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 THE SEEK; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED,
 
 HILLINC, riilVTER AND STF.l:I!OTY rr.R, 
 ttOlClNC. SURB^y.
 
 THE SEER; 
 
 COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED. 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS; 
 PART I. 
 
 Love adds a precious seeing to tlie eye— Shakspsah;- 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM TEGG AND CO., 85, QUEEN STREET. CIIEArSIDE. 
 
 MDCCCL.
 
 I 
 
 PR 
 lt§0 
 
 C<5 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Essays have been collected, for the first time, from such of the author's 
 periodical writings as it was thought might furnish anotlier publication similar to the 
 Indicator. Most of them have ])een taken from the London Journal ; and the remainder 
 from the Lihend, the MontMy Repository, the Tathr and the Round Table. The title, of 
 course, is to be understood in its primitive and most simple sense, and not in its por- 
 tentous one, as connected with foresight and prophecy ; nor would the author profess, 
 intellectually, to see "farther into a mill-stone" than his betters. His motto, which 
 thoroughly exjilains, will also, he trusts, vindicate all which he aspires to show ; which 
 is, that the more we look at anything in this beautiful and abundant world, with a desire 
 to be pleased with it, the more we shall be rewarded by the loving spirit of the universe, 
 with discoveries that await only the desire. 
 
 It will ever be one of the most delightful recollections of the author's life, that the 
 periodical work, from which the collection has been chiefly made, was encouraged by all 
 ])arties in the spirit in which it was set up. Nor, at the hazard of some imputation on his 
 modesty, (which he must be allowed not very ten-ibly to care for, where so much love is 
 going forward,) can he help repeating what he wrote, on this point, when his heart was 
 first touched by it : — 
 
 " As there is nothing in the world which is not supernatural in one sense, — as the very 
 world of fashion itself rolls round with the stars, and is a part of the mystery and the 
 variety of the shows of the universe, — so nothing, in a contemptuous sense, is small, or 
 unworthy of a grave and calm lio))e, which tends to popularise Christian refinement, and 
 to mix it up with every species of social intercourse, as a good realised, and not merely as 
 an abstraction preached. What ! Have not Philosophy and Christianity long since met 
 in the embrace of such loving discoveries ? And do not the least and most trivial things, 
 j)rovided they have an earnest and cheerful good-will, partake of some right of greatness, 
 and the privilege to be lionoured ; if not with admiration of their wisdom, yet with 
 acknowledgment of the joy which is the end of wisdom, and which it is the pri\'ilege of 
 a loving sincerity to reach by a short road ? Hence we have had two olyections, and two 
 hundred encouragements ; and excellent writers of all sorts, and of all other shades of 
 belief, liave hastened to say to us, ' Preacli that, and prosper.' Have not the Times, and 
 the Examiner, and the Aihif, aiid the Albion, and the True Svn, and twenty other news- 
 
 2983615
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 papers, hailed \is for the very sunniness of our religion ? Docs not that old and judicious 
 AVhig, the iScofsJHrtH, waive his deliberate manner in our favour, and 'cordially' wish us 
 success for it 1 Docs not the Radical GUmjow Argus, in an eloquent article, ' fresh and 
 glowing' as his good-will, expressly recommend us for its pervading all we write upon, 
 tears included ? And the rich-writing Tory, Christopher North, instead of objecting to 
 the entireness of our sunshine, and refjuiring a cloud in it, does he not welcome it, aye, 
 every week, as it strikes on his breakfast-cloth, and speak of it in a burst of bright- 
 heartedness, as ' dazzling the snow ?' " 
 
 And so, with thanks and blosaings upon the warm-hearted of all i)arties, who love theit 
 fellow-creatures quite as much as we do, perhaps better, and who may think, for that very 
 reason, that the edge of their contest with one another is still not to be so much softened 
 as we suppose, here is another bit of a corner, at all events, where, as in the recesses of 
 their own minds, all green and hopeful thoughts for the good and entertainment of men 
 may lovingly meet. 
 
 [Given at our suburban abode, with a fire on one side of us, and a 
 vine at the window on the other, this 19th day of October, one 
 thousand eight hundred and forty, and in the very green and 
 invincible year of our life, the fifty-sixth.] 
 
 L. H.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 , PAOB 
 
 I. PLEASURE 1 
 
 II. ON A PEBBLE 4 
 
 ra. SPRING « 
 
 rV. COLOUR ... 7 
 
 V. ^^^NDOWS 8 
 
 VI. WINDOWS CONSIDERED FROM INSIDE II 
 
 VII. A FLOWER FOR YOUR AVINDOW. NAMES OF FLOWERS. MYSTERY OF 
 
 THEIR BEAUTY 14 
 
 VIII. A WORD ON EARLY" RISING 17 
 
 IX. BREAKFAST IN SUMMER 18 
 
 X. BREAKFAST CONTINUED.— TEA-DRINKING 22 
 
 XI. BREAKFAST CONCLUDED.— TEA AND COFFEE, MILK, BREAD, .Sic. . . 25 
 
 XII. ANACREON 28 
 
 XIII. THE AVRONG SIDES OF SCHOLARSHIP AND NO SCHOLARSHIP . . .32 
 
 XIV. CRICKET, AND EXERCISE IN GENERAL 34 
 
 XV. A DUSTY' DAY , 36 
 
 XVI. BRICKLAYTIRS, AND AN OLD BOOK 37 
 
 XVII. A RAINY DAY' *0 
 
 XVIir. THE EAST-WIND *^ 
 
 XIX. STRAWBERRIES 44 
 
 XX. THE WAITER 45 
 
 XXI. " THE BUTCHER.--BUTCHERS AND JURIES.-BUTLERS DEFENCE OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH DRAMA, ic 47 
 
 XXil. A PINCH OF SNUFF 46
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIII. A I'lNCH OF SNUFP (con< lided; 50 
 
 XXIV. WOUUSWOKTIC AND MILTON . , • .13 
 
 XXV. SPKriJIF.N.S Ol^ CIIAUCEn.-No. I. . 55 
 
 XXVI. No. II. . . , :,1 
 
 XXVII. No. III.— HIS PATHOS 69 
 
 XXVIII. No. IV.— STOUY OP GRISELD.V 60 
 
 XXIX. No. v.— FURTIIKU SPECIMENS OF HIS PLEA- 
 SANTRY AND SATIRE . , . .63 
 
 XXX. No. VI— MISCELLANEOUS SPECIMENS OF HIS 
 
 DESCRIPTION, PORTRAIT-PAINTING, AND FINE SENSE . . . . 64 
 
 XXXL PETER WILKINS AND THE FLYING WOMEN 60 
 
 XXXIL ENGLISH AND FRENCH FEMALES 71 
 
 XXXHI. ENGLISH MALE COSTUME 75 
 
 XXXIV. ENGLISH WOMEN VINDICATED 77 
 
 XXXV. SUNDAY IN LONDON.— No. 1 79 
 
 XXXVI. No. II i>2 
 
 XXXVU. SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS, &c 33 
 
 XXXVm, A IIUJIAN BEING AND A CROWD ... ...-., SS
 
 THE SEER 
 
 OB, 
 
 COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED. 
 
 ' Love adds a precious seeing to the eye." — Shakspeark. 
 
 I._PLEASURE. 
 
 POOR RICH MEN AND RICH POOR MEN. A WORD OR TWO 
 ON THE PERIODICAL WHITINGS OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Pleasure is the business of this book : we 
 own it : we love to ben;in it with tlie word : it 
 is like commencing tlie day (as we are now 
 commencing it) with sunshine in the room. 
 Pleasure for all who can receive pleasure ; con- 
 solation and encouragement for the rest ; this 
 is our device. But tlien it is pleasure like that 
 implied by our simile, innocent, kindly, we 
 dare to add, instructive and elevating. Nor shall 
 the gravest aspects of it be wanting. As the 
 sunshine floods the sky and the ocean, and yet 
 nurses the baby buds of the roses on the wall, 
 so we would fain open the largest and the very 
 least sources of pleasure, tlie noblest that ex- 
 pands above us into the heavens, and the most 
 familiar that catches our glance in the home- 
 stead. We would break open the surfaces of 
 habit and indifference, of objects that are sup- 
 posed to contain nothing but so much brute 
 matter, or common-place utility, and show 
 wliat treasures tiiey conceal. Man has not yet 
 learned to enjoy the world he lives in ; no, not 
 thehundrpd-thousand-uiillioiith part of it ; and 
 we would fain lielj) him to render it productive 
 of still greater joy, and to delight or comfort 
 liimself in his task as he proceeds. "We would 
 make adversity hopeful, prosperity sympa- 
 thetic, all kinder, richer, and liappior. And 
 we have some right to assist in the endeavour, 
 for there is scarcely a single joy or sorrow 
 within the experience of our fellow-creatures 
 wliich we liave not tasted ; and tlie belief in 
 the good and beautiful has never forsaken us. 
 It has been medicine to us in sickness, riches 
 in poverty, and the best part of all that ever 
 delighted us in health and success. 
 
 There is not a man living perhaps in the 
 present state of society, — certainly not among 
 those who have a surfeit of goods, any more 
 than those who want a sufficiency, — that has 
 not some pain which he would diminish, and 
 some pleasure, or capability of it, that he would 
 increase. We would say to him, let him be 
 sure he can diminish that pain and increase 
 that pleasure. He will find out the secret, by 
 knowing more, and by knowing that there is 
 more to love. " Pleasures lie about our feet." 
 We would extract some for the unthinkinjr 
 rich man oiit of his very carpet (though he 
 thinks he has already got as much as it can 
 yield) ; and for tlie unthinking or unliopiiig 
 poor one, out of his bare floor. 
 
 " Can you put a loaf on my table ?" the poor 
 man may ask. No : but we can show him liow 
 to get it in the best manner, and comfort him- 
 self while he is getting it. If he can get it not 
 at all, we do not profess to have even the right 
 of being listened to by him. We can only do 
 what we can, as his fellow-creatures, and by 
 other means, towards hastening the termination 
 of so frightful an exception to the common lot. 
 
 " Can you rid me of my gout, or my disrelish 
 of all things I" the ricli man may ask. No : 
 nor perliaps even diminish it, unless you are a 
 verv darinj; or a vcrv sensilile man ; and if 
 you are very rich indeed, and old, neither of, these 
 predicaments is very likely. Yet we would try. 
 We are inextinguisliable friends of endeavour. 
 
 if you had the gout, however, and were Lord 
 Holland, you would smile and say, " Talk on." 
 You would suspend the book, or the pen, or 
 the kindly thought yon were engaged in, and 
 indulgently wait to see what recipes or amusing 
 fancies we could add to your stock. 
 
 Nay, if you were a kind of starving Dr. 
 JohnsoDjWho wrote a letter one day to the editor
 
 PLEASURE. 
 
 of thoniasjazinetowhicli liocontrilmtod, signing 
 himself, " Dinnorlcss*," you would listen to us 
 even without a loaf on your talile, and see how 
 far we could hear out the rej)utation of the 
 Lydiaus, who are said to liave invented play as 
 a resource ajjainst huni,'er. J$ut Dr. Johnson 
 knew lie had his remedy in his wits. The 
 wants of the poor in knowledge are not so 
 easily j^ostponed. With deep reverence and 
 sympathy would we he understood as si)eaking 
 of them. A smile, however closely it may 
 border upon a grave thought, is not to he held 
 a levity in us, any more than sun betwixt rain. 
 One and the same sympathy with all things 
 fetches it out. 
 
 JJut to all hut the famished we should say 
 with the noble text, " Man does not live by 
 bread alone." " A man," says Bacon, in words 
 not uiiwortny to go by the side of the others, 
 "i.'-- but what he knoweth." "I think," said 
 Descartes ; " therefore I am." A man has no 
 proof of his existence but in his consciousness 
 of it, and the return of that consciousness after 
 sleep. Jle is therefore, in amount of (existence, 
 only so much as his consciousness, his thoughts, 
 and his feelings amount to. The more he knows, 
 the more he exists ; aiul the jjleasanter liis 
 knowledge, the hapi)ier his existence. One 
 man, in tliis sense of things, and it is a sense 
 proved beyond a doubt (except with those meny 
 philosophers of antiquity wlio dou])ted their 
 very consciousness, nay, doubted doulit itself), 
 isinfinitely littlecomj)ared withanotherman. If 
 we could see his mind, we should see a pigmy ; 
 and it would be stuck perhaps into a i)int of 
 beer, or a scent-bottle, or a bottle of wine ; as 
 the monkey stuck Gulliver into the marrow- 
 bone. Another man's mind would show larger ; 
 another larger still : till at length we should 
 see minds of all shapes and sizes, from a mi- 
 crosco])ic one up to that of a giant or a demigod, 
 orasjiirit that filled the visible world. Milton's 
 would be like that of his own archangel. " Ilis 
 stature reached the sky." Shakspeare's would 
 stretch from the midst of us into the regions of 
 "airy nothing," andbringusnew creatures of his 
 ownmaking. Bacon'swould be lost intothenext 
 ages. Many a " great man's " would become 
 invisible ; and many a little one suddenly asto- 
 nish us with the overshadowing of its greatness. 
 
 Men sometimes, by the magic of their know- 
 ledge, partake of a great many things which 
 they do not possess : others possess much 
 which is lost upon them. It is recorded of an 
 en/uisite, in one of the admirable exhibitions of 
 Mr. Mathews, that being told, with a grave 
 face, of a mine of silver which had been dis- 
 covered in one of the I-ondon suburbs, he 
 exclaimed, in his jargon, " A mme of sil-ran .' 
 Good Guild ! You don't tell me so ! A mine of 
 
 * Impranfvs. It micht mean simply, th.it he had not 
 dined ; but there is too much reason to believe otherwise. | 
 And yet how much good and entertainment did not the i 
 very neceeaities of such a man help to produce us. 
 
 aU-raii ! Good GuikI ! I've often seen the little 
 boys playing about, but 1 had no idea that there 
 was a mine oi' s'd-rau." 
 
 This gentleman, whom we are to understand 
 as repeating these words out of pure ignorance 
 and absurdity, and not from any jxjwer to 
 receive information, would be in j)OS8ession, 
 while he was expressing his astonishment at a 
 thing unheard of and ridiculous, of a Inmdred 
 real things rotind about him, of which he knew 
 nothing. Shakspeare sjieaks of a man who was 
 " incapable of his own distress ;" that is to say, 
 who had not the feelings of other men, and 
 was insensible to what would have distressed 
 everybody else. This il<tndi/ would be inca- 
 pal)le of his own wealth, of his own furniture, 
 of his own health, friends, books, gardens ; nay 
 of his very hat and coat, except inasmuch as 
 they contributed to give him one single idea ; 
 to wit, that of his (huidyhm. From all those 
 stores, small and great, nothing but that soli- 
 tary- and sorry imjiression would he receive. 
 
 Of all which his wealth could procure him, in 
 theshapeof a real enjoyment of poetry, pain ting, 
 music, sculpture, and the million of ideas which 
 they might produce, he would know nothing. 
 
 Of all the countries that produced his furni- 
 ture, all the trades that helped to make it, all 
 the arts that went to adorn it, all the materials 
 of which it was composed, and the innumerable 
 images of men, lands, faculties, substances, 
 elements, and interesting phenomena of all 
 sorts to which the knowledge might give rise, 
 he woidd know nothing. 
 
 Of his books he would know nothing, except 
 that they were bound, and that they must a 
 great deal. 
 
 Of his gardens he would know nothing, 
 except that they were " tedious," and that he 
 occasionally had a pink out of them to put in 
 his button-hole — ])rovided it was the fashion. 
 Otherwise pinks are " >'nlgar." Nature's and 
 God's fashion is nothing. 
 
 Of his hat and his coat it might be thought 
 he must know sometliing ; but he would not, 
 except as fiir as we have stated ; — unless, 
 indeed, his faculties might possibly attain to 
 the knowledge of a " fit " or a "set," and then 
 he would not know it with a grace. The 
 knowledge of a good thing, even in the least 
 matters, is not for a person so poorly educated 
 — so worse than left to grow up in an ignorance 
 unsophisticate. Of the creatures that furnished 
 the materials of his hat and coat, — the curious 
 handicraft beaver, the spinster silkworm, the 
 sheej) in the meadows (except as mutton), 
 nothing woidd he know, or care, or receive the 
 least j>l('asurable thought from. In the mind 
 that constitutes his man — in the amount of hts 
 existence — terribly vacant are the regions — 
 bald places in the maji — deserts without even 
 the excitement of a. storm. Nothing lives there 
 but himself — a suit of clothes in a solitude — 
 emptiness in emptiuess.
 
 PLEASURE. 
 
 Cor3trast a being of this fashion (after all 
 allowance for caricature) with one who has 
 none of his deformities, bnt with a stock of 
 ideas such as the other wants. Suppose him 
 poor, even struggling, but not unhappy ; or if 
 not without unhappiness, yet not without relief, 
 and unacquainted with the desperation of tlie 
 other's ennui. Such a man, wlien he wants 
 recreation for his thoughts, can make them flow 
 from all the objects, or the ideas of those 
 objects, which furnish nothing to the other. 
 The commonest goods and chattels are preg- 
 nant to him as fairy tales, or things in a panto- 
 mime. His hat, like Fortunatus's Wishing 
 Cap, carries him into the American solitudes 
 among the beavers, where he sits in thought, 
 looking at them during their work, and iiearing 
 the majestic whispers in the trees, or the falls 
 of the old trunks that are repeatedly break- 
 ing the silence in those wildernesses. His coat 
 shall carry him, in ten minutes, through all the 
 scenes of pastoral life and mechanical, the 
 quiet fields, the sheep-shearing, the feasting, 
 the love-making, the downs of Dorsetshire and 
 the streets of Birmingham, where if he meet 
 with pain in his sympatiiy, he also, in his 
 knowledge, tinds reason for hope and encou- 
 ragement, and for giving his manly assistance 
 to the common good. The very toothpick of 
 the datuhj, should this man, or any man like 
 liim meet with it, poor or rich, shall suggest 
 to him, if he pleases, a hundred agreeable 
 thoughts of foreign lands, and elegance and 
 amusement, — of tortoises and books of travels, 
 and the comb in his mistress's hair, and the 
 elephants that carry sultans, and the real silver 
 mines of Potosi, with all the wonders of South 
 American history, and the starry cross in its 
 sky ; so that the smallest key sliall pick the 
 lock of the greatest treasures ; and tliat which 
 in the hands of the possessor was only a poor 
 instrument of affectation, and the very emblem 
 of indifference and stupidity, shall open to the 
 knowing man a universe. 
 
 We must not pursue the subject further at 
 present, or trust our eyes at the smallest objects 
 around us, which, from long and loving con- 
 tenijilation, have enabled us to report their 
 riches. We have been at this work now, off 
 and on, man and boy, (for we began essay- 
 writing wlule in our teens,) for upwards of 
 thirty years : and excepting that, we would 
 fain have done far more, and that experience 
 and suffering have long restored to us the 
 natural kindliness of boyhood, and put an end 
 to a belief in the right or utility of severer 
 views of anything or person, we feel the same 
 as we have done throughout ; and we have the 
 same hope, the same love, the same faith in the 
 beauty and goodness of nature and all her 
 prospects, in space and in time ; we could 
 almost add, if a sprinkle of white hairs in our 
 black would allow us, tl'.o same youth ; for 
 whatever may be thought of a consciousness 
 
 to that effect, the feeling is so real, and trouble 
 of no ordinary kind has so remarkably spared 
 the elasticity of our spirits, that we are often 
 startled to think how old we liave become, 
 compared with the little of age that is in our 
 disposition : and we mention this to bespeak 
 the reader's faith in what we shall write here- 
 after, if he is not acquainted with us already. 
 If he is, he will no more doubt us than the 
 cliildren do at our fire-side. We have had so 
 much sorrow, and yet are capable of so much 
 joy, and receive pleasure from so many familiar 
 objects, that we sometimes tliink we should 
 have had an unfair portion of happiness, if 
 our life had not been one of more than ordinary 
 trial. 
 
 The reader will not be troubled in future 
 with personal intimations of this kind ; but iu 
 commencing a new work of the present nature 
 and having been persuaded to put our name at 
 the top of it, (for which we beg his kindest 
 constructions, as a point conceded by a sense 
 of what was best for others,) it will be thought, 
 we trust, not unfitting in us to have alluded to 
 them. We believe we may call ourselves the 
 father of the present penny and three-half- 
 penny literature, — designations, once distress- 
 ing to " ears polite," but now no longer so, 
 since they are producing so many valuable 
 results, fortunes included. The first number 
 of the new popular review, the Printing Machine, 
 in an article for the kindness and cordiality of 
 which we take this our best opportunity of ex- 
 pressing our gratitude, and can only wish we 
 could turn these sentences into so many grips 
 of the hand to show our sense of it, — did us 
 the honour of noticing the Indicator as the first 
 successful attempt (in one respect) to revive 
 something like the periodical literature of 
 former days. We followed this with tlie Com- 
 ^awjwi, lately republished in connexion v/ith the 
 Indicator ; and a few years ago, in a fit of anx- 
 iety at not being able to meet some obligations, 
 and fearing we were going to be cut off from 
 life itself without leaving answers to still 
 graver wants, we set up a half-reviewing, half- 
 theatrical periodical, under the name of the 
 Tatler, (a liberty taken by love,) in the hope 
 of being able to realise some sudden as well as 
 lasting profits ! So little, with all our zeal for 
 the public welfare, had we found out what was 
 so well discerned by Mr. Knight and others, 
 when they responded to the intellectual wants 
 of the many. However, we pleased some 
 readers, whom it is a kind of prosperity even to 
 rank as such ; we conciliated the good-will of 
 others, by showing that an ardent politician 
 might still be a man of no ill-temper, nor with- 
 out good-will to all ; and now, once more setting 
 up a periodical work, entirely without politics, 
 but better calculated, we trust, than our former 
 ones to meet tlie wishes of many as well as 
 few, we are in hearty good earnest, the public's 
 very sincere and cordial friend and servant.
 
 ON A I'EBliLE. 
 
 II.— ON A PEBBLE. 
 
 LooKivr. about »is diirinjj a walk to see what 
 suhjcct we coulil write iijiou in this our second 
 nuinber, tliat slu)ul(l he familiar to everybody, 
 and atlord as strikinj,' a sjiecinien as we could 
 give, of the entertainment to be found in the 
 commonest objects, our eyes lighted upon a 
 Stone. It was a connnon pebbli', a Hint ; such 
 as a little boy kicks before him as he goes, by 
 way of making haste with a message, and saving 
 his new shoes. 
 
 " A stone !" cries a reader, " a flint ! the very 
 symbol of a miser ! what can be got out of 
 tiuit !" 
 
 The question is well put ; but a little reflec- 
 tion on the part of our interrogator would soon 
 rescue the; poor stone from the comparison. 
 Strike him at any rate, and you will get some- 
 thing out of him : — warm liis heart, and out 
 come the g(>nial si)arks that shall gladden your 
 hearth, and put liot disjies on your table. 'J'his 
 is iu)t miser's work. A French poet has de- 
 scribed the process, well known to the maid- 
 servant (till luciferscame up) when she stooped, 
 with flashing face, over the tinder-box on a 
 cold morning, and rejoiced to see the first laugh 
 of the fire. A sexton, in the poem we allude 
 to, is striking a light in a church : — 
 
 Uoinulc, qui voit que le peril approche, 
 
 Ia's anete, et tirant un fusil de sa poclie, 
 
 ])cs veines d'un eailliiu, qu'il frapi)C au ineme instant, 
 
 11 fait jaiilir >in feu qui pc-tille on sortant ; 
 
 Kt l)itnt()t au bra^ier d'unenicclie enflamniOe, 
 
 Hlontre, a I'aido du souffre, unecire allumiuee. 
 
 liuileau. 
 
 The prudent Sexton, studidus to reveal 
 Park holes, here takes from out his pouch a steel ; 
 Then strikes upon a flint. In many a spark 
 Forth leaps the spriglitly fire against the dark ; 
 The tin<ler feels the little lightning hit, 
 Tlie matcli provokes it, and a candle's lit. 
 
 We shall not stop to pursue this fiery point 
 into all its consequences ; to show what a world 
 of beauty or of formidable power is contained in 
 that single property of our friend flint ; what 
 fires, what liglits, what conflagrations, what 
 myriads of dicks of triggers— awful sounds 
 before battle, when instead of letting his flint 
 do its proper good-natured work of cooking his 
 supper, and warming his wife and iiimself over 
 their cottage-fire, the poor fellow is made to 
 kill and be killed by other poor fellows, whose 
 brains are strewed about the place for want of 
 knowing better. 
 
 But to return to the natural, quiet condition 
 of our friend, and wliat he can do for us in a 
 peaceful way, and so as to please meditation ; — 
 what think you of him as the mu.sician of the 
 brooks I as the un])retending player on tho.se 
 watery pipes and flageolets, during the hot 
 noon, or the silence of the night ? Without the 
 pebble the brook would want its prettiest 
 
 murmur. And then, in reminding you of these 
 murmurs, he reminds you of the poets. 
 
 A noise as of a hidden brook 
 
 In the leafy month of .June, 
 That to the sleeping woods all night 
 
 Singeth a quiet tune. — Coleridye. 
 
 Yes, the brook sin<jtth ; but it would not sing so 
 well,^ — it would not have that tone and ring in 
 its music, without the stone. 
 
 Then 'gan the shepherd gather into one 
 
 His straggling goats, and drove them to a ford. 
 
 Whose coerule stream, rumbling in pebble-stone*, 
 Crept under moss as green as any gourd. 
 
 Spenser's Gnat. 
 
 Spenser's Gnat, observe ; he wrote a whole 
 poem upon a gnat, and a most beautiful one 
 too, fouiuled uj)on another poem on the same 
 subji'ct written by the great Konum poet Virgil, 
 not because tiiese great poets wanted or were 
 unequal to great subjects, such as all the world 
 think great, but because they thought no care, 
 and no fetching out of beauty and wonder, ill 
 bestowed upon the smallest marvellous object 
 of God's workmanship. The gnat, in their 
 poems, is the creature that he really is, full of 
 elegance and vivacity, airy, trumpeted, and 
 plumed, and dancing in the sunbeam.s, — not the 
 contempt of some thoughtless understanding, 
 which sees in it nothing but an insect coming 
 to vex its skin. The eye of the poet, or other 
 informed man, is at once telescope and micro- 
 seojie, able to traverse the great heavens, and 
 to do justice to theleast thing they have created. 
 But to our brook and i)ebbles. See how one 
 l)leasant thing reminds people of another. A 
 pebble reminded us of the brooks, and the 
 brooks of the poets, and the poets reminded us 
 of the beauty and comprehensiveness of their 
 words, whether belonging to the subject in hand 
 or not. No ti ue poet makes use of a word for 
 nothing. '^ Cwrule stream," says Spenser; but 
 why cmrule, which comes from the Latin, and 
 seems a ]>edantic word, especially as it signifies 
 lilne, which he might have had in l<2nglish >. The 
 reason is, not only that it means i^hj-blue, and 
 therefore shows us how blue the sky was at the 
 time, and the cause why the brook was of such 
 a colour (for if he had wanted a word to exi)ress 
 nothing but that circumstance, he might have 
 said aky-hhic at once, however quaint it might 
 have sounded to modern ears : — he would have 
 cared nothing for that ; it was his business to do 
 justice to nature, and leave modern eais, as 
 they grew poetical, to find it out) ; but the 
 word carule was also a beautiful word, beautiful 
 for the sound, and expressive of a certain 
 liquid yet neat softness, somewhat resembling 
 the mixture of soft hissing, i-umbling, and in- 
 ward music of the brook.— We beg the reader's 
 
 * " Rumbling in pebble-stone" is a pretty enlargement of 
 Virgil's •• BUburrantis " (whispering). Gr<;-7i at any (joitnl 
 is also an improvement as well as an addition. The ex 
 prcssion is iw fresh as the colour.
 
 ON A PEBBLE. 
 
 indulgeuce for thus stopping him by the way, 
 to dwell on the beauty of a word ; but poets' 
 words are miniature creations, as curious, after 
 tlieir degree, as the insects and the brooks 
 themselves ; and when companions find them- 
 selves in pleasant spots, it is natural to wander 
 both in feet and talk. 
 
 So much for the agreeable sounds of wliich 
 the sight of a common stone may remind us (for 
 we have not chosen to go so far back as the 
 poetry of Orpheus, who is said to have made 
 the materials of stone-walls answer to his lyre, 
 and dance themselves into shape without 
 troubling the mason). Weshall come tograuder 
 echoes by-and-by. Let us see, meanwhile, 
 how pleasant the sight itself may be rendered. 
 Air. Wordsworth shall do it for us in his ex- 
 quisite little poem on the fair maiden who died 
 by the river l)ove. Our volume is not at hand, 
 but we remember the passage we more par- 
 ticularly allude to. It is where he compares 
 his modest, artless, and sequestered beauty with 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye ; 
 Fair as the star, when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 Is not that beautiful ? Can anything express 
 a lovelier loneliness, than the violent half hid- 
 den by the mossy stone — the delicate blue-eyed 
 flower against the country green ? And then 
 the loving imagination of this fine poet, exalt- 
 ing the object of his earthly worship to her 
 divine birth-place and future abode, suddenly 
 raises his eyes to the fii-mament, and sees her 
 there, the solitary star of his heaven. 
 
 But stone does not want even moss to ren- 
 der him interesting. Here is another stone, 
 and another solitary evening star, as beautifully 
 introduced as the others, but for a different 
 purpose. It is in the opening words of Mr. 
 Keats's poem of Hyperion, where he describes 
 the dethroned monarch of the gods, sitting in 
 his exile : — 
 
 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale. 
 Far sunken from the healthy breath of mom. 
 Far from the fiery noon, and Eve's one star, 
 Sate grey-hair 'd Saturn, quiet as a stone. 
 
 Quiet as a stone ! Nothing certainly can be 
 more quiet than that. Not a syllable or a sigh 
 will a stone utter, though you watch and bear 
 liim company for a whole week on the most 
 desolate moor in Cumberland. Thus silent, 
 thus unmoved, thus insensible to whatever 
 circumstances might be taking j)lace, or spec- 
 tators might tliiiik of him, was the soul-stunned 
 old patriarch of the gods. We may jiicture to 
 ourselves a large, or a snuUl stone, as we j)leasc 
 — Stonc-henge,or apebble. The simplicity and 
 grandcurof truthdonot care whicii. Thesilence 
 is the thing, — its intensity, its unalterableuess. 
 Our friend Pebble is Ihtc in grand comi)any, 
 and you may think him (though we hope not) 
 unduly bettered by it. But see what Shak- 
 
 speare will do for him in his hardest shape and 
 in no finer company than a peasant's : — 
 
 Weariness 
 Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth 
 Finds the down pillow hard. 
 
 Sleeping on hard stone would have been 
 words strong enough for a common i)oet ; or 
 perhaps he would have said, " resting," or " pro- 
 foundly reposing ;" or that he could have made 
 his " bed of the bare floor ;" and the last saying 
 wouldnot havebeenthe worst ; but Shakspeare 
 must have the very strongest words and really 
 profoundpst expressions, and he finds them in 
 the homeliest and most primitive. He does not 
 mince the matter, but goes to the root of both 
 sleep and stone — can snore upon the fliit. We 
 see the fellow hard at it — hcnt upon it — deeply 
 drinking of the forgetful draught. 
 
 To conclude our quotations from the poets, 
 we will give another line or two from Shak- 
 speare, not inapplicable to our proposed specu- 
 lations in general, and still less so to the one 
 in hand. 
 
 Green, a minor poet, author of the "Spleen," 
 an effusion full of wit and good sense, gives 
 pleasant advice to the sick who want exercise, 
 and who are frightened with hypochondria : 
 
 Fling hut a stone, the giant dies. 
 
 And this reminds us of a pleasant story con- 
 nected with the flinging of stones, in one of the 
 Italian novels. Two waggish painters persuade 
 a simple brother of theirs, that there is a plant 
 which renders the finder of it invisible, and 
 they all set out to look for it. They pretend 
 suddenly to miss him, as if he had gone away ; 
 and to his great joy, while throwing stones 
 about in his absence, give him great knocks in 
 the ribs,and horrible bruises,hehugginghimself 
 all the while at these manifest proofs of his 
 success, and the little suspicion which they 
 have of it. It is amusing to picture him to 
 one's fancy, growing happier as the blows grow 
 worse, rubbing his sore knuckles with delight, 
 and hardly able to ejaculate a triumphant Hah ! 
 at some excessive thump in the back. 
 
 But setting aside the wonders of the poets 
 and the novelists, Pebljle, in his own person 
 and by his own family alliances, includes 
 wonders far beyond the most wonderful things 
 they have imagined. Wrongly is Flint com- 
 pared with the miser. You cannot, to be sure, 
 skin liim, but you can melt him ; ay, make him 
 absolutely flow into a liquid ; — flow too for use 
 and beauty ; and become light unto your eyes 
 goblets to your table, and a mirror to your be- 
 loved. Bring two friends of his about him, 
 called Potash and Soda, and Flint runs into 
 melting tenderness, and is no longer Flint ; lie 
 is Glass. You look through liim ; you drink 
 out of him ; he funiislu's yon beautiful and 
 transparent shutters against the rain and cold ; 
 you shave by him ; protect pictures with him,
 
 n 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 and watclies, and books ; arc assisted by bim 
 in a thousand curious jihilosopbies ; are helped 
 over the sea by him ; and lie makes your catlie- 
 dral windows divint'; and enables yourmistress 
 to wear your portrait in her bosom. 
 
 But we must hasten to close our article, and 
 bring his most precious riches down in a shower 
 surpassing the rainbow. tStone is the humble 
 relation, nay, the stock and ]iaront of Prcchnis 
 Stone .' Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire, are of his 
 family ! of the family of the Flints — and Flint 
 is more in tbom than anything else ! That the 
 habitations and secret bosoms of the jirecious 
 indalu are stone, is also true ; but it is little 
 compared with this. Precious stone, for the 
 most part, is stone itself— is flint — with some 
 wonderful circumstance of addition, nobody 
 knows what ; but without the fiint, the pro- 
 ciousness would not be. Here is wealth and 
 honour for the poor Pebble ! Look at him, and 
 think what splendours issue from his loins : 
 
 Fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts. 
 Jacinths, iard topaz, (frass-green emeralds, 
 Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds. 
 And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, 
 Ab one of them, indifferently rated. 
 Might serve in peril of calamity. 
 To ransom great kings from captivity. 
 
 Maiilowk. 
 
 "Sparkling diamonds" are not properly in 
 our list of pebbles ; for diamond, the most 
 brilliant mystery of all, is a charcoal! 
 
 What now remains for storw, thus filling the 
 coffers of wealth, glorifying the crowns of 
 sultans, and adding beams to beauty itself? 
 One thing greater than all. The oldest and 
 stoniest of stone is granite, and granite (as far 
 as we know) is the chief material of the earth 
 itself — the bones of the world — the substance 
 of our star. 
 
 Honoured therefore be thou, thou small 
 jiebble lying in the lane ; and whenever any 
 one looks at thee, may he think of the beau- 
 tiful and noble world he lives in, and all of 
 which it is capable. 
 
 HI.— SPRING. 
 
 Tuis morning as we sat at breakfast, think- 
 ing of our present subject, with our eyes fixed 
 on a set of the British Poets, wliich stand us 
 in stead of a i)rosi)ect, there came by tiie 
 window, from a child's voice, a cry of " Wall- 
 flowers." There had just been a shower ; 
 sunshine had followed it ; and the rain, the 
 sun, the boy's voice, and the flowers, came all 
 80 prettily together ujion the subject we were 
 thinking of, that in taking one of his roots, we 
 could not help fancying we had received a 
 present from Nature hei'self, — with a penny 
 for the bearer. There were thirty lumps of 
 buds on this penny root ; their beauty was yet 
 to come ; but the promise was there, — the new 
 
 life, — the Spring, — and the rain-drops were on 
 them, as if the sweet goddess had dijiped her 
 hand in some fountain, and sprinkled them for 
 us by way of message ; as who should say, 
 " April and I are coming." 
 
 What a beautiful word is Spring! At least 
 one fancies so, knowing the meaning of it, and 
 being used to identify it with so many pleasant 
 things. An Italian might find it harsh ; and 
 object to the Sjj and the terminating consonant ; 
 but if he were a proper Italian, a man of fancy, 
 the worthy countryman of Petrarch and Ariosto, 
 we would convince him that the word was an 
 excellent good word, crammed as full of beauty 
 as a bud, — and that S had the whistling of the 
 brooks in it, p and r the force and roughness 
 of whatsoever is animated and picturesque, inp 
 the singing of the birds, and the whole word 
 the suddenness and salience of all that is lively, 
 sprouting, and new — Spring, Spring-time, a 
 Spring-green, a Spring of water — to Spring — 
 Springal, a word for a young man, in old (that 
 is, ever new) English poetry, which with many 
 other words has gone out, because the youthful- 
 uess of our hearts has gone out, — to come back 
 with better times, and the nine-hundredth 
 number of the work before us. 
 
 If our Italian, being very unlike an Italian, 
 ill-natured and not open to pleasant conviction, 
 should still object to our word, we would grow 
 uncourteous in turn, and swear it was a better 
 word than his Prima-rera, — which is what he 
 calls Spring — Prima-vera, that is to say, the 
 Jtrst Vera, or Ver of the Latins, the Veer {Brjp 
 lonice) or Ear of the Greeks ; and what that 
 means, nobody very well knows. But why 
 Frima-Y era, ? and Avhat is Seconda, or second 
 Vera ? The word is too long and lazy, as well 
 as obscure, compared with our brisk, little, 
 potent, obvious, and leaping Spring, — full of all 
 fountains,buds,birds,sweetbriars,and sunbeams. 
 
 " Leaping, like wanton kids in pleasant spring," 
 
 says the poet, speaking of the " wood-born 
 people" that flocked about fair Serena. How 
 much better the word aprhig suits here with 
 the word leaping, than if it had been prima-vera I 
 How much more sudden and starting, like the 
 boundings of the kids ! I'rima-rera is a beauti- 
 ful word ; let us not gainsay it ; but it is more 
 suitable to the maturity, than to the very 
 infringing of "prlng, as its first syllable would 
 j)retend. So long and comparatively languid a 
 word ought to belong to that side of the season 
 which is next to summer. Ver, the Latin word, 
 is better, — or rather Greek word ; for as we 
 have shown before, it comes from the Greek, — 
 like almost every good thing in Latin. It is a 
 pity one does not know what it means ; for the 
 Greeks had "good meanings" (as Sir Hugh 
 Evans woidd say) ; and their Ver, Feer, or Ear, 
 we may b(> sure, meant something pleasant, — 
 possibly the rising of the sap ; or something 
 connected with the new air ; or with love ; for
 
 COLOUR. 
 
 etymologists, with their happy facilities, might 
 bring it from the roots of such words. Ben 
 Jonson has made a beautiful name of its adjec- 
 tive (Earinos, vernal) for the heroine of his 
 'Sad Shepherd,'— 
 
 " Earine, 
 Who had her very being, and lier name, 
 With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring ; 
 liorn with the primrose and the violet. 
 Or ea,rliest roses blown ; when Cupid smiled, 
 And Venus led the Graces out to dance ; 
 And all the flowers and sweets in Nature's lap 
 Leap'd out," 
 
 The lightest thoughts have their roots in 
 gravity, and the most fugitive colours of the 
 world are set off by the mighty back-ground of 
 eternity. One of the greatest pleasures of so 
 light and airy a tiling as the vernal season 
 arises from the consciousness that the world is 
 young again ; that the spring has come round, 
 that we shall not all cease, and be no world. 
 Nature has begun again, and not begim for 
 nothing. One fancies somehow that she could 
 not have the heart to put a stop to us in April 
 or May. She may pluck away a poor little 
 life here and there ; nay, many blossoms of 
 I youth, — but not all, — not the whole garden of 
 life. She prunes, but does not destroy. If she 
 did, — if she were in the mind to have done 
 with us, — to look upon us as an experiment not 
 worth going on with, as a set of ungenial and 
 obstinate compounds which refused to co-ope- 
 rate in her sweet designs, and could not be 
 made to answer in the working, — depend upon 
 it she would take pity on our incapability and 
 bad humours, and conveniently quash us in 
 some dismal, sullen winter's day, just at the 
 natural dying of the year, most likely in No- 
 vember ; for Christmas is a sort of Spring 
 itself, a winter-flowering. We care nothing 
 for arguments about stonns, earthquakes, or 
 other apparently unseasonable interruptions of 
 our pleasures : — we imitate, in tliat respect the 
 magnanimous indifference, or what appears 
 such, of the Great Mother herself, knowing 
 that she means us the best in the (/ross; — and 
 also that we may all get our remedies for these 
 evils in time, if we co-operate as before said. 
 People in South America for instance, may 
 learn from experience, and build so as to make 
 a comparative nothing of those rockings of the 
 ground. It is of the yross itself that we speak ; 
 and sure we are, that with an eye to that, Nature 
 does not feel as Pope ventures to say she does, 
 or eees " witii wqual eye" — 
 
 Atoms or gj'stems into ruin hurl'd. 
 And now a bubble burst, and now :i world." 
 
 lie may have flattered himself that he should 
 tliink it a fine thing for his little poetship to sit 
 upon a star, and look grand in liis own eyes, 
 from an eye so very dispassionate ; but Nature, 
 who is the author of passion,and joy, andsorrow, 
 does not look upon animate and inanimate, 
 depend upon it, with the same want of sympa- 
 
 thy. "A world" full of loves, and hopes, and 
 endeavours, and of her own life and loveliness, 
 is a far greater thing in her eyes, rest assured, 
 tlian a "bubble ;" and, d fortiori, many worlds, 
 or a " system," far greater than the " atom " 
 talked of with so mucli complacency by this 
 divine little whipper-snapper. Erfjo,th.e moment 
 the kind mother gives promise of a renewed 
 year with these her green and budding signals, 
 be certain she is not going to falsify them ; 
 and that being sure of April, we are sure as 
 far as November. As to our existence any 
 further, that, we conceive, depends somewhat 
 upon how we behave ourselves ; and therefore 
 we would exhort everybody to do their best 
 for the earth, and all that is upon it, in order 
 that it and they may be thought worth con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 What ! shall we be put into a beautiful gar- 
 den, and turn up our noses at it, and call it a 
 "vale of tears," and all sorts of bad names 
 (helping thereby to make it so), and yet confi- 
 dently reckon that Nature will never shut it up, 
 and have done with it, or set about fonning a 
 better stock of inhabitants ? Recollect, we 
 beseech you, dear " Lord Worldly Wiseman," 
 and you, " Sir Having," and my lady " Greedy," 
 that there is reason for supposing that man was 
 not always an inhabitant of this very fashion- 
 able world, and somewhat larger globe ; and 
 that perhaps the chief occupant before him was 
 only of an inferior species to ourselves (odd as 
 you may think it), who could not be brought to 
 only know what a beautiful place he lived in, 
 and so had another chance given him in a differ- 
 ent shape. Good heavens ! If there were none 
 but mere ladies and gentlemen, and city-men, 
 and soldiers, upon earth, and no poets, readers, 
 and milk-maids, to remind us tliat there Avas 
 such a thing as Nature, we really should begin 
 to tremble for Almack's and Change Alley 
 about the 20th of next October ! 
 
 IV._COLOUR. 
 
 In this beloved, beautiful, but sometimes 
 foggy, and too often not very brilliant countjy 
 of ours, we are not fond enough of ralourn, — 
 not fond enough of a beauty, of wliich Nature 
 herself is evidently rcrij fond, and witli whicli, 
 like all the rest of her beauties, it is the busi- 
 ness of civilised man to adorn and imjjrove his 
 own well-being. The summer season is a good 
 time for becoming acquainted with them, for it 
 is then we see them best, and may acquire a 
 relish for them against the insijjidity of winter. 
 We remember a dyer in Genoa, wlio used to 
 hang out his silks upon a high wall op]!Osite 
 his shoj), wiiere they shone witli such lustre 
 under the blue sky (we particularly remember 
 some yellow ones) tliat it was a treat to jiass 
 tiiat way. You liiiiled them at a distance, like
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 another sun 
 nisen at noonday ; 
 
 or as if Nature lu'iselt" had been making some 
 draperies out of butter-cups, and had just pre- 
 sented the worUl witli tlie ))henoiiionoii. It is 
 tl>e blue sky and (dear air of tlieir native land 
 whicdi iiavc made the Italian painters so famous 
 for coluuriny ; and Kubens and Watteau, like 
 wise men, saw the good of transferring the 
 beauty to the less fortunate climate of Flan- 
 ders. One of the first things that attracted 
 GUI" notice in Italy was a red cap on the head 
 of a boatman. In England, where nobody else 
 Wears such a cap, we should have thought of a 
 butcher ; in Italy the sky set it oflt' to such ad- 
 vantage, that it reminded us of a scarlet bud. 
 
 Tlie Puritans, who did us a great deal of good, 
 helped to do this harm for us. They degraded 
 material beauty and gladness, as if essentially 
 hostile to what was sjiiritually estimable ; 
 whereas the desirable thing is to show the 
 compatibility of both, and vindicate the hues 
 of the creation. Thus the finest colours in 
 men's dresses have at last almost come to be 
 confined to livery servants and soldiers. A 
 soldier's wife, or a market-woman, is the only- 
 female that ventures to wear a scarlet cloak ; 
 and we have a favourite epithet of vitupera- 
 tion, iiitadii, which we bestow upon all colours 
 that do not suit our melancholy. It is sheer 
 want of heart and animal spirits. We were 
 not always so. Puritanism, and wars, and 
 debts, and the Dutch succession, and false ideas 
 of utility, have all conspired to take gladness 
 out of our eyesight, as well as jollity out of our 
 pockets. We shall recover a better taste, 
 and we trust exhibit it to better advantage 
 than before ; l)Ut we must begin by having 
 faith in as many good things as possible, and 
 not think ill of any one of heaven's means of 
 making us cheerful, because in itself it is 
 cheerful. " If a merry meeting is to be wished," 
 says the man in Hhakspeare, " may God i)ro- 
 hibit it." So the more obviously cheerful and 
 desirable anything is, the more we seem to beg 
 the question in its disfavour. Reds, and yel- 
 lows, and bright blues, are "gaudy ;" we must 
 have nothing but browns, and blacks, and 
 drab-colour or stone. Earth is not of this 
 opinion ; nor the heavens either. Gardens do 
 not think so ; nor the fields, nor the skies, nor 
 the mountains, nor dawn, nor sunset, nor light 
 itself, which is made of colours and holds them 
 always ready in its crystal quiver, to shoot 
 forth and divide into loveliness. The beautiful 
 attracts the beautiful. Colours find homes of 
 colour. To red go the red rays, and to iturjjle 
 the purple. The rainbow reads its beauteous 
 lecture in the clouds, showing the swe(!t divi- 
 sion of the hues ; and the mechanical " jdiilo- 
 sopher," as he calls himself, smiles with an air 
 of superiority, and thinks he knows all about 
 it, because the division is made. 
 
 The little child, like the real philosopher. 
 
 knoics tnore, for his "heart leaps up," and he 
 acknowledges a glad mystery. He feels the 
 immensity of what he does not know ; and 
 though the purely mechanical-minded man 
 admits that such immensity exists with regard 
 to himself, he does not feel it as the child or 
 the wiser man does, and therefore lie does not 
 truly perceive, — does not thoroughly take it 
 into his consciousness. He talks and acts as if 
 he had come to the extent of his knowledge — 
 and he has so. But beyond the dry line of 
 knowledge lies beauty, and all whicii is beau- 
 tiful in hope, and exalting in imagination. 
 
 We feel as if there were a moral as well as 
 material beauty in colour, — an inherent glad- 
 ness, — an intention on the part of nature, 
 to share with us a pleasure felt by herself. 
 Colours are the smiles of nature. When they 
 are extremely smiling, and break forth into 
 other beauty besides, they are her laughs ; as in 
 the flowers. The " laughing flowers," says the 
 l)oet ; and it is the business of tlie poet to feel 
 truths beyond the proof of the mechanician. 
 Nature at all events, humanly speaking, is 
 manifestly very fond of colour, /«/• she Jias madu 
 nothhuj trlthout it. Her skies are blue ; her fields 
 greeii ; her waters vary with her skies ; her 
 animals, minerals, vegetables, are all coloured. 
 She paints a great many of them in apparently 
 superfluous hues, as if to show the dullest eye 
 how she loves colour. The pride of the jieacock, 
 or some stately exhibition of a quality very 
 like i)ride, is a singular matter of fact, evidently 
 connected with it. Youthful beauty in the 
 human being is partly made up of it. One of 
 the three great arts, with which Providence 
 has adorned and humanised the mind,— Paint- 
 ing, is founded upon the love and imitation of 
 it. And the magnificence of emjjire can find 
 nothing more precious, either to possess, or be 
 proud of wearing than 
 
 Fiery opals, sappliires, amethysts, 
 Jacinths, hard topaz, grassgieen emeralds, 
 Ifcauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, 
 And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, 
 As one of them, indifferently rated. 
 May serve in peril of calamity 
 To ransom great kings from captivity*. 
 
 v.— WINDOWS. 
 
 We have had a s])ecial regard for a window, 
 ever since we sat in an old-fashioned one with 
 a low seat to it in our childhood, and read a 
 book. And for a like reason, we never see a 
 door-way in a sequestered corner, with a 
 similar accommodation for the infant stu- 
 dent, without nestling to it in imagination, 
 and taking out of our pocket the ArahUin 
 JVi'jhts, or FhlUp Quarll. The same recollection 
 makes us j)refer that kind of window to all 
 
 * We had just quoted these lines before, but tliu reader 
 will doubtless pardon the rexxitition.
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 Q 
 
 others, and count our daily familiarity with it 
 as by no means among the disservices rendered 
 us by fortune. The very fact of its existence 
 shows a liberality in the dimensions of old- 
 fashioned walls. There is " cut and come 
 again" in them. Had modern houses been 
 made of cheeses, and La Fontaine's mouse 
 found himself in one of them, he would have 
 despised those rinds of buildings, — thin and 
 fragile as if a miser had pared them away. 
 
 Tliose modern windows are all of a piece, 
 inside and out. They may make a show of 
 having some thickness of wall at the sides, 
 but it is only a hollow pretence for the con- 
 venience of the shutters ; and even when the 
 opportunity of forming a recess is thus offered 
 them, it is not taken. It is seldom they con- 
 tain a seat even in the parlour ; and the draw- 
 ing-room M'indows in such houses cannot com- 
 fortably have any, .because, for the benefit of 
 one's feet in this cold climate, they are cut 
 down to the floor ; a veranda being probably 
 overhead to intercept any superfluity of sun- 
 shine. " If a merry meeting is to be wished," 
 says the man in Shakspeare, "may God prohibit 
 it." If there is any sunshine to be had, stave 
 it off ; esjjecially if you have been grumbling 
 for its absence all the rest of the year. 
 
 " Would you have us sit then and be baked, 
 Mr. Seer I" 
 
 Dear madam, you ask the question with so 
 pleasant a voice, and such a pretty good-natured 
 exaggeration, that you are e\adently one of 
 those who may do, or not do, just what you 
 please. We shall not find fault with you, if 
 you close every shutter in the room, let the 
 sun be never so smiling. Besides, we give up 
 the hottest days in July and August. But 
 grant us at any rate, that to have verandas 
 alwai/s, as we see them in some houses, is hardly 
 more reasonable, than having windows down 
 to the floor at any time ; and that tlie iiorror of 
 a sunshine, by no means too abundant in this 
 region, has more to do with the fear of dis- 
 coloured curtains and carpets tlian it ought to 
 hare, especially among tlie lich. Wliat signi- 
 fies the flying of a few colours, easily replaced, 
 compared with the giving a proper welcome 
 to the great colourer himself, — the sun that 
 makes all tilings beautiful { Tliere are few 
 sights in your town-house more cheerful than 
 a sudden burst of sun into the room, smiting 
 the floor into so many windows, and making 
 the roses on tlic vi-i-y carpet look as if they 
 felt it. Let them fade in good season as the 
 others do ; and make up for the expense, dear 
 fashionable peoj)le, by staying a little niore at 
 home, keeping better hours, and saving the 
 roses on your cheeks. 
 
 Verandas have one good effect. Tliey are 
 an ornament to the house outside, and serve 
 to liide the shabby cut of the windows. Still 
 more is to be said for them, wIuto tlu-y and 
 the balcony include flowers. Yet windows 
 
 down to the floor we hold to be a nuisance 
 always — imnecessary, imcomfortable, absurd 
 — to say nothing of perils of broken panes and 
 scolded children. They let draughts of air in 
 across the floor, where nobody wants tliem ; 
 they admit superfluous light, — from cartliwards 
 instead of from heaven ; they render a seat in 
 the window imjiossible or disagreeable ; they 
 hinder the fire from sufficiently warming the 
 room in winter-time ; and they make windows 
 partake too much of out-of-doors, showing the 
 inhabitants at full length as they walk about, 
 and contradicting the sense of sniigness and 
 seclusion. Lastly, when they have no veil or 
 other ornament outside, they look gawky and 
 out of proportion. But the outside cut of 
 windows in this country is almost universally 
 an eyesore. We have denounced them before, 
 and shall denounce them again, in the hopes 
 that house-builders may be brought to show 
 some proofs of being the "architects" they 
 call themselves, and dare to go to an expense 
 of nine and sixpence for a little wood or 
 plaster, to make a border with. Look at the 
 windows down the streets, at the west-end of 
 the town, and they are almost all mere cuts in 
 the wall, just such as they make for barracks 
 and work-houses. The windows of an Irish 
 cabin are as good, as far as architecture is con- 
 cerned. Tlie port-holes of a man-of-war have 
 as much merit. There is no pediment, nor 
 border ; seldom even one visible variety of 
 any sort, not a coloured brick. And it is the 
 same with the streets that contain shops, 
 except, in some instances, those of the latest 
 construction ; which if not in the best taste 
 otherwise, are built with a little more gene- 
 rosity, and that is a good step towards taste. 
 AVhen we meet with windows of a better sort, 
 the effect is like quitting the sight of a stupid 
 miser for that of a liberal genius. Such are 
 the windows in some of the nobler squares ; 
 and you may see them occasionally over shops 
 in the Strand and Piccadilly. Observe for 
 instance the windows of Jlessrs. Greensil! and 
 Co. the lamp-oil manufacturers in the Strand, 
 compared with those of the neighbours ; and 
 see what a suj)eriority is given to them by the 
 mere fact of their having borders, and some- 
 tiiing like architectural design. We will 
 venture to say it is serviceable even in a 
 business point of view ; for such houses look 
 wealthier ; and it is notorious, that tlic repu- 
 tation of moni'v brings money. Where there 
 is no elegance of this kind, (and of course also 
 where there is,) a box of flowers along the 
 windows gives a liberal look to a house, still 
 more creditable to the ()ccuj)ants, from the 
 certainty we have of its being their own 
 work. See in Piccadilly, the houses of Messrs. 
 Rickards the sj)irit-nK'rchauts, near Regent 
 Street, and JNIcssrs. Meyer and Co. the wax- 
 chandlers, near the Park end. Wo never j)ass 
 the latter without benig grati'ful for the beauti-
 
 10 
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 fill show of nasturtiums, — a jilant wliicli it is 
 au cK'gance itself to luivu so niuch regard for. 
 There is also sometliing very agreeable in the 
 good-natured kind of intercourse thus kept iip 
 between tlie iiuuates of a house and tliose who 
 pass it. The former appeal to one's good 
 opinion in the best manner, by complimenting 
 us with a share of their elegances ; and the 
 latter are happy to acknowledge the appeal, 
 for their own sakes as well as tiiat of the 
 flowers. Imagine (what perhaps will one day 
 be the case) wiiole streets adorned in this 
 manner, right and left ; and multitudes pro- 
 ceeding on their tasks through avenues of 
 lilies and geraniums. Why should they not i 
 Nature has given us the means, and they are 
 innocent, animating, and contribute to our 
 piety towards her. We do not half enougli 
 avail ourselves of the cheap riches wherewitii 
 she adorns tlie earth. We also get the most 
 trivial mistakes in our head, and think them 
 refinements, and are afraid of being "vulgar!" 
 A few seeds, for instance, and a little trouble, 
 would clothe our houses every summer, as 
 high as we chose, with draperies of green and 
 scarlet ; and after admii-ing the beauty, we 
 might eat the produce. Cut then this produce 
 is (I hcan ; and because beans are found at 
 poor tables, wo despise them ! Nobody despises 
 a vine in front of a house ; for vines are polite, 
 and the grapes seldom good enough to be of 
 any use. Well ; use, we grant, is not the only 
 thing, but surely we have no right to think 
 ourselves xmbigoted to it, when it teaches us 
 to despise beauty. In Italy, where the drink 
 is not common, people have a great respect for 
 l/eer, and would perhaps rather see a drapery 
 of hops at the front of a house, than vine- 
 leaves. Hops are like vines ; yet who thinks 
 of adorning his house with them in England? 
 No : they remind us of tiie ale-house instead 
 of nature and her beauties ; and therefore 
 they are " vulgar." But is it not we who are 
 vulgar, in thinking of the ale-house, when 
 nature and her beauties are the greater 
 idea ? 
 
 It is objected to vegetation against walls and 
 windows, that it harbours insects ; and good 
 housewives declare they sliall be " overrun." 
 If this be the fact, care should bo taken against 
 the conseipieuces ; and should the care prove 
 unavailing, everything must be sacrificed to 
 cleanliness. But is the charge well-founded i 
 and if well-founded in respect to some sorts of 
 vegetation, is it e(iually so with all ? we mean, 
 with regard to tlie inability to keep out the 
 insects. There is a prejudice against ivy on 
 houses, on tiie score of its harbouring wet, and 
 making the houses damp ; yet tiiis opinion has 
 been discovered to be so groundless that the 
 very contrary is the fact. Ivy is found to be 
 a remedy for damj. walls. It wards off tlie 
 rain, and secures to them a remarkable state 
 of dryness ; as any one may see for himself by 
 
 turning a bush of it aside, and observing the 
 singular drought and dustiness prevailing be- 
 tween the brick or mortar and the back of the 
 leaves. 
 
 I'late-glass has a beautiful look in windows ; 
 but it is too costly to become general. We 
 remember when the late Mrs. Urby Hunter 
 lived in Grosvenor Place, it was quite a treat 
 to ])ass by her parlour wiudow, which was an 
 arcli, full of large panes of plate-glass, with 
 a box of briliant flowers underneath it, and 
 jessamine and other creepers making a bower 
 of the wall. Perhaps the house has the same 
 asj)ect still ; but we thought the female name 
 on the door was particularly suited it, and had 
 a just ostentation. 
 
 Painted glass is still finer ; but we have 
 never seen it used in the front windows of a 
 house excci)t in narrow strips, or over door- 
 ways ; which is a pity, for its loveliness is 
 extreme. A good portion of the upper part of 
 a window or windows might be allotted to it 
 with great effect, in houses where there is 
 light to spare ; and it might be turned to 
 elegant and otherwise useful account, by 
 means of devices, and even regular pictures. 
 A beautiful art, little known, might thus be 
 restored. But we must have a separate article 
 on painted windows ; which are a kind of 
 passion of ours. They make lis loath to speak 
 of them, without stopping, and receiving on 
 our admiring eyes the beauty of their blessing. 
 For sucii is the feeling they always give us. 
 They seem, beyond any other inanimate object, 
 exce{)t the finest pictures by the great masters 
 (which can hardly be called such), to unite 
 sometliing celestial, with the most gorgeous 
 charm of the senses. There are more reasons 
 than one for this feeling ; but we must not be 
 tempted to enter upon them here. The win- 
 dow must have us to itself, as in the rich quiet 
 of a cathedral aisle. 
 
 We will conclude this oiitdde consideration 
 of windows (for we must have anotlier and 
 longer one for the inside), by dropping from a 
 very heavenly to a very earthly picture, though 
 it be one still suspended in the air. It is that 
 of the gallant footman in one of Steele's come- 
 dies, making love to the maid-servant, while 
 ihey are both occupied in cleaning the windows 
 of their master's house, lie does not make 
 love as his honest-hearted brother Dodsley 
 would have done (who from a footman became 
 a man of hitters) ; still less in the style of his 
 illustrious brother Rousseau (for he too was 
 once a footman) ; though there is one passage 
 in the incident, which the ultra-sensitive lackey 
 of tlie " Confessions " (who afterwards shook 
 tlie earth with the very strength of his weak- 
 ness) would have turned to fine sentimental 
 account. The language also is a little too good 
 even for a fine gentleman's gentleman ; but the 
 " exquisite" airs tlie fellow gives himself, an; 
 not GO much beyond the reach of brisk foot-
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 II 
 
 man-imitation, as not to have an essence of 
 truth in them, pleasantly showing the natural 
 likeness between fops of all conditions ; and 
 they are as happily responded to by those of 
 the lady. The combination of the unsophisti- 
 cate picture at the close of the extract, with 
 the languishing comment made upon it, is 
 extremely ludicrous. 
 
 Enter Tom, meeting Phillis. 
 
 ^<m. Well, Phillis !— What ! with a face as 
 if you had never seen me before ? — What a 
 work have I to do now ! She has seen some 
 new visitant at their house whose airs she has 
 catched, and is resolved to practise them upon 
 me. Numberless are the changes she'll dance 
 through before she'll answer this plain ques- 
 tion, tidelicit. Have you delivered my master's 
 letter to your lady ? Nay, I know her too 
 well to ask an account of it in an ordinary 
 way ; I'll be in my airs as well as she. (Aside.) 
 Well, madam, as unhappy as you are at present 
 pleased to make me, I would not in the general 
 be any other than what I am ; I would not be 
 a bit wiser, a bit richer, a bit taller, a bit 
 shorter, than I am at this instant. (Looking 
 stead fdsthj at her.) 
 
 Phil. Did everanybody doubt, MasterTliomas, 
 that you were extremely satisfied with your 
 sweet self ? 
 
 Tom. I am indeed. The thing I have least 
 reason to be satisfied with is my fortune, and 
 I am glad of my jioverty ; perhaj)S, if I were 
 rich, I should overlook the finest woman in 
 the world, that wants nothing but riches to be 
 thought so. 
 
 Phil, liow prettily was that said ! But 
 I'll have a great deal more before I say one 
 word. (Aside.) 
 
 Tom. I should perhaps have been stupidly 
 above her had I not been her equal, and by 
 not being her equal never had an opportunity 
 of being her slave. I am my master's servant 
 from hire, — I am my mistress's servant from 
 choice, would she but approve my passion. 
 
 Phil. I think it is the first time I ever heard 
 you speak of it with any sense of anguish, if 
 you really suffer any. 
 
 Tom. Ah, Phillis ! can you doubt after what 
 you have seen ? 
 
 Phil. I know not what I have seen, nor 
 what I have heard ; but since I am at leisure, 
 you may tell me when you fell in love with 
 me, how you fell in love with me, and what 
 you have suffered, or are ready to suffer, for 
 me. 
 
 Tom. Oh ! the unmerciful jade ! wlicn I am 
 in haste about my master's letter : — But I must 
 go through it (mhh;). AIi ! Too well I remem- 
 ber when, and on what occasion, and how 1 
 was first suri)rised. It was on the First of 
 April one thousand seven hundred and fifteen 
 r came into Air. Sealand's service ; 1 was then 
 
 a little hobble-de-hoy, and you a little tight 
 girl, a favourite handmaid of the house-keejjer. 
 At that time we neither one of us knew what 
 was in us. I remember I was ordered to get 
 out of the window, one pair of stairs, to rub 
 the sashes clean — the person employed on the 
 inner side was your charming self, whom I 
 had never seen before. 
 
 Phil. I think I remember the silly accident. 
 What made you, you oaf, ready to fall down 
 into the street ? 
 
 Tom. You know not, I warrant you ; you 
 could not guess what surprised me — you took 
 no delight when you immediately gi'ew wanton 
 in your conquest, and put your lips close and 
 breathed upon the glass, and when my lips 
 approached, a dirty cloth you rubbed against 
 my face, and hid your beauteous form ; when 
 I again drew near, you spit and rubbed, and 
 smiled at my undoing. 
 
 VI.— WINDOWS, CONSIDERED FROM 
 INSIDE. 
 
 The other day a butterfly came into our room 
 and began beating himself against the upper 
 panes of a window half open, thinking to get 
 back. It is a nice point — relieving your but- 
 tei"fly — he is a creature so delicate. If you 
 handle him without ceremony, you bring away 
 on your fingers, something which you take to 
 be down, but which is plumes of feathers ; and 
 as there are no fairies at hand, two atoms 
 high, to make pens of the quills, and write 
 "articles" on the invisible, there would be a 
 loss. Mr. Bentham's ghost would visit us, 
 shaking his venerable locks at such unneces- 
 sary-pain-producing and reasonable-jjleasure- 
 preventing heedlessness. Then if you brush 
 him downwards, you stand a chance of hurting 
 his antenna?, or feelers, and of not knowing 
 what mischief you may do to his eyes, or his 
 sense of touch, or his instruments of dialogue ; 
 for some philosophers hold tiiat insects talk 
 with their feelers, as dumb people do with their 
 fingers. However, some suffering must be 
 hazarded in order to prevent worse, even to 
 the least and most delicate of heaven's crea- 
 tures, who would not know pleasure if they did 
 not know pain ; and perliaps the merrier and 
 hapjjier they are in general, the greater tlie 
 lumps of pain they can bear. Besides, all must 
 have their share, or how would the burden of 
 tiie great blockisii necessity be equally dis- 
 tributed : and finally, what business had little 
 Papilio to come into a ])lace unfit for )iim, and 
 get bothering himself with glass ? Oh, faith ! 
 — your butterfly must learn experience, as 
 well as your Biionaj)arte. 
 
 There was he, beating, fluttering, flouncing, 
 — wondering that he could not get through so 
 clear a matter (for so glass appears to be to 
 insects, as well as to men), and tearing his
 
 12 
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 silki'ii little soul out witli incffi'ctual ciicr'jy. 
 What pluuuiye he must have left upon tlie 
 jiane ! What feathers and colours, strewed 
 about, as if some tine lady had j^'one mad 
 against a ball-room door, for not bein;; let in ! 
 
 But we luid a higher simile for him tliaii 
 that. " Truly," thought we, " little friend, thou 
 art like some of the great German transcend- 
 entalists, wiio in thinking to reach at heaven 
 by an imi)ossihle way (such at least it seemeth 
 at present) ruu the hazard of cracking their 
 brains, and sj>oiling their wings for ever ; 
 whereas, if thou and they would but stoop a 
 little lower, and begin with earth first, there, 
 before thee, llcth open heaven as well as earth'; 
 and tliou mayest mount high as thou wilt, 
 after thy own ]iaj)i)y fashion, thinking less and 
 enjoying all tilings." 
 
 And hereupon we contrived to get him 
 downwards, — and forth, out into the air, 
 sjjrang he, — first against the lime-trees, and 
 tlien over them into tiie blue ether, — as if lie 
 had resolved to put our advice into practice. 
 
 We have before spoken of the fret and fury 
 into which the common fly seems to put him- 
 self against a window. IJecs apjiear to take it 
 more patiently, out of a greater knowledge ; 
 and slip about with a strange air of hopeless- 
 ness. They seem to "give it up." These 
 things, as Mr. Pepys said of the humanities at 
 court, "it is pretty to observe." Glass itself is 
 a j)henomenon that might alone serve a reflect- 
 ing observer with meditation for a whole 
 morning, — so substantial and yet so air-like, so 
 close and compact to keeji away the cold, yet 
 so transparent and facile to let in light, the 
 gentlest of all things, — so jialpably somethbuj, 
 and yet to the eye and the perceptions a kind 
 of tiuthimj ! It seems absolutely to deceive 
 insects in this resjiect, which is remarkable, 
 considering how closely they handle it, and 
 what microscopic eyes we suppose them to have. 
 We should doubt (as we used to do) whether 
 we did not mistake their ideas on the subject, 
 if we had not so often seen their repeated 
 dashings of themselves against the panes, their 
 stoppings (as if to take breath), and then their 
 recommencement of the same violence. It is 
 difficult to sujipose that they do this for mere 
 pleasure, for it looks as if they must hurt 
 themselves. Observe in particular the tre- 
 mendous thumps given himself by tliat great 
 hulking fellow of a fly, that Ajax of the 
 Diptera, the blue-bottle. Yet in autumn, in 
 their old age, flies congregate in windows as 
 elsewhere, and will take the matter so quietly 
 as sometimes to stand still foi- hours tog(!ther. 
 W(' supjiose they love the wanntli, or tlie 
 light ; and that either they have found out the 
 Secret as to the rest, or 
 
 *' Years have brought the philosophic mind." 
 
 Wliy should Fly jdague himself any longer 
 with household matters which he cannot alter ? 
 
 lie has tried hard in his time ; and now he 
 resigns himself like a wise insect, and will 
 taste whatsoever traiKpiil jdeasures renuiiu for 
 him, witliout beating his lirains or losing his 
 temjicr any longer. In natural livers, pleasure 
 survives pain. Even the artificial, who keep 
 up their troubles so long by jiride, self-will, and 
 the want of stimulants, contrive to get more 
 pleasure than is supposed out of ])ain itself, 
 especially by means of tliinlving themselves ill- 
 used, and of grumbling. If the heart (for want 
 of better training) does not much keep up its 
 action with them, the s])leen does ; and so 
 there is action of some sort : and whenever 
 there is action, there is life ; and life is found 
 to have something valuable in it for its own 
 sake, apart from ordinary considerations either 
 of pain or jileasure. iJut your fly and your 
 j)hilosoi)Iier are for pleasure too, to the last, if 
 it be harmless. Give old Alusca a grain of 
 sugar, and see how he will put down his pro- 
 boscis to it, and dot, and jiound, and suelv it in, 
 and be as liajipy as an old West India gentle- 
 man pondering on his sugar cane and extracting 
 a pleasure out of some dulcet recollection. 
 
 Gamblers, for want of a sensatitm, have been 
 known to start up from their wine, and lay a 
 bet ujiou two rain drop>s coming down a pane 
 of glass. How poor are those gentry, even 
 Avlien tliey win, compared with observers 
 whose resources need never fail tliem ! To the 
 latter, if they please, the rain-drop itself is a 
 world, — a world of beauty and mystery and 
 aboriginal idea, bringing before them a thou- 
 sand images of proportion, and reflection, and 
 the eleme'iits, and light, and colour, and round- 
 ness,aud delicacy, and fluency, and beneficence, 
 and the refreshed flowers, and the growing 
 corn, and dewdrops on the bushes, and the 
 tears tliat fall from gentle eyes, and the ocean, 
 and the rainbow, and the origin of all things. 
 In water, we behold one of the old primeval 
 mysteries of which the world was made. 
 Tlius, the commonest rain-drop on a pane 
 of glass becomes a visitor from the solitudes of 
 time. 
 
 A window, to those who have read a little in 
 Nature's school, thus becomes a book, or a 
 jiictnre, on wliich lier genius may be studied, 
 liandicraft tliougli the canvas be, and little as 
 the glazier may have thought of it. Not that we 
 are to predicate ignorance of your glazier now- 
 a-days, any more than of other classes that 
 compose the various readers of jienny and 
 three-lialf-iienny pliilosopliy, — cheap visitor, 
 like the sunbeams, of houses of all sorts. The 
 glazier could j)rol)aljly give many a richer man 
 inforinatioii resjiecting his glass, and his dia- 
 mond, and his Jiutty, (no anti-climax in these 
 analytical days,) and let him into a secret or 
 two, besides, respettting the amusement to lie 
 derived from it. (We liave just got up from 
 our work to inform ourselves of the nature 
 and properties of the said mystery, putty ; and
 
 WINDOWS. 
 
 13 
 
 should bhish for the confession, if the blush 
 would not inijjly that a similar ignorance were 
 less common Avith us than it is.) 
 
 But a window is a frame for other pictures 
 besides its own ; sometimes for moving ones, 
 as in the instance of a cloud going along, or a 
 bird, or a flash of lightning ; sometimes for the 
 distant landscape, sometimes the nearer one, 
 or the trees that are close to it, with their 
 lights and shades ; often for the passing mul- 
 titude. A picture, a harmony, is observable, 
 even in the drapery of the curtains that invest 
 it ; much more in the sunny vine-leaves or 
 roses that may be visible on the borders, or 
 that are trailed against it, and which render 
 many a poor casement so pleasant. The other 
 day, in a very humble cottage window in the 
 suburbs, we saw that beautiful plant, the nas- 
 turtium, trained over it on several strings ; 
 which must have furnished the inmates with a 
 screen as tliey sate at their work or at their 
 tea inside, and at the same time permitted 
 them to see through into the road, thus con- 
 stituting a far better blind than is to be found 
 in many great houses. Sights like these give 
 a favourable impression of the dispositions and 
 habits of thepeople within, — sliow how superior 
 they are to their sophistications, if rich, and 
 how possessed of natural refinement, if among 
 the poorer classes. Oh ! the human mind is a 
 fine graceful tiling everywhere, if the music of 
 nature does but seize its attention, and throw 
 it into its natural attitude. But so little lias 
 the "schoolmaster" yet got hold of this point, 
 or made way with it, and so occupied are men 
 witli digging gold out of the ground, and 
 neglecting the other treasures which they toss 
 about in profusion during the operation (as if 
 tile clay were better than the flowers which it 
 produced), that few make the most of the 
 means and appliances for enjoyment that lie 
 round about them, even in their very walls 
 and rooms. Look at the windows down a 
 street, and generally speaking they are all 
 barren. The inmates might see through roses 
 and geraniums, if they would ; but they do 
 not tliink of it, or not witli loving knowledge 
 enougii to take the troulile. Those who have 
 the advantage of living in the country or the 
 suburbs, are led in many instances to do better, 
 though their necessity for agreeable sights is 
 not so great. But the ])resence of nature 
 tein])ts them to imitate her. There are few 
 windows anywhere whicli might not be used to 
 better advantage than they are, if we have a 
 little money, or can jjrocure even a few seeds. 
 We have read an art of blowing the fire. 
 There is an art even in tlie shutting and oj)en- 
 ing of windows. reoi)le miglit close tliem 
 more against dull objects, and open them more 
 to pleasant ones, and to the air. For a few 
 pence, they might liave beautiful colours and 
 odours, and a pleasing task, emulous of the 
 showers of April, beneficent as May ; for they 
 
 who cultivate flowers in their windows (as we 
 have hinted before) are led instinctively to 
 cultivate them for others as well as themselves ; 
 nay, in one respect they do it more so ; for you 
 may observe, that wherever there is this 
 " fenestral horticulture," (as Evelyn woiild 
 have called your window-gardening,) the flowers 
 are turned with their faces towards the street. 
 
 But " there is an art in the shutting and 
 opening of windows." — Yes, for the sake of air 
 (which ought to be had night as well as day, 
 in reasonable measure, and with precautions), 
 and for the sake of excluding, or admitting, 
 what is to be seen out of doors. Suppose, for 
 example, a house is partly opposite some 
 pleasant, and partly some unpleasant, object ; 
 the one, a tree or garden ; the other, a gin- 
 shop or a squalid lane. Tlie sight of the first 
 should be admitted as constantly as possible, 
 and with open window. That of the other, if 
 yon are rich enough, can be shut out with a 
 I ainted blind, that shall substitute a beautiful 
 landscape for the nuisance ; or a blind of 
 another sort will serve the purpose ; or if even 
 a blind cannot be afforded, the shutters may 
 be partly closed. Shutters should always be 
 divided in two, horizontally as well as other- 
 wise, for purposes of this kind. It is some- 
 times pleasant to close the lower portion, if 
 only to preserve a greater sense of quiet and 
 seclusion, and to read or write the more to 
 yourself; light from above having both a 
 softer and stronger effect, than when admitted 
 from all quarters. We have seen shutters, by 
 judicious management in this way, in the 
 house of a poor man who had a taste for 
 nature, contribute to the comfort and even 
 elegance of a room in a surprising manner, 
 and (by the opening of the lower portions and 
 the closure of the upper) at once shut out all 
 the sun that was not wanted, and convert a 
 row of stunted trees into an appearance of 
 interminable foliage, as thick as if it had been 
 in a forest. 
 
 '•' But the fact was otherwise ;" cries some 
 fastidious personage, more nice tiian wise ; 
 " you knew there was no forest, and therefore 
 could not have been deceived." 
 
 " Well, my dear Sir, but deception is not 
 necessary to every one's pleasure ; snxUfact, is 
 not merely what you take it for. The fact of 
 there being no forest might have been the 
 only fact with yourself, and so havi' prevented 
 the enjoyment ; but to a livelier fancy, there 
 would iiave been the fact of the imagination 
 of the forest (for everything is a fact which 
 does anything for us)*, and there would also 
 
 * Facio, factum {Lalin) — to ro, done. What is done in 
 iinaginiititin, makes a greater or loss inii)rcssion according 
 to tiic power to receive it ; Imt it is imquestionably dune., 
 if it impresses >is at all ; and thus becomes, after its kind, 
 a fact. A stupid fellow, utterly without imagination, 
 requires tickling to make liiiu laugh ; a livelier one laughs 
 at a comedy, or at the bare aiiprehension of a thing laugh- 
 able. In bolli instiinccs there is a real impression though
 
 14 
 
 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW. 
 
 have been the fact of having cultivated the 
 imagination, and tlio fact of our willingness to 
 he pleased, and tlu^ fact of the hooks we have 
 read, and ahove all, the fact of the positive 
 satisfaction. If a man he pleased, it is in vain 
 you tell him he has no cause to be pleased. 
 The cause is proved by the consequence. 
 Wiiether the cause be rightly or wrongly 
 cultivated, is another matter. Tlie good of it 
 is assumed in the present instance ; and it 
 would take more facts than are in the posses- 
 sion of a "mere matter-of-fact man" to dis- 
 I)rove it. Matter of fact and fi])int of fact 
 must both be appreciated, in order to do justice 
 to the riches of nature. We are made of mind 
 as well as body, — of imagination as well as 
 senses. The same mysterious faculty which 
 sees what is before the eyes, sees also whai is 
 suggested to the memory. Matter of fact is 
 only the more palpable world, around which a 
 thousand spirits of fact are j)laying, like angels 
 in a picture. Not to see both, is to be a poor 
 unattended creature, who walks about in the 
 world conscious of nothing but himself, or at 
 best of what the horse-jockey and the coach- 
 maker has done for him. If his banker fails, 
 he is ruined ! Not so those who, in addition 
 to the resources of their industry, have stock 
 in all the hanks of nature and art, (pardon us 
 this pun for the sake of what grows on it,) and 
 whose consolations cannot wholly fail them, 
 as long as they have a flower to look upon, 
 and a blood not entirely vitiated. 
 
 A window high up in a building, and com- 
 manding a fine prospect, is a sort of looking 
 out of the air, and gives a sense of power, and 
 of superiority to earth. The higher also you 
 go, the healthier. We speak of such windows 
 as Milton fancied, when he wished that his 
 lamp should be seen at midnight in " some high 
 lonely tower ;" a passage, justly admired for 
 the good-nature as well as loftiness of the wish, 
 thus desiring that wayfarers should be the 
 better for his studies, and enjoy the evidence 
 of their fellow-creature's vigils. But elevations 
 of this kind are not readily to be had. As to 
 health, we believe tliat a very little lift above 
 the ground-floor, and so on as you ascend, 
 grows healthier in projiortion. Ilalaria (bad 
 air) in the countries where a plague of that 
 kind is prevalent, is understood to be confined 
 to a certain distance from the earth ; and we 
 really believe, that even in the healthiest quar- 
 ters, where no positive harm is done by nearness 
 to it, the air is better as the houses ascend, and 
 a seat in a window becomes valuable in ju'opor- 
 tion. By-and-by, perhaps, studies and other 
 favourite sitting-rooms will be built accord- 
 ingly ; and more retrospective reverence be 
 shown to the " gari-ets" that used to be so 
 
 from very different causes, one from " matter of fact," (if 
 you please,) the other from spirit of fact ; but in cither 
 case the thing is done, the fact takes place. Tlie moving 
 cause exists somehow, or how could we be moved ? 
 
 famous in the annals of authorship. The poor 
 poet in Pope, who lay 
 
 High in Dniry lane, 
 Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane, 
 
 was better ofl^ there, than if he had occupied 
 the giound-floor. For our i)arts, in order that 
 we may save the dignity of our three-half- 
 penny meditations, and at the same time give 
 evidence of practising what we preach, we 
 shall finish by stating, that we have written 
 this article in a floor neither hio-h enou<rh to 
 be so poetical nor low enough for too earthly 
 a prose, — in a little study made healthy by an 
 open window, and partly screened from over- 
 lookers by a bit of the siiutter, while our look- 
 out presents us with a world of green leaves, 
 and a red cottage top, a gothic tower of a 
 church in the distance, and a glorious apple- 
 tree close at hand, laden with its yellow 
 balls. 
 
 " Studded with apples, a beautiful show." 
 
 Some kindness of this sort Fortune has never 
 failed to preserve to us, as if in return for the 
 love we bear to her rolling globe ; and now 
 that the sincerity of our good-will has become 
 known, none seem inclined to grudge it us, 
 or to dispute the account to which we may 
 turn it, for others as well as ourselves. 
 
 We had something more to say of seats in 
 windows, and a good deal of windows at inns, 
 and of sitting and looking out of windows ; but 
 we have other articles to write this week, of 
 more length than usual, and must reserve it 
 for a future number. 
 
 VII.— A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW. 
 
 NAMES OF FLOWERS. MVSTBUV OF THEIR BEAUTY. 
 
 In the window beside which we are writing 
 this article, there is a geranium shining with 
 its scarlet tops in the sun, the red of it being 
 the more red for a back-ground of lime-trees 
 which are at the same time breathing and 
 panting like airy plenitudes of joy, and devel- 
 ojiing their slutting depths of light and shade 
 of russet brown and sunny inward gold. 
 
 It seems to say " Paint me !" So here it is. 
 
 Every now and then some anxious fly comes 
 near it : — we hear the sound of a bee, though 
 we see none ; and upon looking closer at the 
 flowers, we observe that some of the petals are 
 transparent with the light, while others are left 
 in shade ; the leaves are equally adorned after 
 their opaquer fashion, with those effects of the 
 sK'y, showing their d;irk-brown rims ; and on 
 one of them a red petal has fallen, where it 
 lies on the brighter half of the shallow green 
 cup, making its own red redder, and the green 
 greener. We perceive, in imagination, the
 
 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW. 
 
 \i 
 
 scent of those good-natured leaves, which allow 
 yon to carry oflF their perfume on your fingers : 
 for good-natured they are, in that respect, 
 ahove almost all plants, and fittest for the hos- 
 pitalities of your rooms. The very feel of the 
 leaf has a household warmth in it something 
 analogous to clothing and comfort. 
 
 Why does not everybody (who can afford it) 
 have a geranium in his window, or some other 
 flower? It is very cheap; its cheapness is next 
 to nothing if you raise it from seed, or from a 
 slip ; and it is a beauty and a companion. It 
 sweetens the air, rejoices the eye, links you 
 with nature and innocence, and is something 
 to love. And if it cannot love you in return, it 
 cannot hate you ; it cannot utter a hateful 
 thing, even for your neglecting it ; for though 
 it is all beauty, it has no vanity : and such 
 being the case, and living as it does purely to 
 do you good and afford you pleasure, how Avill 
 you be able to neglect it ? 
 
 But pray, if you choose a geranium, or pos- 
 sess but a few of them, let us persuade you to 
 choose the scarlet kind, the " old original " 
 geranium, and not a variety of it, — not one of 
 the numerous diversities of red and white, blue 
 and white, ivy-leaved, &c. Those are all beau- 
 tiful, and very fit to vary a large collection ; 
 but to prefer them to the originals of the race 
 is to run the hazard of preferring the curious 
 to the beautiful, and costliness to sound taste. 
 It may be taken as a good general rule, that 
 the most popular plants are the best ; for other- 
 wise they would not have become such. And 
 what the i)ainters call " pure colours," are pre- 
 ferable to mixed ones, for reasons which Nature 
 herself h.as given when she painted the sky of 
 one colour, and the fields of another, and divi- 
 ded the rainbow itself into a few distinct hues, 
 and made the red rose the queen of flowers. 
 Variations of flowers are like variations in 
 music, often beautiful as such, but almost 
 always inferior to the theme on which they are 
 founded,— the original air. And the rule holds 
 good in beds of flowers, if they be not very large, 
 or in any other small assemblage of them. Nay, 
 tlio largest bed will look well, if of one beautiful 
 colour ; while the most beautiful varieties may 
 be inharmoniously mixed up. Contrast is a good 
 thing, but we should first get a good sense of 
 the thing to be contrasted, and wo shall find 
 this preferable to the contrast if we are not rich 
 enough to have both in due measure. We do 
 not m general love and honour any one single 
 colour enough, and we are instinctively struck 
 with a conviction to this effect when we see it 
 abundantly set forth. The other day we saw a 
 little garden-wall completely covered with nas- 
 turtiums, and felt how much more beautiful it 
 was than if anything had been mixed with it. 
 For the leaves, and the light and shade, offer 
 variety enough. The rest is all richness and 
 simplicity united, — which is the triumph of an 
 intense perception. Embower a cottage thickly 
 
 and completely with nothing but roses, and 
 nobody would desire the interference of an- 
 other plant. 
 
 Everything is handsome about the geranimn, 
 not excepting its name ; which cannot be said 
 of all flowers, though we get to love ugly words 
 when associated with pleasing ideas. The word 
 "geranium" is soft and elegant ; the meaning is 
 poor, for it comes from a Greek word signifying 
 a crane, the fniit having a form resembling 
 that of a crane's head or bill. Crane's-bill is 
 the English name of Geranium ; though the 
 learned appellation has superseded the verna- 
 cular. But what n reason for naming the flower! 
 as if the fruit were anything in comparison, or 
 any one cared about it. Such distinctions, it is 
 true, are useful to botanists ; but as plenty of 
 learned names are sure to be reserved for the 
 free-masonry of the science, it would be better 
 for the world at large to invent joyous and 
 beautiful names for these images of joy and 
 beauty. In some instances, we have them ; 
 such as heart's-ease, honeysuckle, marigold, 
 mignonette (little darling), daisy (day's-eye), 
 &c. And many flowers are so lovely, and have 
 associated names otherwise unmeaning so plea- 
 santly with one's memory, that no new ones 
 would sound so well, or seem even to have such 
 proper significations. In pronouncing the 
 words, lilies, roses, pinks, tulips, jonquils, we see 
 the things themselves, and seem to taste all 
 their beauty and sweetness. " Pink," is a 
 harsh petty word in itself, and yet assuredly 
 it does not seem so ; for in the word we have 
 the flower. It would be difficult to persuade 
 ourselves that the word rose is not very beauti- 
 ful. "Pea" is a poor Chinese-like monosyllable; 
 and " Briar " is rough and fierce, as it ought to 
 be ; but when we think of Siceet-pea and Sweet- 
 briar, the words appear quite worthy of their 
 epithets. The poor monosyllable becomes rich 
 in sweetness and appropriation ; the rough 
 dissyllable also ; and the sweeter for its con- 
 trast. But what can be said in behalf of liver- 
 wort, blood-wort, dragon's head, devil's bit, and 
 devil in a bush ? There was a charming line 
 in some verses in last week's London Journal, 
 written by a lady. 
 
 I've marr'd your blisses. 
 
 Those sweete kisses 
 That the young breeze so loved yesterdaye ! 
 
 I've seen ye sighing, 
 Now ye're dying ;— 
 
 Uotc could I take your prettie lives away f 
 
 But you could not say this to dragon's head 
 and devil's bit — 
 
 O dragon's head, devil's bit, blood-wort, — say, 
 Uow could I take your pretty lives away ? 
 
 This would be like Drydcn's version of the 
 pig-squeaking in Chaucer — 
 
 Poor swine ! as if their pretty hearts would break. 
 The names of flowers in general among the
 
 16 
 
 A FLOWER FOR YOUR WINDOW. 
 
 polite, are neither pretty in themselves, nor 
 give us information. Tlie country people are 
 apt to do tliem more justice. (Joldy-locks, 
 liulies'-fing(n-s, l)rii,'lit-(>ye, rose-a-ruhie, shep- 
 herd's-clock, shei)lierd's -purse, sauce-alone, 
 scarlet runners, soi>s-in-wine, sweet-william, 
 &.C. pive us some ideas either useful or pleasant. 
 But from tlie peasantry also come many un- 
 congenial names, as bad as those of the bota- 
 nists. Some of the latter are handsome as 
 well as learned, have meanings easily found 
 out by a little reading or scliolarship, aiul arc 
 taking their place accordingly in popular no- 
 menclatures : as amarantli, adonis, arbutus, 
 aspliodel, <SlC., but many others arc as ugly as 
 they are far-fetched, such as colchicum, tagetes, 
 yucca, ixia, nu'sembryantiiemum ; and as to 
 the Adansonias, IJrowailias, Koempferias, .lolm 
 Tomkinsias, or whatever the personal names 
 may be tluvt are bestowed at the botanical font 
 by tlicir proud discoverers or godfathers, we 
 have a respect for botanists aiul tlieir pursuits, 
 and wish them all sorts of" little immortalities" 
 except these : unless they coidd unite tliem 
 with something illustrative of the flower as 
 well as tiicmselves. A few, certainly, we 
 slioiild not like to disjflace, Browallia for one, 
 which was given to a Peruvian flower by Lin- 
 n.iGUS, in honour of a friend of his of the name 
 of Browall ; but tlie name sliould have included 
 some idea of the thing named. The Browallia 
 is remarkable for its brilliancy. "AYe cannot," 
 says Mr. Curtis, " do it justice by any colours 
 we have*." Now why not have called it Brow- 
 all's Beauty ? or Browall's Inimitable ? The 
 other day we were admiring/ an enormously 
 beautiful apple, and were told it was called 
 " Kirk's Admlrahle" after the gardener who 
 raised it. We felt the propriety of this name 
 directly. It was altogether to the purpose. 
 There was use and beauty together — the name 
 of the raiser and the excellence of the fruit 
 raised. It is a pity that all fruits and flowers, 
 and animals too, except those Mith good 
 names, could not be jjassed in review before 
 somebody with a genius for christening, as 
 the creatures did before Adam in Paradise, 
 and so have new names given them, worthy 
 of their creation. 
 
 Suppose flowers themselves were new ! Sup- 
 pose they had just come into the world, a 
 sweet reward for some new goodness: and that 
 we had not yet seen tliem quite developed ; 
 that they were in the act of growing ; had just 
 issued with their green stalks out of the ground, 
 and engaged the attention of the curious. 
 Imagine wliat we should feel when we saw the 
 first lateral stem bearing oft" from the main 
 one, or putting forth a leaf. IIow we should 
 watch the leaf gradually unfolding its little 
 graceful hand ; then another, then another ; 
 
 * We leam tliis from the Flora Dumeslica, an elegant 
 and poetrj' loving book, specially intended for cultivators 
 of flowers at home. 
 
 then the main stalk rising and producing 
 more ; then one of them giving indications of 
 an astonisliing novelty, a bud ! then this mys- 
 terious, lovely bud gradually unfolding like tlie 
 leaf, amazing us, enchanting us, almost alarm- 
 ing us with deliglit, as if we knew not what 
 enchantment were to ensue : till at length, in 
 all its fairy beauty, and odorous voluptuous- 
 ness, and mysterious elaboration of tender and 
 living sculpture, shone forth 
 
 -" the bright consummate fiowpr!" 
 
 Yet this phenomenon, to a mind of any 
 thought and lovingness, is what may be said to 
 take place every day ; for tlie commonest ob- 
 jects are only wonders at whicii habit has made 
 us cease to wonder, and the inarvellousness of 
 which we may renew at jileasure, by tak'nij 
 thoii'jht. Last spring, walking near some culti- 
 vated grounds, and seeing a multitude of green 
 stalks peei)ing forth, we amused ourselves with 
 likening tliem to the jdumes or other head- 
 gear of fairies, and wondering what faces might 
 ensue ; and from this exercise of the fancy, 
 we fell to considering how true, and not merely 
 fanciful those speculations were ; what a per- 
 petual reproduction of the marvellous was 
 carried on by Nature ; how utterly ignorant 
 we were of the causes of the least and most 
 disesteemed of the commonest vegetables ; and 
 wliat a quantity of life, and beauty, and mys- 
 tery, and use, and enjoyment, was to be; found 
 in them, composed out of all sorts of elements, 
 and shaped as if by the hands of fairies. What 
 workmanship, with no apparent workman ! 
 What consummate elegance, though the result 
 was to be nothing (as we call it) but a radish 
 or an onion, and these were to be consumed, 
 or thrown away by millions ! A rougli tree 
 grows up, and at the ti])s of his rugged and 
 dark fingers he puts forth, — round, smooth, 
 shining, and hanging delicately,— the golden 
 a])ple, or the cheek-like beauty of the jieach. 
 The other day we were in a garden where In- 
 dian corn was growing, and some of the cobs 
 were plucked to show us. First one leaf or 
 sheath was picked off", then another, then 
 another, then a fourth, and so on, as if a fruit- 
 seller was unpacking fruit out of pajiers ; and 
 at last we came, inside, to the grains of the corn, 
 packed up into cucumber-shapes of pale gold, 
 and each of tliem pressed and flattened against 
 each other, as if some human hand had been 
 doing it in the caverns of the earth. But 
 What Hand ! 
 
 The same that made the poor yet rich hand 
 (for is it not his workmanshi]) also I) that is 
 tracing these marvelling lines, and which if it 
 does not tremble to write them, it is because 
 Love sustains, and because the heart also is a 
 flower which has a right to be tranquil in the 
 garden of the All- Wise.
 
 A WORD ON EARLY RISING. 
 
 17 
 
 VIII.— A WORD ON EARLY RISING. 
 
 As we are writing this article before break- 
 fast, at an earlier hour than usual, we are 
 inclined to become grand and intolerant on 
 the strength of our virtue, and to look around 
 us and say, " WJiy is not every body up ? How 
 can people lie in bed at an hour like this, — ' the 
 cool, the fragrant ? ' " 
 
 " Falsely luxurious, will not man awake I" 
 
 Thus exclaimed good-natured, enjoying Thom- 
 son, and lay in bed till twelve ; after which he 
 strolled into his garden at Richmond, and ate 
 peaches off a tree, with his hands in his waist- 
 coat jjockets ! Browsing ! A perfect specimen 
 of a poetical elephant or rhinoceros ! Thomson, 
 however, left an immortal book behind him, 
 which excused his trespasses. What excuse 
 shall mortality bring for hastening its end by 
 lying in bed, and anticipating the grave ? for of 
 all apparently innocent habits lying in bed is 
 perhaps the worst ; while on the other hand, 
 amidst all the different habits through which 
 people have attained to a long life, it is said 
 that in this one respect, and this only, they have 
 all agreed ! No very long-lived man has been a 
 late riser. Judge Holt is said to have been 
 curious respecting longevity, and to have 
 questioned every very old man that came be- 
 fore him, as to his modes of living ; and in the 
 matter of early rising tJiere was no variation : 
 every one of them got up betimes. One lived 
 chiefly upon meat, another upon vegetables ; 
 one drank no fermented liquors, another did 
 drink them ; a fifth took care not to expose 
 himself to the weather, another took no such 
 care ; but every one of them wns an early riser. 
 All made their appearance at Nature's earliest 
 levee, and she was pleased that they hailed her 
 as soon as she waked, and that they valued her 
 fresh air, and valued her skies, and her birds, 
 and her balmy quiet ; or if they thought little 
 of this, she was pleased that they took the first 
 step in life, every day, calculated to make them 
 happiest and most healthy ; and so she laid her 
 hands upon their heads, and pronounced them 
 good old boys, and enabled them to run about 
 at wonderful ages, while their poor senior 
 juniors were tumbling in down and gout. 
 
 A most pleasant hour it is certainly, — when 
 you are once up. The birds are singing in the 
 trees ; everything else is noiseless, except the 
 air, which comes sweeping every now and then 
 through the sunsliine, hindering the coming day 
 from being hot. We feel it on our face, as we 
 write. At a distance, far off, a dog occasionally 
 l)arks ; and some huge fly is loud upon the 
 windo\v-j)ane. It is sweet to drink in at one's 
 ears these innocent sounds, and this very sense 
 of silence, and to say to one's self, " We are uj) ; 
 — we are up, and are doing well : — the beautiful 
 creation is not unseen and unheard for want of 
 ws." Oh, it's a prodigious moment when the 
 
 vanity and the virtue can go together. We 
 shall not say how early we write this article, 
 lest we should appear immodest, and excite 
 envy and despair. Neither shall we mention 
 how often we thus get up, or the hour at which 
 we generally rise, — leaving our readers to hope 
 the best of us ; in return for which we will try 
 to be as little exalted this morning as the sense 
 of advantage over our neighbours will permit, 
 and not despise them — a great stretch for an 
 uncommon sense of merit. There for instance 
 is C. ;-^hard at it, we would swear ; as fast 
 asleep as a church : — of what value are his 
 books now, and his subtleties, and his specula- 
 tions ? as dead, poor man ! as if they never 
 existed. What proof is there of an immortal 
 soul in that face with its eyes shut, and its 
 mouth open, and not a word to say for itself, 
 any more than the dog's ? — And W. there ; — 
 what signifies his love for his children and his 
 garden, neither of Avhich he is now alive to, 
 though the child-like birds are calling him, 
 hopping amidst their songs ; and his breakfast 
 would have twice the relish ? — And the L.'s with 
 their garden and their music ?— ^the orchard has 
 all the music to itself ; they will not arise to 
 join it, though Nature manifestly intends con- 
 certs to be of a morning as well as evening, and 
 the animal Spirits are the first that ai'e up in 
 the universe. 
 
 Then the streets and squares. Very much 
 do we fear, that, for want of a proper education 
 in these thoughts, the milkman, instead of de- 
 spising all these shut-up windows, and the 
 sleeping incapables inside, envies them for the 
 riches that keep injuring their diaphragms and 
 digestions, and that will render their breakfast 
 not half so good as his. " Call you these gentle- 
 folks ?" said a new maid-servant, in a family of 
 our acquaintance, " why, they get up early in 
 the morning ! — Only make vie a lady, and see if 
 I wouldn't lie a-bed." 
 
 Sei-iously speaking, we believe that there is 
 not a wholesomer thing tiian early rising, or 
 one which, if persevered in foravery little while, 
 would make a greater difference in the sensations 
 of those who suffer from most causes of ill- 
 health, particularly the besetting disease of 
 these sedentary times, indigestion. We believe 
 it would supersede the supposed necessity of a 
 great deal of nauseous and pernicious medicine, 
 that pretended friend, and ultimately certain 
 foe, of all impatient stomachs. Its utility in 
 other respects everybody acknowledges, though 
 few profit by it as they might. Nothing renders 
 a man so completely master of the day before 
 him ; so gets rid of arrears, anticipates the ne- 
 cessity of haste, andinsures leisur(>. SirWalter 
 Scott is said to have written all his greatest 
 works before breakfast ; he thus also procured 
 time for being one of the most social of friends, 
 and k'ind and attentive of correspondents. ( )ne 
 sometiTues regrets that experience passes into 
 the shape of proverbs, since those who make
 
 18 
 
 BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 use of thoni are apt to have no other know- 
 kidgo, and thus procure for them a wurhlly 
 character of tlio lowest order. Franklin did 
 them IK) ^'ood, in this respect, by crowdinf:^ 
 them tofjetlier in "Poor Kicliard's Almanack;" 
 and Cervantes intimated tiie common-place 
 abuse into which they were tnrninfj, by putting; 
 them into tlio mouth of Sancho Panza. Swift 
 completed the ruin of some of them, in tiiis 
 country, by mingling tiiem with the slip-slop ef 
 his "Polite Conversation," — a Tory libel on the 
 talk of the upper ranks, to which nothing com- 
 parable is to be found in the Whig or Radical 
 objections of modern times. Yet, for the most 
 part, proverbs are equally true and generous; 
 and there is as much profit for others as for a 
 man's self in believing tiiat " Early to bed and 
 early to rise, will make a man healtliy, and 
 wealtliy, and wise ;" for the voluntary early 
 riser is seldom one who is insensible to the 
 beauty as well as the uses of the spring of day ; 
 and in becoming healthy and wise, as well as 
 rich, he becomes good-humoured and conside- 
 rate, and is disposed to make a handsome use 
 of the wealth he acquires. jNIere saving and 
 sparing (which is the ugliest way to wealth) 
 permits a man to lie in bed as long as most 
 other people, especially in winter, when he 
 saves fire by it ; but a gallant acquisition should 
 be as stirring in this respect, as it is in others, 
 and thus render its riches a comfort to it, in- 
 stead of a means of unhealthy care, and a pre- 
 paration for disappointment. How many rich 
 men do we not see jaundiced and worn, not with 
 necessary care but superfluous, and secretly 
 cursing their riches, as if it were the fault of 
 the money itself, and not of the bad manage- 
 ment of their health ? These poor, unhappy, 
 rich people, come at length to hug their money 
 out of a sort of spleen and envy at the luckier 
 aud less miserable poverty that wants it, and 
 thus lead the lives of dogs in the manger, and 
 are almost tempted tohang themselves: whereas, 
 if they could purify the current of their blood a 
 little, which, perhaps, they might do by early 
 rising alone, without a penny for physic, they 
 might find themselves growing more patient, 
 more clieerful, more liberal, and be astonished 
 aud delighted at receiving the praises of the 
 community for their public spirit, and their 
 patronage of noble institutions. Oh, if we 
 could but get half London up at an earlier 
 hour, how they, and our colleges and universi- 
 ties, and royal academies, &c., would all take a 
 start together ; and how the quack advertise- 
 ments in the newspapers would diminish ! 
 
 But we must not j)retend, meanwhile, to be 
 more virtuous ourselves than frail teachers are 
 apt to be. The truth is, that lying in bed is so 
 injurious to our particular state of health, that 
 we are early risers in self-defence ; and we were 
 not always such ; so that we are qualified to 
 speak to both sides of the question. And as to 
 our present article, it is owing to a relapse ! and 
 
 we fear is a very dull one in consefinence ; for 
 we are obliged to begin it earlier than usual, in 
 consequence of being late. We shall conclude 
 it with the spriglitliest testimony we can call to 
 mind in favour of early rising, which is that of 
 James the First, the royal poet of Scotland, a 
 worthy disciple of Chaucer, who, when he was 
 kept in unjust captivity during his youth by 
 Henry the Fourth, fell in love with his future 
 excellent queen, in consequence of seeing her 
 through his prison windows walking in a garden 
 at break of day, as Palamon and Arcite did 
 Emilia ; which caused him to exclaim, m words 
 that might be often quoted by others out of 
 gratitude to the same hour, though on a dif- 
 ferent occasion, 
 
 " My custom was to riso 
 
 Early as day. Oh liappy exercise. 
 
 By thee I came to joy out of torment !" 
 
 See the 'King's Quair,' the poem he wrote about 
 it. We quote from memory, but wc believe 
 with correctness. 
 
 IX.— BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 " Breakfast in Summer ! " cries a reader, in 
 some narrow street in a city : " that means, I 
 suppose, a breakfast out of doors, among trees; 
 or, at least, in some fine breakfast-room, looking 
 upon a lawn, or into a conservatory. I have 
 no such breakfast-room ; the article is not 
 written for me. However, let us see what it 
 says :— let us see whether, according to our 
 
 friend's recipe, 
 
 One can hold 
 A silver-fork, and breast of pheasant on't. 
 By thinking of sheer tea, and bread and bntter. 
 
 Nay let us do him justice too. Fancy is a good 
 thing, though pheasant may be better. Come, 
 let us see what he says ;— let us look at his 
 Barmecide breakfast ; — at all the good things 
 I am to eat and drink without tasting them." 
 
 Editor. Reader, thou art one of the right 
 sort. — Thy fancy is large, though thy street be 
 narrow. In one thing only do we find thee 
 deficient. Thy faith is not perfect. 
 
 Rea<1er. How ? Am I not prepared to enjoy 
 what I cannot have ? And do I not know the 
 Barmecide ? Am I not a reader of the Arabian 
 Nights, — a willing visitor of that facetious per- 
 sonage, who set the imaginary feast before the 
 j)Oor hungry devil bhacabac, and made him 
 drunk with invisible wine, till, in the retributive 
 intoxication of the humour, mine host got his 
 ears boxed ? 
 
 Editor. Hallo— what is that you are saying ? 
 — Oh you " intend nothing personal." W^ell, 
 it is luckily added ; for, look you— we should 
 otherwise have " heaped coals of fire on your 
 head." The want of faitli we complain of is 
 not the want of faith in books and fancies, but 
 in us and our intentions towards thyfself; for
 
 BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 19 
 
 how earnest thou to suppose that we intended 
 omitting thy breakfast, — thy unsophisticated 
 cup of bohea, and most respectable bread and 
 butter I "Why, it is of and to such breakfasts, 
 that we write most. The others, unless their 
 refinement be of the true, universal sort, might 
 fancy they could do without us ; whereas those 
 that really can do so, are not unwilling to give 
 us reception, for sympathy's sake, if for nothing 
 else. To enjoy is to reciprocate. We have 
 the honour (in this our paper person) of appear- 
 ing at some of the most refined breakfast-tables 
 in the kingdom, some of these being at the 
 same time the richest, and some the poorest, 
 that epiciire could seek or eschew ; that is to 
 say, unintellectual epicure ; and when such a 
 man is found at either, we venture to affirm 
 that he misses the best things to be found near 
 him. It does not become us to name names ; 
 but we may illustrate the matter by saying, 
 that, had it been written forty years back, we 
 have good reason to think that the intentions 
 of this our set of essays would have procured it 
 no contemptuous welcome at the breakfast- 
 table of Fox with his lords about him, or Burns 
 with his " bonnie Jeanie " at his side. Porce- 
 lain, or potter's-clay, silver or pewter, potted 
 meats, oatmeal, or bacon, are all one to us, pro- 
 vided there is a good appetitp, and a desire to 
 make the best of irJiat is before ns. Without that, 
 who would breakfast with the richest of fools ? 
 And with it, who that knows the relish of wit 
 and good-humour, would not sit down to the 
 humblest fare with inspired poveiiy ? 
 
 Now the art of making the best of what is before tts, 
 (not in forgetfulness of social advancement, but 
 in encouragement of it, and in aid of the requi- 
 site activity or patience,as thecase mayrequire,) 
 is one of the main objects of this publication ; 
 and as the commoner breakfast seems to require 
 it most, it is to such tables the present paper is 
 chiefly addressed, — always supposing that the 
 breakfaster is of an intelligent sort ; and 
 not without a hope of suggesting a pleasant 
 fancy or so to the richest tables tliat may want 
 it. And there are too many sucii ! — perhaps 
 because the table has too many "good things " 
 onitalready, — toomuchpottedgout,and twelve- 
 shilling irritability 
 
 Few people, rich or poor, make the most of 
 what they possess. In their anxiety to increase 
 the amount of the means for future enjoyment, 
 they are too apt to lose sight of the capability 
 of them for present. Above all, they overlook 
 the thousand helps to enjoyment wliich lie 
 round about them, free to everybody, and ob- 
 tainable by the very willingness to be pleased, 
 assisted by that fancy and imagination which 
 nature has bestowed, more or less, upon all 
 human beings. Some miscalled Utilitarians, 
 incapable of their own master's doctrine, may 
 affect to undervalue fancy and imagination, as 
 though they were not constituent properties of 
 the human mind, and as if they themselves, 
 
 the mistakers, did not enjoy even what they 
 do by their very assistance ! Why they have 
 fancies for this or that tea-cup, this or that coat, 
 this or that pretty face ! They get handsome 
 wives, when they can, as well as other people, 
 and when plain oneswouldbe quite as "useful !" 
 How is that ? They pretend to admire the green 
 fields, the blue sky, and would be ashamed to 
 be insensible to tlie merits of the flowers. How 
 can they take upon them to say where the pre- 
 cise line should be drawn, and at what point it 
 is we are to cease turning these perceptions of 
 pleasure and elegance to account ? 
 
 The first requisite towards enjoying a break- 
 fast, or anything else, is the willingness to be 
 pleased ; and the greatest proof and security of 
 this willingness, is the willingness to please 
 others. " Better" (says a venerable text) " is 
 a dinner of herbs, where peace is, than a stalled 
 ox with contention." Many a breakfast, that 
 has every other means of enjoyment, is turned 
 to bitterness, by unwilling discordant looks, 
 perhaps to the great misery of some persons 
 present, who would give and receive happiness, 
 if at any other table. Now breakfast is a fore- 
 taste of the whole day. Spoil that, and we 
 probably spoil all. Begin it well, and if we are 
 not very silly or ill-taught persons indeed, and 
 at the mercy of every petty impulse of anger 
 and offence, we in all probability make the rest 
 of the day worthy of it. These petty impulses 
 are apt to produce great miseries. And the 
 most provoking part of the business is, that for 
 want of better teaching, or of a little forethought, 
 or imagination, they are sometimes indulged in 
 by people of good hearts, who would be ready 
 to tear their hair for anguish, if they saw you 
 wounded or in a fit, and yet will make your 
 days a heap of wretchedness, by the eternal 
 repetition of these absurdities. 
 
 It being premised then that persons must 
 come to breakfast without faces sour enough 
 to turn the milk, (and we begin to think that 
 our cautions on this head are unnecessary to 
 such readers as are likely to patronise us) 
 we have to inform the most unpretending 
 breakfaster — themanthe least capable of potted 
 meats, partridges, or preserves, — that in the 
 commonest tea-equipage and fare which is set 
 upon his board, he possesses a treasure of plea- 
 sant thoughts ; and that if he can corauKuid 
 but the addition of a flower, or a green bougii, 
 or a book, he may add to them a visible grace 
 and luxury, such as the richest wits in the 
 nation would respect. 
 
 " True taste," says one of these very persons, 
 (Mr. Rogers, in his notes to a poem,) " is an 
 excellent economist. She delights in jiroducing 
 great effects by small means." This maxim 
 holds good, we see, even amidst the costliest 
 elegancies ; how much more is it precious to 
 those whose means are of necessity small, while 
 their hearts are large ? Suppose the reader is 
 forced to be an economist, and to have nothing 
 
 (; 2
 
 20 
 
 BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 on his breakfast table but plain tea and bread 
 and butter. \Vi'll ; lu* is not forcod also to be 
 sordid, or wretched, or witiiout funcy, love, or 
 inteliiijence. Neither are liis tea-cups forced 
 to be ill siiaped, nor his broad and butter ill 
 cut, nor his tahle-eloth dirty : and shapeliness 
 ;ind ch'anliness are in tlieinselvcs ele<jancies, 
 and of no mean order. The spirit of all other 
 elegance is in them, — that of selectn(!ss, — of 
 the superiority to what is unfit and supeifluous. 
 Besides, a breakfast of tiiis kind is the prefer- 
 once, or <j;ood old custom, of thousands who 
 could afford a richer one. It may be called 
 tlu^ stai)le breakfast of England ; and he wlio 
 cannot make an excellent meal of it, would be 
 in no very good way with the luxuries of a 
 George the Fourth, still loss witli the robust 
 meats of a huntsman. Delicate appetites may 
 reasonably be stimuhited a little, till regularity 
 and exercise put them in better order ; and 
 nothing is to be said against the innoccncies of 
 honejs and marmalades. But strong meats of 
 a mornins: arc only for those who take strong 
 exercise, or who have made up tiicir minds to 
 defy tiie chances of ffout and corpulence, or tlie 
 undermining pre-digestion of pill-taking. 
 
 If the man of taste is able to clioose his mode 
 of breakfasting in summer time, he will of 
 course invest it witli all the natural luxuries 
 within his reach. He will have it in a room, 
 looking upon grass and trees, hung with paint- 
 ings, and furnished with books. He will sit 
 with a beautiful portrait beside liim, and the 
 air shall breathe freshly into his room, the sun 
 shall colour the foliage at his window, and 
 shine betwixt their chequering shadows upon 
 the table ; and the bee shall come to partake 
 tlie honey he has made for him. 
 
 But suppose that a man capable of relishing 
 all these good things does not possess one of 
 them, — at least can command none that require 
 riches. Nay, sui)i)ose him destitute of every- 
 thing but the i)lainest fare, in the plainest 
 room, and in the least accommodating part of 
 the city. "What does he do ? Or what, upon 
 reflection, may he be led to do ? Why, his taste 
 will have recourse to its own natural and 
 acquired riches, and make the utmost it can 
 out of the materials bcdbre it. It will show 
 itself superior to that of thousands of ignorant 
 rich men, and make its good-will and its know- 
 ledge open sources of entertainment to him 
 unknown to treasures which they want the wit 
 to unlock. Be willing to be pleased, and 
 the power will come. Be a reader, getting all 
 the information you can ; and every fresh 
 infoi-mation will paint some common-place 
 article for you with brightness. Such a man 
 as we have described will soon learn not to look 
 upon the commonest table or chair without 
 deriving pleasure from its shape or shape- 
 ability ; nor on the cheapest and most ordinary 
 tea-cup, without increasing that gratification 
 with fifty amusing recollections of books and 
 
 plants and colours, and strange birds, and the 
 quaint domesticities of the Chinese. 
 
 For instance, if he breakfasts in a room of 
 the kind just mentioned, (which is putting the 
 case as strongly as we can, and imjilics all the 
 greater comforts that can be drawn from situ- 
 ations of a bettor kind,) he will select the 
 snuggest or least cheerless part of the room, to 
 set his table in. If he can catch a glimpse of a 
 tree from any ])art of a window, (and a great 
 many more such glimpses are to be had in the 
 city than people would sujjpose) he will plant 
 his chair, if jjossible, within view of it ; or if 
 no tree is to be had, perhaps the morning sun 
 comes into his room, and lie will contrive that 
 his table shall have a slice of that. He will 
 not be unamused even with the Jack-o'-lantern 
 which strikes up to the ceiling, and dances 
 with the stirring of his tea, glancing and 
 twinlcling like some chuckling elfin eye, or 
 reminding him of some wit making his bril- 
 liant reflections, and casting a light upon 
 common-places. The sun is ever beautiful and 
 noble, and brings a chi>erfulness out of heaven 
 itself into the humblest apartment, if we have 
 but the spirit to welcome it. 
 
 Btit if we have neither tree nor sun, and 
 nobody with us to make amends, suppose it 
 winter time, and that we have a fire. This is 
 sun and company too, and such an associate as 
 will either talk with us, if we choose to hear it : 
 or leave us alone, and give us comfort unheard. 
 It is now summer time, however, and we had 
 better reserve our talk of fires for cold 
 weather. Our present object is rather to point 
 out some new modes of making the best of 
 imaginary wants, than to dilate upon luxuries 
 recognised by all. 
 
 Supi)ose tlieu, that neither a fire, the great 
 friend in-doors, nor sunshine, the great friend 
 out-of-doors, be found with us in our breakfast 
 room, — that we could neither receive pleasure 
 from the one, if we had it, nor can command 
 a room into which the other makes its way, — 
 what ornament is there, — what supjdy of light 
 or beauty could we discover, at once exquisite 
 and cheap, — that should furnish our humble 
 board with a grace, precious in the eyes of the 
 most intelligent among the rich ? Flowers. — 
 Set flowers on your table, a whole nosegay if 
 you can get it, — or but two or three, — or a single 
 flower, — a rose, a pink, nay a daisy. Bring a 
 few daisies and butter-cups from your last field 
 walk, and keep them alive in a little water ; 
 ay, preserve but a bunch of clover, or a hand- 
 ful of flowering grass, one of the most elegant 
 as well as cheap of nature's productions, — and 
 you have something on your table that reminds 
 you of the beauties of God's creation, and gives 
 you a link with the poets and sages that have 
 done it most honour. Put but a rose, or a lily, 
 or a violet, on your table, and you and Lord 
 Bacon have a cu.stom in common ; for that 
 great and wise man was in the habit of having
 
 BREAKFAST IN SUMMER. 
 
 21 
 
 the flowers in season set upon his table, — 
 morning, we believe, noon, and night ; that is to 
 say, at all his meals ; for dinner, in his time, 
 was taken at noon ; and why should he not 
 have flowers at all his meals, seeing that they 
 were growing all day ? Now here is a fashion 
 k that shall last you for ever, if you please ; never 
 changing with silks, and velvets, and silver 
 forks, nor dependent upon the caprice of some 
 fine gentleman or lady, who have nothing but 
 caprice and change to give them importance 
 and a sensacion. The fasiiion of the garments 
 of heaven and earth endures for ever, and you 
 may adorn your table with specimens of their 
 drapery, — with flowers out of tlie fields, and 
 golden beams out of the blue ether. 
 
 Flowers on a morning table are specially 
 suitable to the time. They look like the happy 
 wakening of the creation ; they bring the per- 
 fumes of the breath of nature into your room ; 
 they seem the representations and embodiments 
 of the very smiles of your home, the graces of 
 its good-morrow, proofs that some intellectual 
 beauty is in ourselves, or those about us ; some 
 house Aurora (if we are so lucky as to have 
 such a companion) helping to strew our life with 
 sweets, or in ourselves some masculine mildness 
 not unworthy to possess sucli a companion, or 
 unlikely to gain her. 
 
 Even a few leaves, if we can get no flowers, 
 are far better than no such ornament, — a branch 
 from the next tree, or the next herb-market, 
 or some twigs that have been plucked from a 
 flowering liedge. They are often, nay always, 
 beautiful, particularly in spring, when their 
 green is teuderest. The first new bouglis in 
 spring, plucked and put into a water-bottle, 
 have often an eflect that may compete with 
 flowers themselves, considering their novelty ; 
 and indeed 
 
 Leaves would be counted flowers, if earth had none. 
 
 (There is a verse for the reader, and not a bad 
 one, considering its truth.) We often have 
 vines (such as they are, — better than none) 
 growing upon the Avails of our city houses,— or 
 clematis, or jessamine, — perhaps ivy on a bit of 
 an old garden-wall, or a tree in a court. We 
 sliould })Iuck a sprig of it, and plant it on our 
 breakfast table. It would show that the cheap 
 elegancies of earth, the universal gifts of the 
 beauty of nature, are not thrown away upon 
 us. They shadow prettily over the clean 
 table-clotli or the pastoral milk, like a piece of 
 nature brought in-doors. Tlie tender bodies 
 of the young vernal shoots above-mentioned, 
 put into water, might be almost fancied clus- 
 tering together with a sort of virgin delicacy, 
 like young nyinplis, mute-struck, in a fountain. 
 Nay, any leaves, not quite failed, look well, as 
 a substitute for tlie want of iiowers, — those of 
 tlie common elm, or tiie i)lauo, oi- the rougli oak, 
 especially when it has becoiiK* gentle with its 
 acorn tassels, or the lime, which is tasseled in a 
 
 more flowery manner, and has a breath as 
 beautiful. Ivy, which is seldom or never 
 brought in-doors, gi-eatly deserves to be better 
 treated, especially the young shoots of it, which 
 point in a most elegant manner over the margin 
 of a glass or decanter, seeming to have been 
 newly scissared forth by some fairy hand, or 
 by its own invisible quaint spirit, as if conscious 
 of the tendency within it. Even the green tips 
 of the fii-- trees, which seem to have been bi'ushed 
 by the golden pencil of the sun, when he re- 
 sumes his painting, bring a sort of light and 
 vernal joy into a room, in default of brighter 
 visitors. But it is not necessary to a loving 
 and reflecting spirit to have anything so good 
 as those. A bit of elm-tree or poplar would do, 
 in the absence of anything rarer. For our 
 parts, as far as ourself alone is concerned, it 
 seeTus to us that we could not be mastered bv 
 the blackest storm of existence, in the worst 
 pass that our pilgrimage could bring us to, as 
 long as we had shelter over our heads, a table 
 with bread and a cup of tea upon it, and a 
 single one of tlu?se green smiles upon the 
 board, to show us that good-natui-ed Nature 
 was alive. 
 
 Does any reader misgive himself, and fancy 
 that to help himself to such comforts as these 
 would be " trifling ?" Oh, let him not so con- 
 descend to the ignorance of the proud or 
 envious. If this were trifling, then was Bacon 
 a trifler, then was the great Conde a trifler, and 
 the old Republican Ludlow, and all the great 
 and good spirits that have loved flowers, and 
 Milton's Adam himself, nay, heaven itself; for 
 heaven made these harmless elegancies, and 
 blessed them with the universal good-will of 
 the wise and innocent. To trifle is not to 
 make use of small pleasures for the help and 
 refreshment of our duties, but to be incapable 
 of that real estimation of either, which enables 
 us the better to appreciate and assist both. 
 The same mighty energy which whirls the 
 earth round the sun, and ci'ashes the heavens 
 with thunderbolts, })roduces the lilies of the 
 valley, and the gentle dew-drops that keep 
 them fair. 
 
 To return then to our flowers and our break- 
 fast-table, — were time and place so cruel as not 
 to grant us even a twig, still there is a last 
 resource, and a rich one too, — not quite so 
 cheap as the other, but obtainable now-a-days 
 by a few ])ence, and which may be said to 
 grow also on the jiublie Malls, — a book. We 
 read, in old stories, of eiwhanters who drew 
 gardens out of snow, and of tents no bigger 
 than a nut-shell, which opened out over a whole 
 army. Of a like nature is tlie magic of a book, — 
 a casket, from which you may draw out, at will, 
 bowers to sit under, and afi'ectionate beauties 
 to sit by, and have trees, flowers, and an exqui- 
 site friend, all at one spell. We see it now 
 before us, standing among the cups, edgeways, 
 plain-looking, perliaps poor and iiattered, per-
 
 22 
 
 BREAKFAST CONTINUED.— TEA-BHINKING. 
 
 haps boufjht of some dull huckster in a lane 
 for a few ponce. On its back we read, in old 
 woin-out letters of enchantment, tlie word 
 " Milton ;" and ui)on opening it, lo ! we are 
 breakfasting fortliwith 
 
 netwixt two aged oaks 
 
 On herbs and otlu>r country mosses 
 Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses, 
 
 in a place which they call " Allegro." Or the 
 word on the back of the casket is " Pope," and 
 instantly a beauty in a " neglige" makes break- 
 fast for us, and we have twenty sylphs instead 
 of butterflies, tickling tlio air round about us, 
 and comparing colours with the ilowers, or 
 pouncing upon the crumbs that threaten to fall 
 upon her stomacher. Or "Thomson" is the 
 magic name ; and a friend still sweeter sits 
 beside us, with her eyes on ours, and tells us 
 with a pressure on the hand and soft low words, 
 that our cup awaits us. Or we cry aloud 
 "•Theocritus!" plunging into the sweetest 
 depths of tlie country, and lo ! we breakfast 
 down in a thick valley of leaves and brooks 
 and the brown summer-time, upon creams and 
 lioney-combs, the guest of bearded Pan and the 
 Nymj)hs ; wlule at a distance on his mountain- 
 top, poor overgrown Polyphemus, tamed and 
 made mild with the terrible sweet face of love, 
 whicli lias frightened him with a sense of new 
 thoughts, and of dianges which cannot be, sits 
 overshadowing lialf of the vineyards below 
 him ; and with his brow in tears, blows his 
 harsh reeds over the sea. 
 
 Such has been many a breakfast of our own, 
 dear readers, with poverty on one side of us, 
 and these riches on the other. Such must be 
 many of yours ; and as far as the riches are 
 concerned, such may be all.— But how is this 1 
 AVe liave left out the milk, and the bread, 
 and the tea itself ! We must have another 
 bieakfast with the reader, in order to do them 
 justice. 
 
 X.-BREAKFAST CONTINUED.— 
 
 TEA-DRINKING. 
 
 A BRF.AKFAST-TABI.E in the momiug, clcau 
 and wiiite with its table-cloth, coloured with 
 the cups and saucers, and glittering with tiie 
 tea-pot, — is it not a cheerful object, reader ? 
 And are you not always glad to see it ? 
 
 We know not any inanimate sight more 
 plea.sant, unless it be a very fine painting, or a 
 whole abode snugly jiitched ; and even then, 
 one of the best things to fancy in it, is the 
 morning meal. 
 
 Tho yellow or mellow-coloured butter, 
 (wliicli softens tlie effect of the otlier liues,) 
 the milk, the bread, tJie sugar,— all liavc a 
 simple, temperate look, very relishing Iiowever 
 to a hungry man. Perhaps the morning is 
 sunny ; at any rate the day is a new one, and 
 
 the honr its freshest ; we have been invigo- 
 rated by sleep ; the sound of the shaken 
 canister prepares us for the fragrant beverage 
 that is coining ; in a few minutes it is poured 
 out ; we quaff tiie odorous refreshment, per- 
 haps chatting with dear kindred, or loving 
 and laughing with the " morning faces" of 
 cliildren, — or, if alone, reading one of the 
 volumes mentioned in our last, and taking tea, 
 book, and bread-and-butter all at once, — no 
 " inelegant" pleasure, as Sir Walter Scott 
 saith of the eating of tarts*. 
 
 Dear reader, male or female (very dear, if 
 the latter), do you know how to make good 
 tea ? Because if you do not (and we have 
 known many otherwise accomplisiied jiersons 
 fail in that desideratum) here is a recipe for 
 you, furnished by a mistress of the art : — 
 
 In the first place, the tea-pot is found by 
 experience to be best, when it is made of 
 metal. But whether metal or ware, take care 
 that it be thoroughly clean, and the water 
 thoroughly boiling. There siiould not be a 
 leaf of the stale tea left from the last meal. 
 The tests of boiling are various with different 
 people ; but there can be no uncertainty, if 
 the steam come out of tiie lid of the kettle ; 
 and it is best therefore to be sure of that 
 evidence. No good tea can be depended upon 
 from an urn, because an urn cannot be kej)t 
 boiling ; and water should never be put u]ion 
 the tea but in a thorouglily and immediately 
 boiling state. If it has done boiling, it should 
 be made to boil again. Boiling, proportion, and 
 attention, are tiie three magic words of tea- 
 making. Tlie water should also be soft, hard 
 water being sure to spoil the best tea ; and it 
 is advisable to prepare the tea-pot against a 
 chill, by letting a small quantity of hot water 
 stand in it before you begin ; emptying it out 
 of course, when you do so. These premises 
 being taken care of, excellent tea may be 
 made for one person bv putting into the pot 
 three teaspoonfuls, and as much water as 
 will cover the quantity. Let this stand five 
 minutes, and then add as xnuch more as will 
 twice fill the cup you are go'ng to use. Leave 
 this additional water another five minutes, and 
 then, fist putting the sugar and milk into the 
 cup, pour out the tea ; making sure to put in 
 another cup of boiling water directly. 
 
 Of tea made for a party, a sijoonful for each 
 and one over must be used, taking care never 
 to drain the tea-pot, and always to add the 
 
 * In liis r.fff of Dri/den. Original edition, p. 86. " Even 
 for some time after Iiiw connexion with the theatre, we 
 learn, from a contemporary, tliat his dress was plain at 
 least, if not mean, and his pleasures moderate, though not 
 inelcRant. ' I remember," says a correspondent of tht 
 (ieiUIenian's BIaKa;!ine for 174;'), ' phiin John Dryden, 
 before lie paid his court with success to the great, in one 
 uniform clotliiuR of NorwichdrupKct. I liavc cat tarts 
 with him and Aladam Jteeve at the Mulberry -gardens, 
 when our author advanced to a sword and a Chadreus. 
 wig.'"
 
 BREAKFAST CONTIN UED.— TEA-DRINKING. 
 
 23 
 
 requisite quantity of boiling water as just 
 mentioned. 
 
 The most exquisite tea is not perhaps the 
 wholesomest. The more green there is in it, 
 certainly the less wholesome it is ; though 
 green adds to the palatableness. And drink- 
 ing tea very hot is a pernicious custom. Green 
 tea and hot tea make up the two causes which 
 produce perhaps all the injurious results attri- 
 buted to tea-drinking. Their united effects, 
 in particular, are sometimes formidable to the 
 "nerves," and to persons liable to be kept 
 awake at night. Excellent tea may be made, 
 by judicious management, of black tea alone ; 
 and this is unquestionably the most wholesome. 
 Yet a little green is hardly to be omitted. 
 
 Now have a cup of tea thus well made, and 
 you will find it a very different thing from the 
 insipid dilution which some call tea, watery at 
 the edges, and transparent lialf way down ; or 
 the syrup into which some convert their tea, 
 who are no tea-drinkers, but should take 
 treacle for their breakfast ; or the mere 
 strength of tea, without any due qualification 
 from other materials, — a thing no better than 
 melted tea-leaves, or than those wliicli it is 
 said were actually served up at dinner, like 
 greens, when tea was first got hold of by 
 people in remote coimtry parts, who had not 
 heard of the way of using it,— a dish of acrid 
 bitterness. In tea, properly so called, you 
 should sliglitly taste the sugar, be sensible of 
 a balmy softness in the milk, and enjoy at once 
 a solidity, a delicacy, a relish, and a fragrance 
 in the tea. Thus compounded, it is at once a 
 refreshment and an elegance, and, we believe, 
 the most innocent of cordials ; for we think 
 we can say from experience, tliat when tea 
 does liarm, it is either from the unmitigated 
 strength just mentioned, or from its being 
 taken too liot, — a common and most pernicious 
 custom. The inside of a man, dear people, is 
 not a kitchen copper. 
 
 But good tea, many of you may say, is dear. 
 Tea of all sorts is a great deal too dear ; but 
 we have known very costly tea turn out poor 
 in the drinking, and comparatively jjoor tea 
 become precious. Out of very bad tea it is per- 
 haps impossible to make a good cup ; but skill 
 and patience are famous for converting ordi- 
 nary nuiterials into something valuable. And 
 it should be added, that it is better to liave 
 one cup of good tea, than half-a-dozen of bad. 
 Nevertheless we are not for despising tiie 
 worst of all, if the drinker finds any kind of 
 refreshment in it, and can procure no better. 
 The very names of tea and tea-time are worth 
 something. 
 
 And this brings us to an association of ideas, 
 whicli, however common witli us at the break- 
 fast-table, and doubtless witii hundreds of 
 other people, we never experience without 
 finilinsf tliem amusinef. We allude to China 
 and the Chinese. The very word tea, so petty, 
 
 so infantine, so winking-eyed, so expressive 
 somehow or other of something inexpressibly 
 minute and satisfied with a little (tee'), resera 
 bles the idea one has ()>erhaps a very mistaken 
 one) of that extraordinary people, of whom 
 Europeans know little or nothing, except that 
 they sell us this preparation, bow back again 
 our ambassadors, have a language consisting 
 only of a few hundred words, gave us China- 
 ware and the strange pictures on our tea-cups, 
 made a certain progress in civilisation long 
 before we did, mysteriously stopped at it and 
 would go no further, and, if numbers, and the 
 customs of " venerable ancestors," are to can-y 
 the day, are at once the most populous and the 
 most respectable nation on the face of the 
 earth. As a pojjulation, they certainly are a 
 most enormous and wonderful body ; but, as 
 individuals, their ceremonies, their trifling 
 edicts, tlieir jealousy of foreigners, and their 
 tea-cup representations of themselves (which 
 are the only ones pojjularly known) impress 
 us irresistibly with a fancy, that they are a 
 people all toddling, little-eyed, little-footed, 
 little-bearded, little-minded, quaint, overween- 
 ing, pig-tailed, bald-headed, cone-capped or 
 pagoda-hatted, having childish houses and 
 temples with bells at every corner and story, 
 and shuffling about in blue landscapes, over 
 " nine-inch bridges," with little mysteries of 
 bell-hung whips in their hands, — a boat, or a 
 house, or a tree made of a pattern, being over 
 their heads or underneath them (as the case 
 may happen), and a bird as largo as the boat, 
 always having a circular white space to fly 
 in. Such are the Chinese of the tea-cups 
 and the grocers' windows, and partly of their 
 own novels too, in which everything seems as 
 littleas their eyes, little odes, little wine-parties, 
 and a series of little satisfactions. However, 
 it must be owned, that from these novels one 
 gradually acquires a notion that there is a 
 great deal more good sense and even good 
 poetry among them, than one had fancied from 
 the accounts of embassies and the autobio- 
 graphical paintings on the China-ware ; and 
 this is the most probable supposition. An 
 ancient and great nation, as civilised as they, 
 is not likely to be so much behind-hand with 
 us in the art of living, as our self-complacency 
 leads us to imagine. If their contempt of us 
 amounts to the barbarous, jicrhaps there is a 
 greater share of barbarism than we suspect in 
 our scorn of them. 
 
 At all events, it becomes us to be grateful 
 for their tea. What a curious thing it was, 
 that all of a sudden the remotest nation of 
 the East, otherwise unknown, and foreign to 
 all our habits, should convey to us a domestic 
 custom, wliicli changed the face of our morn- 
 ing refiesliment^ ; and that, instead of ale and 
 meat, or wine, all the polite part of England 
 should be dririking a Chinese infusion, and 
 setting up earthen-ware in their houses, painted
 
 24 
 
 BREAKFAST CONTINUED.— TEA-DRINKING. 
 
 with preposterous scenery ! We shall not speak 
 cunteniptuously, fur our parts, of any such 
 changes in tlie history of a nation's hahits, any 
 more tlian of tiie changes of tlie wind, which 
 now comes from the west, and now from the 
 east, doubtless for some good jun-pose. It 
 may be noted, that the introduction of tea- 
 drinking followed the diffusion of books among 
 us, and the growth of more sedentary modes 
 of life. Tile breakfiisters upon cold beef and 
 " cool tankards," Avere an active, horse-riding 
 generation. Tea-drinking times arc more 
 in-door, given to reading, and are riders in 
 carriages, or manufacturers at the loom or the 
 steam-engine, it may be taken as an axiom, 
 — th(> more sedentary, the more tea-drinking. 
 Tlie conjunction is not the best in tiie world ; 
 but it is natural, till something better be found. 
 Tea-drinking is better than dram-drinking : a 
 ])i-actice wiiich,if our memory does not deceive 
 us, was creei)ing in among the politest and 
 even the fairest circles, during the transition 
 from ales to teas. When the late Mr. Ilazlitt, 
 by an effort worthy of him, suddenly loft oft' 
 tlie stiff glasses of brandy-and-water, by which 
 he had been tempted to prop up his disappoint- 
 ments, or rather to loosen his tongue at the 
 pleasant hour of sujjper, he took to tea-drink- 
 ing ; and it must be owned, was latterly tempted 
 to make himself as much amends as he could 
 for his loss of excitement, in the quantity he 
 allowed himself ; but it left his mind free to 
 exercise its jiowers ;— it " kept," as Waller 
 beautifully says of it, 
 
 " The palace of the soul serene ; " 
 
 not, to be sure, the quantity, but the tea itself, 
 compared with the other drink. The prince 
 of tea-drinkers was Dr. Johnson, one of the 
 most sedentary of men, and the most unhealthy. 
 It is to be feared his ijuantity suited him still 
 worse ; thougii tlie cups, of wiiich wehearsuch 
 multitudinous stories about him, Avere very 
 small in liis time. It was he that Avrote, or 
 rather effused, the humorous request for tea, 
 in ridicule of the style of the old ballads 
 (things, be it said without irreverence, which 
 he did not understand so well as " his cups"). 
 The verses were extempore, and addressed to 
 Mrs-. 'J'hrale : — 
 
 And now, I pray tliec, Hetty dear, 
 
 That tliou wilt give to me, 
 With cream and sugar softcn'd well, 
 
 Another dish of tea. 
 
 But hear, alas ! this mournful truth. 
 
 Nor hear it with a Irown, — 
 Thou eanst not make the tea so fast. 
 
 As 1 can gulp it down. 
 
 Now this is among the [ileasures of reading 
 and reilectiiig men over their breakfast, or on 
 any otiier occasion. The sight of what is a 
 tiresome nothing to others, shall suggest to 
 them a hundred agreeable recollections and 
 speculations. Tliere is a tea-cup, for example. 
 
 " Well, what is a tea-cup !" a simpleton might 
 cry; — "it holds my tea — that's all." Yes, 
 that's all to you and your poverty-stricken 
 brain ; Ave hope you are rich and pros])erou8, 
 to make up for it as Avell as you can. IJut to 
 tlie right tea-drinker, the cup, Ave see, contains 
 not only recollections of eminent brethren of 
 tlie bohea, but the Avhole ('hinese nation, Avith 
 all its history, Lord Macartney included ; nay, 
 for that matter, Ariosto and his beautiful 
 story of Angelica and Medoro ; for Angelica 
 Avas a (Chinese ; and then collaterally come in, 
 tlie Chinese neighbours and conquerors from 
 Tartary, Avith Chaucer's 
 
 — Story of Cambuscan bold, 
 
 and the travels of Marco Polo and others, and 
 the Jesuit missionaries, and the Japanese Avith 
 our friend Golownin, and the Loo Choo people, 
 and Confucius, Avhom Voltaire (to shoAv his 
 learning) delights to call by his proper native 
 appellation of Kong-foo-tsee (reminding us of 
 Congo tea) ; and then Ave have the Chinese 
 Tales, and (Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, 
 and Goldsmith brings you back to Johnson 
 again and the tea-drinkings of old times ; and 
 then we have the Rape of the Lock before us , 
 Avith Belinda at breakfast, and Lady Wortley 
 Montague's tea-table eclogue, and tlie domestic 
 pictures in the Tatler and Spectator, with the 
 passions existing in those times for china-Avare, 
 and Horace Walpole, Avho Avas an old woman 
 in that respect ; and, in short, a thousand other 
 memories, graA'e and gay,poetical and prosaical, 
 all ready to wait upon anybody Avho chooses to 
 read books, like spirits at the command of the 
 book-readers of old, Avho, for the advantagf.'S 
 they had over the rest of the Avorld, got the 
 title of Magicians. 
 
 Yea, pleasant and rich is thy sight, little tea- 
 cup (large though, at breakfast) round, smooth, 
 and coloured ; — composed of delicate earth, — 
 like the earth, producing ilowers, and birds, 
 and men ; and containing Avithin thee thy 
 liilliputian ocean, Avhich Ave, after sending our 
 fancy sailing over it, past islands of foam called 
 " sixjiences," and mysterious bubbles from 
 beloAv, Avill, giant-like, engulf; — 
 But hold— there's a fly in. 
 Now Avliy could not this inconsiderate 
 monster of the air be content Avith the Avhole 
 space of the lieavens round about him, but he 
 must needs plunge into this scalding pool? 
 Did he scent the sugar? or Avas it a fascination 
 of ti-rror from the heat? "Uadst thou my 
 tliree kingdoms to range in," said James the 
 First to a fly, " and yet must needs get into 
 my eye ?'' It Avas a good-natured speech, and a 
 natural. It sliows that the monarch did his 
 best to get the fly out again ; at least we hojje 
 so ; and therefore Ave folloAv tlie royal example 
 in extricating flie little Avinged wretch, avIio 
 has struggled hard Avith his unavailing pinions, 
 in J become drenched and lax Avith the soaking.
 
 BREAKFAST CONCLUDED.— TEA, COFFEE, &c. 
 
 25 
 
 He is on the dry clean cloth. Is he dead ? 
 No : — the tea was not so hot as we supposed 
 it : — see, he gives a heave of himself forward ; 
 then endeavours to drag a leg up, then an- 
 other, then stops, and sinks down, saturated 
 and overborne with wateriness ; and assuredly, 
 from the inmost soul of him, he sighs (if flies 
 sigh, — which we think they must do sometimes, 
 after attempting in vain, for half-an-hour, to 
 get through a pane of glass). However, his 
 sigh is as much mixed with joy, as fright and 
 astonishment and a horrible hot bath can let 
 it be ; and the heat has not been too much for 
 him ; a similar case would have been worse 
 for one of us with our fleshy bodies ; — for see ! 
 after dragging himself along the dry cloth, he 
 is fairly on his legs ; he smoothes himself, like 
 a cat, first one side, then the other, only with 
 his legs instead of his tongue ; then rubs the 
 legs together, jiartly to disengage them of their 
 burthen, and partly as if he congratulated 
 himself on his escape ; and now, finally, open- 
 ing his wings (beautiful privilege ! for all 
 wings, except the bat's, seem beautiful, and a 
 privilege, and fit for envy) he is off again into 
 the air, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 He may forget it, being an inconsiderate 
 and giddy fly ; but it is to us, be it remembered 
 by our conscience, that he owes all which he 
 is hereafter to enjoy. His suctions of sugar, 
 his flights, his dances on the window, his 
 children, yea, the whole House of Fly, as far 
 as it depends on him their ancestor, will be 
 owing to us. We have been his providence, 
 his guardian angel, the invisible being that 
 rescued him without his knowing it. What 
 shall Ave add, reader ? Wilt thou laugh, or 
 look placid and content, — humble, and yet in 
 some sort proud withal, and not consider it as 
 an unbecoming meeting of ideas in these our 
 most mixed and reflective papers, — if we argue 
 from rescued flies to rescued human beings, 
 and take occassion to hope, that in the midst 
 of tlie struggling endeavours of such of us as 
 have to wrestle with fault or misfortune, 
 invisible pity may look down with a helping 
 eye upon ourselves, and that what it is humane 
 to do in tlie man, it is divine to do in that 
 which made humanity. 
 
 XI.— BREAKFAST CONCLUDED. 
 
 TEA, AND COFFEE, MILK, BREAD, &C. 
 
 We liave said nothing of coffee and dioco- 
 late at breakfast, tliough a good example has 
 been set us in tliat respect in tlie pleasant 
 ])agesof Mr. DTsraeli. We confined ourselves 
 to tea, because it is the staple drink. A 
 clieap coflec, however, or imitation of it, has 
 taken place of tea with many ; and the poor 
 luxve now their " cottee houses," as tlie licli 
 used to liave. We say " used," because cofTee- 
 drinkiiig in such places among the rich is fast 
 
 going out, in consequence of the later hours of 
 dinner and the attractions of the club-houses. 
 Coffee, like tea, used to form a refreshment by 
 itself, some hours after dinner. It is now taken 
 as a digester, right upon that meal or the wine ; 
 and sometimes does not even close it ; for the 
 digester itself is digested by a liqueur of some 
 sort, called a chasse-cafe (coffee-chaser.) We 
 do not, however, pretend to be learned in these 
 matters. If we find ourselves at a rich table, 
 it is but as a stranger in the land, to all but its 
 humanities. A custom may change next year, 
 and find us as ignorant of it, as the footman is 
 otherwise*. 
 
 As we claim the familiar intimacy of the 
 reader in this our most private-public miscellany, 
 and have had it cordially responded to by fair 
 and brown (who will not cry out as a critic did 
 against Montaigne, for saying he liked sheriy, 
 " Who the devil cares whether he liked sherry 
 or not V), we shall venture to observe in com- 
 ment upon the thousand inaudible remarks on 
 this question which we hear on all sides of us, 
 that for our parts we like coffee better than 
 tea, for the taste, but tea " for a constancy." 
 And one after the other makes a "pretty" 
 variety (as Dr. Johnson, or Mr. Pepys, would 
 phrase it). To be perfect in point of relish (we 
 do not say of wholesomeness) coffee should be 
 strong, and hot, with little sugar and milk. In 
 the East they drink it without either ; which, 
 we should think, must be intolerable to any 
 palates that do not begin with it in childhood, 
 or are not in want of as severe stimulants as 
 those of sailors (though by the way, we under- 
 stand that tobacco-chewing is coming into 
 fashion !) It has been drunk after this mode in 
 some parts of Europe ; but the public have 
 nowhere (we believe) adopted it. The favourite 
 way of taking it as a meal, abroad, is with a 
 great superfluity of milk, — very properly called 
 in France, Cafe-au-lait, Coffee to the milk. One 
 of the pleasures we receive in drinking coffee is, 
 that, being the universal drink in the East, 
 it reminds of that region of the Arabian 
 Nights ; as smoking does, for the same reason : 
 though neither of these refreshments, which 
 are now identified with Oriental manners, is to 
 be found in that enchanting work. They had 
 not been discovered when it was written. The 
 drink was sherbet, and its accompaniments 
 cakes and fruit. One can hardly fancy, what 
 a Turk or a Persian could have done without 
 coffee and a pipe, any more than the ICnglish 
 ladies and gentlemen before the civil wars, 
 
 * Wc advert to the knowledge of this personage, out of 
 no undue feeling either towards Iiiniself, or those whom 
 he serves. Uoth chisses eimipiise natures of all sorts like 
 others. But fashion, in itself, is a poor business, everlast- 
 ingly shifting its eustonis bceause it has notliing but 
 change to go upon ; and with all our respect for good 
 peojile who wear its liveries, whether niiistcr or footman, 
 we own we have no sort of veneration for the phases of 
 neckcloths and coats, aud the vieissitudci> of the modes of 
 dining.
 
 2(> 
 
 BREAKFAST CONCLUDED.— TEA, COFFEE, &c. 
 
 without tea for broakfast. As for chocolate, 
 its riflincss, if made pood, renders it rather a 
 food than a drink. Linnieus seems to liave 
 been fond of it ; for it was he, we believe, wIkj 
 j^^ave it its {generic name of Theobroraa, or food 
 of the gods. It is said to be extremely nonrish- 
 intj*, but heavy for weak stomachs. Cocoa 
 (cacao) is a lifi;htcr kind of it, made of the shell 
 instead of the nut. They make German tiutes of 
 tlie wood of the choi;olate-tree. An Italian wit 
 who flourished when tea, coffee, and chocolate 
 had not long been introduced into his country, 
 treats them all three with great contempt, and 
 no less humour ; — 
 
 Non fia gia, clic il Cioccolatte 
 
 V'adoprassi, ovvero il T6 : 
 
 Medicine cosi fatte 
 
 Non saran giammai per me. 
 
 Uevcrei prima il veleno, 
 
 Che un bicchier clie fosse picre 
 
 Del amaro c reo Caffc. 
 
 Cola tra pli Arabi 
 
 E tra i Giannizzeri 
 
 Liquor si ostico, 
 
 Si nero e torbiilo, 
 
 Gli schiavi iugoUino. 
 
 Gill nel Tartaro, 
 
 Giu neir Evebo, 
 
 L'enipie IJelidi I'inventarono. 
 
 E Tesifonc, e I'altre Furie, 
 
 A Proserpina il ministrarouo. 
 
 E se in Asia il Jlusulmanno 
 
 Se lo cionca a precipizio, 
 
 Mostra aver poco giudizio. 
 
 REDi. Bacco in Toscana. 
 
 Talk of Chocolate .' Talk of Tea ! 
 
 Medicines made, ye Gods, iis they are, 
 
 Are no medicines made for me ! 
 
 I would sooner take to poison 
 
 Than a single cup set eyes on 
 
 Of tliat bitter and guilty stuff yo 
 
 Talk of by the name of Cofi'ee. 
 
 Let the Arabs and the Turks 
 
 Count it 'mongst their cruel works. 
 
 Foe of mankind, black and turbid, 
 
 Let the throats of slaves absorb it. 
 
 Down in Tartarus, 
 
 Do^vn in Erebus, 
 
 'T«'as tlie detestable Fiftyf invented it ; 
 
 The Furies then took it. 
 
 To grind and to cook it. 
 
 And tn Proserpina all three presented ic. 
 
 If the Mussulman in Asia 
 
 Doats on a beverage so unseemly, 
 
 I differ with the man extremely. 
 
 These vituperations, however, are put into the 
 mouth of the god of wine ; who may justly 
 have resented the introduction of 
 
 " the cups 
 Which cheer but not inebriate. ' 
 
 * " An acquaintance, on whose veracity V7e can rely," 
 says Mr. Phillips, in his History of Fruits, " informed us, 
 that during the retreat of Napoleon's army from the North 
 he fortunately had a small quantity of little chocolate 
 cakes in his pocket, which preservefl the lifeof himself and 
 a friend for several days, when they could procure no 
 other food whatever, and many of their brother officers 
 perished for want." — Pomarinm HrHnnnicum, or His- 
 torical and Botanical Account iif Fruits known in Great 
 Britain. Third Edition, p. 67. Colburn. 
 
 t The daughters of Danaus, who killed their husbands. 
 
 Chocolate is a common refreshment in Italy, in 
 a solid shape. Tiie pastry-cooks sell sweet- 
 meats of it, wrap])ed ujt in little papers with 
 printed mottos, containing some couplet of 
 humour or giJlantry. They have made their 
 appearance of late years in England, owing, we 
 believe, to the patronage of George the Fourth, 
 who is said to have given an 'order to a Paris 
 manufacturer, to the value of £500. 
 
 Off, ye inferior goods, ye comparative sophis- 
 tications, perhaps fleeting fashions, and let us 
 bethink ourselves of the everlasting virtues of 
 beautiful milk and bread ! 
 
 "Milk," says a venerable text, "is fit for 
 children." It is too often unfit for men, not 
 because their stomachs are stronger than those 
 of children, but because the) are weaker. 
 Causes of various sorts, sorrow, too much think- 
 ing, dissipation, shall render a man unable to 
 digest the good wholesome milk-bowl, that de- 
 liglited him when a child, lie must content 
 himself witii his exiierience, and with turning 
 it to the best account, especially for others. A 
 child over a milk-bowl is a pleasant object, 
 lie seems to belong to everything that is young; 
 and innocent, — the morning, the fields, the' 
 dairies. And no fear of indigestion has he, nor 
 of a spoiled complexion. He does not sit up 
 till twelve at night ; nor is a beauty tight-lacing 
 herself ; nor does he suspend his stomach in 
 breathlessness, with writing " articles," and 
 thinking of good and evil. 
 
 Pleasant object also, nevertheles.s, is the 
 milk-jug to the grown man, whether sick or 
 well, provided he have " an eye." White milk 
 in a white jug, or cream in a cream-coloured, 
 presents one of these sympathies of colour, 
 which are sometimes of higher taste than an) 
 contrast, however delicate. Drummond of 
 Hawthornden has hit it, with a relishing 
 pencil : — 
 
 In petticoat of green 
 
 With hair about her eine*, 
 
 Phillis, beneath an oak. 
 
 Sat milking her fair ilock : 
 
 'Alongst that sweet-strained moisture (rare delight) 
 
 Her hand scem'd nulk, in milk it was so whitcj, 
 
 Anacreon beautifully compares a finely tinted 
 check, to milk witii roses in it. There is a 
 richness of colouring, as well as of substance, 
 in the happy scriptural designation of an abun- 
 dant country, — " A land overflowing with milk 
 and honey." IMilk and honey suit admirably 
 on tiie breakfast table. Their colours, their 
 simplicity, their country associations, all har- 
 monise. We have a dairy and a bee-hive 
 before us,— the breath of cows, and the buzzing 
 over the garden. By the way there is a very 
 pretty design in Cooke's edition of Parnell's 
 Poems, of a girl milking a cow, by Kirk, a 
 young Scotch artist of great promise, who died 
 
 * Kine—ccn— Scotch and old English for c»/f*. 
 t See Cunningham's edition of Drummond, lately pub- 
 lished, p. 24y.
 
 BREAKFAST CONCLUDED.— TEA, COFFEE, &c. 
 
 27 
 
 prematurely, which has wandered to the tea- 
 cups, and is to be found on some of the cheapest 
 of them. We happened to meet with it in 
 Italy, and felt all our old landscapes before us, 
 — the meadows, the trees, and the village 
 church ; all which the artist has put into the 
 back-ground. The face is not quite so good on 
 the tea-cup as in the engraving. In that, it is 
 eminently beautiful, — at least in the work now 
 before us. We cannot answer for re-prints. 
 It is one of those faces of sweetness and natural 
 refinement, which are to be met with in the 
 humblest as well as highest classes, where the 
 parentage has been genial, and the bringing up 
 not discordant. The passage illustrated is the 
 pretty exordium of the poet's Eclogue entitled 
 Health :— 
 
 Now early shepherds o'er the meadow pass. 
 And print long footsteps in the glittering grass: 
 The cows neglectful of their pasture stand, 
 By turns obsequious to the milker's hand. 
 
 Is it not better to occupy the fancy with 
 such recollections as these over a common 
 breakfast, than to be lamenting that we have 
 not an uncommon one ? which perhaps also 
 would do us a mischief, and for the gain of a 
 little tickling of the palate take health and 
 good temper out of us for the rest of the day. 
 13esides, a palate unspoilt has a relish of milks 
 and teas, and other simple foods, which a 
 Nabob, hot from his mulligatawny and his 
 megrims, would envy. 
 
 We look upon it as a blessing, for our parts, 
 that we retain a liking for a very crust. We 
 were educated at a school, where the food was 
 poorer than the learning ; but the monks had 
 lived in its cloisters, and left us a spring of de- 
 licious water. Hence we have the pleasure of 
 enjoying a crust of bread and a draught of 
 water to this day. Oftentimes have we " spoilt 
 our dinner," wlien it has not come up in time, 
 with a "hunk" of bread, choosing rather to 
 spoil our dinner than our spirits : and sweet 
 have been those mouthfuls of the pure staflf of 
 life, and relishing of the corn. To our appre- 
 hensions there is a sort of white taste in bread, 
 analogous to tlie colour, and reminding us of 
 the white milkincss of the wheat. We have a 
 respect, both of self-love and sympathy, with 
 the poor light-hearted player in Gil Bias, who 
 went singing along the country road, dipping 
 his crust in the stream. Sorrow had no iiold 
 on him, with ninety-nino out of her hundred 
 anns. Carelessly along went he, safe from her 
 worst handling, in his freedom from wants. She 
 miglit have peered out of lier old den, and 
 grown softened at his cliant. But he went 
 alone too : he had none to care for ; which 
 was a pleasure also. It would be none to us, 
 — one thing provided. Tliere are pains, wlien 
 you get heartily acquainted with tlicm, which 
 out-value the reverse pleasures. Besides, we 
 must all get through our tasks, as manfully and 
 cheerfully as we can ; losing, if possible, no 
 
 handsome pleasure by the way, and sustaining 
 ourselves by the thought that all will be for 
 the best, provided we do our best for all. It 
 is not the existence of pain that spoils the 
 relish of the world ; but the not knowing how 
 to make the most of pleasures, and thereby 
 reducing the pains to their most reasonable 
 size and their most useful account. 
 
 You may make a landscape, if you will, out 
 of your breakfast-table, better than JNIr. Kirk's 
 picture. Here where the bread stands, is its 
 father, the field of corn, glowing in the sun, 
 cut by the tawny reapers, and presenting a path 
 for lovers. The village-church (where they 
 are to be married) is on a leafy slope on one 
 side ; and on the other is a woody hill, with 
 fountains. There, far over the water, (for this 
 basin of water, with island lumps of butter in 
 it, shall be a sea) are our friends the Chinese, 
 picking the leaves of their tea-trees, — a beau- 
 tiful plant ; or the Arabs plucking the berries 
 of the coffee-tree, a still more beautiful one, 
 with a profusion of white blossoms, and an 
 odour like jessamine. For the sugar (instead 
 of a bitterer thought, not so harmonious to our 
 purpose, but not to be forgotten at due times) 
 you may think of Waller's Saccharissa*, so 
 named from the Latin word for sugar (saccha- 
 rum) a poor compliment to the lady ; but the 
 lady shall sweeten the sugar, instead of the 
 sugar doing honour to the lady ; and slie was 
 a very knowing as well as beautiful Avoraan, 
 and saw farther into love and sweetness than 
 the sophisticate court poet ; so she would not 
 have him notwithstanding his sugary verses, 
 but married a higher nature. 
 
 Bread, milk, and butter are of venerable 
 antiquity. They taste of the morning of the 
 world. Jael, to entertain her guest, " brought 
 forth butter in a lordly dish." Homer speaks 
 of a nation of milk-eaters, whom he calls the 
 "justest of men." To "break bread" was 
 from time immemorial the Eastern signal of 
 hospitality and confidence. We need not add 
 reasons for respecting it, still more reverend. 
 Bread is the " staff of life " throughout the 
 greater part of the civilised world ; and so 
 accordant is its taste with the human palate, 
 that nature, in some places, seems to have 
 grown it ready-made on purpose, in the shape 
 of the Bread Fruit Tree. There is also a milk- 
 tree ; but we nowhere find a carniferous, or 
 flesh-bearing tree ; nor bus the city yet been 
 
 * Saccharissa was Lady Dorothy Sidney, of the great and 
 truly noble family of the Sidneys. She married a sincere, 
 nfl'ectionate, and courageous man, Robert Spencer, Earl of 
 Sunderland, who was killed four years afterw.ords, in a 
 cause for which he thought himself bound to quit thearms 
 of the wimian he loved. Ucr second husband was of the 
 Sniythe family. In her old age, meeting Waller at a card- 
 table. Lady Simdcrland asked him, in good-humoured and 
 not ungrateful recollection of his fine verses, when he 
 would WTito .iny more such upon her; to which the 
 " polite " poet, either from spite or want of address, had the 
 poverty of spirit to reply, " Oh, madam ! when your lady- 
 ship is as young again."
 
 28 
 
 aNACREON. 
 
 discovered in which " the pigs run througli the 
 streets ready roivsted, with knives and forks 
 stuck in tlu'ir sides." Civilised nations eat 
 meat, but they can also do without it, living 
 upon milk, grain, and vegetal)les alone, as in 
 India. None but savages live without those. 
 And eonniion breakfasts, without any meat in 
 them, have this advantage over others, that 
 you can recollect them without any sort 
 of doubt or disgust ; nor are their leavings 
 offensive to the eye. It is one of the perplex- 
 ities of man's present condition, that he is at 
 once carnivorous, and has very good reason 
 for being so, and relishing his chop and his 
 steak, and yet cannot always reconcile it to 
 the rest of his nature. lie would fain eat his 
 Iamb, and pity it too ; which is puzzling. 
 However, there are worse perplexities than 
 these ; and the lambs lead pleasant flowery 
 lives while tiiey do live. Nor could they have 
 bad this taste of existence, if they were not 
 bred for the table. Let us all do our best to 
 get the world forward, and we shall sec. We 
 shall either do away all we think wrong, or see 
 better reasons for thinking it right. Mean- 
 while, hit us dine and breakfast, like good- 
 humoured people ; and not " quarrel with our 
 bread and butter." 
 
 XII.— ANACREON. 
 
 It has been said of ladies when they write 
 letters, that they put their minds in their post- 
 scripts — let out the real object of their writing, 
 as if it were a second thought, or a thing com- 
 paratively indifferent. You very often know 
 the amount of a man's knowledge of an author 
 by the remark he makes on him, after he has 
 made the one which he thinks proper and 
 ivttkoriscd. As for example, you will mention 
 Anacreon to your friend A. in a tone mIucIi 
 implies that you wish to know his opinion of 
 him, and he shall say — 
 
 "Delightful poet, Anacreon — breathes the 
 very spirit of love and wine. Jlia (J reck is very 
 easu." 
 
 All the real opinion of this gentleman 
 respecting Anacreon lies in what he says in 
 these last words. His Greek is easy; that is, 
 our scholar has had less trouble in learning to 
 read him than with other (ireek poets. 'I'liis 
 is ail he really thinks or feels about the "de- 
 lightful Anacreon." 
 
 So with B. You imply a question to B. in 
 the same tone, and he answers, "Anacreon ! 
 Oh ! a most delightful poet Anacreon — charm- 
 ing — all love and wine. The best edition of him 
 i? Sjxdetti'K.'" 
 
 This is all that B. knows of Anacreon's " love 
 and wine." " The best edition of it is Spa- 
 letti's;" that is to say, Spalctti is the Anacreon 
 Tvine-merchant most in repute. 
 
 So again with C. as to his knowledge of the 
 translations of the "delightful j)oet." 
 
 " Translations of Aiuiereon ! Delightful poet 
 — too di'lightful, too natural and })eculiar to be 
 translated — simplicity — uai'vetc — Fawkes's 
 translation is elegaut^— Sloore's very elegant 
 but diffuse. — Nobody can translate Anacreon. 
 hnpossible to give any idea of the ex(iuisite 
 simplicity of the Greek." 
 
 This gentleman has never read Cowley's 
 translations from Anacreon ; and if he had, he 
 would not have known which j)art of them 
 was truly Anacreontic iuid which not. He 
 makes up his mind that it is impossible to give 
 " any idea of the exquisite simplicity of the 
 Greek ;" meaning, by that assertion, that he 
 himself cannot, and therefore nobody else can. 
 1 lis sole idea of Anacreon is, that he is a writer 
 famous for certain beauties which it is impos- 
 sible to translate. As to supposing that the 
 spirit of Anacreon may occasionally be met 
 with in poets who have not translated him, and 
 that you may thus get an idea of him without 
 recurring to the Greek at all, this is what 
 never entered his head : for Nature has nothing 
 to do with his head ; it is only books and 
 translations. Love, nature, myrtles, roses, 
 wine, have existed ever since the days of 
 Anacreon ; yet he thinks nobody ever chanced 
 to look at these things with the same eyes. 
 
 Thus there is one class of scholars who have 
 no idea of Anacreon except that he is easy to 
 read ; another, who confine their notions of 
 him to a particular edition; and a third, who 
 look upon him as consisting in a certain ele- 
 gant impossibility to translate. There are 
 more absurdities of pretended scholarshij), on 
 this and all other writers, which the truly 
 learned laugh at, and know to be no scholar- 
 ship at all. Our present business is to attemj)t 
 to gi\e some idea of what tlwi/ think and 
 feel with regard to Anacreon, and what 
 all intelligent men would think and feel, if 
 they understood Greek terms for natural im- 
 pressions. To be unaffectedly charmed with 
 the loveliness of a cheek, and the beauty of a 
 flower, are the first steps to a knowledge of 
 Anacreon. Those are the grammar of his 
 Greek, and pretty nearly the dictionary too. 
 
 Little is known of the life of Anacreon. 
 There is reason to believe that he was liorn 
 among the richer classes ; that he was a visitor 
 at the courts of princes; and that, agreeably to 
 a genius which was great enough and has 
 given enough delight to the world, to warrant 
 such a devotion of itself to its enjoyments, he 
 kejit aloof from the troubles of his time, or 
 made the best of them, and tempted them to 
 s])are liis door. It may be concluded of him, 
 tliat his existence (so to speak)was passed in a 
 garden; for he lived to be old; which in a man 
 of his sensibility and indolence, implies a life 
 jtretty i'rce from care. It is said that lie died at 
 the age of eighty-five, and was then choked with
 
 ANACREON. 
 
 29 
 
 a, grape-stone ; a fate generally thought to be a 
 little too allegorical to be likely. He was born 
 on the coast of Ionia (part of the modern Tur- 
 key), at Teos, a town south of Smyrna, in the 
 midst of a country of wine, oil, and sunshine ; 
 and thus partook strongly of those influences 
 of climate which undoubtedly occasion varieties 
 in genius, as in other productions of nature. 
 As to the objectionable parts of iiis morals, 
 they belonged to his age, and have no essential 
 or inseparable connexion with his poetry. We 
 are therefore glad to be warranted in saying 
 notliing about them. All the objectionable 
 passages might be taken out of Anacreon, and 
 he would still be Anacreon ; and the most vir- 
 tuous might read him as safely as they read of 
 flowers and butterflies. Cowley, one of the best 
 of men, translated someof hismost Anacreontic 
 poems. We profess to breathe his air in the 
 same spirit as Cowley, and shall assuredly bring 
 no poison out of it to our readers. The truly 
 virtuous are as safe in these pages, as they can 
 be in their own homes and gardens. But 
 cheerfulness is a part of our religion, and we 
 choose to omit not even grapes in it, any 
 more than nature has omitted tliem. 
 
 Imagine then a good-humoured old man, 
 with silver locks, but a healthy and cheerful 
 face, sitting in the delightful climate of Smyi-na, 
 under his vine or his olive, with his lute by his 
 side, a cup of liis native wine before him, and 
 a pretty peasant girl standing near him, who 
 has perhaps brought him a basket of figs, or 
 a bottle of milk corked with vine leaves, and 
 to whom he is giving a rose, or pretending to 
 make love. 
 
 For we are not, with the gross literality of 
 dull or vicious understandings, to take for 
 grunted everything that a poet says on all occa- 
 sions, especially wlien he is old. It is mere 
 gratuitous and suspicious assumption in critics 
 wlio tell us, that such men as Anacreon passed 
 "wliole lives" in tlie indulgence of "every 
 excess and debauchery." They must liave had, 
 in the first place, prodigious constitutions, if 
 tiiey did, to live to be near ninety ; and secondly, 
 it does not follow tliat because a poet speaks 
 like a poet, it has therefore taken such a vast 
 deal to give him a taste, greater than other 
 men's, for what he enjoys. Redi, the author of 
 the most famous Bacchanalian ])oem in Italy, 
 drunk little but water. St. Evremond, the 
 French wit, an epicure professed, was too good 
 an epicure not to be temperate and preserve 
 his relish. Debauchees, who are fox-hunters, 
 live to be old, because they take a great deal 
 of exercise ; but it is not likely tliat inactive 
 men should; unless they coml)ined a relish 
 for pleasure with some very particuhir kinds of 
 temperance. 
 
 There is generally, in Anacreon's earnest, a 
 touch of sometliing which is nvt in earnest, 
 — which plaj's with the subject, as a good- 
 humoured old man plays with children. There 
 
 is a perpetual smile on his face between en- 
 thusiasm and levity. He truly likes the objects 
 he looks upon (otlierwise he could not have 
 painted them truly), and he will retain as 
 much of his youthful regard for them as he 
 can. He does retain much, and he pleasantly 
 pretends more. He loves wine, beauty, flowers, 
 pictures, sculptures, dances, birds, brooks, kind 
 and open natures, everything that can be in- 
 dolently enjoyed ; not, it must be confessed, 
 with the deepest innermost perception of their 
 beauty (which is more a characteristic of 
 modern poetry than of ancient, owing to the 
 difference of their creeds) but witli the most 
 elegant of material perceptions, — of what lies 
 in the surface and tangibility of objects, — and 
 with an admirable exemption from whatsoever 
 does not belong to them, — from all false taste 
 and the mixture of impertinences. With re- 
 gard to the rest, he had all the sentiment 
 which good-nature implies, and nothing more. 
 UjJon those two points of luxury and good 
 taste, the character of Anacreon, as a poet, 
 wholly turns. He is the poet of indolent en- 
 joyment, in the best possible taste, and with 
 the least possible trouble. He will enjoy as 
 much as he can, but he will take no more 
 pains about it than he can help, not even to 
 praise it. He would probably talk about it, 
 lialf tlie day long; for talking would cost him 
 nothing, and it is natural to old age ; but 
 when he comes to write about it, he will 
 say no more than the impulse of the moment 
 incites liim to put down, and lie will say it in 
 the very best manner, both because the truth 
 of his perception requires it, and because an 
 affected style and superfluous words Avould 
 give him trouble. He would, it is true, take 
 just so much trouble, if necessaiy, as should 
 make his style completely suitable to his trutli ; 
 and if his poems were not so short, it would be 
 difficult to a modern writer to think that they 
 could flow into such excessive ease and spirit 
 as they do, if he had not taken the greatest 
 pains to make them. But besides his impulses, 
 he had the habit of a life upon liim. Hence 
 tlu^ comjjositions of Anacreon are remarkable 
 above all others in the world, for being "short 
 and sweet." They are the very thing, and 
 notliing more, required by the occasion ; for 
 tlie animal sjjirits, whicli would be natural in 
 
 otiicr men, and 
 
 might lead 
 
 them into super- 
 
 fluities, would not be equally so to one, who 
 adds the indolence of old age to the niceties of 
 natural taste : and tlierefore, as people boast, on 
 other occasions, of calling things by their right 
 names, and "a spade, a spade," so when Ana- 
 creon describes a beauty or a banquet, or 
 wishes to convey his sense to you of a flower, 
 or a grasshopjier, or a head of hair, tluTc it is;- 
 as true and as tree from everything foreign to 
 it, as the thing itself. 
 
 Look at a myrtle-tree, or a hyacinth, inhale 
 its fragrance, admire its leaves or blossom,
 
 30 
 
 ANACREON. 
 
 then shut your eyes, and think liow exqui- 
 sitely the inyrth^ tree in irlnit it in, and how 
 beautifully unlike everything else, — how jjuro 
 in simple yet cultivated grace. Such is one of 
 the odes of Anacreon. 
 
 This may not bo a very scholastic descrip- 
 tion ; hut we wish it to he somethin<i^ better ; 
 and we write to genial apprehensions. We 
 would have them conceive a taste of Anacreon, 
 as they would that of his gi'apes; and know him 
 by his flavour. 
 
 It must he conceded to one of our would-be 
 scholarly friends above mentioned, that there 
 is no translation, not even of any one ode of 
 Anacreon's, in the English language, which 
 gives you an entirely right notion of it. The 
 common-place elegancies of Fawkes (who was 
 best when he was humblest, as in his ballad of 
 "Dear Tom, this brown jug,") are out of the 
 question. They are as bad as Iloole's Ariosto. 
 Jlr. Moore's translation is masterly of its kind, 
 but its kind is not Anacreon's; as be would, 
 perhaps, be the first to say, now ; for it was a 
 work of his youth. It is too oriental, diffuse, 
 and ornamented ; an Anacreon in Persia. The 
 best English translations are those which Cow- 
 ley has given us, although diffuseness is their 
 fault also; but tliey have more of Anacreon's 
 real animal spirits, and his contentment with 
 objects themselves, apart from what he can 
 say about them. Cowley is most in earnest. 
 He thinks most of what his original was thinking 
 and least of what is expected from his translator. 
 
 We will give a specimen of him presently. 
 But it is not to be supposed that we have no 
 passages in the writings of English poets, that 
 convey to an unlearned reader a thorough 
 idea of Anacreon. Prose cannot do it, though 
 far better sometimes as a translation of verse, 
 than verse itself, since the latter may destroy 
 the original both in spirit and medium too. 
 But prose, as a translation of verso, wants, 
 of necessity, that sustained enthusiasm of 
 poetry, which presents the perpetual charm 
 of a triumph over the obstacle of metre, and 
 turns it to an accompaniment and a dance. 
 Readers, therefore, must not expect a right 
 idea of Anacreon from the best prose versions ; 
 though, kee])ing in mind their inevitable de- 
 ficiencies, they may be of great service and 
 pleasure to him, especially if he can superadd 
 the vivacity which they want. And he is 
 pretty sure not to meet in them with any of 
 the impertinences of the translations in verse ; 
 that is to say (not to use the word offensively) 
 any of the matter which does not belong to the 
 original ; for an impertinence, in the literal, 
 unoffensive sense of the word, signifies that 
 which does not belong to, or form a part of, 
 anything*. 
 
 The following passage about Cupid bathing 
 
 * The reader will be Rood enough to bear in mind tliat 
 this jtaper on Anacreon was originally addressed to the 
 uneducated. 
 
 and pruning his wings under the eyes of a 
 weeping beauty (the jjroduction either of 
 Spenser, or of a friend worthy of him) a])pears 
 to us to be thoroughly Anacreontic in one 
 respect, and without contradiction ; that is to 
 say, in clearness and delicacy of fancy. 
 
 The blinded arclicr-boy, like larke in shower of raine. 
 Sat bathinjf of his wings ; and glad the time did spend 
 Under those cristall drops, which fell from her faire eyes, 
 And at their brightest beams, hira proyncd in lovely wise. 
 
 Milton's address to May-morning would have 
 been Anacreontic, but for a certain something 
 of heaviness or statelinoss which he has min- 
 gled with it, and the differential changes of the 
 measure. 
 
 Now the brieht morning star, day's harbinger. 
 Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
 The flowery Jlay, who from her green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 
 
 The dancing of the star, the leading flowery 
 May, the green lap, and the straightforward 
 simple style of the words, are all Anacreontic ; 
 but the measure is too stately and serious. The 
 poet has instinctively changed it in the lines 
 that follow these, which are altogether in the 
 taste of our author : 
 
 Ilail bounteous May ! that dost inspire 
 Mirth, and youth, and warm desire: 
 Woods and groves are of tliy dressing ; 
 llill and dale doth boast thy blessing. 
 
 Then a long line comes too seriously in — 
 
 Thus we salute thee with our early song. 
 And welcome thee and wish thee long. 
 
 We will here observe by the way, that Ana- 
 creon's measures are always short and dancing. 
 One of these somewhat resembles the shorter 
 ones of the above poem. 
 
 Woods and groves are of thy dressing ; 
 Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. 
 
 Every syllable, observe, is pronounced. 
 
 Dote moi lyren ITomcrou 
 I'honiCB aneuthc chordes. 
 
 The o'a in the second line of the next are all 
 pronounced long, as in the word rose. 
 
 llyacinthine me rhabdo 
 Chalopos Eros b.adizon 
 Ekeleuse syntrochazein. 
 
 There is a poet of the time of Charles the 
 First, llerrick, who is generally called, but on 
 little grounds, the English Anacreon, though 
 he now and then has no unhappy imitation of 
 his manner. We wish we had him by us, to 
 give a specimen. There is one beautiful song 
 of his, (which has been exquisitely translated, 
 by the way,into Latin, byone of the now leading 
 political writers,*) the opening measure of 
 
 * See a periodical publication in two volumes called the 
 Reflector, which contained some of the first public essays 
 of several eminent living ^vriters.
 
 AMACREON. 
 
 31 
 
 which, that is, of the first couplet, is the same 
 as the other common measure of Anacreon : — 
 
 Their eyes the glowworrns lend thee, 
 The shooting stars attend thee. 
 
 And tlie elves also, 
 
 AVhose little ejes glow 
 Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 
 
 lie ge melaina pinei, 
 Pinei de dendrc autcn, 
 Pinei thalassa d'aiiras. 
 Ho d'llelios thalassan. 
 
 Suckling, a charming off-hand writer, who stood 
 between the days of Elizabeth and the Stuarts, 
 and partook of the sentiment of the one and 
 the levity of the other, would have translated 
 Anacreon admirably. And had Anacreon been 
 a fine gentleman of the age of Charles the 
 First, instead of an ancient Greek, he would 
 have written Suckling's ballad on a wedding. 
 There is a touch in it, describing a beautiful 
 pair of lips, which, though perfectly original, 
 is in the highest Anacreontic taste : — 
 
 Her lips were r«l, and one was thin, 
 Compared with that was next her chin. 
 Some bee had stung it newly. 
 
 Beauty, the country, a picture, the taste and 
 scent of honey, are all in that passage. And 
 yet Anacreon, in the happy comprehensiveness 
 of his words, has beaten it. The thought has 
 become somewhat hackneyed since his time, 
 the hard, though unavoidable fate of many an 
 exquisite fancy ; yet stated in his simple words, 
 and accompanied with an image, the very per- 
 fection of eloquence, it may still be read with 
 a new deliglit. In a direction to a painter 
 about a portrait of his mistress he tells him to 
 give her "a lip like Persuasion's" 
 
 Prokaloumenon philema — 
 Provoking a kiss. 
 
 The word is somewhat spoilt in English, by 
 the very piquancy which time has added to it ; 
 because it makes it look less in earnest, too 
 much like the common language of gallantry. 
 Hxii provvVin^ literally means calling for — asking 
 — forcing us, in common gratitude for our de- 
 light, to give what is so exquisitely deserved. 
 And in that better sense, tlie word j^rovokincj is 
 still the riglit one. 
 
 Shakespeare's serenade in Cymbeline might 
 have been written by Anacreon, except that 
 he would have given us some luxurious image 
 of a young female, instead of the word "lady." 
 
 Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings 
 
 And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
 Ilis steeds to water at those springs 
 
 On chaliced flowers that lies, 
 And winking mary-buds begin 
 
 To ope their golden eyes : 
 MMth everything that pretty been, 
 
 My lady sweet, arise. 
 
 Lilly, a writer of Shakespeare's age, who per- 
 verted a naturally fine genius to the purposes 
 
 of conceit and fashion, has a little poem 
 
 begiuning- 
 
 Cupid and my Campaspe played 
 At cards for kisses, 
 
 which Anacreon might have written, had cards 
 existed in his time. But we have it not by us 
 to quote. Many j)assages in Burns's songs are 
 Anacreontic, inasmuch as they are simple, 
 enjoying, and full of the elegance of the senses ; 
 but they have more passion than the old 
 Greek's, and less of his perfection of grace. 
 Anacreon never suffers, but from old age, or the 
 want of \vine. Burns suffers desperately, and 
 as desperately struggles with his suffering, till 
 we know not which is the greater, lie or his 
 passion. There is notliing of this robust-handed 
 work in the delicate Ionian. Nature is strong 
 and sovereign in him, but always in accom- 
 modating unison with his indolence and old 
 age. He says that he is transported, and he 
 is so; but somehow you always fancy him 
 in the same place, never quite carried out of 
 himself. 
 
 Of Anacreon's drinking songs, we do not 
 find it so easy to give a coimterpai-t notion 
 from the English poets, who, though of a drink- 
 ing country, have not exhibited much of the 
 hilarity of wine. Their port is heavy, com- 
 pared with Anacreon's Teian. Shakespeare's 
 
 Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne 
 
 will not do at all ; for Anacreon's Bacchus is 
 the perfection of elegant mythology, parti- 
 cularly comme il faut in the waist, a graceful 
 dancer, and beautiful as Cheerfulness. In all 
 Anacreon's manners, and tui'n of thinking, 
 you recognise what is called "the gentleman." 
 He evidently had a delicate hand. The "cares" 
 that he talks about, consisted in his not having 
 had cares enough. A turn at the plougli, or a 
 few wants, would have given him pathos. He 
 would not have thought all the cares of life to 
 consist in its being short, and swift, and taking 
 him away from his pleasures. If he partook 
 however of the efleminacy of his caste, he was 
 superior to its love of wealth and domination. 
 The sole business of his life, he said, was to 
 drink and sing, perfume his beard, and crown 
 his head with roses ; and he appears to have 
 stuck religiously to his profession. "Business," 
 he thought, "must be attended to." Plato 
 calls him "wise;" as ^Milton calls the luxu- 
 rious Spenser "sage and serious." Tlie great- 
 est poets and philosophers sometimes " let the 
 cat out of the bug," when they are tired of 
 conventional secrets. 
 
 This bottle's the sun of our table, 
 
 Ilis beams are rosy wine ; 
 AVe, planets that are not ablo 
 
 Without his help to shina 
 
 These verses of Sheridan's are Anacreontic. 
 So is that couplet of Burns's, — exquisitely
 
 32 
 
 THE WRONG SIDES OF SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 po, «»xcei)t lor the homeliness of the last 
 
 word : 
 
 Care, mad to soo a man so happy, 
 KVn drown'il hiinsolf amidst the nappy. 
 
 One taste, lilce tliis, of tlic wine of tlie feelin^fs 
 fives a better idea of Anacreon's drinking 
 songs than hundreds of ordinary specimens. 
 
 but we must liasten to close this long article 
 with the best Anacreontic j)iece of translation 
 we are acquainted witii; — that of the famous 
 ode to the Grasslioppei-. by Cowley. Ana- 
 creon's Gi-assliopper, it is to be observed, is not 
 projjerly a Grasslio])per, but the Tittlr, as tiic 
 Greeks called it from its cry, — the Cicada of 
 the Roman poet, and Cicala of modern Italy, 
 where it sings or crh-ks \\\ the trees in summer- 
 time, as the grasshopper does with ns in the 
 grass. It is a species of beetle. But Cowley 
 very projjerly translated his Greek insect, as 
 well as ode, into English, knowing well that 
 ^he poet's object is to be sympathised with, and 
 ;hat if Anacreon had written in England, he 
 would have addressed the grasshopper instead 
 of the tettix. 
 
 We have marked in italics the expressions 
 which, thougii original in Cowley's version, 
 are purely Anacreontic, and such as the Gre- 
 cian would have delighted to write. Tiie whole 
 poem is much longer than Anacreon's, double 
 the size ; but this, perhaps, only justly makes 
 up for the prolongation afforded to all ancient 
 poems, by the music which accompanied them. 
 There is not a Cowleian conceit in the whole 
 of -it, unless the thought about "fixrmer and 
 landlord " be one, which is quickly forgiven for 
 its naturalness in an English landscape ; and the 
 whole, from beginning to end, though not so 
 perfectly mtdodious, runs on with tluit natural 
 yet regulated and elegant enthusiasm, betwixt 
 delight in the object and indolent enjoyment 
 in the spectator, which has been noticed as 
 characteristic of the sprightly old bard. The 
 repetition of the word all is quite in the 
 uoet's manner ; mIio loved thus to cram much 
 into little, and to pretend to himself that he 
 was luxuriously expatiating ; — as in fact he 
 : was, in his feelings; though, as to compo- 
 ! sition, he did not clioose to make " a toil of a 
 pleasure." 
 
 Happy insect .' what can be 
 
 In happiness compared to thee? 
 
 Fed with nourisliment divine, 
 
 Tlif ilewy mor»i»<i's jienllc vine. 
 
 Nature waits upon tliee still. 
 
 And thy verdant cup does fill ; 
 
 'Tis (iird wherever tlum dost tread, 
 
 Nature's self thy flanymede. 
 
 " hou dost drink, and dance, and sing, 
 
 Jfajipii'r lha» the hnpjiiesi kinfj. 
 
 Alt the fields wliich thou dost see. 
 
 All the pl;mt8 belonR to thee; 
 
 All tliat summer hours produce, 
 
 Fertile made with early juice. 
 
 Man for tliec doc^ sow and ]ilow. 
 
 Farmer lit, and lan<llord thou ! 
 
 Thou dost iniiocently joy ; 
 
 Nor does thy luxury destroy ; 
 
 The sheiiherd (ilndly licaretli tlu^, 
 
 More harmonious than he. 
 
 Tliee country hinds with ({hidncsa hear. 
 
 Prophet of the ripeii'il year ! 
 
 I'litt-bus is himself thy sire ; 
 
 Theo riiccbus loves, and does inspire ; 
 
 To thee, of all things njion earth, 
 
 Life is no lon<ier thmi tin/ vtirth. 
 
 Happy insect ! )iap]>y thou ! 
 
 Dost neither .ajje nor wintiT know ; 
 
 Hut when thoii'st ilriiiik, ami danceil, and sunt/ 
 
 'rinitill thejloirery leaves among, 
 
 ( Vuliiptuous and wise withal, 
 
 Ejiieiirean iniimal.') 
 
 Siiteii tvith thij sununer f<nst. 
 
 Thou rctiresl to endless rest. 
 
 XIIT.— TIIE WRONG SIDES OF SCHOLAR- 
 SHIP AND NO SCIIOLARSHir. 
 
 There are two supposed (for they are not 
 real) extremes of pretension, upon the strange 
 (piestion whether a k7U)wledge of the learned 
 languages is or is not of use, against which it 
 behoves an uneducated man of sense and 
 modesty to be on his guard. One is the pre- 
 tension of those who say that a man can have 
 no idea of the ancient writers, without a deep 
 intimacy with their language : the other, of 
 those who affirm, with equal vehemence, that 
 there is no necessity to know the language .at 
 all, and that translations do quite as well as 
 the oi'iginals for giving you all that you need 
 be acquainted with of the author's genius. 
 
 The former of these pretenders is goierally 
 a shallower man than the other, though some- 
 times it is pure vanity and self-will that makes 
 him talk as he does ; he has an over-estimation 
 of his advantages, simply because they are his 
 He is as proud of his learning as another 
 jiompous man miglit be of his ])ark and his 
 niansion. Such is the case, when he really has 
 anything like an intimacy with his iiutliors ; but 
 in l)oth instances he would fain make out his 
 possession to be unapproacliable, by all who 
 have not had the same golden key. The 
 common run of the class consists of men who 
 really know nothing of their authors but the 
 words, and who unconsciously feel tliat, on that 
 account, they must make tlu? best of their 
 knowledge, and pretend it is a wonderful 
 matter. Such a man smiles when you speak 
 of getting some insight into the character of 
 Homer's genius, or V'irgil's, by dint of some 
 hajjpy bit of version or some masterly criticism. 
 He says, triumphantly, that "even I'o])e" i.s 
 acknowledged not to give a right idea of him, 
 much lessChapman, and those other "old quaint 
 writers :" for " old," observe, is a term of con- 
 tempt with him ; though " ancient," he thinks, 
 comi)ri.ses everything that is respectable. But 
 "old"mcansaman who lived onlyafewhundred 
 years back, and who did not write <>ither in 
 Latin or Greek ; whereas " ancient" means a 
 man who lived upwards of a tiiousand, and 
 wrote perhaps a dull book in one of those Ian-
 
 AND NO SCHOLARSHIP. 
 
 33 
 
 guagos, wliich has contrived to come down to 
 us, owing to some curious things it contains 
 relative to customs and manners, or to the in- 
 fluence of a succession of these sort of critics, 
 and the long fashion they have kept up by dint 
 of the connexion tliat has hitherto subsisted 
 between the power of receiving a classical edu- 
 cation and the advantages of wealth and rank. 
 When all the world come to share in that educa- 
 tion, some singular questions will take place, 
 both as to the genius of the ancient writers, and 
 the moral benefits derivable from portions of 
 them. If our friend, of the above class,is a man 
 of consequence, he looks upon his learning as 
 forming an additional barrier between him and 
 the uneducated. lie quotes Greek in parlia- 
 ment, and takes it for an argument. Or he for- 
 getsboth his Greek and Latin,but thinks he could 
 recover it Avhen he pleased, and thatis the same 
 thing. If he is a jjrofessed scholar, he is igno- 
 rant of everything in the world but scholarship, 
 and therefore ignorant of that too. He is a 
 pompous schoolmaster, or a captions verbal 
 critic,or, in his most respectable capacity,a harm- 
 less and dreaming pedant, — aDominie Sampson. 
 If England had existed before Greece,he would 
 have been an idolaterof ShakspeareandlMilton, 
 at the expense of Homer and Euripides ; or he 
 would have known just as much of theformeras 
 he does of the latter ! that is to say, nothing. 
 In short, you may describe him as a man who 
 knows that there is another man living on the 
 upper side of his town, of the name of Ancient ; 
 and a very wonderful gentleman he takesAncient 
 to be, because he is rich, and has a large library, 
 and has given him access to it ; but what sort 
 of a man Ancient really is, what is the solidity 
 of his understanding, the subtlety of his ima- 
 gination, or the contents of the books in his 
 library, except that they are printed in certain 
 kinds of type, — of all that our learned friend 
 knows nothing, and therefore he concludes, 
 tiiat nobody else can know. 
 
 Of the other extreme of pretenders who 
 dogmatise on this subject, that is to say, wlio 
 j)ronounce peremptory judgments of Yes and 
 No, and Possible and Impossible, without a due 
 knowledge of the subject, — the best and most 
 intelligent portion sometimes contains persons 
 who know so much on other jjoints, that they 
 ought to know better on this ; but out of a 
 resentment of the very want of the other's 
 advantages, affect to despise them. For herein 
 the exalters of a classical education, as the only 
 thing needful, and the decricrs of it as a thing 
 altogether unecessarj-, set out from precisely 
 the same ground of self-sufficiency. The former 
 unduly trumpet up the education, merely be- 
 cause they have had it, (or think they have,) 
 and the latter as rudely decry it, merely because 
 they have not. These latter argue, that you 
 may know all that is useful in ancient books; 
 by means of translations ; and that the poetry 
 " and all that" may be got equally out of 
 
 them, or is of no consequence. Tlieir own 
 poetry, meanwhile, such as it is, that is to say. 
 their caprices, their imaginary advantages, 
 and the colouring which their humour and 
 passions give to everything near them, is in 
 full blossom. 
 
 To cut short this question, which wefeel more 
 loth to touch upon in the latter instance than 
 in the former, (because more sjinpathy is due 
 to the resentment of a want than to the arro- 
 gance of a possession,) we may, perhaps, illus- 
 trate the point at once to the reader's satisfac- 
 tion, by the help of no greater a passage than a 
 jest out of "Joe Miller." 
 
 It is related of Archbishop Herring, that 
 when he was at college, he fell one day into a 
 gutter, and that a wag exclaimed as he got up, 
 "Ah, Ilerrhuj, you're in a pretty pickle ! " Upon 
 which a dull fellow went away, and said, " So- 
 and-so has been bantering poor Herring. Her- 
 ring fell into the gutter, and so, says Dick, 
 says he, Ah, Herring, my boy, you're in a 
 pretty dtuation." 
 
 Now the pedant, who is all for the original 
 language, and is of opinion that no version of 
 their writers or account of them can give you 
 the least idea of their spirit, is bound to main- 
 tain, on the same principle, that it would be 
 impossible to convey the smallest real taste of 
 this joke oiit of English into Latin or Greek ; 
 while every real scholar knows that the thing 
 is very possible. 
 
 On the other side the bigoted no-scholar is 
 bound to insist, that the stupid version of the 
 joke is quite as good as the original, or at anj' 
 rate supplies us with all that is really wanted 
 of it, — that the word situation is as good as the 
 word pickle, and that, therefore, no utility is 
 lost sight of — no real information. It is true, 
 the whole joke is lost, the whole spirit of the 
 thing, but that is no matter. As to confining 
 the notion of utility to matters of information, 
 useful in the ordinary sense of the word, how- 
 ever important, we will not waste our room 
 upon it at this time of day, after all which has 
 been said and understood to the contrary. The 
 more we really know of anything, languages 
 included, the more, as it has been finely said, 
 dowe"discipline"our"humanity ;" thatis, teach 
 our common nature to know what others have 
 thought, felt, and known, before us, and so en- 
 able our modesty and information to keep pace 
 with each other. 
 
 It will not be supposed by the reflecting 
 reader that we mean to compare the sufficiency 
 of a translation in the above instance with its 
 being all that might be wanted in others, or 
 that the spirit and peculiar fragrance (so to 
 speak) of such poetry as Sliakspeare's, could 
 be transferred through a Greek medium with- 
 out losing anything by the way ; unless a Shak- 
 speare himself were the ojierutor, or even then. 
 I iKioiibtedly the jiecuiiurity of the medium 
 itself, tiie vessel, will make a difference. All
 
 34 
 
 CRICKET, AND EXERCISE IN GENERAL. 
 
 that we mean to say is, tliat some real taste of 
 the essence of ancient genius, far better tlian 
 wliat is affonU'd by tlio specimens generally on 
 sale, can he given by means of great care and 
 lovingness ; and that tliose \vlioareso insanely 
 learned as to take the vessel itself for the 
 wliole merit of tlie contents, have no taste of 
 it at all. 
 
 XIV.— CRICKET. 
 
 AND EXEKCISF. IN GF.NKH.lL. (wRITTEN IN MAY.) 
 
 The fine, hard, Hat, verdant floors are now 
 ]>rei)aring in the cricket-grounds for this manly 
 and graceful game, and the village - greens 
 (where they can) are no less getting ready, 
 though not (juite so ])crfect. No matter for 
 that. A true cricketer is not the man to be 
 put out by a trifle. He serves an apprentice- 
 ship to patience after her handsomest fashion. 
 Henry the Fourth wished a time might arrive 
 in France, when every man should have a 
 j)ullet in his kettle. We should like to see a 
 time when every man i)layed at cricket, and 
 had a sound sleep after it, and health, work, 
 and leisure. It would be a pretty world, if we 
 all had something to do, just to make leisure 
 the pleasanter, and green merry England were 
 sprinkled all over," of afternoons," with gallant 
 fellows in wiiite sleeves, who threshed the 
 earth and air of their cricket-grounds into a 
 crop of health and spirits ; after which they 
 should read, laugh, love, and be honourable and 
 happy beings, bringing God's work to its per- 
 fection, and suiting the divine creation they 
 live in. 
 
 But to speak in this manner is to mix serious 
 things with mirthful. Well ; and what true 
 joy does not ? Joy, if you did but know liim 
 thoroughly, is a very serious fellow, — on occa- 
 sion ; and knows that happiness is a very solid 
 tiling, and is zealous for nature's honour and 
 glory. Tlie power to be grave is the 2)roper 
 foundation for levity itself to rejoice on. You 
 must have floor for your dancing, — good solid 
 earth on which to bother your cricket-balls. 
 
 The SSjiring is monstrously said to be a sickly 
 time of the year ! Yes, for the sickly ; or 
 rather (not to speak irreverently of sickness 
 which cannot be helped) for those who have suf- 
 fered themselves to become so for want of stir- 
 ring their bhjods, and i)reparing for the general 
 movement in Nature's merry veins. Peoijle 
 stop in doors, and render themselves liable 
 to all "the skiey influences," and then out of 
 the same thougiitless eflFeminacy of self-indul- 
 gence, they expose themselves to the catching 
 of colds and fevers, and the beautiful Sjjring is 
 blamed, and "fine Mays make fat church-yards." 
 Thi! gipsies, we will be bound, have no such pro- 
 verbs. Thecricketer has nonesuch. lie is a sen- 
 sible, hearty fellow, too wise not to take proper 
 precautions, but above all, too wise not to take 
 
 the best of all precautions ; wliich is, to take 
 care of his liealth, and be stirring. Nature is 
 stirring, and so is he. Nature is healthy, and 
 so is he. Nature, in a hundred thousand jjarts 
 to a fraction, is made up of air, and fields, and 
 coimtry, and out-of-doors, and a strong teeming 
 earth, and a good-natured sky ; and so is the 
 strong heart of the cricketer. 
 
 Do we then blame any of the sick, even 
 those who are " blameable ! " Not we ; we 
 blame nobody ; what is the use of it ? Besides, 
 we don't like to be blamed ourselves, especially 
 wlien we are in the wrong. We like to be 
 coa.xed and called sensible, and to have people 
 wonder good-naturedly (not spitefully) how 
 people so very shrewd can do anything erro- 
 neous ; and then we love them, and wish to be 
 led, right by p('oi)le so veiy intelligent, and 
 know no bounds to our wish to please them. 
 So the measure which we like ourselves we 
 would fain deal out to others. You may do it 
 without any insincerity, if the patient have 
 but one good or sensil)le quality, or one sweet 
 drop in his heart, from which comfort is to be 
 squeezed into the cup of advice. And who has 
 not this ? But it nuiy be said, it is not to 
 be found. No '. Then the eyesight is very 
 bad, or the patient is not to be mended, — a case 
 luckily as rare as it is melancholy, and to be 
 looked upon as a madness. The best step to 
 be taken in that instance is, to give him as 
 little advice, and see that he does as little 
 harm as possible. For aH reasonable care 
 is to be taken of the comfort even of those 
 who give none. They are a part of the human 
 race. 
 
 As to our sickly friends before mentioned, 
 all we shall say to them is, what was said by 
 an abrupt but b(!nevolent fi-iend of ours, to the 
 startled ears of a flne lady — " Get out." 
 
 " Well, I never ! " exclaimed the lady. 
 
 The reader knows the perfection of meaning 
 implied by that imperfect sentence, " Well, 
 1 never!" However the lady was not only 
 a fine lady, but a slirewd woman ; so she 
 " got out," and was a goer out afterwards, and 
 lived happily enough to benefit others by her 
 example. 
 
 Many ])eople take no exercise at all, because 
 they cannot take, or think they cannot take, 
 a great deal. At least this is the reason they 
 give their consciences. It is not always a 
 sincere one. They had better say to them- 
 selves at once " I am too idle," or " I am too 
 accustomed to sit still, to make exercise }dea- 
 sant." Where the fault is aware of itself, there 
 is better hope of its mending. But the least 
 I)it of exercise is better than none. A walk, 
 five minutes before dinner in a garden, or down 
 a street, is better than no walk at all. It is 
 some break, however small a one, into the mere 
 hiibit of sitting still and growing stagnant of 
 blood, or corpulent of body. A little tiny bit 
 of the sense of doing one's duty is kept up by
 
 CRICKET, AND EXERCISE IN GENERAL. 
 
 35 
 
 it. A glimpse of a reverence is retained for 
 sprightliness of mind and shapeliness of per- 
 son ; and thus the case is not rendered hope- 
 less, should circumstances arise that tempt the 
 patient into a more active system. A fair 
 kinswoman of ours, once reckoned among the 
 fairest of her native city, — a very intelligent 
 woman as far as books went, and latterly a very 
 sharp observer into the faults of other people, 
 by dint of a certain exasperation of her own, — 
 literally fell a sacrifice to sitting in-doors, and 
 never quitting her favourite pastime of read- 
 ing. The pastime was at once her bane and 
 her antidote. It would have been nothing but 
 a blessing had she varied it. But her misfor- 
 tiine was, tliat her self-will was still greater 
 than her sense, and that being able to fill up 
 lier moments as pleasantly as she wished 
 during health, she had persuaded herself that 
 she could go on filling them up as pleasantly 
 by the same process, when she grew older ; 
 and this "wouldn't do !"' For our bodies are 
 changing, while our minds are thinking nothing 
 of the matter ; and people in vain attribute the 
 new pains and weaknesses which come upon 
 them to this and that petty cause, — a cold, or 
 a heat, or an apple ; thinking they shall " be 
 better to-morrow," and as healthy as they were 
 before. Time will not palter with the real 
 state of the case, for all our self-will and our 
 over-weening confidence. The person we speak 
 of literally rusted in her chair ; lost the use of 
 her limbs, and died paralytic and ghastly to 
 look upon,of i)remature old age. The physicians 
 said it was a clear case. On the other hand, we 
 heard some years ago of a gentleman of seventy, 
 a medical man, (now most probably alive and 
 merry — we hope he will read this,) who, meet- 
 ing a kinsman of ours in the street, and being 
 congratulated on the singular youthfulness 
 of his aspect, said that he was never better or 
 more active in his life ; that it was all owing 
 to his having walked sixteen miles a day, on 
 an average, for the greater part of it ; and tliat 
 at the age of seventy, he felt all the lightness 
 and cheerfulness of seventeen ! This is an 
 exti'enie case, owing to peculiar circumstances ; 
 but it shows of what our nature is capable, 
 where favourable circumstances are not con- 
 tradicted. This gentleman had cultivated a 
 cheerful benovolenceof mind, as well as activity 
 of body, and tiie two togctlier were irresistible, 
 even to old Time. The doatli of such a man 
 must be like going to sleep after a good 
 iourney. 
 
 The instinct wliic-h sets peo[>lo in exercise 
 is one of the most natural of all instincts, and 
 where it is totally stoj)j)ed, must have been 
 hurt by some very injudicious circumstances 
 in tiie bringing up, cither of pampered will or 
 prevented activity. Tlic resth-ssnoss felt by 
 nervous peojjle is Nature's kindly intimation 
 that they should bestir themselves. Motion, 
 as far as hitherto has been known, is the first 
 
 law of the universe. The aii', the rivers, the 
 world move ; the very " fixed stars," as we 
 call them, are moving towards some unknown 
 point ; the substance, apparently the most 
 unmoving, the table in your room, or the wall 
 of the opposite house, is gaining or losing 
 particles : if you had eyes fine enough, you 
 would see its surface stirring : some philoso- 
 phers even hold that every substance is made 
 up of vital atoms. As to oneself, one must 
 either move away from death and disease, and 
 so keep pleasantly jjutting them off, or they 
 will move ns with a vengeance, ay, in the midst 
 of our most sedentary forgetfulness, or while 
 we flatter ourselves we are as still and as 
 sound as marble. Time is all the while 
 drawing lines in ovir faces, clogging our limbs, 
 putting ditch-water into our blood ; — preparing 
 us to mingle with the grave and the rolling 
 earth, since we will not obey the great law, 
 and move of our own accord. 
 
 Come, dear readers, now is the season for 
 such of you as are virtuous in this matter to 
 pride and rejoice yourselves ; and for such of 
 you as have omitted the virtue in your list, to 
 put it there. It will grace and gladden all the 
 rest. A ci'icketer is a sort of glorifier of exer- 
 cise, and we respect him accordingly : but it is 
 not in every one's power to be a cricketer ; 
 and respect attends a man in proportion as he 
 does wliat he is able. Come then, be respect- 
 able in this matter as far as you can ; — have a 
 whole mile's respectability, if possible, — or two 
 miles, or four : let our homage wait upon you 
 into the fields, thinking of all the good you are 
 doing to yourselves, to your kindred, to your 
 offspring, born or not born, and to all friends 
 who love you, and would be grieved to lose you. 
 Ilcalthy and graceful example makes healthy 
 and gi-aceful children, makes cheerful tempers, 
 makes grateful and loving friends. We know 
 but of one inconvenience resulting from the 
 sight of such ^'irtue ; and that is, that it some- 
 times makes one love it too much, and long to 
 know it, and show our gratitude. A poet has 
 said,that he never could travel through different 
 l)laces and think how many agreeable people 
 they probably contained, without feeling a sort 
 of impatience at not being able to make their 
 acquaintance. But he was a rich poet, and his 
 benevolence was a little pampered and self- 
 willed. It is enough for us tiiut we sometimes 
 resent our inability to know tiiose whom we 
 behold, — who charm us visibly, or of whose 
 existence, somehow or other, we are made 
 pleasantly certain, without going so far as to 
 raise up exquisite causes of distress after his 
 fashion. Now, as we never behold the cricketer, 
 or the horseman, or the field-stroller (provided 
 we can suppose him bound on his task with a 
 liking of ii) without a feeling of something 
 like respect and gratitude (for the twofold 
 pleasurable idea he gives us of nature and 
 himself), so we cannot look upon all those fair 
 
 U 2
 
 Mi 
 
 A DUSTY DAY, 
 
 creatures, blooming or otherwise, who walk 
 abroad with their friends or children, wliether 
 in villajje or town, fine square or common 
 street, \Nitlu)ut I'ei'lini,'' soniotliinfj; like a bit of 
 love, and wishing tliat the world were in such 
 condition as to let i)eople evince wliat they 
 feel, and bo more like good, honest folks, and 
 chatty comimnions. If we sometimes adniir(> 
 maid-servants instead of tlieir mistresses, it is 
 not our fault, but that of tiie latter, who will not 
 come abroad. Hesides, a real good-humoured 
 maid-servant, witli a pretty face, ])Iayfng over 
 the sward of a green square with her mistress's 
 children, is a very respectable, as well as plea- 
 sant object. May no inferior of the other sex, 
 under pretence of being a gentleman, deceive 
 her, and render her less so. 
 
 XV.— A DUSTY DAY. 
 
 Among the " Miseries of Human Life," as a 
 wit pleasantly entitled them, there are few, 
 wiiile the rascal is about it, worse than a Great 
 Cloud of Dust, coming upon you in street or 
 road, you having no means of escape, and the 
 carriages, or flock of slieep, evidently being 
 bent on in.parting to you a full share of their 
 besetting horror. The road is too narrow to 
 leave you a clioice, even if it had two pathways, 
 wiiich it has not : — the day is hot ; the wind is 
 whisking ; you have come out in stockings in- 
 stead of boots, not being aware that you were 
 occasionally to have two feet depth of dust to 
 walk in : — nuw, now the dust is on you, — you 
 are enveloped, — you are blind ; you have to 
 hold your hat on against the wind : the carriages 
 grind by, or the sheep go pattering along, 
 baaing through all the notes of their poor 
 gamut ; perhaps carriages and sheep are toge- 
 ther, the latter eschewing the horses' legs, and 
 the shepherd's dog driving against your own, 
 and careering over the woolly backs : — Whew ! 
 wliat a dusting ! What a blinding ! What a 
 whirl ! The noise decreases ; you stop ; you 
 look about you ; gathering up your hat, coat, 
 and faculties,after apologising to thegentleman 
 against whom you have " lumi)ed," and who 
 does not look a bit the happier for your apology. 
 The dust is in your eyes, in your hair, in your 
 shoes and stockings, in your neck-cloth, in your 
 mouth. You grind your teeth in dismay, and 
 find them gritty. 
 
 Perhaps another carriage is coming ; and 
 you, finding yourself in the middle of the road, 
 and being resolved to be master of, at least, 
 this inferior horror, turn about towards the 
 wall or paling, and propose to make your way 
 accordingly, and have the dust behind your 
 back instead of in front ; when lo ! you begin 
 Kneezing, and cannot see. You have taken in- 
 voluntary snuff. 
 
 Or you suddenly discern a street, down 
 which you can turn, which you do with rap- 
 
 ture, thinking to get out of wind and dust at 
 once ; when, unfortunately, you discover that 
 the wind is veering to all jioints of the compass, 
 and that, instead of avoiding the dust, there is 
 a ready-made and intense collection of it, then 
 in the act of being swept into your eyes by the 
 attendants on a dust-cart ! 
 
 The reader knows what sort of a day we 
 si)eak of. It is all dusty ; — the windows are 
 dusty ; the people are dusty ; the hedges in the 
 roads are horribly dusty, — pitiably, — you think 
 tliey must feel it ; shoes and boots are like a 
 baker's : men on horseback eat and drink 
 dust ; coachmen sit screwing up their eyes ; 
 the gardener finds his spade slip into the 
 ground, fetching up smooth portions of earth, 
 all made of dust. W^hat is the poor pedestrian 
 to do? 
 
 To think of something supfrior to the dust, — 
 whether grave or gay. This is the secret ot 
 being master of any ordinary, and of much ex- 
 traordinary trouble : — bring a better idea upon 
 it, and it is hard if the greater thought does not 
 do something against the less. When we meet 
 with any very unpleasant person, to whose ways 
 we cannot suddenly reconcile ourselves, we 
 think of some delightful friend, i)erhaj)s two 
 hundred miles ofl^", — in Northumberland, or in 
 Wales. When dust threatens to blind us, wc 
 shut our eyes to the disaster, and contrive to 
 philosophise a bit even then. 
 
 " Oh, but it is not worth while doing that." 
 
 Good. If so, there is nothing to do but to be 
 as jovial as the dust itself, and take all gaily. 
 Indeed, this is the ])hilosoj)hy we speak of. 
 
 " And yet the dust is annoying too." 
 
 Well — take then just as much good sense as 
 you require for the occasion. Think of a jest ; 
 think of a bit of verse ; think of the dog you 
 saw just now, coming out of the pond, and 
 frightening the dandy in his new trousers. But 
 at all events don't let your temper be mastered 
 by such a thing as a cloud of dust. It will 
 show, either that you have a very infirm temper 
 indeed, or no ideas in your head. 
 
 On all occasions in life, great or small, you 
 may be the wor.se for them, or the better. You 
 may be made the weaker or the stronger by 
 them ; ay, even by so small a thing as a little 
 dust. 
 
 When the famous Arbuthnot was getting 
 into his carriage one day, he was beset with 
 dust. What did he do ? Damn the dust or 
 the coachman ? No ; that was not his fashion. 
 He was a wit, and a good-natured man ; so he 
 f(dl to making an epigram, which he sent to 
 his friends. It was founded on scientific 
 knowledge, and consisted of the following plea- 
 sant exaggeration : — 
 
 O.V A Dl'STY DAY. 
 
 Tlie (lust in smaller particles arose, 
 Tlian those which fiiiid bodies do compose, 
 f'ontraries in extremes do often meet ; 
 It was so dry, thai yuu might call it wet.
 
 BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 ?,1 
 
 — I 
 
 Dust at a distance sometimes takes a bur- 
 nished or tawny aspect in the sun, almost as 
 handsome as the great yellow smoke out of 
 breweries ; and you may amuse your fauc^y 
 with thinking of the clouds that precede armies 
 in the old books of poetry, — the spears gleaming 
 out, — the noise of the throng growing on the 
 ear, — and, at length, horses emerging, and 
 helmets and flags, — the Lion of King Richard, 
 or the Lilies of France. 
 
 Or you may think of some better and more 
 harmless palm of victory, " not without dust" 
 (palma non sine pidrere) ; dust, such as Horace 
 says the horsemen of anti(juity liked to kick up 
 at the Olympic games, or as he more elegantly 
 phrases it, " collect" (coUegisse jurat ; — which a 
 punster of our acquaintance translated, " kick- 
 ing up a dust at college") ; or if you are in a 
 very philosophic vein indeed, you may think of 
 man's derivation from dust, and his return to 
 it, redeeming your thoughts from gloom by the 
 hopes beyond dust, and by the graces which 
 poetry and the affections have shed upon it in 
 this life, like flowers upon graves, — lamenting 
 with the tender Petrarch, that "those eyes of 
 which he spoke so warmly," and that golden 
 hair, and " the lightning of that angel smile," 
 and all those other beauties which made him a 
 lover " marked out from amonjj men" — a beinof 
 abstracted " from the rest of his species," — are 
 now "a little dust, without a feeling" — 
 
 "Pocapolvere son che nulla sente " — 
 
 or repeating that beautiful lyric of the last of 
 the Shakspearian men, Shirley, which they 
 say touched even the thoughtless bosom of 
 Jharles the Second : — 
 
 DKATH S FINAL CONQUEST. 
 
 The glories of our birth und state 
 
 Are shadows, not substantial things : 
 There is no armour against fate ; 
 Death lays his ici/hanil on kings: 
 Sceptre and crown 
 Must tumble down, 
 And in the dust fie equal made 
 With the poor cro-iked scythe and spade. 
 
 Some men with swords may reap the field 
 And plant fresh laurels where they kill : 
 
 But their strong nerves at last must yield, 
 They tame but one another still. 
 Early or late 
 They stoop to fate, 
 
 And must give up their murmuring breath, 
 When they, pale captives, creep to death. 
 
 The garlands wither on your brow. 
 
 Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; 
 Upon death's purple altar now 
 
 See where tlie eictur-vielim bleeds: 
 All heads must come 
 To tlie cold tomb : 
 Only the actions of the just 
 Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust. 
 
 Most true ; but with the leave of the fine 
 poet (which he would gladly have conceded to 
 us), Deatli's conquest is not " final ;" for 
 Heaven triumphs over him, and Love too, and 
 
 Poetry ; and thus we can get through the cloud 
 even of his dust, and shake it, in aspiration, 
 from our wings. Besides, we know not, with 
 any exactitude, what or who Death is, or 
 whether there is any such personage, even in 
 his negative sense, except inasmuch as he is a 
 gentle voice, calling upon us to go some jour- 
 ney ; for the very dust that he is supposed 
 to deal in, is alive ; is the cradle of other 
 beings and vegetation ; nay, its least particle 
 belongs to a mighty life ;— is planetary, — is 
 part of our star, — is the stuff of which the 
 woi'lds are made, that roll and rejoice round 
 the sun. 
 
 Of these or the like reflections, serious or 
 otherwise, are the cogitations of the true pe- 
 destrian composed ; — such are the weajjons 
 with which he triumphs over the most hostile 
 of his clouds, whether material or metapho- 
 rical ; and, at the end of his dusty walk, lie 
 beholdeth, in beautiful perspective, the towel, 
 and the basin and water, with which he will 
 render his eyes, cheeks, and faculties, as cool 
 and fresh, as if no dust had touched them ; 
 nay, more so, fur the contrast. Never forget that 
 secret of the reconcilements of this life. To sit 
 down, newly washed and dressed, after a dusty 
 journey, and hear that dinner is to be ready 
 "in ten minutes," is a satisfiictlon — a crowning 
 and "measureless content" — which we hope no 
 one will enjoy who does not a}low fair play 
 between the harmless lights and shadows of 
 existence, and treat his dust with resjject. We 
 defy him to enjoy it, at any rate, like those who 
 do. His ill-temj)er, somehow or other, will riso 
 in retribution against him, and find dust on his 
 saddle of mutton. 
 
 XVI.-BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 It is a very hot day and a " dusty day ;" 
 you are passing through a street in which there 
 is no shade, — a new street, only half-built and 
 half-paved — theareas unfinished as you advance 
 (it is to be hoped no drunken man will stray 
 there) — the floors of tlie houses only raftered 
 (you can't go in and sit down) — broken glass, 
 at the turnings, on the bits of garden wall— 
 the time, noon — the month, August — the whole 
 place glaring with the sun, and coloured with 
 yellow brick, chalk, and lime. Occasionally 
 you stumble upon the bottom of an old sauce- 
 pan, or kick a baked shoo. 
 
 In this very hot passage through life, you are 
 longing for soda-water, or for tlie sound of a 
 pump, when suddenly you 
 
 " Hear a trowel tick against a brick," 
 
 and down a ladder by your side, wliich bends 
 at every step, comes dancing, with hod on 
 shoulder, a bricklayer, who looks as dry as 
 his vocation, — his eyes winking, his moutli 
 gaping; his beard grim with a week's growth. 
 
 2:)8S63
 
 38 
 
 BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 the rest of his hair like a badger's. You then 
 for the first time see a little water by the way- 
 side, thick and white with chalk ; and are 
 doubting wlietlior to admire it as a li({iiid or 
 detest it lor its colour, when a quantity of lime 
 is dashed against tlie sieve, and you receive in 
 your eyes and mouth a taste of the dry and 
 burning elements of mortar, witiiout the re- 
 freshment of the wot. Finally, your slioe is 
 burned ; and as the bricklayer says sonu-thing 
 to his fellow in Irish, who laughs, you fancy 
 that he is witty at your expense, and has made 
 some ingenious bull. 
 
 " A pretty ])icture, Mr. Seer ! and very 
 refreshing, this hot weather !" 
 
 Oh, but you are only a chance-acquaintance 
 of us, my dear Sir ; you don't know wiiat jjlii- 
 loso])hies we writers and readers of " The Seer" 
 possess, which render us " lords of ourselves," 
 unencumbered even with the mighty misery 
 of a hot day, and the hod on another man's 
 shoulder. You, unfortunate easy man, have 
 beenthinkingof nothing but the "aggravations" 
 of the street all tiiis while, and are ready to 
 enter your house after the walk, in a temper 
 to kick off your shoes into the servant's face. 
 We, besides being in the street, have been in 
 all sorts of pleasant and remote places ; have 
 been at Babylon ; have been at Bagdad ; have 
 bathed in the river Tigris, the river of that city 
 of the "Arabian Nights;" nay, have been in 
 Paradise itself! led by old Bochart and his 
 undeniable maps, where you see the place as 
 "graphically set fortli" as though it had 
 never vanisiied, and Adam and Eve waliving in 
 it, taller than tlu^ trees. We are writing upon 
 the very book this moment instead of a desk, 
 a fond custom of ours ; though, for dignity's 
 sake, we beg to say we hare a desk ; but we 
 like an old folio to write upon, Avritten by 
 some happy believing hand, no matter whe- 
 ther we go all lengths or not witli his sort of 
 proof, provided he be in earnest and a good 
 fellow*. 
 
 Let us indulge ourselves a moment, during 
 this hot subject, with the map in question. It 
 is now before us, the river Euphrates running 
 up through it in dark fulness, and appearing 
 througli the paper on whicii we are writing like 
 rich veins. Occasionally we take up the paper to 
 see it better ; the garden of Eden, however, 
 always remaining visible below, and tlie moun- 
 tains of Armenia at top. The map is a small 
 folio size, darkly printed, with thick letters; a 
 good stout sprinkle of mountains ; a great tower 
 to mark the site of Babylon ; trees, as formal 
 as a park in those days, to shadow forth the 
 terrestrial paradise, witii Adam and Eve, as 
 before mentioned ; Greek and Hebrew names 
 here and there mingled with the Latin ; a lion, 
 towards the nortli-west, sitting in Armenia, and 
 
 * Our volume is t)ie Geographia Sacra, followed by Iiis 
 commentciry on Stephen of IJyzantiuin, tlie freutise Pe 
 Jure Regum, &c. &u. The Leyden P>dition, 17"7- 
 
 bigger than a mountain ; some other beast, 
 "stepping west" from the Caspian sea ; and a 
 great tablet in the south-west corner, present- 
 ing tlu! title of the map, the site of Eden, or 
 the Terrestrial Paradise (ICdenis, sen Paradisi 
 Terrestris Situs), surmounted with a tree, and 
 formidable with the Serpent ; who, suddenly 
 ai^pearing from one side of it with the ajiple 
 in his nioutli, is startling a traveller m\ the 
 other. These old maps are as good to study 
 as pictures and boolcs : and tiie region before 
 us is si)ecially rich — reverend witii memories 
 of scripture, pompous witli Alexander's cities, 
 and delightful with tiie "Arabian Nigiits." You 
 go up from the Persian Gulf at tlie foot, passing 
 (like Sindbad) the city of Caijjhat, wliere 
 " bdellium " is to be had, and the island of 
 Bahrim, famous for its pearl fishery (Balirim 
 Insula ilargaritarum Piscat. Celebris) ; then 
 penetrate the garden of Eden, with tiie river 
 Euphrates, as straight as a canal ; pass tlie 
 Cyj)ress-grove, wiiich furnislied the wood of 
 wiiich tiie ark was made ; Mousal, one of our 
 old friends in the "Arabian Niglits ;" Babylon, 
 famous for a hundred fanes, the sublime of 
 hrkk-hn'ddlnc] ; KVlina the " Na^irda of Ptolemy," 
 a " celebrated school of the Jews ;" Ur (of tiie 
 Chaldees), the country of Abraham ; Noah's 
 city, Xcu/nTj Qafxavaiv, the city of Eight, so called 
 from tlu; eight persons that came out of tiie 
 arlc ; Omar's Island, where there is a mosque 
 (says the map) made out of the relics of tlic 
 ark ; Mount Ararat, on the top of which it 
 rested ; and thence you pass the springs of tlie 
 Tigris and tiie Euphrates into Colcliis witli its 
 Golden Fleece, leaving the Caspian sea on 
 one side, and the Euxine on the other, witli 
 Phasis the country of pheasants,and Caj)padocia, 
 where you see tlie mild light sliining on tlu; 
 early Christian church ; and you have come 
 all tills way through the famous names of 
 Persia, and Arabia, and Armenia, and Mesopo- 
 tamia, and Syria, and Assyria, witli Arbela 
 on the right hand, where Darius was over- 
 thrown, and Damascus on the left, rich, from 
 time immemorial to this day, with almost 
 every Eastern association of ideas, sacred and 
 profane. 
 
 In regions of this nature, did sincere, book- 
 loving, scholarly I3ociiart sjicnd the dat/s of his 
 mind, — by far the greater portion of the actual 
 days of such a man's life ; and for that reason 
 we, wiio, tliough not so scholarly, love boolfs 
 as well as he did, love to have the folio of such 
 a man under our paper for a desk, — making 
 his venerable mixture of truth and fiction a 
 foundation, as it were, for our own love of both, 
 and rendering the dream of liis existence, in 
 some measure, as tangible to us as it v/as to 
 himself, in the shape of one of his works of 
 love. — Do peopl(! now-a-days, — do even we 
 ourselves, — love books as they did in those 
 times ? It is hardly possible, seeing liow the 
 volumes have multiplied to distract choice and
 
 BRICKLAYERS, AND AN OLD BOOK. 
 
 39 
 
 passion, and also how small in size they have 
 become, — octavos and duodecimos. A little 
 book is indeed "a love," (to use a modern 
 phrase,) — and fitted to carry about with us in 
 our walks and pockets : but tlien a great book, 
 — a folio, — was a thing to look up to, — to build, 
 — a new and lawful Babel, — and therefore it 
 had an aspect more like a religion. — Well ; 
 love is religion too, and of the best ; and so we 
 will return to our common task. 
 
 Now observe, casual reader of " The Seer," 
 what such of us as are habituated to it found 
 in our half-built sti-eet. You take a brick per- 
 haps for an ordinary bit of burnt clay, fit only 
 to build No. 9, Golf-street, Little Meadows ; 
 and to become a brick-bat, and be kicked to 
 piecesin an old alley. O thou of littlebookstall! 
 Why, the very manufacture is illustrious with 
 antiquity — with the morningbeams that touched 
 tlie house-tops of Shinaar ; — tJiere is a clatter of 
 brick-makiug in the fields of Accad ; and the 
 work looks almost as ancient to this day, with 
 its straw-built tents and its earthy landscape. 
 Not desolate therefore, or unrefreshed, were 
 we in our new and hot street ; for the first 
 brick, like a talisman, transported us into old 
 Babylon, with its tower and its gardens ; and 
 there we drove our cliariot on the walls, and 
 conversed with Herodotus, and got out of the 
 way of Semiraniis, and read, as men try to read 
 at this day, the arrow-headed lettei-s on tlie 
 bricks, — as easy to us at tliat time as A. B. C. ; 
 though what they mean now, neither we nor 
 Mr. Rich can tell. The said brick, as our 
 readers have seen, thence took us into paradise, 
 and so through all the regions of Mesopotamia 
 and the Arabian Niglits, with our friends 
 Bocliart and Bedreddin Hassan ; and returning 
 home, what do we descry ? The street itself 
 alone! No: Ben Jonson, the most illustrious 
 of bricklayers, handling his trowel on the walls 
 of Chancery-lane, and the obstinate remnants 
 of Roman hrick and mortar lurking still about 
 London, and S])euser's celebration of — 
 
 " Those bricky towers, 
 The which on Thenimes brode aged baeUc doe ride, 
 Where now the studious lawyers have their bowres ; " 
 
 to wit, the Temjde ; and then we think of our 
 old and picture-learned friend, our lamented 
 Hazlitt, Mho first taught us not to think white 
 cottages better than red, especially among trees, 
 noting to us tlie finer harmony of the contrast 
 — to which we cu,n bear instant and curious 
 testimony ; for passing the other day through 
 the gate that leads from St. James's Park into 
 tlie old court, betwixt Sutherland and Marlbo- 
 rough Houses, we marvelled at what seemed 
 to our near-sighted eyes a shower of red colours 
 in a tree to the right of us, at the corner ; which 
 colours, upon inspection, jiroved to lie nothing 
 better than tlioso of the very red bricks, that 
 bordered the windows of the building liehind 
 the trees. We smiled at the mistake ; but it 
 
 was with pleasure ; for it reminded us that 
 even defects of vision may have their compen- 
 sations ; and it looked like a symbol of the 
 pleasures with which fancy, and common-place, 
 may conspire to enrich an observer willing to 
 be pleased. 
 
 The most elegant houses in the world, gene- 
 rally speaking, are built of clay. You have 
 I'iches inside, — costliness and beauty on the 
 in ter nal walls, — pai n tings, papers, fi n e d raper ies, 
 — themselves compounded of the homeliest 
 growths of the earth ; but pierce an inch or 
 two outwards, and you come to the stuif of 
 which the hovel is made. It is nothing but 
 ■)ntnd at last which throws elegance upon the 
 richest as well as the poorest mate:"ials. Let 
 a rich man give a hundred guineas for a daub, 
 and people laugh at him and his daub together. 
 The inside of his wall is no better than liis 
 out. But let him put Titian or Correggio upon 
 it, and he puts mind there, — visible mind, and 
 therefore the most precious to all ; his own 
 mind too, as well as the painter's, for love par- 
 takes of what it loves ; and yet the jjainter's 
 visible mind is not a bit different, except in 
 degree, from the mind Avith which every lover 
 of the graceful and the possihh' may adorn what- 
 soever it looks upon. The object vvill be perhaps 
 rich in itself, but if not, it will be ricli, somehow 
 or other, in association ! and it cannot be too 
 often repeated, as a truth in strictest logic, that 
 every impression is real which is actually 
 made upon us, whether by fact or fancy. No 
 minds entirely divorce the two, or can divorce 
 them, even if they evince the spiritual part of 
 their faculties in doing nothing better than 
 takuiij a fancy to a tea-cup or a hat ; and Nature, 
 we may be assured, intended that we sliould 
 receive pleasure from the associations of ideas, 
 as well as from images tangible ; for all man- 
 kind, more or less, do so. The great art is to 
 cultivate impressions of the pleasant sort, just 
 as a man will raise wholesome ])lants in his 
 garden, and not poisonous ones. 
 
 A bricklayer's tools may illustrate a passage 
 in Shakspeare. One of them is called a beccl, 
 and is used to cut the under-side of bricks to a 
 required angle. "Bevel" is a sort of irregular 
 square. 
 
 " They tliat level 
 
 At my abuses, reckon up their own. 
 
 1 may be straight, though they themselves be bevfl." 
 
 Soiiiiel CXXI. 
 
 We shall conclude this paper with two brick- 
 laying anecdotes, one of which has more manner 
 tiian matter ; but there is an ease in it, very 
 comforting, when we reflect upon the laborious- 
 ness of the occupation in a hot day. And this 
 reminds us, tliat in considering the bricklayer, 
 we must not forget how many of his hours he 
 passes in a world of his own, though in the 
 1 jtreets, — jiaciug on scafl^olding, descending and 
 j ascending ladders, living on the outsides of 
 I houses, betwixt ground-fioore and garrets, or
 
 40 
 
 A RAINY DAY. 
 
 the sun, now catching a breeze unknown to us 
 prisoners of the pavement. We have heard of 
 a brickUiyer who was a somnambulist by day- 
 time, and used to go on witli iiis work in tiiat 
 state, ah)ng tiie preeii)ices of parapet walls, 
 overlooking us from tiie top — now Ijurning in 
 and tlie nice points of tops of ladders. But to 
 our anecdotes : — 
 
 An acquaintance of ours was passing a street 
 in which Ii-ish bricklayers were at work, wlien 
 he heard one of them address, from below, 
 another who was sending him baskets down 
 by a ro])e. " Jjniir ai^ji, wou'd you ?" said he ; 
 meaning that his friend was to lower the baskets 
 in a style less hasty and inconvenient. " Lour 
 asi/f" exclaimed the other, in a tone indignant 
 at having the quiet perfection of his movements 
 callcil in (luestion, and in the very phraseology 
 of which we seem to hi-'ar tlie Hibernian eleva- 
 tion of his eyebrows, as well as the rough 
 lightness of his voice, "I lour so asy, I don't 
 know how I lour." 
 
 The otiier story appears to us to exhibit the 
 ver}' prince of bulls — the prize animal in tliat 
 species of cattle. — An Irish labourer laid a 
 wager with another, that the latter could not 
 cari-y him uj) the ladder to the top of a house 
 in his hod, without letting him fall. Agreed. 
 The hod is occupied, the ladder ascended, there 
 is peril at every step. Above all, there is life 
 and the loss of the wager at the top of the lad- 
 der, death and success below ! The house-top 
 is reached in safety; the wagerer looks humbled 
 and disajipointed. "Well," said he, " you have 
 won ; there is no doubt of that ; worse luck to 
 you another time ; but at the third story I had 
 
 XVII —A RAINY DAY. 
 
 " Pour ! pour ! pour ! There is no hope of 
 its leathuj off" — says a lady, turning away from 
 the window ; "yon must make up your mind, 
 Louisa, to stay at home, and lose your romjis, 
 and have a whole fr()(;k to sit in at dinner, and 
 be very unhap])y with mamma." 
 
 " No, mamma, not that ; but don't you think 
 it will hold u]j 1 Look, the kennels are not quite 
 so bad ; and tliosc; clouds — they are not so 
 heavy as they were. It is getting quite light 
 in the sky." 
 
 " I am afraid not," says the lady, at once 
 grave and smiling ; " but you are a good girl, 
 Louisa ; give me a kiss. We will make the 
 day as hai)py as we can at home. I am not a 
 very bad play-fellow, yon know, for all I am so 
 much bigger and older." 
 
 "f)h mamma, you know I never enjoy my 
 cousin's company half so nmch, if you don't go 
 with me ; but (here two or three kisses are 
 given and taken, the lady's hands holding the 
 little girl's checks, and her eyes looking I'cnKliy 
 into hers, which are a little wet)— but — but 
 
 don't you think we really shall be able to go — 
 don't you think it will hold up ?" And here the 
 child returns to the window. 
 
 " No, my darling ; it is set in for a rainy day. 
 It lias been raining all the morning ; it is now 
 afternoon, and we have, I fear, no chanco 
 whatever." 
 
 " The jjuddles don't dance quite as fast as 
 they did," says the little girl. 
 
 " But hark !" says the lady ; " there's a furious 
 dasli of water against the panes." 
 
 "T! «.'" quoth the little girl against her 
 teeth ; " dear me ! It's very bad indeed ; I 
 wonder wliat Cliarles and Mary are thinking 
 of it." 
 
 " Why, they are thinking just as you are, 1 
 dare say; and doing just as you are, very likely, 
 — nviking their noses flat and numb against tho 
 glass." 
 
 The little girl laughs, with a tear in her eye, 
 and mamma laughs and kisses her, and says, 
 " Come ; as you cannot go to see your cousins, 
 you shall have a visitor yourself. You shall 
 invite me and Miss Nayler to dinner, and sit at 
 the head of the table in the little room, and we 
 will have your favourite pudding, and no ser- 
 vant to wait on us. We will wait on ourselves; 
 little child, and behave well ; and you shall 
 tell i)apa, when he comes home, what a nice 
 and 1 will try to be a very great, good, big 
 girl I was." 
 
 " Oh dear mamma, that will be very pleasant 
 — What a nice, kind mamma you are, and how 
 afraid 1 am to vex you, though you do play and 
 romp with me." 
 
 " Good gii-1 ! But— Ah, you need not look at 
 the window any more, my poor Louisa. Go, 
 and tell cook about the pudding, and we will 
 get you to give us a glass of wine after it, and 
 drink the health of your cousins, so as to fancy 
 them partaking it with us ; and Miss Nayler 
 and I will make fine speeches, and return you 
 their thanks ; and then you can tell them 
 about it, when you go next time.'' 
 
 " (Jh dep.r, dear, dear mamma, so I can ; and 
 how very nice that will be ; and I'll go this in- 
 stant about the jiudding ; and 1 don't think we 
 could go as far as Welland's now, if the rain 
 did hold UJ) ; and the puddles are worse than 
 ever." 
 
