a brother ? 
 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 
 Yet, than all other ? 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 
 Under the sun ! 
 Oh, it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city-full, 
 
 Home she had none. 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly, 
 
 Feelings had changed : 
 Love by harsh evidence 
 Thrown from its eminence ; 
 Even God's providence 
 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
THOMAS HOOD. 307 
 
 Where the lamps quiver 
 So far in the river, 
 
 With many a light 
 From window and casement, 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood with amazement, 
 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 
 Made her tremble and shiver ; 
 But not the dark arch, 
 
 Or the black flowing river : 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery 
 
 Swift to be hurled, 
 Anywhere, anywhere, 
 
 Out of the world ! 
 
 In she plunged boldly, 
 No matter how coldly 
 
 The rough river ran : 
 Over the brink of it, 
 Picture it, think of it, 
 
 Dissolute man ! 
 Lave in it, drink of it, 
 
 Then, if you can ! 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 
 Lift her with care, 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 
 Young, and so fair! 
 
 Ere her limbs frigidly 
 Stiffen too rigidly, 
 
 Decently, kindly, 
 Smooth and compose them ; 
 And her eyes close them, 
 
 Staring so blindly ! 
 
 Dreadfully staring 
 
 Through muddy impurity, 
 As when with the daring 
 Last look of despairing 
 
 Fixed on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurred by contumely, 
 Cold inhumanity 
 Burning insanity 
 
 Into her rest. 
 Cross her hands humbly, 
 As if praying dumbly, 
 
 Over her breast. 
 
308 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Owning her weakness, 
 ' Her evil behavior, 
 And leaving with meekness 
 Her sins to her' Saviour. 
 
 A PARENTAL ODE TO MY INFANT SON. 
 
 THOU happy, happy elf! 
 (But stop ; first let me kiss away that tear !) 
 
 Thou tiny image of myself! 
 (My love, he's poking peas into his ear !) 
 
 Thou merry, laughing sprite, 
 
 With spirit feather-light, 
 Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin ! 
 (Good heavens ! the child is swallowing a pin !) 
 
 Thou little tricksy Puck, 
 With antic toys so funnily bestuck, 
 Light as the singing bird that wings the air ! 
 (The door, the door ! he'll tumble down the stair !) 
 
 Thou darling of thy sire ! 
 (Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore afire !) 
 
 Thou imp of mirth and joy ! 
 In love's dear chain so strong and bright a link ! 
 Thou idol of thy parents ! (Stop the boy ! 
 
 There goes my ink !) 
 
 Thou cherub, but of earth ! 
 Fit playfellow for fays by moonlight pale, 
 
 In harmless sport and mirth ! 
 (The dog will bite him if he pulls its tail ;) 
 
 Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey 
 From every blossom in the world that blows, 
 
 Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny ! 
 (Another tumble ! that's his precious nose !) 
 
 Thy father's pride and hope, 
 (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope !) 
 With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint ! 
 
 (Where did he learn that squint ?) 
 
 Thou young domestic love ! 
 (He'll have that jug off with another shove !) 
 
 Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! 
 
 (Are those torn clothes his best ?) 
 
 Little epitome of man, 
 
 (He'll climb upon the table ; that's his plan !) 
 Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life ! 
 
 (He's got a knife !) 
 
 Thou enviable being ! 
 No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 309 
 
 Play on, play on, 
 
 My elfin John ! 
 
 Toss the light ball, bestride the stick, 
 (I knew so many cakes would make him sick !) 
 With fancies buoyant as the thistle-down, 
 Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, 
 
 With many a lamb-like frisk ; 
 (He's got the scissors, snipping at your gown !) 
 
 Thou pretty opening rose ! 
 
 (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
 Balmy, and breathing music like the south ; 
 (He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
 Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as" its star ; 
 (I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
 Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove. 
 (I'll tell you what, my love, 
 1 can not write unless he's sent above !) 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
 
 1777-1844. 
 
 Became famous at the age of twenty-two as the author of " Pleasures of Hope." 
 "Gertrude of Wyoming," and several* familiar pieces, " Hohenlinden," "Exile of 
 Erin," "Lord Ullin's Daughter," "The Battle of the Baltic," and "Ye Mariners 
 of England," are all noted for the perfection of rhythm, beauty, and force of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 PLEASURES OF HOPE. 
 
 AT summer eve, "when heaven's aerial bow 
 Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, 
 W T hy to yon mountain turns the musing eye, 
 Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky ? 
 Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear 
 More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ? 
 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
 And robes the mountain in its azure hue. 
 Thus, with delight, we linger to survey 
 The promised joys of life's unmeasured way ; 
 Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene 
 More pleasing seems than all the past hath been ; 
 And every form that Fancy can repair 
 From dark oblivion glows divinely there. 
 What potent spirit guides the raptured eye 
 To pierce the shades of dim futurity ? 
 
310 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power, 
 
 The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour? 
 
 Ah, no ! she darkly sees the fate of man, 
 
 Her dim horizon bounded to a span ; 
 
 Or, if she hold an image to the view, 
 
 'Tis Nature pictured too severely true. 
 
 With thee, sweet Hope ! resides the heavenly light 
 
 That pours remotest rapture on the sight ; 
 
 Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way, 
 
 That calls each slumbering passion into play : 
 
 Waked by thy touch, 1 see the sister band, 
 
 On tiptoe watching, start at thy command, 
 
 And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer, 
 
 To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career. 
 
 Primeval Hope, the Aonian Muses say, 
 
 When Man and Nature mourned their first decay ; 
 
 When every form of death, and every woe, 
 
 Shot from malignant stars to earth below ; 
 
 When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War 
 
 Yoked the red dragons of her iron car ; 
 
 When Peace and- Mercy, banished from the plain, 
 
 Sprung on the viewless winds to heaven again, 
 
 All, all forsook the friendless, guilty mind ; 
 
 But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind. 
 
 Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare 
 
 From Carmel's hight to sweep the fields of air, 
 
 The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began, 
 
 Dropped on the world a sacred gift to man. 
 
 Auspicious Hope ! in thy sweet garden grow 
 
 Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe : 
 
 Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour 
 
 The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower : 
 
 There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing, 
 
 What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring ! 
 
 What viewless forms the ./Eolian organ play, 
 
 And sweep the furrowed lines of anxious thought away ! 
 
 Angel of Life ! thy glittering wings explore 
 
 Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore. 
 
 Lo ! to the wintry winds the pilot yields 
 
 His bark careering o'er unfathoined fields : 
 
 Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar, 
 
 Where Andes, giant of the western star, 
 
 With meteor standard to the winds unfurled, 
 
 Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world. 
 
 Now far he sweeps where scarce a summer smiles, 
 
 On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles : 
 
 Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow 
 
 From wastes that slumber in eternal snow, 
 
 And waft across the waves' tumultuous roar 
 
 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore. 
 
 Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm, 
 
 Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form ! 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 311 
 
 Rocks, waves, and winds the shattered bark delay : 
 Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away. 
 But Hope can here her moonlight vigils keep, 
 And sing to charm the spirit of the deep. 
 Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole, 
 Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul : 
 His native hills that rise in happier climes, 
 The grot that heard his song of other times, 
 His cottage-home, his bark of slender sail, 
 His glassy lake, and broomwood-blossomed vale, 
 Rush on his thought : he sweeps before the wind ; 
 Treads the loved shore he sighed to leave behind ; 
 Meets at each step a friend's familiar face, 
 And flies at last to Helen's long embrace ; 
 Wipes from her cheek the rapture-speaking tear, 
 And clasps with many a sigh his children dear : 
 While, long neglected, but at length caressed, 
 His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest, 
 Points to the master's eyes (where'er they roam) 
 His wistful face, and whines a welcome home. 
 Friend of the brave ! in peril's darkest hour, 
 Intrepid Virtue looks to thee for power; 
 To thee the heart its trembling homage yields 
 On stormy floods and carnage-covered fields, 
 When front to front the bannered hosts combine, 
 Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line. 
 When all is still on Death's devoted soil, 
 The march-worn soldier mingles for the toil : 
 As rings his glittering tube, he lifts on high 
 The dauntless brow and spirit-speaking eye, 
 Hails in his heart the triumph yet to come, 
 And hears thy stormy music in the drum. 
 And such thy strength-inspiring aid that bore 
 The hardy Byron to his native shore : 
 In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep 
 Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 
 *Twas his to mourn Misfortune's rudest shock, 
 Scourged by the winds, and cradled on the rock ; 
 To wake each joyless morn, and search again 
 The famished haunts of solitary men, 
 Whose race, unyielding as their native storm, 
 Knows not a trace of Nature but the form : 
 Yet, at thy call, the hardy tar pursued, 
 Pale, but intrepid, sad, but unsubdued ; 
 Pierced the deep woods, and, hailing from afar 
 The moon's pale planet and the northern star, 
 Paused at each dreary cry, unheard before, 
 (Hyaenas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore;) 
 Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime, 
 He found a warmer world, a milder clime, 
 A home to rest, a shelter to defend, 
 Peace and repose, a Briton and a iriend. 
 
312 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Congenial Hope ! thy passion-kindling power 
 
 How bright, how strong, in youth's untroubled hour! 
 
 On yon proud hight. with Genius hand in hand, 
 
 I see thee light, and wave thy golden wand. 
 
 " Go, child of Heaven ! " (thy winged words proclaim ;) 
 
 " 'Tis thine to search the boundless fields of fame. 
 
 Lo! Newton, priest of Nature, shines afar, 
 
 Scans the wide world, and numbers every star : 
 
 Wilt thou with him mysterious rites apply, 
 
 And watch the shrine with wonder-beaming eye ? 
 
 Yes : thou shalt mark with magic art profound 
 
 The speed of light, the circling march of sound ; 
 
 "With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing, 
 
 Or yield the lyre of heaven another string. 
 
 The Swedish sage admires in yonder bowers 
 
 His winged insects and his rosy flowers ; 
 
 Calls from their woodland haunts the savage train 
 
 With sounding horn, and counts them on the plain : 
 
 So once, at Heaven's command, the wanderers caine 
 
 To Eden's shade, and heard their various name. 
 
 Far from the world, in yon sequestered clime, 
 
 Slow pass the sons of Wisdom, more sublime : 
 
 Calm as the fields of heaven, his sapient eye 
 
 The loved Athenian lifts to realms on high, 
 
 Admiring Plato ; on his spotless page 
 
 Stamps the bright dictates of the lather sage : 
 
 ' Shall Nature bound to earth's diurnal span 
 
 The fire of God, the immortal soul of man V ' 
 
 Turn, child of Heaven, thy rapture-lightened eye 
 
 To Wisdom's walks, the sacred Nine are nigh : 
 
 Hark ! from bright spires that gild the Delphian hight, 
 
 From streams that wander in eternal li^ht, 
 
 Ranged on their hill, Harmonia's daughters swell 
 
 The mingling tones of horn and harp and shell ; 
 
 Deep from his vaults the Loxian murmurs flow, 
 
 And Pythia's awful organ peals below. 
 
 Beloved of Heaven ! the smiling Muse shall shed 
 
 Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head ; 
 
 Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined, 
 
 And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind. 
 
 I see thee roam her guardian power beneath, 
 
 And talk with spirits on the midnight heath ; 
 
 Inquire of guilty wanderers whence they came, 
 
 And ask each blood-stained form his earthly name; 
 
 Then weave in rapid verse the deeds they tell, 
 
 And read the trembling world the tales of hell. 
 
 When Venus, throned in clouds of rosy hue, 
 
 Flings from her golden urn the vesper-dew, 
 
 And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ, 
 
 Sacred to love, and walks of tender joy, 
 
 A milder mood the goddess shall recall, 
 
 And soft as dew thy tones of music fall ; 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 313 
 
 While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart 
 
 A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart, 
 
 Warm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain, 
 
 And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain. 
 
 Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem, 
 
 And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream ; 
 
 To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile, 
 
 (For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile;) 
 
 On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief, 
 
 And teach impassioned souls the joy of grief? 
 
 Yes, to thy tongue shall seraph-words be given, 
 
 And power on earth to plead the cause of heaven : 
 
 The proud, the, cold, untroubled heart of stone, 
 
 That never mused on sorrow but its own, 
 
 Unlocks a generous store at thy command, 
 
 Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand. 
 
 The living lumber of his kindred earth, 
 
 Charmed into soul, receives a second birth ; 
 Feels thy dread power another heart afford, 
 
 Whose passion-touched harmonious strings accord, 
 True as the circling spheres, to Nature's plan ; 
 And man, the brother, lives the friend of man ! 
 Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven's command 
 When Israel marched along the desert land, 
 Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar, 
 
 And told the path, a never-setting star : 
 
 So, heavenly Genius, in thy course divine, 
 
 Hope is thy star; her light is ever thine." 
 
 Propitious Power ! when rankling cares annoy 
 
 The sacred home of hymenean joy ; 
 
 When, doomed to Poverty's sequestered dell, 
 
 The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell, 
 
 Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame, 
 
 Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the same, 
 
 Oh, there, prophetic Hope ! thy smile bestow, 
 
 And chase the pangs that worth should never know ; 
 
 There, as the parent deals his scanty store 
 
 To friendless babes, and weeps to give no more, 
 
 Tell, that his manly race shall yet assuage 
 
 Their father's wrongs, and shield his later age. 
 
 What though for him no Hybla sweets distill, 
 
 Nor bloomy vines wave purple on the hill : 
 
 Tell, that when silent years have passed away, 
 
 That when his eyes grow dim, his tresses gray, 
 
 These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build, 
 
 And deck with fairer flowers his little field, 
 
 And call from heaven propitious dews to breathe 
 
 Arcadian beauty on the barren heath ; 
 
 Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears 
 
 The days of peace, the sabbath of his years, 
 
 Health shall prolong to many a festive hour 
 
 The social pleasures of his humble bower. 
 
314 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Lo ! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps, 
 
 Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ; 
 
 She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies, 
 
 Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes, 
 
 And weaves a song of melancholy joy : 
 
 " Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy ! 
 
 No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine; 
 
 No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine : 
 
 Bright as his manly sire, the son shall be 
 
 In form and soul ; but, ah ! more blest than he, 
 
 Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last, 
 
 Shall soothe this aching heart for all the past ; 
 
 With many a smile my solitude repay, 
 
 And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away. 
 
 And say, when, summoned from the world and thee, 
 
 I lay my head beneath the willow-tree, 
 
 Witt ///oil, sweet mourner, at my stone appear, 
 
 And soothe my parted spirit lingering near V 
 
 Oh ! wilt thou come at evening-hour to shed 
 
 The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed ; 
 
 With aching temples on thy hand reclined, 
 
 Muse on the last farewell I leave behind ; 
 
 Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low, 
 
 And think on all my love and all my woe ? " 
 
 So speaks affection ere the infant eye 
 
 Can look regard, or brighten in reply ; 
 
 But when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim 
 
 A mother's ear by that endearing name, 
 
 Soon as the playful innocent can prove 
 
 A tear of pity or a smile of love, 
 
 Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care, 
 
 Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer, 
 
 Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear 
 
 The mournful baflad warbled in his ear, 
 
 How fondly looks admiring Hope the while 
 
 At every artless tear and every smile ! 
 
 How glows the joyous parent to descry 
 
 A guileless bosom true to sympathy ! 
 
 Where is the troubled heart, consigned to share 
 
 Tumultuous toils or solitary care, 
 
 Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray 
 
 To count the joys of Fortune's better day? 
 
 Lo ! nature, life, and liberty relume 
 
 The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom ; 
 
 A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored. 
 
 Smiles at his blazing hearth and social bo;ird; 
 
 Warm from his heart the tears of rapture Ho\v ; 
 
 And virtue triumphs o'er remembered wo;-. 
 
 Chide not his peace, proud Reason, nor destroy 
 
 The shadowy forms of uncreated joy. 
 
 That urge the lingering tide of life, and pour 
 
 Spontaneous slumber on his midnight-hour. 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 315 
 
 Hark ! the wild maniac sing?, to chide the gale 
 
 That watts so slow her lover's distant sail ; 
 
 She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore 
 
 Watched the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore, 
 
 Knew the pale form, and, shrieking in amaze, 
 
 Clasped her cold hands, and fixed her maddening gaze : 
 
 Poor widowed wretch ! 'twas there she wept in vain 
 
 Till memory fled her agonizing brain ; 
 
 But Mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe, 
 
 Ideal peace that Truth could ne'er bestow : 
 
 Warm on her heart the joys of Fancy beam, 
 
 And aimless Hope delights her darkest dream. 
 
 Oft when yon moon has climbed the midnight sky, 
 
 And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry, 
 
 Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn 
 
 To hail the bark that never can return ; 
 
 And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep 
 
 That constant love can linger on the deep. 
 
 And mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew 
 
 The world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue ; 
 
 Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore, 
 
 But found not pity when it erred no more. 
 
 Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye 
 
 The unfeeling proud one looks, and passes by ; 
 
 Condemned on Penury's barren path to roam, 
 
 Scorned by the world, and left without a home, 
 
 Even he, at evening, should he chance to stray 
 
 Down by the hamlet's hawthorn-scented way, 
 
 Where round the cot's romantic glade are seen 
 
 The blossomed bean-field and the sloping green, 
 
 Leans o'er its humble gate, and thinks the while, 
 
 " Oh that for me some home like this would smile ; 
 
 Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form 
 
 Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm ! 
 
 There should my hand no stinted boon assign 
 
 To wretched hearts with sorrows such as mine." 
 
 That generous wish can soothe unpitied care ; 
 
 And Hope half mingles with the poor man's prayer. 
 
 Hope! when I mourn with sympathizing mind 
 
 The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind, 
 
 Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see 
 
 The boundless fields of rapture yet to be ; 
 
 I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan, 
 
 And learn the future by the past of man. 
 
 Come, bright Improvement, on the car of Time ! 
 
 And rule the spacious world from clime to clime ; 
 
 Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, 
 
 Trace every wave, and culture every shore. 
 
 On P^rie's banks, where tigers steal along, 
 
 And the dread Indian chants a dismal song ; 
 
 Where human fiends on midnight errands walk, 
 
 And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk, 
 
316 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray, 
 
 And shepherds dance at Summer's opening day : 
 
 Each wandering genius of the lonely glen 
 
 Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men ; 
 
 And silent watch, on woodland nights around, 
 
 The village curfew as it tolls profound. 
 
 In Libyan groves, where damned rites are done, 
 
 That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun, 
 
 Truth shall arrest the murderous arm profane, 
 
 Wild Obi flies, the veil is rent in twain. 
 
 "Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam, 
 
 Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home ; 
 
 Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines, 
 
 From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines, 
 
 Truth shall pervade the unfathomed darkness there, 
 
 And light the dreadful features of despair. 
 
 Hark ! the stern captive spurns his heavy load, 
 
 And asks the image back that Heaven bestowed : 
 
 Fierce in his eye the fire of valor burns ; 
 
 And, as the slave departs, the man return?. 
 
 O sacred Truth ! thy triumph ceased a while, 
 
 And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, 
 
 When leagued Oppression poured to northern wars 
 
 Her whiskered pandoors and her fierce hussars, 
 
 Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
 
 Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet-horn : 
 
 Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, 
 
 Presaging wrath to Poland and to man ! 
 
 Warsaw's last champion from her hight surveyed, 
 
 Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid : 
 
 " O Heaven ! " he cried, " my bleeding country save ! 
 
 Is there no hand on high to shield the brave '! 
 
 Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, 
 
 Rise, fellow-men ! our country yet remains. 
 
 By that dread name we wave the sword on high, 
 
 And swear for her to live, with her to die." 
 
 He said, and on the rampart-bights arrayed 
 
 His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed : 
 
 Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, 
 
 Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ; 
 
 Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly, 
 
 Revenge, or death, the watchword and reply : 
 
 Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
 
 And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm. 
 
 In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few ! 
 
 From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew : 
 
 Oh ! bloodiest picture in the book of Time, 
 
 Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime ; 
 
 Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
 
 Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe ; 
 
 Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
 
 Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career : 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 317 
 
 Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell ; 
 
 And Freedom shrieked as KOSCIUSKO fell ! 
 
 The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there ; 
 
 Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air; 
 
 On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, 
 
 His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ; 
 
 The storm prevails, the rampart yields away, 
 
 Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! 
 
 Hark ! as the smoldering piles with thunder fall, 
 
 A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call. 
 
 Earth shook ; red meteors flashed along the sky ; 
 
 And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry. 
 
 O righteous Heaven ! ere Freedom found a grave, 
 
 Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save ? 
 
 Where was thine arm, O Vengeance ! where thy rod, 
 
 That smote the foes of Zion and of God ; 
 
 That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car 
 
 Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar ? 
 
 Where was the storm that slumbered till the host 
 
 Of blood-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast ; 
 
 Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow, 
 
 And heaved an ocean on their march below ? 
 
 Departed spirits of the mighty dead, 
 
 Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled, 
 
 Friends of the world ! restore your swords to man, 
 
 Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van ! 
 
 Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, 
 
 And make her arm puissant as your own ! 
 
 Oh ! once again to Freedom's cause return 
 
 The patriot TELL, the BRUCE of BANNOCKBURN 1 
 
 Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land, shall see 
 
 That man hath yet a soul, and dare be free. 
 
 A little while, along thy saddening plains, 
 
 The starless night of desolation reigns : 
 
 Truth shall restore the light by Nature given, 
 
 And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of heaven. 
 
 Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled ; 
 
 Her name, her nature, withered from the world. 
 
 Ye that the rising morn invidious mark, 
 
 And hate the light, because your deeds are dark ; 
 
 Ye that expanding truth invidious view, ; 
 
 And think or wish the song of Hope untrue, 
 
 Perhaps your little hands presume to span 
 
 The march of genius and the powers of man ; 
 
 Perhaps ye watch at Pride's unhallowed shrine 
 
 Her victims newly slain, and thus divine : 
 
 " Here shall thy triumph, Genius, cease ; and here 
 
 Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career." 
 
 Tyrants ! in vain ye trace the wizard ring ; 
 
 In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring : 
 
 What ! can ye lull the winged winds asleep, 
 
 Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep ? 
 
318 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 No : the wild wave contemns your sceptered hand ; 
 
 It rolled not back when Canute gave command. 
 
 Man, can thy doom no brighter soul allow ? 
 
 Still must thou live a blot on Nature's brow? 
 
 Shall War's polluted banner ne'er be furled? 
 
 Shall crimes and tyrants cease but with the world ? 
 
 What ! are thy triumphs, sacred Truth, belied ? 
 
 Why, then, hath Plato lived, or Sidney died ? 
 
 Ye fond adorers of departed fame, 
 
 Who warm at Scipio's worth or Tully's name ; 
 
 Ye that in fancied vision can admire 
 
 The sword of Brutus and the Theban lyre ; 
 
 Rapt in historic ardor, who adore 
 
 Each classic haunt and well-remembered shore, 
 
 Where Valor tuned amid her chosen throng 
 
 The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song ; 
 
 Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms 
 
 Of England's glory and Helvetia's arms, 
 
 See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell, 
 
 And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell ! 
 
 Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore, 
 
 Hath Valor left the world, to live no more ? 
 
 No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die, 
 
 And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye ? 
 
 Hainpden no more, when suffering Freedom calls, 
 
 Encounter fate, and triumph as he falls ? 
 
 Nor Tell disclose through peril and alarm 
 
 The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm ? 
 
 Yes, in that generous cause for ever strong, 
 
 The patriot's virtue and the poet's song, 
 
 Still, as the tide of ages rolls away, 
 
 Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay. 
 
 Yes, there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust, 
 
 That slumber yet in uncreated dust, 
 
 Ordained to fire the adoring sons of earth 
 
 With every charm of wisdom and of worth ; 
 
 Ordained to light with intellectual day 
 
 The mazy wheels of Nature as they play ; 
 
 Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow, 
 
 And rival all but Shakspeare's name below. 
 
 And say, supernal Powers ! who deeply scan 
 
 Heaven's dark decrees, unfathomed yet by man, 
 
 When shall the world call down, to cleanse her shame, 
 
 That embryo spirit, yet without a name, 
 
 That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands 
 
 Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands ? 
 
 Who, sternly marking on his native soil 
 
 The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil, 
 
 Shall bid each righteous heart exult to see 
 
 Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free ? 
 
 Yet, yet, degraded men ! the expected day 
 
 That breaks your bitter cup is far away ; 
 
THOMAS CAMPBELL. 319 
 
 Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed ; 
 
 And holy men give Scripture for the deed. 
 
 Scourged and debased, no Briton stoops to save 
 
 A wretch, a coward ; yes, because a slave ! 
 
 Eternal Nature 1 when thy giant hand 
 
 Had heaved the floods, and fixed the trembling land; 
 
 When Life sprang startling at thy plastic call, 
 
 Endless her forms, and man the lord of all, 
 
 Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee 
 
 To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee ? 
 
 Was man ordained the slave of man to toil, 
 
 Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil ; 
 
 Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold ? 
 
 No ! Nature stamped us in a heavenly mold : 
 
 She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge, 
 
 Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge ; 
 
 No homeless Libyan on the stormy deep 
 
 To call upon his country's name, and weep. 
 
 Lo ! once in triumph on his boundless plain 
 
 The quivered chief of Congo lo'ved to reign ; 
 
 With fires proportioned to his native sky, 
 
 Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye ; 
 
 Scoured with wild feet his sun-illumined zone, 
 
 The spear, the lion, and the woods his own ; 
 
 Or led the combat, bold without a plan, 
 
 An artless savage, but a fearless man. 
 
 The plunderer came. Alas ! no glory smiles 
 
 For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles ; 
 
 For ever fallen ! no son of Nature now, 
 
 With Freedom chartered on his manly brow ! 
 
 Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away, 
 
 And, when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day, 
 
 Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more 
 
 To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore. 
 
 The shrill horn blew : at that alarum-knell 
 
 His guardian angel took a last farewell. 
 
 That funeral dirge to darkness hath resigned 
 
 The fiery grandeur of a generous mind. 
 
 Poor fettered man ! I hear thee whispering low 
 
 Unhallowed vows to Guilt, the child of Woe. 
 
 Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbor there 
 
 A wish but death, a passion but despair ? 
 
 The widowed Indian, when her lord expires, 
 
 Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral-fires : 
 
 So falls the heart at Thralldom's bitter sigh ! 
 
 So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty ! 
 
 But not to Libya's barren climes alone, 
 
 To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone, 
 
 Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye, 
 
 Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh. 
 
 Ye Orient realms where Ganges' waters run, 
 
 Prolific fields, dominions of the sun, 
 
320 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 How long your tribes have trembled, and obeyed ! 
 How long was Timur's iron scepter swayed, 
 Whose marshaled hosts, the lions of the plain, 
 From Scythia's northern mountains to the main 
 Raged o'er your plundered shrines and altars bare 
 With blazing torch and gory cimeter ; 
 Stunned with the cries of death each gentle gale, 
 And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale ! 
 Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame 
 When Brahma's children perished for his name : 
 The martyr smiled beneath avenging power, 
 And brayed the tyrant in his torturing hour. 
 When Europe sought your subject realms to gain, 
 And stretched her giant scepter o'er the main, 
 Taught her proud barks their winding way to shape, 
 And braved the stormy spirit of the Cape, 
 Children of Brahma ! then was Mercy nigh 
 To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye V 
 Did Peace descend to triumph and to save 
 When free-born Britons crossed the Indian wave ? 
 Ah, no ! to more than Rome's ambition true, 
 The nurse of Freedom gave it not to you : 
 She the bold route of Europe's guilt began, 
 And in the march of nations led the van. 
 Rich in the gems of India's gaudy zone, 
 And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own, 
 Degenerate Trade ! thy minions could despise 
 The heart-born anguish of a thousand cries ; 
 Could lock with impious hands their teeming store, 
 While famished nations died along the shore ; 
 Could mock the groans of fellow-men, and bear 
 The curse of kingdoms peopled with despair ; 
 Could stamp disgrace on man's polluted name, 
 And barter with their gold eternal shame ! 
 But, hark ! as bowed to earth the Brahmin kneels, 
 From heavenly climes propitious thunder peals ! 
 Of India's fate her guardian spirits tell, 
 Prophetic murmurs breathing on the shell ; 
 And solemn sounds, that awe the listening mind, 
 Roll on the azure paths of every wind. 
 " Foes of mankind," her guardian spirits say, 
 " Revolving ages bring the bitter day 
 When Heaven's unerring arm shall fall on you, 
 And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew : 
 Nine times have Brahma's wheels of lightning hurled 
 His awful presence o'er the alarmed world ; 
 Nine times hath Guilt, through all his giant frame, 
 Convulsive trembled as the Mighty came ; 
 Nine times hath suffering Mercy spared in vain ; 
 But Heaven shall burst her starry gates again. 
 He comes ! dread Brama shakes the sunless sky 
 With murmuring wrath, and thunders from on high I 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 321 
 
 Heaven's fiery horse, beneath his warrior form, 
 Paws the light clouds, and gallops on the storm ! 
 Wide waves his flickering sword ; his bright arms glow 
 Like summer suns, and light the world below : 
 Earth and her trembling isles in Ocean's bed 
 Are shook, and Nature rocks beneath his tread ! 
 To pour redress on India's injured realm, 
 The oppressor to dethrone, the proud to whelm ; 
 To chase destruction from her plundered shore 
 With arts and arms that triumphed once before, 
 The tenth Avatar comes ! at Heaven's command 
 Shall Seriswattee wave her hallowed wand ; 
 And Camdeo bright, and Ganesa sublime, 
 Shall bless with joy their own propitious clime. 
 Come, Heavenly Powers ! primeval peace restore I 
 Love, Mercy, Wisdom, rule for ever more I " 
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 1800-1859. 
 
 The most celebrated English essayist and historian of the nineteenth century. 
 As a descriptive poet, his "Lays of Ancient Rome," written in the ballad style, and 
 celebrating events in the early history of Rome, give him a permanent place in the 
 literature of the language, the first and second volumes of " The History of Eng- 
 land " were published in 1849; the third and fourth, in 1855; and a fifth, after his 
 death, made up from unfinished manuscripts, in 1861. All his writings are no less 
 remarkable for brilliancy of style than for the profound learning they display. 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF CAPY8. 
 
 A LAY SUNG IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY 479. 
 1. 
 
 Now slain is King Amulius, 
 
 Of the great Sylvian line, 
 Who reigned in Alba Lon^a, 
 
 On the throne of Aventine. 
 Slain is the Pontiff Gamers, 
 
 Who spake the words of doom : 
 " The children to the Tiber ; 
 
 The mother to the tomb ! " 
 
 2. 
 
 In Alba's lake no fisher 
 His net to-day is flinging ; 
 
 On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 
 To-day no axe is ringing : 
 21 
 
322 ENGLISH LITER ATUEE. 
 
 The yoke hangs o'er the manger ; 
 
 The scythe lies in the hay : 
 Through all the Alban villages 
 
 No work is done to-day. 
 
 3. 
 
 And every Alban burgher 
 
 Hath donned his whitest gown ; 
 And every head in Alba 
 
 Weareth a poplar crown ; 
 And every Alban door-post 
 
 With boughs and flowers is gay : 
 For to-day the dead are living ; 
 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 4. 
 
 They were doomed by a bloody king ; 
 
 They were doomed by a lying priest ; 
 They were cast on the raging flood ; 
 
 They were tracked by the raging beast : 
 Raging beast and raging flood 
 
 Alike have spared the prey ; 
 And to-day the dead are living ; 
 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 5. 
 
 The troubled river knew them, 
 
 And smoothed his yellow foam, 
 And gently rocked the cradle 
 
 That bore the fate of Rome ; 
 The ravening she -wolf knew them, 
 
 And licked them o'er and o'er, 
 And gave them of her own fierce milk, 
 
 Rich with raw flesh and gore. 
 Twenty winters, twenty springs, 
 
 Since then have rolled away : 
 And to-day the dead are living ; 
 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 6. 
 
 Blithe it was to see the twins, 
 
 Right goodly youths and tall, 
 Marching from Alba Longa 
 
 To their old grandsire's hall. 
 Along their path fresh garlands 
 
 Are hung from tree to tree ; 
 Before them stride the pipers, 
 
 Piping a note of glee. 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 323 
 
 7. 
 
 On the right goes Romulus, 
 
 With arms to the elbows red ; 
 And in his hand a broadsword, 
 
 And on the blade a head, 
 A head in an iron helmet, 
 
 With horse-hair hanging down, 
 A shaggy head, a swarthy head, 
 
 Fixed in a ghastly frown, 
 The head of King Amulius, 
 
 Of the great Sylvian line, 
 Who reigned in Alba Longa, 
 
 On the throne of Aventine. 
 
 8. 
 
 On the left side goes Remus, 
 
 With wrists and fingers red ; 
 And in his hand a boar-spear, 
 
 And on the point a head, 
 A wrinkled head and aged, 
 
 With silver beard and hair, 
 And holy fillets round it, 
 
 Such as the pontiffs wear, 
 The head of aneient Gamers, 
 
 Who spake the words of doom 
 The children to the Tiber ; 
 
 The mother to the tomb ! " 
 
 9. 
 
 Two and two behind the twins 
 
 Their trusty comrades go, 
 Four and forty valiant men, ' 
 
 With club and ax and bow. 
 On each side, every hamlet 
 
 Pours forth its joyous crowd, 
 Shouting lads and baying dogs, 
 
 And children laughing loud, 
 And old men weeping fondly 
 
 As Rhea's boys go by, 
 And maids who shriek to see the heads, 
 
 Yet, shrieking, press more nigh. 
 
 10. 
 
 So they marched along the lake : 
 They marched by fold and stall, 
 
 By cornfield and by vineyai?d, 
 Unto the old man's hall. 
 
324 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 11. 
 
 In the hall-gate sate Capys, 
 
 Capys, the sightless seer : 
 From head to foot he trembled 
 
 As Romulus drew near. 
 And up stood stiff his thin white hair ; 
 
 And his blind eyes flashed fire : 
 " Hail ! foster-child of the wondrous nurse ! 
 
 Hail ! son of the wondrous sire ! 
 
 12. 
 
 " But thou whnt dost thou here 
 
 In the old man's peaceful hall ? 
 What doth the eagle in the coop ? 
 
 The bison in the stall ? 
 Our corn fills many a garner ; 
 
 Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
 Our flocks are white on many a hill : 
 
 But these are not for thee. 
 
 13. 
 
 " For thee no treasure ripens 
 
 In the Tartessian mine ; 
 For thee no ship brings precious bales 
 
 Across the Libyan brine : 
 Thou shalt not drink from Amber ; 
 
 Thou shalt not rest on down ; 
 Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 
 
 Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 
 
 14. 
 
 " Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 
 
 Rich table and soft bed, 
 To them who of man's seed are born, 
 
 Whom woman's milk has fed. 
 Thou wast not made for lucre, 
 
 For pleasure, nor for rest, 
 Thou that art sprung from the War-God's loins, 
 
 And hast tued at the she-wolf's breast. 
 
 
 15. 
 
 " From sunrise unto sunset, 
 
 All earth shall hear thy fame : 
 A glorious city thou shalt build, 
 
 And name it by thy name ; 
 And there, unquenched through ages, 
 
 Like Vesta's sacred fire, 
 Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 
 
 The spirit of thy sire. 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 325 
 
 16. 
 
 " The ox toils through the farrow, 
 
 Obedient to the goad ; 
 The patient ass, up flinty paths, 
 
 Plods with his weary load ; 
 With whine and bound, the spaniel 
 
 His master's whistle hears ; 
 And the sheep yields her patiently 
 
 To the loud-clashing shears. 
 
 17. 
 
 " But thy nurse will hear no master, 
 
 Thy nurse will bear no load; 
 And woe to them that shear her ! 
 
 And woe to them that goad ! 
 When all the pack, loud baying, 
 
 Her bloody lair surrounds, 
 She dies in silence, biting hard 
 
 Amidst the dying hounds. 
 
 18. 
 
 " Pomona loves the orchard ; 
 
 And Liber loves the vine ; 
 And Pales loves the straw-built shed 
 
 Warm with the breath of kine ; 
 And Venus loves the whispers 
 
 Of plighted youth and maid, 
 In April's ivory moonlight 
 
 Beneath the chestnut-shade. 
 
 19. 
 
 " But thy father loves the clashing 
 
 Of broadsword and of shield ; 
 He loves to drink the steam that reeks 
 
 From the fresh battle-field : 
 He smiles a smile more dreadful 
 
 Than his own dreadful frown 
 When he sees the thick black cloud of smoko 
 
 Go up from the conquered town. 
 
 20. 
 
 " And such as is the War-God, 
 
 The author of thy line ; 
 And such as she who suckled thee, 
 
 Even such be thou and thine. 
 Leave to the soft Campanian 
 
 His baths and his perfumes ; 
 Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 
 
 Their dyeing-vats and looms ; 
 
326 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Leave to the sons of Carthage 
 The rudder and tbe oar ; 
 
 Leave to the Greek his marble nymphs, 
 And scrolls of wordy lore. 
 
 21. 
 
 " Thine, Roman, is the pilum ; 
 
 Roman, the sword is thine, 
 The even trench, the bristling mound, 
 
 The legion's ordered line ; 
 And thine the wheels of triumph, 
 
 Which, with their laureled train, 
 Move slowly up the shouting streets 
 
 To Jove's eternal fane. 
 
 22. 
 
 " Beneath thy yoke, the Volscian 
 
 Shall veil his lofty brow ; 
 Soft Capua's curled revelers 
 
 Before thy chairs shall bow ; 
 The Lucumoes of Arnus 
 
 Shall quake thy rods to see ; 
 And the proud Samnite's heart of steel 
 
 Shall yield to only thee. 
 
 23. 
 
 " The Gaul shall come against thee 
 From the land of snow and night : 
 
 Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 
 To the raven and the kite. 
 
 24. 
 
 " The Greek shall come against thee, 
 
 The conqueror of the East : 
 Beside him stalks to battle 
 
 The huge, earth-shaking beast, 
 The beast on whom the castle 
 
 With all its guards doth stand, 
 The beast who hath between his eyes 
 
 The serpent for a hand. 
 First march the bold Epirotes, 
 
 Wedged close with shield and spear; 
 And the ranks of false Tarentuni 
 
 Are glittering in the rear. 
 
 25. 
 
 " The ranks of false Tarentum 
 Like hunted sheep shall fly ; 
 
 In vain fhe bold Epirotes 
 
 Shall round their standards die ; 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 327 
 
 And Apennine's gray vultures 
 
 Shall have a noble feast 
 On the fat and the eyes 
 
 Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 
 
 26. 
 
 " Hurrah for the good weapons 
 
 That keep the War-God's land I 
 Hurrah for Rome's stout pilum 
 
 In a stout Roman hand ! 
 Hurrah for Rome's short broadsword, 
 ' That through the thick array 
 Of leveled spears and serried shields 
 
 Hews deep its gory way ! 
 
 27. 
 
 " Hurrah for the great triumph 
 
 That stretches many a mile 1 
 Hurrah for the wan captives 
 
 That pass in endless file ! 
 Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 
 
 Hath the Red King ta'en flight ? 
 Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 
 
 Is not the gown washed white ? 
 
 28. 
 
 " Hurrah for the great triumph 
 
 That stretches many a mile ! 
 Hurrah for the rich dye of Tyre, 
 
 And the fine web of Nile, 
 The helmets gay with plumage 
 
 Torn from die pheasant's wings, 
 The belts set thick with starry gems 
 
 That shone on Indian kings, 
 The urns of massy silver, 
 
 The goblets rough with gold, 
 The many-colored tablets bright 
 
 With loves and wars of old, 
 The stone that breathes and struggles, 
 
 The brass that seems to speak ! 
 Such cunning they who dwell on high 
 
 Have given unto the Greek. 
 
 29. 
 
 " Hurrah for Manius Curius, 
 The bravest son of Rome, . 
 
 Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 
 Thrice drawn in triumph home ! 
 
328 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 
 
 The third embroidered gown ; 
 Make ready the third lofty car ; 
 
 And twine the third jrruen crown ; 
 And yoke the steeds of Rosea 
 
 With necks like a bended bow ; 
 And deck the bull, Mevania's bull, 
 
 The bull as white as snow. 
 
 30. 
 
 " Blest and thrice blest the Roman 
 
 Who sees Rome's brightest day ; 
 Who sees that long victorious pomp 
 
 Wind down the Sacred Way, 
 And through the bellowing Forum, 
 
 And round the Suppliant's Grove, 
 Up to the everlasting gates 
 
 Of Capitolian Jove. 
 
 31. 
 
 " Then where, o'er two bright havens, 
 
 The towers of Corinth frown ; 
 Where the gigantic King of Day 
 
 On his own Rhodes looks down ; 
 Where soft Orontes murmurs 
 
 Beneath the laurel shades ; 
 Where Nile reflects the endless length 
 
 Of dark-red colonnades ; 
 Where, in the still, deep water, 
 
 Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
 Bristles the dusky forest 
 
 Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 
 Where fur-clad hunters wander 
 
 Amidst the northern ice ; 
 Where through the sand of morning-land 
 
 The camel bears the spice ; 
 Where Atlas flings his shadow 
 
 Far o'er the western foam, 
 Shall be great fear on all who hear 
 
 The mighty name of Rome." 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 IT is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it is of his 
 poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of 
 the civilized world, his place has been assigned among the great- 
 est masters of the art. His detractors, however, though out- 
 voted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and some 
 of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the 
 
THOMAS BABIXGTON MACAUT.AY. 820 
 
 poems and to decry the poet. The works, they acknowledge, con- 
 sidered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest produc- 
 tions of the human mind ; but they will not allow the author to 
 rank with those great men, who, born in the infancy of civiliza- 
 tion, supplied by their own powers the want of instruction, and, 
 though destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to posterity 
 models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what 
 his predecessors created; he lived in an enlightened age; he 
 received a finished education ; and we must, therefore, if we would 
 form a just estimate of his powers, make large deductions for 
 these advantages. 
 
 We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark 
 may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with .more un- 
 favorable circumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has him- 
 self owned, whether he had not- been born tl an age too late." For 
 this notion, Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of his 
 clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of 
 his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius 
 derived no advantage from the civilization which surrounded him, 
 or from the learning which he had acquired ; and he looked back 
 with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and 
 vivid impressions. 
 
 We think, that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessa- 
 rily declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of 
 imagination which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire 
 them the more because they have appeared in dark ages. On the 
 contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of 
 genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. We can not 
 understand why those who believe in that most orthodox article 
 of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, 
 should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely the 
 uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformi- 
 ty in the cause. 
 
 The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of 
 the experimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The im- 
 provement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in 
 collecting materials ; ages more in separating and combining them. 
 Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to 
 add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a 
 vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, aug- 
 mented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, 
 therefore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, 
 even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far 
 inferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass-them in actual attain- 
 ments. Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's " Little Dialogues 
 on Political Economy " could teach Montague or Walpole many 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 lessons in finance. Any intelligent man ma}' now, by resolutely 
 applying himself for a few years to mathematics, learn more than 
 the great Xewton knew after half a century of study and medi- 
 tation. 
 
 But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture : 
 still less is it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement 
 rarely supplies these arts with better objects of imitation. It may, 
 indeed, improve the instruments which are necessary to the me- 
 chanical operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter ; 
 but language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his pur- 
 pose in its rudest state. Xations, like individuals, first perceive, 
 and then abstract. They advance from particular images to gen- 
 eral terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is 
 philosophical : that of a half-civilized people is poetical. 
 
 This change in the language of men is partly the cause, and 
 partly the effect, of a corresponding change in the nature of their 
 intellectual operations, a change by which science gains, and poet- 
 ry loses. Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowl- 
 edge, but particularly in the creations of the imagination. In pro- 
 portion as men know more, and think more, they look less at indi- 
 viduals, and more .at classes. They therefore make better theories, 
 and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, 
 and personified qualities instead of men. They may be better 
 able to analyze human nature than their predecessors ; but aual} T - 
 sis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portraj 7 , not 
 to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbur}- ; 
 he may refer all human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius ; or 
 he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such 
 subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than 
 the notions which a painter may have conceived respecting the 
 lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood, will affect the 
 tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. If Shakspeare 
 had written a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no 
 means certain that it would have been a good one. It is 
 extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much 
 able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the " Fable of 
 the Bees." But could Mandeville have created an lago ? Well 
 as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he 
 have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to 
 make up a man, a real, living, individual man ? 
 
 Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetrv, without 
 a certain unsoundness of mind, if any thing which gives so much 
 pleasure ought to be called uusoundness. By poetrv. we mean, 
 not, of course, all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in 
 ver.se. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions, which 
 on other grounds deserve the highest praise. By poetry, we 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAU-LAY. 331 
 
 mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce 
 an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of 
 words what the painter does by means of colors. Thus the 
 greatest of poets has described it in lines universally admired for the 
 vigor and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on ac- 
 count of the just notion which they convey of the art in which 
 he excelled : 
 
 " As imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy" which he ascribes to the 
 poet, a fine frenzy doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, 
 is essential to poetry ; but it is tbe truth of madness. The rea- 
 sonings are just; but the premises are false. After the first sup- 
 positions have been made, every thing ought to be consistent; but 
 those first suppositions require a degree of credulity which almost 
 amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. 
 Hence, of all people, children are the most imaginative. They 
 abandon themselves, without reserve, to every illusion. Every 
 image which is strongly presented to their mental eye produces 
 on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility 
 may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is 
 affected by the story of poor E-ed Hiding-Hood. She knows that 
 it is all false, that wolves can not speak, that there are no wolves 
 in England : yet, in spite of her knowledge, she believes ; she 
 weeps ; she trembles ; she dares not go into a dark room, lest she 
 should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the 
 despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. In a rude 
 state of society, men are children with a greater variety of ideas. 
 It is, therefore, in such a state of society, that we may expect 
 to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In an 
 enlightened age, there will be much intelligence, much science, 
 much philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle analy- 
 sis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and 
 even of good ones, but little poetry. Men will judge and com- 
 pare ; but they will not create. They will talk about the old 
 poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them ; 
 but they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry 
 produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the 
 plenitude of belief. The Greek rhapsodists, according to Plato, 
 could not recite Homer without almost falling into convulsions. 
 The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping-knife while he shouts his 
 death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and 
 Germany exercised over their auditors seems to modern readers 
 almost miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilized 
 
332 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 community, and most rare among those who participate most in 
 its improvements. They linger longest among the peasantry. 
 
 Poetry produces an illusion on tlie eye of the mind as a magic- 
 lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the body. And, as the 
 magic-lantern acts best in a dark room, poetry effects its purpose 
 most completely in a dark age. As the light of knowledge breaks 
 in upon its exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty become more 
 and more definite, and the shades of probability more and more 
 distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phantoms which it calls 
 up grow fainter and fainter. We can not unite the incom- 
 patible advantages of reality and deception, the clear discernment 
 of truth, and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction. He who, in an 
 enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must 
 first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web 
 of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which 
 has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title of superiority. 
 His very talents will be a hinderance to him. His difficulties 
 will be proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits which are 
 fashionable among his contemporaries ; and that proficiency will, 
 in general, be proportioned to the vigor and activity of his mind. 
 And it is well, if, after all his sacrifices and exertions, his works 
 do not resemble a lisping man or a modern ruin. We have seen 
 in our own time great talents, intense labor, and long meditation, 
 employed in this struggle against the spirit of the age, and em- 
 ployed, we will not say absolutely in vain, but with dubious suc- 
 cess and feeble applause. If these reasonings be just, no poet has 
 ever triumphed over greater difficulties than Milton. He received 
 a learned education ; he was a profound and elegant classical 
 scholar ; he had studied all the mysteries of rabbinical literature ; 
 he was intimately acquainted with every language of modern 
 Europe from which either pleasure or information was then to be 
 derived. He was, perhaps, the only great poet of later times who 
 had been distinguished by the excellence of his Latin verse. The 
 genius of Petrarch was scarcely of the first order ; and his poems 
 in the ancient language, though much praised by those who have 
 never read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, with all his 
 admirable wit and ingenuity, had little imagination ; nor, indeed, 
 do we think his classical diction comparable to that of Milton. 
 The authority of Johnson is against us on this point. But John- 
 son had studied the bad writers of the middle ages till he had 
 become utterly insensible to the Augustan elegance, and was as ill 
 qualified to judge between two Latin styles as an habitual drunk- 
 ard to set up for a wine-taster. Versification in a dead language 
 is an exotic ; a far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which 
 elsewhere may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. 
 The soils on which this rarity flourishes are in general as ill 
 
THOMAS BABTNGTON MACAULAY. 333 
 
 suited to the production of vigorous native poetry as the flower- 
 pots of a hot-house to the growth of oaks. That the author of 
 " The Paradise Lost " should have written the " Epistle to Manso " 
 was truly wonderful. Never before were such marked originality 
 and such exquisite mimicry found together. Indeed, in all the 
 Latin poems of Milton, the artificial manner indispensable to such 
 works is admirably preserved ; while at the same time the rich- 
 ness of his fancy, and the elevation of his sentiments, give to 
 them a peculiar charm, an air of nobleness and freedom, which 
 distinguishes them from all other writings of the same class. 
 They remind us of the amusements of those angelic warriors who 
 composed the cohort of Gabriel : 
 
 " About him exercised heroic games 
 The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads 
 Celestial armory, shield, helm, and spear, 
 Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." 
 
 We can not look upon the sportive exercises for which the 
 genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a glimpse of the 
 gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is accustomed to wear. 
 The strength of his imagination triumphed over every obstacle. 
 So intense and ardent was the fire of his mind, that it not only 
 was not suffocated beneath the weight of its fuel, but penetrated 
 the whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and radiance. 
 
 It is not our intention to attempt any thing like a complete 
 examination of the poetry of Milton. The public has long been 
 agreed as to the merit of the most remarkable passages, the 
 incomparable harmony of the numbers, and the excellence of that 
 style which no rival has been able to equal, and no parodist to 
 degrade ; which displays in their highest perfection the idiomatic 
 powers of the English tongue ; and to -which every ancient and 
 every modern language has contributed something of grace, of 
 energy, or of music. In the vast field of criticism in which we 
 are entering, innumerable reapers have already put their sickles ; 
 yet the harvest is so abundant, that the negligent search of a 
 straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. 
 
 The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is the 
 extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts 
 on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what it 
 expresses, as by what it suggests ; not so much by the ideas 
 which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected 
 with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The 
 most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives 
 him no choice, and requires from him no exertion, but takes the 
 whole upon himself, and sets his images in so clear a light, that it 
 is impossible to be blind to them. The works of Milton can not 
 be comprehended or enjoyed unless the mind of the reader co- 
 
334 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished 
 picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and 
 leaves others to fill up the outline. ' He strikes the keynote, and 
 expects his hearer to make out the melody. 
 
 \Ve often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The ex- 
 pression, in general, means nothing; but, applied to the writings 
 <>f Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an 
 incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than 
 in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be 
 no more in his words than in other words ; but they are 
 words of 'enchantment : no sooner are they pronounced than 
 the past is present, and the distant near. !New forms of 
 beauty start at once into existence ; and all the burial-places 
 of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure 
 of the sentence, substitute one synonym for another, and the 
 whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its power; and he who 
 should then hope to conjure wjtli it would find himself as much 
 mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, 
 " Open, Wheat ! " " Open, Barley ! " to the door which obeyed no 
 sound but " Open, Sesame ! " The miserable failure of Dryden 
 in his attempt to rewrite some parts of the "Paradise Lost" is a 
 remarkable instance of this. 
 
 In support of these observations, we may remark, that scarcely 
 any passages in the poems of Milton are more generally known, 
 or more frequently repeated, than those which are little more 
 than muster-rolls of names. They are not always more appro- 
 priate or more melodious than other names ; but they are 
 charmed names. Every one of them is the first link in a long 
 chain of associated ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our in- 
 fancy revisited in manhood, like the song of our country heard in 
 a strange land, they produce upon us an effect wholly independent 
 of their intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote 
 period of histor}*; another places us among the moral scenery 
 and manners of a distant country; a third evokes all the dear 
 classical recollections of childhood, the schoolroom, the dog- 
 eared " Virgil," the holiday, and the prize ; a fourth brings before 
 us the splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied 
 lists, the embroidered housings, the quaint devices, the haunted 
 forests, the enchanted gardens, the achievements of enamored 
 knights, and the smiles of rescued princesses. In none of the 
 works of Milton is his peculiar manner more happily displayed 
 than in the " Allegro " and the "Penseroso." It is impossible to 
 conceive that the mechanism of language can be brought to a more 
 exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others 
 as attar of roses differs from ordinary rose-water, the close-parked 
 essence from the thin diluted mixture. They are, indeed, not so 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 335 
 
 much poems as collections of hints, from each of which the reader 
 is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a 
 canto. The " Coinus " and the " Samson Agonistes " are works, 
 which, though of very different merit, offer some marked points 
 of resemblance. They are both lyric poems in the form of plays. 
 There are, perhaps, no two kinds of composition so essentially 
 dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The business of the drama- 
 tist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but 
 his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal 
 feelings, the illusion is broken : the effect is as unpleasant as 
 that which is produced on the stage by the voice of a prompter 
 or the entrance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that the trage- 
 dies of Byron were his least successful performances. They 
 resemble those pasteboard pictures invented by the friend of 
 children, Mr. Newberry, in which a single movable head goes 
 around twenty different bodies ; so that the same face looks out 
 upon us successively from the unifoijm of a hussar, the furs of a 
 judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots 
 and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold 
 were discernible in an instant. But this species of egotism, 
 though fatal to the drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the 
 part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his 
 own emotions. Between these hostile elements, many great men 
 have endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never with com- 
 plete success. The Greek drama, on the model of which the 
 " Samson " was written, sprung from the ode. The dialogue was 
 ingrafted on the chorus, and naturally partook of its character. 
 The genius of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co-operated 
 with the circumstances under which tragedy made its first appear- 
 ance. ^Eschylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time, 
 the Greeks had far more intercourse with the East than in the 
 days of Homer ; and they had not yet acquired that immense 
 superiority in war, in science, and in the arts, which, in the fol- 
 lowing generation, led them to treat the Asiatics with contempt. 
 From the narrative of Herodotus, it would seem that they still 
 looked up with the veneration of disciples to Egypt and Assyria. 
 At this period, accordingly, it was natural that the literature of 
 Greece should be tinctured with the Oriental style; and that 
 style, we think, is clearly discernible in the works of Pindar and 
 JSschylus. The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. 
 The Book of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a consider- 
 able resemblance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, 
 his works are absurd ; considered as choruses, they are above all 
 praise. If, for instance, we examine the address of Clytemnestra 
 to Agamemnon on his return, or the description of the seven 
 Argive chiefs, by the principles of dramatic writing, we shall 
 
 
336 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 instantly condemn them as monstrous; but if we forget the 
 characters, and think only of the.. poetry, we shall admit that it 
 has never been surpassed in energy and magnificence. Sophocles 
 made the Greek drama as dramatic as was consistent with its 
 original form. His portraits of men have a sort of similarity ; but 
 it is the similarity, not of a painting, but of a bass-relief. It sug- 
 gests a resemblance ; but it does not produce an illusion. Euripides 
 attempted to carry the reform farther; but it was a task far 
 beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of 
 correcting what was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He 
 substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons for good odes. 
 
 Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly; much more 
 highly than, in our opinion, he deserved. Indeed, the caresses 
 which this partiality leads him to bestow on "sad Electra's poet" 
 sometimes reminds us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland 
 kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all events, there can be no 
 doubt that this veneration fo# the Athenian, whether just or not, 
 was injurious to the " Samson Agonistes." Had he taken ^Eschy- 
 lus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric 
 inspiration, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, 
 without bestowing a thought on those dramatic proprieties which 
 the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In 
 the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsistent, 
 he has failed, as every one must have failed. We can not identify 
 ourselves with the characters, as in a good play. We can not 
 identify ourselves with the poet, as in a good ode. The conflicting 
 ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed, neutralize each 
 other. We are by no means insensible to the merits of this cele- 
 brated piece ; to the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and 
 pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric 
 melody which gives so striking an effect to the choral passages: 
 but we think it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius 
 of Milton. 
 
 The " Comus " is framed on the model of the Italian masque, 
 as the " Samson " is framed on the model of the Greek tragedy. 
 It is, certainly, the noblest performance of the kind which exists 
 in any language. It is as far superior to the "Faithful Shep- 
 herdess," as the "Faithful Shepherdess" is to the "Aminta," or 
 the " Aminta " to the " Pastor Fido." It was well for Milton that 
 he had here no Euripides to mislead him. He understood and 
 loved the literature of modern Italy ; but he did not feel for it 
 the same veneration which he entertained for the remains of 
 Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many lofty and 
 endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, of his Italian prede- 
 cessors, were of a kind to which his mind had a deadly antipathy. 
 He could stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style ; 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 337 
 
 but false brilliancy was his utter aversion. His Muse had no 
 objection to a russet attire ; but she turned with disgust from 
 the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of a 
 chimney-sweeper on May Day. Whatever ornaments she wears 
 are of massive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but capable of 
 standing the severest test of the crucible. 
 
 Milton attended in the " Comus " to the distinction which he 
 neglected in the " Samson." He made it what it ought to be, 
 essentially lyrical, and dramatic only in semblance. He has not 
 attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect inherent in the 
 nature of that species of composition ; and he has, therefore, suc- 
 ceeded wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must 
 be read as majestic soliloquies ; and he who so reads them will be 
 enraptured with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their music. 
 The interruptions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint 
 upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The finest 
 passages are those which are lyric jn form as well as' in spirit. 
 " I should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton 
 in a letter to Milton, " the tragical part, if the lyrical did not rav- 
 ish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and odes; 
 whereunto, I most plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing 
 parallel in our language." The criticism was just. It is when 
 Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is dis- 
 charged from the labor of uniting two incongruous styles, when 
 he is at liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that 
 he rises even above himself. Then, like his own Good Genius, 
 bursting from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands 
 forth in celestial freedom and beauty: he seems to cry exultingly, 
 
 " Now mv task is smoothly done, 
 I can fly, or I can run," 
 
 to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian 
 dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and 
 cassia which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter through the 
 cedared alleys of the Hesperides. There are several of the minor 
 poems of Milton on which we would willingly make a few remarks. 
 Still more willingly would we enter into a detailed examination 
 of that admirable poem, the " Paradise Regained," which, strangely 
 enough, is scarcely ever mentioned, except as an instance of the 
 blindness of that parental affection which men of letters bear 
 toward the offspring of their intellects. That Milton was mis- 
 taken in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to the "Paradise 
 Lost," we must readily admit ; but we are sure that the superiority 
 of the " Paradise Lost " to the " Paradise Regained " is not more 
 decided than the superiority of the "Paradise Regained "'to every 
 poem which has since made its appearance. But our limits prevent 
 
 22 
 
338 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 us from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to that ex- 
 traordinary production which the general suffrage of critics has 
 placed in the highest class of human compositions. The only poem 
 of modern times which can be compared with the " Paradise Lost " 
 is the " Divine Comedy." The subject of Milton, in some points, 
 resembled that of Dante ; but he has treated it in a widely differ- 
 ent manner. We can not, we think, better illustrate our opinion 
 respecting our own great poet than by contrasting him with the 
 father of Tuscan literature. 
 
 The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as the hiero- 
 glyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. 
 The images which Dante employs speak for themselves: they 
 stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signifi-j 
 ca'ion which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their 
 value depends less on what they directly represent than on what 
 they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, may 
 be the appearance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never 
 shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the color, the 
 sound, the smell, the taste ; he counts the numbers ; he measures 
 the size. His similes are the illustrations of a traveler. Unlike 
 those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are introduced 
 in a plain, business-like manner; not for the sake of any beauty 
 in the objects from which they are drawn, not for the sake of any 
 ornament which they may impart to the poem, but simply in 
 order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as 
 it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice which led from the 
 sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock which 
 fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlege- 
 tlion was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Bene- 
 dict. The place where the heretics were confined in burning 
 tombs resembled the vast cemetery of Aries. Now, let us com- 
 pare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of Mil- 
 ton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never 
 thought of taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a 
 vague idea of vast bulk. In one passage, the fiend lies stretched 
 out, huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the 
 earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster which the 
 mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses himself to 
 battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Teneriffe or 
 Atlas : his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descrip- 
 tions the lines in which Dante has described the gigantic specter 
 of Nimrod ^ " His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the 
 ball of St. Peter's at Rome ; and his other limbs were in propor- 
 tion : so that the bank, which concealed him from the waist down- 
 wards, nevertheless showed so much of him, that three tall Ger- 
 mans would in vain have attempted to reach his hair." We are 
 
THOMAS BABrNGTOtf MACAULAY. 339 
 
 sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Floren- 
 tine poet : but Mr. Cary's translation is not at hand ; and our 
 version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning. 
 
 Once more: compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of 
 the " Paradise Lost " with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. 
 Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct 
 but solemn and tremendous imagery, Despair hurrying from 
 couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance ; Death 
 shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delay- 
 ing to strike. What says Dante ? " There was such a moan 
 there as there would be if all the sick, who, between July and 
 September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan 
 swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit together; and such a 
 stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs." 
 We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling 
 precedency between two such writers. Each in his own depart- 
 ment is incomparable ; and each, we may remark, has, wisely or 
 fortunately, taken a subject adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent 
 to the greatest advantage. The "Divine Comedy" is a personal 
 narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear-witness of that which 
 he relates. He is the very man who has heard the tormented 
 spirits crying out for the second death ; who has read the dusky 
 characters on the portal, within which there is no hope ; who has 
 hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon; who has fled from 
 the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Diaghignazzo. 
 His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer ; his 
 own feet have climbed the Mountain of Expiation ; his own brow 
 has been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw 
 aside such a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it were told with 
 the strongest air of veracity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, 
 with the greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The 
 narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of Dante as 
 the adventures of Amidas differ from those of Gulliver. The 
 author of " Amidas " would have made his book ridiculous if he had 
 introduced those minute particulars which gave such a charm to 
 the work of Swift, the nautical observations, the affected delicacy 
 about names, the official documents transcribed at full length, and 
 all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, springing out 
 of nothing, and tending to nothing. We are not shocked at being 
 told that a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw many very 
 strange sights ; and we can easily abandon ourselves to the illu- 
 sion of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, now 
 actually resident at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and giants, 
 flying islands and philosophizing horses, nothing but such circum- 
 stantial touches could produce for a single moment a deception 
 on the imagination. Of all the poets who have introduced into 
 
340 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 their works the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeed- 
 ed best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him. And, as this is a 
 point on which many rash and ill-considered judgments have been 
 pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it a little longer. The 
 most fatal error which a poet can possibly commit in the manage- 
 ment of his machinery is that of attempting to philosophize too 
 much. Milton has been often censured for ascribing to spirits 
 many functions of which spirits must be incapable ; but these 
 objections, though sanctioned by eminent names, originate, we ven- 
 ture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry. What is 
 spirit ? What are our own minds, the portion of spirit with which 
 we are best acquainted ? We observe certain phenomena : we 
 can not explain them into material causes ; we therefore infer 
 that there exists something which is not material. But of this 
 something we have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. 
 We can reason about it only by symbols. We use the word; but 
 we have no image of the thing : and the business of poetry is with 
 images, and not with words. The poet uses words, indeed ; but 
 they are merely the instruments of his art, not its objects. They 
 are the materials which he is to dispose in such a manner as to 
 present a picture to the mental eye. And, if they are not so dis- 
 posed, they are no more entitled to be called poetry than a bale 
 of canvas and a box of colors are to be called a painting. Logi- 
 cians may reason about abstractions; but the great mass of man- 
 kind can never feel an interest in them. They must have images. 
 The strong tendency of the multitude, in all ages and nations, to 
 idolatry, can be explained on no other principle. The first inhabit- 
 ants of Greece, there is every reason to believe, worshiped one 
 invisible Deity ; but the necessity of having something more 
 definite to adore produced in a few centuries the innumerable 
 crowd of gods and goddesses. In like manner, the ancient Per- 
 sians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a human 
 form ; yet even these transferred to the sun the worship, which, 
 speculatively, they considered due only to the Supreme Mind. 
 The history of the Jews is the record of a continual struggle 
 between pure Theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, 
 and the strangely-fascinating desire of having some visible and 
 tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary 
 causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which 
 Christianity spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever 
 acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. 
 God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted 
 few worshipers. A philosopher might admire so noble a concep- 
 tion ; but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which 
 presented no image to their minds. It was before Deity embodied 
 in a human, form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmi- 
 
THOMAS BABINGTON MACACTLAY. 341 
 
 ties, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumber- 
 ing in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of 
 the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of 
 the Portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty 
 legions, were humbled in the dust. Soon after Christianity had 
 achieved its triumph, the principle which had assisted it began 
 to corrupt. It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed 
 the offices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars. 
 St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of " Castor and Pollux." 
 The Virgin Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses. 
 The fascination of sex and loveliness was again joined to that of 
 celestial dignity; and the homage of chivalry was blended with 
 that of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against 
 these feelings, but never with more than apparent and partial 
 success. The men who demolished the images in cathedrals have 
 not always been able to demolish those which were enshrined in 
 their minds. It would not be difficult to show that in politics the 
 same rule holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally 
 be embodied, before they can excite strong public feeling. The 
 multitude is more easily interested for the most unmeaning badge 
 or the most insignificant name than for the most important prin- 
 ciple. From these considerations, we infer that no poet who 
 should affect that metaphysical accuracy, for the want of which 
 Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. Still, 
 however, there was another extreme, which, though far less dan- 
 gerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations of men are in 
 a great measure under the control of their opinions. The most 
 exquisite art of a poetical coloring can produce no illusion when 
 it is employed to represent that which is at once perceived to. be 
 incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of philosophers 
 and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, for him to abstain 
 from giving such a shock to their understandings as might break 
 the charm which it was his object to throw over their imagina- 
 tions. This is the real explanation of the indistinctness and in- 
 consistency with which he has often been reproached. Dr. John- 
 son acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary for him to 
 clothe his spirits with material forms. "'But," says he, "he 
 should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping 
 immateriality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from 
 his thoughts." This is easily said; but what if he could not 
 seduce the reader to drop it from his thoughts ? What if the 
 contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the minds of 
 men as to leave no room even for the quasi-belief which poetry 
 requires ? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impos- 
 sible for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the immate- 
 rial system. He therefore took his stand on the debatable ground. 
 
342 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 He left the whole in ambiguity. He has doubtless, by so doing, 
 hiid himself open to the charge > of inconsistency; but, though 
 philosophically in the wrong, we can not but believe that he was 
 poetically in the right. This task, which almost any other writer 
 would have found impracticable, was easy to him. The peculiar 
 art which he possessed, of communicating his meaning circuitously, 
 through a long succession of associated ideas, and of intimating 
 more than he expressed, enabled him to disguise those incongrui- 
 ties which he could not avoid. 
 
 Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought to 
 be at once mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. 
 That of Dante is picturesque, indeed, beyond any that was ever 
 written. Its effect approaches to that produced by the pencil 
 or the chisel ; but it is picturesque to the exclusion of all mys- 
 tery. This is a fault, indeed, on the right side, a fault insep- 
 arable from the plan of his poem, which, as we have already 
 observed, rendered the utmost accuracy of description necessarv. 
 Still it is a fault. His supernatural agents excite an interest ; 
 but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural agents. 
 We feel that we could talk with his ghosts and demons with- 
 out any emotions of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, 
 ask them to supper, and eat heartily in their company. His 
 angels are good men with wings ; his devils are spiteful, 
 ugly executioners; his dead men are merely living men in 
 strange situations. The scene which passes between the poet 
 and Facinata is justly celebrated : still Facinata in the burning 
 tomb is exactly what Facinata would have been at an auto-cfci-fe. 
 Nothing can be more touching than the first interview of .Dante 
 and Beatrice; yet what is it but a lovely woman chiding with 
 sweet austere composure the lover for whose affections she is 
 grateful, but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings which 
 give the passage its charm would suit the streets of Florence as 
 well as the summit of the Mount of Purgatory. The spirits of 
 Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers. His fiends, in 
 particular, are wonderful creations. They are not metaphysical 
 abstractions; they are not wicked men ; they are not ugly beasts ; 
 they have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tas>o 
 and Klopstock : they have just enough in common with human 
 nature to be intelligible to human beings. Their characters are, 
 like their forms, marked by a certain dim resemblance to those of 
 men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, and veiled in myste- 
 rious gloom. 
 
 Perhaps the gods and demons of JEschylus may best bear 
 a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. The style 
 of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, something of the 
 vagueness and tenor of the Oriental character; and the same 
 
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TRAVEL. 343 
 
 peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing of 
 the amenity and elegance which we generally Jind in the super- 
 stitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. His 
 legends seem to harmonize less with the fragrant groves and 
 graceful porticos in which his countrymen paid their vows to, the 
 God of Light, and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and 
 grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt enshrined 
 her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still bows down to her 
 seven-headed idols. His favorite gods are those of the elder 
 generations, the sons of heaven and earth, compared with whom 
 Jupiter himself was a stripling and an upstart, the gigantic 
 Titans, and the inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations 
 of this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the 
 friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. He 
 bears, undoubtedly, a considerable resemblance to the Satan of 
 Milton. In both, we find the same impatience of control, the 
 same ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both characters, 
 also, are mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind 
 and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly super- 
 human enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy 
 posture; he is rather too much depressed and agitated; his 
 resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which he possesses 
 that he holds the fate of his torturer in his hands, and that the 
 hour of his release will surely come. But Satan is a creature of 
 another sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is victorious 
 over the extremity of pain. Amidst agonies which can not be 
 conceived without horror, he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. 
 Against the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, 
 against the flaming lake and the marl burning with solid fire, 
 against the prospect of an eternity of tinintermittent miserj^, his 
 spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, 
 requiring no support from any thing external, nor even from hope 
 itself! 
 
 HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND Til A V EL. 
 
 JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 1818. " History of England from the Fall of Wolsey 
 to the Death of Elizabeth." Materially qualifies the generally-received opinions of 
 several historical characters. 
 
 HKNHY THOMAS BUCKLE. 1823-1862. " History of Civilization," two vols.; a 
 most remarkable attempt to write history in the order of its scientific growth. Not 
 completed. 
 
 Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON. 1792. " The History of Europe from the Commence- 
 ment of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons," ten vols.; ; ' To 
 Accession of Louis Napoleon," eight vols.; also " A Life of Marlborough." 
 
344 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 GEORGE GROTE. 1794. " The History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the 
 Great," a work of the highest merit. 
 
 THOMAS ARNOLD. 1795-1842. Head master of Rugby. Author of " A Frag- 
 ment of Roman History," u Sermons," and " Historical Lectures." 
 
 CONNOP THIRLWALL. 1797. " History of Greece." 
 
 Sir FRANCIS PALO RAVE. 1788-1861. "The History of the Anglo-Saxons;" 
 " The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth; " " The History of Nor- 
 mandy and of England." 
 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. 1793-1854. " Life of Sir Walter Scott," his father- 
 in-law; " Valerius" and u Reginald Dalton," novels; Spanish ballads. 
 
 .JOHN FORSTKR. 1812. "Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth," and 
 "Lite of Goldsmith." 
 
 GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 1817. "Life of Goethe;" " A Biographical History 
 of Philosophy ; " ' Life of Robespierre ; " " The Physiology of Common Life ; " " The 
 Spanish Drama," and other works. 
 
 DAVID MASSON. 1822. "British Novelists and their Styles;" "Life and 
 Times of John Milton." 
 
 SAMUEL LAING. "A Residence in Norway;" "A Tour in Sweden;" "Notes 
 of a Traveler." 
 
 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 1817. " Missionary Travels in South Africa." 
 
 AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD. 1817. " Nineveh and its Remains;" "Discoveries 
 in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon." 
 
 RICHARD FORD. 1796-1858. Murray's "Handbook for Spain;" "Gatherings 
 from Spain." 
 
 GEORGE BORROW. 1803. "The Bible in Spain;" " Zincali, or the Gypsies in 
 Spain ; " ' Lavengro, or the Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest," and Sequel; " The 
 Romany Rye." 
 
 ALEXANDER W. KINGLAKE. 1811. " Eotheu," travels in the East. 
 
 Sir JAMES EMERSON TENNENT. 1804. "Modern Greece;" "Belgium;" 
 "Wine;" and "Ceylon." 
 
 Sir FRANCIS HEAD. 1793. " Pampas and the Andes," and other works. 
 
 CHARLES WATERTON. " Wanderings in South America; " " Antilles; " &c. 
 
 Capt. SHERRARD OSRORNE. 1820. "Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal;" 
 "A Cruise in Japanese Waters." 
 
 Dr. RAE, Sir ROBERT M'CLURE, and Sir LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK, are eminent for 
 arctic travel and discovery. 
 
 HENRY D. INGLIS, Sir JOHN BOWRTXG, ELIOT WARBUKTON, JOHN FRANCIS 
 DAVIS, WINGROVE COOKE, LAURENCE l>LiPHA.NT, and Rev. JOSIAS PORTER, have 
 all written interesting accounts of travel. 
 
 Lord CAMPBELL. 1799-1861. " Lives of the Lord Chancellors ; " " Lives of the 
 Chief Justices." 
 
 CHARLES KNIGHT. 1790. "Old Printer and Modem Press ;"." Popular 
 History of England; " edition of Shakspeare. 
 
 ROBERT VAUGHN. 1798. " John de Wycliflfe ; " " England under the Stuarts ; " 
 " Revolutions of English History." 
 
 AGNES and ELIZABETH STRICKLAND. " Lives of the Queens of England and 
 Scotland." 
 
 WALTER F. HOOK. "Ecclesiastical Biography;" "Church Diet;" "Arch- 
 bishops of Canterbury." 
 
 ROBERT CHAMBERS. 1802. "Traditions of E linburgh ;"" Domestic Annals 
 of Scotland;" and " History of the Rebellion of 1745, 1746." 
 
 COSMO INXES. " Scotland in the Middle Ages; " " Sketches of Early Scottish 
 History." 
 
 Earl STANHOPE. 1805. "Life o r IVharins;" " Wnrof Succession in Spain;" 
 " History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles." 
 
THEOLOGIANS, SCHOLARS, ESSAYISTS, ETC. 345 
 
 Sir GEORGE C. LEWIS. 1806. "The Credibility of Early Roman History;" 
 "Influence of Authority on Opinions." 
 
 JOHN HILL BURTON. 1809. "Life of Hume;" "History of Scotland;" and 
 others. 
 
 THOMAS A. TEOLLOPE. "Girlhood of Catherine de Medici;" "A Decade of 
 Italian Women." 
 
 WILLIAM H. RUSSELL. 1816. " Letters on Crimean War; " " Diary in India; " 
 and .special correspondent of "The London Times." 
 
 GEORGE WILSON. HANNA. 
 
 WILLIAM STIRLING. MUIRHEAD. 
 
 WILLIAM H. DIXON. SMILES. 
 
 GEORGE FINLAY. CARRUTHERS. 
 
 JAMES WHITE. Miss PARDOE. 
 
 EYRE CROWE. Miss FREER. 
 
 And many others who have written biographies or histories of short periods or of 
 a local character. 
 
 THEOLOGIANS AND SCHOLARS. 
 
 THOMAS CHALMERS. 1780-1847. "Natural Theology;" "Evidences of 
 Christianity;" " Lectures on the Romans," and other eloquent discourses, in all, 
 thirty-four vols. 
 
 ISAAC TAYLOR. 1787. " Natural History of Enthusiasm ; " "Ancient Christi- 
 anity." 
 
 WILLIAM MURE. 1799. " Critical History of the Language and Literature of 
 Ancient Greece." 
 
 THOMAS GUTHRIE. J. W. DONALDSON. 
 
 HENRY ROGERS. RALPH WARDLAW. 
 
 JOHN BIRD SUMNER. THOMAS H. HORNE. 
 
 JOHN BROWN. HUGH M'NEILE. 
 
 JULIUS HARE. R. S. CANDLISH. 
 
 JOHN KITTO. RICHARD C. TRENCH. 
 
 WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. HENRY ALFORD. 
 
 HENRY RAWLINSON. WILLIAM A. BUTLER. 
 
 ARTHUR P. STANLEY. ROBERT A. THOMPSON. 
 
 JOHN TULLOCII. JOHN CAIRO. 
 
 NORMAN M'LEon. EDWARD PUSEY. 
 
 JOHN H. NEWMAN. FRANCIS NEWMAN. 
 
 BENJAMIN JOWETT. J. F. D. MAURICE. 
 
 JAMES MARTI NEAU. Cardinal WIHEMAN. 
 
 Bishop COLENSO. GOLDWIN SMITH. 
 
 ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS. 
 
 JOHN WILSON. 1785-1854. Author of "Noctes Ambrosianas." He was the 
 " Christopher North " of " Blackwood." 
 
 ANXA JAMESON. 1796-1860. "Characteristics of Women;" "Sacred and 
 Legendary Art;" and others. 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 1802. "Society in America;" " Deerbrook ; " and 
 The Hour and the Man; " " The History of the Thirty- Years' Peace." 
 
34G ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 SARAH ELLIS. " The Women of England," and several others. 
 
 AUTIIUK HELPS. " Friends in Council," and " Companions of my Solitude." 
 
 JOHN Rrsiux. 1^19. The very popular author of " Modern Painters," " The 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture," ami " Tiie Stones of Venice." 
 
 JOHN PAYNE COLLIER. JOHN STERLING. 
 
 WILLIAM MAGIXX. MARY C. CLARKE. 
 
 WILLIAM and MARY Howrrr. SAMTKL PHILLIPS. 
 
 GE<K<;K GlLFILLAX. GKOKGH BlUMLEY. 
 
 ALEXANDER DYCE. 
 
 And many others, all of whom have written one or more volumes worthy the pupil's 
 attention. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 Sir DAVID BREWSTER. 1781-1868. "Optics;" "More Worlds than One;" 
 and " Life of Sir Isaac Newton." Twenty years writing "Edinburgh Encyclo- 
 paedia." 
 
 RICHARD WHATELY. 1787-1863. " Logic ; " " Rhetoric ; " " Political Econo- 
 my," and other philosophical works. 
 
 Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON. 1788-1856. "Distinguished Metaphysicians." 
 
 Sir RODERICK MUKCIIISOX. 1792. " Geology of Russia," and " Siluria." 
 
 WILLIAM WHEWELL. 1795. " History of Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," 
 and o.ie of " The Bridgewater Treatises." 
 
 MARY SOMERVILLE. " The Connection of the Physical Sciences;" "Physical 
 Geug. apliy." 
 
 HUGH MILLER. 1802-1856. Distinguished geologist. Author of several 
 popular works. 
 
 JOHN STUART MILL. 1806. " Logic ; " " Political Economy ; " and " Liberty." 
 One of the ablest men of the time. 
 
 WILLIAM SMITH. 1769-1839. Geology. 
 
 WILLIAM BCCKLAXD. 1784-1856. Geology. 
 
 GIDEON MANTEL. 1788-1852. Geology. 
 
 DIOXYSIUS LARDXER. 1793-1859. " Museum of Science," and " Lectures." 
 
 MICHAEL FARADAY. 1794-1867. Distinguished chemist. 
 
 Sir CHARLES LYELL. 1797. Several geological works. 
 
 RICHARD OWEN. Zoologist. 
 
 JAMES FEKRIER. HERBERT SPENCER. 
 
 Dr. MANSELL. CHARLES DARWIN. 
 
 MOKELL. J. 1). FORUMS. 
 
 M-Cosii. TYXDALL. 
 
 ALEXANDER BAIN. ROSCOE. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 347 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 BORN 1795. 
 
 A remarkable essayist of a truly original style. A disjointed collection of short 
 apostrophes to the varied elements of French society about the time of and during 
 the French Revolution, he calls a history of that period. "The Letters and 
 Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, with Elucidations," are more connected, and give a 
 vivid picture of the man and the times. 
 
 PRINCIPAL WOKKS. 
 
 "Sartor Resartus," "Latter-day Pamphlet," " Frederick the Great," and several 
 others of the same vigorous, sledge-hammer style. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 
 ANTI-DRYASDUST. 
 
 WHAT and how great are the interests which connect them- 
 selves with the hope that England may yet attain to some practical 
 belief and understanding of its history duriiig the seventeenth 
 century, need not be insisted oil at present ; such hope being still 
 very distant, very uncertain. We have wandered far away from 
 the ideas which guided us in that century, and indeed which had 
 guided us in all preceding centuries, but of which that century 
 was the ultimate manifestation : we have wandered very far ; and 
 must endeavor to return, and connect ourselves therewith again. 
 It is with other feelings than those of poor peddling dilettanteism, 
 other aims than the writing of successful -or unsuccessful publica- 
 tions, that an earnest man occupies himself in those dreary prov- 
 inces of the dead and buried. The last glimpse of Godlike 
 vanishing from this England; conviction and veracity giving 
 place to hollow cant and formalism ; antique " Reign of God," 
 which all true men in their several dialects and modes have 
 always striven for, giving place to modern " Reign of the No-God," 
 whom men name Devil, this, in its multitudinous meanings and 
 results, is a sight to create reflections in the earnest man. One 
 wishes there were a history of English Puritanism, the last of all 
 our heroisms, but sees small prospect of such a thing at 
 present. 
 
 " Few nobler heroisms," says a well-known writer long occupied 
 on this subject, "at bottom, perhaps no nobler heroism, ever 
 transacted itself on this earth ; and it lies as good as lost to us, 
 overwhelmed under such an avalanche of human stupidities as no 
 heroism before ever did. Intrinsically and extrinsically, it may 
 be considered inaccesible to these generations. Intrinsically, the 
 
348 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 spiritual purport of it has become inconceivable, incredible, to the 
 modern mind ; extrinsically, the documents and records of it, 
 scattered waste as a shoreless chaos, are not legible. They lie 
 there, printed, written, to the extent of tons and square miles, as 
 shot-rubbish ; unedited, unsorted, not so much as indexed ; full 
 of every conceivable confusion; yielding light to very few; 
 yielding darkness in several sorts to very many. Dull pedantry, 
 conceited idle dilettanteism, prurient stupidity in what shape so- 
 ever, is darkness, and not light. There are from thirty to fifty 
 thousand unread pamphlets of the Civil War in the British 
 Museum alone, huge piles of moldering wreck, wherein, at the 
 rate of perhaps one pennyweight per ton, lie things memorable. 
 They lie preserved there, waiting happier days: under present 
 conditions, they can not, except for idle purposes, for dilettante 
 excerpts and such like, be got examined. The Rush worths, 
 Whitlockes, Nalsons, Thurloes, enormous folios these, and many 
 others : they have been printed, and some of them again printed, 
 but never yet edited, edited as you edit wagon-loads of broken 
 bricks and dry mortar, simply by tumbling up the wagon. Xot 
 one of these monstrous old volumes has so much as an available 
 index. It is the general rule of editing on this matter. If your 
 editor correct the press, it is an honorable distinction to him. 
 Those dreary old records were compiled at first bj* human insight 
 in part, and in great part by human stupidity withal ; but then 
 it was by stupidity in a laudable, diligent state, and doing its 
 best, which was something : and, alas ! they have been suc- 
 cessively elaborated by human stupidity in the idle state, falling 
 idler and idler, and only pretending to be diligent, whereby now, 
 for us, in these late days, they have grown very dim indeed. To 
 Dryasdust printing societies, and such like, they afford a sorrow r - 
 ful kind of pabulum : but, for all serious purposes, they are as if 
 non-extant; might as well, if matters are to rest as thej- are, not 
 have been written or printed at all. The sound of them is not a 
 voice, conveying knowledge or memorial of any earthly or heavenly 
 thing : it is a widespread, inarticulate, slumberous mumblement, 
 issuing as if from the lake of eternal sleep; craving for oblivion, 
 for abolition, and honest silence, as a blessing in comparison. 
 
 "This, then," continues our impatient friend, "is the Elysium 
 we English have provided for our heroes ! the Rushworthian 
 Elysium ; dreariest continent of shot-rubbish the eye ever sa\v. 
 Confusion piled on confusion to your utmost horizon's edge ; 
 obscure in lurid twilight as of the shadow of death ; trackless, 
 without index, without finger-post, or mark of any human 
 foregoer ; where your human footstep, if you are still human, 
 echoes bodeful through the gaunt solitude, peopled only by 
 somnambulant pedants, dilettanti, and doleful creatures; by 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 349 
 
 phantasms, errors, inconceivabilities ; by nightmares, pasteboard 
 norroys, griffins, wiverns, and chimeras dire. There, all van- 
 quished, overwhelmed under such waste lumber-mountains, the 
 wreck and dead ashes of some six unbelieving generations, does 
 the age of Cromwell and his Puritans lie hidden from us. This 
 is what we, for our share, have been able to accomplish toward 
 keeping our heroic ones in memory. By way of sacred poet, they 
 have found voluminous Dryasdust, and his collections and philo- 
 sophical hi stories. 
 
 u To Dryasdust, who wishes merely to compile torpedo histories 
 of the philosophical or other sorts, and gain immortal laurels for 
 himself by writing about it and about it, all this is sport 5 but to us 
 who struggle piously, passionately, to behold, if but in glimpses, the 
 faces of our vanished fathers, it is death. O Dryasdust, my volu- 
 minous friend ! had human stupidity continued in the diligent state, 
 think you it had ever come to this ? Surely, at least, you might have 
 made an index for these huge books ! Even your genius, had you 
 been faithful, was adequate to that. Those thirty thousand or fifty 
 thousand old newspapers a-nd pamphlets of the King's Library 
 it is you, my voluminous friend, that should have sifted them 
 many long years ago. Instead of droning out these melancholy 
 skepticisms, constitutional philosophies, torpedo narratives, 3-011 
 should have sifted those old stacks of pamphlet-matter for us, and 
 have had the metal grains lying here accessible, and the dross- 
 heaps lying there avoidable: you had done the human memory 
 a service thereby : some human remembrance of this matter had 
 been more possible." 
 
 Certainly this description does not want for emphasis; but all 
 ingenuous inquirers into the past will say there is too much truth 
 in it. Nay, in addition to the sad state of our historical books, 
 and what, indeed, is fundamentally the cause and origin of that, 
 our common spiritual notions, if any notion of ours may still de- 
 serve to be called spiritual, are fatal to a right understanding of 
 that seventeenth century. The Christian doctrines, which then 
 dwelt alive in every heart, have now, in a manner, died out of all 
 hearts (very mournful to behold), and are not the guidance of 
 this world any more. Nay, worse still, the cant of them does yet 
 dwell alive with us (little doubting that it is cant) ; in which 
 fatal intermediate state the eternal sacredness of this universe 
 itself, of this human life itself, has fallen dark to the most of us; 
 and we think that, too, a cant arid a creed. Thus the old names 
 suggest new things to us ; not august and divine, but hypocriti- 
 cal, pitiable, detestable. The old names arid similitudes of belief 
 still circulate from tongue to tongue, though now in such a ghastly 
 condition ; not as commandments of the living God, which we 
 must do, or perish eternally ; alas ! no, as something very differ- 
 
350 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ent from that. Here properly lies the grand unintelligibility of the 
 seventeenth century for us. From this source has proceeded our 
 maltreatment of it, our ruiseditings, miswritings, and all the other 
 ' avalanche of human stupidity,"' M herewith, as our impatient 
 friend complains, we have* allowed it to be overwhelmed. We 
 have allowed some other things to be overwhelmed. Would to 
 Heaven that were the worst fruit we had gathered from our unbe- 
 lief and our cant of belief ! Our impatient friend continues : 
 
 "I have known nations altogether destitute of printers' types 
 and learned appliances, with nothing better than old songs, monu- 
 mental stone-heaps, and quipo-thrums to keep record by, who 
 had truer memory of their memorable things than this. Truer 
 memory, I say j for at least the voice of their past heroisms, if 
 indistinct, and all awry as to dates and statistics, was still melo- 
 dious to those nations. The body of it might be dead enough ; 
 but the soul of it, partly harmonized, put in real accordance with 
 the ( eternal melodies,' was alive to all hearts, and coifld not die. 
 The memory of their ancient brave ones did not rise like a hide- 
 ous, huge leaden vapor, an amorphous emanation of chaos, like a 
 petrifying Medusa specter, on those poor nations : no ! but like a 
 Heaven's apparition, which it was, it still stood radiant, benefi- 
 cent, before all hearts, calling all hearts to emulate it; and the 
 recognition of it was a psalm and song. These things will re- 
 quire to be practically meditated by and by. Is human writing, 
 then, the art of burying heroisms and highest facts in chaos, so 
 that no man shall henceforth contemplate them without horror 
 and aversion, and danger of locked-jaw? What does Dryasdust 
 consider that he was born for ? that paper and ink were made 
 for? 
 
