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LONDON MAGAZINE 
 
 JULY TO DECEMBER, 
 
 1820. 
 
 Why should not divers studies, at divers hours, delight, when the 
 variety is able alone to refresh and repair us ? 
 
 Ben JoN80ir*8 Ditcoveries, 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 Hontion : 
 
 Printed for 
 
 BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY. 
 18SI0. 
 
 m^ 
 
C. Baldwin, Printer, 
 Vvw Bridge-street, Loadoa. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE SOUTH SEA HOU^E- 
 
 Reader, in thy passage from the 
 Bank — where thou hast been receiv- 
 ing thy half-yearly dividends (sup- 
 posing thou art a lean annuitant like 
 myself) — to the Flower Pot, to secure 
 a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, 
 or some other thy suburban retreat 
 northerly,— didst thou never observe a 
 melancholy-looking, handsome, brick 
 and stone edifice, to the left — where 
 Threadneedle-street abuts upon Bi- 
 shopsgate ? I dare say thou hast 
 often admired its magnificent portals 
 ever gaping wide, and disclosing to 
 view a grave court, with cloisters, 
 and pillars, with few or no traces of 
 goers-in or comers-out — a desolation 
 ^something like Balclutha's.* 
 *- This was once a house of trade,— a 
 centre of busy interests. The throng 
 of merchants was here — the quick 
 pulse of gain — and here some forms of 
 i)usiness are still kept up, though the 
 soul be long since fled. Here are still 
 to be seen stately porticos ; imposing 
 staircaises ; offices roomy as the state 
 apartments in palaces — deserted, or 
 thinly peopled with a few straggling 
 clerks ; the still more sacred interiors 
 of court and committee rooms, with 
 venerable faces of beadles, door-keep- 
 ers directors seated in form on 
 
 solemn days (to proclaim a dead di- 
 vidend,) at long worm-eaten tables, 
 that have been mahogany, with tar- 
 nished gilt-leather coverings, sup- 
 porting massy silver inkstands long 
 since dry; — the oaken w^ainscots hung 
 with pictures of deceased governors 
 and sub-governors, of queen Anne, 
 and the two first monarchs of the 
 Brunswick dynasty; — huge charts, 
 lirhich subsequent discoveries have 
 
 antiquated ; — dusty maps of Mexico^ 
 dim as dreams, — and soundings of the 
 Bay of Panama ! — The long passages- 
 hung with buckets, appended, in idle 
 row, to walls, whose substance might 
 defy any, short of the last, conflagra- 
 tion : — with vast ranges of cellarage 
 under all, where dollars and pieces of 
 eight once lay, an " unsunned heap," 
 for Mammon to have solaced his so- 
 litary heart withal, — long since dissi- 
 pated, or scattered into air at the 
 blast of the breaking of that famous 
 
 Bubble. 
 
 Such is the South Sea-house. At 
 least, such it was forty years ago, 
 when I knew it, — a magnificent relic f 
 AVhat alterations may have been made 
 in it since, I have had no opportuni- 
 ties of verifying. Time, 1 take for 
 granted, has not freshened it. No 
 wind has resuscitated the face of the 
 sleeping waters. A thicker crust by 
 this time stagnates upon it. The 
 moths, that were then battening upon 
 its obsolete ledgers and day-books, 
 have rested from their depredations, 
 but other light generations have suc- 
 ceeded, making fine fretwork among 
 their single and double entries. Lay- 
 ers of dust have accumulated (a super- 
 foe tation of dirt !) upon the old layers, 
 that seldom used to be disturbed, save 
 by some curious finger, now and then, 
 that wished to explore the mode of 
 book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign ; 
 or, with less hallowed curiosity, 
 sought to imveil some of the myste- 
 ries of that tremendous hoax, whose 
 extent the petty peculators of our day 
 look back upon with the same ex- 
 pression of incredulous admiration, 
 and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as 
 
 • I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were desolate. — Ossian- 
 
1820.;] 
 
 Recollections of the South Sea House, 
 
 143 
 
 would become the puny face of modern 
 conspiracy contemplating the Titan 
 size of Vaux's superhuman plot. 
 
 Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! 
 Silence and destitution are upon thy 
 walls, proud house, for a memorial ! 
 
 Situated as thou art, in the very 
 heart of stirring and living commerce, 
 — amid the fret and fever of specula- 
 tion — with the Bank, and the 'Change, 
 and the India-house about thee, in 
 the hey-day of present prosperity, 
 with their important faces, as it were 
 insulting thee, their mor neighbour 
 out of business — to the idle, and mere- 
 ly contemplative, — to such as me, old 
 house ! there is a charm in thy quiet: 
 — a cessation — a coolness from busi- 
 ness — an indolence almost cloistral — 
 which is delightful ! With what re- 
 verence have I paced thy great bare 
 rooms and courts at eventide! They 
 spoke of the past i^— the shade of some 
 dead accountant, with visionary pen 
 , in ear, would flit by me, stiff as in 
 - life. Living accounts and accountants 
 puzzle me. I have no skill in figur- 
 ing. But thy great dead tomes, which 
 scarce three degenerate clerks of the 
 present day could lift from their en- 
 shrining shelves — with their old fan- 
 tastic flourishes, and decorative ru- 
 bric interfacings — their sums in triple 
 columniations, set down with formal 
 superfluity of cyphers — with pious 
 sentences at the beghming, without 
 which our religious ancestors never 
 ventured to open a book of business, 
 or bill of lading — the costly vellum 
 covers of some of them almost per- 
 suading us that we are got hito some 
 better library, — are very agreea[)Ie 
 and edifying spectacles. I can look 
 upon these defunct dragons with com- 
 placency. Thy heavy odd-shaped 
 ivory-handled penknives (our ances- 
 -lors had every thing on a larger scale 
 than we have hearts for) are as good 
 as any thing from Herculaneum. The 
 pounce-boxes of our days have gone 
 retrograde. 
 
 The very clerks which I remember 
 in the South Sea-house — I speak of 
 forty years back — had an air very dif- 
 ferent from those hi the public offices 
 that I have had to do with since. 
 They partook of the genius of the 
 place! 
 
 They were mostly (for the esta- 
 blishment did not a^mit of superflu- 
 ous salaries,) bachelors. Generally 
 {for they had not much to do) per- 
 
 sons of a curious and speculative 
 turn of mind. Old-fashioned, for a 
 reason mentioned before. Humour- 
 ists, for they were of all descrip- 
 tions ; and, not having been brought 
 together in early life (which has a 
 tendency to assimilate the members 
 of corporate bodies to each other), 
 but, for the most part, placed in this 
 house in ripe or middle age, they ne- 
 cessarily carried into it their separate 
 habits and oddities, unqualified, if I 
 may so speak, as into a common stock. 
 Hence they formed a sort of Noah's 
 ark. Odd fishes. A lay-monastry. 
 Domestic retainers in a great house, 
 kept more for show than use. Yet 
 pleasant fellows, full of chat — and not 
 a iGW among them had arrived at con- 
 siderable proficiency on the German 
 flute. 
 
 The cashier at that time was one 
 Evans, a Cambro-Briton. He had 
 something of the choleric complexion 
 of his countrymen stamped on his 
 visnomy, but was a worthy sensible 
 man at bottom. He wore his hair, 
 to the last, powdered and frizzed 
 out, in the fashion which I remem- 
 ber to have seen in caricatures of 
 what were termed, in my young 
 days, Maccaronies. He was the last 
 of that race of beaux. Melancholy 
 as a gib-cat over his counter all the 
 forenoon, I think I see him, making 
 up his cash (as they call it) with tre- 
 mulous fingers, as if he feared every 
 one about him was a defaulter; in 
 his hypochondry ready to imagine 
 himself one; haunted, at least, with 
 the idea of the possibility of his be- 
 coming one : his tristful visage clear- 
 ing up a little over his roast neck of 
 veal at Anderton's at two (where his 
 picture still hangs, taken a little be- 
 fore his death by desire of the master 
 of the coffee-house, which he had 
 frequented for the last five-and-twenty 
 years), but not attaining the meridian 
 of its animation till evening brought 
 on the hour of tea and visiting. The 
 simultaneous sound of his well-known 
 rap at the door with the stroke of the 
 clock announcing six, was a topic of 
 never failing mirth in the families 
 which this dear old bachelor gladden- 
 ed with his presence. Then was his 
 forte, his glorified hour ! How would 
 he chirp, and expand, over a muffin ! 
 How would he dilate into secret 
 history ! His countryman. Pennant 
 himself, in particular, could not be 
 M2 
 
144 
 
 Recollections of the South Sea Howe. 
 
 CAug. 
 
 more eloquent than he in relation to 
 old and new London — the site of old 
 theatres, churches, streets gone to de- 
 cay — where Rosomund's pond stood 
 — the Mulberry-gardens — and the 
 Conduit in Cheap^r-with many a plea- 
 sant anecdote, derived from paternal 
 tradition, of those grotesque figures 
 which Hogarth has immortalized in 
 his picture of Noon, — the worthy de- 
 scendants of those heroic confessors, 
 who, flying to this country, from the 
 wrath of Louis the Fourteenth and 
 his dragoons, kept alive the flame of 
 pure religion in the sheltering obscu- 
 rities of Hog-lane, and the vicinity of 
 the Seven Dials ! 
 
 Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas 
 Tame. He had the air and stoop of 
 a nobleman. You would have taken 
 him for one, had you met him in one 
 of the passages leading to Westmin- 
 ster-hall. By stoop, I mean that 
 gentle bending of the body forwards, 
 which, in great men, must be sup- 
 posed to be the effect of an habitual 
 condescending attention to the appli- 
 cations of their inferiors. While he 
 held you in converse, you felt ^'strain- 
 ed to the height" in the colloquy. 
 The conference over, you were at 
 leisure to smile at the comparative 
 insignificance of the pretensions which 
 had just awed you. His intellect was 
 of the shallowest order. It did not 
 reach to a saw or a proverb. His 
 mind was in its original state of white 
 paper. A sucking babe might have 
 posed him. What was it then ? Was 
 he rich } Alas, no ! Thomas Tame 
 was very poor. Both he and his wife 
 looked outwardly gentlefolks, when I 
 fear all wa&not well at all times with- 
 in. She bad a neat meagre person, 
 which it was evident she had not 
 sinned in over-pampering ; but. in its 
 reins was noble blood. She traced 
 her descent, by some labyrinth of re- 
 lationship, which I never thoroughly 
 understood, — much less can explain 
 with any heraldic certainty at this 
 time of day, — ^to the illustrious, but 
 unfortunate house of Derwent water. 
 This was the secret of Thomas's stoop. 
 Jhis was the thought — the sentiment 
 .-^the bright solitary star of your lives. 
 
 — ye mild and happy pair,— 'which 
 cheered you in the night of intellect, 
 and in the obscurity of your station! 
 This was to you instead of riches, in- 
 stead of rank, instead of glittermg 
 attainments : and it was worth them 
 all together. You insulted none with 
 it ; but, while you wore it as a piece 
 of defensive armour only, no insult 
 likewise could reach you through, it. 
 Decus et solamen. 
 
 Of quite another stamp was the 
 then accountant, John Tipp. He 
 neither pretended to high blood, aor 
 in good truth cared one fig about the 
 matter. He " thought an accountant 
 the greatest character in the world, 
 and himself the greatest accountant 
 in it." Yet John was not without his 
 hobby. The fiddle relieved his va- 
 cant hours. He sang, certainly, '^ with 
 other notes than to the Orphean lyre." 
 He did, indeed, scream and scrape 
 most abominably. His fine suite of 
 official rooms in Threadneedle-strect, 
 which, without any thing very sub- 
 stantial appended to them, were 
 enough to enlarge a man's notions of 
 himself that lived in them, (I know 
 not who is the occupier of them now*) 
 resounded fortnightly to the notes of a 
 concert of ^^ sweet breasts," as our an- 
 cestors would have called them, culled 
 from club-roomsandorchestras— cho- 
 rus singers — ^first 2uid second violin- 
 cellos--doiible basses — and clarionets 
 — who ate his cold mutton, and drank 
 his punch, and praised his ear. He 
 sate like Lord Midas among them. Bat 
 at the desk Tipp was quite another 
 sort of creatiu-e. Thence all ideas, 
 that were purely ornamental, were 
 banished. You could not speak of 
 any thing romantic without relmke. 
 Politics were excluded. A newspaper 
 was thought ^oo refined and abstract- 
 ed. The whole duty of man consist- 
 ed in writing off dividend warrants. 
 The striking of the annual balance 
 in the company's books (which, per- 
 haps, differed from the balance of last 
 year in the sum of 2.5/. Is. 6d.) occu- 
 pied his days and nights for a month 
 previous. Not that Tipp was blind 
 to the deadness of things (as they call 
 them in the city) in his beloved house. 
 
 * I have since been informed, that the present tenant of them is a Mr. Lamb, a gen- 
 tleman who is happy in the possession of some choice pictures, and among them a rare 
 portTMt of Milton, which I mean to do myself the pleasure of going to see, and at the 
 same time to refresh my memory with the sight of old scenes. Mr. Lamb has the cha- 
 lacter of a right courteous and communicative collector. 
 
1820.;] 
 
 Recollections of ike South Sea House. 
 
 14»^ 
 
 or did not sigh for a return of the old 
 stirring days, when South Sea hope* 
 were young — (he was indeed equal 
 to the weilding of any the most intri- 
 cate accounts of the most flourishing 
 company in these or those days) : — but 
 to a genuine accountant the difference 
 of proceeds is as nothing. The fractional 
 farthing is as dear to his heart as the 
 thousands which stand before it. He 
 is the true actor, who, whether his 
 part be a prince or a peasant, must 
 act it with like intensity. With Tipp 
 form was every thing. His life was 
 formal. His actions seemed ruled 
 with a Tuler. His pen was not less 
 erring than his heart. He made the 
 best executor in the world : he was 
 plagued with incessant executorships 
 accordingly, which excited his spleen 
 and soothed his vanity in equal ratios. 
 He would swear (for Tipp swore) at 
 the little orphans, whose rights he 
 would guard with a tenacity like the 
 grasp of the dying hand, that com- 
 mended their interests to his protec- 
 tion. With all this there was about 
 him a sort of timidity — (Ms few ene- 
 mies used to give it a worse name) — 
 a something which, in reverence to 
 the dead, we will place, if you please, 
 a little on this side of the heroic. Na- 
 ture certainly had been pleased to 
 endow John Tipp with a sufficient 
 measure of the principle of self-pre- 
 servation. There is a cowardice which 
 we do not despise, because it has no- 
 thing base or treacherous in its ele- 
 ments ; it betrays itself, not you : it 
 is mere temperament ; the absence of 
 the romantic and the enterprising ; it 
 sees a lion in the way, and will not, 
 with Fortinbras, " greatly find quar- 
 rel hi a straw," when some supposed 
 honour is at stake. Tipp never mount- 
 ed the box of a stage-coach in his 
 life ; or leaned against the rails of a 
 balcony; or walked upon the ridge 
 of a parapet ; or looked down a pre- 
 cipice ; or let ofF a gun ; or went 
 upon a water-party ; or woukl will- 
 ingly let you go if he could have 
 helped it : neither was it recorded of 
 him, that for lucre, or for intimidation, 
 he ever forsook friend or principle. 
 
 Whom next shall we summon from 
 the dusty dead, in whom common 
 qualities become uncommon ? — Can 
 I forget thee, Henry Man, the wit, 
 the polished man of letters, the author, 
 of the South Sea House.'* who never 
 enteredst thy office in a morning, or 
 
 quitted it in mid-day — (what didst 
 thou in an office?) — without some: 
 quirk that left a sting ! Thy gibes 
 and thy jokes are now extinct, oi 
 survive but in two forgotten volumes, 
 which 1 had the gootl fortune to res- 
 cue from a stall in Barbican, not three 
 days ago, and found thee terse, fresh, 
 epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is 
 a little gone by in these fastidious 
 days — thy topics are staled by the 
 "new-born gauds" of the time:— ■ 
 but great thou used to be in Public 
 Ledgers, and inChronicles, upon Chat- 
 ham, and Shelbourn, and Rocking- 
 ham, and Howe, and Burgoyne, and 
 Clinton, and the war which ended in 
 the tearing from Great Britain her 
 rebellious colonies, — and Keppel, and' 
 Wilkes, and Sawbridge, and Bull, 
 and Dunning, and Pratt, and Rich- 
 mond, — and such small politics. 
 
 A little less facetious, and a great 
 deal more obstreperous, was fine rat- 
 tling rattleheaded Plumer. He was 
 descended, — not in a right line, reader, 
 (for his lineal pretensions, like his 
 personal, favoured a little of the si- 
 nister bend) from the Plumers of Hert- 
 fordshire. So tradition gave him out ; 
 and certain family features not a lit- 
 tle sanctioned the opinion. Certainly 
 old Walter Plumer (his reputed au- 
 thor) had been a rake in his days, 
 and visited much in Italy, and had 
 seen the world. He was uncle, ba- 
 chelor-uncle, to the fine old whig still 
 living, who has represented the coun- 
 ty in so many successive parliaments, 
 and has a fine old mansion near Ware. 
 \Falter fiourished in George the Se- 
 cond's days, and was the same who 
 was summoned before the House of 
 Commons about a business of franks, 
 with the old Duchess of Marlborough. 
 You may read of it in Johnson's Life 
 of Cave. Cave came off cleverly in 
 that business. It is certain our Plumer 
 did nothing to discountenance the 
 rumour. lie rather seemed pleased 
 Avhenever it was, with all gentleness, 
 insinuated. But, besides his family 
 pretensions, Plumer was an engaging 
 fellow, and sang gloriously. 
 
 Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou 
 sangest, mild, child-like, pastoral 
 M ; a flute's breathing less divine- 
 ly whispering than thy Arcadian me- 
 lodies, when, in tones worthy of Ar- 
 den, thou didst chant that song sung 
 by Amiens to the banished Duke, 
 which proclaims the winter wind 
 
U6 
 
 more lenient than for a man to be 
 ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly 
 M- , the unapproachable church- 
 warden of Bishopsgate. He knew 
 not what he did, when he begat thee, 
 like spring, gentle offspring of blus- 
 tering winter: — only unfortunate in 
 thy endhig, which should have been 
 
 mild, conciliatory, swan-like. 
 
 Much remains to sing. Many fan- 
 tastic shapes rise up, but they must 
 be mine in private : — already 1 have 
 fooled the reader to the top of his 
 bent ; — else could I omit that strange 
 creature Woollett, who existed in 
 trying the question, and bought liti- 
 
 fatiojis ? — and still stranger, inimi ta- 
 le, solemn Hepworth, from whose 
 gravity Newton might have deduced 
 
 The Traveller. CAu^- 
 
 the law of gravitation. How pro- 
 foundly would he nib a pen — with 
 what deliberation would he wet a 
 wafer ! 
 
 But it is time to close — night's 
 wheels are rattling fast over me — it is 
 proper to have done with this solemn 
 mockery. 
 
 Reader, what if I have been play- 
 ing with thee all this while — perad- 
 venture the very namesj which I have 
 summoned up before thee, are fan- 
 tastic — insubstantial — like Henry 
 Pimpernel, and old John Naps of 
 Greece : 
 
 Be satisfied that something an- 
 swering to them has had a being. 
 Their importance is from the past. 
 
 Elia. 
 
302 Sonnet to Barry Cornwall, S^c, CSept. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 To the Author of Poems piillishcd under the navie of Barry ConncalL 
 
 Let hate, or grosser heats, their fouhiess mask 
 
 In riddling Junius, or in L 1^'* name : 
 
 Let things eschew the light, deserving blame : 
 
 No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task, 
 
 Marcian Colonna is a dainty book; 
 
 And thy Sicilian Tale may boldly pass ; — 
 
 Thy Dream 'bove all, in which, as in a glass. 
 
 On the great world's antique glories we may look. 
 
 No longer then, as " lowly substitute. 
 
 Factor, or Proctor, for another's gains," 
 
 Suffer the admiring world to be deceived ; 
 
 Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved. 
 
 Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains. 
 
 And heavenly tunes, piped through an alien flute. 
 
 « » * * 
 
 TO R. S. KNOWLES, ESQ. 
 
 ON HIS TRAGEDY OF VIRGIXIUS. 
 
 Twelve years ago I knew you, Knowles, and then 
 
 Esteemed you a perfect specimen 
 
 Of those fine* spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends. 
 
 To teach us colder English how a friend's 
 
 Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave, and plain. 
 
 Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain ; 
 
 But nothing further had the gift to 'spy. 
 
 Sudden you re-appear. With wonder I 
 
 Hear my old friend (turn'd Shakspeare ! ) read a scene. 
 
 Only to his inferior in the clean 
 
 Passes of pathos : with such fence-like art, — 
 
 Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart. 
 
 Almost without the aid, language affords. 
 
 Your piece seems wrought. That huffing medium, words, 
 
 (Which in the modern Tainhurlaines quite sway 
 
 Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play 
 
 We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws 
 
 Our tears on credit ; and we find the cause 
 
 Some two hours after, spelling o'er again 
 
 Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain. 
 
 Proceed, old friend ; and, as the year returns. 
 
 Still snatch some new old story from the urns 
 
 Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before 
 
 Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you, more. 
 
 June, 1820. C, Lamb. 
 
To the Editor. 
 
 Mr. Editor^ — The riddling lines which I send you, were written upon a 
 young lady, who, from her diverting sportiveness in childhood, was named 
 "by her friends The Ape. When the verses were written, L. M. had out- 
 grown the title — but not the memory of it — behig in her teens, and conse- 
 quently past child-tricks. They are an endeavour to express that perplexity, 
 which one feels at any alteration, even supposed for the better, in a beloved 
 object; with a little oblique grudging at Time, who cannot bestow new 
 graces without taking away some portion of the older ones, which we can 
 Slmiss. * * * * 
 
 THE APE. 
 
 An Ape is but a trivial beast. 
 
 Men count it light and vain ; 
 But I would let them have their thoughts. 
 
 To have my Ape again. 
 
 To love a beast in any sort. 
 
 Is no great sign of grace ; 
 But I have loved a flouting Ape's 
 
 'Bove any lady's face. 
 
 I have known the power of two fair eyes. 
 
 In smile, or else in glance. 
 And how (for I a lover was) 
 
 They make the spirits dance; 
 
 But I would give two hundred smiles. 
 
 Of them that fairest be. 
 For one look of my staring Ape, 
 
 That used to stare on me. 
 
 This beast, this Ape, it had a face 
 
 If face it might be styl'd 
 
 Sometimes it was a staring Ape, 
 
 Sometimes a beauteous child — 
 
 A Negro flat — a Pagod squat. 
 
 Cast in a Chinese mold — 
 And then it was a Cherub's face, 
 
 Alade of the beaten gold ! 
 
 But 1 iMi:., that's meddling, meddling still 
 
 And always altering thhigs — 
 And, what's already at the best. 
 
 To alteration brings — 
 
 That turns the sweetest buds to flowers. 
 
 And chops and changes toys — 
 That breaks up dreams, and parts old friends, ' 
 
 And still commutes our joys — 
 
 Has changed away my Ape at last. 
 
 And in its place convey'd. 
 Thinking therewith to cheat my sight, 
 
 A fresh and blooming maid I 
 
 And fair to sight is she — and still 
 
 Each day doth sightlier grow. 
 Upon the ruins of the Ape, 
 
 My ancient play-fellow ! 
 
 The tale of Sphinx, and Theban jests, 
 
 I true in me perceive ; 
 I suffer riddles ; death from dark 
 
 Enigmas I receive : 
 
 Whilst a hid being I pursue. 
 That lurks in a new shape. 
 My darling in herself I miss — 
 And, in my Ape, The Ape. 
 1806. 
 
THE 
 
 EotttJOtt ^aga^me. 
 
 N^X. 
 
 OCTOBER, 1820. 
 
 Vol. IL 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES. 
 
 OXFORD IN THE VACATION. 
 
 Casting a preparatory glance at 
 the bottom of this article ^-as the wary 
 connoisseur in prints, with cursory 
 eve (which, while it reads, seems as 
 though it read not,) never fails to con- 
 sult the quis sculjisit in the corner, 
 before he pronounces some rare piece 
 
 to be a Vivares, or a Woollet 
 
 me thinks 1 hear you exclaim. Reader, 
 Whois EUa? 
 
 Because in my last I tried to divert 
 thee with some half-forgotten hu- 
 mours of some old clerks defunct, in 
 an old house of business, long since 
 gone to decay, doubtless you have 
 already set me down in your mind as 
 one of the self-same college a vo- 
 tary of the desk — a notched and cropt 
 scrivener — one that sucks his suste- 
 nance, as certain sick people are said 
 to do, through a quill. 
 
 Well, I do agnize something of the 
 sort. I confess that it is my humour, 
 my fancy — in the forepart of the day, 
 when the mind of your man of letters 
 requires some relaxation — (and none 
 better than such as at first sight 
 seems most abhorrent from his be- 
 loved studies) — to while away some 
 good hours of my time in the con- 
 templation of indigos, cottons, raw 
 «ilks, piece-goods, flowered or other- 
 wise. In the first place * * 
 
 and then it sends you home with such 
 increased appetite to your books * 
 * * * . * not to 
 
 say, that your outside sheets, and 
 Vol. II. 
 
 waste wrappers of foolscap, do re-- 
 ceive into them, most khidly and na- 
 turally, the impression of sonnets, 
 epigrams, essui/s — so that the very 
 parhigs of a counting-house are, in 
 some sort, the settings up of an au- 
 thor. The enfranchised quill, that 
 has plodded all the morning among 
 the cart-rucks of figures and cyphers, 
 frisks and curvets so at its ease over 
 the flowery carpet-ground of a mid- 
 night dissertation. — It feels its pro- 
 motion. * * * * 
 So that you see, upon the whole, the 
 literary dignity of EUa is very little;., 
 if at all, compromised in the conde- 
 scension. 
 
 Not that, in my anxious detail of 
 the many commodities incidental to 
 the life of a public office, I would be 
 thought blind to certain flaws, which 
 a cunning carper might be able to 
 pick in this Joseph's vest. And here 
 I must have leave, in the fulness of 
 my soul, to regret the abolition, and 
 doing-away-with altogether, of those 
 consolatory interstices, and sprink- 
 lings of freedom, through the four 
 seasons, — the red-leticr days, now be- 
 come, to all intents and purposes, 
 dead-letter days. There was Paul, 
 and Stephen, and Barnabas — 
 
 Andrew and John, men famous in old times 
 
 — we were used to keep all their days 
 holy, as long back as I was at school 
 at Christ's. I remember their effi- 
 gies, by the same token, in the old 
 2F 
 
366 
 
 Oxford in the Vacation, 
 
 COct. 
 
 Basket Prayer Book. There hung- 
 Peter in his uneasy posture holy 
 
 Bartlemy in the troublesome act of 
 flaying-, after the famous Marsyas by 
 
 Spagnoletti. 1 honoured them all, 
 
 and could almost have wept the de- 
 falcation of Iscariot — so much did we 
 love to keep holy memories sacred : 
 — only methought I a little grudged at 
 the coalition of the better Jude with 
 Simon — clubbing (as it were) their 
 sanctities together, to make up one 
 poor gaudy-day between them — as 
 an economy unworthy of the dispen- 
 sation. 
 
 These were bright visitations in a 
 scholar's and a clerk's life — " far off 
 their coming shone." — I was as good 
 as an almanac in those days. I could 
 have told you such a saint's-day falls 
 out next week, or the week after. 
 Peradventure the Epiphany, by some 
 periodical infelicity, would, once in 
 six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now 
 am I little better than one of the 
 profane. Let me not be thought to 
 arraign the wisdom of my civil supe- 
 riors, who have judged the further 
 observation of these holy tides to be 
 papistical, superstitious. Only in a 
 custom of such long standing, me- 
 thinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops 
 had, in decency, beeil first sounded 
 ■^- — but I am wading out of my 
 depths. I am not the man to decide 
 the limits of civil and ecclesiastical 
 
 authority 1 am plain Elia — no Sel- 
 
 den, nor Archbishop Usher — though 
 at present in the thick of their books, 
 here in the heart of learning, under 
 the shadow of the mighty Bodley. 
 
 I can here play the gentleman, en- 
 act the student. To such a one as 
 myself, who has been defrauded in 
 his young years of the sweet food of 
 academic institution, no where is so 
 pleasant, to while away a few idle 
 weeks at, as one or other of the 
 Universities. Their vacation too, at 
 this time of the year, falls in so pat 
 with ours. Here I can take my walks 
 unmolested, and fancy myself of what 
 degree or standing I please. I seem 
 admitted ad eundem, I fetch up past 
 opportunities. I can rise at the cha- 
 pel-bell, and dream that it rings for 
 me. In moods of humility I can be 
 a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the 
 peacock vein rises, I strut a Gentle- 
 man Commoner. In graver moments 
 I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I 
 do not think I am much unlike that 
 
 respectable character. I have seen 
 your dim-eyed vergers, and bed- 
 makers in spectacles, drop a bow or 
 curtsey, as I pass, wisely mistaking 
 me for something of the sort. I go 
 about in black, which favours the 
 notion. Only in Christ Church re- 
 verend quadrangle, I can be content 
 to pass for nothing short of a Sera- 
 phic Doctor. 
 
 The walks at these times are so 
 much one's own, — the tall trees of 
 Christ's, the groves of Magdalen! 
 The halls deserted, and with open 
 doors, invithig one to slip in unper- 
 ceived, and pay a devoir to some 
 Founder, or noble or royal Benefac- 
 tress (that should have been ours) 
 whose portrait seems to smile upon 
 their over-looked beadsman, and to 
 adopt me for their own. Then, to 
 take a peep in by the way at the but- 
 teries, and sculleries, redolent of an- 
 tique hospitality : the immense caves 
 of kitchens, kitchen fire-places, cor- 
 dial recesses ; ovens whose first pies 
 were baked four centuries ago ; and 
 spits which have cooked for Chaucer ! 
 Not the meanest minister among the 
 dishes but is hallowed to me through 
 his imagination, and the Cook goes 
 forth a jManciple. 
 
 Antiquity ! thou wondrous chann, 
 what art thou ? that, being nothing, 
 art every thing ! when thou wert, 
 thou wert not antiquity — then thou 
 wert nothing, but had'st a remoter 
 antiquity, as thou called'st it, to look 
 back to with blind veneration ; thou 
 thyself being to thyself fiat, jejune, 
 modern ! What mystery lurks in this 
 retroversion ? or what half Januses 
 are we, that cannot look forward with 
 the same idolatry with which we for 
 ever revert ! The mighty future is as 
 nothhig, being every thing ! the past 
 is every thing, being nothing ! 
 
 What were thy dark ages f Surely 
 the sun rose as brightly then as now, 
 and man got him to his work in the 
 morning. Why is it that we can 
 never hear mention of them without 
 an accompanying feeling, as though a 
 palpable obscure had dimmed the 
 face of things, and that our ancestors 
 wandered to and fro groping ! 
 
 Above all thy rarities, old Oxen- 
 ford, what do most arHde and solace 
 me, are thy repositories of mouldering 
 learning, thy shelves 
 
 What a place to be in is an old 11- 
 brai^y ! It seems as though all the souk 
 
1820.;] 
 
 Oxford in the Vacation. 
 
 36T 
 
 of all the writers, that have bequeathed 
 their labours to these Bodleians, were 
 reposing here, as in some dormitory, 
 or middle state. I do not want to 
 handle, to profane, the leaves, their 
 winding-sheets. 1 could as soon dis- 
 lodge a shade. I seem to inhale learn- 
 ing, walking amid their foliage ; and 
 the odour of their old moth-scented 
 coverings, is fragrant as the first 
 bloom of those sciential apples which 
 grew amid the happy orchard. 
 
 Still less have I curiosity to disturb 
 the elder repose of MSS. Those 
 variaslectiones, so tempting to the more 
 erudite palates, do l3ut disturb and 
 unsettle my faith.* I am no Hercu- 
 lanean raker. The credit of the three 
 witnesses might have slept imim- 
 peached for me. I leave these curio- 
 sities to Porson, and to G. D. — 
 whom, by the way, I found busy as 
 a moth over some rotten archive, 
 rummaged out of some seldom-ex- 
 plored press, in a nook at Oriel. With 
 long poring, he is grown almost into 
 a book. He stood as passive as one 
 by the side of the old shelves. 1 
 longed to new-coat him hi Russia, 
 and assign him his place. He might 
 have mustered for a tall Scapula. 
 
 D. is assiduous in his visits to these 
 seats of learning. No inconsiderable 
 portion of his moderate fortune, I ap- 
 prehend, is consumed hi journeys be- 
 tween them and Cliflfbrd's-iim 
 
 where, like a dove on the asp's nest, 
 he has long taken up his unconscious 
 abode, amid an incongruous assem- 
 bly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, ap- 
 paritors, promoters, vermin of the 
 law, among whom he sits, " in calm 
 and sinless peace." The fangs of the 
 
 law pierce him not — the winds of liti- 
 gation blow over his humble cham- 
 bers — the hard sherifFs officer moves 
 liis hat as he passes — legal nor ille- 
 gal discourtesy touches him — none 
 thinks of offering violence or injustice 
 to himt — you would as soon " strike 
 an abstract idea." 
 
 D. has been engaged, he tells 
 me, through a course of laborious 
 years, in an investigation into all cu- 
 rious matter connected with the two 
 Universities ; and has lately lit upon 
 a MS. collection of charters, relative 
 to C , by which he hopes to set- 
 tle some disputed points — particu- 
 larly that long controvery between 
 them as to priority of foundation. 
 The ardor with which he engages in 
 these liberal pursuits, I am afraid, 
 has not met with all the encourage- 
 ment it deserved, either here, or at 
 
 C . Your caputs and heads of 
 
 colleges, care less than any body else 
 about these questions. — Contented to 
 suck the milky fountains of their 
 Alma Maters, without enquiring into 
 the venerable gentlewomen's years, 
 they rather hold such curiosities to 
 be impertinent — unreverend. They 
 have their good glebe lands /// inanu, 
 and care not much to rake into the 
 title-deeds. I gather at least so 
 much from other sources, for D. is 
 not a man to complain. 
 
 D. started like an unbroke heifer, 
 when I hiterrupted him. A priori it 
 was not very probable that we should 
 have met in OrieJ. But D. would 
 have done the same, had I accosted 
 him on the sudden in his own walks 
 in Cliiford's Inn, or in the Temple. 
 In addition to a provoking short- 
 
 * There is something to me repugnant, at any time, in writtep hand. The text never 
 seems determinate. Print settles it. 1 had thought of the I^ycidas as of a full-grown 
 beauty — as springing up with all its parts absolute — till, in evil hour, I was shown the 
 original written copy of it, together with tlie other minor poems of its author, in the lii- 
 brary of Trinity, kept like some treasure to be proud of. I wish they had thrown them in 
 the Cam, or sent them, after the latter cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How it 
 st^gered me to see the fine things in their ore ! interlined, corrected ! as if their word* 
 were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure ! as if they might have been otherwise, 
 and just as good ! as if inspiration were made up of parts, and those fluctuating, succes- 
 sive, indifferent ! I will never go into the work-shop of any great artist again, nor desire 
 a sight of his picture, till it is fairly off the easel ; no, not if Raphael were to be alive 
 again, and painting another Galatea. 
 
 •j- Violence or injustice certainly none, IMr. Elia. But you will acknowledge, that the 
 charming unsuspectingness of our friend has sometimes laid him open to attacks, which^ 
 though savouring (we hope) more of waggery than malice — such is our unfeigned respect 
 for G. D. — might, we think, much better have been omitted. Such was that silly joke 
 of L , who, at the time the question of the Scotch Novels was first agitated, grave- 
 ly assured our friend — who as gravely went about repeating it in all companies — that Lord 
 Castlereagh had acknowledged himseW' to be tlie author of Waveily l-^Note — not by Elia* 
 
 2F 2 
 
36« 
 
 sightediiess (the effect of late studies 
 and watcliings at the midnicfht oil) 
 D. is the most absent of men. He 
 made a call the other morning at our 
 friend M.'s in Bedford-square ; and, 
 finding nobody at home, was ushered 
 into the hall, where, asking for pen 
 and ink, with great exactitude of 
 purpose he enters me his name in 
 the book — which ordinarily lies about 
 in such places, to record the failures 
 of the initimely or imfortunate visitor 
 — and takes his leave with many ce- 
 remonies, and professions of regret. 
 Some two or three hours after, his 
 walking destinies returned him into 
 the same neighbourhood again, and 
 again the quiet image of the iire-side 
 
 circle at M.'s ^ij-s. M. presiding 
 
 at it like a Queen Lar, witli pretty 
 A. S. at her side striking irresist- 
 ibly on his fancy, he makes another 
 call (forgetting that they were ^' cer- 
 tainly not to return from the country 
 before that day week") and disap- 
 pointed a second time, enquires for pen 
 and paper as before : again the book 
 is brought, and in the line just above 
 that in which he is about to print 
 his second name, (his re-script) — his 
 first name (scarce dry) looks out 
 upon him like another Sosia, or as if 
 a man should suddenly encounter his 
 own duplicate ! — The effect may be 
 conceived. D. made many a good 
 resolution against any such lapses in 
 future. I hope he will not keep them 
 too rigorously. 
 
 For with G. D. — to be absent from 
 the body, is sometimes (not to speak 
 it profanely) to be present with the 
 Lord. At the very time when, per- 
 sonally encounterhig thee, he passes 
 
 on with no recognition or, being 
 
 stopped, starts like a thing surprized 
 — at that moment, reader, he is on 
 Mount Tabor — or Parnassus — or co- 
 sphered with Plato — or, Avith Har- 
 rington, framing " immortal com- 
 monwealths " — devising some plan of 
 amelioration to thy country, or thy 
 
 species peradventure meditating 
 
 some individual kindness or courtesy, 
 to be done to thee t/ri/.seff, the return- 
 ing consciousness of which made him 
 to start so guiltily at thy obtruded 
 personal presence. 
 
 D. commenced life, after a course 
 of hard study in the '•' House of pure 
 Emanuel," as usher to a knavish fa- 
 natic schoolmaster at * * *, at a sa- 
 lary of eight pounds per annum, with 
 
 board and lodging. Of this poor 
 stipend, he never received above half 
 in all the laborious years he ser^^ed 
 this man. He tells a pleasant anec- 
 dote, that when poverty, staring out 
 at his ragged knees, has sometimes- 
 compelled him, against the modesty 
 of his nature, to hint at arrears. Dr. 
 * * * would take no immediate notice;^ 
 but, after supper, when the school 
 was called together to even-song, he 
 would never fail to introduce some 
 instructive homily against riches, and 
 the corruption of the heart occasioned 
 through the desire of them — ending, 
 with " Lord, keep thy servants, above 
 all things, from the heinous sin of 
 avarice. Having food and raiment, 
 let us therewithal be content. Give 
 
 me Agar's wish," and the like ;— 
 
 which, to the little auditory, sounded 
 like a doctrine full of Christian pru- 
 dence and simplicity, — but to poor 
 D. was a receipt in full for that quar- 
 ter's demaixls at least. 
 
 An.d D. has been under- working for 
 himself ever shice; — drudging at low 
 rates for unappreciating booksellers, 
 — wasting his line erudition in silent 
 corrections of the classics, and in 
 those unostentatious but solid services 
 to leannng, which commonly fall to 
 the lot of Iaborioi:s scholars, who 
 have not the art to sell themselves to 
 the best advantage. He has published 
 poems, which do not sell, because 
 their character is inobtrusive like his 
 own, — and because he has been too 
 much absorbed hi ancient literature, 
 to know what the popular mark in 
 poetry is, even if he could have hit 
 it. And, therefore, his verses are pro- 
 perly, what he terms them, crotchets j; 
 voluntaries; odes to Liberty, and 
 Spring; eifusions; little tributes, and. 
 offerings, left behind him, upon tables 
 and window-seats, at paiting from 
 friends' houses ; and from all the inns 
 of hospitality, where he has been 
 courteously (or .but tolerably) re- 
 ceived in his pilgrimage. If his muse 
 of kindness halt a little behind the 
 strong lines, in fashion in this ex- 
 citement-craving ago, his prose is the 
 best of the sort in the world, and 
 exhibits a faithful transcript of his 
 own healthy natural mind, and cheer- 
 fid innocent tone of conversation. 
 
 D. is delightful any where, but he 
 is at the best in such places as these. 
 He cares not much for Bath. He is 
 out of his element at Buxton^ at Scar- 
 
borow, or Harrowg-ate. The Cam, and 
 the Isis, are to him '^better than all the 
 waters of Damascus." On the Muses' 
 hill he is happy, and g"ood, as one of 
 the Shepherds on the Delectable 
 Mountains ; and when he goes about 
 
 with you to show you the halls and 
 colleges, you think you have with you 
 the Interpreter at the House Beautiful. 
 
 Eli A. 
 Ai/^r, r^th, 1020. 
 Frovi my rooms facing Vic Bodleian. 
 
 
 Elia requests the Editor to inform W. K. that in his article on Oxford, 
 under the initials G. D. it was his ambition to make more familiar to the 
 public, a character, which, for integrity and single-heartedness, he has long 
 been accustomed to rank among the best patterns of his species. That, if 
 he has failed in the end which he proposed, it was an error of judgment 
 meiely. That, if in pursuance of his purpose, he has drawn forth some per- 
 sonal peculiarities of his friend into notice, it was only from conviction that 
 the public, in living subjects especially, do not endure pure panegyric. 
 That the anecdotes, which hp produced, were no more than he conceived 
 necessary to awaken attention to character, and were meant solely to illus- 
 trate it. That it is an entire mistake to suppose, that he imdertook the 
 character to set off his own wit or ingenuity. That, he conceives, a candid 
 interpreter might find something intended, beyond a heartless jest. That 
 G. D., however, having thought it necessary to disclaim the anecdote re- 
 specting Dr. , it becomes him, who never for a moment can doubt the 
 
 veracity of his friend, to account for it from an imperfect remembrance of some 
 story he heard long ago, and which, happening to tally with his argument, 
 he set down too hastily to the account of G. D. That, from G. D.'s strong 
 affirmations and proofs to the contrary, he is bound to believe it belongs to 
 no part of G. D.'s biography. That the transaction, supposing it true, must 
 have taken place more than forty years ago. That, in consequence, it is not 
 likely to " meet the eye of many, who might be justly offended." 
 
 Finally, that what he has said of the Booksellers, referred to a period of 
 many years, in which he has had the happiness of G. D.'s acquaintance ; 
 and can have nothing to do with any present or prospective engagements of 
 G. D. with those gentlemen, to the nature of which he professes himself aR 
 entire stranger. 
 
 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 In Mr. Lamb's " Works," pub- 
 lished a year or two since, I find a 
 magnificent eulogy on my old school,* 
 such as it was, or now appears to 
 him to have been, between the years 
 1782 and 1789. It happens, very odd- 
 ly, that my own standing at Christ's 
 was nearly corresponding with his; 
 and, with all gratitude to him for his 
 enthusiasm for the cloisters, I think 
 he has contrived to bring together 
 whatever can be said in praise of 
 them, dropping all the other side of 
 the argument most ingeniously. 
 
 I remember L. at school ; and can 
 
 well recollect that he had some pe- 
 culiar advantages, which 1 and others 
 of his school-fellows had not. His 
 friends lived in town, and were near 
 at hand ; and he had the privilege of 
 going to see them, almost as often as 
 he wished, through some invidious 
 distinction, which was denied to us. 
 The present worthy sub-treasurer to 
 the Inner Temple can- explain how 
 that happened. He had his tea and 
 hot rolls in a morning, while we were 
 battening upon our quarter of a penny 
 loaf — our crug- — moistened with at- 
 tenuated small beer, in wooden pig- 
 
 Recollections of Christ's Hospital. 
 
4^ 
 
 Christ's Hospital five arid thirty Years ago. 
 
 CNOF. 
 
 gins, smacking of the pitched leathern 
 jack it was poured from. Our Mon- 
 day's milk porritch, blue and taste- 
 l^fits., and the peas soup of Saturday, 
 coarse and choking, were enriched 
 for him with a slice of '^ extraordi- 
 nary bread and butter," from the hot- 
 Ipaf of the Temple. The Wednes- 
 day's mess of millet, somewhat less 
 vepugnant — (we had three banyan to 
 four meat-days in the week) — was 
 endeared to his palate with a lump of 
 double-refined, and a smack of gin- 
 ger (to make it go down the more 
 glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In 
 l^eu of our half-pickled Sundays, or 
 quite fresh boiled beef on Thursdays, 
 ^strong as caro equina^) with detest- 
 able marigolds floating in the pail to 
 |iioison the broth — our scanty mutton 
 crags on Fridays — and rather more 
 SAivoury, but grudging, portions of the 
 a^me flesh, rotten-roasted or reeu", on 
 the Tuesdays (the only dish which 
 excited our appetites, and disappoint- 
 ed our stomachs, in almost equal pro- 
 portion) — he had his hot plate of 
 roast veal, or the more tempting gris- 
 kift (exotics unknown to our palates) 
 cooked in the paternal kitchen (a 
 great thing), and brought him daily 
 Uy his maid or aunt ! I remember 
 the good old relative (in whom love 
 forbade pride,) squatting down upon 
 some odd stone in a by-nook of the 
 cloisters, disclosing the viands (of 
 higher regale than those cates which 
 the ravens ministered to the Tish- 
 bite); and the contending passions of 
 L. at the unfolding. There was love 
 for the bringer ; shame for the thing 
 brought, and the manner of its bring- 
 ing ; sympathy for those who were 
 too many to share in it ; and, at top 
 of all, hunger (eldest, strongest, of 
 the passions!) predominant, breaking 
 down the stony fences of shame, and 
 aukwardness, and a troubluig over- 
 consciousness. 
 
 I was a poor friendless boy. My 
 parents, and those who should care 
 for me, were far away. Those few 
 acquaintances of theirs, which they 
 could reckon upon being kind to me 
 in the great city, after a little forced 
 notice, which they had the grace to 
 take of me on my first arrival in 
 town, soon grew tired of my holy- 
 day visits. They seemed to them to 
 recur too often, though I thought 
 them few enough; and, one after 
 another, they all failed me, and I 
 
 felt myself alone among six hundred 
 playmates. 
 
 O the cruelty of separating a poor 
 lad from his early home-stead ! The 
 yearnings which I used to have to- 
 wards it in those unfledged years! 
 How, in my dreams, would my native 
 town (far in the west) come back, with 
 its church, and trees, and faces ! How 
 I would wake weeping, and in the 
 anguish of my heart exclaim upon 
 sweet Calne in Wiltshire ! 
 
 To this late hour of my life, I trace 
 impressions left by the recollection of 
 those friendless holydays. The long 
 warm days of summer never return 
 but they bring with them a gloom 
 from the haunting memory of those 
 whole-day-lcaves, when, by some 
 strange arrangement, we were turn- 
 ed out, for the live-long day, upon 
 our own hands, whether we had 
 friends to go to, or none. I remem- 
 ber those bathing-excursions to the 
 New-River, which L. recalls with 
 such relish, better, I think, than he 
 can — for he was'a home-seeking lad, 
 and did not much care for such 
 water-pastimes : — How merrily we 
 would sally forth into the fields; and 
 strip under the first warmth of the 
 sun ; and wanton like young dace in 
 the streams ; getting us appetites for 
 noon, which those of us that were 
 pennyless (our scanty morning crust 
 long since exhausted) had not the 
 means of allaying — while the cattle, 
 and the birds, and the fishes, were 
 at feed about us, and we had nothing 
 to satisfy our cravings — the very 
 beauty of the day, and the exercise of 
 the pastime, and the sense of liberty, 
 setting a keener edge upon them ! 
 — How faint and languid, finally, 
 we would return, towards night-fall, 
 to our desired morsel, half-rejoicing, 
 half reluctant, that the hours of our 
 uneasy liberty had expired ! 
 
 It v/as worse in the days of winter, 
 to go prowling about the streets ob- 
 jectless — shivering at cold windows of 
 print-shops, to extract a little amuse- 
 ment ; or haply, as a last resort, in 
 the hope of a little novelty, to pay a 
 fifty-times repeated visit (where our 
 individual faces shoidd be as well 
 known to the warden as those of hi» 
 own charges) to the Lions in the 
 Tower — to whose leve'e, by courtesy 
 immemorial, we had a prescriptive 
 title to admission. 
 
 L.'s governor (so we called the pa- 
 
1820.3 
 
 Christ's Hospital Jive and thirty Years ago. 
 
 48^ 
 
 tron who presented us to the founda- 
 tion) lived in a manner under his pa- 
 ternal roof. Any complaint which 
 he had to make was sure of being at- 
 tended to. This was understood at 
 Christ's^, and was an effectual screen 
 to him against the severity of mas- 
 ters, or worse tyranny of the moni- 
 tors. The oppressions of these young 
 brutes are heart-sickening to call to 
 recollection. I have been called out 
 of my bed, and waked for the purpose, 
 in the coldest winter nights — and this 
 not once, but night after night — in 
 my shirt, to receive the discipline of 
 a leathern thong, with eleven other 
 sufferers, because it pleased my cal- 
 lous overseer, when there has been 
 any talking heard after we were gone 
 to bed, to make the six last beds in 
 the dormitory, where the youngest 
 children of us slept, answerable for 
 an offence they neither dared to com- 
 mit, nor had the power to hinder. — 
 The same execrable tyranny drove 
 the younger part of us from the fires, 
 when our feet were perishing with 
 snow ; and, under the cruellest pe- , 
 nalties, forbad the indulgence of a 
 drink of water, when we lay in sleep- 
 less summer nights, fevered with the 
 season, and the day's sports. 
 
 There was one H , who, I 
 
 learned, in after days, was seen ex- 
 piating some maturer offence in the 
 hulks. (Do I flatter myself in fancy- 
 ing that this might be the planter of 
 that name, who suffered at Ne- 
 vis, 1 think, or St. Kits, some 
 
 few years since? My friend Tobin was 
 the benevolent instrument of bringing 
 him to the gallows.) This petty Ne- 
 ro actually branded a boy, who had 
 oflfended him, with a red hot iron ; 
 and nearly starved forty of us, with 
 exacting contributions, to the one 
 half of our bread, to pamper a young 
 ass, which, incredible as it may- seem, 
 witii the connivance of the nurse's 
 daughter (a young flame of his) he 
 had contrived to smuggle in, and 
 keep upon the leads of the ward, as 
 they called our dormitories. This 
 game went on for better than a week, 
 till the foolish beast, not able to fare 
 well but he must cry roast meat — 
 happier than Caligula's mhiion, could 
 he have kept his own counsel — but 
 fbolisher, alas ! than any of his species 
 in the fables — waxing fat, and kick- 
 ing, in the fulness of bread, one un- 
 lucky minute would needs proclaim 
 
 his good fortune to the world below ; 
 and, laying out his simple throat, 
 blew such a ram's horn blast, as 
 (toppling down the walls of his own 
 Jericho) set concealment any longer 
 at defiance. The client was dis- 
 missed, with certain attentions, to 
 Smithfield ; but I never understood 
 that the patron underwent any cen- 
 sure on the occasion. This was in the 
 stewardship of L.'s admired Perry. 
 
 Under the same facile administra- 
 tion, can L. have forgotten the cool 
 impunity with which the nurses used 
 to carry away openly, in open plat- 
 ters, for their own tables, one out of 
 two of every hot joint, which the 
 careful matron had been seeing scru- 
 pulously weighed out for our dinners? 
 These things were daily practised in 
 that magnificent apartment, which L. 
 (grown connoisseur since, we pre- 
 sume) praises so highly for the grand 
 paintings " by Verrio, and others," 
 with which it is " hung round and 
 adorned." But the sight of sleek well- 
 fed blue-coat boys in pictures, was, 
 at that time, I believe, little conso- 
 latory to him, or us, the living ones, 
 who saw the better part of our pro- 
 visions carried away before our faces 
 by harpies ; and ourselves reduced 
 (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido) 
 
 TO FEED OUR MIND WITH IDLE POR- 
 TRAITURE. 
 
 L. has recorded the repugnance of 
 the school to gags, or the fat of fresh 
 beef boiled ; and sets it down to some 
 superstition. But these unctuous mor- 
 sels are never grateful to young pa- 
 lates (children are universally fat- 
 haters) and in strong, coarse, boiled 
 meats, unsahed, are detestable. A gag- 
 eater in our time was equivalent to a 
 goal, and held in equal detestation, 
 * * * * suffered under the imputation. 
 
 ■'twas said, 
 
 He ate strange flesh. 
 
 He was observed, after dinner, care- 
 fully to gather up the remnants left 
 at hjs table (not many, nor very choice 
 fragments, you may credit me) — and, 
 in an especial manner, these disreput'" 
 able morsels, which he would convey 
 away, and secretly stow in the settle 
 that stood at his bed side. None saw 
 when he ate them. It was rumoured 
 that he privately devoured them in the 
 night. He was watched, but no traces 
 of such midnight practices were dis- 
 
486 Christ* s Hospital Jive and thirty Years ago, CN'or. 
 
 coverable. Some reported, that, on 
 leave-days, he had been seen to carry 
 out of the bounds a large bhie check 
 handkerchief, full of something. This 
 then must be the accursed thing. 
 Conjecture next was at work to ima- 
 gine how he could dispose of it. 
 Some said he sold it to the beggars. 
 This belief generally prevailed. He 
 went about moping. None spake to 
 him. No one would play with him. He 
 was excommunicated; put out of the 
 pale of the school. He was too power- 
 mi a boy to be beaten, but he under- 
 went every mode of that negative 
 punishment, which is more grievous 
 than many stripes. Still he persever- 
 ed. At length he was observed by 
 two of his school-fellows, who were 
 determined to get at the secret, and 
 had traced him one leave-day for 
 that purpose, to enter a large worn- 
 out building (such as there exist spe- 
 cimens of in Chancery-lane, which 
 are let out to various scales of pauper- 
 ism) with open door, and a common 
 stair-case. After him they silently 
 slunk in, and followed by stealth up 
 four flights, and saw him tap at a poor 
 wicket, which was opened by an aged 
 woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was 
 now ripened into certainty. The infor- 
 mers had secured their victim. They 
 had him in their toils. Accusation 
 was formally preferred, and retribu- 
 tion most signal was looked for. Mr. 
 Halhaway, the then steward (for this 
 happened a little after my time,) with 
 that patient sagacity which tempered 
 all his conduct, determined to inves- 
 tigate the matter, before he proceed- 
 ed to sentence. The result was, that 
 the supposed mendicants, the receiv- 
 ers, or purchasers of the mysterious 
 scraps, turned out to be the parents of 
 — , an honest couple come to decay, 
 —whom this seasonable supply had, 
 in all probability, saved from mendi- 
 cancy ; and that this young stork, at 
 the expence of his own good name, 
 had all this while been only feeding 
 the old birds ! — The governors on this 
 occasion, much to their honour, voted 
 
 a present relief to the family of , 
 
 and presented him with a silver me- 
 dal. The lesson which the steward read 
 
 upon RASH JUDGMENT, on the occa- 
 sion of publicly delivering the medat 
 
 to , I believe, would not be lost 
 
 upon his auditory. — I had left school 
 
 then, but I well remember . He 
 
 was a tall, shambling youth, with a 
 cast in his eye, not at all calculated 
 to conciliate hostile prejudices. I 
 have since seen him carrying a baker's 
 basket. I think I heard he did not do 
 quite so well by himself, as he had 
 done by the old folks. 
 
 I was a hypochondriac lad ; and 
 the sight of a boy in fetters, upon the 
 day of my first putting on the blue 
 clothes, was not exactly fitted to as- 
 suage the natural terrors of initiation. 
 I was of tender years, barely turned 
 of seven ; and had only read of such 
 things in books, or seen them but in 
 dreams. I was told he had run away. 
 This was the punishm.ent for the first 
 offence. — As a novice I was soon after 
 taken to see the dungeons. These 
 were little, square, Bedlam cells, where 
 a boy could just lie at his length up- 
 on straw and a blanket — a mattress, I 
 think, was afterwards substituted — 
 with a peep of light, let in ascance, 
 from a prison-orifice at top, barely 
 enough to read by. Here the poor 
 boy was locked in by himself all day, 
 without sight of any but the porter 
 who brought him his bread and wa- 
 ter — who might not speak to him ; — or 
 of the beadle, who came twice a week 
 to call him out to receive his periodi- 
 cal chastisement, which was almost 
 welcome, because it separated him 
 for a brief interval from solitdue: — 
 and here he was shut up by himself 
 of nights, out of the reach of any 
 sound, to suffer whatever horrors the 
 weakn erves,and superstition incident 
 to his time of life, might subject him 
 to.* This was the penalty for the 
 second offence. — Wouldst thou like, 
 reader, to see what became of him in 
 the next degree } 
 
 The culprit, who had been a third 
 time an offender, and whose expul- 
 sion was at this time deemed irrever- 
 sible, was brought forth, as at some 
 solemn auto dafe, arrayed in uncouth 
 and most appalling attire — all trace 
 of his late *^ watchet weeds" careful- 
 
 • One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accordingly, at length con* 
 ▼inced the Governors of the impolicy of this part of the sentence, and the midnight tor- 
 ture to the spirits was dispensed with — This fancy of dungeons for children, was a sprout 
 of Howard's brain ; for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul) methinks, I could 
 •willingly " spit upon his stony gaberdine." 
 
1820.3 
 
 Chris fs Hospital Jive and thirty Years ago* 
 
 487 
 
 ly effaced, he was exposed in a jack- 
 et, resembling those which London 
 lamplighters formerly delighted in, 
 with a cap of the same. The effect 
 of this divestiture was such as the in- 
 genious devisers of it could have an- 
 ticipated. With his pale and fright- 
 ed features, it was as if some of those 
 disfigurements in Dante had seized 
 upon him. In this disguisement he 
 was brought into the haU (^L.'s favour- 
 ite state-rooni), where awaited nim the 
 whole number of his school-fellows, 
 whose joint lessons and sports he was 
 thenceforth to share no more ; the aw- 
 ful presence of the steward, to be seen 
 for the last time ; of the executioner 
 beadle, clad hi his state robe for the 
 occasion ; and of two faces more, of 
 direr import, because never but in 
 these extremities visible. These were 
 governors ; two of whom, by choice, 
 or charter, were always accustomed 
 to officiate at these Ultima Supplicia ; 
 not to mitigate (so at least we under- 
 stood it), but to enforce the uttermost 
 stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and 
 Peter Aubert, I remember, were col- 
 leagues on one occasion, when the 
 beadle turning rather pale, a glass of 
 brandy was ordered to prepare him 
 for the mysteries. The scourging was, 
 after the old Roman fashion, long and 
 stately. The lictor accompanied the 
 criminal quite round the hall. We 
 were generally too faint with attend- 
 ing to the previous disguising circum- 
 stances, to make accurate report with 
 our eyes of the degree of corporal suf- 
 fering inflicted. Report, of course, 
 gave out the back knotty and livid. 
 After scourging, he was made over, 
 in his San Benito, to his friends, if he 
 had any (but commonly such poor 
 runagates were friendless), or to his 
 parish officer, who, to enhance the ef- 
 fect of the scene, had his station al- 
 lotted to him on the outside of the 
 hall gate. 
 
 These solemn pageantries were not 
 played off so often as to spoil the ge- 
 neral mirth of the community. We 
 had plenty of exercise and recreation 
 after school hours ; and, for myself, I 
 must confess, that I was never hap- 
 pier, than in them. The Upper and 
 the Lower Grammar Schools were 
 held in the same room ; and an imagi- 
 nary line only divided their boimds. 
 Their character was as different as that 
 of the inhabitants on the two sides 
 ' of th« Pyrennees. The Rev. James 
 
 Boyer was the Upper Master; but 
 the Rev. Matthew Field presided over 
 that portion of the apartment, of 
 which 1 had the good fortune to be a 
 member. We lived a life as careless 
 as birds. We talked and did just 
 what we pleased, and nobody molest- 
 ed us. We carried an accidence, or 
 a grammar, for form; but, for any 
 trouble it gave us, we might take two 
 years in getting through the verbs 
 deponent, and another two in forget- 
 ting all that we had learned about 
 them. There was now and then the 
 formality of saying a lesson, but If 
 you had not learned it, a brush across 
 the shoulders, (just enough to disturb 
 a fly), was the sole remonstrance. 
 Field never used the rod ; and in truth 
 he wielded the cane with no great 
 good will — holding it " like a dancer." 
 It looked in his hands rather like an 
 emblem, than an instrument of autho- 
 rity; and an emblem, too, he was 
 ashamed of. He was a good easy 
 man, that did not care to ruffle his 
 own peace, nor perhaps set any great 
 consideration upon the value of juve- 
 nile time. He came among us now 
 and then, but often staid away whole 
 days from us, and when he came, it 
 made no difference to us — he had his 
 private room to retire to, the short 
 time he staid, to be out of the sound 
 of our noise. Our mirth and uproar 
 went on. We had classics of our 
 own, without being beholden to " in- 
 solent Greece or haughty Rome," that 
 passed current among us — Peter Wil- 
 kins — the adventures of the Hon. Capt. 
 Robert Boyle — the Fortunate Blue 
 Coat Boy — and the like. Or we cul- 
 tivated a turn for mechanic or scien- 
 tific operations; making little sun- 
 dials of paper ; or weaving those in- 
 genious parentheses, called cat-era' 
 dies; or making dry peas to dance 
 upon the end of a tin pipe ; or study- 
 ing the art military over that laudable 
 game " French and English," — and 
 a hundred other such devices to pass 
 away the time — mixing the useful 
 with the agreeable — as would have 
 made the souls of Rousseau and John 
 Locke chuckle to have seen us. 
 
 Matthew Field belonged to that 
 class of modest divines who affect to 
 mix in equal proportion the gentleman, 
 the scholar, and the Christian; but, I 
 know not how, the first ingredient is 
 generally found to be the predomi- 
 nating dose in the composition. He 
 
488 
 
 Christ* s Hospital Jive and thirty Years ago. 
 
 CKOT. 
 
 was engaged in gay parties, or with 
 his courtly bow at some Episcopal le- 
 vee, when he should have been at- 
 tending upon us. He had for many 
 years the classical charge of a hun- 
 dred children, during the four or five 
 first years of their education ; and his 
 very highest form seldom proceeded 
 further than two or three of the in- 
 troductory fables of Phaedrus. How 
 things were suffered to go on thus, I 
 cannot guess. Boyer, who was the 
 proper person to have remedied these 
 abuses, always affected, perhaps felt, 
 a delicacy in interfering in a province 
 not strictly his own. I have not been 
 without my suspicions, that he was 
 not altogether displeased at the con- 
 trast we presented to his end of the 
 school. We were a sort of Helots to 
 his young Spartans. He would some- 
 times, with ironic deference, send to 
 borrow a rod of the Under Master, 
 and then, with Sardonic grin, observe 
 to one of his upper boys, " how neat 
 and fresh the twigs looked." While 
 his pale students were battering their 
 brains over Xenophon and Plato, with 
 a silence as deep as that enjoined by 
 the Samite, we were enjoying our- 
 selves at our ease in our little Goshen. 
 We saw a little into the secrets of his 
 discipline, and the prospect did but 
 the more reconcile us to our lot. His 
 thunders rolled innocuous for us ; his 
 storms came near, but never touched 
 us; contrary to Gideon's miracle, 
 while all around were drenched, our 
 "fleece was dry.* His boys turned out 
 the better scholars; we, I suspect, 
 have the advantage in temper. His 
 pupils cannot speak of him without 
 something of terror, allaying their gra- 
 titude ; the remembrance of Field 
 comes back with all the soothing ima- 
 ges of indolence, and summer slum- 
 bers, and work like play, and inno- 
 cent idleness, and Elysian exemptions, 
 and life itself a '^ playing holyday." 
 
 Though sufficiently removed from 
 the jurisdiction of Boyer, we were 
 near enough (as 1 have said) to un- 
 derstand a little of his system. We 
 occasionally heard sounds of the 
 
 Ululantes, and caught glances of Tar- 
 tarus. B. was a rabid pedant. His 
 English style was crampt to barba- 
 rism. HisEaster Anthems (for his duty 
 obliged him to those periodical flights) 
 were grating as scrannel pipes.f-— 
 He would laugh, aye, and heartily, 
 but then it must be at Flaccus's quib- 
 ble about i?ex or at the tristis seve- 
 
 rntas in vultu, or inspicere in patinas, 
 of Terence — thin jests, which at their 
 first broaching could hardly have had 
 vis enough to move a Roman muscle. 
 — He had two wigs, both pedantic, 
 but of differing omen. The one se- 
 rene, smiling, fresh powdered, be- 
 tokening a mild day. The other, an 
 old discoloured, unkempt, angry 
 caxon, denoting frequent and bloody 
 execution. VV^oe to the school, when 
 he made his morning appearance in 
 his passy, or passionate wig. No 
 comet expounded surer. — I. B. had a 
 heavy hand. I have known him dou- 
 ble his knotty fist at a poor trembling 
 child (the maternal milk hardly dry 
 upon its lips) with a '^ Sirrah, do you 
 presume to set your wits at me?" 
 — Nothing was more common than 
 to see him make a head-long entry 
 into the school-room, from his inner 
 recess, or library, and, with turbulent 
 eye, singling out a lad, roar out, 
 ^^ Od's my life. Sirrah," (his favourite 
 adjuration) ^' I have a great mind to 
 whip you, ' — then, with as sudden a 
 retracting impulse, fling back into his 
 lair — and, after a cooling lapse of 
 some minutes (during which all but 
 the culprit had totally forgotten the 
 context) drive headlong out again, 
 piecing out his imperfect sense, as if 
 it had been some Devil's Litany, with 
 the expletory yell — " and /will too." 
 — In his gentler moods, when the 
 rabidus furor was assuaged, he had 
 resort to an ingenious method, pecu- 
 liar, for what I have heard, to him- 
 self, of whipping the boy, and read- 
 ing the Debates, at the same time ; a 
 paragraph, and a lash between; which 
 in those times, when parliamentary 
 oratory was most at a height and 
 flourishing in these realms, was not 
 
 • Cowley. 
 
 •f* In this and every thing B. was the Antipodes of his co-adjutor. While the former 
 was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a pig-nut, F. would be recreating his 
 gentlemanly fancy in the more flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of 
 his, under the name of \^ertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten ])y the Chroniclers of 
 that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but the town did not give it their 
 sanction. — B. used to say of it, in a v/ay of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was toa 
 classical for representation. 
 
1820.;] 
 
 Christ* s Hospital Jive and thirty Years ago. 
 
 calculated to impress the patient with 
 a veneration for the difFuser graces of 
 rhetoric. 
 
 Once, and but once, the uplifted 
 rod was known to fall ineffectual from 
 his hand — when droll squinting W — 
 having been caught putting the in- 
 side of the master's desk to a use for 
 which the architect had clearly not 
 designed it, to justify himself, with 
 great simplicity averred, that he did 
 not know that the thing had been for- 
 warned. This exquisite irrecogni- 
 tion of any law antecedent to the oral, 
 or declaratory, struck so irresistibly 
 upon the fancy of all who heard it 
 (the pedagogue himself not excepted) 
 that remission was unavoidable. 
 
 L. has given credit to B.'s great 
 merits as an instructor. Coleridge, in 
 his literary life, has pronounced a more 
 intelligible and ample encomium on 
 them. The author of the Country 
 Spectator doubts not to compare him 
 with the ablest teachers of antiquity. 
 Perhaps we cannot dismiss him better 
 than with the pious ejaculation of 
 C. — when he heard that his old mas- 
 ter was on his death bed'^" Poor I. 
 B. ! — may all his faults be forgiven ; 
 and may he be wafted to bliss by 
 little cherub boys, all head and wings, 
 with no bottoms to reproach his sub- 
 lunary infirmities." 
 
 Under him were many good and 
 sound scholars bred. — First Grecian 
 of my time was Lancelot Pepys Ste- 
 vens, kindest of boys and men, since 
 Co-grammar-master (and insepara- 
 ble companion) with Dr. T — — e. 
 What an edifying spectacle did this 
 brace of friends present to those who 
 remembered the anti-socialities of 
 their predecessors ! — You never met 
 the one by chance in the street with- 
 out a wonder, which was quickly dis- 
 sipated by the almost immediate sub- 
 appearance of the other. Generally 
 arm in arm, these kindly coadjutors 
 lightened for each other the toilsome 
 duties of their profession, and when^ 
 in advanced age, one found it conve- 
 nient to retire, the other was not long 
 in discovering that it suited him to lay 
 down the fasces also. O it is pleasant, 
 as it is rare, to find the same arm 
 linked in yours at forty, which at 
 thirteen helped it to turn over the 
 Cicero He Amicitia, or some tale of 
 Antique Friendship, which the young 
 heart even then was burning to anti- 
 cipate ! — Co-Grecian with S. was 
 
 Th , who has since executed with 
 
 ability various diplomatic functions 
 at the Northern courts. Th 
 was a tall dark saturnine youth, 
 sparing of speech, with raven locks. 
 — Thomas Fanshaw Middleton fol- 
 lowed him (now Bishop of Calcutta) a 
 scholar and a gentleman, in his teens. 
 He has the reputation of an excellent 
 critic ; and is author (besides the 
 Country Spectator,) of a Treatise on 
 the Greek Article, against Sharpe.— » 
 M. is said to bear his mitre high in 
 India, where the regni novitas (I dare 
 say) sufficiently justifies the bearing. 
 A humility quite as primitive as that 
 of Jewel or Hooker, might not be 
 exactly fitted to impress the minds of 
 those Anglo- Asiatic diocesans with a 
 reverend for home institutions, and 
 the church which those fathers wa- 
 tered. The manners of M. at school, 
 though firm, were mild, and unas* 
 suming. — Next to M. (if not senior 
 to him,) was Richards, author of the 
 Aboriginal Britons, the most spirited 
 of the Oxford Prize Poems ; a pale, 
 studious Grecian. — Then followed 
 
 poor S ~, iU-fated M ! of 
 
 these the Muse is silent. 
 
 Finding some of Edward's race 
 Unhappy .^ pass their annals by. 
 
 Come back into memory, like as 
 thou wert in the day-spring of thy 
 fancies, with hope like a fiery column 
 before thee — the dark pillar not yet 
 turned. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge- 
 Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — 
 How have I seen the casual passer, 
 through the Cloisters, stand still, in- 
 tranced with admiration, (while hej, 
 weighed the disproportion between the 
 speech and the garb of the young Mi- 
 randula,) to hear thee unfold, in thy 
 deep and sweet intonations, the mys- 
 teries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for 
 even in those years thou waxedst not 
 pale at such philosophic draughts) 
 or reciting Homer in his Greek, or 
 
 Pindar while the walls of the 
 
 old Grey Friars re-echoed to the ac- 
 cents of the inspired charity-boy ! — 
 ^' Many were the wit-combats," (to 
 dally awhile with the words of old 
 Fuller,) between him and C. V. Le 
 
 G , " which two I behold like a 
 
 Spanish great gallion, and an English 
 man of war ; Master Coleridge, like 
 the former, was built far higher in 
 learning, solid, but slow in his per- 
 formances. C. V. L., with the Eng- 
 
490 
 
 Old Stories— The Page faithful to Death. 
 
 CNov. 
 
 iish man of war, lesser in bulk, but 
 lighter in sailing, could turn with all 
 tides, tack about, and take advan- 
 tage of all winds, by the quickness of 
 his wit and invention." 
 
 Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be 
 quickly forgotten, Allen, with the 
 <:ordial smile, and still more cordial 
 laugh, with which thou wert wont 
 to make the old Cloisters shake, in thy 
 cognition of some poignant jest of 
 theirs ; or the anticipation of some 
 more material, and, peradventure, 
 practical one, of thine^ own. Extinct 
 are those smiles, with that beautiful 
 countenance, with which (for thou 
 wert the Nireus formosus of the 
 school,) in the days of thy maturer 
 waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath 
 of hifuriated town-damsel, who, in- 
 censed by provoking pinch, turn- 
 ing tigress-like round, suddenly con- 
 verted by thy angel-look, exchanged 
 the half- formed terrible " bl ," for 
 
 a gentler greeting — '' Mess thy hand" 
 some face ! " 
 
 Next follow two, who ought to be 
 now alive, and the friends of Elia— 
 
 the junior Le G and F ; who 
 
 impelled, the former by a roving 
 temper, the latter by too quick a 
 sense of neglect — ill capable of en- 
 during the slights poor Sizars are 
 sometimes subject to in our seats of 
 learning — exchanged their Alma Ma- 
 ter for the camp ; perishing, one by 
 climate, and one on the plains of 
 
 Salamanca : — Le G , sanguine, 
 
 volatile, svveet-natured; F dogg- 
 ed, faithful, anticipative of insult, 
 warm-hearted, with something of the 
 old Roman height about him. 
 
 Fine frank-hearted, Fr ,the pre- 
 sent master of Hertford, with Marma- 
 
 dukeT ^, mildest of Missionaries— • 
 
 and both my good friends still — close 
 the catalogue of Grecians in my time. 
 
 Elia. 
 
1820.] 
 
 The Two Races of Men. 
 
 623 
 
 THE TWO RACES OF MEN. 
 
 The human species^ according to 
 the best theory I can form of it^, is 
 composed of two distinct races, the 
 men who borrow, and the men who 
 lend. To these two original diversi- 
 ties may be reduced all those imper- 
 tinent classifications of Gothic and 
 Celtic tribes, white men, black men, 
 red men. All the dwellers upon earth, 
 ^' Parthian s and Medes and Elam- 
 ites," flock hither, and do naturally 
 fall in with one or other of these pri- 
 mary distinctions. The infinite su- 
 periority of the former, which I choose 
 to designate as the great race, is dis- 
 cernible in their figure, port, and a 
 certain instinctive sovereignty. The 
 latter are born degraded. " He shall 
 serve his brethren." There is some- 
 thing 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 great- 
 est borrowers of all ages — Alcibiades 
 — FalstafF — Sir Richard Steele — our 
 late incomparable Brinsley — what a 
 family likeness in all four .' 
 
 What a careless even deportment 
 hath your borrower ! what rosy gills ! 
 what a beautiful reliance on Provi- 
 dence doth he manifest, — taking no 
 more thought than lilies ! What con- 
 tempt for money, — accounting it 
 (yours and mine especially) no bet- 
 ter than dross ! What a liberal con- 
 founding of those pedantic distinc- 
 tions of vieum and tuum ! or rather, 
 what a noble simplification of lan- 
 guage (beyond Tooke), resolving 
 these supposed opposites into one 
 clear intelligible pronoun adjective ! — 
 What near approaches doth he make 
 to the primitive community, — to the 
 extent of one half of the principle at 
 least ! — 
 
 He is the true taxer who " calleth 
 all the world up to be taxed ;" and 
 the distance is as vast between him 
 and one of us, as subsisted betwixt 
 the Augustan Majesty, and the poor- 
 est obolary Jew that paid it tribute- 
 pittance at Jerusalem ! — His exac- 
 tions too have such a cheerful, volun- 
 tary air ! So far removed from your 
 sour parochial or st^te-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 ; con- 
 fining himself to no set season. Eve- 
 ry day is his Candlemas, or his Feast 
 of Holy Michael. He applieth the 
 lene tormentum of a pleasant look to 
 your purse,— rwhich to that gentle 
 warmth expands her silken leaves, as 
 naturally as the cloak of the traveller, 
 for which sun and wind contended ! 
 He is the true Propontic which n^ver 
 ebbeth ! The sea which taketh hand- 
 somely at each man's hand. In vain 
 the victim, whom he delighteth to 
 honour, struggles with destiny ; he is 
 in the net. Lend therefore cheerful- 
 ly, O man ordained to lend — that thou 
 lose not in the end, with thy worldly 
 penny, the reversion promised. Com- 
 bine not preposterously in thine own 
 person the penalties of Lazarus and 
 of Dives ! — but, when thou seest the 
 proper authority coming, meet it smi- 
 lingly, as it were half-way. Come, a 
 handsome sacrifice ! See how light he 
 makes of it! Strain not courtesies 
 with a noble enemy. 
 
 Reflections like the foregoing were 
 forced upon my mind by the death of 
 my old friend Ralph Bigod, Esq., 
 who departed this life on Wednesday 
 evening; dying, as he had lived, 
 without much trouble. He boasted 
 himself a descendant from mighty an- 
 cestors 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 invest- 
 ed with ample revenues ; which, with 
 that noble disinterestedness which I 
 have noticed aS inherent in men of 
 the great race, he took almost imme- 
 diate 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, 
 
62^ 
 
 The Two Races of Men, 
 
 CDec. 
 
 he set forth, like some Alexander, 
 upon his great enterprise, " borrow- 
 ing, and to borrow !" 
 
 In his periegesis, or triumphant 
 progress throughout this island, it has 
 been calculated that he laid a tythe 
 part of the inhabitants under contri- 
 bution. I reject this estimate as 
 greatly exaggerated : — but having 
 had the honour of accompanying my 
 friend, divers times, in his perambu- 
 lations 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 ac- 
 quaintance with us. He was one day 
 so obliging as to explain the pheno- 
 menon. It seems, these were his tri- 
 butaries ; feeders of his exchequer ; 
 gentlemen, his good friends (as he 
 was pleased to express himself), to 
 whom he had occasionally been be- 
 holden for a loan. Their multitudes 
 did no way disconcert him. He ra- 
 ther 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 won- 
 der how he contrived to keep his trea- 
 sury always empty. He did it by force 
 of an aphorism, which he had often in 
 his mouth, that ^' money kept longer 
 than three days stinks." So he made 
 use of it while it was fresh. A good 
 part he drank away (for he was an 
 excellent toss-pot), some he gave 
 away, the rest he threw away, li- 
 terally tossing and hurling it vio- 
 lently from him, — as boys do burrs, 
 or as if it had been infectious, — into 
 ponds, or ditches, or deep holes, — in- 
 scrutable cavities of the earth; — or 
 he would bury it, (where he would 
 never seek it again) by a river's side 
 under some bank, which (he would 
 facetiously observe) paid no interest 
 — but out away from him it must go 
 peremptorily, as Hagar's offspring in- 
 to the wilderness, while it was sweet. 
 He never missed it. The streams were 
 perennial which fed his fisc. When 
 new supplies became necessary, the 
 first person that had the felicity to 
 fall in with him, friend or stranger, 
 was sure to contribute to the defi- 
 ciency. For Bigod had an undeniable 
 way with him. He had a cheerful, 
 open exterior, a quick jovial eye, a 
 bald forehead, just touched with grey 
 {cana fides). He anticipated no ex- 
 cuse, and found none. And, waiving 
 
 for a while my theory as to the great 
 race, I would put it to the most un- 
 theorising reader, who may at times 
 have disposeable coin in his pocket, 
 whether it is not more repugnant 
 to the kindliness of his nature, to 
 refuse such a one as I am describing, 
 than to say no to a poor petitionary 
 rogue (your bastard borrower), who 
 by his mumping visnomy tells you, 
 that he expects nothing better ; and, 
 therefore, whose preconceived notions 
 and expectations you do in reality so 
 much less shock in the refusal. 
 
 When I think of this man ; his fiery 
 glow of heart ; his swell of feeling ; 
 how magnificent, how ideal he was ; 
 how great at the midnight hour; and 
 when I compare \<?ith him the compa- 
 nions, with whom I have associated 
 since ; I grudge the saving of a few 
 idle ducats, and think that I am fallen 
 into the society of lenders^ and little 
 men. 
 
 To one like Elia, whose treasures 
 are rather cased in leather covers, 
 than closed in iron coffers, there is a 
 class of alienators more formidable 
 than that which I have touched upon; 
 I mean, your borrowers of books — 
 those mutilators of collections, spoil- 
 ers of the symmetry of shelves, and 
 creators of odd volumes. There is 
 Comberbatch, matchless in his de- 
 predations ! 
 
 That foul gap in the bottom shelf 
 facing you, like a great eye-tooth 
 knocked out — (you are now with me 
 in my little back study in Blooms- 
 bury, reader!) v/ith the huge 
 
 Switzer-like tomes on each side (like 
 the Guildhall giants, in their reform- 
 ed posture, guarding of nothing (once 
 held the tallest of my folios) Opera 
 Bonaventura, choice and massy divi- 
 nity), to which its two supporters 
 (school divinity also, but of a lesser 
 calibre, — ^Bellarmine, and Holy Tho- 
 mas), showed but as dwarfs, — itself 
 an Ascapart! — that Comberbatch ab- 
 stracted upon the faith of a theory he 
 holds, which is more easy, I confess, 
 for me to suffer by than to refute, 
 namely, that " the title to property 
 in a book, (my Bonaventure, for in- 
 stance), is in exact ratio to a per- 
 son's powers of understanding and 
 appreciating the same." Should he 
 go on acting upon this theory, which 
 of our shelves is safe } 
 
 That slight vacuum in the left hand 
 
1820.;] 
 
 The Two Races of Men. 
 
 625 
 
 case — two shelves from the ceiling — 
 scarcely distinguishable but by the 
 
 quick eye of a loser was whilom 
 
 the commodious resting place of 
 Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hard- 
 ly allege that he knows more about 
 that treatise than I do, who intro- 
 duced it to him, and was indeed the 
 first (of the moderns) to discover its 
 beauties — but so have I known a 
 foolish lover to praise his mistress in 
 the presence of a rival more qualified 
 to carry her off" than himself. — Just 
 below, Dodsley^s dramas want their 
 fourth volume, where Vittoria Co- 
 rombona is ! The remainder nine are 
 as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, 
 when the Fates borrowed Hector. 
 Here stood the Anatomy of Melan- 
 choly, in sober state. — There loitered 
 the Complete Angler ; quietly as in 
 life, by some stream side. — In yonder 
 nook, John Buncle, a widower-vo- 
 lume, with " eyes closed," mourns 
 his ravished mate. 
 
 One justice I must do my friend, 
 that if he sometimes, like the sea, 
 sweeps away a treasure ; at another 
 time, sea-like, he throws up as rich 
 an equivalent to match it. I have a 
 small under-collection of this nature 
 (my friend's gatherings in his various 
 calls), picked up, he has forgotten at 
 what odd places; and deposited, with 
 as little memory at mine. I take in 
 these orphans, the twice-deserted. 
 These proselytes of the gate are wel- 
 come as the true Hebrews. There 
 they stand in conjunction; natives, 
 and naturalized. The latter seem as 
 little disposed to hiquire out their 
 true lineage, as I am. — I charge no 
 warehouse-room for these deodands, 
 nor shall ever put myself to the un- 
 gentlemanly trouble of advertising a 
 sale of them to pay expenses. 
 
 To lose a volume to C. carries some 
 sense and meaning in it. You are 
 sure that he will make one hearty 
 meal on your viands, if he can give 
 no account of the platter after it. But 
 what moved thee, wayward, spiteful 
 * * to be so importunate to carry off' 
 with thee, in spite of tears and adju- 
 rations to thee to forbear, the letters 
 
 of that princely woman, the thrice 
 noble Margaret Newcastle ? — know- 
 ing at the time, and knowing that I 
 knew also, thou most assuredly 
 would'st never turn over one leaf of 
 the illustrious folio: — what but the 
 mere spirit of contradiction, and child- 
 ish love of getting the better of thy 
 friend ? — Then, worst cut of all ! to 
 transport it with thee to the Galilean 
 land — 
 
 Unwordiy land to harbour such a sweetness, 
 A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts 
 
 dwelt, 
 Pure thoughts, kind thoughts,high tho ughts, 
 
 her sex's wonder ! 
 
 hadst thou not thy play-books, 
 
 and books of jests and fancies, about 
 thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou 
 keepest all companies with thy quips, 
 and mirthful tales? — Child of the 
 Green Room, it was unkindly done of 
 thee. Thy wife too, that part- French, 
 better-part-Englishwoman .'--that sfte 
 could fix upon no other treatise to 
 bear away, in kindly token of remem- 
 bering us, than the works of Fulke 
 Greville, Lord Brook — of which no 
 Frenchman, nor woman of France, 
 Italy, or England, was ever by na- 
 ture constituted to comprehend a tit- 
 tle ! — Was there not Zimmerman on 
 Solitude ? 
 
 Reader, if haply thou art blessed 
 with a moderate collection, be shy of 
 showing it ; or if thy heart overflow- 
 eth to lend them, lend thy books ; 
 but let it be to such a one as S. T. C. 
 — he will return them (generally an- 
 ticipating the time appointed) with 
 usury; enriched with annotations, 
 tripling their value. I have had ex- 
 perience. Many are these precious 
 MSS. of his — (in matter oftentimes, 
 and almost in quantity, not unfre- 
 quently, vying with the originals)~in 
 no very clerkly hand — legible in my 
 Daniel; in old Burton ; in Sir Thomas 
 Browne ; and those abstruser cogita-* 
 tions of the Greville, now, alas ! wan- 
 dering in Pagan lands. 1 counsel 
 
 thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy 
 library, from S. T. C. 
 
 Elia. 
 
THE 
 
 iontion iflaga^me. 
 
 N° XIII. 
 
 JANUARY, 1821 
 
 Vol. III. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 Every man hath two birth-days : 
 two days, at least, in every year, 
 which set him upon revolving the 
 lapse of time, as it affects his mortal 
 duration. The one is that which 
 in an especial manner he termeth his. 
 In the gradual desuetude of old ob- 
 servances, this custom of solemnizing 
 our proper birth-day hath nearly 
 passed away ; or is left to children, 
 who reflect nothing at all about the 
 matter, nor understand any thing in 
 it beyond cake and orange. But the 
 birth of a New Year is of an interest 
 too wide to be pretermitted by king 
 or cobbler. No one ever regarded 
 the First of January with indiffer- 
 ence. It is that from which all date 
 their time, and count upon what is 
 left. It is the nativity of our com- 
 mon Adam. 
 
 Of all sound of all bells~(bells, the 
 music most bordering upon heaven) 
 — ^most solemn and touching is the 
 peal which rings out the Old Year. I 
 never hear it without a gathering-up 
 of my mind to a concentration of all 
 the images that have been diffused 
 over the past twelvemonth ; all I 
 have done, or suffered ; performed, 
 or neglected ; in that regretted time. 
 I begin to know its wortli, as when a 
 person dies. It takes a personal co- 
 lour ; nor was it a poetical flight in 
 a contemporary, when he exclaimed 
 
 I saw the skhrts of the departing Year. 
 
 It is no more than what in sober 
 sadness every one of us seems to be 
 conscious of in that awful leave-tak- 
 ing. I am sure I felt it, and all felt 
 it with me, last night ; though some 
 Vol. III. 
 
 of my companions affected rather to 
 manifest an exhilaration at the birth 
 of the coming year, than any very 
 tender regrets for the decease of its 
 predecessor. But I am none of those 
 who — 
 
 Welcome the coming, speed the parting 
 guest. 
 
 I am naturally, beforehand, shy of 
 novelties ; new books, new faces, new 
 years, — from some mental twist 
 which makes it difficult in me to face 
 the prospective. I have almost 
 ceased to hope; and am sanguine 
 only in the prospects of other (for- 
 mer) years. I plunge into fore- 
 gone visions and conclusions. I en- 
 counter pell-mell with past disap- 
 pointments. [ am armour-proof 
 against old discouragements. I for- 
 give, or overcome in fancy, old ad- 
 versaries. I play over again for love, 
 as the gamesters phrase it, games, 
 for which I once paid so dear. I 
 would scarce now have any of those 
 untoward accidents and events of 
 my life reversed. I would no more 
 alter them than the incidents of some 
 well-contrived novel. Methinks, it 
 is better that I should have pined 
 away seven of my goldenest years, 
 when I was thrall to the fair hair, 
 
 and fairer eyes, of Alice W n^ 
 
 than that so passionate a love-ad- 
 venture should be lost. It was bet- 
 ter that our family should have 
 missed that legacy, which old Dor- 
 rell cheated us of, than that I should 
 have at this moment two thousand 
 pounds in banco, and be without the 
 jdea of that specious old rogue. 
 
m 
 
 i i i i 'i iii Ti i in«i ^ 
 
 JVew Year's Eve. 
 
 [[Jan. 
 
 In a degree beneath manhood, it 
 is my infirmity to look back upon 
 those early days. Do I advance a 
 paradox, when I say, that, skipping 
 over the hitervention of forty years, 
 a man may have leave to love him- 
 self, without the imputation of self- 
 love? 
 
 If I know aught of myself, no one 
 whose mind is introspective — and 
 mine is painfully so — can have a less 
 respect for his present identity, than 
 I have for the man, Elia. I know him 
 to be light, and vain, and humour- 
 some ; a notorious * * * ; addicted to 
 * * * * : averse from counsel, neither 
 taking it, nor offering it ; — * * * be- 
 sides ; a stammering buffoon ; what 
 you will ; lay it on, and spare not ; 
 I subscribe to it all, and much more, 
 than thou canst be willing to lay at 
 
 his door but for the child 
 
 Elia — that " other me," there in the 
 back-groimd — I must take leave to 
 cherish the remembrance of that 
 young master — with as little refer- 
 ence, I protest, to this stupid change- 
 ling of five-and-forty, as if it had been 
 aTchild of some other house, and not 
 of my parents. I can cry over its 
 patient small-pox at fiv.e, and rougher 
 medicaments. I can lay its poor 
 fevered head upon the sick pillow at 
 Christ's, and wake with it in surprise 
 at the gentle posture of maternal ten- 
 derness hanging over it, that un- 
 known had watched its sleeps. I 
 know how it shrank from any the 
 least colour of falsehood. — -God help 
 thee, Elia, how art thou changed ! 
 Thou art sophisticated. — I know 
 how honest, how courageous (for a 
 weakling) it was — how religious, how 
 imaginative, how hopeful ! From 
 what have I not fallen, if the child 
 I remember was indeed myself, — and 
 not some dissembling guardian, pre- 
 senting a false identity, to give the 
 rule to my unpractised steps, and re- 
 gulate the tone of my moral being ! 
 
 That I am fond of indulging, be- 
 yond a hope of sympathy, in such 
 retrospection, may be the symptom 
 of some sickly idiosyncrasy ; or is it 
 owing to another cause; simply, that 
 being without wife or family, I have 
 not learned to project myself enough 
 out of myself; and having no off- 
 spring of my own to dally with, I 
 turn back upon memory, and adopt 
 my own early idea, as my heir and 
 favorite } If these speculations seem 
 
 fantastical to thee, reader — (a busy 
 man perchance) ; if I tread out of the 
 way of thy sympathy, and am singu- 
 larly-conceited only ; I retire, impe- 
 netrable to ridicule, under the phan- 
 tom cloud of Elia. 
 
 The elders, with whom I was 
 brought up, were of a character not 
 likely to let slip the sacred observ- 
 ance of any old institution ; and the 
 ringing out of the Old Year was 
 kept by them with circumstances of 
 peculiar ceremony. — In those days 
 the sound of those midnight chimes, 
 though it seemed to raise hilarity in 
 all around me, never failed to bring 
 a train of pensive imagery into my 
 fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived 
 what it meant, or thought of it as a 
 reckoning that concerned me. Not 
 childhood alone, but the young man 
 till thirty, never feels practically that 
 he is mortal. He knows it indeed, 
 and, if need were, he could preach a 
 homily on the fragility of life ; but he 
 brings it not home to himself, any 
 more than in a hot June we can ap- 
 propriate to our imagination the 
 freezing days of December. But 
 now — shall I confess a truth ? — I feel 
 these audits but too powerfully. I 
 begin to count the probabilities of 
 my duration; and to grudge at the 
 expenditure of moments and shortest 
 periods, like miser's farthings. In 
 proportion as the years both lessen 
 and shorten, I set more count upon 
 their periods ; and would fain lay my 
 ineffectual finger upon the spoke of 
 the great wheel. I am not content to 
 pass away " like a weaver's shuttle." 
 Those metaphors solace me not, nor 
 sweeten the unpalatable draught of 
 mortality. I care not to be carried 
 with the tide, that smoothly bears 
 human life to eternity; and reluct 
 at the inevitable course of destiny. I 
 am in love with this green earth; 
 the face of town and country; the 
 unspeakable rural solitudes, and the 
 sweet security of streets. I would 
 set up my tabernacle here. I am 
 content to stand still at the age to 
 which I am arrived; I, and my 
 friends. To be no younger, no richer, 
 no handsomer. I do not want to be 
 weaned by age ; or drop, like mellow 
 fruit, as they say, into the grave. — 
 Any alteration, on this earth of mine, 
 in diet, or in lodging, puzzles and 
 discomposes me. My household- 
 gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and 
 
ISSl."] New Year's Ei 
 
 are not rooted up without blood. 
 They do not willmgly seek Lavinian 
 shores. A new state of being stag- 
 gers me. 
 
 Sun, and sky, and breeze, and so- 
 litary walks, and summer holydays, 
 and the greenness of fields, and the 
 delicious juices of meats and fishes, 
 and society, and the chearful glass, 
 and candle-light, and fireside conver- 
 sations, and innocent vanities, and 
 jests, and ironif itself— Ao these things 
 go out with life ? 
 
 Can a ghost laugh ; or shake his 
 gaunt sides, when you are pleasant 
 with him ? 
 
 And you, my midnight darlings, 
 my Folios ! must I part with the in- 
 tense delight of having you, (huge 
 armfuls) in my embraces.'* Must 
 knowledge come to me, if it come at 
 all, by some awkward experiment of 
 intuition, and no longer by this fami- 
 liar process of reading ? 
 
 Shall I enjoy friendships there, 
 wanting the smiling indications 
 which point me to them here, — the 
 recognizable face — the " sweet as- 
 surance of a look " — ? 
 
 In winter this intolerable disincli- 
 nation to dying— to give it its niild- 
 est name — does more especially 
 haunt and beset me. In a genial 
 August noon, beneath a sweltering 
 sky, death is almost problematic. At 
 those times do such poor snakes as 
 myself enjoy an immortality. Then 
 we expand, and burgeon. Then are 
 we as strong again, as valiant again, 
 as wise again, and a great deal taller. 
 The blast that nips and shrinks me, 
 puts me in thoughts of death. All 
 things allied to the insubstantial, 
 wait upon that master feeling ; cold, 
 numbness, dreams, perplexity; moon- 
 light itself, with its shadowy and 
 spectral appearances, — that cold 
 ghost of the sun, or Phoebus' sickly 
 sister, like that innutritions one de- 
 nounced in the Canticles : — I am none 
 of her " minions" — I hold with the 
 Persian. 
 
 Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me 
 out of my way, brings death into my 
 mind. All partial evils, like humours, 
 run into that capital plague- sore. — 
 I have heard some profess an indif- 
 ference to life. Such hail the end of 
 their existence as a port of refuge ; 
 and speak of the grave as of some 
 soft arms, in which they may slum- 
 ber as on a pillow. Some have 
 
 wooed death ■ — but out upon 
 
 thee, I say, thou foul ugly phantom ! 
 I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with 
 Friar John) give thee to six score 
 thousand devils, as in no instance to 
 be excused or tolerated, but shunned 
 as a universal viper ; to be branded, 
 proscribed, and spoken evil o^! In 
 no way can I be brought to dip:est 
 thee, thou thin, melancholy, Pr^ivor* 
 tion, or more frightful and confound- 
 ing Positive ! 
 
 Those antidotes, prescribed against 
 the fear of thee, are altogether frigid 
 and insulting, like thyself. For what 
 satisfaction hath a man, that he shaU 
 " lie down with kings and emperors 
 in death," who in his life-time never 
 greatly coveted the society of such 
 bed-fellows ? — or, forsooth, that " so 
 shall the fairest face appear" — Why, 
 
 to comfort me, must Alice W n 
 
 be a goblin ? More than all, I con- 
 ceive disgust at those impertinent and 
 misbecoming familiarities, inscribed 
 upon your ordinary tomb-stones. 
 Every dead man must take upon 
 himself to be lecturing me with his 
 odious truism, that " such as he now 
 is, I must shortly be." Not so short- 
 ly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. 
 In the meantime I am alive. I move 
 about. I am worth twenty of thee. 
 Know thy betters ! Thy New Years' 
 J>ays are past. I survive, a jolly 
 candidate for 1821. Another cup of 
 wine — and while that turn-coat bell, 
 that just now mournfully chanted the 
 obsequies of 1820 departed, with 
 changed notes lustily rings in a suc- 
 cessor, let us attune to its peal the 
 song made on a like occasion by 
 hearty chearful Mr. Cotton.— 
 
 THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star 
 Tells us, the day himseirs not far ; 
 And see where, breaking from the night. 
 He gilds the western hills with light. 
 With him old Janus doth appear, 
 Peeping into the future year. 
 With such a look as seems to say, 
 The prospect is not good that way. 
 Thus do we rise Ul sights to see. 
 And 'gainst ourselves to prophecy ; 
 When the prophetic fear of things 
 A more tormenting mischief brings, 
 More full of soul-tormenting gall. 
 Than direst mischiefs can befall. 
 But stay ! but stay ! methinks my sight. 
 Better inform'd by clearer light. 
 Discerns sereneness in that brow. 
 That all contracted seem*d but now. 
 C2 
 
Poem, with a Lampefor mie Ladie Faire. 
 
 [[Jan. 
 