 And so, off runs little fond-heart and bright- 
 eyes, hapj)y at dining in fancy with her mother 
 and cousins all at once, and almost feeling 
 as if she had but exchanged one holiday for 
 another. 
 
 Tlie sight of mother and daughter has made 
 us forget our rainy day. — Alas! the lady was 
 right, and the little child wrong, for there is 
 no chance of to-day's clearing iij). The long- 
 watched and interesting puddles are not indeed 
 " worse than ever" — not suddenly hurried and 
 exasperated, as if dancing with rage at the 
 tlo'''Mnjr Lfiveii tiiem : tliev are worse even 
 than that, for tht-y are everlastingly the same :
 
 A EAINY DAY. 
 
 41 
 
 writliinjif 
 
 iiig to see the better 
 iretting 
 
 — the same full, twittering, dancing, circle- 
 making overflowings of gutter, which they 
 have 6een ever since five in the morning, and 
 which they mean to be, apparently, till five 
 to-morrow. 
 
 "Wash ! wash ! wash ! The window-panes, 
 weltering, and dreary, and rapid, and misty 
 with the rain, are like the face of a crying child 
 who is afraid to make a noise, but who is re- 
 solved to be as " aggravating" as possible with 
 the piteous ostentation of his wet cheeks,- — 
 weeping with all his might, and breathing, 
 with wide-open mouth, a sort of huge, wilful, 
 everlasting sigh, by way of accompaniment. 
 Occasionally he puts his hand over to his ear, 
 — hollow, — as though he feared to touch it, his 
 master having given him a gentle pinch : and 
 at the same moment, he stoops with bent 
 head and shrugged shoulders, and one lifted 
 knee, as if in the endurance of a 
 anguish. 
 
 You involuntarily rub one of thepanes, think- 
 into the street, and for- 
 that the mist is made by the rain on 
 the other side. — On goes the wet as ever, rush- 
 ing, streaming, running down, mingling its soft 
 and washy channels ; and now and then comes 
 a clutter of drops against the glass, made by a 
 gust of wind. 
 
 Clack, meantime, goes the sound of pattens ; 
 and when you do see, you see the street almost 
 deserted, — a sort of lay Sunday. The rare 
 carriages drive as fust as they can ; the 
 hackney-coaches lumber along, glossy (on such 
 occasions only) with the wet, and looking as 
 old and rheumatic as the poor coachmen, whose 
 hats and legs are bound with straw ; the rain- 
 spouts are sputtering torrents ; messengers 
 dart along in oil-skin capes ; the cry of the old 
 shrimp-seller is hoarse ; the postman's knock is 
 ferocious. 
 
 If you are out of doors, woe betide you, 
 should you have gone out unprepared, or rely- 
 ing on a coach. Your shoes and stockings are 
 wet through, the latter almost as muddy as the 
 dog that ran by just now without an owner ; 
 the rain washes your face, gets into the nape 
 of your neck, makes a spout of your hat. Close 
 by your ears comes roaring an umbrella, the 
 face imdernoath it looking astonished at you. 
 A butcher's boy dasiies along, and contrives to 
 come with his heel plump upon the exact spot 
 of a loose })iece of pavement, requisite for 
 giving you a splash that shall embrace the 
 wiiole of your left leg. To stand uj) under a 
 gateway is impossible, because in tiie state you 
 are in, you will catch your " death o'cold ;" and 
 the people underneath it look at you amazed, 
 to think how you could iiave come out " such a 
 day, in such a state." Many of those wlio are 
 standing up, have umbrellas ; but the very 
 umbrellas are wet through. Those who pass 
 by the spot, with tlieir oil or silk skins roaring 
 as above (a sound i>iuliciilarly distressing to 
 
 the non-possessors) show that they have not 
 been out of doors so long. Nobody puts his 
 hand out from under the gate-way to feel 
 whether it is still raining. There can be no 
 question of it. The only voluntary person 
 visible m the street is a little errand-boy, who 
 because his mother has told him to make great 
 haste, and not get wet feet, is amusing himself 
 with double zest, by kicking something along 
 through the gutter. 
 
 In private streets, the pavement is washed 
 clean. ; and so it is for the moment in public ; 
 but horrible will be the mud to-morrow. 
 Horses are splashed up to the mane ; the legs 
 of the rider's overalls are as if he had been 
 sitting in a ditch ; poor girls with bandboxes 
 trip patiently along, with their wet curls over 
 their eyes, and a weight of skirt. A carriage 
 is coming down a narrow street ; there is 
 a plenitude of mud between you and the 
 wheels, not to be eschewed ; on dash they, 
 and give you three beauty spots, one right on 
 the nose. 
 
 Swift has described such a day as this in lines 
 which first appeared in the "Tatler," and 
 which hearty, unenvying Steele introduces as 
 written by one, " who treats of every subject 
 after a manner that no other author has done, 
 and better than any other can do." [In tran- 
 scribing such words, one's pen seems to partake 
 the pleasure of the writer.] Swift availing 
 himself of the licence of a different age, is apt 
 to bring less pleasant images among his plea- 
 sant ones, than suit everybody now : but here 
 follows the greater part of his verses : — 
 
 " Careful observers may foretell the hour, 
 
 By sure prognostics, when to dread a shower : 
 
 While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o'er 
 
 Her frolics, and pursues lier tail no more. 
 
 If you be wise, then go not far to dine. 
 
 You'll spend in coacli hire more than save in wine. — 
 
 A coming shower your shooting corns presage. 
 
 Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage. 
 
 Saimtering in coffee-house is Dulm.an seen , 
 
 He damns the climate, and complains of spleen. 
 
 Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings, 
 A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings. 
 
 ***** 
 Urisk Susan whips her linen /mm the rope. 
 While the first drizzling shower is borne aslupe ; 
 Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean 
 Flirts on you fmm her mop, but not so clean. 
 You fly, invoke the gods ; then, turning, stop 
 To rail ; she. sitiiji/i/i, stil! icliir!.'; on her mop. — 
 Not yet the dust had shunn'd the unequal strife, 
 JUit, aided by the wind, fought still for life ; 
 And, wafted with its foe by violent gust, 
 'Twas doubtful which was rain and which w;:s dtisl. 
 Ah I where must needy poet secK for aid. 
 When dust and rain at once his coat inv.tde? — 
 His only coat, — where dust eonfuse/1 with rain. 
 Roughens the nap, and leaves a mingled stain ? 
 
 " Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down, 
 Threatening with deluge this devoted town. 
 'Jo shops in crowds the draggled females fly, 
 f'relriKl to cheajien ooikI):. but nothing buy. 
 Tlie Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach, 
 s^tays till 'tia fair, yd seems lu call a coach.
 
 42 
 
 THE EAST WIND. 
 
 The tiick'd-up sempstress w-alks with hasty stri Jcs, 
 While streams run dmvn her oil'd umhrella's sides. 
 There various Ivinds. by viirinus fortunes led. 
 Commence acquaintance underneath a shed. 
 Triumphant Tories iuid desponding Whigs 
 Forget their feuds, and juin to save (heir trigs. 
 IJo.x'd in a chair*, the beau impatient sits, 
 ]yhilespouls run clallerin;) o'er the roof bij fits ; 
 And ever luid anon witli frightful din, 
 The leather sounds ; be trembles from within. 
 So when Troy cliairnien bore the wooden steed, 
 Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed, 
 (Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do, 
 Inntead of payini) chairmen ran tliem through), 
 Liwcoon struck the outside with his spear, 
 And each imprison'd hero quaked for fear." 
 
 The description concludes witli a triumphant 
 account of a {gutter, more civic tlian urbane. 
 
 JJow to mah; the best of a had day has been 
 taught by implication in various pages througii- 
 out our writings, especially in those where we 
 have studied the art of making everything out 
 of nothing, and have delivered imnieiiso obser- 
 vations on rain-drops. It may be learned in the 
 remarks which ai)i)eared in our No. XV. on 
 a " Dusty Day." The secret is short and com- 
 prehensive, and fit for trying occasions of all 
 sorts. Think of somdhimj superior to it ; — make 
 it yield entertaining and useful reflection, as 
 the rain itself brings out the flowers. Think 
 of it as a benignant enemy, who keeps you in- 
 doors, or othei-wise puts your philoso])hy to a 
 trial, for tiie best of purposes, — to fertilise your 
 fields, to purify your streets against contagion, 
 — to freshen your air and put sweets upon 
 your table, to furnish life with variety, your 
 light with a shadow that sets it oft', your i)oets 
 with similes and descrijjtions. When the 
 summer rains, Heaven is watering your plants. 
 Fancy an insect growling at it under his um- 
 brella of rose-leaf. No wiser is tne man who 
 grumbles under his gateway ; much less over 
 his port wine. Very high-bred ladies would 
 be startled to learn that they are doing a very 
 vulgar thing (and hui'ting their tempei'S to 
 boot) when tlu^y stand at a window, peevishly 
 objecting to the rain, with such phrases as 
 " Dear me ! how tiresome ! " — My lady's maid 
 is not a bit less polite, when she vows and 
 "purtests," that it is " qnite contrar;/ ;" — as if 
 heaven had sent it on purpose to thwart her 
 ladyshipand herwaiting-woman ! By complaint 
 we dwindle and subject ourselves, make our- 
 selves little-minded, and the slaves of circum- 
 stance. By rising above an evil, we set it at a 
 distance from us, render it a small object, and 
 live in a nobler air. 
 
 A wit, not imworthy to be named in the 
 same page with the Dean of St. Patrick's, has 
 given a good lesson on the subject, — Green, in 
 his poem on the " Spleen," — a teacher the 
 fittest in the world to be heard upon it, l>ccause 
 he was subject to wliat he writes about, and 
 overcame it by thecultivation of sense andgood- 
 
 * A sedan. 
 
 temper. Some bookseller with a taste, wlio 
 deals in thatspecii'S of publicatioti, should give 
 us a new edition of this poem, with engravings. 
 Wilkie, Alulready, and others, might find sub- 
 jects enough to furnish a design to every page. 
 
 " In rainy days keep double guard, 
 Or spleen will surely be too hard ; 
 Whieh like (hose^fii^h by sailors met. 
 Fly hi(ihest when their u-ings are wet. 
 In such dull weather so unfit 
 To enterprise a work of wit. 
 When clouds one yard of azure sky 
 That's fit for simile deny, 
 I dress my face with studious looks. 
 And shorten tedious hours with books ; 
 Hut if dull fogs invade the head, 
 That mem'ry minds not what is read, 
 I sit in windows dry as ark. 
 And on the drowning world remark : 
 Or to some coftec-house I stray 
 For news, the manna of the day, 
 And from the hipp'd discourses gather 
 That politics go by the weather ; 
 Then seek good-humour'd tavern-chums, 
 And ]ilay at cards, but fur small sums; 
 Or with the merry fellows quaft'. 
 And laugh aloud with them that laugh. 
 Or drink .1 joco-serious cup 
 With souls tvhu've took their freedom up 
 And let my mind, beguiled by talk. 
 In Epicurus' garden walk. 
 Who thought it heaven to be serene ; 
 Pain, hell ; and purgatory, spleen." 
 
 XVIII.— TIIE EAST-WIND. 
 
 Did anybody ever hear of the East- Wind 
 when he was a boy ? We remember no such 
 thing. We never heard a word about it, all 
 the time we were at school. There was the 
 schoolmaster with his ferula, but there was nc 
 East- Wind. Our elders might have talkeo 
 about it, but such calamities of theirs are in 
 audible in the ears of the juvenile. A fin( 
 day was a fine day, let the wind be in whai 
 quarter it might. While writing this article 
 we hear everybody comjdaining, that the fint 
 weather is polluted by the presence of tho 
 East- Wind. It has lasted so long as to force 
 itself upon people's attention. The ladies con- 
 fess their exasperation with it, for making free 
 without being agreeable ; and as ladies' quar- 
 rels are to be taken up, and there is no other 
 way of grappling with this invisible enemy, 
 we have put ourselves in a state of Editorial 
 resentment, and have resolved to write an 
 article against it. 
 
 Tlie winds are among the most mysterious 
 of the operations of the elements. We know 
 not M-hencc they come, or whither they go, — 
 how they spring up, or how fall, — why they 
 prevail so long, after such and such a fashion, 
 in certain quarters ; nor, above all, why some 
 of them should be at once so lasting and appa- 
 rently so pernicious. We know some of their 
 uses ; but there is a great deal about them we 
 do not know, and it is difficult to put them ti- 
 the question. As the sailor said of the ghosts,
 
 THE EAST WIND. 
 
 43 
 
 " we do not understand their tackle." What 
 is very curious is, there seems to be one of 
 them which prevails in some particular quarter, 
 and has a character for malignity. In the 
 South there is the Scirocco, an ugly customer, 
 dark, close, suffocating, making melancholy ; 
 which blots the sky, and dejects the spirits of 
 the most lively. In the Oriental parts of the 
 Earth, there is the Tifoon, supposed by some 
 to be the Typhon, or Evil Principle of the 
 ancients ; and in Europe we have the East- 
 Wind, whom the ancients reckoned among 
 the Sons of Typhon. The winds, Mr. Keightley 
 tells us, were divided by the Greeks into 
 " icholesome and noxious ; tlie former of which, 
 Boreas (North-Wind), Zephyrus (West-Wind), 
 and Notus (South-Wind), were, according to 
 Hesiod, the children of Astrajus {Starry) and 
 Eos {Dawn). The other winds, he says (pro- 
 bably meaning only those who blow from the 
 East), are the race of Typhoeus, whom he de- 
 scribes as the last and most terrible child of 
 Earth. In Greece, as over the rest of Europe, 
 the East-Wind Avas pernicious." 
 
 In England, the East- Wind is accounted 
 pernicious if it last long ; and it is calculated, 
 we believe, that it blows during three parts 
 even of our fine weather. We have known a 
 single blast of it blight a long row of i)Iants in 
 a greenhouse. Its effects upon tlie vegetable 
 creation are sure to be visible if it last any 
 time ; and it puts invalids into a very unplea- 
 sant state, by drying the pores of the skin, and 
 thus giving activity to those numerous internal 
 disorders, of which none are more painful than 
 what the moderns call nervousness, and our 
 fathers understood by the name of the Vapours 
 or the " Spleen," which, as Shcnstone observed, 
 is often little else than obstructed perspiration. 
 An irritable poet exclaimed — 
 
 "Scarce in a showerless day the heavcDs indulge 
 Our melting clime, except the baleful East 
 Withers the tender spring, and sourly checks 
 The fjincy of the year. Our fathers talk'il 
 Of summers, balmy airs, and skies serene : 
 Good Heaven ! for what unexi>iated crimes 
 This ilismal change '/" 
 
 This terrible question we shall answer pre- 
 sently. Meantime, the suffpving poet may 
 be allowed to have been a little irritated. It 
 is certainly provoking to have this invisible 
 enemy invading a whole nation at his will, 
 and sending among us, for weeks together, his 
 impertinent and cutting influence, drying up 
 our skins, blowing dust in our eyes, con- 
 tradicting our sunshine, smoking our suburbs, 
 behaving boisterously to our women, aggra- 
 vating our scolds, witliering up our old gc^ntle-* 
 men and ladies, nullifying the res|.ite from 
 smoke at Bow, perplexing our rooms between 
 hot and cold, closing up our wiudows, exaspe- 
 rating our rlunmiatisnis, basely treating the 
 wounds of our old soldiers, spoiling our gai'- 
 dens, preventing our voyages, assisting thereby 
 
 our Bow-street runners, hurting our tempers, 
 increasing our melancholies, deteriorating our 
 night-airs, showing our wives' ankles, disorder- 
 ing our little children, not being good for our 
 beasts, perplexing our pantaloons (to know 
 which to put on), deranging our ringlets, 
 scarifying our eyes, thinning our apple-tarts, 
 endangering our dances, getting damned our 
 weathercocks, barbarizing our creditors, inca- 
 pacitating our debtors, obstructing all moist 
 processes in the arts, hindering our astro- 
 nomers *, tiring our editors, and endangering 
 our sales. 
 
 The poet asks what crimes could have 
 brought upon us the evils of our climate ? He 
 should ask the school-boy that runs about, the 
 gipsy who laughs at the climate, or the ghost 
 of some old English yeoman, before taxes and 
 sedentary living abounded. An East-Wind, 
 like every other evil, except folly and ill inten- 
 tion, is found, when properly grappled witli, 
 to be not only no evil, but a good, at least a 
 negative one, sometimes a positive ; and even 
 folly and ill intention are but the mistakes of 
 a community in its progress from bad to good. 
 How evil comes at all, we cannot say. It 
 suffices us to believe, that it is in its nature 
 fugitive ; and that it is the nature of good, 
 when good returns, to outlast it beyond all 
 calculation. If we led the natural lives to 
 which we hope and believe tliat the advance 
 of knowledge and comfort will bring us round, 
 we siiould feel the East- Wind as little as tlie 
 gipsies do : it would be the same refreshment 
 to us that it is to the glowing school-boy, after 
 his exercise ; and as to nipping our fruits and 
 flowers, some living creature juakes a dish of 
 them, if we do not. With these considera- 
 tions, we should be well content to recognise 
 the Concordia dhcors that harmonizes the inani- 
 mate creation. If it were not for the East- 
 Wind in this country, we should probably have 
 too much wet. Our winters would not dry up ; 
 our Jime fields would be unpassable : we should 
 not be able to enjoy the West- Wind itself, the 
 Zephyr witli his lap full of flowers. And upon 
 the supposition that there is no peril in the 
 East-Wind that may not ultimately be nulli- 
 fied, we need not trouble ourselves witli tlie 
 question, why the danger of excessive moisture 
 must be counteracted by a wind full of dry- 
 ness. All the excesses of the elements will 
 one day be pastime, for the healthy arms and 
 discerning faculties of discovering man. 
 
 And so we finish our vituperations in the 
 way in which such things ought generally to ■ 
 1)0 finished, with a discovery that the fault 
 objected to is in ourselves, and renewed admi- 
 ration of the abundance of promise in all the 
 works of nature. 
 
 * Dnring East-Winds astronomers arc unable to pursue 
 their observations, on account of a certain hazy motion in 
 the air.
 
 44 
 
 STRAWBERRIES. 
 
 XIX.—STRAWBERRIES, 
 
 WRITTKN IN Jl'NK. 
 
 If our article on tliis subject should be worth 
 little (especially as we are obliged to be brief, 
 and cannot bring to our assistance much quota- 
 tion or otlier helps) we beg leave to say, that 
 we mean to do little more in it than congratu- 
 late the reader on the strawberry-season, and 
 imply those pleasant interchanges of conven- 
 tional sympathy, which give rise to the common 
 expressionsal)out the weather or tin; stateof the 
 harvest, — things which everybody knows what 
 everybody else will say about them, and yet 
 upon which everybody speaks. Such a charm 
 has sympathy, even in its commonest aspect. 
 
 A. — A fine day to-day. 
 
 B. — Very fine day. 
 
 A. — But I think we shall have rain. 
 
 B.— I think we shall. 
 
 And so the two speakers part, all the better 
 pleased with one another merely for having 
 uttered a few words, and those words such as 
 either of them could have I'eckoned upon before- 
 hand, and has int(>rchanged a thousand times. 
 And justly are tliey pleased. They are fellow- 
 creatures living in the same world, and all its 
 phases ai-e of importance to them, and them- 
 selves to one another. The meaning of the words 
 is — " I feel as you do"^ — or " I am interested in 
 the same subject, and it is a pleasure to me to 
 let you see it." What a pity that mankind do 
 not vent the same feelings of good-will and a 
 mutual understanding on fifty other subjects ! 
 And many do ;— but all might ; — and as Ben- 
 tham says, " with how little trouble !" 
 
 There is strawberry ireafAer, for instance, which 
 is as good a point of the weather to talk about, 
 as rain, or sun. If the phrase seems a little 
 forced, it is perhaps not so much as it seems ; 
 for the weather, and fruit, and colour, and the 
 birds, &c. &c., all hang together; and for our 
 parts, we would fain tliink, and can easily 
 believe, that without tiiis sjiecial degree of heat 
 (while we are writing), or mixture of heat and 
 fresh air, the strawberries would not have their 
 special degree of colour and fragrance. The 
 world answers to the sj)irit that plays ujion it, 
 as musical instruments to musician ; and if 
 cloud, sunshine, and breeze (the fine playinjj of 
 nature) did not descend ujion earth precisely as 
 they do at this moment, there is good reason 
 to conclude, that neither fruit, uor anything 
 else, would be precisely what it is. The 
 cuckoo would want tone, and the strawberries 
 relish. 
 
 Do you not like, reader, the pottlo of straw- 
 berries ? And is it not manifest, from old habit 
 and association, that no other sort of basket 
 would do as well for their first arrival ? It 
 " carries" well : it lies on your arm like a 
 length of freshness ; then there is the slight 
 paper covering, the slighter rush tie, the inner 
 covering of loaves ; and when all these give 
 
 place, fresh, and fragrant, and red lie the 
 berries, — the best, it is to be feared, at the top. 
 Now and then comes a half-mashed one, sweet 
 in its over-ripeness ; and when the fingers 
 cannot conveniently descend further, the rest, 
 urged by a beat on the flat end, are poured out 
 on a plate ; and perhaps agreeably surprise us 
 with tlie amount. — Meantime the fingers and 
 nails have got coloured as with wine. 
 
 Wiiat matter of fact is this ! And how 
 everybody knows it ! And yet for that very 
 reason, it is welcome ; like the anti(iuities about 
 the weather. So abundant is Nature in supi)ly- 
 ing us with entertainment, even by means of 
 simply stating that anything is wliat it is.' 
 Paint a strawberry in oil, and provided the re- 
 presentation be true, how willing is everybody 
 to like it ! And observe, even in a smaller 
 matter, how Nature heaps our resources one 
 upon another, — first giving us the thing, then 
 the representation of it, or ])ower of painting 
 it, (for art is nature also,) then the power of 
 writing about it, the power of thinking, the 
 power of giving, of receiving, and fifty others. 
 Nobles put the leaves in their coronets. Poets 
 make them grow for ever, where they are no 
 longer to be found. We never pass by Ely- 
 place, in Ilolborn, without seeing the street 
 there converted into a garden, and the pave- 
 ment to rows of strawberries. 
 
 " My Lord of Ely, when I was last in TTolborn, 
 I saw gooii strawberries in yiiur garden there; 
 I do beseech you send for some of tliera" — 
 
 quoth Richard the Third to the Bishop, in that 
 scene of frightful calmness and smooth-speak- 
 ing, which precedes his burst of thunder 
 against Hastings. Richard is gone with his 
 bad passions, and the garden is gone ; but the 
 tyrant is converted into poetry, and the straw- 
 berries also ; and here we have them both, 
 equally liarmless. 
 
 Sir John Suckling, in his richly-coloured 
 portrait of a beautiful girl, in the tragedy of 
 BrcntKiralt, has made their dying leaves pre- 
 cious : — 
 
 " Eyes full and quick. 
 With breath as sweet as double violets, 
 And wholesome as dying leaves of strawberries.** 
 
 Strawberries deserve all the good things that 
 can be said of them. They are beautiful to 
 look at, deli(Mou9 to eat, have a fine odour, 
 and are so wholesome, tliat they are said to 
 agree with the weakest digestions, and to be 
 e.xcellent against gout, fever, and all sorts of 
 ailments. It is recorded of Fontenelle that 
 he attributed his longevity to them, in con- 
 sequence of tlieir having regidarly cooled a 
 fever which he had every sjjring ; and that he 
 used to say, " If I can but reach the season of 
 strawberri<>s!" Boerhaave (Mr. Phillips tells us 
 in his "History of Fruits,") looked upon their 
 continued use as one of the ])rincipal remedies 
 in ca.'ies of obstruction and viscidity, and in
 
 THE WAITER. 
 
 45 
 
 putrid disorders : Hoffman furnished instances 
 of obstinate disorders cured by them, even con- 
 sumptions ; and Linnaeus says that by eating 
 plentifully of them, he kept himself free from 
 the gout. They are good even for the teeth. 
 
 A fruit so very useful and deliglitful deserves 
 a better name ; though the old one is now so 
 identified with its beauty, that it would be a 
 pity to get rid of it. Nobody thinks of straw, 
 when uttering the word strawberry, but only 
 of colour, fragrance and sweetness. The Italian 
 name is Fragola,- — fragrant. The English one 
 originated in the custom of putting straw be- 
 tween thefruit and theground,tokeep it dry and 
 clean ; or perhaps, as Mr. Phillips thinks, from 
 astill older practice amongchildren, of thi-eading 
 the wild berries upon straws of grass. He says, 
 that this is still a custom in parts of England 
 where they abound, and that so many " straws 
 of berries" are sold for a penny. 
 
 One of the most luxurious of simple dishes is 
 straicherries and cream. The very sound of the 
 words seems to set one's page floating like a 
 bowl. But there is an Italian poet, who has 
 written a whole poem upon strawberries, and 
 who, with all his love of them, will not liear of 
 them without sugar. lie invokes them before 
 him in all their beauty, which he acknowledges 
 with enthusiasm, and then tells them, like some 
 capricioussultan, that he does not choose to see 
 their faces. They must hide them, he says : — 
 put on their veils,— to wit, of sugar. " Straw- 
 berries and sugar" are to him what " sack and 
 sugar" was to Falstaff, the indispensable com- 
 panions, the sovereign remedy for all evil — the 
 climax of good. He finds fault with jVIoliere's 
 " Imaginary sick Man" for not hating them ; 
 since, if he had eaten them, they would have 
 cured his hypochondria. As to himself, he 
 talks of tliem as Fontenelle would have talked, 
 had he written Italian verse : — 
 
 lo per me d'esse, a boccon ricchi e doppi 
 Spesso riRonfio, e rinconfnrto il seno ; 
 E biontolando per dispetto scoppi 
 Quel vocehio d' Ippocrasso e di Galeno, 
 Che i Riulebbi. 1' essenzie, ed i sciloppi 
 Abborro, come 1' ostico veleno ; 
 K di Fragole iin" avida satolla 
 Mi purga il sangue, e avviva ogni midoUa, 
 
 For my part, I confess I fairly swill 
 
 And stuff myself uitli strawbcriies : and abuso 
 
 The doctiirs all the while, draught, powder, and pill. 
 
 And wonder how any sane head can choose 
 
 Th have their nauseous j:il:ips, ami their bill, 
 
 All which, like so much jx>iHon, I refuse. 
 
 fiive me a glut of strawberries : and lo ! 
 
 Sweet through my blood, and very bones, they go. 
 
 Almost all the writers of Italy who have 
 been worth anything, have been writers of 
 verse at one tinie or another. — Prose-writers, 
 historians, i>hilosophers, doctors of law and 
 medicine, clergymen,— all have contributed 
 their cpiota to the sweet art. The poet of the 
 strawberries was a Jesuit, a very honest man 
 too, uotwithstanding the odium upon his order's 
 
 name, and a grave, eloquent, and truly christian 
 theologian, of a life recorded as " evangelical." 
 It is delightful to see what playfulness such a 
 man thought not inconsistent with the most 
 sacred aspirations. The strawberry to him had 
 its merits in the creation, as well as the star ; 
 and he knew how to give each its due. Nay, 
 he runs the joke down, like a humourist who 
 could do nothing else but joke if he pleased, but 
 gracefully withal, and with a sense of Nature 
 above his Art, like a true lover of poetry. 
 His poem is in two cantos, and contains up- 
 Mards of nine hundred lines, ending in tlie 
 following bridal climax, which the good Jesuit 
 seems to have considered the highest one pos- 
 sible, and the very cream even of strawberries 
 and sugar. He has been apostrophising two 
 young friends of his, newly married, of the 
 celebrated Venetian families Mocenigo and 
 Loredano, and this is the blessing with which 
 he concludes, pleasantly smiling at the end of 
 his gravity : — 
 
 A questa coppia la serena pace 
 
 Eternamente intorno scherzi e voli : 
 
 E la ridente sanita vivace 
 
 La sua vita longhissima consoli ; 
 
 E la felicitii pura e verace, 
 
 Non dal suo fianco un solo di s' involi ; 
 
 E a dire die ogni cosa lieta vada, 
 
 Su le Fragole il zucchero le cada. 
 
 Around this loving pair may joy serene 
 On wings of balm for ever wind and p'.ay ; 
 And laugliing Health her roses shake between, 
 Blaking their life one long, sweet, flowery way ; 
 May bliss, true bliss, pure, self-possessd of mien, 
 Be absent from their side, no, not a day ; 
 In short, to sum up all that earth can prize. 
 May they have sugar to their strawberries. 
 
 XX.-THE WAITER, 
 
 Going into the City the other day upon 
 business, we took a chop at a tavern, and re- 
 newed our acquaintance, after years of inter- 
 rui)tion, with that swift and untiring j)ersonage, 
 yclept a waiter. We mention this long interval 
 of acquaintance, in order to account for any 
 deficiencies that maybe found in our description 
 of him. Our readers perhaps will favour us 
 with a better. He is a character before the 
 j)ublic : thousands are acqiutinted with him, 
 and can fill up the outline. But we felt irre- 
 sistibly impelled to sketch him ; like a })ortrait- 
 jiainter who comes suddenly upon an old friend, 
 or upon an old servant of the family. 
 
 We speak of the waittT properly and gene- 
 rally so called, — the representative of the whole, 
 real, official race, — and not of the Innnourist 
 or other eccentric genius occasionally to be 
 found in it, — moving out of the orbit of tranquil 
 but fiery waiting, — not absorbed, — not devout 
 towaids us, — not silent or monosyllabical ; — 
 fellows that affect a character beyond that of
 
 46 
 
 THE WAITER. 
 
 waiter, and get spoiled in club-rooms, and 
 places of tlicatrieal resort. 
 
 Your thorough waiter has no ideas out of 
 the sphere of his duty and the business ; and 
 yet he is not narrow-minded either, lie sees 
 too much variety of character for that, and 
 has to exercise too much consideration for the 
 "drunken geutlenum." But his world is the 
 tavern, and all mankind but its visitors. His 
 female sex are the maid-servants and his young 
 mistress, or the widow. If he is ambitious, he 
 aspires to marry one of the two latter : if other- 
 wise, and Molly is prudent, he does not know 
 but he may carrj' her off some day to be mistress 
 of the GoMiMi Lion at Chinksford, where he will 
 "show off" in the eyes of Betty Laxon who 
 refused him. He has no feeling of noise itself 
 but as the sound of dining, or of silence but as 
 a thing before dinner. Even a loaf with him 
 is hardly a loaf ; it is so many " breads." His 
 longest speech is the making out of a bill rira 
 Toce — " Two beefs — one potatoes— three ales — 
 two wines — six and twopence" — which he does 
 with an indifferent celerity, amusing to new- 
 comers who have been relishing their fare, and 
 not considering it as a mere set of items. He 
 attributes all virtues to everybody, provided 
 they are civil and liberal ; and of the existence 
 of some vices he lias no notion. Gluttony, for 
 instance, with him, is not only inconceivable, 
 but looks very like a virtue. He sees in it 
 only so many more " beefs," and a generous 
 scorn of the bill. As to wine, or almost any 
 other liquor, it is out of your power to astonish 
 him with the quantity you call for. His "Yes 
 Sir" is as swift, indifferent, and official, at the 
 fifth bottle as at the first. Reform and other 
 public events he looks \ipon purely as things 
 in the newspaper, and the newspaper as a thing 
 taken in at taverns, for gentlemen to read. 
 His own reading is confined to "Accidents 
 and Offences," and the advertisements for But- 
 lers, which latter he peruses with an admiring 
 fear, not choosing to give up "a certainty." 
 "When young, he was always in a hurry, and 
 exasjierated his mistress by running against 
 the other waiters, and breaking the " neguses." 
 As he gets older, he learns to unite swiftness 
 with caution ; declines wasting his breath in 
 immediate answers to calls ; and knows, with 
 a slight turn of his face, and elevation of his 
 voice, into what precise corner of the room to 
 pitch his " Coming, Sir." If you told him that, 
 in Shakspeare's time, waiters said "Anon, anon. 
 Sir," he would be astonished at the repetition 
 of the same word in one answer, and at the 
 use of three words instead of two ; and he 
 would justly infer, that London could not have 
 been So large;, nor the chop-houses so busy, in 
 those days. He would drop one of the two syl- 
 lables of his " Yes, Sir," if he could ; but busi- 
 ness and civility will not allow it ; and thei-efore 
 he does what he can by running them together 
 in the swift sufi&ciencv of his "Yezzir." 
 
 "Thomas!" 
 
 « Yez/.ir." 
 
 "Is my steak coming ?" 
 
 " Yezzir." 
 
 "And the pint of port ?" 
 
 " Yezzir." 
 
 " You'll not forget the postman ? " 
 
 " Yezzir." 
 For in the habit of his acquiescence Thomas 
 not seldom says " Yes, Sir," for " No, Sir," the 
 habit itself rendering him intelligible. 
 
 His morning dress is a waistcoat or jacket ; 
 his coat is for afternoons. If the establishment 
 is flourishing, he likes to get into black as he 
 grows elderly ; by which time also he is gene- 
 rally a little corpulent, and wears hair-powder, 
 dressing somewhat laxly about the waist, for 
 convenience of movement. Not however that 
 he draws much upon that part of his body, 
 excej)t as a poise to what he carries ; for you 
 may observe that a waiter, in walking, uses only 
 his lowest limbs, from his knees downwards. 
 The movement of all the rest of him is nega- 
 tive, and modified solely by what he bears in 
 his hands. At this period he has a little money 
 in the funds, and his nieces look up to him. 
 He still carries however a napkin under his 
 arm, as well as a corkscrew in his })ocket ; nor, 
 for all his long habit, can he help feeling a 
 satisfaction at the noise he makes in drawing 
 a coi'k. He thinks that no man can do it 
 better ; and that Mr. Smith, who understands 
 wine, is thinking so too, though he does not 
 take his eyes off" the plate. In his right waist- 
 coat pocket is a snuff-box, with which he 
 supplies gentlemen late at night, after the 
 shops are shut up, and when they are in despe- 
 rate want of another fillip to their sensations, 
 after the devil and toasted cheese. If particu- 
 larly required, he will laugh at a joke,esj)ecially 
 at that time of night, justly thinking that gen- 
 tlemen towards one in the morning " wUl be 
 facetious." He is of opinion it is in " human 
 nature " to be a little fresh at that period, and 
 to want to be put into a coach. 
 
 He announces his acquisition of proi)erty by 
 a buncli of seals to his watch, and j)erhai)S rings 
 on his fingers ; one of them a mourning ring 
 left him by his late master, the other a present, 
 either from his nieces' father, or from some 
 idtra-good-natured old gentleman whom he 
 heljied into a coach one night, and who had 
 no silver about him. 
 
 To see hhn dine, somehow, hardly seems 
 natural. And he appears to do it as if he had 
 no rigiit. You catch him at his dinner in a 
 corner, — huddled apart, — "Thomas dining!" 
 instead of helping dinner. One fancies that 
 the stewed and liot meats and the constant 
 smoke, ought to be too much for him, and that 
 he should have neither appetite nor time for 
 such a meal. 
 
 Once a year (for he has few holidays) a 
 couple of pedestrians meet him on a Sunday
 
 "THE BUTCHER." 
 
 47 
 
 in the fields, and cannot conceive for the lite 
 of them who it is ; till the startling recollection 
 occurs — " Good God ! It's the waiter at the 
 
 Grogram ! " 
 
 XXI.— "THE BUTCHER." 
 
 BUTCHERS AND JURIES. — BUTLER's DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH 
 DRAMA, &.C. 
 
 It was observed by us the other day in a 
 journal that " butchers are wisely forbidden to 
 be upon juries ; not because they are not as 
 good as other men by nature, and often as 
 truly kind ; but because the habit of taking 
 away the lives of sheep and oxen inures them 
 to the sight of blood, and violence, and mortal 
 pangs." 
 
 The " Times," in noticing this passage, cor- 
 rected our error. There neither is, nor ever 
 was, it seems, a law forbidding butchers to 
 be upon juries ; though the reverse opinion 
 has so prevailed among all classes, that Locke 
 takes it for granted in his " Treatise on Educa- 
 tion," and our own authority was the author of 
 " Hudibras," a man of very exact and universal 
 knowledge. The passage that was in our 
 mind is in his " Posthumous Works," and is 
 worth quoting on other accounts. He is 
 speaking of those pedantic and would-be 
 clas.sical critics who judge the poets of ono 
 nation by those of another. Butler's resist- 
 ance of their pretensions is the more lionour- 
 able to liim, inasmuch, as the prejudices of his 
 own education, and even the propensity of his 
 ^■vnius, lay on the learned and anti-impulsive 
 side. But his judgment was thoi'ough-going and 
 candid. — Tiie style is of the oS'-hand careless 
 ordei", after the fashion of the old satii'es and 
 epistles, though not so rough : — 
 
 " An Knglish poet sliould be tried by his peers, 
 
 And not by pedants and philosdpliers. 
 
 Incompetent to juOKe poetic fury. 
 
 As butchers are/arbid to tjc of a jury. 
 
 Besides the most intolerable wrong 
 
 To try their masters in a foreign tongue, 
 
 By foreign jurymen like Sopliocles, 
 
 Or talcs* falser than Euripides, 
 
 When not an English native dares appear 
 
 To be a witness for the prisoner, — 
 
 'When all the laws they use to arraign and try 
 
 The innocent, and wrong'd delinquent by. 
 
 Were made by a foreign lawyer and his pupils, 
 
 To put an end to all poetic scruples; 
 
 And by the advice of virtuosi Tuscans, 
 
 Dctcrniined all the doubts of socks and buskins, — 
 
 * Tales (Latin) persons chosen to supply the place of 
 men impannclled upoti a jury or inquest, and not appear- 
 ing when called. [\Vc cojiy this from a very u.scful and 
 pregnant volume, called the " Treasury of KuowlcdKc," 
 full of such heaps of information as are looked for in lists 
 and vocabularies, and occupying the very margins with 
 proverbs. Mr. Disraeli, sen., objects to tliis last overflow 
 of contents, but not, we think, witli his u.-.ual good sense 
 iind gratitude, as a lover of books. These proverbial sayings, 
 which are the most univers;il things in the world, apjiear 
 to us to have a particularly good etlect in thus coming in 
 to refrcali one among the technicalities of kuuwledge.] 
 
 fiave judgment on all past nnH/uture plays. 
 
 As is apparent by Speroni's casef. 
 
 Which Lope Vega first began to steal. 
 
 And after him the YvenchfluitX Corneille ; 
 
 And since, our English plagiaries nim 
 
 And steal their far-fetch'd criticisms from him. 
 
 And by an action, falsely laid of trover^. 
 
 The lumber for their proper goods recover. 
 
 Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers 
 
 Of witty Beaumont's poetry and Fletcher's, 
 
 Who for a few misprisions o/wit. 
 
 Are charged by those who ten times worse coimtiit.. 
 
 And for misjudging some unhappy scenes, 
 
 Are censured for it with more unlucky sense ; 
 
 (How happily said !) 
 
 When all their worst miscarriages delight 
 
 And please more than the best that pedants write." 
 
 Having been guilty of this involuntary 
 scaudal against the Ijiitchei-s, we would fain 
 make them amends by saying notliing but 
 good of them and their trade ; and truly if we 
 find the latter part of the proposition a little 
 difficult, they themselves are for the most part 
 a jovial, good-humoured race, and can afford 
 the trade to be handled as sharply as their 
 beef on the block. There is cut and come 
 again in them. Your butcher breathes an 
 atmosphere of good living. The beef mingles 
 kindly with his animal nature. He grows fat 
 with the best of it, perhaps with inhaling its 
 very essence ; and has no time to grow spare, 
 theoretical, and hypochondriacal, like those 
 whose more thinking stomachs drive them 
 upon the apparently more innocent but less easy 
 and analogous intercommunicatious nf fnirtand 
 vegetables. For our parts, like all jjersons 
 who think at all, — nay, like the butcher him- 
 self, when he catches himself in a strange fit 
 of meditation, after some doctor perhaps has 
 " kept him low," we confess to an abstract 
 dislike of eating the sheep and lamb that we 
 see in the meadow ; albeit our concrete regard 
 for mutton is considerable, particularly Welsh 
 mutton. But Nature has a beautiful way of 
 reconciling all necessities that are unmalig- 
 nant ; and as butchers at present must exist, 
 and sheep and lambs would not exist at all in 
 civilised countries, and crop the sweet grass so 
 long, but for tiie brief pang at the end of it, 
 he is as comfortable a fellow as can be, — one 
 of the liveliest ministers of her mortal necessi- 
 ties, — of the deaths by which she gives and 
 diversifies life ; and has no more notion of 
 doing any liurni in his vocation, than tlie lamb 
 that swallows the lady-bird on the tliyme. A 
 very pretty insect is she, and has had a pretty 
 time of it ; a very calm, clear feeling, healthy, 
 and, therefore, ha]iiiy little woollt-n giant, com- 
 
 t Speroni, a celebrated critic in the days of Tasso. 
 
 ± Filou — pickpocket I This irreverent epithet must have 
 startled many (jf Butler's readers and brothcr-loyiilistf of 
 the court of Charles the Second. But he suffered nothing 
 to stand in the way of what seemed to him a just opinion. 
 
 § Trover — an action for goods found and not delivered nn 
 demand. — Treasury of Knou-ledije. Butler's wit diaggtd 
 every species of information into his net.
 
 48 
 
 A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 pared with lior, is the lamb, — her butcher ; and 
 an (>(iu:illy innocent anil festive persona,i,'e is 
 the butclier iiini.self, notwithstanding the popu- 
 lar fallacy about juries, and the salutary mis- 
 giving his beholders feel when they see him 
 going to take tlie lamb out of the meadow, or 
 entering themore tragical doors of theslaughter- 
 house. His thoughts, while knocking down 
 the ox, are of skill and strength, and not of 
 cruelty. And the death, though it may not 
 be the very best of deaths, is, assuredly, none 
 of the worst. Animals, that grow old in 
 an artificial state, would have a hard time of 
 it in a lingering decay. Their mode of life 
 would not liave pre{>ared them for it. Their 
 blood would not run lively enough to the last. 
 We doubt even whether tlie John liuU of the 
 herd, when about to be killed, would change 
 places with a very gouty, irritable old gentle- 
 man ; or be willing to eiulure a grievous being 
 of his own sort, with legs answering to the 
 gout ; much less if Cow were to grow old with 
 him, and plague him Avith endless lowings, 
 occasioned by the loss of her beauty, and the 
 increasing insipidity of the hay. A human 
 being who can survive those ulterior vaccina- 
 tions must indeed possess some great reliefs 
 of his own, and deserve them, and life may 
 reasonably be a wonderfully precious thing in 
 his eyes ; nor shall excuse be wanting to the 
 vaccinators, and what made them such, espe- 
 cially if they will but grow a little more quiet 
 and ruminating. But who would have the 
 death of some old, groaning, aching, effeminate, 
 frightened, lingerer in life, such as Maacenas 
 for example, compared with a good, jolly knock- 
 down blow, at a reasonable period, whether of 
 hatchet or of apoplexy, — whether the bull's 
 death or the butcher's ? Our own preference, 
 it is true, is for neither. We are for an excel- 
 lent, healthy, hajipy life, of the very best sort; 
 and a death to match it, going out calmly as a 
 summer's evening. Our taste is not particular. 
 Cut we are for the knock-down blow, rather 
 than the death-in-life. 
 
 The butcher, when young, is famous for his 
 health, strength, and vivacity, and for his 
 riding any kind of horse down any sort of hill, 
 with a tray before him, the reins for a whip, 
 and no hat on his head. It was a gallant of 
 this sort tliat RoIjIu Hood imitated, when he 
 beguiled the poor Sheriff into the forest, and 
 showed him his own deer to sell. The old 
 ballads apostrojdiise him well as the "butcher 
 so bold," or better— with the accent on the last 
 syllable, " thou b(dd butcher." No syllable of 
 his was to be trifled with. The butcher keeps 
 up his health in middle life, not only with the 
 food that seems so congenial to flesh, but with 
 rising early in the morning, and going to 
 market with his own or his master's cart. 
 When more sedentary, and very jovial and 
 good-humoured, he is apt to ex])and into a 
 most analogous state of fat and smoothness, 
 
 with silken tones and a short breath, — harbin- 
 gers, we fear, of asthma and gout ; or the 
 kindly ai)oplexy comes, and treats him as he 
 treated the ox. 
 
 When rising in the world, he is indefatigable 
 on Saturday nights, walking about in the front 
 of tliose white-clothed and joint-abounding 
 open shops, while tiie meat is being half-cooked 
 beforehand with the gas-lights. The rapidity 
 of his " What-d'ye-buy '. " on these occasions is 
 famous ; and botli he and the good housewives, 
 distracted with the choice before them, pro- 
 nounce the legs of veal "beautiful — exceed- 
 ingly." 
 
 How he endures the meat against his head, 
 as he carries it about on a tray, or how we 
 endure that he should do it, or how he can 
 handle the joints as he does with that habitual 
 indifference, or with what floods of hot water 
 he conti-ives to purify himself of the exoterical 
 part of his philosophy on going to bed, we 
 cannot say ; but take him all in all, he is a fine 
 specimen of the triumph of the general over 
 the particular. 
 
 'i'iie only poet that was the son of a butcher 
 (and the trade may be proud of him) is Aken- 
 side, who naturally resorted to the " Pleasures 
 of Imagination." As to Wolsey, we can never 
 quit(! ])icture him to ourselves apart from the 
 shop. He had the cardiiuil butcher's-virtue of 
 a love of good eating, as his picture shows ; 
 and he was foreman all his life to the butcher 
 Henry the Eighth. We beg pardon of the 
 trade for this application of their name : and 
 exhort them to cut the cardinal, and stick to 
 the poet. 
 
 XXII.— A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 Will the reader take a pinch of snuff with 
 us? 
 
 Reader. With pleasure. 
 
 Editor. How do you like it? 
 
 Reader. Extremely fine ? I never saw sucli 
 snuff. 
 
 KdHor. Precisely so. It is of the sort they call 
 lumsible — or as the French have it, tahac ima- 
 ginaire — Imaginary snuff. No macuba equals 
 it. The tonquiu bean has a coarse flavour in 
 comjiarison. To my thinking it has the hue of 
 Titian's orange colour, and the very tip of the 
 scent of sweet-brier. 
 
 Render. In fact, one may perceive in it just 
 what one pleases, — or nothing at all. 
 
 Editor. ICxactly that. 
 
 Rmder. Those who take no snuff whatever, 
 or even hate it, may take this and be satisfied. 
 Ladies, nay brides, may talvc it. 
 
 Editor. You apprehend the delicacy of it to 
 a nicety. You will allow, nevertheless, by 
 virtue of the same fineness of perception, that 
 even when you discern, or choose to discern, 
 neither hue, scent nor substance in it, still
 
 A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 49 
 
 there is a very sensible pleasure realised, the 
 momeut tlie pinch is offered. 
 
 Read^ir. True, the <jood-mU — that which is 
 passing between ua two now. 
 
 Editor. You have it — that which loosens the 
 tongues of people in omnibuses, and helps to 
 thaw even the frozen-heartedness of diplo- 
 macy. 
 
 Rt;ader. I beg your pardon for a moment, — 
 but is tlimr, my dear sir, the best word you 
 could have chosen ? Snuff can hardly be said to 
 tltaic. 
 
 Editor. (Aside. This it is to set readers upon 
 being critical, and help them to beat their 
 teachers.) You are right — What shall we say ? 
 To dissipate— to scatter— to make evaporate ? 
 To blow up in a sneeze ? 
 
 Reculer. I will leave you to judge of that. 
 
 Editor. (Aside. His politeness is equal to his 
 criticism. Oh, penny, two-penny, and thiee- 
 halfpenny " trash !" You will end in ruining 
 the trade of your inventors !) My dear reader, 
 I wish I could give you snuff made of the 
 finest Brazil, in a box of diamond. But good- 
 will is the flower of all snuff-taking ; and 
 luckily a pinch of that may be taken equally as 
 well out of horn, or of invisible wood, as of the 
 gifts of enii)erors. This is the point I was 
 going to speak of. The virtues of snuff itself 
 may be doubted ; but the benevolence of an 
 offered pinch and the gi'atitude of an accepted 
 one, are such good things, and snuff-takers 
 iiave so many occasions of interchanging these, 
 that it is a question whether the harm of the 
 self-indulgence (if any) is not to be allowed for 
 the sake of the social benefit. 
 
 A grave question ! Let us consider it a little, 
 with the seriousness becoming snuff-takers, 
 real or imaginary. They are a reflecting race ; 
 no men know better that everything is not a 
 trifle which ap])cars to be such in uncleared 
 e3'es ; any more than everything is grand wliich 
 is of serious aspect or dimensions. A snuff- 
 taker looks up at some mighty error, takes his 
 pinch, and shakes the imposture, like the rem- 
 nant of the pinch, to atoms, with one "flesh- 
 quake" of head, thumb, and indifference. Ho 
 also looks into some little nicety of question 
 or of creation, — of the intellectual or visible 
 world, — and, having sliarjiened his eyesight 
 with another ])inch, and put his brain into 
 proper cepludick condition, discerns it, as it 
 were, microscopically, and pionoimces tliat 
 there is " more in it tlian the nii-suiiff-takhiij 
 would suppose." 
 
 We agree with him. The mere fancy of apinch 
 of snuff, at this moment, enables us to look 
 upon divers worlds of niistalce in the history of 
 man but as so many bubbles, breaking, or 
 about to break ; while the pipe out of which 
 they were blown, assumes all its real supe- 
 riority in the hands of the grown smoker, — the 
 superiority of peace and (juiet over war and 
 childish dispute. An atom of good-will is 
 
 worth an emperor's snuff-box. We happened 
 once to be compelled to moot a point of no very 
 friendly sort with a stranger whom we never 
 saw before, of whom we knew nothing, and 
 whose appearance in the matter we conceived 
 to be altogether unwarrantable. At one of 
 the delicatest of all conjunctures in the ques- 
 tion, and when he presented himself in his 
 most equivocal light, what should he do, but 
 with the best air in the world take out a 
 snuff-box, and ofier us the philanthropy of a 
 jiinch ? W^e accepted it with as grave a face 
 as it was offered ; but, secretly, the appeal v/as 
 irresistible. It was as much as to say — " Ques- 
 tions may be mooted— doubts of all sorts en- 
 tertained — people are thrown into strange situ- 
 ations in this world — but abstractedly, what 
 is anything worth compared with a quiet mo- 
 ment, and a resolution to make the best of a 
 perplexity?" Ever afterwards, whenever the 
 thought of this dispute came into our recol- 
 lection, the bland idea of the snuff-box always 
 closed our account with it ; and our good- 
 will survived, though our perplexity remained 
 also. 
 
 But this is only a small instance of what 
 must have occurred thousands of times in 
 matters of dispute. Many a fierce impulse of 
 hostility must have been allayed by no greater 
 a movement. Many a one has been caused by 
 less ! A few years ago, a petition was presented 
 to the House of Commons on the sulject of 
 duelling ; by which it appeared, that people 
 have challenged and killed one another for 
 words about " geese " and "anchovies," and "a 
 glass of wine." Nay, one person was compelled 
 to fight about our very peace-maker, " a pinch 
 of snuff." But if so small are the causes of 
 deadly offence, how often must they not have 
 been removed by the judicious intervention of 
 the pinch itself? The geese, anchovies, glass 
 of wine and all, might possibly have been 
 made harmless by a dozen grains of Havan- 
 nah. The handful of dust witli which the 
 Latin poet settles his wars of the bees, was 
 the type of the pacifying magic of the snuff- 
 box : — 
 
 Hi niotus animorum, atqiie ha?c certamina tanta, 
 I'ulveris cxigui jactu coinpressu quiescent. 
 
 These movements of hish minds, these mortal foes, 
 Give but a pinch of dust, and you compose. 
 
 Yet snuff-taking is an odd custom. If we 
 came suddenly u\)uu it in a foreign country, it 
 would make us split our sides with laughter. 
 A grave gentleman takes a little casket out of 
 his pocket, puts a finger and thumb in, brings 
 away a jiincli of a sort of powder, and then, 
 with the most serious air possible, as if he was 
 ■loing one of the most important actions of his 
 life (for even with the most indiftereut snuff- 
 takers there is a certain look of importance;, 
 ju'oceeds to thrust, and keep thrusting it, at 
 his nose ! after wliich he shakes his head, or
 
 I 50 
 
 A PINCIT OF SNUFF. 
 
 his waistcoat, or hia nose itself, or all three, in 
 the style of a man who has done his duty, and 
 satisfied the most sitIous claims of his well- 
 being. Wiiat slionid we say to this cnstoni 
 among the inliahitants of a newly-discoycred 
 island ? And to i)rovoke the poor nose in this 
 manner ! and call jx'ojile's attention to it ! A 
 late physician, whom we hud the pleasnre of 
 knowing, and who had a restless temperament, 
 nsed to amuse us, as he sat pondering in his 
 cliair, with taking ni) a i)air of scissors, and 
 delicately ])oking the tip of his tongue with 
 it, — thus taking delight in the borders of 
 an uneasy sensation, for want of a better. We 
 have often thoiiirht, that a snuff-taker, fond of 
 a potent snutf, might as well addict himself to 
 the doctor's scissors ; or puncture any other 
 part of his face with a fork at once. Elegant 
 fork-takiirs might hayo boxes with little instru- 
 ments made accordingly, and politely offer 
 then) to the company to poke their cheeks 
 with. Or tliey might hover about the eyes ; 
 or occasionally practise some slight scarifica- 
 tion. lUeeding is accounted cepha/ick. 
 
 It is curious to see the various modes in 
 which people take snuff. Some do it by little 
 fits and starts, and get over the thing quickly. 
 Tiiese are epigrammatic snuff-takers, who 
 come to the point as fast as possible, and to 
 whom the pungency is everything. They 
 generally use a sharp and severe snuf}", — a sort 
 of essence of pins' points. Others are all ur- 
 banity and polished demeanour ; they value 
 tiie style as much as the .sensation, and offer 
 the box around them as much out of dignity 
 as benevolence. Some take snuff irritably, 
 others bashfully, others in a manner as dry 
 as the snuff itself, generally with an economy 
 of the vegetable ; others, with a luxuriance 
 of gesture, and a lavishness of supply, that 
 announces a moister article, and sheds its 
 superfluous honours over neckcloth and coat. 
 Dr. Joimson's was probably a snuff' of this 
 kind. He used to take it out of his waistcoat- 
 pocket instead of a bo.x. There is a species 
 of long-armed snuff-taker, that performs the 
 operation in a style of potent and elaborate 
 preparation, ending with a sudden activity. 
 But smaller and rounder men sometimes 
 attempt it. He first puts his head on one 
 side; tlien stietchcs forth the arm, with j)inch 
 in hand ; tln^i brings round his hand, as a 
 enuff-taking elephant might his trunk ; and, 
 finally, shakes snuff, head, and nose together, 
 in a sudden vehemence of convulsion. His 
 eyebrows all the while are lifted up, as if to 
 make the more room for the onset ; and when 
 he has ended, he draws himself back to his 
 perpendicular, and generally proclaims the 
 victory he has won over the insipidity of 
 the previous moment, by a sniff, and a great 
 '• Hall !" 
 
 XXIII._A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 CONCLUDKD. 
 
 Fhom the respect which we showed in our 
 last to scented snuffs, and from other indica- 
 tions which will doubtless have escaped us in 
 our ignorance of his art, the scientific snuft- 
 taker will have concluded that we are no 
 brother of the box. And he will be right. But 
 we hope we only give the greater j)roof thereby 
 of the toleration that is in us, and our wish not 
 to tiiink ill of a practice merely because it is 
 not our own. We confess we are inclined to a 
 charitable regard, nay, provided it be hand- 
 somely and cleanly managed, to a certain 
 respect, for snuft-laking, out of divers consider- 
 ations : first, as already noticed, because it 
 helps to ])romote good-will : second, because 
 we have known some very worthy snuff-takers: 
 third, out of our regard for the snuff-taking 
 times of Queen Anne, and the wits of France : 
 and last, because in the benevolence, and ima- 
 ginativeness, and exceeding width of our phi- 
 losophy (which fine terms we apply to it, in 
 order to give a hint to those who might con- 
 sider it a weakness and superstition,) — because 
 we have a certain veneration for all great 
 events and prevailing customs, that have given 
 a character to the jiistory of society in the 
 course of ages. It would be hard to get us to 
 think contemptuously of the mummies of 
 Egypt, of the ceremoniousness of the Chinese, 
 of the betel-nut of the Turks and Persians, nay, 
 of the garlic of the South of Europe ; and so 
 of the tea-ilrinking, coffee-drinking, tobacco- 
 .smoking, and snuff'-taking, which have come to 
 US from the Eastern and American nations. 
 We know not what great providential uses 
 there might be in such customs ; or what worse 
 or more frivolous things they prevent, till the 
 time comes for displacing them. " The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth ;" and so, for augiit 
 we know, doth the " cloud " of the tobacco- 
 pipe. We are resolved, for our parts, not to 
 laugh with the " scorner," but even to make 
 merry with submission ; nay, to undermine 
 (when we feel compelled to do so) with absolute 
 tenderness to the thing dilapidated. Let the 
 nnjihilosophic lover of tobacco (if there be such 
 a person), to use a phrase of his own, "put that 
 in his j)ipe and smoke it." 
 
 But there is one thing that puzzles us in the 
 history of the Indian weed and its pulverisa- 
 tion ; and that is, how lovers, and ladies, ever 
 came to take snuff. In England, perhaps, it 
 was never much done by the latter, till they 
 grew too old to be "particular," or thought 
 themselves too sure of their lovers ; but in 
 France, where the animal spirits think less of 
 obstacles in the way of inclination, and where 
 the resolution to please and be pleased is, or 
 was, of a fiincy less nice and more accommo- 
 dating, we are not aware that the ladies in the 
 time of the Voltaires and Du Chatelets tver
 
 A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 61 
 
 thought themselves either too old to love, or 
 too young to take snuiF. We confess, whether 
 it is from the punctilios of a colder imagination, 
 or the perils incidental to a warmer one, that 
 although we are interested in comprehending 
 the former privilege, we never could do the 
 same with the latter. A bridegroom in one of 
 the periodical essayists, describing his wife's 
 fondness for rouge and carmine, complains that 
 he can never make pure, unsophisticated way to 
 her cheek, but is obliged, like I'yranius in the 
 story, to kiss through a wall, — to salute through 
 a crust of paint and washes : 
 
 " Wall, vile wall, which did those lovers sunder." 
 
 This is bad enough ; and, considering perhaps 
 a due healthiness of skin, worse ; yet the object 
 of paint is to imitate health and loveliness ; 
 the wish to look well is in it. But snuff! — 
 Turtle-doves don't take snuff. A kiss is surely 
 not a thing to be " sneezed at." 
 
 Fancy two lovers in the time of i^ueen Anne, 
 or Louis the Fifteenth, each with snuff-box in 
 hand, who have just come to an explanation, 
 and who in the hurry of theii' spirits have un- 
 thinkingly taken a pinch, just at the instant 
 when the gentleman is going to salute the lips 
 of his mistress. He does so, finds his honest 
 love as frankly returned, and is in the act of 
 bringing out the words, " Charming creature," 
 when a sneeze overtakes him ! 
 
 " Cha - Cha - Cha - Charming creature I " 
 
 What a situation ! A sneeze ! O Venus, 
 where is such a thing in thy list ? 
 
 The lady, on her side, is under the like mal- 
 apropos influence, and is obliged to divide one 
 of the sweetest of all bashf u 1 and lo\'ing speeches, 
 with the shock of the sneeze respondent : — 
 
 " Oh, Richard ! Sho - 6ho - Sho - Should yoii 
 think ill of me for this ! " 
 
 Imagine it. 
 
 We have nothing to say against the sneeze 
 abstract. In all nations it seems to have been 
 counted of great significance, and worth re- 
 spectful attention, whether advising us of good 
 or ill. Hence the " (Jod bless you," still heard 
 among us when people sneeze ; and the " Feli- 
 cita'" (Good luck to you) of the Italians. A 
 Latin j)oet, in one of his most charming effu- 
 sions, though not, we conceive, with the delicacy 
 of a Greek, even makes Cupid sneeze at sight 
 of the happiness of two lovers : 
 
 Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram ut ante, 
 Dextram stcrnuit approbationem. 
 
 Catullus. 
 
 I.Dve, at this oharminR speech and sight, 
 Sneezed his sanction from the right. 
 
 But he does not make tiie lorers sneeze. That 
 omen remained for the lovers of the snuff-box ; 
 people more social tlian nice. 
 
 We have no recollection of any self-misgiv- 
 ing in this matter on the part of the male sex, 
 during the times we speak of. They are a race. 
 
 who have ever thought themselves warranted 
 in taking liberties which they do not allow 
 their gentler friends ; and we cannot call to 
 mind any passage in the writings of the French or 
 English wits in former days, implying the least 
 distrust of his own right, and propriety, and 
 charmingness in taking snuff, on tlie part of the 
 gentleman in love. The " beaux," marquisses, 
 men of fashion. Sir Harry Wildairs, &c., all 
 talk of, and use, and pique themselves on their 
 snuff-boxes, without the slightest suspicion 
 that there is anything in them to which court- 
 .ship and elegance can object ; and we suppose 
 this is the case still, where the snuff-taker, 
 though young in age, is old in habit. Yet we 
 should doubt, were Ave in his place. He cannot 
 be certain how many women may have refused 
 his addresses on that single account ; nor, if 
 he marries, to what secret sources of objection 
 it may give rise. To be clean is one of the first 
 duties at all times ; to be the reverse, or to 
 risk it, in the least avoidable respect, is peril- 
 ous in the eyes of that passion, which of all 
 others is at once the most lavish and the most 
 nice — w^hich makes the greatest allowance for all 
 that belongs to it, and the least for whatever is 
 cold or foreign, or implies a coarse security. 
 A very loving nature, however, may have some 
 one unlovely habit, which a wise party on either 
 side may correct, if it have any address. The 
 only passage which we remember meeting 
 with in a book, in which this licence assumed 
 by the male sex is touched upon, is in a plea- 
 sant comedy translated from the French some 
 years ago, and brouglit upon the stage in 
 London — the "Green jMan." Mr. Jones, we 
 believe, was the translator. He also enaeted 
 the part of the lover, and very pleasantly he 
 did it. It was one of his best performances. 
 Luckily for our present purpose, he had a very 
 sweet assistant,in the person of Miss Blanchard, 
 a young actress of that day, who after charming 
 the town \iith the sprightly delicacy of her 
 style, and with a face better than handsome, 
 j)rematurely quitted it, to their great regret, 
 thougii, we believe, for the best of all reasons. 
 In the course of her lover's addresses, this 
 lady had to find fault with his habit of snuff- 
 taking, and she did it with a face full of such 
 loving and flattering reasons, and in a voice 
 also so truly accordant with the words wjiich 
 the author had put into her mouth, that we 
 remember thinking how natural it was for tlie 
 gentleman to give up the point as he did, 
 instantly, and to pitch the cause of offence 
 away from him, witli the exclamation, " Ma 
 tabatiere, adieu." (Farewell, snuff-box.) Thus 
 the French, who were the gi'eatest sinners in 
 this matter, appear, as they ought, to have 
 been the first reformers of it ; and o])cnly to 
 have protested against the union of love and 
 snuff-taking, in either sex. 
 
 We merely give this as a hint to certain 
 snuff-takers at a particular time of life. Wo 
 
 K 2
 
 52 
 
 A PINCH OF SNUFF. 
 
 are loth to intortVro witli otliers, till wo can 
 find a substitute for the t-xeitonicnt and occu- 
 pation wliicli tlio snuft'-box affords, foarinjr 
 tliat we should steal from some their very 
 }>o\vers of reflection ; from some their good- 
 temper, or patiiMice, or only consolation ; from 
 others their helps to wit and good-fellowship. 
 Whenever Gibbon was going to say a good 
 thing, it was observed that he announced it by 
 a complacent tap on his snuff-box. Life might 
 have been a gloomier thing, (!ven than it Mas, 
 to Dr. Johnson, if he had not enlivened liis 
 views of it with the occasional stimulus of a 
 pinch. Napoleon, in his flight from Moscow, 
 was observed one day, after pulling a log on to a 
 fire, impatiently seeking for his last ciiance of 
 a consoling thought, and he found it in the 
 corner of his snnfl-box. It was his last pinch ; 
 and most imperatively he pinched it ! digging 
 it, and fetching it out from its intrcnchment. 
 Besides, we have a regard for snuf^-shops and 
 their proprietors, and never pass Pontet's, or 
 Killpack's, or Turner's, without wishing well 
 to tlie companionable people that frequent 
 them, and thinking of the most agreeable 
 periods of English and French wit. You 
 might almost as soon divorce the idea of the 
 Popes, Stecles, and Voltaires, from tlieir wigs 
 and caps, as from their snuff-boxes. Lady 
 Mary Wortley took snuff; Madame Du Bocage 
 also, no doubt ; we fear even the charming 
 Countess of Suffolk, and my lady Harvey. 
 Steele in the character of Bicker^taff, speak- 
 ing of his half sister, Miss Jenny Distaff, who 
 was u blue-stocking and about to be :narried, 
 thinks it desirable that she should not con- 
 tinue to have a nose "all oversnufi" in future. 
 He seems, in consideration of her books, will- 
 ing to compromise with a reasonable l)eginning. 
 Ladies are greatly improved in this respect. 
 No blue-stockings now-a-days, we suspect, 
 take snuff, that have any pretensions to youth 
 or beauty. They rather choose to realise the 
 \Tisions of their books, and vindicate the united 
 claims of mind and jierson. Sure of th(>ir pre- 
 tensions, they even disclaim any pretence, 
 exce])t that of wearing stockings like other 
 people ; to prove which, like proper unaffected 
 women, they give into the fashion of short 
 petticoats, philosophically risking the chance 
 of drawing inferior eyes from the charms of 
 their talk, to those of their feet and ancles. 
 
 In the battle of t!ic Rape of the Lock, Po])e 
 makes his heroine l>eliuda conquer one of her 
 gallant enemies by chucking a ])inch of snuff 
 in his face ; nor does he tell us that she bor- 
 rowed it. Are we to conclude that even she, 
 the pattern of youthful beauty, took it out of 
 her own pocket I 
 
 Hut this bold li)rd, with manly strength endued, 
 She with one tinger mid a tliuinb subdued. 
 Just wliere the breath of life his nostrils drew, 
 A charge of snuff the wily virgin threw ; 
 The Gnomes direct, to every atom just, 
 The pungent grains of titillating dust j 
 
 [\ capital line !J 
 
 Sudden with starting tears each eye o'erflows, 
 And the high dome re-echoes to his nose. 
 
 This mode of warfare is now confined to the 
 shop-lifters. No modern poet would think of 
 making his heroine throw snuff at a inan. 
 
 An Italian wit has written a jioera on 
 'J'obacco (La Tabaccheide,) in which, with 
 the daring animal spirits of his countrymen, 
 he has ventured upon descriliing a sneeze. We 
 siiall be bolder than he, considering the less 
 enthusiastic noses of the north, and venture to 
 give a free version of the passage. 
 
 Ma mi sento tutto mordcro 
 E dcntro e fuori 
 11 meato deiili odori, 
 E la piramide 
 , Rinocerontica; 
 E via piCi crescere 
 Quellu prurigine, 
 Chenon mai saxia, 
 Va stuzzicandomi, 
 Va rimordendomi, 
 E inuggiolendomi, 
 E va gridandomi 
 Fiuta, fiuta, anniisa, annasa 
 
 Questa poca. ch'c rimasa 
 
 Chim'ajuta? su, finianiola, 
 
 Che non 6 giii questa elleboro. 
 
 Ma divina quintussenza, 
 
 Che da Bacco ha dipendenza, 
 
 Donatrice d' aUegri 
 
 D' allegri . . . gri— grl— allegrl . . 
 
 (Lo starnuto mel rapia), 
 
 Donatrice d' allegria. 
 
 There is more of it, but we cannot stand sneez- 
 ing all night. (We write this to wards bed-time.) 
 
 What a moment ! What a doubt ! — 
 
 All my nose, inside and out, 
 
 411 my thrilling, tickling, caustic 
 
 Pyramid rhinocerostie, 
 
 W;mts to sneeze, and cannot do it I 
 
 Now it yearns me, thrills me, stings me, 
 Now with rapturous torment wrings me. 
 
 Now says " Sneeze, you fool ; get through it. ' 
 
 AVhat shall help me — Oh ! Good heaven ! 
 
 All — yes, thank 'ye — Thirty-seven — 
 
 f!/iee — shee — Oh, tis most del-i>/i( 
 
 Islii — ishi — most i\cl-ishi 
 
 (Hang it ! I shall sneeze till spring) 
 
 Bnutf's a most delicious thing. 
 
 Sneezing, however, is not a high snuff-taking 
 evidence. It shows the author to have been 
 raw to the science, and to have written more 
 like a poet than a professor. 
 
 As snuff-taking is a practice inclining to 
 reflection, and therefore to a jdiilosophical 
 consideration of the various events of this life, 
 grave as well as gay, we shall conclude tiie 
 present article with the only tragical story 
 we ever met with in connexion with a snuff- 
 box. We found it in a very agreeable book — 
 " A Week on the Loire." 
 
 " The younger Cathelineau, devoted with 
 liereditary zeal to the worn-out cause of the 
 Bourbons, took up arms for ^Ladame la 
 Duchesse de Berri ; associated in his suc- 
 cesses with M. de Suriac, M. Morriset, and
 
 WORDSWORTH AND MILTON. 
 
 63 
 
 M. de la Soremere, names dear in the annals 
 of fidelity and courage. Orders were given to 
 arrest tlieni at Beaupreau ; tliey took refuge 
 in a cliateau in the neighbourhood. The 
 troops surrounded and searched it, but all in 
 vain ; not a single human being was found 
 in it. Certain however that the objects of 
 their search were actually within the pre- 
 cincts of the chateau, they closed the gates, 
 set their watch, and allowed no one to enter, 
 except a peasant whom they employed to 
 show tlie hiding-places. This watch they 
 kept three days, till, wearied by the non- 
 ajjpearance of the parties, and tlie bellowing 
 of the cattle, who were confined without water 
 and on short allowance, they were on the point 
 of quitting the spot ; one of the officers, how- 
 ever, thought, previous to doing so, he would 
 go over the chateau once more — the peasant 
 followed close at iiis lieels : suddenly the officer 
 turned towards him, ' Give meaiiinch of snuff, 
 friend,' said lie. 
 
 " * I liave none,' replied the man, ' I do not 
 take it.' 
 
 " ' Then wlio is there in this chateau that 
 does ? ' 
 
 "• ' No one that I know of — there is no one in 
 the chateau, as you see.' 
 
 " ' Then whence comes the snuff whicli I 
 see here ? ' said the officer, pointing with his 
 foot to some which was scattered on the 
 ground. 
 
 "The man turned pale, and made no reply ; 
 the officer looked round again, examinetl the 
 earth more closely, stamped with his foot, and 
 at last thouglit he felt a vibration, as if the 
 gi'oand below were hollow. He scrutinised 
 every inch, and at length saw something like 
 a loose board ; he raised it up, and then, alas ! 
 he beheld Cath^linean,in front of his three coni- 
 jianions, with liis pistols in his hand ready to 
 fire. The officer liad not a moment to delibe- 
 rate, — he fired,— Cathelineau fell dead, and his 
 companions M-ere seized. This story was told 
 us by the keeper of the Musee, and afterwards 
 confirmed by an officer who was one of tiie 
 party employed." 
 
 We almost regret to have closed a light 
 article with "so heavy a stone" as tiiis. ("To 
 tell iiim that Iw shall be annihihited," saith 
 Sir 'J'homas Ih-owne, " is the iicaviest stone 
 that melancholy can throw at a man.") But 
 the snufl-taker, with his magic box in hand, is 
 prepared for cliances. As tlie Turlc takes to 
 his ]ii])e, and tiic sailor to liis loll of toliacco, 
 so he to his ]nnch ; and he is then j)reparcd 
 for whatsoever comes, — for a melancholy face 
 with the melancholy, or a laugh witli the 
 
 Another pinch, reader, before we jart. 
 
 XXIV.— WORDSWORTH AND MILTON. 
 
 "It is allowed on all hands, now, tliat there 
 are no sonnets in any language comparable 
 with Wordsworth's. Even Jlilton must yield 
 the palm. He has written but about a dozen or 
 so, Wordsworth some hundreds — and thoutrh 
 nothmg can surpass ' the inspired grandeur of 
 that on the Piedmontese Massacre, the tender- 
 ness of those on his Blindness and on his 
 Deceased Wife, the grave dignity of that to a 
 Young Lady, or the cheerful and Attic grace 
 of those to Lawrence and Cyriac Skiunei-,' as 
 is finely said by the writer of an article in the 
 ' Edinburgh Review' on Glassford's ' Lyrical 
 Translations,' yet manif of Wordsworth's equal 
 even these — and the long and splendid array 
 of his sonnets — deploying befoi'e us in series 
 after series — astonishes us by the proof it 
 affords of the inexhaustible riches of his ima- 
 ginative genius and his moral wisdom. One 
 series on the river Duddon — two series dedi- 
 cated to Liberty — three series on our Eccle- 
 siastical History — miscellaneous sonnets in 
 multitudes — and those last poured forth as 
 clear, and bright, and strong, as the first tJiat 
 issued from the sacred spring ! " — Blackwood's 
 Magazine. 
 
 j\Iost true is this. Wordsworth's untired 
 exuberance is indeed astonishing ; though it 
 becomes a little less so, when we consider tliat 
 his genius has been fortunate in a long life of 
 leisure, his opinions not having rendered it 
 necessary to him to fight with difficulties, and 
 daily cares, and Iiostile ascendancies, as Jlil- 
 ton's did, 
 
 " Exposed to daily fraud, contempt, and wrong, 
 AVitli darkness and with dangers conipass'd round." 
 
 In that condition sate the great blind epic 
 jioet; and after having performed an active 
 as well as contemplative part for his earthly 
 sojourn, still combined action with contempla- 
 tion in a mighty narrative, and built the ada- 
 mantine gates of another world. In no in- 
 vidious regard for one great poet against 
 another do we say it ; but in justice to fame 
 itself, and in the sincerest reverence of ad- 
 miration for both. W^ith the exception of 
 Shaksjiearo (who included everybody), Words- 
 worth has proved himself the greatest con- 
 templative poet this country has produced. 
 His facility is wonderful, lie never wants 
 the fittest words for tlie finest thoughts. He can 
 e.\j)ress, at will, those innumerable shades of 
 feeling which most other writers, not unworthy 
 too, in tlieir degree, of th<! name of poets, 
 either dismiss at once as inexpressible, or find 
 so difficult of embodiment, as to be content 
 with sha})ing them forth but seldom, and re- 
 posing from their labours. And rliyme, instead 
 of a hindrance, apj)ears to be a positive help, 
 it serves to concentrate his tiiouglits and niake 
 them closer and more precious. Milton did
 
 St 
 
 WORDSWORTH AND MILTON. 
 
 not pour forth soniiots in tliis manner — poems 
 in hundrfd.s of little cluinnols, — all soli<l and ! 
 fluent gold. No ; Init ho was vontini,' himself", 
 instead, in " Paradise Lost." "Paradise Lost," 
 if the two poets are to he compared, is the 
 set-off against Wordsworth's achievement in 
 sonnet-writing. There is the " Excursion," to 
 be sure ; but the " Excursion " is made np of 
 the same jnirely contemplative matter. It is 
 a long-drawn song of the nightingale ; as the 
 sonnets are its briefer warbles. There is no 
 eagh'-fliglit in tlie " Excursion ;'' no sustain- 
 nient of a mighty action ; no enormous hero, 
 bearing on his wings the weight of a lost eter- 
 nity, and holding on, nevertheless, nndismayed, 
 — firm-visaged tliroiigli faltering chaos, — the 
 combatant of all chance and all power, — a 
 vision that, if he could be seen now, woidd be 
 seen in the sky like a comet, remaining, though 
 speeding, — visible for long nights, though ra- 
 pidly voyaging,— a sight for a universe, — an 
 actor on the stage of infinity. There is no such 
 robust and majestic work as this in Wordsworth. 
 Compared witli Milton he is but as a dreamer 
 on the grass, though a divine one ; and worthy 
 to be compared as a younger, a more fluent- 
 speeched, but less potent brother, whose busi- 
 ness it is to talk and think, and gather together 
 his flocks of sonnets like sheep (beauteous as 
 clouds in heaven), while the other is abroad, 
 more actively moving in the world, with con- 
 templations that take the shape of events. 
 There are many i)oints of resemblance between 
 Wordsworth and Milton. Theyare both serious 
 men ; both in earnest ; both maintainors of 
 the dignity of poetry in life and doctrine ; and 
 both are liable to some objections on the 
 score of sectarianism, and narrow theological 
 views. But Milton widened these as he grew 
 old ; and Wordsworth, assisted by the advanc- 
 ing light of the times, (for the greatest minds 
 are seldom as great as the whole instinctive 
 mind of society,) cannot help conceding or 
 qualifying certain views of his own, though 
 timidly, and with fear of a certain few, such 
 as ililton never feared. Milton, however, was 
 never weak in his creed, whatever it was ; ho 
 forced it into width enough to embrace all 
 place and time, future as well as present. 
 Wordsworth would fain dwindle down the 
 possibilities of heaven and earth within tlie 
 views of a Church-of-England establislunent. 
 And he is almost entirely a retrosjjective poet. 
 The vast future frightens him, and he would 
 fain believe that it is to exist only in a past 
 shape, and that shape something very like one 
 of the smallest of the present, with a vestry 
 for the golden church of the New Jerusalem, 
 and beadles for the " limitary cherubs." Now 
 we hope and believe, that the very best of the 
 j)ast will merge into the future,— how long 
 before it be superseded by a still better, we 
 cannot say. And we own that we can conceive 
 of notiiing better than some things which 
 
 already exist, in venerable as well as lovely 
 sliapes. Hut how shall we i)retend to limit 
 th(? vast flood of coming events, or have such 
 little faith in nature, jirovidence, and the en- 
 lightened co-ojjeration of humanity, as to sup- 
 pose that it will not adjust itself in tlie noblest 
 and best manner? In this respect, and in some 
 others, Mr. Wordsworth's poetry wants uni- 
 versality, lie calls upon us to sympathise with 
 his churches and his country flowers, and his 
 blisses of solitude ; and he calls well ; but he 
 wants one of the best parts of persuasion ; he 
 is not recijirocal ; he does not sufficiently sym- 
 pathise with our towns and our blisses of society, 
 and our reformations of churches (the conse- 
 ipiences, after all, of his own. What would he 
 not have said, by the by, in behalf of popery, 
 had he lived before a Reformation!) And it may 
 may be said of hira, as Johnson said of Milton's 
 "Allegro" and " Pensieroso," that "no mirth 
 indeed can be found in his melancholy," but it 
 is to be feared there is always"some melancholy 
 in his mirth." His muse invites us to the trea- 
 sures of his retirement in beautiful, noble, and 
 in(!xhaustible language ; but she does it, after 
 all, rather like a teacher than a persuader, and 
 fails in impressing upon us the last and best ar- 
 gunu'utjthat she herself is happy. Happy she 
 must lie, it is true, in many senses ; for she is 
 happy in the sense of power, happy in the sense 
 of a good intention, happy in fame, in words, in 
 the consciousness of immortal poetry ; yet there 
 she is, after all, not quite persuasive, — more 
 rich in the means than in the eiuls, — with 
 something of a puritan austerity upon her, — 
 more stately than satisfactory, — wanting in 
 animal spirits, in perfect and hearty sympathy 
 with our pleasures, and her own. A vaporous 
 melancholy hangs over his most beautiful land- 
 scajjos. lie seems always girding himself up for 
 hispilgrimageof joy, rather than enjoyingit; and 
 his announcements are in a tone too exemplary 
 and didactic. We admire him ; we venerate 
 him ; we would fain agree with him : but 
 we feel something wanting on his own part 
 towards the largeness and healthiness of other 
 men's wider experience ; and we resent, for 
 his sake as well as ours, that he should insist 
 upon squaring all which is to come in the in- 
 terminable future, with the visions that bound 
 a college cap. We feel that it will hurt the 
 effect of his genius with posterity, and make 
 the nu)st admiring of his readers, in the third 
 and fourth generation, lament over his narrow- 
 ness. In short, his poetry is the sunset to the 
 English church, — beautiful as the real sunset 
 "with evening beam," gorgeous, melancholy, 
 retrospective, giving a new and divine light to 
 the lowliest flowers, and setting the pinnacles 
 of the churches golden in the heavens. Yet 
 nothing but a sunset and a retrospection it 
 is. A uvvf and great day is coming, — diviner 
 still, wo believe, — larger, more universal, more 
 equable, showing (manifestly) the heavens more
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 55 
 
 just, and making mankind more truly religious, 
 because more cheerful and grateful. 
 
 The editor of "Blackwood" justly prides 
 himself on liaving apjireciated this nol)le poet 
 from the first ; but it is a pity, we think, that 
 he looks back in anger upon those whose 
 literary educations were less fortunate ; — who 
 had been brought up in schools of a different 
 taste, and who showed, after all, a natural 
 strength of taste singularly honourable to 
 them, in being able to appreciate real poetry 
 at last, even in quarters to which the editor 
 himself, we believe, has never yet done justice, 
 though no man could do it better. For Wilson's 
 prose (and we could not express our admira- 
 tion of it more higlily) might stretch forth its 
 thick and rich territory by the side of Keats's 
 poetry, like a land of congenial exuberance, — 
 a forest tempest-tost indeed, compared with 
 those still valleys and enchanted gardens, but 
 set in the same identical region of the remote, 
 the luxuriant, the mythological, — governed by 
 a more wilful and scornful spirit, but such as 
 hates only from an inverted principle of the 
 loving, impatient of want of sympathy, and 
 incapable, in the last resort, of denying the 
 beautiful wheresoever existing,because thereby 
 it would deny the divine part of itself. Why 
 should Christopher North revert to the errors 
 of his critical brethren in past times, seeing 
 that they are all now agreed, and that every 
 one of them perhaps has something to forgive 
 himself in his old judgments (ourselves as- 
 suredly not excepted, — if we may be allowed 
 to name ourselves among them)? Men got 
 angry from political differences, and were not 
 in a temper to give dispassionate poetical judg- 
 ments. And yet Wordsworth had some of his 
 greatest praises from his severest ])olitical 
 opponents (Hazlitt, for instance); and out of 
 the former Scotch school of criticism, which 
 was a French one, or that of Pope and Boileau, 
 came the first hearty acknowledgment of the 
 merits of Keats, for whom we were delighted the 
 other day to find thatan enthusiastic admiration 
 is retained by the chief of that school (.Jeffrey), 
 whose natural taste has long had the rare 
 honour of triumphing over his educational one, 
 and who ought, we think, now that he is a 
 Lord of Session, to i'oUow, at his leisure mo- 
 ments, the example set him by the most ac- 
 complished of all national bencii«s of judicature, 
 and give us a book that should beat, never- 
 theless, all the Kameses and Woodhouselees 
 before him ; as it assuredly would. 
 
 XXV.— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. No. I. 
 
 Gkoffuky Chaucer was born in London, 
 in the year 132}?, apparently of a gentleman's 
 family, and was bred in the court of Edward 
 the Third. He married a sister of Catlierine 
 Swynford, mistress, and afterwards wife, to 
 
 the King's son, John of Gaunt ; and was 
 emj.loyed in court offices, and in a mission to 
 Italy, where he is supposed to have had an 
 interview with Petrarch. In the subsequent 
 reign he fell into trouble, owing to his con- 
 nexion with John of Gaunt's party and the 
 religious reformers of those days ; upon which 
 he fied to the Continent, but returned ; and, 
 after an imprisonment of three years, was set 
 at liberty, on condition of giving up the designs 
 of his associates ; — a blot on the memory of 
 this great poet, and apparently, otherwise 
 amiable and excellent man, which he has 
 excused as well as he could, by alleging that 
 they treated him ill, and would have plundered 
 and starved him. He died in the year 1400, and 
 was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to 
 which he had had a house on the site where 
 Henry the Seventh's chapel now stands: so 
 tliat the reader, in going along the pavement 
 there, is walking where Chaucer once lived. 
 
 His person, in advanced life, tended to cor- 
 pulency ; and he had a habit of looking down. 
 In conversation he was modest, and of few 
 Avords. He was so fond of reading, that he 
 says he took heed of nothing in comparison, 
 and would sit at his books till he dimmed 
 his eyes. The only thing that took him from 
 them was a walk in the fields. 
 
 Chaucer (with Spenser, Shakspeare, and 
 Milton) is one of the Four Great EngUsh 
 Poets ; and it is with double justice that he 
 is called the Father of English Poetry, for, as 
 Dante did with Italian, he helped to form its 
 very language. Nay, it burst into luxuriance 
 in his hands, like a sudden month of May. 
 Instead of giving you the idea of an "old" 
 poet, in the sense which the word vulgarly 
 acquires, there is no one, upon acquaintance, 
 who seems so young, consistently with maturity 
 of mind. His poetry rises in the land like a 
 clear morning, in whicii you see everything 
 with a rare and crystal distinctness, from the 
 mountain to the minutest flower,— towns, soli- 
 tudes, human beings, — open doors, showing 
 you the interior of cottages and of palaces, — 
 fancies in the clouds, fairy-rings in the grass ; 
 and in the midst of all sits the mild poet, alone, 
 his eyes on the ground, yet Mith his heart full 
 of everything round him, beating, perhaps, 
 with the bosoms of a wlujle city, whose multi- 
 tudes are sharing his thoughts with the daisy. 
 His nature is the greatest poet's nature, omit- 
 ting nothing in its symjiathy (in which respect 
 he is nearer to Shaksj.eare than either of their 
 two illustrious brethren) ; and he combines an 
 epic power of grand, compreliensive, and pri- 
 mitive imagery, with that of being contenteil 
 with the smallest matter of fact near him, and 
 of luxuriating in pure vague animal spirits, 
 like a dozer in a field. His gaiety is equal to 
 his gravity, and his sincerity to both. Yon 
 could as little tliiiik of doubting his word, as 
 the point of tile pen tliat wrote it. It cuts as
 
 5lJ 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 clear and sliarp into you, as the pen on the 
 
 paper. His }>eliefin tlie gooil and heiuitii'iil is 
 cliildlike ; us Shiikspeare's is that of evorlastiny 
 and manly youth. Spenser's and Milton's are 
 more sclioiarly and formal. Chaucer excels in 
 pathos, in liuinouv, in satire, characttr, and 
 description, liis graphic faculty, and healthy 
 sense of tiie material, strongly ally him to the 
 painter ; and ])erhaps a better idea could not 
 be given of his universality than by saying, 
 that ho was at once the Italian and the Flemish 
 painter of his time, and exhibited the pure 
 e.xpression of Raphael, the devotional intensity 
 of Domenecliino, the colour and corporeal fire 
 of Titian, the manni>rs of Hogarth, and the 
 homely domesticities of Ostade and Teniers ! 
 His faults are, coarseness, which was that of 
 his age, — and in some of his poems, tedious- 
 ness, wJiich is to be attributed to the same 
 cause, — a book being a book in those days, 
 written by few, and when it was written, 
 tempting the author to cram into it everything 
 that he had learned, in default of there being 
 any encyclopaedias. That tediousness was no 
 innate fault of the poet's, is strikingly manifest, 
 not only from the nature of his genius, but 
 from the fact of his throwing it aside as he 
 grew older and more conhdent, and spoke in 
 iiis own person. The " Canterbury Tales," 
 his last and greatest work, is almost entirely 
 free from it, except where he gives us a long 
 prose discourse, after the fashion of the day ; 
 and in no resjiect is his " Palamon and Arcite " 
 more remarkable, than in the exquisite judg- 
 ment with which he has omitted everything 
 superfluous in liis j)rolix original, " The 
 Teseide," — the work of the great and poetical- 
 natured, but not great poet, Boccaccio ; — (for 
 Boccaccio's heart and nature were poems ; but 
 he could not develop them well in verse.) 
 
 In proceeding to give specimens from the 
 works of the fatlier of our verse, the abund- 
 ance which lies before us is perplexing, and, in 
 order to do anything like justice, we are con- 
 strained to be unjust to his context, and to 
 be more piecemeal than is desirable. Our 
 extracts are from the volumes lately given to 
 the world by Mr. Clarke, entitled the " Riches 
 of Chaucer," in wiiicli the spelling is modernised, 
 and the old ])ronunciation marked with accents, 
 80 as to show the smoothness of the versifica- 
 tion. 'J'iiat Chaucer is not only a smooth, but 
 a powerful and various versifier, is among the 
 wonders of his advance beyond his age ; but 
 it is still doubtful, whether his prosody was 
 always coiTect in the modern sense, — that is to 
 say, whether all his lines contain the regulated 
 number of syllables, or whether he does not 
 sometimes make time stand for number ; or, 
 in other words, a strong and hearty emphasis 
 on one syllable perform the part of two, — as 
 in the verse which will be met with below, 
 about the monk on horseback ; of whom he 
 says, that 
 
 " Men might his briille hear 
 
 Cr'i«!(liiig in ii wilistlinK wind as dear, 
 Anil cUu art loiul as dotli tlic cliapol bell." 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER's PORTRAIT-PAINTING 
 AND HUMOUR. 
 
 ( l''rum the set 0/ Characters at the hetjinning o/the Canter- 
 bury Tales.) 
 
 THK KNIGHT. 
 
 And evermore lie had a sorercign prise. 
 
 And tlidiigh that lie was wortliy he wag wiae, 
 
 A)iil (if hix port (i.c H(i'(7.- at is a maid. 
 
 lie never yet no villainy nc said, 
 
 In all his life unti) no manner wight : 
 
 lie was a very perfect gentle knight. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 THK SQUfHE. 
 
 With him there was his son, a younge Squifr, 
 A lover and a lusty hachcler, 
 With lockes eurl'd as they were laid in press ; 
 Of twenty yeais of age he was I guess, 
 Of his stature he was of even length, 
 And wonilorly deliver ', and great of strength ; 
 And he had been some time in chevaehie'''. 
 In Flaunders, in Artois, and Pieardie, 
 And borne him well, as of so little space, 
 In hoi)e to standen in his lady's grace. 
 
 Embroidered was he, as it were a mead 
 All full of fresh^ flowri^'S, white and red : 
 Singing he was or floyting 3 all the day ; 
 He was as fresh as is the month of May : 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Courteous he was, lowly and serviceable. 
 And carved before his father at the table. 
 
 [Which was the custom for sons in those days. 
 His attendant yeoman is painted in a line.] 
 
 THE YEOMAN. 
 
 A nut-head had he u-ith a brown visdge. 
 
 THE PRIORESS. 
 
 There was also a Nun, a Prioress ; 
 That of her smiling was full simple and coy. 
 Her greatest oath n'as but by " Saint Eloy," 
 And she was eleped Madam Eglantine ; 
 Full well she sange the service divine, 
 Entunt'd in her nose full sweetc-ly ; 
 And French she spake full fair and fetisly, 
 A/ler the schoul o/Sti-at/onl alti' How, 
 For French of Paris was to her vnknow: 
 
 [A touch of good satire that might tell now !] 
 
 At mcate she was well ytaught withal, 
 Bho let no morsel from her lippes fall, 
 Ne wet her fingers in her sauce deep ; 
 Well could she carry a morsel, and well kecj). 
 
 [These are the elegancies Avhich it was thought 
 necessary to teach in that age.] 
 
 But for to speaken of her conseidnoe ; 
 .She was so charitable and so jiiteous. 
 She woulde weep if that she saw a mouse 
 Cauglit in a trap, if it were dead or bled. 
 Of smalle lioundcs had she, that she fed 
 With roasted flesh, and milk, and waste! bread. 
 Hut sore wept she if one f)f them were dead. 
 Or if nen smote it with a yarde .smart : 
 And ail was cvnscicnee ami tender heart. 
 
 [What a charming verse is that !] 
 
 ' Agile, 
 ■■i Chevauclu'c (French)~military service on horseback, 
 s Fluting.
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 57 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 A Monk tlipre was, a fair fur the mast'ry. 
 An out-rider, that loved venery ' ; 
 A manly man to been an abbot able ; 
 Full many a dainty horse had he in stable. 
 And when he rodr men might his bridle hear 
 Ginfllinp in a whistling wind as clear. 
 And eke as loud, as doth the chapel bell. 
 There as this lord was keeper of the cell. 
 
 The rule of Saint JIaure and of Saint Benc't, 
 Because that it was old, and somedeal strait. 
 This like monk let olde thinges pace, 
 And held after tlie newe world the trace. 
 He gave not of the text a pulled hen, 
 Thatsaith, that hunters be not holy men, 
 Nor that a monk when he is reckd'less. 
 Is like to a fish that is waterless ; 
 This is to say, a monk out of his cloister ; 
 This ilki! text held he not leorth an oyster. 
 * * * * 
 
 His head was bald, and shone as any glass. 
 And eke his face, as it liad been anoint ; 
 He was a lord full fat and in good point; 
 His cyen steep, and rolling in his head. 
 That steamed as a furnace of a lead ; 
 His bootes supple, his horse in great estate ; 
 Now cerlmnly he was a fair prelate : 
 
 rOf the sly and accommodating Friar we are 
 told, tliat] 
 
 Fall sweetily heard he con/essidn. 
 And pleasant was his absolutidn. 
 
 This was a couplet that used to delight the 
 late Mr. JIazlitt. To give it its full gusto, it 
 sliould be read with a syllabical precision, after 
 tlie fashion of Dominie Sampson. 
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 Him was lever ' have at his bed's head 
 
 Twenty bookh, clothed in black or red, 
 
 0/ Aristotle and his jihilosophy. 
 
 Than robis rich, orjidille or psaltry. 
 
 But all be that he was a philosoplier 
 
 Yet haddfj he but little gold in coffer. 
 
 But all tliat he niiglit of his friendes bent, 
 
 On bookcs and on learning he it spent, 
 
 yind busily '(/an for the smili's pray 
 
 Of them that i/iive him whereu-ith to scholay. 
 
 Of study took lie most(j cure and lieed ; 
 
 Not a W(jrd spake he nwrC- tlian was need ; 
 
 And thiit was said in form and reverence, 
 
 And short and quick, and full of liigh sentence : 
 
 Sounding in moral virtue was his speech. 
 
 And gladly would he learn and gladly teach. 
 
 A noble verse, containing all the zeal and 
 single-heartedness of a true love of knowledge. 
 The account of 
 
 IHB SBRGRANT OF THK LAW 
 
 contains a couplet, which will do for time 
 everlasting to describe a bustling man of 
 business. If Fielding had read Chaucer, he 
 would assuredly have applied it to his Lawyer 
 Dowling, wiio " wished he could cut hiinselt 
 into twenty pieces," lie had so much to do. 
 
 A'() where so busy a man as he there n'as^, 
 And yet hk skemed busier tuas he was. 
 
 ' Venery— Hunting. » Rather. 
 •■' Pronounced ma, was aot. 
 
 THE SAILOR. 
 
 A Shipman was there, woned far by west ; 
 For aught I wot, he was of Dartemouth : 
 He rode upon a rotincy as he couth, 
 
 [He rode upon a hack-horse as well as he 
 could.] 
 
 All in Q gown of falding to the knee. 
 
 A dagger hanging by a lace had he 
 
 About his neck under liis arm adown : 
 
 The bote summer had made liis hue all brown : 
 
 And certainly he was a good fellaw ; 
 
 Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw 
 
 From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapmen 
 
 Of nice conscience took lie no keep. [sleep : 
 
 If that he fought and had tlie higlier hand. 
 
 By water he sent tliem home to every land. 
 
 But of his craft to reckon well his tides. 
 
 His stream es and his strandes him besides ; 
 
 His harberow, his moon, and his lodenianage, 
 
 There was none sucli from Hull unto Carthage. 
 
 Hardy he was, and wise, I tmdertake ; 
 
 With many a temjicst had his beard been shake : 
 
 He knew well all the havens, as they were 
 
 From Gothland to the Cape de Finistere ; 
 
 And everj' creek in Bretagne and in Spain ; 
 
 His barge yclep^d was the Magdalen. 
 
 THE PARISH PRIEST, 
 
 AVide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 
 But he ne left naught, for no rain nor thunder. 
 In sickness and in mischief, to visit 
 The farthest in his parish much and lite. 
 * * * * 
 
 He sett^ not his benefice to hire, 
 And let his sheep accumbred in the mire. 
 And ran unto Londdn, unto Saint Poule's 
 To seekeu him a cliantery of souls, 
 Or with a brotherhood to be withold ; 
 But dwelt at home and kepte well his fold, 
 So that the wolf he made it not miscarry ; 
 He was a shepherd and no mercenary ; 
 
 * * * * 
 
 He waited after no pomp or reverence, 
 Ne maked him no spic<5d conscience. 
 But Christes love, and his apostles twelve 
 He taught, but first he/ollowed it himself. 
 
 How admirably well expressed is spiced con- 
 science — a conscience requiring to be kept easy 
 and sweet with drugs and luxurious living. 
 
 XXVI.— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 Several of Chaucer's best poems are trans- 
 lations from the Italian and French, but of so 
 exquisite a kind, so improved in character, so 
 enlivened with fresli natural touches and freed 
 from comparatirc sujierfluity (in some instances, 
 freed from nil superfluity) that they justly take 
 tlie rank of originals. We are sorry that we 
 liave not tlie poem of linccaccio by us, from 
 whicli he toolv the " Knight's Tale," containing 
 the passages that follow, — in order that we 
 might prove this to the reader ; but it is lucky 
 perliaps in otiier respects, for it would liavc 
 led us beyond our limits ; and all that wo pro
 
 »:t 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCEU. 
 
 fess in these extracts, is to give just so many 
 passages of an author as shall suttico for evi- 
 dence of iiis various characteristics. We talie, 
 from liis garden, specimens of the flowei-s for 
 wliieh he is eminent, and send them before 
 the |)iiblic as in a Iioi-ticiiltural show. To see 
 them in their due juxtajiosition and abundance, 
 we must refer to the gardens themselves ; to 
 which it is of course one of our objects to tempt 
 the beholder. 
 
 PHYSICAL I.IKB AND MOVEMENT. 
 
 A young knight going a-Maying. 
 
 Compare the saliency, and freshness, and 
 natural language of the following description 
 of Arcite going a-Maying, with the more arti- 
 ficial version of the passage in Dryden. Sir 
 Walter Scott says of it, that the modern poet 
 must yield to the ancient, in spite of " the 
 beauty of his versification." lint with all due 
 respect to Sir Walter, here is the versification 
 itself, as superior in its impulsive melody, even 
 to Di-yden's, as a th(n-oughly imalFected beauty 
 is to a beauty half spoilt. 
 
 The busy lark, the messenger of day, 
 Siihieth ' in her song the morrow grey, 
 And fiury I'hopbus riseth up so bright, 
 That nil the orient laugheth n/the sight. 
 And with his streames drieth in the grevds - 
 The silver droppes hanging on the leaves : 
 And Arcite, that is in the court redl^ 
 AVith Tliescus, tlie squicr principal, 
 Is risen, ami lookelh on the merry day ,- 
 And for to do his (ibscrvance to May, 
 Remembring on tlic point of his desire, 
 He on his courser, starting as the fire, 
 
 [An admirable image ! lie means those sud- 
 den catches and impulses of a fiery horse, 
 analogous to the shifting starts of a flame in 
 action ;] 
 
 Is ridden to the ficldes, him to play, 
 Out of the court, were it a mile or Iway ; 
 
 [These are the mixtures of the particular with 
 the general, by which natural poets come home 
 to us ;] 
 
 And to the grove of wliioh that I you told, 
 Uy .•ivcntiire * his way he gan to hold, 
 To maken him a garland of the grev^s, 
 Were it of Wdodljiiul, ur of liawtliuru leaves. 
 Ami luiiit he sang against the sunny sheen ; ^ 
 Jl/'/y, — with all thy flowres and thy green. 
 Right welcome he thim. fairt frehh(5 May: 
 / hope that I some green here getlen may. 
 
 [" I hope that I may get some green here : 
 an expression a little more off-hand and 
 trusting, and fit for the season, than the con- 
 ventional common-places of the passage in 
 Dryden — 
 
 " For thee, sweet month, the groves green 
 wear ! !" .he.] 
 
 liveries 
 
 ' Sahiteth. 
 
 ' groves. 3 jtoyal 
 
 ♦ Per avcntnra (Italian) — by chance. 
 
 * The sunshine. 
 
 PORTBAITS OV TWO WARItlOR KI.NOS. 
 
 There mnyst thou see, coming with I'alamon, 
 Licurge himself, the great<5 king of Thrace, 
 Blaek teas his beard, and manly teas his /nee ; 
 
 [Here was Dryden's and Pope's turn of line 
 anticij)ated under its most popular form.] 
 
 The circles of his eycn in his head 
 Tliey gloweden betwixen yellow and red. 
 Anil like a griffon looked he about, 
 AVith combed hairi^'s on his bruwi-s stout; 
 
 [That is to say, a forehead of the simplest, 
 potent appearance, with no pains taken to bet 
 it out.] 
 
 His limbds great, his brawnbs hard and strong. 
 
 His shoulders broad, his armes round an<l lioig ; 
 
 And as the guise was in his countrce. 
 
 Full hiu'h upon a car of gold stood he. 
 
 With itmri white bulk-s in the trace 
 
 Instead nf coat armour (m his harnace, " 
 
 With nailes yellow, and bright as any gold. 
 
 He had a beare's skin, cole-black for old. 
 
 His longd hair was comb'd behind his hack 
 
 As any raven's feather it shone for black , 
 
 A wreath of gold arm-great, of huge weight. 
 
 Upon liis head sate full of stones bright. 
 
 Of fine rubies and of diamonds. 
 
 About his car there wenten white alauns' 
 
 Twenty and more, as great as any steer. 
 
 To hunten at the lion or the doer. 
 
 And followed him, with muzzle fast ybound, 
 
 CoUar'd with gold, and tourettes " iilOd round. 
 
 A hundred lordes had he in his rout 
 
 Armed full well with heartes stern and stout. 
 
 With Arcita, in stories as men find. 
 
 The great Emetrius, the King of Ind, 
 
 Upon a Hteede bay, trapped in steel, 
 
 Cover'd with cloth of gold diApred wele, 
 
 Came riding like the god qf armes. Mart ,• 
 
 [There's a noble line, with the monosyllable 
 for a climax !] 
 
 His coat-armour was of a cloth of Tars ; 
 
 Couched ' with pearK-s white and roimd and great ; 
 
 ****** 
 
 His crispe hair like ring^s was y-run. 
 
 And that was yt'Unw, and glittov(^d as the sun; 
 
 His nose was high, his eyen a bright citrine, '* 
 
 His lippes round, his colour was sanguine ; 
 
 A fc'W Irai-kness " ni liis laee vsprent, '^ 
 
 Uetwixen yellow and black sonidcal yment ; '•'' 
 
 And as a lion he his looking cast. 
 
 [lie does not omit the general impression, not- 
 withstanding all these particulars. You may 
 s(>p his portrait close or at a distance, as you 
 please.] 
 
 Of fivc-and-twenty years his age I cast '* ; 
 His beard was well beginning for to spring ; 
 If is voice was as a trumpe thundering. 
 ***** 
 
 6 Harness. ' Alano, (Spanish,) a species of hound. 
 
 » Rings on the collars to leash by. » Imbedded. 
 
 '" Citron-colour. It seems to imply what has been some- 
 times called a green-eye — a hazel dashed with a sort of 
 sparkling yellow. " Freckles. 
 
 1^ Sprinkled. '■' .Mingled. 
 
 H Reckon.— Chaucer, like the Italiansand French, used 
 the -same word for a rhyme, provided the meaning was 
 different.
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 59 
 
 A hundred lord^s had he with him there. 
 All arniM save their heads, in all their gear; 
 Full richely in alle manner thing^s; 
 For trusteth well ', that earles, dukes, kingcs, 
 Weregather'd in this noble company, 
 For love, and for increase of chivalry. 
 About this kini? there ran on every part, 
 Full many a tame lion and le6part. 
 
 XXVII.— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 NO III — HIS PATHOS. 
 
 Chaucer's pathos is true nature's : it goes 
 directly to its object. His sympathy is not 
 fashion'd aud clipped by modes and respects ; 
 and herein, indeed, he was lucky in the com- 
 paratively homely breeding of his age, and in 
 the dearth of books. His feelings were not 
 rendered critical and timid. Observe the 
 second line, for instance, of the following 
 verses. The glossaries tell us that the word 
 " swelt " means fainted — died. There may be a 
 Saxon word with such a meaning — but luckily 
 for nature and Chaucer, there is another Saxon 
 word, swell, of which stceWd is the past tense, 
 and most assuredly this is the word here ; as 
 the reader will feel instantly. No man, how- 
 ever much in love, faints "full oft a day ;" but 
 lie may swell, as the poet says,— that is to say, 
 heave his bosom and body with the venting of 
 his long suspended breath, and say, Alas ! 
 The fainting is unnatural ; the sigh and tlie 
 heaving is most natural, and most admirably 
 expressed by this homely word. We have 
 therefore spelt it accordingly, to suit the rest 
 of tlie ortliography. 
 
 THK UNHAPPY LOVER. 
 
 (From ihe Knirjhl's Tale.) 
 When that Arcite to Thebes conien was, 
 l''ull o/l a dan he siecll'd, and said, Alas! 
 For see his lady shall he never mo. - 
 And shortly to eoneluden all his woe. 
 S() muckle sorrow had never creituru 
 That is, or shall he, while the world may dure : 
 His sleep, his meat, his drink is him beraft. 
 That lean he wax'd, and dry as is a shaft, — 
 His eyen hollow, and grisly to behold. 
 His hue sallow, and pale as ashes cold ; 
 And 8olit.ary he was and ever alone. 
 And wailing all the night, making his moan ; 
 And i/he heanlt' soup or instrurnent. 
 Then would he iveipe ; he mighU not be stent. 
 
 That is, could not be stopped ; the wilful, 
 washing, self-])itying tears would How. This 
 touch about the music is exquisite. 
 
 Dryden, wi-itiug for tiie court of Charles the 
 Second, does not dare to let Areiti; weeji, wluMi 
 he hears music. He restricts him to a gentle- 
 manly sigh — 
 
 He sighs when songs or instruments he hears. 
 
 ' Believe me. The third person singular, had the force, 
 in those days, of the imperative. 
 
 * Mure. " Mo " is still to be found in the old version of 
 the PtKilins. . 
 
 The cold ashes, which have lost their fire (we 
 have the phrase still " as pale as ashes ") he 
 turns to " sapless boxen leaves," (a classical 
 simile) ; and far be it from him to venture to 
 say "swell." No gentleman ever "swell'd;" 
 certainly not with sighing, whatever he might 
 liave done witli drinking. But instead of tl;at. 
 the modern poet does not mind indulging him 
 with a good canting common-place, in the 
 style of the fustian tragedies. 
 
 He raved with all the madness of despair : 
 He raved, he beat hiii breast, he tore his hair. 
 
 And then we must have a solid sensible reason 
 for the lover's not weeping : 
 
 Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears. 
 
 For wanting nvnrishinent, he war.ted tears! 
 
 It vvas not sufficient, that ujion the principle of 
 extremes meeting, the excess of sorrow was 
 unable to weep, — that even self-pity seemed 
 wasted. When the fine gentlemen of tlie 
 court of Charles the Second, and when Charles 
 himself, wept (see Pepys), it was when they 
 grew maudlin over their wine, and thouglit 
 how piteous it was tliat such good eaters and 
 drinkers should not have everything else to 
 their liking. But let us not run the risk of 
 forgetting the merits of Dryden, in comparing 
 him with a poet so much the greater. 
 
 THE SAME LOVKR DYING. 
 
 Alas the woe ! alas the paines strong 
 That I for you have sufFer'd, and so long ! 
 Alas the death 1 alas mine Emily ! 
 Alas, departing of our company ! 
 Alas mine heartes queen ! Alas my wife ! 
 
 " Alas," it is to be observed, was the common 
 expression of grief in those days ; aud all these 
 repetitions of it only show the; loud, wilful self- 
 commiseration, natural to dying peo])le of a 
 violent turn of mind, as tiiis lover was. But 
 he was also truly in love, aud a gentleman. 
 See how he continues : 
 
 Mine heartes lady, cnder of my life ! 
 U'hiii is this u'oitd ? What askeii men to have f 
 h'ow with his love, note in his cold grave : 
 Alone, — withouten any company. 
 
 How admirably expressed the difference 
 between warm social life, and the cold solitary 
 grave! How piteous the tautology — "Alone — 
 withouten any company !" 
 
 Farewell, my sweet; — farewell, mine Emily. 
 Aud soft — take me in your armes tway 
 For love of God, and hearken what 1 say. 
 
 He has had an unjust t]uariel MJtli his riA'al 
 and once beloved friend, Palamon : — 
 
 I have here with my cousin Palamon, 
 Had strife and rancour many a day agone. 
 For love of you, and for my jealousy ; 
 And Jupiter so wis my soule gie, ' 
 To spckcn of a servant < properly 
 With all6 circumstances tni^ly, 
 
 " So surely guide my soul. ' A lady's servant or lover.
 
 t>.0 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 That Isti say, trutli, Imnmir. and kniKthi^ad, 
 
 Wisdom, liiiinbli^ss, f^tatc, and liigli Iciiidrcd, 
 
 Frcediini, and all tliat longeth tci tliat art, ' 
 
 So Jupiter have nf my siiule part, 
 
 As in this world right now ne know I none 
 
 So worthy to he loved as I'alamon, 
 
 That servetli you, and will do all his life ; 
 
 And if tiiat ever ye shall he a wife, 
 
 I'orget not I'alamon, the <ic>tllc tiiun. 
 
 SIMILE OF A WAN LED TO KXECUTION, 
 
 <From the "Man ofLaiv's Tale.") 
 
 Tlio virttiotis Constance, wrongfully accused, 
 stands pale, and looking about licr, among a 
 king's courtiers. 
 
 Have ye not seen, sometime, a pale face 
 (Amoni; a press) - of him that hath heen led 
 'J'owArd his death, where as he getteth no grace 
 And sneli a eoloiir in his faec hath had, 
 They mit;hten know him that was so bested 
 Aniongist all the faces in that rout ; 
 So stiuit Custance, and looketh her about. 
 
 THE IMOTHER AND CHILD PUT TO THE MKRCY OF THE 
 OCEAN. 
 
 The same Constance, accused by the king's 
 mother of having produced him a monstrous 
 child, is treated as above, against the will of 
 the Constable of the realm, who is forced to 
 obey his master's orders. 
 
 Weepen both young and old, in all that place, 
 
 "When that the king this cursed letter sent, 
 
 And f distance, with a deadly pal '/ace 
 
 The fourth day toward the ship she went: 
 
 lint natheless she tak'th in good intent 
 
 The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strond 
 
 She said, " Lord, aye welcome be thy sond.3 
 
 y/f that me kcptifrom the falsi blame 
 
 IVhilcs I ivns in the land oiiunigt's you, 
 
 JIc can me keep from harm, and eke from shame, 
 
 Jn the salt sea, althou(/h I see not how. 
 
 As strintfi as ever he was, he is yet now. 
 
 Jn him trust 1, and in his mother dear 
 
 That is to mc my sail, and eke my steer. 
 
 Her little child lay icecpiiiij in her arm ,- 
 
 And kneelinp pilcously, to him she said, 
 
 " Peace, little son, I null <lo thee no harm ." 
 
 ■\Vith that her kcrehief off her head she braid, 
 
 Anil over his little eyen she it laid. 
 
 And in her arm she lidleth it full fast. 
 
 And into the heav'n her eyen up she east. 
 
 Mother (quoth she) and maiden bright, Mary ! 
 
 Sooth is, that thorough womann(5s eggmcnt ' 
 
 Mankind was born, and damned aye to die, 
 
 l''or irliich thy child was on a cross yrent • '.> 
 
 Tliy blissful eyen saw all his torment ; 
 
 Then is there no comparison between 
 
 Thy woe and aiiy woe man may sustain. 
 
 The true piteous emphasis on the words of this 
 line is not to be surpassed. 
 
 Thou saw'st thy child yslain before thine eyen, 
 And yet now liveth my little child parfay. i" 
 Now, Lady bright ! to whom all woeful crien, 
 Thon glory of womanhood, thou faire May ! 
 Thou haven of refiige, bright star of day, 
 Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness 
 Ituest on every rueful in distress. 
 
 1 The art of truly serving. - In a multitude. 
 
 3 Thy standing — the lot thou scndest. 
 * Incitenient. ^ Tom. 
 
 6 By my faith. 
 
 O little child, alas ! what is thy guilt, 
 That never wroughtest sin as yet, pardie? 
 Wliy will thine hard father have thee hi>ilt ? 
 O mercy, deare Constable iquoth she) 
 As let my little child dwell here with thee. 
 
 The silence of the pitying constable, here 
 hurriedly passed over by i)Oor Constance, as if 
 she would not distress him by pressing him for 
 what he could not do, is a sjiecimeu of those 
 eloquent jwwers of omhs'wv, for which great 
 masters in writing are famous. Constance 
 immediately continues : — 
 
 An" if thou darest not saven him from blame, 
 So kiss him ones' in hisfitlier's name. 
 Therewith she looketh backward to the land 
 And said(5, " Farewell, husband rtUhi'less.'" 
 And up she rose, and walked down the strand 
 Toward the ship : her foUoweth all the press : 
 And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace. 
 And tak'th her leave. 
 
 The mixture of natural kindliness, bewildered 
 feeling, and indelible good-breeding in this 
 perpetual leave-taking, is excessively affecting. 
 
 And with a holy intent 
 She blesseth her, and into the ship she went. 
 
 Glorious, sainted Griselda in our next. 
 
 XXV III— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 NO. IV. — STORY OF GUISELDA. 
 
 The famous story of Griselda, or Patient 
 Grizcl, who supposes her husband to kill her 
 children and to dismiss her finally from his bed 
 mider circumstances of the greatest outrage, 
 and yet behaves meekly under all, was not long 
 since the most popular story in Europe, and 
 still deeply affects us. Writers have asserted 
 that there actually was some such person. In 
 vain has the husband been i)ronounced a mon- 
 ster, and the story impossible. Jn vain liave 
 critics in subsequeut time, not giving sufliciont 
 heed to the difference between civilised and 
 feudal ages, or to the beauties with which the 
 narrative has been mingled, declared it to be 
 no better than the sight of a " torment on the 
 rack." The story has had shoals of narrators, 
 particularly in old France, and been repeated 
 and dwelt ii]ion by the greatest and tenderest 
 geniuses, — Doccaccio, J'eti-areh, and Cliaucer. 
 The whoh; heart of Christendom has embraced 
 the heroine. She has passed into a proverb ; 
 ladies of quality have called their children 
 after her, the name surviving (we believe) 
 among them to this day, in sjiite of its <jrksly 
 sound ; and we defy the manliest man, of any 
 feeling, to read it in Chaucer's own consecutive 
 stanzas (whatever he may do here) without 
 feeling his eyes moisten. 
 
 How is this to be accounted for ? The huS' 
 
 Once.
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 61 
 
 band is perfectly monstrous and unnatural ; — 
 there can be no doubt of that ; — he pursues his 
 trial of his wife's patience for twelve years, 
 and she is supposed to love as well as to obey 
 hira all tlie time, — him, tiie murderer of her 
 children! This, also, is unnatural, — impossible. 
 A year, a mouth, a week, would have been bad 
 enough. The lie was bad in itself. And yet, 
 in spite of that utter renouncement of the fic- 
 tion, to which civilis .tion finally brings us, we 
 feel for the invincibly obedient creature ; we 
 are deeply interested ; v/e acknowledge instinc- 
 tively, that the story had a right to its fame ; 
 nay, (not to speak it profanely,) that like other 
 permanent and popular storied, of a solemn 
 cast, it is a sort of revelation in its way, at 
 once startling us with contrasts of good and 
 evil, and ending in filling us with hope and 
 exaltation. How is this? 
 
 The secret is, that a principle— the sense of 
 duty— is set up in it above all considerations ; 
 — tliat the duty, once believed in by a good 
 and humble nature, is exalted by it, in conse- 
 quence of its very torments, above all torment, 
 and all weakness. We are not expected to 
 copy it, much less to approve or be blind to the 
 hard-heartedness that fetches it out ; but tlie 
 blow is struck loudly in the ears of mankind, 
 in order that they may think of duty itself, and 
 draw their own conclusions in favour of their 
 own sense of it, when they see what marvellous 
 effect it can have even in its utmost extrava- 
 gance, and how unable we are to help respect- 
 ing it, in proportion to the very depth of its 
 self-abasement. We feel tliat the same woman 
 could have gone through any trial which she 
 thought becoming a woman, of a kind .such as 
 we should all admire in the wisest and justest 
 a<res. We feel even her weakness to be her 
 strength,— one of the wonderfuUest privileges 
 of virtue. 
 
 We are travelling, at present, far out of the 
 proposed design of these sjiecimens, which 
 were intended to consist of little more than 
 extracts, and the briefest possible summary of 
 the author's characteristics. But the reader 
 will jiardon an occasional yielding to tenii)ta- 
 tions like these. Our present number shall con- 
 sist of as brief a sketch as we can give, of the 
 successive incidents of Chaucer's story, which 
 are managed with a skill exquisite as the feel- 
 ing ; and whenever we come to an irresistible 
 Specimen, it sliall be extracted. 
 
 At Saluzzo in Pi(>dmont, under the Alps, 
 
 Down at the root of Vesulus the culd, 
 
 there reigned a feudal lord, a Marquis, who was 
 beloved by his people, but too much given 
 to his amusement, and an enemy of marriage ; 
 which alarmed them, lest he should die child- 
 less, and leave his inheritance in the hands of 
 strangers. They therefore, at last, s'-nl liim a 
 deputation which addressed him on the subject, 
 and he agreed to take a wife, on condition that 
 
 they should respect his choice wheresoever it 
 might fall. 
 
 Now among the poorest of the Marquis's 
 people, 
 
 There dwelt a man 
 
 Which that was holden poorest of tliem all, 
 
 But highe God sometime senden can 
 
 His grace unto a little ox's stall ; 
 
 Janicola, men of that thorp him call ; 
 
 A daughter had he fair enough to sight, 
 
 And Grisildis this younge maiden hight. 
 
 Tender of age was " Grisildis " or " Grisilda" 
 (for the poet calls her both), but she was a 
 maiden of a thoughtful and steady nature, and 
 as excellent a daughter as could be, thinking of 
 nothing but her sheep, her spinning, and her 
 " old poor father," whom she supported by her 
 labour, and waited upon with the greatest duty 
 and obedience. 
 
 Upon Griseld', this poore creature, 
 Full often sitli this marquis set his eye. 
 As he on hunting rode peraventure ; 
 And when it fell that he might her espy, 
 He not with wanton looking of folly 
 His eyen cast on her, but in sad wise 
 Upon her cheer he would him oft avise. 
 
 The ISIarquis announced to his people that 
 he had chosen a wife, and the wedding-day 
 arrived, but nobody saw the lady ; at which 
 there was great wonder. Clothes and jewels 
 were prepared, and the feast too ; and the 
 Marquis, with a great retinue, and accom- 
 panied by music, took his way to the village 
 where Griselda lived. 
 
 Griselda had heard of his coming, and said 
 to herself, that she would get her work done 
 faster than usual, on purpose to stand at the 
 door, like other maidens, and see the sight ; 
 but just as she was going to look out, she heard 
 the Marquis call her, and she set down a 
 water-pot she had in her band, and knelt down 
 before him with her usual steady countenance. 
 
 The ^Marquis asked for her father, and going 
 in-doors to him, took him by the hand, and 
 said, with many courteous words and leave- 
 asking, that he had come to marry his daughter. 
 The ijoor man turned red, and stood abashed 
 and quaking, but begged his lord to do as 
 seemed good to him ; and then the Marquis 
 asked Griselda if she would have him, and vow 
 to obey him in all things, be they what they 
 might ; and she answered trembling, but in 
 like manner ; and he led her forth and pre- 
 sented her to the people as his wife. 
 
 Tlie ladies, now Grisclda's attendants, took 
 off her old peasant's clothes, not much pleased 
 to handle them, and dressed her anew in fine 
 clothes, so that the people hardly knew her 
 again for her beauty. 
 
 Her hairc's have they comb'd that lay untres.sM 
 Full rudely, and u-illi their fingers smaU 
 A coroune on her head they have ydressed. 
 And set her full of nouchcs • great and small. 
 
 ' A'oMC/ii'i— nuts?— buttons in that shape made of gold 
 or jfwclltry.
 
 6:: 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 Thus A\'alter lowly, not/ bill royalty, 
 Wedilcd witli furtunnte honesty ; 
 
 and Grisi'Uhi behaved so well, and discreetly, 
 and behaved so kindly to everyone, making up 
 disputes, and speaking such gentle and sensible 
 words, 
 
 And coiildu so lln' pfn}>lt's heart emhrace, 
 Tliiit t'licVi lur loc'llt that louketh on her /ace. 
 
 In dne time the Marchioness had a daughter, 
 and the Marquis had always treated hiseonsort 
 well, and behaved like a man of sensi> and re- 
 flection ; but now lie informed her that his 
 people were dissatisfied at his having raised her 
 to be his wife ; and, reminding her of her vow 
 to obey liim in all things, told her that she must 
 agree to let him do with the little child whatso- 
 ever he pleased. Griselda kept her vow to the 
 letter, not even changing countenance ; and 
 shortly aftei-wards an ill-looking fellow came, 
 and took the child from her, intimating that he 
 was to kill it. Ciriselda asked i)ermission to kiss 
 her child ere it died, and she took it in her bosom, 
 and blessed and kissed it with a sad face, and 
 prayed the man to bury its " little body " in some 
 place where tlie l)irds and beasts could not get 
 it. But the man said nothing. lie took the child 
 and went his way ; and the Marquis bade him 
 carry it to the Countess of Pavia, his sister, with 
 directions to bring it up in secret. 
 
 Griselda lived on, behaving like an excellent 
 wife, and four years afterwards slie liad anotliei- 
 child, a son, which the Marquis demanded of her, 
 as he had done the daughter, laying his injunc- 
 tions on her at the same time to be ])atient. 
 Griselda said she woidd,adding,as a proof never- 
 theless what bitter feelings she had to control, 
 
 I have not had no part of children twain, 
 But first, sielincss ; and after, woe and pain. 
 
 The same "ugly sergeant" now came again, 
 and took away the second child, carrying it 
 like the former to Bologna ; and twelve years 
 after, to the astonishment and indignation of 
 the po'jt, and the people too, but making no 
 alteration whatsoever in the obedience of tlie 
 wife, the Marquis informs her, that his subjects 
 are dissatisfied at his having her for a wife at 
 all, and that he had got a dispensation fiom the 
 Pope to marry another, for Avhom she must 
 make way, and be divorced, and return liome ; 
 adding insultingly, that she might take back 
 with her the dowry M-hich sli(> brought him. 
 Woefully, but ever patiently, does (iriseida 
 consent, not, however, without a tender excla- 
 mation at the difference between her marriage 
 day and this ; and a.s she receives the instruc- 
 tion about the dowry as a hint that she is to 
 give up her fine clothes, and resume her old 
 ones, which she says it would be impossible to 
 find, she makes him the following exquisite 
 prayer and remonstrance. — If we had to write 
 for only a certain select set of readers, never 
 should we think of bespeaking tlieir due rever- 
 ence for a passjige like the following, and itn 
 
 simple, ])rimitive, and most affecting thoughts 
 and woids. But a publication like the i)resent 
 must accommodate itself to the chances of 
 perusal in all quarters, either by alteration or 
 explanation ; and, therefore, in not altering any 
 of these words, or daring to gainsay the sacred 
 tenderness t hey bringbefore us, we must observe, 
 that as there is not a more pathetic passage to 
 be found in the whole circle of human writ, so 
 the pathos and the pure words go inseparably 
 together: and his is the most refined heart, 
 educated or uneducated, that receives them 
 with the delicatest and profouudest emotion. 
 
 " My Lord, ye wot that in my father's place 
 Ye did nie strip out of my pooru weed, 
 
 [IIow much, by the way, this old and more 
 lengthened projiunciation of the word poor, 
 ])oore (French, pautn',) adds to the piteous 
 emphasis of it.] 
 
 And rich(;ly ye clad me of your grace ; 
 To you brought I nought elles out of drede, ' 
 JUit faitli, and nakedness, and ' womanhede; 
 And here again your elotliing I restore, 
 And eke your wedding ring, for evermore. 
 " The remnant of your jewels rcjidy be 
 Within your ' cliuniber," I dare 8:ifely sain. 
 Naked out o/ my/utlter's house {quoth she) 
 J came, ami 'takeil J must turn ayain. 
 
 [How beautifully is the Bible used here !] 
 
 All your pleasanci? would I follow fain ; 
 liut yet I hope it be not ycmr intent 
 That 1 snioekless out of your palace went. 
 
 " Ye could not do so disltoniist a thing 
 That thilki'^ womi) in ichich your children lay, 
 Sliduldi! l)e/ore the people, in my walking 
 Be seen all bare ; wherefore. I you pray. 
 Let me not itKK a worm oo by thh way: 
 licmcmlier vo.'.', mine owen Lord so dear, 
 I u-iis your wife, though ! unworthy were. 
 
 " Wherefore in guerdon of my ' womanhede, 
 Wliich that I brought and ' yet' again I bear, 
 As vouehesafe to give me to my meed 
 Hut such a smock as 1 was wont to wear. 
 Thill I therewith may wrie^ the wninb of her 
 That was your tri/e. And here 1 take my leave 
 Of you, mine owi-n Lord, lest I you grieve." 
 
 " The smock," quoth he, "that thou hast on thy 
 Let it be still, and bear it fortli with thee." [back, 
 But well unnctlies* thilke word he spake, 
 But went his way feu- ruth and for pittie, 
 Before tlic folk licrselven strippeth she. 
 And in her smock, with foot and head all bare, 
 Toward her father's house, forth is she fare. 
 
 The people follow her weepingand wailing, but 
 she went ever as usu.al, with staid eyes, nor all 
 the while did siie sjjcak a word. As to her ])Oor 
 father, he cursed the day he was boi-n. And so 
 wrth her father, for a space, dwelt " this flower 
 of wifely patience," nor showed any sense of 
 offence, nor remembrance of her high estate. 
 
 At length arrives news of the coming of the 
 new Marchioness, with such array of pomp as 
 had never been seen in all Lombardy ; and the 
 Marquis, who has, in the mean time, sent to 
 Bologna for his son and daughter, once more 
 desires Griselda to come to him, and tells her, 
 
 1 Out of drede— witliout doubt. * 7'/i/7fc<;— this. 
 
 3 irric— cover. ♦ Unneth^s— scarcely.
 
 SPECIMENS or CHAUCER. 
 
 C3 
 
 that as he has not women enough in his house- 
 hold to wait upon his new wife, and set every- 
 thing in order for her, he must request her to do 
 it ; which she does, with all ready obedience, 
 and then goes forth with the rest, to meet the 
 new lady. At dinner, the iManjuis again calls 
 her, and asks her what she thinks of his choice. 
 She commends it heartily, and prays God to 
 give him prosperity ; only adding, that she 
 hopes he will not try the nature of so young a 
 creature as he tried hers, since sh^ has been brought 
 tip more tenderly, and perliaps could not bear it. 
 
 And when this Walter saw her patience, 
 Her gladde cheer, and no nialfce at all. 
 And he t-o (jften Iiad her done offence, 
 And she aye sad ' and constant as a wall. 
 Continuing aye her innocence over all. 
 This sturdy marquis 'gan his hearth dress 
 To rue upon ber wifely stedfastness. 
 
 He gathers her in his arms, and kisses her ; 
 but she takes no heed of it, out of astonish- 
 ment, nor hears anything he says ; upon which he 
 exclaims, tliat as sure as Chiist died for him, 
 she is his wife, and ho will have no other, nor 
 ever had ; — and with that, he introduces his 
 supposed bride to her as her own daughter, 
 with his son by her side ; and Griselda, over- 
 come at last, faints away. 
 
 When she this heard, aswoone down she fallcth 
 
 For piteovsjoy ,- and after her swooning 
 
 She both her younge children to her calletn. 
 
 And in her aruK^s piteously weeping, 
 
 .Embraceth them, and tenderly kissing 
 
 Full like a mother tuilh h,r salte tears 
 
 She balked l/uOi their cisage and their hairs. 
 
 O, suon a piteous thing it was to see 
 
 Her swooning, and her humble voice to hear .' 
 
 " Grand mercyj Lord, God thank it you iquotli Khe), 
 
 That ye have savM me my children dear : 
 
 Now reck * I never to be dead right here, 
 
 Since I stand in your love and in your grace. 
 
 No force of death, ^ nor when my spirit puce. 
 
 " O tenoer, O aear, O younge eliildren mine ! 
 
 Your woful mother weenL<l steadfastly 
 
 That cruel houndcs or some foul vermin 
 
 Had eaten you : but God nf his mercy 
 
 And your benigne father tenderly 
 
 Hath done you keep ;" and in that sam^ stound 
 
 All suddenly she swapp'd adown to ground. 
 
 And in her swoon so sadly ho'delh she 
 Iter children two when she '(lan them embrace. 
 That with yreat sleiyht anil yreat difficulty 
 The children from her arm they 'gan arrace, * 
 .' many a tear on many a jiileous/iice 
 Doten ran of them that stnoden her beside ; 
 Unneihe abouten her might they abide. 
 
 That is, they could scarcely remain to look at 
 her, or stand still. — And so, with feasting and 
 joy, ends this divine, cruel story of I'atient 
 Griselda ; the happiness of which is superior 
 to the pain, not only because it ends so well, 
 but because there is ever present in it, like 
 that of a saint in a picture, the sweet, sad face 
 of the fortitude of woman. 
 
 ' Sad— composed in manner — unaltered. * Heck — care. 
 ' No force of death— no matter for death. 
 * Arrace—{rrcucb, arrachcr) pluck 
 
 XXIX.— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 NO. v. FURTHER SPECIMENS OF HIS PLEASANTRY 
 
 AND SATIRE. 
 THE FAIRIKS SUPERSEDED BY THE FRIARS. 
 
 Chaucer was one of the Reformers of his 
 time, and, like the celebrated poets and wits 
 of most countries. Catholic included, took 
 ]ileasure in exposing the abuses of the church ; 
 not because he was an ill-natured man, and 
 disliked the church itself (for no one has done 
 greater honour to the true Christian pastor 
 than he, in a passage already quoted,) but 
 because his very good-nature and love of 
 truth made him the more dislike the abuses 
 of the best things in the most reverend places. 
 He measures his satire, however, according to 
 its desert, and is severest upon the severe and 
 mercenary, — the holders of such livings as give 
 no life but rather take it. In the follov/ing 
 exquisite banter he rallies the more jovial and 
 plebeian part of the church, the ordinary 
 begging-friars, with a sly good-humour. And 
 observe how he contrives to sprinkle the 
 passage with his poetry. The versification 
 also is obviously good, even to the most modern 
 ears. 
 
 In olde dayts of the King Artour, 
 
 Of which that Britons speaken great honijur 
 
 All was this land fulfill'd of Faery ; 
 
 The Elf-queen with her jolly company 
 
 Danced full oft in many a gieene mead. 
 
 This was the old opinion, as 1 read; 
 
 I speak of many himdred years ago, 
 
 But now can no man see none elves mo ; 
 
 For now the greats- charity and prayfers 
 
 Of Milliters and other holy freres. 
 
 That searchen every land and every stream, 
 
 As thick as motes in the suiind beem, 
 
 Blessing halles, chambers, kHchenc^s, and bowers. 
 
 Cities and boroughs, castU's high and towers, 
 
 Thorpes and barn^s, shep^nes and dairies. 
 
 This maketh that there be no Faeries : 
 
 For there as wont to walken was an elf. 
 
 There walkelh note the liniiler himself 
 
 In undemieales and in morrowings. 
 
 And saith his matins and his holy things 
 
 As he go'th in his liniitation. 
 
 Women may now go safely up and down ; 
 
 In every bush, and under every tree, 
 
 There is no other Incubus hut he. 
 
 AN IMPUDENT DRUNKEN SKI.LKR OF PARDONS A.VD 
 INDULGE.NCES CO.NFHsSKS FOR WHAT HE PREACHES. 
 
 Lordings, quoth he, in chiirclir when I preach 
 1 paint- me to have an hauteiu speech, 
 
 (I do my best to speak out loud) 
 
 And ring it out, as round as go'th a bell, 
 For I can all by rote that I tell ; 
 
 (I learn all I say by heart) 
 
 My theme is always one, and ever was, 
 Kadix malorum eit cupidilat. 
 
 " Covetotisness is the root of all evil." Chaucer 
 has fitted his Latin capitally well in with the 
 measure, — a nicety singularly ill observed by 
 poets in general.
 
 61 
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 First I proniiiiiicO whennt^s that I come, 
 And then my billies 
 
 (tlic Pope's bulls) 
 
 show I, nil and some ; 
 Our licKe lorde's seal on my patent. 
 That show I first, my body to wanent. 
 That no man bo so bold, nor priest, nor clerk. 
 Me to disturb in Christes holy work ; 
 And after that, then tell I forth my tales ; 
 UiiUes of I'opc^s and of Cardinales, 
 Of Patriarchs, and of Bishopc^s, I show, 
 And In Latin I speak a wordes few. 
 To saffron with my predication, 
 
 (To ffive a colour and relish to his sermon, 
 like saffron in pastry) — 
 
 And for to steer men to dov6tion. 
 
 The preacher hero banters his own relics, antl 
 then proceeds with tlie following ludicrous 
 picture and exquisitely impudent avowal : — 
 
 Then pain I me to stretchen forth my neck, 
 And east and west upon the people I beck. 
 As (lolh a (love siltiii;; upon a barn : 
 My handes and my tongue gone so yearn— 
 
 (Go so briskly together) — 
 
 That it is joy to see my business. 
 
 Of avarice and of such cursedness 
 
 Is all my preaching,/or to make them/ree 
 
 To give their poire, and namely,— u.nto me ; 
 
 For mine intent is nought but for to win, 
 
 And nothing for correction of sin ; 
 
 I reck nivcr, when that they be buried. 
 
 Though that their soules gone a black-berrricd. 
 
 (That is,— though their souls go by bushels 
 into the lower regions, like so many black- 
 berries.) 
 
 Therefore— 
 
 (repeats he, at the end of the next paragraph, 
 varying the note a little like a relishing musi- 
 cian, — ) 
 
 Therefore my theme is yet and ever was. 
 Radix malorum est cupiditas. 
 
 IROSICAI, BIT OF TBANSI-ATION. 
 
 In the story of the Cock and the Fox, the 
 gallant bird, who has been alarmed by the 
 fox, is coniplinu'iitiug his favourite wife, and 
 introduces some Latin, the real purport of 
 ■which is that the fair sex are the " confusion 
 of mankind," but which, he informs her, signi- 
 fies something quite the reverse. Sir Walter 
 Scott admired tliis passage. 
 
 But let us speak of mirth, and stint all this. 
 (Stop all this)— 
 
 Madame Partelot, so have I bliss. 
 Of one thing God hath sent me large grace, 
 For when I see the beauty of your face. 
 Ye be so scarlet red /iliout your eyen. 
 It maketh all my dreads for to dien ; 
 For all 80 siker as 
 
 (As sure as — ) 
 
 " [n prineipio 
 Mvlier est hcminis con/nsio ;" 
 Madam, the sentence of this Latin is, 
 " Woman is m.annLS joy, and mannfe bliss." 
 
 In prhic'iplo, mulier est Iioviinis covfus'io — 
 Woman, from the iirst, Avas the confusion of 
 man. " In prineipio" observes Sir Walter, in 
 a note on the pass.agein his edition of Di-yden,' 
 refers to the beginning of Saint John's (iosjiel. 
 And in a note on the word confusio, he says it 
 is taken from a fabidous conversation between 
 the i>mperor Adrian and tbe philosopher Secun- 
 dus, rejK)rtcd by Vincent de Beauvais, in his 
 'Speculum llistoriale.' Quid est mti'ticr? Ilominis 
 confusio : insatarabiiis bestia, ^'C. What is woman ? 
 The confusion of man, &c. " The Cock's polite 
 version (lie adds) is very ludicrous." 
 
 llow pleasant to hear one gi-eat writer thus 
 making another laugh, as if they were sitting 
 over a table together, though five centuries 
 are between them. But genius can make 
 the lightest as well as gravest things the 
 property of all time. Its laughs, as well as its 
 siglis, are immortal. 
 
 XXX.— SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 NO. VI. — MISCELLANEOUS SPECIMENS OF HIS DESCRIP- 
 TION, PORTRAIT-PAINTING, AND FINE SENSE. 
 BIRDS IN THE SPUING. 
 
 Full lusty was the weather and benign ; 
 For which the fowls against the sunne sheen 
 (Wliat for tlie season and tlie younge green) 
 Full loude sungen their alTfctions: 
 Them seemed had gotten them protections 
 Against the sword of winter, keen and cold. 
 
 Squire's Talc. 
 
 PATIENCE AND KQUAL DEALING IN LOVB. 
 
 For one thing, Sirs, safely dare I say, 
 That friondes ever each other must obey, 
 If they will long^ holden company : 
 Love will not be constraint by mastery : 
 Wiicn mastery comcth, the god of Love axon 
 Bkatkth his wings, and fareweli- ! he is gone. 
 
 [Compare the ease, llfe,and gesticulation of this 
 — theaudiblesuddenness and /«;•<• hv// of it — with 
 the balanced and formal imitation by Pope — 
 
 " Love, free as air, at sight of human ties 
 Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies."] 
 
 Love is a thing as, any spirit, free. 
 >Vonicn of kind desiren liberty, 
 And not to be constrained an a thrall ; 
 And so do men, if soothly I s.iy shall. 
 Look, who that is most patient in love. 
 He is at his advantage all above ; 
 
 (he has the advantage over others that are 
 
 not so.) 
 
 Patience is a high virtu^ certiin, 
 For it vanqiiishcth, as these clerk^ssain, 
 Thinges that rigour never should attain; 
 For every word men should not chide or plain. 
 
 Lcariietk to suffren — 
 
 (learn to suffer) 
 
 or, so may I gone, 
 
 (so may I prosper) 
 
 Ve shall it learn, wJielher ye u-Hl or non. 
 
 The Franklin's Tai.e.
 
 SPECIMENS OF CHAUCER. 
 
 06 
 
 INABILITY TO DIE. 
 
 Three drunken rioters go out to kill Death, 
 who meets them in the likeness of a decrepit 
 old man, and directs them to a treasure which 
 brings them to their destruction. The old 
 man only is given here. 
 
 When they had gone not fully half a mi!e, 
 
 Right as they would have trodden o'er a stile, 
 
 An old man and a poor6 with them met ; 
 
 This oldd man full meekc'ly thorn grct, 
 
 And saidt' thus; " Now, Lord^s, God you see !" 
 
 The proudest of these riotourc's three 
 
 Answered again ; " \Mjat ? churl, with sorry grace, 
 
 Why art thou all forwrapp^d save thy face ? 
 
 Why livcst thou so long in so great age ? " 
 
 This olde man 'gan look in his visage. 
 And said^ thus ; " For I ne cannot find 
 A man, tfiovc/h that I walked into Ind, 
 Neither in city nor in no village, 
 That woulde change his youth d- for mine age ; 
 And therefore must I have mine age still 
 As longe time as it is Godd^s will. 
 Ne Death, alas I ne wUl not have my life : 
 Thus walk I, like a resteless caitiff, 
 And on the ground, which is my mother's gate, 
 I knocke with my staff early and late. 
 And say to her, ' Leve mother, let me in, 
 Lo, how I vanish, flesh, and hlood, and skin. 
 Alas ! when shall my hon^s he at rest ? 
 Mother, with you would I change my chest. 
 That in my chamber longe time hath be, 
 Yea, for an hairy clout to wrap in me. ' " 
 
 (That is, for a coffin and a winding-sheet of 
 hair-cloth.) 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE COCK. 
 
 (In the story of the " Cock and the Fox ■") 
 
 His comb was redder than thefine cordl, 
 Embatteled as it were a castle wall ; 
 His bill ifas black, and as the Jet it shone. 
 Like azure were his leggds and his tone ; 
 
 (His toes) 
 
 His nail/s whiter than the lily flower. 
 And like the burned gold was his coldiir. 
 
 Compare the above verses (taking care of the 
 accent) with the most popular harmonies of 
 Pope, and see into what a flowing union of 
 strength and sweetness the " old poet" could 
 get, when he chose. 
 
 He flew down from his beam, 
 For it was day, and eke liis henn(5s all ; 
 And with a ch\ick he 'gan ttuni for to tall. 
 For he had found a corn lay in the yard ; 
 Royal he was, he was no more afeard. 
 
 (He had been frightened by a fox.) 
 
 He looketh, as it were a grim leoun , 
 
 (Lion) 
 
 And on his toes he roameth up and down , 
 He deigneth not to set his foot to ground , 
 lie chucketh when he hath a corn yfound, 
 And to himrunnen then hi.-, wives all. 
 
 PonTllAIT OF A FEMALE. 
 
 This is in the pure, unfaltering style of the 
 old Italian painters. The simile in the third 
 line is one of thequaintnessesof an age in which 
 
 books were rare, — the key to almost all the 
 quaintnesses of Chaucer. The rest of them 
 are connected with his adherence to the origi- 
 nals from which he translated, and only 
 appear strange from difference of time or 
 national customs. A want of consideration 
 to this effect led Mr. Ilazlitt into an error, 
 when he instanced that pleasant, scornful 
 admonition to the sun in Troilus and Creseida, 
 (to go and sell his light to them that "engrave 
 small seals,") as an evidence of Chaucer's 
 minuteness and particularity. 
 
 The original of Troilus and Creseida was by 
 an Italian ; and in Italy the seal-engravers 
 of those times wei-e famous, and in great 
 employ ; nor was anything more natural for a 
 lover, angry with the day-time, than to tell the 
 sun to go and give his light to fhose that so 
 notoriously needed it. 
 
 Among those other folk was Creseida 
 In widow's habit black ; but nath^less 
 Right as our first letter is now an A, 
 In beauty first so stood she mak^less ; 
 
 (Matchless) 
 
 Her goodly looking gladded all the press; 
 ' N'as never seen thing to be praised so dear. 
 Nor under cloudiS black so bright a star, 
 
 [What a pity this fine line did not terminate 
 with a full stop ! but he goes on — ] 
 
 As was Creseid," they saiden evereach one. 
 That her behelden in her blacke weed ; 
 And yet she stood full low and still alone. 
 Behind all other folks in little brede, 
 
 (In small space) 
 
 And nigh the door, aye under sliames drede, 
 
 (that is, not shame-faced, but apprehensive 
 of being put to shame, — put out of her self- 
 possession) 
 
 Simple of attire and debonnair of cheer ; 
 With full-assured looking and manuire. 
 
 Troilus thus seeing her for the first time, 
 looks hard at her, like a tcwn-gallant ; and 
 she, being town-bred herself, for all her 
 unaffectediiess, thinks it necessary to let him 
 understand that he is not to stare at her. 
 
 She n'as not with the most of her stature, 
 
 (her stature was not of the tallest) 
 
 But all her limbes so well answering 
 Weren to womanhood, that creature 
 Was never lesse mannish in seeming. 
 And eke the pur6 wise of her meaning 
 She showed well 
 
 (her manner was so correspondent with her 
 meaning) 
 
 -that men might in lier guess 
 
 Honour, estate, and wimi;mly noblcss. 
 Then Troilus, right wonder well withal, 
 ■fi.an for to like her meaning and her cheer. 
 Which somedealdeignous was, 
 
 (was a little haughty)
 
 6C 
 
 PETER WILKINS AND THE FLYING WOMEN. 
 
 -for she let full 
 
 Her look a little aside, in siicli manndre 
 Ascauiites — '• What.' nuiii I iivt stamlen Iterei'" 
 And a/lcr that her looking 'ijan she light; 
 
 (began to lighten — to restore to its former 
 ease) 
 
 That nercr thought bim see so good a sight. 
 
 Chaucer is very fond of painting these 
 womanly portraits, especially the face. Here 
 is — 
 
 ANOTHER, 
 
 introduced to us with a piece of music. The 
 succession of adverbs at the end of the first 
 five lines, makes a beat upon the measure, 
 analogous to the dance he is speaking of — 
 
 I saw her dance so comely, 
 
 Carol and sing so sweetly. 
 
 And lauKli and play so womanly. 
 
 And lociken so deboiiairly, 
 
 So goodly speak and so friendly. 
 
 That certes I trow that evermore 
 
 N'as seen so blissful a treasure. 
 
 For every liairt on her head, 
 
 JIo sotli to say it was not red. 
 
 Ne neither yellow, nor brown it n'as ; 
 
 Sletliought most like to gold it wuo. 
 
 And which cycn my lady had, 
 
 Debonaire, good, and glad, and sad ; 
 
 (sad is in earnest) 
 
 Simple, of good muchel,not too wide; 
 Thereto her look was not aside 
 Nor overthawt, but beset so well, 
 It drew and took up every deal, 
 
 (entirely) 
 
 All which that on her "gan behold ; 
 Her eyen seemed anun she would 
 Have mercy. Folly weendeu so. 
 But it was ne'er the rather do ; 
 
 (She looked so good-natured, that folly itself 
 thought she was at its service ; though folly 
 was much mistaken.) 
 
 It was no counterfeited thing ,- 
 
 It was HKk OWN PURE LOOKING. 
 
 A charming couplet ! And he need not have 
 said any more ; but he was so fond of the face, 
 he could not help going on : — 
 
 AVere she ne'er so glad. 
 Her looking was not foolish spread. 
 
 Though dulness itself, he tells us, was abso- 
 lutely " afraid of her style of life, it was so 
 cheerful." 
 
 I have no wit that can suffice 
 To comprehenden her beauty. 
 
 (To describe it comprehensively.) 
 
 But thus much I dare say, that she 
 Was white, ruddy, fresh, lively huM, 
 And every day her beauty newdd. 
 * * * * Beit ne'er so dark 
 Me thinkelh I see her ever mo ; 
 
 (If all they; says the poet) 
 
 That ever lived were now alive, 
 
 Ne Would they have found to descrive 
 
 In all licr face a wicked sign, 
 I'or it was sad, simple and benign. 
 
 The Book of the Duchess. 
 
 And there is a great deal more of the descrij)- 
 tion. 
 
 GOING TO SI.EKP IN HEARING OF A NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 A nightingale upon a cedar green. 
 
 Under the chamber wall there as she lay. 
 
 Full loud j'sung again the moon<5 sheen. 
 
 Par 'venture, in his birdis wise, a lay 
 
 Of love, that made her hearts fresh and gay ; 
 
 That hearkened she so long in good intent, 
 
 Till at the last the dead(i sleep her hcnt. 
 
 Troilus and Crcteida. 
 
 EXQUISITE COMPARISON OF A NIOHTINOAI.K, WITH CONFI 
 DKNCE AFTER KKAR. 
 
 And as the 7iew abashed nightingale, 
 That stintcth first when she beginneth sing. 
 When that she heareth any herdc's tale, 
 
 (herdsman counting his flock) 
 
 Or in the hedges any wight stirring ,- 
 And after, siker doth her voice outrino ; 
 
 (Siker is securely) 
 
 Right so Creseidi!, vhen that her aread stent. 
 Opened her heart, and told liim her intent. 
 
 We conclude this long article very unwillingly 
 (having to omit a hundred beautiful passages,) 
 with a siK'cimen of Chaucer's philosophy, 
 particularly fit to honour these pages : 
 
 For thilkd ground that bearoth the weedds wick 
 
 (wicked or poisonous) 
 
 Bear'th eke these wholesome herbde as full oft ; 
 And next to thefoul nettle rough and thick. 
 The rose ywaxelh sole, and smooth, and scft ; 
 And next the valley is the hill aloft ; 
 And next the darki night is the glad morrow. 
 And also joy is next the fine of sorrow. 
 
 XXXI PETER WILKINS AND THE 
 
 FLYING WOMEN. 
 
 The " Adventures of Peter Wilkin8"is a 
 book written about a hundred years back, 
 purporting to be the work of a shipwrecked 
 voyager, and relating the discovery of a j^eople 
 who had wings. It is mentioned somewhere, 
 with gieat esteem, by Mr. Southey, if our 
 memory does not deceive us ; and has been 
 altogether so much admired, and so poj)ular, 
 that we arc surprised Mr. Dunlop has omitted 
 it in his " History of Fiction." The name, 
 " Peter Wilkins," has, to the present perplexed 
 and asi)iriiig generation (not yet knowing 
 what to retain and what to got rid of) a poor 
 and vulgar sound. It is not Montreville, or 
 Mordaunt, or Montgomery. " Peter " is not 
 the name for a card. " Wilkins " hardly 
 announces himself as a diner with dukes. 
 But a hundred years ago people did not con- 
 ceive that a gentleman's pretensions were 
 nominal. What novelist now-a-days would 
 
 1
 
 PETER WILKINS AND THE FLYING WOMEN. 
 
 67 
 
 call his hero " Tom Jones ? " Yet thus was 
 his great work christened by Fielding, a man 
 of noble family. However, there is a " prefer- 
 ment " in the instinct of this aspiration. 
 Society has had a lift, and is inclined to take 
 everything for an advantage and an elegance, 
 which it sees in possession of its new company. 
 By-and-by, it will be content with the real 
 elegances, and drop the pretended. 
 
 It is a great honour to a writer to invent a 
 being at once new and delightful ; and the 
 honour is not the less, for the apparent obvi- 
 ousness of the invention. Let any one try to 
 make a new combination of this sort, and he 
 will find how difficult it is. We will venture 
 to say, that besides genius in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, there is a faith in it, and a 
 remoteness from things worldly, that implies 
 a virtue and a child-like simplicity, not com- 
 mon but to minds of the higher order. Some 
 writers would think they were going to be 
 merely childish ; and would very properly 
 desist. Others would be apprehensive of ridi- 
 cule ; and would desist with like reason. Not 
 that everybody would succeed, who fancied he 
 should. Taste and judgment are requisite to 
 all good inventions, as well as an imagination 
 to find them ; and there must be, above all, a 
 strong taste for the truth ; verisimilitude, or 
 the likeness of truth, being the gi'eat charm in 
 the wildest of fictions. It is very difficult to 
 unite the imaginative with the worldly ; and 
 men of real genius sometimes make mistakes, 
 in consequence, fit only for tlie most literal or 
 incoherent understandings. 
 
 We have headed our article "Flying Women," 
 instead of the Flying People, because, though 
 the beings discovered by our friend Peter are 
 of both sexes, we could never quite persuade 
 ourselves tliat his males had an equal right to 
 their graundfe. All however, that he says 
 about the Flying Nation as a people is ingeni- 
 ous. He has escaped, in particular, in a most 
 happy manner, from the difficulty of iutroduc- 
 ing his plain-backed hero among them without 
 lessening his dignity, by means of implicating 
 him with a prophecy important to tiieir well- 
 being ; and his speculations uijon their religion 
 and policy, show him to have been a man of 
 an original turn of reflection in everything ; 
 good-hearted, and zealous for the advancement 
 of mankind. But his lords, his architects, and 
 his miners, violate the remoteness of his inven- 
 tion, and bring it back to common-place ; nor 
 was this necessary to render his work useful. 
 The utility of a work of imagination consists 
 in softening and elevating tlie mind generally; 
 and tliis is the effect of liis Flying Woman. 
 All that relates to her is luckily set in a frame 
 by itself ; is remote, quiet, and superior. She 
 is as much above Peter's race in sincerity, as 
 in her wings ; and yet there is nothing about 
 lier, wliieli, in a higher state of humanity, the 
 author does not succeed in making us sujjpose 
 
 possible. Peter is even raised towards her by 
 dint of his admiration of her truth ; and the 
 sweetness of her disposition more than meets 
 him half-way, and sets them both on a level. 
 
 The author of this curious invention must 
 have been a very modest as well as clever man, 
 or have had some peculiar reasons for keeping 
 his name a secret ; for he was living when the 
 work arrived at a second edition. The dedica- 
 tion does not appear in the first ; and the 
 writer, who signs himself R. P. speaks in it of 
 the heroine as his property. It is observable, 
 that in all the editions we have met with, the 
 initials R. P. are signed to the dedication, 
 while R. S. is put in the title-page. This also 
 looks like a negligence uncommon in authors. 
 The dedication is to Elizabeth, Countess of 
 Northumberland ; the lady to whom Bishop 
 Percy dedicated his ' Reliques of Ancient Eng- 
 lish Poetry.' We have sometimes fancied that 
 Abraham Tucker wrote it, or Bishop Berkeley. 
 It has all the ease and the cordial delicacy of 
 the best days that followed tlie " Tatler," as 
 well as their tendency to theological discussion. 
 The mediocrity of the author's station in life 
 might have been invented, to make the picture 
 of a sea-faring philosopher more real ; though 
 the names of the children. Tommy and Pedro, 
 hardly seem a contrast which a scholar could 
 have allowed himself to give into. The turn 
 of words, invented for the flying people, is 
 copied from Swift, and cannot be called happy. 
 There is a want of analogy in them to the 
 smoothness, and even the energy, of flying. 
 The ancient name of the country, N'osmnbdsgrsutt, 
 is more fit for that of the Houhynhyms. yinn- 
 drumstakf,Bahbrindrugg, Craskdoorpt, and Hunknn 
 (marriage,) and Glumm (a man,) are words too 
 ugly for any necessity of looking natural. 
 We are hardly reconciled to the name of 
 Youwarkee for the heroine. Gmcrey (a woman) 
 is hardly so good ; but the Graundee, the name 
 of the flying apparatus, will do. There is a 
 grandeur in it. We see it expand and " display 
 its pomp," as Tasso says of the peacock. The 
 hero's name was most likely suggested by that 
 of a celebrated advocate of the possibility of 
 flying, Wilkins, Bishop of Chester*. Upon the 
 whole, if we were in possession of the Berkeley 
 Manuscripts, we should look hard to find a 
 memorandum indicative of the Bishop's being 
 tlie author of this delightful invention. Even 
 the miners seem to belong to the author of the 
 Bermuda scheme ; and he had traversed the 
 seas, and been conversant with all honest 
 paths of life. There would also have api>eared 
 to him good reason for not avowing the book, 
 how Christian soever, when he came to be a 
 
 * The Hishop is said to have been nske<l by the flighty 
 Duchess of Newcastle, liow people who took a voyage to 
 the moon were to manage for " baiting-places? " to which 
 he replied, with great felicity, that he wondered at such a 
 question from her Grace, " who had built so many castles 
 iu the air." 
 
 p 2
 
 68 
 
 PETER WILKINS AND THE FLYING WOMEN. 
 
 Bishop. But these inquiries arc foreign to 
 our pages. 
 
 A i)eacc)ck, witli his i)himage displayed, full 
 of" raiuhowsand starry eyes," is a fine oliject; 
 but think of a lovely woman set in front of 
 an ethereal shell, and wafted ahout like a 
 Venus. This is peiliaps the best general idea 
 that can be given of Peter Wilkins's bride. 
 In tlie first edition of the work, puhlished in 
 l7Jl (at least we know of none earlier), tlieie 
 is an engraved explanation of the wings, or 
 i-ather drapery, for siicli it was wlien at rest. 
 It niijilit be called a natural vvcbbed-silk. We 
 are to picture to ourselves a nymph in a vest of 
 the finest texture and most delicate carnation. 
 On a sudden, this drni)ery ])arts in two and 
 flies back, stretched from head to foot behind 
 the figure like an oval fan or umbrella ; and 
 the lady is in front of it, i)reparing to sweep 
 blusliing away from us, and " winnow the 
 buxom air." 
 
 It has been objected, that tlie wings of 
 Peter's wonian consist ratiu^r of sometiiing 
 laced and webl)ed than proper angelical wings, 
 that this something serves her also for drapery, 
 that the drapery therefore is alive, and that 
 we should be shocked to find it warm and 
 stirring. The objection is natural in a merely 
 animal point of view ; and yet, sj)eaking for 
 ourselves, we confess we have been so accus- 
 tomed to idealities, aud to aspirations after 
 the predominancy of moral beauty in physical, 
 that it is with an elFort we allow it to be so. 
 Supposing it, at first, to be something to which 
 we should have to grow reconciled, we con- 
 ceive, that pity for the supposed deformity 
 would only endear us the more to the charming 
 and perfect womanhood to which it wasattached. 
 We have often thought, tliat real tenderness 
 for the sex would not be so great or so touch- 
 ing — certainly it could not be so well proved, 
 —if women partook less tiian they do of im- 
 perfection, liut the etlierial power as well as 
 grace belonging to our flying beauties could 
 not long permit us to associate the idea with 
 deformity. Our admiration of beauty, as it i% 
 (unless we hold, with some philosophers, that it 
 is a direct ordinance of the Divine Being), is 
 the effect of custom and kind ofiices. It is 
 true, there is something in mere smoothness 
 and harmony of form, which .appears to be suf- 
 ficient of itself to affect us with pleasing emo- 
 tions, distinct from any reference to moral 
 beauty ; but the last secrets of pleasures the 
 most material are in the brain and the imagi- 
 nation. The lowest sensualist, if he were 
 capable of reflection, would find tliat he was 
 endeavouring to grasp some shadow of grace 
 and kindliness, even when he fancied himself 
 least given to such refinements. The worst like 
 to receive pleasures from the best. The most 
 hypocritical seducer, in the sorry improvidence 
 of his selfishness, seeks to be mistaken for what 
 he is not ; to enjoy innocence instead of guilt ; to 
 
 read in the eyes of simplicity what a transport 
 it is to be loved : and to piece out the instinc- 
 tive consciousness of liis own want of a just 
 moral power, by the stealing of one that is un- 
 just. Being a man, he cannot help these 
 involuntary tributes to tiie soul of beauty. If 
 it were otherwise, he would be an idiot, or a 
 iiyon the wall. We tiiink it, therefore, perfectly 
 natural in our friend Peter, seeing of what 
 lovely elements tlu? mind as well as the body 
 of his new acquaintance is composed, to feel 
 nothing but admiration for an ajipendage 
 which doubles her power to do him good, and 
 which realises what it is natural for us all to 
 long for in our dreams. The wish to fly seems 
 to belong instinctively to all imaginative states 
 of being — to dreams, to childhood, and to love. 
 Flying seems the next step to a higlier state 
 of being. If we could fancy human nature 
 taking another degree in the scale, and dis- 
 j)lacing the present inhabitants of the world 
 by a new set of creatures, pei'sonally improved, 
 tiie result of a climax in refinement, wiiat we 
 should expect in them would be wings to their 
 shoulders. 
 
 We proceed to lay before our readers, from 
 the complete edition of this romance*, the 
 passages describing our hero's first knowledge 
 of the flying people, and the account of his 
 bride and her behaviour. 
 
 " As I lay awake (says our voyager) one night or 
 day, I know not whieli, I very plainly heard the 
 sound of sovei'al human voices, and sometimes very 
 loud ; but though I could easily distinguish the 
 articulations, I could not understand the least word 
 that was naid ; nor did the voices seem at all to 
 me like such as I had anywhere heard before, but 
 much softer and more musical. This startled me, 
 and I arose immediately,slipping on my clothes, and 
 taking my gun iu my hand (which I always kept 
 charged, being my constant travelling companion), 
 and my cutlass. I was inclined to open the door 
 of my ante-chamber, but I own I was afraid ; 
 besides, I considered that I could discover nothing 
 at any distance, by reason of the thick and gloomy 
 wood that inclosed me. 
 
 " I had a thousand different surmises about 
 the meaning of this odd incident ; and could not 
 conceive how any human creatures should be 
 in my kingdom (as I called it) but myself, as 
 I never yet saw them or any trace of their habi- 
 tation. 
 
 " These thoughts kept me still more within doors 
 than before, and I hardly ever stirred out but for 
 water or firing. At length, hearing n<j more voices 
 nor seeing any one, I began to be more conqjosed 
 in my mind, and at last grew persuaded it was all 
 a mere delusion, and only a fancy of mine without 
 any real foundation : so the whole notion was soon 
 blown over. 
 
 " I had not enjoyed my tranquillity above a week 
 
 * Some abridgments, purpdrting to Ix; the entire work, 
 afford almost as inadequate an idea of it in spirit as in 
 letter. One or two of Stotliard's dcMgns, in the edition 
 in the " Novelist's Magazine," do justice to the grace and 
 delicacy of the heroine.
 
 PETER WILKINS AND THE FLYING WOMEN. 
 
 69 
 
 before my fears were roused afresh, hearing the 
 same sound of voices twice in tlie same night, but 
 not many minutes at a time, and I was resohed 
 not to venture out ; but then I determined, if they 
 should come again anything near my grotto, to 
 open the door, see who they were, and stand u})on 
 my defence, whatever came of it. Thus had I 
 formed my scheme, but I heard no more of them 
 for a great while, so that at length 1 became tran- 
 quil again. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " I passed the summer (though I had never yet 
 seen the sun's body) very much to my satisfaction : 
 partly in the work I had been describing (for I 
 had taken two more seals, and had a great 
 quantity of oil from them,) partly in building me 
 a ehimuey in my ante-chamber of mud and earth 
 burnt on my own hearth into a sort of brick ; in 
 making a window at one end of the above-said 
 chamber, to let in what little light would come 
 through the trees when I did not choose to open 
 my door ; in moulding an earthen lamp for my 
 oil ; and finally in providing and laying stores, 
 fresh and salt (for I had now cured and dried 
 many more fish), against winter. These I say 
 were my summer employments at home, inter- 
 mixed with many agreeable excursions. But now 
 the winter coming on, and the days growing very 
 short, or indeed there being no day, properly 
 speaking, but a kind of twilight, kept mostly in my 
 habitation, though not so much as I had done the 
 winter before, when I had no light within doors, 
 and slept, or at least lay still, great part of my time ; 
 for now my lamp was never out. I also turned 
 two of my seal-skins into a rug to cover my bed, and 
 the third into a cushion, which I always sat u[K)n, 
 and a very soft warm cushion it made. All this 
 together rendered my life very easy, nay oven 
 comfortable ; but a little while after the darkness 
 or twilight came on, I frequently heard the voices 
 again ; sometimes in great uumbirs. This threw 
 me into new fears, and I became as uneasy as ever, 
 even to the degree of growing quite melancholy. 
 
 "At length one night, or day, I cannot say which, 
 hearing the voices very distinctly, and praying very 
 earnestly to be either delivered from the uncer- 
 tainty thoy had put me under, or to have them 
 removed from me, I took courage, and arming 
 myself with a gun, listened to distinguish from 
 whence the voices proceeded ; when I felt such a 
 thump upon the roof of my ante-chamber as shuok 
 the whole fabric, and set me all over into a tremor ; 
 I then heard a sort of shriek and a rustle near tiie 
 door of my apartment ; all which together seemed 
 very terrible. But I having before determined to 
 see what and who it was, resolutely opened my 
 door, and leaped out. I saw nobody ; all w;is quite 
 silent, and nothing that I could perceive, but my 
 own fears, a-moving. I went then softly to the 
 corner of my building, and there looking down, by 
 the glinuner of my lamp, which stood in the win- 
 dow, 1 saw something in human shape lying at my 
 feet. I asked, Who's there ? No one answering, I 
 was induced to take a near view of the object. 
 But judge of my astonishment wlicn 1 discovered 
 the face of the most lovely and beautiful woman 
 eyes ever beheld ! I stood for a few seconds 
 transfixed with aston'ishment, and my heart was 
 ready to force its way through my sides. At 
 length, somewliat recovering, I perct>i\ed her 
 
 more minutely. But if T was puzzled at beholding 
 a woman alone in this lonely place, how much 
 more was I surprised at her appearance and dress. 
 She had a sort of brown chaplet, hke lace, round 
 iier head, under and about which her hair was 
 tucked up and twined ; and she seemed to me to 
 be clothed in a thui hair-coloured silk garment, 
 which upon trying to raise her, I found to be 
 quite warm, and, therefore hoped there was life 
 in the body it contained. I then touk her in my 
 arms, and conveyed her through the door-way 
 into my grotto : where I laid her upon my bed. 
 
 " When I laid her down, I thought, on laying my 
 hand on her breast, I perceived the fountain of 
 life had some motion. This gave me infinite 
 pleasure ; so warming a drop of wine I d!jq)ed 
 my finger in it and moistened her lips two or three 
 times, and I imagined they opened a little. Upon 
 this I bethought me, and taking a tea-spoon, I 
 gently poured a few drops of the wine by that 
 means into her mouth. Finding she swallowed it, 
 I poured in another spoonful and another, till 1 
 brought her to herself so well as to be able to sit up. 
 
 " I then spoke to her, and asked her divers ques- 
 tions as if she understood me ; in return of which 
 she uttered language I had no idea of, though in 
 the most musical tone, and with the sweetest 
 accent I ever heard. 
 
 " You may imagine we stared heartily at each 
 other, and I doubted not but she wondered as 
 nmch as I by what means we canie so near each 
 other. I ofifered her everything in my grotto 
 which I thought might please her ; some of which 
 she gratefully received, as ajjpeared by her looks 
 and behaviour. But she avoided my lanqj, and 
 always placed her back towards it. I observed 
 that, and took care to set it in such a position my- 
 self.as seemed agreeable to her, though it deprived 
 me of a prospect 1 very much admired. 
 
 " After we had sat a good while, now and then I 
 may say, chattering to one another, she got up and 
 took a turn or two about the room. When I saw 
 her in that attitude, her grace and motion per- 
 fectly charmed me, and her shape was incompar- 
 able ; but the straitness of her dress put me to 
 a loss to conceive either what it was, or how it 
 was put on. 
 
 " W( 11, we supped together, and I set the best of 
 everything I had before her, nor could either of us 
 forbear speaking in our own tongue, though we 
 were sensible neither of us understood the other. 
 After su|)per I gave her some of my cordials, for 
 which she showed great tokens of thanklnhiess. 
 When supper liad been some time over, I showed 
 her my bed and made signs for her to go to it ; 
 but she seemed very shy of that, till I showed her 
 where I meant to lie myself, by pointing to myself, 
 then to that, and again pointing to her and t > my 
 bod. When at length I had made this matter in- 
 telligible to her, she lay down very con)i)(>sed!y ; 
 and after I had taken care of my fire, and set the 
 things I had ))een using for supper in their places, 
 I laid myself down too. 
 
 " I treated her for some time with all the respect 
 imaginable, and never suffered her to do the least 
 part of my work. It was very inconvenient to 
 both of us oiily to know each other's meaning by 
 signs ; but I could not be otherwise than pleased 
 to see, tliat she endeavoured all in her power to 
 learn to talk like mo, Indeed, I was uot behind-
 
 70 
 
 PETER WILKIN'S AND THE FLYING WOJIEN. 
 
 hand with her in that respect, striving all I could 
 to imitate her. Witli this we at last succeeded so 
 well, that in a few inontlis we were able to hold a 
 convei-sation with each other. 
 
 " After my new love had been with me a fort- 
 night, find in;; my water rini very low, I was greatly 
 ti'oubled at the thought of quitting her to go for 
 more; and, as well as I could, entreated her not to 
 go away before my return. As soon as she under- 
 stood what I sijinified to her, she sat down with 
 her arms across, leaning her liead against the wall, 
 to assure me she would not stir. 
 
 " I took my boat, net, and water-cask, as usual ; 
 desirous of bringing her home a fresh-fish dinner, 
 and succeeded so well as to catch enough for 
 several meals and to spare. What remained, I 
 salted, and fuund that she liked that better than 
 the fresh, after a few days' salting ; though she did 
 not so well approve of that I had formerly pickled 
 and dried. 
 
 " Thus we spent the remainder of the winter 
 together, till the days began to be light enough 
 for me to walk abroad a little in the middle of 
 them ; for I was now under no apprehensions 
 of her leaving me, as she had before this time many 
 opportunities of doing so, but never attempted it. 
 
 '* I must here make one reflection upon our con- 
 duct which you will almost think incredible, 
 namely, that we two, of diff'erent sexes, fully in- 
 flamed with love to each other, and no outward 
 obstacle to prevent our wishes, should have been 
 together under the same roof alone for five months, 
 conversing together from moi-ning till night (for 
 by this she pretty well understood English, and I 
 her language), and yet I should never have clasped 
 her in my arms, or have shown any farther feel- 
 ings to her, than what the deference I all along 
 paid her could give her room to surmise. Nay, I 
 can affirm that L did not even then know that the 
 covering she wore was not the work of art, but 
 the work of nature, for I really took it for silk. 
 Indeed, the modesty of her carriage and sweetness 
 of her behaviour to me, had struck into me such 
 a dread of ofl'ending her, that though nothing upon 
 earth could be more capable of exciting passion 
 than her charms, I could have died ratlier than 
 have attempted to salute her only, without actual 
 invitation. 
 
 " When the weather cleared up a little, by the 
 lengthening of day-light, I took courage one after- 
 noon to invite her to walk with me to the lake, 
 but she sweetly excused herself from it, whilst 
 (here was such a glare of light ; but told me, if I 
 would not go out of the wood, she would accom- 
 pany me ; so we agreed to take a turn only there. 
 1 first went myself ovor the stile of the door, and 
 taking her in my arms, lifted her over. But even 
 when I had her in this manner, I knew not what 
 to make of her clothing, it sat so true and close ; 
 but I begged she would let me know of what her 
 garment was made. She smiled, and asked me if 
 mine was not the same under my jacket ? No, 
 lady, answered I, I have nothing but skin under 
 my clothes. Why, what do you mean ? she 
 replied, somewhat tartly ; but indeed I was afraid 
 something was the matter, by that nasty covering 
 you wear, that you might not be seen. Are not 
 you a (iliimm ? Yes, fair creature. Then, con- 
 tinued she, 1 am afraid you must have been a very 
 bad glunmi, and have been crashee, which I should 
 
 be very sorry to hear. I replied, I hoped my 
 faults had not exceeded other men's ; but I had 
 suftered abundance of hardships in my time, and 
 that at last Providence having settled me in this 
 spot, from whence I had no prospect of ever de- 
 parting, it was none of the least of its mercies to 
 bring to my knowledge and company the most 
 exquisite piece of all his works in her, which I 
 should acknowledge as long as I lived. She was 
 surprised at this discourse, and said, Have not 
 you the same prospect that I or any other person 
 has of departing ? You don't do well, and really 
 I fear you are slit, or you would not wear this 
 nasty cumbersome coat (taking hold of my 
 jacket-sleeve), if you were not afraid of showing 
 tile signs of a bad life upon your natural clothing. 
 
 " I could not for my iieart imagine what way 
 there was to get out of my dominions ; and as to 
 my jacket, I confess she made me blush : and but 
 for shame, I would have stripped to my skin to 
 have satisfied her. But, madam, said I, pi'ay 
 pardon me, for you really are mistaken ; I have 
 examined every nook and corner of this island, 
 and can find no possible outlet. Why, rej>lied 
 she, what outlets do you want I If you ai'e not 
 slit, is not the air open to you as well as other 
 people ? I tell you, sir, I fear you have been slit 
 for your crimes ; and though you have been so 
 good to me that I can't help loving you heartily 
 for it, yet, if I thought you had been slit I would 
 not .stay a moment longer with you, though it 
 should break my heart to leave you. 
 
 " I found myself now in a strange quandary, 
 longing to know what she meant by being slit. 
 But seeing her look a little angrily upon me, I 
 said. Pray, madam, don't be offended, if I take 
 the liberty to ask you what you mean by the word 
 crashee, so often repeated by you l for I am an 
 utter stranger to what you mean by it. Sir, 
 replied she, pray answer me first how you came 
 here ? Madam, i-cplied I, if you will please to take 
 a walk to the vei-ge of the wood, I will show you 
 the very passage. Well, replied she, now this 
 odious dazzle of fight is lessened, I don't care if I 
 do go with you. 
 
 " When we came far enough to see the bridge. 
 There, madam, said I, there is my entrance, where 
 the sea pours into this lake from yonder cavern ! 
 It is not i)ossible, answered she ; this is another 
 untruth ; and as I .see you would deceive me, and 
 are not to be believed, farewell ; I must be gone. 
 But hold ! let me ask you one thing more, that is, 
 by what means did you come through that cavern ? 
 You could not have used to come over the rock ! 
 Bless me, madam ! .said I, do you think I and ray 
 boat could fly ? Come over the rock, did you s.ay ? 
 No, madam ; I sailed from the great sea, in my 
 boat, through that cavern into this very lake. 
 What do you mean by your boat ? said she ; you 
 seem to make two things of your Ijoat you sailed 
 with and yourself. I do so, replied I, for I take 
 myself to be good flesh and blood, but my boat is 
 made of wood and other materials. Is it so ? 
 And pray where is this boat that is made of wood 
 and other materials ? under your jacket ? Lord, 
 madam ! said I, what ! put a boat under my 
 jacket ! No, madam, my boat is in the lake. 
 What, more untruths ! said she. No, madam, 
 I replied, ii' you would be satisfied of what 1 say 
 (every word of which is as true as that my boat
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH FEMALES. 
 
 71 
 
 now is in the lake), pray walk with me thither, 
 and make your own eyes judges what sincerity I 
 speak with. To this she agreed, it growing dusky ; 
 but assured me if I did not give her good satisfac- 
 tion, I should see her no more. 
 
 " We aiTived at the lake ; and going to my 
 wet-dock, Now, madam, pray satisfy yourself 
 whether I spoke true or no. She looked at my 
 hoat, but could not yet frame a proper notion of 
 it, till I stepped into it, and pushing from the shore, 
 took the oars in my hand and sailed along the 
 lake by her as she walked on the shore. At last 
 she seemed so well reconciled to me and my boat, 
 that she desired I would take her in. I imme- 
 diately did so, and we sailed a good way ; and as 
 we returned to my dock I desci'ibed to her how I 
 procured the water we drank, and brought it to 
 the shore in that vessel. 
 
 " Well, said slie, I have sailed, as you call it, 
 many a mile in my life-time, but never in such a 
 thing as this. I own it will serve where one has 
 a great many things to carry from place to place ; 
 but to be labouring thus, when one intends plea- 
 sure m sailing, is in my mind most ridiculous. 
 Why, pray, madam, how would you have me sail ? 
 for getting into the boat only will not carry us this 
 way or that, without using some force. But pray 
 where did you get this boat, as you call it ? O, 
 niadam ! I answered, that is too long a story to 
 begin upon now ; but I will make a faithful rela- 
 tion of all to you, when we get home. 
 
 " I now perceived, and wondered at it, that the 
 later it grew, the more agreeable it seemed to 
 her ; * and as I had now bi'ought her into a 
 good humour again by seeing and sailing in my 
 boat, I was not willing to prevent its increase. 
 I told her if she pleased we would land, and when 
 I had docked my boat, I would accompany her 
 where and as long as she liked. As we talked 
 and walked by the lake, she made a little run 
 before me, and sprung into it. Perceiving this, 
 I cried out ; whereupon she merrily called on nie 
 to follow her. The light was then so dim, as 
 prevented my having more than a confused sight 
 of her when she jumped in ; and looking earnestly 
 after her, 1 could discern nothing more than a 
 small boat on the water which skimmed along at 
 so great a rate that I almost lost sight of it pre- 
 sently ; but running along the sh<jre for fear of 
 losing her, I met her gravely walking to meet 
 me ; and then had entii'ely lort sight of the boat 
 upon the lake. This, accosting me with a smile, 
 is my way of sailing, which 1 perceive by the 
 fright you wei'e in, you were altogether unac- 
 quainted with ; and as you tell me you came 
 from so many thousand miles off, it is possible 
 you may be made ditt'erently from me ; and I 
 suspect from all your discourse, to which 1 have 
 been very attentive, it is possible you may no 
 more be able to Hy, than to sail as I do. No, cha]:m- 
 ing creature, that I cannot, I'll assui-e you. She 
 then stepped to the edge of the lake, for the advan- 
 tage of a descent before, sprung up into the air, 
 and away she went, farther than my eyes could 
 follow her. 
 
 " I was quite astonished ; but I had very little 
 
 * Peter subsequently learns that in the lenions fif the 
 Flyini? People, it is always twiliplit ; Avliich makes them 
 tender-eyed in places where Ihe day is brighter. 
 
 XXXII.— ENGLISH AND 
 FEMALES. 
 
 FRENCH 
 
 THEIR COSTUMES AND BKARINO. 
 
 The writer of the following letter is very 
 unmerciful on the ribands, plumes, and other 
 enormities of the present mode of dress, and 
 having torn these to pieces, proceeds to lend 
 away veils and gowns, and fall plumb down 
 njion the pretty feet of the wearers, and their 
 mode of walking : but when our fair readers 
 SCO what he says of their faces, and call to 
 mind how Momus found fault with the steps 
 of Venus herself, we trust they will forgive 
 his fury for the sake of his love, and consider 
 \s liotlicr so foTid an indignation does not con- 
 tain something worth their reflection. 
 
 time for reflection ; for in a few minutes after, 
 she alighted just by me on her feet. 
 
 " Her return, as she plainly saw, filled me with 
 a transport not to be concealed ; and which as 
 she afterwards told me was very agreeable to 
 her. Indeed I was some moments in such an 
 agitation of mind from these unparalleled inci- 
 dents, that I was like one thunderstruck ; but 
 coming presently to myself, and clasping her in 
 my arms with as much love and passion as I was 
 capable of expressing, Are you returned again, 
 kind angel, said I, to bless a wretch who can only 
 be happy in adoring you ! Can it be, that you, 
 who have so many advantages over me, should 
 quit all the pleasures that nature has formed you 
 for, and all your friends and relations, to take an 
 asylum in my arms ! But I here make you a 
 tender of all I am able to bestow — my love and 
 constancy. Come, come, replied she, no more 
 raptures ; I find you are a worthier man than I 
 thought I had reason to take you for ; and I beg 
 your pardon for my distrust, whilst I was ignorant 
 of your imperfections ; but now I verily believe 
 all you have said is true ; and I promise you, as 
 you have seemed so much to delight in me, I will 
 never quit you, till death or some other fatal 
 accident shall part us. But we will now, if you 
 please, go home ; for I know you have been for 
 some time uneasy in this gloom, though agreeable 
 to me : for, giving my eyes the pleasure of look- 
 ing eagerly on you, it conceals my blushes from 
 your sight. 
 
 " In this manner, exchanging mutual endear- 
 ments and soft speeches, hand in hand we anived 
 at the grotto." 
 
 The author here proceeds to give an account j 
 of his nuptials, which, though given in the very 
 best taste of the time, and evincing great purity 
 as well as pleasurability of nature, is better left 
 in its place, than brought forward out of the ■ 
 circumstances which invest it. 
 
 But are not such oi our readers, as did 
 not know her before, glad of their new 
 acquaintance ?
 
 72 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH FE]MALES. 
 
 FRENCH LADIES VERSUS ENGLISH. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 To the Editor. 
 
 It is Mi-s. Gore, I think, in one of her late 
 novels, who says, that niiu'ty-iiine English women 
 out of a hundred, dross infinitely worse than as 
 many Freneh ; but that the himdreilth dresses 
 with a ueatness, eleijanee, and |>ropriety, which is 
 not to be paralleled on the other side of the 
 channel. On ray relating this to a fail" relation of 
 of mine, she replied, '• Very true, — only I never 
 saw that hundredth." — Nor has any one else. 
 Without exception, the English women wear the 
 prettiest faces and the ugliest dresses of any in 
 the known world. A Hottentot hangs her sheep- 
 skin caross on her shoulders with more effect, — 
 and it is from what I see every day of my life that 
 I come to this conclusion. 
 
 I was the other day at a large shop at the west 
 end of the town, where, if any where, w-e may 
 expect to meet with favoui-able specimens of our 
 countrywomen. Not a bit of it. There were a 
 couple of French ladies there dressed smartly and 
 tidily, one in blue and the other in i-ose-coloured 
 silk, with snug little scutty bonnets guiltless of 
 tawdry ribbons or dingy plumes ; and great was 
 their astonishment at beholding the nondescript 
 figures which ever and anon passed by. First 
 came gliding out of her carriage, with a languish- 
 ing air, a young Miss all ringlets down to the 
 knees — feathers drooping on one side of her 
 bonnet, flowers on the other, and an immense 
 Brussels veil (or some such trash) hanging behind ; 
 her gown pinned to her back like rags on a Guy 
 Fawkes ; a large warming-pan of a watch, secured 
 round her neck by as many chains, gold, silver, and 
 pinchbeck, as an Italian brigand ; — with divers 
 other articles, as handkerchiefs, boas, &c., which 
 however costly and beautiful individually, formed 
 all together an unbecoming and cook-maidish 
 whole. Then came the two old ladies— but I 
 give them up, as too far gone in their evil ways of 
 dressing to hope for amelioration. Ditto for the 
 widows in their hideous black boiniets, with a foot 
 and a half of black crape tacked to each side like 
 wings to a paper kite — the horned caps of Edward 
 the Confessor are nothing to them. The French 
 damsels alluded to above, eyed one or two of 
 tiiese machines (they can go by no other name) 
 with considerable attention, as if doubting the 
 sanity of the wearer. 
 
 '• One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead," 
 
 says Pope's Narcissa. I might address a similar 
 question to English widows — 
 
 " One would not, sure, be frightful when one mourns." 
 
 I looked from one end to the other of the 
 crowded shop, in hopes of finding some hajipy 
 lady to retrieve the honour of her country — but 
 in vain. All wore the same ugly garment more 
 akin to a night-shift than a gown ; the same 
 warming-pan watch and chains ; the same fly- 
 flapping bonnet with bunches of ugly ribands. 
 Alt<»gether they formed an awkward contrast 
 to the " tight, reg'lar-built French craft," as 
 Mathews's Tom Piper calls them. This time, 
 however, it was the EngUsh who were " rigged 
 60 rum." 
 
 And then their walk ! Oh quondam Indicator ! 
 quondam Tatler ! quondam and present lover of 
 all that is good and graceful ! could you not 
 " indicate " to our English ladies the way to 
 walk ? In what absurd book was it that I read 
 the other day that French women walk ill, 
 because, from the want of trottoirs in France, they 
 get a habit of " picking " with one foot, which 
 gave a jerking air to the gait. The aristocratic 
 noodle ! whose female relations shutHe about on 
 smooth pavements, till they forget how to walk at 
 all ! I would not have them cross my grass- 
 plat for the world. They would decai)itate the 
 very daisies. How infinitely superior is the 
 Frenchwoman's brisk springy step (albeit caused 
 by a most plebeian and un-English want of cause- 
 ways), to the languid sauntering gait of most 
 English dames ! Nature teaches tlie one — the 
 drill-sergeant can do nothing with the other. I 
 wonder how they walked in the days of Charles 
 II. Surely Nell Gwynne and my Lady Castle- 
 maine walked well — and if tiiey did, they walked 
 differently from what they do now. 
 
 I hope that some good creature like the London 
 Journalist, who believes in tiie improveability of 
 all things, will take up this subject. A word from 
 him would set English ladies upon trying, at 
 least, to improve both in dressing and walking. 
 There are models enough — look at the French, 
 the Spanish, the Italians. They have not better 
 ojiportunities for dressing well than we, and yet 
 they beat us hollow. Why can't we have a 
 fmsquina or mantilln, as well as any one else ? 
 Let us endeavour. 
 
 Above all, let no one suppose that the writer of 
 these desultory remarks is in the least deficient in 
 love and duty to his fair countrywomen. If he 
 offends any of them, they must imagine that it 
 has been caused by excess of zeal for their 
 interests. Bless their bonnie faces ! if we could 
 screw English lieads on French figures, what 
 women there would be — sure/y .' 
 
 An Old Crony. 
 
 July 7th, I«34. 
 
 To enter properly into this subject, however 
 trifling it may appear (as indeed is the case 
 with almost every subject so called), would be 
 to open a wide field of investigation into morals, 
 laws, climates, &c. Perhaps climate alone, by- 
 reason of the variety of habits it generates in 
 conseciuenco of its various heats, colds, and 
 other influences, will ever prevent an entire 
 similarity of manners, whatever may be the 
 aj)proximation of opinion ; but taking for 
 granted, as is not unreasonable, that the pro- 
 gress of knowledge and intercourse will not 
 be without its effect in bringing the customs 
 of civilised countries nearer to one another, 
 and that each will be for availing itself of 
 what is best and jjleasantest amongst its neigh- 
 bours, it becomes worth anybody's while to con- 
 sider, in what respect it is advisable or otlier- 
 wise to modify the behaviour or manners 
 accordingly. We can say little, from personal 
 experience, how the ease may be in the jiresent 
 instance with regard to French manners. We
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH FEMALES. 
 
 73 
 
 have a great opinion of Mrs. Gore, both as a 
 general observer, and one that particularly 
 understands what is charming in her own sex. 
 On the other hand, from books, and from a 
 readiness to be pleased with those who wish 
 to please, and even from merely having passed 
 through France in our way from another 
 country, we have got a strong impression, that 
 the " hundredth" Frenchwoman, as well as the 
 hundredth Englishwoman, nay, the hundredth 
 Italian, that is to say, the one that carries the 
 requisite graces, the beau ideal, of any country 
 to its height, is likely to be so charming a 
 person, in dress and everything else, to her 
 own countrymen, that what Mrs. Gore says of 
 the perfectly dressing Englishwoman, is pre- 
 cisely the same thing that would be said of 
 the perfectly dressing Frenchwoman by the 
 French, and of her Italian counterpart by the 
 Italians. It is impossible, unless we are 
 half-foreigners, or unless our own nation is 
 altogether of an inferior grade (and then per- 
 haps our prejudices and irritation would render 
 it equally so) to get rid of some one point of 
 national preference in forming judgments of 
 tins kind. Our friend the Old Crony, we see, 
 for all his connoisseurship and crony-ism, his 
 r(»gard for a certain piquancy of perfection in 
 the French dress and walk, and his wish that 
 his fair countrywomen would " take steps" 
 after their fashion, cannot get rid of the pre- 
 ference in which he was brought up for tlie 
 beauty of the English countenance. We have 
 a similar feeling in favour even of a certain 
 subjected manner, a bending gentleness, (how 
 shall we term it ?) in the bearing of the 
 sweetest of our countrywomen, not exactly 
 connected with decision of step, nor perhaps 
 with variety of harmony : for all pleasures 
 run into one another, if they are of a right 
 sort, and the ground of them true. Look at 
 the paintings of the French, and you will find, 
 in like manner, tliat their ideal of a face, let 
 them try to universalise it as they can, is a 
 French one ; and so it is with the Spanish 
 and Italian paintings, and with the Greek 
 statues. The merry African girls shriek with 
 horror when they first look upon a white 
 traveller. Their notion of a beautiful com- 
 ])lexion is a skin shining like Warren's 
 blacking. 
 
 It is proper to understand, in any question, 
 great or small, the premises from which we 
 set out, the point which is required. In the 
 dress and walk of females, as in all other 
 matters in Avhich they are concerned, the 
 point of perfection, we conceive, is that which 
 shall give us the best possible idea of perfect 
 womanhood. We are not to consider the dress 
 by itself, nor the walk by itself, but as the 
 dress and tlie walk of the best and pleasantest 
 woman, and how for therefore it does her 
 justice. This produces the consideration <if 
 what we look upon as a perfect female ; 
 
 people will vary in their opinions on this 
 head ; and hence even so easy a looking 
 question as the one before us, becomes in- 
 vested with difficulties. The opinion will 
 depend greatly on the temperament as well 
 as the imderstanding of the judge. Our cor- 
 respondent, for instance, is evidently a lively 
 fellow, old or young, and given a good deal 
 rather to the material than to the spiritual ; 
 and hence his notion of perfection tends 
 towards a union of the trim and the lively, 
 the impulsive, and yet withal to the self-pos- 
 sessed. He is one, we conceive, who would 
 " have no nonsense," as the phrase is, in his 
 opinion of the possible or desirable ; and who 
 is in no danger of the perils, either of senti- 
 mentality or sentiment ; either of an affected 
 refinement of feeling or any very serious 
 demand of any sort. He is not for bringing 
 into the Avalks of publicity, male or female, 
 the notions of sequestered imaginations, nor 
 to have women glancing and bashful like 
 fawns. He is for having all things tight and 
 convenient as a dressing-case ; " neat as im- 
 ported ;" polished, piquant, well packed, and 
 with no more flowers upon it than serve to 
 give a hint of the smart pungency within, 
 like a bottle of attar of roseSp or fleur-d'e})ine. 
 We do not quarrel with him. Ckacun a son 
 gout. Every man to his taste. Nay, his taste 
 is our own, as far as concerns the improvement 
 of female manners in ordinary. We do think 
 that the general style of female English dress- 
 ing and walking would be benefited by an 
 inoculation of that which we conceive him to 
 recommend. We have no predilection in 
 favour of shuffling, and shouldering, and loung- 
 ing, of a mere moving onwards of the feet, and 
 an absence of all grace and self-possession. 
 We can easily believe, that the French women 
 surpass the English in this respect, because 
 their climate is livelier, and themselves better 
 taught and respected. People may start at 
 that last word, but there is no doubt that the 
 general run of French females are better 
 taught, and therefore more respected, than the 
 same number of English. They read more, 
 they converse more, they are on more equal 
 terms with the other sex (as they ought to be,) 
 and hence the other sex have more value for 
 their opinions, ay, and for their persons ; for 
 the more sensible a woman is, supposing her 
 not to be masculine, the more attractive she 
 is, in her proportionate power to entertain. 
 But whether it is that we are English, or 
 fonder of poetry in its higher sense tlian of 
 nrs dc socuti or tlie poetry of polite life, we 
 cannot help feeling a prejudice in favour of 
 Mrs. G(n-e's notion about tlie " hundredth" 
 Englishwoman ; though perhaps the "hun- 
 dredth" Frenchwoman, if we could see her, or 
 the liundredtli Italian or Spanish woman, 
 would surpass all others, by dint of com- 
 bining the sort of prirak manner which we
 
 74 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH FEMALES. 
 
 have in our eye, with some exquisite implica- 
 tion of a fitness for general intercourse, which 
 we have never yet mot witli. 
 
 Meantime, we repeat, that we give up to 
 our correspondent's vituperations the gait of 
 English females in general, and their dress 
 also ; though it is a little hard in him to 
 praise the smallness of the French bonnet at 
 the exi)cnse of the largeness of the English, 
 when it is recollected that the latter are copied 
 from France, and that our fair countrywomen 
 were ridiculed on their first visit there after 
 the war, for the very reverse appearance. 
 But it is to the spirit of our mode of dressing 
 and walking that we object ; and both are 
 unfit either for the private or public "walk" 
 ot life, because botli are alike untaught and 
 unpleasing, — alike indicative of minds not 
 proi)erly cultivated, and of habitual feelings 
 that do not care to be agreeable. The walk 
 is a saunter or shufHe, and tlie dress a lump. 
 Or if not a lump throughout, it is a lump at 
 both ends, with a horrible jiinch in the middle. 
 A tight-laced Englishwoman is thus, from head 
 to foot, a most painful sight ; her best notion 
 of beius' charminir is confined to three inches 
 of ill-used ribs and liver ; while her head is 
 either grossly ignorant of the harm she is 
 doing herself, or her heart more deplorably 
 careless of the consequences to her offspring. 
 
 Are we of ojiinion then, that the dress and 
 walk of Englishwomen woidd be bettered, 
 generally speaking, by taking the advice of 
 our corres))ondent ? Most certainly wc are ; 
 and for this reason ; that there is some sense 
 of grace, at all events, in the attire and bear- 
 ing of the females of the Continent ; some 
 evidence of mind, and some testimony to the 
 proper claims of the person ; whereas, the 
 only idea in the heads of the majority w-ith us 
 is that of being in fashion merely because it 
 ii- the fashion, or of dressing in a manner to 
 show how much they can afford. This is 
 partly owing, no doubt, to our being a com- 
 mercial i)e<)j)le, and also to the struggles which 
 everybody has been making for the last forty 
 years to seem richer than they are, some for 
 the sake of concealing how they have decreased 
 in means, and others to show how they have 
 risen ; but a nation may be commercial, and 
 yet have a true taste. The Florentines had 
 it, when they were at once the leaders of 
 trade and of the fine arts, in the time of 
 Lorenzo de Medici. It is to our fine arts and 
 our increasing knowledge that we ourselves 
 must look to improvement even in dress, in 
 default of being impelled to it by greater live- 
 liness of spirit, or a more convenient climate. 
 We shall then learn to oppose even the climate 
 better, and to furnish it with the grace and 
 colour which it wants. In France, the better 
 temj)eraturo of the atmospliere, as well as 
 intell(!ctual and moral causes, impels peoi)le 
 to a livelier and happier way of walking. 
 
 They have no reason to look as if they were 
 uncomfortable. In the south of Europe, 
 where everything respires animal sensibility, 
 and love and music divide the time with busi- 
 ness, the most unafi'ected people acipiire an 
 apjiarent consciousness and spring in the gait, 
 which in England would be thought ostenta- 
 tious. It gave no such idea to the severe and 
 simple Dante, when (in the poetical spirit of 
 the image, and not of coui'se in the letter,) he 
 praised his mistress for moving along like " a 
 peacock," and a " crane." 
 
 Soave a giiisa va di un bol i)avone, 
 Diritta sopra se come una grue. 
 
 Sweetly she goes, like the bright peacock ; strait 
 Above herself, like to the lady crane. 
 
 Petrarch, speaking of Laura, does not venture 
 upon these jjrimeval images ; but still he 
 shows how much he thought of the beauty 
 of a woman's steps ! Laura too was a French- 
 woman, not an Italian, and ])robably had a 
 different kind of walk. Petrarch expresses 
 the moral graces of it. 
 
 Non era 1" andar suo cosa mortale, 
 Ma d' angelica forma. 
 
 Her walk was like no mortal thing, but shaped 
 After an angel's. 
 
 In English poetry the lover speaks with the 
 usual enthusiasm of his mistress's eyes and 
 lips, &c., but he scarcely ever mentions her 
 walk. The fact is remarkable, and the reason 
 too obvious. The walk is not worth mention. 
 Italian and (we believe) Si)anish poetry abound 
 with the reverse. Milton, deeply imbued with 
 the Italian, as well as with his own j)erceptions 
 of beauty as a great poet, did not forget, in his 
 description of Eve, to say, that 
 
 Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye, 
 In every gesture dignity and love. 
 
 This moving and gesticulating beauty was 
 not English ; at least she is not the English- 
 woman of our days. Mrs. Hutchinson jierhaps 
 might have been such a woman ; or the ladies 
 of the Bridgcwater family, for whom he wrote 
 his Comus. In Virgil, iEneas is not aware 
 that his mother Venus has been speaking with 
 him in the guise of a wood-nympii, till she 
 begins to move away: the "divinity" then 
 became aj)parent. 
 
 Et vera incessu patuit dea, 
 
 And by her walk the Queen of Love is known, 
 
 Dbvden. 
 
 The women of Spain, and Spanish America, 
 are celebrated throughout the world for the 
 elegance of their walkmg, and for the way in 
 wliich they carry their veil or mantilla, as 
 allud(!d to by our correspondent. Knowing it 
 only from books, we cannot say precisc'ly in 
 what the beauty of their walk consists ; but 
 we take it to be something between stateliness
 
 ENGLISH MALE COSTUME. 
 
 75 
 
 and vivacity, — between a consciousness of 
 being admired, and that grace which is natu- 
 ral to any liinnan being who is well made, 
 till art or diffidence spoils it. It is the per- 
 fection, we doubt not, of animal elegance. 
 We have an English doubt, whether we 
 should not require an addition or modification 
 of something, not indeed diffident, but perhaps 
 not quite so confident, — something which to 
 the perfection of animal elegance, should add 
 that of intellectual and moral refinement, and 
 a security from the chances of coarseness and 
 violence. But all these are matters of breed- 
 ing and bringing up, — ay, of " birth, parent- 
 age, and education," and we should be grate- 
 ful when we can get any one of tliem. Better 
 have even a good walk than notliing, for there 
 is some refinement in it, and moral refine- 
 ment too, though we may not always think 
 the epithet very applicable to the possessor. 
 Good walking and good dressing, truly so 
 called, are alike valuable, only inasmuch as 
 they afford some external evidence, however 
 slight, of a disposition to orderliness and 
 harmony in the mind within, — of shapeliness 
 and grace in the habitual movements of the 
 soul. 
 
 XXXIII.— ENGLISH MALE COSTUME.— 
 
 SUGGESTED BY MR. PLANCHE's BOOK ON COSTUME. 
 
 Mr. Blanche's book, besides being sensibly 
 and amusingly written, in a clear, imafFected 
 stjle, contains more than would be expected 
 from its title. It narrates the military as well 
 as civil history of British costume, giving us 
 not only the softer vicissitudes of silks and 
 satins, but ringing the changes of helms, 
 hauberks, and swoi-ds, from the earliest period 
 of the use of armour till the latest ; and it will 
 set the i)ublic right, for the first time, upon 
 some iiitlierto mistaken points of character 
 and manners. "We have been surprised, for 
 instance, to learn, that our " naked ancestors," 
 (as we siijjposed them), the ancient Britons, 
 were naked only when tliey went to battle ; 
 and it turns out, that Richard the Third, 
 instead of being one who thought himself 
 
 " Not made to court an amorous looking-glass." — 
 
 was a dandy in his dross, and as particular 
 about his wardrobe and coronation-gear as 
 George the Fourth. Tiiis trait in his charac- 
 ter is confirmative, we think, of the traditions 
 respecting his deformity — men wlio are under 
 that disadvantage being remarkable either for 
 a certain nicety and superiority of taste, moral 
 and personal, if their dispositions arc good, or 
 for all sorts of mistakes tiie other wny, under 
 the reverse predicament. Two persons of the 
 greatest natural refinement we ever met with, 
 have had a crook in the shoulder. Ricliard was 
 
 a usurper, a man of craft and violence ; and lii« 
 jealousy of the respect of his fellow-men took 
 the unhappier and more glaring turn. He 
 thought to overcome them with his fine 
 clothes and colours, as he had done with his 
 tyranny. Richard partook, it seems, of the 
 effeminate voluptuousness of his brother 
 Edward the Fourth, as Edward partook of 
 Richard's cruelty. 
 
 I\Ir. Blanche is of opinion, that " the most 
 elegant and picturesque costume ever worn in 
 England," was that of the reign of Charles the 
 First, commonly called the Vandyke dress, 
 from its frequency in the portraits of that 
 artist. The dresses of few periods, we think, 
 surpass those of tlie Anglo-Saxon times, and 
 of some of the Norman. (See the engrav- 
 ings in the book at pages 22, 10.3, 121, and 
 127.) Some of the Anglo-Saxon ladies were 
 dressed witli almost as elegant a simplicity 
 as the Greeks. But whatever Mr. Blanche 
 may think of the extreme gallantry a:id pic- 
 turesqueness of the Vandyke dress, with its 
 lai-ge hat and feathers, its cloak and rapier, 
 and its long breeches meeting the tops of the 
 wide boots, its superiority may surely be at 
 least contested by the jewelled and plumed 
 caps, the long locks, the vests, mantles, and 
 hose of the reign of Henry the Seventh ; espe- 
 cially if we recollect that they had the broad 
 hats and feathers too, when they chose to wear 
 them, and that they had not the "peaked" 
 beard, nor a steeple crown to the hat. (See 
 the figiires at pages 220 and 222 ; and imagine 
 them put into as gallant bearing, as those in 
 the pictures of Vandyke. See also the portrait 
 of Henry himself, at tlie beginning of the 
 volume ; and the cap, cloak, and vest of the 
 Ii^arl of Surrey, the poet, in the Holbein jiortrait 
 of him in Lodge's Illustrations.) 
 
 It is a curious fact, that good taste in costume 
 has by no means been in j)roportion to an age's 
 refinement in other respects. Mere utility is 
 a better teacher than mere will and power ; 
 and fashions in dress have generally been 
 regulated by those who had power, and 
 nothmg else. Shakspenre's age was that of 
 ruffs and puffs ; Bope's that of the most 
 execrable of all coats, cocked hats, and waist- 
 coats ; lumpish, formal, and useless ; a miser- 
 able aftectation of ease with tlie most ridiculous 
 buckram. And yet the costume of part of 
 George the Third's reign was perhaps worse, 
 for it had not even the garnish ; it was the 
 extreme of mechanical dulncss ; and the 
 women had jireijosttirous tresses of curls and 
 pomatum on their head, by way of setting off 
 the extremity of dull plainness with that of 
 dull caprice. For the hoop, possibly, some- 
 thing may be said, not as a dress, not as an 
 investment, but as an inclosurc. It did not 
 seem so much to disfigure, as to contain, the 
 wearer, — to be not a dress, but a gliding shell. 
 The dancers at Otaheite, in the pictures to
 
 76 
 
 ENGLISH MALE COSTUME. 
 
 Captain Cook's voyaj^es, have some such 
 LowiT Houses ; ami look woll in tlieni for the 
 same reason. The body issued from the hoop, 
 as out of a sea of Hounce and furbelow. It 
 was the ne.xt thing to a nj-mph half hidden 
 in water. The arm and fan reposed upon it, 
 as upon a cloud or a moving sphere, the fair 
 angel looking serene and superior above it. 
 Thus much we would say in defence of the 
 hooj), properly so called, when it was in its 
 perfection, large and circular, and to he 
 aiiproached like a " hedge of divinity," or the 
 walls of Troy, — 
 
 Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious petticoat ; 
 
 not for those mashed and minor shapes of the 
 phenomenon, which degenerated into mere 
 appendages, panniers, or side lumps, and 
 reminded you of nothing but their deformity. 
 But it was always a thing fantastic, and tit 
 only for court and ceremony. 
 
 Mr. Planche justly cautions one generation 
 against laughing at the fashions of another. 
 He advises such ladies as would " scream " 
 at the dresses of the fourteenth or even 
 eighteenth century, to look into a fashionable 
 pocket-book or magazine for the year 1815 or 
 20, and then candidly compare notes. Appen- 
 dages or inclosnres arc one thing ; positive 
 clinging disfigurements another. The ugliest 
 female dress, in our opinion, without excc])ti(m, 
 was that which we conceive Mr. Planche to 
 allude to, and which confounded all ages and 
 shapes by girdling the gown under the arm- 
 pits, and sticking a little pad at the back, 
 almost between the shoulders ! It reduced 
 all tigures to lumps of absurdity. No well- 
 shaped woman, we may be sure, invented it. 
 A history of the real origin of many fashions 
 would be a curious document. We should 
 find infirmity and unsightliness cheating youth 
 and beauty into an imitation of them, and 
 beaux and belles piquing themselves on re- 
 sembling the worst points about their cunning 
 elders. 
 
 As long as a man wears the modern coat, he 
 has no right to despise any dress. What a 
 thing it is, though so often taken for some- 
 thing " exquisite ! " What a horse-collar for 
 a collar ! What snips at the collar and 
 lapells ! What a mecl-.anical and ridiculous 
 cut about the flaps ! What buttons in front 
 that are never meant to button, and yet are 
 no ornament ! And what an exquisitely 
 absurd pair of buttons at the back ! gravely 
 regarded nevertheless, and thought as indis- 
 pensably necessary to every well-conditioned 
 coat, as other bits of metal or bone are to tlie 
 bodies of savages whom we laugh at. There 
 is absolutely not one iota of sense, grace, or 
 even economy, in the modern coat. It is an 
 article as costly as it is ugly, and as ugly as it 
 is useless. In winter it is not enough, and in 
 not weather it is too much. It is the tailors' 
 
 remnant and cabbaging of the coats formerly 
 in use, and deservi's only to be chucked back 
 to them as an imposition in the bill. It is the 
 old or frock coat cut away in front and at the 
 sides, mounted with a horse-collar, and left 
 wi'h a ridiculous tail. The waistcoat or vest, 
 elongated, and with the addition of sleeves, 
 might suj)ersede it at once, and be quite suf- 
 ficient in warm weather. A vest reaching to 
 the mid-thigh is a gracefiJ and reasonable 
 habit, and with tlie addition of a scarf or sash, 
 would make as handsome, or even brilliant a 
 one, as anybody could desire. In winter- 
 time, the same cloaks would do for it, as are 
 used now ; and there might be lighter cloaks 
 for Slimmer. But the coat, as it now exists, 
 is a mere nuisance and expense, and disgraces 
 every other part of the dress, except the neck- 
 cloth. Even the hat is too good for it ; for 
 a hat is good for something, though there is 
 more chimney-top than beauty in it. It 
 furnishes shade to the eyes, and has not 
 always an ill look, if well-proportioned. The 
 coat is a sheer piece of mechanical ugliness. 
 The frock-coat is another matter, except as to 
 the collar, which, in its present rolled or 
 bolsteriid shape, is always ugly. As to the 
 great-coat, it makes a man look either like a 
 man in a sack, or a shorn bear. It is clotli 
 upon clotli, clumsiness made clumsier, some- 
 times thrice over, — cloth waistcoat, cloth coat, 
 clotli great-coat, — a " three-piled hyperbole." 
 It is only proper for travellers, coachmen, and 
 othiirs who require to have no drapery in the 
 way. A cloak is the only handsome over-all. 
 
 The neck-cloth is worthy of the coat. What 
 a heaping of monstrosity on monstrosity ! The 
 woollen horse collar is bad enough ; yet, as 
 if this were not sufficient, a linen one must be 
 superadded. Men must look as if they were 
 twice seized with symbols of ajjoplexy. — the 
 horse-collar to shorten the neck, and the linen- 
 collar to squeeze it. Some man with a des- 
 perately bad throat must have invented the 
 neck-cloth, especially as it had a paddinj, or 
 pudiVni'j in it, when it first came up. His neck 
 could not have been fit to he seen. It must 
 liave been like a pf)le, or a withered stalk ; or 
 else he was some faded fat dandy, ashamed of 
 his double chin. There can be no objection 
 to jjcople's looking as well as they can contrive, 
 young or old ; I)iit it is a little too much to set 
 a fashion, which besides being deformed, is 
 injurious. The man was excusable, because 
 he knew no better ; but it is no wonder if 
 painters, and poets, and young (Jermans, and 
 other romantic personages, have attempted to 
 tlirov,' off the nuisance, especially such as have 
 lived in the south. The neck-cloth is ugly, is 
 us(!less, is dangerous to some, and begets effe- 
 minate fear of colds with all. The English, 
 in consequence of tlieir living more in-doors 
 than they used, fiuicy tliey have too many rea- 
 sons for mufliing themselves up,— not aware
 
 ENGLISH WOMEN VINDICATED. 
 
 77 
 
 that the more tliey do so, the more they 
 subject themselves to what they dread ; and 
 that it is by a general sense of warmtli in the 
 person they ai-e to be made comfortable and 
 secure, and not by filling up evei-y creek and 
 cranny of their dress to the very chin. 
 
 But some may tell us they cannot feel that 
 general warmth, without thus muffling them- 
 selves up. True, if they accustom themselves 
 to it ; but it is the custom itself which is in 
 fault. They can have the warmth without it, if 
 they please ; just as well as they can without 
 muffling up their eyes. "How can you go 
 with your body naked ? " said a not very wise 
 person to an Indian. " How can you go with 
 your face naked ? " said the Indian. « I am 
 used to it," replied the man. « Well, and I am 
 used to the other," rejoined the Indian ; " I am 
 all face." Now it will not exactly do to be " all 
 face," in a cii-ilised country ; the police would 
 object ;— Piccadilly is not Paradise. But then 
 it is not necessary to be all muffle. 
 
 The ladies in the reign of Edward I. once 
 took to wearing a cloth round their throats 
 and ears, in a way which made a poet exclaim, 
 " Far Dieu ! I have often thought in my heart, 
 when I have seen a lady so closely tied up, 
 that her neck-cloth was nailed to her chin." 
 There is a figure of her in Mr. Planche's book, 
 p. 115. Now this was the precise appearance 
 of a neck-cloth some years back, when it was 
 worn with a pad or stiffener, and tlie point of 
 tlie chin reposed in it : nay, it is so at present, 
 with many. The stock looks even more stiff 
 and apoplectic, especially if there is a red face 
 above it. When dandies faint, the neck-cloth 
 is always the firet thing loosed, as the stays 
 are witli a lady. 
 
 By the way, the dandies wear stays too! 
 We have some regard for these gentlemen, 
 because they have reckoned great names 
 among them in times of old, and Iiave some 
 very clever and amiable ones now, and manly 
 withal too. They may err, we grant, from an 
 excess of sy^npatlly with what is admired, as 
 well as from mere folly or effeminacy. But 
 whatever approximates a man's shape to a 
 woman's is a deformity. We have seen some 
 of them with hips, upon which tliey should 
 have gone carrying pails, and cried " milk ! " 
 And who was it that clapped those monstrous 
 protuberances upon the bosoms of our brave 
 lite-guards ? No masculine dandy we may be 
 sure. A man's breast should look as if it 
 would take a hundred blows upon it, like a 
 glorious anvil ; and not be deformed with a 
 frightened wadding; still less resemble the 
 bosom that tenderness j)eculiarly encircles, 
 aiul that is so beautiful because it is so dif- 
 ferent from his own. 
 
 XXXIV.— ENGLISH WOMEN VINDI- 
 CATED. 
 
 Slender, complaining of the masquerade 
 trick that had been put on him at the close of 
 the comedy, says that he had " married Anne 
 Page" and " she was a great lubberly boy." 
 Far better were a surprise of the reverse order, 
 which should betray itself in some tone of voice, 
 or sentiment, or other unlooked for emanation 
 of womanhood, while we were thinking our- 
 selves quietly receiving the visit of lubberly 
 himself, or rather some ingenious cousin of his; 
 and of some such pleasure we have had a taste, 
 if not in theshapeof any Viola, or JuIia,or other 
 such flattering palpability, yet in that of a fair 
 invisible ; for we recollect well our Indicator 
 friend " Old Boy," who sends us the follow- 
 ing letter ; but what if we have discovered 
 meanwhile that "Old Boy" is no boy at all, nor 
 man neither, but a pretty woman, and one that 
 we think this a pretty occasion for unmasking ; 
 since in the hearts of the male sex, English 
 women will find defenders enough ; but few of 
 themselves have the courage to come forward. 
 Even our would-be "Old Boy" cannot do it but 
 in disguise; which though a thing very well for 
 her to assume, it is no less becoming in us, we 
 think, on such an occasion, to take off, seeing 
 that it gives the right touching effect to that 
 pretty petulance in her letter, and that half- 
 laughing tone of ill-treatment, which someliow 
 has such a feminine breath in it, and must 
 double the wish to be on her side. 
 
 Wonderful is the effect produced in a letter 
 by the tone in which we read it or suppose it 
 written, and by the knowledge of its being 
 male or female. The one before us would be a 
 good "defiance" to Old Crony, were its signa- 
 ture true ; but to know that"^ it is written by 
 a woman, gives it a new interest, and quite 
 another sort of music. Cannot we see the face 
 glow, and the dimjiles playing with a frown ; 
 and hear the light, breathing voice bespeaking 
 the question in its favour ? Does it not make 
 " Old Crony" himself glad to be " defied to the 
 uttermost ?" 
 
 To the Editor. 
 Dear old Friend with a new face, 
 Your correspondent "Old Crony," seems as 
 deficient in temper as in judgment, in his brusque 
 remarks upon the dress and gait of our fair coun- 
 trywomen ; nor can it be allowed him tiiat he 
 has chosen the best place to study tlie finest spe- 
 cimens of English women, either as regards re- 
 finement in dross or bearing. The women who 
 most frequent bazaars and fashionable drapers" 
 are generally the most vacant-miirded and petty 
 creatures in existence; who wander from one 
 lounge to another, seeking to dispel the ennui 
 which torments them, by any frivolous kill-time. 
 I really loathe tlie sight of such places, and thmk
 
 78 
 
 ENGLISH WOMEN VINDICATED. 
 
 they have done miicli mischief among the idle and 
 ignorant part of my countrywomen. Hut to rrturn 
 to tlie sulijci-t, I maintain, in o]iposition to " Old 
 Crony," that in no other country can we see as- 
 sembled together so much beauty and grace, good 
 dressing and eleganceof carriage, as in our fashion- 
 able promenades, our brilliant assemblies, and 
 still more iu those delightful home parties, where 
 spriglitliuess and intelligence combine to give 
 grace and fascination : — nothing parallel, I am 
 sure, is to be found iu the celebrated Longchamps, 
 or the gardens of the Tuileries at Paris, or in the 
 Graben at Vienna, or "under the Lindens" of 
 Berlin, or in any of the numerous public gardens 
 on the Continent, wherever I have been ; and I 
 call upon all my brother and sister tourists to bear 
 testimony with me on this mighty question ; and 
 furthermore, like a good and faithful champion in 
 the cause of the fair danics and damsels of Old 
 England, 1 do defy "Old Crony" to the uttermost, 
 more especially for his inhuman wish of screwing 
 English faces on to French figures, which would 
 be a fearful "dove-tailing" of lovely faces upon 
 parchment skeletons ; seeing, that the generality 
 of French females are terribly deficient in that 
 plumpness and roundness, which are usually con- 
 sidered desirable in womanhood. 
 
 I agree with you, dear Ci-devant Indicator, 
 that French women are generally more respected, 
 and are on more equal terms with the male sex than 
 our countrywomen ; but I must differ as to their 
 reading more, or being better informed. It is true 
 that in society they will bear their part well in 
 general or political conversation ; but when alone 
 with a Frenchwoman, she would be grievously 
 offended if you chose any other subject th.an her 
 ow n personal attractions, and did not conclude by 
 making a tender " declaration." TJiese are the 
 eternal themes by which alone you can please the 
 young and the old, the ugly and the pretty ; and 
 of this truth many will assure you, besides your 
 old friend, admirer, and correspondent, 
 
 July the 23rd. Old Boy. 
 
 P.S In defending the dress of my country- 
 women, I except the pooi'er and working orders. 
 Every other nation has a peculiar and picturesque 
 costume for theirs ; ours is remarkable only for 
 its sluttish, draggle-tailed appearance, at least in 
 London : in country-places the peasant's dress is 
 comfortable, if not very piquant. 
 
 We suspect that in this as in most contro- 
 versies, there is less real difference of opinion 
 between the fair and uu/alr parties, than might 
 be thought. Our fair correspondent gives up 
 the bazaar and shop-liunting people, and those 
 too, wliose dresses are of the "poorer sort ;"' and 
 betwixt these classes, or rather including them, 
 are to l)o found, we conceive, all the dresses and 
 tlie walks, to which Old Ciony would find 
 himself objecting. The residue might prove 
 its claims to a participation in the general 
 refinement of Europe, without giving up a 
 certain colouring of manners, as natural to it 
 as the colour to its sky. And as to what is 
 " delightful " and " fascinating," do not all 
 people make tliat for themselves, more or less, 
 
 out of the amount of their own sympathy and 
 imagination '. and does not each nation, as we 
 said before, think the (iitc of its own charmers 
 the most charming? No parties are so delight- 
 ful to our fair corrosjiondent, as those in her 
 own country. Is not this precisely what would 
 be said by a cordial Frenchwoman, of French 
 parties ; by an Italian, of Italian ; and so on ? 
 Custom itself is a good thing, if it is an inno- 
 cent one. We feel easy in it as in a form and 
 mould to which we have grwwn ; but wdien, in 
 addition to this easiness, we think of all the 
 feelings with which we have coloured it, all 
 the pleasure we have given and received, all 
 our joys, sorrows, frieiidshii)S, loves, and reli- 
 gions, we may conceive how difficult it is to 
 give up the smallest and most superficial 
 forms in which they appear, or to learn how 
 to admit the superiority of anything which is 
 foreign to them. 
 
 Brusque attacks — sharp and loud outcries — 
 may sometimes be desirable in order to beget 
 notice to a question ; but undoubtedly, the way 
 to j)crsnade is to approve as mucii as one can ; 
 to maintain, by loving means, a loving atten- 
 tion. If we do not, we run a chance, instead 
 of mending the mistakes of other i)eople, of 
 having our own cast in our teeth. See for 
 instance what Old Crony has done for himself 
 and his fair Frenchwomen with our correspon- 
 dent, who does not deny perhaps that the 
 French " middle classes" walk better "gene- 
 rally" speaking, than the English — at least 
 v; e find this no where surely stated or implied — 
 but she avails herself of his error in using the 
 word " figures " instead of " carriage," to taunt 
 himwith thewantof plumpness and womanhood 
 in the composition of his favourites, and accuse 
 the universal French feminity of being "parch- 
 ment skeletons!" Here is the comparative 
 French thinness, and want of red and white, 
 made the very worst of, because its ])anegyrist 
 made the worst of the ai)pearance of the other 
 parties. For as to his compliment to their 
 handsome faces, this, it seems, is not enough 
 in these intellectual days : 
 
 " Mind, mind .ilone. (bear witness earth and heaven !> 
 Tlie living fountain in itself contains 
 Of beauteous and sublime ! 
 
 There must be soul from head to foot — 
 evidence of thorough gracefulness and under- 
 standing ; otherwise the ladies will have none 
 of his good word. Well: here is the ])rinei])le 
 admitted on both sides. Let those who wish 
 to .see it thoroughly in action, set lovingly 
 about the task. The loving will soonest per- 
 suade, and soonest become perfect. Had old 
 Crony, instead of expressing his "inhuman wish 
 of screwing English faces on to French figures," 
 observed, that the latter are better in spirit than 
 in substance, and shown his anxiety to consult 
 the feelings and enumerate the merits of 
 hid countrywomen, we suspect that nobody j
 
 SUNDAY IN LONDON. 
 
 79 
 
 would have been readier than his fair antagonist 
 to do justice to what is attractive in her French 
 sisterhood. 
 
 That there are, and have always been, num- 
 bers of beautiful women in France as well as 
 in England, and beautiful in figure too, and 
 plump withal^ no Antigallican, the most pious 
 that ever existed, could take upon him to deny; 
 though the praise conveyed by their word 
 embonpoint (in good case), which means " fleshy 
 and fattish," (as the poet has it), would imply, 
 that the beauty is not apt to be of that order. 
 The country of Diana de Poitiers, of Agnes 
 Sorel, and of all the charmers of the reigns of 
 Valois and the Bourbons, is not likely to lose 
 its reputation in a hurry for " bevies of bright 
 dames." Charming they were, that is cer- 
 tain, whether plump or not ; at least in the 
 the eyes of the princes and wits that admired 
 them ; and French admiration must go for 
 something, and have at least a geographical 
 voice in the world, whatever Germany or 
 Goethe himself may think of the matter. On 
 the other hand, far are we from abusing all or 
 any of tlie dear plump Germans who have 
 had graceful and loving soids, whether fifteen, 
 like poor Margaret, or " fat, fair, and forty," 
 like Madame Schroeder-Devi-ient. We have 
 been in love with them time out of mind, in 
 the novels of the good village pastor, the 
 I'everend and most amatory Augustus La Fon- 
 taine. The Peninsular and South American 
 ladies, albeit beautiful walkers, and well- 
 grounded in shape, are understood not to 
 al)ouud in plump figures ; yet who shall doubt 
 the abundance of their fascinations, that lias 
 read what Cervantes and Camoens have said 
 of them, and what is said of their eyes and 
 gait by all enamoured travellers ? Is not 
 Dorotliea for ever sitting by the brook-side, 
 beautiful, and bathing her feet, in the pages 
 of the immortal Spaniard ? And was not Inez 
 de Castro taken out of the tomb, in order to 
 have her very coffin crowned with a diadem ; 
 80 triumphant was the memory of her love 
 vind beauty over deatli itself ? Italian beauties 
 are almost another word for Italian paintings, 
 and for the muses of Ariosto and of song. 
 And yet, admiring all these as we do, are we 
 for that reason traitors to the beauties of our 
 own country ? or do we not rather tlie more 
 admire the charmers that are nearest to us, 
 and that perpetuate tlio train of living images 
 of grace and aft'ection which runs through 
 the whole existence of any loving observer, 
 lil*e a frieze across tlie temple of a clieerful 
 religion ? 
 
 And yet all this docs not liindor us from 
 wisliing that the generality of our country- 
 women walked better and dressed better, and 
 even looked a little less reserved and mis- 
 giving. A Frenchman is not bound to wish 
 che generality of his countrywomen plumper, 
 because he admires then! for other beauties. 
 
 or sees plumpness enough in his friends. A 
 Spaniard may reasonably wish his a little more 
 red and white, if it be only for the sake of 
 their health ; and if a jovial table-loving 
 Viennese desired, after all, a little less plump- 
 ness in his adorable for the same reason (and 
 in himself too), we should not quari-el with 
 his theory, however it might object to his 
 practice. 
 
 The handsomest female we ever beheld was 
 at Turin; she was a maid-servant crossing a 
 square. The most ladylike-\o6kmg female hi 
 humble life was a French girl, the daugliter of a 
 small innkeeper. We heard one of her humble 
 admirers speak of her as liaving the air 
 d'unepetite duchesse (of a little duchess). But the 
 most charming face that ever furnished us with 
 a vision for life, (and we have seen many) was 
 one that suddenly turned round in a concert- 
 room in England, — an English girl's, radiant 
 with truth and goodness. All expressions of 
 that kind make us love them, and here was the 
 height of material charmingness added. And 
 we tliought the figure equal to the face. We 
 know not whether we coidd have loved it for 
 ever, as some faces can be loved without 
 being so perfect. Habit and loving-kindness, 
 and the knowledge of the heart and soul, 
 could alone determine that. But if not, it was 
 the divinest imposition we ever met with. 
 
 XXXV.—SUNDAY IN LONDON. No, I. 
 
 It is astonishing what a deal of good stuff, 
 of some sort or another, inherent or associated, 
 there is in every possible thing that can be 
 talked of ; and how it will look forth out of 
 the dullest windows of common-place, if sym- 
 patliy do but knock at the door. 
 
 There is that house for instance, this very 
 Sunday, No. 4, Ballycroft-row, in the Smithy ; 
 did you ever see such a house, so dull, so 
 drearily insipid, so very rainy -bad -Sunday 
 like ? old, yet not so old as to be venerable ; 
 poor, j'et not enough so to be pitied ; the 
 bricks black ; the place no thorouglifare ; no 
 cliance of a hackney-coach going by ; the 
 maid-servant has just left the window, yawn- 
 ing. . But now, see who is turning the cor- 
 ner, and comes up tlie row. Some eminent 
 man, perhaps ? Not he. He is eminent for 
 nothing, except, among his fellow-apprentices, 
 for being the best hand among them at turn- 
 ing a button. But look how lie eyes, all liie 
 way, the house we have been sjicaking of — 
 see how he l)ounds up the steps — witli Avliat a 
 face, now cast down tlie area, and now raised 
 to the upper windows, he gives his humble yet 
 impressive knock — and lo ! note look at tlie 
 maid-servant's face, as she darts her head out 
 of the window, and instantly draws it back 
 again, radiant with delight. It is Tom Hicks,
 
 R{> 
 
 SUNDAY IN LONDON. 
 
 who has come up from Birmingham a week 
 before she expected him. The door is opened 
 ahnost as soon as the face is seen ; and now is 
 tiiere love and joy in tiiat lioiise, and conso- 
 "[uently a grace in tlie street ; and it looks quite 
 a different place, at least in tiie eyes of the 
 loving and the wise. 
 
 This is our secret for making the dullest 
 street in the metropolis, nay the squalidest and 
 worst, put forth some flower of pleasantness 
 (for the seeds of good find strange corners to 
 grow in, could people but cultivate them) : and 
 if our secret is not productive to everybody, 
 it is uo fault of ours : nay, for that matter, it 
 is none of theirs ; but we pity them, and have 
 reason to think ourselves richer. We liaj)- 
 })ened to be walking through some such forlorn- 
 looking street with the late Mr. Uazlitt, when 
 we told him we had a charm against the melan- 
 choly of such places ; and on his asking what 
 it was, and being informed, he acknowledged, 
 with a look between pleasure and sorrow, that 
 it was a true one. The secret came home to 
 him ; but he could have understood, though he 
 had not felt it. Fancy two lovers, living in the 
 samestreet, either of whom thinks it a delight to 
 exist in the same spot, and is happy for the morn- 
 ing if one look is given through the window- 
 pane. It puts your thoughts in possession of 
 the highest and most celestial pleasure on earth. 
 No " milk-white thorn that scents the evening 
 gale" is necessary to it, though it is a very 
 fitting acconipauiment. The dullest street, 
 the dullest room upon earth, is sufficient, and 
 becomes a spot radiant beyond the dreams of 
 princes. Think of George tiie Fourth in tlie 
 midst of all the splendour of Windsor Castle, 
 and then of this poor maid-servant, with her 
 health, her youth, and her love, looking in the 
 eyes of the man she is fond of, and hardly able 
 to speak for gratitude and joy. We grant 
 that there is no compaiisou, in one sense, 
 between the two individuals, — the poor old 
 King, with his efforts at being fine and hapjn-, 
 and the poor young girl, with her black 
 worsted stockings and leaping bosom, as happy 
 as her heart can make her. But the contrast 
 may serve to remind us that we may attribute 
 happiness wrongly in fine places, and miss it 
 erroneously in common ones. Windsor Castle 
 is sufficient beauty to itself, and has poetical 
 memories ; but in tiie commonest street we see 
 there may be the richest real joy*. 
 
 Love is not peculiar to London on Sundays : 
 they have it even in Edinburgh, notwithstand- 
 ing what a fair charmer in ' Tait's Magazine ' 
 tells us, with such a staid countenance, of the 
 beatitudes of self-reflection into which her 
 countrymen retire on that day. Otherwise, 
 out of love alone, we might render our dull- 
 
 * There is now, thank God, love, a.s well as splendour, 
 in Windsor Castle. One miiy fancy the graces of Mr. 
 Keats'* " Eve of St. Agnt-B," realised there, without the 
 troubles of it 
 
 looking metropolitan Sabbath the brightest 
 day in the week. And so it is, and in Edin- 
 burgh too, and all the Sabbath-day world over ; 
 lor though, seriously speaking, we do not deny 
 the existence of the traiwjuil and solitary con- 
 templations just alluded to, yet assuredly they 
 are as nothing compared to the thoughts con- 
 nected with every-day matters ; and love, 
 fortunately, is an evei-y-day matter, as well as 
 money. Our Sunday streets look dull enough. 
 Heaven knows, especially in the more trading 
 parts of the metropolis. At the west end of 
 the town, in Marylebone, and the squares, it 
 looks no duller tlian it does on other days ; 
 and taking the spirit of the thing, there is no 
 real Sunday among the rich. Their going to 
 church is a lounge and a show ; their meals are 
 the same as at otlier times ; their evenings the 
 same ; there is no difference in the look of 
 their houses outside. But in the city, the 
 Strand, &c., the shutting-up of the shops gives 
 an extreme aspect of dulness and melancholy 
 to the streets. Tliose windows, full of gaiety, 
 and colour, and bustle, being shut, the eyes 
 of the houses seem put out. The clean clothes 
 and comparatively staid demeanour of the 
 passengers make no amends for the loss ; for 
 with the exception of special friends and 
 \-isitors, lovers in particular, it is well under- 
 stood in London, that Sunday is really a dull 
 day to most people. They have outlived the 
 opinions which gave it an interest of a pecu- 
 liar sort, and their notions of religion have 
 become either too utilitarian or too cheerful 
 to admire the old fashion of the day any 
 longer. Rest, with insipidity, is its character 
 in the morning, newspaper reading excepted : 
 church is reckoned dull, perhaps attended 
 out of mere habit " and for the sake of 
 example," or avoided from day to day, till 
 non-attendance becomes another luibit : din- 
 ner under any circumstances is looked to with 
 eagerness as the great relief ; the day then 
 brightens up with the help of an extra dish, 
 pudding, or friend ; and the visits of friends 
 help to make the evening as lively as it well 
 can be without the charm of business and 
 money-taking. Should there be no visitors, 
 the case is genei-ally helpless. The man and 
 wife yawn, or are quiet, or dispute ; a little 
 bit of book is read, till the reader complains of 
 " weak eyes," or says that it is unaccountable 
 how sleepy reading makes him, considering he 
 is so " fond " of it ; bibs are pulled up about 
 the gentleman's chin, and gowns admired by 
 their fair wearers.; and the patients lounge 
 towards the window, to wonder whether it is 
 fine, or is clearing up, or to look at the rain- 
 drops, or see what Mrs. Smith is doing over 
 the way. The young gentlemen or ladies 
 look at the Bible, or the calendar, or the 
 army-list, or the last magazine, or their trinkets, 
 and wonder whether Richard will come ; and 
 the little children are told not to sing.
 
 SUNDAY IN LONDON. 
 
 81 
 
 But the lovers ! 
 
 These, however, we shall keep till the last, 
 agreeably to the demands of climax. 
 