 " It is very notable, and leads to endless reflections, how the 
 Greeks had their living Iliad where we have such a deadly, inde- 
 scribable Cromwelliad. The old Pantheon, home of all the gods, 
 has become a peerage-book, with black and white surplice ; con- 
 troversies superadded, not unsuitably. The Greeks had their 
 Homers, Hesiods, where we have our Rymers. Rush worths, our 
 Norroys, Garter-Kings, and Bishops Cobweb. Very notable. I say. 
 By the genius, wants, and instincts and opportunities, of the one 
 people, striving to keep themselves in mind of what was memora- 
 ble, there had fashioned itself in the effort of successive centuries 
 a Collin's peerage, improved by Sir Egerton Brydges. By their 
 Pantheons ye shall know them ! Have not we English a talent 
 for silence? Oar very speech and printed speech, such a force of 
 torpor dwelling in it, is properly a higher power of silence. There 
 is no silence like the speech you can not listen to without danger 
 of locked-jaw. Given a divine heroism, to smother it well in 
 human dullness, to touch it with the mace of death, so that no 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 351 
 
 human soul shall henceforth recognize it for a heroism, but all 
 souls shall fly from it as from a chaotic torpor, an insanity and 
 horror, I will back our English genius against the \voiid in such 
 a problem ! 
 
 "Truly we have done great things in that sort, down from 
 Norman William all the way, and earlier; and to the English 
 mind at tins hour the past history of England is little other than 
 a dull, dismal labyrinth, in which the English mind, if candid, 
 will confess that it has found of knowable (meaning even con- 
 ceivable), of lovable, or memorable, next to nothing. As if we 
 had done no brave thing at all in this earth ! As if not men, but 
 nightmares, had written of our history ! The English, one can 
 discern withal, have been, perhaps, as brave a people as their 
 neighbors, perhaps, for valor of action and true hard labor in this 
 earth, since brave peoples were first made in it, there has been none 
 braver anywhere or anywhen ; but also, it must be owned, in stu- 
 pidity of speech they have no fellow. What can poor English 
 heroisms do in such case but fall torpid into the domain of ihe 
 nightmares ? For, of a truth, stupidity is strong, most strong. As 
 the poet Schiller sings, 'Against stupidity the very gods fight 
 unvictorious.' There is in it a placid inexhaustibility, a calm, vis- 
 cous infinitude, which will baffle even the gods; which will say 
 calmly, ' Try all your lightnings here ; see whether I can not 
 quench them ! ' 
 
 'Mit der Dummheit kampfen Cotter selbst vergebens.'" 
 
 Has our friend forgotten that it is destiny withal, as well as 
 "stupidity;" that such is the case, more or less, with human his- 
 tory always? By very nature, it is a labyrinth and chaos, this 
 that we call human history; an abatis of trees and brushwood; a 
 world-wide jungle, at once growing and dying. Under the green 
 foliage and blossoming fruit-trees of to-day, there lies rotting, 
 slower or faster, the forests of all other years and days. Some 
 have rotted fast (plants of annual growth), and are long since quite 
 gone to inorganic mold ; others are like the aloe, growth that 
 lasts a thousand or three thousand years. You will find them in 
 all stages of decay and preservation, down deep to the begin- 
 nings of the history of man. Think where our alphabetic letters 
 came from, where our speech itself came from, the cookeries we 
 live by, the masonries we lodge under ! You will find fibrous 
 roots of this day's occurrences among the dust of Cadmus and 
 Trismegistus, of Tubal Cain and Triptolemus : the tap-roots of 
 them are with Father Adam himself, and the cinders of Eve's first 
 fire ! At bottom, there is no perfect history : there is none such 
 conceivable. 
 
 All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb 
 
352 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 and quiet, even as that seventeenth is now threatening to do. 
 Histories are as perfect as the historian is wise, and is gifted with 
 an eye and a soul; for the leafy, blossoming Present Time 
 springs from the whole Past, remembered and unrememberable, 
 so confusedly as we say. And truly the art of history, the grand 
 difference between a Dryasdust and a sacred poet, is very much 
 even this: To distinguish well what does still reach to the sur- 
 face, and is alive and frondent for us ; and what reaches no lon- 
 ger to the surface, but inolders safe underground, never to send 
 forth leaves or fruit for mankind any more. Of the former we 
 shall rejoice to hear: to hear of the latter will be an affliction to 
 us ; of the latter, only pedants and dullards, and disastrous male- 
 factors to the world, will find good to speak. By wise memory 
 and by wise oblivion, it lies all there. Without oblivion, there 
 is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory 
 are wise ; when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, 
 there nv.iy come a modern Iliad as memorial of the past : when 
 both are foolish, and the general soul is overclouded with confu- 
 sions, with uuveracities and discords, there is a " Ituslnvorthian 
 chaos.*' 
 
 Let Dryasdust be blamed, beaten with stripes, if you will ; 
 but let it be with pity, with blame to Fate chiefly. Alas ! when 
 sacred priests are arguing about "black and white surplices," 
 and sacred poets have long professedly deserted truth, and gone 
 a wool-gathering after "ideals" and such like, what can you ex- 
 pect of poor secular pedants ? The labyrinth of history must 
 grow ever darker, more intricate and dismal ; vacant cargoes of 
 "ideals" wiil arrive yearly, to be cast into the oven; and noble 
 heroisms of fact, given up to Dryasdust, will be buried in a very 
 disastrous manner. 
 
 But the thing we had to say and repeat was this. that Puri- 
 tanism is not of the nineteenth century, hut of the seventeenth; 
 that the grand unintelligibility for us lies there. The fast-day 
 sermons of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, in spite of 
 printers, are all grown dumb. In long rows of little dumpy quartos, 
 gathered from the bookstalls, they indeed stand here bodily be- 
 fore us : by human volition they can be read, but not by any 
 human memory remembered. We forget them as soon as read : 
 they have become a weariness to the soul of man. They are dead 
 and gone, they, and what they shadowed: the human soul, got 
 into other latitudes, can not no\v give harbor to them. Alas ! and 
 did not the Houses of Parliament listen to them with rapt earnest- 
 is to an indisputable message from Heaven itself? Learned 
 and painful Dr. Owen, learned and painful Dr. Burgess. Stephen 
 Marshall, Mr. Spurstow, Adoniram Bytield. Hugh Peters, Philip 
 ^Nye, the printer has done for them what he could, and Mr. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 353 
 
 Speaker gave them the thanks of the House ; and no most astonish- 
 ing Review article of our day can have half such " brilliancy," 
 such potency, half such virtue for producing belief, as these their 
 poor little dumpy quartos once had. And, behold ! they are be- 
 come inarticulate men, spectral; and, instead of speaking, do not 
 screech and gibber ! All Puritanism is grown inarticulate : its 
 fervent preachings, prayings, pamphleteerings, are sunk into one 
 indiscriminate, moaning hum, mournful as the voice of subter- 
 ranean winds. So much falls silent : human speech, unless by 
 rare chance it touch on the "eternal melodies," and harmonize 
 with them ; human action, interest, if divorced from the eternal 
 melodies, sinks all silent. The fashion of this world passeth 
 away. 
 
 The age of the Puritans is not extinct only, and gone away 
 from us ; but it is as if fallen beyond the capabilities of Memory 
 herself: it is grown unintelligible; what we may call incredi- 
 ble. Its earnest purport awakens now no resonance in *our 
 frivolous hearts. We understand, not even in imagination, one 
 of a thousand of us, what it ever could have meant. It seems 
 delirious, delusive: the sound of it has become tedious as a tale 
 of past stupidities. Not the body of heroic Puritanism only, 
 which was bound to die, but the soul of it also, which was, and 
 should have been, and yet shall be, immortal, has for the present 
 passed away. As Harrison said of his " Banner and Lion " of 
 the tribe of Judah, " Who shall rouse him up ? " " For indis- 
 putably," exclaims the above-cited author in his vehement way, 
 "this, too, was a heroism ; and the soul of it remains part of the 
 eternal soul of things. Here, of our own land and lineage, in 
 practical English shape, were heroes on the earth once more, 
 who knew in every fiber, and with heroic daring laid to heart, 
 that an Almighty Justice does verily rule this world; that it is 
 good to fight on God's side, and bad to. fight on the Devil's side, 
 the essence of all heroisms and veracities that have been, or that 
 will be. Perhaps it was among the nobler and noblest human 
 heroisms, this Puritanism of ours : but English Dryasdust could 
 not discern it for a heroism at all ; as the Heaven's lightning, born 
 of its black tempest, and destructive to pestilential mud-giants, is 
 mere horror and terror to the pedant species everywhere, which, 
 like the owl in any sudden brightness, has to shut its eyes, or 
 hastily procure smoked spectacles on an improved principle. 
 Heaven's brightness would be intolerable otherwise. Only your 
 eagle dares look direct into the fire-radiance ; only your Schiller 
 climbs aloft 'to discover whence the lightning is coming.' ' God- 
 like men love lightning,' says one. Our old Norse fathers called 
 it a God, the sunny, blue-eyed Thor, with his all-conquering 
 thunder-hammer, who again, in calmer season, is beneficent 
 
354 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 summer-heat. Godless men love it not; shriek murder when 
 they see it, shutting their eyes, ami hastily procuring smoked 
 spectacles. O Dryasdust ! thou art great and thrice great." 
 
 "But, alas!" exclaims he elsewhere, getting his eye on the real 
 nodus of the matter, "what is it, all this Rush worthi an inarticu- 
 late rubbish-continent, in its ghastly, dim twilight, with its 
 haggard wrecks and pale shadows, what is it but the common 
 kingdom of death ? This is what we call death, this nioldering 
 dumb wilderness of things once alive. Behold here the final 
 evanescence of formed human things ! They had form ; but they 
 are changing into sheer formlessness: ancient human speech 
 itself has sunk into unintelligible maundering. This is the 
 collapse, the etiolation of human features into mold} 7 - blank, 
 dissolution, progress towards utter silence and disappearance, 
 disastrous, ever-deepening dusk of gods and men ! Why has 
 the living ventured thither, down from the cheerful light, across 
 the Lethe swamps and Tartarean Phlegethons, onwards to these 
 baleful halls of Dis and the three-headed Dog ? Some destinjf drives 
 him. It is his sins, I suppose: perhaps it is his love, strong as 
 that of Orpheus for the lost Eurydice, and likely to have no better 
 issue." 
 
 Well, it would seem the resuscitation of a heroism from the 
 past time is no easy enterprise. Our impatient friend seems 
 really getting sad. We can well believe him. There needs 
 pious love in any Orpheus that will risk descending to the 
 gloomy halls, descending, it may be, and fronting Cerberus and 
 Dis to no purpose: for it oftenest proves so; nay, as the mythol- 
 ogists would teach us, always. Here is another mythus : 
 'Balder, the white Sun-God," say our Norse skalds, "Balder, 
 beautiful as the summer dawn, loved of gods and men, was dead. 
 His brother Hermoder, urged by his mother's tears and the tears 
 of the universe, went forth to seek him. He rode through 
 gloomy winding valleys of a dismal leaden color, full of howling 
 winds and subterraneous torrents, nine days, ever deeper, down 
 toward Hela's death-realm. At Lonesome Bridge, which, with 
 its gold gate, spans the River of Moaning, he found the portress, 
 an ancient woman called Modgudr, ' the Vexer of Minds,' 
 keeping watch as usual. Modgudr answered him, ' Yes, Balder 
 passed this way : but he is not here; he is down yonder, far, 
 still far to the north, within Hela's gates, yonder.* Hermoder 
 rode on, still dauntless, on his horse named ' Swiftness,' or 
 'Mane of Gold ; ? reached Hela's gates; leaped sheer over them, 
 mounted as he was ; saw Balder, the very Balder, with his eyes, 
 but could not bring him back. The Xornas were inexorable : 
 Balder was never to come back. Balder beckoned him mourn- 
 fully a still adieu. Nanna, Balder's wife, sent ' a thimble ' to 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 355 
 
 her mother as a memorial. Balder never could return !" Is not 
 this an emblem ? Old Portress Modgudr, I take it, is Dryasdust 
 in Norse petticoat and hood, a most unlovely beldam, the 
 Vexer of Minds. 
 
 We will here take final leave of our impatient friend, occupied 
 in this almost desperate enterprise of his. We will wish him, 
 which is very easy to do, more patience and better success than 
 he seems to hope. And now to our own small enterprise, and 
 solid dispatch of business in plain prose. 
 
 OF OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
 
 Letters and authentic utterances of Oliver lie scattered, in 
 print and manuscript, in a hundred repositories, in all varieties 
 of condition and environment. Most of them - all the important 
 of them have already long since been printed, and again 
 printed ; but we can not, in general, say ever read. Too often it 
 is apparent that the very editor of these very utterances had, if 
 reading mean understanding, never read them. They stand in 
 their old spelling, mispunctuated, misprinted, unelucidated, unin- 
 telligible, defaced with the dark incrustations too well known 
 to students of that period. The speeches, above all, as hitherto 
 set forth in " The Somers Tracts," in " The Milton State Papers," 
 in Burton's " Diary," and other such books, excel human belief. 
 Certainly no such agglomerate of opaque confusions, printed and 
 reprinted, of darkness on the back of darkness, thick and three- 
 fold, is known to me elsewhere in the history of things spoken 
 or printed by human creatures. Of these speeches, all except 
 one, which was published by authority at the time, I have to be- 
 lieve myself, not very exultingly, to be the first actual reader for 
 nearly two centuries past. 
 
 Nevertheless, these documents do exist, authentic, though de- 
 faced ; and invite every one, who would know that period, to study 
 them until they become intelligible again. The words of Oliver 
 Cromwell, the meaning they had, must be worth recovering 
 in that point of view. To collect these " Letters and Authentic 
 Utterances," as one's reading yielded them, was a comparatively 
 grateful labor; to correct them, elucidate, and make them legible 
 again, was a good historical study. Surely " a wise memory " 
 would wish to preserve among men the written and spoken words 
 of such a man ; and as for the " wise oblivion," that is already, by 
 time and accident, done to our hand. Enough is already lost and 
 destroyed. We need not in this particular case omit further. 
 
 Accordingly, whatever words authentically proceeding from 
 Oliver himself I could anywhere find yet surviving, I have here 
 gathered ; and will now, with such minimum of annotation as may 
 
356 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 suit that object, offer them to the reader. That is the purport of 
 this book. I have ventured to believe, that to certain patient, 
 earnest readers, these old dim letters of a noble English man 
 might, as they have done to myself, become dimly legible again ; 
 might dimly present, better than all other evidence, the noble 
 figure of the man himself again. Certainly there is historical 
 instruction in these letters, historical, and perhaps other and 
 better. At least, it is with heroes and god-inspired men that I, 
 for my part, would far rather converse, in what dialect soever they 
 speak. Great, ever fruitful, profitable for reproof, for encourage- 
 ment, for building up in manful purposes and works, are the 
 words of those that in their day were men. I will advise serious 
 persons interested in England, past or present, to try if they can 
 read a little in these letters of Oliver Cromwell, a man once deeply 
 interested in the same object. Heavy as it is, and dim and obso- 
 lete, there may be worse reading for such persons in our time. 
 
 For the rest, if each letter look dim and have little light after 
 all study, yet let the historical reader reflect, such light as it has 
 can not be disputed at all. These words, expository of that day 
 and that hour, Oliver Cromwell did see fittest to be written 
 down. The letter hangs there in the dark abysses of the past : 
 if, like a star, almost extinct, yet, like a real star, fixed, about 
 which there is no caviling possible. That autograph-letter, it 
 was once all luminous as a burning beacon ; every word of it a live 
 coal in its time ; it "was once apiece of the general fire and light 
 of human life, that letter! Neither is it yet entirely extinct: 
 well read, there is still in it light enough to exhibit its own self; 
 n iv. to diffuse a faint authentic twilight some distance round it. 
 Heaped embers which in the daylight looked black may still look 
 red in the utter darkness. These letters of Oliver will convince 
 any man that the past did exist. BJ T degrees, the combined small 
 twilights may produce a kind of general feeble twilight, rendering 
 the past credible, the ghosts of the past in some glimpses of 
 them visible. Such is the effect of contemporary letters always; 
 and I can very confidently recommend Oliver's as good of their 
 kind. A man intent on forcing for himself some path through 
 that gloomy chaos called History of the Seventeenth Century, 
 and looking face to face upon the same, may perhaps try it by 
 this method as hopefully as by another. Here is an irregular row 
 of beacon-fires, once all luminous as suns, and with a certain in- 
 extinguishable erubescence still, in the abysses of the dead deep 
 nisrht. Let us look here. In shadowy outlines, in dimmer and 
 dimmer crowding forms, the very figure of the old dead time itself 
 may perhaps be faintly discernible here. 
 
 I called these letters good, but, withal, only good of their 
 kind. No eloquence, elegance, not always even clearness of ex- 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 357 
 
 pression, is to be looked for in them. They are written with far 
 other than literary aims, written, most of them, in the very flame 
 and conflagration of a revolutionary struggle, and with an eye to 
 the dispatch of indispensable pressing business alone ; but it will 
 be found, I conceive, that, for such end, they are well written. 
 Superfluity, as if by a natural law of the case, the writer has had 
 to discard : whatsoever quality can be dispensed with is indifferent 
 to him. With unwieldy movement, yet with a great solid step, 
 he passes through toward his object ; has marked out very deci- 
 sively what the real steps toward it are, discriminating well the 
 essential from the extraneous; forming to himself, in short, a 
 true, not an untrue, picture of the business that is to be done. 
 There is in these letters, as I have said above, a silence still more 
 significant of Oliver to us than any speech they have. Dimly we 
 discover features of an intelligence, and soul of a man, greater 
 than any speech. The intelligence that can, with full satisfaction 
 to itselfj come out in eloquent speaking, in musical singing, is, 
 after all, a small intelligence. He that works and does some 
 poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of poet. 
 Cromwell, emblem of the dumb English, is interesting to me by 
 the very inadequacy of his speech. Heroic insight, valor, and 
 belief, without words, how noble is it in comparison to eloquent 
 words without heroic insight ! I have corrected the spelling of 
 these letters ; I have punctuated, and divided them into para- 
 graphs, in. the modern manner. The originals, so far as I have 
 seen such, have, in general, no paragraphs. If the letter is short, 
 it is usually found written on the first leaf of the sheet ; often 
 with the conclusion, or some postscript, subjoined crosswise on the 
 margin, indicating that there was no blotting-paper in those 
 days ; that the hasty writer was loath to turn the leaf. Oliver's 
 spelling and printing are of the sort common to educated persons 
 in his time ; and readers that wish it may have specimens of him 
 in abundance, and of all due dimness, in many printed books : 
 but to us, intent here to have the letters read and understood, it 
 seemed very proper at once and altogether to get rid of that 
 encumbrance. Would the rest were all as easily got rid of! 
 Here and there, to bring out the struggling sense, I have added or 
 rectified a word, but taken care to point out the same. What 
 words in the text of the letters are mine, the reader will find 
 marked off by single commas : it was, of course, my supreme duty 
 to avoid altering in any respect, not only the sense, but the small- 
 est feature in the physiognomy of the original. And so " a mini- 
 mum of annotation" having been added, what minimum would 
 serve the purpose, here are " The Letters and Speeches of Oliver 
 Cromwell ; " of which the reader, with my best wishes, but not 
 with any very high immediate hope of mine in that particular, is 
 to make what he can. 
 
358 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Surely it was far enough from probable that these letters of 
 Cromwell, written originally for quite other objects, and selected, 
 not by the genius of history, but by blind accident, which lias 
 saved them hitherto, and destroyed the rest, can illuminate for 
 a modern man this period of our annals, which for all moderns, 
 we may say, has become a gulf of bottomless darkness. Not so 
 easily will the modern man domesticate himself in a scene of 
 things every way so foreign to him. Nor could any measurable 
 exposition of mine on this present occasion do much to illuminate 
 the dead dark world of the seventeenth century, into which the 
 reader is about to enter. He will gradually get to understand, as 
 I have said, that the seventeenth century did exist; that it was 
 not a waste rubbish -continent of Rush worth -Nalson state- 
 papers, of philosophical skepticisms, dilettanteisms, Dryasdust 
 torpedoisun, but an actual flesh-and-blood fact, with color in 
 its cheeks, with awful august heroic thoughts in its heart, and at 
 last with steel sword in its hand. Theoretically this is a most 
 small postulate conceded at once by everybody ; but practically 
 it is a very large one, seldom or never conceded : the due practi- 
 cal conceding of it amounts to much, indeed, to the sure promise 
 of all. I will venture to give the reader two little pieces of advice, 
 which, if his experience resemble mine, may prove furthersome to 
 him in this inquiry: they exclude the essence of all that I have 
 discovered respecting it. 
 
 The first is. By no means to credit the widespread report, that 
 these seventeenth-century Puritans were superstitious, crackbrained 
 persons ; given up to enthusiasm, the most part of them ; the 
 minor ruling part being cunning men, who knew how to assume 
 the dialect of the others, and thereby, as skillful Machiavels, to 
 dupe them. This is a widespread report, but an untrue one. I 
 advise my reader to try precisely the opposite hypothesis, to 
 consider that his fathers, who had thought about this world very 
 seriously indeed, and with very considerable thinking faculty 
 indeed, were not quite so far behindhand in their conclusions 
 respecting it; that actually their enthusiasms, if well seen 
 into, were not foolish, but wise; that Machiavelism, cant, official 
 jargon, whereby a man speaks openly what he does not mean, 
 were, surprising as it may seem, much rarer then than they have 
 ever since been. R-eally and truly it may in a manner be said, 
 cant, parliamentary and other jargon, were still to invent in this 
 world. heavens ! one could weep at the contrast. Cant was 
 not fashionable at all ; that stupendous invention of " speech for 
 the purpose of concealing thought " was not yet made. A man 
 wagging the tongue of him as if it were the clapper of a bell to 
 be rung for economic purposes, and not so much as attempting to 
 convey any inner thought, if thought he have, of the matter 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 359 
 
 talked of, would at that date have awakened all the horror in 
 men's minds, which at all . dates, and at this date too, is due to 
 him. The accursed thing ! No man as yet dared to do it ; all 
 me'n helieving that God would judge them. In the history of the 
 Civil War far and wide, I have not fallen in with one such 
 phenomenon. Even Archbishop Laud and Peter Hevlin meant 
 what they say : through their words do you look direct into the 
 scraggy conviction they have formed ; or, if " lying Peter " do 
 lie, he at least knows that he is lying. Lord Clarendon, a man 
 of sufficient unveracity of heart, to whom, indeed, whatsoever has 
 direct veracity of heart is more or less horrible, speaks always in 
 official language, a clothed, nay sometimes even quilted dialect, 
 yet always with some considerate body in the heart of it, never 
 with none. The use of the human tongue was then other than it 
 now is. I counsel the reader to leave all that of cant, dupery, 
 Machiavelism, and so forth, decisively lying at the threshold. He 
 will be wise to believe that these Puritans do mean what they 
 say, and to try unimpeded if he can discover what that is. 
 Gradually a very stupendous phenomenon may rise on his 
 astonished eye, a practical world based on belief in God ; such 
 as many centuries had seen before, but as never any century since 
 has been privileged to see. It was the last glimpse of it in our 
 world, this of English Puritanism; very great, very glorious; 
 tragical enough to all thinking hearts that look on it from these 
 days of ours. My second advice is, Not to imagine that it was 
 constitution, "liberty of the people to tax themselves," privilege 
 of parliament, triennial or annual parliaments, or any modification 
 of these sublime privileges now waxing somewhat faint in our 
 admirations, that mainly animated Cromwells, Pyms, and Hamp- 
 dens to the heroic efforts we still admire in retrospect ; not these 
 very measurable " privileges," but a far other and deeper, which 
 could not be measured, of which these, and all grand social im- 
 provements whatsoever, are the corollary. Our ancient Puritan 
 reformers were, as all reformers that will ever much benefit this 
 earth are always, inspired by a heavenly purpose. To see God's 
 own law, then universally acknowledged for complete as it stood in 
 the holy written book, made good in this world ; to see this, or the 
 true unwearied aim and struggle towards this, it was a thing 
 worth living for and dying for. Eternal justice, that God's will 
 be done on earth as it is in heaven : corollaries enough will flow 
 from that; if that be not there, no corollary good for much will flow. 
 It was the general spirit of England in the seventeenth century. 
 In other somewhat sadly disfigured form, we have seen the same 
 immortal hope take practical shape in the French Revolution, and 
 once more astonish the world. That England should all become a 
 church, if you like to name it so; a church presided over, not by 
 
360 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 sham-priests in "four surplices at Allhallowtide," but by true God- 
 consecrated ones, whose hearts the Most High had touched and 
 hallowed with his fire, this was the prayer of many : it was Jthe 
 Godlike hope and effort of some. 
 
 Our modern methods of reform differ somewhat, as, indeed, 
 the issue testifies. I will advise my reader to forget the modern 
 methods of reform ; not to remember that he has ever heard of a 
 modern individual called by the name of reformer, if he would 
 understand what the old meaning of the word was. The Crom- 
 wells, Pyms, Harnpdens, who were understood on the Royalist 
 side to be firebrands of the Devil, have had still worse measure 
 from the Dryasdust philosophies and skeptical histories of later 
 times. They really did resemble firebrands of the Devil, if you 
 looked at them through spectacles of a certain color ; for fire is 
 always fire. But by no spectacles, only by mere blinders and 
 wooden-eyed spctacles, can the flame-girt 'heaven's messenger pass 
 for a moldy pedant and constitution-monger, such as this would 
 make him out to be. 
 
 On the whole, say not, good reader, as is often done, " It was 
 then all one as now." Good reader, it was considerably different 
 then from now. Men indolently say, " The ages are all alike ; 
 ever the same sorry elements over again in new vesture ; the 
 issue of it always a melancholy farce-tragedy in one age as in 
 another." Wherein lies very obviously a truth ; but also in secret 
 a very sad error withal. Sure enough, the highest life touches 
 always, by large sections of it, on the vulgar and universal : he 
 that expects to see a hero, or an heroic age, step forth into practice 
 in yellow Drury-lane stage-boots, and speak in blank verse for 
 itself, will look long in vain. Sure enough, in the heroic century, 
 as in the unheroic, knaves and cowards, and cunning, greedy 
 persons, were not wanting, were, if you will, extremely abun- 
 dant. But the question always remains, Did they lie chained, 
 subordinate in this world's business, coerced by steel whips, or in 
 whatever other effectual way, and sent whimpering into their due 
 subterranean abodes to beat hemp and repent, a true never- 
 ending attempt going on to handcuff, to silence and suppress 
 them ? Or did they walk openly abroad, the envy of a general 
 valet-population, and bear sway ; professing, without universal 
 anathema, almost with general assent, that they were the orthodox 
 party ; that they, even they, were such men as you had right to 
 look for ? 
 
 Reader, the ages differ, greatly, even infinitely, from one 
 another. Considerable tracts of ages there have been, by far the 
 majority indeed, wherein the men, unfortunate mortals, were a 
 set of mimetic creatures rather than men ; without heart-insight 
 as to this universe, and its hights and its abysses j without 
 
THOMAS DK QUINCEY. 361 
 
 conviction or belief of tlieir own regarding it at all ; who 
 walked merely by hearsays, traditionary cants, black and white 
 surplices, and inane confusions; whose whole existence, accord- 
 ingly, was a grimace; nothing original in it, nothing genuine or 
 sincere but this only, their greediness of appetite, and their 
 faculty of digestion. Such unhappy ages, too numerous here 
 below, the genius of mankind indignantly seizes as disgraceful to 
 the family, and with Rhadamanthine ruthlessness annihilates ; 
 tumbles large masses of them swiftly into eternal night. These 
 are the unheroic ages, which can not serve on the general field of 
 existence, except as dust, as inorganic manure. The memory of 
 such ages fades away for ever out of the minds of all men. Why 
 should any memory of them continue ? The fashion of them has 
 passed away ; and as for genuine substance, they never had any. 
 To no heart of a man any more can these ages become lovely. 
 What melodious loving heart will search into their records, will 
 sing of them, or celebrate them ? Even torpid Dryasdust is 
 forced to give over at last; all creatures declining to hear him on 
 that subject : whereupon ensue composure and silence, and Oblivion 
 has her own. 
 
 Good reader, if you be wise, search not for the secret of heroic 
 ages, which have done great things in this earth, among their 
 falsities, their greedy quackeries and unheroisms. It never lies, 
 and never will lie, there. Knaves and quacks alas! we know 
 they abounded; but the age was heroic, even because it had 
 declared war to the death with these, and would have neither 
 truce nor treaty with these ; and went forth, flame-crowned, as 
 with bared sword, and called the Most High to witness that it 
 would not endure these. But now for the letters of Cromwell 
 themselves. 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 1786-1859. 
 
 Author of "The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater;" " Su^piria de Pro- 
 fundis," a sequel to the " Confessions;" and other essays of remarkable eloquence, 
 and beauty of style. 
 
 THE PALIMPSEST. 
 
 You know perhaps, masculine reader, better than I can tell 
 you, what is a palimpsest: possibly you have one in your own 
 library. But yet, for the sake of others who may not know, or 
 may have forgotten, suffer me to explain it here, lest any female 
 
362 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 reader who honors these papers with her notice should tax me 
 with explaining it once too seldom; which would be worse to bear 
 than a simultaneous complaint from" twelve proud men, that I had 
 explained it three times too often. You, therefore, fair reader, 
 understand, that for your accommodation exclusively I explain 
 the meaning of this word. It is Greek; and our sex enjoys the 
 office and privilege of standing counsel to yours in all questions 
 of Greek. We are, under favor, perpetual and hereditary drago- 
 mans to you: so that, if by accident you know the meaning of 
 A Greek word, yet, by courtesy to us, your counsel learned in that 
 matter, you will always seem not to know it. 
 
 A palimpsest, then, is a membrane, or roll, cleansed of its manu- 
 script by reiterated successions. 
 
 What was the reason that the Greeks and the Romans had not 
 the advantage of printed books ? The answer will be from 
 ninety-nine persons in a hundred, " Because the mystery of 
 printing was not then discovered." But this is altogether a mis- 
 take. The secret of printing must have been discovered many 
 thousands of times before it was used, or could be used. The in- 
 ventive powers of man are divine; and also his stupidity is divine, 
 as Cowper so playfully illustrates in the slow development of the 
 snfa through successive generations of immortal dullness. It took 
 centuries of blockheads to raise a joint stool into a chair; and it 
 required something like a miracle of genius, in the estimate of 
 elder generations, to reveal the possibility of lengthening a 
 chair into a chaise-longue, or a sofa. Yes, these were inventions 
 that cost mighty throes of intellectual power. But still, as 
 respects printing, and admirable as is the stupidity of man, it was 
 really not quite equal to the task of evading an object which 
 stared him in the face with so broad a gaze. It did not require an 
 Athenian intellect to read the main secret of printing in many 
 ^scores of processes which the ordinary uses of life were dally 
 repeating. To say nothing of analogous artifices amongst various 
 mechanic artisans, all that is essential in printing must have been 
 known to every nation that struck coins and medals. Xot, there- 
 fore, any want of a printing art, that is, of an art for multiplying 
 impressions, but the want of a cheap material for receiving 
 such impressions, was the obstacle to an introduction of printed 
 books, even as early as Pisistratus. The ancients did apply 
 printing to records of silver and gold : to marble, and many other 
 substances cheaper than gold and silver, they did not, since each 
 monument required a separate effort of inscription. Simply this 
 defect it was of a cheap material for receiving impresses 
 which froze in its very fountains the early resources of printing. 
 
 Some twenty years ago, this view of the case was luminously 
 expounded by Dr. Whately, the present Archbishop of Dublin, 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 363 
 
 and with the merit, I believe, of having first suggested it. Since 
 then, this theory has received indirect confirmation. Now, out of 
 that original scarcity affecting all materials proper for durable 
 books, which continued up to times comparatively modern, grew 
 the opening for palimpsests. Naturally, when once a roll of 
 parchment or of vellum had done its office, by propagating 
 through a series of generations what once had possessed an 
 interest for them, but which, under changes of opinion or 
 of taste, had faded to their feelings, or had become obsolete 
 for their undertakings, the whole membrana, or vellum-skin, 
 the twofold product of human skill, costly material, and 
 costly freight of thought which it carried, drooped in value 
 concurrently, supposing that each were inalienably associated 
 to the other. , Once it had been the impress of a human mind 
 which stamped its value upon the vellum : the vellum, though 
 costly, had contributed but a secondary element of value to the 
 total result. At length, however, this relation between the vehicle 
 and its freight has gradually been undermined. The vellum, from 
 having been the setting of the jewel, has risen at length to be the 
 jewel itself: and the burden of thought, from having given the 
 chief value to the vellum, has now become the chief obstacle to its 
 value ; nay, has totally extinguished its value, unless it can be 
 dissociated from the connection. Yet if this unlinking can be 
 effected, then, fast as the inscription upon the membrane is 
 sinking into rubbish, the membrane itself is reviving in its 
 separate importance ; and, from bearing a ministerial value, the 
 vellum has come at last to absorb the whole value. 
 
 Hence the importance for our ancestors that the separation 
 should be effected. Hence it arose in the middle ages, as a con- 
 siderable object for chemistry, to discharge the writing from the 
 roll, and thus to make it available for a new succession of 
 thoughts. The soil, if cleansed from what once had been hot- 
 house plants, but now were held to be weeds, would be ready to 
 receive a fresh and more appropriate crop. In that object the 
 monkish chemist succeeded, but after a fashion which seems 
 almost incredible, incredible not as regards the extent of their 
 success, but as regards the delicacy of restraints under which it 
 moved ; so equally adjusted was their success to the immediate 
 interests of that period and to the reversionary objects of our 
 own. They did the thing, but not so radically as to prevent us 
 their posterity from undoing it. They expelled the writing 
 sufficiently to leave a field for the new manuscript, and yet not 
 sufficiently to make the traces of the elder manuscript irrecover- 
 able for us. Could magic, could Hermes Trismegistus, have 
 done more ? What would you think, fair reader, of a problem 
 such as this ? to write a book which should be sense for your 
 
364 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 own generation, nonsense for the next, should revive into sense 
 for the next after that, but again become nonsense for the fourth ; 
 and so on by alternate successions, sinking into night or blazing 
 into day, like the Sicilian river Arethusa, and the English river 
 Mole ; or like the undulating motions of a flattened stone 
 which children cause to skim the breast of a river, now diving 
 below the water, now grazing its surface, sinking heavily into 
 darkness, rising buoyantly into light, through a long vista of 
 alternations. Such a problem, you say, is impossible. But really 
 it is a problem not harder, apparently, than to bid a generation 
 kill, but so that a subsequent generation may call back into life; 
 bury, but so that posterity may command to rise again. Yet that 
 was what the rude chemistry of past ages effected when coming 
 into combination with the re-action from the more refined 
 chemistry of our own. Had they been better chemists, had ice 
 been worse, the mixed result namely, that, dying for them, the 
 flower should revive for us could not have been effected. They 
 did the thing proposed to them ; they did it effectually ; for they 
 founded upon it all that was wanted: and yet ineffectually, since 
 we unraveled their work, effacing all above which they had super- 
 scribed, restoring all below which they had effaced. 
 
 Here, for instance, is a parchment which contained some 
 Grecian tragedj^, the " Agamemnon " of ^Eschylus or the 
 " Phoenissre " of Euripides. This had possessed a value almost 
 inappreciable in the eyes of accomplished scholars, continually 
 growing rarer through generations. But four centuries are gone 
 by since the destruction of the Western Empire. Christianity, 
 with towering grandeurs of another class, has founded a different 
 empire ; and some bigoted yet perhaps holy monk has washed 
 away (as he persuades himself) the heathen's tragedy, replacing it 
 with a monastic legend ; which legend is disfigured with fables in 
 its incidents, and yet in a higher sense is true, because interwoven 
 with Christian morals, and with the sublimest of Christian 
 revelations. Three, four, five centuries more find man still 
 devout as ever : but the language has become obsolete ; and even 
 for Christian devotion a new era has arisen, throwing it into the 
 channel of crusading zeal or of chivalrous enthusiasm. The mem- 
 l i'n n a is wanted now for a knightly romance, for " my Cid," or 
 Coeur de Lion; for Sir Tristreni, or Lybreus Disconus. In this 
 way. by means of the imperfect chemist^ known to the mediaeval 
 period, the same roll has served as a conservatory for three sepa- 
 rate generations of flowers and fruits ; all perfectly different, 
 and yet all specially adapted to the wants of the successive 
 possessors. The Greek tragedy, the monkish legend, the knightly 
 romance, each has ruled its own period. One harvest after 
 another has been gathered into the garners of man through ages 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 365 
 
 far apart ; and the same hydraulic machinery has distributed, 
 through the same marble fountains, water, milk, or wine, accord- 
 ing to the habits and training of the generations that came to 
 quench their thirst. 
 
 Such were the achievements of rude monastic chemistry. But 
 the more elaborate chemistry of our own days has reversed all 
 these motions of our simple ancestors, which results in every stage 
 that to them would have realized the most fantastic amongst the 
 promises of thaumaturgy. Insolent vaunt of Paracelsus, that he 
 would restore the original rose or violet out of the ashes settling 
 from its combustion ! that is now rivaled in this modern achieve- 
 ment. The traces of each successive handwriting, regularly 
 effaced, as had been imagined, have, in the inverse order, been 
 regularly called back ; the footsteps of the game pursued wolf or 
 stag in each several chase have been unlinked, and hunted back 
 through all their doubles : and as the chorus of the Athenian 
 stage unwove through the antistrophe every step that had been 
 mystically woven through the strophe, so, by our modern con- 
 jurations of .science, secrets of ages remote from each other have 
 been exorcised from the accumulated shadows of centuries. 
 Chemistry, a witch as potent as the Erictho of Lucanto (" Phar- 
 salia," lib. vi. or vii.), has extorted by her torments from the 
 dust and ashes of forgotten centuries the secrets of a life extinct 
 for the general eye, but still glowing in the embers. Even the 
 fable of the phoenix that secular bird, who propagated his 
 solitary existence and his solitary births 'along the line of 
 centuries through eternal relays of funeral mists is but a type 
 of what we have done with palimpsests. We have backed upon 
 each phoenix in the long regressus, and forced him to expose his 
 ancestral phoenix sleeping in the ashes below his own ashes. 
 Our good old forefathers would have been aghast at "our sorce- 
 ries ; and, if they speculated on the propriety of burning Dr. 
 Faustus, us they would have burned by acclamation. Trial there 
 would have been none ; and they could not otherwise have satis- 
 fied their horror of the brazen profligacy marking our modern 
 magic than by plowing up the houses of all who had been 
 parties to it, and sowing the ground with salt. 
 
 Fancy not, reader, that this tumult of images, illustrative or 
 allusive, moves under any impulse or purpose of mirth. It is but 
 the coruscation of .a restless understanding, often made ten times 
 more so by irritation of the nerves, such as you will first learn to 
 comprehend (its how and its why) some stage or two ahead. The 
 image, the memorial, the record, which for me is derived from a 
 palimpsest, as to one great fact in our human being', and which 
 immediately I will show you, is but too repellent of laughter ; or, 
 even if laughter had been possible, it would have been such 
 
366 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 laughter as oftentimes is thrown off from the fields of ocean, 
 laughter that hides, or that seems to evade mustering tumult ; 
 foam-bells that weave garlands of phosphoric radiance for one 
 moment round the eddies of gleaming abysses ; mimicries of 
 earth-born flowers that for the eye raise phantoms of gayety, as 
 oftentimes for the ear they raise the echoes of fugitive laughter, 
 mixing with the ravings and choir-voices of an angry sea. 
 
 What else than a natural and mighty palimpsest is the human 
 brain? Such a palimpsest is my brain; such a palimpsest, O 
 reader! is yours. Everlasting layers of ideas, images, feelings, 
 have fallen upon your brain softly as light. Each succession has 
 seemed to bury all that went before ; and yet, in reality, not one 
 has been extinguished. And if in the vellum palimpsest, lying 
 amongst the other diplomata of human archives or libraries, there 
 is any thing fantastic, or which moves to laughter, as oftentimes 
 there is in the grotesque collisions of those successive themes, 
 having no natural connection, which by pure accident have con- 
 secutively occupied the roll, yet in our own heaven-created 
 palimpsest, the deep memorial palimpsest of the brain, there are 
 not, and can not be, such incoherences. The fleeting accidents of 
 a man's life, and its external shows, may indeed be irrelate 
 and incongruous; but the organizing principles which fuse into 
 harmony, and gather about fixed predetermined centers, whatever 
 heterogeneous elements life may have accumulated from without, 
 will not permit the grandeur of human unit} 7 greatly to be violated, 
 or its ultimate repose to be troubled, in the retrospect from dying 
 moments, or from other great convulsions. 
 
 Such a convulsion is the struggle of gradual suffocation, as in 
 drowning ; and, in the original " Opium Confessions," I mentioned 
 a case of that nature, communicated to me by a lady from her 
 own childish experience. The lady is still living, though now of 
 unusually great age : and I may mention, that amongst her faults 
 never was numbered any levity of principle, or carelessness of the 
 most scrupulous veracit}^ but, on the contrary, such faults as 
 arise from austerity, too harsh, perhaps, and gloomy, indulgent 
 neither to others nor herself; and at the time of relating this 
 incident, when already very old, she had become religious to 
 asceticism. According to my present belief, she had completed 
 her ninth year, when, playing by the side of a solitary brook, she 
 fell into one of its deepest pools. Eventually, but after what 
 lapse of time nobody ever knew, she was saved from death by a 
 farmer, who, riding in some distant lane, had seen her rise to the 
 surface ; but not until she had descended within the abyss of 
 death, and looked into its secrets, as far, perhaps, as ever human 
 in have looked, that had permission to return. At a certain 
 stage of this descent, a blow seemed to strike her ; phosphoric 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 3G7 
 
 radiance sprang forth from her eyeballs; and immediately a 
 mighty theater expanded within her brain. In a moment, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, every act, every design, of her past life, lived 
 again, arraying themselves, not as a succession, but as parts of a 
 co-existence. Such a light fell upon the whole path of her life 
 backwards into the shades of infancy as the light, perhaps, which 
 wrapped the destined apostle on his road to Damascus. Yet that 
 light blinded for a season ; but hers poured celestial vision upon 
 the brain, so that her consciousness became omnipresent at one 
 moment to every feature in the infinite review. 
 
 This anecdote was treated skeptically at the time by some 
 critics ; but besides that it has since been confirmed by other expe- 
 rience essentially the same, reported by other parties in the same 
 circumstances, who had never heard of each other, the true point 
 for astonishment is not the simultaneity of arrangement under 
 which the past events of life, though in fact successive, had formed 
 their dread line of revelation. This was but a secondary phe- 
 nomenon : the deeper lay in the resurrection itself, and the possi- 
 bility of resurrection, for what had so long slept in the dust. A 
 pall, deep as oblivion, had been thrown Hby life over every trace of 
 these experiences ; and yet suddenly, at a silent command, at the 
 signal of a blazing rocket sent up from the brain, the pall draws 
 up, and the whole depths of the theater are exposed. Here 
 was the greater mystery. Now, this mystery is liable to no doubt ; 
 for it is repeated, and ten thousand times repeated, by opium, for 
 those who are its martyrs. 
 
 Yes, reader, countless are the mysterious handwritings of grief 
 or joy which have inscribed thems: Ives successively upon the 
 palimpsest of your brain ; and like the annual leaves of aborigi- 
 nal forests, or the undissolving snows on the Himalaj^a, or light 
 falling upon light, the endless strata have covered up each other 
 in forgetfulness. But by the hour of death, but by fever, but by 
 the searchings of opium, all these can revive in strength : they are 
 not dead, but sleeping. In the illustration imagined by myself 
 from the case of some individual palimpsest, the Grecian tragedy 
 had seemed to be displaced, but was not displaced, by the monkish 
 legend ; and the monkish legend had seemed to be displaced, but 
 was not displaced, by the knightly romance. In some potent con- 
 vulsion of the system, all wheels back into i^s earliest elementary 
 stage. The bewildering romance, light tarnished with darkness, 
 the semi-fabulous legend, truth celestial mixed with human false- 
 hoods, these fade even of themselves as life advances. The 
 romance has perished that the 3 r oung man adored ; the legend has 
 gone that deluded the boy : but the deep, deep tragedies of 
 infancy, as when the child's hands were unlinked for ever from his 
 mother's neck, or his lips for ever from his sister's kisses, these 
 
368 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 remain lurking below all; and these lurk to the last. Alchemy 
 there is none of passion or disease that can scorch away these 
 immortal impresses; and the dream which closed the preceding 
 section, together with the succeeding dreams of this (which may 
 be viewed as in the nature of choruses winding up the overture 
 contained in Part I.), are but illustrations of this truth, such 
 as every man, probably, will meet experimentally, who passes 
 through similar convulsions of dreaming or delirium from any 
 similar or equal disturbance in his nature.* 
 
 CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 1775-1835. 
 
 Humorous, witty, genial; essayist and critic; author of "Essays by Elia," 
 " Jolin Woodvil," " Tales founded on the Plays of Shakspeare," and a'few poems. 
 
 A QUAKERS' MEETING. 
 
 " Still-born Silence ! thou that art 
 Floodgate of the deeper heart ! 
 Offspring of a heavenly kind ! 
 Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind! 
 Secrecy's confidant, and he 
 Who makes religion mystery ! 
 Admiration's speak ing'st tongue! 
 Leave, thy desert shades among, 
 Reverend hermits' hallowed cells, 
 Where retired devotion dwells: 
 With thy enthusiasms come, 
 Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb ! " f 
 
 READER, wouldst thou know what true peace and quiet mean ; 
 wouldst thou find a refuge from the noises and clamors of the 
 multitude; wouldst thou enjoy at once solitude and society; 
 wouldst thou possess the depth of thine own spirit in stillness, 
 without being shut out from the consolatory faces of thy species ; 
 wouldst thou be alone, and yet accompanied; solitary, yet not 
 
 * This, it may be said, requires a corresponding duration of experience; but, as an 
 argument for tins mysterious power lurking in our nature, I may remind the reader of 
 one phenomenon open to the notice of everybody; namely, the' tendency of very aged 
 persons to throwback and concentrate the light of their memory upon scenes of early 
 childhood, as to which they recall many traces that had faded even to themselrex In 
 middle life, whilst they often forget altogether the whole Intermediate stages of their 
 experience. This shows that naturally, and without violent agencies, the human brain 
 is by tendency a palimpsest. 
 
 t From Poems of all Sorts, by Richard Flecknoe, 1653. 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 3GO 
 
 desolate ; singular, yet not without some to keep tliee in counte- 
 nance ; a unit in aggregate, a simple in composite : come with 
 me into a Quakers' meeting. 
 
 Dost thou love silence deep as that " before the winds were 
 made : " go not out into the wilderness ; descend not into 
 the profundities of the earth ; shut not up thy casements, 
 nor pour wax into the little cells of thine ears, with little- 
 faithed, self-mistrusting Ulysses : retire with me into a Quakers' 
 meeting. 
 
 For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold 
 his peace, it is commendable ; but, for a multitude, it is great 
 mastery. . 
 
 What is the stillness of the desert compared with this place ? 
 what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes? Here the 
 goddess reigns and revels. " Boreas and Cesias and Argestes 
 loud" do not with their inter-confounding uproars more augment 
 the brawl nor the waves of the blown Baltic with their clubbed 
 sounds than their opposite (Silence her sacred self) is multi- 
 plied and rendered more intense by numbers and by sympathy. 
 {She, too, hath her deeps that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath 
 a positive more and less ; and closed eyes would seem to obscure 
 the great obscurity of midnight. 
 
 There are wounds which an imperfect solitude can not heal. By 
 imperfect, I mean that which a man enjoyeth by himself. The 
 perfect is that which he can sometimes attain in crowds, but 
 nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers' meeting. Those first' 
 hermits did certainly understand this principle when they re- 
 tired into Egyptian solitudes, not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy 
 one another's want of conversation. The Carthusian is bound to 
 his brethren by this agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. 
 In secular occasions, what so pleasant as to be reading a book 
 through a long winter evening with a friend sitting by, say, 
 a wife, he or she, too (if that be probable), reading another, 
 without interruption or oral communication ? Can there be 
 no sympathy without the gabble of words ? Away with this 
 inhuman, shy, single, shade -and -cavern -hunting solitariness! 
 Give me, Master Zimmerman, a sympathetic solitude ! 
 
 To pace alone in the cloisters or side-aisles of some cathedral, 
 time-stricken, 
 
 '* Or under hanging mountains, 
 Or by the fall of "fountains," 
 
 is but a vulgar luxury compared with that which those enjoy 
 who come together for the purposes of more complete, abstracted 
 solitude. This is the loneliness " to be felt." The Abbey Church 
 of Westminster hath nothing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the 
 
 24 
 
370 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 naked walls and benches of a Quakers' meeting. Here are no 
 tombs, 110 inscriptions, 
 
 " Sand*, ignoble things, 
 Dropped from the ruined sides of kings;" 
 
 but here is something which throws Antiquity herself into 
 the foreground, SILEXCE, eldest of things, language of old 
 Night, primitive Discourser, to which the insolent decays of 
 moldering grandeur have but arrived by a violent, and, as we 
 may say, unnatural progression. 
 
 " How reverend is the view of these hushed heads, 
 Looking tranquillity! " 
 
 Nothing - plotting, naught - caballing, unmischievous synod ! 
 convocation without intrigue! parliament without debate! what 
 a lesson dost tliou read to council and to consistory ! If my 
 pen treat of you lightly (as, haply, it will wander), yet my 
 spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your custom, when, sitting 
 among you in deepest peace, which some out-welling tears would 
 rather confirm than disturb, I have reverted to the times of your 
 beginnings, and the sowing of the seed by Fox and Dewesbury. 
 I have witnessed that which brought before my eyes your heroic 
 tranquillity, inflexible to the rude jests and serious violences of 
 the insolent soldiery (Republican or Royalist) sent to molest you ; 
 for ye sat betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the outcast and 
 offscouring of church and presbytery. I have seen the reeling 
 sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your receptacle with the 
 avo\ved intention of disturbing your quiet, from the very spirit of 
 the place receive in a moment a new heart, and presently sit 
 among ye as a lamb amid lambs. And I remember Penn before 
 his accusers, and Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in 
 spirit, as he tells us, and "the judge and the jury became as dead 
 men under his feet." 
 
 Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would recommend 
 to you, above all church-narratives, to read Sewel's " History of 
 the Quakers." It is in folio, and is the abstract of the journals 
 of Fox and the primitive Friends. It is far more edifying 
 and affecting than any thing you will read of Wesley and his 
 colleagues. Here is nothing to stagger you, nothing to make 
 you mistrust, no suspicion of alloy, no drop or dreg of the 
 worldly or ambitious spirit. You will here read the true story of 
 that much-injured, ridiculed man (who perhaps hath been a by- 
 word in your mouth), James Naylor. What dreadful sufferings, 
 with what patience, he endured, even to the boring-through of 
 his tongue with red-hot irons, without a murmur ! and with what 
 strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen into, which 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 371 
 
 they stigmatized for blasphemy, had given way to clearer 
 thoughts, he could renounce his error in a strain of the 
 beautifulest humility, yet keep his first grounds, and be a 
 Quaker still! so different from the practice of your common 
 converts from enthusiasm, who, when they apostatize, apostatize 
 all, and think they can never get far enough from the society 
 of their former errors, even to the renunciation of some saving 
 truths with which they had been mingled, not implicated. 
 
 Get the writings of John Woolman by heart, and love the 
 early Quakers. 
 
 How far the followers of these good men in our days have kept 
 to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they have substituted 
 formality for it, the Judge of spirits can alone determine. I have 
 seen faces in their assemblies upon which the Dove sat visibly 
 brooding ; others, again, I have watched, when my thoughts 
 should have been better engaged, in which I could possibly detect 
 nothing but a blank inanity: but quiet was in all, and the dis- 
 position to unanimity, and the absence of the fierce controversial 
 workings. If the spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have 
 abated, at least they make few pretenses. Hypocrites they cer- 
 tainly are not in their preaching. It is seldom, indeed, that you 
 shall see one get up among them to hold forth. Only now and 
 then a trembling female (generally ancient) voice is heard, you 
 can not guess from what part of the meeting it proceeds, with a 
 low, buzzing, musical sound, laying out a few words which " she 
 thought might suit the condition of some present," with a quaking 
 diffidence, which leaves no possibility of supposing that anything 
 of female vanity was mixed up where the tones were so full of 
 tenderness and a restraining modesty. The men, for what I 
 have observed, speak seldom er. 
 
 More frequently, the meeting is broken up without a word 
 having been spoken : but the mind has been fed ; you go away 
 with a sermon not made with hands. You have been in the 
 milder caverns of Trophonius, or as in some den where that 
 fiercest and savagest of all wild creatures, the TOXGUE, that 
 unruly member, has strangely lain tied up and captive. You 
 have bathed with stillness. Oh, when the spirit is sore fretted, 
 even tired to sickness of the janglings and nonsense-noises of the 
 world, what a balm and a solace it is to go and seat yourself for a 
 quiet half-hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among 
 the gentle Quakers ! 
 
 Their garb and stillness conjoined present a uniformity, 
 tranquil and herdlike, as in the pasture, " forty feeding like 
 one." 
 
 The very garments of the Quaker seem incapable of receiving a 
 soil, and cleanliness in them to be something more than the absence 
 
ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 of its contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily : and when they come 
 up in bands to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly 
 streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, 
 they show like troops of the Shining Ones. 
 
 THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 
 
 THE human species, according to the best theory I can form of 
 it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and 
 tlie men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced 
 all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, 
 white men, black men, red men. All the dwellers upon earth 
 " Parthians and Medes and Elamites " flock hither, and do 
 naturally fall in with one or other of these primary distinctions. 
 The infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to designate 
 as the great race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain 
 instinctive sovereignty. The latter are born degraded : " He 
 shall serve his brethren." There is something in the air of one of 
 this cast, lean and suspicious, contrasting with the open, trusting, 
 generous manners of the other. 
 
 Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all ages, 
 Alcibiades, FalstafF, Sir Richard Steele, our late incomparable 
 Brinslev, what a family likeness in all four! 
 
 What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower! "What 
 rosy gills ! what a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he mani- 
 fest ! taking no more thought than lilies. What contempt for 
 money, accounting it (yours and mine especially) no better than 
 dross ! What a liberal confounding of those pedantic distinctions 
 of meum and tuumf or, rather, what a noble simplification of 
 language (beyond Tooke), resolving these supposed opposites into 
 one clear, intelligible pronoun-adjective ! What near approaches 
 doth he make to the primitive community! to the extent of one- 
 half of the principle at least. 
 
 He is the true taxer who " calleth all the world up to be 
 taxed ;" and the distance is as vast between him and one of us 
 as subsisted between the Augustan Majesty and the poorest 
 obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at Jerusalem. His 
 exactions, too, have such a cheerful, voluntary air! so far removed 
 from your sour parochial or state-gatherers, those ink-horn 
 varlets who carry their want of welcome in their faces ! He 
 cometh to you with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt; 
 confining himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, 
 or his feast of holy Michael. He applieth the lene torment am of 
 a pleasant look to your purse, which to that gentle warmth ex- 
 pands her silken leaves as naturally aj the cloa,k of the traveler, 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 373 
 
 <* 
 
 for which sun and wind contended. He is the true Propontia, 
 which never ebbeth ; the sea, which taketh handsomely at each 
 man's hand. In vain the victim whom he delighteth to honor 
 struggles with destiny : he is in the net. Lend, therefore, cheer- 
 fully, O man ! ordained to lend, that thou lose not in the end, 
 yvitii thy worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine not 
 preposterously in thine own person the penalties of Lazarus and 
 of Dives, but, when thou seest the proper authority coming, 
 meet it smilingly, as it were half way. Come, a handsome sacri- 
 fice ! See how light he makes of it ! Strain not courtesies with 
 a noble enemy. 
 
 Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind by 
 the death of my old friend, Ralph Bigod, Esq., who parted this 
 life on Wednesday evening, dying as he had lived, without much 
 trouble. He boasted himself a descendant from mighty ancestors 
 of that name, who heretofore held ducal dignities in this realm. 
 In his actions and sentiments, he belied not the stock to which he 
 pretended. Early in life, he found himself invested with ample 
 revenues, which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have 
 noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took almost 
 immediate measures entirely to dissipate, and bring to nothing: 
 for there is something revolting in the idea of a king holding a 
 private purse ; and the thoughts of Bigod were all regal. Thus 
 furnished by the very act of disfurnishment ; getting rid of the 
 cumbersome luggage of riches ; more apt (as one sings) 
 
 " To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge. 
 Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise," 
 
 he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enterprise, 
 " borrowing and to borrow." 
 
 In his periegesis, or triumphant progress, throughout this 
 island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of the in- 
 habitants under contribution. I reject this estimate as greatly 
 exaggerated; but, having had the honor of accompanying my 
 friend divers times in his perambulations about this vast city, I 
 own I was greatly struck at first with the prodigious number of 
 faces we met who claimed a sort of respectful acquaintance with 
 us. He was one day so obliging as to explain the phenomenon. 
 It seems these were his tributaries, feeders of his exchequer, 
 gentlemen, his good friends (as he was pleased to express him- 
 self), to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. 
 Their multitudes did no way disconcert him : he rather took a 
 pride in numbering them ; and, with Comus, seemed pleased to 
 be "stocked with so fair a herd." 
 
 With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to keep 
 his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an aphorism, 
 
374 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 which lie had often in his month, that " money kept longer than 
 three days stinks : " so he made use of it while it was fresh. A 
 good part he drank away (for he was an excellent toss-pot) ; 
 some he gave away ; the rest he threw away, literally tossing and 
 hurling it violently from him as boys do burrs, or as if it had 
 been infectious into ponds or ditches or deep holes, inscrutable 
 cavities of the earth; or he would bury it (where he would never 
 see it again) by a river's side, under some bank, which (he would 
 facetiously observe) paid no interest : but out away from him it 
 must go peremptorily, as Hagars offspring into the wilderness, 
 while it was sweet: he never missed it; the streams were peren- 
 nial which fed his fisc. When new supplies became necessary, 
 the first person that had the felicity to fall in with him, friend or 
 stranger, was sure to contribute to the deficiency; for Bigod had 
 an undeniable way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior; a 
 quick, jovial eye; a bald forehead, just touched with gray (rana 
 Jides). He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And, waiving 
 for a while my theory as to the great rare, I would put it to the 
 most untheorizing reader who may at times have disposable coin 
 in his pocket, whether it is not more repugnant to the kindliness 
 of his nature to refuse such a one as I am describing than to say 
 no to a poor petitionary rogue (your bastard borrower), who by 
 liis mumping visnomy tells 3-011 that he expects nothing better, 
 and therefore whose preconceived notions and expectations you 
 do in reality so much less shock in the refusal. 
 
 When I think of this man, his fiery glow of heart, his swell 
 of feeling; how magnificent, how ideal, he was ; how great at the 
 midnight hour; and when I compare with him the companions 
 with whom I have associated since, I grudge the saving of a 
 few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen into the society of 
 lenders and little men. 
 
 MODERN GALLANTRY. 
 
 Ix comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to 
 compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry, a certain 
 obsequiousness or deferential respect which we are supposed to 
 pay to females as females. 
 
 I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct when I 
 can forget, that, in the nineteenth century of the era from which 
 we date our civility, we are bat just beginning to leave off the 
 very frequent practice of whipping females in public in common 
 with the coarsest male offenders. 
 
 I shall believe it to be influential when I can shut my eyes to 
 the fact, that, in England, women are still occasionally hanged. 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 875 
 
 I shall believe in it when actresses are no longer subject to be 
 hissed off a stage by gentlemen. I shall believe in it when 
 Dorimant hands a fishwife across the kennel, or assists the apple- 
 woman to pick up her wandering fruit which some unlucky dray 
 has just dissipated. I shall believe in it when the Dorimants in 
 humbler life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts 
 in this refinement, shall act upon it in places where they are not 
 known, or think themselves not observed ; when I shall see the 
 traveler for some rich tradesman part with his admired box-coat 
 to spread it over the defenseless shoulders of the poor woman who 
 is passing to her parish on the roof of the same stage-coach with 
 him, drenched in the rain; when I shall no longer see a woman 
 standing up in the pit of a London theater till she is sick and 
 faint with the exertion, with men about her seated at their ease, 
 and jeering at her distress, till one that seems to have more 
 manners or conscience than the rest significantly declares "she 
 should be welcome to his seat if she were a little younger and 
 handsomer." Place this dapper warehouseman, or that rider, 
 in a circle of their own female acquaintance, and you shall con- 
 fess you have not seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury. 
 
 Lastly, I shall begin to believe there is some such principle in- 
 fluencing our conduct when more than one-half of the drudgery 
 and coarse servitude of the world shall cease to be performed by 
 women. Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted 
 point to be any thing more than a conventional fiction, a pageant 
 got up between the sexes in a certain rank, and at a certain time 
 of life, in which both find their account equally. 
 
 I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary fictions 
 of life, when, in polite circles, I shall see the same attentions paid 
 to age as to youth, to homely features as to handsome, to coarse 
 complexions as to clear; to the woman as she is a woman, not 
 as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. I shall believe it to be 
 something more than a name when a well-dressed gentleman in a 
 well-dressed company can advert to the topic of female old age 
 without exciting, and intending to excite, a sneer; when the 
 phrases, "antiquated virginity," and such a one has " overstood 
 her market," pronounced in good company, shall raise immediate 
 offense in man or woman that shall hear them spoken. 
 
 Joseph Paice of Bread-street Hill, merchant, and one of the di- 
 rectors of the South Sea Company, the same to whom Edwards, 
 the Shakspeare commentator, has addressed a fine sonnet, 
 was the only pattern of consistent gallantry I have met with. 
 He took me under his shelter at an early age, and bestowed 
 some pains upon me. I owe to his precepts and example what- 
 ever there is of the man of business (and that is not much) in my 
 composition. It was not his fault that I did not profit more. 
 
376 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Though bred a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, lie wua 
 the finest gentleman of his time. He had not one system of 
 attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in the 
 shop or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no distinction ; 
 but he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casualties of 
 a disadvantageous situation. I have seen him stand bare-headed 
 smile if you please to a poor servant-girl while she has been 
 inquiring of him the way to some street, in such a posture of 
 unforced civility as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, 
 nor himself in the offer of it. He was no dangler, in the common 
 acceptation of the word, after women ; but he reverenced and 
 upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. 
 I have seen him nay, smile not tenderly escorting a market- 
 woman whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella 
 over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, 
 with as much carefulness as if she had been a countess. To the 
 reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it 
 were to an ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than wo 
 can afford to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier 
 of Age; the Sir Calidore or Sir Tristan to those who have no 
 Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses that had long 
 faded thence still bloomed for him in those withered and yellow 
 cheeks. 
 
 Pie was never married; but in his youth he paid his addresses 
 to the beautiful Susan Winstanle}', old Vf instanley's daughter, 
 of Clapton, who, dying in the early days of their courtship, con- 
 firmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It wu3 
 during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been one day 
 treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches, the com- 
 mon gallantries, to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested 
 no repugnance ; but in this instance with no effect. He could not 
 obtain from her a decent acknowledgment in return : she rather 
 seemed to resent his compliments. He could not set it down to 
 caprice ; for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. 
 When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little 
 better humored, to expostulate with her on her coldness of 
 yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had 
 no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure 
 some high-flown compliments ; that a young woman placed in her 
 situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said-to her; 
 that she hoped that she could digest a dose of adulation, 
 short of insincerity, with as little injury to her humility as most 
 young women : but that a little before he had commenced his 
 compliments she had overheard him, by accident, in rather 
 rough language, rating a young w r onum who had not brought 
 home his cravats quite to the appointed time ; and she thought to 
 
CHARLES LAMB. 377 
 
 herself, " As I am Miss Susan "Winstanley, and a young lady, a 
 reputed beauty, and known to be a fortune, I can have the 
 choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine 
 gentleman who is courting me; but if I had been poor Mary 
 Such-a-one (naming the milliner), and had failed of bringing 
 home the cravats at the appointed hour, though perhaps I had 
 sat up half the night to forward them, what sort of compliments 
 should I have received then ? And my woman's pride came to my 
 assistance, and I thought, that, if it were only to do me honor, a 
 female like myself might have received handsomer usage ; and I 
 was determined not to accept any fine speeches to the compromise 
 of that sex, the belonging to which -was, after all, my strongest 
 claim and title to them." 
 
 I think the lady discovered both generosity and a just way of 
 thinking in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have 
 sometimes imagined that the uncommon strain of courtesy which 
 through life regulated the actions and behavior of my friend 
 toward all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin 
 to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. 
 
 I wish the whole female world would entertain the same 
 notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed : then we 
 should see something of the spirit of consistent gallantry, and no 
 longer witness the anomaly of the same man a pattern of true 
 politeness to a wife, of cold contempt or rudeness to a sister, the 
 idolater of his female mistress, the disparager and despiser of 
 his no less female aunt, or unfortunate (still female) maiden cousin. 
 Just so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in 
 whatever condition placed, her handmaid or dependant, she 
 deserves to have diminished from herself on that score, and proba- 
 bly will feel the diminution when youth and beauty, and ad- 
 vantages not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attraction. 
 What a woman should demand of a man in courtship, or after it, 
 is, first, respect for her as she is a woman ; and, next to that, 
 to be respected by him above all other women. But let her stand 
 upon her female character as upon a foundation ; and let the 
 attentions incident to individual preference be so many addita- 
 ments and ornaments as many and as fanciful as you please 
 to that main structure. Let her first lesson be with sweet Susan 
 Winstanley, to reverence her sex. 
 
378 ENGLISH LITERATUKE. 
 
 ESSAYISTS AND CRITICS. 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 1762-1835. " Rural Rides," "Cottage Economy," and 
 works on America. 
 
 JOHN FOSTER. 1770-1843. "Decision of Character," and other able essays. 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT. 1778-1S30. Author of "The Characters of Shakspeare's 
 Plays," "Table-Talk," "Lectures upon the English Poets," and "Life of Kapo- 
 leon." 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 1771-1845. First editor of " The Edinburgh Review." The 
 most brilliant wit of his time. Author of " Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, 
 by Peter Plymley," "Letters to Archdeacon Singleton," and "Letters on the Penn- 
 sylvania Bonds." 
 
 FRANCIS, Lord JEFFREY. 1773-1850. The distinguished critic of " The Edin- 
 burgh Review." The article on " Beauty," at the beginning of this book, was taken 
 from his volume of " Essays and Criticisms." 
 
 WALTER S. LANDOR. 1775-1864. Author of "Imaginary Conversations," 
 
 " Gebir," " Count Julian," and other shorter poems. 
 
 JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 1736-1812. " The Diversions of Purley." 
 
 WILLIAM COMBE. 1741-1823. "Letters of the late Lord Lyttleton," "Tour 
 
 of Dr. Syntax." 
 
 ARCHIBALD ALISON. 1757-1838. Celebrated " Essay on Taste." 
 ISAAC DISRAELI. 1766-1848. "Curiosities of Literature," "Quarrels of Au- 
 thors," " Calamities of Authors." 
 
 HENRY, Lord BROUGHAM. 1778-1868. "Observations on Light," "States- 
 men of George III.," " England under the House of Lancaster." 
 
 Sir EGERTON BRYDGES. 1762-1837. " Censuria Literaria," " Letters on the 
 Genius of Byron." 
 
 JOHN WILSON CROKER. 1780-1857. "Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court 
 of George II." 
 
 SCIENTIFIC WRITERS AND SCHOLARS. 
 
 DISTINGUISHED CHEMISTS. 
 
 Sir HUMPHRY DAVY. 1778-1829. Many valuable papers in "Transactions 
 of the Royal Society," " Sahuonia," and " The Lust Duys of a Philosopher." 
 
 Sir JOHN HERSCHEL. 1790. Distinguished astronomer. "Treatises on Sound 
 and Light." " Outlines of Astronomy." 
 
 JEREMY BENTHAM. 1748-1832. Celebrated writer on law and politics. 
 " Fragments on Government," " Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legis- 
 lation," and others. A utilitarian, his motto was, "The greatest happiness to the 
 greatest number." 
 
 DUGALD STEWART. 1753-1828. Metaphysician. "The Philosophy of the 
 Human Mind," "Outlines of Moral Philosophy!" 
 
 DAVID RIPARDO. 1772-1823. " The High Price of Bullion," " The Principles 
 of Political Economy and Taxation." 
 
 THOMAS BROWN. 1778-1820. "Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind." 
 
 GEORGK COMBE. 1788-1858. " Essays on Phrenology ; " " The Constitution of 
 Man," a celebrated text-book. 
 
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 379 
 
 JOHN ABERCROMBIE. 1781-1844. " The Intellectual Powers and the Investi- 
 gation of Truth," " Philosophy of the Moral Feelings." 
 
 ALEXANDER WILSON. 1766-1813. " American Ornithology." 
 
 J. RAMSAY M'CULLOCH. 1790-1864. "Elements of Political Economy," 
 " Dictionary of Commerce," " Statistical Account of the British Empire." 
 
 ADAM CLARKE. 1760-1832. Eminent divine; Wesleyan Methodist. " A Com- 
 mentary o i the Bible," " Bibliographical Dictionary." 
 
 ROBERT HALL. 1764-1831. Distinguished Baptist preacher. "An Apology 
 for the Freedom of the Press," " A Sermon on Modern Infidelity," and other elo- 
 quent sermons. 
 
 EDWARD IRVING. 1792-1834. Sermons and lectures. 
 
 RICHARD POKSON. 1759-1808. Classical scholar. "Euripides," "Homer," 
 " J2schylus r " and " Herodotus; " " Notes ou Greek Poets." 
 
 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 
 
 1788-1824. 
 
 The most distinguished poet of his time. His famous retort upon the Edinburgh 
 critics, "English Bards .and Scotch Reviewers," shows how elegantly invective, in- 
 spired by contempt and hate, speaks English. His best known works are " Childo 
 Harold," "The Giaour," " I'he Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," "Don Juan," 
 and many shorter poems, "The Prisoner of Chillon," "The Lament of Tasso," 
 " The Prophecy of Dante," " The Vision of Judgment," and others well known. 
 
 THE DYING GLADIATOR. 
 
 THE seal is set. Now welcome, thou dread power, 
 Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here " 
 Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight-hour 
 "With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear ! 
 Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls real* 
 Their ivy mantles ; and the solemn scene 
 Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear, 
 That we become a part of what has been, 
 And grow unto the spot, all-seeing, but unseen. 
 
 And here the buzz of eager nations raft 
 In murmured pity or loud-roared applause, 
 As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. 
 And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because 
 Such were the bloody circus' genial laws, 
 And the imperial pleasure ? Wherefore not ? 
 What matters where we fall to fill the maws 
 Of worms, on the battle-plains, or listed spot? 
 Both are but theaters where the chief actors rot. 
 
380 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 I see before me the gladiator lie : 
 lie leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
 Consents to death, but conquers agony ; 
 And his drooped head sinks gradually low ; 
 And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
 From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
 Like the first of a thunder-shower. And now 
 The arena swims around him : he is gone 
 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. 
 
 He heard it ; but he heeded not : his eyes 
 Were with his heart, and that was far away : 
 He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
 But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
 There were his young barbarians all at play; 
 There was their Dacian mother : he, their sire, 
 Butchered to make a Roman holiday ! 
 All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire, 
 And unavenged ? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire 1 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. 
 
 THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods ; 
 There is a rapture on the lonely shore ; 
 There is society, where none intrudes, 
 By the deep sea, and music in its roar : 
 I love not man the less, but Nature more, 
 From these our interviews, in which I steal 
 From all I may be, or have been before, 
 To mingle with the universe, and feel 
 What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain : 
 Man marks the earth with ruin ; his control 
 Stops with the shore : upon the watery plain 
 The wrecks are all thy deed ; nor doth remain 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 
 
 His steps are not upon thy paths ; thy fields 
 Are not a spoil for him ; thou dost arise 
 And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
 For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
 Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
 And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, 
 And howling, to his gods, where haply lies 
 His petty hope in some near port or bay ; 
 And dashest him again to earth, there let him lay ! 
 
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 381 
 
 The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
 Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 
 And monarchs tremble in their capitals ; 
 The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
 Their clay creator the vain title take 
 Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, 
 These are thy toys ; and, as the snowy flake, 
 They melt into thy yeast of wares, which mar 
 Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 
 
 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee. 
 Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
 Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
 And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
 The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
 Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou ; 
 Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, 
 Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow : 
 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 
 
 Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
 Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
 Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm, 
 Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
 Dark-heaving ; boundless, endless, and sublime, 
 The image of Eternity, the throne 
 Of the Invisible : even from out thy slime 
 The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
 Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 
 
 And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
 Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
 Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
 I wantoned with thy breakers ; they to me 
 Were a delight ; and, if the freshening sea 
 Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear ; 
 For I was, as it were, a child of thee, 
 And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
 And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here. 
 
 LAKE GENEVA. 
 
 CLEAR, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, 
 With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
 Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 
 Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
 This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
 To waft me from distraction : once I loved 
 Torn ocean's roar ; but thy soft murmuring 
 Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, 
 That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 
 
382 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 It is the hush of night ; and all between 
 Thv margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
 Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
 Save darkened Jura, whose eapt hights appear 
 Precipitously steep : and, drawing near, 
 There breathes a living fragrance from the shore 
 Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
 Drops the light drip of the suspended oar; 
 Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 
 
 He is an evening reveler, who makes 
 His life and infancy, and sings his fill. 
 At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
 Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
 There seems a floating whisper on the hill : 
 But that is fancy; for the starlight dews 
 All silently their tears of love instill, 
 "Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
 Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 
 
 The sky is changed ; and such a change ! O night 
 And storm and darkness ! ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength as is the light 
 Of a dark eye* in woman ! Far along, 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 
 And Jura answers through her misty shroud 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! 
 
 And this is in the night ! Most glorious night ! 
 Thou wert not sent for slumber: let me be 
 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 
 A portion of the tempest and of tliee ! 
 How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea ! 
 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
 And now asjain 'tis black ; and now the glee 
 Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
 As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 
 
 THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
 And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
 And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea 
 When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 
 
 Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
 Tint host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
 Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
 That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 
 
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 383 
 
 For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 And breathed on the face of the toe as he passed ; 
 And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and ehill ; 
 And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still. 
 
 And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
 But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride ; 
 And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turi, 
 And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 
 
 And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
 With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail ; 
 And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
 The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. 
 
 And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail ; 
 And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
 And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
 Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 
 
 DARKNESS. 
 
 I HAD a dream which was not all a dream. 
 
 The bright sun was extinguished ; and the stars 
 
 Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
 
 Rayless and pathless ; and the icy earth 
 
 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. 
 
 Morn came and went and came, and brought no day ; 
 
 And men forgot their passions in the dread 
 
 Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 
 
 Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. 
 
 And they did live by watch-fires; and the thrones, 
 
 The palaces of crowned kings, the huts, 
 
 The habitations of all things which dwell, 
 
 Were burnt for beacons. Cities were consumed ; 
 
 And men were gathered round their blazing homes 
 
 To look once more into each other's face : 
 
 Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 
 
 Of the volcanoes and their mountain-torch 1 
 
 A fearful hope was all the world contained. 
 
 Forests were set on fire ; but hour by hour 
 
 They fell and faded, and the crackling trunks 
 
 Extinguished with a crash, and all was black. 
 
 The brows of men by the despairing light 
 
 Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits 
 
 The flashes fell upon them : some lay down, 
 
 And hid their eyes, and wept : and some did rest 
 
 Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smiled ; 
 
 And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
 
 Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up 
 
 With mad disquietude on the dull sky, 
 
 The pall of a past world, and then again 
 
384 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 With curses east them down upon the dust, 
 
 And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked, 
 And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 
 And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 
 Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
 And twined themselves among the multitude, 
 Hissing, but stingless, they were slain for food; 
 And War, which for a moment was no more, 
 Did glut himself again. A meal was bought 
 With blood ; and each sate sullenly apart, 
 Gorging himself in gloom. No love was left : 
 All earth was but one thought, and that was death, 
 Immediate and inglorious ; and the pang 
 Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men 
 Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh ; 
 The meager by the meager were devoured : 
 Even dogs assailed their masters, all save one, 
 And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
 The birds and beasts and famished men at bay, 
 Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead 
 Lured their lank jaws : himself sought out no food, 
 But with a piteous and perpetual moan, 
 And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand 
 Which answered not with a caress, he died. 
 The crowd was famished by degrees : but two 
 Of an enormous city did survive; 
 And they were enemies. They met beside 
 The dying embers of an altar-place, 
 Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 
 For an unholy usage : they raked up, 
 And, shivering, scraped with their cold skeleton hands, 
 The feeble ashes ; and their feeble breath 
 Blew for a little life, and made a flame 
 Which was a mockery : then they lifted up 
 Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
 Each other's aspects, saw and shrieked and died, 
 Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 
 Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 
 Famine had written fiend. The world was void ; 
 The populous and the powerful was a lump, 
 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless, 
 A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay. 
 The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still ; 
 And nothing stirred within their silent depth. 
 Ships, sailorless. lay rotting on the sea ; 
 . And their masts fell down piecemeal : as they dropped, 
 They slept on the abyss without a surge. 
 The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave ; 
 The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 
 The winds were withered in the stagnant air ; 
 And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need 
 Of aid from them : she was the universe. 
 

 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 385 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 1771-1832. BORN IN EDINBURGH, 
 
 The celebrated author of " The Waverley Novels," " Lay of the Last Minstrel," 
 " Marmion," and " Lady of the Lake," all having an historical groundwork. His 
 "Life of Napoleon'" was written too near the time and place of the events com- 
 memorated, and by too much of an Englishman, to do justice to the subject. A 
 prodigy of industry, and the soul of honor as a man. 
 
 THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 
 THE GUARD-ROOM. 
 
 THE sun, awakening, through the smoky air 
 Of the dark city casts a sullen glanee, 
 Rousing each caitiff' to his task of care, 
 Of sinful man the sad inheritance ; 
 Summoning revelers from the lagging dance ; 
 Scaring the prowling robber to his den ; 
 Gilding on battled tower the warder's lance ; 
 And warning student pale to leave his pen, 
 And yield his drowsy eyes to the kind nurse of men. 
 
 What various scenes, and, oh ! what scenes of woe, 
 Are witnessed by that red and struggling beam ! 
 The fevered patient, from his pallet low, 
 Through crowded hospital beholds .it stream ; 
 The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam ; 
 The debtor wakes to thoughts of gyve and jail ; 
 The lovelorn wretch starts from tormenting dream ; 
 The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale. 
 Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his feeble wail. 
 
 At dawn, the towers of Stirling rang 
 With soldier-step and weapon-clang ; 
 While drums, with rolling note, foretell 
 Relief to weary sentinel. 
 Through narrow loop, and casement barred, 
 The sunbeams sought the Court of Guard, 
 And, struggling with the smoky air, 
 Deadened the torches' yellow glare. 
 In comfortless alliance shone 
 The lights through arch of blackened stone, 
 And showed wild shapes in garb of war, 
 Faces deformed with beard and scar, 
 All haggard from the midnight watch, 
 And fevered with the stern debauch ; 
 For the oak table's massive board, 
 Flooded with wine, with fragments stored, 
 26 
 
38(5 ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 
 And beakers drained , and cups o'erthrown,, 
 Showed in what sport the night had flown. 
 Some, weary, snored on floor and bench ; 
 Some labored 'still their thirst to quench ; 
 Some, chilled with watching, spread their hands 
 O'er the huge chimney's dying brands, 
 While, round them or beside them flung, 
 At every step their harness rung. 
 
 These drew not for their fields the sword 
 
 Like tenants of a feudal lord, 
 
 Nor owned the patriarchal claim 
 
 Of chieftain in their leader's name : 
 
 Adventurers they from far, who roved 
 
 To live by battle, which they loved. 
 
 There the Italian's clouded face ; 
 
 The swarthy Spaniard's there you trace ; 
 
 The mountain-loving Switzer there 
 
 More freely breathed in mountain-air ; 
 
 The Fleming there despised the soil 
 
 That paid so ill the laborer's toil. 
 
 Their rolls showed French and German name ; 
 
 And merry England's exiles came 
 
 To share with ill-concealed disdain 
 
 Of Scotland's pay the scanty gain, 
 
 All brave in arms, well trained to wield 
 
 The heavy halbert, brand, and shield: 
 
 In camps, licentious, wild, and bold; 
 
 In pillage, fierce and uncontrolled ; 
 
 And now, by holytide and feast, 
 
 From rules of discipline released. 
 
 They held debate of bloody fray 
 
 Fought 'twixt Loch Katrine and Achray. 
 
 Fierce was their speech ; and, 'mid their words, 
 
 Their hands oft grappled to their swords ; 
 
 Nor sank their tone to spare the ear 
 
 Of wounded comrades groaning near, 
 
 Whose mangled limbs and bodies gored 
 
 Bore token of the mountain sword, 
 
 Though, neighboring to the Court of Guard, 
 
 Their prayers and feverish wails were heard ; 
 
 Sad burdened to the ruffian joke, 
 
 And savage oath by fury spoke. 
 
 At length upstarted John of Brent, 
 
 A yeoman from the banks of Trent, 
 
 A stranger to respect or fear, 
 
 In peace a chaser of the deer, 
 
 In host a hardy mutineer, 
 
 But still the boldest of the crew 
 
 When deed of danger was to do. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 387 
 
 He grieved, that day, their games cut short, 
 
 And marred the dicers' brawling sport ; 
 
 And shouted loud, " Renew the bowl 1 
 
 And, while a merry catch I troll, 
 
 Let each the buxom chorus bear, 
 
 Like brethren of the brand, and spear." 
 
 SOLDIER'S SONG. 
 
 Our vicar still preaches that Peter and Poule 
 
 Laid a swinging long curse on the bonny brown bowl ; 
 
 That there's wrath and despair in the jolly black jack, 
 
 And seven deadly sins in a flagon of sack. 
 
 Yet whoop, Barnaby ! oflf with thy liquor, 
 
 Drink upsees out, and a fig for the vicar \ 
 
 Our vicar he calls it damnation to sip 
 
 The ripe, ruddy dew of a woman's dear lip ; 
 
 Says that Beelzebub lurks in her kerchief so sly, 
 
 And Apollyon shoots darts from her merry black eye. 
 
 Yet whoop, Jack ! kiss Gillian the quicker, .1. 
 
 Till she bloom like a rose ; and a fig for the vicar ! 
 
 Our vicar thus preaches ; and why should he not ? 
 For the dues of his cure are the placket and pot ; 
 And 'tis right of his office poor laymen to lurch 
 Who infringe the domains of our good mother-church. 
 Yet whoop, bully-boys ! off with your liquor ; 
 Sweet Marjorie's the word, and a fig for the vicar I 
 
 The warder's challenge heard without 
 
 Stayed in mid roar the merry shout. 
 
 A soldier to the portal went : 
 
 " Here is old Bertram, sirs, of Ghent ; 
 
 And beat for jubilee the drum ! 
 
 A maid and minstrel with him come." 
 
 Bertram, a Fleming, gray and scarred, 
 
 Was entering now the Court of Guard ; 
 
 A harper with him ; and, in plaid 
 
 All muffled close, a mountain-maid, 
 
 Who backward shrank to 'scape the view 
 
 Of the loose scene and boisterous crew. 
 
 " What news ? " they roared. " I only know 
 
 From noon till eve we fought with foe 
 
 As wild and as untamable 
 
 As the rude mountains where they dwell. 
 
 On both sides, store of blood is lost : 
 
 Not much success can either boast." 
 
 " But whence thy captives, friend ? such spoil 
 
 As theirs must need reward thy toil. 
 
 Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp : 
 
 Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp ; 
 
 Get thee an ape, and trudge the land, 
 
 The leader of a juggler-band." 
 
388 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " No, comrade ; no such fortune mine. 
 
 After the fight, these sought our line, 
 
 That aged harper arfd the girl ; 
 
 And, having audience of the earl, 
 
 Mar bade I should purvey them steed, 
 
 And bring them hitherward with speed. 
 
 Forbear your mirth and rude alarm ; 
 
 For none shall do them shame or harm." 
 
 " Hear ye his boast," cried John of Brent, 
 
 Ever to strife and jangling bent : 
 
 " Shall he strike doe beside our lodge, 
 
 And yet the jealous niggard grudge 
 
 To pay the forester his ice ? 
 
 I'll have my share, howe'er it be, 
 
 Despite of "Moray, Mar, or thee ! " 
 
 Bertram his forward step withstood ; 
 
 And, burning in his vengeful mood, 
 
 Old Allan, though unfit for strife, 
 
 Laid hand upon his dagger-knife : 
 
 But Ellen boldly stepped between, 
 
 And dropped at once the tartan screen. 
 
 So from his morning cloud appears 
 
 The sun of May through summer tears. 
 
 The savage soldiery, amazed, 
 
 As on descended angel gazed : 
 
 Even hardy Brent, abashed and tamed, 
 
 Stood half admiring, half ashamed. 
 
 Boldly she spoke : " Soldiers, attend ! 
 My father was the soldier's friend ; 
 Cheered him in camps, in marches led, 
 And with him in the battle bled. 
 Not from the valiant or the strong 
 Should exile's daughter suffer wron-j." 
 Answered De Brent, most forward still 
 In every feat of good or ill : 
 " I shame me of the part I played ; 
 And thou an outlaw's child, poor maid 1 
 An outlaw I by forest laws ; 
 And merry Needwood knows the cause. 
 Poor Rose, if Rose be living now, 
 He wjped his iron eye and brow, 
 " Must bear such age, I think, as thou. 
 Hear ye, my mates ! I go to call 
 The captain of our watch to hall : 
 There lies my halbert on the floor ; 
 And he that steps my halbert o'er 
 To do the maid injurious part, 
 My shaft shall quiver in his heart ! 
 Beware loose speech, or jesting rough. 
 Ye all knoAv John de Brent. Enough." 
 Their captain came, a gallant young, 
 (Of Tullibardine's house he sprung,) 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 389 
 
 Nor wore he yet the spur of knight ; 
 
 Gay was his mien, his humor light ; 
 
 And, though by courtesy controlled, 
 
 Forward his speech, his bearing bold. 
 
 The high-born maiden ill could brook 
 
 The scanning of his curious look 
 
 And dauntless eye ; and yet, in sooth, 
 
 Young Lewis was a generous youth : 
 
 But Ellen's lovely face and mien, 
 
 111 suited to the guard and scene, 
 
 Must lightly bear construction strange, 
 
 And give loose fancy scope to range. 
 
 " Welcome to Stirling towers, fair maid ! 
 
 Come ye to seek a champion's aid 
 
 On palfrey white with harper hoar, 
 
 Like errant damosel of yore ? 
 
 Does thy high quest a knight require ? 
 
 Or may the venture suit a squire ? " 
 
 Her dark eye flashed : she paused and sighed, 
 
 " Oh ! what have I to do with pride ? 
 
 Through scenes of sorrow, shame, and strife, 
 
 A suppliant for a father's life, 
 
 I crave an audience of the king. 
 