 His * revers'd face may show distaste, 
 And frown upon the ills are past; 
 But that which this way looks is clear, 
 And smiles upon the New-born year. 
 He looks too from a place so high, 
 The Year lies open to his eye ; 
 And all the moments open are 
 To the exact discoverer. 
 Yet more and more he smiles upon 
 The happy revolution. 
 Why should we then suspect or fear 
 The influences of a year, 
 So smiles upon us the first morn. 
 And speaks us good so soon as born ? 
 Plague on't ! the last was ill enough. 
 This cannot but make better proof; 
 Or, at the worst, as we brush'd thro* 
 The last, why so we may this too ; 
 And then the next in reason shou'd 
 Be superexcellently good : 
 For the worst ills (we daily see) 
 Have no more perpetuity. 
 Than the best fortunes that do fall; 
 Which also bring us wherewithal 
 Longer their being to support, 
 Than those do of the other sort ; 
 And who has one good year in three, 
 And yet repines at destiny. 
 Appears ungrateful in the case, 
 
 And merits not the good he has. 
 Then let us welcome the New Guest 
 With lusty brimmers of the best ; 
 Mirth always should Good Fortune meet,. 
 And renders e'en Disaster sweet : 
 And though the Princess turn her back, 
 Let us but line ourselves with sack. 
 We better shall by far hold out. 
 Till the next Year she face about 
 
 How say you, reader — do not these 
 verses smack of the rough magnani- 
 mity of the old English vein? Do 
 they not fortify like a cordial ; en- 
 larging the heart, and productive of 
 sweet blood, and generous spirits, in 
 the concoction? Where be those 
 puling fears of death, just now ex- 
 pressed, or affected ? — Passed like a 
 cloud — absorbed in the purging sun- 
 light of clear poetry — clean washed 
 away by a wave of genuine Helicon, 
 your on]y Spa for these hypochon- 
 dries — And now another cup of the 
 generous ! — and a merry New Year, 
 and many of them, to you all, my 
 masters ! 
 
 \stJan. 182L klia. 
 
 
MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST. 
 
 "A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth,* 
 and the rigour of the game." This 
 was the celebrated wish of old Sarah 
 Battle (now with God) who, next to 
 her devotions, loved a good game at 
 whist. She was none of your luke- 
 warm gamesters, your half and half 
 players, who have no objection to take 
 a hand, if you want one to make up 
 a rubber; who affirm that they have 
 no pleasure in winning ; that they 
 like to win one game, and lose ano- 
 ther ;t that they can while away an 
 hour very agreeably at a card-table, 
 but are indifferent whether they play 
 or no, — and will desire an adversary, 
 who has slipt a wrong card, to take 
 
 it up and play another. These in- 
 sufferable triflers are the curse of a 
 table. One of these files will spoil a 
 whole pot. Of such it may be said, 
 that they do not play at cards, but 
 only play at playing at them. 
 
 Sarah Battle was none of that 
 breed. She detested them, as I do, 
 from her heart and soul ; and would 
 not, save upon a striking emergency, 
 willingly seat herself at the same 
 table with them. She loved a tho- 
 rough-paced partner, a determined 
 enemy. She took, and gave no con- 
 cessions. She hated favours. She 
 never made a revoke, nor ever passed 
 it over in her adversary without ex- 
 
 * This was before the introduction of rugs, reader. You must remember the intole- 
 rable crash of the unswept cinder, betwixt you- foot and the marble. 
 
 -|- As if a sportsman should tell you, he liked to kill a fox one day, and lose him the 
 aext. 
 
162 
 
 Mrs. Battles Opinions on Whist, 
 
 CFeb. 
 
 acting the utmost forfeiture. She 
 fought a good fight : cut and thrust. 
 She held not her good sword (her 
 cards) " like a dancer." She sate 
 bolt upright; and neither showed 
 you her cards, nor desired to see 
 yours. All people have their blind 
 side — their superstitions ; and I have 
 heard her declare, under the rose, 
 that Hearts was her favourite suit. 
 
 I never in my life — and I knew 
 Sarah Battle many of the best years 
 of it — saw her take out her snuff- 
 box when it was her turn to play ; or 
 snufF a candle in the middle of a 
 game ; or ring for a servant, till it 
 was fairly over. She never intro- 
 duced, or connived at, miscellaneous 
 conversation during its process. As 
 she emphatically observed, cards 
 were cards : and if I ever saw un- 
 mingled distaste in her fine last-cen- 
 tury countenance, it was at the airs 
 of a young gentleman of a literary 
 turn, who had been with difficulty 
 persuaded to take a hand, and who, 
 in his excess of candour, declared, 
 that he thought there was no harm 
 in unbending the mind now and then, 
 after serious studies, in recreations of 
 that kind! She could not bear to 
 have her noble occupation, to which 
 she wound up her faculties, con- 
 sidered in that light. It was her 
 business, her duty, the thing she 
 came into the world to do, — and she 
 did it. She unbent her mind after- 
 wards — over a book. 
 
 Pope was her favourite author: 
 his Rape of the Lock her favourite 
 work. She once did me the favour 
 to play over with me (with the 
 cards) his celebrated game of Ombre 
 in that poem ; and to explain to me 
 how far it agreed with, and in what 
 points it would be found to differ 
 from, traydrille. Her illu si rations 
 were apposite and poignant; and I 
 had the pleasure of sending the sub- 
 stance of them to Mr. Bowles ; but 
 I suppose they came too late to be 
 inserted among his ingenious notes 
 upon that author. 
 
 Quadrille, she has often told me, 
 was her first love; but whist had 
 engaged her maturer esteem. The 
 former, she said, was showy and spe- 
 cious, and likely to allure young per-, 
 sons. The uncertainty and quick 
 shifting of partners — -a thing which 
 the constancy of whist abhors ; — the 
 dazzling supremacy and regal inves- 
 
 titure, of Spadille — absurd, as she 
 justly observed, in the pure aristo- 
 cracy of whist, where his crown and 
 garter give him no proper power 
 above his brother-nobility of the 
 Aces; — the giddy vanity, so taking 
 to the inexperienced, of playing 
 alone ; — above all, the over-powering 
 attractions of a Savs Prendre Vole, — 
 to the triumph of which there is cer- 
 tainly nothing parallel, or approach- 
 ing, in the contingencies of whist ;— 
 all these, she would say, make qua- 
 drille a game of captivation to the 
 young and enthusiastic. But whist 
 was the solider game : that was her 
 word. It was a long meal ; not, like 
 quadrille, a feast of snatches. One 
 or two rubbers might co-extend in 
 duration with an evening. They 
 gave time to form rooted friendships, 
 to cultivate steady enmities. She 
 despised the chance-started, capri- 
 cious, and ever fluctuating alliances 
 of the other. The skirmishes of qua- 
 drille, she would say, reminded her 
 of the petty ephemeral embroilments 
 of the little Italian states, depicted 
 by Machiavel ; perpetually changing 
 postures and connexions ; bitter foes 
 to-day, sugared darlings to-morrow ; 
 kissing and scratching in a breath ; — 
 but the wars of whist were com- 
 parable to the long, steady, deep- 
 rooted, rational, antipathies of the 
 great French and English nations. 
 
 A grave simplicity was what she 
 chiefly admired in her favourite 
 game. There was nothing silly in 
 it, like the nob in cribbage. Nothing 
 superfluous. No Jlushes — that most 
 irrational of all pleas, that a reason- 
 able being can set up : — that any one 
 should claim four by virtue of hold- 
 ing cards of the same shape and co- 
 lour, without reference to the playing 
 of the game, or the individual worth 
 or pretensions of the cards them- 
 selves ! She held this to be a sole- 
 cism ; as pitiful an ambition at cards 
 as alliteration is in authorship. She 
 despised superficiality, and looked 
 deeper than the colours of things. — 
 Suits were soldiers, she would say ; 
 and must have a uniformity of array 
 to distinguish them : but what should 
 we say to a foolish squire, who 
 should claim a merit from dressing 
 up his tenantry in red jackets, that 
 never were to be marshalled — ^never 
 to take the field ? — She even wished 
 that whist were more simple than U 
 
1821.;] 
 
 Mrs* Battles Opinions on Whist * 
 
 163 
 
 is; and, in my mind, would have 
 stript it of some appendages, which, 
 in the state of human frailty, may be 
 venially, and even commendably, al- 
 lowed of. She saw no reason for the 
 deciding- of the trump by the turn of 
 the card. Why not one suit always 
 trumps ? — Why two colours, when 
 the shape of the suits would have 
 sufficiently distinguished them with- 
 out it ? — 
 
 " But the eye, my dear Madam, is 
 agreeably refreshed with the variety. 
 Man is not a creature of pure reason 
 — he must have his senses delight- 
 fully appealed to. We see it in 
 Roman Catholic countries, where the 
 music and the paintings draw in 
 many to worship, whom your quaker 
 spirit of unsensualizing would have 
 kept out. — You, yourself, have a 
 pretty collection of paintings — but 
 confess to me, whether, walkhig in 
 your gallery at Sandham, among 
 those clear Vandykes, or among the 
 Paul Potters in the anti-room, you 
 ever felt your bosom glow with an 
 elegant delight, at all comparable to 
 that you have it in your power to ex- 
 perience most evenings over a well- 
 arranged assortment of tlie court 
 cards ? — the pretty antic habits, like 
 heralds in a procession — the gay 
 triumph-assurhig scarlets — the con- 
 trasting deadly-killing sables — the 
 ** hoary majesty of spades " — Pam 
 in all his glory ! — 
 
 ^^ All these rtiight be dispensed 
 with ; and, with tlieir naked names 
 upon the drab pasteboard, the game 
 might go on very well, picture-less. 
 But the beauty of cards would be 
 extinguished for ever. Stripped of 
 all that is imaginative in them, they 
 must degenerate into mere gambling. 
 — Imagine a dull deal-board, or driun 
 head, to spread them on, instead of 
 that nice verdant carpet (next to 
 nature's), fittest arena for those 
 courtly combatants to play their gal- 
 lant jousts and turneys in ! — Ex- 
 change those delicately-turned ivory 
 markers — (work of Chinese artist, 
 unconscious of their symbol, — or as 
 profanely slighting their true appli- 
 cation as the arrantest Ephesian 
 journeyman that turned out those 
 little shrines for the goddess) — ex- 
 change them for little bits of leather 
 (our ancestor's money) or chalk and 
 a slate ! " — 
 
 The old lady, with a smile, con- 
 
 fessed the soundness of my logic; 
 and to her approbation of my argu- 
 ments on her favorite topic that even- 
 ing, I have always fancied myself 
 indebted for the legacy of a curious 
 cribbage board, made of the finest 
 sienna marble, which her maternal 
 imclc (old Walter Plinner, whom I 
 have elsewhere celebrated) brought 
 with him from Florence : — this, and 
 a trifle of five hundred pounds, came 
 to me at her death. 
 
 The former bequest (which I do 
 not least value) I have kept with re- 
 ligious care; though she herself, to 
 confess a truth, was never greatly 
 taken with cribbage. It was an es- 
 sentially vulgar game, I have heard 
 her say, — disputing with her uncle, 
 who was very partial to it. She 
 could never heartily bring her mouth 
 to pronounce " go" — or " that's a 
 go.' She called it an ungrammatical 
 game. The pegging teazed her. I 
 once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a 
 five dollar stake), because she would 
 not take advantage of the turn-up 
 knave, which would have given it 
 her, but which she must have claim- 
 ed by the disgraceful tenure of de- 
 claring '^ one for his heels." There 
 is something extremely genteel in 
 this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle 
 was a gentlewoman born. 
 
 Piquet, she held the best game at 
 the cards for two persons, though 
 she would ridicule the pedantry of 
 the terms — such as i)ique — repique 
 — the capot — they savoured (she 
 thought) of affectation. But games 
 for two, or even three, she never 
 greatly cared for. She loved the 
 (piadrate, or square. She would 
 argue thus : — Cards are warfare : the 
 ends are gain, with glory. But cards 
 are war, in disguise of a sport : when 
 single adversaries encounter, the ends 
 proposed are too palpable. By them- 
 selves, it is too close a fight ; with 
 spectators, it is not much bettered. 
 No looker-on can be interested, ex- 
 cept for a bet, and then it is a mere 
 affair of money; he cares not for 
 your luck sympathetically , or for your 
 play. — Three are still worse ; a mere 
 naked war of every man against 
 every man, as in cribbage, without 
 league or alliance ; or a rotation of 
 petty and contradictory interests, a 
 succession of heartless leagues, and 
 not much more hearty infractions of 
 them, as in traydrille. — But in square 
 3 
 
16i 
 
 Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist. 
 
 CFeb. 
 
 games (she meant whist) all/that is 
 possible to be attained in card-play- 
 ing is accomplished. There are the 
 incentives of profit with honour, com- 
 mon to every species — though the 
 latter can be but very imperfectly 
 enjoyed in those other games, where 
 the spectator is only feebly a partici- 
 pator. But the parties in whist are 
 spectators and principals too. They 
 are a theatre to themselves, and a 
 looker-on is not wanted. He is ra- 
 ther worse than nothing, and an im- 
 pertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, 
 or interests beyond its sphere. You 
 glory in some surprising stroke of 
 skill or fortune, not because a cold- 
 er even an interested — by-stander 
 witnesses it, but because your part- 
 ner sympathises in the contingency. 
 You win for two. You triumph for 
 two. Two are exalted. Two again 
 are mortified; which divides their 
 disgrace, as the conjunction doubles 
 (by taking off the invidiousness) 
 your glories. Two losing to two are 
 better reconciled, than one to one in 
 that close butchery. The hostile 
 feeling is weakened by multiplying 
 the channels. War becomes a civil 
 game. — By such reasonings as these 
 the old lady was accustomed to de- 
 fend her favourite pastime. 
 
 No inducement could ever prevail 
 upon her to play at any game, where 
 chance entered into the composition, 
 J^r nothing. Chance, she would 
 argue — and here again, admire the 
 subtlety of her conclusion ! — chance 
 is nothing, but where something else 
 depends upon it. It is obvious, that 
 cannot be glori/. What rational 
 cause of exultation could it give to 
 a man to turn up size ace a hundred 
 times together by himself? or before 
 spectators, where no stake was de- 
 pending ? — Make a lottery of a hun- 
 dred thousand tickets with but one 
 fortunate number — and what possi- 
 lile principle of our nature, except 
 stupid wonderment, could it gratify 
 to gain that number as many times 
 successively, without a prize ? — 
 Therefore she disliked the mixture of 
 chance in back-gammon, where it 
 was not played for money. She 
 called it foolish, and those people 
 idiots, who were taken with a lucky 
 hit under such circumstances. Games 
 of pure skill were as little to her 
 fancy. Played for a stake, they were 
 a mere system of over-reaching. 
 
 Played for glory, they were a mere 
 setting of one man's wit,— his memory, 
 or combination-faculty rather — a- 
 gainst another's ; like a mock en- 
 gagement at a review, bloodless and 
 profitless. — She could not conceive a 
 game wanting the spritely infusion 
 of chance, — the handsome excuses of 
 good fortune. Two people playing 
 at chess in a corner of a room, whilst 
 whist was stirrhig in the centre, 
 would inspire her with insufferable 
 horror and ennui. Those well-cut 
 similitudes of Castles, and Knights, 
 the imagery of the board, she would 
 argue, (and I think in this case just- 
 ly) were entirely misplaced and 
 senseless. Those hard head-con- 
 tests can in no instance ally with the 
 fancy. They reject form and colour. 
 A pencil, and dry slate (she used to 
 say) were the proper arena for such 
 combatants. 
 
 To those puny objectors against 
 cards, as nurturing the bad passions, 
 — (dropping for awhile the speaking 
 mask of old Sarah Battle) I would 
 retort, that man is a gaming animal. 
 He must be always trying to get the 
 better in something or other : — that 
 this passion can scarcely be more 
 safely expended than upon a game 
 at cards : that cards are a temporary 
 illusion ; in truth, a mere drama ; for 
 we do but play at being mightily con- 
 cerned, where a few idle shillings are 
 at stake, yet, during the illusion, we 
 are as mightily concerned as those 
 whose stake is crowns and kingdoms. 
 They are a sort of dream-fighting; 
 much ado ; great battling, and little 
 bloodshed ; mighty means for dispro- 
 portioned ends ; quite as diverting, 
 and a great deal more innoxious, 
 than many of those more serious 
 games of life, which men play, with- 
 out esteeming them to be such. 
 
 P. S. — With great deference to the 
 old lady's judgment on these mat- 
 ters, I think I have experienced some 
 moments in my life, when playing at 
 cards for nothing has even been 
 agreeable. When I am in sickness, 
 or not in the best spirits, I sometimes 
 call for the cards, and play a game 
 at piquet for love with my cousin 
 Bridget — Bridget Elia.' 
 
 I grant there is someting sneaking 
 in it: but with a tooth-ache, or a 
 sprained ancle, — when you are sub- 
 dued and humble, — you are glad to 
 
1821.:] 
 
 On Words worth's Excursion being published in Octavo. 
 
 165 
 
 put up with an inferior spring of ac- 
 tion. — 
 
 Th6l-e is such a thing in nature, I 
 am convinced, as sick whist. — 
 
 I grant it is not the highest style 
 of man — I deprecate the manes of 
 Sarah Battle — she lives not, alas ! to 
 whom I should apologize. — 
 
 At such times, those terms which 
 my old friend objected to, come in as 
 something admissible. — I love to get 
 a tierce, or a quatorze, though they 
 mean nothing. I am subdued to an 
 inferior interest. Those shadows of 
 winning amuse me. 
 
 That last game I had with my 
 
 sweet cousin (I capotted her) — (dare 
 I tell thee, how foolish I am?) — 
 I wished it • might have lasted for 
 ever, though we gained nothing, and 
 lost nothing, though it was a mere 
 shade of play : I would be content to 
 go on in that idle folly for ever. Th^ 
 pipkin should be ever boilihg, that 
 was to prepare the gentle lenitive to 
 my foot, which Bridget was doomed 
 to apply to it, after the game was 
 over : and, as I do not much relish 
 appliances, there it should ever bub- 
 ble. Bridget and I should be ever 
 playing. 
 
 EUA. 
 
I HAVE no ear. — 
 
 Mistake me not, reader, — nor ima- 
 g-ine that 1 am by nature destitute of 
 those exterior twin appendages, hang- 
 ing ornaments, and (architecturally- 
 speaking) handsome volutes to the 
 human capital. Better my mother 
 had never borne me. — I am, I think, 
 rather delicately than copiously pro- 
 vided with those conduits ; and' I feel 
 no disposition to envy the mule for 
 
 his plenty, or the mole for her exact- 
 ness, in those ingenious labyrinthine 
 inlets — those indispensable side-in- 
 telligencers. 
 
 Neither have I incurred, or done 
 any thing to incur, with Defoe, that 
 hideous disfigurement, which con- 
 strained him to draw upon assurance 
 — to feel quite unabashed,* and at 
 ease upon that article. I was never, 
 1 thank my stars, in the pillory ; nor, 
 
 Enrless on hi*j;h stwod, unabash'd, Defoe. — Dunciad. 
 
3G2 
 
 All FooW Daij. 
 
 You hare claim to a seat here at my 
 right hand, as patron of the stam- 
 merers. You left your work, if I re- 
 member Herodotus correctly, at eight 
 hundred million toises, or thereabout, 
 above the level of the sea. Bless us, 
 what a long bell you must have pull- 
 ed, to call your top workmen to their 
 nuncheon on the low grounds of 
 Sennaar. Or did you send up your 
 garlick and onions by a rocket? I 
 am a rogue if I am not ashamed to 
 show you our Monument on Fish- 
 street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet 
 we think it somewhat. 
 ' '\Yhat, the magnanimous Alexan- 
 der in tears ? — cry, baby, put its fin- 
 ger in its eye, it shall have another 
 globe, round as an orange, pretty 
 moppet ! 
 
 Mister Adams 'odso, I honour 
 
 your coat — pray do us the favour to 
 read to us that sermon, which you 
 lent to Mistress Slipslop — the twenty 
 and second in your portmanteau 
 there — on Female Incontinence — the 
 same — it will come in most irre- 
 levantly and impertinently seasonable 
 to the time of the day. 
 
 Mr. , you look wise. Pray 
 
 correct that error. 
 
 QApril, 
 thy last pa- 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt, I cannot indulge you 
 in your definition. 1 must fine you 
 a bumper, or a paradox. We will 
 have nothing said or done syllogistir 
 cally this day. Remove those logical 
 forms, waiter, that no gentleman 
 break the tender shins of his appre- 
 hension stumbling across them. 
 
 Master Stephen, you are late. — 
 Ha! Cokes, is it you? — Aguecheek, 
 my dear knight, let me pay my devoir 
 to you. — Master Shallow, your wor- 
 ship's poor servant to command. — 
 Master Silence, I will use few words 
 with you. — Slender, it shall go hard 
 if I edge not you in somewhere. — 
 •You six will engross all the poor wit 
 ,of the company to day. — I know it, 
 I know it. 
 
 Ha! honest R , my fine old 
 
 Librarian of Ludgate, time out of 
 mind, art thou here again ? Bless 
 thy doublet, it is not over-new, 
 threadbare as thy stories : — what 
 dost thou flitting about the world at 
 this rate ? — Thy customers are ex- 
 tinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased 
 to read long ago. — Thou goast still 
 among tlicm, seeing if, peradventure, 
 thou ca-st hawk a volume or two.— - 
 
 Good Grenville S— 
 tron, is flown. 
 
 King Pandion, he is dead, 
 
 AH thy friends are lapt in lead — 
 
 Nevertheless, noble R , come 
 
 in, and take your seat here, between 
 Armado and Quisada, for in true 
 courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smil- 
 ing to thyself, in courteous smiling 
 upon others, in the goodly ornature 
 of well-apparelled speech, and the 
 commendation of wise sentences, 
 thou art nothing inferior to those 
 accomplished Dons of Spain. Thje 
 spirit of chivalry forsake me for 
 ever, when I forget thy singing the 
 song of Macheath, which declares 
 that he might be happy with either , 
 situated between those two ancient 
 spinsters — when I forget the inimi- 
 table formal love which thou didst 
 make, turning now to the one, and 
 now to the other, with that Mal- 
 volian smile — as if Cervantes, not 
 Gay, had written it for his hero; 
 and as if thousands of periods must 
 revolve, before the mirror of cour- 
 tesy could have given his invidious 
 preference between a pair of so 
 goodly-propertied and meritorious- 
 equal damsels. * * «f 
 * * * * * * » 
 
 To descend from these altitudes, 
 and not to protract our Fools' Ban- 
 quet beyond its appropriate day, — 
 for I fear the second of April is not 
 many hours distant — in sober verity 
 I will confess a truth to thee, reader. 
 I love a Fool — as naturally, as if I 
 were of kith and kin to him. When 
 a child, with child-like apprehen- 
 sions, that dived not below the sur- 
 face of the matter, I read those Pa- 
 rables, not guessing at their involved 
 wisdom, I had more yearnings to-* 
 wards that simple architect, that 
 built his house vipon the sand, than 
 I entertained for his more cautious 
 neighbour; I grudged at the hard 
 censure pronounced upon the quiet 
 soul that kept his talent; and, 
 prizing their simplicity beyond the 
 more provident, and, to my appre- 
 hension, somewhat un feminine wari- 
 ness of their competitors, I felt a 
 kindliness, that almost amounted to 
 a tendre, for those five thoughtless 
 virgins. — I have never made an ac- 
 quaintance since, that lasted ; or a 
 friendship, that ansv/ered ; \\ith any 
 
1821.3 Swimming across the Hellespont, ' S63 
 
 that had not some thicture of the served, that " the foolisher tfie fowl 
 
 absurd in their characters. I vene- or fish,— woodcocks, — dotterells, — 
 
 rate an honest obliquity of under- cod's-heads, &c. — the finer the flesh 
 
 standing-. The more laughable blun- thereof," and what are commonly 
 
 ders a man shall commit in your the world's received fools, but such 
 
 company, the more tests he giveth whereof the world is not worthy? 
 
 you, that he will not betray or over- and what have been some of the 
 
 reach you. I love the safety, which kindliest patterns of our species, but 
 
 a palpable hallucination warrants ; so many darlings of absurdity, mi- 
 
 the security, which a word out of nions of the goddess, and her white 
 
 ■season ratifies. And take my word boys ? — Reader, if you wrest my 
 
 for this, reader, and say, a fool told words beyond their fair construction, 
 
 it you, if you please, that he who it is you, and not I, that are the 
 
 hath not a dram of folly in his April Fool. 
 
 mixture, hath poimds of much worse Elia. 
 
 matter in his composition. It is ob- 1*^ April, 1821. 
 
THE CONFESSIONS OF H. F.V.H. DELAMORE, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. Editor, — A correspondent in 
 your last Number,* blesses his stars, 
 that he was never yet in the pillory; 
 and, with a confidence which the 
 uncertainty of mortal accidents but 
 weakly justifies, goes on to predict 
 that he never shall be. Twelve years 
 ago, had a Sibyl prophesied to me, 
 that I should live to be set in a 
 worse place, I should have struck 
 her for a lying- beldam. There are 
 degradations below that which he 
 speaks of. 
 
 I come of a good stock, Mr. Edi- 
 tor. The Delamores are a race 
 singularly tenacious of their honour ; 
 men who, in the language of Ed- 
 mund Burke, feel a stain like a 
 wound. My grand uncle died of a 
 fit of the sullens for the disgrace of 
 a public whipping at Westminster. 
 He had not then attained his four- 
 teenth year. WoiUd I had died 
 young ! 
 
 For more than five centuries, the 
 
 Sackvilie^street, 25th March^ 1821. 
 
 current of our blood hath flowed 
 unimpeachably. And must it stag- 
 nate now ? 
 
 Can a family be tainted back- 
 wards?— can posterity purchase dis- 
 grace for their progenitors ?— or doth 
 it derogate from the great Walter of 
 our name, who received the sword 
 of knighthood in Cressy field, that 
 
 one of his descendants once sate * * 
 
 ift * * * * * * * * p 
 
 Can an honour, fairly achieved in 
 quinto Edwardi Tertii, be reversed 
 by a slip in quinquagesinio Georgii 
 Tertii ? — how stands the law ? — 
 what dictum doth the college deliver ? 
 — O Clarencieux ! O Norroy ! 
 
 Can a reputation, gained by hard 
 watchings on the cold ground, in a 
 suit of mail, be impeached by hard 
 watchings on the cold ground in 
 other circumstances — was the en- 
 durance equal ? — why is the guerdon 
 so disproportionate .'* 
 
 A priest mediated the ransom of 
 
 • £Ua t — Chaptef on Ears. 
 
38i 
 
 A Quakers Meeting. 
 
 [lApril, 
 
 the too valorous Reginald, of our 
 houw, captived in Lord Talbot's 
 battles. It was a clergyman, who 
 by his intercession abridged the pe- 
 riod of my durance. 
 
 Have you touched at my wrongs 
 yet, Mr. Editor ?— or must I be ex- 
 plicit as to my grievance ? 
 
 Hush, my heedless tongue. 
 
 Something bids me— " Delamore, 
 be ingenuous." 
 
 Once then, and only once 
 
 Star of my nativity, hide beneath 
 a cloud, while I reveal it ! 
 
 Ancestors of Delamore, lie low 
 in your wormy beds, that no posthu- 
 mous hearing catch a sound ! 
 
 Let no eye look over thee, while 
 thou shalt peruse it, reader I 
 
 Once - ■ ' ^ 
 
 these legs, with Kent in the play, 
 though for far less ennobling consi- 
 derations, did wear *' cruel garters." 
 
 Yet I protest it was but for a 
 thing of nought — a fault of yovith, 
 and warmer blood — a calendary in- 
 advertence I may call it — or rather a 
 temporary obliviousness of the day 
 of the week — timhig my Saturnalia 
 amiss. — 
 
 Streets of Bamet, infamous for 
 civil broils, ye saw my shame .'—did 
 not your Red Rose rise again to dye 
 my burning cheek ? 
 
 It was but for a pair of minutes, 
 or so— yet I feel, I feel, that the 
 gentry of the Delamores is extiii-« 
 guished for ever. — 
 
 Try to forget it, reader.— 
 
 (Signed) 
 
 Henry Francis Vere Harrington Delamork, 
 
 A QUAKER'S MEETING. 
 
 Still-born Silence ! thou that art 
 
 Flood-gate of the deeper heart ! 
 
 Offspring of a heavenly kind X 
 
 Frost o' the mouth, and thaw of the mind ! 
 
 Secrecy's confident, and he 
 
 Who makes religion mystery ! 
 
 Admiration's speaking'st tongue ! 
 
 Leave, thy desert shades among, 
 
 Reverend hermits' hallowed cells. 
 
 Where retired devotion dwells { 
 
 With thy enthusiasms come, 
 
 Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb ! ♦ 
 
 Reader, would'st thou know what 
 true peace and quiet mean ; would'st 
 thou find a refuge from the noises 
 and clamours of the multitude; 
 would'st thou enjoy at once solitude 
 and society ; would'st thou possess 
 the depth of thy own spirit in still- 
 ness, without being shut out from 
 the consolatory faces of thy species ; 
 would'st thou be alone, and yet ac- 
 companied; solitary, yet not deso- 
 late ; singular, yet not without some 
 to keep thee in countenance ; a unit 
 in aggregate ; a simple in compo- 
 site : — come with me into a Quaker's 
 Meeting. 
 
 Dost thou love silence deep as 
 that " before the winds were made ? " 
 go not out into the wilderness, de- 
 
 scend not into the profundities of the 
 earth ; shut not up thy casements ; 
 nor pour wax into the little cells of 
 thy ears, with little- faith'd self-mis- 
 trusting Ulysses- — Retire with me 
 into a Quaker's Meeting, 
 
 For a man to refrain even from 
 good words, and to hold his peace, it 
 is commendable ; but for a multitude, 
 it is great mastery. 
 
 What is the stillness of the desert, 
 compared with this place } what the 
 uncommunicating muteness of fishes } 
 — here the goddess reigns and revels. 
 — " Boreas, and Cesias, and Arges- 
 tes loud," do not with their inter- 
 confounding uproars more augment 
 the brawl — nor the waves of th^ 
 blown Baltic with their clubbed 
 
 • From " Poems of all sorts " by Richard Fleckno, 1653. 
 
i«2i.:] 
 
 sounds — than their opposite (Silence 
 her sacred self) is multiplied and 
 rendered more hitense by numbers, 
 and by sympathy. She too hath her 
 deeps, that call unto deeps. Nega- 
 tion itself hath a positive more and 
 less; and closed eyes would seem to 
 obscure the great obscurity of mid 
 night. 
 
 There are wounds, which an im- 
 perfect solitude cannot heal. By 
 imperfect I mean that which a man 
 enjoy eth by himself. The perfect is 
 that which he can sometimes attain 
 in crowds, but no where so abso- 
 lutely as in a Quaker's Meeting. — 
 Those first hermits did certainly un- 
 derstand 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 incommu- 
 nicativeness. 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 proba- 
 ble), readhig another, without inter- 
 ruption, or oral communication? — 
 can there be no sympathy without 
 the gabble of words ? — away with 
 this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and- 
 cavem -haunting solitariness. Give 
 me. Master Zimmerman, a sympa- 
 thetic solitude. 
 
 To pace alone in the cloisters, or 
 side aisles of some Cathedral, time- 
 ptricken ; 
 
 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- 
 goothing, as the naked walls and 
 benches of a Quaker's Meeting, 
 Here are no tombs, no inscriptions, 
 
 .- sands, ignoble things, 
 
 A Quaker's Meeting. 385 
 
 but arrived by a violent, and, as we 
 may say, unnatural progression. 
 
 Dropt from the ruined sides of kings — 
 
 but here is something, which throws 
 Antiquity herself into the fore- 
 ground — Silence — eldest of things 
 — ^language of old Night — primitive 
 Discourser — to which the insolent 
 decays of mouldering grandeur have 
 3 
 
 How reverend is the view of these hushed 
 
 heads, 
 Looking tranquillity ! 
 
 Nothing-plotting, nought-caball- 
 ^"* ing, unmiscliievous synod ! convoca- 
 tion without intrigue ! parliament 
 without debate ! what a lesson dost 
 thou read to council, and to consis- 
 tory ! — if my pen treat of you light- 
 ly — 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 con- 
 firm than disturb, I have reverted to 
 the times of your beginnings, and the 
 sowings of the seed by Fox and 
 Dewesbury. — I have witnessed that, 
 which brought before my eyes your 
 heroic tranquillity, inflexible to the 
 rude jests^ and serious violences of 
 the insolent soldiery, republican or 
 royalist, sent to molest you — for ye 
 sate betwixt the fires of two perse- 
 cutions, the out-cast and ofF-scowring 
 of church and presbytery — I have 
 seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had 
 wandered into your receptacle, with 
 the avowed intention of disturbing 
 your quiet, from the very spirit of 
 the place receive in a moment a new 
 heart, and presently sit among ye as 
 a lamb amidst lambs. And I re- 
 membered Penn before his accusers, 
 and Fox in the ])ail-dock, where he 
 was lifted up in spirit, as he tells us, 
 and " the Judge and the Jury be- 
 came 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, no- 
 thing to make you mistrust, no sus- 
 picion of alloy, no drop or dreg of 
 the worldly or ambitious spirit. You 
 will here read the true story of that 
 much-injured, ridicided man (who 
 perhaps hath been a by- word in your 
 mouth,) — James Naylor : whatdread- 
 ful sufferings, with what patience, he 
 endured even to the boring through 
 of his tongue with red-hot iron? 
 
A Quakers Meeting, 
 
 38« 
 
 without a murmur; and with what 
 strength of mind, when the delusion 
 he had fallen into, which they stig- 
 matized for blasphemy, had given 
 way to clearer thoughts, he could re- 
 nounce his error, in a strain of the 
 beautifullest humility, yet keep his 
 first grounds, and be a Quaker still ! 
 — so different from the practice of 
 your common converts from enthu- 
 siasm, 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 Wool- 
 man 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 pro- 
 portion they have substituted forma- 
 lity for it, the Judge of Spirits can 
 alone determine. I have seen faces 
 in their assemblies, upon which the 
 dove sate visibly brooding. Others 
 again I have watched, when my 
 thoughts should have been better en- 
 gaged, in which I could possibly de- 
 tect nothing but a blank inanity. But 
 quiet was in all, and the disposition 
 to unanimity, and the absence of the 
 fierce controversial workings. — If the 
 spiritual pretensions of the Quakers 
 have abated, at least they make few 
 pretences. Hypocrites they certainly 
 are not, in their preaching. It is sel- 
 dom indeed that you shall see one 
 get up amongst them to hold forth. 
 Only now and then a trembling, 
 female, generally ancient, voice is 
 heard — you cannot guess from what 
 part of the meeting it proceeds — 
 with a low, buzzing, musical sound, 
 laying out a few words which '^ she 
 thought might suit the condition of 
 some present," with a quaking diffi- 
 dence, which leaves no possibility of 
 supposing that any thing of female 
 vanity was mixed up, where the 
 tones were so full of tenderness, and 
 a restraining modesty. — The men, 
 for what I have observed, speak sel- 
 domer.* 
 
 Once only, and it was some years 
 ago, I witnessed a sample of the old 
 
 CApril, 
 
 Foxian orgasm. It was a man of 
 giant stature, who, as Wordsworth 
 phrases it, might have danced " from 
 head to foot equipt in iron mail." 
 His frame was of iron too. But he 
 was malleable. I saw him shake all 
 over with the spirit — I dare not say, 
 of delusion — the strivings of the 
 outer man were unutterable — -he 
 seemed not to speak, but to be 
 spoken from — I saw the strong man 
 bowed down, and his knees to fail — 
 his joints all seemed loosening — it 
 was a figure to set off against Paul 
 Preaching — the words he uttered 
 were few, and sound — he was evi- 
 dently resisting his will — keeping 
 down his own word-wisdom with 
 more mighty effort, than the world's 
 orators strain for theirs. '^ He was 
 a Wit in his youth," he told us, 
 with expressions of a sober remorse. 
 And it was not till long after the 
 impression had begun to wear away, 
 that I was enabled, with something 
 like a smile, to recall the striking in- 
 congruity of the confession — under- 
 standing the term in its worldly ac- 
 ceptation — with the frame and phy- 
 siognomy of the person before me. 
 His brow would have scared away 
 the Levities — the Joci Risus-que — 
 faster than the Loves fled the face of 
 Dis at Enna. — By wit, even in his 
 youth, I will be sworn he understood 
 something far within the limits of an 
 allowable liberty. 
 
 More frequently the Meeting is 
 broken up without a word having 
 been spoken. But the mind has 
 been fed. You go away with a ser- 
 mon, not made with hands. You 
 have been in the milder caverns of 
 Trophonius; or as in some den, 
 where that fiercest and savagest of 
 all wild creatures, the Tongue, that 
 unruly member, has strangely lain 
 tied up and captive. You have bathed 
 with stillness. — O when the spirit is 
 sore fretted, even tired to sickness of 
 the janglings, and nonsense-noises of 
 the world, what a balm and a solace 
 it is, to go and seat yourself, for a 
 quiet half hour, upon some undis- 
 puted corner of a bench, among the 
 gentle Quakers ! 
 
 Their garb and stillness conjoined, 
 present a uniformity, tranquil, and 
 
 ♦ Is._thi8 confined to Quaker Meetings ?— Et). 
 
herd-like— as in the pasture—" forty- 
 feeding like one." — 
 
 The very garments of a Quaker 
 seem incapable of receiving a soil ; 
 and cleanliness in them to be some- 
 thing more than the absence of its 
 contrary. Every Quakeress is a lily ; 
 
 Consolation. 
 
 387 
 
 and when they come up in bands to 
 their Whitsun-oonferences, whiten- 
 ing the easterly streets of the me- 
 tropolis, from all parts of the United 
 Kingdom, they show like troops of 
 the Shhiing Ones. — 
 
 Elia. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 My reading has been lamentably 
 desultory and immethodical. Odd^ 
 out of the way, old English plays, 
 and treatises, have supplied me with 
 most of my notions, and ways of 
 feeling. In every thing that relates 
 to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia 
 behind the rest of the world. I 
 should have scarcely cut a figure 
 among the franklins, or country gen- 
 tlemen, in king John'g days. I know 
 less geography than a school-boy of 
 six weeks' standing. To me a map 
 of old Ortelius is as authentic as 
 Arrowsmith. I do not know where- 
 about Africa merges into Asia; 
 whether Ethiopia lie in one or other 
 of those great divisions; nor can 
 form the remotest conjecture of the 
 position of New South Wales, or Van 
 
 Pieman's Land. Yet do I hold a 
 correspondence with a very dear 
 friend in the first-named of these 
 two Terras Incognitae. I have no 
 astronomy. I do not know where to 
 look for the Bear, or Charles's Wain; 
 the place of any star ; or the name 
 of any of them at sight. I guess at 
 Venus only by her brightness — and 
 if- the sun on some portentous morn 
 were to make his first appearance 
 in the West, I verily believe, thatj- 
 while all the world were gasping in 
 apprehension about me, I alone should 
 stand unterrified, from sheer incu- 
 riosity and want of observation. Of 
 history and chronology I possess 
 some vague points, such as one can- 
 not help picking up in the course of 
 miscellaneous study ; but I never de- 
 
liberately sat down to a chronicle, 
 even of my own country. I have 
 most dhn apprehensions of the four 
 great monarchies; and sometimes 
 the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, 
 floats as Jirst in my fancy. I make 
 the widest conjectures concerning 
 Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My 
 friend 3f., with great pains-taking, 
 got me to think I understood the first 
 proposition in Euclid, but gave me 
 over in despair at the second. I am 
 entirely unacquainted with the mo- 
 dern languages; and, like a better 
 man than myself, have " small Latin 
 and less Greek." I am a stranger to 
 the shapes and textui-e of the com- 
 monest trees, herbs, flowers — not from 
 the circumstance of my being town- 
 born — for I should have brought the 
 same inobservant spirit into the 
 world with me, had 1 first seen it 
 in " on Devon's leafy shores," — and 
 am no less at a loss among purely 
 town-objects, tools, engines, mecha- 
 nic processes. — Not that 1 aflect ig- 
 norance-^but my head has not many 
 mansions, nor spacious ; and I have 
 been obliged to fill it with such ca- 
 binet curiosities, as it can hold with- 
 out aching. I sometimes wonder, 
 how I have passed my probation 
 with so little discredit in the world, 
 as I have done, upon so meagre a 
 stock. But the fact is, a man may 
 do very well with a very little know- 
 ledge, and scarce be found out, in 
 mixed company; every body is so 
 much more ready to produce his own, 
 than to call for a display of your ac- 
 quisitions. But in a tSte-d-iete there 
 is no shuffling. The truth will out. 
 There is nothing which I dread so 
 much, as the being left alone for a 
 quarter of an hour with a sensible, 
 well-informed man, that does not 
 know me. I lately got into a dilemma 
 of this sort. — 
 
 In one of my daily jaunts between 
 Bishopsgate and Shacklewell, the 
 coach stopped to take up a staid- 
 looking gentleman, about the wrong 
 side of thirty, who was giving his 
 parting directions (while the steps 
 were adjusting), in a tone of mild 
 authority, to a tall youth, who seem- 
 ed to be neither his clerk, his son, 
 nor his servant, but something par- 
 taking of all three. The youth was 
 dismissed, and we drove on. As we 
 
 The Old and the New Schoolmaster. 
 
 were the sole passengers, he naturally 
 enough addressed his conversation 
 to me ; and we disciissed the merits 
 of the fare, the civility and punc- 
 tuality of the driver; the circum- 
 stance of an opposition coach having 
 been lately set up, with the proba- 
 bilities of its success — to all which I 
 was enabled to return pretty satis- 
 factory answers, having been drilled 
 hito this kind of etiquette by some 
 years' daily practice of riding to and 
 fro in the stage aforesaid — when he 
 suddenly alarmed me by a startling 
 question, whether I had seen the show 
 of prize cattle that morning in Smith- 
 field : Now as I had not seen it, and 
 do not greatly care for such sort of 
 exhibitions, I was obliged to return a 
 cold negative. He seemed a little 
 mortified, as well as astonished, at 
 my declaration, as (it appeared) he 
 was just come fresh from the sight, 
 and doubtless had hoped to compare 
 notes on the subject. However he 
 assured me that I had lost a fine 
 treat, as it far exceeded the show of 
 last year. We were now approach- 
 ing Norton Falgate, when the sight 
 of some shop-goods ticketed freshen- 
 ed him up into a dissertation upon 
 the cheapness of cottons this spring. 
 1 was now a little in heart, as the 
 nature of my morning avocatioijs 
 had brought me into some sort of 
 familiarity with the raw material ; 
 and 1 was surprised to find how elo- 
 quent I was becoming on the state of 
 the India market — when, presently, 
 he dashed my incipient vanity to the 
 earth at once, by inquiring whether 
 I had ever made any calculation as 
 to the value of the rental of all the 
 retail shops in London. Had he 
 asked of me, what song the Sirens 
 sang, or what name Achilles as- 
 sumed when he hid himself among 
 women, I might, with Sir Thomas 
 Browne, have hazarded a " wide 
 solution."* My companion saw my 
 embarrassment, and, the almshouses 
 beyond Shoreditch just coming in 
 view, with great good-nature and 
 dexterity shifted his conversation to 
 the subject of public charities ; which 
 led to the comparative merits of pro- 
 vision for the poor in past and pre- 
 sent times, with observations on the 
 old monastic institutions, and cha- 
 ritable orders ; — but, finding me ra-« 
 
 M 
 
 i 
 
 Vol. in. 
 
 Urn Burial. 
 2P 
 
49i 
 
 The Old and the Ntw Schoolmaster. 
 
 CMay; 
 
 fher flimly impressed with some 
 glimmering notions from old poetic 
 associations, than strongly fortified 
 with any speculations reducible to 
 •calculation on the subject, he gave 
 the matter up ; and, the country 
 beginning to open more and more 
 upon us, as we approached the turn- 
 pike at Kingsland (the destined ter- 
 mination of his journey), he put a 
 home thurst upon me, in the most 
 unfortunate position he could have 
 chosen, by advancing some queries 
 relative to the North Pole expedition. 
 While I was muttering out something 
 • about the panorama of those strange 
 regions (which I had actually seen), 
 by way of parrying the question, 
 the coach stopping relieved me from 
 any further apprehensions. My com- 
 panion getting out, left me in the 
 comfortable possession of my igno- 
 rance ; and 1 heard him, as he went 
 olf, putting questions to an outside 
 passenger, who had alighted with 
 him, regarding an epidemic disorder, 
 that had been rife about Dalston ; 
 and which, my friend assured him, 
 -had gone through five or six schools 
 in that neighbourhood. The truth 
 now flashed upon me, that my com- 
 panion was a schoolmaster; and that 
 'the youth, whom he had parted from 
 at our first acquaintance, must have 
 been one of the bigger boys, or the 
 usher. 
 
 He was evidently a kind-hearted 
 man, who did not seem so much 
 desirous of provoking discussion by 
 the questions which he put, as of 
 obtaining information at any rate. 
 It did not appear that he took any 
 interest, either, in such kind of in- 
 quiries, for their own sake ; but that 
 he was in some way bound to seek 
 for knowledge. A greenish coloured 
 coat, which he had on, forbade me 
 to surmise that he was a clergyman. 
 The adventure gave birth to some 
 reflections on the difference between 
 persons of his profession in past and 
 present times. 
 
 Rest to the souls of those fine old 
 Pedagogues; the breed, long since 
 ^extinct, of the Lilys, and the Lin- 
 acres : who believing that all learning 
 was contained in the languages which 
 they . taught, and despising every 
 other acquirement as superficial and 
 ■useless, came to their task as to a 
 sport. Passing from infancy to age, 
 they dreamed away all their days 
 
 as in a grammar school. Revolving 
 in a perpetual cycle of declensions, 
 conjugations, syntaxes, and prosodies ; 
 renewing constantly the occupations 
 which had charmed their studious 
 childhood; rehearsing continually the 
 part of the past ; life must have 
 slipped from them at last like one 
 day. They were always iu their first 
 garden, reaping harvests of their 
 golden time, among their Flori and 
 their Spici-legia; in Arcadia still, but 
 kings ; the ferule of their sway not 
 much harsher, but of like dignity 
 with that mild sceptre attributed to 
 king Basileus ; the Greek and Latin, 
 their stately Pamela and their Phi- 
 loclea ; with the occasional duncery 
 of some imtoward Tyro, serving for 
 a refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or 
 a clown Damsetas ! 
 
 ^Fith what a savour doth tlie Pre- 
 face to Colet's, or (as it is sometimes 
 called) Paul's Accidence, set forth ! 
 *' To exhort every man to the learn- 
 ing of grammar, that intendeth to 
 attain the understanding of the 
 tongues, wherein is contained a great 
 treasury of wisdom and knowledge, 
 it would seem but vain and lost la- 
 bour ; for so much as it is known, 
 that nothing can surely be ended, 
 whose beginning is either feeble or 
 faulty ; and no building be perfect, 
 whereas the foundation and ground- 
 work is ready to fall, and imable 
 to uphold the jjurden of the frame." 
 How well doth this stately preamble 
 (comparable to those which Milton 
 comraendeth as " having been the 
 usage to prefix to some solemn law, 
 then first promulgated by Solon, or 
 Lycurgus") correspond with and 
 illustrate that pious zeal for con- 
 formity, expressed in a succeeding 
 clause, which would fence about 
 grammar-rules with the severity of 
 laith-articles l—^' as for the diversity 
 of grammars, it is well profitably 
 taken away by the king majesties 
 wisdom, who foreseeing the incon- 
 venience, and favourably providing 
 the remedie, caused one kind of 
 grammar by sundry learned men to 
 be diligently drawn, and so to be set 
 out, only everywhere to be taught 
 for the use of learners, and for the 
 hurt in changing of schoolmaisters." 
 What a gusto in that which follows: 
 " wherein it is profitable that he 
 [[the pupil^ can orderly decline his 
 noun, ami his verb." His aouu ! 
 
1821.;] 
 
 Th^ Old and the Neiv Schoolmaster. 
 
 i9i 
 
 The fine dream is fading away 
 fast; and the least concern of a 
 teacher in the present day is to incul- 
 cate grammar rules. 
 
 The modern schoolmaster is ex- 
 pected to know a little of every 
 thing, because his pupil is required 
 not to be entirely ignorant of any 
 thing. He must be superficially, if 
 I may so say, omniscient. Ke is to 
 know something of pneumatics ; of 
 chemistry ; of whatever is curious, 
 or proper to excite the attention of 
 the youthful mind; an insight into 
 mechanics is desirable, with a touch 
 of statistics ; the quality of soils, &c. 
 botany, the constitution of his coun- 
 try, cum ?nuitis aliis. You may get a 
 notion of some part of his expected 
 duties by consulting the famous 
 Tractate on Education addressed to 
 Mr. Hartlib. 
 
 All these things — these, or the 
 desire of them — he is expected to 
 instil, not by set lessons from pro- 
 fessors, which he may charge in the 
 bill, but at school-intervals, as he 
 walks the streets, or saunters through 
 green fields ( those natural instructors), 
 with his pupils. The least part of 
 what is expected from him, is to be 
 done in school-hours. He must in- 
 sinuate knowledge at the lyioUia tern- 
 pora fandi. He must seize every 
 occasion — the season of the year — • 
 the time of the day — a passing cloud 
 —•a rainbow — a waggon of hay — a 
 regiment of soldiers going by — to 
 inculcate something useful. He can 
 receive no pleasure from a casual 
 glimpse of Nature, but must catch 
 at it as an object of instruction. He 
 must interpret beauty into the pic- 
 turesque. He cannot relish a beggar- 
 man, or a gypsy, for thinking of the 
 suitable improvement. Nothing 
 comes to him, not spoiled b;f the 
 sophisticating medium of moral uses. 
 The Universe, — that Great Book, as 
 it has been called — is to him indeed, 
 to all intents and purposes, a book, 
 out of which he is doomed to read 
 tedious homilies to distasting school- 
 boys. — Vacations themselves are none 
 to him, he is only rather worse oflf 
 than before ; for commonly he has 
 some intrusive upper-boy fastened 
 upon him at such times; some cadet of 
 a great fVimily ; some neglected lump 
 of nobility, or gentry ; that he must 
 drag after him to the play, to the 
 Panorama, to Mj;-. Bartley's orrery. 
 
 to the Panopticon, or into the coun- 
 try, to a friend's house, or his fa- 
 vourite watering-place. Wherever 
 he goes, this uneasy shadow attends 
 him. A boy is at his board, and in 
 his path, and in all his movements. 
 He is boy-rid, sick of perpetual boy. 
 
 Boys are capital fellows hi their 
 own way, among their mates ; but 
 they are unwholesome companions 
 for grown people. The restraint is 
 felt no less on the one side, than on 
 the other. — PiVen a child, that " play- 
 thing for an hour," tires always. The 
 noises of children, playing their own 
 fancies— as I now hearken to tliem 
 by fits, sporting on the green before 
 my window, while I am engaged in 
 these grave speculations — at my neat 
 suburban retreat at Shacklewell — by 
 distance made more sweet — inexpres- 
 sibly take from the labour of my task. 
 It is like writing to music. They 
 seem to modulate my periods. They 
 ought at least to do so— for in the 
 voice of that tender age there is a 
 kind of poetry, far unlike the harsh 
 prose-accents of man's conversation. 
 — I should but spoil their sport, and 
 diminish my own sympathy for them, 
 by mingling in their pastime. 
 
 I would not be domesticated all 
 my days with a person of very supe- 
 rior capacity to my own — not, if I 
 know myself at all, from any consi- 
 derations of jealousy or self-compa- 
 rison, for the occasional communion 
 with such minds has constituted the 
 fortune and felicity of my life — but 
 the habit of too constant intercourse 
 with spirits above you, instead of 
 raising you, keeps you down. Too 
 frequent doses of original thinking 
 from others, restrain what lesser por- 
 tion of that faculty you may possess 
 of your own. You get entangled in 
 another man's mhid, even as you lose 
 yovnself in another man's grounds. 
 You are -walking with a tall varlet, 
 whose strides out-pace yours to las- 
 situde. The constant operation of 
 such potent agency would reduce 
 me, I am convinced, to imbecility. 
 You may derive thoughts from o- 
 thers ; your way of thinking, the 
 mould in which your thoughts are 
 cast, must be your own. Intellect 
 may be imparted, but not each man's 
 intellectual frame. — 
 
 As little as I should wish to be 
 always thus dragged upwards, as 
 little (or rather still less) is it desira-. 
 2 p o 
 
496 
 
 The Old and the N'eny Schoolmaster. 
 
 CMay, 
 
 hie to be stunted downwards by your 
 associates. The trumpet does not 
 more stun you by its loudness, than 
 a whisper teazes you by its provoking 
 inaudibility. 
 
 Why are we never quite at our 
 ease in the presence of a school- 
 master ? — because v/e are conscious 
 that he is not quite at his ease in 
 ours. He is awkward, and out of 
 place, in the society of his equals. 
 He comes like Gulliver from among 
 his little people, and he cannot fit 
 the stature of his understanding to 
 yours. He cannot meet you on the 
 square. He wants a point given 
 him, like an indifferent whist-player. 
 He is so used to teaching, that he 
 wants to be teaching you. One of 
 Ihese professors, upon my complain- 
 ing that these little sketches of mine 
 were any thing but methodical, and 
 that I was unable to make them 
 otherwise, kindly offered to instruct 
 me in the method, by which young 
 gentlemen in his seminary were 
 taught to compose English Ihemes. 
 ' — The jests of a schoolmaster are 
 coarse, or thin. They do not tell 
 out of school. He is under the re- 
 straint of a formal and didactive hy- 
 pocrisy in company, as a clergyman 
 is under a moral one. He can no 
 more let his intellect loose in society, 
 than the other can his inclinations. 
 ■^— He is forlorn among his co-evals; 
 his juniors cannot he his friends. 
 
 " I take blame to myself," said 
 ^ sensible man of this profession, 
 writing to a friend respecting a youth 
 who had quitted his school abruptly, 
 *' that your nephew was not more 
 attached to me. But persons in my 
 situation are more to be pitied, than 
 can well be imagined. We are sur- 
 rounded by young, and, consequent- 
 iy, ardently affectionate hearts, but 
 9Bt can never hope to share an atom 
 of their affections. The relation of 
 master and scholar forbids this. How 
 pleasing this must be to you, how I 
 envy your feelings, my friends Vv'ill 
 sometimes say to me, when they see 
 young men, whom I have educated, 
 return after some years absence from 
 school, their eyes shining with plea- 
 sure, while they shake hands T^-ith 
 ^heir old master, bringing a present 
 of game to me, or a toy to my wife, 
 and thanking me in the warmest 
 terms for my care of their education. 
 A holy (lay is begged for the boys ; 
 
 the house is a scene of hapioiness ; I, 
 only, am sad at heart. — This fine- 
 spirited and warm-hearted youth, 
 who fancies he repays his master 
 with gratitude for the care of his 
 boyish years — this young man — in 
 the eight long years I watched over 
 him with a parent's anxiety, never 
 could repay me with one look of 
 genuine feeling. He was proud, when 
 I praised ; he was submissive, when 
 I reproved liim; but he did never 
 love me— and what he now mistakes 
 for gratitude and kindness for me, 
 is but the pleasant sensation, which 
 all persons feel at revisiting the scene 
 of their boyish hopes and fears ; and 
 the seeing on equal terms the man 
 they were accustomed to look up to 
 with reverence." 
 
 '^'^ My wife too," this interesting 
 correspondent goes on to say, " my 
 once darling Anna, is the wife of a 
 schoolmaster. — When I courted her, 
 when I married her — knowing that 
 the wife of a schoolmaster ought to 
 be a busy notable creature, and fear- 
 ing that my gentle Anna would ill 
 supply the loss of my dear bustling 
 mother, just then dead, who never 
 sat still, was in every part of the 
 house in a moment, and whom I was 
 obliged sometimes to threaten to 
 fasten down in a chair, to save her 
 from fatiguing herself to death — 
 when I expressed my fears, that i 
 was bringing her into a way of life 
 unsuitable to her, she, who loved me 
 tenderly, promised for my sake to 
 exert herself to perform the duties 
 of her new situation. She promised, 
 and she has kept her word. What 
 wonders will not a woman's love 
 perform } — My house is managed 
 v/ith a propriety and decorum, un- 
 known in other schools ; my boys are 
 well fed, look healthy, and have 
 every proper accommodation ; and 
 all this performed with a carefiif 
 economy, that never descends to 
 meanness. But I have lost my gen- 
 tle, helpless Anna ! — When we sit 
 down to enjoy an hour of repose 
 after the fatigue of the day, I am 
 compelled to listen to what have been 
 her useful (and they are really use- 
 ful) employments through the day, 
 and what she proposes for her to- 
 morrow's task. Her heart and her 
 features are changed by the dutie^ 
 of her situation. To the boys, sher 
 never appears other than the masttrsr 
 
msmfm 
 
 ^ggpm 
 
 1821.1 
 
 Verses to the Memory of a Young Friend. 
 
 497 
 
 wife ; and she looks up to me, as to 
 the boi/s' master, to whom all show of 
 fond affection would be highly im- 
 proper, and unbecoming- the dignity 
 of her situation and mine. Yet M?> 
 — gratitude forbids me to hint to her. 
 For my sake she submitted to be 
 this altered creiature^ and can I re- 
 
 proach her for itP—These kind of 
 complaints are not often drawn from 
 me. I am aware tiiat I am a fortu- 
 nate, I mean, a prosperous man " — 
 My feelings prevent me from tran- 
 scribing any farther. — For the com- 
 munication of this letter I am indebt- 
 ed to my cousin Bridget. 
 
MY RELATIONS. 
 
 I AM arrived at that point of life, 
 at which a man may account it a 
 blessing, as it is a singularity, if he 
 have either of his parents surviving. 
 I have not that felicity — and some- 
 times think feelingly of a passage in 
 Browne's Christian Morals, where he 
 speaks of a man that hath lived sixty 
 or seventy years in the world. " In 
 such a compass of time," he says, " a 
 man may have a close apprehension 
 what it is to be forgotten, when he 
 hath lived to find none who could 
 remember his father, or scarcely the 
 friends of his youth, and may sensibly 
 see with what a face in no long time 
 Oblivion will look upon himself." 
 
 I had an aunt, a dear and good one. 
 She was one whom single blessedness 
 had soured to the world. She often 
 used to say, that I was the only thing 
 in it which she loved ; and, when she 
 thought 1 was quitting it, she grieved 
 over me with mother's tears. A par- 
 tiality quite so exclusive, my reason 
 cannot altogether approve. She was 
 from morning till night poring over 
 good books, and devotional exercises. 
 Her favourite volumes were Thomas 
 a Kempis, in Stanhope's translation ; 
 and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, 
 with the matins and complines regu- 
 larly set down, — terms which I was 
 at that time too young to understand. 
 She persisted in reading them, al- 
 though admonished daily concerning 
 their Papistical tendency ; and went 
 to church every Sabbath, as a good 
 Protestant should do. These were 
 the only books she studied ; though, 
 I think, at one period of her life, she 
 told me she had read with great sa- 
 
 tisfaction the Adventures of an Un- 
 fortunate Young Nobleman. Find- 
 ing the door of the chapel in Essex- 
 street open one day — it was in the ^ ^ 
 infancy of that heresy— she went in, 
 liked the sermon, and the manner of 
 worship, and frequented it at inter- 
 vals for some time after. She came * 
 not for doctrinal points, and never 
 miised them. With some little aspe- 
 rities in her constitution, which I 
 have above hinted at, she was a 
 steadfast, friendly being, and a fine 
 old Christian. She was a woman of 
 strong sense, and a shrewd mind — 
 extraordhiary at a repartee y one of the 
 few occasions of her breaking silence 
 — else she did not much value wit. 
 The only secular employment I re- 
 member to have seen her engaged in, 
 was, the splitthig of French beans, 
 and dropping them into a China basin 
 of fair water. The odour of those 
 tender vegetables to this day comes 
 back upon my sense, redolent of 
 soothhig recollections. Certainly it 
 is the most delicate of culinary opera- 
 tions. 
 
 Male aunts, as somebody calls them, 
 I had none — to remember. By the un- 
 cles' side I may be said to have been 
 born an orphan. Brother, or sister, 
 I never had any — to know them. A 
 sister, 1 think, that should have been 
 Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. 
 What a comfort, or what a care, may 
 I not have missed in her! — But I 
 have cousins, sprinkled about in Hert- 
 fordshire — besides two, with whom I 
 have been all my life in habits of the 
 closest intimacy, and whom I may 
 term cousins par excellence. These 
 2Z2 
 
612 
 
 r 
 
 1^^ 
 
 ^^.' 
 
 are James and Bridget Elia. They 
 are older than myself by twelve, and 
 ten, years; and neither of them seems 
 disposed, in matters of advice and 
 guidance, to waive any of the prero- 
 gatives, which primogeniture con- 
 fers. May they continue still in the 
 same mind ; and when they shall be 
 seventy-live, and seventy- three, years 
 old (I cannot spare them sooner), 
 persist in treating me in my grand 
 climacteric precisely as a stripling, 
 or younger brother ! 
 
 James is an inexplicable cousin. 
 Nature hath her unities, which not 
 ^every critic can penetrate ; or, if we 
 feel, we cannot explain them. The 
 pen of Yorick, and of none since his, 
 could have drawn J. E. entire— those 
 fine Shandian lights and shades, which 
 make vip his story. I must limp after 
 In my poor antithetical manner, as 
 the fates have given me grace and 
 talent. J. E. then— to the eye of a 
 common observer at least — seemeth 
 made up of contradictory principles. 
 — The genuine child of impulse, the 
 frigid philosopher of prudence — the 
 phlegm of my cousin's doctrine is in- 
 variably at war with his tempera- 
 ment, which is high sanguine. With 
 always some fire-new project in his 
 brain, J. E. is the systematic oppo- 
 nent of innovation, and crier down of 
 every thing that has not stood the 
 test of a^e and experiment. With a 
 hundred fine notions chasing one ano- 
 ther hourly in his fancy, he is start- 
 led at the least approach to the ro- 
 mantic in others; and, determined 
 by his own sense in every thing, 
 commends you to the guidance of 
 common sense on all occasions. — 
 With a toucli of the eccentric in all 
 which he does, or says, he is only 
 anxious that you should not com- 
 mit yourself by doing any thing ab- 
 surd or singular. On my once letting 
 slip at table, that I was not fond of a 
 certain popular dish, he begged me at 
 any rate not to say so — for the world 
 would think me mad. He disguises 
 a passionate fondness for works of 
 high art (whereof he hath amassed a 
 choice collection), vmder the pretext 
 of buying only to sell again — that his 
 enthusiasm may give no encourage- 
 ment to yours. Yet, if it were so, 
 why does that piece of tender, pas- 
 toral Dominichino hang still by his 
 wall ? — is the ball of his sight much 
 
 more dear to.him } — or what picture- 
 dealer can talk like him .'' 
 
 Whereas mankind in general are 
 observed to warp their speculative 
 conclusions to the bent of their indi- 
 vidual humours, his theories are sure 
 to be in diametrical opposition to his 
 constitution. He is courageous as 
 Charles of Sweden, upon instinct; 
 chary of his person, upon prin- 
 ciple, as a travelling Quaker. — He 
 has been preaching up to me, all my 
 life, the doctrine of bowing to the 
 great — the necessity of forms, and 
 raanj3f j^ to a man's gettmg on in the 
 world. He himself never aims at 
 either, that I can discover — and has 
 a spirit, that would stand upright in 
 the presence of the Cham of Tartary. 
 It is pleasant to hear him discourse 
 of patience — extolling it as the truest 
 wisdom — and to see him during the 
 last seven minutes that his dinner 
 is getting ready. Nature never ran 
 up in her haste a more restless 
 piece of workmanship, than when 
 she moulded this impetuous cousin — ■ 
 and Art never turned out a more ela- 
 borate orator than he can display 
 himself to be, upon his favourite topic 
 of the advantages of quiet, and con- 
 tentedness in the state, whatever 
 it be, that we are placed in. He is 
 triumphant on this theme, when he 
 has you safe in one of those short 
 stages that ply for the western road, 
 in a very obstructing manner, at the 
 foot of John Murray's street — where 
 you get in when it is empty, and are 
 expected to wait till the vehicle hath 
 completed her just freight — a trying 
 three quarters of an hour to some 
 people. He ^^ wonders at your fid- 
 getiness " — " where could we be 
 better than we are, thus sitting, thus 
 consulting^" — "^ prefers, for his part, 
 a state of rest to locomotion," — with 
 an eye all the while upon the coach- 
 man—till at length, waxing out of 
 all patience, at your want of it, he 
 breaks out into a pathetic remon- 
 strance at the fellow for detaining us 
 so long over the time which he had 
 professed, and declares peremptorily 
 that " the gentleman in the coach is 
 determined to get out, if he does not 
 drive on that instant." 
 
 Very quick at inventing an argu- 
 gument, or detecting a sophistry, he 
 is incapable of attending you in any 
 chain of arguing. Indeed he makes 
 
1821.;] 
 
 My Relations. 
 
 613 
 
 wild work with logic ; and seems to 
 jump at most admirable conclusions 
 by some process, not at all akin to 
 it. Consonantly enough to this, he 
 hath been heard to deny, upon cer- 
 tain occasions, that there exists such 
 a faculty at all in man, as reason ; 
 and wondcreth how man came first 
 to have a conceit of it — enforcing his 
 negation with all the might of rea- 
 soning he is master of. He has some 
 speculative notions against laughter, 
 and will maintain that laughing is not 
 natural to him — when peradventure 
 the next moment his lungs shall crow 
 like Chanticleer. He says some of 
 the best things in the world — and 
 declareth, that wit is his aversion. 
 It was he who said, upon seeing the 
 Eton boys at play in their grounds — 
 What a j)ity to think, that these fine 
 ingenuous lads in a few years will all 
 be changed into frivolous Members of 
 Parlianient ! 
 
 His youth was fiery, glowing, tem- 
 pestuous—and in age he discovereth 
 no symptom of cooling. This is that 
 which 1 admire in him. I hate peo- 
 ple, Avho meet Time half-way. I am 
 for no compromise with that inevit- 
 able spoiler. While he lives, J. E, 
 will take his swing. — It does me 
 good, as I walk towards the street of 
 my daily avocation, on some fine 
 May morning, to meet him marching 
 in a quite opposite direction, with a 
 jolly handsome presence, and shin- 
 ing sanguine face, that indicates some 
 purchase in his eye — a Claude — or a 
 Hobbima — for much of his enviable 
 leisure is consumed at Christie's, and 
 Phillips's — or where not — to pick up 
 pictures, and such gauds. On these 
 occasions he mostly stoppeth me, to 
 read a short lecture on the advantage 
 a person like me possesses above him- 
 self, in having his time occupied with 
 business which he must do — assureth 
 me that he often feels it hang heavy 
 on his hands — wishes he had fewer 
 holidays — and goes off — Westward 
 Ho ! — chanting a tune, to Pall Mall 
 — ^perfectly convinced, that he has 
 convinced me — while 1 proceed in 
 my opposite direction tuneless. 
 
 It is pleasant again to see this Pro- 
 fessor of Indifference dohig the ho- 
 nours of his new purchase, when he 
 has fairly housed it. You must view 
 it in every light, till he has found the 
 best — placing it at this distance, and 
 at that, but always suiting the focus 
 
 of your sight to his own. You must 
 spy at it through your fingers, to catch 
 the aerial perspective — though you 
 assure him that to you the landscape 
 shows much more agreeable without 
 that artifice. Woe be to the luckless 
 wight, who does not only not respond 
 to his rapture, but who should drop an 
 unseasonable intimation of preferring 
 one of his anterior bargains to the 
 present ! — The last is always his best 
 hit — his " Cynthia of tire minute." 
 — Alas ! how many a mild Madonna 
 have I known to come in — a Raphael! 
 — keep its ascendancy for a few brief 
 moons — then, after certain interme- 
 dial degradations, from the front 
 drawing room to the back gallery, 
 thence to the dark parlour, — adopted 
 in turn by each of the Carracci, un- 
 der successive lowering ascriptions of 
 filiation, mildly breaking its fall — 
 consigned to the oblivious lumber- 
 room, go out at last a Lucca Gior- 
 dano, or plain Carlo Maratti! — which 
 things when I beheld — musing upon 
 the chances and mutabilities of fate 
 below, hath made me to reflect upon 
 the altered condition of great person- 
 ages, or that woeful Queen of Ri- 
 chard the Second — 
 
 set forth in pomp, 
 
 She came adorned hither like sweet May, 
 Sent back like Hollowmass or shortest day. 
 
 With great love for you, J. E. hath 
 but a limited sympathy with what 
 you feel, or do. He lives in a world 
 of his own, and makes slender guesses 
 at what passes in your mind. He 
 never pierces the marrow of your ha- 
 bits. He will tell an old established 
 playgoer, that Mr. Such-a-one, of So- 
 and-so (naming one of the theatres), 
 is a very lively comedian — as a 
 piece of news ! He advertised me 
 but the other day of some pleasant 
 green lanes which he had found out 
 for me, knowing me to be a gre<it 
 walker, in my own immediate vicinity 
 — who have haunted the identical 
 spot any time these twenty years ! — 
 He has not much respect for that 
 class of feelings, which goes by the 
 name of sentimental. He applies the 
 definition of real evil to bodily suffer- 
 ings exclusively — and rejecteth all 
 others, as imaginary. He is affected 
 by the sight, or the bare supposition, 
 of a creature in pain, to a degree 
 which I have never witnessed out of 
 womankind. A constitutional acute- 
 
614 
 
 My Relations. 
 
 [[June, 
 
 ness to this class of sufferings may in 
 part account for this. The animal 
 tribe in particular he taketh under 
 his especial protection. A broken- 
 winded or spur-galled horse is sure 
 to find an advocate in him. An over- 
 loaded ass is his client for ever. He 
 is the apostle to the brute kind— the 
 never-failing friend of those who have 
 none to care for them. The contem- 
 plation of a lobster boiled, or eels 
 skinned alive, will wring him so, that 
 " all for pity he could die." It will 
 take the savour from his palate, and 
 the rest from his pillow, for days and 
 nights. With the intense feeling of 
 Thomas Clarkson, he wanted only 
 the steadiness of pursuit, and unity 
 of purpose, of that '^ true yoke-fellow 
 with Time," to have effected as 
 much for the Animal, as he hath 
 done for the Negro Creation, But 
 my uncontrollable cousin is but im- 
 perfectly formed for purposes which 
 demand co-operation. He cannot 
 wait. His amelioration-plans must 
 be ripened in a day. For this rea- 
 son he has cut but an equivocal 
 figure in benevolent societies, and 
 combinations for the alleviation of 
 human sufferings. His zeal con- 
 stantly makes him to outrun, and 
 put out, his co-adjutors. He thinks 
 of relieving, — while they think 
 
 of debating. He was black-balled 
 out of a society for the Relief of 
 **********, because the fer- 
 vor of his humanity toiled beyond 
 the formal apprehension, and creep- 
 ing processes, of his associates. I 
 shall always consider this distinction 
 as a patent of nobility in the Elia 
 family ! 
 
 Do I mention these seeming incon- 
 sistencies to smile at, or upbraid, 
 my unique cousin ? Marry ! heaven, 
 and all good manners, and the un- 
 derstandhig that should be between 
 kinsfolk, forbid ! — With all the 
 strangenesses of this strangest of the 
 Elias—1 Would not have him in one 
 jot or tittle other than he is ; neither 
 would I barter or exchange my wild 
 kinsman for the most exact, regular, 
 and every-way-consistent kinsman 
 breathing. 
 
 In my next, reader, I may per- 
 haps give you some account of my 
 cousin Bridget — if you are not al- 
 ready surfeited with cousins — and 
 take you by the hand, if you are 
 willing to go with us, on an excur- 
 sion which we made a summer or 
 two since, in search oi more cousins — 
 Through the green plains of pleasant 
 Hertfordshire. 
 
 Till when. Farewell. 
 
 Elia. 
 
MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE. 
 
 Bridget Elia has been my house- 
 keeper for many a long year. I have 
 obligations to Bridget^ extending be- 
 yond the period of memory. We 
 house together, old bachelor and 
 maidj in a sort of double singleness ; 
 with such tolerable comfort, upon the 
 whole, that I, for one, find in myself 
 no sort of disposition to go out upon 
 the mountains, with the rash king's 
 offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We 
 agree pretty well in our tastes and 
 habits — yet so, as ''with a differ- 
 ence." We are generally in harmony, 
 with occasional bickerings — as it 
 should be among near relations. Our 
 sympathies are rather understood, 
 than expressed ; and once, upon my 
 dissembling a tone in my voice more 
 kind than ordinary, my cousin burst 
 into tears, and complained that I 
 was altered. We are both great 
 readers in different directions. While 
 I am hanging over (for the thousandth 
 time) some passage in old Burton, 
 or one of his strange contemporaries, 
 she is abstracted in some modem 
 tale, or adventure, whereof our com- 
 mon reading- table is daily fed with 
 
 assiduously fresh supplies. Narra- 
 tive teazes me. I have little concern 
 in the progress of events. She must 
 have a story — well, ill, or indiffer- 
 ently told — so there be life stirring 
 in it, and plenty of good or evil ac- 
 cidents. The fluctuations of fortune 
 in fiction — and almost in real life — • 
 have ceased to interest, or operate 
 but dully upon me. Out-of-the-way 
 humours and opinions — heads with 
 some diverting twist in them— the 
 oddities of authorship please me most. 
 My cousin has a native disrelish of 
 any thing that sounds odd or bizarre. 
 Nothing goes down with her, that is 
 quaint, irregular, or out of the road 
 of common sympathy. She " holds 
 Nature more clever." I can pardon 
 her blindness to the beautiful obli- 
 quities of the Religio Medici; but 
 she must apologize to me for certain 
 disrespectful insinuations, which she 
 has been pleased to throw out lat- 
 terly, touching the intellectuals of a 
 dear favourite of mine, of the last 
 century but one — the thrice noble, 
 chaste, and virtuous, — but again 
 somewhat fantastical, and original- 
 
18210 
 
 Mockery End, in Hertfordshire* 
 
 29 
 
 brain'd, generous Margaret New- 
 castle. 
 
 It has been the lot of my cousin, 
 oftener perhaps than I could have 
 wished, to have had for her associ- 
 ates and mine, free-thinkers— lead- 
 ers, and disciples, of novel philoso- 
 phies and systems ; but she neither 
 wrangles with, nor accepts, their 
 opinions. That which was good and 
 venerable to her, when she was a 
 child, retains its authority over her 
 mind still. She never juggles or 
 plays tricks with her understanding. 
 
 We are both of us inclined to be 
 a little too positive ; and I have ob- 
 served the result of our disputes to 
 be almost uniformly this — that in 
 matters of fact, dates, and circum- 
 stances, it turns out, that I was in 
 the right, and my cousin in the 
 wrong. But where we have differed 
 upon moral pohits ; upon something 
 proper to be done, or let alone ; 
 whatever heat of opposition, or stea- 
 diness of conviction, I set out with, 
 I am sure always, in the long run, to 
 be brought over to her way of think- 
 ing. 
 
 I must touch upon the foibles of 
 my kinswoman with a gentle hand, 
 for Bridget does not like to be told 
 of her faults. She hath an aukward 
 trick (to say no worse of it) of read- 
 ing in company : at which times she 
 will answer yes or no to a question, 
 without fully understanding its pur- 
 port — which is provoking, and dero- 
 gatory in the highest degree to the 
 dignity of the putter of the said 
 question. Her presence of mind is 
 equal to the most pressing trials of 
 life, but will sometimes desert her 
 upon trifling occasions. When the 
 purpose requires it, and is a thhig of 
 moment, she can speak to it greatly ; 
 but in matters, which are not shiffof 
 the conscience, she hath been known 
 sometimes to let slip a word less 
 seasonably. 
 
 Her education in youth was not 
 much attended to ; and she happily 
 missed all that train of female gar- 
 niture, which passeth by the name of 
 accomplishments. She was tumbled 
 early, by accident or design, into a 
 spacious closet of good old English 
 reading, without much selection or 
 prohibition, and browsed at will upon 
 that fair and wholesome pasturage. 
 Had I twenty girls, they should be 
 brought up exactly in this fashion. I 
 know not whether their chance in 
 
 wedlock might not be diminished by 
 it j but I can answer for it, that it 
 makes (if the worst come to the 
 worst) most incomparable old maids. 
 
 In a season of distress, she is the 
 truest comforter ; but in the teazing 
 accidents, and minor perplexities, 
 which do not call out the will to 
 meet them, she sometimes maketh 
 matters worse by an excess of parti- 
 cipation. If she does not always 
 divide your trouble, upon the plea- 
 santer occasions of life she is sure 
 always to treble your satisfaction. 
 She is excellent to be at a play with, 
 or upon a visit ; but best, when she 
 goes a journey with you. 
 
 We made an excursion together a 
 few simimers since, into Hertford- 
 shire, to beat up the quarters of 
 some of our less-known relations in 
 that fine corn country. 
 
 The oldest thing I remember is 
 Mackery End ; or Mackarel End, as 
 it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in 
 some old maps of Hertfordshire; a 
 farm-house, — delightfully situated 
 within a gentle walk from Wheat- 
 hampstead. I can just remember 
 having been there, on a visit to a 
 great-aunt, when I was a child, 
 under the care of Bridget ; who, as 
 I have said, is older than myself by 
 some ten years. / wish that I could 
 throw into a heap the remainder of our 
 joint existences, that we might share 
 them, in equal division. But that is 
 imjwssible. The house was at that 
 time in the occupation of a substan- 
 tial yeoman, who had married my 
 grandmother's sister. His name was 
 Gladman. My grandmother was a 
 Bruton, married to a Field. The 
 Gladmans and the Brutons are still 
 flourishing in that part of the county, 
 but the Fields are almost extinct. 
 More than forty years had elapsed 
 shice the visit I speak of; and, for 
 the greater portion of that period, 
 we had lost sight of the other two 
 branches also. VFho, or what sort 
 of persons, inherited Mackery End — 
 kindred or strange folk — we were 
 afraid almost to conjecture, but de- 
 termined some day to explore. 
 
 By somewhat a circuitous route, 
 taking the noble park at Luton in 
 our way from Saint Alban's, we ar- 
 rived at the spot of our anxious cu- 
 riosity about noon. The sight of the 
 old farm-house, though every trace 
 of it was effaced from my recollec- 
 tion, affected me with a pleasure 
 
McLckery End, in Hertfordshire, 
 
 CJuly, 
 
 "which I had not experienced for 
 many a year. For though / had 
 forgotten it, we had never forgotten 
 being there together, and we had 
 been talking about Mackery End all 
 our Jives, till memory on my part be- 
 came mocked with a phantom of it- 
 self, and I thought I knew the aspect 
 of a place, which, when present, O 
 how unlike it was to that, which I 
 had conjured up so many times in- 
 stead of it ! 
 
 Still the air breathed balmily about 
 it ; the season was in the " heart of 
 June," and I could say with the 
 poet. 
 
 But thou, that did'st appear so fair 
 
 To fond imagination, 
 Dost rival in the hght of day 
 Her delicate creation ! * 
 
 Bridget's was more a waking bliss 
 than mine, for she easily remembered 
 her old acquaintance again — some 
 altered features, of course, a little 
 grudged at. At first, indeed, she 
 was ready to disbelieve for joy ; but 
 the scene soon re-confirmed itself in 
 her affections— and she traversed 
 every out-post of the old mansion, 
 to the wood-house, the orchard, the 
 place where the pigeon-house had 
 stood (house and birds were alike 
 flown) — with a breathless impatience 
 of recognition, which was more par- 
 donable perhaps than decorous, at 
 the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in 
 some things is behind her years. 
 
 The only thing left was to get into 
 the house — and that was a difficulty, 
 which to me singly would have been 
 insurmountable ; for I am terribly 
 shy in making myself known to stran- 
 gers, and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, 
 stronger than scruple, winged my 
 cousin in without me ; but she soon 
 returned with a creature, that might 
 have sat to a sculptor for the image 
 of Welcome. It was the youngest of 
 the Gladmans ; who, by marriage 
 with a Bruton, had become mistress 
 of the old mansion. A comely brood 
 are the Brutons. Six of them, fe- 
 males, were noted as the handsomest 
 young women in the county. But 
 this adopted Bruton, in my mind, was 
 better than they all — more comely. 
 She was bom too late to have re- 
 membered me. She just recollected 
 in early life to have had her cousin 
 Bridget once pointed out to her, 
 climbing a style. But the name of 
 
 kindred, and of cousinship, was 
 enough. Those slender ties, that 
 prove slight as gossamer in the rend- 
 ing atmosphere of a metropolis, bind 
 faster, as we found it, in hearty, 
 homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five 
 minutes we were as thoroughly ac- 
 quainted, as if we had been born and 
 bred up together; were familiar, 
 even to the calling each other by our 
 Christian names. So Christians should 
 call one another. To have seen Brid- 
 get, and her — it was like the meeting 
 of the two Scriptural cousins ! There 
 was a grace and dignity, an ampli- 
 tude of form and stature, answering 
 to her mind, in this farmer's wife, 
 which would have shined in a palace 
 — or so we thought it> We were 
 made welcome by husband and wife 
 equally — we, and our friend that was 
 with us. — I had almost forgotten 
 him— but B. F. will not so soon for- 
 get that meeting, if peradventure he 
 shall read this on the far distant 
 shores where the Kangaroo haunts. 
 The fatted calf was made ready, or 
 rather was already so, as if in antici- 
 pation of our coming ; and, after an 
 appropriate glass of native wine, ne- 
 ver let me forget, with what honest 
 pride this hospitable cousin made us 
 proceed to Wheathampstead, to in- 
 troduce us (as some new-found ra- 
 rity) to her mother and sister Glad- 
 mans, who did indeed know some- 
 thing more of us, at a time when she 
 almost knew nothing. — With what 
 corresponding kindness we were re- 
 ceived by them also — how Bridget's 
 memory, exalted by the occasion, 
 warmed into a thousand half obli- 
 terated recollections of things and 
 persons, to my utter astonishment, 
 and her own— and to the astound- 
 nient of B. F. who sat by, almost the 
 only thing that was not a cousin there, 
 — old effaced images of" more than 
 half-forgotten names and circum- 
 stances still crowding back upon her, 
 as wt Js written in lemon come oiit 
 upon exposure to a friendly warmth, 
 — when I forget all this, then may 
 my country cousins forget me ; and 
 Bridget no more remember, that in 
 the days of weakling infancy I was 
 her tender charge — as I have been 
 her care in foolish manhood since — 
 in those pretty pastoral walks, long 
 ago, about Mackery End, in Hert- 
 fordshire. Elia. 
 
 * Wordsworth, on Yarrow Visited. 
 
152 Jews, Quakers, Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies. HAug. 
 
 JEWS, QUAKERS, SCOTCPIMEN, 
 
 AND OTHER IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES. 
 
 I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathizeth with all things, 
 I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncracy in any thing. Those national repugnancies 
 do not touch me, nor do I behold with prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, and 
 Dutch. — Jieligio Medici. 
 
 That the author of the Religio 
 Medici, mounted upon the airy stilts 
 of abstraction, conversant about no- 
 tional and conjectural essences, in 
 whose categories of Being the pos- 
 sible took the upper hand of the 
 actual, should have overlooked the 
 impertinent individualities of such 
 poor concretions as mankind, is not 
 much to be admired. It is rather to 
 be wondered at, that in the genus of 
 animals he should have condescended 
 to distinguish that species at all. For 
 myself — earth-bound and fettered to 
 the scene of my activities, — 
 
 Standing on earth, not rapt above the sky, 
 
 I confess that I do feel the diffe- 
 rences of mankind, national or indi- 
 vidual, to an unhealthy excess. I 
 can look with no indifferent eye upon 
 things or persons. Whatever is, is 
 to me a matter of taste or distaste ; 
 or when once it becomes indifferent, 
 it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in 
 plainer words, a bundle of prejudices 
 — made up of likings and dislikings — 
 the veriest thrall to sympathies, dis- 
 pathies, antipathies. In a certain 
 sense, I hope it may be said of me, 
 that I am a lover of my species. I 
 
 can feel for all indifferently, but I 
 cannot feel towards them all equally. 
 The more purely-English word that 
 expresses sympathy will better ex- 
 plain my meaning. I can be a friend 
 to a worthy man, who upon another 
 account cannot be my mate or fellow. 
 I cannot like all people alike.* 
 
 I have been trying all my life to 
 like Scotchmen, and am obliged to 
 desist from the experiment in despair. 
 They cannot like me — and in truth, 
 I never knew one of that nation who 
 attempted to do it. There is some- 
 thing more plain and ingenuous hi 
 their mode of proceeding. We know 
 one another at first sight. There is 
 an order of imperfect intellects (un- 
 der which mine must be content to 
 rank) which in its constitution is es- 
 sentially anti-Caledonian. The own- 
 ers of the sort of faculties I allude to 
 have minds rather suggestive than 
 comprehensive. They have no pre- 
 tences to much clearness or precision 
 in their ideas, or in their manner of 
 expressing them. Their intellectual 
 wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few 
 whole pieces in it. They are con- 
 tent with fragments and scattered 
 pieces of Truth. She presents no full 
 
 • I would be understood as confining myself to the subject of imperfect sympathies. 
 To nations or classes of men there can be no direct antipathy. There may be individuals 
 born and constellated so opposite to another individual nature, that the same sphere can- 
 not hold them. I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two 
 persons meeting (who never saw one another before in their lives) and instantiy fighting. 
 
 ^We by proof find there should be 
 
 'Twixt man and man such an antipathy. 
 That though he can show no just reason why 
 For any former wrong or injury. 
 Can neither find a blemish in his fame. 
 Nor aught in face or feature justiy blame, 
 Can challenge or accuse him of no evil. 
 Yet notwithstanding hates him as a devil. 
 
 The lines are from old Heywood's " Hierarchic of Angels," and he subjoins a curious 
 story in confirmation, of a Spaniard who attempted to assassinate a King Ferdinand of 
 Spain, and being put to the rack could give no . other reason for the deed but an mvete- 
 rate antipathy which he had taken to the first sight of the King. 
 
 The cause which to that act compell'd liim 
 
 Was, hi ne'er loved him since he first beheld him. 
 
1821.3 Jews, Quakers, Scotchmen, and other Imperfect Sympathies. 153 
 
 front to them — a feature or side-face 
 at the most. Hints and glimpses^ 
 germs and crude essays at a system_, 
 is the utmost they pretend to. They 
 beat up a little game peradventure — 
 and leave it to knottier heads, more 
 robust constitutions, to run it down. 
 The light that lights them, is not 
 steady and polar, but mutable and 
 shifting ; waxing, and again waning. 
 Their conversation is accordingly. 
 They will throw out a random word 
 in or out of season, and be content to 
 let it pass for what it is worth. They 
 cannot speak always as if they were 
 upon their oath — but must be under- 
 stood, speaking or writing, with 
 some abatement. They seldom wait 
 to mature a proposition, but e'en 
 bring it to market in the green ear. 
 They delight to impart their defec- 
 tive discoveries as they arise, without 
 waiting for their full developement. 
 They are no systematizers, and 
 would but err more by attempting it. 
 Their minds, as I said before, are 
 suggestive merely. The brain of a 
 true Caledonian (if I am not mis- 
 taken) is constituted upon quite a 
 tlifFerent plan. Its Minerva is born 
 in panoply. You are never admitted 
 to see his ideas in their growth — if 
 indeed, they do grow, and are not ra- 
 ther put together upon principles of 
 clock-work. You never catch his 
 mind in an undress. He never hints 
 or suggests any thing, but unlades 
 his stock of ideas in perfect order and 
 completeness. He has no falteringS 
 of self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, 
 suppositions, half-intuitions, demi- 
 consciousnesses, misgivings, partial 
 illuminations, '^ dim instincts," em- 
 bryo conceptions, and every stage 
 that stops short of absolute certainty 
 and conviction— his intellectual fa- 
 culty seems a stranger to. He brings 
 his total wealth into company, and 
 gravely unpacks it. His riches are 
 always about him. He never stoops 
 to catch a glittering something in 
 your presence, to share it with you 
 before he quite knows whether it be 
 true touch or not. You cannot cry 
 halves to any thing that he finds. He 
 does not find, but bring. You never 
 witness his first apprehension of a 
 thing. His understanding is always 
 at its meridian — you never see the 
 first dawn, the early streaks. The 
 twilight of dubiety never falls upon 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 him. Is he orthodox— he has no 
 doubts. Is he an infidel— he has none 
 either. Between the affirmative and 
 the negative there is no border-land 
 with him. You cannot hover with 
 him upon the confines of truth, or 
 wander in the 9iaze of a probable 
 argument. He always keeps the 
 path. You cannot make excursions 
 with him— for he sets you right. His 
 taste never fluctuates. His morality 
 never abates. He cannot compro- 
 mise, or understand middle actions. 
 There can be but a right and a 
 wrong. His conversation is as a 
 book. His affirmations have the 
 sanctity of an oath. You must 
 speak upon the square with him. 
 He stops a metaphor like a suspect- 
 ed person in an enemy's coimtry. 
 '' A healthy book ! " — said one of his 
 countrymen to me, who had ven-' 
 tured to giv« that appellation tb 
 John Buncle, — " did I catch rightly 
 what you said ? I have heard of a 
 man in health, and of a healthy stiite 
 of body, but I do not see how that 
 epithet can be properly applied to a 
 book." Above all, you must beware 
 of indirect expressions before a Ca- 
 ledonian. Clap an extinguisher up- 
 on your irony, if you are unhappily 
 blest with a vein of it. Remember 
 you are upon your oath. — I have a 
 print of a graceful female after Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci, which I was show- 
 ing off' to Mr. ****. After he had 
 examined it minutely, 1 ventured to 
 ask him how he liked my beauty (a 
 foolish name it goes by among my 
 friends) — when he very gravely as- 
 sured me, that " he had consider- 
 able respect for my character and 
 talents " (so he was pleased to say}, 
 *' but had not given himself much 
 thought about the degree of my per*^ ' 
 sonal pretensions." The misconcep-if^- 
 tion staggered me, but did not seem 
 much to disconcert him. — Persons of 
 this nation are particularly fond of 
 affirming a truth — which nobody 
 doubts. They do not so properly 
 affirm, as annunciate it. They do 
 indeed appear to have such a love 
 of truth — as if, like virtue, it were 
 valuable for itself — that all truth be-' 
 comes equally valuable, whether the 
 proposition that contains it be new 
 or old, disputed, or such as is im- 
 possible to become a subject of dis- 
 putation. I was present not long 
 N 
 
154 
 
 Jews, Scoichmcn, Quakers, and other hnperfect Sympathies. 
 
 since at a party of North Britons 
 where a son of Bums was expected ; 
 and happened to drop a silly expres- 
 sion (in my south British way), that 
 I wished it were the father instead 
 of the son — when four of them 
 started up at once to inform me, 
 that ^'^ that was impossible, because 
 he was dead." An impracticable 
 wish, it seems, was more than they 
 could conceive. Swift has hit off 
 this part of their character, namely 
 their love of truth, in his biting way, 
 but with an illiberality that neces- 
 sarily confines the passage to the 
 margin.* The tediousness of the 
 Scotch is certainly proverbial. I 
 wonder if they ever tire one another ! 
 — In my early life I had a passionate 
 fondness for the poetry of Bums. 
 I have sometimes foolishly hoped to 
 ingratiate myself with his country- 
 men by expressing it. . But I have 
 always found that a true Scot re- 
 sents your admiration of his com- 
 patriot, even more than he would 
 your contempt of him. The latter 
 he imputes to your " imperfect ac- 
 quaintance with many of the words 
 which he uses;" and the same objec- 
 tion makes it a presumption in you 
 to suppose that you can admire him. 
 I have a great mind to give up 
 Burns. There is certainly a brag- 
 ging spirit of generosity, a swagger- 
 ing assertion of independence, and 
 all that, in his writings. Thomson 
 they seem to have forgotten. Smol- 
 lett they have neither forgotten nor 
 forgiven for his delineation of Rory 
 and his companion, upon their first 
 introduction to our metropolis. — 
 Speak of Smollett as a great genius, 
 and they will retort upon you 
 Hume's History compared with his 
 Continuation of it. What if the his- 
 torian had continued Humphrey 
 Clinker .> 
 
 I have, in the abstract, no dis- 
 respect for Jews. They are a piece 
 of stubborn antiquity, compared with 
 which, Stonehenge is in its nonage. 
 They date beyond the pyramids. 
 
 CAng. 
 
 But I should not care to f)e in habits 
 of familiar intercourse with any of 
 that nation. I confess tliat I have 
 not the nerves to enter their syna- 
 gogues. . Old prejudices cling about 
 me. I cannot shake off the story of 
 Hugh of Lincoln, Centuries of in- 
 jury, contempt, and hate, on the one 
 side, — of cloaked revenge, dissimula- 
 tion, and hate, on the other, between 
 our and their fathers, must, and ought, 
 to affect the blood of the children. 
 I cannot believe it can run clear and 
 kindly yet ; or that a few fine words, 
 such as candour, liberality, the light 
 of a nineteenth century, can close 
 up the breaches of such a mighty 
 antipathy. A Hebrew is no where 
 congenial to me. He is least dis- 
 tasteful on 'Change — for the mer- 
 cantile spirit levels all distinctions, 
 as all are beauties in the dark. I 
 boldly confess that I do not relish 
 the approximation of Jew and Chris- 
 tian, which has become so fashion- 
 able. The reciprocal endearments 
 have, to me, something hypocritical 
 and unnatural in them. I do not 
 like to see the Church and Syna- 
 gogue kissing and congeeing in awk- 
 ward postures of an affected civility. 
 If they are converted, why do they 
 not come over to us altogether.'* 
 Why keep up a form of separation, 
 when the life of it is fled } If they 
 can sit with us at table, why do they 
 keck at our cookery } I do not un- 
 derstand these half-convertites. Jews 
 christianizing — Christians judaizing 
 — puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. 
 A moderate Jew is a more con- 
 founding piece of anomaly than a 
 wet Quaker. The spirit of the syna- 
 gogue is essentially separative. B 
 
 would have been more in keeping if 
 he had abided by the faith of his 
 forefathers. There is a fine scorn in 
 his face, which nature meant to be 
 
 of Christians. The Hebrew spirit 
 
 is strong in him in spite of his pro- 
 selytism. He cannot conquer the 
 Shibboleth. How it breaks out, 
 when he sings, '^ The Children of 
 
 ^ ♦ There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit themselves, and enter- 
 tain their company with relating of facts of no consequence, not at all out of the road 
 of such common incidents as happen every day ; and this I have observed more fre- 
 quently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the 
 minutest circumstances of time or place ; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little 
 relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that 
 country, Airould be hardly tokrable.-^/rn^* towards an Essay on Conversation. 
 
1821.]] Jews, Scotchmen, Quaket^s, and other Imperfect Sympathies^ 155 
 
 Israel passed throug-h the Red Sea V 
 The auditors, for the moment, are as 
 Egyptians to him, and he rides over 
 our necks in triumph. There is no 
 
 mistaking him.— B has a strong 
 
 expression of sense in his counte- 
 nance, and it is confirmed by his 
 singing. The foundation of his vocal 
 excellence is sense. He sings with 
 vmderstanding, as Kemble delivered 
 dialogue. He would sing the Com- 
 mandments, and give an appropriate 
 character to each prohibition. His 
 nation, in general, have not over- 
 sensible coimtenances. How should 
 they? — but you seldom see a silly 
 expression among them. Gain, and 
 the pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's 
 visage. I never heard of an idiot 
 being born among them. — Some ad- 
 mire the Jewish female physiognomy. 
 I admire it— but with trembling. 
 Jael had those full dark inscrutable 
 eyes. 
 
 In the negro countenance, you will 
 often meet with strong traits of be- 
 nignity. I have felt yearnings of 
 tenderness towards some of these 
 faces— or rather masks — that have 
 looked out kindly upon one in casual 
 encounters in the streets and high- 
 ways. I love what Fuller beautifully 
 calls — these " images of God cut in 
 ebony." But I should not like to as- 
 sociate with them, to share my meals 
 and my good-nights with them — be- 
 cause they are black. 
 