 But, stay a moment. — 
 
 So tender, or rather, according to Mr. 
 Bentham's philosophy, so " extra-regarding 
 prudent," and so " felicity-maximising,"' is 
 our heart, that we fear we may have been 
 thought a little hard, by those whom we have 
 described as uniting a sleepiness over tlieir 
 books with a profession of astonishment at 
 their tendency, considering they are " so fond 
 of books." But mistake us not, dear non- 
 readers who liappen to be reading us., or who 
 read a newspaper though you read little else. 
 Nothing would we ever willingly say to the 
 useless mortification of anybody, much less of 
 those who love anything whatsoever, especially 
 a newspaper ; and all the fault we find with 
 you is, for thinking it necessary to vindicate 
 your reputation for sense and sympathy on 
 one particular score, when you might do it to 
 better advantage by regretting the want of the 
 very fondness you lay claim to. For in claim- 
 ing to be fond of books, when you are not, you 
 show yourselves unaware of the self-know- 
 ledge whicli books help us to obtain ; whereas, 
 if you boldly and candidly expressed your 
 regret at not being fond of them, you would 
 show that you had an understanding so far 
 superior to tlie very want of books, and far 
 greater than that of the mechanical scholar, 
 who knows the words in them, and nothing 
 else. You would show that you knew what 
 you wanted, and were aware of the pleasures 
 that you missed : and perhaps it would turn 
 out, on inquiry, that you had only been indif- 
 ferent to books in the gross, because you had 
 not met with the sort of reading suitable to 
 your turn of mind. Now, we are not bound 
 to like books unsuitable to us, any more than 
 a poet is bound to like law-books, or a lawyer 
 the study of Arabic, or a musician any books 
 but his own feelings ; nor is any one, more 
 than the musician, bound to like books at all, 
 provided he loves the things which books 
 teach us to love, and is for sowing harmony 
 and advancement around him, in tones of 
 good-humour and encouragement, to the kindly 
 dance of our planet. 
 
 One of the pleasantest sights on a Sunday 
 morning in the metropolis — -to us, of course, 
 particularly so — but justly also to all well- 
 disposed and tliinking Christians — is the 
 numerous shops exhibiting weekly papers for 
 sale — the placards of ou?- hebdomadal brethren, 
 blue, yellow, and white, vociferous with large 
 types, and calling the passenger's attention to 
 Parliamentary investigations, monstrous con- 
 victions, horrible murders, noble philanthro- 
 pies, ai'.d the humanities of bool<s, tlieatres, 
 and the fine arts, .lustly did tlie divine Iieart, 
 who suffered liis disciples to pluck the ears of 
 corn, and would have the sheep extricated 
 
 from the ditch on a Sabbath, refuse to discon- 
 nect the day of worship with works of neces- 
 sity and mercy ; and what so necessary for the 
 poor, the especial objects of his regard, as a 
 knowledge of wliat can be done for them ? 
 what so merciful as to help them to supply 
 their wants both of body and mind ? Leaving 
 this more serious part of the subject (which, 
 however, is not inharmoniously mixed up with 
 our lighter matter, for the greatest gravity 
 and the most willing cheerfulness have but one 
 object), we pass by the other open or peeping 
 shops (such as the pastry-cooks' who keep up 
 the supply of indigestion, and the apothecary's 
 who is conveniently ready against the conse- 
 quences), and stop a moment at our friend the 
 barber's, who provides a newspaper for his 
 waiting customers, as men of his trade formerly 
 provided a lute or a guitar. The solace is not 
 so elegant. There must have been something 
 very peculiar, and superior to the occasion, in 
 the sound of a guitar in a barber's shop — of 
 " Beauty retire," gracefully played into the 
 face of a long-visaged old gentleman under tha 
 soap-suds ; or, 
 
 " Since first I saw your face I resolved 
 To honour and renown you ; " 
 
 or, 
 
 or. 
 
 " In this pleasant place .retired ;" 
 "Come if ynu dare ; '' 
 
 just as the operator's fingers were approaching 
 the patient's nose. The newspaper, however, 
 though not so choice, or furnishing opportuni- 
 ties to the poor polite to show the selectness 
 and segregation of their accomplishments, shows 
 a higher refinement on the part of the poor in 
 general, or the many. But we must be moving 
 onward. 
 
 There is the bell going for church. Forth 
 come Mrs. and Miss A ; then the Jlr. B's, 
 in their new brown coats and staid gloves ; 
 then Mr. Mrs. and the jNIiss C's, in a world of 
 new bonnets and ribands. Oh, ho ! young 
 Mr. D, from over the way, joins them, and is 
 permitted to walk with Miss C by herself ; so 
 t!ie thing is certain. See ! she explains to 
 him that she has forgotten her i)rayer-book — 
 by accident ; and he joyfully shows her his 
 own ; whicli means, that he means to read the 
 Collect with iier out of the same book ; which 
 makes her blush and smile, and attempt to 
 look gratefully indiflerent, which is impos- 
 sible ; so she does not much endeavour it, aiul 
 they are botii as hapjiy as if the church were 
 made of tarts and cheesecakes. We arc pass- 
 ing the church now, so we see no more of 
 them. But there is the beadle, in his laced 
 hat, taking the apple from the charity boy, 
 and looking very angry, for it is not a good 
 one ; and there come tlie I"s quarrelling up to 
 the church-door about which walks the heaviest; 
 I and F, making liis sisters laugh beforehand.
 
 82 
 
 SUNDAY IN LONDON. 
 
 at the way in which tlio clork opens his mouth ; 
 and (r, wlu) liates tiie parson ; and the parson, 
 wlio hates G ; and J I, 1, J, K, and L, who are 
 iuditt'erent ahout tiie matter, and arc thinking 
 of their dinner, boots, neck-cloths, and next 
 day ; and, not to go t-hroiigli the whole alpha- 
 bet, hero is ^I, dashing up in his carriage, 
 which the coachman is to keep for him, till ho 
 has " walked innuhly with his God," and is 
 ready to strut forth again. 
 
 In childhood the church bells used to make 
 us melanclioly. They have not that eftect uow. 
 Tile reason we take to be, that they sound- 
 ed to us then from the remote regions of the 
 whole world out of doors, and of all the untried 
 ho[)es and fears and destinies which they con- 
 tained. We have since known them more 
 familiarly, and our regard is greater and even 
 more serious, though mixed with cheerfulness, 
 and is not at all melancholy, except when the 
 bell tolls for a funeral ; wliich custom by the 
 way is a nuisance, and ought to be abolished, 
 if only out of consideration for the sick and 
 sorrowful. One of the reasons why church 
 bells have become cheerful to us, is the having 
 been accustomed to hear them among the 
 cheerful people of Tuscany. The Catholic 
 countries' bells are ringing at all seasons, not 
 always to the comfort of those who hear them; 
 but tlie custom has associated them in our 
 minds with sunshine and good-nature. We 
 also like tiiem on account of their frequency 
 in colleges. Finally, they remind us of 
 weddings and other liolidays ; and there is 
 one particular little jingle in some of them, 
 which brings to our memory the walking to 
 church by the side of a jjarcnt, and is very 
 dear to us. 
 
 XXXVI.— SUNDAY IN LONDON. 
 No. II. 
 
 Hard is it, thou coming kindness, and hard, 
 thou already-existing knowledge, and kindness 
 too, of Christian philanthropists and philoso- 
 phers, not to feel awishtotake thecaneoutofthe 
 hands of the beadle yonder, who is tyrannising 
 over barrow-women and little boys, and lay it 
 about his own hat. In tlie name of God, what 
 sort of Christianity would the law have, if it is 
 not to be Christian ?— if it is not to prefer 
 "spirit" to " letter ?" There are some men, 
 according to whose notions it would appear 
 as if lieaven itself ouglit to shut up shop 
 on Sundays, and afford us no light and sun- 
 shine. We verily believe, that they think 
 the angels go to church on that day, and put 
 on clean wings, and that St. Paul preaches a 
 sermon. 
 
 See now — here comes a little fellow whom 
 they would suppress, clean as a pink, far 
 happier than a prince, a sort of little angel 
 himself, making allowance for the pug-nose ; 
 
 but innocence and happiness are in his face, 
 and before him (not to .sp(>ak it profanely) is 
 the beatific vision of the jtieco of iiot mutton, 
 which he is carrying home from the baker's, 
 and devouring with his eyes. He is an honest 
 boy, for his mother has trusted him with carry- 
 ing the meat and the baked potatoes ; and it is 
 the only liit of meat which he or she, or iiis 
 father, can get to eat all the week round ; and 
 his little sisters are to have some of it, for tiiey 
 have all been good, and helped to earn it ; and 
 so here is a wliole, good, hard-working, honest 
 family, whom the religious eaters of hot meat 
 every day would prevent from having their 
 bit on Sundays, because why ? Because it 
 would do the poor souls any harm ? No ; but 
 because it would do their rich dictators the 
 harm of seeing their own pragmatical will and 
 pleasure opposed, — humours, the very result 
 perhaps of their own stuffing and indiges- 
 tion. 
 
 A Sunday evening in London, with its 
 musical and other social meetings, such as 
 cannot take place between men in business 
 during the rest of the week, has parties enough 
 to render it much livelier than it appears. liut 
 the lovers — the lovers are the tiling. With 
 them we begin, and with them we conclude ; 
 for what so good to begin or to end with 
 as love ? We loved as early as we can re- 
 collect ; we love now ; and our death will be a 
 loving one, let it be coloured otherwise as it 
 may. 
 
 When we speak of lovers on a Sunday even- 
 ing, we mean, of course, lovers who cannot well 
 visit on any other day in the week ; and whose 
 meetings, therefore, are rendered as intense as 
 they can be by the infreriuency. What signify 
 the circumstances that may have hindered 
 them I Let them be button-making, bread- 
 making, or a clerkship, or servitude, or any 
 other chance or condition of life, what care we, 
 provided the love be genuine, and the pleasure 
 truly felt ? Burns was a ])lougliman, Allan 
 Kanisay a liair-dresser. Gay at one time a 
 mercer, Richardson a printer, Dodsley a foot- 
 man. Do we supjiose that the authors of " Sir 
 Charles Grandison," " Black-Eyed Susan," and 
 the finest love-songs in the world, did not 
 make as cordial and exquisite lovers as the 
 best-bred gentlemen about town ? and that 
 their mistresses and they did not worship 
 each other with a vivacity and a passion in- 
 finite ? 
 
 Our Sunday lover, then, is an apprentice or 
 a clerk, and his mistress is a tradesman's 
 daughter, and they meet only on Sundays and 
 Sunday evenings, counting every minute till 
 the time arrives, listening to every knock, 
 trying to look calm when the other joins the 
 family party ; for they seldom see one another 
 alone, even then. But now they are at least 
 in the same room, and happiness is with them. 
 They see and hear each other ; they see the
 
 SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS. 
 
 83 
 
 little manoeuvres to get a nearer seat ; at 
 length they sit close together. The parents 
 are not displeased, and let things take their 
 coui'se. This is, perhaps, the happiest time of 
 conrtship — when lovers feel secure of one 
 another's affections, and only have just suf- 
 ficient doubt of other security to make every- 
 thing seem dependent on themselves and the 
 result of their own will and choice. By 
 degrees, as the family divide in their talk, 
 they are suffered to talk exclusively together. 
 Every wonl is precious ; every question the 
 most indifferent has a meaning : it is sufficient 
 for one to say " I like this," or " I like that," 
 and the other thinks it a charming observation 
 — a proof of fine sense, or feeling, or taste, or 
 above all, of love ; for the eyes or the quivering 
 lips, or the panting bosom, speak with it ; and 
 the whole intercourse, whether speaking or 
 silent, is one of intense acqxiiescence and 
 deliglit. A gentleman comes up and gallantly 
 addresses some smiling remark to the lady ; 
 the lover, if he is not quite sure of her miud, 
 begins to be jealous. The gentleman moves 
 off, and a remark at his expense prostrates the 
 lovei''s soul with gratitude. The lady leaves 
 the room to put a child to bed, or speak to a 
 sister, or look after the siipper, and darkness 
 falls upon the place. She returns, and her 
 footsteps, her face, her frock, her sweet counte- 
 nance, is thrice blessed, and brings happiness 
 back again. She resumes her chair, with a 
 soft " thank ye " as he elaborately, and for no 
 need wliatsoever, puts it in its best position for 
 being resumed ; and never, he thinks, did soul, 
 breath, and bosom, go so sweetly together as 
 in tlie utterance of that simple phrase. For her 
 part, she has, secretly, hardly any bounds to 
 her gratitude ; and it is lucky that they are 
 both excellent good people, otherwise the 
 very virtues of one or otlier of them might 
 be their desti'uction. (All ! they will think of 
 this in aftertimes, and not look with severe 
 countenances on the victims of the less honour- 
 able.) At length they sit looking over some 
 pictures together, or a l)ook, which they are as 
 far from reading as if they did not see it. They 
 turn over the leaves, however, witli a charming 
 hypocrisy, and even carry their eyes along the 
 lines ; their cheeks toiich^ — his hand meets 
 hers, by favour of the tal'le-cloth or the 
 handkerchief ; its pressure is returned ; you 
 might hear their hearts beat, if you could 
 listen. 
 
 Oh ! welcome, war ; welcome, sorrow ; wel- 
 come, folly, mistake, [)erverseness, disease, 
 deatli, disappointment, all the ills of life, 
 and the astonishments of man's soul ! Tliose 
 monu'uts, nay, the recollections of them, are 
 worth tlie whole payment. Our cliildren will 
 love, as we liave loved, and so cannot be wlioJly 
 miserable. 'J"o love, even if not beloved, is to 
 have the sweetest of faiths, and riches fineless, 
 which nothin"; can take from us but our own 
 
 unworthiness. And once to have loved truly, 
 is to know how to continue to love everytliing 
 which unlovingness has not had a hand in 
 altering — all beauties of nature and of mind, 
 all truth of heart, all trees, flowers, skies, hopes, 
 and good beliefs, all dear decays of person, 
 fading towards a two-fold grave, all trusts in 
 heaven, all faiths in the capabilities of loving 
 man. "Love is a perpetual proof that something 
 good and earnest and eternal is meant us, such 
 a bribe and foretaste of bliss being given us to 
 keep us in the lists of time and progression : 
 and when the world has realised what love 
 urges it to obtain, perhaps death will cease ; 
 and all the souls which love has created, crowd 
 back at its summons to inhabit their perfected 
 world. 
 
 Truly we have finished our Sunday evening 
 with a rapt and organ-like note. Let the 
 reader fancy he has heard an organ indeed. 
 Its voice is not unapt for the production of 
 such thoughts, in those who can rightly listen 
 to its consummate majesty and warbling modu- 
 lations. 
 
 [Something yet remains to be said of" Sun- 
 day in the Suburbs."] 
 
 XXXVII. — SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS. 
 
 BEING MORE LAST WORDS ON 'SUNDAY IN LONDON:' 
 WITH A DIGRESSION ON THE NAMK OF SJIITH. 
 
 In writing our articles on this subject, we 
 have been so taken up, first with the dull look 
 of the Sunday streets, and afterwards with the 
 lovers who make their walls lively on the 
 hidden side, that we fairly overlooked a feature 
 in our Metropolitan Sabbath, eminently sab- 
 batical ; to wit, the suburbs and their holiday- 
 makers. What a thing to forget ! What a 
 thing to forget, even if it concerned only Smith 
 in his new hat and boots ! Why, he has been 
 thinking of tliem all the week ; and how could 
 we, who sympathise -with all the Smith-ism 
 and boots in existence, forget them i The 
 liatter did not bring home his hat till last 
 night, the boot-maker his boots till this morn- 
 ing. How did not Smith (and he is a shrewd 
 fellow too, and reads us) pounce uj)on the hat- 
 box, undo its clinging pasteboard lid, whisk off 
 tlie silver paper, delicately develop the dear 
 beaver, and put it on before the glass ! The 
 truth must be owned : — he sate in it Inilf 
 supper-time. Never was sucli a neat fit. All 
 Aldersgate, and the City-road, and the New- 
 road, and Camden and Kentish towns, glided 
 already before him, as he went along in it, — 
 hatted in thought. He could have gone to 
 sleep in it, — if it would not have spoiled liis 
 nap, and its own. 
 
 Then his boots ! — Look at him. — There he 
 goes — up Simiers-town. AN' ho would suspect, 
 from the ease and superiority of his counte*
 
 84 
 
 SUNDAY IN THE SUBURBS. 
 
 nance, that lie liad not had his boots ahove two 
 liours, — that ho Iiad hcoii a f^ood fourth part of 
 the time hihuurinj^ and fetcliing the blood up 
 in his face witii piillinj^ them on with his boot- 
 hooks, — and that at tliis moment they liorribly 
 pincli liini ! But he has a small foot — has Jack 
 Smith ; and he would scpiecze, jam, and 
 damn it into a thimble, rather than acknow- 
 ledge it to be a bit larger than it seems. 
 
 Do not think ill of him, especially you that 
 are pinched a little less. Jack has sympathies ; 
 and as long as the admiration of the commu- 
 nity runs towards little feet and well-polished 
 boots, he cannot dispense, in those (juarters, 
 with the esteem of his fellow-men. As the 
 sympatliies enlarge, Jack's boots Avill grow 
 wider ; and we venture to prophesy, that at 
 forty he will care little for little feet, and much 
 for his corns and the public good. We are the 
 more bold in this anticipation, from certain 
 reminiscences we have of boots of our own. 
 We shall not enter into details, for fear of 
 compromising the dignity of literature ; but 
 the good-natured may think of them what they 
 please. Non hjnara inali (said Dido), mis<'rh 
 succurrere disco : that is, having known what it 
 was to wear shoes too small herself, she should 
 never measure, for her part, the capabilities of 
 a woman's head, by the pettiness of her 
 slippers. 
 
 Napoleon was proud of a little foot ; and 
 Cfesar, in his youth, was a dandy. So go on, 
 Smith, and bear your tortures like a man ; 
 especially towards one o'clock, when it will be 
 hot and dusty. 
 » Smith does not carry a cane with a twist at 
 the top of it for a handle. That is for an in- 
 ferior grade of holiday-maker, who pokes about 
 the suburbs, gaping at the new buildings, oi' 
 treats his fellow-servant to a trip to White 
 Conduit-house, and an orange by the way — 
 always too sour. Smith has a stick or a whan- 
 gliee ; or, if he rides, a switch. He is not a 
 good rider ; and we must say it is his own 
 fault, for he rides only on Sundays, and will 
 not scrape acquaintance with the ostler on 
 other days of the week. You may know him 
 on horseback by the brisk forlornness of his 
 steed, the inclined plane of his body, the ex- 
 treme outwardness or inwardness of his toes, 
 and an expression of face betwixt ardour, fear, 
 and indifference. He is the most without a 
 footman of any man in the world ; that is to 
 say, he has the most excessive desire to be 
 taken for a man who ought to have one ; and, 
 therefore, the space of road behind him pur- 
 sues liim, as it were, with the reproach of its 
 emptiness. 
 
 A word, by the way, as to our use of the 
 generic name 'Smith.' A Correspondent wrote 
 to us the other day, intimating that it would 
 be agood-natured thing if we refrained in future 
 from designating classes of men by thi? name 
 of ' Tomkins.' We kijow not whether he was 
 
 a Tomkins himself, or whether he only felt 
 for some friend of that name, or for the whole 
 body of the Tomkinses; all we know is, that he 
 has taken the word out of our mouth for ever, 
 llow many paragraphs he may have ruined by 
 it, we cannot say ; but the truth is, he has 
 us on our weak side. We can resist no appeal 
 to our good-nature made by a good-natured 
 man. Besides, wc; like him for the seriousness 
 and good faith with which he took the matter 
 to heai't, and for the niceness of his sympathy. 
 Adieu, then, name of Tomkins ! Jenkins also, 
 for a like respectful reason, we shall abstain 
 from in future. But let nobody interfere in 
 belialf of Smith ; for Smith does not want it. 
 Smith is too universal. Even a Joliu Smith 
 could not regard the use of his name as per- 
 sonal ; for John Smith, as far as his name is 
 concerned, has no personality. lie is a class, 
 a huge body ; he has a good bit of the 
 Directory to himself. You may see for pages 
 together (if our memory does not deceive us) 
 John Smith, John Smith, John Smith, or 
 rather, 
 
 Smith, John, 
 
 Smith, John, 
 
 Smith, .John, 
 
 Smith, .John, 
 
 Smith, John, 
 
 Smith, John, 
 and so on, with everlasting Smith-Johnism, 
 like a set of palisades or iron rails ; almost as 
 if you could make them clink as you go, with 
 drawing something along them. The repeti- 
 tion is dazzling. The monotony bristles with 
 sameness. Itis a cheraux-de-SDiitli. John Smith 
 in short, is so public and multitudinous a per- 
 sonage, that we do not hesitate to say we 
 know an excellent individual of that name, 
 whose regard we venture thus openly to boast 
 of, without fearing to run any danger of offend- 
 ing liis modesty : for nobody will know whom 
 Ave mean. An Italian poet says he hates his 
 name of John, because if anybody calls him by 
 it in the street, twenty people look out of 
 window. Now let anybody call "John Smith !" 
 and half Ilolborn v.-ill cry out « Well !" 
 
 As to other and famous Smitlis, they are too 
 strongly marked out by their fame, sometimes 
 by their Christian names, and partly, indeed, by 
 the uncommon lustre they attain through their 
 very commonness, to make us at all squeamish 
 in helping ourselves to their generic appeUation 
 at ordinary times. Who will ever think of 
 confounding Smith, in the abstract, with Adam 
 Smith, or Sir Sydney Smith, or the Reverend 
 Sydney Smith, or James and Horace Smith, or 
 Dr. Southwood Smith, or any other concre- 
 tion of wit, bravery, or philosophy ? 
 
 15y this time, following, as we talk, our friend 
 Jack up the road, we arrive at the first suburb 
 tea-gardens, which he, for his part, passes with 
 disdain ; not our friend, .John Smith, be it ob- 
 served, for his pliil'jsophy is as universal as his
 
 A HITMAN BEING AND A CROWD. 
 
 85 
 
 name ; but Jack Smith, our friend of the new 
 hat and boots. And yet he will be a philoso- 
 pher, too, by-and-by ; and his boots shall help 
 him to philosophise ; but all in good time. 
 Meanwhile, we who ai'e old enough to consult 
 our inclination in preference to our grandeur, 
 turn into the tea-gardens, where there is no 
 tea going forward, and not much garden, but 
 worlds of beer, and tobacco-pipes, and alcoves ; 
 and in a corner behind some jialings there is 
 (we fear) a sound of skittles. May no un- 
 christian christian hear it, who is twirling his 
 thumbs, or listening to the ring of his wine- 
 glasses. How hot the people look ! how un- 
 pinned the goodly old dames ! how tired, yet 
 untired, the children ! and how each alcove 
 opens upon you as you pass, with its talk, 
 smoke, beer, and bad paint ! Then what a 
 feast to their eyes is the grass-plat ! Truly, 
 without well knowing it, do they sit down 
 almost as much to the enjoyment of that green 
 table of Nature's in the midst of them, as to 
 their tobacco and " half-and-half." It is some- 
 thing which they do not see all the rest of the 
 week ; the first bit of grass, of any size, which 
 they come to from home; and here they stop 
 and are content. For our parts, we wish they 
 would go further, as Smith does, and get fairly 
 out in the fields ; but they will do that, as they 
 become freer, and wiser, and more comfortable, 
 and learn to know and love what the wild- 
 flowers have to say to them. At present how 
 should they be able to hear those small angelic 
 voices, when their ears are ringing with stock- 
 ing-frames and crying children, and they are 
 but too happy in their tired-hearteduess to get 
 to the first bit of holiday ground they can 
 reach ? 
 
 We come away, and mingle with the crowds 
 returning home, among whom we recognise 
 our friend of the twisted cane, and his lass ; 
 who looks tlie reddest, proudest, and most as- 
 sured of maid-servants, and sometimes "snubs" 
 liim a little, out loud, to show her power ; 
 though she loves every blink of his eye. 
 Yonder is a multitude collected round a nie- 
 thodist preacher, whom they think far "behind 
 liis age," extremely ignorant of yesterday's un- 
 stamped, but "well-meaning," a "poor mistaken 
 fellow, sir :" and they will not liave him liustled 
 by the police. Lord X. should hear what they 
 say. It might put an idea in his head. 
 
 The gas-lights begin to shine ; the tide of the 
 crowd grows tliinner ; clia]K'l-windows are lit 
 up ; maid-servants stand in door-ways; married 
 couples carry their children, or dispute about 
 them ; and children, not carried, cry for spite, 
 and jumble tlieir souls out. 
 
 As for Smith, he is in some friend's room, 
 very comfortable, with liis brandy and water 
 beside him, his coloured handkerchief on his 
 kriee, and liis boots iuirnnittniit.* 
 
 * liKi'iiiiit— " To gi(nv mild between the fits or 
 paroxysms." — Johnso.v. 
 
 XXXVIII. — A HUMAN BEING AND 
 A CROWD. 
 
 The reader will allow us to relate him an 
 apologue. — A Seer of visions, walking out one 
 evening, just before twilight, saw a being 
 standing in a corner by the way-side, such 
 as he never remembered to have seen before. 
 It said nothing, and threatened him no liarm : 
 it seemed occupied with its own thoughts, 
 looking in an earnest manner across the fields, 
 where some children were playing; and its 
 asjiect was inexpressibly affecting. Its eyes 
 were very wonderful, a mixture of something 
 that was at once substance and no substance, 
 body and spirit ; and it seemed as if there 
 would have been tears in them, but for a 
 certain dry-looking heat, in which nevertlie- 
 less was a still stranger mixture of indifference 
 and patience, of hope and despair. Its hands, 
 which it now and then lifted to its head, 
 appeared to be two of the most wonderful in- 
 struments that were ever beheld. Its cheeks 
 varied their size in a remarkable manner, 
 being now sunken, now swollen, or apparently 
 healthy, but always of a marvellous formation, 
 and capable, it would seem, of great beauty, 
 had the phenomenon been happy. The lijis, 
 in particular, expressed this capability ; and 
 now and then the creature smiled at some 
 thought that came over it ; and then it looked 
 sorrowful, and then angry, and then patient 
 again, and finally, it leaned against the tree 
 near which it stood, with a gesture of great 
 weariness, and heaved a sigh which went to 
 the very heart of the beholder. Tlie latter 
 stood apart, screened from its sight, and looked 
 towards it with a deep feeling of pity, reve- 
 rence, and awe. At length the creature moved 
 from its place, looked first at the fields, then 
 at the setting sun, and after putting its hands 
 together, in an attitude of prayer, and again 
 lookingatthefieldsandthe children, drew down, 
 as if from an unseen resting place, a liuge bur- 
 then of some kind or other, which it received 
 on its head and shoulders ; and so witli a tran- 
 quil and noble gesture, more affecting than 
 any symptom it had yet exhibited, went glid- 
 ing onwards towards the sunset, at once bent 
 with weakness, and magnificent for very power. 
 The seer then, before it got out of sight, saw 
 it turn round yearning towards the children ; 
 but what was his surprise, when on turning 
 its eyes upon himself, he recognised, for the 
 first time, an exact counterpart of his own 
 face ; in fact, himself looking at himself ! 
 
 Yes, dear reader, tlie seer was the phenom- 
 enon and the phenomenon is a luiman being, 
 ainj citre-woni man ; you yourself, if you are such ; 
 or the Seer of the other sights in this book ; — • 
 with this difference, however, as far as regards 
 you and us ; tliat inasmuch as we are readers 
 and writers of things hopeful, mg are more 
 hopeful people, and possess the twofold faith
 
 «6 
 
 A HUMAN BEING AND A CROWD. 
 
 which the plienomenon seems to have thought 
 a divided one, and not to be united ; that is 
 to say, we thinli liopefully ot'lieaven and hope- 
 fully of earth ; wi- Leliold the sunset shinin;j; 
 towards the fii'lds and the little children, in 
 all the beauty of its double encouragement. 
 
 A human being, whatever his mistakes, 
 whatever his cares, is, in the truest and most 
 literal sense of the word, a respectable being 
 (pray believe it) ; — nay, an awful, were he 
 not also a loving being ; — a mystery of won- 
 derful frame, hope, and capacity, walking be- 
 tween heaven a)id earth. To look into his 
 eyes is to see a soul. He is surely worth 
 twice, thrice, and four times looking at and 
 considering*,— worth thinking what we can 
 do for him, and he for us, and all for each 
 other. Our general impressions of things (as 
 the reader knows) are cheerful, and ready to 
 receive abundance of pleasure. Our greatest 
 sorrow, when we look abroad, is to think that 
 mankind do not extract a millionth part of 
 the pleasure they might, from the exceeding 
 riches of Nature ; and it is speedily swallowed 
 up by a conviction, that Nature being so rich, 
 and inciting them to find it out, find it out 
 they will. But meanwhile, we look upon the 
 careful faces we meet — upon the human phe- 
 nomenon and his perplexities, — and as long as 
 our sorrow lasts, an indescribable emotion 
 siezes us, of pity and respect. 
 
 We feel a tenderness for every man when 
 we consider that he has been an infant, and 
 a respect for him when we see that he has 
 had cares. And if such be the natural feelings 
 of reflection towards individual faces, how 
 much more so towards a multitude of them — 
 towards an assemblage — a serious and anxious 
 crowd ? 
 
 We believe, that without any reference to 
 politics whatsoever, no man of reflection or 
 sensibility looked upon the great and moving 
 mass and succession of human beings, which 
 assembled a little while ago in London, without 
 being consciously or unconsciously moved with 
 emotions of this kind. How could they help 
 it ? A crowd is but tlie reduplication of our- 
 selves, — of our own faces, fears, hopes, wants, 
 and relations, — our own connexions of wives 
 and children, — our own strengths, weaknesses, 
 formidable power, pitiable tears. We may 
 differ with it, we may be angry with it, fear 
 it, tliink we scorn it ; but we must scorn our- 
 selves first, or have no feeling and imagina- 
 tion. All the hearts beating in those bosoms 
 are palpitations of onr own. We feel them 
 somehow or other, and glow, or turn pale. 
 We cannot behold ourselves in tliat shape of 
 power or mighty want, and not feel that we 
 are men. 
 
 We have only to fancy ourselves bom in 
 any particular class, and to have lived, loved, 
 and suffered in it, in order to feel for the mis- 
 ♦ RespecUible, refpectabilis (Latin), worth a>tain looking at. 
 
 takes and circumstances of those who belong to 
 it, even when they ajjpear to sympathise least 
 with ourselves : for that also is a part of what 
 is to be pitied in them. The less they feel for 
 us, the less is the taste of tlieir own ])leas\ires, 
 and the less their security against a fall. Who 
 that has any fancy of this kind, can help 
 feeling for all those arhtacrals, especially the 
 young and innocent among them, that were 
 brought to the scaffold during the French 
 revolution ? Who for all those denuicraU, 
 not excepting the fiercest that were brought 
 there also — some of whom surj)rised the by- 
 standers with the tendornes of their domestic 
 recollections,and the faltering ejaculations they 
 made towards the wives and children they left 
 behind tlunu ? Who does not feel for the mis- 
 taken ]»opish conspirators, the appalling story 
 of wliose execution is told in one of Disraeli's 
 books, with that godlike woman in it, who is 
 never to be passed over when it is mentioned ? 
 Who does not feel for the mas.sacres of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, of Ireland, of Sicily, of any place ; 
 and the more because they are perpetrated by 
 men upon their fellow-creatures, the victims 
 and victim-makers of pitiable mistake ? The 
 world arc finding out that mistake ; and not 
 again in a hurry, we trust, will anything like 
 it be repeated among civilised people. All 
 are learning to make allowance for one another: 
 but we must not forget, among our lessons, 
 that the greatest allowances are to be made 
 for those who suffer the most. Also, the 
 gi-eatest number of reflections should be made 
 for them. 
 
 Blessings on the progress of reflection and 
 knowledge, which made that great meeting 
 we speak of as quiet as it was ! We have 
 received many letters from friends and cor- 
 respondents on the setting up of this paper 
 for which we have reason to be gi'ateful ; but 
 not one which has pleased us so much (noi", we 
 are sure, with greater leave from the rest 
 to be so pleased) than a communication from 
 our old "Tatler" friend, S. W. H. in which 
 he tells us that he saw a copy of it in the 
 hands of " one of the sturdiest " of the trades' 
 unions, who was "reading it as he marched 
 along ;" and who (adds our correspondent) 
 " could hardly be thinking of burning down 
 half London, even if the government did con- 
 tinue bent upon not receiving his petition." 
 
 May we ever be found in such hands on 
 such occasions. It will do harm to nobody 
 in tile long-run ; will prevent no final good ; 
 .and assuredly encourage no injustice, final or 
 intermediate. "To sympathise with all" is 
 an old motto on oiir flag. None, therefore, 
 can be omitted in oiir sympathy ; and assuredly 
 not those who compose the greatest part of 
 all. If we did not feel for them as we do, we 
 sliould not feel for their likenesses in more 
 prosjK'rous shapes. 
 
 We had thought of saying something upon 
 
 J
 
 A HUMAN BEING AND A CROWD. 
 
 87 
 
 crowds under other circumstances, such as 
 crowds at theatres, and in churches, crowds 
 at executions, crowds on holidays, &c. ; but 
 the interest of the immediate ground of our 
 reflections has absorbed us. We will close 
 this article however, with one of the most 
 appalling descriptions of a crowd under cir- 
 cumstances of exasperation, that our memory 
 refers us to. On sending for the book that 
 contains it to the circulating library, (for 
 though too liiie the truth, it is a work of 
 fiction,) we find that it is not quite so well- 
 wi-itten, or simple in its intensity, as our re- 
 collection had fancied it. Nothing had re- 
 mained in our memory but the roar of the 
 multitude, the violence of a moment, and a 
 shapeless remnant of a body. But the passage 
 is still very striking. Next to the gratifica- 
 tion of finding ourselves read by the many, is 
 the discovery that our paper finds its way into 
 certain accomplished and truly gentlemanly 
 hands, very fit to grapple, in the best and 
 most kindly manner, with those many ; and 
 to these, an extract at this time of day, from 
 Monk Lewis's novel, will have a private as 
 well as jjublic interest. 
 
 The author is speaking of an abbess, who 
 has been guilty of the destruction of a nun 
 under circumstances of great cruelty. An in- 
 furiated multitude destroy her, under circum- 
 stances of great cruelty on their own parts ; 
 and a lesson, we conceive, is here read, both to 
 those who exasperate crowds of people, and to 
 the crowds that, almost before tlvey are aware of it, 
 reduce a fellow-creature to a mass of unsight- 
 liuess. For, though vengeance was here in- 
 tended, and perhaps death (which is what we 
 had not exactly supposed, from our recollec- 
 tion of the passage,) yet it is not certain that 
 the writer wished us to understand as much, 
 however violent the mob may have become by 
 dint of finding they had gone so far ; and 
 what we wish to intimate is, that a human 
 being may be seized by his angry fellow-crea- 
 tures, and by dint of being pulled hither and 
 thither, and struck at, even with no direct mor- 
 tal intentions on their parts, be reduced in the 
 course of a few frightful moments to a condi- 
 tion, which, in the present reflecting state of 
 the community, would equally fill with remorse 
 the parties that regarded it, on either side, — the 
 one from not taking care to avoid giving offence, 
 and the other from not considering how far their 
 resentment of it might lead ; — a mistake from 
 which, thank Heaven, the good sense and pre- 
 cautious of both parties saved them ou the 
 occasion we allude to. 
 
 " St. Ursula's naiTative," says Mr. Lewis, speak- 
 ing of a nun who had taken part against the abbess, 
 and who was relating her cruelty to the people, 
 " created hoiTor and surprise throughout; butwheu 
 she related the inhuman murder of Agnes, the in- 
 dignation of the mob was so audibly testified, that it 
 was scarcely possible to hear the conclusion. This 
 confusion increased with every moment. At length 
 a multitude of voices exclaimed, that the prioress 
 should be given up to then' fury. To this Don Ramirez 
 positively refused to consent. Even Lorenzo bade 
 the people remember that she had undergone no 
 trial, and advised them to leave her punishment to 
 the Inquisition. All representations were fruitless ; 
 the disturbance grew still more violent, and the 
 populace more exasperated. In vain did Ramirez 
 attempt to convey his prisoner out of the throng. 
 Wherever he turned, a band of rioters baiTed his 
 passage, and demanded her being delivered ovfer 
 to them more loudly than before. Ramirez ordered 
 his attendants to cut their way thi'ough the mul- 
 titude. Oppressed by numbers, it was impossible 
 for them to draw then* swords. He threatened 
 the mob with the vengeance of the Inquisition : 
 but, in this moment of popular frenzy, even this 
 dreadful name had lost its effect. Though regret 
 for his sister made him look upon the prioress with 
 abhorrence, Lorenzo could not help pitying a 
 woman in a situation so terrible : but in spite of 
 all his exertions and those of the duke, of don 
 Ramu'ez and the archers, the people continued to 
 press onwards. They forced a passage through 
 the guards who protected their destined victim, 
 dragged her from her shelter, and proceeded to 
 take upon her a most summary and cruel venge- 
 ance. Wild with terror, and scarcely knowing 
 what she said, the wretched woman shrieked for a 
 moment's mercy ; she protested that she was igno- 
 rant of the death of Agues, and could clear herself 
 from suspicion beyond the power of doubt. The 
 rioters heeded nothing but the gratification of their 
 barbarous vengeance. They refused to listen to 
 her : they showed her every sort of insult, loaded 
 her with mud and filth, and called her by the 
 most opprobrious appellations. They tore her one 
 from another, and each new tormentor was more 
 savage than the former. They stifled with howls 
 and execrations her shrill cries for mercy, and 
 dragged her through the streets, spurning her, 
 trampling her, and treatmg her with every species 
 of cruelty which hate or vindictive fury could in- 
 vent. At lengthaflint, aimed by some well-directed 
 hand, struck her full upon the temple. She sank 
 upon the ground bathed in blood, and in a few 
 mmutes terminated her miserable existence. Yet 
 though she no longer felt their insults, the i-ioters 
 still exercised their impotent rage upon the hfeless 
 body. They beat it, trod upon it, and ill-used it, 
 till it became no more than a mass of flesh, un- 
 sightly, shapeless, and disgusting." 
 
 END OF TAUT THE FIRST.
 
 ' I 
 !l 
 
 THE SEER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED. 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 PART IT. 
 
 I,.n'C adds a precious seeing to tlic eye— SnAKsrFiiis. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLIAM TEGG AND CO., 85, QUEEN STREET, CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 MDCCCL.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 r.\nT. 
 XXXIX. THE CAT BY THK FIRE 1 
 
 XL. PUT UP A PICTURE IN YOUR ROOM 3 
 
 XLI. A GENTLEMAN-SAINT 5 
 
 XLII. THE EVE OF ST. AGNES . . . 12 
 
 XLIII. A "NOW;" DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DAY 13 
 
 XLIV. ICE,— WITH POETS UPON IT 20 
 
 XLV. THE PIANO-FORTE 23 
 
 XLVI. WHY SWEET MUSIC PRODUCES SADNESS . 27 
 
 XLVII. DANCING AND DANCERS 28 
 
 XLVIII. TWELFTH NIGHT.— A STREET PORTRAIT.— SHaKSPEARE'S PLAY.— RECOLLEC- 
 TIONS OF A TWELFTH NIGHT 
 
 XLIX. RULES IN MAKING PRESENTS 
 
 L. ROMANCE OF COMMON-PLACE 
 
 LI. AMIABLENESS SUPERIOR TO INTELLECT 
 
 LII. LIFE AFTER DEATH— BELIEF IN SPIRITS 
 
 LIII. ON DEATH AND BURIAL 
 
 LIV. ON WASHERWOMtN .... 
 
 LV. TUE NIGHTMARE .... 
 
 LVI. 'HIE SUBJECT CONTINUED 
 
 LVll. THE FLORENTINE LOVERS 
 
 LVIII, 
 
 . 31 
 
 . 34 
 
 . ib. 
 
 . 85 
 
 . 37 
 
 . 39 
 
 . 42 
 
 . 44 
 
 . 46 
 
 . 49 
 
 RHYME AND REASON : OR, A Xi:W PROPOSAL TO TUE PUBLIC RESPECTING 
 POETRY IN ORDINARY 59
 
 IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I-AUE 
 
 LIX. VICISSITUDKS OF A LECTURE ; OR, PUBLIC ELEGANCE ANT) PRIVATE NON- 
 
 PARTICITLARITY Gl 
 
 LX. THE FORTUNES 01' GENIUS 
 
 LXI. POETS* HOUSES 
 
 LXII. A JOURNEY BY COACH— (A FRAGMENl' 
 
 J,XIII. (CONTINVEU) 
 
 LXIV. (co^TlNrED) 
 
 LXV. (ooncludkd) 
 
 63 
 
 f)6 
 08 
 69 
 71 
 
 LXYI. INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTMAS
 
 T H E SEER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COMMON-PLACES REFRESHED. 
 
 " Love ailda a precious seeing to the eye."— Shakspeare. 
 
 XXXIX.— THE CAT BY THE FIRE. 
 
 A Ki.AziNG fire, a warm rug, candles lit and 
 curtains drawn, the kettle on for tea (nor do 
 the " first circles " despise the preference of a 
 kettle to an nrn, as the third or fourth may 
 do), and finally, the cat before you, attracting 
 your attention, — it is a scene which every- 
 body likes unless he has a morbid aversion to 
 cats ; which is not common. There are some 
 nice inquirers, it is true, who are apt to make 
 uneasy comparisons of cats with dogs, — to say 
 they are not so loving, tJiat they prefer the 
 house to the man, &c. But agreeably to the 
 good old maxim, that "comparisons are odious," 
 our readers, we hope, will continue to like 
 what is likeable in anything, for its own sake, 
 without trying to render it unlikeable from 
 its inferioi-ity to something else, — a process 
 by which we might ingeniously contrive to 
 put soot into every dish that is set before us, 
 and to reject one thing after another, till we 
 were pleased witli nothing. Here is a good 
 fireside, and a cat to it ; and it would be our 
 own fault, if, in removing to another liouse 
 and another fireside, we did not take care that 
 the cat removed with us. Cats cannot look to 
 the moving of goods, as men do. If we would luive 
 creatures considerate towards us, we must be 
 so towards tliem. It is not to be expected of 
 everybody, quadruped or biped, that they 
 should stick to us in spiteof our want of merit, 
 like a dog or a bouevolont sage. Besides, 
 stories have been told of cats very much to the 
 creditof their benignity; such asthcirfollowing 
 a master about like a dog, waiting at a gentle- 
 man's door to thank liiiu for some obligation 
 ov(>r uiglit, &c. And our readers may remem- 
 ber the history of the famous Godolphin Arabian, 
 upon wlioso grave a cat that had lived with him 
 in the stable wont and stretched itself, and died. 
 
 [part It.] 
 
 The cat purrs, as if it applauded our consi- 
 deration, — and gently moves its tail. What an 
 odd expression of the power to be irritable and 
 the will to be pleased there is in its face, as it 
 looks up at us ! We must own, tliat we do not 
 prefer a cat in the act of purring, or of looking 
 in that manner. It reminds us of the sort of 
 smile, or simmer (mnper is too weak and fleeting 
 a word) that is apt to be in the faces of irritable 
 people when they are pleased to be in a state 
 of satisfaction. We prefer, for a general ex- 
 pression, the cat in a quiet unpretending state, 
 and the human countenance with a look indica- 
 tive of habitual grace and composure, as if it 
 were not necessary to take any violent steps to 
 prove its amiability, — the "smile without a 
 smile," as the poet beautifully calls it*. ' 
 
 Furthermore (in order to get rid at once of 
 all that may be objected to poor Pussy, as boys 
 at school get down their bad dumpling as fast 
 as possible, before the meat comes), we own we 
 have an objection to the way in which a cat 
 sports with a mouse before she kills it, tossing 
 and jerking it about like a ball, and letting it 
 go, in order to pounce upon it with the greater 
 relish. And yet what right have we to apply 
 human measures of cruelty to the inferior re- 
 ilectability of a cat ? Perha])s she has no idea 
 of the mouse's being alive, in the sense that we 
 have, — most likely she looks upon it as a plea- 
 sant moveable toy, made to be eaten. — a sort 
 of lively jiudding, that oddly junips hither and 
 thitlier. It would be haid to hoiit into the liead 
 of a country squire, of the old class, that tliere 
 is any cruelty in hunting a hare ; and most as- 
 suredly it would be still harder to beat niouse- 
 sjjariug into the head of a cat. You might 
 read the most pungent essay on the subject 
 into her ear, and she would only sneeze at it. 
 
 * ICnowIes, in the " Ceg^ar of Bethnal Green."
 
 THE CAT BY THE FIRE. 
 
 As to the ini natural cruelties, which we 
 sometimes read of, coiiiiuitted by cats upon 
 their offsjiring, they are exceptions to the 
 common and beautiful rules of nature, and ac- 
 cordingly we have nothing to do with them. 
 Tliey are traceable to some unnatural circum- 
 stances of breeding or position. Enormities as 
 monstrous are to be found among human beings, 
 and argue notliing against the general cliarac- 
 ter of the species. Even dogs are not always 
 immaculate; and sages have made slips. Dr. 
 Franklin cut oft' ins son with a sliilling, for dif- 
 fering with him in politics. 
 
 But cats resemble tigers ? They are tigers 
 in miniature ? Well, — and very pretty minia- 
 tures tliey are. And what has the tiger liim- 
 self done, that he has not a right to his dinner, 
 as well as Jones ? A tiger treats a man much 
 as a cat does a mouse ;■ — granted ; but we have 
 no reason to suppose that he is aware of the 
 man's sufferings, or means anything but to 
 satisfy his liunger ; and what liave tiie butcher 
 and poulterer been about, meanwhile ? The 
 tiger, it is true, lays about him a little super- 
 fluously sometimes, when he gets into a sheejj- 
 fold,and kills more than he eats ; but does not 
 the Sipiire or the Marquis do pretty much like 
 him in the month of September 2 Nay, do we 
 not hear of veneral)le judges, that would not 
 hurt a fly, going altout in that refresliing month, 
 seeking whom they may lame ? See the effect 
 of habit and education ! And you can educate 
 tiio tiger in no other way than by attending to 
 Jiis stoniaeii. Fill tiuvt, and lie will want no 
 men to eat, probably not even to lame. On 
 the other hand, deprive Jones of his dinner for 
 a day or two, and see what a state he will be in, 
 especially if he is by nature irascible. Nay, 
 keep liim from it for an half-an-hour, and ob- 
 serve the tiger propensities of his stomach 
 and fingers, — how worthy of killing he thinks 
 the cook, and what boxes of the ear he feels in- 
 clined to give the footboy. 
 
 Animals, by the nature of things, in their 
 present state, dispose of one anotlier into their 
 respective stomachs, without ill-will on any 
 side. 'I'hey keep down the several ])opulations 
 of their neighbouKs, till time may come when 
 supei-fluous population of any kind need not 
 exist, and predatory appearances may vanisli 
 from the earth, as the Molves have done from 
 England. But whether they may or not, is not 
 a question by a hundred times so important to 
 moral inquirers, as into the possibilities of 
 human education and the nonsense of ill-will. 
 Show the nonentity of that, and we may all get 
 our dinners as jovially as we can, sure of these 
 three undoubted facts, — that life is long, death 
 short, and the world beautiful. And so we 
 bring our thoughts back again to the fireside, 
 and look at the cat. 
 
 Poor Pussy ! she looks up at us agam, as if 
 she thanked us for those vindications of dinner; 
 and symbolically gives a twist of a yawn, and 
 
 a lick to lier whiskers. Now she proceeds to 
 clean herself all over, having a just sense of 
 the demands of her elegant person, — beginning 
 judiciously with herpaws,and fetching amazing 
 tongues at her hind-hips. Anon, she scratches 
 her neck with afoot of rapid delight,leaning her 
 head towards it, and shutting her eyes, half to 
 accommodate the action of the skin, and half 
 to enjoy the luxury. She then rewards her 
 paM's with a few more touches ; — look at the 
 action of her head and neck, how pleasing it is, 
 the ears pointed forward, and the neck gently 
 arching to and fro. Finally, she gives a sneeze, 
 and another twist of mouth and whiskers, and 
 then, curling her tail towards lier front claws, 
 settles herself on her hind quarters, in an atti- 
 tude of bland meditation. 
 
 What does she think of ?— Of her saucer of 
 milk at breakfast ? or of the thump she got 
 yesterday in the kitchen for stealing the meat? 
 or of her own meat, the Tartar's dish, noble 
 horse-flesh ? or of her friend the cat next door, 
 the most impassioned of serenaders ? or of her 
 little ones, some of whom are now large, and 
 all of them gone ? Is that among her recollec- 
 tions when she looks pensive ? Does she taste 
 of the noble prerogative-sorrows of man ? 
 
 She is a sprightly cat, hardly past her youth; 
 so happening to move the fringe of the rug a 
 little with our foot, she daits out a paw, and 
 begins plucking it and inquiring into the matter, 
 as if it were a challenge to play, or something 
 lively enough to be eaten. What a grace- 
 ful action of that foot of hers, between delicacy 
 and petulance ! — combining something of a 
 thrust out, a beat, and a scratch. There seems 
 even something of a little bit of fear in it, as if 
 just enough to provoke her courage, and give 
 lier the excitement of a sense of hazard. We 
 remember being much amused with seeing a 
 kitten manifestly making a series of experiments 
 upon the patience of its mother, — trying how 
 far the latter would put up with positive bites 
 and thumps. The kitten ran at her every 
 moment, gave her a knock or a bite of the tail; 
 and then ran back again, to recommence the 
 assault. Tlie mother sate looking at her, as if 
 betwixt tolerance and admiration to see how 
 far the spirit of the family was inherited or 
 improved by her sprightly offspring. At 
 length, Jiowever, the " little Pickle" jiresumed 
 too far, and the mother, lifting up her jiaw, and 
 meeting her at the very nick of the moment, 
 gave her one of the most unsophisticated boxes 
 of tlie car we ever beheld. It sent her rolling 
 half over the room, and made her come to a 
 most ludicrous j)ause, with the oddest little 
 look of premature and wincing meditation. 
 
 That la])ping of the milk out of the saucer is 
 wliat one's human thirst cannot sympathize 
 with. It seems as if there could be no satis- 
 faction in such a series of atoms of drink. Yet 
 the saucer is soon emptied ; and there is a re- 
 freshment to one's ears in that sound of plash-
 
 PUT UP A PICTURE IN YOUR ROOM. 
 
 ing with which the action is accompanied, and 
 which seems indicative of a like comfort to 
 Puscy's mouth. Her tongue is thin, and can 
 make a spoon of itself. This, however, is 
 common to other quadrupeds with the cat, and 
 does not, therefore, more particularly belong 
 to our feline consideration. Not so the elec- 
 tricity of its coat, which gives out sparks under 
 theliand; its passion for the herb valerian (did 
 the reader ever see one roll in it ? it is a mad 
 sight) and other singular delicacies of nature, 
 among which perhaps is to be reckoned its 
 taste for fish, a creature with wliose element it 
 has so little to do, that it is supposed even to 
 abhor it ; though lately we read somewhere of 
 a swimming cat, that used to fish for itself. 
 And this reminds us of an exquisite anecdote 
 of dear, dogmatic, diseased, thoughtful, surly, 
 charitable Johnson, who would go out of doors 
 himself, and buy oysters for his cat, because 
 his black servant was too proud to do it ! Not 
 that we condemn the black, in those enslaving, 
 unliberating days. He had a right to the mis- 
 take, though we should have thought better of 
 him had he seen farther, and subjected his pride 
 to aff"oction for such a master. But Johnson's 
 true practical delicac}' in the matter is beauti- 
 ful. Be assured that he thought nothing of 
 " condescension" in it, or of being eccentric. 
 He was singular in some things, because he 
 could not help it. But he hated eccentricity. 
 No : in his best moments he felt himself simply 
 to be a man, and a good man too, thougli a 
 frail, — one that in virtue as well as humility, 
 and in a knowledge of his ignorance as well as 
 his wisdom, was desirous of being a Christian 
 philosopher ; and accordingly he went out, and 
 bought food for his hungry cat, because his 
 poor negro was too proud to do it, and there 
 was nobody else in the way whom he had a 
 right to ask. What must anybody that saw 
 him have thought, as he turned up Bolt-court ! 
 But doubtless he went as secretly as possible, 
 — that is to say, if he considered the thing at 
 all. His friend Garrick could not have done as 
 much ! He was too grand, and on the great 
 " stage" of life. Goldsmith could ; but he 
 would hardly liave tliought of it. Beauclerc 
 might ; but he would have thought it neces- 
 sary to excuse it witli a jest or a wager, or 
 some such thing. Sir Joshua Reynolds, with 
 his fashionable, fine-lady-painting hand, would 
 certainly have shrunk from it. Burke would 
 have reasoned liimself into its i)ropriety,but ho 
 would have reasoned himself out again. 
 Gibbon ! Imagine its being j)ut into tlie head 
 of Gibbon ! ! He and his bag-wig would have 
 Started with all the horror of a gentleman- 
 usher ; and he would have rung the bell for 
 tiie cook's-deputy's-under-assistant-errand-boy. 
 Cats at firesides live luxuriously, and are the 
 picture of comfort ; but lest tliey should not 
 bear their portion of trouble in tliis world, they 
 nave the drawbacks of being liable to be shut 
 
 out of doors on cold nights, beatings from the 
 "aggravated" cooks, overpettings of children, 
 (how should we like to be squeezed and pulled 
 about in that manner by some great patroniz- 
 ing giants ?) and last, not least, horrible merci- 
 less tramples of imconscious human feet and 
 unfeeling legs of chairs. Elegance, comfort, 
 and security seem the order of the day on all 
 sides, and you are going to sit down to dinner, 
 or to music, or to take tea, when all of a sudden 
 the cat gives a squall as if she was mashed ; and 
 you are not sure that the fact is otherwise. Yet 
 she gets in the way again, as before ; and dares 
 all the feet and mahogany in the room. Beau- 
 tiful present sufficingness of a cat's imagina- 
 tion ! Confined to the snug circle of her own 
 sides, and the two next inches of rug or carpet. 
 
 XL.— PUT UP A PICTURE IN YOUR 
 ROOM. 
 
 May we exhort such of our readers as have 
 no pictures hanging in their room, to put one 
 up immediately ? we mean in their jjrincipal 
 sitting-room ; — in all their rooms, if possible, 
 but, at all events, in that one. No matter how 
 costly, or the reverse, provided they see some- 
 thimj ill it, and it gives them a profitable or 
 pleasant thought. Some may allege that they 
 have " no taste for pictures ; " but they have 
 a taste for objects to be found in pictures, — for 
 trees, for landscapes, for livnnan beauty, for 
 scenes of life ; or, if not for all these, yet 
 surely for some one of them ; and it is highly 
 useful for the human mind to give itself helps 
 towards taking an interest in things apart 
 from its immediate cares or desires. They 
 serve to refresh us for their better conquest 
 or endurance ; to render sorrow unselfish ; to 
 remind us that we ourselves, or our own per- 
 sonal wishes, are not the only objects in the 
 world; to instruct and elevate us,andpntus 
 in a fairer way of realizing the good opinions 
 which we would all fain entertain of ourselves, 
 and in some nicasure do ; to malve us compare 
 notes with other individuals, and with nature 
 at large, and correct our infirmities at their 
 mirror by modesty and reflection ; in short, 
 even the admiration of a picture is a kind of 
 religion, or additional tie on our consciences, 
 and rdnnd'uhj of us, (for such is the meaning of 
 the word religion) to the greatness and good- 
 ness of nature. 
 
 Mr. Hazlitt has said somewhere, of the 
 portrait of a beautiful female with a noble 
 countenance, that it seems as if an unhand- 
 some action would be impossible in its pre- 
 sence. It is not so much for restraint's sake, 
 as for the sake of difi'usivcness of heart, or the 
 going out of ourselves, that we v.'ould recom- 
 mend pictures ; but, among other advantages, 
 this also, of reminding us of our duties, would 
 doubtless be one ; and if reminded with 
 
 U 2
 
 PUT UP A PICTURE IN YOUR ROOM. 
 
 cliiirity, the offoct, tliouffli pcrliaps small in 
 most instaiu'i's, would .still be sometliiiif;. AVo 
 have read of a Catholic money-lcmler, who, 
 when he was going to cheat a customer, 
 always drew a veil over the portrait of his 
 favourite Saint. Here was a favourite vice, 
 far more influential tlian the favourite Saint ; 
 and vet we are of ojjiiiion that the money- 
 lender was better for the Saint than he would 
 have been without him. It left him faith in 
 something ; he was better for it in the inter- 
 vals ; he would have treated his dauy;liter tlic 
 better for it, or his servant, or his dog. There 
 was a bit of heaven in his room, — a sun-beam 
 to shine into a corner of his heart, — however 
 he may have sliut the window against it, when 
 heaven was not to look on. 
 
 The companionship of anything greater or 
 better than ourselves must do us good, unless 
 we are destitute of all modesty or patience. 
 And a picture is a companion, and the next 
 thing to the presence of what it represents. 
 We may live in the thick of a city, for in- 
 stance, and can seldom go out, and " feed " 
 ourselves 
 
 With pleasure of the breathing fields ; 
 
 but we can put up a picture of the fields before 
 us, and, as we get used to it, we shall find it 
 the next thing to seeing the fields at a distance. 
 For every picture is a kind of window, which 
 supplies us witli a fine sight ; and many a 
 thick, unpierced wall thus lets us into the 
 studies of the greatest men, and the most 
 beautiful scenes of nature. By living with 
 pictures we learn to " read " them, — to see 
 into every nook and corner of a landscape, 
 and every feature of the mind ; and it is im- 
 possible to be in the habit of. these perusals, 
 or even of being vaguely conscious of the pre- 
 sence of the good and beautiful, and consider- 
 ing them as belonging to xis, or forming a part 
 of our common-places, without being, at the 
 very least, less subject to tlie disadvantages 
 arising from having no such thoughts at all. 
 
 And it is so easy to square the picture to 
 one's as])irations, or professions, or the powers 
 of one's pocket. For, as to resolving to liave 
 no picture at all in one's room, unless we could 
 have it costly, and finely painted, and finely 
 framed, tliat would be a mistake so vulgar, 
 that we trust no reader of any decent publica- 
 tion now-a-days could fall into it. The greatest 
 knave or simpleton in England, provided he is 
 rich, can procure one of the finest paintings 
 in the world to-morrow, and know nothing 
 about it when he has got it ; but to feel the 
 beauties of a work of art, or to be capable of 
 being led to feel them, is a gift which often 
 falls to the lot of the poorest ; and this is what 
 Raphael or Titian desired in those who looked 
 at their pictures. All the rest is taking the 
 clothes for the man. Now it so happens, that 
 the cheapest engravings, though they cannot 
 
 come up to the merits of the orifjinals, often 
 contain no mean ])ortioii or shadow of them ; 
 and when we .speak of puttintf jjietures uf» in 
 a room, we use the word ''picture" in the 
 child's sense, meaning any kind of graphic 
 representation, oil, water-colour, copper-plate, 
 drawing, or wood-cut. And any one of these 
 is worth putting up in your room, provided 
 you have mind enough to get a pleasure from 
 it. Even a frame is not necessary, if you 
 cannot afi'ord it. P.etter jnit up a rough, var- 
 nished engraving, tiian none at all, — or pin, 
 or stick up, any engraving whatsoever, at the 
 liazard of its growing never so dirty. You 
 will keep it as clean as you can, and for as 
 long a time ; and as for the rest, it is better to 
 liave a good memorandum before you, and get 
 a fresh one when you are able, than to have 
 none at all, or even to keep it clean in a port- 
 folio. How sliould you like to keej) your own 
 heart in a portfolio, or lock your friend up in 
 another room ? We are no fiiends to port- 
 folios, except where they contain more prints 
 than can be hung up. The more, in tliat case, 
 the better. 
 
 Our readers have seen in all parts of the 
 country, over the doors of public -houses, 
 "Perkins and Co.'s Entire." This Perkins, 
 who died wealthy a few years ago, was not a 
 mere brewer or rich man. He had been head- 
 clerk to Thrale, the friend of Dr. Johnson ; 
 and, during his clerkship, the Doctor happen- 
 ing to go into his counting-house, saw a por- 
 trait of himself (Johnson) hanging up in it. 
 "How is this. Sir ? " inquired Johnson. " Sir," 
 said Perkins, " I was resolved that my room 
 should have had one great man in it." " A very 
 jjretty compliment," returned the gratified 
 moralist, " and I believe you mean it sincerely." 
 Mr. Perkins did not thrive tlie worse for 
 having the portrait of Johnson in his counting- 
 liouse. Peojde are in general quite enougli 
 inclined to look after the interests of " number 
 one ;" but they make a poor business of it, rich as 
 they may become, unless they include a power 
 of forgetting it in behalf of number two ; that 
 is to say, of some one person, or thinj^, besides 
 themselves, able to divert them from mere 
 self-seeking. It is not uncommon to see one 
 solitary portrait in a lawyer's office, and that 
 l)ortrait, a lawyer's, generally some judge. It 
 is better tliau none. Anything is better than 
 the poor, small unit of a man's selfi.sh self, 
 even if it be but the next thing to it. And 
 tliere is the cost of the engraving and frame. 
 Sometimes tliere is more ; for these profes- 
 sional ])rints, especially when alone, are meant 
 to imjsly, that the possessor is a shrewd, indus- 
 trious, proper lawyer, who sticks to his calling, 
 and wastes his time in " no nonsense ; " and 
 this ostentation of business is in some instances 
 a cover for idleness or disgust, or a blind for a 
 lather or rich uncle. Now it would be better, 
 we think, to have two pictures instead of one,
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 the judge's by all means, for the professional 
 part of the gentleman's soul, — and some one 
 other picture, to show his client that he is a 
 man as well as a lawyer, and has an eye to the 
 world outside of him, as well as to his own ; 
 for as men come from that world to consult him, 
 and generally think their cases just in the 
 eyes of common sense as well as law, they 
 like to see that he has some sympathies as well 
 as cunning. 
 
 Upon these grounds, it would be well for 
 men of other callings, if they acted in a similar 
 way. The young merchant should reasonably 
 have a portrait of some eminent merchant 
 before his eyes, with some other, not far off, 
 to hinder him from acknowledging no merit 
 but ill riches. Or he might select a merchant 
 of such a character as could serve both uses, — 
 Sir Thomas Gresham, for instance, who encou- 
 raged knowledge as well as money-getting, — 
 or Lorenzo de Medici, the princely merchant 
 of Italy. So with I'egard to clergjTiien, to 
 professions of all sorts, and to trade. The 
 hosier, in honour of his calling, might set up 
 Defoe, who was one of that trade, as well as 
 author of Robinson Crusoe ; the bookseller, 
 may the footman, Dodsley, who was at one 
 time a footman as well as a bookseller and 
 author, and behaved excellently under all 
 characters ; and the tailor might baulk petty 
 animadversions on his trade, by having a 
 portrait, or one of the many admirable works, 
 of the great Annibal Caracci, who was a 
 tailor's son. It would be advisable, in gene- 
 ral, to add a landscape, if possible, for reasons 
 already intimated ; but a jjicture of some sort 
 we hold to be almost indispensably necessary 
 towards doing justice to the habitation of 
 every one who is capable of reflection and 
 improvement. The print-shops, the book- 
 stalls, the portfolios containing etchings and 
 engravings at a penny or twopence a-piece 
 (often superior to plates charged twenty times 
 as much), and lastly, the engravings that 
 make their way into the shop-windows, out 
 of the Annuals of the past season, and that 
 are to be had for almost as little, will furnish 
 tlie ingenuous reader of this article with an 
 infinite store to choose from ; and if he is as 
 good-natured as he is sensible, we will venture 
 to wliisper into his ear, that we should take it 
 as a personal kindness of him, and hope he 
 would consider us as a friend assisting him in 
 putting it up. 
 
 XLL— A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 BEAUTIES OK ST. FRANCIS DE SALES. 
 
 Looking over the catalogue, the other day, 
 of Mr. Cawtliorn's excellent circulating library 
 (which has the books it professes to have, — a 
 ••are virtue in such establishments) our curiosity 
 >v as raised by a vohimo intitled " Deauties of St. 
 
 Francis de Sales." We sent for it, and found 
 we had started so delicious a saint, that we 
 vowed we must make him known to our 
 readers. He is a true godsend, a man of men, 
 a real quintessence of Christian charity and 
 shrewd sense withal (things not Only far from 
 incompatible, but thoroughly amalgamable) ; 
 in short, a man as sensible as Dr. Johnson, 
 with all the piety and patience which the 
 Doctor desired to have, all the lowliness and 
 kind fellowship which it would have puzzled 
 him to behold in a prelate, and all the delicacy 
 and true breeding which would have trans- 
 Ijorted him. Like Fenelon, he was a sort of 
 angel of a gentleman, a species of phoenix 
 which, we really must say, the French Church 
 seems to have produced beyond any other. 
 Not that we undervalue the Hookers and 
 Jewels, and other primitive excellences of our 
 own. Deeply do we love and venerate them. 
 But we like to see a human being de^•elop all 
 the humanities of which he is capable, those 
 of outward as well as inward elegance not 
 excepted ; not indeed in the inconsistent and 
 foppish shape of a Sir Charles Grandison (who 
 comes hushing upon us with insinuations of 
 equal perfection in dancing and the decalogue, 
 with soft deprecations of our astonishment, 
 and all sorts of equivocal worldly accomplish- 
 ments, which the author has furnished him 
 with, on purpose to keep his piety safe — 
 swordsmanship, for one) but in whatsoever, 
 being the true spirit of a gentleman, manifests 
 itself outwardly in consequence, shaping the 
 movements of the commonest and most super- 
 ficial parts of life to the unaffected elegance of 
 the spirit within, and at the same time refusing 
 no fellowship with iionesty of any sort, nor 
 ostentatiously claiming it, but feeling and 
 having it, because of its true, natural, lione.st 
 heart's blood, and a tendency to relish all 
 things in common with us, " passioned as we." 
 
 When a man exliibits this nature, as St. 
 Francis de Sales did, and exhibits it too in the 
 shape of a mortified saint of the Romish 
 Church, a lone lodger, a celibatory, entering 
 into everybody else's wishes and feelings, but 
 denying himself some of the most precious to 
 a being so constituted, we feel j)roud for the 
 sake of the capabilities of humanity — proud 
 because we belong to a species which we are 
 utterly unable to illustrate so in our own 
 persons — proud, and happy, and hopeful that 
 if one human being can do so much, thousands, 
 nay all, by like opportunities, and a like loving 
 breeding, may ultimately do, not indeed the 
 same, but enough — enough for themselves, and 
 enough for the like exalted natures, too, who 
 have the luck to live in such times. 
 
 Even if such times are not to come, but are 
 merely among the fancies or necessary activi- 
 ties of the human mind, then still we are 
 grateful for the vision by the way, and, above 
 all, for the excjuisite real fellowship.
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 We need not deprecate any ill construction 
 of our use of the term "gentleman saint." In 
 some sort, we do confess, we use it with a 
 delighted smile on our face, astonished to start 
 such a phenomenon in high life ; but while the 
 conversational sense of the word is included, 
 we claim for it, as we have exjjlained, the 
 very largest and truest sense. One of our 
 brave old I'nglish dramatists, brave because 
 his humanity misgave him in notliing, dared 
 to call the divinest of beings that have trod 
 the earth — 
 
 " The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 
 
 Here is another (at far distance) of the same 
 lieraldry, his shield — 
 
 "heart shaped, and vermeil dyed." 
 
 Fenelon was another, but not so active or 
 persuasive as De Sales. St. Vincent de Paul, 
 if we mistake not, the founder of the Sisters 
 of Charity, was a fourth. So, we believe, was 
 St. Thomas Aquinas. So, perhajis, was Jeremy 
 'i'aylor, and certainly Berkeley— the latter, the 
 more unquestionably of the two, because he 
 was the more active in doing good, and mani- 
 festly did not care twopence for honours and 
 profits, compared with the cliance of benefiting 
 his fellow-creatures. At one time, for this 
 purj)ose, he petitioned to give up his prefer- 
 ments ! Swift has a pleasant passage in 
 furtherance of this object, in which he tolls 
 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that Dr. 
 Berkeley will be miserable in case he is not 
 allowed to give up some hundreds a year. 
 
 We will first give the " General Biographical 
 Dictionary" account of St. Francis de Sales, 
 and follow it with a notice of the book 
 before us. 
 
 " St. Francis de Sales was born at the Castle 
 of Sales, in the diocese of Geneva, August 21, 
 15(;7. lie descended from one of the most 
 ancient and noble families of Savoy. Having 
 taken a doctor of law's degree at Padua, he 
 was first advocate at Chambery, then provost 
 of the church of Geneva at Annecy. Claudius 
 de Granier, his bishop, sent him as a mission- 
 ary into the valleys of his diocese, to convert 
 the Zuingiians and Calvinists, which he is said 
 to have performed in great numbers, (sic) and 
 his sermons were attended with wondei-ful suc- 
 cess. Tiie bishoj) of (ieneva chose him after- 
 wards for his coadjutor, but was obliged to 
 use authority before he could be persuaded to 
 accept the office. Religious affairs called him 
 afterwards into France, where he was univer- 
 sally esteemed ; and Cardinal du Perron said, 
 " There were no heretics whom he could not 
 convince, but M. de Geneva must be employed 
 to convert them." Henry JV., being informed 
 of his merit, made him considerable otFers, in 
 hopes of detaining liim in France ; but he 
 chose rather to return to Savoy, where he 
 arrived in H>02, and found Bishop Granier had 
 died a few days before. St. Francis then 
 
 iiixlertook the reformation of his diocese, 
 where piety and virtue soon flourished through 
 his zeal : he restored regularity in tiie monas- 
 teries, and instituted the order of the Visita- 
 tion in 1010, which was confirmed by Paul V., 
 KJlfi, and of wliich the Baroness de Chantal, 
 whom he converted by his preaching at Dijon, 
 was the foundress. He also established a 
 congregation of hermits in Chablais, restored 
 ecclesiastical discipline to its ancient vigour, 
 and converted numeious heretics to the faith. 
 At the latter end of l(il8, St. Francis was 
 obliged to go again to Paris, with the Cardinal 
 de Savoy, to conclude a marriage between the 
 Prince of Piedmont and Christina of France, 
 second daughter of Henry IV. This princess, 
 herself, chose de Sales for her chief almoner ; 
 but he would accept the place only on two 
 conditions ; one, that it should not preclude 
 his residing m his diocese ; the other, that 
 whenever he did not execute his office, he 
 should not receive the t)rofits of it. These 
 unusual terms the princess was obliged to 
 consent to ; and immediately, as if by way of 
 investing him with his office, presented him 
 with a very valuable diamond, saying, ' On 
 condition that you will keep it for my sake.' 
 To v>'hich he replied, ' I promise to do so, 
 madam, unless tiie jioor stand in need of it.' 
 Returning to Annecy, he continued to visit 
 the sick, relieve those in want, instruct the 
 people, and discharge all the duties of a pious 
 bishop, till l(j(i2 ; when he died of an apoplexy 
 at Lyons, December 28, aged fifty-six, leaving 
 sevei'al religious works, collected in 2 vols, 
 folio. The most known are, the ' Introduction 
 to a Devout Life,' and ' Philo, or a treatise on 
 the Love of God.' MarsoUier has written his 
 life, (2 vols. 12mo,) which was translated into 
 English by Mr. Crathorne. He was canonized 
 in 1(JG5."— (Moreri.— Diet. Hist.— Butler.) 
 
 The writers of this notice do not seem to 
 have been aware, that Camus, Bishop of Bellay, 
 the diisciple and friend of St. Francis, wrote a 
 large account of him, " the Beauties" of which 
 the work before us jirofesses to give the public. 
 This English volume is itself a curiosity. It 
 is printed at Barnet, and emanates most likely 
 from some public-spirited enthusiast of the 
 Roman Catholic i)ersuasiofi, who has thought, 
 not witliout reason, to sow a good seed in these 
 strange, opinion-coiiHicting, yet truth-desiring 
 times, when a little (ji-nnim Christianity stands 
 u chance of being well received, from what- 
 ever quarter it comes. A friend of ours, 
 smittini with love of the book, has applied for 
 a copy at Messrs. Longman's, whose name is 
 in the title page, but is told that they have 
 not one left ; so that if the Barnet press do 
 not take Christian i)ity ujjon the curious, we 
 know not what is to be done for them, apart 
 from the following extracts ; which, however, 
 we take to be quite enough to set any hand- 
 some nund upon salutary: reflections.
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 Camus, the Boswell of a saint, is himself a 
 curiosity. He was a man of wit and a satirist, 
 and so far (in the latter respect) not very well 
 fitted for ultra Christian aspiration. But- he 
 was also an enthusiastic lovei of goodness, and 
 of his great seraphical friend ; whom he looked 
 up to with all the congregated humilities of a 
 younger age, a real self-knowledge, and an 
 unaflFected modesty. He was naturally as 
 hasty in his temperament as St. Francis was 
 the reverse ; and was always for getting on 
 too fast, and being angry that others would 
 not be Chi-istian enough ; and it is quite 
 delightful to see with what sense and good- 
 humour his teacher reproves him, and sets 
 him in the right way ; upon whicli the young 
 bishop begins over-emulating the older one 
 (for they were both prelates together), trying 
 to imitate his staid manners and deliberate 
 style of preaching ; and then St. Francis 
 reproves him again, joking as well as reason- 
 ing, and showing how he was spoiling the 
 style peculiar to himself (Camus), with no 
 possibility of getting at the style of another 
 man — the result of his habits and particular 
 turn of mind. 
 
 But let the reader see for himself what a 
 nature this man liad, — what wisdom with 
 simplicity, what undeviating kindness, what 
 shrewd worldly discernment with unworldly 
 feelings ; what capital Johnsonian good sense, 
 and wit too, and illustration, sometimes as 
 familiar as any table-talk could desire, at others 
 in the very depth of the heart of sentiment 
 and poetical gi-ace. Observe also what a proper 
 saint he was for e very-day, as well as for holi- 
 days, and how he could sit down at table and 
 be an ordinary unaffected gentleman among 
 gentlemen, and dine at less elegant tables at 
 inns, and say a true honest word, with not a 
 syllable of pretence in it, for your hard-work- 
 ing innkeeper, — " publican," and, perhaps, " sin- 
 ner," as he was. 
 
 "Beautiful are the ceremonies of the church !" 
 said a Roman ('atholic prelate, when a great 
 wax-candle was brought before him, stuck full 
 of pieces of gold (his perquisite.) " Beautiful 
 are the ceremonies of the church !" think we, 
 also, though no Roman Catliolic, when we 
 hear the organ roll, and the choir voices rising, 
 and see the white wax-candles on the altar, 
 and the dark glowing paintings, full of hopeful 
 or sweet-suffering faces. But most truly beauti- 
 ful, certainly, must tlu^y have been, when they 
 had such a man as this St. Francis de Sales 
 ministering at tlie altar, and making those 
 seraphical visions true, in tlie shape of an 
 evcry-day human being. But to our ex- 
 tracts : — 
 
 " In speaking of brotherly correction (says 
 the good Bishop Camus), St. Francis gave me 
 a lesson which I have not forgottou. lie 
 repeated it often, the better to impress it on 
 my memory. ' That sincerity,' said he, ' which is 
 
 not charitahle, jjroceeds from a charity which is not 
 sincere.'' A worthy saying, worthy of being 
 deeply considered and faithfully remembered. 
 
 " IT IS BETTER TO REMAIN SILENT THAN SPEAK THE TRUTH 
 ILL-IU'.MOIREDLT, AND SO SrOU, AN EXCELLENT DISH BV 
 COVERING IT WITH BAD SAUCE. 
 
 " I asked St. Francis, if there were no other 
 way by which I might discern from whai 
 fountain reproaches flowed. He, whose heart 
 was wrapped up in benevolence, replied, in 
 the true spirit of the great apostle, — ' When 
 they are made with mildness— j«(/(7«<?m is the 
 sister of lore, and inseparable from her. With this 
 idea St. Paul says, She beareth all things, 
 believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth 
 all things. God, tcho is charity, guides the meek 
 with his counsel, and teaches his ways to the 
 simple. His spirit is not in the hurricane, the 
 foaming cataract, or the tempestuous winds ; 
 but in the soft breath of the gentle zephyr. 
 Is mildness come ? said the prophet ; then are 
 we corrected. I advise you to imitate the 
 good Samaritan, who poured oil and wine into 
 the wounds of the unhappy traveller. You 
 know tluit in a good salad there should he more oil 
 than vineqar or salt. Be always as mild as you 
 can ; a spoonful of honey attracts more flies 
 than a barrel of vinegar. If you must fall into 
 any extreme, Irt it be on the side of gentleness. The 
 human mind is so constructed, that it resists 
 rigour, and yields to softness. A mild word 
 quenches anger, as water quenches the rage of 
 fire ; and by benignity any soil may be rendered 
 fruitful. Truth, uttered with courtesy, is 
 heaping coals of fire on the head ; or, rather, 
 
 THROWING ROSES IV THE FACE. HolO Can ICC 
 
 resist a foe tcJwse weajmns are pearls and diamonds? 
 Some fruits, like nuts, are by nature bitter, 
 but rendered sweet by being candied with 
 sugar ; such is reproof, bitter till candied 
 with meekness, and preserved with the fire 
 of charity.' 
 
 " St. Francis always d'tscouraged professions of 
 humility, if tliey were not very true and rcry 
 sincere. ' Such professions,' he said, ' are the 
 vei-y cream, the very essence of pride ; the 
 real humble man wishes to be, and not to 
 appear so. Humility is timorous, and starts 
 at her shadow ; and so delicate, that if slie 
 hears her name pronounced, it endangers her existence. 
 lie who blames himself, takes a by-road to 
 praise ; and, like the rower, turns his back to 
 the place whither he desires to go. He would 
 be irritated if what he said against himself were 
 believed ; but from a principle of pride, he 
 desires to appear humble.' 
 
 " I esteemed my friend (resumes excellent 
 Camus) so highly, that all his actions ai>pearod 
 to me perfect. It came into my liead that it 
 would be a very good thing tocojiy his manner 
 of preacliiug. Do not suppose that I attempted 
 to equal iiiin in tiie loftiness of liis ideas, in 
 the depth of his arguments, in the strength of
 
 A GENTLEJIAN-SAINT. 
 
 liis reasonings, in the excellence of his judg- 
 ment, tlie mildness of liis expressions, the 
 order and just connection of his jn-riods, or 
 that iucomparable sweetness which could soften 
 thi' hardest heart ; no, that was quite beyond 
 my powers. 1 was like a fly, which, not hein;^ 
 alile to walk on the polished surface of a mir- 
 ror, is contented to remain on the frame which 
 surrounds it. 1 amused myself in copying his 
 gesture, in conforming myself to his slow and 
 quiet nuiuner of pronouncing and moving, 
 ^ly own manner was naturally the very reverse 
 of all this ; the metamorphosis was therefore so 
 Btiange, that I was scarcely to be recognised. 
 I was no longer myself. I contrived to spoil 
 my own original manner, without acquiring 
 the admirable one which I so idly copied. 
 
 " St. I'rancis heard of this, and one day took 
 an opportunity of saying to me—' Speaking of 
 sermons reminds me of a strange piece of news 
 which has reached my ears. It is repoi-ted 
 that you try, in j reaching, to adopt the Eishop 
 of Geneva's peculiarities.' I warded off this 
 reproof by saying, ' And do you think I have 
 chosen a bad example ? What is your opinion 
 of the Bishop of Geneva's preaching?' 'Ha!' 
 said he, ' this grate question attacks reputation. 
 ir/ij/, he really does not pi-each bacUy ; but the 
 fact is, that you are accused of being so bad a 
 ouiiD'c, that nothing is to be seen but an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt, which spoils the Bishop of Bellay, 
 without represeutiiiij the Bishop of Genera. So that 
 you ought to do as a bad painter did ; he 
 wrote under his picture the name of the objects 
 wiiich they misrepresented.' 'Let them talk,' 
 said I, ' and you will find that, by degrees, the 
 apprentice will become master, and tlic copies 
 be mistaken for originals.' ' Joking apart,' 
 rejoined my friend, 'you do yourself an injury. 
 Why demolish a well-built edifice to erect one 
 in its stead in which no rules of nature or art 
 are adhered to ? and at your age, if you once 
 take a wrong bias, it will be diflicult to set you 
 right again. If natures could be exchanged, gladly 
 would 1 exchange with you. I do all I can to 
 rouse myself to animation. I try to be less tedious, 
 but the more haste I make the more I impede my 
 course. I have difficulty in finding words, and 
 greater still in pronouncing them. I am as 
 slow as a tortoise. I can neither raise emotion 
 in myself nor in my auditors. All my labour 
 to do so is inefficient. You advance with 
 crowded sail, I nuike my waj- with rowing. 
 You fly — 1 creep. You have more fire in one 
 finger than I have in my whole body. Your 
 r'-adiness and promptitude are wonderful, your 
 vivacity iiTie(iualled, aiul now peoj)le say you 
 weigh each word, count every period, appear 
 languid yourself, and weary your audience.' 
 You may well imajine liow this irell-thmd reproof 
 and commendation cured my folly. I returned 
 immediately to my original manner."— 
 
 " ' The best fish are nourished in the luqjalat- 
 able waters of the sea, and the best souls are 
 
 improved by sitch opposition as does not extinguish 
 charity.' 
 
 " I asked St. Francis what disposition of mind 
 was tlie best with which to meet death '. He 
 coolly rejdied, ' A charitable disposition.' " — 
 
 " Do not overrate the blessings which God 
 gives to others, and then underrate or despise 
 what are given to yourself. It is the property 
 of a little mind to say. Our neighbour's harvest 
 is always more plentiful than our own, and his 
 flock more prosperous." — 
 
 " I comi)lained of some great hardships which 
 I had experienced ; it was obvious that St. 
 Francis agreed in thinking that I had been 
 ill-treated. Finding myself so well seconded, 
 / was triumphant, and exaggerated the justice of 
 my cause in a su})erfluity of words. To stop 
 the torrent of complaint St. Francis said, 
 ' Certainly they are wrong in treating you in 
 this manner. It is beneath them to do so, 
 es])ecially to a man in your condition ; but in 
 the whole of the business I see only one thing 
 to your disadvantage.' 'What is that?' 'That 
 you might hare been wiser, and remained silent!' 
 This answer came so immediately home to me, 
 that I felt immediately silenced, and found it 
 impossible to make any reply." 
 
 The following was a strange bit of super- 
 erogation in the lively Bishop of Bellay. His 
 candour hardly excuses it. Yet it increases 
 our interest in his friend. 
 
 " St. Francis practised himself the lessons 
 which he taught to others ; and during four- 
 teen years that I was under his direction, and 
 made it my study to remark all his actions, 
 and even his very gestures and words, 1 never 
 observed in him the slightest affectation of 
 singularity. I will confess one of my con- 
 trivances when he visited me in my own house, 
 and remained, as his custom was, a week 
 annually : / contrived to bore holes, by which I saw 
 him when alone, engaged in study, i)rayer, or 
 reading, meditating, dressing, sitting, walking, 
 or writing, when usually persons are most off 
 their guard ; yet I could not trace any differ- 
 ence in attitude or manner : his behaviour was 
 ever as sincere and undisguised as his heart. 
 He had, when alone, the same dignified man- 
 ners as when in society ; tehen lie prayed, you 
 would hare imagined that he saic himst:lf surrounded 
 by holy angels ; motionless, and with a counte- 
 nance of humble reverence. I never saw him 
 indulge in any indolent attitude (!), neither 
 crossing his legs, nor resting his head on his 
 hand ; at all times he presented the same 
 aspect of mingled gravity and sweetness, 
 which never failed to insjiire love and resjject. 
 He used to say, that our 'manners should resemble 
 water, best when clearest, most simple, and without 
 taste. However, though he had no peculiarities 
 of behaviour, it appeared so singular that he 
 should have no singularities, tliat he struck 
 me therefore as very singular." —
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 WlLLINtJLy, NOT BY CONSTRAINT. 
 
 " This was my friend's favourite saying, and 
 the secret of his government. He used to say 
 that those who would force the human will 
 exercise a tyranny odious to God. He never 
 could bear those haughty persons who would 
 be obeyed, whether willingly or not, they cared 
 not ; ' Those,' he said, 'who love to be feared, 
 fear to be loved ; they themselves are of all 
 peoplethemost abject ; some fear them, but they 
 fear every one. In the royal galley of Divine 
 Love there is no force — the racers are all rolaiiteers.' 
 On this principle he always moulded his com- 
 mands into the softer form of entreaty. St. 
 Peter's words — ' Feed the tlock of God, not by 
 constraint,' he was very fond of. I complained 
 of the resistance I met with in my parochial 
 visits. ' What a commanding spirit you 
 liave !' he replied ; ' yon want to walk on the 
 wings of the wind, and you let yourself be 
 carried away with zeal. Like an ignis-fatims, 
 it leads to the edge of precipices. Do you seek 
 to shackle the will of man, when God has seen fit to 
 hare it free V — 
 
 " St. Francis did not approve of the saying — 
 ' Never rely on a reconciled enemy.' He 
 rather preferred a contrary maxim ; and said, 
 ' that a quarrel between friends, when made 
 lip, added a new tie to friendship ; as experience 
 shows, that the callosity formed round a broken hone 
 makes it stromjer than before. Those who are 
 reconciled, often renew their friendship with 
 increased warmth : the offender is on his rfuard 
 aminst a relapse, and anxious to atone for past un- 
 kindness ; and the offended glory in forgiving and 
 forgetting the wrongs that hate been done to them. 
 Princes are doubly careful of reconquered towns, and 
 preserve them with more care than those the enemy 
 never gained.' — 
 
 " St. Francis had particular delight in contem- 
 plating a painting of the Penitent Magdalen at 
 the foot of the Cross ; and sometimes called it 
 liis manual and his library. Seeing a copy of 
 tliis picture at Bellay, 'Oh,' said he, 'what a 
 blessed and advantageous exchange the peni- 
 tent Mary made ; she pours tears on the feet 
 of (Christ, and from those feet blood streams to 
 wash away all her sins.' To this thought he 
 added another — ' How carefully we shouhl 
 cherish the little virtues which spring up at the foot of 
 the cross, since they are sprinkled with the 
 blood of the Son of God.' 
 
 '"What virtues do you mean ?' He replied, 
 ' Humility, patience, meekness, benignity, 
 bearing one another's burden, condescension, 
 softness of heart, cheerfulness, cordiality, com- 
 passion, forgiving injuries, sim])licity, candour ; 
 all, in short, of that sort. They, like unobtrusive 
 riolets, lore the shade ,■ like them are sustained by 
 dew ; and though, like them, they make litth show, 
 they shed a Sfwect odour on all arnuntf.' — 
 
 " To obey a ferocious, savage, ill-humoured, 
 thankless master, i*- to draw clear ipater from a 
 
 fountain streaming from the jaws of a brazen lion. 
 As Samson says. It is to tind food in the 
 devourer. It is to see God only." [This is 
 beautiful ; and that is a fine bit of jjoetry about 
 the lion ; strength and sweetness meet in it. 
 He is speaking of a master whom it happens 
 to be incumbent on us to obey.] 
 
 " St. Francis highly esteemed those persons 
 who kept inns, and entertained travellers*, 
 provided they were civil and obliging, saying, 
 that no condition in life, he thought, had 
 greater means of serving God and man ; for it 
 is a continual exercise of benevolence and 
 mercy, though, like a physician, the fee is paid." 
 
 [How oddly the following sounds in a Pro- 
 testant ear, said of a " St. Francis !"] 
 
 " One day, after dinner, my friend was ainus- 
 ing us with his entertaining conversation, and the 
 subject of innkeepers being accidentally started, 
 the different persons present very freely gave 
 their opinions on the subject, and one among 
 them declared the whole set to be rogues. 
 
 " This did not please St. Francis ; but as it 
 was neither a fit time nor place for reproof, nor 
 was the sarcastic gentleman in a mood to receive 
 it, he turned the discourse by telling the 
 following anecdote : — 
 
 " A Spanish pilgrim, little burdened with 
 money, arrived at an inn, where, after having 
 served him very ill, they charged him so much 
 for his bad faro, that he loudly exclaimed at 
 the injustice. However, being tlie weaker one, 
 he was forced to give way and be satisfied. 
 He left the inn in anger, and observing that it 
 was facing another inn, and that in the inter- 
 mediate space a cross had been erected, he 
 soothed his rage by exclaiming. Truly, this 
 place is a second Calvary, where the Holy 
 Cross is stationed between two thieves (mean- 
 ing the two innkeepers). The host of the oppo- 
 site hotel, without appearing to notice his 
 displeasure, coolly asked what injury he had 
 received from him, which he thus rej)aid with 
 abuse? Hush, hush, said the pilgrim, my 
 worthy friend, be not offended, you are the good 
 thief; but what say you of your neighbour, who 
 has fiayed me alive ! This civility,' pursued 
 St. Francis, 'soothed the pilgrim's wrath ; but 
 we should be careful not to stigmatise whole 
 nations or trades, by terming tiiem rogues, im- 
 pertinent, &c., for even if \Ve have no individual 
 in vi(>w, each individual of the nation or trade 
 is a sufferer by the sarcasm, and cannot like to 
 be so stigmatised.' 
 
 "To this I must add, that St. Francis so highly 
 esteemed innkeepers, that, in travelling, he for- 
 bade his servants to disjuite about their charges, 
 and ordered them rather to j>ay tlian to expos- 
 tulate ; and when told that the bills were 
 unreasonable, and that they asked more than 
 
 * The reader is to bear in mind tliat these were foreign 
 inns, and in old times, when a taveru-ieeper's bfe was 
 ' not so easy as it is now.
 
 10 
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 tliey deserved, lie would reply, * What ought 
 we to reckon in the account for their trouble, 
 care, civility, and tVe(HK'nt disturbances at 
 night I Certainly tliey cannot be too well 
 paid.' This good-nature of my friend was so 
 well known, that the innkeepers were always 
 anxious to present their bills to him rather 
 than to his servants ; or else to throw them- 
 selves on his liberality, well knowing that he 
 would give more than they could have asked." 
 
 POORNRSS I^f SPIRIT, AND SPIRIT IN POVKRTV. 
 
 Of these wo have two opposite examples in 
 St. Charles JJurromeo and St. Francis de Sales. 
 St. Cliarles was nephew to the Jtope, and very 
 wealthy ; he had an income of more than 
 100,000 crowns, besides his considerable patri- 
 mony ; but, amidst this wealth, he was poor in 
 sj)irit, he had neither tapestry, plate, nor mag- 
 nificent furniture : — his table was so frugal, as 
 to be almost austere ; and he himself lived 
 chiefly on bread, water, and vegetables. The 
 coffers which contained his treasures were the 
 liands of the jioor ; thus in splendour was he 
 hurnble. 
 
 Our saint had a different spirit : he was rich 
 in lux porcrty ; of his bishopric little remained to 
 him, and hig patrimony/ he let his brothers enjoy. 
 But he never rejected tapestry, plate, nor fine 
 furniture, especially what might adorn the 
 altar. yb/" he loced to adorn the house of God. 
 
 THOROUGH LO.VE. 
 
 " We cannot deny that lore is, of all mild 
 emotions, the mildest — the very sweetener of 
 bitterness — yet we find it compared to death 
 and the grave ; the reason of which is, that 
 nothing is so forcible as gentleness, and nothing 
 so jientle and so amiable as firmness. 
 
 " There was a society of holy men," said St. 
 Francis, "who one day accosted me thus, — 
 ' Oh, sir, what can we do this year ? Last year 
 we failed, and did penance thrice a week ; 
 what shall we do now ? Must we not do some- 
 thing more, both to testify our gratitude for 
 the blessings we have received during the last 
 year, and also that we may make some pi-ogress 
 in the worli of God ?' 
 
 " ' Very i'ight,' I replied, ' that you should 
 always be advancing ; however, your progress 
 will not be made by the methods you propose 
 — of increasing your religious exercises — but 
 by the imjiroved heart and dispositions with 
 which you afford them, trusting in God more 
 and more, and watching yourselves more and 
 more. Last year you fasted three days in 
 each week ; if you double the number of fasts 
 this year, every day will be a day of abstinence, 
 and the rjear folloicimj what will you do ? — you will 
 be obliged to make weeks of nine days long, or else to 
 fast each day twice over* " 
 
 [Here follows a strong and apparently a 
 dangerous meat : yet the essence of sweetness, 
 and even of safety, is in it. But pray ever mark 
 
 our bold and admirable, as well as amiable, 
 saint.] 
 
 " 1 do not know," said St. Francis, " how that 
 poor rirtiii', finultnr,', has offended nu', bat I 
 cannot cordially like it — I care for it by necemty, 
 as being the salt and lamp of life. The beauty 
 of simplicity charms mo — / would girc « hundred 
 mrpents for one dorc. Both together, they are 
 useful, and Scripture enjoins us to unite them ; 
 but, as in medical compounds, many drugs 
 must be put together to form a salutary draught, 
 so I would not place any reliance on an equal 
 dose ; for the serpent might detour the inoffcneire 
 don. People say, that in a corrupt age like 
 the present, prudence is absolutely requisite to 
 prevent being deceived. 1 do not blame this 
 wa.rim, but I believe it is more Christian to let 
 ourselves be devoured, and our goods spoiled, 
 knowing that a better and more lasting inhe- 
 ritance awaits us. A good Christian woidd 
 rather be robbed than rob others — rather be 
 murdered than murderer — martyred than 
 tyrant ; — in a word it is far better to be good 
 and simple, than shrewd and vmcliierous." — 
 
 "There is a strange inconsistency in the 
 human mind, which leads men to scrutinise 
 with severity the secrets of their fellow-crea- 
 tures' souls, which it is impossible they should erer 
 clearly discover; while they neglect to examine 
 and probe into the springs of their own conduct, 
 whicli, if they do not, tlicy certainly ought to 
 know. The first they are forbidden, and the 
 second they are commanded to do. 
 
 "Tills reminds me of a woman remarkable 
 for her waywardness,and constant disobedience 
 to the orders of her husband. She was 
 drowned in a river. On hearing of it, her hus- 
 band desired that the river should be dragged 
 in search of the body ; he bid his servants go 
 against the current of the stream, observing, We 
 hare no reason to suppose that she should liate lost 
 her spirit of contradiction" — 
 
 St. Francis gave an excellent nde, which is, 
 that " if an action may be considered in more lights 
 than one, always to choose the most faroundjle. If 
 there is no apology to be found, soften tlie bad 
 impression it makes, by reflecting that the in- 
 tention might not have been equally blameable ; 
 remember tliat the temptation might have 
 been greater tiian you are aware of. Throw 
 the odium on ignorance, carelessness, or the 
 infirmity of human nature, to diminish the 
 scandal." — 
 
 " True devotion consists in performing the 
 duties of life. St. Francis was in the habit of 
 blaming an inconsistency very common in per- 
 sons more than ordinarily devout, who fre- 
 quently turn their attention to the attainment 
 of rirtues of no use to them in their own sphere of 
 action, and neglect the more needful. This in- 
 consistency he attributed to a distaste, which 
 people often experience for the station in which 
 Providence has jilacud them, and the duties 
 they are obliged to pei-form. Great laxity of
 
 A GENTLEMAN-SAINT. 
 
 11 
 
 manner creeps into monasteries, when their 
 inmates devote themselves to the practice of 
 virtues fitted for secular life ; and errors are 
 not less likely to make their way into private 
 families, who, from a mistaken and ill-judged 
 zeal, introduce among themselves the austeri- 
 ties and religious exercises of their secluded 
 brethren. 
 
 " Some persons think they pronounce the 
 h.ighest eulogium in saying of a family who 
 ought to perform the active charities of life, 'it 
 i? quite a monastery ; they live in it like monks 
 or nuns:' not reflecting that it is trying to find 
 jigs on thorns, or grapes on brambles. 
 
 " Not that exercises of piety are not right and 
 good, but then the time, the place, the persons, 
 the situation ; in short, all circumstances must 
 be duly considered, Devotion misplaced ceases 
 to be devotion : it resembles a fish out of Avater, 
 or a tree in a soil not congenial to its nature. 
 
 " lie compared this error of judgment, so 
 unreasonable and injudicious, to those lovers of 
 luxury who feed on strawberries at Christmas, not 
 contented with, delicacies in their proper sea- 
 son. ^!uch heated brains require the phi/sician^s 
 discijjline rather than the cool voice of sober reason." 
 
 AN ADWrRABLE RULE IN SELF-CORRECTION FOR 
 MORBID OR VIOLENT CONSCIENCES. 
 
 " Since the degree of aflFection wliich we are 
 commanded by God to feel for our neighbours 
 ought to be measured by the reasonable and 
 Christian love which we bear towards our- 
 selves ; since charity, which is benign and 
 patient, obliges us to correct our neighbours 
 for their failings with gi-eat gentleness; it does 
 not appear right to alter that temper in cor- 
 recting ourselves, or to recover from a fault, 
 with feelings of bitter and intemperate dis- 
 pleasure." 
 
 SCALE OF VIRTUES. 
 
 " Ist. »S'(. Francis preferred the virtues most fre- 
 qtiiidly called into action — the commonest ; and to 
 ex(rrcise which, opportunities are oftenest 
 found. 
 
 " 2ndly, lie did not judge of the greatness and 
 supernatural excellence of a virtue by an 
 external demonstration ; forasmuch as what 
 appears a mere trifle may proceed from an ex- 
 alted sentiment of charity and great assisting 
 grace ; while, on tlie contrary, great show may 
 I'.Kist where the love of (iod operatc^s but 
 slightly, though tluit is the criterion by which 
 we may judge whether or not a good work be- 
 comes acceptable to God. 
 
 " liidly. lie jireferred the virtues of more 
 general influence, rather than those more 
 limited in their good eft'ects (tlie love of God 
 excepted). For example, he preferred prayer, 
 as the star wliich givi^s liglit to every other ex- 
 cellence ; piety, -w hicli sanclities all our actions 
 to the glory of God ; humility, from wliich we 
 have a lowly opinion of ourselves and our 
 actions ; meekness, which yields to the will of 
 
 others ; and patience, which teaches us to 
 suff'er all things : rather than magnanimity, 
 munificence, or liberality ; because they embrace 
 fewer objects, and their injluenoe is less generally felt 
 on the heart and tempjer. 
 
 " 4thly. He was often inclined to doubt the 
 use of dazzling qualities, because by their bril- 
 liancy they gave an opening to vain-glory, the 
 bane of all intrinsic worth. 
 
 " 5thly. He blamed those who never set any 
 value on virtues till they gained the sanction 
 of fashion (a very bad judge of such merchan- 
 dize) ; thus preferring ostensible to spiritual 
 benevolence ; fasting, penances, corporeal 
 austerities, to gentleness, modesty, and self- 
 government, which are of infinitely more value. 
 
 " Cthly. He also reproved those who would 
 not seek to obtain any virtues which were nn- 
 suited to their inclinations, to the neglect of 
 what their duties more particularly required, 
 serving God as it pleased themselves, and not 
 in the manner which he commands. So common 
 is this error, that a great number of persons, 
 some very devout, suffer themselves to fall into 
 it." 
 
 WE MAY BE VERY REGULAR IN DEVOTION AND VBRY 
 WICKED ! 
 
 "'Do not deceive yourself,' said my friend ; 
 ' it is not impossible to be very devout, and yet 
 very wicked.' ' Very hypocritical,' 1 replied, 
 'and not sincerely pious.' 'No; I speak of in- 
 tentional dewtionJ This enigma appearing to 
 me inexplicable, I begged he would explain 
 his meaning more clearly. ' Devotion of self 
 and of nature,' he answered, ' is only a morally 
 acquired virtue, and not a heavenly one assisted 
 by grace ; otherwise it would be theological, 
 which certainly it is not. It is a quality subor- 
 dinate to what is termed religion ; or, as some 
 say, it is only one of its eftects, or fruits, as re- 
 ligion is in itself subordinate to that one of the 
 cardinal virtues called justice, or righteousness. 
 
 " ' You well know that all moral virtues, and 
 also faith and hope, which are theological, may 
 subsist with sin. They are then withont form 
 or life, being deprived 0/ charity, which is their 
 substance, their soul, and on which all their power 
 depend f.: "— 
 
 " I lamented bitterly to St. Francis of the 
 very hard treatment wliich I had received. ' To 
 any otiier person,' he said, ' I should apply the 
 unction of consolation, but the consideration of 
 your situation in life, and the sincerity of my 
 affection for yon, render any such expression 
 of affection needless. Pity would inflame the 
 wound you have received. / sh(dl, therefore, 
 throw rinegnr and salt upon it.' [Is not this af- 
 fected cruelty, and truly flattering candour, 
 admirable ?] 
 
 " You said that it required amazing and well- 
 tried patience to bear such an insult in silence." 
 
 " ' Certainly ; yours cannot be of a very fine 
 temperament, since i/ou cr>mplarn so loudly.' 
 
 " IJut it is only inyourfrieudly bosom, in the
 
 12 
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 ear of your affection, that T pour out my sor- 
 rows. To wlidin should a child turn for com- 
 passion, but to a kind i)aront /"' 
 
 "' O/i, you Uihf! Is it lit, do you suppose, for 
 one who occupies a lofty station in the church 
 of Christ, to encourage himself in such child- 
 ishness ? When I was a child, said 8t. I'aul, I 
 spako as a child ; but when I became a man, I 
 put away childish things. The imjjerfict articu- 
 lation, M eiiii(iijiiH) in an infant, becomes an imperfec- 
 tivn it' ciint'niKcd in ripir years. Do you wish to 
 be fed with milk and pap, instead of solid food ? 
 Have you not teelk to masticate bread, even 
 
 THE BITTEIt IIREAD OF GRIEF ? 
 
 '" What ! cun you delight in bearing on your 
 breast a golden cross, and then let your heart 
 sinlv beneath llie weight of slight affliction, and 
 pour out bitter lamentations ?' " 
 
 WK ARK APT TO GIVE THE NAME OF CALUMNY TO 
 INPLEAnANT JUT WHOLESOME TRUTHS. 
 
 " Have patience with all things, but cliiefiij\\a\& 
 piktience with yourself. Do not lose courage 
 in considering your own imperfections, but in- 
 stantly set about remedying them ; — erery day 
 beijin the ta^k anew. The best method of attaiu- 
 iTig to Christian perfection is to be aware that 
 you have not yet reached it ; but never to be 
 weary of re-commencing. For, in the first 
 place, how can you patiently bear your brother^s 
 burden, if you will not bear your own ? 
 
 " Secondly. How can you reprove any one 
 with gentleness, whenyou correct yourself with 
 asperity ? 
 
 "Thirdly. Whosoever is overcome witha sense 
 of his faults, will not be able to subdue them : 
 correction, to answer a good end, must proceed 
 from a tranquil and thoughtful mind." — He 
 means a mind made tranciuil by its own con- 
 sciousness of good intention, and a mild con- 
 sideration of what is best. 
 
 Erasmus said, that Avhen he cou.sidered the 
 life and doctrines of Socrates, he was inclined 
 to exclaim "Sanrte Socrates, ora pro nobis" (Saint 
 Socrates, ])ray for us) : that is, to put him in 
 the saintly and Christian calendar. We do 
 not live under a Catholic dispensation ; but, 
 certainly, wliile reading this book, we have 
 been inclined to exclaim, "Would to God there 
 were but one Christian church, and such men 
 as Saint Francis do Sales were counted saints 
 by everybody ; — not to be imitated by them 
 in by-gone, ascetical customs, much less in 
 opinions that must have perplexed such natures 
 more than any others, but in the ever-living 
 necessities of charity and good faith, and the 
 hope that such a church may come. And it 
 may, and we believe will ; for utility itself will 
 find it indis])ensable, — to say nothing of those 
 indestructible faculties of man, that are ne- 
 cessary to render utility itself beautiful and 
 useful. If earth is to be made smoother, 
 most assuredly the sky cannot be left out of 
 iLt consideration, nor will appear less lovely ; 
 
 and we never see an old quiet village church 
 among the trees, under a calm heaven, — such 
 as tluit, for instance, of h'inchley or Ilendon, — 
 without feeling secure that such a time will 
 arrive, with " Beauties" such as those of St. 
 Francis de Sales prt-ached in it, and cimgrega- 
 tions who liave really discovered that " God is 
 love." 
 
 XLII.— THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 The reader should give us three pearls, in- 
 stead of three half-pence *, for this number of 
 our publication, for it presents him with the 
 whole of Mr. Keats's beautiful poem, entitled as 
 above, — to say nothing of our loving commen- 
 tary. 
 
 St. Agnes was a Roman virgin, who suffered 
 martyrdom in the reign of Diocletian. Her 
 parents, a few days after her decease, are said 
 to have had a vision of her, surrounded by 
 angels, and attended by a white lamb, which 
 afterwards became sacred to her. In the 
 Catholic church formerly the nuns used to 
 bring a couple of lambs to her altar during 
 mass. The sui)erstition is, (for we believe it is 
 still to be found) that by taking certain mea- 
 sures of divination, damsels may get a sight of 
 their future husbands in a dream. The ordi- 
 nary process seems to have been by fasting. 
 Aubrey (as fjuoted in " Brand's Popular Anti- 
 equities") mentions another, which is, to take a 
 row of pins, and pull them out one by one, say- 
 ing a Pater-noster ; after which, upon going to 
 bed, the dream is sure to ensue. Brand quotes 
 Ben Jonson : — 
 
 " And on swoet St. Agnes' night. 
 Please you with tlie promised sight — 
 Some (if liusbands, some of lovers, 
 Wliich an empty dream discovers." 
 
 But another poet has now taken up the creed 
 in good ])oetic earnest ; and if the superstition 
 should go out in every other respect, in his 
 licli and loving pages it will live for ever. 
 
 THE KVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 BV JOHN KEAT.S. 
 L 
 
 St. .\gnes Evf — Ah ! bitter chill it was ; 
 The Old, for all his feathers, zvas a-cold : 
 The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen 
 And silent wus the (lock in woolly fold ; [grass, 
 Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told 
 His i-osary, and while his frosted breath, 
 Like pious incense, from a censer old, 
 Seem'd taking flight for heaven without a death, 
 Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer 
 he saith. 
 
 What a complete feeling of winter-time is 
 here, together with an intimation of those 
 
 * The price of the Journal in which the article firet 
 appeared.
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 13 
 
 Catholic elegances, of which M'e are to have 
 more in the poem ! 
 
 " The owl with all his feathers was a-cold." 
 
 Could he have selected an image more warm 
 and comfortable in itself, and, therefore, better 
 contradicted by the season ? We feel the plum}), 
 feathery bird in his nook, shivering in spite of 
 his natural household warmth, and staring out 
 at the strange weather. The hare limping 
 through the chill grass is very piteous, and 
 the " silent flock" very patient ; and how quiet 
 and gentle, as well as winterly, are all these 
 circumstances, and fit to open a quiet and 
 gentle poem ! The breath of the pilgrim, 
 likened to " pious incense," completes them, 
 and is a simile in admirable " keeping," as the 
 painters call it ; that is to say, is thoroughly 
 harmonious in itself, and with all that is going 
 on. The breath of tlie pilgrim is visi1)le, so 
 is that of a censer ; his object is religious, 
 and so is the use of the censer ; the censer, 
 after its fashion, may be said to pray, and its 
 breath, like the pilgrim's, ascends to heaven. 
 Young students of poetry may, in this image 
 alone, see wliat imagination is, under one of 
 its most poetical forms, and how thoroughly it 
 "tells." There is no part of it unfitting. It is 
 not applicable in one point, and the reverse in 
 another. 
 
 ;i. 
 His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man, 
 Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees, 
 And back returueth, meagre, barefoot, wan, 
 Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees : 
 The sculptured dead on each side seem'd to freeze, 
 Imprison'd in black purgatorial rails : 
 Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries. 
 He passeth by ; and his weak spirit fails 
 To think how Iheymay ache in icy hoods and mails. 
 
 The germ of this thought, or something like 
 it, is in Dante, where he speaks of the figures 
 that perform the part of sustaining columns 
 in architecture. Keats liad read Dante in 
 Mr. Gary's translation, for wliicli he had a 
 great respect. lie began to read him after- 
 wards in Italian, which language he was mas- 
 tering with surprising (juickness. A friend of 
 ours lias a copy of Ariosto, containing admiring 
 marks of his pen. liut the same thought 
 may have originally struck one poet as well 
 as another. I'eriiaps there are few tliat have 
 not felt something like it, in seeing the figures 
 upon tombs. Here, liowever, for the first time, 
 we believe, in English poetry, is it expressed, 
 and with what feeling and elegance ! Most 
 wintery as well iis jjeuitential is the word 
 " aciiing" in "icy hoods and nuiils," and most 
 felicitous the introduction of tlie Catholic idea 
 in the word " purgatoiial." 'J'he very colour 
 of the rails is made to assume a meaning, 
 and to shadow forth the gloom of the punish- 
 ment — 
 
 " Imprison'd in black purgatorial rails." 
 
 Northward he turneth through a little door, 
 And scarce three steps, ere music's golden tongue 
 Flatler'd to tears this aged man and poor ; 
 But no ; already had his death-bell rung ; 
 The joys of all his life were said and sang : 
 His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve : 
 Another way he went, and soon among 
 Rough ashes sat he, for his soul's reprieve ; 
 And all night kept awake, for sinner's sake to 
 grieve. 
 
 " Flaltcr'd tu tears this aged man and poor." 
 
 This " flattered " is exquisite. A true poet 
 is by nature a metaphysician ; far greater in 
 general than metaphysicians professed. He 
 feels instinctively what the others get at by 
 long searching. In this word " flattered " is 
 the whole theory of the secret of tears ; which 
 are the tributes, more or less worthy, of self- 
 pity to self-love. Whenever we shed tears, 
 we take pity on ourselves ; and we feel, if we 
 do not consciously say so, that we deserve to 
 have the pity taken. In many cases, the pity 
 is just, and the self-love not to be construed 
 unhandsomely. In many others, it is the 
 reverse ; and this is the reason why selfish 
 people are so often found among the tear- 
 shedders, and why they seem even to shed 
 them for othei-s. They imagine themselves in 
 the situation of the others, as indeed the most 
 generous must, before they can sympathise ; 
 but the generous console as well as weep. 
 Selfish tears are niggardly of everything but 
 themselves. 
 
 "Flatter'd to tears." Yes, the poor old man 
 was moved by the sweet music to think that 
 so sweet a thing was intended for his comfort 
 as well as for others. He felt that the mys- 
 terious kindness of heaven did not omit even 
 his poor, old, sorry case in its numerous work- 
 ings and Nasitatious ; and, as he Avished to 
 live longer, he began to thmk that his wish 
 was to be attended to. He began to consider 
 how much he had suffered — how much ho 
 had suffered wrongly or mysteriously — and 
 how much better a man he was, with all hi;, 
 sins, than fate seemed to have taken him fo/. 
 Hence he found himself deserving of tears 
 and self-pity, and he shed them, and felt 
 soothed by his poor, old, loving self. Not un- 
 deservedly either ; for he was a painstaking 
 jiilgrim, aged, jiatient, and humble, and wil- 
 lingly suffered cold and toil for the sake of 
 sometiiing better than he could otherwise 
 deserve ; and so the pity is not exclusively 
 on his own side : we pity him too, and would 
 fain see him well out of tluit cold chapel, 
 gathered into a warmer place tlian a grave. 
 But it was not to be. We must, therefore, 
 console ourselves wit' knowing, that tiiis 
 icy endurance of his v as the last, and that 
 he soou found himselx" at the sunny gate of 
 heaven.
 
 14 
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 That ancient Ijoadaman heard the prcliule soft. 
 And so it chanced (for many a door was wide 
 From hnrry to and fro) !<oi>n \\\) aloft 
 The silrer 'snar/iii(j trumpets Van to chide; 
 The level chambei-s, ready with their pride, 
 Were glowing to receive a thousand guests : 
 The carved angels, ever eager-eyed. 
 Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, 
 fVith hair Idoien back, and wings put cross-wise on 
 their brtoits. 
 
 V. 
 
 At length burst in the argent revelry. 
 With plume, tiara, and all rich array. 
 Numerous as shadows haunting fairily 
 The brain, new stuff'd,in youth, with triumphs gay 
 Of old romance. These let us wish away. 
 And turn, solc-thoughted, to one Lady there, 
 Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day, 
 On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly care, 
 As she had heard old dames full many times de- 
 clare. 
 
 VI. 
 
 They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, 
 Young virgins might have visions of delight ; 
 And soft adorings from their loves receive 
 Upon the honey'd middle of the night, 
 If ceremonies due they did aright ; 
 As, supperlcss to bed they must retire, 
 And couch supine their beauties, lily white ; 
 Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require 
 Of heaven with upward eyes for all that they de- 
 sire. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline ; 
 The music, yearning like a god in pain, 
 She scarcely heard ; her maiden eyes divine^ 
 Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping train 
 Pass by — she heeded not at all ; in vain 
 Came many a, tiptoe, amorous cavalier. 
 And back retu-ed ; not cool'd by high disdain ; 
 But she saw not ; her heart was otherwhere ; 
 She sigh'd for Agues' dreams, the sweetest of the 
 year. 
 
 Vllt. 
 
 She danced along with vague, regardless eyes, 
 Anxious her lips, her breathing (juick and short; 
 The hallow'd hour was near at hand ; she sighs 
 Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort 
 Of whisperers, in anger or in sport ; 
 'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn ; 
 Hood-icink'd tvith faerg fancy ; all amort. 
 Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn. 
 And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn. 
 
 So, purposing each moment to retire, 
 She linger'd still. Meantime, across the moors, 
 Had come young Porphwo, with heart on fire 
 For Madeline. Beside the portal doors, 
 Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and im- 
 plores 
 All saints to give him sight of Madeline, 
 But for one moment in the tedious hours. 
 That he might gaze, and worship all unseen. 
 Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss — in sooth such 
 things have been. 
 
 He ventures in ; let no buzz'd whisper tell ; 
 All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swoi'ds 
 Will storm his heart. Love's fev'rous citadel. 
 For liiiu those chambers held barbarian hordes, 
 Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords, 
 Whose very dogs would execrations howl 
 Against his lineage. Not one brea.st affords 
 Him any mercy, in that mansion foul. 
 Save one old beldame weak in body and in souL 
 
 Ah, happy chance ! the aged creature came 
 ShutHing along with ivory headed wand. 
 To where he stood, hid from the torches' flame. 
 Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond 
 The sound of merriment and chorus bland. 
 He startled her ; but soon she knew his face, 
 And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied hand : 
 Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro ! liie thee from this 
 
 place ; 
 They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty 
 
 race. 
 
 XII. 
 
 " Get hence ! Get hence ! there's dwai-fish Hilde- 
 He had a fever late, and in the fit [brand, 
 
 He cursed thee and thine, 1)oth house and land : 
 Then there's that old Loi-d Maurice, not a whit 
 More tame for his grey hairs — Alas, me ! flit ; 
 Flit like a ghost away." — " Ah, gossip dear, 
 We're safe enough ; here in this arm-chair sit. 
 And tell mc how — " — " Good Saints ! not here ! 
 
 not here ! 
 Follow mc, child, or else these stones will be thy 
 
 bier." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 He foUovv'd through a lowly, arched way. 
 Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume ; 
 And as she mutter'd " Well-a — well-a-day !" 
 He found him in a little moonlight-room. 
 Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. 
 " Now tell me where is Madeline," said he, 
 " 0\\, tell me, Angela, by the holy loom 
 Which none but secret Sisterhood may see. 
 When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously." 
 
 The poet does not make his " little moon- 
 light room " comfortable, observe. The high 
 taste of the exordium is kept up. All is still 
 wintery. There is to be no comfort in the 
 poem but what is given by love. All else 
 may be willingly left to the cold walls. 
 
 " St. Agnes ! Ah ! it is St. Agnes' Eve- 
 Yet men will murder upon holy days ; 
 Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, 
 And be the liege-lord of all elves and fays 
 To venture so : it fills mc with amaze 
 To see thee, PorphjTo ! — St. Agnes' Eve ! 
 God's help ! my lady fair the conjuror plays 
 This very night : good angels her deceive ! 
 But let me laugh awhile ; I've mickle time to 
 grieve." 
 
 XV. 
 
 Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon. 
 While Porphyro upon her face doth look. 
 Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone. 
 Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book,
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 If. 
 
 As spectacled she sits in chimney nook ; 
 But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told 
 His lady's purpose ; and he scarce could brook 
 Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold, 
 And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old. 
 
 He almost shed tears of sympathy, to think 
 how his treasure is exposed to the cold — and 
 of delight and pride to think of her sleeping 
 beauty, and her love for himself. This passage 
 " asleep in the lap of legends old " is in the 
 highest imaginative taste, fusing together the 
 tangible and the spiritual, the real and the fan- 
 ciful, the remote and the near. Madeline is 
 asleep in her bed ; but she is also asleep in 
 accordance with the legends of the season ; and 
 therefore the bed becomes their lap as well as 
 sleep's. The poet does not critically think 
 of all this ; he feels it : and thus should other 
 young poets draw upon the prominent points 
 of their feelings on a subject, sucking the 
 essence out of them into analogous words, 
 instead of beating about the bush for thoughts, 
 and, perhaps, getting very clever ones, but 
 confused — not the best, nor any one better 
 than another. Such, at least, is the difference 
 between the truest poetry and the degrees 
 beneath it. 
 
 XVI. 
 Sudden a thought came, like a full blown rose. 
 Flushing his brow ; and in his pained heart 
 Made purple riot ; then doth he propose 
 A stratagem, that makes the beldame start. 
 " A cruel man, and impious, thou art : 
 Sweet lady ! let her pray, and sleep, and dream. 
 Alone with her good angels, far apart 
 From wicked men like thee. Go ! go ! — I deem 
 Thou canst not, surely, be the same that thou 
 dost seem." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " I will not harm her, by all saints I swear," 
 Quoth Porphyro : " Oh, may I ne'er find grace, 
 When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer, 
 If one of her soft ringlets I disj)lace. 
 Or look with ruffian- passion in her face : 
 Good Angela, believe me, by these tears, 
 Or I will, even in a moment's space. 
 Awake with horrid shout my foemen's ears, 
 And beard thcra, though they be more fang'd than 
 wolves and laears." 
 
 " Ah ! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul ? 
 A poor, weak palsy-stricken rhitrch-yard thing. 
 Whose passing-lioll may ere the midnight toll ; 
 Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening, 
 Were never miss'd ?" Thus, plaining, doth she 
 
 bring 
 A gentler speech from burning Porphyro ; 
 So woeful and of such deep sorrowing, 
 That Angola gives promise she will do 
 Whatever he shall wish, betide or weal or woe ; 
 
 Which was, to lead him in close secrecy. 
 Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide 
 Him in a closet, of such privacy 
 That he might see her beauty unespied. 
 
 And win perhaps that night a peerless bride ; 
 While legion'd fairies paced the coverlet, 
 And pale enchantment hold her sleepy-eyed. 
 Never on such a night haA'e lovers met. 
 Since Merlin paid his demon all the monstrous 
 debt. 
 
 What he means by Merlin's "monstrous 
 debt," we cannot say. Merlin, the famous 
 enchanter, obtained King Uther his interview 
 with the fair logerne ; but though he was the 
 son of a devil, and conversant with the race, 
 we are aware of no debt that he owed them. 
 
 " It shall be as thou wishest," said the dame ; 
 " All cates and dainties shall be stored there. 
 Quickly on this feast-night: by the tambour frame 
 Her own lute thou wilt see : no time to spare, 
 For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare 
 On such a catering trust my dizzy head ; 
 Wait here, my child, with patience ; kneel in 
 
 prayer 
 The while : ah ! thou must needs the lady wed : 
 Or may I never leave my grave among the dead." 
 
 So saying, she hobbled off" with busy fear ; 
 The lover's endless minutes slowly pass'd, 
 The dame return'd, and whisper'd in his ear 
 To follow her ; with aged eyes aghast 
 From fright of dim espial. Safe at last, 
 Through many a dusky gallery, they gain 
 The maiden's chamber, silken, hush'd, and chaste, 
 Where Porphyro took covert, pleased amain : 
 His poor guide hurried back with agues in her 
 brain. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Her faltering hand upon tlie balustrade, 
 Old Angela was feeling for the stair. 
 When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid, 
 Rose, like a mission'd spirit, unaware : 
 With silver taper's light, and pious care, 
 She turn'd, and down the aged gossip led 
 To a safe level matting. Now prepare 
 Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed ; 
 She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove fray'd 
 and fled. 
 
 SXIII. 
 
 Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 
 Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died : 
 She closed the door, she panted all akin 
 To spirits of the air, and visions wide ; 
 Nor utter'd syllabic, or, woe betide ! 
 But to hir heart her heart was volnlh', 
 Paining with eloquence her balmy side : 
 As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
 Her throat in vain, and die heart-stifled in her 
 dell. 
 
 " Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died," 
 
 is a verse in the taste of Chaucer, full of 
 minute grace and truth. Tlic smoke of the 
 waxen taj)or seems almost as ethereal and fair 
 as the moonlight, and both suit each other and 
 the heroine. P>ut what a lovely line is the 
 seventh, about the heart, 
 
 " Paining with eloquence her balmy side !"
 
 10 
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES. 
 
 And the nightingale! how touching the siniik'! 
 the heart a " toiiguek^ss iiiglitingak\" ilying in 
 that dell of tlie bosom. AVluit thorough sweet- 
 ness, and perfection of lovely imagery ! How 
 one delicacy is heaped upon another ! But 
 for a burst of richness, noiseless, coloured, 
 suddenly enriching the moonlight, as if a door 
 of heaven were opened, read the following : — 
 
 A casemrnt, h'ujh and triple-arch'd, there was, 
 All garlanded trith carvcn imageries 
 Of fruits and flotvers, and bunches of knot- 
 grass, 
 And diarnmided tvith panes of quaint device. 
 Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes. 
 As are the tiger-muth's deep damask'd wings ; 
 And in the midst, 'inong thousand heraldries, 
 And TWILIGHT saints, and dim emblnzonings, 
 A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens 
 and kings. 
 
 Could all the pomp and graces of aristoci-acy, 
 with Titian's and Raphael's aid to boot, go be- 
 yond the ricii religion of this picture, with its 
 "twilight saints," and its 'scutcheons "blushing 
 with the blood of queens ?" But we must not 
 stop the reader : — 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Full on this casement shone the wntry moon. 
 And threw warm gtiles on Madeline's fair 
 
 breast. 
 As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon ; 
 Rose-bloom fell on her hands t0(/ether prest, 
 And on her silver cross .soft amethyst ; 
 And on her hair a glory like a saint : 
 She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, 
 Save tvings,for heaven : — Porphyro gi'ew faint, 
 She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal 
 taint. 
 
 The lovely and innocent creature thus pray- 
 ing under the gorgeous painted window, com- 
 pletes the exceeding and unique beauty of this 
 picture, — one that will for ever stand by itself 
 in poetry, as an addition to the stock. It 
 would have struck a glow on the face of 
 Shakespeare himself. He might have put 
 Imogen or Ophelia under such a shrine. 
 How proper, as well as pretty, the heraldic 
 term (jnUs, considering the occasion ! Red 
 woidd not have been a fiftieth part so good. 
 And with what elegant luxury he touches the 
 "silver cross" with " ametliyst," and tlie fair 
 human hands with " rose colour," the kin to 
 their carnation ! The lover's growing "faint," 
 is one of the few inequalities wliicli are to bo 
 found in tie later jjroductions of this great but 
 young and over-sensitive poet. He had, at the 
 time of writing his poems, the seeds of a mortal 
 illness in him, and he, doubtless, wrote as he 
 had felt — for lie was also deeply in love ; and 
 extreme sensil)ility struggled in him with a 
 great understanding. But our picture is not 
 finished : — 
 
 Anon his heart revives : her vespers done. 
 Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees ; 
 Unclasps her irarmed jewels one by one ; 
 Loosens her fragrant boddice ; by degrees 
 Iler rich attire creeps rustling to her knees : 
 Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed. 
 Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees 
 lu fancy fair St. Agnes in her bed, 
 But dares not look behind, or all the charm is 
 fled. 
 
 How ti-ue and cordial the " icarmed jewels !" 
 and what matter of fact also, made elegant, 
 is the rustling downward of the attire ; and 
 the mixture of dress and undress, and dishe- 
 velled hair, likened to a " mermaid in sea- 
 weed !" But tiie next stanza is i>erhaps the 
 most exquisite iu the poem. 
 
 Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 
 In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay. 
 Until the poppied warmth cf sleep oppress'd 
 Her soothed limbs, and soul, fatigued away. 
 Flown, like a thought, until ihe morrow-day ; 
 Blissfully hnven d both from joy and pain ; 
 Clasp'd like a missal, tchere sivart Paynims 
 
 pray ; 
 Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, 
 
 As THOUGH A ROSK SHOULD SHUT, AND BE A BUD 
 AGAIN. 
 
 Can the beautiful go beyond this ? We 
 never saw it. And how the imagei-y rises ! 
 I'lown like a Umu^M — Blissfully haren'd — 
 Clas])'d like a missal in a land of l\i<ians : 
 that is to say, where Christian prayer-liooks 
 must not be seen, and arc, therefore, doubly 
 cherished for the (Lxnger. And tlien, although 
 nothing can surpass the preciousness of this 
 idea, is the idea of the beautiful, crowning 
 all— 
 
 " Blinded alike fiom sunshine and from rain, 
 
 As though a rose should shiU, and he a bud again." 
 
 Thus it is that poetry, in its intense sym]iatl)y 
 with creation, may be said to create anew, 
 rendering its words almost as tangible as the 
 objects they sj)eak of, and individually more 
 lasting ; th(> sjiiritual perpetuity putting them 
 on a level (not to speak it i)rofanely) with the 
 fugitive forms of the substance. 
 
 But we are to have more luxuries still, 
 presently. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced, 
 Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress. 
 And listen'd to her breathinfr, if it chanced 
 To wake into a sium])erous tenderness ; 
 Which when he lu'aifl, tliat minute did he bless, 
 And breathed, bimsclf; tlien fi'om tlie closet crept, 
 Noiseless as fear in a wild ivilderiiess, 
 And over the hush'd carpet silent stept. 
 And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where, lo ! how 
 fiist she slept.
 
 THE EVE OF ST. AGNES, 
 
 17 
 
 Then, by the bedside, where the faded moon 
 Made a dim silver twilight, — soft he set 
 A table, and, half-anguish'd, threw thereon 
 A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet : — 
 for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! 
 The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion. 
 The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet. 
 Affray his ears, though but in dying tone : — 
 The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 And still she slept aji azure-lidded sleep 
 In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered. 
 While he from forth the closet brought a heap 
 Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, 
 With jellies soother than the creamy curd, 
 And lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon : 
 Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd 
 From Fez ; and spiced dainties, every one. 
 From silken Samarcand to cedar'd Lebanon. 
 
 Here is delicate modulation, and super- 
 refined epicurean nicety ! 
 
 " Lucent syrups, tinct with cinnamon," 
 
 make us read the line delicately, and at the 
 tip-end, as it were, of one's tongiie. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 These delicates he heap'd with glowing hand 
 On golden dishes and in baskets bright 
 Of wreathed silver : sumptuous they stand 
 In the retired quiet of the night, 
 Filling the chilly room with perfume light. — 
 " And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake ! 
 Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite : 
 Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake, 
 Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth 
 ache." 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm 
 Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream 
 By the dusk curtains : — 'twas a midnight charm 
 Impossible to melt as iced stream : 
 The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam ; 
 Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies ; 
 It seem'd he never, never could redeem 
 From such a stedfast spell his lady's eyes ; 
 So mused awhile, entoil'd in woofed phantasies. 
 
 XXXIIl. 
 
 Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, — 
 Tumultuous, — and, in chords that tenderest be. 
 He play'd an ancient ditty, long since mute. 
 In Provence call'd, " La belle dame sans mercy : " 
 Close to her ear touching the melody ; — 
 Wherewith disturb'd she utter'd a soft moan : 
 He ceased — she panted quick — and suddenly 
 Her blue affi'ayed eyes wide open shone : 
 Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured 
 stone. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Her eyes were open, but she still beheld. 
 Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep : 
 There was a painful change, that nigh expell'd 
 The blisses of her dream so pure and deep. 
 At which fair Madeline began to weep, 
 And moan forth witless words with many a sigh ; 
 While still her gaze on Porjihyro would keep ; 
 Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, 
 Fearing to move or speak, she look'd so dreamijigly. 
 
 [part II.] 
 
 " Ah, Porphyro !" said she, " but even now 
 Thy voice was a sweet tremble in mme ear. 
 Made tuneable with every sweetest vow. 
 And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear ; 
 How changed thou art ! how pallid, chill, and 
 
 drear, — 
 Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
 Those looks immortal, those complainings dear ; 
 Oh ! leave me not in this eternal woe. 
 For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to 
 
 go." 
 
 Madeline is half awake, and Porphyro reas- 
 sures her with living kind looks, and an afFeo- 
 tionate embrace. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Beyond a mortal man impassion'd far 
 At these voluptuous accents, he arose, 
 Ethereal, flush' d, and like a tlirol>bingstar 
 Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose ; 
 Into her dream he melted, as the rose 
 Blendeth its odour with the violet, — 
 Solution sweet. Meanwhile the frost wind blows 
 Like love's alarum, pattering the sharp sleet 
 Against the window panes: St. Agnes' moon hath 
 set. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 'Tis dark ; quick pattex'eth the flaw-blown sleet : 
 " This is no dream ; my bride, my Madeline !" 
 'Tis dark : the iced gusts still rave and beat. 
 " No dream, alas ! alas ! and woe is mine ; 
 Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine ; — 
 Cruel ! what traitor could thee hither bring ? 
 I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine. 
 Though thou forsakest a deceived thmg ; — 
 A dove, forlorn and lost, with sick unpruned 
 wing." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 " My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride 1 
 Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest ? 
 Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped, and vermeil- 
 dyed ? 
 Ah ! silver shrine, here will I take my rest, 
 After so many hours of toil and quest — 
 A famish'd pilgrim, saved by miracle, 
 Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest 
 Saving of thy sweet self ; if thou think'st well 
 To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel." 
 
 With what a pretty wilful conceit the 
 costume of the poem is kept up in the third 
 line about the shield ! The poet knew when 
 to introduce apparent trifles forbidden tothoRe 
 who are void of real passion, and who, feeling 
 nothing intensely, can intensify nothing. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 " Hark ! 'tis an elfin-storm from faery land, 
 Of haggard seeming, but a boon iiulfcd ; 
 Arise — arise ! the morning is at hand ; 
 The bloated wassailers will never hctd : — 
 Let us away, my love, with happy speed ; 
 There are no cars to hear, or ''vos to sec, — 
 Drown'd all in Rhcnisli and the sleepy mead : 
 Awake ! arise ! my lovi', and fearless be, 
 For o'er the southern moors I have a home for 
 
 thee." 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 A "NOW;" DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DAY. 
 
 She hurried at his words, beset with fears, 
 For tliere were sleeping draj^ons all around, 
 At glaring watch, i>orha|)s, with ready spears — 
 Down the wide stairs adarkling way they found, — 
 In all the house was luanl no human sound. 
 A eliain-dr(io]i'(l lamp was tliekering by each door; 
 The arras, rife with horseman, hawk, and hound, 
 Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar : 
 And the long carpets rose along the gusty fioor. 
 
 This is a slip of the memory, for there were 
 liardly earpets in those days. But the truth 
 of tlie painting makes amends, as in the uu- 
 chrouological pictures of old masters. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall ; 
 Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, 
 Where lay the porter, in uneasy sprawl, 
 With a huge empty flagon by his side ; 
 The wakeful blood-hound rose, and shook his hide, 
 But his sagacious eye an inmate owns : 
 By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide : 
 The chains lie silent on the footworn stones ; 
 The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. 
 
 XLU. 
 
 And they are gone : ay, ages long ago 
 These lovers fled away into the storm. 
 That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, 
 And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form 
 Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm. 
 Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old 
 Died palsy-twitch'd, with meagre face deform : 
 The beadsman, after thousand aves told, 
 For aye misought-for slept among his ashes cold. 
 
 Here endeth the young and divine Poet, but 
 not the delight and gratitude of his readers ; 
 for, as he sings elsewhere — 
 
 " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." 
 
 XLIII.— A « NOW ;» 
 
 DESCHIPTIVE OF A COLD DAV. 
 
 Now, all amid the rigours of the year. — Thomson. 
 
 A FRIEND tells US, that ha\'ing written a 
 " Now," descriptive of a hot day (see " Indi- 
 cator,") we ought to write another, descriptive 
 of a cold one ; and acc'ordingly we do so. It 
 happens that wo are, at this minute, in a state 
 at once fit and unfit for the task, being in tiie 
 condition of the little boy at school, who, when 
 asked the Latin for "cold," said he had it " at 
 his fingers' ends ;" but this helps us to set off 
 with a riglit taste of our subject ; and the fire, 
 which is clicking in our ear, shall soon enable 
 us to handle it comfortably in other respects. 
 
 Noic, tlien,to commence. — But first,the reader 
 who is good-natured enough to have a regard 
 for these papers, may choose to be told of tlie 
 origin of the use of this word Now, in case he 
 i» not already acquainted with it. It was 
 
 suggested to us by the striking convenience it 
 aflbrds to descri])rive writers, such as Thomson 
 and others, who are fond of beginning their 
 paragraphs with it, thereby saving themselves 
 a world of trouble in bringing about a nicer 
 conjunction of the various parts of their sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Now Avlien the first foul torrent of the 
 brooks — 
 
 Now flaming up to heaven tlie potent sun — 
 
 Noie when the cheerless empire of the sky — 
 
 But now — 
 
 When now — 
 
 Where now — 
 
 For now — &c. 
 
 We .say nothing of similar words among 
 other nations, or of a certain But of the Greeks 
 wliich was as useful to them on all occasions as 
 tlie And so of the little diildren's stories. Our 
 business is with our old indigenous friend. No 
 other Now can be so present, so instantaneous, 
 so extremely Now, as our own Now. The now 
 of the Latins, — Nunc, or Jam, as he sometimes 
 calls himself, — is a fellow of past ages. He is 
 no Now. And the Nun of the Greek is older. 
 How can there be a Note which was Then 1 a 
 "Now-then," as we sometimes barbarously phrase 
 it. " Now and then" is intelligible ; but " Now- 
 then" is an extravagance, fit only for the deli- 
 cious moments of a gentleman about to crack 
 his bottle, or to run away with a lady, or to 
 open a dance, or to carve a turkey and cliine, 
 or to pelt snow-balls, or to commit some other 
 piece of ultra-vivacity, such as excuses a man 
 from the nicer proi^rietios of language. 
 
 But to begin. 
 
 Now the moment people wake in the morn- 
 ing, they perceive the coldness with tlieir faces, 
 though they are Avarm with their bodies, and 
 exclaim " Here's a day 1" and pity the poor 
 little sweep, and the boy with the water-cresses. 
 How anybody can go to a cold ditch, and gather 
 water-cresses, seems marvellous. Perhaps we 
 hear great lumps in the street of sometliing 
 falling ; and, looking through the window, 
 perceive the roofs of tiie neighbouring houses 
 thiclf with snow. The breath is visible, issuing 
 from the mouth as we lie. Now we hate 
 getting up, and hate shaving, and hate the 
 empty grate in one's bed-room ; and water 
 freezes in ewers, and you may set the towel 
 upright on its own liardness, and the window- 
 panes are frost-whitened, or it is foggy, and 
 the sun sends a dull, brazen beam into one's 
 room ; or, if it is fine, the windows outside are 
 stuck with icicles ; or a detestable thaw has 
 begun, and they drij) ; but, at all events, it is 
 horribly cold, and delicate shavers fidget about 
 their chambers looking distressed, and cherish 
 their hard-hearted enemy, the razor, in their 
 bosoms, to warm him a little, and coax him 
 into a consideration of their chins. Savage is 
 a cut, and makes them think destiny really too 
 hard.
 
 A "NOW;" DESCRIPTIVE OF A COLD DAY. 
 
 19 
 
 Now breakfast is fine ; and the fire seems to 
 laugh at us as we enter the breakfast-room, 
 and say " Ha ! ha ! here's a better room than 
 the bed-chamber ! " and we always poke it 
 before we do anything else ; and people grow 
 selfish about seats near it ; and little boys think 
 their elders tyrannical for saying, " Oil, you 
 don't want the fire ; your blood is young." 
 And truly that is not the way of stating the 
 case, albeit young blood is warmer than old. 
 Now the butter is too hard to spread ; and the 
 rolls and toast are at their maximum ; and the 
 former look glorious as they issue smoking out 
 of the flannel in which they come from the 
 baker's ; and people who come with single 
 knocks at the door are pitied ; and the voices 
 of boys are loud in the street, sliding or throw- 
 ing snow-balls ; and the dustman's bell sounds 
 cold ; and we wonder how anybody can go 
 about selling fish, especially with that hoarse 
 voice ; and schoolboys hate their slates, and 
 blow their fingers, and detest infinitely the 
 no-fire at school ; and the parish-beadle's nose 
 is redder than ever. 
 
 Now sounds in general are dull, and smoke 
 out of chimneys looks warm and rich, and birds 
 are pitied, hopping about for crumbs, and the 
 trees look wiry and cheerless, albeit they are 
 still beautiful to imaginative eyes, especially 
 the evergreens, and the birch with boughs like 
 dishevelled hair. Now mud in roads is stiff, 
 and the kennel ices over, and boys make illegal 
 slides in the pathways, and ashes are strewed 
 before doors ; or you crunch the snow as you 
 tread, or kick mud-flakes before you, or are 
 horribly muddy in cities. But if it is a hard 
 frost, all the world is buttoned up and great- 
 coated, except ostentatious elderly gentlemen, 
 and pretended beggars with naked feet ; and 
 the delicious sound of " All hot " is heard from 
 roasted apple and potatoe stalls, tlie vender 
 himself being cold, in spite of his " hot," and 
 stamping up and down to warm his feet ; 
 and the little boys are astonished to think how 
 he can eat bread and cold meat for his dinner, 
 instead of the smoking apples. 
 
 Now skaiters are on tiie alert ; the cutlers' 
 shop-windows abound witli their swift shoes ; 
 and as you a]>proach the scene of action (pond 
 or canal) you hear the dull grinding noise of 
 the skaits to and fro, and see tumbles, and 
 Banbury cake-men and blackguard boys play- 
 ing " hockey," and ladies standing shivering 
 on the banks, admiring anybody but their 
 brother, especially the gentleman whois cutting 
 figures of eight, who, for his part, is ad- 
 miring his own figure. Beginners affect to 
 laugh at their tumbles, but are terribly ^ngry, 
 and long to thump the by-standers. On 
 thawing days, idlers persist to the last in 
 skaiting or sliding amidst the slush and bend- 
 ing ice, making the Ilimiane-Society-man 
 ferocious. He feels as if he could give them 
 the deaths from which it is his business to save 
 
 them. When you have done skaiting, yon 
 come away feeling at once warm and numb in 
 the feet, from the tight effect of the skaits ; 
 and you carry them with an ostentatious air of 
 indifference, as if you had done wonders ; 
 whereas you have fairly had three slips, and 
 can barely achieve the inside edge. 
 
 Now riders look sharp, and horses seem 
 brittle in the legs, and old gentlemen feel so ; 
 and coachmen, cabmen, and others, stand 
 swinging their arms across at their sides to warm 
 themselves ; and blacksmiths' shops look 
 pleasant, and potatoe shops detestable ; the 
 fishmongers' still more so. We wonder how he 
 can live in that plash of wet and cold fish, 
 without even a window. Now clerks in offices 
 envy the one next the fire-place ; and men 
 from behind counters hardly think themselves 
 repaid by being called out to speak to a 
 countess in her chariot ; and the wheezy and 
 effeminate pastry-cook, hatless and aproned, 
 and with his hand in his breeches-pockets (as 
 the graphic Cruikshank noticeth in his alma- 
 nack) stands outside his door, chilling his 
 household warmth with attending to the ice 
 which is brought him, and seeing it unloaded 
 into his cellar like coals. Comfortable look the 
 iliss Joneses, coming this way with their mufi's 
 and furs ; and the baker pities the maid- 
 servant cleaning the steps, who, for her part, 
 says she is not cold, which he finds it difficult 
 to believe. 
 
 Now dinner rejoiceth the gatherers together, 
 and cold meat is despised, and the gout defieth 
 the morrow, thinking it but reasonable on such 
 a day to inflame itself with " t'other bottle ;" 
 and the sofa is wheeled round to the fire after 
 dinner, and people proceed to burn their legs 
 in their boots, and little boys their faces ; and 
 young ladies are tormented between the cold 
 and their complexions, and their fingers freeze 
 at the piano-forte, but they must not say so, 
 because it will vex their poor comfortable 
 grand-aunt, who is sitting with her knees in 
 the fire, and who is so anxious that they should 
 not be spoilt. 
 
 Now the muffin-bell soundeth sweetly in the 
 streets, reminding us, not of the man, but his 
 muffins, and of twilight, and evening, and 
 curtains, and the fireside. Now play-goers get 
 cold feet, and invalids stop up every crevice in 
 their rooms, and make themselves worse ; and 
 the streets are comparatively silent ; and the 
 wind rises and falls in moanings ; and the fire 
 burns blue and crackles ; and an easy-chair with 
 your feet by it on a stool, the lamp or candles 
 a little b(>hind you, and an interesting book 
 just opened where you left off, is a bit of 
 heaven upon earth. People in cottages crowd 
 close into the chimney, and tell stories of gliosts 
 and murders, the blue flame affording some- 
 thing like evidence of the facts. 
 
 " The owl, with all licr feathcr% is a-cold *," 
 
 Mr. Keats gave us 
 
 * Keats, in the 
 
 ' Eve of St. Agnes." 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 ICE,— WITH POETS UPON IT. 
 
 or you think her so. The wliole country feels 
 like a petrifaction of folate and stillness, cut 
 across by the wind ; and nobody in the mail- 
 coach is warm but the horses, who steam 
 pitifully when they stop. The " oldest man" 
 makes a ])oint of never having " seen such 
 weather." People have a painful doubt w hetlier 
 they have any chins or not ; cars ache w itli 
 the wind ; and the waggoner, setting his teeth 
 togetlier, goes jjuckering up his cheeks, and 
 thinkinir tlie time will never arrive when he 
 shall get to the Five Bells. 
 
 At night, people become sleepy with the fire- 
 side, and long to go to bed, yet fear it on account 
 of tlie different temperature of the bed-room ; 
 which is furthermore apt to wake them up. 
 Warming-pans and hot-water bottles are in 
 request ; and naughty boys eschew their night- 
 shirts, and go to bed in their socks. 
 
 " Yes," quoth a little boy, to whom we read 
 this passage, " and make their younger brotlier 
 go to bed first." 
 
 XLIV.— ICE,— WITH POETS UPON IT. 
 
 It is related of an Emperor of Morocco, that 
 
 some unfortunate traveller having thought to 
 get into his good graces by telling him of the 
 wonders of other countries, and exciting, as he 
 proceeded, more and more incredulity in the 
 imperial mind, finished, as he imagined, his 
 delightful climax of novelties, by telling him, 
 that in his native land, at certain seasons of 
 the year, people could walk and run upon the 
 water ; uj)on which such indignation seized his 
 majesty, that, exclaiming, "Such a Har as tiiis 
 is not fit to live !" he whipped off the poor 
 man's head with his scymitar. 
 
 It is a pity that some half dozen captives 
 had not been present, from other northern 
 regions, to give the monarch's perplexity a 
 more salutary turn, by testifying to similar 
 phenomena ; as, how you drove your chariot 
 over the water ; how lumps of water came 
 rolling down-Iiill Hive rocks ; and how you 
 chopj)ed, n(;t only your stone-hard meat, but 
 your stone-hard drink, holding a pound of 
 water between pincers, and pelting a fellow 
 with a gill of brandy instead of a stone. For 
 such things are in Russia and Tartary ; where, 
 furtliormore, a man shall have half a yard of 
 water for his beard ; throw a liquid up in the 
 air, and catch it a solid ; and be employed in 
 building houses made of water, for empresses 
 to sit in and take supper. Catherine the 
 Second had one. 
 
 " It was a miracle of rare device, 
 A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice ; " 
 
 some touches in our account of the " Hot Day " (first pub- 
 lished in the " Indicator ") as we sat writing it in his com- 
 pany, alas ! how many years back. We have here made 
 him contribute to our " Cold Day." This it is to have 
 immortal friends whose company never forsakes us. 
 
 thus realising Mr. Coleridge's poetical descrip- 
 tion of the j)alace of Kubla Khan. 
 
 Many a natural phenomenon is as poetical 
 as this, and adjusts itself into as imaginative 
 shai)es and lights. Fancy the meeting an 
 island-mountain of green or blue ice, in a 
 sunny sea, moving southwards, and shedding 
 fountains from its sparkling sides ! The poet 
 has described the icicle, 
 
 " Quietly shining to the quiet moon : " 
 
 but the icicle (so to si)eak) described itself 
 first to the poet. Water, when it begins to 
 freeze, makes crystals of itself; the snow is all 
 stars or feathers, or takes the shape of flowers 
 upon your window ; and the extreme of solemn 
 grandeur, as well as of fairy elegance, is to be 
 found in the operations of frost. In Switzer- 
 land gulfs of petrified billows are formed in 
 whole valleys by the descent of ice from tho 
 mountains, its alternate thawing and freeziog, 
 and the ministry of the wind. You stand 
 upon a crag, and see before you wastes of 
 icy solitude, looking like an ocean heaven- 
 struck in the midst of its fury, and fixed for 
 ever. Not another sight is to be seen, but the 
 ghastly white mountains that surround it ; — 
 not a sound to be heard, but of under-currents 
 of water breaking away, or the thunders of 
 falling ice-crags, or, perhaps the scream of an 
 eagle. 'Tis as if you saw the world before 
 heat moved it, — the rough materials of the 
 masonry of creation. 
 
 " Far, far above, piercing \he infinite sky, 
 Mont Hlanc appears, still, snowy, and hcrone — 
 Its subject-mountains their unearthly forms 
 Pile round it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 
 Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps. 
 Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 
 And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 
 A desart, peopled by the storms alone."— Shelley. 
 
 On the other hand, what is more prettily 
 beautiful than the snow above mentioned, or 
 the hoar-frost upon the boughs of a tree, like 
 the locks of Spenser's old man, 
 
 '■ As hoary frost with spangles doth attire 
 The mossy branches of an oak half dead ;" 
 
 or the spectacle (in the verses quoted below) 
 of a Northern garden, 
 
 " Where through the ice the crimson berries glow." 
 
 Our winters of late have been very mild ; 
 and most desirable is it, for the poor's sake, 
 that they should continue so, if the physical 
 good of the creation will allow it. But when 
 frost and ice come, we must make the best of 
 them ; and Nature, in her ai)parently severest 
 ojjerations, never works without some visible 
 mixture of good, as well as a great deal of 
 beauty (itself a good). Cold weather counter- 
 acts worse evils : the very petrifaction of the 
 water furnishes a new ground for sport and 
 jiastime. Then in every street the little boys 
 find a gliding pleasure, and the sheet of ice in
 
 ICE— WITH POETS UPON IT. 
 
 21 
 
 the pond or river spreads a joyous floor for 
 skaiters. We touched upon this the other 
 day in a "Now ;" but now we have the satis- 
 faction of being able to quote some fine verses 
 of Mr. Wordsworth's on the subject, which 
 we happened not to have by us at the moment. 
 They are taken from a new edition of Mr. 
 Hine's judicious and valuable ' Selections ' 
 from that fine poet, just published by Mr. 
 Moxon. They are the more interestinfr, inas- 
 much as they show Mr. Wordsworth to be a 
 skaiter himself, — no mean reason for his being 
 able to write so vigorously. 
 
 " SKAITING. 
 
 — In the frosty season, when the sun 
 
 Was set, and, visible for inaiti/ a mile. 
 
 The cottage ivindows throvgh the twilight blazed, 
 
 1 heeded not the summons : — happy tiuie 
 
 It was indeed for all of us ; for me 
 
 It was a time of rapture I — clear and loud 
 
 The village clock toU'd six — I whee'.'d about, 
 
 Proud and exulting like an witircd horse. 
 
 That cares not for his home. — All shod with steel, 
 
 We hiss'd along the polish 'd ice in games 
 
 Confederate, imitative of the chase 
 
 And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn. 
 
 The pack loud bellowing, and the hunted hare. 
 
 So through the darkness and the cold we flew, 
 
 And not a voice was idle ; with the din 
 
 Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud. 
 
 The leafless trees and every icy crag 
 
 Tinkled like iron, while the distant hills 
 
 Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
 
 0/ melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars 
 
 Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the West 
 
 The orange sky of evening died away. 
 
 Not seldom from the uproar I retired 
 
 Into a silent bay, — or sportively 
 
 Glanced si<leways, leaving the tumultuous throng, 
 
 To cut across the reflex of a star. 
 
 Image, that, flying still before me, gleam'd 
 
 Upon the glassy plain ; and oftentimes, 
 
 When we had given our bodies to the wind, 
 
 And all the 6hado>vy banks on either side 
 
 Came sweeping Ih rough the darkness, spinning still 
 
 The rapid line of motion, then at once 
 
 Have I, reclining back upon my heels, 
 
 Stopp'd short ; yet still the solitary cliffs 
 
 Wheel'd by me — even as if the earth had roll'd 
 
 With visible motion her diurnal round I 
 
 Behind me did they stretch in solenm tr.ain. 
 
 Feebler an<l feebler, and I stood and watch'd 
 
 Till all was tranquil as a summer sea." 
 
 Better for great poets to write in tliis man- 
 ner, and show Nature's kindliness in the midst 
 of what might seem otherwise, than to do as 
 Dante and Milton liave done, and add the 
 tortures of frost and ice to tlie iiorrors of 
 sujjerstition. Be never their names, however, 
 mentioned without reverence. Tlie progress 
 of tilings may have required at their hands 
 what we can smile at now as a harmless terror 
 of poetry. Witli what hue solid lines Milton 
 always " builds" his verse ! 
 
 Beyond this flood* a frozen continent 
 Lies dark and wild, bout with perpetual storms 
 Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on flrni land 
 Thaws not, but gathers hcaj), and ruin seems 
 
 ♦ The river of Oblivion. 
 
 Of ancient pile, or else deep snow and ice, 
 
 A gulf profound, as that Serbonian bog 
 
 Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old. 
 
 Where armies whole have sunk f- The parching air 
 
 Burns /rare, and cold performs the effect of fire. 
 
 Thither, by harpy-footed furies hal'd. 
 
 At certain revolutions, all the damn'd 
 
 Are brought, and fe»l by turns the bitter change 
 
 Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more tierce 
 
 From beds of raging tire, to starve in ice 
 
 Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine 
 
 Immoveable, intix'd, and frozen round. 
 
 Periods of time, thence hurried back to firei. 
 
 We will take the taste of the bitter-cold 
 baibarity of this passage out of the reader's 
 heart by pltinguig him into the " warm So-uth," 
 with its good-natured sunshine ; where, when 
 he has basked enough in some noon of heat, 
 vine-leaves, and brown laughing faces, so as to 
 make the idea of cold pleasant to him again, 
 
 t "Serbonis," says Hume (not the historian, but the 
 commentator on Milton), "was a lake of 20u furlongs in 
 length and 1,(100 in compass, between the ancient moun- 
 tain Casius and Damiata, a city of Egypt, on one of the 
 more eastern mouths of the Nile. It was surrounded on 
 all sides by hills of loose sand, which, carried into the 
 water by high winils, so thickened the lake, as not to be 
 distinguished from part of the continent, where whole 
 armies have been swallowed up. Head ' Herodotus," lib. iii., 
 and ' Lucan's Pharsalia,' viii. 539, &.C.'' Todd's edition of 
 Milton, vol. ii. p. 47. 
 
 X We add another note or two from Mr. Todd's ' Milton," 
 to show what pleasant reading there is in these Variorum 
 editions, and to recommend them to more general atten- 
 tion. A great poet cannot be too thoroughly studied : — 
 
 " This circumstance of the damned suffering the ex- 
 tremes of heat and cold by turns, seems to be founded upon 
 Job xxiv. 1!>, not as it is in the English translation, but in 
 the vulgar Latin version, which jMilton often used : — ' Ad 
 nimium calorem transeat ab aquis nivium ,' — ' Let him 
 pass to excessive heat from waters of snow.' And so .lerome 
 and other commentators understimd it. The same punish- 
 ments after death are mentioned by Shakspeare, ' Jleasuie 
 for Measui'e," act iii. sc. i. — 
 
 ' and the delighted spirit 
 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.' " 
 
 Bishop Newton. 
 
 " This circumstance of the damned's feeling the fierce 
 extremes is also in Dante, ' Inferno,' c. iii. 86. — 
 ' I' vengo per menarvi all' altra riva 
 Nelle tenebre eterne, iu caldo e'n gielo.' 
 
 (I come to lead thee to the other shore 
 
 Of the eternal glooms, through heat and ice. 
 
 See also the ' Purgatorio,' c. iii. 31. So in ' Songs and 
 Sonnets,' by Lord Surrey and others, 1587. fol. 83, — 
 ' Tlie soules that lacked grace, 
 
 W hich lie in bitter pain, 
 
 Are not iu such a place 
 
 As foolish folk do fayne : 
 
 Tormented all with Are, 
 
 And boyle in lead again — 
 
 Then cast in frozen jiils 
 
 To /)•«(• there certain hours.' 
 
 And in ' Heywood's Hierarchie of Angels,' Ifi.'JS, p. 345 : — 
 
 ' And suffer as they sinmd, in wrath, in paines 
 
 Of frosts, of fires, of furies, whips, and chains. 
 
 " In the prtH:eding quotation from ' Surrey's Sonps and 
 Sonnets,' there is evidently a sneer at the monks, from 
 whose legendary hell, according to Mr. Warton, the 
 punishment by cold derives its origin " — Todd.
 
 22 
 
 ICE,— WITH POETS UPON IT. 
 
 and liis eye turn wistt'uily to those snow-topped 
 mountains yonder, cooling the blue burning 
 air, let him refresh his wine with the Bacchus 
 of the Italian poet Keui : — 
 
 ICE NECESSARY TO WINS. 
 
 Col topazio pifriato in Lamporeocliio, 
 
 Ch" i famoso Castel per quel Masctto, 
 
 A inghirlanilar le tazze or m' apparccchio, 
 
 Purchfe gelato sia, e sia puretto, 
 
 Gelato, quale alia stagion del' gielo 
 
 11 piu frcildi) Aquilon fischia pel cielo. 
 
 Cantinctte c caiitimplore 
 
 Stieno in pronto a tutte 1' oro 
 
 Con forbito bombolctte 
 
 Chiuse e strette tra Ic brine 
 
 Delle nevi cristalline. 
 
 Sod le nevi il quinto clemento 
 
 Che conipongono il vero bevere : 
 
 Ben e folic chi spera ricevcre 
 
 Senza nevi ncl bere un contento : 
 
 Venga pur da Vallombrosa 
 
 Neve a josa ; 
 
 A''enga pur da ogni bicocca 
 
 Neve in cliiocca ; 
 
 E voi, Satiri, lasciato 
 
 Tante frottole, e tanti riboboli, 
 
 E del ghiaccio mi portate 
 
 Da la grotta del Monte di Boboli. 
 
 Con alti picclii 
 
 De' mazzapicchi 
 
 Pirompefelo, 
 
 Sgretolatelo, 
 
 Infragnetelo, 
 
 Stritolatolo, 
 
 Finche tutto si pnssa risolvere 
 
 In minuta freddissinia polvere, 
 
 Che mi renda il ber piii fresco 
 
 Per rinfresco del palate, 
 
 Or ch' io son mortoassetato. 
 
 Bacco in Toscana. 
 
 You know Lamporecchio, the castle renown'd 
 
 For the gardener so dumb, whose works did abound ; 
 
 There's a topaz they make there ; pray let it go round. 
 
 Serve, serve me a dozen. 
 
 But lot }.t be frozen ; 
 
 l<et it be frozen and finish'd with ice, 
 
 And see that the ice be as virginly nice, 
 
 As the coldest that whistles fr.om wintery skies. 
 
 Coolers and cellarets, crystal with snows, 
 
 Should always hold bottles in ready repose. 
 
 Snow is good liquor's fifth element ; 
 
 No compound without it can give content : 
 
 For weak is the brain, and I hereby scout it. 
 
 That tlimks in hot weather to drink without it. 
 
 Bring me licaps from the Shady 'S alley * : 
 
 Bring me heaps 
 
 Of all that sleeps 
 
 On every village hill and alley. 
 
 Hold there, you satyrs. 
 
 Your beard-shaking chatters, 
 
 And bring me ice duly, and bring it me doubly. 
 
 Out of the grotto of Monte di Boboli. 
 
 With axes and pickaxes, 
 
 Hairimers and rammers, 
 
 Thump it and hit it me, 
 
 Crack it and crash it me, 
 Hew it and split it me, 
 
 Pound it and smash it me. 
 Till the whole mass (for I'm dead-dry, I think) 
 Turns to a cold, fit to freshen my drink. 
 
 * Vallombrosa, which an Englishmaji may call Millon's 
 Vallombrosa. The convciit is as old as the time of Ariosto, 
 V7ho ?!elebrates the monks for their hospitality. 
 
 Ice is such a luxury in the South of Europe, 
 and has become also such a necessity, that in 
 some places a dearth of it is considered the 
 nejxt thing to a want of bread. To jireach 
 tortures of ice at Najdes, would be the counter- 
 part of the mistake of the worthy missionary, 
 who was warned how he said too much of the 
 reverse kind of punishment to the Laplanders. 
 Dante was a native of Florence, where they 
 have winters hard enough ; and where, by 
 the way, during its delightful summers, we 
 have eaten, for a few pence, ice-cream enough 
 to fill three of our silver-costing glasses in 
 England. They bring it you in goblets. The 
 most refreshing beverage we ever drank, was 
 a Florentine lemonade, made with fresh lemons 
 (ofiF the tree), sweetened with capillaire, and 
 floating with ice. 
 
 But, if it were not for our subject, we ought 
 to keep these summer reminiscences for next 
 August. We conclude witli a proper winter 
 picture, painted by one who has been thought 
 (and is, compared with great ones) a very 
 small poet (Ambrose Philips), but who had a 
 vein of truth in all he wrote, which would 
 have obtained him more esteem in an age of 
 poets, than it did in an age of wits. Good- 
 natured Steele, however, discerned his merits ; 
 and the poem before us, which Steele inserted 
 in the ' Tatler,' was admired by them all. It 
 was too new in its localities, and too evidently 
 drawn from nature, not to please them ; and 
 was, furthermore, addressed to, and patronised 
 by a wit — the Earl of Dorset. 
 
 A NORTHKR.N WINTER. 
 
 Copenliapen, March 9, 1709 
 From fr»zen clinics, and endless tracts of snow. 
 From strejims that northern winds forbid to flow, 
 What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring. 
 Or how so near the Pole attempt to sing ? 
 The hoary winter here conceals from sight 
 All pleasing objects tnat to verse invite. 
 The hills and dales, and the delightful woods. 
 The flowery plains, and silver-streaming floods. 
 By snow disguised, in bright confusion lie. 
 And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye. 
 
 No gentle-breathing breeze prepares the spring, 
 Nor birds within tlie desert region sing. 
 The ships unmoved the boisterous winds defy, 
 While rattling chaiiiits o'er the ocean fly. 
 The vast Leviathan wants room to play. 
 And sixiut his waters in the face of day , 
 The starving wolves along the main sea prowl, 
 Ami to the mi/nn in icy valUps howl. 
 For many a shining league, the level main 
 Here spreads itself into a glassy plain : 
 There solid billows of enormous size, 
 Aljis ofyrceii ice, in wild disorder rise. 
 
 And yet, but lately have I seen, even hero. 
 The winter in a lovely diess appear. 
 Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow. 
 Or winds began through h.izy skies to blow, 
 At evening a keen eastern breeze arose 
 And the descending rain unsullied finze. 
 Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew. 
 The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view 
 The face of nature in a rich disguise. 
 And brighten 'd every object to my eyes ;
 
 THE PIANO-FORTE. 
 
 23 
 
 For evert/ shrub, and every blade of grass. 
 
 And every pointed Ihornseein'd wroiKjht in plass. 
 
 In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show. 
 
 While through the ice the crimson berries glow. 
 
 The thick-sprung reeds the watery marshes yield 
 
 Seem polish 'd lances in a hostile field. 
 
 The stag in limpid currents, with surprise 
 
 Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise. 
 
 The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine, 
 
 Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine. 
 
 The frighted birds therattling branches shun. 
 
 That wave and glitter in the distant sun. 
 
 When, if a sudden gust of wind arise. 
 
 The brittle forest into atoms flies : 
 
 The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends. 
 
 And in a spangled shower the prospect ends ; 
 
 Or, if a southern gale the region warm. 
 
 And by degrees unbind the wintry charm, 
 
 The traveller a miry country sees, 
 
 And journeys sad beneath the dripping trees. 
 
 Like some deluded peasant Merlin leads 
 
 Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious meads ; 
 
 While here enchanted gardens to him rise. 
 
 And airy fabrics there attract his eyes. 
 
 His wandering feet the magic paths pursue ; 
 
 And while he thinks the fair illusion true, 
 
 Tlie trackless scenes disperse in fluid air, 
 
 And woods, and wilds, and thornj' ways appear : 
 
 A tedious road the weary wretch returns. 
 
 And as he goes, the transient vision mourns. 
 
 XLV.— THE PIANO-FORTE. 
 
 Henry the Fourth expressed a patriotic 
 hope to see the time arrive wlien every man 
 in France shoxild have "a fowl boiling in 
 )iis pot." Tlie anathemas of an able political 
 writer* against music-playing in farmers' 
 houses (very just if his calculation of the effect 
 of it were the only one) do not hinder us from 
 expressing a hope, that the time may arrive 
 when every family that can earn its subsist- 
 ence shall have its Piano-forte. Not to make 
 them " fine and fashionable," or contemptuous 
 of any right thinking ; but to help them to 
 the pleasures of true refinement, to reward them 
 for riglit thinking and right doing, and make 
 them feel how compatible are the homeliest of 
 their duties with an elegant recreation ; — ^just 
 as the fields and homes teads around them are 
 powdered with daisies and roses, and the very 
 cabbages in their gardens can glitter with sunny 
 dew-drops, to those that have eyes beyond 
 their common use. 
 
 In Germany they have Piano-fortes in inns 
 and cottages ; why should they not have them 
 in England ? The only true answer is, because 
 we seafaring and commercial Saxons, by very 
 reason of our wealth, and of the nneqnal 
 advance of knowledge in comj)arison with it, 
 have missed the wiser conclusions, in this 
 respect, of our Continental brethren, and been 
 accustomed to tlie vulgar mistake of identify- 
 ing all refinement with riches, and, conse- 
 quently, all the right of being refined with the 
 attainment of them. We fancy that nobody 
 can or will be industrious and condescend to a 
 * »ir. Cobbett. 
 
 homely duty, who has a taste for an elegance ; 
 and, so fancying, we bring up the nation, at their 
 peril, to have the same opinion, and thus the 
 error is maintained, and all classes suffer for 
 it ; the rich, because it renders them but half 
 sensible of the real enjoyment of their accom- 
 plishments, and makes them objects of jealousy 
 to the poor ; and the poor, because it forces 
 them to work out, with double pain, that pro- 
 gression towards a better state of thing.s, the 
 steps of whicii would be healed and elevated 
 by such balmy accompaniments. In England, 
 it is taken for an affectation, or some worse 
 sign, if people show an inclination to accomplish- 
 ments not usually found within their sphere. 
 But the whole evil consists in the accomplish- 
 ments not being there already, and constituting 
 a part of their habits ; for in Germany the 
 circumstance is regarded with no such ill-will ; 
 nor do the male or female performers who can 
 play on the Piano forte or sing to it (and there 
 are millions of such) fancy they have the fewer 
 duties to perform, or that they are intitled a 
 bit the more to disrespect those duties. On 
 the contrary, they just know so much the 
 better what is good both in the duty and the 
 recreation ; for no true thing can co-exist 
 falsely with another that is true ; each re- 
 flects light and comfort on each. To have one 
 set of feelings harmonised and put in good 
 key, is to enable us to turn others to their best 
 accoimt ; and he or she who could go from 
 their music to their duties in a frame of mind 
 the worse for it, would only be the victim of a 
 false opinion eradicable, and not of a natural 
 feeling improveable. But false refinements 
 are first set up, and then made judges of true 
 ones. A foolish rich man, M'ho can have con- 
 certs in his liouse, identifies his music, not 
 with anytliing that he really feels or knows 
 about it, but with his power to afford it. He 
 is of opinion with //«.//( Rtbcck in the play, 
 when he is asked why music is said to have a 
 " silver sound," — " Because musicians sound 
 for silver." But if he knew what music really 
 was, he would not care twopence for the show 
 and flare of the thing, any more than he 
 would to have a nightingale painted like a 
 parrot. You may have an ^olian harp in 
 your window that shall cost twenty guineas 
 — you may have another that shall cost little 
 more than as many pence. Will the winds 
 visit tlie poor one with less love ? or the true 
 ear hear it with the less rapture ? One of the 
 obstacles in the way of a general love of 
 music, in this country, is the dearness of it, 
 both print and instrument ; and this is another 
 effect of tlie mistakes of wealth. The rich, 
 having monopolised music, have made it costly ; 
 and the mistaken spirit of trade encourages 
 tlie delusion, instead of throwing open the 
 source of comfort to greater numbers. A 
 costly Pianoforte makes a very fine, and, it 
 must be owned, a very jileasing show in a
 
 24 
 
 THE PIANO-FORTE. 
 
 room, if made in good taste ; but not a bit 
 of the fineness is necessary to it. A Piano- 
 forte is a harp in a box ; and the box might 
 be made of any dfcont matorials, and tlic harp 
 strung for a comparative nothing to wluit it is 
 now. If we took a lesson from our cousins in 
 Saxony and Bavaria, tlie demand for cheap 
 Piano-fortes would soon bring down the price ; 
 and instead of quarrelling over their troubles, 
 or muddling tliem with beer and opium, and 
 rendering themselves alike unfit for patience 
 and for action, the poor would "get up" some 
 music in their villages, and pursue their duties, 
 or theii- claims, with a calmness beneficial to 
 everybody. 
 
 We are aware of the political question that 
 might be put to us at these points of our specu- 
 lation ; but we iiold it to bo answered by the 
 real nature of the case, and, in fact, to have 
 nothing whatever to do with it. We are an 
 unmusical people at present (unless the climate 
 have to do witli it,) simply because of what has 
 been stated, and not for any reason connected 
 witii questions of greater or less freedom. The 
 most musical countries — Greece, Italy, and 
 Germany— have alike been free or enslaved, 
 according as other circumstances happened ; 
 not as music was more or less regarded ; with 
 this difterence, that the more diffused the 
 music, tlie more happy the peace, or the more 
 "deliberate" the "valour*." The greatest 
 among the most active as well as most con- 
 templative of mankind have been lovers of 
 music, often jierformers of it, and have gene- 
 rally united, in consequence, both action and 
 contemplation. Epaminondas was a flute- 
 player ; so was Frederick the Second ; and 
 1/Uther and Milton were organists. 
 
 In connexion with music, then, let us hear 
 notliing about politics, either way. It is one of 
 God's goods which we ought to be desirous to 
 see cultivated among us, next after corn, and 
 honesty, and books. The human hand was 
 made to play it, the ear to hear it, the soul to 
 tliink it something heavenly ; and if we do not 
 avail ourselves of it accordingly, we turn not 
 our hands, ears, and souls to their just account, 
 nor reap half tlie benefit we miglit from the 
 very air that sounds it. 
 
 A Piano-forte is a most agreeable object. 
 It i? a piece of furniture with a soul in it, 
 ready to waken at a touch, and charm us with 
 invisible beauty. Open or shut, it is pleasant 
 to look at ; but open, it looks best, smiling at 
 
 Anon they move 
 
 In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood 
 
 Of flutes and soft recorderr • such as raised 
 
 To lieight of noblest temper heroes old 
 
 Arming to battle ; and, instead of rage. 
 
 Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved, 
 
 With dread of death to flight or foul retreat : 
 
 Nor wanting power to mitigate and 'swage 
 
 With Sf)lcnin touches troubled thought, and chase 
 
 Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sf)rrow, and pain, 
 
 From mortal or imm^rt'il niindb."— Paradise lusl. 
 
 us with its ivory keys, like the mouth of a 
 sweet singer. The keys of a Piano-forte are, of 
 themselves, an agreeable spectacle, — an ele- 
 gance not sufficiently prized for their aspect, 
 because they are so common ; but well worth 
 regarding even in that respect. The colour 
 of the white keys is not a cold white ; or even 
 when at their whitest, there is something of a 
 warmth in the idea of ivory. The black fur- 
 nish a sort of tesselation, and all are smooth and 
 easy to the toucli. It is one of the advantages 
 of this instrument to the learner, that there is 
 no discord to go through in getting at a tone. 
 The tone is ready made. Tiie finger touches 
 the key, and there is music at once. Anotlier 
 and gr(>ater advantage is, tliat it contains a 
 wliole concert in itself; for you may play with 
 all your fingers, and then every finger per- 
 forms the part of a separate instrument. 
 True, it will not compare with a real concert, 
 — with the rising winds of an orchestra ; but 
 in no single instrument, except the organ, can 
 you have such a combination of sounds ; and 
 the organ itself cannot do for you what the 
 Piano-forte does. You can neither get it so 
 clieap, nor will it condescend to play every- 
 thing for you as the other does. It is a lion 
 which has " no skill in dandling the kid." It 
 is a .Jupiter, unable to put off^ liis deity when 
 he visits you. The Piano-forte is not incapa- 
 ble of the grandest music, and it performs the 
 light and neat to admiration, and does not 
 omit even the tender. You may accompany 
 with it, almost equally well, the social graces 
 of Mozart, and the pathos of Winter and 
 Paesiello ; and, as to a certain miniature 
 brilliancy of taste and execution, it has given 
 rise to a music of its own, in the hands of 
 Clementi and others. All those delicate ivory 
 keys which repose in such evenness and quiet, 
 wait only the touch of the master's fingers to 
 become a dancing and singing multitude, and, 
 out of apparent confusion, make accordant 
 loveliness. How pleasant to tiie uninitiated 
 to see him lay his hand upon them, as if in 
 mere indiff"erence, or at random ; and as he 
 dimples the instrument with touches wide and 
 numerous as rain-drops on a summer-sea, play 
 upon the ear tiie most regular harmonies, and 
 give us, in a twinkling, elaborations which it 
 would take us years to pick out ! We forget 
 that he has gone tiirough the same labour, and 
 think only of the beautiful and mysterious 
 result. He must have a taste, to be sure, 
 which no labour cam gift him with, and of this 
 we have a due sense. We wish we had a book 
 by us, written a few years back, intitled " A 
 Ramble among the Musicians in (Germany," 
 in order that we might quote a passage from 
 it about the extempore playing of Hummel, 
 the celebrated master who was lately in this 
 country ; but, if we are not mistaken, it is the 
 hand of the same writer wiiich, in so good a 
 style, between sport and scliolarship, ^^iry* its
 
 THE PIANO-FORTE. 
 
 25 
 
 musical criticisms every week in "The Atlas ; " 
 for they are the next thing to an instrument 
 themselves ; and we recommend our readers 
 to get a sight of that paper as often as they 
 can, in order to cultivate the taste of which 
 England at present seems to be so promisingly 
 ambitious. By the way, we know not whether 
 the Italians use the word in the same sense 
 at present ; but in an old dictionary in our 
 possession, the keys of musical instruments 
 are called " tasti," — tastes, — a very expressive 
 designation. You do taste the Piano-forte the 
 moment you touch it. Anybody can taste it ; 
 which, as we said before, is not tiie case with 
 other instruments, the tone in them not being 
 ready made ; though a master, of course, may 
 apply the word to any. 
 
 " So said, — his hand, sprightly as fire, he flings. 
 And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings." 
 
 There are supei-fine ears that profess not to 
 be able to endure a Piano-forte after a concert ; 
 others that always find it to be out of tune ; 
 and more who veil their insensibility to music 
 in general, V)y protesting against " everlasting 
 tinkles," and school-girl affectation or sullen- 
 ness. It is not a pleasure, certainly, whicii a 
 man would select, to be obliged to witness 
 affectations of any sort, much less sullenness, or 
 any other absurdity. Such young ladies as are 
 perpetually thinking of their abstract preten- 
 sions, and either affectedly trying to screw up 
 their musical skill to them, or resenting, with 
 tears and petty exclamations, that they cannot 
 do it, are not the most sensible and agreeable 
 of all possible charmers. But these terrible 
 calamities may be safely left to the endurance, 
 or non-endura"ce, of the no less terrible critics, 
 wlio are so merciless upon them, or pretend to 
 be. The critics and the performers will equally 
 take themselves for prodigious peoi)le ; and 
 music will do both parties more good than 
 harm in the long-run, however their zeal may 
 fail short of their would-be capacity for it. 
 With respect to Piano-fortes not perfectly in 
 tune, it is a curious fact in the history of 
 sounds, that no instrument is ever perfectly in 
 tune. Even the heavenly charmer, music, 
 being partly of earth as well as of heaven, par- 
 takes the common imperfection of things sub- 
 lunary. It is, therefore, possible to have 
 senses too fine for it, if we are to be always 
 ' sensible of this imperfection ; to 
 
 " Die of an air in achromatic pain ;" 
 
 and if we are not to be thus sensible, who is 
 to judge at what nice point of imperfection tlie 
 disgust is to begin, where no disgust is feit by 
 the general ear? The sound of a trumjiet, 
 ill Mozart's infancy, is said to have threatened 
 liim with convulsions. To such a man, and 
 especially to so great a m:uster, every rigiit of 
 a liorror of discord would be conceded, sup- 
 posing his ear to have grown uj> as it began ; 
 
 but that it did not do so is manifest from his 
 use of trumpets ; while at the same time so 
 fine heyond ultra-fineness was his ear, that 
 there is a passage in his works, pronounced 
 impracticably discordant by the whole musical 
 world, which nevertheless tlie critics are agreed 
 that he must have written as it stands* In 
 other words, Mozart perceived a harmony in 
 discord itself, or what universally appeared to 
 be such, — ^just as very fine tastes in eating and 
 drinking relish something which is disliked by 
 the common palate ; or, as the reading world 
 discovered, not long ago, that Pope, for all his 
 sweetness, was not so musical a versifier as 
 those " crabbed old English poets." The crabs 
 were found to be very apples of the Hesperides. 
 What we would infer from this is, that the 
 same exquisHe perception which discerned the 
 sweetness in the sour of that discord, would 
 not have been among the first to despise an 
 imperfection in the tuning of an instrument, 
 nor, though he might wish it away, be rendered 
 insensible by it of that finest part of the good 
 music it performed, which consists in inven- 
 tion, and expression, and gi-ace, — always the 
 flower of music, as of every other art, and to 
 be seen and enjoyed by the rery finest ears as 
 well as the humbler ones of good-will, because 
 the soul of a tiling is worth more to them than 
 the body of it, and the greater is greater than 
 the less. 
 
 Thus much to caution true lovers of music 
 hoAv they suffer their natural discernment to 
 be warped by niceties " more nice than wise," 
 and to encourage them, if an instrument 
 pleases the general lovers of music, to try and 
 be pleased with it as much as they can them- 
 selves, maugre what technical refiners may say 
 of it, probably out of a jealousy of those whose 
 refinements are of a higher order. All instru- 
 ments are out of tune, tiie acoustic philosopher 
 tells us. Well, be it so ; provided we are not 
 so much out of tune ourselves as to know it, 
 or to l)e unable to discern something better in 
 sjiite of it. 
 
 As to those who, notwithstanding their pre- 
 tended love of music at other times, are so 
 ready to talk of "jingling" and "tinkling," 
 whenever they liear a Piano-forte, or a poor 
 girl at her lesson, they have really no love of 
 music whatsoever, and only proclaim as much 
 to tliose who understand them. They are 
 among tlie wiseacres who are always proving 
 their spleen at the expense of their wit. 
 
 Piano-fortes will probably be mucli improved 
 by the next generation. Experiments are 
 daily malting with them, sometimes of much 
 j>romise ; and the extension of science on all 
 hands bids fair to improve whatever is con- 
 nected with mechanism. We are very well con- 
 tent, however, for ourselves, with tlie instru- 
 ment as it is ; are grateful for it, as a concert 
 
 * \Vc canni)t refer tn it in its place ; but it was quoted 
 some time since in " The Atlas."
 
 2fi 
 
 THE PIANO-FORTE. 
 
 in miniature ; and admire it as a piece of fur- 
 niture in all its shapes : only we do not like to 
 see it made a table of, and laden with move- 
 ables ; nor wlieu it is ujiriglit, does it seem 
 quite finislied without a bust on it ; perhajts, 
 because it makes so good a pedestal, and seems 
 to call for one. 
 
 Phiiio-furU (soft and strong) is not a good 
 name for an instrument wiiich is no softer nor 
 stronger than some otliers. The organ unites 
 the two (jualities most ; but ortjan {opyavov, 
 instrumentum, — as if th« instrument, by excel- 
 lence) is tlu' proper word for it, not to be 
 parted witli, and of a sound fit for its noble- 
 ness. The word Piano-forte came up, when 
 the harpsichord and spinet, its predecessors, 
 were made softer. Harpsichord (arpichorda, — 
 commonly called in Italian clavicembalo, or 
 keyed cymbal, i. e. a box or ludlow, Fr. clavecin) 
 is a sounding but hardly a good word, meaning 
 a harp with chords — which may be said of any 
 harp. Spinet, an older term (spinette, thorns), 
 signifies the quills which used to occupy tlie 
 place of the modern clothed hammers, and 
 which produced tixe hai-sh sound in the old 
 instruments ; the quill striking the edge of the 
 strings, like the nicking of a guitar-string by 
 the nail. The spinet was preceded by the 
 Vlr<jina/s, the oldest instrument, we believe, of 
 the kind, — so called, perhaps, from its being 
 chiefly played upon by young women, or 
 because it was used in singing hymns to the 
 Virgin. Spenser has mentioned it in an 
 English Trimeter-Iambk ; one of those fantastic 
 attempts to introduce tiie uncongenialities of 
 Latin versification, which the taste of the great 
 poet soon led iiim to abandon. The line, 
 however, in which the virginals are men- 
 tioned, presents a picture not unworthy of 
 him. His apostrophe, at the outset, to his 
 " unliappie verse," contains an involuntary 
 satire ; 
 
 " Unhappie Verse .' the witncsse of my unhappie state, 
 Make thyself flutt'ring wings of thy fast-fiying 
 Thought, and fly forth unto my Love whersoever she be ; 
 Whether lying restless in lieavy bedde, or else 
 Sitting so cheerelesse at the eheerfuU boarde, or else 
 Playing alone carelesse vn her heavenlie virginals." 
 
 Queen Elizabeth is on record as having 
 played on the virginals. It has been sujiposcd 
 by some that the instrument took its name 
 from her ; but it is probably older. The musi- 
 cal instrument mentioned in one of Shak- 
 speare's sonnets is of the same keyed family. 
 What a complete feeling of the andante, or 
 going movement (as the Italians call it), is 
 there in the beautiful line which we have 
 marked ! and what a pleasant mi.xture of 
 tenderness and archness throughout ! 
 
 " How oft when thou, my music, musnc play'st 
 Upon that blessed wood, whose motion sounds 
 With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st 
 The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, 
 
 Do I envy those jacks, that nimble leap 
 
 To kiss the tender inward of thy hand. 
 
 Whilst my poor lips, that should that harvest reap, 
 
 At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand ! 
 
 To be so tickled, they would change their state 
 
 And situatiiin with tlmse dancing chips 
 
 O'er whom thyfniyers tealk with gentle gait .' 
 
 Since saucy jacks so happy a.'e in this. 
 
 Give them thy fingers, mu thy lips to kiss." 
 
 Thus we have two out of our great poets, 
 Spenser and Shakspeare, showing us the deliglit 
 they took in tlie same species of instrument 
 which we have now, and so bringing them- 
 selves near to our Piano-fortes. 
 
 " still virginalling 
 Upon his palm — " 
 
 says the jealous husband in the " Winter's 
 Tale." Ciiaucer, Sjienser, Shakspeare, and 
 ]VIilton, all mention the organ. Chaucer speaks 
 of several instruments, but we cannot trace to 
 him any other keyed one. It is rather surprising 
 tiiat the poets, considering the love of music 
 natural to them, and their frequent mention 
 of the art, have spoken of so few musical 
 instruments — at least as if conversant with 
 them in their houses. Milton was an organ- 
 player, and Gay a flute-player (how like the 
 difl^erence of their genius !) Thomson pos- 
 sessed an .35olian harp, of which he seems to 
 have been very fond, lie has addressed an 
 ode to it (from which the verses have been 
 set to music, beginning 
 
 " Methinks 1 hear the lull (celestial choir ;") 
 
 and has again mentioned the instrument in 
 his " Castle of Indolence," a most fit place 
 for it. 
 
 All the truest lovers of any one art admire 
 the other arts. Farinelli had several harpsi- 
 chords to which he gave the names of jiainters, 
 according to their respective qualities, — calling 
 one his Raphael, another his Correggio, &c. 
 And the exquisite little painting, by Annibal 
 Carracci, in the British Gallery, of " Silenus 
 teaching Apollo to play tiie pan-pipe" (togetiier 
 with a companion picture hanging near it) is 
 said to have formed one of the compartments 
 of the harpsichord belonging to that great 
 painter. Tliis is the natural magnificence of 
 genius, which thinks no ornaments too precious 
 for the objects of its love. We should like to 
 be rich enough to ])lay at imitating these great 
 men, and see how much we could do to aggran- 
 dise a Piano-forte. Let us see : it should be 
 of the most precious, aromatic wood ; the 
 white keys, ivory (nothing can be better than 
 that) ; the black, ebony ; the legs sculptured 
 with foliage and Loves and Graces ; the pannels 
 should all be Titians and Correggios ; the most 
 exquisite vci'.ses out of the Poets should be 
 carved between them ; an arabesque cabinet 
 shoidd stand near it, containing the finest com- 
 positions ; and Rossini should come from Italy 
 to play them, and Pasta to sing.
 
 WHY SWEET MUSIC PRODUCES SADNESS. 
 
 27 
 
 Meantime, what signifies all this luxury? 
 The soul of music is at hand, wherever there 
 are keys and strings and loving fingers to 
 touch them ; and this soul, which disposes us 
 to fancy the luxuiy, enables us to do without 
 it. We can enjoy it in vision, without the 
 expense. 
 
 We take the liberty of closing this article 
 with two copies of verses, which two eminent 
 living musicians, Messrs. Barnett and Novello, 
 have done us the honour to set to music. The 
 verses have been printed before, but many of 
 our readers will not have seen them. We did 
 not think it possible for any words of our own 
 to give us so much pleasure in the repetition, 
 as when we heard her father's composition 
 sung by the pure and most tuneful voice of 
 Miss Clara Novello (Clara is she well named) ; 
 and tlie reader may see what is thought of Mr. 
 Barnett's powers, lay musical judges, in a criti- 
 cism upon it in a late number of " The Atlas," 
 or another in a new cheap periodical publica- 
 tion, called " The Englishwoman," heiress to 
 the graces and good stock of her deceased 
 parents, " The Ladies' Gazette " and " The 
 Penny Novelist," and uniting them both to 
 better advantage : — 
 
 THOUGHTS ON HEARING SO;HE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC. 
 
 (Set to music by Vincent Novello.) 
 
 When lovely sounds about my ears 
 Like winds in Eden's tree-tops rise. 
 
 And make me, though my spirit hears, 
 For very luxury close my eyes : 
 
 Let none but friends be round about, 
 \\T)0 love the smoothing joy like me, 
 
 That so the charm be felt throughout. 
 And all be harmony. 
 
 And when we reach the close divine, 
 Then let the hand of her 1 love 
 
 Come with its gentle palm on mine. 
 As soft as snow, or lighting dove ; 
 
 And let, by stealth, that more than friend 
 Look sweetness in my opening eyes ; 
 
 For only so such dreams should end. 
 Or wake in Paradise. 
 
 THE LOVER OF MUSrC TO HIS PIANO-FORTIC. 
 
 (Trom Barnett's '^Lyrical Illustrations of the Modern 
 Poets.") 
 
 friend, whom glad or grave we seek, 
 Heaven-holding shrine ! 
 
 1 ope thee, touch thee, hear thee speak. 
 
 And peace is mine. 
 No fairy casket, full of bliss, 
 
 Out-values thee ; 
 Love only, waken'd with a kiss. 
 
 More sweet may be. 
 
 To thee, when our full hearts o'erUow 
 
 In griefs or joys. 
 Unspeakable emotions owe 
 
 A fitting voice : 
 Mirth flies to thee, and Love's imrest. 
 
 And Memory dc;ir. 
 And Sorrow, with his tighten'd breast, 
 
 Comes for a tcaj-. 
 
 Oh, since no joy of human mould 
 
 Thus waits us still. 
 Thrice bless'd be thine, thou gentle fold 
 
 Of peace at will. 
 No change, no sullenness, no cheat, 
 
 In thee we find ; 
 Thy saddest voice is ever sweet, — 
 
 Thine answer, kind. 
 
 XLVI.— WHY SWEET MUSIC PRODUCES 
 SADNESS. 
 
 Sweet music, that is to say, "sweet" in the 
 sense in which it is evidently used in the 
 following passage, — something not of a mirth- 
 ful character, but yet not of a melancholy one, 
 — does not always produce sadness ; but it does 
 often, even when the words, if it be vocal 
 music, are cheerful. We do not presume to 
 take for granted, that the reason we are about 
 to differ with, or perhaps rather to extend, is 
 Shakspeare's own, or that he would have 
 stopped thus short, if speaking in his own 
 person ; though he has given it the air of an 
 abstract remark ; — but Lorenzo, in " The Mer- 
 chant of Venice," says, that it is because our 
 "spirits are attentive." 
 
 " I'm never merry when I hear sweet music," 
 
 says pretty Jessica. 
 
 " The reason is, your spirits are attentive," 
 
 says her lover ; 
 
 " For do but note a wild and wanton herd. 
 Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
 Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud. 
 Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 
 If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, 
 Or any air of music touch their ears, 
 You shall perceive them make a mutual stand. 
 Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, 
 By the sweet power of music." 
 
 How beautiful ! But with the leave of this 
 young and most elegant logician, his reason is, 
 at least, not sufficient ; for how does it account 
 for our being moved, even to tears, by music 
 which is not otherwise melancholy ? All 
 attention, it is true, implies a certain degree 
 of earnestness, and all earnestness has a mix- 
 ture of seriousness ; yet seriousness is not the 
 prevailingcharacterof attention in allinstances, 
 for we are attentive to fine music, whatever its 
 character ; and sometiuies it makes us cheer- 
 ful, and even mirthful. The giddier portions 
 of Rossini's music do not make us sad ; 
 Figaro does not make us sad ; nor is sadness 
 the general consequence of hearing dances, or 
 even marches. 
 
 And yet, again, on the other hand, in the 
 midst of any of this music, even of the most 
 liglit and joyous, our eyes shall sometimes fill 
 with tears. How is tliis ? 
 
 The reason surely is, that we have an in- 
 stinctive sense of the fugitive and perishing
 
 28 
 
 DANCING AND DANCERS. 
 
 nature of all sweet things, — of beauty, of youth, 
 of life, — of all those fair shows of the world, of 
 which music seems to be the voice, and of 
 whose transitory nature it reminds us most 
 wlicn it is most beautiful, because it is then 
 that we most regret our mortality. 
 
 We do not, it is true, say this to ourselves. 
 We are ]iot conscious of the reason ; that is 
 to say, we do not feel it with knoichiijiifsg ; but 
 we do feel it, for the tears are moved. And 
 how many exquisite criticisms of tears and 
 laughter do not whole audiences make at plays, 
 thougli not one man in fifty shall be able to 
 put down his reasons for it on paper I 
 
 XLVII.— DANCING AND DANCERS. 
 
 While Tory genius boasts of its ])oetic 
 Wilson, and ornitliology of another, and the 
 fine arts of Wilson " the English Claude," tlie 
 minor graces insist upon having their Wilson 
 too in the person of the eminent ]\Ir. Thomas 
 Wilson, author of several dramatic pieces, and 
 inductor of ladies and gentlemen into the 
 shapely and salutary art of dancing. 
 
 This old, though doubtless at the same time 
 ever-yoxing acquaintance of ours, who has done 
 us the honour for several years past of making 
 us acquainted with his movements, and inviting 
 us to his balls, which it lias not been our good 
 fortune to be able to attend, always sends us, 
 with his invitations, a placard of equal wit and 
 dimensions, in which he takes patriotic occa- 
 sion to set forth the virtues of his art. He 
 does not affect to desjjise its ordinary profits, 
 income-wards. That would be a want of can- 
 dour, unbefitting the entireness of his wisdom. 
 On the contrary, dancing being a liberal art, 
 he is studious to inculcate an equally liberal 
 acknowledgment on the part of those who are 
 indebted to it. But being a man of a reflective 
 turn of leg, and great animal spirits, lie omits 
 no opportunity of showing how good his art 
 is for tlie happiness as well as the graces of 
 his countrymen — iiow it i-enders them light of 
 spirit as well as body, shakes melancholy out 
 of their livers, and will not at all suffer them 
 to be gouty. Nay, he says it is their own faults 
 if they grow old. 
 
 We liardly dare to introduce, abruptly, the 
 remarks on this head which form the com- 
 mencement of his ])resent year's E.qwse. But 
 the energy of Mr. Wilson's jiliilanthropy forces 
 its way through iiis elegances ; tlie good to be 
 done is a greater thing in his mind, even than 
 the graces with which he invests it ; and in 
 answer to his question, "Wliy don't everybody 
 dance?" he says in a passion of siiicerity wiiicli 
 sweeps objection away with it, — " Because the 
 English prefer tlie pleasures of the table and 
 sedentary amusements, with their gout, apo- 
 plexy, shortness of breath, spindle-shanks, and 
 
 rum-iiuncheon bellies," (pardon us, O Bacchus 
 of Anacreon !) "to the more wholesome and 
 healthy recreation of dancing. If you ask 
 a person of fifty (says he) to take a dance, the 
 usual riq)ly is, ' My dancing days are gone by ; 
 it's not fit amusement for people of my time 
 of life,' and such like idle cant : for idle cant it 
 really is, as these jiretences are either made 
 as excuses for idleness, or to comply witli the 
 usual fastidious customs of the day. They 
 manage things better in France, as Yorick 
 says ; for it would be quite as difficult, amongst 
 tliat [jolite and social jieople, to find a person 
 of fifty who did not dance, as it is in gloomy, 
 cold, calculating Old England, to find one who 
 has good sense enough to laugh at these fa.s- 
 tidious notions, with a suflicient stock of social 
 animal s])irits to share in this polite and ex- 
 hilarating amusement. Moreover, if we wanted 
 a sanction to continue to dance as long as we 
 are able, I could here give a list (had I room) 
 of a hundred eminent persons who did not 
 consider it a disgrace to dance, even at a very 
 advanced age ; amongst the number, Socrates, 
 one of the wisest men and greatest philosophers 
 that ever lived, used to dance for his exercise 
 and amusement when he was upwards of 
 seventy. Read this, ye gourmands and card- 
 players of fifty ; and if you are wise, an would 
 leave the gout and a thousand other ills 
 beside you, come and gport a toe with me, at 18, 
 Kirby-street Ilattou-garden : 
 
 For you'll meet many there, who to iloctors ne'er go, 
 Who enj(iy health and spirit, from spnrtinK a toe; 
 AVlio ntitlier want powder, pill, mixture, nor lotion, 
 But a partner and fiddle to set them in motion." 
 
 Truly, we fear that the tip-end of Mr. 
 Wilson's indignant bow strikes hard upon 
 many a venerable gout ; and that tliese dan- 
 cing philosophers of Kirby-street have the 
 advantage of a great many otherwise sage 
 people who take pills instead of exercise, and 
 think to substitute powders and lotions for 
 those more ancient usages, yclejit the laws of 
 the universe. Such, as Mr. Wilson tells us, 
 was tlie philosophy of Socrates. There can 
 be no doubt of it ; it Avas tiie philosophy of all 
 his countrymen, the Greeks, with wliom dan- 
 cing formed a part of tiieir very worship, and 
 who had figures accordingly, fit to go to church 
 and thank Heaven witii. Bacchus himself, 
 Avith them, was a dancer, and a slender-waisted 
 young gentleman. Such was also the philo- 
 soi)hy of Mr. Wilson's brother poet, Soame 
 Jenyns, a lively old gentleman of the last 
 century, who wrote a poem on the " Art of 
 Dancing," from which Mr. Wilson should give 
 us some extracts in his next placard ; (we 
 wish we had it by us ;) and what is cunous, 
 and shows how accustomed these saltatory 
 sages are to consider the interests of the 
 wliole human being, sjiiritual as well as bodily, 
 Mr. Jenyns had a poetical precursor on that
 
 DANCING AND DANCERS. 
 
 29 
 
 subject, who was no less a personage than a 
 chief-justice in tlie time of Elizabeth, — Sir John 
 Davies,and who, like himself, wrote also on reli- 
 gious matters, and the Immortality of the Soul. 
 Sir John, however, appears not to have suffi- 
 ciently practised his own precepts, for he died 
 of apoplexy at fifty-seven, — a very crude and 
 juvenile age according to Mr. Wilson. But 
 then he was a lawyer, and injudicious enough 
 to be a judge, — to sit bundled up in cloth 
 and ermine, instead of dancing in a "light 
 cymar." Again, there was Sir Christopher 
 Hatton, chancellor in the time of Elizabeth, 
 who is said to have absolutely danced himself 
 into that venerable jjosition, through a series 
 of extraordinaiy steps of court favour, com- 
 mencing in a ball-room, — and not improbably 
 either ; for, like some of his great brethren in 
 that office, Sir Christopher appears to have been 
 a truly universal genius, able," like the elephant's 
 trunk," to pick up his pin as well as knock 
 down his tiger; and it is not to be wondered at 
 if sovereigns sometimes get at a knowledge of 
 the profounder faculties of a man, through the 
 medium of his more entertaining ones. The 
 Chancellor, however, appears to have turned his 
 dancing to no better account, ultimately, than 
 the Justice ; for they say he died prematurely of 
 a broken heart, because the queen pressed 
 liim for a debt, — an end worthier of a courtier, 
 than of a sage and dancer. This it is to 
 acquire legal habits, and "make the worse 
 appear the better reason," even to one's-self. 
 Hatton should have been above his law, and 
 stuck to his legs, — to his natural understandhuj, 
 as Mr. Wilson would call it ; and then nothing 
 would have overthrown him. Gray, with a 
 poet's license, represents him as dancing after 
 he was chancellor. It is a pity it was not 
 true. 
 
 My grave lord-keeper led the brawls ; 
 His seal and maces danced before him. 
 His high-crown'd hat and satin doublet 
 Moved the stout heart of Enghmd's queen. 
 Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it. 
 
 Sir Christopher bequeathed his name to 
 Hatton-garden ; so that Mr. Wilson resides 
 in a fit neighbourhood, and doubtless has 
 visions of cavaliers and maids of honour in 
 ruffs, "sporting their toes" through his dreams 
 by night. 
 
 Our artist's vindication of the juvenility of 
 dancers at fifty, reminds us of a jileasaut real- 
 ization we experienced the other day of a 
 stage joke — nay, of a great improvement on it, 
 — a Romance of Real Life! In one of Colman's 
 farces, an old man hearing aiiotlier called old, 
 and understanding lie was only forty, exclaims 
 " Forty! quite a boy!" We heard this opinion 
 pronounced ujion a man of flrtii by an old gen- 
 tleman, who, we suiii)ose, must be eighty, or 
 thereabouts. It was in an omnibus, in which 
 he was returning from a City dinner, jovial 
 and toothless, his rosy gills gracing his white 
 
 locks ; an Anacreon in broad-cloth. Some 
 friend of his was telling him of the death of an 
 acquaintance, and in answer to his question 
 respecting the cause of it, said he did not 
 know, but that the deceased was " sixty years 
 of age." The remark seemed hardly to be an 
 indiscretion in the ears of the venerable old 
 boy, he considered it so very inapplicable. 
 •' Sixty !" cried he, with a lisp that was really 
 robust ; " well, that's nothing, you know, com- 
 pared with Ufe. Why, he was quite a boy." 
 
 Wilson. This must have been a dancer. 
 
 )SV'«r. Or a rider. 
 
 W. Well, horseback is a kind of dancing. 
 
 Seer. Or a walker. 
 
 W. Well, walking is dancing too ; that is to 
 say, good walking. You know, my dear sir, 
 people are said to "walk a minuet." 
 
 Seer. But they say dancers are not good 
 walkers. 
 
 W. How ! Dancers not good walkers ! ! 
 It is true, I must allow in candour, that some 
 professional dancers are apt to turn out their 
 toes a little too much ; but not all, my dear 
 sir — not the best : and, as to dancers in gene- 
 ral, I will affirm, meo periculo, as the philoso- 
 pher says, they walk exquisitely — a merteille. 
 Come and see my dancers walking into the 
 ball-room, or my new dance of the " Rival 
 Beauties ; " " thirty young ladies," sir, all 
 moving to the sweet and peaceful battle at 
 once. See how thei/ walk, my dear sir. You 
 would never forget it. 
 
 Seer. I shall never forget it, as it is, JNIr. 
 Wilson. I see it, in imagination, painted 
 in the beautiful red letters of your placard, 
 and do not wonder that you are a man in re- 
 quest for Richmond parties, and records of it 
 in verse. 
 
 Here Mr. Wilson finishes the dialogue with 
 a bow to which it would be bad taste and an 
 anti-climax to reply. There is a final and tri- 
 umphant silence of eloquence, to which nothing 
 can be said. 
 
 To return to the matter of age. There can 
 be no doubt that dancers of fifty are a very 
 different sort of quinquagenarians from sitters 
 of fifty, and that men of the same age often 
 resemble each other in no other respect. "The 
 same is not the same." Some people may 
 even be said to have begun life over again, at 
 a time when the dissipated and the sullen are 
 j)reparing to give it up. It is not necessary 
 to mention such cases as those of Old Parr. 
 Marmontel — a man of letters, of taste and 
 fancy, and therefore, it is to be j)resiimed, of 
 no very coarse organisation — married at fifty- 
 six, and, after living happily with a family 
 born to him, died at the age of seventy-seven. 
 But,t]unig]i a man of letters, and living at a 
 jieriod wiien tiiere was great license of man- 
 ners, to which his own had fonned no very rigid 
 exception — he had led, upon the whole, a 
 natural life, and was temperate. Besides,
 
 30 
 
 DANCING AND DANCERS. 
 
 Nature is very indul<jent to those who do not 
 violently coiitriuliit her with artiHcial hahits, 
 excesses of the table, or sullen thoughts. 
 She hates alike the extremes, not of cheer- 
 fulness, but of Comus and of Melancholy. 
 A venerable peer of Norfolk, now living, 
 married and had an heir born to his estate 
 at a venerable age, wliioli nobody thought 
 of treating with jests of a certain kind ; for 
 he also had been a denizen of the natural 
 world, and was as young, with good sense 
 and exercise, as people of half his age — far 
 younger than many. We remember tlie face 
 of envying respect and astonishment with 
 which the news was received by "a per- 
 son of wit and honour about town" (now 
 deceased,) in whose company we happened to 
 be at the moment, and who might have been 
 his son three or four times over. 
 
 Query — at what age' must a person take to 
 venerable manners, and consent to look old if 
 he does not feel so ? Mr. Wilson will say, 
 "When he is forced to leave off dancing." And 
 there is a definite notion in that. If any one, 
 therefore, wishes to have precise ideas on this 
 point, and behave himself as becomes his real, 
 not his chronological time of life, we really 
 think he cannot do better than study in Kirby- 
 street, or at Willis's, and learn to know at 
 what age it becomes him to be reverend, or 
 how long he may continue laughing at those 
 who remonstrate with him because they hobble. 
 Linna?us, in his Travels, gives an account — ludi- 
 crous in the eyes of us spectators of the staid 
 and misgiving manners of people at the same 
 time of life — of two Laplanders who accom- 
 panied him on some occasion — we forget what, 
 but who carried bundles for him, and had 
 otherwise reason for being tired, the way 
 being long. One of them was fifty, the other 
 considerably older ; yet what did these old 
 boys at tiie close of their journey, but, instead 
 of sitting down and resting themselves, begin 
 laughing and running about after one another, 
 like a couple of antediluvian children, as if 
 they had just risen ! They wanted nothing 
 but pinafores, and a mother remonstrating 
 witli them for not coming and having their 
 hairs combed. 
 
 Most people are astonished, perhaps, as they 
 advance beyond the period of youth and middle 
 life, at not finding tliemselves still older ; and 
 if they took wise advantage of this astonisii- 
 ment, they would all live to a much greater 
 age. It is equally by not daring to be too 
 young, nor consenting to be too old, that men 
 keep tliemselves in order witli Nature, and 
 in heart with her. We kill ourselves before 
 our time, with artificial irregularities and 
 melancholy resentments. We hasten age 
 with late hours, and the table, and want of 
 exercise ; and liate it, and make it worse 
 when it comes, with bad temper and inactive 
 regrets. 
 
 A boy of ten thinks he shall be in the prime 
 of life when he is twenty, and (as lives go) he 
 is so ; tiiough, when he comes to be twenty, 
 he shoves off his notion of the prime to thirty, 
 then to tliirty-five, then to forty ; and when, at 
 length, he is forced to own himself no longer 
 young, he is at once astonished to think he has 
 been young so long, and angry to find liimself 
 no younger. This would be hardly fair upon 
 the indulgence of Nature, if Nature supplied 
 us with education as well as existence, and 
 the world itself did not manifestly take time 
 to come to years of discretion. In the early 
 ages of the world, the inability to lead artifi- 
 cial lives was the great cause of longevity ; as 
 in future ones, it is to be hoped, the apprecia- 
 tion of the natural life will bring men round 
 to it. It would have put the pastoral, patriar- 
 chal people sadly out, to keep late hours at 
 night, and to sit after dinner " pushing about " 
 the milk! 
 
 Nature, in the mean time, acts with her 
 usual good-natured instinct, and makes the 
 best of a bad business ; rather, let us say, pro- 
 duces it in order to produce a better, and to 
 enable us to improve upon her early world. 
 She has even something good to say in behalf 
 of the ill-health of modern times and the rith 
 delicacy of its perceptions ; so that we might 
 be warranted in supposing that she is ever 
 improving, even when she least appears to be 
 so ; and that your pastoral longevity, though a 
 good pattern in some respects for that which 
 is to come, had but a poor milk-and-water 
 measure of happiness, compared with the 
 wine and the intellectual movement of us inter- 
 mediate strugglers. At all events, the mea- 
 sure, somehow or other, may be equal — and 
 the difference only a variety of sameness. And 
 there is as much comfort in that reflection, 
 and a great diificulty solved in it. Only 
 Nature, after all, still incites us to look for- 
 ward ; and, whether it be for the sake of real 
 or of ajjparent change, forward we must look, 
 and look heartily, taking care to realise all 
 tlie happiness we can, as we go. This seems 
 the true mode of kcej)ing all our faculties in 
 action — all the inevitable thoughts given to 
 man, of past, present, and future ; and with 
 this srrave refioction we conclude our present 
 dance under Mr. Wilson s patronage, gravely 
 as well as gaily recommending his very useful 
 art, to all lovers of health, grace, and soci- 
 ality. 
 
 Why do not peoph oftemr get up dances at home, 
 and without waitimj for the ceremony of visUors and 
 the drawback of late hours'? It would be a great 
 addition to the cheerfulness and health of 
 families.
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 31 
 
 XLVIII TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 A STREET PORTRAIT. SHAKSPEAKE'S PLAY, RECOLLECTIONS 
 OF A TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 Christmas goes out in fine style, — with 
 Twelfth Night. It is a finish worthy of the 
 time. Christmas Day was the morning of the 
 season ; New Year's Day the middle of it, or 
 noon ; Twelfth Night is the night, brilliant 
 with innumerable planets of Twelfth-cakes. 
 The whole island keeps court ; nay, all Chris- 
 tendom. All the world are kings and queens. 
 Everybody is somebody else ; and learns at once 
 to laugh at, and to tolerate, characters different 
 from his own, by enacting them. Cakes, 
 characters, forfeits, lights, theatres, merry 
 rooms, little holiday-faces, and, last not least, 
 the painted sugar on the cakes, so bad to eat 
 but so fine to look at, useful because it is per- 
 fectly useless except for a sight and a moral, — 
 all conspire to throw a giddy splendour over 
 the last night of the season, and to send it to 
 bed in pomp and colours, like a Prince. 
 
 And not the least good thing in Twelfth Night 
 is, that we see it coming for days beforehand, 
 in the cakes that garnish the shops. We are 
 among those who do not "like a surprise," 
 except in dramas (and not too much of it even 
 there, nor unprepared with expectation). We 
 like to know of the good things intended for 
 us. It adds the pleasure of hope to that of 
 possession. Thus we eat our Twelfth-cake 
 many times in imagination, before it comes. 
 Every pastry-cook's shop we pass, flashes it 
 upon us. 
 
 Coming Twelflh-cakes cast their shadows before ; 
 
 if shadows they can be called, which shade 
 have none ; so full of colour are they, as if 
 Titian had invented them. Even the little 
 ragged boys, who stand at those shops by the 
 hour, admiring the heaven within, and are des- 
 tined to have none of it, get, perhaps, from 
 imagination alone, a stronger taste of the beati- 
 tude, than many a richly-fed palate, which is at 
 the mercy of some particular missing relish, 
 — some touch of spice or citron, or a " leetle 
 more" ejr<'. 
 
 We believe we have told a story of one of 
 those urchins before, but it will bear repetition, 
 especially as a strong relish of it has come upon 
 us, and we are tempted to relate it at greater 
 length. There is nothing very Avouderful or 
 epigrammatic in it, but it has to do witli the 
 beatific visions of the pastry-shops. Our hero 
 was one of those equivocal animal-si)irits of 
 the streets, who come whistling along, you 
 know not whether thief or errand-boy, some- 
 times with bundle and sometimes not, in 
 corduroys, a jacket, and a cap or bit of hat, 
 with hair stickii!g through a hole in it. His 
 vivacity gets him into scrapes in the street, 
 and he is not ultra-studious of civility in liis 
 answers. If the man he runs against is not 
 
 very big, he gives him abuse for abuse at once ; 
 if otherwise, he gets at a convenient distance, 
 and then halloos out, "Eh, stupid !" or "Can't 
 you see before you?" or "Go, and get your 
 face washed." This last is a favourite saying 
 of his, out of an instinct referable to his own 
 visage. He sings " Hokee-pokee " and a "Shiny 
 Night," varied occasionally with an iiproarious 
 " Rise, gentle Moon," or " Coming through the 
 Rye." On winter evenings, you may hear him 
 indulging himself, as he goes along, in a singular 
 undulation of howl ; — a sort of gargle, — as if a 
 wolf were practising the rudiments of a shake. 
 This he delights to do more particularly in a 
 crowded thoroughfare, as though determined 
 that his noise should triumph over every other, 
 and show how jolly he is, and how independent 
 of the ties to good behaviour. If the street is a 
 quiet one,and he has a stick in his hand (perhaps 
 a hoop-stick), he accompanies the howl with a 
 run upon the gamut of the iron rails. He is 
 the nightingale of mud and cold. If he gets 
 on in life, he will be a pot-boy. At present, 
 as we said before, we hardly know what he is ; 
 but his mother thinks herself lucky if he is not 
 transported. 
 
 Well ; one of these elves of the pav<? — per- 
 plexers of Lord IMayors, and irritators of the 
 police — was standing one evening before a 
 pastry-cook's shop-window, flattening his nose 
 against the glass, and watching the movements 
 of a school-boy who was in the happy agony of 
 selecting the best bun. He had stood there 
 ten minutes before the boy came in, and had 
 made himself acquainted with all the eatables 
 lying before him, and wondered at the slowness, 
 and apparent indifference, of jaws masticating 
 tarts. His interest, great before, is now in- 
 tense. He follows the new-comer's eye and 
 hand, hither and thither. His own arm feels 
 like the other's arm. He shifts the expression 
 of his mouth and the shrug of his body, at 
 every perilous approximation which the chooser 
 makes to a second-rate bun. He is like a 
 bowler following the nice inflfections of the bias ; 
 for he wishes him nothing but success ; the 
 occasion is too great for envy ; he feels all 
 the generous sympathy of a knight of old, 
 wlicn he saw another within an ace of winning 
 some glorious prize, and his arm doubtful of 
 the blow. 
 
 At length the awful decision is made, and the 
 bun laid hands on. 
 
 " Yah ! you fool," exclaims the watcher, 
 bursting with all the despair and indigna- 
 tion of knowing boyhood, "you have left tlie 
 buiiii'd ! " 
 
 Twelfth-cake and its king and queen are in 
 honour of the crowned heads who are said to 
 have brought presents to .Jesus in his cradle 
 — a piece of royal service not necessary to be 
 believed in by good Christians, though verv 
 jiroper to be maintained among the gratuitous 
 decorations with which good and poetical
 
 32 
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 liparts willingly garnish their faith. " The 
 Magi, or Wise Men, arc viil<,'arly called (says 
 a note in ' Bramrs Popular Antiquities,' 
 quarto edition by Ellis, p. 19) the three kings 
 of Collen (Cologne). The first, named Melchior, 
 an aged man with a long beard, offered gold ; 
 the second, Jasper, a beardless youth, offered 
 frankincense ; the third, Balthaser, a black or 
 Moor, with a large spreading beard, offered 
 myrrh." This picture is full of colour, and 
 has often been painted. The word E])ii)hany 
 (EirKpafiia, supenipparitio, an appearance from 
 above), alludes to the star which is described 
 in the Bible as guiding the Wise Men. In 
 Italy, the word has been corrupted into Beftania, 
 or Beftana, (as in England it used to be called, 
 Piffany) ; and Beffana, in some parts of that 
 country, has come to mean an old fairy, or 
 Alother Bunch, whose figure is carried about 
 the streets, and who rewards or ininishes 
 children at night by putting sweetmeats, or 
 stones and dirt, into a stocking hung up for 
 the purpose near the bed's head. The word 
 Beffa, taken from this, familiarly means a trick 
 or mockery put upon any one : — to such base 
 uses may come the most splendid terms ! 
 Twelfth Day, like the other old festivals of the 
 church of old, has had a link of connexion 
 found for it with P^lgan customs, and has been 
 traced to the Saturnalia of the ancients, when 
 people drew lots for imaginary kingdoms. Its 
 observation is still kept up, with more or less 
 ceremony, all over Christendom. In Paris, 
 they enjoy it with their usual \Tvacity. The 
 king there is chosen, not by drawing a pajjcr 
 as with us, but by the lot of a bean which falls 
 to him, and which is put into the cake ; and 
 great ceremony is observed when thekingorthe 
 queen " drink ;" which once gave rise to a jest, 
 that occasioned the damnation of a play of 
 Voltaire's. The play was performed at this 
 season, and a queen in it having to die by 
 poison, a wag exclaimed with Twelfth Night 
 solemnity, when her ]Majesty was about to 
 take it, "The queen drinks." The joke was 
 infectious ; and the play died, as well as the 
 poor queen. 
 
 Many a pleasant Twelfth Night have we 
 passed in our time ; and such future Twelfth 
 Nights as may remain to us shall be pleasant, 
 God and good-will permitting : for even if 
 care should be round about them, we have no 
 notion of missing these mountain-tops of rest 
 and brightness, on which people may refresh 
 themselves during the stormiest parts of life's 
 voyage. Most assuredly will we look forward 
 to them, and stop there when we arrive, as 
 though we had not to begin buffeting again 
 the next day. No joy or consolation that heaven 
 or earth affords us will we ungratefully pass by ; 
 but prove, by our acceptance and relish of it, 
 that it is what it is said to be, and that we de- 
 serve to have it. " The child is father to the 
 man ;" and a very foolish-grown boy he is, and 
 
 unworthy of his sire, if he is not man enough 
 to know when to lie like him. What ! shall 
 he go anil sulk in a corner, because life is not 
 just what he would have it ? Or shall he dis- 
 cover that his dignity will not bear the shaking 
 of holiday merriment, being too fragile and 
 likely to tumble to j)ieces ? Or lastly, shall he 
 take himself for too good and perfect a person 
 to come within the chance of contamination 
 from a little ultra life and Wassail-bowl, and 
 render it necessary to have the famous 
 (juestion thrown at his stately and stupid 
 liead — 
 
 " Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall 
 he no more cakes and ale ? " 
 
 This passage is in " Twelftli Night," the last 
 play (be it never forgotten)* which Shakspeare 
 is understood to have written, and which shows 
 how in his beautiful and universal mind the 
 belief in love, friendship and joy, and all good 
 things, survived his knowledge of all evil, — 
 affording us an everlasting argument against the 
 conclusions of minor men of the world, and 
 enabling the meanest of us to dare to avow the 
 same faith. 
 
 Here is another lecture to false and un- 
 seasonable notions of gravity, in the same 
 play,— 
 
 "I protest (quoth the aft'ected steward Malvolio) I take 
 these wise men tliat crow so at these set kind of fools, to 
 be no better than the fools' zanies. 
 
 "Oh (says the Lady Olivia), you are sick of self-love, 
 JIalvolio, and taste witli a distempered appetite. To bo 
 generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those 
 things for bird-bolts, that you deem cannon-bullets." 
 
 This is the play in which are those beautiful 
 passages about music, love, friendship, &c., 
 which have as much of the morning of life 
 in them as any that the great poet ever 
 wrote, and are painted with as rosy and wet a 
 pencil : — 
 " If music be the food of love," &c. 
 
 " Away before me to sweet beds of flowers ; 
 Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers." 
 
 " She never told her love, 
 Hut let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
 Keed on her damask cheek," 6cc. 
 
 " I hate ingratitude more in a man," 
 says the refined and exquisite Viola, 
 
 " Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, 
 < )r any taint of vice, whose strong corruption 
 Inhabits our frail blood." 
 
 And again, 
 
 " In nature there'? no blemish, but the mind 
 [that is to say, the faults of the mind ;] 
 None can be call'd de/orm'd but the, unkind." 
 
 The play of " Twelfth Night," with proper good 
 taste, is generally performed, at the theatres 
 
 * This opinion of Malonc's has been ;ibly set aside by 
 Mr. Knight. The spirit of the Shakspearian wisdom still 
 ho\>'evcr remains.
 
 TWELFTH NIGHT. 
 
 3J 
 
 0)1 Twelfth Night. There is little or nothing 
 belonging to the occa'uon in it, except a set 
 of merry-makers who carouse all night, and 
 sing songs enough to " draw three souls out of 
 one weaver." It is evident that Shakspeai-e 
 was at a loss for a title to his play, for he has 
 called it, "Twelfth Night, or What You WUl ;" 
 but the nocturnal revels reminded him of the 
 anniversary wliich, being the player and hu- 
 mourist that he was, and accustomed, doubtless, 
 to many a good sittingup, ajjpears to have 
 stood forth prominently among his recollections 
 of tlie year. So that it is probable he kept up 
 his Twelfth Night to the last : — assuredly he 
 kept up his merry and romantic characters, 
 his Sir Tobies and his Violas. And, keeping 
 up his stage faith so uvJI, ho must needs have 
 kept up his home faitli. He could not have 
 done it otherwise. He would invite his Stratford 
 <Viends to " king and queen," and, however he 
 might have looked in face, Avould still have felt 
 young in heart towards the budding daughters 
 of his visitors, the possible Violas perhaps of 
 some love-story of their own, and not more 
 innocent in " the last recesses of the mind " 
 than himself. 
 
 We spent a Twelfth Night once, which, by 
 common consent of the parties concerned, was 
 afterwards known by the name of the Twelfth 
 Night. It was doubted among us, not merely 
 whether ourselves, but whether anybody else, 
 ever had such a Twelfth Night ; — 
 
 " For never since created cake. 
 Met such untiring force, as named with these 
 Could merit more than that small infantry, 
 WTiich goes to bed betimes." 
 
 The evening began with such tea as is worth 
 mention, for we never knew anybody make it 
 like the maker. Dr. Jolmson would have 
 given it his placidest growl of approbation. 
 Then, with piano-forte, violin, and violoncello, 
 came Handel, Corelli, and Mozart. Then 
 followed the drawing for king and queen, in 
 order that the "small infantry" might have 
 their due share of tlie night, witliout sitting 
 up too too-late (for a reasonable " too-late" is 
 to be allowed once and away). Then games, 
 of all tile received kinds, forgetting no branch 
 of Christmas customs. And very good extem- 
 pore blank verse was spoken by some of tlie 
 court (for our characters imitated a court), 
 not unworthy of the wit and dignity of Tom 
 Thumb. Then came supper, and all characters 
 were soon forgotten but the feasters' own ; 
 good and lively souls, and festive all, both 
 male and female, — with a constellation of the 
 brightest eyes that we had ever seen met 
 together. This fact was so striking, that a 
 burst of delighted assent broke forth, when 
 Moore's charming verses were struck up, — 
 
 " To ladies' eyes a round, boys, 
 
 Wec.an't refuse, we can't refuse; 
 For bripht eyes so abound, boya, 
 
 "lis hard to choose, 'tis hard to choose." 
 
 The bright eyes, the beauty, the good humour, 
 the wine, the wit, the poetry (for we had 
 celebrated wits and poets among us, as well aa 
 charming women), fused all liearts together in 
 one unceasing round of fancy and laughter, 
 till breakfast, — to which we adjourned in a 
 room full of books, the authors of whicli might 
 almost have been waked up wid embodied, to 
 come among us. Here, with the bright eyes 
 literally as briglit as ever at six o'clock in the 
 morning (we all remarked it), we merged one 
 glorious day into another, as a good omen (for 
 It was also tine weather, though in January) ; 
 and as luck and our good faith would have it, 
 the door was no sooner opened to let forth the 
 ever-joyous visitors, than the trumpets of a 
 regiment quartered in the neighbourhood 
 struck up into the morning air, seeming to 
 blow forth triumphant approbation, and as if 
 they sounded purely to do us honour, and to 
 say, " You are as early and untired as we." 
 
 We do not recommend such nights to be 
 " resolved on," much less to be made a system 
 of regular occurrence. They should flow out 
 of the impulse, as this did ; for there was no 
 intention of sitting up so late. But so genuine 
 was that night, and so true a recollection of 
 pleasure did it leave upon the minds of all 
 who shared it, that it has lielped to stamp a 
 seal of selectness upon the house in which it 
 was passed, and wliich, for the encouragement 
 of good-fellowship and of humble aspirations 
 towards tree-planting, we are here incited to 
 point out ; for by the same token the writer 
 of these papers planted some plane-trees with- 
 in the rails by the garden-gate (selecting the 
 plane in honour of the Genius of Domesticity, 
 to which it was sacred among the Greeks) ; 
 and anybody who does not disdain to look at 
 a modest tenement for the sake of the happy 
 hours that have been spent in it, may know it 
 by those trees, as he passes along the row of 
 houses called York Buildings, in the New 
 Iload, JIarylebone. A man may pique himself 
 without vanity iipon having planted a tree ; 
 and, humble as our performance has been 
 that way, we confess we are glad of it, and 
 have often looked at tlie result with jdeasure. 
 The reader would smile, perhaps sigh (but a 
 pleasure would or should be at the bottom of 
 his sigli), if he knew what consolation we had 
 experienced in some very trying seasons, 
 merely from seeing those trees growing up, 
 and aflfoiding shade and shelter to passengers, 
 as well as a bit of leafiness to the possessor 
 of the house. Ererij one should plant a tree irho can'. 
 It is one of the cheapest, as well as easiest, 
 of all tasks : and if a man cannot reckon 
 upon enjoying the shade much himself (which 
 is the reason why trees are not planted every- 
 where), it is surely worth wliile to bequeath 
 so pleasant and useful a memorial of himself 
 
 • Yonnjr trees from nursery-grounds are very cheap, 
 and cost less than flowers.
 
 3i 
 
 THE ART OF MAKING PRESENTS. 
 
 to others. They are green footsteps of our 
 existence, which show that wo have not lived 
 in vuin. 
 
 " Dig a well, jilant a tree, write a book, 
 and go 10 heaven," says tlie Arabian proverb. 
 We cannot exactly dig a well. The parish 
 authorities would not employ us. Besides, 
 wells are not so much wanted in England as 
 in Arabia, nor books either ; otherwise we 
 should be two-tliirds on our road to heaven 
 idready. But trees are wanted, and ought to 
 be wished for, almost everywhere ; especially 
 amidst the hard brick and mortar of towns ; so 
 that we may claim at least one-third of the 
 way, having planted more than one tree in our 
 time ; and if our books cannot wing our flight 
 mucli higher (for they never pretended to be 
 anytliing greater than birds singing among 
 the trees), we have other merits, thank Heaven, 
 than our own to go upon ; and shall endeavour 
 to piece out our frail and most imperfect 
 laddei-, with all the good things we can love 
 and admire in God's creation. 
 
 XLIX.— RULES IN MAKING PRESENTS. 
 
 If the present is tobe very exquisite indeed, 
 and no mortification will be mixed up with 
 the receipt of it, out of pure inability to make 
 an equal one, or from any other cause, the rule 
 has often been laid down. It should be some- 
 thing useful, beautiful, costly, and rare. It is 
 generally an elegance, however, to omit the 
 costliness. The rarity is the great point, because 
 riches themselves cannot always command it, 
 and the peculiarity of the compliment is the 
 greater. Rare present to rare person. 
 
 If you are rich, it is a good rule in general 
 to make a rich present ; that is to say, one 
 equal, or at least not dishonourable, to your 
 means : otherwise you set your riches above 
 your friendship and generosity ; which is a 
 mean mistake. 
 
 Among equals, it is a good rule not to 
 exceed the equality of resources ; otherwise 
 there is a chance of giving greater morti- 
 fication than jjleasure, unless to a mean mind ; 
 and it does not become a generous one to 
 care for having advantages over a mind like 
 that. 
 
 But a rich man may make a present far 
 richer than can be made him in return, pro- 
 vided the receiver be as generous and under- 
 standing as he, and knows that there will be 
 no mistake on either side. In this case, an 
 opj)ortunity of giving himself great delight 
 is afforded to the rich man ; and he can 
 only have, or bestow it, under those circum- 
 stances. 
 
 On the other hand, a poor man, if he is 
 generous, and understood to be so, may make 
 the very poorest of jiresents, and give it an 
 
 exquisite value ; for his heart and his under- 
 standing will accompany it ; and the very 
 daring to send his straw, will show that he 
 has a spirit above his means, and such as 
 could bestow and enrich the costliest jn-esent. 
 liut the certainty of his being thus generous, 
 and having this spirit, must be very great. It 
 would be the miserablest and most desj)icable 
 of all mistakes, and in all probability the most 
 self-betraying too, to send a poor present under 
 a sliahl)y pretence. 
 
 With no sort of presents must there be 
 pretence. People must not say (and say 
 f^ilsely) that they could g^t no other, or that 
 they could afford no better ; nor must they 
 affect to think better of the present than it is 
 worth ; nor, above all, keep asking about it 
 after it is given, — how you like it, whether you 
 find it useful, &;c. 
 
 It is often better to give no present at all 
 than one beneath your means ; — always, 
 should there be a misgiving on the side of the 
 bestower. 
 
 One present in the course of a life is gene- 
 rosity from some : from others it is but a 
 sacrifice made to avoid giving more. 
 
 To receive a present handsomely and in a 
 right spirit, even when you have none to give 
 in return, is to give one in return. 
 
 We must not send presents to strangers 
 (except of a very common and trifling nature, 
 and not without some sort of warrant even then) 
 unless we are sure of our own right and good 
 motives in sending it, and of the right and 
 inclination, too, which they would have to 
 permit themselves to receive it ; otherwise we 
 jjay botli parties a very ill compliment, and 
 such as no modest and honourable spirit on 
 either side would venture upon. There might, 
 it is true, be a state of society in which such 
 ventures would not be quite so hardy ; and it 
 is possible, meanwhile, that a very young and 
 enthusiastic nature, in its ignorance of the 
 perplexities that at present beset the world, 
 miglit here and there hazard it ; but probably 
 a good deal of self-love would be mixed up 
 with the proceeding. The only possible ex- 
 ception would be in the case of a great and 
 rare genius, which had a right to make laws to 
 itself, and to suppose that its notice was ac- 
 quaintanceship sufficient. 
 
 L.— ROMANCE OF COMMON-PLACE. 
 
 i 
 
 Every sentiment, or want of sentiment, 
 pushed to excess, bears, from that excess, a 
 character of romance ; even dulness may be 
 I romantic. We remember our late dear friend 
 I Charles Lamb, many years ago, giving us, with 
 ! his exquisite tact, an account of a deceased 
 acquaintance of his who carried " common- 
 place" itself to a pitch of the " romantic," and
 
 AMIABLENESS SUPERIOR TO INTELLECT. 
 
 35 
 
 who would way-lay you for half-an-hour with 
 a history of his having cut his finger, or mislaid 
 a pair of shoes. This gentleman did not draw 
 infinite somethings out of nothing, like the 
 wits of the Lutrin or the Rape of the Lock, or 
 the Italian expatiators upon a Cough or a 
 Christian-name. He got hold of nothing, and 
 out of it, witli a congeniality of emptiness, 
 drew nothing whatever. But it was he that 
 drew the nothing, and you that listened to 
 him ; and thus he got a sense of himself some- 
 how. If you ran against him in the street, it 
 was an event in his life, and enahled him to 
 stand breathing, and smiling, and saying how 
 much it did not signify, for the next intense 
 five minutes. He once met a lady, an acquaint- 
 ance of his, wiio was going to have a tooth 
 drawn. 
 
 Dear me, madam, and so you are going to 
 have your tooth drawn ? 
 
 Yes, sir. 
 
 By Mr. Parkinson, I presume ? 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Dear me ! I fear you have suffered a good 
 deal, madam ? 
 
 Not a little, indeed. 
 
 God bless me ! I am very sorry to hear it, 
 — rerij sorry. How long, pray, may you have 
 suffered this toothach ? 
 
 I should think a week. 
 
 God bless me ! A week ! That is a long 
 time ! And by night as well as by day, I 
 presume ? 
 
 I have hardly had any sleep these two 
 nights. 
 
 Dear me ! That is very sad. God bless me ! 
 No sleep for these two nights ! Want of sleep 
 is a very sad thing, — highly distressing. I 
 could not do witiiout my regular sleep. No, 
 no ; none of us can. It is highly undermining 
 to tiie constitution. Produces such fatigue — 
 such lassitude — such weariness, ll'm! k'm ! 
 (Humminti with a sort of spnpathi/ and gentleman/ 1/ 
 groan, as if hb oirn face were hound up.) I see 
 you are suffering now, madam \ 
 
 It will be soon over now. 
 
 JI'm! You are very bold, madam, — very 
 resolute; but that is extremely sensible. H^m! 
 Dear me ! And you have tried clove, I pre- 
 sume, and all that ? 
 
 Why, I am not young, and do not like to 
 part with my teeth. 
 
 Ah — oh — h'm ! just so^very natural — ah — 
 yes — dear me ! A'm .' A double tooth, I sup- 
 pose ? 
 
 ( Tlie lady nods. J 
 
 Ah — afraid of the cold air — you are right 
 not to open your mouth, madam. Cold gets 
 in. Ah — k'm — yes — ^just so. (Nodding, bowing, 
 and groaning.) 
 
 (Lady turns to go up a court, and makes a gesture 
 of bidding him good morning.) 
 
 Oh — all — dear me ! ay, this is the place — so 
 it is — I wish you a happy release, madam — J 
 
 hope the process will be easy — k'm ! ha-a-ah ! 
 ( Takes farewell between a sort of breath and a groan. 
 Lady goes into the dentist' s,has her tooth drawn, and 
 on returning down the court is astonished to find 
 the gentleman waiting at the corner, to congratulate 
 
 Well, madam (bowing and smiling), the tooth 
 is drawn, I presume ? 
 
 (Lady acquiesces.) 
 
 Dear me ! ah ! — H'm ! — very painful, I fear 
 — a long while drawing ? 
 
 Lady. 'Tis out, at last. (Aside. I wonder 
 when the man will have done with his 
 absurdity.) 
 
 A skilful dentist, Mr. Parkinson, madam ? 
 
 (Lady acquiesces.) 
 