 Behold, to back my suit, a ring, 
 
 The royal pledge of grateful claims 
 
 Given by the monarch to Fitz-James ! " 
 
 The signet-ring young Lewis took 
 With deep respect and altered look, 
 And said, " This ring our duties own ; 
 And pardon, if to worth unknown, 
 In semblance mean, obscurely veiled, 
 Lady, in aught my folly failed. 
 Soon as the day flings wide the gates, 
 The king shall know what suitor waits. 
 Please you, meanwhile, in fitting bower 
 Repose you till his waking hour : 
 Female attendance shall obey 
 Your hest for service or array : 
 Permit, I marshal you the way." 
 But, ere she followed, with the grace 
 And open bounty of her race 
 She bade her slender purse be shared 
 Among the soldiers of the guard. 
 The rest with thanks their guerdon took. 
 But Brent, with shy and awkward look, 
 On the reluctant maiden's hold 
 Forced bluntly back the proffered gold : 
 " Forgive a haughty English heart ; 
 And, oh ! forget its ruder part. 
 The vacant purse shall be my share, 
 Which in my barret-cap I'll bear. 
 
390 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Perchance, in jeopardy of war, 
 
 Where gayer crests may keep afar." 
 
 "With thanks 'twas all she could the maid 
 
 His rugged courtesy repaid. 
 
 When Ellen forth with Lewis went, 
 Allan made suit to John of Brent : 
 " My lady safe, oh ! let your grace 
 Give me to see my master's face : 
 His minstrel I, to share his doom 
 Bound from the cradle to the tomb. 
 Tenth in descent, since first my sires 
 Waked for his noble house their lyres ; 
 Nor one of all the race was known 
 But prized its weal above their own. 
 With the chief's birth begins our care : 
 Our harp must soothe the infant heir, 
 Teach the youth tales of fight, and grace 
 His earliest feat of field or chase. 
 In peace, in war, our rank we keep : 
 We cheer his board ; we soothe his sleep ; 
 Nor leave him till we pour our verse, 
 A doleful tribute, o'er his hearse. 
 Then let me share his captive lot : 
 It is my right ; deny it not ! " 
 " Little we reck," said John of Brent, 
 " We southern men, of long descent ; 
 Nor wot we how a name, a word, 
 Makes clansmen vassals to a lord : 
 Yet kind my noble landlord's part ; 
 (God bless the house of Beaudesert !) 
 And, but I loved to drive the deer 
 More than to guide the laboring steer, 
 I had not dwelt an outcast here. 
 Come, good old minstrel, follow me : 
 Thy lord and chieftain shalt thou see." 
 
 Then from a rusted iron hook 
 A bunch of ponderous keys he took, 
 Lighted a torch, and Allan led 
 Through grated arch and passage dread. 
 Portals they passed, where, deep within, 
 Spoke prisoner's moan and fetters dim ; 
 Through rugged vaults, where, loosely stored, 
 Lay wheel and ax, and headsman's sword, 
 And many a hideous engine grim 
 For wrenching joint and crushing limb, 
 By artists formed who deemed it shame 
 And sin to give their work a name. 
 They halted at a low-browed porch ; 
 And Brent to Allan gave the torch, 
 While bolt and chain he backward rolled, 
 And made the bar unhasp its hold. 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 391 
 
 They entered. 'Twas a prison-room 
 
 Of stern security and gloom ; 
 
 Yet not a dungeon, for the day 
 
 Through lofty gratings found its wayj 
 
 And rude and antique garniture 
 
 Decked the sad walls and oaken floor, 
 
 Such as the rugged days of old 
 
 Deemed fit for captive noble's hold, 
 
 " Here," said De Brent, " thou mayst remain 
 
 Till the Leach visit him again. 
 
 Strict is his charge, the warders tell, 
 
 To tend the noble prisoner well." 
 
 Retiring then, the bolt he drew ; 
 
 And the lock's murmurs .growled anew, 
 
 Roused at the sound, from lowly bed 
 
 A captive feebly raised his head : 
 
 The wondering minstrel looked, and knew, 
 
 Not his dear lord, but Roderick Dhu ; 
 
 For, come from where Clan-Alpine fought, 
 
 They, erring, deemed the chief he sought. 
 
 As the tall ship, whose lofty prore 
 
 Shall never stem the billows more, 
 
 Deserted by her gallant band, 
 
 Amid the breakers lies astrand : 
 
 So on his couch lay Roderick Dhu ; 
 
 And oft his fevered limbs he threw 
 
 In toss abrupt, as when her sides 
 
 Lie rocking in the advancing tides 
 
 That shake her frame with ceaseless beat, 
 
 Yet can not heave her from her seat. 
 
 Oh 1 how unlike her course on sea, 
 
 Or his free step on hill and lea ! 
 
 Soon as the minstrel he could scan, 
 
 " What of thy lady ? of my clan ? 
 
 My mother ? Douglas ? tell me all. 
 
 Have they been ruined in my fall ? 
 
 Ah,' yes ! or wherefore art thou here ? 
 
 Yet speak, speak boldly 1 do not fear." 
 
 (For Allan, who his mood well knew, 
 
 Was choked with grief and terror too.) 
 
 Who fought ? who fled ? Old man, be brief. 
 
 Some might ; for they had lost their chief. 
 
 Who basely live ? who bravely died ? " 
 
 " Oh, calm thee, chief ! " the minstrel cried : 
 
 " Ellen is safe." " For that, thank Heaven J " 
 
 " And hopes are for the Douglas given ; 
 
 The Lady Margaret, too, is well ; 
 
 And for thy clan, on field or fell, 
 
 Has never harp of minstrel told 
 
 Of combat fought so true and bold. 
 
 Thy stately pine is still unbent, 
 
 Though many a goodly bough is rent." 
 
392 ENGLISH LILEKATURE, 
 
 The chieftain reared his form on high r 
 
 And fever's fire was in his eye ; 
 
 But ghastly, pale, and lit id streaks 
 
 Checkered his swarthy brow and cheeks. 
 
 ** Hark, minstrel ! I have heard thee play 
 
 With measure bold on festal day 
 
 In yon lone isle, . . . again where ne'er 
 
 Shall harper play or warrior hear, . . . 
 
 That stirring air that peals on high, 
 
 O'er Dermid's race our victory. 
 
 Strike it ! and then (for well thou canst) 
 
 Free from thy minstrel-spirit glanced, 
 
 Fling me the picture of the fight 
 
 When met my clan the Saxon might. 
 
 I'll listen till my fancy hears 
 
 The clang of swords, the crash of spears ; 
 
 These grates, these walls, shall vanish then. 
 
 For the fair field of fighting-men, 
 
 And my free spirit burst away 
 
 As if it soared from battle fray." 
 
 The trembling bard with awe obeyed : 
 
 Slow on the harp his hand he laid ; 
 
 But soon remembrance of the sight 
 
 He witnessed from the mountain's hight, 
 
 With what old Bertram told at night, 
 
 Awakened the full power of song, 
 
 And bore him in career along, 
 
 As shallop launched on river's tide, 
 
 That slow and fearful leaves the side, 
 
 But, when it feels the middle stream, 
 
 Drives downward swift as lightning's beam. 
 
 BATTLE OF BEAL* AN DUIXE. 
 
 " The minstrel came once more to view 
 The eastern ridge of Ben-venue ; 
 For, ere he parted, he would say 
 Farewell to lovely Loch-Achray : 
 Where shall he find in foreign land 
 So pure a lake, so sweet a strand V 
 There is no breeze upon the fern, 
 
 No ripple on the lake ; 
 Upon her eyrie nods the erne ; 
 
 The deer has sought the brake ; 
 The small birds will not sing aloud ; 
 
 The springing trout lies still ; 
 So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, 
 That swathes as with a purple shroud 
 
 Benledi's distant hill. 
 Is it the thunder's solemn sound 
 
 That mutters deep and dread ? 
 Or echoes from the groaning ground 
 
 The warrior's measured tread ? 
 
SIK WALTER SCOTT. 393 
 
 Is it the lightning's quivering glance 
 
 That on the thicket streams ? 
 Or do they flash on spear and lance, 
 
 The sun's retiring beams ? 
 I see the dagger-crest of Mar, 
 I see the Moray's silver star, 
 Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war, 
 That up the lake comes winding far : 
 To hero bound for battle-strife, 
 
 Or bard of martial lay, 
 'Twere worth ten years of peaceful life, 
 
 One glance at their array ! 
 
 " Their light-armed archers far and near 
 
 Surveyed the tangled ground ; 
 Their center ranks, with pike and spear, 
 
 A twilight forest frowned ; 
 Their barbed horsemen, in the rear, 
 
 The stern battalia crowned. 
 No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang ; 
 
 Still were the pipe and drum ; 
 Save heavy tread, and armor's clang, 
 
 The sullen march was dumb. 
 There breathed no wind their crests to shake, 
 
 Or wave their flags abroad ; 
 Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, 
 
 That shadowe'd o'er their road. 
 Their vaward scouts no tidings bring 
 
 Can rouse no lurking foe, 
 Nor spy a trace of living thing, 
 
 Save when they stirred the roe ; 
 The host moves like a deep sea-wave 
 Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, 
 
 High-swelling, dark, and slow. 
 The lake is passed ; and now they gain 
 A narrow and a broken plain, 
 Before the Trosachs' rugged jaws : 
 And here the horse and spearmen pause ; 
 While, to explore the dangerous glen, 
 Dive through the pass the archer-men. 
 
 "At once there rose so wild a yell 
 Within that dark and narrow dell, 
 As all the fiends from heaven that fell 
 Had pealed the banner-cry of hell. 
 Forth from the pass in tumult driven, 
 Like chalF before the wind of heaven, 
 
 The archery appear. 
 For life, for life, their flight they ply ; 
 And shriek and shout and battle-cry, 
 And plaids and bonnets waving high, 
 And broadswords flashing to the sky, 
 
 Are maddening in their rear. 
 
394 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Onward they drive in dreadful race, 
 
 Pursuers and pursue! 1 ; 
 Before that tide of flight and chase, 
 How shall it keep its rooted place, 
 
 The spearmen's twilight wood ? 
 * Down, down ! ' cried Mar, ' your lances down 1 
 
 Bear back both friend and foe ! ' 
 Like reeds before the tempest's frown, 
 That serried grove of lances brown 
 
 At once lay leveled low ; 
 And, closely shouldering side to side, 
 The bristling ranks the onset bide. 
 ' We'll quell the savage mountaineer, 
 
 As their Tinchel cows the game : 
 They come as fleet as forest deer ; 
 
 We'll drive them back as tame.' 
 
 " Bearing before them in their course 
 The relics of the archer force, 
 Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 
 Right onward did Clan-Alpine come. 
 Above the tide, each broadsword bright 
 Was brandishing like beam of light ; 
 
 Each targe was dark below ; 
 And, with the ocean's mighty swing 
 When heaving to the tempest's whig, 
 
 They hurled them on the foe. 
 I heard the lance's shivering crash 
 As when the whirlwind rends the ash ; 
 I heard the broadsword's deadly clang 
 As if a hundred anvils rang : 
 But Moray wheeled his rearward rank 
 Of horsemen on Clan- Alpine's flank. 
 
 ' My banner-man, advance ! 
 I see,' he cried, ' their column shake ! 
 Now, gallants, for your ladies' sake, 
 
 Upon them with the lance ! ' 
 The horsemen dashed among the rout 
 
 As deer break through the broom : 
 Their steeds are stout, their swords are out ; 
 
 They soon make lightsome room. 
 Clan- Alpine's best are backward borne, 
 
 (Where, where, was Roderick then ? 
 One blast upon his bugle-horn 
 
 Were worth a thousand men ;) 
 And refluent through the pass of fear 
 
 The battle's tide was poured : 
 Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear, 
 
 Vanished the mountain sword. 
 As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep, 
 
 Receives her roaring linn ; 
 As the dork caverns of the deep 
 
 Suck the wild whirlpool in : 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 395 
 
 So did the deep and darksome pass 
 Devour the battle's mingled mass; 
 None linger now upon the plain 
 Save those who ne'er shall fight again. 
 
 " Now westward rolls the battle's din 
 That deep and doubling pass within. 
 Minstrel, away ! the work of fate 
 Is bearing on : its issue wait 
 Where the rude Trosachs' dread defile 
 Opens on Katrine's lake and isle. 
 Gray Ben-venue I soon repassed ; 
 Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast 
 The sun is set, the clouds are met; 
 
 The lowering scowl of heaven 
 An inky hue of livid blue 
 
 To the deep lake has given ; 
 Strange gusts of wind from mountain-glen 
 Swept o'er the lake, then sunk again. 
 I heeded not the eddying surge ; 
 Mine eye but saw the Trosachs' gorge ; 
 Mine ear but heard that sullen sound 
 Which like an earthquake shook the ground, 
 And spoke the stern and desperate strife 
 That parts not but with parting life, 
 Seeming, to minstrel-ear, to toil 
 The dirge of many a passing soul. 
 Nearer it comes; the dim wood-glen 
 The martial flood disgorged again, 
 
 But not in mingled tide : 
 The plaided warriors of the north 
 High on the mountain thunder forth, 
 
 And overhang its side ; 
 While by the lake below appears 
 The darkening cloud of Saxon spears. 
 At weary bay each shattered band, 
 Eying their fbemen, sternly stand ; 
 Their banners stream like tattered sail 
 That flings its fragment to the gale ; 
 And broken arms and disarray 
 Marked the fell havoc of the day. 
 
 " Viewing the mountain's ridge askance, 
 The Saxons stood in sullen trance 
 Till Moray pointed with his lance, 
 
 And cried, ' Behold yon isle ! 
 See ! none are left to guard its strand, 
 But women weak, that wring the hand. 
 'Tis there of yore the robber-band 
 
 Their booty wont to pile ; 
 My purse, with bonnet-pieces store, 
 To him will swim a bow-shot o'er, 
 And loose a shallop from the shore. 
 
396 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Lightly we'll tame the war- wolf then, 
 Lords of his mate, and brood and den/ 
 Forth from the ranks a Spearman sprung ; 
 On earth his casque and corselet rung : 
 
 He plunged him in the wave. 
 All saw the deed, the purpose knew ; 
 And to their clamors Ben-venue 
 
 A mingled echo gave : 
 The Saxons shout their mate to cheer ; 
 The helpless females scream for fear; 
 And yells for rage the mountaineer. 
 'Tvvas then, as by the outcry riven, 
 Poured down at once the lowering heaven : 
 A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast ; 
 Her billows reared their snowy crest. 
 Well for the swimmer swelled they high 
 To mar the Highland marksman's eye ; 
 For round him showered, 'mid rain and hail, 
 The vengeful arrows of the Gael. 
 In vain. He nears the isle ; and, lo ! 
 His hand is on a shallop's bow. 
 Just then, a flash of lightning came ; 
 It tinged the waves and strand with flame. 
 I marked Duncraggan's widowed dame : 
 Behind an oak I saw her stand, 
 A naked dirk gleamed in her hand. 
 It darkened ; but amid the moan 
 Of waves I heard a dying groan : 
 Another flash ; the spearman floats 
 A weltering corse beside the boats ; 
 And the stern matron o'er him stood, 
 Her hand and dagger streaming blood. 
 
 " ' Revenge, revenge ! ' the Saxons cried ; 
 
 The Gaels' exulting shout replied. 
 
 Despite the elemental rage, 
 
 Again they hurried to engage ; 
 
 But, ere they closed in desperate fight, 
 
 Bloody with spurring came a knight, 
 
 Sprang from his horse, apd from a crag 
 
 Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag. 
 
 Clarion and trumpet by his side 
 
 Rang forth a truce-note high and wide ; 
 
 While in the monarch's name afar 
 
 A herald's voice forbade the war ; 
 
 For Bothwell's lord and Roderick bold 
 
 Were both, he said, in captive hold." 
 
 But here the lay made sudden stand ; 
 The harp escaped the minstrel's hand. 
 Oft had he stolen a glance to spy 
 How Roderick brooked his minstrelsy. 
 
HISTORY AND TRAVEL. 397 
 
 At first, the chieftain to the chime 
 
 With lifted hand kept feeble time ; 
 
 That motion ceased, yet feeling strong 
 
 Varied his look as changed the song. 
 
 At length, no more his deafened ear 
 
 The minstrel melody can hear ; 
 
 His face grows sharp ; his hands are clinched 
 
 As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched ; 
 
 Set are his teeth ; his fading eye 
 
 Is sternly fixed on vacancy : 
 
 Thus, motionless and moanless, drew 
 
 His parting-breath stout Roderick Dhu. 
 
 Old Allan-bane looked on aghast 
 
 While grim and still his spirit passed; 
 
 But, when he saw that life was fled, 
 
 He poured his wailing o'er the dead. 
 
 HISTORY AND TRAVEL. 
 
 EDWARD GIBBON. 1737-1794. The stately historian of " The Decline and Fall 
 of the Roman Empire. 1 ' 
 
 JOHN LINGARD. 1771-1851. The Roman-Catholic author of a learned and val- 
 uable " History of England," thirteen vols. 
 
 HENRY HALLAM. 1778-1859. Author of three invaluable historical works, 
 " View of Europe during the Middle Ages," "The Constitutional History of Eng- 
 land," and "An Introduction to the Literature of Europe." 
 
 WILLIAM NAPIER. 1785-1860. "The Peninsular War," "The Conquest of 
 Scinde," and " The Life of Sir Charles Napier." 
 
 WILLIAM ROSCOE. 1753-1831. " The Life of Lorenzo de Medici," and " The 
 Life and Pontificate of Leo X." 
 
 Sir JAMES MC!NTOSH. 1765-1832. Short " Life of Sir Thomas More," " Dis- 
 sertation on Ethical Philosophy," and other essays. 
 
 THOMAS McCRiE. 1772-1835. "Life of John Knox," and " Life of Andrew 
 Melville." 
 
 JAMES MILL. 1773-1836. " History of British India." 
 
 DAVID DALRYMPLE. 1726-1792. "Annals of Scotland, from Malcolm HI. to 
 the Accession of the Stuarts." 
 
 GEORGE CHALMERS. 1742-1825. " Caledonia " (antiquities and early history 
 of Scotland), " Life of Queen Mary," " Life of Sir David Lyndsay." 
 
 WILLIAM MITFORD. 1744-1827. " History of Greece." 
 
 WILLAM COXE. 1747-1828. " History of Austria," " Memoirs of Walpole and 
 Marlborough." 
 
 JOHN PINKERTON. 1758-1825. "History of Scotland before the Reign of 
 Malcolm III., arid under the Stuarts;" "The Scythians, or Goths." 
 
 MALCOLM LAING. 1762-1818. "History of Scotland from 1603 to 1707," 
 "Dissertations on the Gowrie Plot and the Murder of Darnley." 
 
 SHARON TURNER. 1768-1847. "History of the Anglo-Saxons," "History of 
 England during the Middle Ages." 
 
 PATRICK ERASER TYTLER. 1791-1849. "Universal History," " Historv of 
 Scotland from Alexander III., to 1603," " Lives of Scottish Worthies," " Life of Ra- 
 leigh." 
 
398 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Fames Brnce, Mungo Park, Hugh Clapperton, Richard Lander, John L. Burck- 
 t, and G. BeJzoni, travels in Africa. Edward Clarke, J. Silk Buckingham, Sir 
 
 James 
 hart, 
 
 John Malcolm, James Morier, Oursly, Sir R. Ker Porter, James B. Frazer,"~Staunton, 
 Barrow, and Ellis, travels in Asia. Forsyth, Eustace, Mathews, Lady Morgan, 
 Inglis, and others, in Europe. Parry, Ross, 'Franklin, and Scoresby, polar regions. 
 
 NOVELISTS. 
 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. 1767-1849. "Belinda," "Popular Tales," "Tales of 
 Fashionable Life," and a long list of popular works. 
 
 HENRY MACKENZIE. 1745-1831. "The Man of Feeling," and "The Man of 
 the World." 
 
 FRANCES BURXEY. 1752-1840. "Eveline," " Cecilia," and "Diary and Letters." 
 JOHN GALT. 1779-1839. " The Ayrshire Legatees," " The Annals of the Par- 
 ish," " Sir Andrew Wylie," " The Entail," " The Last of the Lairds," and '' Laurie 
 Todd." 
 
 FRANCES TROLLOPE. 1790. " The Domestic Manners of the Americans," 
 "The Abbess," "The Vicar of Wrexhill," "The Widow Barnaby," and "The 
 Ward of Thorpe Combe." The mother of Anthony and Thomas. 
 JOHN MOORE. 1729-1802. " Zeluco," " Edward." 
 
 CHARIOTTE SMITH. 1749-1806. "The Old English Manor-House," " Emme- 
 line." 
 
 SOPHIA LEE. 1750-1824, and her sister HARRIET LEE. 1766-1851. "The 
 Canterbury Tales and Dramas." 
 
 ELIZABETH INCHBALD. 1753-1821. " A Simple Story," " Nature and Art." 
 WILLIAM GODWIN. 1756-1836. " Caleb William?," " St. Leon." 
 ELIZABETH HAMILTON. 1758-1816. "Cottagers of Glenburnie." 
 WILLIAM BECKFORD. 1759-1844. " Vathek, an Arabian Tale." 
 ANNE RADCLIFFE. 1764-1823. " Romance of the Forest," " Mysteries of Udol- 
 pho," " The Italian." 
 
 R. PLUMEH WARD. 1762-1846. " Tremaine, or the Man of Refinement," " De 
 Vere," " De Clifibrd." 
 
 AMELIA OPIE. 1769-1853. "Father and Daughter," "Tales of the Heart," 
 " Temper." 
 
 MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS. 1773-1818. "The Monk," "Bravo of Venice," 
 " Tales of Wonder," " The Castle Specter." 
 
 JANE AUSTEN. 1775-1817. " Pride and Prejudice," " Mansfield Park," " Per- 
 suasion." 
 
 MARY BRUNTON. 1778-1818. " Self-Control," "Discipline." 
 JAMES MORIER. 1780-1849. " Hajji Baba," " Zohrab," " The Mirza." 
 THOMAS HOPE. Died 1831. " Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modem Greek." 
 MARY FERRIER. 1782-1854. " Marriage," " The Inheritance," "Destiny." 
 LADY MORGAN. 1786-1859. " The Wild Irish Girl," " O'Donnell." 
 THEODORE HOOK. 1788-1842. "Gilbert Gurnev," "Sayings and Doings," 
 "Jack Brag." 
 
 MARY MITFORD. 1789-1855. " Our Village," " Belford Regis." 
 COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. 1790-1849. "The Repealers," "Belle of a Sea- 
 son," " Victims of Society," " Idler in Italy," " Idler in France." 
 ANNA PORTER. 1780-1832. "Don Sebastian." 
 
 JANE PORTER. 1776-1850. " Thaddeus of Warsaw," " Scottish Chiefs." 
 THOMAS C. GRATTAN. Born 1796. " Highways and Byways," " Heiress of 
 Bruges," ' History of the Netherlands." 
 
 MARY SHELLEY. 1797-1851. "Frankenstein." 
 
WILLIAM COWPER. 399 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER. 
 
 1731-1800. 
 
 Author of " The Task," " Lines on the Receipt of my Mother's Picture," and 
 many minor poems, " John Gilpin," &c. 
 
 THE TIME-PIECE. 
 
 OH for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
 
 Some boundless contiguity of shade, 
 
 Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 
 
 Of unsuccessful or successful war, 
 
 Might never reach me more ! My ear is pained, 
 
 My soul is sick, with every day's report 
 
 Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 
 
 There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart ; 
 
 It does not feel for man : the natural bond 
 
 Of brotherhood is severed as the flax 
 
 That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 
 
 He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
 
 Not colored like his own ; and, having power 
 
 To enforce the wrong for such a worthy cause, 
 
 Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey. 
 
 Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
 
 Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
 
 Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
 
 Like kindred drops, been kindled into one. 
 
 Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 
 
 And worse than all, and most to be deplored 
 
 As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
 
 Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
 
 With stripes that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, 
 
 Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
 
 Then what is man ? And what man. seeing this, 
 
 And having human feelings, does not blush, 
 
 And hang his head, to think himself a man ? 
 
 I would not have a slave to till rny ground, 
 
 To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 
 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
 
 That sinews bought and sold have ever earned. 
 
 No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
 
 Just estimation prized above all price, 
 
 I had much rather be myself the slave, 
 
 And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
 
 We have no slaves at home. Then why abroad ? 
 
 And they themselves, once ferried o'er the wave 
 
 That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. 
 
 Slaves can not breathe in England : if their lungs 
 
400 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
 They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
 That's noble, and bespeaks a' nation proud 
 And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, 
 And let it circulate through every vein 
 Of all your empire, that, where Britain's power 
 Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 
 
 Sure there is need of social intercourse, 
 Benevolence and peace, and mutual aid, 
 Between the nations, in a world that seems 
 To toll the death-bell of its own decease, 
 And, by the voice of all its elements, 
 To preach the general doom. When were the winds 
 Let slip with such a warrant to destroy '.' 
 When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap 
 Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ? 
 Fires from beneath, and meteors from above, 
 Portentous, unexampled, unexplained, 
 Have kindled beacons in the skies ; and the old 
 And crazy Earth has had her shaking fits 
 More frequent, and foiegone her usual rest. 
 Is it a time to wrangle when the props 
 And pillars of our planet seem to fail, 
 And Nature with a dim and sickly eye 
 To wait the close of all ? But grant her end 
 More distant, and that prophecy demands 
 A longer respite, unaccomplished yet ; 
 Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak 
 Displeasure in his breast who smites the earth 
 Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. 
 And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve, 
 And stand exposed by common peccancy 
 To what no few have felt, there should be peace, 
 And brethren in calamity should love. 
 
 Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now 
 Lie scattered where the shapely columns stood. 
 Her palaces are dust. In all her streets, 
 The voice of singing and the sprightly chord 
 Are silent. Revelry and dance and show 
 Suffer a syncope and solemn pause, 
 While God performs upon the trembling stage 
 Of his own works his dreadful part alone. 
 How does the earth receive him (with what signs 
 Of gratulation and delight), her king? 
 Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad, 
 Her sweetest flowers, her aromatic gums, 
 Disclosing Paradise where'er he treads ? 
 She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb, 
 Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps 
 .And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot. 
 The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke ; 
 For he has touched them. From the extreinest point 
 
WILLIAM COWPEE. 401 
 
 Of elevation, down into the abyss, 
 
 His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt. 
 
 The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise ; 
 
 The rivers die into offensive pools, 
 
 And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a gross 
 
 And mortal nuisance into all the air. 
 
 What solid was, by transformation strange 
 
 Grows fluid ; and the fixed and rooted earth, 
 
 Tormented into billows, heaves and swells, 
 
 Or with vertiginous and hideous whirl 
 
 Sucks down its prey insatiable. Immense 
 
 The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs 
 
 And agonies of human and of brute 
 
 Multitudes, fugitive on every side, 
 
 And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene 
 
 Migrates uplifted ; and, with all its soil 
 
 Alighting in far-distant fields, finds out 
 
 A new possessor, and survives the change. 
 
 Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought 
 
 To an enormous and o'erbearing Light, 
 
 Not by a mighty wind, but by that Voice 
 
 Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore 
 
 Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, 
 
 Upridged so high, and sent on such a charge. 
 
 Possessed an inland scene. Where now the throng 
 
 That pressed the beach, and, hasty to depart, 
 
 Looked to the sea for safety ? They are gone, 
 
 Gone with the refluent wave into the deep, 
 
 A prince with half his people ! Ancient towers, 
 
 And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes 
 
 Where beauty oft and lettered worth consume 
 
 Life in the unproductive shades of death, 
 
 Fall prone : the pale inhabitants come forth, 
 
 And, happy in their unforeseen release 
 
 From all the rigors of restraint, enjoy 
 
 The terrors of the day that sets them free. 
 
 Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast, 
 
 Freedom ! whom they that lose thee so regret, 
 
 That e'en a judgment, making way for thee, 
 
 Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake ? 
 
 Such evil sin hath wrought ; and such a flame 
 
 Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, 
 
 And, in the furious inquest that it makes 
 
 On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works. 
 
 The very elements, though each be meant 
 
 The minister of man to serve his wants, 
 
 Conspire against him. With his breath he draws 
 
 A plague into his blood, and can not use 
 
 Lite's necessary means, but he must die. 
 
 Storms rise to o'erwhelm him ; or, if stormy winds 
 
 Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise, 
 
 And, needing none assistance of the storm, 
 
402 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there. 
 The earth shall shake him put of all his holds, 
 Or make his house his grave ; nor, so content, 
 Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood, 
 And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs. 
 What then ? Were they 'the wicked above all, 
 And we the righteous, whose fast-anchored isle 
 Moved not, while theirs was rocked, like a light skiff, 
 The sport of every wave ? No : none are clear, 
 And none than we more guilty. But where all 
 Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts 
 Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark ; 
 May punish, if he please, the less, to warn 
 The more malignant. If he spared not them, 
 Tremble and be amazed at thine escape, 
 Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee ! 
 Happy the man who sees a God employed 
 In all the good and ill that checker life, 
 Resolving all events, with their effects 
 And manifold results, into the will 
 And arbitration wise of the Supreme ! 
 Did not his eye rule all things, and intend 
 The least of our concerns (since from the least 
 The greatest oft originate) ; could chance 
 Find place in his dominion, or dispose 
 One lawless particle to thwart his plan, 
 Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen 
 Contingence might alarm him, and disturb 
 The smooth and equal course of his affairs. 
 This truth, Philosophy, though eagle-eyed 
 In Nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ; 
 And, having found his instrument, forgets, 
 Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still, 
 Denies, the power that wields it. God proclaims 
 His hot displeasure against foolish men 
 That live an atheist life ; involves the heavens 
 In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds, 
 And gives them all their fury ; bids a plague 
 Kindle a fiery bile upon the skin, 
 And putrefy the breath of blooming Health. 
 He calls for Famine ; and the meager fiend 
 Blows mildew from beneath his shriveled lips, 
 And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines, 
 And desolates a nation at a blast. 
 Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells 
 Of homogeneal and discordant springs 
 And principles ; of causes, how they work, 
 By necessary laws, their sure effects 
 Of action and re-action : he has found 
 The source of the disease that Nature feels, 
 And bids the world take heart, and banish fear. 
 Thou fool ! will thy discovery of the cause 
 
WILLIAM COWPER. 403 
 
 Suspend the effect, or heal it ? Has not God 
 
 Still wrought by means since first he made the world ? 
 
 And did he not of old employ his means 
 
 To drown it ? What is his creation less 
 
 Than a capacious reservoir of means, 
 
 Formed for his use, and ready at his will ? 
 
 Go dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of him, 
 
 Or ask of whomsoever he has taught, 
 
 And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. 
 
 England, with all thy faults, I love thee still, 
 My country ! and, while yet a nook is left 
 Where English minds and manners may be found, 
 Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime 
 Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deformed 
 With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, 
 I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, 
 And fields without a flower, for warmer France 
 With all her vines ; nor for Ausonia's groves 
 Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle-bowers. 
 To shake thy senate, and from hights sublime 
 Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire 
 Upon thy foes, was never meant my task ; 
 But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake 
 Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart 
 As any'thunderer there. And I can feel 
 Thy follies too, and with a just disdain 
 Frown at effeminates, whose very looks 
 Reflect dishonor on the land I love. 
 How, in the name of soldiership and sense, 
 Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth. 
 And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er 
 With odors, and as profligate as sweet, 
 Who sell their laurel for a myrtle-wreath, 
 And love when they should fight, when such as these 
 Presume to lay their hand upon the ark 
 Of her magnificent and awful cause ? 
 Time was when it was praise and boast enough 
 In every clime, and travel where we might, 
 That we were born her children ; praise enough 
 To fill the ambition of a private man, 
 That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue, 
 And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own. 
 Farewell, those honors ! and farewell with them 
 The hope of such hereafter! They have fallen 
 Each in his field of glory, one in arms, 
 And one in council ; Wolfe upon the lap . 
 Of smiling Victory that moment won, 
 And Chatham heart-sick of his country's shame. 
 They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still 
 Consulting England's happiness at home, 
 Secured it by an unforgiving frown 
 If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought, 
 
404 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Put so much of his heart into his act, 
 That his example had a magnet's force ; 
 And all were swift to follow -whom all loved. 
 Those suns are set. Oh ! rise some other such, 
 Or all that we have left is empty talk 
 Of old achievements, and despair of new. 
 
 Now hoist the sail, and let the streamers float 
 Upon the wanton breezes. Strew the deck 
 With lavender, and sprinkle liquid sweets, 
 That no rude savor maritime invade 
 The nose of nice nobility ! Breathe soft, 
 Ye clarionets ! and softer still, ye flutes ! 
 That winds and waters, lulled by magic sounds, 
 May bear .us smoothly to the Gallic shore. 
 True, we have lost an empire ; let it pass. 
 True, we may thank the perfidy of France 
 That picked the jewel out of England's crown 
 With all the cunning of an envious shrew ; 
 And let that pass ('twas but a trick of state) : 
 A brave man knows no malice, but at once 
 Forgets in peace the injuries of war, 
 And gives his direst foe a friend's embrace. 
 And shamed as we have been, to the very beard 
 Braved and defied, and in our own sea proved 
 Too weak for those decisive blows that once 
 Insured us mastery there, we yet retain 
 Some small pre-eminence ; we justly boast 
 At least superior jockeyship, and claim 
 The honors of the turf as all our own. 
 Go, then, well worthy of the praise ye seek, 
 And show the shame ye might conceal at home 
 In foreign eyes ! Be grooms, and win the plate 
 Where once your nobler fathers won a crown ! 
 'Tis generous to communicate your skill 
 To those that need it. Folly is soon learned ; 
 And, under such preceptors, who can fail? 
 
 There is a pleasure in poetic pains 
 Which only poets know. The shifts and turns, 
 The expedients and inventions multiform, 
 To which the mind resorts in chase of terms 
 (Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win) 
 To arrest the fleeting images that fill 
 The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, 
 And force them sit till he has penciled off 
 A faithful likeness of the forms he views ; 
 Then to dispose his copies with such art 
 That each may find its most propitious light, 
 And shine by situation hardly less 
 Than by the labor and the skill it cost, 
 Are occupations of the poet's mind 
 So pleasing, and that steal away the thought 
 With such address from themes of sad import, 
 
WILLIAM COWPER. 405 
 
 That, lost hi his own musings, happy man ! 
 
 lie feels the anxieties of life, denied 
 
 Their wonted entertainment, all retire. 
 
 Such joys has he that sings. But, ah ! not such, 
 
 Or seldom such, the hearers of his song. 
 
 Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps 
 
 Aware of nothing arduous in a task 
 
 They never undertook, they little note 
 
 His dangers or escapes, and, haply, find 
 
 Their least amusement where he found the most. 
 
 But is amusement all ? Studious of song, 
 
 And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, 
 
 I would not trifle merely, though the world 
 
 Be loudest in their praise who do no more. 
 
 Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay ? 
 
 It may correct a foible, may chastise 
 
 The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, 
 
 Retrench a sword-blade, or displace a patch. 
 
 But where are its sublimer trophies found ? 
 
 What vice has it subdued ? whose heart reclaimed 
 
 By rigor, or whom laughed into reform ? 
 
 Alas ! Leviathan is not so tamed : 
 
 Laughed at, he laughs again, and, stricken hard, 
 
 Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales, 
 
 That fear no discipline of human hands. 
 
 The pulpit, therefore (and I name it filled 
 With solemn awe, that bids me well beware 
 With what intent I touch that holy thing), 
 The pulpit (when the satirist has at last, 
 Strutting and vaporing in an empty school, 
 Spent all his force, and made no proselyte), 
 I say, the pulpit (in the sober use 
 Of its legitimate peculiar powers) 
 Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand, 
 The most important and effectual guard, 
 Support, and ornament of Virtue's cause. 
 There stands the messenger of truth, there stands 
 The legate of the skies,, his theme divine, 
 His office sacred, his credentials clear. 
 By him the violated law speaks out 
 Its thunders ; and by him, in strains as sweet 
 As angels use, the gospel whispers peace. 
 He stablishes the strong, restores the weak, 
 Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart, 
 And, armed himself in panoply complete 
 Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms 
 Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule 
 Of holy discipline, to glorious war, 
 The sacramental host of God's elect. 
 Are all such teachers ? Would to Heaven all were ! 
 But, hark ! the doctor's voice ! Fast wedged between 
 Two empirics he stands, and with swoln cheeks 
 
406 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far 
 
 Than all invective is his bold harangue 
 
 While through that public organ of report 
 
 He hails the clergy, and, defying shame, 
 
 Announces to the world his own and theirs. 
 
 He teaches those to read whom schools dismissed, 
 
 And colleges untaught ; sells accent, tone, 
 
 And emphasis in score ; and gives to prayer 
 
 The adagio and andante it demands. 
 
 He grinds divinity of other days 
 
 Down into modern use, transforms old print 
 
 To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes 
 
 Of gallery critics by a thousand arts. 
 
 Are there who purchase of the doctor's ware ? 
 
 Oh, name it not in Gath ! it can not be 
 
 That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. 
 
 He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, 
 
 Assuming thus a rank unknown before, 
 
 Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the Church ! 
 
 I venerate the man whose heart is warm, 
 Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, 
 Co-incident, exhibit lucid proof 
 That he is honest in the sacred cause : 
 To such I render more than mere respect, 
 Whose actions say that they respect themselves. 
 But loose in morals, and in manners vain ; 
 In conversation frivolous ; in dress 
 Extreme, at once rapacious and profuse; 
 Frequent in park with lady at his side, 
 Ambling, and prattling scandal as he goes ; 
 But rare at home, and never at his books, 
 Or with his pen, save when he scrawls a card ; 
 Constant at routs ; familiar with a round 
 Of ladyships ; a stranger to the poor ; 
 Ambitious of preferment for its gold, 
 And well prepared by ignorance and sloth, 
 By infidelity, and love of world, 
 To make God's work a sinecure. ; a slave 
 To his own pleasures, and his patrons' pride, 
 From such apostles, O ye mitered heads ! 
 Preserve the Church, and lay not careless hands 
 On skulls that can not teach, and will not learn. 
 
 Would I describe a preacher such as Paul, 
 Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, 
 Paul should himself direct me. I would trace 
 His master-strokes, and draw from his design. 
 I would express him simple, grave, sincere ; 
 In doctrine uncorrupt ; in language plain, 
 And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, chaste, 
 And natural in gesture ; much impressed 
 Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
 And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
 
EOBEET BURNS. 407 
 
 May feel it too ; affectionate in look, 
 And tender in address, as well becomes 
 A messenger of grace to guilty men. 
 Behold the picture ! Is it like ? like whom ? 
 The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, 
 And then skip down again ; pronounce a text ; 
 Cry " Hem ! " and, reading what they never wrote 
 Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, 
 And with a well-bred whisper close the scene. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 
 
 1759-1796. 
 
 Chiefly renowned for his pathetic and spirit-stirring songs. Other proofs of his 
 high rank as a poet are "The Cotter's Saturday Night," "Elegy on Captain Mat- 
 thew Henderson," " The Jolly Beggars," " Tarn O'Shanter," and others. 
 
 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ. 
 
 MY loved, my honored, mich-respected friend, 
 
 No mercenary bard his homage pays : 
 With honest pride I scorn each selfish end ; 
 
 My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise. 
 To you I sing in simple Scottish lays 
 
 The lowly train in Life's sequestered scene, 
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways, 
 
 What Aiken in a cottage would have been : 
 Ah ! though his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. 
 
 November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 
 
 The shortening winter-day is near a close ; 
 The miry beasts retreating frae 1 the pie ugh ; 
 
 The blackening trains o' craws to their repose ; 
 The toil-worn cotter frae his labor goes, 
 
 (This night his weekly moil 2 is at an end,) 
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 
 
 Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend ; 
 And, weary, o'er the moor his course does hameward bend. 
 
 At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree : 
 The expectant wee 3 things, toddlin' 4 , stacher 5 through 
 
 To meet their dad wi' flicterin' 6 noise and glee. 
 
 iFrom. 2 Labor. s Little. * Tottering in their walk. "Stagger. 6 Fluttering. 
 
408 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 His wee bit ingle 1 blinkin' 2 bonnil y, 
 
 His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling'on his knee, 
 
 Does a' 3 his weary, carking 4 cares beguile, 
 An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. 
 
 Belyve 5 the elder bairns come drappin' in, 
 
 At service out amang the farmers roun' : 
 Some ca' G the pleugh, some herd, some tentie 7 rin 
 
 A cannie 8 errand to a neebor-town. 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 
 
 In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw 9 -new gown, 
 
 Or deposit her sair-won 10 penny-fee 11 
 To help her parents dear if they in hardship be. 
 
 Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, 
 
 An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 12 
 The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed fleet; 
 
 Each tells the uncos 13 that he sees or hears. 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 
 
 Anticipation forward points the view : 
 The mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, 
 
 Gars" auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
 The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 
 
 Their master's and their mistress's command 
 
 The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
 An' mind their labors wi' an eydent 15 hand ; 
 
 An' ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play : 
 " An', oh ! be sure to fear the Lord alway. 
 
 An' mind your duty duly, morn an' night. 
 Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
 
 Implore His counsel and assisting might : 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright." 
 
 But, hark ! a rap comes gently to the door : 
 
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
 Tells how a neebor-lad cam' o'er the moor 
 
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame 
 
 Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
 With heart-struck anxious care inquires his name ; 
 
 While Jenny hafflins 16 is afraid to speak : 
 Weel pleased, the mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake. 
 
 Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben ;" 
 A strappan 18 youth, he taks the mother's eye : 
 
 Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; 
 
 The father cracks 19 of horses, pleughs, and kye. 20 
 
 1 Fire. * Shining at intervals. s All. * Consuming. 6 By and by. 6 Drive. 
 7 Cautious. 8 Kindly dexterous. " Fine, handsome. Sorely-won. Wasri-s. 
 "Asks. "News. "Makes. is Diligent, 10 Partly. " Into the parlor. 
 ** Tall and handsome. w Converses. > Kine, cows 
 
KG BERT BURNS. 409 
 
 The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 
 But, blate 1 an' laithfu', 2 scarce can weel uehave : 
 
 The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 
 
 What makes the youth sae basht'u' an' sae grave ; 
 Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. 8 
 
 O happy love, where love like this is found ! 
 
 O heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
 I've paced much this weary mortal round, 
 
 And sage experience bids me this declare, 
 " If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, 
 
 One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair 
 
 In other's arms breathe out the tender tale 
 Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale." 
 
 Is there in human form that bears a heart, 
 
 A wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth, 
 That can, with studied, sly, insnarfng art, 
 
 Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
 Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembling smooch ! 
 
 Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled ? 
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth, 4 
 
 Points to the parents fondling o'er their child, 
 Then paints the ruined maid, and their distraction wild ? 
 
 But now the supper crowns their simple board, 
 
 The healsome parritch, 5 chief o' Sco; ia's food : 
 The soupe 6 their only hawkie 7 does afford, 
 
 That 'yont 8 the hallan snugly chows her cood. 
 The dame brings forth in complimental mood, 
 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hained 10 kebbuck, 11 fell ; 12 
 An' aft he's pressed, an' aft he ca's it good : 
 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell 
 How 'twas a towmond 13 auld 14 sin 15 lint was i' the bell. 16 
 
 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face 
 
 They round the ingle form a circle wide. 
 The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace 
 
 The big ha' Bible, 17 ance his father's pride. 
 His bonnet reverently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart 13 haffets 19 wearin' thin an' bare : 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide 
 
 He wales 20 a portion with judicious care ; 
 And " Let us worship God " he says wi' solemn air. 
 
 1 Bashful. 2 Reluctant s The rest, the others. * Mercy, kind feeling. 
 
 5 Oatmeal-puddi ig. (; Sauce, milk. 7 A pet name for a cow. 8 Beyond. 
 
 9 A partition-wall in a cottage. 10 Carefully-preserved. n A cheese. 
 
 12 Biting to the tisto. 13 Twelve-month. 14 Old. l ~> Since. 1(i Flax was in blossom. 
 17 The great Bible kept in the hall. 18 Gray. 1<J The temples, the sides of the head. 
 20 Chooses. 
 
410 ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 
 They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 
 
 They tune their hearts, Jjy far the noblest aim : 
 Perhaps Dundee's 1 wild, warbling measures rise ; 
 
 Or plaintive Martyrs, 1 worthy of the name ; 
 Or noble Elgin 1 beats the heavenward flame, 
 
 The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
 Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 
 
 The tickled ear no heartfelt raptures raise; 
 
 unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 
 
 The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 
 
 How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
 Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage 
 
 With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 
 
 Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 
 Or Job's puhetic plaint and wailing cry ; 
 
 Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 
 Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 
 
 Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, 
 
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 
 How He who bore in heaven the second name 
 
 Had not on earth whereon to lay his head ; 
 How his first followers and servants sped, 
 
 The precepts sage they wrote to many a land ; 
 How he, who, lone in Patmos banished, 
 
 Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, 
 And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. 
 
 Then, kneeling down, to heaven's Eternal King 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
 Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing" 
 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days, 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise 
 
 In such society, yet still more dear, 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 
 
 In all the pomp of method and of art, 
 "When men display to congregations wide 
 
 Devotion's every grace except the heart ! 
 The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, 
 
 The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; 
 But haply, in some cottage far apart, 
 
 M;iy hear, well pleased, the language of the soul, 
 And in his book of life the inmates poor enroll. 
 
 1 The names of Scottish psalm-tunes. 
 
KOBERT BURNS. 411 
 
 Then homeward all take off their several^way; 
 
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest ; 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, 
 That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 
 
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
 Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, 
 
 For them and for their little ones provide ; 
 But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 
 That makes her loved at home, revered abroad. 
 Princes and lords are but the breath of kings : 
 
 " An honest man's the noblest work of God." 
 And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, 
 
 The cottage leaves the palace far behind : 
 What is a lordling's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 
 
 Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, 
 Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 
 
 O Scotia, my dear, my native soil, 
 
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
 Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 
 
 Be blessed with health and peace, and sweet content ! 
 And, oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent 
 
 From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ! 
 Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 
 
 A virtuous populace may rise the while, 
 And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle. 
 
 O Thou who poured the patriotic tide 
 
 That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart, 
 Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, 
 
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part ! 
 (The patriot's God peculiarly thou art, 
 
 His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward :) 
 Oh ! never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; 
 
 But still the patriot and the patriot-bard 
 In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 
 
 TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 
 
 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW IN APRIL, 1786. 
 
 WEE, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
 Thou's met me in an evil hour; 
 For I maun crush arnang the stoure 
 
 Thy slender stem : 
 
 To spare thee now is past my power, 
 'Thou bonnie gem." 
 
412 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
 The bonnie lark, companion meet, 
 Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, 
 
 Wi' speckled breast, 
 When upward springing, blythe, to greet 
 
 The purpling east. 
 
 Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
 Upon thy early, humble birth : 
 Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
 
 Amid the storm ; 
 Scarce reared above the parent-earth 
 
 Thy tender form. 
 
 The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
 High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield ; 
 But thou, beneath the random bield 
 
 O' clod or stane, 
 Adorns the histie stibble-field, 
 
 Unseen, alane. 
 
 There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
 Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, 
 Thou lifts thy unasuming head 
 
 In humble guise ; 
 But now the share uptears thy bed, 
 
 And low thou lies ! 
 
 Such is the fate of artless maid, 
 Sweet floweret of the rural shade, 
 By love's simplicity betrayed, 
 
 And guileless trust ; 
 Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 
 
 Low i' the dust. 
 
 Such is the fate of simple bard 
 
 On Life's rough ocean luckless starred: 
 
 Unskillful he to note the card 
 
 Of prudent lore, 
 Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, 
 
 And whelm him o'er. 
 
 Such fate to suffering worth is given, 
 Who long wirh wants and woes has striven, 
 By human pride or cunning driven 
 
 To misery's brink ; 
 Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 
 
 He, ruined, sink. 
 
 E'en thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, 
 That fate is thine, no distant date : 
 Stern Ruin's plowshare drives, elate, 
 
 Full on thy bloom, 
 Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight 
 
 Shall be thy doom ! 
 
DISTINGUISHED POETS AND DRAMATISTS. 413 
 
 TO MART IN HEAVEN. 
 
 THOU lingering star with lessening ray, 
 
 That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
 Again thou usher'st in the day 
 
 "My Mary from my soul was torn. 
 O Mary, dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 That sacred hour can I forget, 
 
 Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
 Where by the winding Ayr we met 
 
 To live one day of parting love? 
 Eternity can not efface 
 
 Those records dear of transports past : 
 Thy image at our last embrace ! 
 
 Ah, little thought we 'twas our last ! 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green ; 
 The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar 
 
 Twined amorous round the raptured scene ; 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest ; 
 
 The birds sang love on every spray ; 
 Till too, too soon, the glowing west 
 
 Proclaimed the speed of winged day. 
 
 Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, 
 
 And fondly broods with miser care : 
 Time but the impression deeper makes, 
 
 As streams their channels deeper wear. 
 My Mary, dear departed shade ! 
 
 Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
 Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 
 
 Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 
 
 DISTINGUISHED POETS AND DRAMATISTS. 
 
 GEORGE CKABBE. 1754-1832. " The Library," ' ; The Village," " The News- 
 paper," " The Parish Register," " The Borough,"" " Tales of the Hall." 
 
 THOMAS MOORE. 1779-1852. Celebrated for his "Irish Melodies," "Lallu 
 Rookh," "The Fudge Family in Paris," and " The Epicurean." 
 
 SAMUEL ROGERS. 1763-1855. The benevolent London banker and poet. 
 "The Pleasures of Memory," " Columbus," "Human Life," and "Italy." 
 
414 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 JAMES HOGG (the Ettrick Shepherd). 1770-1835. "The Queen's Wake," 
 "Mudoc of the Moor," " The Pilgrims of the Sun;" other poems, and several novels. 
 
 JAMES MONTGOMERY. 1771-1854. tv Greenland." "The Pelican Island," 
 "The Wanderer in Switzerland," "The West Indies," "Prison Amusements," 
 " The World before the Flood," and other poems. 
 
 FELICIA HEMANS. 1793-1835. "The Forest Sanctuary," "The Voice of 
 Spring," "The Graves of a Household," "The Palm-Tree," "The Sunbeam," 
 and many popular pieces; " The Vespers of Palermo," a tragedy. 
 
 PERCY BVSSHE SHELLEY. 1792-1822. "Queen Mab," " Alastor," "The 
 Revolt of Islam," "Prometheus Unbound," "The Cenci," "The Cloud," "The 
 Skylark," and " The Sensitive Plant," are full of beauty of thought and ex- 
 pression. 
 
 JOHN KEATS. 1795 -1820. " Endymion," " Hyperion," " Lamia," " Isabella," 
 and " The Eve of St. Agnes." A young poet of high promise. 
 
 HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 1785-1806. A volume of poems. 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 1784-1859. Genial and graceful poet and critic. "A Story of 
 Rimini," " The Palfrey," "A Legend of Florence;" essays, sketches, and memo'irs. 
 
 REGINALD HEBER. 1783-1826. "Palestine;" "Europe, or Lines ou the 
 Present War;" hymn, " From Greenland's Icy Mountains." 
 
 ROBERT TANNAHILL. 1774-1810. Some Scottish songs. 
 
 HANNAH MOKE. 1745-1833. "The Inflexible Captive," "Percy," and 
 "The Fatal Falsehood," tragedies ; " Ccelebs in Search of a Wife;" and many 
 other popular tales and prose works. 
 
 RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 1751-1816. Dramatist, orator, and statesman. 
 "The School for Scandal;" "The Crific," a farce; " Speech in Trial of Warren 
 Hastings." 
 
 JOANNA BAILLIE. 1762-1851. Several volumes of plays, minor poems, and 
 songs, among which are " De Montfort " and '' Count Basil." ' 
 
 MICHAEL BRUCE. 1746-1767. "Lochleven," "An Elegy written in Spring." 
 
 Sir WILLIAM JONES. 1746 -1794. " Song of Hafiz," " Hindoo Wife." 
 
 JOHN LOGAN. 1748-1788. " The Cuckoo," "The Country in Autumn," 
 
 " Riinnymede." 
 
 ROBERT FERGUSON. 1751-1774. " Guid Braid Claith," "To the Tron Kirk 
 
 Bell." 
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 1756-1826. "The Ba3viad," "The Moeviad;" editor of 
 
 " The Quarterly." 
 
 WILLIAM SOTHEBY. 1757-1833. "Orestes," "Saul," "Italy;" translations 
 
 from Wieland, Virgil, Homer. 
 
 WILLIAM L. BO\VLES. 1762-1850. "Sonnets," "Sorrows of Switzerland," 
 "Missionary of the Andes." 
 
 JAMES GRAHAME. 1765 -1811. " The Sabbath : " " Mary, Queen of Scots." 
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 1766-1823. "The Farmer's Boy," " Rural Tales," 
 " Mayday with the Muses." 
 
 J. HOOKHAM FRERE. 1769-1846. "Most Interesting Particulars relating to 
 King Arthur, by the Brothers Whistlecraft." 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM R. SPENCER. 1770-1834. "Beth Gelert," and minor poems; 
 translator of " Leuore." 
 
 MARY TIGHE. 1773-1810. " Psyche, in six cantos." 
 
 JOHN LEYDEN. 1775-1811. "Scenes of Infancy," " The Mermaid," " Ode to 
 a Gold Chain." 
 
 JAMES and HORACE SMITH. 1775-1839. "Rejected Addresses." 
 
 GEORGE CROLY. 1780-1860. "Paris in 1815," "Angel of the World," 
 " Catiline," " Salathiel." 
 
 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 1784-1842. " Scottish Songs," "Sir Marmaduke Max- 
 
 .11 " " Thn MoJH nf riir.jv, " " I \Fa nf WML-Ia " 
 
EDMUND BUKKE. 415 
 
 WILLIAM TENS AST. 1785-1848. "Anster Fair," " Thane of Fife," " Dinging 
 Down of the Cathedral." 
 
 EBEXEZEU ELLIOTT. 1781-1749. " Corn-law Rhymes." 
 
 RICHARD BARHAM. 1788-1845. "Ingoldsby Legends," "My Cousin Nicho- 
 las." 
 
 JOHN EEBLE. 1790. " The Christian Year." 
 
 CHARLES WOLFE. 1791-1823. " Burial of Sir John Moore," " Jugurtha in. 
 Prison." 
 "ROBERT POLLOK. 1799-1827. " The Course of Time." 
 
 RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 1732-1811. "The West-Indian," "The Wheel of 
 Fortune." 
 
 GEORGE COLMAN. 1733 -1794. "The Jealous Wife," "The Clandestine 
 Marriage." 
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 1745-1809. "The Road to Ruin," "The Deserted 
 Daughter." 
 
 GEORGE COLMAN the Younger. 1762-1836. "John Bull," " Heir-at-Law," 
 "Poor Gentleman," "Newcastle Apothecary," "Lodgings for Single Gentlemen." 
 
 CHARLES R. MATUKIN. Died in 1824. " Bertram," a tragedy; " Women." 
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 173D-1797. 
 
 One of the first of English orators and statesmen, author of the celebrated " Es- 
 say on the Sublime and Beautiful," "Reflections on the Revolution in France," 
 and other essays and orations. 
 
 CHARACTER OF J UN I US. 
 
 WHERE, Mr. Speaker, shall we look for the origin of this rel- 
 axation of the laws and of all government ? How comes this 
 Junius to have broken through, the cobwebs of the law, and to 
 range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land ? The myrmi- 
 dons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in 
 vain. They will not spend their time upon me or you: no! they 
 disdain such vermin when the mighty boar of the forest, that has 
 broken through all their toils, is before them. But what will all 
 their efforts avail ? No sooner has he wounded one than he lays 
 down another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw his 
 attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold. I thought he 
 had ventured too far, and that there was an end of his triumphs. 
 Not that he had not asserted many truths : yes, sir, there are in 
 that composition many bold truths by which a wise prince might 
 profit. But, wMl* I expected from this daring flight his final ruin 
 and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse 
 upon both Houses of Parliament ! Yes, he did make you his 
 
41G ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 quarry, rind you still bleed from th;- wound.3 of his talons. You 
 crouched, and still crr.ich, beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded 
 the terror of your brow, sir: he has attacked even you, he has; 
 and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. 
 In short, after carrying away our royal eagle in his pounces, and 
 dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. Kings, 
 Lords, and Commons are but the sport of his fury. Were he & 
 member of this house, what might not be expected from his 
 knowledge, his firmness, and integrity ! He would be easily 
 known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his 
 vigor. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity : bad 
 ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor could 
 promises or threats induce him to conceal any thing from the 
 public. 
 
 PERORATION IN THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 MY lords, we have now laid before you the whole conduct of 
 Warren Hastings, foul,' wicked, nefarious, and cruel as it has 
 been; and we ask, What is it that we want here to a great act 
 of national justice? Do we want a cause, my lords? You have 
 the cause of oppressed princes, of undone women of the first rank, 
 of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms. 
 
 Do you want a criminal, my lords? When was there so much 
 iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one ? No, my lords : you 
 must not look to punish any other such delinquent from India. 
 Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nour- 
 ish such another delinquent. 
 
 My lords, is it a prosecutor you want? You have before you 
 the Commons of Great Britain as prosecutors ; and I believe, my 
 lords, that the sun, in his beneficent progress round the world, 
 does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated 
 from a remote people by the material bonds and barriers of Nature, 
 united by the bond of a social and moral community, all the 
 Commons of England resenting as their own the indignities and 
 cruelties that are offered to all the people of India, 
 
 Do you want a tribunal ? My lords, no example of antiquity, 
 nothing in the modern world, nothing in the range of human im- 
 agination, can supply us with a tribunal like this. My lords, here 
 we see virtually, in the mind's eye, that sacred majesty of the 
 crown, under whose authority you sit, and whose power you exer- 
 cise. We have here the heir-apparent to the crown. We have 
 here all the branches of the royal family in a situation between 
 majesty and subjection. My lords, we have a great hereditary 
 peerage here, those who have their own honor, the honor of their 
 ancestors and of their posterity, to guard. We have here a new 
 
EDMUXD BURKE. 417 
 
 nobility, who have risen, and exalted themselves by various mer- 
 its, by great military services, which have extended the fame of 
 this country from the rising to the setting sun. We have persons 
 exalted from the practice of the law, from the place in which they 
 administered high though subordinate justice, to a seat here, to 
 enlighten with their knowledge and to strengthen with their 
 votes those principles which have distinguished the courts in 
 which they have presided. My lords, you have here, also, the 
 lights of our religion : you have the bishops of England. You have 
 the representatives of that religion, which says that their God is 
 love, that the very vital spirit of their institution is charity. 
 
 My lords, these are the securities which we have in all the con- 
 stituent parts of this house. We know them, we reckon, we rest 
 upon them, and commit safely the interests of India and of hu- 
 manity into your hands. Therefore it is with confidence, that, 
 ordered by the Commons, 
 
 I impeach Warren Hastings, Esq., of high crimes and misde- 
 meanors. 
 
 I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain 
 in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has 
 betrayed. 
 
 I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Brit- 
 ain, whose national character he has dishonored. 
 
 I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, 
 rights, and liberties he has subverted ; whose properties he has 
 destroyed ; whose country he has laid waste and desolate. 
 
 I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal 
 laws of justice which he has violated. 
 
 I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he 
 has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed in both sexes, in 
 every age, rank, situation, and condition of life. 
 
 TERROR A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 
 
 No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of 
 acting and reasoning as fear; for, fear being an apprehension of 
 pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain. 
 Whatever, therefore, is terrible with regard to sight, is sublime 
 too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of 
 dimensions, or not; for it is impossible to look on anything as 
 trifling or contemptible that may be dangerous. There are many 
 animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of rais- 
 ing ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects 
 of terror; as serpents, and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. 
 Even to things of great dimensions, if we annex any adventitious 
 27 
 
418 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 idea of terror, they become, without comparison, greater. An even 
 plain of a vast extent of land is certainly no mean idea : the pros- 
 pect of such a plain may be as extensive as a prospect of the 
 ocean; but can it ever till the mind with any thing so great as 
 the ocean itself? This is owing to several causes : but it is owing 
 to none more than to this, that the ocean is an object of no 
 small terror. 
 
 SYMPATHY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 
 
 IT is by the passion of sympathy that we enter into the con- 
 cerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are 
 never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost any thing 
 which men can do or suffer. For sympathy must be considered 
 as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of 
 another man, and affected in a good measure as he is affected : so 
 that this passion may either partake of the nature of those which 
 regard self-preservation, and, turning upon pain, may be a source 
 of the sublime ; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure, and then 
 whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they 
 regard society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may 
 be applicable here. 
 
 It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other 
 affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, 
 and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, mis- 
 ery, and death itself. It is a common observation, that objects 
 which in the reality would shock, are, in tragical and such like 
 representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure. 
 This, taken as a fact, has been the cause of much reasoning. This 
 satisfaction has been commonly attributed, first to the comfort we 
 receive in considering that so melancholy a story is no more than 
 a fiction, and next to the contemplation of our own freedom from 
 the evils we see represented. I am afraid it is a practice much 
 too common in inquiries of this nature to attribute the cause of 
 feelings which merely arise from the mechanical structure of our 
 bodies, or from the natural frame and constitution of our minds, 
 to certain conclusions of the reasoning faculty on the objects 
 presented to us ; for I have some reason to apprehend that the 
 influence of reason in producing our passions is nothing near so 
 extensive as is commonly believed. 
 
 UXCZRTMXTY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 
 
 A LOW, tromulous, intermitting sound is productive of the sub- 
 lime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself 
 must be determined by every man's own experience and reflec- 
 
EDMUND BURKE. 419 
 
 tion. I have always observed that night increases our terror 
 more, perhaps, than any thing else. It is our nature, when we do 
 not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that can hap- 
 pen ; and hence it is that uncertainty is so terrible, that we often 
 seek to be rid of it at the hazard of a certain mischief. Now, 
 some low, confused, uncertain sounds leave us in the same fearful 
 anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or an uncertain 
 light, does concerning the objects that surround us : 
 
 " A faint shadow of uncertain light, 
 Like as a lamp whose life doth fade away; 
 Or as the moon, clothed with cloudy night, 
 Doth, show to him who walks in fear and great affright." 
 
 But light now appearing, and now leaving us, and so off and on, 
 is even more terrible than total darkness ; and sorts of uncertain 
 sounds are, when the necessary dispositions concur, more alarm- 
 ing than a total silence. 
 
 OF WORDS. 
 
 NATURAL objects affect us by the laws of that connection which 
 Providence has established between certain motions and configu- 
 rations of bodies and certain consequent feelings in our minds. 
 Painting affects in the same manner, but with the superadded 
 pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects by the laws of nature 
 and the law of reason ; from which latter result the rules of pro- 
 portion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the 
 whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed 
 is or is not properly answered. But, as to words, they seem to 
 me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we 
 are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture. Yet 
 words have as considerable a share in exciting ideas of beauty and 
 of the sublime as any of those, and sometimes a much greater 
 than any of them : therefore an inquiry into the manner by 
 which the}'- excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary in 
 a discourse of this kind. 
 
 THE COMMON EFFECT OF POETRY, NOT BY RAISING IDEAS 
 OF THINGS. 
 
 THE common notion of the power- of poetry and eloquence, as 
 well as that of words in ordinary conversation, is, that they affect 
 the mind by raising in it ideas of those things for which custom 
 has appointed them to stand. To examine the truth of this no- 
 tion, it may bo requisite to observe, that words may be divided 
 into three sorts. The first are such as represent many simple 
 
4JO ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ideas, unitc'l Inj nature to form some one determinate composi- 
 tion ; as man, horse, tree, castle,., &c. Tliese I call ayyrryute 
 words. The second are those that stand for one simple idea of 
 such compositions, and no more; as red, blue, round, square, and 
 the like. These I < all simple abstract words. The third are 
 those which are formed by a union, an arbitrary union, of both 
 the others, and of the various relations between them in greater 
 or lesser degrees of complexity; as virtue, honor, persuasion, ma- 
 gistrate, and the like. These I call compound ulxtrvrt words. 
 Words, I am sensible, are capable of being classed into more curi- 
 ous distinctions: bur these seem to be natural, and enough for our 
 purpose; and they are disposed in that order in which they are 
 commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas for which 
 they are substituted. I shall begin with the third sort of words, 
 compound abstracts, such as virtue, honor, persuasion, docili- 
 ty. Of these I am convinced, that, whatever power they may 
 have on the passions, they do not derive it from any representa- 
 tion raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As 
 compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, I think, 
 any real ideas. Nobody-, I believe, immediately on hearing the 
 sounds virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of 
 the particular modes of action and thinking, together with the 
 mixed and simple ideas, and the several relations of them, for 
 which these words are substituted : neither has he any general 
 idea compounded of them ; for, if he had, then some of those par- 
 ticular ones, though indistinct perhaps, and confused, might come 
 soon to be perceived. But this. I take it, is hardly ever the case : 
 for put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must 
 reduce it from one set of general words to another, and then into 
 the simple abstracts and aggregates, in a much longer series than 
 may be at first imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, 
 before you come to discover any thing like the first principles of 
 sue]) compositions; and, when you have made such a discovery of 
 the original ideas, the effect of the composition is utterly lost. A 
 train of thinking of this sort is much too long to be pursued in 
 the ordinary ways of conversation; nor is it at all necessary" that 
 it should. Such words are, in reality, but mere sounds ; but they 
 >unds, which, being used on particular occasions, wherein we 
 receive some good, or suffer some evil, or see others affected with 
 good or evil, or which we hear applied to other interesting things 
 or events, and being applied in such a variety of cases that we 
 know readily by habit to what things they belong, they produce 
 in the mind, whenever they are afterward mentioned, effects sim- 
 ilar to those of their occasions. The sounds being often used 
 without reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still 
 their lirst impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection 
 
EDMUXD BURKE. 421 
 
 with the particular occasions that gave rise to them ; yet the 
 
 sound, without any annexe ;1 notion, continues to operate as 
 before. 
 
 GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS. 
 
 MR. LOCKE has somewhere observed with his usual sagacity, 
 that most general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good 
 and evil, especially, are taught before the particular modes of ac- 
 tion to which they belong are presented to the mind, and with 
 them the love of the one, and the abhorrence of the other ; for the 
 minds of children are so ductile, that a nurse, or any person about 
 a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with any thing, or even 
 any word, may give the dispositions of the child a similar turn. 
 When, afterward, the several occurrences in life come to be ap- 
 plied to these words, and that which is pleasant often appears 
 under the name of the evil, and what is disagreeable to nature is 
 called good and virtuous, a strange confusion of ideas arid affec- 
 tions arises in the minds of many, and an appearance of no small 
 contradiction between their notions and their actions. There are 
 many who love virtue, and who detest vice, and this not from 
 hypocrisy or affectation, who, notwithstanding, very frequently 
 act ill and wickedly in particulars without the least remorse, be- 
 cause these particular occasions never come into view when the 
 passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain 
 words heated originally by the breath of others : and for this 
 reason it is hard to repeat certain sets of words, though owned 
 by themselves unoperative, without being in some degree affected, 
 especially if a warm and affecting tone of voice accompanies 
 them; as, suppose, 
 
 " Wise, valiant, generous, good, and great." 
 
 These words, by having no application, ought to be inoperative; 
 but, when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, \V3 
 are affected by them even without the occasions. When words 
 which have been generally GO applied are put together without 
 any rational view, or in such a manner that they do not rightly 
 agree with each other, the style is called bombast : and it 
 requires, in several cases, much good senso and experience to be 
 guarded against the force of such language ; for, when propriety 
 is neglected, a greater number of these affecting words may bo 
 taken into the. service, and a greater variety may bs indulged in 
 combining them. 
 
422 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF WORDS. 
 
 IF words have all their possible extent of power, three effects 
 arise in the mind of the hearer. The first is the sound; the sec- 
 ond, the picture, or representation, of the thing signified by the 
 sound; the third is the affection of the soul produced by one or by 
 both of the foregoing. Compounded abstract words, of which we 
 have been speaking (honor, justice, liberty, and the like), produce 
 the first and the last of these effects, but not the second. Simple 
 abstracts are used to signify some one simple idea, without much 
 adverting to others which may chance to attend it; as blue, given, 
 hot, cold, and the like : these are capable of affecting all three of 
 the purposes of words ; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, 
 &c., are in a yet higher degree. But I am of opinion that the 
 most general effect, even of these words, does not arise from their 
 forming pictures of the several things they would represent in the 
 imagination, because, on a very diligent examination of my own 
 mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that 
 once in twenty times any such picture is formed ; and, when it is, 
 there is most commonly a particular effort of the imagination for 
 that purpose. But the aggregate words operate, as I said of the 
 compound abstracts, not by presenting any image to the mind, 
 but by having, from use, the same effect on being mentioned that 
 their original has when it is seen. Suppose we were to read a 
 passage to this effect : " The River Danube rises in a moist and 
 mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where, winding to and 
 fro, it waters several principalities, until, turning into Austria, 
 and leaving the walls of Vienna, it passes into Hungary: there, 
 with a vast flood, augmented by the Saave and the Drave, it quits 
 Christendom; and, rolling through the barbarous countries which 
 border on Tartary, it enters by many mouths into the Black Sea." 
 In this description, man^ things are mentioned ; as mountains, 
 rivers, cities, the sea, &c. But let anybody examine himself, 
 and see whether he has had impressed on his imagination any 
 pictures of a river, mountain, watery soil, Germany, &c. Indeed, 
 it is impossible, in the rapidity and quick succession of words in 
 conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the word and of 
 the thing represented: besides, some words expressing real essences 
 are so mixed with others of a general and nominal import, that it 
 is impracticable to jump from sense to thought, from particulars 
 to generals, from things to words, in such a manner as to answer 
 the purposes of life ; nor is it necessary that we should. 
 
JUSTUS. 423 
 
 J UN I US. 
 
 Author of a series of Letters, commencing Jan. 21, 1769. No compositions bet- 
 ter illustrate the flexibility and power of the English language. For fierce invective 
 and terrible sarcasm in elegant dress and appropriate ornament, " The Letters of 
 Junius " are unsurpassed. They have been attributed, among others, to Burke and 
 Sir Philip Francis; but the weight of evidence is in favor of the latter. 
 
 FROM THE DEDICATION TO THE ENGLISH NATION. 
 
 I DEDICATE to you a collection of Letters written by one of 
 yourselves for the common benefit of us all. They would never 
 have grown to this size without your continued encouragement 
 and applause. To me they originally owe nothing but a healthy, 
 sanguine constitution. Under your care, they have thriven : to 
 you they are indebted for whatever strength or beauty they pos- 
 sess. When kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force 
 and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when 
 measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book 
 will, I believe, be found to contain principles worth} 7 " to be trans- 
 mitted to posterity. When you leave the unimpaired, hereditary^ 
 freehold to your children, you do but half your duty. Both liberty 
 and property are precarious unless the possessors have sense and 
 spirit enough to defend them. This is not the language of vanity. 
 If I am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. 
 I am the sole depositary of my own secret; and it shall perish with 
 me. 
 
 I can not doubt that you will unanimously assert the freedom of 
 election, and vindicate your exclusive right to choose your repre- 
 sentatives ; but other questions have been started on which your 
 determination should be equally clear and unanimous. Let it be 
 impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, 
 that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, polit- 
 ical, and religious rights of an Englishman ; and that the right of 
 juries to return a general verdict in all cases whatsoever is an 
 essential part of our constitution, not to be controlled or limited by 
 the judges, nor in any shape questionable by the legislature. The 
 power of King, Lords, and Commons, is not an arbitrary power. 
 They are the trustees, not the owners, of the estate. The fee- 
 simple is in us. They can not alienate ; they can not waste. When 
 we say that tho legislature is supreme, we mean that it is the 
 highest power known to the constitution; that it is the highest 
 in comparison with the other subordinate powers established by 
 the laws. In this sense, the word " supreme " is relative, not abso- 
 
424 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 lute. The power of the legislature is limited, not only by the 
 general rules of natural justice and the welfare of the community, 
 but by the forms and principles of our particular constitution. If 
 this doctrine be not true, we must admit that King, Lords, and 
 Commons have no rule to direct their resolutions but merely their 
 own will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and exec- 
 utive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution by an 
 act of Parliament. But I am persuaded you will not leave it to the 
 choice of seven hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by the 
 crown, whether seven millions of their equals shall be freemen or 
 slaves. 
 
 These are truths unquestionable. If they make no impression, 
 it is because they are too vulgar and notorious. But the inatten- 
 tion or indifference of the nation has continued too long. You 
 are roused at last to a sense of your danger. The remedy will 
 soon be in your power. If Junius lives, you shall often be re- 
 minded of it. If, when the opportunity presents itself, you neg- 
 lect to do your duty to yourselves and to posterity, to God and 
 to your country, I shall have one consolation left in common with 
 the meanest and basest of mankind, civil liberty may still last 
 the life of Juxius. 
 
 TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 
 
 J/y Lord, You are so little accustomed to receive any marks 
 of respect or esteem from the public, that if, in the following lines, 
 a compliment, or expression of applause, should escape me, I fear 
 you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, 
 and perhaps an insult to your understanding. You have nice 
 feelings, my lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cau- 
 tious, therefore, of giving oirense where you have so little de- 
 served it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues to other 
 hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness 
 of your temper; or, possibly, they are better acquainted with your 
 good qualities than I am. You have done good by stealth. The 
 rest is upon record. You have still left ample room for specula- 
 tion when panegyric is exhausted. 
 
 You are, indeed, a very considerable man. The highest rank, 
 a splendid fortune, and a name glorious till it was yours, were 
 sufficient to have supported 3^011 with meaner abilities than I think 
 you possess. From the first, you derived a constitutional claim to 
 respect; from the second, a natural extensive authority: the List 
 created a partial expectation of hereditary virtues. The use you 
 have made of these uncommon advantages might have been more 
 honorable to yourself, but could not be more instructive to m.iu- 
 
JUNIUS. 425 
 
 kind. We may trace it in the veneration of your country, the 
 choice of your friends, and in the accomplishment of every san- 
 guine hope which the public might have conceived from the illus- 
 trious name of Russell. 
 
 The eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect 
 of your duty. The road which led to honor was open to your 
 view. You could not lose it by mistake ; and you had no tempta- 
 tion to depart from it by design. Compare the natural dignity 
 and importance of the richest peer of England, the noble inde- 
 pendence which he might have maintained in Parliament, and the 
 real interest and respect which he might have acquired, not only 
 in Parliament, but through the whole kingdom, compare these 
 glorious distinctions with the ambition of holding a share in gov- 
 ernment, the emoluments of a place, the sale of a borough, or the 
 purchase of a corporation; and, though you may not regret the 
 virtues which create respect, you may see with anguish how 
 much real importance and authority you have lost. Consider the 
 character of an independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford; imagine 
 what he might be in this country ; then reflect one moment upon 
 what you are. If it be possible for me to withdraw my attention 
 from the fact, I will tell you in theory what such a man might be. 
 
 Conscious of his own weight and importance, his conduct in 
 'Parliament would be directed by nothing but the constitutional 
 duty of a peer. He would consider himself as a guardian of tho 
 laws. Willing to support the just measures of government, but 
 determined to observe the conduct of the minister with suspicion, 
 he would oppose the violence of faction witli as much firmness aj 
 the encroachments of prerogative. He would be as little capable 
 of bargaining with the minister for places for himself or his de- 
 pendants as of descending to mix himself in the intrigues of oppo- 
 sition. Whenever an important question called for his opinion in 
 Parliament, he would be heard by the most profligate minister 
 with deference and respect. His authority would either sanctify 
 or disgrace the measures of government. The people would look 
 up to him as to their protector; and a virtuous prince would have 
 one honest man in his dominions in whose integrity and judg- 
 ment he might safely confide. If it should be the \vill of Provi- 
 dence to afflict him with a domestic misfortune, he would submit 
 to the stroke with feeling, but not without dignity. He would 
 consider the people as his children, and receive a generous, heart- 
 felt consolation in the sympathizing tears and blessings of his 
 country. 
 
 Your Grace may, probably, discover something more intelligible 
 in the negative part of this illustrious character. The man I have 
 described would never prostitute his dignity in Parliament by an 
 indecent violence, either in opposing or defending a minister. He 
 
426 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 would not at one moment rancorously persecute, at another basely 
 cringe to, the favorite of his sovereign. After outraging the royal 
 dignity with peremptory conditions little short 'of menace and 
 hostility, he would never descend to the humility of soliciting an 
 interview with the favorite, and of offering to recover at any 
 price the honor of his friendship. Though deceived, perhaps, in 
 his 3 r outh, he would not, through the course of a long life, have 
 invariably chosen his friends from among the most profligate of 
 mankind. His own honor would have forbidden him from mixing 
 his private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, gamesters, 
 blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. He would then have never 
 felt, much less would he have submitted to, the humiliating, dis- 
 honest necessity of engaging in the interest and intrigues of his 
 dependants, of supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary, 
 at the expense of his country. He would not have betrayed such 
 ignorance or such contempt of the constitution as openly to 
 avow in a court of justice the purchase and sale of a borough. 
 He would not have thought it consistent with his rank in the 
 state, or even with his personal importance, to be the little tyrant 
 of a little corporation. He would never have been insulted with 
 virtues which he had labored to extinguish, nor suffered the dis- 
 grace of a mortifying defeat which has maae him ridiculous and 
 contemptible even to the few by whom he was not detested. I 
 reverence the afflictions of a good man; his sorrows are sacred: 
 but how can we take part in the distresses of a man whom we can 
 neither love nor esteem, or feel for a calamity of which he him- 
 self is insensible ? Where was the father's heart, when he could 
 look for or find an immediate consolation for the loss of an only 
 son in consultations and bargains for a place at court, and even in 
 the misery of balloting at the India House ? 
 
 ENCOMIUM ON LORD CHATHAM. 
 
 IT seems I am a partisan of the great leader of the opposition. 
 If the charge had been a reproach, it should have been better sup- 
 ported. I did not intend to make a public declaration of the 
 respect I bear Lord Chatham. I well knew what unworthy con- 
 clusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver 
 my opinion ; and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Home 
 to deter me from doing signal justice to a man, who, I confess, has 
 grown upon my esteem. As for the common, sordid views of ava- 
 rice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I question whether the 
 applause of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. J/// 
 vote will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or 
 to a seat in the cabinet: but if his ambition be upon a level with 
 
JUNIUS. 427 
 
 his understanding; if lie judges of what is truly honorable for 
 himself with the same superior genius which animates and directs 
 him to eloquence in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the pen 
 of Junius shall contribute to reward him. Recorded honors shall 
 gather round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid 
 fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I am not con- 
 versant in the language of panegyric ; these praises are extorted 
 from- me : but they will wear well ; for they have been dearly 
 earned. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD CAMDEN. 
 
 My Lord, I turn with pleasure from that barren waste in 
 which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a char- 
 acter fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good quali- 
 fication. I call upon you, in the name of the English nation, to 
 stand forth in defense of the laws of your country, and to exert 
 in the cause of truth and justice those great abilities with which 
 you were intrusted for the benefit of mankind. Your lordship's 
 character assures me that you will assume that principal part 
 which belongs to. you, in supporting the laws of England against 
 a wicked judge', who makes it the occupation of his life to mis- 
 interpret and pervert them. If you decline this honorable office, 
 I fear it will be said, that, for some months past, you have kept too 
 much company with the Duke of Grafton. When the contest 
 turns upon the interpretation of the laws, you can not, without a 
 formal surrender of all your reputation, yield the post of honor 
 even to Lord Chatham. Considering the situation and abilities 
 of Lord Mansfield, I do not scruple to affirm, with the most sol- 
 emn appeal to God for my sincerity, that, in my judgment, he is 
 the very worst and most dangerous man in the kingdom. Thus 
 far I have done my duty in endeavoring to bring him to punish- 
 ment. But mine is an inferior, ministerial office in the temple of 
 justice. I have bound the victim, and dragged him to the altar. 
 
 The man who fairly and complete!}*- answers my arguments 
 shall have my thanks and my applause. My heart is already 
 with him. I am ready to be converted. I admire his morality, 
 and would gladly subscribe to the articles of his faith. Grateful 
 a-i I am to the Good Being whose bounty has imparted to me this 
 reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself proportionally 
 indebted to him from whose enlightened understanding another 
 ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But neither should I 
 think the most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift worthy 
 of the Divinity, nor any assistance in the improvement of them 
 
428 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 a subject of gratitude to my fellow-creature, if I were not satisfied 
 that really to inform the understanding corrects and enlarges 
 the heart. 
 
 FROM HIS LETTER TO THE KIXG. 
 
 To the Printer of " The Public Advertiser," When the com- 
 plaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to increase in 
 proportion to the wrongs they have suffered ; when, instead of 
 sinking into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time 
 will soon arrive at which every inferior consideration must yield 
 to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the 
 state. There is a moment of difficult}' and danger at which flat- 
 ten* and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can 
 no longer be misled. Let us suppose it arrived. Let us suppose 
 a gracious, well-intentioned prince made sensible at last of the 
 great duty he owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situ- 
 ation ; that he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no 
 advice but how to gratify the wishes and secure the happiness 
 of his subjects. In these circumstances, it may be matter of curi- 
 ous speculation to consider, if an honest man were permitted to 
 approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his 
 sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that 
 the first prejudice against his character is removed; that the 
 ceremonious difficulties of an audience are surmounted ; that he 
 feels himself animated by the purest and most honorable affections 
 to his king and country; and that the great person whom he ad- 
 dresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understand- 
 ing enough to listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with 
 the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sentiments 
 with dignity and firmness, but not without respect. 
 
 Sirj It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the 
 cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your gov- 
 ernment, that 3*ou should never have been acquainted with the 
 language of truth until you heard it in the complaints of your 
 people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your 
 education. "We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance 
 for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, and to form 
 the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your 
 disposition. We are far from thinking you capable of a direct, 
 deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects 
 on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it 
 been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonorable to 
 your character, we should long since have adopted a style of re- 
 monstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The 
 
JUNIUS. 429 
 
 doctrine inculcated by our laws, that the king can do no wrong, 
 is admitted without reluctance. We separate the amiable, good- 
 natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and 
 the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. 
 Were it not for this just distinction, I know not whether your 
 Majesty's condition, or that of the English nation, would deserve 
 most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favorable 
 reception of truth by removing every painful, offensive idea of 
 personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that : 
 as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your 
 person from your government, so you, in your turn, should distin- 
 guish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity 
 of a king and that which serves only to promote the temporary 
 interest and miserable ambition of a minister. 
 
 You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not, a 
 sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects. 
 You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince 
 whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal 
 to you, not only from principle, but passion. It was not a cold 
 profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, ani- 
 mated attachment to a favorite prince, the native of their country. 
 They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined 
 by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future bless- 
 ings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of 
 their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people 
 who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. 
 Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy 
 opinions with which some interested persons have labored to pos- 
 sess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are 
 naturally light and inconstant; that they complain without a 
 cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties, 
 from ministers, favorites, and relations ; and let there be one mo- 
 ment in your life in. which you have consulted your own under- 
 standing. 
 
 You have still an honorable part to act. The affections of your 
 subjects may still be recovered. But, before you subdue their 
 hearts, you must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard 
 those little personal resentments which have too long directed 
 your public conduct. Pardon this man the remainder of his pun- 
 ishment; and, if resentment still prevails, make it, what it should 
 have been long since, an act, not of mercy, but contempt. He 
 will soon fall back into his natural station, a silent senator, and 
 hardly supporting the weekly eloquence of a newspaper. The 
 gentle breath of peace would leave him on the surface, neglected 
 and unremoved : it is only the tempest that lifts him from his 
 place. 
 
430 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 TVithoiit consulting your minister, call together your whole 
 council. Let it appear to the public that you can determine and 
 act for yourself. Come forward to your people. Lay aside the 
 wretched formalities of a king, and speak to your subjects with 
 the spirit of a man, and in the language of a gentleman. Tell 
 them you have been fatally deceived. The acknowledgment will 
 be no disgrace, but rather an honor to your understanding. Tell 
 them you are determined to remove every cause of complaint 
 against your government ; that you will give your confidence to 
 no man who does not possess the confidence of your subjects ; and 
 leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future 
 election, whether or no it be in reality the general sense of the 
 nation that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the pres- 
 ent House of Commons, and the constitution betrayed. They 
 will then do justice to their representatives and to themselves. 
 
 These sentiments, sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may 
 be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed 
 to the language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the 
 vehemence of their expressions ; and, when they only praise you 
 indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to 
 trifle witli your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that 
 you have many friends whose affections are founded upon a prin- 
 ciple of personal attachment. The first foundation of friendship 
 is, not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which 
 they are received, and may be returned. The fortune which made 
 you a king forbade you to have a friend : it is a law of nature 
 which can not be violated with impunity. The mistaken prince 
 who looks for friendship will find a favorite, and in that favorite 
 the ruin of his affairs. 
 
 The people of England are loyal to the house of Hanover, not 
 from a vain preference of one family to another, but from a con- 
 viction that the establishment of that family was necessary to the 
 support of their civil and religious liberties. This, sir, is a prin- 
 ciple of allegiance equally solid and rational, fit for Englishmen 
 to adopt, and well worthy of 3*our Majesty's encouragement. We 
 can not long be deluded by nominal distinctions. The name of 
 Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible : armed with the sovereign 
 authority, their principles are formidable. The prince who imi- 
 tates their conduct should be warned by their example, and, 
 while he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the 
 crown, should remember, that, as it was acquired by one revolu- 
 tion, it may be lost by another. 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSOX. 431 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 1709-1784. 
 
 Distinguished compiler of an English dictionary; author of " Rasselas, a Tale 
 of Abyssinia;" many poems and satires; moral "essays in the "Rambler" and 
 " Idler," periodicals ; '" Lives of the Poets." His influence on the literature of the 
 clay was very great; and his heavy, classical style is admirably characterized by 
 Goldsmith, who said to him, " If you were to write a fable about* little fishes, doctor, 
 you would make the little fishes talk like whales. 1 " 
 
 LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD. 
 
 My Lord, I have been lately informed by the proprietor 
 of "The World," that two papers, in which my Dictionary is 
 recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be 
 so distinguished is an honor, which, being very little accustomed 
 to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in 
 what terms to acknowledge. 
 
 When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 
 lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the 
 enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that 
 I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre, 
 that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world 
 contending ; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, 
 that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue 
 it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I 
 had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and un- 
 courtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; 
 and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it 
 ever so little. 
 
 Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your 
 outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which 
 time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of 
 which it is useless to complain ; and have brought it, at last, to 
 the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word 
 of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did 
 not expect ; for I never had a patron before. 
 
 The shepherd in "Virgil" grew at last acquainted with Love, 
 and found him a native of the rocks. 
 
 Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a 
 man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached 
 the ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice which you 
 have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had 
 been kind : but it has been delayed till 1 am indifferent, and can 
 
43:2 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 not enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and can not impart it ; till I 
 am known, and do not want it., I hope it is no very cynical 
 asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been re- 
 ceived, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as 
 owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for 
 myself. 
 
 Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to 
 any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I 
 should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have been 
 long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted 
 myself with so much exultation, 
 My lord, 
 
 Your lordship's most humble, 
 
 Most obedient servant, 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE TO THE DICTIONARY. 
 
 Ix hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids 
 to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labor of }*ears, to 
 the honor of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of 
 philology, without a contest, to the nations of the Continent. The 
 chief glory of every people arises from its authors : whether I 
 shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of 
 English literature must be left to time. Much of my life has 
 been lost under the pressures of disease ; much has been trifled 
 away ; and much has always been spent in provision for .the day 
 that was passing over me : but I shall not think my employment 
 useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign nations and distant 
 ages gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand 
 the teachers of truth ; if my labors afford light to the repositories 
 of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and 
 to Boyle. 
 