 I love Quaker ways, and Quaker 
 worship. I venerate the Quaker 
 principles. It does me good for the 
 rest of the day, when I meet any of 
 their people in my path. When I 
 am ruffled or disturbed by any oc- 
 currence, the sight, or quiet voice of 
 a Quaker, acts upon me as a ventila- 
 tor, lightening the air, and taking off 
 a load from the bosom. But I can- 
 not like the Quakers (as Desdemona 
 would say) '^ to live with them." I 
 am all over sophisticated — with hu- 
 mours, fancies, craving hourly sym- 
 pathy. I must have books, pictures, 
 theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, 
 ambiguities, and a thousand whim- 
 whams, which their simpler taste can 
 do without. I should starve at their 
 primitive banquet. My appetites are 
 too high for the sallads which (ac- 
 cording to Evelyn) Eve dressed for 
 the angel, my gusto too excited 
 
 To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 
 
 The indirect answers which Qua- 
 kers are often found to return to a 
 question put to them, may be ex- 
 plained, I think, without the vulgar 
 assumption, that they are more given 
 to evasion and equivocating than o- 
 ther people. They naturally look to 
 their words more carefully, and are 
 more cautious of committing them- 
 selves. They have a peculiar cha- 
 racter to keep up on this head. They 
 stand in a manner upon their vera- 
 city. A Quaker is by law exempted 
 from taking an oath. The custom of 
 resorting to an oath in extreme cases, 
 sanctified as it is by all religious an- 
 tiquity, is apt (it must be confessed) 
 to introduce into the laxer sort of 
 minds the notion of two kinds of 
 truth — the one applicable to the so- 
 lemn affairs of justice, and the other 
 to the common proceedings of daily 
 intercourse. As truth bound upon 
 the conscience by an oath can be but 
 truth, so in the common affirmations 
 of the shop and the market-place, a 
 latitude is expected, and conceded 
 upon questions wanting this solemn 
 covenant. Something less than truth 
 satisfies. It is common to hear a 
 person say, *' You do not expect me 
 to speak as if I were upon my oath." 
 Hence a great deal of incorrectness 
 and inadvertency, short of falsehood, 
 creeps into ordinary conversation ; 
 and a kind of secondary or laic-truth 
 is tolerated, where clergy-truth — 
 oath-truth, by the nature of the cir- 
 cumstances, is not required. A Qua- 
 ker knows none of this distinction. 
 His simple affirmation being received, 
 upon the most sacred occasions, with- 
 out any further test, stamps a value 
 upon the words which he is to use 
 upon the most indifferent topics of 
 life. He looks to them, naturally, with 
 more severity. You can have of him 
 no more than his word. He knows, 
 if he is caught tripping in a casual 
 expression, he forfeits, for himself at 
 least, his claim to the invidious ex- 
 emption. He knows, that his sylla- 
 bles are weighed — and how far a 
 consciousness of this particular watch- 
 fulness, exerted against a person, has 
 a tendency to produce indirect an- 
 swers, and a diverting of the ques- 
 tion by honest means, might be illus- 
 trated, and the practice justified, by 
 a more sacred example than is proper 
 pejhaps to be more than hhited at 
 N2 
 
156 
 
 Travels of Cosmo HI. through England, in 1669. 
 
 CAug. 
 
 upon this occasion. The admirable 
 presence of mind, which is notorious 
 in Quakers upon all contingencies, 
 might be traced to this imposed self- 
 watchfulness — if it did not seem ra- 
 ther an humble and secular scion of 
 that old stock of religious constancy, 
 which never bent or faltered, in the 
 Primitive Friends, or gave way to the 
 w^inds of persecution, to the violence 
 of judge or accuser, under trials and 
 racking examinations. " You will 
 never be the wiser, if I sit here an- 
 swering your questions till mid- 
 night," said one of those upright Jus- 
 ticers to Penn, who had been putting 
 law-cases with a puzzling subtlety. 
 " Thereafter as the answers may 
 be," retorted the Quaker. The as- 
 tonishing composure of this people 
 is sometimes ludicrously displayed in 
 lighter instances. I was travelling in 
 a stage coach with three male Qua- 
 kers, buttoned up in the straitest 
 non-conformity of their sect. We 
 stopped to bait at Andover, where a 
 meal, partly tea apparatus, partly 
 supper, was set before us. My 
 friends confined themselves to the 
 tea table. I in my way took supper. 
 When the landlady brought in the 
 bill, the eldest of my companions 
 discovered that she had charged for 
 both meals. This was resisted. Mine 
 hostess was very clamorous and po- 
 sitive. Some mild arguments were 
 used on the part of the Quakers, for 
 
 which the heated mind of the good 
 lady seemed by no means a fit reci- 
 pient. The guard came in with his 
 usual peremptory notice. The Qua- 
 kers pulled out their money, and for- 
 mally tendered it— so much for tea — 
 I, in humble imitation, tendering mine 
 — for the supper which I had taken. 
 She would not relax in her demand. 
 So they all three quietly put up their 
 silver, as did myself, and marched 
 out of the room, the eldest and 
 gravest going first, with myself clos- 
 ing up the rear, who thought I could 
 not do better than follow the example 
 of such grave and warrantable per- 
 sonages. We got in. The steps 
 went up. The coach drove off. The 
 muiTuurs of mine hostess, not very 
 indistinctly or ambiguously pro- 
 nounced, became after a time inau- 
 dible — and now my conscience, which 
 the whimsical scene had for a while 
 suspended, beginning to give some 
 twitches, I waited, in the hope that 
 some justification would be offered 
 by these serious persons for the seem- 
 ing injustice of their conduct. To 
 my great surprise, not a syllable was 
 dropped on the subject. They sate 
 as mute as at a meeting. At length 
 the eldest of them broke silence, by 
 enquiring of his next neighbour, 
 ^' Hast thee heard how indigos go at 
 the India House ? " and the question 
 operated as a soporific on my moral 
 feeling as far as Exeter. Elia. 
 
1821^ 
 
 The Old Benchers of the Inner Tempk, 
 
 279 
 
 THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE. 
 
 I WAS born, and passed the first 
 seven years of my life, in the Tem- 
 * pie. Its church, its halls, its gar- 
 dens, its fountain, its river, 1 had 
 almost said ; for in those young years, 
 what was this king of rivers to me, 
 but a stream that watered our plea- 
 sant places ? — these are of my oldest 
 recollections. I repeat, to this day, 
 no verses to myself more frequently, 
 or with kindlier emotion, than those 
 of Spenser, where he speaks of this 
 spot. 
 
 There when they came, whereas those 
 
 bricky towers, 
 The which on Themmes brode aged back 
 
 doth ride. 
 Where now the studious lawyers have their 
 
 bowers, 
 Tliere whylome wont the Templer knights 
 
 to bide. 
 Till they decay d through pride. 
 
 Indeed, it is the most elegant spot 
 in the metropolis. What a transi- 
 tion for a countryman visiting Lon- 
 don for the first time — the passhig 
 from the crowded Strand or Fleet- 
 street, by unexpected avenues, into 
 its magnificent ample squares, its 
 classic green recesses ! What a 
 cheerful, liberal look hath that por- 
 tion of it, which, from three sides, 
 overlooks the greater garden: that 
 goodly pile 
 
 Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, 
 
 confronting, with massy contrast, 
 the lighter, older, more fantastically 
 shrouded one, named of Harcourt, 
 with the clieerful Crown-office Row 
 (place of my kindly engendure), right 
 opposite the stately stream, which 
 washes the garden-foot with her yet 
 scarcely trade-polluted waters, and 
 seems but just weaned from her 
 Twickenham Naiades ! a man would 
 give something to have been born in 
 such places. What a collegiate as- 
 pect has that fine Elizabethan hall, 
 where the fountahi plays, which I 
 have made to rise and fall, how many 
 times! to the astoundment of the 
 young urchins, my contemporaries, 
 who, not being able to guess at its 
 recondite machinery, were almost 
 tempted to hail the wondrous work 
 as magic ! What an antique air had 
 
 the now almost effaced sun-dials, 
 with their moral inscriptions, seem- 
 ing coevals M'ith that Time which 
 they measured, and to take their reve- 
 lations of its flight immediately from 
 heaven, holding correspondence with 
 the fountain of light ! How would 
 the dark line steal imperceptibly on, 
 watched by the eye of childhood, 
 eager to detect its movement, never 
 catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, 
 or the first arrests of sleep ! 
 
 Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand 
 Steal from his tigure, and no pace per- 
 ceived ! 
 
 What a dead thing is a clock, 
 with its ponderous embowelments of 
 lead and brass, its pert or solemn dul- 
 ness of communication, compared with 
 the simple altar-like structure, and 
 silent heart-language of the old dial ! 
 It stood as the garden god of Chris- 
 tian gardens. Why is it almost 
 everywhere vanished.'' If its busi- 
 ness-use be superseded by more 
 elaborate inventions, its moral uses, 
 its beauty, might have pleaded for 
 its continuance. It spoke of mode- 
 rate labours, of pleasures not pro- 
 tracted after sun-set, of temperance, 
 and good hours. It was the pri- 
 mitive clock, the horologe of the 
 first world. Adam could scarce have 
 missed it in Paradise. It was the 
 measure appropriate for sweet plants 
 and flowers to spring by, for the 
 birds to apportion their silver warb- 
 Hngs by, for flocks to pasture and 
 be led to fold by. The shepherd 
 " carved it out quaintly in the sun ;" 
 and, turning philosopher by the very 
 occupation, provided it with mottos 
 more touching than tombstones. It 
 was a pretty device of the gardener, 
 recorded by Marvell, who, in the 
 days of artificial gardening, made a 
 dial out of herbs and flowers. I 
 must quote his verses a little higher 
 up, for they are full, as all his seri- 
 ous poetry was, of a witty delicacy. 
 They will not come in awkwardly, I 
 hope, in a talk of fountains and sun- 
 dials. He is speaking of sweet gar- 
 den scenes. 
 
 What wondrous life in this I lead ! 
 Ripe apples drop about my head. 
 
 
284 
 
 The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 artificial or not. I remember the as- 
 tonishment it raised hi me. He was 
 a blustering, loud-talking person ; 
 and I reconciled the phenomenon to 
 my ideas as an emblem of power — 
 somewhat like the honis in the fore- 
 head of Michael Angelo's Moses. 
 Baron Massres, who walks (or did 
 till very lately) in the costume of the 
 reign of George the Second, closes 
 my imperfect recollections of the old 
 benchers of the Inner Temple. 
 
 Fantastic forms, whither are ye 
 fled ? Or, if the like of you exist, 
 why exist they no more for me ? Ye 
 inexplicable, half-understood appear- 
 ances, why comes in reason to tear 
 away the preternatural mist, bright 
 or gloomy, that enshrouded you? 
 Why make ye so sorry a figure in 
 my relation, who made up to me — 
 to my childish eyes — the mythology 
 of the Temple ? In those days I saw 
 Gods, as ^' old men covered with a 
 mantle," walking upon the earth. — 
 Let the dreams of classic idolatry 
 perish, — extinct be the fairies and 
 fairy trumpery of legendary fabling, 
 — in the heart of childhood, there 
 will, for ever, spring up a well of in- 
 nocent or wholesome superstition — 
 the seeds of exaggeration will be 
 busy there, and vital — from every- 
 day forms educing the unknown and 
 the uncommon. In that little Goshen 
 there will be light, when the grown 
 world flounders about in the darkness 
 of sense and materiality. While 
 childhood, and while dreams, re- 
 ducing childhood, shall be left, ima- 
 gination shall not have spread her 
 holy whigs totally to fly the earth. 
 
 Elia. 
 
 P. S. I have done injustice to the 
 soft shade of Samuel Salt. See what 
 it is to trust to imperfect memory, 
 and the erring notices of childhood ! 
 Yet I protest I always thought that 
 he had been a bachelor ! This gen- 
 tleman, R. N. hiforms me, married 
 yovmg, and losing his lady in child^ 
 bed within the first year of their 
 union, fell into a deep melancholy, 
 from the effects of which, ])robably, 
 he never thoroughly recovered. In 
 
 what a new light does this place his 
 rejection (O call it by a gentler 
 name !) of mild Susan P , unra- 
 velling into beauty certain pecu- 
 liarities of this very shy and retiring 
 character ! — Henceforth let no one 
 receive the narratives of Elia for true 
 records ! They are, in truth, but sha- 
 dows of fact — verisimilitudes, not ve- 
 rities — or sitting but upon the remote 
 edges and outskirts of history. He 
 is no such honest chronicler as II. N., 
 and would have done better perhaps 
 to have consulted that gentleman, 
 before he sent these incondite remini- 
 scences to press. But the worthy sub- 
 treasurer — who respects his old and 
 his new masters — would but have 
 been puzzled at the indecorous liber- 
 ties of Elia. The good man wots not, 
 peradventure, of the license which 
 Magazines have arrived at in this per- 
 sonal age, or hardly dreams of their 
 existence beyond the Gentleman's — 
 his furthest monthly excursions in 
 this nature having been long con- 
 fined to the holy ground of honest 
 Urban s obituary. May it be long 
 before his own name shall help to 
 swell those columns of unenvied flat- 
 tery ! — Meantime, O ye new Bench- 
 ers of the Inner Temple, cherish him 
 kindly, for he is himself the kindliest 
 of human creatures. Should infir- 
 mities over-take him — he is yet in 
 green and vigorous senility — make 
 allowances for them, remembering 
 that ^^ ye yourselves are old." So 
 may the whiged horse, your ancient 
 badge and cognisance, still flourish ! 
 so may future Hookers and Seldens 
 illustrate your church and chambers ! 
 so may the sparrows, in default of 
 more melodious quiristers, unpoison- 
 ed hop about your walks ! so may 
 the fresh-coloured and cleanly nur- 
 sery maid, who, by leave, airs her 
 playful charge in your stately gar- 
 dens, drop her prettiest bluslnng 
 curtsey as ye pass, reductive of juve- 
 nescent emotion ! so may the youii- 
 kers of this generation eye you, 
 pacing your stately terrace, with the 
 same superstitious veneration, with 
 which the child Elia gazed on the 
 old worthies that solemnized the pa- 
 rade before ye ! 
 
WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS. 
 
 We are too hasty when we set 
 down our ancestors in the gross for 
 fools, for the monstrous inconsisten- 
 cies (as they seem to us) involved in 
 their creed of witchcraft. In the re- 
 lations of this visible world we find 
 them to have been as rational, and 
 shrewd to detect an historic anomaly, 
 as ourselves. But when once the 
 invisible world was supposed to be 
 opened, and the lawless agency of 
 bad spirits assumed, what measures 
 of probability, of decency, of fitness, 
 or proportion— of that which distin- 
 guishes the likely from the palpable 
 absurd — could they have to guide 
 them in the rejection or admission of 
 any particular testimony ? — That 
 maidens pined away, wasting inward- 
 ly as their waxen images consumed 
 before a fire — that corn was lodged. 
 
 and cattle lamed — that whirlwinds 
 uptore in diabolic revelry the oaks of 
 the forest — or that spits and kettles 
 only danced a fearful-innocent vaga- 
 ry about some rustic's kitchen when 
 no wind was stirring — were all equal- 
 ly probable where no law of agency 
 was understood. That the prince of 
 the powers of darkness, passing by 
 the flower and pomp of the earth, 
 should lay preposterous siege to the 
 weak fantasy of indigent eld — has 
 neither likelihood iior unlikelihood 
 a priori to us, who have no measure 
 to guess at his policy, or standard to 
 estimate what rate those anile souls 
 may fetch in the devil's market. Nor, 
 when the wicked are expressly sym- 
 bolized by a goat, was it to be won- 
 dered at so much, that he should come 
 sometimes in that body, and assert 
 
 • She whom I seek, and find not, on the earth ; 
 
 -^ ]Morc lovely, imd less proud* 
 
WitcheSi and other Nig^tt-fears* 
 
 8S5 
 
 his metaphor. — That the intercourse 
 was opened at all between both 
 worlds was perhaps the mistake — 
 but that once assumed, I see no rea- 
 son for disbelieving one attested story 
 of this nature more than another on 
 the score of absurdity. There is no 
 law to judge of the lawless, or canon 
 by which a dream may be criticised. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that 1 
 could not have existed in the days of 
 received witchcraft ; that I could not 
 have slept in a village where one of 
 those reputed hags dwelt. Our an- 
 cestors were bolder or more obtuse. 
 Amidst the universal belief that these 
 wretches were in league with the au- 
 thor of all evil, holding hell tributary 
 to their muttering, no simple Justice 
 of the Peace seems to have scrupled 
 issuing, or silly Headborough serving, 
 a warrant upon them— as if they 
 should subpoena Satan ! — Prosper© 
 in his boat, with his books and wand 
 about him, suffers himself to be con- 
 veyed away at the mercy of his ene- 
 mies to an unknown island. He 
 might have raised a storm or two, 
 we think, on the passage. His ac- 
 quiescence is in exact analogy to the 
 non-resistance of witches to the con- 
 stituted powers. — What stops the 
 Fiend in Spenser from tearing Guyon 
 to pieces —or who had made it a con- 
 dition of his prey, that Guyon must 
 take assay of the glorious bait — we 
 have no guess. We do not know the 
 laws of that country. 
 
 From my childhood I was ex- 
 tremely inquisitive about witches and 
 witch-stories. My maid, and more 
 legendary aunt, supplied me with 
 good store. But I shall mention the 
 accident which directed my curiosity 
 originally into this channel. In my 
 father's book-closet, the History of 
 the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a 
 distinguished station. The pictures 
 with which it abounds — one of the 
 ark, in particular, and another of So- 
 lomon's temple, delineated with all 
 the fidelity of ocular admeasurement, 
 as if the artist had been upon the 
 spot— attracted my childish attention. 
 There was a picture too, of theWitch 
 raising up Samuel, which 1 wish that 
 I had never seen. We shall come 
 to that hereafter. Stackhouse is in 
 two huge tomes — and there was a 
 pleasure in removing folios of that 
 magnitude, which, with infinite 
 straining, was as much as I could 
 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 manage, from the situation wiiich 
 they occupied upon an upper shelf. 
 I have not met with the work from 
 that time to this, but I remember it 
 consisted of Old Testament stories, 
 orderly set down, with the objection 
 appended to each story, and tne 50- 
 lution of the objection regidarly tack* 
 ed to that. The objection was a sum- 
 mary of whatever difficulties had 
 been opposed to the credibility of the 
 history, by the shrewdness of ancient 
 or modern infidelity, drawn up wi;h 
 an almost complimentary excess of 
 candour. The solution was brief, 
 modest, and satisfactory. The banc 
 and antidote were both before you. 
 To doubts so put, and so quashed, 
 there seemed to be an end for ever. 
 The dragon lay dead, for the foot of 
 the veriest babe to trample on. But 
 — like as was rather feared than 
 realized from that slain monster in 
 Spenser — from the womb of those 
 crushed errors, young dragonets 
 would creep, exceeding the prowess 
 of so tender a Saint George as myself 
 to vanquish. The habit of expecting 
 objections to every passage, set me 
 upon starting more objections, for 
 the glory of finding a solution of my 
 own for them. I became staggered 
 and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. 
 The pretty Bible stories which I 
 had read, or heard read in church> 
 lost their purity and sincerity of im- 
 pression, and were turned hito so 
 many historic or chronologic theses 
 to be defended against whatever im*. 
 pugners. I was not to disbelieve 
 them, but— the next thing to that — I 
 was to be quite sure that some one 
 or other would, or had disbelieved 
 them. Next to making a chUd an 
 infidel, is the letting him know tlip' 
 there are infidels at all. Credulity is 
 the man's weakness, but the child's 
 strength. O, how ugly sound Scrip*, 
 tural doubts from the mouth of a 
 babe and a suckling ! — I should have 
 lost myself in these mazes, and have 
 pined away, I think, with such unfit 
 sustenance as these husks afForded> 
 but for a fortunate piece of ill-for-' 
 tune, which about this time befel 
 me. Turning over the picture of the 
 ark with too much haste, I unhappily 
 made a breach in its ingenious fabric--* 
 driving my inconsiderate fingers right 
 through the two larger quadrupeds — 
 the elephant, and the camel — that stare 
 (as well they might) out of the two 
 2 F 
 
386 
 
 last windows next the steerage in 
 that unique piece of naval architec- 
 ture. Stackhouse was henceforth 
 locked up, and became an interdicted 
 treasure. With the book, the objec- 
 tions and solutions gradually cleared 
 out of my head, and have seldom re- 
 turned since in any force to trouble 
 me. — But there was one impression 
 which I had imbibed from Stack- 
 house, which no lock or bar could 
 shut out, and which was destined to 
 try my childish nerves rather more 
 seriously. — That detestable picture ! 
 I was dreadfully alive to nervous 
 terrors. The night-time solitude, 
 and the dark, were my hell. The 
 sufferings I endured in this nature 
 would justify the expression. I never 
 laid my head on my pillow, I sup- 
 pose, from the fourth to the seventh 
 or eighth year of my life — so far as 
 memory serves in things so long ago 
 — without an assurance, which real- 
 ized its own prophecy, of seeing some 
 frightful spectre. Be old Stackhouse 
 then acquitted in part, if I say that 
 to his picture of the Witch raising up 
 Samuel — (O that old man covered 
 with a mantle !) I owe — not my 
 midnight terrors, the hell of my in- 
 fancy — but the shape and manner of 
 their visitation. It was he who 
 dressed up for me a hag that nightly 
 sate upon my pillow — a sure bed- 
 fellow, when my aunt or my maid 
 was far from me. All day long, 
 while the book was permitted me, I 
 dreamed waking over his delineation, 
 and at night (if I may use so bold an 
 expression) awoke into sleep, and 
 found the vision true. I durst not, 
 even in the day- light, once enter the 
 chamber where 1 slept, without my 
 face turned to the window, aversely 
 from the bed where my witch-ridden 
 pillow was. — Parents do not know 
 what they do when they leave tender 
 babes alone to go to sleep in the 
 dark. The feeling about for a friend- 
 ly arm — the hoping for a familiar 
 voice — when they wake screaming — 
 and find none to soothe them — what 
 a terrible shaking it is to their poor 
 nerves! The keeping them up till 
 
 midnight, through candle-light and 
 the unwholesome hours, as they are 
 called, — would, I am satisfied, in a 
 medical point of view, prove the bet- 
 ter caution. — That detestable pic- 
 ture^ as I have said^ gave the fashion 
 
 Witches, and other Night-fears. C^^t. 
 
 to my dreams— if dreams they were 
 — lor the scene of them was invaria- 
 bly the room in which I lay. Had I 
 never met with the picture, the fears 
 would have come self-pictured in 
 some shape or other — 
 
 Headless bear, black-man, or ape — 
 but, as it was, my imaginations took 
 that form. — It is not book, or picture, 
 or the stories of foolish servants, 
 which create these terrors in children. 
 They can at most but give them a 
 direction. Dear little T. H. who of 
 all children has been brought up with 
 the most scrupulous exclusion of 
 every taint of superstition — who was 
 never allowed to hear of goblin or 
 apparition, or scarcely to be told of 
 bad men, or to read or hear of any 
 distressing story — finds all this world 
 of fear, from which he has been so 
 rigidly excluded ab extra, in his own 
 " thick-coming fancies ;" and from 
 his little midnight pillow, this nurse- 
 child of optimism will start at shapes, 
 unborrowed of tradition, in sweats to 
 which the reveries of the cell-damned 
 murderer are tranquillity. 
 
 Gorgon s, and Hydras, and Chi- 
 maeras dire— stories of Celseno and 
 the Harpies — may reproduce them- 
 selves in the brain of superstition — 
 but they were there before. They 
 are transcripts, types— the arche- 
 types are in us, and eternal. How 
 else should the recital of that, which 
 we know in a waking sense to be 
 false, come to affect us at all ?— or 
 
 Names, whose sense we see not, 
 
 Fray us with things that be not ? 
 
 Is it that we naturally conceive ter- 
 ror from such objects, considered in 
 their capacity of being able to inflict 
 upon us bodily injury ?— O, least of 
 all! These terrors are of older 
 standing. They date beyond body— 
 or, without the body, they would 
 have been the same. All the cruel, 
 tormenting, defined devils in Dante- 
 tearing, mangUng, choking, stifling, 
 scorching demons— are they one half 
 so fearful to the spirit of a man, as the 
 simple idea of a spirit unembodied 
 following him — 
 
 Like one that on a lonesome road 
 Doth walk in fear and dread, 
 And having once turn'd round, walks on. 
 And turns no more his head ; 
 Because he knows a frightful fiend 
 Doth close behind him tread * 
 
 Bit. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 
 
i82i.:i 
 
 Witches, and other Night-fears. 
 
 387 
 
 That the kind of fear here treated 
 of is purely spiritual — that it is strong 
 in proportion as it is objectless upon 
 earth — that it predominates in the 
 period of sinless infancy — are diffi- 
 cultiesj the solution of which might 
 afford some probable insight into our 
 ante-mundane condition, and a peep 
 at least into the shadow-land of pre- 
 existence. 
 
 My night-fancies have long ceased 
 to be afflictive. I confess an occa- 
 sional night-mare ; but I do not, as 
 in early youth, keep a stud of them. 
 Fiendish faces, with the extinguished 
 taper, will come and look at me; 
 but I know them for mockeries, even 
 while I cannot elude their presence, 
 and I fight and grapple with them. 
 For the credit of my imagination, I 
 am almost ashamed to say how 
 tame and prosaic my dreams are 
 grown. They are never romantic, — 
 seldom even rural. They are of 
 architecture and of buildings — cities 
 abroad, which I have never seen, 
 and hardly have hope to see. I have 
 traversed, for the seeming length of 
 a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam, 
 Paris, Lisbon — tlieir churches, pa- 
 laces, squares, market-places, shops, 
 suburbs, ruins, with an inexpres- 
 sible sense of delight — a map-like 
 distinctness of trace — and a day- 
 light vividness of vision, that was all 
 but being awake. I have travelled 
 among the Westmoreland fells — my 
 highest Alps, — but they were objects 
 too mighty for the grasp of my 
 dreaming recognition ; and I have 
 again and agahi awoke with ineffec- 
 tual struggles of the " inner eye," 
 to make out a shape in any way 
 whatever, of Helvellyn. Methought 
 I was in that country, but the moun- 
 tains were gone. The poverty of 
 my dreams mortifies me. There is 
 
 C , at his will can conjure up icy 
 
 domes, and pleasure-houses for Kubla 
 Khan, and Abyssinian maids, and 
 songs of Abara, and caverns. 
 
 Where Alph, the sacred river, runs, 
 
 to solace his night solitudes— when 
 I cannot muster a fiddle. Barry 
 Cornwall has his tritons and his 
 nereids gamboling before him hi noc- 
 turnal visions, and proclaiming sons 
 born to Neptune— when my stretch 
 of imaginative activity can hardly, 
 in the night season, raise up the ghost 
 of a fish- wife. To set my failures in 
 somewhat a mortifying light — it was 
 after reading the noble Dream of 
 this poet, that my fancy ran strong 
 upon these marine spectra; and the 
 poor plastic power, such as it is, 
 within me set to work, to humour 
 my folly in a sort of dream that very 
 night. Methought I was upon the 
 ocean billows at some sea nuptials, 
 riding and mounted high, with the 
 customary train sounding their conchs 
 before me, (I myself, you may be 
 sure, the leading god,) and jollily we 
 went careering over the mahi, till 
 just where Ino Leucothea should 
 have greeted me (I think it was Ino) 
 with a white embrace, the billows 
 gradually subsiding, fell from a sea- 
 roughness to a sea-calm, and thence 
 to a river-motion, and that river (as 
 happens in the familiarization of 
 dreams) was no other than the gentle 
 Thames, which landed me, in the 
 wafture of a placid wave or two, 
 safe and inglorious somewhere at the 
 foot of Lambeth palace. 
 
 The degree of the soul's creative- 
 ness in sleep might furnish no whim- 
 sical criterion of the quantum of 
 poetical faculty resident in the same 
 soul waking. An old gentleman, a 
 friend of mine, and a humourist, 
 used to carry this notion so far, that 
 when he saw any stripling of his ac-« 
 quaintance ambitious of becomhig a 
 poet, his first question would be, — 
 *' Young man, what sort of dreams 
 have you ? " I have so much faith 
 in my old friend's theory, that when 
 1 feel that idle vein returning upon 
 me, I presently subside into my pro- 
 per element of prose, remembering 
 those eluding nereids, and that inaus- 
 picious inland landing. 
 
 Elia. 
 
 2 F2 
 
THE 
 
 iontion iWaga^me^ 
 
 N° XXIII. 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1821. 
 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 GRACE BEFORE MEAT. 
 
 The custom of saying grace at 
 meals had, probably, its origin in 
 the early times of the world, and the 
 hunter-state of man, when dinners 
 were precarious things, and a full 
 meal was something more than a 
 common blessing ; when a belly-full 
 was a windfall, and looked like a spe- 
 cial providence. In the shouts and 
 triumphal songs, with which, after a 
 season of sharp abstinence, a lucky 
 booty of deer's or goat's flesh would 
 naturally be ushered home, existed, 
 perhaps, the germ of the modern 
 ^ace. It is not otherwise easy to 
 be understood, why the blessing of 
 food — the act of eating — should have 
 had a particular expression of thanks- 
 givhig annexed to it, distinct from 
 that implied and silent gratitude with 
 which we are expected to enter upon 
 the enjoyment of the many other va- 
 rious gifts and good things of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 I own that I am disposed to say 
 grace upon twenty other occasions in 
 the course of the day besides my 
 dinner. I want a form for setting 
 out upon a pleasant walk, for a moon- 
 light ramble, for a friendly meeting, 
 or a solved problem. Why have we 
 none for books, those spiritual re- 
 pasts — a grace before Milton — a grace 
 before Shakspeare — a devotional ex- 
 ercise proper to be said before read- 
 ing the Fairy Queen ? — but, the re- 
 ceived ritual having prescribed these 
 forms to the solitary ceremony of 
 manducation, I shall confine my ob- 
 servations to the experience which I 
 have had of the grace, properly so 
 called ; commendhig my new scheme 
 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 for extension to a niche in the grand 
 philosophical, poetical, and perchance 
 in part heretical, liturgy, now com- 
 piling by my friend Homo Humanus, 
 for the use of a certain snug congre- 
 gation of Utopian Rabelaesian Chris- 
 tians, no matter where assembled. 
 
 The form then of the benediction 
 before eating has its beauty at a 
 poor man's table, or at the simple 
 and unprovocative repasts of chil- 
 dren. It is here that the grace be- 
 comes exceedingly graceful. The in- 
 digent man, who hardly knows whe- 
 ther he shall have a meal the next day 
 or not, sits down to his fare with a 
 present sense of the blessing, which 
 can be but feebly acted by the rich, 
 into whose minds the conception of 
 ever wanting a dinner could never, 
 but by some extreme theory, have 
 entered. The proper end of food — 
 the animal sustenance— is barely con- 
 templated by them. The poor man's 
 bread is his daily bread, literally his 
 bread for the day. Their courses are 
 perennial. 
 
 Again, the plainest diet seems the 
 fittest to be preceded by the grace. 
 That which is least stimulative to 
 appetite, leaves the mind most free 
 for foreign considerations. A man 
 may feel thankful, heartily thankful, 
 over a dish of plain mutton with 
 turnips, and have leisure to reflect 
 upon the ordinance and institution of 
 eating, when he shall confess a per- 
 turbation of mind, inconsistent with 
 the purposes of the grace, at the 
 presence of venison or turtle. When 
 I have sate (a varus hospes) at ricfe 
 men's tables, with the savoury souii 
 2M 
 
Grace Before Meat. 
 
 and messes steaming up the nostrils, 
 and moistening the lips of the guests 
 with desire and a distracted choice, 
 I have felt the introduction of that 
 ceremony to be unseasonable. With 
 the ravenous orgasm upon you, it 
 seems impertinent to interpose a re- 
 ligious sentiment. It is a confusion 
 of purpose to mutter out praises 
 from a mouth that waters. The 
 heats of epicurism put out the gentle 
 flame of devotion. The incense which 
 rises round is pagan, and the belly- 
 god intercepts it for his own. The 
 very excess of the provision beyond 
 the needs, takes away all sense of 
 proportion between the end and 
 means. The giver is veiled by his 
 gifts. You are startled at the in- 
 justice of returning thanks — for what.^ 
 — for having too much, while so many 
 starve. It is to praiset he Gods 
 amiss. 
 
 I have observed this awkwardness 
 felt, scarce consciously perhaps, by 
 the good man who says the grace. 
 I have seen it in clergymen and 
 others — a sort of shame — a sense of 
 the co-presence of circumstances 
 which unhallow the blessing. After 
 a devotional tone put on for a few 
 seconds, how rapidly the speaker will 
 fall into his common voice, helping 
 himself or his neighbour, as if to 
 get rid of some uneasy sensation of 
 hypocrisy. Not that the good man 
 was a hypocrite, or was not most 
 conscientious in the discharge of the 
 duty ; but he felt in his inmost mind 
 the incompatibility of the scene and 
 the viands before him with the exer- 
 cise of a calm and rational grati- 
 tude. 
 
 I hear somebody exclaim, — Woidd 
 you have Christians sit down at table, 
 like hogs to their troughs, with- 
 out remembering the Giver .f*— no — I 
 would have them sit down as Chris- 
 tians, remembering the Giver, and 
 less like hogs. Or if their appetites 
 must run riot, and they must pam- 
 per themselves with delicates for 
 which east and west are ransacked, 
 I would have them postpone their 
 benediction to a fitter season, when 
 appetite is laid ; when the still small 
 voice can be heard, and the reason 
 of the grace returns — with temperate 
 diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony 
 and surfeiting are no proper occasions 
 for thanksgiving. When Jeshurun 
 ■waxed fat, we read that he kicked. 
 
 Virgil knew the harpy-nature better, 
 when he put into the mouth of 
 Celaeno any thing but a blessing. We 
 may be gratefully sensible of the 
 deliciousness of some kinds of food 
 beyond others, though that is a 
 meaner and inferior gratitude : but 
 the proper object of the grace is 
 sustenance, not relishes ; daily bread, 
 not delicacies; the means of life, 
 and not the means of pampering the 
 carcase. With what frame or com- 
 posure, I wonder, can a city chap- 
 lain pronounce his benediction at 
 some great Hall feast, when he 
 knows that his last concluding pious 
 word — and that, in all probability, 
 the sacred name which he preaches — 
 is but the signal for so many impa- 
 tient harpies to commence their foul 
 orgies, w^ith as little sense of true 
 thankfulness (which is temperance) 
 as those Virgilian fowl ! It is well if 
 the good man himself does not feel 
 his devotions a little clouded, those 
 foggy sensuous steams mingling with, 
 and polluting the pure altar sacrifice^ 
 The severest satire upon full tables 
 and surfeits is the banquet which 
 Satan, in the Paradise Regained, 
 provides for a temptation in the 
 wilderness : — 
 
 A table richly spread in regal mode, 
 With dishes piled, and meats of noblest 
 
 sort 
 And savour ; beasts of chase, or fowl of 
 
 game, 
 In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, 
 Gris-amber-steamcd ; all fish from sea or 
 
 shore. 
 Freshet or purling brook, for which was 
 
 drained 
 Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. 
 
 The Tempter, I warrant you, 
 thought these cates would go down 
 without the recommendatory pre- 
 face of a benediction. They are like 
 to be short graces where the devil 
 plays the host. — I am afraid, the poet 
 wants his usual decorum in this 
 place. Was he thinking of the old 
 Roman luxury, or of a gaudy day at 
 Cambridge ? This was a temptation 
 fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole 
 banquet is too civic and culhiary, and 
 the accompaniments altogether a pro- 
 fanation of that deep, abstracted, 
 holy scene. The mighty artillery of 
 sauces, which the cook-fiend conjures 
 up, is out of proportion to the simple 
 wants and plain hunger of the guest. 
 He that disturbed him in his dreams. 
 
1S210 
 
 Grace Before Meat. 
 
 4n 
 
 from his dreams might have been 
 taught better. To the temperate fan- 
 tasies of the famished Son of God^ 
 what sort of feasts presented them- 
 selves ? — He dreamed indeed. 
 
 As appetite is wont to dream, 
 
 Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment 
 sweet. 
 
 But what meats ? — 
 
 Him thought, he by the brook of Cherith 
 
 stood, 
 And saw the ravens with then* horny beaks 
 Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn ; 
 Though ravenous, taught to abstain from 
 
 what they brought : 
 He saw the prophet also how he fled 
 Into the desart, and how there he slept 
 Under a juniper ; then how awaked 
 He found his supper on the coals prepared. 
 And by the angel was bid rise and eat, 
 And ate the second time after repose. 
 The strength whereof sufliced hun forty 
 
 Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook. 
 Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. 
 
 Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied 
 than these temperate dreams of the 
 divine Hungerer. To which of these 
 two visionary banquets, think you, 
 would the introduction of what is 
 called the grace have been most 
 fitting and pertinent ? 
 
 Theoretically I am no enemy to 
 graces; but practically I own that 
 (before meat especially) they seem to 
 involve something awkward and un- 
 seasonable. Our appetites, of one or 
 another kind, are excellent spurs to 
 our reason, which might otherwise 
 but feebly set about the great ends of 
 preserving and continuing the species. 
 They are fit blesshigs to be contem- 
 plated at a distance with a becoming 
 gratitude; but the moment of ap- 
 petite (the judicious reader will ap- 
 prehend me) is, perhaps, the least fit 
 season for that exercise. The Quakers 
 who go about their business, of eveiy 
 description, with more calmness than 
 we, have more title to the use of 
 these benedictory prefaces. I have 
 always admii-ed their silent grace, 
 and the more because I have ob- 
 served their applications to the meat 
 and drink followh)g to be less passi- 
 onate and sensual than oiu's. They 
 are neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers 
 as a people. They eat, as a horse 
 bolts his chopt hay, with indifference, 
 calmness, and cleanly circumstances. 
 They neither grease nor slop them- 
 selves. When I see a citizen in his 
 
 bib and tucker, I cannot imagine it a 
 Burplice. 
 
 1 am no Quaker at my food. I 
 confess I am not indifferent to the 
 kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels 
 of deer's flesh were not made to be 
 received with dispassionate services. 
 I hate a man who swallows it, af- 
 fecting not to know what he is 
 eating. I suspect his taste in higher 
 ir.atters. I shrink instinctively from 
 one who professes to like minced 
 veal. There is a physiognomical 
 
 character in the tastes for food. C 
 
 holds that a man cannot have a pure 
 mind who refuses apple-dumplings. 
 I am not certain but he is right. 
 With the decay of my first innocence, 
 I confess a less and less relish daily 
 for those innocuous cates. The whole 
 vegetable tribe have lost their gust 
 with me. Only I stick to asparagus, 
 which still seems to inspire gentle 
 thoughts. I am impatient and que- 
 rulous under culinary disappoint- 
 ments, as to come home at the dinner 
 hour, for instance, expecting some 
 savoury mess, and to find one quite 
 tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill 
 melted — that commonest of kitchen 
 failures— puts me beside my tenour. 
 The author of the Rambler used to 
 make inarticulate animal noises over 
 a favourite food. Was this the music 
 quite proper to be preceded by the 
 grace ? or would the pious man have 
 done better to postpone his devotions 
 to a season when the blesshig might 
 be contemplated with less perturba- 
 tion.'* I quarrel with no man's 
 tastes, nor would set my thin face 
 against those excellent things in their 
 way, jollity and feasting. But as 
 these exercises, however laudable, 
 have little in them of grace or grace- 
 fulness, a man should be sure, before 
 he ventures so to grace them, that 
 while he is pretending his devotions 
 otherwhere, he is not secretly kissing 
 his hand to some great fish — his 
 Dagon — with a special consecration 
 of no ark but the fat tureen be- 
 fore him. Graces are the sweet pre- 
 luding strains to the banquets of an- 
 gels and children ; to the roots and 
 severer repasts of the Chartreuse ; to 
 the slender, but not slenderly ac- 
 knowledged, refection of the poor 
 and humble man: but at the heaped- 
 up boards of the pampered and the 
 luxurious they become of dissonant 
 mood, less timed and tuned to the 
 2M2 
 
472 
 
 On the Songs of Thibaut, King of Navarre. 
 
 Zffor. 
 
 occasion, methhiks, than the noise of 
 those better befitting organs would 
 be, which children hear tales of, at 
 Hog's Norton. We sit too long at 
 our meals, or are too cunous in the 
 study of them, or too disordered in 
 our application to them, or engross 
 too great a portion of those good 
 things (which should be common) to 
 our share, to be able with any grace 
 to say grace. To be thankful for 
 what we grasp exceeding our propor- 
 tion is to add hypocrisy to injustice. 
 A lurking sense of this truth is what 
 makes the performance of this duty 
 so cold and spiritless a service at most 
 tables. In houses where the grace 
 is as indispensable as the napkin, 
 who has not seen that never settled 
 question arise, as to ivho shall say it ; 
 while the good man of the house and 
 the visitor clergyman, or some other 
 guest belike of next authority from 
 years or gravity, shall be bandying 
 about the office between them as a 
 matter of compliment, each of them 
 not unwilling to shift the awkward 
 burthen of an equivocal duty from his 
 own shoulders ? I once drank tea in 
 company with two Methodist divines 
 of different persuasions, whom it was 
 my fortune to introduce to each other 
 for the first time that evening. Be- 
 fore the first cup was handed round, 
 one of these reverend gentlemen put 
 it to the other, with all due solem- 
 nity, v/hether he chose to say any 
 thing. It seems it is the custom with 
 some sectaries to put up a short 
 prayer before this meal also. His 
 reverend brother did not at first quite 
 apprehend him, but upon an expla- 
 nation, with little less importance he 
 made answer, that it was not a cus- 
 tom known in his church ; in which 
 courteous evasion the other acqui- 
 escing for good manner's sake, or in 
 coinpliauce with a weak brother, the 
 
 supplementary oi teo-graoe was 
 waived altogether. With what spirit 
 might not Lucian have painted two 
 priests, of his religion, playing into 
 each other's hands the compliment of 
 performing or omitting a sacrifice, — 
 the himgry God meantime, doubtful 
 of his incense, with expectant nostrils 
 hovering over the two flamens, and 
 (as between two stools) going away 
 in the end without his supper. 
 
 A short form upon these occasions 
 is felt to be unreverend ; a long one^^ 
 I am afraid, cannot escape the charge 
 of impertinence. I do not quite ap- 
 prove of the epigrammatic concise- 
 ness with which that equivocal waff 
 n)ut my pleasant school-fellow) 
 C. V. L., when importuned for a 
 grace, used to enquire, first slyly 
 leering down the table, " Is there no. 
 clergyman here?" — significantly add-« 
 ing, ^^ thank G— ." Nor do I think 
 our old form at school quite perti- 
 nent, when we were used to preface 
 our bald bread and cheese suppers 
 with a preamble, connecting with 
 that humble blessing a recognition 
 of benefits the most awful and over- 
 whelming to the imagination which 
 religion has to offer. Non tunc illis 
 erat locus. I remember we were put 
 to it to reconcile the phrase '' good 
 creatures," upon which the blessing 
 rested, with the fare set before us, 
 wilfully understanding that expres- 
 sion in a low and animal sense, till 
 some one recalled a legend, which 
 told hov/ in the golden days of 
 Christ's, the yovmg Hospitallers were 
 wont to have smoking joints of roast 
 meat upon their nightly boards, till 
 some pious benefactor, commiserating 
 the decencies, rather than the palates, 
 of the children, commuted our flesh 
 for garments, and gave us — horresco 
 referent — trowsers instead of mutton. 
 
 l^LIA. 
 
No. XXIII. NOVEMBER, 1821. 
 
 TH£ UEON'S H£AD. 
 
 Some of our Correspondents having expressed a wish to put their heads in 
 the Lion's Mouth this month, he hath courteously consented, and promises 
 not to " wag his Tail," till they have done. 
 
 Elta to his Correspondents. — ^A Correspondent, who writes himself 
 Peter Ball, or Bell, — for his hand- writing is as ragged as his manners — ad- 
 monishes me of the old saying, that some people (under a courteous peri- 
 phrasis I slur his less ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. 
 In my " Old Benchers of the Inner Temple," I have delivered myself, and 
 truly, a Templar bom. Bell clamours upon this, and thinketh that he hath 
 caught a fox. It seems that in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly 
 scribbler who had called my good identity in question, (see P. S. to my 
 '' Chapter on Ears,") I profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish 
 Square, deducing my remoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, ex- 
 cept this tinkling cymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was 
 answering a fool according to his folly — that Elia there expresseth himself 
 ironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and 
 can be no fit recipient of it ? Such a one it is usual to leave to his delusions ; 
 or, leading him from error still to contradictory error, to plunge him (as we 
 say) deeper in the mire, and give him line till he suspend himself. No un- 
 derstanding reader could be imposed upon by such obvious rhodomontade 
 to suspect me for an alien, or believe me other than English. — To a second 
 Correspondent, who signs himself " a \Viltshire man," and claims me for a 
 countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in my '' Christ's 
 Hospital," a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over the Genoese fable, 
 which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely detects a more subtle discre- 
 pancy, which Bell was too obtuse to strike upon. Referring to the passage 
 (in page 484 of our second volume), I must confess, that the term " native 
 town," applied to Calne, prima facie seems to bear out the construction 
 which my friendly Correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context too, 
 I am afraid, a little favours it. But where the words of an author, taken 
 literally, compared with some other passage in his writings, admitted to be 
 authentic, involve a palpable contradiction, it hath been the custom of the 
 ingenuous commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition, that in 
 the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly intended. So by 
 the word " native," I may be supposed to mean a town where I might have 
 been born ; or where it might be desirable that I should have been born, as 
 being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry chalky soil, in which I delight ; 
 or a town, with the inhabitants of which I passed some weeks, a summer or 
 two ago, so agreeably, that they and it became in a manner native to me. 
 Without some such latitude of interpretation in the present case, I see not 
 how we can avoid falling into a gross error in physics, as to conceive that a 
 gentleman may be born in two places, from which all modern and ancient 
 testimony is alike abhorrent. Bacchus cometh the nearest to it, whom I re- 
 
 2 L 2 
 
 
446 ' 7" The tions Head. " QNor^ 
 
 member Ovid to have honoured with the epithet " Tv^ice born."* But not 
 to mention that he is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places whence 
 rather than the places whe7-e he was deliveredj — for by either birth he may 
 probably be challenged for a Theban— in a strict way of speaking, he was 
 a Jilius femoris by nO' means in the same sense as he had been before a filius 
 alvi, for that latter was but a secondary and tralatitious way of being born, 
 and he but a denizen of the second house of his geniture. Thus much by 
 way of explanation was thought due to the courteous ^'^ Wiltshire man." — - 
 To '' Indagator," " Investigator/' ^< Incertus," and the rest of the pack, 
 that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth — as if, forsooth;^ 
 Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish — to all such churchwar- 
 den critics he answereth, that, any explanation here given notwithstanding, 
 he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty vane) to one dull spot, but 
 that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument shall demand it, he will be bom 
 again, in future papers, in whatever place, and at whatever period, shall- 
 seem good unto him. 
 
 Mod6 me Thebia— modo Athenis. Elia. 
 
 • Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo 
 Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum) 
 
 Insuitur femori 
 
 Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi. Metamorph, lib. 3^ 
 
MY FIRST PLAY. 
 
 At the north end of Russell-court 
 Ihere yet stands a portal, of some 
 architectural pretensions, though 
 deduced to himible use, serving- 
 at present for an entrance to a wine 
 vault. This old door-way, if you 
 are young, reader, you may not 
 know was the identical pit entrance 
 to Old Drury — Garrick's Drury — all 
 of it that is left. I never pass it 
 without shakhig some forty years 
 from off my shoulders, recurring to 
 the evening when I passed through 
 it to see my first plaji. The after- 
 noon had been wet, and the condition 
 of our going (the elder folks and my- 
 self) was, that the rain should cease. 
 With what a beating heart did I 
 Watch from the window the puddles. 
 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 from the stillness of which I was 
 taught to prognosticate the desired 
 cessation ! I seem to remember the 
 last spurt, and the glee with which I 
 ran to announce it. 
 
 We went with orders, which my 
 godfather F. had sent us. He kept 
 the oil shop (now Davies's) at the 
 corner of Featherstone-buildings, in 
 Holborn. F. was a tall grave per- 
 son, lofty in speech, and had preten- 
 sions above his rank. He associated 
 in those days with John Palmer, the 
 comedian, whose gait and bearing 
 he seemed to copy ; if John (which 
 is quite as likely) did not rather bor- 
 row somewhat of his manner from 
 my godfather. He was also known 
 to, and visited bv, Sheridan. It was 
 ^2Y 
 
:^TX''''i^^k^<^'TA-^'!i'^3s'm^' 
 
 6Q4> 
 
 My First Phy. 
 
 IBec. 
 
 to his house in Holbom that young 
 Brinsley brought his first wife on 
 her elopement with him from a 
 hoarding-school at Bath — the beau- 
 tiful Maria Linley. My parents were 
 present (over a quadrille table) when 
 he arrived in the evening with his 
 harmonious charge. — From either of 
 these connexions it may be inferred 
 that my godfather could command 
 an order for the then Drury-lane ' 
 theatre at pleasure — and, indeed, a 
 pretty liberal issue of those cheap 
 billets, in Brinsley 's easy autograph, 
 I have heard him say was the sole 
 remuneration which he had received 
 for many years' nightly illumination 
 of the orchestra and various avenues 
 of that theatre — and he was content 
 it should be so. The honour of She- 
 ridan's familiarity — or supposed fa- 
 miliarity — was better to my god- 
 father than money. 
 
 F. was the most gentlemanly of 
 oilmen; grandiloquent, yet courte- 
 ous. His delivery of the commonest 
 matters of fact was Ciceronian. He 
 had two Latin words almost con- 
 stantly in his mouth (how odd sounds 
 Latin from an oilman's lips !), which 
 my better knowledge since has en- 
 abled me to correct. In strict pro- 
 nunciation they should have been 
 sounded vice versa — but in those 
 young years they impressed me with 
 more awe than they would now do 
 read aright from Seneca or Varro — 
 in his own peculiar pronunciation, 
 monosyllabically elaborated, or An- 
 glicized, into something like verse 
 verse. By an imposing manner, and 
 the help of these distorted syllables, 
 he climbed (but that was little) to 
 the highest parochial honours which 
 St. Andrew's has to bestow. 
 
 He is dead — and thus much I 
 thought due to his memory, both 
 for my first orders (little wondrous 
 talismans ! — slight keys, and insignifi- 
 cant to outward sight, but opening to 
 me more than Arabian paradises !) 
 and moreover, that by his testamen- 
 tary beneficence I came into posses- 
 sion of the only landed property 
 which I could ever call my own — 
 situate near the road- way village of 
 pleasant Puckeridge, hi Hertford- 
 shire. When I journeyed down to 
 take possession, and planted foot on 
 my own ground, the stately habits 
 of the donor descended upon me. 
 
 and I strode T shall I confess the va- 
 nity?) with larger paces over my 
 allotment of three quarters of an acre, 
 with its commodious mansion in the 
 midst, with the feeling of an English 
 freeholder that all betwixt sky and 
 centre was my own. The estate 
 has passed into more prudent hands, 
 and nothing but an Agrarian can re- 
 store it. 
 
 In those days were pit orders. Be- - 
 shrew the uncomfortable manager 
 who abolished them ! — with one of 
 these we went. I remember the 
 waiting at the door — not that which 
 is left — but between that and an in- 
 ner door in shelter — O when shall I 
 be such an expectant again ! — with 
 the cry of nonpareils, an indispen- 
 sible play-house accompaniment in 
 those days. As near as I can recol- 
 lect, the fashionable pronunciation 
 of the theatrical fruiteresses then 
 was, " Chase some oranges, chase 
 some numparels, chase a bill of the 
 play ;" — chase jjro chuse. But when 
 we got in, and I beheld the green 
 curtain that veiled a heaven to my 
 imagination, which was soon to be 
 disclosed the breathless anticipa- 
 tions I endured ! I had seen some- 
 thing like it in the plate prefixed 
 to Troilus and Cressida, in Rowe's 
 Shakspeare — the tent scene with Di- 
 omede — and a sight of that plate can 
 always bring back in a measure the 
 feeling of that evening. — The boxes 
 at that time, full of well-dressed 
 women of quality, projected over the 
 pit; and the pilasters reaching down 
 were adorned with a glistering sub- 
 stance (I know not what) under glass 
 (as it seemed), resembling — a home- 
 ly fancy — but I judged it to be sugar- 
 candy — yet, to my raised imaghia- 
 tion, divested of its homelier qualities, 
 it appeared a glorified candy ! — Th«» 
 orchestra lights at length arose, 
 those 'Mair Auroras!" Once the 
 bell sounded. It was to ring out 
 yet once again — and, incapable of 
 the anticipation, I reposed my shut 
 eyes in a sort of resignation upon the 
 maternal lap. It rang the second 
 time. The curtain drew up— I was 
 not past six years old — and the play 
 was Artaxerxes ! 
 
 I had dabbled a little in the Uni- 
 versal History— the ancient part of 
 it— and here was the court of Persia. 
 It was being admitted to a sight of 
 
i82i.;3 
 
 My First Play, 
 
 603 
 
 the past. I took no proper interest 
 in the action going on, for I under- 
 stood not its import — but I heard the 
 word Darius, and I was hi the midst 
 of Daniel. AH feeling was absorbed 
 in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens, 
 palaces, princesses, passed before me. 
 I knew not players. I was in Persepo- 
 lis forthe time ; and the burnhig idol 
 of their devotions was as if the sun it- 
 self should have been brought down 
 to minister at the sacrificial altar. 
 I took those significations to be 
 something more than elemental fires. 
 Harlequhi's Invasion followed; where, 
 I remember, the transformation of 
 the magistrates into reverend bel- 
 dams seemed to me a piece of grave 
 historic justice, and the taylor carry- 
 ing his own head, to be as sober a 
 verity as the legend of St. Denys. 
 
 The next play to which I was taken 
 was the Lady of the Manor, of which, 
 with the exception of some scenery, 
 very faint traces are left in my me- 
 mory. It was followed by a panto- 
 mime, called Lun's Ghost — a satiric 
 touch, I apprehend, upon Rich, not 
 long since dead — but to my appre- 
 hension (too sincere for satire), Lun 
 was as remote a piece of antiquity as 
 Lud— the father of a line of Harle- 
 quins — transmitting his dagger of 
 lath ^the wooden sceptre) through 
 countless ages. I saw the primeval 
 Motley come from his silent tomb in 
 a ghastly vest of white patch- work, 
 like the apparition of a dead rainbow. 
 So Harlequins (thought I) look when 
 they are dead. 
 
 IVIy third play followed in quick suc- 
 cession. It was the Way of the World. 
 I think I must have sat at it as grave 
 as a judge ; for, I remember, the hys- 
 teric affectations of good Lady Wish- 
 fort affected me like some solemn tra- 
 gic passion. Robinson Crusoe fol- 
 lowed; in which Crusoe, man Friday, 
 and the parrot, were as good and au- 
 thentic as in the story. — The clown- 
 ery and pantaloonery of these panto- 
 mimes have clean passed out of my 
 head. I believe, I no more laughed 
 at them, than at the same age I 
 should have been disposed to laugh 
 at the grotesque Gothic heads (seem- 
 ing to me then replete with devout 
 meaning) that gape, and grin, in 
 stone around the inside of the old 
 Round Church (my church) of the 
 -Templars. 
 
 I saw these plays in the season 
 1781-2, when I was from six to 
 seven years old. After the hiterven- 
 tion of six or seven other years (for 
 at school all play-going was inhi- 
 bited) I again entered the doors of a 
 theatre. That old Artaxerxes even- 
 ing had never done ringing hi my 
 fancy. I expected the same feelings 
 to come again with the same occa- 
 sion. But we differ from ourselves 
 less at sixty and sixteen, than the 
 latter does from six. In that inter- 
 val what had I not lost ! At the 
 first period I knew nothing, under- 
 stood nothhig, discriminated notliing. 
 1 felt all, loved all, wondered all— 
 
 "\Vas nourished, I could not tell how— . 
 
 I had left the temple a devotee, and 
 was returned a rationalist. The 
 same things were there materially ; 
 but the emblem, the reference, was 
 gone ! — The green curtain was no 
 longer a veil, dr.awn between two 
 worlds, the unfolding of which was 
 to brhig back past ages, to present 
 " a royal ghost," — but a certain 
 quantity of green baize, which was 
 to separate the audience for a given 
 time from certain of their fellow-men 
 who were to come forward and pre- 
 tend those parts. The lights — the 
 orchestra lights— came up a clumsy 
 machinery. The first ring, and the 
 second ring, was now but a trick of 
 the prompter's bell — which had been, 
 like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom 
 of a voice, no hand seen or guessed 
 at which ministered to its warning. 
 The actors were men and women 
 painted. I 'i ought the fault was in 
 them ; but ii was hi myself, and the 
 alteration which those many centu- 
 ries — of six short twelvemonths — 
 had wrought in me. — Perhaps it was 
 fortunate for me that the play of the 
 evening was but an indifferent co- 
 medy, as it gave me time to crop 
 some unreasonable expectations, 
 which might have interfered with 
 the genuine emotions with which 
 (with unmixed perception) I was 
 soon after enabled to enter upon the 
 first appearance to me of Mrs. Sid- 
 dons hi Isabella. Comparison and 
 retrospection soon yielded to the pre- 
 sent attraction of the scene ; and the 
 theatre became to me, upon a new 
 stock, the most delightful of recrea- 
 tions. Elia. 
 2 Y 2 
 
 t-i 
 
 A 
 
 •Jl 
 
1822.] 
 
 Dramatic Fragment. 
 
 6S 
 
 DRAMATIC FRAGMENT. 
 
 Fie iipon^t. 
 All 7nen arc false^ I think. The date of love 
 Js outj expired^ its stories all grown stale, 
 Ohr-pasty forgotten, like an antique tale 
 Of Hero and Leander. John Woodvil. 
 
 All are not false. I knew a youth who died 
 
 For grief, because his Love proved so. 
 
 And married with another. 
 
 I saw him on the wedding day. 
 
 For he was present in the church that day. 
 
 In festive bravery deck'd. 
 
 As one that came to grace the ceremony. 
 
 I mark'd him when the ring was given. 
 
 His countenance never changed ; 
 
 And when the priest pronounced the marriage blessing. 
 
 He put a silent prayer up for the bride. 
 
 For so his moving lip hiterpreted. 
 
 He came invited to the marriage feast 
 
 With the bride's friends. 
 
 And was the merriest of them all that day : 
 
 But they, who knew him best, call'd it feign'd mirth ; 
 
 And others said. 
 
 He wore a smile like death Tipon his face. 
 
 His presence dash'd all the beholders' mirth. 
 
 And he went away in tears. 
 
 What followed then ? 
 
 Oh! then 
 
 He did not, as neglected suitors use, 
 
 Affect a life of solitude in shades. 
 
 But lived. 
 
 In free discourse and sweet society. 
 
 Among his friends who knew his gentle nature best. 
 
 Yet ever when he smiled. 
 
 There was a mystery legible in his face. 
 
 That whoso saw him said he was a man 
 
 Not long for thi* world. 
 
 And true it was, for even then 
 
 The silent love was feeding at his heart 
 
 Of which he died : 
 
 Nor ever spake word of reproach. 
 
 Only he wish' d in death that his remains 
 
 Might find a poor grave hi some spot, not far 
 
 From his mistress' family vault, " behig the place 
 
 Where one day Anna should herself be laid." 
 
 DREAM-CHILDREN ; A REVERIE. 
 
 Children love to listen to stories 
 about their elders, when they were 
 children ; to stretch their imagniation 
 to the conception of a traditionary 
 great-uncle, or grandame, whom they 
 never saw. It was in this spirit that 
 my little ones crept about me the 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 other evening to hear about their 
 great-grandmother Field, who lived 
 in a great house in Norfolk (a hun- 
 dred times bigger than that in vvhich 
 .they and Papa lived) which had been 
 the scene — so at least it was gene- 
 rally believed in that part of the 
 D 
 
Dream-Children ; a Reverie. 
 
 [[Jan* 
 
 country — of the tragic incidents which 
 they had lately become familiar with 
 from the ballad of the Children in 
 the Wood. Certain it is that the 
 whole story of the children and their 
 cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carv- 
 ed out in wood upon the chimney- 
 piece of the great hall, the whole 
 story down to the Robin Redbreasts, 
 till a foolish rich person pulled it 
 down to set up a marble one of mo- 
 dern invention in its stead, with no 
 story upon it. Here Alice put out 
 one of her dear mother's looks, too 
 tender to be called upbraiding-. Then 
 I went on to say, how religious and 
 how good their great-grandmother 
 Field was, how beloved and respect- 
 ed by every body, though she was 
 not indeed the mistress of this great 
 house, but had only the charge of it 
 (and yet in some respects she might 
 be said to be the mistress of it too) 
 committed to her by the owner, who 
 preferred living hi a newer and more 
 fashionable mansion which he had 
 purchased somewhere in the adjoin- 
 ing county ; but still she lived in it 
 in a manner as if it had been her 
 own, and kept up the dignity of the 
 great house in a sort while she lived, 
 which afterwards came to decay, and 
 was nearly pulled down, and all its 
 old ornaments stripped and carried 
 away to the owner's other house, 
 where they were set up, and looked 
 as awkward as if some one were to 
 carry away the old tombs they had 
 seen lately at the Abbey, and stick 
 them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt 
 drawing-room. Here John sm.iled, 
 as much as to say ^^ that would be 
 foolish indeed." And. then I told 
 how, when she came to die, her fu- 
 neral was attended by a concourse of 
 all the poor, and some of the gentry 
 too, of the neighbourhood for many 
 miles round, to show their respect for 
 her memory, because she had been 
 such a good and religious woman ; so 
 good indeed that she knew all the 
 Psaltery by heart, aye, and a great 
 part of the Testament besides. Here 
 little Alice spread her hands. Then 
 I told what a tall, upright, graceful 
 person their great-grandmother Field 
 once was ; and how in her youth she 
 was esteemed the best dancer — here 
 Alice's little right foot played an in- 
 voluntary movement, till, upon my 
 looking grave, it desisted — the best 
 
 dancer, 1 was saying, in the county, 
 till a cruel disease, called a cancer, 
 came, and bowed her down with 
 pahi ; but it could never bend her 
 good spirits, or make them stoop, 
 but they were still upright, because 
 she was so good and religious. Then 
 I told how she was used to sleep by 
 herself in a lone chamber of the great 
 lone house ; and how she believed 
 that an apparition of two infants was 
 to be seen at midnight gliding up 
 and down the great staircase near 
 where she slept, but she said " those 
 innocents would do her no harm ; " 
 and how frightened I used to be, 
 though in those days I had my maid 
 to sleep with me, because I was ne- 
 ver half so good or religious as she — 
 and yet I never saw the infants. 
 Here John expanded all his eye- 
 brows, and' tried to look courageous. 
 Then I told how good she was to all 
 her grand-children, having us to the 
 great house in the holydays, where I 
 in particular used to spend many 
 hours by myself, in gazing upon the 
 old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that 
 had been Emperors of Rome, till the 
 old marble heads would seem to live 
 again, or 1 to be turned into marble 
 with them ; how I never could be 
 tired with roaming about that huge 
 mansion, with its vast empty rooms, 
 with their worn-out hangings, flut- 
 tering tapestry, and carved oaken 
 pannels, with the gilding almost 
 rubbed out — sometimes in the spa- 
 cious old-fashioned gardens, which I 
 had almost to myself, unless when 
 now and then a solitary gardening 
 man would cress me — and how the 
 nectarines and peaches hung upon 
 the walls, without my ever offering to 
 pluck them, because they were for- 
 bidden fruit, unless now and then, — 
 and because I had more pleasure in 
 strolling about among the old melan- 
 choly-looking yew trees, or the firs, 
 and picking up the red berries, and 
 the fir apples, which were good for 
 nothing but to look at — or hi lying 
 about upon the fresh grass, with all 
 the fine garden smells around me — 
 or basking in the orangery, till I 
 could almost fancy myself ripening 
 too along with the oranges and the 
 limes in that grateful warmth— or in 
 watching the dace that darted to and 
 fro in the fish pond, at the bottom of 
 the garden, with here and there a 
 6 
 
18220 
 
 Dream-Children ; a Reverie. 
 
 2S 
 
 great sulky pike hanging midway 
 down the water in silent state, as if 
 it mocked at their impertinent frisk- 
 ings, — I had more pleasure in these 
 busy-idle diversions, than in all the 
 sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, 
 oranges, and such like common baits 
 of children. Here John slyly depo- 
 sited back upon the plate a bunch of 
 grapes, which, not unobserved by 
 Alice, he had meditated dividing 
 with her, and both seemed willing to 
 relinquish them for the present as ir- 
 relevant. Then in somewhat a more 
 heightened tone, I told how, though 
 their great-grandmother Field loved 
 all her grand-children, yet in an es- 
 pecial manner she might be said to 
 
 love their uncle, John L , because 
 
 he was so handsome and spirited a 
 youth, and a khig to the rest of us ; 
 and, instead of moping about in so- 
 litary corners, like some of us, he 
 would mount the most mettlesome 
 horse he could get, when but an imp 
 no bigger than themselves, and make 
 it carry him half over the county in 
 a morning, and join the hunters 
 when there were any out — and yet 
 he loved the old great house and gar- 
 dens too, but had too much spirit to 
 be always pent up within their 
 boundaries— and how their uncle 
 grew up to man's estate as brave as 
 he was handsome, to the admiration 
 of every body, but of their great- 
 grandmother Field most especially ; 
 and how he used to carry me upon 
 his back when I was a lame-footed 
 boy — for he was a good bit older 
 than me — many a mile when I could 
 not walk for pain; — and how in after 
 life he became lame-footed too, and 
 i did not always (I fear) make al- 
 lowances enough for him when he 
 was impatient, and in pain, nor re- 
 member sufficiently how considerate 
 he had been to me when I was lame- 
 footed ; and how when he died, 
 though he had not been dead an 
 hour, it seemed as if he had died a 
 great while ago, such a distance there 
 is betwixt life and death ; and how I 
 bore his death as I thought pretty 
 well at first, but afterwards it haunt- 
 
 ed and haunted me ; and though I 
 did riot cry or take it to heart as 
 some do, and as I think he would 
 liave done if I had died, yet I missed 
 him all day long, and knew not till 
 then how much I had loved him. I 
 missed his kindness, and I missed his 
 crossness, and wished him to be alive 
 again, to be quarreling with him 
 (for we quarreled sometimes), rather 
 than not have him again, and was as 
 uneasy without him, as he their poor 
 uncle must have been when the doc- 
 tor took off liis limb. Here the chil- 
 dren fell a crying, and asked if their 
 little mourning which they had on 
 was not for imcle John, and they 
 looked up, and prayed me not to go 
 on about their uncle, but to tell them 
 some stories about their pretty dead 
 mother. Then I told how for Seven 
 long years, in hope sometimes, some- 
 times in despair, yet persisting ever, 
 I courted the fair Alice W— n; and, 
 as much as children could under- 
 stand, I explained to them what coy- 
 ness, and difficulty, and denial meant 
 in maidens — when suddenly, turning 
 to Alice, the soul of the first Alice 
 looked out at her eyes with such a 
 reality of re-presentment, that I be- 
 came in doubt which of them stood 
 there before me, or whose that bright 
 hair was, — and while I stood gazing, 
 both the children gradually grew 
 fainter to my view, receding, and 
 still receding, till nothing at last but 
 two mournful features were seen in 
 the uttermost distance, which, with- 
 out speech, strangely impressed upon 
 me the efTects of speech ; *^ We are 
 not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we 
 children at all. The children of Alice 
 caU Bartrum father. We are nothing ; 
 less than nothing, and dreams. We 
 are only what might have been, and 
 must wait upon the tedious shores of 
 Lethe millions of ages before we 
 
 have existence, and a name " and 
 
 immediately awaking, I found myself 
 quietly seated in my bachelor arm- 
 chair, where I had fallen asleep, with 
 the faithful Bridget unchanged by 
 my side — but John L. (or James 
 Elia) was gone for ever. Elia. 
 
 D2 
 
Of all the actors who flourished 
 in my time — a melancholy phrase if 
 taken aright, reader— Bensley had 
 most of the swell of soul, was great- 
 est in the delivery of heroic concep- 
 tions, the emotions consequent upon 
 the presentment of a great idea to 
 the fancy. He had the true poetical 
 enthusiasm — the rarest faculty among 
 players. None that I remember pos- 
 sessed even a portion of that fine 
 madness which he threw out in Hot- 
 spur's famous rant about glory, or 
 the transports of the Venetian incen- 
 diary at the vision of the fired city.* 
 His voice had the dissonance, and at 
 times the inspiriting effect of the trum- 
 pet. His gait was uncouth and stiff, 
 but no way embarrassed by affecta- 
 tion ; and the thorough-bred gentle- 
 man was uppermost in every move- 
 
 ment. He seized the moment of 
 passion with the greatest truth ; like 
 a faithful clock never striking before 
 the time; never anticipating or lead- 
 ing you to anticipate. He was to- 
 tally destitute of trick and artifice. 
 He seemed come upon the stage to 
 do the poet's message simply, and he 
 did it with as genuine fidelity as the 
 nuncios in Homer deliver the errands 
 of the gods. He let the passion ot 
 the sentiment do its own work with- 
 out prop or bolstering. He would 
 have scorned to mountebank it ; and 
 betrayed none of that cleverness which 
 is the bane of serious acting. For 
 this reason, his lago was the only 
 endurable one which I remember to 
 have seen. No spectator from his 
 action could divine more of his arr 
 tifice than Othello was supposed to 
 
 * How lovelily the Adriatic whore 
 Dress'd in her flames will shine — devouring flames — 
 Such as will bum her to her wat'ry bottom. 
 And hiss in her foundation. Pkrre^ in Venice Preserved. 
 
1822.;] 
 
 On Some of the Old Actors. 
 
 175? 
 
 do. His confessions in soliloquy a- 
 ^lone put you in possession of the 
 mystery. There were no bye-intima- 
 tions to make the audience fancy their 
 6wn discernment so much greater 
 than that of the Moor — who com- 
 monly stands like a great helpless 
 mark set up for mine Ancient^ and a 
 quantity of barren spectators, to 
 shoot their bolts at. The lago of 
 Bensley did not go to work so gross- 
 ly. There was a triumphant tone a- 
 bout the character^ natural to a ge- 
 neral consciousness of power; but 
 none of that petty vanity which 
 chuckles and cannot contain itself 
 upon any little successful stroke of 
 its knavery — which is common with 
 your small villains, and green proba- 
 tioners in mischief. It did not clap 
 or crow before its time. It was not 
 a man setting his wits at a child, and 
 winking all the while at other chil- 
 dren who are mightily pleased at 
 being let into the secret ; but a con- 
 summate villain entrapping a noble 
 nature into toils, against which no 
 discernment was available, where the 
 manner was as fathomless as the pur- 
 pose seemed dark, and without mo- 
 tive. The part of Malvolio, in the 
 Twelfth Night, was perfonned by 
 Bensley, with a richness and a dig- 
 nity of which (to judge from some 
 recent castings of that character) the 
 very tradition must be worn out from 
 the stage. No manager in those days 
 would have dreamed of giving it to 
 Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons : 
 when Bensley was occasionally ab- 
 sent from the theatre, John Kemble 
 thought it no derogation to succeed 
 to the part. Malvolio is not essen- 
 tially ludicrous. He becomes comic 
 but by accident. He is cold, aus- 
 tere, repelling ; but dignified, con- 
 sistent, and, for what appears, rather 
 of an over-stretched morality. jNIaria 
 describes him as a sort of Puritan : 
 
 and he might have worn his gold 
 chain with honour in one of our old 
 round-head families, in the service of 
 a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. But 
 his morality and his manners are 
 misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed 
 to the proper levities of the piece, and 
 falls in the unequal contest. Still his 
 pride, or his gravity, (call it which 
 you will) is inherent, and native to 
 the man, not mock or affected, which 
 latter only are the fit objects to excite 
 laughter. His quality is at the best 
 unlovely, but neither buffoon nor 
 contemptible. His bearing is lofty, ^ 
 little above his station, but probably 
 not much above his deserts. We see 
 no reason why he should not have 
 been brave, honourable, accomplish- 
 ed. His careless committal of the 
 ring to the ground (which he was 
 connnissioned to restore to Cesario), 
 bespeaks a generosity of birth and 
 feeling.* His dialect on all occa- 
 sions is that of a gentleman, aix,d a 
 man of education. We must not 
 confound him with the eternal low 
 steward of comedy. He is master of 
 the household to a great Princess, 
 a dignity probably conferred upon 
 him for other respects than age or 
 length of service.f Olivia, at the 
 first indication of his supposed mad- 
 ness, declares that she " would not 
 have him miscarry for half of her 
 dowry." Does this look as if the 
 character was meant to appear little 
 or insignificant ? Once, indeed, she 
 accuses him to his face - of what ? — 
 of behig *' sick of self-love," — but 
 with a gentleness and considerateness 
 which could not have been, if she 
 had not thought that this particular' 
 infirmity shaded some virtues. His 
 rebuke to the knight, and his sottish 
 revellers, is sensible and spirited^ 
 and when we take into consideration 
 the unprotected condition of his mis- 
 tress, and the strict regard witln 
 
 * Viola. She took the ring from me ; I'll none of it. 
 
 Mai. Come, Sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is, it should be so 
 returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye ; if not, be it his that 
 finds it. . ' ( 
 
 t Mrs. Inchbald seems to have fallen into the common mistake of the character ia 
 some sensible observations, otherwise, upon this Comedy. " It might be asked,'* she 
 says, " whether this credulous steward was much deceived in imputing a degraded taste* 
 in the sentiments of love, to his fair lady Olivia, as she actually did fall in love with a 
 domestic ; and one, who from his extreme youth, was perhaps a greater reproach to her 
 discretion, than had she cast a tender regard upon her old and faithful servant." But 
 where does she gather the fact of his age ? Neither Maria nor Fabian ever cast that re- 
 proach upon him. 
 
178 
 
 On Some of the Old Actors. 
 
 CFeb. 
 
 to clear my cloudy face for two or 
 three hours at least of its furrows ? 
 Was this the face — manly, sober, in- 
 telligent, — which I had so often des- 
 pised, made mocks at, made merry 
 with ? The remembrance of the free- 
 doms which I had taken with it came 
 upon me with a reproach of insult. 
 .1 could have asked it pardon. I 
 thought it looked upon me with a 
 sense of injury. There is something 
 strange as well as sad in seeing ac- 
 tors — your pleasant fellows particu- 
 larly — subjected to and suffering the 
 common lot — their fortunes, their ca- 
 sualties, their deaths, seem to belong 
 to the scene, their actions to be 
 amenable to poetic justice only. We 
 can hardly coilnect them with more 
 awful responsibilities. The death of 
 this fine actor took place shortly after 
 this meeting. He had quitted the 
 stage some months; and, as I learn- 
 ed afterwards, had been in the habit 
 of resorting daily to these gardens 
 almost to the day of his decease. In 
 these serious walks probably he was 
 divesting himself of many scenic and 
 some real vanities— weaning himself 
 from the frivolities of the lesser and 
 the greater theatre — doing gentle pe- 
 nance for a life of no very reprehen- 
 sible fooleries, — taking off' by degrees 
 the buffoon mask which he might 
 feel he had worn too long— and re- 
 hearsing for a more solemn cast of 
 part. Dying he " put on the weeds 
 of Dominic."* 
 
 The elder Palmer (of stage-tread- 
 ing celebrity) commonly played Sir 
 Toby in those days ; but there is a 
 solidity of vvit in the jests of that 
 half-Falstaff which he did not quite 
 fill out. He was as much too showy 
 as Moody (who sometimes took the 
 part) was dry and sottish. In sock 
 or buskin there was an air of swag- 
 gering gentility about Jack Palmer. 
 He was a g-entleman with a slight in- 
 fusion of the footman. His brother 
 Bob (of recenter memory) who was 
 
 his shadow in every thing while he 
 lived, and dwindled into less than a 
 shadow afterwards —was a gentleman 
 with a little stronger infusion of the 
 latter ingredient ; that was all. It is 
 amazing how a little of the more or 
 less makes a difference in these 
 things. When you saw Bobby in the 
 Duke's Servant,t you said, what a 
 pity such a pretty fellow was only 
 a servant. When you saw Jack 
 figuring in Captain Absolute, you 
 thought you could trace his promo- 
 tion to some lady of quality who fan- 
 cied the handsome fellow in his top- 
 knot, and had bought him a commis- 
 sion. Therefore Jack in Dick Amlet 
 was insuperable. 
 
 Jack had two voices, — both plausi- 
 ble, hypocritical, and insinuating; 
 but his secondary or supplemental 
 voice still more decisively histrionic 
 than his common one. It was re- 
 served for the spectator; and the dra- 
 matis personae were supposed to know- 
 nothing at all about it. The lies of 
 young Wilding, and the sentiments in 
 Joseph Surface, were thus marked 
 out in a sort of italics to the audi- 
 ence. This secret correspondence 
 with the company before the curtain 
 (which is the bane and death of tra- 
 gedy) has an extremely happy effect 
 in some kinds of comedy, in the more 
 highly artificial comedy of Congreve 
 or of Sheridan especially, where the 
 absolute sense of reality (so indispen- 
 sable to scenes of interest) is not re- 
 quired, or would rather interfere to 
 diminish your pleasure. The fact is, 
 you do not believe in such characters 
 as Surface — the villain of artificial 
 comedy — even while you read or see 
 them. If you did, they would shock 
 and not divert you. When Ben, in 
 Love for Love, returns from sea, the 
 following exquisite dialogue occurs 
 at his first meeting with his father — 
 
 Sir Sampson. Thou hast been many a 
 weary league, Ben, since I saw thee. 
 Ben. Ey, ey, been ! Been far enough. 
 
 * Dodd was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collection of old English , 
 literature. I should judge him to have been a man of wit. I know one instance of an 
 impromptu which no length of study could have bettered. IMy merry friend, Jem 
 White, had seen him one evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in 
 Fleet Street, was irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him as the identical 
 Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you, Sir Andrew.'''' Dodd, not at all 
 disconcerted at this unusual address from a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wa\^ 
 of the hand, put him off with an " Away, Fool." 
 
 •f High Life Below Stairs. 
 
m^m^ 
 
 1822.;] 
 
 The Drama, 
 
 1T9 
 
 an that be all — Well, father, and how do 
 all at home ? how does brother Dick, and 
 brother Val ? 
 
 Sir Sampson. Dick ! body o' me, Dick 
 has been dead these two years. I writ you 
 word wlien you were at Leghorn. 
 
 Ben. Mess, that's true ; Marry, I had 
 forgot. Dick's dead, as you say — Well, 
 and how ? — I have a many questions to ask 
 you — 
 
 Here is an instance of insensibility 
 which in real life would be revolting, 
 or rather in real life could not have 
 co-existed with the warm-hearted 
 temperament of the character. But 
 when you read it in the spirit with 
 which such playful selections and 
 specious combinations rather than 
 strict metaphrases of nature should 
 be taken, or when you saw Bannister 
 play it, it neither did, nor does 
 wound the moral sense at all. For 
 what is Ben — the pleasant sailor 
 which Bannister gave us — but a piece 
 of a satire — a creation of Congreve's 
 fancy — a dreamy combination of all 
 the accidents of a sailor's character — 
 his contempt of money — his credulity 
 to women— with that necessary es- 
 trangement from home which it is 
 just within the verge of credibility to 
 
 suppose might produce such an hal- 
 lucination as is here described. We 
 never think the worse of Ben for it^ 
 or feel it as a stain upon his character. 
 But when an actor comes, and in- 
 stead of the delightful phantom — the 
 creature dear to half-belief— which 
 Bannister exhibited — displays be- 
 fore our eyes a downright concretion 
 of a Wapping sailor— a jolly warm- 
 hearted Jack Tar— and nothing else 
 — when instead of investing it with a 
 delicious confusedness of the head, 
 and a veering undirected goodness of 
 purpose— he gives to it a downright 
 daylight understanding, and a full 
 consciousness of its actions ; thrust- 
 ing forward the sensibilities of the 
 character with a pretence as if it 
 stood upon nothing else, and was to 
 be judged by them alone— we feel 
 the discord of the thing; the scene is 
 disturbed ; a real man has got in 
 among the dramatis personae, and 
 puts them out. We want the sailor 
 turned out. Wc feel that his true 
 place is not behind the curtain, but in 
 the first or second gallery. 
 
 {To he resumed occasional! I/.) 
 
 Elia. 
 
Distant Correspondenis, 
 
 Q March, 
 
 DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS. 
 
 In a Letter to B. F. Esq. at Sydney , New South Wales. 
 
 My dear F. — When I think how 
 welcome the sight of a letter from 
 the world where you were bom must 
 be to you in that strang-e one to 
 which you have been transplanted, I 
 feel some compunctious visitings at 
 my long silence. But, indeed, it is 
 no easy effort to set about a corres- 
 pondence at our distance. The weary 
 world of waters between us op- 
 presses the imagination. It is diffi- 
 cult to conceive how a scrawl of 
 mine should ever stretch across it. It 
 is a sort of presumption to expect 
 that one's thoughts should live so far. 
 It is like writing for posterity ; and 
 reminds me of one of Mrs. Rowe's 
 superscriptions, '^ Alcander to Stre- 
 phon, in the shades." Cowley's Post- 
 Angel is no more than would be ex- 
 pedient m such an intercourse. One 
 drops a pacquet at Lombard-street, 
 and in twenty-four hours a friend in 
 Cumberland gets it as fresh as if it 
 came in ice. It is only like whisper- 
 ing through a long trumpet. But 
 suppose a tube let down from the 
 moon, with yourself at one end, and 
 the maji at the other; it would be 
 some baulk to the spirit of conver- 
 sation, if you knew that the dialogue 
 exchanged with that interesting the- 
 osophist would take two or. three re- 
 volutions of a higher luminary in its 
 passage. Yet for aught I know, you 
 may be some parasangs nigher that 
 primitive idea — Plato's man — than 
 we in England here have the honour 
 to reckon ourselves. 
 
 Epistolary matter usually com- 
 priseth three topics; news, senti- 
 ment, and puns. In the latter, I in- 
 clude all non-serious subjects ; or 
 subjects serious in themselves, l)ut 
 treated after my fashion, non-serious- 
 ly. — And first, for news. In them the 
 most desirable circumstance, I sup- 
 pose, is that they shall be true. But 
 what security can I have that what I 
 now send you for truth shall not be- 
 fore you get it unaccountably turn 
 into a lie ? For instance, our mutual 
 friend P. is at this present writing — 
 my Now — in good health, and enjoys 
 a fair share of worldly reputation. 
 You are glad to hear it. This is na- 
 tural and friendly. But at this pre- 
 
 sent reading — your Now — he may 
 possibly be in the Bench, or going ta 
 be hanged, which in reason ought to 
 abate something of your transport 
 (J. e. at hearing he was well, &c.), or 
 at least considerably to modify it. 1 
 am going to the play this evening, to 
 have a laugh with Joey Munden. 
 You have no theatre, I think you told 
 
 me, in your land of d d realities. 
 
 You naturally lick yoiu lips, and 
 envy nie ray felicity. Think but a 
 moment, and you will correct tlie 
 hateful emotion. Why, it is Sunday 
 morning with you, and 1823. This 
 confusion of tenses, this grand sole- 
 cism of tivo presents, is in a degree 
 common to all postage. But if I 
 sent you word to Bath or the De- 
 vises, that I was expecting the afore- 
 said treat this evening, though at the 
 moment you received the intelligence 
 my full feast of fun would be over, 
 yet there would be for a day or two 
 after, as you would well know, a 
 smack, a relish left upon my mental 
 palate, which would give rational 
 encouragement to you to foster a 
 portion at least of the disagreeable 
 passion, which it was in part my in- 
 tention to produce. But ten months 
 hence your envy or your sympathy 
 would be as useless as a passion 
 spent upon the dead. Not only does 
 truth, in these long intervals, un-es- 
 sence herself, but (what is harder) 
 one cannot venture a crude fiction for 
 the fear that it may ripen into a truth 
 upon the voyage. What a wild im- 
 probable banter I put upon you some 
 three years since — of Will Weather- 
 all having married a servant-maid I 
 I remember gravely consulting you 
 how we were to receive her — for 
 Will's wife was in no case to be re- 
 jected ; and your no less serious re- 
 plication in the matter ; how tenderly 
 you advised an abstemious introduc- 
 tion of literary topics before the lady, 
 with a caution not to be too forward 
 in bringing on the carpet matters 
 more within the sphere of her intel- 
 ligence; your deliberate judgment, 
 or rather wise suspension of sen- 
 tence, how far jacks, and spits, and 
 mops, could with propriety be intro- 
 duced as subjects ; whether the con- 
 
1829. 
 
 Distant Correspondents. 
 
 283 
 
 scions avoiding of all such matters 
 in discourse would not have a worse 
 look than the takhig of them casually 
 in our way ; in what manner we 
 should carry ourselves to our maid 
 Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall 
 being by ; whether we should show 
 more delicacy, and a truer sense of 
 respect for Will's wife, by treating 
 Becky with our customary chiding 
 before her, or by an unusual deferen- 
 tial civility paid to Becky as to a 
 person of great worth, but thrown 
 by the caprice of fate hito a humble 
 station. There were difficulties, I 
 remember, on both sides, which you 
 did me the favour to state with the 
 precision of a lawyer, united to the 
 tenderness of a friend. I laughed in 
 my sleeve at your solemn pleadhigs, 
 ivhen lo ! while I was valuing my- 
 self upon this flam put upon you in 
 New South Wales, the devil in Eng- 
 land, jealous possibly of any lie- 
 children not his own, or working after 
 my copy, has actually instigated our 
 friend (not tliree days since) to the 
 commission of a matrimony, which I 
 had only conjured up for your diver- 
 sion. William Weatherall has mar- 
 ried Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to 
 take it in its truest sense, you will 
 see, my dear F., that news from me 
 must become history to you ; which 
 I neither profess to write, nor indeed 
 care much for reading. No person, 
 under a diviner, can with any pros- 
 pect of veracity conduct a corres- 
 pondence at such an arm's length. 
 Two prophets, indeed, might thus 
 interchange intelligence with effect ; 
 the epoch of the writer (Habbakuk) 
 falling in with the true present time 
 of the receiver (Daniel) ; but then 
 we are no prophets. 
 
 Then as to sentiment. It fares 
 little better with that. This kind of 
 dish, above all, requires to be served 
 up hot ; or sent off in water-plates, 
 that your friend may have it almost 
 as warm as yourself. If it have time 
 to cool, it is the most tasteless of all 
 cold meats. I have often smiled at a 
 conceit of the late Lord C. It seems 
 that travelling somewhere about Ge- 
 neva, he came to some pretty green 
 spot, or nook, where a willow, or 
 something, hung so fantastically and 
 invitingly over a stream — was it? — 
 or a rock?— no matter— but the stil- 
 ness and the repose, after a weary 
 journey 'tis likely, in a languid mo^ 
 
 ment of his Lordship's hot restless 
 life, so took his fancy, that he could 
 imagine no place so proper, in the 
 event of his death, to lay his bones 
 in. This was all very natural and 
 excusable as a sentiment, and shows 
 his character in a very pleasing light. 
 But when from a passing sentiment 
 it came to be an act ; and when, by a 
 positive testamentary disposal, his 
 remains were actually carried all that 
 way from England ; who was there, 
 some desperate sentimentalists ex- 
 cepted, that did not ask the question. 
 Why could not his Lordship have 
 found a spot as solitary, a nook as 
 romantic, a tree as green and pen- 
 dent, with a stream as emblematic to 
 his purpose, in Surry, in Dorset, or 
 in Devon? Conceive the sentiment 
 hoarded up, freighted, entered at the 
 Custom House (startling the tide- 
 waiters with the novelty), hoisted 
 into a ship. Conceive it pawed a- 
 bout and handled between the rude 
 jests of tarpaulin ruffians — a thing of 
 its delicate texture — the salt bilge 
 wetting it till it became as vapid as 
 a damaged lustring. Suppose it in 
 material danger (marniers have some 
 superstition about sentiments) of 
 being tossed over in a fresh gale to 
 some propitiatory shark (spirit of 
 Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus 
 so foreign to the deviser's purpose !) 
 but it has happily evaded a fishy 
 consummation. Trace it then to its 
 lucky landing — at Lyons shall we 
 say ? — I have not. the map before me 
 — jostled upon four men's shoulders 
 — baiting at this town— stopping to 
 refresh at t'other village — waiting a 
 passport here, a licence there ; the 
 sanction of the magistracy in this 
 district, the concurrence of the eccle- 
 siastics in that canton ; till at length 
 it arrives at its destination, tired out 
 and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, 
 into a feature of silly pride or taw- 
 dry senseless affectation. How few 
 sentiments, my dear F., I am afraid 
 we can set down, in the sailor's 
 phrase, as quite sea-worthy. 
 
 Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, 
 which, though contemptible in bulk, 
 are the twinkling corpviscula which 
 should irradiate a right friendly epistle 
 — your puns and small jests are, T ap- 
 prehend, extremely circumscribed in 
 their sphere of action. They are so 
 far from a capacity of being packed 
 up and sent beyond sea, they will 
 
1384 
 
 Distant Correspondents, 
 
 CMarch, 
 
 scarce endure to be transported by 
 hand from this room to the next. 
 Their vigour is as the instant of their 
 birth. Their nutriment for their brief 
 existence is the intellectual atmos- 
 phere of the by-standers : or this last 
 is the fine slime of Nilus— the melinr 
 luius, — whose maternal recipiency 
 is as necessary as the sol pater to 
 their equivocal generation. A pun 
 hath a hearty kind of present ear- 
 kissing smack with it ; you can no 
 more transmit it in its pristine fla- 
 vour^ than you can send a kiss. — 
 Have you not tried in some instances 
 to palm off a yesterday's pun upon 
 a gentleman, and has it answered ? 
 Not but it was new to his hearing, 
 but it did not seem to come new from 
 you. It did not hitch in. It was 
 like picking up at a village ale-house 
 a two days old newspaper. You 
 have not seen it before, but you re- 
 sent the stale thing as an affront. 
 This sort of merchandise above all 
 requires a quick return. A pun, and 
 its recognitory laugh, must be co- 
 instantaneous. The one is the brisk 
 lightning, the other the fierce thun- 
 der. A moment's interval, and the 
 luik is snapped. A pim is reflected 
 from a friend's face as from a mirror. 
 Who would consult his sweet vis- 
 nomy, if the polished surface were 
 two or three minutes (not to speak 
 of twelve-months, my dear F.) in 
 giving back its copy ? 
 
 I cannot image to myself where- 
 about you are. When I try to fix 
 it, PeterWilldns's island comes across 
 me. Sometimes you seem to be in 
 the Hades of Thieves. 1 see Dio- 
 genes prying among you with his 
 perpetual fruitle5:s lantern. What 
 must you be willing by this time to 
 give for the sight of an honest man ! 
 You must almost have forgotten how 
 2oe look. And tell me, Avhat your 
 Sydneyites do ? are they th**v*ng all 
 day long? Merciful heaven, what 
 property can stand against such a 
 depredation ! The kangaroos — your 
 Aborigines — do they keep their pri- 
 mitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, 
 with those little short fore-puds, 
 looking like a lesson framed by na- 
 ture to the pickpocket ! Marry, for 
 diving into fobs they are rather lamely 
 provided a priori ; but if the hue and 
 cry were once up, they would show 
 as fair a pair of hind-shift.ers as the 
 expertest loco-motor in the colony. — • 
 
 We hear the most improbable tales 
 at this distance. Pray, is it true 
 that the young Spartans among you 
 are born with six fingers, which 
 spoils their scanning ? — It must look 
 very odd ; but use reconciles. For 
 their scansion, it is less to be re- 
 gretted, for if they take it into their 
 heads to be poets, it is odds but they 
 turn out, the greater part of them, vile 
 plagfarists. — Is there much difference 
 to see to between the son of a th**f, 
 and the grandson ? or where does the 
 taint stop ? Do you bleach in three 
 or in four generations ? — I have many 
 questions to put, but ten Delphic 
 voyages can be made in a shorter 
 time than it will take to satisfy my 
 scruples. — Do you grow your own 
 hemp? — What is your staple trade, 
 exclusive of the national profession, 
 I mean ? Your lock-smiths, I take 
 it, are some of your great capitalists. 
 I am insensibly chatting to you as 
 familiarly as when we used to ex- 
 change good-morrows out of our old 
 contiguous windows, in pump-famed 
 Hare-court in the Temple. Why did 
 you ever leave that quiet corner ? — 
 Why did I ? — with its complement of 
 four poor elms, from whose smoke- 
 dyed barks, the theme of jesting ru- 
 ralists, I picked my first lady-birds ! 
 My heart is as dry as that spring 
 sometimes proves hi a thirsty August, 
 when I revert to the space that is 
 between us, a length of passage 
 enough to render obsolete the phrasesL 
 of our English letters before they can 
 reach you. But while I talk, I thhik 
 you hear me, — thoughts dallying with 
 vain surmise — • 
 
 Aye me ! while thee the seas and sounding 
 
 shores 
 Hold far away. 
 
 Gome back, before I am grown 
 into a very old man, so as you shall 
 hardly know me. Come, before 
 Bridget walks on crutches. Girls 
 whom you left children have become 
 sage matrons, while you are tarrying 
 there. The blooming Miss W — r 
 (you remember SaUy W — r) called 
 upon us yesterday, an aged crone. 
 Folks, whom you knew, die off every 
 year. Formerly, I thought that 
 death was wearing out, — I stood 
 ramparted about with so many 
 healthy friends. The departure of 
 J. W. two springs back corrected 
 my delusion. Since then the old di- 
 
1822.] On Black Cats. 
 
 vorcer has been busy. If you do not 
 make haste to return, there will be 
 little left to greet you, of me, or 
 mine. 
 
 Something of home matters I could 
 add ; but tJiat, with certain remem- 
 brances, never to be omitted, I re- 
 
 285 
 
 serve for the grave postscript to this 
 light epistle; which postscript, for 
 weighty reasons, justificatory in any 
 court of feeling, 1 think better omitted 
 in this first edition. 
 
 £lia. 
 London, March I, 1822. 
 
ICotttion iWaga^tne. 
 
 N° XXVIII. 
 
 APRIL, 1822. 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 THE OLD ACTORS.* 
 
 The artificial Comedy, or Comedy 
 of mamiers, is quite extinct on our 
 stage. Congreve and Farquhar show 
 their heads once in seven years only 
 to be exploded and put down instant- 
 ly. The times cannot bear them. 
 Is it for a few wild speeches, an oc- 
 casional licence of dialogue? 1 think 
 not altogether. The business of their 
 dramatic characters will not stand 
 the moral test. We screw every 
 thing up to that. Idle gallantry in 
 a fiction, a dream, the passing pa- 
 geant of an evenhig, startles us in 
 the same way as the alarming indi- 
 cations of profiigacy in a son or ward 
 in real life should startle a parent or 
 guardian. We have no such middle 
 emotions as dramatic interests left. 
 We see a stage libertine playing his 
 loose pranks of two hours' duration, 
 and of no after consequence, with 
 the severe eyes which inspect real 
 vices with their bearings upon two 
 worlds. We are spectators to a plot 
 or intrigue (not reducible in life to 
 the point of strict morality) and take 
 it all for truth. We substitute a real 
 for a dramatic person, and Judge him 
 accordingly. We try him in our 
 courts, from which there is no appeal 
 to the dramatis persona, his peers. 
 We have been spoiled with — not sen- 
 timental comedy — but a tyrant far 
 more pernicious to our pleasures 
 which has succeeded to it, — the ex- 
 clusive and all-devouring drama of 
 common life ; where the moral point 
 is every thhig ; where, instead of the 
 
 fictitious half-believed personages of 
 the stage (the pliantoms of old comedy) 
 we recognise ourselves, our brothers, 
 aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, ene- 
 mies, — the same as in life, — with an 
 interest in what is going on so hear- 
 ty and sid)stantial, that we cannot af- 
 ford our moral judgment, in its deep- 
 est and most vital results, to com- 
 promise or slumber for a moment. 
 What is there transacting, by no 
 modification is made to affect us in 
 any other manner than the same 
 events or characters would do in our 
 relationships of life. We carry our 
 fire-side concerns to the theatre with 
 us. We do not go thither, like our 
 ancestors, to escape from the pres- 
 sure of reality, so much as to confirm 
 our experience of it ; to make assur- 
 ance double, and take a bond of fate. 
 We must live our toilsome lives twice 
 over, as it was the mournful privi- 
 lege of Ulysses to descend twice to 
 the shades. All that neutral ground 
 of character which stood between 
 vice and virtue; or which, in fact, 
 was indifferent to neither, where nei- 
 ther properly was called in question — 
 that happy breathing-place from the 
 burden of a perpetual moral ques- 
 tioning — the sanctuary and quiet 
 Alsatiaof hunted casuistry — is broken 
 up and disfranchised as injurious to 
 the hiterests of society. The privi- 
 leges of the place are taken away by 
 law. We dare not dally with images 
 or names of wrong. We bark like 
 foolish dogs at shadows. We dread 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 * Vide No. XXVI. p. 174. 
 2 A 
 
306 
 
 infection from the scenic representa- 
 tion of disorder ; and fear a painted 
 pustule. In our anxiety that our 
 morality should not take cold, we 
 wrap it up in a great blanket sur- 
 tout of precaution against the breeze 
 and sunshine. 
 