 I have not been to a dentist myself these — 
 let me see — ah, yes, it must be — now — these 
 twenty years. I had one bad tooth, and caught 
 a cold sitting in the draught of a coach — very 
 dangerous thing — and chaises are worse — very 
 dangerous tilings, chaises — h'm- — very. You 
 are suffering still, I see, madam ? from the 
 ghost of the tooth, I presume ? (laughing) — but, 
 dear me ! I am keeping you in the draught of 
 this court, and you go the other way. Good 
 morning, madam — Good morning — I wish you 
 a very GOOD morning — Don't speak, I beg — 
 GOOD morning. 
 
 And so, thus heaping emphasis upon emphasis 
 upon this very new valediction, and retaining 
 a double smile amidst his good wishes, from 
 hia very new joke about the ghost of a tooth, 
 our Hero of Common-place takes his leave. 
 
 LI.— AMIABLENESS SUPERIOR TO 
 INTELLECT. 
 
 Ix our article upon the gossi})ing old gen- 
 tleman who appeared to sympathise so exces- 
 sively with the lady's toothach, we omitted to 
 caution some of our readers against supposing 
 that we were contradicting our usual sympa- 
 thetic theories, and laughing at any innocent 
 exemplification of them, however trivial. But 
 though the gentleman was harmless, except 
 in his tediousncss, and not an iil-natured man, 
 and did far better than if he had set himself 
 to waste an equal portion of time in the 
 manifestation of antipathy, yet sympathy was 
 not the ground of his proceeding : it was pure 
 Avant of ideas, and a sensation, — the necessity of 
 killing time. We should not object even to any 
 innocent mode of doing that, where a human 
 being lives under anecessitysounfortuiiate, and 
 has not the luck to beahedger or ditcher: but 
 it is desirable not to let symjjatliy be mistaken 
 for something different from what it is, espe- 
 cially where it takes a shape that is ridiculous. 
 
 On the otlier hand, with regard to the com- 
 mon-place of the matter, apart from an abso- 
 
 ♦ A fact. 
 
 u 2
 
 36 
 
 AMIABLENESS SUrERIOR TO INTELLECT. 
 
 hite extravajjance of insipidity, far are we 
 from %visiiiiijj to treat conimon-places witli 
 derision, ])iirely as siicli. Tliey are the coni- 
 inon clay of wliic-h iiuni;in intercourse is made, 
 ajid therefore as resj)ectable in our eyes as 
 any otiier of the ordinary materials of our 
 planet, however desirous we may be of warm- 
 ing tiiem into flowers. Nay, flowers they 
 have, provided the elay be pure and kindiy. 
 The air of hcaltii and cheerfulness is over 
 them. They are like the common grass, and 
 the daisies and buttercups. Children have 
 them ; and wliat children have, the most un- 
 common grown people may envy, unless they 
 have iiealtii and cheerfulness too. 
 
 It is !Sir Walter Scott, wo believe, who has 
 ohserv(!d somewhere, that men of superior en- 
 dowmeuts, or other advantages, are accustomed 
 to pay too little regard totheiutercourseof their 
 less gifted fellow-creatures, and to regret all 
 the time tliat is passed in their company. He 
 says they accustom themselves so much to the 
 living upon sweets and spices, that they lose a 
 j)roper relish for ordinary food, and grow con- 
 temptuous of those who subsist upon it, to the 
 injury of their own enjoyment. They keep 
 their jalate in a constant state of thirst and 
 irritation, ratiier than of healthy satisfaction. 
 And we recollect Mr. llazlitt making a 
 remark to a similar effect, namely, that the 
 being accustomed to the society of men of 
 genius renders the conversation of others tire- 
 some, as consisting of a parcel of things that 
 have been heard a thousand times, and from 
 which no stimulus is to he obtained. He 
 lamented this, as an eflect unhecominnr a re- 
 fleeting man and a fellow-creature (for though 
 irritable, and sometimes resentful, his heart 
 was large and full of humanity) ; and the 
 consequence was, that nobody paid greater 
 attention than he to common conversation, 
 or showed greater respect towards any endea- 
 vours to interest him, however trite. Youths 
 of his acquaintance ai-e fond of calling to mind 
 the footing of equality on which he treated 
 them, even when children, gravely inter- 
 changing remarks with them, as he sat side 
 by side, like one grown person with another, 
 and giving them now and then (though with- 
 out the pomji) a .loluisonian "Sir." The 
 serious earnestness of his "Indeed, m'um !" 
 with lifted eyebrows, and protruded lips, while 
 listening to the surprising things told him 
 by good housewives about their shopping or 
 their preserves, is now sounding in our ears ; 
 and makes us long to see again the splenetic 
 but kindly philosopher, who worried himself 
 to death about the good of the nations. 
 
 There is but one thing necessary to put any 
 reflecting person at his ease with common-place 
 people ; and that is, their own cheerfulness and 
 good-humour. To be able to he displeased, in 
 spite of this^ is to be insensible to the best 
 results of wisdom itself. When all the Miss 
 
 Smiths meet all the Miss Joneses, and there 
 is nothing but a world of smiles, and recogni- 
 tions, and gay breath, and loiul askings after 
 this person and that, and comparisons of l.ion- 
 nets and cloaks, and "So glads!" and "So 
 sorrys !" and rosy cheeks, or more lovely good- 
 natured lips, who that has any good humour of 
 his own, or power to extract a jjleasant thought 
 from pleasant things, desires wit or genius 
 in this full-blown exhibition of comfortable 
 humanity ? He might as well be sullen at 
 not finding wit or genius in a cart full of 
 flow^ei-s, going along the street, or in the .spring 
 cry of " Primroses." 
 
 A total want of ideas in a companion, or of 
 the power to receive them, is indeed to be 
 avoided by men who require intellectual ex- 
 citement ; but it is a great mistake to suppose 
 that the most discerning men demand intel- 
 lect above everything else in their most habi- 
 tual associates, much less in general inter- 
 course. Hapjiy would they be to see intellect 
 more universally extended, but as a means, 
 not as an end, — as a help to the knowledge 
 of what is amiable, and not what is merely 
 knowing. Clever men are sometimes said 
 even to be jealous of clever companions, 
 especially female ones, ^len of genius, it is 
 notorious, for a very different reason, and out 
 of tlieir own imagination of what is excellent, 
 and their j)ower to adorn what tliey love, 
 will be enamoiired, in their youth, of women 
 neither intelligent nor amiable, nor handsome. 
 They make them all three with their fancy ; 
 and are sometimes too apt, in after-life, to 
 resent what is nobody's fault but their own. 
 However, their faults have their excuses, as 
 well as those of other men ; only they who 
 know most, should excuse most. But the 
 reader may take our word for it, from the 
 experience of long intercourse witli such men, 
 that what they value above every other con- 
 sideration, in a companion, female or male, is 
 amiableness ; that is to say, evenness of tem- 
 pei-, and the Millingness (general as well as 
 particular) to please and be pleased, without 
 egotism and without exaction. This is what 
 we have ever felt to be the highest thing in 
 themselves, and gave us a preference for them, 
 infinite, above others of their own class of 
 power. We know of nothing capable of 
 standing by the side of it, or of su])i)lying its 
 place, but one ; and that is a deep interest in 
 the welfare of mankind. The jjossession of 
 this may sometimes render the very want of 
 amiableness touching, because it seems to arise 
 from the reverse of what is unamiable and 
 selfish, and to be exasperated, not because 
 itself is unhajipy, but because others are so. It 
 was this, far more than his intellectual en- 
 dowments (great as they were), which made 
 us like Mr. llazlitt. Many a contest has 
 it saved us with him, many a sharp answer, 
 and interval of alienation ; and often perhaps,
 
 LIFE AFTER DEATH. -BELIEF iN SPIRITS. 
 
 37 
 
 did lie attribute to an apprehension of his 
 formidable powers (for which, in our animal 
 spirits, we did not care twopence) what was 
 owine entirely to our love of the sweet drop at 
 the bottom of his heart. But only imagine a 
 man, who should feel this interest too, and be 
 deeply amiable, and have great sufferings, 
 bodily and mental, and know his own errors, 
 and waive the claims of his own virtues, and 
 manifest an unceasing consideratcness for the 
 comfort of those about him, in the very least 
 as well as greatest things, surviving, in the 
 pure life of his heart, all mistake, all iniscon- 
 cep.tion, all exasperation, and ever having a 
 soft word in his extremity, not only for those 
 who consoled, but for those who distressed 
 him ; and imagine how we must have loved 
 him! It was Mr. Slielley. His genius, tran- 
 scendaut as it was, would not have bound us 
 to him : his poetry, his tragedy, his philosophy, 
 would not have bound us ; no, not even his 
 generosity, had it been less amiable. It was 
 his unbounded heart, and his ever kind speech. 
 Now observe, pray, dear reader, that what was 
 most delightful in such a man as this, is most 
 delightful, in its degree, in all others; and 
 that people are loved, not in proportion to 
 their intellect, but in proportion to their love- 
 ability. Intellectual powers are the leaders 
 of the world, but only for the purpose of 
 guiding them into the promised land of peace 
 and amiableness, or of showing them encou- 
 raging pictures of it by the way. They are 
 no more the things to live with, or repose 
 with, apart from qualities of the heart and 
 temper, than the means are, without the end ; 
 or than a guide to a pleasant spot ui the spot 
 itself, with its trees, health, and quiet. 
 
 It has been truly said, that knowledge is of 
 the head, but wisdom is of the heart ; that is, 
 you may know a great many things, but turn 
 them to no good acc:ount of life and inter- 
 course, witliout a certain harmony of nature 
 often possessed by those whose knowledge is 
 little or nothing. Many a man is to be found, 
 who knows what amiableness is, without being 
 amiable ; and many an amiable man, who 
 would be put to the blush if you expected 
 of him a knowing definition of amiableness. 
 But there are a great many people held to 
 be very knowing, and entertaining the ojjinion 
 themselves, wlio, in fact, are only led by tliat 
 opinion to think they may dispense with being 
 amiable, and who in so thinking confute their 
 pretension to kuowingness. The truth is, that 
 knowledge is by no means so common a thing as 
 people suppose it ; while luckily, on tlie other 
 liand, wisdom is much less uncommon ; for it 
 lias been held a proof of one of the greatest 
 instances of knowledge tliat ever existed, 
 that it knew how little it did know ! whereas 
 everybody is wise in proportion as he is happy 
 or patient ; that is to say, in projiortion as he 
 makes the best of good or bad fortune. 
 
 LIT. -LIFE AFTER DEATH.--BELIEF IN 
 SPIRITS. 
 
 "We made use of an inaccurate expression 
 in a communication to a correspondent the 
 other day, which we take the liberty of thus 
 publicly correcting. We spoke of man as a 
 "finite" creature. The term, strictly speaking, 
 does not convey the meaning we intended. 
 Finis is an end, and finite might imply a being 
 whose end, or utter termination, was known 
 and certain. Assuredly we wrote the word 
 in no such spirit of presumption. All our 
 writings will testify, that we are of a religion 
 which enjoys the most unbounded hopes of 
 man, both here and hereafter. ]>y finite, we 
 meant to imply a creature of limited powcMs 
 and circumscribed present existence. Far were 
 we from daring to lift up mortal finger against 
 immortal futurity. Religion itself must first 
 be put out of man's heart, and the very 
 stars out of the sky, and no such words 
 be remembered as sentiment and imagination 
 and memory, and hope too, ay, and reason, 
 before we should presume to say what end 
 ouglit to be put to these endless aspirations of 
 the soul. 
 
 We are for making the most of the present 
 world, as if tliere were no hereafter ; and the 
 most of hereafter, as if there were no present 
 world. We think that God, and Christianity, 
 and utility, and imagination, and right reason, 
 and whatsoever is complete and harmonious 
 in the constitution of the human faculties, 
 however opposed it may seem, enjoin us to 
 do BOTH. W^e are surprised, notwithstanding 
 the allowance to be made for the great diver- 
 sity of Christian sects, how any Christian, 
 calling himself such by the least right of 
 discipline, can undervalue the utmost human 
 endeavours in behalf of this world, the utmost 
 cultivation of this one (among others) of the 
 manifest and starry gardens of God ; but we 
 are most of all surprised at it in those that 
 adhere the most literally to injunction and 
 jjrophecy, while they know liow to confine 
 tlie fugitive and conventional uses of the 
 terms " this world," &c., &c., to their proper 
 meanings. 
 
 In the feasibility of this consummation 
 the most infidel Utilitarian is of the same 
 faitli with the most believing Christian, and so 
 
 far is 
 
 the best good Christian, he. 
 
 Although he knows it not. 
 
 Now he is only to carry his beloved reason 
 a little farther, and he will find himself on 
 the confines of the most unbounded hopes of 
 another world as well as of the present ; for 
 reason itself, in its ordinary sense, will tell 
 him that it is reasonable to make tiie utmost 
 of all his faculties, imagination included Mr. 
 i Bentham, the very incarnation of his reason.
 
 38 
 
 LIFE AFTER DEATH.- BELIEF IN SPIRITS. 
 
 has toW him so*. Aiul if he come to the Pure 
 Rousou of the Germans, or tiie discoveries 
 which that contemphitive nation say they 
 liave made, in the highest regions of the mind, 
 of a reason abore ordinary reason, reconciling 
 the logic and consciousness of the latter with 
 the former's instinctive and liitherto unde- 
 veloped aftinnations, he is told that he may 
 give evideuce to faith after his own most 
 approved fasliion. For our parts, we confess 
 that we are (jf a more child-like turn of con- 
 tentment ; and that keeping our ordinary rea- 
 son to what appears to us its fittest task, 
 namely, the guarding ns against the admission 
 of gratuitous pains, we will suffer a loving 
 faitli to open to us whatever regions it jileases, 
 of possibilities honourable to God and man, 
 cultivating them studiously, whether we tho- 
 roughly understand tliem or not. For who 
 thoroughly understands anything which he 
 cultivates, even to the flowers at his feet ? 
 And cultivating these, shall we refuse to cul- 
 tivate also the stars, and aspirations and 
 thoughts angelical, and hopes of rejoining 
 friends and kindred, and all the flowers 
 of heaven ? — No, assuredly, — not Avhile we 
 have a star to see, and a thought to reach it. 
 AVhy should heaven have given us those ? 
 Why not have put us into some blank region 
 of sjjace, with a wall of nothingness on all 
 sides of us, and no power to have a thought 
 beyond it ? Because, some advocate of chance 
 and blind action may say, it could not help 
 it ; because the nature of things could not 
 help it ; — because things are as they are. O 
 the assumptions of those who protest against 
 assumption ! of the faculty which exclusively 
 calls itself reason, and would deprive us of some 
 of our most reasonable faculties ! Even upon 
 the ground of these gentlemen's showing, faith 
 itself cannot be helped ; at least not as long 
 as things "are as they are;" and in this 
 respect we are assuredly not for helping it. 
 We are content to let it love and be happy. 
 
 With regard to the belief in Sjnrits (which 
 we take tliis ojij)ortunity of saying a few words 
 upon, as it was in answer to our correspond- 
 ent oa this subject that we made use of the word 
 ■we have explained) it has surely a right, even 
 upon tlie severest grounds of reason, to rest 
 ui)on the same privileges of possibility, and of a 
 modest and wise ignorance to the contrary, as 
 any other parts of a loving and even a knowing 
 faith ; for the more we know of creation, the 
 more we discover of the endless and thronging 
 forms of it, — of the crowds in air, earth, and 
 water; and are we, with our confessedly limited 
 faculties, and our daily discoveries of things 
 wonderful, to assume that there are no modes 
 of being but sucli as are cognizable to our five 
 senses? Had we possessed but two or three 
 senses, we know very well that there are thou- 
 sands of things round about us of which we 
 * Ueontoloey, vol. ii. p. 1(B. 
 
 could have formed no conception ; and doea 
 not common modesty, as well as the possibili- 
 ties of infinitude, demand of us that we should 
 suppose there are senses besides our own, and 
 that with the help of but one more we might 
 become awai"e of ]ihenomena at jiresent un- 
 manifested to human eyes ? Locke has given 
 celebrity to a story of a i)lind man, who, being 
 being asked what he thought of tlie colour of 
 red, said he conceived it must be like the 
 sound of a trumpet. A counterjjart to this 
 story has been found (we know not with what 
 truth) in that of a deaf man, who is said to 
 have likened the sound of a trumpet to the 
 colour of red. Dr. Blacklock, who was blind 
 from his infancy, and who wrote very good 
 heart and impart vei'ses, in which he talked of 
 light and colours with all the confidence of a 
 repetition-exercise (a striking lesson to us 
 verse-makers !) being requested one day to 
 state what he really thought of something 
 visible, — of the sun, for instance, — said, with 
 modest hesitation, that he conceived it must 
 resemble "a pleasing friemhhip .'" We quote 
 from memory ; but this was his simile. We 
 may thus judge what we miss by the small 
 amount of our own complete senses. We may 
 have been sometimes tempted to think, seeing 
 what a beautiful world this is, and how little 
 we make of it, that human beings are not the 
 chief inhabitants of the planet, but tlnvt there 
 are others, of a nobler sort, who see and enjoy 
 all its loveliness, and who regard us with the 
 same curiosity with which we look upon bees 
 or beavers. 13ut a consideration of the divine 
 qualities of love and imagination and hope (as 
 well as some other reflections, more serious) 
 restores us to confidence in ourselves, and we 
 resume our task of endeavouring to equalise 
 enjoyment with the abundance aff'orded us. 
 When we look upon the sta,rs at night-time, 
 shining and sparkling like so many happy 
 eyes, conscious of their joy, we cannot lielp 
 fancying that they are so many heavt-ns which 
 have realised, or are in the progress of realis- 
 ing, the perfections of which they are capable ; 
 and that our own planet (a star in the hea- 
 vens to them) is one of the same golden bro- 
 therhood of hope and possibility, destined to be 
 retained as a heaven, if its inhabitants answer 
 to the incitements of the great Experimenter, 
 or to be done away with for a new experiment 
 if they fail. For endeavour and failure, in the 
 particular, are manifestly a part of the uni- 
 versal system ; and considering the large scale 
 on which Providence acts, and the mixture of 
 evil through which good advances. Deluges 
 are to be accounted for on principles of the 
 most natural reason, moral as well as physical, 
 and an awful belief thus becomes reconcileable 
 to the commonest deductions of utility. 
 
 But "bad spirits" and spirits to be "afraid 
 '. of!" We confess that, large and willing as 
 I our faith is in the utmost Dossibilit-'es of life
 
 ON DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 39 
 
 and varieties of being, we see no reason of 
 any sort to believe in those, at least not as 
 made up of anything like pure evil or malig- 
 nity. It is possible that other beings, as well 
 as men, may partake more or less of imperfec- 
 tion, aud so be liable to mistake and bi'ute 
 impulses ; but, as we need not be troubled 
 with this side of spiritual possibility, why 
 should we ? For as to pure evil or malignity 
 for its own sake, apart from some procure- 
 ment or notion of good, nothing which we see 
 in all nature induces us to suppose it possible. 
 The veriest wretch that ever astonished the 
 community, did not perpetrate his crime out 
 of sheer love of inflicting evil, but out of some 
 false idea of good and pleasure, or of avoid- 
 ance of evil, which idea might have been done 
 away in him by a wiser and healthier training. 
 And as to the belief in a great malignant 
 principle or Devil (though even he has his 
 horrible story lightened by a mixture of mis- 
 take and suffering,) the most devout Christians 
 have long been giving it up, especially since 
 they have observed that the places in which he 
 is mentioned in Scripture are very rare, some- 
 times apocryphal, and at other times translate- 
 able into a very different sense from what was 
 commonly received. In truth, the word " devil " 
 has not been translated at all ; it has simply been 
 repeated, and thus given rise, in many instances, 
 to a manifest and painful delusion ; for devil 
 [diaboliis, Latin ; diacolo, Italian) is merely 
 the Greek word Sia^oKos (diabolos) repeated ; 
 and dlaholos signified simply an accuser, — a 
 calumniator ; it was a Greek Avord for an evil- 
 speaker, a thrower of stones, and came from 
 a verb signifying to cast through or against. The 
 Latin word is used in the sense to this day, in 
 the well-known appeUution of the Attorney- 
 General, which has caused so many jolvos 
 against that officer ; for he who was known 
 in France by the title of Public Accuser is 
 designated in law Latin as the King's or Royal 
 Accuser, that is to say. Devil, — " Diabolus 
 Itegis." The word is flat and plain enough, 
 and very edifying. How simply is the fright- 
 ful supernatural caution of the Apostle thus 
 converted into the most natural of all cau- 
 tions ! 
 
 " Be sober, be vigilant (says the Greck- 
 English,) for your adversary the Dcril walketh 
 about, seeking whom he may devour." 
 
 But " Be sober, be vigilant (says the proper 
 EngHsh-EjigVish,) for your adversary the Ac- 
 cuser walketh about seeking whom he may 
 devour." 
 
 Here is a poor mistaken human being, in- 
 stead of a prowling Satan ; aud what can be 
 more natural, simple, or reconcileable with 
 God's goodness and pre-emiiience, and the 
 working of an imj)rovcal)le weakness and 
 blockish mystery, instead of a malignant 
 might? 
 
 To show how accustomed we are to follow 
 
 up the spiritual analogies suggested by all kinds 
 of reasonable and loving faith, we will close 
 this article with a copy of verses which we 
 wrote last winter, after we had been thinking 
 of some beloved friends who have disappeared 
 from this present state of being. 
 
 AN ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, 
 
 Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight. 
 
 An angel came to us, and we could bear 
 
 To see him issue from the silent air 
 
 At evening in our room, and bend on ours 
 
 His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers 
 
 News of dear friends, and children who have never 
 
 Been dead indeed : as we shall know for ever. 
 
 Alas ! we think not what we daily see 
 
 About cm- hearths,— angels, that are to be, 
 
 Or may be if they will, and we prepare 
 
 Their souls and ours to meet in happy air, — 
 
 A child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings ' 
 
 In unisoa with ours, breeding its future wings. 
 
 LIII.— ON DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 The cultivation of pleasant associations is, 
 next to health, the great secret of enjoyment ; 
 and, accordingly, as we lessen our cares and 
 increase our pleasures, we may imagine our- 
 selves affording a grateful spectacle to the 
 Author of happiness. Error and misei-y, taken 
 in their proportion, are the exceptions in his 
 system. The world is most unquestionably 
 happier upon the whole than otherwise ; or 
 light and air, and the face of nature, would be 
 different from what they are, and mankind no 
 longer be buoyed up in perpetual hope and 
 action. By cultivating agreeable thoughts, 
 tlieu, we tend, like bodies in philosophy, to 
 the greater mass of sensations, rather than the 
 less. 
 
 Wliat we can enjoy, let us enjoy like crea- 
 tures made for that very purpose : what we 
 cannot, let us, in the same character, do our 
 best to deprive of its bitterness. Nothing can 
 be more idle than the voluntary gloom with 
 which people think to please Heaven in cer- 
 tain matters, and which they confound witli 
 serious acknowledgment, or with what they 
 call a due souse of its dispensations. It is 
 nothing but the cultivation of the priiicii)le of 
 fear, instead of confidence, with wiiatcver name 
 they may disguise it. It is carrying frightened 
 faces to court, instead of glad and grateful 
 ones ; and is above all measure ridiculous, 
 because the real cause of it, and, by the way, of 
 a thousand other feelings whicii religious cour- 
 tiers mistake for religion, cannot be concealed 
 from the Being it is intended to honour. There 
 is a dignity certainly in suffering well, where 
 ■vve cannot choose but suffer ; — if we must take 
 l)hysic, let us do it like men ; — but what would 
 be his dignity, who, when he had the choice in 
 his power, should make the physic bitterer
 
 40 
 
 ON DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 than it is, or even to refuse to render it more 
 palatable, ]iiuely to look grave over it, and do 
 honour to the physician '. 
 
 The idea of our dissolution is one of those 
 which we most abuse ia this manner, princi- 
 pally, no doubt, because it is ablH)rrent from 
 the strong principle of vitality implanted in us, 
 and the habits that have grown up with it. 
 But what then ? So much the more should 
 we divest it of all the unpleasant associations 
 which it need not excite, and add to it all the 
 pleasant ones which it will allow. 
 
 But what is the course we pursue ? We 
 remember having a strong impression, years 
 ago, of the absurdity of our mode of treating a 
 death-bed, and of the great desirableness of 
 having it considered as nothing but a sicic one, 
 — one to be smoothed and comforted, even by 
 cordial helps, if necessary. We remember 
 also how some persons, who, nevertheless, did 
 too much justice to the very freest of our spe- 
 culations to consider them as profane, were 
 startled by this opinion, till we found it ex- 
 pressed, in almost so many word.s, by no less 
 an authority than Lord Bacon. We got at 
 our notion through a very different process, 
 no doubt, — he through the depth of his 
 knowledge, and we from the very buoyancy of 
 our youth ; — but we are not disposed to think 
 it the less wise on that account. "The serious," 
 of course, are bound to be shocked at so cheer- 
 ing a proposition ; but of them we have already 
 spoken. The great objection would be, that 
 such a system would deprive the evil-disposed 
 of one terror in prospect, and that this princi- 
 ple of determent is already found too feeble to 
 afford any diminution. The tact is, the whole 
 principle is worth little or nothing, unless the 
 penalty to be inflicted is pretty certain, and 
 appeals also to the less sentimental part of our 
 nature. It is good habits, — a well-educated 
 conscience, — a little early knowledge, — the 
 cultivation of generous motives, — must supply 
 people with preventives of bad conduct ; their 
 sense of things is too immediate and lively 
 to attend, in the long run, to anything else. 
 We will be bound to say, generally speaking, 
 that the prospective terrors of a death-bed 
 never influenced any otiicrs than nervous con- 
 sciences, too weak, and inhabiting organiza- 
 tions too delicate, to afford to l)o very bad ones. 
 But, in the mean time, they may be very alarm- 
 ing to such consciences in prospect, and very 
 painful to the best and most temperate of 
 mankind in actual sufferance; and why sliould 
 this be, but, as we liave said before, to keep 
 bitter that which we could sweeten, and to 
 persist in a mistaken want of relief, under a 
 notion of its being a due sense of our condition? 
 We know well enough what a due sense of our 
 condition is in other cases of infirmity ; and 
 what is a death-bed but the very acme of infir- 
 mity, — the sickness, bodily and mental, that of 
 all others has most need of relief ? 
 
 If the death happens to be an easy one, 
 the case is altered ; and no douljt it is oftener 
 so than people imagine ; — but how much jjains 
 are often taken to render it difhcult ! — First, 
 the chamber, in which the dying person lies, is 
 made as gloomy as jiossible with curtains, and 
 vials, and nurses, and terrible whisjers, and, 
 j)erhaps, the continual application of handker- 
 cliiefs to weeping eyes; — then, whether he 
 wishes it or not, or is fit to receive it or not, 
 he is to have the whole truth told him by some 
 busy-body who never was so anxious, perhaps, 
 in the cause of veracity before ; — and lastly, 
 come partings, and family assemblings, and 
 confusion of the head witii matters of faith, 
 and trembling prayers, that tend to force u})on 
 dying weakness the very doubts they under- 
 take to dissipate. Well may the soldier take 
 advantage of such death-beds as these, to boast 
 of the end that awaits him in the field. 
 
 But having lost our friend, we must still 
 continue to add to our own misery at the cir- 
 cumstance. We must heap about the recollec- 
 tion of our loss all the most gloomy and dis- 
 tasteful circumstances we can contrive, and 
 thus, perhaps, absolutely incline ourselves to 
 think as little of him as possible. We wrap 
 the body in ghastly habiliments, put it in as 
 tasteless a piece of furniture as we can invent, 
 dress ourselves in the gloomiest of colours, 
 awake the barbarous monotony of the church- 
 bell, (to frighten every sick person in the 
 neighbourhood,) call about us a set of officious 
 mechanics, of all sorts, who are counting their 
 shillings, as it were, by the tears that we shed, 
 and watching with jealousy every candle's end 
 of their" perquisites," — and proceed to consign 
 our friend or relation to the dust, under a cere- 
 mony that takes particular pains to inii^ress 
 that consummation on our minds. — Lastly, 
 come tasteless tombstones and ridiculous epi- 
 taphs, with perhaps a skull and cross-bones at 
 top; and the tombstones are crowded together, 
 generally in the middle of towns, always near 
 the places of worship, unless the church-yard 
 is overstocked. Scarcely ever is there a tree 
 on the spot ; — in some remote villages alone 
 are the graves ever decorated with flowers*. 
 All is stony, earthy, and dreary. It seems as if, 
 after having rendered everything before death 
 asjjainful as possible, we endeavoured to subside 
 into a sullen indifference, Avhich contradicted 
 itself by its own eflbrts. 
 
 The Greeks managed these things better. 
 It is curious that we, wlio boast so much of our 
 Icnowledge of the inimoitality of the soul, and 
 of the glad hopes of an after-life, should take 
 such pains to make the image of death melan- 
 choly ; while, on the other hand. Gentiles 
 wiiom we treat with so much couteni])t for 
 their ignorance on those heads, should do the 
 reverse, and associate it with emblems that 
 
 * Matters have been improving since this article was 
 written.
 
 ON DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 41 
 
 ou<rht to belong rather to us. But the truth 
 is, that we know very little what we are talk- 
 ing about wlien we speak, in the gross, of the 
 ancients, and of their ideas of Deity and hu- 
 manity. Tlie very finest and most amiable 
 part of our notions on those subjects comes 
 originally from their philosophers; all the rest, 
 the gloom, the bad passions, the favouritism, 
 are the work of other hands, who have bor- 
 rowed the better materials as they proceeded, 
 and then pretended an original right in them. 
 Even the absurd parts of the Greek Mythology 
 are less painfully absurd than those of any 
 other ; because, generally speaking, they are 
 on the cheerful side instead of the gloomy. 
 We would rather have a Deity who fell in 
 love with the beautiful creatures of his own 
 making, than one who would consign nine 
 hundred out of a thousand to destruction for 
 jot believing ill of him. 
 
 But not to digress from the main subject. 
 The ancients did not render the idea of death 
 so harshly distinct, as we do, from that of life. 
 They did not extinguish all light and cheerful- 
 ness in their minds, and in things about them, as 
 it were, on the instant ; neither did they keep 
 before one's eyes, with hypochondriacal perti- 
 nacity, the idea of death's heads and skeletons, 
 which, as representations of humanity, are 
 something more absurd than the brick which 
 the pedant carried about as the specimen of 
 his house. They selected pleasant spots for 
 sepulture, and outside the town; they adorned 
 their graves with arches and pillars, — with myr- 
 tles, lilies, and roses; they kept up the social and 
 useful idea of their great men by entombing 
 them near the highway, so tiiat every traveller 
 paid his homage as he went ; and latterly, they 
 reduced the dead body to ashes, — a clean and 
 inoffensive substance — gathered it into a taste- 
 ful urn, and often accompanied it with otlier 
 vessels of exquisite construction, on which 
 were painted the most cheerful actions of 
 the person departed, even to those of his every- 
 day life, — the jirize in the games, the toilet, the 
 recollections of his marriages and friendships 
 — the figures of beautiful females, — every- 
 tliing, in short, which seemed to keep up the 
 idea of a vital jjrincijile, and to say, " the crea- 
 ture wlio so did and so enjoyed itself cannot 
 be all gone." The inuxge of the vital principle 
 and of an after-life was, in fact, often and 
 distinctly repeated on these vessels by a variety 
 of emblems, animal and vegetable, particularly 
 the image of Psyche, or the soul, by means of 
 the buttei-fly,- — an association which, in process 
 of time, as other associations gathered about 
 it, gave rise to the most exquisite allegory in 
 the world, the story of CkjiUI and Pxurhe. 
 
 Now, we do not mean to say, that every- 
 body who thinks as we do upon this subject, 
 should or can depart at once from existing 
 customs, especially the chief ones. These 
 things must either go out gradually or by some 
 
 convulsive movement in society, as others 
 have gone ; and mere eccentricity is no help 
 to their departure. What we cannot undo, 
 let us only do as decently as possible ; but we 
 might render the dying a great deal more com- 
 fortable, by just daiing a little to consider 
 their comforts and not our puerility : we might 
 allow their rooms also to be more liii:ht and 
 cheerful ; we might talce pains to bring plea- 
 santer associations about them altogether ; and, 
 when they were gone, we might cultivate our 
 own a little better ; our tombstones might at 
 least be in better taste ; we might take more 
 care of our graves ; we might preserve our 
 sick neighbours from the sound of the death- 
 bell ; a single piece of ribbon or crape would 
 surely be enough to guard us against the un- 
 weeting inquiries of friends, while, in the rest 
 of our clothes, we might adopt, by means of a 
 ring or a watch-ribbon, some cheerful instead 
 of gloomy recollection of the person we had 
 lost, — a favourite colour, for instance, or de- 
 vice, — and thus contrive to balance a grief 
 which we must feel, and which, indeed, in its 
 proper associations, it would not be desirable 
 to avoid. Rousseau died gazing on the setting 
 sun, and was buried under green trees. Pe- 
 trarch, w ho seemed born to complete and ren- 
 der glorious the idea of an author from first to 
 last, was found dead in his study with his head 
 placidly resting on a book. What is there in 
 deaths like these to make us look back with 
 anguish, or to plunge into all sorts of gloomi- 
 ness and bad taste ? 
 
 We know not whether it has ever struck 
 any of our readers, but we seem to consider 
 the relics of ancient taste, which we possess, 
 as things of mere ornament, and forget that 
 their uses may be in some measure preserved, 
 so as to complete the idea of their beauty, 
 and give them, as it were, a soul again. We 
 place their urns and vases, for instance, about 
 our apartments, but never think of putting 
 anything in them ; yet wlien they are not ab- 
 solutely too fragile, we migl)t often do so, — 
 fruit, flowers, — toilet utensils, ^a hundred 
 things, with a fine opportunity (to boot) of 
 showing our taste in inscriptions. The Chi- 
 nese, in the Cithm of the Wur/d, when he was 
 shown the two large vases from his own coun- 
 try, was naturally amused to hear that they 
 only served to fill up the room, and held no 
 su])ply of tea in them as they did at home. A 
 lady, a friend of ours, who shows in her coun- 
 tenance her origin from a country of taste, and 
 who acts up to the promise of her countenance, 
 is the only person, but one, whom we ever 
 knew to turn antique ornament to account in 
 this respect. Sh(> Iiuried a favourite bird in a 
 vase on her mantel-i)iote ; and tliere tlie little 
 rogue lies, with more kind and tasteful asso- 
 ciations about him, tiian tiie greatest dust in 
 Christendom. The other instance is that of 
 two urns of marble, which have been turned
 
 42 
 
 ON WASHERWOMEN. 
 
 as much as possible to the original purposes of 
 such vessels, by bwoiniiiji; tlio dej)ositorv of 
 locks of hair. A lock of hair is an actual 
 relic of the dead, as much so, in its propor- 
 tion, as ashes, and more lively and recalling 
 than even tliose. It is the part of us that j)rt'- 
 serves vitality longest ; it is a clean and ele- 
 giint substance : and it is especially conuected 
 with ideas of tenderness, in the cheek or the 
 eyes about which it may have strayed, and the 
 handling -wo may have given it on the living 
 head. 'I'lic tliouglits connected with such re- 
 lics time gradually releases from grief itself, 
 and softens into tender enjoyment ; and 
 wc know that in the instance alluded to 
 the possessor of those two little urns would 
 no more consent to miss them from his 
 study, than he would any other cheerful asso- 
 ciation that he could procure. It is a consider- 
 ation, which he would not forego for a great 
 deal, that the venerable and lovely dust to 
 which they belonged lies in a village church- 
 yard, and has left the most unfading part of it 
 inclosed in graceful vessels. 
 
 1814. 
 
 LIV.— ON WASHERWOMEN. 
 
 Writeks, we tliink, might oftener indulge 
 themselves in direct picture-making, that is to 
 say, in detached sketches of men and things, 
 which sliould be to Manners, what those of The- 
 ophrastus are to character. 
 
 Painters do not always think it necessary to 
 paint epics, or to fill a room with a series of 
 pictures on one subject. They deal sometimes 
 in single figures and groups ; and often exhi- 
 bit a profounder feeling in these little concen- 
 trations of their art, than in subjects of a more 
 numerous description. Their (/usto, perhaps, is 
 less likely to be lost, on that very account. 
 They are no longer Sultans in a seraglio, but 
 lovers with a favourite mistress, retired and 
 absorbed. A Madonna of Correggio's, the Bath 
 of ^[ichael Angelo, the Standard of Leonardo 
 da Vinci, Titian's Mistress, and other single 
 subjects or groups of the gi-eat masters, are 
 acknowledged to be among their greatest 
 performances, some of them their greatest 
 of all. 
 
 It is the same with music. Overtures, which 
 are supposed to make allusion to the whole 
 progress of the story they precede, are not al- 
 ways the best productif)ns of the master ; still 
 less are choruses, and quintetts, and other 
 pieces involving a multiplicity of actors. Tlie 
 overture to Mozart's Magic Flute ( Zauherjiote ) 
 is worthy of the title of the piece ; it is truly 
 enchanting; but what are so intense, in tlicir 
 way, as the duet of the two lovers, Ak l\r- 
 dona, — or the laughing trio in Cosi Fan Tutte, — 
 
 or that passionate serenade in Don Giovanni, 
 Dch ricni aUa fnrxtra, which breathes the very 
 soul of refined sensuality ! The gallant is be- 
 fore you, with his mandolin and his cap and 
 feather, taking place of the nightingale for 
 that amorous hour ; and you feel tliat the 
 sounds nuist inevitably draw his mi.stress to 
 tlui window. Their inteuseness even renders 
 them pathetic ; and his heart seems in earnest, 
 because his senses arc. 
 
 We do not mean to say, that, in proportion 
 as the work is large and the subject numerous, 
 the merit may not be the greater if all is good 
 Raphael's Sacrament is a greater work than 
 his Adam and Eve ; but his Transfiguration 
 would still have been the finest picture in the 
 world, had the second group in the foreground 
 been away ; nay, the latter is supposed, and, 
 we think, with justice, to injure its effect. We 
 only say that there are times wlien the nu- 
 merousness may scatter the individual gusto ; 
 — that the greatest possible feeling may be 
 proved without it ; — and, above all, returning 
 to our more immediate subject, that writers, 
 like painters, may sometimes have leisure for 
 excellent detached pieces, when they want it 
 for larger productions. Here, then, is an op- 
 portunity for them. Let them, in their inter- 
 vals of history, or, if they want time for it, 
 give us i)ortraits of humanity. People lament 
 that Sajipho did not write more : but, at auy 
 rate, her two odes are worth twenty epics like 
 Tryphiodorus. 
 
 lint, in portraits of this kind, writing will 
 also have a great advantage ; and may avoid 
 what seems to be an inevitable stumbling-block 
 in paintings of a similar description. Between 
 the matter-of-fact works of the Dutch artists, 
 and the subtle compositions of Hogarth, there 
 seems to be a medium reserved only for the 
 pen. The -writer only can tell you all he 
 means, — can let you into his whole mind and 
 intention. The moral insinuations of the 
 jiainter are, on the one hand, apt to be lost for 
 want of distinctness ; or tempted, on the other, 
 by their visible nature, to put on too gross a 
 shape. If he leaves his meanings to be ima- 
 gined, he may unfortunately speak to unima- 
 ginative spectators, and generally does ; if he 
 wishes to explain himself so as not to be mis- 
 taken, he will paint a set of comments upon 
 his own incidents and characters, rather than 
 let them tell for themselves. Hogarth him- 
 self, for instance, who never does anything 
 without a sentiment or a moral, is too apt to 
 perk them both in your face, and to be over- 
 redundant in his combinations. His persons, 
 in many instances, seem too much taken away 
 from their proper indifference to effect, and to 
 be made too much of conscious agents and 
 joint contributors. He " o'er-informs his te- 
 nements." Ilis very goods and chattels ai-e 
 didactic. He makes a capital remark of a 
 cow's horn, and brings up a jjiece of cannon in
 
 ON WASHERWOMEN. 
 
 43 
 
 aid of a satire on vanity.* It is the writer 
 only who, without hurting the most delicate 
 propriety of the representation, can leave no 
 doubt of all his intentions,— who can insinuate 
 his object, in two or three words, to the dullest 
 conception ; and, in conversing with the most 
 foreign minds, take away all the awkwardness 
 of interpretation. What painting gains in 
 universality to the eye, it loses by an infinite 
 proportion in power of suggestion to the un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 There is something of the sort of sketches 
 we are recommending in Sterne : but Sterne 
 had a general connected object before him, of 
 which the parts apparently detached were still 
 connecting links : and while he also is apt to 
 overdo his subject like Hogarth, is infinitely 
 less various and powerful. The greatest mas- 
 ter of detached portrait is Steele : but his pic- 
 tures too form a sort of link in a chain. Per- 
 haps the completest specimen of what we 
 mean in the English language is Shenstone's 
 Sdiool-3Iistress, by far his best production, and 
 a most natural, quiet, and touching old dame. 
 — But what ? Are we leaving out Chaucer ? 
 Alas, we thought to be doing something a 
 little original, and find it all existing already, 
 and in unrivalled perfection, in his portraits of 
 the Canterbury Pilgrims ! We can only dilate, 
 and vary upon his principle. 
 
 But we are making a very important preface 
 to what may turn out a very trifling subject ; 
 and must request the reader not to be startled 
 at the homely specimen we are about to give 
 him, after all this gravity of recommendation. 
 Not that we would apologise for homeliness, 
 as homeliness. The beauty of this unlimited 
 power of suggestion in writing is, that you 
 may take up the driest and most common-place 
 of all possible subjects, and strike a light out 
 of it to warm your intellect and your heart 
 by. The fastidious habits of polished life ge- 
 nerally incline us to reject, as incapable of in- 
 teresting us, whatever does not present itself 
 in a graceful shape of its own, and a ready- 
 made suit of ornaments. But some of the 
 plainest weeds become beautiful under the 
 microscope. It is the benevolent provision of 
 nature, tliat in proportion as you feel the ne- 
 cessity of extracting interest from common 
 things, you are enabled to do so ; — and the 
 very least that this familiarity with homeliness 
 will do for us is to render our artificial deli- 
 cacy less liable to annoyance, and to teach us 
 how to grrsp the nettles till they ol)ey us. 
 
 The reader sees that we are Wordsworthians 
 enough not to confine our tastes to the received 
 elegancies of society ; and, in one respect, we 
 go farther than .Mr. Wordsworth, for, though 
 as fond, perhaps, of the country as he, we can 
 manage to please ourselves in the very thick 
 
 * See the c.innon Ruing oSF in the turbulent portrait of a 
 (Jencral-Oftieer : .'ind the cow's head coming just over that 
 of the citizen who is walking with his wife. 
 
 of cities, and even find there as much reason 
 to do justice to Providence, as he does in the 
 haunts of sportsmen, and anglers, and all-de- 
 vouring insects. 
 
 To think, for instance, of that laborious and 
 inelegant class of the community — Washer- 
 women, and of all the hot, disagreeable, dab- 
 bing, smoaking, splashing, kitcheny,cold-dining, 
 anti-company-receiving associations, to which 
 they give rise. — What can be more annoying 
 to any tasteful lady or gentleman, at their first 
 waking in the morning, than when that dread- 
 ful thump at the door comes, announcing the 
 tub-tumbling viragoes, with their braAvny arms 
 and brawling voices ? We must confess, for 
 our own parts, that our taste, in the abstract, 
 is not for washerwomen ; we prefer Dryads 
 and Naiads, and the figures that resemble 
 them ;■ — 
 
 Fair forms, that glance amid the green of woodSj 
 Or from the waters give their sidelong shapes 
 Half swelling. 
 
 Yet, we have lain awake sometimes in a street 
 in town, after this first confounded rap, and 
 pleased ourselves with imagining how equally 
 the pains and enjoyments of this world are 
 dealt out, and what a pleasure there is in the 
 mere contemplation of any set of one's fellow- 
 creatures and their humours, when our know- 
 ledge has acquired humility enough to look at 
 them steadily. 
 
 The reader knows the knock which we 
 mean. It comes like a lump of lead, and in- 
 stantly wakes the maid, whose business it is 
 to get up, though she pretends not to hear it. 
 Another knock is inevitable, and it comes, 
 and then another ; but still Betty does not 
 stir, or stirs only to put herself in a still 
 snugger posture, knowing very well that they 
 must knock again. " Now, 'drat that Betty," 
 says one of the washerwomen ; " she hears as 
 well as we do, but the deuce a bit will she 
 move till we give her another ;" and at the 
 word another, down goes the knocker again. 
 " It's very odd," says the master of the house, 
 mumbling from under the bed-clothes, " that 
 Betty does not get up to let the people in ; 
 I've heard that knocker three times." — " Oh," 
 returns the mistress, "she's as lazy as she's 
 high," — and oft' goes the chamber-bell; — by 
 wliich time Molly, who begins to lose her sym- 
 pathy with her fellow-servant in impatience of 
 what is going on, gives her one or two conclu- 
 sive digs in the side ; when the other gets up, 
 and rubl)ing her eyes, and mumbling, and has- 
 tening and shrugging herself down stairs, 
 opens the door with — " Lard, Mrs. Watson, I 
 hope you haven't been standing here long ?" 
 — " Standing here long, Mrs. Betty ! Oh dont 
 tell me ; people might stand starving their 
 legs oft', before you'd ])ut a finger out of bed." 
 — "Oh don't say so, Mrs. Watson ; I'm sure I 
 always rises at the first knock ; and there — 
 1 you'll find everything comfortable below,
 
 u 
 
 THE NIGHTMARE. 
 
 with a nice liock of ham, wliicli I made John 
 leave for you." At tliis the \va.slienvH)nieii 
 leave their gruniblinjj, and shuttle down stairs, 
 hopinjf to see Mrs. Betty early at breakfast. 
 Here, after warniinj^ themselves at the coiiju'r, 
 taking a mutual pinch of snuff, and getting 
 things ready for the wash, they take a snack 
 at tlie jiromised hock ; for people of this pro- 
 fession have always their appetite at hand, and 
 every interval of labour is invariably cheered 
 by tlie prospect of hantuj soiihihlnii at the end 
 of it. " Well," says ilrs. Watson, finishing 
 the last cut, " some people thinks themselves 
 mighty generous for leaving one what little 
 they can't eat ; but, howsomever, it's better 
 than notiiing." — " Ah," says Mrs. Jones, who 
 is a minor genius, " one must take what one 
 can get now-a-days ; but Squire Hervey's for 
 my money." — "Squire ilervey !" rejoins Mrs. 
 Watson, " what's tliat the great what's-his- 
 name as lives yonder ?" — "Ay," returns Mrs. 
 Jones, " him as has a niece and nevvy, as they 
 say eats him out of house and laiid ;" — and 
 here commences the history of .all the last 
 week of tlie wliole neighbourhood round, 
 which continues amidst the dipping of splash- 
 ing fists, tiie rumbling of suds, and the creak- 
 ing of wringiiigs-out, till an hour or two are 
 elapsed ; and then for another snack and a 
 pinch of snuff, till the resumption of another 
 hour's labour or so brings round tlie time for 
 first breakfast. Then, liaving had notiiing 'm 
 signify since five, they sit down at half-]>ast 
 six in the wasii-house, to take their own meal 
 before the servants meet at the general one. 
 This is the chief moment of enjoj-ment. They 
 have just laboured enough to make the tea 
 and bread and butter welcome, are at an in- 
 teresting point of the conversation, (for there 
 tliey contrive to leave off on purpose,) and so 
 down they sit, fatigued and liappy, with their 
 red elbows and white corrugated fingers, to a 
 tub turned upside down, and a dish of good 
 cliristian souchong, fit for a body to drink. 
 
 We could dwell a good deal upon this point 
 of time, but shall only admonish the fasti- 
 dious reader, who thinks he has all the taste 
 and means of enjoyment to himself, how lie 
 looks with scorn upon two persons, who are 
 perhaps at this moment the happiest couple of 
 human beings in the street, — who have dis- 
 charged their duty, have earned their enjoy- 
 ment, and have liealth and spirits to relish it 
 to the full. A washerwoman's cup of tea may 
 vie with the first drawn cork at a bon-vivant's 
 table, and the cinnjilacent opening of her 
 snuff-box with that of the most triuni])lKuit 
 politician over a scheme of partition. We 
 say nothing of the continuation of their la- 
 bours, of the scandal tliey resume, or the 
 complaints they pour forth, when they first 
 set off again in the indolence of a satisfied ap- 
 petite, at the quantity of work which the mis- 
 tress of the house, above all other mistresses. 
 
 is sure to heaj) upon them. Scandal and com- 
 plaint, in these inst.mces, do not Iiurt the com- 
 placency of our reflections ; they are in their 
 proper sphere ; and are nothing but a part, as 
 it were, of the day's work, and are so much 
 vent to the animal spirits. Even the unplea- 
 sant day which the work causes up stairs in 
 some houses, — the visitors which it excludes, 
 and the leg of mutton which it hinders from 
 roasting, are only so much enjoyment ke])t 
 back and contrasted, in order to be made 
 keener tlie rest of the week. Beauty itself is 
 indebted to it, and draws from that steaming 
 out-house and splashing tub the well-fitting 
 robe that gives out its figure, and the snowy 
 cap that contrasts its curls ami its complexion. 
 In short, whenever we hear a washerwoman 
 at her foaming work, or see her jilodding to- 
 wards us with her jolly warm face, her mob 
 cap, her black stockings, clattering jjattens, and 
 tub at arm's length resting on her hipjoint, 
 we look upon her as a living lesson to us to 
 make the most both of time and comfort, and 
 as a sort of allegorical compound of pain and 
 pleasure, a little too much, perhaps, in the 
 style of llubens. 
 1814. 
 
 LV.— THE NIGHTMARE. 
 I, 
 
 We do not hesitate to declare to the reader, 
 even in this free-thinking age, that we are no 
 small adept in the uses of the Occult Philosophy, 
 as I shall thoroughly make manifest. — Be it 
 known then, that we are sometimes favoured 
 with the visits of a nocturnal spirit, from 
 whom we receive the most excellent lessons of 
 wisdom. His appearance is not highly pre- 
 jiossessing ; and the weight of his manner of 
 teaching, joined to the season he chooses for 
 that purpose, has in it something not a little 
 tremendous ; but the end of his instruction is 
 the enjoyment of virtue ; and as he is con- 
 scious of the alarming nature of his asi>ect, he 
 takes leave of the initiated the moment they 
 reduce his lessons to practice. It is true, 
 there are a number of foolish persons who, 
 instead of being grateful for his friendly 
 offices, have afiected to disdain them, in the 
 hope of tiring him out, and thus getting rid of 
 his disagreeable presence ; but they could not 
 have taken a worse method ; for his benevo- 
 lence is as unwearied as his lessons and ap- 
 pearances are formidable, and these unphilo- 
 sophic scorners are only punished every night 
 of their lives in consequence. If any curious 
 person wishes to see liim, the ceremony of 
 summoning him to appear is very simple, 
 though it varies according to the asjiirant's im- 
 mediate state of blood. With some, nothing 
 move is required than the mastication of a few
 
 THE NIGHTMARE. 
 
 45 
 
 unripe plums or a cucumber, just before mid- 
 night : others must take a certain portion 
 of that part of a calf, M'hich is used for what 
 are vulgarly called veal-cutlets : others, again, 
 find the necessary charm in an omelet or 
 an olio. For our part, we are so well acquainted 
 with the different ceremonies, that, without 
 any preparation, we have only to lie in a par- 
 ticular posture, and the spirit is sure to make 
 its appearance. The figures under which it 
 presents itself are vai-ious, but it generally 
 takes its position upon the breast in a shape 
 altogether indescribable, and is accompanied 
 with circumstances of alarm and obscurity, not 
 a little resembling those which the philosophers 
 underwent on their initiation into the Eleu- 
 sinian and other mysteries. The first sensa- 
 tions you experience are those of a great 
 oppression and inability to move ; tliese you 
 endeavour to resist, but after an instant resign 
 yourself to their control, or rather flatter your- 
 self you will do so, for the sensation becomes 
 so ])ainful, that in a moment you struggle into 
 another effort, and if in this effort you happen 
 to move yourself and cry out, the spirit is sure 
 to be gone, for it detests a noise as heartily as 
 a monk of La Trappe, a traveller in the Alps, 
 or a thief. Could an intemperate person in 
 this situation be but pliilosopher enough to 
 give himself up to the spirit's influence for 
 a few minutes, he would see his visitant to 
 great advantage, and gather as much know- 
 ledge at once as would serve him instead of a 
 thousand sliort visits, and make him a good 
 liver for months to come. 
 
 It was by this method some time ago, that we 
 not only obtained a full view of the spirit, but 
 gradually gathering strength from sufferance, 
 as those who are initiated into any great 
 wisdom must, contrived to enter into conver- 
 sation with it. The substance of our dialogue 
 ■we hereby present to the reader ; for it is a mis- 
 taken notion of the pretenders to the Cabala, 
 that to reveal tlie secrets on these occasions 
 is to do harm, and incur the displeasure of our 
 spiritual acquaintances. All the harm is in 
 not understanding the secrets properly, and 
 explaining them for the benefit of mankind ; 
 and on this liead we have an objection to 
 make to tliat ancient and industrious order 
 of Ilhnninati the Freemasons, who, though 
 tliey hold with our familiar that eating sup- 
 pers is one of the high roads to wisdom, differ 
 with liiin in confining their knowledge to 
 such persons as can jiurchase it. 
 
 We had returned at a late hour from tlie 
 representation of a new comedy, and after 
 eating a sleejy and not very great supper, 
 reclined ourself on the sofa in a balf-sitting 
 j)osture,and taken uj) a little Horace to see if we 
 could keep our eyes open witli a writer so full 
 of contrast to what we had been hearing. We 
 happened to pitch upon tiiat Ode, ylt JDeorum 
 quisquis, ^c, describing an ancient witches' 
 
 meeting, and fell into an obscure kind of 
 reverie upon the identity of popular super- 
 stition in different ages and nations. The 
 comic dramatist, however, had been too much 
 for us ; the weather, which had been warm, 
 but was inclining to grow cloudy, conspired 
 with our heaviness, and the only sounds to be 
 heard, were the ticking of a small clock in the 
 room, and the fitful sighs of the wind as it 
 rose without, 
 
 The moaning herald of a weeping sky. 
 
 By degrees our eyes closed, the hand with the 
 book dropped one way, and the head dropped 
 back the other upon a corner of the sofa. 
 
 When you are in a state the least adapted to 
 bodily perception, it is well known that you 
 are in the precise state for spiritual. We had 
 not been settled, we suppose, for more tlian 
 a quarter of an hour, when the lid of a veal- 
 pie, which we liad lately attacked, bcLran swell- 
 ing up and down with an extraordinary con- 
 vulsion, and we plainly perceived a little figure 
 rising from beneath it, which grew larger and 
 larger as it ascended, and then advanced with 
 great solemnity towards us over tlie dishes. 
 Thisphenomenon,whicliwethought we had seen 
 often before, but could not distinctly remember 
 how or where, was about two feet high, six 
 inches of which, at least, went to the compo- 
 sition of its head. Between its jaws and 
 shoulders there was no separation whatever, 
 so that its face, which was very broad and 
 pale, came immediately on its bosom, where it 
 quivered without ceasing in a very alarming 
 manner, being, it seems, of a paralytic sensi- 
 bility like blanc-manger. The fearfulness of 
 this aspect was increased by two staring and 
 intent eyes, a nose turned up, but large, and a 
 pair of thick lips turned despondingly down at 
 the corners. Its hair, which stuck about its 
 ears like the quills of a porcupine, was partly 
 concealed by a bolster rolled into a turban, and 
 decorated with duck's feathers. The body was 
 dressed in a kind of armour, of a substance 
 resembling what is called crackling, and girded 
 with a belt curiously studded with Spanish 
 olives, in the middle of which, instead of 
 pistols, were stuck two small bottles contain- 
 ing a fiery liquor. On its shoulders were 
 wings sliaped like the bat's, but mucli larger ; 
 its legs terminated in large feet of lead ; and 
 in its hands, which were of the same metal, 
 and enormously disproportioned, it bore a 
 Turkish bowstring. 
 
 At sight of this formidable apparition, we felt 
 an indescribable and oppressive sensation, 
 wliicii by no means decreased, as it came 
 nearer and nearer, staring and shaking its face 
 at us, and making as many ineffable grimaces 
 as Munden in a farce. It was in vain, however, 
 we attemj)tcd to move ; we felt, all the time, 
 lilce a leixden statue, or like Gulliver pinned to 
 
 e ground by the Lilliputians ; and was
 
 4C 
 
 THE NIGHTMARE. 
 
 wondering how our sufferings would terminate, 
 when the phantom, by a spring off the table, 
 pitched himself with all his weight upon our 
 breast, and we thought began fixing his terrible 
 bowstring. At this, as I could make no oppo- 
 sition, we determined at least to cry out as 
 lustily as possible, and were beginning to make 
 the effort, when the spiiit motioned us to be 
 quiet, and, retreating a little from our throat, 
 said, in a low suffocating tone of voice, " Wilt 
 thou never be jihilosopher enough to leave off 
 sacrificing unto calfs flesh ?" 
 
 " In tlie name of the Great Solomon's ring," 
 we ejueulati'd, " what art thou ?" 
 
 " My name," replied the being, a little 
 angrily, "which thou wast unwittingly going 
 to call out, is Mnpvtglnau-auw-auww, and I 
 am Pi-ince of the Night-mares." 
 
 " Ah, my Lord," returned we, " you will par- 
 don our want of recollection, but we had never 
 seen you in your full dress before, and your 
 presence is not very composing to the spirits. 
 Doubtless this is the habit in which you 
 appeared with the other genii at the levee of 
 the nnghty Solomon." 
 
 " A fig for the mighty Solomon!" said the 
 spirit, good-humouredly ; " this is the cant of 
 the Cabalists, who pretend to know so much 
 about us. I assure you, Solomon trembled 
 much more at me than I did at him. I found 
 it necessary, notwithstanding all his wisdom, 
 to be continually giving him advice ; and 
 many were the quarrels I had on his account 
 with Peor, the Daemon of Sensuality, and a 
 female devil named Ashtoreth." 
 
 " The world, my Prince," returned we, " do 
 not give you credit for so much benevolence." 
 
 "No," quoth the vision, "the world are never 
 just to their best advisers. Myfigure,it is true,is 
 not the most prepossessing, and my mauner of 
 teaching is less so ; but I am nevertheless a 
 benevolent spirit, and would do good to the 
 most ungrateful of your fellow-creatures. This 
 very night, between the hours of ten and one, 
 I have been giving lessons to no less than 
 twelve priests and twenty-one citizens. The 
 studious I attend somewhat later, and the 
 people of fashion towards morning. — But as 
 you seem inclined at last to make a proper use 
 of my instructions, 1 will recount you some of 
 my adventures, if you please, that you may 
 relate them to your countrymen, and teach 
 them to appreciate the trouble I have with 
 them." 
 
 " You are really obliging," said we, " and we 
 should be all att(,'ntion, would you do us the 
 favour to sit a little more lightly, for eacii of 
 your fingers appears heavier than a porter's 
 load ; and, to say the truth, the very sight of 
 that bowstring almost throttles us." 
 
 LVL— THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 
 
 At these words the spectre gave a smile, 
 which we can compare to nothing but the effect 
 of vinegar on a death's-head, llowevei", he 
 rose up, though very slowly, and we once more 
 breathed with transi)ort, like a person drop- 
 ping into his chair after a long journey. He 
 then seated himself with much dignity on the 
 pillow at the other end of the sofa, and thus 
 resumed the discourse : — " I have been among 
 mankind, ever since the existence of cooks 
 and bad consciences, and my office is two-fold, 
 to give advice to the well-disposed, and to in 
 flict punishment on the ill. The spirits over 
 which 1 preside are of that class called by the 
 ancients Incubi ; but it was falsely supposed 
 that we were fond of your handsome girls, as 
 the Kosicrucians maintain, for it is our busi- 
 ness to suppress, not encourage tlie passions, 
 as you may guess by my appearance." 
 
 " Pardon us," interrupted we, "but the poets 
 and painters represent your Highness as riding 
 about on horseback ; some of them even make 
 you the horse itself, and it is thus that we 
 have been taught to account for the term 
 Night-mare." 
 
 11 ere the phantom gave another smile, which 
 made us feel sympathetically about the mouth 
 as though one of our teeth was being drawn. 
 " A pretty jest," said he : " as if a spiritual 
 being had need of a horse to carry him ! The 
 general name of my species in this country is 
 of Saxon origin ; the Saxons, uniting as they 
 did the two natures of Britons and Germans, 
 ate and drank with a vengeance : of course 
 they knew me very well, and being continually 
 visited by me in all my magnificence, called 
 me, by way of eminence, the Night Mara, or 
 Spirit of Night. As to the poets and painters, 
 I do not know enough of them to be well 
 acquainted with their misrepresentations of 
 me ; though all of those gentlemen who could 
 afford it have been pretty intimate with me. 
 The moralizing Epicurean, whom you have in 
 your hand there, I knew very well. Very 
 good things he wrote, to be sure, about tem- 
 perance and lettuces ; but he ate quite as good 
 at IMecajnas' table. You may see the delicate 
 state of his faculties by the noise he makes 
 about a little garlick. There was Congi-eve, 
 too, who dined every day with a duchess, and 
 had the gout : I visited him often enough, and 
 once wTeaked on him a pretty set of tortures 
 under the figure of one Jeremy Collier. My 
 Lord Rochester, who might have displayed so 
 true a fancy of his own without my assistance, 
 had scarcely a single idea with which I did not 
 sui)ply him, for five years together, during 
 which time, you know, he confessed himself to 
 have been in a state of intoxication. But I 
 am sorry to say, that I have had no small 
 trouble with aome of your poetical moralists,
 
 THE NIGHTMARE. 
 
 47 
 
 as well as men of pleasure. Something, I con- 
 fess, must be allowed to Pope, whose constitu- 
 tion disputed with him every hour's enjoyment; 
 but an invalid so fond of good things might 
 have spared the citizens and clergy a little. 
 It must be owned, also, that the good temper 
 he really possessed did much honour to his 
 philosophy ; but it would have been greater, 
 could he have denied himself that silver 
 saucepan. It seduced him into a hundred 
 miseries. One night, in particular, I remem- 
 ber, after he had made a very sharp attack on 
 Addison and a dish of lampreys, he was terribly 
 used by my spirits, who appeared to him in 
 the shapes of so many ilying pamphlets : he 
 awoke in great horror, crying out with a ghastly 
 smile, like a man who pretends to go easily 
 through a laborious wager, ' These things are 
 my diversion.' As to your painters, I have 
 known still less of them, though I am ac- 
 quainted with one now living, to whom I once 
 sat at midnight for my portrait, and the like- 
 ness is allowed by all of us to be excellent." 
 
 " Well," interrupted we, " but it is not at all 
 like you in your present aspect." 
 
 " No," replied the phantom, " it is my poeti- 
 cal look. I have all sorts of looks and shapes, 
 civic, political, and poetical. It is by particular 
 favour that I appear to you as I really am ; 
 but as you have not seen many of my shapes, 
 I will, if you please, give you a sample of some 
 of my best." 
 
 " Oh, by no means," said we, somewhat has- 
 tily ; " we can imagine quite enough from your 
 descriptions. The philosophers certainly ill- 
 used you when they represented you as a 
 seducer." 
 
 " The false philosophers did," replied the 
 spectre ; " the real philosophers knew me 
 better. It was at my instance that Pythagoras 
 forbade the eating of beans ; Plato owed some 
 of his schemes to my hints, though I confess 
 not his best ; and I also knew Socrates very 
 Avell from my intimacy with Alcibiades, but 
 the familiar that attended him was of a much 
 higlier order than myself, and rendered my 
 services unnecessary. However, my veneration 
 for that illustrious man was so great, that on 
 the night when he died, I revenged him finely 
 on his two principal enemies. People talk of 
 the flourishing state of vice, and the happiness 
 which guilty people sometimes enjoy in con- 
 trast with the virtuous ; but tlicy know nothing 
 of what they talk. You should have seen 
 Alexander in bed after one of his trium])hant 
 feasts, or Domitian or llfliogalialus after a 
 common su])por, and you would have seen who 
 was the true monarch, the master of millions, 
 or the master of himself. The Prince retired 
 perliaps amidst lights, garlands, and perfumes, 
 with the pomp of music, and through a host of 
 bowing heads : everything lie saw and touched 
 reminded him of empire ; his bed was of the 
 costliest furniture, and he reposed by the side 
 
 of beauty. Reposed, did I say ? As well 
 might you stretch a man on a gilded rack, and 
 fan him into forgetfulness. No sooner had he 
 obtained a little slumber, but myself and other 
 spirits revenged the crimes of the day ; in a 
 few minutes the convulsive snatches of his 
 hands and features announce the rising agita- 
 tion ; his face blackens and swells ; his clench- 
 ed hands grasp the drapery about him ; he 
 tries to turn, but cannot, for a hundred horrors, 
 the least of which is of death, crowd on him and 
 wither his faculties ; till at last, by an eifort of 
 despair, he wakes with a fearful outcry, and 
 springs from the bed, pale, trembling, and 
 aghast, afraid of the very assistance he would 
 call, and terrified at the consciousness of him- 
 self. Such are the men before whom millions 
 of you rational creatures consent to tremble." 
 
 " You talk like an orator," said we ; " but 
 surely every ambitious prince has not hor- 
 rors like these, for every one is neither so 
 luxurious as Alexander, nor so timid and 
 profligate as a Domitian or Heliogabalus. 
 Conquerors, one would think, are generally too 
 full of business to have leisure for consciences 
 and night-mares." 
 
 "Why, a great deal may be done," answered 
 the spirit, " against horrors of any kind by 
 mere dint of industry. But too much business, 
 especially of a nature that keeps passion on 
 the stretch, will sometimes perform the office 
 of indolence and luxury, and tui-n revengefully 
 upon the mind. To this were owing, in great 
 measure, the epilepsies of Cajsar and Moham- 
 med. With the faces of most of the Roman 
 Emperors I am as familiar as an antiquary, 
 particularly from Tiberius downi to Caligula ; 
 and again from Constantino downwards. But 
 if I punished the degenerate Romans, I never- 
 theless punished their enemies too. They 
 were not aware, when scourged by Attila, 
 what niglits their tormentor passed. Luckily 
 for justice, he brought from Germany not only 
 fire and sword, but a true German appetite. 
 I know not a single conqueror of modern 
 times who equalled him in horror of dream- 
 ing, unless it was a little, spare, aguey, peevish, 
 supper-eating fellow, whom you call Frederick 
 the Great. Those exquisite I'agouts, the en- 
 joyment of wliich added new relish to the sar- 
 casms the latter dealt about him with a royalty 
 so unanswerable, sufiiciently revenged the suf- 
 ferers for tlicir submission. Nevertheless, he 
 dealt by his dishes as some men do by their 
 mistresses : he loved them the more they tor- 
 mented him. Poor Trenck, witli his bread 
 and water in the dungeon of Magdeburg, en- 
 joyed a repose fifty times more serene than 
 the royal philosojiher in his palace of Sans 
 Souci, or Witliout Care. Even on the approacn 
 of death, tliis great conqueror — this warrior 
 full of courage and sage speculation— could 
 not resist the customary pepper and sauce- 
 piquante, though he knew he should inevitably 
 
 L-
 
 48 
 
 THE NIGHTMARE. 
 
 see me at niglit, armed with all his sins, and 
 turning his Led into a nest of monsters." 
 
 " Heaven be praised," ci-ivd wo, " tliat lie had 
 a taste so retributive ! Tlie people under ar- 
 bitrary governments must needs liave a respect 
 for the dishes at court. We now perceive, more 
 than ever, tlie little insiglit wo have into tlio 
 uses of things. Formerly one miglit have 
 imagined that eating and drinking had no use 
 but the vulgar one of sustaining life ; but it is 
 manifest that they save the law a great deal of 
 troulile, and the writci's of cookery-books can 
 be considered in no other light than as e.x- 
 pounders of a criminal code. Really, we shall 
 heivafter approach a dish of turtle with be- 
 coming awe, and already begin to look ujjou a 
 ragout as something very equitable and in- 
 flexible." 
 
 "You do justice," observed the spirit, "to 
 those eminent dislies, and in the only proper 
 way. People who sit down to a feast with 
 their joyous darting of eyes and rublting of 
 hands, would have very different sensations, 
 did they know what they were about to attack. 
 You must know, tliat the souls of tormented 
 animals survive after death, and become in- 
 struments of punishment for mankind. Most 
 of these are under my jurisdiction, and form 
 great part of the monstrous shapes tliat haunt 
 the slumbers of the intemperate. Fish crimped 
 alive, lobsters boiled alive, and pigs wliipped 
 to death, become the most active and formi- 
 dable spirits ; and if the object of their ven- 
 geance take too many precautions to drown 
 his senses whe-i asleep, there is the subtle and 
 fell Gout waiting to torment his advanced 
 years, — a sjiirit partaking of the double nature 
 of the Night-mare and Salamander, and more 
 terrible than any one of us, inasmuch as he 
 makes his attacks by day as well as by night." 
 
 "We shudder to think," interrupted we, 
 "even of the monstrous combinations which 
 havedisturbed ourown rest, and formed so hor- 
 rible a contrast to tlie gaiety of a social supper." 
 
 "Oh, as for that matter,'' said the phan- 
 tom, in a careless tone, "you know nothing 
 of the horrors of a glutton, or a nefa- 
 rious debauchee. Suffdcation with bolsters, 
 heajiing of rocks upon tlie chest, buryings 
 alive, and strugglings to breathe without a 
 mouth, are among their common-place suffer- 
 ings. The dying glutton in I^a Fontaine ne- 
 ver was so reasonable, as when he desired to 
 liave the remainder of his fish. He was afraid 
 that if he did not immediately go off, he might 
 have a nap before he died, wjiicli would have 
 been a thousand times worse than death. Had 
 Apicius, Ciacco the Florentine, Dartineuf, or 
 Vitellius, been able and inclined to paint what 
 they had seen, Callot would have been a mere 
 Cipriani to them. I could jiroduce you a jolly 
 fellow, a corpulent nobleman, from the next 
 hotel, the very counterpart of the glutton in 
 Rubens's Fall of the Damned, who could bring 
 
 together a more hideous combination of fan- 
 cies than are to be found in Milton's Hell. He 
 is not without iuforination, and a disposition 
 naturally good ; but a long series of bad habits 
 have made him what they call a man of plea- 
 sure, — that is to say, he takes all sorts of pains 
 to get a little enjoyment which sliall produce 
 him a world of misery. One of iiis passions, 
 wliich he will not resist, is for a particular dish 
 pungent, savoury, and multifarious, which 
 sends him almost every night into Tartarus. 
 At this minute, the spectres of the supper- 
 table are busy with him, and Dante himself 
 could not have worked up a greater hon-or for 
 the punishment of vice than the one he is un- 
 dergoing. He fancies that though he is klms<:lf, 
 he is nevertheless four different beings at once, 
 of the most odious and contradictory natures, 
 — that his own indescribable feelings are fight- 
 ing bodily and maliciously with each other, — 
 and that there is no chance left him, either for 
 escape, forgetfulness, or cessation." 
 
 " Gracious powers !" cried we ; " what, all 
 this punishment for a dish ?" 
 
 "You do not recollect," answered the spirit, 
 " what an abuse such excesses are of the di- 
 vine gift of reason, and how they distort the 
 best tendencies of human nature. The whole 
 end of existence is perverted by not taking 
 proper care of the body. This man will rise 
 to-morrow morning, pallid, nervous, and sul- 
 len ; his feelings must be reinforced with a 
 dram to bear the ensuing afternoon ; and I 
 foresee, that the ill-temper arising from his de- 
 bauch will lead him into a very serious piece 
 of injustice against his neighbour. To the 
 same cause may be traced fifty of the common 
 disquietudes of life, its caprices and irritabi- 
 lities. To-night a poor fellow is fretful be- 
 cause his sujiper was not rich enough, but to- 
 morrow niglit he will be in torture because it 
 was too rich. A hysterical lady shall flat- 
 ter herself she is sentimentally miserable, 
 when most likely her fine feelings are to be 
 deduced, not from sentiment, but a surfeit. 
 Your Edinburgh wits thought tliey had laid 
 down a very droll impossibility, when they 
 talked of cutting a man's throat witli a pound 
 of pickled salmon ; whereas much less dishes 
 have performed as wonderful exploits. I have 
 known a hard ^(r^ to fill a household with dis- 
 may for days together ; a cucumber has disin- 
 herited an only son ; and a whole province has 
 incurred the royal anger of its master at the 
 instigation of a set of woodcocks." 
 
 " It is a thousand pities," said we, "that his- 
 tory, instead of habituating us to love 'the 
 pomp and circumstance' of bad passions, can- 
 not trace the actions of men to their real 
 sources." 
 
 " Well, well," said the spirit, "now that you 
 are getting grave on the subject, I think I may 
 bid you ad'eu. Your nation has produced ex- 
 cellent jdiilosophers, who were not the less
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 40 
 
 wise for knowing little of me. Pray tell your 
 countrymen that they are neither philosophic 
 nor politic in feasting as they do on all occa- 
 sions, joyful, sorrowful, or indifferent : that 
 good sense, good temper, and the good of their 
 country, are distinct things from indigestion ; 
 and that, when they think to showtheir patriotic 
 devotion by carving and gormandizing, they 
 are no wiser than the bacchanals of old, who 
 took serpents between their teeth, and tor- 
 tured themselves witli knives." 
 
 So saying the spectre rose, and stretching 
 out his right hand, with a look which we believe 
 he intended to be friendly, advanced towards 
 us ; he then took our hand in his own, and 
 l)erceiving signs of alarm in our countenance, 
 burst into a fit of laughter, which was the very 
 quintessence of discord, and baffles all descrip- 
 tion, being a compound of the gabblings of 
 geese, grunting of hogs, quacking of ducks, 
 squabbling of turkeys, and winding up of 
 smoke-jacks. When the fit was pretty well 
 over, he gave us a squeeze of the hand, which 
 made us jump up with a spring of the knees, 
 and gradually enveloping himself in a kind of 
 steam, vanished with a noise like the crash of 
 crockery ware. We looked about us ; we found 
 that our right hand, which held the Horace, 
 had got bent under us, and gone to sleep, and 
 that, in our sudden start, we had kicked half 
 tlie dishes from the supper-table. 
 1811. 
 
 LVn.— THE FLORENTINE LOVERS*. 
 
 At the time when Florence was divided 
 into the two fierce parties of Guelfs and Ghi- 
 belines, there was great hostility between two 
 families of the name of Bardi and Buondel- 
 monti. It w;is seldom that love took place 
 between individuals of houses so divided ; but, 
 when it did, it was proportionately vehement, 
 either because the individuals themselves were 
 vehement in all their passions, or because love, 
 falling upon two gentle hearts, made tliem the 
 more pity and love one anothei-, to find them- 
 selves in so unnatural a situation. 
 
 Of this latter kind was an affection that took 
 ])lace between a young lady of the family of 
 tiie Bardi, called Dianora d' Amerigo, and a 
 youth of the other family, whose name was 
 Ippolito. Tlie girl was about fifteen, and in 
 the full flower of her beauty and sweetness. 
 Ippolito was about three years older, and 
 looked two or three more, on account of a 
 certain gravity and deep regard in the upper 
 ]iart of liis face. You migiit know by his lips 
 that lie could love well, and l)y his eyes that 
 lie could keep the secret. There was a like- 
 
 * The groundwork of this story is in a hite Italian pub- 
 licaticin calkil the Florentine tHjserver, (lostriptivo of the 
 ulii buildings and other circumstanccb uf local interest in 
 the capital of Tuscany. 
 
 ness, as sometimes happens, between the two 
 lovers ; and perhaps this was no mean help to 
 their passion ; for as we find painters ofteii 
 giving their own faces to their heroes, so the 
 more excusable vanity of lovers delights to 
 find that resemblance in one another, which 
 Plato said was only the divorced half of the 
 original human being rushing into communion 
 with the other. 
 
 Be this as it may (and lovers in those times 
 were not ignorant of such speculations), it 
 needed but one sight of Dianora d'Amerigo 
 to make Ippolito fall violently in love witli 
 her. It was in church on a great holiday. In 
 the South the church has ever been the place 
 where people fall in love. It is there that the 
 young of both sexes oftenest find themselves 
 in each other's company. There the volup- 
 tuous that cannot fix their thoughts upon 
 heaven, find congenial objects, more earthly, to 
 win their attention ; and there, the most ifino- 
 cent and devotional spirits, voluptuous also 
 without being awai-e of it, and not knowing 
 how to vent the grateful pleasure of their 
 hearts, discover their tendency to repose on 
 beings that can show themselves visibly 
 sensible to their joy. The paintings, the per- 
 fumes, the music, the kind crucifix, the mix- 
 ture of aspiration and earthly ceremony, tlie 
 draperies, the white vestments of young and 
 old, the boys' voices, the giant candles, typical 
 of the seraphic ministrauts about God's altar, 
 the meeting of all ages and classes, the echo- 
 ings of the aisles, the lights and shades of the 
 pillars and vaulted roofs, the very struggle of 
 daylight at the lofty windows, as if earth 
 were at once present and not present, — all 
 have a tendency to confuse the boundaries of 
 this world and the next, and to set the heart 
 floating in tiiat delicious mixture of elevation 
 and humility, which is ready to sympathize 
 with whatever can preserve to it something 
 like its sensations, and save it from the hard- 
 ness and definite folly of ordinary life. It was 
 in a churcii that Boccaccio, not merely the 
 voluptuous Boccaccio, wlio is but half-known 
 by the half-witted, but Boccaccio, the future 
 painter of the Falcon and the Pot of Basil, 
 first saw the beautiful face of his Fiamuu'-tta. 
 In a church, Petrarch felt the sweet shadow 
 fall on him that darkened his life for twenty 
 years after. And the fond gratitude of the 
 local historian for a tale of true love, has left 
 it on record, tliat it was in the church of St. 
 Giovanni at Florence, and on the great day of 
 Pardon, which falls on the 13th of January, 
 that Ij)polito de' Buondelnio)ite became ena- 
 moured of Dianora d'Amerigo. [How deli- 
 cious it is to repeat these beautiful Italian 
 names, when they are not merely names ! We 
 find ourselves almost unconsciously wi-iting 
 tluMH in a better hand than the rest ; not 
 merely for the sake of the jtrinter, but for the 
 pleasure of lingering upon the sound.]
 
 Wlicn tlic peoiile were about to leave olmrcli, 
 Ippolito, ill turning to speak to an acciuaint- 
 anee, lost siglit of liis iiiikiiown beauty. ]le 
 made haste to phuit himselt' at the door, telling 
 his eonii)anion that ho should like to see the 
 ladies eonie out ; for he liad not the eonraije 
 to say which lady. Wlieii he .saw Dianora 
 appear, he changed colour, and saw nothing 
 else. Yet though he beheld, and belield her 
 distinctly, so as to carry away every feature in 
 his heart, it seemed to him afterwards that lu^ 
 bad-seen her only as in a dream. She glided 
 by him like a thing of heaven, drawing her 
 veil over her head. As he had not the courage 
 to sjn'ak of her, he had still less the courage to 
 ask her name ; but he was .saved the trouble. 
 " God and St. John bless her beautiful face ! " 
 cried a beggar at the door ; " she always gives 
 double of any one else." — "Curse her !" mut- 
 tered Ippolito's acquaintance ; " she is one of 
 the Hardi." The ear of the lover heard both 
 these exclamations, and they made an indelible 
 inij)ression. Being a lover of books and poetry, 
 and intimate with the most liberal of the two 
 parties, such as Dante Alighicri (afterwards so 
 famous) and Guido Cavalcanti, Ippolito, though 
 a warm ])artisan himself, and implicated in a 
 fierce encounter that had lately taken ])laco 
 between some persons on horseback, had been 
 saved from the worst feelings attendant on 
 political hostility ; and they now appeared to 
 him odious. He had no thought, it is true, of 
 forgiving one of the old Bardi, who had cut 
 his father down from his horse ; but he would 
 now have sentenced the whole party to a 
 milder banishment than before ; and to curse 
 a female belonging to it, and that female 
 Dianora ! — he differed with the stupid fellow 
 that had done it whenever they met after- 
 wards. 
 
 It was a heavy reflection to Ippolito to think 
 that he could not see his mistress in her own 
 house. She had a father and motiier living as 
 well as himself, and was surrounded with re- 
 lations. It was a heavier still that he knew 
 not how to make her sensible of his passion ; 
 and the heaviest of all, that being so lovely, 
 she would certainly be carried off by another 
 husband. "What was he to do ? He had no 
 excuse for writing to her ; and as to serenad- 
 ing her under her window, unless he meant to 
 call all the neighbours to witness his temerity, 
 and lose his life at once in that brawling age, 
 it was not to be thought of. He was obliged 
 to content himself with watching, as well as 
 he could, the windows of her abode, following 
 her about whenever he sa»v her leave it, and 
 with pardonable vanity trying to catch her 
 attention by some little action that should give 
 lier a good thought of the stranger ; such as 
 anticipating her in giving alms to a beggar. 
 We must even record, that on one occasion he 
 contrived to stumble against a dog and tread 
 on his toes, in order that he might osteuta- 
 
 ti(uisly help the poor beast out of the way. 
 But liis day of delight was church-day. Not a 
 fast, not a feast did he miss ; not a Sunday, 
 nor a saints'-day. " The devotion of that 
 young gentleman," said an old widow-lady, 
 her fiunt, who was in the habit of accompany- 
 ing Dianora, "is indeed edifying; and yet he 
 is a mighty pretty youth, and might waste his 
 time in sins and vanities with the gayest of 
 them." And the old widow-lady sigiied, 
 doubtless out of a tender jiity for the gay. 
 Her recommendation of ippolito to her niece's 
 notice would have been little applauded by 
 her family ; but, to say the truth, she was not 
 responsibly. His mana^uvres and constant 
 presence had already gained Dianora's atten- 
 tion ; and, with all the unaffected instinct of 
 an Italian, she was not long in suspecting who 
 it was that attracted his devotions, and in 
 wishing very heartily that they might con- 
 tinue. She longed to learn who he was, but 
 felt the same want of courage as he himself 
 had experienced. " Did you observe," said the 
 aunt, one day after leaving church, " how the 
 poor boy blushed, because he did but catch 
 my eye ? Truly, such modesty is very rare." 
 " Dear aunt," replied Dianora, with a mixture 
 of real and affected archness, of pleasure and 
 of gratitude, " I thought you never wished 
 me to notice the faces of young men." " JSot 
 of young men, niece," returned the aunt, 
 gravely ; " not of persons of twenty-eight, or 
 thirty, or so, nor indeed of youths in general, 
 however young ; but then this youth is very 
 different ; and the most innocent of us may 
 look, once in a way or so, at so very modest 
 and respectful a young gentleman. I say re- 
 spectful, because when I gave him a slight 
 curtsey of acknowledgment, or so, for making 
 way for me in the aisle, he bowed to me with 
 so solemn and thankful an air, as if the favoui- 
 bad come from me ; wh.ich was extremely 
 polite ; and if he is very handsome, poor boy, 
 how can he help that ? Saints have been 
 handsome in their days, ay and young, or 
 their pictures are not at all like, whicli is im- 
 possible ; and I am sure St. Dominic himself, 
 in the wax-work, (jiod forgive me ! hardly 
 looks sweeter and humbler at the Madonna 
 and Child, than he did at me and you, as we 
 went by." " Dear aunt," rejoined Dianora, " I 
 did not mean to reproach you, I'm sure ; but, 
 sweet aunt, we do not know him, you know ; 
 and you know — " " Know !" cried the old 
 lady ; " I'm sure I know him as well as if he 
 were my own aunt's son ; which might not be 
 impossible, though she is a little younger than 
 myself ; and if he were my own, I should not 
 be ashamed." "And who then," inquired 
 Dianora, scarcely articulating her words, "-who 
 then is he?" "Who?" said the aunt, "why 
 the most edifying young gentleman in all 
 Florence, that's who he is ; and it does not 
 signify what he is else, manifestly being a
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 51 
 
 gentleman as he is, and one of the noblest, I 
 warrant ; and I wish you may have no worse 
 husband ; child, when you come to marry, 
 though tliere is time enough to think of that. 
 Young ladies, now-a-days, are always for 
 knowing who everybody is, who he is, and 
 what he is, and whether he is this person or 
 that person, and is of the Grand Prior's side, 
 or the Archbishop's side, and what not ; and 
 all this before they will allow him to be even 
 handsome ; which, I am sure, was not so in my 
 youngest days. It is all right and proper, if 
 matrimony is concerned, or they are in danger 
 of marrying below their condition, or a pro- 
 fane person, or one that's hideous, or a heretic ; 
 but to admire an evident young saint, and one 
 that never misses church, Sunday or saint's- 
 day, or any day for aught tliat I see, is a thing 
 that, if anything, shows we may hope for the 
 company of young saints hereafter ; and if so 
 very edifying ayoung gentleman is also respect- 
 ful to the ladies, was not the blessed St. Francis 
 himself of his opinion in that matter ? And 
 did not the seraphical St. Teresa admire him 
 the more for it? And does not St. Paul, in 
 his very epistles, send his best respects to the 
 ladies Tryphoena and Tryphosa ? And was 
 there ever woman in the New Testament (with 
 reverence be it spoken, if we may say women 
 of such blessed females) was there ever woman, 
 I say, in the New Testament, not even except- 
 ing Madonna Magdalen who had been posses- 
 sed with seven devils (which is not so many 
 by half as some ladies I could mention), nor 
 Madonna, the other poor lady, whom the un- 
 forgiving hypocrites wanted to stone" (and 
 here the good old lady wept, out of a mixture 
 of devotion and gratitude), " was there one of 
 all these women, or any other, whom our 
 Blessed Lord himself" (and here the tears 
 came into the gentle eyes of Dianora) " did 
 not treat witli all that sweetness, and kindness, 
 and tenderness, and brotherly love, which, like 
 all liis other actions, and as the seraphical 
 Father Antonio said the other day in tlie pul- 
 pit, j)rovt'd him to be not only from heaven, 
 but the truest of all nobles on earth, and a 
 natural gentleman born ?" 
 
 We know not how many more reasons the 
 good old lady would have given, why all the 
 feelings of poor Dianora's heart, not excepting 
 her very religion, which was truly one of them, 
 should induce her to encourage her affection 
 for Ij)j)olito. By the end of tiiis sentence they 
 had arrived at their home, and the poor youth 
 returned to his. We say "poor" of both the 
 lovers, for by this time they had both become 
 sufficiently enamoured to render *lieir cheeks 
 the paler for discovering their respective 
 families, which Dianora had now done as well 
 as Ippolito. 
 
 A circumstance on the Sunday following had 
 nearly discovered them, not only to one an- 
 other but to all the world Dianora had 
 
 latterly never dared to steal a look at Ippolito, 
 for fear of seeing his eyes upon her ; and 
 Ippolito, who was less certain of her regard 
 for him than herself, imagined that he had 
 somehow offended her. A few Sundays before, 
 she had sent him home bounding for joy. 
 There had been two places empty where he 
 wias kneeling, one near him, and the other a 
 little farther off. The aunt and the niece, 
 who came in after him, and found themselves 
 at the spot where he was, Avere perplexed 
 which of the two places to choose ; when it 
 seemed to Ippolito that by a little movement 
 of her arm Dianora decided for the one near- 
 est him. He had also another delight. The 
 old lady, in the course of the service, turned 
 to her niece, and asked her why she did not 
 sing as usual. Dianora bowed her head, and 
 in a minute or two afterwards Ippolito heard 
 the sweetest voice in the world, low indeed, 
 almost to a whisper, but audible to him. He 
 thought it trembled ; and he trembled also. 
 It seemed to thrill within his spirit, in the 
 same manner that the organ thrills through 
 the body. No such s}Tnj)tom of preference 
 occurred afterwards. The ladies did not come 
 so near him, whatever pains he took to occujiy 
 so much room before they came in, and then 
 make room when they appeared. However, 
 he was self-satisfied as well as ingenious 
 enough in his reasonings on the subject, not to 
 lay much stress upon this behaviour, till it 
 lasted week after week, and till he never again 
 found Dianora looking even towards the quar- 
 ter in which he sat : for it is our duty to 
 confess, that if the lovers were two of the de- 
 voutest of the congregation, which is certain, 
 they were apt also, at intervals, to be the least 
 attentive ; and, furthermore, that they would 
 each pretend to look towards places at a little 
 distance from the desired object, in order that 
 they might take in, with the sidelong power of 
 the eye, the presence and look of one another. 
 But for some time Dianora had ceased even to 
 do this ; and though Ippolito gazed on her the 
 more steadfastly, and saw that she was paler 
 than bcfoi'e, he began to persuade himself that 
 it was not on his account. At length, a sort 
 of desperation urged him to get nearer to her, 
 if she would not condescend to come near 
 himself ; and, on the Sunday in question, 
 scarcely knowing what he did, or how he saw, 
 felt, or breathed, he knelt right down beside 
 her. There was a pillar next him, which 
 luckily kept him somewhat in the shade ; and, 
 for a moment, he leaned his forehead against 
 the cold marble, which revived him. Dianora 
 did not know he was by her. She did not 
 sing : nor did the aunt ask her. She kept one 
 unaltered posture, looking upon her mass-book, 
 and he thouglit she did this on purpose. 
 Ippolito, who liad become weak with his late 
 struggles of mind, felt almost suffocated with 
 his sensations. He was kileeling side by side 
 
 K 1
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 with hei" ; her idea, her presence, her very 
 drapory, wliicli was all that lie dared to foci 
 himself in contact with, the consciousness of 
 kneeling with her in the presence of llim whom 
 tender heai'ts iinjilore for \)\ty on their infirm- 
 ities, all render(>(l him intensely sensible of 
 his situation. IJy a strong effort, he endea- 
 voured to tui'n his self-pity into a feeling en- 
 tirely religions ; but when he put his hands 
 together, he felt the tears ready to gush away 
 so irrepressibly, tliat he did not dare it. At 
 last the aunt, who had in fact looked about for 
 him, recognized hin\ with some surprise, and 
 more pleasure. She had begim to suspect his 
 secret ; and though she knew who he was, and 
 that tiie two families were at variance, yet a 
 great deal of good nature, a sympathy with 
 pleasures of which no woman had tasted more, 
 and some considerable disputes she had lately 
 with anotlier old lady, her kinswoman, on the 
 subject of politics, determined her upon at 
 least giving the two lovers that sort of en- 
 couragement, which arises not so much from 
 any decided object we have in view, as from a 
 certain vague sense of benevolence, mixed 
 with a lurking wish to have our own way. 
 Accordingly, the well-meaning old widow-lady, 
 without much consideration, and loud enough 
 for I])polito to hear, whispered her niece to 
 let the gentleman next her read in her book, 
 as he seemed to have forgotten to bring his 
 own. Dianora, without lifting her eyes, and 
 never siispecting who it was, moved her book 
 sideways, with a courteous inclination of the 
 head, for the gentleman to take it. He did so. 
 He held it with her. He could not hinder his 
 hand from shaking ; but Dianora's reflections 
 were so occupied upon one whom she little 
 thought so near her, that she did not perceive 
 it. At lengtli the book tottered so in his hand, 
 that she could not but notice it. She turned 
 to see if the gentleman was ill ; and instantly 
 looked back again. She felt that she herselt 
 was too weak to look at him, and whispering 
 to her aunt, " I am very unwell," the ladies 
 rose and made their way out of the church. 
 As soon as she felt the fresh air she fainted, 
 and was carried home ; and it happened, at 
 the same moment, that Ippolito, unable to keep 
 his feelings to himself, leaned upon the marble 
 pillar at which he was kneeling, and groaned 
 aloud. He fancied she had left him in disdain. 
 Luckily for him, a circumstance of this kind 
 was not unknown in a place where penitents 
 would sometimes be oveqio.wered by a sense 
 of their crimes ; and though Ippolito was recog- 
 nised by some, they concluded he had not been 
 the innocent person they supposed. They 
 made up their minds in future that his retired 
 and bookish habits, and his late evident suffer- 
 ing, were alike the result of some dark offence ; 
 and among these persons, the acquaintance 
 who had cursed Hianora when he first beheld 
 her, v.ae glad to be one ; fjr without knowing 
 
 his jtassion for her, much less her retui'n of it, 
 which was more than the poor youtli knew 
 himself, he envied him for hisuccomplishments 
 and pojnilarity. 
 
 Ippolito dragged himself home, and after en- 
 deavouring to move about for a day or two, 
 and to get as far as Dianora's aliode, — an at- 
 tempt he gave up for fear of being unable to 
 come away again, — was fixirly obliged to take 
 to his bed. SVhat a mixture of delight, w ith 
 sorrow, would he have felt,liad he known that 
 his mistress was almo.st in as bad a state ! The 
 poor aunt, who soon discovered her niece's 
 secret, now found herself in a dreadful dilem- 
 ma ; and the worst of it was, that being on the 
 female side of the love, and told by Dianora 
 that it would be the death of her if she dis- 
 closed it to " hhtn," or anybody connected with 
 him, or, indeed, anybody at all, she did not 
 know what steps to take. However, as she 
 believed that at least death might possibly 
 ensue if the dear young people were not as- 
 sured of each other's love, and certainly did 
 not believe in any siich mortality as her niece 
 spoke of, she was about to make her first 
 election out of two or three measures which 
 she was resolved upon taking, when, luckily 
 for the salvation of Dianora's feelings, she was 
 surjunsed by a visit from the person whom of 
 all persons in the world she wished to see — 
 Ipjiolito's mother. 
 
 The two ladies soon came to a mutual un- 
 derstanding, and separated with comfort for 
 their respective patients. We need not wait 
 to descriije how a mother came to the know-- 
 ledge of her son's wishes ; nor will it be ne- 
 cessary to relate how delighted the two lovers 
 were to hear of one another, and to be assured 
 of each other's love. But Ippolito's illness 
 now put on a new a,spect ; for the certainty of 
 his being welcome to Dianora, and the easiness 
 with which he saw his motlier give way to his 
 inclinations, made him impatient for an inter- 
 view. Dianora was afraid of encountering him 
 as usual in jjublic; and he never ceased urging 
 his mother, till she consented to advise with 
 Dianora's aunt upon what was to be done. 
 Indeed, with the usual weakness of those who 
 take any steps, however likely to produc(! 
 future troubl<!, rather than continue a present 
 uneasiness, she herself thought it high time to 
 do something for the poor boy ; for the house 
 began to remark on his strange conduct. All 
 his actions were either too quick, or too slow. 
 At one time he would start up to peifonn the 
 most trivial office of politeness, as if he were 
 going to stop a conflagration ; at another, the 
 whole world might move before him without 
 his noticing. He would now leap on his horse, 
 as if the enemy were at the city-gates ; and 
 next day, when going to mount it, stop on a 
 sudden, with the reins in his hands, and fall 
 a musing. "What is the matter with the 
 boy ?" said his father, who was impatient at
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 seeing him so little bis own master ; " has he 
 stolen a box of jewels ?" for somehody had 
 spread a report that he gambled, and it was 
 observed that he never had any money in his 
 pocket. The truth is, he gave it all away to 
 the objects of Dianora's bounty, particularly 
 to the man who blessed her at the church 
 door. One day his father, who loved a bitter 
 joke, made a young lady, who sat next him at 
 dinner, lay her hand before him instead of the 
 plate ; and upon being asked why he did not 
 eat, he was veiy near taking a piece of it for a 
 mouthful. " Oil, the gallant youth ! " cried 
 the fatlier, and Ippolito blushed up to the 
 eyes ; which was taken as a proof that tlie 
 irony was well-founded. But Ippolito thought 
 of Dianora's hand, how it held the book with 
 him wlien he knelt by her side ; and, after a 
 little pause, he turned and took up that of the 
 young lady, and begged her pardon mth the 
 best grace in the workl. " He has the air of a 
 prince," thought his father, " if he would but 
 behave himself like other young men." The 
 young lady thought he had the air of a lover ; 
 and as soon as the meal was over, his mother 
 put on her veil, and went to seek a distant re- 
 lation called Gossip Veronica. 
 
 Gossip Veronica was in a singular position 
 with regard to the two families of Bardi and 
 Buondelinonti. She happened to be related 
 at nearly equal distances to them both ; and 
 she hardly knew whether to be prouder of the 
 double relationship, or more annoyed with the 
 evil countenances they showed her, if she did 
 not pay great attention to one of thein, and no 
 attention to the other. The pride remained 
 up])crniost, as it is apt to do ; and she hazarded 
 all consequences for the pleasure of inviting 
 now some of tlie young 15ardi, and now 
 some uf tlie young Buondehnonti ; hinting 
 to them when they went away, that it would 
 be as well for them not to say that they had 
 lieard anything of the other family's visit- 
 ing her. The young people were not sorry 
 to keep the matter as secret as possible, be- 
 cause their visits to Gossip Veronica were 
 always restrained for'a long time, if anything 
 of the sort transj)ired ; and thus a spirit of 
 concealment and intrigue was sown in their 
 young minds, which might have turned out 
 worse for Ippolito and Dianora, if their hearts 
 had not been so good. 
 
 But here was a situation for Gossip Veroni- 
 ca ! Dianora's aunt had been with her some 
 days, hinting that something extraordinary, 
 but as she hoped not unpleasant, would be 
 proposed to the good Gossip, which for her 
 part had her grave sanction ; and now came 
 the very mother of the young Buoudelmonte 
 to explain to Iter what this intimation was, 
 and to give her an opportunity of liaving one 
 of each family in her house at the same time ! 
 Tlvere was a great fulling off in the beatitude, 
 wlien she understood that I])polito's presence 
 
 was to be kept a secret from all her visitors 
 that day, except Dianora ; but she was recon- 
 ciled on receiving an intimation that in future 
 the two ladies would have no objection to her 
 inviting whom she pleased to her house, and 
 upon receiving a jewel from eacli of them as a 
 pledge of their esteem. As to keeping the 
 main secret, it was necessary for all parties. 
 
 Gossip Veronica, for a person in her rank 
 of life, was rich, and had a pleasant villa at 
 Monticelli, about half a mile from the city. 
 Thither, on a holiday in September, which 
 was kept with gi-eat hilarity by the peasants, 
 came Dianora d' Amerigo de' Bardi, attended 
 by her aunt Madonna Lucrezia, to see, as her 
 mother observed, that no "improper persons" 
 were there ; — and thither, before daylight, let 
 in by Gossip Veronica herself, at the hazard 
 of her reputation and of the furious jealousy 
 of a young vine-dresser in the neighbourhood, 
 who loved her good things better than any- 
 thing in the world except her waiting-maid, 
 came the young Ippolito Buondelmonte de' 
 Buondelmonti, looking, as she said, like the 
 morning-star. 
 
 The morning-star hugged, and was hugged 
 with great good-will by the kind Gossip, and 
 then twinkled with impatience from a corner 
 of her chamber-window till he saw Dianora. 
 How his heart beat when he beheld her com- 
 ing up through the avenue ! Veronica met 
 her near the garden-gate, and pointed towards 
 the window, as they walked along. Ippolito 
 fancied she spoke of him, but did not know 
 what to think of it, for Dianora did not change 
 countenance, nor do anything but smile good- 
 naturedly on her companion, and ask her 
 apparently some common question. The 
 truth was, she had no suspicion he was there ; 
 though the Gossip, with much smirking and 
 mystery, said she had a little present there for 
 her, and such as her lady-mother approved. 
 Dianora, whom, with all imaginable respect 
 for her, the Gossip had hitherto treated, from 
 long habit, like a child, thought it was some 
 trifle or other, and forgot it next moment. 
 Every step which Ippolito heard on the stair- 
 case he fancied was hers, till it passed the 
 door, and never did morning appear to him at 
 once so delicious and so tiresome. To be in the 
 same house with her, what joy ! But to be in 
 the same house with her, and not to be able to 
 tell her liis love directly, and ask lier for hers, 
 and fold her into his very soul, what impatience 
 and misery ! Two or three times there was a 
 knock of some one to be let in ; but it was 
 only the Gossip, come to inform him that he 
 must be patient,and that she did not know when 
 Madonna Lucrezia would please to bring Dia- 
 nora, but most likely after dinner, when the 
 visitors retired to sleeii a little. Of all im- 
 pertinent things, dinner apf>eared to him the 
 most tiresome and uutit. He wondered how 
 any thinking beings, who might take a cake or
 
 54 
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 a cup of wine hy tho way, aud then proceed to 
 love one another, could sit round a great 
 wooden table, patiently eating of this and that 
 nicety ; and, above all, iiow they could sit still 
 afterwards for a nionient, and not do anything 
 else in preference, — stand on their heads, or 
 toss the dishes out of window. Then the 
 Festival ! God only knew how happy the 
 peasjintry might choose to be, and how long 
 they might detain Dianora with tlieir compli- 
 ments, dances, and songs. Doubtless, there 
 must be many lovers among them ; and how 
 they could bear to go jigging about in this 
 gregarious manner, when they must all wish 
 to be wallving two by two in the green lanes, 
 ■was to him inexplicable. However, Ippolito 
 was very sincere in his gratitude to Gossip 
 Veronica, and even did his best to behave 
 handsomely to her cake and wine ; and after 
 dinner his virtue was rewarded. 
 
 It is unnecessary to tell the reader, that he 
 must not judge of other times and countries 
 by his own. The real fault of those times, as 
 of most others, lay, not in people's loves, but 
 their hostilities ; and if both were managed in 
 a way somewhat different from our own, per- 
 haps neither the loves were less innot-ent, nor 
 the hostilities more ridiculous. After dinner, 
 when the other visitors had separated here 
 and there to sleep, Dianora, accompanied by 
 her aunt and Veronica, found herself, to her 
 great astonisiiment, in the same room with 
 Ippolito ; and in a few minutes after their in- 
 troduction to each other, and after one had 
 looked this way, and the other that, and one 
 taken up a book and laid it down again, and 
 both looked out of the window, and each 
 blushed, and either turned pale, and the gentle- 
 man adjusted his collar, and the lady her 
 sleeve, and the older ladies had whispered 
 one another in a corner, Dianora, less to her 
 astonishment than before, was left in the room 
 with him alone. She made a movement as if 
 to follow them, but Ippolito said something 
 she knew not what, and she remained. She 
 ■went to the window, looking very serious and 
 pale, and not daring to glance towards him. He 
 intended instantly to go to her, and wondered 
 Av hat liad bccdnu' of his fierce impatience ; but 
 the very delay had now something delicious in 
 it. Oh, the happiness of those moments ! oh, the 
 sweet morning-time of those feelings ! the 
 doubt whicli is not doubt, and the hope which 
 is but the coming of certainty ! Oh, recollec- 
 tions enough to fill faded eyes with tears of 
 renovation, and to make us forget we are no 
 longer young, the next young and innocent 
 beauty we behold ! Why do not such hours 
 make us as immortal as they are divine ? Why 
 are we not carried away, literally, into some 
 place where they can last for ever, leaving 
 those who miss us to say, "they were capable 
 of loving, and th-'y are gone to heaven !" 
 
 Eeadcr. IJut, sir, in taking these heavenly 
 
 flights of yours, you have left your two 
 lovers. 
 
 Author. Surely, madam, I need not inform 
 you that lovers are fond of being left — at leatl 
 to themselves. 
 
 Renihr. I{ut, sir, they are Italians ; and I do 
 not think Italian lovers were of this bashful 
 descrijjfion. I imagined that the moment your 
 two Florentines beheld one another, they 
 would spring into each other's arms, sending 
 up cries of joy, and — and— 
 
 Autlior. Tumbling over the two old women 
 by the way. It is a very pretty imagination, 
 madam ; but Italians partake of all the feel- 
 ings common to human nature ; and modesty 
 is really not confined to the English, even 
 though they are always saying it is. 
 
 liectder. But I was not speaking of modesty, 
 sir, I was only alluding to a sort of, — what 
 shall I say — a kind of irrepressible energy, 
 that which in the Italian character is called 
 violence. 
 
 Author. I meant nothing personal, madam, 
 believe me, in using the Avord modesiy. You 
 are too charitable, and have too great a regard 
 for my lovers. I was not speaking myself of 
 modesty in any particular sense, but of mo- 
 desty in general ; and all nations, not except- 
 ing our beloved and somewhat dictatorial 
 countrymen, have their modesties and immo- 
 desties too, from which perhaps their oxamj)le 
 might instruct one another. Witii regard to 
 the violence you speak of, and which is energy 
 sometimes, and the weakest of weaknesses at 
 others, according to the character which ex- 
 hibits it, and the occasion that calls it forth, 
 the Italians, who live in an ardent climate, 
 have undoubtedly shown more of it than most 
 people ; but it is only where their individual 
 character is most irregular, and education and 
 laws at tiieir worst. In general it is nothing 
 but pure self-will, and belongs to the two ex- 
 tremes of the community — the most powerful, 
 whose passions have been indulged, and the 
 poorest, whose passions have never been in- 
 structed. True energy manitests itself, not in 
 violence, but in strength and intensity ; and 
 intensity is by its nature discerning, and not 
 to be surpassed in (piietness, where quietness 
 is becoming. Besides, in the age we are writ- 
 ing of, there was as much refinement in love 
 matters with some, as there was outrage and 
 brutality with others. All the faculties of hu- 
 manity, bad and good, may be said to have 
 been making their way at that period, and try- 
 ing for the mastery ; and if on the one hand 
 we are j)resented with horrible spectacles oi 
 brute passion, tyranny, and revenge, on the 
 other we find jiliilosophy and even divinity 
 refining upon tiu; sentiment of love, and emu- i 
 lating the most beautiful subtleties of Plato in 
 rendering it a thing angelical. 
 
 Tii.fuhr. \m\ have convinced me, sir ; pray 
 let us proceed.
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 55 
 
 Author. Your us, madam, is flattering ; I 
 fancy we are beholding the two lovers in com- 
 pany. "We are like Don Cleofas and his 
 ghostly friend, in the Devil on Two Sticks, 
 when they saw into the people's houses ; I, of 
 course, the devil ; and you the young student, 
 only feminine — Donna Cleofasia, studying hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Header. Well, sir, as you please ; only let us 
 proceed. 
 
 Author. Madam, your sentiments are engag- 
 ing to the last degree ; so I proceed with plea- 
 sure. 
 
 We left our two lovers, madam, standing in 
 Gossip Veronica's bed-chamber, one at the 
 window, the other at a little distance. They 
 remained in this situation about the same 
 space of time in which we have been talking. 
 Oh ! how impossible it is to present to our- 
 selves two grave and happy lovers trembling 
 with the approach of their mutual confessions, 
 and not feel a graver and ha^jpier sensation 
 than levity resume its place in one's thoughts. 
 
 Ippolito went up to Dianora. She was still 
 looking out of the window, her eyes fixed 
 upon the blue mountains in the distance, but 
 conscious of nothing outside the room. She 
 had a light green and gold net on her head, 
 which enclosed her luxuriant hair without vio- 
 lence, and seemed as if it took it up that he 
 might admire the white neck underneath. She 
 felt his bi-eath upon it ; and beginning to ex- 
 pect that his lips would follow, raised her 
 hands to lier head, as if the net required ad- 
 justing. This movement, while it disconcerted 
 him, presented her waist in a point of view so 
 impossible not to touch, that taking it gently 
 in both his hands, he pressed one at the same 
 time upon her heart, and said, " It will forgive 
 me, even for doing this." He had reason to 
 say so, for he felt it beat against his fingers, as 
 if it leaped. Dianora, blushing and confused, 
 though feeling abundantly happy, made ano- 
 ther movement with her hands as if to remove 
 his own, but lie onlv detained them on either 
 side. " Messer Ippolito," said Dianora, in a 
 tone as if to remonstrate, though suffering 
 herself to remain a prisoner, " I fear you must 
 think me" — " No, no," interrupted Ippolito, 
 " you can fear nothing that I think, or that I 
 do. It is I that have to fear your lovely and 
 fearful beauty, which has been ever at tiie 
 side of my sick-bed, and I thought looked 
 angrily upon me — upon me alone of the whole 
 world." "They told me you had bec^n ill," 
 said Dianoi'a in a very gentle tone, "and my 
 aunt perhaps knew thnt I — tliought that I — 
 Have you been very ill ?" And witliout think- 
 ing, she drew her left hand from under his, 
 and placed it upon it. " Very," answered Ip- 
 polito ; "do not I look so?'' and saying this, 
 he raised his other hand, and venturing to put 
 it round to the li'ft side of her little dimpled 
 chin, turned her face towards him Dianora 
 
 did not think he appeared so ill, by a good 
 deal, as he did in the church ; but there was 
 enough in his face, ill or well, to make her 
 eyesight swim as she looked at him ; and the 
 next moment her head was upon his shoulder, 
 and his lips descended, welcome, upon hers. 
 
 There was a practice in those times, gene- 
 rated, like other involuntary struggles against 
 wrong, by the absurdities in authority, of re- 
 sorting to marriages, or rather plightings of 
 troth, made in secret, and in the eye of hea- 
 ven. It was a custom liable to great abuse, 
 as all secrecies are ; but the harm of it, as 
 usual, fell chiefly on the poor, or where the 
 condition of the parties was unequal. Where 
 the families were powerful and on an equality, 
 the hazard of violating the engagement was, 
 for obvious reasons, very great, and seldom en- 
 countered ; the lovers either foregoing their 
 claims on each other upon better acquaintance, 
 or adhering to their engagement the closer for 
 the same reason, or keeping it at the expense 
 of one or the other's repentance for fear of the 
 consequences. The troth of Ippolito and Di- 
 anora was indeed a troth. They plighted it 
 on their knees, before a picture of the Virgin 
 and Child, in Veronica's bed-room, and over a 
 mass-book which lay open upon a chair. Ip- 
 polito then, for the pleasure of revenging him- 
 self on the pangs he suiFered when Dianora 
 knelt with him before, took up the mass-book 
 and held it before her, as she had held it be- 
 fore him, and looked her entreatingly in the 
 face ; and Dianora took and held it with him 
 as before, trembling as then, but with a per- 
 fect pleasure ; and Ippolito kissed her twice 
 and thrice out of a sweet revenge. — [We find 
 we are in the habit of using a great number of 
 ands on these occasions. We do not affect it, 
 though we are conscious of it. It is partly, 
 we believe, owing to our recollections of the 
 good faith and simplicity in the old romances, 
 and partly to a certain sense of luxury and 
 continuance which these ands help to link to- 
 gether. It is the fault of "the accursed criti- 
 cal spirit," which is the bane of these times, 
 that we are obliged to be conscious of the mat- 
 ter at all. But we cannot help not having 
 been born six hundred years ago, and are 
 obliged to be base and rerieicatory like the rest. 
 To afiect not to be conscious of the criti<;al in 
 these times, would itself be a departure from 
 what is natural ; but we notice the necessity 
 only to express our hatred of it, and hereby 
 l)rcsent the critics (ourselves included, as far 
 as we belong to them) with our hearty discom- 
 mendations ] 
 
 Tiie thoughtless old ladies. Donna Lucrezia 
 and the otlier (tor old age is not always the 
 most considerate thing in the world, especially 
 the old age of one's aunts and gossips), had 
 now returned into the room where they left 
 tlie two loviTs ; but not before Dianora iiad 
 consented to receive her bridegroom in her
 
 &6 
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 own apartment at home, that same night, Ly 
 means of that other old good-uatured go-be- 
 tween, yclept a hidder of ropes. The rest of 
 the afternoon was spcMit, according to hiudable 
 custom, in joining in tiio diversions of tlie pea- 
 santry. They sung, tliey danced, tiiey ate the 
 grapes tliat hung over their lieads, tliey gave 
 and took jokes and flowers, they flaunted with 
 all their colours in tlie sun, tliey feasted witli 
 all tlieir niii,rht under tiie trees. You could 
 not say which looked the ripest and merriest, 
 the fruit or their brown faces. In Tuscany 
 they have had from time immemorial little 
 rustic songs or stanzas that turn upon flowers. 
 One of tliese, innocently addressed to Dianora 
 by way of farewell, put her much out of coun- 
 tenance — " Voi siete un bel fiore," sung a pea- 
 sant girl, after kissing her hand .- — 
 
 You are a. lovely flower. AVIiat flower ? The flower 
 
 That shuts with the dark hour: — 
 Would that to keep you awake were in my power ! 
 
 Ippolito went singing it all the way home, and 
 ran up against a hundred people. 
 
 Ippolito had noticed a ladder of ropes which 
 was used in his fiitlier's house for some domes- 
 tic purposes. To say the truth, it was an old 
 servant, and had formerly been much in re- 
 quest for the purpose to wiiich it was now 
 about to be turned, by the old gentleman him- 
 self. He was indeed a person of a truly or- 
 thodox description, having been mucli given 
 to intrigue in his younger days, being con- 
 signed over to avarice in his older, and exhi- 
 biting great submission to everything esta- 
 blished, always. Accordingly, he was consi- 
 dered as a jiersonage equally respectable for 
 his virtues, as important from his rank and 
 connexions ; and if hundreds of ladders could 
 have risen up in judgment against him, they 
 would only have been considered as -what are 
 called in England " wild oats ;" — wild ladders, 
 which it was natural for every gentleman to 
 plant. 
 
 Ij)polito's character, however, being more 
 principled, his j)rivileges were not the same ; 
 and on every account he was obliged to take 
 great care. He waited with impatience till 
 midnight, and then hitting himself out of his 
 window, and taking the ropes under liis cloak, 
 made tlie best of his way to a little dark lane 
 which bordered the house of the Bardi. One 
 of the windows of Dianora's chamber looked 
 into tlio lane, the oth<!rs into tiie garden. The 
 house stood in a remote juirt of tlie city. Ip- 
 polito listened to the diminishing sound of the 
 guitars and revellers in the distance, and was 
 proceeding to inform Dianora of his arrival 
 by throwing up some pebbles, wlien he heard 
 a noise coming. It was some young men tak- 
 ing a circuit of the more solitary streets, to 
 purify them, as they said, from sobriety. Ip- 
 l)olito slunk into a corner. He was afiaid, as 
 the sound opened nj)on his earx, that they 
 would turn down the lane ; but the hubbub 
 
 passed on. He stepped forth from his corner, 
 and again retreated. Two young men, loi- 
 terers behind tlie rest, disputed whether they 
 should go down the lane. One, who seemed 
 intoxicated, swore he would serenade " the 
 little foe," as he called her, if it was only to 
 vex the old one, and "bring him out with hia 
 cursed long sword." " And a lecture twice Jis 
 long," said the other. " Ah, tliere you have 
 me," (juoth the musician; "his sword is — a 
 sword ; but his lecture's the devil : reaches 
 the other side of the river — never stops till it 
 striiies one sleepy. But I must serenade." 
 " No, no," returned his friend ; " remember 
 wliat the Grand Prior said, and don't let us 
 commit ourselves in a petty brawl. We'll 
 have it out of their hearts some day." Ippo- 
 lito shuddered to hear such words, even from 
 one of his own party. " Don't tell me," said 
 the pertinacious drunken man ; " I remember 
 what the Grand Prior said. He said, I must 
 serenade ; no, he didn't say I must serenade — 
 but / say it ; the Grand Prior said, says he, — 
 I remember it as if it was yesterday — he said 
 — gentlemen, said he, there are three good 
 things in the world, love, music, and fighting ; 
 and then he said a cursed number of other 
 things by no means good ; and all to prove, 
 pliilosophically, you rogue, that love was good, 
 and music was good, and fighting was good, 
 philosophically, and in a cursed number of pa- 
 ragrapiis. So I must serenade." " False logic, 
 Vanni," cried the other ; " so come along, or 
 we shall have the enemy upon us in a heap, 
 for I hear another party coming, and I am 
 sure they are none of ours." " Good again,'' 
 said the musician, " love and fighting, my boy, 
 and music ; so I'll have my song before they 
 come up." And the fellow began roaring out 
 one of the most indecent songs he could tiiink 
 of, which made our lover ready to start forth 
 and dash the guitar in his face ; but he re- 
 pressed himself. In a minute he heard the 
 other party come up. A clashing of swords 
 ensued, and to his great relief the drunkard 
 and his coinjjanion were driven on. In a mi- 
 nute or two all was silent. Ippolito gave the 
 signal — it was acknowledged ; the rope was 
 fixed ; and the lover was about to ascend, 
 when he was startled with a strange diminu- 
 tive face, smiling at him over a light. His 
 next sensation was to smile at the state of his 
 own nerves ; for it was btit a few minutes be- 
 fore, that he was regretting he could not put 
 out a lantern that stood burning under a little 
 image of the Virgin. He crossed himself, of- 
 fered up a prayer for the success of his true 
 love, and again proceeded to mount the ladder. 
 Just as his hand reached the window, he 
 thought he heard other steps. He looked 
 down towards the street. Two figures evi- 
 dently stood at the corner of the lanp. He 
 would have concluded them to be the two men 
 returned, but lor their profound silence. At
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 57 
 
 last one of them said out loud, " I am certain 
 I saw a shadow of somebody by the lantern, 
 and now you find we have not come back for 
 nothing. Who's there ?" added he, coming at 
 the same time down the lane with his compa- 
 nion. Ippolito descended rapidly, intending 
 to hide his face as much as possible in his hood 
 and escape by dint of fighting, but his foot 
 slipped in the ropes, and he was at the same 
 instant seized by the strangers. The instinct 
 of a lover, who above all things in the world 
 cared for his mistress's reputation, supplied 
 our hero with an artifice as quick as lightning. 
 "They are all safe," said he, affecting to 
 tremble with a cowardly terror, "I have not 
 touclied one of them.'' "One of what ?" said 
 the otliers ; "what are all safe?" "The 
 jewels," replied Ippolito ; "let me go for the 
 love of God, and it shall be my last offence, 
 as it was my first. Besides, I meant to restore 
 them." "Restore them!" cried the first 
 spokesman ; " a pretty jest truly. This must 
 be some gentleman gambler by his fine would- 
 be conscience ; and by this light we will see 
 who he is, if it is only for your sake, Filippo, 
 eh ?" For his companion was a pretty noto- 
 rious gambler himself, and Ippolito had kept 
 cringing in tlie dark. " Curse it," said Filippo, 
 " never mind the fellow ; he is not worth our 
 while in these stirring times, though I warrant 
 he has cheated me often enough." To say the 
 truth, !Messer Filippo was not a little afraid 
 the thief would turn out to be some inexpe- 
 rienced desperado, whom he had cheated him- 
 self, and perhaps driven to this very crime ; 
 but his companion was resolute, and Ippolito 
 finding it impossible to avoid his fate, came 
 forward into the light. " By all the saints in 
 tlie calendar," exclaimed the enemy, " a Buon- 
 dolmonte ! and no less a Buondelmonte than 
 the worthy and very magnificent Messer Ippo- 
 lito Buondelmonte ! Messer Ippolito, I kiss 
 your hands ; I am very much your humble 
 servant and thief-taker. By my faith, tins will 
 be fine news for to-morrow." 
 
 To-morrow was indeed a heavy day to all 
 the Buondelraonti, and as merry a one to all 
 the Bardi, except poor Dianoi'a. She knew 
 not what had prevented Ippolito from finish- 
 ing his ascent up the ladder ; some interrup- 
 tion it must have been ; but of what nature 
 slie could not determine, nor why he had not 
 resumed his endeavours. It could have been 
 nothing common. Was he known ? Was fhe 
 known ? Was it all known ? And tlie poor girl 
 tormented herself witli a thousand fears. Ala- 
 donna Lucrezia liastened to her the first tiling 
 in tliti morning, with a full, true, and particu- 
 lar account. Ippolito de' Buondelmonti liad 
 been seized, in coming down a rope-ladder 
 from one of tlie front windows of the liouse, 
 with a groat drawn sword in one hand and a 
 box of jewels in the otiier. Dianoia s;iw the 
 whole truth iu a momoiit, and fiom excess of 
 
 sorrow, gratitude, and love, fainted away. Ma- 
 donna Lucrezia guessed the truth too, but was 
 almost afraid to confess it to her own mind, 
 much more to speak of it aloud ; and had not 
 the news, and the bustle, and her niece's faint- 
 ing, furnished her with something to do, she 
 could have fainted herself very Iieartily, out 
 of pure consternation. Gossip A^eronica waf- 
 in a worse condition when the news reached 
 her ; and Ippolito's mother, who guessed but 
 too truly as well as the others, was seized with 
 an illness, which joining with the natural 
 weakness of her constitution, threw her into 
 a stupor, and prevented her fi-om attending to 
 anything. The next step of Madonna Lucre- 
 zia, after seeing Dianora out of her fainting 
 fit, and giving the household to understand 
 that the story of the robber had alanned lier, 
 was to go to Gossip Veronica and concert mea- 
 sures of concealment. The two women wept 
 very sincerely for the poor youth, and admired 
 his heroism in saving his mistress's honour ; 
 but with all their good-nature, they agreed 
 that he was quite in the right, and tliat it 
 would be but just to his magnanimity, and to 
 their poor dear Dianora, to keep the secret as 
 closely. Madonna Lucrezia then returned 
 home, to be near Dianora, and help to bafiie 
 inquiry ; while Gossip Veronica kept close in- 
 doors, too ill to see visitors, and alternately 
 praying to the saint her namesake, and taking 
 reasonable draughts of Montepulciano. 
 
 In those days there were too many wild 
 young men of desperate fortunes to render 
 Ippolito's confession improbable. Besides, he 
 had been observed of late to be always without 
 money ; reports of his being addicted to 
 gambling had arisen ; and his father was ava- 
 ricious. Lastly, his groaning in the church 
 was remembered, under pretence of pity ; and 
 the magistrate (who was of the hostile party) 
 concluded, with much sorrow, that he must 
 have more sins to answer for than they knew 
 of, which in so young a man was deplorable. 
 The old gentleman had too much reason to 
 know, that in older persons it would have been 
 nothing remarkable. 
 
 Ippolito, with a grief of heart which only 
 served to confirm the bye-standers in their 
 sense of his guilt, waited in expectation of his 
 sentence. He thought it would be banish- 
 ment, and was casting in his mind how lie 
 could hope some day or other to get a sight of 
 his mistress, when the word Deatli fell on liim 
 like a thunderbolt. The origin of a sentence 
 so severe was but too plain to every body ; but 
 the Bardi were uppermost that day ; and the 
 city, exhausted by some late party excesses, 
 had but too much need of repose. Still it was 
 thought a dangerous trial of tlie public pulse. 
 The pity felt for the tender age of Ippolito 
 was increased by the anguish which he fouud 
 himself unable to repress. "Good God!" 
 cried lie, " must I die so young i And must I
 
 58 
 
 THE FLORENTINE LOVERS. 
 
 never see — must I never see the light again, 
 and Florence, and my dear friends ?" And lie 
 fell into almost aliject entreaties to be spared ; 
 for he thought of Diauora. l)ut the by- 
 standers fancied tliat he was merely afraid of 
 death ; and by the help of suggestions from 
 the liardi partisans, their pity almost turned 
 into contempt. He prostrated himself at the 
 magistrate's feet ; he kissed liis knees ; he 
 disgusted his own father ; till finding every- 
 thing against him, and smitten at once with a 
 sense of his cowardly appearance and the ne- 
 cessity of keeping his mistress's honour invio- 
 lable, he declared his readiness to die like a 
 man, and at the same time stood wrinifinir his 
 hands, and weeping like au infant, lie was 
 sentenced to die next day. 
 
 The day came. The hour came. The 
 Standard of Justice was hoisted before the 
 door of the tribunal, and the trumjx't bl(!W 
 through the city, announcing the death of a 
 criminal. Dianora, to whom the news had 
 been gradually broken, heard it in lier cham- 
 ber, and would have burst forth and j)ro- 
 claimed the secret but for ^ladonna Lucrrzia, 
 who spoke of her father, and mother, and all 
 the Bardi, and the inutility of attempting to 
 save one of the opposite faction, and the 
 dreadful consequences to erery body if tiie 
 secret were betrayed. Dianora heard litth; 
 about everybody ; but the habit of respecting 
 her father and mother, and dreading their 
 reproaches, kej)t lier, moment after moment, 
 from doing anything but listen and look jiale ; 
 and, in the meantime, the procession began 
 moving towards the scaffold. 
 
 Ippolito issued forth from the prison, look- 
 ing more like a yonng martyr than a criminal, 
 lie was now perfectly quiet, and a sort of 
 unnatural glow had risen into his cheeks, the 
 result of the enthusiasm and conscious self- 
 sacrifice into which he had worked himself 
 during the night. He liad only prayed, as a 
 last favour, that he might be taken through 
 the street in which the house of the Bardi 
 stood ; for he had lived, he said, as everybody 
 knew, in great hostility with that family, and 
 he now felt none any longer, and wished to 
 bless the house as he passed it. The magis- 
 trate, for more reasons than one, had no objec- 
 tion ; the old confessor, with tears in his eyes, 
 said tliat tlie dear boy would still be an honour 
 to his family, as surely as he would be a saint 
 in heaven ; and the procession moved on. The 
 main feeling of the crowd, as usual, was that 
 of curiosity, but there were few indeed, in 
 whom it was not mixed with pity ; and many 
 females found tlie sight so intolerable, that 
 they were seen coming away down the streets, 
 weeping bitterly, and unable to answer the 
 questions of those they met. 
 
 Tlie procession now began to pass the house 
 of the Bardi. Ijjjiolito's face, for an instant, 
 turned of a chalky whiteness, and then re- 
 
 sumed its colour. His lips trembled, his eyes 
 filled with tears ; and tiiinking iiis mistress 
 might possibly be at the window, taking a last 
 look of the lover tliat died for lier, he bowed 
 his head gently, at the same time forcing a 
 smile, which glittered through his watery eyes. 
 At that instant the trumpet blew its dreary 
 blast for the second time. Dianora had al- 
 ready risen on her couch, listening, and asking 
 what noise it was that approached. Her aunt 
 endeavoured to ([uiet her with excuses ; but 
 this last noise aroused her beyond control ; 
 and the good old lady, forgetting herself in 
 the condition of the two lovers, no longer at- 
 tempted to stop her. " ( io," said she, " in 
 God's name, my child, and Heaven be with 
 you." 
 
 Dianora, her hair streaming, her eye without 
 a tear, her cheek on fire, burst, to the asto- 
 nishment of her kindred, into the room where 
 they were all standing. She tore them aside 
 from one of the windows with a preternatural 
 strength, and, stretching forth her head and 
 hands, like one inspired, cried out, "Stop! 
 sto]) ! it is my Ippolito ! my husband !" And, 
 so saying, she actually made a movement as if 
 she would have stepped to him out of the win- 
 dow ; for everything but his image faded from 
 her eyes. A movement of confusion took 
 ])lace among the multitude. Ippolito stood 
 rapt on the sudden, trembling, weeping, and 
 stretching his hands towards tlie window, as if 
 I)raying to his guardian angel. The kinsmen 
 would have prevented her from doing any- 
 thing further ; but, as if all the gentleness of 
 her character was gone, she broke from them 
 with violence and contempt, and rushing down 
 stairs into the street, exclaimed, in a frantic 
 manner, " People ! Dear God ! Countrymen ! 
 I am a Bardi ; he is a Buondelmonte ; he 
 loved me; and that is the whole crime!" 
 and, at these last words, tliey were locked in 
 each other's arms. 
 
 The poijulace now broke through all re- 
 straint. They stopped the procession ; they 
 bore Ippolito back again to the seat of the 
 magistracy, carrying Diauora with him ; they 
 described in a peremptory manner the mis- 
 take ; they sent for the heads of the two 
 houses ; they made them swear a treaty of 
 l)eace, amity, and unity ; and in half an hour 
 after the lover had been on the road to his 
 death, he set out upon it again, the acknow- 
 ledged bridegroom of the beautiful creature 
 by his side. 
 
 Never was such a sudden revulsion of feel- 
 ing given to a whole city. The women who 
 had retreated in anguish, came back the gay- 
 est of the gay. Everybody plucked all the 
 myrtles they could find, to put into the hands 
 of those who made the former procession, and 
 who now formed a singular one for a bridal ; 
 but all the young women fell in with their 
 white veils ; and instead of the funeral dirge.
 
 RHYME AND REASON. 
 
 51) 
 
 a song of thanksgiving was chanted. 
 
 The 
 
 very excess of their sensations enabled the 
 two lovers to hold up. Ippolito's cheeks, 
 which seemed to have fallen away in one 
 night, appeared to have ])lumped out again 
 faster ; and if he was now pale instead of high- 
 coloured, tlie paleness of Dianora had given 
 way to radiant blushes which made up for it. 
 He looked, as he ought, — like the pei'son 
 saved ; she, like the angelic saviour. 
 
 Thus the two lovers passed on, as if in a 
 dream tumultuous but delightful. Neither of 
 them looked on the other ; they gazed hither 
 and thither on the ci-owd, as if in answer to 
 the blessings that poured upon them ; but 
 their hands were locked fast ; and they went 
 like one soul in a divided body. 
 
 LVIIL— RHYME AND REASON : 
 
 OR A NEW PROPOSAL TO THE PUBLIC RESPECTING 
 POETRV IN ORDINARY. 
 
 A FRIEND of ours the other day, taking up 
 the miscellaneous poems of Tasso, read the 
 title-page into English as follows : — " The 
 Rliymes of the Lord Twisted Yew, Amorous, 
 Bosky, andJNIaritime."* The Italians exhibit 
 a modesty worthy of imitation in calling their 
 Miscellaneous Poems, Rhymes. Twisted Yew 
 himself, with all his genius, has put forth an 
 abundance of these terminating blossoms, 
 without any fruit behind them : and his coun- 
 trymen of the present day do not scruple to 
 confess, that their living poetry consists of 
 little else. The French have a game at verses, 
 called Rhymed Ends (Bouts Riin^s) which 
 they practise a great deal more than they are 
 aware ; and the English, though they are 
 a more poetical j)e()j)le, and lay claim to the 
 character of a less vain one, practise the same 
 game to a very uncandid extent, without so 
 mucli as allowing that the title is applicable to 
 any j)art of it. 
 
 Yet how many " Poems" are there among 
 all these nations, of which we require no more 
 than the Rhymes, to be acquainted with the 
 whole of them ? You know wliat the rogues 
 have done, by the ends they come to. For in- 
 stance, what more is necessary to inform us of 
 all which the following gentleman has for sale, 
 than the bell M-hich he tinkles at the end of 
 his cry ? We are as sure of him, as of the 
 muffin-man. 
 
 Orove, 
 
 Night, 
 
 Rove, 
 
 Delight. 
 
 A LOTE-SONO. 
 
 Heart. 
 Prove, 
 Iinp.nrt, 
 Love- 
 
 Kiss 
 Blest 
 niiss 
 Uest. 
 
 Was there ever peroration more eloquent ? 
 Ever a series of cataKtroi)hes more explanatory 
 
 * Rime del Si?nor Torqualo Tassii. Anior-isc, Howlie- 
 reccic, Marittime. &c. 
 
 of their previous history ? Did any Chinese 
 gentleman ever show the amount of his breed- 
 ing anil accomplishments more completely, by 
 the nails which he carries at his fingers' ends ? 
 The Italian Rimatori are equally compre- 
 hensive. We no sooner see the majority of 
 their rhymes, than we long to save the mo- 
 desty of their general pretensions so much 
 trouble in making out their case. Their cureg 
 and amores are not to be disputed. Cursed is 
 he that does not put implicit reliance upon 
 their feddta ! — that makes inquisition why the 
 possessor piu superho ra. They may take the 
 oaths and their seat at once. For example — 
 
 Ben mio 
 Oh Die 
 Per te. 
 
 Fupgito 
 Rapito 
 Dame. 
 
 And again — 
 
 With- 
 
 Amata 
 Sdegnata 
 Turbata 
 Irata 
 Furore 
 Dolore 
 Non so. 
 
 O cielo 
 Dal gielo 
 Tradire 
 Languire 
 Mori re 
 Soffrire 
 Non pu6. 
 
 Where is the dull and inordinate person tliat 
 would require these rhymes to be filled up ? 
 If they are brief as the love of which they 
 comjdain, are they not pregnant in conclusions, 
 full of a world of things that have passed, in- 
 finitely retrospective, embracing, and enough ? 
 If not "vast," are they not "voluminous ?" 
 
 It is doubtless an instinct of this kind that 
 has made so many modern Italian poets inter- 
 sperse their lyrics with those frequent single 
 words, wiiich are at once line and rhyme, 
 and which some of our countrymen have in 
 vain endeavoured to naturalise in the English 
 opera. Not that they want the same preg- 
 nancy in our language, but because they are 
 neither so abundant nor so musical ; and be- 
 sides, there is something in the rest of our 
 verses, however common-jdace, which seems 
 to be laughing at the incursion of these viva- 
 cious strangers, as if it were a hoji suddenly 
 got up, and unseasonably. We do not natur- 
 ally take to anything so abrupt and saltatory. 
 
 This objection, however, does not apply to 
 the proposal we arc about to make. Our 
 riiymers 7iiiist rhyme ; and as tiiere is a great 
 difference between single words thus mingled 
 with longer verses, and the same rhymes in 
 their proper places, it has struck us, tiiat a 
 world of time and pajier might be sav('<l to the 
 ingenious riiiicitdri', wiiether Italian or l^nglish, 
 by foregoing at uncc all the superfiuous part
 
 50 
 
 nilYME AND REASON. 
 
 of his verses ; tliat is to say, all the rest of 
 tlioiu ; and fonfiiiinjj^ liiiiisclf, entirely, to tiiese 
 very siiiheing terniinatious. AVe subjoin some 
 specimens in tlie various kinds of poetry ; and 
 inform the intellij^ent bookseller, tliat we are 
 willing to treat with him for any quantity at a 
 penny a hundred. 
 
 
 
 A PASTOR A I,. 
 
 
 
 Dawn 
 
 E:\ch 
 
 Fair 
 
 Me 
 
 Kay 
 
 I'liiins 
 
 Spoke 
 
 Mine 
 
 Too 
 
 Heat 
 
 Latvn 
 
 }Joe<.li 
 
 Hair 
 
 Free 
 
 I'lay 
 
 Swains 
 
 Yoke. 
 
 Divine. 
 
 Woo. 
 
 bweet. 
 
 Tunc 
 
 Fields 
 
 Shades 
 
 Adieu 
 
 Farewell 
 
 Lays 
 
 Bowers 
 
 Darts 
 
 I'-locka 
 
 Cows 
 
 Moon 
 
 YieWs 
 
 ftlaids 
 
 Kenew 
 
 Dell 
 
 Gaze. 
 
 Flowers 
 
 Hearts. 
 
 Uocks. 
 
 Boughs. 
 
 Here, without any more ado, we have tlie 
 whole history of a couple of successful rural 
 lovei-s comparinfT notes. Tliey issue forth in 
 tlie morning ; fall into tiie projier place and 
 dialogue ; record the charms and kindness of 
 tiieir respective unstresses ; do justice at the 
 same time to tlie fields and shades ; and con- 
 '•lude by telling tiieir fJoeks to wait as usual 
 while tliey renew tiieir addresses under tlie, 
 boughs. How easily is all tlris gathered from 
 the rhymes! and how worse than useless would 
 it be in two persons, who have such interesting 
 avocations, to waste their precious time and 
 the reader's in a heap of prefatory remarks, 
 falsely called verses ! 
 
 Of Love-songs we have already had speci- 
 mens ; and, by the bye, we did not tliink it 
 necessary to give any French examples of our 
 involuntary predecessors in this species of 
 writing. The yeas and dangereux, moi and foi, 
 charmcf and htrmcs, are too well-known as well 
 as too numerous to mention. We proceed to 
 lay before the reader a Prologue ; which, if 
 s]ioken by a pretty actress, with a due sprink- 
 ling of nods and becks, and a judicious man- 
 agement of tlie pauses, would have an eU'ect 
 equally novel and triumphant. The reader is 
 aware that a Prologue is generally made up of 
 some observations on the drama in general, 
 followed by an appeal in favour of the new 
 one, some compliments to the nation, and a 
 regular climax in honour of the pei'sons ap- 
 peali'd to. We scarcely need observe, that 
 tlie rhymes should be read slowly, in order to 
 give effect to the truly understood remarks in 
 the intervals. 
 
 Ago 
 
 Stage 
 
 Mind 
 
 Mankind 
 
 Faee 
 
 Trace 
 
 Sigh 
 
 Tragedy 
 
 Seene 
 
 Spleen 
 
 Pit 
 
 Wit 
 
 Fashion 
 
 Applause 
 
 British Nation. 
 
 Virtue's Cause 
 
 
 Trust 
 
 Young 
 
 Just 
 
 TonRue 
 
 Fear 
 
 Bard 
 
 Here 
 
 Keward 
 
 Stands 
 
 Hiss 
 
 Hands 
 
 Miss 
 
 True 
 
 Dare 
 
 Yo 
 
 British fair 
 
 
 Here we have some respectable observations 
 on tlu> advantages of the drama in every age, 
 on the wideiiess of its survey, the different 
 natures of tragedy and comedy, the vicissi- 
 tudes of fashion, and the permanent greatness 
 of the British empire. Then the vounir bard, 
 new to the dramatic art, is introduced. He 
 disclaims all hope of reward for any merit of 
 his own, excei)t that which is founded on a 
 proper sense of tin; delicacy and beauty of his 
 fair auditors, and his zeal in the cause of 
 virtue. To this, at all events, he is sure his 
 critics will be just ; and though he cannot helji 
 feeling a certain timidity, standing where he 
 does, yet upon the whole, as becomes an 
 Englishman, he is perfectly willing to abide 
 by the decision of his countrymen's hands, 
 hoping that he shall be fouud 
 
 to sense, if not to genius, true, 
 
 And trusts his cause to virtue, and — to You. 
 
 Should the reader, before he comes to this ex- 
 plication of the Prologue, have had any other 
 ideas suggested by it, we will undertake to 
 say, that they will at all events be found to 
 have a wonderful general similitude ; and it is 
 to be observed, that this very flexibility of 
 adaptation is one of the happiest and most 
 useful results of our proposed system of jioetry. 
 It comprehends all the possible common-places 
 in vogue ; and it also leaves to the ingenious 
 reader something to fill up ; which is a com- 
 pliment that has always been held due to him 
 by the best authorities. 
 
 The next specimen is what, in a more super- 
 fluous condition of metre, would have been 
 entitled Lines on Time. It is much in that 
 g(?nteel didactic taste, which is at once think- 
 ing and non-thinking, and has a certain neat 
 and elderly dislike of innovation in it, greatly 
 to the comfort of the seniors who adorn the 
 circles. 
 
 
 o«j 
 
 t;me. 
 
 
 Time 
 
 Child 
 
 Bace 
 
 Hold 
 
 Sublime 
 
 Beguiled 
 
 Trace 
 
 Old 
 
 Fraught 
 
 Boy 
 
 All 
 
 Sure 
 
 Tliought 
 
 .Joy 
 
 Ball 
 
 Kndure 
 
 Power 
 
 Man 
 
 Pride 
 
 Death 
 
 Devour 
 
 Si>an 
 
 liuride 
 
 I'.reath 
 
 Uust 
 
 Sire 
 
 Aim 
 
 Forgiven 
 
 Dust 
 
 F.xpirc 
 
 Same 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 Ohass 
 
 
 Undo 
 
 
 Pass 
 
 So 
 
 New 
 
 
 Wings 
 
 Go 
 
 
 
 Kings 
 
 
 
 
 We ask any impartial reader, whether he 
 could possibly want a more sufllciiig account 
 of the progress of this author's piece of rea- 
 soning upon Time ? There is, first, the address 
 to the hoary god, with all his emblems and 
 coiis'-qucnce about him, the scythe excepted ; 
 tliat being an edge-tool to rhymers, whicli tliey 
 judiciously keep inside the ver.se, as in a sheath. 
 And th(?n we are carried through all the stages 
 of human existence, the caducity of which the
 
 VICISSITUDES OF A LECTURE. 
 
 m 
 
 writer applies to the world at large, impressing 
 upon ns the inutility of hope and exertion, 
 and suggesting of course the propriety of 
 tliiuking just as he does upon all subjects, po- 
 litical and moral, past, present, and to come. 
 1822. 
 
 LIX.— VICISSITUDES OF A LECTURE; 
 
 OR, PUBLIC ELEGANCE AND PRIVATE NON-PAR- 
 TICULARITY. 
 
 Poor Ned Pounchy ! He is no longer 
 alive ; otherwise we should not risk tlie 
 wounding of his good-natured eyes by these 
 pages. Neither was he ever known enough to 
 the many to undergo the hazard of their now 
 digging him up again ; and, finally, we have 
 obscured the illustrious obscurity of his name 
 by an alias. We may, therefore, without 
 offence, resuscitate a passage in his life, for the 
 amusement of those critical readers, whom it 
 was his higliest ambition to gratify. 
 
 Ned Pounchy had long been seized with 
 a passionate desire to give a lecture — his 
 favourite mode of literary intercourse — and on 
 Shakspeare and Milton — his favourite poets. 
 Accordingly, after a series of blissful prepara- 
 tions and half-threatening obstacles, which 
 only perfected the pleasure of the result, he 
 found himself one evening at the upper end of 
 a great room in a certain tavern, standing with 
 book in hand, and in most consummate black 
 satin small-clothes and silk stockings (the 
 former very crinkled and scholarly), with a 
 groat screen at his back, and an expectant set 
 of beholders in front of him, to whom he had 
 undei'taken to set forth the merits of a scene 
 or two in the Tempest, and to recite Milton's 
 charming poems, Alle,/ru and Pensieroso. 
 
 Now our friend Pounchy, or rather our 
 friend's friend (for we had no particular know- 
 ledge of him, except on this occasion) was a 
 somewhat stout and short man, like many an 
 eminent individual before and since, of some 
 forty or five-and-forty years of age ; and if, ' 
 unlike them, he seemed to think his person 
 qualified to compete with his intellectual at- 
 tractions, and to require only " a fair stage and 
 no favour," yet his genial disposition did 
 (there can be no doubt of it) instinctively 
 suggest to itself, that the favour would be 
 granted liim ; and in fact, he appeared so roay 
 and comfortable, and after-dinner-like, in the 
 very midst of a certain elevation of neckcloth 
 and powdered head, that it was imj)0ssible not 
 to sympathise witli his satisfaction, and be 
 prepared to relish wliatever taste he should be 
 pleased to give us of liis critical nicety. He 
 had no rostrum, or desk, before him. All in 
 that respect was open and above-board ; un- 
 disguised as his good faith ; and as he walked 
 to and fro, his shoes creaked a little. 
 
 Suddenly, after a brief but serious confer- 
 ence with some head that emerged from be- 
 hind the screen, and returning towards us with 
 a hum and hear, intermingled with applications 
 of white handkerchief, he opened upon his 
 audience witli a brief introduction to the first 
 scene of the Tempest. His tones were of an 
 importance commensurate with the fame of 
 his author ; and none of the homely seaman- 
 ship in the text beguiled him, for an instant, 
 out of a due respect for it. Not that he 
 omitted to expatiate on the extreme natural- 
 ness of the scene. That was a point, which 
 Ned evidently regarded as one of the most 
 serious objects of his duty to impress upon us. 
 He could not have been more emphatic, or 
 given us greater time to deliberate on what we 
 heard, had he recited the soliloquy in Hamlet. 
 Thus, instead of those excellent but too un- 
 critical imitators of seamen, Air. T. P. Cooke, 
 Mr. Smith, and others, conceive the following 
 exordium of the play set forth in its utmost 
 solemnity of articulation by the mouth of Mr. 
 "Ward or !Mr. Barrymore, — accompanied fur- 
 thermore by a mention, at once particular and 
 careless, and singularly incorporating itself 
 with the text, of the name of the party speak- 
 ing ; — which, if you reflect upon it, was a very 
 great nicety, and showed the lecturer's just 
 sense of all which he could be expected to 
 combine in his delivery, as holding the double 
 office of reader and performer. Repeat, for 
 instance, out loud, and very slowly, tiie follow- 
 ing words ; and the sound of your voice will 
 enable you the better to appreciate oui* critic's 
 delicacy : — 
 
 Enter a Shipmaster atid a Boatswain. 
 Master Bciatswain^ — 
 
 (which you are to read as if he was speaking 
 of a young gentleman of the name of Boat- 
 swain, son of John Boatswain, Esq. — " Master 
 Boatswain.") 
 
 hoatswain Here, master : wh.at — cheer — 
 (" What — cheer," very slow and pompous.) 
 
 Master Good 
 (here another young gentleman, son of Thomas 
 Good, Esquire^ — young " Master Good.") 
 
 — speak — to — the mariner — fall — to it — yarely, or we 
 run ourselves — aground — Bestir — bestir. 
 
 (Bestir, bestir, very wide apart, and all pomp- 
 ous.) 
 
 Exit — Master. Enter — Mariners. 
 
 Boatswain Heigh — 
 
 (Here it seems to transpire that the boat- 
 swain's name is Heigh or Hav — Boatswain 
 Hay.) 
 
 Boatswain Heigh — my heart — checrly — checrly — my 
 heart ; — yare — yare — Take in — the topsail 
 
 (all observe, as if he were reading some 
 mighty text in a pulpit) 
 
 — take in— the tops-iil — tend— to the master's — whistle— 
 And so he went on, amidst the deep and 
 admiring silence of the spectators, whose
 
 6*2 
 
 VICISSITUDES OF A LECTURE. 
 
 shoulders you minjlit observe, here and there, 
 gradually ln-jjin shakiiiji, out of sonio irrojjros- 
 sible emotion. A y>iig who has a lively but 
 confused recollection of the scene, insists that 
 there was a jiassage in the dialogue, which 
 upon examination we cannot find, but which 
 he delights to repeat as having been thus 
 delivered, — very slow and pompous, yet with 
 the remarkable absence of stops between the 
 names and words of the speakers, and all in a 
 level tone — 
 
 First Boatsw.iin nip — hoUo-a 
 
 Second Uoatswain HoUo-a — hip. 
 
 But this is manifestly a figment, superinduced 
 upon a strongly excited fiiucy. 
 
 Of the rest of this scene from the Tempest, 
 singularly enough, we have no sort of recol- 
 lection. Wliether this forgetfulness bo owing 
 to some unremenibered stoppage on the part of 
 the reciter, or to the criticisms of the friends 
 about us, or some uproarious sympathy ana- 
 logous to the tumult on board ship, we cannot 
 say ; but the thing has clean gone out of our 
 memory. All we can call to mind is a little 
 tlijn old gentleman, probably a friend of the 
 lecturer's, who kept going about among the 
 benches, smiling, and apparently asking the 
 ladies how tliey liked it ; and exhibiting a 
 hand laden with rings. 
 
 But now came the Allegro. Our memory 
 serves us very well on this point, for reasons 
 which will be obvious. 
 
 Hence, — loathed — MEL-ancholy 
 began Ned, in the most vehement, but at the 
 same time dignified manner you can conceive 
 — absolutely startling us — his mouth thrust 
 out, his eye fierce, his right arm extended at 
 full length, tossing his head, and then pohituuj ; 
 — in short, telling IMelancholy to go to the 
 greatest possible distance, and as if showing 
 her whereabouts it was. 
 
 Hence — loathed — Melancholy — 
 
 Of Cerberus — 'and — black -est — midnight bom 
 
 ("blackest" excessively black on the first 
 syllable) 
 
 In — Stypian — cave — forlorn — 
 
 Jlidst^horrid shapes— and sights— and shrieks— unholy— 
 
 "unholy" with an immense emphasis on the o 
 — and so he went on till he came to the words 
 "Come and trip it ;" for though the feeling in 
 the poet's mind changes wonderfully from the 
 repelling to the engaging, in that alteration of 
 the measure, where he says " But come, thou 
 goddess fair and free," yet Ned seemed to 
 think, that as both the jiassages were equally 
 good, it was his duty to regard their merits 
 ■with impartiality, and not risk the appreciation 
 of the cheerfuUer lines by any levity of ap- 
 proach. Tlis " Come — thou (ioddess— fair — 
 and free" was therefore delivered in precisely 
 the same tones as the rest, — immeasurably 
 grave, earnest, and emphatical, and as if every 
 syllable he uttered was commissioned to main- 
 
 tain the united dignity of the poetical and 
 reciting characters. 
 
 But now comes, not only the cheerfulness, 
 but the catastrophe. "Great wits have short 
 memories," said somebody ; probably because 
 he had one himself. Ned howevei was at all 
 events a hrothar instance ; for after getting 
 through the " Graces," and " Aurora," and the 
 "fresh-blown roses," and " quips and cranks," 
 &C., with the most extraordinary solemnity 
 (and it w-as no great distance to get) he stuck 
 fast at the very spot where he was bound to 
 proceed in his happiest manner ; to wit, upon 
 the line, 
 
 " Come and trip it, as you go. " 
 lie remembered " Come and trip it ;" but he 
 could not, for the life of him, conjure up " as 
 you go." 
 
 The head behind the screen was now heard, 
 prompting — 
 
 " Come and trip it, as you go. " 
 But Ned, it turned out, was unfortunately 
 deaf, and the words were lost upon him. 
 
 " Come and trip It, as >/ou go," 
 said the voice, still in a whisper, but with 
 greater emphasis. 
 
 In vain. — Ned bent his head again to catch 
 the words, and again they were repeated with 
 emphasis still greater, but always in a whis- 
 per — 
 
 " Come and trip it, as you go. " 
 
 In vain again. — Once more Ned bent his 
 head, with all its painstaking and powder ; and 
 again the words were sent forth, in a sort of 
 whisper in a rage ; 
 
 " Come and trip it, AS YOU GO." 
 "Good God!" the whisper seemed to say, 
 " Will yovi^nerxr hear me ?" 
 
 The reader must imagine the audience all 
 this time, hearing what the lecturer could not 
 hear, as plainly as their own words, and ready 
 to burst. 
 
 At length he does catch the words ; and 
 with an irresistible air of hilarity and self- 
 satisfaction (<as if the little obstacle were re- 
 moved from between him and his trium])hs) 
 resumes his stately way — 
 
 " Come — and trip it — as you go — 
 On the liyht 
 
 (" light" very heavy) 
 
 fantastic-toe 
 
 (" fantastic," imperious) 
 
 And — in thy— right liand— lead — with thee 
 The mountain — nymph — sweet — liberty 
 And — if I — give thee — honour — due — 
 Mirth, — .admit me — of—llii/ crew — 
 To live — with her — and live — with thee 
 In — uii — reproved — pleasures — free." 
 
 Alas ! while in tlu^ act of arriving at these 
 pleasures, and little thinking that he was 
 about to disclose what they were, he unfortu- 
 nately kept stepping backvvarder and back- 
 warder, till in a moment he bolted against the
 
 THE FORTUNES OF GENIUS. 
 
 G3 
 
 screen, and down it went ! 
 
 exhibiting, — 
 besides the enraged individual to whom the 
 voice belonged, — what do you think ? 
 
 A bottle of wine and some cakes ? 
 
 No. 
 
 A few oranges, perhaps ? 
 
 By no means. 
 
 A sandwich ? 
 
 Not in the least. 
 
 What tlien ? 
 
 — A pot of ale and some bread and cheese. 
 
 There was no harm in it. Geniuses have 
 made many a hearty meal upon bread and 
 cheese, and been glad that they could get it ; 
 only, somehow, the highly poetical dignity of 
 the recitation, the immense idealism of the 
 lecturer, and the aristocracy of the satin small- 
 clothes, had not prepared the spectators for so 
 unsophisticate a refreshment ; and they were 
 glad to pretend an outcry of alarm and sym- 
 pathy, in order to drown what they could of 
 the otherwise inextinguishable laughter which 
 shook the place. 
 
 What followed we totally forget, perhaps 
 because we came away ; but never shall we 
 forget thee, and thy publicities and retire- 
 ments, honest Ned Pounchy. 
 
 LX.— THE FORTUNES OF GENIUS. 
 
 In the Atla», the other day, was an article, 
 under the above title, the following passages 
 of which induce us to make some remarks 
 upon them. W^e regret we cannot copy the 
 whole, — it is so well written, and shows such a 
 relish of pleasure, and sympathy with pain. 
 But our limits forbid. 
 
 " An actpiaintance," says the writer, " with 
 the biography of illustrious musicians proves 
 tliat they reason incorrectly, and with a short 
 sight, who eternally talk of having the path of 
 genius smoothed, and of setting it above cir- 
 cumstances ; for the lives of eminent men of 
 tliis class display the most admirable energies 
 developed, and the most enthusiastic projects 
 brought to bear, purely by the pressure of the 
 very annoyances sought to be removed. Pos- 
 session of the creative faculty presupposes a 
 superiority to adverse circumstances and ' low- 
 tliouglited care ;' and (ioldsraith's poet, sitting 
 in his garret with a worsted stocking on his 
 head, 
 
 WHiere the Red Lion, staring o'er the way. 
 Invites each passing stranger that can pay, 
 
 in spite of bailiffs, writs, debts, duns, and 
 milk scores, the most horrible that oven Ho- 
 garth imagined, was still a happy fellow. 'J'lie 
 individual Mr. Jones, seated before a delicate 
 leg of lamb and a liottle of sheiry, is an 
 abstraction of the Mr. Jones who owes 
 284/. 18.'!. 4r/., and has, as the Dutchmen say, 
 nix to pay. Satisfied that he would pay if he 
 
 could, which is all that is necessary to place 
 the morale of his character upon high g?-ound, 
 he leaves the affairs of the world to right 
 themselves, and enjoys the everlasting day- 
 rule of the imagination. [How well said is 
 this !J — So it was with Fielding, with Gold- 
 smith, with Steele, and others honourable in 
 literature, and so also with Handel, with 
 ftlozart, and Weber, in music ; and it is one 
 of the kindly recompenses of nature, by which 
 she contrives, on the whole, to adjust so equi- 
 tably the good and the evil in this life, that 
 where injury to the individual arises from an 
 excess of sympathy with the mass, that injury 
 is commonly but lightly felt." 
 
 We were not aAvare that the trials of these 
 musicians in pecuniary affairs were so great. 
 The following information respecting Mozart 
 is as startliug as it is affecting : — " Who thinks, 
 when he looks over the six great operas ot 
 Mozart, and admires the Shakspearian know- 
 ledge of character, and the thoughtful discri- 
 mination appearing in every movement of them, 
 that those master-pieces were produced amidst 
 a tumult of arrests, and of the lowest annoy- 
 ances that ever embroiled a life ? Nay, it is 
 even said that the family of Mozart at times 
 wanted common necessaries. Advei'sity may 
 have been a sharp thorn in the side of so gentle 
 and enjoying a spirit as INIozart ; but it would 
 be affectation to deplore the circumstances 
 that have put the musical world in possession 
 of their most valued treasures." — And here 
 follows something awful respecting Handel, — 
 an awful man. The hurried dashes and dative 
 cases of the writer ( — "to his quarrel with 
 Senesino" — "to his madness and rasje"^ — "to 
 his palsy" — ) are like an agitato accompani- 
 ment to the facts. "The twenty or thirty 
 folio volumes bearing the names of Handel's 
 oratorios, which alone transmit liis name to 
 posterity, when we contemplate them in some 
 well-ordered library, carry no thought of their 
 ha%nng been produced after the composer had 
 received the first signal of death in a stroke of 
 palsy which disabled his arm. Ruin and dis- 
 ease, that fill the minds of men of more feeble 
 powers with thoughts of the narrow coffin and 
 the shroud, made 1 landel immortal. We owe 
 the 'Messiah' and 'Israel in E/^jypt' to the 
 composer's obstinate temper — to his quarrel 
 with Senesino and the nobility — to his making 
 rash engagements with singers that compelled 
 him to withdraw his last guinea from the funds 
 to satisfy them — to his madness and rage — to 
 his palsy — to his proceeding to tlie vupour- 
 batlis of Aix-la-Cliapelle, whence, with tlie 
 purgation of his luinu)urs, reason and religion 
 leturned, and persuaded him that tliere was 
 another style of music yet untried, more likely 
 than operas to suit the grave character of the 
 English. Tlien followed in rapid succession 
 his immortal oratorios, works in wliich the 
 pure flame of his genius never shone moie
 
 «4 
 
 THE FORTUNES OF GEXTTts. 
 
 hrightiy, tliough produced at a late period of 
 lift', ccmiiioncod after the attack of a thrcatei)- 
 inj,' and fat;il disorder, and ended in total 
 blindness." 
 
 The question thus opened by the writer in 
 the 'Atlas' is a great puzzle. We confess 
 that in many respects we take the same view 
 of it as himself; for we reverence tlie past ; 
 wo are inclined to think best of whatever has 
 taken place, since it luis taken place, — to con- 
 clude that good and e\'il someliow have ad- 
 justed themselves in the best manner ; and we 
 have sucli belief in the ])redominance of hajipy 
 over unhapi)y feelings in the minds of men of 
 genius, that we sometimes think they would 
 bave had an unfair portion of joy in their life, 
 bad their lot been less counterbalanced by 
 difficulties, ill-health, or whatsoever their 
 troubles may have been. 
 
 But the question branches off into some 
 others, which it may not be well for society to 
 lose sight of ; especially as by the efforts which 
 Providence incites them to make for the com- 
 mon good, it would seem, that however neces- 
 sary some portion of evil may always be for 
 the proper relish of good, there may not al- 
 ways exist a necessity for it to an amount so 
 large. One of these collateral questions we 
 shall put. 
 
 Is it certain th.at the men of genius above- 
 mentioned would not have written as much, 
 or as finely, under happier circumstances ? 
 
 It IS natural enough to conclude, that men 
 so careless in worldly matters as Steele and 
 Fielding, aud with such a relish of the moment 
 before them, when it contained the least drop 
 of sweet, would jjcrhaps have written votkirKj 
 at all. Frightful supposition ! And yet is the 
 supposition likely, considering that very re- 
 lish ? Is it natural for people to be delighted, 
 and iiold their tongue ? To have lame at their 
 command, and not command it ? Or was it ne- 
 (tessary for I landed to be so extremely pained, 
 before lie could give us his .sense of the i^as- 
 sionate and the sublime ? Was there not suf- 
 fering enough for him, short of rage and mad- 
 ness ? No firmament over his head, nor graves 
 under his feet I Perhaps he yet needed his af- 
 flictions : — be it so, since they have happened ; 
 — but might it not be perilous in future, seeing 
 that we have become alive to such questions, 
 to run the risk of steeling the hearts of people 
 
 ajrainst the struirffles of 
 
 ■nius, if 
 
 not for the 
 
 latter's sake, yet for tlieir own, and ultimately, 
 by that process, for both ? Whatsoever hap- 
 ])ens in the world without our being aware of 
 it, we take to be one thing ; what otherwise, 
 to be another ; and fate and consequence be- 
 come modified accordingly. If the pain should 
 remain the same after all, we still cannot be 
 certain that it is necessai-y, however it will 
 become us to hope so when it be past. The 
 peril, meanwliile, is, that we shall be blunting 
 our o^\ n feelings, and those of geuius too 
 
 Beaumont was of opinion that a man of ge- 
 nius could no more help jiutting his tlioughts 
 on paper, than a travellei- in a burning desert 
 can help drinking when he sees water. 
 
 " I know full well, that, no more than tlio man 
 That travels through the burning deserts, can 
 When he is beaten with the raging sun, 
 Half sraotlier'il in the dust, have power to run 
 From a cool river, which himself doth find. 
 Ere he be slaked ; no more can he whose mind 
 Joys in the IMuses, liold from that delight. 
 When Nature and his full thoughts bid him write." 
 
 Could Fielding have helped writing ' Tom 
 Jones ' (the perfectest prose-fiction in the lan- 
 guage) whether he had been in trouble or not ? 
 Could Steele have helped throwing his light(;r, 
 hajijiier graces, round the muse of his friend 
 Addison ? Would Goldsmith's craving for 
 reputation have allowed him to be silent with 
 liis j/en (which was admirable), when he could 
 not even refrain in company with his tongue 
 (whi(di Was nothing) ? Or does the enjoying 
 critic of the 'Atlas,' whose articles are like 
 variations upon the musical beauties they cri- 
 ticise, dwelling ujion them, and winding them 
 iu congenial tones round his heart, really think 
 it would have been possible for Mozart to pos- 
 sess all that abundance of the soul of love and 
 pleasure, and not cry aloud ? — not burst forth 
 and blossom like the peach-trees in spring ? 
 not come pouring down from a hundred foun- 
 tains of song into the surging sea of the 
 orchestra, like the summer clouds from the 
 mountains ? 
 
 We grant that ceiiain noble kinds of pain 
 may be necessary to produce certain sublimi- 
 ties of composition, whether in musical or 
 other writing ; but need the composer be 
 stimulated with the lowest and most humiliat- 
 ing cares, to induce him to write at all, sup- 
 posing him to be a real genius ? Perhaps he 
 woidd not write so much ; but are we sure even 
 of that, supposiiii/ hint, to be put into a condh'u»i 
 quiU' suitable to Ins nature ? Steele and Fielding 
 and JMozart would not have written all tiie 
 identical same works which they produced ; 
 but are we sure they would not have produced 
 as many, or even better ? Well-fed birds sing 
 in cages ; but the more philosophic of their 
 jailors (strange people !) di.scern something in 
 the best of their imiirisoned songs, inferior to 
 their "wood-notes M'ild." Does tlie throstle on 
 the bough, in order to pour gushes of melody 
 from his heart, require a string to his leg, or 
 a l)link from some bailiff snake? 
 
 Walter Scott assuredly would not have 
 written all his novels, had he not thought cii- 
 cumstances required it ; but we should most 
 likely have had his best. ' Waverley ' he wrote 
 for love, when he did not dream that he should 
 get a six])ence by it ; and ' Old Mortality' aud 
 ' The Antiquary' soon followed the publication 
 of that novel — partly, no doubt, for profit, but 
 much also by reason of love encouraged, and
 
 THE FORTUNES OF GENIUS. 
 
 65 
 
 oat of a love of the sense of power. These, 
 his best, we should have had ; and he would 
 not have been killed by writing his worst. — 
 Oh, Scotland ! Oh, England ! Oh, Europe ! we 
 might say, for he belonged to all, — how could 
 you suffer him to die ? 
 
 And Burns — that other " glory and shame " 
 of this island — he did not get (so to speak) a 
 penny for his writings ; tVw though, no doubt, 
 he did get a good deal more, yet that was not 
 the reason why he produced them ; and num- 
 bers of his songs he gave away. Yes ; he, the 
 glorious ploughman and born gentleman, gave 
 his songs away, free as the bird that he took 
 for his crest. Now Burns, if any man ever 
 did, wrote for love, and not for money. Yet 
 his life was full of pecuniary distress. 
 
 And observe how many men of genius have 
 written abundantly, who have had no sordid 
 cares, — certainly none that writing settled for 
 them, in a pecuniary sense. Chaucer is an 
 illustrious instance. Spenser another — Milton 
 (though poor) another — Beaumont and Flet- 
 cher, Pope, Swift, Addison, Gibbon, Hume, 
 Hooker, Sterne, Lamb, Wordsworth, Jeremy 
 Taylor — in short, almost all our best, and all 
 the Greek, Roman, and Italian men of genius 
 (for nobody ever got oholus or crasia for his 
 writings in the classical countries, ancient or 
 modern). In Italy there is no payment of , 
 authors, any more than there was among the 
 countrymen of Anacreon and Ovid ; yet we 
 have had, nevertheless, the Dantes, Petrarchs, 
 and Ariostos. The Homers, to be sure, got 
 their " feed," in the minstrel times of Greece ; 
 but nobody supposes that those amazing rhap- 
 sodists would never have opened their mouths 
 but for King Alcinous's pork-cho^js. 
 
 Tlien, among musicians — Haydn, we believe, 
 was not distressed ; nor tlie Corellis and Paesi- 
 ellos. Gluck was i-ich. Nor have the best of 
 the painters been poor, — the Raphaels, Michael 
 Angelos, and Titians. On the contrary, with 
 the exception of Rembrandt, those who have 
 been best off in worldly aftairs have generally 
 been most abundant in pictorial produce, — 
 sometimes, it is true, by help of the influx of 
 wealth, as in Titian's case ; but, at any rate, 
 necessity was not tlie stimulant. Nor did 
 patronage make them idle. No ; because it 
 was true, and lit on true men. The watered 
 tree bore, because it possessed the seed. Do 
 not Hummel, Spohr, and otliers, write, and 
 write well, tliough made as comfortable as 
 church-canons in those little snug chapel- 
 masterships of theirs, of which Ave are told 
 so delightfully in the ' Ramble among the 
 Musicians in Germany V 
 
 Often and often, we doubt not — perhaps in 
 all instances — has inconsistency of position in 
 men of genius been mistaken for idleness. It 
 may be possible, in many cases, that tempera- 
 ment, or even too much thought, or otlier 
 conflicting impulses, may produce something, 
 
 in the appearance, which " the world calls 
 idle ; " but the true conflicting impulses, in 
 perhaps all instances, have arisen from incom- 
 patibility of calls upon the attention. He who 
 is forced to do incompatible or uncongenial 
 things, does them badly ; or he sings, perhaps, 
 at all events, and sings well ; but sometimes 
 he cannot sing at all,— the wires of the cage of 
 his necessity press too hard upon him — he 
 wants breatliing-room, nature, comfort ; he 
 sings at last, partly because he is forced, partly 
 because it solaces him. But try the himiane 
 expedient of rescuing him from his worst cares, 
 and see how he would sing then ; — if not his 
 most, yet surely his best. At least, so it 
 appears to us. 
 
 Blessings, nevertheless, say we, with the 
 genial philosopher of the 'Atlas,' upon the 
 trouble and sorrow even of a sordid kind, if 
 we could not have had certain men of genius 
 without them ; and blessings, at all event=. 
 upon the beauty into which they are convertetv, 
 and the divine way which Nature has of making 
 bitterness itself blossom and become medicinal. 
 But let us take care how we sow opinions, 
 unqualified, the fruits of which may intoxicate 
 weak heads in after times — with careless as- 
 sumption, if writers— with selfish references 
 to Providence and necessity, if the arbiters 
 of the fate of writers. ^lost writers of any 
 ability are pretty well off in these times, and 
 have a good patron in the public. But a time 
 may come, (are we sure that it has in no case 
 happened already ?) when, by the very process 
 of the abundance of writings, genius may 
 want support ; and let us not prepare our chil- 
 dren's children to refuse it. 
 
 The absurdity of a tragedy, unfortunately, 
 is not always an argument against its chances ; 
 but to show how very absurd this principle of 
 leaving men of genius to their fate might be- 
 come, if driven to all its consequences, let our 
 contemporary, who understands and loves a 
 joke run to seed (no man better), take the 
 following scene between the future patron of 
 a musical genius, and an emissary he has 
 despatched to inquire into his circumstances. 
 
 Patron. — Well, Dick, and how did you find 
 Iiim ? Will the composition of the new opera 
 go on swimmingly ? 
 
 Emissary. — According to your Grace, it will, 
 for he is horribly off. 
 
 P. — Good. What, in pressing want, eh ? 
 Can't afford to be idle ? 
 
 E.— If he did, he could not eat. The butcher 
 would not trust him. The butclier says he is too 
 honest a man to be trusted ; he is such a cliild. 
 
 P. — Excellent ! just like your man of genius. 
 And the butcher is a shrewd dog. But oiir 
 new Mozart must not starve quite ; we'll take 
 care of that. Then he has finished, I presume, 
 that capital scene of the feast, witli that won- 
 derful joyous dance ? and tliat droll chorus, 
 witli the coi'pulent man in it ?
 
 66 
 
 POETS' HOUSES. 
 
 E. — He has ; with a lawyer's letter on each 
 side of him, aud a face haggard with head- 
 uchp. 
 
 P. (rubbing his hands.) — Capital ! We are 
 sure then, you think, of the wliole opera ? 
 
 E. — Tiiere is no doubt of it. His live chil- 
 dren were looking out of tlie window, wonder- 
 ing wliether the baker would come. 
 
 P. — You rejoice me. We shall have a bril- 
 liant audience. And what did he say to you ? 
 
 E. — Oil ! he smiled, as usual, and laughed, 
 and saitl he wondered at his spirits, considering 
 his hcadaeh ; but I thought 1 almost saw the 
 tears in his eyes, as he said it. 
 
 f. — A true goiius ! That's the way he gets 
 his pathos, Dick. The man is all fire and 
 feeling. 
 
 E. — I suspect he would have been glad of a 
 little more "fire" yesterday, for his servant 
 told me he had no coals. 
 
 P. — Bravo I Poor fellow ! Oh, it's clear we 
 shall do capitally. We must not let his fingers 
 be cold, however, nor the baker fail his cliil- 
 dren. 
 
 E. — Did vour Grace ever think of trving; 
 what a course of comfort would do for him ? 
 
 P. — A course of what ? Ruin, Dick, ruin. I 
 never did, of course ; but who'd write if they 
 could heh) it ? 
 
 E. (aside.) — Not you, God knows ; for it's 
 as much as you can do to spell. Yet this is 
 the great opera patron whom our " new Mo- 
 zart" calls a "good kind of man, not over 
 imaginative ! " 
 
 LXI.— POETS' HOUSES. 
 
 A PAPER in Vr. Disraeli's 'Curiosities of 
 Literature' upon 'Literary Residences,' is 
 very amusing and curious ; but it begins with 
 a mistake in saying that "men of genius have 
 usually been condemned to compose their 
 finest works, whicli are usually their earliest 
 ones, under the roof of a garret ;" and the 
 autlior seems to tliinl*:, tluit few Imve realized 
 the sort of house they wished to live in. The 
 combination of "genius and a garret" is an 
 old joke, but little more. Genius has been 
 often poor enough, but seldom so much so as 
 to want what are looked upon as the decencies 
 of life. In point of abode, in particular, we 
 take it to have been generally lucky as to the 
 fact, and not at all so grand in the desire as 
 Air. Disraeli seems to imagine. Ariosto, who 
 raised such fine structures in his poetry, was 
 asked indeed how he came to have no greater 
 one when he built a house for himself; and he 
 answered, tiuit "palaces are easier built with 
 words than stones." It was a pleasant answer, 
 and fit for the interrogator ; but Ariosto va- 
 lued himself much upon the snug little abode 
 which he did build, as may be seen by the m- 
 
 scription still remaining upon it at Ferrara * ; 
 and we will venture to suy for the cordial, 
 tranquillity-loving poet, that he would rather 
 live in such a house as that, and amuse him- 
 self with building palaces in his poetry, than 
 have undergone the fatigue, and drawn upon 
 himself the publicity, of erecting a princely 
 mansion, full of gold and marble. No man- 
 sion which he could have built would have 
 equalled what he could fancy ; and poets love 
 nests from which they can take their flights — 
 not worlds of wood and stone to strut in, and 
 give them a sensation. If so, they would have 
 set their wits to get rich, and live accordingly ; 
 which none of them ever did yet, — at any rate, 
 not the greatest. Ariosto notoriously neg- 
 lected his "fortunes" — in that sense of the 
 word. Shakspcare had the felicity of building 
 a house for himself, and settling in his native 
 town ; but though the best in it, it was nothing 
 equal to the "seats" outside of it (where the 
 richer men of the district lived) ; and it ap- 
 pears to have been a " modest mansion," not 
 bigger, for instance, than a good-sized house 
 in Red Lion-street, or some other old quarter 
 in the metropolis. Suppose he had set his great 
 wits to rise in the state and accumulate money, 
 like Lionel Ci'anfield, for example, or Thomas 
 Cromwell, tlie blacksmith's son. We know 
 that any man who chooses to begin systemati- 
 cally with a penny, under circumstances at all 
 favourable, may end with thousands. Suppose 
 Shakspeare had done it ; he might have built 
 a house like a mountain. But he did not, — it 
 will be said, — because he was a poet, and poets 
 are not getters of money. Well ; and for the 
 same reason, poets do not care for the mightiest 
 things which money can get. It cannot get 
 them health, and freedom, and a life in the 
 green fields, and mansions in fairy-land ; and 
 they prefer those, and a modest visible 
 lodging. 
 
 Chaucer had a great large house to live in, — 
 a castle, — because he was connected with 
 royalty ; but he does not delight to talk of 
 such jilaces : he is all for the garden, and the 
 daisied fields, and a bower like a " pretty par- 
 lour." His mind was too big for a great house ; 
 which challenges measurement with its in- 
 mates, and is generally cqiuil to them. He 
 felt elbow-room, and heart-room, only out in 
 God's air, or in the heart itself, or in the 
 bowers built by Nature, and reminding him of 
 the greatness of her love. 
 
 Spenser lived at one time in a castle, — in 
 Ireland, — a piece of forfeited i)roperty, given 
 him for political services ; and he lived to re- 
 pent it : for it was burnt in civil warfare, and 
 his poor child burnt with it ; find the poet was 
 driven back to JOngland, broken-hearted. But 
 
 * Sec an enpr.aving of the house itself, with its inscrip- 
 tion, in the" CJaUery (if Portraits," No. XXVIII., Article 
 — ' Ariosto.' Hut it wants the garden-ground which be- 
 longed to it.
 
 POETS' HOUSES. 
 
 67 
 
 look at the houses he describes in his poems, 
 — even he who was bred in a court, and loved 
 pomp, after his fashion. He bestows the great 
 ones upon princes and allegorical personages, 
 who live in state and have many servants, (for 
 the largest houses, after all, are but collections 
 of small ones, and of imfitting neighbourhoods 
 too) ; but his nests, liis poetic bowers, his de- 
 licice and amcenitates, he keeps for his hermits 
 and his favourite nymjAs, and his flowers of 
 courtesy ; and observe how he delights to re- 
 peat the word " little," when describing them. 
 His travellers come to " little valleys, " in 
 Tvhich, through the tree-tops, comes reeking 
 up a "little smoke," (a "chearefuU signe," 
 quoth the poet,) and 
 
 " To Utile cots in which the shepherds lie ;" 
 
 and though all his little cots are not happy, 
 yet he is ever happiest when describing them, 
 should they be so, and showing in what sort 
 of contentment his mind delighted finally to 
 rest. 
 
 " A little lowly heritage it was 
 
 Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side. 
 Far from resort of people, that did pass 
 In travel to and fro. A little wide 
 There was an lioly chappell edifyde, 
 Wherein the hermit dewly wont to say 
 His holy things each morn and eventide ; 
 Thereby a crystall streame did gently play, 
 Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway. 
 
 Arrived there, the little house they fill. 
 Nor look f(jr entertainment whore none was ; 
 Rest is their feast, and all things at their will ; 
 The nnljlest mind the best eonlctUment has." 
 
 Milton, wlio built the Pandemonium, and 
 filled it witli 
 
 " A thousand dcmi-gods on golden seats," 
 
 was content if he could but get a "garden- 
 house " to live in, as it was called in his time ; 
 that is to say, a small house in the suburbs, 
 with a bit of garden to it. He required no- 
 tliing but a tree or two about him, to give him 
 "airs of Paradise." His biographer sliows 
 us, that he made a point of having a residence 
 of this kind. He lived as near as he could to 
 the wood-side and the fields, like liis fellow- 
 patriot, M. Berangcr, who would have been 
 the Andrew IMarvell of those times, and 
 adorned iiis great friend as the other did, or 
 like his Mirth (I'Allegro) visiting his Melan- 
 choly. 
 
 And liear beloved Cowley, quiet and plea- 
 sant as the sound in his trees : — " I never had 
 any other desire so strong, and so like to co- 
 vetousness, as that one wliich I have had 
 always, — that I might be muster at last of a 
 sinaJl house and Innje garden, with very mo- 
 derate conveniences joined to them, and there 
 dedicate the remainder of my life only to the 
 culture of them, and study of nature ; and 
 tliere, with no design beyond my wall. 
 
 ' whole and entire to lie, 
 In no unactive ease, and no vmglorious povertj-.' " 
 
 The Garden. 
 " I confess," says he, in another essay (on 
 Greatness), "I love littleness almost in all 
 things, — a little convenient estate, a little 
 cheerful house, a little company, and a very 
 little feast ; and if ever I were to fall in love 
 again (which is a great passion, and therefore 
 I hope I have done witii it), it would be, I 
 think, with prettiness, rather tiian with majes- 
 tical beauty." 
 
 (What charming writing ! — how charming 
 as writing, as well as thinking ! and charming 
 in both respects, because it possesses the only 
 real perfection of either, — truth of feeling). 
 
 Cowley, to be sure, got such a house as be 
 wanted "at last," and was not so hapjjy in it 
 as he expected to be ; but then it was because 
 he did only get it " at last" when he was grow- 
 ing old, and was in bad health. Neitlier might 
 he have ever been so happy in such a place as 
 he supposed (blest are tlie poets, surely, in en- 
 joying happiness even in imagination !) yet he 
 would have been less comfortable in a house 
 less to his taste. 
 
 Dryden lived in a house in Gerrard-street 
 (then almost a suburb), looking, at the back, 
 into the gardens of Leicester House, the man- 
 sion of the Sidneys. Pope had a nest at 
 Twickenham, much smaller than the fine 
 house since built upon the site ; and TJioniKon 
 another at Richmond, consisting only of the 
 ground-floor of the present house. Everybody 
 knows what a rural house Cowper lived in. 
 Shenstone's was but a tarm adorned, and his 
 bad health unfortunately hindered him from 
 enjoying it. He married a house and grounds, 
 poor man ! instead of a wife ; which was 
 being very " one-sided " in his poetry — and 
 he found them more expensive than I\[iss Dol- 
 man would iiave been. He had better have 
 taken poor Maria first, and got a few domestic 
 cares of a handsome sort, to keep him alive 
 and moving. Slost of the living poets are 
 dwellers in cottages, except JNIr. Rogers, wlio 
 is rich, and has a mansion, looking on one of 
 the parks ; but there it does look — upon griu«3 
 and trees. He will have as much nature with 
 his art as he can get. Next to a cottage of tiie 
 most comfortable order, we should prefer, for 
 our parts, if we must have servants and a 
 household, one of tliose good old mansions of 
 the Tudor age, or some such place, which 
 looks like a sort of cottage-palace, and is full 
 of old corners, old seats in the windows, and 
 old memories. The servants, in such a case, 
 would probably have grown old in one's fa- 
 mily, and become friends ; and this makes a 
 great difference in the possible comfort of a 
 great house. It gives it old family warmth. 
 
 F 2
 
 C8 
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 . LXIL— A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 (a FRAGMliNT.) 
 
 A KiuEND*aiul myself found ourselves, one 
 showery Au<];ust afternoon, sittinj,' at the White 
 Horse in riccadilly, tlie sole oeeupants of the 
 inside of an Oxford coach, and Iveepiiifi; such 
 grave faces as sickness could help us to, in 
 resistance of the almost unbearahle tendency 
 to lau<,di, jiroduced by the crowd of fruit- 
 sellers, pencil-men, pocket-book tlirusters iuto 
 your face, and other urgent jihilanthropists, 
 who cannot conceive it possible how you can 
 stir from London, unprovided from their espe- 
 cial stocks. 
 
 We confess we have a regard for these men, 
 owing to their excessive energy, and the loud- 
 ness with which they pursue the interests of 
 their wives and families. We stand it out as 
 long as we can ; perhaps buy notiiing, — out of 
 a secret admiration of what we seem to be dis- 
 liking, and a sense of maintaining au honour- 
 able contest,— they with their tongues, and we 
 with our faces, which we keep fixed on some 
 object foreign to the matter in luuul (tlie only 
 way), and pretend to liold in a state of indif- 
 ference, from which there is no hope. If we 
 buy nothing, our conscience absolutely twinges 
 us ; and yet how could we moi-e lionourably 
 treat an honourable enemy ? He clearly thinks 
 it a matter of vigour and perseverance, — a 
 regular battle : we take him at his word, and 
 won't at all juirchase. His object is to thrust 
 his oranges into our pockets ; ours, to keep 
 our money there ; his, to be loud, importu- 
 nate, and successful ; ours, to be still, insijiid- 
 looking, and of course successful also. We 
 respect him so niucli, that we must needs main- 
 tain his respect for ourselves; and how are we 
 to do this if we give in ? He will think us weak 
 fellows, — chaps that can't resist ; so we do not 
 care twopence for his wife and family, but en- 
 trench ourselves in a malignant benevolence 
 towards our own. Orainjcry begins at home. 
 But tiie only sure way is to fix your eyes on 
 some other j)oint, and say nothing. It is a 
 battle won on your part by an intensity of 
 indifference. You must not even look as if 
 you disputed. You must fix your eyes on a shop 
 window ; or on vacancy ; or on the wonian wlio 
 is waiting for her liu.sljand ; or the bundle which 
 the other is hugging ; or the dog wlio has just 
 had a kick in the mouth, and is licking it with 
 sedentary pliilosophy in a corner, looking at 
 thesame time about him ; or you may watch the 
 gentleman's fiice who lias come iialf an hour too 
 soon, but is afraid to go into a liouse to wait. If 
 you look at your assailants, you only increase 
 the vociferation ; if you smile, they think you 
 iialf won ; if you object to the price, it is all 
 
 * Tlie late Mr. Egerton Webbe. Alas ; (that wo should 
 •0 soon, and unexpectedly, be forced to say " late ! ") 
 
 over with you. Let your smile be internal, 
 and vour suiieriority immense and iu)t to be 
 reached. J^et tliem say to themselves, " That 
 fellow must be a magistrate, or an inspector 
 of police." 
 
 At length, a sudden bustle, and some creak- 
 ing evidences on tlie ])art of the coach, an- 
 nounce that you are about to set off. Trunks 
 lumber and " Hop" over head ; all the outside 
 passengers are seated ; the box and its steps 
 feel the weight of the ascending charioteer, as 
 tlu' axle-trees of tlioir cars groaned under the 
 gods of Homer ; an unknown individual touches 
 his hat, informing you that he has " seen to 
 the things ;" hasty anxieties are expressed for 
 the box— the iiortinanteau- the carpet-bag ; 
 "all's right;" a kind domestic face is taken 
 leave of with a moist eye (don't let any but the 
 sick, or the very masculine, know it) ; and off 
 we start, rattling Avith ponderous dance over 
 the stones of Piccadilly. 
 
 We have never seen a description of the 
 iniuh. of a coach. It is generally too much 
 occupied to be thought of, except as a collec- 
 tion of fellow-pass(;ngers. In the present 
 instance we had it all to ourselves, and could 
 reconnoitre it — nobody, in summer-time, ever 
 thinking, it seems, of going inside, except in 
 cases of illness, and then very seldom ; parti- 
 cularly if it is a wet night, and the "young 
 woman" is to be sent down cheaply to Guinea 
 Lodge. A mail-coach, in summer-time, may 
 be defined, — a hollow box with people outside 
 of it. For upwards of two hundred miles we 
 had a series of coaches nearly all to our two 
 selves, as if each of them had been a private 
 carriage. We lounged in them, we changed 
 corners, we put our legs up, and got ac- 
 quainted with every part and particle of their 
 accommodation. It is a tight kind of half- 
 soft, half-hard thing,— is the inside of a coach ; 
 more hard than soft ; not quite so convenient 
 as it looks ; " more No than Yes," as the Ita- 
 lian said. The tigiit grey drugget looks com- 
 pact and not uncomfortable, yet does not invite 
 your liead-ache to rest against it. The pockets 
 seem as if they ought to contain more than 
 tlu-y do ; the pair of shoes won't go tpiite in. 
 The floor lias neither carpet nor straw ; nor is 
 it quite even ; and the places to put things in 
 under the seat, are apt to baffle your attempts, 
 if the things are at all large ; and you do not 
 want them for trifles. If you put your gloves, 
 or a few books on the seat, in a few minutes 
 you find them gone off upon the floor. The 
 drugget is occasionally varied with gay co- 
 lours ; and tlie windows are generally good, — 
 jiuUing up and down with facility. In short, 
 tiiere is a show of liberality, in which you 
 speedily discern a aJcmpintj saving, — the same 
 spirit which spoils the building of modern 
 houses as well as coaches. The old coaches, 
 we may be certain, were larger and more ge- 
 nerous, though they made less pretension, and
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 G9 
 
 went at a snail's pace in the comparison. We 
 like "coaching" it, for our own parts, and 
 should have been well content to live upon 
 the road, in those patient antiques, instead of 
 getting on at the present rate, and being im- 
 patient to arrive at some town, where we shall 
 pei'haps be equally restless. Not tliat we are 
 insensible to the pleasure of driving fast. We 
 like that too : it stirs the blood, and gives a 
 sense of power ; but everything is a little too 
 smu<j and hasty at present, and business-like, 
 as though we were to be eternally getting on, 
 and never realizing anything but fidget and 
 money, — the means instead of the end. We 
 are truly in a state of transition, — of currency, 
 rather : and thank Heaven, we are, and that 
 it is transition only. Heaven forefend that 
 the good planet should stop where it is, — at a 
 ^lanchester millennium ! 
 
 And we cannot take thoroughly to the 
 modern, and we hope, transitory coachman, 
 compared with the humbler pretensions of his 
 predecessor. We acknowledge his improve- 
 ment in some respects. He wears gloves ; has 
 cleaner linen, and an opinion of himself ; and 
 is called " Sir" by the ostlers. He gathers the 
 reins in his hands with a sort of half-gentility, 
 — a certain retinence and composure of bear- 
 ii'g ; and gives answers in the style of a man 
 who is not to be too much troubled, — a part- 
 proprietor, — or, for aught we know, corn- 
 cliandlcr, and cousin to Squire Jenks himself, 
 who in less knowing times was called Farmer 
 Jenks. He knows what belongs to the Diffu- 
 sion of Coaches. You doubt, notwithstanding 
 his red face, whether he could ever get in a 
 passion and swear ; till somebody bringing his 
 authority into question, out comes the long- 
 suppressed, natural, gin-drinking man of many 
 weathers. Peace be to him, poor fellow ! and 
 a fit of illness tliat shall stop his drinking in 
 time. 
 
 After all, however, our coach was a very 
 good coach, and the coachmen as good also — 
 for aught tiiat we recollect to the contrary. 
 We are painting from the race in general. — 
 We liad the inside, as we said before, all to 
 ourselves ; we had books, rapidity, fresh air, 
 and one another's comjiany. (iood-natured 
 Cowley was with ns, in the Khai>c of his de- 
 lightful volume of Kssays ; Parnell, Shenstone, 
 and others, not taxing the faculties over- 
 niuch, but good, chatting, inn-loving men ; 
 some Shakspeare, fit for all jilaccs, especially 
 for one to which we were bound ; a bit of 
 Cjreek Anthology ; some extracts from Jilack- 
 wood, Fraser, Tait, and the New ]\Ionthly, 
 chiefly consisting of deligiitful chat ujjou j)oets 
 (of which more by and by) ; and a curious 
 volume, little known, of miscellaneous prose 
 by Armstrong, in which one of thobest-natured 
 men that ever lived, appears to be one of the 
 most caustic and querulous. 
 
 All these books and papers kept sliding 
 
 every now and then from tlie seats, and set us 
 laughing. The air Mas delightfully fresh and 
 moist ; the bits of black earth, spun up by the 
 coach-wheels, danced merrily by the windows. 
 We passed Hyde Park Corner, famous for 
 Pope's going to school ; Knightsbridge, where 
 Steele made Savage write the pamphlet that 
 was to pay for their dinner ; and are come in 
 sight of Kensington, and Mrs. Inchbald's 
 privacy, — a i)ublic-house. 
 
 But we must here give the reader breatn, — • 
 requesting his company with us next week. 
 
 LXIII.— A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 CONTINUED. > 
 
 "Life has few things better than this," said 
 Dr. Johnson, on feeling himself settled in a 
 coach, and rolling along the road. 
 
 " The pleasure, is complete, sir," said Bos- 
 well ; thinlving to echo the sentiment of his 
 illustrious friend, and leave no doubt about 
 it. 
 
 '• Why, no, sir," returned the Doctor, who 
 did not choose to be too much agreed with, 
 Bosicellically : — " you have to arrive some- 
 where ; — there is to be an end of the pleasure. 
 Sir, you have a melancholy anticipation." 
 
 We quote from memory, — probably with little 
 justice to what was really said j but such was 
 the gist of it. We confess we did not think 
 with Johnson in the present instance ; for the 
 friends we had left behind us, an'd the friends 
 we were going to see, are both better things to 
 live with, than the fact of being on the I'oad ; 
 and our health was not good enough to render 
 the intermediate state of existence a perfect 
 one. But where the circumstances are all 
 favourable, or the change merely good for its 
 own sake, we do thoroughly hold wiUi the 
 doctor, that few things in life are better than 
 rolling along in a coach at your ease, looking 
 out upon novelty, and feeling lord of your 
 place and time. And as to the melancholy of 
 ari-iving somewhere, it has often struck us how 
 iniwise it is, in pcoi)le not bound ujion any 
 journey's end more attractive than ordinary, 
 to be in so much haste to reach there. People 
 must exist somewhere ; and where better (except 
 with dear friends) than in the midst of scenes 
 of nature, in fresh air, and in any easy state of 
 movement i To be borne along, with no tjou- 
 ble, and yet without conipulsiou or mere 
 l)assiveness, and with a sense of the j)ower of 
 commanding what you enjoy, is surely a 
 pleasurable state of being, both for body and 
 mind. Let the reader nestle himself uj) in a 
 corner of the coacii, with liis arms folded, and 
 thorough room for his legs, — and fancy it. 
 I'orhaps he shuts his eyes, and a balmy air
 
 70 
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 comes breathing on the lids, while his body is 
 carried jovially aloni,'— jolted a little, occa- 
 sionally, inthoHt joltinp, — wafted over tlie tine 
 English roads, now dasliing at the hill, now 
 going gentlier down it; spinning along a per- 
 fect level, or gently di])ping into a bit of an 
 undulation, and so up again, just enough to 
 bend his tliin a little closer, and remind him 
 how smoothly the carriage is hung. 
 
 Verily an English stage coach is a fine thing, 
 and they do nut " order tiiese matters better in 
 France." What we miss of our lively neigh- 
 bours, when the coach has strangers in it, is 
 their sociability ; but when a couple of friends 
 have the inside to themselves, as was the case 
 in our instance, what more can be desired ? 
 No wonder the S})anish gentlenuin, when he 
 saw such an equipage at his door, with its 
 handsome horses instead of mules, its compact 
 and comfortable self, its nice leather reins (not 
 ropes, as they have in the south), its respectful 
 and resjjcctahle coachman, and the royal arms 
 to boot on the panels, thought he had been 
 provided by Government with the carriage of 
 one of its nobles ; and found it especially diifi- 
 cult to be convinced to the contrary, when he 
 was seated in all its luxury, and smoothly 
 scudding for London at the rate of ten miles 
 an hour. 
 
 But to resume our setting out. — Since writ- 
 ing our last, we had reason to believe that we 
 had been misinformed respecting the site of 
 Mrs. Inchbald's sequestered retirement, the 
 public-house ; and, on consulting her Memoirs 
 by Mr. Boaden, we find that it was in the 
 other Kensington road, — the one from Oxford 
 Street,— at No. I, St. George's Terrace, near the 
 chapel where Sterne lies. "We have been told, 
 that somebody asking her how she came to 
 lodge at a public-house, she said, with great 
 apparent simplicity, perhaps to mystify the 
 inquirer, "They had very good beer there." 
 We take this opportunity of observing, that 
 when we speak jestingly of this abode, we do 
 it out of no disrespect to the memory of this 
 excellent woman and admirable writer. She 
 was an original in conduct as well as in writ- 
 ing, liut all in a true and superior, not affected 
 or mean spirit. She lived at a public-house 
 because it was cheap, and had a good prospect ; 
 and she lived cheaply, because she gave her 
 money away to poor friends and rehitions. 
 She would pass a winter without a fire, the 
 want of which she sometimes felt so as to 
 make her " cry with cold," in order to be 
 able to afford one to an ailing sister. O 
 true Christian, and noble creature ! Thy 
 love of superiority was full of heart ! An- 
 gels, if angels could suffer, might so suffer 
 for us, and be above us ; and what was 
 wanting in our pity, we should supjdy with 
 love. 
 
 Luckily we do not lose sight of Mrs. Incli- 
 hald on this road. If her public-house was 
 
 not where we su]iposed it, her last lodging- 
 houses were at Kensington, and her last home, 
 on this side heaven. But we siiall come there 
 I)resently. 
 
 We have passed Knightsbridge, once a ter- 
 rible lonely jjlace, of cut-throat reputation — 
 and the " Cannon Brewery" (whicii an accom- 
 plished Spanish acquaintance of ours, on his 
 coming into England, noted in his pocket- 
 book, as presenting a curious specimen of 
 English parlance, supi)osing that the casting 
 of cannon was called hreubig them), and tiie 
 barracks, where tall dragoons are seen dis- 
 coursing with little women ; and have come 
 into Kensington Gore, with Hyde rark 
 again. 
 
 Hyde Park is associated with the reviews 
 and the duels of latter generations ; Kensing- 
 ton Gardens, with their Court beauties and 
 Sunday visiters ; and the palace and suburb, 
 witli tJie Court itself, or some connexion of 
 royalty, and with Court wits and others. Gray 
 came liere to try to get rid of his last sickness ; 
 and here Ai-buthnot lodged at one time, and 
 Swift. 
 
 We have been thinking of Courts and gay 
 gardens, and had forgotten the church and its 
 graves ; and a shadow suddenly falls upon us 
 in approaching it, reminding us of a melan- 
 choly portion of one of the most painful parts 
 of our life. But a small angel sits smiling at 
 us through it, with eyes earnest beyond its 
 infancy ; and we are rebuked by its better 
 knowledge, and resume our patience, willingly 
 admitting a new relief that has been lately 
 afforded us, by learning that Mrs. Inchbald 
 lies in the same spot. It seems as if any kind 
 of innocence both received and imparted a 
 grace, from its juxta-position with such a 
 woman. For her genius and fame are, of 
 course, not what we are thinking of on the 
 occasion ; it is the fitness of the greater angel 
 for sleeping by the side of the less. Mrs. 
 Inchbald was very fond of Kensington. She 
 resided there, or in the neighbourliood, during 
 the last ten or twelve years of her life ; first 
 at Turnhani-green ; then in St. George's-row 
 (as above mentioned) ; then at No. 4, Earl's- 
 l)lace, ojiposite Holland House ; then in Leo- 
 nard's-place ; then in Sloane-street (at No. 
 148) ; and, lastly, in Kensington House, a 
 Catholic boarding-establishment, where she 
 died. She was fond of Kensington for its 
 healtliiness, its retirement, its trees and pro- 
 spects, its Catholic accommodations (for she 
 was a liberal believer of that church)— but not 
 least, we suspect, for a reason wliich Mr. 
 Boaden's interesting biography has not men- 
 tioned — namely, the interment in Kensington 
 church-yard, of the eminent jihysician. Dr. 
 Warren, for whom, in her thirty-eighth year, 
 and in the twelfth year of a widowjiood graced 
 by genius, beauty, and refusals of other mar- 
 riages, she entertained a secret affection, so
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 71 
 
 young and genuine, that she would walk up 
 and down Sackville-street, where he lived, 
 purely to get a glimpse of the light in his 
 window. Her heart was so excellent, and 
 accustomed to live on aspirations so noble, 
 that we have not the least doubt this was 
 one of her great ties to Kensington, and 
 that she looked forward, with sometliing 
 of an angelical delight to the hour when 
 she should repose in the earth, near the 
 friend whose abode she could not partake 
 while living. 
 
 We beg the reader to pardon a digression 
 longer than we shall usually indulge in, for 
 the sake of the feelings of gratitude and ad- 
 miration just re-excited in us by a perusal of 
 the life of this extraordinary woman, the 
 authoress of some of the most amusing comedy 
 and pathetic narrative in the language : a 
 reformer, abhorring violence ; a candid con- 
 fessor of her own faults, not in a pick-thank 
 and deprecating style, but honest and heart- 
 felt (for they hurt her craving for symjja- 
 thy) ; an admirable kinswoman and friend 
 nevertheless, — most admirable, as we have 
 just seen ; the creator of the characters of 
 "Dorriforth" and "Miss Milman ;" and the 
 writer of a book ('Nature and Art') which 
 a woman, worthy to have been her friend, 
 put during his childhood into the hands 
 of the writer of these pages : to the no 
 small influence, he believes, of opinions which 
 he afterwards aspired to advocate, however 
 imperfectly he may have proved his right to 
 do so. 
 
 Dr. Warren, a man as good as he was intel- 
 ligent, is in the recollection of many. We 
 have heard, from a lady who remembers him, 
 that he was a very gentlemanly man, with all 
 the wise suavity of the genuine physician — 
 not of a healthy complexion, but with very 
 fiiie eyes. And we learn from another, that 
 his searching and refined look, his professional 
 skill, his power to attach affection, and, alas ! 
 his delicacy of health, are hereditary in the 
 name. 
 
 Truly, love keeps one a long while lingering 
 at the door ; and we shall never get on witli 
 our journey at this rate. 
 
 We must begin again next week, and 7)iove 
 faster 
 
 LXIV.— A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 Holland House and its memories — Formal new buildings 
 in the roads near London— New public-houses inferior to 
 the old ones — Hammersmith and its legend, &c. — Turn- 
 ham Green— Passages from Gay and the ' JMayor of Gar- 
 rat* — Brentford — Cavaliers and Puritans — Sion Hous&— 
 Osterley Park — A halt at an Inn-door. 
 
 The traveller, in passing Holland House, 
 must try to get as long a glimpse of it as ho 
 can ; and if he has any fancy, and is a reader, 
 the old house will glow to him like a painted 
 window. Visions of wits and beauties will 
 flash upon his eyes, from the times of Eliza- 
 beth and James the First, down to this present 
 November 1835, — with more, we trust, to 
 come. Perhaps there has not been a set of 
 men, eminent in their day, who, for the most 
 part, have not visited at that house. It was 
 built by the Cope family in 1607 ; then pos- 
 sessed by the Earl of Holland, one of the fa- 
 vourites of Charles the First's wife, Henrietta 
 Maria ; then by the Commonwealth, whose 
 General, Fairfax, made it his head-quarters on 
 one occasion ; then by the Holland family 
 again, through whom, by his marriage with the 
 Countess of Warwick and Holland, it became 
 the residence of Addison, wlio died there ; 
 then by a descendant of the family, who sold 
 it to Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and 
 it has since remained in the possession of his 
 successors. Here Charles Fox spent his child- 
 hood with a good-natured father, who helped 
 him to remain something of a child all his life, 
 — the luckiest thing that can happen to a great 
 man. Here, in all probability^ visited the 
 Sucklings and Lady Carlisles, of the time of 
 Charles the First ; — here the Buckinghams of 
 the two Charleses, with all the wits of those 
 days ;— here certainly, Steele and his fellow 
 associates of Addison : — here Walpole, and 
 llanbury Williams, and the beauties of the 
 liichmond and other families ; — here the Jef- 
 freys, Burkes and Shei'ixlans ; — and here the 
 Broughams, Byrons, Rogerses, Campbells, 
 Thomas Moores, and all the other Wiiig ge- 
 nius of the present age, attracted by the con- 
 genial abilities and the flowing hospitality of 
 the biographer of Lope de Vega, — a true ne- 
 phew of Charles Fox, — a nobleman gracing, 
 and helping to secure his oi'der, because lie 
 8yni[)atliiscs witii all ranks. We never pass 
 Holland House (and we ])ass it often, and often 
 look up at it from its gate) without wishing a 
 blessing and long life to the man, whose pos- 
 session of so fair a i)lace it is not in the natuie 
 of the pooi'est lionest num to grudge him*. 
 
 And the house is worth looking at, too, foe 
 its own sake. It is a curious specimen of the 
 
 * While revising this sheet for the press, we bav<< to 
 
 lament the death of this most genial and excellent man, tl'u 
 delight of all who knew him. and the friend of the world.
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 style of aicliitectiire in the reign of Elizabeth 
 and James ; and, to our feelings, not less com- 
 fortable-looking tlian curious — for it gives one 
 the idea of a multitude of snug, straggling 
 rooms, situated in all sorts of corners and stair- 
 cases ; and there is a noble library, be sure; 
 besides plenty of family and other pictures. 
 
 Adieu to snug, old, i)ictures«iue Holland 
 House, with its hundred visions from the win- 
 dows ; for we must push on. The worst of the 
 roads near London is, that for a long while 
 you seem to be neither in London nor in the 
 country. You think you have got into the 
 latter, when some long formal row of houses, 
 some •' Prospect Place," or " Paradise Row," 
 — or, worse than that, some spick and span ' 
 new, yellow-brick set, convinces you to the 
 contrary ; and the Paradise Row perhajis has 
 no gardens, and the Prospect Place no pro- 
 spect. Paradise Row was doubtless Paradise 
 once ; but the Adam and Eve have been driven 
 out by the taste of bricklaying ; and Prosi)ect 
 Place had a " view," till " Smith's Terrace," or 
 some such interloper, came sidling in front of it 
 with forty new tenements, and impudently de- 
 prived it of the beatific vision of its cow-field. 
 What we particularly hate in the new build- 
 ings about London, is the re-built or furbished- 
 up public-houses. They think themselves very 
 fine, with their new, flat faces, and their golden 
 letters on blue grounds ; and the pcojde have 
 doubtless got a lift in the world, and are 
 mighty "respectable-like," and serious, and 
 disagreeable ; or else, they are at their wit's 
 end to pay for the finery, and drink and swear 
 worse than Tom Dykes over the way, whose 
 wife died a month after she had had a battle 
 with him. Perhaps, to mend the matter, they 
 cut down the tree in front. The place then 
 becomes all as flat as need be, and worth no- 
 body's looking at, except a bricklayer's. No- 
 body wishes to stop at it except the mere 
 drinker, or the mere man of business ; and he 
 is for getting on as fast as possible, as he well 
 may ; for what is the use of his stopping any- 
 where ? For our parts, give us the good, old, 
 snug, picturesque public-house, which had, and 
 in remoter jdaces still has, the gi'eat tree be- 
 fore it, with a bench, and the old swinging 
 sign, that sings or creaks in the winds on win- 
 ter-nights, and the landlord, not above nor 
 below iiis respectable calling, — hearty as the 
 puncli-bowl in his window, and clean as his 
 sanded floor. We have touched upon the in- 
 terior of such a house in the first article of our 
 journey ; and we never pass its outside without 
 thinking what a picture it makes, and how 
 well it would look in a picture. But what has 
 the " Jollv Gardener," or the " Shepherd and 
 Shepherdess, " or the " Bull, " or " Robin 
 Hood," or the "Hand and Flower," or the 
 "Angel," or the " Maiden's Head," to do with 
 a gi'eat, flat-faced, commercial, dusty road, and 
 rows of new houses ? May a devil's blessing 
 
 (as the philanthropist said) light on those who 
 do not endeavour (like proper reformers, as 
 ire are) to bring the new beautifully out of the 
 old, and thus to retain what is good, while 
 they are making things better ! 
 
 IJut we are anticii)ating, for we are not to 
 halt yet ; we have not got far enough. We 
 pass the lane turning to Acton, on the right 
 hand, and to Fulham on the left, and are in 
 Hammersmith, famous for its gliost, and its 
 suspension bridge, and the abode of Richard- 
 son. Here is also a convent of Nuns, a rare 
 sight in England, especially so near the metro- 
 polis. They are of the order of Benedictines ; 
 nay, we believe, of the branch of Visitandincs, 
 — the s.ame that were so scandalized at the 
 worldly knowledge of their famous parrot, ^''erf- 
 Vert, yet coidd not find it in their good hearts 
 to detest him. (See Giurres de Gressct, or the 
 translations in various collections of poetry, — 
 or in ' Eraser's Magazine' a few months back.) 
 W"e have met with a legend somewhere, re- 
 sjjecting the origin of the name of Hammer- 
 smith which relates, that two gigantic sisters 
 residing there built the churches at Putney 
 and Fulham, and that they threw over to one 
 another, as they wanted it, across the river, a 
 stupendous hammer. It is a i)ity when a name 
 of obvious solution puts an end even to the 
 most improbable fiction. Hammersmith was 
 evidently the abode of some country black- 
 smith in old time, and probably consisted of 
 this solitary shop, the first that was met with 
 on the high-road going from Loudon. 
 
 The person, whoever he was, that played 
 the part of a ghost in this village some years 
 back, and was the occasion of an innocent 
 man's being shot, has probably repented of his 
 foolish prank. The length and bitterness of 
 his regret, by this time, will have earned him 
 a right to forgive himself. 
 
 We have mentioned that Mrs. Inchbald once 
 resided at Turnham Green, the next place 
 from Hammersmith. It is famous for the 
 blunder attributed to Goldsmith about the bad 
 peas. He had heard tlio joke about taking 
 them from Hammersmith " to turn^em ijreen ;" 
 and is said, in repeating it, to have substituted 
 the words " make 'em green'''' for " turn 'em." On 
 coming from Kensington, you catch views of 
 Harrow on the Hill, where Garth lies ; and 
 betwixt Hammersmith and Brentford, you 
 look on the right towards Acton, where Lady 
 Wortley Montagu lived, and Ealing, Avhere 
 her cousin Fielding once resided. Gay has 
 mentioned this road, in his epistle to the Earl 
 of Burlington, entitled a ' Journey to Exeter.' 
 " 'While you, my lord, bid stiitcly piles ascend, 
 
 (Burlington House, in Piccadilly, which we 
 have passed, was one of his building) 
 
 Or in your Chiswick bowers enjoy your friend, 
 (Chiswick lies a mile out of the road to the 
 left, as you enter Turnham Green)
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 79 
 
 Where Pope unloads the boughs within his reach, 
 The purple vine, blue plum, and blushing peach, 
 I journey far. — You knew fat bards might tire. 
 And, mounted, sent me forth, your trusty squire. 
 
 'Twas on the day when city dames repair 
 To take their weekly dose of Hyde Park air. 
 When forth we trot : no carts the road infest. 
 For still on Sundays country horses rest. 
 
 (Except when tliey are used for chaises and 
 other vehicles.) 
 
 Thy gardens, Kensington, we leave unseen, 
 Through Hammersmitli jog on to Turnham Green ; 
 That Turnham Green, which dainty pigeons fed, 
 But feeds no more ; for Solomon is dead ; 
 
 (Solomon was a breeder of pigeons ;) 
 
 Three dusty miles reach Brentford's tedious town. 
 For dirty streets and white-legged chickens known." 
 
 But Foote has blown the finest nioclv- 
 heroical trumpet in celebration of this district, 
 in his famous banter upon the city-militia. 
 The passage is very ludicrous ; so the reader 
 shall have it as he goes in his coach : for be- 
 sides those who at present accompany our- 
 selves, we hope these papers may be taken 
 with them by some other readers by and by, 
 who happen to go the same road. 
 
 "Sir Jacob. "Well, Major, our wars are 
 done ; the rattling drum and squeaking fife now 
 wound our ears no more. 
 
 Major Sturgeon. True, Sir Jacob ; our corps 
 is disembodied ; so the French may sleep in 
 security. 
 
 Sir J. But, Major, was it not rather late in 
 life for you to enter upon the profession of 
 arms ? 
 
 Major S. A little awkward in the beginning, 
 Sir Jacob : the great difficulty they had was to 
 get me to turn out my toes : but use, use re- 
 conciles all them kind of things : why, after 
 my first campaign, I no more minded the noise 
 of the guns than a flea-bite. 
 
 Sir J. No ! 
 
 Major S. No. There is more made of these 
 matters than they merit. For the general 
 good, indeed, I am glad of the peace ; but as 
 to my single self, — and yet we have had some 
 desperate duty, Sir Jacob. 
 
 Sir J. No doubt. 
 
 Major S. Oh ! such marchings and counter- 
 marchings, from r>rentford to Ealing, from 
 Ealing to Acton, from Acton to Uxbridge ; the 
 dust flying — sun scorching — men sweating ! — 
 Why there was our last expedition to Ilouns- 
 low ; that day's work carried off Major 
 Molasses. Bunhill-fields never saw a braver 
 commander. He was an irreparable loss to 
 the service 
 
 Sir J. How came that about ? 
 
 Major S. Why, it was partly the Major's own 
 fault; I advised him to pull off liis spurs be- 
 fore he went upon action ; but he was resolute, 
 and would not be ruled. 
 
 Sir J. Spirit ; zeal for the service. 
 
 Major S. Doubtless. But to proceed : in 
 order to get our men in good spirits, we were 
 quartered at Thistleworth the evening before. 
 At day-break, our regiment formed at Houns- 
 low town's end, as it might be about here. 
 The major made a fine disposition : on we 
 marched, the men all in high spirits, to attack 
 the gibbet where Gardel is hanging ; but turn- 
 ing down a narrow lane to the left, as it might 
 be about there, in order to possess a pig-sty, 
 that we might take the gallows in flank, and, 
 at all events, secure a retreat, who should 
 come by but a drove of fat oxen from Smith- 
 field ! The drums beat in the front, the dogs 
 barked in the rear, the oxen set up a gallop ; 
 on they came thundering Tipon tis, broke 
 through our ranks in an instant, and threw 
 the whole corps into confusion. 
 
 Sir J. Terrible ! 
 
 Major S. The major's horse took to - his 
 heels ; away he scoured o'er the heath. That 
 gallant commander stuck both his spurs into 
 his flank, and, for some time, held by his 
 mane ; but in crossing a ditch, the horse threw 
 up his head, gave the major a douse in the 
 chops, and plumped him into a gravel-pit, just 
 by the powder-mills. 
 
 Sir J. Dreadful ! 
 
 Major S. Whether from the fall or the fright, 
 the major moved off in a month. Indeed, it 
 was an unfortunate day for us all. 
 
 Sir J. As how ? 
 
 Major S, Wliy, as Captain Cucumber, Lieut. 
 Pattypan, Ensign Tripe, and myself, were re- 
 turning to town in the Turnham Green stage, 
 we were stopped near the Hammersmith turn- 
 pike, and robbed and stripped by a single foot- 
 pad." 
 
 This is very laughable ; but whatever may 
 be the airs occasionally given themselves bv 
 civic heroes, their actual service in the field 
 has proved itself to be no joke ; as poor Charles 
 the First found to his cost, and in this very 
 spot. In an encounter with the London forces, 
 Prince Rupert left 800 cavaliers dead upon 
 Turnham Green ; and in the subsequent en- 
 gagement at Brentford, the same gentlemen, 
 according to a paniplilet issued by the 
 Puritans, said "God damn them! the devil 
 was in their powder."* We are the more 
 willing to vindicate the dignity of tiiese our 
 warlike suburbs, because, to "own the soft 
 impeachment," we " ourself," when time was, 
 have been a gallant volunteer, doing dreadful 
 " field-day " in the same neighbourhood, and 
 tearing loaves out of bakers' baskets, and spig- 
 gots out of the barrels in beer-cellars, in the 
 
 •* " A true relation of the biittail at Brentford, the 12th 
 of >?ovcniber, between his IMnjesty's .army and the Parlia- 
 ment army; and Iiow the cavaliers swore God damn theni, 
 tlie devil was in their powder." Title of a pamphlet in 
 the British Jhisium, mentioned by Lysons, in his " JOn- 
 vii'ons of London." We have forgotten to refer to the paK"e 
 and volume.
 
 7i 
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 very rage of hunger and thirst, and lawless 
 canipaiguing. 
 
 Between Brentford and Ealing, Lysons in- 
 forms us, tliat elephants' bones and siniihir 
 phenomena liave Ijeen dug uji, — evidences of a 
 former state of climate in this quarter of tiie 
 world, when our jjlanet was toasting a different 
 cheek at the sun. 
 
 The celebrated engagement between tlie 
 King's and Parliament's forces took place at 
 the soutii-west of Brentford, near Sion House. 
 A Sunday intervened ; and it is said, tliat the 
 quantity of " victuals" sent out from London, 
 to feed the worthy city belligerents, was im- 
 mense. 
 
 Tliis town takes its name from the little 
 river Brent, which helps to give such a pretty 
 luolc to the entrance of the village of Hendon. 
 Fuller speaks of a gardener living here at the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, who, at 
 seventy-six years of age, could afford, in tlie 
 course of three days, to lose more than sixty 
 ounces of blood, to cure him of an inflamma- 
 tion of the lungs ; which it did — "a most emi- 
 nent instance," adds lie, " against those who 
 endeavour to prove the decay of the world, 
 because men cannot spare so much by blood- 
 letting as in former ages." 
 
 Siou House was originally a Bridgetine con- 
 vent, in wliich monks and nuns lived under 
 the same roof, thou^^h in separate cloisters. 
 At the dissohition of the monasteries, by Henry 
 the Eighth, it was very ill spoken of ; not the 
 less periiaps for being accused of siding witli 
 his antagonist, the Maid of Kent. Katharine 
 Howard was confined in this house before her 
 execution. Queen ^lary made Sir Henry 
 Sidney (Sir Philip's fatlier) keeper of the 
 Parks and Woods ; and after being again ino- 
 nasticized, and again dissolved, Elizabeth 
 gave the estate to the Nortliumberland family, 
 with whom it has since remained. The Sac- 
 charissa of Waller (Dorothy Sidney, a grand- 
 daughter of Henry Earl of Northumberland,) 
 was born there. 
 
 Osterley House, the seat of tlie Jerseys, a 
 little further on, upon the other side of the 
 way, was built by tiie celebrated merchant, Sir 
 Tliomas Gresham. It was subsequently occu- 
 pied by Sir Edward Coke, by tiie Desmond fa- 
 mily, and by Sir William Waller, the Parlia- 
 mentary general ; and at the beginning of tlio 
 last century, became the })roporty of Sir Fran- 
 cis Cliild, the banker, wliose descendants 
 brought it, by marriage, into the Jersey fa- 
 mily. Two curious stories are told of it ; one 
 by Fuller in iiis 'Worthies,' the other in the 
 Stratford Letters. The latter v/e cojiy from 
 Lysons, who relates them both ; but we prc^fer 
 hearing good, old, quaint, eloquent Fuller 
 speak for himself. 
 
 " Osterley House," says he, " now Sir Wil- 
 liam Waller's, must not be forgotten, built in 
 
 a park by Sir Thomas Gresham, who here 
 magnificently entertained and lodged Queen 
 Elizabeth. Her Majesty found fault with the 
 court of this house as too great, aitirming, 
 ' that it would ai)pear more liandsome, if di- 
 vided with a wall in the middle.' 
 
 " What doth Sir Thomas, but in the night- 
 time sends for workmen to London (money 
 commands all things,) who so speedily and 
 silently apply their business, that the next 
 morning discovered that court double, which 
 the night had left single before. It is ques- 
 tionable whether the Queen next day was 
 more contented with the conformity to her 
 fancy, or more pleased with the surprise and 
 sudden performance thereof ; whilst her cour- 
 tiers disported themselves with their several 
 expressions, some avowing it was no wonder 
 he could so soon change a buUdhiij who could 
 build a 'Clutnge ; others (reflecting on some 
 known differences in this Knight's family) 
 afiirmed, ' that any house is easier dickled than 
 united.' " * 
 
 The other story is thus quoted by Lysons 
 from the letters above-mentioned : — " Young 
 Desmond (says Mr. Garrard, writing to Lord 
 Wentworth), who married one of the co-heirs 
 of Sir Michael Stanh()])e, came one morning 
 to York House, where his wife had long lived 
 with the Duchess during his two years' ab- 
 sence beyond the seas, and hurried lier away, 
 half undressed, much against her will, into a 
 coach, and so carried her away into Leicester- 
 shire. At Brickhill he lodged, where she, in 
 the night, put herself into milkmaid's clothes, 
 and had likely to make her escape, but was 
 discovered. Madam Christian, whom your 
 Lordship knows, said, that my Lord of Des- 
 mond was the first that ever she beard of that 
 ran away Avith his own wife." 
 
 The case has often happened, where money 
 was concerned. The Countess afterwards 
 came to Osterley Park with her husband, and 
 bore him a numerous family. 
 
 It should have been mentioned, in justice to 
 Brentford, that we did not observe the "dirty 
 stre<>t'' in it mentioned by Gay. At least, the 
 High-street looked smart and comfortable. 
 All the thoroughfares in towns near London, 
 and indeed almost all that we saw of any con- 
 secpience in our journey, have wonderfully 
 jducked up, and smugged themselves of late 
 years. The communication which is now 
 grown so general between ail parts of the 
 country, renders all of them, in some measure, 
 like neighbours ; and what is done by one 
 town, for the sake of neatness and ascendancy, 
 gets done by another. You see a regular pave- 
 ment, smart London-looking shops, a circulat- 
 ing library, milliner's, watchmaker's, &c. ; and 
 the coach halts at a fine-looking inn, witli large 
 coach-yard, door, and other ap])urtenances, of 
 
 * ' Worthies of England,' vol. ii. 181 1, p. 45.
 
 A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 76 
 
 the newest town fashion ; out of which comes 
 a smart waiter or landloi'd, no more anxious 
 or civil in liis countenance than the waiter of 
 a well-to-do inn ought to he, and who does not 
 seem to care whether you lunch or not. Mean- 
 while " Miss," if she is pretty or well-dressed, 
 gives a look out at the threshold, with an eye 
 still more indifferent, and glancing everywhere 
 but at the faces she is thinking of. Passengers 
 descend, to stretch their legs for ten minutes, 
 the inside and out reconnoitring one another ; 
 the " young woman " remains by her bundle ; 
 the gentleman in the travelling-cap longs to 
 know where the gentleman in the shooting- 
 jacket is going, hut not having dined yet, has 
 not acquired confidence enough to sjieak ; and 
 the invalid gentleman eats a biscuit, — or ex- 
 tremely declines it. 
 
 LXV.— A JOURNEY BY COACH. 
 
 (FRAGMENT CONCLUDED.) 
 
 Coach-horses — What* do they think of the Coach? — 
 Hounslow, its Thieves and Gunpowder — Desideratum in 
 Fighting — The Wheat of Heston — Singular fertility of 
 Berkshire and Buckinghamshire in illustrious IMemories 
 — Extinction of the Highwayman. 
 
 Whe N a coach sets off again from its stoppage 
 at an inn-door, there is a sense of freshness and 
 re-commencement ; the inside passengers settle 
 themselves in their corners, or interchange legs, 
 or take a turn on the outside ; the outside 
 adjust themselves to their seats and their bits 
 of footing ; the young woman looks, for the 
 ninety-ninth time, to her box ; the coachman 
 is indifferent and scientific ; he has the ease 
 of power in his face ; he shakes the reins ; 
 throws out a curve or so of knowing whip, 
 as an angler does his line ; and the horses 
 begin to ply their never-ending jog. A horse's 
 hind-leg on the road, to any eye looking down 
 upon it, seems as if it would jaunt on for ever; 
 the muscle works in the thigh ; the mane at 
 the same time dances a little bit ; the hock- 
 joint looks intensely angular, and not to be hit 
 (it is horrible to think of wounding it) ; the 
 hoof bites into the earth ; wheels and legs 
 seem made to work together like machinery ; 
 and on go the two patient creatures, they know 
 not why nor whither, chewing the unsatisfac- 
 tory bit, wondering ("if they wonder at all) why 
 they may not hold their heads down, and have 
 tails longer than five inches ; and occasionally 
 giving one another's noses a consolatory caress, 
 it is curious to see sometimes how this affec- 
 tion seems to be all on one side. One of the 
 horses goes dumbly talking, as it were, to the 
 other, and giving jiroofs of the i)leasure and 
 comfort it takes in its society ; while the other, 
 making no sort of aeknoAvledgment, keeps the 
 " even tenor of its way," turning neither to 
 the right nor left, nor condescending to give or 
 
 receive the least evidences of the possibility of 
 a satisfaction. It seems to say, " You may be 
 as amiable and patient as you please ; — for 
 ray part, I am resolved to be a mere piece of 
 the machinery, and to give these fellows behind 
 us no reason whatsoever to suppose that 1 
 make any sentimental compromise with their 
 usurpations over us." 
 
 Horses in a coach must certainly be the 
 most patient, or the most indifferent, or the 
 most unthinking of animals. The mule seema 
 to have an opinion of his own ; he is not to be 
 driven so easily. The dog (till the new act) 
 passed a horrible, unsatisfied time of it under 
 the butcher's or baker's go-cart. Harnessed ele- 
 phants would be inconvenient. They would be 
 for re-adjusting their buckles, and making in- 
 quiries with their trunks into the belsaviour of 
 the postilion. Theyniight, to be sure, help with 
 the other trunks, and perform the part of half 
 horse, half hostler. The llama of Peru has 
 inconvenient tricks, if you ill-use him ; and bo 
 has the camel. But the horse, when once he 
 is grovmd well into the road, seems to give up 
 having any sort of mind of his own — that rs 
 to say, if he ever had any, except what his 
 animal spirits made to be mistaken for it ; for 
 the breeding of hoi-ses is such in England, that, 
 generally speaking, when they are not all 
 blood and fire, they seem nothing but stupid 
 acquiescence, without will, without curiosity, 
 without the power of being roused into resist- 
 ance, except, poor souls ! when their last hour 
 is come, and non-resistance itself can go no 
 further, but lies down to die. We dock their 
 tails, to subject them to the very flies ; fasten 
 their heads back, to hinder them from seeing 
 their path ; and put blinkers at their eyes, for 
 fear of their getting used to the phenomena of 
 the carriage and wheels behind them. What 
 must they think (if they think at all) of the 
 eternal mystery thus tied to their bodies, and 
 rattling and lumbering at their heels ?^nf the 
 load thus fastened to them day by day, going 
 the same road for no earthly object (intelli- 
 gible to the horse capacity), and every now and 
 then depositing, and taking up, other animals 
 who walk on their hind-legs, and occasionally 
 come and stroko their noses, kick their bellies, 
 and gift them with iron shoes ? 
 
 Well, circumstances drive us, as we drive 
 the horses, — pei'haps with as nutny snfiling 
 remarks on the part of other beings, at our 
 thinking as little of the matter : — so we must 
 be moving on. 
 
 Hounslow (the stage we have now come to) 
 is a good place for setting us upon reflections 
 on horse and man, not merely by reason of the 
 number of accommodations for both those tra- 
 vellers, but because of its celebrity at various 
 times for its horse-races, its highwaymeiv, and 
 its powder-mills. The series of heaths here 
 from Hounslow to Bagshot, are the scenes of 
 the favourite robberies and stage-coach ala'^ma
 
 76 
 
 A JOUKNKY BY COACH. 
 
 of the last century. The novels and Newgate 
 Ciileudars are full of them. Nor is the dis- 
 trict without its historical niiuacities. Here 
 poor.Ianii's tlic Second ;,'ot u]) a camp to resist 
 his suhjccts with, and must needs take liis 
 Queen and his daughter Anne to dine there, 
 to let them see how victorious he was going to 
 be ; nay, he wrote to the Prince of Orange u])on 
 tlie fineness of his troops ; •which tlie latter 
 accordingly came over to congratulate him 
 upon, as William the Third. 
 
 " Am I to liave the honour of taking the air 
 with you, sir, this evening upon the heath ?" 
 says one of tlie iieroes of tiie ' Beggar's Opera,' 
 to their noble Captain JA«c-IIeath ; ivho de- 
 rived liis title, observe, from that ground of his 
 exploits : — " I drink a dram now and then witli 
 the stage-coachmen, in the way of fricndshij) 
 and intelligence ; and I know that about tiiis 
 time there will be passengers upon the western 
 road who are worth speaking with." 
 
 And then follows a generous conversation 
 about honour and fidelity, with certain glimpses 
 of the interior of their cabinet jjolicy ; and the 
 meeting concludes, instead of a ministerial 
 dinner, with that glorious song, " Let us take 
 the road," the music of which is justly " bor- 
 rowed for tlie occasion," like a crown-jewel, 
 from Handel's " March in Scipio." "We dare 
 confidently ajipeal to any ingenuous reader, 
 who has heard it sung, and wiio has seen those 
 " great irregular sjiirits" in tlieir exaltation and 
 ragged coats, passing by their leader with step 
 and chorus, and taking their hats off, one by 
 one, to his own elegantly lifted beaver, whether 
 there is much difference, if any, between those 
 mutual acknowledgments of energy and a great 
 purpose, and others which take place on more 
 public occasions. For our parts, we confess, as 
 Sir rhihp Sydney did of the ballad of" Chevy 
 Chace," tliat we never hear it but we feel our 
 " heart moved as with the sound of a trumpet ;" 
 and it raised a late noble lord twenty-fold in 
 our opinion— nay, let us see that he had a truly 
 " statesman-like" view of things, and an he- 
 roical cast in his character, when we heard 
 that he was a great admirer of this song and 
 of the whole opera. We have been told that 
 he not (iiilyapj)hiu(led it in public, butwould get 
 ladies to jilay it to liini on the piano-forte, and 
 hum over the airs himself with an exquisite 
 superiority to his incompetency*. 
 
 * Lord Castlcieagh. We forget who told us the anec- 
 dote, and are not in tlie way of ascertaining the truth of 
 it; but we have heard other stories of his good nature, 
 that render it likely. His lordship, like so many other 
 statesmen of all parties, was the victim of a perplcxe<l 
 state of society, which seems of necessity to divide a man 
 into two contradictory beings, — the public and tiie pri- 
 I'ate; and, unfortunately, he did not see that this state 
 was a transitory one, and not the inevitable condition of 
 humanity. It is not likely indeed that he would refine 
 upon this speculation in ordinary, or perhaps think of it 
 at all. He was too busy, and, as it appeared to him, too 
 successful. But there is no knowing how much thought 
 Olid wonder crowded into his brain before ho died, and 
 
 Hounslow Heath is not a place which the 
 old gentleman in the play would like to live 
 in, who made such a fearful construction of a 
 meta])hor in a lettei-, and was always fancying 
 that he and his were " all to be blown up." 
 A very serious blowing up does in fact occa- 
 sionally take place here, strewing the limbs 
 and lieads of the matmfacturers of gunpowder 
 about tlu> jilace, ,as if in rebuke of their trade. 
 It is a pity that science does not hasten that 
 most blessed of all its discoveries, which was 
 talked of the other day, and which is to settle 
 any two contending armies in ten minutes, by 
 blowing tiiem resj)ectively to atoms ! They 
 have only to meet, it seems, and give the word, 
 and at the first exj)losion they are abolislied — 
 that is to say, provided one of them does not 
 contrive to speak first : — so that war would be 
 reduced to a race for the first word, and the 
 most precii)itate speaker be the conqueror 
 crowned with laurel. In a little while, it is 
 clear that there would be no war at all ; and 
 thou mankind, out of pure unheroical neces- 
 sity, would be forced to be reasonable in their 
 disputes, and let common sense be the arbiter. 
 At present the grand thing is to say, " You 
 lie," and " You lie," and then to fall pell-mell 
 together by the ears, and be the death of tiiou- 
 sands of your fellow-creatures, to the sound of 
 drum and trumpet. There is something fine 
 in this undoulitedly, especially for tiiose who 
 have to jiay for it, or who are burnt, maimed, 
 slaughtered, or sent to the ho.spital, in the 
 process. But somehow it puts the very con- 
 querors upon grave faces, and makes them 
 feel like slaves to an evil thing, and keeps up 
 the belief in the " vale of tears ;" and people 
 in their senses and cool moments prefer the 
 idea of a healthy condition of humanity, and a 
 game at cricket on a green. But rail-roads 
 will be the ]icace-makers. 
 
 Hounslow Heath is to the left of our road :— 
 let us give a glance to the right, and refresh 
 ourselves with thinking of that peaceful agri- 
 cultural district stretching from tliis parish to 
 Ilarrow-on-tlie-llill, and famous for the finest 
 wheat in England. Queen Klizabeth had her 
 bread from it. Fuller has recorded one end 
 of it in his prose, and Drayton the other in his 
 poetry. 
 
 " 'J'he liest (wncat) in England," says Fuller, 
 "groweth in tlie vale lying south of Harrow- 
 on-the-Ilill, nigh Hesson (Ileston, the parish 
 ill wliich Hounslow lies), wiieie Providence 
 for tlie i)ri!seiit hath fixed my habitation ; so 
 tiiat the King's bread was formerly made of the 
 fine flower thereof. Hence it was that Queen 
 Elizabeth received no composition from tiie 
 
 found liim unprepared to entertain them. I'caee to his 
 memory and his mistakes, and to those of all of us.' In 
 spite of his errors, he liad soinctliing noble in his nature, 
 as well as in his countenance. AVe shall never thoroughly 
 know how to m;ister the cireurastanees that make us 
 what we are, till we learn to leave off fighting with, and 
 reproaching one iuiother.
 
 INEXHAUSTIBILITY OP THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTMAS. 
 
 77 
 
 villages thereabouts, but took her wheate in 
 kiude, for her own pastry and bakehouse*." 
 
 " As Coin came on along, and chanced to cast her eye 
 Upon that neighbouring hill where Harrow stands so high, 
 She Peryvale perceived, prank'd up with wreaths of wlieat. 
 And with exulting terms thus glorj'ing in her seat : — 
 ' Why should not I be coy, and of my beauties nice, 
 Since this my goodly grain is held of highest price? 
 No manchet can so well the courtly palate please. 
 As that made of the meal fetch'd from my fertile leas ;' " &c. 
 Drayton's Polyolbion, Sonij XI V. 
 