 When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my 
 book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit 
 of a man that has endeavored well. That it will immediately 
 become popular, I have not promised to myself. A few wild 
 blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of such 
 multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with 
 laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt. But useful dili- 
 gence will at last prevail : and there can never be wanting some 
 who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of a 
 living tongue ever can be perfect, ince, while it is hastening to 
 publication, some words are budding, and some falling away : that 
 a whole life can not be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that 
 even a whole life would not be sufficient ; that he whose design 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 433 
 
 includes whatever language can express must often speak of what 
 he does not understand ; that a writer will sometimes be hurried 
 by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under 
 a task which Scaliger compares to the labors of the anvil and the 
 mine ; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is 
 known is not always present ; that sudden fits of inadvertency 
 will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, 
 and casual eclipses of the inind will darken learning; and .that' 
 the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment 
 of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, 
 and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow. 
 
 In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let 
 it not be forgotten that much, likewise, is performed ; and though 
 no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the 
 world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of 
 that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, 
 that " The English Dictionary " was written with little assistance 
 of the learned, and without any patronage of the great ; not in the 
 soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic 
 bowers, but amid inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and 
 in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to 
 observe, that, if our language is not here fully displayed, I have 
 only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto 
 completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably 
 fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after ^he toil of 
 successive ages, inadequate and delusive ; if the aggregated 
 knowledge and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians 
 did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied 
 critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their 
 work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second 
 edition another form, I may surely be contented without the 
 praise of perfection, which if I could obtain in this gloom of 
 solitude, what would it avail me ? I have protracted my work till 
 most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave ; 
 and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dis- 
 miss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from 
 censure or from praise. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF LTFE. 
 
 "LiFE," says Seneca, "is a voyage, in the progress of which we 
 are perpetually changing our scenes : we first leave childhood 
 behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then 
 the better and more pleasing part of old age." The perusal of 
 this passage having incited in me a train of reflections on the 
 state of man, the incessant fluctuation of his wishes, the gradual 
 
 28 
 
434 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 change of his disposition to all external objects, and the thought- 
 lessness with which lie floats along the Stream of Time, I sank 
 into a slumber amidst my meditations, and on a sudden found 
 my ears filled with the tumult of labor, the shouts of alacrity, 
 the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of 
 waters. 
 
 My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity ; but soon 
 recovering myself so far as to inquire whither we were going, and 
 what was the cause of such clamor and confusion, I was told that 
 they were launching out into the Ocean of Life ; that we had 
 already passed the Straits of Infancy, in which multitudes had 
 perished, some by the weakness and fragility of their vessels, and 
 more by the folty, perverseness, or negligence of those who under- 
 took to steer them ; and that we were now on the main sea, 
 abandoned to the winds and billows, without any other means of 
 security than the care of the pilot, whom it was always in our 
 power to choose among great numbers that offered their direction 
 and assistance. 
 
 I then looked round with anxious eagerness, and, first turning 
 my eyes behind me, saw a stream flowing through flowery 
 islands, which every one that sailed along seemed to behold 
 with pleasure, but no sooner touched, than the current, which, 
 though not noisy or turbulent, was yet irresistible, bore him 
 away. Beyond these islands, all was darkness ; nor could any of 
 the passengers describe the shore at which he first embarked. 
 
 Before me, and on each side, was an expanse of waters violently 
 agitated, and covered with so thick a mist, that the most per- 
 spicacious eye could see but a little way. It appeared to be 
 full of rocks and whirlpools; for many sank unexpectedly while 
 they were courting the gale with full sails, and insulting those 
 whom they had left behind. So numerous, indeed, were the 
 dangers, and so thick the darkness, that no caution could confer 
 security. Yet there were many, who, by false intelligence, 
 betrayed their followers into whirlpools, or, by violence, pushed 
 those whom the}* found in their way against the rocks. 
 
 The current was invariable and insurmountable ; but though 
 it was impossible to sail against it, or to return to the place 
 that was once passed, yet it was not so violent as to allow no 
 opportunities for dexterity or courage, since, though none could 
 retreat back from danger, yet they might often avoid it by oblique 
 direction. 
 
 It was, however, not very common to steer with much care or 
 prudence ; for, by some universal infatuation, every man appeared 
 to think himself safe, though he saw his consorts every moment 
 sinking round him : and no sooner had the waves closed over 
 them than their fate and misconduct were forgotten ; the voyage 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 435 
 
 was pursued with the same jocund confidence ; every man con- 
 gratulated himself upon the soundness of his vessel, and be- 
 lieved himself able to stem the whirlpool in which his friend was 
 swallowed, or glide over the rocks on which he was dashed. 
 Kor was it often observed that the sight of a wreck made any 
 man change his course : if he turned aside for a moment, he 
 soon forgot the rudder, and left himself again to the disposal of 
 chance. 
 
 _This negligence did not proceed from indiiference, or from 
 weariness of their present condition : for not one of those who 
 thus rushed upon destruction failed, when he was sinking, to call 
 loudly upon his associates for that help which could not now be 
 given him; and many spent their last moments in cautioning 
 others against the folly by which they were intercepted in the 
 midst of their course. Their benevolence was sometimes praised ; 
 but their admonitions were unregarded. 
 
 The vessels in which we had embarked, being confessedly 
 unequal to the turbulence of the Stream of Life, were visibly 
 impaired* in the course of the voyage ; so that every passenger 
 was certain, that how long soever he might, by favorable 
 accidents or by incessant vigilance, be preserved, he must sink 
 at last. 
 
 This necessity of perishing might have been expected to sadden 
 the gay, and intimidate the daring, at least to keep the melan- 
 choly and timorous in perpetual torments, and hinder them from 
 any enjoyment of the varieties and gratifications which Nature 
 offered them as the solace of their labor. Yet, in effect, none 
 seemed less to expect destruction than those to whom it was 
 most dreadful: they all had the art of concealing their dangers 
 from themselves; and those who knew their inability to bear 
 the sight of the terrors that embarrassed their way took care 
 never to look forward, but found some amusement for the present 
 moment, and generally entertained themselves by playing with 
 Hope, who was the constant associate of the Voyage of Life. 
 
 Yet all that Hope ventured to promise, even to those whom 
 she favored most, was, not that they should escape, but that 
 they should sink last; and with this promise every one was 
 satisfied, though he laughed at the rest for seeming to believe 
 it. Hope, indeed, apparently mocked the credulity of her com- 
 panions ; for, in proportion as their vessels grew leaky, she re- 
 doubled her assurances of safety : and none were more busy in 
 making provisions for a long voyage than they whom all but 
 themselves saw likely to perish soon by irreparable decay. 
 
 In the midst of the Current of Life was the Gulf of Intemper- 
 ance, a dreadful whirlpool, interspersed with rocks, of which the 
 pointed crags were concealed under water, and the tops covered 
 
436 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 with herbage on which Ease spread couches of repose, and with 
 shades where Pleasure warbled tjie "song of invitation. Within 
 sight of these rocks all who sailed 011 the Ocean of Life must 
 necessarily pass. Reason, indeed, was always at hand to steer 
 the passengers through a narrow outlet by which they might 
 escape : but very few could, by her entreaties or remonstrances, be 
 induced to put the rudder into her hand without stipulating that 
 she should approach so near unto the rocks of Pleasure, that they 
 might solace themselves with a short enjoyment of that delicious 
 region ; after which they always determined to pursue their course 
 without any other deviation. 
 
 Reason was too often prevailed upon so far by these promises 
 as to venture her charge within the eddy of the Gulf of Intem- 
 perance, where, indeed, the circumvolution was weak, but yet in- 
 terrupted the course of the vessel, and drew it by insensible ro- 
 tations towards the center. She then repented her temerity, and, 
 with all her force, endeavored to retreat : but the draught of the 
 gulf was generally too strong to be overcome ; and the passenger, 
 having danced in circles with a pleasing and giddy velocity, was 
 at last overwhelmed and lost. Those few whom Reason was 
 able to extricate, generally suffered so many shocks upon the 
 points which shot out from the rocks of Pleasure, that they 
 were imable to continue their course with the same strength 
 and facility as before, but floated along timorously and feebly, 
 endangered by every breeze, and shattered by every ruffle of 
 the water, till they sank by slow degrees, after long struggles 
 and innumerable expedients, always repining at their own folly, 
 and warning others against the first approach to the Gulf of 
 Intemperance. 
 
 There were artists who professed to repair the breaches and stop 
 the leaks of the vessels which had been shattered on the rocks of 
 Pleasure. Many appeared to have great confidence in their skill ; 
 and some, indeed, were preserved by it from sinking, who had re- 
 ceived only a single blow: but I remarked that few vessels lasted 
 long which had been much repaired; nor was it found that the 
 artists themselves continued afloat longer than those who had 
 least of their assistance. 
 
 The only advantage, which, in the Voyage of Life, the cautious 
 had above the negligent, was that they sank later and more 
 suddenly ; for they passed forward till they had sometimes seen 
 all those in whose company they had issued from the Straits of 
 Infancy perish in the way, and at last were overset by a cross- 
 breeze, without the toil of resistance or the anguish of expectation. 
 But such as had often fallen against the rocks of Pleasure com- 
 monly subsided by sensible degrees, contended long with the 
 encroaching waters, and harassed themselves by labors that scarce 
 Hope herself could flatter with success. 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 437 
 
 As I was looking upon the various fate of the multitude 
 about me, I was suddenly alarmed with an admonition from 
 some unknown Power : " Gaze not idly upon others when thou 
 thyself art sinking. Whence is this thoughtless tranquillity, 
 when thou and they are equally endangered ? " I looked, and, 
 seeing the Gulf of Intemperance before me, started and awaked. 
 
 Rambler. 
 
 THE EIGHT IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 
 
 IT is usual for those who are advised to the attainment of 
 any new qualification to look upon themselves as required to 
 change the general course of their conduct, to dismiss business and 
 exclude pleasure, and to devote their days and nights to a par- 
 ticular attention. But all common degrees of excellence are 
 attainable at a lower price. He that should steadily and resolutely 
 assign to any science or language those interstitial vacancies 
 which intervene in the most crowded variety of diversion or em- 
 ployment would find every day new irradiations of knowledge, 
 and discover how much more is to be hoped from frequency and 
 perseverance than from violent efforts and sudden desires, efforts 
 which are soon remitted when they encounter difficult}', and 
 desires, which, if they are indulged too often, will shake off 
 the authority of reason, and range capriciously from one object to 
 another. 
 
 The disposition to defer every important design to a time of 
 leisure and a state of settled uniformity, proceeds, generally, from 
 a false estimate of the human power. If we except those gigantic 
 and stupendous intelligences who are said to grasp a system by 
 intuition, and bound forward from one series of conclusions to 
 another, without regular steps through intermediate propositions, 
 the most successful students make their advances in knowledge 
 by short flights, between each of which the mind may lie at rest. 
 For every single act of progression, a short time is sufficient ; and 
 it is only necessary, that, whenever that time is affojded, it be well 
 employed. 
 
 Few minds will be long confined to severe and laborious medi- 
 tation ; and, when a successful attack on knowledge has been 
 made, the student recreates himself with the contemplation of his 
 conquest, and forbears another incursion till the new-acquired 
 truth has become familiar, and his curiosity calls upon him for 
 fresh gratifications. Whether the time of intermission is spent in 
 company or in solitude, in necessary business or in voluntary 
 levities, the understanding is equally abstracted from the object 
 of inquiry ; but perhaps, if it be detained by occupations less 
 
438 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 pleasing, it returns again to study with greater alacrity than 
 when it is glutted with ideal pleasures and surfeited with in- 
 temperance of application. He that will not sutler himself to be 
 discouraged by fancied impossibilities may sometimes find his 
 abilities invigorated by the necessity of exerting them in short 
 intervals, as the force of a current is increased by the contraction 
 of its channel. 
 
 From some cause like this, it has probably proceeded, that, 
 among those who have contributed to the advancement of learning, 
 many have risen to eminence in opposition to all the obstacles 
 which external circumstances could place in their way, amidst 
 the tumult of business, the distresses of poverty, or the dissipations 
 of a w r andering and unsettled state. A great part of the life of 
 Erasmus was one continual peregrination : ill supplied with the 
 gifts of fortune, and led from city to city, and from kingdom to 
 kingdom, by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which 
 always flattered and always deceived him, he yet found means, 
 by unshaken constancy, and a vigilant improvement of those 
 hours, which, in the midst of the most restless activity, will 
 remain unengaged, to write more than another in the same con- 
 dition would have hoped to read. Compelled by want to attend- 
 ance and solicitation, and so much versed in common life that he 
 has transmitted to us the most perfect delineation of the manners 
 of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world such ap- 
 plication to books, that he will stand for ever in the first rank 
 of literary heroes. How this proficiency was obtained, he suf- 
 ficiently discovers by informing us that " The Praise of Folly," 
 one of his most celebrated performances, was composed by him 
 on the road to Italy, lest the hours which he was obliged to 
 spend on horseback should be tattled away without regard to 
 literature. 
 
 An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that TIME WAS 
 HIS ESTATE, an estate, indeed, which will produce nothing 
 without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labors 
 of industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of 
 it be suffered to lie waste by negligence, to be overrun with nox- 
 ious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use. 
 
 Rambler. 
 
 THE DUTY OF FORGIVENESS. 
 
 A WISE man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the 
 true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unneces- 
 sary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate 
 hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice and 
 perturbations of stratagem, can not surely be said to consult his 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 439 
 
 ease. Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity, a com- 
 bination of a passion which all endeavor to avoid with a passion 
 which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate 
 mischief, and to exasperate his own rage ; whose thoughts are 
 employed only on means of distress, and contrivances of ruin ; 
 whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own 
 suiferings but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities 
 of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable 
 of human beings ; among those who are guilty without reward, 
 who have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the calm of 
 innocence. 
 
 Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others 
 will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not to 
 what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed; or how 
 much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that 
 committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or 
 negligence : we can not be certain how much more we feel than 
 was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mischief 
 to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design 
 the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only 
 because we have made ourselves delicate and tender: we are on 
 every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain 
 to avoid only by speedy forgiveness. 
 
 From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious toothers 
 and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no 
 man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by 
 his adversary, or despised by the world. 
 
 It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that 
 "all pride is abject and mean." It is alwa}^ an ignorant, lazy, or 
 cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and 
 proceeds, not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensi- 
 bility of our wants. 
 
 Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which 
 reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human 
 mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which 
 our own heart approves, to give way to any thing but conviction, 
 to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower 
 our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ig- 
 nominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own 
 lives. 
 
 The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive is a con- 
 stant and determined pursuit of virtue without regard to present 
 dangers or advantages, a continual reference of every action to 
 the Divine Will, an habitual appeal to everlasting justice, and an 
 unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which 
 perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many who 
 
440 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 presume to boast of generous sentiments allow to regulate their 
 measures has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of 
 men, of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to 
 acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the 
 utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward; 
 of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, 
 or partially determine what they never have examined, and 
 whose sentence is, therefore, of no weight till it has received the 
 ratification of our own conscience. 
 
 He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price 
 of his innocence, he that can suffer the delight of such ac- 
 clamations to withhold his attention from the commands of the 
 universal Sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon 
 the greatness of his mind : whenever he awakes to seriousness 
 and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, and 
 shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and 
 folly. 
 
 Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required 
 that he forgive : it is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other 
 motive. On this great duty, eternity is suspended ; and to him 
 that refuses to practice it the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and 
 the Saviour of the world has been born in vain. Rambler. 
 
 PARALLEL BETWEEN DRYDEN AND POPE. 
 
 INTEGRITY of understanding, and nicety of discernment, were 
 not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than . to Pope. The 
 rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission 
 of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts 
 and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all 
 the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, 
 merely for the people ; and when he pleased others he contented 
 himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers ; 
 he never attempted to make that better which was already good, 
 nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He 
 wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration : when occasion 
 or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present 
 moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the 
 press, ejected it from his mind ; for, when he had 110 pecuniary 
 interest, he had no further solicitude. 
 
 Pope was not content to satisfy : he desired to excel, and there- 
 fore always endeavored to do his best. He did not court the 
 candor, but dared the judgment, of his reader; and, expecting no 
 indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined 
 lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, aud re- 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 441 
 
 touched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left 
 nothing to be forgiven. 
 
 For this reason, he kept his pieces very long in his hands 
 while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems 
 which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to 
 the times as might hasten their publication were the two satires 
 of " Thirty-eight ; " of which Dodsley told me, that they were 
 brought to him by the author that they might be fairly copied. 
 'Almost every line," he said, t( was then written twice over. I 
 gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards 
 to me for the press, with almost every line written twice over a 
 second time." 
 
 His declaration that his care for his works ceased at their 
 publication was not strictly true. His parental attention never 
 abandoned them : what he found amiss in the first edition, he 
 silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have re- 
 vised "The Iliad," and freed it from some of its imperfections; 
 and " The Essay on Criticism " received many improvements after 
 its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered with- 
 out adding clearness, elegance, or vigor. Pope had, perhaps, the 
 judgment of Drydeii; but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence 
 of Pope. 
 
 In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to 
 Dryden, whose ed'ucation was more scholastic, and who, before he 
 became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with 
 better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and 
 he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive 
 circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his 
 general nature ; and Pope, in his local manners. The notions 
 of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those 
 of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the 
 knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. 
 
 Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled 
 likewise in prose : but Pope did not borrow his prose from his 
 predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied : that 
 of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden observes the motions of 
 his own mind : Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of 
 composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid : Pope is 
 always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural 
 field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuber- 
 ance of abundant vegetation: Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by 
 the scythe, and leveled by the roller. 
 
 Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality 
 without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that 
 energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates, the 
 superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Drydeu. 
 
442 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only 
 a little because Dryden had more ; for every other writer since 
 Milton must give place to Pope: and even of Dryden it must 
 be said, that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better 
 poems. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited 
 by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity : he 
 composed without consideration, and published without correction. 
 What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, 
 was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory 
 caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to mul- 
 tiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, 
 or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are 
 higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire 
 the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and 
 constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never 
 falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and 
 Pope with perpetual delight. Life of Pope. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 SHAKSPEAKE is, above all writers, at least, above all modern 
 writers, the poet of Nature; the poet that holds up to his 
 readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters 
 are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpracticed 
 by the rest of the world, by the peculiarities of studies or pro- 
 fessions which can operate but upon small numbers, or by the 
 accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions : they are 
 the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will 
 always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act 
 and speak by the influence of those general passions and prin- 
 ciples by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of 
 life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets, a 
 character is too often an individual : in those of Shakspeare, it is 
 commonly a species. 
 
 It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction 
 is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakspeare with 
 practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of Euripides, 
 that every verse was a precept ; and it may be said of Shakspeare, 
 that from his works may be collected a system of civil and eco- 
 nomical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendor 
 of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable and the 
 tenor of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by 
 select quotations will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, 
 when he oifered his house to sale, curried a brick in his pocket as 
 a specimen. 
 
SAMUEL JOHNSON. 443 
 
 It will not easily be imagined how much Shakspeare excels in 
 accommodating his sentiments to real life but by comparing him 
 with other authors. It was observed of the ancient schools of 
 declamation, that, the more diligently they were frequented, the 
 more was the student disqualified for the world, because he found 
 nothing there which he should ever meet in any other place. 
 The same remark may be applied to every stage but that of 
 Shakspeare. The theater, when it is under any other direction, 
 is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a 
 language which was never heard, upon topics which will never 
 arise in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this 
 author is often so evidently determined by the incident which 
 produces it, and is pursued with so much ease and simplicity, that 
 it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been 
 gleaned by diligent selection out of common conversation and 
 common occurrences. 
 
 Upon every other stage, the universal agent is love, by whose 
 power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened 
 or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival, into the fable ; 
 to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with 
 oppositions of interest, and harass them with violence of desires 
 inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture, and 
 part in agony ; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and out- 
 rageous sorrow ; to distress them as nothing human ever was 
 distressed, to deliver them as nothing human was ever delivered, 
 is the business of a modern dramatist. For this, probability is 
 violated, life is misrepresented, and language is depraved. But 
 love is only one of many passions ; and, as it has no great in- 
 fluence upon the sum of life, it has little operation in the dramas 
 of a poet who caught his ideas from the living world, and ex- 
 hibited only what he saw before him. He knew that any other 
 passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness 
 or calamity. 
 
 This, therefore, is the praise of Shakspeare, that his drama 
 is the mirror of life ; that he who has mazed his imagination in 
 following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him 
 may here be cured of his delirious ecstasies by reading human 
 sentiments in human language, by scenes from which a hermit 
 may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor pre- 
 dict the progress of the passions. 
 
 Shakspeare's plays are not, in the rigorous and critical sense, 
 either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind, 
 exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of 
 good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of 
 proportion and innumerable modes of combination, and express- 
 ing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain 
 
444 ENGLISH LITERATURE^ 
 
 of another; in which, at the same time, the reveler is hasting to 
 liis wine, and the mourner burying his friend ; in which the 
 malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another ; 
 and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered 
 without design. 
 
 Shakspeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and 
 sorrow, not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost 
 all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, 
 and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce 
 seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter. 
 
 That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be 
 readily allowed ; but there is always an appeal open from criticism 
 to nature. The end of writing is to instruct ; the end of poetry 
 is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey 
 all the instruction of tragedy or corned} 7 can not be denied, because 
 it includes both in its alternations of exhibition, and approaches 
 nearer than either to the appearance of life by showing how 
 great machinations and slender designs may promote or obviate 
 one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general 
 system by unaA'oidable concatenation. 
 
 The force of his comic scenes has suffered little diminution 
 from the changes made by a century and a half in manners or 
 in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from 
 genuine passion very little modified by particular forms, their 
 pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all 
 places : they are natural, and therefore durable. The adventitious 
 peculiarities of personal habits are only superficial dyes, bright 
 and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tint, with- 
 out any remains of former luster : but the discriminations of true 
 passion are the colors of Nature ; they pervade the whole mass, 
 and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The 
 accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by 
 the chance which combined them ; but the uniform simplicity of 
 primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor suffers decay. The 
 sand heaped by one flood is scattered by another ; but the rock 
 always continues in its place. The stream of time, which is con- 
 tin ii'iil ,j truxhinri the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes 
 without injury by the adamant of Shakspeare. 
 
 Preface to Shakspeare. 
 
DAVID HUME. 445 
 
 DAVID HUME. 
 
 1711-1776. 
 
 Famous author of " History of England ; " Moral and Political Essays. Style re- 
 markable for simplicity of expression and logical clearness. We select from his 
 writings a topic, not best illustrating his power and style, but as one deserving the 
 pupil's attention. 
 
 OF THE STANDARD OF TASTE. 
 
 OXE obvious cause why many feel not the proper sentiment of 
 beauty is the want of that delicacy of imagination which is requi- 
 site to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions. This delicacy 
 every one pretends to : every one talks of it, and would reduce 
 every kind of taste or sentiment to its standard. But, as our 
 intention in this essay is to mingle some light of the understand- 
 ing with the feelings of sentiment, it will be proper to give a 
 more accurate definition of delicacy than has hitherto been at- 
 tempted. And, not to draw our philosophy from too profound a 
 source, we shall have recourse to a noted story in "Don Quixote." 
 
 " It is with good reason," says Sancho to the squire with the 
 great nose, " that I pretend to have a judgment in wine : this is 
 a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were 
 once called to give their opinion of a hogshead which was sup- 
 posed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One of 
 them tastes it, considers it, and, after mature reflection, pro- 
 nounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small taste of 
 leather which he perceived in it. The other, after using the 
 same precautions, gives also his verdict in favor of the wine, but 
 with the reserve of a taste of iron which he could easily distin- 
 guish. You can not imagine how much they were both ridiculed 
 for their judgment. But who laughed in the end ? On empty-r 
 ing the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key with 
 a leathern thong tied to it." 
 
 The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste will 
 easily teach us to apply this story. Though it be certain that 
 beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not quali- 
 ties in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment, internal or 
 external, it must be allowed that there are certain qualities in 
 objects, which are fitted by nature to produce those particular 
 feelings. Now, as these qualities may be found in a small de- 
 gree, or may be mixed and confounded with each other, it often 
 happens that the taste is not affected with such minute qualities, 
 or is not able to distinguish all the particular flavors amidst the 
 disorder in which they are presented. Where the organs are so 
 
446 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 fine as to allow nothing to escape them, and at the same time so 
 exact as to perceive every ingredient in the composition, this 
 we call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the 
 literal or metaphorical sense. HeVe, then, the general rules of 
 beauty are of use, being drawn from established morals, and 
 from the observation of what pleases or displeases when pre- 
 sented singly and in a high degree ; and if the same qualities, 
 in a continued composition and in a smaller degree, affect not the 
 organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness, we exclude the per- 
 son from all pretensions to this delicacy. To produce these gen- 
 eral rules or avowed patterns of composition is like finding the 
 key with the leathern thong, which justified the verdict of San- 
 cho's kinsmen, and confounded those pretended judges who had 
 condemned them. Though the hogshead had never been emp- 
 tied, the taste of the one was still equally delicate, and that of 
 the other still equally dull and languid ; but it would have been 
 more difficult to have proved the superiority of the former to 
 the conviction of every bystander. In like manner, though 
 the beauties of writing had never been methodized, or reduced to 
 general principles, though no excellent models had ever been ac- 
 knowledged, the different degrees of taste would still have sub- 
 sisted, and the judgment of one man been preferable to that of 
 another ; but it would not have been so easy to silence the bad 
 critic, who might always insist upon his particular sentiment, and 
 refuse to submit to his antagonist. But when we show him an 
 avowed principle of art; when we illustrate this principle by 
 examples whose operation, from his own particular taste, he ac- 
 knowledges to be conformable to the principle ; when we prove 
 that the same principle may be applied to the present case, where 
 he did not perceive or feel its influence, he must conclude, upon 
 the whole, that the fault lies in himself, and that he wants the 
 delicacy which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty 
 and every blemish in any composition or discourse. 
 
 It is acknowledged to be the perfection of every sense or fac- 
 ulty, to perceive with exactness its most minute objects, and allow 
 nothing to escape its notice and observation. The smaller the 
 objects are which become sensible to the eye, the finer is that 
 organ, and the more elaborate its make and composition. A good 
 palate is not tried by strong flavors, but by a mixture of small 
 ingredients, where we are still sensible of each part, notwithstand- 
 ing its minuteness, and its confusion with the rest. In like man- 
 ner, a quick and acute perception of beauty and deformity must 
 be the perfection of our mental taste ; nor can a man be satisfied 
 with himself while he suspects that any excellence or blemish in 
 a discourse has passed him unobserved. In this case, the perfec- 
 tion of the man, and the perfection of the sense or feeling, are 
 
DAVID HUME. 447 
 
 found to be united. A very delicate palate, on many occasions, 
 may be a great inconvenience both to a man himself and to his 
 friends ; but a delicate taste of wit or beauty must always be a 
 desirable quality, because it is the source of all the finest and 
 most innocent enjoyments of which human nature is susceptible. 
 In this decision, the sentiments of all mankind are agreed. 
 Wherever you can ascertain a delicacy of taste, it is sure to meet 
 w r ith approbation ; and the best way of ascertaining it is to appeal 
 to those models and principles which have been established by the 
 uniform consent and experience of nations and ages. 
 
 But, though there be naturally a wide difference in point of 
 delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends further 
 to increase and improve this talent than practice in a particular 
 art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular spe- 
 cies of beauty. When objects of any kind are first presented to 
 the eye or imagination, the sentiment which attends them is ob- 
 scure and confused, and the mind is, in a great measure, incapable 
 of pronouncing concerning their merits or defects. The taste can 
 not perceive the several excellences of the performance ; much 
 less distinguish the particular character of each excellency, and 
 ascertain its quality and degree. If it pronounce the whole in 
 general to be beautiful or deformed, it is the utmost that can be 
 expected ; and even this judgment a person so unpracticed will 
 be apt to deliver with great hesitation and reserve. But allow 
 him to acquire experience in those objects, his feeling becomes 
 more exact and nice. He not only perceives the beauties and 
 defects of each part, but marks the distinguishing species of each 
 quality, and assigns it suitable praise or blame. A clear and dis- 
 tinct sentiment attends him through the whole survey of the 
 objects; and he discerns that very degree and kind of approbation 
 or displeasure which each part is naturally fitted to produce. The 
 mist dissipates which seemed formerly to hang over the object. 
 The organ acquires greater perfection in its operations, and can 
 pronounce, without danger of mistake, concerning the merits of 
 every performance. In a word, the same address and dexterity 
 which practice gives to the execution of any work is acquired by 
 the same means in the judging of it. 
 
 So advantageous is practice to the discernment of beauty, that, 
 before we can give judgment on any work of importance, it will 
 even be requisite that that very individual performance be more 
 than once perused by us, and be surveyed in different lights with 
 attention and deliberation. There is a nutter or hurry of thought 
 which attends the first perusal of any piece, and which confounds 
 the genuine sentiment of beauty. The relation of the parts is 
 not discerned ; the true characters of style are little distin- 
 guished ; the several perfections and defects seem wrapped up 
 
448 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 in a species of confusion, and present themselves indistinctly to 
 the imagination : not to mention that there is a species of beau- 
 fy, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first, but, being 
 found incompatible with a just expression either of reason or pas- 
 sion, soon palls upon the taste, and is then rejected with disdain; 
 at least, rated at a much lower value. 
 
 It is impossible to continue in the practice of contemplating 
 any order of beauty without being frequently obliged to form com- 
 parisons between the several species and degrees of excellence, 
 and estimating their proportion to each other. A man who lias 
 had no opportunity of comparing the different kinds of beauty is 
 indeed totally unqualified to pronounce an opinion with regard to 
 any object presented to him. By comparison alone, we fix the 
 epithets of praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due de- 
 gree of each. The coarsest daubing contains a certain luster of 
 colors, and exactness of imitation, which are so far beauties, and 
 would affect the mind of a peasant or Indian with the highest 
 admiration. The most vulgar ballads .are not entirely destitute 
 of harmony or nature ; and none but a person familiarized to 
 superior beauties would pronounce their numbers harsh, or nar- 
 ration uninteresting. A great inferiority of beauty gives pain to 
 a person conversant in the highest excellence of the kind, and is, 
 for that reason, pronounced a deformity ; as the most finished 
 object with which we are acquainted is naturally supposed to 
 have reached the pinnacle of perfection, and to be entitled to the 
 highest applause. One accustomed to see and examine and 
 weigh the several performances admired in different ages and na- 
 tions can alone rate the merits of a work exhibited to his view, 
 and assign its proper rank among the productions of genius. 
 
 But, to enable a critic the more fully to execute this under- 
 taking, he must preserve his mind free from all" prejudice, and 
 allow nothing to enter into his consideration but the very object 
 which is submitted to his examination. We may observe, that 
 every work of art, in order to produce its due effect on the mind, 
 must be surveyed in a certain point of view, and can not be fully 
 relished by persons whose situation, real or imaginary, is not 
 conformable to that which is required by the performance. An 
 orator addresses himself to a particular audience, and must have 
 a regard to their particular genius, interests, opinions, passions, 
 and prejudices ; otherwise he hopes in vain to govern their resolu- 
 tions, and inflame their affections. Should they even have enter- 
 tained some prepossessions against him, however unreasonable, he 
 must not overlook this disadvantage, but, before he enters upon 
 the subject, must endeavor to conciliate their affection, and ac- 
 quire their good graces. A critic of a different age or nation who 
 should peruse this discourse must have all these circumstances in 
 
DAVID HUME. 449 
 
 his eye, and must place himself in the same situation as the audi- 
 ence, in order to form a true judgment of the oration. In like 
 manner, when any work is addressed to the public, though I 
 should have a friendship or enmity with the author, I must depart 
 from this situation, and, considering myself as a man in general, 
 forget, if possible, my individual being and my peculiar circum- 
 stances. A person influenced by prejudice complies not with this 
 condition, but obstinately maintains his natural position without 
 placing himself in that point of view which the performance sup- 
 poses. If the work be addressed to persons of a different age or 
 nation, he makes no allowance for their peculiar views and preju- 
 dices, but, full of the manners of his own age and country, rashly 
 condemns what seemed admirable in the eyes of those for whom 
 alone the discourse was calculated. If the work be executed for 
 the public, he never sufficiently enlarges his comprehension, or 
 forgets his interest as a friend or enemy, as a rival or commenta- 
 tor. By this means, his sentiments are perverted; nor have the 
 same beauties and blemishes the same influence upon him as if 
 he had imposed a proper violence on his imagination, and had 
 forgotten himself for a moment. So far, his taste evidently de- 
 parts from the true standard, and, of consequence, loses all credit 
 and authority. 
 
 It is well known, that, in all questions submitted to the under- 
 standing, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and perverts 
 all operations of the intellectual faculties : it is no less contrary 
 to good taste ; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiment 
 of beauty. It belongs to good sense to check its influence in both 
 cases ; and in this respect, as well as in many others, reason, if 
 not an essential part of taste, is at least requisite to the operations 
 of this latter faculty. In all the nobler productions of genius, 
 there is a mutual relation and correspondence of parts ; nor can 
 either the beauties or blemishes be perceived by him whose 
 thought is not capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, 
 and compare them with each other, in order to perceive the con- 
 sistence and uniformity of the whole. Every work of art has also 
 a certain end or purpose for which it is calculated, and is to be 
 deemed more or less perfect as it is more or less fitted to attain 
 this end. The object of eloquence is to persuade ; of history, to 
 instruct; of poetry, to please by means of the passions and the im- 
 agination. These ends we must carry constantly in our view 
 when we peruse any performance ; and we must be able to judge 
 how far the means employed are adapted to their respective pur- 
 poses. Besides, every kind of composition, even the most poeti- 
 cal, is nothing but a chain of propositions and reasonings ; not 
 always, indeed, the justest and most exact, but still plausible and 
 specious, however disguised by the coloring of the imagination. 
 29 
 
450 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The persons introduced in tragedy and epic poetry must be rep- 
 resented as reasoning and thinking and concluding and acting 
 suitably to their character and circumstances : and, without judg- 
 ment as well as taste and invention, a poet can never hope to 
 succeed in so delicate an undertaking ; not to mention that the 
 same excellence of faculties which contributes to the improvement 
 of reason, the same clearness of conception, the same exactness of 
 distinction, the same vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the 
 operations of true taste, and are its infallible concomitants. It 
 seldom or never happens that a man of sense who has experience 
 in any art can not judge of its beauty; and it is no less rare to 
 meet with a man who has a just taste without a sound under- 
 standing. 
 
 Thus, though the principles of taste be universal, and nearly, if 
 not entirely, the same in all men, yet few are qualified to give 
 judgment on any work of art, or establish their own sentiments 
 as the standard of beauty. The organs of internal sensation are 
 
 seldom so perfect as to allow the general principles their full play, 
 and produce a feeling correspondent to those principles. They 
 either labor under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder, 
 and by that means excite a sentiment which may be pronounced 
 erroneous. When the critic has no delicacy, he judges without 
 any distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more pal- 
 pable qualities of the object : the finer touches pass unnoticed and 
 disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his verdict is 
 attended with confusion and hesitation. Where no comparison 
 lias been employed, the most frivolous beauties, such as rather 
 merit the name of defects, are the object of his admiration. 
 Where he lies under the influence of prejudice, all his natural 
 sentiments are perverted. Where good sense is wanting, he is 
 not qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning 
 which are the highest and most excellent. Under some or other 
 of these imperfections, the generality of men labor ; and hence a 
 true judge in the finer arts is observed, even during the most pol- 
 ished ages, to be so rare a character. Strong sense, united to deli- 
 cate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, 
 and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valua- 
 ble character ; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to 
 be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty. 
 
 But where are such critics to be found ? By what marks are 
 they to be known? How distinguish them from pretenders? 
 These questions are embarrassing, and seem to throw us back 
 into the same uncertainty from which, during the course of this 
 essay, we have endeavored to extricate ourselves. 
 
 But, if we consider the matter aright, these are questions of 
 fact, not of sentiment. Whether any particular person be en- 
 
DAVID HUME. 451 
 
 dowed with good sense and a delicate imagination, free from 
 prejudice, may often be the subject of dispute, and be liable to 
 great discussion and inquiry ; but that such a character is valua- 
 ble and estimable will be agreed in by all mankind. Where these 
 doubts occur, men can do no more than in other disputable ques- 
 tions which are submitted to the understanding: they must pro- 
 duce the best arguments that their invention suggests to them ; 
 they must acknowledge a true and decisive standard to exist 
 somewhere, to wit, real existence and matter of fact ; and they 
 must have indulgence to such as differ from them in their appeals 
 to this standard. It is sufficient for our present purpose if we 
 have proved that the taste of all individuals is not upon an equal 
 footing, and that some men in general, however difficult to be par- 
 ticularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by universal senti- 
 ment to have a preference above others. 
 
 But, in reality, the difficulty of finding, even in particulars, the 
 standard of taste, is not so great as it is represented. Though in 
 speculation we may readily allow a certain criterion in science, 
 and deny it in sentiment, the matter is found, in practice, to be 
 much more hard to ascertain in the former case than in the latter. 
 Theories of abstract philosophy, systems of profound theology, have 
 prevailed during one age : in a successive period, these have been 
 universally exploded; their absurdity has been detected; other 
 theories and systems have supplied their place, which again gave 
 place to their successors ; and nothing has been experienced more 
 liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these pre- 
 tended decisions of science. The case is not the same with the 
 beauties of eloquence and poetry. Just expressions of passion and 
 nature are sure, after a little time, to gain public applause, which 
 they maintain for ever. Aristotle and Plato and Epicurus and 
 Descartes may successively yield to each other ; but Terence 
 and Virgil maintain a universal, undisputed empire over the 
 minds of men. The abstract philosophy of Gicero has lost its 
 credit : the vehemence of his oratory is still the object of our ad- 
 miration. Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily 
 to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their under- 
 standing and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of 
 mankind. The ascendant which they acquire gives a prevalence 
 to that lively approbation with which they receive any produc- 
 tions of genius, and renders it generally predominant. Many 
 men, when left to themselves, have but a faint and dubious per- 
 ception of beauty, who yet are capable of relishing any fine stroke 
 which is pointed out to them. Every convert to the admiration 
 of the real poet or orator is the cause of some new conversion. 
 And, though prejudices may prevail for a time, they never unite 
 in celebrating any rival to the true genius, but yield at last to the 
 
452 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 force and just sentiment. Thus, though a civilized nation may 
 easily be mistaken in the choice of their admired philosopher, 
 they never have been found long to err in their affection for a 
 favorite epic or tragic author. But notwithstanding all our en- 
 deavors to fix a standard of taste, and reconcile the discordant 
 apprehensions of men, there still remain two sources of variation, 
 which are not sufficient, indeed, to confound all the boundaries of 
 beauty and deformity, but will often serve to produce a difference 
 in the degrees of our approbation or blame. The one is the dif- 
 ferent humors of particular men; the other, the particular man- 
 ners and opinions of our age and country. The general principles 
 of taste are uniform in human nature : where men vary in their 
 judgments, some defect or perversion in the faculties may com- 
 monly be remarked, proceeding either from prejudice, from want 
 of practice, or want of delicac3 T ; and there is just reason for ap- 
 proving one taste, and condemning another. But where there is 
 such a diversity in the internal frame or external situation as is 
 entirely blameless on both sides, and leaves no room to give one 
 the preference above the other, in that case a certain degree of 
 diversity in judgment is unavoidable, and we seek in vain for a 
 standard by which we can reconcile the contrary sentiments. 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 1706-1790. 
 
 Distinguished philosopher and statesman ; born in Boston, Mass. He has Ibeen 
 called, in an age of great men, "the greatest diplomatist of the eighteenth century." 
 " He never spoke a word too soon ; he never spoke a word too late; he never spoke 
 a word too much ; he never failed to speak the right word in the right place." 
 
 THE WAT TO WEALTH. 
 
 COURTEOUS reader, I have heard that nothing gives an author 
 so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by 
 others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an 
 incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately 
 where a great number of people were collected at an auction of 
 merchants' goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they 
 were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the 
 company called to a plain, clean old man with white locks, 
 " Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times ? Will 
 not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country ? How shall we 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 453 
 
 ever bo able to pay them ? What would you advise us to ? " 
 father Abraham stood up, and replied, " If you would have my 
 advice, I will give it you in short ; for A word to the wise is 
 enough, as Poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him 
 to speak his mind ; and, gathering round him, he proceeded as 
 follows : 
 
 " Friends," said he, " the taxes are indeed very heavy : and, if 
 those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to 
 pay, we might more easily discharge them ; but we have many 
 others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed 
 twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, 
 and four times as much by our folly ; and from these taxes the 
 commissioners can not ease or deliver us by allowing an abate- 
 ment. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something 
 may be done for us. . God helps them that help themselves ; as Poor 
 Richard says. 
 
 " It would be thought a hard government that should tax its 
 people one-tenth part of their time to be emploj-ed in its service ; 
 but idleness taxes many of us much more. Sloth, by bringing 
 on diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like mist, consumes 
 faster than labor wears y while the used key is always bright, 
 as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love life, then do not 
 squander time ; for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor 
 Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in 
 sleep! forgetting that The sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that 
 There will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says. 
 
 " If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must 
 be, as Poor Richard says, the greatest prodigality : since, as he 
 elsewhere tells us, Lost time is never found again / and what ive 
 call time enough always proves little enough. Let us, then, up 
 and be doing, and doing to the purpose : so by diligence shall we 
 do more with less perplexity. 
 
 " But with our industry we must likewise be steady, settled, 
 and careful, and oversee our own affairs with our own eyes, 
 and not trust too much to others ; for Three removes are as 
 bad as a fire. And again : Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep 
 thee. And again : If you would have your business done, go if 
 not, send. 
 
 " So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own 
 business ; but to these we must add frugality if we would make 
 our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows 
 not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grind- 
 stone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a 
 lean will. 
 
 " Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not then 
 have so much cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and 
 chargeable families. 
 
454 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " And further : Wliat maintains one vice would bring irp two 
 children. You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little 
 punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, 
 and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter ; 
 but remember, Many a little makes a miclde. Beware of little 
 expenses: A small leak ivill sink a great ship, as Poor Richard 
 says. And again : Who dainties love shall beggars prove ; and, 
 moreover, Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them. 
 
 " Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and 
 knick-knacks. You call them goods ; but, if you do not take care, 
 they will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold 
 cheap; and perhaps they may for less than they cost: but, if j-ou 
 have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember 
 what Poor Richard says : Buy what thou hast no need of, and 
 ere long thou shall sell thy necessaries. And again : At a great 
 pennyworth pause a while. He means that perhaps the cheap- 
 ness is apparent only, and not real ; or the bargain, by straitening 
 thee in thy business, may do thee more harm than good. For in 
 another place he says, Many have been ruined by buying good 
 pennyworths. Again: It is foolish to lay out money in a pur- 
 chase of repentance ; and yet this folly is practiced every day at 
 auctions for want of minding ' The Almanac.' Many a one, for the 
 sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly, and 
 half starved their families. Silks a/id satins, scarlet and velvets, 
 put out the kitchen-jire, as Poor Richard says. 
 
 " But what madness must it be to run in debt for these super- 
 fluities! We are oifered by the terms of this sale six months' 
 credit ; and that, perhaps, has induced some of us to attend it, 
 because we can not spare the ready money, and hope now to be 
 fine without it. But, ah ! think what you do when you run in 
 debt : you give to another power over your liberty. If you can 
 not pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor ; you 
 will be in fear when you speak to him ; you will make poor, 
 pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your ve- 
 racity, and sink into base, downright lying ; for The second vice is 
 lying, the first is running in debt, as Poor Richard says. And 
 again, to the same purpose : Lying rides upon debt's back ; where- 
 as a free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to 
 see or speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a 
 man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to 
 stand upright. 
 
 " What would you think of that prince, or of that government, 
 who should issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman 
 or gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude ? Would 
 you not say that you were free, have a right to dress as you please, 
 and that such an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 455 
 
 such a government tyrannical ? And yet you are about to put 
 yourself under such tyranny when you run in debt for such dress. 
 Your creditor has authority, at his pleasure, to deprive you of your 
 liberty, or by confining you in jail, till you shall be able to pay 
 him. When you have got your bargain, you may perhaps think 
 little of payment ; but, as Poor Richard says, Creditors have 
 Letter memories than debtors : creditors are a superstitious sect, 
 great observers of set days and times. The day comes round 
 before you are aware ; and the demand is made before you are pre- 
 pared to satisfy it : or, if you bear your debt in mind, the term 
 which at first seemed so long, will, as it lessens, appear extremely 
 short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as well 
 as his shoulders. Those have a short Lent who owe money to be 
 paid at Easter. At present, perhaps you may think yourselves in 
 thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance 
 without injury: but 
 
 For age and want save while you may ; 
 No morning sun lasts a whole day. 
 
 Gain may be temporary and uncertain ; but ever, while you live, 
 expense is constant and certain : and It is easier to build two 
 chimneys than to keep one in fuel, as Poor Richard says ; so 
 Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt. 
 
 " This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom. But, after 
 all, do not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality 
 and prudence, though excellent things ; for they may all be 
 blasted, without the blessing of Heaven : and, therefore, ask that 
 blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present 
 seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember, Job 
 suffered, and was afterwards prosperous." 
 
 Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. I resolved to be 
 the better for it ; and, though I had at first determined to buy 
 stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a 
 little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be 
 as great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee, 
 
 RICHAKD SAUNDEKS. 
 
 A PARABLE AGAINST PERSECUTION.* 
 
 1. AND it came to pass, after these things, that Abraham sat in 
 the door of his tent about the going-down of the sun. 
 
 * The substance of this beautiful parable was not original with Franklin ; for Jeremy 
 Taylor gives it as taken from the "Jews' Book," and it is traced back centuries farther. 
 The true author is not known; but it never attracted general attention, until, in the hands 
 of Franklin, it assumed the scriptural style. Franklin was in the habit of amusing him- 
 self by reading it to divines and others well versed in the Scriptures, and obtaining their 
 opinions upon it, which were sometimes very diverting. 
 
456 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 2. And, behold, a man bowed with age came from the way of 
 the wilderness, leaning on a staff. 
 
 3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, " Turn 
 in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night ; and thou 
 shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way." 
 
 4. But the man said, "Xay; for I will abide under this tree." 
 
 5. And Abraham pressed him greatly : so he turned, and they 
 went into the tent. And Abraham baked unleavened bread ; and 
 they did eat. 
 
 6. And, when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he 
 said unto him, " Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high 
 God, Creator of heaven and earth?" 
 
 7. And the man answered, and said, " I do not worship the 
 God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name ; for I have 
 made to myself a god which abideth alway in mine house, and 
 provideth me with all things." 
 
 8. And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man ; and he 
 arose, and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into 
 the wilderness. 
 
 9. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, "Abra- 
 ham, where is the stranger ? " 
 
 10. And Abraham answered, and said, " Lord, he would not 
 worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name : therefore 
 have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness." 
 
 11. And God said, " Have I borne with him these hundred, 
 ninety, and eight years, and nourished him and clothed him, not- 
 withstanding his rebellion against me, and couldst not thou, that 
 art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night ? " 
 
 12. And Abraham said, " Let not the anger of the Lord wax 
 hot against his servant. Lo, I have sinned ; lo, I have sinned : 
 forgive me, I pray thee." 
 
 13. And Abraham arose, and went forth into the wilderness, 
 and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned 
 with him to the tent ; and, when he had entreated him kindly, he 
 sent him away on the morrow with gifts. 
 
 14. And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, "For this thy 
 sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land : 
 
 15. " But for thy repentance will I deliver them ; and they 
 shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with 
 much substance." 
 
 THE WHISTLE. 
 
 WHEX I was a child at seven years old, my friends on a 
 holiday filled my little pocket with coppers. I went directly to a 
 shop where they sold toys for children ; and, being charmed with 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 457 
 
 the sound of a ivliistle that I met by the way "in the hands of 
 another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for one. I 
 then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much 
 pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My broth- 
 ers and sisters and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, 
 told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. 
 This put me in mind what good things I might have bought 
 with the rest of my money: and they laughed at me so much 
 for my folly, that I cried with vexation ; and the reflection gave 
 me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. 
 
 This, however, was afterwards of use tome, the impression con- 
 tinuing on my mind : so that often, when I was tempted to buy 
 some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don't yivi too much for 
 the whistle ; and so I saved my money. 
 
 As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions 
 of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too 
 much for the whistle. 
 
 When I saw any one too ambitious of court-favor, sacrificing 
 his time in attendance at levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, 
 and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This 
 man gives too much for his whistle. 
 
 When I saw another fond of popularity, constantly employing 
 himself in political bustles, neglecting his own affairs, and ruin- 
 ing them by that neglect, He pays, indeed, says I, too much for 
 his iv hist le. 
 
 If I knew a miser who gave up every kind of comfortable liv- 
 ing, all the pleasure of doing good to others, all the esteem of 
 his fellow-citizens, and the joys of benevolent friendship, for the 
 sake of accumulating wealth, Poor man, says I, you do, indeed, 
 pay too much for your whistle. 
 
 When I meet a man of pleasure sacrificing every laudable im- 
 provement of the mind or of his fortune to mere corporeal sensa- 
 tions, Mistaken man, says I, you are providing pain for yourself 
 instead of pleasure : you, give too much for your whistle. 
 
 If I see one fond of fine clothes, fine furniture, fine equipages 
 (all above his fortune), for which he contracts debts, and ends his 
 career in prison, Alas ! says I, he has paid dear, very dear, for 
 his ivhistle. 
 
 When I see a beautiful, sweet-tempered girl married to an ill- 
 natured brute of a husband, What a pity it is, says I, that 
 she has paid so much for a whistle ! 
 
 In short, I conceived that a great part of the miseries of man- 
 kind were brought upon them by the false estimates they had 
 made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for 
 their whistles. 
 
458 ENGLISH LIT/ERATCTKE. 
 
 TURNING THE GRIXDSTOXE. 
 
 I was? a little boy, I remember one cold winter's morn- 
 ing I was accosted by a smiling man with an ax on his shoulder. 
 " My pretty boy," said he, " has your father a grindstone ? " 
 " Yes, sir," said I. " You are a fine little fellow," said he : " will 
 3-011 let me grind my ax on it ? " Pleased with the compliment of 
 " Fine little fellow ! " " Oh, yes, sir ! " I answered : " it is down in 
 the shop." " And will you, my man," said he, patting me on the 
 head, " get me a little hot water? " How could I refuse ? I ran, 
 and soon brought a kettleful. " How old are you ? and what's 
 your name ? " continued he, without waiting for a reply. "I am 
 sure you are one of the finest lads that ever I have seen : will 
 you just turn a few minutes for me?" 
 
 Tickled with the flattery, like a little fool, I went to work ; and 
 bitterly did I rue the day. It was a new ax; and I toiled and 
 tugged till I was almost tired to death. The school-bell rang, 
 and I could not get away : my hands were blistered ; and the ax 
 was not half ground. At length, however, it was sharpened ; and 
 the man turned to me with, " Now, 3-011 little rascal, you've played 
 truant : scud to the school, or 3 T ou'll buy it ! " " Alas ! " thought 
 I, " it is hard enough to turn a grindstone this cold day ; but 
 now to be called a little rascal is too much." 
 
 It sank deep in m3 r mind ; and often have I thought of it since. 
 AY hen I see u merchant over-polite to his customers, begging 
 them to take a little brandy, and throwing his goods on the 
 counter, thinks I, " That man has an ax to grind." When I see 
 a man flattering the people, making great professions of attach- 
 ment to liberty, who is in private life a t3 T rant, methinks, " Look 
 out, good people ! that fellow would set you turning grindstones." 
 
 When I see a man hoisted into office 03- party-spirit, without 
 a single qualification to render him either respectable or useful, 
 " Alas," methinks, u deluded people ! you are doomed for a season 
 to turn the grindstone for a booby." 
 
 OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 
 
 1728-1774. 
 
 The kind-hearted, Denial author of " The Vicar of Wakefield," " The Deserted 
 Village," "The Traveler," and the two comedies, "The Good-natured Man" and 
 "She Stoops to Conquer," "Histories of England, Greece, and Rome," and "The 
 Earth and Animated Nature." Everybody loves Goldsmith and Irving. 
 
 
OLIVEK GOLDSMITH. 459 
 
 THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 SWEET Auburn, loveliest village of the plain ! 
 Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain; 
 Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, 
 And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed, 
 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 
 Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, 
 How often have 1 loitered o'er thy green, 
 Where humble happiness endeared each scene ! 
 How often have I paused on every charm ! 
 The sheltered cot ; the cultivated farm ; 
 The never-failing brook ; the busy mill ; 
 The decent church that topt the neighboring hill ; 
 The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade 
 For talking age and whispering lovers made. 
 How often have I blessed the coining day 
 When toil remitting lent its turn to play, 
 And all the village train, from labor free, 
 Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree, 
 While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
 The young contending as the old surveyed, 
 And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, 
 And sleights of art and feats of strength went round! 
 And still, as each repeated pleasure tired. 
 Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired, 
 The dancing pair that simply sought renown 
 By holding out to tire each other down ; 
 The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face, 
 While secret laughter tittered round the place ; 
 The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love ; 
 The matron's glance that would those looks reprove. 
 These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, 
 With sweet succession, taught even toil to please. 
 These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed ; 
 These were thy charms, but all these charms are fled. 
 
 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn ! 
 Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn. 
 Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
 And desolation saddens all thy green : 
 One only master grasps the whole domain, 
 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. 
 No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
 But, choked with sedges, works its weary way. 
 Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
 The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 
 Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, 
 And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; 
 Sifnk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all ; 
 And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall ; 
 And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, 
 Far, far away, thy children leave the land. 
 
460 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 HI fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay : 
 Princes and lords may flourish* or may fade, 
 (A breath can make them, as a breath has made ;) 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 
 
 A time there was, ere England's griefs began, 
 When every rood of ground maintained its man : 
 For him light Labor spread her wholesome store, 
 Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; 
 His best companions, innocence and health ; 
 And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 
 
 But times are altered : Trade's unfeeling train 
 Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain. 
 Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose, 
 Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose, 
 And every want to luxury allied, 
 And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
 Those gentle hours that Plenty bade to bloom ; 
 Those calm desires that asked but little room ; 
 Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene, 
 Lived in each look, and brightened all the green, 
 These, far departing, seek a kinder shore ; 
 And rural mirth and manners are no more. 
 
 Sweet Auburn, parent of the blissful hour ! 
 Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
 Here as I take my solitary rounds 
 Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
 And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
 Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
 Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, 
 Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 
 
 In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
 In all my griefs, and God has given my share, 
 I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
 Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
 To husband out life's taper at the close, 
 And keep the flame from wasting by repose. 
 I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, 
 Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill ; 
 Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
 And tell of all I felt and all I saw : 
 And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
 Pants for the place from whence at first she flew, 
 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
 Here to return, and die at home at last. 
 
 O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, 
 Retreat from cares, that never must be mine ! 
 How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
 A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
 Who quits a world where strong tempations try, 
 And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 461 
 
 For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
 Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
 No surly porter stands in guilty state 
 To spurn imploring Famine from the gate : 
 But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
 Angels around befriending Virtue's friend; 
 Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
 While Resignation gently slopes the way ; 
 And, all his prospects brightening to the last, 
 His heaven commences ere the world be passed. 
 
 Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close, 
 Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ! 
 There as I passed with careless steps and slow, 
 The mingling notes came softened from below : 
 The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, 
 The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, 
 The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, 
 The playful children just let loose from school, 
 The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, 
 And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant min-J, 
 These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
 And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 
 But now the sounds of population fail ; 
 No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale ; 
 No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread ; 
 For all the blooming flush of life is fled, 
 All but yon widowed,. solitary thing 
 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring : 
 She, wretched matron ! forced in age, for bread, 
 To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 
 To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, 
 To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn, 
 She only left of all the harmless train. 
 The sad historian of the pensive plain ! 
 
 Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
 And still where many a garden-flower grows wild, 
 There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
 The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place : 
 Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power, 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
 More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 
 His house was known to all the vagrant train : 
 He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain. 
 The fang-remembered beggar was his guest, 
 Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast ; 
 The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
 Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed ; 
 
462 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
 Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, 
 Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
 Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 
 Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
 And quite forgot their vices in their woe : 
 Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
 His pity gave ere charity began. 
 
 Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride ; 
 And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side. 
 But in his duty, prompt at every call, 
 He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all; 
 And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 
 Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
 And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismayed, 
 The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
 Despair and anguish fled the struggling (oul ; 
 Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise ; 
 And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 
 
 At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
 His looks adorned the venerable place : 
 Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway; 
 And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. 
 The service passed, around the pious man, 
 With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran : 
 E'en children followed with endearing wile, 
 And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. 
 His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed : 
 Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed. 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given; 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 
 
 Beside yon strairgling fence that skirts the way 
 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
 The village master taught his little school. 
 A man severe he was, and stern to view : 
 I knew him well, and every truant knew. 
 Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
 Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
 At all his jokes (for many a joke had he) ; 
 Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings Avhen he frowned. 
 Yet he was kind ; or if severe in aught, 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 403 
 
 The village all declared how much he knew : 
 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too ; 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage; 
 And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. 
 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill ; 
 For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still : 
 While words of* learned length and thundering soi'nd 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 
 But passed is all his fame ; the very spot 
 Where many a time he triumphed is tbrgot. 
 Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high, 
 Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 
 Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired ; 
 Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired ; 
 Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, 
 And news much older than their ale went round. 
 Imagination fondly stoops to trace 
 The parlor splendors of that festive place, 
 The white- washed wall ; the nicely-sanded floor ; 
 The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ; 
 The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
 The pictures placed for ornament and use ; 
 The twelve good rules ; the royal game of goose ; 
 The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, 
 With aspen-boughs and flowers and fennel gay ; 
 While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show, 
 Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row. 
 
 Vain, transitory splendors ! could not all 
 Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ? 
 Obscure it sinks ; nor shall it more impart 
 An hour's importance to the poor man's heart : 
 Thither no more the peasant shall repair 
 To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; 
 No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 
 No more the woodman's ballad, shall prevail ; 
 No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 
 Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear ; 
 The host himself no longer shall be found 
 Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; 
 Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed, 
 Shrill kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 
 
 Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
 These simple blessings of the lowly train : 
 To me more dear, congenial to my" heart, 
 One native charm, than all the gloss of art. 
 Spontaneous joys where Nature has its play, 
 The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; 
 Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 
 Unenvied, unmolested, unconfmed : 
 
4G4 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 
 With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, 
 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 
 The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; 
 And, even while Fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
 The heart distrusting asks if this be joy. 
 
 Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey 
 The rich man's joys increase, the jwor's decay 1 
 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 
 Between a splendid and a happy land. 
 Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 
 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore j 
 Hoards even beyond the miser's wish aboand ; 
 And rich men flock from all the world around. 
 Yet count our gains : this wealth is but a name, 
 That leaves our useful products still the same. 
 Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
 Takes up a space that many poor supplied, 
 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds ; 
 Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds : 
 The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 
 Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth ; 
 His seat, where solitary spots are seen, 
 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; 
 Around the world each needful product flies 
 For all the luxuries the world supplies ; 
 While thus the land, adorned for pleasure, all, 
 In ban-en splendor, feebly waits the fall. 
 
 As some fair female, unadorned and plain, 
 Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
 Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, 
 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 
 But when those charms are passed, for charms are frail, 
 When time advances, and when lovers fail, 
 She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 
 In all the glaring impotence of dress. 
 Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed : 
 In Nature's simplest charms at first arrayed, 
 But verging to decline, its splendors rise, 
 Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; 
 While, scourged by famine, from the smiling land 
 The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 
 And while he sinks, without one arm to save, 
 The country blooms, a garden and a grave. 
 
 Where, then, ah ! where, shall Poverty reside, 
 To 'scape the pressure of contiguous pride ? 
 If to some common's fenceless limits strayed 
 He drives his flocks to pick the scanty blade, 
 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide ; 
 And even the bare-worn common is denied. 
 
 If to the city sped, what waits him there ? 
 To see profusion that he must not share ; 
 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 465 
 
 To see ten thousand baneful arts combined 
 
 To pamper luxury and thin mankind : 
 
 To see each joy the sons of Pleasure know' 
 
 Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe. 
 
 Here while the courtier glitters in brocade, 
 
 There the pale artist plies the sickly trade ; 
 
 Here while the proud their long-drawn pomps display, 
 
 There the black gibbet glooms beside the way ; 
 
 The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, 
 
 Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train ; 
 
 Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
 
 The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 
 
 Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy; 
 
 Sure these denote one universal joy ! 
 
 Are these thy serious thoughts ? Ah ! turn thine eyes 
 
 Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies. 
 
 She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, 
 
 Has wept at tales of innocence distressed : 
 
 Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 
 
 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 
 
 Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled, 
 
 Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
 
 And pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, 
 
 With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour 
 
 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 
 
 She left her wheel, and robes of country brown. 
 
 Do thine, sweet Auburn ! thine, the loveliest train, 
 Do thy fair tribes participate her pain V 
 Even now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread. 
 
 Ah, no ! to distant climes, a dreary scene, 
 Where half the convex world intrudes between, 
 Through torrid tracks with fainting steps they go, 
 Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 
 Far different there from all that charmed before, 
 The various terrors of that horrid shore, 
 Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 
 And fiercely shed intolerable day ; 
 Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, 
 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; 
 Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 
 Where the dark scorpion gathers death around ; 
 Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 
 The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; 
 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, 
 And savage men more murderous still than they; 
 While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies, 
 Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. 
 Far different these from every former scene, 
 The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, 
 The breezy covert of the warbling grove, 
 That only sheltered thefts of harmless love. 
 30 
 
4G6 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day 
 That called them from their native walks away, 
 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past. 
 Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, 
 And took a long farewell, and wished in vain 
 For seats like these beyond the western main, 
 And, shuddering still to face the distant deep, 
 Returned and wept, and still returned to weep ! 
 The good old sire the first prepared to go 
 To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ; 
 But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
 He onlv wished for worlds beyond the grave. 
 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 
 The fond companion of his helpless years, 
 Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 
 And left a lover's for her father's arms. 
 With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
 And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose, 
 And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear, 
 And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear ; 
 Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief 
 In all the silent manliness of grief. 
 
 O Luxury, thou curst by Heaven's decree ! 
 How ill exchanged are things like these for thee ! 
 How do thy potions, with insidious joy, 
 Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy ! 
 Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown, 
 Boast of a florid vigor not their o\vn : 
 At every draught, more large and large they grow, 
 A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe ; 
 Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound, 
 Down, down, they sink, and spread a ruin round. 
 
 E'en now the devastation is begun, 
 And half the business of destruction done ; 
 E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
 I see the rural virtues leave the land. 
 Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, 
 That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale, 
 Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
 Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
 Contented toil, and hospitable care, 
 And kind connubial tenderness, are there, 
 And piety with wishes placed above, 
 And steady loyalty, and faithful love. 
 And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid ! 
 Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ; 
 Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame, 
 To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; 
 Dear, charming nymph ! neglected and decried, 
 My shame in crowds, my solitary pride; 
 Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, 
 That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; 
 
THOMAS GRAY. 407 
 
 Thou guide, by which the noble arts excel ; 
 Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well ! 
 Farewell ! and, oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
 On- Torno's cliffs, or Pambani area's side, 
 Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, 
 Or Winter wraps the polar world in snow, 
 Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
 Redress the rigors of the inclement clime ; 
 Aid slighted Truth with thy persuasive strain ; 
 Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 
 Teach him that states of native strength possessed, 
 Though very poor, may still be very blessed; 
 That Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
 As Ocean sweeps the labored mole away; 
 While self-dependent power can Time defy, 
 As rocks resist the billows and the sky. 
 
 THOMAS GRAY. 
 
 1716-1771. 
 
 Distinguished as poet and scholar. " Ode to Spring," " The Bard," " The Prog- 
 ress of Poesy," nnd " Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." His letters are 
 noted for their clear, elegant, and picturesque style. 
 
 ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD* 
 
 THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 
 
 The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea ; 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 
 
 Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
 
 Of- such as, wandering near her secret bower, 
 Molest her ancient, solitary reign. 
 
 * The reasons of that universal approbation with which this Elegy has been received 
 may be learned from the comprehensive encomium of Dr. Johnson: "It abounds with 
 images which find a mirror in every soul, and with sentiments to which every bosom 
 returns an echo." 
 
 " Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure that ho 
 would not stand higher: it is the corner-stone of his glory." Lord tiyron. 
 
468 ENGLISH LITEPwATURE. 
 
 Beneath those rugged el ins, that yew-tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, 
 
 Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 
 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 
 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn. 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 
 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 
 
 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield ; 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : 
 How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
 
 Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Power, 
 
 And all that Beauty, all that Wealth, e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour : 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault 
 If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise 
 
 Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 
 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust ? 
 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 
 
 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 
 
 Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
 Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre ; 
 
 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 
 Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll ; ' 
 
 Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul. 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dark, unfathomed eaves of ocean bear ; 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
THOMAS GRAY. 469 
 
 Some village Hampden, th^it with dauntless breast 
 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood, 
 Some mute inglorious Milton, here may rest ; 
 
 Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 
 
 The applause of listening senates to command, 
 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes, 
 
 Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone 
 
 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; 
 
 Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 
 
 The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
 
 With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 
 
 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
 
 Their sober wishes never learned to stray : 
 Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 
 
 Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, 
 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse, 
 
 The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
 And many a holy text around she strews, 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
 
 This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 
 Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? 
 
 On some fond breast the parting soul relies ; 
 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires : 
 E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries ; 
 
 E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. 
 
 For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, 
 Dost in tiiese lines their artless tale relate, 
 
 If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 
 Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, 
 
 Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 
 " Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
 
 Brushing with hasty steps the dews away 
 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 
 
470 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 " There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
 That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
 
 His listless length at noontide \vould he streteh, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 
 
 " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
 Mattering his wayward fancies, he would rove ; 
 
 Now drooping, woful wan, like one forlorn, 
 
 Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 
 
 " One morn I missed him on the customed hill, 
 Along the heath, and near his favorite tree : 
 
 Another came ; nor yet beside the rill. 
 
 Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he : 
 
 " The next, with dirges due in sad array, 
 
 Slow through the churchway-path we saw him borne: 
 
 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 Here rests his head upon the lap of earth 
 A youth to fortune and to fame unknown : 
 
 Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth; 
 And Melancholy marked him for her own. 
 
 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ; 
 
 Heaven did a recompense as largely send : 
 He gave to misery (all he had) a tear ; 
 
 He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. 
 
 No farther seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose.) 
 The bosom of his Father and his God. 
 
 OTHER DISTINGUISHED WRITERS OF 
 POETRY AND PROSE. 
 
 WILLIAM SHEXSTOXE. 1714-1763. "Schoolmistress" and "Pastoral Ballad." 
 WILLIAM COLLINS. 1721-1759. "Oriental Eclogues," "The Passions," odes 
 
 to " Liberty " and ' Evening," and other fine lyrics. 
 
 MARK AKEXSIDE. 1721-1770. " Pleasures of Imagination." 
 
 THOMAS WARTOX. 1728-1790. "The Pleasures of Melancholy," and other 
 
 poems; " History of English Poetry." 
 
 JOSEPH "\YARTOX. 1722-1800. Brother of Thomas, and an inferior poet. 
 JOHN HORXE. 1722-1808. Dramatist. " Doughis," and other pieces. 
 
OTHER DISTINGUISHED WRITERS. 471 
 
 WILLIAM MASON. 1725-1797. "The English Garden," and "Life and Letters 
 of Gray." 
 
 THOMAS PERCY. 1728-1811. Collected " Reliques of English Poetry." 
 
 ERASMUS DARWIN. 1731-1802. "The Botanic Garden," a poem. 
 
 WILLIAM FALCONER. 1732-1769. "The Shipwreck;" and was himself ship- 
 wrecked on " The Aurora." 
 
 JAMES BEATTIE. 1735-1803. " The Minstrel," and other poems. 
 
 JAMES MACPHERSOX. 1738-1796. " Kingal," "Temora," and political essays. 
 
 CHARLKS CHURCHILL. 1731-1764. " The Rosciad," " Night," " The Prophecy 
 of Famine," and other works. 
 
 THOMAS CHATTERTON. 1752-1770. "Poems of Rowley," a priest of the fif- 
 teenth century. 
 
 PHILIP DODDRIDGE. 1702-1751. "Family Expositor," and other religious 
 works. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 1703-1791. The most eminent of the founders of Methodism. 
 " Journal " and ' Hymns." 
 
 THOMAS REID. 1710-1796. Metaphysician. " Inquiry into the Human Mind," 
 and " Essays on the Intellectual and Active Powers of Man'." 
 
 LAURENCE STERNE. 1713-1768. " Tristram Shandy " and " The Sentimental 
 Journey." Uncle Toby, Widow Wadman, Corporal Trim, and Dr. Slop, are imper- 
 ishable characters. 
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 1716-1779. The famous actor. " The Lying Valet," " The 
 Miss in her Teens," and other plays. 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE. 1717-1791. " Castle of Otranto," and lively " Letters and 
 Memoirs " of the time. 
 
 HUGH BLAIR. 1718-1800. "Sermons," and well-known "Rhetorical Lec- 
 tures." 
 
 GILBERT WHITE. 1720-1793. " The Natural History of Selborne ; " an enter- 
 taining book. 
 
 SAMUEL FOOTE. 1721-1777. Celebrated actor. "The Minor," "The Mayor 
 of Garratt," and many others. 
 
 Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 1723-1780. " Commentaries on the Laws of Eng- 
 land." 
 
 ADAM SMITH. 1723-1790. " The Wealth of Nations," and "The Theory of 
 Moral Sentiments." 
 
 ADAM FERGUSON. 1724-1816. "History of Civil Society," and "History of 
 the Roman Republic." 
 
 JAMES BOSVVELL. 1740-1795. " Life of Samuel Johnson ; " a model biography. 
 WILLIAM PALEY. 1743-1805. "Evidences of Christianity," "Natural The- 
 ology," and other religious works. 
 
472 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 1688-1744. 
 
 The great didactic poet of the lanjrua^e, called " the prince of the artificial 
 school of English poetry." His most celebrated productions are " The Rape of the 
 Lock " " The Dunciad,"" "Essay ou Criticism," and "Essay oil Man." Translated 
 the "Iliad" ami "Odyssey." 
 
 ESSAY OX MAN. 
 
 EPISTLE I. 
 
 AWAKE, my St. John ! leave all meaner tilings 
 To low ambition and the pride of kings. 
 Let us (since life can little more supply 
 Than just to look about us and to die) 
 Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man, 
 A mighty maze, but not without a plan ; 
 A wild where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, 
 Or garden tempting with forbidden iruit : 
 Together let us beat this ample field, 
 Try what the open, what the covert, yield ; 
 The latent tracts, the giddy hights, explore 
 Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar ; 
 Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flie?, 
 And catch the manners living as they rise ; 
 Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, 
 But vindicate the ways of God to man. 
 
 I. Say first, of God above, or man below, 
 What can we reason but from what we know 1 
 Of man, what see we but his station here, 
 From which to reason, or to which refer '! 
 
 Through worlds unnumbered, though the God be known, 
 
 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. 
 
 He who through vast immensity can pierce, 
 
 See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
 
 Observe how system into system runs, 
 
 What other planets circle other suns, 
 
 What varied being peoples every star, 
 
 May tell why Heaven has made us as we are : 
 
 But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, 
 
 The strong connections, nice dependencies, 
 
 Gradations just, has thy pervading soul 
 
 Looked through t or can a part contain the whole 1 
 
 Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, 
 And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee '! 
 
 II. Presumptuous man ! the reason would st thou find 
 Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? 
 
ALEXANDER POPE. 473 
 
 First, if thou canst, the harder reason gues^, 
 Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less ; 
 Ask of thy mother-earth why oaks were made 
 Taller or weaker than the Aveeds they shade ; 
 Or ask of yonder argent fields above 
 Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove. 
 
 Of systems possible, if 'tis contest 
 That Wisdom Infinite must form the best, 
 Where all must fall, or not coherent be, 
 And all that rises rise in due degree, 
 Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain 
 There must be somewhere such a rank as man ; 
 And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) 
 Is only this, If God has placed him wrong V 
 Respecting man, whatever wrong we call 
 May, must be, right, as relative to all. 
 In human works, though labored on with pain, 
 A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain : 
 In God's, one single can its end produce, 
 Yet serves to second, too, some other use. 
 So man, who here seems principal alone, 
 Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, 
 Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal : 
 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. 
 
 When the proud steed shall know why man restrains 
 His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; 
 When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, 
 Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god, 
 Then shall man's pride and dullness comprehend 
 His actions', passions', being's, use and end ; 
 Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled ; and why 
 This hour a slave, the next a deity. 
 
 Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault : 
 Say, rather, man's as perfect as he ought ; 
 His knowledge measured to his state and place; 
 His time a moment, and a point his space. 
 If to be perfect in a certain sphere, 
 What matter soon or late, or here or there ? 
 The blest to-day is as completely so 
 As who began a thousand years ago. 
 
 III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
 All but the page prescribed, their present state ; 
 From brutes what men, from men what spirits, know ; 
 Or who could suffer being here below ? 
 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
 Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? 
 Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, 
 And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 
 Oh blindness to the future ! kindly given, 
 That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven, 
 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 
 
474 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, 
 
 And now a* bubble burst, and now a world. 
 
 Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; 
 Wait the great teacher, Death ; and God adore. 
 What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, 
 But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. 
 Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 
 Man never is, but always to be, blest. 
 The soul, uneasy, and confined from home, 
 Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 
 
 Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ! 
 His soul proud science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk or milky-way ; 
 Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, 
 Ik-hind the cloud-topt hill, a humbler heaven, 
 Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
 Some happier island in the watery waste, 
 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold : 
 To be contents his natural desire ; 
 He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire ; 
 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company. 
 
 IV. Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense 
 Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; 
 
 Call im perfection what thou fanciest such; 
 Say here He gives too little, there too much ; 
 Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust ; 
 Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust : 
 If man alone engross not Heaven's high care, 
 Alone made perfect here, immortal there, 
 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, 
 Rejudge his justice ; be the god of God ! 
 
 In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies : 
 All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. 
 Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes : 
 Men would be angels ; angels would be gods. 
 Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, 
 Aspiring to be angels, men rebel ; 
 And who but wishes to invert the laws 
 Of order sins against the Eternal Cause. 
 
 V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, 
 Earth for whose use. Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine 
 For me kind Nature wakes her genial power, 
 Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower ; 
 Annual for me the grape, the rose, renew 
 
 The juice nectareous and the balmy dew; 
 For me the mine a thousand treasures brings ; 
 For me health gushes from a thousand springs ; 
 Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; 
 My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." 
 
ALEXANDER POPE. 475 
 
 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, 
 From burning suns when livid deaths descend, 
 When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep 
 Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ? 
 " No," 'tis replied : " the first Almighty Cause 
 Aets not by partial, but by general laws : 
 The exceptions few ; some change since all begun : 
 And what created perfect ? " Why, then, man V 
 If the great end be human happiness, 
 Then Nature deviates ; and can man do less ? 
 As much that end a constant course requires 
 Of showers and sunshine as of man's desires ; 
 As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, 
 As men ibr ever temperate, calm, and wise. 
 If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, 
 Why, then, a Borgia or a Catiline V 
 Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms, 
 Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, 
 Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind, 
 Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind V 
 From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs ; 
 Account for moral as for natural things : 
 Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit ? 
 In both, to reason right, is to submit. 
 
 Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 
 Were there all harmony, all virtue here ; 
 That never air nor ocean felt the wind ; 
 That never passion discomposed the mind : 
 But all subsists by elemental strife ; 
 And passions are the elements of life. 
 The general order, since the world began, 
 Is kept in Nature, and is kept in man. 
 
 VI. What would this man ? Now upward will he soar, 
 And, little less than angel, would be more V 
 Now looking downward, just as grieved, appears 
 To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. 
 Made for his use all creatures, if he call, 
 Say what their use, had he the powers of all ? 
 Nature to these, without profusion, kind, 
 The proper organs, proper powers, assigned ; 
 Each seeming want compensated, of course, 
 Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force ; 
 All in exact proportion to the state ; 
 Nothing to add, and nothing to abate. 
 Each beast, each insect, happy in its own. 
 Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone ? 
 Shall he alone, whom rational we call, 
 Be pleased with nothing if not blessed with all ? 
 The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) 
 Is not to act or think beyond mankind ; 
 No powers of body or of soul to share 
 But what his nature and his state can bear. 
 
476 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Why hrts not man a microscopic eye ? 
 
 For' this plain reason : man is not'a fly. 
 
 Say what the use, were finer optics given, 
 
 To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven? 
 
 Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, 
 
 To smart and agonize at every pore ? 
 
 Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain, 
 
 Die of a rose in aromatic pain ? 
 
 If Nature thundered in his opening ears, 
 
 And stunned him with the music of the spheres, 
 
 How would he wish that Heaven had left him still 
 
 The whispering zephyr and the purling rill ! 
 
 Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 
 
 Alike in what it gives and what denies ? 
 
 VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, 
 The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends : 
 Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race, 
 From the green myriads in the peopled grass ! 
 What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme! 
 The mole's dim curtain and the lynx'-s beam ; 
 
 Of smell, the headlong lioness between, 
 And hound sagacious on the tainted green ; 
 Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood 
 To that which warbles through the vernal wood. 
 The spider's touch how exquisitely fine ! 
 Feels at each thread, and lives along the line : 
 In the nice bee, what sense, so subtly true, 
 From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew I 
 How instinct varies in the groveling swine, 
 Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine 1 
 'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier ! 
 For ever separate, yet for ever near ! 
 Remembrance and reflection how allied ! 
 What thin partitions sense from thought divide 1 
 And middle natures how they long to join, 
 Yet never pass the insuperable'line ! 
 Without this just gradation could they be 
 Subjected, these to those, or all to thee ? 
 The powers of all subdued by thee alone, 
 Is not thy reason all these powers in one ? 
 
 VIII. See through this air, this ocean, and this earth, 
 All matter quick, and bursting into birth ! 
 
 Above, how high progressive life may jro ! 
 
 Around, how wide ! how deep extend below ! 
 
 Vast chain of being, which from God began ! 
 
 Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, 
 
 Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, 
 
 No glass can reach ; from infinite to thee, 
 
 From thee to nothing. On superior powers 
 
 Were we to press, inferior might on ours ; 
 
 Or in the full tveation leave a void, 
 
 AN' here, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed : 
 
ALEXANDER POPE. 477 
 
 From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
 Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. 
 
 And, if each system in gradation roll 
 Alike essential to the amazing whole, 
 The least confusion but in one, not all 
 That system only, but the whole, must fall. 
 Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, 
 Planets and suns run lawless through the sky ; 
 Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, 
 Being on being wrecked, and world on world, 
 Heaven's whole foundations to their center nod, 
 And Nature trembles to the throne of God. 
 All this dread order break? For whom? for thee? 
 Vile worm ! O madness ! pride ! impiety ! 
 
 IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, 
 Or hand to toil, aspired to be the head ? 
 
 What if the head, the eye, or ear, repined 
 To serve mere engines to the ruling mind? 
 Just as absurd for any part to claim 
 To be another in this general frame ; 
 Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains 
 The great directing Mind of all ordains. 
 
 All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul : 
 That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, 
 Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame, 
 W r arms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent, 
 Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
 As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
 As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
 As the rapt seraph that adores and burns : 
 To him no high, no low, no great, no small ; 
 He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. 
 
 X. Cease, then, nor order imperfection name : 
 Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. 
 Know thy own point : This kind, this due degree, 
 Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. 
 Submit. In this or any other sphere 
 
 Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear ; 
 
 Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, 
 
 Or in the natal or the mortal hour. 
 
 All nature is but art, unknown to thee ; 
 
 All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; 
 
 All discord, harmony not understood; 
 
 All partial evil, universal good. 
 
 And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
 
 One truth is clear : Whatever is, is right. 
 
478 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 EPISTLE II. 
 
 I. KNOW then thyself; presume not God to scan I 
 The proper study of mankind is man. 
 Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, 
 A being darkly wise and rudely great ; 
 With too much knowledge for the skeptic's side, 
 With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, 
 He hangs between ; in doubt to act or rest ; 
 In doubt to deem himself a god or beast ; 
 In doubt his mind or body to prefer, 
 Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; 
 Alike in ignorance, his reason such, 
 Whether he thinks too little or too much ; 
 Chaos of thought and passion, all confused, 
 Still by himself abused or disabused ; 
 Created half to rise, and half to fall ; 
 Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all ; 
 Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled; 
 
 The glory, jest, and riddle of the world ! 
 
 H'ionpp. o-7iiflf>si 
 
 . J es 
 Go, wondrous creature ! mount where Science guides; 
 
 Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides ; 
 Instruct the planets in what orbs to run ; 
 Correct old Time, and regulate the sun ; 
 Go soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere, 
 To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; 
 Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, 
 And quitting sense call imitating God, 
 As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, 
 And turn their heads to imitate the sun ; 
 Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule; 
 Then drop into thyself, and be a fool ! 
 
 Superior beings* when of late they saw 
 A mortal man unfold all Nature's law, 
 Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, 
 And showed a Newton as we show an ape. 
 
 Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, 
 Describe or fix one movement of his mind, 
 Who saw its fires here rise and there descend, 
 Explain his own beginning or his end ? 
 Alas, what wonder ! man's superior part 
 Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art ; 
 But, when his own great work is but begun, 
 What reason weaves, by passion is undone. 
 
 Trace Science, then, with Modesty thy guide ; 
 First strip off all her equipage of pride ; 
 Deduct what is but vanity or dress, 
 Or learning's luxury, or idleness, 
 Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, 
 ]\Iere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain ; 
 Expunge the whole, or lop the excrescent parts 
 Of all our vices have created arts ; 
 
ALEXANDER POPE. 479 
 
 Then see how little the remaining sum, 
 
 Which served the past, and must the times to come 1 
 
 II. Two principles in human nature reign, 
 Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain. 
 Nor this a good, nor that a bad, we call ; 
 (Each works its end, to move or govern all ;) 
 And to their proper operation still 
 Ascribe all good ; to their improper, ill. 
 Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul : 
 Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. 
 Man, but for that, no action could attend ; 
 And, but for this, were active to no end : 
 Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, 
 To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot ; 
 Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, 
 Destroying others, by himself destroyed. 
 Most strength the moving principle requires; 
 Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. 
 Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, 
 Formed but to check, deliberate, and advise. 
 Self-love still stronger as its object's nigh ; 
 Reason's at distance, and in prospect, lie : 
 That sees immediate good by present sense; 
 Reason, the future and the consequence. 
 Thicker than arguments temptations throng ; 
 At best more watchful this, but that more strong. 
 The action of the stronger to suspend, 
 Reason still use, to reason still attend. 
 Attention, habit and experience gains : 
 Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. 
 Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, 
 (More studious to divide than to unite,) 
 And grace and virtue, sense and reason, split 
 With all the rash dexterity of wit. 
 Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, 
 Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. 
 Self-love and reason to one end aspire, 
 Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire : 
 But greedy that, its object would devour ; 
 This taste the honey, and not wound the flower : 
 Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, 
 Our greatest evil or our greatest good. 
 
 III. Modes of self-love the passions we may call : 
 Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all. 
 But since not every goocf we can divide, 
 And Reason bids us for our own provide, 
 Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, 
 List under Reason, and deserve her care : 
 Those that, imparted, court a nobler aim, 
 Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. 
 
 In lazy apathy let stoics boast 
 Their virtue fixed ; 'tis fixed as in a frost, 
 
480 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Contracted all, retiring to the breast : 
 But strength of mind is exercise, not rest. 
 The rising tempest puts iiract the soul : 
 Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. 
 On Life's vast ocean diversely we sail, 
 Reason the chart, but Passion is the gale. 
 Nor God alone in the still calm we find : 
 lie mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 
 
 Passions, like elements, though born to fight, 
 Yet mixed and softened, in his work unite : 
 These 'tis enough to temper and employ ; 
 But what composes man, can man destroy ? 
 Suffice that Reason keep to Nature's road, 
 Subject, compound them, follow her and God. 
 
 Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train ; 
 Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain, 
 These, mixed with art, and to due bounds confined, 
 Make and maintain the balance of the mind : 
 The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife 
 Gives all the strength and color of our life. 
 
 Pleasures are ever in our hands and eyes ; 
 And, when in act they cease, in prospect rise : 
 Present to grasp, and future still to find, 
 The whole employ of body and of mind, 
 All spread their charms, but charm not all alike. 
 On different senses, different objects strike : 
 Hence different passions more or less inflame, 
 As strong or weak, the organs of the frame ; 
 And hence one master-passion in the breast, 
 Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. 
 
 As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, 
 Receives the lurking principle of death ; 
 The young disease, which must subdue at length, 
 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength : 
 So, cast and mingled with his very frame, 
 The mind's disease, its ruling passion came : 
 Each vital humor which should feed the whole 
 Soon flows to this in body and in soul : 
 Whatever warms the heart or fills the head 
 As the mind opens, and its functions spread. 
 Imagination plies her dangerous art, 
 And pours it all upon the peccant part. 
 
 Nature its mother, habit is its nurse ; 
 Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse : 
 Reason itself but gives it edge and power, 
 As heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour. 
 We wretched subjects, though no lawful sway, 
 In this weak queen some favorite still obey : 
 Ah ! if she lend not arms as well as rules, 
 What can she more than tell us we are fools ; 
 Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend ; 
 A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend ; 
 
ALEXANDER POPE. 
 
 Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade 
 The choice we make, or justify it made V 
 Proud of an easy conquest all along, 
 She but removes weak passions for the strong : 
 So, when small humors gather to a gout, 
 The doctor fancies he has driven them out. 
 
 Yes, Nature's road must ever be preferred : 
 Reason is hare no guide, but still a guard. 
 'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, 
 And treat this passion more as friend than foe : 
 A mightier power the strong direction sends, 
 And several men impels to several ends : 
 Like varying winds, by other passions tost, 
 This drives them constant to a certain coast. 
 Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, 
 Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease, 
 Through life 'tis followed, e'en at life's expense. 
 The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence, 
 The monk's humility, the hero's pride, 
 All, all, alike, find Reason on their side. 
 
 The Eternal Art, educing good from ill, 
 Grafts on this passion our best principle : 
 Tis thus the mercury of man is fixed ; 
 Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed ; 
 The dross cements what else were too refined ; 
 And, in one interest, body acts with mind. 
 
 As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, 
 On savage stocks inserted learn to bear; 
 The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, 
 Wild Nature's vigor working at the root. 
 What crops of wit and honesty appear 
 From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear ! 
 See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; 
 Even avarice, prudence ; sloth, philosophy ; 
 Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, 
 Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; 
 Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave, 
 Is emulation in the learned or brave : 
 Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, 
 But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. 
 
 Thus Nature gives us (let it check our pride) 
 The virtue nearest to our vice allied : 
 Reason the bias turns to good from ill, 
 And Nero reigns a Titus if he will. 
 The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, 
 In Djcius charms, in Curtius is divine : 
 The same ambition can destroy or save, 
 An 1 makes a patriot as it makes a knave. 
 
 IV. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, 
 What shall divide? The God within the mind, 
 Extremes in Nature equal ends produce : 
 In man they join to some mysterious use ; 
 31 
 
482 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Though each by turns the other's bounds invade, 
 As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade ; 
 And oft so mixed, the difference is too nice 
 Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. 
 Fools ! who from hence into the notion fall 
 That vice and virtue there is none at all. 
 If white and black blend, soften, and unite 
 A thousand ways, is there no black or white? 
 Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain : 
 'Tis to mistake them costs the time and pain. 
 
 V. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
 
 Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 
 
 But where the extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed. 
 
 Ask where's the North ? At York, 'tis on the Tweed; 
 
 In Scotland, at the Orcades ; and there, 
 
 At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where : 
 
 No creature owns it in the first degree, 
 
 But thinks his neighbor farther gone than he, 
 
 E'en those who dwell beneath its very zone, 
 
 Or never feel the rage, or never own. 
 
 What happier natures shrink at with affright 
 
 The hard inhabitant contends is right. 
 