 I confess for myseVf that (with no 
 great delinquencies to answer for) I 
 am glad for a season to take an airing 
 beyond the diocese of the strict con- 
 Bcience,— not to live always in the 
 precincts of the law courts, — but now 
 and then^ for a dream- while or so, to 
 imagine a world with no meddling 
 restrictions — to get into recesses, 
 whither the hunter cannot follow 
 me — 
 
 Secret shades 
 
 Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 
 
 While yet there was no fear of Jove — 
 I come back to my cage and my 
 restraint the fresher and more healthy 
 for it. I wear my shackles more con- 
 tentedly for having respired the breath 
 of an imaginary freedom. I do not 
 know how it is with others, but I 
 feel the better always for the perusal 
 of oneofCongreve's — nay, why should 
 I. not add even of Wycherley's — co- 
 medies. I am the gayer at least for 
 it ; and I could never connect those 
 sports of a witty fancy in any shape 
 with any resiUt to be drawn from 
 them to imitation in real life. They 
 are a world of themselves almost as 
 much as fairy-land. Take one of 
 their characters, male or female 
 (with few exceptions they are alike), 
 and place it in a modern play, and 
 my virtuous indignation shall rise 
 against the profligate wretch as 
 warmly as the Catos of the pit could 
 desire ; because in a modern play I 
 am to judge of right and wrong, and 
 the standard of jMlice is the measure 
 of poetical justice. The atmosphere 
 will blight it. It cannot thrive here. 
 It is got into a moral world where it 
 has no business; from which it must 
 needs fall head-long; aadizzy and in- 
 capable of keeping its stand, as a 
 Swedenborgian bad spirit that has 
 wandered unawares within the sphere 
 of one of his good men ob angels. 
 But in its own world do we feel that 
 the creature is so very bad? 
 
 The Fainalls and the Mirabels, 
 the Dorimants, and Lady Touch- 
 woods, in their own sphere do not 
 offend my moral sense — or, in fact, 
 appeal to it at all. They seem engaged 
 
 The Old Actors. Z,^V^'^\ 
 
 in their proper element. They break 
 through no laws, or conscientious re- 
 strahits. They know of none. They 
 have got out of Christendom into the 
 land — what shall I call it } — of cuck- 
 oldry — the Utopia of gallantry, where 
 pleasure is duty, and the manners 
 perfect freedom. It is altogether a 
 speculative scene of things, which 
 has no reference whatever to the 
 world that is. No good person can. 
 be justly offended as a spectator, 
 because no good person suffers on the 
 stage. Judged morally, every cha- 
 racter in these plays— the few excep- 
 tions only are mistakes — is alike es- 
 sentially vain and worthless. The 
 great art of Congreve is especially 
 shown in this, that he has entirely 
 excluded from his scenes, — some little 
 generosities in the part of Angelica 
 perhaps excepted, — not only any thing 
 like a faultless character, but any 
 pretensions to goodness or good feel- 
 ings whatsoever. Whether he did 
 this designedly, or instinctively, the 
 effect is as happy, as the design (if 
 design) was bold. I used to wonder 
 at the strange power which his Way 
 of the World in particular possesses 
 of interesting you all along in the 
 pursuits of characters, for whom you 
 absolutely care nothing — for you nei- 
 ther hate nor love his personages—and 
 I think it is owing to this very indif- 
 ference for any, that you endure the 
 whole. He has spread a privatioa 
 of moral light, I will call it, rather 
 than by the ugly name of palpable 
 darkness, over his creations ; and his 
 shadows flit before you without dis- 
 tinction or preference. Had he intro- 
 duced a good character, a single 
 gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of 
 the judgment to actual life and ac- 
 tual duties, the impertinent Goshen 
 would have only lighted to the dis- 
 covery of deformities, which now are 
 none, because we think them none. 
 
 Translated into real life, the cha- 
 racters of his, and his friend Wycher- 
 ley's dramas, are profligates and 
 strumpets, — the business of their brief 
 existence, the undivided pursuit of 
 lawless gallantry. No other spring- 
 of action, or possible motive of con- 
 duct, is recognised ; principles which 
 universally acted upon must reduce 
 this frame of things to a chaos. But 
 we do them wrong in so translating 
 them. No such effects are produced 
 in their world. When we are among 
 
i822.;3 
 
 The Old Actors. 
 
 3or 
 
 them, we are amongst a chaotic peo- 
 ple. We are not to judge them by 
 our usages. No reverend institutions 
 are insulted by their proceedings, — 
 for they have none among them. 
 No peace of families is violated, — for 
 no family ties exist among them. No 
 purity of the marriage bed is stahied, 
 — for none is supposed to haveabeing. 
 No deep affections are disquieted, — 
 no holy wedlock bands are snapped 
 asunder, — for affection's depth and 
 wedded faith are not of the growth of 
 that soil. There is neither right nor 
 wrong, — gratitude or its opposite, — 
 claim or duty, — paternity or sonship. 
 Of what consequence is it to virtue, 
 or how is she at all concerned about 
 it, whether Sir Simon, or Dappcrwit, 
 steal away Miss Martha ; or who is 
 the father of Lord Froth's, or Sir 
 Paul riiant's children? 
 
 The whole is a passing pageant, 
 where we should sit as uncon- 
 cerned at the issues, for life or death, 
 as at a battle of the frogs and mice. 
 But, like Don Quixote, we take part 
 against the puppets, and quite as 
 impertinently. We dare not con- 
 template an Atlantis, a scheme, out 
 of which our coxcombical moral 
 sense is for a little transitory ease 
 excluded. We have not the courage 
 to imagine a state of things for which 
 there is neitlier reward nor punish- 
 ment. We cling to the painful ne- 
 cessities of shame and blame. We 
 would indict our very dreams. 
 
 Amidst the mortifying circum- 
 stances attendant upon growing old, 
 it is somethhig to have seen the 
 School for Scandal in its glory. This 
 comedy grew out of Congreve and 
 Wycherley, but gathered some allays 
 of the sentimental comedy which fol- 
 lowed theirs. It is impossible that 
 it should be now acted, though it con- 
 tinues, at long interv^als, to be an- 
 nounced in the bills. Its hero, when 
 Palmer played it at least, was Joseph 
 Surface. When I remember the gay 
 boldness, the graceful solemn plau- 
 sibility, the measured step, the in- 
 sinuating voice — to express it in a 
 word— the downright acted villany of 
 the part, so different from the pres- 
 sure of conscious actual wickedness, — 
 the hypocritical assumption of hypo- 
 crisy, — which made Jack so deserv- 
 edly a favourite in that character, I 
 must needs conclude the present ge- 
 
 neration of play-goers more virtuous 
 than myself, or more dense. I freely 
 confess that he divided the palm with 
 me with his better brother ; that, in 
 fact, I liked him quite as well. Not 
 but there are passages, — like that, for 
 instance, where Joseph is made to re- 
 fuse a pittance to a poor relation, — 
 incongruities which SheiTdan was 
 forced upon by the attempt to join 
 the artificia-1' with- the sentimental 
 comedy, either of whrch- must destroy 
 the other — but \iv&t thfeSfe febstruci. 
 tions Jack's manner Abated- -hiW so 
 lightly, that a refusal from hini no moria 
 shocked you, than the easyeompliarifcie 
 of Charles gave you hi reaKty anfy 
 pleasure ; you got over the paltry- 
 question as quickly as you could, to 
 get back into the regions of pure 
 comedy, where no cold moral reigns. 
 The highly artificial manner of Pal- 
 mer in this character counteracted 
 every disagreeable impression which 
 you might have received from the 
 contrast, supposing them real, be- 
 tween the two brothers. You did not 
 believe in Joseph with the same faith 
 with which you believed in Charles. 
 The latter was a pleasant reality, the 
 former a no less pleasant poetical foil 
 to it. The comedy, I have said, is 
 incongmous ; a mixture of Congreve 
 with sentimental incompatibilities ; 
 the gaiety upon the whole is buoyant ; 
 but it required the consummate art 
 of Palmer to reconcile the discordant 
 elements. 
 
 A player with Jack's talents, if we 
 had one now, would not dare to do 
 the part in the same manner. He 
 would instinctively avoid every turn 
 which might tend to unrealize, and so 
 to make the character fascinating. 
 He must take his cue from his spec- 
 tators, who would expect a bad man 
 and a good man as rigidly opposed to 
 each other, as the death-beds of those 
 geniuses are contrasted in the prints, 
 which I am sorry to see have disap- 
 peared from the windows of my old 
 friend Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's 
 Church-yard memory — ^an exhibi- 
 tion as venerable as tne adjacent 
 cathedral, and almost coeval) of the 
 bad and good man at the hour of 
 death ; where the ghastly apprehen- 
 sions of the former, — and truly the 
 grim phantom with his reality of a 
 toasting fork is not to be despised,— 
 so finely contrast with the meek 
 2 A2 
 
S08 
 
 complacent kissing of the rod, — tak- 
 ing it in like honey and butter, — with 
 which the latter submits to the scythe 
 of the gentle bleeder. Time, who 
 wdelds his lancet with the appre- 
 hensive linger of a popular young 
 ladies' surgeon. What flesh, like 
 loving grass, would not covet to 
 meet half-way the stroke of such 
 a delicate mower? — John Palmer 
 was twice an actor in this exquisite 
 part. He was playing to you all the 
 while that he was playing upon Sir 
 Peter and his lady. You had the 
 first intimation of a sentiment before 
 it was on his lips. His altered voice 
 was meant to you, and you were to 
 suppose that his fictitious co-flutter- 
 ers on the stage perceived nothing at 
 all of it. What was it to you if that 
 half-reality, the husband, was over- 
 reached by the puppetry — or the thin 
 thing (Lady Teazle's reputation) was 
 persuaded it was dying of a plethory ? 
 The fortunes of Othello and Desde- 
 mon a were not concerned in it. Poor 
 Jack has past from the stage — in 
 good time, that he did not live to this 
 our age of seriousness. The fidgety 
 pleasant old Teazle King too is gone 
 m good time. His manner would 
 carce have past current in our day. 
 e must love or hate — acquit or 
 'condemn — censure or pity — exert our 
 'detestable coxcombry of moral judg- 
 inent upon every thing. Joseph Sur- 
 face, to go down now, must be a 
 downright revolting villain — no com- 
 romise — his first appearance must 
 phock and give horror — his specious 
 plausibilities, which the pleasurable 
 faculties of our fathers welcomed 
 |vith such hearty greetings, knowing 
 that no harm (dramatic harm even) 
 could come, or was meant to come 
 of them, must inspire a cold and 
 illing aversion. Charles (the real 
 canting person of the scene— for the 
 hypocrisy of Joseph has its ulterior 
 legitimate ends, but his brother's 
 professions of a good heart centre in 
 down-right self-satisfactioiV) must be 
 Jbved, and Joseph hated. To balance 
 one disagreeable reality with another. 
 Sir Peter Teazle must be no longer 
 the comic idea of a fretful old ba- 
 .chelor bridegroom, whose teazings 
 .(while King acted it) were evidently 
 ,as much played off* at you, as they 
 "i^were meant to concern any body on 
 ^the stage, — he must be a real per- 
 
 son, capable in law of sustaining an 
 injury — a person towards whom du- 
 ties are to be acknowledged — the ge- 
 nuine crim-con antagonist of the vil- 
 lanous seducer, Joseph. To realize 
 him more, his sufferings under his 
 unfortunate match must have the 
 downright pungency of life — must 
 (or should) make you not mirthful 
 but uncomfortable, just as the same 
 predicament would move you in a 
 neighbour or old friend. The deli- 
 cious scenes which give the play its 
 name and zest, must affect you in 
 the same serious manner as if you 
 heard the reputation of a dear female 
 friend attacked in your real presence. 
 Crab tree, and Sir Benjamin — those 
 poor snakes that lived but in the 
 sunshine of your mirth — must be 
 ripened by this hot-bed process of 
 realization into asps or amphisbae- 
 nas ; and Mrs. Candour — O ! fright- 
 ful ! become a hooded serpent. Oh 
 who that remembers Parsons and 
 Dodd — the wasp and butterfly of the 
 School for Scandal — in those two cha- 
 racters ; and charming natural Miss 
 Pope, the perfect gentlewoman as 
 distinguished from the fine lady of 
 comedy, in this latter part — would 
 forego the true scenic delight — the 
 escape from life — the oblivion of con- 
 sequences — the holiday barring out 
 of the pedant Reflection — those Sa- 
 turnalia of two or three brief hours, 
 well won from the world — to sit in- 
 stead at one of our modern plays — to 
 have his coward conscience (that 
 forsooth must not be left for a mo- 
 ment) stimulated with perpetual ap- 
 peals — ^^didled rather, and blunted, as 
 a faculty without repose must be — ■ 
 and his moral vanity pampered with 
 images of notional justice, notional 
 beneficence, lives saved without the 
 spectators' risk, and fortunes given 
 away that cost the author nothing ? 
 
 No piece was, perhaps, ever so com- 
 pletely cast in all its parts as this 
 manager s comedy. Miss Farren had 
 succeeded to Mrs. Abingdon in Lady 
 Teazle; and Smith, the original 
 Charles, had retired, when I first saw 
 it. The rest of the characters, with 
 very slight exceptions, remained. I 
 remember it was then the fashion to 
 cry down John Kemble, who took 
 the part of Charles after Smith; but, 
 I thought, very unjustly. Smith, I 
 fancy, was more airy, and took the 
 
1822.;] 
 
 The Old Actors. 
 
 eye with a certain gaiety of person. 
 He brought with him no sombre re- 
 collections 0? tragedy. He had not 
 to expiate the fault of having pleased 
 before hand in lofty declamation. He 
 had no sins of Hamlet or of Richard 
 to atone for. His failure in these 
 parts was a passport to success in 
 one of so opposite a tendency. But 
 as far as I could judge, the Aveighty 
 sense of Kemble made up for more 
 personal incapacity than be had to 
 answer •lor. His harshest tones in 
 this pavt came steeped and dulcified 
 in good humour. He made his de- 
 fects a grace. His exact declama- 
 tory manner, as he managed it,, only 
 served to convey the points of his 
 dialogue with more precision. It 
 seemed to head the shafts to carry 
 them deeper. Noi: one of his spark- 
 Ihig sentences was lost. I remember 
 minutely how he delivered each in 
 succession, and cannot by any effort 
 imagine how any of them could be 
 altered for the better. No man could 
 deliver brilliant dialogue — the dia- 
 logue of Congreve or of Wycherley 
 — because none understood it — half 
 so well as John Kemble. His Va- 
 lenthie, in Love for Love, was, to my 
 recollection, faultless. He flagged 
 sometimes in the intervals of tragic 
 passion. He would slumber over 
 the level parts of an heroic charac- 
 ter. His Macbeth has been known 
 to nod. But he always seemed to 
 me to be particiUarly alive to point- 
 ed and witty dialogue. The relaxing 
 levities of tragedy have not been 
 touched by any since him — the play- 
 ful court-bred spirit in which he con- 
 descended to the players in Hamlet — 
 the sportive relief which he threw 
 into the darker shades of Richard — 
 disappeared with him. Tragedy is 
 become a uniform dead weight. They 
 have fastened lead to her buskins. 
 She never pulls them off for the ease 
 of a moment. To invert a common- 
 place from Niobe, she never forgets 
 herself to liquefaction. John had his 
 sluggish moods, his torpors — but 
 they were the halting stones and 
 resting places of his tragedy — politic 
 savings, and fetches of the breath — 
 husbandry of the lungs, where na- 
 ture pointed him to be an economist 
 — rather, I think, than errors of the 
 judgment. They were, at worst, less 
 painful than the eternal tormenting 
 unappeasable vigilance, the *^ lidlesi 
 
 dragon eyes," of present fashionable 
 tragedy. The story of his swallow- 
 ing opium pills to keep him lively 
 upon the first night of a ce:tain tra- 
 gedy, we may, presume to be a piece 
 of retaliatory pleasantry on the part 
 of the suffering author. But, in- 
 deed, John had the art of diffusing a 
 complacent equable dulness (which 
 you knew not where to quarrel with) 
 over a piece which he did not like, 
 beyond any of his contemporaries. 
 John Kemble had made up his mind 
 early, that all the good tragedies, 
 which could be written, had been 
 written ; and he resented any new 
 attempt. His shelves were full. The 
 old standards were scope enough for 
 his ambition. He ranged in them 
 absolute — and " fair in Otway, full 
 in Shakspeare shone." He succeed- 
 ed to the old lawfid thrones, and did 
 not care to adventure bottomry with 
 a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any ca- 
 sual speculator that offered. I re- 
 member, too acutely for my peace, 
 the deadly extinguisher which he put 
 upon my friend G.'s ^^* Antonio." G., 
 satiate with visions of political jus- 
 tice (possibly not to be realized in 
 our time), or willing to let the scep- 
 tical worldlings see, that his antici- 
 pations of the future did not pre- 
 clude a warm sympathy for men as 
 they are and have been — wrote a tra- 
 gedy. He chose a story, affecting, 
 romantic, Spanish — the plot simple, 
 without being naked — the incidents 
 uncommon, without being overstrain- 
 ed. Antonio, who gives the name to 
 the piece, is a sensitive young Casti- 
 lian, who, in a fit of his country ho- 
 nour, immolates his sister 
 
 But 1 must not anticipate the ca- 
 tastrophe—the play, reader, is ex- 
 tant in choice English — and you will 
 employ a spare half crown not inju- 
 diciously in the quest of it. 
 
 The conception was bold, and the 
 denouement — the time and place in 
 which the hero of it existed, consi- 
 dered — not much out of keeping; 
 yet it must be confessed, that it re- 
 quired a delicacy of handling both 
 from the author and the performer, 
 so as not much to shock the preju- 
 dices of a modern English audience. 
 G., in my opinion, had done his part. 
 John, who was in familiar habits 
 with the philosopher, had undertaken 
 to play Antonio. Great expectations 
 were formed. A pliilosopher's first 
 
310 
 
 The Old Actors. 
 
 CApril, 
 
 f 
 
 play was a new aera. The night ar- 
 rived. I was favoured with a seat in 
 an advantageous box, between the 
 author and his friend INI — . G. sate 
 cheerful and confident. In his friend 
 M.'s looks, who had perused the ma- 
 nuscript, I read some terror. Anto- 
 nio in the person of John Philip 
 Kemble at length appeared, starch- 
 ed out in a ruff which no one could 
 dispute, and in most irreproachable 
 mustachios. John always dressed 
 most provokingly correct on these 
 occasions. The first act swept by, 
 solemn and silent. It went off, as 
 G. assured M., exactly as the opening 
 act of a piece — the protasis — should 
 do. The cue of the spectators was 
 to be mute. The characters were 
 but in their introduction. The pas- 
 sions and the incidents would be de- 
 veloped hereafter. Applause hitherto 
 would be impertinent. Silent atten- 
 tion was the effect all-desirable. Poor 
 M. acquiesced — but in his honest 
 friendly face I could discern a work- 
 ing which told how much more ac- 
 ceptable the plaudit of a single hand 
 (however misplaced) would have 
 been than all this reasoning. The 
 second act (as in duty bound) rose a 
 little in interest ; but still John kept 
 his forces under — in policy, as G. 
 would have it — and the audience 
 were most complacently attentive. 
 The protasis, in fact, was scarcely 
 unfolded. The interest would warm 
 in the next act, against which a spe- 
 cial incident was provided. M. wiped 
 his cheek, flushed with a friendly 
 perspiration — 'tis M's way of show- 
 ing his zeal — " from every pore of 
 him a perfume falls — " 1 honour it 
 above Alexander's. He had once or 
 twice during this act joined his palms 
 in a feeble endeavour to elicit a sound 
 — they emitted a solitary noise with- 
 out an echo — there was no deep to 
 answer to his deep. G. repeatedly 
 begged him to be quiet. The third 
 act at length brought on the scene 
 which was to warm the piece pro- 
 gressively to the final flaming forth of 
 the catastrophe. A philosophic calm 
 settled upon the clear brow of G. as 
 it approached. The lips of M. qui- 
 vered. A challenge was held forth 
 ppon the stage, and there was pro- 
 mise of a fight. The pit roused 
 themselves on this extraordinary oc- 
 casion, and, as their manner is, seem- 
 ed -disposed to make a ring, — when 
 
 suddenly Antonio, who was the chal- 
 lenged, turning the tables upon the 
 hot challenger Don Gusman (who by 
 the way should have had his sister) 
 baulks his humour, and the pit's rea- 
 sonable expectation at the same time, 
 with some speeches out of the new 
 philosophy against duelling. The 
 audience were here fairly caught — 
 their courage was up, and on the 
 alert — a few blows, ding dong, as 
 R s the dramatist afterwards ex- 
 pressed it to me, might have done 
 the business— when their most ex- 
 quisite moral sense was suddenly 
 called in to assist in the mortifying 
 negation of their own pleasure. They 
 could not applaud, for disappoint- 
 ment ; they would not condemn, for 
 morality's sake. The interest stood 
 stone still; and John's manner was 
 not at all calculated to unpetrify it. 
 It was Christmas time, and the at- 
 mosphere furnished some pretext for 
 asthmatic affections. One began to 
 cough — his neighbour sympathised 
 with him — till a cough became epi- 
 demical. But when, from being half- 
 artificial in the pit, the cough got 
 frightfully naturalised among the fic- 
 titious persons of the drama ; and 
 Antonio himself (albeit it was not set 
 down in the stage directions) seemed 
 more intent upon relieving his own 
 lungs than the distresses of the au- 
 thor and his friends, — then G. " first 
 knew fear;" and mildly turning to 
 M., inthnated that he had not been 
 aware that Mr. K. laboured under a 
 cold ; and that the performance might 
 possibly have been postponed with 
 advantage for some nights further — 
 still keeping the same serene counte- 
 nance, v»'hile M. sweat like a bull. It 
 would be invidious to pursue the fates 
 of this ill-starred evening. In vain 
 did the plot thicken in the scenes that 
 follow^ed, in vain the dialogue wax 
 more passionate and stirring, and the 
 progress of the sentiment point more 
 and more clearly to the ardvious de- 
 velopement which impended. In vain 
 the action was accelerated, while the 
 acting stood still. From the begin- 
 ning, John had taken his stand ; had 
 wound himself up to an even tenor of 
 stately declamation, from which no 
 exigence of dialogue or person could 
 make him swerve for an instant. To 
 dream of his rising with the scene 
 (the common trick of tragedians) 
 was preposterous ; for from the onset 
 
1822.;] 
 
 he had planted himself, as upon a 
 terrace, on an eminence vastly above 
 the audience, and he kept that sub- 
 lime level to the end. He looked 
 from his throne of elevated sentiment 
 upon the under-world of spectators 
 with a most sovran and becoming- 
 contempt. There was excellent pa- 
 thos delivered out to them : an they 
 would receive it, so ; an they would 
 not receive it, so. There was no 
 ■offence against decorum in all this ; 
 nothing to condemn, to damn. Not 
 an irreverent symptom of a sound 
 was to be heard. The procession of 
 verbiage stalked on through four and 
 iive acts, no one venturing to pre- 
 dict what would come of it, when to- 
 wards the winding up of the latter, 
 Antonio, with an irrelevancy thaft 
 seemed to stagger Elvira herself — for 
 she had been coolly arguing the point 
 of honour with him — suddenly whips 
 out a poniard, and stabs his sister to 
 the heart. The effect was, as if a 
 murder had been committed in cold 
 blood. The whole house rose up in 
 <;lamorous indignation demandnig jus- 
 tice. The feeling rose far above 
 "hisses. I believe at that instant, if 
 
 311 
 
 they could have got him, they would 
 have torn the unfortunate author to 
 pieces. Not that the act itself was 
 so exorbitant, or of a complexion 
 different from what they themselves 
 would have applauded upon another 
 occasion in a Brutus, or an Appius — 
 but for want of attending to Anto- 
 nio's words, which palpably led to 
 the expectation of no less dire an 
 event, instead of being seduced by 
 his manner, which seemed to promise 
 a sleep of a less alarming nature 
 than it was his cue to inflict upon 
 Elvira, they found themselves be- 
 trayed into an accompliceship of 
 murder, a perfect misprision of par- 
 ricide, while they dreamed of nothing 
 less. M., I believe, was the only 
 person who suffered acutely from the 
 failure ; for G. thenceforward, with 
 a serenity unattainable but by the 
 true philosophy, abandoning a pre- 
 carious popularity, retired into his 
 fast hold of speculation, — the drama 
 in which the world was to be his 
 tiring room, and remote posterity his 
 applauding spectators at once, and 
 actors. Eli A. 
 
THE 
 
 ionlrott iJlaga^me^ 
 
 N^XXIX. 
 
 MAY, 1822. 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS : 
 
 A MAY-DAY EFFUSION. 
 
 I LIKE to meet a sweep — under- 
 stand me — not a grown sweeper — 
 old chimney-sweepers are by no 
 means attractive — but one of those 
 tender novices, blooming through 
 their first nigritude, the maternal 
 washings not quite effaced from the 
 cheek — such as come forth with the 
 dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their 
 little professional notes sounding like 
 the peep peep of a young sparrow ; 
 or liker to the matin lark should I 
 pronounce them, in their aerial as- 
 cents not seldom anticipating the 
 sun-rise ? 
 
 I have a kindly yearning toward 
 these dim specks — poor blots — inno- 
 cent blacknesses — 
 
 I reverence these young Africans of 
 our own growth — these almost clergy 
 imps, who sport their cloth without 
 assumption ; and from their little 
 pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in 
 the nipping air of a December morn- 
 ing, preach a lesson of patience to 
 mankind. 
 
 ^Vhen a child, what a mysterious 
 pleasure it was to witness their ope- 
 ration ! to see a chit no bigger than 
 one's-self enter, one knew not by 
 what process, into what seemed the 
 fauces Averni — to pursue him in ima- 
 gination, as he went sounding on 
 through so many dark stifling ca- 
 verns, horrid shades ! — to shudder 
 with the idea that " now, surely, he 
 must be lost for ever ! '' — to revive at 
 hearing his feeble shout of discovered 
 dav-light— and then (O fulness of 
 
 Vol. V. 
 
 delight) running out of doors, to 
 come just in time to see the sable 
 phenomenon emerge in safety, the 
 brandished weapon of his art victo- 
 rious like some flag waved over a 
 conquered citadel ! I seem to re- 
 member having been told, that a 
 bad sweep was once left in a stack 
 with his brush to indicate which way 
 the wind blew. It was an awful 
 spectacle certainly ; not much imlike 
 the old stage direction in Macbeth, 
 where the " Apparition of a child 
 crowned, with a tree in his hand, 
 rises." 
 
 Reader, if thou meetest one of 
 these small gentry in thy early ram- 
 bles, it is good to give him a penny. 
 It is better to give him two-pence. 
 If it be starving weather, and to the 
 proper troubles of his hard occupa- 
 tion, a pair of kibed heels (no un- 
 usual accompaniment) be super- 
 added, the demand on thy humanity 
 will surely rise to a tester. 
 
 There is a composition, the ground- 
 work of which I have understood to 
 be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. 
 This wood boiled down to a kind ol 
 tea, and tempered with an infusion 
 of milk and sugar, hath to some 
 tastes a delicacy beyond the China 
 luxury. I know not how thy palate 
 may relish it ; for myself, with every 
 deference to the judicious Mr. Read, 
 who hath time out of mind kept 
 open a shop (the only one he avers 
 in London) for the vending of this 
 " wholesome and pleasant beverage," 
 2 H 
 
406 
 
 The. 
 
 jcepers, a May-Da 
 
 on the south side of Fleet-street, as 
 thou approachest Bridge-street — the 
 only Salopian house, ~1 have never yet 
 adventured to dip my own particular 
 lip in a basin of his commended in- 
 gredients — a cautious premonition to 
 the olfactories constantly whispering 
 to me, that my stomach must infal- 
 libly, with all due courtesy, decline 
 it. Yet I have seen palates, other- 
 wise not uninstructed in dietetical 
 elegances, sup it up with avidity. 
 
 I know not by what particular 
 conformation of the organ it happens, 
 but I have always found that this 
 composition is surprisingly gratifying 
 to the palate of a young chimney- 
 sweeper — whether the oily particles 
 (sassafras is slightly oleaginous) do 
 attenuate and soften the fuliginous 
 concretions, which are sometimes 
 found (in dissections) to adhere to 
 the roof of the mouth in these im- 
 fledged practitioners; or whether 
 Nature, sensible that she had mingled 
 too much of bitter wood in the lot of 
 these raw victims, caused to grow 
 out of the earth her sassafras for a 
 sweet lenitive — but so it is, that no 
 possible taste or odour to the senses 
 of a young chimney-sweeper can 
 convey a delicate excitement com- 
 parable to this mixture. Being pen- 
 niless, they will yet hang their black 
 heads over the ascending steam, to 
 gratify one sense if possible, seem- 
 ingly no less pleased than those do- 
 mestic animals — cats — when they 
 purr over a new found sprig of va- 
 lerian. There is something more in 
 these sympathies than philosophy can 
 explicate. 
 
 Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, 
 'not without reason, that his is the 
 only Salopian house; yet be it known 
 to thee, reader — if thou art one who 
 keepest what are called good hours, 
 thou art haply ignorant of the fact — 
 he hath a race of industrious imita- 
 tors, who from stalls, and under open 
 sky, dispense the same savoury mess 
 to humbler customers, at that dead 
 time of the dawn, when (as extremes 
 meet) the rake, reeling home from 
 his midnight cups, and the hard- 
 handed artisan leaving his bed to re- 
 sume the premature labours of the 
 day, jostle, not unfrequently to the 
 manitest disconcerthig of the former, 
 for the honours of the pavement. It 
 is the time when, in summer, be- 
 tween the expired and the not yet 
 
 relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels 
 of our fair metropolis give forth their 
 least satisfactory odours. The rake, 
 who wisheth to dissipate his o'er- 
 night vapours in more grateful coffee, 
 curses the ungenial fume, as he pass- 
 eth ; but the artisan stops to taste, 
 and blesses the fragrant breakfast. 
 
 This isSaloop — the precocious herb- 
 woman's darling — the delight of the 
 early gardener, who transports his 
 smoking cabbages by break of day 
 from Hammersmith to Covent-gar- 
 den's famed piazzas — the delight, 
 and, oh I fear, too often the envy, of 
 the unpennied sweep. Him shouldest 
 thou haply encounter, with his dim 
 visage pendant over the grateful 
 steam, regale him with a sumptuous 
 basin (it will cost thee but three 
 half-pennies) and a slice of delicate 
 bread and butter (an added half- 
 penny)— so may thy cvilinary fires, 
 eased of the o'er-charged secretions 
 from thy worse-placed hospitalities, 
 curl up a lighter volume to the wel- 
 kin — so may the descending soot 
 never taint thy costly well-ingredi- 
 enced soups — nor the odious cry, 
 quick-reaching from street to street, 
 of the Jired chimney, invite the rat- 
 tling engines from ten adjacent pa- 
 rishes, to disturb for a casual scin- 
 tillation thy peace and pocket ! 
 
 I am by nature extremely suscep- 
 tible of street affronts ; the jeers 
 and taunts of the populace; the 
 low-bred triumph they display over 
 the casual trip, or splashed stocking, 
 of a gentleman. Yet I can endure 
 the jocularity of a young sweep with 
 something more than forgiveness. — 
 In the last winter but one, pacing 
 along Cheapside with my accustomed 
 precipitation when I v/alk westward, 
 a treacherous slide brought me upon 
 my back in an instant. I scrambled 
 up with pain and shame enough — yet 
 outwardly trying to face it down, as 
 if nothing had happened — when the 
 roguish grin of one of these young 
 wits encountered me. There he 
 stood, pointing me out with his 
 dusky finger to the mob, and to a 
 poor woman (I suppose his mother) 
 in particular, till the tears for the ex- 
 quisiteness of the fun (so he thought 
 it) worked themselves out at the 
 corners of his poor red eyes, red 
 from many a previous weeping, and 
 soot-inflamed, yet twinkling through 
 all with such a joy, snatched out 
 
1822.]] The Praise of Chimnei/'S weepers, a May-Day Effusion. 
 
 407 
 
 of desolation, that Hogarth 
 
 but Hogarth has got him already 
 (how could he miss him ?) in the 
 March to Finchley, grinning at the 
 
 pye-man there he stood, as he 
 
 stands in the picture, irremovable, 
 as if the jest was to last for ever — 
 with such a maximum of glee, and 
 minimum of mischief, in his mirth — 
 for the grin of a genuine sweep hath 
 absolutely no malice in it — that I 
 could have been content, if the ho- 
 nour of a gentleman might endure it, 
 to have remained his butt and his 
 mockery till midnight. 
 
 I am by theory obdurate to the se- 
 ductiveness of what are called a fine 
 set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips 
 (the ladies must pardon me) is a 
 casket, presumably holding such 
 jewels ; but, methinks, they should 
 take leave to " air " them as frugally 
 as possible. The fine lady, or fine 
 gentleman, who show me their teeth, 
 show me bones. Yet must I confess, 
 that from the mouth of a true sweep 
 a display (even to ostentation) of 
 those white and shining ossifications, 
 strikes me as an agreeable anomaly 
 in manners, and an allowable piece of 
 foppery. It is, as when 
 
 A sable cloud 
 Turns forth her silver lining on the night. 
 
 It is like some remnant of gentry 
 not quite extinct ; a badge of better 
 days; a hint of nobility: — and, doubt- 
 less, under the obscuring darkness 
 and double night of their forlorn dis- 
 guisement, oftentimes lurketh good 
 blood, and gentle conditions, derived 
 from lost ancestry, and a lapsed pedi- 
 gree. The premature apprentice- 
 ments of these tender victims give 
 l)ut too much encouragement, I fear, 
 to clandestine, and almost infantile 
 abductions ; the seeds of civility and 
 true courtesy, so often discernible in 
 these young grafts (not otherwise to 
 be accounted for) plahily hint at some 
 forced adoptions ; many noble Ra- 
 chels mourning for their children, 
 even in our days, countenance the 
 fact ; the tales of fairy- spiriting may 
 shadow a lamentable verity, and the 
 recovery of the young Montagu be 
 but a solitaiy instance of good for- 
 tune, out of many irreparable and 
 hopeless defihations. 
 
 In one of the state-beds at Arun- 
 del Castle, a few years since — under 
 a ducal canopy — (that seat of the 
 
 Howards is an object of curiosity to 
 visitors, chiefly for its beds, in which 
 the late Duke was especially a con- 
 noisseur) — encircled witli curtains of 
 delicatest crimson, with starry co- 
 ronets inwoven — folded between a 
 pair of sheets whiter and softer than 
 the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius 
 — was discovered by chance, after 
 all methods of search had failed, at 
 noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney- 
 sweeper. The little creature, havhig 
 somehow confounded his passage 
 among the intricacies of those lordly 
 chimneys, by some unknown aper- 
 ture had alighted upon this magni- 
 ficent chamljer ; and, tired with his 
 tedious explorations, was unable to 
 resist the delicious invitement to re- 
 pose, which he there saw exhibited ; 
 so, creeping between the sheets very 
 quietly, laid his black head upon the 
 pillow, and slept like a young Ho- 
 ward. 
 
 Such is the account given to the 
 visitors at the Castle. — But I cannot 
 help seemhig to perceive a confirma- 
 tion of what I have just hinted at in 
 this story. A high insthict was at 
 work hi the case, or I am mistaken. 
 Is it probable that a poor child of that 
 description, with whatever weariness 
 he might be visited, would have ven- 
 tured, under such a penalty as he 
 would be taught to expect, to un- 
 cover the sheets of a Duke's bed, 
 and deliberately to lay himself down 
 between them, when the rug, or the 
 carpet, presented an obvious couch, 
 still far above his pretensions — is this 
 probable, I would ask, if the great 
 power of nature, which I contend 
 for, had not been manifested within 
 him, prompting to the adventure? 
 Doubtless this young nobleman (for 
 such my mind misgives me that he 
 must be) was allured by some me- 
 mory, not amounting to full consci- 
 ousness, of his condition in infancy, 
 when he was used to be lapt by his 
 mother, or his nurse, in just such 
 sheets as he there found, into which 
 he was now but creeping back as 
 into his proper incunabula, and rest- 
 ing place — By no other theory, than 
 by this sentiment of a pre-existent 
 state (as I may call it), can I ex- 
 plain a deed so venturous, and, in- 
 deed, upon any other system, so in- 
 decorous, in tiiis tender, but unsea- 
 sonable, sleeper. 
 
 My pleasant friend Jem White 
 2H2 
 
 I 
 
408 
 
 The Praise of Chimney-sweepers, a May -Day Effusion. [[May, 
 
 was so impressed with a belief of 
 metamorphoses like this frequently 
 taking place, that in some sort to re- 
 verse the wrongs of fortune in these 
 poor changelings, he instituted an an- 
 nual feast of chimney-sweepers, at 
 which it was his pleasure to officiate 
 as host and waiter. It was a solemn 
 supper held in Smithfield, upon the 
 yearly return of the fair of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. Cards were issued a 
 week before to the master-sweeps in 
 and about the metropolis, confining 
 the invitation to their younger fry. 
 Now and then an elderly stripling 
 would get in among us, and be good- 
 naturedly winked at; but our main 
 body were infantry. One unfortu- 
 nate wight, indeed, who, relying 
 upon his dusky suit, had intruded 
 himself into our party, but by tokens 
 was providentially discovered in time 
 to be no chimney-sweeper (all is not 
 soot which looks so), was quoited 
 out of the presence with universal 
 indignation, as not having on the 
 wedding garment; but in general 
 the greatest harmony prevailed. The 
 place chosen was a convenient spot 
 among the pens, at the north side of 
 the fair, not so far distant as to be im- 
 pervious to the agreeable hubbub of 
 that vanity; but remote enough not to 
 be obvious to the interruption of every 
 gaping spectator in it. The guests 
 assembled about seven. In those 
 little temporary parlours three tables 
 were spread with napery, not so fine 
 as substantial, and at every board a 
 comely hostess presided with her pan 
 of hissing sausages. The nostrils of 
 the young rogues dilated at the sa- 
 vour. James White, as head wai- 
 ter, had charge of the first table ; and 
 myself, with our trusty companion 
 BiGOD, ordinarily ministered to the 
 other two. There was clambering 
 and jostling, you may be sure, who 
 should get at the first table— for 
 Rochester in his maddest days could 
 not have done the humours of the 
 scene with more spirit than my friend. 
 After some general expression of 
 thanks for the honour the company 
 had done him, his inaugural cere- 
 mony was to clasp the greasy waist 
 of old dame Ursula (the fattest of 
 the three), that stood frying and 
 fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing 
 ^^ the gentleman," and imprint upon 
 her chaste lips a tender salute, where- 
 
 at the universal host would set up a 
 shout that tore the concave, while 
 hundreds of grinning teeth startled 
 the night with their brightness. O it 
 was a pleasure to see the sable younk- 
 ers lick in the unctuous meat, with 
 his more unctuous sayings — how he 
 would fit the tit bits to the puny 
 mouths, reserving the lengthier links 
 for the seniors— how he would in- 
 tercept a morsel even in the jaws of 
 some young desperado, declaring it 
 " must to the pan again to be 
 browned, for it was not fit for a gen- 
 tleman's eating"— how he would re- 
 commend this slice of white bread, 
 or that piece of kissing-crust, to a 
 tender juvenile, advising them all to 
 have a care of cracking their teeth, 
 which ^' were their best patrimony " 
 — how genteelly he would deal about 
 the small ale, as if it were wine, 
 naming the brewer, and protesting, 
 if it were not good, he should lose 
 their custom ; with a special recom- 
 mendation to ^' wipe the lip before 
 drinking.'' Then we had our toasts 
 —"The King,"— the "Cloth," — 
 which, whether they understood or 
 not, was equally diverting and flat- 
 tering ; — and for a crowning senti- 
 ment, which never failed, " May the 
 Brush supersede the Laurel." All 
 these, and fifty other fancies, which 
 were rather felt than comprehended 
 by his guests, would he utter, stand- 
 ing upon tables, and prefacing every 
 sentiment with a '^' Gentlemen, give 
 me leave to propose so and so," 
 which was a prodigious comfort to 
 those young orphans ; every now and 
 then stuffing into his mouth (for it 
 did not do to be squeamish on these 
 occasions) indiscriminate pieces of 
 those reeking sausages, which pleased 
 them mightily, and was the savou- 
 riest part, you may believe, of the 
 entertainment. 
 
 Golden lads and lasses mzist, 
 
 As chimney sweepers, come to dnst — 
 
 James White is extinct, and with 
 him these suppers have long ceased. 
 He carried away with him half the 
 fun of the world when he died — of 
 my world at least. His old clients 
 look for him among the pens ; and, 
 missing him, reproach the altered 
 feast of St. Bartholomew, and the 
 glory of Smithfield departed for ever- 
 
 Elia.- 
 
■.^,"^.»«^M...Tr-- 
 
 532 
 
 A Complaint of the Demy of Beggars in the Metropolis. fJune, 
 
 A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 The all-sweeping besom of socie- 
 tarian reformation — yoiu' only modern 
 Alcides' club to rid the time of its 
 abuses — is uplift with many-handed 
 sway to extirpate the last fluttering 
 tatters of the bugbear Mendicity 
 from the metropolis. Scrips^ wallets^ 
 bags — staves, dogs, and crutches — 
 the whole mendicant fraternity with 
 all their baggage are fast posting out 
 of the purlieus of this eleventh per- 
 secution. From the crowded cross- 
 ing, from corners of streets and turn- 
 ings of allies, the parting Genius of 
 Beggary is " with sighing sent." 
 
 I do not approve of this wholesale 
 going to work, this impertinent cru- 
 sado, or helium ad exterminationem, 
 proclaimed against a species. Much 
 good might be sucked from these 
 Beggars. 
 
 They were the oldest and the ho- 
 nourablest form of pauperism. Their 
 appeals were to our common nature; 
 less revolting to an ingenuous mind 
 than to be a supplicant to the parti- 
 cular humours or caprice of any fel- 
 low-creature, or set of fellow-crea- 
 tures, parochial or societarian. Theirs 
 were the only rates uninvidious in the 
 levy, ungrudged in the assessment. 
 
 There was a dignity springing from 
 the very depth of their desolation ; as 
 to be naked is to be so much nearer 
 to the being a man, than to go in 
 livery. 
 
 The greatest spirits have felt this 
 in their reverses ; and when Diony- 
 sius from king turned schoolmaster, 
 do we feel any thing towards him but 
 contempt? Could Vandyke have made 
 a picture of him, swaying a ferula 
 for a sceptre, which would have af- 
 fected our minds with the same he- 
 roic pity, the same compassionate 
 admiration, with which we regard 
 his Belisarius begging for an obolum f 
 Would the moral have been more 
 graceful, more pathetic ? 
 
 The Blind Beggar in the legend — 
 the father of pretty Bessj^ — whose 
 story doggrel rhymes and ale-house 
 signs cannot so degrade or attenuate, 
 but that some sparks of a lustrous 
 spirit will shine through the disguise- 
 ments— this noble Earl of Flanders 
 (as indeed he was) and memorable 
 
 sport of fortune, fleeing from the un- 
 just sentence of his liege lord, stript 
 of all, and seated on the flowering 
 green of Bethnal, with his more . resh 
 and springing daughter by his side, 
 illumining his rags and his beggi^ry — ■ 
 would the child and parent have cut 
 a better figure, doing the bono irs of 
 a counter, or expiating their fallen 
 condition upon the three-foot emi- 
 nence of some sempstering shop- 
 board } 
 
 In tale or history your Beggar is 
 ever the just antipode to your King. 
 The poets and romancical writers (as 
 dear Margaret Newcastle would call 
 them) when they would most sharply 
 and feelingly paint a reverse of for- 
 tune, never stop till they have 
 brought down their hero in good 
 earnest to rags and the wallet. The 
 depth of the descent illustrates the 
 height he falls from. There is no 
 medium which cati be presented to 
 the imagination without oifence. 
 There is no breaking tlie fall. Lear, 
 thrown from his palace, must divest 
 him of his garments, till he answer 
 " mere nature;" andCresseid, fallen 
 from a prince's love, must extend her 
 pale arms, pale with other whiteness 
 than of beauty, supplicating lazar 
 alms with bell and cL p-dish. 
 
 The Lucian wits i new this very 
 well ; and, with an opposite policy, 
 when they would press scorn of 
 greatness without \\^ pity, they show^ 
 us an Alexander in ,he shades cob- 
 bling shoes, or a S ^miramis getting 
 up foul linen. 
 
 How jwould it sound in song, that 
 a great monarch ha(^ declined his af- 
 fections upon the da ..ghter of a ba- 
 ker ! yet do we f( the imagination 
 at all violated, en we read the 
 '' true ballad," wh "e King Cophetua 
 wooes the beggar uiaid } 
 
 Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are 
 expressions of pity, but pity alloyed 
 with contempt. No one properly 
 contemns a beggar. Poverty is a 
 comparative thing, and each degree 
 of it is mocked by its '^ neighbour 
 grice." * Its poor rents and comings- 
 in are soon summed up and told. Its 
 pretences to property are almost lu- 
 dicrous. Its piUftil attempts to save 
 
 Timon of Athens. 
 
 JI?S3^^??E^? 
 
1822.]3 A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis. 
 
 53S 
 
 excite a smile. Every scornful com- 
 panion can weigh his trifle-bigger 
 purse against it. Poor man reproaches 
 poor man in the streets with impoli- 
 tic mention of his condition, his own 
 being a shade better, while the rich 
 pass by and jeer at both. No ras- 
 cally comparative insults a Beggar, 
 or thinks of weighiiig purses with 
 him. He is ned in the scale of com- 
 parisonx He is not under the mea- 
 sure of property. He confessedly 
 hath none, any more than a dog or a 
 sheep. No one twitteth him with os- 
 tentation above his means. No one 
 accuses him of pride, or upbraideth 
 him with mock humility. None jos- 
 tle with him for the wall, or pick 
 quarrels for precedency. No wealthy 
 neighbour seeketh to eject him from 
 his tenement. No man sues him. No 
 man goes to law with him. If I 
 were not the independent gentleman 
 that I am, rather than I would be a 
 retainer to the great, a led captain, 
 or a poor relation, I would chuse, 
 out of the delicacy and true great- 
 ness of my mind, to be a Beggar. 
 
 Rags, which are the reproach of 
 poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and 
 graceful insignia of his profession, 
 his tenure, his full dress, the suit in 
 which he is expected to show himself 
 in public. He is never out of the 
 fashion, or limpeth awkwardly be- 
 hind it. He is not required to put on 
 court mourning. Pie weareth all 
 colours, fearing none. His costume 
 hath undergone less change than the 
 Quaker's. His coat is coeval with 
 Adam's. He is the only man in the 
 universe who is not obliged to study 
 appearances. The ups and downs of 
 the world concern him no^ longer. 
 He alone conthmeth in one^ stay. 
 The price of stock or land afFecteth 
 him not. The fluctuations of agri- 
 cultural or commercial prosperity 
 touch him not, or at worst but change 
 his customers. He is not expected 
 to become bail or surety for any one. 
 No man troubleth him with question- 
 ing his religion or politics. He is the 
 only free man in the universe. 
 
 The Mendicants of this great city 
 were so many of her sights, her lions. 
 
 I can no more spare them than I 
 could the Cries of London. No cor- 
 ner of a street is complete without 
 them. They are as indispensable as 
 the Ballad Singer ; and in their pic- 
 turesque attire as ornamental as the 
 Signs of old London. They were the 
 standing morals, emblems, mementos, 
 dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the 
 books for children, the salutary 
 checks and pauses to the high and 
 rushing tide of greasy citizenry — 
 
 Look 
 
 Upon that poor and broken bankrupt tJi ere. 
 
 Above all, those old blind Tobits 
 that used to line the wall of Lincoln's 
 Inn Garden, before modern fastidi- 
 ousness had expelled them, casting 
 up their ruined orbs to catch a ray 'of 
 pity, and (if possible) of light, with 
 their faithful Dog Guide at their feet, 
 — whither are they fled ? or into what 
 corners, blind as themselves, have 
 they been driven, out of the whole- 
 some air and sun-warmth ? immersed 
 between four walls, in what wither- 
 ing poor-house do they endure the 
 penalty of double darkness, where 
 the chink of the dropt half-penny no 
 more consoles their forlorn bereave- 
 ment, far from the sound of the cheer- 
 ful and hope-stirring tread of the pas- 
 senger? Where hang their useless 
 crutches ? and who will farm their 
 dogs? — Have the overseers of St. 
 Ir— — caused them to be shot ? or 
 were they tied up in sacks, and 
 dropt into the Thames, at the sug- 
 gestion of B— , the mild Rector of 
 
 P ? 
 
 Well fare the soul of unfastidious 
 Vincent Bourne, most classical, and 
 at the same time, most English, of 
 the Latinists ! —who has treated of 
 this human and quadrupedal alliance, 
 this dog and man friendship, in the 
 sweetest of his poems, the Epitaphium 
 in Canem, or. Dog's Epitaph. Reader, 
 peruse it; and say, if customary- 
 sights, which could call up such gen- 
 tle poetry as this, were of a nature 
 to do more harm or good to the mo- 
 ral sense of the passengers through 
 the daily thoroughfares of a vast and 
 busy metropolis. 
 
 Vol. V, 
 
 Pauperis hie Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis, 
 Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectse, 
 Dux caeco fidus : nee, me dueente, solebat, 
 Praetenso hinc atque hine baculo, per iniqua locorum 
 Incertam explorare viam ; sed fila secutus. 
 Quae dubios regerent pasi^js, vestigia tuta 
 2B. 
 
A Complaint of iJie Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis. []June^ 
 
 Fixit inoffenso gressu ; gelidumque sedile 
 
 In nudo nactus saxo, qua praetereuntium 
 
 Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras 
 
 Liamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam. 
 
 Ploravit r.ec frustra ; obolum dedit alter et alter, 
 
 Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam. 
 
 Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile, 
 
 Vel mediis vigil in somnis ; ad herilia jvissa 
 
 Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amice 
 
 Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei 
 
 Tasdia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat. 
 
 Hi mores, hfcc vita fuit, dum fata sinebant, 
 Dura neque languebam morbis, nee inerte senecta ; 
 Qua tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite cacum 
 Orbavit doniinum : prisci sed gratia facti 
 Ne tota intereat, Icngos deleta per annos, 
 Exigiiura hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit, 
 Etsi inopis, non ingratas, munuscula dextrse ; 
 Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque, 
 Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum. 
 
 Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie^ 
 
 That wont to tend my old blind master's steps. 
 
 His guide and guard : -nor, while my service lasted. 
 
 Had he occasion for that staff, with which 
 
 He now goes picking out his path in fear 
 
 Over the highways and crossings ; but would plant. 
 
 Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, 
 
 A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd 
 
 His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide 
 
 Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd : 
 
 To whom with loud and passionate laments 
 
 From mom to eve his dark estate he wail'd. 
 
 Nor wail'd to all in vain : some here and there. 
 
 The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave. 
 
 I meantime at his feet obsequious slept ; 
 
 Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear 
 
 Prick'd up at his least motion ; to receive 
 
 At his kind hand my customary crumbs. 
 
 And common portion in his feast of scraps ; 
 
 Or when jiight wam'd us homeward, tired and spent 
 
 With our long day and tedious beggary. 
 
 These were my manners, this my way of life. 
 Till age and slow disease me overtook. 
 And sever'd from my sightless master's side. 
 But lest the grace of so good deeds should die. 
 Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost. 
 This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared. 
 Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand. 
 And with short verse inscribed it, to attest, 
 la long and lasting union to attest. 
 The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog. 
 
 These dim eyes have in vain ex- 
 plored for some months past a well- 
 known figure, or part of the figure, 
 of a man, who used to glide his 
 comely upper half over the pave- 
 ments of London, wheeling along 
 with most ingenious celerity upon a 
 machine of wood ; a spectacle to na- 
 tives, to foreigners, and to children. 
 He was of a robust make, with a 
 Sorid sailor-like complei^ion, and his 
 
 head was bare to the storm and sun- 
 shine. He was a natural curiosity, 
 a speculation to the scientific, a pro-> 
 digy to the simple. The infant would 
 stare at the mighty man brought 
 down to his own level. The com- 
 mon cripple would despise his own 
 pusillanimity, viewing the hale 
 stoutness, and hearty heart, of this 
 half-limbed giant. Few but must 
 have noticed him; for the accident, 
 
 
 m^ 
 
1822.]] A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars in the Metropolis. 
 
 ^5 
 
 which brought him low, took place 
 during the riots of 1780, and he 
 has been a groundling so long. He 
 seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, and 
 to suck in fresh vigour from the soil 
 which he neighboured. He was 
 a grand fragment ; as good as an 
 Elgin marble. The nature, which 
 should have recruited his reft legs 
 and thighs, was not lost, but only re- 
 tired into his upper parts, and he was 
 half a Hercules. I heard a tre- 
 mendous voice thundering and growl- 
 ing, as before an earthquake, and 
 casting down my eyes, it was this 
 mandrake reviling a steed that had 
 started at his portentous appearance. 
 He seemed to want but his just sta- 
 ture to have rent the ofFendhig qua- 
 druped in shivers. He was as the 
 man-part of a Centaur, from which 
 the horse-half had been cloven in 
 some dire Lapithan controversy. He 
 moved on, as if he could have made 
 shift with yet half of the body-por- 
 tion which was left him. The os sub- 
 lime was not wanting ; and he threw 
 out yet a jolly countenance upon the 
 heavens. Forty-and-two years had 
 he driven this out of door trade, and 
 now that his hair is grizzled in the 
 service, but his good spirits no way 
 impaired, because he is not content to 
 exchange his free air and exercise for 
 the restraints of a poor house, he is 
 expiathig his contumacy in one of 
 those houses (ironically christened) of 
 Correction. 
 
 Was a daily spectacle like this to 
 be deemed a nuisance, which called 
 for legal interference to remove } or 
 not rather a salutary, and a touching 
 object, to the passers-by in a great 
 city } Among her shows, her mu- 
 seums, and supplies for ever-gaping 
 curiosity (and what else but an ac- 
 cumulation of sights — endless sights 
 •—is a great city ; or for what else is 
 it desirable.'') was there not room 
 for one Lusus (not Natures indeed, 
 but) Accidentium 9 What if in forty- 
 and-two years' going about, the man 
 had scraped together enough to give 
 a portion to his child (as the rumour 
 fan) of a few hundreds — whom had 
 he injured? whom had he imposed 
 upon } The contributors had enjoyed 
 their sight for their pennies. What 
 if after being exposed all day to the 
 heats, the rains, and the frosts of 
 heaven — shuffling his ungainly trunk 
 along in an elaborate and painful mo-* 
 
 tion — he was enabled to retire at 
 night to enjoy himself at a club of 
 his fellow cripples over a dish of hot 
 meat and vegetables, as the charge 
 was gravely brought against him by 
 a clergyman deposing before a House 
 of Commons' Committee — was this, 
 or was his truly paternal considera-* 
 tion, \diich (if a fact J deserved a 
 statue rather than a wnipping post, 
 and is inconsistent at least with the 
 exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which, 
 he has been slandered with — a reason 
 that he should be deprived of his 
 chosen, harmless, nay edifying, way 
 of life, and be committed in hoary 
 age for a sturdy vagabond ? — 
 
 There was a Yorick once, that 
 would not have shamed him to have 
 sate down at the cripples' feast, and 
 would have thrown in his benedic- 
 tion, aye, and his mite too, for a 
 companionable symbol. " Age, thou 
 hast lost thy breed." — 
 
 Half of these stories about the 
 prodigious fortunes made by begging 
 are (I verily believe J misers' calum-. 
 nies. One was mucn talked of in the 
 public papers some time since, 'and 
 the usual charitable inferences de- 
 duced. A clerk in the Bank waff 
 surprised with the announcement «f 
 a five hundred pound legacy left hini 
 by a person" whose name he was a 
 stranger to. It seems that in his 
 daily morning walks from Peckham 
 (or some village thereabouts) where 
 he lived, to his office, it had been his 
 practice for the last twenty years to 
 drop his halfpenny duly into the hat 
 of some blind Bartimeus, that sate 
 begging alms by the way-side in the 
 Borough. The good old beggar re- 
 cognised his daily benefactor by the 
 voice only ; and, when he died, left 
 all the amassings of his alms (that 
 had been half a century perhaps in 
 the accumulating) to his old Bank 
 friend. Was this a story to purse 
 up people's hearts, and pennies, a- 
 gainst giving an alms to the blind ?— 
 or not rather a beautiful moral of 
 well-directed charity on the one part, 
 and noble gratitude upon the other t 
 
 I sometimes wish I had been that 
 Bank clerk. 
 
 I seem to remember a poor old 
 grateful kind of creature, blinking, 
 and looking up with his no eyes itt 
 the sun — 
 
 Is it possible I could have steeled 
 my purse against him ? 
 ^R2 
 
BK 
 
 ^iU-.-i- 1^ iiiiummmmmmmm 
 
 536 
 
 CatulluSf with New Translations. 
 
 [^June, 
 
 Perhaps I had no small change. 
 
 Header, do not be frightened at the 
 hard words, imposition, imposture — 
 give, and ask no questions. Cast thy 
 bread upon the waters. Some have 
 imawares (like this Bank clerk) en- 
 tertained angels. 
 
 - Shut not thy purse-strings always 
 against painted distress. Act a cha- 
 rity sometimes. When a poor crea- 
 ture (outwardly and visibly such) 
 comes before thee, do not stay to en- 
 quire whether the " seven small chil- 
 dren," in whose name he implores 
 thy assistance, have a veritable exist- 
 ence. Rake not into the bowels of 
 imwelcome truth, to save a halfpenny. 
 It is good to believe him. If he 
 be not all that he pretendeth, g-ive, 
 and under a personate father of a fa- 
 mily, think (if thou pleasest) that 
 thou hast relieved an indigent ba- 
 chelor. When they come with their 
 counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, 
 think them players. You pay your 
 money to see a comedian feign these 
 things, which, concerning these poor 
 people, thou canst not certainly tell 
 whether they are feigned or not. 
 
 ^' Pray God your honour relieve me," 
 said a poor beadswoman to my friend 
 
 Xi one day ; '^ I have seen better 
 
 days." " So have I, my good woman,'' 
 retorted he, looking up at the welkin 
 which was just then threatening a 
 storm— and the jest (he will have it) 
 was as good to the beggar as a tester. 
 
 It was at all events kinder than 
 
 consigning her to the stocks, or the 
 parish beadle — 
 
 But L. has a way of viewing things 
 in rather a paradoxical light on some 
 occasions. Elia. 
 
 P. S. My friend Hume (not MP.) 
 has a curious manuscript in his pos- 
 session, the original draught of the 
 celebrated "^ Beggar's Petition," (who 
 cannot say by heart the '^ Beggar's 
 Petition?") as it was written by some 
 school usher (as I remember) with 
 corrections interlined from the pen 
 of Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen 
 of the doctor's improvement, I re- 
 collect one most judicious alteration — 
 A ])ain])er''d menial drove me from the door. 
 
 It Stood originally, 
 A I'tvery servant drove me^ S^c. 
 
 Here is an instance of poetical or 
 artificial languagej properly substi- 
 tuted for the phrase of common con- 
 versation ; against Wordsworth. 
 
 I think I must get H. to send it to 
 the London, as a corollary to the 
 foregoing. 
 
 N. B. I am glad to see Januk 
 veering about to the old quarter. I 
 feared he had been rust-bound. 
 
 C. being asked why he did not like 
 Gold's '^ London " as well as ours — 
 it was in poor S.'s time — replied — 
 
 Because there is woWeatheecock-, 
 
 And thafs the reason xvhy. 
 
DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING. 
 
 To mind the inside of a book^ is to entertain one's self with the fdrced 
 product of anotlier man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and breed- 
 ing may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own. 
 
 Lord Fopp'mgtoH in the Relapse. 
 
 An ingenious acquaintance of my 
 own was so much struck with this 
 bright sally of his Lordship, that he 
 has left ofFreadhig altogether, to the 
 great improvement of his originality. 
 At the hazard of loshig some credit 
 on this head, I must confess that 1 
 dedicate no inconsiderable portion of 
 my time to otlier people's thoughts. 
 I dream away my life in others' spe- 
 culations. I love to lose myself in 
 other men's mhids. When I am not 
 walking, I am reading ; I cannot sit 
 and think. Books think for me. 
 
 I have no repugnances. Shafts- 
 bury is not too genteel for me, nor 
 Jonathan Wild too low. I can read 
 any thing which I call a book. There 
 are things in that shape which I can- 
 not allow for such. 
 
 In this catalogue o( books which are 
 no books — bihiia a-biblia — I reckon 
 Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket 
 Books (the Literary excepted), 
 Draught Boards bound and lettered 
 at the back. Scientific Treatises, Al- 
 manacks, Statutes at Large ; the 
 works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, 
 Seattle, Soame Jenyns, and, general- 
 ly, all those volumes which ^' no 
 gentleman's library should be with- 
 out ;" the Histories of Flavius Jose- 
 
 phus (that learned Jew), and Paley's 
 Moral Philosophy. With these ex- 
 ceptions, I can read almost any 
 thing. I bless my stars for a taste 
 so catholic, so unexcluding. 
 
 I confess that it moves my spleen 
 to see these things in books' clothing 
 perched upon shelves, like false 
 saints, usurpers of true shrines, in- 
 truders into the sanctuary, thrusting 
 out the legitimate occupants. To 
 reach down a well-bound semblance 
 of a volume, and hope it some kind- 
 hearted play-book, then, opening 
 what '^ seem its leaves," to come 
 bolt upon a withering Population 
 Essay. To expect a Steele, or a 
 Farquhar, and find — Adam Smith. 
 To view a well-arranged assortment 
 of blockheaded Encyclopaedias (An- 
 glicanas or Metropolitanas) set out 
 in an array of Russia, or Morocco, 
 when a tythe of that good leather 
 woidd comfortably re-clothe my shi- 
 vering folios ; would renovate Para- 
 celsus himself, and enable old Ray- 
 mund Lully — I have them both, 
 reader — to look like himself again in 
 the world. I never see these im- 
 postors, but I long to strip them, to 
 warm my ragged veterans in their 
 spoils. 
 
34 
 
 Detached Thoughts on Books and Heading, 
 
 CJ"iy> 
 
 To be strong-backed and neat- 
 bound is the desideratum of a vo- 
 lume. Magnificence comes after. 
 This, when it can be afforded, is not 
 to be lavished upon all kinds of books 
 indiscriminately. I would not dress 
 a set of Magazines, for instance, in 
 full suit. The dishabille, or half- 
 binding (with Russia backs ever), 
 is our costume. A Shakspeare, or a 
 Milton (unless the first editions), it 
 were mere foppery to trick out in gay 
 apparel. The possession of them con- 
 fers no distinction. The exterior of 
 them (the things themselves being so 
 common), strange to say, raises no 
 sweet emotions, no tickling sense of 
 property in the owner. Thomson's 
 Seasons, again, looks best (I main- 
 tain it) a little torn, and dog s-eared. 
 How beautiful to a genuine lover of 
 reading are the sullied leaves, and 
 worn out appearance, nay, the very 
 odour (beyond Russia), if we would 
 not forget kind feelings in fastidious- 
 ness, of an old ^^ Circulating Li- 
 brary" Tom Jones, or Vicar of 
 Wakefield ! How they speak of the 
 thousand thumbs, which have turned 
 over their pages with delight ! — of 
 the lone sempstress, whom they may 
 have cheered (milliner, or harder- 
 working mantua-maker) after her 
 long day's needle-toil, running far 
 into midnight, when she has snatched 
 an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep 
 her cares, as in some Lethean cup, 
 in spelling out their enchanting con- 
 tents ! Who would have them a whit 
 less soiled ? What better condition 
 could we desire to see them in ? 
 
 In some respects the better a book 
 is, the less it demands from binding. 
 Fielding, SmoUet, Sterne, and all 
 that class of perpetually self-repro- 
 ductive volumes Great Nature's 
 
 Stereotypes we see them indivi- 
 dually perish with less regret, be- 
 cause we know the copies of them 
 to be "^ eterne." But where a book 
 is at once both good and rare — where 
 the individual is almost the species, 
 and when that perishes. 
 
 We know not 'where is that Vromethean 
 
 torch 
 That can its light relumine — 
 
 such a book, for instance, as the Life 
 of the Duke of Newcastle, by his 
 Duchess — no casket is rich enough, 
 no casing sufficiently durable, to ho- 
 nour and keep safe such a jewel. 
 
 Not only rare volumes of this de- 
 scription, which seem hopeless ever 
 to be reprinted ; but old editions of 
 writers, such as Sir Philip Sidney, 
 Bishop Taylor, Milton in his prose- 
 works. Fuller — of whom we have re- 
 prints; yet the books themselves, 
 though they go about, and are talked 
 of here and there, we know, have 
 not endenizened themselves (nor pos- 
 sibly ever will) in the national 
 heart, so as to become stock books — 
 it is good to possess these in durable 
 and costly covers. — I do not care for 
 a First Folio of Shakspeare. You can- 
 not make a pet book of an author 
 whom every body reads. I rather 
 prefer the common editions of Rowe 
 and Tonson, without notes, and with 
 plates, which, behig so execrably bad, 
 serve as maps, or modest remem- 
 brancers, to the text; and without 
 pretending to any supposeable emu- 
 lation with it, are so much better 
 than the Shakspeare gallery engrav-' 
 ings, which did, I have a commu- 
 nity of feeling with my countrymen 
 about his Plays ; and I like those edi- 
 tions of him best, which have been 
 oftenest tumbled about and handled. 
 — On the contrary, I cannot read 
 Beaumont and Fletcher but in Folio. 
 The Octavo editions are painful to 
 look at. I have no sympathy with 
 them, nor with Mr. Gifford's Ben Jon- 
 son. If they were as much read as 
 the current editions of the other poet, 
 I should prefer them in that shape to 
 the older one. — I do not know a 
 more heartless sight than the re- 
 print of the Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 What need was there of unearthing 
 the bones of that fantastic old great 
 man, to expose them in a winding- 
 sheet of the latest edition to modern 
 censure? what hapless stationer could 
 dream of Burton ever becoming po- 
 pular ? — The wretched Malone could 
 not do worse, when he bribed the 
 sexton of Stratford church to let him 
 white-wash the painted effigy of old 
 Shakspeare, which stood there, in 
 rude but lively fashion depicted, to 
 the very colour of the cheek, the eye, 
 the eye-brow, hair, the very dress 
 he used to wear — the only authentic 
 testimony we had, however imper- 
 fect, of these curious parts and par- 
 cels of him. They covered him over 
 
 with a coat of white paint. By , 
 
 if I had been a justice of peace for 
 Warwickshire; I would have clapt 
 
 t 
 
 J 
 
lS22r\ 
 
 Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading, 
 
 35 
 
 both commentator and sexton fast in 
 the stocks for a pair of meddling sa- 
 crilegious varlets. 
 
 1 think I see them at their work — 
 these sapient trouble-tombs. 
 
 Shall X be thought fantastical, if 
 I confess, that the names of some of 
 our poets sound sweeter, and have a 
 finer relish to the ear— to mine, at 
 least — than that of Milton or of Shak- 
 speare ? It may be, that the latter 
 are more staled and rung upon in 
 common discoiuse. The sweetest 
 names, and which carry a perfume 
 in the mention, are. Kit Marlowe, 
 Drayton, Drummond of Hawtliorn- 
 den, and Cowley. 
 
 Much depends upon irheii and 
 where you read a book. In the five 
 or six impatient minutes, before the 
 dinner is quite ready, who would 
 think of taking up tlie Fairy Queen 
 for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bi- 
 shop Andrewes' sermons? 
 
 ISIilton almost requires a solemn 
 service of music to be played, before 
 you enter upon him. But he brings 
 his music— to which, who listens, 
 had need bring docile thoughts and 
 purged ears. 
 
 Winter evenings — the world shut 
 out — with less ot ceremony the gen- 
 tle Shakspeare enters. At such a 
 season, the Tempest — or his own 
 Winter's Tale — 
 
 These tvvo poets you cannot avoid 
 reading aloud — to yourself, or (as it 
 chances) to some single person listen- 
 ing. More than one — and it dege- 
 nerates into an audience. 
 
 Books of quick interest, that hurry 
 on for incidents, aie for the eye to 
 glide over solely. It will not do to 
 read them out. I could never listen 
 to even the better kind of modern 
 novels without extreme irksomeness. 
 A newspaper, read out, is intoler- 
 able. In some of the Bank offices it 
 is the custom (to save so much in- 
 dividual time) for one of the clerks — 
 who is the best scholar — to com- 
 mence upon the Times, or the Chro- 
 nicle, and recite its entire contents 
 aloud jL»ro bono publico. With every 
 advantage of lungs and elocution — 
 the etFect is singularly vapid. — In 
 barbers' shops, and public-houses, a 
 fellow will get up, and spell out a 
 paragraph, which he communicates as 
 some discovery. Another follows with 
 his selection. So the entire journal 
 transpires at length by piece-meal, 
 
 Seldom-readers are slow readeis, and, 
 without this expedient no one in the 
 company would probably ever travel 
 through the contents of a whole pa- 
 per. 
 
 Newspapers always excite curio- 
 sity. No one ever lays one down 
 without a feeling of disappointment. 
 
 What an eternal time that gentle- 
 man in black, at Nando's, keeps the 
 paper ! I am sick of hearing the 
 waiter bawling out incessantly, '' the 
 Chronicle is hi hand. Sir." 
 
 As in these little Diurnals I gene- 
 rally skip the Foreign News — the De- 
 bates — and the Politics— I find the 
 Morning Herald by far the most en- 
 tertaining of them. It is an agree- 
 able miscellany, rather than a news- 
 paper. 
 
 Coming in to an inn at night — 
 having ordered your supper — what 
 can be more delightful than to find 
 lying in the window-seat, left there 
 time out of mind by the carelessness 
 of some former guest — two or three 
 numbers of the old Town and Coun- 
 try Magazine, with its amusing tete- 
 a-ttte pictures. — " The Royal Lover 
 
 and Lady G ;" " the Melting 
 
 Platonic and the old Beau," — and 
 such like antiquated scandal ? WoiUd 
 you exchange it — at that time, and 
 in that place — for a better book ? 
 
 Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, 
 did not regret it so much for the 
 weightier kinds of reading — the Pa- 
 radise Lost, or Comus, he covdd 
 have read to him — but he missed the 
 pleasure of skimming over with his 
 own eye — a magazine, or a light 
 pamphlet. 
 
 I should not care to be caught in 
 the serious avenues of some cathedral 
 alone, and reading — Candide! 
 
 1 do not remember a more whim- 
 sical surprise than having been once 
 detected — by a familiar damsel — re- 
 clined-at my ease upon the grass, on 
 Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading 
 — Pamehi. There was nothing in 
 the book to make a man seriously 
 ashamed at the exposure; but, as 
 she seated herself down by me, and 
 seemed determined to read in com- 
 pany, I could have wished it had 
 been— any other book. — We read on 
 very sociably for a few pages ; and, 
 not finding the author much to her 
 taste, she got up, and — went away. 
 Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to 
 conjecture, whether the blush (for 
 
 i 
 
36 
 
 Detached Thought's on Books and Reading. 
 
 there was one between us) was the 
 property of the nymph, or the swain, 
 in this dilemma. From me you shall 
 never get the secret. 
 
 I am not much a friend to out-of- 
 doors reading. I cannot settle my 
 spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian 
 minister, who was generally to be 
 seen upon Snow-hill (as yet Skin- 
 ner's-street urns not), between the 
 hours of ten and eleven in the morn- 
 ing, studying a volume of Lardner. 
 I own this to have been a strain of 
 abstraction beyond my reach. I used 
 to admire how he sidled along, keep- 
 ing clear of secular contacts. An il- 
 literate encounter with a porter's 
 knot, or a bread-basket, would have 
 quickly put to flight all the theology 
 I am master of, and have left me 
 worse than indifferent to the five 
 points. 
 
 I was once amused — there is a 
 pleasure in affecting affectation — at 
 the indignation of a crowd that was 
 justling in with me at the pit door 
 of Covent Garden theatre, to have a 
 sight of Master Betty — then at once 
 in his dawn and his meridian — in 
 Hamlet. I had been invited quite 
 unexpectedly to join a party, whom 
 I met near the door of the play- 
 house, and I happened to have in 
 my hand a large octavo of Johnson 
 and Steevens's Shakspeare, which, the 
 time not admitthig of my carrying it 
 home, of course went with me to the 
 theatre. Just in the very heat and 
 pressure of the doors opening — the 
 nifih, as they term it — I deliberately 
 held the volume over my head, open 
 at the scene in which the young Ro- 
 scious had been most cried up, and 
 quietly read by the lamp-light. The 
 clamour became imiversal. " The 
 affectation of the fellow," cried one. 
 " Look at that gentleman reading, 
 papa," squeaked a young lady, who 
 in her admiration of the novelty al- 
 most forgot her fears. I read on. 
 " He ought to have his book knocked 
 out of his hand," exclaimed a pursy 
 cit, whose arms were too fast pi- 
 nioned to his side to suffer him to 
 execute his khid intention. Still I 
 read on — and, till the time came to 
 pay my money, kept as unmoved, as 
 Saint Antony at his Holy Offices, 
 with the satyrs, apes, and hobgob- 
 lins, mopping, and making mouths 
 at him, in the picture, while the good 
 man sits as undisturbed at the sights 
 
 as if he were sole tenant of the d 
 sart. — The individual rabble (I re 
 cognized more than one of their ugly 
 faces) had damned a slight piece of 
 mine but a few nights before, and I 
 was determined the culprits should 
 not a second time put me out of 
 countenance. 
 
 There is a class of street-readers, 
 whom I can never contemplate with- 
 out affection — the poor gentry, who, 
 not having wherewithal to buy, or 
 hire, a book, filch a little learning at 
 the open stalls — the owner, with his 
 hard eye, casting envious looks at 
 them all the while, and thinking when 
 they will have done. Venturing ten- 
 derly, page after page, expecting every 
 moment when he shall interpose his 
 interdict, and yet unable to deny 
 themselves the gratification, they 
 ^^ snatch a fearful joy." Martin B — , 
 in this way, by daily fragments, got 
 through tv/o volumes of Clarissa, 
 when the stall-keeper damped his 
 laudable ambition, by asking him (it 
 was in his younger days) whether he 
 meant to purchase the work. M. 
 declares, that under no circumstances 
 of his life did he ever peruse a book 
 with half the satisfaction which he 
 took in those uneasy snatches. A 
 quaint poetess of our day has mora- 
 lized upon this subject in two very- 
 touching but homely stanzas. 
 
 THE TWO BOYS. 
 
 I saw a boy with eager eye 
 Open a book upon a stall, 
 And read, as he'd devour it all ; 
 Which when the stall-man did espy, 
 Soon to the boy I heard him call, 
 " You, Sir, you never buy a book, 
 Therefore in one you shall not look.'* 
 The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh 
 He wish'd he never had been taught to read. 
 Then of the old churl's books he should 
 have had no need. 
 
 Of sufferings the poor have many, 
 
 Which never can the rich annoy : 
 
 I soon perceiv'd another boy. 
 
 Who look'd as if he'd not had any 
 
 Food, for that day at least — enjoy 
 
 The sight of cold meat in a tavern larder. 
 
 This boy's case, then thought I, is surely 
 
 harder. 
 Thus hungry, longing, thus without a 
 
 j)enny, 
 Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat ; 
 No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd 
 
 to eat. 
 
 ELIA. 
 
 {To he continued.) 
 
18220 
 
 Confessions of a Drunkard. 
 
 117 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD. 
 
 Dehortations from the use of 
 strong liquors have been the favourite 
 topic of sober declaimers in all ages, 
 and have been received with abun- 
 dance of applause by water-drinking- 
 critics. But with the patient him- 
 self, the man that is to be cured, un- 
 fortunately their sound has seldom 
 prevailed. Yet the evil is acknow- 
 ledged, the remedy simple. Abstain. 
 No force can oblige a man to raise 
 the glass to his head against his will. 
 'Tis as easy as not to steal, not to 
 tell lies. 
 
 Alas ! the hand to pilfer, and the 
 tongue to bear false witness, have no 
 constitutional tendency. These are 
 actions indifferent to them. At the 
 first instance of the reformed will, 
 tliey can be brought off without a 
 murmur. The itching finger is but 
 a figure in speech, and the tongue of 
 the liar can with the same natural 
 delight give forth useful truths, with 
 which it has been accustomed to 
 scatter their pernicious contraries. 
 But when a man has commenced 
 sot 
 
 O pause, thou sturdy moralist, thou 
 person of stout nerves and a strong 
 head, whose liver is happily un- 
 touched, and ere thy gorge riseth at 
 the 7iame which I have written, first 
 learn what the thing- is ; how much 
 of compassion, how much of human 
 allowance, thou may'st virtuously 
 mingle with thy disapprobation. 
 Trample not on the ruins of a man. 
 Exact not, imder so terrible a penalty 
 as infamy, a resuscitation from a state 
 of death almost as real as that from 
 which Lazarus rose not but by a mi- 
 racle. 
 
 Begin a reformation, and custom 
 will make it easy. But what if the 
 beginning be dreadful, the first steps 
 not like climbing a mountain but go- 
 ing through fire ? what if the whole 
 system must vmdergo a change vio- 
 lent as that which we conceive of the 
 mutation of form in some insects ? 
 what if a process comparable to flay- 
 ing alive be to be gone through ? is 
 the weakness that sinks under such 
 struggles to be confounded with the 
 pertinacity which cUngs to other 
 vices, which hare induced no consti- 
 tutional necessity, no engagement of 
 the whole victim, body and soul ? 
 
 Vol. VI. 
 
 I have known one in that state, 
 when he has tried to abstain but for 
 one evening,— though the poisonous 
 potion had long ceased to bring back 
 its first enchantments, though he was 
 sure it woidd rather deepen his gloom 
 than brighten it,— in the violence of 
 the struggle, and the necessity he 
 has felt of getting rid of the present 
 sensation at any rate, I have known 
 him to scream out, to cry aloud, for 
 the anguish and pain of the strife 
 within him. 
 
 Why should I hesitate to declare, 
 that the man of whom I speak is 
 myself? I have no puling apology 
 to make to mankind. I see them all 
 in one way or another deviating from 
 the pure reason. It is to my own 
 nature alone I am accountable for 
 the woe that I have brought upon it. 
 
 I believe that there are constitu- 
 tions, robust heads and iron insides, 
 whom scarce any excesses can hurt ; 
 whom brandy (I have seen them 
 drink it like wine), at all events 
 whom wine, taken in ever so plenti- 
 ful measure, can do no worse injury 
 to than just to muddle their facul- 
 ties, perhaps never very pellucid. On 
 them this discourse is wasted. They 
 would but laugh at a weak brother, 
 who, trying his strength with them, 
 and coming off foiled from the con- 
 test, would fain persuade them that 
 such agonistic exercises are danger- 
 ous. It is to a very different de- 
 scription of persons I speak. It is to 
 the weak, the nervous ; to those who 
 feel the want of some artificial aid to 
 raise their spirits in society to what 
 is no more than the ordinary pitch of 
 all around them without it. This is 
 the secret of our drinking. Such 
 must fly the convivial board in the 
 first instance, if they do not mean to 
 sell themselves for term of life. 
 
 Twelve years ago I had completed 
 my six and twentieth year. I had 
 lived from the period of leaving school 
 to that time pretty much in solitude. 
 My companions were chiefly books, 
 or at most one or two living ones of 
 my own book-loving and sober stamp. 
 I rose early, went to bed betimes, 
 and the faculties which God had given 
 me, I have reason to think, did not 
 rust in me unused. 
 
 About that time I fell in with. 
 K 
 
118 
 
 Confessions of a Drunkard. 
 
 CAuff. 
 
 some companions of a different or- 
 der. They were men of boisterous 
 spirits, sitters up a-nights, dispu- 
 tants, drunken ; yet seemed to have 
 something- noble about them. We 
 dealt about the wit, or what passes 
 for it after midnight, jovially. Of 
 the quality called fancy I certainly 
 possessed a larger share than my 
 companions. Encouraged by their 
 applause, I set up for a profest joker! 
 I, who of all men am least fitted for 
 such an occupation, having, in addi- 
 tion to the greatest difficulty which I 
 experience at all times of finding words 
 to express my meaning, a natural 
 2iervous impediment in my speech ! 
 
 Reader, if you are gifted with 
 nerves like mine, aspire to any cha- 
 racter but that of a wit. When you 
 jSnd a tickling relish upon your tongue 
 disposing you to that sort of conver- 
 sation, especially if you find a pre- 
 ternatural flow of ideas setting in 
 upon you at the sight of a bottle and 
 fresh glasses, avoid giving way to it 
 as you would fly your greatest de- 
 struction. If you cannot crush the 
 power of fancy, or that within you 
 which you mistake for such, divert 
 it, give it some other play. Write 
 an essay, pen a character or descrip- 
 tion, — but not as I do now, with 
 tears trickling down your cheeks. 
 
 To be an object of compassion to 
 friends, of derision to foes ; to be 
 suspected by strangers, stared at by 
 fools ; to be esteemed dull when you 
 cannot be witty, to be applauded for 
 witty when you know that you have 
 been dull ; to be called upon for the 
 extemporaneous exercise of that fa- 
 culty which no premeditation can 
 give ; to be spurred on to efforts 
 which end in contempt; to be set on 
 to provoke mirth which procures the 
 procurer hatred; to give pleasure and 
 be paid with squinting malice; to 
 swallow draughts of life-destroying 
 wine which are to be distilled into 
 airy breath to tickle vain auditors ; 
 to mortgage miserable morrows for 
 nights of madness; to waste whole 
 seas of time upon those who pay it 
 back in little inconsiderable drops of 
 grudging applause, — are the wages 
 of buffoonery and death. 
 
 Time, which has a sure stroke at 
 dissolving all connexions which have 
 HO solider fastening than this liquid 
 cement, more kind to me than my 
 own taste or penetration, at length 
 
 opened my eyes to the supposed qua- 
 lities of my first friends. No trace 
 of them is left but in the vices which 
 they introduced, and the habits they 
 infixed. In them my friends survive 
 still, and exercise ample retribution 
 for any supposed infidelity that I may 
 have been guilty of towards them. 
 
 My next more immediate compa- 
 nions were and are persons of such 
 intrinsic and felt worth, that though 
 accidentally their acquaintance has 
 proved pernicious to me, I do not 
 know that if the thing were to do 
 over again, I should have the cou- 
 rage to eschew the mischief at the 
 price of forfeiting the benefit. I came 
 to them reeking from the steams of 
 my late over-heated notions of com- 
 panionship ; and the slighest fuel 
 which they unconsciously afforded, 
 was sufficient to feed my old fires 
 into a propensity. 
 
 They were no drinkers, but, one 
 from professional habits, and another 
 from a custom derived from his fa- 
 ther, smoked tobacco. The devil 
 could not have devised a more subtle 
 trap to re-take a backsliding peni- 
 tent. The transition, from gulping 
 down draughts of liquid fire to puffing 
 out innocuous blasts of dry smoke, 
 was so like cheating him. But he is 
 too hard for us when we hope to 
 commute. He beats us at barter; 
 and when we think to set off a new 
 failing against an old infirmity, 'tis 
 odds but he puts the trick upon us of 
 two for one. That (comparatively) 
 white devil of tobacco brought with 
 him in the end seven worse than him- 
 self. 
 
 It were impertinent to carry the 
 reader through all the processes by 
 which, from smoking at first with 
 malt liquor, I took my degrees through 
 thin wines, through stronger wine 
 and water, through small punch, to 
 those juggling compositions, which, 
 under the name of mixed liquors, slur 
 a great deal of brandy or other poi- 
 son under less and less water conti- 
 nually, until they come next to none, 
 and so to none at all. But it is hate- 
 ful to disclose the secrets of my Tar- 
 tarus. 
 
 I should repel my readers, from a 
 mere incapacity of believing me, were 
 I to tell them what tobacco has been 
 to me, the drudging service which I 
 have paid, the slavery which I have 
 vowed to it. How, when I have re* 
 
1822.;] 
 
 Confessions of a Drunkard. 
 
 119 
 
 solved to quU it, a feeling as of in- 
 gratitude has started up ; how it has 
 put on personal claims and made the 
 demands of a friend upon me. How 
 the reading of it casually in a book, 
 as where Adams takes his whiff in 
 the chimney-corner of some inn in 
 Joseph Andrews, or Piscator in the 
 Complete Angler breaks his fast upon 
 a morning pipe in that delicate room 
 Piscatoribus Sacrum, has in a mo- 
 ment broken down the resistance of 
 weeks. How a pipe was ever in my 
 midnight path before me, till the vi- 
 . sion forced me to realize it, — how 
 then its ascendhig vapours curled, its 
 fragrance lulled, and the thousand 
 delicious ministerings conversant 
 about it, employing every faculty, 
 extracted the sense of pain. How 
 from illurainating it came to darken, 
 from a quick solace it turned to a 
 negative relief, thence to a restless- 
 ness and dissatisfaction, thence to a 
 positive misery. How, even now, 
 when the whole secret stands con- 
 fessed in all its dreadful truth before 
 me, I feel myself linked to it beyond 
 the power of revocation. Bone of my 
 bone 
 
 .Persons not accustomed to exa- 
 mine the motives of their actions, to 
 reckon up the countless nails that 
 rivet the chains of habit, or perhaps 
 behig boimd by none so obdurate as 
 those I have confessed to, may recoil 
 from this as from an overcharged 
 picture. But what short of such a 
 bondage is it, which in spite of pro- 
 testing friends, a weeping wife, and 
 a reprobating world, chains down 
 many a poor fellow, of no original 
 indisposition to goodness, to his pipe 
 and his pot ? 
 
 I have seen a print after Corregio, 
 in which three female figures are mi- 
 nistering to a man who sits fast bound 
 at the root of a tree. Sensuality is 
 soothing him. Evil Habit is nailing 
 him to a branch, and Repugnance at 
 the same instant of time is applying 
 a snake to his side. In his face is 
 feeble delight, the recollection of past 
 rather than perception of present 
 pleasures, languid enjoyment of evil 
 with utter imbecility to good, a Sy- 
 baritic effeminacy, a submission to 
 bondage, the springs of the will gone 
 down like a broken clock, the sin 
 and the suffering co-instantaneous, 
 or the latter forerunning the former, 
 remorse preceding action — all this 
 
 represented in one point of time. — 
 When I saw this, I admired the won- 
 derful skill of the painter. But when 
 I went away, I wept, because I 
 thought of my own condition. 
 
 Of that there is no hope that it 
 should ever change. The waters 
 have gone over me. But out of the 
 black depths, could I be heard, I 
 would cry out to all those who have 
 but set a foot in the perilous flood. 
 Could the youth, to whom the flavor 
 of his first wine is delicious as the 
 opening scenes of life or the enter- 
 ing upon some newly discovered pa- 
 radise, look into my desolation, and 
 be made to understand what a dreary 
 thing it is when a man shall feel 
 himself going down a precipice with 
 open eyes and a passive will, — to see 
 his destruction, and have no power 
 to stop it, and yet to feel it all the 
 way emanating from himself; to per- 
 ceive all goodness emptied out of 
 him, and yet not to be able to forget 
 a time -yvhen it was otherwise; to 
 bear about the piteous spectacle of 
 his own self-ruins:— could he see my 
 fevered eye, feverish with last night's 
 drinking, and feverishly looking for 
 this night's repetition of the folly; 
 could he feel the body of the death 
 out of which I cry hourly with feebler 
 and feebler outcry to be delivered, — • 
 it were enough to make him dash 
 the sparkling beverage to the earth 
 in all the pride of its mantling temp- 
 tation ; to make him clasp his teeth, 
 
 and not undo 'em 
 To suffer wet damnation to run thro* 
 'em. 
 
 Yea, but (methinks I hear some- 
 body object) if sobriety be that fine 
 thing you would have us to under- 
 stand, if the comforts of a cool brain 
 are to be preferred to that state of 
 heated excitement which you de- 
 scribe and deplore, what hinders in 
 your own instance that you do not 
 return to those habits from which 
 you would induce others never to 
 swerve ? if the blessing be worth 
 preserving, is it not worth recover- 
 ing .?» 
 
 Recovering! — O if a wish could 
 transport me back to those days of 
 youth, when a draught from the next 
 clear spring could slake any heats 
 which summer suns and youthful 
 exercise had power to stir up in the 
 blood, how gladly would I return to 
 K2 
 
■'A:mi.i^...^^... 
 
 120 
 
 Confessions of a Drunkard. 
 
 CAug. 
 
 thee, pure element, the drink of 
 children, and of child-like holy her- 
 mit. Tn my dreams I can sometimes 
 fancy thy cool refreshment purling 
 over my burning* tongue. But my 
 waking stomach rejects it. That 
 which refreshes innocence, only makes 
 me sick and faint. 
 
 But is there no middle way be- 
 twixt total abstinence and the excess 
 which kills you } — For your sake, 
 reader, and that you may never at- 
 tain to my experience, with pain I 
 must utter the dreadful truth, that 
 there is none, none that I can find. 
 In my stage of habit (I speak not 
 of habits less confirmed — for some of 
 them I believe the advice to be most 
 prudential) in the stage which I have 
 reached, to stop short of that mea- 
 sure which is sufficient to draw on 
 torpor and sleep, the benumbing apo- 
 plectic sleep of the drunkard, is to 
 have taken none at all. The pain of 
 the self-denial is all one. And what 
 that is, I had rather the reader should 
 believe on my credit, than know from 
 his own trial. Pie will come to know 
 it, whenever he shall arrive at that 
 state, in which, paradoxical as it 
 may appear, reason shall only visit 
 him through intoxication : for it is a 
 fearful truth, that the intellectual fa- 
 culties by repeated acts of intempe- 
 rance may be driven from their or- 
 derly sphere of action, their clear 
 day-light ministeries, until they shall 
 be brought at last to depend, for the 
 faint manifestation of their departing 
 energies, upon the returning periods 
 of the fatal madness to which they 
 owe their devastation. The drinking 
 man is never less himself than during 
 his sober intervals. Evil is so far his 
 good.* 
 
 Behold me then, in the robust pe- 
 riod of life, reduced to imbecility and 
 decay. Hear me count my gains, 
 and the profits which I have derived 
 from the midnight cup. 
 
 Twelve years ago I was possessed 
 of a healthy frame of mind and body. 
 I was never strong, but I think my 
 constitution (for a weak one) was 
 as happily exempt from the tendency 
 to any malady as it was possible to 
 
 be. I scarce knew what it was to 
 ail any thing. Now, except when 
 I am losing myself in a sea of drink, 
 I am never free from those uneasy 
 sensations in head and stomach, 
 which are so much worse to bear 
 than any definite pahis or aches. 
 
 At that time I was seldom in bed 
 after six in the morning, summer 
 and winter. I awoke refreshed, and 
 seldom without some merry thoughts 
 in my head, or some piece of a song 
 to welcome the new-born day. Now, 
 the first feeling which besets me, af- 
 ter stretching out the hours of re- 
 cumbence to their last possible ex- 
 tent, is a forecast of the wearisome 
 day that lies before me, with a secret 
 wish that I could have lain on still, 
 or never awaked. 
 
 Life itself, my waking life, has 
 much of the confusion, the trouble, 
 and obscure perplexity, of an ill 
 dream. In the day time I stumble 
 upon dark mountains. 
 
 Business, which, though never par- 
 ticularly adapted to my nature, yet 
 as something of necessity to be gone 
 through, and therefore best under- 
 taken with cheerfulness, I used to 
 enter upon with some degree of ala- 
 crity, now wearies, afifrights, per- 
 plexes me. I fancy all sorts of dis- 
 couragements, and am ready to give 
 up an occupation which gives me 
 bread, from a harassing conceit of 
 incapacity. The slightest commis- 
 sion given me by a friend, or any 
 small duty which I have to perform 
 for myself, as giving orders to a 
 tradesman, &c. haunts me as a la- 
 bour impossible to be got through. 
 So much the springs of action are 
 broken. 
 
 The same cowardice attends me in 
 all my intercourse with mankind. I 
 dare not promise that a friend's ho- 
 nour, or his cause, would be safe in 
 my keeping, if I were put to the 
 expense of any manly resolution in 
 defending it. So much the springs 
 of moral action are deadened with- 
 in me. 
 
 My favourite occupations in times 
 past, now cease to entertain. I can 
 do nothing readily. Application for 
 
 * When poor M- 
 
 - painted his last picture, with a pencil in one trembling hand 
 and a glass of brandy and water in the other, his fingers owed the comparative steadi- 
 ness, with which they were enabled to go through their task in an imperfect manner, to 
 a temporary firmness derived from a repetition of practices, the general effect of which 
 had shaken both them and him so terribly. 
 
ever so short a time kills me. This These are some of the instances, 
 
 poor abstract of my condition was concerning which I can say with 
 
 penned at long intervals, with scarce- truth, that it was not always so 
 
 ly any attempt at connexion of with me. 
 
 thought, which is now difficult to me. Shall I lift up the veil of my Aveak- 
 
 The noble passages which formerly ness any further ? or is this disclo- 
 
 delighted me in history or poetic fie- sure sufficient ? 
 
 tion^ now only draw a few weak tears, I am a poor nameless egotist, who 
 
 allied to dotage. My broken and have no vanity to consult by these 
 
 dispirited nature seems to sink before Confessions. I know not whether I 
 
 any thing great and admirable. shall be laughed at, or heard serious- 
 
 I perpetually catch myself in tears, ly. Such as they are, I commend 
 
 for any cause, or none. It is inex- them to the reader's attention, if he 
 
 pressible how much this infirmity finds his own case any way touched, 
 
 adds to a sense of shame, and a ge- I have told him what I am come to. 
 
 neral feeling of deterioration. Let him stop in time. Elia. 
 
 THE LION'S HEAD. 
 
 Re-prints of Elia. — Many are the sayings of Elia, painful and frequent 
 his lucubrations, set forth for the most part (such his modesty !) without a 
 name, scattered about in obscure periodicals and forgotten miscellanies. 
 From the dust of some of these, it is our intention, occasionally, to revive 
 a Tract or two, that shall seem worthy of a better fate ; especiidly at a time 
 like the present, when the pen of our hidustrious Contributor, engaged in a 
 laborious digest of his recent Continental Tour, may haply want the leisure 
 to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We have been hiduced, 
 in the first instance, to re-print a Thing, which he put forth in a friend's 
 volume some years since, entitled the Confessions of a Drunkard, seeing 
 that Messieurs the Quarterly Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last 
 dry pages with fruitful quotations therefrom ; adding, from their peculiar 
 brains, the gratuitous affirmation, that they have reason to believe that 
 the describer (in his delineations of a drunkard forsooth !) partly sate for 
 his own picture. The truth is, that our friend had been reading among the 
 Essays of a contemporary, who has perversely been confounded with him, 
 a paper in which Edax (or the Great Eater) humorously complaineth of an 
 inordinate appetite; and it struck him, that a better paper — of deeper in- 
 terest, and wider usefulness — might be made out of the imagined experiences 
 of a Great Drinker. Accordingly he set to work, and with that mock fer- 
 vor, and counterfeit earnestness, with which he is too apt to over-realise 
 his descriptions, has given us — a frightful picture indeed — but no more re- 
 sembling the man Elia, than the fictitious Edax may be supposed to identify 
 itself with Mr. L., its author. It is indeed a compound extracted out of 
 his long observations of the effects of drhiking upon all the world about 
 him ; and this accumulated mass of misery he hath centered (as the custom 
 is with judicious essayists) in a single figure. We deny not that a portion of 
 his own experiences may have passed into the picture, (as who, that is not 
 a washy fellow, but must at some times have felt the after-operation of a 
 too generous cup.?)— but then how heightened! how exaggerated! — how 
 little within the sense of the Review, where a part, in their slanderous 
 usage, must be understood to stand for the whole ! — ^but it is useless to 
 expostulate with this Quarterly slime, brood of Nilus, watery heads with 
 hearts of jelly, spawned under the sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, 
 
 and therefore cold, washy, spiteful, bloodless. EHa shall string them 
 
 up one day, and show their colours —or rather how colourless and vapid the 
 whole fry — when he putteth forth his long promised, but unaccountably 
 hitherto delayed. Confessions of a Water-drinker. 
 
1822.] 
 
 A Dissertation upon Roast l^g. 
 
 245 
 
 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG. 
 
 Mankind, says a Chinese manu- 
 script, which my friend M. was 
 obliging enough to read and explain 
 to me, for the first seventy thousand 
 ages ate their meat raw, clawing or 
 biting it from the living animal, just 
 as they do in Abyssinia to this day. 
 This period is not obscurely hinted 
 at by their great Confucius in the se- 
 cond chapter of his Mundane Muta- 
 tions, where he designates a kind of 
 golden age by the term Cho-fang, li- 
 terally the Cooks' holyday. The 
 mamiscript goes on to say, that the 
 art of roasting, or rather broiling 
 (which I take to be the elder brother), 
 was accidentally discovered in the 
 manner following. The swine-herd, 
 Ho-ti, having gone out into the 
 woods one morning, as his manner 
 was, to collect mast for his hogs, left 
 his cottage in the care of his eldest 
 son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who 
 being fond of playing with fire, as 
 younkers of his age commonly are, 
 let some sparks escape into a bundle 
 of straw, which kindling quickly, 
 spread the conflagration over every 
 part of their poor mansion, till it was 
 reduced to ashes. Together with the 
 cottage (a sorry antediluvian make- 
 shift of a building, you may think it), 
 what was of much more importance, 
 a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no 
 less than nine in number, perished. 
 China pigs have been esteemed a lux- 
 ury all over the East from the re- 
 motest periods that we read of. Bo- 
 bo was in the utmost consternation, 
 as you may think, not so much for 
 the sake of the tenement, which his 
 father and he could easily build up 
 again with a few dry branches, and 
 the labour of an hour or two, at any 
 time, as for the loss of the pigs. 
 While he was thinking what he 
 should say to his father, and wring- 
 ing his hands over the smoking rem- 
 nants of one of those untimely suffer- 
 ers, an odour assailed his nostrils, 
 unlike any scent which he had be- 
 fore experienced. What could it 
 proceed from? — not fro n the burnt 
 cottage — he had smelt that smell be- 
 fore — indeed this was by no means 
 the first accident of the kind which 
 had occurred through the negligence 
 of this unlucky young fire-brand. 
 Vol. VI. 
 