 Hounslow, whatever be its reputation, is in 
 a truly glorious neighbourhood. Draw a circle 
 of a few miles round Windsor, and you have 
 Cowley at Chertsey, Pope at Twickenham and 
 at "Windsor Forest, the Earl of Surrey in the 
 Castle, Gray at Stoke Pogeis and at Eton, 
 Milton at Horton, and Mcvjna Charta at Run- 
 nymede. Buckinghamshire and Berkshire 
 (with the exception of London) comprise per- 
 haps the most illustrious district in England, 
 unless Shakspeare alone i-aises Warwickshire 
 above them ; and the road in this quarter leads 
 even to him, besides visiting Chaucer by the 
 way. But Chaucer is also to be found in Berk- 
 shire, at Donnington Castle ; Spenser in Buck- 
 inghamshire, at Whaddon, with his friend Lord 
 Grey, to whom he was secretary ; Shakspeare 
 himself (as far as one of his most living cre- 
 ations is concerned) at Windsor, with FalstafF 
 and the Merry Wives ; Milton at Horton afore- 
 said, where he passed much of his youth ; and, 
 besides others before mentioned, we have 
 Hampden at Hampden, Burke and Waller at 
 Beaconsfield, Hooker at Drayton-Beauchamp, 
 Cowper at Olney, Denham at Cooper's Ilill, 
 Hales, Wotton, and half the education of Eng- 
 land, at Eton, — the whole weight of Windsor 
 Castle and its memories, — and at Wantage we 
 have Alfred the Great, a world of a man in 
 himself. Doubtless there are more honours for 
 the two counties ; but we happen to be writing 
 without the first volume of Fuller, and these 
 are all we can recollect. They include three 
 out of the four great poets of England, as 
 regards residence of some duration — a thing 
 that can be said of no other district of equal 
 length, tlie metropolis excepted ; and it is 
 curious, that within a segment of it the very 
 names of the towns and villages seem resolved 
 to be literary and renowned, comprising Den- 
 ham, Drayton, Cowley, INIilton, Hampden, and 
 Penn. We are mistaken if we have not seen 
 a stage-coach enter London with three of these 
 names upon its panel, — we think Denham, 
 Drayton, and Cowley. 
 
 We have omitted to observe how completely 
 the Macheath order of highwaymen has gone 
 out, — he Avho used to be mounted on horseback, 
 and stop coaches, and put half-a-dozen people 
 in fear of their lives. Guards, ra])idity of 
 driving, and other facilities of self-defence, the 
 publicity of the roads, quickness of communi. 
 
 * ' Worthies of England," vol. ii., p. .T4, 
 
 cation, &c., have extinguished him. He is as 
 completely abolished as the wolves. No more 
 can he swagger and bully, and call himself 
 Captain, and seduce inn-keepers' daughters, 
 and be hung like a man of spirit. He is a 
 sneaker now round the gaming-tables ; or rides 
 on the coach which he used to stop, and filches 
 bankers' conveyances. 
 
 [These articles were cut short by the stoppage of the 
 Journal in which they appeared.] 
 
 LXVI.— INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF THE 
 SUBJECT OF CHRISTMAS. 
 
 So many things have been said of late years 
 about Christmas, that it is su})posed by some 
 there is no saying more. Oh they of little 
 faith ! What ? do they suppose that every- 
 thing has been said that can be said, about any 
 one Christmas thing ? 
 
 About beef, for instance ? 
 
 About plum-pudding ? 
 
 About mince-pie I 
 
 About holly ? 
 
 About ivy ? 
 
 About rosemary ? 
 
 About misletoe ? (Good God ! what an im- 
 mense number of things remain to be said 
 about misletoe ?) 
 
 About Christmas-eve ? 
 
 About hunt-the-slipper ? 
 
 About hot-cockles ? 
 
 Aljout blind-man's-b'ufF ? 
 
 Al)out shoeing the wild-mare ? 
 
 About thread-the-needle ? 
 
 About he-can-do-little-that-can't-do-thia \ 
 
 About puss-in-the-corner I 
 
 About snap-dragon ? 
 
 About forfeits ? 
 
 About Miss Smith ? 
 
 About the bell-man ? 
 
 About the waits ? 
 
 About chilblains ? 
 
 About carols ? 
 
 About the fire ? 
 
 About the block on it I 
 
 About school-boys ? 
 
 Aliout their mothors ? 
 
 About Christmas-boxes 1 
 
 About turkeys ? 
 
 About Hogmany ? 
 
 About goose-pie ? 
 
 About mumming ? 
 
 About saluting the apple-tret'.s I 
 
 About brawn ? 
 
 About plum-porridge? 
 
 About hobby-horse I 
 
 About hoppings ? 
 
 About wakes i 
 
 About " Feed-the-dove V 
 
 About hackins I 
 
 About yule-doughs ? 
 
 About going-a-gooding I 
 
 About loaf-stealing \
 
 78 
 
 INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF Tilt: SUBJECT OF CHRISTMAS. 
 
 About julklapg ? (Who has exhausted that 
 Bubject, we slionld like to kuow ?) 
 
 Al)out wiul-shootiDg J 
 
 About elder-wine ? 
 
 About pantomimes ? 
 
 About cards i 
 
 About Now- Year's day ? 
 
 About f(it"ts ] 
 
 About wassail ? 
 
 A])out twelfth-cake ? 
 
 Al)oiit kin<>; and queen ? 
 
 About characters ? 
 
 About eating too much ? 
 
 About aldermen ? 
 
 About the doctor ? 
 
 About all being in the wrong ? 
 
 About Charity ? 
 
 About all being in the right ? 
 
 About Faith, Hope, and Endeavour ? 
 
 About the Greatest Plum-pudding for the 
 Greatest Number ? 
 
 JEsto perpetun ; that is, Faith, Hope, and 
 Charity, and Endeavour ; and plum-pudding 
 enough, by-and-by, all the year round, for 
 everybody that likes it. Why that should not 
 be the case, we cannot see, — seeing that the 
 eartli is big, and human kind teachable, and 
 God very good, and inciting us to do it. — 
 Meantime, gravity apart, we ask anybody v/he- 
 ther any of the above subjects are exhausted ; 
 and we inform everybody, that all the above 
 customs still exist in some parts of our beloved 
 country, however unintelligible they may have 
 become in others. — But to give a specimen of 
 the non-exhaustion of any one of their topics. 
 
 Beef, for example. Now we should like to 
 know •who has exhausted the subject of the 
 fine old roast Christmas piece of beef, — from 
 . its original appearance in the meadows as part 
 of the noble sultan of tlie herd, glorious old 
 Taurus, the lord of the sturdy brow and pon- 
 derous agility, a sort of tliunderbolt of a beast, 
 well chosen by Jove to disguise in, one of Na- 
 ture's most striking compounds of apparent 
 heaviness and unencumbered activity, — up to 
 its contribution to the noble Christmas dinner, 
 smoking from the spit, and flanked by the 
 outposts of Bacchus. John Bull (cannibalism 
 apart) hails it like a sort of relation. He 
 makes it part of his flesh and blood ; glories in 
 it ; was named after it ; has it served up, on 
 solemn occasions, with music and a hymn, as 
 it was the other day at the royal city dinner : — 
 
 " Oh ! the roast beef of old England ; 
 And oh ! tlie old English roast beef. " 
 
 " And oh !" observe ; not merely " oh ! " again ; 
 but "and" with it ; as if, though the same 
 piece of beef, it were also another ; — another 
 and the same ; — cut, and come again ; — making 
 two of one, in order to express intensity and 
 reduplication of satisfaction : — 
 
 " Oh ! the roast beef of old England ; 
 And oh I the old English roast beef. " 
 
 We beg to assure the reader, that a whole 
 ibac might be written on this single point 
 of the Christmas dinner ; and " shall we be 
 told" {as orators exclaim) " and this too in a 
 British land," tiiat tlie subjectis ''exhausted"!!! 
 Tlien ]ilum-j)udding ! What a word is that ! 
 how plump, and plump again ! IIov/ round, 
 and repeated, and plenipoteutial ! (There are 
 two /;'», observe, in plenipoteutial, and so there 
 are in phim-puildiug. We love an ex(iuisite 
 fitness, — a niiglit and wealth of adajjtatiou.) 
 W^hy, the whole round cheek of universal 
 childhood is in the idea of plum-pudding ; ay, 
 and the weight of manhood, and the pleni- 
 tude of the majesty of city dames. Wealth 
 itself is symbolised by the least of its fruity 
 particles. " A plum" is a city fortune, — a 
 million of money. He (the old boy, who has 
 earned it) 
 
 Puts in his thumb, 
 
 videlicet, into his pocket, 
 
 And pulls out a plum, 
 
 And says what a ^' good man " am I. 
 
 Observe a little boy at a Christmas dinner, and 
 his grandfatlier ojjposite him. What a world 
 of secret similarity there is between them. 
 How hope in one, and retrospection in the 
 other, and appetite in both, meet over the 
 same ground of pudding, and imderstand it to 
 a nicety. How the senior banters the little 
 boy on his third slice ; and how the little boy 
 thinks within himself that he dines that day 
 as well as the senior. How both look hot, 
 and red, and smiling, and juvenile. How the 
 little boy is conscious of the Christmas-box in 
 his pocket ; (of which indeed the grandfather 
 jocosely puts him in mind ;) and how the 
 grandfather is quite as conscious of the jilum, 
 or part of a plum, or whatever fraction it may 
 be, in his own. How he incites the little boy 
 to love money and good dinners all his life ; 
 and how determined the little boy is to abide 
 by his advice, — with a secret addition in favour 
 of holidays and marbles, — to which there is an 
 analogy, in the senior's mind, on the side of 
 trips to Hastings, and a game at whist. Finally, 
 the old gentleman sees his own face in the 
 pretty smooth one of the child ; and if the 
 child is not best pleased at liis proclamation of 
 the likeness (in trutli, is horrified at it, and 
 thinks it a sort of madness,) yet nice observers, 
 who have lived long enough to see the wonder- 
 ful changes in people's faces from youth to 
 age, probably discern the thing well enough ; 
 and feel a movement of pathos at their hearts, 
 in considering the world of trouble and emo- 
 tion that is the causer of the changes. 'J'lixtt 
 old man's face was once like that little boy's ! 
 That little boy's will be one day like that old 
 man's ! Wliat a thought to make us all love 
 and respect one another, if not for our fine 
 qualities, yet, at least, for the trouble and 
 sorrow which wc all go through !
 
 INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF THE SUBJECT OF CHRISTMAS. 
 
 79 
 
 Ay, and joy too ! for all people have their 
 joys as well as troubles, at one time or an- 
 other ; most likely both together, or in con- 
 stant alternation ; and the greater part of 
 troubles are not the worst things in the world, 
 but only graver forms of the requisite motion 
 of the universe, or workings towards a better 
 condition of things, the greater or less violent 
 according as we give them violence for 
 violence, or respect them like awful but not 
 ill-meaning gods, and entertain them with a 
 rewarded patience. — Grave thoughts, you will 
 say, for Christmas. But no season lias a 
 greater right to grave thoughts, in passing ; 
 
 and for that very reason, no season has a 
 greater right to let them pass, and recur to 
 more light ones. 
 
 So a noble and merry season to you, my 
 masters ; and may we meet, thick and three- 
 fold, many a time and oft in blithe yet most 
 thoughtful pages. Fail not to call to mind, in 
 the course of the 25th of this month, that the 
 Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was 
 born on that day, and then smile and enjoy 
 yourselves for the rest of it, for mirth is also 
 of heaven's making, and wondrous was t]ie 
 wine-drinking at Galilee.
 
 THE 
 
 INDICATOR, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE COMPANION; 
 
 A MISCELLANY FOR THE FIELDS AND THE FIRE-SIDE 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 PART I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXLV.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Indicator, a seiics of papers originally published in weekly numbers, having been long out of 
 print, and repeated calls having been made for it among the booksellers, the author has here made a 
 selection, comprising the greater portion of the articles, and omitting such only as he unwillingly put 
 forth in the hurry of periodical publication, or as seemed otherwise unsuited for present publication, 
 either by the nature of their disquisitions, or from containing commendatory criticisms now rendered 
 superfluous by the reputation of the works criticised. 
 
 The Companion, a subsequent publication of the same sort, has been treated in the like manner. 
 
 The author has little further to say, by way of advertisement to these pages, except that both 
 the works were wTittcn with the same view of inculcating a love of nature and imagination, and ot 
 funiishing a sample of the enjoyment which they afford ; and he cannot give a better proof of that 
 enjoyment, as far as he was capable of it, than by stating, that both were written during times of great 
 trouble with him, and both helped him to see much of that fair play between his own anxieties and 
 his natural cheerfulness, of which an indestructible belief in the good and the beautiful has rendered 
 him perhaps not undeserving. 
 
 London, Dec. 6, 1833.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP, PAGK 
 
 I. DIFFICULTY OP FINDING A NAME FOR A WORK OP THIS KIND . . 1 
 
 II. A WORD ON TRANSLATION FROM THE POETS 2 
 
 rU. AUTUMNAL COMMENCEMENT OF FIRES— MANTEL-PIECES— APARTMENTS 
 
 FOR STUDY j2). 
 
 rv. ACONTIUS'S APPLE 3 
 
 V. GODIVA 4 
 
 VI. PLEASANT MEMORIES CONNECTED WITH VARIOUS PARTS OF THE METRO- 
 POLIS 5 
 
 Yll. ADATICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 8 
 
 Vin, CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN OF FRANCE 9 
 
 IX, ON THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OP THE ANCIENTS . . .10 
 
 X. SOCIAL GENEALOGY , . 12 
 
 XI. ANGLING 13 
 
 Xn. LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION 15 
 
 Xm. GILBERT! GILBERT! 16 
 
 XIV. FATAL MISTAKE OF NERVOUS DISORDERS FOR MADNESS . . • 17 
 
 XV. MISTS AND FOGS 19 
 
 XVI. THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS ... . . ... 21 
 
 XVn. MORE NEWS OP ULYSSES . . . 22 
 
 XVIII. PAR COUNTRIES . .... 24 
 
 XIX. A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER 26 
 
 XX. THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN . . .TO 
 
 XXI. A PEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP ^ 
 
 XXH. THE FAIit REVENGE .... . . . . 44
 
 iy CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I'AOR 
 
 XXIII SPIHIT OF THE ANCIKNT MYTHOLOGY .... 47 
 
 XXIV. GETTING UP ON COLD MOUNINGS ... . . . 4!» 
 
 XXV. THE OLD GENTLEMAN 5l» 
 
 XXVI. DOLPHINS 52 
 
 XXVIL RONALD OV THE PERFECT HAND ib. 
 
 XXVm. A CHAPTER ON HATS • ... 56 
 
 XXIX. SEAMEN ON SHORE 59 
 
 XXX. ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 62 
 
 XXXI. DEATHS OP LITTLE CHILDREN 64 
 
 XXXn. POETICAL ANOMALIES OP SHAPE 67 
 
 XXXin. SPRING AND DAISIES . 68 
 
 XXXIV. MAY-DAY 71 
 
 XXXV. SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-DAY 74 
 
 XXXVI. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY , 75 
 
 XXXVU. OF STICKS . .... 76 
 
 XXXVIII. OF THE SIGHT OP SHOPS 79 
 
 XXXLX. A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF THE SHOPS . . 81
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 There is a bird in the interior of Africa, whose habits would rather seem to belong to the interior of Fairy-land : 
 but they have been well authentieatod. It indieates to honey-hunters, where the nests of wild bees are to be 
 found. It calls them with a cheerful cry, which they answer ; and on finding itself recognized, flies and hovers 
 over a IioUow tree containing the honey. While they are occupied in collecting it, the bird goes to a little distance, 
 where he observes all that passes ; and the hunters, when they have helped themselves, take care to leave him 
 his portion of the food. — This is the CucuLus Indicator of Linna;us, otherwise called the Moroc, Cee Cuckoo, or 
 Honey Bird. 
 
 There he; arriving, round about doth flie, 
 
 And takes survey with busie, curious eye : 
 
 Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly. — Spenseh. 
 
 I.— DIFFICULTY OF FINDING A NAME 
 FOR A WORK OF THIS KIND. 
 
 Never did gossips, when assembled to deter- 
 mine the name of a new-born child, whose 
 family was full of conflicting interests, experi- 
 ence a difficulty half so great, as that which 
 an autlior imdergoes in settling the title for a 
 periodical work. In the foi"mcr case, there is 
 generally some paramount uncle, or prodi- 
 gious third cousin, who is understood to have 
 the chief claims, and to the golden lustre of 
 whose face the clouds of hesitation and jealou.sy 
 gradually give way. But those children of the 
 brain have no godfather at hand : and yet 
 their single appellation ig bound to comprise 
 as many public interests, as all the Christian 
 names of a French or a German prince. It is 
 to be modest : it is to be expressive : it is to 
 be new : it is to be striking : it is to have 
 something in it equally intelligible to the man 
 of plain imderstanding, and surprising for tlie 
 man of imagination : — in a word, it is to be 
 impossible. 
 
 llow far we have succeeded in the attain- 
 ment of this happy nonentity, we leave others 
 to judge. There is one good thing Iiowever 
 which the hmit after a title is sure to realise ; 
 — a great deal of despairing mirth. We were 
 visiting a friend the other night, who can do 
 anything for a book but give it a title ; and 
 after many grave and ineffectual attempts to 
 furnish one for the present, tiie company, after 
 the fashion of Rabelais, and with a chair- 
 shaking merriment which he himself might 
 have joined in, fell to turning a hopeless thing 
 
 into a jest. It was like that exquisite jacture 
 of a set of laughers in Shakspeare : — 
 
 One rubbed his elbow, thus ; and fleered, and swore, 
 
 A better speech was never spoke before : 
 
 Another, with his finger and his thumb. 
 
 Cried " Via ! We will do't, come what will come !" 
 
 The third he capered, and cried " All goes well !" 
 
 The fourtli turned on the toe, .ind down he fell. 
 
 AVitb that they all did tumble on the ground. 
 
 With such a zealous laughter, so profound. 
 
 That in this spleen ridiculous, appears, 
 
 To check their laughter, passion's solemn tears. 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost. 
 
 Some of the names had a meaning in their 
 absurdity, such as the Adviser, or Helps for 
 Composing ; — the Cheap Reflector, or Every 
 Man His Own Looking-Glass ; — the Retailer, 
 or Every Man His Own Other Man's Wit ; — 
 Nonsense, To be continued. Others Avere 
 laughable by tlie mei'e force of contrast, as 
 the Crocodile, or Pleasing Companion ; — Chaos, 
 or the Agreeable Miscellany ; — the Fugitive 
 Guide ; — the Foot Soldier, or Flowers of Wit ; 
 — Bigotry, or the Cheerful Instructor ; — the 
 Polite Repository of Abuse ; — Blood, being a 
 Collection of Light Essays. Others were sheer 
 ludierousness and extravagance, as tlie Pleas- 
 ing Ancestor ; the Silent Companion ; the 
 Tart ; the Leg of Beef, by a Layman ; the 
 Ingenious Hatband ; tlie Boots of Bliss ; the 
 Occasional Diner ; the Tootli-ache ; Recollec- 
 tions of a Very Unpleasant Nature ; Tlioughts 
 on Taking up a Pair of Snuffers ; Thoughts on 
 a Barouche-box ; Thoughts on a Hill of Con- 
 siderable Eminence ; Meditations on a Pleas- 
 ing Idea ; Materials for Drinking ; the Knocker, 
 No. I. ; — the Hippopotamus entered at Sta-
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tioners' Hall ; the Piano-forte of Paulus 
 ^milius ; the Seven Sleejjcrs at Cards ; the 
 Arabian Ni<,'hts on riorsoback : — -with an 
 infinite nnnihor of other mortal murders of 
 common sense, ■which rose to"])usli us from 
 our stools," and which none but the wise or 
 good-natured would think of enjoying. 
 
 II.— A WORD ON TRANSLATION FROM 
 THE POETS. 
 
 Intelligent men of no scholarsliip, on 
 reading Horace, Theocritus, and other poets, 
 through the medium of translation, have often 
 wondered how those writers obtained their 
 glory. And they well might. The transla- 
 tions are no more like the original, than a 
 walking-stick is like a flowering bough. It is 
 the same with the versions of Euripides, of 
 ^schylus, of Sophocles, of Petrarch, of Boileau, 
 &c. &c., and in many respects of Homer. 
 Perhaps we could not give the reader a more 
 brief, j'et complete specimen of the way in 
 which bad translations are made, than by 
 selecting a well-known passage from Shaks- 
 peare, and turning it into the common-jjlace 
 kind of poetry that flourished so Avidely among 
 us till of late years. Take the passage, for 
 instance, where the lovers in the Merchant 
 of Venice seat themselves on a bank by moon- 
 light :- 
 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank I 
 Here will wc sit, and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night. 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 
 Now a foreign translator, of the ordinary 
 kind, would dilute and take all taste and fresh- 
 ness out of this draught of poetry, in a style 
 Somewhat like the following : — 
 
 AVith what a charm, the moon, serene and bright. 
 Lends on the bank its soft reflected light I 
 Sit we, I pray ; and let us sweetly hear 
 The strains melodious with a raptured ear ; 
 For soft retreats, and night's impressive hour, 
 To harmony impart divinest power. 
 
 m.— AUTUMNAL COMMEN'CEMENT OF FIRES- 
 MANTEL-PIECES— APARTMENTS FOR STUDY. 
 
 How pleasant it is to have fires again ! We 
 have not time to regret summer, when the cold 
 fogs begin to force us upon the necessity of a 
 new kind of warmth ; — a warmth not so fine 
 as sunshine, but, as manners go, more sociable. 
 The English get together over their fires, as 
 the Italians do in their summer-shade. \Ve 
 do not enjoy our sunshine as we ought ; our 
 climate seems to render us almost unaware 
 that the weather is fine, wlion it really becomes 
 so : but for the same reason, we make as much 
 of our winter, as the anti-social habits that have 
 grown upon us from other causes will allow. 
 
 And for a similar reason, the southern Euro- 
 pean is unprepared for a cold day. The houses 
 in many parts of Italy are summer-houses, 
 unprepared for winter ; so that when a fit of 
 cold weather conies, the dismayed inhabitant, 
 walking and shivering about with a little 
 brazier in his hands, presents an awkward 
 image of insufficiency and perplexity. A few 
 of our fogs, shutting up the sight of everything 
 out of doors, and making the trees and the 
 eaves of the houses drip like rain, would ad- 
 monish him to get warm in good earnest. If 
 " the web of our life" is always to be " of a 
 mingled yarn," a good warm hearth-rug is not 
 the worst part of the manufacture. 
 
 Here we are then again, with our fire before 
 us, and our books on each side. What shall 
 we do ? Shall we take out a Life of somebody, 
 or a Theocritus, or Petrarch, or Ariosto, or 
 Montaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Moliere, 
 or Shakspeare who includes them all ? Or 
 shall we read an engraving from Poussin or 
 Raphael ? Or shall we sit with tilted chairs, 
 planting our wrists upon our knees, and toast- 
 ing the up-turned palms of our hands, while 
 we discourse of manners and of man's heart 
 and hopes, with at least a sincerity, a good 
 intention, and good-nature, that shall warrant 
 what we say with the sincere, the good-iu- 
 tentioned, and the good-natured ? 
 
 Ah — take oare. You see what that old- 
 looking saucer is, with a handle to it ? It is a 
 venerable piece of earthenware, which may 
 have been worth, to an Athenian, about two- 
 pence ; but to an author, is worth a great deal 
 more than ever he coidd — deny for it. And 
 yet he would deny it too. It will fetch his 
 imagination more than ever it fetched potter 
 or penny-maker. Its little shallow circle over- 
 flows for hira with the milk and honey of a 
 thousand jileasant associations. This is one of 
 the uses of having mantel-pieces. You may 
 often see on no very rich mantel-piece a 
 representative body of all the elements phy- 
 sical and intellectual — a shell for the sea, a 
 stuff'ed bird or some feathers for the air, a 
 curious piece of mineral for the earth, a glass 
 of water with some flowers in it for the visible 
 process of creation, — a cast from sculpture for 
 the mind of man ; — and underneath all, is the 
 bright and ever-springing fire, running up 
 through them heavenwards, like hope through 
 materiality. We like to have any little 
 curiosity of the mantel-piece kind within our 
 reach and inspection. For the same reason, 
 we like a small study, where we are almost in 
 contact with our books. We like to feel them 
 about us ; — to be in the arms of our mistress 
 Philosophy, rather than see her at a distance. 
 To have a huge apartment for a study is like 
 lying in the great bed at Ware, or being snug 
 on a mile-stone upon Hounslow Heath. It is 
 space and physical activity, not repose and 
 concentration. It is fit only for grandeur and
 
 ACONTIUS'S APPLE. 
 
 ostentation, — for those who have secretaries, 
 and are to be approached like gods in a temple. 
 The Archbishop of Toledo, no doubt, wrote 
 his homilies in a room ninety feet long. 
 The Marquis Marialva must have been ap- 
 proached by Gil Bias through whole ranks of 
 glittering authors, standing at due distance. 
 But Ariosto, whose mind could fly out of its 
 nest over all nature, wi-ote over the house he 
 built, "])arra,se(l apta mihV — small, but suited 
 to me. However, it is to be observed, that he 
 could not afford a larger. He was a Duode- 
 narian, in that respect, like ourselves. We 
 do not know how our ideas of a study might 
 expand with our walls. Montaigne, who was 
 Montaigne " of that ilk" and lord of a great 
 chateau, had a study " sixteen paces in diame- 
 ter, with three noble and free prospects." He 
 congratulates himself, at the same time, on its 
 circular figure, evidently from a feeling allied 
 to the one in favour of smallness. " The figure 
 of my study," says he, " is round, and lias no 
 more flat (bare) wall, than what is taken up 
 by my table and my chairs ; so that the remain- 
 ing parts of the circle present me with a view 
 of all my books at once, set upon five degrees 
 ofshelves round about me." {(Jottonh Montaign'', 
 b. 3, ch. 3.) 
 
 A great prospect we hold to be a very dis- 
 putable advantage, upon the same reasoning 
 as before ; but we like to have some green 
 boughs about our windows, and to fancy our- 
 selves as much as possible in the country, 
 when we are not there. ^Milton expressed a 
 wish with regard to his study, extremely suit- 
 able to our ])resent purpose. He would have 
 the lamp in it aecn ; thus lotting others into a 
 share of his enjoyments, by the imagination of 
 them. 
 
 And let my lamp ni midnieht hoiu' 
 Be seen in some high lonely tower, 
 Where I may oft outwatch the I$ear 
 With thrice-great Hermes ; or unsphcre 
 The Spii-it of Plato, to unfold 
 What world or what ^ast regions hold 
 The immortal mind, that hath forsook 
 Her mansion in this fleshly nook. 
 
 There is a fine passionate burst of enthu- 
 siasm on the subject of a study, in Fletcher's 
 play of the Elder Brother, Act 1, Scene 2 : 
 
 Sordid and dunghill minds, composed of earth, 
 
 In that gross clement fix all their happiness : 
 
 But purer spirits, purged and refined, 
 
 Shake off that clog of human frailty. Give mo 
 
 Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that docs 
 
 Contain my books, the best companions, is 
 
 To me a glorious court, where liourly I 
 
 Converse with the old sages .and philosophers; 
 
 And sometimes for variety I confer 
 
 With kings and emperors, aTul w.'igh their counsels ; 
 
 Calling their victories, if unjustly got. 
 
 Unto a strict account ; and in my fancy. 
 
 Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then 
 
 Part with such constant pleasures, to embr.acc 
 
 Uncertain vanities ? No, be it your c.are 
 
 To augment a heap of wealth : it shall be mine 
 
 To increase in knowledge. Lights there, for my study. 
 
 IV.— ACONTIUS'S APPLE. 
 
 AcoNTii's was a youth of the island of Cea 
 (now Zia), who at the saciifices in honour of 
 Diana fell in love with the beautiful virgin, 
 Cydippe. Unfortunately she was so much 
 above him in rank, that he had no hope of 
 obtaining her hand in the usual way ; but the 
 wit of a lover helped him to an expedient. 
 There was a law in Cea, that any oath, pro- 
 nounced in the temple of Diana, was irrevo- 
 cably binding. Acontius got an apple, and 
 writing some words upon it, pitched it into 
 Cydippe's bosom. 
 
 The words were these : 
 
 MA THN APTEMIN AKONTin TAMOTMAI. 
 
 By Dian, I will marry Acontius. 
 
 Or as a poet has written them : 
 
 Juro tibi sanctas per mystica sacra Dianje, 
 
 Me tibi venturam comitem, sponsamque futuram. 
 
 I swear by holy Dian, I will be 
 
 Thy bride betrothed, and bear thee company. 
 
 Cydippe read, and married herself. — It is 
 said that she was repeatedly on the eve of 
 being married to another person ; but her 
 imagination, in the shape of the Goddess, as 
 often threw her into a fever ; and the lover, 
 whose ardour and ingenuity had made an im- 
 pression upon her, was made happy. Aris- 
 tajnetus in his Epistles calls the apple kvSuiviov 
 /xri\ov, a Cretan apple, which is supposed to 
 mean a quince ; or as others think, an orange, 
 or a citron. But the apple was, is, and must 
 be, a true, unsophisticated apple. Nothing 
 else would liave suited. " The apples, me- 
 thought," says Sir Philip Sydney of liis heroine 
 in the .(4/-cac/Jrt, "fell down from the trees to 
 do homage to tlie apples of her breast." The 
 idea seems to have originated with Theocritus 
 (Idyl. 27, V. 50, edit. Valckenaer), from whom 
 it was cojiied by tiie Italian writers. It makes 
 a lovely figure in one of the most famous pas- 
 sages of Ariosto, where he describes the beauty 
 of Alcina {Orlando Fnrioso, canto 7j st. 14) — 
 
 Bi.anca neve 6 il bel collo, e '1 petto l.atte : 
 
 II enllo e tondo, il petto eolmo e largo : 
 Due pome aeerbe, e inn- d" avorio fatte. 
 A^engono c van come onda al primo margo, 
 Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte. 
 
 Her bosom is like milk, her neck like snow ; 
 A rounded neck ; a bosom, where you see 
 Two cris^) yo\mg ivory apples come and go. 
 Like waves that on the shore beat tenderly, 
 When a sweet air is ruffling to and fro. 
 
 And after him, Tasso, in his fine ode on the 
 Golden Age : — 
 
 AUor tra fiori e linfe 
 
 Traean dolei carole 
 
 (Mi Amoretti senz' archi e scnza faci : 
 
 Sedean pastori e ninfo 
 
 INleschiando a le parole 
 
 Vezzi c susurri, cd ai susurri i baci 
 
 Strettamcnte tcnaci. 
 
 n 2
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 La verffiiiclla ifrnude 
 
 Scopria sue fii>clio r<iso 
 
 Cli'or tkn iiol volo ust'osc, 
 
 E Ic punie del scno, accrbe o crude ; 
 
 "E speiuM o in tiuuic o in lago 
 
 Scherzar si vide con 1' luiiata il vago. 
 
 Thou among streams and flowers, 
 
 Tho little Winged Powers 
 
 AVent singing carols, without torch or bow ; 
 
 The n.vmplis and shepherds sat 
 
 Mingling with innocent chat 
 
 Sports and low whispers, and with whispers low 
 
 Kisses that would not go. 
 
 The maiden, budding o'er, 
 
 Kept not her bloom uneyed, 
 
 AVhieli now a veil must liide, 
 
 Nor the crisp apples which her bosom boro : 
 
 And oftentimes in river or in lake. 
 
 The lover and his love their merry bath would take. 
 
 Iloni soit qui mal y pense. 
 
 v.— GODIVA. 
 
 This is the lady who, under the title of 
 Countess of Coventry, used to make such a 
 figure in our childhood upon some old iiocket- 
 pieces of that city. We hope she is in request 
 there still ; otherwise the inhabitants deserve 
 to be sent from Coventry. That city was 
 famous in saintly legends for the visit of tlie 
 eleven thousand virgins, — an " incredible 
 number," quotli Selden. But the eleven thou- 
 sand virgins have vanished with their credi- 
 bility, and a noble-hearted woman of flesh and 
 blood is Coventry's true immortality. 
 
 The story of Godiva is not a fiction, as many 
 suppose it. At least it is to be found in 
 Matthew of Westminster, and is not of a 
 nature to have been a mere invention. Her 
 name, and that of her husband, Lcofric, are 
 mentioned in an old charter recorded by 
 another early historian. That the story is 
 omitted by Hume and others, argues little 
 against it ; for the latter are accustomed to 
 confound the most interesting anecdotes of 
 times and manners with something below the 
 dignity of history (a very absurd mistake) ; 
 and Ilume, of whose philoso]ihy better things 
 miglit liave been exi)ected, is notoriously less 
 philosophical in his history than in any otlier 
 of his works. A certain coldness of tempera- 
 ment, not unmixed with aristocratical jn-ide, 
 or at least with a great aversion from every- 
 thing like vulgar credulity, rendered his scep- 
 ticism so extreme, that it became a sort of 
 superstition in turn, and blinded him to the 
 claims of every species of enthusiasm, civil as 
 well as religious. Milton, with liis poetical 
 eyesiglit, saw better, when he meditated the 
 history of his native country. We do not 
 remember whether he relates tlie present 
 story, but we remember well, that at the begin- 
 ning of his fragment on that subject, he says 
 he shall relate doubtful stories as well as 
 authentic ones, for the benefit of those, if no 
 
 others, who will know how to make use of 
 them, namely, the poets.* We have faith, 
 however, in the story ourselves. It has innate 
 evidence enough for us, to give full weiglit to 
 that of tlie old annalist. Imagination can in- 
 vent a good deal ; affection more : but affection 
 can sometimes do things, such as the tenderest 
 imagination is not in the liabit of inventing ; 
 and tliis piece of nol>le-heartcdness we believe 
 to Jiave been one of them. 
 
 Lcofric, Earl of Leicester, was the lord of a 
 large feudal territory in the middle of England, 
 of wliich Coventry formed a part. He live<l 
 in the time of Edward the Confessor ; and 
 was so eminently a feudal lord, that the here- 
 ditary greatness of his dominion appears to 
 liave been singular even at that time, and to 
 liave lasted Avith an uninterrupted succession 
 from Ethelbald to the Conquest, — a period of 
 more than three hundred years. He was a 
 great and useful opponent of the famous Earl 
 Godwin. 
 
 Whether it was owing to Lcofric or not, 
 does not appear, but Coventry was subject to 
 a very oppressive toUage, by Avhich it would 
 seem that the feudal despot enjoyed the greater 
 part of the profit of all marketable commodities. 
 The progress of knowledge has shown us how 
 abominable, and even how unhappy for all 
 parties, is an injustice of this descrijjtion ; yet 
 it gives one an extraordinary idea of the mind 
 in those times, to see it capable of piercing 
 through the clouds of custom, of ignorance, 
 and even of self-interest, and petitioning tlie 
 j)etty tyrant to forego such a privilege. This 
 mind was Godiva's. The other sex, always 
 more slow to admit reason through the medium 
 of feeling, were then occupied to the full in 
 their warlike habits. It was reserved for a 
 Avoman to anticipate ages of liberal opinion, 
 and to surpass them in the daring virtue of 
 setting a principle above a custom. 
 
 Godiva entreated her lord to give up his 
 fancied right ; but in vain. At last, wishing 
 to put an end to her importunities, he told 
 her, either in a spirit of bitter jesting, or with 
 a playful raillery that could not be bitter with 
 so sweet an earnestness, that he would give 
 uj) his tax, provided she rode through the city 
 of Coventry, naked. She took hira at his 
 word. One may imagine the astonishment of 
 a fierce unlettered chieftain, not untinged Avith 
 chiA'alry, at hearing a woman, and that too of 
 the greatest delicacy and rank, maintaining 
 seriously her intention of acting in a manner 
 contrary to all tluit AA^as supposed fitting for 
 lier sex, and at the same time forcing upon 
 him a sense of the very beauty of her conduct 
 by its principled excess. It is probable, that 
 
 * When T)r. .Tohnson, among his other impatient accu- 
 sations of our great republican, charged him with telling 
 unwarrantable stories in his history, he must have over- 
 looked this announcement ; and yet, if we recollect, it is 
 but in the second page of the fragment. So hasty, and 
 blind, and liable to be put to shame, is prejudice.
 
 MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 as he could not prevail upon her to give up 
 her design, he had sworn some religious oath 
 when he made his promise : hut be this as it 
 may, he took every possible precaution to 
 secure her modesty from hurt. The people of 
 Coventry were ordered to keep within doors, 
 to close up all their windows and outlets, and 
 not to give a glance into the streets upon pain 
 of death. The day came ; and Coventry, it 
 may be imagined, was silent as death. The 
 lady went out at the palace door, was set on 
 horseback, and at the same time divested of 
 her wrapi>ing garment, as if she had been going 
 into a bath ; then taking the fillet from her 
 head, she let down her long and lovely tresses, 
 which poured around her body like a veil ; 
 and so, with only her white legs remaining 
 conspicuou.s, took her gentle way through the 
 streets.* 
 
 What scene can be more touching to the 
 imagination — beauty, modesty, feminine soft- 
 ness, a daring sympathy ; an extravagance, 
 producing by the nobleness of its object and 
 the strange gentleness of its means, the grave 
 and profound effect of the most reverend 
 custom. We may suppose the scene taking 
 place in the warm noon ; the doors all shut, 
 the windows closed ; the Earl and his court 
 serious and wondering ; the other inhabitants, 
 many of them gushing with grateful tears, and 
 all reverently listening to hear the footsteps 
 of the horse ; and lastly, the lady herself, with 
 a downcast but not a shamefaced eye, looking 
 towards the earth through her flowing locks, 
 and riding through the dumb and deserted 
 streets, like an angelic spirit. 
 
 It was an honourable superstition in that 
 part of the country, that a man who ventured 
 to look at the fair saviour of his native town, 
 was said to have been struck blind. But the 
 vulgar use to which this superstition has been 
 turned by some writers of late times, is not so 
 honourable. The whole story is as unvulgar 
 and as sweetly serious, as can be conceived. 
 
 Drayton has not made so much of this sub- 
 ject as might have been expected ; yet what 
 he says is said well and earnestly : 
 
 Coventry at length 
 
 Prom her small mean regard, recovered state and strength ; 
 
 Uy Leofric her lord, yet in base bondage held. 
 
 The people from her marts by toUago wore expelled ; 
 
 Whose duchess which desired this tribute to release, 
 
 Their freedom often begged. Tlie duke, to make her cease, 
 
 Told her, that if she would his lo>s so far enforce. 
 
 His will was, she sliould ride stark naked upon a horse 
 
 By daylight througli the street : which certainly he 
 
 thought 
 In her heroic breast so deeply would havcwTouglit, 
 Tliat in her former suit she would have left to deal. 
 liiil that most princeli/ ilanif, as one ilcvoiircd icilli zeal, 
 Went on, and by that mean the city clearly freed. 
 
 • " Nuda," says Afatthew of Westminster, " equum 
 ascondens, crines cai)itis et trieas dissolvcns, corpus simm 
 totum. practer crura candidissima, inde vclavit." See 
 Sclden's Notes to tlie J'oli/olhion of Drayton : Song 13. It 
 is belden from whom we learn, that Leofric was Ilarl of 
 
 VI.— PLEASANT 5IEM0RIES CONNECTED ^^^TH 
 VARIOUS PARTS OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 One of the best secrets of enjoyment is the 
 art of cultivating pleasant associations. It is 
 an art, that of necessity increases with the 
 stock of our knowledge ; and though in ac- 
 quiring our knowledge we must encounter 
 disagreeable associations also, yet if we secure 
 a reasonable quantity of health by the way, 
 these will be far less in number than the 
 agreeable ones : for unless the circumstances 
 which gave rise to the associations press upon 
 us, it is only from want of health that the 
 power of throwing off these burdensome images 
 becomes suspended. 
 
 And the beauty of this art is, that it does 
 not insist upon pleasant materials to work on. 
 Nor indeed does health. Health will give us 
 a vague sense of delight, in the midst of objects 
 that would teaze and oppress us during sick- 
 ness. But healthy association peoples this 
 vague sense with agreeable images. It will 
 comfort us, even when a painful sympathy 
 with the distresses of others becomes a part 
 of the very health of our minds. For instance, 
 we can never go through St. Giles's, but the 
 sense of the extravagant inequalities in human 
 condition presses more forcibly upon us ; and 
 yet some pleasant images are at hand, even 
 there, to refresh it. They do not displace the 
 others, so as to injure the sense of public duty 
 which they excite ; they only serve to keep 
 our spirits fresh for their task, and hinder 
 them from running into desperation or hope- 
 lessness. In St. Giles's church lie Chapman, 
 the earliest and best translator of Homer ; 
 and Andrew IMarvell, the wit and patriot, 
 whose poverty Charles the Second could not 
 bribe. We are as sure to think of these two 
 men, and of all the good and pleasure they 
 have done to the world, as of the less happy 
 objects about us. The steeple of the church 
 itself, too, is a handsome one ; and there is a 
 flock of pigeons in that neighbourhood, which 
 we have stood with great pleasure to see 
 careering about it of a fine afternoon, when a 
 western wind had swept back the smoke 
 towards the city, and sliowed the white of the 
 stone steeple piercing up into a blue skj'. So 
 much for St. Giles's, whose very name is a 
 nuisance with some. It is dangerous to sjjcak 
 disrespectfully of old districts. Who would 
 suppose that the Borough was the most classical 
 ground in tlie metropolis ! And yet it is un- 
 doul)tedly so. Tlie (ilobe theatre was there, 
 of which Shakspeare himself was a proprietor, 
 and for which he wrote some of his plays. 
 Globe-lane, in which it stood, is still extant, 
 we believe, under that name. It is probable 
 
 Leicester, and the other particulars of him mentioned 
 above. The ICarl wa,s buried at Coventry, his Comitess 
 most probably iu the same tomb.
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 that he livod near it : it is certain that lie 
 must liavc been imicli tiiere. It is also ecrtaiii, 
 that on tlio Hoi-ouirli side of the river, then 
 and still called the Bank-side, in the same 
 lodginfj, having the same wardrobe, and some 
 say, with otiier participations more remarkable, 
 lived Beaumont and Fletcher. In the Borough 
 also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Mas- 
 singer, in one grave ; in the same church, 
 under a monument and effigy, lies Chaucer's 
 contemporary, Gower ; and from nn inn in the 
 Borough, the existence of which is still boasted, 
 and the site pointed out by a picture and in- 
 scription, Chaucer sets out his pilgrims and 
 himself on their famous road to Cantt^rbury. 
 
 To return over the water, wlio would expect 
 anything poetical from East Smithfield ? Yet 
 there was boi'n the most poetical even of 
 poets, Spenser. Pope was born within the 
 sound of Bow-bell, in a street no less anti- 
 poetical than Lombard-street. Gray was born 
 in Cornhill ; and Milton in Bread-street, 
 Cheapside. The presence of the same great 
 poet and patriot has given happy memories to 
 many parts of the metropolis. He lived in St. 
 Bride's Church-yard, Fleet-street ; in Alders- 
 gate-street, in Jewin-street, in Barbican, in 
 i3artholomew-close ; iu Ilolborn, looking back 
 to Lincoln's-inn-Fields ; in Ilolborn, near lied 
 Lion-square ; in Scotland-yard ; in a house 
 looking to St. James's Park, now belonging to 
 an eminent writer on legislation,* and lately 
 occujjied by a celebrated critic and metaphy- 
 sician ; t and ho died in the Artillery-walk, 
 Bunhill-fields ; and was buried iu St. Giles's, 
 Cripplegate. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who was born in " Hartshorn e- 
 lane, near Charing-cross," was at one time 
 " master" of a theatre in Barbican. He appears 
 also to have visited a tavern called the Sun 
 and Moon, in Aldersgate-street ; and is known 
 to have frecjuented, with Beaumont and others, 
 the famous one called the ^Mermaid, Avhich was 
 in Cornhill. Beaumont, writing to him from 
 the country, in an epistle full of jovial wit, 
 says,— 
 
 The sun, which doth the greatest comfort bring 
 To absent friends, because the self-same thing 
 They know they see, however absent, is 
 Here our best liayniakcr : forpivc me this: 
 It is our country style :— In this warm shine 
 I lie, aud dream of your full Mermaid wina 
 
 Methinks the little wit I had, is lost, 
 
 Since I saw you ; for wit is like a rest 
 
 Held up at tennis, which men do the best 
 
 AVith the best gamesters. What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Mermaid ! Hard words that have been 
 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame. 
 
 As if that every one from whom tlicy came 
 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 
 And had resolved to live a fiiol the rest 
 
 Of his dull life. Then, when there hath been throivn 
 
 Wit, able enough to justify the town 
 
 * Mr. Bentham. 
 
 i Mr. HazUtt. 
 
 For three days pjist,— wit, that mifiht warrant bo 
 
 I'or the whole city to talk foolishly 
 
 Till tliat were c;incclled, and when that was gone. 
 
 We left an air beliindus, which alone 
 
 Was able to make the two next comjianies 
 
 Kiglit witty ;— though but downright fools, mere wise. 
 
 The other celebrated resort of the great 
 wits of that time, was the Devil tavern, in 
 Fleet-street, close to Temple-bar. Ben Jonson 
 lived also in Bartholomew-close, where Milton 
 afterwards lived. It is in the passage from 
 the cloisters of Christ's Ilosjjital into St. Bar- 
 tholomew's. Aubrey gives it as a common 
 opinion, that at the time when Jonsou's father- 
 in-law made him help him in his business of 
 bricklayer, he worked with his own hands 
 upon the Lincoln's-inn garden wall, which 
 looks towards Chancery-lane, and which seems 
 old enough to have some of his illustrious 
 brick and mortar remaining. 
 
 Under the cloisters in Christ's Hospital 
 (which stands in the heart of the city unknown 
 to most persons, like a house kept invisible 
 for young and learned eyes)* lie buried a 
 multitude of persons of all ranks ; for it was 
 once a monastery of Grey Friars. Among 
 them is John of Bourbon, one of the prisoners 
 taken at the battle of Agincourt. Here also 
 lies Thomas Burdett, ancestor of the present 
 Sir Francis, who was put to death in the reign 
 of Edward the Fourth, for wishing the horns 
 of a favourite white stag which the king had 
 killed, in the body of the person who advised 
 him to do it. And here too (a sufficing con- 
 trast) lies Isabella, wife of Edward the Second,— 
 
 She-wolf of Fraqce, with unrelenting fangs, 
 AVho tore the bowels of her mangled mate. — Gray. 
 
 Her " mate's" heart was buried with her, and 
 placed upon her bosom ! a thing that looks 
 like the fantastic incoherence of a dream. It 
 is well we did not know of her presence when 
 at school ; otherwise, after reading one of 
 Shakspeare's tragedies, we should have run 
 twice as fast round the cloisters at night-time 
 as we used. Camden, " the nourrice of an- 
 tiquitie," received part of his education in this 
 school ; and here also, not to mention a variety 
 of others, known in the literary world, were 
 bred two of the best and most deep-spirited 
 writers of the present day,t whose visits to 
 the cloisters we well remember. 
 
 In a palace on the site of Ilatton-Garden, 
 died John of Gaunt. Brook-house, at the 
 corner of the street of that name in Ilolborn, 
 was the residence of the celebrated Sir Fulke 
 (ireville. Lord Brooke, the " friend of Sir 
 Philip Sidney." In the same street, died, by 
 a voluntary death of poison, that extraordinary 
 person, Thomas Chatterton, — 
 
 The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride. 
 
 WoHDSWORTH. 
 
 * It has since been unveiled, by an opcnini; in Newgate- 
 street, t Coleridge and Lamb.
 
 MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 He was buried in the grave-yard of the work- 
 house in Shoe-lane ; — a circumstance, at which 
 one can hardly help feeling a movement of in- 
 dignation. Yet what could beadles and parish 
 officers know about such a being ? No more 
 than Horace Walpole. In Gray's-inn lived, and 
 in Gray's-inn garden meditated. Lord Bacon. 
 In Southamptou-row, Holborn, Covy-per was fel- 
 low-clerk to an attorney with the future Lord 
 Chancellor Thurlow. At one of the Fleet-street 
 corners of Chancery-lane, Cowley, we believe, 
 was born. In Salisbury-court, Fleet-street, was 
 the house of Thomas Sackville, first Earl of 
 Dorset, the precursor of Spenser, and one of 
 the authors of the first regular English tragedy. 
 On the demolition of this house, j)art of the 
 ground was occupied by the celebrated theatre 
 built after the Restoration, at which Betterton 
 performed, and of which Sir William Davenant 
 was manager. Lastly, here was the house 
 and printing-office of Richardson. In Bolt- 
 court, not far distant, lived Dr. Johnson, who 
 resided also some time in the Temple. A list 
 of his numerous other residences is to be found 
 in Bos well.* Congreve died in Surrey-street, 
 in the Strand, at his own house. At the corner 
 of Beaufort-buildings, was Lilly's, the per- 
 fumer, at whose house the Tatlcr was published. 
 In Maiden-lane, Covent-garden, Voltaire lodged 
 while in London, at the sign of the White 
 Peruke. Tavistock-street was then, we believe, 
 the Bond-street of the fashionable world ; as 
 Bow-street was before. The cliange of Bow- 
 street from fashion to the police, with the 
 theatre still in attendance, reminds one of the 
 spirit of the Begrjar's Opera. Button's Coffee- 
 house, the resort of the wits of Queen Anne's 
 time, was in Russell-street, near where the 
 Ilummums now stand ; and in the same street, 
 at the south-west corner of Bow-street, was the 
 tavern where Dryden held regal possession of 
 tlie arm-chair. The whole of Covent-garden 
 is classic ground, from its association with the 
 dramatic and other wits of the times of Dryden 
 and Pope. Butler lived, perhaps died, in 
 Rose-street, and was buried in Covent-garden 
 churchyard ; wiiere Peter Pindar the other 
 day followed him. In Leicester-square, on 
 the site of Miss Linwood's exhibition and 
 otiior houses, was the town-mansion of the 
 Sydneys, Earls of Leicester, the family of Sir 
 Philip and Algernon Sydney. In the same 
 square lived Sir Joshua Reynolds and Ilogartii. 
 Dryden lived and died in Gerrard-strect, in a 
 house which looked backwards into the garden 
 of Leicester-house. Newton lived in St. Mar- 
 tin's-street, on the south side of the square. 
 Steele lived in Bury-street, St. James's : he 
 furnishes an illustrious precedent for the 
 loungers in St. James's-street, wliero ascandal- 
 
 * The Temple must have had many eminent inmates. 
 Among them it is believed w.is t'liaucer, who is also said, 
 upon the strength of .in old record, to have been fined two 
 shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet-street. 
 
 monger of those times delighted to detect 
 Isaac Bickerstaif in 'the person of Captain 
 Steele, idling before the coffee-houses, and 
 jerking his leg and stick alternately against 
 the pavement. We have mentioned the birth 
 of Ben Jonson near Charing-cross. Spenser 
 died at an inn, where he put up on his arrival 
 from Ireland, in King-street, Westminster, — 
 the same which runs at the back of Parliament- 
 street to the Abbey. Sir Thomas IMore lived 
 at Chelsea. Addison lived and died in Holland- 
 house, Kensington, now the residence of the 
 accomplished nobleman who takes his title 
 from it. In Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, 
 lived Handel ; and in Bentinck-street, Slan- 
 chester-sqnare. Gibbon. We have omitted to 
 mention that De Foe kept a hosier's shop in 
 Cornhill ; iind that on the site of the present 
 Southamijton-buildings, Chancery-lane, stood 
 the mansion of tlie Wriothesleys, Earls of 
 Southampton, one of whom was the celebrated 
 friend of Shakspeare. But what have we not 
 omitted also ? No less an illustrious head than 
 the Boar's, in Eastcheap, — the Boar's-head 
 tavern, the scene of FalstafF's revels. We 
 believe the place is still marked out by the 
 sign.* But who knows not Eastcheap and the 
 Boar's-head ? Have we not all been there, 
 time out of mind ? And is it not a more real 
 as well as notorious tiling to us than the London 
 t%vern, or the Crown and Anchor, or the 
 Hummums, or White's, or What's-his-name's, 
 or any other of your contempoi'ai'y and fleeting 
 taps ? 
 
 But a line or two, a single sentence in an 
 author of former times, will often give a value 
 to the commonest object. It not only gives 
 us a sense of its duration, but we seem to be 
 looking at it in company with its old observer ; 
 and we are reminded, at the same time, of all 
 tliat was agreeable in him. We never saw, 
 for instance, the gilt ball at the toj) of the 
 College of PhysicianSjf without thinking of 
 that pleasant mention of it in Garth's Dispen- 
 sary, and of all the wit and generosity of that 
 amiable man : — 
 
 Not far from that most celebrated place %, 
 AVlicre angry Justice shows her awful face, 
 Where little villains must submit to fate, 
 That great ones may enjoy the world in state ; 
 There stands a dome, majestic to the sight, 
 And sumptuous arches bear its ovjil height ; 
 A golden globe, placed high with artful skill. 
 Seems, to the distant sight, a gilded pill. 
 
 Gay, in describing the inconvenience of the 
 late narrow part of the Strand, by St. ClenuMit's, 
 took away a portion of its un])leasantness to 
 the next generation, by associating his memory 
 with the objects in it. We did not miss without 
 regret even the "combs " that hung" dangling 
 
 * It has lately disappeared, iu the .ilterations occaaioned 
 by the new London IJridge. 
 t In Warwick-lane, now a manufactory 
 + The Old Bailey.
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 in your face" at a shop wliicli ho describes, 
 and which was standing till the late improve- 
 ments took place. The rest of tlie picture is 
 still alive. (Trivia, b. in.) 
 
 Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand, 
 Whose strnitcnctl bounds encroach upon the Strand ; 
 Whore the low pent-houso bows the walker's head. 
 Anil the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread ; 
 Where not a post protects the narrow space, 
 And strung in twines, combs dangle in tliy face ; 
 Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care ; 
 Stand tinn, look back, be resolute, beware ! 
 Forth issuing from steep lanes, the colliers' steeds 
 Drag the black load ; another cart succeeds ; 
 Team follows team, crowds heaped on crowds appear. 
 And wait impatient till the road grow clear. 
 
 There is a touch in the Winter Picture in 
 the same poem, which everybody will recog- 
 nise : — 
 
 At White's the harnessed chairman idly stands. 
 And swings around his waist his tingling hands. 
 
 The bewildered passenger in the Seven Dials 
 is compared toTheseus in the Cretan labyrinth. 
 And thus we come round to the point at which 
 we began. 
 
 Before we rest our wings, however, we must 
 take another dart over the city, as far as Strat- 
 ford at Bow, where, with all due tenderness 
 for boarding-school French, a joke of Chaucer's 
 has existed as a piece of local humour for 
 nearly four hundred and fifty years. Speaking 
 of the Prioress, who makes sucli a delicate 
 figure among his Canterbury Pilgrims, he tells 
 us, in the list of her accomplishments, that — 
 
 French she spake full faire and featously ; 
 
 adding with great gravity — 
 
 Aftei the school of Stratfordc atte Bowc ; 
 For French of Paris was to her unknowc. 
 
 VII.— ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY. 
 
 If you are melancholy for the first time, you 
 will find upon a little inquiry, that others have 
 been melancholy many times, and yet are 
 cheerful now. If you have been melancholy 
 many times, recollect that you have got over 
 all those times ; and try if you cannot find out 
 means of getting over them better. 
 
 Do not imagine that mind alone is concerned 
 in your bad spirits. Tiie body has a great 
 deal to do with these matters. The mind may 
 undoubtedly affect the body ; but the body 
 also aftects the mind. There is a re-action 
 between them ; and by lessening it on either 
 side, you diminish the pain on both. 
 
 If you are melancholy, and know not why, 
 be assured it must arise entirely from some 
 physical weakness ; and do your best to 
 strengthen yourself. The blood of a melan- 
 choly man is thick and slow ; the blood of a 
 
 lively man is cloar and quick. Endeavour 
 therefore to put your blood in motion. Ex- 
 ercise is the best way to do it ; but you nisy 
 also holj) yourself, in moderation, with wine, or 
 other e.\citemeuts. Only you must take care 
 so to proportion the use of any artificial 
 stimulus, that it may not render the blood 
 languid by over-exciting it at first ; and that 
 you may be able to keep uj>, by the natural 
 stimulus only, the help you have given your- 
 self by the ailiticial . 
 
 Regard the bad weather as somebody has 
 advised us to handle the nettle. In pro])ortion 
 as you are delicate with it, it will make you 
 feel ; but 
 
 Grasp it like a man of mettle. 
 
 And the rogue obeys you well. 
 
 Donot theless,however,on that account, take 
 all reasonable precaution and arms against it, 
 — your boots, &c. against wet feet, and your 
 great-coat or mnbrella against the rain. It is 
 timidity and fiight, which are to be deprecated, 
 not proper armour for the battle. The first 
 will lay you open to defeat, on the least attack. 
 A proper use of the latter will only keep you 
 strong for it. Plato had such a high opinion 
 of exercise, that he said it was a cure even for 
 a wounded conscience. Nor is this opinion a 
 dangerous one. For there is no system, even 
 of superstition, however severe or cruel in 
 other matters, that does not allow a wounded 
 conscience to be curable by some means. 
 Nature will work out its rights and its kindness 
 some way or other, through the worst sophis- 
 tications ; and this is one of the instances in 
 which she seems to raise herself above all con- 
 tingencies. The conscience may have been 
 wounded by artificial or by real guilt ; but 
 then she will tell it in those extremities, that 
 even the real guilt may have been produced 
 by circumstances. It is her kindness alone, 
 which nothing can pull down from its pre- 
 dominance. 
 
 See fair play between cares and pastimes. 
 Diminish your artificial wants as much as pos- 
 sible, whether you are rich or poor; for the 
 rich man's, increasing by indulgence, are apt 
 to outweigh even the abundance of his means ; 
 and the poor man's diminution of tiiem renders 
 his means the greater. On the other hand, 
 increase all your natural and healthy enjoy- 
 ments. Cultivate your afternoon fire-side, the 
 society of your friends, the company of agree- 
 able children, music, theatres, amusing books, 
 an urbane and generous gaUantry. He who 
 thinks any innocent pastime foolish, has either 
 to grow wiser or is past the ability to do so. 
 In the one case, his notion of being childish is 
 itself a childish notion. In the other, his 
 importance is of so feeble and hollow a cast, 
 that it dare not move for fear of tumbling to 
 pieces. 
 
 A friend of our.s, who knows as well as any 
 man liow to unite industry with enjoyment,
 
 CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 has set an excellent example to those who can 
 afford the leisure, by taking two Sabbaths every 
 week instead of one, — not ]Methodistical 
 Sabbaths, but days of rest which pay true 
 homage to the Sujireme Being by enjoying his 
 creation. 
 
 One of the best pieces of advice for an ailing 
 spirit is to go to no sudden extremes — to adopt 
 no great and extreme changes in diet or other 
 habits. They may make a man look very 
 great and philosophic to his own mind ; but 
 they are not fit for a being, to whom custom 
 has been truly said to be a second nature. Dr. 
 Cheyne may tell us that a drowning man cannot 
 too quickly get himself out of the Avater ; but 
 the analogy is not good. If the water has 
 become a second habit, he might almost as well 
 say that a fish could not get too quickly out 
 of it. 
 
 Upon this point. Bacon says that we should 
 discontinue what we think hurtful by little and 
 little. And he quotes with admiration the 
 advice of Celsus : — that " a man do vary and 
 iixterchange contraries, but rather with an in- 
 clination to the more benign extreme." " Use 
 fasting," he says, " and full eating, but rather 
 full eating ; watching and sleep, but rather 
 sleep ; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, 
 and the like ; so shaU nature be cherished, and 
 yet taught masteries." 
 
 We cannot do better than conclude with 
 one or two other passages out of the same 
 Essay, full of his usual calm wisdom. " If you 
 fly physic in health altogether, it wiU be too 
 strange for your body when you need it." (He 
 means that a general state of health should 
 not make us over-confident and contemptuous 
 of physic ; but that we should use it mode- 
 rately if required, that it may not be too 
 strange to us Avhen required most.) " If you 
 make it too familiar, it will have no extraordi- 
 nary efi'ect when sickness cometh. I commend 
 rather some diet for certain seasons, than 
 frequent use of physic, except it be grown 
 into a custom ; for those diets alter the body 
 more, and trouble it less." 
 
 " As for the passions and studies of the 
 mind," says he, "avoid envy, anxious fears, 
 anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty in- 
 quisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, 
 sadness not communicated " (for as he says 
 finely, somewhere else, they who keep tlieir 
 griefs to themselves, are " cannibals of their 
 own hearts "). " Entertain hopes ; mirth rather 
 than joy ; " (that is to say, cheerfulness rather 
 than boisterous merriment ;) " variety of de- 
 liglits 1-atlier than surfeit of them ; wonder 
 and admiration, and therefore novelties ; 
 studies tliat fill the mind with splendid and 
 illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and 
 contemplations of nature." 
 
 VIII.— CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY 
 QUEEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 The fortune of Charles Brandon was re- 
 markable. He was an honest man, yet the 
 favourite of a despot. He was brave, hand- 
 some, accomplished, possessed even delicacy 
 of sentiment ; yet he retained the despot's 
 favour to the last. He even had the perilous 
 honour of being beloved by his master's sister, 
 without having the least claim to it by birth ; 
 and yet instead of its destroying them both, he 
 was allowed to be her husband. 
 
 Charles Brandon was the son of Sir William 
 Brandon, whose skull was cleaved at Boswortli 
 by Richard the Third, while bearing the 
 standard of the Duke of Richmond. Richard 
 dashed at the standard, and appears to have 
 been thrown from his horse by Sir William, 
 v/hose strength and courage however could not 
 save him from the angry desperation of the 
 king. 
 
 But Time, whoso wheeles with various motion runne, 
 Kupayes this service fully to his Sonne, 
 AVho marries Richmond's daughter, bom betweene 
 Two royal parents, and endowed a queene. 
 
 Sir John Beaumunl's Busworlh Field. 
 
 The father's fate must have had its effect in 
 securing the fortunes of the son. Young 
 Brandon grew up with Henry the Seventh's 
 children, and was the playmate of his future 
 king and bride. The prince, as he increased in 
 years, seems to have carried the idea of Bran- 
 don with him like that of a second self ; and 
 the princess, whose affection was not hindered 
 from becoming personal by anything sisterly, 
 nor on the other hand allowed to waste itself 
 in too equal a familiarity, may have felt a 
 double impulse given to it by the improbability 
 of her ever being suff'ered to become his wife. 
 Royal females in most countries have certainly 
 none of the advantages of their rank, whatever 
 the males may have. JIary was destined to 
 taste the usual bitterness of their lot ; but 
 slie was repaid. At the conclusion of the war 
 with France, she was married to the old king 
 Louis the Twelfth, who witnessed from a couch 
 the exploits of her future husband at the 
 tournanu'uts. Tlie doings of Charles Brandon 
 that time were long remembered. The love 
 between him and the young queen was sus- 
 jjectedby the French court ; and he had just 
 seen her enter Paris in the midst of a gorgeous 
 procession, like Aurora come to marry Titlio- 
 nus. Brandon dealt his chivalry about iiim 
 accordingly with such irresistible vigour, that 
 the dauphin, in a fit of jealousy, secretly in- 
 troduced into the contest a huge (ierman, who 
 was tiiouglit to be of a strength incomjiarable. 
 But Brandon grappled witli him, and with 
 seeming disdain and detection so pummelled 
 him about the head with (lie liilt of his sword, 
 tliat tiie blood burst through the vizor. Ima- 
 gine the feelings of the queen, when he came
 
 10 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 and made her an offering of the German's 
 shield! Drayton, in his I leroical Epistles, we 
 know not on wliat authority, tells us, that on 
 one oeeasion duriiij,^ the eouihats, perhaps this 
 particular one, slie could not helj) crying out, 
 " Hurt not my sweet Charles," or words to 
 that effect, lie then pleasantly represents her 
 as doing away suspicion by falling to commen- 
 dations of tiie dauphin, and atlecting not to 
 know who the conquering kniglit was ; — an 
 ignorance not very probable ; but the knights 
 sometimes disguised themselves purposely. 
 
 The old king did not long survive his fes- 
 tivities, lie died in less than three months, 
 on the first day of the year 1515 ; and Brandon, 
 who had been created Duke of Suffolk the year 
 before, re-appeared at the French court, with 
 letters of condolence, and more persuasive 
 looks. The loyal widow was young, beautiful, 
 and rich : and it was likely that her hand 
 would be sought by many princely lovers ; but 
 she was now resolved to reward herself for her 
 sacrifice, and in less than two months she 
 privately manned her first love. The queen, 
 says a homely but not mean poet (Warner, in 
 his Anion's Emjlatid) thought that to cast too 
 many doubts 
 
 Were oft to erre no lesse 
 Than to be rash : and thus no doubt 
 
 The gentle queen did gucsse. 
 That seeing this or that, at first 
 
 Or last, had likelyluiod, 
 A man so much a manly man 
 
 Were dastiirdly withstood. 
 Then kisses revelled on their lips. 
 
 To either's equal good. 
 
 Henry showed gi-eat anger at first, real or 
 pretended ; but he had not then been pampered 
 into unbearable self-will by a long reign of 
 tyranny. He forgave his sister and friend ; 
 and they were publicly wedded at Greenwich 
 on the 13th of May. 
 
 It was during the festivities on this occasion 
 (at least we believe so, for we have not tiie 
 chivalrous Lord Herbert's Life of Henry the 
 Eigiith by us, which is most probably the au- 
 thority for tiie story ; and being a good thing, 
 it is omitted, as usual, by the historians) that 
 Charles Brandon gave a proof of the fineness 
 of his nature, equally just towards himself, 
 and conciliating towards the jealous. He ap- 
 peared, at a tournament, on a saddle-cloth, 
 made half of frize and half of cloth-of-guld, 
 and with a motto on each half. One of tlie 
 mottos ran thus : — 
 
 Cloth of frize, be nr.t too bold, 
 
 Though thou art match 'd with cloth of gold. 
 
 The other :— 
 
 Cloth of gold, do not despise, 
 
 Though thou art matched with cloth of fiize. 
 
 It is this beautiful piece of sentiment which 
 puts a heart into his history, and makes it 
 worthy remembering. 
 
 IX.— ON THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF 
 THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 The Ancients had three kinds of Household 
 Gods, — the Dainion (Daemon) or Genius, the 
 Penates, and the Lares. The first was su])- 
 posed to be a sj)irit allotted to every man 
 from his birth, some say with a companion ; 
 and that one of them was a suggester of good 
 thoughts, and the other of evil. It seems, 
 however, that the Genius was a personification 
 of the conscience, or rather of tlie prevailing 
 impulses of the mind, or the other self of a 
 man ; and it was in this sense most likely that 
 Socrates condescended to speak of his well- 
 known Dsemon, Genius, or Familiar Sj.irit, 
 who, as he was a good man, always advised 
 him to a good end. The Genius was tliought 
 to paint ideas upon the mind in as lively a 
 manner as if in a looking-glass ; ujion wliich 
 we chose wliich of tliem to adopt. Spenser, 
 a deeply-learned as well as imaginative poet, 
 describes it in one of his most comprehensive 
 though not most poetical stanzas, as 
 
 That celestial Powre, to whom the care 
 
 Of life, and generation of all 
 Tliat lives, pertaine in charge particulare ; 
 Who wondrous things concerning our welfare. 
 And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte forosee, 
 And ofte of secret ills bids us beware : 
 That is our Selfe, whom though we do not see. 
 Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to boe. 
 
 Therefore a God him sage antiquity 
 
 Did wisely make — Faerie Queene, book ii. tt. 47. 
 
 Of the belief in an Evil Genius, a celebrated 
 example is furnished in Plutarch's account of 
 Brutus's vision, of which Shakspeare has 
 given so fine a version (Julius Cwsar, Act 4, 
 Sc. 3). Beliefs of this kind seem traceable 
 from one superstition to another, and in some 
 instances are immediately so. But fear, and 
 ignorance, and even the humility of know- 
 ledge, are at hand to furnish them, where pre- 
 cedent is wanting. There is no doubt, how- 
 ever, that the llomans, who copied and in 
 general vulgarized the Greek mythology, took 
 their Genius from the (ireek Daimon : and 
 as the Greek word has survived and taken 
 shape in the common word Dajmon, which by 
 scornful reference to the Heatlien religion, 
 came at last to signify a Devil, so the Latin 
 word Genius, not having been used by the 
 translators of Ihe Greek Testament, has sur- 
 vived witii a better meaning, and is employed 
 to express our most genial and intellectual 
 faculties. Such and such a man is said to in- 
 dulge his genius : — he has a genius for this 
 and that art : — he has a noble genius, a fine 
 genius, an original and peculiar genius. And 
 as the llomans, from attributing a genius to 
 every man at his birth, came to attribute one 
 to places and to soils, and other more com- 
 prehensive peculiarities, so we have adoj)ted
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 II 
 
 the same use of the term into our poetical 
 phraseology. We speak also of the geuius 
 or idiomatic peculiarity of a language. One of 
 the most curious and edifying uses of the 
 word Genius took place in the English trans- 
 lation of the French Arabkon Nhjhts, which 
 speaks of our old friends the Genie and the 
 Genies. This is nothing more than the French 
 word retained from the original translator, 
 who applied the Roman word Genius to the 
 Arabian Dive or Elf. 
 
 One of the stories with which Pausanias has 
 enlivened his description of Greece, is relative 
 to a Genius. He says, that one of the compa- 
 nions of Ulysses having been killed by the 
 people of Temesa, they were fated to sacrifice 
 a beautiful virgin every year to his manes. 
 They were about to immolate one as usual, 
 when Euthymus, a conqueror in the Olymijic 
 Games, touched with pity at her fate and ad- 
 miration of her beauty, fell in love with her, 
 and resolved to try if he could not put an end 
 to so terrible a custom. He accordingly got 
 permission from the state to marry her, pro- 
 vided he could rescue her from her dreadful 
 expectant. He armed himself, waited in the 
 temple, and the genius appeared. It was said 
 to have been of an apijalling presence. Its 
 shape was every way formidable, its colour of 
 an intense black, and it was girded about with 
 a wolf-skin. But Euthymus fought and con- 
 quered it ; upon which it fled madly, not only 
 beyond the walls, but the utmost bounds of 
 Temesa, and rushed into the sea. 
 
 The Penates were Gods of the house and 
 family. Collectively speaking, they also pre- 
 sided over cities, public roads, and at last over 
 all places with which men were conversant. 
 Their chief government however was sup- 
 posed to be over the most inner and secret 
 part of the house, and the subsistence and 
 welfare of its inmates. They were chosen 
 at will out of the number of the gods, as the 
 Roman in modern times cliose his favourite 
 saint. In fact they were only the higher gods 
 themselves, descending into a kind of house- 
 hold familiarity. They were the personifica- 
 tion of a particular Providence. The most 
 striking mention of the Penates which Ave 
 can call to mind is in one of Virgil's most 
 poetical passages. It is where they appear 
 to JEneas, to warn him from Crete, and an- 
 nounce his destined empire in Italy. (Lib. 111. 
 V. 147.) 
 
 Nox erat, ot terris .nnimalia somnus Iiabebat: 
 Effigies sacra; divuin, I'l-.rygiique I'enatis, 
 Quos mccum a Troja, tne(lii;>qiio ex ignibus iirbis 
 Extulcrain, visi rnita oculos adstare jiicontis 
 In somiiis, niulto iiiaiiifcsti liiniine, qua se 
 I'lena per iiiscrt.'is fundebat luua feaestias. 
 
 'Twas night ; and sleep was on all living things. 
 I lay, and saw before my very eyes 
 Dread shapes of gods, and Phrygian deities. 
 The great Penates; whom with reverent joy 
 1 bore from out the heart of burning Troy. 
 
 Plainly I saw them, standing in the light 
 
 Which the moon poured into the room that night. 
 
 And again, after they had addressed him — 
 
 Nee sopor illud erat ; sed coram agnoscere vnltus, 
 Velatasque comas, pra;sentiaque ora videbar ; 
 Tmnjgelidus toto manabat corpore sudor. 
 
 It was no dream : I saw them face to face, 
 Their hooded hair ; and felt them so before 
 Sly being, that 1 burst at every pore. 
 
 The Lares, or Lars, were the lesser and 
 most familiar Household Gods,and though their 
 offices were afterwards extended a good deal, in 
 the same way as those of the Penates, with whom 
 they are often confounded, their principal 
 sphere was the fire-place. This was in the 
 middle of the room ; and the statues of the 
 Lares generally stood about it in little niches. 
 They are said to have been in the shape of 
 monkeys ; more likely mannikins, or rude 
 little human images. Some were made of wax, 
 some of stone, and others doubtless of any ma- 
 terial for sculpture. They were represented 
 with good-natured grinning countenances, were 
 clothed in skins, and had little dogs at their 
 feet. Some writers make them the offspring 
 of the goddess !Mania, who presided over the 
 spirits of the dead ; and suppose that origi- 
 nally they were the same as those spirits ; 
 which is a very probable as well as agreeable 
 superstition, the old nations of Italy having 
 been accustomed to bury their dead in their 
 houses. Upon this supposition, the good or 
 benevolent spirits were called Familiar Lares, 
 and the evil or malignant ones Larvse and 
 Lemures. Thus IMilton, in his awful Hymn 
 on the Nativity : — 
 
 In consecrated earth. 
 
 And on the holy hearth, 
 
 The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint. 
 
 In urns and altars round, 
 
 A drear and dying soimd 
 
 AflVights the Flamens at their service quaint ; 
 
 And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
 
 AVliile each Peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. 
 
 But Ovid tells a story of a gossiping nymph 
 Lara, who having told Juno of her husband's i 
 amour with Juturna, was " sent to Hell " by 
 him, and courted by Mercury on the road ; 
 the consequence of which was the birth of the 
 Lares. This seems to have a natural reference 
 enough to the gossiping over fire-jilaces. 
 
 It IS impossible not to be struck with the 
 resemblance between these lesser Household 
 Gods and some of the offices of our old 
 English elves and fairies. Dacier, in a note 
 upon Horace (Lib. I., Od. 12) informs us, that 
 in some parts of Languedoc, in his time, the 
 fire-place was still called the Lar ; and that 
 the name was also given to liouses. 
 
 Ilerrick, a poet of the Anacreontic order 
 in the time of Elizabeth, who was visited, 
 perliaps more than any other, except Spenser, 
 with a sense of the pleasantest parts of the
 
 12 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ancient mythology, has wTitten some of his 
 lively little odes upon the Lares. We have not 
 thoni by us at this moment, but wc remember 
 one beginning, — 
 
 It was, and still my care is 
 To worship you, tlio Lares. 
 
 We take the opportunity of the Lar's being 
 mentioned in it, to indulge ourselves in a little 
 poem of Martial's, very cluirniing for its sim- 
 plicity. It is an JOpitaph on a child of the 
 name of Erotion. 
 
 Uic festinata requicscit Erotion umbra, 
 Criniinc quam futi sexta pfroiiiit liiems. 
 
 Qiiisquis oris iiostri post me rognator agcUi, 
 iManibus exigiiis annua justa ilato. 
 
 Sic Lare porpetuo, sic turba sospite, solus 
 Flubilis in terra sit lapis iste tua. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF EROTION. 
 
 TTndemcath this greedy stone 
 
 Lies little sweet Erotion ; 
 
 A\'hom the fates, with hearts as cold, 
 
 Nijjt away at six years old. 
 
 Thou, whoever thou may'st be. 
 
 That hast this small field after me, 
 
 Let the yearly rites be paid 
 
 To her little slender shade ; 
 
 So shall no disease or jar 
 
 Hurt thy house or chill thy Lar ; 
 
 13ut this tomb here be alone. 
 
 The only melancholy stone. 
 
 X.— SOCIAL GENEALOGY. 
 
 It is a curious and pleasant thing to con- 
 sider, that a link of personal acquaintance 
 can be traced up from the authors of our own 
 times to those of Shakspeare, and to Shak- 
 speare himself. Ovid, in recording his inti- 
 macy with Propertius and Horace, regrets that 
 he had only seen Virgil. {Trist. Lib. IV., v. 51.) 
 But still he thinks the sight of him worth 
 remembering. And Pope, when a child, pre- 
 vailed on some friends to take him to a coffee- 
 house wliich Dryden frequ(;nted, merely to 
 look at him ; which he did, with great satis- 
 faction. Now such of us as have shaken 
 hands Avitli a living poet, might be able to 
 reckon up a series of connecting shakes, to the 
 very hand tliat wrote of Hamlet, and of Fal- 
 staff, and of i^esdemona. 
 
 With some living poets, it is certain. There 
 is Thomas Moore, for instance, Avho knew 
 Sheridan. Sheridan knew Johnson, who was 
 the friend of Savage, who knew Steele, who 
 knew Pope. Pope was intimate with Con- 
 greve, and Congreve with Dryden. Dryden is 
 said to have visited Milton. Milton is said to 
 have known Davenant ; and to liave been saved 
 by him from the revenge of tlie restored court, 
 in return for liaving saved Davenant from the 
 revenge of the Common wealtli. But if the 
 link between Dryden and Milton, and Milton 
 and Davenant, is somewhat apocryphal, or 
 rather dependent on tradition (for Kichardson 
 
 the i)ainter tells us the story from Pope, wlio 
 had it from Betterton the actor, one of Dave- 
 naut's comjiany), it may be carried at once 
 from Drytlen to Davenant, with wliom he was 
 un([ucstiona1)ly intimate. Davenant then knew 
 Ilobbes, wlio knew Bacon, who knew Ben 
 Jonson, who was intimate with Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Chajjman, Donne, Drayton, Camden, 
 Selden, Clarendon, Sydney, Kaleigh, and jjcr- 
 Iiaps all the great men of Elizabeth's and 
 James's time, tlie greatest of them all undoubt- 
 edly. Thus have we a link of " beamy hands" 
 from our own times up to Shakspeare. 
 
 In tliis friendly genealogy we have omitted 
 the numerous side-branches or common friend- 
 sliips. It may be mentioned, however, in 
 order not to omit Spenser, that Davenant re- 
 sided some time in the family of Lord Brooke, 
 tlie friend of Sir Philip Sidney. Spenser's 
 intimacy with Sidney is mentioned by himself 
 in a letter, still extant, to Gabriel Harvey. 
 
 We will now give the authorities for our in- 
 tellectual pedigree. Sheridan is mentioned in 
 Boswell as being admitted to the celebrated 
 club of which Johnson, Goldsmith, and others 
 were members. He had just written the 
 School for Scandal, which made him the more 
 welcome. Of Johnson's friendship with Savage 
 (we cannot help beginning the sentence with 
 his favourite leading preposition), the well- 
 known Life is an interesting record. It is said 
 that in the commencement of their friendship, 
 they sometimes wandered together about 
 London for want of a lodging — more likely 
 for Savage's Avant of it, and Johnson's fear of 
 offending him by offering a share of his own. 
 But we do not remember how this circumstance 
 is related by Boswell. 
 
 Savage's intimacy with Steele is recorded in 
 a pleasant anecdote, which he told Johnson. 
 Sir Richard once desired him, " with an air of 
 the utmost importance," says his biographer, 
 " to come very early to his house the next 
 morning. Mi-. Savage came as he had pro- 
 mised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir 
 Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. 
 What was intended, and whither they were to 
 go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not 
 willing to inquire, but immediately seated 
 himself with Sir Richard. The coachman was 
 ordered to drive, and they hurried with the 
 utmost expedition to Ilyde-park Corner, where 
 they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to 
 a private room. Sir Richard then informed 
 liim that ho intended to publish a pamphlet, 
 and that he had desired him to come tliithcr 
 that lie nii;;lit write for him. They soon sat 
 down to the work. Sir Ri(-liard dictated, and 
 Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been 
 ordi'red was put upon the table. Savage was 
 surprised at the meanness of the entertain- 
 ment, and after some Iiesitation, ventured to 
 ask for wine, whicli Sir Richard, not without 
 reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then
 
 ANGLING. 
 
 \S 
 
 finished their dinner, and proceeded in their 
 pamphlet, which they concluded in the after- 
 noon. 
 
 "JNIr. Savage then imagined that his task 
 was over, and expected that Sir Richard would 
 call for the reckoning, and return home; but 
 his expectations deceived him, for Sir Richard 
 told him that he Avas without money, and that 
 the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner 
 could be paid for, and Savage was therefore 
 obliged to go and offer their new production for 
 sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty 
 he obtained. Sir Richard then returned home, 
 having retired that day only to avoid his cre- 
 ditors, and composed the pamphlet only to 
 discharge his reckoning." 
 
 Steele's acquaintance with Pope, who wrote 
 some papers for his Guardian, ajopears in the 
 letters and other works of the wits of that 
 time. Johnson supposes that it was his friendly 
 interference, which attempted to bring Pope 
 and Addison together after a jealous separa- 
 tion. Pope's friendship with Congi-eve appears 
 also in his letters. He also dedicated the Iliad 
 to Congreve, over the heads of peers and 
 patrons. The dramatist, whose conversation 
 most likely partook of the elegance and wit 
 of his writings, and whose manners appear to 
 have rendered liim a universal favourite, liad 
 the honour, in his youth, of attracting the 
 respect and regard of Dryden. He was pub- 
 licly hailed by him as his successor, and affec- 
 tionately bequeathed the care of his laurels. 
 Dryden did not know who had been looking at 
 him in the coffee-house. 
 
 Already I am worn with cares and age. 
 And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage ; 
 Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense, 
 I live a rent-charge on his providence. 
 Rut you. whom every Muse and Grace adorn, 
 Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 
 Be kind to my remains ; and <) defend. 
 Against your judgment, your departed friend ! 
 Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue, 
 Hut shade those laurels which descend to you, 
 
 Congreve did so, with great tenderness. 
 
 Dryden is reported to have asked IMilton's 
 permission to turn his Paradise Lost into a 
 rhyming tragedy, which he called the State of 
 Innocence, or the Fall of Man ; a work, such as 
 might be expected from such a mode of alter- 
 ation. The venerable poet is said to have 
 answered, " Ay, young man, you may tag 
 my verses, if you will." Be the connexion, 
 however, of Dryden with Milton, or of Milton 
 with Davenant, as it may, Dryden wrote the 
 alteration of Shakspcare's Tempest, as it is now 
 perpetrated, in conjunction with Davenant. 
 They were great hands, but they siiould not 
 have touched the pure grandeur of Sliakspeare. 
 The intimacy of Davenant witli llobbes is to 
 be seen by their correspondence prefixed to 
 Gondibert. Ilobbcs was at one time secretary 
 to Lord Bacon, a singularly illustrious instance 
 of servant and master. Bacon also had Ben 
 
 Jonson for a retainer in a similar capacity ; 
 and Jonson's link with the preceding writers 
 could be easily supplied through the medium 
 of Greville and Sidney, and indeed of many 
 others of his contemporaries. Here then we 
 arrive at Shakspeare, and feel the electric 
 virtue of his hand. Their intimacy, dashed a 
 little, perhaps, with jealousy on the part of 
 Jonson, but maintained to the last by dint of 
 the nobler part of him, and of Shakspeare's 
 irresistible fineness of nature, is a thing as 
 notorious as their fame. Fuller says : "Alany 
 were the wit-combates betwixt (Shakspeare) 
 and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a 
 Spanish great galleon and an English man-of- 
 war : master Jonson (like the former) was 
 built far higher in learning : solid, but slow in 
 his performances. Shakspeare, with the English 
 man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sail- 
 ing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and 
 take advantage of all winds, by the quickness 
 of his wit and invention." This is a happy 
 simile, with the exception of what is insinuated 
 about Jonson's gi-eater solidity. But let .Jonson 
 show for himself the affection with which he 
 regarded one, who did not irritate or trample 
 down rivalry, but rose above it like the sun^ 
 and turned emulation to worship. 
 
 Soul of the age ! 
 Th' applause '. delight ! the wonder of onr stage ! 
 My Shakspeare, rise ! I will not lodge thee by 
 Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie 
 A little further, to make thee a room ; 
 Thou art a monument without a tomb ; 
 And art alive still, while thy book doth live, 
 And we have wits to read, and praise to give. 
 ***** 
 
 He was not of an age, but for all time. 
 
 XL— ANGLING. 
 
 The anglers are a race of men who puzzle 
 us. We do not mean for their patience, which 
 is laudable, nor for the infinite non-success of 
 some of them, which is desirable. Neither do 
 we agree with the good old joke attributed to 
 Swift, that angling is always to be considered 
 as " a stick and a string, with a fly at one end 
 and a fool at the other." Nay, if he had books 
 with him, and a pleasant day, M'e can account 
 for the joyousuess of that jirince of pimters, 
 who, having been seen in the same spot one 
 morning and evening, and asked whether he 
 had had any success, said No, but in tlie course 
 of the day he had had " a glorious nibl)le." 
 
 But the anglers boast of the innocence of 
 their pastime ; yet it puts fellow-creatures to 
 the torture. They pique themselves on their 
 meditative faculties ; and yi>t their only excuse 
 is a want of thought. It is this that puzzles 
 us. Old Isaac AValton, their patriarch, speak- 
 ing of his inquisitorial abstractions on the 
 banks of a river, says. 
 
 Here we may 
 Think and pray,
 
 14 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Before death 
 Stops our breath. 
 Other joys 
 Are but toys, 
 And to be lamented. 
 
 So saj-inp:, he "stops the breath" of a trout, 
 by pluckiiior him up into an cU'niont too thin 
 to res])irc, with a liook and a tortured worm 
 in his jaws — 
 
 other joys 
 Are but toys. 
 
 If you ride, walk, or skate, or play at cricket, 
 or at rackets, or enjoy a ball or a concert, it is 
 " to be lamented." To put pleasure into the 
 faces of half a dozen agreeable women, is a 
 toy unworthy of the manliness of a worm- 
 sticker. But to put a hook into the gills of a 
 carp — there you attain the end of a reasonable 
 being ; there you show yourself truly a lord of 
 the creation. To plant your feet occasionally 
 in the mud, is also a pleasing step. So is 
 cutting your ancles with weeds and stones — 
 
 other joys 
 Are but toys. 
 
 The book of Isaac Walton upon angling is 
 a delightful performance in some respects. It 
 smells of the country air, and of the flowers 
 in cottage windows. Its pictures of rural 
 scenery, its simplicity, its snatches of old songs, 
 are all good and refreshing ; and his prodigious 
 relish of a dressed fish would not be grudged 
 him, if he had killed it a little more decently. 
 He really seems to have a respect for a piece 
 of salmon ; to ai)proach it, like the grace, with 
 his hat off. But what are we to think of a 
 man, who in the midst of his tortures of other 
 animals, is always valuing himself on his harm- 
 lessness ; and who actually follows up one of 
 his most complacent passages of this kind, 
 with an injunction to impale a certain worm 
 twice upon the hook, because it is lively, and 
 might get off! All that can be said of such 
 an extraordinary inconsistency is, that having 
 been bred up in an ojjinion of the innocence 
 of his amusement, and possessing a healthy 
 power of exercising voluntary thoughts (as far 
 as he had any), he must have dozed over the 
 opposite side of the question, so as to become 
 almost, j)erliaps quite, insensible to it. And 
 angling does indeed seem the next thing to 
 dreaming. It dispenses with locomotion, 
 reconciles contradictions, and renders the 
 very countenance null and void. A friend of 
 ours, who is an admirer of Walton, was struck, 
 just as we were, with the likeness of the old 
 angler's face to a fish. It is hard, angular, 
 and of no expression. It seems to have been 
 "subdued to what it worked in;" to have 
 become native to the watery element. One 
 might have said to Walton,' "Oh flesh, how 
 art thou fishified !" He looks like a pike, 
 dressed in broadcloth instead of l)utter. 
 
 The face of liis puj)il and follower, oi% as he 
 fondly called himself, son, Charles Cotton, a 
 
 poet and a man of wit, is more good-natured 
 and uneasy.* Cotton's i)leasures had not been 
 confined to fishing. His sympathies indeed 
 had been a little sujierabund'ant, and left him, 
 perhaps, not so great a power of thinking as 
 he ])leased. Accordingly, we find in his writ- 
 ings more symptoms of scrupulousness upon 
 the subject, than in those of his father. 
 
 Walton says, that an angler does no hurt 
 but to fish ; and this he counts as nothing. 
 Cotton argues, that the slaughter of them is 
 not to be "repented ;" and he says to Ids 
 father (which looks as if the old gentleman 
 sometimes thought upon the subject too) 
 
 There whilst behind some bush we wait 
 
 Tlie scaly people to betray. 
 We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait. 
 
 To make the preying trout our prey. 
 
 This argument, and another about fish's 
 being made for " man's pleasure and diet," are 
 all that anglers have to say for the iiniocence 
 of their sport. But they are both as rank 
 sophistications as can be ; sheer beggings of 
 the question. To kill fish outright is a different 
 matter. Death is common to all ; and a trout, 
 speedily killed by a man, may suffer no worse 
 fate than from the jaws of a pike. It is the 
 mode, the lingering cat-like cruelty of the 
 angler's sport, that renders it unworthy. If 
 fish were made to be so treated, then men 
 were also made to be raclced and throttled by 
 inquisitors. Indeed among other advantages 
 of angling. Cotton reckons up a tame, fishlike 
 acquiescence to whatever the powerful choose 
 to inflict. 
 
 We scratch not our pates, 
 
 Nor repine at the rates 
 
 Our superiors impose on our living; 
 
 But do frankly submit. 
 
 Knowing they have more wit 
 
 In demanding, tlian we have in giving. 
 
 ^^^^ilst quiet we sit, 
 
 Wo conclude all tilings fit. 
 
 Acquiescing with hearty submission, &o. 
 
 And this was no pastoral fiction. The anglers 
 of those times, whose skill became famous 
 from the celebrity of their names, chiefly in 
 divinity, were great fallers-in with passive 
 obedience. They seemed to think (whatever 
 they found it necessary to say now and then 
 upon that point) that the great had as much 
 right to ])rey upon men, as the small had upon 
 fishes ; only the men luckily had not hooks 
 put into tlieir jaws, and the sides of their 
 cheeks torn to pieces. The two most famous 
 anglers in history are Antony and Cleopatra. 
 These extremes of the angling character are 
 very edifying. 
 
 We should like to know what these gi-ave 
 divines would have said to the heavenly maxim 
 of "Do as you would be done by." Let us 
 imagine ourselves, for instance, a sort of 
 
 * The reader may see both the portraits in the lat« 
 editions of Walton. 
 
 I 
 
 II
 
 LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION. 
 
 15 
 
 human fish. Air is hut a rarer fluid ; and at 
 present, in this Novemher weather, a sujier- 
 natural being who should look down upon us 
 from a higher atmosphere, would have some 
 reason to regard us as a kind of pedestrian 
 carp. Now fancy a Genius fishing for us. 
 Fancy him baiting a great hook with pickled 
 salmon, and twitching up old Isaac Walton 
 from the hanks of the river Lee, with the hook 
 through his ear. How he would go up, roaring 
 and screaming, and thinking the devil had got 
 him ! 
 
 other joys 
 
 Are but toys. 
 
 We repeat, that if fish were made to be so 
 treated, then we were just as much made to 
 be racked and suffocated ; and e footpad might 
 have argued that old Isaac was made to have 
 his pocket picked, and be tumbled into the 
 river. There is no end of these idle and 
 selfish beggings of the question, which at last 
 argue quite as much against us as for us. And 
 granting them, for the sake of argument, it is 
 still obvious, on the very same ground, that 
 men were also made to be taught better. We 
 do not say, that all anglers are of a cruel 
 nature ; many of them, doubtless, are amiable 
 men in other matters. They have only never 
 thought perhaps on that side of the question, 
 or been accustomed from childhood to blink 
 it. But once thinking, their amiableness and 
 their practice become incompatible ; and if 
 they should wish, on that account, never to 
 have thought upon the subject, they would 
 only show, that they cared for their own 
 exemption from suffering, and not for its 
 diminution in general.* 
 
 XII.— LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION. 
 
 Mex of wit sometimes like to pamper a joke 
 into exaggeration ; into a certain corpulence 
 of facetiousness. Their relish of the thing 
 makes them wish it as large as possible ; and 
 the enjoyment of it is doubled by its becoming 
 more visible to the eyes of others. It is for 
 this reason that jests in company are some- 
 times built up by one hand after another, — 
 "threepiled hyperboles," — till the over-done 
 Babel topples and tumbles down amidst a 
 merry confusion of tongues. 
 
 Falstaff was a great master of this art : he 
 loved a joke as large as liimself; witness his 
 famous account of the men in buckram. Thus 
 he tells the Lord Chief Justice, that he had 
 lost his voice " with singing of antlwins ;" and 
 he calls Bardolph's red nose " a perpetual 
 
 * Perhaps the best thing to be said finally about anRling 
 is, that not being able to determine whether fish feel it 
 very sensibly or otherwise, we ought to give thcni the 
 benefit rather tlian the disiidvantase of the doubt, where 
 we can help it ; and our feelings the benefit, where we 
 counot. 
 
 triimiph, an everlasting bonfire light ;" and 
 says it has saved him " a thousand marks in 
 links and torches," walking with it " in the 
 night, betwixt tavern and tavern." See bow 
 he goes heightening the account of his recruits 
 at every step : — " You would think I had a 
 hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately 
 come from swine-keeping, from eating draff 
 and husks. — A mad fellow met me on the 
 way, and told me, I had unloaded all the 
 gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies — No eye 
 hath seen such scarecrows. — I'll not march 
 through Coventry with them, that's flat. — Nay. 
 and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, 
 as if they had gyves on ; for indeed I had most 
 of them out of jirison. — There's but a shirt 
 and a-half in all my company ;— and the half 
 shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and 
 thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat 
 without sleeves." 
 
 An old schoolfellow of ours (who, by the 
 way, was more fond of quoting Falstaff than 
 any other of Shakspeare's characters) used to 
 be called upon for a story, with a view to a 
 joke of this sort ; it being an understood thing, 
 that he had a privilege of exaggeration, with- 
 out committing his abstract love of truth. The 
 reader knows the old blunder attributed to 
 Goldsmith about a dish of green peas. Some- 
 body had been applauded in company for 
 advising his cook to take some ill-dressed 
 peas to Hammersmith, " because that was the 
 way to Turn'em Green ;" upon which Gold- 
 smith is said to have gone and i-epeated the 
 pun at another table in this fashion : — " John 
 should take those peas, I think, to Hammer- 
 smith." " Why so, Doctor ?" " Because that 
 is the way to make 'em green." Now our 
 friend would give the blunder with this sort 
 of additional dressing : " At sight of the dishes 
 of vegetables, Goldsmith, who was at his own 
 house, took off the covers, one after another, 
 with gi-eat anxiety, till he found that jieas 
 wei-e among them ; upon which he rubbed his 
 hands with an air of infinite and prospective 
 satisfaction. 'You are fond of peas, Sir?' 
 said one of the company. ' Yes, Sir,' said 
 Goldsmith, ' particularly so : — I eat them all 
 the year round ; — I mean. Sir, every day in 
 the season. I do not think there is anybody 
 so fond of peas as I am.' 'Is there any jtar- 
 ticular reason. Doctor,' asked a gentleman 
 present, ' why you like peas so mucii, beyond 
 the usual one of their agreeable taste ?' — ' No, 
 Sir, none whatsoever: — none, I assure you' 
 (here Goldsmith showed a great wish to 
 impress this fact on his guests) : ' I nevler 
 heard any particular encomium or speech 
 about them from any one else : but they carry 
 their own eloquence with tliem : they are 
 things, Sir, of infinite taste.' (Here a laugh, 
 which put Goldsmith in additional spirits.) 
 But, bless me !' he exclaimed, looking narrowly 
 into the peas : — ' I fear they are very ill-done :
 
 16 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 they are absolutely yellow instead of green' 
 (here he put a stron<j emphasis on proiii) ; 
 'and you know, peas should he enii)liatically 
 green : — preeuness in a pea is a quality as 
 essential, as whiteness in a lily The cook 
 has quite spoilt them : — but I'll give the rogue 
 a lecture, gentlemen, witli your permission.' 
 Goldsmitli then rose and rang the bell violently 
 for the cook, who came in n-ady booted and 
 spuiTed. 'lla!' exclaimed Goldsmith, 'those 
 boots and spurs are your salvation, you knave. 
 Do you know, Sir, wliat you have done V — ' No, 
 Sir.' — ' Why, you have made the peas yellow. 
 Sir. Go instantly, and take 'em to Hammer- 
 smith.' 'To Hammersmith, Sir?' cried the man, 
 all in astonishment, tiie guests being no less so : 
 — ' please Sir, why am I to take 'em to I lam- 
 mei-smith ?' — 'Because, Sir,' (and here Gold- 
 smith looked round with triumphant antici- 
 pation) ' that is the way to render those peas 
 green.' " 
 
 There is a very humorous piece of exaggera- 
 tion in Butler's Remains,— a collection, by the 
 bye, well worthy of Hudibras, and indeed of 
 more interest to the general reader. Butler 
 is defrauded of his fame with readers of taste 
 ■who happen to be no politicians, when Hudibras 
 is printed without this appendage. The piece 
 we allude to is a short description of Hol- 
 land : — 
 
 A country that draws fifty foot of water. 
 In which men live as in the hold of nature ; 
 And when the sea docs in upon them break. 
 And drowns a province, does but spring a leak. 
 ***** 
 
 Tliat feed, like cannibals, on other fishes. 
 And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes. 
 A land that rides at anchor, and is moored, 
 In which they do not live, but go aboard. 
 
 We do not know, and perhaps it would be 
 impossible to discover, whether Butler wrote 
 his minor pieces before those of the great patriot 
 Andrew Marvell, who rivalled him in wit and 
 excelled him in poetry. Marvell, though born 
 later, seems to have been known earlier as an 
 author. He was certainly known publicly 
 before him. But in the political poems of 
 Marvell there is a ludicrous character of Hol- 
 land, wliich might he pronotmccd to be either 
 the copy or the original of Butler's, if in those 
 anti-Batavian times the Hollander had not 
 been baited by all the wits ; and were it not 
 probable, that tlic unwieldy monotony of his 
 character gave rise to much tlic same ludicrous 
 imagery in many of their fancies. JNIarvell's 
 wit has the advantage of Butler's, not in learn- 
 ing or multiplicity of contrasts (for nobody 
 ever heat him there), but in a greater variety of 
 them, and in being able, from the more poetical 
 turn of his mind, to bring graver and more 
 imaginative things to wait upon his levity. 
 
 He thus opens the battery upon our amphi- 
 bious neighbour : 
 
 Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, 
 As but the off-scouring of the British sand ; 
 
 And so much earth ns was contributed 
 15y English pilots, when they heaved the load ; 
 Or what by the ocean's hbiw alluvion fell, 
 Of shii)\necked cockle and the muscle-shell. 
 
 * * • * • 
 
 Glad then, as miners who have found the ore. 
 They, with mad labour,* fished the land to shore : 
 And dived as desperately for each i)iece 
 Of earth, as if it had been of ambcrgreece ; 
 Collecting anxiously small loads of clay. 
 Less than what building swallows bear awny ; 
 Or than those i>ills which sordid beetles row), 
 Transfusing into them their dunghill soul. 
 
 He goes on in a strain of exquisite hyper- 
 bole : — 
 
 How did they rivet with gigantic piles 
 Thorough tlie centre their ncw-catched miUt ; 
 And to tlie stake a sinifiph'np country bound, 
 "Where barkinc waves still bait the forced ground ; 
 IJuilding their wafry Uabel far more high 
 To catch the waves, than those to scale the sky. 
 Yet still his claim the injured ocean layed. 
 And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played ; 
 As if on purpose it on iand had come 
 To shew them what's their Mare Liberumt ; 
 A dayly deluge over them does boil ; 
 The earth and water play at level -coyl ; 
 The fish oft-times the burglier dispossessed, 
 And sat, not as at meat, but as a guest : 
 And oft the Tritons, and the Sea-nj-mjihs, saw 
 Whole shoals of Dutch served up for eabillau. 
 Or, as they over the new level ranged. 
 For pickled herrings, pickled Ileeren changed. 
 Nature, it seemed, ashamed of her mistake, 
 AVould throw their land away at duck and drake : 
 Therefore necessity, that first made kings. 
 Something like government among them brings: 
 For as with Pigmys. who best kills the crane. 
 Among the hungry he that treasures grain. 
 Among the blind the one-eyed bliukard reigns, 
 So rules among the drowned he that drains. 
 Not who first sees the rising sun, commands ; 
 Hut who could first discern the rising lands ; 
 Who best could know to pump an earth so leak. 
 Him they their lord and coimtry's father speak ; 
 To make a bank was a great plot of state ; — 
 Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate. 
 
 We can never read these and some other 
 ludicrous verses of Marvell, even when by 
 ourselves, without laughter. 
 
 XIII.— GILBERT ! GILBERT ! 
 
 The sole idea generally conveyed to us by 
 historians of Thomas a Becket is that of a 
 haughty priest, who tried to elevate the reli- 
 gious power above the civil. But in looking 
 more narrowly into the accounts of him, it 
 apj)ears that for a considerable part of his life 
 he was a merry layman, was a great falconer, 
 feaster, and patron, as well as man of business ; 
 and he wore all characters with such unaffected 
 l)leasantness, that he was called the Delight of 
 the Western World. 
 
 On a sudden, to every body's surprise, his 
 friend the king (Henry II.), from chancellor 
 
 * Pryden afterwards, of fighting for gain, in his song of 
 Come, if you dare— 
 
 " The Gods from above the mad labour behold." 
 t A Free Ocean.
 
 NEllVOUS DISORDERS. 
 
 17 
 
 made him archbishop ; and with equal sudden- 
 ness, though retaining his affability, the new 
 head of the English church put off all his 
 worldly graces and pleasures (save and except 
 a rich gown over his sackcloth), and in the 
 midst of a gay court, became the most mortified 
 of ascetics. Instead of hunting and hawking, 
 he paced a solitary cloister ; instead of his 
 wine, he drank fennel-water ; and in lieu of 
 soft clothing, he indulged his back in stripes. 
 
 This phenomenon has divided the opinions 
 of the moral critics. Some insist, that Becket 
 was religiously in earnest, and think the change 
 natural to a man of the world, whose heart 
 had been struck with reflection. Others see 
 in his conduct uothing but ambition. We 
 suspect tliat three parts of the truth are with 
 the latter ; and that Becket, suddenly enabled 
 to dispute a kind of sovereignty with his 
 prince and friend, gave way to the new tempt- 
 ation, just as he had done to his falconry and 
 fine living. But the complete alteration of his 
 way of life, — the enthusiasm wliich enabled 
 him to set up so different a greatness against 
 his former one — shows, that his character 
 partook at least of as mucli sincerity, as would 
 enable him to delude himself in good taste. 
 In proportion as his very egotism was con- 
 cerned, it was likely that such a man would 
 exalt the gravity and importance of his new 
 calling. He had flourished at an earthly 
 court : he now wished to be as great a man in 
 the eyes of another ; and worldly power, which 
 was at once to be enjoyed and despised by 
 virtue of his office, had a zest given to its pos- 
 session, of which the incredulousness of mere 
 insincerity could know nothing. 
 
 Thomas k Becket may have inherited a 
 romantic turn of mind from his mother, whose 
 story is a singular one. His father, Gilbert 
 Becket, a flourishing citizen, had been in his 
 youth a soldier in the crusades ; and being 
 taken prisoner, became slave to an Emir, or 
 fiaracen prince. By degi'ees he obtained tlie 
 confidence of liis master, and was admitted to 
 his company, where he met a personage wlio 
 became more attached to him. This was the 
 Emir's daughter. Whether by her means or 
 • not does not appear, but after some time he 
 contrived to escape. The lady with her loving 
 heart followed him. She knew, they say, but 
 two words of his language, — London and 
 Gilbert ; and by repeating the former she 
 obtained a passage in a vessel, arrived in 
 England, and found her trusting way to tlie 
 metropolis. She then took to her other talis- 
 man, and went from street to street pronounc- 
 ing " Gilbert !" A crowd collected about licr 
 wherever she went, asking of course a tliou- 
 sand questions, and to all slie luid but one 
 answer — Gilbert ! Gilbert ! — She found her 
 faith in it sufficient. Chance, or her determi- 
 nation to go through every street, brought her 
 at last to the one, in which he who had won 
 
 her heart in slavery, was living in good con" 
 dition. The crowd drew the family to the 
 window ; his servant recognised her ; and 
 Gilbert Becket took to his arms and his bridal 
 bed, his far-come princess, with her solitary 
 fond word. 
 
 XIV. FATAL MISTAKE OF NERVOUS 
 DISORDERS FOR MADNESS. 
 
 Some affecting catastrophes in the public 
 papers induce us to say a few words on the 
 mistaken notions which ai-e so often, in our 
 opinion, the cause of their appearance. It is 
 much to be wished that some physician, truly 
 so called, and philosophically competent to 
 the task, would write a work on this subject. 
 We have plenty of books on symptoms and 
 other alarming matters, very useful for in- 
 creasing the harm already existing. We 
 believe also there are some works of a dif- 
 ferent kind, if not written in direct counter- 
 action ; but the learned authors are apt to be 
 so grand and etymological in their title-pages, 
 that they must frighten the general under- 
 standing with their very advertisements. "' 
 
 There is this great difference between what 
 is generally understood by the word madness, 
 and the nervous or melancholy disorders, the 
 excess of which is so often confounded with 
 it. Madness is a consequence of malformation 
 of the brain, and is by no means of necessity 
 attended with melancholy or even ill-health. 
 The patient, in the very midst of it, is often 
 strong, healthy, and even cheerful. On the 
 other hand, nervous disorders, or even melan- 
 choly in its most aggravated state, is nothing 
 but the excess of a state of stomach and blood, 
 extremely common. The mind no doubt will 
 act upon that state and exasperate it ; but 
 there is great re-action between mind and 
 body : and as it is a common thing for a man 
 in an ordinary fever, or fit of the bile, to be 
 melancholy, and even to do or feel inclined to 
 do an extravagant thing, so it is as common 
 for him to get well and be quite cheerful again. 
 Thus it is among witless people that the true 
 madness will be found. It is the more intelli- 
 gent that are subject to the other disorders ; 
 and a proper use of their intelligence will 
 show them what the disorders are. 
 
 But weak treatment may frighten the intel- 
 ligent. A kind i)erson, for instance, in a fit of 
 melancholy, may confess that he feels an incli- 
 nation to do some desperate or even cruel 
 thing. Tills is often treated at once as mad- 
 ness, instead of an excess of the kind just 
 mentioned ; and the person seeing lie is thought 
 out of his wits, begins to think himself so, and 
 at last acts as if he were. This is a lament- 
 able evil ; but it does not stop here. The 
 children or other relatives of the person may 
 become victims to the mistake. They think
 
 18 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 there is madness, as the phrase is, "in the 
 family ;" and so wlienever they feel illj or 
 meet with a misfortune, the thouj^ht will 
 proy npon tlioir minds ; and this may lead to 
 catastro))hes, with which they have really no 
 more to do than any other sick or unfortunate 
 people. How many persons have committed 
 an extravan^ance in a brain fever, or undergone 
 hallucinations of mind in consequence of getting 
 an ague, or taking opium, or fifty other causes ; 
 and yet the moment the least wandering of 
 mind is observed in them, others become 
 frightened ; their fright is manifested beyond 
 all necessity ; and the patients and their 
 family must suffer for it. They seem to think, 
 that no disorder can jwoperly be held a true 
 Cliristian sickness, and fit for charitable inter- 
 pretation, but where the patient has gone 
 regularly to bed, and had curtains, and caudle- 
 cups, and nurses about him, like a well-behaved 
 respectable sick gentleman. But this state of 
 things implies muscular weakness, or weak- 
 ness of that sort which renders the bodily 
 action feeble. Now, in nervous disorders, the 
 muscular action may be as strong as ever ; 
 and people may reasonably be allowed a world 
 of illness, sitting in their chairs, or even walk- 
 ing or running. 
 
 These mistaken pronouncers upon disease 
 ought to be told, that when they are thus 
 unwarrantably frightened, they are partaking 
 of the very essence of what they misappre- 
 hend ; for it is fear, in ail its various degrees 
 and modifications, which is at the bottom of 
 nervousness and melancholy ; not fear in its 
 ordinary sense, as opposed to cowardice (for a 
 man who would shudder at a bat or a vague 
 idea, may be bold as a lion against an enemy), 
 but imaginative fear ; — fear either of something 
 known or of the patient knows not >vhat ; — a 
 vague sense of terror, — an impulse, — an appre- 
 hension of ill, — dwelling upon some painful and 
 worrying thought. Now this suiFering is in- 
 variably connected with a weak state of tlie 
 body in mme I'espects, particularly of the 
 stomach. Hundreds will be found to have 
 felt it, if j)atients inquire ; but the mind is 
 sometimes afraid of acknowledging its aj^pre- 
 hcnsions, even to itself; and thus fear bi-oods 
 over and hatches fear. 
 
 These disorders, generally speaking, are 
 greater or less in their effects according to the 
 exercise of reason. But do not let the word 
 be misunderstood : we should rather say, 
 according to the extent of the knowledge. A 
 very imaginative man will indeed be likely to 
 suffer more than others ; but if his knowledge 
 is at all in proportion, he will also get through 
 his evil better than an uninformed man suffer- 
 ing great terrors. And the reason is, that he 
 knows how much bodily unhealthiness has to 
 do with it. The very words that frighten the 
 unknowing might teach them better, if under- 
 stood. Thus insanity itself properly means 
 
 nothing but unhealthiness or unsoundness. 
 Derangement explains itself, and may surely 
 mean very harmless things. Melancholy is 
 compounded of two words which signify black 
 bile. II}Tjochondria is the name of one of the 
 regions of the stomach, a very instructive 
 etymology. And lunacy refers to effects, real 
 or imaginary, of particular states of the moon ; 
 which if anything after all, are nothing more 
 than what every delicate constitution feels in 
 its degree from particular states of the weather ; 
 for weather, like the tides, is apt to be in such 
 and such a condition, when the moon presents 
 such and such a face. 
 It has been said. 
 
 Great wits to madness nearly arc allied. 
 
 It is curious that he who wrote the saying 
 (Dryden) was a very sound wit to the end of 
 his life ; while his wife, who was of a weak 
 understanding, became insane. An excellent 
 writer (Wordsworth) has written an idle 
 couplet about the insanity of poets : 
 
 Wc poets enter on oiir path with gladness, 
 
 But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. 
 
 If he did not mean madness in the ordinary 
 sense, he should not have written this line ; if 
 he did, he ought not to have fallen, in the teeth 
 of his better knowledge, into so vulgar an 
 error. There are very few instances of insane 
 poets, or of insane great imderstandings of any 
 sort. Bacon, Milton, Newton, Shakspeare, 
 Cervantes, &c. were all of minds as sound as 
 they were great. So it has been with the infi- 
 nite majority of literary men of all countries. 
 If Tasso and a few others were exceptions, 
 they were hut exceptions ; and the derange- 
 ment in these eminent men has very doubtful 
 characters about it, and is sometimes made a 
 question. It may be pretty safely affirmed, at 
 least, upon an examination of it, that had they 
 not been the clever men they were, it would 
 have been much worse and less ecjuivocal. 
 Collins, whose case was after all one of inani- 
 tion rather than insanity, had been a free 
 liver ; and seems to have been hurt by having 
 a fortune left him. Cowper was weak-bodied, 
 and beset by Methodists. Swift's body was 
 full of bad humours. lie himself attributed 
 his disordered system to the effects of a surfeit 
 of fruit on his stomach ; and in his last illness 
 h(! used to break out in enormous boils and 
 blisters. This was a violent effort of nature 
 to help and purify the current of his blood, — 
 the main object in all such cases. Dr. John- 
 son, who was subject to mists of melancholy, 
 used to fancy he should go mad ; but he never 
 did. 
 
 Exercise, conversation, cheerful society, 
 amusements of all sorts, or a kind, patient, 
 and gradual helping of the bodily health, till 
 the mind be capable of amusement (for it 
 should never foolishly be told " not to think"
 
 MISTS AND FOGS. 
 
 19 
 
 of melancholy things, without having some- 
 thing done for it to mend the bodily health), — 
 these are the cures, the only cures, and in our 
 opinion the almost infallible cures of nervous 
 disorders, however excessive. Above all, the 
 patient should be told, that tliere has often 
 been an end to that torment of one haunting 
 idea, which is indeed a great and venerable 
 suifering. Many persons have got over it in a 
 week, a few weeks, or a month, some in a few 
 months, some not for years, but they have got 
 over it at last. There is a remarkable instance 
 of this in the life of our great king Alfred. 
 He was seized, says his contemporary biogra- 
 pher, with such a strange illness while sitting 
 at table, in the twenty-fifth year (we think) of 
 his age, that he shrieked aloud ; and for twenty 
 years afterwards this illness so preyed upon 
 him, that the relief of one hour was embittered 
 by what he dreaded would come the next. 
 His disorder is conjectured by some to have 
 been an internal cancer ; by others, with more 
 probability, the black bile, or melancholy. 
 The physicians of those times knew nothing 
 about it ; and the people showed at once their 
 ignorance, and their admiration of the king, 
 by saying that the devil had caused it out of 
 jealousy. It was probably produced by anxiety 
 for the state of his country ; but the same 
 thing which wounded him may have helped to 
 keep him up ; for he had plenty of business to 
 attend to, and fought with his own hand in 
 fifty-six pitched battles. Now exactly twenty 
 years after, in the forty-fifth year of his age (if 
 our former recollection is right) this disorder 
 totally left him ; and his great heart was where 
 it ought to be, in a heaven of health and calm- 
 ness. 
 
 XV.— MISTS AND FOGS. 
 
 Fogs and mists, being nothing but vapours 
 which the cold air will not suffer to evaporate, 
 must sometimes present a gorgeous aspect 
 next the sun. To the eye of an eagle, or 
 whatever other eyes there may be to look 
 down upon them, they may ajjpear like masses 
 of cloudy gold. In fact, they are but clouds 
 unrisen. The city of London, at the time we 
 are writing this article, is literally a city in 
 the clouds. Its inhabitants walk tlirough tlu; 
 same airy lieaps which at other times float 
 over their heads in the sky, or minister with 
 glorious faces to the setting sun. 
 
 We do not say, that any one can "hold a 
 fire in his hand," by tliinking on a fine sunset ; 
 or that sheer imagination of any sort can make 
 it a very agreeable thing to feel as if one's 
 body were wrapped round witli cold wet 
 paper ; much less to flounder through gutters, 
 or run against posts. But the mind can often 
 help itself with agreeable images against dis- 
 agreeable ones ; or pitch itself round to the 
 
 best sides and aspects of them. The solid and 
 fiery ball of the sun, stuck as it were, in the 
 thick foggy atmosphere ; the moon just win- 
 ning her way through it, into beams ; nay, the 
 very candles and gas-lights in the shop windows 
 of a misty evening, — all have, in our eyes, their 
 agreeable varieties of contrast to the surround- 
 ing haze. We have even halted, of a dreary 
 autumnal evening, at that open part of the 
 Strand by St. Clement's, and seen the church, 
 v/hich is a poor structure of itself, take an 
 aspect of ghastly grandeur from the dark 
 atmosphere ; looking like a tall white m.ass, 
 mounting up interminably into the night over- 
 head. 
 
 The poets, who are the common friends that 
 keep up the intercourse between nature and 
 humanity, have in numberless passages done 
 justice to these our melancholy visitors, and 
 shown us what grand personages they are. To 
 mention only a few of the most striking. 
 When Thetis, in the Iliad (lib. i., v. 359) rises 
 out of the sea to console Achilles, she issues 
 forth in a mist ; like the Genius in the Arabian 
 Nijhts. The reader is to suppose that the 
 mist, after ascending, comes gliding over the 
 water ; and condensing itself into a human 
 shape, lands the white-footed goddess on the 
 shore. 
 
 When Achilles, after his long and vindictive 
 absence from the Greek armies, re-appears in 
 consequence of the death of his friend Pati'O- 
 clus, and stands before the appalled Trojan 
 armies, who are thrown into confusion at the 
 very sight, Minerva, to render his aspect the 
 more astonishing and awful, jjuts about his 
 head a halo of golden mist, streaming upwards 
 with fire. (Lib. xviii., v. 205.) He shouts 
 aloud under this pretei-natural diadem ; Mi- 
 nerva throws into his shout her own immortal 
 voice with a strange unnatural cry ; at which 
 the horses of the Trojan warriors run round 
 with their chariots, and twelve of their noblest 
 captains perish in tlie crush. 
 
 A mist was the usual clothing of the gods, 
 when they descended to earth ; especially of 
 Apollo, whoso brightness had double need of 
 mitigation. Homer, to heighten the dignity 
 of Ulysses, has finely given him the same 
 covering, wiien he passes through the court of 
 Antinons, and suddenly ajjpears before the 
 throne. This has been turned to hapjiy account 
 l)y Virgil, and to a new and noble one by Milton. 
 Virgil makes iEneas issue suddenly tVom a 
 mist, at the moment when his friends think 
 liim lost, and the beautiful queen of Carthage 
 is wisliing his presence. Milton, — but we will 
 give one or tMO of his minor uses of mists, by 
 way of making a climax of the one alluded to. 
 If Satan, for instance, goes lurking about 
 Paradice, it is "like a black mist low creep- 
 ing." If the angels on guard glide about it, 
 upon their gentler errand, it is like fairer 
 
 vapours : 
 
 c a
 
 20 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 On the (jroimfl 
 Gliding metooroiis. as evening mist 
 Kisi-n from a river o'er the niarisli glides, 
 And gathers grovind fast at the labmirer's heel 
 Ilomoward returning.— (Air. Lvst, U. xii. v. 028.) 
 
 Now heliold one of liis greatest iniajjina- 
 tion.s. The fallen denii-gods arc assembled 
 in Pandicmonium, waitinjj; the return of their 
 " trreat adventurer " from his " search of 
 worlds : " 
 
 ITc thrrmgh the midst unmarked, 
 In show plebeian angol militant 
 Of lowest order, passed ; and from the door 
 Of that Plutonian hall, invisible, 
 Ascended his liigli throne; which, under state 
 Of richest texture spread, at the upper end 
 Was placed in regal lustre. Down awliile 
 lie sat, and round about him saw unseen. 
 Jt last — as from a cloud, his fulrjent head 
 And shape star-hrinht appeared, or brighter ; clad 
 AVith what permissive glory since his fall 
 "Was left him, or false glitter. All amazed 
 At tliat so sudden blaze, the Stygian throng 
 Bent their aspect ; and whom they wished, beheld, 
 Their mighty chief returned. 
 
 There is a piece of imagination in Apollo- 
 nius Rhodius worthy of Milton or Homer. 
 The Argonauts, in broad daylight, are sud- 
 denly benighted at sea with a black fog. They 
 pray to Apollo ; and he descends from heaven, 
 and lighting on a i"Ock, holds up his illustrious 
 bow, which shoots a guiding light for them to 
 an island. 
 
 Spenser in a most romantic chapter of the 
 Faery Qiieenc (Book ii.), seems to have taken 
 the idea of a benighting from Apollonius, as 
 well as to liave had an eye to some passages 
 of the Odyssey ; but like all great poets, what 
 he borrows only brings worthy companionship 
 to some fine invention of his own. It is a 
 scene thickly beset witii horror. Sir Guyon, 
 in the course of his voyage through the peril- 
 ous sea, wishes to stop and hear the Syrens : 
 but the palmer, his companion, dissuades 
 him : 
 
 When suddcinly a grosse fog overspred 
 With his dull vapour all that desert has. 
 And heaven's chearefuU face enveloped. 
 That all things one, and one as nothing was, 
 And this great universe seemed one confused mass. 
 
 Thereat they greatly were dismayd, nc wist 
 How to direct theyr ivfiy in darkness wide, 
 But feared to wander in that wastofuU mist 
 For tombling into mischicfe unespydc : 
 Worse is the daungcr hidden then descride. 
 Suddcinly an innmnerable flight 
 Of harmfuU fuwies about them fluttering cridc, 
 And with theyr wicked wings them oft did smight, 
 And sore annoyed, groping in that griesly night. 
 
 Even all the nation of unfortunate 
 And fatall birds about them flocked were, 
 Such as by nature men abhorre and hate ; 
 The ill-faced owle, deaths dre.idful messengore : 
 The hoarse night-raven, trump of doleful! drere : 
 The lethcr-winged batt, daycs enimy : 
 The ruefuU stritch, still waiting on the here : 
 Tho whistler shrill, that whoso heares doth dy •■ 
 The hellish harpies, prophets of sad destiny : 
 
 All these, and all that else does horror breed, 
 Abiuit tliem flew, and fild their sayles with feat ; 
 Yet stayil they not, but forward did proceed, 
 AVhiles th' one did row, and tli' other stifly steare. 
 
 Ovid has turned a mist to his usual account. 
 It is where Jujjiter, to conceal his amour 
 with lo, throws a cloud over the vale of 
 Tempe. There is a picture of Jupiter and lo, 
 by Corroggio, in which that great artist has 
 finely availed himself of the circumstance ; 
 the head of the father of gods aiul men com- 
 ing placidly out of the cloud, upon the young 
 lips of lo, like the very benignity of crea- 
 tion. 
 
 The poet who is the most conversant with 
 mists is Ossian, who was a native of the north 
 of Scotland or Ireland. The following arc as 
 many specimens of his uses of mist, as we have 
 room for. The first is very grand ; the second 
 as happy in its analogy ; tlie third is ghastly, 
 but of more doubtful merit : 
 
 Two Chiefs parted hij their Jiinp — They sunk from the 
 king on either side, like two columns nf morning mist, 
 when the sun rises between them on his glittering roeka. 
 Dark is their rolling on either side, each towards its reedy 
 pool. 
 
 A great Enemy.— \ love a foe like Cathmor : his soul is 
 great ; his arm is strong ; his battles are full of fame. 
 But the little soul is like a vapour, that hovers round tho 
 marshy lake. It never rises ou the green hill, lest tho 
 winds meet it there. 
 
 A terrible Omen. — A mist rose slowly from the lake. It 
 came, in the figure of an aged man, along the silent plain. 
 Its large limbs did not move in steps ; for a ghost sup- 
 ported it in mid air. It came towards Selma's haU, and 
 dissolved in a shower of blood. 
 
 We must mention another instance of the 
 poetical use of a mist, if it is only to indulge 
 ourselves in one of those masterly passages of 
 Dante, in which he contrives to unite minute- 
 ness of detail Avith the most grand and sove- 
 reign effect. It is in a lofty comparison of the 
 planet Mars looking through morning vapours; 
 the reader will see with what {Fiiniatoriu, C. ii. 
 V. 10). Dante and his guide Virgil have just 
 left the infernal regions, and are lingering 
 on a solitary sea-shore in purgatory ; which 
 reminds us of that still and far-thoughted 
 verse — 
 
 Lone sitting by the shores of old romance. 
 But to our English-like Italian. 
 
 Noi eravam lungh' esse 1 mare ancora, &c. 
 
 That solitary shore we still kept on. 
 
 Like men, who musing on their journey, stay 
 At rest in body, yet in heart arc gone ; 
 
 When lo ! as at tlie early dawn of day, 
 
 Red Mars looks deepening through the foggy heat, 
 Down in the west, far o'er the watery way ; 
 
 So did mine eyes behold (so m.ay they yet) 
 A light, which came so swiftly o'er the sea, 
 That never wing with such a fervour beat. 
 
 I did but turn to ask what it might be 
 Of my sage leader, when its orb had got 
 More large meanwhile, and came more gloriously : 
 
 "i
 
 THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS. 
 
 21 
 
 And by degrees, I saw I knew not what 
 Of white about it ; and beneath the white 
 Another. My great master uttered not 
 
 One word, till those first issuing candours bright 
 Fanned into wings ; but soon as he had found 
 Who was the mighty voyager now in sight. 
 
 He cried aloud, " Do\vn, down, upon the ground. 
 It is God's Angel." 
 
 XVI.— THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS, 
 
 A PORTUGUESE TRADITION. 
 
 In the time of the old kings of Portugal, 
 Don John, a natural son of the reigning prince, 
 was governor of the town of Veyros, in the 
 province of Alentejo. The town was situate 
 (perhaps is there still) upon a mountain, at 
 the foot of which runs a river ; and at a little 
 distance there was a ford over it, under another 
 eminence. The bed of the river thereabouts 
 was so high as to form a shallow sandy phxce ; 
 and in that clear spot of water, the maidens of 
 Veyros, both of high rank and humble, used to 
 wash their clothes. 
 
 It happened one day, tliat Don John, riding 
 out with a company, came to the spot at the 
 time the young women were so employed : 
 and being, says our author, " a young and lusty 
 gallant," he feU to jesting with his followers 
 upon the bare legs of the busy girls, who had 
 tucked up their clothes, as usual, to their work. 
 He passed along the river ; and all his com- 
 pany had not yet gone by, when a lass in a 
 red petticoat, while tucking it up, showed her 
 legs somewhat high ; and clapping her hand 
 on her right calf, said loud enough to be lieard 
 by the riders, " Here's a white leg, girls, for 
 the Master of A^as *." 
 
 These words, spoken probably out of a little 
 lively bravado, upon the strength of the go- 
 vernor's having gone by, were repeated to him 
 when he got home, together with the action 
 that accompanied them : upon which the young 
 lord felt the eloquence of tiie speech so deej)ly, 
 that he contrived to have the fair speaker 
 brought to him in private ; and the conse- 
 quence was, that our lively natural son, and his 
 spriglitly challenger, had another natural son. 
 
 Ines (for that was the girl's name) was the 
 daughter of a shoemaker in Veyros ; a man of 
 very good account, and wealthy. Hearing 
 how his daughter had been sent for to tiie 
 young governor's house, and that it was her 
 own light behaviour that subjected her to wliat 
 he was assured she willingly consented to, he 
 took it so to heart, that at lier return home, 
 she was driven by him from the liouse, with 
 every species of contumely and spurning. 
 After this, he never saw her more. And to 
 prove to the world and to himself, that his 
 severity was a matter of principle, and not a 
 mere indul gence of his own j)assions, he never 
 
 * An order of knighthood, of which Don John was 
 Master. 
 
 afterwards lay in a bed, nor ate at a table, nor 
 changed his linen, nor cut his hair, nails, or 
 beard ; which latter grew to such a length, 
 reaching below his knees, that the people used 
 to call him Barbadon, or Old Beardy. 
 
 In the meantime, his grandson, called Don 
 Alphonso, not only grew to be a man, but was 
 created Duke of Braganza, his father Don 
 John having been elected to the crown of 
 Portugal ; which he wore after such noble 
 fashion, to the great good of his country, as to 
 be surnamed the ISIemorable. Now the town 
 of Veyros stood in the middle of seven or 
 eight others, all belonging to the young Duke, 
 from whose palace at Villa Viciosa it was but 
 four leagues distant. He therefore had good 
 intelligence of the shoemaker his grandfather ; 
 and being of a humane and truly generous 
 spirit, the accounts he received of the old 
 man's way of life made him extremely desirous 
 of paying him a visit. He accordingly went 
 witli a retinue to VejTos ; and meeting Bar- 
 badon in the streets, he alighted from his horse, 
 bareheaded, and in the presence of that stately 
 company and the people, asked the old man 
 his blessing. The shoemaker, astonished at this 
 sudden spectacle, and at the strange contrast 
 which it furnished to his humble rank, stared 
 in a bewildered manner upon the imknown 
 personage, who thus knelt to him in the public 
 way; and said, "Sir, do you mock me?" — 
 " No," answered the Duke ; " may God so help 
 me, as I do not : but in earnest I crave I 
 may kiss your hand and receive your blessing, 
 for I am your grandson, and son to Ines your 
 daughter, conceived by the king, my lord and 
 father." No sooner had the shoemaker heard 
 these words, than he clapped his hands before 
 his eyes, and said, " God bless me from ever 
 beholding the son of so wicked a daughter as 
 mine was ! And yet, forasmuch as you are not 
 guilty of her offence, hold ; take my liand and 
 my blessing, in the name of the Father, and of 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." So saying, 
 he laid one of his old hands upon the young 
 man's head, blessing him ; but neither the 
 Duke nor his followers could persuade him to 
 take the other away from his eyes ; neither 
 would he talk with him a word more. In this 
 spirit, shortly after, lie died ; and just before 
 his death he directed a tomb to be made for 
 him, on which were sculptured the tools be- 
 longing to his trade, with this epitaph : — 
 
 " Tliis sepulchre Barbadon caused to be made, 
 (Being of Veyros, a sluieniakor by his trade) 
 For himself and the rest of liis race, 
 Excepting his daughter Ines in any case." 
 
 The author says, that he has " heard it 
 reported by the ancientest persons, that the 
 fourth Duke of Braganza, Don James, son to 
 Donna Isabel, sister to the King Don Emanuel, 
 caused that tomb to be defaced, being the 
 sepulchre of his fourth grandfather *." 
 
 * It appears bj' this, that thu 'ton Jolm of the tradition
 
 22 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 As for the daughter, the conclusion of whose 
 story comes lagging in like a penitent, " she 
 continued," says the writer, " after she was 
 delivered of tiiat son, a very chaste and vir- 
 tuous woman ; and tlie king made her coni- 
 maudress of Santos, a most honourable place, 
 and very plentiful ; to the wliicli none but 
 princesses were admitted, living, as it were, 
 abbesses and princesses of a monastery built 
 without the walls of Lisbon, called Santos, that 
 is Saints, founded by reason of some martyrs 
 that were martyred there. And tlie religious 
 women of that place Iiave liberty to marry 
 ■with the knights of their order, before they 
 enter into that lioly profession." 
 
 The rest of our author's remarks are in too 
 curious a spirit to be omitted. " In this mo- 
 nastery," he says, " the same Donna Ines died, 
 leaving behind her a glorious reputation for 
 her virtue and holiness. Observe, gentle 
 reader, the constancy that this Portuguese, a 
 shoemaker, continued in, loathing to behold 
 the honourable estate of his grandchild, nor 
 would any more acknowledge his daughter, 
 having been a lewd woman, for purchasing 
 advancement with dishonour. This consider- 
 ed, you will not wonder at the Count Julian, 
 that plagued Spain, and executed the king 
 Roderigo for forcing his daughter La Cava. 
 The example of this shoemaker is especially 
 worthy the noting, and deeply to be consi- 
 dered : for, besides, that it makes good our 
 assertion, it teaches tlie higher not to disdain 
 the lower, as long as they be virtuous and 
 lovers of honour. It may be that this old 
 man, for his integrity, rising fi'om a virtuous 
 zeal, merited that a daughter coming by des- 
 cent from his grandchild, should be made 
 Queen of Castile, and the mother of great 
 Isabel, grandmother to the Emperor Charles 
 the Fifth, and Ferdinando." 
 
 Alas ! a pretty posterity our shoemaker had, 
 in Philip the '2nd and his successors, — a race 
 more suitable to his severity against his child, 
 than his blessing upcn his gi-andchild. Old 
 Barbadon was a fine fellow too, after his 
 fashion. "We do not know how he reconciled 
 his unforgiving conduct with his Christianity ; 
 but he had enough precedents on that point. 
 What we admire in him is, his showing that 
 jie acted out of principle, and did not mistake 
 passion for it. His crepidarian sculjjtures 
 indeed are not so well ; but a little vanity may 
 be allowed to mingle witli and soften such 
 edge-tools of self-denial, as he chose to handle. 
 His treatment of his daiigliter was ignorant, 
 and in wiser times would have been brutal ; 
 especially when it is considered how much 
 the conduct of children is modified by educa- 
 tion and other circumstances : but then a 
 
 is .John the First, who was elected king of Portugal, and 
 became famous for his great qualities ; and that his son 
 by the alleged shoemaker's daughter was his successor, 
 AlpboDBO the Fifth. 
 
 brutal man would not have accompanied it 
 with such voluntary suffering of his own. 
 Neither did Barbadon leave his daughter to 
 take her chance in the wide world, thinking 
 of the evils she might be enduring, only to 
 give a greater zest of fancied pity to tlie 
 contentedness of his cruelty. He knew she 
 was well taken care of; and if she was not 
 to have the enjoyment of liis society, lie was 
 determined that it should be a very uncom- 
 fortable one to himself. He knew that slie 
 lay on a princely bed, while he would have 
 none at all. He knew that she was served upon 
 gold and silver, while he renounced his old 
 chestnut table, — the table at which she used 
 to sit. He knew while he sat looking at his 
 old beard, and the wilful sordidness of his 
 hands, that her locks and her fair limbs were 
 objects of worship to the gallant and the great. 
 And so he set off" his destitutions against her 
 over-possession ; and took out the punishment 
 he gave her, in revenge upon himself. Tliis 
 was the instinct of a man who loved a prin- 
 ciple, but hated nobody : — of a man who, in a 
 wiser time, would have felt the wisdom of 
 kindness. Thus his blessing upon his grand- 
 child becomes consistent with his cruelty to 
 his child : and his living stock was a fine one 
 in spite of him. His daughter showed a sense 
 of the wound she had given such a father, by 
 relinquishing the sympathies she loved, because 
 they had hurt him : and her son, worthy of 
 sucli a grandfather and such a daughter, and 
 refined into a gracefulness of knowledge by 
 education, thought it no mean thing or vulgar 
 to kneel to the grey-headed artisan in the 
 street, and beg the blessing of his honest 
 hand. 
 
 XVII.— MORE NEWS OF ULYSSES. 
 
 Talking the other day with a friend* about 
 Dante, he observed, that wlienever so great a 
 poet told us anything in addition or continua- 
 tion of an ancient story, he had a right to be 
 regarded as classical authority. For instance, 
 said lie, when he tells us of that characteristic 
 death of Ulysses in one of the books of his 
 liifurno, we ought to receive tlie information as 
 authentic, and be glad that we have more news 
 of Ulysses than we looked for. 
 
 We thought this a happy remark, and in- 
 stantly turned with him to the passage in 
 question. The last account of Ulysses in the 
 ancient poets, is his sudden re-appearance 
 before the suitors at Ithaca. There is some- 
 thing more told of him, it is true, before the 
 Odyssey concludes ; but with the exception 
 of his visit to his aged father, our memory 
 scarcely wishes to retain it ; nor does it con- 
 trovert the general impression left upon us, 
 that the wandering hero is victorious over his 
 
 * The late Mr. Keats.
 
 MORE NEWS OF ULYSSES. 
 
 23 
 
 domestic enemies ; and reposes at last, and for 
 life, in the bosom of his family. 
 
 The lesser poets, however, could not let him 
 alone. Homer leaves the general impression 
 upon one's mind, as to the close of his life ; but 
 there are plenty of obscurer fables about it 
 still. We have specimens in modern times of 
 this propensity never to have done with a 
 good story ; which is natural enough, though 
 not very Avise ; nor are the best writers likely 
 to meddle with it. Thus Cervantes was 
 plagued with a spurious Quixote ; and our 
 circulating libraries have the adventures of 
 Tom Jones in Jm Married State. The ancient 
 writers on the present subject, availing them- 
 selves of an obscure jDrophecy of Tiresias, who 
 tells Ulysses on his Aasit to hell, that his old 
 enemy the sea would be the death of him at 
 last, bring over the sea Telegonus, his son by 
 the goddess Circe, who gets into a scuffle with 
 the Ithacans, and kills his father unknowingly. 
 It is added, that Telegonus afterwards return- 
 ed to his mother's island, taking Penelope and 
 his half-brother Telemachus with him ; and 
 here a singular arrangement takes place, 
 more after the fashion of a modern Catholic 
 dynasty, than an ancient heathen one : for 
 while CEdipus was fated to undergo such 
 dreadful misfortunes for marrying his mother 
 without the knowledge of either party, Minerva 
 herself comes down from heaven, on the pre- 
 sent occasion, to order Telegonus, the son of 
 Ulysses, to marry his father's wife ; tlie other 
 son at the same time making a suitable match 
 with his father's mistress, Circe. Telemachus 
 seems to have had the best of tliis extraordinary 
 bargain, for Circe was a goddess, consequently 
 always young ; and yet to perplex these wind- 
 ings-up still more, Telemachus is represented 
 by some as marrying Circe's daughter, and 
 killing his immortal mother-in-law. Nor does 
 the character of the chaste and enduring 
 Penelope escape in the confusion. Instead of 
 waiting her husband's return in that patient 
 manner, she is reported to have been over- 
 hospitable to all the suitors ; the consequence 
 of which was a son called Pan, being no less 
 a personage than the god Pan himself, or 
 Nature ; a fiction, as Bacon says, " applied 
 very absurdly and indiscreetly." There are 
 different stories respecting her lovers ; but it 
 is reported that when Ulysses returned from 
 Troy, he divorced her for incontinence ; and 
 that she fled, and passed her latter days in 
 Mantinea. Some even go so far as to say, that 
 her father Icarius had attempted to destroy 
 lier when young, because the oracle had told 
 him that she would be the most dissolute of 
 the family. This was probably invented by 
 the comic writers out of a buffoon malignity ; 
 for there are men, so foolishly incredulous 
 Avith regard to principle, that the reputation 
 of it, even in a fiction, makes them impatient. 
 
 Now it is impossible to say, whether Dante 
 
 would have left Ulysses quietly with Penelope 
 after all his suff'erings, had he known them as 
 described in Homer. The old Florentine, 
 though wilful enough when he wanted to dis- 
 pose of a modern's fate, had gi'eat veneration 
 for his predecessors. At all events, he was 
 not acquainted with Homer's works. They 
 did not make their way back into Italy till a 
 little later. But there were Latin writei's 
 extant, who might have informed him of the 
 other stories relative to Ulysses ; and he saw 
 nothing in them, to hinder him from giving 
 the great wanderer a death of his own. 
 
 He has accordingly, with great attention to 
 nature, made him impatient of staying at 
 home, after a life of such adventure and 
 excitement. But we will relate the story in 
 his own order. He begins it with one of his 
 most romantic pieces of wildness. The poet 
 and his guide Virgil are making thebest of their 
 difficult path along a ridge of the craggy rock 
 that overhangs the eighth gulf of hell ; when 
 Dante, looking down, sees the abyss before 
 him fuU of flickering lights, as numerous, he 
 says, as the fire-flies which a peasant, reposing 
 on a hill, sees filling the valley, of a hot even- 
 ing. Every flame shot about separately ; and 
 he knew that some terrible mystery or other 
 accompanied it. As he leaned down from the 
 rock, grasping one of the crags, in order to 
 look closer, his guide, who perceived his ear- 
 nestness, said, " Within those fires are spirits ; 
 every one swathed in what is burning him." 
 Dante told him, that he had already guessed 
 as much : and pointing to one of them in par- 
 ticular, asked who was in that fire which was 
 divided at top, as though it had ascended from 
 the funeral-pile of the hating Tlieban brothers. 
 " Within that," answered Virgil, " are Diomed 
 and Ulysses, who speed together now to their 
 own misery, as they used to do to that of 
 otliers." They were suff'ering the penalty of 
 the various frauds they had perpetrated in 
 concert ; such as the contrivance of the Trojan 
 horse, and the theft of the Palladium. Dante 
 entreats, that if those who are within the 
 sparkling horror can speak, it may be made to 
 come near. Virgil says it shall ; but begs the 
 Florentine not to question it himself, as the 
 spirits, being Greek, might be shy of holding 
 discourse with him. When the flame has 
 come near enough to be spoken to, Virgil 
 addresses the "two within one fire ;" and 
 requests them, if he ever deserved anything of 
 them as a poet, great or little, that they would 
 not go away, till one of them had told him how 
 he came into that extremity. 
 
 At this, says Dante, the greater horn of the 
 old fire began to lap hither and thither, mur- 
 muring ; like a flame struggling with the wind. 
 The top then, yearning to and fro, like a tongue 
 trying to speak, threw out a voice, and said ; 
 " When I departed from Circe, who withdrew 
 me to her for more than a year in the neigh-
 
 24 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 boiirhood of Gaieta, before ^neas had so 
 named it, noitlier the swoot coiniiaiiy of my 
 son, nor pious aflVolion of my old fat her, nor 
 the lonfj^-owed love with which I ou<,dit to liave 
 gladdened Penelope, eould conciuer the ardour 
 tliat was in me to become wise in knowledge 
 of the world, of man's vices and his virtue. I 
 put forth into the great open deep with only 
 one bark, and the small remaining crew by 
 whom I had not been left. I Siiw the two 
 sliores on either side, as far as Spain and 
 Jlorocco ; and the island of Sardinia, and the 
 other isles which the sea there bathes round 
 about. Slowly we went, my companions and 
 I, for we were old ; till at last we came to that 
 narrow outlet, where Hercules set up his j)illar9, 
 that no man might go further. I left Seville 
 on the right hand : on the other I had left 
 Ceuta. O brothers, said I, who through a 
 hundred thousand perils are at length arrived 
 at the west, deny not to the short waking day 
 that yet remains to our senses, an insight into 
 the unpeopled world, setting your backs upon 
 the sun. Consider the stock from which ye 
 sprang : ye were not made to live like the 
 brute beasts, but to follow %-irtue and know- 
 ledge. I so sharpened my companions with 
 this little speech on our way, that it would 
 have been difficult for me to have withheld 
 them, if I would. We left the morning right 
 in our stern, and made wings of our oars for 
 the idle flight, always gaining upon the left. 
 Tlie night now beheld all the stars of the 
 other polo ; while our own was so low, that it 
 arose not out of the ocean-floor. Five times 
 the light had risen underneath the moon, and 
 five times fallen, since we put forth upon the 
 gre.at deep ; when we descried a dim mountain 
 in the distance, which appeared higher to me 
 than ever I had seen any before. We rejoiced, 
 and as soon mourned : for there sprung a 
 whij-lwind from the new land, and struck the 
 foremost frame of our vessel. Three times, 
 with all the waters, it whirled us round ; at 
 the fourth it dashed the stern up in air, and 
 the prow downwards ; till, as seemed fit to 
 otheis, the ocean closed above our heads." 
 
 Tro volte il fp girar eon tutte 1' acque : 
 A la quarta Icvar la poppa in suso, 
 E la proni i.-o in giii, come altrul piacquc, 
 Infin ch '1 mai- fu sopra noi riehiuso. 
 
 Why poor Ulysses should find himself in 
 hell after his immersion, and be condemned to 
 a swathing of eternal fire, while St. Dominic, 
 who deluged Christianity with fire and blood, 
 is called a Cherubic Light, the Papist, not the 
 poet, must explain, lie puts all the Pagans in 
 hell, because, however good some of them may 
 have been, they lived befon; Christ, and could 
 not worship God properly- — (fklntamente). lUit 
 ho laments their state, and represents them as 
 suffering a mitigated punisiiment : they onli/ 
 live in a state of perpetual desire without hope 
 
 {sol di tanto offesi) ! A sufficing misery, it must 
 be allowed ; but compared with the horrors he 
 fancies for heretics and others, undoubtedly a 
 great relief. Dante, throughout his extraordi- 
 nary work, gives many evidences of great 
 natural sensibdity ; and his countenance, as 
 handed down to us, as well as the shade-struck 
 gravity of his poetry, shows the cuts and dis- 
 quietudes of heart he must have endured. 
 But unless the occasional hell of his own 
 troubles, and his consciousness of the muta- 
 bility of all things, helped him to discover the 
 brevity of individual suffering as a particidar, 
 and the lastingness of nature's benevolence as 
 a universal, and thus gave his poem an inten- 
 tion beyond what appears upon the surface, 
 we must conclude, that a bigoted education, 
 and the fierce party politics in which he was a 
 leader and sufferer, obscured the greatness of 
 his spirit. It is always to be recollected, how- 
 ever, as Mr. Coleridge has observed somewhere 
 in other words, that when men consign each 
 other to eternal punishment and such-like 
 horrors, their belief is rather a venting of 
 present impatience and dislike, than anything 
 which they take it for. The fiercest Papist or 
 Calvinist only flatters himself (a strange flat- 
 tery, too !) that he could behold a fellow- 
 creature tumbling and shrieking about in 
 eternal fire. lie would begin shrieking himself 
 in a few minutes ; and think that he and all 
 heaven ought to pass away, rather than that 
 one such agony should continue. TertuUiau 
 himself, when he longed to behold the enemies 
 of his faith burning and liquefying, only meant, 
 without knowing it, that he was in an excessive 
 rage at not convincing everybody that read 
 him. 
 
 XVIIL— FAR COUNTRIES. 
 
 Imagination-, though no mean thing, is not 
 a proud one. If it looks down from its wings 
 upon common-places, it only the more perceives 
 the vastness of the region about it. Tlu? 
 infinity into which its flight carries it, might 
 indeed throw back upon it a too great sense of 
 insignificance, did not Beauty or Moral Justice, 
 with its equal eye, look through tliat blank 
 aspect of power, and re-assure it ; showing it 
 that there is a power as much above power 
 itself, as the thought that reaches to all, is to 
 the hand that can touch only thus far. 
 
 But we do not wish to get into this tempting 
 region of speculation just now. We only intend 
 to show the particular instance, in which 
 imagination instinctively displays its natural 
 humility : we mean, the fondness which ima- 
 ginative times and people have shown for what 
 is personally remote from them ; for what is 
 opposed to their own individual conscious- 
 ness, even in range of space, in farness of situ- 
 ation.
 
 FAR COUNTRIES. 
 
 25 
 
 There is no surer mark of a vain people than 
 their treating other nations with contempt, 
 especially those of whom they know least. It 
 is better to verify the proverb, and take every 
 thing unknown for magnificent, than predeter- 
 mine it to be worthless. The gain is greater. 
 The instinct is more judicious. When we 
 mention the French as an instance, we do not 
 mean to be invidious. Most nations have their 
 good as well as bad features. In Vanity Fair 
 there are many booths. 
 
 The French, not long ago, praised one of 
 their neighbours so highly, that the latter is 
 suspected to have lost as much modesty, as the 
 former gained by it. But they did this as a 
 set-off against their own despots and bigots. 
 When they again became the greatest power 
 in Europe, they had a relapse of their old 
 egotism. The French, though an amiable and 
 intelligent people, are not an imaginative one. 
 The greatest height they go is in a balloon. 
 They get no farther than France, let them go 
 where they will. They " run the great circle 
 and are still at home," like the squirrel in his 
 I'oUing cage. Instead of going to Nature in 
 their poetry, they would make her come to 
 them, and dress herself at their last new toilet. 
 In philosophy and metaphysics, they divest 
 themselves of gross prejudices, and then think 
 they are in as graceful a state of nakedness as 
 Adam and Eve. 
 
 At the time when the French had this fit 
 upon them of praising the English (which was 
 nevertheless the honester one of the two), 
 they took to praising the Chinese for number- 
 less unknown qualities. This seems a contra- 
 diction to the near-sightedness we speak of : 
 but the reason they praised them was, that the 
 Chinese had the merit of religious toleration : 
 a great and extraordinary one certainly, and 
 not the less so for having been, to all appear- 
 ance, the work of one man. All the romance 
 of China, such as it was, — anything in which 
 they differed from the French, — their dress, 
 their porcelain towers, their Great Wall, — was 
 nothing. It was the particular agreement 
 with the philosophers. 
 
 It happened, curiously enougli, that they 
 could not have selected for tlicir panegyric a 
 nation apparently more contemptuous of others ; 
 or at least more self-satisfied and unimagina tive. 
 The Chinese are cunning and ingenious ; and 
 liave a great talent at bowing out ambassadors 
 who come to visit tliem. ikit it is somewhat 
 inconsistent with what appears to be their 
 general character, that they should pay 
 strangers even this equivocal compliment ; for 
 under a prodigious mask of jmliteness, they are 
 not slow to evince their contempt of otlier 
 nations, whenever any comparison is insinuated 
 with the subjects of the Brother of the Sun 
 and Moon. The knowledge they respect in us 
 most is that of gun-making, and of tlie East- 
 Indian passage. When our countrymen showed 
 
 them a map of the earth, tiiey inquired foi 
 China ; and on finding that it only made a 
 little piece in a corner, could not contain their 
 derision. They thought that it was the main 
 territory in the middle, the apple of the world's 
 eye. 
 
 On the other hand, the most imaginative 
 nations, in their highest times, have had a 
 respect for remote countries. It is a mistake 
 to suppose that the ancient term barbarian, 
 applied to foreigners, suggested the meaning 
 we are apt to give it. It gathered some such 
 insolence with it in the course of time ; but 
 the more intellectual Greeks venerated the 
 countries from which they brought the elements 
 of their mythology and philosophy. The 
 philosopher travelled into Egypt, like a son to 
 see his father. Tlie merchant heard in Phoe- 
 nicia the far-brought stories of other realms, 
 which he told to his delighted countrymen. 
 It is supposed, that the mortal part of Jlento'r 
 in the Odyssey was drawn from one of these 
 voyagers. When Anacharsis the Scythian 
 was reproached with his native place by an 
 unworthy Greek, he said, " My country may 
 be a shame to me, but you are a shame to your 
 country." Greece had a lofty notion of the 
 Persians and the Great King, till Xerxes came 
 over to teach it better, and betrayed the soft- 
 ness of their skulls. 
 
 It was the same with the Arabians, at the 
 time when they had the accomplishments of 
 the world to themselves ; as we see by their 
 delightful tales. Everything shines with them 
 in the distance, like a sunset. WTiat an ami- 
 able people are their Persians ! What a 
 wonderful place is the island of Sereudib ! 
 You would think nothing could be finer than 
 the Caliph's city of Bagdat, till you hear of 
 " Grand Cairo ;" and how has that epithet 
 and that name towered in the imagination of 
 all those, who have not had the misfortune to 
 see the modern city ? Sindbad was respected, 
 like Ulysses, because he had seen so many 
 adventures and nations. So was Aboulfaouris 
 the Great Voyager, in the Persian Tales. His 
 very name sounds like a wonder. 
 
 With many a tempest had his beard been shaken. 
 
 It was one of the workings of the great 
 Alfred's mind, to know about far-distant coun- 
 tries. There is a translation by him of a book 
 of geography ; and he even einjjloyed people 
 to travel : a great stretch of intellectual muni- 
 ficence for those times. About the same 
 period, llaroun al Raschid (whom our manhood 
 is startled to find almost a less real person 
 than we thought him, for his very reality) 
 wrote a letter to the Emjicror of the West, 
 Charlemagne. Here, is Arabian and Italian 
 romance, siiaking hands in iiorson. 
 
 The Crusades j)ierco(l into a new world of 
 remoteness. We do not know whether those 
 were much benefited, wlio took part in them ;
 
 2C 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 but for the imaginative persons remaining at 
 home, the idea of going to Palestine must 
 have beeii like travelling into a sujiernatural 
 world. When the eampaign itself luul a good 
 effect, it must have been of a very fine and 
 highly-tempered description. Chaucer's Knight 
 had been 
 
 Sometime with the lord of Palatio 
 
 Agcn another hcthen in Turkie : 
 
 And evermore he li.ad a sovereign price ; 
 
 And though that he was worthy, he was wise, 
 
 And of his port us meek as is a maydc. 
 
 IIow like a return from the moon must have 
 been the re-appearance of such travellers as 
 Sir John Mandevile, JMarco Polo, and William 
 de lliibiniquis, with their news of Prester 
 John, the Great Mogul, and the Great Cham 
 of Tartary ! The long-lost voyager must have 
 been like a person consecrated in all the 
 quarters of heaven. His staff and iiis beard 
 must have looked like relics of his former 
 self. The Venetians, who were some of the 
 earliest European travellers, have been re- 
 marked, among their other amiable qualities, 
 for their great respect for strangers. The 
 peculiarity of their position, and the absence 
 of so many things which are common-places to 
 other countries, such as streets, horses, and 
 coaches, add, no doubt, to this feeling. But a 
 foolish or vain people would only feel a con- 
 tempt for what tliey did not possess. Milton, 
 in one of those favourite passages of his, in 
 which ho turns a nomenclature into such grand 
 meaning and music, shows us whose old footing 
 he had delighted to follow. How he enjoys 
 the distance ; emphatically using the words 
 far, farthest, and utmost! 
 
 — Embassies from regions far remote, 
 
 In various liabits, on the Appian road, 
 
 Or on the Emilian ; some from farthest south, 
 
 Syene, and where tlie shadow both way falls, 
 
 Mcroe, Nilotick Isle ; and more to west. 
 
 The realm of Bocchus to the Black -moor sea ; 
 
 From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these ; 
 
 From India and the golden Chersonese, 
 
 And utmost Indian isle Taprobane. — Parad. Reg. b. iv. 
 
 One of the main helps to our love of remote- 
 ness in general, is the associations we connect 
 with it of peace and quietness. Whatever 
 there may be at a distance, people feel as if 
 they should escape from the worry of their 
 local cares. " that I had wings like a dove ! 
 then would I fly away and be at rest." The 
 word far is often used wilfully in poetry, to 
 render distance still more distant. An old 
 English song begins — 
 
 In Irelandc farre over the sea 
 There dwelt a bonny king. 
 
 Thomson, a Scotchman, speaking of the western 
 isles of his own country, h.as that delicious 
 line, full of a dreary yet lulling pleasure ; — 
 
 As when a shepherd of the Ilebrid isles, 
 Plaeeti/ar amid the melancholy main. 
 
 In childhood, the total ignorance of the 
 world, especially when we are brought up in 
 some confined spot, renders everything beyond 
 the bounds of our dwelling a distance and a 
 romance. Mr. Lamb, in his JitcolUdions of 
 Christ's Hospital, says that he remembers when 
 some half-dozen of his school-fellows set off, 
 " without map, card, or compass, on a serious 
 expedition to find out Philip Quarll's Island." 
 W^e once encountered a set of boys as romantic. 
 It was at no greater distance than at the foot 
 of a hill near Ilampstead ; yet the spot was so 
 perfectly Cisalpine to them, that two of them 
 came up to us with looks of hushing eager- 
 ness, and asked " whether, on the other side 
 of that hill, there were not robbers ;" to which, 
 the minor adventurer of the two added, " and 
 some say serpents." They had all got bows 
 and arrows, and were evidently hovering 
 about the place, betwixt daring and apprehen- 
 sion, as on the borders of some wild region. 
 We smiled to think which it was that hus- 
 banded their suburb wonders to more advan- 
 tage, they or we : for while they peopled the 
 place with robbers and serpents, we were 
 peopling it with sylvans and fairies. 
 
 " So was it when my life began ; 
 So is it now I am a man ; 
 So be it when I shall grow old, 
 
 Or let me die ! 
 The child is father to the man ; 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural piety." 
 
 XIX.— A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 
 
 A MAN who does not contribute his quota 
 of grim story now-a-days, seems hardly to be 
 free of the republic of letters. He is bound to 
 wear a death's-head, as part of his insignia. 
 If he does not frighten everybody, he is nobody. 
 If he does not shock the ladies, what can be 
 expected of him ? 
 
 We confess we think very cheaply of these 
 stories in general. A story, merely horrible 
 or even awful, which contains no sentiment 
 elevating to the human heart and its hopes, is 
 a mere appeal to the least judicious, least 
 healthy, and least masculine of our passions, — 
 fear, 'i'hey whose attention can be gravely 
 arrested by it, are in a fit state to receive any 
 absurdity with respect ; and this is the reason, 
 why less talents are required to enforce it, than 
 in any otiier species of composition. With 
 this opinion of such things, we may be allowed 
 to say, that we would undertake to write a 
 dozen horrible stories in a day, all of which 
 should make the common worshippers of power, 
 who were not in the very healthiest condition, 
 turn pale. We would tell of Haunting Old 
 Women, and Knocking Ghosts, and Solitary 
 Lean Hands, and Empusas on One Leg, and 
 Ladies growing Longer and Longer, and Horrid
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER. 
 
 27 
 
 Eyes meeting us through Key-holes, and 
 Plaintive Heads, and Shrieking Statues, and 
 Shocking Anomalies of Shape, and Things 
 which when seen drove people mad ; and In- 
 digestion knows what besides. But who would 
 measure talents with a leg of veal, or a German 
 sausage ? 
 
 Mere grimness is as easy as grinning ; but it 
 requires something to put a handsome face on 
 a story. Narratives become of suspicious merit 
 in proportion as they lean to Newgate-like 
 offences, particularly of blood and wounds. A 
 child has a reasonable respect for a Raw-head- 
 and-bloody-bones, because all images whatso- 
 ever of pain and terror are new and fearful to 
 his inexperienced age : but sufferings merely 
 physical (unless sublimated like those of Phi- 
 loctetes) are common-places to a grown man. 
 Images, to become awful to him, must be 
 removed from the grossness of the shambles. 
 A death's-head was a respectable thing in the 
 hands of a poi-ing monk, or of a nun compelled 
 to avoid the idea of life and society, or of a 
 hermit already buried in the desert. Holbein's 
 Dance of Death, in which every grinning 
 skeleton leads along a man of rank, from the 
 pope to the gentleman, is a good Memento 
 Mori ; but there the skeletons have an air of 
 the ludicrous and satirical. If we were 
 threatened with them in a grave way, as spec- 
 tres, we should have a right to ask how they 
 could walk about without muscles. Thus 
 many of the tales written by such authors as 
 the late Mr. Lewis, who wanted sentiment to 
 give him the heart of truth, are quite puerile. 
 When his spectral nuns go about bleeding, we 
 think they ought in decency to have applied 
 to some ghost of a surgeon. His Little Grey 
 Men, who sit munching hearts, are of a piece 
 with fellows that eat cats for a wager. 
 
 Stories that give mental pain to no purpose, 
 or to very little purpose compared with the 
 unpleasant ideas they excite of human nature, 
 are as gi'oss mistakes, in their way, as these, 
 and twenty times as pernicious : for the latter 
 become ludicrous to grown people. They ori- 
 ginate also in the same extremes, of callous- 
 ness, or of morbid want of excitement, as the 
 others. But more of these hereafter. Our 
 business at present is with things ghastly and 
 ghostly. 
 
 A ghost story, to be a good one, should unite, 
 as much as possible, ol)jects such as they are 
 in life, witii a preternatural sjurit. And to be 
 a perfect one, — at least to add to the other 
 utility of excitement a moral utility, — thoy 
 should imply some groat sentiment,— somc- 
 thina- tliat comes out of tlie next worUl to 
 remind us of our duties in this ; or something 
 that helps to carry on the idea of our humanity 
 into after-life, even when we least tliink we 
 shall take it with us. When " the buried ma- 
 jesty of Denmark" revisits earth to speak to 
 his son Hamlet, he comes armed, as he used to 
 
 be, in his complete steel. His visor is raised ; 
 and the same fine face is there ; only, in spite 
 of his punishing errand and his own sufferings, 
 with 
 
 A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. 
 
 When Donne the poet, in his thoughtful 
 eagerness to reconcile life and death, had a 
 figure of himself painted in a shroud, and laid 
 by his bedside in a coffin, he did a higher thing 
 than the monks and hermits with their skulls. 
 It was taking his humanity with him into the 
 other world, not affecting to lower the sense 
 of it by regarding it piecemeal or in the frame- 
 work. Burns, in his Tarn O'Shaiiter, shows the 
 dead in their coffins after the same fashion. 
 He does not lay bare to us their skeletons or 
 refuse, things with which we can connect no 
 symijathy or spiritual wonder. They still are 
 flesh and body to retain the one ; yet so look 
 and behave, inconsistent in their very consis- 
 tency, as to excite the other. 
 
 Coffins stood round like open presses, 
 AVhich showed the dead in their last dresses : 
 And by some devilish cantrip sleight. 
 Each, in his cauld hand, held a light. 
 
 Re-animation is perhaps the most ghastly of 
 all ghastly things, uniting as it does an appear- 
 ance of natural interdiction from the next 
 world, with a supernatural experience of it. 
 Our human consciousness is jarred out of its 
 self-possession. The extremes of habit and 
 newness, of common-place and astonishment, 
 meet suddenly, without the kindly introduc- 
 tion of death and change ; and the stranger 
 appals us in proportion. When the account 
 appeared the other day in the newspapers of 
 the galvanized dead body, whose features as 
 well as limbs underwent such contortions, . 
 that it seemed as if it were about to rise up, 
 one almost expected to hear, for the first time, 
 news of the other world. Perhaps the most 
 appalling figure in Spenser is that of !Maleger : 
 {Fairy Queen, b. ii. c. xi.) 
 
 Upon a tygre swift and fierce he rode, 
 Tliat as the winde ran underneath his lode, 
 Whiles his long legs nigh raught unto tlie ground : 
 Full largo he was of limbe, and shoulders brode, 
 liut of such subtile substance and unsound, 
 That like a ghost he seemed, whose grave-clothes were 
 unbound. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, in that voyage of his to the 
 brink of all unutterable things, the Ancient 
 Mariner (which works out however a fine sen- 
 timent), does not set mere ghosts or hobgoblins 
 to man the ship again, wlien its crew are dead ; 
 but re-animates, for a while, tlu' crew them- 
 selves. There is a striking fiction of this sort 
 in Sale's notes upon the Koran. Solomon dies 
 during the building of the temple, but his body 
 remains leaning on a staff and overlooking the 
 workmen, as if it wore alive ; till a worm 
 gnawing through the prop, he falls down. — The 
 contrast of the appearance of humanity with
 
 28 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 something mortal or supernatural, is always 
 the more terrible in jiroportiou as it is eoniplete. 
 In tlio pictures of the temptations of saints 
 and hermits, where the holy person is sur- 
 rounded, teazed, and enticed, with devils and 
 fantastic shapes, the nu)stshockiugphantasm is 
 that of tiie beautiful woman. To return also to 
 the poem above-nu'Utioned. The most appalling 
 personage in Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner 
 is the Spectre-woman, -who is called Life-in- 
 Death. Jle renders the most Iiideous abstrac- 
 tion more terrible than it could otherwise liave 
 been, by embodying it in its own reverse. 
 " Death " not only « lives" in it ; but the " un- 
 utterable " becomes uttered. To see such an 
 unearthly passage end in sucli eartiiliness, 
 seems to turn common-place itself into a sort 
 of spectral doubt. The Mariner, after describ- 
 ing the horrible calm, and the rotting sea in 
 which the ship was stuck, is speaking of a 
 strange sail which he descried in the distance : 
 
 The western wave was all a-flame, 
 The day was well-nigh done ! 
 Almost upon the western wave 
 Rested the hroad bright sun ; 
 When that strange ship drove suddenly 
 Betwixt us and the sim. 
 
 And straight the sun was flecked with bars 
 (Heaven's Jlother send us grace .') 
 As if through a dungcon-grate he peer'd, 
 A\'ith broad and burning face. 
 
 Alas : (thought I, and my heart beat loud) 
 How fast she ncers and neers ! 
 Are tliose her sails that glance in the sun 
 Like restless gossameres ? 
 
 Are those her ribs, through which the sun 
 Did peer as through a grate ? 
 And is that Woman all lier crew ? 
 Is that a death ? and are there two ? 
 Is Death that Woman's mate ? 
 
 Her lips were red, her looks were free. 
 Her locks were yellow as gold, 
 Her skin was as white as leprosy, 
 The Night-Marc Life-in-Dcath was she. 
 Who thicks man's blood with cold. 
 
 But we must come to Mr. Coleridge's story 
 with our subtlest imaginations upon us. Now 
 let us put our knees a little nearer the fire, 
 and tell a homelier one about Life in Death. 
 Tlie groundwork of it is in Sandys' Commen- 
 tary upon Ovid, and quoted from Sabinus*. 
 
 A gentleman of Bavaria, of a noble family, 
 was so afflicted at the death of his wife, tliat 
 unable to bear the company of any other per- 
 son, he gave liimself up to a solitary way of 
 living, 'i'his was tlie more remarkable in liim, 
 as he had been a man of jovial habits, fond of 
 his wine and visitors, and imjjatient of having 
 his numerous indulgences contradicted. But 
 in tlie same temper perliaps might be found 
 the cause of his sorrow ; for tiiough he would 
 be impatient with his wife, as with others, yet 
 
 * The Saxon Latin poet, we presume, professor of belles- 
 lettres at Frankfort. We know nothing of him except 
 from a biographical dictionary. 
 
 his love for her was one of the gentlest wills 
 he had ; and the sweet and unaffected fVice 
 wliich she always turned upon his anger, might 
 have been a thing more easy for him to trespass 
 upon while living, than to forget, when de.ad and 
 gone. His very anger towards iier, coTupared 
 witJi that towards others, was a relief to iiim. 
 It was rather a wish to refresh himself in the 
 balmy feeling of her patience, than to make 
 her unhappy herself, or to piuiish her, as some 
 would have done, for that virtuous contrast to 
 his own vice. 
 
 But wJiether he bethought himself, after her 
 death, that this was a very selfish mode of 
 loving ; or whether as some thought, he luxd 
 wearied out her life with habits so contrary to 
 her own ; or whether, as others reported, he 
 had put it to a fatal risk by some lordly piece 
 of self-will, in consequence of wliich she had 
 caught a fever on tiie cold river during a niglit 
 of festivity ; he surprised even those who 
 thought that he loved her, by the extreme 
 bitterness of his grief. The very mention of 
 festi\ity, though he was patient for the first 
 day or two, afterwards threw him into a pas- 
 sion of rage ; but by degrees even his rage 
 followed his other old habits. He was gentle, 
 but ever silent. He ate and drank but suffi- 
 cient to keep him alive ;and used to spend the 
 greater part of the day in the spot where his 
 wife was buried. 
 
 He was going there one evening, in a very 
 melancholy manner, with his eyes turned 
 towards the earth, and had just entered the 
 rails of the burial-ground, when he was ac- 
 costed by the mild voice of somebody coming 
 to meet him. " It is a blessed evening, Sjr," 
 said the voice. The gentleman looked up. 
 Nobody but himself was allowed to be in the 
 place at that hour ; and yet he saw, with as- 
 tonishment, a young chorister approaching 
 him. lie was going to express some wonder, 
 when, he said, the modest tliough assured look 
 of the boy, and the extreme beauty of his 
 countenance, which glowed in the setting sun 
 before him, made an irresistible addition to 
 the singular sweetness of his voice ; and he 
 asked him with an involuntary calmness, and 
 a gesture of respect, not what lie did tliore, but 
 what lie wished. " Only to wish you all good 
 things," answered the stranger, who had now 
 come up, " and to give you tliis letter." The 
 gentleman took the letter, and saw upon it, 
 with a beating yet scarcely bewildered heart, 
 the handwriting of his wife. He raised his 
 eyes again to .speak to the boy, but he was 
 gone. He cast them far and near round the 
 place, but there were no traces of a passenger. 
 He then opened the letter ; and by the divine 
 light of the setting sun, read these words : 
 
 " To my dear husband, who sorrows for his 
 wife : 
 
 " Otto, my husband, the soul you regret so
 
 A TALE FOR A CHIIMNEY CORNER. 
 
 29 
 
 is returned. You will know the truth of this, 
 and be prepared with calmness to see it, by 
 the divineness of the messenger, who has 
 passed you. You will find me sitting in the 
 public walk, praying for you ; praying, that 
 you may never more give way to those gusts 
 of passion, and those curses against others, 
 which divided us. 
 
 " This, with a warm hand, from the living 
 Bertha." 
 
 Otto (for such, it seems, was the gentleman's 
 name) went instantly, calmly, quickly, yet witli 
 a sort of benumbed being, to the public walk. 
 He felt, but with only a half-consciousness, as 
 if he glided without a body. But all his spirit 
 was awake, eager, intensely conscious. It 
 seemed to him as if there had been but two 
 things in tlie world — Life and Death ; and 
 that Death was dead. All else appeared to 
 have been a dream. He had awaked from a 
 waking state, and found himself all eye, and 
 spirit, and locomotion. He said to himself, 
 once, as he went : " This is not a dream. I 
 will ask my great ancestors to-morrow to my 
 new bridal feast, for they are alive." Otto 
 had been calm at first, but something of old 
 and triumphant feelings seemed again to come 
 over him. Was he again too proud and con- 
 fident ? Did his earthly humours prevail 
 again, wluni he thought them least upon him ? 
 We shall see. 
 
 The Bavarian arrived at the public walk. 
 It was full of people with their wives and 
 children, enjoying the beauty of the evening. 
 Something like common fear came over him, 
 as, he went in and out among them, looking at 
 the benches on each side. It happened that 
 there was only one person, a lady, sitting upon 
 them. She had her veil down ; and his being 
 underwent a fierce but short convulsion as ho 
 went near her. Something had a little baffled 
 the calmer inspiration of the angel that had 
 accosted him : for fear prevailed at the in- 
 stant, and Otto passed on. He returned before 
 he had reached the end of the walk, and ap- 
 proached the lady again. Slie was still sitting 
 in tlie same quiet posture, only he thouglit slic 
 looked at him. Again he passed her. On liis 
 second return, a grave and sweet courage came 
 upon him, and in an under but firm tone of in- 
 quiry, he said " i?ertha ? " — " I tliought you 
 had forgotten mo," said that well-known and 
 mellow voice, whicli he had seemed as far from 
 ever hearing again as earth is from heaven. 
 He took her hand, wliich grasped liis in turn ; 
 and they walked home in silence together, 
 the arm, which was wound within his, giving 
 warmth for warmth. 
 
 The iu>iglibours seemed to have a miracu- 
 lous want of wonder at the lady's re-appear- 
 
 ance. Something was said about a mock- 
 funeral, and her having witlidrawn from his 
 company for awhile; but visitors came as 
 
 before, and his wife returned to her house- 
 hold aifairs. It was only remai-ked that she 
 always looked pale and pensive. But she 
 was more kind to all, even than before ; and 
 her pensiveness seemed rather the result of 
 some great internal thought, than of unhappi- 
 ness. 
 
 For a year or two, the Bavarian retained the 
 better temper wliich he acquired. His for- 
 tunes flourished beyond his earliest ambi- 
 tion ; the most amiable as well as noble 
 persons of the district were frequent visitors ; 
 and people said, that to be at Otto's house, 
 must be the next thing to being in heaven. 
 But by degrees his self-will returned with his 
 prosperity. He never vented impatience on 
 his wife ; but he again began to show, that the 
 disquietude it gave her to see it vented on 
 others, was a secondary thing, in his mind, to 
 the indulgence of it. Whether it was, that 
 his grief for her loss had been rather remorse 
 than affection, so he held himself secure if he 
 treated her well ; or whether he was at all 
 times rather proud of her, than fond ; or 
 whatever was the cause which again set his 
 antipathies above his sympathies, certain it 
 was, tliat his old habits returned upon him ; 
 not so often indeed, but with greater violence 
 and pride when they did. These were the 
 only times, at which his wife was observed to 
 show any ordinary symptoms of imeasiness. 
 
 At length, one day, some strong rebuff which 
 he had received from an alienated neighbour 
 threw him into such a transport of rage, that 
 he gave way to the most bitter imprecations, 
 crying with a loud voice — " This treatment to 
 me too ! To me! To me, who if the world 
 
 knew all " At these words, his wife, who 
 
 had in vain laid her hand upon his, and looked 
 liim with dreary earnestness in the face, sud- 
 denly glided from the room. He and two or 
 three who were present, were struck with a 
 dumb horror. They said, slie did not walk 
 out, nor vanish suddenly ; but glided, as one 
 who could dispense with the use of feet. 
 After a moment's pause, the others proposed 
 to him to follow her. He made a movement 
 of despair ; but they went. There was a siiort 
 passage, which turned to the right into her fa- 
 vourite room. They knocked at the door twice 
 or three times, and received no answer. At 
 last, one of them gently opened it ; and looking 
 in, they saw her, as they thought, standing 
 before a fire, which was tiie only light in the 
 room. Yet she stood so far from it, as rather 
 to be in tlie middle of the room ; only the 
 face was towards the fire, and she seemed 
 looking upon it. They addressed lier, but re- 
 ceived no answer. They stopped gently 
 towards her, and still received none. The 
 figure stood dumb aiul unuu)ved. At last, one 
 of them went round in front, and instantly fell 
 on the floor. The figure was witliout body. 
 A hollow hood was loft instead of a face.
 
 30 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 The clothes were standing upright by them- 
 selves. 
 
 That room was blocked up for ever, for the 
 clothes, if it might be so, to moulder away. It 
 was called tlic Room of tlio Lady's Figure. 
 The house, after the gentU'iuan's deatli, was 
 long uuinliabitod, and at length burnt l)y the 
 peasants in an insurrection. As for himself, 
 he died about nine months after, a gentle and 
 cliild-like penitent. He had never stirred 
 from the liouse since ; and nobody would ven- 
 ture to go near him, but a man who had the 
 reputation of being a reprobate. It was from 
 tills man that the particulars of the story came 
 first. He would distribute the gentleman's 
 alms in great abundance to any strange poor 
 who would accept them ; for most of the 
 neighbours held them in horror. He tried all 
 he could to get the parents among them to let 
 some of their little children, or a single one of 
 them, go to see his employer. They said he 
 even asked it one day with tears in his eyes. 
 But they shuddered to think of it ; and the 
 matter was not mended, Avhen this profane 
 person, in a fit of impatience, said one day that 
 he would have a child of his own on purpose. 
 His employer, however, died in a day or two. 
 They did not believe a word he told them of 
 all the Bavarian's gentleness, looking upon the 
 latter as a sort of Ogre, and upon his agent as 
 little better, though a good-natured-looking 
 earnest kind of person. It was said many 
 years after, that this man had been a friend of 
 the Bavarian's when young, and had been de- 
 serted by him. And the young believed it, 
 whatever the old might do. 
 
 XX_TIIIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 Having met in the llarleian MisceUany with 
 an account of a pet thief of ours, the famous 
 Du Vail, who flourished in the time of Charles 
 the Second, and wishing to introduce him 
 ■worthily to the readers, it has brought to mind 
 such a number of the light-fingered gentry, his 
 predecessors, that we almost feel hustled by 
 the thoughts of them. Our subject, we may 
 truly fear, will run away with us. We feel 
 beset, like poorTasso in his dungeon ; and are 
 not sure that our paper will not suddenly be 
 conveyed away from under our pen. Already 
 we miss some excellent remarks, which we 
 should have made in this place. If the reader 
 should meet with any of ,that kind hereafter, 
 upon the like subject,in another man's writings, 
 twenty to one they are stolen from us, and 
 ought to have enriched this our plundered 
 exordium. He that steals an author's purse, 
 may emphatically be said to steal trash ; but 
 
 he that filches from h.im his good things 
 
 Alas, we thought our subject would l)e running 
 away with us. We must keep firm. We 
 
 must put something heavier in our remarks, 
 as the little thin Grecian jjliilosojiher used to 
 j)ut lead in his pockets, lest the wind should 
 steal him. 
 
 The more ruffianly crowd of tliieves should 
 go first, as pioneers ; but they can hardly be 
 looked uj)on as progenitors of our gentle Du 
 Vail ; and besides, with all their ferocity, 
 some of them assume a grandeur, from stand- 
 ing in the remote shadows of antiquity. There 
 was the fanu)us son, for instance, of Vulcan 
 and Medusa, whom Virgil calls the dire asjject 
 of half-human Cacus — Semihominis Caci facies 
 dira. (^neid, b. viii. v. W4.) He was the 
 raw-head-and-bloody-bones of ancient fable. 
 He lived in a cave by Mount Aventine, breatli- 
 ing out fiery smoke, and liaunting king Evan- 
 der's liighway like the Apollyoa of Pilgrim's 
 Progress. 
 
 Semperque recenti 
 
 Csde tepebat humus ; furibusquc adfixa supcrbis 
 
 Ora virfim tristi pendebant pallida tabo. 
 
 The place about was ever in a plash 
 
 Of steaming blood ; and o'er the insulting door 
 
 Hung pallid human heads, defaced with dreary gore. 
 
 He stole some of the cows of Hercules, and 
 dragged them backwards into his cave to pre- 
 vent discovery ; but the oxen happening to 
 low, the cows answered them ; and the demi- 
 god, detecting tlie miscreant in his cave, 
 strangled him after a hard encounter. This 
 is one of the earliest sharping tricks upon 
 record. 
 
 Autolycus, the son of Mercury (after whom 
 Shakspeare christened his merry rogue in the 
 Winter'' s Tale) was a thief suitable to the greater 
 airiness of his origin. He is said to have per- 
 formed tricks which must awake the envy 
 even of horse-dealers ; for in pretending to 
 return a capital horse which he had stolon, lie 
 palmed ui)on the owners a sorry jade of an 
 ass ; which was gravely received by those flats 
 of antiquity. Another time he went still 
 farther ; for having conveyed away a hand- 
 some bride, he sent in exchange an old lady 
 elaljorately hideous ; yet the liusband did not 
 find out the trick till he had got off. 
 
 Autolycus himself, however, was outwitted 
 by Sisyphus, the son of .ffiolus. Autolycus 
 was in the habit of stealing his neighbours' 
 cattle, and altering the marks upon them. 
 Among others he stole some from Sisyphus ; 
 but notwithstanding his usual precautions, he 
 was astonished to find the latter come and 
 j)ick out his oxen, as if nothing had happened. 
 He had marked them under the hoof. Auto- 
 lycus, it seems, had the usual generosity of 
 genius ; and was so pleased with this evidence 
 of superior cunning, that some say he gave 
 him in marriage his daughter Anticlea, who 
 was afterwards the wife of Laertes, the father 
 of Ulysses. According to others, however, he 
 only fiivoured liini with his daughter's com- 
 pany for a time, a fashion not yet extinct in
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 31 
 
 some i>rimitive countries ; and it was a re- 
 proach made against Ulysses, that Laertes was 
 only his pretended, and Sisyphus his real, 
 father. Sisyphus has the credit of being the 
 greatest knave of antiquity. His famous 
 punishment in hell, of being compelled to roll 
 a stone up a hill to all eternity, and seeing it 
 always go down again, is attributed by some to 
 a characteristic trait, which he could not help 
 playing off upon Pluto. It was supposed by 
 the ancients, that a man's ghost wandered in a 
 melancholy manner upon the banks of the 
 Styx, as long as his corpse remained without 
 burial. Sisyphus on his death-bed purposely 
 charged his wife to leave him unburied ; and 
 then begged Pluto's permission to go back to 
 earth, on Iiis parole, merely to jiunish her for 
 so scandalous a neglect. Like the lawyer, 
 however, who contrived to let his hat fall inside 
 the door of heaven, and got St. Peter's per- 
 mission to step in for it, Sisyphus would not 
 return ; and so when Pluto had him again, he 
 paid him for the trick with setting him upon 
 this everlasting job. 
 
 The exploits of Mercury himself, the god of 
 cunning, may be easily imagined to surpass 
 every thingachieved by profaner hands. Homer, 
 in the hymn to his honour, has given a delight- 
 ful account of his prematurity in swindling. 
 He had not been born many hours before he 
 stole Vulcan's tools, Mars' sword, and Jupiter's 
 sceptre. He beat Cupid in a wrestling bout 
 on the same day ; and Venus caressing him 
 for his conquest, he returned the embrace by 
 filching away her girdle. He would also have 
 stolen Jupiter's thunderbolts, but was afraid of 
 burning his fingers. On the evening of his 
 birth-day, he drove off the cattle of Admetus, 
 which Apollo was tending. The good-humoured 
 god of wit endeavoured to frighten him into 
 restoring them ; but could not help laugliing 
 when, in the midst of his threateuiugs, he 
 found himself without his quiver. 
 
 The history of thieves is to be found either 
 in that of romance, or in the details of the 
 history of cities. The latter have not come 
 down to us from the ancient world, with some 
 exceptions in the comic ^\Titers, immaterial to 
 our i)resent purpose, and in the loathsome 
 rhetoric of Petronius. The finest thief in old 
 history is the pirate who made that famous 
 answer to Alexander, in which he said that the 
 conqueror was only tlie mightier tliief of the 
 two. The story of the thieving architect in 
 Herodotus we will tell another time. We can 
 call to mind no other thieves in the Greek and 
 Latin writers (always excepting political ones) 
 except some i)altry fellows who stole napkins 
 at dinner ; and the robbers in Apuleius, the 
 precursors of those in Gil Bias. When we 
 come, however, to the times of the Arabians 
 and of chivalry, they abound in all tiieir glory, 
 both great and small. Who among us does 
 uot know by heart the story of the never-to-be- 
 
 forgotten Forty Thieves, with their treasure in 
 the green wood, their anxious observer, their 
 magical opening of the door, their captain, 
 their concealment in the jars, and the scalding 
 oil, that, as it were, extinguished them gi'oan- 
 ing, one by one ? Have we not all ridden 
 backwards and forwards with them to the wood 
 a hundred times ? — watched them, with fear 
 and trembling, from the tree ? — sewn up, 
 blindfolded, the four quarters of the dead body? 
 — and said, " Open Sesame," to every door at 
 school? May we ride with them again and 
 again ; or we shall lose our appetite for some 
 of the best things in the world. 
 
 We pass over those interlopers in our English 
 family, the Danes ; as well as Rollo the Norman, 
 and other freebooters, who only wanted less 
 need of robbery, to become respectable con- 
 querors. In fact, they did so, as they got on. 
 We have also no jJarticular worthy to select 
 from among that host of petty chieftains, who 
 availed themselves of their knightly castles 
 and privileges, to commit all sorts of unchival- 
 rous outrages. These are the giants of modern 
 romance ; and the Veglios, Malengins, and 
 Pinabellos, of Pulci, Spenser, and Ariosto. 
 They survived in the petty states of Italy a 
 long while ; gradually took a less solitary, 
 though hardly less ferocious shape, among the 
 fierce political partisans recorded by Dante ; 
 and at length became represented by the men 
 of desperate fortunes, who make such a figure, 
 between the gloomy and the gallant, in Mrs. 
 Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolplio. The breaking 
 up of the late kingdom of Italy, with its depend- 
 encies, has again revived them in some degree; 
 but not, we believe, in any shape above common 
 robbery. The regular modern thief seems to 
 make his appearance for the first time in the 
 imaginary character of Brunello, as described 
 by 13oiardo and Ariosto. He is a fellow that 
 steals every valuable that comes in his way. 
 The way in which he robs Sacripant, king of 
 Circassia, of his horse, has been ridiculed by 
 Cervantes ; if indeed he did not rather repeat 
 it with great zest : for his use of tli'e theft is 
 really not such a caricature as in Boiardo and 
 his great follower. While Sancho is sitting 
 lumpishly asleep upon tlie back of his friend 
 Dapple, Gines de Passamonte, the famous thief, 
 comes and gently withdraws the donkey from 
 under him, leaving the somniculous squire 
 propped upon the saddle with four sticks. His 
 consternation on waking may be guessed. But 
 in the Italian poets, the Circassian prince has 
 only fallen into a deep meditation, wiien Bru- 
 nello draws away his steed. Ariosto appears 
 to have thought this extravagance a hazardous 
 one, though he could not deny himself tlie 
 pleasure of repeating it ; for he has made 
 Sacripant blush, when called upon to testify 
 how the horse was stolon from him. (Orlando 
 Furio. lib. xxvii. st. 84.) 
 
 In the Italian Novels and the old French
 
 32 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Tales, are a variety of extremely anuisiufjf 
 stories of thieves, all most prohably founded 
 on fact. We will n^ive a sijecinieu as we go, 
 by way of making this article the completer. 
 A doctor of laws in Bologna had become rich 
 enoiigii, by sera] ling money together, to indulge 
 himself in a grand silver cup, which he sent 
 home one day to his wife from the goldsmith's. 
 There were two sharping fellows prowling 
 about tliat day for a particuhir object ; and 
 getting scent of the cup, they laid tiieir heads 
 together, to contrive how they might indulge 
 themselves in it instead. One of tliem accord- 
 ingly goes to a fishmonger's, and buys a fine 
 lamprey, which he takes to the doctor's wife, 
 with her husband's compliments, and he would 
 bring a company of his brother doctors with 
 him to dinner, requesting in the meantime 
 that she would send back the cuj) by the bearer, 
 as he had forgotten to have his arms engraved 
 upon it. The good lady, happy to obey all 
 these pleasing impulses on the part of master 
 doctor, takes in the fish, and sends out the cup, 
 with equal satisfaction ; and sets about getting 
 the dinner ready. The doctor comes home at 
 his usual hour, and finding his dinner so much 
 better than ordinary, asks with an air of 
 wonder, where was tiie necessity of going to 
 that expense : upon which the wife, putting on 
 an air of wonder in her turn, and proud of 
 possessing the new cup, asks him where are 
 all those brother doctors, whom he said he 
 should bring with him. " What does the fool 
 mean?" said the testy old gentleman. "Alean !" 
 rejoined the wife — " what does tMs mean ?" 
 pointing to the fish. The doctor looked down 
 with his old eyes at the lamprey. " God 
 knows," said he, " what it means. I am sure 
 I don't know what it means more than any 
 other fish, except that I shall have to pay a 
 pretty sum for everj- moutiiful you eat of it." 
 — " Why, it was your own doing, husband," 
 said the %vife ; " and you will remember it, 
 perhaps, when you recollect that the same man 
 that brought me the fish, was to take away the 
 cup to have your name engraved upon it." At 
 this the doctor started back, with his eyes as 
 wide open as the fish's, exclaiming, " And you 
 gave it him, did you ?" — "To be sure I did," 
 returned tiie good housewife. The ol<l doctor 
 here began a passionate speech, which he sud- 
 denly broke off ; and after stamping up and 
 down the room, and crying out that he was an 
 undone advocate, ran quivering out into the 
 street like one frantic, asking everybody if he 
 had seen a man with a lamprey. The two 
 rogues were walking all this time in the neigh- 
 bourhood; and seeing the doctor set off, in his 
 frantic fit, to the goldsmith's, and knowing that 
 he who l)rought the lamprey had been well 
 disguised, they began to ask one another, in 
 the jollity of their triumpli, what need there 
 ■was for losing a good lamprey, because they 
 had gained a cup. The other therefore went 
 
 to the doctor's house, and putting on a face of 
 good news, told the wife that the cup was 
 found. " Master doctor," said he, " bade me 
 come find tell you that it was but a joke of 
 your old friend Wluii's-liis name." — "Castel- 
 lani, I warrant me," said the wife, with a face 
 broad with delight. "The same," returned he : 
 — " master doctor says that Signer Castellani, 
 and the otiier gentlemen he spoke of, are wait- 
 ing for you at the Signer's liouse, where they 
 purpose to laugh away the choler they so 
 merrily raised, with a good dinner and wine, 
 and to that end they have sent me for the 
 lamprey." — " Take it in God's name," said the 
 good woman ; " I am heartily glad to see it go 
 out of tlie house, and shall follow it myself 
 speedily." So saying, she gave him the fine 
 hot fisl), with some sauce, between two dishes ; 
 and the knave, wlio felt already round tlie 
 corner with glee, slid it under his cloak, and 
 made the best of his way to his comj)anion, who 
 lifted up his hands and eyes at sight of him, 
 and asked twenty questions in a breath, and 
 chuckled, and slapped his thigli, and snapped 
 his fingers for joy, to think Avhat a pair of fools 
 two rogues had to do with. Little did the 
 poor despairing doctor, on his return home, 
 guess what they were saying of him as he 
 passed the wall of the liouse in which they 
 were feasting. " Heyday ! " cried the wife, 
 smiling all abroad, as she saw him entering, 
 "what, art thou come to fetch me then, bone 
 of ray bone? Well ; if this isn't the gallantest 
 day I have seen many a year ! It puts me in 
 mind — it puts me in mind" Here the chirp- 
 ing old lady was about to remind the doctor ot 
 the days of his youth, holding out her arms and 
 raising her quivering voice, when (we shudder 
 to relate) she received a considerable cuff on 
 the left cheek. " You make me mad," cried 
 the doctor, "with your eternal idiotical non- 
 sense. What do you mean by coming to fetch 
 you, and the gallantest day of your life ? May 
 the devil fetch you, and me, and that invisible 
 fiend that stole the cup." — " What !" exclaimed 
 the wife, suddenly changing her tone from a 
 vociferous complaint which she had imthink- 
 ingly set up, " did you send nobody then for 
 the lamprey ?" Here the doctor cast his eyes 
 upon the bereaved table ; and unable to bear 
 the shame of this additional loss, however 
 trivial, began tearing his hair and beard, and 
 hopping about the room, giving his wife a new 
 and scandalous epitliet at every step, as if he 
 was dancing to a catalogue of her imperfections. 
 The story shook all the shoulders in Bologna 
 for a month after. 
 
 As we find, by the length to which this 
 article has already reached, that we should 
 otherwise be obliged to compress our recollec- 
 tions of Spanish, French, and English thieves, 
 into a compass that would squeeze them into 
 tlie merest dry notices, we will postpone them 
 at once to our next number; and relate
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 33 
 
 another story from the same Italian novelist 
 that sup])lied our last* Our aiithor is Mas- 
 succio of Salerno, a novelist who disputes with 
 Bandello the rank next in popularity to Boc- 
 caccio. We have not the original by us, and 
 must be obliged to an English work for the 
 groundwork of our story, as we have been to 
 Paynter's Palace of Pleasure for the one just 
 related. But we take the liberty usual with 
 the repeaters of these stories ; we retain the 
 incidents, but tell them in our own way, and 
 imagine what might happen in the intervals. 
 
 Two Neapolitan sharpers, having robbed a 
 Genoese merchant of his purse, make the best 
 of tlieir way to Sienna, where they arrive 
 during the preaching of St. Bernardin. One 
 of tliem attends a sermon witli an air of con- 
 spicuous modesty and devotion, and afterwards 
 waits upon the preacher, and addresses him 
 thus : " Reverend father, you see before you 
 a man, poor indeed, but honest. I do not 
 mean to boast ; God knows, I have no reason. 
 Who u])on earth lias reason, imless it be one 
 who will be the last to boast, like yourself, 
 holy father?" Here the saintly orator shook 
 his head. " I do not mean," resumed the 
 stranger, " to speak even of tlie reverend and 
 illustrious Bernardin, but as of a man among 
 men. For my part, I am, as it were, a creep- 
 ing thing among them ; and yet I am honest. 
 If I have any virtue, it is that. I crawl riglit 
 onward in my path, looking neither to the 
 right nor to the left ; and yet I have my 
 temj^tations. Reverend father, I have found 
 this purse. I will not deny, that being often 
 in want of the common necessaries of life, and 
 having been obliged last night, in particular, 
 to sit down faint at the city gates, for want of 
 my ordinary crust and onion, which I had 
 given to one (God help him) still worse off 
 than myself, I did cast some looks— I did, I 
 say, just open the purse, and cast a wistful 
 eye at one of those shining pieces, that lay 
 one over the other inside, with something like 
 a wish that I could procure myself a meal 
 with it, unknown to the lawful proprietor. 
 But my conscience, thank Heaven, prevailed. 
 I have to make two requests to you, reverend 
 father. First, that you will absolve me for 
 this my offence; and second, that you will 
 be pleased to mention in one of your dis- 
 courses, that a poor sinner from Milan, on liis 
 road to hoar them, has found a purse, and 
 would willingly restore it to the right owner. 
 I would fain give double the contents of it to 
 find liim out; but then, what can I do? All 
 the wealth I have consists in my honesty. 
 Be pleased, most illustrious father, to mention 
 
 * In the original edition of the rndicator this article 
 was divided into three numbers. Terhnps it would Imve 
 been l)€ttcr had tlie division been rct.nined : but per- 
 plexities occur in hnstily correcting a work for a new 
 edition, wliich tlio reader will have the goodness to 
 excuse. 
 
 this in your discourse, as modestly as becomes 
 my nothingness; and to add especially, that 
 the purse was found on the road from Milan, 
 lying, miraculously as it were, upon a sunny 
 bank, open to the view of all, under an olive- 
 tree, not far from a little fountain, the plea- 
 sant noise of which jieradventure had invited 
 the owner to sleep." The good father, at 
 hearing this detail, smiled at the anxious 
 sincerity of the poor pilgrim, and, giving him 
 the required absolution, promised to do his 
 utmost to bring forth the proprietor. In his 
 next sermon, he accordingly dwelt witJi such 
 eloquence on tlie opportunities thrown in the 
 way of the rich who lose purses to behave 
 nobly, that his congregation several times half 
 rose from their seats out of enthusiasm, and 
 longed for some convenient loss of property, 
 that might enable them to show their dis- 
 interestedness. At the conclusion of it, how- 
 ever, a man stepped forward, and said, that 
 anxious as he was to do justice to the finder 
 of the purse, which he knew to be his the 
 moment he saw it (only he was loth to inter- 
 rupt the reverend father), he had claims upon 
 him at home, in the person of his wife and 
 tliirteen children, — fourteen perhaps, he might 
 now say, — which, to his great sorrow, pre- 
 vented him from giving the finder more than 
 a quarter of a piece ; this however he offered 
 him with the less scruple, since he saw the 
 seraphic disposition of the reverend preacher 
 and his congregation, who he had no doubt 
 would make ample amends for this involuntary 
 deficiency on the part of a poor family man, 
 the whole portion of whose wife and children 
 might be said to be wrapped up in that purse. 
 His sleep under the olive-tree had been his 
 last for these six nights (here the other man 
 said, with a tremulous joy of acknowledgment, 
 that it was indeed just six niglits since he had 
 found it); and Heaven only knew when he 
 should have had another, if his children's 
 bread, so to speak, had not been found again." 
 With these words, the sharper (for such, of 
 course, he was) presented the quarter of a 
 l)iece to his companion, who made all but a 
 prostration for it ; and hastened with the purse 
 out of the church. Tlie other man's circum- 
 stances wore then inquired into, and as he 
 was found to have almost as many chiklren 
 as the ])urse-ownor, and no possessions at all, 
 as he said, but his honesty, — all his children 
 being equally poor and pious, — a considerable 
 subscription was raised for him ; so large 
 indeed, that on tlie ajipearance of a new 
 claimant next day, the pockets of the good 
 people were found empty. Tliis was no other 
 than the Genoese merchant, wlio having turned 
 l)ack on his road wiien \w missed his purse, 
 did not stop till he came to Sienna, and lieard 
 the news of the day before. Imagine the 
 feelings of the deceived people ! Saint Ber- 
 nardin was convinced that the two cheats
 
 34 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tvcre doN-ils in clisn;uise. Tlip resident canon 
 had tiiou^'ht pretty nearly as nmcli all alonf^, 
 but had held his tongue, and now hoped it 
 would bo a lesson to jjcople not to listen to 
 everybody who could talk, especially to the 
 neglect of Saint Antonio's monastery. As to 
 the people themselves, they thought variously, 
 aiost of thoni were mortified at having been 
 cheated; and some swore they never would 
 be cheated again, let appearances be what 
 they might. Others thought that this was a 
 resolution somewhat equivocal, and more con- 
 venient than happy. For our parts, we think 
 the last were right : and this reminds us of a 
 true English story, more good than striking, 
 which we lieard a short while ago from a 
 friend, lie knew a man of rugged manners, 
 but good heart (not that the two things, as a 
 lover of parentheses will say, are at all bound 
 to go together), who had a wife somewhat 
 given to debating with hackney-coachmen, and 
 disputing acts of settlement respecting half- 
 miles, and quarter-miles, aud abominable addi- 
 tional sixpences. The good housewife was 
 lingering at the door, and exclaiming against 
 one of these monstrous charioteers, whose 
 hoarse low voice was heard at intervals, full 
 of lying protestations and bad weather, when 
 the husband called out from a back-room, 
 " Never mind there, never mind : — let her bo 
 cheated ; let her be cheated." 
 
 This is a digression ; but it is as well to 
 introduce it, in order to take away a certain 
 bitterness out of the mouth of the other's 
 moral. 
 
 We now come to a veiy unromantic set of 
 rogues ; the Spanish ones. In a poetical sense, 
 at least, they are unromantic ; though doubt- 
 less the mountains of Spain have seen as 
 picturesque vagabonds in their time as any. 
 There are the robbers in Gil Bias, who have, 
 at least, a respectable cavern, and loads of 
 polite superfluities. "Who can forget the lofty- 
 named Captain Rolando, with his sturdy height 
 and his whiskers, showing with a lighted torch 
 his treasure to the timid stripling, Gil Bias ? 
 The most illustrious theft in Spanish story is 
 one recorded of no less a person than the fine 
 old national hero, the Cid. As the sufferers 
 were .Jews, it niiglit be thought that his con- 
 science would not have hurt him in those 
 days; but "My Cid" was a kind of early 
 soldier in behalf of sentiment ; and though he 
 went to work roughly, he meant nobly and 
 kindly. "God knows," said he, on the present 
 occasion, "I do this thing more of necessity 
 than of wilfulness ; but by God's help I shall 
 redeem all." The case was this. The Cid, 
 who was too good a subject to please his 
 master, the king, had quarrelled with him, or 
 rather, had been banished; and nobody was 
 to give him house-room or food. A number 
 of friends, however, followed him; and by the 
 help of his nephew, Martin Antolinez, he pro- 
 
 posed to raise some money. Martin accord- 
 ingly negotiated tlie business with a couple 
 of rich .Jews, who, for a deposit of two chests 
 full of spoil, which they were not to open for 
 a year, on accomit of political circumstances, 
 agreed to advance six hundred marks. " Well, 
 then," said Martin Antolinez, "ye see that the 
 night is advancing ; the Cid is in haste, give 
 us the marks." "This is not the way of busi- 
 ness," said they ; " we must take first, and 
 then give." Martin accordingly goes witli 
 them to the Cid, who in the meantime has 
 filled a couple of heavy chests with sand. The 
 Cid smiled as they kissed his hand, and said, 
 " Ye see I am going out of the land because 
 of the king's displeasure ; but I shall leave 
 something with ye." The Jews made a suit- 
 able answer, and were then desired to take 
 the chests; but, though strong men, they 
 could not raise them from the ground. This 
 put them in such spirits, that after telling out 
 the six hundred marks (which Don IMartin 
 took without weighing), they ofifered the Cid 
 a present of a fine red skin ; and upon Don 
 ilartin's suggesting that he thought his own 
 services in the business merited a pair of hose, 
 they consulted a minute with each other, in 
 order to do everything judiciously, and then 
 gave him money enough to buy, not only the 
 hose, but a rich doublet and good cloak into 
 the bargain*. 
 
 The regular sharping rogues, however, that 
 abound in Sj)anish books of adventure, have 
 one species of romance about them of a very 
 peculiar nature. It may be called, we fear, 
 as far as Spain is concerned, a "romance of 
 real life." We allude to the al)solute want 
 and hunger which is so often the original of 
 their sin. A vein of this craving nature runs 
 throughout most of the Spanish novels. In 
 other countries theft is generally represented 
 as the result of an abuse of plenty, or of some 
 other kind of profligacy, or absolute ruin. But 
 it seems to be an understood thing, that to be 
 j)Oor in Spain is to be in want of the com- 
 monest necessaries of life. If a poor man, here 
 and there, happens not to be in so destitute 
 a state as the rest, he thinks himself bound 
 to maintain the popular character for an appe- 
 tite, and manifests the most ])rodigious sense 
 of punctuality and anticipation in all matters 
 relating to meals. Who ever tliinks of Sancho, 
 and does not think of ten minutes before 
 luncheon ? Don Quixote, on the other hand, 
 counts it imgenteel and undignified to be 
 hungry. The cheat who flatters Gil T'.l;is 
 
 * Sco Mr. Southey's excellent compilation entitka / //, 
 Chronicles n/thc Cid, honk iii. sec. 21. The version at the 
 end of the honU, attributed to Mr. Ilookham Frcre, of a 
 passiigc out of the Poema del Cid, is the most native and 
 terse bit of translation we o-cr met with. It rides along, 
 like the Cid himself on horseback, vvith an infinite mix- 
 ture of ardour and self-possession; bending, when it 
 chooses, with grace, or bearing down everything with 
 master}'.
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 35 
 
 ! reckons himself entitled to be insultingly tri- 
 . umpbant, merely because he has got a dinner 
 I out of him. 
 
 Of all these ingenious children of necessity, 
 ■whose roguery has been sharpened by per- 
 petual want, no wit was surely ever kept 
 at so subtle and fierce an edge as that of 
 the never-to-be-decently-treated Lazarillo de 
 Tormes. If we ourselves had not been at a 
 sort of monastic school, and known the beati- 
 tude of dry bread and a draught of spring- 
 water, his history would seem to inform us, 
 for the fii'st time, what hunger was. His cun- 
 ning so truly keeps pace with it, that he seems 
 recompensed for the wants of his stomach by 
 the abundant energies of his head. One-half 
 of his imagination is made up of dry bread 
 and scraps, and the other of meditating how 
 to get at them. Every thouglit of his mind 
 and every feeling of his affection coalesces 
 and tends to one point with a ventripetal 
 force. It was said of a contriving lady, that 
 she took her verj' tea by stratagem. Lazarillo 
 is not so lucky. It is enough for him, if by a 
 train of the most ingenious contrivances, he 
 can lay successful siege to a crust. To rout 
 some broken victuals; to circumvent an onion 
 or so, extraordinarj', is the utmost aim of liis 
 ambition . An ox-foot is his beau ideal. He 
 has as intense and circuitous a sense of a 
 piece of cheese, as a mouse at a trap. He 
 swallows surreptitious crumbs with as much 
 zest as a yoimg servant-girl does a plate of 
 preserves. But to his story. He first serves 
 a blind beggar, with whom he lives miserably, 
 except when he commits thefts, which subject 
 him to miserable beatings. He next lives 
 with a priest, and finds his condition worse. 
 His third era of esuriency takes place in the 
 house of a Spanish gentleman ; and here he is 
 worse off than ever. The reader wonders, as 
 he himself did, how he can possibly ascend to 
 tliis climax of starvation. To overreach a 
 blind beggar might be thought easy. Tlie 
 reader will judge by a specimen or two. The 
 old fellow used to keep his mug of liquor 
 between his legs, that Lazarillo might not 
 touch it without his knowledge. He did, 
 however ; and the beggar discovering it, took 
 to holding the mug in future by the handle. 
 Lazarillo then contrives to suck some of tlie 
 liquor off with a reed, till the beggar defeats 
 this contrivance by keeping one hand upon 
 the vessel's mouth. His antagonist upon this 
 makes a hole near the bottom of the mug, 
 filling it up with wax, and so tapping the can 
 with as much gentleness as possible, whenever 
 his thirst makes him bold. Tliis stratagem 
 threw the blind man into despair. He " used 
 to swear and domineer," and wish both tlie 
 pot and its contents at tlie devil. Tlie follow- 
 ing account of the result is a specimen of the 
 English translation of the work, wliich is done 
 with great tact and spirit, we know not by 
 
 whom, but it is worthy of De Foe. Lazarillo 
 is supposed to tell his adventures himself. 
 " ' You won't accuse me any more, I hope,' 
 cried I, ' of drinking your wine *, after all the 
 fine precautions you have taken to prevent it?' 
 To that he said not a word ; but feeling all 
 about the pot, he at last unluckily discovered 
 the hole, which dissembling at that time, he 
 let me alone till next day at dinner. Not 
 dreaming, my reader must know, of the old 
 man's malicious stratagem, but getting in 
 between his legs, according to my wonted 
 custom, and receiving into my mouth the 
 distilling dew, and pleasing myself with the 
 success of my own ingenuity, my eyes upward, 
 but half shut, the furious tyrant, taking up 
 the sweet, but hard pot, with both his hands, flung 
 it down again with all his force upon my face ; 
 with the violence of which blow, imagining 
 the house had fallen upon my head, I lay 
 sprawling without any sentiment or judgment ; 
 my forehead, nose, and mouth, gushing out of 
 blood, and the latter full of broken teeth, and 
 broken pieces of the can. From that time 
 forward, I ever abominated the monstrous old 
 churl, and in spite of all his flattering stories, 
 could easily observe how my punishment 
 tickled the old rogue's fancy. He washed my 
 sores with wine ; and with a smile, ' What 
 sayest thou,' quoth he, ' LazariUo ? the thing 
 that hurt thee, now restores thee to health. 
 Courage, my boy.' But all his raillery could 
 not make me change my mind." 
 
 At another time, a countryman giving them 
 a cluster of gi-apes, the old man, says Laza- 
 rillo, "would needs take that opportunity to 
 show me a little kindness, after he had been 
 chiding and beating me the whole day before. 
 So setting ourselves down by a hedge, * Come 
 hither, Lazarillo,' quoth he, ' and let us enjoy 
 ourselves a little, and eat these raisins to- 
 gether ; which that we may share like brothers, 
 do you take but one at a time, and be sure 
 not to cheat me, and I promise you, for my 
 part, I sliall take no more.' That I readily 
 agreed to, and so we began our banquet ; but 
 at the very second time he took a couple, 
 believing, I suppose, that I would do the same. 
 And finding he had shown me the way, I made 
 no scruple all the while to take two, three, or 
 four at a time ; sometimes more and sometimes 
 less, as conveniently I could. When we had 
 done, tlie old man shook his head, and hold- 
 ing the stalk in his hand, ' Thou hast cheated 
 me, Lazarillo,' quotli he, 'for I could take my 
 oath, tliat thou hast taken throe at a time.' — 
 'Who, I! I beg your pardon,' quoth I, 'my 
 conscience is as dear to me as another.' — 
 'Pass that jest upon another,' answered the 
 old fox, 'you saw me take two at a time with- 
 out complaining of it, and therefore you took 
 three.' At that I could hardly forbear laugh- 
 
 * Tlie render is to understand a common southern vriae, 
 very clie.ip. 
 
 O 2
 
 36 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 inj;; and at the smiic time admirod the just- 
 ness of his roasoninj,'." Lazarillo at length 
 quitted the service of the old liard-hcarted 
 miser, and rovenf,'ed himself upon liim at tiic 
 same time, in a very summary manner. They 
 were returninij; homo one day on account of 
 bad wcatlier, wlien they had to cross a kennel 
 ■nhich the rain liad swelled to a little torrent. 
 The bej,'{,'ar was about to jump over it as well 
 as he could, when Lazarillo persuaded him to 
 go a little lower down the stream, because 
 there was a better crossing ; that is, there was 
 a stone ]>illar on the other side, against which 
 he knew the blind old fellow would nearly 
 dash his brains out. "lie was miglitily pleased 
 with my advice. ' Thou art in the right on it, 
 good boy,' quoth he, 'and I love thee with all 
 my heart, Lazarillo. Lead mo to the place 
 thou speakest of ; the water is very dangerous 
 in winter, and especially to have one's feet 
 wet.' And again — ' Be sure to set me in the 
 right place, Lazarillo,' quoth he; 'and then 
 do thou go over first.' I obeyed his orders, 
 and set him exactly before the pillar, and so 
 leaping over, posted myself behind it, looking 
 upon him as a man would do upon a mad bull. 
 ' Now your jump,' quoth I ; 'and you may get 
 over to rights, M'ithout ever touching the 
 water.' I had scarce done speaking, when 
 the old man, like a ram that's fighting, ran 
 three stei)s backwards, to take his start with 
 the greater vigour, and so his head came with 
 a vengeance against the stone pillar, which 
 made him fall back into the kennel half dead." 
 Lazarillo stops a moment to triumph over him 
 with insulting language; and then, says he, 
 " resigning my blind, bruised, wet, old, cross, 
 cunning master to the care of the mob that 
 was gathered about him, I made the best of 
 my heels, without ever looking about, till I 
 had got the town-gate upon my back ; and 
 thence marching on a merry pace, I arrived 
 before night at Torrigo." 
 
 At the house of the priest, poor Lazarillo 
 gets worse off than before, and is obliged to 
 resort to the most extraordinary shifts to 
 arrive at a morsel of bread. At one time, he 
 gets a key of a tinker, and opening the old 
 trunk in which the miser kept his bread (a 
 sight, he says, like the opening of heaven), he 
 takes small pieces out of three or four, in 
 imitation of a mouse ; which so convinces the 
 old hunks that the mice and rats have been at 
 them, that he is more liberal of the bread than 
 usual. lie lets him have in particular "the 
 parings above the parts where he thought the 
 mice had been." Another of his contrivances 
 is to palm off his jiiekings upon a serpent, 
 with which animal a neighbour told the jn-icst 
 that his house had been once haunted. Laza- 
 rillo, who had been used when he lived with 
 the beggar to husband pieces of money in his 
 moutli (substituting some lesser coin in the 
 blind man's hand, when people gave him any 
 
 thing), now employs the same hiding-place for 
 his key; but whistling through it unfortu- 
 nately one night, as he lay breathing hard in 
 his sleep, the priest concludes he has caught 
 the serpent, and going to Lazarillo's bed with 
 a broomstick, gives him at a venture such a 
 tremendous blow on the head, as half murders 
 him. The key is then discovered, and the 
 poor fellow turned out of doors. 
 
 He is now liired by a lofty-looking hidalgo ; 
 and follows him home, eating a thousand good 
 things by anticipation. They pass through 
 the markets however to no purpose. The 
 s(iuire first goes to church too, and spends an 
 unconscionable time at mass. At length they 
 arrive at a dreary, ominous-looking house, aiul 
 ascend into a decent apartment, where the 
 squire, after shaking his cloak, and blowing 
 off" the dust from a stone seat, lays it neatly 
 down, and so makes a cushion of it to sit 
 upon. There is no other furniture in the 
 room, nor even in the neighbouring rooms, 
 except a bed " composed of the anatomy of an 
 old hamper." The truth is, the squire is as 
 poor as Lazarillo, only too proud to own it ; 
 and so he starves both himself and his servant 
 at home, and then issues gallantly forth of a 
 morning, with his Toledo by his side, and a 
 countenance of stately satisfaction; returning 
 home every day about noon with " a starcliccl 
 body, reaching out his neck like a greyhound." 
 Lazarillo had not been a day in the house, 
 before he found out how matters went. He 
 was beginning, in his despair of a dinner, to 
 eat some scraps of bread which had been 
 given him in the morning, when the squire 
 observing him, asked what he was about. 
 " Come hither, boy," said he, " what's that 
 thou art eating?" — "I went," says Lazarillo, 
 "and showed him three pieces of bread, of 
 which taking away the best, ' Upon my faith,' 
 quoth he, * this bread seems to be very good.' 
 — ' 'Tis too stale and hard. Sir,' said I, ' to be 
 good.' — 'I swear 'tis very good,' said the squire; 
 ' Who gave it thee? Were their hands clean 
 that gave it thee?' — ' I took it without asking 
 any questions. Sir,' answered I, ' and you see 
 I eat it as freely.' — ' Pray God it may be so,' 
 answered the miserable squire ; and so jjutting 
 the bread to his mouth, he eat it with no less 
 appetite than I did mine ; adding to every 
 mouthful, ' Gadzooks, this bread is excel- 
 lent.' " 
 
 Lazarillo in short here finds the bare table 
 so completely turned upon him, that he is 
 forced to become provider for his jnaster as 
 well as himself ; which he does by fairly going 
 out every day and begging ; the poor squire 
 winking at the indignity, though not witliout 
 a hint at keeping the connexion secret. The 
 following extract shall be our climax, which 
 it may well be, the hunger having thus 
 ascended into the ribs of Spanish aristocracy. 
 Lazarillo, one lucky day, has an ox-foot and 
 
 1
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 37 
 
 some tripe given him by a butcher- woman. 
 On coming home with his treasure, he finds 
 the hidalgo impatiently walking up and down, 
 and fears he shall have a scolding for staying 
 so long ; but the squire merely asks where he 
 has been, and receives the account with an 
 irrepressible air of delight. " I sate down," 
 says Lazarillo, " upon the end of the stone 
 seat, and began to eat that he might fancy I 
 was feasting ; and observed, without seeming 
 to take notice, that his eye was fixed upon my 
 skirt, which was all the plate and table that I 
 had. 
 
 " May God pity me as I had compassion on that 
 poor squire : daily experience made me sensible 
 of his trouble. I did not know whether I 
 should invite him, for since he had told me he 
 had dined, I thought he would make a point 
 of honour to refuse to eat ; but in short, being 
 very desirous to supply his necessity, as I had 
 done the day before, and which I was tlien 
 much better in a condition to do, having already 
 sufficiently stuffed my own guts, it was not 
 long before an opportunity fairly offered itself ; 
 for he taking occasion to come near me in his 
 wallvs, ' Lazarillo,' quoth he (as soon as he 
 observed me begin to eat), ' I never saw any- 
 body eat so handsomely as thee ; a body can 
 scarce see thee fall to work without desiring 
 to bear thee company ; let their stomachs be 
 never so full, or their mouth be never so much 
 out of taste.' Faith, thought I to myself, with 
 such an empty belly as yours, my own mouth 
 would water at a great deal less. 
 
 " But finding he was come where I wished 
 him : ' Sir,' said I, 'good stuff makes a good 
 workman. This is admirable bread, and here's 
 an ox-foot so nicely dressed and so well-season- 
 ed, that anybody would delight to taste of it.' 
 
 " ' How ! ' cried the squire, interrupting me, 
 ' an ox-foot 1 ' — ' Yes, sir,' said I, ' an ox-foot.' 
 — ' Ah ! then,' quoth he, 'thou hast in my opinion 
 the ddicatest hit in Spain ; there being neither 
 partridge, pheasant, nor any other thing that I 
 like nearly so well as that.' 
 
 " ' Will you please to try, sir ?' said I (putting 
 the ox-foot in his hand, with two good morsels 
 of bread) : ' when you have tasted it, you will 
 be convinced that it is a treat for a king, 'tis 
 so well dressed and seasoned.' 
 
 " Upon that, sitting down by my side, he 
 began to eat, or rather to devour, what I had 
 given him, so that the hones could hardly 
 escape. ' Oh ! the excellent bit,' did he cry, 
 * that this would be with a httle garlic !' Ha ! 
 thought I to myself, how hastily thou eatest 
 it without sauce. * Gad,' said the squire, ' I 
 liave eaten this as heartily as if I had not 
 tasted a bit of victuals to-day :' which I did 
 very readily believe. 
 
 " lie then called for the pitcher with the 
 water, which was as full as I had brought it 
 liome ; so you may guess whether he had had 
 any. When his squireship had drank, he 
 
 civilly invited me to do the like ; and thus 
 ended our feast." 
 
 We hope the reader is as much amused with 
 this prolongation of the subject as ourselves, 
 for we are led on insensibly by these amusing 
 thieves, and find we have more to write upon 
 them, before we have done. We must give 
 another specimen or two of the sharping 
 Spaniard, out of Quevedo. The Adventurer, 
 by the way, of Lazarillo de Tonnes, were 
 written in the sixteenth century by a Spanish 
 gentleman, apparently of illustrious family, 
 Don Diego de Mendoza, who was sometime 
 ambassador at Venice. This renders the 
 story of the hidalgo still more curious. Not 
 that the author perhaps ever felt the proud 
 but condesceudijig jjaugs which he describes ; 
 this is not necessary for a man of imagination. 
 He merely meant to give a hint to the poorer 
 gentry not to overdo the matter on the side of 
 loftiness, for their own sakes ; and hunger, 
 whether among the proud or the humble, was 
 too national a thing not to be entered into by 
 his statistic apprehension. 
 
 The most popular work connected with 
 sharping adventures is Gil Bias, which, though 
 known to us as a French production, seems 
 unquestionably to have originated in the 
 country where the scene is laid. It is a work 
 exquisitely easy and true ; but somehow we 
 have no fancy for the knaves in it. They 
 are of too smooth, sneaking, and safe a cast. 
 They neither bespeak one's sympathy by 
 necessity, nor one's admiration by daring. 
 We except, of course, the robbers before- 
 mentioned, who are a picturesque patch in 
 the world, like a piece of rough poetry. 
 
 Of the illustrious Guzman d'Alfarache, the 
 most popular book of the kind, we believe, in 
 Spain, and admired, we know, in this country 
 by some excellent judges, we cannot with 
 propriety speak, for we have only read a few 
 pages at the beginning ; though we read those 
 twice over, at two different times, and each 
 time with the same intention of going on. In 
 truth, as Guzman is called by way of emi- 
 
 nence the Spanish Rogue, we must say for 
 him, as far as our slight acquaintance war- 
 rants it, that he is also " as tedious as a king." 
 They say, however, he has excellent stuff in 
 him. 
 
 We can speak as little of Marcos de Obreijon, 
 of which a translation appeared a little while 
 ago. AVe have read it, and, if we remember 
 rightly, were pleased ; but want of memory 
 on these occasions is not a good symptom. 
 Quevedo, no ordinary person, is very amusing. 
 His Visions of Hell, in particular, though of 
 a very different kind from Dante's, are more 
 edifying. But our business at present is with 
 his " History of Paul the Spanish Sharper, the 
 Pattern of lioyues and Mirror of Va<jabonds.'" 
 We do not know that he deserves these 
 appellations so much as some others ; but
 
 r> 
 
 38 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Hicy are to ho looked ii]>on as titular orna- 
 iiieuts, coniinon to the 8paiiisli Kltjitucraci/. 
 He is extremely pleasant, especially in his 
 younfjer days. His mother, who is no better 
 than the progenitor of such a i)ersonage oufi^ht 
 to be, hajipens to have the misfortune one day 
 of being carted. Paul, who was then a school- 
 boy, was elected king on some boyish holiday ; 
 and riding out upon a half-starved horse, it 
 picked up a small cabbage as they went 
 through tlie market. Tlie market - Avomen 
 began pelting the king with rotten oranges 
 and turnip-tops ; upon which, having feathers 
 in liis cap, and getting a notion in his head 
 that they mistook him for his mother, who, 
 agreeably to a Spanish custom, was tricked 
 out in the same manner when she was carted, 
 he halloo'd out, " Good women, though I wear 
 feathers in my cap, I am none of Alonza 
 Saturuo de Rebillo. She is my mother." 
 
 Paul used to be set upon unlucky tricks by 
 the son of a man of rank, who preferred 
 enjoying a joke to getting punished for it. 
 Among others, one Christmas, a counsellor 
 happening to go by of the name of Pontio de 
 Auguirre, the little Don told his companion 
 to call Pontius Pilate, and then to run away. 
 lie did so, and the angry counsellor followed 
 after him with a knife iu his hand, so that he 
 Avas forced to take refuge in the house of the 
 schoolmaster. The lawyer laid his indict- 
 ment, and Paul got a hearty flogging, during 
 which he was enjoined never to call Pontius 
 Pilate again ; to which he heartily agreed. 
 The consequence was, that next day, when 
 the boys were at pi'ayers, Paul, coming to 
 the Belief, and thinking that he was never 
 again to name Pontius Pilate, gravely said, 
 " SuiFered under Pontio de Auguirre ; " which 
 evidence of his horror of the scoui'ge so inte- 
 rested the i^edagogue, that, by a Catholic mode 
 of dispensation, he absolved him from the next 
 two whippings he should incur. 
 
 But we forget that our little picaro was a 
 thief. One specimen of his talents this way, 
 and we have done with the Spaniards. He 
 went with young Don Diego to the university ; 
 and here getting applause for some tricks he 
 played upon people, and dandling, as it were, 
 his growing propensity to theft, he invited his 
 companions one evening to see him steal a 
 box of comfits from a confectioner's. He 
 accordingly draws his rajner, which was stiff 
 and well-pointed ; nms violently into the sliop ; 
 and exclaiming, " You 're a dead man ! " makes 
 a fierce lunge at the confectioner between the 
 body and arm. Down drops the man, half 
 dead with fear ; the others rush out. But 
 what of tiie box of comfits ? " Where are the 
 box of comfits, Paul?" said the rogues: " Ave 
 do not see what you have done after all, except 
 frighten the fellow." — " Look here, my boys," 
 answered Paid. They looked, and at the end 
 of liis rapier beheld, with shouts of laughter. 
 
 the vanquished box. He had marked it out 
 on the shelf ; and under pretence of lunging 
 at the confectioner, pinked it aAvay like a 
 muffin. 
 
 Upon turning to Quevedo, Ave find that the 
 story has groAvn a little upon our memory, as 
 to detail ; but this is the spirit of it. The 
 prize here, it is to be observed, is something 
 eatable ; and the same yearning is a predomi- 
 nant property of Quevedo's sharpers, as well 
 as the others. 
 
 Adieu, ye pleasant rogues of Spain ! ye sur- 
 mounters of bad government, hunger, and 
 misery, by the mere force of a light climate 
 and fingers ! The dinner calls ; — and to talk 
 about you before it, is as good as taking a ride 
 on horseback. 
 
 "We must return a moment to the Italian 
 thieves, to relate a conjjle of stories related of 
 Ariosto and Tasso. The former Avas for a 
 short period governor of Grafagnana, a dis- 
 turbed district in the Apennines, which liis 
 prudent and gentle policy brought back from 
 its disaffection. Among its other trouljles Avero 
 numerous bands of robbers, tAvo of the name.-; 
 of Avliose leaders, Domenico Maroco, and 
 Filippo Pacchione, have come doAvn to pos 
 terity. Ariosto, during the first days of h\x 
 government, Avas riding out with a small 
 retinue, when he had to pass through a numbei 
 of suspicious-looking armed men. The tAvo 
 parties had scarcely cleared each other, Avhen 
 the chief of the strangers asked a servant, who 
 happened to be at some distance behind the 
 others, who that person Avas. " It is the captain 
 of the citadel here," said the man, " Lodovico 
 Ariosto." The stranger no sooner heard the 
 name, than he went running back to overtake 
 the governor, who, stopping his horse, waited 
 Avitli some anxiety for the event. " I beg yoni 
 pardon, Sir," said he, " but I was not aAvare 
 that so great a person as the Signer Lodovico 
 Ariosto was passing near me. My name is 
 Filippo Pacchione ; and Avlien I kncAv avIio it 
 Avas, I could not go on Avithout returning to 
 pay the respect due to so illusti-ious a name." 
 
 A doubt is thrown on this story, or rathei 
 on the particular person Avho gave occasion to 
 it, ])y the similarity of an adventure related of 
 Tasso. Both of tliem hoAvever are very pro- 
 bable, let the similarity be Avhat it may ; for 
 both the poets had occasion to go through 
 disturbed districts ; robbers abounded in both 
 their times ; and the leaders being most i)ro- 
 bably men rather of desperate fortunes than 
 Avant of knoAvledge, were likely enough to seize 
 such opportunities of vindicating their better 
 habits, and shoAvinga romantic politeness. The 
 enthusiasm too is quite in keeping Avith the 
 national character ; and it is to be observed 
 that the particulars of Tasso's adA'enture are 
 different, though the spirit of it is the same. 
 He Avas journeying, it is said, in company with 
 others, for better security against the banditti
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 38 
 
 who infested the borders of the papal territory, 
 when they were told that Sciarra, a famous 
 robber, was at hand in considerable force. 
 Tasso was for pushing on, and defending them- 
 selves if attacked ; but his oijinion was over- 
 ruled ; and the company threw themselves, for 
 safety, into the city of Mola. Here Sciarra 
 kept them in a manner blocked up ; but licaring 
 that Tasso was among the travellers, he sent 
 him word that he should not only be allowed 
 to pass, but should have safe-conduct whither- 
 soever he pleased. The lofty poet, making it 
 a matter of delicacy, perhaps, to waive an 
 advantage of which his company could not 
 partake, declined the offer ; uj^on which Sciarra 
 sent another message, saying, that upon the 
 sole account of Tasso, the ways should be left 
 open. And they were so. 
 
 We can call to mind no particular German 
 thieves, except those who figure in romances, 
 and in the Robbers of Schiiller. To say the 
 truth, we are writing just now with but few 
 books to refer to ; and the better informed 
 reader must pardon any deficiency he meets 
 with in these egregious and furtive memo- 
 randums. Of the Bobbers of Schiller an exti-a- 
 ordinary effect is related. It is said to have 
 driven a number of wild-headed young Germans 
 upon playing at banditti, not in the bounds of 
 a school or university, but seriously in a forest. 
 The matter-of-fact spirit in which a German 
 sets about being enthusiastic, is a metaphysical 
 curiosity which modern events render doubly 
 interesting. It is extremely worthy of the 
 attention of those rare personages, entitled 
 reflecting politicians. But we must take care 
 of that kind of digression. It is very inhuman 
 of tliese politics, that the habit of attending to 
 them, though with the greatest good-will and 
 sincerity, will always be driving a man upon 
 tliinking how his fellow-creatures are going on. 
 
 There is a pleasant, well-iinowu story of a 
 Prussian thief and Frederick the Second. 
 
 We forget what was the precise valuable 
 found upon the Prussian soldier, and missed 
 from an image of the Virgin ]\Iary ; but we 
 believe it was a ring, lie was tried for sacri- 
 lege, and the case seemed clear against him, 
 when he puzzled his Catholic judges by in- 
 forming them, tliat the fact was, the Virgin 
 JMary liad <jheH him that ring. Here was a 
 terrible dilemma. To dispute tlie possibility 
 or even probability of a gift from the Virgin 
 Mary, was to deny their religion : while, on 
 Uie other hand, to let the fellow escape on the 
 pretence, was to canonize impudence itself. 
 The worthy judges, in their perplexity, appUcd 
 to the king, who, under the guise of behaving 
 delicately to their faith, was not sorry to have 
 such an opportunity of joking it. His majesty 
 therefore pronounced, with becoming gravity, 
 that the allegation of the soldier could not but 
 have its due weight with all Catholic believers ; 
 but that in future, it was forbidden any Prus- 
 
 sian subject, military or civil, to accej)t a present 
 from the Virgin Mary. 
 
 The district, formerly rendered famous by 
 the exploits of Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, 
 and since become infamous by the tyranny of 
 Ah Bey, has been very fertile in robbers. And 
 no wonder : for a semi-barbarous people so 
 governed become thieves by necessity. The 
 name indeed, as well as profession, is in such 
 good receipt with an Albanian, that according 
 to late travellers, it is a common thing for him 
 to begin his history by saying, " When I was a 
 
 robber " We remember reading of some 
 
 Albanian or Sclavonian leader of banditti, who 
 made his enemies suppose he had a numerous 
 force with him, by distributing military caps 
 upon the hedges. 
 
 There are some other nations who are all 
 thieves, more or less ; or comprise such 
 numbers of them as very much militate against 
 the national character. Such are the piratical 
 INIalays ; the still more infamous Alger ines ; 
 and the mongrel tribes between Arabia and 
 Abyssinia. As to the Arabs, they have a pre- 
 scriptive right, from tradition as well as local 
 circumstances, to plunder everybody. The 
 sanguinary ruffians of Ashantee and other 
 black empires on the coast of Guinea are more 
 like a government of murderers and ogres, 
 than thieves. They are the next ruffians 
 perhaps in existence to slave-dealers. The 
 gentlest nation of pilferers are the Otaheitans ; 
 and something is to be said for their irresistible 
 love of hatchets and old nails. Let the Euro 
 pean trader, that is without sin, cast the first 
 paragraph at them. Let him think what he 
 should feel inclined to do, were a ship of some 
 unknown nation to come upon his coast, with 
 gold and jewels lying scattered about the deck 
 For no less precious is iron to the South Sea 
 Islander. A Paradisiacal state of existence 
 would be, to him, not the Golden, but the Iron 
 Age. An Otaheitan Jupiter would visit his 
 Danae in a shower of tenpenny nails. 
 
 We are now come to a very multitudinous 
 set of candidates for the halter, the thieves of 
 our own beloved country. For what we know 
 of the French thieves is connected with them, 
 excepting Cartouche ; and we remember no- 
 thing of him, but that lie was a great ruflianj 
 and died upon that worse ruffian, the rack. 
 
 There is, to be sure, an eminent instance of 
 a single theft in the Confessions of Rousseau : 
 and it is the second greatest blot in liis book ; 
 for lie suffered a girl to be charged with and 
 punished for the theft, and maintained the lie 
 to her face, though she was his friend, and ap- 
 pealed to him M'itli tears. But it may be said 
 for him, at any rate, that the world would not 
 have known the story but for liimself : and if 
 such a disclosure be regarded by some as aa 
 additional offence (which it may be thought to 
 be by some very delicate as well as dishonest 
 people), we must recollect, that it was the ob-
 
 40 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 joct of his book to p;ivo a ])lain iinsopliisticatcd 
 account of a liumaii bL'inj,'^'s oxptTii-iu-os ; and 
 tliat many persons of exct'lk-nt r('i)ute would 
 have been found to have coniniitted actions as 
 bad, bad they given accounts of themselves as 
 candid. Dr. Johnson was of opinion that all 
 children were thieves and liars : and somebody, 
 we believe a Scotchman, answered a fond 
 speech about human nature, by exclaiming 
 I that " human nature was a rogue and a vaga- 
 bond, or so many laws would not have been 
 necessary to restrain it." We venture to differ, 
 on this occasio with both Englishman and 
 Scotchman. Laws in particular, taking the 
 bad with the good, are quite as likely to have 
 made rogues, as restrained them. But we see, 
 at any rate, what has been suspected of more 
 ortliodox persons than Rouboeau ; to say no- 
 thing of less charitable advantages which 
 might be taken of such opinions. Rousseau 
 committed a petty theft ; and miserably did 
 his false shame, the parent of so many crimes, 
 make him act. But he won back to their in- 
 fants' lips the bosoms of thousands of mothers. 
 He restored to their bereaved and heljjless 
 owners thousands of those fountains of health 
 and joy : and before he is abused, even for 
 worse things tlian the theft, let those whose 
 virtue consists in custom, think of this. 
 