 VI. Virtuous and vicious every man must be ; 
 Few in the extreme, but all in the degree : 
 The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise ; 
 And e'en the best, by fits, what they despise. 
 'Tis but. by parts we follow good or ill ; 
 
 For, vice or virtue, self directs it still. 
 Each individual seeks a several goal ; 
 
 VII. But Heaven's great view is one, and that the whole. 
 That counter-works each folly and caprice ; 
 
 That disappoints the effects of every vice ; 
 That happy frailties to all ranks applied, 
 Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, 
 Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, 
 To kings presumption, and to crowds belief; 
 That virtue's ends from vanity can raise, 
 Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise, 
 And build on wants, and on defects of mind, 
 The joy, the peace, the glory, of mankind. 
 
 Heaven, forming each on other to depend, 
 (A master, or a servant, or a friend,) 
 Bids each on other for assistance call, 
 Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. 
 Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally 
 The common interest, or endear the tie. 
 To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 
 Each home-felt joy that life inherits here: 
 Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, 
 Those joys, those loves, those interests, to resign ; 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 483 
 
 Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, 
 To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 
 
 Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, 
 Not one will change his neighbor with himself. 
 The learned is happy Nature to explore ; 
 The fool is happy that he knows no more ; 
 The rich is happy in the plenty given ; 
 The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. 
 See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, 
 The sot a hero, lunatic a king, 
 The starving chemist in his golden views 
 Supremely blest, the poet in his Muse. 
 
 See some strange comfort every state attend, 
 And pride bestowed on all, a common friend : 
 See some fit passion every age supply ; 
 Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. 
 
 Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, 
 Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw ! 
 Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, 
 A little louder, but as empty quite 1 
 Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage ; 
 And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age : 
 Pleased with this bauble still, as that before ; 
 Till, tired, he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er. 
 Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays 
 Those painted clouds that beautify our days : 
 Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 
 And each vacuity of sense by pride : 
 These build as fast as knowledge can destroy ; 
 In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble, Joy ; 
 One prospect lost, another still we gain ; 
 And not a vanity is given in vain ; 
 E'en mean self-love becomes, by force divine, 
 The scale to measure others' wants by thine. 
 See ! and confess, one comfort still must rise : * 
 'Tis this, though man's a fool, yet God is wise. 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 1667-1745. 
 
 Author of " Tale of a Tub," " Gulliver's Travels," " The Drapier Letters," and 
 many other minor works of prose and poetry. With almost infinite scorn and con- 
 tempt for the pretentious claims of king, court, and people, the assumptions of the 
 would-be great and learned, he towers, compared with other writers, a Brobding- 
 nag of bitter irony, fierce sarcasm, and savage wit, among harmless Liliputians. 
 
484 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 GULLIVER'S TRAVELS TO BROBDINGNAG. 
 
 THE frequent labors I underwent every day made in a few weeks 
 a very considerable change in my health. The more my master 
 got by me, the more insatiable he grew. I had quite lost my 
 stomach, and was quite reduced to a skeleton. The farmer observ- 
 ing it, and concluding I must soon die, resolved to make as goo I 
 a hand of me as he could. While he was thus reasoning and re- 
 solving with himself, a sardral, or gentleman usher, came from 
 court, commanding my master to carry me immediately thither for 
 the diversion of the queen and her ladies. Some of the latter had 
 already been to see me, and reported strange things of my beauty, 
 behavior, and good sense. Her Majesty, and those who attended 
 her, were beyond measure delighted with my demeanor. I fell 011 
 my knees, and begged the honor of kissing her imperial foot ; but 
 this gracious princess held out her little finger towards me after 
 I was set on the table, which I embraced in both my arms, and 
 put the tip of it with the utmost respect to my lip. She asked 
 me some general questions about my country and my travels, 
 which I answered as distinctly and in as few words as I could. 
 She asked whether I could be content to live at court. I bowed 
 down to the board of the table, and humbly answered, that I was 
 my master's slave ; but, if I were at my own disposal, I should 
 be proud to devote my life to her Majest} T 's service. She then 
 asked my master whether he was willing to sell me at a good 
 price. He, who apprehended that I could not live a month, was 
 ready enough to part with me, and demanded a thousand pieces 
 of gold, which were ordered him on the spot; each piece being 
 about the bigness of eight hundred moidores. But allowing for 
 the proportion of all things between that country and Europe, 
 and the high price of gold among them, this was hardly so great 
 a sum as a thousand guineas would be in England. I then said 
 to the queen, since I was now her Majesty's most humble creature 
 and vassal, I must beg the favor that Glumdalclitch, who had 
 always tended me with so much care and kindness, and knew how 
 to do it so well, might be admitted into the service, and continue 
 to be my nurse and instructor. Her Majesty agreed to my petition, 
 and easily got the farmer's consent, who was glad enough to have 
 his daughter preferred at court; and the poor girl herself was not 
 able to hide her joy. My late master withdrew, bidding me fare- 
 well, and saying lie had left me in a good service; to which I 
 replied not a word, only making him a slight bow. 
 
 The queen observed my coldness, and, when the farmer was 
 gone out of the apartment, asked me the reason. I made bold to 
 tell her Majesty that I owed no other obligation to my late master 
 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 485 
 
 than his not dashing out the brains of a poor harmless creature, 
 found by chance in his fields ; which obligation was amply recom- 
 pensed by the gain he had made in showing me through half the 
 kingdom, and the price he had now sold me for ; that the life I 
 had since led was laborious enough to kill an animal of tea times 
 my strength ; that my health was much impaired by the continual 
 drudgery of entertaining the rabble every hour of the day ; and 
 that, if my master had not thought my life in danger, her Majesty 
 would not have got so cheap a bargain : but as I was out of all 
 fear of being ill treated under the protection of so great and good 
 an empress, the ornament of nature, the darling of the world, 
 the delight of her subjects, the phoenix of the creation, so I 
 hoped my late master's apprehensions would appear to be ground- 
 less ; for I had already found my spirits revive by the influence of 
 her most august presence. This was the sum of my speech, 
 delivered with great improprieties and hesitation. The latter 
 part was altogether framed in the style peculiar to that people, 
 whereof I learned some phrases from Glumdalclitch while she 
 was carrying me to court. 
 
 The queen, giving great allowance for my defectiveness in 
 speaking, was, however, surprised at so much wit and good sense 
 in so diminutive an animal. She took me in her own hand, and 
 carried me to the king, who was then retired to his cabinet. His 
 Majesty, a prince of much gravity and austere countenance, not 
 well observing my shape at first view, asked the queen, after a 
 cold manner, how long it was since she grew fond of a splacknttck ; 
 for such, it seems, he took me to be as I lay upon my breast in 
 her Majesty*,s right hand. But this princess, who has an infinite 
 deal of wit and humor, set me gently on my feet upon the scru- 
 toire, and commanded me to give his Majesty an account of my- 
 self; which I did in a very few words: and Glumdalclitch, who 
 attended at the cabinet-door, and could not endure I should be 
 out of her sight, being admitted, confirmed all that had passed 
 from my arrival at her father's house. 
 
 The king, although he is as learned a person as any in his 
 dominions (having been educated in the study of philosophy, and 
 particularly mathematics), yet when he observed my shape exactly, 
 and saw me walk erect, before I began to speak, conceived I might 
 be a piece of clock-work (which has in that country arrived to a 
 very great perfection) contrived by some ingenious person. But 
 when he heard my voice, and found what I delivered to be regular 
 and rational, he could not conceal his astonishment. He was by 
 no means satisfied with the relation I gave him of the manner I 
 came into his kingdom, but thought it a story concerted between 
 Glumdalclitch. and her father, who had taught me a set of words to 
 make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination he put 
 
486 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 several other questions to me, and still received rational answers, 
 no otherwise defective than by a foreign accent and an imperfect 
 knowledge of the language, with some rustic phrases which I had 
 learned at the farmer's house, and did not suit the polite stj'le of 
 a court. 
 
 His Majesty sent for three great scholars, who were then in the 
 weekly waiting according to the custom in that country. These 
 gentlemen, after they had examined my shape with much nicety, 
 were of different opinions concerning me. They all agreed that 
 I could not be produced according to the regular laws of Nature, 
 because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, 
 either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the 
 earth. They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with 
 great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal ; yet most quad- 
 rupeds being an overmatch for me, and field-mice, with some 
 others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I sholild be able to 
 support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which 
 they oifered by many learned arguments to evince that I could 
 not possibly do. One of these virtuosi seemed to think that I 
 might be an embryo or abortive birth ; but this opinion was re- 
 jected by the other two, who observed my limbs to be perfect 
 and finished, and that I had lived several years, as was manifest 
 from my beard, the stumps whereof they plainly discovered 
 through a magnifying-glass. They would not allow me to be 
 a dwarf, because my littleness was beyond all degrees of com- 
 parison ; for the queen's favorite dwarf, the smallest ever known 
 in the kingdom, was nearly thirty feet high. After much debate, 
 they concluded unanimously that I was only relplumsscalcath, 
 which is, interpreted literally, lusus natures ; a determination 
 exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe, whose 
 professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, whereby 
 the followers of Aristotle endeavored in vain to disguise their 
 ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, 
 to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge. 
 
 After this decisive conclusion, I entreated to be heard a word or 
 two. I applied myself to the king, and assured his Majesty that 
 I came from a country which abounded with several millions of 
 both sexes and of my own stature ; where the animals, trees, and 
 houses were all in proportion ; and where, by consequence, I might 
 be as able to defend myself, and to find sustenance, as any of his 
 Majesty's subjects could do here: which I took fora full answer to 
 those gentlemen's arguments. To this they only replied by a 
 smile of contempt, saying that the farmer had instructed me 
 very well in my lesson. The king, who had a much better 
 understanding, dismissing his learned men, sent for the fanner, 
 who, by good fortune, was not yet gone out of town. Having, 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 487 
 
 therefore, first examined him privately, and then confronted him 
 with 'me and the young girl, his Majesty began to think that what 
 we told him might possibly be true. He desired the queen to 
 order that a particular care should be taken of me ; and was of 
 opinion that Glumdalclitch should still continue in her office of 
 tending me, because he observed we had great affection for each 
 other. A convenient apartment was provided for her at court : 
 she had a sort of governess appointed to take care of her educa- 
 tion, a maid to dress her, and two other servants for menial offices ; 
 but the care of me was wholly appropriated to herself. The queen 
 commanded her own cabinet-maker to contrive a box that might 
 serve me for a bed-chamber, after the model that Glumdalclitch 
 and I should agree upon. This man was a most ingenious artist ; 
 and, according to my direction, in three weeks finished for me a 
 wooden chamber of sixteen feet square, and twelve high, with 
 sash-windows, a door, and two closets, like a London bed-chamber. 
 The board that made the ceiling was to be lifted up and down by 
 two hinges, to put in a bed ready furnished by her Majesty's 
 upholsterer, which Glumdalclitch took out every day to air, made 
 it with her own hands, and, letting it down at night, locked up 
 the roof over me. A nice workman who was famous for little 
 curiosities undertook to make me two chairs, with backs and 
 frames of a substance not unlike ivory, and two tables, with a 
 cabinet to put my things in. The room was quilted on all sides, 
 as well as the floor and the ceiling, to prevent any accident from 
 the carelessness of those who carried me, and to break the force 
 of a jolt when I went in a coach. I desired a lock to my door to 
 prevent rats and mice from coming in. The smith, after several 
 attempts, made the smallest that ever was seen among them ; for 
 I have known a larger at the gate of a gentleman's house in 
 England. I made a shift to keep the key in a pocket of my own, 
 fearing Glumdalclitch might lose it. The queen likewise ordered 
 the thinnest silks that could be gotten to make me clothes, not 
 much thicker than an English blanket ; very cumbrous till I was 
 accustomed to them. They were after the fashion of the king- 
 dom, partly resembling the Persian, and partly the Chinese ; and 
 are a very grave and decent habit. 
 
 The queen became so fond of my company, that she could not 
 dine without me. I had a table placed upon the same at which 
 her Majesty ate (just at her elbow), and a chair to sit on. Glum- 
 dalclitch stood on a stool on the floor, near my table, to assist and 
 take care of me. I had an entire set of silver dishes and plates, 
 and other necessaries, which, in proportion to those of the queen, 
 were not much bigger than those in a London toy-shop for the 
 furniture of a baby-house: these my little nurse kept in her 
 pocket in a silver box, and gave me at meals as I wanted them, 
 
488 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 always cleaning them herself. No person dined with the queen but 
 the two princesses royal, the eldest sixteen years old, and the 
 younger at that time thirteen and 3 month. Her Majesty used to 
 put a bit of meat upon one of my dishes, out of which I carved 
 for myself: and her diversion was to see me eat in miniature ; for 
 the queen (who had indeed but a weak stomach) took up at one 
 mouthful as much as a dozen English farmers could eat at a 
 meal, which to me was for some time a very nauseous sight. She 
 would craunch the wing of a lark, bones and all, between her 
 teeth, although it were nine times as large as that of a full-grown 
 turkey ; and put a bit of bread in her mouth as large as two 
 twelvepenny-1 oaves. She drank out of a golden cup above a 
 hogshead at a draught. Her knives were twice as long as a 
 scythe set straight upon the handle : the spoons, forks, and other 
 instruments, were all in the same proportion. I remember when 
 Glumdalclitch carried me, out of curiosity, to see some of the 
 tables at court, where ten or a dozen of those enormous knives 
 and forks were lifted up together: I thought I had never till then 
 beheld so terrible a sight. 
 
 It is the custom that every Wednesday (which, as I have ob- 
 served, is their sabbath) the king and queen, with the royal issue 
 of both sexes, dine together in the apartment of his Majest3 r , to 
 whom I was now become a great favorite ; and at these times my 
 little chair and table were placed at his left hand before one of 
 the salt-cellars. This prince took a pleasure in conversing with 
 me, inquiring into the manners, religion, laws, government, and 
 learning of Europe ; wherein I gave him the best account I was 
 able. His apprehension was so clear, and his judgment so exact, 
 that he made very wise reflections and observations upon all I 
 said. But I confess, that, after I had been a little too copious in 
 talking of my beloved country, of our trade, and wars by sea and 
 land; of our schisms in religion, and parties in the state, the pre- 
 judices of his education prevailed so far, that he could not forbear 
 taking me up in his right hand; and, stroking me gently with 
 the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, he asked me whether I 
 was a Whig or a Tory. Then turning to his first minister, who 
 waited behind him with a white staff nearly as tall as the main- 
 mast of " The Royal Sovereign," he observed how contemptible 
 a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such 
 diminutive insects -as I. "And yet," says he, "I dare engage 
 these creatures have their titles, and distinctions of honor : they 
 contrive little nests and burrows that they call houses and cities ; 
 they make a figure, and dress in equipage ; they love, they dispute, 
 they fight, they cheat, they betray." And thus he continued, 
 while my color came and went several times with indignation to 
 hear our noble country the mistress of arts and arms, the 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 489 
 
 scourge of France, the arbitress of Europe, the seat of virtue, 
 piety, honor, and truth, the pride and envy of the world so 
 contemptuously treated. 
 
 But as I was not in a condition to resent injuries, so, upon ma- 
 ture thoughts, I began to doubt whether I was injured or no. 
 For after having been accustomed several months to the sight 
 and converse of this people, and observed every object upon 
 whicli I cast mine eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the 
 horror I had at first conceived from their bulk and aspect 
 was so far worn off, that if I had then beheld a company of 
 English lords and ladies in their finery and birthday-clothes, 
 acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of strutting 
 and bowing and prating, to say the truth, I should have 
 been strongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and 
 his grandees did at me. Neither, indeed, could I forbear smiling 
 at myself when the queen used to place me upon her hand to- 
 wards a looking-glass, by which both our persons appeared before 
 me in full view together : and there could be nothing more ridicu- 
 lous than the comparison ; so that I realty began to imagine my- 
 self dwindled many degrees below my usual size. 
 
 Nothing angered and mortified me so much as the queen's 
 dwarf, who, being of the lowest statu-re that was ever in that 
 country (for I verily think he was not full thirty feet high), be- 
 came so insolent at seeing a creature so much beneath him, that 
 he would always affect to swagger and look big as he passed by 
 me in the queen's ante-chamber, while I was standing on some 
 table talking with the lords or ladies of the court: and he seldom 
 failed of a smart word or two upon my littleness ; against which I 
 could only revenge myself by calling him " brother," challenging 
 him to wrestle, and such repartees as are usually in the mouths of 
 court pages. One day at dinner, this malicious little cub was so 
 nettled at something I said to him, that, raising himself upon the 
 frame of her Majesty's chair, he took me up by the middle, as I 
 was sitting down not thinking any harm, and let me drop into a 
 large silver bowl of cream, and then ran aw r ay as fast as he could. 
 I fell overhead and ears: and, if I had not been a good swimmer, 
 it might have gone very hard with me ; for Glumdalclitch at that 
 instant happened to be at the other end of the room; and the 
 queen was in such a fright, that she wanted presence of mind to 
 assist me. But my little nurse ran to my relief, and took me out 
 after I had swallowed above a quart of cream. I was-put to bed : 
 however, I received no other damage than the loss of a suit of 
 clothes, which w^re utterly spoiled. The dwarf was soundly 
 whipped, and, as a further punishment, forced to drink up the 
 howl of cream into which he had thrown me: neither was he ever 
 restored to favor; for, soon after, the queen bestowed him on a 
 
490 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 lady of high quality, so that I saw him no more, to my very great 
 satisfaction ; for I could not tell to what extremity such a ma- 
 licious urchin might have carried his resentment. He had before 
 served me a scurvy trick, which set the queen a-laughing ; although 
 at the same time she was heartily vexed, and would have imme- 
 diately cashiered him if I had not been so generous as to inter- 
 cede. Her Majesty had taken a marrow-bone upon her plate, and, 
 after knocking out the marrow, placed the bone again on the dish 
 erect, as it stood before. The dwarf, watching his opportunity 
 when Glumdalclitch was gone to the sideboard, mounted the stool 
 that she stood on to take care of me at meals, took me up in both 
 hands, and, squeezing my legs together, wedged them into the mar- 
 row-bone above my waist, where I stuck for some time, and made 
 a very ridiculous tigure. I believe it was near a minute before 
 any one knew what was become of me; for I thought it below me 
 to cry out. But, as princes seldom get their meat hot, my legs 
 were not scalded ; only my stockings and breeches were in a sad 
 condition. The dwarf, at my entreaty, had no other punishment 
 than a sound whipping. . 
 
 I was frequently rallied by the queen upon account of my 
 fearfulness ; and she used to ask me whether the people of my 
 country were as great cowards as myself. The occasion was this: 
 The kingdom is much pestered with flies in summer; and these 
 odious insects, each of them as big as a Dunstable lark, hardly 
 gave me any rest while I sat at dinner, with their continual hum- 
 ming and buzzing about mine ears. They would sometimes 
 alight upon my victuals ; and they would fix upon my nose or 
 forehead, where they stung me to the quick, smelling very offen- 
 sively ; and I could easily trace that viscous matter, which, our 
 naturalists tell us, enables those creatures to walk with their feet 
 upwards upon a ceiling. I had much ado to defend myself against 
 these detestable animals, and could not forbear starting when 
 they came on my face. It was the common practice of the dwarf 
 to catch a number of these insects in his hand, as schoolboys do 
 among us, and let them out suddenly under my nose, on purpose 
 to frighten me, and divert the queen. My remedy was to cut 
 them in pieces with my knife as they flew in the air; wherein my 
 dexterity was much admired. 
 
 I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in 
 a box upon a window, as she usually did in fair da} 7 s, to give me 
 air (for L durst not venture to let the box be hung on a nail out 
 of the window as we do with cages in England), after I had 
 lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a 
 piece of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured 
 by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than 
 the drones of as many bagpipes. Some of them seized my cake, 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 491 
 
 and carried it away piecemeal : others flew about my head and 
 face, confounding me with their noise, and putting me in the 
 utmost terror of their stings. However, I had the courage to rise 
 and draw my hanger, and attack them in the air. I dispatched 
 four of them ; but the rest got away : and I presently shut my 
 window. These insects are as large as partridges. I took out 
 their stings, and found them an inch and a half long, and as 
 sharp as needles. I carefully preserved them all ; and having 
 since shown them, with other curiosities, in several parts of 
 Europe, upon my return to England I gave three to Gresham 
 College, and kept the fourth for myself. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I SHOULD have lived happy enough in that country if my 
 littleness had not exposed me to several ridiculous and trouble- 
 some accidents ; some of which I shall venture to relate. Glum- 
 dalclitch often carried me into the gardens of the court in my 
 smaller box ; and would sometimes take me out of it, and hold me 
 in her hand, or set me down to walk. I remember, before the 
 dwarf left the queen, he followed us one day into those gardens; 
 and, my nurse having set me down (he and I being close together 
 near some dwarf apple-trees), I must needs show my wit by a 
 silly allusion between him and the trees, which happens to hold 
 in their language as it does in ours. Whereupon the malicious 
 rogue, watching his opportunity when I was walking under one 
 of them, shook it directly over my head, by which a dozen apples, 
 each of them near as large as a Bristol barrel, came tumbling 
 about my ears. One of them hit me on the back as I chanced 
 to stoop, and knocked me down flat on my face ; but I received 
 no other hurt: and the dwarf was pardoned at my desire, because 
 I had given the provocation. 
 
 Another day, Glumdalclitch left me on a smooth grassplot 
 to divert myself while she walked at some distance with her 
 governess. In the mean time, there suddenly fell such a violent 
 shower of hail, that I was immediately, by the force of it, struck 
 to the ground ; and, when I was down, the hailstones gave me 
 such cruel bangs all over my body as if I had been pelted with 
 tennis-balls : however, I made a shift to creep on all-fours, and 
 shelter myself by lying flat on my face on the lee-side of a 
 border of lemon-thyme, but so bruised from head to foot, that I 
 could not go abroad for ten days. Neither is this at all to be 
 wondered at, because, Nature in that country observing the same 
 proportion through all her operations, a hailstone is near eighteen 
 hundred times as large as one in Europe ; which I can assert 
 upon experience, having been so curious as to weigh and measure 
 them. 
 
492 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 But a more dangerous accident happened to me in the same 
 garden, where my little nurse, believing she had put me in a sate 
 place (which I often entreated her to do, that I might enjoy my 
 own thoughts), and having left the box at home to avoid the 
 trouble of carrying it, went to another part of the garden with 
 her governess and some ladies of her acquaintance. While she 
 was absent, and out of hearing, a small white spaniel that 
 belonged to one of the chief gardeners, having got by accident 
 into the garden, happened to range near the spot where I lay. 
 The dog, following the scent, came directly up, and, taking me in 
 his mouth, ran straight to his master, wagging his tail, and set 
 me gently on the ground. By good fortune, he had been so well 
 tauglit, that I w r as carried between his teeth without the least 
 hurt, or even tearing my clothes. But the poor gardener, who 
 knew me well, and had a great kindness for me, was in a terrible 
 fright: he gently took me up in both his hands, and asked me 
 how I did ; but I was so amazed and out of breath, that I could 
 not speak a word. In a few minutes I came to myself ; and he 
 carried me safe to my little nurse, who by this time had returned 
 to the place where she left me, and was in cruel agonies when I 
 did not appear, nor answer when she called. She severely repri- 
 manded the gardener on account of his dog. But the thing was 
 hushed up, and never known at court, for the girl was afraid of 
 the queen's anger; and truly, as to myself, I thought it would 
 not be for my reputation that such a storj r should go about. This 
 accident determined Glumdalclitch never to trust me abroad, for 
 the future, out of her sight. I had been long afraid of this 
 resolution, and therefore concealed from her some little unlucky 
 adventures that happened in those times when I was left by my- 
 self. Once a kite, hovering over the garden, made a stoop at me ; 
 and if I had not resolutely drawn my hanger, and run under a 
 thick espalier, he would have certainly carried me away in his 
 talons. Another time, walking to the top of a fresh mole-hill, I 
 fell to my neck in the hole through which that animal had cast 
 up the earth ; and coined a reason, not worth remembering, to 
 excuse myself for spoiling my clothes. I likewise broke my right 
 shin against the shell of a snail, which I happened to stumble 
 over as I was walking along and thinking on poor England. I 
 can not tell whether I was more pleased or mortified to observe 
 in these solitary walks that the smaller birds did not appear to 
 be at all afraid of me, but would hop about within a yard's dis- 
 tance, looking for worms and other food, with as much indifference 
 and security as if no creature at all were near them. I remem- 
 ber a thrush had the confidence to snatch out of my hand, witl? 
 his bill, a piece of ,cal>e that Glumdalclitch had just given me for 
 breakfast. When I attempted to catch any of these birds, they 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 493 
 
 would boldly turn against me, endeavoring to peck my fingers, 
 which I durst not venture within their reach ; and* then they 
 would hop back, unconcerned, to hunt for worms or snails as they 
 did before. But one day I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with 
 all my strength, so luckily, at a linnet, that I knocked him down, 
 and, seizing him by the neck with both my hands, ran with him 
 in triumph to my nurse. However, the bird, who had been only 
 stunned, recovering himself, gave me so many boxes with his 
 wings on both sides of my head and body, though I held him at 
 arm's-length and was out of the reach of his claws, that I was 
 twenty times thinking to let him go. But I was soon relieved 
 by one of our servants, who wrung off the bird's neck ; and I had 
 him next day for dinner, by the queen's command. This linnet, 
 as near as I can remember, seemed to be somewhat larger than 
 an English swan. 
 
 The maids of honor often invited Glumdalclitch to their apart- 
 ments, and desired she would bring me along with her on pur- 
 pose to have the pleasure of seeing and touching me. To me 
 their endearments were very disgusting, which I do not mention 
 or intend to the disadvantage of those excellent ladies, for whom 
 I h;ive all manner of respect ; but I conceive that my sense was 
 more acute in proportion to my littleness, and that those illus- 
 trious persons were no more disagreeable to their lovers, or to each 
 other, than people of the same quality are with us in England. 
 And, after all, I found the natural odor of their skin was much 
 more supportable than when they used perfumes, under which I 
 immediately swooned away. I can not forget that an intimate 
 friend of mine in Liliput took the freedom, in a warm day, when 
 I had used a good deal of exercise, to complain of a strong smell 
 about me, although I am as little faulty that way as most of my 
 sex; but I suppose his faculty of smelling was as nice with 
 regard to me as mine was to that of this people. Upon this 
 point I can not forbear doing justice to the queen my mistress, 
 and Glumdalclitch my nurse, whose persons were as sweet as 
 those of any lady in England. 
 
 One day, a young gentleman, who .was nephew to my nurse's 
 governess, came and pressed them both to see an execution. It 
 was of a man who had murdered one of that gentleman's inti- 
 mate acquaintance. Glumdalclitch was prevailed on to be of the 
 company, very much against her inclination, for she was natu- 
 rally tender-hearted ; and as for myself, although I abh'orred such 
 kind of spectacles, yet my curiosity tempted me to see something 
 that I thought must be extraordinary. The malefactor was 
 fixed in a chair upon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and his 
 head cut off at one blow with a sword of forty feet long. The 
 veins and arteries spouted up such a prodigious quantity of 
 
494 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 blood, and so high in the air, that the great jet d'eau at Ver- 
 sailles was not equal for the time it lasted; and the head, when 
 it fell upon the scaffold-floor, gave 'such a bounce as made me 
 start, although I was at least half an English mile distant. 
 
 The queen, who often used to hear me talk of sea- voyages, and 
 took all occasions to divert me when I was melancholy, asked me 
 whether I understood how to handle a sail or an oar, and whether 
 a little exercise of rowing might not be convenient for my health. 
 I answered that I understood both very well ; for although my 
 proper employment had been to be surgeon or doctor to the ship, 
 yet often, upon a pinch, I was forced to work like a common mari- 
 ner. But I could not see how this could be done in their coun- 
 try, where the smallest wherry was equal to a first-rate man-of-war 
 among us; and such a boat as I could manage would never live 
 in any of their rivers. Her Majesty said, if I could contrive a 
 boat, her own joiner should make it ; and she would provide a 
 place for me to sail in. The fellow was an ingenious workman, 
 and, by my instructions, in ten days finished a pleasure-boat, with 
 all its tackling, able conveniently to hold eight Europeans. When 
 it was finished, the queen was so delighted, that she ran with it 
 in her lap to the king, who ordered it to be put in a cistern full 
 of water, with me in it, by the way of trial, where I could not 
 manage my two sculls, or little oars, for want of room. But the 
 queen had before contrived another project. She ordered the 
 joiner to make a wooden trough of three hundred feet long, fifty 
 broad, and eight deep ; which being well pitched, to prevent leak- 
 ing, was placed on the floor along the wall in an outer room of 
 the palace. It had a tap near the bottom to let out the water 
 when it began to grow stale ; and two servants could easily fill it 
 in half an hour. Here I often used to row for my own diversion, 
 as well as that of the queen and her ladies, who thought them- 
 selves well entertained by my skill and agility. Sometimes I 
 would put up my sail ; and then my business was only to steer, 
 while the ladies gave me a gale with their fans ; and, when they 
 were weary, some of their pages would blow my sail forward with 
 their breath, while I showed my art by steering starboard or lar- 
 board as I pleased. When I had done, Glumdalclitch always 
 carried back my boat into her closet, and hung it on a nail to 
 dry. 
 
 In this exercise I once met with an accident which had like to 
 have cost me my life: for, one of the pages having put my boat into 
 the trough, the governess who attended Glumdalclitch ver} T offi- 
 ciously lifted me up to place me in the boat; but I happened to slip 
 tli rough her fingers, and should infallibly have fallen down forty 
 feet upon the floor, if, by the luckiest chance in the world, I had 
 not been stopped by a corking-pin that stuck in the good gentle- 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 495 
 
 woman's stomacher. The head of the pin passed between my shirt 
 and the waistband of my breeches ; and thus I was held by the 
 middle in the air till Glmndalclitch ran to my relief. 
 
 Another time, one of the servants, whose office it was to fill my 
 trough every third day with fresh water, was so careless as to let 
 a huge frog (not perceiving it) slip out of his pail. The frog lay 
 concealed till I was put into my boat, but then, seeing a resting- 
 place, climbed up, and made it lean so much on one side, that I 
 was forced to balance it with all my weight on the other to pre- 
 vent overturning. When the frog was got in, it hopped at once 
 half the length of my boat, and then over my head, backward and 
 forward, daubing my face and my clothes with its odious slime. 
 The largeness of its features made it appear the most deformed 
 animal that can be conceived. However, I desired Glumdalclitch 
 to let me deal with it alone. I banged it a good while with one 
 of my sculls, and at last forced it to leap out of the boat. 
 
 But the greatest danger I ever underwent in that kingdom was 
 from a monkey, who belonged to one of the clerks of the kitchen. 
 Ulumdalclitch had locked me np in her closet while she went 
 somewhere upon business or a visit. The weather being very 
 warm, the closet-window was left open, as well as the windows 
 and the door of my bigger box, in which I usually lived because 
 of its largeness and conveniency. As I sat quietly meditating at 
 my table, I heard something bound in at the closet-window, and 
 skip about from one side to the other: whereat, although I was 
 much alarmed, yet I ventured to look out, but not stirring from 
 my seat; and then I saw this frolicsome animal frisking and leap- 
 ing up and down, till at last he came to my box, which he seemed 
 to view with great pleasure and curiosity, peeping in at the door 
 and every window. I retreated to the farther corner of my room, or 
 box; but the monkey, looking in at every side, put me into such 
 a fright, that I wanted presence of mind to conceal myself under 
 the bed, as I might easily have done. After some time spent in 
 peeping, grinning, and chattering, he at last espied me ; and 
 reaching one of his paws in at the door as a cat does when she 
 plays with a mouse, although I often shifted place to avoid him, 
 he at length seized the lappet of my coat (which, being made of 
 that coimtr} T silk, was very thick and strong), and dragged me 
 out. He took me up in his right fore-foot, and held me as a nurse 
 does a child she is going to suckle, just as I have seen the same 
 sort of creature do with a kitten in Europe ; and, when I offered 
 to struggle, he squeezed me so hard, that I thought it more pru- 
 dent to submit. I. have good reason to believe that he took me 
 for a young one of his own species, by his often stroking my' face 
 very gently with his other paw. In these diversions lie was 
 interrupted by a noise at the closet-door, as if somebody was open- 
 
496 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ing it : whereupon he suddenly leaped up to the window at which 
 he had come in, and thence upon the leads and gutters, walking 
 upon three legs, and holding me iri the fourth, till he clambered 
 up a roof next to ours. I heard Gluindulclitch give a shriek at 
 the moment he was carrying me out. The poor girl was almost 
 distracted. That quarter of the palace was all in an uproar. The 
 servants ran for the ladders. The monkey was seen by hundreds 
 in the court, sitting upon the ridge of a building, holding me like 
 a baby in one of his fore-paws, and feeding me with the other by 
 cramming into my mouth some victuals he had squeezed out of the 
 bag on one side of his chaps, and patting me when I would not eat ; 
 whereat many of the rabble below could not forbear laughing : 
 neither do I think they justly ought to be blamed; for, without 
 question, the sight was ridiculous enough to everybody but my- 
 self. Some of the people threw up stones, hoping to drive the 
 monkey down ; but this was strictly forbidden, or ehc, very proba- 
 bly, my brains had been dashed out. 
 
 The ladders were now applied, and mounted by several men, 
 which the monkey observing, and finding himself almost encom- 
 
 Eassed, not being able to make speed enough with his three legs, 
 ?t me drop on a ridge-tile, and made his escape. Here I sat for 
 some time, five hundred yards from the ground, expecting every 
 moment to be blown down by the wind, or to fall by my own gid- 
 diness, and come tumbling over and over from the ridge to the 
 eaves ; but an honest Lid, one of my nurse's footmen, climbed up, 
 and, putting me into his breeches' pocket, brought me down safe. 
 I was almost choked with the filthy stuff the monkey crammed 
 down my throat ; but my dear little nurse picked it out of my 
 mouth with a small needle; and then I fell a-vomiting, which gave 
 me great relief. Yet I was so weak and bruised in the sides with 
 the squeezes given me by this odious animal, that I was forced to 
 keep my bed a fortnight. The king, queen, and all the court, 
 sent every day to inquire after my health ; and her Majesty made 
 me several visits during my sickness. The monkey was killed, 
 and an order made that no such animal should be kept about the 
 palace. 
 
 When I attended the king, after my recovery, to return him 
 thanks for his favors, he was pleased to rally me a good deal upon 
 this adventure. He asked me what my thoughts and speculations 
 were while I lay in the monkey's paw ; how I liked the victuals 
 he gave ma; his manner of feeding; and whether the fresh air 
 on the roof had sharpened my stomach. He desired to know 
 what I would have done upon such an occasion in my own coun- 
 try. I told his Majesty that in Europe we had no monkeys, ex- 
 cept such as were brought as curiosities from other places, and so 
 small, that I could deal with a dozen of them together if they pro- 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT. 497 
 
 sumed to attack me. And as for that monstrous animal with 
 whom I was so lately engaged (it was, indeed, as large as an ele- 
 phant), if my fears had suffered me to think so far as to make use 
 of my hanger (looking fiercely, and clapping my hand upon the 
 hilt as I spoke) when he poked his paw into my chamber, per- 
 haps I should have given him such a wound as would have made 
 him glad to withdraw it with more haste than he put it iii. This 
 I delivered in a firm tone, like a person who was jealous lest his 
 courage should be called in question. However, my speech pro- 
 duced nothing else besides a loud laughter, which all the respect 
 due to his Majesty from those about him could not make them 
 contain. This made me reflect how vain an attempt it is for a 
 man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of 
 all degrees of equality or comparison with him. And yet I have 
 seen the moral of my own behavior very frequent in England 
 since my return, where a little contemptible varlet, without the 
 least title to birth, person, wit, or common sense, shall presume to 
 look with importance, and put himself upon a footing with the 
 greatest person of the kingdom. 
 
 I was every day furnishing the court with some ridiculous story ; 
 and Glumdalclitch, although she loved me to excess, yet was arch 
 enough to inform the queen whenever I committed any folly that 
 she thought would be diverting to her Majesty. The girl, who 
 had been out of order, was carried by her governess to take the 
 air about an hour's distance, or thirty miles from town. They 
 alighted out of the coach near a small footpath in a field; and, 
 Glumdalclitch setting down my traveling-box, I went out of it to 
 walk. There was a small heap of dirt in the path, and I must needs 
 try my activity by attempting to leap over it. I took a run, but, 
 unfortunately, jumped short, and found myself just in the middle, 
 up to my knees. I waded through with some difficulty; and one 
 of the footmen wiped me as clean as he could with his handker- 
 chief, for I was filthily bemired ; and my nurse confined me to my 
 box till we returned home, when the queen was soon informed of 
 what had passed, and the footmen spread it about the court ; so 
 that all the mirth for some days was at my expense. 
 32 
 
498 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 DANIEL DEFOE. 
 
 1661-1731. 
 
 Voluminous writer of fiction and political pamphlets. In simple and natuial 
 style, he paints fiction as reality with unsurpassed success. 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE. 
 
 I WAS born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good 
 family, though not of that country ; my father being a foreigner 
 of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by 
 merchandise, and, leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York ; 
 from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were 
 named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from 
 whom I was called Kreutznaer: but, by the usual corruption of 
 words in England, we are now called, nay, we call ourselves, and 
 write our name, Crusoe ; and so my companions always called me. 
 I had two elder brothers, one of which was lieutenant-colonel to an 
 English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the 
 famous Col. Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dun- 
 kirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I 
 never knew any more than my father or mother did know what was 
 become of me. Being the third son of the family, and not bred 
 to any trade, my head began to be filled very earl}' with rambling 
 thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a com- 
 petent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country 
 free school generally go, and designed me for the law : but I 
 would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclina- 
 tion to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands, 
 of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my 
 mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal 
 in that propension of nature, tending directly to the life of misery 
 which was to befall me. My father, a wise and grave man, gave 
 me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my 
 design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he 
 was confined by the gout, and expostulated with me very warmly 
 upon this subject : he asked me what reasons, more than a mere 
 wandering inclination, I had for leaving my father's house, and 
 my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a 
 prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with 
 a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate 
 fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, 
 and who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and 
 
DANIEL DEFOE. 499 
 
 make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the 
 common road; that these things were all either too far above me or 
 too far below me ; that mine was the middle state, or what might be 
 called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long 
 experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to 
 human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the 
 labor and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind, and not 
 embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the 
 upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happi- 
 ness of this state by this one thing, viz., that this was the state 
 of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently 
 lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great things, 
 and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two ex- 
 tremes, between the mean and the great ; that the wise man gave 
 his testimony to this as the standard of felicity when he prayed 
 to have neither poverty nor riches. He bade me observe it, and I 
 should always find, that the calamities of life were shared among 
 the upper and lower part of mankind ; but that the middle station 
 had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissi- 
 tudes as the higher or lower part of mankind ; nay, they were not 
 subjected to so many distemp_ers and uneasiness, either of body or 
 mind, as those were, who by vicious living, luxury, and extrava- 
 gances, on the one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and 
 mean or insufficient diet, on the other hand, bring distempers upon 
 themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living ; 
 that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues 
 and all kind of enjoyments ; that peace and plenty were the 
 handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, 
 quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable 
 pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life ; 
 that, this way, men went silently and smoothly through the world, 
 and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labors of the 
 hands or of the head ; not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, 
 or harassed with perplexed circumstances which rob the soul of 
 peace, and the body of rest ; nor enraged with the passion of 
 envy, or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things ; but 
 in easy circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and 
 sensibly tasting the sweets of living without the bitter ; feeling 
 that they are happy, and learning by every day's experience to 
 know it more sensibly. 
 
 After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate 
 manner, not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself 
 into miseries which Nature, and the station of life I was born in, 
 seemed to have provided against ; that I was under no necessity 
 of seeking my bread ; that he would do well for me, and en- 
 deavor to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had 
 
500 ENGLISH: LITERATURE. 
 
 just been recommending to me ; and th.it, if I was not very easy 
 and happy in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that 
 must hinder it; and that he should have nothing to answer for, 
 having thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures 
 which he knew would be to my hurt : in a word, that as he would 
 do very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at home as 
 he directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes 
 as to give me any encouragement to go away. And, to close all, 
 he told me I had my elder brother for an example, to whom he 
 had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going 
 into the Low-Country wars, but could not prevail, his young 
 desires prompting him to run into the army, where he was killed. 
 And though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he 
 would venture to say to me, that, if I did take this foolish step, 
 God would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to 
 reflect upon having neglected his counsel where there might be 
 none to assist in my recovery. 
 
 I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly 
 prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be so 
 himself, I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plen- 
 tifully, especially when he spoke of my brother who was killed ; 
 and that when he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none 
 to assist me, he was so moved, that he broke off the discourse, and 
 told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me. 
 
 I was sincerely affected with this discourse, as, indeed, who 
 could be otherwise ? and I resolved not to think of going abroad 
 any more, but to settle at home according to my father's desire. 
 Uut, alas ! a few days wore it all off; and in short, to prevent 
 any of my father's further importunities, in a few weeks after I 
 resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did not act 
 quite so hastily neither as the first heat of my resolution prompt- 
 ed : but I took my mother at a time when I thought her a little 
 pleasanter than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so 
 entirely bent upon seeing the world, that I should never settle to 
 any thing with resolution enough to go through with it, and my 
 father had better give me his consent than force me to go without 
 it ; that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late to go 
 apprentice to a trade, or clerk to an attorney- ; that I was sure, if 
 I did, I should never serve out my time, but I should certainly run 
 away from my master before my time was out, and go to sea ; and, 
 if she would speak to my father to let me go one voyage abroad, 
 if I came home again, and did not like it, I would go no more ; 
 and I would promise, by a double diligence, to recover the time that 
 I had lost. This put my mother into a great passion. She told 
 me she knew it would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon 
 any such subject j that he knew too well what was my interest to 
 
DANIEL DEFOE. 501 
 
 give liis consent to any thing so much for my hurt ; and that she 
 wondered how I could think of any such thing after the discourse 
 I had had with my father, and such kind and tender expressions 
 as she knew my father had used to me ; and that, in short, if I 
 would ruin myself, there was no help for me; that I might de- 
 pend I should never have their consent to it ; that, for her part, 
 she would not have so much hand in my destruction, and I 
 should never have it to say that my mother was willing when my 
 father was not. Though my mother refused to move it to my 
 father, yet I heard afterwards that she reported all the discourse 
 to him, and that my father, after showing a great concern at it, 
 said to her with a sigh, "That boy might be happy if he would 
 stay at home ; but, if he goes abroad, he w r ill be the most miserable 
 wretch that ever was born. I can give no consent to it." 
 
 It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose; 
 though, in the mean time, I continued obstinately deaf to all 
 proposals of settling to business, and frequently expostulating 
 with my father and mother about their being so positively deter- 
 mined against what they knew my inclinations prompted me to. 
 
 But being one day at Hull, whither I went casually, and with- 
 out any purpose of making an elopement at that time, but, I say, 
 being there, and one of my companions being going by sea to 
 London in his father's ship, and prompting me to go with them, 
 with the common allurement of a seafaring man that it should 
 cost me nothing for my passage, I consulted neither father nor 
 mother any more, not so much as sent them word of it; but 
 leaving them to hear of it as they might, without asking God's 
 blessing or my father's, without any consideration of circum- 
 stances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows, on the 
 1st of September, 1651, 1 went on board a ship bound for London. 
 Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe, began sooner 
 or continued longer than mine. The ship was no sooner got out 
 of the Humber but the wind began to blow and the sea to rise in 
 a most frightful manner; andyas I had never been at sea before, 
 I was most inexpressibly sick in bod} T , arid terrified in mind. I 
 began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how 
 justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked 
 leaving my father's house, and abandoning my duty. All the 
 good counsels of my parents, my father's tears, and my mother's 
 entreaties, came now fresh in my mind ; and my conscience, which 
 was not yet come to the pitch of hardness to which it has been 
 since, reproached me with the contempt of advice, and the breach 
 of my duty to my God and my father. 
 
502 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE DISCOVERS THE FOOTPRINT. 
 
 IT happened one clay about noon, going towards my boat, I was 
 exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the 
 shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood like 
 one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened ; 
 I looked round me : I could hear nothing, nor see any thing. I 
 went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore, 
 and down the shore : but it was all one ; I could see no other im- 
 pression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any 
 more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy : but there was 
 no room for that ; for there was exactly the very print of a foot, 
 toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came thither I knew 
 not, nor could in the least imagine. But after innumerable flut- 
 tering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused, and out of myself, 
 I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground 
 I went on, but terrified to the last degree ; looking behind me at 
 every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and 
 fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible 
 to describe how many various shapes an affrighted imagination, 
 represented things to me in ; how many wild ideas were formed 
 every moment in my fancy ; and what strange, unaccountable 
 whimseys came into my thoughts by the wa} 7 . 
 
 When I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever after 
 this), I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the 
 ladder at first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock which 
 I called a door, I can not remember; for never frighted hare fled 
 to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this 
 retreat. 
 
 I slept none that night. The farther I was from the occasion 
 of my fright, the greater my apprehensions were ; which is some- 
 thing contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the 
 usual practice of all creatures in fear : but I was so embarrassed 
 with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing 
 but dismal imaginations to myself, even though I was now a great 
 way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must be the Devil : and reason 
 joined in with me upon this supposition ; for how should any 
 other thing in human shape come into the place? Where was 
 the vessel that brought them ? What marks were there of any 
 other footsteps ? and how was it possible a man should come 
 there ? But then, to think that Satan should take human shape 
 upon him in such a place, where there could be no manner of 
 occasion for it but to leave the print of his foot behind him, and 
 that even for no purpose too, for he could not be sure I should 
 sec it, this was an amusement the other way. I considered that 
 
DANIEL DEFOE. 503 
 
 the Devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have 
 terrified me than this of the single print of a foot j that, as I lived 
 quite on the other side of the island, he would never have been so 
 simple as to leave a mark in a place where it was ten thousand to 
 one whether I should ever see it or not, and in the sand too, which 
 the first surge of the sea, upon a high wind, would have defaced 
 entirety : all this seemed inconsistent with the thing itself, and 
 with all the notions we usually entertain of the subtlety of the 
 Devil. Abundance of such things as these assisted to argue me 
 out of all apprehensions of its being the Devil: and I presently 
 concluded, then, that it must be some more dangerous creature ; 
 viz., that it must be some of the savages of the mainland over 
 against me, who had wandered out to sea in their canoes, and, 
 either driven by the currents or contrary winds, had made the 
 island, and had been on shore, but Avere gone away again to sea, 
 being as loath, perhaps, to have staid in this desolate island as I 
 would have been to have them. 
 
 While these reflections were rolling upon my mind, I was very 
 thankful in my thoughts that I was so happy as not to be there- 
 abouts at that time, or that they did not see my boat, by which 
 they would have concluded that some inhabitants had been in the 
 place, and perhaps have searched farther for me. Then terrible 
 thoughts racked my imagination about their having found my 
 boat, and that there were people here ; and that, if so, I should 
 certainly have them come again in greater numbers, and devour 
 me ; that if it should happen so that they should not find me, 
 yet they would find my inclosure, destroy all my corn, and carry 
 away all my flock of tame goats, and I should perish at last for 
 mere want. 
 
 Thus my fear banished all my religious hope, all that former 
 confidence in God which was founded upon such wonderful expe- 
 rience as I had had of his goodness ; as if He that had fed me by 
 miracle hitherto could not preserve by his power the provision which 
 he had made for me by his goodness ! I reproached myself with 
 my laziness, that would not sow any more corn one year than 
 would just serve me till the next season, as if no accident would 
 intervene to prevent my enjoying the crop that was upon the 
 ground : and this I thought so just a reproof, that I resolved, for 
 the future, to have two or three years' corn beforehand ; so that, 
 whatever might come, I might not perish for want of bread. 
 
 How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man ! 
 and by what secret differing springs are the affections hurried 
 about as differing circumstances present! To-day we love what 
 to-morrow we hate ; to-day we seek what to-morrow we shun ; 
 .o-day we desire what to-morrow we fear, nay, even tremble at 
 
 e apprehensions of. This was exemplified in me at this time in 
 
504 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 the most lively manner imaginable : for I, whose only affliction 
 was that I seemed banished from human society ; that I was alone, 
 circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off from mankind, and 
 condemned to what I call a silent life ; that I was as one whom 
 Heaven thought not worthy to be numbered among the living, or 
 to appear among the rest of his creatures; that to have seen one 
 of my own species would have seemed to me a raising me from 
 death to life, and the greatest blessing that Heaven itself, next 
 to the supreme blessing of salvation, could bestow, I say, that I 
 should now tremble at the very apprehensions of seeing a man, 
 and was ready to sink into the ground at but the shadow or silent 
 appearance of a man's having set his foot on the island ! 
 
 Such is the uneven state of human life; and it afforded me a 
 great many curious speculations afterwards, when I had a little 
 recovered my first surprise. I considered that this was the station 
 of life the infinitely wise and good providence of God had deter- 
 mined for me ; that as I could not foresee what the ends of Divine 
 "\Visdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute his sover- 
 eignty, who, as I was his creature, had an undoubted right by 
 creation to govern and dispose of me absolutely as he thought fit ; 
 and who, as I was a creature who had offended him, had likewise 
 a judicial right to condemn me to what punishment he thought 
 fit ; and that it was my part to submit to bear his indignation, 
 because I had sinned against him. 
 
 I then reflected, that God, who was not only righteous, but 
 omnipotent, as he had thought fit thus to punish and afflict me, 
 so he was able to deliver me ; that, if he did not think fit to do it, 
 it was my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and en- 
 tirely to his will; and, on the other hand, it was my duty also to 
 hope in him, pray to him, and quietly to attend the dictates and 
 directions of his daily providence. 
 
 These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may say, 
 weeks and months. And one particular effect of my cogitations on 
 this occasion I can not omit; viz., one morning early, lying in rny 
 bed, and filled with thoughts about my danger from the appear- 
 ance of savages, I found it discomposed me very much : upon 
 which those words of the Scripture came into my thoughts, " Call 
 upon Jfe in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee ; and thou 
 shalt glorify me" 
 
 Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not 
 only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earnestly 
 to God for deliverance. When I had done praying, I took up my 
 Bible : and, opening it to read, the first words that presented to 
 me were, " Wait on the Lord, and be of good courage, and he shall 
 strengthen thy heart ; wait, I say, on the Lord" It is impossible 
 to express the comfort this gave me ; and, in return, I thankfully 
 
DANIEL DEFOE. 505 
 
 laid down the book, and was no more sad, at least, not on that 
 occasion. 
 
 In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflec- 
 tions, it came into my thoughts one day that all this might be a 
 mere chimera of my own, and that this foot might be the print of 
 my own foot when I came on shore from my boat. This cheered 
 me up a little too, and I began to persuade myself it was all a de- 
 lusion ; that it was nothing else but my own foot. And why might 
 not I come that way from the boat, as well as I was going that 
 way to the boat ? Again : I considered also that I could by no 
 means tell for certain where I had trod, and where I had not ; 
 and that if, at last, this was only the print of my own foot, I had 
 played the part of those fools who strive to make stories of specters 
 and apparitions, and then are themselves frighted at them more 
 than anybody else. 
 
 Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again ; for I 
 had not stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so that 
 I began to starve for provision ; for I had little or nothing within 
 doors but some barley-cakes and water. Then I knew that my 
 goats wanted to be milked too, which usually was my evening 
 diversion : and the poor creatures were in great pain and incon- 
 venience for want of it ; and, indeed, it almost spoiled some of 
 them, and almost dried up their milk. 
 
 Heartening myself, therefore, with the belief that this was noth- 
 ing but the print of one of my own feet (and so I might be truly 
 said to start at my own shadow), I began to go abroad again, and 
 went to my country-house to milk my flock. But to see with what 
 fear I went forward ; how often I looked behind me ; how I was 
 ready every now and then to lay down my basket, and run for 
 my life, it would have made any one have thought I was haunted 
 with an evil conscience, or that I had been lately most terribly 
 frighted ; and so, indeed, I had. 
 
 However, as I went down thus two or three days, and having 
 seen nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there was 
 really nothing in it but my own imagination. But I could not per- 
 suade myself fully of this till I should go down to the shore again, 
 and see this print of a foot, and measure it by my own, and see if 
 there was any similitude or fitness, that I might be assured it was 
 my own foot. But, when I came to the place first, it appeared 
 evidently to me, that, when I laid up my boat, I could not possibly 
 be on shore anywhere thereabouts. Secondly, when I came to 
 measure the mark with my own foot, I found my foot not so large 
 by a great deal. Both these things filled m^" head with new im- 
 aginations, and gave me the vapors again to the highest degree; 
 so that I shook with cold like one in an ague : and I went home 
 again, filled with the belief that some man or men had been on 
 
506 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 shore there ; or, in short, that the island was inhabited, and I 
 might be surprised before I was aware ; and what course to tako 
 for my security, I knew not. Oh^ what ridiculous resolutions men. 
 take when possessed with fear ! It deprives them of the use of 
 those means which reason offers for their relief. 
 
 The first thing I proposed to myself was to throw down my in- 
 closures, and turn all my tame cattle wild into the woods, lest the 
 enemy should find them, and then frequent the island in prospect 
 of the same or the like booty ; then to the simple thing of digging 
 up my two corn-fields, lest they should find such a grain there, 
 and still be prompted to frequent the island ; then to demolish my 
 bower and tent, that they might not see any vestiges of habitation, 
 and be prompted to look farther in order to find out the persons 
 inhabiting. These were the subjects of the first night's cogitations 
 after I was come home again, while the apprehensions which 
 had so overrun my mind were fresh upon me, and my head was 
 full of vapors as above. Thus fear of danger is ten thousand 
 times more terrifying than danger itself when apparent to the 
 eyes ; and we find the burden of anxiety greater, by much, than 
 the evil which we are anxious about : and, which was worse than 
 all this, I had not that relief in this trouble, that, from the resig- 
 nation I used .to practice, I hoped to have. I looked, I thought, 
 like Saul, who complained, not only that the Philistines were upon 
 him, but that God had forsaken him : for I did not now take due 
 ways to compose my mind by crying to God in my distress, and 
 resting upon his providence, as I had done before, for my defense 
 and deliverance; which if I had done, I had at least been more 
 cheerfully supported under this new surprise, and perhaps carried 
 through it with more resolution. 
 
 JOSEPH ADDISOX. 
 
 1672-1719. 
 
 There is but one opinion of his style: " In a word, one mav justly apply to him 
 what Plato in his allegorical language says of Aristophanes, that the" Graces, 
 having searched all the world for a temple wherein they might for ever dwell, settled 
 at last in the breast of Mr. Addison." Dr. Johnson says, u Whoever wishes to 
 attain an English style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not ostentatious, 
 must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." We select onlv from 
 his prose. 
 
 SICKEBSTAFF LEARNING FENCIXG. 
 
 I HATE upon my chamber-walls drawn at full-length the figures 
 of all sorts of men, from eight feet to three feet two inches. 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 507 
 
 Within this hight, I take it that all the fighting-men of Great 
 Britain are comprehended. But, as I push, I make allowances 
 for my being of a lank and spare body, and have chalked out in 
 every figure my own dimensions; for I scorn to rob any man of 
 his life by taking advantage of his breath : therefore I press 
 purely in a line down from his nose, and take no more of him to 
 assault than he has of me. For, to speak impartially, if a lean 
 fellow wounds a fat one in any part of the right or left, whether 
 it be in carte or in tierce, beyond the dimensions of the said lean 
 fellow's own breadth, I take it to be murder, and such a murder 
 as is below a gentleman to commit. As I am spare, I am also 
 very tall, and behave myself, with relation to that advantage, with 
 the same punctilio; and I am ready to stoop or stand, according 
 to, the stature of my adversary. I must confess, I have had great 
 success this morning, and have hit every figure round the room 
 in a mortal part, without receiving the least hurt, except a little 
 scratch by falling on my face in pushing at one at the lower end 
 of my chamber ; but I recovered so quick, and jumped so nimbly 
 into my guard, that, if he had been alive, he could not have hurt 
 me. It is confessed I have written against duels with some 
 warmth; but, in all my discourses, I have not e.ver said that I 
 knew how a gentleman could avoid a duel if he were provoked to 
 it: and, since that custom is now become a law, I know nothing 
 but the legislative power, with new animadversions upon it, can 
 put us in a capacity of denying challenges, though we were after- 
 wards hanged for it. But no more of this at present. As things 
 stand, I shall put up no more affronts ; and I shall be so far from 
 taking ill words, that I will not take ill looks. I therefore warn 
 all hot young fellows not to look, hereafter, more terrible than their 
 neighbors ; for, if they stare at me with tlieir hats cocked higher 
 than other people, I will not bear it. Nay, I give warning to all 
 people in general to look kindly at me : for I will bear no frowns, 
 even from ladies ; and, if any woman pretends to look scornfully 
 at me, I shall demand satisfaction of the next of kin of the mas- 
 culine gender. Tatkr, No. 93. 
 
 ON THE USE OF THE FAN. ' ~ 
 
 I DO not know whether to call the following letter a satire upon 
 coquettes, or a representation of their several fantastical accom- 
 plishments, or what other title to give it ; but, as it is, I shall 
 communicate it to the public. It will sufficiently explain its own 
 intentions ; so that I shall give it my reader at length, without 
 either preface or postcript : 
 
 Mr. Spectator, Women are armed with fans, as men with 
 swords, and sometimes do more execution with them. To the 
 
508 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 end, therefore, that ladies may be entire mistresses of the weapon 
 which they bear, I have erected an academy for the training-up 
 of young women in the exercise of the fan according to the most 
 fashionable airs and motions that are now practiced at court. 
 The ladies who carry fans under me are drawn up twice a day in 
 my great hall, where they are instructed in the use of their arms, 
 and exercised by the following words of command : " Handle your 
 fans ! " " Unfurl your fans ! " " Discharge your fans ! " " Ground 
 your fans ! " " E-ecover your fans ! " " Flutter your fans ! " By 
 the right observation of these few plain words of command, a 
 woman of a tolerable genius, who will apply herself diligently 
 to her exercise for the space of but one half-year, shall be able 
 to give her fan all the graces that can possibly enter into that 
 little modish machine. 
 
 But, to the end that my readers may form to themselves a right 
 notion of this exercise, I beg leave to explain it to them in all 
 its parts. When my female regiment is drawn up in array, 
 with every one her weapon in her hand, upon my giving the 
 word to " handle their fans," each of them shakes her fan at me 
 with a smile, then gives her right-hand woman a tap upon the 
 shoulder, then presses her lips with the extremity of her fan, then 
 lets her arms fall in easy motion, and stands in readiness to receive 
 the next word of command. All this is done with a close fan, 
 and is generally learned in the first week. 
 
 The next motion is that of unfurling the fan, in which are com- 
 prehended several little flirts and vibrations, as also gradual and 
 deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings-asuiider in the 
 fan itself, that are seldom learned under a month's practice. This 
 part of the exercise pleases the spectators more than any other, as 
 it discovers, on a sudden, an infinite number of Cupids, garlands, 
 altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like agreeable figures, that 
 display themselves to view; whilst every one in the regiment 
 holds a picture in her hand. 
 
 Upon my giving the word to " discharge their fans," they give 
 one general crack, that may be heard at a considerable distance 
 when the wind sits fair. This is one of the most difficult parts 
 of the exercise ; but I have several ladies with me, who at their 
 first entrance could not give a pop loud enough to be heard at the 
 farther end of the room, who can now discharge a fan in such a 
 manner^ that it shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I have 
 likewise taken care (in order to hinder young women from letting 
 off their fans in wrong places or on unsuitable occasions) to show 
 upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in properly. I 
 have likewise invented a fan with which a girl of sixteen, by the 
 help of a little wind which is inclosed about one of the largest 
 sticks, can make as loud a crack as a woman of fifty with an ordi- 
 nary fan. 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 509 
 
 When the fans are thus discharged, the word of command, in 
 course, is to " ground their fans." This teaches a lady to quit her 
 fan gracefully when she throws it aside in order to take up a pack 
 of cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or apply her- 
 self to any other matter of importance. This part of the exercise, 
 as it only consists in tossing a fan with an air upon a long table 
 (which stands by for that purpose), may be learned in two days' 
 time as well as in a twelvemonth. 
 
 When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let 
 them walk about the room for some time; when, on a sudden 
 (like ladies that look upon their watches after a long visit), they 
 all of them hasten to their arms, catch them up in a hurry, and 
 place themselves in their proper stations upon my calling out, 
 " Recover your fans ! " This part of the exercise is not difficult, 
 provided a woman applies her thoughts to it. 
 
 The fluttering of the fan is the last, and, indeed, the master- 
 piece, of the whole exercise ; but, if a lady does not misspend her 
 time, she may make herself mistress of it in three months. I 
 generally lay aside the dog-days, and the hot time of the summer, 
 for the teaching this part of the exercise ; for as soon as ever I 
 pronounce, "Flutter your fans !" the place is filled with so many 
 zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that season 
 of the year, though they might be dangerous to ladies of a tender 
 constitution in any other. 
 
 There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the 
 nutter of a fan. There is the angry nutter, the modest flutter, 
 the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, and 
 the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion 
 in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the 
 fan ; insomuch, that, if I only see the fan of a disciplined lady, I 
 know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have 
 seen a fan so very angry, that it would have been dangerous for 
 the absent lover who provoked it to have come within the wind 
 of it ; and at other times so very languishing, that I have been 
 glad, for the lady's sake, the lover was at a sufficient distance 
 from it. I need not add, that a fan is either a prude or coquette, 
 according to the nature of the person who bears it. To conclude 
 my letter, I must acquaint you that I have from my own obser- 
 vations compiled a little treatise for the use of my scholars, 
 entitled " The Passions of the Fan," which I will communicate 
 to you if you think it may be of use to the public. I shall have 
 a general review on Thursday next, to which you shall be very 
 welcome if you will honor it with your presence. I am, &c. 
 
 P.S. I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gallanting a fan. 
 
 N.B. I have several little plain fans made for this use to 
 avoid expense. Spectator, No. 102. 
 
510 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE LOVER'S LEAP. 
 
 I SHALL in this paper discharge myself of the promise I have 
 made to the public by obliging them with a translation of the 
 little Greek manuscript which is said to have been a piece of 
 those records that were preserved in the Temple of Apollo upon 
 the promontory of Leucate. It is a short history of " The Lover's 
 Leap," and is inscribed, "An account of persons, male and female, 
 who offered up their vows in the temple of the Pythian Apollo in 
 the forty-sixth Olympiad, and leaped from the promontorv of 
 Leucate into the Ionian Sea in order to cure themselves of the 
 passion of love." 
 
 This account is very dry in many parts, as only mentioning the 
 name of the lover who leaped, the person he leaped for, and relat- 
 ing, in short, that he was either cured or killed or maimed by 
 the fall. It, indeed, gives the names of so many who died hy it. 
 that it would have looked like a bill of mortality had I translated 
 it at full length : I have therefore made an abridgment of it, 
 and only extracted such particular passages as have something 
 extraordinary, either in the case, or in the cure, or in the fate, of 
 the person who is mentioned in it. After this short preface, take 
 the account as follows : 
 
 Battus, the son of Menalcas the Sicilian, leaped for Bombyoa 
 the musician. Got rid of his passion with the loss of his right leg 
 and arm, which were broken in the fall. 
 
 Melissa, in love with Daplmis. Very much bruised, but escaped 
 with life. 
 
 Cynisca, the wife of ^Eschines, being in love with Lyons ; and 
 JEsehines, her husband, being in love with Eurilla (which had 
 made this married couple very uneasy to one another for several 
 years). Both the husband and the wife took the leap by consent: 
 they both of them escaped, and have lived very happily together 
 ever since. 
 
 Laris.sa, a virgin of Thessaly, deserted by Plexippus after a 
 courtship of three years. She stood upon the brow of the promon- 
 tory for some time ; and after having thrown down a ring, a brace- 
 let, and a little picture, with other presents which she had received 
 from Plexippus, she threw herself into the sea, and was taken up 
 alive. 
 
 N.B. Larissa, before she leaped, made an offering of a silver 
 Cupid in the Temple of Apollo. 
 
 Aridseus, a beautiful youth of Epirus, in love with Praxinoe, 
 the wife of Thespis. Escaped without damage, saving only that 
 two of his fore-teeth were struck out, and his nose a little flatted. 
 
 Cleora, a widow of Ephesus, being inconsolable for the death 
 
JOSEPH ADDISOtf. 511 
 
 of her husband, was resolved to take this leap in order to get rid 
 of her passion for his memory ; but, being arrived at the promon- 
 tory, she there met with Dimmachus the Milesian, and, after a 
 short conversation with him, laid aside the thoughts of her leap, 
 and married him in the Temple of Apollo. 
 
 N.B. Her widow's weeds are still seen hanging up in the 
 western corner of the temple, 
 
 Olphis the fisherman, having received a box on the ear from 
 Thestylis the day before, and being determined to have no more 
 to do with her, leaped, and escaped with life. 
 
 Atalanta, an old maid, whose cruelty had several years before 
 driven two or three despairing lovers to this leap, being now in 
 the fifty-fifth year of her age, and in love with an officer of Sparta, 
 broke her neck in the fall. 
 
 Tettyx the dancing-master, in love with Olympia, an Athenian 
 matron, threw himself from the rock with great agility, but was 
 crippled in the fall. 
 
 Diagoras the usurer, in love with his cook-maid. He peeped 
 several times over the precipice; but, his heart misgiving him, he 
 went back, and married her that evening. 
 
 Eunica, a maid of Paphos, aged nineteen, in love with Eury- 
 bates. Hurt in the fall, but recovered. 
 
 N.B. This was the second time of her leaping. 
 
 Hesperus, a young man of Tarentum, in love with his master's 
 daughter. Drowned, the boats not coming in soon enough to his 
 relief. 
 
 Sappho the Lesbian, in love with Phaon, arrived at the Temple 
 of Apollo habited like a bride, in garments as white as snow. 
 She wore a garland of myrtle on her head, and carried in her 
 hand the little musical instrument of her own invention. After 
 having sung a hymn to Apollo, she hung up her garland on one 
 side of his altar, and her harp on the other. She then tucked 
 up her vestments like a Spartan virgin, and amidst thousands 
 of spectators, who were anxious for her safety, and offered up 
 vows for her deliverance, marched directly forwards to the utmost 
 summit of the promontory, where, after having repeated a stanza 
 of her own verses, which we could not hear, she threw herself 
 off the rock with such an intrepidity as was never before observed 
 in any who had attempted that dangerous leap. Many who 
 were present related that they saw her fall into the sea, from 
 whence she never rose again; though there were others who 
 affirmed that she never came to the bottom of her leap, but that 
 she was changed into a swan as she fell, and that they saw her 
 hovering in the air und<5r that shape. But whether or no the 
 whiteness and fluttering of her garments might not deceive those 
 who looked upon her, or whether she might not really be meta- 
 
512 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 morphosed into that musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt 
 among the Lesbians. 
 
 Alcseus, the famous lyric poet, who had for some time been pas- 
 sionately in love with Sappho, arrived at the promontory of Leu- 
 cate that very evening, in order to take the leap upon her account; 
 but hearing that Sappho had been there before him, and that her 
 body could be nowhere found, he very generously lamented her 
 fall, and is said to have written his hundred and twenty-fifth ode 
 upon that occasion. 
 
 Leaped in this Olympiad, Males 124 Females 126 Total 250 
 
 Cured, .,., 51 69 120 
 
 Spectator, No. 233. 
 
 DISSECTION OF A BEAU'S HEAD. 
 
 A VERY wild, extravagant dream employed my fancy all the 
 last night. I was invited, methought, to the dissection of a beau's 
 head and a coquette's heart, which were both of them laid on a 
 table before us. An imaginary operator opened the first with a 
 great deal of nicety, which, upon a cursory and superficial view, 
 appeared like the head of another man : but, upon applying our 
 glasses to it, we made a very odd discovery ; namely, that what 
 we looked upon as brains were not such in reality, but a heap of 
 strange materials wound up in that shape and texture, and packed 
 together with wonderful art in the several cavities of the skull. 
 For as Homer tells us that the blood of the gods is not real blood, 
 but only something like it ; so we found that the brain of a beau 
 is not a real brain, but only something like it. 
 
 The pineal gland, which many of our modern philosophers sup- 
 pose to be the seat of the soul, smelt very strong of essence and 
 orange-flower water, and was encompassed with a kind of horny 
 substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors, which were 
 imperceptible to the naked eye ; insomuch that the soul, if there 
 had been any here, must have been always taken up in contem- 
 plating her own beauties. 
 
 We observed a large antrum, or cavity, in the sinciput, that was 
 filled with ribbons, lace, and embroidery, wrought together in a 
 most curious piece of net-work, the parts of which were likewise 
 imperceptible to the naked eye. Another of these antrums, or 
 cavities, was stuffed with invisible billets-doux, love-letters, pricked 
 dances, and other trumpery of the same nature. In another we 
 found a kind of powder, which set the whole company a-sneezing, 
 and by the scent discovered itself to be right Spanish. The sev- 
 eral other cells were stored with commodities of the same kind, of 
 which it would be tedious to give the reader an exact inventory. 
 
 There was a large cavity on each side of the head, which I 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 513 
 
 must not omit. That on the right side was filled with fictions, 
 flatteries, and falsehoods, vows, promises, and protestations ; that 
 on the left, with oaths and imprecations. There issued out a duct 
 from each of these cells, which ran into the root of the tongue, 
 where both joined together, and passed forward in one common 
 duct to the tip of it. We discovered several little roads or canals 
 running from the ear into the brain, and took particular care to 
 trace them out through their several passages. One of them ex- 
 tended itself to a bundle of sonnets and little musical instruments ; 
 others ended in several bladders, which were filled either with 
 wind or froth : but the large canal entered into a great cavity of 
 the skull, from whence there went another canal into the tongue. 
 This great cavity was filled with a kind of spongy substance, 
 which the French anatomists call galimatias; and the English, 
 " nonsense." 
 
 The skins of the forehead were extremely tough and thick, and, 
 what very much surprised us, had not in them any single blood- 
 vessel that we were able to discover either with or without our 
 glasses ; from whence we concluded that the party, when alive, 
 must have been entirely deprived of the faculty of blushing. 
 
 The os cribriforme was exceedingly stuifed, and in some places 
 damaged, with snuff. We could not but take notice in particular 
 of that small muscle, which is not often discovered in dissection, 
 and draws the nose upwards when it expresses the contempt 
 which the owner of it has upon seeing any thing he does not like, 
 or hearing any thing he does not understand. I need not tell my 
 learned reader this is that muscle which performs the motion so 
 often mentioned by the Latin poets when they talk of a man's 
 cocking his nose, or playing the rhinoceros. 
 
 We did not find any thing very remarkable in the eye, saving 
 only that the musculi amatorii, or, as we may translate it into 
 English, the "ogling muscles," were very much worn and decayed 
 with use ; whereas, on the contrary, the elevator, or the muscle 
 which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to have been 
 used at all. 
 
 We were informed that the person to whom this head belonged 
 had passed for a man above five and thirty years, during which 
 time he ate and drank like other people, dressed well, talked loud, 
 laughed frequently, and on particular occasions had acquitted him- 
 self tolerably at a ball or an assembly ; to which one of the com- 
 pany added, that a certain knot of ladies took him for a wit. He 
 was cut off in the flower of his age by the blow of a paring-shovel, 
 having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was tendering 
 some civilities to his wife. 
 
 Our operator applied himself in the next place to the coquette's 
 heart, which he likewise laid open with great dexterity. There 
 
514 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 occurred to us many particularities in this dissection; but, being 
 unwilling to burden my reader's memory too much, I shall reserve 
 this subject for the speculation of another day. 
 
 Spectator, No. 275. 
 
 DISSECTION OF A COQUETTE'S HEART. 
 
 HAVING already given an account of the dissection of a beau's 
 head, with the several discoveries made on that occasion, I shall 
 here, according to my promise, enter upon the dissection of a co- 
 quette's heart, and communicate to the public such particulars as 
 we observed in that curious piece of anatomy. 
 
 Our operator, before he engaged in this visionary dissection, 
 told us that there was nothing in his art. more difficult than to lay 
 open the heart of a coquette, by reason of the many labyrinths and 
 recesses which are to be found in it, and which do not appear in 
 the heart of any other animal. 
 
 He desired us, first of all, to observe the pericardium, or out- 
 ward case of the heart ; which we did very attentively, and, by 
 the help of our glasses, discerned in it millions of little scars, 
 which seemed to have been occasioned by the points of innumera- 
 ble darts and arrows that from timo to time had glanced upon 
 the outward coat, though we could not discover the smallest ori- 
 fice by which any of them had entered and pierced the inward 
 substance. 
 
 Nor must I here omit an experiment one of the company assured 
 us he himself had made with the thin, reddish liquor contained in 
 the pericardium, which he found in great quantity about the heart 
 of a coquette whom he had formerly dissected. He affirmed to us 
 that he had actually inclosed it in a small tube made after the 
 manner of a weather-glass; but that, instead of acquainting him 
 with the variations of the atmosphere, it showed him the qualities 
 of those persons who entered the room where it stood. He affirmed, 
 also, that it rose at the approach of a plume of feathers, an em- 
 broidered coat, or a pair of fringed gloves ; and that it fell as soon 
 as an ill-shaped periwig, a clumsy pair of shoes, or an unfashiona- 
 ble coat, came into his house. Nay, he proceeded so far as to as- 
 sure us, that, upon his laughing aloud when he stood by it, the 
 liquor mounted very sensibly, and immediately sank again upon 
 his looking serious. In short, he told us that he knew very well, 
 by this invention, whenever he had a man of sense or a coxcomb 
 in his room. 
 
 Having cleared away the pericardium, or the case, and liquor 
 above mentioned, we came to the heart itself. The outward sur- 
 face of it was extremely slippery, and the mucro, or point, so very 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 515 
 
 cold withal, that, upon endeavoring to take hold of it, it glided 
 through the fingers like a smooth piece of ice. 
 
 The fibers were turned and twisted in a more intricate and per- 
 plexed manner than they are usually found in other hearts, inso- 
 much that the whole heart was wound up together in a Gordian 
 knot, and must have had very irregular and unequal motions 
 while it was employed in its vital function. 
 
 Upon weighing the heart in my hand, I found it to be extremely 
 light, and consequently very hollow ; which I did not wonder at, 
 when, upon looking into the inside of it, I saw multitudes of cells 
 and cavities running one within another, as our historians describe 
 the apartments of Rosamond's bower. Several of these little hol- 
 lows were stuffed with innumerable sorts of trifles, which I shall 
 forbear giving any particular account of, and shall therefore only 
 take notice of what lay first and uppermost, which upon our un- 
 folding it, and applying our microscopes to it, appeared to be a 
 flame-colored hood. 
 
 We are informed that the lady of this heart, when living, re- 
 ceived the addresses of several who made love to her, and did not 
 only give each of them encouragement, but made every one she 
 conversed with believe that she regarded him with an eye of kind- 
 ness ; for which reason we expected to have seen the impressions 
 of multitudes effaces among the several plaits and foldings of the 
 heart : but, to our great surprise, not a single print of this nature 
 discovered itself until we came into the very core and center of it. 
 We there observed a little figure, which, upon applying our glasses 
 to it, appeared dressed in a very fantastic manner. The more I 
 looked upon it, the more I thought I had seen the face before, 
 but could not possibly recollect either the place or time ; when at 
 length one of the company, who had examined this figure more 
 nicely than the rest, showed us plainly by the make of its face, 
 and the several turns of its features, that the little idol which was 
 thus lodged in the very middle of the heart was the deceased beau 
 whose head I gave some account of in my last Tuesday's paper. 
 
 As soon as we had finished our dissection, we resolved to make 
 an experiment of the heart, not being able to determine among 
 ourselves the nature of its substance, which differed in so many 
 particulars from that of the heart in other females. Accordingly, 
 we laid it in a pan of burning coals, when we observed in it a 
 certain salamandriiie quality, that made it capable of living in the 
 midst of fire and flame, without being consumed, or so much as 
 singed, 
 
 As we were admiring this strange phenomenon, and standing 
 round the heart in a circle, it gave a most prodigious sigh, or rather 
 crack, and dispersed all at once in smoke and vapor. This imagi- 
 nary noise, which, methought, was louder than the burst of a 
 
516 ENGLISH LITERATUHE. 
 
 cannon, produced such a violent shake in my brain, that it dissi- 
 pated the fumes of sleep, and left me in an instant broad awake. 
 
 Spectator, No. 281. 
 
 VISIT TO SIX ROGER IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 HAVIXG 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 ac- 
 quainted with my humor, 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. AYhen the 
 gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shows me 
 at a distance. As I have been walking in his fields, I have 
 observed them stealing a sight of me over a 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 domestics are all in years, and grown old w T ith their 
 master. You would take his valet-de-chamlre for his brother ; his 
 butler is gray-headed ; his groom is one of the gravest men that I 
 have ever seen ; and his coachman has the looks of a privy-coun- 
 cilor. 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, though 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 domestics 
 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 pressed 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 inquiries after his own affairs with several 
 kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good 
 nature engages everybody to him ; so that, when he is pleasant 
 upon any of them, all his family are in good humor, and none so 
 much as the person whom he diverts himself with : on the con- 
 traiy, 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. 
 
JOSEPH ADDISON. 517 
 
 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, be- 
 cause 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 a humorist ; 
 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 itself, 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 colors. As I was walking with him last night, he 
 asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now men- 
 tioned, 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 uni- 
 versity 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 backgammon. 
 " 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 show 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 outlives 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; though he is every day 
 soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my 
 tenants, his parishioners. There has not been a lawsuit 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 
 
518 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 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 Dr. South in the after- 
 noon. He then showed us his list of preachers for the whole 
 year, where I saw, with a great deal of pleasure, Archbishop 
 Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. 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 qualifica- 
 tions 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 grace- 
 ful actor. 
 
 I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would 
 follow this example, and, instead of wasting their spirits in la- 
 borious compositions of their own, would endeavor after a hand- 
 some elocution, and all those other talents that are proper to 
 enforce what has been penned by great masters. This would 
 not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the 
 people. Spectator, No. 106. 
 
 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 insti- 
 tution, 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 
 different 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 politics being 
 
JOSEPH ADDISOK 519 
 
 generally discussed in that place, either after sermon, or before 
 the bell rings. 
 
 My friend Sir Eoger, being a good Churchman, has beautified 
 the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing, 
 lie has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the 
 communion-table at his own expense. 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, 
 lie 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 outdo 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 nobody to sleep in it 
 besides himself; for if, by chance, he has been surprised into a 
 short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and 
 looks about him, and, if he sees anybody 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 everybody else is upon 
 their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants 
 are missing. 
 
 I was yesterday very much surprised 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 the circumstances of life, has a 
 very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see 
 any thing ridiculous in his behavior : besides that, the general 
 good sense and worthiness of his character make his friends ob- 
 serve these little singularities as foils that rather set off than 
 blemish his good qualities. 
 
 As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody 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 
 inquires how such a one's wife or mother or son or father does 
 whom lie does not see at church ; which is understood as a secret 
 reprimand to the person that is absent. 
 
520 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The chaplain has often told me, that upon a catechising 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 encour- 
 agement, 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. Spectator, No. 112. 
 
 OTHER WRITERS OF DISTINCTION. 
 
 Sir ISAAC NEWTON. 1642-1727. Distinguished philosopher. "Optics;" 
 " Principia," in Latin; " The Prophecies;" and several other works. 
 
 Sir RICHARD STEELE. 1675-1729. The witty partner with Addison in " The 
 Tatler," started by Steele; and followed by the " Guardian " and " Spectator," the 
 first important periodicals of English literature, ''The Conscious Lovers," and 
 other short-lived comedies. 
 
 ISAAC WAITS. 1674-1748. "Hymns," " Logic," and "Improvement of the 
 Mind." 
 
 NICHOLAS ROWE. 1673-1718. " The Fair Penitent," " Jane Shore," and other 
 plays. 
 
 AMBROSE PHILLIPS. 1675-1749. "Pastorals." 
 
 THOMAS PARNELL. 1679-1718. " The Hermit." 
 
 THOMAS TICKELL. 1686-1740. "Colin and Lucy," a ballad; "Kensington 
 Gardens; " and contributions to the " Spectator" and "Guardian." 
 
 ALLAN RAMSAY. 1686-1758. " The Gentle Shepherd," a pastoral drama. 
 
 JOHN GAY. 1688-1732. " Fables," " Beggar's Opera," and song of " Black- 
 eyed Susan." 
 
 RICHAKD SAVAGE. 1697-1729. " The Wanderer." 
 ROBERT BLAIR. 1699-1746. " The Grave." 
 
 JOHN DYER, 1698-1758. " Grongar Hill," "The Ruins of Rome," and " The 
 Fleece." 
 
 ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER (Earl of Shaftesbury). 1621-1683. "Charac- 
 teristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times." 
 
 SAMUEL CLARKE. 1675-1729. Theological and metaphysical works. 
 HENRY ST. JOHN (Viscount Bolingbroke). 1678-1751. " Reflections on Exile," 
 " Letters on the Stiidy of History." " Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism," and 
 " Idea of a Patriot King." The friend (St. John) of Pope's " Essay." 
 
 GEORGE BERKELEY. 1684-1753. " Theory of Vision." A distinguished meta- 
 physician, whose philosophy would disprove the existence of matter. 
 Lady MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 1690-1761. "Letters." 
 PHILIP STANHOPE (Earl of Chesterfield). 1694-1773. "Letters to his Son." 
 HENRY HOMES (Lord Kames). 1696-1782. "The Elements of Criticism." 
 THOMAS YALDEN. WILLIAM SOMERVILLE. 
 
 HENRY GROVE. ELIZABETH ROWE. 
 
 BARTON BOOTH. ANSE FINCH. 
 
 ESTHER VANIIOMRIGH. 
 
JOHN DEYDEN. 521 
 
 JOHN DKTDEK 
 
 1631-1700. 
 
 Distinguished writer of prose and poetry. Author of about thirty plays. His 
 prefaces and dedications are fine specimens of English. We select from'his best 
 known work, the translation of Virgil. 
 
 ARMS and the man I sing, who, forced by fate 
 And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, 
 Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore. 
 Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore ; 
 And in the doubtful war, before he won 
 The Latin realm and built the destined town, 
 His banished gods restored to rights divine, 
 And settled sure succession in his line ; 
 From whence the race of Alban fathers come, 
 And the long glories of majestic Rome. 
 
 O Muse ! the causes and the crimes relate, 
 What goddess was provoked, and whence her hate ; 
 For what offense the Queen of Heaven began 
 To persecute so brave, so just a man, 
 Involved his anxious life in endless cares, 
 Exposed to wants, and hurried into wars : 
 Can heavenly minds such high resentment show, 
 Or exercise their spite in human woe ? 
 
 Against the Tiber's mouth, but far away, 
 An ancient town was seated on the sea, 
 A Tyrian colony ; the people made 
 Stout for the war, and studious of their trade ; 
 Carthage the name, beloved by Juno more 
 Than her own Argos or the Samian shore. 
 Here stood her chariot ; here, if Heaven were kind, 
 The seat of awful empire she designed. 
 Yet she had heard an ancient rumor fly, 
 (Long cited by the people of the sky,) 
 That times to come should see the Trojan race 
 Her Carthage ruin, and her towers deface ; 
 Nor, thus confined, the yoke of sovereign sway 
 Should on the necks of all the nations lay. 
 She pondered this, and feared it was in fate ; 
 Nor could forget the war she waged of late, 
 For conquering Greece, apainst the Trojan state. 
 Besides, long causes working in her mind, 
 And secret seeds of envy, lay behind. 
 Deep graven in her heart, the doom remained 
 Of partial Paris, and her form disdained ; 
 The grace bestowed on ravished Ganymede ; 
 Eleetra's glories, and her injured bed, 
 Each was a cause alone ; and all combined 
 To kiutlle vengeance in her haughty niiud. 
 
522 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 For this, far distant from the Latin coast, 
 
 She drove the remnants of the Trojan host; 
 
 And seven long years the unhappy wandering train 
 
 Were tossed by storms, and scattered through the main. 
 
 Such time, such toil, required the Roman name, 
 
 Such length of labor, for so vast a frame. 
 
 Now scarce the Trojan fleet with sails and oars 
 Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores, 
 Entering with cheerful shouts the watery reign, 
 And plowing frothy furrows in the main, 
 When, laboring still, with endless discontent 
 The Queen of Heaven did thus her fury vent : 
 
 " Then am I vanquished V must I yield ? " said she, 
 " And must the Trojans reign in Italy ? 
 So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force; 
 Nor can my power divert their happy course. 
 Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen, 
 The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men ? 
 She, for the fault of one offending foe, 
 The bolts of Jove himself presumed to throw ; 
 With whirlwinds from beneath she tossed the ship, 
 And bare exposed the bosom of the deep : 
 Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game, 
 The wretch, yet hissing with her father's flame, 
 She strongly seized, and with a burning wound, 
 Transfixed and naked, on a rock she bound. 
 But I, who walked in awful state above, 
 The majesty of heaven, the sister-wife of Jove, 
 For length of years my fruitless force employ 
 Against the thin remains of ruined Troy. 
 What nations now to Juno's power will pray, 
 Or offerings on my slighted altars lay V " 
 
 Thus raged the goddess ; and, with fury fraught, 
 The restless regions of the storms she sought, 
 Where in a spacious cave of living stone 
 The tyrant .ZEolus from his airy throne 
 With power imperial curbs the struggling winds, 
 And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. 
 This way and that, the impatient captives tend, 
 And, pressing for release, the mountains rend. 
 High in his hall the undaunted monarch stands, 
 And shakes his scepter, and their rage commands : 
 Which did he not, their unresisted sway 
 Would sweep the world before them in their way ; 
 Earth, air, and seas through empty space would roll, 
 And heaven would fly before the driving soul. 
 In fear of this, the father of the gods 
 Confined their fury to those dark abodes, 
 
 And locked them safe within, oppressed with mountain-loads ; 
 Imposed a king, with arbitrary sway, 
 To loose their fetters, or their force allay. 
 To whom the suppliant queen her prayers addressed, 
 And thus the tenor of her suit expressed : - 
 
JOHN DRYDEN. 523 
 
 " O JSolus ! for to thee the King of Heaven 
 The power of tempests and of winds has given ; 
 Thy force alone their fury can restrain, 
 And smooth the waves, or swell the troubled main: 
 A race of wandering slaves, abhorred by me, 
 With prosperous passage cut the Tuscan Sea; 
 To fruitful Italy their course they steer, 
 And for their vanquished gods design new temples there. 
 Raise all thy winds ; with night involve the skies : 
 Sink or disperse my fatal enemies ! 
 Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main, 
 Around my person wait, and bear my train. 
 Succeed my wish, and second my design, 
 The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine, 
 And make thee father of a happy line." 
 
 To this the god : " 'Tis yours, O queen ! to will 
 The work which duty bids me to fulfill. 
 These airy kingdoms and this wide command 
 Are all the presents of your bounteous hand ; 
 Yours is my sovereign's grace ; and, as your guest, 
 I sit with gods at their celestial feast ; 
 Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue ; 
 Dispose of empire which I hold from you." 
 
 He said, and hurled against the mountain-side 
 His quivering spear, and all the god applied. 
 The raging winds rush through the hollow wound, 
 And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground ; 
 Then, settling on the sea, the surges sweep, 
 Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep. 
 South, East, and West, with mixed confusion roar, 
 And roll the foaming billows to the shore. 
 The cables crack ; the sailors' fearful cries 
 Ascend ; and sable night involves the skies ; 
 And heaven itself is ravished from their eyes. 
 Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue ; 
 Then flashing, fires the transient light renew : 
 The face of things a frightful image bears ; 
 And present death in various forms appears. 
 Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief, 
 With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief: 
 
 " And thrice and four times happy those," he cried, 
 " That under Ilian walls before their parents died I 
 Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train, 
 Why could not I by that strong arm be slain, 
 And lie by noble Hector on the plain ; 
 Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields 
 Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields 
 Of heroes whose dismembered hands yet bear 
 The dart aloft, and clinch the pointed spear ? " 
 
 Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails, 
 Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails, 
 And rent the sheets. The raging billows rise, 
 And mount the tossing vessel to the skies ; 
 
624 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Nor can the shivering oars sustain the blow : 
 
 The galley gives her side, and turns her prow ; 
 
 While those astern, descending down the steep, 
 
 Through gaping waves behold the boiling deep. 
 