 Much less did it resemble that of any 
 known herb, we^d, or flower. A 
 premonitory moistening at the same 
 time overflowed his nether lip. He 
 knew not what to think. He next 
 stooped down to feel the pig, if there 
 were any signs of life in it. He burnt 
 his fingers, and to cool them he ap- 
 plied them in his booby fashion to 
 his mouth. Some of the crumbs of 
 the scorched skin had come away 
 with his fingers, and for the first time 
 in his life (in the world's life indeed, 
 for before him no man had known it) 
 
 he tasted — crackli 
 
 He stood in a 
 
 posture of ideot wonder. Again he 
 felt and fumbled at the pig. It did 
 not burn him so much now, still he 
 licked his fingers from a sort of habit. 
 The truth at length broke into his 
 slow understanding, that it was the 
 pig that smelt so, and the pig that 
 tasted so delicious; and, surrender- 
 ing himself up to the new-born plea- 
 sure, he fell to tearing up whole hand- 
 fuls of the scorched skin with the 
 flesh next it, and was cramming it 
 down his throat in his beastly fashion, 
 when his sire entered amid the smok- 
 ing rafters, armed with retributory 
 cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, 
 began to rain blows upon the young 
 rogue's shoulders, as thick as hail- 
 stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any 
 more than if they had been flies. The 
 tickling pleasure, which he experi- 
 enced in his lower regions, had ren- 
 dered him quite callous to any in- 
 conveniences he might feel in those 
 remote quarters. His father might 
 lay on, but he could not beat him 
 from his pig, till he had fairly made 
 an end of it, when, becoming a little 
 more sensible of his situation, some- 
 thing like the following dialogue en- 
 sued. 
 
 '^ You graceless whelp, what have 
 you got there devouring? is it not 
 enough that you have burnt me down 
 three houses with your dog's tricks, 
 and be hanged to you, but you must 
 be eating fire, and I know not what 
 — what have you got there, I say ?" 
 '' O father, the pig, the pig, do 
 come and taste how nice the burnt 
 pig eats." 
 
 The ears of Ho-ti tingled with hor- 
 ror. He cursed his son, and he cursed 
 T 
 
::-J^i::^...;C:?5s^^.guMttaf..u..::v -. 
 
 246 
 
 A Dissertation upon Roast Pig. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 himself that ever he should beget a 
 son that should eat burnt pig. 
 
 Bo-boj whose scent was wonder- 
 fully sharpened since mornings soon 
 raked out another pig, and fairly- 
 rending it asunder^ thrust the lesser 
 half by main force into the fists of 
 Ho-ti, still shouting out " Eat, eat, 
 eat the burnt pig, father, only taste 
 — O Lord," — with such-like barba- 
 rous ejaculations, cramming all the 
 while as if he would choke. 
 
 Ho-ti trembled every joint while 
 he grasped the abominable thing, 
 wavering whether he should not put 
 his son to death for an unnatural 
 young monster, when the crackling 
 scorching his fingers, as it had done 
 his son's, and applying the same re- 
 medy to them, he in his turn tasted 
 some of its flavour, which, make what 
 sour mouths he would for a pretence, 
 proved not altogether displeasing to 
 him. In conclusion (for the manu- 
 script here is a little tedious) both 
 father and son fairly sate down to the 
 mess, and never left off till they had 
 dispatched all that remained of the 
 litter. 
 
 Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to 
 let the secret escape, for the neigh- 
 bours would certainly have stoned 
 them for a couple of abominable 
 wretches, who could think of im- 
 proving upon the good meat which 
 God had sent them. Nevertheless, 
 strange stories got about. It was 
 observed that Ho-ti's cottage was 
 burnt down now more frequently than 
 ever. Nothing but fires from this 
 time forward. Some would break 
 out in broad day, others in the night- 
 time. As often as the sow farrowed, 
 so sure was the house of Ho-ti to be 
 in a blaze ; and Ho-ti himself, which 
 was the more remarkable, instead of 
 chastising his son, seemed to grow 
 more indulgent to him than ever. At 
 length they were watched, the ter- 
 rible mystery discovered, and father 
 and son summoned to take their trial 
 at Pekin, then an inconsiderable 
 assize town. Evidence was given, 
 the obnoxious food itself produced 
 in court, and verdict about to be 
 pronounced, when the foreman of 
 the jury begged that some of the 
 burnt pig, of which the culprits 
 stood accused, might be handed 
 into the box. He handled it, and 
 they all handled it, and burning 
 their fingers, as Bo-bo and his fa- 
 
 ther had done before them, and na- 
 ture prompting to each of them the 
 same remedy, against the face of all 
 the facts, and the clearest charge 
 which judge had ever given,- — to the 
 surprise of the whole court, towns- 
 folk, strangers, reporters, and all 
 present, without leaving the box, or 
 any manner of consultation what- 
 ever, they brought in a simultaneous 
 verdict of Not Guilty. 
 
 The judge, who was a shrewd fel- 
 low, winked at the manifest iniquity 
 of the decision ; and, when the court 
 was dismissed, went privily, and 
 bought up all the pigs that could be 
 had for love or money. In a few 
 days his Lordship's town house was 
 observed to be on fire. The thing 
 took wing, and now there was nothing 
 to be seen but fires in every direc- 
 tion. Fuel and pigs grew enormously 
 dear all over the district. The in- 
 surance offices one and all shut up 
 shop. People built slighter and 
 slighter every day_, until it was fear- 
 ed that the very science of architec- 
 ture would in no long time be lost to 
 the world. Thus this custom of 
 firing houses continued, till in process 
 of time, says my manuscript, a sage 
 arose, like our Locke, who made a 
 discovery, that the flesh of swine, or 
 indeed of any other animal, might be 
 cooked (burnt, as they called it) 
 without the necessity of consuming 
 a whole house to dress it. Then first 
 began the rude form of a gridiron. 
 Roasting by the string, or spit, came 
 in a century or two later, I forget in 
 whose dynasty. By such slow de- 
 grees, concludes the manuscript, do 
 the most useful, and seemingly the 
 niost obvious arts, make their way 
 among mankind. 
 
 Without placing too implicit faith 
 in the account above given, it must 
 be agreed, that if a worthy pretext 
 for so dangerous an experiment as 
 setting houses on fire (especially in 
 these days) could be assigned in fa- 
 vour of any culinary object, that 
 pretext and excuse might be found in 
 
 ROAST PIG. 
 
 Of all the delicacies in the whole 
 mundus edihilis, I will maintain it to 
 be the most delicate — jyrincejps obso- 
 niorum. 
 
 I speak not of yom* grown porkers 
 — things between pig and pork — 
 those hobbydehoys— but a young and 
 tender suckling — under a moon old 
 
1922.3 
 
 A Dissertation upon Roast Pig. 
 
 — guiltless as yet of the stye — with 
 no original speck of the amor iin- 
 munditia, the hereditary failing of 
 the first parent, yet manifest — his 
 voice as yet not broken, but some- 
 thing between a childish treble, and 
 a grumble — the mild forerunner, or 
 proeludium, of a grunt. 
 
 He must he roasted. I am not ig- 
 norant that our ancestors ate them 
 seethed, or boiled — but what a sa- 
 crifice of the exterior tegument ! 
 
 There is no flavour comparable, I 
 will contend, to that of the crisp 
 tawny, well-watched, not over-roast- 
 ed, craclding, as it is well called — 
 the very teeth are invited to their 
 share of the pleasure at this banquet 
 in overcoming the coy, brittle resist- 
 ance — with the adhesive oleaginous 
 — O call it not fat — but an inde- 
 finable sweetness growing up to it — 
 the tender blossoming of fat — fat 
 cropped in the bud — taken in the 
 shoot — in the first innocence — the 
 cream and quintessence of the child- 
 pig's yet pure food the lean, no 
 
 lean, but a kind of animal manna — 
 or, rather, fat and lean (if it must be 
 so) so blended and running into each 
 other, that both together make but 
 one ambrosian result, or common 
 substance. 
 
 Behold him, while he is doing — it 
 seemeth rather a refreshing warmth, 
 than a scorching heat, that he is so 
 passive to. How equably he twirl- 
 eth round the string ! — Now he is 
 just done. To see the extreme sen- 
 sibility of that tender age, he hath 
 wept out his pretty eyes — radiant 
 jeUies — shooting stars — 
 
 See him in the dish, his second 
 cradle, how meek he lieth ! — wouldst 
 thou have had this innocent grow up 
 to the grossness and indocility which 
 too often accompany maturer swine- 
 hood ? Ten to one he would have 
 proved a glutton, a sloven, an obsti- 
 nate, disagreeable animal — wallow- 
 ing in all manner of filthy conversa- 
 tion — from these sins he is happily 
 snatched away — 
 
 Ere sin could blight^ or sorroxv fadc^ 
 Death ca?ne -with timely care — 
 
 his memory is odoriferous — no clown 
 curseth, while his stomach half re- 
 jecteth, the rank bacon — no coal- 
 heaver bolteth him in reeking sau- 
 sages—he hath a fair sepvdchre in the 
 grateful stomach of the judicious epi- 
 
 cure — and for such a tomb might be 
 content to die. 
 
 He is the best of sapors 
 
 Pine-apple is great. She is indeed 
 almost too transcendant — a delight, 
 if not sinful, yet so like to sinning, 
 that really a tender-conscienced per- 
 son would do well to pause — too ra- 
 vishing for mortal taste, she wound- 
 eth and excoriateth the lips that ap- 
 proach her — like lovers' kisses, she 
 biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on 
 pain from the fierceness and insanity 
 of her relish — but she stoppeth at the 
 palatt — she meddleth not with the 
 appetite — and the coarsest hunger 
 might barter her consistently for a 
 mutton chop. 
 
 Pig— let me speak his praise — is 
 no less provocative of the appetite, 
 than he is satisfactory to the critical- 
 ness of the censorious palate. The 
 strong man may batten on him, and 
 the weakling refuseth not his mild 
 juices. 
 
 Unlike to mankind's mixed charac- 
 ters, a bundle of virtues and vices, 
 hiexplicably intertwisted, and not 
 to be unravelled without hazard, 
 he is — good throughout. No part 
 of him is better or worse than an- 
 other. He helpeth, as far as his lit- 
 tle means extend, all around. He 
 is the least envious of banquets. He 
 is all neighbours' fare. 
 
 I am one of those, who freely and 
 imgrudgiiigly impart a share of the 
 good things of this life which fall to 
 their lot (few as mine are in this 
 kind) to a friend. I protest I take 
 as great an interest in my friend's 
 pleasures, his relishes, and proper sa- 
 tisfactions, as in mine own. " Pre- 
 sents," I often say, " endear Ab- 
 sents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, 
 snipes, barn-door chickens (those 
 '' tame villatic fowl"), capons, plo- 
 vers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dis- 
 pense as freely as I receive them. I 
 love to taste them, as it were, upon 
 the tongue of my friend. But a stop 
 must be put somewhere. One would 
 not, like Lear, '* give every thing.'* 
 I make my stand upon pig. Me- 
 thinks it is an ingratitude to the 
 Giver of all good flavours, to extra- 
 domiciliate, or send out of the house, 
 slightingly, (under pretext of friend- 
 ship, or I know not what) a blessing 
 so particularly adapted, predestined, 
 I may say, to my individual palate — 
 it argues an insensibility. 
 T 2 
 
248 
 
 Forest Flowers. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 I remember a touch of conscience 
 in this kind at school. My good old 
 aunt, who never partedfrom me at the 
 end of a holiday without stuffing a 
 sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into 
 my pocket, had dismissed me one 
 evening with a smoking plumb cake, 
 fresh from the oven. In my way to 
 school (it was over London bridge) 
 a grey-headed old beggar saluted 
 me (I have no doubt at this time of 
 day that he was a counterfeit). I 
 had no pence to console him with, 
 and in the vanity of self-denial, and 
 the very coxcombry of charity, school- 
 boy-like, I made him a present of — 
 the whole cake ! 1 walked on a little, 
 buoyed up, as one is on such occa- 
 sions, with a sweet soothing of self- 
 satisfaction ; but before I had got to 
 the end of the bridge, my better 
 feelings returned, and I burst into 
 tears, thinking how ungrateful I had 
 been to my good aunt, to go and 
 give her good gift away to a stranger, 
 that 1 had never seen before, and 
 who might be a bad man for aught 
 I knew ; and then I thought of the 
 pleasure my aunt would be taking in 
 thinking that I — I myself, and not 
 another — would eat her nice cake — 
 and what should I say to her the 
 next time 1 saw her — how naughty 
 1 was to part with her pretty present 
 — and the odour of that spicy cake 
 came back upon ray recollection, and 
 the pleasure and the curiosity I had 
 taken in seeing her make it, and her 
 joy when she sent it to the oven, and 
 how disappointed she would feel that 
 I had never had a bit of it in my 
 nlouth at last — and I blamed my im- 
 pertinent spirit of alms-giving, and 
 out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, 
 and above all I wished never again 
 
 to see the face of that insidious, good- 
 for-nothing, old grey impostor. 
 
 Our ancestors were nice in their me- 
 thod of sacrificing these tender vic- 
 tims. We read of pigs whipt to death 
 with something of a shock, as we hear 
 of any other obselete custom. The age 
 of discipline is gone by, or it would 
 be curious to inquire (in a philosophi- 
 cal light merely) what effect this pro- 
 cess might have towards intenerating 
 and dulcifying a substance, naturally 
 so mild and dulcet as the flesh of 
 young pigs. It looks like refining a 
 violet. Yet we should be cautious, 
 while we condemn the inhumanity, 
 how we censure the wisdom of the 
 practice. It might impart a gusto — 
 
 I remember an hypothesis, argued 
 upon by the young students, when I 
 was at St. Omer s, and maintained 
 with much learning and pleasantry 
 on both sides, " Whether, supposing 
 that the flavour of a pig who ob- 
 tained his death by whipping {per 
 Jlagellationem extremain) superadded 
 a pleasure upon the palate of a man 
 more intense, than any possible suf- 
 fering we can conceive in the animal, 
 is man justified in using that method 
 of putting the animal to death?" I 
 forget the decision. 
 
 His sauce should be considered. 
 Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done 
 up with his liver and brahis, and a 
 dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear 
 Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole 
 onion tribe. Barbecue your whole 
 hogs to your palate, steep them in 
 shalots, stuff them out with planta- 
 tions of the rank and guilty garlick ; 
 you cannot poison them, or make them 
 stronger than they are — but consider, 
 he is a weakling — a flower. 
 
 Eli A. 
 
 I 
 
A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED 
 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 As a single man^ I have spent a 
 good deal of my time in noting down 
 the infirmities of Married People, to 
 console myself for those superior 
 pleasures, which they tell me I have 
 lost by remahihig as 1 am. 
 
 I cannot say that the quarrels of 
 men and their wives ever made any 
 great impression upon me, or had 
 much tendency to strengthen in me 
 those anti-social resolutions, which I 
 took up long ago upon more substan- 
 tial considerations. "What oftenest 
 offends me at the houses of married 
 persons where I visit, is an error of 
 quite a different description ; — it is, 
 tnat they are too loving. 
 
 Not too loving neither : that does 
 not explain my meaning. Besides, 
 why should that offend me ? The 
 very act of separating themselves 
 from the rest of the world to have 
 the fuller enjoyment of each other's 
 society, implies that they prefer one 
 another to all the world. 
 
 But what I complain of is, that 
 they carry this preference so undis- 
 guisedly, they perk it up in the faces 
 of us single people so shamelessly, 
 you cannot be in their company a 
 moment without being made to feel, 
 by some indirect hint or open avowal, 
 that 2/ou are not the object of this 
 preference. Now there are some 
 things which give no offence, while 
 implied or taken for granted merely ; 
 but expressed, there is much offence 
 in them. If a man were to accost 
 the first homely-featured or plain- 
 dressed young woman of his ac- 
 quahitance, and tell her, bluntly, that 
 she was not handsome or rich enough 
 
 Vol. VL 
 
 for him, and he could not marry her, 
 he would deserve to be kicked for his 
 ill manners ; yet no less is implied in 
 the fact, that having access and op- 
 portunity of putting the question to 
 her, he has never yet thought fit to 
 do it. The young woman under- 
 stands this as clearly as if it were 
 put into words; but no reasonable 
 young woman would think of making 
 this the ground of a quarrel. Just 
 as little right have a married couple 
 to tell me by speeches, and looks that 
 are scarce less plain than speeches, 
 that I am not the happy man, — the 
 lady's choice. It is enough that I 
 know I am not : I do not want this 
 perpetual remuiding. 
 
 The display of superior knowledge 
 or riches may be made sufficiently 
 mortifying; but these admit of a 
 palliative. The knowledge which is 
 brought out to insult me, may acci- 
 dentally improve me ; and in the rich 
 man's houses and pictures, — his parks 
 and gardens, I have a temporary 
 usufruct at least. But the display of 
 married happiness has none of these 
 palliatives: it is throughout pure, 
 unrecompensed, unqualified insult. 
 
 Marriage by its best title is a mo- 
 nopoly, and not of the least invidious 
 sort. It is the cunning of most pos- 
 sessors of any exclusive privileges to 
 keep their advantage as much out of 
 sight as possible, that their less fa- 
 voured neighbours, seeing little of 
 the benefit, may the less be disposed 
 to question the right. But these 
 married monopolists thrust the most 
 obnoxious part of their patent into 
 our faces. 
 U 
 
S60 
 
 The Old Actors. 
 
 COct. 
 
 ■days, when he was ''cherub Die- 
 
 What clipped his wings, or made it 
 expedient that he should exchange the 
 holy for the profane state ; whether 
 he had lost his good voice (his best 
 recommendation to that office), like 
 Sir John, " with hallooing and sing- 
 ing of anthems ;" or whether he was 
 adjudged to lack something, even 
 in those early years, of the gravity 
 indispensable to an occupation which 
 professeth to ''commerce with the 
 skies" — I could never rightly learn ; 
 but we find him, after the probation 
 of a twelvemonth or so, reverting to 
 a secular condition, and become one 
 of us. 
 
 I think he was not altogether of 
 that timber, out of which cathedral 
 seats and sounding boards are hewed. 
 But if a glad heart — kind and there- 
 fore glad — be any part of sanctity, 
 then might the robe of Motley, with 
 xvhich he invested himself with so 
 much humility after his deprivation, 
 and which he wore so long with so 
 much blameless satisfaction to himself 
 and to the public, be accepted for a 
 surplice — his white stole, and albe. 
 
 The first fruits of his seculariza- 
 tion was an engagement upon the 
 boards of Old Drury, at which thea- 
 tre he commenced, as I have been 
 told, with adopting the manner of 
 Parsons in old men's characters. At 
 the period in which most of us knew 
 him, he was no more an imitator than 
 he was in any true sense himself imit- 
 able. 
 
 He was the Robin Good-Fellow of 
 the stage. He came in to trouble all 
 things with a welcome perplexity, 
 himself no whit troubled for the mat- 
 ter. He was known, like Puck, by 
 his note — Ha! Hal Ha! — sometimes 
 deepening to Ho! Ho! Ho! with an 
 in-esistible accession, derived perhaps 
 remotely from his ecclesiastical edu- 
 cation, foreign to his prototype, of — 
 O La I Thousands of hearts yet re- 
 spond to the chuckling O La! of 
 Dicky Suett, brought back to their 
 remembrance by the faithful tran- 
 script of his friend Mathews's mimic- 
 ry. The "force of nature could no 
 further go." He drolled upon the 
 stock of these two syllables richer 
 than the cuckoo. 
 
 Care, that troubles all the world, 
 was forgotten in his composition. 
 Had he had but two grains (nay, half 
 
 a grain) of it, he could never have 
 supported himself upon those two spi- 
 der's strings, which served him (in 
 the latter part of his unmixed exist- 
 ence) as legs. A doubt or a scruple 
 must have made him totter, a sigh 
 have puffed him down ; the weight of 
 a frown had staggered him, a wrin- 
 kle made him lose his balance. But 
 on he went, scrambling upon those 
 airy stilts of his, with Robin Good- 
 Fellow, " thorough brake, thorough 
 briar," reckless of a scratched face or 
 a torn doublet. 
 
 Shakspeare foresaw him, when he 
 framed his fools and jesters. They 
 have all the true Suett stamp, a loose 
 gait, a slippery tongue, this last the 
 ready midwife to a without-pain-deli- 
 vered jest; in words light as air, vent- 
 ing truths deep as the centre ; with 
 idlest rhymes tagging conceit when 
 busiest, singing with Lear in the tem- 
 pest, or Sir Toby at the buttery hatch. 
 
 Jack Bannister and he had the for- 
 tune to be more of personal favourites 
 with the town than any actors before 
 or after. The difference, 1 take it, was 
 this : — Jack was more beloved for his 
 sweet, good-natured, moral, preten- 
 sions. Dicky was more liked for his 
 sweet, good-natured, no pretensions at 
 all. Your whole conscience stirred 
 with Bannister's performance of Wal- 
 ter in the Children in the Wood— how 
 dearly beautiful it was ! — but Dicky 
 seemed like a thing, as Shakspeare 
 says of Love, too young to know 
 what conscience is. He put us into 
 Vesta's days. Evil fled before him— 
 not as from Jack, as from an antago- 
 nist, — but because it could not touch 
 him, any more than a cannon-ball a 
 fly. He was delivered from the bur- 
 then of that death ; and, when Death 
 came himself, not in metaphor, to 
 fetch Dicky, it is recorded of him by 
 Robert Palmer, who kindly watched 
 his exit, that he received the last 
 stroke, neither varying his accus- 
 tomed tranquillity, nor tune, with the 
 simple exclamation, worthy to have 
 been recorded in his epitaph — O La! 
 —O La! Bobby! 
 
 MR. MUNDEN. 
 
 Not many nights ago we had come 
 home from seeing this extraordinary 
 performer in Cockletop; and when we 
 retired to our pillow, his whimsical 
 image still stuck by us, in a manner 
 as to threaten sleep. In vain we tried 
 to divest ourselves of it by conjuring 
 
>>^-v-.r; '.ii5l<t^i.j!^J' **- 
 
 1822,;] TAe Old Actors. 
 
 up the most opposite associations. 
 We resolved to be serious. We 
 raised up the gravest topics of life ; 
 private misery, public calamity. All 
 would not do. 
 
 There the antic sate 
 
 Mocking our state— ^ 
 
 his queer visnomy — his bewildering 
 costume — all the strange things which 
 he had raked together — his serpen- 
 tine rod swagging about in his pocket 
 — Cleopatra's tear, and the rest of his 
 relics — O'Keefe's wild farce, and his 
 wilder commentary — till the passion 
 of laughter, like grief in excess, re- 
 lieved itself by its own weight, in- 
 viting the sleep which in the first in- 
 stance it had driven away. 
 
 But we were not to escape so 
 easily. No sooner did we fall into 
 slumbers, than the same image, only 
 more perplexing, assailed us in th6 
 shape of dreams. Not one Munden, 
 but five hundred, were dancing be- 
 fore us, like the faces which, whether 
 you will or no, come when you have 
 been taking opium — all the strange 
 combinations, which this strangest of 
 all strange mortals ever shot his pro- 
 per countenance into, from the day 
 he came commissioned to dry up the 
 tears of the town for the loss of the 
 now almost forgotten Edwin. O for 
 the power of the pencil to have fixed 
 them when we awoke ! A season or 
 two since there was exhibited a Ho- 
 garth gallery. We do not see why 
 there should not be a Munden gal- 
 lery. In richness and variety the 
 latter would not fall far short of the 
 former. 
 
 There is one face of Farley, one 
 face of Knight, one face (but what a 
 one it is!) of Liston; but Munden 
 has none that you can properly pin 
 down, and call his. When you think 
 he has exhausted his battery of looks, 
 in imaccountable warfare with your 
 gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an en- 
 tirely new set of features, like Hydra. 
 He is not one, but legion. Not so 
 much a comedian, as a company. If 
 his name could be multiplied like his 
 countenance, it might fill a play-bill. 
 He, and he alone, literally makes 
 faces: applied to any other person, 
 the phrase is a mere figure, denoting 
 certain modifications of the human 
 countenance. 'Out of some invisible 
 
 351 
 
 wardrobe he dips for faces, as hig 
 friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches 
 them out as easily. We should not ,*,^ 
 be surprised to see him some day put 
 out the heacf of a river horse; or ML 
 come forth a pewit, or lapwing, some •» 
 feathered metamorphosis. 
 
 AVe have seen this gifted actor in 
 Sir Christopher Curry — in Old Dorn- 
 ton — diffiise a glow of sentiment 
 which has made the pulse of a crowd- 
 ed theatre beat like that of one man ; 
 "when he has come in aid of the pulpit, 
 dohig good to the moral heart of a 
 people. We have seen some faint 
 approaches to this sort of excellence 
 in other players. But in what has 
 been truly denomhiated the '* sub- 
 lime of farce," Munden stands out as 
 single and unaccompanied as Ho- 
 garth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had 
 no followers. The school of Munden 
 began, and must end, with himself. 
 
 Can any man u'onder, like him? 
 can any man sec ghosts, like him ? or 
 Jight iviih his own shadow — sessa — as 
 he does in that strangely-neglected 
 thing, the Cobler of Preston — where 
 his alternations from the Cobler to 
 the Magnifico, and from the Magnifi- 
 co to the Cobler, keep the brain of 
 the spectator in as wild a ferment, as if 
 some Arabian Night were being acted 
 before him, or as if Thalaba were 
 no tale ! Who like him can throw, 
 or ever attempted to throw, a super- 
 natural interest over the commonest 
 daily-life objects ? A table, or a 
 joint stool, in his conception, rises 
 into a dignity equivalent to Cassio- 
 peia's chair. It is invested with con- 
 stellatory importance. You could 
 not speak of it with more deference, 
 if it were mounted into the firma- 
 ment. A beggar in the hands of 
 Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose 
 the Patriarch of Poverty. So the 
 gusto of Munden antiquates and en- 
 nobles what it touches. His pots and 
 his ladles are as grand and primal as 
 the seething-pots and hooks seen in 
 old prophetic vision. A tub of but^r 
 ter, contemplated by him, amounts 
 to a Platonic idea. He understands 
 a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He 
 stands wondering, amicl the common- 
 place materials of life, like primceval 
 man, with the sun and stars about 
 him. Elia. 
 
MODERN GALLANTRY. 
 
 In comparing modern with ancient 
 maruiers, we arc pleased to com- 
 pliment ourselves upon the point of 
 gallantry, as upon a thini^ altogether 
 miknown to the old classic ages. 
 This has been defmcd to consist in 
 a certain obsequiousness, or deferen- 
 tial respect, paid to females, as fe- 
 males. 
 
 I shall believe that this principle 
 actuates our conduct, when I can 
 forget, that in the nineteenth century 
 of the era, from which we date our 
 civility, we are but just beginning to 
 leave off the very frequent practice 
 of Avhipping females in public, hi 
 common with the coarsest male of- 
 fenders. 
 
 I shall believe it to be influential, 
 when I can shut my eyes to the fact, 
 that in England women are still oc- 
 casionally — hanged. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when actresses 
 are no longer subject to be hissed off 
 a stage by gentlemen. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when Dori- 
 mant hands a fish-wife across the 
 keimel ; or assists the apple-woman 
 to pick up her wandering fruit, which 
 some imlucky dray has just dissi- 
 pated. 
 
 Vol.. VI. 
 
 I shall believe in it, when the Do- 
 rimants in humbler life, who would 
 be thought in their way notable 
 adepts i!i this refinement, shall act 
 upon it in places where they are not 
 known, or think themselves not ob- 
 served — when I shall see the tra- 
 veller for some rich tradesman part 
 with his admired box coat, to spread 
 it over the defenceless shoulders of 
 the poor woman, who is passing to 
 her parish on the roof of the same 
 stage-coach with him, drenched in 
 the rain — when I shall no longer see 
 a woman standing up in the pit of a 
 London theatre, till she is sick and 
 faint with the exertion, with men 
 about her, seated at their ease, and 
 jeering at her distress; till one, that 
 seems to have more manners or con- 
 science 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 acquaint- 
 ance, and you shall confess you have 
 not seen a politer-bred man in Loth- 
 bury. 
 
 Lastly, I shall begin to believe that 
 there is some such principle, influ- 
 2K 
 
454. 
 
 Modern Galtantry. 
 
 CNov. 
 
 encbig our conduct, when more than 
 one half of the drudg-ery and coarse 
 servitude of the world shall cease to 
 t^c performed by women. 
 ,. J, Lentil that day comes, I shall never 
 believe this boasted point to be any 
 thing more than a conventional fic- 
 tion ; 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. 
 
 1 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 
 womai>, not as she is a beauty, a for- 
 tune, 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 " overstaid her 
 market," pronounced in good com- 
 pany, shall raise immediate oiFence 
 in man, or woman, that shall hear 
 them spoken. 
 
 Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, 
 merchant, and one of the Directors 
 of the South Sea company — the same 
 to whom Edwards, the Shakspeare 
 commentator, has addressed a fine 
 sonnet — was the only pattern of con- 
 sistent gallantry I have met with. 
 He took me under his shelter at an 
 early age, and bestowed some pains 
 upon me. I owe to his precepts and 
 example whatever there is of the 
 man of business (and that is not 
 much) in my composition. It was 
 not his fault that I did not profit 
 more. Though bred a Presbyterian, 
 and brought up a merchant,' he was 
 the finest gentleman of his time. He 
 had not one system of attention to 
 females in the drawing room, and 
 another in the shop, or at the stall. I 
 do not mean that he made no dis- 
 tinction. But he never lost sight of 
 sex, or overlooked it in the casualties 
 of a disadvantageous situation. I 
 have seen him s'tand bcii-e-headed — 
 smile, ir you please — to a poor ser- 
 vant girl, while she has been in- 
 quirhig of him the way to some 
 street — hi such a posture of unforced 
 civility, as neither to embarrass her 
 
 in the acceptance, nor himself in the 
 oflTer, 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, ivomanhood. I have 
 seen him — nay,, smile not — tenderly 
 escorting a market-woman, whom he 
 had encountered in a shower, exalt- 
 ing his umbrella over her poor basket 
 of fruit, that it might receive no da- 
 mage, with as much carefidness as if 
 she had been a Countess. To the 
 reverend form of Female Eld he 
 would yield the wall (though it were 
 to an ancient beggar-woman) with 
 more ceremony than we can afibrd 
 to show our grandams. He was the 
 Preux Chevalier of A^e ; the Sir 
 Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those 
 who have no Calidores or Tristans to 
 defend them. The roses, that had 
 long faded thence, still bloomed for 
 him in those withered and yellow 
 cheeks. 
 
 He was never married, but in his 
 youth he paid his addresses to the 
 beautiful Susan Winstanley — old 
 V/instar- ley's daughter of Clapton — 
 who dying in the early days of their 
 courtship, confirmed in him the re- 
 solution of perpetual bachelorship. 
 It was during their short courtship, 
 he told me, that he had been one day 
 treating his mistress with a profusion 
 of civil speeches — the common gal- 
 lantries — to which kind of thing she 
 had hitherto maniliested no repug- 
 nance — 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 lit- 
 tleness. When he ventured on the 
 following day, finding her a little 
 better humoured, to expostulate with 
 her on her coldness of yesterday, she 
 confessed, with her usual frankness, 
 that she had no sort of dislike to his 
 attentions ; that she could even en- 
 dure some high-flown compliments; 
 that a young woman placed in her 
 situation had a right to expect all 
 sort of civil things said to her ; that 
 she hoped, she could digest a dose 
 of adulation, short of insincerity, 
 with as little injury to her humility 
 as most young women : but that — 
 a little before he had commenced his 
 corapllments — she had overheard him 
 
1822.;] 
 
 Song: — Awake, my Love, 
 
 455 
 
 by accident, in rather rough lan- 
 guage, rating a young woman, who 
 had not brought home his cravats 
 quite to the appointed time, and she 
 thought to herself, " As I am Miss 
 Susan Winstanley, and a young lady 
 — a reputed beauty, and known to be 
 a fortune, — I can have my choice of the 
 finest speeches from the mouth of this 
 very fine gentleman who is court- 
 ing me— but if I had been poor Mary 
 Such-a-one, {naming- the milliner) — 
 and had failed of brhiging home 
 the cravats to the appointed hour — 
 though perhaps I had sat up half the 
 night to forward them — what sort of 
 compliments should I have received 
 then ? — And my woman's pride came 
 to my assistance ; and I thought, 
 that if it were only to do ?nc honour, 
 a female, like myself, might have 
 received handsomer usage: and I 
 was determined not to accept any 
 fine speeches, to the compromise of 
 that sex, the belonging to which was 
 after all my strongest claim and title 
 to them." 
 
 I tliink the lady discovered both 
 generosity, and a just way of think- 
 ing, in this rebuke which she gave 
 her lover ; and I have sometimes 
 imagined, that the uncommon strain 
 of courtesy, which through life regu- 
 lated the actions and behaviour of 
 my friend towards all of womankind 
 indiscriminately, owed its happy ori- 
 gin to this seasonable lesson from the 
 lips of his lamented mistress. 
 
 I wish the whole female world 
 woidd entertain the same notion of 
 these things, that Miss Winstanley 
 showed. Then we should see some- 
 thing of the spirit of consistent gal- 
 lantry ; 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, w inifortunate — 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 pro- 
 bably will feel the dimimition, when 
 youth, and beauty, and advantages, 
 not inseparable from sex, shall lose 
 of their attraction. What a woman 
 should demand of a man in courtship, 
 or after it, is first — respect for her 
 as she is a woman ; — and next to 
 that — to be respected by him above 
 all other women. But let her stand 
 upon her female character, as upon a 
 foundation ; and let the attentions, 
 incident to individual preference, be 
 so many pretty additaments, and or- 
 naments — as many, and as fanciful, 
 as you please — to that main struc- 
 ture. Let her first lesson be— with 
 sweet Susan Winstanley — to reverence 
 her sex, 
 
 Elia. 
 
1822.;3 
 
 The Gentle Giantess, 
 
 529 
 
 THE GENTLE GIANTESS. 
 
 I 
 
 The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is 
 the largest female I ever had the plea- 
 sure of beholding. There may be her 
 parallel upon the earth, but surely I 
 neversawit. I takehertobelineally de- 
 scended from the maid's aunt of Brain- 
 ford, who caused Master Ford such un- 
 easiness. She hath Atlantean shoul- 
 ders ; and, as she stoopeth in her gait 
 — with as few offences to answer for in 
 her own particular as any of Eve's 
 daughters — her back seems broad 
 enough to bear the blame of all the 
 peccadillos that have been committed 
 since Adam. She girdeth her waist — 
 or what she is pleased to esteem as 
 such — nearly up to her shoulders, 
 from beneath which, that huge dor- 
 sal expanse, in mountainous declivi- 
 ty, emergeth. Respect for her alone 
 preventeth the idle boys, who follow 
 her about in shoals, whenever she 
 cometh abroad, from getting up and 
 riding.— But her presence infallibly 
 commands a reverence. She is indeed, 
 as the Americans would express it, 
 something awful. Her person is a 
 burthen to herself, no less than to 
 the ground which i)ears her. To her 
 mighty bone, she hath a pinguitude 
 withal, which makes the depth of 
 winter to her the most desirable sea- 
 son. Her distress in the warmer sol- 
 stice is pitiable. During the months 
 of July and August, she usually rent- 
 eth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, 
 whereinto she descendeth when Si- 
 rius rageth. She dates from a hot 
 Thursday — some twenty-five years 
 ago. Her apartment in summer is 
 pervious to the four winds. Two 
 doors, in north and south direction, 
 and two windows, fronting the rising 
 and the setting sun, never closed, 
 from every cardinal point, catch the 
 contributory breezes. She loves to 
 enjoy Avhat she calls a quadruple 
 draught. That must be a shrewd 
 zephyr, that can escape her. I owe 
 a painful face-ach, which oppresses 
 me at this moment, to a cold caught, 
 sitting by her, one day in last July, 
 at this receipt of coolness. Her fan 
 in ordinary resembleth a banner 
 spread, which she keepeth continu- 
 ally on the alert to detect the least 
 breeze. She possesseth an active and 
 gadding mind, totally incommensu- 
 
 rate with her person. No one de- 
 lighteth more than herself in coun- 
 try exercises and pastimes. I have 
 passed many an agreeable holiday 
 with her in her favourite park at 
 Woodstock. She performs her part 
 in these delightful ambulatory excur- 
 sions by the aid of a portable garden 
 chair. She setteth out with you at 
 a fair foot gallop, which she keepeth 
 up till you are both well breathed, 
 and then she reposeth for a few se- 
 conds. Then she is up again, for a 
 hundred paces or so, and again rest- 
 eth— her movement, on these spright- 
 ly occasions, being something be- 
 tween walking and flying. Her great 
 weight seemeth to propel her for- 
 ward, ostrich-fashion. In this kind 
 of relieved marching I have traversed 
 with her many scores of acres on 
 those well-wooded and well-watered 
 domains. Her deliglit at Oxford is 
 in the public walks and gardens, 
 where, when the weather is not too 
 oppressive, she passeth much of her 
 valuable time. There is a bench at 
 MaudHn, or rather, situated between 
 the frontiers of that and ******'s. 
 
 college some litigation latterly, 
 
 about repairs, has vested the pro- 
 perty of it finally in «*****'s — where 
 at the hour of noon she is ordinarily 
 to be found sitting — so she calls it by 
 courtesy — but in fact, pressing and 
 breaking of it down with her enor- 
 mous settlement ; as both those 
 Foundations, who, however, are 
 good-natured enougli to wink at it, 
 have found, I believe, to their cost. 
 Here she taketh the fresh air, prin- 
 cipally at vacation times, when the 
 walks are freest from interruption of 
 the younger fry of students. Here 
 she passeth her idle hours, not idly, 
 but generally accompanied with a 
 book — blest if she can but intercept 
 some resident Fellow (as usually 
 there are some of that brood left be- 
 hind at these periods); or stray Mas- 
 ter of Arts (to most of whom she is 
 better known than their dinner bell) ; 
 with whom she may confer upon any 
 curious topic of literature. I have 
 seen these shy gownsmen, who truly 
 set but a very slight value upon fe- 
 male conversation, cast a hawk's eye 
 upon her from the length of Maud- 
 
mo 
 
 Of CrueHy to Animals, and *' Mi'* Martins Act. 
 
 i:i>ec. 
 
 lin grove, and warily glide off into 
 another walk— true monks as they 
 are, and ungently neglecting the de- 
 licacies of her polished converse, for 
 their own perverse and iincommuni- 
 . eating solitariness I Within doors 
 her princi|>al diversion is music, vo- 
 cal and instrumental, in both Avhich 
 she is no mean professor. Her voice 
 is wonderfully fine; but till 1 got 
 used to it, I confess it staggered me. 
 It is for all the world like that of a 
 piping bultinch, while from her size 
 and stature you would expect notes 
 to drown the deep organ. The shake, 
 which most fine singers reserve for 
 the close or cadence, by some un- 
 accountable flexibility, or tremu- 
 Jousness of pipe, she carrieth quite 
 through the composition; so that 
 her time, to a common air or ballad, 
 Jkeeps double motion, like the earth 
 ' — running the primary circuit of the 
 tune, and still revolving upon its 
 «wn axis. The effect, as 1 said be- 
 fore, when you are used to it, is as 
 agreeable as it is altogetlier new and 
 fiurprising. The spacious apartment 
 of hxcr outward frame lodgeth a soul 
 in all respects disproportionate. Of 
 more than mortal make, she evinceth 
 
 withal a trembling sensibility, a 
 yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick 
 susceptibility to reproach, and all 
 the train of diffident and blushing 
 virtues, which for their habitation 
 usually seek out a feeble frame, an 
 attenuated and meagre constitution. 
 \rith more than man's bulk, her hu- 
 mours and occupations are eminently 
 feminine. She sighs — being six foot 
 high. She languisheth — being two 
 feet wide. She worketh slender sprigs 
 upon the delicate muslin — her fingers 
 being capable of moulding a Colos- 
 sus. She sippeth her wine out of 
 her glass daintily — her capacity be- 
 ing that of a tini of Heidelburg. 
 She goeth mincingly with those feet 
 of hers — whose solidity need not fear 
 the black ox's pressure. Softest, 
 and largest of thy sex, adieu ! by 
 what parting attribute may I salute 
 thee — last and best of the Titanesses 
 — Ogress, fed with milk instead of 
 blood — not least, or least handsome, 
 among Oxford's stately structures — > 
 Oxford, who, in its deadest time of 
 vacation, can never properly be said 
 to be empty, having thee to fill it. 
 
 Elia. 
 
 m 
 
THE 
 
 Eotttion iEaga^me. 
 
 JANUARY, 1823. 
 
 RJEJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S COMING OF AGE. 
 
 Thk Old Year being- dead, and the 
 New Year coming of" age, which he 
 does, by Calendar Law, as soon as 
 the breath is ont of the old gentle- 
 man's body, nothing would serve the 
 young spark but he must give a 
 dinner upon the occasion, to which 
 all the Days in the year were invited. 
 The Festivah, whom he deputed as 
 his Stewards, were mightily taken 
 with the notion. They had been en- 
 gaged time out of mind, they said, 
 in providing mirth and good cheer 
 for mortals below ; and it was time 
 they should have a taste of their own 
 bounty. It was stiffly debated among 
 them, whether the Fasts should be 
 admitted. Some said, the appear- 
 ance of such lean, starved guests, 
 with their mortified faces, would 
 pervert the ends of the meeting. But 
 the objection was overruled hy Christ- 
 mas Day, who had a design upon 
 Ash Wednesday (as you shall hear), 
 and a mighty desire to see how the 
 old Domine would behave himself in 
 his cups. Only the Vigils were re- 
 quested to come Vvdth their lanterns, 
 to light the gentlefolks home at 
 night. 
 
 All the Days came to their day. 
 Covers were provided for three hini- 
 dred and sixty-five guests at the prin- 
 cipal table ; with an occasional knife 
 and fork at the side-board for the 
 Twenty- Al nth of Februa ry. 
 
 I should have told you, that cards 
 of invitation had been issued. The 
 carriers were the Jioiu's ; twelve lit- 
 
 Jan. 1823. 
 
 tie, merry, whirligig foot-pages, as 
 you should desire to see, that went 
 all round, and found out the persons 
 invited w ell enough, with the excep- 
 tion of Easter Day, Shrove Tuesday j 
 and a few such Moveables, who had 
 lately shifted their quarters. 
 
 Well, they all met at last, foul 
 Days, fine Days, all sorts of Days, 
 and a rare din they made of it. 
 There was nothing but, Hail ! fellow 
 Day, well met brother Day — sis- 
 ter Day, — only Lady Day kept a lit- 
 tle on the aloof, and seemed some- 
 what scornful. Yet some said, Twelfth 
 Day cut her out and out, for she 
 came in a tiffany suit, white and gold, 
 like a Queen on a frost-cake, all 
 royal, glittering, and Epiphanous. 
 The rest came, some in green, some 
 in white — but old Lent and hisfavtily 
 were not yet out of mourning. Rainy 
 Days came in, drii)ping; and sun- 
 shiny Days helped them to change 
 their stockings. Wedding Day was 
 there in his marriage finery, a little 
 tlie worse for wear ; Pay Day came 
 late, as he always does ; and Dooms-' 
 day sent word — he might be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 April Fool (as my young lord's 
 jester) took upon himself to marshal 
 the guests, and wild work he made 
 with it. It would have posed old 
 Erra Pater to have found out any 
 given Day in the year, to erect a 
 scheme upon— good Days, bad Days, 
 were so shuffled together, to the con- 
 founding of all sober horoscopy. 
 B 
 
 m 
 
Rejoicings upon the Neio Year*s coming of Age* 
 
 CJan. 
 
 He had stuck the Twenty First of lous old Whig gentlewoman), and 
 
 
 June next to the Twenty Second of 
 December J and the former looked like 
 a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. 
 Ash Wednesday got wedged in (as 
 was concerted) betwixt Christmas 
 and Lord Mayors Days. Lord ! how 
 he laid about him ! Nothing but 
 barons of beef and turkeys would go 
 down with him — to the great greasing 
 and detriment of his new sackcloth 
 bib and tucker. And still Christmas 
 Day was at his elbow^ plying him 
 with the wassaU-bowl, till he roared, 
 and hiccup'd, and protested there 
 was no faith in dried ling, but com- 
 inended it to the devil for a sour, 
 windy, acrimonious, censorious, hy- 
 po-crit-crit-critical mess, and no dish 
 for a gentleman. Then he dipt his 
 fist into the middle of the great cus- 
 tard that stood before his left-hand 
 neighbour^ and daubed his hungry 
 beard all over with it, till you would 
 have taken him for the Last Day in 
 December, it so hung in icicles. 
 
 At another part of the table, Shrove 
 Tuesday was helping the Second of 
 September to some cock broth, — 
 which courtesy the latter returned 
 with the delicate thigh of a hen 
 pheasant — so there was no love lost 
 for that matter. The Last of Lent 
 was spunging upon Shrovetide's pan- 
 cakes ; which April Fool perceiving, 
 told him he did well, for pancakes 
 were proper to a good fry-day. 
 
 In another part, a' hubbub arose 
 about the Thirtieth of January, who, 
 it seems, being a sour puritanic cha- 
 racter, that thought nobody's meat 
 good or sanctified enough for him, 
 had smuggled into the room a calves' 
 head, which he had had cooked at 
 home for that piu-pose, thinking to 
 feast thereon incontinently; but as it 
 lay in the dish, March Many weathers, 
 who is a very fine lady, and subject 
 to the megrims, suddenly screamed 
 out there was a '^ human head in the 
 platter," and raved about Herodias' 
 daughter to that degree, that the ob- 
 noxious viiuid v/as obliged to be re- 
 moved ; nor did she recover her 'sto- 
 mach till she had gulped down a 
 Restorative, ccnfected of Oak Apple, 
 U'hich the merry Twenty Ninth of 
 May always carries about with him 
 for that purpose. 
 
 The King's health being called for 
 after this, a notable dispute arose be- 
 tween the Twelfth of August (a zea- 
 
 the Twenty Third of April (a new- 
 fangled lady of the Tory stamp), as 
 to which of them should have the 
 honour to propose it. August grew 
 hot upon the matter, affirming time 
 out of mind the prescriptive right to 
 have lain with her, till her rival had 
 basely supplanted her ; whom she re- 
 presented as little better than a kept 
 mistress, who went about in fine 
 clothes, while she (the legitimate 
 Birthday) had scarcely a rag, &c. 
 
 April Fool, being made mediator, 
 confirmed the right in the strongest 
 form of words to the appellant, but 
 decided for peace' sake that the exer- 
 cise of it should remain with the pre- 
 sent possessor. At the same time, he 
 slily rounded the first lady in the ear, 
 that an action might lie against the 
 Crown for bi-geny. 
 
 It beginning to grow a little dusk- 
 ish. Candlemas lustily bawled out for 
 lights, which was opposed by all the 
 Days, who protested against burning 
 day-light. Then fair water was 
 handed round in silver ewers, and 
 the same lady was observed to take 
 an unusual time in washing Yier^elt 
 
 May Day, with that sweetness 
 which is peculiar to her, in a neat 
 speech proposing the health of the 
 founder, crowned her goblet (and 
 by her example the rest of the 
 company) with garlands. This being 
 done, the lordly New Year from the 
 upper end of the table, in a cordial 
 but somewhat lofty tone, returned 
 thanks. He felt proud on an occasion 
 of meeting so many of his worthy 
 father's late tenants, promised to im- 
 prove their farms, and at the same 
 time to abate (if any thing was found 
 unreasonable) in their rents. 
 
 At the mention of this, the four 
 Qua?'ter Days involuntarily looked at 
 each other, and smiled ; April Fool 
 whistled to an old tune of '^ New 
 Brooms ; " and a surly old rebel at 
 the farther end of the table (who 
 Avas discovered to be no other than 
 the Fifth of November), muttered 
 out, distinctly enough to be heard 
 by the whole company, words to this 
 effect, that, ^'when the' old one is gone, 
 he is a fool that looks for a better." 
 Which rudeness of his the guests 
 resenting, unanimously voted his ex- 
 pulsion ; and the mafe-content w^as 
 thrust out neck and heels into the 
 cellar^ as the properest place for 
 
1893.;] 
 
 Hejoicings upon the New Year*s coming of Age, 
 
 such a boutefeu and firebrand as he 
 had shown himself. 
 
 Order being restored — the young 
 lord (who, to say truth, had been 
 a little ruffled, and put beside his 
 oratory) hi as few, and yet as 
 oblighig words as possible, assured 
 them of entire welcome ; and, with 
 a graceful turn, singling out poor 
 .Twenty Ninth of February, that had 
 sate all this while mum-chance at 
 the side-board, begged to couple his 
 health with that of the good com- 
 pany before him — which he drank 
 accordingly ; observing, that he had 
 not seen his honest face any time 
 these four years, with a number of 
 endearing expressions besides. At 
 the same time, removing the solitary 
 JOay from the forlorn seat which had 
 been assigned him, he stationed him 
 at his own board, somewhere be- 
 tween the Greek Calends and Latter 
 Lammas. 
 
 Ash Wednesday, being now called 
 upon for a song, with his eyes fast 
 stuck in his head, and as well as the 
 Canary he had swallowed would give 
 him leave, struck up a Carol, which 
 Christmas Day had taught him for 
 the nonce; and was followed by the 
 latter, who gave " Miserere " in fine 
 style, hitting off the mupiping tones 
 and lengthened drawl of Old Mortis 
 fication with infinite humour. April 
 Fool swore they had exchanged con- 
 ditions : but Good Friday was ob- 
 served to look extremely grave ; and 
 Sunday held her fan before her ^ice, 
 that she might not be seen to smile. 
 
 Shrove- fide. Lord JMayor's Day, and 
 April Fool, next joined in a glee — 
 
 Which is the properest day to drink ? 
 
 in which all the Days chiming in^ 
 made a merry burden. 
 
 They next fell to quibbles and co- 
 nundrums. The question being pro- 
 posed, who had the greatest nimiber 
 of followers — the Quarter Days said, 
 there could be no question as to that ; 
 for they had all the creditors in the 
 world dogging their heels. But April 
 Fool gave it in favour of the Forty 
 Days before Easter; because the deb- 
 tors in all cases out-numbered the 
 creditors, and they kept lent all the 
 year. 
 
 All this while, Valentine's Day 
 kept courting pretty May, who sate 
 nexthim, slipping amorous billets-doux 
 
 under the table, till the Dog Days 
 (who are naturally of a warm con- 
 stitution,) began to be jealous, and to 
 bark and rage exceedingly. Apinl 
 Fool, who likes a bit of sport above 
 measure, and had some pretensions 
 to the lady besides, as being but a 
 cousin once removed, — clapped and 
 halloo'd them on ; and as fast as 
 their indignation cooled, those mad 
 wags, the Ember Days, were at it 
 with their bellows, to blow it into a 
 flame ; and all was in a ferment: till 
 old Madam Septuagesima {whohoasis 
 herself the Mother of the Days) wise- 
 ly diverted the conversation with a 
 tedious tale of the lovers which she 
 could reckon when she was young ; 
 and cf one Master Rogation Day in 
 particular, who was for ever putting 
 the (juestion to her, but she kept him 
 at a distance, as the chronicle would 
 •tell — by which I apprehend she 
 meant the Almanack. Then she 
 rambled on to the Days that were gone, 
 the good old Days, and so to the 
 Days before the Flood — which plainly 
 showed her old head to be little better 
 than crazed and doited. 
 
 Day being ended, the Days called 
 for their cloaks and great coats, and 
 took their leaves. Lord Mayor s Day 
 went off in a Mist, as usual ; Shortest 
 Day in a deep black Fog, that wrapt 
 the little gentleman all round like a 
 hedge-hog. Two Fig ils— so watch- 
 men are called in heaven — saw Christ- 
 mas Day safe home — they had been 
 used to the business before. Another 
 Vigil — a stout, sturdy patrole, called 
 the Eve of St. Christopher — seeing 
 Ash Wednesday hi a condition little 
 better than he should be, e'en whipt 
 him over his shoulders, pick-a-back 
 fashion, and Old Mortifieation went 
 floating home, singing — 
 
 On the bafs back do Ifly-t 
 
 and a number of old snatches besides, 
 between drunk and sober, but very 
 few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may 
 believe me) were among them. 
 Longest Day set off westward in 
 beautiful crimson and gold — the rest, 
 some in one fashion, some in another; 
 — but Valentine and pretty May took 
 their departure together in one of the 
 prettiest silvery twilights a Lover's 
 Day would wish to set in. 
 
 Eua's Ghost, 
 
 B2 
 
This gentleman, who for some 
 months past had been in a declining- 
 way, hath at length paid his final 
 tribute to nature. He just lived long 
 enough (it was what he wished) to 
 see his papers collected into a volume. 
 The pages of the Lonpon Maga- 
 zine will henceforth know him no 
 more. 
 
 Exactly at twehe last night his 
 queer spirit departed, and the bells 
 of Saint Bride's rang him out with 
 the old year. The mournful vibra- 
 tions were caught in the dining 
 room of his friends T. and H. ; and 
 the company, assembled there to 
 welcome in another First of January, 
 checked their carousals in mid-mirth, 
 and were silent. Janus wept. The 
 gentle P r, in a whisper, signi- 
 fied his intention of devoting an 
 
 Elegy ; and Allan C , nobly 
 
 forgetful of his countrymen's wrongs^ 
 
 vowed a Memoir to his nmncs, full 
 and friendly as a Tale of Lyddal- 
 cross. 
 
 To say tmth, it is time he were 
 gone. The humour of the thing, if 
 there was ever much in it, was 
 pretty well exhausted; and a two 
 years' and a half existence has been 
 a tolerable duration for a phantom. 
 
 I am now at liberty to confess, 
 that much which I have heard ob- 
 jected to my late friend's writings 
 was well-founded. Crude they are, 
 I grant you — a sort of uniicked, in- 
 condite things — villainously pranked 
 in an affected array of antique modes 
 and phrases. They had not been his, 
 if they had been other than such ; 
 and better it is, that a writer should 
 be natural in a self-pleasing quaint- 
 ness, than to affect a naturalness (so 
 called) that should be strange to 
 him. Egotistical they have been 
 
 1.^-r-^:-:^ 
 
pronouiiced by some who did not 
 knoW;, that what he tells us, as of 
 himself, was often true only (histo- 
 rically) of another; as in his Fourth 
 Essay (to save many instances) — 
 where under the first person (his fa- 
 vourite figure) he shadows forth the 
 forlorn estate of a country-boy placed 
 at a London school, far from his 
 friends and connections— in direct 
 opposition to his own early history. 
 — If it be egotism to imply and 
 twine with his own identity the 
 griefs and affections of another — 
 making himself many, or reducing 
 many unto himself— then is the skil- 
 ful novelist, who all along brings in 
 his hero, or heroine, speaking of 
 themselves, the greatest egotist of 
 all; who yet has never, therefore, 
 been accused of that narrowness. 
 And how shall the intenser drama- 
 tist escape being faulty, who doubt- 
 less, under cover of passion uttered 
 by another, oftentimes gives blame- 
 less vent to his most inward feelings, 
 and expresses his own story mo- 
 destly ? 
 
 My late friend was in many res- 
 pects a singular character. Those 
 who did not like him, hated him ; 
 and some, who once liked him, after- 
 wards became his bitterest haters. 
 The truth is, he gave himself too 
 little concern what he uttered, and 
 in whose presence. He observed 
 neither time nor place, and would 
 e'en out with vvhat came uppermost. 
 With the severe religionist he would 
 pass for a free-thinker ; while the 
 other faction set him down for a 
 bigot, or persuaded themselves that 
 he belied his sentiments. Few 
 imderstood him ; and I am not cer- 
 tain that at all times he quite under- 
 stood himself. He too much af- 
 fected that dangerous figure — irony. 
 He sowed doubtful speeches, and 
 reaped plain, unequivocal hatred. — 
 He would interrupt the gravest dis- 
 cussion with some light jest ; and 
 yet, perhaps, not quite irrelevant in 
 ears that could understand it. Your 
 long and much talkers hated him. 
 The informal habit of his mind, 
 joined to an inveterate impediment 
 of speech, forbade him to be an 
 orator; and he seemed determined 
 that no one else should play that 
 part when he was present. He was 
 petit and ordinary in his person and 
 appearance. I have seen him some- 
 times in what is called good com- 
 
 pany, but where he has been a 
 stranger, sit silent, and be suspected 
 for an odd fellow ; till some unlucky 
 occasion provoking it, he would stut- 
 ter out some senseless pun (not alto- 
 gether senseless perhaps, if rightly 
 taken), which has stamped his char 
 racter for the evening. It was hit or 
 miss with him ; but nine times out 
 of ten, he contrived by this device 
 to send away a whole company his 
 enemies. His conceptions rose kind- 
 lier than his utterance, and his hap- 
 piest impromptus had the appearance 
 of effort. He has been accused of 
 trying to be witty, when in truth he 
 was but struggling to give his poor 
 thoughts articulation. He chose hig 
 companions for some individuality of 
 character which they manifested. — ■ 
 Hence, not many persons of science, 
 and few professed literati, were of his 
 councils. They were, for the most part, 
 persons of an uncertain fortune; and, 
 as to such people commonly nothing is 
 more obnoxious than a gentleman of 
 settled (though moderate) income, 
 he passed with most of them for a 
 great miser. To my knowledge this 
 was a mistake. His intimados, to 
 confess a truth, were in the world's 
 eye a ragged regiment. He found 
 them floating on the surface of so- 
 ciety ; and the colour, or something 
 else, in the weed pleased him. The 
 burrs stuck to him— but they were 
 good and loving bvurs for all that. 
 He never greatly cared for the society 
 of what are called good people. If 
 any of these were scandalised (and 
 offences were sure to arise), he could 
 not help it. When he has been re- 
 monstrated with for not making more 
 concessions to the feelings of good 
 people, he would retort by asking, 
 what one point did these good people 
 ever concede to him ? He was tem- 
 perate in his meals and diversions, 
 but always kept a little on this side 
 of abstemiousness. Only in the use 
 of the Indian weed he might be 
 thought a little excessive. He took 
 it, he would say, as a solvent of 
 speech. Marry — as the friendly va- 
 pour ascended, how his prattle 
 would curl up sometimes with it ! 
 the ligaments, which tongue-tied 
 him, were loosened, and the stam- 
 merer proceeded a statist ! 
 
 I do not know whether I' ought to 
 bemoan or rejoice that my old friend 
 is departed. His jests were begin-- 
 ning to grow obsolete, and his stories 
 
A Character of the late Elia. 
 
 He felt the ap- 
 proaches of age ; and while he pre- 
 tended to cling to lifcj you saw how 
 slender were the ties left to bind 
 him. Discourshig with him latterly 
 on this subject, he expressed himself 
 with a pettishness, which 1 thought 
 unworthy of him. In our walks 
 about his suburban retreat (as he 
 called it) at Shacklewellj some chil- 
 dren belonging to a school of indus- 
 try had met us, and bowed and curt- 
 seyed, as he thought, in an especial 
 manner to him. " They take me for 
 a visiting governor," he muttered 
 earnestly. He had a horror, which 
 he carried to a foible, of looking like 
 any thing important and parochial. 
 He thought that he approached nearer 
 to that stamp daily. He had a ge- 
 neral aversion from being treated like 
 a grave or respectable character, and 
 kept a wary eye upon the advances of 
 age that should so entitle him. He 
 herded always, while it was pos- 
 sible, with people younger than him- 
 self. He did not conform to the 
 march of time, but was dragged a- 
 long in the procession. His manners 
 lagged behind his years. He was 
 too much of the boy-man. The toga 
 virilis never sate gracefully on his 
 shoulders. The impressions of in- 
 fancy had burnt into him, and he re- 
 sented the impertinence of manhood. 
 These were weaknesses ; but such as 
 they were, they are a key to explicate 
 some of his writings. 
 
 He left little property behind him. 
 Of course, the little that is left 
 (chiefly in India bonds) devolves 
 upon his cousin Bridget. A few cri- 
 tical dissertations were found in his 
 escrutoire, which have been handed 
 over to the Editor of this Magazine, 
 in which it is to be hoped they will 
 shortly appear, retaining his accus- 
 tomed signature. 
 
 He has himself not obscurely 
 hinted that his employment lay in a 
 public office. The gentlemen in the 
 Export department of the East 
 India House will forgive me, if I ac- 
 knowledge the readiness with which 
 they assisted me in the retrieval of 
 his few manuscripts. They pointed 
 out in a most obliging manner the 
 desk, at which he had been planted 
 for forty years ; showed me ponder- 
 ous tomes of figures, in his own re- 
 markably neat hand, Avhich, more 
 properly than his few printed tracts, 
 Jan. 1823. 
 
 might be called his " Works." They 
 seemed , affectionate to his memory, 
 and universally commended his ex- 
 pertness in book-keeping. It seems 
 he was the inventor of some ledger, 
 which should combine the precision 
 and certainty of the Italian double- 
 entry (I think they called it) with 
 the brevity and facility of some newer 
 German system — but I am not able 
 to appreciate the worth of the disco- 
 very. I have often heard him ex- 
 press a warm regard for his asso- 
 ciates in office, and how fortunate he 
 considered himself in having his lot 
 thrown in amongst them. There is 
 more sense, more discourse, more 
 shrewdness, and even talent, among 
 these clerks (he would say) than in 
 twice the number of authors by pro- 
 fession that I have conversed with. 
 He would brighten up sometimes 
 upon the " old days of the India 
 House," when he consorted with 
 Woodroffe, and Wissett, and Peter 
 Corbet (a descendant and worthy re- 
 presentative, bating the point of 
 sanctity, of old facetious bishop Cor- 
 bet), and Hoole who translated Tas- 
 so, and Bartlemy Brown whose 
 father (God assoil him therefore) mo- 
 dernized Walton — and sly warm- 
 hearted old Jack Cole (King Cole 
 they called him in those days), and 
 Campe, and Fombelle — and a world 
 of choice spirits, more than I can re- 
 member to name, who associated m 
 those days with Jack Burrell (the 
 ban vivant of the South Sea House), 
 and little Eyton (said to be a. fac 
 simile of Pope — he was a miniature 
 of a gentleman) that was cashier 
 under him, and Dan Voight of the 
 Custom House that left the famous 
 library. 
 
 Well, Elia is gone — for aught I 
 know, to be reunited with them — 
 and these poor traces of his pen are 
 all we have to show for it. How lit- 
 tle survives of the wordiest authors ! 
 Of all they said or did in their life- 
 time, a few glittering words only I 
 His Essays found some favourers, as 
 they appeared separately ; they shuf- 
 fled their way in the crowd well 
 enough singly ; how they will read, 
 now they are brought together, is a 
 question for the publishers, who have 
 thus ventured to draw out into one 
 piece his " weaved-up follies." 
 
 Phil-E-lia. 
 
 C 
 
OLD CHINA. 
 
 I HAVE an almost feminine parti- 
 ality for old china. When I go to 
 see any great house, I inquire for 
 the china closet, and next for the 
 picture gallery. I cannot defend the 
 order of preference, but by saying, 
 that we have all some taste or other, 
 of too ancient a date to admit of our 
 remembering distinctly that it was 
 an acquired one. I can call to niiud 
 
 the first play, and the first exhibi- 
 tion, that I was taken to ; but I am 
 not conscious of a thne when china 
 jars and saucers were introduced into 
 my imagination. 
 
 I had no repugnance then — why 
 should I now have ? — to those little, 
 lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, 
 that under the notion of men and 
 women, float about, unciicum- 
 
270 
 
 Old China, 
 
 I^March, 
 
 scribed by any element, in that 
 worid before perspective — a china 
 tea-cup. 
 
 I like to see my old friends — whom 
 distance cannot diminish — figuring 
 up in the air (so they appear to our 
 optics), yet on terra Jirma still — for 
 so we must in courtesy interpret 
 that speck of deeper blue, which the 
 decorous artist, to prevent absurdity, 
 has made to spring up beneath their 
 sandals. 
 
 I love the men with women's faces, 
 and the women, if possible, with still 
 more womanish expressions. 
 
 Here is a young and courtly Man- 
 darin, handing tea to a lady from a 
 salver — two miles off. See how dis- 
 tance seems to set off respect ! And 
 here the same lady, or another — for 
 likeness is identity on tea-cups — is 
 stepping into a little fairy boat, 
 moored on the hither side of this 
 calm garden river, with a dainty 
 mincing foot, which in a right angle 
 of incidence (as angles go in our 
 world^ must infallibly land her in 
 the midst of a flowery mead — a fur- 
 long off on the other side of the same 
 strange stream ! 
 
 Farther on — if far or near can be 
 predicated of their world — see horses, 
 trees, pagodas, dancing the hays. 
 
 Here — a cow and rabbit couchant, 
 and co-extensive — so objects show, 
 seen through the lucid atmosphere of 
 fine Cathay ! 
 
 I was pointing out to my cousin 
 last evening, over our Hyson, (which 
 we are old fashioned enough to drink 
 unmixed still of an afternoon) some 
 of these speciosa miracula upon a set 
 of extraordinary old blue china (a 
 recent purchase) which we were now 
 for the first time using; and could 
 not help remarking, how favourable 
 circumstances had been to us of late 
 years, that we could afford to please 
 the eye sometimes with trifles of 
 this sort — when a passing sentiment 
 seemed to over-shade the brows of 
 my companion. I am quick at 
 detecting these summer clouds in 
 Bridget. 
 
 *' I wish the good old times would 
 come again," "She said, '' when we 
 were not quite so rich. I do not 
 mean, that I want to be poor; but 
 there was a middle state ;" — so she 
 was pleased to ramble on, — '^' in 
 which I am sure we were a great 
 
 deal happier. A purchase is but 
 a purchase, now that you have 
 money enough and to spare. For- 
 merly it used to be a triumph. When 
 we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! 
 how much ado I had to get you to 
 consent to it in those times !) we 
 were used to have a debate two or 
 three days before, and to weigh the 
 for and against, and think what we 
 might spare out of, and what saving 
 we could hit upon, that should be 
 an equivalent. A thing was worth 
 buying then, when we felt the money 
 that we paid for it. 
 
 '^ Do you remember the brown suit, 
 which you made to hang upon you, 
 till all your friends cried shame upon 
 you, it grew so thread-bare — and all 
 because of that folio Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, which you dragged home 
 late at night, from Barker's in Co- 
 vent-garden? Do you remember 
 how we eyed it for weeks before we 
 could make up our minds to the pur- 
 chase, and had not come to a deter- 
 mination till it was near ten o'clock 
 of the Saturday night, when you set 
 off from Islington, fearing you should 
 be too late — and when the old book- 
 seller with some grumbling opened 
 his shop, and by the twinkling taper 
 (for he was setting bedwards) lighted 
 out the relic from his dusty treasures 
 — and when you lugged it home> 
 wishing it were twice as cumber- 
 some — and when you presented it to 
 me — and when we were exploring 
 the perfectness of it (collating you 
 called it) — and while I was repairing 
 some of the loose leaves with paste, 
 which your impatience would not 
 suffer to be left till day-break — was 
 there no pleasure in being a poor 
 man ? or can those neat black clothes 
 which you wear now, and are so 
 careful to keep brushed, since we 
 have become rich and finical, give 
 you half the honest vanity, with 
 which you flaunted it about in that 
 over- worn suit — your old corbeau — 
 for four or five weeks longer than 
 you should have done, to pacify your 
 conscience for the mighty sum of 
 fifteen — or sixteen shillings was it ? 
 — a great affair we thought it then — 
 which you had lavished on the old 
 folio ? Now you can afford to buy 
 any book that pleases you, but I do 
 not see that you ever bring me home 
 any nice old purchases now. 
 
1823.;] 
 
 Old China. 
 
 27 J 
 
 ''When you came home with twen- 
 ty apologies for laying out a less num- 
 ber of shillings upon that print after 
 Lionardo, which we christened the 
 ' Lady Blanch ; ' when you looked 
 at the purchase, and thought of the 
 money — and thought of the money, 
 and looked again at the picture — 
 was there no pleasure in being a poor 
 man ? Now, you have nothing to 
 do but to walk into Colnaghi's (as 
 W calls it) and buy a wilder- 
 ness of Lionardos. Yet do you ? 
 
 *' Then, do you remember our plea- 
 sant walks to Enfield, and Potter's 
 Bar, and Waltham, when we had 
 a holyday — holydays, and all other 
 fun, are gone, now we are rich — and 
 the little hand-basket in which I used 
 to deposit our day's fare of savory 
 cold lamb and salad— and how you 
 would pry about at noon-tide for 
 some decent house, where we might 
 go in, and produce our store — only 
 paying for the ale that you must call 
 for — and speculate upon the looks of 
 the landlady, and whether she was 
 likely to allow us a table-cloth, — and 
 wish for such another honest hostess, 
 as Izaak Walton has described many 
 a one on the pleasant banks of the 
 Lea, when he went a fishing — and 
 sometimes they would prove obliging 
 enough, and sometimes they would 
 look grudgingly upon us — but we had 
 cheerful looks still for one another, 
 and would eat our plain food sa- 
 vorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his 
 Trout Hall ? Now, when we go out 
 a day's pleasuring, which is seldom 
 moreover, we ride part of the way — 
 and go into a fine inn, and order the 
 best of dinners, never debating the 
 expense — which, after all, never has 
 half the relish of those chance coun- 
 try snaps, when we were at the 
 mercy of uncertain usage, and a pre- 
 carious welcome. 
 
 " You are too proud to see a play 
 anywhere now but in the pit or boxes. 
 Do you remember where it was we 
 used to sit, when we saw the Battle 
 of Hexham, and the Surrender of 
 Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland 
 in the Children in the Wood — when 
 we squeezed out ourshillings a-piece 
 to sit three or four times in a season 
 in the one- shilling gallery — where 
 you felt all the time that you ought 
 not to have brought me — and more 
 strongly I felt obligation to you for 
 
 having brought me— and the pleasure 
 was the better for a little shame— and 
 when the curtain drew up, what cared 
 we for our place in the house, or what 
 mattered it where we were sitting, 
 when our thoughts were with Rosa- 
 lind in Arden, or with Viola at the 
 Court of Illyria ? You used to say, 
 that the gallery was the best place of 
 all for enjoying a play socially — that 
 the relish of such exhibitions must be 
 in proportion to the infrequency of 
 going— that the company we met 
 there, not being in general readers of 
 plays, were obliged to attend the 
 more, and did attend, to what was 
 going on, on the stage — because a 
 word lost would have been a chasm, 
 which it was impossible for them to 
 fill up. With such reflections we 
 consoled our pride then — and I appeal 
 to you, whether, as a woman, I met 
 generally with less attention and ac- 
 commodation, than I have done since 
 in more expensive situations in the 
 house ? The getting in indeed, and 
 the crowding up those inconvenient 
 staircases, was bad enough, — but 
 there was still a law of civility to 
 women recognised to quite as great an 
 extent as we have ever found it in the 
 other passages — and how a little dif- 
 ficulty overcome heightened the snug 
 seat, and the play, afterwards ! Now 
 we can only pay our money, and 
 walk in. You cannot see, you say, 
 in the galleries now. I am sure we 
 saw, and heard too, well enough then 
 —but sight, and all, I think, is gone 
 with our poverty. 
 
 * ' There was pleasure in eating straw- 
 berries, before they became quite 
 common — in the first dish of peas, 
 while they were yet dear— to have 
 them for a nice supper, a treat. What 
 treat can we have now ? If we were 
 to treat ourselves now — that is, to 
 have dainties a little above our means, 
 it would be selfish and wicked. It is 
 the very little more that we allow 
 ourselves beyond what the actual 
 poor can get at, that makes what I 
 call a treat — when two people living 
 together, as we have done, now and 
 then indulge themselves in a cheap 
 luxury, which both like ; while each 
 apologises, and is willing to take both 
 halves of the blame to his single share. 
 I see no harm in people making much 
 of themselves in that sense of the 
 word. It may give them a hint how 
 
273 
 
 Old China, 
 
 (^3/arch, 
 
 to make much of others. But now — 
 what I mean by the word — we never 
 do make much of ourselves. None 
 but the poor can do it. I do not 
 mean the veriest poor of all, but 
 persons as we were, just above po- 
 verty. 
 
 " I know what you were going to 
 say, that it is mighty pleasant at the 
 end of the year to make all meet — 
 and much ado we used to have every 
 Thirty-first Night of December to 
 account for our exceedings — many a 
 long face did you make over your 
 puzzled accounts, and in contriving 
 to make it out how we had spent so 
 much — or that we had not spent so 
 much — or that it was impossible we 
 should spend so much next year — 
 and still we found our slender capital 
 decreasing — but then, betwixt ways, 
 and projects, and compromises of one 
 sort or another, and talk of curtail- 
 ing this charge, and doing without 
 that for the future— and the hope 
 that youth brings, and laughing spi- 
 rits (in which you were never poor 
 till now), we pocketed up our loss, 
 and in conclusion, with ' lusty brim- 
 mers' (as you used to quote it out 
 of heartif cheerful Mr. Cottoiij as you 
 called him), we used to welcome in 
 the ' coming guest.' Now, we 
 have no reckoning at all at the end 
 of an old year — no flattering pro- 
 mises about the new year doing bet- 
 ter for us." 
 
 Bridget is so sparing of her 
 speech on most occasions, that when 
 she gets into a rhetorical vein, I 
 am careful how I interrupt it. I 
 could not help, however, smiling 
 at the phantom of wealth which 
 her dear imagination had conjured 
 up out of a clear income of poor — 
 hundred pounds a year. ^' It is true 
 we were happier when we were 
 poorer, but we were also younger, 
 my cousin. I am afraid we must 
 put up with the excess, for if we 
 were to shake the superflux into the 
 sea, we should not much mend our- 
 selves. That we had much to strug- 
 
 rfe with, as we grew up together, we 
 nave reason to be most thankful. It 
 strengthened, and knit our compact 
 closer. We could never have been 
 what we have been to each other, if 
 we had always had the sufficiency 
 which you now complain of. The 
 resisting power — those natural dila- 
 tions of the youthful spirit, which 
 circumstances cannot straiten — with 
 us are long since passed away. Com- 
 petence to age is supplemental 
 youth; a sorry supplement indeed, 
 but I fear the best that is to be had. 
 We must ride, where we formerly 
 walked ; live better, and lie softer — 
 and shall be wise to do so — than we 
 had means to do in those good old 
 days you speak of. Yet could those 
 days return — could you and I once 
 more walk our thirty miles a-day — 
 could Bannister and Mrs. Bland a- 
 gain be young, and you and I be 
 young to see them — could the good 
 old one shilling gallery days return 
 — they are dreams, my cousin, now 
 —but could you and I at this mo- 
 ment, instead of this quiet argument 
 by our well-carpeted fire-side, sit- 
 ting on this luxurious sofa — be once 
 more struggling up those inconveni- 
 ent stair-cases, pushed about, and 
 squeezed, and elbowed by the poorest 
 rabble of poor gallery scramblers — 
 could I once more hear those anxious 
 shrieks of yours — and the delicious 
 Thank God, we are safe, which always 
 followed when the top-most stair, 
 conquered, let in the first light of the 
 whole cheerful theatre down beneath 
 us — I know not the fathom line that 
 ever touched a descent so deep as I 
 would be willing to bury more 
 wealth than Croesus had, or the great 
 
 Jew R is supposed to have, to 
 
 purchase it. And now do just look 
 at that merry little Chinese waiter 
 holding an umbrella, big enough for 
 a bed-tester, over the head of that 
 pretty insipid half-Madona-ish chit 
 of a lady in that very blue summer 
 house." Elia, 
 
THE 
 
 LONDON MAGAZINE 
 
 MARCH, 1823. 
 
 THE I.ION»S HEAD. 
 
 Elia is 710^ dead ! — We thought as much — and even hinted our thought 
 in the number for January. The following letter declaring Elia*s existence 
 is in his own handwriting, and was left by his own hand. We never saw 
 a man so extremely alive, as he was, to the injury done him : 
 
 " Elia returns his thanks to the facetious Janus Weathercock, who, during 
 his late unavoidable excursion to the Isles of Sark, Guernsey, and Jersey, 
 took advantage of his absence to plot a sham account of his death ; and to 
 impose upon the town a posthumous Essay, signed by his Ghost — which, 
 how like it is to any of the undoubted Essays of the author, may be seen by 
 comparing it with his volume just published. One or two former papers, 
 with his sijjnaturc, which are not re-printed in the volume, he has reason to 
 believe were pleasant forgeries by the same ingenious hand." 
 
1823.^ Ritson versus John Scoit the Quaker, 
 
 RITSON versus JOHN SCOTT THE QUAKER. 
 
 Critics I read on other men, 
 
 And H)rpers upon them again. — Prior, 
 
 415 
 
 of the Poems y 
 
 I HAVE in my possession Scott's " Critical Essays on some of the Poems 
 of several English Poets/' — a handsome octavo, bought at the sale of 
 Ritson's books ; and enriched (or deformed, as some would think it) with 
 MS. annotations in the handwriting- of that redoubted Censor. I shall 
 transcribe a few, which seem most characteristic of both the writers — Scott, 
 feeble, but amiable — Ritson, coarse, cavistic, clever ; and, I am to suppose, 
 not amiable. But they have proved some amusement to me ; and, I hope, 
 will produce some to the reader, this rainy season, which really damps a 
 gentleman's wings for any original flight, and obliges him to ransack his 
 shelves, and miscellaneous reading, to furnish an occasional or make-shift 
 paper. If the sky clears up, and the sun dances this Easter (as they say he 
 is wont to do), the town may be troid)led with something more in his own 
 way the ensuing month from its poor servant to command. 
 
 Elia. 
 
 DYER S RUINS OF ROME. 
 
 The pilgrim oft 
 
 At dead of night 'mid his oraison hears 
 Aghast the voice of time disparting towers, 
 Tumbling all precipitate down-dash'd. 
 Rattling around, loud thund'ring to the 
 
 moon ; 
 While murmurs sooth each awful interval 
 Of ever falling waters. 
 
 Scoit, 
 There is a very bold transposition 
 in this passage. A superficial read- 
 er, not attending to the sense of the 
 epithet ever, might be ready to sup- 
 pose that the intervals intended were 
 those between the falling of the waters, 
 instead of those between the falling 
 of the towers. 
 
 Ritson, 
 A beauty, as in Thomson's Winter — 
 
 Cheerless towns, far distant, never 
 
 blest, 
 Save when its annual course the caravan 
 Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay, 
 With news of human kind.* 
 
 A superficial person — Mr. Scott, 
 for instance, would be apt to connect 
 the last clause in this period with 
 the line foregoing — '' bends to the 
 coast of Cathay with news," &c. 
 But has a reader nothing to do but 
 to sit passive, while the connexion is 
 to glide into his ears like oil.'^ 
 
 denham's cooper's hill. 
 The stream is so transparent, pure, and 
 
 clear. 
 That, had the self-enamour'd youth gazed 
 
 here. 
 So fatally deceived he had not been. 
 While he the bottom, not his face had seen. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 The last two lines have more mu- 
 sic than Denham's can possibly 
 boast. 
 
 Ritson. 
 
 May I have leave to conjecture, 
 tliat in the very last line of all, the 
 word '^ the" has erroneously crept 
 in ? I am persuaded that the poet 
 wrote '^ his." To my mind, at least, 
 this reading, in a surprising degree, 
 heightens the idea of the extreme 
 clearness and transparency of the 
 stream, where a man might see more 
 than his face (as it were) in it. 
 
 COLLINS S ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. 
 
 Scott. 
 The second of these little pieces> 
 called Hassan, or the Camel Driver, 
 is of superior character. This poem 
 contradicts history in one principal 
 instance ; the merchants of the east 
 travel in numerous caravans, but 
 Hassan is introduced travelling alone 
 
 * IMay I have leave to notice an instance of the same agreeable discontinuity in my 
 friend Lloyd's admirable poem on Christmas ? 
 
 Where the broad-bosom'd hills. 
 
 Swept with perpetual clouds, of Scotland rise. 
 Me fate compels to tarry. 
 
un 
 
 Ritson versus John Scott the Quaker. 
 
 CApril, 
 
 in the desart. But this circumstance 
 detracts little from our [author's me- 
 rit; adherence to historical fact is 
 seldom required in poetry. 
 
 Ritson. 
 It is always, where the poet unne- 
 cessarily transports you to the ends 
 of the world. If he must plague you 
 with exotic scenery, you have a right 
 to exact strict local imagery and cos- 
 tume. Why must I learn Arabic, 
 to read nothing after all but Gay's 
 Fables in another language ? 
 
 Scott. 
 Abra is introduced in a grove, 
 wreathing a flowery chaplet for her 
 hair. Shakspeare himself could not 
 have devised a more natural and 
 pleasing incident, than that of the 
 monarch's attention being attracted 
 by her song : 
 
 Great Abbas chanced that fated morn to 
 
 stray, 
 By love conducted from the chase away. 
 Among the vocal vales he heard her song — 
 
 Ritson. 
 Ch— t.? 
 
 O stay thee, Agib, for my feet deny, 
 No longer friendly to my life, to fly — 
 Scott. 
 From the pen of Cowley such an 
 observation as Secander's, that " his 
 feet were no longer friendly to his 
 life," might have been expected ; but 
 Collins rarely committed such viola- 
 tions of simplicity. 
 
 Ritson. 
 Pen of Cowley ! impudent goose- 
 quill, how darest thou guess what 
 Cowley would have written ? 
 
 GRAY S CHURCH-YARD ELEGY. 
 
 Save where the beetle wheels — 
 
 Scott. 
 The beetle was introduced into 
 poetry by Shakspeare * * *. Shak- 
 speare has made the most of his de- 
 scription ; indeed far too much, con- 
 sidering the occasion : 
 
 to black Hecate's summons 
 
 The shard-bom beetle with his drowsy hum 
 Hath nmg night's yawning peal. 
 
 The imagination must be indeed 
 fertile, which could produce this ill- 
 placed exuberance of imagery. The 
 poet, when composing this passage, 
 must have had in his mind all the 
 remote ideas of Hecate, a heathen 
 
 Goddess, of a beetle, of night, of a 
 peal of bells, and of that action of 
 the muscles, commonly called a gape 
 or yawn. 
 
 Ritson. 
 NumbscuU ! that would limit an 
 infinite head by the square contents 
 of thy own numbscull. 
 
 Scott. 
 The great merit of a poet is not, 
 like Cowley, Donne, and Denham, to 
 say what no man but himself has 
 thought, but what every man besides 
 himself has thought ; but no man ex- 
 pressed, or, at least, expressed so well. 
 
 Ritson. 
 In other words, all that is poetry, 
 which Mr. Scott has thought, as well 
 as the poet ; but that cannot be poe- 
 try, which was not obvious to Mr. 
 Scott, as well as to Cowley, Donne, 
 and Denham. 
 
 Scott. 
 Mr. Mason observes of the lan- 
 guage in this part [|[the Epitaph], 
 that it has a Doric delicacy. It has, 
 indeed, what I should rather term a 
 happy rusticity. 
 
 Ritson. 
 Come, see 
 Rural felicity. 
 
 GOLDSMITH S DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 No busy steps the grass-grown footway 
 
 tread, 
 But aU the bloomy flush of life is fled — 
 All but yon widow'd solitary thing, 
 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring ; 
 She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for 
 
 bread. 
 To strip the brook with mantling cresses 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Our author's language, in this place, 
 is very defective in correctness. After 
 mentioning the general privation of 
 the " bloomy flush of life," the ex- 
 ceptionary *' all but " includes, as a 
 part of that " bloomy flush," an 
 aged decrepid matron ; that is to 
 say, in plain prose, '^ the bloomy 
 flush of life is all fled but one old 
 woman." 
 
 Ritson. 
 
 Yet Milton could write i 
 
 Far from all resort of mirth. 
 Save the cricket on the hearth, 
 Or the bell-man's drowsy charm — 
 
 and I dare say he was right. O 
 never let a quaker, or a woman, try 
 
■'i ' t.riSiBil^RSift'i 
 
 m^ 
 
 .tfl««v:*»«i£..jw 
 
 1823.] 
 
 Ritson versus John Scott the Quaker. 
 
 44Y 
 
 their hand at being witty, any more 
 than a Tom Brown affect to speak 
 by the spirit ! 
 
 Scott. 
 
 — Aaron Hill, who, although, in ge- 
 neral, a bombastic writer, produced 
 some pieces of merit, particularly 
 the Caveatj an allegorical satire on 
 Pope. 
 
 Ritson. 
 
 Say rather his verses on John Den- 
 nis, beginning " Adieu, unsocial ex- 
 cellence ! " which are implicitly a 
 finer satire on Pope than twenty Ca- 
 veats. All that Pope could or did 
 say against Dennis, is there con- 
 densed ; and what he should have 
 said, and did not, for him, is there 
 too.* 
 
 given to this. There is in it an at- 
 tempt at dignity above the occasion. 
 Pathos seems to have been intended, 
 but affectation only is produced. 
 
 Ritson. 
 It is not affectation, but it is the 
 mock heroic of pathos, hitroduced 
 purposely and wisely to attract the 
 reader to a proposal, which from the 
 unimportance of the subject — a poor 
 little fish — might else have escaped 
 his attention — as children learn, or 
 may learn, humanity to animals from 
 the mock romantic " Perambulations 
 of a Mouse." 
 
 THOMSON S SEASONS. 
 
 Address to the Angler to spare the young 
 
 Jish. 
 If yet too young, and easily deceived, 
 A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant 
 
 rod. 
 Him, piteous of liis youth, and the short 
 
 space 
 He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven, 
 Soft disengage, and back into the stream 
 The speckled infant throw.—— 
 Scott. 
 The praise bestowed on a pre- 
 ceding passage, cannot be justly 
 
 HAYMAKING. 
 
 Infant hands 
 
 Trail the long rake ; or, with the fragrant 
 
 load 
 O'er-charged, amid the kind oppression roll. 
 
 Scott. 
 " Kind oppression " is a phrase of 
 that sort, which one scarcely knows 
 whether to blame or praise : it con- 
 sists of two words, directly opposite 
 in their signification ; and yet, per- 
 haps, no phrase whatever could have 
 better conveyed the idea of an easy 
 uninjurious weight — 
 
 Ritson* 
 — and yet he does not know whether 
 to blame or praise it ! 
 
 On the Death of Mr. Dennis. 
 • Adieu, unsocial excellence ! at last 
 Thy foes are vanquished, and thy fears are past : 
 '\\''ant, the grim recompense of truth like thine, 
 Shall now no longer dim thy destined shrine. 
 The impatient envy, the disdainful air. 
 The front malignant, and the captious stare. 
 The furious petulance, the jealous start. 
 The mist of frailties that obscured thy heart—- 
 Veil'd in thy grave shall unremember'd lie ; 
 For these were parts of Dennis hem to die. 
 But there's a nobler deity behind ; 
 His reason dies not, and has friends to find : 
 Though here revenge and pride withheld his praise. 
 No wrongs shall reach him through his future days ; 
 The rising ages shall redeem his name. 
 And nadons read him into lasting fame. 
 In his defects untaught, his labour'd page 
 Shall the slow gratitude of Time engage. 
 Perhaps some story of his pitied woe, 
 Mix'd in faint shades, may with his memory go. 
 To touch fraternity with generous shame. 
 And backward cast an unavailing blame 
 On times too cold to taste his strength of art, 
 Yet warm contemners of too weak a heart. 
 Rest in thy dust, contented with thy lot. 
 Thy good remember'd, ^nd thy bad forgot. 
 
RiUon versus John Scott the Quaker. 
 
 tApril, 
 
 SHEKP-SllEAKING. 
 
 By many a dog 
 
 Compell'd 
 
 » « » « « 
 
 The clamour much of men, and boys, and 
 dogs — 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Scott. 
 The mention of dogs twice was su- 
 perfluous ; it might have been easily- 
 avoided. 
 
 Hitson. 
 Very true — by mentioning them 
 only once. 
 
 Scott. 
 Nature is rich in a variety of mi- 
 nute but striking circumstances ; 
 some of which engage the attention 
 of one observer, and some that of 
 another. 
 
 Ititson. 
 This lover of truth never uttered a 
 truer speech. Give me a lie with a 
 spirit in it. 
 
 Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. — 
 
 Scott. 
 The bombastic ^' immense smile 
 of air," &c. better omitted. 
 
 Ritson. 
 Quite Miltonic — " enormous bliss" 
 —and both, I presume, alike caviare 
 to the Quaker. 
 
 He comes ! he comes ! in every breeze the 
 
 power 
 Of philosophic melancholy comes ! 
 His near approach, the sudden-starting tear. 
 The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air. 
 The soften 'd feature, and the beating heart. 
 Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, 
 declare. 
 
 Scott. 
 This fine picture is greatly injured 
 by a few words. The power should 
 have been said to come " upon the 
 breeze;" not "in every breeze;" 
 an expression which indicates a mul- 
 tiplicity of approaches. If he came 
 '^ in every breeze," he must have been 
 always coming 
 
 Ritson. 
 —and so he was. 
 
 The branching Oronoque 
 
 Rolls a brown deluge, and the native drives 
 
 To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees. 
 
 At once his dome, his robe, his food, and 
 
 arms. 
 Swell'd by a thousand streams, impetuous 
 
 hurl'd 
 From all the roaring Andes, huge descends 
 
 The mighty Orellana. Scarce the muse 
 Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous 
 
 mass 
 Of rushing water : scarce she dares attempt 
 The sea- like Plata; to whose dread ex- 
 panse. 
 Continuous depth, and wond'rous length of 
 
 course. 
 Our floods are rills. With unabated force 
 In silent dignity they sweep along, 
 And traverse realms unknown, and bloom- 
 ing wilds. 
 And fruitful desarts, worlds of solitude. 
 Where the sun smiles, and seasons teem, 
 
 in vain. 
 Unseen and unenjoy'd. Forsaking these. 
 O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow, 
 And many a nation feed, and circle safe 
 In their fair bosom many a happy isle. 
 The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturb'd 
 By Christian crimes, and Europe's cruel 
 
 sons. 
 Thus pouring on, they proudly seek the 
 
 deep. 
 Whose vanquish'd tide, recoiling from the 
 
 shock. 
 Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe. 
 And Ocean trembles for his green domain. 
 
 Scott. 
 Poets not unfrequently aim at ag- 
 grandising their subject, by avowing 
 their inability to describe it. This 
 is a puerile and inadequate expe- 
 dient. Thomson has here, perhaps 
 inadvertently, descended to this fee- 
 ble art of exaggeration. 
 
 Ritson. 
 A magnificent passage, in spite of 
 Duns Scotus ! The poet says not a 
 word about his " inability to de- 
 scribe," nor seems to be thinking 
 about his readers at all. He is con- 
 fessing his own feelings, awe-struck 
 with the contemplation of such o'er- 
 whelming objects ; in the same spirit 
 with which he designates the den of 
 the '^ green serpent" in another 
 place — 
 —Which ev'n imagination fears to tread — 
 
 A dazzling deluge reigns, and all 
 
 From pole to pole is undistinguish'd blaze — 
 
 Scott. 
 From pole to pole, strictly speak- 
 ing, is improper. The poet meant, 
 " from one part of the horizon to the 
 other." 
 
 Ritson. 
 From his pole to thy pole was a 
 more downward declension than 
 " from the centre thrice," &c. 
 
 Ohe ! jam satis. '^ 
 
POOR RELATIONS. 
 
 A Poor Relation is — the most ir- 
 relevant thing in nature, — a piece 
 of impertinent correspondency, — an 
 odious approximation, — a haunting- 
 conscience, — a preposterous shadow, 
 lengthening in the noon-tide of your 
 prosperity,— an unwelcome remem- 
 brancer, — a perpetually recurring 
 mortification,~a drain on your purse, 
 — a more intolerable dun upon your 
 pride, — a drawback upon success, — 
 a rebuke to your rising, — a stahi in 
 your blood,— abloton your scutcheon, 
 — a rent in your garment, — a death's 
 head at your banquet, — Agathocles' 
 pot, — a Mordecai in your gate, — a 
 Lazarus at your door, — a lion in 
 your path, — a frog in your chamber, 
 — a fly in your ointment, — a mote in 
 your eye,— a triumph to your enemy, 
 an apology to your friends, — the 
 one thing not needful, — the hail in 
 harvest,--the ounce of sour in a pound 
 of sweet, — the bore par excellence. 
 
 He is known by his knock. Your 
 heart telleth you " That is Mr. — ." 
 A rap, between familiarity and re- 
 
 spect; that demands, and, at the 
 same time, seems to despair of, en- 
 tertainment. He entereth smiling, 
 and — embarrassed. He holdeth out 
 his hand to you to shake, and — 
 draweth it back again. He casually 
 looketh in about dinner time — when 
 the table is full. He offereth to go 
 away, seeing you have company — 
 but is induced to stay. He filleth a 
 chair, and your visitor's two children 
 are accommodated at a side table. 
 He never cometh upon open days, 
 when your wife says with some com- 
 placency, " My dear, perhaps Mr. 
 
 will drop in to-day." He re- 
 
 membereth birth-days — and profess- 
 eth he is fortunate to have stumbled 
 upon one. He declareth against 
 fish, the turbot being small — yet suf- 
 fereth himself to be importuned into 
 a slice against his first resolution. 
 He sticketh by the port — yet will b^ 
 prevailed upon to empty the remain- 
 der glass of claret, — if a stranger 
 press it upon him. He is a puzzle 
 to the servants, who are fearful of 
 
634^ 
 
 Poor Relations. 
 
 CMayy 
 
 being too obsequious, or not civil 
 enough, to him. The guests think 
 ^' they have seen him before." Every 
 one speculateth upon his condition ; 
 and the most part take him to be — a 
 tide-waiter. He calleth you by your 
 Christian name, to imply that his 
 other is the same with your own. 
 He is too familiar by half, yet you 
 wish he had less diffidence. With 
 half the familiarity, he might pass 
 for a casual dependent; with more 
 boldness, he would be in no danger 
 of being taken for what he is. He 
 is too humble for a friend, yet taketh 
 on him more state than befits a client. 
 He is a worse guest than a coimtry 
 tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up 
 no rent— yet 'tis odds, from his garb 
 and demeanour, that your other 
 guests take him for one. He is asked 
 to make one at the whist table ; re- 
 fuseth on the score of poverty, and 
 — resents being left out. When the 
 company break up, he profFereth to 
 go for a coach — and lets the servant 
 go. He recollects your grandfather ; 
 and will thrust in some mean, and 
 quite unimportant anecdote of— the 
 family. He knew it when it was not 
 quite so flourishing as " he is blest 
 in seeing it now." He reviveth past 
 situations, to institute what he call- 
 eth — favourable comparisons. With 
 a reflecting sort of congratulation, 
 he will inquire the price of your fur- 
 niture ; and insults you with a spe- 
 cial commendation of your window- 
 curtains. He is of opinion that the 
 urn is the more elegant shape, but, 
 after all, there was something more 
 comfortable about the old tea-kettle 
 — which you must remember. He 
 dare say you must find a great con- 
 venience in having a carriage of your 
 own, and appealeth to your lady if it 
 is not so. Inquireth if you have 
 had your arms done on vellum yet ; 
 and did not know till lately, that 
 such-and-such had been the crest of 
 the family. His memory is unsea- 
 sonable; his compliments perverse; 
 his talk a trouble ; his stay pertina- 
 cious ; and when he goeth away, you 
 dismiss his chair into a corner, as 
 precipitately as possible, and feel 
 fairly rid of two nuisances. 
 
 There is a worse evil under the 
 sun, and that is — a female Poor Re- 
 lation. You may do something with 
 the other ; you may pass him off* to- 
 lerably well ; but your indigent she- 
 
 Relative is hopeless. '^ He is an old 
 humourist," you may say, *' and 
 aflfects to go threadbare. His cir- 
 cumstances are better than folks 
 would take them to be. You are 
 fond of having a Character at your 
 table, and truly he is one." But in 
 the indications of female poverty 
 there can be no disguise. No woman 
 dresses below herself from caprice. 
 The truth must out without shuf- 
 fling. " She is plainly related to the 
 L s ; or what does she at their 
 house?" She is, in all probability, 
 your wife's cousin. Nine times out 
 of ten, at least, this is the case. Her 
 garb is something between a gentle- 
 woman and a beggar, yet the former 
 evidently predominates. She is most 
 provokingly humble, and ostenta- 
 tiously sensible to her inferiority. 
 He may . require to be repressed 
 sometimes —aliquando sufflaminandus 
 erat — but there is no raising her. 
 You send her soup at dinner, and 
 she begs to be helped— after the gen- 
 tlemen. Mr. requests the ho- 
 nour of taking wine with her ; she 
 hesitates between Port and Madeira, 
 and chooses the former — because he 
 does. She calls the servant Sir; 
 and insists on not troubling him to 
 hold her plate. The housekeeper 
 patronizes her. The children's go- 
 verness takes upon her to correct 
 her, when she has mistaken the piano 
 for a harpsichord. 
 