 As wo have mixed fictitious with real thieves 
 in this article, in a manner, we fear, somewhat 
 iincritical (and yet the fictions are most likely 
 founded on fact ; and the life of a real thief is 
 a kind of dream and romance), we will desjjatch 
 our fictitious English thieves before we come 
 to the others. And we must make shorter 
 work of them than we intended, or we shall 
 never come to our friend Du Vail. The length 
 to which this article has stretched out, will be 
 a warning to us how we render our paper 
 liable to be run away with in future. 
 
 There is a very fine story of Three Thieves 
 in Chaucer, which we must tell at largo an- 
 other time. The most prominent of the fabu- 
 lous thieves in England is that bellipotent and 
 inmieasurable wag, FalstafF. If for a momen- 
 tary freak, he thought it villanous to steal, at 
 the next naomeut he thought it villanous not 
 to steal. 
 
 " Hal, I pr'ytheo, trouble me no more with 
 vanity. 1 would to God thou and 1 knew where 
 a commodity of good names were to be bought. 
 An old lord of the council rated me the other 
 day in the street, about you, Sir ; but I marked 
 liim not. And yet he talked very wisely ; but 
 I regarded him not. And yet he talked wisely ; 
 and in the streets, too. 
 
 " P. Ilcnry. Thou didst well ; for ' Wisdom 
 cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.' 
 
 "Fa/ntajf. O, thou hast damnable itei'ation ; 
 and art, indeed, able to corruj)t a saint. 'J'liou 
 hast done much harm upon me, Hal ; God for- 
 give thee for it ! Before I knew thee, Hal, 
 1 knew nothing ; and now am I, if a man 
 
 should speak truly, little better than one of 
 the wicked. I must give over this life, and I 
 will give it over : by the Lord, an 1 do not, 1 
 am a villain : I'll be damned for never a king's 
 son in Christendom. 
 
 " P. JL'iirii. Where shall wc take a purse 
 to-morrow, Jack ? 
 
 '■'Fahtaf. Where thou wilt, lad; I'll make 
 one : an I do not, call me villain, and baftie 
 me." 
 
 We must take care how we speak of Mac- 
 lieath, or we shall be getting political again. 
 Fielding's Jonathan Wi/d the Great is also, in 
 this sense, "caviare to the multitude." But 
 we would say more if we had room. Count 
 Fathom, a deliberate scoundrel, compounded 
 of the Jonathan Wilds and the more equivocal 
 Cagliostros and other adventurers, is a thief 
 not at all to our taste. We are continually 
 obliged to call his mother to our recollection, 
 in order to bear hira. The only instance in 
 which the character of an absolute profiigate 
 pickpocket was ever made comparatively wel- 
 come to our graver feelings, is in the extraor- 
 dinary story of " Manoii PEscaut," by the Abbe 
 Prevost. It is the story of a young man, so 
 passionately in love with a profligate female, 
 that he follows her through every species ot 
 vice and misery, even when she is sent as a 
 convict to New Orleans. His love, indeed, is re- 
 turned. He is obliged to subsist upon her vices, 
 and, in return, is induced to help her with his 
 own, becoming a cheat and a swindler to supply 
 her outrageous extravagances. On board the 
 convict-shij) (if we recollect) he waits on her 
 through every species of squalidness, the con- 
 vict-dress and her shaved head only redoubling 
 his love by the help of pity. This seems a 
 shocking and veiy immoral book ; yet multi- 
 tudes of very reputable people have found a 
 charm in it. The fact is, not only that Manon 
 is beautiful, sprightly, really fond of her lover, 
 and after all, becomes reformed ; but that it is 
 delightful, and ought to be so, to the human 
 heart, to see a vein of sentiment and real good- 
 ness looking out through all this callous sur- 
 face of guilt. It is like meeting with a tree in 
 a squalid hole of a city ; a flower or a frank 
 face in a repi-obate purlieu. The capabilities 
 of human nature arc not comjiromised. The 
 virtue alone seems natural ; the guilt, as it so 
 often is, seems artificial, and the result of 
 some bad education or other circinnstance. 
 Nor is anybody injured. It is one of the 
 shallowest of all shallow notions to talk of 
 the harm of such works. Do we think no- 
 body is to be harmed but the virtuous ; or 
 that there arc not privileged harms and vices 
 to be got rid of, as well as unprivileged ? No 
 good-hearted person will be injured by read- 
 ing " Manon I'Escaut." There is the be/ief in 
 (joodnens in it ; a faith, tlie want of which does 
 so much harm, both to the vicious and the 
 over-righteous.
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 41 
 
 The prince of all robbers, English or foreign, 
 is undoubtedly Robin Hood. There is a wor- 
 thy Scottish namesake of his, Rob Roy, ■who 
 has lately had justice done to all his injuries 
 by a countryman ; and the author, it seems, 
 has now come down from the borders to see 
 the Rob of the elder times well ti-eated. We 
 were obliged to tear ourselves away from his 
 first volume *, to go to this ill-repaying article. 
 But Robin Hood will still remain the chief 
 and " gentlest of tliieves." He acted upon 
 a larger scale, or in opposition to a larger 
 injustice, to a whole political system. He 
 " shook the superflux " to the poor, and 
 "sliowed the heavens more just." However, 
 what we have to say of him, we must keep 
 till the trees are in leaf again, and the gi-een- 
 wood shade delightful. 
 
 We dismiss, in one rabble-like heap, the 
 real Jonathan Wilds, Avershaws, and other 
 heroes of the Newgate Calendar, who have no 
 redemption in their rascality ; and after them, 
 for gentlemen-valets, may go the Barringtons, 
 Major Semjiles, and other sneaking rogues, 
 ■who held on a ti-eraulous career of iniquity, 
 bet\vixt pilfering and repenting. Yet Jack 
 Sheppard must not be forgotten, with his 
 ingenious and daring breaks-out of prison ; 
 nor Turpin, who is said to have ridden his 
 horse with such swiftness from York to 
 London, that he was enabled to set up an 
 alihl. We have omitted to notice the cele- 
 brated Bucaniers of America ; but these are 
 fellows, with regard to whom we are willing 
 to take Dogberry's advice, and "steal out of 
 their company." Their history disappoints us 
 ■with its dryness. 
 
 All hail ! thou most attractive of scape- 
 graces ! thou most accomplished of gentlemen 
 of the road ! thou, Avorthy to be called one of 
 "the minions of the moon," Monsieur Claude 
 Du Vail, whom we have come such a long and 
 dangerous journey to see ! 
 
 Claude Du Vail, according to a pleasant 
 account of Iiim in the Harleian M'lsceUaiiy, was 
 born at Domfront, in Normandy, in the year 
 1643, of Pierre Du Vail, miller, and ^larguerite 
 de la Roche, the fair daughter of a tailor. 
 Being a sprightly boy, he did not remain in 
 the coimtry, but became servant to a ^aerson 
 of quality at Paris, and with this gentleman 
 he came over to England at the time of the 
 Restoration. It is difficult to say, which came 
 over to pick the most pockets and hearts, 
 Charles the Second or Claude du Vail. Be 
 this as it may, his " courses " of life (" for," 
 says the contemporary historian, " I dare not 
 call them vices,") soon reduced him to the 
 necessity of going upon the road ; and here 
 " he quickly became so famous, that in a 
 proclamation for the taking several notorious 
 higliwaymeu, he had the honour to be named 
 first." " He took," says his l)iograj)her, " the 
 
 * Of Ivanhoc. 
 
 generous way of padding ; " that is to say, 
 he behaved with exemplary politeness to aU 
 coaches, especially those in which there were 
 ladies, making a point of frightening them 
 as amiably as possible, and insisting upon 
 returning any favourite trinkets or keepsakes, 
 for which they chose to appeal to him with 
 " their most sweet voices." 
 
 It was in this character that he performed 
 an exploit, which is the eternal feather in the 
 cap of highway gentility. We will relate it in 
 the words of our informer. Riding out with 
 some of his confederates, " he overtakes a 
 coach, which they had set over night, having 
 intelligence of a booty of four hundred pounds 
 in it. In the coach was a knight, his lady, 
 and only one serving-maid, who, perceiving 
 five horsemen making up to them, presently 
 imagined that they were beset ; and they were 
 confirmed in this apprehension by seeing them 
 whisper to one another and ride backwards 
 and forwards. The lady, to show she was 
 not afraid, takes a flageolet out of her pocket, 
 and plays ; Du Vail takes the hint, plays also, 
 and excellently well, upon a flageolet of his 
 0"wn, and in this posture he rides up to the 
 coach side. ' Sir,' says he to the person in 
 the coach, 'your lady jdays excellently, and 
 I doubt not but that she dances as well ; 
 will you please to walk out of the coach, 
 and let me have the honour to dance one 
 coranto with her upon the heath ? ' ' Sir,' 
 said the person in the coach, ' I dare not 
 deny anything to one of your quality and 
 good mind ; you seem a gentleman, and your 
 request is very reasonable:' which said, the 
 lacquey opens the boot, out comes the knight, 
 Du Vail leaps lightly off his horse, and hands 
 the lady out of the coach. They danced, and 
 here it was that Du Vail performed marvels ; 
 the best master in London, except those that 
 are French, not being able to show such foot- 
 ing as he did in his great riding French boots. 
 The dancing being over, he waits on the lady 
 to her coach. As the knight was going in, 
 says Du Vail to him, ' Sir, you have forgot 
 to pay the music' ' No, I have not,' replies 
 the knight, and putting his hand under the 
 seat of the coach, pulls out a hundred pounds 
 in a bag, and delivers it to him, which Du 
 Vail took with a very good grace, and courte- 
 ously answered, 'Sir, you are liberal, and shall 
 have no cause to rcjjent your being so ; this 
 liberality of yours shall excuse you the other 
 three hundred pounds : ' and giving him the 
 word, that if he met with any more of the 
 crew he might pass undisturbed, he civilly 
 takes his leave of him. 
 
 " This story, I confess, justifies the great 
 kindness the ladies had for Du Vail ; for in 
 this, as in an epitome, are contained all things 
 that set a man oft" advantageously, and make 
 him appear, as the phrase is, much a ijcnilnnan 
 First, here was valour, that he and but fou>
 
 42 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 more durst assault a knight, a lady, a waiting- 
 gcntlewoinan, a lacquey, a groom that rid by 
 to open tlio gates, and the coaeiniiuii, they 
 beiug six to five, odds at football ; and 
 besides, Du Yall had inueh the worst cause, 
 and reason to Iielieve, that whoever should 
 arrive, would range tlieniselves on the enemy's 
 party. Then he showed his invention and 
 sagacity, that he could, sur le cluxmp, and, with- 
 out studying, make that advantage on the 
 lad}''s j)laying on the iiageolet. He evinced 
 his skill in instrumental music, by playing on 
 his flageolet ; in vocal, by his singing ; for (as 
 I should have told you before) there being no 
 violins, I)u Vail sung the coranto himself. 
 He manifested his agility of body, by lightly 
 dismounting off his horse, and with ease 
 and freedom getting up again, when he took 
 his leave ; his excellent deportment, by his 
 incomijarable dancing, and his graceful man- 
 ner of taking the hundred pounds ; his gene- 
 rosity, in taking no more ; his wit and elo- 
 quence, and readiness at repartees, in the 
 whole discourse with the knight and lady, 
 the greatest part of which I have been forced 
 to omit." 
 
 The noise of the proclamation made Dn "Vall 
 return to Paris ; but he came back in a short 
 time for want of money. His reign however 
 did not last long after his restoration. He 
 made an unlucky attack, not upon some ill- 
 bred passengers, but upon several bottles of 
 wine, and was taken in consequence at the 
 Ilole-in-the-Wall in Chaudos-street. His life 
 was interceded for in vain : he was arraigned 
 and committed to Newgate ; and executed at 
 Tyburn in the 27th year of his age ; showers 
 of tears from fair eyes bedewing his fate, both 
 while alive in prison, and when dead at the 
 fatal tree. 
 
 Du Vall's success with the ladies of those 
 days, whose amatory taste was of a turn more 
 extensive than delicate, seems to have made 
 some well-dressed English gentlemen jealous. 
 The writer of Du Vall's life, wlio is a man of 
 wit, evidently has something of bitterness in 
 his railleries upon this point ; but he manages 
 them very pleasantly. He pretends that he is 
 an old bachelor, and lias never been able to 
 make his way with his fair countrywomen, on 
 account of the French valets that have stood 
 in his way. He says he had two objects in 
 writing the book. " One is, that the next 
 Frenchman that is liangcd may not cause an 
 uproar in this imperial city ; which I doubt 
 not but I have effected. The other is a much 
 harder task : to set my countrymen on even 
 terms with the French, as to the English 
 ladies' affections. If I should bring this about, 
 I should esteem myself to have contributed 
 much to the good of this kingdom. 
 
 " One remedy there is, which, possibly, may 
 conduce something towards it. 
 
 " I have heard, that there is a new invention 
 
 of transfusing the blood of one animal into 
 another, and that it has been experimented by 
 putting the blood of a sheej) into an English- 
 man. I am against tliat way of experiments ; 
 for, should wo make ail Englishmen sheep, we 
 should soon be a prey to the (vure. 
 
 " I think I can propose the making that 
 experiment a more advantageous way. I 
 would have all gentlemen, who have been a 
 full year or more out of France, be let blood 
 weekly, or ofteuer, if they can bear it. Mark 
 how much they bleed ; transfuse so much 
 French lacquey's blood into them ; replenish 
 these last out of the English footmen, for it is 
 no matter what becomes of them. Kejjeat this 
 operation totlcs quoties, and in process of time 
 you will find this event : either the English 
 gentlemen will be as much beloved as the 
 French lacqueys, or the French lacqueys as 
 little esteemed as the English gentlemen." 
 
 Butler has left an Ode, sprinkled with his 
 usual wit, " To the hajypij Memory of the Most 
 Renowned Du, Vail" who 
 
 —Like a pious man, some years beforo 
 Th' arrival of his fatal \\our. 
 Made every day he had to live 
 To his last minute a preparative ; 
 Taught the wild Arabs on the road 
 To act in a more gentle mode ; 
 Take prizes more obligingly from those, 
 Who never had been hTcAjilous ; 
 And how to hang in a more graceful fashion 
 Than e'er was known before to the dull English nation. 
 
 As it may be thought proper that we should 
 end this lawless article with a good moral, we 
 will give it two or three sentences from yiiak- 
 speare worth a whole volume of sermons 
 against thieving. The boy who belongs to 
 Falstaff's companions, and who begins to see 
 through the shallowness of their cunning and 
 way of life, says that Bardol])h stole a lute- 
 case, carried it twelve miles, and sold it for 
 three halfpence. 
 
 XXI.— A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 
 
 This is an article for the reader to think of, 
 when he or she is warm in bed, a little before 
 he goes to sleep, the clothes at his ear, and the 
 wind moaning in some distant crevice. 
 
 " Blessings," exclaimed Sancho, " on him 
 that first invented sleep ! It WTaps a man all 
 round like a cloak." It is a delicious moment 
 certainly, — that of being well nestled in bed, 
 and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleej). 
 The good is to come, not past : the limbs have 
 been just tired enough to render the remain- 
 ing in one posture delightful : the labour of 
 the day is done. A gentle failure of the per- 
 ceptions comes creeping over one : — the spirit 
 of conscio\isness disengages itself more and 
 more, with slow and husliing degiees, like a 
 mother detaching her hand from that of her
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 
 
 43 
 
 sleeping child ; — the mind seems to have a balmy 
 lid closing over it, like the eye ; — 'tis closing ; — 
 'tis more closing ; — 'tis closed. The mysterious 
 spirit has gone to take its airy rounds. 
 
 It is said that sleep is best before midnight : 
 and Nature herself, with her darkness and 
 chilling dews, informs us so. There is another 
 reason for going to bed betimes : for it is uni- 
 versally acknowledged that lying late in the 
 morning is a great shortener of life. At least, 
 it is never found in company with longevity. 
 It also tends to make peoj^le corpulent. But 
 these matters belong rather to the subject of 
 early rising, than of sleep. 
 
 Sleep at a late hour in the morning is not 
 half so pleasant as the more timely one. It is 
 sometimes however excusable, especially to a 
 watchful or overworked head ; neither can we 
 deny the seducing merits of " t' other doze," — 
 the pleasing wilfulness of nestling in a new 
 posture, when you know you ought to be up, 
 like the rest of the house. But then you cut 
 up the day, and your sleep the next night. 
 
 In the course of the day, few people think 
 of sleeping, except after dinner ; and then it 
 is often rather a hovering and nodding on the 
 borders of sleep, than sleep itself. This is a 
 privilege allowable, we think, to none but the 
 old, or the sickly, or the very tired and care- 
 worn ; and it should be well understood, before 
 it is exercised in company. To escape into 
 slumber from an argument ; or to take it as 
 an affair of course, only between you and your 
 biliary duct ; or to assent with involuntary 
 nods to all that you have just been disputing, 
 is not so well : much less, to sit nodding and 
 tottering beside a lady ; or to be in danger of 
 dropping your head into the fruit-plate or your 
 host's face ; or of waking up, and saying, 
 " Just so," to the bark of a dog ; or " Yes, 
 Madam," to the black at your elbow. 
 
 Care-worn people, however, might refresh 
 themselves oftener with day-sleep than they 
 do ; if their bodily state is such as to dispose 
 them to it. It is a mistake to suppose that all 
 care is wakeful. People sometimes sleep, as 
 well as wake, by reason of their sorrow. The 
 difference seems to depend upon the nature of 
 their temperament ; though in the most exces- 
 sive cases, sleep is jierhaps Nature's never- 
 failing relief, as swooning is upon the rack. 
 A person with jaundice in his blood sluill lie 
 do.vn and go to sleep at noon-day, when 
 another of a different complexion shall find 
 his eyes as uncloseable as a statue's, thougli he 
 has had no sleep for nights together. With- 
 out moaning to lessen the dignity of suffering, 
 which has quite enougli to do with its waking 
 hours, it is this that may often account for the 
 profound sleeps enjoyed tlie night before 
 hazardous battles, executions, and other 
 demands upon an over-excited spirit. 
 
 The most complete and healthy sleep that 
 can be taken in the day, is in summer-time. 
 
 out in a field. There is perhaps no solitary 
 sensation so exquisite as that of slumbering 
 on the grass or hay, shaded from the hot sun 
 by a tree, with the consciousness of a fresh 
 but light air running through the wide atmo- 
 sphere, and the sky stretching far overhead 
 upon all sides. Earth, and heaven, and a 
 placid humanity, seem to have the creation to 
 themselves. There is nothing between the 
 slumberer and the naked and glad innocence 
 of nature. 
 
 Next to this, but at a long interval, the 
 most relishing snatch of slumber out of bed, is 
 the one which a tired person takes, before he 
 retires for the night, while lingering in liis 
 sitting-room. The consciousness of being very 
 sleepy and of having the power to go to bed 
 immediately, gives great zest to the unwilling- 
 ness to move. Sometimes he sits nodding in 
 his chair ; but the sudden and leaden jerks -of 
 the head to which a state of great sleepiness 
 renders him liable, are generally too painful 
 for so luxurious a moment ; and he gets into a 
 more legitimate posture, sitting sideways with 
 his liead on the chair-back, or throwing his 
 legs up at once on another chair, and half 
 reclining. It is curious, however, to find how 
 long an inconvenient posture will be borne for 
 the sake of this foretaste of repose. The worst 
 of it is, that on going to bed, the charm some- 
 times vanishes ; perhaps from the colder 
 temperature of the chamber ; for a fireside is 
 a great opiate. 
 
 Speaking of the painful positions into which 
 a sleepy lounger will get himself, it is amusing 
 to think of the more fantastic attitudes that so 
 often take place in bed. If we could add any- 
 thing to the numberless things that have been 
 said about sleep by the poets, it would be upon 
 this point. Sleep never shows himself a 
 greater leveller. A man in his waking mo- 
 ments may look as proud and self-possessed as 
 he pleases. He may walk proudly, he may sit 
 proudly, he may eat his dinner proudly ; he 
 may sliave himself with an air of infinite 
 superiority ; in a word, he may show himself 
 grand and absurd ujion the most trifling occa- 
 sions. But Sleej) pLiys the petrifying magician, 
 lie arrests the proudest lord as well as the 
 humblest clown in the most ridiculous pos- 
 tures : so that if you could draw a grandee 
 from his bed without waking him, no limb- 
 twisting fool in a i)antomime should create 
 wilder laughter. The toy with the string 
 between its legs, is hardly a posture-master 
 more extravagant. Imagine a desi)ot lifted 
 up to the gaze of his valetfi, witli liis eyes shut, 
 his nioutli open, his loft luuid under his right 
 ear, his other twisted and hanging helplessly 
 before him like an idiot's, one knee lifted up, 
 and tlie other leg stretched out, or both knees 
 huddled up together ; — what a scarecrow to 
 lodge majestic power in ! 
 
 But Sleep is kindly, even in his tricks ; and
 
 44 
 
 TUK INDICATOR. 
 
 the poets have treated him with propor rever- 
 eni'O. According to the ancient iiiytliologists, 
 he Iiad even one of the (J races to wife. lie 
 had a thousand sons, of wlioni the chief were 
 Morj)heus, or the Shajn-r ; Icohis, or the 
 Likely ; Phantasus, tlio l'"ancy ; and JMiohetoi', 
 the Terror. His dwelling some writers place 
 in a dull and darkling i)art of the earth ; others, 
 withgreater coniplinu-nt, in heaven ; and others, 
 with another kind of ])ropriety, by the sea- 
 shore. There is a good doscriptiuu of it in 
 Ovid ; but in these abstracted tasks of poetry, 
 the moderns outvie the ancients ; and there is 
 nobody who has built his bower for him so 
 finely as Spenser. Archimago in the first 
 book of the Faerie Qaeene (Canto I. st. ;{9), 
 sends a little spirit down to Morpheus to fetch 
 him a Dream : 
 
 He, making; speedy way through sporscd ayre. 
 And through the world of waters, wide and decpe, 
 To Morpheus' house doth liastily rcpaire. 
 Amid the bowels of the eartli full steepe 
 And low, where dawning day doth never peepe. 
 His dwelling is. There, Tethys his wet bed 
 Doth ever wash ; and CjTithia still doth steepe 
 In silver dew his ever-ilroupiiip head. 
 Whiles sad Xiglit over him her mantle black doth sprcd. 
 
 And more to lull him in his slumber soft 
 A trickling streame from high rocke tumbling downe, 
 And CTcr-drizzling rain upon the loft, 
 Mixed with a murmuring uiudc, much like the soime 
 Of swarming bees, did east him in a swounc. 
 Ko other noise, nor people's troublous cryes, 
 As still arc wont to annoy the walled towne, 
 Might there be heard ; but carelessc (iuiet lyes. 
 Wrapt in eternall silence, far from enimyes. 
 
 Chaucer has drawn the cave of the same 
 god with greater simplicity ; but nothing can 
 have a more deep and sullen effect than his 
 clifi^'s and cold running waters. It seems as 
 real as an actual solitude, or some quaint old 
 picture in a book of travels in Tartary. He is 
 telling the story of Ceyx and Alcyone in the 
 poem called his Dream. Juno tells a messen- 
 ger to go to Morpheus and " bid him creep 
 into the body" of the drowned king, to let 
 his wife know the fatal event by his ai)pa- 
 rition. 
 
 This messenger tooke leave, and went 
 Upon his way ; and never he stent 
 Till he came to the dark valley. 
 That stant betweene rockes twey. 
 Tliero never yet grew come, ne gi"as, 
 Nc tree, ne nought that aught was, 
 Beast, ne man, nc naught el*e ; 
 Save that there were a few wells 
 Came running fro the cliffs adowne, 
 That made a dcjidly slcei)ing sounc, 
 And rimnen downe right by a cave, 
 That was under a rocky grave, 
 Amid the valley, wonder-deepe. 
 There these goddis lay asleepe, 
 Morjjheus and EeljTnpasteire, 
 That was the god of Sleepis hcirc, 
 That slept and did none other worke. 
 
 Where the credentials of this new son and 
 heir Eclympasteire, are to be found, we know 
 not ; but he acts very much, it must be allowed, 
 
 like an heir presumptive, in sleeping, and doing 
 "none other work." 
 
 "We dare not trust ourselves with many quo- 
 tations upon sleep from the poets ; they are so 
 numerousaswell us beautiful. We must content 
 ourselves with mentioning that our two most 
 favourite passages are one in the Phi/octctes 
 of Sophocles, admirable for its contrast to a 
 scene of terrible agony, which it closes ; and 
 the other the following address in Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's tragedy of V^alentinian, the hero 
 of which is also a sufferer under bodily tor- 
 ment, lie is in a chair, slumbering ; and 
 these most exquisite lines are gcutly sung 
 with music. 
 
 Care-charming Sleep, thou caser of all woes. 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself disi)ose 
 On this afflicted prince. Fall like a cloud 
 In gentle showers : give nothing that is loud 
 Or painful to his slumbers: easy, sweet. 
 And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, 
 Piiss by liis troubled senses ; sing his i)ain 
 Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain : 
 Into this prince, gently, oh gently slide, 
 .(Vnd kiss him into slumbers, like a bride. 
 
 How earnest and prayer-like are these pauses! 
 How lightly sprinkled, and yet how deeply 
 settling, like rain, the fancy ! How quiet, 
 affectionate, and perfect the conclusion ! 
 
 Sleep is most graceful in an infant ; soundest, 
 in one who has been tired in the open air ; 
 completest, to the seaman after a hard voyage ; 
 most welcome, to the mind haunted with one 
 idea ; most touching to look at, in the parent 
 that has wept ; lightest, in the playful child ; 
 proudest, in the bride adored. 
 
 XXII.— THE FAIR REVENGE. 
 
 The elements of this story are to be found 
 in the old poem called Albion^s Emjland, to 
 which we referred in the article on Charles 
 Brandon and ISfary Queen of France. 
 
 Aganippus, king of Argos, dying without 
 heirs male, bequeathed his throne to his only 
 daughter, the beautiful and beloved Daphles. 
 This female succession was displeasing to a 
 nobleman who held large ])ossessions on the 
 frontiers ; and he came for the first time to- 
 wards the court, not to pay his respects to the 
 new queen, but to give her battle. Doracles 
 (for that was his name) was not much known 
 by the people. He had distinguished himself 
 for as jealous an independence as a subject 
 could well assume ; and though he had been 
 of use in repelling invasion during the latter 
 years of the king, he had never made his 
 ai)pearance to receive his master's thanks 
 personally. A correspondence, however, was 
 understood to have gone on between him and 
 several noblemen about the court ; and there 
 were those who, in spite of his inattention to 
 popularity, suspected that it would go hard
 
 THE FAIR REVENGE. 
 
 45 
 
 with tlie young queen, when the two armies 
 came face to face. 
 
 But neither these subtle statesmen, nor the 
 ambitious young soldier Uoracles, were aware 
 of the effects to be produced by a strong per- 
 sonal attachment. The young queen, amiable 
 as she was beautiful, had involuntarily baffled 
 his expectations from her courtiers, by excit- 
 ing in the minds of some a real disinterested 
 regard, while others nourished a hope of 
 sharing her throne instead. At least they 
 speculated upon becoming each the favourite 
 minister, and held it a better thing to reign 
 under that title and a charming mistress, than 
 be the servants of a master, wilful and domi- 
 neering. By the people she was adored ; and 
 when she came riding out of her palace on 
 the morning of the fight, with an unaccustomed 
 spear standing up in its rest by her side, her 
 diademed hair flowing a little off into the 
 ■nand, her face paler than usual, but still tinted 
 with its roses, and alookin which confidence in 
 the love of her subjects, and tenderness for 
 the wounds they were going to encounter, 
 seemed to contend for the expression, the 
 shout which they sent up would have told 
 a stouter heart than a traitor's, that the 
 royal charmer was secure. 
 
 The queen, during the conflict, remained 
 in a tent upon an eminence, to which the 
 younger leaders vied who should best spur up 
 their smoking horses, to bring her good news 
 from time to time. The battle was short and 
 bloody. Doracles soon found that he had 
 miscalculated his point ; and all skill and 
 resolution could not set the error to rights. 
 It was allowed, that if either courage or 
 military talent could entitle him to the throne, 
 he would have a right to it ; but the popu- 
 larity of Dajjhles supplied her cause with all 
 the ardour wliich a lax state of subjection on 
 the part of the more powerful nol)les might 
 have denied it. When her trooj)S charged, or 
 made any other voluntary movement, tliey put 
 all their hearts into their blows ; and when 
 they were compelled to await the enemy, they 
 stood as inflexible as walls of iron. It was 
 like liammta-ing upon metal statuary ; or stak- 
 ing the fated horses upon spears riveted in 
 stone. Doracles was taken prisoner. The 
 queen, re-issuing from her tent, crowned with 
 laurel, came riding down the eminence, and 
 remained at the foot with her generals, while 
 the prisoners were taken by. Her pale face 
 kept as royal a countenance of composed pity 
 as she could manage, while the commoner 
 rebels passed along, aching witii their wounded 
 arms fastened behind, and shaking back their 
 bloody and blinding locks for want of a hand 
 to part them. But the blood mounted to her 
 cheeks, when the proud and liaudsome Dora- 
 dos, whom she now saw for the first time, 
 blushed deeply as he cast a glance at his 
 female conqueror, and then stepped haughtily 
 
 along, handling his gilded chains as if they 
 were an indifferent ornament. " I have con- 
 quered him," thought she ; " it is a heavy 
 blow to so proiid a head ; and as he looks not 
 unamiable, it might be politic, as well as 
 courteous and kind in me, to turn his sub- 
 mission into a more willing one." Alas ! pity 
 was helping admiration to a kinder set of 
 offices than the generous-hearted queen sus- 
 pected. The captive went to his prison a con- 
 queror after all, for Daphles loved him. 
 
 The second night, after having exhibited in 
 her manners a strange mixture of joy and 
 seriousness, and signified to her counsellors 
 her intention of setting the prisoner free, she 
 released him with her own hands. Many a 
 step did she hesitate as she Avent down the 
 stairs ; and when she came to the door, she 
 shed a full, but soft, and, as it seemed to her, 
 a wilful and refreshing flood of tears, humbling 
 herself for her approaching task. When she 
 had entered, she blushed deeply, and then 
 turning as pale, stood for a minute silent and 
 without motion. She then said, " Thy queen, 
 Doracles, has come to show thee how kindly 
 she can treat a gi'eat and gallant subject, who 
 did not know her ;" and with these words, and 
 almost before she was aware, the prisoner was 
 released, and preparing to go. He appeared 
 surprised, but not off his guard, nor in any 
 temper to be over grateful. " Name," said he, 
 " O queen, the conditions on which I depart, 
 and they will be faithfully kept." Daphles 
 moved her lips, but they spoke not. She waved 
 her head and hand with a deadly smile, as if 
 freeing him from all conditions, and he was 
 turning to go, when she fell senseless on the 
 floor. The haughty warrior raised her with 
 more impatience than good-will. He could 
 guess at love in a woman ; but he had but a 
 mean opinion both of it and her sex ; and the 
 deadly struggle in the heart of Daphles did 
 not help him to distinguish the romantic passion 
 which had induced her to put all lior jiast and 
 virgin notions of love into his person, from the 
 commonest liking that might flatter his soldierly 
 vanity. 
 
 The queen, on awaking from her swoon, 
 found herself compelled, in very justice to the 
 intensity of a true passion, to explain how 
 pity had brought it upon her. *' I might ask 
 it," said she, " Doracles, in return," and here 
 she resumed something of her queen-like dig- 
 nity ; " but I feel that my modesty will be 
 sufficiently saved by the name of your wife ; 
 and a substantial throne, with a return that 
 shall nothing perplex or interfere with thee, I 
 do now accordingly oft'er thee, not as the con- 
 dition of thy freedom, but as a diversion of 
 men's eyes and thoughts from what they will 
 think ill in me, if tlH>y find me rejected." And 
 in getting out that hard word, lu^r voice faltered 
 a little, and her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Doracles, M'ith the best grace his lately
 
 4(i 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 defeated spirit could assumo, spoke in willing 
 terms of arco])tiii^ licr oftVr. Thoy loft tlie 
 prison, and Iiis full pardon liavinj;^ l)Oon pro- 
 claimed, the courtiers, with feasts and enter- 
 tainments, vied who should seem best to approve 
 their mistress's choice, for so they were tpiick 
 to understand it. Tlie late cajjtive, who was 
 really as ji^raccful and accomplished as ai)roud 
 spirit would lot liim he, received and returned 
 all tlieir attention in princely sort, and Daphles 
 was bejjinning to hope that he might turn a 
 glad eye upon her some day, wlien news was 
 brought her that he had gone from court, 
 nobody knew whither. The next intelligence 
 was too certain. He had passed the frontiers, 
 and was leagiung with her enemies for another 
 struggle. 
 
 From that day gladness, though not kindness, 
 went out of the tace of Daphles. She wrote 
 him a letter, without a word of reproach in it, 
 enough to bring back the remotest heart that 
 had tlie least spark of sympathy ; but he only 
 answered it in a spirit which showed that he 
 regarded the deepest love but as a wanton 
 trifle. Thatlettertouchedher kind wits. She 
 had had a paper drawn up, leaving him her 
 throne in case she should die ; but some of her 
 ministers, availing themselves of her enfeebled 
 sjjirit, had summoned a meeting of the nobles, 
 at which she was to preside in the dress she 
 wore on the day of victory, the sight of which, 
 it was thought, with the arguments which 
 thej' meant to use, would prevail upon the 
 assembly to urge her to a revocation of the 
 bequest. Iler women dressed her whilst she 
 was almost unconscious of what they were 
 doing, for she had now begun to fade quickly, 
 body as well as mind. They put on her the 
 white garments edged with silver waves, in 
 remembrance of the stream of Inachus, the 
 founder of the Argive monarchy ; the spear 
 was brought out, to be stuck by the side of the 
 throne, instead of the sceptre ; and their hands 
 prepared to put the same laurel on her head 
 which bound its healthy white temples when 
 she sat on horseback and saw the prisoner go 
 by. But at sight of its twisted and withered 
 green, she took it in her hand, and looking 
 about her in her chair with an air of momen- 
 tary recollection, began picking it, and letting 
 the leaves fall upon the floor. She went on 
 thus, leaf after leaf, looking vacantly down- 
 wards, and when she had stripped the circle 
 half round, she leaned her cheek against the 
 side of her sick chair, and shutting her eyes 
 quietly, so died. 
 
 The envoys from Argos went to the court of 
 Calydon, where Doraclesthen was, and bringing 
 him the diadem upon a black cushion, informed 
 him at once of the dcatli of the queen, and her 
 nomination of him to the throne. He showed 
 little more than a ceremonious gra^nty at the 
 former news; but coidd ill contain his joy at 
 the latter, and set oft' instantly to take pos- 
 
 session. Among the other nobles who feasted 
 him, was one who, having been the companion 
 of the late king, had l)ccome like a second 
 father to his unhappy daughter. The new 
 prince observing the melancholy wliich he 
 scarcely affected to repress, and seeing liim 
 look up occasionally at a picture which had a 
 veil over it, asked him what the picture was 
 that seemed to disturb him so, and why it was 
 veiled. " If it be the portrait of the late king," 
 said Doracles, " ]n-ay think me worthy of doing 
 honour to it, for he was a noble prince. Unveil 
 it, ])ray. I insist upon it. What ! am I not 
 worthy to look upon my predecessors, Phorbas?" 
 And at these words he frowned impatiently. 
 Phorbas, with a trembling hand, but not for 
 want of courage, withdrew the black covering ; 
 and the portrait of Daphles, in all her youth 
 and beauty, flashed upon the eyes of Doracles. 
 It was not a melancholy face. It was drawn 
 before misfortune had touched it, and sparkled 
 with a blooming beauty, in which animal spirits 
 and good-nature contended for predominance. 
 Doracles paused and seemed struck. " The 
 possessor of that face," said he, inquiringly, 
 " could never have been so sorrowful as I have 
 heard?" " Pardon me, Sir," answered Phorbas, 
 " I was as another father to her, and knew all." 
 " It cannot be," returned the prince. The old 
 man begged his other guests to withdraw a 
 while, and then told Doracles how many fond 
 and despairing things the queen had said of 
 him, both before her wits began to fail and 
 after. "Iler wits to fail!" murmured the 
 king ; " I have known what it is to feel almost 
 a mad impatience of the will; but I knew not 
 tliat these gentle creatures, women, could so 
 feel for such a trifle." Phorbas brought out 
 the laurel-crown, and told him how the half of 
 it became bare. The impatient blood of Dora- 
 cles mounted, but not in anger, to his face ; 
 and, breaking up the party, he requested that 
 the picture might be removed to his own 
 chamber, promising to return it. 
 
 A whole j'ear, however, did he keep it ; and 
 as he had no foreign enemies to occupy his 
 time, nor was disposed to enter into the 
 common sports of peace, it was understood 
 that he spent the greatest part of his time, 
 when he was not in council, in the room where 
 the picture hung. In truth, the image of the 
 once smiling Daphles haunted him wherever 
 he went ; and to ease himself of the yearning 
 of wishing her alive again and seeing her face, 
 he was in the habit of being with it as much 
 as possible. His self-will turned uj)on him, 
 even in that gentle shape. Millions of times 
 did he wish back the loving author of his for- 
 tunes, whom he had treated with so clownish 
 an ingratitude ; and millions of times did the 
 sense of the impotence of his wish run up in 
 red liurry to his cheeks, and help to pull them 
 into a gaunt melancholy. I'ut tiiis is not a 
 repajing sorrow to dwell upon. He was one
 
 SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 47 
 
 day, after being in vain expected at council, 
 found lying madly on the floor of the room, 
 dead. He had torn the portrait from the wall. 
 His dagger was in his heart, and his cheek 
 la,y upon that blooming and smiling face, which 
 had it been living, would never have looked 
 so at being revenged. 
 
 XXIII.- 
 
 -SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT 
 MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 From having a different creed of our own, 
 and always encountering the heathen mythology 
 in a poetical and fabulous shape, we are apt 
 to have a false idea of the religious feeling of 
 the ancients. We are in the habit of supi)osing, 
 whatever we allow when we come to reason 
 upon the point, that they regarded their fables 
 in the same poetical light as ourselves ; that 
 they could not possibly put faith in Jupiter, 
 Neptune, and Pluto ; in the sacrifice of in- 
 uocent turtle-doves, the libation of wine, and 
 the notions about Tartarus and Ixion. 
 
 Undoul)tedly there were multitudes of free- 
 thinkers in the ancient world. Most of the 
 Greek poets and philosophers appear to have 
 differed with the literal notions of the many*. 
 A system of refined theism is understood to 
 have been taught to the initiated in the cele- 
 brated Mysteries. The doctrines of Epicurus 
 were so prevalent in the most intellectual age 
 of Rome, that Lucretius wrote a poem upon 
 them, in which he treats their founder as a 
 divinity ; and Virgil, in a well-known passage 
 of the Georgics : " Felix qui potuit," &c., 
 exalts either Epicurus or Lucretius as a blessed 
 being, who put hell and teiTor under his feet. 
 A sickly temperament appears to have made 
 him wish, rather than be able, to carry liis own 
 scepticism so far ; yet he insinuates his dis- 
 belief in Tartarus, in the sixth book of his epic 
 poem, where ^neas and the Sibyl, after the 
 description of the loAver world, go out through 
 the ivory gate, which was the passage of false 
 visions t. Caesar, according to a speech of his 
 in Sallust, derided the same notions in open 
 senate ; and Cicero, in other parts of his 
 writings, as well as in a public pleading, speaks 
 of them as fables and impertinence, — " ineptiis 
 ac fabulis." 
 
 But however this plain-dealing may look on 
 the part of the men of letters, there is reason 
 
 * It is remarkable that yEscliylus and Euripiiles, the 
 two dramatists whose faith in the national religion was 
 most doubted, are said to have met with strange and 
 violent deaths. The latter was torn to pieces by dogs, 
 and the former killed by a tortoise which an eagle let fall 
 upon his bald head. /k mistake /nr n slonr. These exits 
 from the eeene look very like tlie retributive death-beds 
 which the bigots of all religions arc m fond of ascribing to 
 one another. 
 
 t Did Dante forget this, when he took Virgil for his 
 guide through the Inferno ? 
 
 to believe, that even in those times, the people, 
 in general, were strong upon points of faith. 
 The extension of the Greek philosophy may 
 have insensibly rendered them familiar with 
 latitudes of interpretation on the part of others. 
 They would not think it impious in Cicero and 
 Cato to have notions of the Supreme Being 
 more consistent with the elevation of their 
 minds. But for themselves, they adhered, 
 from habit, to the literal creed of their an- 
 cestors, as the Greek populace had done before 
 them. The jealous enemies of Socrates con- 
 trived to have him put to death on a charge of 
 irreverence for the gods. A frolic of the 
 libertine Alcibiades, which, to say the least of 
 it, Avas in bad taste — the defacing the statues 
 of Mercury — was followed with important con- 
 sequences. The history of Socrates had the 
 effect, in after times, at least in the ancient 
 world, of saving philosophical speculators from 
 the vindictive egotism of opinion. But even 
 in the days of Augustus, Ovid ^VTote a popular 
 work full of mythological fables ; and Virgil 
 himself, whose creed perhaps only rejected 
 what was unkindly, gave the hero of his in- 
 tended popular epic the particular appellation 
 of pious. That Augustus shotild pique himself 
 on tlie same attribute proves little ; for he 
 was a cold-blooded man of the world, and 
 could play the hypocrite for the worst and 
 most despotic puri^oses. Did he now and then 
 lecture his poetical friends upon this point, 
 respecting their own appearances %vith the 
 world ? There is a curious ode of Horace 
 (Book I. Ode xxxiv.), in which he says, that he 
 finds himself compelled to give iip his sceptical 
 notions, and to attend more to public worship, 
 because it had thundered one day when the 
 sky was cloudless. The critics are divided in 
 their opinion of his object in this ode. Some 
 tiiink him in earnest, others in jest. It is the 
 only thing of the sort in his works, and is, at 
 all events, of an equivocal character, that would 
 serve his purpose on either side of the question. 
 The opinions of the ancients upon religion 
 may be diN-ided into three general classes. 
 The groat multitude believed anything ; the 
 very few disbelieved everything ; the philo- 
 so])lu'rs and poets entertained a refined natural 
 religion, which, while it pronounced upon 
 nothing, rejected what was evidently unworthy 
 of the spirit of the creation, and regarded the 
 popular deities as personifications of its various 
 workings. All these classes had their extra- 
 vagances, in proportion to their ignorance, or 
 vicioiisness, or metajjliysical perplexity. The 
 multitude, whose notions wei'e founded on 
 ignorance, habit, and fear, admitted many 
 absurd, and some cruel imaginations. The 
 mere man of the world measured everything 
 by his own vain and petty standard, and thought 
 the whole goods of tlie tiiiiversc a scramble 
 fur the cunning and hypocritical. The over 
 refining followers of I'lato, endeavouring to
 
 48 
 
 TUE INDICATOR. 
 
 pierce into the nature of things by the mere 
 effort of the will, arrivc-d at conclusions visihle 
 to none but their own ycarninp; and iTujiaticnt 
 eyes, and lost themselves in the ethereal dojr- 
 matisms of Plotinus and Porphyry. 
 
 The jT^reatest pleasure arisinsf to a modern 
 imaj^ination from the ancient mytholo(,'y, is in 
 a min^di'd sense of the old j)0]iular belief and 
 of the pliilosophical refinements upon it. We 
 take Apollo, and Mercury, and Venus, as 
 shapes that existed in popular credulity, as 
 the srreater fairies of the ancient world : and 
 we regard tl.em, at the same time, as personi- 
 fications of all that is beautiful and genial in 
 the forms and tendencies of creation. But 
 the result, coming as it does, too, througli 
 avenues of beautiful poetry, both ancient and 
 modern, is so entirely cheerful, that we are apt 
 to think it must have wanted gravity to more 
 believing eyes. We fancy that the old world 
 saw nothing in religion but lively and graceful 
 shapes, as remote from the more obscure and 
 awful hintings of the world unknown, as 
 physics appear to bo from the metaphysical ; as 
 the eye of abeautiful woman is from the inward 
 speculations of a Brahmin ; or a lily at noon- 
 day from the wide obscurity of night-time. 
 
 This supposition appears to bo carried a 
 great deal too far. We will not inquire, in this 
 place, how far the masa of mankind, when these 
 shapes were done away, did or did not escape 
 from a despotic anthropomorphitism ; nor how 
 far they were driven by the vaguer fears, anil 
 the opening of a more visible eternity, into 
 avoiding the whole subject. I'ather than court- 
 ing it; nor how it is, that the nobler practical re- 
 ligion which was afforded them, has been unable 
 to bring back their frightened theology from 
 the angry and avaricious pursuits into which 
 they fled for refuge. But, setting aside the 
 portion of terror, of which heathenism partook 
 in common with all faiths originating in uncul- 
 tivated times, the ordinary run of j)agans were 
 perhaps more impressed with a sense of the 
 in^-isible world, in consequence of the very 
 visions presented to their imagination, than 
 the same description of men imder a more 
 shadowy system. There is the same difference 
 between the two things, as between a populace 
 believing in fairies, ami a po})ulace not believ- 
 ing. Tlie latter is in the high road to some- 
 thing better, if not drawn aside into new terrors 
 on the one hand or mere worldliness on the 
 other. But the former is led to look out of 
 the mere worldly common-places about it, 
 twenty times to the other's once. It has a 
 sense of a supernatural state of things, how- 
 ever gross. It has a link with another world, 
 from which something like gravity is sure to 
 strike into the most cheerful heart. Every 
 forest, to the mind's eye of a Greek, was 
 haunted with superior intelligences. Every 
 stream had its presiding nymph, who was 
 thanked for the draught of water. Every 1 
 
 house had its protecting gods, whichhad blessed 
 tlie inmate's ancestors, and which would bless 
 him also, if he cultivated tli(> social affections: 
 for the same word which expressed piety towards 
 the Gods expressed love towards relations and 
 friends. If in all this there was nothing but 
 the worship of a more graceful humanity, there 
 nuiy be worshi])s mucli worse as well as much 
 better. And the divinest djiirit that ever aj)- 
 peared on earth has told us that the extension 
 of hunuin sympathy embraces all that is ra- 
 (juircid of us, either to do or to foresee. 
 
 Imagine the feelings with which an ancient 
 believer must have gone by the oracular oaks 
 of Dodona ; or the calm groves of the Eume- 
 nides ; or the fountain M-here Proserpine 
 vanished inider ground with Pluto ; or the 
 Great Temple of the mysteries at Eleusis ; or 
 the laurelled mountain Parnassus, on the side 
 of which was the temple of Delphi, where 
 Apollo was supposed to be present in person. 
 Imagine Plutarch, a devout and yet a liberal 
 believer, when he went to study theology and 
 philosophy at Del{)hi : with what feelings 
 must he not have passed along the woody 
 paths of the hill, approaching nearer every in- 
 stant to the divinity, and not sure that a glance 
 of light through the trees was not the lustre 
 of the god himself going by ! This is mere 
 poetry to us, and very fine it is ; but to him it 
 was poetry, and religion, and beauty, and 
 gravity, and hushing awe, and a path as from 
 one world to another. 
 
 AVith similar feelings he would cross the 
 ocean, an element that naturally detaches the 
 mind from earth, and Avhich the ancients 
 regarded as especially doing so. He had been 
 in the Carpathian sea, the favourite haunt of 
 Proteus, who was supposed to be gifted above 
 every other deity with a knowledge of the 
 causes of things. Towards evening, Avhen the 
 winds were rising, and the sailors had made 
 tlieir vows to Neptune, he would think of the 
 old " shepherd of the seas of yore," and believe 
 it possible that he might become visible to his 
 eyesight, driving througli the darkling waters, 
 and turning the sacred wildness of his face to- 
 wards the blessed ship. 
 
 In all this, there is a deeper sense of another 
 world, than in the habit of contenting oneself 
 with a few vague terms and embodying nothing 
 but Mammon. There is a deeper sense of 
 another Avorld, jirecisely because there is a 
 deeper sense of the present ; of its varieties, 
 its benignities, its mystery. It was a strong 
 sense of this, which made a living poet, who 
 is accounted very orthodox in his religious 
 opinions, give vent, in that fine sonnet, to his 
 impatience at seeing the beautiful j)ianet we 
 live upon, with all its starry wonders about it, 
 so little thought of, compared with what is 
 ridiculously called the world. He seems to 
 have dreaded the symptom, as an evidence of 
 materialism, and of the planets being dry self-
 
 t — 
 
 GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. 
 
 4!) 
 
 existing things, peopled with mere successive 
 mortalities, and unconnected with any super- 
 intendence or consciousness in the universe 
 about them. It is abhorrent from all we think 
 and feel, that they should be so : and yet 
 Love might make heavens of them, if they 
 were. 
 
 " Tlie world is too much with us. Late and soon, 
 Getting and spending we lay waste our powers : 
 Little we see in Nature that is ours : 
 AVe have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ; 
 This Sea that bares her bosora to the moon ; 
 The Winds that will be Iiowling at all hours. 
 And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of time ; 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! l"d rather be 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 Have sight of Proteus coming from tlie sea. 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 
 
 XXIV.- 
 
 -GETTING UP ON COLD 
 MORNINGS. 
 
 An Italian author— Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit 
 — has written a poem upon insects, which he 
 begins by insisting, that those troublesome 
 and abominable little animals were created 
 for our annoyance, and that they were certainly 
 not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the north 
 may dispute this piece of theology ; but on the 
 other hand, it is as clear as tlie snow on the 
 house-tops, that Adam Avas not under the 
 necessity of shaving ; and that when Eve 
 walked out of her delicious bower, she did not 
 step upon ice three inches thick. 
 
 Some peojile say it is a very easy thing to 
 get up of a cold morning. You have only, 
 they tell you, to take the resolution ; and the 
 thing is done. This may be very true ; just 
 as a boy at school has only to take a flogging, 
 and the thing is over. But we have not at all 
 made up our minds upon it ; and Ave find it a 
 very pleasant exercise to discuss the matter, 
 candidly, before we get up. This at least is 
 not idling, though it may be lying. It affords 
 an excellent answer to those, who ask how 
 lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning 
 being, — a rational creature. How ? Why 
 with the argument calmly at work in one's 
 head, and the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh 
 — it is a fine way of spending a sensible, 
 imjiartial half-hour. 
 
 If these people would be more charitable, 
 they would get on with their argument better. 
 But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert 
 so dogmatically, that one could wish to have 
 them stand round one's bed of a bitter morn- 
 ing, and lie before their faces. They ought to 
 liear both sides of tiie bed, the inside and out. 
 If they cannot entertain themselves with tiieir 
 own thoughts for half an iiour or so, it is not 
 the fault of those who can. 
 
 Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, 
 besides the greater or less privileges to be 
 allowed a man in proportion to his ability of 
 keeping early hours, the work given his facul- 
 ties, &c. will at least concede their due merits 
 to such representations as the following. In 
 the first place, says the injured but calm 
 appealer, I have been warm all night, and find 
 my system in a state perfectly suitable to a 
 warm-blooded animal. To get out of this state 
 into the cold, besides the inharmonious and 
 uncritical abruptness of the transition, is so 
 unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, 
 refining upon the tortures of the damned, 
 make one of their greatest agonies consist in 
 being suddenly transported from heat to cold, 
 — from fire to ice. Tiiey are " haled" out of 
 their " beds," says Milton, by " harpy-footed 
 furies," — fellows who come to call tliem. On 
 my first movement towards the anticipation of 
 getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets 
 and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the 
 room, are stone-cold. On opening my eyes, 
 the first thing that meets them is my own 
 breath rolling forth, as if in the open air, like 
 smoke out of a chimney. Think of this symp- 
 tom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see 
 the Avindow all frozen over. Think of that. 
 Then the servant comes in. " It is A'ery cold 
 this morning, is it not ?" — " Veiy cold. Sir." — 
 "Very cold indeed, isn't it ?" — "Very cold in- 
 deed. Sir." — " ]\Iore than usually so, isn't it, 
 even for this Aveathcr?" (Here the servant's 
 Avit and good-nature are put to a considerable 
 test, and the inquirer lies on thorns for the 
 
 ansAver.) " Why, Sir I think it is." 
 
 (Good creature ! There is not a better, or 
 more truth-telling serA^ant going.) " I must 
 rise, however — get me some warm water." — 
 Here comes a fine interval between the depar- 
 ture of the servant and the arrival of the hot 
 Avater ; during Avliich, of course, it is of " no 
 use ?" to get up. The hot Avater comes. " Is 
 it quite hot ? "— " Yes, Sir."—" Perhajis too liot 
 for shaving : I must wait a little ?" — " No 
 Sir ; it Avill just do." (There is an o\'er-nice 
 propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of Anrtue, 
 a little troublesome.) " Oh — the shirt — you 
 must air my clean shirt ; — linen gets very 
 damp this Aveather." — "Yes, Sir." Here an- 
 other delicious five minutes. A knock at the 
 door. " Oh, the shirt — very avcII. My stock- 
 ings — I think the stockings had better be aired 
 too." — " Very Avell, Sir." — Here another inter- 
 A'al. At length everything is ready, cxcej)t 
 myself. I noAv, continues our incumbent (a 
 happy word, by the bye, for a country vicar) 
 — I now cannot help thinking a good deal — 
 Avho can i — ujion the uuneces.sary and villan- 
 ous custom of shaving : it is a thing so unmanly 
 (here I nestle closer) — so efl^eminate (liere I 
 recoil from an unlucky step into the colder 
 part of the bed.) — No Avonder tliat the Queen 
 of France took part with tlie rebels against
 
 so 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 thai degenerate King, lier husband, who first 
 affronted her smooth visage with a face like 
 her own. The Emperor Julian never showed 
 tlie hixurianey of his genius to better advan- 
 tage than in reviving the flowing beard. Look 
 at Cardinal I^embo's picture — at Michael 
 Angelo's — at Titian's — at Shakspcare's — at 
 Fletcher's — at Spenser's — at Ciiaucer's — at 
 Alfred's— at Plato's — I could name a great 
 man for every tick of my watch. — Look at the 
 Turks, a grave and otiose people. — Think of 
 ILiroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan. — 
 Tliink of Wortley ilontague, the worthy son 
 of his mother, above the prejudice of his time 
 — Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is 
 ashamed of meeting alsout the suburbs, their 
 dress and appearance are so much finer than 
 our own — Lastly, think of the razor itself — 
 how totally oi)posed to every sensation of bed 
 — how cold, how edgy, how hard ! how utterly 
 different from anything like the warm and 
 circling amplitude, which 
 
 Sweetly recommends itself 
 Unto our gentle senses. 
 
 Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may 
 help you to cut yourself, a quivering body, a fro- 
 zen towel, and a ewer full of ice ; and he that 
 says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only 
 shows, that he has no merit in opposing it. 
 
 Thomson 
 Seasons — 
 
 the poet, who exclaims in his 
 
 Falsely luxurious ! Will not man awake ? 
 
 used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he 
 had no motive in getting up. He could imagine 
 the good of rising ; but then he could also 
 imagine the good of lying still ; and liis ex- 
 clamation, it must be allowed, was made upon 
 summer-time, not winter. We must propor- 
 tion the argument to the individual character. 
 A money-getter may be drawn out of his bed 
 by three or four ])ence ; but this will not suf- 
 fice for a student. A proud man may say, 
 « Wliat shall I think of myself, if I don't get 
 up ? " but the more humble one will be content 
 to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out 
 of respect to his kindly bed. The mechanical 
 man shall get up without any ado at all ; and 
 so sliall the barometer. An ingenious lier in 
 bed will find hard matter of discussion even 
 on the score of health and longevity. He will 
 ask us for our proofs and precedents of the ill 
 effects of lying later in cold weather ; and so- 
 phisticate mucii on the advantages of an even 
 temperatiu'e of body; of the natural proj)cnsity 
 (pretty imiversal) to have one's way ; and of 
 the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep 
 all the winter. As to longe-\nty, he will ask 
 whetiier the longest is of necessity the best ; 
 and whether Holbom is the handsomest street 
 in London. 
 
 XXV.— THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Our Old Gentleman, in order to be exclu- 
 sively himself, must be either a widower or a 
 bachelor. Suppose the former. AVe do not 
 mention his jirecise age, which would be invi- 
 dious : — nor whether he wears his own hair or 
 a wig; which would be wanting in universality. 
 H'a wig, it is a compromise between the more 
 modern scratch and the departed glory of the 
 toni)ee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of 
 his favourite grandson, who used to get on the 
 chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, 
 ton years ago. if he is bald at top, the hair- 
 dresser, hovering and breathing about him like 
 a second youtii, takes care to give the bald 
 place as much powder as the covered ; in order 
 that he may convey to the sensorium within a 
 pleasing indistinctness of idea respecting the 
 exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean 
 and neat ; and, in warm weather, is proud of 
 opening his waistcoat half-way down, and 
 letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to 
 show his hardiness as well as taste. His watch 
 and shirt-buttons are of the best ; and he docs 
 not care if he has two rings on a finger. If his 
 watch ever failed him at the club or coffee- 
 house, he would take a walk every day to the 
 nearest clock of good character, pin-ely to keep 
 it right. He has a cane at home, but seldom 
 uses it, on finding it out of fashion with his 
 elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for 
 gala days, which he lifts higher from his head 
 than the round one, when bowed to. In his 
 pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for the 
 neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his 
 pocket-book. The pocket-book, among other 
 things, contains a receipt for a cough, and 
 some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old 
 magazine, on the lovely Duchess of A., begin- 
 ning— 
 
 AVhen beauteous Mii-a walks the plain. 
 
 He intends this for a common-place book which 
 he keeps, consisting of passages in verse and 
 prose, cut out of newspapers and magazines, 
 and pasted in columns ; some of them rather 
 gay. His principal other booksarc Shakspeare's 
 Plays and Milton's Paradise Lost ; the Spec- 
 tator, the History of England, the Works of 
 Lady M. W. Montague, Pope and Churchill ; 
 Middleton's Geography ; the Gentleman's Ma- 
 gazine ; Sir John Sinclair on Longevity ; 
 several plays with portraits in character ; 
 Account of Elizabeth Canning, ]\Iemoirs of 
 George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amusements at 
 Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts ; 
 Junius as originally published ; a few pamph- 
 lets on the American War and Lord George 
 Gordon, &c. and one on the French Revolution. 
 In his sitting-rooms are some engravings from 
 Hogarth and Sir Josliua ; an engraved portrait 
 of the Marquis of Granby ; ditto of M. le Comte 
 de Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney ;
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 51 
 
 a humorous piece after Penny ; and a portrait 
 of himself, painted liy Sir Joshua. His wife's 
 portrait is in his chamber, looking upon his 
 bed. She is a little girl, stepping forward with 
 a smile, and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. 
 He lost her when she was sixty. 
 
 The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because 
 he intends to live at least twenty years longer. 
 He continues to take tea for breakfast, in spite of 
 what is said against its nervous effects ; having 
 been satisfied on that point some years ago by 
 Dr. Johnson's criticism on Hanway, and a great 
 liking for tea previously. His china cups and 
 saucei-s have been broken since his wife'sdeath, 
 all but one, which is religiously kept for his 
 use. He passes his morning in walking or 
 riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his 
 India bonds or some such money securities, 
 furthering some subscription set on foot by his 
 excellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a new 
 old print for his portfolio. He also hears of 
 the newspapers ; not caring to see them till 
 after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also 
 cheapen a fish or so ; the fishmonger soliciting 
 his doubting eye as he passes, with a profound 
 bow of recognition. He eats a pear before 
 dinner. 
 
 His dinner at the coffee-house is served up 
 to him at the accustomed hour, in the old 
 accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. 
 IfWilliamdidnot briugit,the fish would be sure 
 to be stale, and the flesh new. He eats no tart ; 
 or if he ventures on a little, takes cheese with 
 it. You might as soon attempt to persuade 
 him out of his senses, as that cheese is not good 
 for digestion. He takes port ; and if ho has 
 drunk more than usual, and in a more private 
 place, may be induced by some respectful in- 
 quiries respecting the old style of music, to sing 
 a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, 
 such as — 
 
 or 
 
 Chloe, by that borrowed kiss, 
 Come, gentle god of soft repose. 
 
 or his wife's favourite ballad, beginning — 
 
 At Upton on the hill. 
 There lived a happy pair. 
 
 Of course, no such exploit can take place in 
 the coffee-room : but he will canvass the theory 
 of that matter there with yon, or discuss the 
 weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the 
 merits of " my lord North" or " my lord Rock- 
 ingham ;" for he rarely says simply, lord ; it is 
 generally " my lord," trippingly and genteelly 
 off the tongue. If alone after dinner, his great 
 delight is the newspaper ; which he prepares 
 to read by wiping his spectacles, carefully ad- 
 justing them on his eyes, and drawing the can- 
 dle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt 
 his ocular aim and the small type. He then 
 holds tlie paper at arm's lengtli, and dropping 
 his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, 
 
 takes cognizance of the day's information. If 
 he leaves off, it is only when the door is opened 
 by a new-comer, or when he suspects some- 
 body is over -anxious to get the paper out of his 
 hand. On these occasions he gives an impor- 
 tant hem ! or so ; and resumes. 
 
 In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond 
 of going to the theatre, or of having a game of 
 cards. If he enjoys the latter at his own house 
 or lodgings, he likes to play with some friends 
 whom he has known for many years ; but an 
 elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet 
 and scientific ; and the privilege is extended to 
 younger men of letters ; who, if ill players, are 
 good losers. Not that he is a miser, but to 
 win money at cards is like proving his victory 
 by getting the baggage ; and to win of a 
 younger man is a substitute for his not being 
 able to beat him at rackets. He breaks up 
 early, whether at home or abroad. 
 
 At the theatre, he likes a front row in the 
 pit. He comes early, if he can do so without 
 getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently 
 waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, with 
 his hands placidly lying one over the other on 
 the top of his stick. He generously admires 
 some of the best performers, but thinks them 
 far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, and Clive. 
 During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the 
 little boy should see. 
 
 He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall 
 again, but likes it still less than he did years 
 back, and cannot bear it in comparison with 
 Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, 
 flaring, and jaded. " Ah !" says he, with a sort 
 of triumphant sigh, "Ranelagh was a noble 
 place ! Such taste, such elegance, such beauty ! 
 There was the Duchess of A., the finest woman 
 in England, Sir ; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine 
 creature ; and Lady Susan what's her name, 
 that had that unfortunate affair with Sir 
 Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like 
 the swans." 
 
 The Old Gentleman is very particular in 
 having his slippers ready for him at the fire, 
 when he comes home. He is also extremely 
 choice in his snuff', and delights to get a fresh 
 box-full in Tavistock-street, in his way to the 
 theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. 
 He calls favourite young ladies by their Chris- 
 tian names, however slightly acquainted with 
 them ; and has a privilege of saluting all brides, 
 mothers, and indeed every species of lady, on 
 the least holiday occasion. If the husband for 
 instance has met with a piece of luck, he 
 instantly moves forward, and gravely kisses the 
 wife on the cheek. The wife then says, " My 
 niece. Sir, from the country ;" and he kisses 
 the niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting 
 her lips at the joke, saj'S, " My cousin Harriet, 
 Sir ;" and he kisses the cousin. He ** never 
 recollects such weather," except during the 
 "Great Frost," or wlien he rode down with 
 " Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows 
 
 ' B 2
 
 52 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 young attain in his little prand-childron, espe- 
 cially tiie one wiiich lie thinks most like liiin- 
 self ; wliicli is the Inuulsoiuest. Yet lie likes 
 best j)i'rhai)s tlie one most r^semhlini,' his wife; 
 and will sit w ith him on his lap, Iiuhling liis 
 hand in silence, for a qnarter of an hour 
 together. He plays most tricks with tlie 
 former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little 
 boys in general who was the father of Zebedee's 
 children. If his grandsons are at school, he 
 often goes to see them ; and makes them blush 
 by telling the master or the upper-scholars, 
 that tiiey are fine boys, and of a precocious 
 genius. He is much struck when an old ac- 
 quaintance dies, but adds that he lived too 
 fast ; and that poor Bob was a sad dog in his 
 youth ; " a very sad dog. Sir ; mightily set 
 upon a short life and a merry one.'' 
 
 When he gets very old indeed, he will sit 
 for whole evenings, and say little or nothing ; 
 but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the 
 housekeeper)— " »<;'ll talk." 
 
 XXVI. DOLPHINS. 
 
 Our old book-friend, the Dolphin, used to be 
 confounded with the porpus ; but modern 
 writers seem to concur in making a distinction 
 between them. We remember being much 
 mortified at tliis separation ; for having, in our 
 childhood, been shown something dimly rolling 
 in the sea, while standing on the coast at twi- 
 light, and told with much whispering solemnity 
 that it was a porpus, we had afterwards learnt 
 to identify it with the Dolphin, and thought 
 we had seen the romantic fish on whom Arion 
 rode playing his harp. 
 
 Spenser introduces Arion most beautifully, 
 in all his lyrical pomp, in the marriage of 
 the Thames and Medway. He goes before 
 the bride, smoothing onwards with the sound 
 of his harp, like the very progress of the 
 water. 
 
 Then there was heard a most celestiall sound 
 Of dainty niiisicke, which did next ensue 
 Hefurc t)ie Spouse. That was Arion crowned: 
 Who, jjliiying on his harp, unto him drew 
 The cares and hearts of all tliat goodly crew ; 
 1 liat even yet the Dolphin, which him boro 
 Through the j^Jgcan seas from pirates' view, 
 Ptood still by him astonished at his lore ; 
 And all the raging seas for joy forgot to roar. 
 
 So went be, playing on the toaterp plain. 
 
 Perhaps in no one particular thing or image, 
 have some great poets shown tlio different 
 characters of their genius more than in the use 
 of the Doli)hiq. Spenser, wlio of all his triljo 
 lived in a jjoetical world, and saw things as 
 clearly there as in a real one, has never shown 
 this nicety of realisation more than in tiie 
 following passage. He speaks of his Dolphins 
 with as familiar a detail, as if they were horses 
 waiting at a door with an equipage. 
 
 A team of Dolphins ranged in array 
 Drew till! Muootli chantt of sad Cymoent. 
 They were all taught by Triton to obey 
 To the long reins at her conimandement: 
 As swift as swallows on the waves they went, 
 That their broad flaggy finncs no foam did rearc, 
 Ne bubbling roundell they behind them sent 
 The rest of other fishes drawen were, 
 AVliich with their finny cares the swelling sea did shcare. 
 
 Soon as they been arrived upon the brim 
 
 Of the Kieh Stnmd, their eharets they forlore ; 
 
 And let their teamed fislies softly awim 
 
 Along the niargcnt of the foamy shore, 
 
 I.est they their iinnes should bruise, and surbeat sore 
 
 Their tender fecte upon the stony ground. 
 
 There are a couple of Doljihins like these, in 
 Rajjliael's GakiUa. Dante, with liis tendency 
 to see things in a dreary j)oint of view, has 
 given an illustration of the agonies of some of 
 the damned in his Inferno, at once new, fine, 
 and horrible. It is in the 22d book, " Come i del- 
 fini" &c. He says that some wretches, swimming 
 in one of the gulfs of hell, shot out their 
 backs occasionally, like Dolphins, above the 
 pitchy liquid, in order to snatch a respite from 
 torment ; but darted them back again like 
 lightning. The devils woiild prong them as 
 they rose. Strange fancies these for main- 
 taining the character of religion ! 
 
 Hear Shakspeare, always the noble and the 
 good-natured. We forget of what great cha- 
 racter he is speaking ; but never was an image 
 that more singularly yet completely united 
 sui)eriority and jilayfulness. 
 
 Ills delights 
 Were dolphin-like ; and showed themselves above 
 The element he lived in. 
 
 XXVII,— RONALD OF THE PERFECT 
 HAND. 
 
 [The following tale is founded on a Scottish tradition. 
 It was intended to be written in verse ; which will account 
 for its present appearance.] 
 
 The stem old shepherd of the air. 
 The spirit of the whistling hiiir, 
 The wind, has risen drearily 
 In the Northern evening sea. 
 And is piping long and loud 
 To many a heavy upcoming cloud, — 
 Upc(miing heavy m many a row. 
 Like the imwieldy droves below 
 Of seals imd horses of the sea, 
 That gather up as drearily. 
 And watch with solemnvisaged eyes 
 Those mightier movers in the sl<ies. 
 
 'Tis evening quick ;— 'tis night : — the rain 
 Is sowing wide the fruitless main. 
 Thick, thick ;— no sight remains the while 
 From the farthest Orkney isle, 
 No sight to sea-horse, or to seer. 
 But of a little pallid sail. 
 That seems as if 'twould struggle near, 
 And then as if its pinion pale 
 fiavc up the battle to the gale. 
 I'our chiefs there arc of special note. 
 Labouring in that earnest boat ; 
 
 d
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 
 
 53 
 
 Four Orkney chiefs, that yesterday 
 
 Coming in tlieir priJe away 
 
 From there smote Norwegian king. 
 
 Led their war-boats triumphing 
 
 Straight along the golden line 
 
 Made by morning's eye divine. 
 
 Stately came they, one by one, 
 
 Every sail beneath the sun, 
 
 As if he their admiral were 
 
 Looking down from the lofty air. 
 
 Stately, stately through the gold. — 
 
 But before that day was done, 
 
 Lo, his eye grew vexed and cold ; 
 
 And every boat, except that one, 
 
 A tempest trampled in its roar ; 
 
 And every man, except those four. 
 
 Was drenched, and driving far from home, 
 
 Dead and swift, through the Northern foam. 
 
 Four are they, who weai'ily 
 Have drunk of toil two days at sea ; 
 Duth Maruno, steady and dark, 
 Cormar, Soul of the Winged Hark ; 
 And bright Clan Alpin, who could leap 
 Like a torrent from steep to steep ; 
 And he, the greatest of that great band, 
 Ronald of the Perfect Iland. 
 
 Dumbly strain they for the shore. 
 Foot to board, and grasp on oar. 
 The billows, panting in the wind. 
 Seem instinct with ghastly mind. 
 And climb like crowding savages 
 At the boat that dares their seas. 
 Dumbly strain they through and through. 
 Dumbly, and half blindly too, 
 Drenched, and buffeted, and bending 
 Up and do\vn without an ending. 
 Like ghostly things that could not cease 
 To row among those savages. 
 
 Ronald of the Perfect Hand 
 
 Has rowed the most of all that band ; 
 
 And now he's resting for a space 
 
 At the helm, and turns his face 
 
 Round and round on every side 
 
 To see what cannot be descried, 
 
 Shore, nor sky, nor light, nor even 
 
 Hope, whose feet are last in heaven. 
 
 Ronald thought him of the roar 
 
 Of the fight the day before, 
 
 And of the young Norwegian prince 
 
 Whom in all the worryings 
 
 And hot vexations of the fray, 
 
 He had sent with life away, 
 
 Because he told him of a bride 
 
 That if she lost him, would have died ; 
 
 And Ronald then, in bitter case, 
 
 Thought of his own sweet lady's face, 
 
 Which upon this very night 
 
 Should have blushed with bridal light. 
 
 And of her do>vnward eyelids meek, 
 
 And of her voice, just heard to speak, 
 
 As at the altar, hand in hand, 
 
 On ceasing of the organ grand, 
 
 'Twould have bound her for weal or woe. 
 
 With delicious answers low : 
 
 And more he thought of, grave and sweet. 
 
 That made the thin tears start, and meet 
 
 The wetting of the insolent wave ; 
 
 And Ronald, who though all so brave. 
 
 Had often that hard day before 
 
 Wished himself well housed on sbonEv 
 
 Pelt a t.harp impatient start 
 
 Of homesick wilfulness at heart, 
 
 And steering with still firmer liand. 
 
 As if the boat could feel command, 
 
 ThriU'd with a fioree and forward motion, 
 
 As though 'twould shoot it through the ocean. 
 
 " Some spirit," exclaimed Dutli Maruno, 
 " must pursue us, and stubbornly urge the boat 
 out of its way, or we must have arrived by this 
 time at Inistore."* Ronald took him at his 
 word, and turning hastily round, thought he 
 saw an armed figure behind the stern. His 
 anger rose with his despair ; and with all his 
 strength he dashed his arm at the moveless 
 and airy shape. At that instant a fierce blast 
 of wind half turned the boat round. The 
 chieftains called out to Ronald to set his whole 
 heart at the rudder ; but the wind beat back 
 their voices, like young birds into the nest, 
 and no answer followed it. The boat seemed 
 less and less manageable, and at last to be 
 totally left to themselves. In the intervals of 
 the wind they again called out to Ronald, but 
 still received no answer. One of tliem crept 
 forward, and felt for him througii the blinding 
 wet and darkness. His place was void. " It 
 was a ghost," said they, " which came to fetch 
 him to the spirits of his fathers. Ronald of 
 the Perfect Hand is gone, and we shall follow 
 him as we did in the fight. Hark ! the wind 
 is louder and louder : it is louder and many- 
 voiced. Is it his voice which has I'oused up 
 the others ? Is he calling upv,n u.s, as he did 
 in the battle, when his followers shouted after 
 his call ?" 
 
 It was the rocks of an isle oeyond Inistore, 
 which made that multitudinous roaring of the 
 wind. The chieftains found that they were 
 not destined to perish in the mid-ocean ; but 
 it was fortunate for them that the wind did 
 not set in directly upon the island, or they 
 would have been dashed to pieces upon the 
 i-ocks. With great difficulty they stemmed 
 their way obliquely ; and at length were thrown 
 violently to shore, bruised, Avounded, and half 
 inanimate. They remained on this desolate 
 island two days, duj-ing the first of which the 
 storm subsided. On the third, they were taken 
 away by a boat of seal-hunters. 
 
 The chiefs, on their arrival at home, related 
 how Ronald of the Perfect Hand had been 
 summoned away by a loud-voiced spirit, and 
 disappeared. Great was the mourning in 
 Inistore for the Perfect Hand; for the Hand 
 that with equal skill could throw the javelin 
 and traverse the harp ; could build the sudden 
 hut of the hunter ; and bind up tlie glad locks 
 of the maiden tired in the dance. Therefore 
 was ho called the Perfect Hand ; and therefore 
 with great mourning was he mourned : yet 
 witli none lialf as great as by )iis h>ve, his 
 betrothed bride Moilena ; by her of the Beau- 
 tiful Voice; who had latterly begun to be 
 called the Perfect Voice, because slie was to 
 be matclied with iiim of tlie I'erfect Hand. 
 Perfect Hand and Perfect Voice were they 
 called ; but the Hand was now gone, and the 
 Voice sang brokenly for tears. 
 
 A dreary winter was it though a victorious, 
 * The old name for the Orkneys.
 
 54 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 to the people of Inistore. Their swords had 
 Cont[iierod in Lochlin ; but most of tlie hands 
 that wielded them liad never come back. 
 Their warm pressure Mas felt no more. The 
 last which tliey had jjfiven thi'ir friends was 
 now to serve tlieni all their lives. " Never, 
 Avith all my yearniu>^," said ^Moilena, " shall I 
 look ii])on his again, as I have looked upon it 
 a hundred times, when nobody suspected. 
 Never." And she turned from the sight of 
 the destructive ocean, which seemed as iutei-- 
 minable as her thoughts. 
 
 But winter had now passed away. The tears 
 of the sky at least were dried up. The sun 
 looked out kindly again ; and the si)ring had 
 scarcely re-appeared, when Inistore had a 
 proud and gladder day, from the arrival of the 
 young prince of Lochlin with his bride. It 
 was a bitter one to Moilena, for the pi-ince 
 came to thank Ronald for sjjaring his life in 
 the war, and had brought his lady to thank 
 him too. They thanked INIoileua instead ; 
 and, proud in the midst of her unhappiuess, of 
 beiiig the representative of the Perfect Hand, 
 she lavished hundreds of smiles upon them 
 from her pale face. But she wept in secret. 
 She could not bear this new addition to the 
 store of noble and kind memories respecting 
 her Ronald. He had spared the bridegroom 
 for his bride. He had hoped to come back to 
 his own. She looked over to the north ; and 
 thouglit that her home was as much there as in 
 Inistore. 
 
 Meantime, Ronald was not drowned. A 
 Scandinavian boat, bound for an island called 
 the Island of the Circle, had picked him up. 
 The crew, which consisted chiefly of priests, 
 were going thither to propitiate the deities, on 
 account of the late defeat of their country- 
 men. They recognised the victorious chieftain, 
 who on coming to his senses freely confessed 
 ■who he was. Instantly they raised a chorus, 
 which rose sternly through the tempest. " "We 
 carry," said they, " an acceptable present to 
 the gods. Odin, stay thy hand from the 
 slaughter of the obscure. Tlior, put down the 
 mallet with which thou beatest, like red hail, 
 on the skulls of thine enemies. Ye other 
 feasters in Valhalla, set down the skulls full of 
 mead, and pledge a health out of a new and 
 noble one to the King of Gods and Men, that 
 the twilight of heaven may come late. We 
 bring an accejjtable ])resent : we bring Ronal'd 
 of the Perfect Hand." Thus they sang in the 
 boat, labouring all the while with the winds 
 and waves, but surer now than ever of reach- 
 ing the shore. And they did so by the first 
 light of the morning. When they came to the 
 circle of sacred stones, from which the island 
 took its name, they placed their late conqueror 
 by the largest, and kindled a fire in the middle. 
 The warm smoke rose thickly against the cold 
 white morning. " Let me be oifered up to 
 your gods," said Ronald, " like a man, by the 
 
 sword ; and not like food, by the fire." " We 
 know all," answered the i>riests : " be thou 
 silent." " Treat not him," said Ronald, " who 
 spared your prince, unworthily. If he must 
 be sacrificed, let him die as your prince would 
 have died by this hand." Still they answered 
 nothing but " We know all : be thou silent." 
 Ronald could not help witnessing these pre- 
 parations for a new and unexpected death with 
 an emotion of terror ; but disdain and despair 
 were uppermost. Once, and but once, his 
 cheek turned deadly pale in thinking of 
 Moilena. lie shifted his posture resolutely, 
 and thought of the spirits of the dead wluim 
 he was about to join. The priests then encir- 
 cled the fire and the stone at which he stood, 
 with another devoting song ; and Ronald 
 looked earnestly at the ruddy flames, which 
 gave to his body, as in mockery, a kindly 
 warmth. The priests, however, did not lay 
 hands on him. They respected the sparer of 
 their prince so far as not to touch him them- 
 selves ; they left him to be desi)atched by the 
 supernatural beings, whom they confidently 
 expected to come down for that purpose as 
 soon as they had retired. 
 
 Ronald, whose faith was of another descrip- 
 tion, saw their departure with joy ; but it was 
 damped the next minute. What was he to do 
 in winter-time on an island, inhabited only by 
 the fowls and other creatures of the northern 
 sea, and never touched at but for a puri)Ose 
 hostile to his hopes ? For he now recollected, 
 that this was the island he had so often 
 heard of, as the chief seat of the Scandinavian 
 religion ; whose traditions had so influenced 
 countries of a different faith, that it was be- 
 lieved in Scotland as well as the continent, 
 that no human being could live there many 
 hours. Sj)irits, it was thought appeared in 
 terrible superhuman shapes, like the bloody 
 idols which the priests worshipped, and car- 
 ried the stranger off. 
 
 The warrior of Inistore had soon too much 
 reason to know the extent of this belief. 
 He was not without fear himself, but dis- 
 dained to yield to any circumstances with- 
 out a struggle. He refreshed himself with 
 some snow-water ; and after climbing the 
 highest i)art of the island to look for a boat 
 in vain (nothing was to be seen but the waves 
 tumbling on all sides after the storm), he 
 set about preparing a habitation. He saw 
 at a little distance, on a slope, the mouth of a 
 rocky cave. This he destined for his shelter 
 at night ; and looking round for a defence for 
 tile door, as he knew not whether bears might 
 not be among the inhabitants, he cast his eyes 
 upon tlie thinnest of tlie stones which stood 
 upright about the fire. The heart of the war- 
 rior, though of a different faith, misgave him 
 as he thought of appropriating this mystical 
 stone, carved full of strange figures ; but half in 
 courage, and half in the despair of fear, he siul- 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 
 
 65 
 
 denly twisted it from its place. No one ap- 
 peared. The fire altered not. The noise of 
 the fowl and other creatures was no louder on 
 the shore. Ronald smiled at his fears, and 
 knew the undiminished vigour of the Perfect 
 Hand. 
 
 He found the cavern already fitted for shel- 
 ter ; doubtless by the Scandinavian priests. 
 He had bitter reason to know how well it 
 sheltered him ; for day after day lie hoped in 
 vain that some boat from Inistore would 
 venture upon the island. He beheld sails at 
 a distance, but they never came. He piled 
 stone upon stone, joined old pieces of boats 
 together, and made flags of the sea-weed ; but 
 all in vain. The vessels, he thought, came 
 nearer, but none so near as to be of use ; 
 and a new and sickly kind of impatience cut 
 across the stout heart of Ronald, and set it 
 beating. He knew not whether it was with the 
 cold or with misery, but his frame would shake 
 for an hour together, when he lay down on his 
 dried weeds and feathers to rest. He re- 
 membered the happy sleeps that used to fol- 
 low upon toil ; and he looked with double 
 activity for the eggs and shell- fish on which he 
 sustained himself, and smote double the num- 
 ber of seals, half in the very exercise of his 
 anger : and then he would fall dead asleep 
 \vith fatigue. 
 
 In this way he bore up agamstthe violences of 
 the winter season, which had now passed. The 
 sun looked out with a melancholy smile upon 
 the moss and the poor gi'ass, chequered hero 
 and there with flowers almost as poor. There 
 was the buttercup, struggling from a dirty 
 white into a yellow ; and a faint-coloured 
 poppy, neither the good nor the ill of which was 
 then known ; and here and there by the thorny 
 underwood a shrinking violet. The lark alone 
 seemed cheerful, and startled the ear of the 
 desolate chieftain with its climbing triumph in 
 the air. Ronald looked up. His fancy had boon 
 made wild and wilful by strange habits and 
 sickened blood ; and he thouglit impatiently, 
 that if he were up there like the lark, he might 
 see his friends and his love in Inistore. 
 
 Being naturally, however, of a gentle as well 
 as courageous disposition, the Perfect Hand 
 found the advantage as well as the necessity of 
 turning his violent impulses into noble matter 
 for patience. He had heard of the dreadful 
 bodily suff"erings whick the Scandinavian heroes 
 underwent from their enemies with triunipliant 
 songs. He knew tliatno such sufl'erings which 
 were fugitive, could equal the agonies of a 
 daily martyrdom of mind ; and he cultivated 
 a certain humane pride of patience, in order to 
 boar them. 
 
 Ilis only hope of being delivered from the 
 isl.and now depended on tlie Scandinavian 
 j)riests ; but it was a moot point wliether they 
 would respect him for surviving, or kill liim on 
 tliat very account, out of a mixture of personal 
 
 and superstitious resentment. He thought his 
 death the more likely ; but this, at least, was a 
 termination to the dreary prospect of a solitude 
 for life ; and partly out of that hope, and partly 
 from a courageous patience, he cultivated as 
 many pleasant thoughts and objects about him 
 as he could. He adorned his cavern with shells 
 and feathers ; he made himself a cap and cloak 
 of the latter, and boots and a vest of seal-skin, 
 girding it about w'itli the glossy sea-weed ; he 
 cleared away a circle before the cavern, planted 
 it with the best grass, and heaped about it the 
 mossiest stones : he strung some bones of a fish 
 with sinews, and fitting a shell beneath it, the 
 Perfect Hand drew forth the first gentle music 
 that had been heard in that wild island. He 
 touched it one day in the midst of a flock of 
 seals, who were basking in the sun ; they 
 turned their heads towards the sound ; he 
 thought he saw in their mild faces a human 
 expression ; and from that day forth no seal 
 was ever slain by the Perfect Hand. He sj^ared 
 even the huge and cloudy visaged-walrusses, 
 in whose societies he beheld a dull resemblance 
 to the gentler affections ; and his new intimacy 
 with these possessors of the place was com- 
 pleted by one of the former animals, who 
 having been rescued by him from a contest with 
 a larger one, followed him about, as well as its 
 half-formed and dragging legs would allow, with 
 the officious attachment of a dog. 
 
 But the summer was gone, and no one had 
 appeared. The new thoughts and deeper in- 
 sight into things, which solitude and sorrowful 
 necessity had produced, together with a dimi- 
 nution of his activity, had not tended to 
 strengthen him against the approach of winter : 
 and autumn came upon him like the melancholy 
 twilight of the year. He had now no hope of 
 seeing even the finishers of his existence 
 before the spring. The rising winds among the 
 rocks, and the noise of the whales blo'n'ing up 
 their spouts of water, till the caverns thundered 
 with their echoes, seemed to be like heralds of 
 the stern season which was to close him in 
 against approach. He had tried one day to 
 move the stone at the mouth of his habitation 
 a little further in, and found liis strength fail 
 him. He laid himself half reclining on the 
 ground, full of such melancholy thoughts as 
 half bewildered him. Things, by turns, ap- 
 peared a fierce dream, and a fiercer reality. 
 He was leaning and looking on the ground, and 
 idly twisting his long hair, when his eyes fell 
 upon the hand that held it. It was livid and 
 emaciated. He opened and shut it, opened and 
 shut it again, turned it lound, and looked at 
 its ribbed thinness and laid-open machinery ; 
 many thoughts came upon him, some wliich he 
 understood not, and some wliicli he recognised 
 but too well ; and a turbid violence seemed 
 rising at his heart, when the si'al, his companion, 
 drew nigh, and began licking that weak memo- 
 rial of the Perfect Iliuid. A shower of self-
 
 .')(; 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 pitying tears fell upon the seal's face and tlie 
 hand together. 
 
 On a sudden he heard a voice. It was a deep 
 and loud one, and distinctly called out 
 " Ronald ! " He looked up, gasping with 
 wonder. Three times it called out, as if with 
 peremptory command, and tliroo tinu's the 
 rocks antl caverns echoed the word with a dim 
 sullenness. 
 
 KecoUecting liiniself, he would have risen 
 and answered ; but the sudden cliange of sen- 
 sations had done what all his sufferings had not 
 beeu able to do, and he found himself unable 
 either to rise or to speak. The voice called 
 again and again ; but it was now more distant, 
 and Ronald's heart sickened as he heard it re- 
 treating. His strength seemed to fail him in 
 proportion as it became necessary. Suddenly 
 the voice came back again. It advances. 
 Other voices are heard, all advancing. In a 
 short time, figures come hastily down the slope 
 by the side of his cavern, looking over into the 
 area before it as they descend. They enter. 
 They are before him and about him. Some of 
 them, in a Scandinavian habit, prostrate tliera- 
 selves at his feet, and address him in an im- 
 known language. But these are sent away bj' 
 another, who remains with none but two youths. 
 Ronald has risen a little, and leans his back 
 against the rock. One of the youtiis puts his 
 arm between his neck and the rock, and half 
 kneels beside him, turning his face away and 
 weeping. " I am no god, nor a favourite of 
 gods, as these i)eople supposed me," said Ronald, 
 loolving up at the chief who was speaking to the 
 other youth : " if thou wilt despatch me then, 
 do so. I only pray thee to let the death be fit 
 for a warrior, such as I once was." The chief 
 appeared agitated. "Si^eak not ill of the gods, 
 Ronald," said he, " although thou wert blindly 
 brought up. A warrior like thee must be a 
 favourite of heaven. I come to prove it to thee. 
 Dost thou not know me ? I come to give thee 
 life for life." Ronald looked more steadfastly. 
 It was the Scandinavian prince whom he had 
 spared, because of his bride, in battle. He 
 smiled, and lifted up his hand to him, which 
 was intercepted and kissed by the youth who 
 held his arm round his neck. " Who are these 
 fair youths r' said Ronald, half turning his 
 head to look in liis supporter's face. " Tliis is 
 the bride I sjjoke of," answered the prince, 
 " who insisted on sharing this voyage with me, 
 and put on this dress to be the bolder in it." 
 "And who is the other?" The o^/ur, with dried 
 eyes, looked smiling into his, and intercepted 
 the answer also. "Who," said the sweetest 
 voice in the world, " can it be, but one ?" 
 With a quick and almost fierce tone, Ronald 
 cried out aloud, " I know the voice ;" and he 
 would have fallen fiat on the earth, if they had 
 not all three supported him. 
 
 It was a mild return to Inistore, Ronald 
 gathering strength all the way, at the eyes and 
 
 voice of Moilena, and the hands of all three. 
 Their discovery of liim was easily explained. 
 The crews of the vessels, who had been afraid 
 to conu; nearer, had repeatedly seen a figure on 
 the island making signs. The Scandinavian 
 priests related how they had left Ronald there ; 
 but insisted that no human being could live 
 upon it, and that some god wished to manifest 
 himself to his faithful worshippers. The heart 
 of Moilena was quick to guess the truth. The 
 prince proposed to accompany the priests. His 
 bride and the destined bride of his saviour 
 went with him, aiul returned as you heard ; 
 and from that day forth many were the songs 
 in Inistore, uj)on tlu; fortunes of the Perfect 
 Hand and the kindness of the Perfect Voice. 
 Nor were those forgotten who forgot not others. 
 
 XXVIII.— A CHAPTER ON HATS. 
 
 We know not what will be thought of our 
 taste in so important a matter, but we must 
 confess we are not fond of a new liat. There 
 is a certain insolence about it : it seems to 
 value itself upon its finished appearance, and 
 to presume upon our liking before we are 
 acquainted with it. In the first place, it comes 
 home more like a marmot or some otlier living 
 creature, than a manufactui'e. It is boxed up, 
 and wrapt in silver paper, and brought deli- 
 cately. It is as sleek as a lap-dog. Then we 
 are to take it out as nicely, and people are to 
 wonder how we shall look in it. Maria twitches 
 one this way, and Sophia that, and Caroline 
 that, and Catharine t'other. We have the 
 difficult task, all the while, of looking easy, till 
 the ajjproving votes are pronounced ; our only 
 resource (which is also difficult) being to say 
 good things to all foiir ; or to chqi tlie hat upon 
 each of their heads, and see what pretty milk- 
 women they make. At last the approving 
 votes are pronounced ; and (provided it is fine) 
 we may go forth. But how uneasy the sen- 
 sation about the head ! How unlike the old 
 hat, to which we had become used, and which 
 must now make way for this fop of a stranger! 
 We might do what we liked with the former. 
 Dust, rain, a gale of wind, a fall, a squeeze, — 
 nothing affected it. It was a true friend, a 
 friend for all weathers. Its appearance only 
 was against it : in everything else it was the 
 better for wear. But if the roads or the streets 
 are too dry, the new hat is afraid of getting 
 dusty : if there is wind, and it is not tight, it 
 may be blown off into the dirt : we may liave 
 to scramble after it through dust or mud ; 
 just reaching it with our fingers, only to see it 
 blown away again. And if rain comes on ! Oh 
 ye gallant apprentices, who have issued forth 
 on a Sunday morning, with Jane or Susan, 
 careless either of storms at night-fall, or toils 
 and scoldings next day! Ye, wlio liave re- 

 
 A CHAPTER ON HATS. 
 
 57 
 
 ceived your new hat and boots but an hour 
 before ye set out ; and then issue forth triumph- 
 antly, the charmer by your side ! iShe, with 
 arm in yours, and handkerchief in hand, 
 blushing, or eating gingerbread, trips on : ye, 
 admiring, trudge : we ask ye, whether love 
 itself has prevented ye from feeling a certain 
 fearful consciousness of that crowning glory, 
 the new and glossy hat, when the first drops of 
 rain announce the coming of a shower ? Ah, 
 hasten, while yet it is of use to haste ; ere yet 
 the spotty horror fixes on the nap ! Out with 
 the protecting handkerchief, which, tied round 
 the hat, and flowing ofi^ in a corner behind, 
 shall gleam through the thickening night like 
 a suburb comet ! Trust not the tempting yawn 
 of stable-yard or gate-way, or the impossible 
 notion of a coach ! The rain will continue ; 
 and alas I ye are not so rich as in the morning. 
 Hasten ! or think of a new hat's becoming a 
 rain-spout ! Think of its well-built crown, its 
 graceful and well-measured fit, the curved-up 
 elegance of its rim, its shadowing gentility 
 when seen in front, its arching gi'ace over the 
 ear when beheld sideways ! Think of it also 
 the next day ! How altered, how dejected ! 
 
 How changed from him. 
 That life of measure and that soul of rim ! 
 
 Think of the paper-like change of its consist- 
 ence ; of its limp sadness — its confused and 
 flattened nap, and of that polished and perfect 
 circle, which neither brush nor hot iron shall 
 restore ! 
 
 We have here spoken of the beauties of a 
 new hat ; but abstractedly considered, they 
 are very problematical. Fashion makes beauty 
 for a time. Our ancestors found a grace in 
 the cocked hats now confined to beadles, 
 Chelsea pensioners, and coachmen. They 
 would have laughed at our chimney-tops with 
 a border : though uj)on the whole we do think 
 them tlio more graceful of the two. The bust 
 modern covering for the head was the imita- 
 tion of the broad Spanish hat in use about 
 thirty years back, when Mr. Stothard made 
 his designs for the JVovelut's Magazine. But 
 in proportion as society has been put into a 
 bustle, our hats seem to have narrowed their 
 dimensions : the flaps were clipped off more 
 and more till they became a rim ; and now 
 the rim has contracted to a mere nothing ; so 
 that what with our close heads and our tight 
 succinct mode of dress, we look as if we were 
 intended for nothing but to dart backwards 
 and forwards on matters of business, wi(h as 
 little hindrance to each other as possible. 
 
 This may give us a greater distaste to the 
 hat tlian it deser.ves ; but good-looking or not, 
 we know of no situation in which a new one 
 can be said to be useful. We have seen how 
 the case is during bad weather : but if the 
 weather is in the finest condition possible, 
 with neither rain nor dust, there may bo a hot 
 
 sunshine ; and then the hat is too nan-ow to 
 shade us: no great evil, it is ti-ue! but we 
 must have our pique out against the knave, 
 and turn him to the only account in our jiower : 
 — we must write upon him. For every other 
 purpose, we hold him as naught. The only 
 place a new hat can be carried into with safety, 
 is a church ; for there is plenty of room there. 
 There also takes place its only imion of the 
 ornamental with the useful, if so it is to be 
 called : we allude to the preparatory ejacu- 
 lation whispered into it by the genteel wor- 
 shipper, before he turns round and makes a 
 bow to ]Mr. and Mrs. Jones and the Miss 
 Thompsons. There is a formula for this occa- 
 sion ; and doubtless it is often used, to say 
 nothing of extemjjore effusions : but there are 
 wicked imaginations, who suspect that instead 
 of devouter whisperings, the communer with 
 his lining sometimes ejaculates no more than 
 Swallow, St. James's-street ; or, Augarde and 
 Spain, Hatters, No. 51, Oxford-street, London : 
 — after which he draws up his head with 
 infinite gravity and preparation, and makes 
 the gentle recognitions aforesaid. 
 
 But wherever there is a crowd, the new hat 
 is worse than useless. It is a pity that the 
 general retrenchment of people's finances did 
 away with the flat opera hat, which was a very 
 sensible thing. The round one is only in the 
 way. The matting over the floor of the Opera 
 does not hinder it from getting dusty ; not to 
 mention its chance of a kick from the incon- 
 siderate. But from the pit of the other theatres, 
 you may bring it away covered with sawdust, 
 or rubbed up all the wrong way of the nap, or 
 monstrously squeezed into a shapeless lump. 
 The least thing to be expected in a pressure, is 
 a great poke in its side like a sunken cheek. 
 
 Boating is a mortal enemy to new hats. A 
 shower has you fast in a common boat ; or a 
 sail-line, or an inexperienced oar, may knock 
 the hat off ; and then fancy it tilting over the 
 water with the tide, soaked all the while beyond 
 redemption, and escaping from the tips of your 
 outstretched fingers, while you ought all to be 
 j)ulling the contrary way home. 
 
 But of all wTong boxes for a new hat, avoid 
 a mail-coach. If you keep it on, you will begin 
 nodding perhaps at midnight, and then it goes 
 jamming against the side of the coach, to the 
 equal misery of its nap and your own. If you 
 take it off, where is its refuge \ Will the 
 clergyman take the least heed of it, who is 
 snoring comfortably in one corner in his night- 
 cap ? Or will the farmer, jolting about inex- 
 orably ? Or the regular traveller, who in his 
 fur-cap and infinite knowledge of highway 
 conveniences, has already beheld it with con- 
 temi)t ? Or the old market-wonuin, wliom it is 
 in vain to request to be tender ? Or the young 
 damsel, who wonders how you can think of 
 sleeping in such a thing ? In the morning 
 you suddenly miss your hat, and ask after it
 
 50 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 with trepidation. The traveller smiles. Tliey 
 all move tlu'ir logs, but know notliing of it ; 
 till the ni:iiki't-\voui;in exclaims, " Deary me ! 
 Well — lord, only think ! A hat is it, Sir ? 
 Why I do believe, — but I'm sure I never 
 thought o' such a thing more than the child 
 unborn, — that it must be a hat then whicii I 
 took for a pan I've been a buying ; and so I've 
 had my warm foot in it, Lord help us, ever 
 since five o'clock this blessed morning !" 
 
 It is but fair to add, that we happen to have 
 an educated antipathy to the hat. At our 
 school no hats were worn, and the cap is too 
 small to be a substitute. Its only use is to 
 astonish the old ladies in the street, who wonder 
 how so small a thing can be kept on ; and to 
 this end, we used to rub it into the back or 
 side of the head, where it hung like a M'orsted 
 ■wonder. It is after the fashion of Catharine's 
 cap in the play : it seems as if 
 
 Bloulded on a porringer ; 
 Why, 'tis a cockle, or a walnut-shell, 
 A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap ; 
 A custard coflin, a bauble. 
 
 But we may not add 
 
 I love thee well, in that thou likcst it not ; 
 
 lU befall us, if we ever dislike anything about 
 thee, old nurse of our childhood ! How inde- 
 pendent of the weather used we to feel in our 
 old friar's dress, — our thick shoes, yellow 
 worsted stockings, and coarse long coat or 
 gown ! Our cap was oftener in our hand than 
 on our head, let the weather be what it would. 
 We felt a pride as well as pleasure, when every 
 body else was hurrying through the streets, in 
 receiving the full summer showers with im- 
 covered poll, sleeking our glad hair like the 
 feathers of a bird. 
 
 It must be said for hats in general, that they 
 are a very ancient part of dress, perhaps the 
 most ancient ; for a negro, who has nothing 
 else upon him, sometimes finds it necessary to 
 guard off tlie sun with a hat of leaves or straw. 
 The Chinese, who carry their records farther 
 back than any other people, are a hatted race, 
 both narrow-brimmed and broad. We are apt 
 to tiiink of the Greeks as a bare-headed people ; 
 and tliey liked to be so ; but they had hats 
 for journeying in, such as may be seen on the 
 statues of Mercury, who was the god of tra- 
 vellers. They were large and flapped, and 
 were sometimes fastened i-ound under the chin 
 like a lady's bonnet. The Eastern nations 
 generally wore turbans, and do still, with the 
 exception of the Persians, who have exchanged 
 them for large conical caps of felt. The 
 Romans copied the Greeks in their dress, as in 
 everything else ; but the poorer orders wore a 
 cap like their boasted Thrygian ancestors, 
 resembling the one which the reader may 
 see about tlie streets upon the bust of Ca- 
 nova'a Paris. The others would put their 
 
 robes about their heads upon occasion, — after 
 the fashion of tlie hoods of the middle ages, 
 and of the cloth head- dresses which we see in 
 the portraits of Dante and Petrarch. Of a 
 similar mode are the draperies on the heads of 
 our old Plantagenet kings and of Chaucer. 
 'J"he velvet cap which succeeded, apjjcars to 
 have come from Italy, as seen in the portraits 
 of Raphael and Titian ; and it would jirobably 
 have continued till the French times of Ciiarlcs 
 the Second, for our ancestors up to that period 
 were great admirers of Italy, had not Philip 
 the Second of Spain come over to marry our 
 Queen JIary. Tlie extreme heats of Spain 
 had forced the natives upon taking to that in- 
 genious compound of the hat and umbrella, 
 still known by the name of the Spanish hat. 
 We know not whether Philip himself wore it. 
 His father, Charles the Fifth, who was at the 
 top of the world, is represented as delighting 
 in a little humble-looking cap. But we con- 
 ceive it was either from Philip, or some gen- 
 tleman in his train, that the hat and feather 
 succeeded among us to the cap and jewels of 
 Henry the Eighth. The ascendancy of Spain 
 in those times carried it into other parts of 
 Europe. The French, not requiring so mucli 
 shade from the sun, and always ])laying with 
 and altering their dress, as a cliild docs his 
 toy, first covered the brim with feathers, then 
 gave them a pinch in front ; then came ])inches 
 up at the side ; and at last appeared the fierce 
 and triple-daring cocked hat. This disappeared 
 in our childhood, or only survived among the 
 military, the old, and the reverend, who could 
 not Avillingly j)art with their habitual dignity. 
 An old beau or so would also retain it, in 
 memory of its victories when young. We 
 remember its going away from the heads of 
 the foot-guards. The heavy dragoons retained 
 it till lately. It is now almost sunk into the 
 mock-heroic, and confined, as we before ob- 
 served, to beadles and coachmen, &c. The 
 modern clerical beaver, agreeably to the deli- 
 beration with which our establishments depart 
 from all custom, is a cocked hat with llie front 
 flap let down, and only a slight })inch remaining 
 behind. This is worn also by the judges, the 
 lawyers being of clerical extraction. Still 
 however the true cocked-hat lingers here and 
 there with a solitary old gentleman ; and 
 wherever it appears in such company, begets 
 a certain retrospective reverence. There was 
 a something in its connexion with the high- 
 bred drawing-room times of the seventeenth 
 coitnry ; in the gallant though quaint ardour 
 of its look ; and in its being lifted up in salu- 
 tations with that deliberate loftiness, the arm 
 arching uj) in front and tlie hand slowly raising 
 it by the front angle with finger aiid thuml>, — 
 that could not easily die. We remember, 
 when our steward at school, remarkable for 
 his inflexible air of precision and dignity, 
 left olF his cocked-bat for a round one ; there
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 59 
 
 was, undoubtedly, though we dared only half 
 confess it to our minds, a sort of diminished 
 majesty about him. His infinite self-possession 
 began to look remotely finite. His Crown 
 Imperial was a little blighted. It was like 
 divesting a column of its capital. But the 
 native stateliness was there, informing the 
 new hat. He 
 
 Had not yet lost 
 All his original beaver ; nor appeared 
 Less than arch-steward ruined, and the excess 
 Of glory obscured. 
 
 The late Emperor Paul had conceived such 
 a sense of the dignity of the cocked hat, aggra- 
 vated by its having been deposed by the round 
 one of the French republicans, that he ordered 
 all persons in his dominions never to dare be 
 seen in public with round hats, upon pain of 
 being knouted and sent to Siberia. 
 
 Hats being the easiest part of the European 
 dress to be taken off, are doffed among us out 
 of reverence. The Orientals, on the same 
 account, put off their slippers instead of tur- 
 bans, which is the reason why the Jews still 
 keep their heads covered during worship. The 
 Spanish grandees have the privilege of wearing 
 their hats in the royal presence, probably in 
 commemoration of the free spirit in which the 
 Cortes used to crown the sovereign ; telling 
 him (we suppose in their corporate capacity) 
 that they were better men than he, but chose 
 him of their own free will for their master. 
 The grandees only claim to be as good men, 
 imless their families are older. There is a well- 
 known story of a picture, in which the Virgin 
 Mary is represented with a label coming out of 
 her mouth, saying to a Spanish gentleman who 
 lias politely taken off his hat, "Cousin, be 
 covered." But the most interesting anecdote 
 connected with a hat belongs to the family of 
 the De Courcys, Lord Kinsale. One of their 
 ancestors, at an old period of our history, 
 having overthrown a huge and insolent cham- 
 pion, Avho had challenged the whole court, was 
 desired by the king to ask him some favour. 
 He requested that his descendants should have 
 the privilege of keeping their heads covered in 
 the royal presence, and they do so to this day. 
 The new lord, we believe, always comes to court 
 on purpose to vindicate his right. We liave heard, 
 that on the last occasion, probably after a long 
 interval, some of the courtiers thought it might 
 as well have been dispensed with ; which was 
 a foolish as well as a jealous thing, for these 
 exceptions only prove the royal rule. The 
 Spanish grandees originally took their privi- 
 lege instead of receiving it ; but when the 
 spirit of it had gone, their covered heads were 
 only so many intense recognitions of the king's 
 dignity, wliicli it was thought such a migiity 
 thing to resenible. A Qualver's hat is a more 
 formidable thing than a grandee's. 
 
 XXIX.— SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 The sole business of a seaman on shore, who 
 has to go to sea again, is to take as much 
 pleasure as he can. The moment he sets his 
 foot on dry ground, he turns his back on all 
 salt beef and other salt-water restrictions. 
 His long absence, and the impossibility of get- 
 ting land pleasures at sea, put him upon a sort 
 of desperate appetite. He lands, like a con- 
 querortakingpossession. Hehasbeen debarred 
 so long, that he is resolved to have that matter 
 out with the inhabitants. They must render 
 an account to him of their treasures, their 
 women, their victualling-stores, their enter- 
 tain ments, their everything ; and in return he 
 will behave like a gentleman, and scatter his 
 gold. 
 
 His first sensation on landing, is the strange 
 firmness of the earth, which he goes treading 
 in a sort of heavy light way, half waggoner and 
 half dancing-master, his shoulders rolling, and 
 his feet touching and going ; the same way, in 
 short, in which he keeps himself prepared for all 
 the chances of the vessel, when on deck. There 
 is always this appearance of lightness of foot 
 and heavy strength of upper works, in a sailor. 
 And he feels it himself. He lets his jacket fly 
 open, and his shoulders slouch, and his hair 
 grow long, to be gathered into a heavy pigtail ; 
 but when full dressed, he prides himself on a 
 certain gentility of toe, on a white stocking 
 and a natty shoe, issuing lightly out of the flow- 
 ing blue trowser. His arms are neutral, hang- 
 ing and swinging in a curve aloof ; his hands 
 half open, as if they had just been handling 
 ropes, and had no object in life but to handle 
 them again. He is proud of appearing in a new 
 hat and slops, with a Belcher handkerchief flow- 
 ing loosely round his neck, and the corner of 
 another out of his pocket. Thus equipped, with 
 pinchbeck buckles in his shoes (which he bought 
 for gold), he puts some tobacco in his mouth, 
 not as if he were going to use it directly, but as if 
 he stuffed it in a pouch on one side, as a peli- 
 can does fish, to employ it hereafter ; and so, 
 with Bet Monson at his side, and perhaps a 
 cane or whanghee twisted under his other arm, 
 sallies forth to take possession of all Lubber- 
 land. He buys everything that he comes 
 athwart— nuts, gingerbread,apples,shoe-string8, 
 beer, brandy, gin, buckles, knives, a watch 
 (two, if he has money enough), gowns and 
 handkerchiefs for Bet and his mother and sisters, 
 dozens of " Superfine Best Men's Cotton Stock- 
 ings," dozens of "Superfine Best Women's 
 Cotton Ditto," best good Check for Shirts 
 (though he has too much already), infinite 
 needles and thread (to sew his trowscrs with 
 some day), a footman's laced hat, Bear's Grease, 
 to make" his hair grow (by way of joke), several 
 sticks, all sorts of .lew articles, a flute (which 
 he can't play, and never intends), a leg of
 
 GO 
 
 tup: indicator. 
 
 mutton, which he carries somewhere to roast, 
 and for a piece of wliich tlie landlord of the 
 i</iij> makes liini jiay twice wliat he gave for the 
 whole ; in short, all tiiat money can be spent 
 iijion, whidi is i-verytliiiij,' Imt medicine gratis, 
 and tliis he would insist on paying for. lie 
 wouldbuyall the painted parrots on an Italian's 
 head, on purpose to break them, rather than 
 not sjiend his money, lie has fiddles and a 
 dance at the Wy, with oceans of tiij) and grog ; 
 and "ives the blind tiddler tobacco for sweet- 
 nieats,and half-a-crown for treading on his toe. 
 He asks the landlady, with a sigh, ai"ter her 
 daughter Nanse, who first fired his heart with 
 lier silk stockings ; and finding that she is 
 married and in trouble, leaves five crowns for 
 her, which the old lady appropriates as part 
 payment for a shilling in advance. He goes to 
 the Port j)lay house with l$et Monson, and a 
 great red handkerchief full of apples, ginger- 
 bread nuts, and fresh beef ; calls out for the 
 fiddlei's and Jiii/e Britannia; pelts Tom Sikes 
 in the pit ; and compares Othello to the black 
 shijj's cook in his white nightcap. When he 
 comes to London, he and some messmates take 
 a hackney-coach, full of Bet JNlonsons and 
 tobacco-pipes, and go through the streets 
 smoking and lollinn- out of window. He has 
 ever been cautious of venturing on horseback, 
 and among his other sights in foreign parts, 
 relates with unfeigned astonishment how he 
 has seen the Turks ride : "Only," says he, 
 guarding against the hearer's incredulity, " they 
 have saddle-boxes to hold 'em in, fore and 
 aft, and shovels like for stirrups." He will tell 
 you how tlie Chinese drink, and the Neyurs 
 dance, and the monkeys pelt you with cocoa- 
 nuts ; and how King Domy would have built 
 him a nnul hut and made him a peer of the 
 realm, if he would have stopped with him, and 
 taught him to make trowsei's. He has a sister 
 at a " School for Young Ladies," who blushes 
 with a mixture of pleasure and shame at his 
 appearance ; and whose confusion he completes 
 by slipping fourpence into her hand, and say- 
 ing out loud tliat he has " no more copper " 
 about him. His mother and elder sisters at 
 home doat on all he says and does ; telling him 
 however, that he is a great sea fellow, and was 
 always wild ever since he was a hop-o'-my- 
 thumb, no higher than the window locker. He 
 tells his mother that she would be a duchess 
 in Paranaboo ; at which the good old portly 
 dame laughs and looks jtroud. When his sisters 
 complain of his romping, he says that they are 
 only sorry it is not the baker. He frightens 
 them with a mask made after the New Zealand 
 fashion, and is forgiven foi- liis learning. Their 
 mantel-piece is filled by him with shells and 
 shark's teeth ; and when he goes to sea again, 
 there is no end of tears, and " God bless you's ! " 
 and home-made gingerbread. 
 
 His Officer on shore does much of all this, 
 only, generally speaking, in a higher taste. 
 
 The moment he lands, he buys quantities of 
 jewellery and other valuables, for all the 
 females of his acquaintance ; and is taken in 
 for every article. He sends in a cart-load of 
 fresh meat to the ship, tiiough he is going to 
 town next day ; and calling in at a chandler's 
 for some candles, is persuaded to buy a dozen 
 of green wax, with which he lights uj) the ship 
 at evening ; regretting that the fine moonlight 
 hinders the effect of the colour. A man, witii 
 a bundle beneath his arm, accosts him in 
 an undcr-tone ; and, with a look in which 
 respect for his knowledge is mixed with 
 an avowed zeal for his own interest, asks if 
 his Honour will just step under the gangway 
 hei-e, and inspect some real India shawls. The 
 gallant Lieutenant says to himself, " This fel- 
 low knows what's what, by his face ; " and so 
 he proves it, by being taken in on the spot. 
 When he brings the shawls home, he says to 
 his sister with an air of triumph, " There, Poll, 
 there's something for you ; only cost me twelve, 
 and is worth twenty if it 's worth a dollar." 
 She turns pale — " Twenty what, my dear 
 George ? Why, you haven't given twelve dol- 
 lars for it, I hope ? " « Not I, by the Lord."— 
 "That's lucky ; because you see, my dear, 
 George, that all together is not worth more 
 than fourteen or fifteen shillings " " Fourteen 
 or fifteen what ! Why its real India, en't it ? 
 Why the fellow told me so ; or I'm sure I'd as 
 soon " — (here he tries to hide his blushes with 
 a bluster) — I'd as soon have given him twelve 
 douses on the chaps as twelve guineas." — 
 " Twelve guineas ! " exclaims the sister ; and 
 then drawling forth, " Why — my — dear — 
 George," is proceeding to show him what the 
 articles would have cost at Condell's, when he 
 interrupts her by requesting her to go and 
 choose for herself a tea-table service, lie then 
 makes his escape to some messmates at a coffee- 
 house, and drowns his recollection of the shawls 
 in the best wine, and a discussion on the com- 
 parative merits of the English and West-Indian 
 beauties and tables. At tlie theatre afterwards, 
 where he has never been before, he takes a 
 lady at the back of one of the boxes for a 
 woman of quality ; and when, after returning 
 his long respectful gaze with a smile, she turns 
 aside and puts her handkerchief to her mouth, 
 he thinks it is in derision, till his friend unde- 
 ceives him. He is introduced to the lady ; and 
 ever afterwards, at fii'st sight of a woman of 
 quality (without any disparagement either to 
 those charming personages), expects her to give 
 him a smile. He thinks the other ladies much 
 better creatures than they are taken for ; and 
 for their parts, they tell him, that if all men 
 were like himself, they would trust the sex 
 again : — which, for aught we know, is the truth. 
 He has, indeed, what he thinks a veiy liberal 
 opinion of ladies in general ; judging them all, 
 in a manner, with the eye of a seaman's ex- 
 perience. Yet he will believe nevertheless in
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 61 
 
 the " true-love " of any given damsel whom 
 he seeks in the Avay of marriage, let him roam 
 as much, or remain as long at a distance, as 
 he may. It is not that he wants feeling ; but 
 that he has read of it, time out of mind, in 
 songs ; and he looks upon constancy as a sort 
 of exploit, answering to those which lie per- 
 forms at sea. He is nice in his watches and 
 linen. He makes you presents of cornelians, 
 antique seals, cocoa-nuts set in silver, and other 
 valual)les. When he shakes hands with you, 
 it is like being caught in a windlass. He would 
 not swagger about the streets in his uniform, 
 for the world. He is generally modest in com- 
 pany, though liable to be irritated by what he 
 thinks ungentlemauly behaviour. He is also 
 liable to be rendered irritable by sickness ; 
 partly because he has been used to command 
 others, and to be served with all possible de- 
 ference and alacrity ; and partlj', because the 
 idea of suffering pain, without any honour or 
 profit to get by it, is unprofessional, and he is 
 not accustomed to it. He treats talents imlike 
 his own with great respect. He often per- 
 ceives his own so little felt, that it teaches him 
 this feeling for that of others. Besides, he 
 admires the quantity of information which 
 people can get, without travelling like himself; 
 especially when he sees how interesting his own 
 becomes, to them as well as to everybody else. 
 When he tells a story, particularly if full of 
 wonders, he takes care to maintain his charac- 
 ter for truth and simplicity, by qualifying it 
 with all possible reservations, concessions, and 
 anticipations of objection ; such as, " in case, 
 at such times as, so to speak, as it were, at 
 least, at any rate." He seldom uses sea-terms 
 but when jocosely provoked by something con- 
 trary to his habits of life ; as for instance, if 
 lie is always meeting you on horseback, he 
 asks if you never mean to walk the deck again; 
 or if he finds you studying day after day, he 
 says you are always overhauling your log-book. 
 He makes more new acquaintances, and forgets 
 his old ones less, than any other man in the 
 busy world ; for he is so compelled to make 
 his home everywhere, remembers his native 
 one as sucli a place of enjoyment, luis all his 
 friendly recollections so fixed upon Iiis mind 
 at sea, and has so much to tell and to hear 
 when lie returns, that change and separation 
 lose with him the most heartless part of their 
 nature. He also sees such a variety of cus- 
 toms and manners, that he becomes charitable 
 in his opinions altogether ; and charity, while 
 it diffuses the affections, cannot lot tlio old ones 
 go. Half the secret of human intercourse is 
 to make allowance for each other. 
 
 Wlicn the Officer is superannuated or retires, 
 he becomes, if intelligent and imiuiriiig, one 
 of the most agreeable old men in the world, 
 equally welcome to the silent for liis card- 
 playing, and to the conversational for his re- 
 collections. He is fond of astronomy and 
 
 books of voyages, and is immortal with all 
 who know him for having been round the world, 
 or seen the transit of Venus, or had one of his 
 fingers carried off by a New Zealand hatchet, 
 or a present of feathers from an Otaheitan 
 beauty. If not elevated by his acquirements 
 above some of his humbler tastes, he delights 
 in a corner-cupboard holding his cocoa-nuts 
 and punch-bowl ; has his summer-house cas- 
 tellated and planted with wooden cannon ; and 
 sets up the figure of his old ship, the Britannia 
 or the Lovely Nancy, for a statue in the gar- 
 den ; where it stares eternally with red cheeks 
 and round black eyes, as if in astonishment 
 at its situation. 
 
 Chaucer, who wrote his Canterbury Tales 
 about four hundred and thirty years ago, has 
 among his other characters in that work a 
 Shipman', who is exactly of the same cast as 
 the modern sailor, — the same robustness, 
 courage, and rough-drawn virtue, doing its 
 duty, without being very nice in helping itself 
 to its recreations. There is the very dirk, the 
 complexion, the jollity, the experience, and the 
 bad horsemanship. The plain unaffected end- 
 ing of the description has the air of a sailor's 
 own speech ; while the line about the beard is 
 exceedingly jjicturesque, jjoetical, and compre- 
 hensive. In copying it out, we sliall merely 
 alter the old spelling, where the words are 
 still modern. 
 
 A shipman was there, wonned far by west ; 
 For aught I wot, he was of Dartemouth. 
 lie rode opon a rouneie, as he couth *, 
 All in a gown of faldtng to the knee. 
 A dagger hanging by a lace had he. 
 About his neck, under his arm ado\vn : 
 The hot summer had made his hew all brown : 
 And certainly he was a good felaw. 
 Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw 
 From Bourdcaux ward, while that the chapman slop. 
 Of nice conscience toolc he no keep. 
 If that he fought and had the liighcr hand, 
 By water he sent 'em homo to every land. 
 But of his craft, to reckon well his tides, 
 ITis streames and his strandcs him besides, 
 His harborough, his moon, and his lode manage. 
 There w.as not such from Hull unto Carthage. 
 Hardy he was, and wise, I vmdertake ; 
 With many a tempest had his beard been shake. 
 He knew well all the havens, as they were. 
 From Oothhand to the Caiie do Finisterrc, 
 And every creek in Briton and in Spain. 
 His b.arge ycleped was the JLagdelain. 
 
 When about to teU his Tale, he tells his fellow- 
 travellers that he shall clink them so merry a 
 bell, 
 
 That it shall waken all this company : 
 Rut it shall not be of philosophy, 
 Nor of physick, nor of terms quaint of law ; 
 There is but little Latin in my maw. 
 
 The story he tells is a well-known one in the 
 Italian novels, of a monk wlio made love to a 
 merchant's wife, and borrowed a hundred 
 francs of the husband to give her. She accord- 
 
 * He rode upon, a hack-horse, as well as he could.
 
 62 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ingly admits his addresses during tlie a]>scnce 
 of her good man on a jonrney. When tlie 
 latter returns, ho applies to the cunning monk 
 for re])aynuMit, and is referred to tlie lady ; 
 wlio thus linds her mercenary behaviour out- 
 witted. 
 
 XXX.— ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGI- 
 NATION. 
 
 There is not a more unthinking way of 
 talking, than to say such and such pains and 
 pleasures are only imaginary, and therefore to 
 be got rid of or undervalued accordingly. 
 There is nothing imaginary, in the common 
 acceptation of the word. The logic of Moses 
 in the Vicar of Wakefield is good argument 
 here : — " Whatever is, is." Whatever touches 
 us, whatever moves us, does toucli and does 
 move us. We recognise the reality of it, as 
 we do that of a hand in the dark. We might 
 as well say that a sight which makes us laugh, 
 or a blow which brings tears into our eyes, is 
 imaginary, as that anything else is imaginary 
 which makes us laugh or weep. We can only 
 judge of things by their eifects. Our percep- 
 tion constantly deceives us, in things with 
 which we suppose ourselves perfectly conver- 
 sant ; but our reception of their effect is a 
 diiferent matter. Whether we are material- 
 ists or immaterialists, whether things be about 
 us or within us, whether we think the sun is 
 a substance, or only the image of a divine 
 thought, an idea, a thing imaginary, we are 
 equally agreed as to the notion of its warmth. 
 But on the other hand, as this warmth is felt 
 differently by different temperaments, so what 
 we call imaginary things affect different minds. 
 What we have to do is not to deny their effect, 
 because we do not feel in the same proportion, 
 or whether we even feel it at all ; but to see 
 whether our neighbours may not be moved. 
 If they are, there is, to all intents and purposes, 
 a moving cause. But we do not see it ? No ; 
 — neither perhaps do they. They only feel it ; 
 they are only sentient, — a word which implies 
 the sight given to the imagination by the feel- 
 ings. But what do you mean, we may ask in 
 return, by seeing? Some rays of light come 
 in contact with the eye ; they bring a sensa- 
 tion to it ; in a word, they touch it ; and the 
 impression left by this touch we call sight. 
 How far does this differ in effect from the 
 impression left by any other touch, however 
 mysterious ? An ox knocked down by a 
 butcher, and a man knocked down by a fit of 
 apoplexy, equally feel^themsclves compelled to 
 drop. The tickling of a straw and of a comedy, 
 equally move the muscles about the mouth. 
 The look of a beloved eye will so thrill the 
 frame, that old philosophers have had recourse 
 to a doctrine of beams and radiant particles 
 flying from one sig[ht to another. In fine, what 
 
 is contact itself, and wliy does it aflect us ! 
 There is no one cause more mysterious than 
 another, if we look into it. 
 
 Nor does the question concern us like moral 
 causes. We may be content to know the earth 
 by its fruits ; but how to increase and improve 
 them is a more attractive study. If instead of 
 saying that the causes which moved in us this 
 or that pain or pleasure were imaginary, people 
 were to say that the causes themselves were 
 removeablc, they would be nearer the truth. 
 When a stone trips us up, we do not fall to 
 disputing its existence: we put it out of the 
 way. In like manner, when we suffer from 
 what is called an imaginary pain, our business 
 is not to canvass the reality of it. Whether 
 there is any cause or not in that or any other 
 perception, or whether everything consist not 
 in what is called effect, it is sufficient for x\s 
 that the effect is real. Our sole business is to 
 remove those second causes, which always 
 accompany the original idea. As in deliriums, 
 for instance, it would be idle to go about per- 
 suading the patient that he did not behold the 
 figures he says he does. He might reasonably 
 ask us, if he could, how we know anything 
 about the matter ; or how we can be sure, that 
 in the infinite wonders of the universe, certain 
 realities may not become ai)parent to certain 
 eyes, whether diseased or not. Our business 
 would be to put him into that state of health, 
 in which human beings are not diverted from 
 their offices and comforts by a liability to such 
 imaginations. The best reply to his question 
 would be, that such a morbidity is clearly no 
 more a fit state for a human being, than a 
 disarranged or incomplete state of works is for 
 a watch ; and that seeing the general tendency 
 of nature to this completeness or state of com- 
 fort, we naturally conclude, that the imagi- 
 nations in question, whether substantial or 
 not, arc at least not of the same lasting or 
 prevailing description. 
 
 We do not profess metaphysics. We are 
 indeed so little conversant with the masters of 
 that art, that we are never sure whether we are 
 using even its proper terms. All that we may 
 know on the subject comes to us from some 
 reflection and some experience ; and this all 
 may be so little as to make a metaphysician 
 smile ; which, if he be a true one, he will do 
 good-naturedly. The pretender will take oc- 
 casion, from our very confession, to say that 
 we know nothing. Our faculty, such as it is, 
 is rather instinctive than reasoning ; rather 
 physical than metaphysical ; rather sentient 
 because it loves much, than because it knows 
 much ; rather calculated by a certain retention 
 of boyhood, and by its wanderings in the green 
 places of thought, to light upon a piece of the 
 old golden world, tlian to tire ourselves, and 
 conclude it unattainable, by too wide and 
 scientific a search. We pretend to see farther 
 than none but the worldly and the malignant.
 
 THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION. 
 
 63 
 
 And yet those who see farther, may not all see 
 so well. We do not blind our eyes with look- 
 ing upon the sun in the heavens. We believe 
 it to be til ere, but we find its light upon eartli 
 also ; and we would lead humanity, if we could, 
 out of misery and coldness into the shine of 
 it. Pain miglit still be there ; must be so, as 
 long as we are mortal ; 
 
 For oft we still must weep, since we are human : 
 
 but it should be pain for the sake of others, 
 which is uoble ; not unnecessary pain inflicted 
 by or upon them, wliich it is absurd not to 
 remove. Tlie very pains of mankind struggle 
 towards pleasures ; and such pains as are 
 proper for them have this inevitable accom- 
 paniment of true humanity, — that they cannot 
 but realise a certain gentleness of enjoyment. 
 Thus the true bearer of pain would come round 
 to us ; and he would not ginidge us a share of 
 his burden, though in taking from his trouble 
 it might diminish his pride. Pride is but a 
 bad pleasure at the expense of others. The 
 great object of humanity is to enrich every- 
 body. If it is a task destined not to succeed, 
 it is a good one from its very nature ; and 
 fulfils at least a glad destiny of its own. To 
 look upon it austerely is in reality the reverse 
 of austerity. It is only such an impatience of 
 the want of pleasure as leads us to grudge it 
 in others ; and this impatience itself, if the 
 sufferer knew how to use it, is but another 
 impulse, in the general yearning, towards an 
 equal wealth of enjoyment. 
 
 But we shall be getting into other discussions. 
 — The gi'ound-work of all happiness is health. 
 Take care of this ground ; and the doleful 
 imaginations that come to warn us against its 
 abuse, will avoid it. Take care of this ground, 
 and let as many glad imaginations throng to it 
 as possible. Read the magical works of the 
 poets, and they will come. If you doubt their 
 existence, ask yourself whether you feel plea- 
 sure at the idea of them ; whether you are 
 moved into delicious smiles, or tears as delicious. 
 If you are, the result is the same to you, 
 whether they exist or not. It is not mere 
 words to say, that he who goes through a rich 
 man's park, and sees things in it which never 
 bless the mental eyesight of the possessor, is 
 richer than he. He is richer. More results 
 of pleasure come home to him. The ground is 
 actually more fertile to him : the place haunted 
 with finer shapes. He has more servants to 
 come at his call, and administer to him with 
 full hands. Knowledge, sjTnpathy, imagina- 
 tion, are all divining-rods, with which he dis- 
 covers treasure. Let a jiainter go through the 
 grounds, and he will sec not only the general 
 colours of green and brown, but their com- 
 binations and contrasts, and the modes in 
 which they might again be combined and con- 
 trasted, lie will also put figures in the land- 
 scape if there are none there, flocks and herds, 
 
 or a solitary spectator, or Venus lying with 
 her white body among the violets and primroses. 
 Let a musician go through, and he will hear 
 " differences discreet " in the notes of the birds 
 and the lapsing of the water-fall. He will 
 fancy a serenade of wind instruments in the 
 open air at a lady's window, with a voice rising 
 through it ; or the horn of the hunter ; or the 
 musical cry of the hounds, 
 
 Matched in mouth like beUs, 
 Each under each ; 
 
 or a solitary voice in a bower, singing for an 
 expected lover ; or the chapel organ, waking 
 up like the fountain of the winds. Let a poet 
 go through the grounds, and he will heighten 
 and increase all these sounds and images. He 
 will bring the colours from heaven, and put an 
 unearthly meaning into the voice. He will 
 have stories of the sylvan inhabitants ; will 
 shift the population through infinite varieties ; 
 will put a sentiment upon every sight and 
 sound ; will be human, romantic, supernatural ; 
 will make all nature scud tribute into that 
 spot. 
 
 straight mine ej-e hath caught new pleasures 
 While the landskip round it measures ; 
 Russet lawns, and fallows grey, 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 
 Mountains, on whoso barren breast 
 The labouring clouds do often rest ; 
 Meadows trim with daisies pied. 
 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide. 
 Towers and battlements it sees. 
 Bosomed high in tufted trees, 
 WTiere perhaps some Beauty lies. 
 The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 
 
 But not to go on quoting lines which are ever 
 in people's mouths like a popular tune, take a 
 passage from the same poet less familiar to 
 one's every-day recollections. It is in his Ar- 
 cadian Masque, which was performed by some 
 of the Derby family at their seat at Harefield 
 near Uxbridge. The Genius of the place, 
 meeting the noble shepherds and shepherdesses, 
 accosts them : — 
 
 stay, gentle swains, for though in this disguise, 
 
 I see bright honour sparkle tlirough your eyes ; 
 
 Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung 
 
 Of that renoNvned flood, so often sung. 
 
 Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice 
 
 Stole under seas to meet his Arcthuse ; 
 
 And ye, the breathing roses of the wood. 
 
 Fair silver -buskin 'd Nymphs, as great .and good ; 
 
 I know this quest of yours, and free intent. 
 
 Was all in honour and devotion meant 
 
 To the great mistress of yon princely slirine, 
 
 AMiora with low reverence I adore as mine ; 
 
 And with all helpful service >vill comply 
 
 To further this night's glad solemnity ; 
 
 And lead ye where ye may more near behold 
 
 What sliallow-searching Fame hath left untold ; 
 
 Which I, full oft, .imidst these shades alone, 
 
 Have sat to wonder at. and gaze upon : 
 
 For know, by lot from Jove I am the Power 
 
 Of this fair wood, and live in o.akcn bower, 
 
 To nurse the saplings tall, and ciu-1 the grovo 
 
 In ringlets quaint and wanton windings wove :
 
 C4 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 And all my plants I save from nightly ill 
 
 Of noisome winds, and blabtins vapours chill ; 
 
 And from the boughs brush off tlio evil liew, 
 
 And heal the anus of thwarting thunder bluo, 
 
 Or wliat tlie cross dire-looking phinct smites, 
 
 Or liurtful worm with canker'd venom bites. 
 
 ■\\lien evening grey doth rise, I fetch my round 
 
 Over the mount, iind all this hallow'd piound ; 
 
 And early, ere the odorous breath of morn 
 
 Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn 
 
 Shakes the high thicket, haste I all about, 
 
 Number my ranks, and visit every sprout 
 
 With puissant words and murmurs made to bless. 
 
 But else, in deep of night, wluMi drowsiness 
 
 Hath locked uj) mortal sense, then listen I 
 
 To the celestial Syrens' harmony. 
 
 That sit upon the nine infolded spheres. 
 
 And sing to those that hold tlie vital shears, 
 
 And turn tlic adamantine spindle round. 
 
 On wliich the fate of gods and men is woimd. 
 
 Sucli sweet compulsion dotli in music lie, 
 
 To lull the daughters of Necessity, 
 
 And keep unsteady Nature to her law. 
 
 And the low world in measured motion draw, 
 
 After the heavenly tunc, which none can hear 
 
 Of human mould, with gross unpurged ear. 
 
 " Milton's Genius of the Grove," says Waa-- 
 ton, " being a spirit sent from Jove, and com- 
 missioned from heaven to exercise a preterna- 
 tural guardianship over the ' saplings tall,' to 
 avert every noxious influence, and 'to visit 
 every sprout with puissant words, and mur- 
 murs made to bless,' had the privilege, not 
 indulged to gross mortals, of hearing the 
 celestial syrens' harmony. This enjoyment," 
 continues the critic, in the spirit of a true 
 reader, luxuriating over a beautiful thought, 
 " this enjoyment, which is highly imagined, 
 was a relaxation from the duties of his peculiar 
 charge, in the depth of midnight, when the 
 world is locked up in sleep and silence."* 
 The music of the spheres is the old Platonic or 
 Pythagorean doctrine ; but it remained for 
 Milton to render it a particular midnight re- 
 creation to " purged ears," after the earthly 
 toils of the day. And we partake of it with 
 the Genius. We may say of the love of nature, 
 what Shakspeare says of another love, that it 
 
 Adds a precious seeing to the eye. 
 
 And we may say also, upon the like principle, 
 that it adds a precious hearing to the ear. This 
 and imagination, which ever follows upon it, 
 are tlio two purifiers of our sense, which rescue 
 us from the deafening babble of common cares, 
 and enable us to hear all the affectionate 
 voices of earth and heaven. The starry orbs, 
 lapsing about in their smooth and sparkling 
 dance, sing to us. Tlie brooks talk to us 
 of solitude. The birds are the animal spirits 
 
 * If the reader wishes to indulge himself in a volume 
 full of sheer poetry with a pleasant companion, familiar 
 with the finest haunts of the Muses, he cannot do better 
 than get Warlon's Edition of the Minor Poems cf Milton. 
 The principal notes have been transferred by Mr. Todd 
 to the sixth volume of his own valuable edition of Milton's 
 Poetical Works ; but it is better to have a good thing 
 entii-e. 
 
 of nature, carolling in the air, like a careless 
 lass. 
 
 The gentle gales. 
 Fanning their odoriferous wings, diepensc 
 Native perfumes ; and wliisper whence they stole 
 Tliosc balmy spoils — Paradise Lost, book iv. 
 
 The poets are called creators (riotTjTof, Makers) 
 because with their magical words tliey bring 
 forth to our eyesight tlie abundant inuiges and 
 beauties of creation. Tliey put them tiiere, if 
 the reader pleases ; and so are literally creators. 
 But whether put there or discovered, whether 
 created or invented (for invention means 
 nothing but finding out), there they are. If 
 they touch us, tliey exist to as much purpose as 
 anything else which touches us. If a passage 
 in Kim) Lear brings the tears into our eyes, it is 
 real as the touch of a sorrowful hand. If the 
 flow of a song of Anacreou's intoxicates us, it 
 is as true to a pulse within us as the wine he 
 drank. We hear not their sounds with ears, 
 nor see their sights with eyes ; but we hear 
 and see both so truly, that we are moved with 
 pleasure ; and the advantage, nay even the 
 test, of seeing and hearing, at any time, is not 
 in the seeing and hearing, but in tlie ideas we 
 realise, and the pleasure we derive. Intel- 
 lectual objects, therefore, inasmuch as they 
 come home to us, are as true a part of the stock 
 ofnatu^, as visible ones; and they are infi- 
 nitely more abundant. Between the tree of a 
 country clown and the tree of a Milton or 
 Spenser, what a difl"erence in point of produc- 
 tiveness ! Between the plodding of a sexton 
 through a church-yard, and the walk of a Gray, 
 what a difference ! What a dift'erence between 
 the Bermudas of a ship-builder and the Ber- 
 moothes of Shakspeare ! the isle 
 
 Full of noises. 
 Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not ; 
 
 the isle of elves and fairies, that chased the 
 tide to and fro on the sea-shore ; of coral-bones 
 and the knell of sea-nymphs : of spirits dancing 
 on the sands, and singing amidst the hushes of 
 the wind ; of Caliban, whose brute nature en- 
 chantment had made poetical ; of Ariel, who lay 
 in cowslip bells, and rode upon the bat ; of 
 Miranda, who wept when she saw Ferdinand 
 work so hard, and begged him to let her help ; 
 telling liim, 
 
 I am your wife, if you will marry me ; 
 If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow 
 You may deny me ; but Fll be your servant, 
 AMicthcr you will or no. 
 
 Such are the discoveries which the poets make 
 for us ; worlds, to which that of Columbus was 
 but a handful of brute matter. America began 
 to be richer for us the other day, when Hum- 
 boldt came l)ack and told us of its luxuriant 
 and gigantic vegetation ; of the myriads of 
 shooting lights, which revel at evening in the 
 southern sky ; and of that grand constellation, 
 at which Dante seems to have made so remark-
 
 DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 6& 
 
 able a guess {Purgatorio, cant, i., v. 22). The 
 natural warmth of the Mexican and Peruvian 
 genius, set free from despotism, will soon do 
 all the rest for it ; awaken the sleeping riches 
 of its eye-sight, and call forth the glad music of 
 its affections. 
 
 To return to our parks or landscapes, and 
 what the poets can make of them. It is not 
 improbable that Milton, by his Genius of the 
 Grove at Harefield, covertly intended himself. 
 He had been applied to by the Derbys to write 
 some holiday poetry for them. He puts his 
 consent in the mouth of the Genius, Aviiose 
 hand, he says, curls the ringlets of the grove, 
 and who refreshes himself at midnight with 
 listening to the music of the spheres ; that is 
 to say, whose hand confers new beauty on it 
 by its touch, and who has pleasures in solitude 
 far richer and loftier than those of mere patri- 
 cian mortal. 
 
 See how finely Ben Jonson enlivens his 
 description of Penshurst, the family-seat of the 
 Sydneys ; now with the creations of classical 
 mythology, and now with the rural manners of 
 the time. 
 
 Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show. 
 
 Or touch, of marble ; nor canst boast a row 
 
 Of polished pillows, or a roof of gold ; 
 
 Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told ; 
 
 Or stairs, or courts ; but stand'st an ancient pile : 
 
 And these, grudged at, are reverenced the while. 
 
 Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air, 
 
 Of wood, of water : therein thou art fair. 
 
 Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport ; 
 
 Thy mount, to which the Dryads do resort ; 
 
 Where I'an and Bacchus their high feasts have made, 
 
 Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade ; 
 
 That taller tree, which of a nut was set 
 
 At his great birth, where all the Muses met*. 
 
 There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names 
 
 Of many a Sylvan, taken with his flames: 
 
 And thence the ruddy Satyrs oft provoke 
 
 The lighter fawns to reach thy lady's oak. 
 
 Thy copse too, named of fiamage, thou hast there. 
 
 That never fails to serve thee seasoned deer, 
 
 When thou wouldst feast, or exercise thy friends. 
 
 The lower land, that to the river bends, 
 
 Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kinc, and calves do feed ; 
 
 The middle grounds thy mai'es and horses breed : 
 
 Each bank doth yield thee conies; and thy tops 
 
 Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydney copse. 
 
 To crown, — thy open table di)th provide 
 
 The purple plicasant with tl;p speckled side. 
 
 Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers. 
 
 Fresh as the air, and new as arc the hours. 
 
 The early cherry, with the later plum. 
 
 Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come : 
 
 The blushing apricot, and woolly peach, 
 
 Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach ; 
 
 And though thy walls be of the country stone. 
 
 They're reared with no man's ruin, no man's groan ; 
 
 There's none that dwell about them wish tliem down ; 
 
 But all come in, the farmer and the clown. 
 
 And no one empty-handed, to salute 
 
 Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit. 
 
 Some bring a capon, some a rural cake. 
 
 Some nuts, some apjiles ; sonic that think they make 
 
 * Sir Philip Sydney. 
 
 XXXII.— DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 A Grecian philosopher being asked why he 
 wept for the death of Ins son, since the sorrow- 
 was in vain, replied, " I weep on that account." 
 And his answer became his wisdom. It is only 
 for sophists to contend, tiiat we, whose eyes 
 contain the fountains of tears, need never give 
 way to them. It would be unwise not to do so 
 on some occasions. Sorrow unlocks them in 
 her balmy moods. The first bursts may be 
 bitter and overwhelming ; but the soil on 
 wliich they jiour, would be worse without 
 tliem. They refresh tlie fever of the soul — 
 tlie dry misery which parches the countenance 
 into furrows, and renders us liable to our most 
 terrible " flesli-quakes." 
 
 Tliore are sorrows, it is true, so great, that 
 to give them some of the ordinary vents is to 
 run a hazard of being overthrown. These we 
 must rather strengthen ourselves to resist, or 
 
 The better cheeses, bring 'em ; or else send 
 By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend 
 This way to husbands ; and whose baskets bear 
 An emblem of themselves in plum or pear. 
 
 Imagination enriches everything. A great 
 library contains not only books, but 
 
 The assembled souls of all that men held wise. 
 
 DavenarU. 
 
 The moon is Homer's and Shakspeare's moon, 
 as well as the one we look at. The sun comes 
 out of his chamber in the east, with a sparkling 
 eye, " rejoicing like a bridegroom." The com- 
 monest thing becomes like Aaron's rod, that 
 budded. Pope called up the spirits of the 
 Cabala to wait upon a lock of hair, and justly 
 gave it the honours of a constellation ; for he 
 has hung it, sparkling for ever, in the eyes of 
 posterity. A common meadow is a sorry thing 
 to a ditcher or a coxcomb ; but by the help of 
 its dues from imagination and the love of 
 nature, the grass brightens for us, the air 
 soothes us, we feel as we did in the daisied 
 hours of childhood. Its verdures, its sheep, its 
 hedge-row elms, — all these, and all else which 
 sight, and sound, and associations can give it, 
 are made to furnish a treasure of pleasant 
 thoughts. Even brick and mortar are vivified, 
 as of old, at the harp of Orpheus. A metropolis 
 becomes no longer a mere collection of houses 
 or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur of its 
 history, .and its literature ; its towers, and 
 rivers ; its art, and jewellery, and foreign 
 wealth ; its multitude of human beings all in- 
 tent upon excitement, wise or yet to learn ; 
 the huge and sullen dignity of its canopy of i 
 smoke by day ; the wide gleam upwards of its 
 lighted lustre at night-time ; and the noise of 
 its many chariots, heard at the same hour, 
 when the wind sets gently towards some quiet 
 suburb.
 
 «0 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 bow quietly and drily down, in order to let 
 them pass over us, as the traveller does the 
 wind of the desert. Hut where we feel that 
 tears would relieve us, it is false p]iilosoi)hy to 
 deny ourselves at least that tirst rofreshnieut ; 
 and it is always false consolation to tell people 
 that because they cannot help a thing, they are 
 not to mind it. Tlie true way is, to let them 
 gra])ple with the unavoidable sorrow, and ti-y 
 to win it into gentleness by a reasonable yield- 
 ing. There are griefs so gentle in their very 
 nature, that it would be worse than false hero- 
 ism to refuse them a tear. Of this kind are 
 the deaths of infants. Particular circum- 
 stances may render it more or less advisable to 
 indulge in grief for the loss of a little child ; but, 
 in general, parents should be no more advised 
 to rejn-ess their first tears on such an occasion, 
 than to repress their smiles towards a child 
 surviving, or to indulge in any other sympathy. 
 It is an appeal to the same gentle tenderness ; 
 and such appeals are never made in vain. The 
 end of them is an acquittal from the harslier 
 bonds of affliction — from the tying down of the 
 spirit to one melancholy idea. 
 
 It is the nature of tears of this kind, how- 
 ever strongly they may gush forth, to run into 
 quiet waters at last. We cannot easily, for 
 the whole course of our lives, think with pain 
 of any good and kind person whom we have 
 lost. It is the divine nature of their qualities 
 to conquer pain and death itself; to turn the 
 memory of them into pleasure ; to survive with 
 a placid aspect in our imaginations. We are 
 writing at this moment just opposite a spot 
 which contains the grave of one inexpressibly 
 dear to us. We see from our window the trees 
 about it, and the church spire. The green 
 fields lie around. The clouds are travelling 
 over-head, alternately taking away the sun- 
 shine and restoring it. The vernal winds, 
 piping of the flowery summer-time, are never- 
 theless calling to mind the far-distant and 
 dangerous ocean, which the heart that lies in 
 that grave had many reasons to think of. And 
 yet the sight of this spot does not give us jjain. 
 So far from it, it is the existence of that grave 
 which douljles every charm of the spot ; which 
 links the jjleasures of our childhood and man- 
 hood together ; which ])uts a hushing tender- 
 ness in the wind.s, and a patient joy uj)on tlie 
 landscape ; whicli seems to unite heaven and 
 earth, mortality and immortality, the grass of 
 the tomb and the grass of the green field ; and 
 gives a more maternal aspect to the whole 
 kindness of nature. It does not hinder gaiety 
 itself. Happiness was what its tenant, through 
 all her troubles, would have diffused. To 
 diffuse happiness and to enjoy it, is not only 
 carrying on lier wishes, but realising her hopes ; 
 andgaiety,freed from its onlypollutions, malig- 
 nity and want of sympathy, is but a child play- 
 ing about the knees of its mother. 
 The remembered innocence and endearments 
 
 of a child stand us instead of virtues that have 
 died older. Children have not exercised the 
 voluntary offices of friendship ; they have not 
 chosen to be kind and good to us ; nor stood 
 by us, from conscious will, in the hour of 
 adversity. But they have shared their plea- 
 sures and pains with us as well as they could ; 
 the interchange of good offices between us has, 
 of necessity, beenless mingled with the troubles 
 of the world ; the sorrow arising from their 
 death is the only one whicli we can associate 
 with their memories. These are happy thoughts 
 that cannot die. Our loss may always render 
 them pensive ; but they will not always be 
 painful. It is a ])art of the benignity of Nature 
 that pain does not survive like pleasure, at any 
 time, much less where the cause of it is an in- 
 nocent one. The smile will remain reflected 
 by memory, as the moon reflects the light 
 upon us when the sun has gone into heaven. 
 
 When writers like ourselves quarrel with 
 earthly pain (we mean writers of the same in- 
 tentions, without implying, of course, anything 
 about abilities or otherwise), they are mis- 
 understood if they are supposed to quarrel 
 with jjains of every sort. This would be idle 
 and effeminate. They do not pretend, indeed, 
 that humanity might not wish, if it could, to 
 be entirely free from pain ; for it endeavours, 
 at all times, to turn pain into pleasure : or at 
 least to set off the one with the othei", to make 
 the former a zest and the latter a refreshment. 
 The most unaffected dignity of suffering does 
 this,and,if wise, acknowledges it. The greatest 
 benevolence towards others, the most unselfish 
 relish of their pleasures, even at its own ex- 
 pense, does but look to increasing the general 
 stock of happiness, though content, if it could, 
 to have its identity swallowed up in that 
 splendid contemplation. We are far from 
 meaning that this is to be called selfishness. 
 We are far, indeed, from thinking so, or of so 
 confounding words. But neither is it to be 
 called pain when most unselfish, if disinterest- 
 edness be truly understood. The pain that is 
 in it softens into pleasure, as the darker hue of 
 the rainbow melts into the brighter. Yet even 
 if a harsher line is to be drawn between the 
 pain and pleasure of the most unselfish mind 
 (and ill-health, for instance, may draw it), we 
 should not quarrel with it if it contributi;d to 
 the general mass of comfort, and were of a 
 nature which general kindliness couldnotavoid. 
 Made as we are, there are certain pains with- 
 out which it would be difficult to conceive 
 certain great and overbalancing pleasures. 
 We may conceive it possible for beings to be 
 made entirely happy ; but in our composition 
 sometliing of pain seems to be a necessary in- 
 gredient, in order that the materials may turn 
 to as fine account as possible, though our clay, 
 in the course of ages and experience, may be 
 refined more and more. We may get rid of 
 tiie worst earth, though not of earth itself.
 
 POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE. 
 
 C7 
 
 Now the liability to the loss of children — 
 or rather what renders us sensible of it, the 
 occasional loss itself — seems to be one of these 
 necessary bitters thrown into the cup of 
 humanity. "We do not mean that every one 
 must lose one of his children in order to enjoy 
 the rest ; or that every individual loss afflicts 
 us in the same proportion. Wo allude to the 
 deaths of infants in general. These might be 
 as few as we could render them. But if none 
 at all ever took place, we should regard every 
 little child as a man or woman secured ; and 
 it will easily be conceived what a world of 
 endearing cares and hopes this security would 
 endanger. The very idea of infancy would 
 lose its continuity with us. Girls and boys 
 would be future men and women, not present 
 children. They would have attained their full 
 growth in our imaginations, and might as well 
 have been men and women at once. On the 
 other hand, those wlio have lost an infant, are 
 never, as it were, without an infant child. 
 They are the only persons who, in one sense, 
 retain it always, and they furnish their neigh- 
 bours with the same idea*. The other children 
 grow up to manhood and womanhood, and 
 suffer all the changes of mortality. This one 
 alone is rendered an immortal child. Death 
 has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and 
 blessed it into an eternal image of youth and 
 innocence. 
 
 Of such as these are the pleasantest shapes 
 that visit our fancy and our hopes. They are 
 the ever-smiling emblems of joy ; the prettiest 
 pages that wait upon imagination. Lastly, 
 "Of these are the kingdom of heaven." Where- 
 ever there is a province of that benevolent and 
 all-accessible empire, whether on earth or else- 
 where, such are the gentle spirits that must 
 inhabit it. To sucJi simplicity, or the resem- 
 blance of it, must they come. Such must be 
 the ready confidence of their hearts, and 
 creativeness of their fancy. And so ignorant 
 must tliey be of the " knowledge of good and 
 evil," losing their discernment of tiiat self- 
 created trouble, by enjoying the garden before 
 them, and not being asliamed of what is kindly 
 and innocent. 
 
 XXXIII—POETICAL ANOMALIES OF 
 SHAPE. 
 
 It is not one of the least instances of the 
 force of habit to see how ])oetry and mythology 
 can reconcile us to shapes, or rather combi- 
 nations of shape, unlike anything in nature. 
 The dog-headed deities of the Egyptians were 
 doubtless not so monstrous in their eyes as in 
 
 • " I sighed," says old Captain Dalton, " when I envied 
 yon the two bonnio children ; but I sigh not now to call 
 cither the monk or the soldier niiuo own !" — MonatUry, 
 vol. iil., p. 341. 
 
 ours. The Centaurs of the Greeks, as Ovid 
 has shown us, could be imagined possessing 
 beauty enough for a human loAe story ; and 
 our imaginations find nothing at all monstrous 
 in the idea of an angel, though it partakes of 
 the nature of the bird. The angel, it is true, 
 is the least departure from liumanity. Its 
 wings are not an altei'ation of the human 
 shape, but an addition to it. Yet, leaving a 
 more awful wonder out of the question, we 
 should be startled to find pinions growing out 
 of the shoulder-blades of a child ; and we 
 should wait with anxiety to see of what nature 
 the pinions were, till we became reconciled to 
 them. If they turned out to be ribbed and 
 webbed, like those of the imaginary dragon, 
 conceive the horror ! If, on the other hand, 
 they became feathers, and tapered off, like 
 those of a gigantic bird, comprising also grace 
 and splendour, as well as the power of flight, 
 we can easily fancy ourselves reconciled to 
 them. And yet again, on the other hand, the 
 flying women, described in the Advevtures of 
 Peter W'dkins, do not shock us, though their 
 wings partake of the ribbed and webbed nature, 
 and not at all of the feathered. We admire 
 Peter's gentle and beautiful bride, notmth- 
 standing the phenomenon of the graundee, its 
 light whalebone-like intersections, and its 
 power of dropping about her like drapery. It 
 even becomes a matter of pleasant curiosity. 
 We find it not at all in the way. We can 
 readily apprehend the delight he felt at possess- 
 ing a creature so kind and sensitive ; and can 
 sympathise with him in the happiness of that 
 bridal evening, equally removed from prudery 
 and grossness, which he describes with a mix- 
 ture of sentiment and voluptuousness beyond 
 all the bridals we ever read. 
 
 To imagine anything like a sympatliy of this 
 kind, it is of course necessary that the differ- 
 ence of form should consist in addition, and not 
 in alteration. But the im-angel-like texture 
 of the flying apparatus of fair Youwarkee 
 (such, if we i-emember, is her name) helps to 
 show us the main reason why we ai-e able to 
 receive pleasure from the histories of creatures 
 only half-human. The habit of readnig pre- 
 vents the first shock ; but we are reconciled in 
 proportion to their possession of what we are 
 pleased to call human qualities. Kindness is 
 the great elevator. The Centaurs nmy have 
 killed all the Lapithje, and shown considerable 
 generalship to boot, without reconciling us to 
 the brute part of them ; but the brutality melts 
 away before the story of tlieir two lovers in 
 Ovid. Drunkenness and rapine made beasts 
 of them; — sentiment makes human beings. 
 Polyphemus in Homer is a shocking monster, 
 not because he has only one eye, but because 
 he murders and eats our fullow-creatures. But 
 in Theocritus, where he is Galatea's lover, and 
 sits hopelessly lamenting his passion, we only 
 pity him. His deformity even increases our 
 r -2
 
 68 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 pity. We blink the question of beauty, and 
 become one-eyed for his sake. Nature seems 
 to do liim an injustice in gifting him with 
 sympathies so liuman, and at tlie same time 
 preventing them from being answered ; and 
 we feel impatient with the all-beautiful Galatea, 
 if we think slie ever showed him scorn as well 
 as unwillingness. We insist upon her avoiding 
 him with tlie greatest possible respect. 
 
 These fictions of the poets, therefore, besides 
 the mere excitement which they give the imagi- 
 nation, assist remotely to break tlie averseness 
 and uncharitableness of human pride. And 
 they may blunt the point of some fancies that 
 are apt to come upon melancholy minds. 
 When Sir Thomas Brown, in the infinite range 
 of his metaj)hysical optics, turned his glass, as 
 he no doubt often did, towards the inhabitants 
 of otiier worlds, the stories of angels and Cen- 
 taurs would help his imaginative good-nature 
 to a more willing conception of creatures in 
 other planets unlike those on earth ; to other 
 "lords of creation;" and other, and perhaps 
 nobler humanities,noble in spirit, though differ- 
 ing in form. If indeed there can be anything 
 in the starry endlessness of existence, nobler 
 than what we can conceive of love and gene- 
 rosity. 
 
 XXXIV.— SPRING AND DAISIES. 
 
 Spring, while we are writing, is complete. 
 The winds have done their work. The shaken 
 air, well tempei-ed and equalised, has subsid(;d ; 
 the genial rains, however thickly they may 
 come, do not saturate the ground, beyond the 
 power of the sun to dry it up again. Tliere 
 are clear crystal mornings ; noons of blue sky 
 and white cloud ; nights, in which the growing 
 moon seems to lie looking at the stars, like a 
 young shepherdess at her flock. A few days 
 ago she lay gazing in this manner at the soli- 
 tary evening star, like Diana, on the slope of a 
 valley, looking up at Endymion. His young 
 eye seemed to sparkle out upon the world ; 
 while she, bending inwards, her hands behind 
 her head, watched him with an enamoured 
 dumbness. 
 
 But this is the quiet of Spring. Its voices 
 and swift movements have come back also. 
 The swallow shoots by us, like an embodied 
 ardour of the season. The glowing bee has his 
 will of the honied flowers, grappling with them 
 as they tremble. We have not yet heard the 
 nifhtinirale or the cuckoo ; but we can hear 
 them with our imagination, and enjoy them 
 through the content of those who have. 
 
 Then the young green. This is the most apt 
 and perfect mark of the season, — the true issu- 
 ing fortli of the Spring. The trees and bushes 
 are putting forth their crisp fans; the lilac is 
 loaded with bud; the meadows are thick with 
 
 the bright young grass, running into sweeps of 
 white and gold with the daisies and butter- 
 cups. The oiTliards announce their riches, in 
 a shower of silver blossoms. The earth in 
 fertile woods is spread witli yellow and blue 
 carpets of primroses, violets, and hyacinths, 
 over which the birch-trees, like stooping 
 nymphs, hang with their thickening hair. 
 Lilies-of-the-valley, stocks, columbines, lady- 
 smocks, and the intensely red piony which 
 seems to anticipate the full glow of summer- 
 time, all come out to wait upon the season, like 
 fairies from their subterraneous palaces. 
 
 Who is to wonder that the idea of love 
 mingles itself with that of this cheerful and 
 kind time of the year, setting aside even 
 common associations? It is not only its youth, 
 and beauty, and budding life, and " the passion 
 of the groves," that exclaim with the poet, 
 
 Let those love now, who never loved before ; 
 And those who always loved, now love the more *. 
 
 All our kindly impulses are apt to Iiave more 
 sentiment in them, than the world suspect ; 
 and it is by fetching out this sentiment, and 
 making it the ruling association, that we exalt 
 the impulse into generosity and refinement, 
 instead of degrading it, as is too mucli the case, 
 into what is selfish, and coarse, and pollutes all 
 our systems. One of the greatest inspirers of 
 love is gratitude, — not merely on its common 
 grounds, but gratitude for pleasures, whether 
 consciously or unconsciously conferred. Thus 
 we are thankful for the delight given us by a 
 kind and sincere face ; and if we fall in love 
 with it, one great reason is, that we long to 
 return what we have received. The same 
 feeling has a considerable influence in the love 
 that has been felt for men of talents, whose 
 persons or address have not been much calcu- 
 lated to inspire it. In spring-time, joy awakens 
 tlie heart : with joy, awakes gratitude and 
 nature ; and in our gratitude, we return, on its 
 own principle of participation, the love that 
 has been sliown us. 
 
 This association of ideas renders solitude in 
 spring, and solitude in winter, two very differ- 
 ent things. In the latter, we are better content 
 to bear the feelings of the season by ourselves : 
 in the former they are so sweet as well as so 
 ovei-flowing, that we long to share them. 
 Shakspeare, in one of his sonnets, describes 
 himself as so identifying the beauties of the 
 Spring with the thought of his absent mistress, 
 that he says he forgot them in their own 
 character, and played with them only as with 
 her shadow. See how exquisitely he turns a 
 common-place into this fancy ; and what a noble 
 brief portrait of April he gives us at the begin- 
 ning. There is indeed a wonderful mixture of 
 softness and strength in almost every one of 
 the lines. 
 
 * Perviniliutn {■'eneris.—l'axneU'B translation. 
 
 i
 
 SPRING AND DAISIES. 
 
 6S 
 
 From you have I been absent in the spring. 
 
 When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, 
 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing ; 
 
 That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him. 
 
 Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 
 
 Of different flowers in odour and in hue. 
 
 Could make mo any summer's story tell, 
 
 Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew : 
 
 Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, 
 
 Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose : 
 
 They were but sweet, but patterns of delight. 
 
 Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 
 
 Yet seemed it winter still ; and, you away, 
 
 As with your shadow, I with these did play. 
 
 Shakspeare was fond of alluding to April. He 
 did not allow May to have all his regard, be- 
 cause she was richer. Perdita, crowned with 
 flowers, in the Winter^s Tale, is beautifully 
 compared to 
 
 Flora, 
 Peering in April's front. 
 
 There is a line in one of his sonnets, which, 
 agreeably to the image he had in his mind, 
 seems to strike up in one's face, hot and odorous, 
 like perfume in a censer. 
 
 In process of the seasons have I seen 
 
 Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned. 
 
 His allusions to Spring are numerous in pro- 
 portion. We all know the song, containing 
 that fine line, fresh from the most brilliant of 
 pallets : — 
 
 When daisies pied, and violets blue. 
 And lady-smocks all silver white. 
 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 
 Do paint the meadows with delight. 
 
 "We owe a long debt of gratitude to the 
 daisy ; and we take this opportunity of dis- 
 charging a millionth part of it. If we undertook 
 to pay it all, we should have had to write such 
 a book, as is never very likely to be written, — 
 a journal of numberless happy hours in child- 
 hood, kept with the feelings of an infant and 
 the pen of a man. For it would take, we 
 suspect, a depth of delight and a subtlety of 
 words, to express even the vague joy of infancy, 
 such as our learned departures from natural 
 wisdom would find it more difficult to put 
 together, than criticism and comfort, or an old 
 palate and a young relish. — But Ivnowledge is 
 the widening and the brightening road that 
 must conduct us back to the joys from which 
 it led us ; and which it is destined perhaps to 
 secure and extend. We must not quarrel with 
 its asperities, when we can help. 
 
 We do not know tlie Greek name of the 
 daisy, nor do the dictionaries inform us ; and 
 we are not at present in the way of consulting 
 books that might. We always like to see wliat 
 the Greeks say to these things, because tlioy 
 had a sentiment in their enjoyments. The 
 Latins called the daisy Bellis or Belhis, as 
 mucli as to say Nice One. With the French 
 and Italians it has the same name as a Pearl, 
 — Marguerite, Margarita, or, by way of endear- 
 
 ment, ^largheretina*. The same word was 
 the name of a woman, and occasioned infinite 
 intermixtures of com{)liment about pearls, 
 daisies, and fair mistresses. Chaucer, in his 
 beautiful poem of the Flower and the Leaf, which 
 is evidently imitated from some French poetess, 
 says, 
 
 And at the laste there began anon 
 
 A lady for to sing right womanly 
 
 A bargaret t in praising the daisie, 
 
 For as me thought among her notes sweet, 
 
 She said " Si douset est la Margarete." 
 
 " The Margaret is so sweet." Our jMargaret, 
 however, in this allegorical poem, is under- 
 valued in comparison with the laurel ; yet 
 Chaucer perhaps was partly induced to trans- 
 late it on account of its making the figure that 
 it does ; for he has informed us more than 
 once, in a very particular manner, that it was 
 his favourite flower. There is an interestins: 
 passage to this eff'ect in his Leijend of Good 
 Women ; where he says, that nothing but the 
 daisied fields in spring could take him from 
 his books. 
 
 And as for me, though that I can ^ but lite? 
 
 On bookfes for to read I me delight. 
 
 And to hem give I faith and full credence. 
 
 And in my heart have hem in reverence, 
 
 So heartily, that there is game none. 
 
 That from my bookes maketh me to gone, 
 
 But it be seldom, on the holy day ; 
 
 Save certainly, when that the month of May 
 
 Is comen, and that I hear the foules sing. 
 
 And that the flowers ginnen for to spring, 
 
 Farewell my booke, and my devotion. 
 
 Now have I then eke this condition. 
 
 That, of all the flowers in the mead. 
 
 Then love I most those flowers white and red, 
 
 Such that men callen daisies in our town. 
 
 To hem I have so great affection. 
 
 As I said erst, when comen is the May, 
 
 That in the bed there daweth § me no day. 
 
 That I nam up and walking in the mead. 
 
 To seen this flower agenst the simne spread, 
 
 When it upriseth early by the morrow, 
 
 That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow. 
 
 So glad am I, when that 1 have presence 
 
 Of it, to done it all reverence. 
 
 As she that is of all flowers the flower. 
 
 He says that he finds it ever new, and that he 
 shall love it till his " heart dies :" and after- 
 wards, with a natural picture of his resting on 
 the grass, 
 
 Adown full softeley I gan to sink. 
 And leaning on my elbow and my side. 
 The lung d.ay I shope || mo for to abide 
 For nothing else, and I shall not lie, 
 But for to look upon the daisie ; 
 That well by reason men it call may 
 The daisi3, or else the eye of day. 
 
 This etymology, which we have no doubt is 
 the real one, is repeated by Ben Jonson, who 
 
 * This word is originally Greek,— Margarites ; and as 
 the Franks probably brought it from Constantinople, per- 
 haps they brought its association with the daisy also. 
 
 t li.irgaret, Bergerette, a little pastoral. 
 
 } Know but little. § Dawneth. t Shaped.
 
 70 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 takes occasion to spell the word " days-eyes ;" 
 adding, with his usual tendency to overdo a 
 matter of learning, 
 
 Pays-<?ycs, and the lippes of cows ; 
 
 videlicet, cowslips : which is a disentanglement 
 of compounds, in the style of our pleasant 
 parodists : 
 
 Puddings of the plum, 
 
 And fingers of the lady. 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth introduces his homage to the 
 daisy with a passage from George Wither ; 
 which, as it is an old favourite of ours, and 
 extremely applicable both to this article and 
 our whole work, we cannot deny ourselves tlie 
 pleasure of repeating. It is tlie more interest- 
 ing, inasmucli as it was written in prison, 
 where tlie freedom of the author's opinions had 
 thrown him*. He is speaking of his Muse, or 
 Imagination . 
 
 Her divine skill taught me this ; 
 Thiit from every thing I saw 
 I could some instruction draw. 
 And raise pleasure to the height 
 From the meanest object's sight. 
 By the murmur of a spring, 
 Or the least bough's rustcUing ; 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spread 
 Shut, wlicn Titan goes to bed ; 
 Or a sliady bush or tree ; 
 She could more infuse in me, 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 In some other wiser man. 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth undertakes to patronise the 
 Celandine, because nobody else will notice it ; 
 which is a good reason. But though he tells 
 us, in a startling piece of information, that 
 
 Poets, vain men in their mood. 
 Travel with the multitude, 
 
 yet he falls in with his old brethren of England 
 and Normandy, and becomes loyal to the daisy. 
 
 Be violets in their secret mews 
 
 The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse ; 
 
 Proud be the rose, with rains and dews 
 
 Her liead impearling ; 
 Thou llv'st with less ambitious aim. 
 Yet hast not gone without thy fame ; 
 Thou art indeed, by many a claim. 
 
 The poet's darling. 
 ***** 
 
 A nun demure, of lowly port ; 
 
 Or sprightly maiden of Love's court. 
 
 In thy simplicity the sport 
 
 Of all temptations ; 
 A queen in crown of rubies drest ; 
 A starveling in a scanty vest ; 
 Are all, as seem to suit thee best. 
 
 Thy appellations. 
 
 A little Cyclops, with one eye 
 Staring to threaten or defy, — 
 That thought comes next, and instantly 
 
 * It is not generally known, that Chaucer was four 
 years in prison, in his old age, on the same account. lie 
 was a Wicklifiite, — one of the precursors of the Keforma- 
 tion. His prison, doubtless, was no diminisher of his love 
 of the daisy. 
 
 The freak is over ; 
 Tlie freak will vanish, anil behold I 
 A silver shield with boss of gold, 
 Tliat sjircads itself, some fairy bold 
 
 In light to cover. 
 
 I see thee glittering from afar ; 
 And then thou iirt a pretty star, 
 Not quite so fair as many are 
 
 In heaven above tlioe ! 
 Yet like a star, with glittering crest, 
 Self-poised in air, thou seem'st to rest ; — 
 Blay peace come never to his nest, 
 
 Who shall reprove thee. 
 
 Sweet flower ! for by that name at last. 
 When all my reveries are past, 
 I call tliee, and to that cleave fast ; 
 
 Sweet silent creature ! 
 That breath 'st with me in sun and air. 
 Do thou, as thou art wont, repair 
 My heart with gladness, and ashare 
 
 Of thy meek nature. 
 
 Mr, Wordsworth calls the daisy " an unas- 
 suming common-place of Nature," which it is ; 
 and he praises it very becomingly for dis- 
 charging its duties so cheerfully, in that uni- 
 versal character. But we cannot agree with 
 him in thinking that it has a " homely face." 
 Not that we should care, if it had ; for home- 
 liness does not make ugliness ; but we appeal 
 to everybody, whether it is proi)er to say this 
 of la belle Marguerite. In the first place, its 
 shape is very pretty and slender, but not too 
 much so. Then it has a boss of gold, set round 
 and irradiated with silver points. Its yellow 
 and fair white are in so high a taste of contrast, 
 that Spenser has chosen the same colours for 
 a picture of Leda reposing : 
 
 Oh wondrous skill and sweet wit of the man ! 
 
 That her in daffodillies sleeping laid. 
 
 From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade. 
 
 It is for the same reason, that the daisy, 
 being chiefly white, makes such a beautiful 
 show in company with the buttercup. But 
 this is not all ; for look at the back, and you 
 find its fair petals blushing with a most delight- 
 ful red. And how compactly and delicately is 
 the neck set in green ! Belle et douce Marguerite, 
 aimahle swur dti roi Kingcup, we would tilt 
 for thee with a hundred pens, against the 
 stoutest poet that did not find perfection in 
 thy cheek. 
 
 But here somebody may remind us of the 
 spring sliowers, and wliat drawbacks they are 
 upon going into the fields. — Not at all so, when 
 the .spring is really confirmed, and the showers 
 but April-like and at intervals. Let us turn 
 our imaginations to the bright side of spring, 
 and we shall forget the showers. You see 
 they have been forgotten just this moment. 
 Besides, we are not likely to stray too far into 
 the fields ; and if we should, are there not 
 hats, bonnets, barns, cottages, elm-trees, and 
 good wills ? We may make these things zests, 
 if we please, instead of drawbacks.
 
 MAY-DAY. 
 
 71 
 
 XXXV.— MAY-DAY. 
 
 May-day is a word, which used to awaken 
 in the minds of our ancestors all the ideas of 
 youth, and verdui-e, and blossoming, and love ; 
 and hilarity ; in short, the union of the two 
 best things in the world, the love of nature, 
 and the love of each other. It was the day, 
 on which the arrival of the year at maturity 
 was kept, like that of a blooming heiress. 
 They caught her eye as she was coming, and 
 sent up hundreds of songs of joy. 
 
 Now the bright Morning-Star, Day's harbinger, 
 Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
 The flowery May, v/ho from )ier green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. 
 
 Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire 
 
 Mirth, and youth, and warm desire: 
 
 Woods and groves are of thy dressing ; 
 
 Hill and dale, doth boast thy blessing. 
 Thus we salute thee with our early song. 
 And welcome thee, and wish thee long. 
 
 These songs were stopped by Milton's friends 
 the Puritans, whom in his old age he differed 
 with, most likely on these points among others. 
 But till then, they appear to have been as old, 
 all over Europe, as the existence of society. 
 The Druids are said to have had festivals in 
 honour of May. Our Teutonic ancestors had, 
 undoubtedly ; and in the countries which had 
 constituted the Western Roman EmjDire, Flora 
 still saw thanks paid for her flowers, though 
 her worship had gone away*. 
 
 The homage which was paid to the Month 
 of Love and flowers, may be divided into two 
 sorts, the general and the individual. The 
 first consisted in going with others to gather 
 May, and in joining in sports and games after- 
 wards. On the first of the month, " the juve- 
 nile part of both sexes," says Bourne, in his 
 Popular Antiquities, " were wont to rise a little 
 after midnight and walk to some neighbouring 
 wood, where they broke down branches from 
 the trees, and adorned them with nosegays 
 and crowns of flowers. "When this was done, 
 they returned with tlieir booty about the rising 
 of the sun, and made their doors and windows 
 to triumi)h in the flowery spoil. The after 
 part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing 
 round a May-polo, which being j)laccd in a 
 convenient part of the village, stood there, as 
 it were, consecrated to^the Goddess of Flowers, 
 without the least violation ofl'ered to it, in tlie 
 whole circle of the year." Spenser, in his 
 Shepherd's Calendar, has detailed the circum- 
 stances, in a style like a rustic dance. 
 
 * The great May holiday observed over the West of 
 Europe was known for centuries, up to a late period, under 
 the name of the Belte, or Beltane. Such a number of 
 etymologies, all perplcxingly probable, have been found 
 for this word, that we have been surprised to miss among 
 them that of Bel-temps, the Fine Time or Seiison. Thus 
 Printcmps, the First Time, or Prime Season, is the 
 Spring. 
 
 Younge folke now floeken in — every where 
 To gather May-buskets * — and swelling brere ; 
 And home they hasten — the postes to dight, 
 And all the kirk-pilours — eare day-light. 
 With hawthorne buds — and sweet eglantine. 
 And girlonds of roses — and soppes in wine. 
 
 Sicker this morowe, no longer agoe, 
 
 I saw a shole of shepherds outgoe 
 
 With singing, and shouting, and jolly chere ; 
 
 Before them yode t a lustie tabrere % 
 
 That to the many a hornpipe played, 
 
 Whereto they dauncen eehe one with his mayd. 
 
 To see these folks make such jovisaunee, 
 
 Made my heart after the pipe to damice. 
 
 Tho § to the greene wood they speeden hem all. 
 
 To fetehen home May with their musicall ; 
 
 And home they bringen, in a royall throne, 
 
 Crowned as king ; and his queen attone || 
 
 Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend 
 
 A fayre flocke of faeries, and a fresh bend 
 
 Of lovely nymphs. O that I were there 
 
 To helpen the ladies their IMay-bush beare. 
 
 The day was passed in sociality and manly 
 sports ; — in archery, and running, and pitching 
 the bar, — in dancing, singing, playiug music, 
 acting Robin Hood and his company, and 
 making a well-earned feast upon all tho 
 country dainties in season. It closed with an 
 award of prizes. 
 
 As I have seen the Lady of the May, 
 
 Set in an arbour (on a holiday) 
 
 Built by tho Maypole, where the jocimd swains 
 
 Dance with tlie maidens to the bag-pipe's strains, 
 
 When envious night commands them to be gone. 
 
 Call for the merry youngsters one by one. 
 
 And for their well performance soon disposes. 
 
 To this a garland interwove with roses, 
 
 To that a carved hook, or well-wrought scrip. 
 
 Gracing another with her cherry lip ; 
 
 To one her garter, to another then 
 
 A handkerchief cast o'er and o'er again ; 
 
 And none returneth empty, that hath spent 
 
 His pains to fill their rural merrimentlj. 
 
 Among the gentry and at court the spirit of 
 the same enjoyments took place, modified ac- 
 cording to the taste or rank of the entertainers. 
 The most universal amusement, agreeably to 
 the general current in tho veins, and the com- 
 mon participation of flesh and blood (for rank 
 knows no distinction of legs and knee-pans), 
 was dancing. Contests of chivalry supplied 
 the place of more rural gymnastics. But the 
 most poetical and elaborate entertainment was 
 the Mask. A certain flowery grace was 
 sprinkled over all ; and the finest spirits of the 
 
 * Baskets — Boskets — Bushes — from Bosehetti, Ital. 
 
 t Yotle, Went. f Tabrere, a Tabourer. 
 
 § Tho, Then. H Attone, At once— With him. 
 
 ^ Britannia's Pastorats, by William Browne. Song 
 the 4th. Browne, like his friend A\'ither, from whom we 
 quoted a passage last week, wanted strength and the 
 power of selection ; though not to such .in extent. He is 
 however well worth reading by those who can expatiate 
 over a pastoral subject, like a meadowy tract of country ; 
 finding out the beautiful spots, and gratified, if not much 
 delighted, with the rest. His genius, which was by no 
 meims destitute of the social ]):u-t of passion, seems to 
 have been turned almost wholly to description, by the 
 beauties of his native county Devonshire.
 
 72 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 time thought they showed botli their manliness 
 and wisdom, in knowing liow to raise the plea- 
 sures of the season to their height. Sir Philip 
 Sydney, the idea of whom has come down to 
 us as a personification of all the refinement of 
 that age, is fondly recollected by Spenser in 
 this character. 
 
 His sports wore faire, his joyanco innocent, 
 Swcot without soure, and honey without gall : 
 And he himself seemed made for merriment, 
 Merrily masking both in bowre and hall. 
 There was no pleasure nor delightful! play, 
 ■Wlien Astrophcl soever was away. 
 
 For he could pipe, and daunee, and caroll sweet. 
 Amongst the shepheards in their shearing feast ; 
 As somer's larke that with her song doth greet 
 The dawning day forth comming from the E^t. 
 And layes of love he also could compose ; 
 Thrice happie she, whom he to praise did choose. 
 
 Astrophcl, St. 5. 
 
 con 
 
 Individual homage to the month of May 
 — ^nsisted in paying respect to it though alone, 
 and in plucking flowers and flowering boughs 
 to adorn apartments with. 
 
 This maiden, in a mom betime. 
 
 Went forth when May was in the prime 
 
 To get sweet setywall, 
 The honey-suckle, the harlock, 
 The lily, and the lady-smock. 
 
 To deck her summer-hall. 
 
 Drayton's Pastorals, Eclog. 4. 
 
 But when morning pleasures are to be spoken 
 of, tiie lovers of poetry who do not know 
 Chaucer, are like those who do not know 
 what it is to be up in the morning. He has 
 left us two exquisite pictures of the solitary 
 observance of May, in his Palamon and Arcite. 
 They are the more curious, inasmuch as the 
 actor in one is a lady, and in the other a knight. 
 How far they owe any of their beauty to his 
 original, the Thesade of Boccaccio, we cannot 
 say ; for we never had the happiness of meet- 
 ing with that rare work. The Italians have 
 BO neglected it, that they have not only never 
 given it a rifacimento or re-modelling, as in 
 the instance of Boiardo's poem, but are almost 
 as much unacquainted with it, we believe, as 
 foreign nations. Chaucer thought it worth his 
 •while to be both acquainted with it, and to 
 make otliers so ; and we may \'enture to say, 
 that we know of no Italian after Boccaccio's 
 age who was so likely to understand him to 
 the core, as his English admirer, Ariosto not 
 excepted. Still, from what we have seen of 
 Boccaccio's poetry, we can imagine the Theseide 
 to have been too lax and long. If Chaucer's 
 Palamon and Arcite be all that he thought pro- 
 per to distil from it, it must have been greatly 
 80 ; for it was an epic. But at all events the 
 essence is an exquisite one. The tree must 
 have been a fine old enormity, from which such 
 honey could be drawn. 
 
 To begin, as in duty bound, with the lady. 
 How she sparkles through the antiquity of the 
 language, like a young beauty in an old hood ! 
 
 Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, 
 Till it folic ones in a morowe of May, 
 That Kmelie — 
 
 But we will alter the spelling where we can, 
 as in a former instance, merely to let the 
 reader see what a notion is in his way, if lie 
 suffers the look of Chaucer's words to prevent 
 his enjoying him. 
 
 Thus passeth year by year, and day by day. 
 Till it fell once, in a morrow of May, 
 Th.at Emily, that fairer was to seen , 
 Than is the lily upon his stalk green, 
 And fresher than the May with flowers new, 
 (For with the rosy colour strove her hue ; 
 I n'ot which was the finer of them two) 
 Ere it was day, as she was wont to do, 
 She was arisen and all ready dight. 
 For May will have no sluggardy a-night : 
 The season prickcth every gentle heart. 
 And maketh him out of his sleep to start, 
 And saith " Arise, and do thine observance." 
 
 This maketh Emily have remembrance 
 To do honour to May, and for to rise. 
 Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise : 
 Her yellow hair was braided in a tress, 
 Behind her back, a yardo * long I guess : 
 And in the garden, at the sun uprist. 
 She walketh up and do^vn where as her list ; 
 She gathereth flowers, party white and red 
 To make a subtle garland for her head ; 
 And as an angel, heavenly she sung. 
 The great tower, that was so thick and strong. 
 Which of the castle was the chief dongeon, 
 (Where as these knightcs wcrcn in prison, 
 Of which I told6 you, and tellen shall) 
 Was even joinant to the garden wall, 
 There as this Emily had her playing. 
 
 Bright was the sun, and clear that morwening — 
 
 [How finely, to our ears at least, the second 
 line of the couplet always rises up from this 
 full stop at the first !] 
 
 Bright was the sun, and clear that morwining 
 And Palamon, this woeful prisoner. 
 As was his wont, by leave of his jailer. 
 Was risen, and roamed in a chamber on high, 
 In which he all the noble city sigh t. 
 And eke the garden, full of branches green, 
 There as this fresh Emilia the sheen % 
 Was in her walk, and roamed up and down. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of Dryden, says 
 upon the passage before us, and Dryden's ver- 
 sion of it, that " the modern must yield the 
 palm to the ancient, in sj)ite of the beauty of 
 his versification." We quote from memory, 
 but this is tlic substance of his words. For 
 our parts, we agree with them, as to the con- 
 signment of the palm, but not as to the ex- 
 ception about the versification. With some 
 allowance as to our present mode of accentua- 
 tion, it appears to us to be touched with a finer 
 sense of music even than Dryden's. It is more 
 delicate, without any inferiority in strength, 
 and still more various. 
 
 But to our other portrait. It is as sparkling 
 with young manhood, as the former is with a 
 
 * These additional syllables are to be read slightly, 
 like the e in French verse. 
 
 t Saw. t Tlie sliining.
 
 jMAY-DAY. 
 
 73 
 
 gentler freshness. "What a burst of radiant 
 joy is in the second couplet ; what a vital 
 quickness in the comparison of the horse, 
 " starting as the fire ; " and what a native and 
 happy ease in the conclusion ! 
 
 Tlie busy lark, tlie messenger of day, 
 Salewetli * in her song the morrow gray ; 
 And fiery Phoebua riseth up so bright, 
 That all the orient laugheth of the sight ; 
 And witli his stremes drieth in the greves t 
 The silver droppes hanging in the leaves ; 
 And Arcite, that is in the court real J 
 With Theseus tlie squier principal. 
 Is risen, and looketh on the merry day ; 
 And for to do his observance to May, 
 Rememb'ring on the point of his desire. 
 He on the courser, starting as the fire. 
 Is ridden to the field^s him to play, 
 Out of the court, wtjre it a mile or tway : 
 And to the grove, of which that I you told. 
 By aventure his way 'gan to hold. 
 To maken him a garland of the greves, 
 Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves, 
 And loud he sung against the sunny sheen : 
 " O May, with all thy flowers and thy green. 
 Right welcome be thou, faire freshfe May : 
 I hope that I some green here getten may." 
 And from his courser, with a lusty heart. 
 Into the grove full hastily he start. 
 And in the path he roamed up and down. 
 
 The versification of this is not so striking as 
 the other, but Dryden again falls short in the 
 freshness and feeling of the sentiment. His 
 lines are beautiful ; but they do not come 
 home to us with so happy and cordial a face. 
 Here they are. The word morning in the 
 first line, as it is repeated in the second, we 
 are bound to consider as a slip of the pen ; per- 
 haps for mounting. 
 
 The morning-lark, the messenger of day, 
 
 Saluteth in her song the morning gray ; 
 
 And soon the sun arose with beams so bright. 
 
 That all the horizon laughed to see the joyous sight : 
 
 He with his tepid rays the rose renews, 
 
 And licks the drooping leaves juid dries the dews ; 
 
 When Arcite left his bed, rcsolv'd to pay 
 
 Observance to the month of merry Jlay : 
 
 Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode. 
 
 That scarcely prints the turf on whicli lie trod : 
 
 At ease he seemed, and prancing o'er the plains, 
 
 Turned only to the grove his horse's reins. 
 
 The grove I named before ; and, lighted there, 
 
 A woodbine garland souglit to crown his hair ; 
 
 Then turned his face against the rising day. 
 
 And raised his voice to welcome in the May: 
 
 " For thee, sweet month, tlie groves green liveries wear, 
 
 If not tlio first, the fairest of the year : 
 
 For thee the Graces lead the dancing Hours, 
 
 And Nature's ready pencil paints the flowers: 
 
 When thy short reign is past, the feverish Sun 
 
 The sultry tropic fears, and moves more slowly on. 
 
 So may thy tender blossoms fear no blijht. 
 
 Nor goats with vtnom'd teeth thy tendrils bite, 
 
 As thou slialt guide my wandering steps to find 
 
 The fragrant groens I seek, my brows to bind." 
 
 His vows address'd, within tlie grove he stray 'd. 
 
 How poor is this to Arcite's leaping from his 
 courser " with a lusty heart !" How inferior tlie 
 common-place of the " fiery steed," which need 
 not involve any actual notion in the writer's 
 
 I 
 
 * Saluteth. 
 
 I Groves. 
 
 t Royal. 
 
 mind, to the courser " starting as the fire ; " — 
 how inferior the turning liis face to " the rising 
 day " and raising his voice to the singing " loud 
 against the sunny sheen ; " and lastly, the 
 whole learned invocation and adjuration of 
 May, about guiding his " wandering steps " and 
 " so may thy tender blossoms " &c. to the call 
 upon the " fair fresh May," ending with that 
 simple, quick-hearted line, in which he hopes 
 he shall get " some green here ; " a touch in 
 the happiest vivacity ! Uryden's genius, for the 
 most part, wanted faith in nature. It was too 
 gross and sophisticate. Tliere was as much 
 difference between him and his original, as be- 
 tween a hot noon in perukes at St. James's, 
 and one of Chaucer's lounges on the grass, of 
 a ^Tay -morning. 
 
 All this worship of May is over now. There 
 is no issuing forth, in glad companies, to gather 
 boughs ; no adorning of houses with " the 
 flowery spoil ; " no songs, no dances, no village 
 sports and coronations, no courtly poetries, no 
 sense and acknowledgment of the quiet pre- 
 sence of nature, in grove or glade. 
 
 O dolce primavera, o fior novelli, 
 
 O aure, o aiboseelli, o fresche erbette, 
 
 O piagge benedette ; o colli, o monti, 
 
 O vail), flumi, o fonti, o verdi rivi, 
 
 Palme lauri, ed olive, edere e mirti ; 
 
 O gloriosi spiriti de gli boschi ; 
 
 O Eco, o antri foschi, o chiare linfe, 
 
 O faretrate ninfe, o agiesti Pani, 
 
 O Satiri e Silvani, o Fauni e Driadi, 
 
 Naiadi ed Amadriadi, o Scmidee. 
 
 Oreadi e Napee,— or siele sole. — Sannazzaro. 
 
 O thou delicious spring, O ye new flowers, 
 
 O airs, O youngling bowers ; fresh thickening grass. 
 
 And plains beneath heaven's face; O hills and mountains. 
 
 Valleys, and streams, and fountains ; banks of green. 
 
 Myrtles, and palms serene, ivies, and bays ; 
 
 And ye who warmed old lays, spirits o' the woods. 
 
 Echoes, and solitudes, and lakes of light ; 
 
 O quivered virgins bright, Pans rustical, 
 
 Satyrs and Sylvans all. Dryads, and ye 
 
 That up the mountains be ; and ye beneath 
 
 In meaJo\7 or flowery heath, — ye ai'c alone. 
 
 Two hundred years ago, our ancestors used 
 to delight in anticipating their May holidays. 
 Bigotry came in, and frowned them away ; 
 then Debauchery, and identified all pleasures 
 with tlie town ; then Avarice, and we have 
 ever since been mistaking the means for the 
 end. 
 
 Fortiniately, it does not follow that we shall 
 continue to do so. Commerce, wliile it thinks it 
 is only exchanging commodities, is helping to 
 difi^"use knowledge. All other gains, — all 
 selfish and extravagant systems of acquisition, 
 — tend to over-do themselves, and to topple 
 down by their own undiffused magnitude. The 
 world, as it learns other things, may learn not 
 to confound the means witli the end, or at least 
 (to speak more philosophically), a really poor 
 means with a really richer. The veriest 
 cricket-player on a green has as sufficient a 
 quantity of excitement as a fundholder or a
 
 74 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 partisan ; ami lu'altii,and sjnrits,and manliness 
 to boot. Knowled^^'o may <xo on ; must do so, 
 from necessity ; and siioidd do so, for the ends 
 •wc speak of ; but knowledge, so far from being 
 incompatible with simplicity of pleasures, is 
 tlie ([uickest to perceive its wealth. Chaucer 
 would lie for hours, looking at the daisies. 
 Scipio and Lselius could amuse themselves with 
 making ducks and drakes on the water. Epa- 
 minondas, the greatest of all the active spirits 
 of Greece, was a flute-player and dancer. 
 Alfred the Great could act the whole part of a 
 minstrel. Epicurus taught the riches of tem- 
 perance and intellectual pleasure in a garden. 
 The other pliilosophers of his country walked 
 between heaven and earth in the colloquial 
 bowers of Academus ; and " the wisest heart 
 of Solomon," who found everything vain be- 
 cause he was a king, has left us panegyrics on 
 the Spring and the " voice of the turtle," 
 because he was a poet, a lover, and a wise man. 
 
 XXXVI.— SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-DAY. 
 
 The fifth of May, making the due allowance 
 of twelve days from the twenty-third of April, 
 according to the change of the Style, is the birth- 
 day of Shakspeare. Pleasant thoughts must 
 be associated with him in everything. If he is 
 not to be born in April, he must be born in May. 
 Nature will have him with her on her blithest 
 holidays, like her favourite lover. 
 
 O thou divine human creature — greater 
 name than even divine poet or divine philoso- 
 pher — and yet thou wast all three — a very 
 spring and vernal abundance of all fair and 
 noble things is to be found in thy productions ! 
 They are truly a second nature. We walk in 
 them, with whatever society we please ; either 
 with men, or fair women, or circling spirits, or 
 with none but the whispering airs and leaves. 
 Thou makest worlds of green trees and gentle 
 natures for us, in thy forests of Arden, and thy 
 courtly retirements of Navarre. Thou bringest 
 ■us among tlie holiday lasses on the green 
 sward ; layest us to sleep among fairies in tlie 
 bowers of midsummer ; wakest us with the 
 song of the lark and the silver-sweet voices of 
 lovers : bringest more music to our ears, both 
 from earth and from the planets ; anon settest 
 us upon enchanted islands, where it welcomes 
 us again, from the touching of invisible instru- 
 ments ; and after all, restorcst us to our still 
 desired haven, the arms of humanity. Whe- 
 ther grieving us or making us glad, thou 
 makest us kinder and hapjiier. The tears which 
 thou fetchest down, are like the rains of April, 
 softening the times that come after them. 
 Thy smiles are those of the month of love, the 
 more blessed and universal for the tears. 
 
 The birth-days of such men as Shakspeare 
 ought to be kept, in common gi'atitude and 
 
 affection, like those of relations whom we love, 
 lie has said, in a line full of liim, tiiat 
 
 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
 
 How near does he become to us with his thou- 
 sand touches ! The lustre and utility of intel- 
 lectual power is so increasing in the eyes of 
 the world, tliat we do not despair of seeing the 
 time when his birthday will be a subject of 
 public rejoicing ; when the regular feast will 
 be served up in tavern and dwelling-house, tiie 
 bust crowned with laurel, and the theatres 
 si)arkle with illuminations. 
 
 In the mean time, it is in the power of every 
 admirer of Shakspeare to honour the day 
 privately. Rich or poor, busy or at leisure, all 
 may do it. The busiest finds time to eat his 
 dinner, and may pitch one considerate glass of 
 wine down his throat. The poorest may call 
 him to mind, and drink his memory in honest 
 water. We had mechanically written health, as 
 if he were alive. So he is in spirit ; — and the 
 spirit of such a writer is so constantly with us, 
 that it would be a good thing, a judicious ex- 
 travagance, a contemplative piece of jollity, to 
 drink his health instead of his memory. But 
 this, we fear, should be an impulse. We must 
 content ourselves with having felt it here, and 
 drinking it in imagination. To act upon it, 
 as a proposal of the day before yesterday, 
 might be too much like getting up an extem- 
 pore gesture, or practising an unspeakable 
 satisfaction. 
 
 An outline, however, may be drawn of the 
 manner in which such a birth-day might be 
 spent. The tone and colouring would be filled 
 up, of course, according to the taste of the 
 parties. — If any of our readers, then, have 
 leisure as well as inclination to devote a day to 
 the memory of Shakspeare, we would advise 
 them, in the first place, to walk out, whether 
 alone or in company, and enjoy during the 
 morning as much as possible of those beauties 
 of nature, of which he has left us such exquisite 
 pictures. They would take a volume of him in 
 tlieir hands the most suitable to the occasion ; 
 not to hold themselves bound to sit down and 
 read it, nor even to refer to it, if the original 
 work of nature should occupy them too much ; 
 but to read it, if they read anything ; and to 
 feel that Shakspeare was with them substan- 
 tially as well as spiritually ; — that they had 
 him with them under their arm. There is 
 another thought connected with his presence, 
 wliicli may render the Londoner's walk the 
 more interesting. Shakspeare had neither the 
 vanity which induces a man to be disgusted 
 with what everybody can enjoy ; nor, on the 
 other hand, tlie involuntary self-degradation 
 wliicli renders us incapable of enjoying what is 
 abased by our own familiarity of acquaintance- 
 shij). About the metropolis, therefore, there is 
 perhaps not a single rural spot, any more than 
 about Stratford-upon-Avon, which he has not 
 
 J
 
 LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. 
 
 75 
 
 himself enjoyed. The south side of London 
 was the one nearest his theatre. Hyde Park 
 was then, as it is now, one of the fashionable 
 promenades. Richmond also was in high pride 
 of estimation. At Greenwich Elizabeth held 
 her court, and walked abroad amid the gallant 
 service of the Sydneys and Raleighs. And 
 Hampstead and Highgate, with the country 
 about them, were, as they have been ever since, 
 the favourite resort of the lovers of natural 
 productions. Nay, without repeating what we 
 said in a former number about the Mermaid in 
 Cornhill, the Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, the 
 Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and other town 
 associations with Shakspeare, the reader wlio 
 cannot get out of London on his birth-day, and 
 who has the luck to be hard at work in 
 Chancery-lane or the Borough, may be pretty 
 certain that Shakspeare has admired the fields 
 and the May flowers there ; for the fields were 
 close to the latter, perhaps came up to the very 
 walls of the theatre ; and the suburban mansion 
 and gardens of his friend Lord Southampton 
 occupied^ the spot now called Southampton- 
 buildings. It was really a coimtry neighbour- 
 hood. The Old Bourne (Holborn) ran by with 
 a bridge over it ; and Gray's Inn was an Aca- 
 demic bower in the fields. 
 
 The dinner does not much signify. The 
 sparest or the most abundant will suit the 
 various fortunes of the great poet ; only it will 
 be as well for those who can afford wine, to 
 pledge FalstafF in a cup of "sherris sack," 
 which seems to have been a sort of sherry 
 negus. After dinner Shakspeare's volumes 
 will come well on the table ; lying among the 
 dessert like laurels, where there is one, and sup- 
 plying it where there is not. Instead of songs, 
 the persons present may be called upon for 
 scenes. But no stress need be laid on this 
 proposition, if they do not like to read out 
 aloud. Tlie pleasure of the day should be as 
 much at liberty as possible ; and if tlie com- 
 pany prefer conversation, it will not be very 
 easy for them to touch upon any subject which 
 Sliakspeare shall not have touched upon also. If 
 the enthusiasm is in high taste, the ladies 
 should be crowned with violets, which (next to 
 the roses of their lips) seem to have been his 
 favourite flower. After tea should come 
 singing and music, especially the songs which 
 Arne set from his plays, and the ballad of Thou 
 soft-flowing Avon. If an engraving or bust of 
 him could occupy the principal place in the 
 room, it would look like the " present deity" of 
 the occasion ; and we have known a very 
 pleasant eftectproduced by evcrybody'sbringing 
 some quotation applicable to him from liis 
 works, and laying it before his image, to be 
 read in the course of the evening. 
 
 XXXVII.— LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. 
 
 Among the pieces printed at the end of 
 Chaucer's works, and attributed to him, is a 
 translation, under this title, of a poem of the 
 celebrated Alain Chartier, secretary to Charles 
 the Sixth and Seventh. It was the title which 
 suggested to a friend the verses at the end of 
 our present Number*. We wish Alain could 
 have seen them. He would have found a 
 Troubadour air for them, and sung them to 
 La Bdle Dame Agnes Sorel, who was, however, 
 not Sans Mercy. The union of the imaginativfc 
 and the real is very striking throughout, parti- 
 cularly in the dream. The wild gentleness of 
 the rest of the thoughts and of the music are 
 alike old, and they are also alike young ; for 
 love and imagination are always young, let 
 them bring with them what times and accom- 
 paniments they may. If we take real flesh and 
 blood with us, we may throw ourselves, on the 
 facile wings of our sympathy, into what age we 
 please. It is only by trying to feel, as well as 
 to fancy, through the medium of a costume, 
 that writers become fleshless masks and cloaks 
 — things like the trophies of the ancients, when 
 they hung up the empty armour of an enemy. 
 
 LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY. 
 
 Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight. 
 
 Alone and palely loitering ? 
 The sedge is wither'd from the lake, 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wglit. 
 
 So haggard and so woebegone ? 
 The squirrel's granary is full, 
 
 And the harvest 's done. 
 
 I see a lily on thy brow. 
 
 With anguish moist and fever dew ; 
 And on thy cheek a fading rose 
 
 Fast withereth too. 
 
 I met a lady in the meads. 
 
 Full beautiful, a fairy's child ; 
 Ilcr hair was long, her foot was light. 
 
 And her eyes were wild. 
 
 I set her on my pacing steed, 
 
 And nothing else saw all day long ; 
 
 For sideways would she lean and sing 
 A fairy's song. 
 
 I made a garland for her head. 
 
 And bracelets too, and fragrant zone ; 
 
 Slie look'd at me as she did love. 
 And made sweet moan. 
 
 She found me roots of relish sweet. 
 And lioney wild, and manna dew ; 
 
 And sure in language strange she said, 
 I love thee true. 
 
 She took me to her elfin grot. 
 
 And there she gazed and sighed deep. 
 
 And there I shut her wild sad eyes — 
 So kiss'd to sleep. 
 
 • The Late Blr. Keats. Tliis beautiful little effusion is 
 reprinted in the Indicator, wlierc it originally appeared, 
 because it is not to be found in the collected works of that 
 delightful poet.
 
 7« 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 And there wc sluinber'J on tlio moss. 
 And tliert' I <lroani'd, ah woe betide 
 
 The latest dream 1 ever dream 'd 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 I saw pale kings, and princes too. 
 
 Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; 
 
 Who cried, " La Uclle Danic Sans Mercy 
 Ilath thee in thrall .' " 
 
 1 saw their starved lips in the gloom 
 
 With horrid warning gaped wide. 
 And I awoke and found lue here. 
 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 And this is why I sojourn here. 
 
 Alone and palely loitering. 
 Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake. 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 Caviarr.* 
 
 XXXVIII. OF STICKS. 
 
 Among other comparative injuries which we 
 are accustomed to do to the characters of things 
 animate and inanimate, in order to gratify our 
 human vanity, such as calling a rascal a dog 
 (which is a great compliment), and saying that 
 a tyrant makes a beast of himself (which it 
 would be a very good thing, and a lift in the 
 world, if he could), is a habit in wliich some 
 ])crsous indulge themselves, of calling insipid 
 things and persons sticks. Such and such a one 
 is said to write a stick ; and such another is 
 himself called a stick ; — a poor stick, a mere 
 stick, a stick of a fellow. 
 
 We pi'otest against this injustice done to 
 those useful and once flourishing sons of a good 
 old stock. Take, for instance, a common cherry 
 stick, which is one of the favourite sort. In 
 the first place, it is a very pleasant substance 
 to look at, the grain running round it in glossy 
 and shadowy rings. Then it is of primaival 
 antiquity, handed down from scion to scion 
 through the most flourishing of genealogical 
 trees. In the third place, it is of Eastern 
 origin ; of a stock, which it is possible may 
 have furnished Haroun Al Raschid with a 
 djerecd, or Mahomet with a camel-stick, or 
 Xenoplion in his famous retreat with fences, 
 or Xerxes with tent-pins, or Alexander with a 
 javelin, or Sardanapalus with tarts, or Solomon 
 with a simile for his mistress' lips, or Jacob 
 with a crook, or Methusalem with shadow, or 
 Zoroaster with mathematical instruments, or 
 the builders of Babel with scaffolding. Lastly, 
 how do you know but that you may have eaten 
 cherries off this very stick ? for it was once 
 alive with sap, and rustling with foliage, and 
 powdered witli blossoms, and rod and laughing 
 with fruit. Where the leathern tassel now 
 hangs, may have dangled a bunch of berries ; 
 and instead of the brass ferule poking in the 
 
 * " Caviare to the multitude." — Ilamlft. The signature 
 was of Mr. Keats's own putting ; a touching circumstance, 
 when we call to mind the treatment he met with, and 
 consider how his memory has triumphed over it- 
 
 mud, the tip was growing into the air with its 
 youngest green. 
 
 The use of sticks in general is of the very 
 greatest antiquity. It is impossible to conceive 
 a state of society in which bouglis should not 
 be plucked from trees for some purpose of 
 utility or amusement. Savages use clubs, 
 hunters require lances, and shepherds their 
 crooks. Then came the sceptre, which is ori- 
 ginally nothing but a staff, or a lance, or a 
 crook, distinguished from others. The Greek 
 word for sceptre signifies also a walking-stick. 
 A mace, however plumped up and disguised 
 with gilding and a heavy crown, is only the 
 same thing in the hands of an inferior ruler ; 
 and so are all other sticks used in office, from 
 the baton of the Grand Constable of France 
 down to the tipstaff of a constable in Bow-street. 
 As the shepherd's dog is the origin of the gen- 
 tlest whelp that lies on a hearth-cushion, and 
 of the most pompous barker that jumps about 
 a pair of greys, so the merest stick used by a 
 modern Arcadian, when he is driving his flock 
 to Leadenhall-market with a piece of candle in 
 his hat, and No. 554 on his arm, is the first 
 great parent and original of all authoritative 
 staves, from the beadle's cane wherewith he 
 terrifies charity-boys who eat bull's-eyes in 
 church-time, up to the silver mace of the ver- 
 ger, to the wands of parishes and governors, — 
 the tasselled staff, wherewith the Band-Major 
 so loftily picks out his measured way before 
 the musicians, and which he holds up when 
 they are to cease ; to the White Staff" of the 
 Lord Treasurer ; the court-officer emphatically 
 called the Lord Gold Stick ; the Bishop's 
 Crosier (Pedum Episcopale), whereby he is 
 supposed to pull back the feet of his straying 
 flock ; and the royal and imperial sceptre 
 aforesaid, whose holders, formerly called Shep- 
 herds of the people (Jloifxivis Aaaii'), were sedi- 
 tiously said to fleece more than to protect. 
 The Vaulting-Staff, a luxurious instrument of 
 exercise, must have been used in times imme- 
 morial for passing streams and rough ground 
 with. It is tlie ancestor of the staff with 
 which Pilgrims travelled. The Staff and 
 Quarter-Staff" of the country Robin Hoods is 
 a remnant of the war-club. So is the Irish 
 Shilelah, wliich a friend has well defined to be 
 " a stick with two butt-ends." Tiie originals of 
 all these, that are not extant in our own coun- 
 try, may still be seen wherever there are nations 
 uncivilised. The Negro Prince, who asked our 
 countrymen what was said of him in Europe, 
 was surrounded in state with a parcel of ragged 
 fellows with sliilelahs over their shoulders — 
 Lord Old Sticks. 
 
 But sticks have been great favourites with 
 civilised as well as uncivilised nations ; only 
 the former have used them more for help and 
 ornament. The Greeks were a sceptropherous 
 people. Homer probably used a walking-stick 
 because he was blind ; but we have it on au-
 
 OF STICKS. 
 
 77 
 
 thority that Socrates did. On his first meeting 
 with Xenophon, -which was in a narrow passage, 
 he barred up the way with his stick, and asked 
 him, in his good-natured manner, where provi- 
 sions were to be had. Xenophon liaving told 
 him, he asked again, if he knew where virtue 
 and wisdom were to be had ; and this reducing 
 the young man to a nonplus, he said, " Follow 
 me, and learn ;" which Xenophon did, and be- 
 came the great man Ave have all heard of. The 
 fatherly story of Agcsilaus, who was caught 
 amusing his little boy with riding on a stick, 
 and asked his visitor whether he was a father, 
 is too well known for repetition. 
 
 There is an illustrious anecdote connected 
 with our subject in Roman history. The highest 
 compliment which his countrymen thought 
 they could pay to the first Scipio, was to call 
 him a walking-stick ; for such is the signifi- 
 cation of his name. It was given him for the 
 filial zeal with which he used to help his old 
 father about, serving his decrepit age instead 
 of a staff. But the Romans were not remark- 
 able for sentiment. What we hear in general 
 of their sticks, is the thumpings which servants 
 get in their plays ; and above all, the famous 
 rods which the lictors carried, and which being 
 actual sticks, must have iuflicted horrible 
 dull bruises and malignant stripes. They 
 were pretty things, it must be confessed, to 
 carry before the chief magistrate ! just as if the 
 King or the Lord Chancellor were to be pre- 
 ceded by a cat-o"-nine-tails. 
 
 Sticks are not at all in such request with mo- 
 dern times as they were. Formerly, we suspect, 
 most of the poorer ranks in England used to 
 carry them, both on account of the prevalence 
 of manly sports, and for security in travelling ; 
 for before the invention of posts and mail- 
 coaches, a trip to Scotland or Northumberland 
 was a thing to make a man write his will. As 
 they came to be ornamented, fashion adopted 
 them. The Cavaliers of Charles the First's 
 time were a sticked race, as well as the apo- 
 stolic divines and puritans, who appear to have 
 carried staves, because they read of them 
 among the patriarchs. Charles the First, when 
 at his ti-ial, held out his stick to forbid the 
 Attorney-General's proceeding. There is an 
 interesting little story connected with a stick, 
 which is related of Andrew Marvell's father, 
 (worthy of such a son,) and which, as it is 
 little known, we will repeat ; though it re- 
 spects the man more than tlie machine. He 
 had been visited by a young lady, who in spite 
 of a stormy evening persisted in returning 
 across the Ilumber, because her family would 
 be alarmed at her absence. The old gentle- 
 man, high-hearted and cheerful, after vainly 
 trying to dissuade her from perils which he 
 understood better than she, resolved in his 
 gallantry to bear her company. lie accordingly 
 walked with her down to the shore, and getting 
 into the boat, threw his stick to a friend, with 
 
 a request, in a lively tone of voice, that he 
 would preserve it for a keepsake. He then 
 cried out merrily " Ho-hoy for heaven !" and 
 put off with his visitor. They were drowned. 
 As commerce increased, exotic sticks grew 
 in request from the Indies. Hence the Bamboo, 
 the Whanghee, the Jambee which makes such 
 a genteel figure under Mr. Lilly's auspices in 
 the Tatler ; and our light modern cane, which 
 the Sunday stroller buys at sixpence the piece, 
 with a twist of it at the end for a handle. The 
 physicians, till within the last few score of 
 years, retained among other fopperies which 
 they converted into gravities, the wig and gold- 
 headed cane. The latter had been an indis- 
 pensable sign-royal of fashion, and was turned 
 to infinite purposes of accomplished gesticula- 
 tion. One of the most courtly personages in 
 the Rape of the Lock is 
 
 Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box just Ij- vain. 
 And the nice conduct of a clouded cane. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele, as we have before noticed, 
 is reproached by a busy-body of those times 
 for a habit of jerking his stick against the 
 pavement as he walked. When swords were 
 abolished by Act of Parliament, the tavern- 
 boys took to pinking each other, as injuriously 
 as they could well manage, with their walking- 
 sticks. Macklin the player was tried for his 
 life for poking a man's eye out in this way. 
 Perhaps this helped to bring the stick into 
 disrepute ; for the use of it seems to have 
 declined more and more, till it is now confined 
 to old men, and a few among the younger. It 
 is unsuitable to our money-getting mode of 
 rushing hither and thither. Instead of pinking 
 a man's ribs or so, or thrusting out his eye 
 from an excess of the jovial, we break his 
 heart with a bankruptcy. 
 
 Canes became so common before the decline 
 of the use of sticks, that whenever a man is 
 beaten with a stick, let it be of what sort it 
 may, it is still common to say that he has had 
 a " caning :" which reminds us of an anecdote 
 more agreeable than surprising ; though the 
 patient doubtless thought the reverse. A gen- 
 tleman, who was remarkable for the amenity 
 of his manners, accompanied by a something 
 which a bully might think it safe to presume 
 upon, found himself compelled to address a 
 person who did not know how to " translate 
 his style," in the following words, which were 
 all delivered in the sweetest tone in the world, 
 with an air of almost hushing gentility : — " Sir, 
 I am extremely sorry — to be obliged to say, — 
 that you appear to have a very erroneous notion 
 of tlie manners that become your situation in 
 life ; — and I am compelled with great reluc- 
 tance, to add," (here he became still softer and 
 more delicate) " that, if you do not think fit, 
 upon reflection, to alter this very extraordiuary 
 conduct towards a gentleman, I shall be imder 
 the necessity of caning you." The other
 
 78 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 treated the thing as a joke ; and to the delight of 
 the by-standers, received a very gravednibhiny;. 
 There are two eminent threats connected 
 with caning, in tlie history of Dr. Johnson. 
 One was from himself, wlieu he was told that 
 Foote intended to mimic him on the stage. 
 He replied, that if" the dog" ventured to]>lay 
 his tricks with him, he would step out of tlie 
 stage-box, chastise him before the audience, 
 and then throw himself uj)on their candour and 
 common sympathy. Foote desisted, as he had 
 good reason to do. The Doctor would have 
 lead him a stout lesson, and then made a speech 
 to the audience as forcible ; so that the the- 
 atrical annals have to regret, that the subject 
 and Foote's shoulders were not afforded him 
 to expatiate upon. It would have been a fine 
 involuntary piece of acting,— the part of Scipio 
 by Dr. Johnson. — The other threat was against 
 the Doctor himself from Macpherson, the 
 compounder of Ossian. It was for denying 
 the authenticity of that work ; a provocation 
 the more annoying, inasmuch as he did not 
 seem duly sensible of its merits. Johnson 
 replied to Macpherson's letter by one of con- 
 temptuous brevity and pith ; and contented 
 himself with carrying about a large stick, with 
 ■which he intended to repel Macpherson in case 
 of an assault. Had they met, it would have 
 been like " two clouds over the Caspian ;" for 
 both were large-built men. 
 
 We recollect another bacular Johnsonian 
 anecdote. When he was travelling in Scotland, 
 he lost a huge stick of his in the little treeless 
 island of Mull. Boswell told him he would 
 recover it : but the Doctor shook his head. 
 " No, no," said he ; " let anybody in Mull get 
 possession of it, and it will never be restored. 
 Consider, Sir, the value of such a piece of 
 timber here." 
 
 The most venerable sticks now surviving 
 are the smooth amber-coloured canes, in the 
 possession of old ladies. They have sometimes 
 a gold head, but oftener a crook of ivory. But 
 they have latterly been much displaced by 
 light umbrellas, the handles of which are imi- 
 tations of them ; and these are gradually 
 retreating before the young parasol, especially 
 about town. The old ladies take the wings of 
 the stage-coaclies, and are run away with by 
 John Pullen, in a style of infinite convenience. 
 The other sticks in use are for the most ])art 
 of cherry, oak, and crab, and seldom adorned 
 with more than a leathern tassel : often with 
 nothing. Bamboo and other canes do not 
 abound, as might be expected from our inter- 
 course with India ; but commerce in this as in 
 other respects has overshot its mark. People 
 cannot afford to use sticks, any more than bees 
 could in their hives. Of the common sabbatical 
 cane we have already spoken. There is a 
 sufficing little manual, equally light and lissom, 
 yclept an ebony switch ; but we have not seen 
 it often. 
 
 That sticks, however, are not to be despised 
 by tlie leisurely, any one wjio has known what 
 it is to want words, or to slice off the head of 
 a thistle, will allow. The utility of the stick 
 seems divisible into three heads : first, to give 
 a general consciousness of power ; second, 
 which may be called a part of the first, to help 
 the demeanour ; and third, which may be 
 called a part of the second, to assist a man 
 over the gaps of speech — the little awkward 
 intervals, called want of ideas. 
 
 Deprive a man of liis stick, who is accustomed 
 to carry one, and with what a diminished sense; 
 of vigour and gracefulness he issues out of his 
 house ! Wanting his stick, he wants himself. 
 His self-possession, like Acres's on the duel- 
 ground, has gone out of his fingers' ends ; but 
 restore it him, and how he resumes his energy ! 
 If a common walking-stick, he cherishes the 
 top of it with his fingers, putting them out and 
 back again, with a fresh desire to feel it in his 
 palm ! How he strikes it against the ground, 
 and feels power come back to his arm ! How 
 he makes the pavement ring with the ferule, 
 if in a street ; or decapitates the downy thistles 
 aforesaid, if in a field ! Then if it be a switch, 
 how firmly he jerks his step at the first inflic- 
 tion of it on the air ! How he quivers the 
 point of it as he goes, holding the handle with 
 a straight-dropped arm and a tight grasp! 
 How his foot keeps time to the switches ! How 
 he t>vigs the luckless pieces of lilac or other 
 shrubs, that peep out of a garden railing ! And 
 if a sneaking-looking dog is coming by, how he 
 longs to exercise his despotism and his moral 
 sense at once, by giving him an invigorating 
 twinge ! 
 
 But what would certain men of address do 
 without their cane or switch ? There is an 
 undoubted Rhabdosophy, Sceptrosophy, or 
 Wisdom of the Stick, besides the famous 
 Divining Rod, Avith which people used to dis- 
 cover treasures and fountains. It supplies a 
 man with inaudible remarks, and an inex- 
 pressible number of graces. Sometimes, breath- 
 ing between his teeth, he will twirl the end of 
 it upon his stretched-out toe ; and this means, 
 that he has an infinite number of easy and 
 powerful tilings to say, if he had a mind. 
 Sometimes lie holds it upright between his 
 knees, and tattoos it against his teeth or under- 
 lip, which implies that he meditates coolly. 
 On other occasions he switches tlie side of his 
 boot with it, wliich announces elegance in 
 general. Lastly, if he has not a bon-mot ready 
 in answer to one, he has only to thrust his 
 stick at your ribs, and say, " Ah ! you /ogue !"' 
 which sets him above you in an instant, as a 
 sort of patronising wit, who can dispense with 
 the necessity of joking. 
 
 At the same time, to give it its due zest in 
 life, a stick has its inconveniences. If you have 
 yellow gloves on, and drop it in the mud, a too 
 hasty recovery is awkward. To have it stick
 
 OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 
 
 79 
 
 between the stones of a pavement is not 
 pleasant, especially if it snap the ferule off; 
 or more especially if an old gentleman or lady 
 is coming behind you, and after making them 
 start back with winking eyes, it threatens to 
 trip them up. To lose the ferule on a country 
 road, renders the end liable to the growth of a 
 sordid brush, which, not having a knife with 
 you, or a shop in which to borrow one, goes 
 pounding the wet up against your legs. In a 
 crowded street you may liave the stick driven 
 into a large pane of glass ; upon which an un- 
 thinking tradesman, utterly indifferent to a 
 chain of events, issues forth and demands 
 twelve and sixpence. 
 
 XXXIX._OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS. 
 
 Though we are such lovers of the country, 
 we can admire London in some points of view; 
 and among others, from the entertainment to 
 be derived from its shops. Their variety and 
 brilliancy can hardly fail of attracting the 
 most sluggish attention : and besides reasons of 
 this kind, we can never look at some of them 
 without thinking of the gallant figure they 
 make in the Arabian Nights, with their Bazaars 
 and Bezesteins ; where the most beautiful of 
 unknowns goes shopping in a veil, and the 
 most graceful of drapers is taken blindfold to 
 see her. He goes, too smitten at heart to think 
 of the danger of his head ; and finds her seated 
 among her slaves (exquisite themselves, only 
 very inferior), upon which she encourages him 
 to sit near her, and lutes are played ; upon 
 which he sighs, and cannot help looking ten- 
 derly ; upon which she claps her hands, and a 
 charming collation is brought in ; upon whicli 
 they eat, but not much. A dance ensues, and 
 the ocular sympathy is growing tenderer, when 
 an impossible old woman appears,- and says 
 that the Sultan is coming. Alas ! How often 
 have we been waked uj), in the person of the 
 young draper or jeweller, by that ancient ob- 
 jection ! IIow have we received the lady in 
 the veil, through which we saw nothing but 
 her dark eyes and rosy checks ! How luive 
 we sat cross-legged on cushions, hearing or 
 handling the lute, whose sounds faded away 
 like our enamoured eyes ! How often have 
 we not lost our hearts and left-hands, like one 
 of the Calendars ? Or an eye, like another \ 
 Or a head ; and resumed it at the end of the 
 story ? Or slept (no, not slcj)t) in the Sultan's 
 garden at Schiraz with the fair Persian. 
 
 But to return (as well as such enamoured 
 persons can) to our shops. We prefer tlie 
 country a million times over for walking in 
 generally, especially if we have the friends in 
 it that enjoy it as well ; but there are seasons 
 when the very streets may vie with it. If you 
 have been solitary, for instance, for a long time, 
 
 it is pleasant to get among your fellow-crea- 
 tures again, even to be jostled and elbowed. 
 If you live in town, and the weather is showery, 
 you may get out in the intervals of rain, and 
 then a quickly-dried pavement and a set of 
 brilliant shops are pleasant. Nay, we have 
 known days, even in spring, when a street shall 
 outdo the finest aspects of the country ; but 
 then it is only when the ladies ai-e abroad, and 
 there hajjpens to be a run of agreeable faces 
 that day. For whether it is fancy or not, or 
 whether certain days do not rather bring out 
 certain people, it is a common remark, that 
 one morning you shall meet a succession of 
 good looks, and another encounter none but 
 the reverse. We do not merely speak of 
 handsome faces ; but of those which are charm- 
 ing, or otherwise, whatever be the cause. We 
 suppose, that the money-takers are all abroad 
 one day, and the heart-takers the other. 
 
 It is to be observed, that we are not speak- 
 ing of utility in this article, except indeed the 
 great utility of agreeableness. A candid lea- 
 ther-cutter therefore will j)ardon us, if we do 
 not find anything very attractive in his pre- 
 mises. So will his friend the shoemaker, who 
 is boimd to like us rural pedestrians. A sta- 
 tioner too, on obvious accounts, will excuse us 
 for thinking his a very dull and bald-headed 
 business. We cannot bear the horribly neat 
 monotony of his shelves, with their load of 
 virgin paper, their slates and slate-pencils that 
 set one's teeth on edge, their pocket-books, 
 and above all, their detestable ruled account- 
 books, which at once remind one of the ne- 
 cessity of writing, and the impossibility of 
 writing anything pleasant on such pages. The 
 only agreeable thing, in a stationer's shop 
 when it has it, is the ornamental work, the 
 card-racks, hand-screens, &c. which remmd us 
 of the fair morning fingers that paste and gild 
 such things, and surprise their aunts with pre- 
 sents of flowery boxes. But we grieve to add, 
 that the prints which the stationers furnish 
 for such elegancies, are not in the very highest 
 taste. They are apt to deviate too scrupulously 
 from the originals. Their well-known heads 
 become too anonymous. Their young ladies 
 liave casts in their eyes, a little too much on 
 one side even for the sidelong divinities of Atr. 
 Ilailowe. 
 
 In a hatter's shop we can see nothing but 
 the hats ; and the reader is acquainted with 
 our pique against them. The beaver is a curi- 
 ous animal, but the idea of it is not entertain- 
 ing enough to convert a window full of those 
 requisite nuisances into an agreeable spectacle. 
 It is true, a hatter, like some other tradesmen, 
 may bo pleasanter himself, by reason of the 
 adversity of his situation. We cannot say 
 more for the rrMfi-shop next door, — a name 
 justly provocative of a pun. It is customary, 
 however, to have sign-paintings of Adam and 
 Eve at these places ; which is some relief
 
 80 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 to tlie monotony of the windows ; only they 
 remind us but too well of these cruel neces- 
 sities to which tiiey brought us. The bo.kcr's 
 next ensuing is a very dull shop, much in- 
 ferior to the gingerbread l)aker's, whose par- 
 liament we used to munch at school. The 
 tailor's makes one as melancholy to look at 
 it, as the sedentary persons within. The ho- 
 sier's is worse ; particularly if it has a Golden 
 Leg over it ; for that precious limb is certainly 
 not symbolical of the weaver's. The windows, 
 half board and half dusty glass, which abound 
 in the City, can scarcely be turned to a purpose 
 of amusement, even by the most attic of dry- 
 salters. We own we have half a longing to break 
 them, and let in the light of nature upon 
 their recesses ; whether they belong to those 
 more piquant gentlemen, or to bankers, or any 
 other high and wholesale personages. A light 
 in one of these windows in the morning is, to 
 us, one of the very dismallest reflections on 
 humanity. "\Ve wish we could say something 
 for a tallow-chandler's, because everybody 
 abuses it : but we cannot. It must bear its 
 fate like the man. A good deal might be said 
 in behalf of candle-light ; but in passing from, 
 shop to shop, the variety is so great, that 
 the imagination has not time to dwell on any 
 one in particular. The ideas they suggest 
 must be obvious and on the surface. A grocer's 
 and tea-dealer's is a good thing. It fills the 
 mind instantly with a variety of pleasant tastes, 
 as the ladies in Italy on certain holidays pelt 
 the gentlemen witli sweetmeats. An under- 
 taker's is as great a balk to one's spirits, as 
 a loose stone to one's foot. It gives one a 
 deadly jerk. But it is pleasant upon the 
 whole to see the inhabitant looking carelessly 
 out of doors, or hammering while humming a 
 tune ; for why should he die a death at every 
 fresh order for a coffin ? An imdertaker walk- 
 ing merrily drunk by the side of a hearse, is a 
 norrid object ; but an undertaker singing and 
 Hammering in his shop, is only rapping death 
 nimself on the knuckles. The dead are not 
 there ; the altered fellow-creature is not there; 
 out only the living man, and the abstract idea 
 of death ; and he may defy that as much as he 
 pleases. An apothecary's is the more deadly 
 thing of the two ; for the coffin may be made 
 for a good old age, but the draught and the 
 drug are for the sickly. An apothecary's looks 
 well however at night-time, on account of the 
 coloured glasses. It is curious to see two or 
 three people talking together in the light of 
 one of them, and looking profoundly blue. 
 There are two good things in the Italian ware- 
 lOuse, — its name and its olives ; but it is 
 chiefly built up of gout. Nothing can be got 
 out of a brazier's windows, except by a thief : 
 but we understand that it is a good place to 
 jive at for those who cannot procure water- 
 falls. A music-shop with its windows full of 
 title-pages, is provokingly insipid to look at, 
 
 considering the quantity of slumbering en- 
 chantment inside, which only wants waking. 
 A bookseller's is interesting, especially if the 
 books are very old or very new, and have fron- 
 tispieces. But let no author, with or without 
 money in his pocket, trust himself in the in- 
 side, unless, like the bookseller, he has too 
 much at home. An author is like a baker ; 
 it is for him to make the sweets, and others to 
 buy and enjoy them. And yet not so. Let us 
 not blaspheme the " divinity that stirs within 
 us." The old comparison of the bee is better : 
 for even if his toil at last is his destruction, 
 and he is killed in order to be plundered, lie 
 has had the range of nature before he dies. 
 His has been the summer air, and tlie sunshine, 
 and the flowers ; and gentle ears have listened 
 to him, and gentle eyes have been upon him. 
 Let others eat his honey that please, so that 
 he has had his morsel and his song. — A book- 
 stall is better for an author than a regular 
 shop ; for the books are cheaper, the choice 
 often better and more ancient ; and he may 
 look at them, and move on without the hor- 
 rors of not buying anything ; unless indeed the 
 master or mistress stands looking at him from 
 the shop-door ; which is a vile practice. It is 
 necessary, wesuppose, to guard against pilferers; 
 but then ought not a stall-keeper, of any per- 
 ception, to know one of us real magnanimous 
 spoilers of our gloves from a sordid thief ? A 
 tavern and coft'ee-house is a pleasant sight, 
 from its sociality ; not to mention the illus- 
 trious club memories of the times of Shakspcare 
 and the Tatlers. We confess that the com- 
 monest public-house in town is not such an 
 eyesore to us as it is to some. There may be 
 a little too much drinking and roaring going 
 on in the middle of the week ; but what, in the 
 mean time, are pride, and avarice, and all the 
 unsocial vices about ? Before we object to 
 public-houses, and above all to their Saturday 
 evening recreations, we must alter the systems 
 that make them a necessary comfort to the 
 poor and laborious. Till then, in spite of the 
 vulgar part of the polite, we shall have an 
 esteem for the " Devil and the Bag o' Nails ;" 
 and like to hear, as we go along on Saturday 
 night, the applauding knocks on the table that 
 follow the song of " Lorehj Nan" or " Brave 
 Captain Death" or " Tobacco is an Indian Weed," 
 or " Whj/, Soldiers, why ; " or " Says Plato, why 
 should man be vain ; " or that judicious and un- 
 answerable ditty commencing 
 
 Now what can man more desire 
 Nor sitting by a sea-coal fire : 
 And on his knees, &c. 
 
 We will even refuse to hear anything against 
 a gin-shop, till the various systems of the 
 moralists and economists are discussed, and 
 the virtuous leave off seduction and old port. 
 In the mean time, we give up to anybody's dis- 
 like the butcher's and fishmonger's. And yet
 
 A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF THE SHOPS. 
 
 81 
 
 see how things go by comparison. We re- 
 member, in our boyliood, a lady from the West 
 Indies, of a very delicate and high-bred nature, 
 who could find nothing about our streets that 
 more excited her admiration than the butchers' 
 shops. She had no notion, from what she had 
 seen in her own country, that so ugly a business 
 could be carried on with so much neatness, and 
 become actually passable. An open potato- 
 shop is a dull bleak-looking place, except in the 
 height of summer. A cheesemonger's is then 
 at its height of annoyance, unless you see a 
 paviour or bricklayer coming out with his 
 three penn'orth on his bread — a better sight 
 than the glutton's waddling away from the 
 fishmonger's. A poulterer's is a dead-bodied 
 business, with its birds and their lax necks. 
 We dislike to see a bird anywhere but in the 
 open air, alive and quick. Of all creatures, 
 restraint and death become its winged vivacity 
 the least. For the same reason we hate 
 aviaries. Dog-shops are tolerable. A cook- 
 shop does not mingle the agreeable with the 
 useful. We hate its panes, with Ham and Beef 
 scratched upon them in white letters. An 
 ivory-turner's is pleasant, with its red and 
 white chessmen, and little big-headed Indians 
 on elephants ; so is a toy-shop, with its endless 
 delights for children. A coach-maker's is not 
 disagreeable, if you can see the painting and 
 panels. An umbrella-shop only reminds one 
 of a rainy day, unless it is a shop for sticks 
 also, which as we have already shown are meri- 
 torious articles. The curiosity-shop is some- 
 times very amusing, with its mandarins, stuffed 
 birds, odd old carved faces, and a variety of 
 things as indescribable as bits of dreams. The 
 green-grocer carries his recommendation in his 
 epithet. The hair-dressers are also interesting 
 as far as their hair goes, but not as their heads 
 — we mean the heads in their windows. One 
 of the shops we like least is an angling reposi- 
 tory, with its rod for a sign, and a fish dancing 
 in the agonies of death at the end of it. We 
 really cannot see what equanimity there is in 
 jerking a lacerated carp out of water by the 
 jaws, merely because it has not the power of 
 making a noise ; for we presume that the most 
 philosophic of anglers would hardly delight in 
 catching shrieking fish. An optician's is not 
 very amusing, tmless it has those reflecting- 
 glasses in which you see your face run oft' on 
 each side into attenuated width, or upwards and 
 downwards in the same manner, in dreary lon- 
 gitude . A saddler's is good, because it reminds 
 one of horses. A Christian sword-maker's or 
 gun-maker's is edifying. A glass-shop is a 
 beautiful spectacle ; it reminds one of the 
 splendours of a fairy palace. We like a black- 
 smith's for the sturdy looks and thumpings of 
 the men, the swarthy colour, the fiery si)arkles 
 and the thunder -brcathingthroat of thefurnace. 
 Of other houses of traffic, not common in the 
 streets, there is something striking to us in the 
 
 large, well-conditioned horses of the brewers, 
 and the rich smoke rolling from out their 
 chimneys. We also greatly admire a wharf, 
 with its boats, barrels, and packages, and the 
 fresh air from the water, not to mention the 
 smell of pitch. It carries us at once a hundred 
 miles over the water. For similar reasons, the 
 crabbedest old lane has its merits in our eyes, 
 if there is a sail-maker's in it, or a boat-builder's 
 and water at the end. How used old Roberts of 
 Lambeth to gratify the aspiring modesty of our 
 school-coats, when he Avelcomed us down to his 
 wherries and captains on a holiday, and said 
 " Blue against Black at any time," meaning 
 the Westminster boys ! And the colleges will 
 ratify his praise, taking into consideration the 
 difference of the numbers that go there from 
 either cloisters. But of all shops in the streets 
 a print-seller's pleases us the most. We would 
 rather pay a shilling to Mr. Colnaghi, Mr. 
 Molteno, or Messieurs Moon and Boys, to look 
 at their windows on one of their best-furnished 
 days, than we would for many an exhibition. 
 We can see fine engravings there, translations 
 from Raphael and Titian, which are newer 
 than hundreds of originals. We do not despise 
 a pastry-cook's, though we would rather not eat 
 tarts and puffs before the half-averted face of 
 the prettiest of accountants, especially with a 
 beggar watching and praying all the while at 
 the door. We need not expatiate on the 
 beauties of a florist's, where you see un- 
 withering leaves, and roses made immortal. 
 A dress warehouse is sometimes really worth 
 stopping at, for its flowered draperies and richly 
 coloured shawls. But one's pleasure is apt to 
 be disturbed (ye powers of gallantry ! bear 
 witness to the unwilling pen that writes it) by 
 the fair faces that come forth, and the half- 
 polite, half-execrating expression of the trades- 
 man that bows them out ; for here takes place 
 the chief enjoyment of the mystery yclept shop- 
 ping ; and here, wliile some ladies give the 
 smallest trouble unwillingly, others have an 
 infinity of things turned over, for the mere pur- 
 pose of wasting their own time and the shopman's. 
 We have read of a choice of a wife by cheese. 
 It is difficult to speak of preference in such 
 matters, and all such single modes of trial must 
 be something equivocal ; but we must say, 
 that of all modes of the kind, we should desire 
 no better way of seeing what ladies we admired 
 most, and whom least, than by witnessing this 
 trial of them at a linen-draper's counter. 
 
 XL.— A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF 
 THE SHOPS. 
 
 In the general glance that we have taken 
 at shops, we found ourselves unwillingly com- 
 pelled to pass some of them too quickly. It 
 is the object therefore of the present article 
 to enter into those more attractive thresholds.
 
