CCip SR<« r'iEf rfjrV ^^"^ CS_«^* Ci^f^i r ^^c<4?^ ^::V5*^, C^ igfe?- ^^@^ SS^^ ^^<^'«3iC^r1>-W^^ W^Mt>^ j ^iSi0 >. Rje9LV>3 J >»1 ^^-v" ^ms^ ^iiS^ .» :>>->i5i' EB > > j2^^^^»^ ^^^^ ^;^^SE^^5> ^^?> :5^^S5^ -^^^^^51 B ERKELEy\ LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORN^ / RIDES AND REVERIES OF THE LATE M^ JISOP SMITH. \ EDITED BY PETER QUERY, F.S.A. [MARTIN F, TUPPER.] LONDON: KTJRRT \ND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1858. The right of Translation is reserved. NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. My poor friend ^sop is dead ! What a blow this is to Lucy, whom hie was within a week of marrying — and to me and Mrs. Query, who had set our hearts upon the match — none can tell ; but, things being as they are, all this and that are over. Dr. Newsaw tells me that Mr. Smith never really recovered his last accident, slight as it seemed at first ; but that, what with the un- wonted excitements of love, and renewed horse- exercise, as soon as ever he could leave my sofa, the concussion brought on a congestion, whereof, to our great concern, he thus somewhat suddenly — and, certainly, quite unexpectedly — died. Two days before his death he put into my hands (among some other matters confided to 738 2 NOTICE 1110 as executor) the heap of papers that make this book : many of them having been ventilated on the mouths of men already, by help of iEsop's admirable friend, the Editor of that Maga of Erin, the " Dublin University Ma- gazine ;" but there was plenty more beside of a like character, scraps of hurried thoughts, scrib- bled, almost illegibly, on backs of letters, fly- leaves of books, and other odds and ends of blotted stationery ; in short, it appeared to me that all these whims and fancies were simply and truly what they here profess to be — my poor friend's reveries, out riding. His fables, as his feelings, would seem to have had facts for their substrata. You have, then, before you, " Lector dilec- tissime," iEsop*s most unguarded meditations. It vvas not for me to select, or add, or alter ; I could not do it, if I would, and would not, if I could ; neither did I care to mould such post- humous fragments into a connected whole. They touch many past or passing topics of the day, as well as other subjects of a more enduring interest ; and are unconventionally out-spoken upon several social subjects, not always so boldly BY THE EDITOR. 3 broached in print. However, let other folks criticize them ; my duty has been little more than to correct the proof-sheets of this sug- gestive book ; which you may love, like, endure, or detest, according to your " idiosyncrasy," without flattery or favour. Farewell, poor ^sop Smith ! A better fellow, and a kinder, never breathed, nor one more often misappreciated. Though somewhat hardened, and not a little soured (as most of the rest of us are) by worries and troubles and ill-usage of many sorts, — treachery from friends, malice from enemies, the calumniating tongue of neutrals, and other usual disappointments vexations and negligences of human life, — he yet kept warm and beating the affectionate impulsive heart of childhood under his mediaeval waistcoat, and however bitter of speech under the harrow of aggravation (as ever is the case with hunchbacks) was never- theless both in will and deed the kindliest of men. His mental independence, shown character- istically enough in this record of solitary rides and shouted reveries, cared little about con- 4 NOTICE BY THE EDITOR. ciliating the commoner sort of friendships. He was used to say what he thought, to do what he chose, to go where he liked, heeding nobody. Nevertheless, with all his heart and soul he loved and followed the good,' the pure, the generous ; and if, as he rides, he contemptuously touches with his dog-whip a trifle of wicked wives, bad servants, dull parsons, hypocritical mercy-mongers, and zoilistical critics, no doubt they richly deserve it. p. Q. Dymsfold Manor. CONTENTS, An Introductory Fragment of Autobiography Pond-Skimming .... Empty Buckets .... Bottled Thunder ; and Electric Sauce Patience The Mole and its Grandmother Diamonds Grammar Throwing a Fir Gaps . Galls Bliss's Bankruptcy Harvesting Bits of Ribbon iEolian Telegraphs Dipthongs Eating Grass Arachnisms . Woodcocks The Mushroom. Lily In Harness Football Fish- Hooks Wedding-Cards Coram Non Judice , HsandWs . PACK 1 11 14 16 21 ^2 23 26 29 31 32 34 42 44 46 48 50 52 55 56 59 61 64 65 68 70 ; Vlll CONTENTS. VAnn Mud 73 Opium 75 Cormorant-Fanciers 77 Iron and Honey 80 Leaps 82 The Dammed Brook 84 Mixed-Madness 86 Follow my Leader 87 The Lizard in the Nest 92 Galloping 94 Puppets and Wires 98 Fattened Toads .100 Bloodsuckers 102 Unravelling 105 The Narrow World 109 My Plum-Stone Ill The Holly-Bush 114 Horse-Morals . . 115 The Elephant and the Monkey 117 A Smash 122 Critics ... 124 Pariahs 127 The Cold Shade 130 Early and Late 133 Spurs 134 Aesop's Patent Heal- All 130 A Pig in a Poke 137 Burying 141 Yeh's Nay 144 My Ohi-Stick . . 149 Our Kaleidoscope .151 Housekeeping 154 The Frog in a Stone 157 Sunshine 159 Moonshine 162 CONTENTS. IX PACK Stars ... 