 Richard Amlet, Esq. in the play, 
 is a notable instance of the disadvan- 
 tages, to which this chimerical no- 
 tion of affinity constituting a claim to 
 acquaintance, may subject the spirit 
 of a gentleman. A little foolish blood 
 is all that is betwixt him and a lady 
 with a great estate. His stars are 
 perpetually crossed by the malig- 
 nant maternity of an old woman, 
 who persists in calling him ^^ her sou 
 Dick." But she has wherewithal in 
 the end to recompense his indignities, 
 and float him again upon the brilli- 
 ant surface, under which it had been 
 her seeming business and pleasure 
 all along to sink him. All men, be- 
 sides, are not of Dick's temperament. 
 I knew an Amlet in real life, who, 
 wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank in- 
 deed. Poor W was of my 
 
 own standing at Christ's, a fine clas- 
 sic, and a youth of promise. If he 
 had a blemish, it was too much pride ; 
 but its quality was inoffensive; it 
 
1823.] 
 
 Poor Relations. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 was not of til at sort which hardens 
 the heart, and serves to keep infe- 
 riors at a distance ; it only sought 
 to ward off derogation from itself. 
 It was the principle of self-respect 
 carried as far as it could go, without 
 infringing upon that respect, which 
 he would have every one else equally 
 mahitain for himself. He would 
 have you to think alike with him on 
 this topic. Many a quarrel have I 
 had with him, when we were rather 
 older boys, and our tallness made us 
 more obnoxious to observation in thfe 
 blue clothes, because I would not 
 thrid the alleys and blind ways of 
 the town with him, to elude notice, 
 when we have been out together on 
 a holiday in the streets of this sneer- 
 ing and prying metropolis. W 
 
 went, sore with these notions, to 
 Oxfortl, where the dignity and sweet- 
 ness of a scholar's life, meeting with 
 the alloy of a humble introduction, 
 wrought in him a passionate devo- 
 tion to the place, with a profound 
 aversion from the society. The ser- 
 vitor's gown (worse than his school 
 array) clung to him with Nes- 
 sian venom. He thought himself 
 ridiculous in a garb, under which 
 Latimer must have walked erect ; 
 and in which Hooker, in his young 
 days, possibly flaunted in a vein of 
 no discommendable vanity. In the 
 depth of college shades, or in his 
 lonely chamber, the poor student 
 slunk from observation. He found 
 shelter among books, which insult 
 not ; and studies, that ask no ques- 
 tions of a youth's finances. He was 
 lord of his library, and seldom cared 
 for looking out beyond his domains. 
 The healing influence of studious 
 pursuits was upon him, to soothe 
 and to abstract. He was almost a 
 healthy man ; when the wayward- 
 ness of his fate broke out against 
 him with a second and worse malig- 
 nity. The father of W had 
 
 hitherto exercised the humble pro- 
 fession of house painter at N •, 
 
 near Oxford. A supposed interest 
 with some of the heads of colleges 
 had now induced him to take up his 
 abode in that city, with the hope of 
 being employed upon some public 
 works which wete talked of. From 
 that moment I read in the counte- 
 nance of the young man, the deter- 
 mination which at length tore him 
 from academical pursuits for ever. 
 
 To a person unacquainted with our 
 Universities, the distance between 
 the gownsmen and the townsmen, as 
 they are called — the trading part of 
 the latter especially — is carried to 
 an excess that would appear harsh 
 and incredible. The temperament 
 
 ofW 's father was diametrically 
 
 the reverse of his own. Old \v 
 
 was a little, busy, cringing trades- 
 man, who, with his son upon his 
 arm, would stand bowhig and scrap- 
 ing, cap in hand, to any thing that 
 wore the semblance of a gown — in- 
 sensible to the winks, and opener 
 remonstrances of the young man, to 
 whose chamber-fellow, or equal in 
 standing perhaps, he was thus obse- 
 quiously and gratuitously ducking. 
 Such a state of things could not last. 
 
 W must change the air of Oxford, 
 
 or be suffocated. He chose the former; 
 and let the sturdy moralist, who 
 strains the point of the filial duties as 
 high as they can bear, censure the 
 dereliction ; he cannot estimate the 
 struggle. 1 stood with W — — , the 
 last afternoon I ever saw him, under 
 the eaves of his paternal dwelling. 
 It was in the fine lane leading from 
 the High-street to the back of***** 
 
 college, where W kept his rooms. 
 
 He seemed thoughtful, and more re- 
 conciled. I ventured to rally him— 
 finding him in a better mood — upon 
 a representation of the Artist Evan- 
 gelist, which the old man, whose 
 affairs were beginning to flourish, 
 had caused to be set up in a splendid 
 sort of frame over his really hand- 
 some shop, either as a token of pros- 
 perity, or badge of gratitude to his 
 
 sahit. W • looked up at the 
 
 Luke, and like Satan, " knew his 
 mounted sign — and fled." A letter 
 on his father's table the next morn- 
 ing announced, that he had accepted 
 a commission in a regiment about 
 to embark for Portugal. He was 
 among the first who perished before 
 the walls of St. Sebastian. 
 
 I do not know how, upon a sub- 
 ject which I began with treating half 
 seriously, I should have fallen upon 
 a recital so eminently painful; but 
 this theme of poor relationship is re- 
 plete with so much matter for tragic 
 as well as comic associations, that it 
 is diflicult to keep the account dis- 
 thict without blending. The earliest 
 impressions which I received on thife 
 matter, are certainly not attended 
 
536 
 
 with any thing painful, or very hu- 
 miliating, in the recalling. At my 
 father's table (no very splendid one) 
 was to be found, every Saturday, the 
 mysterious figure of an aged gentle- 
 man, clothed in neat black, of a sad 
 yet comely appearance. His de- 
 portment was of the essence of gra- 
 vity ; his words few or none ; and I 
 was not to make a noise in his pre- 
 sence. I had little inclination to 
 have done so — for my cue was to ad- 
 mire in silence. A particular elbow 
 chair was appropriated to him, which 
 was in no case to be violated. A pe- 
 culiar sort of sweet pudding, which 
 appeared on no other occasion, dis- 
 tinguished the days of his coming. I 
 used to think him a prodigiously rich 
 man. All I could make out of him 
 was, that he and my father had been 
 schoolfellows a world ago at Lincoln, 
 and that he came from the Mint. 
 The Mint I knew to be a place where 
 all the money was coined — and I 
 thought he was the owner of all that 
 money. Awful ideas of the Tower 
 twined themselves about his pre- 
 sence. He seemed above human in- 
 firmities and passions. A sort of 
 melancholy grandeur invested him. 
 From some inexplicable doom I fan- 
 cied him obliged to go about in an 
 eternal suit of mourning. A captive 
 — a stately being, let out of the 
 Tower on Saturdays. Often have I 
 wondered at the temerity of my fa- 
 ther, who, in spite of an habitual ge- 
 neral respect, which we all in com- 
 mon manifested towards him, would 
 venture now and then to stand up 
 against him in some argument, touch- 
 ing their youthful days. The houses 
 of the ancient city of Lincoln are 
 divided (as most of my readers know) 
 between the dwellers on the hill, and 
 in the valley. This marked distinc- 
 tion formed an obvious division be- 
 tween the boys who lived above 
 (however brought together in a com- 
 mon school), and the boys w^hose pa- 
 ternal residence was on the plain; a 
 sufficient cause of hostility in the 
 code of these young Grotiuses. My 
 father had been a leading Moun- 
 taineer ; and would still maintain 
 the general superiority, in skill and 
 hardihood, of the Above Boys (his 
 own faction), over the Below Boys (so 
 were they called), of which party his 
 contemporary had been a chieftain. 
 
 Toor Relations, C^ay, 
 
 Many and hot were the skirmishes 
 on this topic — the only one upon 
 which the old gentleman was ever 
 brought out — and bad blood bred; 
 even sometimes almost to the recom- 
 mencement (so I expected) of actual 
 hostilities. But my father, who 
 scorned to insist upon advantages, 
 generally contrived to turn the con- 
 versation upon some adroit by-com- 
 mendation of the old Minster ; in the 
 general preference of which, before 
 all other cathedrals in the island, the 
 dweller on the hill, and the plain- 
 born, could meet on a conciliating 
 level, and lay down their less impor- 
 tant differences. Once only I saw 
 the old gentleman really ruffled, and 
 I remember with anguish the thought 
 that came over me : " Perhaps he 
 will never come here again." He 
 had been pressed to take another 
 plate of the viand, which I have al- 
 ready mentioned as the indispensa- 
 ble concomitant of his visits. He 
 had refused, with a resistance a- 
 mounting to rigour — when my aunt, 
 an old Lincolnian, but who had some- 
 thing of this, in common with my cou- 
 sin Bridget, that she would sometimes 
 press civility out of season — uttered 
 the following memorable application 
 — " Do take another slice, Mr. Billet, 
 for you do not get pudding every 
 day." The old gentleman said no- 
 thing at the time — but he took occa- 
 sion in the course of the evening, 
 when some argument had intervened 
 between them, to utter with an em- 
 phasis which chilled the company, 
 and which chills me now as I write 
 it — " Woman, you are superannuat- 
 ed." John Billet did not survive 
 long, after the digesting of this 
 affront ; but he survived long enough 
 to assure me that peace was actually 
 restored ; and, if I remember aright, 
 another pudding was discreetly sub- 
 stituted in the place of that which 
 had occasioned the offence. He died 
 at the Mint (Anno 1781) where he 
 had long held, what he accounted, a 
 comfortable independence ; and with 
 five pounds, fourteen shillings, and a 
 penny, which were found in his es- 
 crutoire after his decease, left the 
 world, blessing God that he had 
 enough to bury him, and that he had 
 never been obliged to any man for 
 a sixpence. This was —a Poor Rela- 
 tion. Elia^ 
 
1«23.] 
 
 The Child Angel ;— a Dream, 
 
 6Tt 
 
 THE CHILD ANGEL:— A DREAM. 
 
 I CHANCED Upon the prettiest, odd- 
 est, fantastical, thing of a dream the 
 other night, that you shall hear of. 
 I had been reading the " Loves of 
 the Angels," and went to bed with 
 my head full of speculations, sug- 
 gested by that extraordinary legend. 
 It had given birth to innumerable 
 conjectures ; and, I remember, the 
 last waking thought, which I gave 
 expression to on my pillow, was a 
 sort of wonder, '^ what could come 
 of it." 
 
 I was suddenly transported, how or 
 whither I could scarcely make out — 
 but to some celestial region. It was 
 not the real heavens neither — not the 
 downright Bible heaven — but a kind 
 of fairy-land heaven, about which 
 a poor human fancy may have leave 
 to sport and air itself, I will hope, 
 without presumption. 
 
 Methought — what wild things 
 dreams are ! — I was present — at 
 what would you imagine?— at an 
 angel's gossiping. 
 
 Whence it came, or how it came, 
 or who bid it come, or whether it 
 came purely of its own head, neither 
 you nor I know — but there lay, sure 
 enough, wrapt in its little cloudy 
 swaddling bands — a Child Angel. 
 
 Sun-threads — filmy beams — ran 
 through the celestial napery of what 
 seemed its princely cradle. All the 
 winged orders hovered round, watch- 
 ing when the new-born should open 
 its yet closed eyes : which, when it 
 did, first one, and then the other — 
 with a solicitude and apprehension, 
 yet not such as, stained with fear, 
 dims the expandhig eye-lids of mortal 
 infants — but as if to explore its path 
 in those its unhereditary palaces — 
 what an inextinguishable titter that 
 time spared not celestial visages ! 
 Nor wanted there to my seeming — O 
 the inexplicable simpleness of dreams! 
 — bowls of that cheering nectar, 
 
 — which mortals caudle call below — 
 
 Nor were wanting faces of female 
 ministrants, — stricken in years, as it 
 might seem — so dextrous were those 
 heavenly attendants to counterfeit 
 kindly similitudes of earth, to greet 
 with terrestrial child-rites the young 
 Present, which earth had made to 
 heaven. 
 
 Then were celestial harpings heart 
 not in full symphony as those 
 which the spheres are tutored ; but 
 as lovidest instruments on earth spej 
 oftentimes, muflfled ; so to accommo*! 
 date their sound the better to the 
 weak ears of the imperfect-born. 
 And, with the noise of those sub- 
 dued soundings, the Angelet sprang 
 forth, flutterhig its rudiments of pi- 
 nions — but forthwith flagged and was 
 recovered into the arms of those full- 
 winged angels. And a wonder it 
 was to see how, as years went round 
 in heaven — a year in dreams is as a 
 day — continually its white shoulders 
 put forth buds of wings, but, want- 
 ing the perfect angelic nutriment, 
 anon was shorn of its aspiring, and 
 fell fluttering— still caught by angel 
 hands — for ever to put forth shoots, 
 and to fall fluttering, because its 
 birth was not of the unmixed vigour 
 of heaven. 
 
 And a name was given to the Babe 
 Angel, and it was to be called 
 Ge-Urania^ because its production 
 was of earth and heaven. 
 
 And it could not taste of death, by 
 reason of its adoption into immortal 
 palaces ; but it was to know weak- 
 ness, and reliance, and the shadow 
 of human imbecility; and it went 
 with a lame gait ; but in its goings 
 it exceeded all mortal children in 
 grace and swiftness. Then pity first 
 sprang up in angelic bosoms ; and 
 yearnings (like the human) touched 
 them at the sight of the immortal 
 lame one. 
 
 And with pain did then first those 
 Intuitive Essences, with pain and 
 strife to their natures (not grief ), put 
 back their bright hitelligences, and 
 reduce their etherial minds, school- 
 ing them to degrees and slower pro- 
 cesses, so to adapt their lessons to 
 the gradual illumination (as must 
 needs be) of the half-earth-born ; and 
 what intuitive notices they could not 
 repel (by reason that their nature is 
 to know all things at once), the half- 
 heavenly novice, by the better part 
 of its nature, aspired to receive into 
 its understanding ; so that Humility 
 and Aspiration went on even-paced 
 in the instruction of the glorious Am- 
 phibium. 
 
 But, by reason that Mature Hu- 
 
678 
 
 yaiiiUMmill 
 
 The Fairy Miller of Croga. 
 
 maiiity is too gross to breathe the air 
 of that super- subtile region^, its portion 
 was, and is, to be a child for ever. 
 
 And because the human part of it 
 might not press into the heart and 
 inwards of the palace of its adoption, 
 those fuU-natured angels tended it 
 by turns in the purlieus of the pa- 
 lace, where were shady groves and 
 rivulets, like this green earth from 
 which it came : so Love, with Volun- 
 tary Humility, waited upon the en- 
 tertainment of the new-adopted. 
 
 And myriads of years rolled round 
 (in dreams Time is nothing), and 
 still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual 
 childhood, and is the Tutelar Genius 
 of Childhood upon earthy and still 
 goes lame and lovely. 
 
 By the banks of the river Pison is 
 seen, lone-sitting by the grave of the 
 terrestrial Mirzah, whom the angel 
 Nadir loved, a Child; but not the 
 same which I saw in heaven. A 
 pensive hue overcasts its lineaments; 
 
 [[June, 
 
 nevertheless, a correspondency is be- 
 tween the child by the grave, and 
 that celestial orphan, whom I saw 
 above; and the dimness of the grief 
 upon the heavenly, is as a shadow 
 or emblem of that which stains the 
 beauty of the terrestrial. And this 
 correspondency is not to be unde^"- 
 stood but by dreams. 
 
 And in the archives of heaven I 
 had grace to read, how that once the 
 angel Nadir, being exiled from his 
 place for mortal passion, upspringing 
 on the wings of parental love (such 
 power had parental love for a mo- 
 ment to suspend the else irrevocable 
 law) appeared for a brief instant in 
 his station ; and, depositing a won- 
 drous Birth, straightway disappeared, 
 and the palaces knew him no more. 
 And this charge was the self-same 
 Babe, who goeth lame and lovely — 
 but Mirzah sleepeth by the river 
 Pison, Elia. 
 
248 
 
 Nugeo Criticco. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 NUGiE CRITICiE : 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF ELIA. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 DEFENCE OP THE SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. 
 
 Sydney's Sonnets — I speak of the 
 best of them — are among the very- 
 best of their sort. They fall below 
 the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, 
 and high yet modest spirit of self- 
 approval, of Milton, in his compo- 
 sitions of a similar structure. They 
 are in truth what Milton, censuring 
 the Arcadia, says of that work (to 
 which they are a sort of after-tune or 
 application), *^ vain and amatorious " 
 enough, yet the things in their kind 
 (as he confesses to be true of the ro- 
 mance) may be " full of worth and 
 wit." They savour of the Courtier, 
 it must be allowed, and not of the 
 Commmonwealthsman. But Milton 
 was a Courtier when he wrote the 
 Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still 
 more a Courtier when he composed 
 the Arcades. When the national 
 struggle was to begin, he becomingly 
 cast these vanities behind him ; and 
 if the order of time had thrown Sir 
 Philip upon the crisis which preceded 
 the Revolution, there is no reason 
 why he should not have acted the 
 same part in that emergency, which 
 has glorified the name of a later 
 Sydney. He did not want for plain- 
 ness or boldness of spirit. His letter 
 on the French match may testify, he 
 could speak his mind freely to 
 Princes. The times did not call him 
 to the scaffold. 
 
 The Sonnets which we oftenest 
 call to m.ind of Milton were the com- 
 positions of his maturest years. 
 Those of Sydney, which I am about 
 to produce, were written in the very 
 hey-day of his blood. They are 
 stuck full of amorous fancies — far- 
 fetched conceits, befitting his occupa- 
 tion ; for True Love thinks no labour 
 to send out Thoughts upon vast, and 
 more than Indian voyages, to bring 
 home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, 
 gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice in 
 self-depreciating similitudes, as sha- 
 dows of true amiabilities in the Be- 
 loved. We must be Lovers — or at 
 least the cooling touch of time, the 
 circum prwcordia frigus, must not 
 have so damped our faculties, as to 
 take away our recollection that we 
 
 were once so — before we can duly 
 appreciate the glorious vanities, and 
 graceful hyperboles, of the passion. 
 The images which lie before our 
 feet (though by some accounted the 
 only natural) are least natural for 
 the high Sydnean love to express its 
 fancies by. They may serve for the 
 loves of Catullus or the dear Author 
 of the Schoolmistress ; for passions 
 that creep and whine in Elegies and 
 Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton 
 never loved at this rate. I am afraid 
 some of his addresses {ad Leonoram 
 I mean) have rather erred on the 
 farther side ; and that the poet came 
 not much short of a religious inde- 
 corum, when he could thus apos- 
 trophise a singing-girl : 
 Angelus unicuique suus {sic credite gentes) 
 
 Ohttg'it oetheriis ales ah ordinibus. 
 Quid mirum, Leonora^ tibi si gloria ma' 
 
 Nam tua proesentem vox sonat ipsa 
 Deum ? 
 Aut Deus, aut vacui cert^ mens tertia cceli 
 
 Per tua secretb guttura serpit agens ; 
 Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia 
 corda 
 Sensim immx}rtali assuesscere posse sono. 
 Quod si cuncta quidem Deus est, 
 per cunctaque fusus, 
 In te una LoauiTUR, c-stera mu- 
 
 TUS HABET. 
 
 This is loving in a strange fashion ; 
 and it requires some candour of con- 
 struction (besides the slight dark- 
 ening of a dead language) to cast a 
 veil over the ugly appearance of 
 something very like blasphemy in 
 the last two verses. I think the 
 Lover would have been staggered, if 
 he had gone about to express the 
 same thought in English. I am sure, 
 Sydney has no flights like this. His 
 extravaganzas do not strike at the 
 sky, though he takes leave to adopt 
 the pale Dian into a fellowship with 
 his mortal passions. 
 I. 
 With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st 
 
 the skies ; 
 How silently ; and with how wan a face ! 
 What ! may it be, that even in heavenly 
 
 place 
 That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries ? 
 
l82Sr\ 
 
 Defence of the Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney » 
 
 249 
 
 Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 
 Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's 
 
 case ; 
 I read it in thy looks ; thy languisht grace 
 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 
 Then, even of fellowship, O ]>Ioon, tell me. 
 Is constant love deem'd there but want of 
 
 wit? 
 Are beauties there as proud of, here they be ? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth 
 
 Do they call virtue there — ungrateftdness? 
 The last line of this poem is a little 
 
 obscured by transposition. He means. 
 
 Do they call ung-ratefulness there a 
 
 virtue .'' 
 
 II. 
 
 CJome, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of 
 peace. 
 
 The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, 
 
 The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's re- 
 lease. 
 
 The indifferent judge between the high and 
 low; 
 
 With shield of proof shield me from out 
 the prease • 
 
 Of those fierce darts despair at me doth 
 tlirow ; 
 
 make in me those civil wars to cease : 
 
 1 will good tribute pay, if thou do so. 
 Take chou of me sweet pillows, sweetest 
 
 bed; 
 A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light ; 
 A rosy garland, and a weary head. 
 And if these things, as being thine by right, 
 Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me. 
 Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image 
 
 The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness 
 Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes — 
 Whence those same fumes of melancholy 
 
 rise. 
 With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. 
 Some, that know how my spring I did ad- 
 dress. 
 Deem that my Muse some fruit of know- 
 
 ledge plies ; 
 Others, because the Prince my service tries. 
 Think, that I think state-errors to redress : 
 But harder judges judge, ambition's rage. 
 Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery 
 
 place, 
 Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden 
 
 cage. 
 O fools, or over-wise ! alas, the race 
 Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor 
 
 start. 
 But only Stella's eyes, and Stella's 
 
 heart. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Because I oft in dark abstracted guise 
 Seem most alone in greatest company, 
 With dearth of words, or answers quite 
 awry. 
 
 To them that would make speech cf speech 
 arise; 
 
 They deem, and of their doom the rumour 
 flies. 
 
 That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth 
 lie 
 
 So in my swelling breast, that only I 
 
 Fawn on myself, and others do despise : 
 
 Yet Pride^ I think, doth not my Soul pos- 
 sess. 
 
 Which looks too oft in his unflattering 
 glass : 
 
 But one worse fault — Ambition — I confess, 
 
 That makes me oft my best friends over- 
 pass, 
 
 Unseen, unheard — while Thought to high- 
 est place 
 
 Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's 
 grace. 
 
 V. 
 
 Having this day my horse, my hand, my 
 
 lance 
 Guided so well, that I obtained the prize. 
 Both by the judgment of the English eyes, 
 And of some sent from that sweet enemy., 
 
 — France ; 
 Horsemen my skill in horsemanship ad- 
 vance ; 
 Townfolks my strength; a daintier judge 
 
 applies 
 His praise to sleight, which from good use 
 
 doth rise ; 
 Some lucky wits impute it but to chance ; 
 Others, because of both sides I do take 
 31y blood from them, who did excel in this. 
 Think Nature me a man of arms did make. 
 How far they shot awry ! the true cause is, 
 Stella look'd on, and from her heav'nly 
 
 face 
 Sent forth the beams which made so fair 
 
 my race. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In martial sports I had my cunning tried. 
 
 And yet to break more staves did me ad- 
 dress, 
 
 "While with the people's shouts (I must 
 confess) 
 
 Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my 
 veins with pride — 
 
 'Vl'^hen Cupid, having me ^his slave) de- 
 scried 
 
 In Mars's livery, prancing in the press, 
 
 '•'■ What now. Sir Fool ! " said he ; "I 
 would no less : 
 
 Look here, I say." I look'd, and Stella 
 spied. 
 
 Who, hard by, made a window send forth 
 light. 
 
 My heart then quak'd, then dazzled were 
 mine eyes ; 
 
 One hand forgat to mle, th'other te fight ; 
 
 Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor friendly 
 cries. 
 
 My foe came on, and beat the air for me, — 
 
 Till that her blush made me my shame to 
 see. 
 
 •Press. 
 
S50 
 
 NugcD CrUkW' 
 
 CSept. 
 
 *# 
 
 No more, my dear, no more these counsels 
 
 try; 
 O give my passions leave to run their race ; 
 Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace ; 
 Let folk, o'er-charged with brain, against 
 
 me cry. 
 Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine 
 
 eye; 
 Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace ; 
 Let all the earth with scorn recount my 
 
 But do not will me from my love to fly. 
 I do not envy Aristotle's wit. 
 Nor do aspire to Cccsar's bleeding fame ; 
 Nor aught do care, though some above me 
 
 sit; 
 Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame. 
 But that which once may win thy cruel 
 
 heart, 
 Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Love still a boy, and oft a wanton, is, 
 School'd only by his mother's tender eye ; 
 What wonder then, if he his lesson miss. 
 When for so soft a rod dear play he try ? 
 And yet my Star, because a sugar 'd kiss 
 In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie. 
 Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only 
 
 this. 
 Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I. 
 But no 'scuse serves ; she makes her wrath 
 
 appear 
 In beauty's throne— see now, who dares 
 
 come near 
 Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody 
 
 pain? 
 
 heav'nly Fool, thy most-kiss-worthy face 
 Anger invents with such a lovely grace. 
 That anger's self I needs must kiss again. 
 
 IX. 
 
 1 never drank of Aganippe well. 
 Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, 
 
 And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to 
 
 dwell ; 
 Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit. 
 Some do I hear of Poets' fury tell, 
 But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it; 
 And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, 
 I am no pick-purse of another's wit. 
 How falls it then, that with so smooth an 
 
 ease 
 My thoughts I speak, and what I speak 
 
 doth flow 
 In verse, and that my verse best wits doth 
 
 please ? 
 Guess we the cause — what is it thus ? — 
 
 fye, no. 
 Or so ?— much less. How then ? sure thus 
 
 it is. 
 My lips are sweet, inspired with Stella's 
 
 kiss. 
 
 X. 
 
 Of all the kings that ever here did reign, 
 Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I 
 
 name. 
 Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined 
 
 brain — 
 
 Although less gifts imp feathers oft on 
 
 Fame, 
 Nor that he could, young- wise, wise-valiant, 
 
 frame 
 His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's 
 
 gam; 
 And, gain'd by Mars, could yet mad Mars 
 
 so tame. 
 That Balance weigh'd what Sword did late 
 
 obtain. 
 Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so 
 
 'fraid. 
 Though strongly hedged of bloody Lion's 
 
 paws, 
 That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid. 
 Nor this, nor that, nor any such small 
 
 cause — 
 But only, for this worthy knight durst 
 
 prove 
 To lose his crown rather than fail his 
 
 love. 
 
 happy Thames, that didst my Stella 
 
 bear, 
 
 1 saw thyself, with many a smiling line 
 Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear. 
 While those fair planets on thy streams did 
 
 shine ; 
 The boat for joy could not to dance forbear; 
 While wanton winds, with beauty so divine 
 Ravish 'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair 
 They did themselves (O sweetest prison) 
 
 twine. 
 And fain those ^ol's youth there woukl 
 
 their stay 
 Have made ; but, forced by nature still to 
 
 First did with puffing kiss those locks dis- 
 play. 
 
 She, so disshevel'd, blush'd; from window I 
 
 With sight thereof cried out, O fair dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Let honour's self to thee grant highest 
 place ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Highway, since you my chief Parnassus 
 
 be; 
 And that my Muse, to some ears not un- 
 
 sweet. 
 Tempers her words to trampling horses* 
 
 feet. 
 More soft than to a chamber melody, — 
 Now, blessed You, bear onward blessed Me 
 To Her, where I my heart safe left shall 
 
 meet. 
 My Muse and I must you of duty greet 
 With thanks and wishes, wishing thank- 
 fully. 
 Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed. 
 By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time 
 
 forgot ; 
 Nor blamed for blood, nor shamed for sin- 
 ful deed. 
 And that you know, I envy you no lot 
 Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss, 
 Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may 
 
i 8^.]] Defence of the Sonnets of' Sir Philip Sydney. 
 
 251 
 
 Of the foregoing, the 1 st, the 2d;, 
 and the last sonnet, are my favourites. 
 But the general beauty of them all is, 
 that they are so perfectly characteris- 
 tical. The spirit of " learning and 
 of chivalry," — of which union, Spen- 
 ser has entitled Sydney to have been 
 the '' president," — shines through 
 them. 1 confess I can see no- 
 thing of the "jejune" or "frigid" 
 in them ; much less of the " stiff" 
 and " cumbrous" — which I have 
 sometimes heard objected to the Ar- 
 cadia. The verse runs off swiftly and 
 gallantly- It might have been tuned 
 to the trumpet ; or tempered (as him- 
 self expresses it) to '' trampling 
 horses' feet." They abound in feli- 
 citous phrases — 
 
 Oheav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy 
 face — 8M Sonnet. 
 
 Sweet pillows, sweetest bed, 
 
 A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to 
 
 light, 
 A rosy garland, and a weary head. 
 
 2d Sonnet. 
 
 That sweet enemy — France — 
 
 bth Sonnet. 
 
 But they are not rich in words 
 only, in vague and unlocalised feel- 
 ings — the faiUng too much of some 
 poetry of the present day — they are 
 full, material, and circumstantiated. 
 Time and place appropriates every 
 QjjC of them. It is not a feVer of 
 
 ssion wasting itself upon a thin 
 " t of dainty words,* but a trans- 
 
 ndent passion perv^ading and illu- 
 
 nating action, pursuits, studies. 
 
 feats of arms, the opinions of con- 
 temporaries and his judgment of 
 them. An historical thread runs 
 through them, which almost affixes 
 a date to them ; marks the when and 
 where they were written. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer upon what 
 I conceive the merit of these poems, 
 because I have been hurt by the wan- 
 tonness (I wish I could treat it by a 
 gentler name) with which a favourite 
 critic of our day takes every occasion 
 of insulting the memory of Sir Philip 
 Sydney. But the decisions of the 
 Author of Table Talk, &c. (most 
 profound and subtle where they are, 
 as for the most part, just) are more 
 safely to be relied upon, on subjects 
 and authors he has a partiality for, 
 than on such as he has conceived an 
 accidental prejudice against. Milton 
 wrote Sonnets, and was a king-hater; 
 and it was congenial perhaps to sa- 
 crifice a courtier to a patriot. But I 
 was unwilling to lose dijine idea from 
 my mind. The noble images, pas- 
 sions, sentiments, and poetical deli- 
 cacies of character, scattered all over 
 the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness 
 and encumberment), justify to me the 
 character which his contemporaries 
 have left us of the writer. I cannot 
 think with Mr. Hazlitt that Sir Phi- 
 lip Sydney was that opprobrious thing; 
 which a foolish nobleman in his inso- 
 lent hostility chose to term him. I 
 call to mind the epitaph of Lord 
 Brooke, to guide me to juster 
 thoughts of him ; and I repose upon 
 the beautiful lines in the " Friend's 
 
 » A profusion of verbal dainties, with a disproportionate lack of matter and circum- 
 stance, is I think one reason of the coldness with which the public has received the 
 poetry of a nobleman now living ; which, upon the score of exquisite diction alone, is en- 
 titled to something better than neglect. I will venture to copy one of his Sonnets in this 
 place, which for quiet sweetness, and unaffected morality, has scarcely its parallel in our 
 language. 
 
 TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF LACKEN IN THE WINTER. 
 
 J5y Lotd Thurlow. 
 
 O melancholy Bird, a winter's day. 
 
 Thou standest by the margin of the pool. 
 
 And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school 
 
 To Patience, which all evil can allay. 
 
 God has appointed thee the Fish thy prey ; 
 
 And given thyself a lesson to the Fool 
 
 Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule. 
 
 And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. 
 
 There need not schools, nor the Professor's chair, 
 
 Though these be good, true wisdom to impart. 
 
 He who has not enough, for these, to spare 
 
 Of time, or gold, may yet amend his heart. 
 
 And teach his soul, by brooks, and rivers fair : 
 
 Nature is always wise in every part. 
 
252 
 
 Passion for his Astrophel/* printed 
 with the Elegies of Spenser and 
 others. 
 
 You knew — who knew not Astrophel ? 
 (That I should live to say I knew, 
 And have not iu possession still !) — 
 Things known permit me to renew — 
 Of him you know his merit such, 
 I cannot say — you hear — too much. 
 
 Within these woods of Arcady 
 
 He chief delight and pleasure took ; 
 
 And on the mountain Partheny, 
 
 Upon the chrystal liquid brook, 
 The Muses met him every day, 
 That taught him sing, to write, and say. 
 
 "WHien he descended down the mount, 
 
 His personage seemed most divine ; 
 
 A thousand graces one might count 
 
 Upon his lovely chearful eyne. 
 
 To hear him speak, and sweetly smile, 
 You were in Paradise the while. 
 
 A sweet attractive kind of grace ; 
 A full assurance given by looks ; 
 Continual comfort In a face^ 
 The lineaments of Gospel books — 
 
 Nugce Criticw ; — Sir Philij) Sydney. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 I trow that countenance cannot lye, 
 Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. 
 
 * * * • 
 
 Above all others this is he. 
 Which erst approved in his song, 
 That love and honour might agree, 
 And that pure love will do no wrong. 
 Sweet saints, it is no sin, or blame 
 To love a man of virtuous name. 
 Did never Love so sweetly breathe 
 In any mortal breast before : 
 Did never Muse inspire beneath 
 A Poet's brain with finer store : 
 He wrote of Love with high conceit. 
 And Beauty rear'd above her height. 
 Or let any one read the deeper sor- 
 rows (grief running into rage) in the 
 Poem, — the last in the collection ac- 
 companying the above, — which from 
 internal testimony I believe to be 
 Lord Brooke's,— beginning with "Si- 
 lence augmenteth grief," — and then 
 seriously ask himself, whether the 
 subject of such absorbing and con- 
 founding regrets could have been that 
 thing which Lord Oxford termed 
 him. L. 
 
 ns oT 
 
IB23.2 
 
 The Old Margate Hoy, 
 
 n 
 
 THE OLD MARGATE HOY. 
 
 I AM fond of passing my vacations 
 (I believe 1 have said so before) at 
 one or other of the Universities. 
 Next to these my choice would fix 
 me at some woody spot, such as the 
 neighbourhood of Henley affords in 
 abundance, upon the banks of ray 
 beloved Thames. But somehow or 
 other my cousin contrives to wheedle 
 me once in three or four seasons to a 
 watering place. Old attachments 
 cling to her in spite of experience. 
 We have been dull at Worthing one 
 summer, duller at Brighton another, 
 dullest at Eastbourn a third, and are 
 at this moment doing dreary penance 
 at — Hastings ! — and all because we 
 were happy many years ago for a 
 brief week at — Margate. That was 
 our first sea-side experiment, and 
 many circumstances combined to 
 make it the most agreeable holyday 
 of ray life. We had neither of us 
 seen the se.a> and we had never been 
 from home so Igog to^etiier in com- 
 pany. 
 
 Can I forget thee, thou old Mar- 
 gate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten, 
 5un-burnt captain, and his rough ac- 
 commodations — ill exchanged for the 
 foppery and fresh-water niceness of 
 the modern steam packet.'* To the 
 winds and waves tho.i^ comraittedsjt 
 ihy .goodly freightage, and didst ask 
 no aid ©f magic fumes, and spells, 
 and boiling cauldrons. With the 
 ^ales of heaven tho.u wentest 5wim- 
 jningly ; or, when it was their plea- 
 sure, stoode&t still with sailor-like 
 >patience. Thy course was natural, 
 jiot forced, as in a hot-bed; nor 
 jdidst thou go poisoning the breath of 
 .ocean with sulphureous smoke — a 
 great sea-cihimsera, chimneying and 
 furnacing the 4eep ; or liker to that 
 .sea-god parching up Scamander, 
 
 Can I forget thy honest, yet 
 slender crew, with their coy re- 
 luctant responses (yet tp the sup- 
 pression of any thing Jike contempt) 
 to the raw questions, which we of 
 the great city would be ever and 
 anon putting to them, as to the uses 
 of this or that strange naval imple». 
 ment. 'Specially can I forget thee, 
 thou happy medium, thou shade of 
 refuge between us and them, con- 
 ciliathig interpreter of their skill to 
 &\iY simplicity, comfoitcible ambassa^ 
 July, 1823. 
 
 dor between sea and land ! — whose 
 sailor-trowsers did not more con-p 
 vincingly assure thee to be an adopt-* 
 ed denizen of the former, than thy 
 white cap, and whiter apron over 
 them, with thy neat-fingered prac- 
 tice in thy culinary vocation, be- 
 spoke thee to have been of inland 
 imrture heretofore — 3. master cook of 
 Eastcheap? How busily didst thou 
 ply thy multifarious occupation, 
 cook, mariner, attendant, chamber-. 
 Jain ; here, there, like another Ariel, 
 flaming at once about all parts of the 
 deck, yet with kindlier ministrations 
 — not to assist the tempest, but, as if 
 touched with a kindred sense of our 
 infirmities, to soothe the qualms 
 which that untried motion might 
 haply raise in our erude land-fancies. 
 And when the o'er- washing billows 
 drove us below deck (for it was far 
 gone in October, and we had stifiT 
 and blowing weather) how did thy 
 officious ministerings, still catering 
 for our comfort, with cards, and 
 cordials, and thy more cordial con- 
 versation, alleviate the closeness and 
 the confinement of thy else (truth to 
 say) not very savoury, nor very in-^ 
 yiting, little cabin ! 
 
 With these additaments to boot, 
 we had on board a fellow»passenger, 
 whose discourse in verity raight 
 have beguiled a longer voyage than 
 we meditated, and have made mirth 
 and wonder labound as far as from 
 Thames to the Azores. He was a 
 dark, Spanish- complexioned young 
 man, remarkably handsome, wjth an 
 officerrrlilte assurance, and an insup- 
 pressible volubility of assertion.. He 
 wa&, in fact, the greatest liar J had 
 met with then, or since. He was 
 none of your hesitating h^f story- 
 tellers (a most painful description of 
 mortals) who go on sounding your 
 belief, and only giving you as much 
 as they see vou can swallow at a 
 time— the nibbling pickpockets of 
 your patience- — but one who com-- 
 mitted downright, day-light depre** 
 dations upon his neighbour's faith. 
 He djd not stand shivering upon the 
 brink, but was a hearty thorough- 
 paced liar, and plunged at once into 
 the depths of your credulity. I 
 partly believe, he made pretty sun? 
 of his company. Not many ficJi^ 
 C 
 
^3 
 
 Ttie Old Margate Hoy. 
 
 tJuir, 
 
 not many wise, or learned^ composed 
 at that time the common stowage of 
 a Margate packet. We were, 1 am 
 afraid, a set of as unfledged Lon- 
 doners (let our enemies give it a 
 worse name) as Thames or Tooley- 
 street at that time of day could have 
 supplied. There might be ati ex- 
 ception or two among us, but I 
 Scorn to make any invidious distinc- 
 .tions among such a jolly, companion- 
 able ship's company, as those were 
 whom 1 sailed with. Something too 
 must be conceded to the Genius Loci. 
 Had the confident fellow told us half 
 the legends on land, which he fa- 
 voured us with on the other element, 
 .1 flatter myself, the good sense of 
 most of us would have revolted. 
 But we were in a new world, with 
 every thing unfamiliar about us, and 
 the time and place disposed us to the 
 reception of any prodigious marvel 
 whatsoever. Time has obliterated 
 from my memory much of his wild 
 fablings ; and the rest would appear 
 but dull, as written, and to be read 
 on shore. He had been Aid-de- 
 camp (among other rare accidents 
 and fortunes) to a Persian prince, 
 and at one blow had stricken off the 
 head of the King of Carimania on 
 liorseback. He, of course, married 
 the Prince's daughter. I forget what 
 unlucky turn in the politics of that 
 court, combining with the loss of 
 his consort, was the reason of 
 his quitting Persia ; but with the 
 rapidity of a magician he trans- 
 ported himself, along with his hear- 
 ers, back to England, where we still 
 found him in the confidence of great 
 ladies. There was some story of a 
 'Princess — Elizabeth, if I remember, 
 ■ — having entrusted to his care an ex- 
 traordinary casket of jewels, upon 
 some extraordinary occasion — but as 
 ,5 am not certain of the name or cir- 
 ;'6Umstance at this distance of time, I 
 must leave it to the Royal daugh- 
 ters of England to settle the ho- 
 nour among themselves in private. 
 I cannot call to mind half his plea- 
 sant wonders; but I perfectly re- 
 member, that in the course of. his 
 travels he had seen a phoenix ; and 
 lie obligingly undeceived us of the 
 vulgar error, that there is but one of 
 •jhat species at a time, assuring us 
 that they were not uncommon in 
 ^ome parts of Upper Egypt. Hither- 
 to he had found the most implicit 
 
 listeners. His dreaming fancies had 
 transported us beyond the '^ ignorant 
 present." But when (still hardying 
 more and more in his triumphs over 
 our simplicity), 'he went on to affirm 
 that he had actually sailed through 
 the legs of the Colossus at Rhodes, 
 it really became necessary to make a 
 stand. And here I must do justice 
 to the good sense and intrepidity of 
 one of our party, a youth, that had 
 hitherto been one of his most defe-^ 
 rential auditors, who, from his re- 
 cent reading, made bold to assure 
 the gentleman, that there must be 
 some mistake, as " the Colossus in 
 question had been destroyed long- 
 since : " to whose opinion, delivered 
 with all modesty, our hero was 
 obliging enough to concede thus 
 much, that **^the figure was indeed 
 a little damaged." This was the 
 only opposition he met with, and it 
 did not at all seem to stagger him, 
 for he proceeded with his fables, which 
 the same youth appeared to swallow 
 with still more complacency than 
 ever, — confirmed, as it were, by the 
 extreme candour of that concession. 
 With these prodigies he wheedled 
 us on till we came in sight of the 
 Reculvers, which one of our own 
 company (having been the voyage 
 before) immediately recognising, and 
 pointing out to us, was considered 
 by us as no ordinary seaman. 
 
 All this time sate upon the edge 
 of the deck quite a different cha- 
 racter. ^ It was a lad, apparently 
 very poor, very infinn, and very 
 patient. His eye was ever on 
 the sea, with a smile; and, if he 
 caught now and then some snatches 
 of these wild legends, it was by ac- 
 cident, and they seemed not to con- 
 cern him. The waves to him whis- 
 pered more pleasant stories. He 
 was as one, being with us, but not 
 of us. He heard the bell of dinner 
 ring withovit stirring; and when 
 some of us pulled out our private 
 stores — our cold meat and our salads 
 — ^he produced none, and seemed to 
 want none. Only a solitary bis- 
 cuit he had laid in; provision for 
 the one or two days and nights, to 
 which these vessels then were often- 
 times obliged to prolong their voyage. 
 Upon a nearer acquaintance with 
 him, which he seemed neither to 
 court nor decline, we learned that 
 he was gohig to Margate, with the 
 
1823.;] 
 
 The Old Margate Boy ' 
 
 S3 
 
 hope of being admitted into the In- 
 firmary there for sea bathing. His 
 disease was a scrofula, which ap- 
 peared to have eaten all over him. 
 He expressed great hopes of a cure ; 
 and when we asked him, whether he 
 had any friends where he was going, 
 he replied, " he had no friends." 
 
 These pleasant, and some mourn- 
 ful passages, with the first sight of 
 the sea, co-operating with youth, and 
 a sense of holydays, and out-of-door 
 adventure, to me that had been pent 
 up in populous cities for many 
 months before, — have left upon my 
 mind the fragrance as of summer days 
 gone by, bequeathing nothing but 
 their remembrance for cold and whi- 
 tery hours to chew upon. 
 
 Will it be thought a digression (it 
 may spare^ some unwelcome com- 
 parisons), if I endeavour to account 
 for the dissatlsjaction which I have 
 heard so many persons confess to have 
 felt (as I did myself feel in part on 
 this occasion), ai the sif^hl of the sea 
 for the first time ? I think the rea- 
 son usually given — referring to the 
 incapacity of actual objects for sa- 
 tisfying our preconceptions of them 
 — scarcely goes deep enough into the 
 question. Let the same person see a 
 lion, an elephant, a mountain, for 
 the first time in his life, and he shall 
 perhaps feel himself a little morti- 
 fied. The things do not fill up that 
 space, which the idea of them seem- 
 ed to take up in his mind. But they 
 have still a correspondency to his 
 first notion, and in time grow up to 
 it, so as to produce a very similar 
 impression ; enlarging themselves (if 
 1 may say so) upon familiarity. But 
 the sea remains a disappointment. — 
 Is it not, that in the latter we had 
 expected to behold (absurdly, I 
 grant, but, I am afraid, by the law 
 of imagination unavoidably) not a 
 definite object^ as those wild beasts, 
 or that mountain compassable by the 
 eye, but all the sea at ofice, the com- 
 mensurate ANTAGONIST OF THE 
 
 EARTH I — I do not say we tell our- 
 selves so much, but the craving of 
 the mind is to be satisfied with no- 
 thing less. I will suppose the case 
 of a young person of fifteen (as I then 
 was) knowing nothing of the sea, but 
 from description. He comes to it for 
 the first time— all that he has been 
 reading of it all his life, and that the 
 jMost enthusiastic part of life,— all he 
 
 has gathered from narratives of wan- 
 dering seaman ; what he has gained 
 from true voyages, and what he che- 
 rishes as credulously from romance 
 and poetry ; crowding their images, 
 and exacting strange tributes from 
 expectation. — He thinks of the great 
 deep, and of those who go down unto 
 it ; of its thousand isles, and the vast 
 continents it washes ; of its receiving 
 the mighty Plata, or Orellana, into 
 its bosom, without disturbance, or 
 sense of augmentation ; of Biscay 
 swells, and the mariner 
 For many a day, arxi many a dreadful night. 
 Incessant labouring round die stormy Cape ; 
 of fatal rocks, and the " still-vexed 
 Bermoothes ; " of great whirlpools, 
 and the water-spout ; of sunken 
 ships, and sumless treasures swal- 
 lowed up in the unrestoring depths ; 
 of fishes, and quaint monsters, to 
 which all that is terrible on earth — 
 Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal. 
 Compared with die creatures in the sea's 
 entral ; 
 
 of naked savages, and Juan Fer- 
 nandez ; of pearls, and shells ; of 
 coral beds, and of enchanted isles; 
 of mermaids' grots. — 
 
 I do not assert that in sober ear- 
 nest he expects to be shown all these 
 wonders at once, but he is under the 
 tyranny of a mighty faculty, which 
 haunts him with confused hints and 
 shaflows of all these ; and when the 
 actual object opens first upon him, 
 seen (in tame weather too most likely) 
 from our unromantic coasts — a speck, 
 a slip of sea-water, as it shews to 
 him — what can it prove but a very 
 unsatisfying and even diminutive en- 
 tertainment ? Or if he has come to 
 it from the mouth of a river, was it 
 much more than the river widening ? 
 and, even out of sight of land, what 
 had he but a flat watery horizon 
 about him, nothing comparable to 
 the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his fa- 
 miliar object, seen daily without 
 dread or amazement ? — Who, in si- 
 milar circumstances, has not been 
 tempted to exclaim with Charoba, in 
 the poem of Gebir, 
 Is this the mighty ocean ? — is this all ? 
 
 1 love town, or country; but this 
 detestable Cin([ue Port is neither. I 
 hate these scrubbed shoots, thrusting 
 out their starved foliage from be- 
 tween the horrid fissures of dusty m- 
 nutritious rocks ; which the amateur 
 C2 
 
The Old Margate Hoy, 
 
 CJuly, 
 
 calls " verdiire to the edge of the 
 sea." I require woods, and they 
 show me stunted coppices. I cry out 
 for the water-brooks, and pant for 
 fresh streams, and inland murmurs. 
 I cannot stand all day on the naked 
 beech watching the capricious hues 
 of the sea, shitting like the colours of 
 a dying mullet. I am tired of look- 
 ing out at the windows of this island- 
 prison. I would fain retire into the 
 interior of my cage. While I gaze 
 upon the sea, I want to be on it, 
 over it, across it. It binds me in 
 with chains, as of iron. My thoughts 
 are abroad. I should not so feel in 
 Staffordshire. There is no home for 
 me here. There is no sense of home 
 at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive 
 resort, an heterogeneous assemblage 
 of sea-mews and stock-brokers, Am- 
 phitrites of the town, and misses 
 that coquet with the Ocean. If it were 
 what it was in its primitive shape, 
 and what it ought to have remained, 
 a fair honest fishing-town, and no 
 mor^, it were something — with a few 
 straggling fishermen's huts scattered 
 about, artless as its cliffs, and with 
 their materials filched from them, it 
 were something. I could abide to 
 dwell with Mescheck ; to assort with 
 fisher-swains, and smugglers. There 
 are, or I dream there are, many of 
 this latter occupation here. Their 
 faces become the place. I like a 
 smuggler. He is the only honest 
 thief. He robs nothing but the reve- 
 nue, — an abstraction I never greatly 
 cared about. 1 could go out with 
 them in their mackarel boats, or 
 about their less ostensible business, 
 with some satisfaction. I can even 
 tolerate those poor victims to mo- 
 notony, who from day to day pace 
 along the beech, in endless progress 
 and recurrence, to watch their illicit 
 countrymen — townsfolk or brethren 
 perchance — whistling to the sheath- 
 ing and unsheathing of their cut* 
 lasses (their only solace), who under 
 the mild name of preventive service, 
 keep up a legitimated civil warfare, 
 in the deplorable absence of a foreign 
 one, to show their detestation of run 
 hoUands, and zeal for old England. 
 But it is the visitants from town, 
 that come here to say they have been 
 here, with no more relish of the sea 
 than a pond perch, or a dace might 
 be supposed to have, that are my 
 aversion. 1 feel like a foolish dace 
 
 in these regions, and have as little 
 toleration for myself here, as for 
 them. What can tliey want here ? 
 if they had a true relish of the ocean, 
 why have they brought all this land 
 luggage with them? or why pitch 
 their civilized tents in the desart ? 
 What mean these scanty book-rooms 
 — marine libraries, as they entitle 
 them — if the sea were, as they would 
 have us believe, a book '^ to read 
 strange matter in?" what are their 
 foolish concert-rooms, if they come, 
 as they would fain be thought to 
 do, to listen to the music of the 
 waves ? All is false and hollow 
 pretension. They come, because it 
 is the fashion, and to spoil the nature 
 of the place. They are mostly, as 
 I have said, stock-brokers; but I 
 have watched the better sort of them 
 — now and then, an honest citizen (of 
 the old stamp), in the simplicity of 
 his heart, shall brhig down his wife 
 and daughters, to taste the sea 
 breezes. I always know the date of 
 their arrival. It is easy to see it in 
 their countenance. A day or two 
 they go wandering on the shingles, 
 picking up cockle-shells, and think- 
 ing them great things; but, in a 
 poor week, imagination slackens ; 
 they begin to discover that cockles 
 produce no pearls, and then — O 
 then ! — if I could interpret for the 
 pretty creatures (I know they have 
 not the courage to confess it them- 
 selves) how gladly would they ex- 
 change their sea-side rambles for a 
 Sunday walk on the green-sward of 
 their accustomed Twickenham mea- 
 dows I 
 
 I woidd ask of one of these sea- 
 channed emigrants, who think they 
 truly love the sea, with its wild 
 usages, what would their feelings be, 
 if some of the unsophisticated abori- 
 gines of this place, encouraged by 
 their courteous questionings here, 
 should venture, on the faith of such 
 assured sympathy between them, to 
 return the visit, and come up to see — 
 London. I must imagine them with 
 their fishing-tackle on their back, as 
 we carry our town necessaries. What 
 a sensation would it cause in Loth- 
 bury? What vehement laughter 
 would it not excite among 
 
 The daughters of Cheapside, and wves of 
 Lombard-street. 
 
 I am sure that no town-bred, or in- 
 
18230 
 
 Sianxai by Hartley Coleridge, 
 
 25 
 
 land-bom subjects, can feel their 
 true and natural nourishment at these 
 sea-places. Nature, where she does 
 not mean us for mariners and vaga- 
 bonds, bids us stay at home. The 
 salt foam seems to nourish a spleen. 
 
 I am not half so good-natured as by 
 the milder waters of my natural 
 river. I would exchange these sea- 
 gulls for swans, and scud a swallow 
 for ever about the banks of Thamesis. 
 
 Eli A. 
 
LETTER OF ELIA TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQUIRE. 
 
 Sir, — You have done me an un- 
 friendly office, without perhaps much 
 considering- what you were doing. 
 You have given an ill name to my 
 poor Lucubrations. In a recent Pa- 
 per on Infidelity, you usher in a con- 
 ditional commendation of them with 
 an exception; which, preceding the 
 encomium, and taking up nearly the 
 same space with it, must impress 
 your readers with the notion, that the 
 objectionable parts in them are at 
 least equal in quantity to the pardon- 
 able. The censure is in fact the criti- 
 cism; the praise — a concession mere- 
 ly. Exceptions usually follow, to 
 qualify praise or blame. But there 
 stands your reproof, in the very front 
 of your notice, in ugly characters, 
 like some bugbear, to frighten all 
 good Christians from purchasing. 
 Through you I am become an object 
 of suspicion to preceptors of youth, 
 and fathers of families. " A book, 
 which luants only a sounder religious 
 feeling to he as delightful as it is origi- 
 nal." With no further explanation, 
 what must your readers conjecture, 
 but that my little volume is some 
 vehicle for heresy or infidelity ? The 
 quotation, which you honour me by 
 subjoining, oddly enough, is of a 
 character, which bespeaks a tem- 
 perament in the writer the very re- 
 verse of thai your reproof goes to in- 
 sinuate. Had you been taxing me 
 with superstition, the passage would 
 have been pertinent to the censure. 
 Was it worth your while to go so 
 far out of your way to affront the 
 feelings of an old friend, and com- 
 mit yourself by an irrelevant quo- 
 tation, for the pleasure of reflecting 
 upon a poor child, an exile at 
 Genoa ? 
 
 I am at a loss what particular 
 
 Essay you had in view (if my poor 
 ramblings amount to that appella- 
 tion) when you were in such a 
 hurry to thrust in your objection, 
 like bad news, foremost. — Perhaps 
 the Paper on " Saying Graces" was 
 the obnoxious feature. I have en- 
 deavoured there to rescue a volun- 
 tary duty— good in place, but never, 
 as I remember, literally command- 
 ed — from the charge of an undecent 
 formality. Rightly taken. Sir, that 
 Paper was not against Graces, but 
 Want of Grace ; not against the ce- 
 remony, but the carelessness and 
 slovenliness so often observed in the 
 performance of it. 
 
 Or was it that on the ^' New Year" 
 — in which I have described the 
 feelings of the merely natural man, 
 on a consideration of the amazing 
 change, which is supposable to take 
 place on our removal from this 
 fleshly scene ? — If men would ho- 
 nestly confess their misgivhigs 
 (which few men will) there are 
 times when the strongest Christians 
 of us, I believe, have reeled under 
 questionings of such staggering ob- 
 scurity. 1 do not accuse you of 
 this weakness. There are some 
 who tremblingly reach out shaking , 
 hands to the guidance of Faith — 
 Others who stoutly venture into the 
 dark (their Human Confidence their 
 leader, whom they mistake for Faith); 
 and, investing themselves before- 
 hand with Cherubic wings, as they 
 fancy, find their new robes as fa- 
 miliar, and fitting to their supposed 
 growth and stature in godliness, as 
 the coat they left off yesterday — 
 Some whose hope totters upon 
 crutches — Others who stalk into fu- 
 turity upon stilts. 
 
 The eontemplation of a Spiritual 
 
1823.;] 
 
 Letter of Elia to Robert Southei/, Esquire. 401 
 
 which, without the addi- edges, the debateable land between 
 
 the holy and the profane regions — 
 of 
 
 World, 
 
 tion of a misgiving conscience, is 
 enough to shake some natures to 
 their foundation — is smoothly got 
 over by others, who shall float over 
 the black billows, in their little boat 
 of No-Distrust, as unconcernedly as 
 over a summer sea. The difference 
 is chiefly constitutional. 
 
 One man shall love his friends 
 and his friends' faces; and, under 
 the uncertainty of conversing with 
 them agahi, in the same manner 
 and familiar circumstances of sight, 
 speech, &c. as upon earth — in a 
 moment of no irreverent weakness 
 — for a dream- while — no more — 
 would be almost content, for a re- 
 ward of a life of virtue (if he could 
 ascribe such acceptance to his lame 
 performances), to take up his por- 
 tion with those he loved, and was 
 made to love, in this good world, 
 which he knows — which was creat- 
 ed so lovely, beyond his deservings. 
 Another, embrachig a more exalted 
 vision — so that he mif^ht receive in- 
 definite additaments of power, know- 
 ledge, beauty, glory, &c. — is ready 
 to forego the recognition of hum- 
 bler individualities of earth, and the 
 old familiar faces. The shapings of 
 our heavens are the modifications of 
 our constitution ; and Mr. Feeble 
 Mind, or Mr. Great Heart, is born 
 in every one of us. 
 
 Some (and such have been ac- 
 coimted the safest divines) have 
 shrunk from pronouncing upon tlie 
 final state of any man ; nor dare 
 they pronoimce the case of Judas 
 to be desperate. Others (with 
 stronger optics), as plainly as with 
 the eye of flesh, shall behold a 
 given king' in bliss, and a g-iven cham- 
 berlain in torment; even to the 
 eternising of a cast of the eye in 
 the latter, his own self-mocked and 
 good humouredly-borne deformity 
 on earth, but supposed to aggravate 
 the uncouth and hideous expression 
 of his pangs in the other place. 
 That one man can presume so far, 
 and that another would with shud- 
 dering disclaim such confidences, is, 
 1 believe, an effect of the nerves 
 purely. 
 
 If in either of -these Papers, or 
 elsewhere, I have been betrayed into 
 some levities — not affronthig the 
 sanctuaiy, but glancing perhaps ai 
 some of the out-skirts and extreme 
 
 (for the admixture ot man s mven- 
 tions, twisting themselves with the 
 name of religion itself, has artful- 
 ly made it difficult to touch even 
 the alloy, without, in some men's 
 estimation, soiling the fine gold) — 
 if I have sported within the pur- 
 lieus of serious matter — it was, I 
 dare say, a humour — be not startled. 
 Sir — which 1 have unwittingly de- 
 rived from yourself. You have all 
 your life been making a jest of the 
 Devil. Not of the scriptural mean- 
 ing of that dark essence — personal 
 or allegorical ; for the nature is no 
 where plainly delivered. I acquit 
 you of intentional irreverence. But 
 indeed you have made wonderfully 
 free with, and been mighty pleasant 
 upon, tlie popular idea and attributes 
 of him. A noble Lord, your brother 
 Visionary, has scarcely taken greater 
 liberties with the material keys, and 
 merely Catholic notion of St. Teter. — 
 You have flattered him in prose : you 
 have chanted him in goodly odes. 
 You have been his Jester; Volunteer 
 Laureat, and self-elected Court Poet 
 to Beelzebub. 
 
 You have never ridiculed, I be- 
 lieve, what you thought to be reli- 
 gion, but you are always girding at 
 what some pious, but perhaps mis- 
 taken folks, think to be so. For this 
 reason I am sorry to hear, that you 
 are engaged upon a life of George Fox. 
 I know you will fall into the error 
 of intermixing some comic stuff" with 
 your seriousness. The Quakers trem- 
 ble at the subject in your hands. The 
 Methodists are shy of you, upon ac- 
 count of their founder. But, above 
 all, our Popish brethren are most in 
 your debt. The errors of that church 
 have proved a fruitful source to your 
 scoffing vein. Their Legend has been 
 a Golden one to you. And here, 
 your friends. Sir, have noticed a note- 
 able inconsistency. To the imposing 
 rites, the solemn penances, devout 
 austerities of that communion ; the 
 aflfecting though erring piety of their 
 hermits ; the silence and solitude of 
 the Chartreux — their crossings, their 
 holy waters — their Virgin, and their 
 saints — to these, they say, you have 
 been indebted for the best feelings, 
 and the richest imagery, of your lilpic 
 poetry. You have drawn copious 
 drafts upon Loittto. M'c thought 
 
■4tfe 
 
 Letter of Elia io Robert Southey, Esquire. 
 
 COct, 
 
 at one time you were gomg post to 
 Rome — but that in the facetious com- 
 mentaries, which it is your custom 
 to append so plentifully, and (some 
 say) injudiciously, to your loftiest 
 performances in this kind, you spurn 
 the uplifted toe, which you but just 
 now seemed to court; leave his holi- 
 ness in the lurch ; and show him a 
 fair pair of Protestant heels under 
 your Koraish vesiment. When we 
 think you already at the wicket, sud- 
 denly a violent cross wind blows you 
 transverse — 
 
 ten thousand leagues awry. 
 Then might we see 
 Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, 
 
 tost 
 And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, 
 
 beads. 
 Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, btdls. 
 The sport of winds. 
 
 You pick up pence by showing the 
 hallowed bones, shrine, and crucifix; 
 and you take money a second time by 
 exposing the trick of them after- 
 wards. You carry j^our verse to 
 Castle Angelo for sale in a morn- 
 ing; and, swifter than a pedlar can 
 transmute his pack, you are at Can- 
 terbury with your prose ware before 
 night. 
 
 Sir, is it that I dislike you in this 
 merry vein ? The very reverse. No 
 countenance becomes an intelligent 
 jest better than your own. It is 
 your grave aspect, when you look 
 awful upon your poor friends, which 
 I would deprecate. 
 
 In more than one place, if I mis- 
 take not, you have been pleased to 
 compliment me at the expence of my 
 companions. I cannot accept your 
 compliment at such a price. The 
 upbraiding a man's poverty naturally 
 makes him look about him, to see 
 whether he be so poor indeed as he 
 is presumed to be. You have put 
 me upon counting my riches. Really, 
 Sir, I did not know 1 was so wealthy 
 in the article of friendships. There 
 
 is , and , whom you never 
 
 heard of, but exemplary characters 
 both, and excellent church-goers ; 
 and N., mine and my father's friend 
 for nearly half a century ; and the 
 enthusiast for Wordsworth's poetry, 
 T. N. T., a little tainted with So- 
 cinianism, it is to be feared, but con- 
 stant in his attachments, and a capi- 
 tal critic ; and , a sturdy old 
 
 Athanasiaiij so that sets all to rights 
 
 again ; and W., the light, and warm- 
 as-light hearted, Janus of the Lon- 
 don ; and the translator of Dante_, 
 still a curate, modest and amiable C; 
 and Allan C, the large-hearted Scot ; 
 and P r, candid and affectionate as 
 his own poetry; and A — p, Cole- 
 ridge's friend; and G — n, his more 
 than friend; and Coleridge himself, 
 the same to me still, as in those old 
 evenings, when we used to sit and 
 speculate (do you remember them. 
 Sir?) at our old Salutation tavern, 
 upon Pantisocracy and golden days 
 to come on earth ; and W — th (why. 
 Sir, I might drop my rent-roll here ; 
 such goodly farms and manors have 
 I reckoned up already. In what pos- 
 sessions has not this last name alone 
 estated me ! — but I will go on) — 
 and M., the noble-minded kinsman, 
 
 by wedlock, of W th ; and 
 
 H. C. R., unwearied in the offices 
 of a friend ; and Clarkson, almost 
 above the narrowness of that rela- 
 tion, yet condescending not seldom 
 heretofore from the labours of his 
 world-embracing charity to bless my 
 humble roof; and the gall-less and sin- 
 gle-minded Dyer; and the high-minded 
 associate of Cook, the veteran Colo- 
 nel, with his lusty heart still sending 
 cartels of defiance to old Time; and, 
 not least, W. A. the last and stea- 
 diest left to me of that little knot of 
 whist-players, that used to assemble 
 weekly, for so many years, at the 
 Queen's Gate (you remember them_. 
 Sir?) and called Admiral Bumey 
 friend. 
 
 I will come to the point at once. 
 I believe you will not make many 
 exceptions to my associates so far. 
 But I have purposely omitted some 
 intimacies, which I do not yet repent 
 of having contracted, with two gen- 
 tlemen, diametrically opposed to 
 yourself in principles. You will un- 
 derstand me to allude to the authors 
 of Rimini and of the Table Talk. 
 And first, of the former. — 
 
 It is an error more particularly in- 
 cident to persons of the correctest 
 principles and habits, to seclude 
 themselves from the rest of mankind, 
 as from another species; and form 
 into knots and clubs. The best peo- 
 ple, herding thus exclusively, are in 
 danger of contracting a narrowness. 
 Heat and cold, dryness and moisture, 
 in the natural world, do not fly asun- 
 der, to split the globe into sectarian 
 
1823.;] 
 
 Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esquire. 
 
 403 
 
 parts and separations ; but mingling, 
 as they best may, correct the malig- 
 nity of any shigle predominance. 
 The analogy holds, I suppose, in 
 the moral world. If all the good 
 people were to ship themselves off to 
 Terra Incognitas, what, in humanity's 
 name, is to become of the refuse } If 
 the persons, whom I have chiefly in 
 view, have not pushed matters to 
 this extremity yet, they carry them 
 as far as they can go. Instead of 
 mixing with the infidel and the free- 
 thinker — in the room of opening a 
 negociation, to try at least to find out 
 at which gate the error entered — they 
 huddle close together, in a weak fear 
 of infection, like that pusillanimous 
 underling in Spenser — 
 
 This is the wandering wood, this Error's 
 
 den ; 
 A monster vile, whom God and man does 
 
 hate : 
 Therefore, I reed, beware. Fly, fly, quoth 
 
 then 
 The fearful Dwarf. 
 
 and, if they be writers in orthodox 
 journals — addressing themselves only 
 to the irritable passions of the un- 
 believer — they proceed in a safe 
 system of strengthening the strong 
 hands, and confirming the valiant 
 knees ; of converting the already con- 
 verted, and proselyting their own 
 party. I am the more convinced of 
 this from a passage in the very Trea- 
 tise which occasioned this letter. It 
 is where, having recommended to the 
 doubter the writings of Michaelis 
 and Lardner, you ride triumphant 
 over the necks of all infidels, scep- 
 tics, and dissenters, from this time 
 to the world's end, upon the wheels 
 of two unanswerable deductions. 1 
 do not hold it meet to set down in 
 a Miscellaneous Compilation like 
 this, such religious words as you 
 have thought tit to hitroduce into 
 the pages of a petulant Literary 
 Journal. I therefore beg leave to 
 substitute numerals, and refer to the 
 Quarterly Review (for July) for fill- 
 ing of them up. " Here," say you, 
 " as in the history of 7, if these books 
 are authentic, the events which they 
 relate must be true ; if they were 
 written by 8, J) is 10 and 11." Your 
 first deduction, if it means honest- 
 ly, rests upon two identical propo- 
 sitions j though I suspect an unfair- 
 ness in one of the terms, which this 
 would not be quite the proper place 
 
 for explicating. At all events you 
 have no cause to triumph ; you have 
 not been proving the premises, but 
 refer for satisfaction therein to very 
 long and laborious works, which may 
 well employ the sceptic a twelve- 
 month or two to digest, before he 
 can possibly be ripe for your con- 
 clusion. When he has satisfied him- 
 self about the premises, he will con- 
 cede to you the inference, I dare 
 say, most readily. — But your latter 
 deduction, vh. that because 8 has 
 written a book concerning 9, there- 
 fore 10 and 11 was certainly his 
 meaning, is one of the most extra- 
 ordinary conclusions per saltum that 
 I have had the good fortune to meet 
 with. As far as 10 is verbally as- 
 serted in the writings, all sects must 
 agree with you ; but you cannot be 
 ignorant of the many various ways 
 in which the doctrine ofthe********* 
 has been understood, from a low- 
 figurative expression (with the Uni- 
 tarians) up to the most mysterious 
 actuality ; in which highest sense 
 alone you and your church take it. 
 And for 11, and that there is no other 
 po.s.sib/e conclusion — to hazard this in 
 the face of so many thousands of 
 Arians and Socinians, &c., who have 
 drawn so opposite a one, is such a 
 piece of theological hardihood, as, I 
 think, warrants me in concluding 
 that, when you sit down to pen theo- 
 logy, you do not at all consider your 
 opponents; but have in your eye, 
 merely and exclusively, readers of 
 the same way of thinking with your- 
 self, and the/efore have no occasion 
 to trouble yourself with the quality 
 of the logic, to which you treat 
 them. 
 
 Neither can I think, if you had 
 had the welfare of the poor child 
 — over whose hopeless condition you 
 whine so lamentably and (I must 
 think) unseasonably — seriously at 
 heart, that you could have taken the 
 step of sticking him up by name — 
 T. H. is as good as naming him — to 
 perpetuate an outrage upon the pa- 
 rental feelings, as long as the Quar- 
 terly Review shall last.-— Was it ne- 
 cessary to specify an individual case, 
 and give to Christian compassion the 
 appearance of personal attack.'* Is 
 this the way to conciliate unbe- 
 lievers, or not rather to widen the 
 breach irreparably } 
 
 I own I could never think so con- 
 
40i 
 
 Letter of Ella to Robert Southey, Enquire. 
 
 COct. 
 
 Sulerably of myself as to decline the 
 society of an agreeable or worthy man 
 upon difference of opinion only. The 
 impediments and the facilitations to 
 a sound belief are various and in- 
 scrutable as the heart of man. Some 
 believe upon weak principles. Others 
 cannot feel the efficacy of the strong- 
 est. One of the most candid^ most 
 upright, and single-meaning men, I 
 ever knew, was the late Thomas 
 Holcroft. I believe he never said one 
 thing and meant another, in his 
 life; and, as near as I can guess, 
 he never acted otherwise than with 
 the most scrupulous attention to 
 conscience. Ought we to wish the 
 character false, for the sake of a 
 hollow compliment to Christianity ? 
 
 Accident introduced me to the ac- 
 quaintance of Mr. L. H. — and the 
 experience of his many friendly qua- 
 lities confirmed a friendship between 
 us. You, w^ho have been misrepre- 
 sented yourself, I should hope, have 
 not lent an idle ear to the calumnies 
 "which have been spread abroad 
 respectnig this gentleman. I was 
 admitted to his household for some 
 years, and do most solemnly aver 
 that I believe him to be in his do- 
 mestic relations as correct as any 
 man. He chose an ill-judged sub- 
 ject for a poem ; the peccant humours 
 of which have been visited on him 
 tenfold by the artful use, which his 
 adversaries have made, of an equU 
 vocal term. The subject itself was 
 started by Dante, but better because 
 brieflier treated of. But the crime 
 of the Lovers, in the Italian and the 
 English poet, with its aggravated 
 enormity of circumstance, is not of a 
 kind (as the critics of the latter well 
 knew) with those conjunctions, for 
 which Nature herself has provided 
 no excuse, because no temptation. 
 — It has nothing in common with 
 the black horrors, sung by Ford and 
 Massinger. The familiarising of 
 it in tale or fable may be for that 
 reason incidentally more contagious. 
 In spite of Rimini, I must look upon 
 its author as a man of taste, and a 
 poet. He is better than so, he is one of 
 the most cordial-minded men I ever 
 knew, and matchless as a fire-side 
 companion. I mean not to affront 
 or wound your feelings when I say- 
 that, in his more genial moods, he 
 has often reminded me of you. There 
 is the same air of mild dogmatism — 
 
 the same condescending to a boyish 
 sportiveness — in both your conver- 
 sations. His hand-writing is so 
 much the same with your own, that 
 I have opened more than one letter 
 of his, hoping, nay, not doubting, 
 but it was from you, and have been 
 disappointed (he will bear with my 
 saying so) at the discovery of my 
 error. L. H. is unfortunate in hold- 
 ing some loose and not very definite 
 speculations (for at times I think he 
 hardly knows whither his premises 
 M^ould carry him) on marriage — the 
 tenets, I conceive, of the Political 
 Justice, carried a little further. For 
 any thing I could discover in his 
 practice, they have reference, like 
 those, to some future possible con- 
 dition of society, and not to the pre- 
 sent times. But neither for these 
 obliquities of thinking (upon which 
 my own conclusions are as distant 
 as the poles asunder) — nor for his 
 political asperities and petulancies, 
 which are wearing out with the heats 
 and vanities of youth — did I select 
 him for a friend; but for qualities 
 which fitted him for that relation. 
 I do not know whether I flatter my- 
 self with being the occasion, but 
 certain it is, that, touched with some 
 misgivings for sundry harsh things 
 which he had written aforetime against 
 our friend C, — ^before he left this 
 country he sought a reconciliation 
 with that gentleman (himself being 
 his own introducer), and found it. 
 
 L. H. is now in Italy; on his de- 
 parture to which land with much re- 
 gret I took my leave of him and of 
 his little family — seven of them. Sir, 
 with their mother — and as kind a set 
 of little people (T. H. and all), as 
 affectionate children, as ever blessed 
 a parent. Had you seen them. Sir, 
 I think you could not have looked 
 upon them as so many little Jonases 
 — but rather as pledges of the vessel's 
 safety, that was to bear such a freight 
 of love. 
 
 I wish you would read Mr. H.'s 
 lines to that same T. H. " six years 
 old, during a sickness :" — 
 
 Sleep breaks at last from out thee, 
 !Rly little patient boy — 
 
 (they are to be found in the 47th 
 page of '^ Foliage ") — and ask your- 
 self how far they are out of the spirit 
 of Christianity. I have a letter from 
 Italy, rect4ved but the other day. 
 
♦1823.;] 
 
 Letter of Elia to Robert Souther/, Esquire. 
 
 4>0S 
 
 into which L. H. has put as much 
 
 heart, and as many friendly yearn- 
 ings after old associates, and native 
 country, as, I think, paper can well 
 hold. It woidd do you no hurt to 
 give that the perusal also. 
 
 From the other gentleman I nei- 
 ther expect nor desire (as he is well 
 assured) any such concessions as 
 L. H. made to C. What hath soured 
 him, and made him to suspect his 
 friends of infidelity towards him, 
 when there was no such matter, I 
 know not. I stood well with him 
 for fifteen years (the proudest of my 
 ; life), and have ever spoke my full 
 mind of him to some, to whom his 
 panegyric must naturally be least 
 tasteful. I never in thought swerved 
 from him, I never betrayed him, 1 
 never slackened in my admiration of 
 him, I was the same to him (neither 
 better nor worse) though he coidd 
 not see it, as in the days when he 
 thought fit to trust me. At this 
 instant, he may be preparing for me 
 some compliment, above my deserts, 
 as he has sprinkled many such among 
 his admirable books, for which I 
 rest his debtor ; or, for any thing I 
 ! know, or can guess to the contrary, 
 he may be about to read a lecture 
 on my weaknesses. He is welcome 
 i- to them (as he was to my humble 
 !- hearth), if they can divert a spleen, 
 11 or ventilate a fit of sidlenness. I 
 7.. wish he would not quarrel with the 
 world at the rate he does ; but the 
 reconciliation must be effected by 
 himself^ and I despair of livhig to 
 see that day. But, protesting against 
 much that he has written, and some 
 thhigs which he chooses to do ; judg- 
 ing him by his conversation which 
 i I enjoyed so long, and relished so 
 deeply; or by his books, in those 
 places where no clouding passion in- 
 ter^'enes — I should belie my own 
 ; conscience, if I said less, than that 
 I think W. H. to be, in his natural 
 and healthy state, one of the wisest 
 and finest spirits breathing. So far 
 from being ashamed of that inti- 
 macy, which was betwixt us, it is 
 my boast that I was able for so 
 many years to have preserved it en- 
 tire ; and I think I shall go to my 
 : grave without iindhig, or expecting 
 ; to find, such another companion. 
 ir But I forget my manners — you will 
 rt; pardon me. Sir — lyif^m-ato tlie cor- 
 
 Sir, you were pleased (you know 
 where) to invite me to a compliance 
 with the wholesome forms and doc- 
 trines of the Church of England. I 
 take your advice with as much kind- 
 ness, as it was meant. But I must 
 think the invitation rather more kind 
 than seasonable. I am a Dissenter. 
 The last sect, with which you can 
 remember me to have made common 
 profession, were the Unitarians. You 
 would think it not very pertinent, if 
 (fearing that all was not well with 
 you), 1 were gravely to invite you 
 (for a remedy) to attend with me a 
 course of Mr. Belsham's Lectures at 
 Hackney. Perhaps I have scruples 
 to some of your forms and doctrines. 
 But if I come, am I secure of civil 
 treatment ? — The last time I was in 
 any of your places of worship was 
 on Easter Sunday last. I had the 
 satisfaction of listening to a very- 
 sensible sermon of an argumentative 
 turn, delivered with great propriety, 
 by one of your bishops. The place 
 was Westminster Abbey. As such 
 religion, as I have, has always acted 
 on me more by way of sentiment 
 than argumentative process, I was 
 not unwilluig, after sermon ended, 
 by no unbecomuig transition, to pass 
 over to some serious feelings, impos- 
 sible to be disconnected from the 
 sight of those old tombs, &:c. But, 
 by whose order I know not, I was 
 debarred that privilege even for so 
 short a space as a few minutes; and 
 turned, like a dog or some profane 
 person, out into the common street ; 
 with feelhigs, which I could not 
 help, but not very genial to the day 
 or the discourse. I do not know 
 that I shall ever venture myself 
 again into one of your Churches. 
 
 You had your education at West- 
 minster ; and doubtless among those 
 dim aisles and cloisters, you must 
 have gathered much of that devo- 
 tional feeling in those young years, 
 on which your purest mind feeds 
 still — and may it feed ! The anti- 
 quarian spirit, strong in you, and 
 gracefully blending ever with the re- 
 ligious, may have been sown in you 
 among those wrecks of splendid 
 mortality. You owe it to the place 
 of your education ; you owe it to 
 your learned fondness for the archi- 
 tecture of your ancestors ; you owe 
 it to the venerablencss of your eccle- 
 siastical establishment, vvhicli ii> daily 
 
»0« 
 
 Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esquire. 
 
 tOct. 
 
 lessened and called in question 
 through these practices — to speak 
 aloud your sense of them ; never to 
 desist raising your voice against 
 them, till they be totally done away 
 with and abolished ; till the doors of 
 Westminster Abbey be no longer 
 closed against the decent, though 
 low-in-purse, enthusiast, or blame- 
 less devotee, who must commit an 
 injury against his family economy, if 
 he would be indulged with a bare 
 admission within its walls. You 
 owe it to the decencies, which you 
 wish to see maintained in its impres- 
 sive services, that our Cathedral be 
 no longer an object of inspection to 
 the poor at those times only, in 
 w^hich they must rob from their at- 
 tendance on the worship every mi- 
 nute which they can bestow upon 
 the fabrick. lu vain the public 
 prints have taken up this subject, in 
 vain such poor nameless writers as 
 myself express their indignation. A 
 word from you. Sir — a hint in your 
 Journal — would be sufficient to flhig 
 open the doors of the Beautiful 
 Temple again, as we can remember 
 them when we were boys. At that 
 time of life, what would the imagi- 
 native faculty (such as it is) in both 
 of us, have suffered, if the entrance 
 to so much reflection had been ob- 
 structed by the demand of so much 
 silver ! — If we had scraped it up to 
 gain an occasional admission (as we 
 certainly should have done) would 
 the sight of those old tombs have 
 been as impressive to us (while we 
 had been weighing anxiously pru- 
 dence against sentiment) as when 
 the gates stood open, as those of 
 the adjacent Park ; when we could 
 walk in at any time, as the mood 
 brought us, for a shorter or longer 
 time, as that lasted .f* Is the being 
 shown over a place the same as si- 
 lently for ourselves detecthig the 
 genius of it } In no part of our be- 
 loved Abbey now can a person find 
 entrance (out of service time) under 
 the sum of two shillings. The rich 
 and the great will smile at the anti- 
 climax, presumed to lie in these two 
 short words. But you can tell them. 
 Sir, how much quiet worth, how 
 much capacity for enlarged feeling, 
 how much taste and genius, may co- 
 exist, especially in youth, with a 
 purse incompetent to this demand. — 
 A respected friend of ours, during his 
 
 late visit to the metropolis, presented 
 himself for admission to Saint Paul's. 
 At the same time a decently clothed 
 man, wiih as decent a wife, and 
 child, were bargaining for the same 
 indulgence. The price was only 
 two-pence each person. The poor 
 but decent man hesitated, desirous 
 to go in ; but there were three of 
 them, and he turned away reluct- 
 antly. Perhaps he wished to have 
 seen the tomb of Nelson. Perhaps 
 the Interior of the Cathedral was his 
 object. But in the state of his fi- 
 nances, even sixpence might rea- 
 sonably seem too much. Tell the 
 Aristocracy of the country (no man 
 can do it more impressively) ; in- 
 struct them of what value these in- 
 significant pieces of money, these 
 minims to their sight, may be to 
 their humbler brethren. Shame these 
 Sellers out of the Temple. Show 
 the poor, that you can sometimes 
 think of them in some other light 
 than as mutineers and mal-contents. 
 Conciliate them by such kind me- 
 thods to their superiors, civil and ec- 
 clesiastical. Stop the mouths of the 
 railers ; and suffer your old friends, 
 upon the old terms, again to honour 
 and admire you. Stifle not the sug- 
 gestions of your better nature with 
 the stale evasion, that an indiscri- 
 minate admission would expose the 
 Tombs to violation. Remember your 
 boy-days. Did you ever see, or hear, 
 of a mob in the Abbey, while it was 
 free to all.'' Do the rabble come 
 there, or trouble their heads about 
 such speculations ? It is all that you 
 can do to drive them into your 
 churches ; they do not voluntarily 
 offer themselves. They have, alas ! 
 no passion for antiquities ; for tomb 
 of king or prelate, sage or poet. If 
 they had, they would be no longer 
 the rabble. 
 
 For forty years that I have known 
 the Fabrick, the only well-attested 
 charge of violation adduced, has 
 been — a ridiculous dismemberment 
 committed upon the effigy of that 
 amiable spy. Major Andre. And is 
 it for this — the wanton mischief of 
 some school-boy, fired perhaps with 
 raw notions of Transatlantic Free- 
 dom — or the remote possibility of 
 such a mischief occurring again, so 
 easily to be prevented by stationing 
 a constable within the walls, if the 
 vergers are incompetent to the duty 
 
th Letter to tht Dramatists of f/ie Day. 
 
 — ^is it vipon such wretched pre- 
 tences, that the people of England 
 are made to pay a new Peter's 
 Pence, so long abrogated ; or must 
 content themselves with contem- 
 plating the ragged Exterior of their 
 Cathedral ? The mischief was done 
 about the time that you were a 
 scholar there. Do you know any 
 thing about the unfortunate relic ? — 
 
 can you help us in this emergency to 
 find the nose? — or can you give 
 Chantry a notion (from memory) of 
 its pristine life and vigour ? 1 am 
 willing for peace' sake to subscribe 
 my guinea towards a restoration of 
 the lamented feature. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 Yoiur humble servant, 
 
 Elia. 
 
A VERY ingenious and subtle wri- 
 ter, whom there is good reason for 
 suspecting to be an Ex- Jesuit, not un- 
 known at Douay some five-and-twen- 
 ty years since (he will not obtrude 
 
 himself at M th again in a hurry), 
 
 about a twelvemonth back, set him- 
 self to prove the character of the 
 Powder Plot conspirators to have been 
 that of heroic self-devotedness and 
 true Christian martyrdom. Under 
 the mask of Protestant candour, he 
 actually gained admission for his 
 treatise into a London weekly pape?, 
 not particularly distinguished for its 
 zeal towards either religion. But, 
 admitting Catholic principles, his ar- 
 guments are shrewd and incontro- 
 vertible. He says — 
 
 Guy Faux was a fanatic, but he was no 
 hypocrite. He ranks among good liaters. 
 He was cruel, bloody-minded, reckless of 
 all considerations but those of an infuriated 
 and bigoted faith ; but he was a true son of 
 the Catholic Church, a martyr and a con- 
 
 Nov. 1823. ,..„...._,, 
 
 J-a~j,viiiI 
 
 fessor, for all that. He who can prevau 
 upon himself to devote his life for a causey 
 however we may condemn his opinions o^ 
 abhor his actions, vouches at least for tli^ 
 honesty of lus principles and the disinterest- 
 edness of his motives. He may be guilty 
 of the worst practices, but he is capable o^' 
 the greatest. He is no longer a slave, bu^ \ 
 hee. The contempt of death is the begini 
 ning of virtue. The hero of the Gunpow-' 
 der-Plot was, if you will, a fool, a mad- 
 man, an assassin ; call him what names 
 you please : still he was neither knave nor 
 coward. He did not propose to blow up. 
 the Parliament and come off, scot-free, 
 himself; he showed that he valued his own 
 hfe no more than theirs in such a cause- 
 where the integrity of the Catholic faith 
 and the salvation of perhaps millions of 
 souls was at stake. He did not call it a 
 murder, but a sacrifice which he was about 
 to achieve : he was armed with the Holy 
 Spirit and with fire: he was the Church's 
 chosen servant and her blessed martyr. He 
 comforted himself as "• the best of cut- 
 throats." How many wretches are there 
 that would have undertaken to do what he 
 2 1 - 
 
478 
 
 Qu^ Favjjc, 
 
 ENovr. 
 
 intended for a «um of money, if they could 
 have got off with impunity I How few are 
 there who would have put themselves in 
 Guy Faux's situation to save the universe ! 
 Yet in the latter case we affect to be thrown 
 into greater consternation than at the most 
 unredeemed acts of villainy, as if the abso- 
 lute disinterestedness of the motive doubled 
 the horror of the deed ! The cowardice and 
 selfishness of mankind are in fact shocked 
 at the consequences to themselves (if such 
 examples are held up for imitation), and 
 they make a fearful outcry against the vio- 
 lation of every principle of morality, lest 
 they too should be called on for any such 
 tremendous sacrifices— lest they in their turn 
 should have to go on the forlorn hope of 
 extra-official duty. Charity begins at 
 home, is a maxun that prevails as well in 
 the courts of conscience as in those of pru- 
 dence. We would be thought to shudder 
 at the consequences of crime to others, while 
 we tremble for them to ourselves. We talk 
 of the dark and cowardly assassin ; and 
 this is well, when an individual shrinks 
 from the face of an enemy, and purchases 
 his own safety by striking a blow in the 
 dark : but how the charge of cowardly can 
 be applied to the public assassin, who, in 
 the very act of destroying another, lays 
 down his life as the pledge and forfeit of 
 his sincerity and boldness, I am at a less to 
 devise. There may be barbarous prejudice, 
 rooted hatred, unprmcipled treachery, in 
 such an act ; but he who resolves to take 
 all the danger and odium upon himself, 
 can no more be branded with cowardice, 
 than Regulus devoting himself for his coun- 
 try, or Codrus leaping into the fiery gulf. 
 A wily Father Inquisitor, coolly and with 
 plenary authority condemning hundreds of 
 helpless, unoffending victims, to the flames 
 or to the horrors of a living tomb, whUe he 
 himself would not suffer a hair of his head 
 to be hurt, is to me a character without any 
 qualifying trait in it. Again ; the Spanish 
 conqueror and hero, the favourite of his 
 monarch, who enticed thirty thousand poor 
 Mexicans into a large open building, under 
 promise of strict faith and cordial good- 
 will, and then set fire to it, making sport of 
 the cries and agonies of these deluded crea- 
 tures, is an instance of uniting the most 
 hardened cruelty with the most heartless 
 selfishness. His plea was keeping no faith 
 with heretics : this was Guy Faux's too ; 
 but I am sure at least that the latter kept 
 faith with himself: he was in earnest in 
 his professions. His was not gay, wanton, 
 unfeeling depravity; he did not murder in 
 sport; it was serious work that he had 
 taken in hand. To see this arch -bigot, 
 this heart-whole traitor, this pale miner in 
 the infernal regions, skulking in his retreat 
 with his cloalc and dark lanthorn, moving 
 eautiously about among his barrels of gun- 
 powder loaded with death, but not yet ripe 
 
 for destruction, regardless erf the lives of 
 others, and more than indifiprent to his 
 own, presents a picture of the strange in- 
 fatuation of the human understanding, but 
 not of the depravity of the human will, 
 without an equal. There were thousands 
 of pious Papists privy to and ready to ap- 
 plaud the deed when done : — there was no 
 one but our old fifth-of-November friend, 
 who still flutters in rags and straw on the 
 occasion, that had the courage to attempt 
 it. In him stern duty and unshaken faith 
 prevailed over natural frailty. 
 
 It is impossible, upon Catholic 
 principles, not to admit the force of 
 this reasoning; we can only not help 
 smilhig (with the writer) at the sim- 
 plicity of the gulled editor, swallow- 
 ing the dregs of Loyola for the very 
 quintessence of sublimated reason in 
 England at the comi-cencement of the 
 nineteenth century. We will just, as 
 a contrast, show what we Protestants 
 (who area party concerned) thought 
 upon the same subject, at a period 
 rather nearer to the heroic project in 
 question. 
 
 The Gunpowder Treason was tlie 
 subject which called forth the earliest 
 specimen which is left us of the pul- 
 pit eloquence of Jeremy Taylor. 
 When he preached the Sermon on 
 that anniversary, which is printed at 
 the end of the folio edition of his Ser- 
 mons, he was a young man just com- 
 mencing his ministry, under the 
 auspices of Archbishop Laud. Frx)m 
 the learning, and maturest oratory, 
 which it manifests, one should rather 
 have conjectured it to have proceeded 
 from the same person after he was 
 ripened by time into a Bishop and 
 Father of the Church. — '^'^And, reallv, 
 these Romano-barbari could never 
 pretend to any precedent for an act 
 so barbarous as theirs. Ads-amelech, 
 indeed, killed a king, but he spared 
 the people ; Haman v/ould have 
 killed the people, but spared the king ; 
 but that both king and people, princes 
 and judges, branch and rush aiid 
 root, should die at once (as if Cali- 
 gula's wish were actuated, and all 
 England upon one head), was never 
 known till now, that all the malice 
 of the world met in this , as in a 
 centre. The Sicilian even-song, the 
 matins of St. Bartholomew, known 
 for the pitiless and damned massa- 
 cres, were but Kairvs ciciag ovap, the 
 dream of the shadow of smoke^ if 
 compared with this great fir^. /« 
 
IBilb^: 
 
 Guy Fi 
 
 ■■M\rt4lh0^(*n-- 
 
 479 
 
 '^otdm kxmupato tceeillo fahufas vnl^ares 
 '^■^^equliia nori invenit. 'This was a busy 
 ''iige ; Herostratiis must have invent- 
 ^jfed a more sublimed malice than the 
 'purning of one temple_, or not have 
 ,)^een so much as spoke of since the 
 ^ (discovery of the powder treason. 
 ,\But I must make more haste, I shall 
 ,,not else climb the sublimity of this 
 (jimpiety. Nero was sometimes the 
 'Sjmpulare odium, M^as popularly hated, 
 and deserved it too, for he slew his 
 master, and his wife, and all his fa- 
 mily, once or twice over,— opened 
 ',]Jiis mother's womb, — fired the city, 
 laughed at it, slandered the Chris- 
 tians for it ; but yet all these were 
 but jrrincipia maloriivij the very first 
 ^'^ rudiments of evil. Add, then, to 
 these, Herod's master-piece at Ramah, 
 as it was deciphered by the tears 
 ,^pnd sad threnes of the matrons in 
 .SLU universal mourning for the loss 
 j 6f their pretty infants ; yet this of 
 Herod will prove but an infant 
 "wickedness, and that of Nero the evil 
 but of one city. I would wilUngly 
 have foiuid out an example, but see 
 J r cannot; should I put hito the scale 
 ' the extract of all the old tyrants fa- 
 mous in antique stories, — 
 j.J^istonii stabulum regis, 3usiridLs aras, 
 .,'Antiphatac mensaji^j «t Taurica regna 
 
 Thoantis ;— ' 
 ,^ighould I take for true story the 
 j^^mghest cruelty as it was fancied by 
 ^juie most hieroglyphical Egyptian, 
 *,7^is alone would weigh them down, 
 i, ijis if the Alps were put in scale 
 ^^against the dust of a balance. For 
 j'y^ad this accursed treason prospered, 
 [^wc should have had the whole king- 
 !^,]^om mourn for the inestimable loss of 
 jj, Jts chiefest glory, its life, its present 
 djoy, and all its very hopes for the fu- 
 j.^ture. For such was their desthicd 
 'tnalice, that they would not only 
 /.have inflicted so cruel a blow, but 
 ■ ;.have made it incurable, by cutting 
 J off our supplies of joy, the whole 
 jiSuccessiou of the Line Royal. Not 
 f- only the vine itself, but all'the gem- 
 mu/co, and the tender olive branches, 
 should either have been bent to their 
 intentions, and made to grow crooked, 
 ,or else been broken. 
 J , " And now, after such a sublimity 
 _^'of malice, I will not instance in the 
 sacrilegious ruin of the neighbouring 
 temples, which needs must have pe- 
 rished in the flame, — nor in the dis- 
 turbing the ashes of our intombed 
 
 kings, devouring their dead ruhis like 
 sepulchral dogs, — these are but mi- 
 nutes, in respect of the ruin prepared 
 for the living temples : — 
 
 Stragem sed istam non tulit 
 
 Christus cadentura Principum 
 
 Impunc, ne forsan sui 
 
 Patris periret fabrica. 
 Ergo quae poterit lingua retexere 
 I^audes, Christe, tuas, qui domitum struis 
 Infidum populum cum Duce perfido 1 " 
 
 In such strains of eloquent indig- 
 nation did Jeremy Taylor's young 
 oratory inveigh against that stupen- 
 dous attempt, which he trvdy says 
 had no parallel hi ancient or modern 
 times. A century and a half of Eu- 
 ropean crunes has elapsed shice he 
 made the assertion, and his position 
 remahis hi its strength. He wrote 
 near the time in which the nefarious 
 project had like to have been com- 
 pleted. Men's mhids still were shud- 
 dering from the recentness of the 
 escape. It must have been within 
 his memory, or have been sounded 
 in his ears so young by his parents, 
 that he would 'seem, in his maturer 
 years, to have remembered it. ^ No 
 wonder then that he describes it in 
 words that bum. But to us, to 
 whom the tradition has come slowly 
 down, and has had tune to cool, the 
 story of Guido Vaux sounds rather 
 like a tale, a fable, and an invention, 
 than true history. It supposes such 
 gigantic audacity of daring, combined 
 with such more than infantile stupi- 
 dity hi the motive, — such a combina- 
 tion of the fiend and the monkey, — 
 that credidity is almost swallowed up 
 in contemplating the singularity of 
 the attempt. It has accordingly, in 
 some degree, shared the fate of fic- 
 tion. It is familiarized to us in a 
 kind of serio-ludicrous way, like the 
 story of Gu^f of Warwick, or Valentine 
 and Orson. The way which we take to 
 perpetuate the memory of this deli- 
 verance is well adapted to keep up this 
 fabular notion. Boys go about the 
 streets annually with abeggarly scare- 
 crow dressed up, which is to be burnt, 
 indeed, at night, with holy zeal ; but, 
 meantime, they beg a penny for fX)or 
 Guy : this periodical petition, which 
 we have heard from our infancy, — 
 combined with the dress and appear- 
 ance of the effigy, so well calculated 
 to move compassion, — has the effect 
 of quite removing from our fancy ilie 
 horrid circumstances of the story 
 2 12 
 
 If. 
 
 
480 
 
 Guy Faux. 
 
 Wm^ 
 
 which U thus commemorated; and 
 in -poor Guy vahily should we try to 
 recognize any of the features of that 
 tremendous madman in iniquity, 
 Guido Vaux, with his horrid crew of 
 accomplices, that sought to emulate 
 earthquakes and bursting volcanoes 
 in their more than mortal mischief. 
 
 Indeed, the whole ceremony of 
 burning Guy Faux, or the Foipe, as 
 he is indifferently called, is a sort of 
 Treason Travestie, and admirably 
 adapted to lower our feelings upon 
 this memorable subject. The prin- 
 ters of the little duodecimo Prayer 
 Book, printed by T. Baskett,* in 
 1749, which has the efligy of his 
 sacred Majesty George II. piously 
 prefixed, have illustrated the ser- 
 vice (a very fine one in itself) which 
 is appointed for the Anniversary of 
 this Day, with a print, which it is not 
 very easy to describe, but the con- 
 tents appear to be these : — The scene 
 is a room, I conjecture, in the king's 
 palace. Two persons, — one of whom 
 I take to be James himself, from his 
 wearing his hat while the other stands 
 bareheaded, — are intently surveying 
 a sort of speculum, or magic mirror, 
 which stands upon a pedestal in the 
 midst of the room, in which a little 
 figure of Guy Faux with his dark 
 lantern approaching the door of the 
 Parliament House is made discerni- 
 ble by the light proceeding from a 
 great eye which shines in from the 
 topmost corner of the apartment, 
 by which eye the pious artist no 
 doubt meant to designate Providence. 
 On the other side of the mirror, is a 
 figure doing something, which puz- 
 zled me when a child, and continues 
 to puzzle me now. The best I can 
 make of it is, that it is a conspirator 
 busy laying the train, — but then, 
 why is he represented in the king's 
 chamber? — Conjectuic upon so fan- 
 tastical a design is vain, and I only 
 notice the print as being one of the 
 earliest graphic representations which 
 woke my childhood into wonder, and 
 doubtless combined with the mum- 
 mery before-mentioned, to take off 
 
 the edge of that horror whifiU the 
 naked historical mention of Guido's 
 conspiracy could not have failed of 
 exciting. 
 