 Three ships were hurried by the southern blast, 
 
 And on the secret shelves with fury cast. 
 
 Those hidden rocks the Ausonian sailors knew : 
 
 They called them altars when they rose in view, 
 
 And showed their spacious backs above the flood. 
 
 Three more fierce Eurus in his angry mood 
 
 Dashed on the shallows of the moving sand, 
 
 And in mid ocean left them moored aland. 
 
 Orontes' bark, that bore the Lycian crew 
 
 (A horrid sight) even in the hero's view, 
 
 From stem to stern by waves was overborne. 
 
 The trembling pilot, from his rudder torn, 
 
 Was headlong hurled : thrice round the ship was tossed ; 
 
 Then bilged at once, and in the deep was lost. 
 
 And here and there above the waves were seen 
 
 Arms, pictures, precious goods, and floating men. 
 
 The stoutest vessel to the storm gave way, 
 
 And sucked through loosened planks the rushing sea. 
 
 Ilioneus was her chief. Alethes old, 
 
 Achates faithful, Abas young and bold, 
 
 Endured not less : their ships, with gaping seams, 
 
 Admit the deluge of the briny streams. 
 
 Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound 
 Of raging billows breaking on the ground : 
 Displeased, and fearing for his watery reign, 
 He reared his awful head above the main, 
 Serene in majesty, then rolled his eyes 
 Around the space of earth, the seas and skies. 
 He saw the Trojan fleet dispersed, distressed, 
 By stormy winds and wintry heaven oppressed. 
 Full well the god his sister's envy knew, 
 And what her aims, and what her arts pursue. 
 He summoned Eurus and the western blast ; 
 And first an angry glance on both he cast ; 
 Then thus rebuked : " Audacious winds ! from whence 
 This bold attempt, this rebel insolence ? 
 Is it for you to ravage seas and land, 
 Unauthorized by my supreme command ? 
 To raise such mountains on the troubled main ? 
 Whom I But first 'tis fit the billows to restrain, 
 And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign. 
 Hence to your lord my royal mandate bear : 
 The realms of ocean, and the fields of air, 
 Are mine, not his ; by fatal lot to me 
 The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. 
 His power to hollow caverns is confined : 
 There let him reign, the jailer of the wind ; 
 With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call ; 
 And boast and bluster in his empty hall." 
 
JOHN DKYDEN. 525 
 
 He spoke ; and, while he spoke, he smoothed the sea, 
 Dispelled the darkness, and restored the day. 
 Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train 
 Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main, 
 Clear from the rocKs the vessels with their hands : 
 The god himself with ready trident stands, 
 And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands; 
 Then heaves them off the shoals. Where'er he guides 
 His finny coursers, and in triumph rides, 
 The waves unruffle, and the sea subsides. 
 As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd, 
 Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud ; 
 And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly, 
 And all the rustic arms that fury can supply : 
 If then some grave and pious man appear, 
 They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear ; 
 He soothes with sober words their angry mood, 
 And quenches their innate desire of blood. 
 So, when the father of the flood appears, 
 And o'er the seas his sovereign trident rears, 
 Their fury falls. He skims the liquid plains, 
 High on his chariot, and with loosened reins 
 Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains. 
 The weary Trojans ply their shattered oars 
 To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores. 
 
 Within a long recess there lies a bay : 
 An island shades it from the rolling sea, 
 And forms a port secure for ships to ride, 
 Broke by the jutting land on either side : 
 In double streams the briny waters glide. 
 Betwixt two rows of rocks, a sylvan scene 
 Appears above, and groves for ever green. 
 A grot is formed beneath, with mossy seats, 
 To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats. 
 Down through the crannies of the living walls 
 The crystal streams descend in murmuring falls. 
 No hawsers need to bind the vessels here, 
 Nor bearded anchors ; for no storms they fear. : 
 Seven ships within this happy harbor meet, 
 The thin remainders of the scattered fleet. 
 The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes, 
 Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wished repose. 
 First, good Achates, with repeated strokes 
 Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes ; 
 Short flame succeeds ; a bed of withered leaves 
 The dying sparkles in their fall receives : 
 Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise, 
 And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies. 
 The Trojans, dropping wet, or stand around 
 The cheerful blaze, or lie along the ground : 
 Some dry their corn infected with the brine, 
 Then grind with marbles, and prepare to dine. 
 
526 EXGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 JEneas climbs the mountain's airy brow, 
 And takes a prospect of the seas below, 
 If Capys thence, or Antheus, he could spy, 
 Or see'the streamers of " The Caicus " fly. 
 No vessels were in view ; but on the plain 
 Three beamy stags command a lordly train 
 Of branching heads : the more ignoble throng 
 Attend their stately steps, and slowly grace along. 
 He stood ; and, while secure they fed below, 
 He took the quiver and the trusty bow 
 Achates used to bear : the leaders first 
 He laid along, and then the vulgar pierced ; 
 Nor ceased his arrows till the shady plain 
 Seven mighty bodies with their blood distain. 
 For the seven ships he made an equal share, 
 And to the port returned triumphant from the war. 
 The jars of generous wine (Acestes* gift 
 When his Trinacrian shores the navy left) 
 He set abroach, and for the feast prepared, 
 In equal portions with the venison shared. 
 Thus, while he dealt it round, the pious chief 
 With cheerful words allayed the common grief: 
 
 " Endure and conquer : Jove will soon dispose 
 To future good our past and present woes. 
 With me the rocks of Scylla you have tried ; 
 The inhuman Cyclops and his den defied : 
 What greater ills hereafter you can bear. 
 Resume your courage, and dismiss your care. 
 An hour will come, with pleasure to relate 
 Your sorrows past as benefits of Fate. 
 Through various hazards and events we move 
 To Latium, and the realms foredoomed by Jove. 
 Called to the seat (the promise of the skies), 
 Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise, 
 Endure the hardships of your present state ; 
 Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate." 
 
 These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart : 
 His out\vard smiles concealed his inward smart. 
 The jolly crew, unmindful of the past, 
 The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste : 
 Some strip the skin ; some portion out the spoil ; 
 (The limbs, yet trembling, in the caldrons boil ;) 
 Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil. 
 Stretched on the grassy turf, at ease they dine, 
 Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine. 
 Their hunger thus appeased, their care attends 
 The doubtful fortune of their absent friends : 
 Alternate hopes and fears their minds possess, 
 Whether to deem them dead, or in distress. 
 Above the rest. .Eneas mourns the fate 
 Of brave Orontes, and the uncertain state 
 Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus : 
 The day, but not their sorrows, ended thus. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN. 527 
 
 When from aloft almighty Jove surveys 
 
 Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas, 
 
 At length on Libyan realms he fixed his eyes ; 
 
 Whom, pondering thus on human miseries, 
 
 When Venus saw, she with a lowly look, 
 
 Not free from tears, her heavenly sire bespoke : 
 
 " O king of gods and men, whose awful hand 
 Disperses thunder on the seas and land, 
 Disposes all with absolute command ! 
 How could my pious son thy power incense ? 
 Or what, alas ! is vanished Troy's offense ? 
 Our hope of Italy not only lost 
 On various seas, by various tempests tossed, 
 But shut from every shore, and barred from every coast 
 You promised once, a progeny divine 
 Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line, 
 In after-times should hold the world in awe, 
 And to the land and ocean give the law. 
 How is your doom reversed which eased my care ? 
 When Troy was ruined in that cruel war, 
 Then fates to fates I could oppose ; but now, 
 When Fortune still pursues her former blow, 
 What can I hope ? What worse can still succeed ? 
 What end of labors has your will decreed ? 
 Antenor from the midst of Grecian hosts 
 Could pass secure, and pierce the Illyrian coasts, 
 Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves, 
 And through nine channels disembogues his waves. 
 At length he founded Padua's happy seat, 
 And gave his Trojans a secure retreat ; 
 There fixed their arms, and there renewed their name, 
 And there in quiet rules, and crowned with fame : 
 But we, descended from your sacred line, 
 Entitled to your heaven and rites divine, 
 Are banished earth, and, for the wrath of one, 
 Removed from Latium and the promised throne. 
 Are these our scepters ? these our due rewards ? 
 And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards ? " 
 
 To whom the father of immortal race, 
 Smiling with that serene, indulgent face 
 With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies, 
 First gave a holy kiss ; then thus replies : 
 
 " Daughter, dismiss thy fears. To thy desire 
 The fates of thine are fixed, and stand entire. 
 Thou shalt behold thy wished Lavinian walls ; 
 And, ripe for heaven, when Fate -ZEneas calls, 
 Then shalt thou bear him up sublime to me : 
 No councils have reversed my firm decree. 
 And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state, 
 Know I have searched the mystic rolls of fate. 
 Thy son (nor is the appointed season far) 
 In Italy shall wage successful war \ 
 
528 ENGLISH LITEIIATUKE. 
 
 Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field, 
 
 And sovereign laws impose, and cities build ; 
 
 Till, after every foe subdued, the Sun 
 
 Thrice through the signs his annual race shall run : 
 
 This is his time prefixed. Ascanius then, 
 
 Now called liilus, shall begin his reign. 
 
 He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear, 
 
 Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer, 
 
 And with hard labor Alba Longa build : 
 
 The throne with his succession shall be filled 
 
 Three hundred circuits more ; then shall be seen 
 
 Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen, 
 
 Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes, 
 
 Shall at a birth two goodly boys disclose. 
 
 The royal babes a tawny wolf shall drain : 
 
 Then Romulus his grandsire's throne shall gain, 
 
 Of martial towers the founder shall become, 
 
 The people Romans call, the city Rome. 
 
 To them no bounds of empire I assign, 
 
 Nor term of years to their immortal line. 
 
 Even haughty Juno, who, with endless broils, 
 
 Earth, seas, and heaven, and Jove himself, turmoils, 
 
 At length atoned, her friendly power shall join 
 
 To cherish and advance the Trojan line. 
 
 The subject- world shall Rome's dominion own, 
 
 And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown. 
 
 An age is ripening in revolving fate 
 
 When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state ; 
 
 And sweet revenge her conquering sons shall call 
 
 To crush the people that conspired her fall. 
 
 Then Caesar from the Julian stock shall rise, 
 
 Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies, 
 
 Alone shall bound ; whom, fraught with Eastern spoils, 
 
 Our heaven, the just reward of human toils, 
 
 Securely shall repay with rites divine ; 
 
 And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine. 
 
 Then dire debate and impious war shall cease, 
 
 And the stern age be softened into peace ; 
 
 Then banished faith shall once again return, 
 
 And vestal fires in hallowed temples burn ; 
 
 And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain 
 
 The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain. 
 
 Janus himself before his fane shall wait, 
 
 And keep the dreadful issues of his gate 
 
 With bolts and iron bars : within remains 
 
 Imprisoned Fun', bound in brazen chains. 
 
 High on a trophy raised, of useless arms, 
 
 He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms." 
 
 He said, and sent Cyllenius with command 
 To free the ports, and ope the Punic land 
 To Trojan guests, lest, ignorant of fate, 
 The queen might force them from her town and state. 
 
JOHN DRYDEN. 529 
 
 Down from the steep of heaven Cyllenius flies, 
 And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skies. 
 Soon on the Libyan shore descends the god, 
 Performs his message, and displays his rod : 
 The surly murmurs of the people cease ; 
 And, as the Fates required, they give the peace. 
 The queen herself suspends the rigid laws, 
 The Trojans pities, and protects their cause. 
 
 Meantime in shades of night ^JEneas lies ; 
 Care seized his soul, and sleep forsook his eyes : 
 But, when the sun restored the cheerful day, 
 He rose the coast and country to survey, 
 Anxious and eager to discover more. 
 It looked a wild, uncultivated shore ; 
 But whether human kind, or beasts alone, 
 Possessed the new-found region, was unknown. 
 Beneath a ledge of rocks his fleet he hides : 
 Tall trees surround the mountain's shady sides ; 
 The bending brow above, a safe retreat provides. 
 Armed with two pointed darts, he leaves his friends ; 
 And true Achates on his steps attends. 
 Lo, in the deep recesses of the wood, 
 Before his eyes his goddess-mother stood ! 
 A huntress in her habit and her mien, 
 Her dress a maid, her air confessed a queen. 
 Bare were her knees ; and knots her garments bind ; 
 Loose was her hair, and wantoned in the wind ; 
 Her hand sustained a bow ; her quiver hung behind : 
 She seemed a virgin of the Spartan blood. 
 With such array, Harpalice bestrode 
 Her Thracian courser, and outstripped the rapid flood. 
 
 " Ho, strangers ! have you lately seen," she said, 
 " One of my sisters, like myself arrayed, 
 Who crossed the lawn, or in the forest strayed ? 
 A painted quiver at her back she bore ; 
 Varied with spots, a lynx's hide she wore ; 
 And at full cry pursued the tusky boar." 
 Thus Venus. Thus her son replied again : 
 
 " None of your sisters have we heard or seen, 
 O Virgin ! or what other name you bear 
 Above that style, O more than mortal fair ! 
 Your voice and mien celestial birth betray. 
 If, as you seem, the sister of the Day, 
 Or one at least of chaste Diana's train, 
 Let not a humble suppliant sue in vain ; 
 But tell a stranger, long in tempests tossed, 
 What earth we tread, and who commands the coast ; 
 Then on your name shall wretched mortals call, 
 And offered victims at your altars fall." 
 
 " I dare not," she replied, " assume the name 
 Of goddess, or celestial honors claim ; 
 34 
 
530 ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 
 For Tyrian virgins bows and quivers bear, 
 
 And purple buskins o'er their ankles wear. 
 
 Know y gentle youth, in Libyan lands you are, 
 
 A people rude in peace, and rough in war. 
 
 The rising city which from far you see 
 
 Is Carthage, and a Tyrian colony. 
 
 Phoenician Dido rules the growing state, 
 
 Who fled from Tyre to shun a brother's hate : 
 
 Great were her wrongs, her story ftill of fate, 
 
 Which I will sum in short. Sichasus, known 
 
 For wealth, and brother to the Punic throne, 
 
 Possessed fair Dido's bed ; and either heart 
 
 At once was wounded with an equal dart. 
 
 Her father gave her, yet a spotless maid. 
 
 Pygmalion then the Tyrian scepter swayed, 
 
 One who contemned divine and human laws : 
 
 Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause. 
 
 The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth, 
 
 With steel invades his brother's life by stealth - 
 
 Before the sacred altar made him bleed, 
 
 And long from her concealed the cruel deed. 
 
 Some tale, some new pretense, he daily coined, 
 
 To soothe his sister, and delude her mind. 
 
 At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears 
 
 Of her unhappy lord. The specter stares, 
 
 And with erected eyes his bloody bosom bares. 
 
 The cruel altars and his fate he tells, 
 
 And the dire secret of his house reveals ; 
 
 Then warns the widow and her household gods 
 
 To seek a refuge in remote abodes. 
 
 Last, to support her in so long a way, 
 
 He shows her where his hidden treasure lay. 
 
 Admonished thus, and seized with mortal fright, 
 
 The queen provides companions of her flight : 
 
 They meet, and all combine to leave the state 
 
 Who hate the tyrant, or who fear his hate. 
 
 They seize a fleet which ready rigged they find ; 
 
 Nor is Pygmalion's treasure left behind. 
 
 The vessels, heavy-laden, put to sea 
 
 With prosperous winds : a woman leads the. way. 
 
 I know not if by stress of weather driven, 
 
 Or was their fatal course disposed by Heaven. 
 
 At last they landed where from far your eyes 
 
 May view the turrets of New Carthage rise ; 
 
 There bought a space of ground, which, Byrsa called 
 
 From the bull's-hide, they first inclosed and walled. 
 
 But whence are you ? what country claims your birth ? 
 
 What seek you, strangers, on the Libyan earth V " 
 
 To whom, with sorrow streaming from his eyes, 
 And deeply sighing, thus her son replies : 
 
 " Could you with patience hear, or I relate, 
 O nymph I the tedious annals of our fate, 
 
JOHN DI;YDEN. 531 
 
 Through such a train of woes if I should run, 
 The day would sooner than the tale be done. 
 From ancient Troy, by force expelled, we came, 
 (If you by chance have heard the Trojan name.) 
 On various seas, by various tempests tost, 
 At length we landed on your Libyan coast. 
 The good tineas am I called ; a name, 
 While fortune favored, not unknown to fame. 
 My household gods, companions of my woes, 
 With pious care I rescued from our foes. 
 To fruitful Italy my course was bent ; 
 And from the king of heaven is my descent. 
 With twice ten sail I crossed the Phrygian Sea : 
 Fate and my mother-goddess led my way. 
 Scarce seven, the thin remainder of my fleet, 
 From storms preserved, within your harbor meet. 
 Myself distressed, an exile, and unkno\vn, 
 Debarred from Europe, and from Asia thrown, 
 In Libyan deserts wander thus alone." 
 
 His tender parent could no longer bear, 
 But, interposing, sought to soothe his care : 
 
 " Whoe'er you are, not unbeloved by Heaven, 
 Since on our friendly shore your ships are driven, 
 Have courage : to the gods permit the rest, 
 And to the queen expose your just request. 
 Now take this earnest of success for more : 
 Your scattered fleet is joined upon the shore ; 
 The winds are changed, your friends from danger free, 
 Or I renounce my skill in augury. 
 Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move, 
 And stoop with closing pinions from above, 
 Whom late the bird of Jove had driven along, 
 And through the clouds pursued the scattering throng : 
 Now, all united in a goodly team, 
 They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream, 
 As they, with joy returning, clap their wings, 
 And ride the circuit of the skies in rings. 
 Not otherwise your ships, and every friend, 
 Already hold the port, or with swift sails descend. 
 No more advice is needful ; but pursue 
 The path before you, and the town in view." 
 
 Thus having said, she turned, and made appear 
 Her neck refulgent, and disheveled hair ; 
 Which, flowing from her shoulders, reached the ground, 
 And widely spread ambrosial scents around : 
 In length of train descends her sweeping gown ; 
 And by her graceful walk the Queen of Love is known. 
 
532 ENGLISH EITERATURE. 
 
 JOHN BUNYAK 
 
 1628-1688. 
 
 Author of the unequaled allegory, " The Pilgrim's Progress." Although the 
 author of many other works, this alone has made him immortal. 
 
 VALIANT'S STORY. 
 
 THEN said Great-Heart to Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, "Thou hast 
 worthily behaved thyself: let me see thy sword." So he showed 
 it to him. When he had taken it in his hand, and looked 
 thereon a while, he said, " Ha ! it is a right Jerusalem blade." 
 
 Valiant. It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with 
 a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon 
 an angel with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell 
 how to lay on. Its edge will never blunt. It will cut flesh and 
 bones, and soul and spirit, and all. 
 
 Great. But you fought a great while : I wonder you were not 
 weary. 
 
 Valiant. I fought till my sword did cleave to my hand ; and 
 then they were joined together as if a sword grew out of my 
 arm ; and when the blood ran through my fingers, then I fought 
 with most courage. 
 
 Great. Thou hast done well : thou hast resisted unto blood, 
 striving against sin. Thou shalt abide by us, come in and go 
 out with us; for we are thy companions. Then they took him, 
 and washed his wounds, and gave him of what they had to 
 refresh him ; and so they went on together. 
 
 Now, as they went on, because Mr. Great-Heart was delighted 
 in him (for he loved one greatly that he found to be a man of 
 his hands), and because there were in company they that were 
 feeble and weak, therefore he questioned with him about many 
 things ; as, first, what counhyman he was. 
 
 Valiant. I am of Dark-Land; for there was I born, and 
 there my father and mother are still. 
 
 " Dark-Land," said the guide : " doth not that lie on the same 
 coast with the City of Destruction ? " 
 
 Valiant. Yes, it doth. Now, that which caused me to come 
 on pilgrimage was this : We had one Mr. Tell-True come into 
 our parts ; and he told about what Christian had done, that went 
 from the City of Destruction ; namely, how he had forsaken his 
 wife and children, and had betaken himself to a pilgrim's life. 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 533 
 
 It was also confidently reported how he had killed a serpent 
 that had come out to resist him in his journey; and how he 
 got through to whither he intended. It was also told what wel- 
 come he had at all his Lord's lodgings, especially when he came 
 to the gates of the Celestial City; "for there," said the man, "he 
 was received with sound of trumpet by a company of shining 
 ones." He told, also, how all the bells in the city did ring for joy 
 at his reception, and what golden garments he was clothed with ; 
 with many other things that now I shall forbear to relate. In a 
 word, that man so told the story of Christian and his travels, that 
 my heart fell into a burning haste to be gone after him. Nor 
 could father or mother stay me : so I got from thein, and am 
 come thus far on my way. 
 
 Great. You came in at the gate ; did you not ? 
 
 Valiant. Yes, yes ! for the same man also told us that all 
 would be nothing if we did not begin to enter this way at the 
 gate. "Look you," said the guide to Christiana, "the pilgrimage 
 of your husband, and what he has gotten thereby, is spread abroad 
 far and near." 
 
 Valiant. Why, is this Christian's wife ? 
 
 Great. Yes, that it is ; and these, also, are his four sons. 
 
 Valiant. What ! and going on pilgrimage too ? 
 
 Great. Yes, verily, they are following after. 
 
 Valiant. It glads me at the heart. Good man, how joyful 
 will he be when he shall see them that would not go with him, 
 yet to enter after him in at the gates into the Celestial City ! 
 
 Great. Without doubt it will be a comfort to him ; for, next 
 to the joy of seeing himself there, it will be a joy to meet there 
 his wife and children. 
 
 Valiant. But, now you are upon that, pray let me see your 
 opinion about it. Some make a question whether we shall know 
 one another when we are there. 
 
 'Great. Do you think they shall know themselves then, or 
 that they shall rejoice to see themselves in that bliss ? and, if 
 they think they shall know and do this, why not know others, 
 and rejoice in their welfare also ? Again : since relations are our 
 second self, though that state will be dissolved there, yet why 
 may it not be rationally concluded that we shall be more glad to 
 see them there than to see they are wanting? 
 
 Valiant. Well, I perceive whereabouts you are as to this. 
 Have you any more things to ask me about 'my beginning to 
 come on pilgrimage ? 
 
 Great. Yes % : were your father and mother willing that you 
 should become a pilgrim ? 
 
 Valiant. Oh, no ! they used all means imaginable to per- 
 suade me to stay at home. 
 
534 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Great. Why, what could they say against it ? 
 
 Valiant. They said it was an" idle life ; and, if I myself were 
 not inclined to. sloth and laziness, I would never countenance a 
 pilgrim's condition. 
 
 Great. And what did they say else? 
 
 Valiant. Why, they told me that it was a dangerous way : 
 yea, the most dangerous way in the world, say they, is that 
 which the pilgrims go. 
 
 G-reat. Did they show you wherein this way is so dangerous ? 
 
 Valiant. Yes ; and that in many particulars. 
 
 Great. Name some of them. 
 
 Valiant. They told me of the Slough of Despond, where 
 Christian was well-nigh smothered. They told me that there 
 were archers standing ready in Beelzebub Castle to shoot them 
 who should knock at the Wicket-Gate for entrance. They told 
 me also of the wood and dark mountains ; of the Hill Difficulty ; 
 of the lions ; and also of the three giants, Bloody-Man, Maul, 
 and Slay-Good. They said, moreover, that there was a foul fiend 
 haunted the Valley of Humiliation; and that Christian was by 
 him almost bereft of life. " Besides," said they, "you must go over 
 the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where the hobgoblins are ; 
 where the light is darkness ; where the way is full of snares, pits, 
 traps, and gins." They told me also of Giant Despair, of Doubt- 
 ing Castle, and of the ruin that the pilgrims met with there. 
 Further, they said I must go over the Enchanted Ground, which 
 was dangerous; and that, after all this, I should find a river, 
 over which there was no bridge ; and that that river did lie 
 betwixt me and the Celestial Country. 
 
 Great. And this was all ? 
 
 Valiant. No. They also told me that this way was full of 
 deceivers, and of persons that lay in wait there to turn good men 
 out of the path. 
 
 Great. But how did they make that out ? 
 
 Valiant. They told me that Mr. Worldly -Wiseman did lie 
 there in wait to deceive. They said, also, that there were For- 
 mality and Hypocrisy continually on the road. They said, also, 
 that By- Ends, Talkative, or Demas, would go near to gather me 
 up; that the Flatterer would catch me in his net; or that, with 
 green-headed Ignorance, I would presume to go on to the gate, 
 from whence he was sent back to the hole that was in the side 
 of the hill, and made to go the by-way to hell. 
 
 Great. I promise you this was enough to discourage you ; 
 but did they make an end there ? 
 
 Valiant. No: stay. They told me, also, of many that had 
 tried that way of old, and that had gone a great way therein to 
 see if they could find something of the glory there that so many 
 
JOHN BtTNYAK . 535 
 
 had so much talked of from time to time ; and how they came 
 back again, and befooled themselves for setting afoot out of doors 
 in that path, to the satisfaction of all the country. And they 
 named several that did so, as Obstinate and Pliable, Mistrust 
 and Timorous, Turn- Away and old Atheist, with several more, 
 who, they said, had some of them gone far to see what they could 
 find; but not one of them had found so much advantage by going 
 as amounted to the weight of a feather. 
 
 Great. Said they any thing more to discourage you ? 
 
 Valiant. Yes. They told me of one Mr. Fearing, who was 
 a pilgrim ; and how he found his way so solitary, that he never 
 had a comfortable hour therein ; also that Mr. Despondency had 
 like to have been starved therein ; yea, and also (which I had 
 almost forgot) that Christian himself, about whom there has 
 been such a noise after all his ventures for a celestial crown, was 
 certainly drowned in the Black River, and never went a foot 
 farther. However, it was smothered up. 
 
 Great. And did none of these things discourage you? 
 
 Valiant. No: they seemed but as so many nothings to me. 
 
 Great. How came that about ? 
 
 Valiant. Why, I still believed what Mr. Tell-Truth had said; 
 and that carried me beyond them all. 
 
 Great. Then this was your victory, even your faith ? 
 
 Valiant. It was so. I believed, and therefore came out, got 
 into the way, fought all that set themselves against me, and, by 
 believing, am come to this place. 
 
 By this time they were got to the Enchanted Ground, where 
 the air naturally tended to make one drowsy. And that place 
 was all grown over with briers and thorns, excepting here and 
 there where was an enchanted arbor, upon which if a man sits, 
 or in which if a man sleeps, it is a question, some say, whether 
 ever he shall rise or wake again in this world. Over this 
 forest, therefore, they went, both one and another : and Mr. 
 Great-Heart went before, for that he was the guide ; and Mr. 
 Valiant-for-Truth came behind, being rear-guard, for fear lest, 
 peradventure, some fiend or dragon or giant or thief should fall 
 upon their rear, and so do mischief. They went on here, each 
 man with his sword drawn in his hand; for they knew it was a 
 dangerous place. Also they cheered up one another as well as 
 they could. Feeble-Mind, Mr. Great-Heart commanded, should 
 come up after him; and Mr. Despondency was under the eye of 
 Mr. Valiant. 
 
 Now, they had not gone far but a great mist and darkness fell 
 upon them all, so that they could scarce, for a great while, see 
 the one the other. Wherefore they were forced, for some time, 
 to feel one for another by words ; for they walked not by sight. 
 
536 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 But any one must think that here was but sorry going for the 
 best of them all; but how much worse for the women and chil- 
 dren, who both of feet and heart* were but tender ! Yet so it 
 was, that through the encouraging words of him that led in the 
 front, and of him that brought them up behind, they made a 
 pretty good shift to wag along. The way also here was very 
 wearisome, through dirt and slabbiness. Nor was there, on all 
 this ground, so much as one inn or victualing-house wherein to 
 refresh the feeble sort. Here, therefore, was grunting and puffing 
 and sighing ; while one tuinbleth over a bush, another sticks fast 
 in the dirt ; and the children, some of them, lost their shoes in 
 the mire : while one cries out, "I am down !" and another, "Ho ! 
 where are you ? " and a third, " The bushes hare got such fast 
 hold on me, I think I can not get away from them ! " 
 
 Then they came at an arbor, warm, and promising much refresh- 
 ing to the pilgrims ; for it was finely wrought above-head, beauti- 
 fied with greens, furnished with benches and settles. It also had 
 in it a soft couch, whereon the weary might lean. This you must 
 think, all things considered, was tempting; for the pilgrims al- 
 ready began to be foiled with the badness of the way : but there 
 wa.s not one of them that made so much as a motion to stop there. 
 Yea, for aught I could perceive, they continually gave so good 
 heed to the advice of their guide, and he did so faithfully tell 
 them of dangers, and of the nature of dangers when they were at 
 them, that usually, when they were nearest to them, they did most 
 pluck up their spirits, and hearten one another to deny the flesh. 
 This arbor was called the Slothful's Friend, on purpose to allure, 
 if it might be, some of the pilgrims there to take up their rest 
 when weary. I saw them in my dream, that they went on in this 
 their solitary ground till they came to a place at which a man is 
 apt to lose his way. Now, though when it was light their guide 
 could well enough tell how to miss those ways that led wrong, yet 
 in the dark he was put to a stand. But he had in his pocket a 
 map of all ways leading to or from the Celestial City : wherefore 
 he struck a light (for he never goes without his tinder-box also), 
 and takes a view of his book or map, which bids him to be careful 
 in that place to turn to the right hand. And, had he not been 
 careful here to look in his map, they had all, in probability, been 
 smothered in the mud ; for just a little before them, and that at 
 the end of the cleanest way too, was a pit, none knows how deep, 
 full of nothing but mud, there made on purpose to destroy the 
 pilgrims in. 
 
 Then thought I with myself, " Who that goeth on pilgrimage but 
 would have one of these maps about him. that he may look when 
 he is at a stand which is the way he must take ? " 
 
 Then they went on in this Enchanted Ground till they came to 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 537 
 
 where there was another arbor; and it was built by the highway- 
 side. And in that arbor there lay two men, whose names were 
 Heedless and Too-Bold. These two went thus far on pilgrimage, 
 but here, being wearied with their journey, sat down to rest them- 
 selves, and so fell fast asleep. When the pilgrims saw them, they 
 stood still, and shook their heads; for they knew that the sleepers 
 were in a pitiful case. Then they consulted what to do, whether 
 to go on and leave them in their sleep ; or to step to them, and try 
 to awake them. So they concluded to go to them, and try to awake 
 them, that is, if they could ; but with this caution, namely, 
 to take heed that they themselves did not sit down, nor embrace 
 the offered benefit of that arbor. 
 
 So they went in and spake to the men, and called each by his 
 name (for the guide, it seems, did know them) ; but there was no 
 voice nor answer. Then the guide did shake them, and do what 
 he could to disturb them. Then said one of them, "I will pay you 
 when I take my money." At which the guide shook his head. 
 "I will fight so long as I can hold my sword in my hand," said 
 the other. At that one of the children laughed. Then said 
 Christiana, "What is the meaning of this?" The guide said, 
 "They talk in their sleep. If you strike them, beat them, or 
 whatever else you do to them, they will answer you after this 
 fashion ; or as one of them said in old time, when the waves of 
 the sea did beat upon him, and he slept as one upon the mast of a 
 ship, 'When I awake, I will seek it again.' You know, when 
 men talk in their sleep, they say any thing ; but their words are 
 not governed either by faith or reason. There is an incoherency 
 in their words now, as there was before betwixt their going on 
 pilgrimage and sitting down here. This, then, is the mischief of 
 it: When heedless ones go on pilgrimage, 'tis twenty to one but 
 they are served thus; for this Enchanted Ground is one of the 
 last refuges that the enemy to pilgrims has : wherefore it is, as 
 you see, placed almost at the end of the way, and so it standeth 
 against us with the more advantage. For ' when,' thinks the ene- 
 my, ' will these fools be so desirous to sit down as when they are 
 weary? and when so like to be weary as when almost at their 
 journey's end ?' Therefore it is, I saj 7 , that the Enchanted Ground 
 is placed so nigh to the land Beulah, and so near the end of 
 their race. Wherefore let pilgrims look to themselves, lest it 
 happen to them as it has done to these, that, as you see, are fallen 
 asleep, and none can awake them." 
 
 Then the pilgrims desired, with trembling, to go forward: only 
 they prayed their guide to strike a light, that they might go the 
 rest of their way by the help of the light of a lantern. So he 
 struck a light; and they went, by the help of that, through the rest 
 of this way, though the darkness was very great. But the chil- 
 
538 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 dren began to be sorely weary; and they cried out unto Him that 
 loveth pilgrims to make their way more comfortable. So by that 
 they had gone a little farther, a wind arose, that drove away the 
 fog : so the air became more clear. Yet they were not off (by much) 
 of the Enchanted Ground: only now they could see one another 
 better, and the way wherein they should walk. Now, when they 
 were almost at the end of this ground, they perceived that a little 
 before them was a solemn noise, as of one that was much con- 
 cerned. So they went on, and looked before them ; and, behold ! 
 they saw, as they thought, a man upon his knees, with hands and 
 eyes lifted up, and speaking, as they thought, earnestly to one that 
 was above. They drew nigh, but could not tell what he said : so 
 they went softly till he had done. When he had done, he got up, 
 and began to run towards the Celestial City. Then Mr. Great- 
 Heart called after him, saying, " Soho, friend ! let us have your 
 company, if you go, as I suppose you do, to the Celestial City." 
 So the man stopped, and they came up to him. But, as soon as 
 Mr. Honest saw him, he said, " I know this man." Then said 
 Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, "Prithee, who is it?" "It is one," said 
 he, " that comes from whereabout I dwelt. His name is Stand- 
 fast : he is certainly a right good pilgrim." 
 
 So thev came up one to another. And presently Standfast said 
 to Old Honest, "Ho, Father Honest ! are you there ?" " Ay," said 
 he, " that I am, as sure as you are there." " Right glad am I," 
 said Mr. Standfast, "that I have found you on this road." "And 
 as glad am I," said the other, " that I espied you on your knees." 
 Then Mr. Standfast blushed, and said, "But why? did you see 
 me?" " Yes, that I did," quoth the other; "and with my heart 
 was glad at the sight." "Why, what did you think?" said 
 Standfast. " Think !" said Old Honest : " what should I think ? 
 I thought we had an honest man upon the road, and therefore 
 should have his company by and by." "If you thought not 
 amiss," said Standfast, " how happy am I ! But, if I be not as I 
 should, 'tis I alone must bear it." " That is true," said the other: 
 "but your fear doth further confirm me that things are right be- 
 twixt the Prince of pilgrims and your soul ; for he saith, 'Blessed 
 is the man that feareth always/ " 
 
 Valiant. Well. But, brother, I pray thee tell us what was it 
 that was the cause of thy being upon thy knees even now ? Was 
 it for that some special mercy laid obligations upon thee, or 
 how? 
 
 Stand. Why, we are, as you see, upon the Eiu-lmnted Ground; 
 and, as I was coming along, I was musing with myself of what a 
 dangerous nature the road in this place was, and how many that 
 had come even this far on pilgrimage had here been stopped and 
 been destroyed. I thought, also, of the manner of the death with 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 539 
 
 which this place destroy eth men. Those that die here die of no vio- 
 lent distemper. The death which such die is not grievous to them : 
 for he that goeth away in a sleep begins that journey with desire 
 and pleasure ; yea, such acquiesce in the will of that disease. 
 
 Then Mr. Honest, interrupting him, said, "Did you see the two 
 men asleep in the arbor?" 
 
 Stand. Ay, ay! I saw Heedless and Too-Bold there; and, 
 for aught I know, there they will lie till they rot. But let me go 
 on with my talo. As I was thus musing, as I said, there was one 
 in very pleasant attire, but old, who presented herself to me, 
 and offered me three things; to wit, her body, her purse, and her 
 bed. Now, the truth is, I was both weary and sleepy : I am also 
 as poor as an owlet; and that, perhaps, the witch knew. Well, I 
 repulsed her once and again ; but she put by my repulses, and 
 smiled. Then I began to be angry; but she mattered that nothing 
 at all. Then she made offers again, and said, if I would be ruled 
 by her, she would make me great and happy. " For," said she, " I 
 am the mistress of the world, and men are made happy by me." 
 Then I asked her name, and she told me it was Madam Bubble. 
 This set me farther from her; Jmt she still followed me with en- 
 ticements. Then I betook me, a.s you saw, to my knees ; and 
 with hands lifted up, and cries, I prayed to Him tliat had said 
 lie would help. So, just as you came up, the gentlewoman went 
 her way. Then I continued to give thanks for this my great de- 
 liverance ; for I verily believe she intended no good, but rather 
 sought to make stop of me in my journey. 
 
 Hon. Without doubt, her designs were bad. But stay: nq\v 
 you talk of her, methinks I either have seen her, or have re.a^l 
 some story of her. 
 
 Stand. Perhaps you have done both. 
 
 Hon. Madam Bubble ! Is she not a tall, comely dame, sor^e- 
 thing of a swarthy complexion ? 
 
 Stand. Right ! you hit it: she is just such a one. 
 
 Hon. Doth she not speak very smoothly, and give yo^ a 
 smile at the end of a sentence ? 
 
 Stand. You fall right upon it again; for these are her very 
 actions. 
 
 Hon. Doth she not wear a great purse by her side ? and is 
 not her hand often in it, fingering her money, as if that was her 
 heart's delight ? 
 
 Stand. 'Tis just so. Had she stood by all this while, you 
 could not more amply have set her forth before me, nor have bet- 
 ter described her features. 
 
 Hon. Then he that drew her picture was a good limner, and 
 he that wrote of her said true. 
 
 t. This woman is a witch; and it is by virtue of her sor? 
 
540 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 ceries that this ground is enchanted. Whoever doth lay his head 
 down in her lap had as good lay it down on that block over which 
 the ax doth hung ; and whoever lay their eyes upon her beauty 
 are counted the enemies of God. This is she that maintained! in 
 their splendor all those that are the enemies of pilgrims; yea, 
 this is she that hath bought off many a man from a pilgrim's life. 
 She is a great gossiper : she is always, both she and her daugh- 
 ters, at one pilgrim's heels or another, now commending, and then 
 preferring, the excellences of this life. She is a great, bold, and 
 impudent slut : she will talk with any man. She always laugh- 
 eth poor pilgrims to scorn, but highly commends the rich. If 
 there be one cunning to get money in a place, she will speak well 
 of him from house to house. She loveth banqueting and feasting 
 mainly well : she is always at one full table or another. She has 
 given it out in some places that she is a goddess ; and therefore 
 ome do worship her. She has her time and open places of cheat- 
 ing; and she will say, and avow it. that none can show a good 
 comparable to hers. She promiseth to dwell with children's chil- 
 dren if they will but love her and make much of her. She will 
 cast out of her purse gold like dust in some places and to some 
 persons. She loves to be sought after, spoken well of, and to lie 
 in the bosoms of men. She is never weary of commending her 
 commodities; and she loves them most that think best of her. She 
 will promise to some crowns and kingdoms if they will but take 
 her advice ; yet many hath she brought to the halter, and ten 
 thousand times more to hell. 
 
 " Oh," said Standfast, " what a mercy is it that I did resist 
 her! for whither might she have drawn me?" 
 
 Great. Whither? nay, none but God knows whither. But 
 in general, to be sure, she would have drawn thee into many 
 foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction ar.d 
 perdition. 'Twas she that set Absalom against his father, and 
 Jeroboam against his master. 'Twas she that persuaded Judas 
 to sell his Lord, and that prevailed with Demas to forsake the 
 godly pilgrim's life. None can tell of the mischief that she doth. 
 She makes yariance betwixt rulers and subjects, betwixt parents 
 and children, betwixt neighbor and neighbor, betwixt a man and 
 his wife, betwixt a man and himself, betwixt the flesh and the 
 spirit. Wherefore, good Mr. Standfast, be as your name is ; and, 
 when you have done all, stand. 
 
 At this discourse, there was among the pilgrims a mixture of 
 joy and trembling; but at length they broke out and sang. 
 
 After this, I beheld until they were come into the land of 
 Beulah, where the sun shineth night and day. Here, because they 
 were wear}-, they betook themselves a while to rest. And because 
 this country was common for pilgrims, and because the orchards 
 
. JOHN BUN VAN. 041 
 
 and vineyards that were here belonged to the King of the Celes- 
 tial Country, therefore they were licensed to make bold with any 
 of his things. But a little while soon refreshed them here : for 
 the bells did so ring, and the trumpets continually sound so melo- 
 diously, that they could not sleep ; and yet they received as much 
 refreshing as if they slept their sleep never so soundly. Here, 
 also, all the noise of them that walked the streets was, " More 
 pilgrims are come to town ! " And another would answer, saying, 
 " And so many went over the water, and were let in at the golden 
 gates to-day ! " They would cry again, " There is now a legion of 
 shining ones just come to town, by which we know that there are 
 more pilgrims upon the road ; for here they come to wait for them, 
 and to comfort them after all their sorrow." Then the pilgrims got 
 up, and walked to and fro ; but how were their ears now filled 
 with heavenly noises, and their eyes delighted with celestial 
 visions! In this land they heard nothing, saw nothing, frit 
 nothing, smelt nothing, tasted nothing, that was offensive to their 
 stomach or mind : only, when they tasted of the water of the river 
 over which they were to go, they thought that it tasted a little 
 bitterish to the palate; but it proved sweet when it was down. In 
 this place there was a record kept of the names of them that had 
 been pilgrims of old, and a history of all the famous acts that 
 they had done. It was here also much discoursed how the river 
 to some had had its flowings, and what ebbings it has had while 
 others have gone over. It has been in a manner dry for some, 
 while it has overflowed its banks for others. In this place the 
 children of the town would go into the King's gardens and 
 gather nosegays for the pilgrims, and bring them to them with 
 much affection. Here, also, grew camphires, with spikenard, and 
 saffron, calamus, and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, 
 myrrh, and aloes, with all chief spices. With these the pilgrims' 
 chambers were perfumed while they staid here ; and with these 
 were their bodies anointed to prepare them to go over the river 
 when the time appointed was come. 
 
 Now, while they lay here, and waited for the good hour, there 
 was a noise in the town that there was a post come from the 
 Celestial City, with matter of great importance to one Christiana, 
 the wife of Christian the pilgrim. So inquiry was made for her; 
 and the house was found out where she was. So the post present- 
 ed her with a letter. The contents were, " Hail, good woman ! I 
 bring thee tidings that the Master calleth for thee, and expecteth 
 that thou shouldst stand in his presence, in clothes of immortality, 
 within these ten days." When he had read this letter to her, he 
 gave her therewith a sure token that he was a true messenger, and 
 was come to bid her to make haste to be gone. The token was 
 an arrow, with a point sharpened with love, let easily into her 
 
542 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 heart, which by degrees wrought so effectually with her, that at 
 the time appointed she must be gone. 
 
 When Christiana saw that her time was come, and that she was 
 the first of this company that was to go over, she called for Mr. 
 Great-Heart, her guide, and told him how matters were. So he 
 told her he was heartily glad of the news, and could have been 
 glad had the post come for him. Then she bid him that he should 
 give advice how all things should be prepared for her journey. 
 So he told her, saying, " Thus and thus it must be ; and we that 
 survive will accompany you to the rjver-side." Then she called 
 for her children, and gave them her blessing, and told them that 
 she had read with comfort the mark that was set in their fore- 
 heads, and was glad to see them with her there, and that they 
 had kept their garments so white. Lastly, she bequeathed to the 
 poor that little she had, and commanded her sons and daughters 
 to be ready against the messenger should come for them. "When 
 she had spoken these words to her guide and to her children, she 
 called for Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, and said unto him, " Sir, 3-011 
 have in all places showed yourself true-hearted : be faithful unto 
 death, and my King will give you a crown of life. 
 
 " I would also entreat you to have an eye to my children ; and. if 
 at any time you see them faint, speak comfortably to them. For 
 my daughters, my sons' wives, they have been faithful ; and the ful- 
 filling of the promise upon them will be their end." But she gave 
 Mr. Standfast a ring. Then she called for old Mr. Honest, and 
 said of him, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no 
 guile!" Then said he, "I wish you a fair day when you set out for 
 Mount Sion, and shall be glad to see that you go over the river 
 dry-shod." But she answered, "Come wet, come dry, I long to be 
 gone ; for, however the weather is in my journey, I shall have time 
 enough when I come there to sit down and rest me and dry me." 
 Then came in that good man, Mr. Ready-to-Halt, to see her: so 
 she said to him, "Thy travel, hitherto, has been with difficulty; 
 but that will make thy rest the sweeter. But watch and bo 
 ready; for, at an hour when ye think not, the messenger may 
 come." After him came Mr. Despondency, and his daughter Miieli- 
 Afraid ; to whom she said, " You ought with thankfulness for ever 
 to remember your deliverance from the hands of Giant Despair, 
 and out of Doubting Castle. The effect of that mercy is, that 
 you are brought with safety hither. Be ye watchful, and cast 
 away fear: be sober, and hope to >the end." Then she said to 
 Mr. Feeble-Mind, " Thou wast delivered from the mouth of Giant 
 Slay-Good, that thou mightest live in the lip:ht of the living, and 
 see thy King with comfort. Only I advise thee to repent of thine 
 aptness to fear, and doubt of his goodness, before he sends for 
 thee, lest thou shouldst, when he comes, be forced to stand 
 before him for that fault with blushing." 
 
SAMUEL BUTLER. 543 
 
 i 
 
 Now the day drew on that Christiana must be gone. So the 
 road was full of people to see her take her journey ; but, behold ! 
 all the banks beyond the river were full of horses and chariots, 
 which were come down from above to accompany her to the city 
 gate. So she came forth, and entered the river, with a beckon of 
 farewell to those that followed her. The last words that she was 
 heard to say were, " I come, Lord, to be with thee and bless 
 thee!" So her children and friends returned to their place; for 
 those that waited for Christiana had carried her out of their sight. 
 So she went and called, and entered in at the gate with all the 
 ceremonies of joy that her husband Christian had entered with 
 before her. At her departure, the children wept ; but Mr. Great- 
 Heart and Mr. Valiant played upon the well-tuned cymbal and 
 harp for joy: so all departed to their respective places. In 
 process of time, there came a post to the town again; and his 
 business was with Mr. Ready-to-Halt. So he inquired him out, and 
 said, "I am come from Him whom thou hast loved and followed, 
 though upon crutches; and my message is to tell thee that he ex- 
 pects thee at his table to sup with him in his kingdom the next 
 day after Easter : wherefore prepare thyself for this journey. 
 Then he also gave him a token that he was a true messenger; 
 saying, "I have broken thy golden bowl, and loosed thy silver 
 cord." 
 
 SAMUEL BUTLER 
 
 1612-1680. 
 
 The celebrated author of " Hudibras," a witty burlesque of the manners of the 
 Puritans. "What Shakspeare is among English dramatists, Milton among English 
 epic poets, Bunyan among English allegorists, Butler is among the writers of 
 English burlesque, prince and paramount." 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF HUDIBRAS. 
 
 WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high, 
 And men fell out, they knew not why ; 
 When hard words, jealousies, and fears, 
 Set folks together by the ears ; 
 When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded 
 With long-eared rout, to battle sounded ; 
 And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, 
 Was beat with fist instead of a stick, 
 Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, 
 And out he rode a-colonelling. 
 
544 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 A wight he was, whose very sight would 
 Entitle him mirror of knighthood ; 
 That never bowed his, stubborn knee 
 To any thing but chivalry, 
 Nor put up blow but that which laid 
 Right worshipful on shoulder-blade. 
 But here some authors make a doubt 
 Whether he were more wise or stout : 
 Some hold the one, and some the other. 
 But, howsoe'er they make a pother, 
 The difference was so small, his brain 
 Outweighed his rage but half a grain ; 
 Which made some take him lor a tool 
 That knaves do work with, called a fool. 
 We grant, although he had much wit, 
 He was very shy of using it, 
 As being loath to wear it out, 
 And therefore bore it not about, 
 Unless on holidays or so, 
 As men their best apparel do. 
 Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek 
 As naturally as pigs do squeak ; 
 That Latin was no more difficile 
 Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle. 
 
 He was in logic a great critic, 
 Profoundly skilled in analytic : 
 He could distinguish and divide 
 A hair 'twixt south and south-west side ; 
 On either which he would dispute, 
 Confute, change hands, and still confute. 
 He'd undertake to prove by force 
 Of argument a man's no horse; 
 He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, 
 And that a lord may be an owl, 
 A calf an alderman, a goose a* justice, 
 And rooks committee-men and trustees. 
 He'd run in debt by disputation, 
 And pay with ratiocination. 
 All this by syllogism true, 
 In mood and figure, he would do. 
 For rhetoric, he could not ope 
 His mouth, but out there flew a trope : 
 And when he happened to break off 
 In the middle of his speech, or cough, 
 He had hard words ready to show why, 
 And tell what rules he did it by ; 
 Else, when with greatest art he spoke, 
 You'd think he talked like other folk ; 
 For all a rhetorician's rules 
 Teach nothing but to name his tools. 
 But, when he pleased to show't, his speech, 
 In loftiness of sound, was rich ; 
 
SAMUEL BUTLER. 545 
 
 A Babylonish dialect, 
 
 Which learned pedants much affect : 
 
 It was a party-colored dress 
 
 Of patched and piebald languages ; 
 
 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, 
 
 Like fustian heretofore on satin ; 
 
 It had an odd, promiscuous tone, 
 
 As if he had talked three parts in one ; 
 
 Which made some think, when he did gabble, 
 
 They had heard three laborers of Babel, 
 
 Or Cerberus himself pronounce 
 
 A leash of languages at once. 
 
 This he as volubly would vent 
 
 As if his stock would ne'er be spent. 
 
 And truly, to support that charge, 
 
 He had supplies as vast and large; 
 
 For he could coin or counterfeit 
 
 New words with little or no wit, 
 
 Words so debased and hard, no stone 
 
 Was hard enough to touch them on ; 
 
 And, when with hasty noise he spoke 'em, 
 
 The ignorant for current took 'em ; 
 
 That had the orator, who once 
 
 Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones 
 
 When he harangued, but known his phrase, 
 
 He would have used no other ways. 
 
 In mathematics he was greater 
 Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater : 
 For he by geometric scale 
 Could take the size of pots of ale ; 
 Resolve by sines and tangents straight 
 If bread or butter wanted weight ; 
 And wisely tell what hour o' the day 
 The clock does strike, by algebra. 
 
 Besides, he was a shrewd philosopher, 
 And had read every text and gloss over: 
 Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath, 
 He understood by implicit faith ; 
 Whatever skeptic could inquire for, 
 For every why he had a wherefore; 
 Knew more than forty of them do, 
 As far as words and terms could go ; 
 All which he' understood by rote, 
 And, as occasion served, would quote ; 
 No matter whether right or wrong ; 
 They might be either said or sung. 
 His notions fitted things so well, 
 That which was which he could not tell, 
 But oftentimes mistook the one 
 For the other, as great clerks have done. 
 He could reduce all things to acts, 
 And knew their natures by abstracts, 
 35 
 
546 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Where entity and quiddity, 
 
 The ghosts of defuncfc bodies, fly ; 
 
 Where Truth in person does appear, 
 
 Like words congealed in northern air. 
 
 lie knew what's what, and that's as high 
 
 As metaphysic wit can fly. 
 
 He could raise scruples dark and nice, 
 
 And, after, solve 'em in a trice, 
 
 As if Divinity had catched 
 
 The itch on purpose to be scratched ; 
 
 Or, like a mountebank, did wound 
 
 And stab herself with doubts profound, 
 
 Only to show with how small pain 
 
 The sores of faith are cured again ; 
 
 Although, by woeful proof, we find 
 
 They always leave a scar behind. 
 
 For his religion, it was fit 
 To match his learning and his wit : 
 'Twas Presbyterian true blue ; 
 For he was of that stubborn crew 
 Of errant saints whom all men grant 
 To be the true Church militant ; 
 Such as do build their faith upon 
 The holy text of pike and gun, 
 Decide all controversies by 
 Infallible artillery, 
 And prove their doctrine orihodox 
 By apostolic blows and knocks ; 
 Call fire and sword and desolation 
 A s;o<Hy, thorough reformation, 
 Which always must be carried on, 
 And still be doing, never done : 
 As if religion were intended 
 For nothing else but to be mended 1 
 A sect whose chief devotion lies 
 In odd, perverse antipathies ; 
 In falling out with that or this, 
 And finding somewhat still amiss ; 
 More peevish, cross, and splenetic 
 Than dog distract, or monkey sick ; 
 That with more care keep holy-day 
 The wrong than others the right way ; 
 Compound for sins they are inclined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to. 
 Still to perverse and opposite, 
 As if they worshiped God for spite, 
 The self-same thing they will abhor 
 One way, and long another for. 
 Free-will they one way disavow ; 
 Another, nothing else allow. 
 All piety consists therein 
 Iu them ; in other men, all sin. 
 
OTHER WRITERS OF DISTINCTION. 547 
 
 Rather than fail, they will decry 
 
 That which they love most ten;lerly; 
 
 Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage 
 
 Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge : 
 
 Fat pig and goose itself oppose, 
 
 And blaspheme custard through the nose. 
 
 His doublet was of sturdy buff; 
 And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof; 
 Whereby 'twas fitter for his use, 
 Who feared jio blows but such as bruise. 
 
 His breeches were of rugged woolen, 
 And had been at the siege of Bullen ; 
 To old King Harry so well known, 
 Some writers held they were his own ; 
 Though they were lined with many a piece 
 Of ammunition bread and cheese, 
 And fat black-puddings, proper food 
 For warriors that delight in blood : 
 For, as we said, he always chose 
 To carry victuals in his hose, 
 That often tempted rats and mice 
 The ammunition to surprise ; 
 And, when he put a hand but in 
 The one or t'other magazine, 
 They stoutly on defense on't stood, 
 And from the wounded foe drew blood. 
 
 OTHER WRITERS OF DISTINCTION. 
 
 JOHN LOCKE. 1632-1704. Author of "An Essay concerning Human Under- 
 standing," " Thoughts concerning Education," and other philosophical essays. 
 
 RICHARD BAXTER. 1615-1691. "The Saints' Everlasting Rest," "A Call to 
 the Unconverted," and " A Narrative of his Own Life and Times." 
 
 WENTWORTH DILLON. 1634 -1685. " An Essay on Translated Verse." 
 
 CHARLES SACKVILLE. 1637-1705. A few songs. Patron of Butler and 
 Dryden. 
 
 CHARLES SEDLEY. 1639 -1701. Plays and spirited songs. 
 
 JOHN WILMOT. 1047-1680. Writer of songs. 
 
 THOMAS OTWAY. 1G51-1685. " Venice Preserved," a play; " The Orphan." 
 
 MATTHEW PRIOR. 1664-1721. "The Town and Country Mouse," "Solo- 
 mon." 
 
 JOHN PHILLIPS. 1676-1708. "The Splendid Shilling," attempt to parody 
 Milton. 
 
 HENRY MOORE. 1614-1687. "The Mystery of Godliness," " Immortal ity of 
 the Soul." 
 
 JOHN OWEN. 1616-1683. " Exposition of Hebrews," " Divine Original of the 
 Scriptures." 
 
548 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 EDWARD STILLING FLEET. 1635-1699. Sermon?, and several essays. 
 
 THOMAS BUKXET. 1635-1715. "The State of the Dead and Reviving," and 
 others. 
 
 THOMAS SPRAT. 1636-1713. " History of the Royal Society," " An Account 
 of the Rye-house Plot." 
 
 Lady RACHEL RUSSELL, " Letters." 
 
 WILLIAM WYCHERLET. 1640-1715. Writer of comedies. 
 
 WILLIAM SHERLOCK. 1641-1707. "On the Immortality of the Soul," and 
 several works against dissenters. 
 
 GILBERT BURXET. 1643-1715. "History of the Reformation," "History of 
 My Own Times," and *' The Thirty-nine Articles." 
 
 JOHN STRYPE. 1643-1737. Several religious works. 
 
 WILLIAM PEXX. 1644 -1718. Distinguished Quaker. " No Cross, no Crown ; " 
 " The Conduct of Life; " and " A Brief Account of the People called Quakers." 
 
 ROBERT BARCLAY. 1648 -1690. "Apology." 
 
 MATTHEW HEXRY. 1662-1714. Unfinished " Commentary on the Bible." 
 
 EICHARD BEXTLEY. 1662 -1742. Celebrated editor of the classics. 
 
 Sir JOHX VAUBRUG. 1666-1726. " The Provoked Wife," and other plays. 
 
 JOHX ARBUTHXOT. 1667-1735. " History of John Bull," " Scolding of the 
 Ancients," " Art of Political Lying," and much of " Martinus Scriblerus " in Pope's 
 works. 
 
 WILLIAM COXGREVE. 1670-1729. "The Mourning Bride," a tragedy; and 
 several comedies. 
 
 GEORGE FARQUHAR. 1678-1708. " The Recruiting Officer," " The Beau's 
 Stratagem," and others. 
 
 JOHX MILTON. 
 
 1608-1674. 
 
 " Paradise Lost," the only great original epic in the English language, 
 egained," " Ode on the Nativity," " L' Allegro," " II Penseroso," ** Ar- 
 nus," and " Lycidas." " The'Areopagitica," and other prose-works, 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Paradise Regained 
 cades," " Comus," a 
 are worthy of the great secretary of Cromwell 
 
 PARADISE LOST. 
 
 OF man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
 With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
 Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
 Sing, heavenly Muse ! that on the secret top 
 Of Oreb or of Sinai didst inspire 
 That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed 
 In the beginning how the heavens and earth 
 Rose out of chaos. Or if Sion hill 
 
JOHN MILTON. 549 
 
 Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed 
 Fast by the oracle of God, I thence 
 Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, 
 That with no middle flight intends to soar 
 Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues 
 Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. 
 And chiefly thou, O Spirit ! that dost prefer 
 Before all temples the upright heart and pure, 
 Instruct me ; for thou know'st : thou from the first 
 Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
 Dovelike sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, 
 And mad'st it pregnant. What in me is dark, 
 Illumine ; what is low, raise and support ; 
 That to the liight of this great argument 
 I may assert Eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways of God to men. 
 
 Say first (for heaven hides nothing from thy view, 
 Nor the deep tract of hell), say first, what cause 
 Moved our grand parents in that happy state, 
 Favored of Heaven so highly, to fall off 
 From their Creator, and transgress bis will 
 For one restraint, lords of the world besides ? 
 Who first seduced them to that foul revolt ? 
 The infernal Serpent : he it was whose guile, 
 Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived 
 The mother of mankind, what time his pride 
 Had cast him out from heaven with all his host 
 Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspiring 
 To set himself in glory 'bove his peers, 
 He trusted to have equaled the Most High 
 If he opposed, and, with ambitious aim, 
 Against the throne and monarchy of God 
 Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud 
 With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power 
 Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky 
 With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
 To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
 In adamantine chains and penal fire, 
 Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. 
 Nine times the space that measures day and night 
 To mortal men, he with his horrid crew 
 Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, 
 Confounded, though immortal. But his doom 
 Reserved him to more wrath ; for now the thought 
 Both of lost happiness and lasting pain 
 Torments him. Round he throws his baleful eyes, 
 That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, 
 Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. 
 At once, as far as angel's ken, he views 
 The dismal situation waste and wild : 
 A dungeon horrible on all sides round 
 As one great furnace flamed ; yet from those flames 
 
550 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 No light, but rather darkness visible, 
 
 Served only to discover sights of woe, 
 
 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
 
 And rest can never dwell ; hope never comes, 
 
 That comes to all ; but torture without end 
 
 Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed 
 
 With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. 
 
 Such place Eternal Justice had prepared 
 
 For those rebellious ; here their prison ordained 
 
 In utter darkness, and their portion set 
 
 As far removed from God and light of heaven 
 
 As from the center thrice to the utmost pole. 
 
 Oh, how unlike the place from whence they fell ! 
 
 There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed 
 
 With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, 
 
 He soon discerns ; and, weltering by his side, 
 
 One next himself in power, and next in crime, 
 
 Long after known in Palestine, and named ' 
 
 Beelzebub. To whom the Arch-Enemy, 
 
 And thence in heaven called Satan, with bold words 
 
 Breaking the horrid silence, thus began : 
 
 " If thou beest he but, oh, how fallen, how changed, 
 From him, who, in the happy realms of light, 
 Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine 
 Myriads though bright ! if he whom mutual league, 
 United thoughts and counsels, equal hope 
 And hazard in the glorious enterprise, 
 Joined with me once, now misery hath joined 
 In equal ruin : into what pit thou seest 
 From what hight fallen, so much the stronger proved 
 He with his thunder ; and till then who knew 
 The force of those dire arms ? Yet not for those, 
 Nor what the potent victor in his rage 
 Can else inflict, do I repent or change, 
 Though changed in outward luster, that fixed mind 
 And high disdain from sense of injured merit, 
 That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, 
 And to the fierce contention brought along 
 Innumerable force of spirits armed, 
 That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, 
 His utmost power with adverse power opposed 
 In dubious battle on the plains of heaven, 
 And shook his throne. What though the field be lost ? 
 All is not lost : the unconquerable will, 
 And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
 And courage never to submit or yield ; 
 And what is else not to be overcome : 
 That glory never shall his wrath or mi^ht 
 Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace 
 With suppliant knee, and deify his power, 
 Who from the terror of this arm so late 
 Doubted his empire, that were low indeed ! 
 
JOHN MILTON. 551 
 
 That were an ignominy and shame beneath 
 This downfall ! since by fate the strength of gods 
 And this empyreal substance can not fail ; 
 Since through experience of this great event 
 In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, 
 We may with more successful hope resolve 
 To wage by force or guile eternal war, 
 Irreconcilable to our grand foe, 
 Who now triumphs, and, in the excess of joy 
 Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heaven." 
 
 So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain, 
 Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair ; 
 And him thus answered soon his bold compeer : 
 
 O Prince, O Chief of many throned powers, 
 That led the embattled seraphim to war 
 Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds 
 Fearless, endangered heaven's perpetual King, 
 And put to proof his high supremacy, 
 Whether upheld by strength or chance or fate 1 
 Too well I see and rue the dire event, 
 That with sad overthrow and foul defeat 
 Hath lost us heaven, and all this mighty host 
 In horrible destruction laid thus low, 
 As far as gods and heavenly essences 
 Can perish ; for the mind and spirit remains 
 Invincible, and vigor soon returns, 
 Though all our glory extinct, and happy state 
 Here swallowed up in endless misery. 
 But what if He, our conqueror (whom I now 
 Of force believe almighty, since no less 
 Than such could have overpowered such force as ours), 
 Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, 
 Strongly to suffer, and support our pains, 
 That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, 
 Or do him mightier service as his thralls 
 By right of war, whate'er his business be 
 Here in the heart of hell to work in fire, 
 Or do his errands in the gloomy deep ? 
 What can it then avail, though yet we feel 
 Strength undiminished, or etern'al being 
 To undergo eternal punishment ? " 
 Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied : 
 
 " Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, 
 Doing or suffering ; but of this be sure, 
 To do aught good never will be our task, 
 But ever to do ill our sole delight, 
 As being the contrary to His high will 
 Whom we resist. If, then, his providence . 
 Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, 
 Our labor must be to pervert that end, 
 And out of good still to find means of evil ; 
 Which ofttinies may succeed, so as perhaps 
 
552 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb 
 
 His inmost counsels from their destined aim. 
 
 But see ! the angry victor hath recalled 
 
 His ministers of vengeance and pursuit 
 
 Back to the gates of heaven : the sulphurous hail, 
 
 Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid 
 
 The fiery surge, that from the precipice 
 
 Of heaven received us falling ; and the thunder, 
 
 Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, 
 
 Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now 
 
 To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. 
 
 Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn 
 
 Or satiate fury yield it from our foe. 
 
 Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 
 
 The seat of desolation, void of light 
 
 Save what the glimmering of these livid flames 
 
 Casts pale and dreadful ? Thither let us tend 
 
 From off the tos?ing of these fiery waves ; 
 
 There rest, if any rest can harbor there; 
 
 And, re-assembling our afflicted powers, 
 
 Consult how we may henceforth most offend 
 
 Our enemy, our own loss how repair, 
 
 How overcome this dire calamity ; 
 
 What re-enforcement we may gain from hope ; 
 
 If not, what resolution from despair." 
 
 Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate 
 With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides 
 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
 Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 
 As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
 Titanian, or earth-born, that warred on Jove, 
 Briareos, or Typhon, whom the den 
 By ancient Tarsus held ; or that sea-beast, 
 Leviathan, which God of all his works 
 Greatest hugest that swim the ocean-stream : 
 Him haply slumbering on the Norway foam, 
 The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff 
 Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 
 With fixed anchor in his scaly rind 
 Moors by his side under the lea, while night 
 Invests the sea, and wished morn delays : 
 So, stretched out huge in length, the Arch-Fiend lay 
 Chained on the burning lake"; nor ever thence 
 Had risen or heaved his head but that the will 
 And high permission of all-ruling Heaven 
 Left him at large to his own dark designs, 
 That with reiterated crimes he might 
 Heap on himself damnation while he sought 
 Evil to others, and enraged might see 
 How all his malice served but to bring forth 
 Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shown 
 
JOHN MILTON. 553 
 
 On man, by him seduced ; but on himself 
 
 Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. 
 
 Forthwith upright he rears from off' the pool 
 
 His mighty stature : on each hand the flames, 
 
 Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled 
 
 In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale. 
 
 Then with expanded wings he steers his flight 
 
 Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air, 
 
 That felt unusual weight ; till on dry land 
 
 He lights, if it were land that ever burned 
 
 With solid, as the lake with liquid, fire ; 
 
 And such appeared in hue as when the force 
 
 Of subterranean wind transports a hill 
 
 Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side 
 
 Of thundering JEtna, whose combustible 
 
 And fueled entrails thence conceiving fire, 
 
 Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, 
 
 And leave a singed bottom all involved 
 
 With stench and smoke : such resting found the sole 
 
 Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, 
 
 Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood 
 
 As gods, and by their own recovered strength, 
 
 Not by the sufferance of Supernal Power. 
 
 " Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," 
 Said then the lost Arch-Angel, " this the seat, 
 That we must change for heaven ? this mournful gloom 
 For that celestial light ? Be it so, since He 
 Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid 
 What shall be right : farthest from Him is best, 
 Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme 
 Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, 
 Where joy for ever dwells ! hail, horrors ! hail, 
 Infernal world ! and thou profoundest Hell, 
 Receive thy new possessor, one who brings 
 A mind not to be changed by place or time. 
 The mind is its own place, and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
 What matter where, if I be still the same, 
 And what I should be, all but less than He 
 Whom thunder hath made greater ? Here, at least, 
 We shall be free. The Almighty hath not built 
 Here for his envy, will not drive us hence. 
 Here we may reign secure ; and in my choice 
 To reign is worth ambition, though in hell : 
 Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven ! 
 But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, 
 The associates and copartners of our loss, 
 Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool, 
 And call them not to share with us their part 
 In this unhappy mansion, or once more 
 With rallied arms to try what may be yet 
 Regained in heaven, or what more lost in hell ? " 
 
5oi ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
 
 So Satan spake ; and him Beelzebub 
 Thus answered : " Leader of those armies bright, 
 Which but the Omnipotent none could have ibiled, 
 If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge 
 Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft 
 In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge 
 Of battle when it raided, in all assaults 
 Their surest signal, they will soon resume 
 New courage, and revive, though now they lie 
 Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, 
 As we erewhile, astounded and amazed, 
 Xo wonder, fallen such a pernicious hight." 
 
 He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend 
 Was moving toward the shore. His ponderous shield, 
 Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 
 Behind him cast : the broad circumference 
 Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
 Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
 At evening from the top of Fesole r 
 Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 
 Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe. 
 His spear, to equal which the talle'st pine 
 Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast 
 Of some great aminiral were but a wand, 
 He walked with to support uneasy steps 
 Over the burning marl ; not like those steps 
 On Heaven's azure : and the torrid clime 
 Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire. 
 Nathless he so endured, till on the beach 
 Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called 
 His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced 
 Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
 In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades 
 Hiiih overarched embower ; or scattered sedge 
 Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed 
 Hnth vexed the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 
 Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, 
 While with perfidious hatred they pursued 
 The sojourners of Goshen. who beheld 
 From the safe shore their floating carcasses 
 And broken chariot-wheels : so thick bestrewn, 
 Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, 
 Under amazement of their hideous change. 
 He called so loud, that all the hollow deep 
 Of hell resounded : " Princes, potentates, 
 Warriors, the flower. of heaven, once yours, now lost ! 
 If such astonishment as this can seize 
 Eternal spirits ; or have ye chosen this place 
 After the toil of battle to repose 
 Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find 
 To slumber here as in the vales of heaven ? 
 Or in this abject posture have ye sworn 
 
JOHN MILTON. 555 
 
 To adore the conqueror ? who now beholds 
 Cherub and serapn rolling in the flood 
 With scattered anus and ensigns, till anon 
 His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern 
 The advantage, and, descending, tread us down 
 Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts 
 Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf. 
 Awake ! arise ! or be for ever fallen ! " 
 
 They heard, and were abashed ; and up they sprang 
 Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch 
 On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread, 
 Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake. 
 Nor did they not perceive the evil plight 
 In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel ; 
 Yet to their general's voice they soon obeyed 
 Innumerable. As when the potent rod 
 Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day 
 Waved round the coast, upcalled a pitchy cloud 
 Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, 
 That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung 
 Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile : 
 So numberless were those bad angels seen 
 Hovering on wing under the cope of hell 
 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires ; 
 Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear 
 Of their great sultan waving to direct 
 Their course, in even balance down they light 
 On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain, 
 A multitude like which the populous north 
 Poured never from her frozen loins to pass 
 Rhene or the Danaw when her barbarous sons 
 Came like a deluge on the south, and spread 
 Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. 
 Forthwith from every squadron and each band 
 The heads and leaders thither haste where stood 
 Their great commander ; godlike shapes and forms 
 Excelling human, princely dignities, 
 And powers that erst in heaven sat on thrones, 
 Though of their names in heavenly records now 
 Be no memorial, blotted out and rased 
 By their rebellion from the books of life. 
 Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve 
 Got them new names, till wandering o'er the earth, 
 Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man, 
 By falsities and lies the greatest part 
 Of mankind they corrupted, to forsake 
 God their Creator, and the invisible 
 Glory of Him that made them to transform 
 Oft to the image of a brute, adorned 
 With gay religions full of pomp and gold, 
 And devils to adore for deities : 
 Then were they known to men by various names, 
 
556 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And various idols through the heathen world. 
 
 Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, 
 
 Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch 
 
 At their great emperor's call, as next in worth 
 
 Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, 
 
 While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof? 
 
 The chief were those who from the pit of hell, 
 
 Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix 
 
 Their seats long after next the seat of God, 
 
 Their altars by his altar, gods adored 
 
 Among the nations round ; and durst abide 
 
 Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned 
 
 Between the cherubim ; yea, often placed 
 
 Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, 
 
 Abominations, and with cursed things 
 
 His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, 
 
 And with their darkness durst affront his light. 
 
 First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood 
 
 Of human sacrifice and parents' tears, 
 
 Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud 
 
 Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire 
 
 To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite 
 
 Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain, 
 
 In Argob and in Basan, to the stream 
 
 Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such 
 
 Audacious neighborhood, the wisest heart 
 
 Of Solomon he led by fraud to build 
 
 His temple right against the temple of God 
 
 On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove 
 
 The pleasant vale of Hinnom, Tophet thence 
 
 And black Gehenna called, the type of hell. 
 
 Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons 
 
 From Aroar to Nebo and the wild 
 
 Of southmost Abarim ; in Hesebon 
 
 And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond 
 
 The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines, 
 
 And Eleale to the Asphaltic pool. 
 
 Peor his other name, when he enticed 
 
 Israel in Sittira, on their march from Nile, 
 
 To do him wanton rites which cost them woe. 
 
 Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged 
 
 E'en to that hill of scandal by the grove 
 
 Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate, 
 
 Till good Josiah drove them thence to hell. 
 
 With these came they, who, from the bordering flood 
 
 Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 
 
 Eorypt from Syrian ground, had general names 
 
 Of Baalim and Ashtaroth : those male, 
 
 These feminine ; for spirits, when they please, 
 
 Can either sex assume, or both ; so soft 
 
 And uncompounded is their essence pure. 
 
 Not tied nor manacled with joint or limb, 
 
JOHN MILTON. 557 
 
 Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, 
 
 Like cumbrous flesh ; but in what shape they choose, 
 
 Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, 
 
 Can execute their airy purposes, 
 
 And works of love or enmity fulfill. 
 
 For those the race of Israel oft forsook 
 
 Their living Strength, and unfrequented left 
 
 His righteous altar, bowing lowly down 
 
 To bestial gods ; for which their heads, as low 
 
 Bowed down in battle, sank before the spear 
 
 Of despicable foes. With these in troop 
 
 Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called 
 
 Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns ; 
 
 To whose bright image nightly by the moon 
 
 Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs : 
 
 In Sion also not unsung, where stood 
 
 Her temple on the offensive mountain, built 
 
 By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large, 
 
 Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell 
 
 To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind, 
 
 Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured 
 
 The Syrian damsels to lament his fate 
 
 In amorous ditfeies all a summer's day ; 
 
 While smooth Adonis from his native rock 
 
 Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood 
 
 Of Thammuz yearly wounded. The love-tale 
 
 Infected Sion's daughters with like heat ; 
 
 Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch 
 
 Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, 
 
 His eye surveyed the dark idolatries 
 
 Of alienated Judah. Next came one 
 
 Who mourned in earnest when the captive ark 
 
 Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopped off 
 
 In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, 
 
 Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshipers : 
 
 Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man, 
 
 And downward fish ; yet had his temple high 
 
 Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast 
 
 Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon 
 
 And Accaron, and Gaza's frontier bounds. 
 
 Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat 
 
 Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks 
 
 Of Abana and Pharpar, lucid streams. 
 
 He also 'gainst the house of God was bold : 
 
 A leper once he lost, and gained a king ; 
 
 Ahaz his sottish conqueror, whom he drew 
 
 God's altar to disparage and displace 
 
 For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn 
 
 His odious offerings, and adore the gods 
 
 Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared 
 
 A crew, who, under names of old renown, 
 
 Osiris, Iris, Orus, and their train, 
 
558 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused 
 Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek 
 Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms 
 Rather than human. 
 
 OTHER DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS OP 
 MILTON'S TIME. 
 
 THOMAS FULLER. 1608-1661. Witty divine. " Church History of Britain ; " 
 "Worthies of England;" essays, tracts, and sermons. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 1613-1667. Brilliant writer of sermons and essays. 
 
 EDWARD HYDE (Earl of Clarendon). 1608-1674. " History of the Rebellion," 
 and other works. 
 
 Sir WILLIAM DAVENANT. 1605-1668. Succeeded Ben Jouson as laureate. 
 
 EDMUND WALLER. 1605-1687. Poet and politician. 
 
 HENRY VAUGHN. 1621-1695, Devotional poem*. Thoma, his brother, wrote 
 books on alchemy. 
 
 Sir JOHN DENHAM. 1815 -1668. " Cooper's Hill," .a local poem. 
 
 RICHARD LOVELACE. 1618-1658. Odes and songs. 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667. "Miscellanies," "Pindaric Odes," and 
 "Love Verses." 
 
 WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE. 1619-1689. "Love's Victory," " Pharonnida." 
 
 CIIAULES COTTOX. 1630 -16S7. Witty poet-friend of Izaak Walton. 
 
 JOHN GAUDEN. 1605-1662. "Eikon Basilika; or, Portraiture of his Most 
 Sacred Majesty, Charles I., in his Solitude and Sufferings." 
 
 Sir THOMAS BROWNE. 1605-1682. " Religio Medici," " Pseudodoxia Epi- 
 deniica." 
 
 RALPH CUDWORTH. 1617-1688. " The True Intellectual System of the Uni- 
 verse," ' Eternal and Immutable Morality," and others. 
 
 JOHN EVELYN. 1620-1706. " Sylva," " Tessa," and " Diary." 
 
 ANDREW MARVEL. 1620-1678. " Popery and Arbitrary Government in Eng- 
 land." The friend of Milton. 
 
 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 1621-1G83. "Discourses on Government," in opposition 
 to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. 
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. 1627-1691. Distinguished philosopher. " Occasional Reflec- 
 tions on Several Subjects." 
 
 Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE. 1628-1699. Accomplished diplomatist, and elegant 
 writer of the English language. " Essays." 
 
 JOHN RAY. 1628-1705. " General History of Plants," and "Wisdom of God 
 in the Works of Creation." 
 
 JOHN TILLOTSON. 1630-1694. "Sermons." 
 
 ISAAC BARROW. 1630-1677. Mathematical works in Latin, and theological in 
 English. 
 
 SAMUEL PEPYS. Died 1703. "Diary." 
 
 ROBERT SOUTH. 1633 -1716. Witty divine ; fierce upholder of the doctrines of 
 passive obedience and divine right. 
 
FRANCIS BACON. 559 
 
 FRANCIS BACON-, VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN'S. 
 
 1561-1626. 
 
 His u Essays" and " Advancement of Learning" were written in English. The 
 "Novum Organum," his greatest work, explains the inductive method of reasoning, 
 that is, from particular facts to general laws, and for the first time places nil 
 philosophy upon its true basis. Upon this work, which was a part of a magnificent 
 inexecuted plan, rests his immortal fame. 
 
 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 judgment 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 marshaling 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 judgment wholly by 
 their rules is the humor of a seholar. They perfect Nature, and 
 are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural 
 plants, that need pruning 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 ob- 
 servation. 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. 
 
560 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 OF BOLDNESS. 
 
 IT is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy a wise man's 
 consideration. The question was asked of Demosthenes, " What 
 is the chief part of an orator? " He answered, "Action." What 
 next? "Action." What next again? "Action." He said it 
 that knew it best, and had by nature himself no advantage in 
 that he commended. A strange thing, that that part of an 
 orator which is but superficial, and rather the virtue of a player, 
 should be placed so high above those other noble parts of inven- 
 tion, elocution, and the rest ; nay, almost alone, as if it were all 
 in all! But the reason is plain: there is in human nature gener- 
 ally more of the fool than of the wise ; and therefore those facul- 
 ties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are most 
 potent. Wonderful like is the case of boldness in civil business. 
 What first? "Boldness." What second and third? "'Bold- 
 ness." And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, 
 far inferior to other parts ; but, nevertheless, it doth fascinate, and 
 bind hand and foot, those that are either shallow in judgment, or 
 weak in courage, which are the greatest part ; yea, and prevaileth 
 with wise men at weak times : therefore we see it hath done won- 
 ders in popular states, but with senates and princes less ; and 
 more ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action 
 than soon after; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, 
 as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so are there 
 mountebanks for the politic body, men that undertake great 
 cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, 
 but want the grounds of science, and therefore can not hold out. 
 Xay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. 
 Mahomet made the people believe that he would make the hill 
 come to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the 
 observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the 
 hill to come to him again.and again ; and, when the hill stood still, 
 he was never a whit abashed, but said, " If the hill will not come 
 to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill." So these men, when they 
 have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet (if 
 they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, 
 and make a turn, and no more ado. Certainly, to men of great 
 judgment, bold persons are sport to behold ; nay, and to the vulgar, 
 also, boldness hath somewhat of the ridiculous : for, if absurdity 
 be the subject of laughter, doubt you not that great boldness is sel- 
 dom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport to see when 
 a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his face into a 
 most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must : for in hash- 
 fulness the spirits do a little and come ; but with bold men, upon 
 
FRANCIS BACON. 561 
 
 like occasion, they stand at a stay, like a stale at chess, where it is 
 110 mate, but yet the game can not stir. But this last were fitter 
 for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be 
 weighed, that boldness is ever blind ; for it seeth not dangers and 
 inconveniences: therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution. 
 So that the right use of bold persons is, that they never command 
 in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others ; for in 
 counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them 
 except they be very great. 
 
 OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE. 
 
 I TAKE goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of 
 men, which is that the Grecians call plulanthropia ; and the 
 word " humanity," as it is used, is a little too light to express it. 
 Goodness I call the habit; and goodness of nature, the inclina- 
 tion. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the 
 greatest, being the character of the Deity ; and without it man is 
 a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of 
 vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and 
 admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused 
 the angels to fall ; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man 
 to fall: but in charity there is no excess ; neither can angel or man 
 come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted 
 deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that, if it issue not towards 
 men, it will take unto other living creatures ; as it is seen in the 
 Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and 
 give alms to dogs and birds ; insomuch as, Bitsbechius reporteth, a 
 Christian boy in Constantinople had liked to have been stoned for 
 gagging, in a waggishness, a long-billed fowl. Errors, indeed, in 
 this virtue of goodness or .charity, maybe committed. The Ital- 
 ians have an ungracious proverb, Tanto buon, che val niente, 
 " So good, that he is good for nothing." And one of the doctors 
 of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence to put in writing, 
 almost in plain terms, " That the Christian faith had given up 
 good men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust;" which 
 he spake because, indeed, there was never law or sect or opinion 
 did so much magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth : it 
 is good to take knowledge of the errors of a habit so excellent. 
 Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces 
 or fancies ; for that is but facility or softness which taketh 'an 
 honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou ^^Esop's cock a gem, 
 who would be better pleased and happier if he had a barleycorn. 
 The example of God teacheth the lesson truly : " He sendeth his 
 
X 562 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 rain, and maketh his sun to shine, upon the just and unjust;" 
 but he doth not rain wealth, nor shine honor and virtues, upon 
 men equally. Common benefits are to be communicated with all. 
 but peculiar benefits with choice. And beware how, in making 
 the portraiture, thou breakest the pattern ; for divinity maketh 
 the love of ourselves the pattern, the love of our neighbors 
 but the portraiture. " Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, 
 and follow me : " but sell not all thou hast, except thou come and 
 follow me, that is, except thou have a vocation wherein thou 
 mayest do as much good with little means as with great ; for 
 otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the fountain. 
 Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by right 
 reason : but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition 
 toward it ; as, on the other side, there is a natural malignity ; for 
 there be that in their nature do not affect the good of others. 
 The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a crossness or froward- 
 ness, or aptness to oppose, or difficileness, or the like ; but the 
 deeper sort to envy and mere mischief. Such men, in other men's 
 calamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on the loading 
 part; not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus' sores, but 
 like flies that are still buzzing upon any thing that is raw; mis- 
 anthropi, that make it their practice to bring men to the bough, 
 and yet have never a tree for the purpose in their gardens, as 
 Timon had. Such dispositions are the very errors of human 
 nature : and yet they are the fittest timber to make great politics 
 of; like to knee-timber, that is good for ships that are ordained 
 to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm. 
 The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious 
 and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, 
 and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a 
 continent that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards 
 the afflictions of others, it shows that his heart is like the noble 
 tree that is wounded itself when it gives the balm. If he easily 
 pardons and remits offenses, it shows that his mind is planted 
 above injuries, so that he can not be shot. If he be thankful for 
 small benefits, it shows that he weighs men's minds, and not 
 their trash. But, above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, that 
 he would wish to be anathema from Christ for the salvation of 
 his brethren, it shows much of a divine nature, and a kind of 
 conformity with Christ himself. 
 
THE BIBLE. 563 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 The pure and powerful English of the translations of the Old and New Tesr.-i- 
 ment, setting aside the sacred character even of the volume as the word of God, U 
 sufficient of itself to induce the faithful study of it by every pupil. The most im- 
 portant of the earlier versions are, 
 
 Coverdale's, 1535. The Geneva Bible, 1560. 
 
 Mathewe's, 1537. The Bishops', 1568. 
 
 Cranmer's, 1539. The Douny, 1582-1610. 
 
 Taverner's, 1539. King James's, 1611. 
 
 King James's version is the work of forty-seven bishops, out of fifty-four appointed 
 to the task by the king. 
 
 DA VID. 
 PSALM XXIV. A PSALM OF DAVID. 
 
 1. THE earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, 
 and they that dwell therein. 
 
 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it 
 upon the floods. 
 
 3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD ? or who shall 
 stand in his holy place ? 
 
 4. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not 
 lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. 
 
 5. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteous- 
 ness from the God of his salvation. 
 
 6. This is the generation of them that seek him; that seek 
 thy face, Jacob ! 
 
 7. Lift up your heads O ye gates ! and be ye lift up, ye ever- 
 lasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. 
 
 8. Who is this King of glory ? The LORD strong and mighty, 
 the LORD mighty in battle. 
 
 9. Lift up your heads, ye gates ! even lift them up, ye ever- 
 lasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come in. 
 
 10. Who is this King of glory ? The LORD of hosts, he is the 
 King of glory. 
 
 ISAIAH, 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 1. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he 
 that hath no money: come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine 
 and milk without money and without price. 
 
 2. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, 
 and your labor fqr tljat which satisfteth not ? Hearken diligently 
 
5C4 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight 
 itself in fatness. 
 
 3. Incline your ear, and come unto me ; hear, and your soul shall 
 live ; and I \vill make an everlasting covenant with you, even the 
 sure mercies of David. 
 
 4. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader 
 and commander to the people. 
 
 5. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and 
 nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because of the 
 LOUD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel ; for he hath 
 glorified thee. 
 
 6. Seek ye the LORD while he may be found j call ye upon him 
 while he is near. 
 
 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man 
 his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will 
 have mercy upon him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly 
 pardon. 
 
 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
 ways my ways, saith the LORD. 
 
 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
 ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your 
 thoughts. 
 
 10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, 
 and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it 
 bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread 
 to the eater : 
 
 11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth : it 
 shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that 
 which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent 
 it. 
 
 12. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace : 
 the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into 
 singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
 
 13. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead 
 of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree ; and it shall be to 
 the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be 
 cut off. 
 
 ST. PAUL. 
 
 I CORIXTHIAXS, CHAP. XIII. 
 
 1. THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
 and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling 
 cymbal. 
 
 2. And though I Jiave the gift of prophecy, and understand all 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 505 
 
 mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that 
 I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 
 
 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and 
 though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it 
 profiteth me nothing. 
 
 4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth not ; 
 charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
 
 5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is 
 not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; 
 
 6. Kejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; 
 
 7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
 endure th all things. 
 
 8. Charity never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they 
 shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether 
 there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 
 
 9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 
 
 10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is 
 in part shall be done away. 
 
 11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a 
 child, I thought as a child; but, when I became a man, I put 
 away childish things. 
 
 12. For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to 
 face : now I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I 
 am known. 
 
 13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the 
 greatest of these is charity. 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 1564-1616. 
 
 Author of thirty-seven plays, several minor poems, and many sonnets. His best- 
 known plays are "Hamlet," "Macbeth," "King Lear," "Romeo and Juliet," and 
 "Othello," tragedies; "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Midsummer Night's 
 Dream," " As You Like It," and " Merchant of Venice," comedies; " Richard III.," 
 " Coriolanus," "Julius Csesar," " Henry IV.," and "Henry VIII.," historical plays. 
 A copy of his works, with biographical sketch, can be bought for a very small sum, 
 and should be in the hands of every student of English literature. We'select "Ju- 
 lius Caesar" to represent this greatest of English poets; for, as Dr. Johnson says, 
 " He that tries to recommend him by select quotations will succeed like the pedant 
 in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to snle, carried a brick in his pocket 
 as a specimen." If properlv studied, with the help of " Webster's Unabridged," no 
 notes are necessary. A copy of Craik's "Julius Caesar" with notes, or the Ameri- 
 can edition of it by Rolfe, might be of service to teacher and class. 
 
566 
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR. 
 
 PERSONS REPRESENTED. 
 
 JULIUS OESAR. 
 
 OCTAVIUS C.ESAR, 1 Triumvirs 
 MARCUS ANTOXIUS, [ after the death of 
 M. JEyiiL. LEPIUUS, J Julius Coesar. 
 CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Sen- 
 
 atoi-s. 
 