165 Infections * • • 1€8 Autumn Leaves 170 Blinkers 171 The Kind Killer 174 Eyes Right 177 Amusements 178 Hurrah for the Rifle 182 Rust ; and Cuckoos 183 Next-Door 185 Mare and Foal 186 Woman's Rights 189 Ivy 19^ Dress 198 Fashion 201 The Nettle in the Nosegay 203 The Jay and the Nightingale 205 Ticket-of-Leavers 206 Colonel Jade upon Divorce 208 Colonel Jade on Marriage 214 Aesop on Marriage 220 Docking 223 The Little World 225 Editors Aesopized 232 Winding-Up 236 In re Old Newspapers 238 The Ditch and the Well 239 Struggles 241 Hush! 242 Hunting to Heel 244 Educationals 245 Parochial Toothache 248 Old Maids 250 Hammer and Nail 253 The Grumbling Gimlet 255 X C().\Ti:.\'is. r.\< r. jjiuppiiig the Ba!t'(.'(io:e ....... 2.')7 Alongside Eden Villa 2G2 Gossi(» . . . . . . , . . . 2Go Doing 2sothing ........ '2ti J Addled Eggs 2G7 Circulars ; and Autographs 269 Big Fish and Little Fish 272 Blind Folly 274 Laurel 277 What Better .? 278 The Covetous Ghost 280 Fatalities 283 Peter Query's Introduction 285 The Pole Axe with a Raz^ r Edge 287 The Rock and the ^yave 289 The Breakers 290 Revision 291 Politics and Voting 294 A Next Presentation 296 Air-Plants 298 Regrets 300 Self-Knowledge 302 Zoilism 304 To Sundry of My Malignants 310 Coursing Canzonet 312 Pigeons and Wires . . . . . . . 315 The Sheep and the Bramble 316 The Sun and the Fire 317 The Magic Mirror 317 Universal Suffrage 319 The Ballot 321 The Unsunned Corner 322 American Slavery 324 The Solitary Owl 328 Pull-Up 330 THE RIDES AND REVERIES OF THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH, AN INTR ODUCTORY FRAGMENT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. EiRST, you will wish to know why I was christened ^sop. There is an obvious answer : I was born Smith. I come of a family that has exhausted inge- nuity in providing its innumerable scions with dis- tinctive pre-names ; that has worried its patronymic with every possible spelling — even unto Smijth, where the mysterious reduplication of the i, however zoologically orthodox, totally paralyses the power of pronunciation ; — of a family that, in utter despair of being discriminated any otherwise, has resolved at length to regard the prefix as everything, and the surname as nothing. That is one reason why I was christened /Esop. B 2 THE EIDES AND REVERIES However, as no living creature naturally possesses only one leg, so no earthly result is dependent for all its support upon one only reason ; and the second, therefore, is the ^ dipthong. For several genera- tions this ^E has been the distinguishing feature of our sept; insomuch that among the many clans of our family, we have come to be known everywhere as the Dipthong Smiths, — a consummation very pleasing to my respected grandfather, ^schines. This worthy man, the founder of my individual for- tune, was a barrister of considerable powers and practice ; he had buckled to the law on the strength of his name, — for he had great faith in names ; per- haps from the circumstance that his father, iEolus Smith, had turned out a speculative and therefore ruined man, — one of the innumerable victims to the South Sea bubble ; and from the further fact that his grandfather, -^neas (a schoolmaster, fallen into imbecility) in his driveUing dotage was perpetually babbling of the field of Troy. J^olus had named his son JEschines, by way of a sort of dipthong compli- ment to John Law, the fascinating bubbler of the time ; but he httle knew how wise a thing he had done in giving his child a name which acted perpe- tually as a hint to be eloquent, and an incentive to be legal. The consequence came to be, in the course of years, that my grandfather grew to be eminent and rich, and thereby to furnish another good reason for OF THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH. 3 my dipthong nomenclature; seeing that his service of plate displayed — perhaps too conspicuously for modern taste — on every cover, waiter and spoon, an immense iE dipthong under the hereditary griffon. It thenceforward became an additional piece of family pride to find a corresponding initial for the son and heir. My father's name — and, as the philosophy of naming induces me to add, therefore nature, — was iEsculapius ; a worthy, excellent, and useful member of society, who, among other cares, had some little difficulty in keeping up the charter of our diptliongs; as in my case, his sole male hope, he was hard put to it, — for there seemed only to remain unused by us in former generations, some such questionable appel- latives as Ji^geon, J^ou, iEtna, and ^thiops — none of them very pleasant titles to be bawled by from cradle to grave. But one day, happening, after a visit to St. Bartholomew's, to pass near Snow Hill, Holborn, he cast his eye at once upon my name — and nature ; for ^Esop sank into my soul. Who has not wondered at tlie utter desolation of that dreary pile of building (is it not in Skinner Street, nigh unto St. Sepulchre's?) in the best business situation in all London, and yet so mani- festly under the dragon eye of Chancery, that nobody would have it as a gift ? Who has not noticed in the midst of the dingy edifice, surrounded by B 2 4 THE EIDES AND REVERIES broken windows