 82 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 and look a little about \is. We imagine a fine 
 day ; time, about noon ; scene, any good 
 brilliant street. The ladies are abroad in 
 white and green ; the beaux lounging, con- 
 scious of their waists and neckcloths ; the 
 busy pushing onward, conscious of their bills ; 
 the doffs and coaches — but we must reserve 
 this out-of-door view of the streets for a sepa- 
 rate article. 
 
 To begin then, where our shopping expe- 
 rience began, with the toy-shop : 
 
 Visions of glory, spare our aching sight ! 
 
 Yc just-breech'd ages, crowd not on our soul 1 
 
 We still seem to have a lively sense of the 
 smell of that gorgeous red paint, which was 
 on the handle of our first wooden sword ! 
 The pewter guard also — how beautifully 
 fretted and like silver did it look ! How did 
 we hang it round our shoulder by the proud 
 belt of an old ribbon ; — then feel it well sus- 
 pended ; then draw it out of the sheath, eager 
 to cut down four savage men for ill-using ditto 
 of damsels ! An old muff made an excellent 
 grenadier's cap ; or one's hat and feathei-, 
 with the assistance of three surreptitious large 
 pins, became fiercely modern and military. 
 There it is, in that corner of the window — 
 the same identical sword, to all appearance, 
 which kept us awake the first night behind 
 our pillow. We still feel ourselves little boys, 
 while standing in this shop ; and for that 
 matter, so we do on other occasions. A field 
 has as much merit in our eyes, and ginger- 
 bread almost as much in our mouths, as at that 
 daisy-plucking and cake-eating period of life. 
 There is the trigger-rattling gun, fine of its 
 kind, but not so complete a thing as the 
 sword. Its memories are not so ancient : for 
 Alexander or St. George did not fight with a 
 musket. Neither is it so true a thing ; it is 
 not "like life." The trigger is too much like 
 that of a cross-bow ; and the pea which it 
 shoots, however hard, produces even to the 
 imaginative faculties of boyhood a humiliating 
 flash of the mock-heroic. It is difficult to 
 fancy a dragon killed with a pea : but the 
 shape and appurtenances of the sword being 
 genuine, the whole sentiment of massacre is 
 as much in its wooden blade, as if it were 
 steel of Damascus. The drum is still more 
 real, though not so heroic. — In the corner 
 opposite are battle-doors and shuttle-cocks, 
 which have their maturer beauties ; balls, 
 which possess the additional zest of the dan- 
 ger of breaking people's windows; — ropes, 
 good for swinging and skipjiing, especially tlie 
 long ones which others turn for you, while 
 you run in a masterly manner up and down, 
 or skip in one sjjot with an easy and endless 
 exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their 
 conscious Aices ; — blood-allies, witli which the 
 possessor of a crisjj finger and tliumb-knuckle 
 causes the smitten marbles to vanish out of 
 
 the ring ; kites, which must ai)pear to more 
 vital birds a ghastly kiud of fowl, with their 
 grim long wliite faces, no bodies, and endless 
 tails ; — cricket-bats, manly to handle ; — trap- 
 bats, a genteel inferiority ; — swimming-corks, 
 despicable ; — horses on wheels, an imposition 
 on the infant public ; — rocking horses, too 
 much like Pegasus, ardent yet never getting 
 on ; — Dutch toys, so like life, that they ought 
 to be better ; — Jacob's ladders, flapping down 
 one over another their tintinnabulary shut- 
 ters ; — dissected maps, from which the infant 
 statesmen may learn how to dovetail provinces 
 and kingdoms ; — paper posture-makers, who 
 hitch up their knees against their shoulder- 
 blades, and dangle their legs like an opera 
 dancer ; — Lilliputian plates, dishes, and other 
 household utensils, in which a grand dinner is 
 served up out of half an apple ; — boxes of 
 paints, to colour engravings with, always 
 beyond the outline ; — ditto of bricks, a very 
 sensible and lasting toy, which we except 
 from a grudge we have against the gravity 
 of infant geometricks ; — whips, very useful 
 for cutting people's eyes unawares ; — hoops, 
 one of the most ancient as well as excellent of 
 toys ; — sheets of pictures, from A apple-pie 
 up to farming, military, and zoological exhibi- 
 tions, always taking care that the Fly is as 
 large as the Elephant, and the letter X exclu- 
 sively appropriated to Xerxes ; — musical deal- 
 boxes, rather complaining than sweet, and 
 more like a peal of bodliins than bells ; — 
 penny trumpets, awful at Bartlemy-tide ; — 
 Jew's harps, that thrill and breathe between 
 the lips like a metal tongue ; — carts — carriages 
 — hobby-horses, upon which the infant eques- 
 trian prances about proudly on his own feet ; 
 — in short, not to go through the whole repre- 
 sentative body of existence — dolls, which are 
 so dear to the maternal instincts of little girls. 
 We protest, however, against that abuse of 
 them, which makes them full-dressed young 
 ladies in body, while they remain infant in 
 face ; especially when they are of frail wax. 
 It is cultivating finery instead of aff'ection. 
 We prefer good honest plump limbs of cotton 
 and saw-dust, dressed in baby-linen ; or even 
 om- ancient young friends, with their staring 
 dotted eyes ; red varnished faces, triangular 
 noses, and Rosinante wooden limbs — not, it 
 must be confessed, excessively shapely cr 
 feminine, but the reverse of fragile beauty, 
 and ])repared against all disasters. 
 
 The next step is to the Pastry-cook's, where 
 the plain bun is still the pleasantest thing in our 
 eyes, from its respectability in those of child- 
 hood. Tiie pastry, less patronised by judicious 
 mothers, is only so mucli elegant indigestion : 
 yet it is not easy to forget the jileasure of 
 nibbling away the crust all round a raspberry 
 or currant tart, in order to enjoy the three or 
 four delicious semicircular bites at tlie fruity 
 plenitude remaining. There is a custard with
 
 A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF THE SHOPS. 
 
 83 
 
 a wall of paste round it, which provokes a 
 siege of this kind ; and the cheese-cake has its 
 amenities of approach. The acid flavour is 
 a relief to the mawkishness of the biffin or 
 pressed baked apple, and an addition to the 
 glibandquiveringlightness of thejelly. Twelfth 
 Cake, which when cut looks like the side of a 
 rich pit of earth covered with snow, is pleasant 
 from warmer associations. Confectionary does 
 not seem in the same request as of old ; its 
 paint has hurt its reputation. Yet the school- 
 boy has still much to say for its humbler 
 suavities. Kisses are very amiable and alle- 
 gorical. Eight or ten of them, judiciously 
 wrapped up in pieces of letter-paper, have 
 saved many a loving heart the trouble of a less 
 eloquent billet-doux. Candied citron we look 
 upon to be the very acme and atticism of con- 
 fectionary grace. Preserves are too much of 
 a good thing, with the exception of the jams 
 that retain their fruit-skins. " Jam satis." 
 They qualify the cloying. Yet marmalade 
 must not be passed over in these times, when 
 it has been raised to the dignity of the peerage. 
 The other day there was a Duke of Marmalade 
 in Hayti, and a Count of Lemonade, — so called, 
 from places in which those eminent relishes 
 are manufactured. After all, we must own 
 that there is but one thing for which we care 
 much at a pastry-cook's, except our old 
 acquaintance the bun ; especially as we can 
 take up that, and go on. It is an ice. Fancy 
 a very hot day ; tlie blinds down ; the loungers 
 unusually languid ; the pavement burning one's 
 feet ; the sun, with a strong outline in the 
 street, baking one whole side of it like a brick- 
 kiln ; so that everybody is crowding on tlie 
 other, except a man going to intercept a 
 creditor bound for the Continent. Then think 
 of a heaped-up ice, brought upon a salver with 
 a spoon. What statesman, of any vv-armth of 
 imagination, would not pardon the Neapolitans 
 in summer, for an insurrection on account of 
 the want of ice ? Think of the first sidelong 
 dip of the spoon in it, bringing away a well- 
 sliced lump ; then of the sweet wintry refresh- 
 ment, that goes lengthening down one's throat ; 
 and lastly, of the sense of power and satis- 
 faction resulting from having had the ice. 
 
 Not heaven itself can do away that slice ; 
 
 But what has been, has been ; and I have had my ice. 
 
 We unaccountably omitted two excellent 
 shops last week, — the fruiterer's and the 
 sculptor's. There is great beauty as well as 
 :igreeableness in a well-disjiosed fruiterer's 
 window. Here are the round piled-up oranges, 
 deepening almost into red, and heavy with 
 juice ; the ajjple with its brown red cheek, as 
 if it had slept in the sun ; the pear, swelling 
 downwards ; thronging grapes, like so many 
 tight little bags of wine ; the peach, whose 
 handsome leathern coat strips off so finely ; 
 the pearly or ruby-like currants, heaped in 
 
 light long baskets ; the red little mouthful of 
 strawberries ; the larger purple ones of plums ; 
 cherries, whose old comparison with lips is 
 better than anything new; mulberries, dark 
 and rich with juice, fit to grow over what 
 Homer calls the deep black- watered fountains ; 
 the swelling pomp of melons; the rough in- 
 exorable-looking cocoa-nut, milky at heart ; 
 the elaborate elegance of walnuts ; the quaint 
 cashoo-nut ; almonds, figs, raisins, tamarinds, 
 green leaves, — in short, 
 
 ■V\1iatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields 
 In India East or West, or middle shore 
 In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where 
 Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat 
 Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell. 
 
 Milton, 
 
 There is something of more refined service 
 in waiting upon a lady in a fruit-shop, than in 
 a pastry-cook's. The eating of tarts, as Sir 
 Walter Scott handsomely saith in his Life of 
 Dryden (who used to enjoy them, it seems, in 
 company with " Madam Reeves"), is " no in- 
 elegant pleasure ;" but there is something still 
 more graceful and suitable in the choosing of 
 the natural fruit, with its rosy lips and red 
 cheeks. A white hand looks better on a basket 
 of plums, than in the doubtful touching of 
 syrupy and sophisticated pastry. There is less 
 of the kitchen about the fair visitor. She is 
 more Pomona-like, native, and to the purpose. 
 We help her, as we would a local deity. 
 
 Here be grapes whose lusty blood 
 
 Is the learned poets good, 
 
 Sweeter yet did never crown 
 
 The head of Bacchus ; — nuts more brown 
 
 Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them ; 
 
 Deign, O fairest fair, to take them. 
 
 For these black ey'd Driope 
 
 Hath often times commanded me. 
 
 With my clasped knee to climb ; 
 
 See how well the lusty time 
 
 Hath deckt their rising cheeks in red. 
 
 Such as on your lips is spread. 
 
 Here be berries for a Queen, 
 
 Some be red, some be green ; 
 
 These are of that luscious meat, 
 
 The great God Pan himself doth eat. 
 
 All these, and what the woods can yield. 
 
 The hanging mountain or the field, 
 
 I freely offer, and ere long 
 
 Will bring you more, more sweet and strong. 
 
 Till when humbly leave I take. 
 
 Lest the gi-eat Pan do awake. 
 
 That sleeping lies in a deep glade, 
 
 Under a broad beech's shade. | 
 
 Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdett. | 
 
 I 
 How the poets double every delight for us, | 
 witli tlieir imagination and their mu$ic ! 
 
 In the windows of some of the sculptors' 
 shops, artificial fruit may be seen. It is a 
 better thing to put upon a mantel-piece than 
 many articles of greater fashion ; but it gives 
 an abominable sensation to one's imaginary 
 teetli. The incautious epicure who plunges 
 his teeth into "a painted snow-ball" in Italy 
 (see Brydone's Tour in SicUy and Malta), can
 
 84 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 hardly receive so jarring a balk to his gums, 
 as the bare apprehension of a bite at a stone 
 peach ; but the farther you go in a sculptor's 
 shop the better. Many persons are not aware 
 that there are show-rooms in those places, 
 which are well worth getting a sight of by 
 some small jiurchase. For the best plaster 
 casts the Italian shops, such as Papera's in 
 Marylebone-street, Golden-square, and Sarti's 
 in Greek-street, are the best. Of all the shop- 
 pleasures that are "not inelegant," an hour or 
 two passed in a place of this kind is surely one 
 of the most polite. Here are the gods and 
 heroes of old, and the more beneficent philoso- 
 phers, ancient and modern. You are looked 
 upon, as you walk among them, by the pater- 
 nal majesty of Jupiter, the force and decision 
 of ]\[inerva, the still more arresting gentleness 
 of Venus, the budding comiiactness of Hebe, 
 the breathing inspiration of Apollo. Here 
 the Celestial Venus, naked in heart and body, 
 ties up her locks, her drapery hanging uj)on 
 her lower limbs. Here the Belvidere Apollo, 
 breathing forth his triumphant disdain, follows 
 with an earnest eye the shaft that has killed 
 the serpent. Here the Graces, linked in an 
 affectionate group, meet you in the naked sin- 
 cerity of their innocence and generosity, their 
 hands "open as day," and two advancing 
 for one receding. Here Hercules, like the 
 building of a man, looks down from his prop- 
 ping club, as if half disdaining even that repose. 
 There Mercury, with his light limbs, seems just 
 to touch the ground, ready to give a start with 
 his foot and be off again. Bacchus, with his riper 
 cheek, and his thicker hanging locks, appears 
 to be eyeing one of his nymphs. The Vatican 
 Apollo near him, leans upon the stump of a tree, 
 the hand which hangs upon it holding a bit of 
 his lyre, the other arm thrown up over his head, 
 as if he felt the air upon his body, and heard 
 it singing through the strings. In a corner on 
 another side, is the Crouching Venus of John 
 of Bologna, shrinking just before she steps into 
 the bath. The Dancing Faun is not far off, 
 with his animal spirits, and the Piping Faun, 
 sedater because he possesses an art more ac- 
 complished. Among the other divinities, we 
 
 I 
 
 look up with veneration to old Homer's head, 
 resembling an earthly Jupiter. Plato beholds 
 us with a bland dignity— a beauty unimpairable 
 by years. How different from the brute im- 
 pulse of Mars, the bloated self-will of Nero, 
 or the dull and literal effeminacy of some of the 
 other emperors ! There is a sort of presence 
 in sculpture, more than in any other representa- 
 tions of art. It is curious to see how instinc- 
 tively people will fall into this sentiment when 
 they come into a place with busts and statues 
 in it, however common. They hush, as if the 
 images could hear them. In our boyhood, 
 some of our most delightful holidays were 
 spent in the gallery of the late Mr. West, in 
 Newman-street. It runs a good way back 
 from the street, crossing a small garden, 
 and opening into loftier rooms on the other 
 side of it. We remember how the world used 
 to seem shut out from us the moment the 
 street-door was closed, and we began stepping 
 down those long carpeted aisles of pictures, 
 with statues in the angles where they turned. 
 We had observed everybody walk down them 
 in this way, like the mild possessor of the man- 
 sion, and we went so likewise. We have walked 
 down with him at night to his painting-room, 
 as he went in his white flannel gown, with a 
 lamp in his hand, which shot a lustrous twi- 
 light upon the pictured walls in passing ; and 
 everything looked so quiet and graceful, that 
 we should have thought it sacrilege to hear a 
 sound beyond the light tread of his footsteps. 
 But it was the statues that impressed us still 
 more than the pictures. It seemed as if Venus 
 and Apollo waited our turning at the corners; 
 and there they were, always the same, placid 
 and intuitive, more human and bodily than the 
 paintings, yet too divine to be over real. It is 
 to that house with the gallery in question, and 
 the little green i)lot of ground, surrounded 
 with an arcade and busts, that we OM'e the 
 greatest part of our love for what is Italian 
 and belongs to the fine arts. And if this is a 
 piece of private history, with which the readers 
 have little to do, they will excuse it for the 
 sake of the greatest of all excuse, which is 
 Love. 
 
 END OP PART I.
 
 THE 
 
 INDICATOR, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE COMPANION; 
 
 A MISCELLANY FOR THE FIELDS AND THE FIRE-SIDE. 
 
 PART II.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XL. A WORD OR TWO MORE ON STICKS 1 
 
 XLI. THE DAUGHTER OP HIPPOCRATES 2 
 
 XLH. THE ITALIAN GIRL 4 
 
 XLin. A "NOW" 7 
 
 XLIV. THE HONOURABLE MR. ROBERT BOYLE « 
 
 XLV. SUPERFINE BREEDING , U 
 
 XLVL SHAKING HANDS lii 
 
 XLVn. ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OP LAUREL FROM VAUCLUSE . ... ih. 
 
 XLVm. COACHES • ]] 
 
 XLIX. REMARKS UPON ANDREA DE BASSO'S ODE TO A DEAD BODY . . . I'j 
 
 L. THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE '^l 
 
 II. THE HAMADRYAD 24 
 
 Ln. THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS -25 
 
 LIII. ON COMMENDATORY VERSES 28 
 
 LIV. A WORD UPON INDEXES 31 
 
 LV. AN OLD SCHOOL-BOOK 32 
 
 LVI. OF DREAMS .33 
 
 LVII. A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE OTHER EXTREME 37 
 
 LVHI. RETURN OP AUTUMN 41 
 
 LIX. THE MAID-SERVANT ib. 
 
 LX. THE OLD LADY ... 43 
 
 LXI. PULCI . . ..... . 44 
 
 LXII. MY BOOKS 40 
 
 LXIII. BEES, BUTTERFLIES, die . S5
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 I. AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN - . 61 
 
 n. BAD WEATHER 63 
 
 HI. FINE DAYS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 64 
 
 IV. WALKS HOME BY NIGHT IN BAD WEATHER— WATCHMEN . . . . 65 
 
 V. SECRET OF SOME EXISTING FASHIONS 67 
 
 VI. RAIN OUT OF A CLEAR SKY 68 
 
 VH. THE MOUNTAIN OP THE TWO LOVERS gg 
 
 VIU. THE TRUE STORY OF VERTUMNUS AND POMONA . 70 
 
 IX. ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF PIG-DRIVING . . . . . 7« 
 
 X. PANTOMIMES 7g 
 
 XI. CRUELTY TO CHILDREN 77 
 
 XII. HOUSES ON FIRE 79 
 
 Xm. A BATTLE OP ANTS.^DESIRABLENESS OF DRAWING A DISTINCTION BE- 
 TWEEN POWERS COMMON TO OTHER ANIMALS, AND THOSE PECULIAR 
 
 TO MAN . . ,ft. 
 
 XIV. A WALK FROM DULAVICH TO BROCKHAM 84
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Thkre is a bird in the interior of Africa, whose habits would rather seem to belong to the interior of Fairy-land: 
 but they have been well authenticated. It indicates to honey-hunters wliere the nests of wild bees are to be 
 found. It calls them with a cheerful cry, which they answer ; and on finding itself recognized, flies and hovers 
 over a hollow tree containing the honey. ^Miile they are occupied in collecting it, the bird goes to a little distance, 
 where he observes aU that passes ; and the hunters, when they have helped themselves, take care to leave liim 
 
 his portion of the food This is the Cuculus Indicator of Linnaeus, otherwise called the Moroc, Bee Cuckoo, or 
 
 Honey Bird. 
 
 There he, arriving, round about doth flie, 
 
 And takes survey with busie, curious eye : 
 
 Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly. — Spenser. 
 
 XL,— A WORD OR TWO MORE ON 
 STICKS. 
 
 A CORRESPONDENT, Writing to us on this 
 subject, says : — " In my day I have indulged 
 an extravagant fancy for canes and sticks ; 
 but, like the children of the fashionable world, 
 I have, in running the round, grown tired of 
 all my favourites, except one of a plain and 
 useful sort. Conceive my mortification in 
 finding this my last prop not included in your 
 catalogue of sticks most in use ; especially since 
 it has become, among us men of sticks, the 
 description most approved. The present day, 
 which is one of mimicry, boiists scarcely any 
 protection except in the very stick I allude to ; 
 and yet, because it is so unprcsuming in its 
 appearance, and so cheap, the gentlemen ' of a 
 day' will not condescend to use it. We, Sir, 
 who make a stick our constant companion (not- 
 withstanding our motives may be misunder- 
 stood), value the tough, the useful, tlio highly 
 picturesque ' Ash Plant.' Its still and gentle- 
 manly colour ; its peculiar property of bending 
 round the shoulders of a man, without breaking 
 (in the event of our using it that way) ; the 
 economy of the thing, as economy is the order 
 of theday (at least in minor concerns) ; itsbcing 
 the best substitute for the old-fashioned horse- 
 whip in a morning-ride, and now so generally 
 used in lieu of the long hunting-whip in tiio 
 sports of the chase ; answering every ])urpose 
 for gates, &c., without oifcring any temptation 
 to do the work of a whippor-in ; — all this, and 
 much more, might be said of the neglected 
 Ground Ash." 
 
 [part II.] 
 
 We must cry mercy on the estimable stick 
 here referred to, and indeed on several other 
 sorts of wood, unjustly omitted in our former 
 article. We also neglected to notice those in- 
 genious and pregnant walking-sticks, which 
 contain swords, inkstands, garden-seats, &c. 
 and sometimes surprise us Avith playing a tune. 
 As the ancient poets wrote stories of gods 
 ^^siting people in human shapes, in order to 
 teach a considerate behaviour to strangers ; so 
 an abstract regard ought to be shown to all 
 sticks, inasmuch as the irreverent spectator 
 may not know what sort of staff he is en- 
 countering. If he does not take care, a man 
 may beat him and "write him down an ass" 
 with the same accomplished implement ; or sit 
 down upon it before his face, where there is no 
 chair to be had ; or follow up his chastisement 
 with a victorious tune on the flute. As to the 
 ash, to which we would do especial honour, for 
 the sake of our injured, yet at the same time 
 polite and forgiving. Correspondent, we have 
 the satisfaction of stating that it hath been re- 
 puted the very next wood, in point of utility, 
 to the oak ; and hath been famous, time im- 
 memorial, for its staffian qualities. Infinite are 
 the spears with which it has supplied the war- 
 like, the sticks it has put into the hands of a 
 less sanguinary courage, the poles it has 
 furnished for hops, vines, &c. and the arbours 
 which it has run up for lovers. The Greek 
 name for it was Melia, or the Honied ; from a 
 juice or manna which it drops, and wliich has 
 been much used in medicine and dyeing. There 
 are, or were, about forty years back, when
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Couut Ginnani wrote his Ilistori/ of the Rcirenna 
 Pine Forest, large asli woods in Tuscany, which 
 used to be ta}>ped for those purposes. Virj^il 
 calls it the liaudsouiest tree in the forest ; 
 Chaucer, " the hardie ashe ;" and Spenser," the 
 ash for notliinfif ill." The ground-ash flourishes 
 the better, tlie more it is cut and slashed ; — a 
 sort of imin-ovenient, wliich it sometimes be- 
 stows in return upon humankind. 
 
 XLI.— THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPO- 
 CRATES. 
 
 In the time of the Norman reign in Sicily, a 
 vessel bound from that island for Smyrna was 
 driven by a westerly wind upon the island of 
 Cos. Tlie crew did not know where they were, 
 though tliey had often visited the island ; for 
 the trading towns lay in other quarters, and 
 they saw nothing before tlicm but woods and 
 solitudes. Tiiey found however a comfortable 
 harbour ; and the wind having fallen in the 
 night, they went on shore next morning for 
 water. The country proved as solitary as they 
 thought it ; which was the more extraordinary, 
 inasmuch as it was very luxuriant, full of wild- 
 figs and grapes, with a rich uneven ground, 
 and stocked with goats and other animals, who 
 fled whenever they appeared. The bees were 
 remarkably numerous ; so that the wild honey, 
 fruits, and delicious water, especially one 
 spring which fell into a beautiful marble 
 basin, made them more and more wonder, at 
 every step, that they could see no human in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Thus idling about and wondering, stretching 
 themselves now and then among the wild 
 thyme and grass, and now getting up to look 
 at some specially fertL'e place which another 
 called them to see, and which they thought 
 might be turned to fine trading purpose, they 
 came ujion a moimd covered with trees, wliich 
 looked into a flat wide lawn of rank grass, with 
 a house at the end of it. They crept nearer 
 towards the house along the mound, still con- 
 tinuing among the trees, for fear they were 
 trespassing at last upon somebody's property. 
 It liad a large garden wall at the bade, as 
 much covered with ivy as if it had been built 
 of it. Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an 
 unprimed thickness ; and neither at the back 
 nor front of the house were there any signs of 
 liumanity. It was an ancient marble building, 
 where glass was not to be expected in the 
 wijidows ; but it was much dilapidated, and 
 the grass grew up over the steps. They 
 listened again and again ; but nothing was to 
 be heard like a sound of men ; nor scarcely of 
 anything else- There was an intense noon- 
 day silence. Only the hares made a rustling 
 noise as they ran about the long hiding grass. 
 The house looked like the tomb of human 
 nature, amidst the \-itality of earth. 
 
 " Did you see ?" said one of the crew, turning 
 pale, and hastening to go. "See what?" said 
 tlie others. "What looked out of window." 
 Tiiey all turned their faces towards the house, 
 but saw nothing. Upon this they laughed at 
 their companion, who persisted however with 
 great earnestness, and with great reluctance 
 at stopping, to say tliat he saw a strange 
 hideous kind of face look out of window. 
 " Let us go, Sir," said he, to the Captain ; — 
 " for I tell ye what : I know this place now : 
 and you. Signer Gualtier," continued he, 
 turning to a young man, " may now follow that 
 adventure I have often heard you wish to be 
 engaged in." The crew turned pale, and 
 Gualtier among them. " Yes," added the man, 
 " we are fallen upon the enchanted part of the 
 island of Cos, where the daughter of — Hush ! 
 Look there!" They turned their faces again, 
 and beheld the head of a large serpent looking 
 out of window. Its eyes were direct upon 
 them ; and stretching out of window, it lifted 
 back its head with little sharp jerks like a fowl ; 
 and so stood keenly gazing. 
 
 The terrified sailors would have begun to 
 depart quicklier than they did, had not fear 
 itself made them move slowly. Their legs 
 seemed melting from under them. Gualtier 
 tried to rally his voice. "They say," said he, 
 " it is a gentle creature. The hares that feed 
 right in fi-ont of the house are a proof of it : — 
 let us all stay." The others shook their heads, 
 and spoke in whispers, still continuing to de- 
 scend the mound as well as they could. " There 
 is something unnatural in that very thing," 
 said the Captain : " but we will wait for you in 
 the vessel, if you stay. We will, by St. Ermo." 
 The Captain had not supposed tliat Gualtier 
 would stay an instant ; but seeing him linger 
 more than the rest, he added the oath in ques- 
 tion, and in the mean time was hastening with 
 the others to get away. The truth is, Gualtier 
 was, in one rcsiject, more frightened than any 
 of them. His legs were more rooted to the 
 spot. But the same force of imagination that 
 helped to detain him, enabled him to muster 
 up courage beyond those who found their will 
 more powerful : and in the midst of his terror 
 he could not help thinking what a fine adven- 
 ture this would be to tell in Salerno, even if he 
 did but conceal himself a little, and stay a few 
 minutes longer than tlie rest. The thought, 
 however, had hardly come upon him, when it 
 was succeeded by a fear still more lively ; and 
 he was preparing to follow the others with all 
 the exj)edition he could contrive, when a fierce 
 rustling took place in the trees behind him, 
 and in an instant the serpent's head was at 
 his feet. Gualtier's brain as well as heart 
 seemed to sicken, as he thought the monstrous 
 object scented him like a bear ; but despair 
 coming in aid of a courage naturally fanciful 
 and chivalrous, he bent his eyes more steadily, 
 and found the huge jaws and fangs not only
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES. 
 
 abstaining from hurting him, but crouching 
 and fawning at his feet like a spaniel. At the 
 same time, he called to mind the old legend 
 respecting the creature, and, corroborated as 
 he now saw it, he ejaculated with good firmness, 
 "In the name of God and his saints, what art 
 thou I" 
 
 " Hast thou not heard of me ?" answered 
 the serpeut in a voice whose singular human 
 slendemess made it seem the more horrible. 
 " I guess who thou art," answered Gualtier ; — 
 " the fearful thing in the island of Cos." 
 
 " I am that loathly thing," replied the ser- 
 pent ; " once not so." And Gualtier thought 
 that its voice trembled sorrowfully. 
 
 The monster told Gualtier that what was 
 said of her was true ; that she had been a ser- 
 pent hundreds of years, feeling old age and 
 renewing her youth at the end of each century ; 
 that it was a curse of Diana's which had 
 changed her ; and that she was never to resume 
 a human form, till somebody was found kind 
 and bold enough to kiss her on the mouth. As 
 slie spoke this word, she raised her crest, and 
 sparkled so with her fieiy green eyes, dilating 
 at the same time the corners of her jaws, that 
 the young man thrilled through his very scalp. 
 He stept back, with a look of the utmost 
 horror and loathing. The creature gave a 
 sliarp groan inwardly, and after rolling her 
 neck franticly on the ground, withdrew a little 
 back likewise, and seemed to be looking another 
 way. Gualtier heard two or three little sounds 
 as of a person weeping piteously, yet trying to 
 subdue its voice ; and looking with breathless 
 curiosity, he saw the side of the loathly crea- 
 ture's face bathed in tears. 
 
 " Why speakest thou, lady," said he, " if lady 
 thou art, of the curse of the false goddess Diana, 
 who never was, or only a devil. I cannot kiss 
 thee," — and he shuddered with a horrible 
 shudder, as he spoke, "but I will bless thee in 
 the name of the true God, and even mark thee 
 with his cross." 
 
 The serpent shook her head mournfully, 
 still keeping it turned round. She then faced 
 him again, lianging her head in a dreary and 
 desponding manner. " Thou knowest not," said 
 she, "what I know. Diana both was and 
 never was ; and there are many other things 
 on earth, which are and j-et are not. Thou 
 canst not comprehend it, even though thou art 
 kind. But the heavens alter not, neither the 
 sun nor the strength of nature ; and if thou 
 wert kinder, I sliould be as I once was, happy 
 and human. Suffice it, that nothing can change 
 me but what I said." 
 
 " Why wort thou changed, thou fearful and 
 mysterious thing ?" said Gualtier. 
 
 " Because I denied Diana, as thou dost," 
 answered the serpent ; "and it was pronounced 
 an awful crime in me, tliougli it is none in 
 thee ; and I was to be made a thing loathsome 
 in men's eyes. Let me not catch thine eye, I 
 
 beseech thee ; but go thy way and be safe ; 
 for I feel a cruel thought coming on me, which 
 will shake my innermost soul, though it shall 
 not harm thee. But I could make thee suffer 
 for the pleasure of seeing thine anguish ; even 
 as some tyrants do : and is not that dreadful?" 
 And the monster openly shed tears, and sobbed. 
 
 There was something in this mixture of 
 avowed cruelty and weeping contradiction to 
 it, which made Gualtier remain in spite of 
 himself. But fear was still uppermost in his 
 mind, when he looked upon the moutli that 
 was to be kissed ; and he held fast round a 
 tree with one hand, and his sword as fast in 
 the other, watching the movements of her neck 
 as he conversed. " How did thy father, the 
 sage Hippocrates," asked he, " suffer thee to 
 come to this ?" " My father," replied she, 
 " sage and good as he was, was but a Greek 
 mortal ; and the great Virgin was a worshipped 
 Goddess. I pray thee, go." She uttered the 
 last Avord in a tone of loud anguish ; but the 
 very horror of it made Gualtier hesitate, and 
 he said, " How can I know that it is not thy 
 destiny to deceive the merciful into this horrible 
 kiss, tliat then and then only thou mayst devour 
 them ?" 
 
 But the serpent rose higher at this, and 
 looking around loftily, said in a mild and 
 majestic tone of voice, " O ye green and 
 happy woods, breathing like sleep ! O safe 
 and quiet population of these leafy places, 
 d)-ing brief deaths ! O sea ! O earth ! O 
 heavens, never uttering syllable to man ! Is 
 there no way to make better known the mean- 
 ing of your gentle silence, of your long basking 
 pleasures and brief pains ? And must the 
 want of what is beautiful and kind from others, 
 ever remain different from what is beautiful 
 and kind in itself? And must form obscure 
 essence ; and human confidence in good from 
 within, never be bolder than suspicion of evil 
 from without ? ye large-looking and grand 
 benignities of creation, is it that we are atoms 
 in a dream ; or that vour largeness and benisr- 
 nity are in those only who see them, and that 
 it is for us to hang over ye till we wake you 
 into a voice with our kisses ? I yearn to be 
 made beautiful by one kind action, and beauty 
 itself will not believe me !" 
 
 Gualtier, though not a foolish youth, imder- 
 stood little or nothing of this mystic apostrophe ; 
 but something made him bear in mind, and 
 really incline to believe, that it was a trans- 
 formed woman speaking to him ; and he was 
 making a violent internal effort to conquer his 
 repugnance to the kiss, when some hares, 
 starting from him as they passed, ran and 
 cowered behind the folds of the monster : and 
 she stooped her head, and licked them. " By 
 Christ," exclaimed he, " whom the wormy 
 grave gathered into its arms to save us from 
 our corruptions, I will do this thing ; so may 
 he have mercy on my soul, whether I live or 
 
 B 2
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 die : for tlie very hares take refiijre in lier 
 shadow." And sluulcU'i-inn^ and shuttinfj his 
 eyes, lie \nit his mouth out foi- hor to moot ; 
 and he seemed to feel, in his blindness, that 
 dreadful mouth approaching ; and he made 
 the sijjn of tlie cross ; and he murmured in- 
 ternally the nameof liim who cast seven devils 
 outof Mai'vMat^dalen, that afterwards anointed 
 liis feet ; and in the midst of his courageous 
 agony, ho felt a small mouth, fast and warm 
 upon his, and a hand about his neck, and 
 another on his left hand ; and opening his eyes, 
 lie dro])pe(l them upon two of the sweetest 
 that ever looked into the eye of man. — But 
 the hares fled ; for tliey had loved the serpent, 
 but knew not the beautiful human being. 
 
 Great was the fame of Gualtier, not only 
 throughout the Grecian islands, but on both 
 continents ; and most of all in Sicily, where 
 every one of his countrymen thought he had 
 had a hand in the enterprise, for being born on 
 the same soil. The Captain and his crew 
 never came again ; for, alas ! they had gone off 
 without waiting as they promised. But Tan- 
 cred. Prince of Salerno, came himself with a 
 knightly train to see Gualtier ; who lived with 
 his lady in the same place, all her past suffer- 
 ings appearing as nothing to her before a month 
 of love ; and even sorrowful habit had endeared 
 it to her. Tancred, and his knights, and 
 learned clerks, came in a noble ship, every oar 
 having a painted scutcheon over the rowlock ; 
 and Gualtier and his lady feasted them nobly, 
 and drank to them amidst music in cups of 
 Ilippocras — that knightly liquor afterwards so 
 renowned, which she retained the secret of 
 making from her sage father, whose name it 
 bore. And when King Tancred, with a gentle 
 gravity in the midst of liis mirth, expressed a 
 hope that the beautiful lady no longer wor- 
 shipped Diana, Gualtier said, " No indeed. Sir;" 
 and she looked in Gualtier's face, as she sat 
 next him, with the sweetest look in the world, 
 as who should say, " No indeed : — I worship 
 thee and thy kind heart." * 
 
 XLII.— THE ITALIAN GIRL. 
 
 The Sim was shining beautifully one summer 
 evening, as if he bade sparkling farewell to a 
 world which he had made happy. It seemed 
 also, by his looks, as if he promised to make 
 his appearance again to-morrow ; but there 
 was at times a deep breathing western wind, 
 and dark purple clouds came up here and 
 tliere, like gorgeous waiters at a funeral. Tlie 
 children in a \411age not far from the metropolis 
 were playing however on the green, content 
 
 • This story is founded on a tradition still preserved in 
 the island of Cos, and repeated in old romances and books 
 of travels. See Dunlop's History of Fiction, vol. ii., where 
 he gives an aceount of Tirantc the White. 
 
 with the brightness of the moment, when they 
 saw a female approaching, who gathered them 
 about her by the singularity of her dress. It 
 was not a very remarkable dress ; but any 
 difference from the usual apparel of their 
 country-women appeared so to them ; and 
 crying out, " A French girl ! A French girl !" 
 tliey ran up to her, and stood looking and 
 talking. 
 
 The stranger seated herself upon a bench 
 that was fixed between two elms, and for a 
 moment leaned her head against one of them, 
 as if faint witli walking. But she raised it 
 speedily, and smiled with complacency on the 
 rude urchins. She had a boddice and petticoat 
 on of different colours, and a handkerchief tied 
 neatly about her head with the point behind. 
 On her hands were gloves without fingers ; 
 and she wore about her neck a guitar, upon 
 the strings of which one of her hands rested. 
 The children thought her very handsome. 
 Anybody else would also have thought her 
 very ill ; but they saw nothing before them but 
 a good-natured looking foreigner and a guitar, 
 and they asked her to play. " che bet rcujazzi!" 
 said she, in a soft and almost inaudible voice ; 
 — "Che cki lieti.'"f and she began to play. 
 She tried to sing too, but her voice failed her, 
 and she shook her head smilingly, saying 
 " Sta7ica ! stanca !"X "Sing — do sing," said 
 the children ; and nodding her head, she was 
 trying to do so, when a set of boys came up 
 and joined in the request. " No, no," said one 
 of the elder boys, " she is not well. You are 
 ill, a'nt you, — Miss ? " added he, laying his hand 
 upon hers as if to hinder it. He drew out the 
 last word somewhat doubtfully, for her ap- 
 pearance perplexed him ; he scarcely knew 
 whether to take her for a strolling musician 
 or a lady strayed from a sick bed. " Grazie .'" 
 said she, understanding his look : — " troppo 
 stanca: troppo.%" 
 
 By this time the usher came up, and ad- 
 dressed her in French ; but she only understood 
 a word here and there. He then spoke Latin, 
 and she repeated one or two of his words, as if 
 they were familiar to her. 
 
 " She is an Italian ! " said he, looking round 
 with a good-natured importance ; " for the 
 Italian is but a bastard of the Latin." The 
 children looked with the more wonder, thinking 
 he was speaking of the fair musician. 
 
 " Non dubito" continued the usher, " quin tu 
 lectitas poetam ilium celeberrimum, Tassonem ; \\ 
 Taxum, I should say properly, but the departure 
 from the Italian name is considerable." The 
 stranger did not understand a word. 
 
 " I speak of Tasso," said the usher, — " of 
 Tasso." 
 
 " Tasso ! Tasso ! " repeated the fair minstrel ; 
 
 t Oh what fine boys ! What happy faces ! 
 
 i. Weary ! AVeary ! 
 
 § Thanks: — too weary ! too weary ! 
 
 II Doubtless you read that celebrated poet Tasso.
 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL. 
 
 "o/i — conosco — tl Tas-so ;"* and she hung with 
 an accent of beautiful languor iipou the first 
 syllable. 
 
 " Yes," returned the worthy scholar, " doubt- 
 less your accent may be better. Then of 
 course you know those classical lines — 
 
 Intanto Erminia infra 1' ombrosy pianty 
 D' antjca selva dal cavallo — what is it ? " 
 
 The stranger repeated the words in a tone 
 of fondness, like those of an old friend : — 
 
 Intanto Erminia infra 1' ombrose piante 
 D'antica selva dal cavallo e scorta ; 
 Ne piu govcrno il fren la man tremante, 
 E mezza quasi par, tra viva e morta.f 
 
 Our usher's common-place book had supplied 
 him with a fortunate passage, for it was a 
 favourite one of her country-women. It also 
 singularly applied to her situation. There 
 was a sort of exquisite mixture of clearness 
 in her utterance of these verses, which gave 
 some of the children a better idea of French 
 than they had had ; for they could not get it 
 out of their heads that she must be a French 
 girl ; — " Italian-French perhaps," said one of 
 them. But her voice trembled as she went on, 
 like the hand she spoke of. 
 
 " I have heard my poor cousin Montague 
 sing those very lines," said the boy who pre- 
 vented her from jjlaying. 
 
 " Montague," repeated the stranger very 
 plainly, but turning paler and fainter. She 
 put one of her hands in turn upon the boy's 
 affectionately, and pointed towards the spot 
 where the church was. 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried the boy ; — " why, she knew 
 my cousin : — she must have known him in 
 Florence." 
 
 " I told you," said the usher, " she was an 
 Italian." 
 
 "Help her to my aunt's," continued the 
 youth, " she'll understand her : — lean upon 
 me. Miss ; " and he repeated tlie last word 
 without his former hesitation. 
 
 Only a few boys followed her to the door, 
 the rest having been awed away by the usher. 
 As soon as the stranger entered the house and 
 saw an elderly lady who received her kindly, 
 she exclaimed " La Siguora ]\Iadre," and fell 
 in a swoon at her feet. 
 
 She was taken to bed, and attended with 
 the^utmost care by her hostess, who would 
 not suffer her to talk till she had had a sleep. 
 She merely heard enough to find out, that tlio 
 stranger had known her son in Italy ; and she 
 was thrown into a painful state of suspicion 
 by the poor girl's eyes, whicii followed her 
 about the room till the lady fairly came up 
 and closed them. 
 
 * Oh — I know — Tasso. 
 
 t Meantime in the old wood, the palfrey bore 
 Erminia dcoper into shade and shade ; 
 Her trembling hands could hold liim in no more, 
 And she appealed bct>vi.xt alive !uid dead. 
 
 " Obedient ! obedient ! " said the patient : 
 " obedient in everything : only the Signora 
 will let me kiss her hand ; " and taking it with 
 her own trembling one, she laid her cheek 
 u])on it, and it staid there till she had dropt 
 asleep for weariness. 
 
 - Silken rest 
 
 Tie all thy cares up I 
 
 thought her kind watcher, who was doubly 
 thrown upon a recollection of that beautiful 
 passage in Beaumont and Fletcher, by the 
 suspicion she had of the cause of the girl's 
 visit. "And yet," thought she, turning her 
 eyes with a thin tear in them towards the 
 church spire, " he was an excellent boy, — the 
 boy of my heart." 
 
 When the stranger woke, the secret was 
 explained : and if the mind of her hostess was 
 relieved, it was only the more touched with 
 pity, and indeed moved witli respect and 
 admiration. The dying girl (for she evidently 
 was dying, and happy at the thought of it) 
 was the niece of an humble tradesman in 
 Florence, at whose house young JMontague, 
 who was a gentleman of small fortune, had 
 lodged and fallen sick during his travels. She 
 was a lively, good-natured girl, whom he used 
 to hear coquetting and playing the guitar with 
 her neighbours ; and it v/as greatly on this 
 account, that her considerate and hushing 
 gravity struck him whenever she entered his 
 room. One day he heard no more coquetting, 
 nor even the guitar. He asked the reason, 
 when she came to give him some drink ; and 
 she said she had heard him mention some 
 noise that disturbed him. 
 
 " But you do not call your voice and your 
 music a noise," said he, "do you, Rosaura ? 
 I hope not, for I had expected it would give 
 me strength to get rid of this fever and reach 
 home." 
 
 Rosaura turned pale, and let the patient into 
 a secret ; but what surprised and delighted 
 him was, that she played her guitar nearly as 
 often as before, and sang too, only less sprightly 
 airs. 
 
 " You get better and better. Signer," said 
 she, " every day, and your mother will see 
 you and be happy. I hope you will tell her 
 what a good doctor you had." 
 
 " The best in the world," cried he ; and as 
 he sat up in bed, he put his arm round her 
 waist and kissed her. 
 
 " Pardon me, Signora," said the poor girl to 
 her hostess ; " but I felt tiiat arm round my 
 waist for a week after : ay, almost as much 
 as if it had been there." 
 
 "And Cliarles felt that you did," thought 
 his motlier ; " for he never told me the story." 
 
 " He begged my pardon," continued she, " as 
 I was hastening out of tiie room, and hoped I 
 should not construe his warmth into imperti- 
 nence. And to hear him talk so to me, who
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 used to fear what he might think of myself ; 
 it made me stand in tlie passage, and lean my 
 head against the wall, and weep such bitter, 
 and yet such sweet t(>ars ! — But he did not 
 hear tiicm. No, iMadani, ho did not know, 
 indeed, liow much I — how much I — " 
 
 " Loved him, child," interrupted Mrs. Mon- 
 tague ; " you have a right to say so, and I 
 wish he had been alive to say as much to you 
 himself." 
 
 " Oh, good God ! " said the dying girl, lier 
 tears flowing away, " this is too great a hap- 
 piness for me, to hear his own mother talking 
 so." And again she lays her weak head upon 
 the lady's hand. 
 
 The latter would have persuaded her to 
 sleep again ; but she said she could not for 
 joy : " for I'll tell you, ^Madam," continued 
 she, " I do not believe you will think it 
 foolish, for something very grave at my heart 
 tells me it is not so ; but I have had a long 
 thought," (and her voice and look grew more 
 exalted as she spoke,) " which has supported 
 me through much toil and many disagreeable 
 things to this country and this place ; and I 
 will tell you what it is, and how it came into 
 my mind. I received this letter from your 
 son." 
 
 Here she drew out a paper which, though 
 carefully wrapped up in several others, was 
 much worn at the sides. It was dated from 
 the village, and ran tlius : — 
 
 " ' This comes from the Englishman whom 
 Rosaura nursed so kindly at Florence. She 
 will be sorry to hear that her kindness was in 
 vain, for ho is dying ; and he sometimes fears 
 that her sorrow will be greater than he could 
 wish it to be. But marry one of your kind 
 countrjTuen, my good girl ; for all must love 
 Rosaura who know her. If it shall be my lot 
 ever to meet her in heaven, I will thank her 
 as a blessed tongue only can.' 
 
 "As soon as I read this letter. Madam," 
 continues Rosaura, " and wliat he said about 
 heaven, it flashed into my head, that though I 
 did not deserve him on earth, I might, perhaps, 
 by trjTug and patience, deserve to be joined 
 with him in heaven, where there is no distinc- 
 tion of persons. My imcle was pleased to see 
 me become a religious pilgrim ; but he knew 
 as little of the world as I, and I found that I 
 could earn my way to England better, and 
 quite as religiously, by playing my guitar, 
 which was also more independent ; and I had 
 often heard your son talk of independence and 
 freedom, and commend mo for doing what ho 
 was pleased to call so much kindness to others. 
 So I played my guitar from Florence all the 
 way to England, and all that I earned by it I 
 gave away to the poor, keeping enougli to pro- 
 cure me lodging. I lived on bread and water, 
 and used to weep happy tears over it, because 
 I looked up to heaven and thought ho might 
 Bee me. I have sometimes, though not often, 
 
 met with small insults ; but if ever they 
 threatened to grow greater, I begged the 
 pcojjle to desist in the kindest way I could, 
 even smiling, and saying I would please them 
 if I had the heart ; wliich might be wrong, 
 but it seemed as if deep thoughts told mc to 
 say so ; and they used to look astonished, and 
 left off ; which made me the more hope that 
 St. Philip and the Holy Virgin did not think 
 ill of my endeavours. So playing, and giving 
 alms in this manner, I arrived in the neigh- 
 bourhood of your beloved village, where I fell 
 sick for a while, and was very kindly treated 
 in an out-house ; though the people, I thought, 
 seemed to look strange and afraid on this cru- 
 cifix — (though your son never did), — though 
 he taught me to think kindly of everybody, 
 and hope the best, and leave everything, except 
 our own endeavours, to Heaven. I fell sick. 
 Madam, because I found for certain that the 
 Signor Montague was dead, albeit I had no 
 hope that he was alive." 
 
 She stopped awhile for breath, for she was 
 growing weaker and weaker, and her hostess 
 would fain have had her keep silence ; but she 
 pressed her hand as well as she might, and 
 prayed with such a patient panting of voice to 
 be allowed to go on, that she was. She smiled 
 thankfully and resumed : — 
 
 " So when — so when I got my strength a 
 little again, I walked on and came to the 
 beloved village, and I saw the beautiful white 
 church spire in the trees ; and then I knew 
 where his body slept, and I thought some kind 
 person woidd help me to die, with my face 
 looking towards the church as it now does ; 
 and death is upon me, even now : but lift me a 
 little higher on the pillows, dear lady, that I 
 may see the green ground of the hill." 
 
 She was raised up as she wished, and after 
 looking awhile with a placid feebleness at the 
 hill, said in a very low voice, " Say one jmaycr 
 for me, dear lady ; and if it be not too proud in 
 me, call me in it your daughter." 
 
 The mother of her beloved summoned up a 
 grave and earnest voice, as well as she might, 
 and knelt and said, " Heavenly Father of us 
 all, who in the midst of thy manifold and 
 merciful bounties bringest us into strong 
 passes of anguish, Avhich nevertheless thou en- 
 ablest us to go through, look down, we beseech 
 thee, upon this thy young and innocent ser\|^nt, 
 the daughter — that might have been — of my 
 heart, and enable her spirit to pass through the 
 struggling bonds of mortality, and be gathered 
 into thy rest with those we love. Do. dear and 
 great God, of thy infinite mercy, for we are 
 poor weak creatures, both young and old — " 
 here her voice melted away into a breathing 
 tearfulness ; and after remaining on her knees 
 a moment longer, she rose and looked upon the 
 bed, and saw that the weary smiling one was 
 no more.
 
 A "NOW.' 
 
 XLTII.— A«NOW." 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF A HOT DAY. 
 
 Now the rosy- (and lazy-) fingered Aurora, 
 issuing from her saffron liouse, calls up the 
 moist vapours to surround her, and goes veiled 
 with them as long as she can ; till Phcebus, 
 coming forth in his power, looks eveiything 
 out of the sky, and holds sharp uninterrupted 
 empire from his throne of beams. Now the 
 mower begins to make his sweeping cuts more 
 slowly, and resorts oftener to the beer. Now 
 the carter sleeps a-top of his load of hay, or 
 plods with double slouch of shoulder, looking 
 out with eyes winking under his shading hat, 
 and with a hitch upward of one side of his 
 mouth. Now the little girl at her grand- 
 mother's cottage-door watches the coaches that 
 go by, with her hand held up over her sunny 
 forehead. Now labourers look well resting in 
 their white shirts at the doors of rural ale- 
 houses. Now an elm is fine there, with a seat 
 under it ; and horses drink out of the trough, 
 stretching their yearning necks with loosened 
 collars ; and the traveller calls for his glass of 
 ale, having been without one for more than 
 ten minutes ; and his horse stands wincing at 
 the flies, giving sharp shivers of his skin, and 
 moving to and fro his ineffectual docked tail ; 
 and now Miss Betty Wilson, the host's daughter, 
 comes streaming forth in a flowered gown and 
 ear-rings, carrying with four of her beautiful 
 fingers the foaming glass, for which, after the 
 traveller has drank it, she receives with an in- 
 different eye, looking another way, the lawful 
 two-pence. Now grasshoppers " fry," as 
 Dryden says. Now cattle stand in water, and 
 ducks are envied. Now boots, and shoes, and 
 trees by the road-side, are thick with dust ; and 
 dogs, rolling in it, after issuing out of the water, 
 into which they have been thrown to fetch 
 sticks, come scattering horror among the legs 
 of the spectators. Now a fellow who finds he has 
 three miles further to go in a pair of tight 
 shoes, is in a pretty situation. Now rooms 
 with the sun upon them become intolerable ; 
 and the apothecary's apprentice, with a bitter- 
 ness bey&ml aloes, thinks of the pond he used 
 to bathe in' at school. Now men with pow- 
 dered heads (especially if thick) envy those 
 that are unpowderod, and stop to wipe them 
 up hill, with countenances that seem to expos- 
 tulate witli destiny. Now boys assemble round 
 the village pump with a ladle to it, and delight 
 to make a forbidden splash and get wet through 
 the shoes. Now also tliey make suckers of 
 leather, and bathe all day long in rivers and 
 ponds, and make mighty fishings for " tittle- 
 bats." Now tlie bee, as he hums along, seems 
 to be talking heavily of the heat. Now doors 
 and brick-walls are burning to the hand ; and 
 a walled lane, with dust and broken bottles in 
 it, near a brick-field, is a thing not to be thought 
 
 of. Now a gieen lane, on the contrary, thick- 
 set with hedge-row elms, and having the noise 
 of a brook " rumbling in pebble-stone," is one 
 of the pleasantest things in the world. 
 
 Now, in town, gossips talk more than ever to 
 one another, in rooms, in door-Avays, and out of 
 window, always beginning the conversation 
 with saying that the heat is overpowering. Now 
 blinds are let down, and doors thrown open, 
 and flannel waistcoats left off', and cold meat 
 preferred to hot, and wonder expressed why 
 tea continues so refreshing, and people delight 
 to sliver lettuces into bowls, and apprentices 
 water door-ways with tin canisters that lay 
 several atoms of dust. Now the water-cart, 
 jumbling along the middle of the street, and 
 jolting the showers out of its box of water, 
 really does something. Now fruiterers' shops 
 and dairies look pleasant, and ices are the only 
 things to those who can get them. Now ladies 
 loiter in baths ; and peojile make presents of 
 flowers ; and wine is put into ice ; and the 
 after-dinner lounger recreates his head with 
 applications of perfumed water out of long- 
 neckea bottles. Now the lounger, who cannot 
 resist riding his new horse, feels his boots burn 
 him. Now buck-skins are not the lawn of Cos. 
 Now jockeys, walking in great-coats to lose 
 flesh, curse inwardly. Now five fat people in 
 a stage-coach hate the sixth fat one who is 
 coming in, and think he has no right to be so 
 large. Now clerks in office do nothing but 
 drink soda-water and spruce-beer, and read the 
 newsimi^er. Now the old-clothesman drops 
 his solitary cry more deeply into the areas on 
 the hot and forsaken side of the street ; and 
 bakers look vicious ; and cooks are aggravated ; 
 and the steam of a tavern-kitchen catches hold 
 of us like the breath of Tartarus. Now delicate 
 skins are beset with gnats; and boys make 
 their sleeping companion start up, with playing 
 a burning-glass on his hand ; and blacksmiths 
 are super-carbonated ; and cobblers in their 
 stalls almost feel a wish to be transplanted ; 
 and butter is too easy to spread ; and the dra- 
 goons wonder whether the Romans liked their 
 helmets ; and old ladies, with tlieir lappets 
 unpinned, walk along in a state of dilapidation ; 
 and the servant maids are afraid they look vul- 
 garly hot ; and the author, who has a plate of 
 strawberries brought him, finds that he has 
 come to the end of his writing. 
 
 We cannot conclude this article, however, 
 without returning thanks, both on our own 
 account and on that of our numerous prede- 
 cessors, who have left so large a debt of grati- 
 tude unpaid, to this very useful and ready 
 monosyllable — " Now." We are sure that 
 there is not a didactic poet, ancient or modern, 
 who, if lie possessed a decent share of can- 
 dour, would not be happy to own his obliga- 
 tions to that masterly conjunction, wliicli jjos- 
 sesses the very essence of wit, for it iias tlie 
 art of brin<rinjr the 
 
 most remote thii'ga 
 
 toge-
 
 8 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ther. And its generosity is in proportion to its 
 wit, for it always is most profuse of its aid 
 where it is most wanted. 
 
 We must enjoy a pleasant passage with the 
 reader on the subject of this " eternal Now " 
 in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the Woma7i- 
 Ilater. — Upon turning to it, we perceive that 
 our illustrious i)article does not make quite so 
 great a figure as we imagined ; but the whole 
 passage is in so analogous a taste, and affords 
 such an agreeable specimen of the Avit and 
 humour with which fine poets could rally the 
 common-places of their art, that we cannot 
 help i)roceeding with it. Lazarello, a foolish 
 table-hunter, has requested an introduction to 
 the Duke of Milan, who has had a fine lam- 
 prey presented him. Before the introduction 
 takes place, he finds that the Duke has 
 given the fish away ; so that his wish to be 
 known to him goes with it ; and part of the 
 drollery of the passage arises from his uneasi- 
 ness at being detained by the consequences of 
 his own request, and his fear lest he should 
 be too late for the lamprey elsewhere. 
 
 Count {aside to the Duke). Let me entreat 
 your Grace to stay a little. 
 To know a gentleman, to whom yourself 
 Is much beholding. lie hath made the sport 
 For your whole court these eight years, on my 
 knowledge. 
 
 Duke. His name ? 
 
 Count. Lazarello. 
 
 Duke. I heard of him this morning : — which 
 is he ? 
 
 Cuuiit (aside to Laz.). Lazarello, pluck up 
 thy spirits. Thy fortune is now raising. The 
 Duke calls for thee, and thou slialt be ac- 
 quainted with him. 
 
 Laz. He's going away, and I must of neces- 
 sity stay here upon business. 
 
 Count. 'Tis all one : thou shaltknow him first. 
 
 Laz. Stay a little. If he should offer to take 
 me with him, and by that means I should lose 
 that I seek for ! But if he should, I will not 
 go with iiim. 
 
 Count. Lazarello, the Duke stays. Wilt thou 
 lose this opportunity ? 
 
 Laz. How must I speak to him ? 
 
 Count. 'Twas well thought of. You must 
 not talk to him as you do to an ordinary man, 
 honest plain sense ; but you must wind about 
 him. For example, if he should ask you what 
 o'clock it is, you must not say, " If it please 
 your Grace, 'tis nine ; " — but thus ; — " Thrice 
 three o'clock, so please my Sovereign ; " — or 
 thus : — 
 
 " Ijook how many Muses there do dwell 
 Upon the sweet l3anks of the learned well, 
 Andjustso manystrokes theclock hath struck;" 
 and so forth. And you must now and then 
 enter into a description. 
 
 L'iz. I hope I shall do it. 
 
 Count. Come. — May it please your Grace to 
 take note of a gentleman, well seen, d'je])ly 
 
 read, and thoroughly grounded in the hidden 
 knowledge of all sallets and pot-herbs what- 
 soever. 
 
 Duke. I shall desire to know him more in- 
 wardly. 
 
 Laz. I kiss the ox-hide of your Grace's foot. 
 
 Count {aside to Laz.). Very well. — Will your 
 Grace question him a little. 
 
 Duke. How old are you ? 
 
 Laz. Full eight-and-twenty several almanacks 
 Have been compiled, all for several years, 
 Since first I drew this breath. Four 'prentice- 
 ships 
 Have I most truly served in this world : 
 And eight-and-twenty times hath Phoebus' car 
 Run out his yearly course, since 
 
 Duke. I understand you. Sir. 
 
 Lucio. How like an ignorant poet he talks ! 
 
 Duke. You are eight-and-twenty years old ? 
 What time of the day do you hold it to be ? 
 
 Laz. About the time that mortals whet their 
 knives 
 On thresholds, on their shoe-soles, and on stairs. 
 Now bread is grating, and the testy cook 
 Hath much to do now ; now the tables all 
 
 Duke. 'Tis almost dinner-time ? 
 
 Laz. Your Grace doth ajiprehend me very 
 rightly. 
 
 XLIV.— THE HONOURABLE MR. ROBERT 
 BOYLE. 
 
 The celebrated Robert Boyle, tlie chemist, 
 was accounted in his days a sort of perfection 
 of a man, especially in all respects intellectual, 
 moral, and religious. This excellent person 
 was in the habit of moralising upon every- 
 thing that he did or suffered ; such as, " Upon 
 his manner of giving meat to his dog," — " Upon 
 his horse stumbling in a very fair way," — 
 " Upon his sitting at ease in a coach that went 
 very fast," &c. Among other Reflections, is 
 one " Upon a fish's struggling after having 
 swallowed the hook." It amounts to this : that 
 at the moment when the fish thinks himself 
 about to be most happy, the hook "does so 
 wound and tear his tender gills, and thereby 
 puts him into such restless pain, that no doubt 
 he wishes the hook, bait and all, were out of 
 his torn jaws again. Thus," says he, "men 
 who do what they should not, to obtain any 
 sensual desires," &c. &c. Not a tliouglit comes 
 over him as to his own part in the business, 
 and what he ought to say of himself for tearing 
 the jaws and gills to indulge his own ajjpetite 
 for excitement. Take also the following : — 
 " Fifth Section — Reflection I. Killing a crow 
 (out of window) in a hog's trough, and imme- 
 diately tracing the ensuing reflection with a 
 pen made of one of his <|uills. — Long and pa- 
 tiently did I wait for this unlucky crow, wal- 
 lowing in the sluttish trough (whose sides kejjt 
 him a great while out of the reach of my gun),
 
 SUPERFINE BREEDING. 
 
 and gorging himself with no less greediness 
 than the very swinish proprietaries of the 
 feast, till at length my no less unexpected 
 than fatal shot in a moment struck him down, 
 and turning the scene of his delight into that 
 of his pangs, made him abruptly alter his note, 
 and change his triumphant chaunt into a dis- 
 mal and tragic noise. This method is not 
 unusual to divine justice towards brawny and 
 incorrigible sinners," &c. &c. Thus the crow, 
 for eating his dinner, is a rascal worthy to be 
 shot by the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle, 
 before the latter sits down to his own ; while 
 the said Mr. Boyle, instead of contenting 
 himself with being a gentleman in search of 
 amusement at the expense of birds and fish, is 
 a representative of Divine Justice. 
 
 We laugh at this wretched moral pedantry 
 now, and de^ilore the involuntary hard-hearted- 
 ness which such mistakes in religion tended 
 to produce ; but in how many respects should 
 it not make us look about ourselves, and see 
 where we fall short of an enlargement of 
 thinking ? 
 
 XLV.— SUPERFINE BREEDING. 
 
 There is an anecdote in AulusGellius {Noc- 
 tes AtticoB, lib. 10, cap. vi.) which exhibits, we 
 think, one of the highest instances of what 
 may be called polite blackguardism, that we 
 remember to have read. The fastidiousness, 
 self-will, and infinite resentment against a 
 multitude of one's fellow-creatures for pre- 
 suming to come in contact with our import- 
 ance, are truly edifying ; and to complete the 
 lesson, this extraordinary specimen of the 
 effect of superfine breeding and blood is 
 handed down to us in the person of a lady. 
 Her words might be thought to have been 
 a bad joke ; and bad enough it would have 
 been; but the sense that was shown of them 
 proves them to have been very gravely re- 
 garded. 
 
 Claudia, the daughter of Appiua Caucus, in 
 coming away from a public spectacle, was 
 much pressed and pushed about by the crowd; 
 upon which she thus vented her impatience : — 
 " What should I have suffered now, and how 
 much more should I have been squeezed and 
 knocked about, if my brother Publius Claudius 
 had not had liis sliijjs destroyed in battle, with 
 all that heap of men ? I should luxve been 
 absolutely jammed to death ! Would to hea- 
 ven my brother were alive again, and could go 
 with another fleet to Sicily, and be the death 
 of this host of people, wlio plague and pester 
 one in this horrid manner * !" 
 
 • " Quid me nunc factum essct, quajitoque luctius prcs- 
 siusquc conflictata ossem, si P. Claudius fratcr nicus 
 navali pra^lio classem navium cum ingcnti civiuin numcro 
 non pordidisset ? ccrte quidom majore nunc copia populi 
 oppressa Intcrcidissem. Scd utinam, inquit, reviviscat 
 
 For these words, " so wicked and so uncivic," 
 says good old Gellius (tam improba ac tam in- 
 civilia) the ^diles, Caius Fundanus and Tibe- 
 rius Sempronius, got the lady fined in the sum 
 of twenty-five thousand pounds brass. There 
 is a long account, in Livy, of the speech which 
 they made to the people in reply to the noble 
 families that interceded for her. It is very in- 
 dignant. Claudia herself confessed her words, 
 and does not appear to have joined in the in- 
 tercession. They are not related at such length 
 by Livy, as by Aulus Gellius. He merely makes 
 her wish that her brother were alive to take 
 out another fleet. But he shows his sense of 
 the ebullition by calling it a dreadful impreca- 
 tion ; and her rage was even more gratuitous, 
 according to his account ; for he describes her 
 as coming from the shows in a chariot. 
 
 Insolence and Avant of feeling appear to have 
 been hereditary in this Appian family : which 
 gives us also a strong sense of their want of 
 capacity ; otherwise a disgust at such manners 
 must have been generated in some of the 
 children. They were famous for opposing 
 every pojjular law, and for having kept the 
 commons as long as possible out of any share 
 in public honours and govei-nment. The vil- 
 lain Appius Claudius, whose story has been 
 made still more familiar to the jjublic by the 
 tragedy of Mr. Knowles, was among its ances- 
 tors. Appius Cajcus, or the Blind, the father 
 of Claudia, though he constructed the cele- 
 brated Appian Way and otherwise benefited 
 the city, was a very unpopular man, wilful, 
 liaughty, and lawless. He retained possession 
 of the Censorship beyond the limited period. 
 It is an instance perhaps of his unpopularity, 
 as well as of the superstition of the times, that 
 having made a change in one of the priestly 
 ofiices, and become blind some years afterwards, 
 the Romans attributed it to the vengeance of 
 heaven ; an opinion which Livy repeats with 
 great devotion, calling it a warning against in- 
 novations in religion. It had no effect, how- 
 ever, upon Claudius the brother, whoso rashness 
 furnished the pious Romans with a similar 
 example to point at. Before an engagement 
 with the Carthaginians, the Sacred Chickens 
 were consulted, and because they would not 
 peck and furnish him with a good omen, he 
 ordered them to be thrown into the sea. " If 
 they won't eat," says he, " let 'em drink." The 
 engagement was one of the worst planned 
 and the worst fought in the world ; but the 
 men were dispirited by the Consul's irreverent 
 behaviour to the chickens ; and his impiety 
 shared the disgrace with his folly. Livy re- 
 presents him as an e})itome of all that was 
 bad in his family ; proud, stubborn, unmerciful, 
 though full of faults himself, and wilful and 
 precipitate to a degree of madness. This was 
 
 fratcr, aliamquo classem in Sicilian! ducat, atque ist.am 
 multitudincm perditum eat, qua; me male nunc miserani 
 convexavit."
 
 10 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 "nl 
 
 the battle, of which his sister wished to see a 
 repetition. It cost the Itoinaiis ;nany sliips 
 sunk, ninety-tliree taken, and according to the 
 historian, the miraculous loss of eight thousand 
 men killed and twonty thousand taken i)ri- 
 soners, while the Carthaginians lost not a ship 
 or a man. 
 
 XLVL— SHAKING HANDS. 
 
 Among the first things which we remember 
 noticing in the manners of people, were two 
 errors in the custom of shaking hands. Some 
 we observed, grasped everybody's hand alike, 
 — with an equal fervour of gri]). You would 
 have thought that Jenkins was the best friend 
 they had in the world ; but on succeeding to 
 the squeeze, though a slight acquaintance, you 
 found it equally tlattering to yourself ; and on 
 the appearance of somebody else (whose name, 
 it tiii'ned out, the operator had forgotten,) the 
 crush was no less complimentary : — the face 
 was as earnest, and beaming the " glad to see 
 you " as syllabicai and sincere, and the shako 
 as close, as long, and as rejoicing, as if the 
 semi-unknown was a friend come home from 
 the Deserts. 
 
 On the other hand, there would be a gentle- 
 !uaD, now and then, as coy of his hand, as if 
 he were a prude, or had a whitlow. It was in 
 vain that your pretensions did not go beyond 
 the " civil salute" of the ordinary shake ; or 
 tbat being introduced to him in a friendly 
 manner, and expected to shake hands with the 
 rest of the company, you could not in decency 
 omit his. His fingers, half coming out and 
 half retreating, seemed to think that you were 
 going to do them a mischief ; and when you 
 gbt hold of them, the whole shake was on your 
 side ; the other hand did but proudly or pen- 
 sively acquiesce — there was no knowing which; 
 you had to sustain it, as you miglit a lady's, in 
 handing her to a seat ; and it was an equal 
 perplexity to know whether to shake or to let 
 it go. The one seemed a violence done to the 
 patient, the other an awkward responsibility 
 brought upon yourself. You did not know, 
 all the evening, whether you were not an ob- 
 ject of dislike to tlie person ; till, on the party's 
 breaking up, you saw him behave like an 
 equally ill-used gentleman to all who practised 
 the same unthinking civility. 
 
 Both these errors, we think, might as well 
 be avoided ; but, of tlio two, we must say we 
 prefer the former. If it does not look so much 
 like particular sincerity, it looks more like 
 general kindness ; and if those two virtues are 
 to be separated (which they assuredly need 
 not be, if considered without spleen), the 
 world can better afford to dispense with an 
 unpleasant truth than a gratuitous humanity. 
 Besides, it is more difficult to make sure of the 
 one than to practise the other, and kindness 
 
 itself is the best of all truths. As long as we 
 are sure of that, we are sure of something, and 
 of something pleasant. It is always the best 
 end, if not in every instance the most logical 
 means. 
 
 Tliis manual shjTiess is sometimes attributed 
 to modesty, but never, we suspect, with justice, 
 unless it be that sort of modesty whose fear 
 of committing itself is grounded in pride. 
 "Want of address is a better reason ; but tliis 
 particular instance of it would bo grounded in 
 the same feeling. It always implies a habit 
 either of pride or mistrust. We have met 
 with two really kind men who evinced this 
 soreness of hand. Neither of them, perhaps, 
 thought himself inferior to anybody about Jiim, 
 and both had good reason to think highly of 
 themselves, but both had been sanguine men 
 contradicted in their early hopes. There was 
 a plot to meet the hand of one of them with a 
 fish-slice, in order to show him the disadvantage 
 to which he put his fi-iends by that flat mode 
 of salutation ; but the conspirator had not the 
 courage to do it. Whether he heard of the 
 intention we know not, but shortly afterwards 
 he took very kindly to a shake. The other* 
 was the only man of a warm set of politicians, 
 whoremained true to his first hopes of mankind. 
 He was impatient at the change in his com- 
 panions, and at the folly and inattention of the 
 rest ; but though his manner became cold, his 
 consistency remained warm, and this gave hira 
 a right to be as strange as he pleased. 
 
 XLVIL — ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF 
 LAUREL FROM VAUCLUSE. 
 
 And this piece of laurel is from Vaucluse ! 
 Perhaps Petrarch, perhaps Laura sat under it ! 
 This is a tiiie present. What an exquisite, 
 dry, old, vital, young-looking, everlasting twig 
 it is ! It has been plucked nine months, and 
 yet looks as hale and as crisp as if it would last 
 ninety years. It shall last, at any rate, as long 
 as its owner, and longer, if care and love can 
 preserve it. How beautifully it is turned ! It 
 was a happy pull from tlie tree. Its shape is 
 the very line of beauty ; it has berries upon it, 
 as if resolved to show us in what fine condition 
 the trees are ; while the leaves issue from it, 
 and swerve upwards with their elegant points, 
 as though they had come from adorning the 
 poet's head. Be thou among the best of one's 
 keepsakes, thou gentle stem, in deVicns nostris ; 
 and may the very maid-servant, who wonders 
 to see thy withered beauty in its frame, miss 
 her lover the next five weeks, for not having 
 the instinct to know that thou must have 
 something to do with love ! 
 
 Perhaps Petrarch has felt the old ancestral 
 boughs of this branch stretching over his head, 
 
 ^The late Mr. Uazlitt.
 
 COACHES. 
 
 11 
 
 and whispering to him of the name of Laura, 
 of his love, and of their future glory ; for all 
 these ideas used to he entwined in one. (Ses- 
 tina 2, canzone 17, sonetti 162, 1G3, 164, 207, 
 224, &c.) Perhaps it is of the very stock of 
 that bough, which he describes as supplying 
 his mistress with a leaning-stock, when she 
 sat in her favourite bower. 
 
 Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro 
 Vidi piii bianca e piu fredda die neve 
 Kon percossa dal sol molti e molt' anni ; 
 E '1 suo parlar, e '1 bel vise, e le chiome, 
 Mi piacquer si, ch' 1' I'ho a gli occhi mlei, 
 Ed avro sempre, ov' io sia in poggio o'n riva. 
 
 Part i. sestina 2. 
 
 A youthful lady under a green laurel 
 I saw, more fair and colder than white snows 
 Veil'd from the sun for many and many a year : 
 And her sweet face, and hair, and way of speaking. 
 So pleased me, that I have her now before me. 
 And shall have ever, whether on hill or lea. 
 
 The laurel seems more appropriate to Pe- 
 trarch than to any other poet. He delighted 
 to sit under its leaves ; he loved it boih for 
 itself and for the resemblance of its name to 
 that of his mistress ; he wrote of it continually, 
 and he was called from out of its shade to be 
 crowned M'ith it in the capitol. It is a remark- 
 able instance of the fondness with which he 
 cherished the united idea of Laura and the 
 laurel, that he confesses this fancy to have 
 been one of the greatest delights he experienced 
 in receiving the crown upon his head. 
 
 It was out of "Vaucluse that he was called. 
 Vaucluse, Valchiusa, the Shut Valley (from 
 which the French, in the modern enthusiasm 
 for intellect, gave the name to the department 
 in which it lies), is a remarkable spot in the 
 old poetical region of Provence, consisting of a 
 little deep glen of green meadows, surrounded 
 with rocks, and containing the fountain of the 
 river Sorgue. Petrarch, when a boy of eight 
 or nine years of age, had been struck with its 
 beauty, and exclaimed that it was the place of 
 all others he should like to live in, better than 
 the most splendid cities. He resided there 
 afterwards for several years, and composed in 
 it the greater part of his poems. Indeed, he 
 says in his account of himself, that he either 
 wrote or conceived, in that valley, almost every 
 work he produced. He lived in a little cottage, 
 with a small homestead, on the banks of the 
 river. Here he thought to forget his passion 
 for Laura, and here he found it stronger than 
 ever. We do not well see how it could have 
 been otherwise ; for Laura lived no gi-cat way 
 off, at Chabrieres, and he appears to have seen 
 her often in the very place. He paced along 
 the river ; he sat under the trees ; he climbed 
 the mountains j but Love, he says, was ever 
 by his side, 
 
 Ragionando con meco, ed io con lui. 
 
 Ho holding talk with me, and I with him. 
 
 We are supposing that all our readers are 
 acquainted with Petrarch. !Many of them 
 
 doubtless know him intimately. Should any 
 of them want an introduction to him, how 
 should we speak of him in the gross ? We 
 should say, that he was one of the finest gen- 
 tlemen and greatest scholars that ever lived ; 
 that he was a writer who flourished in Italy in 
 the 14th century, at the time when Chaucer 
 was young, during the reigns of our Edwards ; 
 that he was the greatest light of his age ; that 
 although so fine a writer himself, and the 
 author of a multitude of works, or rather 
 because he was both, he took the greatest pains 
 to revive the knowledge of the ancient learning, 
 recommending it everywhere, and copying out 
 large manuscripts with his own hand ; that 
 two great cities, Paris and Rome, contended 
 which should have the honour of crowning 
 him ; that he was crowned publicly, in the 
 ]\Ietropolis of the World, with laurel and with 
 myrtle ; that he was the friend of Boccaccio, 
 the Father of Italian Prose ; and lastly, that 
 his greatest renown nevertheless, as well as 
 the predominant feelings of his existence, arose 
 from the long love he bore for a lady of Avi- 
 gnon, the far-famed Laiira, whom he fell in love 
 with on the 6th of April, 1327, on a Good 
 Friday ; whom he rendered illustrious in a 
 multitude of sonnets, which have left a sweet 
 sound and sentiment in the ear of all after 
 lovers ; and who died, still passionately be- 
 loved, in the year 1348, on the same day and 
 hour on which he first beheld her. Who she 
 was, or why their connexion was not closer, 
 remains a mystery. But that she was a real 
 person, and that in spite of her staid manners 
 she did not show an altogether insensible 
 countenance to his passion, is clear from his 
 long-haunted imagination, from his own re- 
 peated accomits — from all that he wrote, uttered, 
 and thought. One love, and one poet, sufiiced 
 to give the whole civilised world a sense of 
 delicacy in desire, of the abundant riches to 
 be found in one single idea, and of the going 
 out of a man's self to dwell in the soul and 
 happiness of another, which has served to 
 refine the passion for all modem times ; and 
 perhaps will do so, as long as love renews the 
 world. 
 
 XLVIII.— COACHES. 
 
 According to the opinion commonly enter- 
 tained respecting an author's want of riches, 
 it may be allowed us to say, that we retain 
 from childhood a considerable notion of " a 
 ride in a coach." Nor do we hesitate to confess, 
 that by coach, we especially mean a hired one ; 
 from the equivocal dignity of the post-chaise, 
 down to that despised old cast-away, the 
 hackney. 
 
 It is true, that the carriage, as it is indiffer- 
 ently called (as if nothing less genteel could 
 carry any one) is a more decided thing than
 
 12 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 the chaise ; it may be swifter even than the 
 mail, leaves the stage at a still greater distance 
 in every resi)ect, and (forgetting; what it may 
 come to itself) darts by the poor old lumboring 
 hackney with immeasurable contempt. It 
 rolls with a prouder ease than any other 
 vehicle. It is full of cushions and comfort ; 
 elegantly coloured inside and out ; rich, yet 
 neat ; light and rapid, yet substantial. The 
 horses seem proud to draw it. The fat and 
 fair-wigged coachman " lends his sounding 
 lash," his arm only in action and that but little, 
 his body well set witli its own weight. The 
 footman, in the pride of his nonchalance, hold- 
 ing by the straps b(!liind, and glancing down 
 sideways betwixt liis cocked-hat and neckcloth, 
 stands swinging from east to west upon his 
 springy toes. The horses rush along amidst 
 their glancing harness. Spotted dogs leap 
 about them, barking with a princely superfluity 
 of noise. The hammer-cloth trembles through 
 all its fringe. The paint flashes in the sun. 
 We, contemptuous of everything less con- 
 venient, bow backwards and forwards with a 
 certain indifferent air of gentility, infinitely 
 predominant. Suddenly, with a happy mixture 
 of turbulence and truth, the carriage dashes 
 up by the curb-stone to the very point desired, 
 and stops with a lordly wilfulness of decision. 
 The coachman looks as if nothing had hap- 
 pened. The footman is down in an instant ; 
 the knocker reverberates into the farthest 
 corner of the house ; doors, both carriage and 
 house, are open ; — we descend, casting a matter- 
 of-course eye at the by-standers ; and the 
 moment we touch the pavement, the vehicle, 
 as if conscious of what it has carried, and re- 
 lieved from the weight of our importance, 
 recovers from its sidelong inclination with a 
 jerk, tossing and panting, as it were, for 
 very breath, like the proud heads of the 
 horses. 
 
 All this, it must be owned, is very pretty ; 
 but it is also gouty and superfluous. It is too 
 convenient, — too exacting, — too exclusive. 
 We must get too much for it, and lose too 
 much by it. Its plenty, as Ovid says, makes 
 us poor. We neither have it in the republic 
 of letters, nor would desire it in any less 
 Jacobinical state. Horses, as many as you 
 please, provided men have enough to eat ; — 
 hired coaches, a reasonable number : — but 
 health and good-liumour at all events. 
 
 Gigs and curricles are tilings less objection- 
 able, because tliey cannot be so relied upon as 
 substitutes for exercise. Our taste in them, 
 we must confess, is not genuine. How shall 
 we own it ? We like to be driven, instead of 
 drive ; — to read or look about us, instead of 
 keeping watch on a horse's head. We have no 
 relish even for vehicles of this descrij)tion that 
 are not safe. Danger is a good tiling forgiving 
 a fillip to a man's ideas ; but even danger, to 
 us, must come recommended by something 
 
 useful. We have no ambition to have Tande m 
 written on our tombstone. 
 
 The j)rettiest of these vehicles is the curricle, 
 which is also the safest. There is sometliing 
 worth looking at in tlie pair of horses, with 
 that sjiarkling pole of steel laid across them. 
 It is like a bar of music, comprising their har- 
 monious course. But to us, even gigs are but 
 a sort of unsuccessful run at gentility. Tlie 
 driver, to all intents and purposes, had better 
 be on the horse. Horseback is the noblest 
 way of being carried in the world. It is cheaper 
 than any other mode of riding ; it is common 
 to all ranks ; and it is manly, graceful, and 
 healthy. Tlie handsomest mixture of danger 
 with dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was 
 the tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We 
 remember looking uj) to it with respect in our 
 childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for its 
 name, and partly for the show it makes in the 
 prints to novels of that period. The most 
 gallant figure which modern driving ever cut, 
 was in the person of a late Duke of Hamilton ; 
 of whom we have read or heard somewhere, 
 that he used to dash round the streets of Rome, 
 with his horses panting, and his hounds barking 
 about his phaeton, to the equal fright and ad- 
 miration of the Masters of the World, who were 
 accustomed to witness nothing higher than a 
 lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a mule. 
 
 A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling, 
 which in the company of those we love is home 
 in motion. The smooth running along the 
 road, the fresh air, the variety of scene, the 
 leafy roads, the bursting prospects, the clatter 
 through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, 
 the hearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise 
 waiting only upon your own movements), even 
 the little contradictions to home-comfort, and 
 the expedients upon which they set us, all put 
 the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty 
 over the road of life. If anything could grind 
 us young again, it would be the wheels of a 
 post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is the 
 perpetual up-and-down movement of tlie pos- 
 tilion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a 
 chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which 
 occupies the place of a box, and his affecting 
 to sit upon it, only remind us of its exquisite 
 want of accommodation. But some have given 
 the bar, lately, a surreptitious squeeze in the 
 middle, and flattened it a little into something 
 obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat. 
 
 If we are to believe the merry Columbus of 
 Down-Hall, calashes, now almost obsolete for 
 any purpose, used to be hired for travelling 
 occasions a hundred years back ; but he pre- 
 ferred a chariot ; and neither was good. Yet 
 see how pleasantly good-humour rides over its 
 inconveniences. 
 
 Then answer'd 'Squire Morley, " Pray get a calash, 
 That in summer may hurn, and in winter may splash ; 
 I love dirt and dust ; and 'tis always my pleauure 
 To take with me much of the soil that I measure."
 
 COACHES. 
 
 13 
 
 But Matthew thought better ; for JIatthew thought right, 
 And hired a chariot so trim and so tight. 
 That extremes both of winter and summer might pass ; 
 For one window was canvas, the other was glass. 
 
 " Draw up," quoth friend Matthew ; " Pall do\\'n," quoth 
 
 friend Jolin ; 
 " We shall be both hotter and colder anon." 
 Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed ; 
 And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede. 
 
 Into an old inn did this equipage roll. 
 At a town they call Ilodson, the sign of the Bull ; 
 Near a nj-mph with an urn that divides the highway. 
 And into a puddle throws mother of tea. 
 
 " Come here, my sweet landlady, pray how d'ye do ? 
 Where is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue ? 
 And where is the widow that dwelt here below ? 
 And tlie hostler that sung about eight years ago ? 
 
 And where is your sister, so mild and so dear. 
 Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear ?" 
 " By my troth," she replies, " you grow younger, Itliink : 
 And pray, Sir, what wine does the gentleman di-ink ? 
 
 " Why now let me die, Sir, or live upon trust, 
 
 I^I know to which question to answer you first : 
 
 Why, things, since I saw you, most strangely have varied ; 
 
 The hostler is hang'd, and the widow is married. 
 
 " And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse, 
 And Cicely went off with a gentleman's purse ; 
 And as to my sister, so mild and so dear, 
 She has lain in tlie church-yard full many a year." 
 
 " Well ; peace to her ashes ! ^^^lat signifies grief ? 
 She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef: 
 Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish ; 
 For tough were her pullets, and tender her fish." — Prior. 
 
 This quotation reminds us of a little poem by 
 the same authoi', entitled the Secretary, which, 
 as it is short, and runs upon chaise-wheels, and 
 seems to have slipped the notice it deserves, 
 we will do ourselves the pleasure of adding. It 
 was written when he was Secretary of Embassy 
 at the Hague, where he seems to have edified 
 the Dutch with liis insisting upon enjoying him- 
 self. The astonishment with which the good 
 Hollander and his wife look up to him as he 
 rides, and the touch of yawning dialect at the 
 end, are extremely pleasant. 
 
 While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix. 
 
 And in one day atone for the business of six. 
 
 In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night, 
 
 On my left hand my Horace, a ny-mph on my right : 
 
 No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, 
 
 That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love ; 
 
 For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea, 
 
 Nor tlie long-winded cant of a dull Refugee : 
 
 This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, — 
 
 To good or ill-fortune the thii-d we resign : 
 
 Thus scorning the world and superior to fate, 
 
 I drive on my car in processional state. 
 
 So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode ; 
 
 Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god. 
 
 But why should I stories of Athens rehearse. 
 
 Where people knew love, and were partial to verse ? 
 
 Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose. 
 
 In Holland half drowned in interest and proso ? 
 
 By Greece and past ages what need I be tried. 
 
 When the Hague and tlie present are both on my side ? 
 
 And is it enough for the joys of the day, 
 
 To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say ? 
 
 When good Vandcrgocs, and his provident rrow. 
 
 As tliey gaze on my triumph, do freely allow, 
 
 That, search all the province, you'll find no man ddr is 
 
 So blest as the Englishcn Ilcer Secrclar' is. 
 
 If Prior had been living now, lie would have 
 found the greatest want of travelling accommo- 
 dation in a country for whose more serious 
 wants we have to answer, without having her 
 wit to help us to an excuse. There is a story 
 told of an Irish post-chaise, the occupier of 
 which, without quitting it, had to take to his 
 heels. It was going down hill as fast as wind 
 and the impossibility of stopping could make 
 it, when the foot passengers observed a couple 
 of legs underneath, emulating, with all their 
 might, the rajjidity of the wheels. The bottom 
 had come out ; and the gentleman was obliged 
 to run for his life. 
 
 "We must relate another anecdote of an Irish 
 post-chaise, merely to show the natural tenden- 
 cies of the people to be lawless in self-defence. 
 A friend of ours *, who was travelling among 
 them, used to have this proposition put to him 
 by the postilion whenever he approached a 
 turnpike. " Plase your honour, will I drive at 
 the pike ?" The pike hung loosely across the 
 road. Luckily, the rider happened to be of as 
 lawless a turn for justice as the di'iver, so the 
 answer was always a cordial one : — " Oh yes — 
 drive at the pike." The pike made way accord- 
 ingly ; and in a minute or two, the gate people 
 were heard and seen, screaming in vain after 
 the illegal charioteers. 
 
 Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus. — Virgil. 
 
 The driver 's borne beyond their swearing, 
 And the post-chaise is hard of hearing. 
 
 As to following them, nobody in Ireland 
 thinks of moving too much, legal or illegal. 
 
 The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not 
 so much at one's command, as that in a post- 
 chaise. There is generally too little room in it, 
 and too much hurry out of it. The company 
 must not lounge over their breakfast, even if 
 they are all agreed. It is an understood thing, 
 that they are to be uncomfortably punctual. 
 They must get in at seven o'clock, though they 
 are all going upon business they do not like or 
 care about, or will have to wait till nine before 
 they can do any thing. Some persons know 
 how to manage this haste, and breakfast and 
 dine in the cracking of a whip. They stick 
 with their fork, they joint, they sliver, they bolt. 
 Legs and wings vanish before them like a dra- 
 gon's before a knight-errant. But if one is not 
 a clergyman or a regular jolly fellow, one has 
 no chance this way. To be diffident or polite, 
 is fatal. It is a merit eagerly acknowledged, 
 and as quickly set aside. At last you begin 
 upon a leg, and are called off. 
 
 A very troublesome degree of science is 
 necessary for being well settled in the coach. 
 We remember travelling in our youth, upon 
 the north road, with an orthodox elderly gen- 
 tleman of venerable peruke, wlio talked much 
 with a grave-looking young man about univer- 
 
 * Mr. ShcUey.
 
 14 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 si ties, and won our inexperienced heart with a 
 notion that he was deep in Horace and Virgil. 
 He was deeper in iiis wig. Towards evening, 
 as he seemed restless, we asked with niucli 
 diffidence whether a change, even for the worse, 
 might not relieve him ; for Ave were riding 
 backwards, and thought that all elderly people 
 disliked that way. lie insinuated tiie very 
 objection ; so we recoiled from asking him 
 again. In a minute or two, however, he insisted 
 that we wore uneasy ourselves, and that lie 
 must relieve us for our own sake. We pro- 
 tested as filially as possible against this ; but at 
 last, out of mere shame of disputing the point 
 with so benevolent an elder, we changed seats 
 with him. After an interval of bland medita- 
 tion, we found the evening sun full in our face. 
 — His new comfort set him dozing ; and every 
 now and then he jerked his wig in our eyes, 
 till we had the pleasure of seeing him take out 
 a nightcap and look very ghastly. — The same 
 person, and his serious young companion, trick- 
 ed us out of a good bed we happened to get at 
 the inn. 
 
 The greatest peculiarity attending a mail- 
 coacli arises from its travelling at night. The 
 gradual decline of talk, the incipient snore, the 
 rustling and shifting of legs and nightcaps, the 
 cessation of other noises on the road — the sound 
 of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit of the 
 wheels, and of the time-beating tread of the horses 
 — all dispose the traveller, who cannot sleep, 
 to a double sense of the little that is left him 
 to observe. The coach stops, the door opens, 
 a rush of cold air announces tlie demands and 
 merits of the guard, who is taking his leave, 
 and is anxious to remember us. The door is 
 clapped to again ; the sound of everything out- 
 side becomes dim ; and voices are heard knock- 
 ing up the people of the inn, and answered by 
 issuing yawns and excuses. Wooden shoos 
 clog heavily about. The horses' mouths are 
 heard, swilling up the water out of tubs. 
 All is still again, and some one in the coach 
 takes a long breath. The driver mounts, and 
 we resume our way. It happens that we can 
 sleep anywhere except in a mail-coach ; so 
 that we hate to see a prudent, warm, old fellow, 
 who has been eating our fowls and intercepting 
 our toast, put on his niglit-cap in order to settle 
 hiinself till morning. We rejoice in the digs 
 that his neighbour's elbow gives him, and hail 
 the long-legged traveller that sits opposite. A 
 passenger of our wakeful description must try 
 to content himself with listening to the sounds 
 above mentioned ; or thinking of his friends ; 
 or turning verses, as Sir Itichard Blackmore 
 did, " to the rumbling of his coach's Avheels." 
 
 The stage-coach is a great and unjiretending 
 accommodation. It is a cheap substitute, not- 
 withstanding all its eighteen-penny and two- 
 and-sixpenny temptations, for keeping a car- 
 riage or a horse ; and we really think, in spite 
 of its gossiping, is no mean help to village 
 
 liberality ; for its passengers are so mixed, so 
 often varied, so little yet so much together, so 
 compelled to accommodate, so willing to pass 
 a short time pleasantly,and so liable to the criti- 
 cism of strangers, tliat it is hard if they do not 
 get a habit of speaking, or even thinking more 
 kindly of one another than if they mingled 
 less often, or under otlier circumstances. The 
 old and infirm are treated with reverence; 
 the ailing sympathised with; the healthy con- 
 gratidated ; the rich not distinguished ; the 
 poor well met : the young, with their faces 
 conscious of ride, patronised, and allowed to 
 be extra. Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to 
 bear with each other ; and if some high 
 thoughted persons will talk now and then of 
 their great acquaintances, or their preference 
 of a carriage, there is an instinct which tells 
 the rest, that they would not make such ap- 
 peals to their good opinion, if they valued it so 
 little as might be supposed. Stoppings and 
 dust are not pleasant, but the latter may be 
 had on grander occasions; and if any one is so 
 unlucky as never to keep anotiier stopping 
 himself, he must be content with the supe- 
 riority of his virtue. 
 
 The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole, 
 is no inhuman mass of great-coat, gruf^'ness, 
 civility, and old boots. The latter is the politer, 
 from the smaller range of acquaintance, and 
 his necessity for preserving them. His face is 
 red, and his voice rough, by the same process 
 of drink and catarrh. He has a silver watch 
 with a steel-chain, and plenty of loose silver in 
 his pocket, mixed with halfpence. He serves 
 the houses he goes by for a clock. He takes a 
 glass at every alehouse ; for thirst, when it is 
 dry, and for warmth when it is wet. He likes 
 to show the judicious reach of his whip, by 
 twigging a dog or a goose on the road, or 
 children that get in the way. His tenderness 
 to descending old ladies is particular. He 
 touches his hat to ]Mr. Smith. He gives " the 
 young woman" a ride, and lends her his box- 
 coat in tlie rain. His liberality in imparting 
 his knowledge to any one that has the 
 good fortune to ride on the box with him, is a 
 happy mixture of deference, conscious po.s- 
 session,and familiarity. His information chiefly 
 lies in the occupancy of houses on the road, 
 prize-fighters, liow-street runners, and acci 
 dents. He concludes that yoTi know Dick 
 Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to relate some 
 of tlie stories that relish his pot and tobacco 
 in the evening. If any of the four-in-hand 
 gentry go by, he shakes his head, and thinks 
 they might find something better to do. His 
 contempt for them is founded on modesty. He 
 tells you that his off-iiand horse is as pretty a 
 goer as ever was, but that Kitty — " Yeah, now 
 there, Kitty, can't you be still? Kitty's a devil, 
 Sir, for all you wouldn't think it." He knows 
 that the boys on the road admire him, and 
 gives the horses an indifferent lash with liis
 
 COACHES. 
 
 16 
 
 whip as they go by. If you wish to know 
 what rain and dust can do, you should look at 
 his old hat. There is an indescribably placid 
 and paternal look in the position of his coi'duroy 
 knees and old top-boots on the foot-board, with 
 their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His 
 beau-ideal of appearance is a frock-coat, with 
 mother-o'-pearl buttons, a striped yellow waist- 
 coat, and a flower in his mouth. 
 
 But all our praises why for Charles and Rohert? 
 Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart. 
 
 Is the quadrijugal ^^rtue of that learned person 
 still extant ? That Olympic and Baccalau- 
 reated charioteer ? — That best educated and 
 most erudite of coachmen, of whom Dominie 
 Sampson is alone worthy to speak ? That 
 singular punning and driving commentary on 
 the Sunt qitos curriculo collegisse ? In short, the 
 worthy and agreeable Mr. Bobart, Bachelor of 
 Arts, who drove the Oxford stage some years 
 ago, capped verses and the front of his hat 
 with equal dexterity, and read Horace over 
 his brandy-and-water of an evening ? We had 
 once the pleasure of being beaten by him in that 
 capital art, he having brought up against us an 
 unusual number of those cross-armed letters, as 
 puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto 
 cavalry, ycleped X's ; which said warfare he 
 was pleased to call to mind in after-times, unto 
 divers of our comrades. The modest and 
 natural greatness with which he used to say 
 "Yait" to his horses, and then turn round 
 with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish, and 
 give out the required verse, can never pass 
 away from us, as long as verses or horses run. 
 
 Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as 
 short work, as many persons like to make of it 
 in reality. Perhaps it is partly a sense of the 
 contempt it undergoes, which induces us to 
 endeavour to make the best of it. But it has 
 its merits, as we shall show presently. In the 
 account of its demerits, we have been antici- 
 pated by a new, and we are sorry to say a very 
 
 good, poetess, of the name of Lucy V 
 
 L , who has favoured us with a sight of a 
 
 manuscrij)t poem,* in which they are related 
 with great nicety and sensitiveness. 
 
 Reader. WTiat Sir, sorry to say that a lady 
 is a good poetess ? 
 
 Indicator. Only inasmuch, !Madam, as the 
 lady gives such authority to the antisocial view 
 of this subject, and will not agree with us as 
 to the beatitude of the hackney-coach. — But 
 hold : — upon turning to the manuscript again, 
 we find that the objections are put into the 
 mouth of a dandy courtier. This makes a great 
 difference. The hackney resumes all which it 
 had lost in the good graces of the fair authoress. 
 The only wonder is, how the courtier could talk 
 so well. Here is the passage. 
 
 * By Mr. Keats. The m.anuscript purports to have been 
 written by a Miss Lucy Vaughan Lloyd. 
 
 Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks, 
 (Of Pastry he got store within the Palace,) 
 With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks, 
 Incognito upon his errand sallies, 
 Ilis smelling-bottle ready for the alleys ; 
 He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain. 
 Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys : 
 Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain. 
 Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain. 
 
 " I'll pull the string," said he, and fiu'ther said, 
 " Polluted Jarvcy ! Ah, thou filtliy hack ! 
 Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead, 
 AVTiose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack. 
 Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack ; 
 And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter ; 
 Whose glass once up can never be got back, 
 AVho prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter, 
 That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter. 
 
 " Thou inconvenience ! thou hungry crop 
 For all com ! thou snail creeper to and fro, 
 Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop. 
 And fiddle-faddle standest while you go ; 
 I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe. 
 Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest. 
 And in the evening tak'st a double row 
 Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest. 
 Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west. 
 
 " By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien, 
 An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge ; 
 Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign. 
 Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge, 
 Sehool'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge ; 
 A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare ; 
 Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge 
 To whisking Tilburies or Phaetons rare. 
 Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare." 
 
 Philosophising thus, he puU'd the check. 
 And bade the coachman wheel to such a street ; 
 Who turning much his body, more his neck, 
 Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet. 
 
 The tact here is so nice, of the infirmities which 
 are but too likely to beset our poor old friend, 
 that we should only spoil it to say more. To 
 pass then to the merits. 
 
 One of the greatest helps to a sense of merit 
 in other things, is a consciousness of one's o-mi 
 wants. Do you despise a hackney-coach ? 
 Get tired ; get old ; get young again. Lay 
 down your carriage, or make it less uneasily 
 too easy. Have to stand up half an hour, out 
 of a storm, under a gateway. Be ill, and wish 
 to visit a friend who is Averse. Fall in love, 
 and want to sit next your mistress. Or if all 
 this will not do, fall in a cellar. 
 
 Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the 
 niggardliness of James the First, exclaimed, 
 " He despises me, I suppose, because I live in 
 an alley : — tell him his soul lives in an alley." 
 We think we see a hackney-coach moved out 
 of its ordinary jjationce, and hoar it say, " You 
 there, who sit looking so scornfully at me out 
 of your carriage, are yourself the thing you 
 take me for. Your understanding is a hackney- 
 coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. 
 When it moves, it is drawn by tilings like itself. 
 It is at once the most stationary and the most 
 servile of common-places. And when a good 
 thing is put into it, it does not know it."
 
 16 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach 
 under so irritable an aspect. Hogarth has 
 drawn a set of hats or wigs with countenances 
 of their own. We have noticed the same thing 
 in the faces of houses ; and it sometimes gets 
 in one's way in a landscape-painting, with the 
 outlines of the rocks and trees. A friend tells 
 us, that the hackney-coach has its countenance, 
 with gesticulation besides : and now he has 
 pointed it out, we can easily fancy it. Some 
 of them look chucked imder the chin, some 
 nodding, some coming at you sideways. We 
 shall never find it easy, however, to fancy the 
 irritable aspect above mentioned. A hackney- 
 coach always appeared to us the most quiescent 
 of moveables. Its horses and it, slumbering 
 on a stand, are an emblem of ail the patience 
 in creation, animate and inanimate. The sub- 
 mission with which the coach takes every 
 variety of the weather, dust, rain, and wind, 
 never moving but when some eddying blast 
 makes its old body shiver, is only surpassed by 
 the vital patience of the horses. Can any- 
 thing better illustrate the poet's line about 
 
 ^Years that bring the philosophic mind, 
 
 than the still-hung head, the dim indifferent 
 eye, the dragged and blunt-cornered mouth, 
 and the gaunt imbecility of body dropping its 
 weiglit on three tired legs in order to give 
 repose to the lame one ? When it has blinkers 
 on, tliey seem to be shutting up its eyes for 
 death, like the windows of a house. Fatigue 
 and the habit of suffering have become as 
 natural to the creature as the bit to its mouth. 
 Once in half an hour it moves the position of 
 its leg, or shakes its drooping ears. The whip 
 makes it go, more from habit than from pain. 
 Its coat has become almost callous to minor 
 stings. The blind and staggering fly in autumn 
 might come to die against its cheek. 
 
 Of a pair of hackney-coach horses, one so 
 much resembles the other that it seems im- 
 necessary for them to com])are notes. They 
 have that within them, which is beyond the 
 comparative. They no longer bend their heads 
 towards eacli other, as they go. They stand 
 together as if unconscious of one another's com- 
 pany. But they are not. An old horse misses 
 his companion, like an old man. The presence 
 of an associate, who has gone through pain and 
 suffering with us, need not say anything. 
 It is talk, and memory, and everything. Some- 
 thing of this it may be to our old friends in 
 harness. What are they thinking of, whik; 
 they stand motionless in tlie rain ? Do tliey 
 remember? Do they dream? Do they still, 
 imperplexed as their old blood is by too many 
 foods, receive a pleasure from the elements ; 
 a dull refreshment from the air and sun ? 
 Have they yet a palate for the hay which tliey 
 pull so feebly? or for the rarer grain, which 
 induces them to perform their only voluntary 
 gesture of any vivacity, and toss up the bags 
 
 that are fastened on their mouths, to get at its 
 shallow feast ? 
 
 If the old horse were gifted with memory, 
 (and wlio shall say he is not, in one thing as 
 well as another ?) it might be at once the most 
 melancholy and pleasantest faculty he has ; for 
 the commonest hack has probably been a hun- 
 ter or I'acer ; has had his days of lustre and 
 enjoyment ; has darted along the course, and 
 scoured the pasture ; has carried his master 
 proudly, or his lady gently; has pranced, has 
 galloped, has neighed aloud, has dared, has 
 forded, has spurned at mastery, has graced it 
 and made it proud, has rejoiced the eye, has 
 been crowded to as an actor, has been all in- 
 stinct with life and quickness, has had his 
 very fear admired as courage, and been sat 
 upon by valour as its chosen seat. 
 
 ITis ears up-pricU'd ; his braided hanging mane 
 Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end ; 
 llis nostrils drink the air ; and forth again, 
 As from a furnace, vapours doth ho send ; 
 
 His eye, which scornfully glistens lilce fire. 
 Shows his hot courage and his high desire. 
 
 Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps. 
 
 With gentle majesty, and modest pride ; 
 
 Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps, 
 
 As who would say, lo ! thus m3' strength is tried, 
 And thus I do to captivate the eye 
 Of the fair breeder that is standing by. 
 
 \\1iat rccketh ho his rider's angry stir. 
 
 His flattering holla, or his Sta7>rl, I say ? 
 
 AMiat cares he now for curb, or pricking spur ? 
 
 For rich caparisons, or trappings gay ? 
 
 He sees his love, and nothing else he sees, 
 For nothing else with his proud sight agrees. 
 
 Look, when a painter would surpass the life. 
 
 In limning out a well-proportion'd steed. 
 
 His art with nature's workmanship at strife. 
 
 As if the dead the living should exceed ; 
 
 So did this horse excel a common one. 
 
 In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone. 
 
 Round-hoof 'd, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long. 
 
 Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide ; 
 
 High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong; 
 
 Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide ; 
 Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack, 
 Save a proud rider on so proud a back. 
 
 Alas ! his only riders now are the rain and 
 a sordid harness ! Tlie least utterance of the 
 wretchedest voice makes him stop and become 
 a fixture. Ilis loves were in existence at the 
 time the old sign, fifty miles hence, was painted. 
 His nostrils drink nothing but what they cannot 
 help, — the water out of an old tub. Not all 
 the hounds in the world could make his ears 
 attain any eminence. His mane is scratchy 
 and lax. Tlie same gi-eat poet who wrote the 
 triumphal verses for him and his loves, has 
 written their living epitaph : — 
 
 The poor jadc3 
 Lob do^vn their heads, dropjiing the hide and hips. 
 The gum down roping from tlieir pale dead eyes; 
 And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
 Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless. 
 
 K. Henry nth, Act 4.
 
 COACHES 
 
 17 
 
 There is a song called the High-mettled Eacer, 
 describing the progress of a favourite horse's 
 life, from its time of vigour and glory, down 
 to its furnishing food for the dogs. It is not 
 as good as Shakspeare ; but it will do, to those 
 who are half as kind as he. We defy anybody 
 to read that song or be in the habit of singing 
 it or hearing it sung, and treat horses as they 
 are sometimes treated. So much good may an 
 author do, who is in earnest, and does not go 
 in a pedantic way to work. We will not say 
 that Plutarch's good-natured observation about 
 taking care of one's old horse did more for 
 that class of retired servants than all the graver 
 lessons of philosophy. For it is philosophy 
 which first sets people thinking ; and then 
 some of them put it in a more popular shape. 
 But we will venture to say, that Plutarch's 
 observation saved many a steed of antiquity a 
 superfluous thump ; and in this respect, the 
 author of the High-mettled Racer (Mr. Dibdin 
 we believe, no mean man in his way) may 
 stand by the side of the old illustrious biogra- 
 pher. Next to ancient causes, to the inevitable 
 progress of events, and to the practical part of 
 Christianity ( which persons, the most accused 
 of irreligion, have preserved like a glorious in- 
 fant, through ages of blood and fire) the kind- 
 liness of modern philosophy is more immedi- 
 ately owing to the great national writers of 
 Europe, in whose schools we have all been 
 children : — to Voltaire in France, and Shak- 
 speare in England. Shakspeare, in his time, 
 obliquely pleaded the cause of the Jew, and 
 got him set on a common level with humanity. 
 The Jew has since been not only allowed to be 
 human, but some have undertaken to show 
 him as the " best good Christian though he 
 knows it not." We shall not dispute the title 
 with him, nor with the other worshippers of 
 Mammon, who force him to the same shrine. 
 We allow, as things go in that quarter, that 
 the Jew is as great a Christian as his neighbour, 
 and his neighbour as great a Jew as he. There 
 is neither love nor money lost between them. 
 But at all events, the Jew is a man ; and with 
 Shakspeare's assistance, the time has arrived, 
 when we can alFord to acknowledge the horse 
 for a fellow-creature, and treat him as one. 
 We may say for him, upon the same grounds 
 and to the same purpose, as Shakspeare said 
 for the Israelite, " Hath not a horse organs, 
 dimensions, senses, affections, passions ? hurt 
 with the same weapons, subject to the same 
 diseases, healed by the same means, warmed 
 and cooled by the same winter and summer, as 
 a Christian is ?" Oh — but some are always 
 at hand to cry out, — it would be effeminate to 
 think too much of these things ! — Alas ! we 
 have no notion of asking the gentlemen to 
 think too much of anything. If they will 
 think at all, it will be a great gain. As to 
 effeminacy (if we must use that ungallant and 
 partial word, for want of a better) it is cruelty 
 [part i;.] 
 
 that is effeminate. It is selfishness that is 
 effeminate. Anything is effeminate, which 
 would get an excitement, or save a proper and 
 manly trouble, at the undue expense of an- 
 other. — How does the case stand then between 
 those who ill-treat their horses, and those who 
 spare them ? 
 
 To return to the coach. Imagine a fine 
 coach and pair, which are standing at the door 
 of a house, in all the pride of their strength 
 and beauty, converted into what they may both 
 become, a hackney, and its old shamblers. 
 Such is one of the meditations of the philoso- 
 phic eighteenpenny rider. A hackney-coach 
 has often the arms of nobility on it. As we 
 are going to get into it, we catch a glimpse of 
 the faded lustre of an earl's or marquis's coro- 
 net, and think how many light or proud hearts 
 have ascended those now ricketty steps. In 
 this coach perhaps an elderly lady once rode 
 to her wedding, a blooming and blushing girl. 
 Her mother and sister were on each side of 
 her ; the bridegroom opposite in a blossom- 
 coloured coat. They talk of everything in the 
 world of which they are not thinking. The 
 sister was never prouder of her. The mother 
 with difficulty represses her own pride and 
 tears. The bride, thinking he is looking at 
 her, casts down her eyes, pensive in her joy. 
 The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and 
 the humblest, and the happiest man in the 
 world — For our parts, we sit in a corner, and 
 are in love with the sister. We dream she is 
 going to speak to us in answer to some indif- 
 ferent question, when a hoarse voice comes in 
 at the front window, and says " Whereabouts 
 Sir !" 
 
 And gi-ief has consecrated thee, thou reverend 
 dilapidation, as well as joy ! Thou hast carried 
 unwilling, as well as willing hearts ; hearts, 
 that have thought the slowest of thy paces too 
 fast ; faces that have sat back in a corner of 
 thee, to hide their tears from the very thought 
 of being seen. In thee the destitute have been 
 taken to the poor-house, and the wounded and 
 sick to the hospital ; and many an arm has been 
 roimd many an insensible waist. Into thee the 
 friend or the lover has hurried, in a pas- 
 sion of tears, to lament his loss. In thee he 
 has hastened to condole the dying or the 
 wretched. In thee the father, or motlier, or 
 the older kinswoman, more patient in lier 
 years, has taken the little child to the grave, 
 the human jewel that must be parted with. 
 
 But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in 
 of the sun-shine. If the lover has gone in thee 
 unwillingly, he has also gone willingly. How 
 many friends hast thou not carried to men-y- 
 mcetings ! How many young parties to the 
 ])lay ! How many children, whose faces thou 
 hast tinned in an instant from the extremity 
 of lachrymose weariness to that of staring 
 delight. Thou hast contained as many difl'ercnt 
 passions in thee as a human heart ; and for the
 
 18 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 sake of the human hoart, ohl body, thou art 
 venerable. Tliou shalt be as respectable as a 
 reduced old gentleman, whose very slovenliness 
 is pathetic. Thou shalt be made gay, as he is 
 over a younger and richer table, and thou shalt 
 be still more touching for the gaiety. 
 
 We wish the hackucy-coachman were as in- 
 teresting a machine as either his coach or 
 horses ; but it must be owned, that of all the 
 driving species he is the least agreeable speci- 
 men. Tills is partly to be attributed to the 
 life which has most probably put him into his 
 situation ; partly to his want of outside pas- 
 sengers to cultivate his gentility ; and partly 
 to the disputable nature of his fare, which al- 
 ways leads him to be lying and cheating. The 
 waterman of the stand, who beats him in sor- 
 didness of appearance, is more respectable. 
 He is less of a vagabond, and cannot cheat you. 
 Nor is the hackney-coachman only disagreeable 
 in himself, but, like FalstafF reversed, the cause 
 of disagreeablcness in others ; for he sets 
 people upon disputing with him in pettiness 
 and ill-temper. lie induces the mercenary to 
 be violent, and the violent to seem mercenary. 
 A man whom you took for a pleasant laughing 
 fellow, shall all of a sudden put on an irrita- 
 ble look of calculation, and vow that he will be 
 charged with a constable, rather than pay the 
 sixpence. Even fair woman shall waive her 
 all-conquering softness, and sound a shrill 
 trumpet in reprobation of the extortionate 
 charioteer, whom, if she were a man, she says, 
 she would expose. Being a woman, then, let 
 her not expose herself. Oh, but it is intolera- 
 ble to be so imposed upon ! Let the lady, then, 
 get a pocket book, if she must, with the hack- 
 ney-coach fares in it ; or a pain in the legs, 
 rather than the temper ; or, above all, let her 
 get wiser, and have an understanding that can 
 dispense with the good opinion of the hackney- 
 coachman. Does she think that her rosy lips 
 were made to grow pale about two-and-six- 
 pence ; or that the expression of them will 
 ever be like her cousin Fanny's, if she goes 
 on ? 
 
 The stage-coachman likes the boys on the 
 road, because he knows they admire him. 
 The hackney-coachman knows that they cannot 
 admire him, and that they can get up behind 
 his coach, which makes him very savage. The 
 cry of " Cut behind ! " from the malicious 
 urchins on the pavement, wounds at once his 
 self-love and his interest. He would not mind 
 overloading his master's horses for another 
 sixpence, but to do it for nothing is what shocks 
 his humanity. lie hates the boy for imposing 
 upon him, and the boys for reminding him tliat 
 he has been imposed upon ; and he would will- 
 ingly twinge the cheeks of ail nine. The cut 
 of his whip over the coach is malignant. He 
 has a constant eye to the road behind him. 
 lie has also an eye to what may be left in the 
 coach. He will undertake to search the straw 
 
 for you, and miss the half-crown on jiurpose. 
 He speculates on what he may get above his 
 fare, according to your manners or company ; 
 and knows how much to ask for driving faster 
 or slower than usual. He does not like wet 
 weather so much as peoi)le suppose ; for ho 
 says it rots both his horses and harness, and he 
 takes parties out of town when the weather is 
 fine, which produces good payments in a lump. 
 Lovers, late supper-eaters, and girls going home 
 from boarding-school, are his best pay. He 
 has a rascally air of remonstrance when you 
 dispute half the over-charge, and according to 
 the temper he is in, begs you to consider his 
 bread, hopes you will not make such a fuss 
 about a trifle ; or tells you, you may take his 
 number or sit in the coach all night. 
 
 A great number of ridiculous adventures 
 must have taken jdace, in which hackney- 
 coaches were concerned. The story of the 
 celebrated harlequin Lunn, who secretly pitched 
 himself out of one into a tavern window, and 
 when the coachman was about to submit to the 
 loss of his fare, astonished him by calling out 
 again from the inside, is too well known for 
 repetition. There is one of Swift, not perhaps 
 so common. He was going, one dark evening, 
 to dine with some great man, and was accom- 
 panied by some other clergymen, to whom ho 
 gave their cue. They were all in their canoni- 
 cals. When they arrive at the house, the 
 coachman opens the door, and lets down the 
 steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in 
 his black robes ; after him comes another per- 
 sonage, equally black and dignified ; then 
 another ; then a fourth. The coachman, who 
 recollects taking up no greater number, is 
 about to put up the steps, when another clergy- 
 man descends. After giving way to this other, 
 he proceeds with great confidence to toss them 
 up, when lo ! another comes. Well, there 
 cannot, he thinks, be more than six. He is 
 mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then an 
 eighth ; then a ninth ; all with decent intervals ; 
 the coach, in the mean time, rocking as if it 
 were giving birth to so many daemons. The 
 coachman can conclude no less. He cries out, 
 " The devil ! the devil ! " and is preparing to 
 run away, when they all burst into laughter. 
 They had gone round as they descended, and 
 got in at the other door. 
 
 We remember in our boyhood an edifying 
 comment on the proverb of " all is not gold 
 that glistens." The spectacle made such an 
 impression upon us, that we recollect the very 
 spot, which was at thecornerofaroadintheway 
 from Westminster to Kennington,near a stone- 
 mason's. It was a severe winter, and we were 
 out on a holiday, thinking, perhaps, of the gal- 
 lant hardships to which the ancient soldiers 
 accustomed themselves, when we suddenly be- 
 held a group of hackney-coachmen, not, as 
 Spenser says of his witch, 
 
 Busy, as seemed, about some wicked gin,
 
 REMARKS UPON ANDREA DE BASSO'S ODE TO A DEAD BODY. 
 
 19 
 
 but pledging each other in what appeared to us 
 to be little glasses of cold water. What tem- 
 perance, thought we ! What extraordinary 
 and noble content ! What more than Roman 
 simplicity ! Here are a set of poor English- 
 men, of the homeliest order, in the very depth 
 of winter, quenching their patient and honour- 
 able thirst with modicums of cold water ! O 
 true virtue and courage ! O sight worthy of 
 the Timoleons and Ejjarainondases ! We know 
 not how long we remained in this error ; but 
 the first time we recognised the white devil for 
 what it was — the first time we saw through the 
 crystal purity of its appearance — was a great 
 blow to us. We did not then know what the 
 drinkers went through ; and this reminds us 
 that we have omitted one great redemption of 
 the hackney-coachman's character — his being 
 at the mercy of all chances and weathers. 
 Other drivers have their settled hours and pay. 
 He only is at the mercy of every call and every 
 casualty ; he only is dragged, without notice, 
 like the damned in Milton, into the extremities 
 of wet and cold, from his alehouse fire to the 
 freezing rain ; he only must go any where, at 
 what hour and to whatever place you choose, 
 his old rheumatic limbs shaking under his weight 
 of rags, and the snow and sleet beating into his 
 puckered face, through streets which the wind 
 scours like a channel. 
 
 XLIX.— REMARKS UPON ANDREA DE 
 BASSO'S ODE TO A DEAD BODY*. 
 
 We are given to understand by the Italian 
 critics, that this poem made a great sensation, 
 and was alone thought sufficient to render its 
 author of celebrity. Its loathly heroine had 
 been a beauty of Ferrara, proud and luxurious. 
 It is written in a fierce Catholic spirit, and is 
 iucontestably very striking and even appalling. 
 Images, which would only be disgusting on 
 other occasions, affect us beyond disgust, by 
 the strength of such earnestness and sincerity. 
 Andrea de Basso lays bare the mortifying con- 
 clusions of the grave, and makes the pride of 
 beauty bow down to them. The picture of the 
 once beautiful, proud, and unthinking creature, 
 caught and fixed down in a wasting trap, — the 
 calling upon her to come forth, and see if any 
 will no w be won into her arms, — the taunts about 
 the immortal balm wliich she thought she had 
 in her veins, — the whole, in short, of the terri- 
 ble disadvantage under which she is made to 
 listen with unearthly ears to the poet's lecture, 
 affects the imagnation to shuddering. 
 
 No wonder that such an address made a sen- 
 sation, even upon the gaiety of a southern city. 
 
 * The reader wUl gather the substance of it from what 
 follows. The ode is to be found in the sixth volume of 
 the Parnaso Italiatio. A tr-anslation has appeared in the 
 volume of the author's Poetical Works, just published. . 
 
 One may conceive how it fixed the superstitious 
 more closely over their meditations and skulls ; 
 how it sent the young, and pious, and humble, 
 upon their knees ; how it baulked the vivacity 
 of the serenaders ; brought tears into the eyes 
 of affectionate lovers ; and shot doubt and con- 
 fusion even into the cheeks of the merely 
 wanton. Andrea de Basso, armed with the 
 lightnings of his church, tore the covering from 
 the gi-ave, and smote up the heart of Ferrara 
 as with an earthquake. 
 
 For a lasting impression, however, or for 
 such a one as he would have desired, the author, 
 with all his powers, overshot his mark. Men 
 build again over earthquakes, as nature resumes 
 her serenity. The Ferrarese returned to their 
 loves and guitars, wlien absolution had set them 
 to rights. It was impossible that Andrea de 
 Basso should have succeeded in fixing such 
 impressions upon the mind ; and it would have 
 been an error in logic, as well as everything 
 else, if he had. He committed himself, both as 
 a theologian and a philosopher. There is an 
 allusion, towards the end of his ode, to the 
 Catholic notion, that the death of a saintly 
 person is accompanied by what they call " the 
 odour of sanctity;" — a literalised metaphor, 
 which they must often have been perplexed to 
 maintain. But the assents of superstition, and 
 the instinct of common sense, keep a certain 
 separation at bottom ; and the poet drew such 
 a ijicture of mortality, as would unavoidably be 
 applied to every one, vicious or virtuous. It 
 was too close and mortifying, even for the 
 egotism of religious fancy to overcome. All 
 would have an interest in contradicting it some- 
 how or other. 
 
 On the other hand, if they could not well 
 contradict or bear to think of it, his mark was 
 overshot there. It has been observed, in times 
 of shipwrecks, plagues, and other circumstances 
 of a common despair, tlia t upon the usual prin- 
 ciple of extremes meeting, mankind turn upon 
 Death their pursuer, and defy him to the teeth. 
 The superstitious in vain exhort them to think, 
 and threaten tliem with the consequences of 
 refusal. They have tlireats enough. If tliey 
 could think to any purpose of refreshment, they 
 would. But time presses ; the exhortation is 
 too like the evil it would remedy ; and they 
 endeavour to crowd into a few moments all the 
 enjoyments to which nature has given them a 
 tendency, and to which, with a natural piety 
 beyond that of their threateners, they feel that 
 they have both a tendency and a right. If many 
 such odes as Basso's could have been written, — 
 if the court of Ferrara had turned superstitious 
 and patronised such productions, the next age 
 would not merely have been lively ; it would 
 have been debauched. 
 
 Again, the reasoning of such appeals to the 
 
 general sense is absurd in itself. They call 
 
 upon us to join life and death together ; — to 
 
 think of what we are not, witli the feelings of 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 what we are ; to be diftercnt, and yet the same. 
 Jlypochondria may do this ; a melancholy 
 imagination, or a strong imagination of any sort, 
 may do it for a time ; but it will never be done 
 generally, and nature never intended it should. 
 A decaying dead body is no more the real hu- 
 man being, than a watch, sto])i)ed and mutilated, 
 is a time-piece, or cold water warm, or a numb 
 finger in the same state of sensation as the one 
 next it, or any one modification of being the 
 same as another. We may pitch ourselves by 
 
 imagination into this state of being ; l)ut 
 
 it is 
 
 ourselves, modified by our present totalities and 
 sensation, that avc do pitch there. What we 
 mny be other^vise, is another thing. The melan- 
 choly imagination may give it melancholy fan- 
 cies ; the livelier one, if it pleases, may suppose 
 it a state of exquisite dissolution. The philo- 
 sopher sees in it nothing but a contradiction 
 to the life by whicli we judge of it, and a disso- 
 lution of the compounds which held us together. 
 There is one thing alone in such gloomy beg- 
 gings of a question, whicli throws them back 
 upon the prescriptions of wisdom, and prevents 
 them from becoming general. They are always 
 accompanied by ill-health. We do not mean a 
 breaking up of the frame, or that very road to 
 death, which may be a kindly and cheerful one, 
 illumined by the sunset, as youth was by the 
 dawn : but a polluted and artificial state of 
 blood, or an insufficient vigour of existence, — 
 that state, in short, %vhicli is an exception to 
 the general condition of humanity, and acts 
 like the proof of a rule to the intentions of 
 Nature. For these are so kind, that no mistake 
 in the world, not even vice itself, is so sure to 
 confuse a man's sensations and render them 
 melancholy, as ill-health. Nature seems to say 
 to us, " Be, above all things, as natural as you 
 can be, — as much as possible in the best fashion 
 of the mould in which I cast you, — and you 
 shall be happy." Nor is this unlucky for virtue, 
 but most lucky : for it takes away its pride, 
 and leaves it its cheerfulness. Real vice will 
 soon be found to be real unhealthiness : nor 
 could society have a better guide to the reform- 
 ation of its moral systems, than by making them 
 as compatible as possible with every healthy 
 impulse. But why, it may be asked, are we 
 not all healthy ? It is impossible to say : but 
 this is certain, that the oftener a man asks him- 
 self that question, the more intimations he has 
 that he is to try and get out of the tendency 
 to ask them. We may live elsewhere : we 
 may be compounded over again, and receive a 
 new consciousness here ; — a guess which, if it 
 seems dreary at first, might lead us to make a 
 heaven of the earth we live in, even for our own 
 sakes hereafter. But at all events, put, as 
 Jupiter says in the fable, your shoulder to the 
 wheel ; and put it as cheerfully as you can. 
 The way that Andrea de Basso should have set 
 about reforming the Ferrarese beauties, would 
 have been to show them, that their enjoyments 
 
 were hurtful in proportion as they were extra- 
 vagant, and less than they might be, in propor- 
 tion as they were in bad taste. But to ask the 
 healthy to be hypochondriacal : the beautiful 
 to think gratuitously of ugliness ; and the 
 giddy, much less the wise, to desire to be angels 
 in heaven, by representing God as a cruel and 
 eternal jninisher, — is what never could, and 
 never ought to have, a lasting effect on hu- 
 manity. 
 
 It has been well observed, that life is a series 
 of present sensations. It might be added,that 
 the consciousness of the present moment is 
 one of the strongest of those sensations. Still 
 this consciousness is a series, not a line ; a 
 variety with intervals, not a continuity and a 
 haunting. If it were, it would be unhealthy : 
 if it were unhealthy, it would be melancholy ; 
 if it were melancholy, the e^^dent system upon 
 which nature acts would be different. Thus 
 it is impossible that men should be finally led 
 by gloomy, and not by pleasant doctrines. 
 
 When the Ferrarese ladies read the poem of 
 Andrea de Basso, it occupied the series of their 
 sensations for a little while, more or less ac- 
 cording to their thoughtfulness, and more or 
 less,even then, according to their unhealthiness. 
 The power of voluntary thought is propor- 
 tioned to the state of the health. In a little 
 time, the Ferrarese,being like other multitudes, 
 and even gayer, would turn to their usual re- 
 flections and enjoyments, as they accordingly 
 did. About that period Ariosto was born. 
 He rose to vindicate the charity and good-will 
 of nature ; and put forth more real wisdom, 
 truth, and even piety, in his willing enjoy- 
 ment of the creation, than all the monks in 
 Ferrara could have mustered together for cen- 
 turies. 
 
 To conclude, Andrea de Basso mistook his 
 own self, as well as the means of instructing 
 his callous beauty. We can imagine her dis- 
 agreeable enough. There are few things more 
 oppressive to the heart, than the want of 
 feeling in those whose appearance leads others 
 to feel intensely — the sight of beauty sacri- 
 ficing its own real comfort as well as ours, by 
 a heartless and indiscriminate love of admira- 
 tion from young and old, from the gross and 
 the refined, the wise and the foolish, the good- 
 natured and the ill-natured, the happy-making 
 and the vicious. If Andrea de Basso's heroine 
 was one of this stamp, we can imagine her to 
 have irritated his best feelings, as well as his 
 more equivocal. We hope she was not merely 
 a giddy creature, who had not quite patience 
 enough with her confessor. Alfred the Great, 
 when a youth, was accustomed to turn a deaf 
 ear to the didactics of his holy kinsman St. 
 Neot ; for which, says the worthy Bishop 
 Asser, who was nevertheless a great admirer 
 of the king, and wrote his life, all those troubles 
 were afterwards brought upon him and his 
 kingdom. Be this as it may, and supposing
 
 THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 21 
 
 the Ferrarese beauty to have been an unfeeling 
 one, the poet was not aware, while triumphing 
 over her folly, and endeavouring to enjoy the 
 thought of her torments, that he was con- 
 founding the sentiment of the thing with its 
 reverse, and doing his best to make himself a 
 worse and more hard-hearted person than she. 
 His efforts to induce us to think lightly of the 
 most beautiful things in the external world, by 
 showing us that they will not always be what 
 they are — that a smooth and graceful limb 
 will not for ever be the same smooth and 
 graceful limb, nor an eye an eye, nor an apple 
 an apple, are not as wise as they are poetical. 
 To have said that the limb, unless admired 
 with sentiment as well as with ordinary admi- 
 ration, is a common-place thing to what it 
 might be, and that there is more beauty in it 
 than the lady supposed, would have been good. 
 To make nothing of it, because she did not 
 make as much as she could, is unwise. But 
 above all, to consign her to eternal punishment 
 in the next world, because she gave rise to a 
 series of fugitive evils in this — ^gi-anting even 
 that she, and not her wrong education, was 
 the cause of them — is one of those idle worry- 
 ings of himself and others, which only perplex 
 further what they cannot explain, and have at 
 last fairly sickened the world into a sense of 
 their unheal thiness. 
 
 "What then remains of the poetical denounce- 
 ments of Andrea de Basso? Why the only 
 thing which ought to remain, and which when 
 left to itself retains nothing but its pleasure — 
 their poetry. When Dante and Milton shall 
 cease to have any effect as religious dogma- 
 tisers, they will still be the mythological 
 poets of one system of belief, as Homer is of 
 another. So immortal is pleasure, and so 
 surely does it escape out of the throng of its 
 contradictions. 
 
 L.— THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 COPrt'USION OF MODES OF BEING. 
 
 People undertake to settle what ideas they 
 shall have under such and such circiimstances 
 of being, when it is nothing but their present 
 state of being that enables them to have those 
 ideas. 
 
 VARIETY OF THE COLOURS OP PERCEPTION. 
 
 There is reason to suppose, that our percep- 
 tions and sensations are more different than we 
 imagine, even upon the most ordinary things, 
 such as visible objects in general, and the sense 
 of existence. We have enough in common, for 
 common intercourse ; but the details are dis- 
 similar, as we may perceive in the variety of 
 palates. All people are agreed upon sweet 
 and sour ; but one man prefers sour to sweet, 
 and another this and that variety of sour and 
 
 sweet. "What then is the use of attempting to 
 make them agree ?" Why, we may try to make 
 them agree upon certain general modes of 
 thinking and means of pleasure : — we may 
 colour their existence in the gross, though we 
 must leave the particular shades to come out 
 by themselves. We may enrich their stock of 
 ideas, though we cannot control the items of 
 the expenditure. 
 
 CANNOT. 
 
 " But what if we cannot do even this?" The 
 question is answered by experience. Whole 
 nations and ages have already been altered in 
 their modes of thinking. Even if it were 
 otherwise, the endeavour is itself one of the 
 varieties ; one of the modes of opinion and 
 means of pleasure. Besides cannot is the 
 motto neither of knowledge nor humility. 
 There is more of pride, and ignorance, and 
 despair, in it, than of the modesty of wisdom. 
 It would settle not only the past but the 
 future ; and it would settle the future, merely 
 because the past has not been influenced by 
 those that use it. 
 
 Who are these men that measure futurity 
 by the shadow of their own littleness ? It is 
 as if the loose stones lying about a foundation 
 were to say, " You can build no higher than 
 our heads." 
 
 SUPERSTITION AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 Superstition attempts to settle everything 
 by assertion ; which never did do, and never 
 wiU. And like all assertors, even well-inclined 
 ones, it shows its feebleness in anger and 
 threatening. It commands us to take its pro- 
 blems for granted, on pain of being tied up to 
 a triangle. Then come its advocates, and 
 assert that this mode of treatment is proper and 
 logical : which is making bad worse. Tlie 
 worst of all is, that this is the way in which 
 the finest doctrines in the world are obstructed. 
 They are like an excellent child, making the 
 Grand Tour with a foolish overbearing tutor. 
 The tutor runs a chance of spoiling the child, 
 and makes their presence disagreeable where- 
 ever they go, except to their tradesmen. Let 
 us hope the child has done with his tutor. 
 
 SECOND THOUGHT ON THE VARIETY OF THE COLOURS 
 OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 We may gather from what we read of dis- 
 eased imaginations, how much our perceptions 
 depend upon the modification of our being. 
 We see how personal and inexperienced we 
 are when we determine that such and such 
 ideas must take place under other circum- 
 stances, and such and such truths be always 
 indisputable. Pleasure must always be pleasure, 
 and pain be pain, because these are only names 
 for certain results. But the results themselves 
 will be pleasureable or painful, according to 
 what they act upon. A man in health becomes
 
 22 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 sickly; he has a fever, is light-headed, is 
 hypochondrracal. His ideas are deranged, or 
 re-arrangc themselves ; and a set of new per- 
 ceptions, and colourings of his existence, take 
 place, as in a kaleidoscope when we shake it. 
 The conclusion is, that every alteration of our 
 physical particles, or of whatever else we are 
 compounded with, produces a diflPerent set of 
 perceptions and sensations. What we call 
 health of body and mind is the fittest state of 
 our composition upon earth : but the state ot 
 perception which is sickly to our state of exist- 
 ence may be healthy to another. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Of all impositions on the public, the greatest 
 seems to be death. It resembles the threaten- 
 ing faces on each side the Treasury. Or rather, 
 it is a necessary bar to our tendency to move 
 forward. Nature sends us out of her hand 
 with such an impetus towards increase of en- 
 joyment, that something is obliged to be set at 
 the end of the avenue we are in, to moderate 
 our bias, and make us enjoy the present being. 
 Death serves to make us think, not of itself, 
 but of what is about us. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 When children are in good health and 
 temper, they have a sense of existence which 
 seems too exquisite to last. It is made up of 
 clearness of blood, freshness of perception, and 
 trustingness of heart. We remember the 
 time, when the green rails along a set of suburb 
 gardens used to fill us with a series of holiday 
 and rural sensations perfectly intoxicating. 
 According to the state of our health, we have 
 sunny glimpses of this feeling still ; to say 
 nothing of many other pleasures, which have 
 paid us for many pains. The best time to 
 catch them is early in the morning, at sunrise, 
 out in the country. And we will here add, 
 that life never perhaps feels such a return of 
 fresh and young feeling upon it, as in early 
 rising on a fine morning, whether in country or 
 town. The healthiness of it, the quiet, the con- 
 sciousness of having done a sort of young 
 action (not to add a wise one), and the sense 
 of power it gives you over the coming day, 
 produce a mixture of buoyancy and self-posses- 
 sion, in which a sick man must not despair of, 
 because he does not feel it the first morning. 
 But even this refoi-m should be adopted by 
 degrees. The best way to recommend it is to 
 begin with allowing fair play to the other side 
 of the question. (See the article upon Getting 
 up on Cold Mornings.) To return to our main 
 point. After childhood comes a knowledge of 
 evil, or a sophisticate and unhealthy mode of 
 life ; or one produces the other, and both are 
 embittered. Everything tells us to get back 
 to a state of childhood — pain, pleasure, imagi- 
 nation, reason, passion, natural affection or 
 piety, tlie better part of religion. If know- 
 
 ledge is supposed to be incompatible with it, 
 knowledge would sacrifice herself, if necessary, 
 to the same cause, for she also tells us to do so. 
 But as a little knowledge first leads us away 
 from happiness, so a greater knowledge may 
 be destined to bring us back into a finer region 
 of it. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND UNHAPPINESS. 
 
 It is not knowledge that makes us unhappy 
 as we grow up, but the knowledge of unhappi- 
 ness. Yet as unhappiness existed when we knew 
 it not, it becomes us all to be acquainted with 
 it, that we may all have the chance of bettering 
 the condition of our species. Who would say 
 to himself, " I would be happy, though all my 
 fellow-creatures were miserable !" Knowledge 
 must heal what it wounds, and extend the hap- 
 piness which it has suspended. It must do by 
 our comfort as a friend may do by one's books ; 
 enrich it with its comments. One man grows 
 up and gets unhealthy ^vithout knowledge ; 
 another, with it. The former suffers and 
 does not know why. He is unhappy, and he 
 sees unhappiness, but he can do nothing for 
 himself or others. The latter suffers and dis- 
 covers why. He suffers even more because he 
 knows more ; but he learns also how to 
 diminish suffering in others. He learns too to 
 apply his knowledge to his own case ; and he 
 sees, that as he himself suffers from the world's 
 want of knowledge, so the progress of know- 
 ledge would take away the world's sufferings 
 and his own. The efforts to this end worry 
 him perhaps, and make him sickly ; upon 
 which, thinking is pronounced to be injurious 
 to health. And it may be so under these 
 circumstances. What then, if it betters the 
 health of the many? But thinking may also 
 teach him how to be healthier. A ganie of 
 cricket on a green may do for him what no 
 want of thought would have done : while on 
 the other hand, if he shows a want of thought 
 upon these points, the inference is easy : he is 
 not so thinking a man as you took him for. 
 Addison should have got on horseback, instead 
 of walking up and down a room in his house, 
 with a bottle of wine at each end of it. Shak- 
 speare divided his time between town and 
 country, and in the latter part of his life, built, 
 and planted, and petted his daughter Susanna. 
 Solomon in his old age played the Anacreon ; 
 and with Milton's leave, " his wisest lieart" 
 was not so much out in this matter, as when 
 his royal impatience induced him to say that 
 everything was vanity. 
 
 CHILDHOOD OLD AGE OUR DESTINY. 
 
 There appears to be something in the com- 
 position of humanity like what we have ob- 
 served in that of music. The musician's first 
 thought is apt to be his finest : he must carry 
 it on, and make a second part to his air ; and 
 he becomes inferior. Nature in like manner
 
 THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 23 
 
 (if we may speak it without profaneness) ap- 
 pears to succeed best in making childhood and 
 youth. Tlie symphony is a little perturbed ; but 
 in what a sprightly manner the air sets off ! 
 What purity ! What grace ! Wliat touching 
 simplicity ! Then comes sin, or the notion of 
 it, and " breaks the fair music." Well did a 
 wiser than the " wisest heart " bid us try and 
 continue children. But there are foolish as 
 well as wise children, and it is a special mark 
 of the former, whether little or grown, to affect 
 manhood, and to confound it with cunning and 
 violence. — Do men die, in order that life and 
 its freshness may be as often and as multitu- 
 dinously renewed as possible ? Or do children 
 grow old, that our consciousness may attain to 
 some better mode of being through a rough 
 path ? Superstition answers only to perplex us, 
 and make us partial. Natiire answers nothing. 
 But nature's calm and resolute silence tells us 
 at once to hope for the future, and to do our 
 best to enjoy the present. What if it is the 
 aim of her workmanship to produce self-moving 
 instruments, that may carry forward their own 
 good ? " A modest thought," you will say. 
 Yet it is more allied to some doctrines cele- 
 brated for their humility, than you may suppose. 
 "Vanity,in speculations earnest and affectionate, 
 is a charge to be made only by vanity. What 
 has it to do with them ? 
 
 ENDEAVOUR. 
 
 Either this world (to use the style of Marcus 
 Antoninus) is meant to be what it is, or it is not. 
 If it is not, then our endeavours to render it 
 otherwise are right : — if it is, then we must be 
 as we are, and seek excitement through the 
 same means, and our endeavours are still right. 
 In either case, endeavour is good and useful ; 
 but in one of them, the want of it must be a 
 mistake. 
 
 GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 Nature is justified (to speak humanly) in the 
 ordinary state of the world, granting it is never 
 to be made better, because the sum of good, 
 upon the whole, is greater than that of evil. 
 For in the list of goods we are not only to rank 
 all the more obvious pleasures wliich we agree 
 to call such, but much that is ranked under 
 the head of mere excitement, taking hope for 
 the ground of it, and action for the means. 
 But we have no right on that account, to ab- 
 stain from endeavouring to better the condition 
 of our species, were it only for the sake of in- 
 dividual suffering. Nature, who is infinite, has 
 a right to act in the gross. Nothing but an in- 
 finite suffering should make her stop ; and that 
 should make her stop, were the individual who 
 infinitely suffered the only inhabitant of his hell. 
 Heaven and earth should petition to be abo- 
 lished, rather than that one such monstrosity 
 should exist : it is the absurdest as well as most 
 impious of aU the dreams of fear. To suppose 
 
 that a Divine Being can sympathise with our 
 happiness, is to suppose that he can sympathise 
 with our misery ; but to suppose that Ire can 
 sympathise with misery, and yet suffer infinite 
 misery to exist, rather than put an end to 
 misery and happiness together, is to contradict 
 his sympathy with happiness, and to make him 
 prefer a positive evil to a negative one, the 
 existence of torment to the cessation of feeling. 
 As nature therefore, if considered at all, must 
 be considered as regulated in her operations, 
 though infinite, we must look to fugitive suf- 
 feriDg,as nature must guard against permanent; 
 she carves out our work for us in the gross : we 
 must attend to it in the detail. To leave every 
 thing to her, would be to settle into another 
 mode of existence, or stagnate into death. 
 If it be said that she will take care of us at 
 all events, we answer, first, that she does not 
 do so in the ordinary details of life, neither 
 earns our food for us, nor washes our bodies, 
 nor writes our books ; secondly, that of things 
 useful-looking and uncertain, she incites us to 
 know the profit and probability ; and thirdly 
 (as we have hinted in a previous observation), 
 that not knowing how far we may carry on the 
 impulse of improvement, towards which she has 
 given us a bias, it becomes us on every ground, 
 both of ignorance and wisdom, to try. 
 
 DEGHADING IDEAS OF DEITY. 
 
 The superstitious, in their contradictory re- 
 presentations of God, call him virtuous and 
 benevolent out of the same passion of fear as 
 induces them to make him such a tyrant. They 
 think they shall be damned if they do not 
 believe him the tp-ant he is described : — they 
 think they shall be damned also, if they do not 
 gratuitously ascribe to him the virtues incom- 
 patible with damnation. Being so unworthy of 
 praise, they think he will be particularly angry 
 at not being praised. They shudder to think 
 themselves better ; and hasten to make amends 
 for it, by declaring themselves as worthless as 
 he is worthy. 
 
 GREAT DISTINCTION TO BE MADE IN BIGOTS. 
 
 There are two sorts of religious bigots, the 
 unhealthy and the unfeeling. The fear of the 
 former is mixed with humanity, and they never 
 succeed in thinking themselves favourites of 
 God, but their sense of security is embittered, 
 by aversions which they dare not own to them- 
 selves, and terror for the fate of those who are 
 not so lucky. The unfeeling bigot is a mere 
 unimaginative animal, whose thoughts are con- 
 fined to the snugness of his kennel, and who 
 would have a good one in the next world as 
 well as in this. He secures a place in heaven 
 as he does in the Manchester coach. Never 
 mind who suffers outside, woman or child. 
 We once found ourselves by accident on board 
 a Margate hoy, which professed to " sail by 
 Di^dne Providence." Walking about the deck
 
 24 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 at night to get rid of the dullness wliich would 
 occasionally visit our devotions to the starry 
 heavens and the sparkling sea, our foot came 
 in contact with something white, which was 
 lying gatliered up in a heap. Upon stooping 
 down, we found it to be a woman. The method- 
 ists had secured all the beds below, and were 
 not to be disturbed. 
 
 SUPERSTITIO.N TOE FLATTERER OF REASON. 
 
 • We are far from thinking that reason can 
 settle everything. We no more think so, than 
 that our eyesight can see into all existence. 
 liut it does not follow, that we are to take for 
 granted the cxtremest contradictions of reason. 
 Why should we ? We do not even think well 
 enough of reason to do so. For here is one of 
 the secrets of superstition. It is so angry at 
 reason for not being able to settle everything, 
 that it runs in despair into the anns of irratio- 
 nality. 
 
 GOOD IN THINGS EVIL. 
 
 " God Almighty ! 
 There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
 Would men observingly distil it out !" 
 
 So, with equal wisdom and good-nature, does 
 Shakspeare make one of his characters exclaim. 
 SuiFering gives strength to sympathy. Hate of 
 the particular may have a foundation in love for 
 the general. The lowest and most wilful vice may 
 plunge deeper, out of a regret of \-irtue. Even in 
 envy may be discerned something of an instinct 
 of justice, something of a wish to see fair play, 
 and things on a level. — " But there is still a re- 
 siduum of evil, of which we should all wish to 
 get rid." — Well then, lat us try. 
 
 ARTIFICE OF EXAGGERATED COMPLAINT. 
 
 Disappointment likes to make out bad to be 
 worse, in order to relieve the gnawing of its 
 actual wound. It would confuse the limits of 
 its pain ; and by extending it too far, try to 
 make itself uncertain how far it reached. 
 
 CUSTOM, ITS SELF-RECONCILEMENTS AND CONTRA- 
 DICTIONS. 
 
 Custom is seen more in what we bear than 
 what we enjoy. And yet a pain long borne 
 so fits itself to our shoulders, that we do not 
 miss even that without disquietude. The no- 
 velty of the sensation startles us. Montaigne, 
 like our modern beaux, was uneasy when lie 
 did not feel liimself braced up in his clothing. 
 Prisoners have been known to wish to go back 
 to their prisons : invalids have missed the ac- 
 companiment of a gun-shot wound ; and the 
 world is angry with reformers and innovators, 
 not because it is in the right, but because it is 
 accustomed to be in the wrong. Tliis is a good 
 thing, and shows the indestructible tendency 
 of nature to forego its troubles. But then re- 
 formers and innovators must arise upon that 
 very ground. To quarrel with tliem upon a 
 principle of avowed spleen, is candid, and lias 
 
 a self-knowledge in it. But to resent them as 
 impertinent or effeminate, is at bottom to 
 quarrel with the principle of one's own patience, 
 and to set the fear of moving above the courage 
 of it. 
 
 ADVICE, 
 
 It has been well observed, that advice is not 
 disliked because it is advice; but because so 
 few people know how to give it. Yet there 
 are people vain enough to hate it in proportion 
 to its very agreeableness. 
 
 By the same reason for which we call this 
 earth a vale of tears, we might call heaven, 
 when we got there, a hill of sighs ; for upon 
 the principle of an endless progression of 
 beatitude, we might find a still better heaven 
 promised us, and this would be enough to make 
 us dissatisfied with the one in possession. Sup- 
 pose that we have previously existed in the 
 planet Mars ; that there are no fields or trees 
 there, and that we nevertheless could imagine 
 them, and were in the habit of anticipating 
 their delight in the next world. Suppose that 
 there was no such thing as a stream of air, — as 
 a wind fanning one's face for a summer's day. 
 What a romantic tiling to fancy ! What a 
 beatitude to anticipate! Suppose, above all, 
 that there was no such thing as love. Words 
 would be lost in anticipating that. " Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard," &c. Yet when we 
 got to this heaven of green fields and fresh 
 airs, we might take little notice of either for 
 want of something more ; and even love we 
 might contrive to spoil pretty odiously. 
 
 LI.— THE HAMADRYAD*. 
 
 An Assyrian, of the name of Rhaecus, ob- 
 serving a fine old oak-tree ready to fall with 
 age, ordered it to be propped up. He was con 
 tinning his way through the solitary skirts of 
 the place, when a female of more than human 
 beauty appeared before him, with gladness in 
 her eyes. " Rhsecus," said she, " I am the 
 Nymph of the tree whicli you have saved from 
 perishing. My life is, of course, implicated in 
 its own. But for you, my existence must have 
 terminated ; but for you, the sap would have 
 ceased to flow through its boughs, and the god- 
 like essence I received from it to animate these 
 veins. No more should I have felt the wind 
 in my hair, the sun upon my cheeks, or the 
 lialmy rain upon my body. Now I shall feel 
 them many years to come. Many years also 
 will your fellow-creatures sit under my shade, 
 and hear the benignity of my wliispers, and 
 repay me with their honey and tlicir thanks. 
 Ask what I can give you, RhsBcus, and you 
 shall have it." 
 
 * See the Scholiast upon Apollonius RhodiuB, or the 
 Mythology of Natalis Comes.
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 
 
 25 
 
 The young man, who had done a graceful 
 action but had not thought of its containing so 
 many kindly things, received the praises of tlie 
 Nymph with a due mixture of surprise and 
 homage. He did not want courage, however ; 
 and emboldened by her tone and manner, and 
 still more by a beauty which had all the buxom 
 bloom of humanity in it, with a preternatural 
 gracefulness besides, he requested that she 
 would receive him as a lover. There was a 
 look in her face at this request answering to 
 modesty, but something still finer ; having no 
 guilt, she seemed to have none of the common 
 infirmities either of shame or impudence. In 
 fine, she consented to reward Rhaecus as he 
 wished ; and said she would send a bee to 
 inform him of the hour of their meeting. 
 
 Who now was so delighted as Rhaecus ! for 
 he was a great admirer of the fair sex, and not 
 a little proud of their admiring him in return ; 
 and no human beauty, whom he had known, 
 could compare with the Hamadryad. It must 
 be owned, at the same time, that his taste for 
 love and beauty was not of quite so exalted a 
 description as he took it for. If he v>^as fond 
 of the fair sex, he was pretty nearly as fond of 
 dice, and feasting and any other excitement 
 which came in his way ; and, unluckily, he was 
 throwing the dice that very noon when the bee 
 came to summon him. 
 
 Rhaecus was at an interesting part of the 
 game — so much so, that he did not at first 
 recognise the object of the bee's humming. 
 "Confound this bee !" said he, "it seems plaguily 
 fond of me." He brushed it away two or three 
 times, but the busy messenger returned, and 
 only hummed the louder. At last he bethought 
 him of the Njnnph ; but his impatience seemed 
 to increase with his pride, and he gave the 
 poor insect such a brush, as sent him away 
 crippled in both his thighs. 
 
 The bee returned to his mistress as well as 
 he could, and shortly after was followed by his 
 joyous assailant, who came triumphing in the 
 success of his dice and his gallantry, "I am 
 here," said the Hamadryad. Rhaecus looked 
 among the trees, but could see nobody. " I 
 am here," said a grave sweet voice, " right 
 before you." Rhaecus saw nothing. " Alas !" 
 said she, " Rhaecus, you cannot see me, nor will 
 you see me more. I had thought better of 
 your discernment and your kindness ; but you 
 were but gifted with a momentary sight of me. 
 You will see nothing in future but common 
 things, and those sadly. You are struck blind 
 to everything else. The hand that could strike 
 my bee with a lingering death, and prefer the 
 embracing of the dice-box to that of afl'ec- 
 tionate beauty, is not worthy of love and the 
 green trees." 
 
 The wind sighed off to a distance, and 
 Rhaicus felt that he was alone 
 
 LIL— THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 
 
 Triptolemus was the son of Celeus, king 
 of Attica, by his wife Polymnia. During his 
 youth he felt such an ardour for knowledge, 
 and such a desire to impart it to his fellow- 
 creatures, that, having but a slight frame for 
 so vigorous a soul, and meeting with a great 
 deal of jealousy and envy from those who were 
 interested in being thought wiser, he fell into 
 a wasting illness. His flesh left his bones ; 
 his thin hands trembled when he touched the 
 harp ; his fine warm eyes looked staringly out 
 of their sockets, like stars that had slipped out 
 of their places in heaven . 
 
 At this period, an extraordinary and awful 
 sensation struck, one night, through the streets 
 of Eleusis. It was felt both by those who 
 slept and those who were awake. The former 
 dreamed great dreams ; the latter, especially 
 the revellers and hypocrites who were pur- 
 suing their profane orgies, looked at one 
 another, and thought of Triptolemus. As to 
 Triptolemus himself, he shook in his bed with 
 exceeding agitation ; but it was with a plea- 
 sure that overcame him like pain. He knew 
 not how to account for it ; but he begged his 
 father to go out and meet whatever was 
 coming. He felt that some extraordinary 
 good was approaching, both for himself and 
 his fellow-creatures ; but revenge was never 
 farther from his thoughts. What was he to 
 revenge ? Mistake and unhappiness ? He was 
 too wise, too kind, and too suffering. " Alas !" 
 thought he, "an unknown joy shakes me like 
 a palpable sorrow ; and their minds are but as 
 weak as my body. They cannot bear a touch 
 they are not accustomed to." 
 
 The king, his wife, and his daughters went 
 out, trembling, though not so mucli as Tripto- 
 lemus, nor with the same feeling. There was 
 a great light in the air, which moved gradually 
 towards them, and seemed to be struck upwards 
 from something in the street. Presently, two 
 gigantic torches appeared round the corner ; 
 and underneath them, sitting in a car, and 
 looking earnestly about, was a mighty female, 
 of more than ordinary size and beauty. Her 
 large black eyes, with her gigantic brows bent 
 over them, and surmounted with a white fore- 
 head and a profusion of hair, looked here and 
 therewith an intcntness and a depth of yearning 
 indescribable. " CAairt', Demeter !" exclaimed 
 the king in a loud voice : — " Hail, creative 
 mother !" He raised the cry common at fes- 
 tivals, when they imagined a deity manifesting 
 itself; and the priests poured out of their 
 dwellings, with vestment and with incense, 
 which they held tremblingly aloft, turning 
 down their pale faces from the gaze of the 
 passing goddess. 
 
 It was Ceres, looking for her lost daughter 
 Proseipina. The eye of the deity seemed to 
 have a greater severity in its earnestness, as
 
 20 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 she passed by the priests ; but at sij^ht of a 
 chorus of youths and damsels, wlio dared to 
 lift up their eyes as well as voices, she gave 
 such a beautiful smile as none but gods in 
 sorrow can give ; and emboldened with this, 
 the king and his family prayed her to accept 
 their hospitality. 
 
 She did so. A temple in the king's palace 
 was lier cliamber, where she lay on the golden 
 bed usually assigned to her image. Tlie most 
 precious fruits and perfumes burned constantly 
 at the door ; and at first, no hymns were sung, 
 but those of homage and condolence. But 
 these the goddess commanded to be changed 
 for liappier songs. Word was also given to 
 the city, that it should remit its fears and its 
 cares, and show all the hajjpiness of which it 
 was capable before she arrived. " For," said 
 she, " the voice of happiness arising from earth 
 is a god's best incense. A deity lives better 
 on the pleasure of what it has created, than in 
 a i-eturn of a part of its gifts." 
 
 Such were the maxims which Ceres delighted 
 to utter during her abode at Eleusis, and v.'hich 
 afterwards formed the essence of her renowned 
 mysteries at that place. But the bigots, who 
 adopted and injured them, heard them with 
 dismay ; for they were similar to what young 
 Triptolemus had uttered in the aspirations of 
 his virtue. The rest of the inhabitants gave 
 themselvesup tothejoy,from which tlie divinity 
 would only extract consolation. They danced, 
 they wedded, they loved ; they praised her in 
 hymns as cheerful as her natural temper ; they 
 did great and glorious things for one another : 
 never was Attica so full of delight and heroism : 
 the young men sought every den and fearful 
 place in the territory, to see if Proserpina was 
 there; and the damsels vied who should give 
 them most kisses for their reward. "Oh 
 Dearest and Divinest Mother !" sang the Eleu- 
 sinians, as they surrounded the king's palace 
 at night with their evening hymn, — " Oh 
 greatest and best goddess ! who, not above 
 sorrow thyself, art yet above all wish to inflict 
 it, we know by this thou art indeed divine. 
 Would that we might restore thee thy beloved 
 daughter, thy daughter Proserpina, the dark, 
 the beautifiil, the mother-loving ; whom some 
 god less generous than thyself would keep 
 for his own jealous doating. Would we might 
 see her in thine arms ! We would willingly die 
 for the sight ; would willingly die with the only 
 pleasure which thou hast left wanting to us." 
 
 The goddess would weep at these twilight 
 hymns, consoling herself for the absence of 
 Proserpina by thinking how many daughters 
 she had made happy. Triptolemus shed weaker 
 tears at them in his secret bed, but they were 
 happier ones than before. " I shall die," 
 thought he, " merely from the bitter-sweet joy 
 of seeing the growth of a happiness which I 
 must never taste ; but the days I longed for 
 have arrived. Would that my father would 
 
 only speak to the goddess, that my passage to 
 the grave might be a little easier !" 
 
 The father doubted whether he should speak 
 to the goddess. He loved his son warmly, 
 though he did not well understand him ; and 
 the mother, in spite of the deity's kindness, was 
 afraid, lest in telling her of a child whom they 
 were about to lose, they should remind her too 
 forcibly of her own. Yet the mother, in an 
 agony of alarm one day, at a fainting-fit of her 
 son's, was the first to resolve to speak to her, 
 and the king and she went and prostrated 
 themselves at her feet. " What is this, kind 
 hosts?" said Ceres, "have ye, too, lost a 
 daughter?" "No; but we shall lose a son," 
 answered the parents, " but for the help of 
 heaven." " A son !" replied Ceres, " why did 
 you not tell me your son was living ? I had 
 heard of him, and wished to see him ; biit 
 finding him not among ye, I fancied that he 
 was no more, and I would not trouble you with 
 such a memory. But why did you fear mine, 
 when I could do good ? Did your son fear it?" 
 — " No, indeed," said the parents ; " he urged 
 us to tell thee." — " He is the being I took him 
 for," returned the goddess : " lead me to where 
 he lies." 
 
 They came to his chamber, and found him 
 kneeling upon the bed, his face and joined 
 hands bending towards the door. He had felt 
 the approach of the deity ; and though he 
 shook in every limb, it was a transport beyond 
 fear that made him rise — it was love and gra- 
 titude. The goddess saw it, and bent on him 
 a look that put composure into his feelings. 
 " What wantest thou," said she, " struggler 
 with great thoughts?" "Nothing," answered 
 Triptolemus, "if thou thinkest good, but a 
 shorter and easier death." 
 
 " What ! before thy task is done ?" « Fate," 
 he replied, " seems to tell me that I was not 
 fitted for my task, and it is more than done, 
 since thou art here. I pray thee, let me die ; 
 that I may not see every one around me weep- 
 ing in the midst of joy, and yet not have 
 strength enough left in my hands to wipe away 
 their tears." " Not so, my child," said the god- 
 dess, and her grand harmonious voice had tears 
 in it as she spoke ; " not so, Triptolemus ; for 
 my task is tliy task ; and gods work with instru- 
 ments. Thou hast not gone through all thy 
 trials yet ; but thou shalt have a better cover- 
 ing to bear them, yet still by degrees. Gra- 
 dual sorrow, gradual joy." 
 
 So saying, she put her hand to his heart and 
 pressed it, and the agitation of his spirit was 
 further allayed, though he returned to his 
 reclining posture for weakness. From that 
 time the bed of Triptolemus was removed into 
 the temjDlo, and Ceres became his second 
 mother ; but nobody knew how she nourished 
 him. It was said that she summoned milk into 
 her bosom, and nourished him at her immortal 
 heart ; but he did not grow taller in stature,
 
 THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 
 
 27 
 
 as men expected. His health vras restored, 
 his joints were knit again, and stronger than 
 ever ; but he continued the same small, though 
 graceful youth, only the sicklier particles 
 which he had received from his parents with- 
 drew their influence. 
 
 At last, however, his very figure began to 
 grow and expand. Up to this moment he had 
 only been an interesting mortal, in whom the 
 stoutest and best-made of his father's subjects 
 recognised something mentally superior. Now, 
 he began to look in person, as well as in mind, 
 a demigod. The curiosity of the parents was 
 roused at this appearance ; and it was height- 
 ened by the report of a domestic, who said, 
 that in passing the door of the temple one night, 
 she heard a sound as of a mighty fire. But their 
 parental feelings were also excited by the beha- 
 viour of Triptolemus, who while he seemed to 
 rise with double cheerfulness in the morning, 
 always began to look melancholy towards night. 
 For some hours before he retired to rest he grew 
 silent, and looked more and more thoughtful, 
 though nothing could be kinder in his manners 
 to everybody, and the hour no sooner ap- 
 proached for his retiring, than he went instantly 
 and even cheerfully. 
 
 His parents resolved to watch ; they knew 
 not what they were about, or they would have 
 abstained, for Ceres was every night at her 
 enchantments, to render their son immortal 
 in essence as well as in fame, and interruption 
 would be fatal. At midnight they listened at 
 the temj)le door. 
 
 The first thing they heard was the roaring 
 noise of fire, as had been reported. It was 
 deep and fierce. They were about to retire 
 for fear ; but curiosity and parental feeling 
 prevailed. They listened again ; but for some 
 time heard nothing but the fire. At last a 
 voice resembling their child's, gave a deep 
 groan. " It was a strong trial, my son," said 
 another voice, in which they recognised the 
 melancholy sweetness of the goddess. " The 
 grandeur and exceeding novelty of these 
 visions," said the fainter voice, " press upon 
 me, as though they would bear down my brain." 
 " But they do not," returned the deity, " and 
 they have not. I will summon the next." 
 " Nay, not yet," rejoined the mortal ; " yet be 
 it as thou wilt. I know what thou tellest me, 
 great and kind mother." — " Thou dost know," 
 said the goddess, "and thou knowest in the 
 very heart of thy knowledge, which is in the 
 sj-mpatliy of it and the love. Thou sccst 
 that difference is not difference, and yet it is 
 so ; that the same is not the same, and yet 
 must be ; that what is, is but what we see, 
 and as we see it ; and yet that all which we 
 see, is. Thou shalt prove it finally ; and this 
 is the last trial but one. Vision, come forth." 
 A noise here took place, as of tlie entrance of 
 something exceedingly hurried and agonised, 
 but which remained fixed with equal stillness. 
 
 A brief pause took place, at the end of which 
 the listeners heard their son speak, but in a 
 voice of exceeding toil and loathing, and as if 
 he had turned away his head : — " It is," said 
 he, gasping for breath, " utmost deformity," — 
 " Only to thine habitual eyes, and when alone," 
 said the goddess in a soothing manner ; " look 
 again." " O my heart ! " said the same voice, 
 gasping, as if with transport, " they are perfect 
 beauty and humanity." " They are only two 
 of the same," said the goddess, "each going 
 out of itself. Deformity to the eyes of habit 
 is nothing but analysis ; in essence it is nothing 
 but one-ness, if such a thing there be. The 
 touch and the result is everything. See what 
 a goddess knows, and see nevertheless what 
 she feels : in this only greater than mortals, 
 that she lives for ever to do good. Now comes 
 the last and greatest trial ; now shalt thou see 
 the real worlds as they are; now shalt thou 
 behold them lapsing in reflected splendour 
 about the blackness of space ; now shalt thou 
 dip thine ears into the mighty ocean of their 
 harmonies, and be able to be touched with the 
 concentrated love of the universe. Roar hea- 
 vier, fire ; endure, endure, thou immortalising 
 frame." " Yes, now, now," said the other 
 voice, in a superhuman tone, which the listen- 
 ers knew not whether to think joy or anguish ; 
 but they were seized with such alarm and 
 curiosity, that they opened a place from which 
 the priestess used to speak at the lintel, and 
 looked in. The mother beheld her son, 
 stretched, with a face of bright agony, upon 
 burning coals. She shrieked, and pitch dark- 
 ness fell upon the temple. "A little while," 
 said the mournful voice of the goddess, " and 
 heaven had had another life. O Fear ! what 
 dost thou not do ! ! my all but divine 
 boy ! " continued she, " now plunged again into 
 physical darkness, thou canst not do good so 
 long as thou wouldst have done ; but thou 
 shalt have a life almost as long as the common- 
 est sons of men, and a thousand times more 
 useful and glorious. Thou must change away 
 the rest of thy particles, as others do ; and in 
 the process of time they may meet again under 
 some nature worthy of thee, and give tliee 
 another chance for yearning into immortality ; 
 but at present the pain is done, the pleasure 
 must not arrive." 
 
 The fright they had undergone slew the weak 
 parents. Triptolemus, strong in body, cheerful 
 to all in show, cheerful to himself in many 
 things, retained, nevertheless, a certain melan- 
 choly from his recollections, but it did not hin- 
 der him from sowing joy wherever he went. It 
 incited him but the more to do so. The success 
 of others stood him instead of his own. Ceres 
 gave him the first seeds of the corn that makes 
 bread, and sent him in her chariot roxmd the 
 world, to teach men how to use it. " I am not 
 immortal myself," said he, " but let the good I 
 do be so, and I shall yet die happy."
 
 28 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 LIIL— ON COMMENDATORY VERSES. 
 
 If the faculties of the writer of these papers 
 are any thing at all, they are social ; and we 
 have always been most pleased when we have 
 received the approbation of those friends, whom 
 we are most in the habit of thinking of when 
 we WTite. There are multitudes of readers 
 whose society we can fancy ourselves enjoying, 
 though we have never seen them ; but we are 
 more particularly apt to imagine ourselves in 
 sucli and such company, according to the nature 
 of our articles. We are accustomed to say to 
 ourselves, if we happen to strike off any thing 
 that pleases us, — K. will like that : — There's 
 something for M. or R. : — C. will snap his finger 
 and slap his knee at this : — Here's a crow to 
 pick for n. — Here N. will shake his shoulders : 
 — There B., his head : — Here S. will shriek 
 with satisfaction : — L. will see the philosophy 
 of this joke, if nobody else does. — As to our 
 fair friends, we find it difficult to think of them 
 and our subject together. We fancy their 
 countenances looking so frank and kind over 
 our disquisitions, that we long to have them 
 turned towards ourselves instead of the paper. 
 
 Every pleasure we could experience in a 
 friend's approbation, we have felt in receiving 
 the followmg verses. They are from a writer, 
 who of all other men, knows how to extricate a 
 common thing from commonness, and to give 
 it an imderlook of pleasant consciousness and 
 wisdom.. We knew him directly, in spite of 
 his stars. His hand as well as heart betrayed 
 him. 
 
 TO MY FRIEND THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Your csisy Essays indicate a flow, 
 
 Deaj Friend, of brain, which we may elsewhere seek ; 
 
 And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe, 
 
 That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week. 
 
 Sucli observation, wit, and sense, are shown. 
 
 Wo think the days of Bickerstaff retum'd ; 
 
 And that a portion of that oil you own. 
 
 In his undying midnight lamp wliich biu-n'd. 
 
 I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head. 
 
 Or wrong the rules of grammai- understood ; 
 
 But, with the leave of Priscian be it said. 
 
 The Indicative is your Potential Mood. 
 
 Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator — 
 
 H , your best title yet is Indicator. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The receipt of these verses has set us upon 
 thinking of the good-natured countenance 
 which men of genius, in all ages, have for the 
 most part shown to contemporary writers ; and 
 thence by a natural transition, of the generous 
 friendship they have manifested for each other. 
 Authors, like other men, may praise as well as 
 blame for various reasons; for interest, for 
 vanity, for fear : and for the same reasons they 
 may be silent. But generosity is natural to the 
 humanity and the strength of genius. Where 
 it is obscured, it is usually from something 
 that has rendered it misanthropical. Where 
 it is glaringly deficient, the genius is deficient 
 in proportion. And the defaulter feels as much, 
 
 though he does not know it. He feels, that 
 the least addition to another's fame threatens 
 to block up the view of his own. 
 
 At the same time, praise by no means im- 
 plies a sense of superiority. It may imply that 
 we think it worth having ; but this may arise 
 from a consciousness of our sincerity, and from 
 a certain instinct we have, that to relish any- 
 thing exceedingly gives us a certain ability to 
 judge, as well as a right to express our admira- 
 tion, of it. 
 
 On all these accounts, we were startled to 
 hear the other day that Shakspeare had never 
 praised a contemj)orary author. We had me- 
 chanically given him credit for the manifes- 
 tation of every generosity under the sun ; and 
 we found the surprise affect us, not as authors 
 (which would have been a vanity not even 
 warranted by our having the title in common 
 with him), but as men. Wliat baulked us in 
 Shakspeare seemed to baulk our faith in hu- 
 manity. But we recovered as speedily. Shak- 
 speare had none of the ordinary inducements, 
 which make men niggardly of their commen- 
 dation. He had no reason either to be jealous 
 or afraid. He was the reverse of unpopular. 
 His own claims were allowed. He was neither 
 one who need be silent about a friend, lest he 
 should be hurt by his enemy ; nor one who 
 nursed a style or a theory by himself, and so 
 was obliged to take upon him a monopoly of 
 admiration in self-defence ; nor was he one 
 who should gaze himself blind to every thing 
 else, in the complacency of his shallowness. 
 If it should be argued, that he who saw through 
 human nature was not likely to praise it, we 
 answer, that he who saw through it as Shak- 
 speare did was the likeliest man in the world 
 to be kind to it. Even Swift refreshed the 
 bitterness of his misanthropy in his love for 
 Tom, Dick, and Harry ; and what Swift did 
 from impatience at not finding men better, 
 Shakspeare would do out of patience in finding 
 them so good. We instanced the sonnet in 
 the collection called the Passionate PU(/nm, be- 
 ginning 
 
 If music and sweet poetry agree, 
 
 in which Spenser is praised so highly. It was 
 replied, that minute inquirers considered that 
 collection as apocryphal. This set us upon 
 looking again at the biographers who have 
 criticised it ; and we see no reason, for the 
 present, to doubt its authenticity. For some 
 parts of it we would answer upon internal evi- 
 dence, especially, for instance, tiie Lover's Com- 
 2'laint. There are two lines in this poem which 
 would alone announce him. They have the 
 very trick of his eye : 
 
 O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies 
 In the small orb of one particular tear ! 
 
 But inquirers v/ould have to do mucli more 
 than disprove the autlienticity of these poems, 
 before they made out Shakspeare to be a grudg-
 
 ON COMMENDATORY VERSES. 
 
 29 
 
 ing author. They would have to undo the 
 modesty and kindliness of his other writings. 
 They would have to undo his universal charac- 
 ter for " gentleness," at a time when gentle 
 meant all that was noble as well as mild. They 
 would have to deform and to untune all that 
 round, harmonious mind, which a great con- 
 temporary described as the very " sphere of 
 humanity ;" to deprive him of the epithet given 
 him in the school of Milton, "unvulgar;"* to 
 render the universality of wisdom liable to the 
 same drawbacks as the mere universality of 
 science ; to take the child's heart out of the 
 true man's body ; to im-Shakspeare Shak- 
 speare. If Shakspeare had never mentioned a 
 contemporary in his life, nor given so many 
 evidences of a cordial and admiring sense of 
 those about him, we would sooner believe that 
 sheer modesty had restrained his tongue, than 
 the least approach to a petty feeling. We can 
 believe it possible that he may have thought 
 his panegyrics not wanted ; but unless he de- 
 graded himself wilfully, in order to be no better 
 than any of his fellow-creatures, we cannot 
 believe it possible, that he would have thought 
 his panegjTics desired, and yet withheld them. 
 It is remarkable that one of the most regular 
 contributors of Commendatory Verses in the 
 time of Shakspeare, was a man whose bluntness 
 of criticism and feverish surliness of manners 
 have rendered the most suspected of a jealous 
 grudgingness ; — Ben Jonson. We mean not to 
 detract from the good-heartedness which we 
 believe this eminent person to have possessed 
 at bottom, when we say, that as an excess of 
 modest confidence in his own generous instincts 
 might possibly have accounted for the sparing- 
 ness of panegyric in our great dramatist, so a 
 noble distrustof himself, and a fear lest jealousy 
 should get the better of his instincts, might 
 possibly account for Ben Jonson's tendency to 
 distribute his praises around him. If so, it 
 shows how useful such a distrust is to one's 
 ordinary share of humanity ; and how much 
 safer it will be for us, on these as well as all 
 other occasions, to venture upon likening our- 
 selves to Ben Jonson than to Shakspeare. It 
 is to be recollected at the same time, that Ben 
 Jonson, in his old age, was the more prominent 
 person of the two, as a critical bestower of 
 applause ; that he occupied the town-chair of 
 wit and scholarship ; and was in the habit of 
 sanctioning the pretensions of new authors by 
 a sort of literary adoption, calling them his 
 " sons," and " sealing them of the trilje of Ben." 
 There was more in him of the aristocracy and 
 heraldry of letters, than in Shakspeare, who, 
 after all, seems to have been careless of fame 
 himself, and to have written nothing during 
 the chief part of his life but plays which he did 
 not print. Ben Jonson, among other panegy- 
 
 * By Jlilton's nephew Phillips, in his TIteatrum Poeta- 
 riim. It is an epithet given in all the spirit which it 
 attributes. 
 
 rics, wrote high and affectionate ones upon 
 Drayton, William Browne, Fletcher and Beau- 
 mont. His verses to the memory of Shakspeare 
 are a noble monument to both of them. The 
 lines to Beaumont in answer for some of which 
 we have fonnerly quoted, we must repeat. 
 They are delightful for a certain involuntary 
 but manly fondness, and for the candour with 
 which he confesses the joy he received from 
 such commendation. 
 
 How do I love thee, Beaumont, and thy Muse 
 That unto me dost such religion use ! 
 How do I fear myself, that am not worth 
 The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth ! 
 At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st : 
 And giving largely to me, more thou tak'st ! 
 What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves ? 
 What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? 
 When even there, where most thou praisest me, 
 For writing better, I must envy thee. 
 
 Observe the good effect which the use of the 
 word " religion " has here, though somewhat 
 iiltra-classical and pedantic. A certain pedan- 
 try, in the best sense of the term, was natural 
 to the author, and throws a grace on his most 
 natural moments. 
 
 There is great zeal and sincerity in Ben 
 Jonson's lines to Fletcher, on the ill-success of 
 his Faithful Shc})herdess ; but we have not room 
 for them. 
 
 Beaumont's are still finer ; and indeed furnish 
 a complete specimen of his wit and sense, as 
 well as his sympathy with his friend. His in- 
 dignation against the critics is more composed 
 and contemptuous. His uppermost feeling is 
 confidence in his friend's greatness. The reader 
 may here see what has always been thought by 
 men of genius, of people who take the ipse dixits 
 of the critics. After giving a fine sense of the 
 irrepressible thirst of writing in a poet, he says. 
 
 Yet wish I those whom I for friends have known. 
 To sing their thoughts to no ears but their o^vn. 
 Why should the man, whose wit ne'er had a stain, 
 Upon the public stage present his vein, 
 And make a thousand men in judgment sit. 
 To call in question his undoubted wit, 
 Scarce two of which can understand the laws 
 Which they should judge by, nor the party's cause ? 
 Among the rout there is not one that hath 
 In his own censure an explicit faith. 
 One company, knowing they judgment lack. 
 Ground their belief on the next man in black ; 
 Others, on him that makes signs, and is mute ; 
 Some like as he does in the fairest suit ; 
 He as his mistress doth, and she by chance : 
 Nor want there those, who as the boy doth dance 
 Between the acts, will censure the whole play ; 
 Some if the wax-lights be not new that day ; 
 But multitudes there are whose judgment goes 
 Headlong according to the actor's clothes. 
 For this, these public things and I, agree 
 So ill, that but to do a right for thee, 
 I had not been persuaded to have hurl'd 
 These few, ill-spoken lines, into the world. 
 Both to be read, and censured of, by those, 
 Whose very reading makes verse senseless prose. 
 
 One of the finest pieces of commendatory 
 verse is Sii' Walter Raleigh's upon the great
 
 30 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 poem of Spenser. He calls it " A Vision upon 
 the Faery Queen." 
 
 Motliouglit I saw the grave where Laura lay, 
 Within that temple u'liere the vestal flame 
 Was wont to burn : and passing by that way 
 To SCO that buried dust of living fame, 
 Whoso tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept. 
 All suddenly I saw the Kaery Queen : 
 At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, 
 And from thenceforth those graces were not seen 
 (For they this Queen attended! ; in whose stead 
 Oblivion laid liini do^vn on Laura's hearse. 
 Hercat the hm-dest stones were seen to bleed. 
 And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did perse. 
 Where Homer's sprite did tremble all for grief. 
 And curst the' access of that celestial thief. 
 
 Tliis is highly imaginative and picturesque. 
 We fancy ourselves in one of the most beauti- 
 ful places of Italian sepulture — quiet and 
 hushing — looking upon a tomb of animated 
 sculpture. It is the tomb of the renowned 
 Laura. We feel the spirit of Petrarch present, 
 without being visible. The fair forms of Love 
 and Virtue keep watch over the marble. All 
 on a sudden, from out the dusk of the chapel 
 door, the Faery Queen is beheld approaching 
 the tomb. The soul of Petrarch is heard 
 weeping ; — an intense piece of fancy, which 
 affects one like the collected tears and disap- 
 pointment of living humanity. Oblivion lays 
 him down on the tomb ; 
 
 And from thenceforth those giaces were not seen. 
 
 The other marbles bleed at this : the ghosts of 
 the dead groan : and the very spirit of Homer 
 is felt to tremble. It is a very grand and high 
 sonnet, worthy of the dominant spirit of the 
 writer. One of its beauties however is its de- 
 fect ; if defect it be, and not ratlier a fine 
 instance of the wilful. Comparisons between 
 great reputations are dangerous, and are apt 
 to be made too much at the expense of one of 
 them, precisely because the author knows he 
 is begging the question. Oblivion has laid him 
 down neither on Laura's hearse nor the Faery 
 Queen's ; and Raleigh knew he never would. 
 But he wished to make out a case for his friend, 
 in the same spirit in which he pushed his 
 sword into a Spanish settlement and carried all 
 before him. 
 
 The verses of Andrew Marvell prefixed to 
 Paradise Lost, beginning, 
 
 When I beheld the poet, blind yet bold, 
 
 are well known to every reader of Milton, and 
 justly admired by all who know what they 
 read. We remember how delighted we were 
 to find who Andrew Marvell was, and that he 
 could be pleasant and lively as well as grave. 
 Spirited and worthy as this jjancgyric is, tlie 
 reader who is not thorouglily acquainted with 
 MarveU's history, docs not know all its spirit 
 and worth. Tliat true friend and excellent 
 patriot stuck to his old acquaintance, at a 
 period when canters and time-servers had 
 
 turned their backs upon him, and when they 
 would have made the very knowledge of him, 
 which they had had tlie honour of sharing, the 
 ruin of those that put their desertion to the 
 blush. There is a noble burst of indignation 
 on this suliject, in jNlarvell's prose works, 
 against a fellow of the name of Parker, who 
 succeeded in obtaining a bishopric. Parker 
 seems to have thought, that Marvell woidd 
 have been afraid of acknowledging his old 
 acquaintance ; but so far from resembling the 
 bishop in that or any otlier particular, he not 
 only publicly proclaimed and gloried in tlie 
 friendship of the poet, but reminded Master 
 Parker that he had once done the same. 
 
 We must be cautious how we go on quoting 
 verses upon this agreeable subject ; for they 
 elbow one's prose out at a great rate. They 
 sit in state, with a great vacancy on each side 
 of them, like Henry the Eighth in a picture of 
 Holbein's. The wits who flourished in the 
 time of the Stuarts and Queen Anne were not 
 behind the great poets of the age of Elizabeth, 
 in doing justice to their contemporaries. Dry- 
 den hailed the appearance of Congreve and 
 Oldham. Congreve's merits were universally 
 acknowledged except by the critics. We need 
 not refer to the works of Pope, Gay, Steele, 
 Prior, &c. If Swift abused Dryden (who is 
 said to have told him lie would never be a 
 poet), he also abused in a most unwarrantable 
 and outrageous manner Sir Richard Steele, for 
 whose Tatkr he had written. His abuse was 
 not a thing of literary jealousy, but of some 
 personal or party spite. The union of all three 
 was a perfection of consciousness, reserved for 
 the present times. But Swift's very fondness 
 vented itself, like Buonaparte's, in slaps of the 
 cheek. He was morbid, and liked to create 
 himself cause for pity or regret. " The Dean 
 was a strange man." According to Mrs. Pil- 
 kington, he would give her a pretty hard 
 thump now and then, of course to see how 
 amiably she took it. Upon the same principle, 
 he tells us in the verses on his death, that 
 
 Friend Pope will grieve a month, and Gay 
 A week, and Arbuthnot a day. 
 
 This was to vex them, and make them prove 
 his words false by complaining of their injus- 
 tice. He himself once kept a letter unopened 
 for some days, because lie was afraid it con- 
 tained news of a friend's death. See how he 
 makes his very coarseness and irritability 
 contribute to a panegyric : — 
 
 \\Tien Pope shall in one couplet fix 
 More sense than I can do in six. 
 It gives me such a jealous fit, 
 I cry, " Pox take him and his wit !" 
 
 We must finish our quotations with a part 
 of some sprightly verses addressed to Gai'th 
 on his Dispenmry, by a fi'iend of the name of 
 Codriiigton. Codrington was one of those 
 happily-tempered spirits, who united the cha-
 
 A WORD UPON INDEXES. 
 
 31 
 
 racters of the gentleman, the wit, and the man 
 of business. He was, in the best sense of the 
 words, " a person of wit and lionour about town," 
 
 The courtier's, scholai-'a, soldier's eye, tongue, sword. 
 
 He was born in Barbadoes, and after residing 
 some time in England, and serving with great 
 gallantry as an officer in various parts of the 
 world; became Governor-General of the Lee- 
 ward Islands. He resigned his government in 
 the course of a few years, and died in Barbadoes 
 in the midst of his favourite studies. Among 
 the variety of his accomplishments he did not 
 omit divinity; and he was accounted a master 
 of metaphysics. His public life he had devoted 
 to his country ; his private he divided among 
 his books and friends. If the verses before us 
 are not so good as those of the old poets, they 
 are as good in their way, are as sincere and 
 cordial, and smack of the champagne on his 
 table. "We like them on many accounts, for 
 we like the panegyrist, and have an old liking 
 for his friend — we like the taste they express 
 in friendship and in beauty ; and we like to 
 fancy that our good-humoured ancestors in 
 Barbadoes enjoyed the Governor's society, and 
 relished their wine with these identical triplets. 
 
 TO MY FRIEND THE AUTHOR, DESIRING MY OPINION 
 OF HIS POEM, 
 Ask me not, friend, what I approve or blame ; 
 Perhaps I know not what I like or damn ; 
 I can be pleased, and I dare own I am. 
 
 I read thee over with a lover's eye ; 
 
 Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy ; 
 
 Thou art aU beauty, or all blindness I. 
 
 Critics and aged beaux of fancy chaste. 
 Who ne'er had fire, or else whose fire is past, 
 Must judge by rules what they want force to taste. 
 
 I would a poet, like a mistress, try. 
 
 Not by her hair, her hand, her nose, her eye ; 
 
 But by some nameless power to give me joy. 
 
 The nymph has Grafton's, Cecil's, Churchill's charms. 
 
 If wit)i resistless fires my soul she warms. 
 
 With balm upon her lips, and raptures in her arms. 
 
 Literary loves and jealousies were much the 
 same in other ages as the present ; but we Iiear 
 a great deal more of the loves than the reverse ; 
 because genius survives, and ignorance does 
 not. The ancient philosophers had a delicate 
 way of honouring their fiivourites, by inscribing 
 treatises with their names. It is thought a 
 strange thing in Xenophon that he never 
 mentions Plato. The gi-eater part of the rais- 
 cellaneous poetry of the Greeks is lost ; or we 
 shouldfcoubtless see numerous evidences of 
 the intercourse of their authors. The Greek 
 poets of Sicily, Theocritus and Mosclius, are 
 aifectionate in recording the merits of their 
 contemporaries. Varius and Gallus, two emi- 
 nent Roman poets, scarcely survive but in the 
 panegyrics of their contemporaries. Dante 
 notices his, and his predecessors. Petrarch and 
 Boccaccio publicly honoured, as they privately 
 
 loved one another. Tasso, the gi-eatest poet 
 of his time, was also the greatest panegyrist ; 
 and so, as might be expected, was Ariosto. 
 The latter has introduced a host of his friends 
 by name, male and female, at the end of his 
 groat work, coming down to the shores of 
 poetry to welcome him home after his voyage. 
 There is a pleasant imitation of it by Gay, 
 applied to Pope's conclusion of Homer. Mon- 
 taigne, who had the most exalted notions of 
 friendship, which he thought should have every 
 thing in common, took as much zeal in the 
 literary reputation of his friends, as in every 
 thing else that concerned them. The wits of 
 the time of Henry the Fourth, of Louis the 
 Fourteenth, and of Louis the Fifteenth, — 
 Malherbe, Racan, Corneille, Moliere, Racine, 
 ChauHeu, La Fare, D'Alembert, Voltaire, &c., 
 not excepting Boileau, where he was personally 
 intimate with a brother author — all do honour 
 in this respect to the sociality of their nation. 
 It is the same, we believe, with the German 
 writers ; and if the Spanish winced a little 
 under the domination of Lope de Vega, they 
 were chivalrous in giving him perhaps more 
 than his due. Camoens had the admiration 
 of literary friends as poor as himself, if he had 
 nothing else ; but this was something. 
 
 LIV.— A WORD UPON INDEXES. 
 
 Index-making has been held to be the 
 driest as well as lowest species of writing. We 
 shall not dispute the humbleness of it ; but 
 since we have had to make an index ourselves,* 
 we have discovered that the task need not be 
 so very dry. Calling to mind indexes in 
 general, we found them presenting us a variety 
 of pleasant memories and contrasts. We 
 thought of those to the Spectator, which we 
 used to look at so often at school, for the sake 
 of choosing a paper to abridge. We thought 
 of the index to the Pantheon of Fabulous 
 Histories of the Heathen Gods, which we used 
 to look at oftener. We remember how we 
 imagined we should feel some day, if ever our 
 name should appear in the list of Hs ; as thus, 
 
 Home, Howard, Hume, Huniades, . The 
 
 poets would have been better, but then the 
 names, though perhaps less unfitting, were not 
 so flattering ; as for instance, Halifax, Ham- 
 mond, Harte, Hughes, . We did not like 
 
 lo come after Hughes. 
 
 We have just been looking at the indexes to 
 the Tatler and Spectator, and never were more 
 forcibly struck with the feeling we formerly 
 expressed about a man's being better pleased 
 with other writers than with himself. Our 
 index seemed the poorest and most second- 
 hand thing in the world after theirs ; but let 
 any one read theirs, and then call an index a 
 dry thing if he can. As there "is a soul of 
 
 * To the original edition of the Indicator.
 
 32 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 goodness in things evil," so there is a soul of 
 humour in things dry, and in things dry by 
 profession. Lawyers know this, as well as 
 index-makers, or they would die of sheer thirst 
 and aridity. Ihit as gnijios, ready to burst 
 with wine, issue out of the most stony places, 
 like jolly fellows bringing Burgundy out of a 
 cellar ; so an index, like the Tatler's, often 
 gives us a taste of the quintessence of his 
 humour. For instance, — 
 
 " BickerstaiF, Mr. account of his ancestors, 
 141. How his race was improved, 142. Not 
 in partnership with Lillie, 250, Catched writing 
 nonsense, 47. 
 
 " Dead men, who are to be so accounted, 247." 
 
 Sometimes he has a stroke of pathos, as 
 touching in its brevity as the account it refers 
 to ; as, 
 
 " Love-letters between Mr. Bickerstaff and 
 Maria, 184—186. Found in a grave, 289." 
 
 Sometimeshe issimplymoralandgraceful ; as, 
 
 " Tenderness and humanity inspired by the 
 Muses, 258. No true greatness of mind without 
 it, ibid." 
 
 At another he says perhaps more than he 
 intended; as, 
 
 " Laura, her perfections and excellent cha- 
 racter, 19. Despised by her husband, ibid." 
 
 The index to Cotton's Montaigne, probably 
 written by the translator himself, is often i^ithy 
 and amusing. Thus in Volume 2d, 
 
 "Anger is pleased with, and flatters itself,618. 
 
 " Beasts inclined to avarice, 225. 
 
 " Children abandoned to the care and govern- 
 ment of their fathers, 613. 
 
 " Drunkenness, to a high and dead degree, 1 6. 
 
 "Joy, profound, has more severity than 
 gaiety in it. 
 
 " Monsters, are not so to God, 612. 
 
 "Voluptuousness of the Cynics, 418." 
 
 Sometimes we meet with graver quaintnesses 
 and curious relations, as in the index to Sandys's 
 Ovid 
 
 " Diana, no virgin, scoft at by Lucian, p. 55. 
 
 " Dwarfes, an Italian Dwarfe carried about 
 in a parrot's cage, p. 113. 
 
 " Eccho, atTwilleries in Paris,heard to repeat 
 a verse without failing in one syllable, p. 58. 
 
 " Ship of the Tyrrhenians miraculously stuck 
 fast in the sea, p. 63. 
 
 " A Ilistorie of a Bristol ship stuck fast in 
 thedeepe Sea by Witchcraft ; for which twentie- 
 five Witches were executed, ibid." 
 
 LV.— AN OLD SCHOOL-BOOK. 
 
 There is a school-book by the egregious 
 John Amos Comenius, (who fixed the millen- 
 nium for the year 1672) in which the learned 
 author has lumped together, in a very singular 
 way, all sorts of trades, pursuits, productions, 
 merriments, and disasters. As every thing 
 which is saleable is on a level with booksellers, 
 
 so every thing which has a Latin word for it, 
 was alike important to the creator of the 
 Orbis Pictits: for so the book is called. 
 
 He sees with equal eye, as construing all, 
 A hero perish or a sparrow fall. 
 
 The Tormenting of malefactors, Supplicia Malc- 
 factorum, is no more in his eyes than the making 
 of honey, or Mellificium. Siiipwrcck, being Nmi- 
 fraijliim, he holds in no graver light than a feast, 
 which is Conricium ; and the feast is no merrier 
 than the shipwreck. He has wood-cuts, with 
 numerals against the figures ; to which the 
 letter-press refers. In one of these, his " De- 
 formed and Monstrous People," cut as jaunty 
 a figure as his Adam and Eve, and seem to 
 jiique themselves on their titles of Dcfurmes et 
 Monstrosi. In another the soul of man is de- 
 scribed by a bodily outline, standing against a 
 sheet. He is never moved but by some point 
 of faith. Thus, " Godliness," he says, " treads 
 reason under foot, that barking dog, No. 6." — 
 Oblatrnntem Canem, 6. The translation, observe, 
 is worthy of the original. Again : — 
 
 Woe to the mad 
 Wizards and Witches, 
 who give themselves to the 
 
 Devil 
 (being inclosed in a Circle, 7- 
 calling upon him 
 with Charms) 
 they dally with him 
 and fall from God ! 
 for they shall receive their 
 reward with him. 
 
 Vse dementibus 
 Magis et Lamiis, 
 qui Cacodaemoni se dcdunt 
 
 (inelusi Circulo,?- 
 cum advocantes 
 incantamcntis) 
 cum eo colludunt 
 et a Deo dcficiunt ! 
 nam cum illo 
 mercedem accipient. 
 
 But of the fall of Adam and Eve, he contents 
 himself with this pithy account : — 
 
 These being tempted 
 by the Devil under the shape 
 of a serpent, 3. 
 when they had eaten of the 
 fruit of tlie forbidden Tree, 4. 
 were condemned, (FivCf. 
 to misery and death, 
 with all their posterity, 
 and cast out of Paradise, 6. 
 
 Hi, seducti 
 a Diabolo sub specie 
 Scrpentis, 3. 
 cum comederunt 
 de fructu vetitae Arboris, 4. 
 damnati simt 5. 
 ad miseriam et mortem, 
 cum onvni pusteritate sua, 
 ct ejecti o Paradise, 6. 
 
 Opposite to this is the account of fish : — 
 
 Add rterrings, 7- 
 which are brought pickled, 
 and Plaice, 8. and Cod, 9. 
 wliich are brought dry ; 
 and the sea-monsters, ^c. 
 
 I Adde Ilaleces, 7. 
 I qui salsi, 
 
 et Passeres, 8. cum Asellis, 9. 
 
 qui adfcruntur arefacti ; 
 
 ct monstra marina, &c. 
 
 Of a similar aspect of complacency is his ac- 
 count of the Last -Judgment : — 
 
 When the Godly and Elect, 
 
 4. 
 shall enter into life eternal, 
 into the place of Uliss, 
 and the new Jerusalem, 5. 
 But the wicked 
 and the damned, fi. 
 with the Devils, 7 
 shall be thrust into IleU. 
 
 (No. 8.^ 
 to bo there tormented for 
 
 ever. 
 
 I Ubi pii (justit et Elccti, 4. 
 
 f 
 introibunt in vitam ctemam. 
 in locum IJeatitudinis. 
 et novam Hierosolymam, 5. 
 Impii vero 
 et damnati, 6. 
 ciun Cacodacmonibus, 7. 
 
 in Gehennam.R. detrudeStur , 
 ibi cruciandi a?ternum.
 
 OF DREAMS. 
 
 33 
 
 The Shipwreck ends genteelly : — 
 
 Some escape, 
 either on a plank, 7- 
 and by swimming, 
 or in a Boat ; 8. 
 Part of the Wares, 
 ■with the dead folks, 
 is carried out of the sea, 9. 
 upon the shores. 
 
 Quidam evadunt, 
 vel tabula, 7- 
 ac enatando, 
 vel Scapha ; 8. 
 Pars Mercium 
 cummortuis 
 aMari, 9. in littoradefertur. 
 
 So in the Tormenting of Malefactors, he 
 speaks of torture in a parenthesis, and talks of 
 pulling traitors in pieces in the style of a nota- 
 bene. " They that have their life given them" 
 appear to be still worse off. 
 
 Malefactors, 1. 
 
 are brought 
 
 from the Prison, 3. 
 
 (where they are wont to be 
 
 tortured) by Serjeants, 2, 
 
 Some before they are exe- 
 cuted have their Tongues cut 
 
 out, il. 
 
 or have their Hand, 12. 
 
 cut off upon a Block, 13. 
 
 or are burnt with Pincers, 14. 
 
 They that have their Life 
 
 given them, 
 
 are set on the pillory, IG. 
 
 are strapado'd, 17. 
 
 ai'e set upon a Wooden Horse, 
 18. 
 
 have their ears cut off, 19. 
 
 are whipped with Rods, 20. 
 
 are branded, 
 
 are banished, 
 
 are condemned 
 
 to the Galleys, 
 
 or to perpetual Imprison- 
 ment. 
 
 Traitors are pulled 
 pieces with four Horses. 
 
 Malefici, I. 
 
 producuntur 
 
 e Carcere, 3. 
 
 (ubi torqueri solcnt) 
 
 per Lictores, 2. 
 
 Quidam antequam sitpplicio 
 
 afficiantur eliguantur, 11. 
 
 aut plectuntur Manu, 12. 
 super cippum, 13. 
 aut Forcipibus, 14. uruntur. 
 Vita donati 
 
 constringunturNumcllis, IG 
 luxantur, 17. 
 Imponuntur Equuleo, 18. 
 
 truncantur Auribus, 19. 
 
 ca?duntur Virgis, 20. 
 
 stigmate notantur, 
 
 relegantui-, 
 
 damnantur 
 
 ad Triremes, 
 
 vel ad Carcerem perpetuam. 
 
 Perduelles discerpuntur 
 quadrigis. 
 
 LVI.— OF DREAMS. 
 
 The materialists and psychologists are at 
 issue upon the subject of dreams. The latter 
 hold them to be one among the many proofs of 
 the existence of a soul : the former endeavour 
 to account for them upon principles altogether 
 corporeal. We must own, that the effects of 
 their respective arguments, as is usual with us 
 on these occasions, is not so much to satisfy 
 us with either, as to dissatisfy us v/ith both. 
 The psychologist, with all his struggles, never 
 appears to be able to get rid of his body ; and 
 the materialist leaves something extremely 
 deficient in the vivacity of his proofs, by his 
 ignorance of that primum mobik, which is the 
 soul of everything. In the mean time, while 
 they go on with their laudable inquiries (for 
 which we have a very sincere respect), it is 
 our business to go on recommending a taste 
 for results as well as causes, and turning every- 
 thing to account in this beautiful star of ours, 
 the earth. There is no reason why the acutest 
 investigator of mysteries should not enjoy his 
 
 [part II. J 
 
 existence, and have his earthly dreams made 
 as pleasant as possible ; and for our parts, we 
 see nothing at present, either in body or soul, 
 but a medium for a world of perceptions, the 
 very unpleasantest of whose dreams are but 
 warnings to us how we depart from the health 
 and natural piety of the pleasant ones. 
 
 What seems incontrovertible in the case of 
 dreams is, that they are most apt to take place 
 when the body is most affected. They seem 
 to turn most upon us when the suspension of 
 the will has been reduced to its most helpless 
 state by indulgence. The door of the fancy is 
 left without its keeper, and forth issue, pell- 
 mell, the whole rout of ideas or images, which 
 had been stored within the bi-ain, and kept to 
 their respective duties. They are like a 
 school let loose, or the winds in Virgil, or 
 Lord Anson's drunken sailors at Panama, who 
 dressed themselves up in all sorts of ridiculous 
 apparel. 
 
 We were about to say, that being Vi'riters, 
 we are of necessity dreamers ; for thinking 
 disposes the bodily faculties to be more than 
 usually affected by tlie causes that generally 
 produce dreaming. Dut extremes appear to 
 meet on this, as on other occasions, at least as 
 far as the meditative power is concerned ; for 
 there is an excellent reasoner now living, who 
 telling another that he Avas not fond of the 
 wilder partsof the^rafciaw Nights, was answered 
 with great felicity, " Then you never dream." 
 It turned out that he really dreamt little. 
 Here the link is impaired that connects a ten- 
 dency to indigestion with thinking on the one 
 hand, and dreaming on the other. If we are 
 to believe Herodotus, the Atlantes, an African 
 people, never dreamt ; which INIontaigne is 
 willing to attribute to their never having eaten 
 anything that died of itself. It is to be pre- 
 sumed that he looked upon their temperance 
 as a matter of course. The same philosopher, 
 who was a deep thinker and of a delicate con- 
 stitution, informs us that he himself dreamt 
 but sparingly ; but then when he did, his 
 dreams were fantastic though cheerful. This is 
 the very triumph of the animal spirits, to unite 
 the strangeness of sick dreams with the cheer- 
 fulness of healthy ones. To these exceptions 
 against the usual theories we may add, that 
 dreams are by no means modified of necessity 
 by what the niind has been occupied with in 
 the course of the day, or even of months ; for 
 during our two years' confinement in prison, 
 we did not dream more than twice of our chief 
 subjects of reflection, the prison itself not ex- 
 cepted.* The two dreams were both connected 
 with the latter, and both the same. We fancied 
 that we had slipped out of jail, and gone to 
 the theatre, where we were horrified by seeing 
 the faces of the whole audience unexpectedlj' 
 turned upon us. 
 
 * See a remarkable coincidence in the Essay on Dream*, 
 in .Mr. Hazlitfs Plain Speaker. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 It is certain enough, however, that dreams 
 in general proceed from indigestion ; and it 
 appears nearly as nmcii so, that they are more 
 cr less strange according to the waking fancy 
 of the dreamer. 
 
 All (Irciims, as in old Giilcn T have read. 
 Arc from repletion and coniiilcxinn bred, 
 From ri-siiiK fumes of indigested food, 
 And noxi.nis Inimoiirs that infect the blood. 
 ■ — Wlicn elupler overflows, then dreams are bred 
 Of Hames, and all the family of red. 
 — Clioler adust congeals the blood with fear. 
 Then black bulls tos-s us, and black devils tear. 
 In sanguine airy dreams aloft we bound, 
 ■\Vith rheums oppress'd, we sink, in rivers dro\vii'd. 
 Dryden's Cock and the Fox, from Chaucer. 
 
 Again, in another passage, which is worth 
 quoting instead of the original, and affords a 
 good terse specimen of the author's versifi- 
 cation : — 
 
 Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes; 
 When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes; 
 Compounds a medley of disjointed things, 
 A mob of cobblers and a court of kings : * 
 Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad : 
 Both are the reasonable soul run mad ; 
 And many monstrous forms in sleep we see. 
 That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be. 
 Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind. 
 Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind. 
 The nurse's legends are for truths received. 
 And the m:in dreams but what the boy believed ; 
 Sometimes wc but rehearse a former play, -^ 
 
 The night restores our actions done by day ; J. 
 
 As hounds in sleep will open for their prey. J 
 
 In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece, 
 Chimeras all ; and more absurd or less. 
 
 It is probable that a trivial degree of indi- 
 gestion will give rise to very fantastic dreams 
 in a fanciful mitid ; Avhile, on the other liand, 
 a good orthodox repletion is necessary towards 
 a fanciful creation in a dull one. It shall 
 make an epicure, of any vivacity, act as many 
 parts in his sleep as a tragedian, "for that 
 night only." Tlie inspirations of veal, in par- 
 ticular, are accounted extremely Delphic ; 
 Italian pickles partake of the same spirit of 
 Dante ; and a butter-boat shall contain as 
 many ghosts as Cliaron's. 
 
 Tliere is a passage in Lucian, which would 
 have made a good subject for those who painted 
 the temptations of tlie saints. It is a descrip- 
 tion of the City of Dreams, very lively and 
 crowded. We quote after Natalis Comes, not 
 having the True History by us. The city, we 
 are told, stands in an immense plain, sur- 
 rounded by a thick forest of tall poppy-trees, 
 and enormous mandragoras. The plain is also 
 full of all sorts of somniculous plants, and tlie 
 trees are haunted with multitudes of owls and 
 bats, but no other bird. The city is washed by 
 the river Lethe, called by others the Night- 
 bringer, whose course is inaudible, and like the 
 
 * Perhaps a misprint for 
 
 A court of cobblers and a mob of kings. 
 
 flowing of oil. (Spenser's follower, Browne, has 
 been here: 
 
 ■VVnicre consort none other fowl, 
 S;ive the but and sullen owl ; 
 V.'here flows Lethe without coil, 
 Softly, like a stream of oil. 
 
 Jnner Temple Mask.) 
 
 There are two gates to the city : one of horn, 
 in which almost everytiiing that can happen in 
 sleep is represented, as in a transparency ; tlie 
 other of ivory, in which the dreams are but 
 dimly shadowed. The principal temple is that 
 of Nigiit ; and there are others, dedicated to 
 Truth and Falsehood, who have oracles. Tlie 
 population consists of Dreams, wlio are of an 
 infinite variety of shape. Some are small and 
 slender ; others distorted, humped, and mon- 
 strous ; others proper and tall, witii blooming 
 good-tempered faces. Others, again, have 
 terrible countenances, are winged, and seem 
 eternally tlireatening the city with some cala- 
 mity ; while others walk about in tlie pomp 
 and garniture of kings. If any mortal comes 
 into the place, there is a multitude of domestic 
 Dreams, who meet him with offers of service ; 
 and they are followed by some of the others 
 that bring him good or bad news, generally 
 false ; for the inhabitants of that city are, for 
 the most part, a lying and crafty generation, 
 speaking one thing and tliinking another. 
 This is having a new advantage over us. 
 Only think of the mental reservation of a 
 Di'eam ! 
 
 If Lucian had divided his city into ranks 
 and denominations, lie might possibly have 
 classed them under the heads of Dreams Lofty, 
 Dreams Ludicrous, Dreams Pathetic, Dreams 
 Horrible, Dreams Bodily Painful or Pleasant, 
 Dreams of Common Life, Dreams of New 
 Aspects of Humanity ; Dreams Mixed, Fan- 
 tastic, and utterly Confused. He speaks of 
 winged ones, which is judicious, for they are 
 very common ; but unless Natalis Comes, wlio 
 is not a very bright person, misrepresents him, 
 he makes them of the melancholy class, which, 
 in general, they are not. 
 
 In airy sanguine dreams aloft we bound. 
 
 Nothing is more common, or usually more 
 ])leasant, than to dream of flying. It is one 
 of the best specimens of the race ; for besides 
 being agreeable, it is made up of the dreams 
 of ordinary life and those of surprising combi- 
 nation. Thus the dreamer sometimes thinks 
 he is flying in unknown regions, sometimes 
 skimming only a few inches above the ground, 
 and wondering he never did it before. He 
 will even dream that he is dreaming about it ; 
 and yet is so fully convinced of its feasibility, 
 and so astonished at his never Jiaving hit upon 
 so delightful a truism, that he is resolved to 
 practise it the moment he wakes. " One has 
 only," says he, " to give a little sjtring with 
 one's foot, so, and — oli ! it's the easiest and
 
 OF DREAMS. 
 
 35 
 
 most obvious thing in the world. I'll always 
 skim hereafter." We dreamt once that a 
 woman set up some Flying Rooms, as a person 
 does a tavern. We went to try them, and 
 nothing could be more satisfactory and com- 
 mon-place on all sides. The landlady wel- 
 comed us with a curtsey, hoped for friends and 
 favours, &c., and then showed us into a spacious 
 room, not round, as might be expected, but 
 long, and after the usual dining fashion. 
 " Perhaps, Sir," said she, " you would like to 
 try the room." Upon which we made no more 
 ado, but sprung up and made two or three 
 genteel circuits ; now taking the height of it, 
 like a house-lark, and then cutting the angles, 
 like a swallow. " Very pretty flying indeed," 
 said we, " and very moderate." 
 
 A house for the purpose of taking flights in, 
 when the open air was to be had for nothing, 
 is fantastic enough ; but what shall we say to 
 those confoundings of all time, place, and sub- 
 stance, which are constantly happening to per- 
 sons of any creativeness of stomach ? Thus, 
 you shall meet a friend in a gateway, who be- 
 sides being your friend shall be your enemy ; 
 and besides being Jones or Tomkins, shall be 
 a bull ; and besides asking you in, shall ojipose 
 your entrance. Nevertheless you are not at 
 all surprised ; or if surprised, you are only so 
 at something not surprising. To be Tomkins 
 and a bull at once, is the most ordinary of com- 
 mon-places ; but that, being a bull, he should 
 have horns, is what astonishes you ; and you 
 are amazed at his not being in Holborn or the 
 Strand, where he never lived. To be in two 
 places at once is not uncommon to a dreamer. 
 He will also be young and old at the same time, 
 a schoolboy and a man ; will live many years 
 in a few minutes, like the Sultan who dipped 
 his head in the tub of water ; will be full of 
 zeal and dialogue upon some matter of indif- 
 ference ; go to the opera with a dish under his 
 arm, to be in the fashion ; talk faster in verse 
 than prose ; and ask a set of horses to a musi- 
 cal party, telling them that he knows they will 
 be pleased, because blue is the general wear, 
 and Mozart has gone down to Gloucestershire, 
 to fit up a house for Epaminondas. 
 
 It is a curious proof of the concern which 
 body has in these vagaries, that when you dream 
 of any particular limb being in pain, you shall 
 most likely have gone to sleep in a posture that 
 affects it. A weight on the feet will produce 
 dreams in wliich you are rooted to the ground, 
 or caught by a goblin out of the earth. A 
 cramped hand or leg shall get you tortured in 
 the Inquisition ; and a liead too much thrown 
 back, give you the sense of an interminable visi- 
 tation of stifling. The nightmare, the heaviest 
 punisher of repletion, will visit some persons 
 merely for lying on their backs ; which showshow 
 mucliit is concerned in a particular condition of 
 the frame. Sometimes it lies upon the chest like 
 a vital lump. Sometimes it comes in the guise 
 
 of a horrid dwarf, or malignant little hag, who 
 grins in your teeth and will not let you rise. 
 Its most common enormity is to pin you to the 
 ground with excess of fear, while something 
 dreadful is coming up, a goblin or a mad bull. 
 Sometimes the horror is of a very elaborate 
 description, such as being spell-bound in an old 
 house, which has a mysterious and shocking 
 possessor. He is a gigantic deformity, and 
 will pass presently through the room in which 
 you are sitting. He comes, not a giant, but a 
 dwarf, of the most strange and odious descrip- 
 tion, hairy, spider-like, and chuckling. His 
 mere passage is unbearable. The agony arises 
 at every steji. You would protest against so 
 malignant a sublimation of the shocking, but 
 are unable to move or speak. At length you give 
 loud and long-drawn groans, and start up with 
 a praiternatural effort, awake. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge, whose sleeping imagination is 
 proportioned to his waking, has described a 
 fearful dream of mental and bodily torture. 
 As the beautiful poems of Christabel, &c. which 
 accompany it, seem to have been too imagina- 
 tive to be understood by the critics, and conse- 
 quently have wanted the general attention 
 which the town are pleased to give or otherwise 
 according to the injunctions of those gentlemen, 
 we shall indulge ourselves in extracting the 
 whole of it. It is entitled the Pams of Sleep. 
 
 Ere on my bed my limbs I lay. 
 
 It hath not been my U8e to pray 
 
 With moving lips on bended knees ; 
 
 15ut silently, by slow degrees, 
 
 My spirit I to love compose. 
 
 In humble trust mine eye-lids close, 
 
 With reverential resignation. 
 
 No wish conceived, no thought express'd '■ 
 
 Only a sense of supplication, 
 
 A sense o'er all my soul imprest. 
 
 That I am weak, yet not unblest. 
 
 Since in me, round me, everywhere 
 
 Eternal Strength and Wisdom are. 
 
 But yester-njght I pray'd aloud 
 
 In anguish and in agony, 
 
 Up-starting from the fiendish crowd 
 
 Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me ; 
 
 A lurid light, a trampling throng. 
 
 Sense of intolerable wrong. 
 
 And whom I scorn 'd, those only strong! 
 
 Thirst of revenge, the powerless will, 
 
 Still baffled, and yet burning still ■ 
 
 Desire with loathing strangely mLx'd 
 
 On wild or hateful objects fix'd. 
 
 Fantastic passions ! madd'ning brawl '■ 
 
 And shame and terror over all ! 
 
 Deeds to be hid which were not hid, 
 
 AVhith all confused I could not know, 
 
 Whether I suffer'd, or I did : 
 
 For all scem'd guilt, remorse or woe, 
 
 My own or others still the same. 
 
 Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame ! 
 
 So two nights pass'd : tlie night's dismay 
 Saddcu'd and stunn'd the coming day. 
 Sleep, the wide blessing, scem'd to me 
 Distemper's worst calamity. 
 The third night, when my own loud scream 
 Had waked mc from the fiendish dream, 
 oa 
 
 —
 
 36 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 O'crcome with sufferings strange and wild, 
 
 I wept ius I had been a chiNi ; 
 
 And havinc; thus by tears subdued 
 
 lily anguisli to a milder luood. 
 
 Such punishments, I said, were duo 
 
 To natures deepliest stain'd with sin : 
 
 For aye en tempesting anew 
 
 Th' unfathomable hell within 
 
 The horror of their deeds to view. 
 
 To know and loathe, yet wish to do ! 
 
 Sueli griefs with such men well agree. 
 
 But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ? 
 
 To be beloved is all I need. 
 
 And whom I love, I love indeed. 
 
 This is the dream of a poet, and does not end 
 with the question of a philosopher. We do 
 not pretend to determine why we sliould have 
 any pains at all. It is enough for us, in our 
 attempt to diminish them, that there are more 
 pleasant than jjaiiiful excitements in the world, 
 and that many pains are the causes of pleasure. 
 But what if these pains are for the same end ? 
 What if all this heaping and war of agonies 
 were owing to the author's having taken too 
 little exercise, or eaten a heavier supper than 
 ordinary ? But then the proportion ! What 
 proportion, it may be asked, is there between 
 the sin of neglected exercise and such infernal 
 visitations as these ? We answer, — the propor- 
 tion, not of the particular oiFence, but of the 
 general consequences. We have before observ- 
 ed, but it cannot be repeated too often, that 
 Nature, charitable as any poet or philosopher 
 can be upon the suiyect of merit and demerit, 
 &c. seems to insist, beyond anything else, upon 
 our taking care of the mould in which she has 
 cast us ; or in other words, of that ground-work 
 of all comfort, that box which contains the 
 jewel of existence, our health. On turning to 
 the preceding poem in the book, entitled Kvbla 
 Khan, we perceive that in his introduction to 
 that pleasanter vision, the author speaks of the 
 present one as the dream of pain and disease. 
 Kubla Khan, which was meditated under the 
 effects of opium, he calls "a psychological curi- 
 osity." It is so ; but it is also, and still more, 
 a somatological or bodily one ; for body will 
 effect these things upon the mind, when the 
 mind can do no such thing upon itself ; and 
 therefore the shortest, most useful, and most 
 philosophical way of proceeding, is to treat the 
 phenomenon in the manner most serviceable to 
 the health and comfort of both. We subjoin 
 the conclusion of Kubla Khan, as beginning 
 with an exquisite piece of music, and ending 
 with a most poetical phantasm : — 
 
 A damsel with a dulcimer 
 
 In a vision once I sjiw ; 
 It was an Abyssinian maid, 
 And on her dulcimer she play'd, 
 
 Ringing of Mount Aboro. 
 
 Could I revive within me 
 Her symphony and song. 
 To such a deep delight 'twould win mi, 
 That witli music loud and long 
 
 1 woxild build that dome in air, 
 Tiiat sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
 And all who heard should see them there. 
 And all sliould cry Itcware, Beware, 
 His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
 Weave a circle round him thrioe. 
 And close your eyes with holy dread ; 
 For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
 And drank of the milk of Paradise. 
 
 If horrible and fantastic dreams are the most 
 perplexing, there are pathetic ones more sad- 
 dening. A friend dreaming of the loss of his 
 friend, or a lover of that of his mistress, or a 
 kinsman of that of a dear relation, is steeped in 
 the bitterness of death. To wake and find it 
 not true, — what a delicious sensation is that ! 
 On the otlier hand, to dream of a friend or a 
 beloved relative restored to us, — to live over 
 again the hours of childhood at the knee of a 
 beloved mother, to be on the eve of marrying 
 an affectionate mistress, with a thousand other 
 joys snatched back out of the grave, and too 
 painful to dwell upon, — what a dreary rush of 
 sensation comes like a shadow upon us when 
 we wake ! How true, and divested of all that 
 is justly called conceit in poetry, is that termi- 
 nation of Alilton's sonnet on dreaming of his 
 deceased wife, — 
 
 But oh, as to embrace me she inclined, 
 
 I waked ; she fled ; and day brought back my night. 
 
 It is strange that so good and cordial a critic 
 as Warton should think this a mere conceit on 
 his blindness. An allusion to his blindness 
 may or may not be involved in it ; but the 
 sense of returning shadow on the mind is true 
 to nature, and must have been experienced by 
 every one who has lost a person dear to him. 
 There is a beautiful sonnet by Camoens on a 
 similar occasion ; a small canzone by Sanaz- 
 zaro, which ends with saying, that although he 
 waked and missed his lady's hand in his, he 
 still tried to cheat himself by keeping his eyes 
 shut ; and three divine dreams of Laura by 
 Petrarch, Sonnet xxxiv. Vol. 2. Sonnet lxxix. 
 ib. and the canzone beginning 
 
 Quando 11 soave mio fide conforto. 
 
 But we must be cautious how we think of 
 the poets on this most poetical subject, or we 
 shall write three articles instead of one. As 
 it is, we have not left ourselves room for some 
 very agreeable dreams, which we meant to have 
 taken between these our gallant and imagina- 
 tive sheets. They must be interrupted, as they 
 are apt to be, like the young lady's in the Ad- 
 ventures of a Lapdog, who blushing divinely, 
 had just uttered the words, " My Lord, I am 
 wholly yours," when she was awaked by the 
 jumping up of that officious little puppy.
 
 A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE OTHER EXTREME. 
 
 37 
 
 LVIL— A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE 
 OTHER EXTREME. 
 
 We met the other day Avith the following 
 description of an animal of quality in a Bio- 
 graphical Dictionary that was published in the 
 year 1767, and which is one of the most 
 amusing and spirited publications of the kind 
 that we remeinber to have seen. The writer 
 does not give his authority for this particular 
 memoir, so that it was probably furnished from 
 his own knowledge ; but that the account is a 
 true one, is evident. Indeed, with the excep- 
 tion of one or two eccentricities of prudence 
 which rather lean to the side of an excess of 
 instinct, it is but an individual description, re- 
 ferring to a numerous class of the same nature, 
 that once flourished with horn and hound in 
 this country, and specimens of which are to be 
 found here and there still.* The title we have 
 put at the head of it is not quite correct and 
 exclusive enough as a definition ; since, pro- 
 perly speaking, we lords of the creation are all 
 human animals ; but the mere animal, or bodily 
 and breathing faculty, is combined in us more 
 or less with intellect and sentiment ; and of 
 these refinements of the perception, few bipeds 
 that have arrived at the dignity of a coat and 
 boots, have partaken so little as the noble squire 
 before us. How far some of us, who take our- 
 selves for very rational persons, do or do not go 
 beyond him, we shall perhaps see in the course 
 of our remarks. 
 
 " The Honourable William Hastings, a 
 gentleman of a very singular character," says 
 our informant, " lived in the year 1G38, and by 
 his quality was son, brother, and imcle to the 
 Earls of Huntingdon. He was peradventure 
 an original in our age, or rather the copy of our 
 ancient nobility, in hunting, not in warlike 
 times. 
 
 " He was very low, very strong, and very 
 active, of a reddish flaxen hair ; his clotlies 
 green cloth, and never all worth, when new, 
 five pounds. 
 
 " His house was perfectly of the old fashion, 
 in the midst of a large park well stocked with 
 deer, and near the house rabbits to serve his 
 kitchen ; many fish-ponds ; great store of 
 wood and timber ; a bowling-green in it, long 
 but narrow, and full of high ridges, it being 
 never levelled since it was plowed : they 
 used round sand bowls ; and it had a banqueting 
 house like a stand, a large one, built in a tree. 
 
 " He kept all manner of sport hounds, that 
 run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and 
 hawks, long and short-wing'd. He had all sorts 
 of nets for fish ; he had a walk in the New 
 Forest ; and in the manor of Christ Church : 
 this last supplied him with red deer, sea and 
 
 » Since writing tin's, we have discovered that the original 
 is in Hutchins'3 Ilislorii of Dorsetshire. See Gilpin's 
 Foreft Scenery, or Drake's Sliiikspeare awl his Times. It 
 is said to have been written by the first Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 
 river fish. And indeed all his neighbours' 
 grounds and royalties were free to him ; who 
 bestowed all his time on these sports, but what 
 he borrowed to caress his neighbours' wives 
 and daughters ; there being not a woman, in all 
 his walks, of the degree of a yeoman's wife, 
 and under the age of forty, but it was extremely 
 her fault, if he was not intimately acquainted 
 with her. This made him very popular ; always 
 speaking kindly to the husband, brother, or 
 father, who was to boot very welcome to his 
 house whenever he came. 
 
 " There he found beef, pudding, and small 
 beer in great plenty ; a house not so neatly 
 kept as to shame him or his dusty shoes ; 
 the great hall strewed with marrow-bones, 
 full of hawks, perches, hounds, spaniels, and 
 terriers ; the upper side of the hall hung with 
 the fox skins of this and the last year's killing ; 
 here and there a pole-cat intermixed ; game- 
 keepers' and hunters' poles in great abundance. 
 
 " The parlour was a great room as properly 
 furnished. On a great hearth, paved with 
 brickjlaysome terriers, and the choicest hounds 
 and spaniels. Seldom but two of tlie great 
 chairs had litters of young cats in them, which 
 were not to be disturbed ; he having always 
 three or four attending him at dinner, and a 
 little white round stick of fourteen inches long 
 lying by his trencher, that he might defend such 
 meat as he had no mind to part with to them. 
 
 " The windows, which were very lai-ge, served 
 for jilaces to lay his arrows, cross-bows, stone- 
 bows, and other such like acoutrements. The 
 corners of the room, full of the best chose 
 hunting and hawking poles. An oyster table 
 at the lower end ; which was of constant use, 
 twice a day, all the year round. For he never 
 failed to eat oysters, before dinner and supper, 
 through all seasons : the neighbouring town of 
 Pool supplied him with them. 
 
 " The upper part of the room had two small 
 tables and a desk, on the one side of which 
 was a Church Bible, and, on the other, the Book 
 of Martyrs. On the tables were hawks'-hoods, 
 bells, and such like ; two or three old green 
 hats, with their crowns thrust in, so as to hold 
 ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a pheasant 
 kind of poultry, which he took much care of, 
 and fed himself. In the whole of the desk 
 were store of tobacco-pipes tliat had been used. 
 
 " On one side of this end of the room was the 
 door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer 
 and the wine, which never came thence but in 
 single glasses, that being the rule of the house 
 exactly observed. For he never exceeded in 
 drink, or permitted it. 
 
 "On the other side was the door into an old 
 chapel, not used for devotion. Tlie pulpit, 
 as the safest place, w.as never wanting of a 
 cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of 
 bacon, or great apple-pye, with thick crust 
 extremely baked . His table cost him not much, 
 though it was good to eat at.
 
 38 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 "His sports sxipplicd all but beef and mutton ; 
 except Fridays, when lie Iiad the best of .salt 
 fish (as well as other tisli) he eould jjfet ; and 
 was the day his neighbours of best ijuality most 
 visited him. He never wanted a London pud- 
 ding, and always sung it in with ' My j)eart 
 lies therein-a.' Ho drank a glass or two of 
 wine at meals ; very often syrup of gillitlowers 
 in his sack ; and liad always a tun glass with- 
 out feet, stood by him, holding a pint of small 
 beer, which he often stirred with rosemary. 
 
 "He was well-natured, but soon angry; calling 
 his servants bastards and cuckoldy knaves ; 
 in one of which he often spoke truth to iiis own 
 knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of 
 the same man. He lived to be an hundred ; 
 never lost his eye-sight, but always Avi-ote and 
 read without spectacles ; and got on horse- 
 back without help. Until past four-score, he 
 rode to the death of a stag as well as any." 
 
 It is clear, that this worthy personage was 
 nothing more than a kind of beaver or badger 
 in human shape. We imagine him haunting 
 the neighbourhood in which he lived, like a pet 
 creature, who had acquired a certain Egyptian 
 godship among the natives ; now hunting for 
 j his fish, now for his flesh, now fawning after 
 I his uncouth fashion upon a pretty girl, and now 
 I snarling and contesting a bone with his dogs. 
 We imagine him the animal principle personi- 
 fied ; a symbol on horseback ; a jolly dog sitting 
 upright at dinner, like a hieroglyphic on a 
 pedestal. 
 
 BufFon has a subtleanswer to those who argue 
 for the rationality of bees. He says that the 
 extreme order of their proceedings, and the 
 undeviating apparent forethought with which 
 they anticipate and provide for a certain geome- 
 trical necessity in a part of the structure of their 
 hives, are only additional proofs of the force of 
 instinct. They have an instinct for the order, 
 and an instinct for the anticipation ; and they 
 prove that it is not reason, by never striking 
 out anything new. The same thing is observ- 
 able in our human animal. What would be 
 reason or choice in another man, is to be set 
 down in him to poverty of ideas. If Tasso had 
 been asked the reason of his always weai-ing 
 black, he would probably have surprised the 
 inquirer by a series of observations on colour, 
 and dignity, and melancholy, and the darkness 
 of his fate ; but if Petrarch or Boccaccio had 
 discussed the matter with him, he might have 
 changed it to purple. A lady, in the same 
 manner, wears black, because it suits her com- 
 plexion, or is elegant at all times, or because 
 it is at once piquant and supeiior. But in 
 spring, she may choose to put on the colours of 
 the season, and in summer to be gaudier with 
 the butterfly. Our squire had an instinct to- 
 wards the colour of green, because he saw it 
 about him. He took it from what he lived in, 
 like a cameleon, and never changed it, because 
 he could live in no other sphere. We sec that 
 
 his green suit was never worth five pounds ; 
 and nothing, we dare say, could have induced 
 liim to let it mount up to that sum. He would 
 have had it grow on him,if he could, like a green 
 monkey. Thus again with his bowling-green. 
 It was not penuriousncss that hindered him 
 from altering it, but he had no more idea of 
 changing the place than tlie place itself. As 
 change of habit is frightful to some men, from 
 vivacity of afi^cction or imagination, and the 
 strangeness which they anticipate in the novelty, 
 so Mr. Hastings was never tempted out of a 
 custom, because he had no idea of anything 
 else. He would no more think of altering the 
 place he burrowed in, than a tortoise or a wild 
 rabbit. He was fenv naturie, — a regular beast 
 of prey ; though he mingled something of the 
 generosity of the lion with the lurking of the 
 fox and the mischievous sporting of the cat. 
 He would let other animals feed with him, 
 only warning them oflT occasionally witli that 
 switch of his, instead of a claw. He had the 
 same liberality of instinct towards the young 
 of other creatures, as we see in the hen and 
 the goat. He would take care of their eggs, 
 if he had a mind ; or furnish them with milk. 
 His very body was badger-like. It was, " very 
 low, very strong, and very active ; " and he 
 had a coarse fell of hair. A good housewife 
 might have called his house a kennel, without 
 being abusive. What the ladies of the Hunt- 
 ingdon family thought of it, if ever they came 
 to see him, Ave do not know ; but next to 
 hearing such a fellow as Squire Western talk, 
 must have been the horror of his human kin- 
 dred in treading those menageries, his hall and 
 ])arlour. They might turn the lines of Chaucer 
 into an exclamation : — 
 
 , What hawkis sitten on the perch above ! 
 What houndis liggen on the floor adown ! 
 
 Then the marrow-bones, the noise, and, to a 
 delicate ancle, the sense of danger ! Conceive 
 a timid stranger, not very welcome, obliged to 
 pass through the great hall. The whole animal 
 world is up. The well-mouthed hounds begin 
 barking, tiie mastifi^ bays, the terriers snap, the 
 hawks sidle and stare, the poultry gobble, the 
 cats growl and up with their backs. At last, 
 the Ilastings makes his appearance, and laughs 
 like a goblin. 
 
 Three things are specially observable in our 
 hero : first, that his religion as well as literature 
 was so entirely confined to faith, that it allowed 
 him to turn his household chapel into a larder, 
 and do anything else he pleased, short of not 
 ranking the Bible and Book of Martyrs with his 
 other fixtures : — second, that he carried his 
 prudential instincts to a pitch unusual in a 
 country squire, who can rarely refrain from 
 making extremes meet Avith humanity in this 
 instance : — and third, that his pronencss to the 
 animal part of love, never finding him in a con- 
 dition to be so brutal, as drinking renders a
 
 A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE OTHER EXTREME. 
 
 39 
 
 gallant of this sort, left himself as well as 
 others in sufficient good humour, not only to 
 get him forgiven by the females, but to act 
 kindly and be tolerated by the men. He was 
 as temperate in his liquor as one of his cats, 
 drinking only to quench thirst, and leaving off 
 when he had enough. This i)erhaps was partly 
 owing to his rank, which did not render it 
 necessary to his importance to be emulous with 
 his bottle among the squires. As to some 
 grave questions connected with the promiscuous 
 nature of his amours, an animal so totally given 
 up to his instincts as he was, can hardly be 
 held responsible upon such points ; though 
 they are worth the consideration of those wlio 
 in their old age undertake to be moral as 
 well as profligate. If Mr. Hastings's notion 
 was good and even useful, so far as it showed 
 the natural good-humour of that passion in 
 human beings, where sickness or jealousy is out 
 of the question, in every other respect it was'as 
 poor and paltry as could be. There was not a 
 single idea in it beyond one of his hounds. It 
 was entirely gross and superficial, without sen- 
 timent, without choice, without a thousand 
 sensations of pleasux-e and the return of it, 
 without the least perception of a beauty beyond 
 the mere absence of age. The most idiotical 
 scold in the village, " under forty," was to him 
 a desirable object. The most loveable woman 
 in the world above it, was lost upon him. Such 
 lovers do not even enjoy the charms they sup- 
 pose. They do not see a twentieth part of the 
 external graces. They criticise beauty in the 
 language of a horse-jockey ; and the jockey, or 
 the horse himself, knows just as much about it 
 as they. 
 
 In short, to be candid on all sides with the 
 very earthy memory of the Honourable Mr. 
 William Hastings, we take a person of his 
 description to be a good specimen of the animal 
 part of the human nature, and chiefly on this 
 account, that the animal presen'es its health. 
 There indeed it has something to say for itself ; 
 nor must we conceal our belief, that upon this 
 ground alone, the Hastings must have had sen- 
 sations in the coiu'se of his life, which many an 
 intellectual person might envy. His percep- 
 tions must have been of a vague sort, but 
 tlicy were in all probability exquisitely clear 
 and unalloyed. He must have had all tlie 
 pleasure from the sunshine and the fresh air, 
 that a healthy body without a mind in it can 
 have ; and we may guess from the days of 
 childhood, what those feelings mayresemble, in 
 their pleasantness, as well as vagueness. At 
 the age of a hundred he was able to read and 
 write without spectacles ; not better perhaps 
 tlian he did at fifteen, but as well. At a hun- 
 dred, he was truly an old boy, and no more 
 til ought of putting on spectacles than an eagle. 
 "Why should he ? His blood had run clear for 
 a century with exercise and natural living. I le 
 liad not baked it black and " heavy thick " 
 
 over a fire, nor dimmed the windows of his 
 perception with the smoke. 
 
 But he wanted a soul to tiirn liis perceptions 
 to their proper account ? — He did so. Let us 
 then, who see more than he did, contrive to 
 see fair play between body and mind. It is by 
 observing the separate extremes of perfection, 
 to which body and mind may arrive, in those 
 who do not now know to unite both, that we 
 may learn how to produce a human being more 
 enviable than either the healthiest of fox- 
 hunters or the most unearthly of saints. It is 
 remarkable, that the same ancient family, 
 which, among the variety and fineness of its 
 productions, put forth this specimen of bodily 
 humanity, edified the world not long after 
 with as complete a specimen of the other half 
 of human nature. Mr. William Hastings' 
 soul seems to have come too late for his body, 
 and to have remained afterwards upon earth in 
 the shape of his fair kinswoman, the Lady 
 Elizabeth Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, 
 seventh Earl of Huntingdon. An account of 
 her follows that of her animal kinsman, and is 
 a most extraordinary contrast. This is the 
 lady who is celebrated by Sir Richard Steele 
 in the Tatter under the name of Aspasia, — a 
 title which must have startled her a little. 
 But with the elegance of the panegyric she 
 would have found it hard not to be pleased, 
 notwithstanding her modesty. " These ancients 
 would be as much astonished to see in the 
 same age so illustrious a pattern to all who 
 love things praiseworthy, as the divine Aspasia. 
 Methinks I now see her walking in her garden 
 like our first parent, witli unaffected charms, 
 before beauty had spectators, and bearing 
 celestial, conscious virtue in her aspect. Her 
 countenance is the lively picture of her mind, 
 which is the seat of honour, truth, compassion, 
 knowledge, and innocence : — 
 
 ' There dwells the scorn of vice and pity too.' 
 
 " In the midst of the most ample fortune, 
 and veneration of all that beheld and knew 
 her, without the least affectation, she consults 
 retirement, the contemplation of her o^vn being, 
 and that supreme power which bestowed it. 
 Without the learning of schools, or knowledge 
 of a long course of arguments, she goes on in a 
 steady course of virtue, and adds to tlie seve- 
 rity of the last age all the freedom and ease of 
 the present. The language and mien of a 
 court she is possessed of in the highest degree ; 
 but the simplicity and humble thoughts of a 
 cottage are her more welcome entertainment. 
 Aspasia is a female philosopher, who does not 
 only live up to the resignation of the most 
 retired lives of the ancient sages, but also the 
 schemes and plans wliicli they thouglit beauti- 
 ful, though inimitable. This lady is the most 
 exact economist, without appearing busy ; the 
 most strictly virtuous, without tasting the 
 praise of it ; and shuns applause with as mucli
 
 40 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 industry as others do reproach. Tliis character 
 is so ])articular, that it will be very I'asily fixed 
 on her only, by all that know liei-, but 1 dare 
 say she will be the last to tind it out." — Tatlcr, 
 No, XLii. July IG, 1700. 
 