 MARCUS BRUTUS, 
 CASSIUS, 
 ( 'ASCA, 
 'PREBONIUS, 
 LIGARIUS, 
 DECIUS BKUTUS, 
 METELLUS CIMBER, 
 CINNA, 
 
 FLAVIUS and MARULLUS, Tribunes. 
 ARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos. 
 
 Conspirators 
 
 against Julius 
 
 CtBsar. 
 
 A SOOTHSAYER. 
 
 CIXXA, a Poet. Another Poet. 
 
 LUCILIUS, TITIXIUS, MESSALA, young 
 CATO, and VOLUMMUS, Friends to 
 Brutus and Cassias. 
 
 VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, 
 Lucius, DARDAXIUS, Servants to Bru- 
 tus. 
 
 PIXDARUS, Servant to Cassias. 
 
 CALPHURXIA, Wife to Caesar. 
 PORTIA, Wife to Brutus. 
 
 Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, 
 &c. 
 
 SCEXE, during a great part of the play, at Rome ; afterwards at Sardis, and near 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCEXE I. Rome. A Street. 
 Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a rabble of CITIZENS. 
 
 Flav. Hence ! home, you idle creatures ! get you home ! 
 Is this a holiday ? What ! know you not, 
 Being mechanical, you ought not walk 
 Upon a laboring-day without the sign 
 Of your profession ? Speak ! what trade art thou ? 
 
 1 Cit. Why, sir, a carpenter. , 
 Mar. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule ? 
 
 What dost thou with thy best apparel on V 
 You, sir, what trade are you : 
 
 2 Cit. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would 
 say, a cobbler. 
 
 Mnr. But what trade art thou ? Answer me directly. 
 
 2 Cit. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience ; which 
 is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. 
 
 Mar. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade ? 
 
 2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me ; yet if you be out, 
 sir, I can mend you. 
 
 Mar. What mean'st thou by that ? Mend me, thou saucy fellow ? 
 
 2 Cit. Why, sir, cobble you* 
 
 Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou ? 
 
 2 Cit. Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl. I meddle with no 
 tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with awl. I am indeed, 
 sir, a surgeon to old shoes : when they are in great danger, I recover 
 them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have gone upon 
 my handiwork. 
 
 Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day ? 
 Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? 
 
 2 Cit. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to {ret myself into more work. 
 But indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his 
 triumph. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 5C7 
 
 Mar. Wherefore rejoice ? What conquest brings he home ? 
 What tributaries follow him to Rome 
 To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels ? 
 You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things I 
 O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome ! 
 Kiiew you not Pompey ? Many a time and oft 
 Have you climbed up to walls and battlements, 
 To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, 
 Your infants in your arms, and there have sat 
 The livelong day, with patient expectation, 
 To see great Pompey pass the streets' of Rome ; 
 And, when you saw his chariot but appear, 
 Have you not made a universal shout, 
 That Tiber trembled underneath her banks 
 To hear the replication of your sounds 
 Made in her concave shores ? 
 And do you now put on your best attire ? 
 And do you now cull out a holiday ? 
 And do you now strew flowers in his way 
 That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood ? 
 Begone ! 
 
 Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, 
 Pray to the gods to intermit the plague 
 That needs must light on this ingratitude. 
 
 Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault 
 Assemble all the poor men of your sort; 
 Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears 
 Into the channel till the lowest stream 
 
 Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. \_Exeuri CITIZENS. 
 
 See whe'r their basest metal be not moved : 
 They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. 
 Go you down that way towards the Capitol : 
 This way will I. Disrobe the images 
 If you do find them decked with ceremonies. 
 
 Mar. May we do so? 
 Yon know it is the feast of Lupercal. 
 
 Ftav. It is no matter : let no images 
 Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about, 
 And drive away the vulgar from the streets : 
 So do you too, where you perceive them thick. 
 These growing feathers plucked from Caesar's wing 
 Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, 
 Who else would soar above the view of men, 
 And keep us all in servile fearfulness. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. A Public Place. 
 
 Enter in procession, with music, CAESAR, ANTONY, for the course; CAU'HUKHIA, 
 PORTIA, DECIUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, ami CASCA; a great cnticdJUlotuiny, 
 anumg them a SOOTHSAYER. 
 CVe.<? . C n 1 ph urn i a ! 
 
 Casca. Peace, ho ! Cassar speaks. [Music ceases. 
 
 Goes. Calphurniii! 
 
568 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Cal. Here, my lord. 
 
 Cces. Stand you directly in Antonius' way 
 When he doth run his course. Antonius ! 
 
 Ant. Caesar, my lord. 
 
 Cces. Forget not, in your speed, Antouius, 
 To touch Calphurnia ; for our elders say, 
 The barren, touched in this holy chase, 
 Shake off their sterile curse. 
 
 A nt. I shall remember : 
 When Caesar says " Do this" it is performed. 
 
 Cces. Set on, and leave no ceremony out. [Music. 
 
 Sooth. Caesar ! 
 
 Cces. Ha! who calls? 
 
 Caxca. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again. [Music ceases. 
 
 Cces. Who is it in the press that calls on me ? 
 I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, 
 Cry " Caesar ! " Speak : Caesar is turned to hear. 
 
 Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 
 
 Cces. What man is that ? 
 
 Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. 
 
 CCES. Set him before me : let me see his face. 
 
 Cas. Fellow, come from the throng : look upon Caesar. 
 
 Cces. What say'st thou to me now ? Speak once again. 
 
 Sooth. Beware the ides of March. 
 
 Cces. He is a dreamer : let us leave him. Pass. 
 
 [Sennet. Exeunt all but BRUTUS and CASSIUS. 
 
 Cas. Will you go see the order of the course ? 
 
 Bru. Not I. 
 
 Cas. I pray you, do. 
 
 Bru. I am not gamesome : I do lack some part 
 Of that quick spirit that is in Antony. 
 Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires : 
 I'll leave you. 
 
 Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late : 
 I have not from your eyes that gentleness 
 And show of love as I was wont to have : 
 You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand 
 Over your friend that loves you. 
 
 Bru. Cassius, 
 
 Be not deceived : if I have veiled my look, 
 I turn the trouble of my countenance 
 Merely upon myself. Vexed I am 
 Of late with passions of some difference, 
 Conceptions only proper to myself, 
 Which give some soil, perhaps, to my behaviors ; 
 But let not therefore my good friends be grieved, ' 
 (Among which number, Cassius, be you one,) 
 Nor construe any further my neglect, 
 Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, 
 Forgets the shows of love to other men. 
 
 Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion, 
 By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried 
 
WILLIAM SIIAKSPEARE. 6C9 
 
 Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations. 
 Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ? 
 
 Bru. No, Cassius ; lor the eye sees not itself 
 But by reflection, by some other things. 
 
 Cas. 'Tis just; 
 
 And it is very much lamented, Brutus, 
 That you have no such mirrors as will turn 
 Your hidden worthiness into your eye, 
 That you might see your shadow. I have heard, 
 Where many of the best respect in Rome 
 (Except immortal Caesar), speaking of Brutus, 
 And groaning underneath this age's yoke, 
 Have wished that noble Brutus had his eyes. 
 
 Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, 
 That you would have me seek into myself 
 For that which is not in me ? 
 
 Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear ; 
 And, since you know you can not see yourself 
 So well as by reflection, I, your glass, 
 Will modestly discover to yourself 
 That of yourself which you yet know not of. 
 And be not jealous of me, gentle Brutus : 
 Were I a common laugher, or did use 
 To stale with ordinary oaths iny love 
 To every new protester ; if you know 
 That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, 
 And after scandal them ; or if you know 
 That I profess myself in banqueting 
 To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. [Flourish and shout. 
 
 Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear the people 
 Choose Caesar for their king. 
 
 Cas. Ay, do you fear it ? 
 Then must I think you would not have it PO. 
 
 Bru. I would not, Cassius ; yet I love him well. 
 But wherefore do you hold me here so long ? 
 What is it that you would impart to me ? 
 If it be aught toward the general good, 
 Set honor in one eye, and death i' the other, 
 And I will look on both indifferently ; 
 For let the gods so speed me as I love 
 The name of honor more than I fear death. 
 
 Cas. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, 
 As well as I do know your outward favor. 
 Well, Honor is the subject of my story. 
 I can not tell what you and other men 
 Think of this life ; but, for my single self, 
 I had as lief not be as live to be 
 In awe of such a thing as I myself. 
 I was born free as Caesar : so were you. 
 We both have fed as well ; and we can both 
 Endure the winter's cold as well as he. 
 For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 
 
570 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, 
 
 Caesar said to me, " Dar'st thou, Ca.--ius, uoio 
 
 Leap in with me into thus anr/ry flood, 
 
 And swim to yonder point? " Upon the word, 
 
 Accoutered as I was, I plunged in, 
 
 And bade him follow : so, indeed, he did. 
 
 The torrent roared ; and we did buffet it 
 
 With lusty sinews; throwing it aside, 
 
 And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 
 
 But, ere we could arrive the point proposed, 
 
 Caesar cried, " Help me, Cussius, or I sink ! " 
 
 I, as JEneas, our great ancestor, 
 
 Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 
 
 The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 
 
 Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 
 
 Is now become a god; and Cassias is 
 
 A wretched creature, and must bend his body 
 
 If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 
 
 He had a fever when he was in Spain : 
 
 And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 
 
 How he did shake : 'tis true, this god did shake . 
 
 His coward lips did from their color fly ; 
 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 
 
 Did lose his luster. I did hear him in-oan ; 
 
 Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans 
 
 Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
 
 Alas! it cried, " Give me some drink, Titinius" 
 
 As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 
 
 A man of such a feeble temper should 
 
 So get the start of the majestic world, 
 
 And bear the palm alone ! [Shout. Flourish. 
 
 Bru. Another general shout ! 
 I do believe that these applauses are 
 For some new honors that are heaped on Caesar. 
 
 Cos. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
 Like a Colossus ; and we petty men 
 AValk under his huge legs, and peep about 
 To find ourselves dishonorable graves. 
 Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
 But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
 Brutus and Cassar : what should be in that Ccesar f 
 Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 
 Write them together, yours is as fair a name : 
 Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
 Weiirh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 
 
 Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Ccesar. [Shout. 
 
 Now, in the names of all the gods at once, 
 Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, 
 That he is grown so great ? ' Age, thou art shamed ! 
 Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods ! 
 When went there by an age, since the great flood, 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 571 
 
 But it was famed with more than with one man ? 
 When could they say till now, that talked of Rome, 
 That her wide walls encompassed but one man? 
 Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough, 
 When there is in it but one only man. 
 Oh ! you and I have heard our lathers say 
 There was a Brutus once that would have brooked 
 The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome, 
 As easily as a king. 
 
 Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous ; 
 What you would work me to, I have some aim ; 
 How I have thought of this, and of these times, 
 I shall recount hereafter : for this present, 
 I would not, so with love I might entreat you, 
 Be any further moved. What you have said 
 I will consider; what you have to say 
 I will with patience hear, and find a time 
 Both meet to hear and answer such high things. 
 Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this : 
 Brutus had rather be a villager 
 Than to repute himself a son of Rome 
 Under these hard conditions as this time 
 Is like to lay upon us. 
 
 Cos. I am glad that my weak words 
 Have struck but this much show of fire from Brutus. 
 
 Re-enter CAESAR and his Train. 
 
 Bru. The games are done, and Caesar is returning. 
 
 Ca*. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve ; 
 And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you 
 What hath proceeded worthy note to-day. 
 
 Bru. I will do so. But look you, Cassius ! 
 The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow ; 
 And all the rest look like a chidden train : 
 Calphurnia's cheek is pale ; and Cicero 
 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes 
 As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
 Being crossed in conference by some senators. 
 
 Cas. Casca will tell us what the matter is. 
 
 Cces. Antonius ! 
 
 Ant. Caesar! 
 
 Cces. Let me have men about me that are fat ; 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights : 
 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 
 
 Ant. Fear him not, Caesar: he's not dangerous. 
 He is a noble Roman, and well given. 
 
 Cces. Would he were fatter ! But I fear him not. 
 Yet, if my name were liable to fear, 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much; 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 
572 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays, 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music ; 
 Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit 
 That could be moved to smile at any thing. 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
 And therefore are they very dangerous. 
 I rather tell thee what is to be feared 
 Than what I fear ; for always I am Caesar. 
 Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, 
 And tell me truly what thou think'st of him. 
 
 [Sennet. Exeunt CAESAR and his Train. CASCA stays behind. 
 
 Casca. You pulled me by the cloak : would you speak with me ? 
 
 Bru. Ay, Casca : tell us what hath chanced to-day, 
 That Caesar looks so sad. 
 
 Casca. Why, you were with him, were you not ? 
 
 Bru. I should not then ask Casca what hath chanced. 
 
 Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him : and, being offered him, 
 he put it by with the back of his hand, thus ; and then the people fell 
 a-shoutingj. 
 
 Bru. What w*as the second noise for? 
 
 Casca. Why, for that too. 
 
 Cos. They shouted thrice : what was the last cry for ? 
 
 Casca. Why, for that too. 
 
 Bru. Was the crown offered him thrice ? 
 
 Casca. Ay, marry, was't ; and he put it by thrice, every time gentler 
 than other ; and, at every putting by, mine honest neighbors shouted. 
 
 Cas. Who offered him the crown ? 
 
 Casca. Why, Antony. 
 
 Bru. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca. 
 
 Casca. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it : it was mere 
 foolery. I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown, 
 yet 'twas not a crown neither ; 'twas one of these coronets, and, as I 
 told you, he put it by once ; but for all that, to my thinking, he would 
 fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again ; then he put it by 
 again : but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. 
 And then he offered it the third time ; he put it the third time by : 
 and still, as he refused it, the rabblement hooted, and clapped their 
 chapped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps, and uttered such 
 a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown, that it had 
 almost choked Caesar ; for he swooned and fell down at it." And, for 
 my own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and re- 
 ceiving the bad air. 
 
 Cas. But soft, I pray you. What ! did Caesar swoon ? 
 
 Casca. He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and 
 was speechless. 
 
 Bru. 'Tis very like : he hath the falling-sickness. 
 
 Cos. No, Caesar hath it not ; but you and I 
 And honest Casca we have the falling-sickness. 
 
 Casca. I know not what you mean by that ; but I am sure Caesar 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. 573 
 
 fell down. If the tag-ra^ people did not clap him and hiss him ac- 
 cording as he pleased and displeased them, as they used to do the players 
 in the theater, I am no true man. 
 
 Bru. What said he when he came unto himself? 
 
 Casca. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common 
 herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet, 
 and offered them his throat to cut. An I had been a man of any 
 occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I might 
 go to hell among the rogues ! And so he fell. When he came to him- 
 self again, he said, if he had done or said any thing amiss, he desired 
 their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches 
 where I stood cried, "Alas, good soul!" and forgave him with all their 
 hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of them : if Caesar had stabbed 
 their mothers, they would have done no less. 
 
 Bru. And, after that, he came thus sad away ? 
 
 Casca. Ay. 
 
 Cas. Did Cicero say any thing ? 
 
 Casca. Ay, he spoke Greek. 
 
 Cas. To what effect ? 
 
 Casca. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again. 
 But those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their 
 heads; but, for my own part, it was Greek to me. .1 could tell you 
 more news too : Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's 
 images, are put to silence. Fare you well! There was more foolery 
 yet, if I could remember it. 
 
 Cas. Will you sup with me to night, Casca ? 
 
 Casca. No : I am promised forth. 
 
 Cas. Will you dine with me to-morrow ? 
 
 Casca. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth 
 the eating. 
 
 Cas. Good : I will expect you. 
 
 Casca. Do so. Farewell both ! [Exit CASCA. 
 
 Bru. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be I 
 He was quick mettle when he went to school. 
 
 Cos. So is he now in execution 
 Of any bold or noble enterprise, 
 However he puts on this tardy form. 
 This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, 
 Which gives men stomach to digest his words 
 With better appetite. 
 
 Bru. And so it is. For this time I will leave you : 
 To-morrow, if you please to speak with me, 
 I will come home to you ; or, if you will, 
 Come home to me, and I will wait for you. 
 
 Cas. I will do so : till then, think of the world. {Exit BRUTUS. 
 
 Well, Brutus, thou art noble ; yet I see 
 Thy honorable metal may be wrought 
 From that it is disposed : therefore it is meet 
 That noble minds keep ever with their likes ; 
 For who so firm that can not be seduced ? 
 Caesar doth bear me hard ; but he loves Brutus. 
 If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius, 
 
574 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 He should not humor me. I will this night, 
 
 In several hands, in at his windows throw, 
 
 A- if they came from several citizens, 
 
 Writings all tending to the great opinion 
 
 That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely 
 
 Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at : 
 
 And. after this, let Caesar seat him sure; 
 
 For we will shake him, or worse days endure. [Exit. 
 
 SCENE III. The Same. A Street. 
 
 Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, CASCA with his sword drawn, and 
 
 CICERO. 
 
 Cic. Good-even, Casca ! Brought you Caesar home ? 
 Why are you breathless ? and why stare you so ? 
 
 Casca. *Are not you moved when all the sway of earth 
 Shakes like a thing unfirm V O Cicero ! 
 T have seen tempests when the scolding winds 
 Have rived the knotty oaks ; and I have seen 
 The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam 
 To be exalted with the threatening clouds ; 
 But never till to-night, never till now, 
 Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 
 Either there is a civil strife in heaven, 
 Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 
 Incenses them to send destruction. 
 
 Cic. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful ? 
 
 Co-vca. A common slave (you know him well by sight) 
 Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn 
 Like twenty torches joined ; and yet his hand, 
 Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched. 
 Besides (I have not since put up my sword), 
 Against the Capitol I met a lion, 
 AVho glared upon me, and went surly by, 
 Without annoying me ; and there were drawn 
 Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, 
 Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw 
 Men all in fire walk up and down the streets. 
 And yesterday the bird of night did sit, 
 Even" at noonday, upon the market-place, 
 Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies 
 Do so conjointly meet, let not men say 
 These are their reasons, they are natural ; 
 For I believe they are portentous things 
 Unto the climate that they point upon. 
 
 Cic. Indeed it is a strange-disposed time ; 
 But men may construe things after their fashion, 
 Clean from the purpose of the things themselves. 
 Comes Cassar to the Capitol to-morrow ? 
 
 Casca. He doth ; for he did bid Antonius 
 Send word to you he would be there to-morrow. 
 
 Cic. Good-night, then, Casea ! this disturbed sky 
 Is not to walk in. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 575. 
 
 Casca. Farewell, Cicero! [Exit CICEUO. 
 
 Enter CASSIUS. 
 
 Cos. Who's there ? 
 
 Casca. A Roman. 
 
 Cos. Casca, by your voice. 
 
 Casca. Your ear is good. Cassius, what a night is this ! 
 
 Cos. A very pleasing night to honest men. 
 
 Casca. Who ever knew the heavens menace so ? 
 
 Cos. Those that have known the earth so full of faults. 
 For my part, I have walked about the streets, 
 Submitting me unto the perilous night ; 
 And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see, 
 Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone ; 
 And, when the cross blue lightning seemed to open 
 The breast of heaven, I did present myself 
 Even in the aim and very flash of it. 
 
 Cavca. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens ? 
 It is the part of men to fear and tremble 
 When the most mighty gods, by tokens, send 
 Such dreadful heralds to astonish us. 
 
 Cos. You are dull, Casca ; and those sparks of life 
 That should be in a Roman you do want, 
 Or else you use not. You look pale, and gaze, 
 And put on fear, and cast yourself in wonder, 
 To see the strange impatience of the heavens : 
 But if you would consider the true cause, 
 Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, 
 Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind ; 
 Why old men, fools, and children calculate ; 
 Why all these things change from their ordinance, 
 Their natures, and pre-formed faculties, 
 To monstrous quality, why, you shall find 
 That Heaven hath infused them with these spirits 
 To make them instruments of fear and warning 
 Unto some monstrous state. Now could I, Casca, 
 Name to thee a man most like this dreadful night ; 
 That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars, 
 As doth the lion in the Capitol ; 
 A man no mightier than thyself and me 
 In personal action, yet prodigious grown, 
 And fearful as these strange eruptions are. 
 
 Casca. 'Tis Csesar that you mean. Is it not, Cassius ? 
 
 Cos. Let it be who it is : for Romans now 
 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; 
 But, woe the while ! our fathers' minds are dead, 
 And we are governed with our mothers' spirits : 
 Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. 
 
 Casca. Indeed, tliey say, the senators to-morrow 
 Mean to establish Caesar as a king; 
 And he shall wear his crown by sea and land 
 In every plane save here in Italy. 
 
576 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Cos. I know where I will wear this dagger, then : 
 Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius : 
 Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong ; 
 Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat. 
 Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, 
 Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, 
 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ; 
 But life, being weary of these worldly bars, 
 Never lacks power to dismiss itself. 
 If I know this, know, all the world besides, 
 That part of tyranny that I do bear 
 I can shake off at pleasure. 
 
 Casca. So can 1 : 
 
 So every bondman in his own hand bears 
 The power to cancel his captivity. 
 
 Cos. And why should Caesar be a tyrant, then? 
 Poor man ! I know he would not be a wolf, 
 But that he sees the Romans are but sheep : 
 He were no lion, were not Romans hinds. 
 Those that with haste will make a mighty fire 
 Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome, 
 What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves 
 For the base matter to illuminate 
 So vile a thing as Caesar ! But, O Grief! 
 Where hast thou led me ? I, perhaps, speak this 
 Before a willing bondman : then I know 
 My answer must be made. But I ain armed, 
 And dangers are to me indifferent. 
 
 Casca. You speak to Casca ; and, to such a man, 
 That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold my hand : 
 Be factious for redress of all these griefs, 
 And I will set this foot of mine as far 
 As who goes farthest. 
 
 Cos. There's a bargain made. 
 Now know you, Casca, I have moved already 
 Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans 
 To undergo with me an enterprise 
 Of honorable-dangerous consequence ; 
 And I do know by this they stay for me 
 In Pompey's porch : for now, this fearful night, 
 There is no stir or walking in the streets ; 
 And the complexion of the element 
 In favor's like the work we have in hand, 
 Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible. 
 
 Enter CIXXA. 
 
 Casca. Stand close a while ; for here comes one in haste. 
 
 Cos. 'Tis Cinna : I do know him by his gait. 
 He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so? 
 
 Cm. To find out you. Who's that ? Metellus Cimbei ? 
 
 Ca. No: it is Casca; one incorporate 
 To our attempts. Am I not staid for, Cinna ? 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 577 
 
 Cln. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this ! 
 There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. 
 
 Cos. Am I not staid for, Cinna ? Tell me. 
 
 Cin. Yes, you are. 
 O Cassius ! if you could but win the noble Brutus to our party 
 
 Cos. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper; 
 And, look you, lay it in the praetor's chair, 
 Where Brutus may but find it ; and throw this 
 In at his window ; set this up with wax 
 Upon old Brutus' statue : all this done, 
 Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us. 
 Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there ? 
 
 Cm. All but Metellus Cimber ; and he's gone 
 To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie, 
 And so bestow these papers as you bade me. 
 
 Cos. That done, repair to Pompey's theater. {Exit CINXA. 
 
 Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere da}-, 
 See Brutus at his house : three parts of him 
 Is ours already ; and the man entire, 
 Upon the next encounter, yields him ours. 
 
 Casca. Oh 1 he sits high in all the people's hearts ; 
 And that which would appear offense in us, 
 His countenance, like richest alchemy, 
 Will change to virtue and to worthiness. 
 
 Cos. Him and his worth', and our great need of him, 
 You have right well conceited. Let us go, 
 For it is after midnight ; and ere day 
 We will awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt. 
 
 ACT II. 
 SCENE I. The Same. BRUTUS' Orchard. 
 
 Enter BRUTUS. 
 Bru. What, Lucius ! ho ! 
 I can not by the progress of the stars 
 Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say ! 
 I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly ! 
 When, Lucius ? when ? Awake, I say ! What, Lucius I 
 
 Enter Lucn/s. 
 
 Luc. Called you, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius : 
 When it is lighted, come and call me here. 
 
 Luc. I will, my lord. {Exit. 
 
 Bru. It must be by his death ; and, for my part, 
 I know no personal cause to spurn at him, 
 But for the general. He would be crowned : 
 How that might change his nature, there's the question. 
 37 
 
578 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Tt is the bright flay that brings forth the adder : 
 
 And that craves wary walking. Crown hiru'i that; 
 
 And then. I grant, we put a sting in him, 
 
 That at his will he may do danger with. 
 
 The abuse at' greatness is when it disjoins 
 
 Remorse from power ; and, to speak truth of Caesar, 
 
 J have not known when his affections swayed 
 
 More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof 
 
 That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
 
 Whereto the climber upward turns his face ; 
 
 But, when he once attains the upmost round, 
 
 He then unto the ladder turns his back. 
 
 Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees 
 
 By which he did ascend. So Caesar may. 
 
 Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 
 
 Will bear no color for the thine: lie is. 
 
 Fashion it thus; that what he is. augmented, 
 
 Would run to these and these extremities : 
 
 And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, 
 
 Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous ; 
 
 And kill him in the shell. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. 
 Searching the window for a flint. I found 
 This paper, thus sealed up: and I am sure 
 It did not lie there when I went to bed. [Gives him the letter. 
 
 Bru. Get you to bed again : it is not day. 
 Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March? 
 
 Luc. I know not, sir. 
 
 Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. 
 
 Luc. I will. sir. [E.clt. 
 
 Bru. The exhalations whizzing in the air 
 Give so much light, that I may read by them. 
 
 [Opens the letter, and reads. 
 " Brutus, thou sleep' st : awake, and ace thyself! 
 Shall Rome, fyc. Speak, strike, redress ! " 
 ' Brutus, thou sleep' st : awake .' " 
 Such instigations have been often dropped 
 Where I have took them up. 
 " Shall Rome, &c." Thus must I piece it out : 
 Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What! Rome? 
 My ancestors did from the streets of Rome 
 The Tarquin drive when he was called a kins;. 
 44 Speak, strike, redress ! " Am I entreated, then, 
 To speak and strike ? O Rome ! I make thee promise, 
 If the redress will follow, thou receivest 
 Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen days. [Knock tcit/iin. 
 
 Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate : somebody knocks. [Exit Lucius. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAUE. 579 
 
 Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, 
 
 I have not slept. 
 
 Between the acting of a dreadful thing 
 
 And the first motion, all the interim is 
 
 Like a phantasma or a hideous dream : 
 
 The genius and the mortal instruments 
 
 Are then in council ; and the state of a man, 
 
 Like to a little kingdom, sutlers then 
 
 The nature of an insurrection. 
 
 He-enter Lucius. 
 
 Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door, 
 Who doth desire to see you. 
 
 Bru. Is he alone ? 
 
 Luc. No, sir : there are more with him. 
 
 Bru. Do you know them ? 
 
 Luc. No, sir : their hats are plucked about their ears, 
 And half their faces buried in their cloaks, 
 That by no means I may discover them 
 By any mark of favor. 
 
 Bru. Let them enter. [Exit Lucius. 
 
 They. are the faction. O Conspiracy! 
 Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, 
 When evils are most free V Oh ! then, by day, 
 Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough 
 To mask thy monstrous visage V Seek none, Conspiracy ; 
 Hide it in smiles and affability ; 
 For, if thou path thy native semblance on, 
 Not Erebus itself were dim enough 
 To hide thee from prevention. 
 
 Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS. 
 
 Cas. I think we are too bold upon your rest : 
 Good-morrow, Brutus ! Do we trouble you V 
 
 Bru. I have been up this hour; awake all night. 
 Know I these men that come along with you V 
 
 Cas. Yes, every man of them ; and no man here 
 But honors you ; and every one doth wish 
 You had but that opinion of yourself 
 Which every noble Roman bears of you. 
 This is Trebonius. 
 
 Bru. He is welcome hither. 
 
 Cas. This, Decius Brutus. 
 
 Bru. He is welcome too. 
 
 Cas. This, Casca ; this, Cinna ; and this, Metellus Cimber. 
 
 Bru. They are all welcome. 
 What watchful cares do interpose themselves 
 Betwixt your eyes and night ? 
 
 Cas. Shall I entreat a word ? [Tliey wliisper. 
 
 Dec. Here lies the east : doth not the day break here ? 
 
 Casca. No. 
 
580 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Cm. Oh ! pardon, sir; it doth; and yon gray lines 
 That fret the clouds are messengers of day. 
 
 Casca. You shall confess that you are both deceived. 
 Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises, 
 Which is a great way growing on the south, 
 Weighing the youthful season of the year. 
 Some two months hence, up higher toward the north 
 He first presents his fire ; and the high east 
 Stands, as the Capitol, directly here. 
 
 Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. 
 
 Cos. And let us swear our resolution. 
 
 Bru. No, not an oath : if not the face of men, 
 The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse, 
 If these be motives weak, break off betimes, 
 And every man hence to his idle bed : 
 So let high-sighted tyranny range on 
 Till each man drop by lottery. But if these, 
 As I am sure they do, bear fire enough 
 To kindle cowards, and to steel with valor 
 The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen, 
 AVhat need we any spur but our own cause 
 To prick us to redress ? what other bond 
 Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word, 
 And will not palter ? and what other oath 
 Than honesty to honesty engraved 
 That this shall be, or we will fall for it ? 
 Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous, 
 Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls 
 That welcome wrongs ; unto bad causes swear 
 Such creatures as men doubt : but do not stain 
 The even virtue of our enterprise, 
 Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits, 
 To think that or our cause or our performance 
 Did need an oath ; when every drop of blood 
 That every Roman bears, and nobly bears, 
 Is guilty of a several bastardy 
 If he do break the smallest particle 
 Of any promise that hath passed from him. 
 
 Cos. But what of Cicero ? Shall we sound him ? 
 1 think he will stand very strong with us. 
 
 Casca. Let us not leave him out. 
 
 Cm. No, by no means ! 
 
 Met. Oh ! let us have him ; for his silver hairs 
 Will purchase us a good opinion, 
 And buy men's voices to commend our deeds ; 
 It shall be said his judgment ruled our hands : 
 Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear, 
 But all be buried in his gravity. 
 
 Bru. Oh, name him not ! let us not break with him ; 
 For he will never follow any thing 
 That other men begin. 
 
 Cos. Then leave him out. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 581 
 
 Casca. Indeed, he is not fit. 
 
 Dec. Shall no man else be touched but only Caesar? 
 
 Cos. Decius, well urged. I think it is not meet 
 Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar, 
 Should outlive Caesar. We shall find of him 
 A shrewd contriver : and you know his means, 
 If he improve them, may well stretch so far 
 As to annoy us all ; which to prevent, 
 Let Antony and Caesar fall together. 
 
 Bru. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassias, 
 To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs, 
 Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards ; 
 For Antony is but a limb of Caesar. 
 Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius. 
 We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar ; 
 And in the spirit of mea there is no blood : 
 Oh that we then could come by Caesar's spirit, 
 And not dismember Caesar ! But, alas ! 
 Caesar must bleed for it. And, gentle friends, 
 Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully ; 
 Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, 
 Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds ; 
 And let our hearts, as subtle masters do, 
 Stir up their servants to an act of rage, 
 And after seem to chide them. This shall mark 
 Our purpose necessary, and not envious ; 
 Which so appearing to the common eyes, 
 We shall be called purgers, not murderers. 
 And for Mark Antony, think not of him ; 
 For he can do no more than Caesar's arm 
 When Caesar's head is ofF. 
 
 Cas. Yet I do fear him ; 
 For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar 
 
 Bru. Alas ! good Cassius, do not think of him : 
 If he love Caesar, all that he can do 
 Is to himself, take thought, and die for Caesar : 
 And that were much he should ; for he is given 
 To sports, to wildness, and much company. 
 
 Treb. There is no fear in him : let him not die; 
 For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter. [Clock strikes. 
 
 Bru. Peace ! count the clock. 
 
 Cas. The clock hath stricken three. 
 
 Treb. 'Tis time to part. 
 
 Cas. But it is doubtful yet 
 Whether Caesar will come forth to-day, or no: 
 For he is superstitious grown of late ; 
 Quite from the main opinion he held once 
 Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies. 
 It may be, these apparent prodigies, 
 The unaccustomed terror of this night, 
 And the persuasion of his augurers, 
 May hold him from the Capitol to-day. 
 
582 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Dec. Never fear that. If he be so resolved, 
 I can o'ersway him ; for he loves to hear 
 That unicorns may be betrayed with trees, 
 And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, 
 Lions with toils, and men with flatterers : 
 But, when I tell him he hates flatterers, 
 He says he does, being then most flattered. 
 Let me work : 
 
 For I can give his humor the true bent ; 
 And I will bring him to the Capitol. 
 
 Cos. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him. 
 
 Bru. By the eighth hour : is that the uttermost ? 
 
 Cm. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then. 
 
 Met. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard, 
 Who rated him for speaking well of Pompcy : 
 I wonder none of you have thought of him. 
 
 Bru. Now, good Metellus, go along by him : 
 He loves me well, and I have given him reasons : 
 Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him. 
 
 Cos. The morning comes upon us : we'll leave you, Brutus. 
 And, friends, disperse yourselves ; but all remember 
 What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans. 
 
 Bru. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily : 
 Let not our looks put on our purposes, 
 But bear it as our Roman actors do, 
 With untired spirits and formal constancy. 
 
 An'l so good-morrow to you every one ! * [Exeunt all but BRUTUS. 
 
 Boy ! Lucius ! Fast asleep ? It is no matter ; 
 Enjoy the heavy honey-dew of slumber : 
 Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies, 
 Which busy care draws in the brains of men ; 
 Therefore thou sleep'st so sound. 
 
 Enter PORTIA. 
 
 Por. Brutus, my lord ! 
 
 Bru. Portia, what mean you ? Wherefore rise you now ? 
 It is not for your health thus to commit 
 Your weak condition to the raw-cold morning. 
 
 Por. Nor for yours neither. You've ungently, Brutus, 
 Stole from my bed ; and yesternight, at supper,' 
 You suddenly arose, and walked about, 
 Musing and sighing, with your arms across ; 
 And, when I asked you what the matter was, 
 You stared upon me with ungentle looks. 
 I urged you further ; then you scratched your head, 
 And too impatiently stamped with your foot : 
 Yet I insisted ; yet you answered not, 
 But, with an angry wafture of your hand, 
 Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did, 
 Fearing to strengthen that* impatience 
 Which seemed too much enkindled, and, withal, 
 Hoping it was but an effect of humor, 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 583 
 
 Which sometime hath his hour with every man. 
 It will not let you eat nor talk nor sleep ; 
 And, could it work so much upon your shape 
 As it hath much prevailed on your condition, 
 I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord, 
 Make me acquainted with your cause of grief. 
 
 Bru. I am not well in health ; and that is all. 
 
 For. Brutus is wise ; and, were he not in health, 
 He would embrace the means to come by it. 
 
 Bru. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed. 
 
 Por. Is Brutus sick ? and is it physical 
 To walk unbraced, and suck up the humors 
 Of the dank morning ? What ! is Brutus sick, 
 And will he steal out of his wholesome bed 
 To dare the vile contagion of the night, 
 And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air 
 To add unto his sickness ? No, my Brutus : 
 You have some sick offense within your mind, 
 Which, by the right and virtue of my place, 
 I ought to know of; and upon my knees 
 I charm you, by my once commended beauty, 
 By all your vows of love, and that great vow 
 -Which did incorporate and make us one, 
 That you unfold to me, yourself, your half, 
 Why you are heavy ; and what men to-night 
 Have had resort to you : for here have been 
 Some six or seven, who did hide their faces 
 Even from darkness. 
 
 Bru. Kneel not, gentle Portia. 
 
 Por. I should not need if you were gentle Brutus. 
 Within the bond of marriage, tell rne, Brutus, 
 Is it excepted I should know no secrets 
 That appertain to you? Am I yourself, 
 But, as it were, in sort, or limitation ; 
 To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, 
 And talk to you sometimes? Dvvelf I but in the suburbs 
 Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, 
 Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wile. 
 
 Bra. You are my true and honorable wife ; 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. 
 
 Por. If this were true, then should I know this secret. 
 I grant I am a woman, but, withal, 
 A woman that lord Brutus took to wife: 
 I grant I am a woman, but, withal, 
 A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter. 
 Think you I am no stronger than my sex, 
 Being so fathered and so husbanded ? 
 Tell me your counsels ; I will not disclose them : 
 I have made strong proof of my constancy, 
 Giving myself a voluntary wound 
 Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience, 
 And not my husband's secrets ? 
 
584 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Bra. O ye gods, 
 
 Render me worthy of this noble wife ! [Knocking icithin. 
 
 Hark, hark ! one knocks. Portia, go in a while ; 
 And by and by thy bosom shall partake 
 The secrets of my heart. 
 All my engagements I will construe to thee, 
 All the charactery of my sad brows. 
 Leave me with haste. [Exit PORTIA. 
 
 Enter Lucius and LIGAKIUS. 
 
 Lucius, who is that knocks ? 
 
 Luc. Here is a sick man that would speak with you. 
 
 Bru. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spuke of. 
 Boy, stand aside ! Caius Ligarius ! how ? 
 
 Lig. Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue. 
 
 Bru. Oh, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius, 
 To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick 1 
 
 Lig. I am not sick if Brutus have in hand 
 Any exploit worthy the name of honor. 
 
 Bru. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius, 
 Had you a healthful ear to hear of it. 
 
 Lig. By all the gods that Romans bow before, 
 I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome ! 
 Brave son, derived from honorable loins I 
 Thou like an exorcist hast conjured up 
 My mortified spirit. Now bid me run* 
 And I will strive with things impossible ; 
 Yea, get the better of them. What's to do ? 
 
 Bru. A piece of work that will make sick men whole. 
 
 Lig. But are not some whole that we must make sick ? 
 
 Bru. That must we also. What it is, my Caius, 
 I shall unfold to thee, as we are gomg 
 To whom it must be done. 
 
 Lig. Set on your foot ; 
 And with a heart new fired I follow you, 
 To do I know not what : but it sufficeth 
 That Brutus leads me on. 
 
 Bru. Follow me, then. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. TJte Same. A Room in CAESAR'S Palace. 
 Thunder and lightning. Enter C-KSAR in his rdght-goivn. 
 
 Cffs. Nor heaven nor earth hath been at peace to-night. 
 Thrice hath Calphurnia in her sleep cried out, 
 " Help, ho ! they murder Ccesar ! " Who's within ? 
 
 Enter a SERVANT. 
 Serv. My lord ? 
 
 Cces. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice, 
 And bring me their opinions of success. 
 
 Serv. I will, my lord. [Exit. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEA11E. 
 
 Enter CALPHURNIA. 
 
 Cal What mean you, Caesar ? Think you to walk forth ? 
 You shall not stir out of your house to-day. 
 
 Cces. Caesar shall forth. The things that threatened me 
 Ne'er looked but on my back : when they shall see 
 The face of Caesar, they are vanished. 
 
 Cal. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies ; 
 Yet now they fright me. There is one within, 
 Besides the things that we have heard and seen, 
 llecounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. 
 A lioness hath whelped in the streets; 
 And graves have yawned, and yielded up their dead ; 
 Fierce, fiery warriors fight upon the clouds 
 In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, 
 Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol ; 
 The noise of battle hurtled in the air ; 
 Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan ; 
 And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. 
 O Caesar ! these things are beyond all use, 
 And I do fear them. 
 
 Cces. What can be avoided 
 Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods ? 
 Yet Caesar shall go forth ; for these predictions 
 Are to the world in general as to Caesar. 
 
 Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets seen : 
 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. 
 
 Cces. Cowards die many times before their deaths : 
 The valiant never taste of death but once. 
 Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, 
 It seems to me most strange that men should fear; 
 Seeing that death, a necessary end, 
 Will coine when it will come. 
 
 Re-enter a SERVANT. 
 
 What say the augurers ? 
 
 Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. 
 Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, 
 They could not find a heart within the beast. 
 
 Cces. The gods do this in shame of cowardice. 
 Caesar should be a beast without a heart 
 If he should stay at home to-day for fear. 
 No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well 
 That Caesar is more dangerous than he. 
 We are two lions littered in one day, 
 And I the elder and more terrible ; 
 And Caesar shall go forth. 
 
 Cal. Alas, my lord ! 
 
 Your wisdom is consumed in confidence. 
 Do not go forth to-day. Call it my fear 
 Thnt keeps you in the house, and not your own. 
 We'll send Mark Antony to the senate-house ; 
 
586 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And he shall say you are not well to-day : 
 Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this. 
 
 C(t*. Mark Antony shall say I am not well ; 
 And for thy humor I will stay at home. 
 
 Enter DECIUS. 
 
 Here's Decius Brutus : he shall tell them so. 
 
 Dec. Caesar, all hail ! Good-morrow, worthy Caesar ! 
 I come to fetch you to the senate-house. 
 
 Cces. And you are come in very happy time 
 To bear my greeting to the senators, 
 And tell them that I will not come to-day. 
 Can not is false ; and that I dare not, falser : 
 I will not come to dav. Tell them so, Decius. 
 
 Col. Say he is sick". 
 
 CCRS. Shall Caesar send a lie ? 
 Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far 
 To be afeard to tell gray-beards the truth ? 
 Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come. 
 
 Dec. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause, 
 Lest I be laughed at when I tell them so. 
 
 CCBS. The cause is in my will : I will not come : 
 That is enough to satisfy the senate. 
 But for your private satisfaction, 
 Because I love you, I will let you know. 
 Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home. 
 She dreamt to-night she saw my statue. 
 Which, like a fountain with a hundred spouts, 
 Did run pure blood ; and many lusty Romans 
 Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it. 
 And these does she apply for warnings and portents 
 Of evils imminent, and on her knee 
 Hath besrsred that I will stay at home to-day. 
 
 Dec. This dream is all amiss interpreted : 
 It was a vision fair and fortunate. 
 Your statue spouting blood in many pipes, 
 In which so many smiling Romans bathed, 
 Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck 
 Reviving blood ; and that great men shall press 
 For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance. 
 This by Calphurnia's dream is signified. 
 
 Gens. And this way have you well expounded it. 
 
 Dec. I have when you have heard what I can say. 
 And know it now : The senate have concluded 
 To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar. 
 If you shall send them word you will not come, 
 Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock 
 Apt to be rendered, for some one to say, 
 " Break up the senate till another time, 
 When Cedar's wife shall meet with better dream*" 
 If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper, 
 "LoJ Ccesar is afraid "? 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 587 
 
 Pardon ine, Caesar : for my dear, dear love 
 To your proceeding bids me tell you this ; 
 And reason to my love is liable. 
 
 Cces. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calplmrnia 1 
 I am ashamed I did yield to them. 
 Give me my robe ; for I will go : 
 
 Enter PUBLIUS, BRUTUS, LIGARIUS, METELLUS, CASCA, TREBOMUS, and CISXA. 
 And look where Publius is come to fetch me ! 
 
 Pub. Good-morrow, Caesar ! 
 
 Cces. Welcome, Publius ! 
 What, Brutus ! are you stirred so early too ? 
 Good-morrow, Casca ! Caius Ligarius, 
 Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy 
 As that same ague which hath made you lean. 
 What is't o'clock ? 
 
 Bru. Caesar, 'tis struck eight. 
 
 CCES. I thank you for your pains and courtesy. 
 
 Enter ANTONY. 
 
 See ! Antony, that revels long o* nights, 
 Is, notwithstanding, up. 
 Good-morrow, Antony ! 
 
 Ant. So to most noble Caesar. 
 
 CCES. Bid them prepare within : 
 I am to blame to be thus waited for. 
 Now, China ! Now, Metellus ! What, Trebonius ! 
 I have an hour's talk in store for you. 
 Remember that you call on me to-day : 
 Be near me that I may remember you. 
 
 Treb. Caesar, I will ; and so near will I be, [Axide. 
 
 That your best friends shall wish I had been farther. 
 
 CCES. Good friends, go in and taste some wine with me; 
 And we, like friends, will straightway go together. 
 
 Bru. That every like is not the same, O Caesar ! 
 The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon. [Aside. Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. The Same. A Street near the Capitol. 
 Enter ARTEMIDORUS, reading a paper. 
 
 Art. Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius ; come not near 
 Casca : have an eye to China; trust not Trebonius; mark wdl Metellus 
 Cimber ; Decius Brutus loves thee not ; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. 
 There is but one mind in all these men ; and it is bent against Caesar. 
 If thou beest not immortal, look about you : security {fives way to con- 
 spiracy. The mighty gods defend thee ! Thy lover, ARTEMIDORUS, 
 
 Here will I stand till Caesar pass along ; 
 
 And as a suitor will I give him this. 
 
 My heart laments that virtue can not live 
 
 Out of the teeth of emulation. 
 
 If thou read this, O Caesar ! thou mayst live} 
 
 If not, the fates with traitors do contrive. [Exit. 
 
588 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 SCENE IV. The Same. Another Part of the same Street, before the House of 
 
 BEUXUS. 
 
 Enter PORTIA and Lucius. 
 
 Por. I prithee, boy, run to the senate-house : 
 Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone ! 
 Why dost thou stay ? 
 
 Luc. To know my errand, madam, 
 
 Por. I would have had thee there and here again 
 Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there. 
 
 Constancy, be strong upon my side ! 
 
 Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue ! 
 
 1 have a man's mind, but a woman's might. 
 How hard it is for women to keep counsel ! 
 Art thou here yet ? 
 
 Luc. Madam, what should I do? 
 Run to the Capitol, and nothing else ? 
 And so return to you, and nothing else ? 
 
 Por. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look Veil; 
 For he went sickly forth : and take good note 
 What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him. 
 Hark, boy ! What noise is that V 
 
 Luc. I hear none, madam. 
 
 Por. Prithee, listen well : 
 I heard a bustling rumor, like a fray ; 
 And the wind brings it from the Capitol. 
 
 Luc. Sooth, madam, 1 hear nothing. 
 
 Enter THE SOOTHSAYER. 
 
 Por. Come hither, fellow. Which way hast thou been ? 
 
 Sooth. At mine own house, good lady. 
 
 Por. What is't o'clock ? 
 
 Sooth. About the ninth hour, lady. 
 
 Por. 'Is Ca3sar yet gone to the Capitol ? 
 
 Sooth. ]\Jadam, not yet. I go to take my stand 
 To see hfni pass on to the Capitol. 
 
 Por. Thou hast some suit to Caesar ; hast thou not ? 
 
 Sooth. That I have, lady : if it will please Caesar 
 To be so good to Caesar as to hear me, 
 I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 
 
 Por. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards him ? 
 
 Sooth. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance. 
 Good-morrow to you ! 
 
 Here the street is narrow : 
 The throng that follows Caesar at the heels - 
 Of senators, of praetors, common suitors 
 Will crowd a feeble man almost to death. 
 I'll get me to a place more void, and there 
 Speak to great Caesar as he conies along. [Exit. 
 
 Por. I must go in. All me ! how weak a thing 
 The heart of woman is ! 
 
WILLIAM. SHAKSPEARE. 589 
 
 O Brutus! 
 
 The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise ! 
 Sure the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit 
 That Caesar will not grant. Oh ! I grow faint. 
 Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord ; 
 Say I am merry : come to me again, 
 And bring me word what he doth say to thee. '[Exeunt. 
 
 ACT III. 
 SCENE I. The, Same. The Capitol; Ike Senate sitting. 
 
 A crowd of people in fJie street lending to the Capitol; among them ARTEMroonrs 
 and the SOOTHSAYER. Flourish. Enter CAESAR, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, CASCA, DK- 
 cius, METELLUS, TREBONIUS, CINNA, ANTONY, LEFIDUS, POPILIUS, PUBUUS, 
 and Others. 
 
 Cces. The ides of March are come. 
 
 Sooth. Ay, Caesar ; but not gone. 
 
 Art. Hail, Caesar 1 Read this schedule. 
 
 Dec. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read 
 At your best leisure this his humble suit. 
 
 Art. O Caesar! read mine first; for mine's a suit 
 That touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar. 
 
 Cces. What touches us ourself shall be last served. 
 
 Art. Delay not, Caesar: read it instantly. 
 
 Cces. What! is the fellow mad? 
 
 Pub. Sirrah, give place ! 
 
 Cos. What ! urge you your petitions in the street ? 
 Come to the Capitol. 
 
 CAESAR enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the Senators rise. 
 
 Pop. I wish your enterprise to-day may thrive. 
 
 Can. What enterprise, Popilius V 
 
 Pop. Fare you well ! [Advances to C^SAR. 
 
 Bru. What said Popilius Lena ? 
 
 Cas. He wished to-day our enterprise might thrive. 
 I fear our purpose is discovered. 
 
 Bru. Look how he makes to Caesar ! Mark him ! 
 
 Cas. Casca, be sudden ; for we fear prevention. 
 Brutus, what shall be done ? If this be known, 
 Cassius on Caesar never shall turn back ; 
 For I will slay myself. 
 
 Bru. Cassius, be constant : 
 Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes ; 
 For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change. 
 
 Cas. Trebonius knows his time ; for, look you, Brutus, 
 He draws Mark Antony out of the way. [Exeunt ANTONY and TREBO- 
 NIUS. CAESAR and the Senators take their seats. 
 
 Dec. Where is Metellus Cimber ? Let him go, 
 And presently prefer his suit to Caesar. 
 
590 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Bru. He is addressed : press near, and second him. 
 Cin. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand. 
 Casca. Are we all ready ? 
 C(Efs. What is now amiss 
 That Caesar and his senate must redress ? 
 
 Met. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar, 
 Mi'tellus Cimber throws before thy seat 
 A humble heart. [Kneeling. 
 
 Cces. I must prevent thee, Cimber. 
 These crouchings and these lowly courtesies 
 Alight fire the blood of ordinary men, 
 And turn pre-ordinance and first decree 
 Into the law of children. Be not fond 
 To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
 That will be thawed from the true quality 
 "\Vith that which melteth fools : I mean sweet words, 
 Low-crouched courtesies, and base spaniel-fawning. 
 Thy brother by decree is banished : 
 If thou dost bend and pray and lawn for him, 
 I spurn thee like a cur out of my way. 
 Know, Caesar doth not wrong ; nor without cause 
 Will he be satisfied. 
 
 Met. Is there no voice more worthy than my own 
 To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 
 For the repealing of my banished brother ? 
 
 Bru. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar; 
 Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may 
 Have an immediate freedom of repeal. 
 Cces. What, Brutus ! 
 Cos. Pardon, Caesar : Cae.-ar, pardon : 
 As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall 
 To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber. 
 
 Cces. I could be well moved if I were as you ; 
 If I could pray to move, prayers would move me : 
 But I am constant as the northern star, 
 Of whose true-fix^d and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks ; 
 They are all fire, and every one doth shine ; 
 But there's but one in all doth hold his place : 
 So in the world; 'tis furnished well with men, 
 And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive; 
 Yet in the number I do know but one 
 That unassailable holds on his rank, 
 Unshaked of motion : and, that I am he, 
 Let me a little show it. even in this, 
 That I was constant Cimber should be banished, 
 And constant do remain to keep him so. 
 Cin. O Caesar ! 
 
 Cow. Hence ! wilt thou lift up Olympus ? 
 Dec. Great Caesar ! 
 C(BS. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel ? 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 591 
 
 Casca. Speak, hands, for me ! [CASCA s'ab* C*:SAR in the neck. CJE- 
 SAR catches hold of his arm. He is then stabbed by several other 
 conspirators, and at. last by MAHCUS BKUTUS. 
 
 Cces. Et tu, Brute I Then fall, Ciesar ! [Dies. The. Senators and 
 
 People retire in confusion. 
 
 Cin. Liberty ! Freedom ! Tyranny is dead 1 
 Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. 
 
 Cas. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out, 
 " Liberty* freedom, and enfranchisement ! " 
 
 Bru. People and senators, be not affrighted ; 
 Fly not; stand still : ambition's debt is paid. 
 
 Casca. Go to the pulpit, Brutus. 
 
 Dec. And Cassius too. 
 
 Bru. Where's Publius? 
 
 Cin. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny. 
 
 Mat. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's 
 Should chance 
 
 Bru. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer 1 
 There is no harm intended to your person, 
 Nor to no Roman else : so tell them, Publius. 
 
 Cas. And leave us, Publius, lest that the people, 
 Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief. 
 
 Bru. Do so ; and let no man abide this deed, 
 But we the doers. 
 
 Re-enter TREBONIUS. 
 
 Cas. -Where's Antony ? 
 
 Tre. Fled to his house amazed. 
 Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run, 
 As it were doomsday. 
 
 Bru. Fates ! we will know your pleasures. 
 That we shall die, we know : ''tis but the time, 
 And drawing days out, that men stand upon. 
 
 Casca. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life 
 Cuts off so many years of fearing death. 
 
 Bru. Grant that, and then is death a benefit : 
 So are we Caesar's friends, that have abridged 
 His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop, 
 And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood 
 Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords ; 
 Then walk we forth, even to the market-place, 
 And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, 
 Let's all cry, " Peace ! Freedom ! and Liberty ! " 
 
 Cas. Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence 
 Shall this our lofty scene be acted over 
 In states unborn, and accents yet unknown ! 
 
 Bru. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, 
 That now on Pompey's basis lies along, 
 No worthier than the dust ! 
 
 Cas. So oft as that shall be, 
 So often shall the knot of us be called 
 The men that gave their country liberty. 
 
 Dec. What, shall we forth V 
 Cas. Ay, every man away I 
 
592 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Brutus shall lead ; and we will grace his heels 
 With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome. 
 
 Enter a SERVANT. 
 
 Bru. Soft ! who comes here ? A friend of Antony's. 
 
 Serv. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel ; 
 Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down ; 
 And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say : 
 ' Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest ; 
 Ctesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving. 
 Say, I love Brutus, and I honor him ; 
 Say, I feared Caesar, honored him, and loved him. 
 If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony 
 May safely come to him, and be resolved 
 How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death, 
 Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead 
 So well as Brutus living, but will follow 
 The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus, 
 Thorough the hazards of this untrod state, 
 With all true faith." So says my master Antony. 
 
 Bru. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman : 
 I never thought him worse. 
 Tell him, so please him come unto this place, 
 He shall be satisfied, and, by my honor, 
 Depart untouched. 
 
 Serv. I'll fetch him presently. [Exit. 
 
 Bru. I know that we shall have him well to friend. 
 
 Cos. I wish we may : but yet have I a mind 
 That fears him much ; and my misgiving still 
 Falls shrewdly to the purpose. 
 
 Re-enter ASTOXY. 
 
 Bru. But here comes Antony. Welcome. Mark Antony ! 
 
 Ant. O mighty Caesar ! Dost thou lie so low ? 
 Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, 
 Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well 1 
 I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, 
 Who else must be let blood, who else is rank : 
 If I myself, there is no hour so fit 
 As -Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument 
 Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich 
 With the most noble blood of all this world. 
 I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard, 
 Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, 
 Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years, 
 I shall not find myself so apt to die. 
 No place will please me so, no mean of death, 
 As here by Caesar, and by you cut off, 
 The choice and master spirits of this a<re. 
 
 Bru. O Antony ! beg not your death of us. 
 Though now we must appear bloody and cruel. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 593 
 
 As by our hands, and this our present act, 
 
 You see we do, yet see you but our hands, 
 
 And this the bleeding business they have done. 
 
 Our hearts you see not ; they are pitful ; 
 
 And pity to the general wrong of Rome 
 
 (As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity) 
 
 Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part, 
 
 To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony: 
 
 Our arms, in strength of malice, and our hearts, 
 
 Of brothers' temper, do receive you in 
 
 With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence. 
 
 Cos. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's 
 In the disposing of new dignities. 
 
 Bru. Only be patient till we have appeased 
 The multitude, beside themselves with iear, 
 And then we will deliver you the cause 
 Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him, 
 Have thus proceeded. 
 
 Ant. I doubt not of your wisdom. 
 Let each man render me his bloody hand : 
 First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you ; 
 Next, Cains Cassius, do I take your hand ; 
 Now, Decius Brutus, yours ; now yours, Metellus ; 
 Yours, Cinna ; and, my valiant Casca, yours ; 
 Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius. 
 Gentlemen all, alas ! what shall I say ? 
 My credit now stands on such slippery ground, 
 That one of two bad ways you must conceit me, 
 Either a coward or a flatterer. 
 That I did love thee, Caesar, oh ! 'tis true : 
 If then thy spirit look upon us now, 
 Shall it not grieve thee, dearer than thy death, 
 To see thy Antony making his peace, 
 Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes, 
 Most noble ! in the presence of thy corse ? 
 Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds, 
 Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood, 
 It would become me better than to close 
 In terms of friendship with thine enemies. 
 Pardon me, Julius ! Here wast thou bayed, brave hart. 
 Here didst thou fall ; and here thy hunters stand, 
 Signed in thy spoil, and crimsoned in thy lethe. 
 O world ! thou wast the forest to this hart ; 
 And this, indeed, O world ! the heart of thee. 
 How like a deer, strucken by many princes, 
 Dost thou here lie ! 
 
 Cos. Mark Antony ! 
 
 Ant. Pardon me, Caius Cassius : 
 The enemies of Caesar shall say this : 
 Then in a friend it is cold modesty. 
 
 Cas. I blame you not for praising Caesar so. 
 But what compact mean you to have with us? 
 
594 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Will you be pricked in number of our friends ? 
 Or shall we OP, and not depend on you ? 
 
 Ant. Therefore I took your hands^but was, indeed, 
 Swayed from the point by looking down on Cassiir. 
 Friends am I with you all, and love you all, 
 Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons 
 Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous. 
 
 Bru. Or else were this a savage spectacle. 
 Our reasons are so full of good regard, 
 That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, 
 You should be satisfied. 
 
 Ant. That's all I seek: 
 And am, moreover, suitor that I may 
 Produce his body to the market-place ; 
 And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend, 
 Speak in the order of his funeral. 
 
 Bru. You shall, Mark Antony. 
 
 Cos. Brutus, a word with you. 
 You know not what you do. Do not consent 
 That Antony speak in his funeral. 
 Know you how much the people may be moved 
 By that which he will utter ? 
 
 Bru. By your pardon, 
 I will myself into the pulpit first, 
 And show the reason of our Caesar's death : 
 What Antony shall speak, I will protest 
 He speaks by leave and by permission ; 
 And that we are contented Caesar shall 
 Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies. 
 It shall advantage more than do us wrong. 
 
 Ca.s. I know not what may fall : I like it not. 
 
 Bru. Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar's body. 
 You shall not in your funeral-speech blame us, 
 But speak all good you can devise of Cajsar ; 
 And say you do't by our permission : 
 Else shall you not have any hand at all 
 
 About his funeral. And you shall speak 
 In the same pulpit whereto I am going, 
 After my speech is ended. 
 
 Ant. fee it so: 
 I do desire no more. 
 
 Bru. Prepare the body, then, and follow us. [Exeunt all but ANTONY. 
 
 Ant. Oh. pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 
 That I am meek and gentle with these butchers ! 
 Thou art the ruins of the noblest man 
 That ever lived in the tide of times. 
 Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ! 
 Over thy wounds now do I prophesy." 
 Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips 
 To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue, 
 A curse shall light upon the limbs of 'men ; 
 Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
 
WILLIAM SIIAKSPEARE. 
 
 Shall cumber all the parts of Italy ; 
 Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 
 And dreadful objects so familiar, 
 That mothers shall but smile when they behold 
 Their offspring quartered with the hands of war; 
 All pity choked with custom of fell deeds ; 
 And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 
 With Ate by his side come hot from hell, 
 Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice 
 Cry " Havoc ! " and let slip the dogs of war ; 
 That this foul deed shall smell above the earth, 
 With carrion men groaning for burial. 
 
 Enter a SERVANT. 
 
 You serve Octavius Caesar ; do you not ? 
 
 Serv. I do, Mark Antony. 
 
 Ant. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome. 
 
 Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coming; 
 And bid me say to you by word of mouth 
 O Caesar ! [Seeing the body. 
 
 Ant. Thy heart is big : get thee apart and weep. 
 Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes, 
 Seeing tho.e beads of sorrow stand in thine, 
 Began to water. Is thy master coming ? 
 
 Serv. He lies to-night within seven leagues of Rome. 
 
 Ant. Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanced. 
 Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome ; 
 No Rome of safety for Octavius yet : 
 Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay a while ; 
 Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse 
 Into the market-place : there shall I try 
 In my oration how the people take 
 The cruel issue of these bloody men ; 
 According to the which thou shalt discourse 
 To young Octavius of the state of things. 
 Lend me your hand. [Exeunt with CAESAR'S body. 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. The Forum. 
 Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS, and a throny of CITIZENS. 
 
 Cit. We will be satisfied ; let us be satisfied. 
 
 Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends. 
 Cassius, go you into the other street, 
 And part the numbers. 
 
 Those that will hear me speak, let them stay here ; 
 Those that will follow Cassius, go with him ; 
 And public reasons shall be rendered 
 Of Caesar's death. 
 
 1 Cit. I will hear Brutus speak. 
 
 2 Cit. I will hear Cassius, and compare their reasons 
 
 When severally we hear them rendered. [Exit CASSIUS with xorne of 
 the CITIZENS. BRUTUS goes into the rostrum. 
 
596 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 3 Cit. The noble Brutus is ascended. Silence ! 
 
 Bru. Be patient till the last. 
 
 Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause ; and be silent, 
 that ye may hear : believe me for mine honor ; and have respect to 
 mine 'honor, that you may believe : censure me in your wisdom ; and 
 awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any 
 in this assembly, any dear friend of Csesar's, to him I say that Brutus' 
 love to Caesar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand 
 why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer : " Not that I loved 
 Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more." Had you rather Caesar were 
 living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free- 
 men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, \ 
 rejoice at it ; as he was valiant, I honor him : but, as he was ambitious, 
 I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor 
 for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that 
 would be a bondman ? If any, speak : for him have I offended. Who 
 is here so rude that would not be a Roman ? If any, speak : for him 
 have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country ? 
 If any, speak : for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. 
 
 Cit. None, Brutus, none ! [Several speaking at once. 
 
 Bru. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cagsar 
 than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled 
 in the Capitol : his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy ; nor 
 his offenses enforced, for which he suffered death. 
 
 Enter AXTOXY and others icith CAESAR'S body. 
 
 Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had 
 no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in 
 the commonwealth ; as which of you shall not ? With this I depart, 
 that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same 
 dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death. 
 Cit. Live, Brutus, live ! live ! 
 
 1 Cit. Bring him with triumph home unto his house. 
 
 2 Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors. 
 
 3 Cit. Let him be Caesar. 
 
 4 Cit. Caesar's better parts 
 Shall now be crowned in Brutus. 
 
 1 Cit. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and clamors. 
 Bru. My countrymen ! 
 
 2 Cit. Peace, silence ! Brutus speaks. 
 1 Cit. Peace, ho ! 
 
 Bru. Good countrymen, let me depart alone, 
 And for my sake stay here with Antony : 
 Do grace to Caesar's corpse, and grace his speech 
 Tending to Caesar's glories ; which Mark Antony, 
 By our permission, is allowed to make. 
 1 do entreat you, not a man depart, 
 Save I alone, till Antony have spoke. [Exit. 
 
 1 Cit. Stay, ho ! and let us hear Mark Antony. 
 
 3 Cit. Let him go up into the public chair : 
 We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up. 
 
 Ant. For Brutus' sake, I am beholden to you. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. 597 
 
 4 Cit. What does he say of Brutus ? 
 
 3 Cit. He says, for Brutus' bake, 
 He finds himself beholden to us all. 
 
 4 Cit. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here. 
 
 1 Cit. This Caesar was a tyrant. 
 3 Cit. Nay, that's certain : 
 
 We are blest that Rome is rid of him. 
 
 2 Cit. Peace ! let us hear what Antony can say. 
 Ant. You gentle Romans 
 
 Cit. Peace, ho ! let us hear him. 
 
 Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears : 
 I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
 The evil that men do lives after them ; 
 The good is oft interred with their bones : 
 So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus 
 Hath told you Caesar was ambitious : 
 If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 
 And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 
 Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, 
 (For Brutus is an honorable man ; 
 So are they all, all honorable men,) 
 Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 
 He was my friend, faithful and just to me : 
 But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
 And Brutus is an honorable man. 
 He hath brought many captives home to Rome, 
 Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill : 
 Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 
 When that the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept : 
 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 
 Yet Brutus, says he was ambitious ; 
 And Brutus is an honorable man. 
 You all did see, that on the Lupercal 
 I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 
 Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? 
 Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
 And, sure, he is an honorable man. 
 I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; 
 But here I am to speak what I do know. 
 You all did love him once, not without cause : 
 What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? 
 
 judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
 
 And men have lost their reason 1 Bear with me : 
 My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, 
 And I must pause till it come back to me. 
 
 1 Cit. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings. 
 
 2 Cit. If thou consider rightly of the matter, 
 Caesar has had great wrongs. 
 
 3 Cit. Has he not, masters ? 
 
 1 fear there will a worse come in his place. 
 
 4 Cit. Marked ye his words ? He would not take the crown : 
 Therefore, 'tis certain, he was not ambitious. 
 
598 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 1 Cit. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 
 
 2 Cit. Poor soul ! his eyes are red as. fire with weeping. 
 
 3 Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony. 
 
 4 Cit. Now mark him : he begins again to speak. 
 Ant. But yesterday, the word of Caesar might 
 
 Have stood against the world : now lies he there, 
 And none so poor to do him reverence. 
 
 masters ! if I were disposed to stir 
 Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 
 
 1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
 Who. you all know, are honorable men : 
 
 I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose 
 
 To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, 
 
 Than I will wrong such honorable men. 
 
 But here's a parchment with the seal of Ca3sar ; 
 
 I found it in his closet : 'tis his will. 
 
 Let but the commons hear this testament, 
 
 (Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read.) 
 
 And they would go and kiss dead Cesar's wounds, 
 
 And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; 
 
 Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 
 
 And, dying, mention it within their wills, 
 
 Bequeathing it as a rich legacy 
 
 Unto their issue. 
 
 4 Cit. We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony. 
 
 Cit. The will, the will ! We will hear Csesar's will. 
 
 Ant. Have patience, gentle friends; I must not read it: 
 It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. 
 You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; 
 And being men, hearing the will of Ca?sar, 
 It will inflame you; it will make you mad. 
 Tis good you know not that you are his heirs ; 
 'For. if you should, oh ! what would come of it ? 
 
 4 Cit' Read the will ! We will hear it, Antony : you shall read us the 
 will, Caesar's will ! 
 
 Ant. Will you be patient ? Will you stay a while? 
 I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it. 
 I fear I wrong the honorable men 
 Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar : I do fear it. 
 
 4 Cit. They were traitors ! Honorable men I 
 
 Cit. The w'ill ! the testament ! 
 
 2 Cit. They were villains, murderers ! The will ! 
 Read the will ! 
 
 Ant. You will compel me, then, to read the will ? 
 Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar, 
 And let me show you him that made the will. 
 Shall I descend V and will you give me leave ? 
 
 Cit. Come down. 
 
 2 Cit. Descend. \IIe comes down from the pulpit. 
 
 3 Cit. You shall have leave. 
 
 4 Cit. A ring : stand round. 
 
 1 Cit. Stand from the hearse ; stand from the body. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 599 
 
 2 Clt. Eoom for Antony ! most noble Antony 1 
 
 Ant. Nay, press not so upon me : stand far ofl*. 
 
 Cit. Stand back ! room ! bear back ! 
 
 Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
 You all do know this mantle. I remember 
 The first time ever Caesar put it on : 
 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, 
 That day he overcame the Nervii. 
 Look 1 in this place ran Cassius' dagger through ; 
 See what a rent the envious Casca made ! 
 Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; 
 And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, 
 Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, 
 As rushing out of doors to be resolved 
 If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no ; 
 For Brutus, as you know, was Cassar's angel : 
 Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him 1 
 This was the most unkindest cut of all ; 
 For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 
 Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, 
 Quite vanquished him : then burst his mighty heart ; 
 And in his mantle muffling up his face, 
 E'en at the base of Pompey's statua, 
 Which all the while ran blood, great Cassar fell. 
 Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
 Then I, and you, and all of us, fell down, 
 Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 
 Oh ! now you weep ; and, I perceive, you feel 
 The dint of pity : these are gracious drops. 
 Kind souls, what ! weep y.ou when you but behold 
 Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here ! 
 Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors. 
 
 1 Cit. O piteous spectacle 1 
 
 2 Cit. O noble Caesar ! 
 
 3 Cit. O woeful day ! 
 
 4 Cit. O traitors, villains ! 
 
 1 Cit. O most bloody sight! 
 
 2 Cit. We will be revenged : revenge I about, seek, burn, fire, 
 kill, slay ! let not a traitor live I 
 
 Ant. Stay, countrymen ! 
 
 1 Cit. Peace there ! hear the noble Antony. 
 
 2 Cit. We'll hear him ; we'll follow him ; we'll die with him. 
 Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up 
 
 To such a sudden flood of mutiny. 
 
 They that have done this deed are honorable : 
 
 What private griefs they have, alas ! I know not, 
 
 That made them do it : they are wise and honorable, 
 
 And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. 
 
 I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts : 
 
 I am no orator, as Brutus is, 
 
 But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, 
 
 That love my friend ; and that they know full well 
 
600 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 That gave me public leave to speak of him. 
 For I have neither wit nor words nor worth, 
 Action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
 To stir men's blood : I only speak right on ; 
 I tell you that which you yourselves do know ; 
 Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 
 And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, 
 And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
 Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
 In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
 The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 
 Cit. We'll mutiny. 
 
 1 Cit. We'll burn the house of Brutus. 
 
 3 Cit. Away, then ! come, seek the conspirators. 
 
 Ant. Yet hear me, countrymen ; yet hear me speak. 
 
 Cit. Peace, ho ! Hear Antony, most noble Antony. 
 
 Ant. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what. 
 Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves ? 
 Alas ! you know not : I must tell you then. 
 You have forgot the will I told you of. 
 
 Cit. Most true ! The will : let's stay, and hear the will. 
 
 Ant. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. 
 To every Roman citizen he gives, 
 To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. 
 
 2 Cit. Most noble Caesar! we'll revenge his death. 
 
 3 Cit. O royal Caesar! 
 
 A nt. Hear me with patience. 
 
 Cit. Peace, ho ! 
 
 Ant. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, 
 His private arbors, and new-planted orchards, 
 On this side Tiber : he hath left them you, 
 And to your heirs for ever ; common pleasures, 
 To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. 
 Here was a Caesar : when comes such another ? 
 
 1 Cit. Never, never ! Come, away, away ! 
 We'll burn his body in the holy place, 
 
 And with the brands fire the traitors' houses. 
 Take up the body. 
 
 2 Cit. Go, fetch fire. 
 
 3 Cit. Pluck down benches. 
 
 4 Cit. Pluck down forms, windows, any thing. [Exeunt CITIZENS 
 
 with the body. 
 
 Ant. Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot ! 
 Take thou what course thou wilt ! How now, fellow ? 
 
 Enter a SERVAITT. 
 
 Serv. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome. 
 
 Ant. Where is he? 
 
 Serv. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house. 
 
 Ant. And thither will I straight to visit him. 
 He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry, 
 And in this mood will give us any thing. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAIiE. G01 
 
 Serv. I heard him say, Brutus and Cassius 
 Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome. 
 
 Ant. Belike they had some notice of the people, 
 How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. The Same. A Street. 
 Enter CINNA, the poet. 
 
 Cin. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Ca3sar, 
 And things unluckily charge my fantasy. 
 I have no will to wander forth of doors ; 
 Yet something leads me forth. 
 
 Enter CITIZENS. 
 
 1 Cit. What is your name ? 
 
 2 Cit. Whither are you going ? 
 
 3 Cit. Where do you dwell ? 
 
 4 Cit. Are you a married man, or a bachelor ? 
 
 2 Cit. Answer every man directly. 
 1 Cit. Ay, and briefly. 
 
 4 Cit. Ay, and wisely. 
 
 3 Cit. Ay, and truly, you were best. 
 
 Cin. What is my name ? Whither am I jroing ? Where do I dwell ? 
 Am I a married man, or a bachelor V Then to answer every man 
 directly and briefly, wisely and truly. Wisely, I say, I am a bachelor. 
 
 Cit. That's as much as to say they are fools that marry : you'll bear 
 me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed, directly. 
 
 Cin. Directly, I am going to Cesar's funeral. 
 
 1 Cit. As a friend, or an enemy ? 
 Cin. As a friend. 
 
 2 Cit. That matter is answered directly. 
 
 4 Cit. For your dwelling, briefly. 
 Cin. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol. 
 
 3 Cit. Your name, sir, truly. 
 Cin. Truly, my name is Cinna. 
 
 1 Cit. Tear him to pieces ! he's a conspirator ! 
 Cin. I am Cinna the poet ! I am Cinna the poet ! 
 
 4 Cit. Tear him for his bad verses ! tear him for his bad verses I 
 Cin. I am not Cinna the conspirator ! 
 
 2 Cit. It is no matter ; his name's Cinna : pluck but his name out of 
 his heart, and turn him going ! 
 
 3 Cit. Tear him, tear him ! Come, brands, ho ! fire-brands ! To 
 Brutus', to Cassius' ; burn all I Some to Decius' house, and some to 
 Casca's; some to Ligarius': away! go! [Exeunt. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. The Same. A Room in ANTONY'S House. ANTONY, OCTAVIUS, and 
 LEPIDUS, seated at a Table. 
 
 Ant. T^hese many, then, shall die : their names are pricked. 
 Oct. Your brother, too, must die. Consent you, Lepidus V 
 
602 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Lep. I do consent. 
 
 Oct. Prick him down, Antony. 
 
 Lep. Upon condition Publius shall not live, 
 Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony, 
 
 Ant. He shall not live : look, with a spot I damn him. 
 But, Lepidus, go you to Cassar's house ; 
 Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine 
 How to cut off some charge in legacies. 
 
 Lep. What, shall I find vou here? 
 
 Oct. Or here, or at the Capitol. [Exit LEPIDUS 
 
 Ant. This is a slight unineritable man, 
 Meet to be sent on errands : is it fit, 
 The threefold world divided, he should stand 
 One of the three to share it ? 
 
 Oct. So you thought him, 
 
 And took his voice who should be pricked to die 
 In our black sentence and proscription. 
 
 Ant. Octavius, I have seen more days than you; 
 And, though we lay these honors on this man 
 To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, 
 He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, 
 To groan and sweat under the business, 
 Either led or driven, as we point the way ; 
 And, having brought our treasure where we will, 
 Then take we down his load, and turn him off, 
 Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears, 
 And graze on commons. 
 
 Oct. You may do your will ; 
 But he's a tried and valiant soldier. 
 
 Ant. So is my horse, Octavius; and for that 
 I do appoint him store of provender. 
 It is a creature that I teach to fight, 
 To wind, to stop, to run directly on ; 
 His corporal motion governed by my spirit. 
 And in some taste is Lepidus but so: 
 He must be taught and trained, and bid go forth ; 
 A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds 
 On objects, arts, and imitations, 
 Which, out of use, and staled by other men, 
 Begin his fashion. Do not talk "of him 
 But as a property. 
 
 And now, Octavius, 
 
 Listen great things. Brutus and Cassius 
 Are levying powers ; we must straight make head : 
 Therefore let our alliance be combined, 
 Our best friends made, and our best means stretched out ; 
 And let us presently go sit in council, 
 How covert matters may be best disclosed, 
 And open perils surest answered. 
 
 Oct. Let us do so : for we are at the stake, 
 And bayed about with many enemies ; 
 And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, 
 Millions of mischief. [Exeunt. 
 

 WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 603 
 
 SCENE II. Before BRUTUS' Tent, in the Camp near Sardlt. 
 
 Drum. Enter BRUTUS, LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, awl SoMert; PINDAKUS meetinn 
 them; Lucius at a distance. 
 
 Bru. Stand, ho ! 
 
 Lucil. Give the word, ho ! and stand. 
 
 Bru. What now, Lucilius ? Is Cassius near ? 
 
 Lucil. He is at hand ; and Pindarus is come 
 To do you salutation from his master. 
 
 [PINDARUS gives a letter to BRUTUS. 
 
 Bru. He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus, 
 In his own charge, or by ill officers, 
 Hath given me some worthy cause to wish 
 Things done undone ; but, if he be at hand, 
 I shall be satisfied. 
 
 Pin. I do not doubt 
 But that my noble master will appear 
 Such as he is, full of regard and honor. 
 
 Bru. He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius : 
 How he received you, let me be resolved. 
 
 Lucil. With courtesy, and with respect enough, 
 But not with such familiar instances, 
 Nor with such free and friendly conference, 
 As he haih used of old. 
 
 Bru. Thou hast described 
 A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius, 
 When love begins to sicken and decay, 
 It useth an enforced ceremony. 
 There are no tricks in plain and simple faith : 
 But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 
 Make gallant show and promise of their mettle ; 
 But, when they should endure the bloody spur, 
 They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades, 
 Sink in the trial. Comes his army on ? 
 
 Lucil. They mean this ni^ht in Sardis to be quartered : 
 The greater part, the horse in general, 
 Are come with Cassius. [March within. 
 
 Bru. Hark ! he is arrived : 
 March gently on to meet him. 
 
 Enter CASSIUS and Soldiers. 
 
 Cas. Stand, ho ! 
 
 Bru. Stand, ho ! Speak the word along. 
 
 [Wi&in.l Stand! 
 
 [Within.] Stand! 
 
 [Within.] Stand! 
 
 Cas. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong. 
 
 Bru. Judge me, you gods ! Wrong I mine enemies ? 
 And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother? 
 
 Cas. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs ; 
 And when you do them 
 
 Bru. Cassius, be content ; 
 
G04 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Speak your griefs softly : I do know you well. 
 Before the eyes of both our armies here, 
 Which should perceive nothing but lo.ve from us, 
 Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away : 
 Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs, 
 And I will give you audience. 
 
 Cos. Pindarus, 
 
 Bid our commanders lead their charges off 
 A little from this ground. 
 
 Bru. Lucilius, do the like ; and let no man 
 Come to our tent till we have done our conference. 
 Let Lucius and Titinius guard our door. \Exeunt. 
 
 * 
 
 SCENE III. Within the Tent of BRUTUS. 
 
 Enter BRUTUS and CASSIUS. 
 
 Cas. That you have wronged me doth appear in this : 
 You have condemned and noted Lucius Peila 
 For taking bribes here of the Sardians ; 
 Wherein my letters, praying on his side, 
 Because I knew the man, were slighted off. 
 
 Bru. You wronged yourself to write in such a case. 
 
 Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet 
 That every nice offense should bear his comment. 
 
 Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
 Are much condemned to have an itching palm, 
 To sell and mart your offices for gold 
 To undeservers. 
 
 Cas. I an itching palm ? 
 
 You know that you are Brutus that speaks this, 
 Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last ! 
 
 Bru. The name of Cassius honors this corruption ; 
 And chastisement doth therefore hide his head. 
 
 Cas. Chastisement ! 
 
 Bru. Remember March ! the ides of March remember ! 
 Did not great Caesar bleed for justice' sake? 
 What villain touched his body, that did stab, 
 And not for justice ? What ! shall one of us, 
 That struck the foremost man of all this world 
 But for supporting robbers, shall we now 
 Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, 
 And sell the mighty space of our large honors 
 For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
 I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
 Than such a Roman. 
 
 Cas. Brutus, bay not me ; 
 I'll not endure it : you forget yourself, 
 To hedge me in. I am a soldier, I, 
 Older in practice, abler than yourself 
 To make conditions. 
 
 Bru. Go to ; you are not, Cassius. 
 
 Cas. I am. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. G05 
 
 Bru. I say you are not. 
 
 Cos. Urge me no more : I shall forget myself. 
 Have mind upon your health : tempt me no further. 
 
 Bru. Away, slight man ! 
 
 Cas. Is't possible ? 
 
 Bru. Hear me ; for I will speak. 
 Must I ojive way and room to your rash choler ? 
 Shall I be frighted when a madman stares V 
 
 Cas. O ye gods ! ye gods ! Must I endure all this ? 
 
 Bru. All this ? ay, more ! Fret till your proud heart break ; 
 Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
 And make your bondmen tremble. Mu?t I budge ? 
 Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch 
 Under your testy humor ? By the gods, 
 You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
 Though it do split you ; for, from this day forth, 
 I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, 
 When you are waspish. 
 
 Cas. Is it come to this ? 
 
 Bru. You say you are a better soldier : 
 Let it appear so ; make your vaunting true, 
 And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
 I shall be glad to learn of abler men. 
 
 Cas. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus : 
 I said an elder soldier, not a better : 
 Did I say better ? 
 
 Bru. If you did, I care not. 
 
 Cas. When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have moved me. 
 
 Bru. Peace, peace ! you durst not so have tempted him. 
 
 Cas. I durst not ? 
 
 Bru. No. 
 
 Cas. What ! durst not tempt him ? 
 
 Bru. For your life you durst not. 
 
 Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love : 
 I may do that I shall be sorry for. 
 
 Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
 There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats ; 
 For I am armed so strong in honesty, 
 That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
 Which I respect not. I did send to you 
 For certain sums of gold, which you denied me ; 
 For I can raise no money by vile means. 
 By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart, 
 And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring 
 From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash 
 By any indirection. I did send 
 To you for gold to pay my legions, 
 Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius ? 
 Should I have answered Caius Cassius so? 
 When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
 To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 
 Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts 1 
 Dash him to pieces 1 
 
GOG ENGLISH LITEKATUKE. 
 
 Cas. I denied you not. 
 
 Bru. You did. 
 
 Cas. I did not : he was but a fool 
 
 That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart : 
 A friend should bear his friend's infirmities ; 
 But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 
 
 Bru. I do not, till you practice them on me. 
 
 Cas. You love me not. 
 
 Bru. I do not like your faults. 
 
 Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 
 
 Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear 
 As huge as high Olympus. 
 
 Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, 
 Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius ; 
 For Cassius is aweary of the world ; 
 Hated by one he loves ; braved by his brother ; 
 Checked like a bondman ; all his faults observed, 
 Set in a note-book, learned and conned by rote, 
 To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep 
 My spirit from mine eyes ! There is my dagger, 
 And here my naked breast ; within, a heart 
 Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold : 
 If that thou beest a Roman, take it forth. 
 I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart : 
 Strike, as thou didst at Caesar ; for I know, 
 When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better 
 Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius. 
 
 Bru. Sheathe your dagger ! 
 Be angry when you will, it shall have scope ; 
 Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor. 
 O Cassius ! you are yoked with a lamb 
 That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; 
 Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
 And straight is cold a;ain. 
 
 Cas. Hath Cassius lived 
 To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 
 When grief, and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him ? 
 
 Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too. 
 
 Cas. Do you confess so much ? Give me your hand. 
 
 Bru. And my heart too. 
 
 Cas. O Brutus ! 
 
 Bru. What's the matter ? 
 
 Cas. Have not you love enough to bear with me 
 When that rash humor which my mother gave me 
 Makes me forgetful ? 
 
 Bru. Yes, Cassius ; and from henceforth, 
 When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
 He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so. [Noise within. 
 
 Poet. [ Within.] Let me go in to see the generals. 
 There is some grudge between 'em : 'tis not meet 
 They be alone. 
 
 Lucil. [ Within."] You shall not come to them. 
 
 Poet. [ Within.] Nothing but death shall stay me. 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. COT 
 
 Enter POET. 
 
 Cas. How now ? What's the matter ? 
 
 Poet. For shame, you generals ! What do you mean ? 
 Love and be friends, as two such men should be ; 
 For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye. 
 
 Cas. Ha, ha ! How vilely doth this cynic rhyme 1 
 
 Bru. Get you hence, sirrah ! saucy fellow, hence 1 
 
 Cas. Bear with him, Brutus : 'tis his fashion. 
 
 Bru. I'll know his humor when he knows his time. 
 What should the wars do with these jigging fools ? 
 Companion, hence ! 
 
 Cas. Away, away ! begone 1 [Exit POET. 
 
 Enter LUCILIUS and TITINIUS. 
 
 Bru. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders 
 Prepare to lodge their companies to-night. 
 
 Cas. And come yourselves, and bring Messala with you, 
 Immediately to us. [Exeunt LUCILIUS and TITINIUS. 
 
 Bru. Lucius, a bowl of wine. 
 
 Cas. I did not think you could have been so angry. 
 
 Bru. O Cassius ! I am sick of many griefs. 
 
 Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 If you give place to accidental evils. 
 
 Bru. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead. 
 
 Cas. Ha! Portia? 
 
 Bru. She is dead. 
 
 Cas. How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you so ? 
 
 insupportable and touching loss ! 
 Upon what sickness ? 
 
 Bru. Impatient of my absence, 
 And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony 
 Have made themselves so strong ; for with her death 
 That tidings came : with this she fell distract, 
 And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire. 
 
 Cas. And died so ? 
 
 Bru. Even so. 
 
 Cas. O ye immortal gods ! 
 
 Enter Lucius with wine and tapers. 
 
 Bru. Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine : 
 In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks. 
 
 Cas. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge. 
 Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup : 
 
 1 can not drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drinks. 
 
 Re-enter TITINIUS with MESSALA. 
 
 Bru. Come in, Titinius ! Welcome, good Messala ! 
 Now sit we close about this taper here, 
 And call in question our necessities. 
 
 Cas. Portia, art thou gone ? 
 
 Bru. No more, I pray you. 
 
COS ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Messala, I have here received letters 
 That young Octavius and Mark Antony 
 Come down upon us with a mighty power, 
 Bending their expedition toward Philippi. 
 
 Mes. Myself have letters of the selfsame tenor. 
 
 Bru. With what addition? 
 
 Mes. That by proscription, and bills of outlawry, 
 Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus 
 Have put to death a hundred senators. 
 
 Bru. Therein our letters do not well agree : 
 Mine speak of seventy senators that died 
 By their proscriptions, Cicero being one. 
 
 "Cas. Cicero one ? 
 
 Mes. Cicero is dead, 
 And by that order of proscription. 
 Had you your letters from your wife, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. No, Messala. 
 
 Mes. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her? 
 
 Bru. Nothing, Messala. 
 
 Mes. That, methinks, is strange. 
 
 Bru. Why ask you ? Hear you aught of her in yours ? 
 
 Mes. No, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true. 
 
 Mes. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell : 
 For certain she is dead, and by strange manner. 
 
 Bru. Why, farewell, Portia ! We must die, Messala. 
 With meditating that she must die once, 
 I have the patience to endure it now. 
 
 Mes. Even so great men great losses should endure. 
 
 Cas. I have as much of this in art as you ; 
 But yet my nature could not bear it so. 
 
 Bru. Well, to our work alive. What do you think 
 Of marching to Philippi presently V 
 
 Cas. I do not think it good. 
 
 Bru. Your reason ? 
 
 Cas. This it is : 
 
 'Tis better that the enemy seek us : 
 So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers, 
 Doing himself offense ; whilst we, lying still, 
 Are full of rest, defense, and nimbleness. 
 
 Bru. Good reasons must, of force, give place to better. 
 The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground 
 Do stand but in a forced affection ; 
 For they have grudged us contribution. 
 The enemy, marching along by them, 
 By them shall make a fuller number up, 
 Come on refreshed, new-hearted, and encouraged ; 
 From which advantage shall we cut him off 
 If at Philippi we do face him there, 
 These people at our back. 
 
 Cas. Hear me, good brother. 
 
 Bru. Under your pardon. You must note beside, 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 609 
 
 That we have tried the utmost of our friends : 
 
 Our legions are briinfull ; our cause is ripe ; 
 
 The enemy increaseth every day ; 
 
 We at the hight are ready to decline. 
 
 There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 
 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
 
 On such a full sea are we now afloat ; 
 
 And we must take the current when it serves, 
 
 Or lose our ventures. 
 
 Cas. Then, with your will, go on : 
 We'll along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. The deep of night is crept upon our talk, 
 And nature must obey necessity ; 
 Which we will niggard with a little rest. 
 There is no more to say ? 
 
 Cas. No more. Good- night ! 
 Early to-morrow will we rise, and hence. 
 