and blackened mud-bespattered bill-bedizened shutters, my illustrious namesake modelled in terracotta, not a little damaged by brick- bats and illustrated by preternatural advertisements, in the midst of his immovable audience of cattle ? There sits ^sop, humped and shrewd, preaching to the strayers from Smithfield ; and there my good father, accepting the locality as an omen fair for Smiths, decided upon calling me jEsop. My first- born son, if ever Tm to marry and so have one, in order to give him a turn for tragic poetry, shall be dubbed jEschylus. I donH wish to be tedious, if I can in anywise help it ; and, as with my birth and parentage, so also with my education, will be as short as possible. Quite naturally, the little jEsop w^as so perpetually befabled, was so filled up with the gaieties of Gay and the gravities of Bunyan, — (for I need not, of course, mention my great sponsor^s fables, imbibed with mother's milk and pap and nurse's bread and butter), that he grew to be somewhat of the pundit everybody seemed to be expecting. Great in riddles, keen in conundrums, unapproachable in anagram and rebus, I also came to catch a higher wisdom in the way of everyday parables. I could look nowhere but 1 learnt a lesson ; " sermons in stones, books in the running brooks," and so forth. llaveFs Spiri- tual Husbandry, and Gurnall's Christian Armour, OF THE LATE MR. .ESOP S:\riTH. 5 with old Quarles and the like, were my Sunday- readings; and altogether (not to be, as I hinted just above, tedious), I found that my education had left me on the confines of manhood with an allegorical, parabolical, imaginative, discriminative idiosyncrasy. These be " hard 'ords ;'' and " Idiosyncrasy" is, as a climax should be, the very hardest of them all ; but it happens to be just the one I want at present, because hereby to be interpreted. We are each of us a " special mixture;'' and the learned editor of ''Notes and Queries," on the strength of his lexicon, tells me that is much about the meaning of the '' hexasyllabical" aforesaid. This special mixture is, in ray case, as you may gather, a discernment of truth in her many masqueradings, and a very love of her, however masqueraded. It is the truth that we love, not the fable; it is the pleasant surprise of finding falsehood's weapon turned against itself which tickles ear and heart ; it is the glorious hint of a real unity pervading creation in this apparent chaos of diversities, — the discovery of universal rela- tionship in smallest and greatest, — the eloquence of unsuspected harmony, the beauty of recondite adap- tation ; — these, and many similar possible sentences of fine writing, if anybody cared to read them, con- stitute the charm of fable, and keep up the fame o JSsop. For jEsop (spare these modest blushes!) even in his Smith phase, shall yet come to be 6 THE RIDES AND REVERIES famous j and though it may be far from easy to be novel nowadays — (the learned editor, as above, tells me this ought to be "in our days," but I dissent) — though originality in the fabulous is well nigh as impossible as in the true, Fve come to the good reso- lution in the premises — to try. Perhaps, however, it ought first to be made appa- rent why I wish to try and do this thing. What possible call or excuse can there be for the iEsopisms of a Smith ? Is not the world too full of books, and Paternoster Eow of booksellers ? Can any one read more per diem than the acre and a half of print supplied daily by special correspondents, from North, East, West and South, the four winds ever blowing NEWS to us ? I don't know ; I don't care ; let my respected publisher see to all that ; he is a keen man (this is the idiosyncrasy of a pubHsher), and thinks there's room for me; — adding some flattering matter which need not further be alluded to. For all else, there are flocks of thoughts upon my mind, about many social matters, whereon I seem to myself to have something special to say ; and these ever flock- ing thoughts keep one awake at nights, until they are pinioned in manuscript ; and wliat's the use of manuscript unless to feed the printer ? The wisdom and the pith of most books can be written on a thumb-nail, with or without a fair economising of margin, and a delicate crow-quill. OF THE LATE MR. /ESOP SMITH. 7 But my respected namesake and spiritual progenitor, ^sop, the Phrygian valet aforesaid of Athenian Xanthus, is all pith and wisdom. How then can I hope to fill these pages with the like ? It is not probable, not possible ; yet I am comforted by the reflection that the genuine ^sop in any type makes but a scanty booklet ; so, if a modern must dilute to quantity, it is only fair to put him into an alembic to distil for quality. ^' Quantula, sapientia V' is a just suspiration as to other matters beside govern- ment ; for example, as to books ; for, as no govern- ing could go on with its bare modicum of wisdom — shredded away from oratory, ceremony, mystery and pretension, — so no book can be useful to anybody — publisher, reader or writer, as a mere undigestible lump of solid sense ; or still worse, as ethereal es- sence of intellect. No hungry man can make a meal off wedding