 Now that so many years are past 
 since that abominable machination 
 was happily frustrated, it will not, 
 I hope, be considered a profane sport- 
 ing with the subject, if we take no 
 very serious survey of the conse- 
 quences that would have flowed from 
 this plot if it had had a successful 
 issue. The first thing that strikes us, 
 in a selfish point of view, is the ma- 
 terial change which it must have 
 produced in the course of the nobility. 
 All the ancient peerage being extin- 
 guished, as it was intended, at one 
 blow, the Red-Book must have been 
 closed for ever, or a new race of 
 peers must have been created to sup- 
 ply the deficiency ; as the first part 
 of this dilemma is a deal too shock- 
 ing to thhik of, what a fund of mouth- 
 watering reflections does this give. 
 rise to in the breast of us plebeians 
 of A. IX 1823. Why you or I,i 
 reader, might have been Duke of, 
 
 or Earl of 
 
 : I particu- 
 
 to avoid the least 
 
 larize no titles, 
 suspicion of intention to usurp th^, 
 dignities of the two noblemen whom. 
 I have in my eye : — but a feeling \ 
 more dignified than envy sometime^., 
 excites a sigh, when I think how the 
 posterity of Guido's Legion of Ho- 
 nour (among whom you or I might 
 have been) might have rolled down 
 ^' dulcified," as Burke expresses \%\ 
 ^'hj an exposure to the influence oj 
 heaven in a long flow of generations, 
 from the hard, acidulous, metalliyG,, 
 tincture of the spring."f What ne\f i 
 orders of merit, think you, this E^Jt., 
 glish Napoleon would have chosen?, 
 Knights of the Barrel, or Lords of 
 the Tub, Grand Almoners of th^, 
 Cellar, or Ministers of Explosiouyv 
 We should have given the Trains 
 coudmnty and the Fire ramjuint in our 
 arms; we should have quartered th^. 
 dozen white matches in our coats ;-nti 
 the Shallows W;9uJd have bee|^ nqt,^ 
 thing to ui^(fj^,v.ol ^ f\hn'>yx\ 
 
 ♦ IfM^ame"^ 1 presume, upon whom the clergyman in the song of the Vicar an^^ 
 
 Mosesy hot without judgment, passes this memorable censure — . 
 
 Here, Moses, the King ;—. .ii'onf 
 
 'Tis a scandalous thing .tano i- 
 That this Baskett should print for the Crown. 
 + Letter t;? a Noble Ivord. 
 
18«^3 
 
 Gvy Faux. 
 
 48i 
 
 Turning away from these iTiiOrtify- 
 ing reflections, let us contemplate its 
 effects upon the other house, for they 
 were all to have gone together, — 
 King, Lords, Commons 
 
 To assist our imagination, let us 
 take leave to suppose, — and we do 
 it in the harmless wantoimess of 
 fancy, — to suppose that the tremend- 
 ous explosion had taken place in our 
 days ; — we better know what a House 
 of Commons is in our days, and can 
 better estimate our loss; — let us 
 imagine, then, to ourselves, the United 
 Members sitting in full conclave 
 above — Faux just ready with his 
 train and matches below ; in his 
 hand a "reed tipt with fire" — he 
 applies the fatal engine 
 
 To assist our notions still further^ 
 let us suppose some lucky dog of a 
 reporter, who had escaped by mira- 
 cle upon some plank of St. Stephen's 
 benches, and came plump uptm the 
 roof of the adjacent Abbey, from 
 whence descending, at some ncigh- 
 bourini 
 
 .J, coffee-house, first wiping his 
 clothes and calling for a glass of 
 lemonade, he sits down and reports 
 what he had heard and seen (quorum 
 pars magna fuit) for the Morning 
 Post or the Courier, — we can scarce- 
 ly imagine him describhig the event 
 in any other words but some such as 
 these : — 
 
 '* A Motion was put and carried. 
 That this House do acljmirn : That 
 the Speaker do (jnit ike Chair. The 
 House ROSE amid clamours for Or- 
 
 a^rv.u. .i, ,; .,; . ^ . 
 
 Ih "itsita^' stich wajf thfe event tnight 
 most technically have been conveyed 
 to the public. But a poetical mind, 
 not content with this dry method of 
 narration, cannot help pursuing the 
 effects of this tremendous blowing 
 up, this adjournment in the air sine 
 die. It sees the benches mount, —the 
 Chair first, and then the benches, 
 and first the Treasury Bench, hur- 
 ried up in this nitrous explosion ; 
 the Members, as it were, pairing 
 off; Whigs and Tories takhig their 
 friendly apotheosis together, (as they 
 did their sandwiches below in Bel- 
 lamy's room). Fancy, in her flight, 
 keeps pace with the aspiring legisla- 
 tors, she sees the awful seat of order 
 mounting till it becomes finally fixed 
 a constellation, next to Cassiopeia 3 , , c, -u 
 
 chair, — the wig of Wm that sat in it 
 taking its place near Berenice's curls. 
 St. Peter, at Heaven's wicket, — no, 
 not St. Peter,— St. Stephen, with 
 
 open arms, receives his own 
 
 While Fancy beholds these celes- 
 tial appropriations, Reason, no less 
 pleased, discerns the mighty benefit 
 which so complete a renovation must 
 produce below. Let the most de- 
 termined foe to corruption, the most 
 thorough-paced , redresser of abuses, 
 try to conceive a more absolute pu- 
 rification of the House than this was 
 calculated to produce; — why, Pride's 
 Purge was nothing to it ; — the whole 
 borough-mongering system would 
 have been got rid of, fairly exyJockd; 
 — with it, the senseless distinctions 
 of party n^^i st have disappeared; 
 faction must have vanished ; cor- 
 ruption have expired in air. From 
 Hundred, Tything, and Wapentake, 
 some new Alfred would have con- 
 vened, in all its purity, the primitive 
 Wittenagemot, — fixed upon a basis, 
 of property or population, perma- 
 nent as the poles- 
 
 From this dream of universal res- 
 titution. Reason and Fancy with dif- 
 ficulty awake to view tl:e real state 
 of things. But, blessed be Heaven, 
 St. Stephen's walls are yet standing, 
 all her seats firmly secured ; nay, 
 some have doubted (since the Sep- 
 tennial Act) whether gunpowder it- 
 self, or any thing short of a Com- 
 mittee above stairs, would be able to 
 shake any one member from his 
 seat ; — that great and final improve- 
 ment to the Abbey, which is all that' 
 seems wanting, — the removing West- 
 minster-hall and its appendages, and" 
 letting in the view of the Thames, — 
 must not be expected in our days. 
 Dismissing, therefore, all such spe- 
 culations as mere tales of a tub, it 
 is the duty of every honest English- 
 man to endeavour, by means less 
 wholesale than Guido's, to amelio- 
 rate, without extinguishing. Parlia- 
 ments ; to hold the lantern to the 
 dark places of corruption ; to apply 
 the match to the rotten parts of the 
 system only ; and to wrap himself 
 up, not in the muffling mantle of 
 conspiracy, but in the warm, honest 
 cloak of integrity and patriotic in- 
 tention. 
 
 EUA. 
 
 Intf^I 3idr>>* 
 
 ■>o.\ 
 
 ■J^-^^ 
 
";fii^ 
 
t 
 
 ON A PASSAGE IN THE TEMPEST. 
 
 lS long as I can remember the 
 play of the Tempest^ one passage in 
 it has always set me upon wondering. 
 It has puzzled me beyond measure. 
 In vain I strove to find the meaning 
 of it. I seemed doomed to cherish 
 infinite hopeless curiosity. 
 
 It is where Prospero, relating the 
 banishment of Sycorax from Argier, 
 adds — 
 
 For one thing that she did 
 
 They would not take her Hfe — 
 how have I pondered over this, when 
 a boy I how have I longed for some 
 authentic memoir of the witch to 
 clear up the obscurity ! — Was the 
 story extant in the Chronicles of Al- 
 giers? Could I get at it by some for- 
 tunate introduction to the Algerine 
 ambassador } Was a voyage thither 
 practicable? The Spectator (I knew) 
 went to Grand Cairo, only to mea- 
 sure a pyramid. Was not the object 
 of my quest of at least as much im- 
 portance ? — The blue-eyed hag — 
 could she have done any thhig good 
 or meritorious ? might that Succubus 
 relent ? then might tliere be hope for 
 the devil. I have often admired since, 
 that none of the commentators hai'^e 
 boggled at this passage — how they 
 could swallow this camel — such a 
 tantalishig piece of obscurity, such an 
 abortion of an anecdote. 
 
 At length I think I have lighted 
 upon a clue, which may lead to 
 
 show what was passing in the mind 
 of Shakspeare, when he dropped this' 
 imperfect rumour. In the '^ accurate' 
 description of Africa, by John Ogilby^ 
 (Folio) 1670," page 230, I find: 
 written, as follows. The marginal 
 title to the narrative is — . f^ 
 
 Charles the Fifth besieges Algier. ' 
 In the last place, we will briefly give an» 
 account of the Emperour Charles the Fifth,:^ 
 when he besieg'd tliis city ; and of the' 
 great loss he suffer 'd therein. 
 
 This Prince in the year one thousand 
 five hundred forty one, having embarr[ued 
 upon the sea an army of twenty two thou-! 
 sand men aboard eighteen gallies, and sxi 
 hundred tall ships, not counting the 
 barques and shallops, and other small, 
 boats, in which he had engaged the princi- 
 pal of the Spanish and Italian nobility, 
 with a good number of the knights of 
 Maltha; he was to land on the coast of 
 Barbary, at a cape call'd iMatifou. From 
 this place unto the city of Algier a flat 
 shore or strand extends itself for about four 
 leagues, the which is exceeding favourable 
 to gallies. There he put ashore with his 
 army, and in a few days caused a fortress 
 to be built, which unto this day is call'd 
 the Castle of the Emperor. 
 
 In the mean time the city of Algier took 
 the alarm, having in it at that time but 
 eight hundred Turks, and six thousand 
 Moors, poor-spirited men, and unexercised 
 in martial affairs ; besides it was at that 
 time fortifi'd onely with walls, and had no 
 out-works : insomuch that b3'' reason of it* 
 weakness, and the great forces of ihe Bai- 
 
-V* *''^ug&^€HiiaE, 
 
 4d^ 
 
 perour, it could not in appearance escape 
 taking. In fine, it was attaqued with such 
 order, that the army carae up to the very 
 gates, where the Chevaher 4e Sauignac, a 
 Frenchman by nation, made himself re- 
 markable above all the rest, by the miracles 
 of his valour. For having repulsed the 
 Turks, who having made a sally at the 
 gate caU'd Babason, and there desiring to 
 enter along with them, when he saw that 
 they shut the gate upon him, he ran his 
 ponyard into the same, and left it sticking 
 deep therein. They next fell to battering 
 the city by the force of cannon ; which the 
 assailants so weakened, that in that great 
 extremity the defendants lost their courage, 
 and resolved to surrender. 
 
 But as they were thus intending, there 
 was a witch of the town, whom the history 
 doth not name, which went to seek out 
 Assam Aga, that commanded within, and 
 pray'd him to make it good yet nine days 
 longer, v^ith assurance, that within that 
 time he should infallibly see Algier deliver- 
 ed from that siege, and the whole army of 
 the enemy dispersed, so that Christians 
 should be as cheap as Birds- In a word, 
 the thing did happen in the manner as fore- 
 told ; for upon the twenty.first day of Oc- 
 tober in the same year, there fell a con- 
 tinual rain upon the land, and so furious a 
 storm at sea, that one might have seen 
 ships hoistetl into the clouds, and in one 
 instant again precipitated into tlie bottom 
 of the water: insomuch that that same 
 dreadful tempest was followed with the loss 
 of fifteen gallies, and above an hundred 
 other vessels ; which was tlie cause why 
 the Emperour, seeing his army wasted by 
 the bad weather, pursued by a famine, oc- 
 casioned by wrack of his ships, in which 
 ■was the greatest part of his victuals and 
 ammunition, he was constrain'd to raise 
 the siege, and set sail for Sicily, whither he 
 retreated with the miserable reliques of liis 
 fleet. 
 
 In the mean time that witch being ac- 
 knowledged the deliverer of Algier, was 
 richly remunerated, and the credit of her 
 
 charms authorized. So that ever since 
 witchcraft hath been very freely toleratecj ; 
 of which the Chief of the town, and even 
 those who are estcem'd to be of greatest 
 sanctity among them, such as are the Ma- 
 rabou's, a religious order of their sect, "do 
 for the most part make profession of it, 
 under a goodly pretext of certain revelations 
 which they say they have had from their 
 prophet Mahomet. 
 
 And hereupon those of Algier, to pal- 
 liate the shame and the reproaches that are 
 thrown upon them for making use of a 
 witch in the danger of this siege, clo say 
 that the loss of the forces of Charles V, 
 was caused by a prayer of one of their 
 Marabou's, named Cidy Utica, which was 
 at that time in great credit, not under the 
 notion of a magitian , but for a person of a 
 holy life. Afterwards in remembrance of 
 their success, they have erected unto him a 
 small mosque without the Babason gate, 
 where he is buried, and in which they keep 
 sundry lamps burning in honour of him s 
 nay they sometimes repair thither to make 
 their saUi^ for a testimony of greater vene* 
 ration. 
 
 Can it be doubted for a momept, 
 that the dramatist had come fresh 
 from reading some older narrative of 
 this deliverance of Algier by a witch,' 
 and transferred the merit of the deed 
 to his Sycorax, exchanging only the 
 '^ rich remimeration," which did not 
 suit his purpose, to the simple par- 
 don of her life? Ogilby wrote in 
 1670; but the authorities to which 
 he refers for his Account of Barbary 
 are — Johannes de Leo, or Africanus 
 — Louis Marmol— Diego de Haedo— 
 Johannes Gramaye — Brseves — CeV^ 
 Curio — and Diego de Torres — ^namea 
 totally unknown to me — and to whicb 
 I beg leave to refer the curious re^ 
 der for his fuller satisfaction. ' -^ 
 
 ^mk 
 
AMICUS REDIVIVUS. 
 
 ooasi xm .- 
 
 Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 
 Closed o'er the heaid of your loved Lycidas ? 
 
 I DO not know when I have expe- 
 rienced a stranger sensation, than on 
 seeing my old friend G. D., who had 
 rbeen paying me a morning visit a 
 few Sundays back, at my cottage, 
 near Islington, upon taking leave, 
 instead of turning down the right 
 hand path by which he had entered 
 — with staff in hand, and at noon 
 day, deliberately march right for- 
 wards into the midst of the stream 
 that runs by us, and totally disap- 
 pear. 
 
 A spectacle like this at dusk would 
 have been appalling enough; but, 
 in the broad open daylight, to wit- 
 ness such an unreserved motion to- 
 wards self-destruction in a valued 
 friend, took from me all power of 
 speculation. 
 
 How I found my feet, I know not. 
 Consciousness was quite gone. Some 
 
 spirit, not my own, whirled me to 
 the spot. I remember nothing but 
 the silvery apparition of a good white 
 head emerging ; nigh which a stafiT 
 (the hand unseen that wielded it) 
 pointed upwards, as feeling for the 
 skies. In a moment (if time was in 
 that time) he was on my shoulders, 
 and I — freighted with a load more 
 precious than his who bore Anchises. 
 And here I cannot but do justice 
 to tlie officious zeal of sundry passers 
 by, who, albeit arriving a little too 
 late to participate in the honours of 
 the rescue,* in philanthropic shoals 
 came thronging to communicate their 
 advice as to the recovery ; pre- 
 scribing variously the application, or 
 non-application, of salt, &c. to the 
 person of the patient. Life mean- 
 time was ebbing fast away, amidst 
 the stifle of conflicting judgments. 
 
 ♦ The topography of my cottage, and its relation to the river, will explain this ; as I 
 have been at some cost to have the whole engraved (in time, I hope, few our next number), 
 as well fpr the satisfaction of the reader, as ta commemorate so signal a deliverance. 
 
614 
 
 Amicus Jtedivivus, 
 
 I 
 
 when one, more sagacious than the 
 rest, by a bright thought, proposed 
 sending for the Doctor. Trite as the 
 counsel was, and impossible, as one 
 should think, to be missed on, — shall 
 I confess ? — in this emergency, it was 
 to me as if an Angel had spoken. 
 Great previous exertions— and mine 
 had not been inconsiderable— are 
 commonly followed by a debility of 
 purpose. This was a moment of ir- 
 resolution. 
 
 MoNocuLus — for so, in default of 
 catching his true name, I choose to 
 designate the medical gentleman who 
 now appeared — is a grave middle- 
 aged person, who, without having 
 studied at the college, or truckled to 
 the pedantry of a diploma, hath em- 
 ployed a great portion of his valuable 
 time in experimental processes upon 
 the bodies of unfortunate fellow- 
 creatures, in whom the vital spark, 
 to mere vulgar thinking, would seem 
 extinct, and lost for ever. He omit- 
 teth no occasion of obtruding his ser- 
 vices, from a case of common sur- 
 feit-suffocation to the ignobler ob- 
 structions, sometimes induced by a 
 too wilful application of the plant 
 Cannabis outwardly. But though he 
 declineth not altogether these drier 
 extinctions, his occupation tendeth 
 for the most part to water-practice ; 
 for the convenience of which, he 
 hath judiciously fixed his quarters 
 near the grand repository of the 
 stream mentioned, where, day and 
 night, from his little watch-tower, at 
 the Middleton's Head, he listeneth to 
 detect the wrecks of drowned mor- 
 tality—partly, as he saith, to be 
 upon the spot — and partly, because 
 the liquids which he useth to pre- 
 scribe to himself and his patients, on 
 these distressing occasions, are ordi- 
 narily more conveniently to be found 
 at these common hostelries, than in 
 the shops and phials of the apothe- 
 caries. His ear hath arrived to such 
 finesse by practice, that it is report- 
 ed, he can distinguish a plunge at a 
 furlong and a half distance ; and can 
 tell, if it be casual or deliberate. He 
 weareth a medal, suspended over a 
 suit, originally of a sad brown, but 
 vvjhich, by time, and frequency of 
 nightly divings, has been dinged into 
 a true professional sable. He passeth 
 by the name of Doctor, and is re- 
 markable for wanting his left eye. 
 His remedy — after a sufficient appli- 
 
 cation of warm blankets, friction, 
 &c. is a simple tumbler, or more, of 
 the purest Cogniac, with water, made 
 as hot as the convalescent can bear 
 it. Where he findeth, as in the case 
 of my friend, a squeamish subject, 
 he condescendeth to be the taster ; 
 and showeth, by his own example, 
 the innocuous nature of the pre- 
 scription. Nothing can be more kind 
 or encouraging than this procedure. 
 It addeth confidence to the patient, 
 to see his medical adviser go hand in 
 hand with himself in the remedy. 
 When the doctor swalloweth his own 
 draught, what peevish invalid can 
 refuse to pledge him in the potion ? 
 In fine, Monoculus is a humane, 
 sensible man, who, for a slender pit- 
 tance, scarce enough to sustain life, 
 is content to wear it out in the en- 
 deavour to save the lives of others — 
 his pretensions so moderate, that 
 with difficulty I could press a crown 
 upon him, for the price of restoring 
 the existence of such an invaluable 
 creature to society as G. D. 
 
 It was pleasant to observe the ef-it 
 feet of the subsiding alarm upon the 
 nerves of the dear absentee. It seem- 
 ed to have given a shake to memory, 
 calling up notice after notice, of all 
 the providential deliverances he had 
 experienced in the course of his long 
 and innocent life. Sitting up in 
 my couch — my couch which, naked 
 and void of furniture hitherto, for 
 the salutary repose which it ad- 
 ministered, shall be honoured with 
 costly valance, at some price, and 
 henceforth be a state-bed at Cole- 
 brook, — he discoursed of marvellous 
 escapes — by carelessness of nurses— ->, 
 by pails of gelid, and kettles of thejj 
 boiling element, in infancy— by or-- 
 chard pranks, and snapping twigs, 
 in schoolboy frolics — by descent of 
 tiles at Trumpington, and heavier 
 tomes at Pembroke — ^by studious,, 
 watchings, inducing frightful vig><;r 
 lance — by want, and the fear of wantf ' 
 and all the sore throbbings of the 
 learned head. — Anon, he would burst 
 out into little fragments of chaunt-. 
 ing — of songs long ago — ends of de-ij- 
 liverance-hymns, not remembered 
 before since childhood, but coming 
 up now, when his heart was made 
 tender as a child's — for the tremor 
 cordis, in the retrospect of a recentji 
 deliverance, as in a case of impend^^r 
 ing danger, acting upon an innocent 
 
163^ 
 
 heart, will produce a eelf-tendemess^ 
 which we should do ill to christen 
 cowardice; and Shakspeare, in the 
 latter crisis, has made his good Sir 
 Hugh to remember the sitting by- 
 Babylon, and to mutter of shallow 
 rivers. 
 
 Waters of Sir Hugh Middleton, — 
 what a spark you were like to have 
 exthiguished for ever ! Your salu- 
 brious streams to this City, for now 
 near two centuries, would hardly 
 have atoned for what you were in 
 a moment washing away. Mockery 
 of a river — liquid artifice — wretched 
 conduit! henceforth rank with ca- 
 nals, and sluggish aqueducts. Was 
 it for this, that, smit in boyhood 
 with the explorations of that Abys- 
 sinian traveller, I paced the vales of 
 Amwell to explore your tributary 
 springs, to trace your salutary waters 
 through green Hertfordshire, and 
 cultured Enfield parks ? — Ye have no 
 swans — no naiads — no river God — or 
 did the benevolent hoary aspect of 
 my friend tempt ye to suck him in, 
 that ye also might have the tutelary 
 genius of your waters ? 
 
 Had he been drowned in Cam, 
 there would have been some conso- 
 nancy in it ; but what willows had 
 ye to wave and rustle over his moist 
 sepidture ? — or, having no name, be- 
 sides that unmeaning assumption of 
 eternal namtif, did ye think to get one 
 by the noble prize, and henceforth to 
 be termed the Stream Dyerian? 
 And could such spacious virtue find a grave 
 Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a 
 wave ? 
 I protest, George, you shall not 
 venture out again — no, not by day- 
 light — without a sufl[icient pair of 
 spectacles — in your musing moods 
 especially. Your absence of mind 
 we have borne, till your presence of 
 body came to be called in question 
 by it. You shall not go wandering 
 into Euripus with Aristotle, if we 
 can help it. Fie, man, to turn dip- 
 per at your years, after your many 
 tracts in favour of sprinkling only ! 
 
 I have nothing but water in my 
 head o' nights since this frightful ac- 
 cident. Sometimes I am with Cla- 
 rence in his dream. At others, I be- 
 hold Christian beginning to sink, and 
 crying out to his good brother Hope- 
 ful (that is me), " I sink in deep 
 waters; the billows go over rtiy 
 
 Amiens Ridivivus. 
 
 615 
 
 Graium tantum vidit. 
 
 head, all the waves go over me. Se- 
 lah." Then I have before me Pali-A^ 
 nurus, just letting go the steerage. 
 I Cry out too late to save. Next 
 follow — a mournful procession— 5?//- 
 cidal faces, saved against their wills 
 from drowning ; dolefully trailing a 
 length of reluctant gratefulness, with 
 ropy weeds pendant from locks of 
 watchet hue — constrained Lazari — 
 Pluto's half-subjects — stolen fees 
 from the grave — bilking Charon of 
 his fare. At their head Arioii — 
 — or is it G. D. ? — in his sing- 
 ing garments marcheth singly, with 
 harp hi hand, and votive garland, 
 which Machaon (or Doctor Hawes) 
 snatcheth straight, intending to sus- 
 jjend it to the stem God of Sea. 
 Then follow dismal streams of Lethe, 
 in which the half-drenched on earth 
 are constrained to drown downright, 
 by wharfs where Ophelia twice acts 
 her muddy death. — 
 
 And, doubtless, there is soriife no- 
 tice in that invisible world, when one 
 of us approacheth (as my friend did 
 so lately) to their inexorable pre- 
 cincts. When a soul knocks once, 
 twice, at death's door, the sensation 
 aroused within the palace must be 
 considerable ; and the grim Feature, 
 by modem science so often dispos- 
 sessed of his prey, must have learned 
 by this time to pity Tantalus. 
 
 A pulse assuredly was felt along 
 the line of the Elysian shades, when 
 the near arrival of G. D. was an- 
 nounced by no equivocal indications. 
 From their seats of Asphodel arose 
 the gentler and the graver ghosts- 
 poet, or historian — of Grecian or of 
 Roman lore — to crown with unfading 
 chaplets the half-finished love-la- 
 bours of their unwearied scholiast.'* 
 Him Markland expected — him Tyr-^* 
 whitt hoped to encounter — him th^'^ 
 sweet lyrist of Peter House, whotn 
 he had barely seen upon earth,* with 
 
 newest airs prepared to greet '|'" 
 
 and, patron of the gentle Christ's-boy, 
 — who should have been his patron 
 through life — the mild Askew, with*' 
 longing aspirations, leaned foremost '• 
 from his venerable ^sculapian chair,-' 
 to welcome into that happy company ' 
 the matured virtues of the man^J"* 
 whose tender scions in the boy he"* 
 himself upon earth had so prophe- 
 tically fed and watered. 
 
 Elia. ^ 
 
 a 
 
 n 
 
LONDON MAGAZINE. 
 
 m 
 
 DECEMBER, 1823. 
 
 " The following admirable letter seems to refer to the observations on Kant, 
 contained in the Opium Eater's Letters. Perhaps that acute logician may be 
 able to discover its meaning : or if not^ he may think it worth preserving as 
 an illustration of Shakspeare's profound knowledge of character displayed 
 in Ancient Pistol. 
 
 Can Neptune sleep ? — Is Willich dead ? — Him who wielded the trident of Albion ! Is 
 it thus you trample on the ashes of my friend ? All the dreadful energies of thought 
 -—all the sophistry of fiction and the triumphs of the human intellect are waving o'er 
 his peaceful grave. " He understood not Kant." Peace then to the harmless invincible, 
 I have long been thinking of presenting the world with a Metaphysical Dictionary — of 
 elucidating Locke's romance. — I await with impatience Kant in English. Give me 
 that ! Your letter has awakened me to a sense of your merits. Beware of squabbles ; 
 I know the literary infirmities of man. Scott rammed his nose against mortals— he 
 grasped at death for fame to chaunt the victory. 
 
 Thiste. 
 
 How is the Opium Eater ? 
 
THE 
 
 Sotttion iWaga^me. 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1824. 
 
 BLAKESMOOR IN H- 
 
 ;hire. 
 
 I DO not know a pleasure more 
 affecting than to range at will over 
 the deserted apartments of some fine 
 old family mansion. The traces of 
 exthict grandeur admit of a better 
 passion than envy; and contempla- 
 tions on the great and good, whom 
 we fancy in succession to have 
 been its inhabitants, weave for us 
 illusions, incompatible with the bustle 
 of modern occupancy, and vanities 
 of foolish present aristocracy. The 
 same difference of feeling, I think, 
 attends us between entering an 
 empty and a crowded church. In 
 the latter it is chance but some pre- 
 sent human frailty — an act of inat- 
 tention on the part of some of tlie 
 auditory — or a trait of affectation, 
 or worse, vain-glory, on that of the 
 preacher — puts us by our best 
 thoughts, disharmonising the place 
 and the occasion. But wouldst thou 
 know the beauty of holiness .f* — go 
 alone on some week-day, borrowing 
 the keys of good Master Sexton, 
 traverse the cool aisles of some 
 country church — thhik of the piety 
 that has kneeled there — the congre- 
 gations, old and young, that have 
 found consolation there — the meek 
 pastor — the docile parishioner — v.dth 
 no disturbing emotions, no cross con- 
 flicting comparisons — drink in the 
 tranquillity of the place, till thou 
 thyself become as fixed and motion- 
 
 Sept. ISisJi. 
 
 less as tfie marble effigies that kneel 
 and weep around thee. 
 
 Journeying northward lately, I 
 could not resist going some few miles 
 out of my road, to look upon the 
 remains of an old great house with 
 which I had been impressed hi this 
 way in infancy. 1 was apprized that 
 the owner of it had lately pulled it 
 down ; still I had a vague notion 
 that it could not all have perished, 
 that so much solidity with magnifi- 
 cence could not have been crushed 
 all at once into the mere dust and 
 rubbish whicli I found it. 
 
 The work of ruin had proceeded 
 with a swift hand indeed, and the 
 demolition of a few weeks had re- 
 duced it to — an antiquity. 
 
 I was astonished at the indistinc- 
 tion of every thing. Where had 
 stood the great gates .f* What bounded 
 the court-yard .'* Whereabout did the 
 out-houses commence ? a few bricks 
 only lay as representatives of that 
 which was so stately and so spa- 
 cious. 
 
 Death does not shrink up his hu- 
 man victim at this rate. The burnt 
 ashes of a man weigh more in their 
 proportion. 
 
 Had I seen these brick-and-mortar 
 knaves at their process of destruc- 
 tion, at the plucking of every pannel 
 I should have felt the varlets at my 
 heart. I should have cried out to 
 
lilakesmoor in H shire. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 them to spare a plank at least out of 
 the cheerful store-room, in whose 
 hot window-seat I used to sit, and 
 read Cowley, with the grass-plat 
 before, and the hum and flappings 
 of that one solitary wasp that ever 
 haunted it, about me — it is in mine 
 ears now, as oft as summer returns 
 — or a pannel of the yellow room. 
 
 Why, every plank and pannel of 
 that house for me had magic in it. 
 The tapestried bed-rooms — tapestry 
 so much better than painting — not 
 adorning merely, but peopling the 
 wainscots — at which childhood ever 
 and anon would steal a look, shifting 
 its coverlid (replaced as quickly) to 
 exercise its tender courage in a mo- 
 mentary eye-encounter with those 
 stern bright visages, staring recipro- 
 cally — all Ovid on the walls, in co- 
 lours vivider than his descriptions. 
 Actseon in mid sprout, with the 
 unappeasable prudery of Diana; and 
 the still more provoking, and almost 
 culinary coolness of Dan Phoebus, 
 eel-fashion, deliberately divesting of 
 Marsyas. 
 
 Then, that haunted room — in 
 which old Mrs. Battle died — where- 
 into 1 have crept, but always in the 
 day-time, with a passion of fear; 
 and a sneaking curiosity, terror- 
 tainted, to hold communication with 
 the past. — How shall they build it up 
 again ? 
 
 . It was an old deserted place, yet 
 not so long deserted but that traces 
 of the splendour of past inmates 
 were everywhere apparent. Its fur- 
 niture was still standing — even to 
 the tarnished gilt leather battledores, 
 and crumbling feathers of shuttle- 
 cocks, in the nursery, which told 
 that children had once played there. 
 But I was a lonely child, and had 
 the range at will of every apartment, 
 knew every nook and corner, won- 
 dered and worshipped everywhere. 
 
 The solitude of childhood is not 
 so much the mother of thought, as 
 it is the feeder of love, and silence, 
 and admiration. So strange a pas- 
 sion for the place possessed me in 
 those years, that, though there lay — 
 I shame to say how few roods dis- 
 tant from the mansion — half hid by 
 trees, what I judged some romantic 
 lake — such was the spell which 
 
 bound me to the house, and such 
 my carefulness not to pass its strict 
 and proper precincts, that the idle 
 waters lay unexplored for me ; and 
 not till late in life, curiosity pre- 
 vailing over elder devotion, I found, 
 to my astonishment, a pretty brawl- 
 ing brook had been the Lacus Incog- 
 nitus of my infancy. Variegated 
 views, extensive prospects — and 
 those at no great distance from the 
 house~I was told of such— what were 
 they to me, being out the boundaries 
 of my Eden } — So far from a wish to 
 roam, I would have drawn, me- 
 thought, still closer the fences of my 
 chosen prison ; and have been hem- 
 med in by a yet securer cincture of 
 those excluding garden walls. I 
 could have exclaimed with that gar- 
 den-loving poet — 
 
 Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines ; 
 Curl me about, ye gadding vines ; 
 And oh so close your circles lace, 
 That I may never leave this place : 
 But, lest your fetters prove too weak, 
 Ere I your silken bondage break, 
 Do yoi, O brambles, chain me too, 
 And, courteous briars, nail me through.* 
 
 I was here as in a lonely temple. 
 Snug firesides — the low-built roof 
 — parlours ten feet by ten — frugal 
 boards, and all the homeliness of 
 home — these were the condition of 
 my birth — the wholesome soil which 
 I was planted in. Yet, without im- 
 peachment to their tenderest lessons, 
 I am not sorry to have had glances of 
 something beyond; and to have taken 
 if but a peep, in childhood, at the 
 contrasting accidents of a great for- 
 tune. 
 
 To have the feeling of gentility, it 
 is not necessary to have been bom 
 gentle. The pride of ancestry may 
 be had on cheaper terms than to be 
 obliged to an importunate race of 
 ancestors; and the coat-less anti- 
 quary, in his unemblazoned cell, re- 
 volving the long line of a Mowbray's 
 or De Clifford's pedigree — at those 
 sounding names may warm himself 
 into as gay a vanity as those who do 
 inherit them. The claims of birth 
 are ideal merely : and what herald 
 shall go about to strip me of an idea ? 
 Is it trenchant to their swords } can 
 it be hacked off as a spur can ? or 
 torn away like a tarnished garter } 
 
 Marvell, on Appleton House, to the Lord Fairfax. 
 
Blakesmoor in H shire. 
 
 1824.;] 
 
 What, else, were the families of 
 the great to us? what pleasure 
 should we take in their tedious ge- 
 nealogies, or their capitulatory brass 
 monuments? What to us the uninter- 
 rupted current of their bloods, if our 
 own did not answer within us to a 
 cognate and correspondent eleva- 
 tion ? 
 
 Or wherefore, else, O tattered and 
 diminished 'Scutcheon — that hung 
 upon the time-worn walls of thy 
 princely stairs, Blakesmoor! — have 
 I in childhood so oft stood poring 
 upon thy mystic characters — thy em- 
 blematic supporters, with their pro- 
 phetic ^' Resurgam " — till, every dreg 
 of peasantry purging off, I received 
 into myself Very Gentility? — Thou 
 wert first in my morning eyes ; and, 
 of nights, hast detained my steps 
 from bedward, till it was but a step 
 from gazing at thee to dreaming on 
 thee. 
 
 This is the only true gentry by 
 adoption; the veritable change of 
 blood, and not, as empirics have 
 fabled, by transfusion. 
 
 Who it was by dying tlfat had 
 earned the splendid trophy, T know 
 not, I inquired not; but its fading 
 rags, and colours cobweb-stained, 
 told, that its subject was of two cen- 
 turies back. 
 
 And what if my ancestor at that 
 date was some Damcetas — feeding 
 flocks, not his own, upon the hills of 
 Lincoln — did I in less earnest vindi- 
 cate to myself the family trappings 
 of this once proud ^gon ? — repay- 
 ing by a backward triumph the in- 
 sults he might possibly have heaped 
 in his life-time upon my poor pasto- 
 ral progenitor. 
 
 227 
 
 If it were presumption so to spe- 
 culate, the present owners of the 
 mansion had least reason to com- 
 plain. They had long forsaken the 
 old house of their fathers for a newer 
 trifle ; and I was left to appropriate 
 to myself what images I could pick 
 up, to raise my fancy, or to soothe 
 my vanity. 
 
 I was the true descendant of those 
 old W s ; and not the present fa- 
 mily of that name, who had fled the 
 old waste places. 
 
 Mine was that gallery of good old 
 family portraits, which as I have 
 traversed, giving them in fancy my 
 own family name, one — and then 
 another — would seem to smile, reach- 
 ing forward from the canvas, to re- 
 cognise the new relationship; while 
 the rest looked grave, as it seemed, 
 at the vacancy in their dwelling, and 
 thoughts of fled posterity. 
 
 That Beauty with the cool blue 
 pastoral drapery, and a lamb — that 
 hung next the great bay window — 
 
 with the bright yellow H shire 
 
 hair, and eye of watchet hue — so like 
 my Alice ! — I am persuaded, she was 
 a true Elia — Mildred Elia, I take 
 it. 
 
 From her, and from my passion 
 for her — for I first learned love from 
 a picture — Bridget took the hint of 
 those pretty whimsical lines, which 
 thou may St see, if haply thou hast 
 never seen them. Reader, in the mar- 
 gin.* But my Mildred grew not old, 
 like the imaginary Helen. 
 
 Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy 
 noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic 
 pavements, and its Twelve Caesars 
 — stately busts in marble — ranged 
 round: of whose countenances, young 
 
 High-born Helen, round your dwelling, 
 These twenty years I've paced in vain : 
 
 Haughty beauty, thy lover's duty 
 Hath been to glory in his pain. 
 
 High-bom Helen, proudly telling 
 
 Stories of thy cold disdain ; 
 I starve, I die, now you comply. 
 
 And I no longer can complain. 
 
 These twenty years I've lived on tears, 
 Dwelling for ever on a frown ; 
 
 On sighs I've fed, your scorn my bread ; 
 I perish now you kind are grown. 
 
 Can I, who loved my beloved 
 
 But for the scorn ' was in her eye,' 
 
 Can I be moved for my beloved. 
 When she returns me sigh for sigh ? 
 Q2 
 
228 Song. 
 
 reader of faces as I was, the frown- 
 ing beauty of Nero, I remember, had 
 most of my wonder, but the mild 
 Galba had my love. There they 
 stood in the coldness of death, yet 
 freshness of immortality. 
 
 Mine too thy lofty Justice Hall, 
 with its one chair of authority, high- 
 backed, and wickered, once the ter- 
 ror of luckless poacher, or self-for- 
 getful maiden so common since, 
 
 that bats have roosted in it. 
 
 Mine too — whose else ? — thy cost- 
 ly fruit garden, with its sun-baked 
 southern wall ; the ampler pleasure- 
 garden, rising backwards from the 
 house, in triple terraces, with flower- 
 pots now of palest lead, save that a 
 speck here and there, saved from the ' 
 elements, bespake their pristine state 
 to have been gilt and glittering; the 
 
 USept. 
 
 verdant quarters backwarder still ; 
 and, stretching still beyond, in old 
 formality, thy firry wilderness, the 
 haunt of squirrel, and the day-long 
 murmuring woodpigeon — with that 
 antique image in the centre, God or 
 Goddess I wist not; but child of 
 Athens or old Rome paid never a 
 sincerer worship to Pan or to Syl- 
 vanus in their native groves, than I 
 to that fragmental mystery. 
 
 Was it for this, that I kissed my 
 childish hands too fervently in your 
 idol worship, walks and whidings of 
 Blakesmoor! for this, or what sin 
 of mine, has the plough passed over 
 your pleasant places ? I sometimes 
 think that as nien, when they die, do 
 not die all, so of their extinguished 
 habitations there may be a hope — a 
 germ to be revivified. 
 
 Eli A. 
 
1824.] Original Letter of, lames Thomson. iG3 
 
 ORIGINAL LETTER OF JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The following very interesting letter has been recovered from oblivion, or 
 at least from neglect, by our friend Elia, and the public will no doubt thank 
 him for the deed. It is without date or superscription in the manuscript, 
 which (as our contributor declares) was in so " fragmentitious " a state as 
 to perplex his transcribing faculties in the extreme. The poet's love of na- 
 ture is quite evident from one part of it ; and the '^ poetical posture of his 
 affairs " from another. Whether regarded as elucidating the former or the 
 latter, it is a document not a little calculated to excite the attention of the 
 curious as well as the critical. We could ourselves write an essay-full of 
 conjectures from the grounds it affords both with respect to the author's 
 poems and his pride. But we must take another opportunity, or leave it 
 to his next biographer. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I would chide you for the slackness of your correspondence ; but having 
 blamed you wrongeously* last time,I shall say nothing till I hear from you, 
 which I hope will be soon. 
 
 There's a little business I would communicate to you before I come to 
 the more entertaining part of our correspondence. 
 
 I'm going (hard task) to complain, and beg your assistance. When I 
 came up here I brought very little money along with me ; expecting some 
 xnore upon the selling of Widehope, which was to have been sold that day 
 my mother was buried. Now it is unsold yet, but will be disposed of as 
 soon as it can be conveniently done ; though indeed it is perplexed with 
 some difficulties. I was a long time living here at my own charges, and 
 you know how expensive that is: this, together with the furnishing of 
 myself with clothes, linen, one thing and another, to fit me for any 
 business of this nature here, necessarily obliged me to contract some debts. 
 Being a stranger, it is a wonder how I got any credit ; but I cannot expect 
 it will be long sustained, unless I immediately clear it. Even now, I 
 believe it is at a crisis — my friends have no money to send me, till the land 
 is sold j and my creditors will not wait till then. You know what the con- 
 sequence would be. Now the assistance I would beg of you, and which I 
 know, if in your power, you will not refuse me, is a letter of credit on 
 some merchant, banker, or such like person in London, for the matter of 
 twelve pounds ; till I get money upon the selling of the land, which I am 
 at last certain of, if you could either give it me yourself, or procure it : 
 though you owe it not to my merit, yet you owe it to your own nature, 
 which I know so well as to say no more upon the subject : only allow me 
 to add, that when I first fell upon such a project, (the only thing I have 
 for it in my present circumstances,) knowing the selfish inhumane temper 
 of the generality of the world, you were the first person that offered to my 
 thoughts, as one to whom I had the confidence to make such an address. 
 
 Now I imagine you are seized with a fine romantic kind of melancholy 
 on the fading of the year — now I figure you wandering, philosophical and 
 pensive, amidst brown withered groves; whiles the leaves rustle under 
 your feet, the sun gives a farewell parting gleam, and the birds — 
 
 Stir the faint note, and but attempt to sing. 
 
 Then again, when the heavens wear a more gloomy aspect, the winds 
 whistle and the waters spout, I see you in the well-known cleugh, beneath 
 the solemn arch of tall, thick, embowering trees, listening to the amusing 
 lull of the many steep, moss-grown cascades; while deep, divine contem- 
 plation, the genius of the place, prompts each swelling, awful thought. 
 
 * Sic in MS. 
 
48? 
 
 Captain Jackson. 
 
 CNoY. 
 
 ancestral thumbs; dear, cracked 
 spinnet of dearer Louisa! Without 
 mention of mine, be dumb, thou thin 
 accompanier of her thinner warble ! 
 A veil be spread over the dear de- 
 lighted face of well-deluded father, 
 who now haply listening to che- 
 rubic notes, scarce feels sincerer 
 pleasure than when she awakened 
 thy time-shaken chords responsive to 
 the twitterings of that slender image 
 of a voice. 
 
 We were not without our literary 
 talk either. It did not extend far, 
 but, as far as it went, it was good. 
 It was bottomed well; had good 
 groimds to go upon. In the cottage 
 was a room, which tradition authen- 
 ticated to have been the same in 
 which Glover, in his occasional re- 
 tirements, had penned the greater 
 part of his Leonidas. This circum- 
 stance was nightly quoted, though 
 none of the present inmates, that I 
 could discover, appeared ever to 
 have met with the poem in question. 
 But that was no matter. Glover had 
 written there, and the anecdote was 
 pressed into the account of the family 
 importance. It diffused a learned 
 air through the apartment, the little 
 side casement of which (the poet's 
 study window), opiening upon a su- 
 perb view as far as to tlie pretty spire 
 of Harrow, over domains and patri- 
 monial acres, not a rood nor square 
 yard whereof our host could call his 
 own, yet gave occasion to an immo- 
 derate expansion of — vanity shall I 
 call it? — in his bosom, as he showed 
 them in a glowing summer evening. 
 It was all his, he took it all in, and 
 communicated rich portions of it to 
 his guests. It was a part of his 
 largess, his hospitality ; it was going 
 over his grounds ; he was lord for 
 the time of showing them, and you 
 the implicit lookers-up to his magni- 
 ficence. 
 
 He was a juggler, who threw mists 
 before your eyes — j'ou had no time to 
 detect his fallacies. He would say 
 'Miand me the silver sugar-tongs;" 
 and, before you could discover it was a 
 single spoon, andthat plated^he would 
 disturb and captivate your imagina- 
 tion by a misnomer of " the urn" 
 for a tea kettle ; or by calling a 
 homely bench a sofa. Rich men di- 
 rect you to their furniture, poor ones 
 divert you from it ; he neither did 
 one nor the other, but by simply as- 
 
 suming that every thing was hand- 
 some about him, you were positively 
 at a demur what you did, or did not 
 see, at the cottage. With nothing to 
 live on, he seemed to live upon 
 every thing. He had a stock of 
 wealth in his mind ; not that which 
 is properly termed Content, for in 
 truth he was not to be contained at 
 all, but overflowed all bounds by the 
 force of a magnificent self-delusion. 
 
 Enthusiasm is catching ; and even 
 his wife, a sober native of North 
 Britain, who generally saw things 
 more as they were, was not proof 
 against the continual collision of his 
 credulity. Her daughters were ra- 
 tional and discreet young women ; 
 in the main, perhaps, not insensible 
 to their true circumstances. I have 
 seen them assume a thoughtful air. 
 at times. But such was the pre- 
 ponderating opulence of his fancy, 
 that I am persuaded, not for any half 
 hour together, did they ever look 
 their own prospects fairly in the face#^ 
 There was no resisting the vortex of 
 his temperament. His riotous ima- 
 gination conjured up handsome set- 
 tlements before their eyes, which 
 kept them up in the eye of the world 
 too, and seem at last to have realized 
 themselves ; for they both have mar- 
 ried since, I am told, more than re- 
 spectably. 
 
 It is long since, and my memory 
 waxes dim on some subjects, or 1 
 should wish to convey some notion 
 of the manner in which the pleasant 
 creature described the circumstances 
 of his own wedding-day. I faintly 
 remember something of a chaise and 
 four, in which he made his entry into 
 Glasgow on that morning to fetch 
 the bride home, or carry her thither, 
 I forget which. It so completely 
 made out the stanza of the old 
 ballad— 
 
 When we came down through Glasgow 
 towti, ' ' - "' 
 
 We were a comely sight to see ; 
 My love was clad in black velvet, 
 
 And I myself in cramasie. 
 
 I suppose it was the only occasion, 
 upon which his own actual splen- 
 dour at all corresponded with the 
 world's notions on that subject. In 
 homely cart, or travelling caravan, 
 by whatever humble vehicle they 
 chanced to be transported in less 
 prosperous days, the ride through 
 Glasgow catne hack u'p.on his fancy. 
 
18240 
 
 Captain Jackson . 
 
 48S 
 
 not as a humiliating- contrast, but as 
 a fair occasion for reverting^ to that 
 one day's state. It seemed an 
 ^' equipage etern" from which no 
 power of fate or fortune, once mount- 
 ed, had power thereafter to dislodge 
 him. 
 
 There is some merit in putting a 
 handsome face upon indigent circum- 
 stances. To bully and swagger 
 away the sense of them before stran- 
 gers, may not be always discommend- 
 
 able. Tibbs, and Bobadil, even when 
 detected, have more of our admira- 
 tion than contempt. But for a man 
 to put the cheat upon himself; to 
 play the Bobadil at home ; and, 
 steeped in poverty up to the lips, to 
 fancy himself all the while chin-deep 
 in riches, is a strain of constitutional 
 philosophy, and a mastery over for- 
 tune, which was reserved for my old 
 friend Captain Jackson. 
 
 Elia. 
 
1825.]] MEMOIR OF MIU LISTON 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. 
 
 The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Jolian De 
 L'Estonne (see Doomesday Book, where he is so written) who came in 
 with the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, 
 in Kent. His particular merits or services, Fabian, whose authority 
 I chiefly follow, has forgotten, or perhaps thought it immaterial, to 
 specify. Fuller thinks that he was standard-bearer to Hugo De 
 Agmondesham, a powerful Norman Baron, who was slain by the hand 
 of Harold himself at the fatal battle of Hastings. Be this as it may, we 
 find a family of that name flourishing some centuries later in that county. 
 John Delliston, Knight, was high sheriff for Kent, according to 
 Fabian, qninto Henrici Sexti ; and we trace the lineal branch 
 flourishing downwards — the orthography varying, according to the 
 unsettled usage of the times, from Delleston to Leston, or Liston, 
 between which it seems to have alternated, till, in the latter end of 
 the reign of James I, it finally settled into the determinate and pleasing 
 dissyllabic arrangement which it still retains. Aminadab Liston, th^ 
 eldest male representative of the family of that day, was of the strictest 
 order of Puritans. Mr. Foss, of Pall Mall, has obligingly communicated 
 to me an undoubted tract of his, which bears the initials only, A. L. 
 and is entitled " the Grinning Glass : or Actor's Mirrour, wherein the 
 vituperative Visnomy of \icious Players for the Scene is as virtuously 
 reflected back upon their mimetic Monstrosities as it has viciously 
 (hitherto) vitiated with its vile Vanities her Votarists." A strange title, 
 but bearing the impress of those absurdities with which the title pages 
 of that pamphlet-spawning age abounded. The work bears date I617. 
 It preceded the Histriomastix by fifteen years ; and as it went before 
 it in time, so it comes not far short of it in virulence. It is amusing to 
 find an ancestor of Liston's thus bespattering the players at the 
 commencement of the seventeenth century. " Thinketh He (the actor), 
 with his costive countenances, to wry a sorrowing soul out of her 
 anguish, or by defacing the divine denotement of dcstinate dignity 
 (daignely described in the face humane and no other) to reinstamp the 
 Paradice-plotted similitude with a novel and naughty approximation 
 (not in the first intention) to those abhorred and ugly God-forbidden 
 correspondences, vrith flouring Apes' jeering gibberings, and Babion 
 babbling-like, to hoot out of countenance all modest measure, as if our 
 sins were not sufiicing to stoop our backs without He wresting and 
 crooking his members to mistimed mirth (rather malice) in deformed 
 fashion, leering when he should learn, prating for praying, goggling his 
 eyes (better upturned for grace), whereas in Paradice (if we can go thus 
 high for His profession) that devilish Serpent appeareth his undoubted 
 Predecessor, first induing a mask like some roguish roistering Hoscius 
 
 Jan. 18^25. C 
 
1 8 MEMOIR OP MR. LISTON. [[Jan. 
 
 (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the gaping Woman, 
 whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, and are voiced 
 to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am told, the custom is 
 commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not ambiguously derived 
 from that pernicious Pippin (worse in effect than the Apples of Discord) 
 whereas sometimes the hissing sounds of displeasure, as I hear, do 
 lively reintonate that snake-taking-leave, and diabolical goings off, in. 
 Paradice." 
 
 The puritanic effervescence of the early Presbyterians appears to have 
 abated with time, and the opinions of the more immediate ancestors of 
 our subject to have subsided at length into a strain of moderate 
 Calvinism. Still a tincture of the old leaven was to be expected among 
 the posterity of A. L. 
 
 Our hero was an only son of Habakuk Liston, settled as an 
 Anabaptist minister upon the patrimonial soil of his ancestors. A 
 regular certificate appears, thus entered in the church book at Lupton 
 Magna. " Johannes, Jilius Hahakuk et Rebeccce Liston, Dissentientium, 
 natus quinto Decembri 1780, baptizatus sexto Februarii sequentis; 
 Sponsoribus J. et TV. Woollaston, una. cum Maria Merry weather." The 
 singularity of an Anabaptist minister conforming to the child rites of the 
 church, would have tempted me to doubt the authenticity of this entry, 
 had I not been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favour of Mr. 
 Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish clerk of Lupton. Possibly 
 some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some of the 
 sponsors, might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must have 
 appeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. 
 The term Dissentientium was possibly intended by the orthodox clergy- 
 man as a slur upon the supposed inconsistency. What, or of what 
 nature, the expectations we have hinted at, may have been, we have 
 now no means of ascertaining. Of the Wollastons no trace is now 
 discoverable in the village. The name of Merry weather occurs over the 
 front of a grocer's shop at the western extremity of Lupton. 
 
 Of the infant Liston we find no events recorded before his fourth 
 year, in which a severe attack of the measles bid fair to have robbed the . 
 rising generation of a fund of innocent entertainment. He had it of 
 the confluent kind, as it is called, and the child's life was for a week or 
 two despaired of. His recovery he always attributes (under Heaven) to 
 the humane interference of one Doctor .Wilhelm Richter, a German 
 empiric, who, in this extremity, prescribed a copious diet of Satir Kraut, 
 which the child was observed to reach at with avidity, when other food 
 repelled him; and from this change of diet his restoration was rapid and 
 complete. We have often heard him name the circumstance with 
 gratitude ; and it is not altogether surprising, that a relish for this kind 
 of aliment, so abhorrent and harsh to pommon English palates, has 
 accompanied him through life. When any of Mr. Liston's intimates; 
 
1825.] MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. 19 
 
 invite him to supper, he never fails of finding, nearest to his knife and' 
 fork, a dish of Saur Kraut. 
 
 At the age of nine we find our subject under the tuition of the Rev. 
 Mr. Goodenough (his father's health not permitting him probably to 
 instruct him himself), by whom he was inducted into a competent portion 
 of Latin and Greek, with some mathematics, till the death of Mr. 
 Goodenough, in his own seventieth, and Master Listen's eleventh year, 
 put a stop for the present to his classical progress. 
 
 We have heard our hero with emotions, which do his heart honour, 
 describe the awful circumstances attending the decease of this worthy 
 old gentleman. It seems they had been walking out together, master 
 and pupil, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three quarters of a mile 
 west of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look 
 down upon a chasm, where a shaft had been lately sunk in a mining specu- 
 lation (then projecting, but abandoned soon after, as not answering the 
 promised success, by Sir Ralph Shepperton, Knight, and member for the 
 county). The old clergyman leaning over, either with incaution, or 
 sudden giddiness (probably a mixture of both), suddenly lost his footing, 
 and, to use Mr. Liston's phrase, disappeared ; and was doubtless broken 
 into a thousand pieces. The sound of his head, &c. dashing successively 
 upon the projecting masses of the chasm, had such an effect upon the 
 child, that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many years after his 
 recovery he was not once seen so much as to smile. 
 
 The joint death of both his parents, which happened not many months 
 after this disastrous accident, and were probably (one or both of them) 
 accelerated by it, threw our youth upon the protection of his maternal great 
 aunt, Mrs. Sittingbourn. Of this aunt we have never heard him speak but 
 with expressions amounting almost to reverence. To the influence of 
 her early counsels and manners, he has always attributed the firmness 
 with which, in maturer years, thrown upon a way of life, commonly not 
 the best adapted to gravity and self-retirement, he has been able to 
 maintain a serious character, untinctured with the levities incident to his 
 profession. Ann Sittingbourn (we have seen her portrait by Hudson) 
 was stately, stiff, tall, with a cast of features strikingly resembling the 
 subject of this memoir. Her estate in Kent was spacious and well- 
 wooded; the house, one of those venerable old mansions which are 
 so impressive in childhood, and so hardly forgotten in succeeding years. 
 In the venerable solitudes of Chamwood, among thick shades of the oak 
 and beech (this last his favourite tree), the young Liston cultivated those 
 contemplative habits which have never entirely deserted him in after 
 years. Here he was commonly in the summer months to be met with, 
 witk a book in his hand — not a play-book — meditating. Boyle's Reflec- 
 tions was at one time the darling volume, which in its turn was 
 superseded by Young's Night Thoughts, which has continued its hold 
 upon him through life. He carries it always about him j and it i« no 
 
 C2 
 
20 MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. |^Jan. 
 
 uncommon thing for him to be seen, in the refreshing intervals of his 
 occupation, leaning against a side scene, in a sort of Herbert of Cherbury 
 posture, turning over a pocket edition of his favourite author. 
 
 But the solitudes of Charnwood were not destined always to obscure 
 the path of our young hero. The premature death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, 
 at the age of 70, occasioned by incautious burning of a pot of charcoal 
 in her sleeping chamber, left him in his 19th year nearly without 
 resources. That the stage at all should have presented itself as an 
 eligible scope for his talents, and, in particular, that he should have 
 chosen a line so foreign to what appears to have been his turn of mind, 
 may require some explanation. 
 
 At Charnwood then we behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From 
 his cradle averse to flesh meats, and strong drink; abstemious even 
 beyond the genius of the place ; and almost in spite of the remonstrances 
 of his great aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water Was his 
 habitual drink, and his food little beyond the mast, and beech nuts, of his 
 favourite groves. It is a medical fact, that this kind of diet, however 
 favourable to the contemplative powers of the primitive hermits, &c., is 
 but ill adapted to the less robust minds and bodies of a later generation. 
 Hypochondria almost constantly ensues. It was so in the case of the 
 young Liston. He was subject to sights, and had visions. Those arid 
 beech nuts, distilled by a complexion naturally adust, mounted into an 
 occiput, already prepared to kindle by long seclusion, and the fervour of 
 strict Calvinistic notions. In the glooms of Charnwood he was assailed 
 by illusions, similar in kind to those which are related of the famous 
 Anthony of Padua. Wild antic faces would ever and anon protrude 
 themselves upon his sensorium. Whether he shut his eyes, or kept them 
 open, the same illusions operated. The darker and more profound were 
 his cogitations, the droller and more whimsical became the apparitions. 
 They buzzed about him thick as flies, flapping at him, flouting him, 
 hooting in his ear, yet with such comic appendages, that what at first was 
 his bane, became at length his solace ; and he desired no better society 
 than that of his merry phantasmata. We shall presently find in what 
 way this remarkable phenomenon influenced his future destiny. 
 
 On the death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, we find him received into the 
 family of Mr. Willoughby, an eminent Turkey merchant, resident in 
 Birchin-lane, London. We lose a little while here the chain of his 
 history ; by what inducements this gentleman was determined to make 
 him an inmate of his house. Probably he had had some personal kind- 
 ness for Mrs. Sittingbourn formerly ; but however it was, the young man 
 was here treated more like a son than a clerk, though he was nominally 
 but the latter. Different avocations, the change of scene, with that 
 alternation of business and recreation, which in its greatest perfection is 
 to be had only in London, appear to have weaned him in a short time 
 from the hypochondriacal affections which had beset him at Charnwood. 
 
1825.]] M*:^OIR OF MR. LI5T0N. 21 
 
 In the three years which followed his removal to Birchin-lane, we find 
 him making more than one voyage to the Levant, as chief factor for Mr. 
 Willoughby, at the Porte. We could easily fill our biography with the 
 pleasant passages which we have heard him relate as having happened 
 to him at Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion 
 of a design of penetrating the seraglio, &c. ; but with the deepest coii- 
 vincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of the 
 stories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, which, 
 however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of this kinc^, 
 which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the very appearance 
 of the contrary. 
 
 We will now bring him over the seas again, and suppose him in the 
 counting-house in Bii*chin-laue, his protector satisfied with the returns of 
 his factorage, and all going on so smoothly that we may expect to find 
 Mr. Liston at last an opulent merchant upon 'Change, as it is called. But 
 see the turns of destiny ! Upon a summer's excursion into Norfolk, in the 
 year 1801, the accidental sight of pretty Sally Parker, as she was called 
 (then in the Norwich company), diverted his inclinations at once from 
 commerce ; and he became, in the language of common-place biography, 
 stage-struck. Happy for the lovers of mirth was it, that our hero took 
 this turn; he might else have been to this hour that unentertaining 
 character, a plodding London merchant. 
 
 We accordingly find him shortly after making his debut, as it is called, 
 upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then in the 
 22d year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, he chose the 
 part of Pyrrhus in the Distressed Mother, to Sally Parker's Hermione. 
 We find him afterwards as Barnwell, Altamont, Chamont, &c. ; but, as if 
 nature had destined him to the sock, an unavoidable infirmity absolutely 
 discapacitated him for tragedy. His person at this latter period, of which 
 I have been speaking, wa& graceful, and even commanding; his coun- 
 tenance set to gravity ; he had the power of arresting the attention of an 
 audience at first sight almost beyond any other tragic actor. But he 
 could not hold it. To understand this obstacle we must go back a few 
 years to those appalling reveries at Chamwood. Those illusions, which 
 had vanished before the dissipation of a less recluse life, and more free 
 society, now in his solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon 
 feeling incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vivid- 
 ness. In the midst of some most pathetic passage, the parting of Jaffier 
 with his dying friend, for instance, he would suddenly be surprised witk 
 a fit of violent horse laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing 
 before him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would 
 peep out upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse 
 once or twice served his purpose, but no audiences could be expected to 
 bear repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes 
 them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralysing 
 
THE FALLEN STAR. 
 
 CJan. 
 
 every efFect. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy 
 in Hamlet, even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. 
 However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome, he had 
 good sense enough to turn into emolument, and determined to make a 
 commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for 
 the sock, and the illusions instantly ceased ; or, if they occurred for a 
 short season, by their very co-operation added a zest to his comic vein ; 
 some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little more than 
 transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata. 
 
 We have now drawn out our hero's existence to the period when he 
 was about to meet for the first time the sympathies of a London audience. 
 The particulars of his success since have been too much before our 
 eyes to render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall only 
 mention that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time to 
 subside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegado factor ; 
 and that Mr. Liston's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along with his 
 unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married his 
 present lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip ; and two 
 daughters, Ann, and Angustina. 
 
1825.3 A VISION OP HOHNa. 29 
 
 A VISION OF HORNS. 
 
 My thoughts had been engaged last evening in solving the problem, 
 why in all times and places the horn has been agreed upon as the symbol, 
 or honourable badge, of married men. Moses' horn, the horn of Ammon, 
 of Amalthea, and a cornucopia of legends besides, came to my recol- 
 lection, but afforded no satisfactory solution, or rather involved the 
 question in deeper obscurity. Tired with the fruitless chase of inexplicant 
 analogies, I fell asleep, and dreamed in this fashion. 
 
 Methought certain scales or films fell from my eyes, which had hitherto 
 hindered these little tokens from being visible. I was somewhere in the 
 Cornhill (as it might be termed) of some Utopia. Busy citizens jostled 
 each other, as they may do in our streets, with care (the care of making 
 a penny) written upon their foreheads ; and something else, which is 
 rather imagined, than distinctly imaged, upon the brows of my own 
 friends and fellow-townsmen. 
 
 In my first surprise I supposed myself gotten into some forest — Arden, 
 to be sure, or Sherwood; but the dresses and deportment, all civic, 
 forbade me to continue in that delusion. Then a scriptural thought 
 crossed me (especially as there were nearly as many Jews and Christians 
 among them), whether it might not be the children of Israel going up to 
 besiege Jericho. I was undeceived of both errors by the sight of many 
 faces which were familiar to me. I found myself strangely (as it will 
 happen in dreams) at one and the same time in an unknown country, with 
 known companions. I met old friends, not with new faces, but with 
 their old faces oddly adorned in front, with each man a certain corneous 
 excrescence. Dick Mitis, the little cheesemonger in St. * *' * *'s Passage, 
 was the first that saluted me, with his hat off — you know Dick's way to 
 a customer — and, I not being aware of him, he thrust a strange beam 
 into my left eye, which pained and grieved me exceedingly ; but, instead 
 of apology, he only grinned and fleered in my face, as much as to say 
 " it is the custom of the country," and passed on. 
 
 I had scarce time to send a civil message to his lady, whom I have 
 always admired as a pattern of a wife, — and do indeed take Dick and 
 her to be a model of conjugal agreement and harmony, — when I felt an 
 ugly smart in my neck, as if something had gored it behind, and turning 
 round, it was my old friend and neighbour. Dulcet, the confectioner, 
 who, meaning to be pleasant, had thrust his protuberance right into my 
 nape, and seemed proud of his power of offending. 
 
 Now I was assailed right and left, till in my own defence I was obliged 
 to walk sideling and wary, and look about me, as you guard your eyes in 
 London streets ; for the horns thickened, and came at me like the ends 
 of umbrellas poking in one's face. 
 
 I soon found that these towns-folk were the civiUest best-mannered 
 people in the world, and that if they had offended at all, it was entirely 
 
 Xi^ ^^^^^m^^^f^^^i^'^-n^ 
 
 ' ^^'.Ais.^ 
 
so A VISION OP HORNS. [^Jatl. 
 
 owing to their blindness. They do not know what dangerous weapons 
 they protrude in front, and will stick their best friends in the eye with 
 provoking complacency. Yet the best of it is, they can see the beams on 
 their neighbours* foreheads, if they are as small as motes, but their own 
 beams they can in no wise discern. 
 
 There was little Mitis, that I told you I just encountered — ^he has 
 simply (I speak of him at home in his own shop) the smoothest forehead 
 in his own conceit — he will stand you a quarter of an hour together 
 contemplating the serenity of it in the glass, before he begins to shave 
 himself in a morning — yet you saw what a desperate gash he gave me. 
 
 Desiring to be better informed of the ways of this extraordinary 
 people, I applied myself to a fellow of some assurance, who (it appeared) 
 acted as a sort of interpreter to strangers — ^he was dressed in a military 
 
 uniform, and strongly resembled Colonel , of the guards ; — and 
 
 " pray. Sir," said I, '^ have all the inhabitants of your city these trouble- 
 some excrescences } I beg pardon, I see you have none. You perhaps 
 are single." '^ Truly, Sir," he replied with a smile, " for the most part 
 we have, but not all alike. There are some, like Dick, that sport but one 
 tumescence. Their ladies have been tolerably faithful — have confined 
 themselves to a single aberration or so — these we call Unicorns. Dick, 
 you must know, is my Unicorn. |^He spoke this with an air of invincible 
 assurance.]] Then we have Bicorns, Tricorns, and so on up to Mille- 
 corns. [|Here methought I crossed and blessed myself in my dream.] 
 Some again we have — there goes one— you see how happy the rogue 
 looks — ^how he walks smiling, and perking up his face, as if he thought 
 himself the only man. He is not married yet, but on Monday next he 
 leads to the altar the accomplished widow Dacres, relict of our late 
 sheriff." 
 
 " I see. Sir," said I, " and observe that he is happily free from the 
 national goitre (let me call it), which distinguishes most of your coun- 
 trymen." 
 
 " Look a little more narrowly," said my conductor. 
 
 I put on my spectacles, and observing the man a little more diligently, , 
 above his forehead I could mark a thousand little twinkling shadows 
 dancing the horn-pipe, little hornlets, and rudiments of horn, of a soft 
 and pappy consistence (for I handled some of them), but which, like 
 coral out of water, my guide informed me would infallibly stiffen and 
 grow rigid within a week or two from the expiration of his bachelorhood. 
 
 Then I saw some horns strangely growing out behind, and my inter- 
 preter explained these, to be married men, whose wives had conducted 
 themselves with infinite propriety since the period of their marriage, but 
 were thought to have antedated their good men's titles, by certain liberties 
 they had indulged themselves in, prior to the ceremony. This kind of 
 gentry wore their horns backwards, as has been said, in the fashion of the 
 old pig-tails ; and as there was nothing obtrusive or ostentatious in them, 
 nobody took any notice of it. 
 
 i^,;5M' 
 
1825.]3 A VISION OF HORNS. Si 
 
 Some had pretty little budding antlers, like the first essays of a young 
 faun. These, he told me, had wives, whose affairs were in a hopeful 
 way, but not quite brought to a conclusion. 
 
 Others had nothing to show, only by certain red angry marks and 
 swellings in their foreheads, which itched the more they kept rubbing 
 and chafing them ; it was to be hoped that something was brewing. 
 
 I took notice that every one jeered at the rest, only none took notice of 
 the sea-captains ; yet these were as well provided with their tokens as the 
 best among them. This kind of people, it seems, taking their wives 
 upon so contingent tenures, their lot was considered as nothing but 
 natural, — so they wore their marks without impeachment, as they might 
 carry their cockades, and nobody respected them a whit the less for it. 
 
 I observed, that the more sprouts grew out of a man's head, the less 
 weight they seemed to carry with them ; whereas, a single token would 
 now and then appear to give the wearer some uneasiness. This shows 
 that use is a great thing. 
 
 Some had their adornings gilt, which needs no explanation; while 
 others, like musicians, went sounding theirs before them — a sort of music 
 which I thought might very well have been spared. 
 
 It was pleasant to see some of the citizens encounter between them- 
 selves; how they smiled in their sleeves at the shock they received from 
 their neighbour, and none seemed conscious of the shock which their 
 neighbour experienced in return. 
 
 Some had great corneous stumps, seemingly torn off and bleeding. 
 These, the interpreter warned me, were husbands who had retaliated upon 
 their wives, and the badge was in equity divided between them. 
 
 While I stood discerning of these things, a slight tweak on my cheek 
 unawares, which brought tears into my eyes, introduced to me my friend 
 Placid, between whose lady and a certain male cousin, some idle flirtations 
 I remember to have heard talked of ; but that was all. He saw he had 
 somehow hurt me, and asked my pardon with, that round unconscious face 
 of his, and looked so tristful and contrite for his no-offence, that I was 
 ashamed for the man's penitence. Yet I protest it was but a scratch. It 
 was the least little hornet of a horn that could be framed. " Shame on 
 the man," I secretly exclaimed, " who could thrust so much as the value 
 of a hair into a brow so unsuspecting and inoffensive. What then must 
 they have to answer for, who plant great, monstrous, timber-like, 
 projecting antlers upon the heads of those whom they call their friends, 
 when a puncture of this atomical tenuity made my eyes to water at this 
 rate. AU the pincers at Surgeons' Hall cannot pull out for Placid that ' 
 little hair." 
 
 I was curious to know what became of these frontal excrescences, when 
 the husbands died ; and my guide informed me that the chemists in their 
 country made a considerable profit by them, extracting from them certain 
 subtle essences : — and then I remembered, that nothing was so efficacious 
 in my own for restoring swooning matrons, and wives troubled with the 
 
^^^ ^ti»^.*:!aM^^ay^;^;g,.;^{4&^^^ 
 
 3$ A VISION OF HORNS. [[Jail. 
 
 vapours, as a strong snifF or two at the composition, appropriately called 
 hartshorn — far beyond sal volatile. 
 
 Then also I began to understand, why a man, who is the jest of the 
 company, is said to be the butt — as much as to say, such a one butteth 
 with the horn* 
 
 I inquired if by no operation these wens were ever extracted ; and was 
 told, that there was indeed an order of dentists, whom they call canonists 
 in their language, who undertook to restore the forehead to its pristine 
 smoothness ; but that ordinarily it was not done without much cost and 
 trouble ; and when they succeeded in plucking out the offending part, it 
 left a painful void, which could not be filled up ; and that many patients 
 who had submitted to the excision, were eager to marry again, to supply 
 with a good second antler the baldness and deformed gap left by the 
 extraction of the former, as men losing their natural hair substitute for 
 it a less becoming periwig. 
 
 Some horns I observed beautifully taper, smooth, and (as it were) 
 flowering. These I understand were the portions brought by handsome 
 women to their spouses ; and I pitied the rough, homely, unsightly 
 deformities on the brows of others, who had been deceived by plain and 
 ordinary partners. Yet the latter I observed to be by far the most 
 common — the solution of wliich I leave to the natural philosopher. 
 
 One tribute of married men I particularly admired at, who, instead of 
 horns, wore, engrafted on their forehead, a sort of horn-book. " This," 
 quoth my guide, " is the greatest mystery in our country, and well worth 
 an explanation. You must know that all infidelity is not of the senses. 
 We have as well intellectual, as material, wittols. These, whom you see 
 decorated with the Order of the Book — are triflers, who encourage about 
 their wives' presence the society of your men of genius (their good 
 friends, as they call them) — ^literary disputants, who ten to one out-talk 
 the poor husband, and commit upon the understanding of the woman a 
 violence and estrangement in the end, little less painfial than the coarser 
 sort of alienation. Whip me these knaves — [[my conductor here 
 expressed himself with a becoming warmth]] — whip me them, I say, 
 who with no excuse from the passions, in cold blood seduce the minds, 
 rather than the persons, of their friends' wives ; who, for the tickling 
 pleasure of hearing themselves prate, dehonestate the intellects of married 
 women, dishonouring the husband in what should be his most sensible 
 part. If I must be — [[here he used a plain word[] let it be by some 
 honest sinner like myself, and not by one of these gad-flies, these 
 debauchers of the understanding, these flattery-buzzers." He was going 
 on in this manner, and I was getting insensibly pleased with my friend's 
 manner (I had been a little shy of him at first), when the dream suddenly 
 left me, vanishing — as Virgil speaks — through the gate of Horn. 
 
 Elia. 
 
*:js%*. 
 
 UNITARIAN PROTESTS: 
 IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLY MARRIE0. 
 
 Dear M , Though none of your acquaintance can with greater 
 
 sincerity congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, ono 
 of the oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony,, 
 depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought you 
 superior to this little sophistry. What, after submitting to the service 
 of the Church of England — after consenting to receive a boon from 
 her, in the person of your amiable consort — was it consistent with sense, 
 or common good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her 
 with false worship ? This language is a little of the strongest in your 
 books and from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excuse^ 
 from religious zeal and the native warmth of nonconformity. . But a^ 
 the altar — the Church of England altar — adopting her forms and com- 
 plying with her requisitions to the letter — to be consistent, together witl> 
 the practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are no 
 longer sturdy Non Cons ; you are there Occasional Conformists. You sub- 
 mit to accept the privileges communicated by a form of words, exception-, 
 able, and perhaps justly, in your view ; but, so submitting, you have no 
 right to quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe 
 an obligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You 
 come voluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the 
 Trinity. There is no evading this by pretending that you take the 
 formula with your own interpretation, (and so long as you can do this, 
 where is the necessity of Protesting ?) : for the meaning of a vow is to be 
 settled by the sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the 
 taker: else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. 
 You marry then essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner 
 satisfied than, hey presto, with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, 
 and proceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church 
 out of a wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cun- 
 ningly despoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has mar- 
 ried you in the na^me of so and so, assuming that you took the words in 
 Ijer sense, but you outwitted her; you assented t» them in your sens^ 
 
1 84 UNITARIAN PROTESTS. CF^b. 
 
 only, and took from her what, upon a right understanding, she would 
 have declined giving you. 
 
 This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages as 
 at present contracted ; and so long as you Unitarians could salve your 
 consciences with the equivoque, I do not see why the Established Cliurch 
 should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But the Protesters 
 necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of the deception ; 
 they apprehend a flaw somewhere ; they would fain be honest, and yet 
 they must marry notwithstanding ; for honesty's sake, they are fain to 
 dehonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words of yout own 
 Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them. 
 
 *' As Unitarians therefore, we (you and your newly espoused bride) 
 most solemnly protest against the service (which yourselves have just 
 demanded) because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly to 
 acquiesce, but to profess a belief in a doctrine which is a dogma, as we 
 believe, totally unfounded." But do you profess that belief during the 
 ceremony ; or are you only called upon for the j^rofession but do not 
 make it ? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your more 
 consistent brethren, who waive the Protest ; if the former, then, I fear, 
 your Protest cannot save you. 
 
 Hard and grievous it is, that in any case an institution so broad and 
 general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped and straitened 
 by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that to plight troth to a lovely 
 woman a man must be necessitated to compromise his truth and faith to 
 Heaven ; but so it must be, so long as you chuse to marry by the fomis of 
 the Church over which that hierarchy presides. 
 
 Therefore, say you, we Protest. O poor and much fallen word 
 Protest ! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They 
 departed out of Babylon once for good and all ; they came not back for 
 an occasional contact with her altars ; a dallying, and then a protesting 
 against dalliance ; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish 
 foot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. 
 These were the true Protestants. You are — Protesters. 
 
 Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece of 
 impertinence — unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude these 
 papers upon the ofiiciating clergyman — to offer to a public functionary an 
 instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not obliged to 
 accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done in his clerical 
 capacity ? he has no power of redressing the grievance. It is to take the 
 benefit of his ministry and then insult him. If in his capacity of fellow 
 Christian only, what are your scruples to him, so long as you yourselves 
 are able to get over them, and do get over them by the very fact of 
 coming to require his services.'* The thing you call a Protest might 
 with just as good a reason be presented to the churchwarden for the 
 time being, to the parish clerk, or the pew opener. 
 
 i 
 
1825.] UNITARIAN PROTESTS. 185 
 
 The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see 
 not how with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, 
 by the very fact of your coming to Church to be married, they do bond 
 fide and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular, is 
 not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves. But 
 how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding 
 a measure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest disowning it. A 
 Protest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge for an 
 equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitive 
 Christians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, the 
 compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare 
 say the Roman Prefects and Exarchats had plenty of petitioning in their 
 days. But what would a Festus, or Agrippa, have replied to a petition 
 to that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the 
 very meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily 
 rather than abide the penalty ? Relief for tender consciences means 
 nothing, where the conscience has previously relieved itself; that is, has 
 complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid of. 
 Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better informa- 
 tion makes an act appear innocent and lawful, with which the previous 
 conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relief from penal- 
 ties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where the conscience 
 itself is not fully satisfied. 
 
 But, say you, we have hard measure ; the Quakers are indulged with 
 the liberty denied to us. They have ; and dearly have they earned it. 
 You have come in (as a sect at least) in the cool of the evening ; at the 
 eleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires of 
 persecution in the seventeenth century ; not quite to the stake and faggot, 
 but little short of that, they grew up and thrived against noisome pri- 
 sons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have since endured a 
 century or two of scoffs, contempts ; they have been a bye- word, and a 
 nay- word ; they have stood unmoved : and the consequence of long con- 
 scientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end, remission on 
 the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance, which I do 
 not know that at that time you even asked, gave them the liberty which, 
 without granting, they would have assumed. No penalties could have 
 driven them into the Churches. This is the consequence of entire 
 measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leaving, a 
 Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breath 
 with which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think that 
 they would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilege 
 of Affirming ? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying in 
 your own fashion, and I will warrant them before the end of it the 
 legislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at present 
 demand. 
 
186 
 
 UNITARIAN PROTESTS. 
 
 CFeb. 
 
 Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity upon 
 hypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien Church ; and then I 
 do not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers, 
 without their indulgence, w^ould have been doing to this day ; or it does 
 depend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you 
 offend against a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-street Li- 
 turgy a form for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a 
 dead letter ? O ! it has never been legalised ; that is to say, in the law's 
 eye it is no marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of 
 the gospel it would be none ? Would your own people at least look upon 
 a couple so paired, to be none } But the case of dowries, alimonies, in- 
 heritances, &c. which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of 
 the Church by law established — are these nothing? That our children 
 are not legally Filii Nullius — is this nothing ? I answer, nothing ; to 
 the preservation of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistent Christianity, 
 less than nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, and stumbling 
 blocks, well worthy to be set out of the way by a legislature calling 
 itself Christian ; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by any shrewd 
 legislators, who perceive that the petitioning complainants have not so much 
 as bruised a shin in the resistance ; but, prudently declining the briars 
 and the prickleS;, nestle quietly down in the smooth two-sided velvet of 
 a Protesting Occasional Conformity. — I am, dear sir. 
 
 With much respect, yours, &c. 
 
 Elia. 
 
TO THE EDITOR OP THE LONDON MAGAZINE. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I send you a bantering Epistle to an Old Gentleman 
 whose Education is supposed to have been Neglected. Of course, it 
 was suggested by some Letters of your admirable Opium-Eatcr ; the 
 discontinuance of which has caused so much regret to myself in common 
 with most of your readers. You will do me injustice by supposing, that 
 in the remotest degree it was my intention to ridicule those Papers. The 
 fact is, the most serious things may give rise to an innocent burlesque ; 
 and the more serious they are, the fitter they become for that purpose. 
 It is not to be supposed, that Charles Cotton did not entertain a very 
 high regard for Virgil, notwithstanding he travestied that Poet. Your- 
 self can testify the deep respect I have always held for the profound 
 learning and penetrating genius of our friend. Nothing upon earth 
 would give me greater pleasure than to find that he has not lost sight of 
 his entertaining and instructive purpose. 
 
 I am, dear Sir, yours and his sincerely, 
 
 Elia. 
 
 LETTER TO AN OLD GENTLEMAN 
 
 WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 
 
 ,ms^ 
 
 My Dear Sir, — The question which you have done me the honour 
 to propose to me, through the medium of our common friend Mr. 
 Grierson, I shall endeavour to answer with as much exactness as a limited 
 observation and experience can warrant. 
 
 You ask — or rather, Mr. Grierson in his own interesting language 
 asks for you — " Whether a person at the age of sixty-three, with no 
 more proficiency than a tolerable knowledge of most of the characters of 
 
96 LETT^ER TO AN OLD GEJJTLEMAN [[Jan. 
 
 the English alphahet at first sight amounts to^, by dint of persevering 
 application, and good masters, — a docile and ingenuous disposition on the 
 part of the pupil always pre-supposcd — may hope to arrive, within a 
 presumable number of years, at tha;t degree of attainments, which shall 
 entitle the possessor to the character, which you are on so many accounts 
 justly desirous of- acquiring, of a learned man.'* 
 
 This is fairly and candidly stated — only I could wish that on one 
 point you had been a little more expKcit. In the mean time, I will take 
 it for granted, that by a " knowledge of the alphabetic characters," you 
 confine your meaning to the single powers only, as you are silent on the 
 subject of the diphthongs, and harder combinations. 
 
 Why truly> Sir, when I consider the vast circle of sciences — it is not 
 here worth while to trouble you with the distinction between learning 
 and science — which a man must be understood to have made the tour of 
 in these days, before the world will be willing to concede to him the 
 title which you aspire to, I am almost disposed to reply to your inquiry 
 by a direct answer in the negative. 
 
 However, where all cannot be compassed, a great deal that is truly 
 valuable may be accomplished. I am unwilling to throw out any 
 remarks that should have a tendency to damp a hopeful genius ; but I 
 must not in fairness conceal from you, that you have much to do. The 
 consciousness of difficulty is sometimes a spur to exertion. Rome — or 
 rather, my dear Sir, to borrow an illustration from a place, as yet more 
 familiar to you — Rumford — Rumford — was not built in a day. 
 
 Your mind as yet, give me leave to tell you, is in the state of a sheet 
 of white paper. We must not blot or blur it over too hastily. Or, to 
 use an opposite simile, it is like a piece of parchment all be-scrawled and 
 be-scribbled over with characters of no sense or import, which we must 
 carefully erase and remove, before we can make way for the authentic 
 characters or impresses, which are to be substituted in their stead by the 
 corrective hand of science. 
 
 Your mind, my dear Sir, again resembles that same parchment, which 
 we will suppose a little hardened by time and disuse. We may apply 
 the characters, but are we sure that the ink will sink ? 
 
 You are in the condition of a traveller, that has all his journey to 
 begin. And again, you are worse off than the traveller which I have 
 supposed — for you have already lost your way. 
 
 You have much to learn, which you have never been taught ; and 
 more, I fear, to unlearn, which you have been taught erroneously. You 
 have hitherto, I dare say, imagined, that the sun moves round the earth. 
 When you shall have mastered the true solar system, you will have quite 
 a diiFerent theory upon that point, I assure you. I mention but this 
 instance. Your own experience, as knowledge advances, will furnish 
 you with many parallels. 
 
 I can scarcely approve of the intention, which Mr. Grierson informs 
 
1 825.^ WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 97 
 
 me you had contemplated, of entering yourself at a common seminary, 
 and working your way up from the lower to the higher forms with the 
 children. I see more to admire in the modesty, than in the expediency, 
 of such a resolution. I own I cannot reconcile myself to the spectacle of 
 a gentleman at your time of life seated, as must be your case at first, 
 below a Tyro of four or five — for at that early age the rudiments of 
 education usually commence in this country. I doubt whether more 
 might not be lost in the point of fitness, than would be gained in the 
 advantages which you propose to yourself by this scheme. 
 
 You say, you stand in need of emulation ; that this incitement is no 
 where to be had but at a public school ; that you should be more sensible 
 of your progress by comparing it mth the daily progress of those 
 around you. But have you considered the nature of emulation ; and 
 how it is sustained at those tender years, which you would have to come 
 in competition with.'* I am afraid you are dreaming of academic 
 prizes and distinctions. Alas! in the university, for which you are 
 preparing, the highest medal would be a silver penny, and you must 
 graduate in nuts and oranges. 
 
 I know that Peter, the great Czar — or Emperor — of Muscovy, 
 submitted himself to the discipline of a dock-yard at Deptford, that he 
 might learn, and convey to his countrymen, the noble art of ship- 
 building. You are old enough to remember him, or at least the talk 
 about him. I call to mind also other great princes, who, to instruct 
 themselves in the theory and practice of war, and set an example of 
 subordination to their subjects, have condescended to enrol themselves, 
 as private soldiers ; and, passing through the successive ranks of corporal, 
 quarter-master, and the rest, have served their way up to the station, at' 
 which most princes are willing enough to set out — of General and 
 Commander-in-Cliief over their own forces. But — ^besides that there is 
 oftentimes great sham and pretence in their show of mock humility — 
 the competition which they stooped to was with their co-evals, however 
 inferior to them in birth. Between ages so very disparate, as those 
 which you contemplate, I fear there can no salutary emulation subsist. 
 
 Again, in the other alternative, could you submit to the ordinary 
 reproofs and discipline of a day-school ? Could you bear to be corrected 
 for your faults ? Or how would it look to see you put to stand, as must 
 be the case sometimes, in a comer ? 
 
 I am afraid the idea of a public school in your circumstances must be 
 given up. 
 
 But is it impossible, my dear Sir, to find some person of your own age 
 — if of the other sex, the more agreeable perhaps — whose information, 
 like your own, has rather lagged behind their years, who should be 
 willing to set out from the same point with yourself, to undergo the 
 same tasks— thus at once inciting and sweetening each other's labours 
 in a sort of friendly rivalryl Such a one, I think, it wouM'not be 
 
 Jan. 1825. H 
 
98 LETTER TO AN OLD GENTLEMAN |^Jan. 
 
 difficult to find in some of the western parts of this island^about 
 Dartmoor for instance. 
 
 Or what if, from your own estate — that estate which, unexpectedly- 
 acquired so late in life, has inspired into yoii this generous thirst after 
 knowledge, you were to select some elderly peasant, that might best be 
 spared from the land ; to come and begin his education with you, that 
 you might till, as it were, your minds together — one, whose heavier 
 progress might invite, without a fear of discouraging, your emulation ? 
 We might then see — starting from an equal post — the difference of the 
 clownish and the gentle blood. 
 
 A private education then, or such a one as I have been describing, 
 being determined on, we must in the next place look out for a preceptor : 
 — for it will be some time before either of you, left to yourselves, will 
 be able to assist the other to any great purpose in his studies. 
 
 And now, my dear Sir, if in describing such a tutor as I have imagined 
 for you, I use a style a little above the familiar one in which I have 
 hitherto chosen to address you, the nature of the subject must be my 
 apology. Difficile est de scientiis inscienter loqui, which is as much as to 
 say that " in treating of scientific matters it is difficult to avoid the use 
 of scientific terms." But I shall endeavour to be as plain as possible. I 
 am not going to present you with the ideal of a pedagogue, as it may 
 exist in my fancy, or has possibly been realized in the persons of 
 Buchanan and Busby. Something less than perfection will serve our 
 turn. The scheme which I propose in this first or introductory letter 
 has reference to the first four or five years of your education only ; and 
 in enumerating the qualifications of him that should undertake the 
 direction of your studies, I shall rather point out the minimum, or least, 
 that I shall require of him, than trouble you in the search of attainments 
 neither common nor necessary to our immediate purpose. 
 
 He should be a man of deep and extensive knowledge. So much at 
 least is indispensable. Something older than yourself, I could wish him, 
 because years add reverence. 
 
 To his age and great learning, he should be blest with a temper and 
 a patience, willing to accommodate itself to the imperfections of the 
 slowest and meanest capacities. Such a one in former days Mr. Hartlib 
 appears to have been, and such in our days I take Mr. Grierson to be ; 
 but our friend, you know, unhappily has other engagements. I do not 
 demand a consummate grammarian ; but he must be a thorough master of 
 vernacular orthography, with an insight into the accentualities and 
 punctualities of modern Saxon, or English. He must be competently 
 instructed (or how shall he instruct you ?) in the tetralogy, or four first 
 rules, upon which not only arithmetic, but geometry, and the pure 
 mathematics themselves, are grounded. I do not require that he should 
 have measured the globe with Cook, or Ortelius, but it is desirable that 
 he should have a general knowledge (I do not mean a very nice or 
 
1825.][j WHOSE EDUCATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED. 99 
 
 pedantic one) of the great division of the earth into four parts, so as to 
 teach you readil}'' to name the quarters. He must have a genius capable 
 in some degree of soaring to the upper element, to deduce from thence 
 the not much dissimilar computation of the cardinal points, or hinges, 
 upon which those invisible phenomena, which naturalists agree to term 
 w'nids, do perpetually shift and turn. He must instruct you, in imitation 
 of the old Orphic fragments (the mention of which has possibly escaped 
 you), in numeric and harmonious responses, to deliver the number of solar 
 revolutions, within which each of the twelve periods, into which the 
 Anmis Vulgaris J or common year, is divided, doth usually complete and 
 terminate itself. The intercalaries, and other subtle problems, he will 
 do well to omit, till riper years, and course of study, shall have rendered 
 you more capable thereof. He must be capable of embracing all history,, 
 so as from the countless myriads of individual men, who have peopled 
 this globe of earth— ^/ar it is a globe — ^by comparison of their respective 
 births, lives, deaths, fortunes, conduct, prowess, &c. to pronounce, and 
 teach you to pronounce, dogmatically and catechetically, who was the 
 richest, who was the strongest, who was the wisest, who was the 
 meekest man, that ever lived ; to the facilitation of which solution, you 
 will readily conceive, a smattering of biography would in no incon- 
 siderable degree conduce. Leaving the dialects of men (in one of which 
 I shall take leave to suppose you by tliis time at least superficially 
 instituted), you wall learn to ascend with him to the contemplation of 
 that unarticulated language, which was before the written tongue ; and, 
 with the aid of the elder Phrygian or -^sopic key, to interpret the sounds 
 by which the animal tribes communicate their minds — evolving moral 
 instruction with delight from the dialogue of cocks, dogs, and foxes. Or 
 marrying theology with verse, from whose mixture a beautiful and 
 healthy offspring may be expected, in your own native accents (but 
 purified) you will keep time together to the profound harpings of the 
 more modern or Wattsian hymnics. 
 
 Thus far I have ventured to conduct you to a " hill-side, whence you 
 may discern the right path of a virtuous and noble education ; laborious 
 indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly 
 prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus 
 was not more charming."* 
 
 With my best respects to Mr. Grierson, when you see him, 
 
 I remain, dear Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 April 1, 1823. Elia. 
 
 * Milton's Tractate on Education, addressed to Mr. HartUb. 
 
 H2 
 
1825.] AUTOBIOGRArHY OF MR. MUNDEN. 231 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MR. MUNDEN: 
 
 IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Hark'ee, Mr. Editor. A word in your ear. They tell me you are 
 going to put me in print — in print. Sir. To publish my life. What is 
 my life to you. Sir ? What is it to you whether I ever lived at 
 all ? My life is a very good life. Sir. I am insured at the Pelican, 
 Sir. I am threescore years and six — six; mark me. Sir: but I can 
 play Polonius, which, I believe, few of your corre — correspondents 
 can do. Sir. I suspect tricks. Sir : I smell a rat ; I do, I do. You 
 would cog the die upon us ; you would, you would. Sir. But I will 
 forestall you. Sir. You would be deriving me from William the Con- 
 queror, with a murrain to you. It is no such thing. Sir. The town 
 shall know better. Sir. They begin to smoke your flams. Sir. Mr. 
 Liston may be born where he pleases. Sir : but I will not be born at 
 Lnp — Lupton Magna, for any body's pleasure. Sir. My son and I 
 have looked over the great map of Kent together, and we can find no 
 such place as you would palm upon us. Sir ; palm upon us, I say. Nei- 
 ther Magna nor Parva, as my son says, and he knows I^atin, Sir ; Latin. 
 If you write my life true. Sir, you must set down, that I, Joseph 
 Munden, comedian, came into the world upon AUhallows' day. Anno 
 Domini 1759 — 1759; no sooner nor later. Sir: and I saw the first 
 light — the first light, remember. Sir, at Stoke Pogis — Stoke Pogis, 
 comitatu Bucks, and not at Lup — Lup Magna, which I believe to be 
 no better than moonshine — moonshine ; do you mark me. Sir ? I wonder 
 you can put such Aim flams upon us. Sir ; I do, I do. It does not become 
 you. Sir ; I say it — I say it. And my father was an honest tradesman. 
 Sir : he dealt in malt and hops. Sir, and was a Corporation man, Sir, 
 and of the Church of England, Sir, and no Presbyterian ; nor Ana — 
 Anabaptist, Sir, however you may be disposed to make honest people 
 believe to the contrary. Sir. Your bams are found out. Sir. The town 
 will be your stale puts no longer. Sir ; and you must not send us jolly 
 fellows. Sir — we that are comedians. Sir, — you must not send us into 
 groves and Cham — Charnwoods, a moping. Sir. Neither Chams, nor 
 charnel houses. Sir. It is not our constitutions. Sir. I tell it you — I 
 tell it you. I was a droll dog from my cradle. I came into the world 
 tittering, and the midwife tittered, and the gossips spilt their caudle with 
 tittering. And when I was brought to the font, the parson could not 
 christen me for tittering. So I was never more than half baptized. And 
 when I was little Joey, I made 'em all titter ; — there was not a melan- 
 choly face to be seen in Pogis. Pure nature. Sir. I was bom a come- 
 dian. Old Screwup, the undertaker, could tell you. Sir, if he were 
 living. Why, I was obliged to be locked up every time there was to 
 be a funeral at Pogis. I was — I was, Sir. I used to grimace at the 
 mutes, a:? he called it, and put 'em out with my mops and my mows. 
 
 ".Wi^T^^i^^: 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MR. MUNDEN. CFeb. 
 
 till they could'nt stand at a door for me. And when 1 was locked up, 
 with nothing but a cat in my company, I followed my bent with tr3dng to 
 make her laugh, and sometimes she would, and sometimes she would not. 
 And my schoolmaster could make nothing of me : I had only to thrust my 
 tongue in my cheek — in my cheek. Sir, and the rod dropped from his 
 fingers : and so my education was limited. Sir. And I grew up a 
 young fellow, and it was thought convenient to enter me upon some 
 course of life that should make me serious ; but it would'nt do. Sir. 
 And I was articled to a drysalter. My father gave forty pounds premium 
 with me. Sir. I can show the indent — dent — dentures. Sir. But I 
 was bom to be a comedian. Sir r so I ran away, and listed with the 
 players. Sir ; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and 
 played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part 
 of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age, and he did not 
 know me again, but he knew me afterwards ; and then he laughed, and 
 I laughed, and, what is better, the drysalter laughed, and gave me up 
 my articles for the joke's sake : so that I came into court afterwards with 
 clean hands — with clean hands — do you see. Sir ? 
 
 [[Here the manuscript becomes illegible for two or three sheets onwards, 
 which we presume to be occasioned by the absence of Mr. Munden, jun. 
 who clearly transcribed it for the press thus far. The rest (with the 
 exception of the concluding paragraph, which seemingly is resumed in 
 the first hand writing) appears to contain a confused account of some law- 
 suit, in which the elder Munden was engaged ; with a circumstantial 
 history of the proceedings on a case of Breach of Promise of Marriage, 
 made to or by (we cannot pick out which) Jemima Munden, spinster, 
 probably the comedian's cousin, for it does not appear he had any sister ; 
 with a few dates, rather better preserved, of this great actor's engage- 
 ments^as "Cheltenham (spelt Cheltnam) 1776;" "Bath, 1779;'* 
 "London, 1789;" together with stage anecdotes of Messrs. Edwin, 
 Wilson, Lee Lewis, &c. over which we have strained our eyes" to no 
 purpose, in the hope of presenting something amusing to the public. 
 Towards the end the manuscript brightens up a little, as we have said, 
 and concludes in the following manner.] 
 
 stoo'd before them for six and thirty years, [[we suspect that 
 
 Mr. Munden is here speaking of his final leave-taking of the stage]] and 
 to be dismissed at last. But I was heart-whole, heart-whole to the last. 
 Sir. What though a few drops did course themselves down the old 
 vetejiah's cheeks ; who could help it. Sir ? I was a giant that night. 
 Sir ; and could have played fifty parts, each as arduous as Dozy. My 
 faculties were never better. Sir. But I was to be laid upon the shelf. 
 It did not suit the public to laugh with their old servant any longer. Sir. 
 [[Flere some moisture has blotted a sentence or two.[3 But I can play 
 Pclonius still. Sir ; I can, I can. 
 
 Your servant. Sir, 
 
 Joseph MtrNDEN. 
 
 .■3E5«55!E4si::-^'?:'v:wiV-:i.!Si?3SF:JSiseiiKL; 
 
S66 gray's latin ode on the grande chartreuse. (^March, 
 
 EXCERPTIONS 
 
 FROM an IDLER*S SCRAP-BOOK. 
 
 Times have consumed his works, saving some few excerptions. 
 