 Bru. Lucius, my gown. [Exit Lucius. 
 
 Farewell, good Messala ! 
 Good-night Titinius ! Noble, noble Cassius, 
 Good-night, and good repose ! 
 
 Cas. O my dear brother ! 
 This was an ill beginning of the night. 
 Never come such division 'tween our souls I 
 Let it not, Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Every thing is well. 
 
 Cas. Good-night, my lord ! 
 
 Bru. Good-night, good brother ! 
 
 Tit. Mes. Good-night, lord Brutus ! 
 
 Bru. Farewell, every one ! {Exeunt CASSIUS, TITINIUS, and MESSALA. 
 
 Re-enter Lucius wth the Govm. 
 
 Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument V 
 
 Luc. Here in the tent.' 
 
 Bru. What ! thou speak' st drowsily ? 
 Poor knave, I blame thee not : thou art o'erwatched. 
 Call Claudius, and some other of my men : 
 I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent. 
 
 Luc. Varro and Claudius ! 
 
 Enter VARRO and CLAUDIUS. 
 
 Var. Calls my lord ? 
 
 Bru. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent, and sleep : 
 It may be I shall raise you by and by 
 On business to my brother Cassius. 
 
 Var. So please you, we will stand, and watch your pleasure. 
 
 Bru. I will not have it so : lie down, good sirs ; 
 It may be I shall otherwise bethink me. 
 Look, Lucius ! here's the book I sought for so : 
 I put it in the pocket of my gown. [SERVANTS lie down. 
 
610 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Luc. I was sure your lordship did not give it me. 
 
 Bru. Bear with me, good boy : I am much ibrgetful. 
 Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes a, while, 
 And touch thy instrument a strain or two ? 
 
 Luc. Ay, my lord, an't please you. 
 
 Bru. It does, my boy : 
 I trouble thee too much ; but thou art willing. 
 
 Luc. It is my duty, sir. 
 
 Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might : 
 I know young bloods look for a time of rest. 
 
 Luc. I have slept, my lord, already. 
 
 Brn. It is well done ; and thou shalt sleep again. 
 I will not hold thee long : if I do live, 
 
 I will be good to thee. [Music and a song. 
 
 This is a sleepy tune. O murderous slumber ! 
 Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy, 
 That plays thee music ? Gentle knave, good-night ! 
 I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee. 
 If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument: 
 I'll take it from thee ; and, good boy, good-night ! 
 Let me see, let me see : is not the leaf turned down 
 Where I left reading ? Here it is, I think. [He sits down. 
 
 Enter the GHOST of C.ESAR. 
 
 How ill this taper burns ! Ha ! who comes here ? 
 I think it is the weakness of mine eyes 
 That shapes this monstrous apparition. 
 It comes upon me. Art thou any thing ? 
 Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil, 
 That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare ? 
 Speak to me what thou art. 
 
 Ghost. Thy evil spirit, Brutus. 
 
 Bru. Why com'st thou ? 
 
 Ghost. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi. 
 
 Bru. Well ; then I shall see thee again ? 
 
 Ghost. Ay, at Philippi. [ GHOST vanishes. 
 
 Bru. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then. 
 Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest : 
 III spirit, I would hold more talk with thee. 
 Boy ! Lucius ! Varro ! Claudius ! Sirs, awake ! 
 Claudius ! 
 
 Luc. The strings, my lord, are false. 
 
 Bru. He thinks he still is at his instrument. 
 Lucius, awake ! 
 
 Luc. My lord ! 
 
 Bru. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out? 
 
 Luc. My lord, I do not know that I did cry. 
 
 Bru. Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see any thing? 
 
 Luc. Nothing, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah, Claudius 1 
 Fellow thou ! awake ! 
 
 Far. My lord ! 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. Oil 
 
 Clau. My lord ! 
 
 Bru. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep ? 
 
 Var. Clau. Did we, my lord ? 
 
 Bru. Ay : saw you any thing ? 
 
 Var. No, my lord : I saw nothing. 
 
 Clau. Nor I, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Go, and commend me to my brother Cassius. 
 Bid him set on his powers betimes before, 
 And we will follow. 
 
 Var. Clau. It shall be done, my lord. [Exeunt. 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. The Plains of PUlippi. 
 Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and their Army. 
 
 Oct. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered. 
 You said the enemy would not come down, 
 But keep the hills and upper regions. 
 It proves not so : their battles are at hand ; 
 They mean to warn us at Philippi here, 
 Answering before we do demand of them. 
 
 Ant. Tut! I am in their bosoms, and I know 
 Wherefore they do it : they could be content 
 To visit other places, and come down 
 With fearful bravery, thinking by this face 
 To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage ; 
 But 'tis not so. 
 
 Enter a MESSENGER, 
 
 Mess. Prepare you, generals : 
 The enemy comes on in gallant show ; 
 Their bloody sign of battle is hung out, 
 And something's to be done immediately. 
 
 Ant. Octavius, lead your battle softly on 
 Upon the left hand of the even field. 
 
 Oct. Upon the right hand I ; keep thou the left. 
 
 Ant. Why do you cross me in this exigent ? 
 
 Oct. I do aot cross you ; but I will do so. [March. 
 
 Drum. Enter BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and their Army; LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, 
 
 and others. 
 
 Bru. They stand, and would have parley. 
 Cas. Stand fast, Titinius : we must out and talk. 
 Oct. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle ? 
 Ant. No, Caesar : we will answer on their charge. 
 Make forth : the generals would have some words. 
 Oct. Stir not until the signal. 
 Bru. Words before blows : is it so, countrymen ? 
 Oct. Not that we love words better, as you do. 
 Bru. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius. 
 
612 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Ant. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words : 
 Witness the hole you made in Cassar's heart, 
 Crying, " Long live ! hail, Ccesar ! " 
 
 Cas. Antony, 
 
 The posture of your blows are yet unknown ; 
 But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 
 And leave them honeyless. 
 Ant. Not stingless too. 
 Bru. Oh, yes ! and soundless too ; 
 For you have stolen their buzzing, Antony, 
 And* very wisely, threat before you sting. 
 
 Ant. Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers 
 Hacked one another in the sides of Caesar : 
 You showed your teeth like apes, and fawned like hounds, 
 And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet ; 
 "\Vhilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind, 
 Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers ! 
 
 Cas. Flatterers ! Now, Brutus, thank yourself: 
 This tongue had not offended so to-day 
 If Cassius might have ruled. 
 
 Oct. Come, come, the cause : if arguing make us sweat, 
 The proof of it will turn to redder drops. 
 Look! 
 
 I draw a sword against conspirators : 
 When think you that the sword goes up again ? 
 Never till Caesar's three and twenty wounds 
 Be well avenged, or till another Caesar 
 Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors. 
 
 Bru. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands 
 Unless thou bring'st them with thee. 
 
 Oct. So I hope : 
 I was not born to die on Brutus' sword. 
 
 Bru. Oh ! if thou wort the noblest of thy strain, 
 Young man, thou couldst not die more honorable. 
 
 Cas. A peevish schoolboy, worthless of such honor, 
 Joined with a masker and a reveler. 
 Ant. Old Cassius still ! 
 Oct. Come, Antony ; away ! 
 Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth. 
 If you dare fight to-day, come to the field ; 
 If not, when you have stomachs. [Exeunt OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, and 
 
 their Army. 
 
 Cas. Why now, blow, wind ; swell, billow ; and swim, bark ! 
 The storm is up, and all is on the hazard. 
 Bru. Ho ! Lucilius ; hark ! a word with you. 
 
 Lucil My lord ! [BRUTUS and LUCILIUS converse apart. 
 
 Cas. Messala ! 
 
 Mes. What says my general ? 
 Cas. Messala^ 
 
 This is my birthday ; as this very day 
 Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala. 
 Be thou my witness, that against my will, 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAEE. 013 
 
 As Pompey was, am I compelled to set 
 
 Upon one battle all our liberties. 
 
 You know that I held Epicurus strong 
 
 And his opinion : now I change my mind, 
 
 And partly credit things that do presage. 
 
 Coining from Sardis, on our former ensign 
 
 Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perched, 
 
 Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands ; 
 
 Who to Philippi here consorted us : 
 
 This morning are they fled away, and gone ; 
 
 And in their stead do ravens, crows, and kites 
 
 Fly o'er our heads, and downward look on us, 
 
 As we were sickly prey : their shadows seem 
 
 A canopy most fatal, under which 
 
 Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. 
 
 Mes. Believe not so. 
 
 Cas. I but believe it partly ; 
 For I am fresh of spirit, and resolved 
 To meet all perils very constantly. 
 
 Bru. Even so, Lucilius. 
 
 Cas. Now, most noble Brutus, 
 The gods to-day stand friendly, that we may, 
 Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age. 
 But, since the affairs of men rest still uncertain, 
 Let's reason with the worst that may befall. 
 If we do lose this battle, then is this 
 The very last time we shall speak together: 
 What are you then determined to do? 
 
 Bru. Even by the rule of that philosophy 
 By which I did blame Cato for the death 
 Which he did give himself, I know not how, 
 But I do find it cowardly and vile, 
 For fear of what might fall, so to prevent 
 The term of life, arming myself with patience 
 To stay the providence of those high powers 
 That govern us below. 
 
 Cas. Then, if we lose this battle, 
 You are contented to be led in triumph 
 Through the streets of Rome ? 
 
 Bru. No, Cassius, no ! Think not, thou noble Roman, 
 That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome : 
 He bears too great a mind. But this same day 
 Must end that work the ides of March began ; 
 And whether we shall meet again, I know not. 
 Therefore our everlasting farewell take. 
 For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius ! 
 If we do meet again, why, we shall smile ; 
 If not, why, then, this parting was well made. 
 
 Cas. For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus ! 
 If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed ; 
 If not, 'tis true, this parting was well made. 
 
 Bru. Why, then, lead on. Oh that a man might know 
 
614 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The end of this day's business ere it come ! 
 
 But it sufficeth that the day will end, 
 
 And then the end is known. Come, ho ! away ! [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE II. The Same. The Field of Battle. 
 Alarum. Enter BRUTUS and MESSALA. 
 
 Bru. Ride, ride, Messala, ride ! and give these bills 
 
 Unto the legions on the other side. [Loud alarum. 
 
 Let them set on at once ; for I perceive 
 But cold demeanor in Octavius' wing, 
 And sudden push gives them the overthrow. 
 Ride, ride, Messala ! let them all come down. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III. The Same. Another Part of the Field. 
 Alarums. Enter CASSIUS and TITIXIUS. 
 
 Cos. Oh, look, Titinius, look ! the villains fly : 
 Myself have to mine own turned enemy. 
 This ensign here of mine was turning back : 
 I slew the coward, and did take it from him. 
 
 Tit. O Cassius ! Brutus gave the word too early ; 
 Who, having some advantage on Octavius, 
 Took it too eagerly : his soldiers fell to spoil, 
 Whilst we by Antony are all inclosed. 
 
 Enter PLNDARUS. 
 
 Pin. Fly farther off, my lord, fly farther off! 
 Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord ! 
 Fly therefore, noble Cassius ! fly far off ! 
 
 Cos. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius ! 
 Are those my tents where I perceive the fire ? 
 
 Tit. They are, my lord. 
 
 Cos. Titinius, if thou lov'st me, 
 Mount thou my horse, and hide thy spurs in him 
 Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops, 
 And here again ; that I may rest assured 
 Whether yond troops are friend or enemy. 
 
 Tit. I will be here again even with a thought. [Exit. 
 
 Cos. Go, Pindarus ; get higher on that hill ; 
 My sight was ever thick; regard Titinius, 
 
 And tell me what thou not'st about the field. [Exit PINDARUS. 
 
 This day I breathed first : time is come round ; 
 And where I did begin, there shall I end : 
 Mv life is run his compass. Sirrah ! what news? 
 
 "Pin. [Above.'] O my lord ! 
 
 Cas. What news ? 
 
 Pin. Titinius is inclosed round about 
 With horsemen that make to him on the spur; 
 Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him : 
 Now, Titinius ! 
 Now some light ! Oh, he lights too : 
 
WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. G15 
 
 He's ta'en ; and, hark 1 [SlunU. 
 
 They shout for joy. 
 
 Cas. Come down ! behold no more. 
 O coward that I am to live so long, 
 To see iny best friend ta'en beforeiny face I 
 
 Enter PINDARUS. 
 Come hither, sirrah ! 
 In Parthia did I take thee prisoner ; 
 And then I swore thee, saving of thy life, 
 That, whatsoever I did bid thee do, 
 Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath 1 
 Now be a freeman ; and with this good sword, 
 That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom. 
 Stand not to answer : here, take thou the hilts ; 
 And when my face is covered, as 'tis now, 
 Guide thou the sword. Cassar, thou art revenged 
 Even with the sword that killed thee. [Die*. 
 
 Pin. So I am free ; yet would not so have been, 
 Durst I have done my will. O Cassius ! 
 Far from this country Pindarus shall run, 
 Where never Roman shall take note of him. {Exit. 
 
 Re-enter TITINIUS with MESSALA. 
 
 Mes. It is but change, Titinius ; for Octavius 
 Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power, 
 As Cassius' legions are by Antony. 
 
 Tit. These tidings will well comfort Cassius. 
 
 Mes. Where did you leave him ? 
 
 Tit. All disconsolate, 
 With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill. 
 
 Mes. Is not that he that lies upon the ground ? 
 
 Tit. He lies not like the living. O my heart 1 
 
 Mes. Is not that he ? 
 
 Tit. No : this was he, Messala ; 
 But Cassius is no more. O setting sun ! 
 As in thy red rays thou dost sink to-night, 
 So in his red blood Cassius' day is set : 
 The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone ; 
 Clouds, dews, and dangers come ; our deeds are done : 
 Mistrust of my success hath done this deed. 
 
 Mes. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed. 
 O hateful Error ! Melancholy's child ! 
 Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men 
 The things that are not ? O Error 1 soon conceived, 
 Thou never com'st unto a happy birth, 
 But kill'st the mother that engendered thee. 
 
 Tit. What, Pindarus 1 Where art thou, Pindarus? 
 
 Mes. Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet 
 The noble Brutus, thrusting this report 
 Into his ears : I may say, thrusting it ; 
 For piercing steel, and darts envenomed, 
 
616 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus 
 As tidings of this sight. 
 
 Tit. Hie you, Messala ; 
 
 And I will seek for Pindarus the while. [Exit MESSALA. 
 
 Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius ? 
 Did I not meet thy friends V and did not they 
 Put on my brows this wreath of victory, 
 
 And bid me give it thee ? Didst thou not hear their shouts ? 
 Alas ! thou hast misconstrued every thing. 
 But hold thee ; take this garland on thy brow : 
 Thy Brutus bid me give it thee ; and I 
 Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace, 
 And see how I regarded Caius Cassius. 
 By your leave, gods (this is a Roman's part), 
 Coine, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart. [Dies. 
 
 Alarum. Re-enter MESSALA, with RKUTUS, yntng CATO, STRATO, VOLUMNIUS, 
 and LUCILIUS. 
 
 Bru. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie ? 
 
 Mes. Lo, yonder! and Titinius mourning it. 
 
 Bru. Titinius' face is upward. 
 
 Cato. He is slain. 
 
 Bru. O Julius CaBsar, thou art mighty yet 1 
 Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords 
 In our own proper entrails. [Low alarums. 
 
 Cato. Brave Titinius ! 
 Look, whe'r he have not crowned dead Cassius ! 
 
 Bru. Are yet two Romans living such as these ? 
 The last of all the Romans, fare thee well 1 
 It is impossible that ever Rome 
 
 Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears 
 To this dead man than you shall see me pay. 
 I shall find time, Cassius ; I shall find time. 
 Come, therefore, and to Thassos send his body : 
 His funeral shall not be in our camp, 
 Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come ; 
 And come, young Cato ; let us to the field. 
 Labeo and Flavius, set our battles on : 
 'Tis three o'clock ; and, Romans, yet ere night 
 We shall try fortune in a second fight. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE IV. Another Part of the Field. 
 
 Alarum. Enter, fyhting, Soldiers of both Armies; then Bnuxrs, CATO, LUCILIUS, 
 
 and Others. 
 
 Bru. Yet, countrymen, oh, yet, hold up your heads ! 
 
 Cato. What bastard doth not ? Who will go with me ? 
 I will proclaim my name about the field : 
 I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho ! 
 A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend ; 
 I am the son of M-ircus Cato, ho ! [Charges the enemy. 
 
 Bru. And 1 am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; 
 Brutus, my country's friend : know me for Brutus. 
 
 [ Exit, charging the enemy. CATO -is overpowered, and falls. 
 
WILLIAM SIIAKSPEARE. (J17 
 
 Lucil. O young and noble Cato ! art thou down ? 
 Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius ; 
 And mayst be honored, being Gate's son. 
 
 1 Sold. Yield, or thou diest. 
 
 Lucil. Only I yield to die : 
 
 There is so much, that thou wilt kill me straight ; [Offering money. 
 
 Kill Brutus, and be honored in his death. 
 
 1 Sold. We must not. A noble prisoner ! 
 
 2 Sold. Room, ho 1 Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en. 
 
 1 Sold. I'll tell the news. Here comes the general ! 
 
 Enter ANTOSY. 
 
 Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord ! 
 
 Ant. Where is he? 
 
 Lucil. Safe, Antony : Brutus is safe enough. 
 I dare assure thee that no enemy 
 Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus : 
 The gods defend him from so great a shame 1 
 When you do find him, or alive or dead, 
 He will be found like Brutus, like himself. 
 
 Ant. This is not Brutus, friend, but, I assure you, 
 A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe ; 
 Give him all kindness : I had rather have 
 Such men my friends than enemies. Go on, 
 And see whe'r Brutus be alive or dead ; 
 And bring us word unto Octavius' tent 
 How every thing is chanced. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE V. Another Part of the Field. 
 Enter BRUTUS, DAKDANIUS, CLITUS, STRATO, and VOLUMNIUS. 
 
 Bru. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock. 
 
 Cli. Statilius showed the torchlight ; but, my lord, 
 He came not back : he is or ta'en or slain. 
 
 Bru. Sit thee down, Clitus. Slaying is the word : 
 It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus { [Whispering. 
 
 Cli. What ! I my lord ? No, not for all the world 1 
 
 Bru. Peace, then ! no words. 
 
 Cli. I'll rather kill myself. 
 
 Bru. Hark thee, Dardanius ! [Whispers him. 
 
 Dar. Shall I do such a deed? 
 
 Cli. O Dardanius ! 
 
 Dar. O Clitus ! 
 
 Cli. What ill request did Brutus make to thee ? 
 
 Dar. To kill him, Clitus. Look ! he meditates. 
 
 Cli. Now is that noble vessel full of grief, 
 That it runs over even at his eyes. 
 
 Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius : list a word. 
 
 Vol. What says my lord ? 
 
 Bru. Why, this, Volumnius : 
 The ghost of Caesar hath appeared to me 
 Two several times by night : at Sardis, once; 
 
618 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 And this last niglit, here in Philippi fields. 
 I know my hour is come. 
 
 Vol. Not so, my lord. 
 
 Bru. Nay, I am sure it is, Yolumnius. 
 Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes ; 
 
 Our enemies have beat us to the pit : [Low alarums. 
 
 It is more worthy to leap in ourselves 
 Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius. 
 Thou know'st that we two went to school together: 
 Even for that our love of old. I prithee, 
 Hold thou my sword-hilts whilst I run on it. 
 
 Vol. That's not an office for a friend, my lord. [Alarum stili 
 
 Cli. Fly, fly, my lord ! there is no tarrying here. 
 
 Bru. Farewell to you, and you, and you, Volumnius ! 
 Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep : 
 Farewell to thee too, Strato ! Countrymen, 
 My heart doth joy, that yet in all my lile 
 I tbund no man but he was true to me. 
 I shall have glory by this losing day 
 More than Octavius and Mark Antony 
 By this vile conquest shall attain unto. 
 So fare you well at once ! for Brutus' tongue 
 Hath almost ended his life's history. 
 Night hangs upon mine eyes : my bones would rest, 
 That have but labored to attain this hour. 
 
 [Alarum. Cry within, " Fly, fly, fly ! " 
 
 Cli. Fly, my lord ! fly ! 
 
 Bru. Hence ! I will follow thee. 
 
 [Exeunt CLITUS, DARDAXIUS, and VOLUMNIUS. 
 I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord. 
 Thou art a fellow of a good respect ; 
 Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it : 
 Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face 
 While I do run upon it. Wilt thou," Strato ? 
 
 Stra. Give me your hand first : fare you well, my lord ! 
 
 Bru. Farewell, good Strato ! Caesar, now be still : 
 I killed not thee with half so good a will. 
 
 [He runs on his sword, and dies. 
 
 Alarum. Retreat. Enter OCTAVIUS, ANTONY, MESSALA, LUCILIUS, and their 
 
 Army. 
 
 Oct. What man is that ? 
 
 Ales. My master's man. Strato, where is thy master ? 
 
 Stra. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala : 
 The conquerors can but make a fire of him ; 
 For Brutus only overcame himself; 
 And no man else hath honor by his death. 
 
 Lucil. So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus, 
 That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true. 
 
 Oct. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them. 
 Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me ? 
 
 Stra. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you. 
 
EDMUND SPENSER. 619 
 
 Oct. Do so, good Messala. 
 
 Mes. How died my master, Strato ? 
 
 Stra. I held the sword, and he did run on it. 
 
 Mes. Octavius, then take him to follow thee, 
 That did the latest service to my master. 
 
 Ant. This was the noblest Roman of them all. 
 All the conspirators, save only he, 
 Did that they did in envy of great Caesar : 
 He only, in a general honest thought, 
 And common good to all, made one of them. 
 His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, 
 And say to all the world, " This was a man ! " 
 
 Oct. According to his virtue let us use him, 
 With all respect and rites of burial. 
 Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie, 
 Most like a soldier, ordered honorably. 
 So call the field to rest ; and let's away 
 To part the glories of this happy day. [Exeunt. 
 
 EDMUND SPENSER. 
 
 1553-1599. 
 
 " Shepheard's Calender; " " Colin Clouts come Home Again : " "Epithnlinion ; " 
 " View of the State of Ireland; " and his greatest work, " The Faerie Queene." 
 " The Faerie Queene," written in what is called the Spenserian stanza, was intended 
 to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." Of the 
 twelve books planned originally, " Foashioning XII. Morall Virtues," there were 
 only six written. Hazlitt says, '" Spenser excels in the two qualities in which Chim- 
 cer is most deficient, invention and fancy. The invention shown in his allegori- 
 cal personages is endless, as the fancy shown in his description of them is gorgeous 
 and delightful. He is the poet of romance. He describes things as in a splendid 
 and voluptuous dream." 
 
 THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY. 
 I. 
 
 A GENTLE Knight was pricking on the plaine, 
 Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, 
 Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, 
 The cruel markes of many a bloody fielde ; 
 Yet armes till that time did he never wield : 
 His angry steede did chide his foming bitt, 
 As much disdayning to the curbe to yield. 
 Full iolly knight he seemed, and faire did sitt, 
 As one for knightly giusts 1 and fierce encounters fitt. 
 
 * Tournaments. 
 
620 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 II. 
 
 And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore, 
 The deare remembrance of 'his dying Lord, 
 For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, 
 And dead, as living ever, him ador'd : 
 Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, 
 For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had. 
 Right, faithfull, true he was in deede and word ; 
 But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad; 
 Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad. 1 
 
 in. 
 
 Upon a great adventure he was bond, 
 That greatest Gloriana to him gave, 
 (That greatest glorious queene of Faerie lond,) 
 To winne him worshippe, and her grace to have ; 
 Which of all earthly thinges he most did crave : 
 And ever, as he rode, his hart did earne a 
 To prove his puissance in battell brave 
 Upon his foe, and his new force to learne, 
 Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside, 
 Upon a lowly asse more white then snow ; 
 Yet she much whiter ; but the same did hide 
 Under a vele, that whimpled 3 was full low ; 
 And over all a blacke stole shee did throw. 
 As one that inly mournd, so was she sad, 
 And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow ; 
 Seemed in heart some hidden care she had ; 
 And by her in a line a milke-white lamb she lad. 
 
 v. 
 
 So pure and innocent as that same lambe 
 She was in life and every vertuous lore ; 
 And by descent from royall lynage came 
 Of ancient kinges and queenes that had of yore 
 Their scepters stretcht from east to westerne shore, 
 And all the world in their subjection held, 
 Till that infernal Feend with foule uprore 
 Forwasted 4 all their land, and them expeld ; 
 Whom to avenge, she had this Knight from far compeld. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, 
 
 That lasie seemd, in being ever last, 
 
 Or wearied with bearing of her bag 
 
 Of needments at his backe. Thus as they past, 
 
 i Dreaded. Yearn. Gathered, or plaited. Much wasted. 
 
EDMUND SPENSER. C21 
 
 The day with cloudes was suddeine overcast, 
 And angry love an hideous storine of raine 
 Did poure into his leiuans lap so fast, 
 That everie wight to shrowd it did constrain ; 
 And this faire couple eke to shroud themselves were fain. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand, 
 A shadie grove not farr away they spide, 
 That promist ayde the tempest to withstand ; 
 Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommers pride, 
 Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide, 
 Not perceable with power of any starr ; 
 And all within were pathes and alleies wide, 
 With footing worne, and leading inward farr: 
 Faire harbour that them seems ; so in they entred ar. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, 
 loving to heare the birdes sweete harmony, 
 Which, therein shrouded from the tempest dred, 
 Seemd in their son^ to scorne the cruell sky. 
 Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, 
 The sayling pine ; the cedar, proud and tall ; 
 The vine-propp elme ; the poplar, never dry ; 
 The builder oake, sole king of forrests all ; 
 The aspine, good for staves ; the cypre*sse funerall ; 
 
 IX. 
 
 The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours 
 And poets sage ; the firre, that weepeth still ; 
 The willow, worne of forlorne paramours ; 
 The eugh, 1 obedient to the benders will ; 
 The birch, for shaftes ; the sallow, for the mill ; 
 The mirrhe, sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound ; 
 The warlike beech ; the ash, for nothing ill ; 
 The fruitfull olive ; and the platane round ; 
 The carver holme ; the maple, seeldom inward sound. 
 
 Led with delight, they thus beguile the way 
 Untill the blustering storme is overblowne ; 
 When, weening to returne whence they did stray, 
 They can not finde that path which first was showne, 
 But wander to and fro in waies unknowne, 
 Furthest from end then, when they neerest weene, 
 That makes them doubt their wits be not their owne : 
 So many pathes, so many turnings scene, 
 That, which of them to take, in diverse doubt they been. 
 
 Faerie Queene, Book /., Canto I. 
 i Yew. 
 

 OTHER WRITK DISTINCTION. 
 
 BOCEB AKCHAM- 1515-r rated tutor of Queen Elizabettu 
 
 Author of* work on Germany, and " Toxophilu*," in the preface of v. 
 ,gize* for writing it Lu English. His greatest work L- 
 
 VAA-. 150<3-1 5*2. Learned author of much Latin verse and 
 and of "The Chaiueleou," iu bcotebu 
 
 Kr. 155', untew 
 
 .-. "Arcadia,'' "Deleube of l'oe*;<:, " a.-.'. 
 
 KK.-HAKU HOOJ- "Laws of E<:d"H^tk n 1 Polity," "' 
 
 which," Jiuliam says, " i* at this day one of the BUMtapieeet of J. 
 
 THOMAS SAOKVIM,K. 1536-1608. Joint author with Thomas Norton, of 
 
 oduc," a Hi h', wi:h choru- ; " '] 'be Mirrour '. 
 
 which . | :.<j Irjduction';" and "Story of the J>uke of Buckingham." 
 
 Sir WALTKB BAI,KK;II. 1552-1018. ^]lar,t^o]<; -ipli-h'-d <-ourti"r; 
 
 - of "History of the Worl I," ''.Narrative of a Crui-e to Guiana," and oilier 
 works iu probe; aLw cultivated j>oetry sojaewJiat. 
 
 J'.KN Jo.x^ir. 1574-1 <537. O-lebrated Erj/li^h dramatist, the friend of Shak- 
 | author of "Catiline" and " Stjanus," traye-Jie-; "Every Man in his 
 -," "The Alchemist," and " Vol^ne," corne-lies; and majiy ' 
 minor poerns, and proe-writin^8. On his tombstone are the words, "0 r; 
 
 ': ! " 
 
 THOMA* TUWEE. 1523-15*0? Five Hundred Po!:.- of f>xxl Uusbandrj-." 
 Ko:,: I : ' "'ipies a hi?h rank arnoujr earJv J. 
 
 /.-/.it's Worth of Wit bought with a Million of B 
 JiofiKHT | -.. 1500-15&5. "St. Peter's Complaint," "Mary Magda- 
 
 i liner al 'J'eirs," and other j// 
 
 KAMI;K/> IMMKI,. 1562-1619. " Musopbilus," " A Ilibtoryof the Wars b- 
 tJj'i HOUMJS of Vorfc and Lancaster." 
 
 fAM, !>HAyio>-. l.V;.'J-K/Jl. " Polyolbion," "The Shepherd's Garland," 
 " l/arons' Waj.-,," " J-jjgland'ij iiero.' -ymphidia," and o 
 
 Guja.sroj'UKH MAHM>WK. !'/;-'; V- -I'/ 'J. W" "Ilent blank 
 
 - " J anjljurlaine th Great," " Life and Death of Dr. Faiutug " " The Jew of 
 
 ,, :i pJ JJJ." 
 
 Sir IfKNitr Wiirrojf. 1568-1639. M Klements of Arc! " TJje State 
 
 of C)irif.t;jjdojn; " ajjd " lieJiquia; Wottonianaj," published after his death, 
 
 FKA.NCJH UKAI:MOVT. 15;-1015. JOHN J'JJ/IMU.U. 1570-1025. Wrote 
 .o tragedies and ' .J'^re poj^ular than Shake; peare in their day, and 
 
 fctill belong t/> the English classics. 
 
 J'IIJ.NJ-.A:, Fu-T' ;HI-J{. 1584-1C50. " Tlje Purple Island." 
 GII.J-.S lu.i ' UKK. " Christ's Victory and Triumph." 
 
 I'lUMJ' MAJS^INOKK. 1584-1640. Of his many plays, eighteen live; and " A 
 New Way t/> pay Old Debts" is still acted. 
 
 WILMAM DJWMMOM>. 1585-1649. " Tlie Flowers of Ziori," "Tears on the 
 Death of Matliades," "The Jtjver of Eorlh Fea.-,tijjg," and sonnels. 
 
 .//j}\ loin). 1586-1639. "Brother and Sivtpr." "Love's Sacrifice," and 
 "The Jiroken Heart," : :.; " J'erkin \\'nr!>e<;k," hi^to/ical ]>lay. 
 
 Uf CAKKW. 15^- 1 <'/'/.>. " Gcflttia Uri^ifj.'.irum," and many lyrics. 
 WIMJAM JJjiOW.NK. l.'/>0-1045. " I'>ritannia's I' ^d other works. 
 
 JiojjKitr HKHJUC-K. 1591-1674. "To Iilo>soms," "To Daffodils," "Gather 
 the BflMbtldf wJiile Ye may," are some of the delightful lyrics from his graceful 
 
WlfKli WHITISH* OV DIMTIMUTIOV, . ; 
 
 i , A HUM QI/AMMW, 10W-M44, u KmblwM," " MvliM hu,l ' 
 
 
 
 , ..JUJK II, - u *Mip * <!ot<w o 
 
 JAMM KimtMtir, IFiim-Wtw. Writer of piny*. 
 
 If.. If AHIi HllAnllAW. '/ H:,'l II. llj/j.iii... , I, ,, ,,'! d ill, - 
 
 hirJoiiN huf'KMNU. MOO --l4l, f<yrll. " UulM on it Wl<!lf{," 
 
 i H..MAN Wn^>, "HyMiAui of ftliatwta m,.i |/i/{j n,,. flrUr|i|| work amu 
 
 ii,< i ri i' iitnj/iiugu, 
 
 WILLIAM <!AMIKL 1WI -IflM, " Hrltriril," rrMv of 
 
 i " H - - " u/rT, IflMI-lfllfl, "VoyHwn wn/1 f)Uovri afrit* 
 
 kllo/iM of I^M' " Afi'lru," uii'l )'.:) 
 HAM> . . i . ' MAN, If/77 I'M, " 1'iirrtiiiM liU \'\\w\inti* t " *ml " I'uHiiM IU 
 
 1M ."i.misiigtt," 
 
 Kiwo .(AMKM f, 1BM IU5, K'/ynl ( ,., ),,,/ 
 
 ll/lttWlN l>; TuljfUW," ''l fcOlil'i l',n;/ll -.It Wll'l 
 
 n .1. -1674-lww. **(!onfMi|lwtlon ON HUiortftuI l'dii|/ of tlin 
 
 O< / IIB)/,/IU| Mu/Hi!(!jj/Mi ( " .:'.n, .--/,., ,ul ui|,,.i /,, 
 Ift7-l4/), AMtlnw //f f*|felrHlMj " Aimt/imy of " 
 
 i .../MAN 
 
 j/luye. 
 i - If/81 l4, w PiTfHUto^ " Mf Wi/1 IM|/n of IfHMry VKJ," 
 
 ln.'l ", ,,,.,., .,1 )M.-. OW<I life, 
 
 o 
 
 ' i" " AinidU from I!M: ';/iiti,i//i/ i// il**} I' iill of ,luru*ulunn " ti*/l otlur 
 /-/< H.MKN,"* IW4-lft4, "A Trtf wi Tlfl of 
 
 " ' :.iii.-..i l/y Milum " UM '.lu-.i of !:... ,.'i .,- j,..n..i ,,, i,,.. i.,,,.i 
 TIIOMAM HOMMIW, -r ir/fc-J 70. " /) Olvftj " " Unman NHur! " " Ita 
 l'',li'i"/i" liU titinnn* w/k," l^vlttllittMf " ** ATlVIM^MlitN of 
 </l l'lilloiM/j;liy ( " > '/r'lt*, 
 
 I/.AAK WAI/PIN. K/f>;i 14*8, " '!!) (;//ro|/JMf4 AMt 
 
 " UM* /,JV< Of ll'Xiktif, It'HHH*, W'/M^/I, MA 
 
 MM -I'M, " J^fuiiiliMr UUr," 
 Hlr TM//MAK MOHK. -14-l. Mfe w/i l(f^n f Mw*r/l V,," rf flrrt 
 crvJutf Mi ni/i', M/i'l ftrii**t <!( -/-I'Ml r,i.(/)i )< (,- li/ in . i 
 tnin'mn work U l<i " l.l'/i/ix," <J/;rJ!/i/<(/ v tt ^>'f^$t *tj,u !/()/;, 
 
 li,-/k of 
 
 nun*r\ 'l' 
 ,rl of Hurray). - 
 
 .. Ui 
 
 , of 
 
 / /:/' 
 
 of MM Hv* l>w/lly Ww," "4 'Hlwr I*#HH, </'<M l/y r 
 
 ** 
 - MM, 
 
G24 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 Sir THOMAS WYATT. 1503-1541. Remarkable for his scholarship, wit, and 
 verse. 
 
 Sir DAVID LINDSAY. 1490 7-1557. "Play of the Three Estates," "Squire 
 Meldrum," last of the metrical romances; " The Monarchic," and " Complaynt of 
 the King's Papingo." 
 
 NICHOLAS UD ALL. 1506 7-1557. Author of "Ralph Royster Doyster," the 
 earliest existing English comedy, written about 1550. 
 
 JOHN FISHER. 1459 -1535. Sermons. 
 
 Lord BERBERS. Translated the chronicles of " Jean Froissart." 
 
 ROBERT FABYAN. ?-1512. " Concordance of Stories," a chronicle of English 
 history. 
 
 EDWARD HALL. 7-1547. " History of the Houses of York and Lancaster." 
 
 Sir THOMAS ELYOT. 7-1546. " The Castle of Health," " The Governor," and a 
 Lathi and English dictionary. His views on education were greatly in advance of 
 his time, 
 
 JOHN BELLENDEN. Translated (1536) Hector Boece's " History of Scotland," 
 earliest existing Scottish prose literature ; " First Five Books of Livy ;" besides letters 
 and poems. The first original work in Scotch prose was published in 1548. 
 
 JOHN LELAND. 7-1552. " Itinerary " and " Collectanea." First English anti- 
 quary of note. 
 
 HUGH LATIMER. 14727-1555. Sermons and letters. 
 
 MILES COVEKDALE. 1487-1568. The first printed translation of the whole 
 Bible ; also assisted in Cranmer's and the Geneva translations. 
 
 JOHN BALE. 1495-1563. "Lives of Eminent Writers of Great Britain," in 
 Latin, first author, Japheth; "Chronicle of Lord Cobham's Trial and Death;" 
 scriptural dramas. 
 
 JOHN KNOX. 1505-1572. " History of the Scottish Reformation," himself the 
 leader. 
 
 GEORGE CAVENDISH. 7-1557. " Life of Cardinal Woolsey." 
 
 Sir JOHN CHEKE. 1514-1557. " The Hurt of Sedition." 
 
 JOHN Fox. 1517-1587. Author of the celebrated work, "Acts and Monu- 
 ments of the Church," or " Fox's Book of Martyrs." 
 
 WILLIAM CAXTON. 1412-1491. At the age of fifty-nine, this remarkable 
 man went to Cologne to learn the printer's trade; and there finished, in 1471, 
 the translation of a French work by Raoul le FeVre, " The History of Troy." 
 the first English book from any press. Soon after, having returned 'to England, 
 was issued from the Westminster press its earliest work, ' The Game and Playe 
 of the Chesse, translated out of the French, fynysshed the last day of Marche, 
 1474." The first English book with woodcut illustrations was a second edition 
 of the same. Caxton wrote or translated and printed sixty-five works. The in- 
 dustry necessary to accomplish so much after an active life 'of threescore yenrs is 
 the more wonde'rful when we consider that he combined within himself the offices 
 of author, ink-maker, compositor, pressman, proof-reader, binder, publisher, and 
 bookseller. 
 
 WYNKYN DE WORDE, assistant and successor of Caxton, printed four hundred 
 and eight works. RICHARD PYNSON, another assistant, printed two hundred and 
 twelve works. 
 
GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 625 
 
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER. 
 
 1328? -1400. 
 
 Called "the morning-star of English poetry." Famous author of "The Can- 
 terbury Tales," in which some thirty pilgrims to the tomb of Thomas a Hecket are 
 to tell' two stories each, going and returning; the poems being planned like " Tho 
 Decameron " of Boccaccio. Only twenty-four are told ; two of which, " The Tale of 
 Melibeus" and "The Persones Tale," "are in prose; in which style of writing he 
 also excelled. " The Court of Love," " Troilus and Cresseide," " Romaunt of Love," 
 "The House of Fame," "The Legende of Goode Women," "The Flour and the 
 Lefe," and "The Testament of Love," in prose, are his principal pieces. Ha!l:irn 
 ranks him one of the three great poets of the middle ages, with Dante and Petrarch. 
 
 FROM THE PROLOGUE. 
 THE PARSON. 
 
 A GOOD man was ther of religioun, 
 And was a pore persoun of a toun ; 
 But riche he was of holy thought and werk : 
 He was also a lerne'd man, a clerk, 
 That Cristes gospel truly wolde preehe : 
 His parischens devoutly would he teche. 
 Benigne he was, and wondur diligent, 
 And in adversite i'ul pacient. 
 
 Wyd was his parisch, and houses fer asondur ; 
 
 But he ne lafte not for reyn ne thondur, 
 
 In sicknesse ne in meschief to visite 
 
 The ferrest in his parische, inoche and lite, 1 
 
 Uppon his feet, and in his hond a staf. 
 
 This noble ensample unto his scheep he gaf, 
 
 That ferst he wroughte, and after that he taughte. 
 
 Out of the gospel he tho 2 wordes caughte, 
 
 That, if gold ruste, what sehulde yren doo? 
 
 For, if a priest be foul on whom we truste, 
 
 No wondur is a lewid man 3 to ruste. 
 
 To drawe folk to heven by fairnesse, 
 By good ensample, was his busynesse ; 
 But it were eny persone obstinat, 
 What so he were of high or lowe estat, 
 Him wolde he snybbe scharply for the nones. 4 
 A bettre priest I trowe ther nowher non is. 
 He waytud after no pomp ne reverence ; 
 Ne maked him a spiced conscience : 
 But Cristes love, and his apostles twelve, 
 He taught ; and ferst he fohved it himselve ! 
 
 1 Great and small. 2 Those. 8 A layman. 4 Nonce. 
 
 40 
 
626 ENGLISH LITEKATUKE. 
 
 OTHER DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS. 
 
 JOHN DE WVCLTFFE. 1324? -1384. Celebrated English reformer. Author of 
 " Trialogus " and many other Latin works, and the first English version of the 
 whole Bible. 
 
 JOHN GOWER. 1325? -1408. Poet-friend of Chaucer, but of far less renown. 
 "Speculum Meditantis" in French (no copy preserved), " Vox. Clamantis" iu 
 Latin, and " Confessio Amantis" principally in English; the last two preserved. 
 
 KING JAMES I. of Scotland. 1394-1437. "The King's Quhair" (Quire), a poem 
 of about fourteen hundred lines, inspired by his love for Joan Beaufort; and other 
 shorter poems. 
 
 LAURENCE MINOT. According to Dr. Craik, the earliest writer of English verse 
 deserving the name of poet. Ten poems are preserved, celebrating the battles of 
 Edward III. 
 
 ROBERT LANGLANDE. 1300? Author of "The Vision of Piers (Peter) 
 Ploughman " and "Pierce Plowman's Crede," two poems, satirical, of the clergy 
 and the times. 
 
 A few lines from " Piers Ploughman " Avill illustrate the alliterative form of 
 poetry, having the initial instead of the terminal assonance : 
 
 In a somer seson, 
 
 Whan softe was the sonne, 
 
 I shoop 1 me into shroudes 
 
 As I a sheep 2 weere ; 
 
 In habite as an heremite 
 
 Unholy of workes, 
 
 Wente* wide in this world 
 
 Wondres to here. 
 
 Ac 3 on a May Morwenynge, 
 
 On Malvern hilles, 
 
 Mebefelaferly: 4 
 
 Of fairye me t'hoghte 
 
 I was wery for-wandred, 
 
 And wente me to reste 
 
 Under a brood bank 
 
 By a bournes 5 syde ; 
 
 And as I lay and lenede, 
 
 And loked on the watres, 
 
 I slombred into a sl 
 
 It sweyed so murye.* 
 
 JOHN BARBOUR. Born 1316, or 1330. " The Brace," a Scottish epic. 
 
 ANDREW WYNTOUN. 1350? " An Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland," from the 
 creation to 1408. 
 
 THOMAS OCCLEVE. Writer of nraltitudinous verses, to be "judged by quantity 
 rather than quality." 
 
 JOHN LYDGATE. " History of Thebes," " Fall of Princes," and " History of 
 the Siege of Troy." 
 
 BLIND HARRY. " The Wallace," an epic of twelve thousand lines. 
 
 JOHN DE TREVISA. Translated, about 1387, " The Polychronicon " and 
 other Latin works. 
 
 Sir JOHN FORTESCUE. Celebrated author of " De Laudibus Legum Anglise" 
 and of " The DiflFerence between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy." 
 
 1 Shaped. 2 Shepherd. 8 And. 4 "Wonder. 5 Stream. 6 Pleasant. 
 
LATIN AND OTHER WRITERS. C27 
 
 LATIN, SAXON-ENGLISH, AND NORMAN- 
 FRENCH WRITERS. 
 
 1066-1307. 
 
 " The Saxon Chronicle" is continued to 1154; but the two principal work* of the 
 Saxon-Lug ish literature are LAYAMON'S translation or imitation of WALK'S ' Brat * 
 and Ihe Onnulum," written by OHM, or ORMIN, a metrical paraphrase of Scri,V 
 
 WACE who died about 1184, is the most celebrated of the Norman-French noets 
 His > principal poems are -Brut d'Angleterre " and -Roman de Rou," a twnaK 
 of Gftnrti-pv's " History of Britain" in*" 
 
 GEOFFREY GAIMA.R wrote the " History of the Angles," in Norman-French. The 
 Norman-Krench was the parertt of the modern French tonnie. Its noeN called 
 frouveres, or 1 rouveurs, were the authors of the poems called " Fabliaux " and the 
 AUrio-Nermap romances, of which the most remarkable are those relatin^ to Kine 
 Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, of whom we learn *omethin|ln ThJ 
 Idylls of the King." But Latin was the language of the Church and the learned, 
 and of the prose and poetry ot the age. 
 
 JOSEPHUS ISCANUS, or JOSEPH OF EXETER, wrote two epic poems, "Antiocheis " 
 a story ot the third crusade, almost entirely lost; and "The Trojan War" which is 
 said to be remarkable for its pure and harmonious Latin. "'The Confession of 
 Gohas," a drinking-song in rhyming Latin, satirical against the clergy, was written 
 
 INGULPHUS. " History of the Abbey of Croyland." 
 
 ORDENCUS VILATIS. " Valuable Church History, from'the Creation to 1141." 
 114 Y?, LLIAM OF MALMESBURY. " History of the English Kings, from the Saxons to 
 
 GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. " History of the Britons," with its celebrated legends 
 of the Celts. 
 
 GERALD BARRY, BENEDICT, ROGER DE HOVEDEN, HENRY OF HUNTINGDON 
 GEKVASE OF TILBURY, and MATTHEW PARIS, were historians and chroniclers. 
 
 There is no end to the wonderful fictions of this period. The most remarkable 
 collection, perhaps, is the " Gesta Romanorum," the great source of inspiration of 
 the earlier poets. The story of the caskets, pound of flesh, and evasion or payment, 
 in " The Merchant of Venice," are found in the ' Gesta;" also the specter-legend 
 of Scott's " Marmion," of " The Three Black Crows," and other well-known jests. 
 
 LATIN, CELTIC, AND ANGLO-SAXON 
 WRITERS. 
 
 449-1066. 
 
 IN the fifth century, there were four languages used in the British isles: 
 
 1. Latin, the language of the Church and the learned. 
 
 2. The Erse, or Gaelic, from which the Scottish and Irish. 
 
 3. The Cymric, the language of t,he Ancient Britons, preserved in the Welsh. 
 4. The Anglo-Saxon, the backbone of the English. 
 
G28 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The poetic legends and heroic deeds of the Saxons were sung in camp, and at the 
 festive board, in alliterative verse, a style borrowed from the Northmen, by the 
 Gleeman, or Minstrel. 
 
 The romance of" Beowulf," a poem of six thousand lines, relates the incredible 
 exploits and dangers of a Danish soldier. 
 
 The "Paraphrase" of C.EDMOX, who was inspired in a dream to sing (about 
 680), is regarded as one of the oldest specimens of Anglo-Saxon existing, espe- 
 cially the story of the Creation and Fall. 
 
 " The Battle of Finsborough," " The Traveler's Song," " Judith," and " Athel- 
 stane's Song of Victory," in " The Chronicle" of 938, are other Anglo-Saxon remains. 
 
 KING ALFRED, born 848, is the most distinguished writer of Anglo-Saxon prose. 
 He gave his people translations, with additions of his own thought and knowledge, 
 of Bede's "Church History," Pope Gregory's ''Duties of the Clergy," Oro-ius' 
 44 Ancient History," Boethius " On the Consolation of Philosophy," and* some of the 
 "Soliloquies" of St. Augustine of Hippo. 
 
 ALFIUC (died 1008) wrote eighty "Homilies" for the common people, " Latin 
 Grammar," " Glossary," and " Book of Conversation." 
 
 " The Saxon Chronicle " is supposed to have been commenced by PLEGMUNP, 
 primate of Alfred's time, written in the monasteries, bearing different dates, closing 
 wirli 1154. King Alfred's Will, some homilies, and a few other works, are all that re- 
 main of Anglo-Saxon prose. 
 
 The most important of the Latin authors and their numerous works are, 
 
 ALDIIELM. Author of a book of riddles, and much poor Latin prose and 
 verse. 
 
 BEI>E. The celebrated author of " The History of the Anglo-Saxon Church," 
 and forty other theological and scientific works; also translation of John's Gospel 
 into Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 ALCUIX. The learned friend and companion of Charlemagne. Wrote much on 
 theology and church history. 
 
 ERIGEXA (John Scotus). An Irishman, the Irish being called Scots until about 
 1000, when the name was transferred to the North Britons. Was one. of the most 
 learned men of his time. Author of works on " Predestination," " The Eucharist," 
 and " On the Division of Nature." 
 
 DCXSTAX. The famous Archbishop of Canterbury: wrote many learned theolo- 
 gical works. 
 
 Of the Celtic writers, GILDAS, NEXXIUS, and ST. COLUMBAXUS, wrote also in Latin. 
 In Wales, the poems of TALIESIX, MERLIN, and other bards of the sixth century, are 
 extant. Of the Scottish Gaelic, the poems of OSSIAX " Fingal " and u Temora " 
 are considered forgeries, committed by the pretended translator, JAMES MACPHEHSOX, 
 about 1760. But Ireland claims the oldest specimens of all literature in modern 
 Europe. "The Annals," scraps of contemporary history in Irish verse from the 
 fifth century, "The Psalter of Cashel," and "The Annals of Tigernach and of 
 the Four Masters of Ulster," belong to the ninth and eleventh centuries. 
 
 SIR JOHN DE MANDEYILLE. 
 
 1300? -1372. 
 
 Was the earliest writer of an English prose-work that has been preserved. He 
 wrote a narrative of his traveU, in Latin; afterwards translated by himself 
 into French, then into English. He was a traveler the most of his life; and his 
 narrative abounds in marvelous stories. We give a short extract from 
 
SOURCES OF T1IE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 629 
 
 THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 for als moclie as it is longo tyme passed, that thcr was no 
 generalle Passage lie Vyage over the See ; and many Men desirea 
 for to here speke of the holy Loud, and him 1 thereof gret Solace 
 and Comfort ; I John Maimdevylle, Knyght, alle be it I be not 
 worthi, that was born in Englond, in the Town of Seynt Alboiies, 
 passed the See, in the Zeer of our Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXII, 
 in the Day of Seynt Michelle ; and hidre to 2 have been longe 
 tyme over the See, and have seyn and gon thorghe manye dy verso 
 Londes, and many Provynces and Kingdomes and lies, and have 
 passed thorghe Tartarye, Percye, Ermonye 3 the litylle and the 
 grete"; thorghe Lybye, Caldee and a gret partie of Ethiope; 
 thorghe Amazoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie ; 
 and thorghe out manyothere lies, that ben abouten Inde; where 
 dwellen many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and 
 Lawes, and of dyverse Schappes of men. Of whiche Londes and 
 lies, I schalle speke more pleynly hereaftre. And I schalle deviso 
 zou sum partie of thinges that there ben, whan time schalle ben, 
 aftre it may best come to my mynde ; and specyally for hem, that 
 wylle and are in purpos for to visite the Holy Citee of Jerusalem, 
 and the holy Places that are thereaboute. And I schalle telle 
 the Weye, that thei schulle holden thidre. For I have often 
 tymes passed and ryden the way, with gode Companye of many 
 Lordes : God be thonked. 
 
 And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this Boke out of 
 Latyn into Frensche, and translated it azen out of Frensche into 
 Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it. 
 But Lordes and Knyghtes and otheie noble and worthi Men, 
 that co nne Latyn but litylle, and han ben bezonde the See, 
 knowen and undirstondeii, zif I erre in devisynge, or forzetynge, 
 or elles ; that thei mowe 4 redresse it and amende it. For thinges 
 passed out of longe tyme from a Mannes mynde or from his syght, 
 turnen sone in forzetynge : Because that Mynde of Manne may 
 not ben comprehended ne witheholden, for the Freeltee of Man- 
 kynde. 
 
 SOURCES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 MODERN English, in the formation of its words and grammati- 
 cal structure of its sentences, dates from about A.P. 1500. Its 
 vocabulary, of course, has been constantly increasing, from the 
 adoption of foreign words and the growth of old and new sciences. 
 
 i Kavo. 2 Hitherto. 8 Armenia. * May. 
 
630 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 The limits of this work will not allow any reference to modern 
 speculations and theories of the formation of language, nor of 
 comparative philology, nor of the' progress of written language 
 from rude picture-writing and Egyptian hieroglyphics to its pres- 
 ent character. For all these, the student must consult the pref- 
 aces of the large dictionaries, and the works of modern philolo- 
 gists, grammars, and encyclopaedias.* 
 
 GRAMMAR. 
 
 ENGLISH grammar, as to its system of etymology and syntax, 
 is Anglo-Saxon in its distinctive characteristics. It is simpler 
 than the Anglo-Saxon, from having lost several inflectional ter- 
 minations of words ; and its syntax could be reduced still more 
 by abolishing case altogether, regarding all possessives as adjec- 
 tives. " Our chief peculiarities of structure and of idiom are essen- 
 tially Anglo-Saxon; while almost all the classes of words which 
 it is the office of grammar to investigate are derived from that 
 language. Thus the few inflections we have are all Anglo-Saxon. 
 The English grnitive, the general modes of forming the plural of 
 nouns, and the terminations by which we express the compara- 
 tive and superlative of adjectives (-er and -est) ; the inflections 
 of the pronouns ; those of the second and third persons, present 
 and imperfect, of the verbs ; the inflections of the preterites and 
 participles of the verbs, whether regular or irregular; and the 
 most frequent termination of our adverbs (-ly) ? are all Anglo- 
 Saxon. The nouns, too, derived from Latin and Greek, receive 
 the Anglo-Saxon terminations of the genitive and plural ; while 
 the preterites and participles of verbs derived from the same 
 sources take the Anglo-Saxon inflections. As to the parts of 
 speech, those which occur most frequently, and are individually 
 of most importance, are almost wholly Saxon. Such are our arti- 
 cles and definitives generally, as 'a, an, the, this, that, these, 
 those, many, few, some, one, none ; ' the adjectives whose com- 
 paratives and superlatives are irregularly formed; the separate 
 words 'more' and 'most,' by which we express comparison as 
 often as by distinct terminations; all our pronouns, personal, 
 possessive, relative, and interrogative ; nearly every one of our so- 
 called irregular verbs, including all the auxiliaries, 'have, be, 
 shall, will, may, can, must,' by which we express the force of the 
 
 * Webster's, Worcester's, Richardson's, Walker's, and Johnson's Dictionaries : Cham- 
 bers', Rees', Edinburgh, and Metropolitan Encyclopaedias; Lectures of Max Miiller and 
 of G! P. Marsh. 
 
 Latham's "English Language;" "Diversions of Purley," by Tooke; "Study of 
 Words," by Trench; Crabb's " Synonyms; " Prof. Craik's Works; Rask's " Anglo-Saxon 
 Grammar." 
 
SOURCES OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. C31 
 
 principal varieties of mood and tense ; all the adverbs most fre- 
 quently employed ; and the prepositions und conjunctions almost 
 without exception." * 
 
 The English language, like the Continental languages of Eu- 
 rope, substitutes new forms of expression for inflections, and, as is 
 reasonable to suppose, becomes more and more perfect as its gram- 
 mar becomes simpler. 
 
 THE DICTIONARY. 
 
 THE language derives its words from, 
 
 1. The Anglo-Saxon, above twenty thousand. 
 
 2. Latin and Greek, many of the latter coining through the 
 Latin. 
 
 3. French, other languages, and provincialisms. 
 
 Prom the Anglo-Saxon come the words, and parts of words, indi- 
 cating relations ; also the adjectives, nouns, and verbs classed 
 as irregular, the same being words of most common use in the lan- 
 guage; the names of objects of most frequent and striking oc- 
 currence, sun, moon, stars, land, water, wood, stream, hill, and 
 dale ; horse, cow, and the most common animals and plants ; 
 spring, summer, winter, light, darkness, heat, cold, rain, snow, 
 thunder and lightning; sounds, postures, and motions of animal 
 life. Specific terms render style more animated, forcible. Our 
 specific terms are generally Anglo-Saxon. Color is Latin, as 
 most ot our abstract terms are, or French ; but red, yellow, blue, 
 white, black, green, and brown are Anglo-Saxon. Motion is 
 Latin ; but leap, spring, stagger, slip, slide, glide, fall, walk, run, 
 swim, ride, creep, crawl, and fly are Anglo-Saxon. Affection and 
 animation are Latin ; but love, hate, hope, fear, gladness, sorrow, 
 weeping, laughter, smile, tear, sigh, groan, father, mother, man, 
 wife, child, son, daughter, kindred and friends, home, hearth, roof, 
 fireside, and many other of the most touching words in the lan- 
 guage, and most frequently on the tongue, are Anglo-Saxon, and, 
 for the greater part, " the language of business, of the counting- 
 house, the shop, the market, the street, the farm." The principal 
 and most forcible language of invective, humor, satire, and pleas- 
 antry, is Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 From the Latin and French, it being difficult always to tell 
 which, since the French itself is from the Latin, are coin (colo- 
 nia), in Lincoln, chester from castrum, monk, bishop, saint, min- 
 ister, porch, cloister, mass, psalter, chalice, pall, candle, most gen- 
 eral and abstract words, and many thousand terms of theology, 
 metaphysics, and all the old and new sciences. The nomencla- 
 tures of modern sciences manufacture much from the Greek. 
 
 * Edinburgh Review, vol. Ixx., 1839. 
 
G32 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 In tlie analysis of words, as a general rule, the prefixes, 
 
 n, no, not, uu, negatives ; 
 
 a, e, y, a (for an), be, en, and for, interims ; 
 
 a, be, em, en, for, fore, gain, off, on, out, to, un (an or on), un- 
 der, up, ^vith, relatives, are Anglo-Saxon, or of Teutonic origin. 
 
 From Latin and French are 
 
 in, i, il, im, ir, n, ne, non, negatives. 
 
 Ad, a, ac, af, ay, al, am, an, ap, ar, as, at, with force of to ad- 
 dition ; ab, abs, a, from ; ambi, amb, about ; ante, ant, before ; cir- 
 cum, cis, cm, co, cog, col, com, cor, conn, with ; contra, contro, 
 counter; de, dis, di, dif; en, ex, e, ec, ef; extra; in, il, im, ir, en, 
 em, indi, ind, infra, inter, intra, intro, enter, juxta ; ob, obs, oc, of, 
 op, os ; per, post, pre, prre, praeter, pro, pur ; re, red, retro ; se, 
 sans, sine, sue, suf, sug, sum, sup, sub, subter, super, supra, sur; 
 trans, tran, tra ; ultra, ult, ulter, outr. 
 
 From Greek are a, an, apo, aph, amphi, ana, an, anti, ant, 
 anth ; cata, cat, cath ; dia, dea, de ; en, em, endo, ento, epi, ep, 
 eph, ex, ec; hyper, hypo; meta, meth ; para, par, pa, peri, pros; 
 syn, sy, syl, sym. 
 
 Examining the definitions, with the dictionary, of a few words 
 having the same prefix, will fix the force of it securely in the pu- 
 pil's memory. 
 
 SUFFIXES. 
 
 OF Nouxs, r, ar, er, or, ster, en, ess, et, let, kin, ling, ock, 
 th, t, ing, head, hood, ness, doin, ship, sou, burn, are from the 
 mother-tongue. 
 
 Latin and French : an, ean, ian, ine, ant, ent, or, er, eer, ary, 
 at, ate, ee, ine ; ix, cle, cule, ule, age, ry, si ox, TIOX, ure, ture, cy, 
 ty, ance, ence, ancy, ency, ment, escence, ory. 
 
 Greek : ic, iac, ician, is, ism, cy, sy, ty. 
 
 OF ADJECTIVES AXD ADVERBS, er, or, est, st, en, ch, ern, 
 ese, esque, ful, ing, y, ish, less, ly, some, ward, n, s, ce, st, xt, 
 ways, wise, are our own. 
 
 Latin and French : ble, able, ible, ic, fie, ceous, cious, tious, id, 
 al, il, ite, le^eel, nal, an, ain, ean, ian, ane, ene, ine, end, cund, 
 ant, ent, ar, ary, ory, t, ate, ete, ive, lent, ose, ous, pie, plex, se, 
 a, tim. 
 
 Greek : ac, ic, id, oid, gen. 
 
 OF VERBS. Those in ate, esce, fy, ise, ish, are from French 
 and Latin ; ize, from the Greek ; en, er, are Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 Besides the derivatives formed by the use of one or more pre- 
 fixes or suffixes, or both, there is no limit to the number of com- 
 pounds from two or more simples. Indeed, so simple is its syntax, 
 and so limited its inflections, that, without danger of ambiguity 
 
SOURCES OP ENGLISH LITERATURE. 633 
 
 or obscurity in the meaning intended, the English language 
 readily adopts all names, transforms them into all necessary parts 
 of speech, retaining all the elegance, and softening all the harsh- 
 ness of its borrowed elements, with so much ease and rapidity, 
 that the capacity of its vocabulary, now numbering about a hun- 
 dred and fifteen thousand words, seems limited only by the objects 
 of sense and the thoughts and deeds of men. By discovery and 
 invention, \vords fall into disuse, or become obsolete in one or more 
 senses, and receive a new signification. New words are made by 
 change of spelling, by addition, transposition, or dropping of let- 
 ters. 
 
 Notwithstanding the rapid increase, in the whole number of 
 words, of the words in actual use, the greater per cent are Anglo- 
 Saxon : of Shakspeare and the New Testament, about ninety per 
 cent; of Milton and Pope, about eighty; Webster and Junius, 
 seventy-five. Of the whole number of words, it has been esti- 
 mated that about sixty per cent are really Anglo-Saxon in origin; 
 thirty per cent, Latin and Trench ; five, Greek ; and five, miscella- 
 neous. 
 
 SOURCES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 THE geometer solves a few only of the infinite variety of prob- 
 lems involving the general principles and methods of reasoning 
 he has learned; and yet he may with truth be accounted skillful 
 in his science. The architect would miserably waste his time 
 examining every ant-hill and log-cabin in the land for fear the 
 number and builders of them would be unknown to him ; though 
 architecture, in its broadest sense, might include every structure 
 built by man or other animal. In almost any one branch of the 
 modern sciences, facts have accumulated to such an extent as to 
 render an accurate knowledge of them, and of the circumstances 
 of their discovery, utterly beyond the ability of any single mind 
 profitably to retain. The literature of the English language, in the 
 broadest sense, may be said to include all manuscripts and books 
 written in English ; yet a comparatively few of them, and of their 
 authors, can be profitably known by the student. It is impossible 
 for him, to say nothing of the past, to read a tithe of what is writ- 
 ten at the present time. He should not attempt this; his imme- 
 diate want being a critical knowledge of the rules applicable to 
 all styles, and the productions of a few authors who are admitted 
 to be masters, each of his own style. Believing the study and 
 imitation of the styles of a few authors to be of so much more 
 importance to the young student, we would not, for purposes of 
 
C34 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 general education, burden him with learning carefully the history 
 of English literature, leading him from the bardic mummery of 
 the Druid priests, through the monkish chronicles of the Saxon 
 and semi-Saxon periods, along the theological and metaphysical 
 dark ages, down to the period of the revival of learning; all 
 which, undoubtedly, would be entertaining and instructive to him, 
 but can be easily and profitably deferred to subsequent leisure. 
 The printing-establishment of the indefatigable Caxton and that 
 of "The London Times," or of a modern publishing-house, are emi- 
 nently typical of the literature of the fifteenth century and that of 
 the nineteenth. Besides translations of the best works of foreign 
 authors, the principal sources of modern English literature are, 
 
 1. Poetry, of which the principal kinds are the epic, lyric, 
 -and didactic. The proper epic is illustrated in "Paradise Lost;" 
 
 the burlesque, in "Hudibras." Under the epic is classed, by some, 
 the dramatic, and, indeed, all poetry not didactic, lyric, or ele- 
 giac. Of the lyric are the ode, song, and sacred lyrics, psalm 
 and hymn. With the elegiac proper is classed the sonnet. Ac- 
 cording to the subject, poetry is historical, narrative, descriptive, 
 pastoral, satirical or humorous, and didactic; having one or several 
 of these elements. It is not more difficult to find prose that is 
 poetical than to find poetry that is prosaic ; since neither rhymes 
 nor measures are alone essential to poetry. It is impossible to 
 predict of modern poetry, or, indeed, of modern literature, what 
 will be permanent; time alone can do that: but of this we can be 
 assured, that scattered through it all are the elements of heroic 
 poetry and lofty prose infinitely more numerous than when the 
 present great masterpieces were executed; that noble thoughts 
 and deeds, marvelous workings of man and nature, far excel in 
 number and magnitude the imaginary exploits of chivalrous 
 knight, or even of heathen demi-god. The facts of modern sci- 
 ence, the revelations of the telescope, microscope, and the spec- 
 troscope, excel in grandeur and beauty the most poetical fancies 
 of ancient or modern poet. 
 
 2. Fiction, historical, political, romantic, allegorical, mythical, 
 and legendary. Indeed, here the field is boundless, and must 
 be entered upon with a faithful guide. During the period of 
 school, none of it should be read by the pupil, except under the 
 direction of the teacher. 
 
 3. Histories, biographies, memoirs, essays, criticisms, lectures, 
 orations, speeches, sermons, debates, and dissertations. 
 
 4. Periodicals, newspapers, magazines, reviews, and encj'clo- 
 paedias. 
 
 5. Dramatic writings, tragedy, comedy, farce, opera, and 
 whatever may be written for the stage. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 ABBOTT, Jacob 200 
 
 Abercrombic, John 379 
 
 Addison, Joseph 506 
 
 Ainsworth, William H 226 
 
 Akenside, Mark 470 
 
 Alcuin 628 
 
 Aldhelm 628 
 
 Alfric 628 
 
 Alison, Sir Archibald 343, 378 
 
 Arbuthnot, John 548 
 
 Arnold, Matthew 265 
 
 Arnold, Thomas 344 
 
 Ascham, Roger 622 
 
 Audubon , John James 201 
 
 Austen, Jane 398 
 
 Aytoun, William E 264 
 
 Bacon, Francis (Viscount St. Alban's), 559 
 
 Bacon, Leonard 190 
 
 Bailey, Philip James 264 
 
 Baillie, Joanna'. 414 
 
 Bale, John 624 
 
 Bancroft, George 202 
 
 Banin, John 226 
 
 Barbour, John 626 
 
 Barclay, Alexander 623 
 
 Barclay, Robert 548 
 
 Barham, Richard 415 
 
 Barnes, Albert 190 
 
 Barrow, Isaac 558 
 
 Barry, Gerald 627 
 
 Baxter, Richard 547 
 
 Bayley, Thomas Haynes 265 
 
 . Beattie, James 471 
 
 Beaumont, Francis 622 
 
 Beckett, a, Gilbert Abbott 266 
 
 Beckford, William 398 
 
 Beddoes, Thomas Lovell 2G6 
 
 Bede 628 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 104 
 
 Bellenden, John 
 
 Benedict 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy 
 
 Bentley, Richard 
 
 Berkeley, George 
 
 Bethune, George W 
 
 Bible, the ... 
 
 Blackstone, Sir William 
 
 Blair, Hugh 
 
 Blair, Robert 
 
 Blessington, Countess of 
 
 Blind Harry 
 
 Bloomfield, Robert 
 
 Borrow, George 
 
 Boswell, James 
 
 Bowles, William L 
 
 Bowring, Sir John 
 
 Boyle, Robert 
 
 Brewstcr, Sir David 
 
 Bronte, Charlotte 
 
 Brooks, Maria 
 
 Brooks, Shirley 226, 
 
 Brough, Robert B 
 
 Brougham (Lord) Henry 
 
 Brown, Charles Brockden 
 
 Brown, Frances 
 
 Brown, Thomas 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas 
 
 Browne, William 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 
 
 Bruce, Michael 
 
 Brunton, Mary 
 
 Bryant, William Cullen 
 
 Brydges, Sir Egerton 
 
 Buchanan, George 
 
 Buckingham, Joseph T 
 
 Buckland, William 
 
 Buckle, Henry Thomas 
 
 Bunyan, John 
 
 Burke, Edmund 
 
 035 
 
 10K. 
 
 624 
 627 
 378 
 548 
 520 
 190 
 563 
 471 
 471 
 520 
 393 
 626 
 414 
 344 
 471 
 414 
 344 
 653 
 346 
 220 
 103 
 : M 
 -.; 
 378 
 201 
 265 
 378 
 5J3 
 622 
 231 
 414 
 398 
 40 
 378 
 62 
 191 
 340 
 343 
 53-J 
 415 
 
636 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Burnet, Gilbert 548 
 
 Burnet, Thomas 548 
 
 Burney, Frances 398 
 
 Burns, Robert 407 
 
 Burton, John Hill 345 
 
 Burton, Robert 623 
 
 Bushnell, Horace 190 
 
 Butler, Samuel 543 
 
 Byron (Lord), George Gordon . 379 
 
 Caedmon 628 
 
 Camden, William 623 
 
 Campbell (Lord) 344 
 
 Campbell, Thomas 309 
 
 Carew, Thomas 622 
 
 Carey, Henry C 201 
 
 Carleton, William 226 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 347 
 
 Cavendish, George 624 
 
 Caxton, William 624 
 
 Chalmers, George 397 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas 345 
 
 Chamberlayne, William 558 
 
 Chambers, Robert 344 
 
 Channing, William Ellery 189 
 
 Chatterton, Thomas 471 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey 625 
 
 Cheever, George B 190 
 
 Cheke, Sir John 624 
 
 Child, Lydia Maria 200 
 
 Churchill, Charles 471 
 
 Clare, John 265 
 
 Clarke, Adam 379 
 
 Clarke, Samuel 520 
 
 Clarke, Sarah Jane 103 
 
 Cobbett, William 378 
 
 Coleridge, Derwent 265 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley 265 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 293 
 
 Coleridge, Sara 265 
 
 Collins, Wilkie 226, 266 
 
 Collins, William 470 
 
 Colman, George 415 
 
 Colman, George, the Younger 415 
 
 Combe, George 378 
 
 Combe, William 378 
 
 Congreve, William 548 
 
 Cook, Eliza 265 
 
 Cooke, Wingrove 34i 
 
 Cooper, Anthony Ashley (Earl of 
 
 Shaftesbury) 520 
 
 Cooper, James -Fenimore. 192 
 
 Cotton, Charles 558 
 
 Coverdale, Miles 624 
 
 Cowley, Abraham 5.")8 
 
 CJowper, William 399 
 
 Coxe, William 397 
 
 Crabbe, George 413 
 
 Cranmer, Thomas 623 
 
 Crashaw, Richard 623 
 
 Croker, John Wilson 378 
 
 Croly, George 414 
 
 Crowe, Catharine 225 
 
 Cudworth, Ralph 558 
 
 Cumberland, Richard 415 
 
 Cunningham, Allan 414 
 
 Curtis, George William 192 
 
 Dalrymple, David 397 
 
 Dana, Richard H 103 
 
 Daniel, Samuel G22 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus 471 
 
 Davenant, Sir William 558 
 
 Davis, John Francis 1344 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry 378 
 
 Defoe, Daniel 498 
 
 Dekker, Thomas -. 023 
 
 Denham, Sir John 558 
 
 Dennie, Joseph 191 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas 361 
 
 Dickens, Charles 203 
 
 Dillon, Wentworth 547 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin 225 
 
 Disraeli, Isaac 378 
 
 Doddridge, Philip 471 
 
 Douglas, Gawin 623 
 
 Drayton, Michael 622 
 
 Drummond, William 022 
 
 Dryden, John : C21 
 
 Dunbar, William C>23 
 
 Dunstan 628 
 
 Dyer, John 520 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria 398 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan 189 
 
 Eliot, George 226 
 
 Elliott, Ebenezer 415 
 
 Ellis, Sarah 346 
 
 Elyot, Sir Thomas 624 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 131 
 
 Erigena (John Scotus) 628 
 
 Evelyn, John 558 
 
 Everett, Alexander H 191 
 
 Everett, Edward 281 
 
 Fabyan, Robert 624 
 
 Falconer, William 471 
 
 Faraday, Michael 346 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 087 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 Farquhar, George 548 
 
 Ferguson, Adam ... '. 471 
 
 Ferguson, Robert 414 
 
 Ferrier, M.iry 398 
 
 Fisher, John 624 
 
 Fletcher, Giles 62-i 
 
 Fletcher, John 622 
 
 Fletcher, Phineas 62^ 
 
 Footc, Samuel 471 
 
 Ford, John 622 
 
 Ford, Richard 344 
 
 Forster, John 344 
 
 Fortescue, Sir John 626 
 
 Foster, John 378 
 
 Fox, John 6^4 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin 201, 452 
 
 Frcre, J. Hookham 414 
 
 Froude, James Anthony 343 
 
 Fuller, Thomas 558 
 
 Gaimar, Geoffrey 627 
 
 Gait, John 398 
 
 Garrick, David 471 
 
 Gaskell, Elizabeth 226 
 
 Gauden, John 558 
 
 Gay, John 520 
 
 Gervase of Tilbury 627 
 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth 627 
 
 Gibbon, Edward 397 
 
 Gifford, William 414 
 
 Gildas 628 
 
 Gleig, George 226 
 
 Godwin, William. 398 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 458 
 
 Goodrich, Samuel G 200 
 
 Gore, Catherine . 220 
 
 Gower, John C28 
 
 Grahame, James 414 
 
 Grant, James 223 
 
 Grattan, Thomas C 398 
 
 Gray, Thomas 467 
 
 Greene, Robert 622 
 
 Griffin, Gerald 226 
 
 Griswold, Rufus Wilmot 191 
 
 Grote, George '. 344 
 
 Hakluyt, Richard 623 
 
 Hall, Anna M 226 
 
 Hall, Edward 624 
 
 Hall, Joseph 623 
 
 Hall, Robert 379 
 
 Hallam , Henry 397 
 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene 103 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander 190 
 
 Hamilton, Elizabeth ................... 3j 
 
 Hamilton. Sir William ................ 3lfl 
 
 llanimy, James ....................... 226 
 
 Ilawes, Stephen ....................... fi-J3 
 
 Hawthorne. Nathaniel ................. 175 
 
 Hazlitt, William ....................... 378 
 
 Head, Sir Francin ..................... 344 
 
 Ileber, Reginald ....................... 414 
 
 Helps, Arthur ......................... 346 
 
 Hemans, Felicia ....................... 414 
 
 Henry of IIuntingdo:i ................. 627 
 
 Henry, Matthew ...................... 548 
 
 Henryson, Robert ..................... 623 
 
 Herbert, George ....................... 623 
 
 TIcrrick, Robert ....................... 622 
 
 TIerschel, Sir John .................... 378 
 
 Hervcy, Thomas Kibble ............... 205 
 
 Hey wood, John ....................... 623 
 
 Ilildreth, Richard ..................... 202 
 
 Hillard, George Stillman .............. 191 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas ................. .... 623 
 
 Hoffman, Charles Fcnno ............... 103 
 
 Hogg, James ...................... ____ 414 
 
 Holcroft, Thomas ............ ........ 415 
 
 Holland, Josiah Gilbert ............... 192 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell ............... 77 
 
 Homes, Henry (Lord Kames) .......... 620 
 
 Hood, Thomas ........................ 303 
 
 Hook, Walter F ....................... 344 
 
 Hooker, Richard ...................... 622 
 
 Hope, Thomas ........................ 398 
 
 Hopkins, Mark ........................ 190 
 
 Ilopkinson, Francis ................... 191 
 
 Ilopkinson , Joseph .................... 103 
 
 Home, John .......................... 470 
 
 Home, Richard Henry ................ 285 
 
 Hovedcn, de, Roger ........ .......... 627 
 
 Howard, Henry (Earl of Surrey) ...... 623 
 
 Tlowell James ......................... 6,'3 
 
 Hughes, Thomas ...................... 226 
 
 Hume, David ......................... 445 
 
 Hunt,Leigh ....................... 414 
 
 Hyde, Edward (Earl of Clarendon) ---- 558 
 
 Inchbald, Elizabeth ................... 308 
 
 Ingelow, Jean ......................... 2tJ5 
 
 Inglis, Henry D ....................... 344 
 
 Ingulphus ............................. <>27 
 
 Innes, Cosmo ...................... ... 344 
 
 Irving, Edward ....................... 379 
 
 Irving, Washington ............. 
 
 Iscanus, Josephus, or Josc-ph of Exeter, 627 
 
 James, G. P. II 
 
638 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Jameson, Anna 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 343 
 
 Lydgate, John ........................ 626 
 
 Lj*ell, Sir Charles ..................... 346 
 
 Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwcr ........... 225 
 
 Jay. John 190 
 
 Jay, William 191 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas 191 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis ( Lord) 378 Macaulay, Thomas Babington 321 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas 225 Macdonald, George 265 
 
 Jewsbury, Geraldine 226 Mackay, Charles 265 
 
 Johnson. Samuel 431 Mackensie. Henry 398 
 
 Jones, Sir William 414 Macpherson, James 471, 628 
 
 Jon son, Ben 622 Madison, James 190 
 
 Junius , 423 Mandeville, Sir John de 628 
 
 j Mantel, Gideon 346 
 
 Keats, John 414 Marlowe, Christopher 622 
 
 Keblc, John 415 Marryatt, Frederick 2J5 
 
 Key, Francis S 103 Marsh, Anne 226 
 
 King, Alfred 62S Marshall, John 190 
 
 King James I. of Scotland 626 Mnrston, Westland 266 
 
 King James 1 623 Martineau, Harriet 345 
 
 Kinglake, Alexander W 344 Marvel, Andrew 
 
 Kingsley, Charles . . . 
 
 225 Mason. William C.... 471 
 
 Kirkland, Caroline M 201 Massey, Gerald 265 
 
 Knight, Charles 344 Massinger, Philip 622 
 
 Knowles, Sheridan 264 | Masson, David 344 
 
 Knox, John 624 Mather, Cotton 202 
 
 I Maturin, Charles R 415 
 
 Laing, Malcolm 397 | Maxwell, William H 226 
 
 Laing, Samuel 344 j Mayhew, Henry 266 
 
 Lamb, Charles 36S McClintock, Sir Leopold 344 
 
 Landor, Walter S 378 McClure, Sir Robert 344 
 
 Langlande, Robert 626 MeCrie, Thomas 397 
 
 Lardner, Dionysius 346 M'Culloch, J. Ramsay 379 
 
 Latimer. Hugh 6J4 Mclntosh, Sir James 397 
 
 Layamon 627 Merlin 628 
 
 Layard, Austen Henry 344 Mill, James 397 
 
 Lee. Sophia 
 
 Mill, John Stuart 346 
 
 Leland.John 624 Miller, Hugh 346 
 
 Milman. Henry Hart 265 
 
 Lemon, Mark 266 
 
 Lever, Charles 225 Milnes, Richard Monckton 265 
 
 Lewes, George Henry 344 Milton, John 548 
 
 Lewis, Sir George C 345 Minot, Laurence 626 
 
 Lewis, Matthew Gregory 393 Mitford. Mary 398 
 
 Leyden, John 414 j Mitford, William 397 
 
 Lindsay, Sir David 624 ! Montagu (Lady), Mary Wortley 520 
 
 Lingard, John 397 Montgomery, James 414 
 
 Livingstone, David 344 " 
 
 Locke , John 547 
 
 Lockhart, John Gibson 344 
 
 Logan, John 414 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 54 
 
 Lord Berners . . 624 
 
 More, Hannah 414 
 
 More, Sir Thomas 623 
 
 Morgan, Lady 398 
 
 Morier, James 398 
 
 Motherwell, William 265 
 
 Moore, Henry 547 
 
 Lord Herbert 623 Moore, John 
 
 Lovelace, Richard 558 Moore, Thomas 413 
 
 Lover, Samuel 226 Motley, John Lothrop 
 
 Lowell, James Russell 89 ! Mulock, Dinah Maria 226 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 639 
 
 
 PAOK. 
 
 Murchison, Sir Roderick 
 
 346 
 
 Mure, William 
 
 345 
 
 Murray, Lindley 
 
 191 
 
 Napier, William 
 
 397 
 
 Neale, John 
 
 201 
 
 Nennius 
 
 628 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac 
 
 520 
 
 Nicoll, Robert 
 
 265 
 
 Occleve, Thomas 
 
 626 
 
 Oliphant, Laurence 
 
 344 
 
 Opie, Amelia 
 
 398 
 
 Orm, or Ormin 
 
 627 
 
 Osborne, Capt. Sherrard 
 
 344 
 
 Ossian 
 
 628 
 
 Ossoli, d', Margaret Fuller 
 
 191 
 
 Otway, Thomas 
 
 547 
 
 Owen, John 
 
 547 
 
 Owen, Richard 
 
 346 
 
 Paine, Thomas 
 
 191 
 
 Paley, William 
 
 471 
 
 Palfrey, John Gorham 
 
 189 
 
 Palgrave, Sir Francis 
 
 344 
 
 Paris, Matthew 
 
 627 
 
 Parker, Theodore 
 
 190 
 
 Parnell, Thomas 
 
 520 
 
 Patmore, Coventry 
 
 265 
 
 Paulding, James Kirke 
 
 200 
 
 Payne, John Howard 
 
 103 
 
 Peabody, Andrew P 
 
 190 
 
 Penn, William 
 
 548 
 
 Pepys, Samuel 
 
 558 
 
 Percival, James Gates 
 
 103 
 
 Percy, Thomas 
 
 471 
 
 Phillips, Ambrose 
 
 520 
 
 Phillips, John 
 
 547 
 
 Pierpont, John 
 
 103 
 
 Pinkerton, John 
 
 397 
 
 Plegmund 
 
 628 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan 
 
 100 
 
 Pollok, Robert 
 
 415 
 
 Pope, Alexander 
 
 472 i 
 
 Porson , Richard 
 
 379 
 
 Porter, Anna 
 
 398 
 
 
 398 
 
 Porter, Josias 
 
 344 
 
 Praed, Winthrop Mackworth 
 
 265 
 
 Prescott, William Hickling 
 
 202 
 
 Prior, Matthew 
 
 547 
 
 Procter, Bryan Walter 
 
 265 
 
 Purchas, Samuel 
 
 623 
 
 Quarles, Francis 
 
 623 
 
 Quincy, Josiah 
 
 202 
 
 Radcliffe, Anne 398 
 
 Rae, Dr 344 
 
 Ragg, Thoman 2ft5 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter 821 
 
 Ramsay, Allan 530 
 
 Ray, John 5.VJ 
 
 Reach, Angus B 221 
 
 Reade, Charles \ 221 
 
 Rcade, John Edmund 2fto 
 
 Reed, Henry 101 
 
 Reid, Mayne 229 
 
 Reid, Thomas 471 
 
 Ricardo, David 378 
 
 Robinson, Edward 189 
 
 Rogers, Samuel 413 
 
 Roscoe, William 397 
 
 Rowe, Nicholas 520 
 
 Rush, Benjamin 201 
 
 Ruskin, John 345 
 
 Russell (Lady), Rachel 548 
 
 Russell, William II 345 
 
 Sackville, Charles 547 
 
 Sackville, Thomas 622 
 
 Fala, George Augustus 226 
 
 Savage, Richard 520 
 
 Saxe, John Godfrey 103 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter 385 
 
 Sedgwick, Catherine Maria 200 
 
 Sedley, Charles 547 
 
 Selden, John 623 
 
 Shakspeare, William 565 
 
 Sheil, Richard Lalor 266 
 
 Shelley, Mary 398 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 414 
 
 Shenstone, William 470 
 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinslcy 414 
 
 Sherlock, William 548 
 
 Shirley, James 623 
 
 Sidney, Algernon 558 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip 622 
 
 Sigourney, Lydia Huntley 103, 200 
 
 Simms, William Gilmorc 200 
 
 Skelton, John 623 
 
 Smedley, Frank 226 
 
 Smith , Adam 471 
 
 Smith, Albert 226 
 
 Smith, Charlotte 398 
 
 Smith, Horace 414 
 
 Smith, James 414 
 
 Smith, Seba 201 
 
 Smith, Sydney 378 
 
 Smith, William 346 
 
 Somcrville, Mary 346 
 
 Sothcrby, William 414 
 
040 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 South, Robert 558 
 
 Southey, Robert 264 
 
 Southey, Caroline Anne 264 
 
 Southwell, Robert 622 
 
 Sparks. Jared 202 
 
 Spencer, Hon. William R 414 
 
 Spenser, Edmund 619 
 
 Sprague, William B 189 
 
 Sprat, Thomas 548 
 
 Stanhope. Earl 544 
 
 Stanhope, Philip (Earl of Chesterfield), 520 
 
 St. Columbanus 628 
 
 Steele, Sir Richard 520 
 
 Sterne, Laurence 471 
 
 Stewart, Dugald 378 
 
 Stillingfleet, Edward 548 
 
 Strickland. Agnes 344 
 
 Strickland, Elizabeth 344 
 
 Strype.John 548 
 
 St. John, Henry (Viscount Bolingbroke) 520 
 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 200 
 
 Suckling, Sir John 623 
 
 Sullivan, William 191 
 
 Sumner, Charles 275 
 
 .Swain, Charles 265 
 
 Swift, Jonathan 483 
 
 Talfourd, Sir Thomas Xoon 260 
 
 Talk-Kin 628 
 
 Tannahill. Robert 414 
 
 Taylor, Bayard 192 
 
 Taylor, Henry 266 
 
 Taylor, Isaac 345 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy 558 
 
 Taylor, Tom 266 
 
 Tennant, William 415 
 
 Tennent, Sir James Emerson 344 
 
 Temple, Sir William 558 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred 227 
 
 Thackeray, William Makepeace 215 
 
 Thirlwall, Connop 344 
 
 Thorn, William 265 
 
 Tickell, Thomas 520 
 
 Ticknor, George 202 
 
 Tighe, Mary 414 
 
 Tillotson, John 558 
 
 Tilton, Theodore 103 
 
 Tooke. John Home 378 
 
 Trevisa, de. John 626 
 
 Trollope. Anthony 22"> 
 
 Trollope, Frances 398 
 
 Trollope, Thomas A 515 
 
 Tiickerman, Henry Theodore 191 
 
 Tudor, William 191 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 Tupper, Martin Farquhar 264 
 
 Turner, Sharon 397 
 
 Tusser, Thomas 622 
 
 Ty ndale, William 623 
 
 Tytler, Patrick Eraser 397 
 
 Udall, Xicholas 624 
 
 Ussher, James 623 
 
 Yanbrug, Sir John 548 
 
 Vaughn, Henry 5o8 
 
 Vaughn, Robert 344 
 
 Vilatis, Ordencus 627 
 
 Wace 627 
 
 Waller, Edmund 558 
 
 Walpole, Horace 471 
 
 Walton, Izaak 623 
 
 Warburton, Eliot 344 
 
 Ward R. Plumer 3<.)8 
 
 Ware, William 200 
 
 Warren, Samuel 226 
 
 Warton, Joseph 470 
 
 Warton, Thomas 470 
 
 Waterton, Charles 344 
 
 Watts, Alaric Alexander 265 
 
 Watts, Isaac 520 
 
 Wayland, Francis 189 
 
 Webster, Daniel 286 
 
 Webster. Xoah. 191 
 
 Wesley, John 471 
 
 Whately, Richard 346 
 
 Whewell, William 346 
 
 White, Gilbert 471 
 
 White, Henry Kirke 4U 
 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf 67 
 
 Whipplc, Edwin P l'>2 
 
 William of Malmesbury 627 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel Parker 86 
 
 Wilmot,John 547 
 
 Wilson, Alexander 201, 379 
 
 Wilson, John 345 
 
 Wilson, Thomas 623 
 
 Winthrop, John 202 
 
 Wirt, William 191 
 
 Wolfe. Charles 415 
 
 Woodworth, Samuel ; 103 
 
 Worcester, Joseph E 161 
 
 Wordsworth, William 242 
 
 Wotton, Sir Henry 622 
 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas 624 
 
 Wycherley, William 548 
 
 Wycliffe, de, John 626 
 
 Wynkyn de Worde 624 
 
 Wyntoun, Andrew 626 
 
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