cake or Chutnee sauce. Therefore it is that I must be discursive ; if now and then you find ^Esop dull, take it as intended — a foil for brighter things ; if oftentimes foolish, ditto, take him for the hunchbacked dwarf to herald in fair wisdom. Only never judge your honest friend to mean any definite personalities ; he makes caps, but does not fit them on heads. How can he possibly help an adaptation, demonstrably quite as likely to be the fault of the head as of the cap ? I have said hunchbacked; a fact which others 8 THE RIDES AND REVEEIES seem to think of more than I do : for we never see our own defects so obviously as our friends see them. But the word has escaped my lips, and the rest of my body shall confess its truth. I was born a fair and proper child ; but hardly had my sponsors dubbed me J^sop, before a careless nurse (under some doom to carry out the whole idea with a vengeance), sufl'ered me to crow myself out of her arms, and put my spine awry. So naturally do we adapt ourselves to a fact, and consent to it if corroborative of a fancy, that really nobody seemed much to heed the accident; there was a propriety in the hunchbacked little ^sop ; and my mother talked so much about the merciful provi- dence of my life being spared, that she came to persuade herself that the mere deformity was a sort of mercy too; more particularly as grandfather iEschines immediately announced to my father his resolution to make the little cripple independent. So all seemed well that fared so well; beyond the pain, poor baby knew nothing about his lifelong misfortune. The nurse cried at her ignominious dismissal ; but everybody else was comforted, and all but acquiescent. At school they called me Trochee Smith ; for I was a bit of a favourite, and the other fellows hated ^sop in his Phaidrus phase too entirely to call me Dy such a name ; so, as my spinal bump had necessi- tated that my left leg should be shorter than tlie OP THE LATE Mil. JSSOP SMITH. 9 other, their nonsense-verse experience saw me as a Trochee. This, and Dipthong, which all my family affect, have been my nicknames through life. Satire makes many enemies, almost as many as success— -and .^sop doesn't fear them : seeing that if such foes do a man no worse turn than mine have done to me, their enmity is venial indeed. For ^sop only hears from such, certain hard truths about himself, which, under their enlightenment, he will honestly confess to. I am quick-tempered, they say ; and proud, with small occasion for the senti- ment ; and, while pretending to a false philanthropy, far more accusatively a euripidean misogynist. All this, I, for my part, lay upon my hump. It makes a man cross to see the straighter simpleton win way with pretty girls, who must be silly enough them- selves to scoff at hunchbacked wisdom ; and I don't see why mental superiority shouldn't reckon as outnumbering mere bony beauty. So let them sneer, and let me escape to rides and reveries; for all these things force me into the saddle, where, (although no hunter, for I prefer my own com- pany to that of hounds and their congenial squires), happily alone, I can think and talk, and laugh and sing, as I often do on horseback ; and gallop home when I list to write my reveries. But then, the number that escape me ! The many tidy thoughts and pretty turns of speecli that come and 10 THE EIDES AND REVERIES go in a canter ! Now and then Tve tried to scrib- ble them in the very saddle, but it wonH do ; the thoughts live in the pace, and die when we stop for them. So, then, whatever you happen to get in these pages, have the justice and the charity to believe (what is a universal truth indeed) tliat there is more in every man than he has yet achieved ; and that the best that any author ever gave to men, is not half as good as what he knows he could give. Only there are hitches in daily life ; perpetual hin- drances and worries, and material obstructions to the peace-needing crystalhzations of mind. Lucky Bunyan, with a clear conscience in a quiet prison ! Just the man and just the means to make a Pil- grim's Progress. Before I cease this scant preliminary say, I ought to introduce you to my ponies ; pretty Brenda, a grey mare with a spirit ; Minna, a bay ditto, with black legs and a long square tail, a good bit of stuff enough, nearly as sensible as Brenda; these are my usefuls : and I may as well mention beside, dear old Wonder, steady and sturdy, now pensioned out as an Emerita, — together with her two year old stallion-colt, light dun, with black legs and mane and tail, whom I have named Arabesque from his Arab sire. These may be esteemed my ornamentals ; at all events, a Suffolk-street artist begged their portraits lately, as a model mare and colt. OP THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH. 11 Without more ado then, take the benefit of these my reveries ; or, metaphysically, ride with me, reader, whenever you may please; if and when you will, you can drop behind or go ahead ; for Fm used to my own company, and generally like it quite as well as other people^s. Of course I could weary you out and make you tail off, if I chose; and very possibly I shall. My