 Raleigh. 
 
 gray's latin ode 
 
 ON THE MONASTERY OF THE GRANDB CHARTREUSE. 
 
 In a new Translation. 
 
 O Tu severi religio loci. Some people have sadly puzzled themselves 
 about this term religio. '' It must be the vow of the order," say these 
 good folks : *' aye, and there we have the severity of their rules." So 
 that Gray, whose Christianity does not seem to have sat particularly 
 tight about him, (unless we suppose that in his letters to Walpole, he 
 thought it gave him more of the air of a bel esprit and an esprit fort 
 to affect scepticism,) is smitten, according to these " word-catchers who 
 live on syllables," with the love of a monastic life ; and intends in good 
 hearty earnest to shave his head, sew up his mouth, or only open it for 
 the purpose of braying canticles and masticating parsneps, which^ like 
 Diocletian's cabbages, were to have been planted with his own fingers. 
 Of this right apostolical resolution, I believe Gray never dreamed : 
 no — not even in a make-believe trance of Parnassian inspiration. What 
 would Dr. Keate say to a lad who should render this first line, " O thou ! 
 the religion of this place of austerities ? " But, " is not the monastery 
 there } " Beyond the possibility of contradiction. " Like Scotland," 
 it ^' stands where it did." But as regards Gray's poem, its standing 
 where it did was a mere accidental circumstance : he has not a thought — 
 no, not even a glancing association — connected with its grey walls, or 
 the Latin graces before and after pulse, droned out by the cowled 
 faquirs within them. It is the aspect of nature, in the surrounding 
 vastness of her most rugged and most gloomy solitudes, that awakens 
 the enthusiasm of Gray. Take the sketch of the scenery from the first 
 pocket volume which chance may throw in your way. *' On one hand 
 is the rock with woods of pine-trees hanging over-head, and on the 
 other a prodigious precipice, almost perpendicular, at the bottom of 
 which rolls a deep torrent." Here we have the i-eligio and here the severi, 
 I suspect, notwithstanding that Gray is unauthorized in his use of the 
 term religio. He certainly means a sort of genius loci : a power in-^ 
 visible and inaccessible, like Lucan's unknown demon of the Druidical. 
 forest ■ of Marseilles : or rather its spirit ; the influence by which it 
 makes its presence felt. But religio is employed to describe the im- 
 pression of awe and reverence produced in the mind by some object of 
 its solemn contemplation. Gray, therefore, substitutes an active for 
 
1825.]] gray's latin ode on the grandb chartreuse. 367 
 
 the passive significance of the word, and transfers the religious awe 
 from the mind to the object : making the effect to be the cause. But 
 though it is easy to perceive his meaning, it is not so easy to convey it 
 with the requisite fulness, and conciseness, and precision. Some trans- 
 lators have rendered religio by ge?iius. They agree with me, therefore, 
 in their general notion : but their expression of it is too definite in one 
 sense, and too undefined in another. It is too definite, because it clothes 
 an obscure abstraction with a gross and palpable form : we use, indeed, 
 the words genius and spirit for the essence or energy of things ; but 
 where they are apostrophized they become personifications. It is too un- 
 defined, because it fails to communicate the impression of sacred horror 
 excited by the original. There is no absolute prosopopoeia : it is a 
 nescio quid which the poet invocates : but it is a something which com- 
 pels the instantaneous and involuntary sympathy and homage of the 
 religious instincts. That there is a great difiiculty in embodying this 
 idea, must be evident from the fact, that Gray could only effect it by 
 violating the philosophy of grammar. All the versions which have met 
 my eye are too much in the nature of paraphrases. They slur the 
 diction of Gray, and sophisticate his sentiment. I think the Latin Ode 
 of Gray should be done in the same number of lines, and in the metre 
 which he himself loved when he versified in English. Tentanda via. 
 
 Dread somewhat ! hallowing to thyself this spot 
 Of wildness, how to name thee ? (for I deem 
 
 Les» than a godhead presence haunteth not 
 This antique forest and this native stream : 
 
 And we behold more near the visible God 
 
 Midst these shagg'd cliffs, these rude hill-solitudes. 
 
 These rocks, which foot of man hath never trod. 
 This dash of waters and this night of woods, 
 
 Than if beneath a citron arch he shone 
 
 Fashion'd in molten gold by Phidias' hand — ) 
 
 Hail ! — if invoked aright, look gracious on ! 
 Here let my wearied youth glide calm to land. 
 
 Or should hard Fate's rebuff, e'en while I yearn 
 For these endear'd retreats, this holy reign ^ , 
 
 Of silence, with the reflux swell return 
 Me to the tossing midmost waves again ; 
 
 Sire ! (shall I call thee ? ) be the boon allow'd 
 
 To share thy freedom in my drooping age ; 
 Then steal me from the cares that vex the crowd, 
 • And safe receive me from their restless rage. 
 
368 REFLECTIONS IN THE PII/LORY. [I^March, 
 
 [[About the year 18— , one R d, a respectable London mer- 
 chant (since dead), stood in the pillory for some alledged fraud upon 
 the Revenue. Among his papers were found the following " Re- 
 flections/' which we have obtained by favour of our friend Elia, who 
 knew him well, and had heard him describe the train of his feelings 
 upon that trying occasion almost in the words of the MS. Elia speaks 
 of him as a man (with the exception of the peccadillo aforesaid) of sin- 
 gular integrity in all his private dealings, possessing great suavity of 
 manner, with a certain turn for humour. As our object is to present 
 human nature under every possible circumstance, we do not think that 
 we shall sully our pages by inserting it. — Editor,'^ 
 
 REFLECTIONS. IN THE PILLORY. 
 
 Scene^ opposite the Royal Exchange. 
 Time, Twelve to One, Noon. 
 
 Ketch, my good fellow, you have a neat hand. Prithee, adjust this 
 new collar to my neck gingerly. I am not used to these wooden 
 cravats. There, softly, softly. That seems the exact point between 
 ornament and strangulation. A thought looser on this side. Now it 
 wiU do. And have a care in turning me, that I present my aspect 
 due vertically. I now face the orient. In a quarter of an hour I shift 
 southward — do you mind } — and so on till I face the east again, travel- 
 ling vdth the sun. No half points, I beseech you ; N. N. by W. or 
 any such elaborate niceties. They become the shipman's card, but not 
 this mystery. Now leave me a little to my own reflections. 
 
 Bless us, what a company is assembled in honour of me ! How 
 grand I stand here ! I never felt so sensibly before the effect of solitude 
 in a crowd. I muse in solemn silence upon that vast miscellaneous rabble 
 in the pit there. From my private box I contemplate with mingled 
 pity and wonder the gaping curiosity of those underlings. There are 
 my Whitechapel supporters. Rosemary Lane has emptied herself of the' 
 very flower of her citizens to grace my show. Duke's place sits desolate. 
 What is there in my face, that strangers should come so far from the 
 east to gaze upon it ? \^Here an egg narrowly misses hirn}- That 
 
1825.]] REFLECTIOMS IN THE PILLORY. 36'9 
 
 offering was well meant, but not so cleanly executed. By the tricklings, 
 it should not be either myrrh or frankincence. Spare your presents, my 
 friends; I am no- ways mercenary. I desire no missive tokens of your 
 approbation. I am past those valentines. Bestow these coffins of 
 untimely chickens upon mouths that water for them. Comfort your 
 addle spouses with them at home, and stop the mouths of your brawling 
 brats with such Olla Podridas ; they have need of them. \^A brick is let 
 fiy2' Disease not, I pray you, nor dismantle your rent and ragged 
 tenements, to furnish me with architectural decorations, which I can 
 excuse. This fragment might have stopped a flaw against snow comes. 
 \l^A coal Jlies.'2 Cinders are dear, gentlemen. This hubbling might 
 have helped the pot boil, when your dirty cuttings from the shambles at 
 three ha'-pence a pound shall stand at a cold simmer. Now, south 
 about. Ketch. I would enjoy australian popularity. 
 
 What my friends from over the water ! Old benchers — ^flies of a day 
 — ephemeral Romans — welcome ! Doth the sight of me draw souls from 
 limbo ? can it dispeople purgatory — ha ! 
 
 What am I, or what was my father's house, that I should thus be set 
 up a spectacle to gentlemen and others ? Why are all faces, like Per- 
 sians at the sun-rise, bent singly on mine alone ? It was wont to be 
 esteemed an ordinary visnomy, a quotidian merely. Doubtless, these 
 assembled myriads discern some traits of nobleness, gentility, breeding, 
 which hitherto have escaped the common observation — some intimations, 
 as it were, of wisdom, valour, piety, and so forth. My sight dazzles ; 
 and, if I am not deceived by the too familiar pressure of this strange 
 neckcloth that envelopes it, my countenance gives out lambent glories. 
 For some painter now to take me in the lucky point of expression ! — the 
 posture so convenient — the head never shifting, but standing quiescent 
 in a sort of natural frame. But these artizans require a westerly 
 aspect. Ketch, turn me. 
 
 Something of St. James's air in these my new friends. How my 
 prospects shift, and brighten ! Now if Sir Thomas Lawrence be any 
 where in that group, his fortune is made for ever. I think I tee some 
 one taking out a crayon. I will compose my whole face to a smile, which 
 yet shall not so predominate, but that gravity and gaiety shall contend 
 as it were — you understand me ? I will work up my thoughts to some 
 mild rapture — a gentle enthusiasm us — which the artist may transfer in 
 a manner warm to the canvass. I will inwardly apostrophize my taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 Delectable mansion, hail ! House, not made of every wood ! Lodging, 
 that pays no rent ; airy and commodious ; which, owing no window tax, 
 4it yet all casement, out of which men have such pleasure in peering and 
 overlooking, that they will sometimes stand an hour together to enjoy thy 
 prospects ! Cell, recluse from the vulgar ! Quiet retirement from the 
 great Babel, yet affording sufficient glimpses into it ! Pulpit, that instructs 
 
REFLECTIONS IN THE PILLORY. [[Marcll, 
 
 without note or sermon-book, into which the preacher is inducted with- 
 out tenth or first fruit ! Throne, unshared and single, that disdainest a 
 Brentford competitor ! Honour without co-rival ! Or hearest thou rather, 
 magnificent theatre in which the spectator comes to see and to be seen ? 
 From thy giddy heights I look down upon the common herd, who stand 
 with eyes upturned as if a winged messenger hovered over them ; and 
 mouths open, as if they expected manna. I feel, I feel, the true Epis- 
 copal yearnings. Behold in me, my flock, your true overseer! What 
 though I cannot lay hands, because my own are laid, yet I can mutter 
 benedictions. True otium cum dignitate ! Proud Pisgah eminence ! 
 Pinnacle sublime ! O Pillory, 'tis thee I sing ! Thou younger brother to 
 the gallows, without his rough and Esau palms ; that with ineffable 
 contempt surveyest beneath thee the grovelling stocks, which claims pre- 
 sumptuously to be of thy great race. Let that low wood know, that 
 thou art far higher bom ! Let that domicile for groundling rogues and 
 base earth-kissing varlets envy thy preferment, not seldom fated to be 
 the wanton baiting-house, the temporary retreat, of poet and of patriot. 
 Shades of Bastwick and of Prynne hover over thee — Defoe is there, 
 and more greatly daring Shebbeare — from their (little more elevated) 
 stations they look down with recognitions. Ketch, turn me. 
 
 I now veer to the north. Open your widest gates, thou proud 
 Exchange of London, that I may look in as proudly ! Gresham's wonder, 
 hail ! I stand upon a level with all your kings. They, and I, from equal 
 heights, with equal superciliousness, o'er-look the plodding, money- 
 hunting tribe below; who, busied in their sordid speculations, scarce 
 elevate their eyes to notice your ancient, or my recent, grandeur. The 
 second Charles smiles on me from three pedestals } * He closed the Exche- 
 quer ; I cheated the Excise. Equal our darings, equal be our lot. 
 
 Are those the quarters } 'tis their fatal chime. That the ever- winged 
 hours would but stand still ! but I must descend, descend from this dream 
 of greatness. Stay, stay, a little while, importunate hour hand. A 
 moment or two, and I shall walk on foot with the undistinguished many. 
 The clock speaks one. I return to common life. Ketch, let me out. 
 
 * A statue of Charles II. by the elder Gibber, adorns the front of the Exchange. 
 He stands also on high, in the train of his crowned ancestors, in his proper order, 
 within that building. But the merchants of London, in a superfoetation of loyalty, 
 have, within a few years, caused to be erected another effigy of him on the ground in 
 the centre of the interior. We do not hear that a fourth is in contemplation. — Editor, 
 
THE I^ST PEACH. 
 
 I AM tlie miserablest man living. Give me counsel, dear Editor. I 
 was bred up in the strictest principles of honesty, and have past my Kfe 
 in punctual adherence to them. Integrity might be said to be ingrained 
 in our family. Yet I live in constant fear of one day coming to the 
 gallows. 
 
 Till the latter end of last autumn I never experienced these feelings 
 of self-mistrust which ever since have embittered my existence. From 
 the apprehension of that unfortunate man whose story began to make so 
 great an impression upon the public about that time, I date my horrors. 
 I never can get it out of my head that I shall some time or other commit 
 a forgery, or do some equally vile thing. To make matters worse I am 
 in a banking-house. I sit surrounded with a cluster of bank-notes. These 
 were formerly no more to me than meat to a butcher's dog. They are 
 now as toads and aspics I feel all day like one situated amidst gins 
 and pit-falls. Sovereigns, whiolr I Qnct took such pleai^ure in counting 
 
594i THE LAST PEACH. j^Aprilj 
 
 out, and scraping up with my little thin tin shovel (at which I was the 
 most expert in the banking-house), now scald my hands. When I go 
 to sign my name I set down that of another person, or write my own in 
 a counterfeit character. I am beset with temptations without motive. 
 I want no more wealth than I possess. A more contented being than 
 myself, as to money matters, exists not. What should I fear } 
 
 When a child I was once let loose, by favour of a Nobleman's gar- 
 dener, into his Lordship's magnificent fruit garden, with free leave to 
 pull the currants and the gooseberries ; only I was interdicted from 
 touching the wall fruit. Indeed, at that season (it was the end of 
 Autumn) there was little left. Only on the South wall (can I forget 
 the hot feel of the brick- work } ) lingered the one last peach. Now 
 peaches are a fruit which I always had, and still have, an almost utter 
 aversion to. There is something to my palate singularly harsh and 
 repulsive in the flavour of them. I know not by what demon of con- 
 tradiction inspired, but I was haunted with an irresistible desire to pluck 
 it. Tear myself as often as I would from the spot, I found myself still 
 recurring to it, till, maddening with desire (desire I cannot call it), with 
 wilfulness rather — without appetite — against appetite, I may call it — 
 in evil hour I reached out my hand, and plucked it. Some few rain 
 drops just then fell ; the sky (from a bright day) became overcast ; and 
 I was a type of our first parents, after the eating of that fatal fruit. I 
 felt myself naked and ashamed ; stripped of my virtue, spiritless. The 
 downy fruit, whose sight rather than savour had tempted me, dropt 
 from my hand, never to be tasted. All the commentators in the world 
 cannot persuade me but that the Hebrew word in the second chapter of 
 Genesis, translated apple, should be rendered peach. Only this way can 
 I reconcile that mysterious story. 
 
 Just such a child at thirty am I among the cash and valuables, longing 
 to pluck, without an idea of enjoyment further. I cannot reason myself 
 out of these fears : I dare not laugh at them. I was tenderly and 
 lovingly brought up. What then ? Who that in life's entrance had seen 
 
 the babe F , from the lap stretching out his little fond mouth to 
 
 catch the maternal kiss, could have predicted, or as much as imagined, 
 that life's very different exit ? The sight of my own fingers torments 
 
 me ; they seem so admirably constructed for pilfering. Then that 
 
 jugular vein, which I have in common ; in an emphatic sense 
 
 may I say with David, I am " fearfully made." All my mirth is 
 poisoned by these unhappy suggestions. If, to dissipate reflection, I 
 hum a tune, it changes to the " Lamentations of a Sipner." My very 
 dreams are tainted. I awake with a shocking feeling of my hand in 
 some pocket. 
 
 Advise with me, dear Editor, on this painful heart-malady. Tell 
 me, do you feel any thing allied to it in yourself ? do you never feel an 
 itching, as it weve^-'d daclJ/loniania — or am I alone? You have my 
 honest confession. My next may appear from Bow-street. 
 
 SUSPENSUEUS. 
 
1825.]] BARBARAS . 511 
 
 BARBARA S- 
 
 On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it 
 was, just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S , with her ac- 
 customed punctuality, ascended the long rambling staircase, with awkward 
 interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort of box 
 with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few of our 
 readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island it 
 was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to 
 receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much that 
 Barbara had to claim. 
 
 This little maid had but just entered her eleventh year ; but her im- 
 portant station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which 
 she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had 
 giv^n an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You 
 would have taken her to have been at least five years older. 
 
 Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where 
 children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing 
 a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few months 
 past entrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess 
 the self consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn 
 tears in young Arthur ; had rallied Richard with infantine petulance in 
 the Duke of York ; and in her turn had rebuked that petulance when 
 she was Prince of Wales. She would have done the elder child in 
 Morton's pathetic after-piece to the life, but as yet the " Children in the 
 Wood" was not. 
 
 Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I have seen 
 some of these small parts, each making two or three pages at most, copied 
 out in the rudest hand of the then prompter, who doubtless transcribed 
 a little more carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies of the 
 establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled, as for a 
 child's use, she kept them all ; and in the zenith of her after reputation 
 it was a delightful sight to behold them bound up in costliest Morocco, 
 each single— each small part making a hook — with fine clasps3 gilt- 
 splashed, &c. She had conscientiously kept them as they had been de- 
 livered to her ; not a blot had been effaced or tampered with. They 
 were precious to her for their affecting remembrancings. They were 
 her principia, her rudiments ; the elementary atoms ; the little steps by 
 which she pressed forwards to perfection. " What," she would say, 
 " could Indian rubber, or a pumice stone, have done for these darlings ? " 
 
 I am in no hurry to begin my story — indeed I have little or none to 
 tell ^- so I will just mention an observation of hers connected with that 
 interesting time. ' 
 
 Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her (5n the quantity 
 of real present emotion which a great tragic perfonner experiences during 
 
512 «AiiBAiiA « . CAprii, 
 
 acting. I ventured to think, that though in the first instance such 
 players must have possessed the feelings which they so powerfully called 
 up in others, yet by frequent repetition those feelings must become 
 deadened in great measure, and the performer trust to the memory 
 of past emotion, rather than express a present one. She indignantly 
 repelled the notion, that with a truly great tragedian the operation, by 
 which such effects were produced upon an audience, could ever degrade 
 itself into what was purely mechanical. With much delicacy, avoiding 
 to instance in her *e//-experience, she told me, that so long ago as when 
 she used to play the part of the Little Son to Mrs. Porter's Isabella, (I 
 think it was) when that impressive actress has been bending over her in 
 some heart-rending colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling 
 from her, which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly scalded 
 her back. 
 
 I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter ; but it was some great 
 actress of that day. The name is indifferent ; but the fact of the 
 scalding tears 1 most distinctly remember. 
 
 I was always fond of the society of the players, and am not sure that 
 an impediment in my speech (which certainly kept me out of the pulpit) 
 even more than certain personal disqualifications, which are often got 
 over in that profession, did not prevent me at one time of life from 
 adopting it. I have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to have 
 been admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at serious 
 whist with Mr. Listen. I have chatted with ever good-humoured Mrs. 
 Charles Kemble. I have conversed as friend to friend with her accom- 
 plished husband. I have been indulged with a classical conference with 
 Macready ; and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery at Mr. 
 Mattliews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my love of the 
 old actors (whom he loves so much) went over it with me, supplying to 
 his capital collection, what alone the artist could not give them — voice ; 
 and their living motions. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd, and Parsons, 
 and Baddeley, have lived again for m.e at his bidding. Only Edwin he 
 
 could not restore to nie. I lia^^e supped with ; but I am growing 
 
 a coxcomb. 
 
 As I was about to say — at the desk of the then treasurer of the old 
 Bath theatre — not Diamond's — presented herself the little Bar- 
 bara S . 
 
 The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The 
 father had practised, I beKeve, as an apothecary in the town. But his 
 practice fixmi causes which I feel my own infirmity too sensibly that way 
 to arraign — or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies 
 some people in their Walk through life, and which it is impossible to lay 
 at the door of imprudence — was now reduced to nothing. They were 
 in fact in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew 
 and respected ' them in better days, tcwk the little Barbara into his 
 company. x 
 
1825.]] BARBARAS . 5^3 
 
 * At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole 
 support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw a 
 veil over some mortifying circumstances. Enough to say, that her Sa- 
 turday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their 
 only) meal of meat. 
 
 One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part, where in her 
 theatrical character she was to sup off a roast fowl (O joy to Barbara !) 
 some comic actor, who was for the night caterer for this stage dainty — 
 in the misguided humour of his part, threw over the dish such a quantity 
 of salt (O grief and pain of heart to Barbara!) that when he crammed 
 a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged sputteringly to reject it; 
 and what with shame of her ill-acted part, and pain of real appetite at 
 missing such a dainty, her little heart sobbed almost to breaking, till a 
 flood of tears, which the well-fed spectators were totally unable to com- 
 prehend, mercifully relieved her. 
 
 This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood before old 
 Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. 
 
 Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people 
 besides herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had 
 no head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and 
 summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so defi- 
 cient, blest himself that it was no worse. 
 
 Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea. — By mistake 
 he popped into her hand a — whole one. 
 
 Barbara tripped away. 
 
 She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake : God knows that 
 Ravenscroft would never have discovered it. 
 
 But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth landing- 
 places, she became sensible of an unusual weight of metal pressing her 
 little hand. 
 
 Now mark the dilemma. 
 
 She was by nature a good child. From her parents and those about 
 her she had imbibed no contrary influence. But then they had taught 
 her nothing. Poor men's smoky cabins are not always porticoes of moral 
 philosophy. This little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she might 
 be said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty commended, 
 but never dreamed of its application to herself. She thought of it as 
 something which concerned grown-up people — men and women. She 
 had never known temptation, or thought of preparing resistance against 
 it. 
 
 Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and explain to 
 him his blunder. He was already so confused with age, besides a natural 
 want of punctuality, that she would have had some difiiculty in making 
 him understand it. She saw that in an instant. And then it was such a 
 bit of money ! and then the image of a larger allowance of butcher's 
 
514 BARBARA S . ^ [[[April, 
 
 meat on their table next day came across her, till her little eyes glistenetl, 
 and her mouth moistened. But then Mr. Ravenscroft had always been 
 so good-natured, had stood her friend behind the scenes, and even recom- 
 mended her promotion to some of her little parts. But again the old 
 man was reputed to be worth a world of money. He was supposed to 
 have fifty pounds a year clear of the theatre. And then came staring 
 upon her the figures of her little stockingless and shoeless sisters. And 
 when she looked at her own neat white cotton stockings, which her 
 situation at the theatre had made it indispensable for her mother to pro- 
 vide for her, with hard straining and pinching from the family stock, 
 and thought how glad she should be to cover their poor feet with the 
 same — and how then they could accompany her to rehearsals, which 
 they had hitherto been precluded from doing, by reason of their un- 
 fashionable attire, — in these thoughts she reached the second landing- 
 place — the second,^ I mean from the top— for there was still another left 
 to traverse. 
 
 Now virtue support Barbara ! 
 
 And that never-failing friend did step in — for at that moment a 
 strength not her own, I have heard her say, was revealed to her — a 
 reason above reasoning — and without her own agency, as it seemed (for 
 she never felt her feet to move) she found herself transported back to the 
 individual desk she had just quitted, and her hand in the old hand of 
 Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure, and who 
 had been sitting (good man) insensible to the lapse of minutes, which to 
 her were anxious ages ; and from that moment a deep peace fell upon her 
 heart, and she knew the quality of honesty. 
 
 A year or two's unrepining application to her profession brightened up 
 the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters, set the whole family upon 
 their legs again, and released her from the difficulty of discussing moral 
 dogmas upon a landing-place. 
 
 I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much short of mor- 
 tification to her, to see the coolness with which the old man pocketed 
 the difference, which had cost her such mortal throes. 
 
 This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the mouth of 
 the late Mrs. Crawford* then sixty-seven years of age (she died soon 
 after) ; and to her struggles upon this childish occasion I have some- 
 times ventured to think her indebted for that power of rending the heart 
 in the representation of conflicting emotions, for which in after years she 
 was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the part of Lady Ran- 
 dolph) even to Mrs. Siddons. Elia. 
 
 * The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she changed, by successive mar- 
 riages, for those of Dancer, Barry, and Crawford. She was Mrs. Crawford, and a third 
 lime a widow, when I knew her. 
 
THE THREE GRAVES ; 
 
 Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the Spy System, 
 
 Close by the ever-burning brimstone beds. 
 
 Where Bedloe, Oates, and Judas, hide their heads, 
 
 I saw great Satan like a Sexton stand. 
 
 With his intolerable spade in hand. 
 
 Digging three graves. Of coffin shape they were. 
 
 For those who, coffinless, must enter there 
 
 With unblest rites. The shrouds were of that cloth. 
 
 Which Clotho weaveth in her blackest wrath; 
 
 The dismal tinct oppress'd the eye, that dwelt 
 
 Upon it long, like darkness to be felt. 
 
 The pillows to these baleful beds were teads. 
 
 Large, living, livid, melancholy loads. 
 
 Whose softness shock'd. Worms of all monstrous size 
 
 Crawl'd round ; and one, upcoil'd, which never dies. 
 
 A doleful bell, inculcating despair. 
 
 Was always ringing in the heavy air. 
 
 And all about the detestable pit 
 
 Strange headless ghosts, and quartered forms, did flit ; 
 
 Rivers of blood, from dripping traitors spilt. 
 
 By treachery stung from poverty to guilt. 
 
 I ask'd the Fiend, for whom those rites were meant ? 
 
 " These graves," quoth he, " when life's brief oil is spent. 
 
 When the dark night comes, and they're sinking bedwards, 
 
 I mean for C , O , and £ ." 
 
QUATRAINS 
 TO THE EDITOR OP THE EVERY DAY-BOOK. 
 
 I LIKE you, and your book, ingenuous Hone ! 
 
 In whose capacious, all-embracing leaves 
 The very marrow of tradition's shown ; 
 
 And all that history — much that fiction — weaves. 
 
 By every sort of taste your work is graced. 
 
 Vast stores of modern anecdote we find. 
 With good old story quaintly interlaced — 
 
 The theme as various as the reader's mind. 
 
 Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint — 
 Yet kindly — that the half-tum'd Catholic 
 
 Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint. 
 And cannot curse the candid Heretic. 
 
 Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page ; 
 
 Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased behold ; 
 And, proudly conscious of a purer age. 
 
 Forgive some fopperies in the times of old. 
 
 Verse-honouring Phoebus, Father of bright Days, 
 Must needs bestow on you both good and many. 
 
 Who, building trophies to his children's praise. 
 Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any. 
 
 Dan Phoebus loves your book — trust me, friend HoneH" 
 
 The title only errs, he bids me say : 
 For while such art — wit — ^reading — there are shown. 
 
 He swears, 'tis not a work of every day. 
 
 C. Lam^ 
 
THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. 
 
 ■ Sera tamen respexit 
 Lihcrtas. 
 
 If peradventure. Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years 
 of thy life — thy shining youth — in the irksome continement of an office ; 
 to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepi- 
 tude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite ; to have lived 
 to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them 
 but as the prerogatives of childhood ; then, and then only, will you be 
 able to appreciate my deliverance. 
 
 It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the desk in 
 Mincing-lane. Melancholy was the transition at fourteen from tlie 
 abundant play-time, and frequently-intervening vacations of school 
 days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance at a 
 counting-house. But time partially reconciles us to any thing. I 
 gradually became content — doggedly contented, as wild animals in 
 cages. 
 
 It is true I had my Sundays to myself ; but Sundays, admirable as 
 the institution of them is for purposes of worship, are for that very 
 reason the very worst adapted for days of unbending and recreation.* 
 
 * Our ancestors, the noble old Puritans of Cromwell's day, could distinguish between 
 a day of religious rest and a day of recreation ; and while they exacted a rigorous 
 abstinence from all amusements (even to the walking out of nursery maids with their 
 little charges in the fields) upon the Sabbath ; in the lieu of the superstitious observ- 
 ance of the Saints days, which they abrogated, they humanely gave to the apprentices, 
 and poorer sort of people, every alternate Thursday for a day of entire sport and re- 
 creation. A strain of piety and policy to be commended above the profane mockery of 
 the Stuarts and their Book of Sports. 
 
 F2 
 
68 THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. Z^^Y* 
 
 In particular, there is a gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, 
 a weight in the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music, 
 and the ballad singers — the buzz and stirring murmur of the streets. 
 Those eternal bells depress me. The closed shops repel me. Prints, 
 pictures, all the glittering and endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, 
 and ostentatiously displayed ^vares of tradesmen, which make a week- 
 day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis so delightful — 
 are shut out. No book-stalls deliciously to idle over — No busy faces to 
 recreate the idle man who contemplates them ever passing by — the very 
 face of business a charm by contrast to his temporary relaxation from it. 
 Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances — or half-happy at best — 
 of emancipated prentices and little tradesfolks, with here and there a 
 servant maid that has got leave to go out, who, slaving all the week, 
 with the habit has lost almost the capacity of enjoying a free hour ; 
 and livelily expressing the hollowness of a day's pleasuring. The very 
 strollers in the fields on that day look any thing but comfortable. 
 
 But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, 
 with a full week in the summer to go and air myself in my native 
 fields of Hertfordshire. This last was a great indulgence; and the 
 prospect of its recurrence, I believe, alone kept me up through the year, 
 and made my durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did 
 the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with me ? or rather 
 was it not a series of seven uneasy days, spent in restless pursuit of 
 pleasure, and a wearisome anxiety to find out how to make the most of 
 them ? Where was the quiet, where the promised rest ? Before I had 
 a taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the desk again, counting upon 
 the fifty-one tedious weeks that must intervene before such another 
 snatch would come. Still the prospect of its coming threw something of 
 an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I 
 have said, 1 could scarcely have sustained my thraldom. 
 
 Independently of the rigours of attendance, 1 have ever been haunted 
 with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of incapacity for business. This, 
 * during my latter years, had increased to such a degree, that it was 
 visible in all the lines of my countenance. My health and my good 
 spirits flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which I 
 should be found unequal. Besides my day-light servitude, I served over 
 again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary 
 false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like. I was fifty years of 
 age, and no prospect of emancipation presented itself. I had grown to 
 my desk, as it were ; and the wood had entered into my soul. 
 
 My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon the trouble 
 legible in my countenance ; but I did not know that it liad raised the 
 suspicions of any of my employers, when, on the 5 th of last month, a 
 
 day ever to be remembered by me, L , the junior partner in the firm, 
 
 calling me on one side, directly taxed me with my bad looks, and frankly 
 
1825.]] THE SUrERANNUATED MAN. 69 
 
 inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made confession of 
 my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I should eventually he obliged 
 to resign his service. He spoke some words of course to hearten me, 
 and there the matter rested. A whole week I remained labouring under 
 the impression that I had acted imprudently in my disclosure ; that I 
 had foolishly given a handle against myself, and had been anticipating 
 my own dismissal. A week passed in this manner, the most anxious 
 one, I verily believe, in my whole life, when on the evening of the 12 th 
 of April, just as I was about quitting my desk to go home (it might be 
 about eight o'clock) I received an awful summons to attend the presence 
 of the whole assembled firm in the formidable back parlour. I thought, 
 now my time is surely come, I have done for myself, I am going to be 
 
 told that they have no longer occasion for me. L , I could see, 
 
 smiled at the terror I was in, which was a little relief to me, — when to 
 
 my utter astonishment B , the eldest partner, began a formal 
 
 harangue to me on the length of my services, my very meritorious con- 
 duct during the whole of the time (the deuce, thought I, how did he 
 find out that ? I protest I never had the confidence to think as much). 
 He went on to descant upon the expediency of retiring at a certain time 
 of life (how my heart panted !) and asking me a few questions as to the 
 amount of my own property, of which I have a little, ended with a pro- 
 posal, to which his three partners nodded a grave assent, that I should 
 accept from the house, which I had served so well, a pension for life to 
 the amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary — a magnificent ofter ! 
 I do not know what I answered between surprise and gratitude, but it 
 was understood that I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was 
 free from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a bow, and 
 at just ten minutes after eight I went home — for ever. This noble 
 benefit — gratitude forbids me to conceal their names — I owe to the 
 kindness of the most munificent firm in the world — the house of Boldero, 
 Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. 
 
 JEsto Perpetua ! 
 For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I could only 
 apprehend my felicity ; I was too confused to taste it sincerely. I wan- 
 dered about, thinking I was happy, and knowing that I was not. I was 
 in the condition of a prisoner in the old Bastile, suddenly let loose after 
 a forty years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself with myself. It 
 was like passing out of Time into Eternity — for it is a sort of Eternity 
 for a man to have his Time all to himself. It seemed to me that I had 
 more Time on my hands than I could ever manage. From a poor man, poor 
 in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue ; I could see no 
 end of my possessions ; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailifi', to 
 manage my estates in Time for me. And here let me caution persons 
 grown old in active business, not lightly, nor without weighing their 
 own resources, to forego their customary employment all at once, for 
 
70 . , THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. CMay, 
 
 there may be danger in it. I feel it by myself, but I know that my re- 
 sources are sufficient ; and now that those first giddy raptures have sub- 
 sided, I have a quiet home-feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am 
 in no hurry. Having all holidays, I am as though I had none. If Time 
 hung heavy upon me, I could walk it away ; but I do not walk all day 
 long, as I used to do in those old transient holidays, thirty miles a day, 
 to make the most of them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it 
 away, but I do not read in that violent measure, with which, having no 
 Time my own but candle-light Time, I used to weary out my head and 
 eye-sight in by-gone winters. I walk, read or scribble (as now) just 
 when the fit seizes me. I no longer hunt after pleasure ; I let it come to 
 me. I am like the man 
 
 That's born, and has his years come to him, 
 
 In some green desart. 
 
 " Years," you will say ! " what is this superannuated simpleton cal- 
 culating upon ? He has already told us, he is past fifty." 
 
 I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out of them the 
 hours which I have lived to other people, and not to myself, and you 
 will find me still a young fellow. For that is the only true Time, which 
 a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to himself; the 
 rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people's 
 time, not his. The remnant of my poor days, long or short, is at least 
 multiplied for me three-fold. My ten next years, if I stretch so far, will 
 be as long as any preceding thirty. 'Tis a fair rule-of- three sum. 
 
 Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the commencement of 
 my freedom, and of which all traces are not yet gone, one was, that a 
 vast tract of time had intervened since I quitted the Counting House. I 
 could not conceive of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, and the 
 clerks, with whom I had so many years and for so many hours in each 
 day of the year been closely associated — being suddenly removed from 
 them — they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage, which may 
 serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert Howard, 
 speaking of a friend's death : 
 
 . 'Twas but just now he went away 5 
 
 I have not since had time to shed a tear ; 
 
 And yet the distance does the same appear 
 
 As if he had been a thousand years from me. 
 
 Time takes no measure in Eternity. 
 
 To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go among 
 them once or twice since ; to visit my old desk-fellows — my co-brethren 
 of the quill — that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the 
 kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that 
 pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them. We 
 cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but faintly. 
 My pld desk, the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated to 
 
1825.]] THE SUPERANNUATED MAN. 71 
 
 another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D 1 
 
 take me, if I did not feel some remorse — ^beast, if I had not, — at quitting 
 my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six and thirty 
 years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and their conundrums the 
 ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then after 
 all ? or was I a coward simply ? Well, it is too late to repent ; and I 
 also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the mind on 
 such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken the 
 bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some time 
 before I get quite reconciled to the separation. Farewell, old cronies, 
 yet not for long, for again and again I will come among ye, if I shall 
 
 have your leave. Farewell Ch , dry, sarcastic, and friendly ! 
 
 Do——, mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly ! PI , officious 
 
 to do, and to volunteer, good services ! — and thou, thou dreary pile, fit 
 mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington of old, stately House of Mer- 
 chants ; with thy labyrinthine passages, and light-excluding, pent-up 
 offices, where candles for one half the year supplied the place of the sun's 
 light ; unhealthy contributor to my weal, stem fosterer of my living, 
 farewell ! In thee remain, and not in the obscure collection of some 
 wandering bookseller, my " works ! " There let them rest, as I do 
 from my labours, piled on thy massy shelves, more MSS. in folio than 
 ever Aquinas left, and full as useful ! My mantle I bequeath among ye. 
 
 THE SUPERANNUATED MAN.— No. II. 
 
 A Clerk I was in London gay. — O'Keefe. 
 
 A Fortnight has passed since the date of my first communication. 
 At that period I was approaching to tranquillity, but had not reached it. 
 I boasted of a calm indeed, but it was comparative only. Something of 
 the first flutter was left ; an unsettling sense of novelty ; the dazzle to 
 weak eyes of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth, as 
 if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I was a poor Car- 
 thusian, from strict cellular discipline suddenly by some revolution re- 
 turned upon the world. I am now as if I had never been other than my 
 own master. It is natural to me to go where I please, to do what I 
 please. I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in Bond-street, and it 
 seems to me that I have been sauntering there at that very hour for 
 years past. I digress into Soho, to explore a book-staU. Methinks I 
 have been thirty years a collector. There is nothing strange nor new in 
 it. I find myself before a fine picture in a morning. Was it ever other- 
 wise? What is become of Fish-street Hill? Where is Fenchurch- 
 street ? Stones of old Mincing-lane which I have worn with my daily 
 pilgrimage for six and thirty years, to the footsteps of what toil-worn 
 clerk are your everlasting flints now vocal? I indent the gaver 
 
72 iTtt^ SUPERANNUATED MAN- CMuy, 
 
 flags of Pall Mall. It is Change time, and I am strangely among the 
 Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole when I ventured to compare the 
 change in my condition to a passing into another world. Time stands 
 still in a manner to me. I have lost all distinction of season. I do not 
 know the day of the week, or of the month. Each day used to be indi- 
 vidually felt by me in its reference to the foreign post days ; in its dis- 
 tance from, or propinquity to, the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday 
 feelings, my Saturday nights' sensations. The genius of each day was 
 upon me distinctly during the whole of it, affecting my appetite, spirits, 
 &c. The phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate 
 as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed 
 that Ethiop white ? What is gone of Black Monday ? All days are 
 the same. Sunday itself — ^that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too 
 often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to 
 get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it — is melted down into a 
 week day. I can spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge 
 cantle, which it used to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time 
 for every thing. I can visit a sick friend. I can interrupt the man of 
 much occupation when he is busiest. I can insult over him with an 
 invitation to take a day's pleasure with me to Windsor this fine May- 
 morning. It is Lucretian pleasure to behold the poor drudges, whom I 
 have left behind in the world, carking and cai'ing ; like horses in a mill, 
 drudging on in the same eternal round — and what is it all for ? I recite 
 those verses of Cowley, which so mightily agree with my constitution. 
 
 Business ! the frivolous pretence 
 
 Of human lusts to shake off innocence : 
 
 Business ! the grave impertinence : 
 
 Business ! the thing which I of all things hate : 
 
 Business ! the contradiction of my fate. 
 
 Or I repeat my own lines, written in my Clerk state ; 
 
 Who first invented work — and bound the free 
 
 And holy day-rejoicing spirit down 
 
 To the ever-haunting importunity 
 
 Of business, in the green fields, and the town — 
 
 To plough, loom, anvil^ spade — and oh ! most sad, 
 
 To this dry drudgery of the desk's dead wood ? 
 
 Who but the Being i^nblest, alien from good, 
 
 Sabbathless Satan ! he who his unglad 
 
 Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings. 
 
 That round and round incalculably reel — 
 
 For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel — 
 
 In that red realm firom whence are no returnings ; 
 
 Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye 
 
 He, and his thoughts, keep pensive worky-day ! 
 
 O this divine Leisure! — Reader, if thou art furnished with the €>ii^ 
 Series of the London, turn incontinently to the third; volume (l>age o67)v 
 and, you will see my present condition there touched in a" Wish '■ l^ a 
 
daintier pen than I can pretend to. I subscribe to that Sonnet tolo corde^ 
 A man can never have too much Time to himself, nor too little to do. Had I 
 a little son, I would christen him Nothing-to-do; he should do nothing. 
 Man, I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is operative. I 
 am altogether for the life contemplative. Will no kindly eartliquake 
 come and swallovsr up those accursed cotton mills ? Take me that lumber 
 of a desk there, and bowl it down 
 
 As low as to the fiends. 
 
 I am no longer J s D n. Clerk to the Firm of, &c. I am 
 
 Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already 
 come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating 
 at no fixed pace, nor with any settled purpose. I walk about ; not to 
 and from. They tell me, a certain C2im dignitate air, that has been 
 buried so long with my other good parts, has begun to shoot forth in my 
 person. I grow into gentility perceptibly. When I take up a news- 
 paper, it is to read the state of the opera. Opus operalum est. I have 
 done all that I came into this world to da I have worked task work, 
 and have the rest of the day to myself. J, I). 
 
 Bcaiifort-tcrracc^ Regent-street ; 
 Late of Iromm}if!^cr''s-court^ Fenchurch'Strect. 
 
1825.] THE WEDDING. . ^,,, ^ tl%- 
 
 THE WEDDING. 
 
 I DO not know when I have been better pleased than at being invited 
 last week to be present at the wedding of a friend's daughter. I like to 
 make one at these ceremonies, which to us old people give back our 
 youth in a manner, and restore our gayest season, in the remembrance 
 of our own success, or the regrets, scarcely less tender, of our own 
 youthful disappointments, in this point of a settlement. On these occa- 
 sions I am sure to be in good humour for a week or two after, and enjoy 
 a reflected honey-moon. Being without a family, I am flattered with 
 these temporary adoptions into a friend's family ; I feel a sort of cousin- 
 hood, or uncleship, for the season; I am inducted into degrees of 
 affinity ; and, in the participated socialities of the little community, I 
 lay down for a brief while my solitary bachelorship. I carry this humour 
 so far, that I take it unkindly to be left out, even when a funeral is 
 going on in the house of a dear friend. But to my subject. 
 
 The union itself had been long settled, but its celebration had been 
 hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable state of suspense in the 
 lovers, by some in\dncible prejudices which the bride's father had unhap- 
 pily contracted upon the subject of the too early marriages of females. 
 He has been lecturing any time these five years — for to that length the 
 courtship has been protracted — upon the propriety of putting off the 
 solemnity, till the lady should have completed her five and twentieth 
 year. We all began to be afraid that a suit, which as yet had abated of 
 none of its ardours, might at last be lingered on, till passion had time to 
 cool, and love go out in the experiment. But a little wheedling on the 
 part of his wife, who was by no means a party to these overstrained no- 
 tions, joined to some serious expostulations on that of his friends, who, 
 from the growing infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise 
 ourselves many years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious to 
 bring matters to a conclusion during his life time, at length prevailed ; 
 
 and on Monday last the daughter of my old friend. Admiral , 
 
 having attained the womanly age of nineteen, was conducted to the 
 church by her pleasant cousin J , who told some few years older. 
 
 Before the youthful part of my female readers express their indigna- 
 tion at the abominable loss of time occasioned to the lovers by the pre- 
 posterous notions of my old friend, they will do well to consider the 
 reluctance which a fond parent naturally feels at parting with his child. 
 To this unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may be traced the differ- 
 ence of opinion on this point between child and parent, whatever pre- 
 tences of interest or prudence may be held out to cover it. The liard- 
 heartedness of fathers is a fine theme for romance-Avriters, a sure and 
 moving topic ; but is thcve. not something untender, to say no more of 
 
218 THE WEDDING, [June, 
 
 it, in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes in to tear herself 
 from the parental stock, and commit herself to strange graftings ? The 
 case is heightened where the lady, as in the present instance, happens to 
 be an only child. I do not understand these matters experimentally, 
 but I can make a shrewd guess at the wounded pride of a parent upon 
 these occasions. It is no new observation, I believe, that a lover in most 
 cases has no rival so much to be feared as the father. Certainly there is 
 a jealousy in unparallel subjects, which is Kttle less heart-rending than 
 the passion which we more strictly christen by that name. Mothers* 
 scruples are more easily got over ; for this reason, I suppose, that the 
 protection transferred to a husband is less a derogation and a loss to 
 their authority than to the paternal. Mothers, besides, have a trembling 
 foresight, which paints the inconveniences (impossible to be conceived in 
 the same degree by the other parent) of a life of forlorn celibacy, which 
 the refusal of a tolerable match may entail upon their child. Mothers* 
 instinct is a surer guide here, than the cold reasonings of a father on 
 such a topic. To this instinct may be imputed, and by it alone may be 
 excused, the unbeseeming artifices, by which some wives push on the 
 matrimonial projects of their daughters, which the husband, however 
 approving, shall entertain with comparative indifference. A little shame- 
 lessness on this head is pardonable. With this explanation, forwardness 
 becomes a grace, and maternal importunity receives the name of a virtue. 
 But the parson stays, while I preposterously assume his office ; I am 
 preaching, while the bride is on the threshold. 
 
 Nor let any of my female readers suppose that the sage reflections 
 which have just escaped me have the obliquest tendency of appKcation 
 to the young lady, who, it will be seen, is about to venture upon a 
 change in her condition, at a mature and competent age, and not without 
 the fullest approbation of both parents. I only deprecate very hasty 
 marriages. 
 
 It had been fixed that the ceremony should be gone through at an 
 early hour, to give time for a little dejeune afterwards, to which a select 
 party of friends had been invited. We were in church a little before the 
 clock struck eight. 
 
 Nothing could be more judicious or graceful than the dress of the 
 bride-maids — the three charming Miss Foresters — on this morning. To 
 give the bride an opportunity of shining singly, they had come habited 
 all in green. I am ill at describing female apparel ; but, while she stood 
 at the altar in vestments white and candid as her thoughts, a sacrificial 
 whiteness, they assisted in robes, such as might have become Diana's 
 nymphs — Foresters indeed — as such who had not yet come to the reso- 
 lution of putting off cold virginity. These young maids, not being so 
 blest as to have a mother living, I am told, keep single for their father's 
 sake, and live all together so happy with their remaining parent, that 
 the hearts of their lovers are even broken with the prospect (so inaus- 
 
1825.] THE WEDDING. 219 
 
 picious to their hopes) of such uninterrupted and provoking home-com- 
 fort. Gallant girls ! each a victim worthy of Iphigenia ! 
 
 I do not know what husiness I have to he present in solemn places. I 
 cannot divest me of an unseasonable disposition to levity upon the most 
 awful occasions. I was never cut out for a public functionary. Cere- 
 mony and I have long shaken hands ; but I could not resist the impor- 
 tunities of the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily confined him 
 at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and give away the hride. Some- 
 thins: ludicrous occurred to me at this most serious of all moments — a 
 sense of my unfitness to have the disposal, even in imagination, of the 
 sweet young creature beside me. I fear I was betrayed to some light- 
 ness, for the awful eye of the parson— and the rector's eye of Saint 
 Mildred's in the Poultry is no trifle of a rebuke — was upon me in an 
 instant, souring my incipient jest to the tristful severities of a funeral. 
 
 This was the only misbehaviour which I can plead to upon this solemn 
 occasion, unless what was objected to me after the ceremony by one of 
 the handsome Miss Turners, be accounted a solecism. She was pleased 
 to say that she had never seen a gentleman before me give away a bride 
 in black. Now black has been my ordinary apparel so long — indeed I 
 take it to be the proper costume of an author — the stage sanctions it — 
 that to have appeared in some lighter colours — a pea-green coat, for in- 
 stance, like the bridegroom's — would have raised more mirth at my 
 expense, than the anomaly had created censure. But I could perceive 
 that the bride's mother, and some elderly ladies present (God bless them !), 
 would have been well content, if \ had come in any other colour than 
 that. But I got over the omen by a lucky apologue, which I remem- 
 bered out of Pilpay, or some Indian author, of all the birds being 
 invited to the linnets' wedding, at which, when all the rest came in their 
 gayest feathers, the raven alone apologised for his cloak, because " he 
 'had no other." This tolerably reconciled the elders. But with the 
 young people all was merriment, and shakings of hands, and congra- 
 tulations, and kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings from her in 
 return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in these matters, 
 having worn the nuptial bands some four or five weeks longer than her 
 friend, rescued her, archly observing, with half an eye upon the bride- 
 groom, that at this rate she would have " none left." 
 
 My friend the Admiral was in fine wig and buckle on this occasion — a 
 striking contrast to his usual neglect of personal appearance. He did 
 not once shove up his borrowed locks [his custom ever at his morning 
 studies) to betray the few grey stragglers of his own beneath them. He 
 wore an aspect of -thoughtful satisfaction. I trembled for the hour,' 
 which at length approached, when after a protracted breakfast of three 
 hours — if stores of cold fowls, tongues, hams, botargoes, dried fruits, 
 wines, cordials, &c. can deserve so meagre an appellation — the coach was 
 announced, which was come to carry off the bride and bridegroom for a 
 season, as custom has sensibly ordained, into the country ; upon which 
 
220 THE WEDDING. [June, 
 
 design, wishing them a felicitous journey, let us return to the assembled 
 guests. 
 
 As when a well- graced actor leaves the stage. 
 
 The eyes of men 
 
 Are idly bent on him that enters next. 
 
 So idly did we bend our eyes upon one another, when the chief per- 
 formers in the morning's pageant had vanished. None told his tale. 
 None sipt her glass. The poor Admiral made an effort — it was not 
 much. I had anticipated so far. Even the infinity of full satisfaction, 
 that had betrayed itself through the prim looks and quiet deportment 
 of his lady, began to wane into something of misgiving. No one knew 
 whether to take their leaves or stay. We seemed assembled upon a silly 
 occasion. In this crisis, betwixt tarrying and departure, I must do jus- 
 tice to a foolish talent of mine, which had otherwise like to have brought 
 me into disgrace in the fore-part of the day ; I mean, a power, in any 
 emergency, of thinking and giving vent to all manner of strange non- 
 sense. In this awkward dilemma I found it sovereign. I rattled off 
 some of my most excellent absurdities. All were willing to be relieved, 
 at any expense of reason, from the pressure of the intolerable vacuum 
 which had succeeded to the morning bustle. By this means I was for- 
 tunate in keeping together the better part of the company to a late 
 hour ; and a rubber of whist (the Admiral's favourite game) with some 
 rare strokes of chance as well as skill, which came opportunely on his 
 side — lengthened out till midnight — dismissed the old gentleman at last 
 to his bed with comparatively easy spirits. 
 
 I have been at my old friend's various times since. I do not know a 
 visiting place where every guest is so perfectly at his ease ; no where, 
 where harmony is so strangely the result of confusion. Every body is 
 at cross purposes, yet the effect is so much better than uniformity. Con- 
 tradictory orders ; servants pulling one way ; master and mistress driving 
 some other, yet both diverse ; visitors huddled up in corners ; chairs un- 
 symmetrised ; candles disposed by chance ; meals at odd hours, tea and 
 supper at once, or the latter preceding the former; the host and the 
 guest conferring, yet each upon a different topic, each understanding 
 liimself, and neither trying to understand or hear the other ; draughts 
 and politics, chess and political economy, cards and conversation on nau- 
 tical matters, going on at once, without the hope, or indeed the wish, of 
 distinguishing them, make it altogether the most perfect concordia 
 discors you shall meet with. Yet somehow the old house is not quite 
 what it should be. The Admiral still enjoys his pipe, but he has no 
 Miss Emily to fill it for him. The instrument stands where it stood, 
 but she is gone, whose delicate touch could sometimes for a short minute 
 appease the warring elements. He has learnt, as Marvel expresses it, 
 to " make his destiny his choice." He bears bravely up, but he does not 
 come out with his flashes of wild wit so thick as formerly. His sea songs 
 
seldomer esciipe him. His wife, too, looks as if she wanted some younger 
 body to scold and set to rights. We all miss a junior presence. It is 
 wonderful how one young maiden freshens up, and keeps green, the pa- 
 ternal roof. Old and young seem to have an interest in her, so long as 
 she is not absolutely disposed of. The youthfulness of the house is 
 flown. Emily is married. Elia. 
 
THE CONVALESCENT. 
 
 A FKETTY severe fit of indisposition which, under the name of a 
 nervous fever^ has made a prisoner of me for some weeks past, and is 
 but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an incapacity of reflecting 
 upon any topic foreign to itself. Expect no healthy conclusions from 
 me this month, reader ; I can offer you only sick men's dreams. 
 
 And truly the whole state of sickness is such : for what else is it but 
 a magnificent dream for a man to lie a-bed, and draw day-light curtains 
 about him ; and, shutting out the sun, to induce a total oblivion of all 
 the works which are going on under it ? To become insensible to all 
 the operations of life, except the beatings of one feeble pulse .'* 
 
 If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the patient lords it 
 there ! what caprices he acts without controul ! how king-like he sways 
 his pillow — tumbling, and tossing, and shifting, and raising, and 
 lowering, and thumping, and flatting, and moulding it, to the ever- 
 varying requisitions of his throbbing temples. 
 
 He changes sides oftener than a politician. Now he lies full length, 
 
 ♦ In this instance no other object was attained by depriving the musical public of 
 their amusement on the Tuesday, for after all the new Opera was not produced on the 
 following Saturday. 
 
1825-3 THE CONVALESCENT. 377 
 
 then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head and feet quite across the 
 bed ; and none accuses him of tergiversation. Within the four curtains 
 he is absolute. They are his Mare Clausum. 
 
 How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself ! he is 
 his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as 
 his only duty. 'Tis the Two Tables of the Law to him. He has 
 nothing to think of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or 
 within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him not. 
 
 A little while ago he was greatly concerned in the event of a law- 
 suit, which was to be the making or the marring of his dearest friend. 
 He was to be seen trudging about upon this man's errand to fifty quar- 
 ters of the town at once, jogging this witness, refreshing that solicitor. 
 The cause was to come on yesterday. He is absolutely as indifferent to 
 the decision, as if it were a question to be tried at Pekin. Peradventure 
 from some whispering, going on about the house, not intended for his 
 hearing, he picks up enough to make him understand, that things went 
 cross-grained in the Court yesterday, and his friend is ruined. But the 
 word " friend," and the word " ruin," disturb him no more than so 
 much jargon. He is not to think of any thing but how to get better. 
 
 What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorbing con- 
 sideration ! 
 
 He has put on the strong armour of sickness, he is wrapt in the 
 callous hide of suffering ; he keeps his sjrmpathy, like some curious 
 vintage under trusty lock and key, for his own use only. 
 
 He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself ; he yeameth 
 over himself ; his bowels are even melted within him, to think what he 
 suffers ; he is not ashamed to weep over himself. 
 
 He is for ever plotting how to do some good to himself; studying 
 little stratagems, and artificial alleviations. 
 
 He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable 
 fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and sorrowing 
 members. Sometimes he meditates — as of a thing apart from him — 
 upon his poor aching head, and that duU pain which, dozing or waking, 
 lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance of pain, not 
 to be removed without opening the very scull, as it seemed, to take it 
 thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated fingers. He com- 
 passionates himself all over ; and his bed is a very discipline of humanity, 
 and tender heart. 
 
 He is his own sympathiser, and instinctively feels that none can SQ 
 well perform that office for him. He cares for few spectators to his 
 tragedy. Only that punctual face of the old nurse pleases him, that 
 announces his broths, and his cordials. He likes it because it is so 
 unmoved, and because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations before 
 it as unreservedly as to his bed-post. 
 
 To the world's business he is dead. He understands not what the 
 callings and occupations of mortals are ; only he has a glimmering 
 
37^ THB CONVALESCENT. C^July, 
 
 conceit of some such thing, when the doctor makes his daily call: and 
 even in the lines of that busy face he reads no multiplicity of patients, 
 but solely conceives of himself as the sick man. To what other uneasy 
 couch the good man is hastening, when he slips out of his chamber^ 
 folding up his thin douceur so carefully for fear of rustling — is no spe- 
 culation which he can at present entertain. He thinks only of the 
 regular return of the same phenomenon at the same hour to-morrow. 
 
 Household rumours touch him not. Some faint murmur, indicative 
 of life going on within the house, soothes him, while he knows not 
 distinctly what it is. He is not to know any thing, not to think of any 
 thing. Servants gliding up or down the distant staircase, treading as 
 upon velvet, gently keep his ear awake, so long as he troubles not himself 
 further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter know- 
 ledge would be a burthen to him : he can just endure the pressure of 
 conjecture. He opens his eye faintly at the dull stroke of the muffled 
 knocker, and closes it again without asking " who was it ? " He is 
 flattered by a general notion that inquiries are making after him, but 
 he cares not to know the name of the inquirer. In the general stillness, 
 and awful hush of the house, he lies in state, and feels his sovereignty. 
 
 To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare the silent 
 tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only, with which he is 
 served — with the careless demeanour, the unceremonious goings in and 
 out (slapping of doors, or leaving of them open) of the very same 
 attendants, when he is getting a little better — and you will confess, that 
 from the bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the elbow chair 
 of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to a deposition. 
 
 How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine stature ! wh^e 
 is now the space, which he occupied so lately, in his own, in the family's 
 eye ? The scene of his regalities, his sick room, which was his presence 
 chamber, where he lay and acted his despotic fancies — how is it reduced 
 to a common bed-room ! The trimness of the very bed has something 
 petty and unmeaning about it* It is made every day. How unlike to 
 that wavy, many-furrowed, oceanic surface, which it presented so short 
 a time since, when to make it was a service not to be thought of at 
 oftener than three or four day revolutions, when the patient was with 
 pain and grief to be lifted for a little while out of it, to submit to the 
 encroachments of unwelcome neatness, and decencies which his shaken 
 frame deprecated ; then to be lifted into it again, for another three or 
 four days' respite, to flounder it out of shape again, while every fresh 
 furrow was a historical record of some shifting posture, some uneasy 
 turning, some seeking for a little ease ; and the shrunken skin scarce 
 told a truer story than the crumpled coverlid. 
 
 Hushed are those mysterious sighs — ^those groans — so much more 
 awful, while we knew not from what caverns of vast hidden suffering 
 they proceeded. The Lemean pangs are quenched. The riddle of 
 sickness is solved ; and Philoctetes is become an ordinary personage. 
 
1825.]] TO-DAY IN IRELAND. 579 
 
 Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness survives in 
 the still lingering visitations of the medical attendant. But how is he 
 too changed with every thing else ! Can this be he — this man of news— 
 of chat — of anecdote — of every thing but physic — can this be he, who so 
 lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as on some solemn 
 embassy from Nature, erecting herself into a high mediating party.-* — 
 Pshaw ! 'tis some old woman. 
 
 Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous — the rpell that 
 hushed the household — the desart-like stillness, felt throughout its 
 inmost chambers — the mute attendance — the inquiry by looks — the still 
 softer delicacies of self-attention — the sole and single eye of distemper 
 alonely fixed upon itself — world-thoughts excluded — the man a world 
 unto himself — his own theatre — 
 
 What a speck is he dwindled into ! 
 
 In this flat swamp of convalescence, left by the ebb of sickness, yet far 
 enough from the terra firma of established health, your note, dear Editor, 
 reached me, requesting — an article. In Articulo Mortis, thought I ; but 
 it is something hard — and the quibble, wretched as it was, relieved me. 
 The summons, unseasonable as it appeared, seemed to link me on again 
 to the petty businesses of life, which I. had lost sight of; a gentle call to 
 activity, however trivial ; a wholesome weaning from that preposterous 
 dream of self-absorption — the puffy state of sickness — in which I confess 
 to have lain so long, insensible to the magazines, and monarchies, of the 
 world alike ; to its laws, and to its literature. The hypochondriac flatus 
 is subsiding ; the acres, which in imagination I had spread over — for the 
 sick man swells in the sole contemplation of his single sufierings, till he 
 becomes a Tityus to himself — are wasting to a span ; and for the giant 
 of self-importance, which I was so lately, you have me once again in my 
 natural pretensions — the lean and meagre figure of your insignificant 
 monthly contributor, Elia. 
 
IMPERFECT DRAMATIC ILLUSION. 
 
 A play is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the scenical 
 illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in any case be perfect, is 
 not the question. The nearest approach to it, we are told, is, when the 
 actor appears wholly unconscious of the presence of spectators. In tra- 
 gedy — in all which is to aftect the feelings — this undivided attention to 
 his stage business, seems indispensable. Yet it is, in fact, dispensed with 
 every day by our cleverest tragedians ; and, while these references to an 
 audience, in the shape of rant or sentiment, are not too frequent or pal- 
 pable, a sufficient quantity of illusion for the purposes of dramatic inte- 
 rest may be said to be produced in spite of them. But, tragedy 
 apart, it may be inquired whether in certain characters in comedy, 
 'especially those which are a little extravagant, or which involve some 
 notion repugnant to the moral sense, it is not a proof of the highest 
 skill in the comedian when, without absolutely api>ealing to an audience, 
 he keeps up a tacit understanding with them ; and makes them, uncon- 
 sciously to themselves, a party in the scene. The utmost nicety is 
 required in the mode of doing this ; but we speak only of the great 
 artists in the profession. 
 
 The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel in ourselves, 
 or to contemplate in another is, perhaps, cowardice. To see a coward 
 done to the life upon a stage would produce any thing but mirth. Yet 
 we most of us rememember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could any thing 
 be more agreeable, more pleasant ? We loved the rogues. How was 
 
W^^'Mi^is^hiti^k^s&^i^*^^^ 
 
 ■-M- 1 
 IMPERFECT DRAMATIC ILLUSION. H^Ug. 
 
 this effected but by the exquisite aft of the actor in a perpetual sub-in- 
 sinuation to us the spectators, even in the extremity of the shaking fit, 
 that he was not half such a coward as we took him for ? — We saw all 
 the common symptoms of the malady upon him ; the quivering lip, the 
 cowering knees, the teeth chattering ; and could have sworn " that man 
 was frightened." But we forgot all the while — or kept it almost a secret 
 to ourselves — that he never once lost his self-possession; that he let out 
 by a thousand droll looks and gestures — meant at us, and not at all 
 supposed to be visible to his fellows in the scene, that his confidence 
 in his own resources had never once deserted him. Was this a genuine 
 picture of a coward ? or not rather a likeness, which the clever artist 
 contrived to palm upon us instead of an original _; while we secretly con- 
 nived at the delusion for the purpose of greater pleasure, than a more 
 genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, helplessness, and utter self- 
 desertion, which we know to be concomitants of cowardice in real 
 life, could have given us ? 
 
 Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable on the stage, 
 but because the skilful actor by a sort of sub-reference, rather than direct 
 appeal to us, disarms the character of a great deal of its odiousness, by 
 seeming to engage our compassion for the insecure tenure by which he 
 holds his money bags and parchments ? By this subtle vent half of the 
 hatefulness of the character — the self-closeness with which in real life 
 it coils itself up from the sympathies of men — evaporates. The miser 
 becomes sympathetic ; i. e. is no genuine miser. Here again a diverting 
 likeness is substituted for a very disagreeable reality. 'S^' 
 
 Spleen, irritability — the pitiable infirmities of old men, which pro- 
 duce only pain to behold in the realities, counterfeited upon a stage, 
 divert not altogether for the comic appendages to them, but in part 
 from an inner conviction that they are being acted before us ; that a ^^ 
 likeness only is going on, and not the thing itself. They please by being '^ 
 done under the life, or beside it ; not to the life. When Gatty acts an 
 old man, is he angry indeed.? or only a pleasant counterfeit, just 
 enough of a likeness to recognise, without pressing upon us the 
 uneasy sense of reality ? 
 
 Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too natural. It was 
 the case with a late actor. Nothing could be more earnest or true than ^ ^ 
 the manner of Mr. Emery ; this told excellently in his Tyke, and cha- 
 racters of a tragic cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusive- 
 ness of attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and oblivion 
 of every thing before the curtain into his comedy, it produced a harsh 
 and dissonant effect. He was out of keeping with the rest of the Per- 
 sonoe Dramatis. There was as little link between him and them as 
 betwixt himself and the audience. He was a third estate, dry, repulsive, 
 and unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execution was masterly. 
 ..But comedy is not this unbending thing ; for this reason, that the same 
 
.MattMumti I \^i^aA>meat^^»k*M»A!^. 
 
 'i,m0tttt,:t'iiiiA^.jf"^t^ s^j,.^ifA^2 j.^^ii 
 
 1825.]] IMPERFECT DRAMATIC ILLUSION. 601 
 
 degree of credibility is not required of it as to serious scenes. The degrees 
 of credibility demanded to the two things may be illustrated by the 
 different sort of truth which we expect when a man tells us a mournful 
 or a merry story. If we suspect the former of falsehood in any one 
 tittle, we reject it altogether. Our tears refuse to flow at a suspected 
 imposition. But the teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. 
 We artf content with less than absolute truth. 'Tis the same with dra- 
 matic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see an audience na- 
 turalized behind the scenes, taken in into the interest of the drama, 
 welcomed as by-standers however. There is something ungracious in a 
 comic actor holding himself aloof from all participation or concern 
 with those who are come to.be diverted by him. Macbeth must see the 
 dagger, and no ear but his own be told of it ; but an old fool in farce 
 may think he sees sojnetkitig, and by conscious words and looks express 
 it, as plainly as he can speak, to pit, box, and gallery. When an im- 
 pertinent in tragedy, an Osric for instance, breaks in upon the serious 
 passions of the scene, we approve of the contempt with which he is 
 treated. But when the pleasant impertinent of comedy, in a piece purely 
 meant to give delight, and raise mirth out of whimsical perplexities, 
 worries the studious man with taking up his leisure, or making his house 
 his home, the same sort of contempt expressed (however natural) would 
 destroy the balance of delight in the spectators. To make the intrusion 
 comic, the actor who plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature ; 
 he must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express only so much 
 dissatisfaction and peevishness as is consistent with the pleasure of 
 comedy. In other words, his perplexity must seem half put on. If he 
 repel the intruder with the sober set face of a man in earnest, and more 
 especially if he deliver his expostulations in a tone, which in the world 
 must necessarily provoke a duel : his real-life manner will destroy the 
 whimsical and purely dramatic existence of the other character (which, 
 to render it comic demands an antagonist comicality on the part of the 
 character opposed to it), and convert what was meant for mirth, rather 
 than belief, into a downright piece of impertinence indeed, which would 
 raise no diversion in us, but rather stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest 
 upon any worthy person. A very judicious actor (in most of his parts) 
 seems to have fallen into an error of this sort in his playing with Mr. 
 Wrench in the farce of Free and Easy. 
 
 Many instances would be tedious; these may suffice to show that 
 comic acting at least does not always demand from the performer that 
 strict abstraction from all reference to an audience, which is exacted of 
 it ; but that in some cases a sort of compromise may take place, and all 
 the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by a judicious understanding, 
 not too openly announced, between the ladies and gentlemen — on both 
 
 sides of the curtain. 
 
 Elia. 
 
THE SORROWS OF ** •**. 
 
 I AM the most unfortunate of an unfortunate race. The most 
 wretched of the wretched who have no rest for the soles of their feet. — 
 Mistake me not — I am no Jew, — would I were but the meanest amongst 
 the Hebrews ! — ^but my unhappy despised generation labours under a 
 sterner, though a similar, curse. We are a proverb and a bye-word — 
 a mark for derision and scorn, even to the vilest of those scattered. 
 Israelites. We are sold into tenfold bondage and persecution. We are 
 delivered over to slavery and to poverty — we are visited with numberless 
 
 stripes. No, tender-hearted Man of Bramber ! we are not what thy 
 
 sparkling eyes would seem to anticipate, — we are, alas ! no negroes, — 
 it were a merciful fate to us to be but Blackamoors. They have their 
 snatches of rest and of joy even — their tabors, and pipes, and cymbals 
 — we have neither song nor dance — misery alone is our portion — pain is 
 in all our joints — and on our bosoms, and all about us, sits everlasting 
 
 shagreen -Dost thou not, by this time, guess at my tribe — 
 
 Do*t thou not suspect ray ears J 
 
 vV;^i 
 
 
THE SORROWS OF * * ***. C^ept. 
 
 I am indeed, as thou discemest, an inferior horse — a Jerusalem colt ; 
 but why should I blush to " write myself down an ass ? " My ancestors 
 at least were free, and inhabited the desert ! — My forefather;-? wjerq 
 noble,— though it must rob our patriarchs of some of their immortal 
 bliss, if they can look down from their lower Indian heayen on their 
 abject posterity ! ^ ... .. ji i.,,:, :.ai ^hw 
 
 Fatie,— r know not whether kindly or unkindly,'-^ has cast my^lot* 
 upon the coast. I have heard, there are some of my race who draw in 
 sand-carts, or carry panniers, and are oppressed by those Coptic va^^ 
 bonds, the Gypsies, — but I can conceive no oppressions greater thaii' 
 mine. — I can dream of no fardels more intolerable than those I bear ; 
 but think, rather with envy, of the passiveness of a pair of panniers, 
 compared to the living burdens which gall and fret me by their continual 
 efibrts. A sand-bag might be afflictive, from its weight — but it could' 
 not kick with it, like a young lady. I should fear no stripes — from a' 
 basket of apples. — A load of green peas could not tear my tongue by 
 tugging at my eternal bridle. All these are circumstances of my hourly 
 afflictions, — ^when I am toiling along the beach — the most abject, and 
 starved, and wretched of our sea-roamers — with one, or perhaps three, 
 of my master s cruel customers, sitting upon my painful back. It may 
 chance, for this ride, that I have been ravished from a hasty breakfast 
 — full of hunger and wind — having at six o'clock suckled a pair of 
 young ladies, in declines, — my own unweaned shaggy foal remaining 
 all the time unnourished (think of that, mothers ! ) in his sorry stable. 
 It is generally for some child or children that I am saddled thus early — 
 for urchins fresh from the brine, fuU of spirits and mischief,— would to 
 
 Providence it might please Mrs. D the Dipper, to suffocate the 
 
 shrieking imps in their noisy immersion ! The sands are allowed to be 
 excellent for a gallop — but for the sake of the clatter, these infant 
 demons prefer the shingles— and on this horrible footing I am raced up 
 and down, till I can barely lift a leg. A brawny Scotch nursery 
 wench, therefore, with sinews made all the more vigorous by the shrewd 
 bracing sea air, lays lustily on my haunches with a toy whip — no toy 
 however in her pitiless " red right hand : " and when she is tired of the 
 exercise, I am made over to the next comer. This is probably the 
 Master Buckle — and what hath my young cock, but a pair of artificial 
 spurs — or huge corking-pins stuck at his abominable heels. — No "if?:? ,'f 
 — gentle knight comes j7r;cA:iwg' o'er the plain. — ' > 
 
 I am now treated, of course, like a cockchafer — and endeavour ^x|jL 
 myself of my tormentor ; but the bruteling, to his infernal praise,, i^ ^^ 
 excellent rider. At last the contrivance is espied, and my jockey draw^ 
 off" by his considerate parent — not as the excellent Mr. Thomas DiijL'i 
 would advise, with a Christian lecture on his cruelty-— but, wij,h ^2^^^^^'-,,.^ 
 
 ■j^S^^^^ 
 
1825.3 "^^^^ SORROWS OF ** ***. 97 
 
 monition on the danger to his neck. His mother too kisses him in a 
 frenzy of tenderness at his escape — and 1 am discharged with a cha- 
 racter of spitcfulness, and obstinacy, and all that is brutal in i^ature. 
 
 A young literary lady — blinded with tears, that make her stumble 
 over the shingles — here approaches, book in hand, and mounts me,— 
 with the charitable design, as I hope, of preserving me from a more 
 unkindly rider. And, indeed, when I halt from fatigue, she only 
 strikes me over the crupper, with a volume of Duke Christian of 
 Lunenburg — (a Christian tale to be used so ! ) — till her concern for the 
 binding of the novel compels her to desist. I am then parted with as 
 incorrigibly lazy, and am mounted in turn by all the stoutest women in .^ 
 
 Margate, it being their fancy, as they declare, to ride leisurely. I 
 
 Are these things to be borne ? 
 
 Conceive me, simply, tottering under the bulk of Miss Wiggins, 
 (who some aver is " all soul," but to me she is all body,) or Miss 
 Huggins — the Prize Giantesses of England ; either of them sitting like 
 a personified lumbago on my loins ! — Am I a Hindoo tortoise — an 
 Atlas ? Sometimes, Heaven forgive me, I think I arn an ass to put 
 up with such miseries— dreaming under the impossibility of throwing off 
 my fardels — of ridding myself of myself — or in moments of less im- 
 patience, wishing myself to have been created at least an elephant, to 
 bear these young women in their " towers," as they call them, about 
 the coast. 
 
 Did they never read the fable of " Ass's Skin," under which covering 
 a princess was once hidden by the malice of fairy Fate ? If they have, 
 it might inspire them with a tender shrinking and misgiving, lest, under 
 our hapless shape, they should pcradventure be oppressing and crushing 
 some once dear relative or bosom-friend, some youthful intimate or 
 school-fellow, bound to them, perhaps, by a mutual vow of eternal 
 affection. Some of us, moreover, have titles which might deter a modest 
 mind from degrading us. Who would think of riding, much less of 
 flagellating the beautiful Duchess — or only a namesake of the beautiful 
 Duchess of Devonshire ? Who would think of wounding through our 
 sides, the tender nature of the Lady Jane Grey ? Who would care to 
 goad Lord Wellington, or Nelson, or Duncan ? — and yet these illus- 
 trious titles are all worn, — by my melancholy brethren. There is 
 scarcely a distinguished family in the peerage — but hath an ass of their 
 name. 
 
 Let my oppressors think of this and mount modestly, and let them 
 use me — a female — tenderly, for the credit of their own feminine 
 nature. Am I not capable, like them, of pain and fatigue — of hunger 
 and thirst? Have I, forsooth, no rheumatic aches — no cholics and 
 windy spasms, or stitches in the side — ^^no vertigoes — no asthma — no 
 feebleness or hystericks — no colds on the lungs ? It would be but 
 reasonable to presume I had all these, for my stable is bleak and damp 
 — my water brackish and ray food scanty — for my master is a Caledo- 
 
 Skpt. 1825. H 
 
98 
 
 ON THE DOMESTICATION OP WILD ANIMALS. 
 
 CSept. 
 
 nian, and starves me — I am almost one of those Scotch asses that 
 " live upon a brae ! " 
 
 *-^7:U;:^^ m':. * * * joiiiiffi^ fnoJ yd ^-tsiUi 
 
 Will you mention' these things, honourable and- huthane ' Sir, t iSL} 
 your place in Parliament ? 
 
 Friends of humanity ! — Eschewers of West Indian sugar ! — Patrons 
 of black drudges, — ^pity also the brown and grizzle-grey ! Suffer no 
 sand — that hath been dragged by the afflicted donkey. Consume not 
 the pannier-potatoe — that hath helped to overburthen the miserabl«§ 
 ass ! Do not ride on us, or drive us — or mingle with those who dc^i 
 Die conscientiously of declines — and spare the consumption; i^f riWM 
 family milk. Think of our babes, and of our backs. Remember Our 
 manifold sufferings, and our meek resignation — our life-long martyrdom, 
 and our mild martyr-like endurance. Think i^ th'^.'^ lauguid patience " 
 in our physiognomy ! .,,,;-. 
 
 I have heard of a certain French Metropolitan, who declared that the 
 most afflicted and patient of animals was " de Job-horse : " — but surely 
 he ought to have applied to our race the attributes and the name of,,tfe^, 
 man of Uz ! ^jtr oi 
 
 .:'5acfy*«',»»?5^i.'majS«S-S?ii»ia3 
 
 jr^:smafS'K,-h'^"mJS^^^'is^r'^ 
 
J 822.;] 
 
 A few Words on ^' Christmas, 
 
 49S 
 
 A FEW WORDS ON « CHRISTMAS.* 
 
 Close the shutters, and draw the 
 curtains together, and pile fresh wood 
 upon the hearth ! Let us have, for 
 once, an innocent auto da fe. Let 
 the hoarded corks be brought forth, 
 and branches of crackling laurel. 
 Place the wine and iruit and the hot 
 chesnuts upon the table. — And now, 
 good folks and children, bring your 
 chairs round to the blazing fire. Put 
 some of those rosy apples upon your 
 plates. We'll drink one glass of 
 bright sherry *' to our absent friends 
 and readers," and then let us talk a 
 little about Christmas. 
 
 And what is Christmas ? 
 
 AV^hy, it is the happiest time of the 
 year. It is the season of mirth and 
 cold weather. It is the time when 
 Christmas-boxes and jokes are given ; 
 when mistletoe, and red-berried lau- 
 rel, and soups, and sliding, and 
 school-boys, prevail; when the coun- 
 try is illuminated by fires and bright 
 faces ; and the town is radiant with 
 laughuig children. Oranges, as rich 
 as the fruit of the Hesperides, shine 
 out in huge golden heaps. Cakes, 
 frosted over (as if to rival the glitter- 
 ing snow) come forth by thousands 
 from their summer (caves) ovens: 
 and on every stall at every corner of 
 every street are the roasted apples, 
 like incense fuming on Pagan altars. 
 
 And this night is Christmas Evi:. 
 Formerly it was a serious and holy 
 vigil. Our forefathers observed it 
 strictly till a certain hour, and then 
 requited their own forbearance with 
 cups of ale and Christmas candles, 
 with placing the yule clog- on the fire, 
 and roaring themselves thirsty till 
 morning. Time has altered ' this. 
 We are neither so good as our fore- 
 fathers were — nor so bad. W^e go to 
 bed sober ; but we have forgotten 
 their old devotions. Our conduct 
 looks like a sort of compromise ; so 
 that we are not worse than our an- 
 cestors, we are satisfied not to be 
 better : but let that pass. — W^hat we 
 now call Christmas Eve — (there is 
 something very delightful in old 
 terms : they had always their birth 
 in reason or sentiment) was formerly 
 Mcedrenack, or The Nio-ht of Mo~ 
 thers I How beautifully does this re- 
 cal to one's heart that holy tale — 
 that wonderful nativity, which the 
 eastern shepherds went by night to 
 ^aze at and adore— 
 
 (It was the winter wild, 
 
 When the heaven-born child 
 All meanly wr app'd in the rude manger lay ;) 
 a prodigy, which, had it been in- 
 vention only, would have contained 
 mvich that was immaculate and sub- 
 lime ; but, twined as it is with man's 
 hopes and fears, is invested with a 
 grand and overwhelming interest. 
 
 But to-night is Christmas Eve, and 
 so we will be merry. Instead of 
 toast and ale, we will content our- 
 selves with our sherry and chesnuts ; 
 and we must put up with coffee or 
 fragrant tea, instead of having the 
 old Wassail-hoivl which formed part 
 of the inspiration of our elder poets. 
 We were once admitted to the mys- 
 teries of that fine invention, and we 
 respect it accordingly. Does any one 
 wish to know its merits ? Let him 
 try what he can produce, on our hint, 
 and be grateful to us for ever. The 
 '^ Wassail-bowl" is, indeed, a great 
 composition. It is not carved by 
 Beiivenuto Cellini (the outside may, 
 — but it is not material), nor shaped 
 by Michael Angelo from the marble 
 quarries of Carrara ; but it is a liquor 
 fit for the lips of the Indian Bacchus, 
 and worthy to celebrate his return 
 from conquest. It is made — for, 
 after all, we must descend to parti- 
 culars — it is made of wine, with 
 some water (but parce, j)recor, pre- 
 cor!) with spices of various sorts, and 
 roasted apples, which float in triumph 
 upon its top. The proportions of 
 each are not important — in fact, they 
 should be adapted to the taste of the 
 drinkers. The only caution that 
 seems necessary is to " spare the 
 water." If the compositor should 
 live in the neighbourhood of Aldgate, 
 this hint may be deemed advisable ; 
 though we mean no affront to either 
 him or the pump. 
 
 One mark and sign of Christmas is ^ 
 
 the music; rude enough, indeed, but 
 generally gay, and speaking elo- 
 quently of the season. Music, at 
 iestival times, is common to most 
 countries. In Spain, the serenader 
 twangs his guitar : in Italy, the mu- 
 sician allures rich notes from his Cre- 
 mona : in Scotland, the bagpipe 
 drones out its miserable noise : in 
 Germany, there is the horn, and the 
 pipe in Arcady. W^e too, in our 
 turn, have our Christmas " Waits," 
 who witch us at early morning, be* 
 
496 A few ' Words on '' Christmas. 
 
 cock-crow, with strains and 
 
 CDec. 
 
 us so gently that the 
 seems to have commenced in 
 
 ',;jj|bre cock-crow, with strains 
 ^^^wel comings which belong to night. 
 ^^jtThey M-ake 
 ^jjpusic 
 
 ^i^mir dreams, and we listen to it till 
 we sleep again. Besides this, we 
 ij^ave our songs, from the young and 
 "^, the old, jocose and fit for the time, 
 j /.What old gentleman of sixty has not 
 ^ .iiis stock — his one, or two, or three 
 ^^ jfroljrclvsome verses. He sings them 
 ^ 'for the young folks, and is secure of 
 'l^^^|;heir applause and his own private 
 
 art 
 d3 
 
 satisfaction, 
 ^aps says 
 
 His wife, indeed, per- 
 Really, my dear Mr. 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 ^ J, "Williams, you should noiu give over 
 j.J |,hese, &c." but he is more resolute 
 '''^.^rom opposition, and gambols through 
 jj^iis " Flowery meads of May," or 
 .j.j^^h Beneath a shady bower," while the 
 "^r^iiildren hang on his thin, trembling, 
 '^^ pntuneable notes in delighted and 
 _^^ delightful amaze. 
 ^ p ]: Many years ago (some forty-one, — 
 \y,9^ two, — or three) when we were at 
 '""home " for the Christmas holidays," 
 we occasionally heard these things. 
 What a budget of songs we had! 
 None of them were good for much ; 
 but they were sung by joyful spirits, 
 amidst fun and laughter, loud and 
 in defiance of tune, and we were 
 chanted. There was *^ Bright 
 hanticleer proclaims the dawn_,'^ — 
 and '^ 'Twas in the good ship Rover," 
 — and, *^ Buy my matches," — (oh! 
 what an accompaniment there was 
 with the flat hand and the elbow) — 
 " The lobster claw," — and others. 
 Wq should be sorry to strip them, 
 like '^ majesty " in the riddle, of 
 their merit first and last (our re- 
 collection) and reduce them to ^' a 
 jest." Yet they were indeed a jest, 
 and a very pleasant one. — Of all the 
 songs, however, which become a 
 time of feasting, there is none com- 
 parable to one written by Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. It is racy, and rich, 
 and sparkling. It has the strength 
 and regal taste of Burgundy, and 
 the etherial spirit of Chanipaigne. 
 Does the reader wish to see it ? Here 
 it is: the words seem floating in 
 wine. 
 
 God Ly^us — ever young, 
 Ever honour'd, ever sung ; 
 Stain'd with blood of lusty grapes, 
 In a thousand lusty shapes, 
 Dance upon the mazer's brim, 
 In the crimson liquor swim ; 
 From thy plenteous hand divine 
 Let a river run with wine I 
 
 "What a rioter was he that wrote 
 this ! — His drink was not water from 
 Hippocrene. His fountain flowed 
 with wine. His goddess was a 
 girl with purple lips ; and his 
 dreams were rich, like the autumn; 
 but prodigal, wild, and Bacchana- 
 lian ! 
 
 — Leaving now our eve of Christ- 
 mas, its jokes, and songs, and warm 
 hearths, we will indulge ourselves in 
 a few words upon Christmas Day. 
 It is like a day of victory. Every 
 
 IS as green as 
 
 house and church 
 spring. The laurel, that never dies, 
 — the holly, with its armed leaves 
 and scarlet berries, — the mistletoe, 
 under which one sweet ceremonial 
 is (we hope still) performed, are 
 seen. Every brave shrub that has 
 life and verdure seems to come for- 
 ward to shame the reproaches of 
 men, and to show them that the 
 earth is never dead, never parsimo- 
 nious. Then, what gay dresses are 
 intermixed, — art rivalling nature ! — 
 Woe to the rabbits and the hares, 
 and the nut-cracking squirrels, the 
 foxes, and all children of the woods, 
 for furriers shall spoil them of their 
 coats, to keep woman (the wonder 
 of creation) warm ! And woe to 
 those damsels (fair anachronisms) 
 who will not fence out the sharp 
 winter; for rheumatisms and agues 
 shall be theirs, and catarrhs shall be 
 their portion in spring. — But, look ! 
 Avhat thing is this, awful and colour- 
 ed like the rainbow, — blue, and red, 
 and glistening yellow? Its vest is 
 sky tinctured ! The edges of its gar- 
 ments are like the sun ! Is it 
 
 A faery vision 
 
 Of some gay creature of the element, 
 That in the colours of the rainbow lives, 
 And plays i' the plighted clouds ? — 
 
 No:— it is the Beadle of St. 's! 
 
 How Christmas and consolatory he 
 looks ! How redolent of good cheer 
 is he! He is a cornu-copia, — an 
 abundance! What pudding- sleeves ! 
 — vrhat a collar, red and a like beef- 
 steak, is his ! He is a walking refresh- 
 ment ! He looks like a whole parish, — 
 full, important,— but untaxed. The 
 children of charity gaze at him with 
 a modest smile. The stragglhig boys 
 look on him with confidence. They 
 do not pocket their marbles. They 
 do not fly from the familiar gutter. 
 This is a red-letter day; and the 
 cane is reserved for tomorrow. 
 London is not too populous at Christ-. 
 
mas. But what there is of popula- 
 tion looks more alive than at other 
 times. Quick walking- and heaps of 
 invitations keep the blood warm. 
 Every one seems hurrying- to a din- 
 ner. The breath curls upwards like 
 smoke through the frosty air ; the 
 eyes glisten ; the teeth are shown ; 
 the muscles of the face are rigid, and 
 the colour of the cheek has a fixed 
 look, like a stain. Hunger is no 
 long-er an enemy. We feed him, 
 like the ravenous tiger, till he pants 
 and sleeps, or is quiet. Every body 
 eats at Christmas. The rich feast as 
 usual ; but the tradesman leaves his 
 moderate fare for dainties. The ap- 
 prentice abjures his chop, and 
 l)lunges at once into the luxuries of 
 joints and pudding-s. The school- 
 boy is no longer at school. He 
 dreams no more of the coming lesson 
 or the lifted rod ; but mountains of 
 jelly rise beside him, and l)lanc- 
 mangc, with its treacherous founda- 
 tions, threatens to overwhelm his 
 fancy ; roods of mince pies spread 
 out their chequered riches before 
 
 him; and figures (only real on the 
 6th of January) pass by him, one 
 by one, like ghosts before the vision 
 of the king of Scotland. Even the 
 servant has his " once a year" bot- 
 tle of port ; and the beggar his *^ al- 
 derman in chains." 
 
 Oh ! merry piping time of Christ- 
 mas! Never let lis permit thee to 
 degenerate into distant courtesies 
 and formal salutations. But let us 
 shake our friends and familiars by the 
 hand, as our fathers and their fa- 
 thers did. Let them all come around 
 us, and let us count how many the 
 year has added to our circle. Let 
 us enjoy the present, and laugh at 
 the past. Let us tell old stories and 
 invent new ones — innocent always, 
 and ingenious if we can. Let us not 
 meet to abuse the world, but to mak« 
 it better by our individual example. 
 Let us be patriots, but not men of 
 party. Let us look ()f' the time, — 
 cheerful and generous, and endea- 
 vour to make others as generous and 
 cheerful as ourselves. 
 
IS9^2 
 
 The 'Miseellanf, 
 
 £93 
 
 Our next contributor calls his paper " Scraps of Criticism.*' We think that 
 we know " the fine Roman hand/'— but let that pass. It is enough, perhaps^, 
 (for our readers) that the remarks are good. Whether we translate them 
 from the Syriac or Chaldee, or transcribe them from vellum or papyrus, is 
 a question which we cannot now explain. The two first " Scraps " refer to 
 Gray's Poems, and take novel (and, what is better, just) exceptions to two 
 passages which they contain. — Johnson has been abused more, perhaps, 
 for undervaluing the merits of Gray, than for any of his offences against 
 literature. For our own parts, we think that he has been abused unjustly. 
 Were ive to cast a stone at him, it wo\dd be for his life of Milton. But 
 Gray has, of all poets in the English language, the least right to complain* 
 His reputation is enormously too great for the foundation upon which it 
 rests. No doubt that he had learning, and a pleasant way of commu- 
 
 Inicating his thoughts. But his language isj beyond even tliat of his contem- 
 poraries, artificial ; and his poems are not remarkable either for original 
 kthought or even felicity of expression. His " Elegy " is clearly the 
 first of his compositions : there is a tender vein of melancholy running 
 through it; and the reflections, generally speaking, if not very profound, 
 are graceful and pleashig. — The " Scrap " upon the word " villain " is a 
 fery material one ; inasmuch as it seems to be the kei/, or leading word, 
 I'to the character of Richard, as it is seen on the stage. With regard to 
 " Howell's Letters," — certainly our friend Howell has taken an odd pro and 
 
 TcoTi view of the same subject. Perhaps he had one eye for the good, and one 
 for the bad — and saw with them alternately. Thus " to wink at a person's 
 faults" is to shut the bad eye. 
 
 SCRAPS OF CRITICISM. 
 
 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial 
 fire; 
 Hand& that the rod of empire might have 
 sway'd, 
 Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre. 
 
 Grai/s Elegy, 
 There has always appeared to me 
 a vicious mixture of the figurative 
 with the real in this admired pas- 
 sage. The first two lines may barely 
 pass, as not bad. But the hands laid 
 m the earth, must mean the identical 
 five-finger'd organs of the body ; and 
 how does this consist with their oc- 
 cupation of swaying rods, unless their 
 owner had been a schoolmaster; or 
 waking lyres, unless he were literally 
 a harper by profession ? Hands that 
 " might have held the plough," would 
 have some sense, for that work is 
 strictly manual ; the others only em- 
 blematically or pictorially so. Kings 
 now-a-days sway no rods, alias scep- 
 tres, except on their coronation day ; 
 and poets do not necessarily strum 
 upon the harp or fiddle, as poets. 
 When we think upon dead cold fin- 
 gers, we may remember the honest 
 squeeze of friendship which thoy re- 
 turned heretofore; we cannot but 
 with violence connect their living 
 idea, as opposed to death, with uses 
 to which they must become meta- 
 phorical (i. e. less real than dead 
 
 things themselves) before we can so 
 with any propriety apply them. _„ ^ 
 
 '. l^mm^ 
 
 He saw, but, blasted with excess of light, 
 Closed his eyes in endless night. 
 
 Gray's Bardt 
 
 Nothing was ever more violently 
 distorted, than this material fact of 
 Milton's blindness having been occa- 
 sioned by his intemperate studies, 
 and late hours, during his prosecution 
 of the defence against Salmasius— 
 applied to the dazzling effects of too 
 much mental vision. His corporal 
 sight was blasted with corporal occu- 
 pation ; his inward sight was not im- 
 paired, but rather strengthened, by 
 his task. If his course of studies 
 had turned his brain, there would 
 have been some fitness hi the ex- 
 pression. 
 
 And since I cannot, I will prove a villain. 
 And hate the idle pleasures of these days. 
 Soliloquy in Richard III. 
 
 The performers, whom I have seen 
 in this part, seem to mistake the im- 
 port of the word which I have 
 marked with italics. Richard does 
 not mean, that because he is by shape 
 and temper unfitted lor a courtier, he 
 is therefore determined to prove, in 
 our sense of the word^ a wicked maiu 
 
Wtf The'^iscetlani), 
 
 The word in SHatspeare's time had 
 riot passed entirely into the modern 
 sense; it was in its passage certainly, 
 aiid indifferently used as such ; the 
 beauty of a world of words in that 
 age was in their being less definite 
 than they are now/ fixed, and petri- 
 fied. Villain is here undoubtedly 
 used for a churl, or clown, opposed to 
 a courtier; amd the incipient dete- 
 rioration of the meaning gave the 
 use of it in this place great spirit and 
 beauty. A wicked man does not ne- 
 cessarily hate courtly pleasures ; a 
 chwn is naturally opposed to them. 
 The mistake of this meaning has, I 
 think, led the players into that hard 
 literal conception with which they 
 deliver this passage, quite foreign, in 
 my understanding, to the bold gay- 
 faced irony of the soliloquy. Richard, 
 upon the stage, looks round, as if he 
 were literally apprehensive of some 
 dog snapping at him ; and announces 
 his determination of procuring a look- 
 ing-glass, and employing a tailor, as 
 if he were prepared to put both in 
 practice before he should get home — 
 I apprehend " a world of figures 
 here." 
 
 [[Dec. 
 
 HowelVs Letters. "The treaty of the 
 match 'twixt our Prince [^afterwards 
 Charles I.]] and the Lady Infanta, is 
 now strongly a foot : she is a very 
 comely lady, rather of a Flemish com- 
 plexion than Spanish, fair haired, and 
 carrieth a most pure mixture of red 
 and white in her face. She is full 
 and big'lipp'd ; which is held a beauty 
 rather than a blemish, or rather excess 
 in the Austrian family , it being a thing 
 incident to most of that race ; she goes 
 now upon 16, and is of a tallness 
 agreeable to those years." This let- 
 ter bears date, 5th Jan. 1622. Turn 
 we now to a letter dated 16th May, 
 1626. The wind"^was now changed 
 about, tlie Spanish match broken off', 
 and Charles had become the husband 
 of Henrietta. *' I thank you for your 
 
 late letter, and the several good tid- 
 ings sent me from XValcs. In re- 
 quital I can send you gallaait news, 
 for we have now a most noble new 
 Queen of England, who in true beaa-j 
 ty is beyond the long-woo'd Infanta j* 
 for she was of a fading flaxen hair, 
 big-lippd, and somewhat heavy- 
 eyed ; but this daughter of France, 
 this youngest branch of Bourbon 
 (being but in her cradle when the 
 great Henry her father was put out 
 of the world) is of a more lovely and 
 lasting complexion^ a dark brown; 
 she hath eyes that sparkle like stars ; 
 and for her physiognomy, she may 
 be said to be a mirror of perfection," { 
 He hath a rich account, in another^ 
 letter, of Prince Charles courting this 
 same Infanta. "^ There are Comedians 
 once a week come to the Palace [[at 
 Madrid] where, under a great canopy, 
 the Queen and the Infanta sit in the 
 middle, our Prince and Don Carlos 
 on the Queen's right hand, the king 
 and the little Cardinal on the In- 
 fanta's left hand. I have seen the 
 Prince have his eyes immovably 
 fixed upon the Infanta half an hour 
 together in a thoughtful speculative 
 posture, which sure would needs be te- 
 dious, unless affection did sweeten it." 
 Again, of the Prince's final departure 
 from that court. " The king and his 
 two brothers accompanied his High- 
 ness to the Escurial, some twenty 
 miles off, and would have brought 
 him to the sea- side, but that the 
 Queen is big, and hath not many 
 days to go. When the King and He 
 parted, there past wonderful great 
 endearments and embraces in divers 
 postures between them a long time ; 
 and in that place there is a pillar to 
 be erected as a monument to posteri- 
 ty." This scene of royal congees 
 assuredly gave rise to the popular, or 
 reformed sign (as Ben Jonson calls ?/ 
 it), of The Salutation, In the days 
 of Popery, this sign had a more so- 
 lemn import. 
 
834f TO CHARLES LAMB. [[July, 
 
 Happy beyond that man of Ross, 
 Whom mere content could ne'er engross, 
 Art thouj — with hope, — health, — " learned leisure," 
 Friends — books — thy thoughts — an endless pleasure ! 
 — Yet — yet — (for when was pleasure made 
 Sunshine all without a shade ?) 
 Thou, perhaps, as now thou rovest 
 Through the busy scenes thou lovest 
 With an idler's careless look. 
 Turning some moth-pierced book, 
 Feel'st a sharp and sudden woe 
 For visions vanished long ago ! — 
 And then thou think'st how time has fled 
 Over thy unsilver'd head, 
 • Snatching many a fellow mind 
 
 Away, and leaving — what behind ? — 
 
 Nought, alas ! save joy and pain 
 Mingled ever, like a strain 
 Of music where the discords vie 
 With the truer harmony. 
 So, perhaps, with thee the vein 
 Is sullied ever, — so the chain 
 Of habits and affections old. 
 Like a weight of solid gold, 
 Presseth on thy gentle breast. 
 Till sorrow rob thee of thy rest. 
 
 — Ay : So it is. Ev'n / (whose lot 
 
 The fairy Love so long forgot) 
 
 Seated beside this Sherris wine. 
 
 And near to books and shapes divine. 
 
 Which poets and the painters past 
 
 Have wrought in lines that aye shall last — 
 
 Ev'n I, with Shakspeare's self beside me. 
 
 And One, whose tender talk can guide me 
 
 Through fears, and pains, and troublous themes, — 
 
 Whose smile doth fall upon my dreams 
 
 Like sunshine on a stormy sea, — 
 
 Want something, — when I think of tkee f 
 
 May ^5, 1825. C. 
 

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