whim will be to ride, or to tell you that I have been riding, when I like and where I like ; and stop or have stopped, for a reverie — if anyhow it pleases me. You may be within earshot if you will, for I always think aloud; and my intention (I forewarn you) is to allegorize, fabulize and moralize without let or hindrance. I shan^t mind your presence more than if I were alone. That's our bargain, remember ; one of mutual and entire freedom. POND-SKIMMING. Our beautiful valley has a little silver trout stream running down the middle of it, whereof more anon : for the Hippie-burn (so we call our rivulet) has before this taught me a thought or two. And now it may truly be said to be accessory to such a thought, for it is the living cause of the pond whereto I'm coming. However, this pond, ambitious 12 THE RIDES AND EEVEEIES of an independent existence, having got well filled by our stream, has ungratefully suffered it to slip aside by some trench or other, and remains stagnant. As my little mare trotted lately down the deep lane, and brought me near the ruinous mill-head, I thought I had never seen that large pond look more unwholesome and unseemly; it was covered with slime and duckweed : a very filthy-looking miasmatic piece of green stagnation. I suppose (thought I to myself) this great acreage of corruption typifies our poor old world. Hardly had I said it — for I generally think aloud — than I saw some cottage children very busily engaged in a dirty creek, where the old punt rotted ; they were up to their middles in the green slush, and diligently skimming the duckweed into the punt with laurel leaves. Why, my poor little industrious idlers, thought I, isn't that very much like the efforts made by our philanthropists? Don't they go about all in the mud, skimming the surface with silver teaspoons, and to pretty nearly as little effect as you, my children ? Now if, instead of letting that life-giving strcaiulet waste its precious energies in a bye-way channel, it were coaxed to run right through the pond, what a stir there would be among the duckweed — what a wholesale skimming would perpetually be performing — what a doing better on the large scale, much about OF THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH. 13 what our laurel leaves and teaspoons are failing to do in the small ! And yet, what more or better can those poor children do? Are they not benefiting their own spirits at all events by charity and industry, and by this diligence in using the laurel leaves of character and the teaspoons of wealth achieving all they can of moral cleanliness around them? How can they, poor weaklings, get the stream through the pond, to be a pulse of life within it, an electric current of vitality through it ? The stream is the Church, flowing from a pure spring, high up among the hill tops — as the pond is the world, a festering mass of " life in excrements.'^ Not the Church of Gregory, nor the Church of Luther, nor the Church of A¥esley, nor the Church of Irving, nor the Church of Joe Smith (my perpetual name has bred a new heresy, as well as contributed to the Wealth of Nations,) nor any local nor special church at all, but the Church of Christ — that innumerable band of blessed good doers on good principles which is united spiritually as one, but is subdivided materially into individual millions of driblets. Every effort to make many men agree as to outward unity must fail, till the spiritual conquers the material : but, amidst infinite diversity, there is still a true oneness in the real Church : and there is a Catholicity everywhere felt, although invisible. Did you ever know two 14 THE RIDES AND REVERIES candid Christians who disagreed in the main ? or two quiet unprejudiced reasoners who did not come closer^ as tliey found points of controversy melt up under explanations ? So, there is a pure stream, as there is an impure pond ; but they want a wedding to make the one useful, and the other wholesome. Meanwhile, skim away, children. And how are we that are men practically to help matters to be any better? "Thy kingdom come,'' must be the benevolent aspiration of our hearts and lips ; " Thy will be done" the beneficent exertion of hands. EMPTY BUCKETS. They were mending the mill dam at Luck's-wheel when I rode by one day : all the water had been let ofip, and the reservoir was dry. Nevertheless, there was superannuated Master Cheeseman in his horn spectacles (through which, even if his eyes had been serviceable otherwise, it would have been impossible to see clearly,) baling, as he supposed, water from a tank into a trough, with plenty of expectant horses and cattle coming for drink and finding nothing. I ought to add, that the workmen were gone to dinner; that old Cheeseman is hard of hearing as well as OF THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH. 15 dim-sighted ; and that, as of course the poor dumb creatures coukln't complain, and no wiser animal, till jEsop came along, stood by to expostulate, he thought he was watering them handsomely ; as indeed he ought for his pay. Well — and I moralised about those poor dry brutes, labour-wearied and thirsting in the dusty noon, crowding round old incapable Cheeseman busied with his empty buckets. And I thought 1 had far too often been aware of the same sort of thing in church ; thirsty cattle, empty buckets, and wells without water — and Established Dullness the while making believe that all are fed, and none sent away empty. I love, (and so do you, reader, when you find such a one,) the earnest, zealous^ loving minister of heaven — the faithful shepherd of souls — the holy friend and teacher of his people — the rare real parish priest. But, are we not even more indignant than saddened at the many hirelings, incapable for good, though crowded about by eager starving souls ? giving them to drink as nearly nothing as possible, and for meat, chaff? Some preaching up an eccle- siastical Deity, as if the Blessed One were merely an appendage to their idolized own communion : others a theological Deity, as if He were an aggregation of ethical problems : others with their straitest code of forms, and attitudes, and symbols — monotoning. 16 THE rJDES AND rtEYERIES as old Cliceseman does, when his spring spectacles press the nose too tightly ; bowiiig, as he does, when he tips the empty bucket ; and arrayed, like him, in adiaphanous spectacles, disabling any one from seeing an inch beyond the narrow circle of near-sighted prejudice. Yes, friends, thought I, as I walked Minna up one of our deep, rocky, overshadowed, fern-covered lanes, most of us feel much like one one of those thirsty teamsters on a Sunday. The dust and drought and toil of the week have need to be washed down ; and so we come to our troughs for the living water ; and, behold ! our appointed bucket is, in almost each case, full of emptiness. BOTTLED THUNDER; AND ELECTRIC SAUCE. I only wish, sighed I on another day when I visited a young chemical friend of mine, bit with the first rage of experimentalising in modern philosophies, that those empty buckets would try after a moral sort \\'hat Jonathan Spicer has been attempting phy- sically. He has invented a plan for collecting — at least he asserts as much — the essence of thunder and lightning. On hot summer afternoons, when the atmosphere seems to be portending storms, he will arrange on a grass plot all the old wine bottles he OF THE LATE MR. iESOP SMITH. 17 can muster, necks up and corkless ; into half he will set upright long bamboos, pithed- elder wands, and gutta perclia pipes, all which he takes to be conduc- tors of sound ; into the other half, rods of iron wire as condensors of electricity. If a thunder-storm^ comes on, and he can manage by rosin plugs to keep the inside of the bottles dry from rain, Jonathan is overjoyed : for when, after it, with all speed he has corked and waxed the bottles thus charged (having previously withdrawn the pipes and rods with glass gloves,) Jonathan feels certain of being the fortunate possessor of several dozen bottles of thunder and lightning. He is a shrewd fellow to boot, and makes it pay : for he has persuaded two ambitious friends of his — one of whom long and vainly affected to be a dema- gogue, and the other of wdiom actually did afterwards become parliamentary member for a manufacturing borough — to buy of him and take periodically, ac- cording to speech-making necessities, his bottled thunder and electric sauce : they are instructed to mix the unseen fluids by means of wooden or metal siphons with wines, soups, stews, or any other gene- rous food, and so to imbibe them. And whether it was from faith, or fancy, or the hidden efficacy of the elements, or of good meats and drinks, certain it has been that Jonathan's brace of orators have become more clamorous and more effective from the very c 18 THE RIDES AND EEVERIES first dose onward : the prescription undoubtedly has done wonders in their case. One day, then, as I was passing Dymfold Common on my nag — it was a dull sultry afternoon in July — I noted the array of spiked bottles standing like a cohort of long-lanced Achseans before Jonathan Spicer's cottage ; and the philosopher himself watch- ing his barometer, and trying to coax a thunder storm in his direction by means of a wire-framed kite. Rather wondering what it all might mean (for I then did not know what you know) I stopped, questioned, ascertained, approved, and meditated ; and it was on that occasion I conceived the wish initiatory, as about the buckets. Why can they not draw from the sublunities of nature, from the loud language of this world's his- tory, from the songs of creation, and the echoes of science, something of a more attractive eloquence ? "Why do they not strive after the prophetic fire, the evangelic zeal, the thrilling fervour of primeval Christianity ? Why can they not put a little thun- der and lightning into their ministrations ; some of the Boanerges energy to awaken sleepers, some of the electric spirit to touch consciences ? All is too level, too cold, too decently laid out dead : one drone of unvarying liturgies, and one scheme of lithographed sermonizing. OF THE LATE MR. ^SOP SMITH. 19 For how few of those who '' perform" our service make its depth of beauty and of eloquence available to stir hearts as by an electric flash ! How few who are privileged to teach their fellows in a pulpit raised six feet (as it has been shrewdly noticed by a relative of mine, hight Sydney) above all contradiction or interruption, preach as if they cared to quicken the spirit, to inform the mind, or to sanctify the affec- tions ! I, Msop Smith, earnestly desire that many of the empty buckets and empty bottles I have seen, would do as Jonathan Spicer does with his tubes and wires. Let them strive to draw down fire from heaven ; let them pray more, even if, by possibihty, they read less. Let them not so systematically despise and repudiate the outer graces of oratory, the human interests of anecdote, the attractive allusions to news of the day. We should then have no empty churches ; and no talk therefore about pulling them down in vast towns, such as poor starving London, because they are so empty. Who can wonder ? The bottles are not charged with thunder and lightning. Nothing is in them but the scaly residua of old crusted port and the dried lees of ancient sherry. Sextons, bea- dles, pew-openers, vergers, and the like disagreeable appendages to our orthodox faith ; who will do nothing whatever without a fee, except exclude the poor; these, with a pompous old shovel-hat, some c a 20 THE HIDES AND EEVEHIES sky-blue cliarity children, and an ill-paid organist, constitute all the attractions; and if the rich mer- chants escape to Brighton, having locked up their carpeted pews, no wonder the old church is empty ; for the multitudes of poor all round find too cold a welcome for their rags, too scanty comfort from their miseries. So, yearning for excitements, they crowd the gin- palace, or read the Sunday paper after skittles ; or, if somewhat better disposed, they join the congrega- tion of some Latter-day fanatic : and much of all this, simply because their parish church is cold and unattractive — there is no thunder and lightning in the empty old magnum. Then comes your church and state philanthropist, totally oblivious of all fault in any official personages, and votes that the building with all its ungenial paraphernalia of fee-hungry servitors be decanted bodily from St. Yerdant Easter's to Mile-End. As if great London, even on a Sunday, had not men women and children enough left in its courts and alleys alone to fill all the holy edifices wherewith the piety of former times has munificently besprinkled the city ! bishops, lords, and gentlemen, see that really good and true men, a missionary and apostolic clergy, earnest, able, kind, and eloquent, fill those drowsy pulpits; and you will presently find nave and gal- OF THE LATE MR. iESOP S:MITH. 21 leries too, well filled with awakened congregations : but, as things are now, my friend Jonathan Spicer has taught me that these empty bottles need a charge of thunder and lightning. PATIENCE. Take a lesson from that furze-bush, ^Esop, whis- pered my better angel. I was terribly ruffled : some insolent navvies had mimicked my hump, and made mouths at me ; and, what was more, a pretty girl passing by at the moment saw them and me, and then laughed too. I only wished her the mumps. Take a lesson from that old horse on the common, iEsop, again whispered my spiritual comforter. Winter and summer, in biting cold and scorching heat, still that furze-bush holds on greenly, and seldom or never without a golden blossom some- where hung about it. By night and day, in rain and sunshine, that old horse stands munching at the sour marshy pasturage, quite contented at his lot. Why shouldn^t I be at least as much of a philoso- pher as a beast or a bush ? thought I, thanking the angel. And there^s plenty of need for such philosophy S2 THE RIDES AND REVERIES in this wrongful old world of ours, as most men know for themselves; and it is an especial wisdom to keep patient without getting hardened; and a very singular virtue to sport a flower in all seasons, like that old weather-beaten furze-bush; and a strange comfort to go munching on contentedly, like that old horse. THE MOLE AND ITS GRANDMOTHER. There was once a young mole who resolved to better his condition. So he went and bouj^ht eye-salve of the snake ; and he took lessons of the rabbit in running; and consulted Dr. Squirrel as to the wise expediency of living on nuts, with the hope of growing a tail ; and hid up his great ugly splay hands in snail-shells, which he wished to pass for boofs. But, with all pains taken, nothing answered as it ought : he couldu^t see — he did little better than waddle, his tail wouldn^t grow, even if the nuts were not rank poison to liis stomach ; and his hands, pinched like Chinese feet, only ached intolerably, but would not do the walking. He had merely made himself miserable and ridiculous. In this dilemma, his grandmother found him, and, "Child," quoth she, "why can't you be satisfied with your lot in life? You are fitted for OP THE LITE MR. JESOV SMITH. 23 itj and it is fitted for you. What should you think of the wisdom of your friend, Dr. Squirrel, if he uecame ambitious of your tunnelling powers, even as you are of his tail ? Come home with me, and be comfortable without those nasty hard gloves. Your hands are good for grubbing. If you try to imitate other folk's virtues and neglect your own natural excellences, you will only succeed in being the most wretched mole above ground, instead of a happy and useful mole beneath it." That also was a whisper of my angel, due to Minna having stumbled the same ride, by treading into a mole-hill on Stonesfield Common; and so, besides Patience, she helped to teach me Content- ment. DIAMONDS. One good lesson taught in the Hyde Park Crystal Palace, was the worthlessness of a Koh-i-Noor. Hardness and glitter are but poor qualities to command esteem. Beauty of form, usefulness of characteristic, or (to rise higher) faithfulness, in- telligence, and love, — these may indeed be gems of price, but not that shining pebble. I thought of the Koh-i-Noor from this cause. As I was jogging along, Minna fell lame; and I 24 THE HIDES AND REVERIES had to get off, inconveniently enough for my trochaic understanding (remember my left leg is two inches shorter tlian my rii^ht, and I have always to mount on the offj^ide), to knock a troublesome an- gular bit of flint out of her foot : it was a quartzy stone, a crystallized mass of so-called Bristol diamonds : hence, of course, occurred the Koh-i- Noor, that most excessive humbug of the class; and so to Koh-i-Noor reputations. Great generals have very much of the hardness and glitter of your diamond; I mean certain flashy disciplinarians, whose blunders are negatived by the mere pluck of their troops. So also of sundry public orators; the showy, loud, brow-beating sort; and not a few magnates of ancient rank minus modern merit; and here and there a millionaire merchant, speculating to the brink of bankruptcy; and your dashing cut-and -thrust reviewers, all glare, malice, and effrontery; and, in short, any kind of hard- hearted glittering humbug. All such need recutting, like the Koh-i-Noor. How we all despised that pebble : how contempt- uously our intelligent artisans, our men \vith hard heads and horny hands, left the gas-lustred bauble to the ladies; and even in their eyes how disap- pointing it was : little brighter, if at all, than a cut-glass drop from a chandelier. True, quoth iFsop, but it had one charm little OF THE LATE MR. yESOP SMITH. 25 heeded. Eastern superstition had invested Eunjeet Singh's armlet with the sovereignty of his posses- sions; and it were as well that our Queen should have the magic trinket. Tor all beside, it was like many a notoriety ; get close and it dims ; reason on it, and that empty fame comes to be despicable : nothing but the credulity and homage of thousands pave it from contempt. Faith is much everyway ; and faith keeps up the price of diamonds. Many a sick man has eaten stewed tench, without being at all aware that, according to Isaack "Walton, he ought to be cured by it of everything ; for that fish is the heal-all. And many an Argentine dame has marked tricks and honours at whist with four shining lumps, without at all suspecting they were rough diamonds : so styled, they were the win-all. And many a genius in obscurity has bred great thoughts, ignorant of their rarity and value; but these are verily the world's true worth-all. Only that faith in the tench is wanted for the cure : faith in the pebble for the value : faith in the genius for the world's true weal. 26 THE EIDES AND REVERIES GRAMMAR. ''Tip us a copper, yer honour: us poor fellows ain't got no luck in life." I tipped the copper, and fell into a dream of grammar. Not until I grew to manhood, and could reverie on horseback, did I come to comprehend my earliest schoolbook lessons; that "nouns," for example, are the gnomelike dog-latin for " names'^ of things, and '' adjectives" their " added" qualities ; that a " verb" is the important "word," a "declension" a "step" or "shelf" on wliich to fling the various classes of names ; and that their fivefold Latin form was hinted from the five vowels, which also influence the " con- jugations," or " groups" of verbs. A poor little trembling schoolboy is dragged or whipped through philosophical mysteries which his usher is unable (even if willing) to explain; and the very hardest lessons of education are stupidly presented on the threshold of life, to the utter obfuscation of all after intelligence. Grammar, the art of " writing" correctly, is never explained out of its monastic terms to the learner; and when terms are abstruse, and the reasons for them unannounced, riglit knowledge is impossible. We want a simple modern handbook of grammar — the very science is mediseval. OF THE LATE MR. iESOP SMITH. 27 I reveried furtlier as to those reduplicated nega- tives, and tliouglit how right our vulgarian old English '^ no-nothing^' is when measured by other old tongues, as Greek and common sense. Double affirmatives don't weaken themselves : why should double negatives ? Our common people, in their talk, continually preserve traditional truths of lan- guage. Who can mistake the intensity of "ain't got no luck ?" And the object of language is to display ideas : not, as a diplomatist shrewdly re- marked, to conceal them. If such reduplication be destructive, what think you of 6v firj ck itvu), ovdk bv firj