 This eluiracter was written wlien Lady Eliza- 
 beth was twenty-eight*. She ])assed the rest 
 of her life a!i;reeably to it, relieving families, 
 giving annuities, contributing to tlic mainte- 
 nance of schools and iniiversity-scholars, and 
 all the while behaving with extraordinary 
 generosity to her kindred, and keeping up a 
 noble establishment. Those whom such a de- 
 scription incites to know more of her, will find 
 a good sxmrniary of her way of life in Miss 
 Hays's Female B'loijrKphij, — a work, by the way, 
 which contrives to be at once conventional and 
 liberal, and ought to be in possession of all her 
 countrywomen. 
 
 Miss Hays informs us, that the close of this 
 excellent j)erson's life was as suffering as it 
 was patient. An accidental contusion in her 
 bosom, at an early period of life, had left 
 the seeds of a cancer, which for many years 
 she disregarded. About a year and a half 
 before her death she was obliged to undergo 
 an amputation of the part affected, which she 
 did w^ith a noble and sweet fortitude, described 
 in a very touching manner by another of her 
 biographers. " Her ladyship," he tells us, 
 "underwent this painful operation with sur- 
 prising patience and resolution ; she shewed 
 no reluctancy, no struggle or contention ; only, 
 indeed, towards the end of the operation she 
 drew sueh a si(/h as any compassionate reader may 
 when he hears this.'' This is one of the truest 
 and most pathetic things we remember to have 
 read. Unfortunately, the amputation, though 
 it promised well for a time, did no good at last. 
 The disorder returned with greater malignity, 
 and after submitting to it with her usual 
 patience, and exhorting her household and 
 friends, upon her death-bed, in a high strain of 
 enthusiasm, she expired on the 22d December, 
 ITM, in the fifty-seventh year of her age. 
 " Her character in miniature," says the biogra- 
 pher just quoted, "is this. She was a lady of 
 the exactest breeding, of fine intellectual en- 
 dowments, filled with divine wisdom, renewed 
 in the spirit of her mind, fired with the love of 
 her Creator, a friend to all the world, mortified 
 in soul and body, and to everything tliat is 
 earthly, and a little lower than the angels." 
 He has a mysterious anecdote of her in the 
 course of his account. " The following remark- 
 able circumstance liappened to her in her 
 youth. A young lady, of less severity of man- 
 ners than herself, invited her once to an enter- 
 tainment over a romance, and very dear did 
 she pay for it ; what evil tinctures she took 
 
 • It ia attributed by the annotatnrs tci Congrevo, — I 
 know not on wh.it authority. If I know .anything of style, 
 I can swear it was Steele's. The moral elegance and faith 
 of it, and tlie turn of the words, are all his. 
 
 from it I cannot tell, but this I can, that the 
 remembrance of it woidd now and then annoy 
 her siiiiit down into declining life." Miss Hays 
 concludes the memoir in the Female JS'Mjmjiiiif 
 with informing us, that " she was fond of her 
 pen, and fre(iuently emjdoyed herself in writ- 
 ing ; iiut, previous to her death, destroyed the 
 greater part of her papers. Her fortune, 
 beauty, and amiable qualities, procured her 
 many solicitations to change her state ; but 
 she preferred, in a single and independent life, 
 to be mistress of her actions and ihe disposi- 
 tion of her income." 
 
 It seems pretty clear from all these accounts, 
 that this noble-hearted woman, notwithstanding 
 her beauty and sweet temper, was .as imperfect 
 a si)ecimen of animal humanity as her kinsman 
 was of spiritual. We are far from meaning to 
 prefer his state of existence. We confess that 
 there are many persons we have read of, whom 
 we would rather have been, than the most 
 saintly of solitary spirits ; but the mere reflec- 
 tion of the good which Lady Elizabeth did to 
 others, would not allow us a moment's hesi- 
 tation, if compelled to choose between in- 
 habiting her infirm tenement and the jolly 
 vacuity of Honoxu'able William. At the same 
 time, it is evident that the fair saint neglected 
 the earthly part of herself in a way neither as 
 happy-making nor as pious as she took it for. 
 Perhaps the example of her kinsman tended 
 to assist this false idea of what is ])leasing to 
 heaven, and made her a little too peremptory 
 against herself ; but what had not her lovers a 
 right to say ? For our parts, had we lived 
 then, and been at all fitted to aspire to a 
 return of her regard, we should have thought 
 it a very imfair and intolerable thing of lier 
 to go oji doing the most exquisite and seducing 
 actions in the world, and tell us that she 
 wished to be mistress of her own time and 
 generosities. So she might, and yet have been 
 generous to us as well as to the charity boys. 
 But setting this aside (and the real secret is to 
 be found, perhaps, in matters into which we 
 cannot inquire), a proper attention to that 
 beauteous form which her sjnrit inhabited 
 might have done great good to herself. She not 
 only lived nearly half a century less than her 
 kinsman, and thus shortened a useful life, but 
 tiie loss healthy state of her blood rendered 
 even a soul like hers liable to incursions of 
 melancholy to the last moment of her exist- 
 ence. If it be said that this stimulated her 
 the more to extract happiness out of the hap- 
 piness of others, we do not deny that it may 
 have done so ; nor do we pretend to say that 
 this might not have been her best state of 
 existence for herself and all of us, if we could 
 inquire into matters hidden from our sight. 
 But upon that principle, so might her relation's. 
 It is impossible to argue to any purpose upon 
 these assumptions, which are only good for 
 patience, not for action, William Hastings
 
 RETURN OF AUTUMN. 
 
 41 
 
 was all bodily comfort ; Elizabeth Hastings 
 was ail mental grace. How far the liability of 
 the former to gusts of passion, as well as the 
 other conditions of his being, settled the balance 
 with her necessity for being patient, it is im- 
 possible to say ; but it is easy and right to say, 
 that nobody would like to undergo operations 
 for a cancer, or to die at fifty-seven, when they 
 could live healthily to a hundred. 
 
 What, then, is our conclusion ? This : that 
 the proper point of humanity lies between the 
 two natures, though not at equal distances ; the 
 greatest possible sum of happiness for mankind 
 demanding that great part of onr pleasure 
 should be founded in that of others. Those, 
 however, who hold rigid theories of morality 
 and yet practise them not (which ismuchoftener 
 the case with such theories than the reverse), 
 must take care how they flatter themselves 
 they resemble Lady Elizabeth. Their extreme 
 difference with her kinsman is a mere cant, to 
 which all the privileged selfishness and sensu- 
 ality in the world give the lie — all the pomps 
 and vanities, all tlie hatreds, all the malignities, 
 all the eatings and drinkings, such as William 
 Hastings himself would have been ashamed of. 
 In fact, their real instincts are generally as 
 selfish as his, though in other shapes, and much 
 less agreeable for everybody. When cant 
 lives as long and healthy a life as his, or as good 
 a one as hers, it will be worth attending to. 
 Till then, the best thing to advise is, neither 
 to be canting, nor merely animal, nor over- 
 spiritual ; but to endeavour to enjoy, with the 
 greatest possible distribution of happiness, all 
 the faculties we receive from nature. 
 
 LVIII— RETURN OF AUTUMN. 
 
 The autumn is now confirmed. The harvest 
 is over ; the summer birds are gone or going ; 
 heavy rains have swept the air of its warmth, 
 and prepared the earth for the impressions of 
 winter. 
 
 And the author's season changes likewise. 
 We can no longer persuade ourselves that it is 
 summer, by dint of resolving to think so. We 
 cannot warm ourselves at the look of the sun- 
 shine. Instead of sitting at the window, 
 " hindering" ourselves, as people say, with 
 enjoying the sight of Nature, we find our knees 
 turned round to the fire-place, our face opposite 
 a pictured instead of a real landscape, and our 
 feet toasting upon a fender. 
 
 When some enjoyments go, others come. 
 The boys will now be gatliering their nuts. 
 The trees will put fortli, in their bravely dying 
 leaves, all the colours of heaven and cartii, 
 which they have received from sun, and 
 rain, and soil. Nature, in her heaps of grain 
 and berries, will set before the animal creation 
 as profuse and luxurious a feast, as any of our 
 
 lordly palates have received from dish and 
 dessert. 
 
 Nature, with the help of a very little art, can 
 put forth a prettier bill of fare than most per- 
 sons, if people will but persuade each other 
 that cheajjuess is as good as dearness ; — a dis- 
 covery, we think, to which the tax-gatherer 
 might help us. Let us see what she says this 
 autumn . Imagine us seated at the bar of some 
 fashionable retreat, or boxed in a sylvan scene 
 of considerable resort. Enter, a waiter, the 
 September of Spenser — that ingenious and (to 
 a punster) oddly-dressed rogue, of whom we 
 are told, that when he appeared before the 
 poet, he was 
 
 Heavy laden with the spoil 
 Of han'est's riches, wliicli lie made his boot. 
 
 At present, he assumes a more modest aspect, 
 with a bunch of ash-leaves under his arm by 
 way of duster. He bows like a poplar, draws 
 a west wind through his teeth genteelly, and 
 lays before us the following bill of entertain- 
 ment : — 
 
 Fish, infinite and cheap. 
 
 Fruit, ditto. 
 
 Nuts, ditto. 
 
 Bread, ditto — taxed. 
 
 Fresh airs, taxed if in doors — not out. 
 
 Light, the same. 
 
 Wine in its imadulterated shape, as grapes, 
 or sunshine, or M'ell-fermented blood. 
 
 Arbours of ivy, wild honeysuckle, arbutus, 
 &c. all in flower. 
 
 Other flowers on table. 
 
 The ante-room, with a view into it, immense 
 with a sky-blue cupola, and hung round with 
 landscapes confessedly inimitable. 
 
 Towards the conclusion, a vocal concert 
 among the trees. 
 
 At night, falling stars, and a striking pano- 
 ramic view of the heavens ; on which occasion, 
 for a few nights only, the same moon will be 
 introduced that was admired by the "immortal 
 Shakspeare ! ! ! " 
 
 N.B. — It is reported by some malignant 
 persons, that the bird-concert is not artificial : 
 whereas it will be found, upon the smallest 
 inspection, to beat even the most elaborate 
 inventions of the justly, admired Signer Me- 
 canical Fello. 
 
 LIX.— THE MAID-SERVANT* 
 
 Must be considered as young, or else she 
 has married the butcher, (lie butler, or her 
 cousin, or has otherwise settled into a cliaracter 
 distinct from her original one, so as to become 
 what is projjcrly called the domestic. The 
 Maid-Servant, in her ajtjiari'l, is either slovenly 
 
 * In si)me respects, particularly of costume, this portrait 
 must be understood of originals existing twenty or tliirty 
 years ago.
 
 4*2 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 and fine by turns, and dirty always ; or she is 
 at all times neat and tight, and dressed ac- 
 cordinjT to her station. In tlie latter case, her 
 ordinary dress is black stockinsjs, a stuft" gown, 
 a cap, and a neck-handkerchief pinned corner- 
 wise behind. If you want a pin, she feels about 
 her, and has always one to give you. On 
 Sundays and holidays, and perhaps of after- 
 noons, she changes her black stockings for 
 white, puts on a gown of a better texture and 
 fine pattern, sets her cap and her curls jauntily, 
 and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a 
 high-body, which, by the way, is not half so 
 pretty. 
 
 The general furniture of her ordinary room, 
 the kitchen, is not so much her own as her 
 master's and mistress's, and need not be de- 
 scribed : but in a drawer of the dresser or the 
 table, in company with a duster and a pair of 
 snuffers, may be found some of her property, 
 sucli as a brass thimble, a jiair of scissars, a 
 thread-case, a piece of wax candle much 
 ■wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of 
 Pamela, and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as 
 George Barnwell or Southerne's Oroonoko. 
 There is a piece of looking-glass in the window. 
 The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where 
 you may find a good looking-glass on the table ; 
 and in the window a Bible, a comb and a piece 
 of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock 
 and key, the mighty mystery, — the box, — con- 
 taining, among other things, her clothes, two 
 or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for 
 the penny ; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny 
 the sheet ; the Whole Nature of Dreams Laid 
 Open, together with the Fortune-teller and the 
 Account of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal; the Story of 
 the Beaiit'ful Zoa "who was cast away on a desart 
 island, showing how," &c. ; some half-crowns in 
 a purse, including pieces of country-money ; 
 a silver penny wrapped up in cotton by itself; 
 a crooked sixpence, given her before she came 
 to town, and the giver of which has either for- 
 gotten or been forgotten by her, she is not sure 
 which ; — two little enamel boxes, with looking- 
 glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the 
 other " a Trifle from Margate ; " and lastly, 
 various letters, square and ragged, and directed 
 in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little 
 letters for capitals. One of them, written 
 by a girl who went to a day-school, is directed 
 « Miss." 
 
 In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes 
 imitates her young mistress ; she puts her hair 
 in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally 
 contrives to be out of spirits. But her OM'n 
 character and condition overcome all sophisti- 
 cations of this sort ; her shape, fortified by the 
 mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way ; 
 and exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. 
 From the same cause her temper is good ; 
 though she gets into little heats when a stran- 
 ger is over saucy, or when she is told not to go 
 80 heavily down stairs, or when some unthink- 
 
 ing person goes up her wet stairs with dirty 
 shoes, — or when she is called away often from 
 dinner ; neither does she much like to be seen 
 scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning"; 
 and sometimes she catches herself saying, 
 " Drat that butcher,", but immediately adds, 
 "God forgive me." Tiie tradesmen indeed, 
 with their coini)liments and arch looks, seldom 
 give her cause to complain. The milkman 
 bespeaks her good-humour for the day with 
 " Come, pretty maids : " — then follow the 
 butcher, tiie baker, the oilman, &c. all with 
 their several smirks and little loiterings ; and 
 when she goes to the shops herself, it is for her 
 the grocer pulls down his string from its roller 
 with more than ordinary whirl, and tosses his 
 parcel into a tie. 
 
 Thus pass the mornings between working, 
 and singing, and giggling, and grumbling, and 
 being flattered. If she takes any pleasure 
 unconnected with her office before the after- 
 noon, it is when she runs up the area-steps or 
 to the door to hear and purchase a new song, 
 or to see a troop of soldiers go by ; or when 
 she happens to tiirust her head out of a cham- 
 ber window at the same time with a servant 
 at the next house, when a dialogue infallibly 
 ensues, stimulated by the imaginary obstacles 
 between. If the Maid-servant is wise, the best 
 jjart of her work is done by dinner-time ; and 
 nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest 
 to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of 
 it, when she calls it " a bit o' dinner." There 
 is the same sort of eloquence in her other 
 phrase, " a cup o' tea ;" but the old ones, and 
 the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea 
 in great houses, she goes with the other 
 servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my- 
 thouglits-like, and tells Mr. John to " have 
 done then ;" or if there is a ball given that 
 night, they throw open the doors, and make 
 use of the music up stairs to dance by. In 
 smaller houses, she receives the visits of her 
 aforesaid cousin ; and sits down alone, or with 
 a fellow maid-servant, to work ; talks of her 
 yoimg master or mistress and Mr. Ivins 
 (Evans) ; or else she calls to mind her own 
 friends in the country ; where she thinks the 
 cows and " all that " beautiful, now she is 
 away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she snuffs the 
 candle with her scissars ; or if she has eaten 
 more heartily than usual, she sighs double the 
 usual number of times, and thinks that tender 
 hearts were born to be unhappy. 
 
 Such being the Maid-servant's life in-doors, 
 she scorns, when abroad, to be anything l)ut a 
 creature of sheer enjoyment. The Maid- 
 servant, the sailor, and the school-boy, are the 
 three beings that enjoy a holiday beyond all 
 the rest of the world ; — and all for the same 
 reason, — because their inexperience, peculi- 
 arity of life, and habit of being with persons of 
 circumstances or thoughts above them, give 
 them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic.
 
 THE OLD LADY. 
 
 43 
 
 The most active of the money-getters is a 
 vegetable compared with them. The Maid- 
 servant when she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks 
 she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to 
 her, whatever is going forward, whether the play 
 or the music, or the waitingwhich makes others 
 impatient, or the munching of apples and gin- 
 gerbread, which she and her party commence 
 almost as soon as they have seated themselves. 
 She prefers tragedy to comedy, because it is 
 grander, and less like what she meets with in 
 general ; and because she thinks it more in 
 earnest also, especially in the love-scenes. Her 
 favourite play is " Alejrander the Great, or the 
 Rival Queens." Another great delight is in 
 going a shopping. She loves to look at the 
 patterns in the windows, and the fine things 
 labelled with those corpulent numerals of 
 " only 7s." — " only 6s. 6d." She has also, unless 
 born and bred in London, been to see my Lord 
 Mayor, the fine people coming out of Court, 
 and the " beasties " in the Tower ; and at all 
 events she lias been to Astley's and the Circus, 
 from which she comes away, equally smitten 
 with the rider, and sore with laughing at the 
 clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure 
 she enjoys most. One of the completest of all 
 is tlie fair, where she walks through an endless 
 round of noise, and toys, and gallant appi'en- 
 tices, and wonders. Here she is invited in by 
 courteous and well-dressed people, as if she 
 were the mistress. Here also is the conjuror's 
 booth, where the operator himself, a most 
 stately and genteel person all in white, 
 calls her Ma'am ; and says to John by her 
 side, in spite of his laced hat," Be good enough, 
 sir, to hand the card to the lady." 
 
 Ah ! may her " cousin " turn out as true as 
 he says he is ; or may she get home soon 
 enough and smiling enough to be as happy 
 again next time. 
 
 LXL— THE OLD LADY. 
 
 If the Old Lady is a widow and lives alone, 
 the manners of her condition and time of life 
 are so much the more apparent. She generally 
 dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle 
 rustling as she moves about the silence of her 
 room ; and she wears a nice cap with a lace 
 border, that comes under the chin. In a 
 placket at her side is an old enamelled watch, 
 unless it is locked up in a drawer of lier toilet, 
 for fear of accidents. Her waist is rather 
 tight and trim than otherwise, as she had a fine 
 one when young ; and she is not sorry if you 
 see a pair of her stockings on a table, tliat you 
 may be aware of the neatness of her leg and 
 foot. Contented with these and other evident 
 indications of a good shapt, and letting her 
 young friends understand that she can afford to 
 obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and uses 
 them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, 
 
 and any heavier matter that is not likely to 
 come out with it, such as the change of a six- 
 pence ; in the other is a miscellaneous assort- 
 ment, consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of 
 keys, a needle-case, a spectacle-case, crumbs of 
 biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling-bottle, 
 and, according to the season, an orange or 
 apple, which after many days she draws out, 
 warm and glossy, to give to some little child 
 that has well behaved itself. She generally 
 occupies two rooms, in the neatest condition 
 possible. In the chamber is a bed with a white 
 coverlet, built up high and round, to look well, 
 and with curtains of a pastoral pattern, con- 
 sisting alternately of large plants, and shepherds 
 and shepherdesses. On the mantle-piece are 
 more shepherds and shepherdesses, with dot- 
 eyed sheep at their feet, all in coloured ware : 
 the man, perhaps, in a pink jacket and knots of 
 ribbons at his knees and shoes, holding his 
 crook lightly in one hand, and with the other 
 at his breast, turning his toes out and looking 
 tenderly at the shepherdess : the woman 
 holding a crook also, and modestly returning 
 his look, with a gipsy-hat jerked up behind, a 
 very slender waist, with petticoat and hips to 
 counteract, and the petticoat pulled up through 
 the pocket-holes, in order to show the trimness 
 of her ancles. But these patterns, of course, 
 are various. The toilet is ancient, carved at 
 the edges, and tied about with a snow-white 
 drapery of muslin. Beside it are various 
 boxes, mostly japan ; and the set of drawers 
 are exquisite things for a little girl to rummage, 
 if ever little girl be so bold, — containing ribbons 
 and laces of various kinds ; linen smelling of 
 lavender, of the flowers of which there is 
 always dust in the corners ; a heap of pocket- 
 books for a series of years ; and pieces of dress 
 long gone by, such as head-fronts, stomachers, 
 and flowered satin shoes, with enormous heels. 
 The stock of letters are under especial lock 
 and key. So much for the bed-room. In the 
 sitting-room is rather a spare assortment of 
 shining old mahogany furniture, or carved 
 arm-chairs equally old, with chintz draperies 
 down to the ground ; a folding or other screen, 
 with Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed, 
 meek faces perking sideways ; a stuffed bird, 
 perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too 
 much for her) ; a portrait of her husband over 
 the mantel-piece, in a coat with frog-buttons, 
 and a delicate frilled hand lightly inserted in 
 the waistcoat ; and opposite him on the wall, 
 is a piece of embroidered literature, framed 
 and glazed, containing some moral distich or 
 maxim, worked in angular capital letters, with 
 two trees or parrots below, in their projier 
 colours ; the whole concluding witii on ABCand 
 numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, 
 expressing it to be " her work, Jan. 14, 17G2." 
 The rest of the furniture consists of a looking- 
 glass with carved edges, perhaps a settee, a 
 hassock for the feet, a mat for the little dog,
 
 44 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 and a small set of shelves, in which are the 
 Spt'cUitor and (iiianliaii, the Turkinh Sji;/, a Bible 
 and Frailer J3'n>k; Yoain/.^ j\'i>iht Tlioiii/hts with a 
 piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs. Jioire's Dennit 
 Exercises of tlie Heart, Mrs. Glasse's Cooker;/, and 
 perhajjs t<ir Charles (irandison, and Ct'tri.isa. 
 John Bimcle is in the closet anion<^ the pickles 
 and preserves. Tlie clock is on the landing- 
 place between the two room doors, where it 
 ticks audibly but quietly ; and the landing- 
 place, as well as the stairs, is carpeted to a 
 nicety. The house is most in character, and 
 properly coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and 
 strongly built, with wainscot rather than pai)er 
 inside, and lockers in the windows. IJefore 
 the windows should be some quivering poplars. 
 Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet visitors 
 to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards : or 
 you may see her going out on the same kind of 
 visit herself, with a light umbrella running up 
 into a stick and crooked ivory handle, and her 
 little dog, equally famous for his love to her 
 and captious antipathy to strangers. Her 
 grand-children dislike him on holidays, and the 
 boldest sometimes ventures to give him a sly 
 kick under the table. When she returns at 
 night, she appears, if the weather happens to be 
 doubtful, in a calash ; and her servant in 
 pattens, follows half behind and half at her 
 side, with a lantern. 
 
 Her opinions are not many nor new. She 
 thinks the clergyman a nice man. The Duke 
 of Wellington, in her opinion, is a very great 
 man ; but she has a secret preference for the 
 Marquis of Granby. She thinks the young 
 women of the present day too forward, and the 
 men not respectful enough ; but hopes her 
 grandcluldron will be better ; though she differs 
 v/ith her daughter in several points respecting 
 their management. She sets little value on 
 the new accomplishments ; is a great though 
 delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all 
 sorts of housewifery ; and if you mention 
 waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine 
 breeding of the minuet. She longs to have 
 seen one danced by Sir Charles Grandison, 
 whom she almost considers as a real person. 
 She likes a walk of a summer's evening, but 
 avoids the new streets, canals, &c., and some- 
 times goes through the ciiurch-yard, where her 
 children and her husband lie buried, serious, 
 but not melancholy. She has had three great 
 epochs in her life : — her marriage — her having 
 been at court, to see the King and Queen and 
 Royal Family — and a compliment on her figure 
 she once received, in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, 
 whom she describes as a sad, loose man, but 
 engaging. His plainness she thinks much ex- 
 aggerated. If anything takes her at a distance 
 from home, it is still the court ; but she seldom 
 stirs, even for that. The last time but one 
 that she went, was to see the Duke of Wirtem- 
 beig ; and most prol>ably for tlie last time of 
 all, to see the Princess Charlotte and Prince 
 
 Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned 
 with the same admiration as ever for the fine 
 comely ajjpearance of the Duke of York and 
 the rest of the family, and great delight at 
 having had a near view of the Princess, whom 
 she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted 
 mittens, clasping them as passionately as she 
 can together, and calling her, in a transport of 
 mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine royal young 
 creature, and " Daughter of England." 
 
 LXI.— PULCI. 
 
 We present our readers with a prose abridg- 
 ment of the beginning of the Movijante Maggiore 
 of Pulci, the father of Italian romance. We 
 would rather have given it them in verse ; but 
 it would have taken more time and attention 
 than we can just now afford. Besides, a prose 
 specimen of this author, is a less unjust one, 
 than it would be of any of his successors ; 
 because though a real poet, he is not so eminent 
 as a versifier, and deals less in poetical abstrac- 
 tions. He has less of the oracular or voiceful 
 part of his art, conversing almost exclusively 
 with the social feelings in their most familial 
 language. 
 
 Luigi Pulci, the younger of three literary 
 brothers, was born the 15th of December (3d, 
 O.S.), 1431. His family was noble, and pro- 
 bably gave their name to the district of Monte 
 Pulciano, famous for the supereminence of its 
 wine. It was a fit soil for him to grow in. He 
 had an enviable lot, with nothing to interrupt 
 his vivacity ; passing his life in the shades ot 
 ease and retirement, and " warbling his native 
 wood-notes wild," without fear of hawks from 
 above, or lurking reptiles from below. Am.ong 
 his ])rincipal friends were, Politian, Lorenzo de 
 Medici, and the latter's mother, Lucrezia Tor- 
 nabuona. He speaks affectionately of her 
 memory at the close of his work. At Lorenzo's 
 table he was a constant guest ; and at this 
 table, where it is possible tliat the future pope, 
 Leo the Tenth, was present as a little boy, he 
 is said to have read, as he produced it, that 
 remarkal)le poem, which the old Italian critics 
 were not agreed whether to think pious or 
 profane. * 
 
 The reader, at this time of day, will be in- 
 clined to think it the latter ; nor will the 
 reputation of Leo himself, who is said to have 
 made use of the word "fable" on a very remark- 
 able occasion, be against their verdict. Un- 
 doubtedly tliero was much scepticism in those 
 days, as there always must be where there is 
 great vivacity of mind, with great demands 
 upon its credulity. But we must take care 
 how we pronoimce upon the real spirit of 
 
 * Leo was born in 147.';, forty-four ypnrs after the birth 
 of Pulci ; 80 that, sujiposinK tlie latter to have arrived at 
 anything like length of days, he may have had the young 
 Father of the Faithful for an auditor.
 
 PULCl. 
 
 45 
 
 manners unlike our own, when we consider the 
 extraordinary mixture of reverence and fami- 
 liarity with which the most bigoted periods of 
 Catholicism have been accustomed to treat the 
 objects of their faith. They elbow them, till 
 they treat them like their eartlily kindred, 
 expecting most from them, and behaving worst 
 by them. Popish sailors have scourged the 
 idols, whom they have prayed to the minute 
 before for a fair wind. The most laugliable 
 exposure of the tricks of Roman Catholics in 
 our own language is by old Heywood the epi- 
 grammatist, who died abroad " in consequence 
 of his devotion to the Roman Catholic cause." — 
 " Tlie bigotry of any age," says Mr. Hazlitt, 
 " is by no means a test of its piety, or even 
 sincerity. Men seemed to make themselves 
 amends for the enormity of their faith by levity 
 of feeling, as well as by laxity of principle ; 
 and in the indifference or ridicule with which 
 they treated the wilful absurdities and extra- 
 vagances to which they hoodwinked their 
 understandings, almost resembled children 
 playing at blind-man's buff, who grope their 
 way in the dark, and make blunders on purpose 
 to laugh at their own idleness and folly." — 
 Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, 
 p. 192. It may be added, that they are some- 
 times like children playing and laughing at 
 ghosts in daylight, but afraid of them at night- 
 time. There have not been wanting readers to 
 take all Pulci's levity in good religious part. 
 This does not seem possible ; but it is possible 
 that he may have had a certain conventional 
 faith in religion, or even regarded it as a sen- 
 timent and a general truth, while the goodness 
 of his disposition led him to be ironical upon 
 particular dogmas. "We must judge him in 
 charity, giving him the benefit of our doubts. 
 
 The specimen now laid before the reader is 
 perhaps as good a one, for prose, as could have 
 been selected. The characteristics of our poet 
 are, wildness of fancy, pithiness of humour, 
 sprightliness of transition, and tenderness of 
 lieart. All these, if the reader has any con- 
 geniality of spirit, he may find successively in 
 the outset about the giants, the complaint made 
 of them by the Abbot, the incipient adventures 
 of Morgante in his new character, and the 
 farewell, and family recognition of the Abbot 
 and Orlando, The passages about the falling 
 of manna, and the eternal punishment of those 
 who are dear to us, furnish the earliest instance 
 of that penetration into absurdity, and the 
 unconscious matter-of-course air of speaking 
 of it, which constitute the humorous part of 
 the style of Voltaire. The character of Mar- 
 gutte, who makes his appearance in Canto 18, 
 and carries this style to its height, is no less 
 remarkable as an anticipation of tlie most im- 
 pudent portraits of professed worldlincss, and 
 seems to warrant the suspicions entertained 
 respecting tlie grosser sceptics of tliat age, 
 while it shows the light in which they were 
 
 regarded by the more refined. In Margutte's 
 panegyrics upon what he liked, apiiear to be 
 the seeds of Berni and his followers. One of 
 the best things to be said of the serious cha- 
 racters of Pulci, and where he has the advantage 
 of Ariosto himself, is that you know them with 
 more distinctness, and become more personally 
 interested in them as people like yourself ; 
 whereas, in Ariosto, with all his humanity, the 
 knights are too much of mere knights, — warlike 
 animals. Their flesh and blood is too much 
 encrusted by their armour. Even Rubbi, the 
 quaint and formal editor of the Paniaso Jtaliano, 
 with all his courtesies towards established 
 things, says, in distinguishing the effect of three 
 great poets of Italy, that " You will adore 
 Ariosto, you will admire Tasso, but you will 
 love Pulci." The alliteration suits our critic's 
 vivacity better : — "In fine, tu adorerai 1' Ariosto, 
 tu ammirerai il Tasso, ma tu amerai il Pulci." 
 
 PROSE TRANSLATION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE 
 MORGANTE MAGGIORE. 
 
 — Twelve Paladins (saith the poet) had the 
 emperor Charlemagne in his court ; and the 
 most wise and famous of them was Orlando. 
 It is of him I am about to speak, and of his 
 friend Morgante, and of Gan the Traitor, who 
 beguiled him to his death in Roncesvalles, 
 where he sounded his horn so mightily after 
 the Dolorous Rout. 
 
 It was Easter, and Ciiarles had all his court 
 with him in Paris, making high feast and 
 triumph. There was Orlando, the first among 
 them, and Ogier the Dane, and Astolfo the 
 Englishman, and Ansuigi : and there came 
 Angiotin of Bayonne, and Uliviero, and the 
 gentle Berlinghieri ; and there was also Avolio, 
 and Avino,and Otho of Normandy,and Richard, 
 and the wise Namo, and the aged Salamon, and 
 Walter from Monlione, and Baldwin who was 
 the son of the wretched Gan. The son of Pepin 
 was too happy, and oftentimes fairly groaned 
 for joy at seeing all his Paladins together. 
 
 But Fortune stands watching in secret, to 
 baffle our designs. While Charles was thus 
 hugging himself with delight, Orlando governed 
 everything at court, and this made Gan burst 
 with envy ; so that he began one day talking 
 with Charles after the following manner : — 
 " Are we always to liave Orlando for our 
 master 1 I have thought of speaking to you 
 about it a thousand times. Orlando has a great 
 deal too much presumption. Here are we, 
 counts, dukes, and kings, at your service, but 
 not at his : and we have resolved not to be 
 governed by a boy. You began in Aspramont 
 to give him to understand how valiant he was, 
 and that lie did great things at that fountain ; 
 whereas if it had not been for the good Gerard, 
 I know very well where the victory would 
 have been. The truth is, he has an eye upon 
 the crov/n. This, Charles, is the worthy who 
 has deserved so much ! All your generals are
 
 46 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 afflicted at it. As for me, I shall repass tliose 
 mountains over which I came to you with 
 seventy-two counts. Do you take him for a 
 Mars ? " 
 
 Orlando happened to hear these words as he 
 sat apart, and it displeased him with Gan that 
 he sliould speak so, but much more that Cliarles 
 should believe him. He would have killed 
 Gan, if Uliviero had not prevented him and 
 taken his sword Durlindana out of his hand ; 
 nay, he could have almost killed Charlemagne 
 himself; but at last he went away from Paris 
 by himself, raging with scorn and grief. He 
 borrowed as he went, of Ermellina the wife of 
 Ogier, the Dane's sword Cortana and his horse 
 Rondel, and proceeded on his way to Brava. 
 His wife, Alda the Fair, hastened to embrace 
 him ; but while she was saying " Welcome my 
 Orlando," he was going to strike her with his 
 sword, for his head was bewildered, and he took 
 her for Ganellone. The fair Alda marvelled 
 greatly, but Orlando recollected himself, and 
 she took hold of the bridle, and he leaped from 
 his horse, and told her all that had passed, and 
 rested himself with her for some days. 
 
 He then took his leave, being still carried 
 away by his disdain, and resolved to pass over 
 into Pagan-land ; and as he rode, he thought, 
 every step of the way, of the traitor Gan ; and 
 so, riding on wherever the road took him, he 
 reached the confines between the Christian 
 countries and the Pagan, and came upon an 
 abbey, situate in a dark place in a desert. 
 
 Now above the abbey was a great mountain, 
 inhabited by three fierce giants, one of whom 
 was named Passamonte, another Alabastro, and 
 the third Morgante ; and these giants used to 
 disturb the abbey, by throwing things down 
 upon it from the mountain with slings, so that 
 the poor little monks could not go out to fetch 
 wood or water. Orlando knocked, but nobody 
 would open till the abbot was spoken to. At 
 last the abbot came himself, and opening the 
 door, bade him welcome. The good man told 
 him the reason of the delay, and said that since 
 the arrival of the giants, they had been so per- 
 plexed that they did not know what to do. 
 " Our ancient fathers in the desert," quoth he, 
 " were rewarded according to their holiness. 
 It is not to be supposed that they lived only upon 
 locusts ; doubtless, it also rained manna upon 
 them from heaven ; but here one is n'ljaled icith 
 stones, which the giants rain upon us from the 
 mountain. These are our nice bits and relishes. 
 The fiercest of the giants, Alorgante, plucks up 
 pines and other great trees by the roots, and 
 casts them on us." While they were talking 
 thus in the cemetery, there came a stone, which 
 seemed as if it would break Rondel's back. 
 " For God's sake, cavalier," said the abbot, 
 '* come in,/or the manna is fallhuj." " My dear 
 abbot," answered Orlando, " this fellow, me- 
 thinks, does not wish to let my horse feed ; 
 he wants to cure him of being restive ; the 
 
 stone seems as if it came from a good arm." 
 " Yes," replied the holy father, " I did not 
 deceive you. I think, some day or other, they 
 will cast the mountain upon us." Orlando 
 quieted his horse Rondel, and then sat down to 
 a meal ; after which he said, " Abbot, I must 
 go and return the prescuit that has been made 
 to my horse." The abbot with great tender- 
 ness endeavoured to dissuade him, but in vain ; 
 upon which he crossed him on the forehead, 
 and said, " Go then, and the blessing of God be 
 with you." 
 
 Orlando scaled the mountain, and came 
 where Passamonte was, who seeing him alone, 
 measured him with his eyes and asked him if 
 he Avould stay with him for a page, promising 
 to make him comfortable. " Stupid Saracen," 
 said Orlando, " I come to you, according to 
 the will of God, to be your death, and not 
 your foot-boy. You have displeased his ser- 
 vants here, and are no longer to be endured, 
 dog that you are." 
 
 Non puo piu comportarti, can mastiuo. 
 
 The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran 
 in a fury to arm him, and returning to Orlando, 
 slung at him a large stone, which struck him 
 on the head with such force, as not only made 
 his helmet ring again, but felled him to the 
 earth. Passamonte thought he was dead. 
 " What," said he, retiring to disarm himself, 
 " could have brought that paltry fellow here?" 
 
 But Christ never forsakes his followers. 
 While the giant went to disarm himself, Or- 
 lando recovered, and cried aloud, " Giant, 
 where are you going ? Do you think that you 
 have killed me ? Turn back, for unless you 
 have wings, you shall not escape me, dog of a 
 renegade." The giant greatly marvelling, 
 turned back, and stooping to pick up a stone, 
 Orlando, who had Cortana naked in his hand, 
 cleft his skidl ; and cursing Mahomet, the 
 giant tumbled, dying and blaspheming, to the 
 ground. Blaspheming fell the sour-hearted 
 and cruel wretch ; but Orlando, in the mean- 
 while, thanked the Fatiier and the Word. 
 
 The Paladin went on, seeking for Alabastro, 
 the second giant ; who, when he saw him, 
 endeavoured to pluck up a great piece of 
 stony earth by the roots. " Ho, ho !" cried 
 Orlando, " what, you think to throw a stone, 
 do you ?" Then Alabastro took his sling, and 
 flung at him so large a fragment as obliged 
 Orlando to defend himself, for if it had struck 
 him, he would no more have needed a surgeon ; 
 but collecting his strength, he thrust his sword 
 into the giant's breast, and the loggerhead fell 
 dead. 
 
 Morgante, the third giant, had a palace 
 made of earth, and boughs, and shingles, in 
 which he shut himself up at night. Orlando 
 knocked, and disturbed the giant from his 
 sleep, who came staring to the door like a 
 madman, for he had liad a bewildering dream.
 
 PULCI. 
 
 47 
 
 " Who knocks there ?" " You will know too 
 soon," answered Orlando : " I am come to 
 make you do penance for your sins, like your 
 brothers. Divine Pi-oviden<!e has sent me to 
 avenge the wrongs of the monks upon the 
 whole set of you ; and I have to tell you, that 
 Passamonte and Alabastro are already as cold 
 as a couple of pilasters." " Noble knight," 
 said Morgante, " do me no ill ; but if you are 
 a Chiistian, tell me in courtesy who you are." 
 " I will satisfy you of my faith," replied 
 Oi'lando : " I adore Christ ; and, if you please, 
 you may adore him also." 
 
 " I have had a strange vision," replied Mor- 
 gante, with a low voice : " I was assailed by a 
 dreadfid serpent, and called upon Mahomet in 
 vain ; then I called upon your God, who was 
 crucified, and he succoured me, and I was 
 delivered from the serpent ; so I am disposed 
 to become a Christian." 
 
 " If you keep in this mind," returned Orlando, 
 " you shall worship the true God, and come 
 with me and be my companion, and I will love 
 you with perfect love. Your idols are false 
 and vain ; the true God is the God of the 
 Christians. Deny the unjust and villanous 
 worship of your Mahomet, and be baptised in 
 the name of my God, who alone is worthy." 
 " I am content," said INIorgante. Then Orlando 
 embraced him, and said, " I will lead you to 
 the abbey." " Let us go quickly," replied 
 Morgante, for he was impatient to make his 
 peace with the monks. Orlando rejoiced, saying 
 " My good brother, and devout withal, you 
 must ask pardon of the abbot ; for God has 
 enlightened you, and accepted you, and he 
 would have you pi-actise humility." " Yes," 
 said Morgante, " thanks to you, your God 
 shall henceforth be my God. Tell me your 
 name, and afterwards dispose of me as you 
 Avill ;" and he told him that he Avas Orlando. 
 
 " Blessed Jesus be thanked," said the giant, 
 "•' for I have always heard you called a perfect 
 knight ; and as I said, I will follow you all my 
 life through." And so conversing they went 
 together towards the abbey, and by the way 
 Orlando talked with Morgante of the dead 
 giants, and sought to console him, saying they 
 had done the monks a thousand injuries, and 
 our scripture says the good shall be rewarded 
 and the evil punished, and we must submit to 
 the will of God. " The doctors of our church," 
 continued he, " are all agreed, that if those 
 who are glorified in heaven, wore to feel pity 
 for their miserable kindred, who lie in such 
 horrible confusion in hell, their beatitude 
 woidd come to nothing ; and this, you see, 
 would plainly be unjust on the jiart of God. 
 liut such is the firmness of their faith, that 
 what appears good to him, appears good to 
 them. Do what he may, they hold it to be 
 done well, and that it is impossible for him to 
 err ; so that if their \ ery fathers and mothers 
 are sufi'ering everlasting punishment, it does 
 
 not disturb them an atom. This is the custom, 
 I assure you, in the choirs above." 
 
 " A word to the wise," said Morgante ; 
 " you shall see if I grieve for my brethren, 
 and whether or no I submit to the will of God, 
 and behave myself like an angel. So dust to 
 dust ; and now let us enjoy ourselves. I will 
 cut off their hands, all four of them, and take 
 them to these holy monks, that they may be 
 sure they are dead, and not fear to go out 
 alone into the desert. They will then be sure 
 also that the Lord has purified me, and taken 
 me out of darkness, and assured to me the 
 kingdom of heaven." So saying, the giant cut 
 oft' the hands of his brethren, and left their 
 bodies to the beasts and birds. 
 
 They went to the abbey, where the abbot 
 was expecting Orlando in great anxiety ; but 
 the monks not knowing what had happened, 
 ran to tlie abbot in great haste and alarm, 
 saying, " Will you suffer this giant to ccme 
 in ?" And when the abbot saw the giant, be 
 changed countenance. Orlando perceiving him 
 thus disturbed, made haste and said, " Abbot, 
 peace be with you ! The giant is a Christian ; 
 he believes in Christ, and has renounced his 
 false prophet, ^Mahomet." And Morgante 
 showing the hands in proof of his faith, the 
 abbot thanked heaven with great contentment 
 of mind. 
 
 The abbot did much honour to Morgante, 
 comparing him with St. Paul ; and they rested 
 there many days. One day, wandering over 
 the abbey, they entered a room where the 
 abbot kept a quantity of armour; and Mor- 
 gante saw a bow which pleased him, and he 
 fastened it on. Now there was in the place a 
 great scarcity of w-ater ; and Orlando said, like 
 his good brother, " INIorgante, I wish you would 
 fetch tis some water." " Command me as yoti 
 please," said he ; and placing a great tub ujjon 
 his shoulders, he went towards a spring at 
 which he had been accustomed to drink at the 
 foot of the moimtain. Having reached the 
 spring, he suddenly heard a great noise in the 
 forest. He took an arrow fiom the quiver, 
 placed it in the bow, and raising his head, saw 
 a great herd of swine rushing towards the spring 
 where he stood. Morgante shot one of them 
 clean through the head, and laid him sprawling. 
 Another, as if in revenge, ran towards the 
 giant, without giving him time to use another 
 arrow ; so he lent him a cuff on the head, which 
 broke the bone, and killed him also ; which 
 stroke the rest seeing, fled in haste through the 
 valley. Morgante then placed the tub full of 
 water upon one shoulder and the two porkers 
 on the other, and returned to the abbey, which 
 was at some distance, witiiout spilling a drop. 
 
 The monks were delighted to see the fresh 
 
 water, but still more to see the pork ; for there 
 
 is no animal to whom food comes amiss. They 
 
 let their breviaries therefore go to sleep awhile, 
 
 I and fell heartily to work, so that the cats and
 
 4» 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 dogs bad reason to lament the polish of the 
 bones. 
 
 "Now, why do we stay bore, doiiiL,' iiotliinfr?" 
 said Orlando, one day, to Moi-^antc ; and he 
 shook hands with the abbot, and told him he 
 must take his leave. " I must go," said he, 
 " and make »ip for lost time. I ought to have 
 gone long ago, my good father ; but I cannot 
 tell you what I feel within me, at the content 
 I have enjoyed here in your company. I shall 
 bear in mind and in heart with me for ever, 
 the abbot, the abbey, and this desert, so great 
 is the love they have raised in me in so short a 
 time. The great (iod, who reigns above, must 
 thank you for me, in his own abode. Bestow 
 on us your benediction, and do not forget us in 
 your prayers." 
 
 When the abbot heard the County Orlando 
 talk thus, his heart melted within him for 
 tenderness, and he said, " Knight, if we have 
 failed in any courtesy due to your prowess and 
 great gentleness (and, indeed, what we have 
 done has been but little), pray put it to the 
 account of our ignorance, and of the place which 
 we inliabit. We are but poor men of the 
 cloister, better able to regale you with masses, 
 and orisons, and j)aternosters, than with dinners 
 ^d supi)ers. You have so taken this heart of 
 mine by the many noble qualities I have seen 
 in you, that I shall be with you still wherever 
 you go ; and, on the otlier band, you will always 
 be present here with me. This seems a con- 
 tradiction ; but you are wise, and will take my 
 meaning discreetly. You have saved the very 
 life and spirit witliin us ; for so much pertur- 
 bation had those giants cast about our place, 
 that the way to the Lord among us was blocked 
 up. May he who sent you into these woods 
 reward your justice and piety, by which we are 
 delivered from our trouble ; thanks be to him 
 and to you. We shall all be disconsolate at 
 your departure. We shall grieve that we 
 cannot detain you among us for months and 
 years ; but you do not wear these weeds ; you 
 bear arms and armour ; and you may possibly 
 merit as well, in carrying those, as in wearing 
 this cap. You reafl your Bible, and your virtue 
 has been the means of showing the giant the 
 way to heaven. Go in peace, and prosper, 
 whoever you may bo. I do not ask your name ; 
 but if ever I am asked who it was that came 
 among us, I shall say that it was an angel from 
 God. If there is any armour, or other thing 
 that you would have, go into the room where 
 it is, and take it." " If you have any armour 
 that would suit my companion," replied Or- 
 lando, " that I will accept with pleasure." 
 " Come and see," said the abbot ; and they 
 went into a room that was full of old armour. 
 Morgante examined everything, but could find 
 nothing large enough, except a rusty breast- 
 plate, which fitted him marvellously. It had 
 belonged to an enormous giant, who was killed 
 there of old, by Alilo of Angrante. There was 
 
 a painting on the wall, which told the whole 
 story : iiow the giant had laid cruel and long 
 .siege to tlie abbey ; and Jiow he had been over- 
 thrown at last by the great Milo. Orlando 
 seeing this, said within himself: — " Oh God! 
 unto wliom all things are known, how came 
 ^lilo here, wlio destroyed this giant?" And 
 reading certain inscriptions which were there, 
 he could no longer keep a firm countenance, 
 but the tears ran down his cheeks. 
 
 When the abbot saw Orlando weep, and his 
 brow redden, and the light of his eyes become 
 cliildliko, for sweetness, he asked him the 
 reason ; but finding him still dumbly affected, 
 he said, " I do not know whether you are over- 
 powered by admiration of what is painted in 
 this cliamber. You must know that I am of 
 high descent, thougli not through lawful wed- 
 lock. I believe I may say, I am nephew or 
 sister's son to no less a man than that Ilinaldo, 
 who was so great a Paladin in the world, though 
 my own father was not of a lawful mother. 
 Ansuigi was his name ; my own, out in the 
 world, was Chiaramonte, and this Milo was my 
 father's brother. Ah, gentle baron, for blessed 
 Jesus' sake, tell me what name is yours ! " 
 Orlando, all glowing with affection, and bathed 
 in tears, replied, " ily dear abbot and kinsman, 
 he before you is your Orlando." Upon this, 
 they ran for tenderness into each other's arms, 
 weepingonboth sides with a sovereign affection, 
 which was too high to be expressed. The abbot 
 was so overjoyed that he seemed as if he would 
 never have done embracing Orlando. " By 
 what fortune," .said the knight, " do I find you 
 in this obscure place ? Tell me, my dear father, 
 how was it you became a monk, and did not 
 follow arms, like myself and the rest of us ? " 
 
 " It is the will of God," replied the abbot, 
 hastening to give his feelings utterance. 
 " Many and divers are the paths he points 
 out for us, by which to arrive at his city : 
 some walk it with the sword, some with the 
 pastoral staff. Nature makes the inclination 
 different, and therefore there are different 
 ways for us to take ; enough if we all arrive 
 safely at one and the same place, the last as 
 well as the first. We are all pilgrims through 
 many kingdoms. We all wish to go to Rome, 
 Orlando ; but we go picking out our journey 
 thi-ough different roads. Such is the trouble 
 in body and soul brought upon us by that sin 
 of the old apple. Day and night am I here 
 with my book in hand ; day and night do you 
 ride about, holding your sword, and sweating 
 oft both in sun and shadow, and all to get 
 round at last to the home from which we 
 departed — I say all out of anxiety and hope, 
 to get back unto our home of old." And the 
 giant hearing them talk of these things, shed 
 tears also.
 
 MY BOOKS. 
 
 49 
 
 LXII.— MY BOOKS*. 
 
 Sitting, last winter, among my books, and 
 walled round with all the comfort and protec- 
 tion which they and my fire-side could afford 
 me ; to wit, a table of high-piled books at my 
 back, my writing-desk on one side of me, some 
 shelves ou the other, and the feeling of the 
 warm fire at my feet; I began to consider how 
 I loved the authors of those books : how I 
 loved them, too, not only for the imaginative 
 pleasures they afibrded me, but for their 
 making me love the very books themselves, 
 and delight to be in contact with them. I 
 looked sideways at my Spenser, my Theocritus, 
 and my Arabian Nights; then above them at 
 my Italian poets ; then behind me at my Ih-y- 
 den and Pope, my romances, and my Boccaccio ; 
 then on my left side at my Chaucer, who lay on a 
 writing-desk ; and thought how natural it was 
 in C. L. to give a kiss to an old folio, as I once 
 saw him do to Cliap)man's Homer. At the same 
 time I wondered how he could sit in that front 
 room of his with nothing but a few uufeelinw 
 tables and chairs, or at best a few engravings 
 in trim frames, instead of putting a coui^le of 
 arm-chairs into the back-room with the books 
 in it, where there is but one window. Would 
 I were there, with both the chairs properly 
 filled, and one or two more besides ! " We 
 had talk, Sir," — the only talk capable of making 
 one forget the books. 
 
 I entrench myself in my books equally 
 against sorrow and the weather. If the wind 
 comes through a passage, I look about to see 
 how I can fence it off by a better disposition 
 of my moveables ; if a melancholy thought is 
 importunate, I give another glance aivay Spenser. 
 When I speak of being in contact with my 
 books, I mean it literally. I like to lean my 
 head against them. Living in a southern 
 climate, though in a part sufficiently northern 
 to feel the winter, I was obliged, during that 
 season, to take some of the books out of the 
 study, and hang them up near the fire-place 
 in the sitting-room, which is the only room 
 that has such a convenience. I therefore 
 walled myself in, as well as I could, in the 
 manner above-mentioned. I took a walk every 
 day, to the astonishment of the Genoese, who 
 used to huddle against a bit of simny wall, like 
 flies on a chimney-piece ; but I did this only 
 that I might so much the more enjoy my En- 
 glish evening. The fire was a wood fire instead 
 of a coal ; but I imagined myself in the country. 
 I remembered at the very worst, that one end 
 of my native land was not nearer the other 
 than England is to Italy. 
 
 AVhile writing this article I am in my study 
 again. Like the rooms in all houses in this 
 country which are not hovels, it is handsome 
 
 * 1 liis and tlie following paper was written during the 
 author's residence In Italy. The use of the first person 
 singular instead of plural, was involuntary. 
 [fakt II.] 
 
 and ornamented. Ou one side it looks towards 
 a garden and the mountains ; on another, to the 
 mountains and the sea. What signifies all 
 this ? I turn my back upon the sea ; I shut up 
 even one of the side windows looking upon the 
 mountains, and retain no prospect but that of 
 the trees. On the right and left of me are 
 book-shelves ; a book-case is affectionately 
 open in front of me ; and thus kindly inclosed 
 with my books and the green leaves, I write. 
 If all this is too luxurious and effeminate, of 
 all luxuries it is the one that leaves you the 
 most strength. And this is to be said for scholar- 
 ship in general. It unfits a man for activity, 
 for his bodily part in the world ; but it often 
 doubles both the power and the seuse of his 
 mental duties ; and with much indignation 
 against his body, and more against those who 
 tyrannise over the intellectual claims of man- 
 kind, the man of letters, like the magician of 
 old, is prepared " to play the devil " with the 
 great men of this world, in a style that 
 astonishes both the sword and the toga. 
 
 I do not like this fine large study. I like 
 elegance. I like room to breathe in, and even 
 walk about, when I want to breathe and 
 walk about. I like a great library next my 
 study ; but for the study itself, give me a 
 small snug place, almost entirely walled with 
 books. There should be only one window in 
 it, looking upon trees. Some prefer a place 
 with few, or no books at all — nothing but a 
 chair or a table, like Epictetus ; but I should 
 say that these were philosophers, not lovers 
 of books, if I did not recollect that Mon- 
 taigne was both. lie had a study in a round 
 tower, walled as aforesaid. It is true, one 
 forgets one's books while writing — at least 
 they say so. For my part, I think I have 
 them in a sort of sidelong mind's eye ; like a 
 second thought, which is none — like a water- 
 fall, or a whispering wind. 
 
 I dislike a grand library to study in. I 
 mean an immense apartment, with books all 
 in Museum order, especially wire-safed. I say 
 nothing against the Museum itself, or public 
 libraries. They are capital places to go to, 
 but not to sit in ; and talking of this, I hate to 
 read in public, and in strange company. The 
 jealous silence ; the dissatisfied looks of the 
 messengers ; the inability to help yourself ; 
 the not knowing whether you really ought to 
 trouble the messengers, much less the <jeiitleman 
 inblack,or brown, whois,perhaps, halfa trustee ; 
 with a varietyof other jarrings between privacy 
 and publicity, prevent one's settling heartily to 
 work. They say " they manage these things 
 better in France ;" and I dare say they do ; 
 but I thiidi I should feci still more distrait in 
 France, in spite of tlic benevolence of t lie servi- 
 tors, and the generous profusion of pen, ink, and 
 paper. I should feel as if I were doing nothing 
 but interchanging amenities with polite writers. 
 A grand private library, which the master of
 
 50 
 
 THE INDICATOR, 
 
 tlic liousc also makes his study, never looks to 
 me like a real place of hooks, miich. less of 
 autliorsliip. I cannot take kindly to it. It is 
 certainly not out of envy ; for tiiree parts of 
 the hooks are generally trash, and I can seldom 
 think of the i-est and the ])ropriet()r toj^ether. 
 It reminds me of a fine nfentlenian, of a collector, 
 of a patron, of Gil Bias and tiie Marcpiis of 
 Marialva ; of anything hut genius and comfort. 
 I have a particular hatred of a round tahle 
 (not the Round Tahle, for that was a dining 
 one) covered and irradiated with hooks, and 
 never met with one in the house of a clever 
 man hut once. It is the reverse of Montaigne's 
 Round Tower. Instead of hringing the books 
 around you, tliey all seem turning another way, 
 and eluding your hands. 
 
 Conscious of my propriety and comfort in 
 these matters, I take an interest in the book- 
 cases as well as the books of my friends. 
 I long to meddle, and dispose them after my 
 own notions. Wlieii they see this confession, 
 they will acknowledge the virtue I have prac- 
 tised. I believe I did mention his book-room 
 to C. L. and I think he told me that he often 
 sat there when alone. It would be hard not to 
 believe liim. His library, though not abound- 
 ing in Greek or Latin (which are the only 
 things to help some persons to an idea of litera- 
 ture), is anything but superficial. The depth 
 of philosophy and poetry are there, the inner- 
 most passages of the human heart. It has 
 some Latin too. It has also a handsome con- 
 tempt for appearance. It looks like what it is, 
 a selection made at precious intervals from the 
 book-stalls ,- — now a Chaucer at nine and two- 
 pence ; now a Alontaigue or a Sir Thomas 
 Browne at two shillings ; now a Jeremy Tay- 
 lor ; a Spinoza ; an old English Dramatist, 
 Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney ; and the hooks 
 are " neat as imported." The very perusal of 
 the hacks is a " discipline of humanity." Tliere 
 Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old 
 Radical friend : there Jeremy Collier is at 
 peace with Dryden : there the lion, Martin 
 Luther, lies down with the Quaker lamb, 
 Sewell : there Guzman d' Alfarache thinks 
 himself fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, 
 and has his claims admitted. Even the " liigh 
 fantastical " Duchess of Newcastle, with her 
 laurel on her head, is received with grave 
 honours, and not the less for declining to 
 trouble herself with the constitutions of lior 
 maids. There is an approach to this in the 
 library of W. C. who also includes Italian 
 among his humanities. W. 11., I believe, lias 
 no books, except mine ; but he has Shakspeare 
 and Rousseau by heart. N., who though not a 
 book-man by profession, is fond of those who 
 are, and wlio loves his volume enough to read 
 it across the fields, lias his library in the com- 
 mon sitting-room, wliich is hospitable. H. R.'s 
 books are all too modern and finely bound, 
 which however is not his fault, for they were 
 
 left him by will,— not the most kindly act of 
 the testator. Suppose a man were to bequeath 
 us a great japan chest tlireo feet by four, with 
 an injunction that it was always to stand on 
 tiie tea-table. I remember borrowing a hook 
 of II. R. which, having lost, I replaced with a 
 copy equally well bound. I am not sure I 
 should liave been in such haste, even to return 
 the book, had it been a common-looking volume ; 
 but the splendour of the loss dazzled me into 
 this ostentatious piece of propriety. I set 
 about restoring it as if I had diminished his 
 fortunes, and waived the privilege a friend has 
 to use a man's things as his own. I may 
 venture upon this ultra-liberal theory, not only 
 because candourcompels me to say that I hold it 
 to a greater extent, with Montaiguc,but because 
 I have been a meek son in the family of book- 
 losers. I may affirm, upon a moderate calcula- 
 tion, that I have lent and lost in my time, (and 
 lam eight-and-thirty),half-a-dozen decent-sized 
 libraries, — I mean books enough to fill so many 
 ordinary book-cases. I have never complained ; 
 and self-love, as well as gratitude, makes me 
 love those who do not complain of me. 
 
 I own I borrow books with as much facility 
 as I lend. I cannot see a work that interests 
 me on another person's shelf, without a wish 
 to carry it off : but, I repeat, that I have been 
 much more sinned against than sinning in the 
 article of non-return ; and am scrupulous in 
 the article of intention. I never had a felonious 
 intent upon a book but once ; and then I shall 
 only say, it was under circumstances so pecu- 
 liar, that I cannot but look upon the conscience 
 that induced me to restore it, as having sacri- 
 ficed the spirit of its very self to the letter ; 
 and I have a grudge against it accordingly. 
 Some people are unwilling to lend their books. 
 I have a special grudge against them, particu- 
 larly those who accompany their unwillingness 
 with uneasy professions to the contrary, and 
 smiles like Sir Fretful Plagiary. The friend 
 who helped to spoil my notions of property, or 
 rather to make them too good for the world 
 " as it goes," taught me also to undervalue my 
 squeamishness in refusing to avail myself of 
 the books of these gentlemen. He showed me 
 how it was doing good to all parties to put an 
 ordinary face on the matter ; though I know 
 his own blushed not a little sometimes in doing 
 it, even when the good to bo done was for 
 another. I feel, in truth, that even when anger 
 inclines me to exercise this privilege of philo- 
 sophy, it is more out of revenge than contempt. 
 I fear that in allowing myself to borrow hooks, 
 I sometimes make extremes meet in a very 
 sinful manner,and do it out of a refined revenge. 
 It is like eating a miser's beef at him. 
 
 I yield to none in my love of bookstall 
 urbanity. I have spent as hajipy moments 
 over the stalls, as any literary apprentice hoy 
 who ought to be moving onwards. But I con- 
 fess my weakness in liking to see some of my
 
 MY BOOKS. 
 
 51 
 
 favourite purchases neatly bound. The books 
 I like to have about me most are, Spenser, 
 Chaucer, the minor poems of ISIilton, the 
 Arabian Nights, Theocritus, Ariosto, and such 
 old good-natured speculations as Plutarch's 
 Morals. For most of these I like a plain good 
 old binding, never mind how old, provided it 
 wears well ; but my Arabian Nights may be 
 bound in as fine and flowery a style as possible, 
 and I should love an engraving to every dozen 
 pages. Book-prints of all sorts, bad and good, 
 take with me as much as when I was a child : 
 and I thiuk some books, such as Prior's Poems, 
 ought always to have portraits of the authoi-s. 
 Prior's airy face with his cap on, is like having 
 his company. From early association, no 
 edition of Milton pleases me so much, as that 
 in which there are pictures of the Devil Avith 
 brute ears, dressed like a Roman General : 
 nor of Bunyan, as the one containing the print 
 of the ^^alley of the Shadow of Death, with the 
 Devil whispering in Christian's ear, or old 
 Pope by the way side, and 
 
 " Vanity Fair, 
 With the Pilgrims suffering there." 
 
 I delight in the recollection of the puzzle I 
 used to have with the frontispiece of the Tale 
 of a Tub, of my real horror at the sight of that 
 crawling old man representing Avarice, at 
 the beginning of EnfidfVs Speaker, the Look'uuj- 
 Glass, or some such book ; and even of the 
 careless school-boy hats, and the prim sto- 
 machers and cottage bonnets, of such golden- 
 age antiquities as the Village School. The 
 oldest and most worn-out woodcut, represent- 
 ing King Pippin, Goody Two Shoes, or the 
 grim Soldan, sitting with three staring blots 
 for his eyes and mouth, his sceptre in one 
 hand, and his other five fingers raised and 
 spread in admiration at the feats of the Gallant 
 London Prentice, cannot excite in me a feeling 
 of ingratitude. Cooke's edition of the Biitisli 
 Poets and Noirlhts came out when I was at 
 school : for which reason I never could put up 
 with Suttaby's or Walker's publications, except 
 in the case of such works as the Fairt/ Tales, 
 wliich Mr. Cooke did not publish. Besides, 
 they are too cramped, thick, and mercenary ; 
 and the pictures are all frontispieces. They 
 do not come in at the proper places. Cooke 
 realised the old woman's beau ideal of a prayer- 
 book, — "A little book, with a great deal of 
 matter, and a large type :" — for the type was 
 really large for so small a volume. Shall I 
 ever forget his Collins and liis Gray, books at 
 once so " superbly ornamented " and so incon- 
 ceivably cheap? Sixj)encc could procure much 
 before ; but never could it procure so much as 
 then, or was at once so much respected, and so 
 little cared for His artist Kirk was the best 
 artist, except Stothard, that ever designed for 
 periodical works ; and 1 will venture to add 
 (if his name rightly announces liis country) the 
 best artist Scotland ever produced, except 
 
 Wilkie, but he unfortunately had not enough 
 of his country in him to keep him from dying 
 young. His designs for Milton and the Arabian 
 Nights, his female extricated from the water in 
 the Tales of the Genii, and his old hag issuing 
 out of the chest of the Merchant Abadah in 
 the same book, are before me now, as vividly 
 as they were then. He possessed elegance and 
 the sense of beauty in no ordinary degree ; 
 though they sometimes played a trick or so of 
 foppery. I shall never forget the gratitude 
 with which I received an odd number of 
 Akenside, value sixpence, one of the set of 
 that poet, which a boarder distributed among 
 three or four of us, " with his mother's com- 
 pliments," Tlie present might have been more 
 lavish, but I hardly thought of that. I remem- 
 ber my number. It was the one in which 
 there is a picture of the poet on a sofa, with 
 Cupid coming to him, and the words under- 
 neath, " Tempt me no more, insidious Love ! " 
 The picture and the number appeared to me 
 equally divine. I cannot help thinking to this 
 day, that it is right and natural in a gentleman 
 to sit in a stage dress, on that particular kind 
 of sofa, though on no other, with that exclusive 
 hat and feathers on his head, telling Cupid to 
 begone with a tragic air. 
 
 I love an author the more for having been 
 himself a lover of books. The idea of an 
 ancient library perplexes our sjTupathy by its 
 map-like volumes, rolled upon cylinders. Our 
 imagination cannot take kindly to a yard of 
 wit, or to thirty inches of moral oljservation, 
 rolled out like linen in a draper's shop. But 
 we conceive of Plato as of a lover of books ; 
 of Aristotle certainly ; of Plutarch, Phny, 
 Horace, Julian, and Marcus Aurelius. Virgil, 
 too, must have been one ; and, after a fashion, 
 Martial. ]May I confess, that the passage 
 which I recollect with the greatest pleasure in 
 Cicero, is where he says that books delight us 
 at home, and are no impediment abroad ; travel 
 with us, ruralise with us. His period is rounded 
 off to some purpose : " Delectant domi, non impe- 
 diunt foris ; peregrinantur, rusticantur." I am so 
 much of tliis ojjinion, that I do not care to be 
 anywhere without having a book or books at 
 hand, and like Dr. Orkborne, in the novel of 
 Camilla, stuff the coach or post-chaise with 
 them whenever I travel. As books, however, 
 become ancient, the love of them becomes 
 more unequivocal and conspicuous. The 
 ancients had little of what we call learning. 
 They made it. They were also no very emi- 
 nent buyers of books — they made books for 
 posterity. It is true, that it is not at all 
 necessary to love many books, in order to love 
 them much. The scholar, in Chaucer, who 
 would rather have 
 
 At his beddes bead 
 A twenty bokes, clothed, in black and red, 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophy. 
 Than rob^s rich, or fiddle, or psaltric, — 
 K 2
 
 52 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 doubtless beat all our modern collectors in his 
 passion for reading ; but books must at least 
 exist, and have ac(]uired an eminence, before 
 their lovers can make themselves known. 
 There must be a iiossessiou, also, to perfect 
 the communion ; and the mere contact is 
 much, even when our mistress speaks an 
 unknown language. Dante puts Homer, tlie 
 great ancient, in iiis Eli/xiiim, u])on trust ; but 
 a few years afterwards, Jlomer, the book, made 
 its appearance in Italy, and Petrarch, in a 
 transport, put it upon his book-shelves, where 
 he adored it, like " the unknown (rod." Pe- 
 trarch ought to be the god of the bibliomaniacs, 
 for he was a collector and a man of genius, 
 which is a union that docs not often happen. 
 lie copied out, with his own precious liand, 
 the manuscripts he rescued from time, and 
 then })roduced others for time to reverence. 
 With his head upon a book he died. Boccaccio, 
 his friend, was another ; nor can one look upon 
 the longest and most tiresome works he wrote 
 (for he did ^viite some tiresome ones, in spite 
 of the gaiety of his Decameron), without think- 
 ing, tiiat in tliat resuscitation of the world of 
 letters, it must have been natural to a man of 
 genius to add to the existing stock of volumes, 
 at whatsoever price. I always pitch my com- 
 pletest idea of a lover of books, either in these 
 dark ages, as tliey are called, 
 
 (Cui eieco a torto il cieco volgo appeUa— ) 
 
 or in the gay town days of Charles II., or a 
 little afterwards. In both times the porti-ait 
 comes out by the force of contrast. In the 
 first, I imagine an age of iron warfare and 
 energy, with solitary retreats, in which the 
 monk or the hooded scholar walks forth to 
 meditate, his precious volume under his arm. 
 In the other, I have a triumphant example of 
 the power of books and wit to contest the 
 victory with sensual pleasure : — Rochester, 
 staggering home to pen a satire in the style of 
 Monsieur Boileau ; Butler, cramming his jolly 
 duodecimo with all the learning that he laughed 
 at ; and a new race of book poets come up, 
 who, in spite of their periwigs and petit- 
 maitres, talk as romantically of " the bays," 
 as if they were priests of Delphos. It was a 
 victorious thing in books to beguile even the 
 old French of their egotism, or at least to 
 share it Avith them. Nature never pretended 
 to do as much. And here is the difference 
 between the two ages, or between any two 
 ages in which genius and art predominate. 
 In the one, books are loved because they are 
 the records of nature and her energies ; in the 
 other, because they are the records of those 
 records, or CAadences of the importance of the 
 individuals, and proofs of our descent in the 
 new and imperishable aristocracy. This is 
 the reason why rank (with few exceptions) is 
 so jealous of literature, and loves to approj)ri- 
 ate or withhold the honours of it, as if they 
 
 were so many toys and ribbons, like its own. 
 It has an instinct tliat the two pretensions are 
 incompatible. When Montaigne (a real lover 
 of books) affected the order of St. Michael, and 
 pleased himself with possessing tliat fugitive 
 little piece of importance, he did it because he 
 would pretend to be above notliing that he 
 really felt, or that was felt by men in general ; 
 but at the same time he vindicated his natural 
 superiority over this weakness by j)raising and 
 loving all higher and lasting tilings, and by 
 jdacing his best glory in doing homage to the 
 geniuses that had gone before him. He did 
 not endeavour to think that an immortal 
 renown was a fashion, like that of the cut of 
 his scarf ; or that l)y undervaluing the one, 
 he should go shining down to posterity in the 
 other, perpetual lord of Montaigne and of the 
 ascendant. 
 
 There is a period of modern times, at which 
 the love of books appears to have been of a 
 more decided nature than at either of these — 
 I mean the age just before and after the 
 Reformation, or rather all that period when 
 book-writing was confined to the learned lan- 
 guages. Erasmus is the god of it. Bacon, a 
 mighty book-man, saw, among his other sights, 
 the great advantage of loosening the verna- 
 cular tongue, and wrote both Latin and English. 
 I allow this is the greatest closeted age of 
 books ; of old scholars sitting in dusty studies ; 
 of heaps of " illustrious obscure," rendering 
 themselves more illustrious and more obscure 
 by retreating from the " thorny queaches " of 
 Dutch and German names into the " vacant 
 interlunar caves " of appellations latinised or 
 translated. I think I see all their volumes 
 the shelves of a dozen German 
 
 now. 
 
 filling 
 
 convents. The authors are bearded men, sit- 
 ting in old woodcuts, in caps and gowns, and 
 their books are dedicated to princes and states- 
 men, as illustrious as themselves. My old 
 friend Wierus, who wrote a thick book, De 
 Prcestigiis Dcewoiuim, was one of them, and had a 
 fancy worthy of his sedentary stomach. I will 
 confess, once for all, that I have a liking for 
 them all. It is my link with the bibliomaniacs, 
 whom I admit into our relationship, because 
 my love is large, and my family pride nothing. 
 But still I take my idea of books read with a 
 gusto, of companions for bed and board, from 
 the two ages before-mentioned. The other is 
 of too book-worm a description. There must 
 be both a judgment and a fervour ; a discri- 
 mination and a boyish eagerness ; and (with 
 all due humility) something of a point of con- 
 tact between authors worth reading and the 
 reader. How can I take Juvenal into the 
 fields, or Valcarenghius De Aartuo Anmrismate 
 to bed with me ? How could I expect to walk 
 before the face of nature with the one ; to tire 
 my elbow jiroperly with the other, before I 
 put out my candle, and turn round deliciously 
 on the rigiit side 2 Or how could I stick up
 
 MY BOOKS. 
 
 53 
 
 Coke upon Littleton against something on the 
 dinner-table, and he divided between a fresh 
 paragraph and a mouthful of salad ? 
 
 I take our four great English poets to have 
 all been fond of reading. Milton and Chaucer 
 proclaim themselves for hard sitters at books. 
 Spenser's reading is evident by his learning ; 
 and if there were nothing else to show for it in 
 Shakspeare, his retiring to his native town, long 
 before old age, would be a proof of it. It is im- 
 possible for a man to live in solitude without 
 such assistance, unless he is a metaphysician 
 or mathematician, or the dullest of mankind ; 
 and any country town would be solitude to 
 Shakspeare, after the bustle of a metropolis and 
 a theatre. Doubtless he divided his time be- 
 tween his books, and his bowling-green, and his 
 daughter Susanna. It is pretty certain, also, 
 that he planted, and rode on horseback ; and 
 there is evidence of aU sorts to make it clear, 
 that he must have occasionally joked with the 
 blacksmith, and stood godfather for his neigh- 
 bours' children. Chaucer's account of himself 
 must be quoted, for the delight and sympathy 
 of all true readers : — 
 
 And as for me, though that I can but lite, 
 
 On book^s for to rede I me delite, 
 
 And to hem yeve I faith and full credence, 
 
 And in mine herte have hem in reverence 
 
 So hertely, that there is gam^ none. 
 
 That fro my bookes maketh me to gone, 
 
 But it is seldome on the holy daie ; 
 
 Save certainly whan that the month of May 
 
 Is comen, and that I hear the foul^s sing, 
 
 And that the flour^s ginnen for to spring. 
 
 Farewell my booke and my devocion. 
 
 TIte Legend of Good Women. 
 
 And again, in the second book of his House of 
 Fame, where the eagle addresses him : — 
 
 Thou wilt make 
 
 At night full oft thine head to ake, 
 And in thy study as thou writest. 
 And evermore of Love enditest. 
 In honour of him and his praisings. 
 And in his folkes furtherings. 
 And in his matter all devisest, 
 And not him ne his folke despisest. 
 Although thou mayst go in the daunse 
 Of hem, that him list not advance ; 
 Therefore as I said, ywis, 
 Jupiter considreth well this. 
 And also, beausire, of other things ; 
 That is, thou hast no tidings 
 Of Loves folke, if they be glade. 
 No of nothing else that God made, 
 And not only fro ferre countree. 
 Hut no tidings commen to thee. 
 Not of thy very neighbouris. 
 That dwellen almost at thy dores ; 
 Thou hearest neither that ne this. 
 For whan thy labour all done is, 
 And hast made all thy rekenings,* 
 Instead of rest and of new things, 
 Thou goest home to thine house anone. 
 And all so dombe as anie stone, 
 Thou sittest at another booke. 
 Till fully dazed is thy looke. 
 
 * Chaucer at this time had an office under the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 After I think of the bookishness of Chaucer 
 and Milton, I always make a great leap to 
 Prior and Fenton. Prior was first noticed, 
 when a boy, by Lord Dorset, sitting in his 
 uncle's tavern, and reading Horace. He de- 
 scribes himself, years after, when Secretary of 
 Embassy at the Hague, as taking the same 
 author with him in the Saturday's chaise, in 
 which he and his mistress used to escape from 
 town cares into the country, to the admiration 
 of Dutch beholders. Fenton was a martyr to 
 contented scholarship (including a sirloin and 
 a bottle of wine), and died among his books, of 
 inacti-vity. " He rose late," says Johnson, 
 " and when he had risen, sat down to his books 
 and papers." A woman that once waited on 
 him in a lodging, told him, as she said, that he 
 would "lie a-bed and be fed with a spoon." 
 He must have had an enviable liver, if he was 
 happy. I must own (if my conscience would 
 let me), that I should like to lead, half the 
 year, just such a life (woman included, though 
 not that woman), the other half being passed 
 in the fields and woods, with a cottage just big 
 enough to hold us. Dacier and his wife had a 
 pleasant time of it ; both fond of books, both 
 scholars, both amiable, both wrapt up in the 
 ancient world, and helping one another at their 
 tasks. If they were not happy, matrimony 
 would be a rule even without an excep ion. 
 Pope does not strike me as being a bookman ; 
 he was curious rather than enthusiastic ; more 
 nice than wise ; he dabbled in modern Latin 
 poetry, which is a bad symptom. Swift was 
 decidedly a reader ; the Tale of a Tub, in its 
 fashion as well as substance, is the work of a 
 scholarly wit ; the Battle of the Books is the 
 fancy of a lover of libraries. Addison and 
 Steele were too much given up to Button's and 
 the town. Periodical writing, though its 
 demands seem otherwise, is not favourable to 
 reading ; it becomes too much a matter of 
 business, and will either be attended to at the 
 expense of the writer's books, or books, the 
 very admonishers of his industry, will make 
 him idle. Besides, a periodical work, to be 
 suitable to its character, and warrant its 
 regular recurrence, must involve something of 
 a gossiping nature, and proceed upon experi- 
 ences familiar to the existing community, or at 
 least likely to be received by them in conse- 
 quence of some previous tinge of inclination. 
 You do not pay weekly visits to your friends 
 to lecture them, whatever good you may do 
 their minds. There will be something compul- 
 sory in reading the Ramblers, as there is in 
 going to church. Addison and Steele imder- 
 took to regulate the minor morals of society, 
 and effected a world of good, with which 
 scholarship had little to do. Gray was a book- 
 man ; he wished to be always lying on sofas, 
 reading " eternal new novels of Crebillon and 
 Marivaux." This is a true hand. The elabo- 
 rate and scientific look of the rest of his
 
 54 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 reading was owing to the necessity of employ- 
 ing himsolf : he liad not health and spirits for 
 the literary voluptuousness lie desii-ed. Collins, 
 for the same reason, could not enii)loy himself; 
 he was obliged to dream over Arabian talcs, to 
 let the light of the supernatural world half in 
 upon liis eyes. " He loved," as Johnson says, 
 (in that strain of music, inspired by tenderness,) 
 "fairies, genii, giants, and monsters; he de- 
 lighted to rove througli the meanders of en- 
 chantment, to gaze on the magnificence of 
 golden palaces, to repose by the waterfalls of 
 Elysian gardens." If Collins had had a better 
 constitution, I do not believe that he would 
 have written his projected work upon the 
 Restoration of Literature, fit as he was by scholar- 
 ship for the task, but he would have been the 
 greatest poet since the days of Milton. If his 
 friend Thomas Warton had had a little more 
 of his delicacy of organisation, the love of 
 books Avould almost have made him a poet. 
 His edition of the minor poems of ^lilton is a 
 wilderness of sweets. It is the only one in 
 which a true lover of the original can pardon 
 nn exuberance of annotation ; though I confess 
 I am inclined enough to pardon any notes that 
 resemble it, however numerous. The " builded 
 rhyme" stands at the top of the page, like a fair 
 edifice with all sorts of flowers and fresh waters 
 at its foot. The young poet lives there, served 
 by the nymphs and fauns. 
 
 Hinc atque liinc glomerantur Oreades. 
 Hue ades, o formose puer : tibi lilia plenis 
 Ecce ferunt njanplise calathis : tibi Candida Nais 
 Fallen tes violas et summa papavera carpens, 
 Narcissum et florem jungit bene olentis anethi. 
 
 Among the old writers I must not forget 
 Ben Jonson and Donne. Cowley has been 
 already mentioned. His boyish love of books, 
 like all the other inclinations of his early life, 
 stuck to him to the last ; which is the greatest 
 reward of virtue. I would mention Izaak 
 Walton, if I had not a grudge against him. 
 His brother fisliermen, the divines, were also 
 great fishers of books. I have a grudge against 
 them and their divinity. They talked much of 
 the devil and divine right, and yet forgot what 
 Shakspeare says of the devil's friend Nero, 
 that he is " an angler in the lake of darkness." 
 Selden was called " the walking library of our 
 nation." It is not the pleasantest idea of him ; 
 but the library included poetry, and wit, as 
 well as hei-aldry and the .Jewish doctors. His 
 Table Talk is equally pithy and pleasant, and 
 truly worthy of the name, for it implies other 
 speakers. Indeed it was actually what it is 
 called, and treasured up by his friends. Selden 
 wrote complimentary verses to his friends the 
 poets, and a commentary on Drayton's Poly- 
 olbion. Drayton was himself a reader, addicted 
 to all the luxuries of scholarship. Ciiapman 
 sat among his books, like an astrologer among 
 his spheres and altitudes. * 
 
 How pleasant it is to refleci, that all these 
 
 lovers of books have themselves become books! 
 What bettor metamorj)hosis could Pythagoras 
 have desired ! How Ovid and Horace exulted 
 in anticipating theirs ! And how the world 
 hav(! justified their exultation ! They had a 
 right to triumph over brass and marble. It is 
 the only visible change which changes no 
 farther ; which generates and yet is not de- 
 stroyed. Consider : mines themselves are 
 exhausted ; cities perish ; kingdoms are swept 
 away, and man weeps with indignation to think 
 that his own body is not immortal. 
 
 Muoiono le citt.i, muniono i rcpni, 
 
 E r uom d' esser mortal par die si sdegni. 
 
 Yet this little body of thought, that lies 
 before me in the shape of a book, has existed 
 thousands of years, nor since the invention of 
 the press can anything short of an universal 
 convulsion of nature abolish it. To a shape 
 like this, so small yet so comprehensive, so 
 slight yet so lasting, so insignificant yet so 
 venerable, turns the mighty activity of Homer, 
 and .so turning, is enabled to live and warm 
 us for ever. To a shape like this turns the 
 placid sage of Academus : to a shape like 
 this the grandeur of Milton, the exuberance of 
 Spenser, the pungent elegance of Pope, and 
 the volatility of Prior. In one small room, 
 like the compressed spirits of Alilton, can be 
 gathered together 
 
 The assembled souln of all that men held wise. 
 
 May I hope to become the meanest of these ex- 
 istences? This is a question which every author 
 who is a lover of books, asks himself some time 
 in his life ; and which must be pardoned, 
 because it cannot be helped. I know not. I 
 cannot exclaim with the poet. 
 
 Oh that my name were number'd among theirs, 
 Thea gladly would I end my mortal days. 
 
 For my mortal days, few and feeble as the rest 
 of them may be, are of consequence to others, 
 liut I should like to remain visible in this 
 shape. The little of myself that pleases myself, 
 I could wish to be accounted worth pleasing 
 others. I should like to survive so, were it 
 only for the sake of those who love me in 
 private, knowing as I do what a treasure is the 
 possession of a friend's mind, when he is no 
 more. At all events, nothing while I live and 
 think, can deprive me of my value for sucJi 
 treasures. I can help the appreciation of them 
 while I last, and love them till I die ; and 
 perhaps, if fortune turns her face once more in 
 kindness upon me before I go, I may chance, 
 some quiet day, to lay my overheating temples 
 on a book, and so have the death I most 
 envy.
 
 BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c. 
 
 55 
 
 LXIIL— BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c. 
 
 WITH THE CONSIDERATION OF A CURIOUS ARGUMENT, 
 DRAWN FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HIVE. 
 
 Alexakder said, tliat if he were not Alex- 
 ander, he should wish to be Diogenes. Reader, 
 what sort of animal would you be, if you were 
 obliged to be one, and were not a man ? 
 
 J risk Reader : — A woman. 
 
 Oh, ho ! The choice is judicious, but not to 
 the purpose, " you divil :"— we mean, out of 
 the pale of the species. Consider the question, 
 dear readers, and answer it to your friends 
 and consciences. The pastime is jjretty, and 
 fetches out the character. Nor is there any- 
 thing in it unworthy the dignity of your 
 humanity, as that liberal term may show us, 
 without farther reasons. Animals partake with 
 us the gifts of song, and beauty, and the affec- 
 tions. They beat us in some things, as in the 
 power of flight. The dove has the wings of the 
 angel. The meanest reptile has eyes and limbs, 
 as well as Nicholas, emperor of all the Russias. 
 Sir Philip Sydney tells us of a riding-master at 
 Vienna, who expatiated so eloquently on the 
 qualities of the noble animal he had to deal 
 with, that he almost persuaded our illustrious 
 countryman to wish himself a horse. A year 
 or two back, everybody in London that had a 
 voice, was resolved upon being " a butterfly, 
 born in a bower :" and Goldsmith had such a 
 tendency to sympathise with the least sym- 
 pathetic part of the creation, that he took a 
 pleasure in fancying himself writing an auto- 
 biography of fish. It was the inconsiderate laugh 
 of Johnson, upon his mention of it, that pro- 
 duced that excellent retort on the Doctor's 
 gi-andiosity of style : " If you were to describe 
 little fish conversing, you would make them 
 talk like gi'eat whales." 
 
 How different from the sensations of man- 
 kind, with its delicate skin and apprehensive 
 fingers, must be those of feathered and scaled 
 animals, of animals with hoofs and claws, and 
 of such creatures as beetles and other insects, 
 who live in coats of mail, have twenty feet a 
 piece, and hundreds of eyes ! A writer who 
 should make these creatures talk, would be 
 forced, in spite of his imagination, to write parts 
 of his account in a jargon, in order to typify 
 what he could not express. What must be 
 their sensations when they awake ; when they 
 spin webs ; when they wrap themselves up in 
 the chrysalis ; when they stick for hours 
 together on a wall or a pane of glass, apparently 
 stupid and insensible ? AVhat may not the 
 eagle see in the sky, beyond the cajjabilities of 
 our vision ? And on the other hand, what 
 possibilities of visible existence round about 
 them may they not realise ; what creatures not 
 cognisable by oiu* senses ? There is reason to 
 
 believe in the existence of mj-riads of earthly 
 creatures, who are not conscious of tlie presence 
 of man. Why may not man be unconscious 
 of others, even at his side ? There are minute 
 insects that evidently know nothing of the 
 human hand that is close to them ; and millions 
 in water and in air that apparently can have 
 no conception of us. As little may our five 
 senses be capable of knowing others. But 
 \^'hat, it may be asked, is the good of these 
 speculations ! To enlarge knowledge, and 
 vivify the imagination. The universe is not 
 made up of hosiery and the tlu'ee per cents. ; 
 no, nor even of the Court G-iiide. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne would not have thought 
 it beneath him to ask what all those innume- 
 rable little gentry (we mean the insects) are 
 about, between our breakfast and dinner ; how 
 the time passes in the solitudes of America, or 
 the depths of the Persian gulf ; or what they 
 are doing even, towards three in the afternoon, 
 in the planet Mercury. Without going so far 
 as that for an enlargement of our being, it will 
 do us no harm to sympathise with as many 
 creatures as we can. It gives us the pri\dlege 
 of the dervise, who could pitch himself into the 
 animals he killed, and become a stag or a bird. 
 We know not what sort of a fish Goldsmith 
 could have made of himself. La Fontaine's 
 animals are all La Fontaine, at least in their 
 way of talking. As far as luxury goes, and a 
 total absence from human cares, nobody has 
 painted animal enjoyment better than the most 
 luxurious of poets, Spenser, in the description 
 of his Buttei-fly. La Fontaine called himself 
 the Butterfly of Parnassus ; but we defy him 
 to have ))roduced anytliing like the abundance 
 and continuity of the following picture, which 
 is exuberant to a degree that makes our as- 
 tonishment run over in laughter. It seems as 
 if it would never leave off. We quote the 
 whole of it, both on this account, and because 
 we believe it to be unique of the kind. Ovid 
 himself is not so long nor so fine in any one of 
 his descriptions, which are also not seldom 
 misplaced — a charge that does not attach here : 
 and Marino, another exuberant genius of the 
 south of Italy, is too apt to run the faults of 
 Ovid to seed, without having some of his good 
 qualities. Spenser is describing a butterfly, 
 bound upon his day's pleasure. A common 
 observer sees one of these beautiful little crea- 
 tures flutter across a garden, thinks how pretty 
 and s^jrightly it is, and there his observation 
 comes to an end. Now mark what sort of 
 report a poet can give in, even of the luxuries 
 of a fly : — 
 
 Tims the fresh Clarion, being rcadic dight, 
 Unto his journey did hiniselfc addrcsse, 
 
 And with good speed began to take his flight 
 Over the fields, in hisfrankc luHbusse ; 
 
 And all the champaine o'er he soared light. 
 And all the eountrey wide he did possesse. 
 
 Feeding upon their i)leastu-cs bounteouslie, 
 
 That none gainsaid, nor none did him envic.
 
 5C 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 The woods, the rivers, and the medowcs preene, 
 With his aire-iutting wiiiRs he measured wide, 
 
 Ne did he Ic^vc tlio mountaines bare uiisecne, 
 Nor the ranki- </rassie /runes tlclirihls uiitrido. 
 
 But none of these, however sweet tliey bocne, 
 JNIote please his faneie, nor him cause t' abide : 
 
 His choieofull sense with every cliangedotli flit: 
 
 No common tilings may i)leaso a wavering wit. 
 
 To the gay gardins his unstaid desire 
 
 Him wholly carried, to refresh his sprights: 
 
 There lavish Nature, in her best attire, 
 
 I'owres forth sweet odors and alluring sights ; 
 
 And Arte, with her contending, doth aspire 
 T'excell the naturall with made delights: 
 
 And all, that faire or pleasant may be found. 
 
 In riotous excesse doth there abound. 
 
 There he arriving, round about doth flie, 
 
 From bed to bed, from one to t'other border; 
 
 And takes survey, with curious busie eye. 
 
 Of every flowrc and herbe there set in order ; 
 
 Now this, now that, ?ie tastelh tenderly. 
 
 Vet none of them he rudely doth disorder, 
 
 Ne with his feete their silken leaves deface. 
 
 But pastures on the pleasures o/caeh place. 
 
 And evermore, with most varietie, 
 
 And change of sweetness (for all change is sweet) 
 lie easts his glutton sense to satisfie, 
 
 Now sucking of tlie sap of herbe most meet. 
 Or of the dew, which yet on them does lie ; 
 
 Now in the same bathing his tender feet: 
 And then he pereheth on some branch thereby, 
 To weather him, and his moyst wings to dry. 
 
 And then again he turneth to his play. 
 To spoil the pleasures of that paradise/ 
 
 The wholesome sage, the lavender still gray, 
 Rank-smelling rue, and cummin good for eyes. 
 
 The roses raipning in the pride ofMay. 
 
 Sharp hyssop good for green wounds remedies, 
 
 Faire marigolds, and bees-alluring thyme, 
 
 Sweet marjoram, and daysies decking prime. 
 
 Cool violets, and orpine growing still, 
 
 Embathed balm, and chearful galingale. 
 
 Fresh costmarie, and breathfuU camomill. 
 Dull poppy, and drink-quickening setuale, 
 
 Veyne-healing verven, and head-purging dill, 
 Sound savorie, and basil hartie-hale. 
 
 Fat coleworts, and comforting perseline. 
 
 Cool lettuce, and refreshing rosmarine ; 
 
 And whatso else of vertue good or ill 
 
 Grew in this ga,TAin,/etch'd from far away. 
 
 Of every one he takes, and tastes at will. 
 And on their pleasures greedily doth prey. 
 
 Then when he hath both plaid, and fed at fill. 
 In the icarme stinne he doth himselfe embay. 
 
 And there him rests in riotous suffisaunce 
 
 Of all his gladfulness, and kingly joyaunce. 
 
 Nothing, it miglit he supposed, could be said 
 after this : and yet the poet strikes up a ques- 
 tion, in a tone like a flourish of trumpets, after 
 this royal dinner : — 
 
 What more felicitic can/all to creature. 
 
 Than to enjoy delight with libertie 
 And to be lord of all the workes 0/ Nature f 
 
 To reigne in the aire from th' earth to highest skie. 
 To feed on flowers, and tccedes 0/ glorious feature ? 
 
 To take whatever thing doth please the eye? 
 Who rests not pleased with such happiness. 
 Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness." 
 
 Amen, thou most satisfying of poets ! But 
 ■when are human beings to be as well off in 
 
 that matter as the butterflies ? or how are you 
 to make them content, sliould the time come 
 when tliey have notliing to earn ? However, 
 there is a vast deal to be learned from the poet's 
 recommendation, before we need ask either of 
 those questions. We may enjoy a great deal 
 more innocent " delight with liberty" than wo 
 are in the liabit of doing ; and may be lords, if 
 not of " all the works of nature," of a great 
 many green fields and reasonable holidays. It 
 seems a mighty thing to call a butterfly " lord 
 of all the works of nature." Many lords, who 
 have pretensions to be butterflies, have no pre- 
 tensions as wide as those. And, doubtless, 
 there is a pleasant little lurking of human pride 
 and satire in *hc poet's eye, notwithstanding 
 his epical impartiality, when he talks thus of 
 tlie universal emjiire of his liero. And yet 
 how inferior are the grandest inanimate works 
 of nature, to the least thing that has life 
 in. it ! The oaks are mighty, and the hills 
 mightier ; yet that little participation of the 
 higher spirit of vitality, which gifts the butter- 
 fly with locomotion, renders him unquestionable 
 lord of the oaks and the hills. He does what 
 he pleases with them, and leaves them with a 
 spurn of his foot. 
 
 Another beauty to be noted in the above 
 luxurious lines, is the fine sense with which 
 the poet makes his butterfly fond of things not 
 very pleasant to our human apprehension — 
 such as bitter herbs, and " rank, grassy fens." 
 And like a right great poet, he makes no apology 
 for saying so much about so little a creature. 
 Man may be made a very* little creature to a 
 very great apprehension, yet we know what a 
 world of things he contains ; and all who par- 
 take of his senses are sharers of his importance. 
 The passions and faculties which render us of 
 consequence to one another, render the least 
 tiling that breathes of consequence in the eyes 
 of the poet, who is the man that sees fair play 
 among all the objects of the creation. A 
 poetaster might be afraid to lower his little 
 muse, by making her notice creatures hardly 
 less than herself: the greater the poet, tlie 
 more godlike his impartiality. Homer draws 
 his similes, as Jupiter might have done, from 
 some of the homeliest animals. The god made 
 them, and therefore would have held them in 
 due estimation : the poet (IloiTjT^r, the Maker) 
 remakes them, and therefore contemplates them 
 in a like spirit. Old Kit Marlowe, who, as 
 Drayton says — 
 
 " Had in him those brave sublunary things 
 That the first poets had," 
 
 ventures, in some play of his, upon as true and 
 epic a simile as ever was written, taken from 
 no mightier a sphere than one of liis parlour 
 windows : — 
 
 " Untameable as flies." 
 
 Imagine the endeavour to tame a fly .' It is 
 obvious that there is no getting at him : he
 
 BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c. 
 
 57 
 
 does not comprehend you : he knows nothing 
 about you : it is doubtful, in spite of his large 
 eyes, whether he even sees you ; at least to 
 any purpose of recognition. How capriciously 
 and provokingly he glides hither and thither ! 
 What angles and diagrams he describes in his 
 locomotion, seemingly without any purpose ! 
 He will peg away at your sugar, but stop him 
 who can when he has done with it. Thumping 
 (if you could get some fairy-stick that should 
 do it without killing) would have no effect on 
 a creature, who shall bump his head half the 
 morning against a pane of glass, and never 
 learn that there is no getting through it. Soli- 
 tary imprisonment would be lost on the incom- 
 prehensible little wretch, who can stand still 
 with as much pertinacity as he can bustle 
 about, and will stick a whole day in one pos- 
 ture. The best thing to be said of him is, that 
 he is as fond of cleaning himself as a cat, doing 
 it much in the same manner ; and that he often 
 rubs his hands together with an appearance 
 of great energy and satisfaction. 
 
 After all, Spenser's picture of the butterfly's 
 enjoyments is not complete, entomologically. 
 The luxury is perfect ; but the reader is not 
 sure that it is all proper butterfly luxury, and 
 that the man does not mix with it. It is 
 not the definite, exclusive, and characteristic 
 thing desiderated by Goldsmith. The butter- 
 fly, perhaps, is no fonder of " bathing his feet," 
 than we should be to stick in a tub of treacle. 
 And we ought to hear more of his antennae and 
 his feathers (for his wings are full of them), 
 and the way in which they modify, or become 
 aff"ected by his enjoyments. 
 
 But on the other hand, the inability, in 
 these sympathies with our fellow-creatures, to 
 divest ourselves of an overplus of one's human 
 nature, gives them a charm by the very imper- 
 fection. We cannot leave our nature behind 
 us when we enter into their sensations. We 
 must retain it, by the very reason of our sym- 
 pathy ; and hence arises a pleasant incongruity, 
 allied to other mixtures of truth and fiction. 
 One of the animals which a generous and soci- 
 able man would soonest become, is a dog. A 
 dog can have a friend ; he has aff"ections and 
 character, he can enjoy equally the field and 
 the fireside ; he dreams, he caresses, he pro- 
 pitiates ;lie oiFends,and is pardoned ; he stands 
 by you in adversity ; he is a good fellow. We 
 would sooner be a dog than many of his masters. 
 And yet what lover of dogs, or contemner of 
 liis own species, or most trusting leader of 
 Ovid, could think witli comfort of suddenly 
 falling on all-fours, and scampering about with 
 his nose to the ground ! Who would like to 
 lap when he was thirsty ; or, as Marvell pre- 
 tended his hungry poet did — 
 
 " With griesly tougue to dai't the passing flies ? " 
 
 Swift might have fancied, when he wrote his 
 Ilouhhynnms, that ho could fain Iiave been a 
 
 horse ; yet he was obliged to take human vir- 
 tues along with him, even to adorn his rebukers 
 of humanity ; and in fancying ourself a horse 
 after his fashion, who can contemplate with 
 satisfaction the idea of trotting to an evening 
 party in a paddock, inviting them to a dinner 
 of oats, or rubbing one's meditative chin with 
 a hoof? The real horse is a beautiful and 
 spirited, but we fear not a very intelligent or 
 sensitive animal, at least not in England. The 
 Arabian, brought up with his master's family, 
 is of another breeding, and seems to attain to 
 higher faculties ; but in Europe, the horse ap- 
 pears to be content with as few ideas as a do- 
 mestic animal can well have. Who would like 
 to stand winking, as he does for hours, at a man's 
 door, moving neither to the right nor the left ? 
 There is some companionship in a coach-horse; 
 and old " Indicator " readers know the respect 
 we entertain on that account for the veriest 
 hacks : but it would be no stretch of ambition 
 in the greatest lover of animals to prefer being 
 a horse to any other. One of its pleasantest 
 occupations would be carrying a lady ; but 
 then, pleasant as it would be to us, humanly, 
 we should be dull to it, inasmuch as we were 
 a horse. A monkey is too like a man in some 
 things to be endurable as an identification with 
 us. We shudder at the humiliation of the 
 afiinity. A monkey, in his feather and red 
 jaf'ket, as he is carried about the streets, eager- 
 faced yet indifl"erent — looks like a melancholy, 
 little, withered old man, cut down to that 
 miniature size by some freak of the super- 
 natural. What say you, reader, to being a 
 hog ? Horrible ! You could not think of it : 
 — you are too great a lover of the graces and 
 the green fields. True ; — yet there are not a 
 few respectable, perhaps even reverend per- 
 sonages, who, to judge from their tastes in or- 
 dinary, would have no such horror. Next to 
 eating pork, they may surely think there would 
 be a pleasure in pork, eating. Slieep, goats, 
 cattle of all sorts, have their repulsive aspect 
 in this question. Among all our four-footed 
 acquaintances, the deer seem to carry it, next 
 the dog ; their shapes are so elegant, and places 
 of resort so poetical ; yet, like cattle, their 
 lives seem but dull ; — and there is the hunts- 
 man, who is the devil. Fancy the being com- 
 pelh^d to scamper away from Tomkins, one of 
 the greatest fools in existence, at the rate of 
 twenty miles an hour, with the tears running 
 down your face, and your heart bursting ! 
 
 No, dear and gi-ave, and at the same time 
 most sprightly and miscellaneous reader, one 
 would rather be a bird ihan a beast.* Birds 
 neither oflf'end us by any revolting similarity, 
 nor repel us by a dissimilarity that is frightful ; 
 their songs, their nests, their courtship, their 
 vivacity, give them a strong moral likeness to 
 some of our most pleasing characteristics ; and 
 
 * Since %vTiting this, I have a doubt in favour of the 
 squirrel.
 
 58 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 they have an advantage over us, which forms 
 one of the desires of our most j)oetieal dreams 
 ^theyfly. To be sure, in sjjite of what is said 
 of doves (wlio, by tlie way,are horril)ly jealous, 
 and beat one another), beaks and kissing do 
 not go so well together as lips ; neither would 
 it be very agreeable to one's human head to be 
 eternally jerking on this side and that, as if on 
 guard against an enemy ; but this, we suppose, 
 only takes j)laee out of the nest, and in the 
 neigiibourhood of known adversaries. The 
 songs, the wings, the flight, the rising of the 
 lark, the luxurious wakefulness of the night- 
 ingale, the beauty of a bird's movements, his 
 infantine quickness of life, are all charming to 
 the imagination. " that I had the wings of 
 a dove ! " said the royal poet in his affliction ; 
 "then would I fly away, and be at rest !" He 
 did not think only of the " wings " of the dove ; 
 he thought of its nest, its peacefulness, its soli- 
 tude, its white freedom from the soil of care 
 and cities, and wished to be the dove itself. 
 
 It has been thought however, that of all ani- 
 mated creation, the bees present the greatest 
 moral likeness to man ; not only because they 
 labour, and lay up stores, and live in communi- 
 ties, but because they have a form of govern- 
 ment and a monarchy. Virgil immortalised 
 them after a human fashion. A writer in the 
 time of Elizabeth, probably out of compliment 
 to the Virgin Queen, rendered them dramatis 
 personce, and gave them a whole play to them- 
 selves. Above all, they have been held up to 
 us, not only as a likeness, but as " a great moral 
 lesson ;" and this, not merely with regard to 
 the duties of occupation, but the form of their 
 polity. A monarchical government, it is said, 
 is natural to man, because it is an instinct of 
 nature : the very bees have it. 
 
 It may be worth while to inquire a moment 
 into the value of this argument ; not as affect- 
 ing the right and title of our Sovereign Lord 
 King William the Fourth (whom, with the 
 greatest sincerity, we hope God will preserve !), 
 but for its own sake, as well as for certain little 
 collateral deductions. And, in the first place, 
 we cannot but remark how unfairly the ani- 
 mal creation are treated, with reference to 
 the purj)oses of moral example. We degrade 
 or exalt them, as it suits the lesson we desire 
 to inculcate. If we rebuke a drunkard or a 
 sensualist, we think we can say nothing severer 
 to him than to recommend him not to make 
 a "beast of himself;" which is very unfair 
 towards the beasts, who are no drunkards, 
 and behave themselves as Nature intended. 
 A horse has no habit of drinking ; he does not 
 get a red face with it. The stag does not go 
 reeling home to his wives. On the other hand, 
 we are desired to be as faithful as a dog, as 
 bold as a lion, as tender as a dove ; as if the 
 qualitiesdenotedbytheseepithetswerenottobe 
 found among ourselves. But above all, the bee 
 is tlie argument. Is not the honey-bee, we are 
 
 asked, a wise animal ? — We grant it. — " Doth 
 he not improve each passing hour 2" — He is 
 pretty busy, it must be owned — as much occu- 
 pied at eleven, twelve, and one o'clock, as if his 
 life depended on it. — Does he not lay up stores ; 
 — He does. — Is he not social ? — Does he not 
 live in commxniities ? — There can be no doubt 
 of it. — W^ell, then, he has a monarchical govern- 
 ment ; and does not that clearly show that a 
 monarchy is the instinct of nature ? Does it 
 not prove, by an unerring rule, tiuit the only 
 form of government in request among the 
 obeyers of instinct, is the only one naturally 
 fitted for man ? 
 
 In answering the spirit of this question, we 
 shall not stop to inquire how far it is right as 
 to the letter, or how many different forms of 
 polity are to be found among other animals, 
 such as the crows, the beavers, the monkeys ; 
 neither shall we examine how far instinct is 
 superior to reason, or why the example of man 
 himself is to go for nothing. We will take for 
 granted, that the bee is the wisest animal of all, 
 and that it is a judicious thing to consider his 
 nuinners and customs, with reference to their 
 adoption by his inferiors, who keep him in 
 hives. This naturally leads lis to inquire, 
 whether we could not frame all our systems of 
 life after the same lashion. We are busy, like 
 the bee ; we are gregarious, like him ; we 
 make provision against a rainy day ; we are 
 fond of flowers and the country ; we occasion- 
 ally sting, like him ; and we make a great noise 
 about what we do. Now, if we resemble the 
 bee in so many points, and his political instinct 
 is so admirable, let us reflect what we ought to 
 become in other respects, in order to attain to 
 the full benefit of his example. 
 
 In the first place having chosen our monarch 
 (who by the way, in order to complete the like- 
 ness, ought always to be a queen — which is a 
 thing to which the Tories will have no objec- 
 tion), we must abolish our House of Lords and 
 Commons ; for the bees have unquestionably, 
 no such institutions. This would be a little 
 awkward for many of the stoutest advocates of 
 the monarchical principle, who, to say the truth, 
 often behave as if they would much rather 
 abolish the monarch than themselves. But so 
 it must be ; and the worst of it is, that although 
 the House of Commons would have to be 
 abolished, as well as the House of Lords, the 
 Commons or Commonalty are nevertheless the 
 only persons besides the sovereign who would 
 ('xercise power ; and these Commons would be 
 the working classes ! 
 
 We shall show this more particularly, and 
 by some very curious examples, in a moment. 
 ;^Ieantime we must dispose of the Aristocracy ; 
 for though there is no House of Lords in a bee- 
 hive, there is a considerable Aristocracy, and 
 a very odd body they are. We doubt w hether 
 the Dukes of Newcastle and Buccleugh would 
 like to change places with them. There is, it
 
 BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c. 
 
 59 
 
 is true, no little resemblance between the 
 Aristocracy of the hive and that of human 
 communities. They are called Drones, and ap- 
 pear to have nothing to do but to feed and sleep. 
 "We have just been doubting whether the 
 celebrated phrase, /n/^<?s consnmere nati, born to 
 consume the fruits of the earth, is in JurenaVs 
 Satires or Virgirs Georgics, so like in this respect 
 are the aristocracy of the bee-hive and certain 
 consumers of tithes and taxes. At all events, 
 they are a body who live on the labour of 
 others. 
 
 " Annento ignavo, e che non vuol fatica." 
 
 But the likeness has been too often remarked 
 to need dwelling upon. Not so two little 
 exceptions to the likeness ; namely the occa- 
 sional selection of a patriarch from their body ; 
 and the massacre of every man John of them 
 once a-year ! Yet of these we must not lose 
 sight, if we are to take example of bee- 
 policy. A lover, then, or ex-offi.cio husband, is 
 occasionally taken out of their number, and 
 becomes Prince of Denmark to the Queen 
 Anne of the hive, but only for an incredibly 
 short period, and for the sole purpose of keep- 
 ing alive the nation ; for her Majesty is a 
 princess of a very virtuous turn of mind, a 
 pure Utilitarian, though on a throne ; and 
 apparently has the greatest indifference, if not 
 contempt, afterwards, and at all other times, 
 for this singular court-officer and his peers. 
 Nay, there is not only reason to believe, that 
 like the fine lady in Congreve, 
 
 " She stares upon the strange man's face. 
 Like one she ne'er had known ; " 
 
 but some are of opinion, that the poor lord 
 never recovers it ! He dies at the end of a 
 few days, out of sheer insignificance, though 
 perhaps the father of no less than twelve thou- 
 sand children in the space of two months ! It 
 is not safe for him to have known such exalta- 
 tion, as was sometimes the case with the lovers 
 of goddesses. How the aristocracy in general 
 feel, on occasion of their brother's death, we 
 have no means of judging ; but we fancy them 
 not a little alarmed, and desirous of waiving 
 the perilous honour. And yet they appear to 
 exist and to be numerous, solely in order to 
 eat and drink, and furnish this rare quota of 
 utility ; for which the community are so little 
 grateful, that once a-year they hunt the Avhole 
 body to death, and kill tliem with their stings. 
 Drones, be it observed, have no stings ; they do 
 not carry swords, as the gentry once did in 
 Europe, when it was a mark of tlieir rank. 
 Those, strange to tell ! are the ornaments of 
 the bee working-classes. It is thought, in 
 Hivedom, that they only are entitled to have 
 weapons, who create property. 
 
 But we have not yet got half through the 
 wonders which are to modify human conduct 
 by the example of this wise, industrious, and 
 monarchy-loving people. Marvellous clianges 
 
 must be efi^ected, before we have any general 
 pretension to resemble them, always excepting 
 in the aristocratic particular. For instance, 
 the aristocrats of the hive, however unmasculine 
 in their ordinary mode of life, are the only 
 males. The working-classes, like the sove- 
 reign, are all females ! How are we to man- 
 age this ? We must convert, by one sudden 
 metamorphosis, the whole body of our agricul- 
 tural and manufacturing population into 
 women ! Mrs. Cobbett must displace her hus- 
 band, and tell us all about Indian corn. There 
 must be not a man in Nottingham, except the 
 Duke of Newcastle ; and he trembling, lest 
 the Queen should send for him. The tailors, 
 bakers, carpenters, gardeners, &c. must all be 
 Mrs. Tailors and Sirs. Bakers. The very name 
 of John Smith must go out. The Directory 
 must be Amazonian. This Commonalty of 
 women must also be, at one and the same time, 
 the operatives, the soldiers, the vii-gins, and 
 the legislators, of tlie country ! Tliey must 
 make all we want, fight all our enemies, and 
 even get up a Queen for us, wlien necessary ; 
 for the sovereigns of the hive are often of 
 singular origin, being manufactured ! literally 
 "made to order," and that, too, by dint of 
 their eating ! They are fed and stuiFed into 
 royalty ! The receipt is, to take any ordinary 
 female bee in its infancy, put it into a royal 
 cradle or cell, and feed it with a certain kind 
 of jelly ; upon which its shape alters into that 
 of sovereignty, and her Majesty issues forth, 
 royal by the grace of stomach. This is no 
 fable, as the reader may see on consulting any 
 good history of bees. In general, several 
 Queen-bees are made at a time, in case of 
 accidents ; but each, on emerging from her 
 apartment, seeks to destroy the other, and one 
 only remains living in one hive. The others 
 depart at the head of colonies, like Dido. 
 
 To sum up, then, the condition of human 
 society, were it to be remodelled after the 
 example of the bee, let us conclude with 
 drawing a picture of the state of our beloved 
 country, so modified. Imprhnis, all our work- 
 ing people would be females, wearing swords, 
 never mai'rying, and occasionally making queens. 
 They would grapple with their work in a pro- 
 digious manner, and make a great noise. 
 
 Secondly, our aristocracy would be all males, 
 never working, never marrying (except when 
 sent for),always eating or sleepiug,andannually 
 having their throats cut. 'Jhe bee-massacre 
 takes place in July, when accordingly all our 
 nobility and gentry would be out of town, 
 with a vengeance ! The women would draw 
 tlieir swords, and hunt and stab them all about 
 the west end, till Brompton and Bayswater 
 would be choked with slain. 
 
 Thirdly, her JSIajesty the Queen would either 
 succeed to a quiet throne, or, if manufactured, 
 would have to eat a j>rodigious quantity of 
 jelly in her infancy : and so, after growing into
 
 (iO 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 proper sovereign condition, would issue forth, 
 and begin licr reign either with killing her 
 royal sisters, or leading forth a colony to 
 America or New South Wales. She would 
 then take to husband some noble lord for the 
 space of one calendar hour, and dismissitig 
 him to his dulness, proceed to lie in of 1'2,()()(> 
 little royal highnesses in the course of the 
 eight following weeks, with others too nume- 
 rous to mention ; all wliich jiriiicely genera- 
 tion, vrith little exception, would fortliwith 
 give up their title, and divide themselves into 
 lords or working-women, as it happened ; and 
 so tiie story would go round to the end of the 
 chapter, bustling, working, and massacreing. 
 And here ends the sage example of the Mon- 
 archy of the Bees. 
 
 AVe must observe, nevertheless, before we 
 conclude, that however ill and tragical the 
 example of the bees may look for human imi- 
 tation, we are not to suppose that the fact is 
 anything like so melancholy to themselves. 
 
 Perhaps it is no evil at all, or only so for the 
 moment. Tiie drones, it is true, seem to have 
 no fancy for being massacred ; but we have no 
 reason to suppose that they, or any of tiie rest 
 concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are 
 aware of the matter beforehand ; and tlie 
 same is to be said of tlie combats between the 
 Queen Bees — they seem to be the result of an 
 irresistible impulse, brought about by the sud- 
 den pressure of a necessity. Bees appear to 
 be very happy during far the greater portion 
 of their existence. A modern writer, of whom 
 it is to be lamented that a certain want of 
 refinement stopped short his perceptions, and 
 degraded his philosophy from the finally expe- 
 dient into what was fugitively so, has a passage 
 on this point, as agreeable as what he is speak- 
 ing of. " A bee among the flowers in spring," 
 says Dr. Paley, " is one of the cheerfuUest 
 objects that can be looked upon. Its life 
 appears to be all enjoyment, so busy and so 
 pleased"
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 " The first quality in a Companion is Truth." 
 
 Sib W. Tejiiplb. 
 
 I.— AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN. 
 
 Somebody, a little while ago, wrote an 
 excellent article in the New Monthly Magazine 
 on " Persons one would wish to have known." 
 He should write another on " Persons one 
 could wish to have dined witli." There is 
 Rabelais, and Horace, and the Mermaid roys- 
 ters, and Charles Cotton, and Andrew Marvell, 
 and Sir Richard Steele, cum multis aliis : and 
 for the colloquial, if not the festive part, Swift 
 and Pope, and Dr. Johnson, and Burke, and 
 Home Tooke. What a pity one cannot dine 
 with them all round ! People are accused of 
 having earthly notions of heaven. As it is 
 difficult to have any other, we may be par- 
 doned for thinking that we could spend a very 
 pretty thousand years in dining and getting 
 acquainted with all the good fellows on record ; 
 and ha\'ing got used to them, we think we 
 could go very well on, and be content to wait 
 some other thousands for a higher beatitude. 
 Oh, to wear out one of the celestial lives of a 
 triple century's duration, and exquisitely to 
 grow old, in reciprocating dinners and teas 
 with the immortals of old books ! Will Field- 
 ing " leave his card " in the next world ? Will 
 Berkeley (an angel in a wig and lawn sleeves ! ) 
 come to ask how Utopia gets on ? Will Shak- 
 speare (for the greater the man, the more the 
 good-nature might be expected) know by in- 
 tuition that one of his readers (knocked up 
 with bliss) is dying to see him at the Angel 
 and Turk's Head, and come lounging with his 
 hands in his doublet-pockets accordingly ? 
 
 It is a pity that none of the great geniuses, 
 to whose lot it has fallen to describe a future 
 state, has given us his own notions of heaven. 
 Tlieir accounts are all modified by the national 
 theology ; whereas the Apostle liimsclf has 
 told us, that we can have no conception of the 
 blessings intended for us. " Eye hath not 
 seen, nor car heard," &c. After this, Dante's 
 6hining lights are poor. Milton's heaven, with 
 
 the armed youth exercising themselves in 
 military games, is worse. His best Paradise 
 was on earth, and a very pretty heaven he 
 made of it. For our parts, admitting and 
 venerating as we do the notion of a heaven 
 surpassing all human conception, we trust 
 that it is no presumption to hope, that the 
 state mentioned by the Apostle is the fnal 
 heaven ; and that we may ascend and gradually 
 accustom ourselves to the intensity of it, by 
 others of a less superhuman nature. Familiar 
 as we are both Avith joy and sorrow, and 
 accustomed to surprises and strange sights of 
 imagination, it is difficult to fancy even the 
 delight of suddenly emerging into a new and 
 boundless state of existence, where everything 
 is marvellous, and opposed to our experience. 
 We could wish to take gently to it ; to be 
 loosed not entirely at once. Our song desires 
 to be "a song of degrees." Earth and its 
 capabilities — are these nothing ? And are 
 they to come to nothing ? Is there no beau- 
 tiful realisation of the fleeting type that is 
 shown us ? No body to this shadow ? No 
 quenching to this taught and continued thirst ? 
 No arrival at these natural homes and resting- 
 places, which are so heavenly to our imagina- 
 tions, even though they be built of clay, and 
 are situate in the fields of our infancy ? We 
 are becoming graver than we intended ; but to 
 return to our proper style : — nothing shall 
 persuade us, for the present, that Paradise 
 Mount, in any pretty village in England, has 
 not another Paradise Mount to correspond, in 
 some less perishing region ; that is to say, 
 provided anybody has set his heart upon it : — 
 and that we shall not all be dining, and drink- 
 ing tea, and complaining of the weather (we 
 mean, for its not being perfectly blissful) three 
 hundred years hence, in some snug interlunar 
 spot, or perhaps in the moon itself, seeing that 
 it is our next visible neiglibour, and shrewdly 
 suspected of being hill and dale.
 
 t>2 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 It appears to us, that for a certain term of 
 centuries, Heaven must consist of sometliing of 
 this kind. In a word, we cannot but persuade 
 ourselves, tliat to realise everything that we 
 have justly desii-ed on earth, will /«; heaven ; 
 — we mean, for that i)eriod : and that after- 
 wards, if we behave ourselves in a proper 
 pre-angelical manner, we shall go to another 
 lieaven, still better, where Ave shall realise all 
 that we desired in our first. Of this latter we 
 can as yet have no conception ; but of the 
 former, we think some of the items may be as 
 follow : — 
 
 Jmprim'ui, — (not because friendship comes 
 before love in i)oint of degree, but because it 
 precedes it, in point of time, as at school we 
 have a male companion before we are old 
 enough to have a female) — Imprimis then, a 
 friend. He will have the same tastes and 
 inclinations as ourselves, with just enough 
 difference to furnish argument without sharp- 
 ness ; and he will be generous, just, entertain- 
 ing, and no shirker of his nectar. In short, he 
 will be the best friend we have had upon earth. 
 We shall talk together " of afternoons ;" and 
 when the Earth begins to rise (a great big 
 moon, looking as hapjiy as we know its inha- 
 bitants itill be), other friends will join ns, not 
 so emphatically our friend as he, but excellent 
 fellows all ; and we shall read the poets, and 
 have some sphere-music (if we please), or 
 renew one of our old earthly evenings, picked 
 out of a dozen Christmases. 
 
 Item, a mistress. In heaven (not to speak it 
 profanely) we know, upon the best authority, 
 that people are "neither married nor given 
 in marriage ; " so that there is nothing illegal 
 in the term. (By the M-ay, there can be no 
 clergymen there, if there are no official duties 
 for them. We do not say, there will be 
 nobody who has been a clergyman. Berkeley 
 would refute that ; and a hundred Welsh 
 curates. But they would be no longer in 
 orders. They would refuse to call themselves 
 more Reverend than their neighbours.) Item 
 then, a mistress ; beautiful, of course, — an 
 angelical expression, — a Peri, or Ilouri, or 
 whatever shape of perfection you choose to 
 imagine her, and yet retaining the likeness of 
 tlie woman you loved best on earth ; in fact, 
 she herself, but comi)leted ; all her good quali- 
 ties made perfect, and all her defects taken 
 away (with the exception of one or two charm- 
 ing little angelical peccadilloes, which she can 
 only get rid of in a jiost-future state) ; good- 
 tempered, laughing, serious, fond of everything 
 about her without detriment to her special 
 fondness for yourself, a great roamer in Elysian 
 fields and forests, but not alone (they go in 
 pairs there, as the jays and turtle-doves do 
 with us) ; but above all things, true ; oh, so 
 true, tliat you take her word as you would a 
 diamond, nothing being more transparent, or 
 solid, or precious. Between writing some 
 
 divine poem, and meeting our friends of an 
 evening, we should walk with her, or fly (for 
 we should have wings, of course) like a coujjle 
 of human bees or doves, extracting delight 
 from every flower, and with delight filling 
 every shade. There is something too good in 
 this to dwell upon ; so %ve spare the fears and 
 hopes of the prudish. We would lay her head 
 upon our heart, and look more pleasure into 
 her eyes, than the prudish or the profligate 
 ever so much as fancied. 
 
 Item, books. Shakspeare and Spenser should 
 vfrite us new o7ies ! Think of that. We would 
 have another Decameron : and Walter Scott 
 (for he will be there too ; — we mean to beg 
 Hume to introduce us) shall write us forty 
 more novels, all as good as the Scotch ones ; 
 and Radical as well as Tory shall love him. 
 It is true, we speak professionally, when we 
 mention books. 
 
 We think, .admitted to that equal sky, 
 The Arabian Nights must bear us company. 
 
 Wlien Gainsborough died, he expired in a 
 jiainter's enthusiasm, saying, " We are all 
 going to heaven, and Vandyke is of the party." 
 — He had a proper foretaste. Virgil had the 
 same light, when he represented the old heroes 
 enjoying in Elysium their favourite eartidy 
 pursuits ; only one cannot help thinking, with 
 the natural modesty of reformers, that the taste 
 in this our interlunar heaven will be benefited 
 from time to time by the knowledge of new- 
 comers. We cannot well fancy a celestial 
 ancient Briton delighting himself with paint- 
 ing his skin, or a Chinese angel hobbling a 
 mile up the Milky Way in order to show her- 
 self to advantage. 
 
 For breakfast, we must have a tea beyond 
 anything Chinese. Slaves will certainly not 
 make the sugar ; but there will be cows for 
 the milk. One's landscapes cannot do without 
 cows. 
 
 For horses we shall ride a Pegasus, or 
 Ariosto's Hippogriff\, or Sinbad's Roc. We 
 mean, for our parts, to ride them all, having a 
 passion for fabulous animals. Fable will be 
 no fable then. We shall have just as much 
 of it as we like ; and the Utilitarians will be 
 astonished to find how much of that sort of 
 thing will be in request. They will look very 
 odd, by the bye, — those gentlemen, when they 
 first arrive ; but will soon get used to the 
 delight, and find there was more of it in their 
 own doctrine than they imagined. 
 
 The weather will be extremely fine, but not 
 without such varieties as shall hinder it from 
 being tiresome. April will dress the whole 
 country in diamonds ; and there will be 
 enough cold in winter to make a fire pleasant 
 of an evening. The fire will be made of 
 sweet-smelling turf and sunbeams ; but it will 
 have a look of coal. If we choose, now and 
 then we shall even have inconveniences.
 
 BAD WEATHER. 
 
 63 
 
 II.— BAD WEATHER. 
 
 After longing these two months for some 
 " real winter weather," the public have had a 
 good sharp specimen, a little too real. We 
 mean to take our revenge by writing an article 
 upon it after a good breakfast, with our feet 
 at a good fire, and in a room quiet enough to 
 let us hear the fire as well as feel it. Outside 
 the casement (for we are writing this in a 
 cottage) the east-wind is heard, cutting away 
 like a knife ; snow is on the ground ; there is 
 frost and sleet at once; and the melancholy 
 crow of poor chanticleer at a distance seems 
 complaining that nobody will cherish him. 
 One imagines that his toes must be cold ; and 
 that he is drawing comparisons between the 
 present feeling of his sides, and the warmth 
 they enjoy next his plump wife on a perch. 
 
 But in the country there is always some- 
 thing to enjoy. There is the silence, if nothing 
 else ; you feel that the air is healthy ; and you 
 can see to write. Think of a street in London, 
 at once narrow, foggy, and noisy; the snow 
 thawing, not because the frost has not returned, 
 but because tlie union of mud and smoke 
 prevails against it; and then the unnatural 
 cold sound of the clank of milk-pails (if you 
 are up early enough) ; or if you are not, the 
 chill, damj), strawy, rickety hackney-coaches 
 going by, with fellows inside of them with 
 cold feet, and the coachman a mere bundle of 
 rags, blue nose, and jolting. (He'll quarrel 
 with every fare, and the passenger knows it, 
 and will resist. So they will stand with their 
 feet in the mud, haggling. The old gentleman 
 saw an extra charge of a shilling in his face.) 
 To complete the misery, tiie pedestrians kick, 
 as they go, those detestable flakes of united 
 snow and mud ; — at least they ought to do so, 
 to complete our picture ; and at night-time, 
 people coming home hardly know whether or 
 not they have chins. 
 
 But is there no comfort then in a London 
 street in such weather? Infinite, if people 
 will but have it, and families are good-tem- 
 pered. We trust we shall be i-ead by Jiundreds 
 of such this morning. Of some we are certain ; 
 and do hereby, agreeably to our ubiquitous 
 privileges, take several breakfasts at once. 
 How pleasant is tliis rug! How bright and 
 generous the fire ! How charming the fair 
 makers of the tea! And how happy that they 
 have not to make it themselves, the drinkers 
 of it! Even the hackney-coachman means to 
 get double as much as iisual to-day, either by 
 cheating or being pathetic : and the old gen- 
 tleman is resolved to make amends for the 
 necessity of his morning drive, by another 
 pint of wine at dinner, and crumpets with his 
 tea. It is not by grumbling against tiie ele- 
 ments, that evil is to be done away; but by 
 keeping cne's-self in good heart vith one's 
 
 fellow-creatui-es, and remembering that they 
 are all capable of partaking our pleasures. 
 The contemplation of pain, acting upon a 
 splenetic temperament, produces a stirring 
 reformer here and there, who does good rather 
 out of spite against, wrong, than sympathy 
 with pleasure, and becomes a sort of disagree- 
 able angel. Far be it from us, in the ])resent 
 state of society, to wish that no such existed ! 
 But they will pardon us for labouring in the 
 vocation, to which a livelier nature calls us, 
 and drawing a distinction between the dis- 
 satisfaction that ends in good, and the mere 
 common-place grumbling that in a thousand 
 instances to one ends in nothing but plaguing 
 everybody as well as the gi'umbler. In almost 
 all cases, those who are in a state of pain 
 themselves, are in the fairest way for giving 
 it ; whereas, pleasure is in its nature social. 
 The very abuses of it (terrible as they some- 
 times are) cannot do as much harm as the 
 violations of the common sense of good- 
 humour ; simply because it is its nature to go 
 with, and not counter to humanity. The only 
 point to take care of is, that as many innocent 
 sources of pleasure are kept open as possible, 
 and affection and imarrination brounfht in to 
 show us what they are, and how surely all 
 may partake of them . We are not likely to 
 forget that a human being is of importance, 
 when we can discern the merits of so small a 
 thing as a leaf, or a honey-bee, or the beauty 
 of a flake of snow, or the fanciful scenery 
 made by the glowing coals in a fire-place. 
 Professors of sciences may do this. Writers 
 the most enthusiastic in a good cause, may 
 sometimes lose sight of their duties, by reason 
 of the very absorption in their enthusiasm. 
 Imagination itself cannot always be abroad 
 and at home at the same time. But the many 
 are not likely to think too deeply of anything; 
 and the more pleasures that are taught them 
 by dint of an agreeable exercise of their reflec- 
 tion, the more they will learn to reflect on all 
 round them, and to endeavour that their 
 reflections may have a right to be agreeable. 
 Any increase of the sum of our enjoyments 
 almost invariably produces a wish to commu- 
 nicate them. An over-indulged human being 
 IS ruined by being taught to think of nobody 
 but himself ; but a human being, at once grati- 
 fied and made to think of others, learns to add 
 to his very pleasures in the act of diminishing 
 them. 
 
 But how, it may be said, are we to enjoy 
 ourselves with reflection, when our very reflec- 
 tion will teach us the quantity of suflering 
 that exists? How are we to be hai)py with 
 breakfasting and warming our hands, when so 
 many of our fellow-creatures are, at that 
 instant, cold and hungry ? — It is no jiaradox 
 to answer, tiiat tlie fact of our remembering 
 them, gives us a right to forget them : — we 
 mean, that "there is a time for all things,"
 
 64 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 and that having done our duty at other times 
 in sympathising with pain, wo have not only 
 a light, hut it hccomes our duty, to show the 
 happy priviU^gt'S of virtue hy sympathising 
 with pleasure. Tlie hest person in a lioliday- 
 making jiarty is hound to have the liveliest 
 face; or if not tliat, a face too ha}i])y even to 
 be lively. Suppose, in order to complete the 
 beauty of it, that the face is a lady's. She is 
 bound, if any uneasy reflection crosses her 
 mind, to say to herself, "To this hajtpiness I 
 have contributed ; — pain I have helped to 
 diminish ; I am sincere, and wish well to 
 everybody; and I think everybody would he 
 as good as I am, perhaps better, if society 
 were wise. Now society, I trust, is getting 
 ■wiser; perhaps will beat all our wisdom a 
 hundred years hence: and meanwhile, I must 
 not show that goodness is of no use, but let it 
 realise all it can, and be as merry as the 
 youngest." So saying, she gives her hand to 
 a friend for a new dance, and really forgets 
 what she has been thinking of, in the blithe 
 spinning of her blood. A good-hearted woman, 
 in the rosy beauty of her joy, is the loveliest 
 
 object in . But everybody knows 
 
 that. 
 
 Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Senti- 
 ments, has rebuked Thomson for his famous 
 apostrophe in Winter to the "gay, licentious 
 proud ;" where he says, that amidst their 
 dances and festivities they little think of the 
 misery that is going on in the world : — because, 
 observes the philosopher, upon this principle 
 there never could be any enjoyment in the 
 world, unless every corner of it were happy ; 
 which would be preposterous. We need not 
 say how entirely we agree with the philosopher 
 in the abstract : and certainly the poet would 
 deserve the rebuke, had he addressed himself 
 only to the "gay;" but then his gay are also 
 " licentious," and not only licentious but 
 "proud." Now we confess we would not be 
 too squeamish even about the thoughtlessness 
 of these gentry, for is not their very thought- 
 lessness their excuse ? And are they not 
 brought up in it, just as a boy in St. Giles's is 
 brought up in thievery, or a girl to callousness 
 and prostitution ? It is not the thoughtless in 
 high life from whom we are to expect any 
 good, lecture them as we may : and observe — 
 Thomson himself does not say how cruel they 
 are ; or what a set of rascals to dance and be 
 merry in spite of their better knowledge. He 
 says, 
 
 " Ah little think the gay, licentious proud"— 
 
 and so they do. And so they will, till the 
 dififusion of thought, among all classes, flown, 
 of necessity, into their gay rooms and startled 
 elevations ; and forces them to look out upon 
 the world, that they may not be lost by being 
 under the level. 
 
 "We had intended a very merry paper thib 
 
 week, to bespeak the favour of oui* new 
 readers : — 
 
 " A very nicrrj-, dancinpr, drinkine. 
 
 Laughing, quaffing, and untliinliing" paper, — 
 
 as Dryden has it. But the Christmas holidays 
 are past ; and it is their termination, we sup- 
 pose, that has made us serious. Sitting up at 
 night also is a great inducer of your moral 
 remark ; and if we are not so pleasant as we 
 intended to be, it is because some friends of 
 ours, the other night, were the pleasanteet 
 people in the world till five in the morning. 
 
 III.— FINE DAYS IN JANUARY AND 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 We speak of those days, unexpecte<i, sun- 
 shiny, cheerful, even vernal, which come to- 
 wards the end of January, and are too apt to 
 come alone. Theyare often set in themidst of a 
 series of rainy ones, like a patch of blue in the 
 sky. Fine weather is much at any time, after 
 or before the end of the year ; but, in the 
 latter case, the days are still winter days; 
 whereas, in the former, the year being turned, 
 and March and April before us, we seem to 
 feel the coming of spring. In the streets and 
 squares, the ladies are abroad, with their 
 colours and glowing cheeks. If you can hear 
 anything but noise, you hear the sparrows. 
 People anticipate at breakfast the pleasure 
 they shall have in " getting out." The solitary 
 poplar in a corner looks green against the sky ; 
 and the brick wall has a warmth in it. Then 
 in the noisier streets, what a multitude and a 
 new life ! What horseback ! What prome- 
 nading ! What shopping, and giving good day ! 
 Bonnets encounter bonnets : — all the Miss 
 Williamses meet all the Miss Joneses; and 
 everybody wonders, particularly at nothing. 
 The shop-windows, putting forward their best, 
 may be said to be in blossom. The yellow 
 carriages flash in the sunshine; footmen re- 
 joice in their white calves, not dabbed, as 
 usual, with rain ; the gossips look out of their 
 three-pair-of-stairs windows; other windows 
 are thrown open ; fruiterers' shops look well, 
 swelling with full baskets ; pavements are 
 found to be dry ; lap-dogs frisk under their 
 asthmas ; and old gentlemen issue forth, peer- 
 ing up at the region of the north-east. 
 
 Then in the country, how emerald the green, 
 how open-looking the prospect ! Honeysuckles 
 (a name alone with a garden in it) are detected 
 in blossom ; tlie hazel follows ; the snowdrop 
 hangs itswhite perfection, exquisite with green ; 
 we fancy the trees are already thicker; voices 
 of winter birds are taken for new ones; and in 
 February new ones come — the thrush, the 
 chaffinch, and the wood-lark. Then rooks 
 begin to pair ; and the wagtail dances in the 
 lane. As we write this article, the sun is on
 
 WALKS HOME BY NIGHT. 
 
 our paper, and chanticleer (the same, we trust, 
 that we heard the other day) seems to crow in 
 a very difFerent style, lord of the ascendant, 
 and as willing to be with his wives abroad as 
 at home. We think we see him, as in Chaucer's 
 homestead : 
 
 He looketh, as it were, a grim leoun ; 
 And on his toes he manieth up and down ; 
 Him deigneth not to set his foot to ground ; 
 He clucketh when he hath a corn yfoimd. 
 And to him runnen then his wives all. 
 
 Will the reader have the rest of the picture, as 
 Chaucer gave it? It is as bright and strong as 
 the day itself, and as suited to it as a falcon to 
 a knight's fist. Hear how the old jioet throws 
 forth his strenuous music ; as fine, considered 
 as mere music and versification, as the descrip- 
 tion is pleasant and noble. 
 
 His comb was redder than the fine corill. 
 Embattled as it were a castle wall ; 
 His bill was black, and as the jet it shone ; 
 Like azure was his legg^s and his tone ; 
 His nail^s whiter than the lilly flower, 
 Ai\d like the burned gold was his colour. 
 
 Hardly one pause like the other throughout, 
 and yet all flowing and sweet. The pause on 
 the third syllable in the last line but one, and 
 that on the sixth in the last, together with the 
 deep variety of vowels, make a beautiful con- 
 cluding couplet; and indeed the whole is a 
 study for versification. So little were those 
 old poets unaware of their task, as some are 
 apt to suppose them ; and so little have others 
 dreamt, that they surpassed them in their own 
 pretensions. The accent, it is to be observed, 
 in those concluding words, as coral and colonr, 
 is to be thrown on the last syllable, as it is 
 in Italian. Color, colore, and Chaucer's old 
 Anglo-Gallican word, is a much nobler one 
 than our modern one colour. We have in- 
 jured many such words, by throwing back 
 the accent. 
 
 We should beg pardon for this digression, if 
 it had not been part of our understood agree- 
 ment with the reader to be as desultory as we 
 please, and as befits Companions. Our very 
 enjoyment of the day we are describing would 
 not let us be otherwise. It is also an old fancy 
 of ours to associate the ideas of Chaucer with 
 that of any early and vigorous manifestation 
 of light and pleasure. He is not only the 
 "morning-star" of our poetry, as Uenham 
 called him, but the morning itself, and a good 
 bit of the noon ; and we could as soon help 
 quoting liim at the beginning of the year, as 
 we could lielp wishing to hoar the cry of prim- 
 roses, and thinking of tlie sweet faces tiuit buy 
 them. 
 
 PART II.] 
 
 IV.— WALKS HOME BY NIGHT IN BAD 
 WEATHER. WATCHMEN. 
 
 The readers of these our lucubrations need 
 not be informed that we keep no carriage. 
 The consequence is, that being visitors of the 
 theatre, and having some inconsiderate friends 
 wlio grow pleasauter and pleasanter till one in 
 tlie morning, we are great walkers home by 
 night ; and this has made us great acquaint- 
 ances of watchmen, moon-light, mnd-Wghi, and 
 other accompaniments of that interesting hour. 
 Luckily we are fond of a walk by night. It 
 does not always do us good ; but that is not 
 the fault of the hour, but our own, who ought 
 to be stouter ; and therefore we extract what 
 good we can out of our necessity, with becoming 
 temper. It is a remarkable thing in nature, 
 and one of the good-naturedest things we know 
 of her, that the mere fact of looking about us, 
 and being conscious of what is going on, is its 
 own reward, if we do but notice it in good- 
 humour. Nature is a great painter (and art 
 and society are among her works), to whose 
 minutest touches the mere fact of becoming 
 alive is to enrich the stock of our enjoyments. 
 We confess there are points liable to cavil 
 in a walk home by night in February. Old 
 umbrellas have their weak sides ; and the 
 quantity of mud and rain may surmount the 
 picturesque. Mistaking a soft piece of mud 
 for hard, and so filling your shoe with it, 
 especially at setting out, must be acknowledged 
 to be " aggravating." But then you ought to 
 have boots. There are sights, indeed, in the 
 streets of London, which can be rendered 
 pleasant by no philosophy ; things too grave | 
 to be talked about in our present paper ; but j 
 we must premise, that our walk leads us out of 
 town, and through streets and suburbs of by no 
 means the worst description. Even there we 
 may be grieved if we will. The farther the 
 walk into the country, the more tiresome we 
 may choose to find it ; and when we take it 
 purely to oblige others, we must allow, as in 
 the case of a friend of ours, that generosity 
 itself on two sick legs may find limits to the 
 notion of virtue being its own reward, and 
 reasonably " curse those comfortable people " 
 who, by the lights in their windows, are getting 
 into their warm beds, and sayingto one another, 
 " Bad thing to be out of doors to-night." 
 
 Su})])osiug, then, that wo are in a reasonable 
 state of iiealth and comfort in other respects, 
 we say that a walk home at night has its merits, 
 if you choose to meet with tliom. TJie worst 
 part of it is the setting out ; the closing of the 
 door ujjon the kind faces that part with you. 
 But their words and looks, on tiie other hand, 
 may set you well off. We have known a word 
 last us all the way home, and a look make a 
 dieam of it. To a lover for in«tance no walk 
 can be bad. He sees but one face in the rain 
 and darkness ; the same that he saw by the
 
 66 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 light in the warm room. This ever accompa- 
 nies him, looking in his eyes ; and if the most 
 pitiable and spoilt face in the world should 
 come between them, startling him with the 
 saddest mockery of love, he would treat it 
 kindly for her sake. But this is a begging of 
 the question. A lover does not walk, lie is 
 sensible neither to tlie pleasures nor pains of 
 walking. He treads on air ; and in the thick 
 of all tlu)t seems inclement, has an avenue of 
 light and velvet spread for him, like a sovereign 
 prince. 
 
 To resume, then, like men of this wmld. 
 The advantage of a late hour, is that everything 
 is silent and the people fast in their beds. 
 This gives the whole world a tranquil apjiear- 
 ance. Inanimate objects are no calmer than 
 passions and cares now seem to be, all laid 
 asleep. The human being is motionless as the 
 house or the tree ; sorrow is susj)ended ; and 
 you endeavour to think that love only is awake. 
 Let not readers of true delicacy be alarmed, for 
 we mean to touch profanely upon nothing that 
 ought to be sacred ; and as we are for thinking 
 the best on these occasions, it is of the best 
 love we think ; love of no heartless order, 
 and such only as ought to be awake with the 
 stars. 
 
 As to cares and curtain-lectures, and such- 
 like abuses of the tranquillity of night, we call 
 to mind, for their sakes, all the sayings of the 
 poets and others about " balmy sleep," and the 
 soothing of hurt minds, and the weariness of 
 sorrow, which drops into forgetfulness. The 
 great majority are certainly " fast as a church" 
 by the time we speak of ; and for the rest, we 
 are among the workers who have been sleepless 
 for their advantage ; so we take out our licence 
 to forget them for the time being. The only 
 thing that shall remind us of them is the red 
 lamp, shining afar over the apothecary's door ; 
 which, while it does so, reminds us also that 
 there is help for them to be had. I see him 
 now, the pale blinker suppressing the conscious 
 injustice of his anger at being roused by the 
 apprentice, and fumbling himself out of the 
 house, in hoarseness and great-coat, resolved to 
 make the sweetness of the Christmas bill in- 
 demnify him for the bitterness of the moment. 
 
 But we shall be getting too much into the 
 interior of the houses. By this time the hack- 
 ney-coaches have all left the stands — a good 
 symptom of their having got their day's money. 
 Crickets are heard, here and thei'e, amidst the 
 embers of some kitchen. A dog follows us. 
 Will nothing make him "go along?" We 
 dodge him in vain ; we run ; we stand and 
 "lush !" at him, accompanying the prohibition 
 with dehortatory gestures, and an imaginary 
 picking up of a stone. We turn again, and 
 there he is vexing our skirts. He even forces 
 us into an angry doubt whether he will not 
 starve, if we do not let him go home with us. 
 Now if we could but lame him without being 
 
 cruel ; or if we were only an overseer, or a 
 beadle, or a dealer in dog-skin ; or a political 
 economist, to think dogs unnecessary. Oh ! 
 come, he has turned a corner, he is gone ; we 
 think we see him trotting off at a distance, thin 
 and muddy ; and our heart misgives us. But 
 it was not our fault ; we were not " lushing " 
 at the time. His departure was lucky, for he 
 had got our enjoyments into a dilemma ; our 
 "article" would not have known what to do 
 with him. These are the perplexities to which 
 your sympathizers are liable. We resume our 
 way, independent and alone ; for we have no 
 comjjanion tliis time, except our never-to-be- 
 forgotten and ethereal companion, the reader. 
 A real arm within another's puts us out of the 
 pale of walking that is to be made good. It 
 is good already. A fellow-pedestrian is com- 
 pany ; is the party you have left ; you talk and 
 laugh, and there is no longer anything to be 
 contended with. But alone, and in bad weather, 
 and with a long way to go, here is something 
 for the temper and spirits to grapple with and 
 turn to account ; and accordingly we are booted 
 and buttoned up, an umbrella over our heads, 
 the rain pelting upon it, and the lamp-light 
 shining in the gutters; "mud-shine," as an 
 artist of our acquaintance used to call it, with 
 a gusto of reprobation. Now, walk cannot 
 well be worse ; and yet it shall be nothing if 
 you meet it heartily. There is a pleasure in 
 overcoming obstacles ; mere action is some- 
 thing ; imagination is more ; .and the spinning 
 of the blood, and vivacity of the mental endea- 
 vour, act well upon one another, and gradually 
 put you in a state of robust consciousness and 
 triumph. Every time you set down your leg, 
 you have a respect for it. The umbrella is 
 held in the hand like a roaring trophy. 
 
 We are now reaching the country : the fog 
 and rain are over ; and we meet our old friends 
 the watchmen, staid, heavy, indifferent, more 
 coat than man, pondering, yet not pondering, 
 old but not reverend, immensely useless. No ; 
 useless they are not ; for the inmates of the 
 houses think them otherwise, and in that ima- 
 gination they do good. W^e do not pity the 
 watchmen as we used. Old age often cares 
 little for regular sleep. They could not be 
 sleeping perliaps if they were in their beds ; 
 and certainly they would not be earning. 
 Wliat sleep they get is perhajis sweeter in the 
 watch-box, — a forbidden sweet ; and they have 
 a sense of importance, and a claim on the 
 persons in-door.s, which, together with the am- 
 plitude of their coating, and the possession of 
 the box itself, make them feel themselves, not 
 without reason, to be " somebody." They are 
 peculiar and official. Tomkins is a cobbler as 
 well as they ; but then he is no watchman. 
 He cannot speak to "things of night;" nor 
 bid " any man stand in the king's name." He 
 does not get fees and gratitude from the old, 
 the infirm, and the drunken ; nor " let gentle-
 
 SECRET OF SOME EXISTING FASHIONS. 
 
 67 
 
 men go ;" nor is he " a parish-man." The 
 churchwardens don't speak to him. If he put 
 himself ever so much in the way of " the great 
 plumber," he would not say, " How do you 
 find yourself, Tomkins ? " — " An ancient and 
 quiet watchman." Such he was in the time of 
 Shakspeare, and such he is now. Ancient, 
 because he cannot help it ; and quiet, because 
 he will not help it, if possible ; his object being 
 to procure quiet on all sides, his own included. 
 For this reason he does not make too much 
 noise in crying the hour, nor is offensively 
 particular in his articulation. No man shall 
 sleep the worse for him, out of a horrid sense 
 of the word " three." The sound shall be 
 three, four, or one, as suits their mutual con- 
 venience. 
 
 Yet characters are to be found even among 
 watchmen. They are not all mere coat, and 
 lump, and indifference. By the way, what do 
 they think of in general ? How do they vary 
 the monotony of their ruminations from one to 
 two, and from two to three, and so on ? Are 
 they comparing themselves with the unofficial 
 cobbler ; thinking of what they shall have for 
 dinner to-morrow ; or what they were about 
 six years ago ; or that their lot is the hardest 
 in the world, as insipid old people are apt to 
 think, for the pleasure ofgrumbhng; or that 
 it has some advantages nevertheless, besides 
 fees ; and that if they are not in bed, their 
 wife is ? 
 
 Of characters, or rather varieties among 
 watchmen, we remember several. One was a 
 Dandy Watchman, who used to ply at the top 
 of Oxford-street, next the park. We called 
 him the dandy, on account of his utterance. 
 He had a mincing way with it, pronouncing the 
 a in the word " past " as it is in hat, making a 
 little preparatory hem before he spoke, and 
 then bringing out his " past ten " in a style of 
 genteel indifference ; as if, upon the Avliole, he 
 was of that opinion. 
 
 Another was the Metallic Watchman, who 
 paced the same street towards Hanover-square, 
 and had a clang in his voice like a trumpet. 
 He was a voice and nothing else ; but any dif- 
 ference is something in a watchman. 
 
 A third who cried the hour in Bedford- 
 square, was remarkable in his calling for being 
 abrupt and loud. There was a fashion among 
 his tribe just come up at that time, of omitting 
 the words " past " and " o'ch)ck," and crying 
 only the number of the hour. I know not 
 whether a recollection I have of his perform- 
 ance one night is entire matter of fact, or 
 whether any subsequent fancies of wliat might 
 have taken place are mixed up with it ; but 
 my impression is, that as I was turning the 
 corner into the square with a friend, and was 
 in the midst of a discussion in whidi numbers 
 were concerned, we were suddenly startled, 
 as if in solution of it, by a brief and tremen- 
 dous outcry of — Onk. This paragraph ought 
 
 at the bottom of the page, 
 printed abruiitly round the 
 
 singular 
 
 to have been 
 and the word 
 corner. 
 
 A fourth watchman was a very 
 phenomenon, a Reading Watchman. He had a 
 book, which he read by the light of his lantern ; 
 and instead of a pleasant, gave you a very un- 
 comfortable idea of him. It seemejl cruel to 
 pitch amidst so many discomforts and priva- 
 tions one who had imagination enougli to wish 
 to be relieved from them. Nothing but a 
 sluggish vacuity befits a watchman. 
 
 But the oddest of all was the Sliding Watch- 
 man. Think of walking up a street in the 
 depth of a frosty winter, with long ice in the 
 gutters, and sleet over head, and then figure to 
 yourself a sort of bale of a man in white 
 coming sliding towards you with a lantern in 
 one hand, and an umbrella over his head. It 
 was the oddest mixture of luxury and hard- 
 ship, of juvenility and old age ! But this looked 
 agreeable. Animal spirits carry everything 
 before them ; and our invincible friend seemed 
 a watchman for Rabelais. Time was run at 
 and butted by him like a goat. The slide 
 seemed to bear him half through the night at 
 once ; he slipped from out of his box and his 
 common-places at one rush cf a merry thought, 
 and seemed to say, " Everything's in ima- 
 gination ; — here goes the whole weight of my 
 office." 
 
 But we approach our home. How still the 
 trees ! How deliciously asleep the country ! 
 How beautifully grim and nocturnal this wooded 
 avenue of ascent, against the cold wliite sky ! 
 The watchmen and patroles, which the careful 
 citizens have planted in abundance within a 
 mile of their doors, salute us with their " good 
 mornings ;" — not so welcome as vre pretend ; 
 for we ought not to be out so late ; and it is 
 one of the assumptions of these fatherly old 
 fellows to remind us of it. Some fowls, wh^ 
 have made a strange roost in a tree, flutter as 
 we pass them ; — another pull up the hill, un- 
 yielding ; a few strides on a level ; and there is 
 the light in the window, the eye of the warm 
 soul of the house, — one's home. How par- 
 ticular, and yet how universal, is that word ; 
 and how surely does it deposit every one for 
 himself in his own nest ! 
 
 v.— SECRET OF SOME EXISTING 
 FASHIONS. 
 
 Fashions have a short life or a long one, 
 according as it suits the makers to startle us 
 with a variety, or save themselves observation 
 of a defect. Hence fashions set by young or 
 handsome ])eople arc fugitive, and such are, 
 for the most pai t, those that bring custom to 
 tlie milliner, if we keep watch on an older 
 one, we shall generally trace it, unless of general 
 convenience, to some pertinacity on the part of 
 r 2
 
 «8 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 the aged. Even fashions, otherwise convenient, 
 as tlu! trousers that have so long taken phice 
 of siiuillclotlios, ofti'n jicrhajis owe tlicir coii- 
 tiniuiuce to some giMicral defect, which tliey 
 help to screen. The okl are glad to retain 
 them, and so he confounded with the young ; 
 and among the latter, there are more limbs 
 perhaps jji whii'li loose clotliing is acceptable, 
 than tigiu: i\Iore legs and knees, we suspect, 
 rejoice in those cloaks, than would be proud to 
 acknowledge themselves in a shoe and stocking. 
 The pertinacity of certain male fasliions during 
 the last twenty years, we think we can trace 
 to a j)articular source. If it be objected, that 
 the French partook of them, and that our 
 modes have generally come from that country, 
 we suspect that tiie old court in France liad 
 more to do witli them, than Napoleon's, whicii 
 ■was confessedly masculine and military. The 
 old French in this country, and the old noblesse 
 in tlu; other, wore bibs and trousers, wlien the 
 Emperor went in a plain stock and delighted 
 to show his good leg. For this period, if for 
 this only, we aje of opinion, that whether the 
 Hiale fashions did or did not originate in France, 
 otlier circumstances have conspired to retain 
 them in both countries, for whicli the revolu- 
 tionary government cannot account. Mr. 
 Hazlitt informs us in his Life of Napoleon, that 
 during tlie consulat(>, all the courtiers were 
 watching the head of the state to know whether 
 manli^nd were to wear their own hair or powder ; 
 and that Bonai)arte luckily settled the matter, 
 by deciding in favour of nature and cleanliness. 
 But here the revolutionary authority stopped ; 
 nor in this instance did it begin : for it is un- 
 derstood, that it was the plain head of Dr. 
 Franklin, when he was ambassador at Paris, 
 that first amused, and afterwards interested, 
 the giddy polls of his new acquaintances ; who 
 •went and did likewise. Luckily, this was a 
 fashion that suited all ages, and on that account 
 it has survived. But the bibs, and the trousers, 
 and the huge neckclotiis, whence come they ? 
 How is it, at least, that they have been so long 
 retained ? Observe that polished old gentleman, 
 who bows so well,* and is conversing with the 
 most agreeable of physicians. + He made a 
 great impression in his youth, and was naturally 
 loath to give it up. On a sudden he finds his 
 throat not so juvenile as he could wish it. Up 
 goes his stock, and enlarges. He rests both 
 his cheeks upon it, the chin settling comfortably 
 upon a bend in the middle, as becomes its 
 delicacy. By and bye, he thinks the cheeks 
 themselves do not present as good an aspect 
 as with so young a heart might in reason be 
 expected ; and forth issue the points of his siiirt- 
 eollar, and give them an investment at once 
 cherishing and spirited. Tiiirdly, he suspects 
 his waist to iiave played him a trick of good 
 living, and surpassed the bounds of 3'outli and 
 elegance before he was well aware of it. 
 
 Therefore, to keep it seemingly, if not actually 
 within limits, forth he sends a frill in tlie first 
 instance, and a padded set of lajJclN afterwards. 
 lie haiijiens to look on the hand that does all 
 this, and discerns with a sigh that it is not 
 quite the same hand to look at, which the 
 women have been transported to kiss ; though 
 for tliat matter they will kiss it still, and be 
 transjjorted too. Tiie wrist-band looks forth, 
 and says, " Sliall I help to cover it ?" and it is 
 allowed to do so, being a gentlemanly finish, 
 and impossible to the mechanical. But finally 
 the legs : they were amongst tlie handsomest 
 in the world ; and how did they not dance ! 
 What conquests did they not achieve in the 
 time of hoop-petticoats and touiiees ! And 
 long afterwards, were not Apollo and Hercules 
 found in them together, to tlie delight of the 
 dowagers ? And shall the gods be treated with 
 disrespect, when the heaviness of change comes 
 upon them ? No. Round comes the kindly 
 trouserian veil (as Dyer of" T/w Fleece" would 
 have had it) ; the legs retreat, like other con- 
 querors, into retirement ; and only the lustre 
 of their glory remains, such as Bonaparte 
 might have envied. 
 
 * The late King. 
 
 t Sir WUliam K. 
 
 VI.— RAIN OUT OF A CLEAR SKY. 
 
 In a work, T)e Varia Ilistoria, written after 
 the manner of iElian, by Leonico Tomeo, an 
 elegant scholar of the fifteenth century, we meet 
 with the following pretty story : — When Pha- 
 lantus led his colony out of Sparta into the 
 south of Italy, he consulted the oracle of Apollo, 
 and was informed that he should know the 
 region he was to inhabit, by the fall of a plen- 
 tiful shower out of a clear sky. Full of doubt 
 and anxiety at this answer, and unable to meet 
 with any one who could interpret it for him, 
 he took his departure, arrived in Italy, but 
 could succeed in occupying no region, — in 
 cai)turing no city. This made him fall to con- 
 sidering the oracle more i)articularly ; iipon 
 which he came to the conclusion, that he had 
 undertaken a foolish project, and that the gods 
 meant to tell liim so ; for that a sky should be 
 clear, and yet the rain out of it plentiful, now 
 seemed to him a manifest impossibility. 
 
 Tired out with the anxious thoughts arising 
 from tills conclusion, he laid his iiead on the 
 lap of his wife, who had come with him, and 
 took such a draught of sleep as the fatigue of 
 sorrow is indulged with, like other toil. His 
 wife loved him ; and as he lay thus tenderly in 
 her lap, she kept looking upon his face ; till 
 thinking of the disappointments he had met 
 ■with, and the perils he had still to undergo, she 
 began to weep bitterly, so tliat the tears fell 
 plentifully upon him, and awoke him. He 
 looked up, and seeing those showers out of her 
 eyes, liailed at last the oracle with joy, for his 
 wife's name was iEthra, which signifies "a
 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS. 
 
 69 
 
 clear sky ;" and thus he knew that he had 
 arrived at the region where he was to settle. 
 The next night he took Tarentum, which was 
 the greatest city in those parts ; and he and his 
 posterity reigned in that quarter of Italy, as 
 you may see in Virgil. 
 
 VII. 
 
 -THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO 
 LOVERS. 
 
 We forget in what book it was, many years 
 ago, that we read the story of a lover who was 
 to win his mistress by carrying her to the top 
 of a mountain, and how he did win her, and 
 how they ended their days on the same spot. 
 
 We think the scene was in Switzerland ; but 
 the mountain, though high enough to tax his 
 stout heart to the uttermost, must have been 
 among tlie lowest. Let us fancy it a good lofty 
 hill in the summer-time. It was, at any rate, 
 so high, that the father of the lady, a proud 
 noble, thought it impossible for a young man 
 so burdened to scale it. For this reason alone, 
 in scorn, he bade him do it, and his daughter 
 should be his. 
 
 The i)easantry assembled in the valley to 
 witness so extraordinary a sight. They mea- 
 sured the mountain with their eyes ; they 
 communed with one another, and shook their 
 'heads ; but all admired the young man ; and 
 some of his fellows, looking at their mistresses, 
 thought they could do as much. The father 
 was on horseback, apart and sullen, repenting 
 that he had subjected his daughter even to the 
 show of such a hazard ; but he thought it 
 would teach his inferiors a lesson. Theyoimg 
 man (the son of a small land-proprietor, who 
 had some pretensions to wealth, though none 
 to nobility) stood, respectful-looking, but con- 
 fident, rejoicing in his heart that he should 
 win his mistress, though at the cost of a noble 
 pain, which he could hardly think of as a pain, 
 considering who it was that he was to carry. 
 If he died for it, he should at least have had 
 her in his arms, and have looked her in the 
 face. To clasp her person in that manner 
 was a pleasure which he contemplated with 
 such transport as is known only to real lovers ; 
 for none others know how respect heightens 
 the joy of dispensing with formality, and how 
 the dispensing with the formality ennobles 
 and makes grateful the respect. 
 
 The lady stood by the side of her father, 
 pale, desirous, and dreading. She tlunight her 
 h)vcr would succeed, but only because she 
 thought him in every respect the noblest of 
 his sex, and that notiiing was too much for his 
 strength and valour, (ireat fears came over 
 her nevertheless. She knew not what might 
 happen, in the chances comnu)n to all. She 
 felt the bitterness of being herself the burden 
 to him and the task ; and dared neither to 
 look at her father nor the mountain. She 
 
 fixed her eyes, now on the crowd (which 
 nevertheless she beheld not) and now on her 
 hand and her fingers' ends, which she doubled 
 up towards her with a pretty pretence, — the 
 only deception she had ever used. Once or 
 twice a daughter or a mother slipped out of 
 the crowd, and coming up to her, notwithstand- 
 ing their fears of the lord baron, kissed that 
 hand which she knew not what to do with. 
 
 The father said, " Now, sir, to put an end to 
 this mummery ; " and the lover, turning pale 
 for tlie first time, took uj) the lady. 
 
 The spectators rejoice to see the manner in 
 which he moves off, slow but secure, and as if 
 encoiiraging his mistress. They mount the 
 hill ; they proceed well ; he halts an instant 
 before he gets midway, and seems refusing 
 something ; then ascends at a quicker rate ; 
 and now being at the midway point, shifts the 
 lady from one side to the other. The specta- 
 toi-s give a great shout. The baron, with an 
 air of indifference, bites the tip of his gauntlet, 
 and then casts on them an eye of rebuke. At 
 the shout the lover resumes hjs way. Slow 
 but not feeble is his step, yet it gets slower. 
 He stops again, and they think they see the 
 lady kiss him on the forehead. The women 
 begin to tremble, but the men say he will be 
 victorious. He resumes again ; he is half-way 
 between the middle and the top ; he rushes, 
 he stops, he staggers ; but he does not fall. 
 Another shout from the men, and he resumes 
 once more ; two-thirds of the remaining part 
 of the way are conquered. They are certain 
 the lady kisses him on the forehead and on 
 the eyes. The women burst into tears, and 
 the stoutest men look pale. He ascends slow- 
 lier than ever, but seeming to be more sure. 
 He halts, but it is only to plant his foot to go 
 on again ; and thus he picks his way, planting 
 his foot at every step, and then gaining ground 
 with an effort. The lady lifts up her arms, as 
 if to lighten liim. See ! he is almost at the 
 top ; he stops, he struggles, he moves side- 
 ways, taking very little steps, and bringing 
 one foot every time close to the other. Now 
 — he is all but on the top ; he halts again ; he 
 is fixed ; he staggers. A groan goes through 
 the multitude. Suddenly, he turns full front 
 towards the top ; it is luckily almost a level ; 
 he staggers, but it is forward : — Yes : — every 
 limb in the multitude makes a movement as if 
 it would assist him : — see at last ! he is on the 
 top ; and down he falls flat with his burden. 
 An enormous shout ! He has won : he has 
 won. Now he has a right to caress his mis- 
 tress, and she is caressing him, for neither of 
 them gets up. If he has fainted, it is with joy, 
 and it is in her arms. 
 
 The baron put spurs to his horse, the crowd 
 following him. Half-way he is obliged to dis- 
 mount ; they ascend the rest of the hill toge- 
 ther, the crowd silent and happy, the baron 
 ready to burst with shame and impatience.
 
 THE COJIPANION. 
 
 They reach the top. The lovers are face to 
 face on the f^round, the lady clasping him with 
 both arms, his lyiiifx on each side. 
 
 " Traitor!" exclaimed the haron, "thou hast 
 practised this feat before, on pnrpose to deceive 
 me. Arise ! " " You cannot expect it, sir,' 
 said a worthy man, who was rich enough to 
 speak his mind : " Samson himself might take 
 his rest after such a deed ! " 
 
 "Part them !" said the haron. 
 
 Several persons went up, not to part them, 
 but to congratulate and keep them together. 
 These people look close ; they kneel down ; 
 they bend an ear ; they bury their faces upon 
 them. " God forbid they should ever be parted 
 more," said a venerable man ; "they never can 
 be." He turned his old face streaming with 
 tears, and looked up at the baron : — " Sir, they 
 are dead ! " 
 
 Vill.-THE TRUE STORY OF VERTUMNUS 
 AND rOMONA. 
 
 Weak and uninitiated are they who talk of 
 things modern as opposed to the idea of anti- 
 quity ; who fancy that the Assyrian monarchy 
 must have preceded tea-drinking ; and that no 
 Sims or Gregson walked in a round hat and 
 trousers befoi-e the times of Inachus. Plato 
 has informed us (and therefore everybody 
 ought to know) that at stated periods of time, 
 everything which has taken place on earth is 
 acted over again. There have been a thousand 
 or a million reigns, for instance, of Charles the 
 Second, and there will be an infinite number 
 more : the tooth-ache we had in the year 1811, 
 is making ready for us some thousands of years 
 hence ; again shall people be wise and in love 
 as surely as the May-blossoms re-appear ; and 
 again will Alexander make a fool of himself at 
 Babylon, and Bonaparte in Russia. 
 
 Among the heaps of modern stories, which 
 are accounted ancient, and which have been 
 deprived of their true appearance, by the alter- 
 ation of colouring and costume, there is none 
 more decidedly belonging to modern times 
 than that of Vertumnus and Pomona. Ver- 
 tumnus was, and will be, a young fellow, re- 
 markable for his accomplishments, in the 
 several successive reigns of Charles the Second ; 
 and, I find, practised his story over in the 
 autumn of the year 1 (!80. He was the younger 
 brother of a respectable family in Hereford- 
 shire ; and from his genius at turning himself 
 to a variety of shapes, came to be called, in 
 after-ages, by his classical name. In like 
 manner, Pomona, the heroine of the story, 
 being the goddess of those parts, and singularly 
 fond of their scenery and productions, the 
 Latin poets, in after-ages, transformed her ad- 
 ventures according to their fashion, making 
 her a goddess of mythology, and giving her a 
 name after her beloved fruits. Her real name 
 
 was Miss Apploton. I shall therefore waive 
 that matter once for all ; and retaining only 
 the appellation which poetry has rendered so 
 pleasant, proceed with the true story. 
 
 Pomona was a beauty like lu^r name, all 
 fruit and bloom. She was a ruddy brunette, 
 luxuriant without grossness ; and had a spring 
 in her ste]), like apples dancing on a bough. 
 (I 'd put all this into verse, to which it has a 
 natural tendency ; but I haven't time.) It was 
 no poetical figure to say of her, that her lips 
 were cherries, and her cheeks a peach. Her 
 locks, in clusters about her face, trembled 
 heavily as she walked. The colour called 
 Pomona-green was named after her fixvourite 
 dress. Sometimes in her clothes she imitated 
 one kind of fruit and sometimes another, philo- 
 sophising in a pretty poetical manner on the 
 common nature of things, and saying there was 
 more in the similes of her lovers than they 
 suspected. Her dress now resembled a burst 
 of white blossoms, and now of red ; but her 
 favourite one was green, both coat and boddice, 
 from which her beautiful face looked forth 
 like a bud. To see her tending her trees in 
 her orchard, (for she would work herself, and 
 sing all the while like a milk-maid) — to see her 
 I say tending the fruit-trees, never caring for 
 letting her boddice slip a little oiFher shoulders, 
 and turning away now and then to look up at 
 a bird, when her lips would glance in the sun- • 
 shine like cherries bedewed, — such a sight, you 
 may imagine, was not to be had everywhere. 
 Tlie young clowns would get up in the trees 
 for a glimpse of her, over the garden-wall ; and 
 swear she was like an angel in Paradise. 
 
 Everybody was in love with her. The squire 
 was in love with her ; the attorney was in love ; 
 the parson was particularly in love. The 
 peasantry in their smock-frocks, old and young, 
 were all in love. You never saw such a loving 
 place in your life ; yet somehow or other the 
 women were not jealous, nor fared the worse. 
 The people only seemed to have grown the 
 kinder. Their hearts overflowed to all about 
 them. Such toasts at the great house ! The 
 Squire's name was Payne, which afterwards 
 came to be called Pan. Pan, Payne (Paynim), 
 Pagan, a villager. The race was so numerous, 
 that f onntry-gentlemen obtained the name of 
 Paynim in general, as distinguished from the 
 nobility ; a circumstance which has not es- 
 caped the learning of Milton : 
 
 •' Both Paynim and the Peers." 
 
 Silenus was Cy or CjTuon Lenox, the host of 
 the Tun, a fat merry old fellow, renowned in 
 the song as Old Sir Cymon the King. He was 
 in love too. All the Satyrs, or rude wits of 
 the neighbourhood, and all the Fauns, or softer- 
 spoken fellows, — none of them escaped. There 
 was also a Quaker gentleman, I forget his 
 name, who made himself conspicuous. Po- 
 mona confessed to herself that he had merit/
 
 STORY OF VERTUMNUS AND POMONA. 
 
 71 
 
 but it was so unaccompanied with anything of 
 the ornamental or intellectual, that she could 
 not put up with him. Indeed, though she was 
 of a loving nature, and had every other reason 
 to wish herself settled (for she was an heiress 
 and an orphan), she could not find it in her 
 heart to respond to any of the rude multitude 
 around her ; which at last occasioned such im- 
 patience in them, and uneasiness to herself, 
 that she was fain to keep close at home, and 
 avoid the lanes and country assemblies, for fear 
 of being carried off. It was then that the 
 clowns used to mount the trees outside her 
 garden-wall to get a sight of her. 
 
 Pomona wrote to a cousin she had in town, of 
 the name of Cerintha. — " Oh, my dear Cerintha, 
 what am I to do ! I could laugh while I say 
 it, though the tears positively come into my 
 eyes ; but it is a sad thing to be an heiress 
 with ten thousand a-year, and one's guardian 
 just dead. Nobody will let me alone. And 
 the worst r,f it is, that while the rich animals 
 that pester me, disgust one with talking about 
 their rent-tolls, the younger brothers force me 
 to be suspicious of their views upon mine. I 
 could throw all my money into the Wye for 
 vexation. God knows I do not care twopence 
 for it. Oh Cerintha ! I wish you were un- 
 maiTied, and could change yourself into a man, 
 and come and deliver me ; for you are disin- 
 terested and sincere, and that is all I require. 
 At all events, I will run for it, and be with you 
 before winter ; for here I cannot stay. Your 
 friend the Quaker has just rode by. He says, 
 * verily,' that I am cold ! I say verily he is no 
 wiser than his horse ; and that I could pitch 
 him after my money." 
 
 Cerintha sympathised heartily with her cousin, 
 but she was perplexed to know what to do. 
 There were plenty of wits and young fellows 
 of her acquaintance, both rich and poor ; but 
 only one whom she thought fit for her charm- 
 ing cousin, and he was a younger brother as 
 poor as a rat. Besides, he was not only liable 
 to suspicion on that account, but full of deli- 
 cacies of his own, and the last man in the world 
 to hazard a generous woman's dislike. This 
 was no other than our friend Vertumnus. His 
 real name was Vernon. He lived about five 
 miles from Pomona, and was almost the only 
 yoimg fellow of any vivacity who had not 
 been curious enough to get a sight of her. He 
 had got a notion that slie was proud. " She 
 may be handsome," thought he ; " but a hand- 
 some proud face is but a handsome ugly one 
 to my tliinking, and I'll not venture my poverty 
 to her ill-humour." Cerintha had half made 
 up her mind to undeceive him through the 
 medium of his sister, who was an acquaintance 
 of hers ; but ,an accident did it for her. Ver- 
 tumnus was riding one day with some friends, 
 who had been rejected, when passing by Po- 
 mona's orchard, he saw one of her clownish 
 admirers up in the trees, peeping at her over 
 
 the wall. The gaping unsophisticated admira- 
 tion of the lad made them stop. " Devil take 
 me," said one of our hero's companions, "if 
 they are not at it still. Why, you booby, did 
 you never see a proud woman before, that you 
 stand gaping there, as if your soul had gone 
 out of ye ? " " Proud," said the lad, looking 
 down : — " a woudn't say nay to a fly, if gentle- 
 folks wouldn't tease 'un so." " Come," said 
 our hero, " I'll take this opportunity, and see 
 for myself." He was up in the tree in an in- 
 stant, and almost as speedily exclaimed, " God! 
 what a face ! " 
 
 " He has it, by the Lord ! " cried the others, 
 laughing : — " fairly struck through the ribs, 
 by Jove. Look, if looby and he arn't sworn 
 friends on the thought of it." 
 
 It looked very like it certainly. Our hero 
 had scarcely gazed at her, when without turning 
 away his eyes, he clapped his hand upon that 
 of the peasant with a hearty shake, and said, 
 " You're right, my friend. If there is pride in 
 that face, truth itself is a lie. W^hat a face ! 
 What eyes ! What a figure ! " 
 
 Pomona was observing her old gardener fill 
 a basket. From time to time he looked iip at 
 her, smiling and talking. She was eating a 
 plum ; and as she said something that made 
 them laugh, her rosy mouth sparkled with all 
 its pearls in the sun. 
 
 " Pride ! " thought Vertumnus : — " there's 
 no more pride in that charming mouth, than 
 there is folly enough to relish my fine com- 
 panions here." 
 
 Our hei'O returned home more thoughtful 
 than he came, replying but at intervals to 
 the raillery of those with him, and then giv- 
 ing them pretty savage cuts. He was more 
 out of humour with his poverty than he had 
 ever felt, and not at all satisfied with the ac- 
 complishments which might have emboldened 
 him to forget it. However, in spite of his de- 
 licacies, he felt it would be impossible not to 
 hazard rejection like the rest. He only made 
 up his mind to set about paying his addresses 
 in a diff"erent manner ; — though how it was to 
 be done he could not very well see. His first 
 impulse was to go to her and state the plain 
 case at once; to say how charming she was, and 
 how poor her lover, and that nevertheless lie 
 did not care two-pence for her riches, if she 
 would but believe him. The only delight of 
 riches would be to share them with her. " But 
 tlicn," said he, "how is she to take my word 
 for that ? " 
 
 On arriving at home he found his sister pre- 
 pared to teli him what he had found out for 
 himself, — that Pomona was not proud. Un- 
 fortunately she added, that the beautiful 
 heiress had acquired a horror of younger bro- 
 thers. " Ay," thought he, " there it is. I 
 shall not get her, precisely because I have at 
 onoe the greatest need of her money and the 
 greatest contempt for it. Alas, yet not so ! 3
 
 72 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 have not contempt for anytliing that belongs to 
 her, oven her money. 1 low lieartily conld I ac- 
 cejit it from lier, it'slie knew me, antl if she is as 
 geuerons as I take her to be ! How delightful 
 would it bo to jdant, to build, to indulge a 
 thousand expenses in her company ! O those 
 rascals of rich men, without sense or taste, that 
 are now going about, spending their money as 
 they please, and buying wy jewels and mi/ cabi- 
 nets, that 1 ought to be making her presents 
 of. I could tear my hair to think of it." 
 
 It haj)j)ened, luckily or unluckily for our 
 hero, that he was the best amateur actor that 
 had ever ai)pcared. Betterton could not i)er- 
 form Hamlet bi'tter, nor Lacy a friar. 
 
 lie disguised himself, and contrived to get 
 hired in his lady's household as a footman. It 
 was a ditticult matter, all the other servants 
 having been there since she was a child, and 
 just grown old enough to escape the passion 
 common to all who saw her. They loved her like 
 a daughter of their own, and were indignant at 
 the trouble her lovers gave her. Vertumnus, 
 however, made out his case so well, that they 
 admitted him. For a time all went on smoothly. 
 Yes : for three or four weeks he performed 
 admirably, confining himself to the real foot- 
 man. Nothing could exceed the air of indif- 
 ferent zeal with which he waited at table. He 
 was respectful, he was attentive, even officious; 
 but still as to a footman's mistress, not as to a 
 lover's. He looked in her face, as if he did not 
 wish to kiss her; said " Yes, ma'am " and " No, 
 ma'am," like any other servant ; and consented, 
 not without many pangs to his vanity, to wear 
 proper footman's clothes : namely, such as did 
 not fit him. He even contrived, by a violent 
 effort, to suppress all appearance of emotion, 
 when he doubled up thestei^sof her chariot, after 
 seeing the finest foot and ancle in the world. In 
 his haste to subdue this emotion, he was one 
 day nigh betraying himself. He forgot his part 
 so far, astoclapthedoor to with more vehemence 
 than usual. His mistress started, and gave a 
 cry. He thought he had shut her hand in, and 
 opening the door again with more vehemence, 
 and as pale as death, exclaimed, " God of Hea- 
 ven ! What have I done to her ! " 
 
 "Nothing, James," — said his mistress, smil- 
 ing ; " only another time you need not be in 
 quite such a hurry." She was surprised at the 
 turn of his words, and at a certain air which 
 she observed for tlic first time ; but the same 
 experience which might have enabled her to 
 detect him, led her, by a reasonable vanity, to 
 think that love had exalted her footman's 
 manners. This made her observe him with 
 some interest afterwards, and notice how good- 
 looking he was, and that his shape was better 
 than his clothes : but he continued to act his 
 part 80 well, that she suspected nothing further. 
 She only resolved, if he gave any more evi- 
 dences of being in love, to despatch him after 
 his betters. 
 
 By degrees, our hero's nature became too 
 much for his art. He behaved so well among 
 his fellow-servants, that they all took a liking 
 to him. Now, when we jdease others, and tliey 
 show it, we wish to please them more : and it 
 turned out that James could ])lay on the viol di 
 i]amba. He played so well, that his mistress 
 must needs ini^uire " what musician they had 
 in the house." " James, madam." — A week or 
 two after, somebody was readiftg a play, and 
 making them all die with laughter. — " Who is 
 that reading so well there, and making you all 
 a parcel of madcaps?" — "It's only James, 
 madam." — " I have a prodigious footman ! " 
 thought Pomona. Another day, my lady's- 
 maid came up all in tears to do something for 
 her mistress, and could scarcely speak. " What's 
 the matter, Lucy ? " " Oh James, madam ! " 
 Her lady blushed a little, and was going to be 
 angry, 
 
 " I hope he has not been uncivil." 
 
 " Oh no, ma'am : only I could not bear his 
 being turned out o' doors ! " 
 
 " Turned out of doors !" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am ; and their being so cruel as to 
 singe his white head." 
 
 " Singe his white head ! Surely the girl's 
 head is turned. What is it, poor soul ! " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, ma'am. Only the old king in 
 the play, as your ladyship knows. They turn 
 him out o'doors, and singe his white head ; 
 and Mr. James did it so natural like, that he 
 has made us all of a drown of tears. T'other 
 day he called me his Ophelia, and was so angry 
 with me I could have died." — " This man is no 
 footman," said the lady. She sent for him up 
 stairs, and the butler with him. " Pray, sir, 
 may I beg the favour of knowing who you 
 are ? " The abruptness of this question totally 
 confounded our hero. 
 
 " For God's sake, madam, do not think it 
 worth your while to be angry with me and I 
 will tell you all." 
 
 " Worth my while, sir ! I know not what 
 you mean by its being worth my while," cried 
 our heroine, who really felt more angry than 
 she wished to be: "but when an impostor 
 comes into (he house, it is natural to wish to 
 be on one's guard against him." 
 
 " Impostor, madam !" said he, reddening in 
 his turn, and rising with an air of dignity. 
 " It is true," he added, in an humbler tone, " I 
 am not exactly what I seem to be ; but I am a 
 younger brother of a good family, and — " 
 
 " A younger brother ! " exclaimed Pomona, 
 turning away with a look of despair. 
 
 "Oh, those d — d words !" thought Vertum- 
 nus ; " they have undone me. I must go ; and 
 yet it is hard." 
 
 " I go, madam," said he in a hurry : — 
 "believe me in only this, that I shall give you 
 no unbecoming disturbance ; and I must vindi- 
 cate myself so far as to say, that I did not 
 come into this house for what you &ui)posc."
 
 STORY OF VERTUMNUS AND POMONA. 
 
 73 
 
 Then giving her a look of inexpressible tender- 
 ness and respect, and retiring as he said it, 
 with a low bow, he added, " May neither im- 
 posture nor unhappiness ever come near you." 
 Pomona could not help thinking of the 
 strange footman slio had had. " He did not 
 come into the house for what I supposed." 
 She did not know Avhether to be pleased or not 
 at this phrase. What did he mean by it ? 
 What did he think she supposed ? Upon the 
 whole, she found her mind occupied with the 
 man a little too much, and proceeded to busy 
 herself with her orchard. 
 
 There was now more caution observed in 
 admitting new servants into the house ; yet a 
 new gardener's assistant came, who behaved 
 like a reasonable man for two months. He 
 then passionately exclaimed one morning, as 
 Pomona was rewarding him for some roses, 
 " I cannot bear it ! " — and turned out to be our 
 hero, who was obliged to decamp. My lady 
 became more cautious than ever, and would 
 speak to all the new servants herself. One day a 
 very remarkable thing occurred. A whole side 
 of the green-house was smashed to pieces. The 
 glazier was sent for, not without suspicion of 
 being the perpetrator ; and the man's way of 
 behaving strengthened it, for he stood looking 
 about him, and handling the glass to no pur- 
 pose. His assistant did all the work, and yet 
 somehow did not seem to get on with it. The 
 truth was, the fellow was innocent and yet 
 not so, for he had brought our hero with him 
 as his journeyman. Pomona, watching narrow- 
 ly, discovered the secret, but for reasons best 
 known to herself, pretended otherwise, and 
 the men were to come again next day. 
 
 That same evening my lady's maid's cousin's 
 husband's aunt came to see her, — a free, jolly, 
 maternal old dame, who took the liberty of 
 kissing the mistress of the house, and thank- 
 ing her for all favours. Pomona had never 
 received such a long kiss. " Excuse," cried 
 the housewife, " an old body who has had 
 daughters and grand-daughters, ay, and three 
 husbands to boot, God rest their souls ! but 
 dinner always makes me bold — old, and bold, 
 as we say in Gloucestershire — old and bold ; 
 and her ladyship's sweet face is like an angel's 
 in heaven." All this was said in a voice at 
 once loud and trembling, as if the natural 
 jollity of the old lady was counteracted by her 
 years. 
 
 Pomona felt a little confused at this liberty 
 of speecli ; but her good nature was always 
 uppermost, and siie respected tiie privileges of 
 age. So with a blusliing face, not well know- 
 ing what to say, she mentioned something 
 about the old lady's three husbands, and said 
 she hardly knew wliethcr to pity her most for 
 losing so many friends, or to congratulate 
 the gentlemen on so cheerful a companion. 
 The old lady's breath seemed to be taken 
 away by the elegance of this compliment, for 
 
 she stood looking and saying not a word. At 
 last she made signs of being a little deaf, and 
 Betty repeated as well as she could what her 
 mistress had said. " She is an angel, for cer- 
 tain," cried the gossip, and kissed her again. 
 Then perceiving that Pomona was prepared to 
 avoid a repetition of this freedom, she said, 
 " But, Lord ! why doesn't her sweet ladyship 
 marry herself, and make somebody's life a 
 heaven upon earth ? They tell me she's fright- 
 ened at the cavaliers and the money-hunters, 
 and all that ; but God-a-mercy, must there be 
 no honest man that's poor ; and mayn't the 
 dear sweet soul be the jewel of some one's eye, 
 because she has money in her pocket ? " 
 
 Pomona, who had entertained some such 
 reflections as these herself, hardly knew what 
 to answer ; but she laughed and made some 
 pretty si^eech. 
 
 "Ay, ay," resumed the old woman. "Well 
 there's no knowing." (Here she heaved a great 
 sigh.) " And so my lady is mighty curious 
 in plants and apples, they tell me, and quite a 
 gardener. Lord love her ! and rears me cart- 
 loads of peaches. Why, her face is a peach, 
 or I should like to know what is. But it didn't 
 come of itself neither. No, no ; for that 
 matter, there were peaches before it ; and Eve 
 didn't live alone, I warrant me, or we should 
 have had no peaches now, for all her garden- 
 ing. Well, well, my sweet young lady, don't 
 blush and be angry, for I am but a poor fool- 
 ish, old body, you know, old enough to be yonr 
 grandmother ; but I can't help thinking it a 
 pity, that's the truth on't. Oh dear ! Well, 
 gentlefolks will have their fegaries, but it was 
 very difterent in my time, you know ; and 
 Lord ! now to speak the plain scripter truth ; 
 what would the world come to, and where 
 would her sweet ladyship be herself, I should 
 like to know, if her own mother, that's now an 
 angel in heaven, had refused to keep company 
 with her ladyship's father, because she brought 
 him a good estate, and made him the happiest 
 man on God's yoarth !" 
 
 The real love that existed between Pomona's 
 father and mother being thus brought to her 
 recollection, touched our heroine's feelings ; 
 and looking at tlie old dame, with tears in her 
 eyes, she begged her to stay and take some tea, 
 and she would see her again before she went 
 away. " Ay, and that I will, and a thousand 
 thanks into the bargain from one who has been 
 a mother herself, and can't help crying to see 
 my lady in tears. I could kiss 'em oft', if I 
 warn't afraid of being troublesome ; and so 
 God bless her, and I'll make bold to make her 
 my curtsey again before I go." 
 
 The old body seemed really affected, and 
 left the room with more quietness than Pomona 
 had looked for, Betty nieanwliile showing an 
 eagerness to gi't her away, wliicli was a little 
 remarkable. In less than half an hour, there 
 was a knock at the parlour-door, and Pomona
 
 74 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 saying, " Come in," the door was held again by 
 somebody for a few seconds, during which 
 there was a loud and ajiparently angry wlii.si)er 
 of voices. Our heroine, not without agitation, 
 heard the words, " No, no !" and " Yes," re- 
 peated with veiiemence, and then, " I tell you 
 I must and will ; she will forgive you, be 
 assured, and me too, for she'll never see me 
 again." And at these words the door was 
 opened by a gallant-looking young man, who 
 closed it behind him, and advancing with a 
 low bow, spoke as follows : — 
 
 " If you are alarmed, madam, which I confess 
 you reasonably may be at this intrusion, I 
 beseech you to be perfectly certain tiiat you 
 will never be so alarmed again, nor indeed ever 
 again set eyes on me, if it so please you. You 
 see before you, madam, that unfortunate younger 
 brother (for I will not omit even that title to 
 your suspicion), who, seized with an invincible 
 passion as he one day beheld you from your 
 garden wall, has since run the chance of your 
 displeasure, by coming into the house imder a 
 variety of pretences, and inasmuch as he has 
 violated the truth has deserved it. But one 
 truth ho has not violated, which is, that never 
 man entertained a passion sincerer ; and God 
 is my witness, madam, how foreign to my heart 
 is that accursed love of money (I beg your 
 pardon, but I confess it agitates me in my turn 
 to speak of it), which other people's advances 
 and your own modesty have naturally induced 
 you to suspect in every person situated as I 
 am Forgive me, madam, for every alarm I 
 have caused you, this last one above all. I 
 could not deny to my love and my repentance 
 the mingled bliss and torture of this moment ; 
 but as I am really and passionately a lover of 
 truth as well as of yourself, this is the last 
 trouble I shall give you, unless you are pleased 
 to admit what I confess I have very little hopes 
 of, which is, a respectful pressure of my suit in 
 future. Pardon me even these words, if they 
 displease you. You have nothing to do but to 
 bid me — leave you ; and when he quits this 
 apartment, Harry Vernon troubles you no 
 more." 
 
 A silence ensued for the space of a few 
 seconds. The gentleman was very pale ; so 
 was the lady. At length she said, in a very 
 under tone, " This surprise, sir — I was not 
 insensible — I mean, I perceived — sure, sir, it is 
 not Mr. Vernon, the brother of my cousin's 
 friend, to whom I am speaking?" 
 
 " The same, madam." 
 
 " And why not at once, sir — I mean — that is 
 to say— Forgive me, sir, if circumstances con- 
 spire to agitate me a little, and to throw me in 
 doubt what I ought to say. I wish to say what 
 is becoming, and to retain your respect ;" and 
 the lady trembled as she said it. 
 
 " !My respect, madam, was never profounder 
 than it is at this moment, even though I dare 
 begin to hope that you will not think it dis- 
 
 respectful on my part to adore you. If I might 
 but hope, tliat months or years of service — " 
 
 " Be seated, sir, I beg ; I am very forgetful. 
 I am an orphan, Mr. Vernon, and you must 
 make allowances as a gentleman" (here her 
 voice became a little louder) " for anything in 
 which I may seem to forget, either what is due 
 to you or to myself." 
 
 The gentleman had not taken a chair, but at 
 the end of this speech he approached tiie lady, 
 and led her to her own seat with an air full of 
 reverence. 
 
 " Ah, madam," said he, " if you could but 
 fancy you had known me these five years, you 
 would at least give me credit for enough truth, 
 and I hope enough tenderness and respectfulness 
 of heart (for they all go together) to be certain 
 of the feelings I entertain towards your sex in 
 general ; much more towards one whose nature 
 strikes me with such a gravity of admiration 
 at this moment, that praise even falters on my 
 tongue. Could I dare hope that you meant to 
 say anything more kind to me than a common 
 expression of good wishes, I would daie to 
 say, that the sweet truth of your nature not 
 only warrants your doing so, but makes it a 
 part of its humanity." 
 
 " Will you tell me, Mr. Vernon, what induced 
 you to say so decidedly to my servant (for I 
 heard it at the door) that you were sure I 
 should never see you again." 
 
 " Yes, madam, I will ; and nevertheless I 
 feel all the force of your inquiry. It was the 
 last little instinctive stratagem that love in- 
 duced me to play, even when I was going to 
 put on the whole force of my character and my 
 love of truth ! for I did indeed believe that you 
 would discard me, though I was not so sure of 
 it as I pretended." 
 
 " There, sir," said Pomona, colouring in all 
 the beauty of joy and love, " there is my hand. 
 I give it to the lover of truth ; but truth no 
 less forces me to acknowledge, that my heart 
 had not been unshaken by some former occur- 
 rences." 
 
 " Charming and adorable creature ! " cried 
 our hero, after he had recovered from the kiss 
 which he gave her. But here we leave them 
 to themselves. Our heroine confessed, that 
 from what she now knew of her feelings, she 
 must have been inclined to look with com- 
 passion on him before ; but added, that she 
 never could have been sure she loved him, 
 much less had the courage to tell him so, 
 till she had known him in his own candid 
 shape. 
 
 And this, and no other, is the true story of 
 Vertumnus and Pomona.
 
 THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OP PIG-DRIVING. 
 
 75 
 
 IX.— ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES 
 OF PIG-DRIVING. 
 
 From the perusal of this article we beg leave 
 to warn off vulgar readers of all denominations, 
 whether of the "great vulgar or the small." 
 Warn, did we say ? We drive them off ; for 
 Horace tells us that they, as well as pigs, are 
 to be so treated. Odi profamim Tulgics, says he, 
 et arceo. But do thou lend thine ear, gentle 
 shade of Goldsmith, who didst make thy bear- 
 leader denounce " everything as is low ; " and 
 thou, Steele, who didst humanise upon public- 
 houses and puppet-shows ; and Fielding, thou 
 whom the great Richardson, less in that matter 
 (and some others) than thyself, did accuse of 
 vulgarity, because thou didst discern natural 
 gentility in a footman, and yet was not to be 
 taken in by the airs of Pamela and my Lady G. 
 
 The title is a little startling ; but " style and 
 sentiment," as a lady said, " can do anything." 
 Remember, then, gentle reader, that talents 
 are not to be despised in the humblest walks 
 of life ; we will add, nor in the muddiest. The 
 other day we happened to be among a set of 
 spectators, who could not help stopping to 
 admire the patience and address with which 
 a pig-driver huddled and cherished onward his 
 drove of unaccommodating tUtes, down a street 
 in the suburbs. He was a born genius for a 
 manoeuvre. Had he originated in a higher 
 sphere, he would have been a general, or a 
 stage-manager, or at least the head of a set of 
 monks. Conflicting interests were his forte ; 
 pig-headed wiUs, and proceedings hopeless. 
 To see the hand with which he did it ! How 
 hovering, yet firm ; how encouraging, yet 
 compelling ; how indicative of the space on 
 each side of him, and yet of the line before 
 him ; how general, how particular, how per- 
 fect ! No barber's could quiver about a head 
 with more lightness of apprehension ; no cook's 
 pat up and proportion the side of a pasty with 
 a more final eye. The whales, quoth old Chap- 
 man, speaking of Neptune, 
 
 The whalesexiilted under him, and knew their mighty king. 
 
 The pigs did not exult, but they knew their 
 king. Unwilling was their subjection, but 
 " more in sorrow than in anger." They were 
 too far gone for rage. Their case was hope- 
 less. They did not see why they should pro- 
 ceed, but they felt themselves bound to do so ; 
 forced, conglomerated, crowded onwards, irre- 
 sistibly impelled by fate and Jenkins. Often 
 would they have bolted under any other master. 
 They squeaked and grunted as in ordinary ; 
 they sidled, they shuffled, they half stopped ; 
 they turned an eye to all the little outlets of 
 escape ; but in vain. There they stuck (for 
 their very progress was a sort of sticking), 
 charmed into the centre of his sphere of 
 action, laying their heads together, but to no 
 
 purpose ; looking all as if they were shrugging 
 their shoulders, and eschewing the tip-end of 
 the whip of office. Much eye had they to 
 their left leg ; shrewd backward glances ; not 
 a little anticipative squeak, and sudden rush 
 of avoidance. It was a superfluous clutter, 
 and they felt it ; but a pig finds it more diffi- 
 cult than any other animal to accommodate 
 himself to circumstances. Being out of his 
 pale, he is in the highest state of wonderment 
 and inaptitude. He is sluggish, obstinate, 
 opinionate, not very social ; has no desire of 
 seeing foreign parts. Think of him in a mul- 
 titude, forced to travel, and wondering what 
 the devil it is that drives him ! Judge by this 
 of the talents of his driver. 
 
 We beheld a man once, an inferior genius, 
 inducting a pig into the other end of Long- 
 lane, Smithfield. He had got him thus far 
 towards the market. It was much. His air 
 announced success in nine parts out of ten, 
 and hope for the remainder. It had been a 
 happy morning's work ; he had only to look 
 for the termination of it ; and he looked (as a 
 critic of an exalted turn of mind would say) 
 in brightness and in joy. Then would he go 
 to the public-house, and indulge in porter and 
 a pleasing security. Perhaps he would not say 
 much at first, being oppressed with the great- 
 ness of his success ; but by degrees, especially 
 if interrogated, he would open, like .ffineas, 
 into all the circumstances of his journey and 
 the perils that beset him. Profound would be 
 his set out ; full of tremor his middle course ; 
 high and skilful his progress ; glorious, though 
 with a quickened pulse, his triumphant entry 
 Delicate had been his situation in Ducking- 
 pond row ; masterly his turn at Bell-alley. 
 We saw him with the radiance of some such 
 thought on his countenance. He was just 
 entering Long-lane. A gravity came upon 
 him, as he steered his touchy convoy into this 
 his last thoroughfare. A dog moved him 
 into a little agitation, darting along ; but he 
 resumed his course, not without a happy 
 trepidation, hovering as he was on the borders 
 of triumph. The pig still required care. It 
 was evidently a pig with all the peculiar turn 
 of mind of his species ; a fellow that would 
 not move faster than he could help ; irritable ; 
 retrospective ; picking objections, and prone to 
 boggle ; a chap with a tendency to take every 
 path but the proper one, and with a sidelong 
 tact for the alleys. 
 
 He bolts ! 
 
 He's oft' ! — Erasit! erup'it ! 
 
 " Oh, Cli — st ? " exclaimed the man, dashing 
 his hand against his head, lifting his knee in 
 an agony, and screaming with all the weight 
 of a proj)hecy which the spectators felt to be 
 too true — " He'll go vy all iniinn<:r of sttrets ! " 
 
 Poor fellow ! we think of him now some- 
 times, driving up Duke-street, and not to be 
 comforted in Barbican.
 
 76 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 X.— PANTOMIMES. 
 
 He tliat says he docs not like a pantomime, 
 either says what he does not think, or is not so 
 wise as he fancies himself. He should ^mow 
 yonng again, and get wiser. " The child," as 
 the poet says, " is father to the man ; " and in 
 this instance, he has a very di>generate offspring. 
 Yes : John Tomkins, aged '.iH, and not liking 
 pantomimes, is a very unpromising little boy. 
 Consider, Tomkins, you have still a serious 
 regard for pudding, and are ambitious of being 
 thought clever. Well, there is the Clown who 
 •will sympathise with you in dumplings ; and 
 not to see into the cleverness of Harlequin's 
 quips and metamorj)hoses, is to want a percep- 
 tion, which other little boys have by nature. 
 Not to like pantomimes, is not to like animal 
 spirits ; it is not to like motion ; not to like 
 love ; not to like a jest upon dulness and for- 
 mality ; not to smoke one's iincle ; not to like 
 to see a thump in the face ; not to laugh ; not 
 to fancy ; not to like a holiday ; not to know 
 the pleasure of sitting up at Christmas ; not to 
 sympathise with one's children ; not to remem- 
 ber that we have been children ourselves ; nor 
 that we shall grow old, and be as goutyas Panta- 
 loon, if we are not as wise and as active as they. 
 
 Not wishing to be dry on so pleasant a sub- 
 ject, we shall waive the learning that is in us 
 on the origin of these popular entertainments. 
 It will be sufficient to observe, that among the 
 Italians, from whom we borrowed them, they 
 consisted of a run of jokes upon the provincial 
 peculiarities of their countrymen. Harlequin, 
 with his giddy vivacity, was the representative 
 of the inhabitant of one state ; Pantaloon, of 
 the imbecile carefulness of another ; the clown, 
 of the sensual, macaroni-eating Neapolitan, 
 with his instinct for eschewing danger ; and 
 Columbine, Harlequin's mistress, was the type, 
 not indeed of the outward woman (for the 
 young ladies were too restrained in that 
 matter), but of the inner girl of all the lasses 
 in Italy, — the tender fluttering heart, — the 
 little dove {colombina), ready to take flight with 
 the first lover, and to pay off old scores with 
 the gout and the jealousy, that had hitherto 
 kept her in durance. 
 
 The reader has only to transfer the characters 
 to those of his own countrymen, to have a 
 lively sense of the effect which these national 
 pictures must have had in Italy. Imagine 
 Harlequin a gallant adventurer from some 
 particular part of the land, full of life and 
 fancy, sticking at no obstacles, leaping gates 
 and windows, hitting off a satire at every turn, 
 and. converting the very scrapes he gets in, to 
 matters of jest and triumph. The old gentle- 
 man that jiursues him, is a miser from some 
 manufacturing town, whose ward he has nm 
 away with. Tne Clown is a London cockney, 
 with a prodigious eye to his own comfort and 
 muffins, — a Lord Mayor's fool, who loved "every- 
 
 tliing that was good; "and Columbine is the 
 boarding-school girl, ripe for running away 
 with, and making a dance of it all tlie way 
 from Chelsea to Gretna Green. 
 
 Pantomime is the only upholder of comedy, 
 when there is nothing else to show for it. It 
 is the satirist, or caricaturist of the times, 
 ridiculing the rise and fall of hats and funds, 
 the growth of aldermen or of bonnets, the pre- 
 tences of quackery ; and watching innovations 
 of all sorts, lest change be too hasty. But this 
 view of it is for the older boys. For us, who, 
 upon the strength of our sympathy, boast of 
 being among the young ones, its life, its motion, 
 its animal sj)irits, are the thing. We sit among 
 the shining faces on all sides of ns, and fancy 
 ourselves at this moment enjoying it. What 
 whim ! what fancy ! what eternal movement ! 
 The performers are like the blood in one's 
 veins, never still ; and the music runs with 
 equal vivacity through the whole spectacle, 
 like the pattern of a watered ribbon. 
 
 In comes Harlequin, demi-m.asked, party- 
 coloured, nimble-toed, lithe, agile; bending 
 himself now this way, now that ; bridling up 
 like a pigeon ; tipping out his toe like a dancer ; 
 then taking a fantastic skip ; then standing 
 ready at all points, and at right angles with 
 his omnipotent lath-sword, the emblem of the 
 converting power of fancy and light-hearted- 
 ness. Giddy as we think him, he is resolved 
 to show us that his liead can bear more giddi- 
 ness than we fancy; and lo! beginning with 
 it by degrees, he whirls it round into a very 
 spin, with no more remorse than if it were a 
 button. Then he draws his sword, slaps his 
 enemy, who has just come uj)on him, into a 
 settee ; and springing upon him, dashes through 
 the window like a swallow. Let us hope that 
 Columbine and the high road are on the other 
 side, and that he is already a mile on the road 
 to Gretna : for 
 
 Here comes Pantaloon, with his stupid ser- 
 vant ; not the Clown, but a proper grave 
 blockhead, to keep him in heart with himself. 
 What a hobbling old rascal it is ! How void 
 of any handsome infirmity ! His very gout is 
 owing to his ha^^ng lived upon twopence far- 
 thing. Not finding Harlequin and Columbine, 
 he sends his servant to look in the further part 
 of the house, while he hobbles back to see what 
 has become of that lazy fellow the Clown. 
 
 He, the cunning rogue, who has been watch- 
 ing mid-way, and now sees the coast clear, 
 enters in front, — round-faced, goggle-eyed, 
 knock-kneed, but agile to a degree of the dis- 
 located, with a great smear for his mouth, and 
 a cap on his head, half fool's and half cook's. 
 Commend him to the dinner that he sees on 
 table, and that was laid for Harlequin and his 
 mistress. Merry be their hearts : there is a 
 time for all things ; and while they dance 
 through a dozen inns to their hearts' content, 
 he will eat a Sussex dumpling or so. Down
 
 CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 
 
 77 
 
 he sits, contriving a luxurious seat, and inviting 
 himself Avith as many ceremonies as if he had 
 the whole day before him : but when he once 
 begins, he seems as if he had not a moment to 
 lose. The dumpling vanishes at a cram : — the 
 sausages are abolished : — down go a dozen 
 yards of macaroni : and he is in the act of 
 paying his duties to a gallon of rum, when in 
 come Pantaloon and his servant at opposite 
 doors, both in search of the glutton, both 
 furious, and both resolved to pounce on tlie 
 rascal headlong. They rush forward accord- 
 ingly ; he slips from between them witli a 
 " Hallo, I say ;" and the two poor devils dash 
 their heads against one another, like rams. 
 They rebound fainting asunder to the stage- 
 doors : while the Clown, laughing with all his 
 shoulders, nods a health to each, and finishes 
 his draught. He then Iiolds a great cask of a 
 snuif-box to each of their noses, to bring them 
 to ; and while they are sneezing and tearing 
 their souls out, jogs off at his leisure. 
 
 Ah — here he is again on his road. Harlequin 
 with his lass, fifty miles advanced in an hour, 
 and caring nothing for his pursuers, though 
 they have taken the steam-coach. Now the 
 lovers dine indeed ; and having had no motion 
 to signify, join in a dance. Here Columbine 
 shines as she ought to do. The little slender, 
 but plump rogue ! How she winds it hither 
 and thither with her trim waist, and her waxen 
 arms ! now with a hand against her side, 
 tripping it with no immodest insolence in a 
 hornpipe ; now undulating it in a waltz ; or 
 "caracoling" it, as Sir Thomas Urquhart would 
 say, in the saltatory style of the opera ; — but 
 always Columbine ; always the little dove who 
 ip to be protected ; something less than the 
 opera-dancer, and greater ; more unconscious, 
 yet not so ; and ready to stretch her gauze 
 wings for a flight, the moment Riches would 
 tear her from Love. 
 
 But these introductions of the characters by 
 themselves do not give a sufficient idea of the 
 great pervading spirit of the pantomime, which 
 is motion ; motion for ever, and motion all at 
 once. Mr. Jacob Bryant, who saw everything 
 in anything, and needed nothing but the taking 
 a word to pieces to prove that his boots and 
 the constellation Bootes were the same thing, 
 ■would have recognised in the word Pantomime 
 the Anglo-antediluvian compound, a Pant-o''- 
 mimes! that is to say, a set of Mimes or Mimics, 
 all panting together. Or he would liave de- 
 tected the obvious Anglo-Greek meaning of a 
 set of Mimes, expressing Pan, or Every-thing, 
 by means of the Toe, — Pan-Toe-Mime. Be 
 this as it may. Pantomime is certainly a repre- 
 sentation of the vital j)rinciple of all things, 
 from tlie dance of the ]>lanets down to that of 
 Damon and Phillis. Everything in it keeps 
 moving ; there is no more cessation than there 
 is in nature ; and tliough we may endeavour to 
 fix our attention upon one mover or set of 
 
 movers at a time, we are conscious that all are 
 going on. The Clown, though we do not see 
 him, is jogging somewhere; — Pantaloon and 
 his servant, like Saturn and his ring, are still 
 careering it behind their Mercury and Venus; 
 and when Harlequin and Columbine come in, 
 do we fancy they have been resting behind the 
 scenes ? The notion ! Look at them : they 
 are evidently in full career : they have been, 
 as well as are, dancing ; and the music, which 
 never ceases whether they are visible or not, 
 tells us as much. 
 
 Let readers, of a solemn turn of mistake, 
 disagree with us if they please, provided they 
 are ill-humoured. The erroneous, of a better 
 nature, we are interested in ; having known 
 what it is to err like them. These are apt to 
 be mistaken out of modesty (sometimes out of 
 apardonable vanity in wishing to be esteemed) ; 
 and in the case before us, they will sin against 
 the natural candour of their hearts by con- 
 demning an entertainment which they enjoy, 
 because they think it a mark of sense to do so. 
 Let them know themselves to be wiser than 
 those who are really of that opinion. There 
 is nothing wiser than a cheerful pulse, and all 
 innocent things which tend to keep it so. The 
 crabbedest philosopher that ever lived (if he 
 was a philosopher, and crabbed against his 
 will) would have given thousands to feel as 
 they do ; and he would have known, that it 
 redounded to his honour and not to his disgrace, 
 to own it. 
 
 XI.-CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 
 
 Readers of newspapers are constantly being 
 shocked with the unnatural conduct of parents 
 towards their children. Some are detected in 
 locking them up and half-starving them ; 
 others tax them beyond their strength, and 
 scourge them dreadfully for not bearing it ; 
 others take horrible dislikes to their children, 
 and vex and torture them in every way they 
 can think of, short of subjecting themselves to 
 the gallows. In most cases the tyranny is of 
 long duration before it is exposed. A whole 
 neighbourhood are saddened by the cries of the 
 poor victim, till they are obliged to rise up in 
 self-defence and bring the criminal to justice. 
 By this we may judge how many miseries are 
 taking place of which people have no sus- 
 picion ; how many wretches have crimes of 
 this sort, to account for the evil in their looks ; 
 and liow many others, more criminal because 
 more lying, go about in decent repute, while 
 some oppressed and feeble relative, awfully 
 patient, is awaiting in solitude the horror of 
 the returning knock at the door. 
 
 It is alleged by offenders of this description, 
 that the children are vicious and provoking ; 
 that their conduct is very " aggravating," as 
 the phrase is ; and that " nothing can mend
 
 78 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 them but blows," — which never do. But 
 whence come the faults of children ? and how 
 were they suffered to grow to sucli a height i 
 Really, — setting aside these monsters of unpa- 
 ternity, — parents are apt to demand a great 
 many virtues iu their children, wliich they do 
 not tliemselves jjossess. The cliild, on the 
 mere strengtli of their will, and witliout any 
 of their experience, is expected to have good 
 sense, good temper, and Heaven knows how 
 many other good qualities ; wliile the parents 
 perhaps, notwithstanding all the lessons tliey 
 have received from time and trouble, have 
 little or nothing of any of them. Above all, 
 they forget that, in originating the bodies of 
 their children, they originate their minds and 
 temperaments ; that a child is but a continua- 
 tion of his fatlier and mother, or their fathers 
 and mothers, and kindred ; that it is further 
 modified and made what it is by education and 
 bringing up ; and that on all these accounts 
 the parents have no excuse for abusing and 
 tormenting it ; unless with equal wisdom and 
 a, glorious impartiality they should abuse and 
 torment themselves in like manner, — scourge 
 their owa flesh, and condemn themselves to a 
 crust and a black hole. If a father were to 
 give his own soi"e legs a good flogging for in- 
 heriting ill-humours from his ancestors, he might 
 with some show of reason proceed to punish the 
 continuation of them in those of his child. If 
 a cruel mother got into a handsome tub of cold 
 water of a winter morning, and edified the 
 neighbours with the just and retributive 
 shrieks which she thence poured forth for a 
 couple of hours, crying out to her deceased 
 " mammy " tliat she would be a good elderly 
 woman in future, and not a scold and a repro- 
 bate, then she might like a proper mad woman 
 (for she is but an improper one now) put her 
 child into the tub after her, and make it shriek 
 out " mammy " in its turn. 
 
 But let us do justice to all one's fellow- 
 creatures, not forgetting these very " aggra- 
 vating" parents. To regard them as something 
 infernal, and forget that tliey, as well as their 
 children, have become what they are from cir- 
 cumstances over which they had no control, is 
 to fall into their own error, and forget our 
 common humanity. We believe that the very 
 worst of these domestic tyrants (and it is an 
 awful lesson for the best of them) would have 
 been shocked in early life, if they could have 
 been shown,in a magic glass, what sort of beings 
 they would become. Suppose one of them a 
 young man, blooming with health, and not ill- 
 natured, but subject to fits of sulkiness or 
 passion, and not very wise ; and suppose that 
 in this glass he sees an old ill-looking fellow, 
 scowling, violent, outrageous, tormenting with 
 a bloody scourge his own child, who is meagre, 
 squalid, and half-starved, — "Good God!" he 
 would cry, " can that be myself ? Can that be 
 my arm, and my face ? And that my own poor 
 
 little child ? There are devils then, and I am 
 doouKHl to be one of them." And the tears 
 would pour into his eyes. No : not so, poor 
 wretch : thou art no devil, — there is no such 
 thing as devilishness or pure malice for its own 
 sake ; the very cruellest actions are com- 
 mitted to relieve the cravings of the perpe- 
 trator's want of excitement, more than to hurt 
 another. But though no devil, you are very 
 ignorant, and are not aware of your ignorance. 
 The energies of the universe, being on a great 
 scale, are liable, in their progress from worse 
 to better, to great roughness in the working, 
 and appalling sounds of discord. The wiser 
 you become, the more you diminish thisjarnng, 
 and tend to produce that amelioration. Learn 
 this, and be neither appalled nor appalling ; or 
 if your reflections do not travel so far, and you 
 are in no danger of continuing your evil course 
 by the subtle desperations of superstition, be 
 content to know, that nobody ill-treats another, 
 who is satisfied with his own conduct. If the 
 case were otherwise, it would be worse ; for 
 you would not have the excuse, even of a 
 necessity for relieving your own sensations. 
 But it never is so, sophisticate about it as you 
 may. The very pains you take to reconcile 
 yourself to yourself, may show you how much 
 need you have of doing so. It is nothing else 
 which makes the silliest little child sulky ; 
 and the same folly makes the grown man a 
 tyrant. When you begin to ill-treat your 
 child, you begin to punish in him your own 
 faults ; and you most likely do nothing but 
 beat them in upon him with every stroke of 
 the scourge : for why should he be wiser than 
 you ? Why should he be able to throw ofl^ the 
 ill-humours of which your greater energies 
 cannot get rid ? 
 
 These thoughts we address to those who are 
 worthy of them ; and who, not being tyrants, 
 may yet become such, for want of reflection. 
 Vulgar oflenders can be mended only with the 
 whole progress of society, and the advance- 
 ment of education. There is one thing we 
 must not omit to say, wliich is, that the best 
 parents are apt to expect too much of their 
 children, and to forget how much error they 
 may have committed in the course of bringing 
 them up. Nobody is in fault, in a criminal 
 sense. Children have their excuses, and 
 parents have their excuses ; but the wiser 
 any of us become, the less we exact from 
 others, and the more we do to deserve their 
 regard. The great art of being a good parent 
 consists in setting a good example, and in 
 maintaining that miion of dispassionate firm- 
 ness with habitual good-humour, which a child 
 never tliinh of treating with disrespect. 
 
 We have here been speakiiigprincipally of the 
 behaviour of parents to little children. When 
 violent disputes take place between parents 
 and children grown up, — young men and 
 women,. — there are generally great faults on
 
 HOUSES ON FIRE. 
 
 79 
 
 both sides ; though, for an obvious reason, the 
 parent, who has had the training and forma- 
 tion of the other, is likely to be most in the 
 wrong. But unhappily, very excellent people 
 may sometimes find themselves hamjiered in a 
 calamity of this natui-e ; and out of that sort 
 of weakness which is so often confounded 
 with strength, turn their very sense of being 
 in the right, to the same hostile and implacable 
 purpose as if it were the reverse. We can 
 only say, that from all we have seen in the 
 world, and indeed from the whole experience 
 of mankind, they who are conscious of being 
 right, are the first to make a movement towards 
 reconciliation, let the cause of quarrel be what 
 it may ; and that there is do surer method, in 
 the eyes of any who know what human na- 
 ture is, both to sustain the real dignity of the 
 right side, and to amend the wrong one. To 
 kind-hearted fathers in general, who have 
 the misfortune to get into a dilemma of this 
 sort, we would recommend the pathetic story 
 of a French general, who was observed, after 
 the death of his son in battle, never to hold 
 up his head. He said to a friend, " My boy 
 was used to think me severe ; and he had too 
 much reason to do so. He did not know how 
 I loved him at the bottom of my heart ; and it 
 is now too late" 
 
 XII.— HOUSES ON FIRE. 
 
 It is astonishing how little imagination 
 there is in the world, in matters not affecting 
 men's immediate wants and importance. Peo- 
 ple seem to require a million thumps on the 
 head, before they can learn to guard against a 
 head-ache. This would be little ; but the 
 greater the calamity, the less they seem to 
 provide against it. All the fires in this great 
 metropolis, and the frightful catastrophes 
 which are often the result, do not show the 
 inhabitants that they ought to take measures 
 to guard against them, and that these measures 
 are among the easiest things in the world. 
 Every man who has a family, and whose house 
 is too high to allow of jumping out of the win- 
 dows, ought to consider himself botuid to have 
 a fire-escape. What signifies all the care he 
 has taken to be a good husband or father, and 
 all the provision he has made for tlie well- 
 being of his children in after-life, if in one 
 frightful moment, in the dead of night, with 
 horror glaring in their faces, and tender and 
 despairing words swallowed up in burning and 
 suffocation, — amidst cracking beams and raf- 
 ters, sinking floors, and a wliole yielding gulf 
 of agony, — they are all to cease to be ! — to 
 perish like so many vermin in a wall ! Fire- 
 escapes, even if they are not made so already 
 (as we believe they are) can evidently be con- 
 structed in a most easy, cheap, and commo- 
 dious manner. A basket and a double rope 
 
 are sufficient ; or two or three would be better. 
 It is the sudden sense of the height at which 
 people sleep, and the despair of escape which 
 consequently seizes them, for want of some 
 such provision, that disables them from think- 
 ing of any other resources. Houses, it is true, 
 generally have ti-ap-doors to the roof; but 
 these are not kept in readiness for use ; a lad- 
 der is wanting ; or the door is hard to be got 
 up ; the passage to it is difficult, or involved in 
 the fire ; and the roof may not be a safe one to 
 walk over ; children cannot act for themselves ; 
 terror affects the older people ; and, therefore, 
 on all these accounts, nothing is more desirable 
 tlian tliat the means of escape should be at 
 hand, should be facile, and capable of being 
 used in concert with the multitude below. 
 People out of doors are ever ready and anxious 
 to assist. Those brave fellows, the firemen, 
 would complete the task, if time allowed, and 
 circumstances had hitherto prevented it ; and 
 handle the basket and the little riders in it, 
 with confidence, like so many chickens. A 
 time perhaps will come, when every window 
 in a high bed-chamber will have an escape to 
 it, as a matter of course ; but it is a terrible 
 pity, meanwhile, that for want of a little ima- 
 gination out of the common pale of their Mon- 
 days and Wednesdays, a whole metropolis, 
 piquing themselves on their love of their 
 families, should subject themselves and the 
 dearest objects of their affection to these in- 
 fernal accidents. 
 
 In an honest state of society, houses would 
 all communicate with one another by common 
 doors ; and families destroyed by fire would 
 be among the monstrosities of history. 
 
 Xra.— A BATTLE OF ANTS.— DESIRABLENESS OP 
 DRAWING A DISTINCTION BETWEEN POWERS 
 COMMON TO OTHER ANIMALS, AND THOSE 
 PECULIAR TO MAN. 
 
 Taking up, the other day, a number of the 
 Edinburgh Journal of Science, we met with the 
 following account of a battle of ants. It is 
 contained in the notite of a memoir by M. 
 Hanhart, who describes the battle as ha\-ing 
 taken place between two species of these in- 
 sects, " one the formica rufa, and the other a 
 little black ant, which he does not name (pro- 
 bably the f of u sea)." In other respects, as the 
 reviewer observes, the subject is not new, the 
 celebrated Huber havinjj described a battle of 
 this kind before ; but as natural history lies 
 out of the way of many readers (though calcu- 
 lated to please them all, if they are genuine 
 readers of anything), and as it has suggested 
 to us a few remarks which may further the 
 objects we have in writing, the account shall 
 be here repeated. 
 
 " M. Hanhart saw these insects approach in 
 armies composed of their respective swarms.
 
 80 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 and advancinff towards each other in the great- 
 est order. The Formica riifa marched witli 
 one in front, on a line from nine to twelve feet 
 in length, flanked hy several corps in square 
 masses, composed of from twenty to sixty in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 " The second species (little blacks), forming 
 an army mueli more numerous, marched to 
 meet the enemy on a very extended line, and 
 from one to three individuals abreast. They 
 left a detachment at tlie foot of their hillock to 
 defend it against any unlooked-for attack. The 
 rest of the army marched to battle, with its 
 right wing supported by a solid corps of several 
 hundred individuals, and the left wing sup- 
 ported by a similar body of more than a 
 thousand. These groups advanced in the 
 greatest order, and witliout changing their 
 positions. The two lateral corps took no part 
 in the present action. That of the right wing 
 made a halt and formed an army of reserve ; 
 whilst the corps which marched in column on 
 the left wing, manoeuvred so as to turn the 
 hostile army, and advanced with a hurried 
 march to the hillock of the Formica rufa, and 
 took it by assault. 
 
 " The two armies attacked each other, and 
 fought for a long time, without breaking their 
 lines. At length disorder appeared in various 
 points, and the combat was maintained in 
 detached groups ; and after a bloody battle, 
 which continued from three to four hours, the 
 Formica rufa were put to flight, and forced to 
 abandon their two hillocks and go off" to esta- 
 blish themselves at some other point with the 
 remains of their army. 
 
 " The most interesting part of this exhibi- 
 tion, sa)'s M. Hanhart, was to see these insects 
 reciprocally making prisoners, and transport- 
 ing their own wounded to their hillocks. Their 
 devotedness to the wounded was carried so far 
 that the Formica rufa, in conveying them to 
 their nests, allowed themselves to be killed by 
 the little blacks without any resistance, rather 
 than abandon their precious charge. 
 
 "From the observations of M. Ruber, it is 
 known that when an ant hillock is taken by 
 the enemy, the vanquished are reduced to 
 slavery, and employed in the interior labours 
 of their habitation." — Jlull. Univ. Mai 1826. 
 
 There is no sort of reason, observe, to mis- 
 trust these accounts. The " lords of creation" 
 may be slow in admitting tlie approaches of 
 other animals to a common property in what 
 they consider eminently human and skilful ; 
 but ants, in some of their habits, have a great 
 resemblance to bees ; and after what is now 
 miiversally known respecting the polity and 
 behaviour of the bees, the doubt will rather 
 be, whether a share in the arts of war and 
 government is not possessed by a far greater 
 number of beings than we have yet discovered. 
 
 Here then, among a set of little creatures 
 not bigger than grains of rice, is war in its 
 
 regular human shape; war, not only in its 
 violence, but its patriotism or fellow-feeling ; 
 and not only in its patriotism, (which in our 
 summary mode of settling all creatures' affec- 
 tions but our own, might be referred to in- 
 stinct,) but war in its science and battle array! 
 The red ants make their advance in a line 
 from nine to twelve feet in length, flanked by 
 several corps in square masses ; the " little 
 blacks," more numerous, come up three abreast, 
 leaving a detachment at the foot of their hillock 
 to defend against unlooked-for attack. There 
 are wings, right and left ; they halt ; they form 
 an army of reserve ; one side manoeuvres so 
 as to turn the other ; the hillock is taken by 
 assault ; the lines are broken ; and in fine, 
 after a " bloody battle" of tliree or four hours, 
 the red ants are put to flight. 
 
 What is there different in all this from abattle 
 of Waterloo or Malplaquet ? We look down 
 upon these little energetic and skilful creatures, 
 as beings of a similar disproportion might look 
 iipon us ; and do we not laugh ? We may for 
 an instant, — thinking of the little Wellingtons 
 and Napoleons that may have led them ; but 
 such laughter is found to be wrong on reflection, 
 and is left to those wlio do not reflect at all, 
 and who would be the first to resent laughter 
 against tliemselves. 
 
 What then do we do ? Are we to go into 
 a corner, and effeminately weep over tlie mi- 
 series of the formican, as well as the human, 
 race ? saying how short is the life of ant ! 
 and that Fowmis cometh up, and is cut down 
 like a Frenchman ? By no means. But we 
 may contribute, by our reflections, an atom to 
 the sum of human advancement ; and if men 
 advance, all the creatures of this world, for 
 aught we know, may advance with them, or 
 the places in which evil is found be dimin- 
 ished. 
 
 A little before we read this account of the 
 battle of the ants, we saw pass by our window 
 a troop of horse ; a set of gallant fellows, on 
 animals almost as noble ; the band playing, 
 and colours flying ; a strenuous sight ; a pro- 
 gress of human hearts and thick-coming, 
 trampling hoofs ; a crowd of wills, composed 
 into order and beauty by the will of another ; 
 ready death in the most gallant shape of life ; 
 self-sacrifice taking out its holiday of admira- 
 tion in the eyes of the feeble and the heroical, 
 and moving through the sunshine to sounds of 
 music, as if one moment of the rery show of 
 sympathy were worth any price, even to its 
 own confusion. 
 
 Was it all this ? or was it nothing but a set 
 of more imposing animals, led by others about 
 half as thoughtless ? Was it an imposition on 
 themselre.'! as well as the public, enticing the 
 poor souls to be dressed up for the slaughter ? 
 a mass of superfluous human beings, cheated 
 to come together, in order, as Mr. Malthus 
 thinks, that the superfluity may be got rid of.
 
 I -- 
 
 MILITARY INSECTS. 
 
 81 
 
 and the great have elbow-room at their feasts? 
 or was it simply, as other philosophers think, 
 because human experience is still in its boy- 
 hood, and men, in some respects, are not yet 
 heyond the ants ? 
 
 The sight of one of these military shows is, 
 to us, the most elevating and the most humi- 
 liating thing in the world. It seems at once to 
 raise us to the gods, and to sink us to the 
 brutes. We feel of what noble things men 
 are capable, and into what half-witted things 
 they may be deluded. At one moment we 
 seem to ride in company with them to some glo- 
 rious achievement, and rejoice in constituting 
 a part of all that strength and warm blood 
 which is to be let out for some great cause. 
 At the next, they appear to us a parcel of poor 
 fools tricked, and tricked out ; and we, because 
 we are poorer ones, who see witliout being able 
 to help it, must fain have the feeble tears come 
 in our eyes. Oh ! in that sorry little looking- 
 glass of a tear, how many great human shows 
 have been reflected, and made less ! 
 
 But these weaknesses belong to the physical 
 part of us. Philosophy sees farther, and hopes 
 all. That war is an unmixed evil, we do not 
 believe. We are sure it is otherwise. It sets 
 in motion many noble qualities, and (in default 
 of a better instrument) often does a great deal 
 of good. That it is not, at the same time, a 
 great and monstrous evil, we believe as little. 
 One field, after a battle, with the cries of the 
 wounded and the dying, the dislocations, the 
 tortures, the defeatures, and the dismember- 
 ings, the dreadful lingering (perhaps on a 
 winter's night), tlie shrieks for help, and the 
 agonies of mortal thirst, — is sufficient to do 
 away all shallow and blustering attempts to 
 make us take the show of it for the substance. 
 Even if we had no hope that the world could 
 ever get rid of war, we should not blind our- 
 selves to this its ghastly side ; for its evils 
 would then accumulate for want of being con- 
 sidered ; and it is better at all times to look a 
 truth manfully in the face, than trust for secu- 
 rity ourselves, or credulity from others, to an 
 cfteminate liiding of our eyes. But the same 
 love of truth that disguises nothing, may hope 
 everything ; and it is this tliat sliall carry tiie 
 world forward to benefits unthouglit of, if men 
 of genius once come to set it up as tlieir guide 
 and standard. 
 
 What we intended by our present article was 
 this : to suggest, whether Ave ought to value 
 ourselves on any custom or slvill which we 
 possess in common with the lower animals ; or 
 ■whether we ought not rather to consider the 
 participation as an argument, that, in tliat 
 respect, we have not yet got beyond tlio com- 
 monest instinct. If the military conduct of 
 the ants be not instinct (or whatsoever human 
 pride pleases to understand by that term), then 
 are they in possession, so far, of liuman reason, 
 and so far we do not see beyond them. If it 
 
 [part II.] 
 
 be instinct, then war, and the conduct of it, 
 are not the great things we suppose them ; and 
 a Wellington and a Washington may but follow 
 the impulse of some mechanical energy, just as 
 some insects are supposed to construct their 
 dwellings in a particular shape, because they 
 partake of it in their own conformation. In 
 either case, Ave conceive, we ought to remind 
 ourselves, that the greatest distinction hitherto 
 discovered between men and other creatures 
 is, that the human being is capable of improve- 
 ment,and of seeing beyond the instincts common 
 to all. Therefore, AA'ar is not a thing we arrive 
 at after great improvement ; it is a tiling we 
 begin Avith, before any ; and Avhat Ave take for 
 improvements in the mode of conducting it, 
 are only the result of such circumstances as 
 can be turned to account by creatures no higher 
 in the scale of being than insects. 
 
 We make very disingenuous use of the lower 
 animals, in om- reasonings and analogies. If 
 we Avish to degi-ade a man, Ave say he acts like 
 a brute ; — if, on the other hand, Ave would 
 vindicate any part of our conduct as especially 
 natural and proper, Ave say the very brutes do 
 it. NoAv, in one sense of the Avord, everything 
 is natural which takes place Avitliin the Avhole 
 circle of nature ; and being animals ourselves, 
 we partake of much that is common to all 
 animals. But if we are to pique ourselves on 
 our superiority, it is CAadent that we are 
 superior in proportion as Ave are rationally and 
 deliberately different from the animals beneath 
 us ; while they, on the other hand, have a right 
 to share our " glory," or to pull it down, ac- 
 cording to the degrees in which they resemble 
 us. 
 
 The conclusion is, that Ave ought attentively 
 to consider in what points the resemblance is 
 to be found, and in Avhat we leaA'e them mani- 
 festly behind. Creatures Avho differ from our- 
 selves may, it is true, have perceptions of 
 Avhicli we are incapable, perhaps nobler ones ; 
 but this is a mere assumption : Ave can only 
 reason from Avhat Ave know ; and it is to be 
 presumed, that they are as inferior to us in all 
 which Ave reckon intellectual and capable of 
 adA'ancoment, as they are known to be so in 
 general by their subjection to our uses, by the 
 helps Avhich Ave can afford them, by the mis- 
 takes they make, the points at Avhich they 
 stop short, and the manner in which Ave can 
 put to flight their faculties, and Avhole myriads 
 of tbcm. 
 
 What faculties then have beasts and insects 
 in connnon Avith us ? What can they do, that 
 we do also ? — Let us see. BcaAcrs can build 
 houses, and insects of A-arious sorts can ])uild 
 cells. Birdsalso construct themselvesdwelling- 
 places suitable to their nature. The orang- 
 outang can be taught to jjut on clothes; he can 
 sit up and take his Avine at dinner; and the 
 squirrel can ])lay bis part in a dessert, as far 
 as tlie cracking of nuts. Animals, in general.
 
 82 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 lovo personal cleanliuess, and eat no more than 
 is fit for tlieni, but can be encouraj^ed into 
 great sensuality. Bees liave a monarchical 
 government : foxes understand trick and stra- 
 tagem ; so do hundreds of other animals, from 
 the dog down to the dunghill-beetle ; many 
 are capable of pride and emulation, more of 
 attachment, and all of fear, of anger, of hos- 
 tility, or other impulses for self-defence ; and 
 all perhaps are susceptible of improvement 
 from without ; that is to say, by the help of man. 
 Seals will look on wliile their young ones fight, 
 and pat and caress the conqueror ; and now it 
 is discovered that ants can conduct armies to 
 battle, can make and rescue prisoners, and turn 
 them to account. Iluber, in addition to these 
 discoveries, found out that they possessed a 
 sort of cattle in a species of aphides, and that 
 they made them yield a secretion for food, as 
 we obtain milk from the cows. It appears to 
 be almost equally proved, that animals have 
 modes of communicating with one another, 
 analogous to speech. Insects are supposed to 
 interchange a kind of dumb language, — to talk, 
 as it were, with fingers, — by means of their 
 antenncB ; and it is difficult to believe, that in 
 the songs of birds there is not both speech and 
 inflection, communications in the gross, and 
 expressions modified by the occasion. 
 
 Lei the reader, however, as becomes his 
 philosophy, take from all this whatever is 
 superfluous or conjectural, and enough will 
 remain to show, that the least and lowest 
 animals, as well as man, can furnish themselves 
 with dwellings ; can procure food ; can trick 
 and deceive ; are naturally clean and temperate, 
 but can be taught to indulge their senses ; have 
 the ordinary round of passions ; encourage the 
 qualities necessary to vigour and self-defence ; 
 have polity and kingly government ; can make 
 other animals of use to them ; and finally, can 
 make war, and conduct armies to battle in the 
 most striking modes of human strategy. 
 
 Animals in general, therefore, include among 
 themselves 
 
 Masons, or house-builders ; 
 
 Getters of bread ; 
 
 Common followers of the senses ; 
 
 Common-place imitators ; 
 
 Pursuers of their own interest, in cunning 
 
 as well as in simplicity ; 
 Possessors of the natural affections ; 
 Encouragers of valour and self-exertion ; 
 Monarchs and subjects ; 
 Warriors, and leaders to battle. 
 
 Whatever, among men, is reducible to any of 
 these classes, is to be found among beasts, birds, 
 and insects. We are not to bw ashamed of 
 anything we have in common witii them, 
 merely because we so have it. On the con- 
 traiy, we are to be glad that any quality, useful 
 or noble, is so universal in the creation. I5ut 
 whatever -we discern among them, of sordid or 
 
 selfish, there, without condemning them, we 
 may see the line drawn, beyond which we can 
 alone congratulate ourselves on our humanity ; 
 and wliatever skill they possess in common 
 witli us, there we are to begin to doubt whether 
 we liave any reason to pique ourselves on our 
 display of it, and from that limit we are to 
 begin to consider wliat they do not possess. 
 
 We have often had a suspicion, that military 
 talent is greatly overrated by the world, and 
 for an obvious reason : because the means by 
 which it shows itself are connected with brute 
 force and the most terrible results ; and men's 
 faculties are dazzled and beaten down by a 
 thunder and liglitning so formidable to their 
 very existence. If playing a game of chess 
 involved the blowing up of gunpowder and the 
 hazard of laying waste a city, men would have 
 the same grand idea of a game at chess ; 
 and yet we now give it no more glory than it 
 deserves. Now it is doubtful, whether the 
 greatest military conqueror, considered purely 
 as such, and not with reference to his accidental 
 possession of other talents, such as those of 
 Cajsar and Xenophon, is not a mere chess- 
 player of this description, with the addition of 
 greater self-possession. His main faculty is 
 of the geometrical or proportion-giving order ; 
 of which it is remarkable, that it is the only 
 one, ranking high among those of humanity, 
 which is partaken by the lowest ignorance and 
 what is called pure instinct ; by arithmetical 
 idiots, and architectural bees. Idiots have 
 been known to solve difficult arithmetical 
 questions, by taking a thought which they 
 could do for no other purpose ; that is to say, 
 by reference to some undiscovered faculty 
 within them, that looks very like an instinct, 
 and the result of the presence or absence of 
 something, which is not common to higher 
 organisation. In Jameson's Philosophical Journal 
 for April,* is a conjecture, that the hexagonal 
 plan of the cells of a hornet is derived from 
 the structure of its fore-legs. It has often 
 struck us, that the architecture of the cells of 
 bees might be owing to a similar guidance of 
 conformation ; and by the like analogy, extra- 
 ordinary powers of arithmetic might be trace- 
 able to some physical peculiarity, or a tendency 
 to it ; such as the indication of a sixth finger 
 on the hands of one of the calculating boys that 
 were lately so much talked of. We have 
 sometimes thought, that even the illustrious 
 Newton had a face and a set of features singu- 
 larly accordant with mathematical uniformity 
 and precision. And there is a professional 
 cast of countenance attributed, not perhaps 
 without reason, to warriors of the more me- 
 
 * See the Ma<juzine 0/ Natural History for July, a work 
 lately set up. We beg leave to recommend this, and all 
 similarworks, to the lovers of truth and inquiry in general; 
 physical discovery having greater alliance with moral 
 than is suspected, and the habit of sincere investigation 
 on all points being greatly encouraged by its ezietence en 
 any one.
 
 MILITARY INSECTS. 
 
 chanical order. Washington's face was as cut 
 and dry as a diagram. 
 
 It may be argued, that whatever proofs may 
 exist of the acquaintance of insects with the 
 art of war, or at least with their jjower of 
 joining battle imder the ordinary appearances 
 of skill and science, it does not follow that they 
 conduct the matter with the real science of 
 human beings, or that they are acquainted 
 with our variety of tactics, or have made im- 
 provements in them from time to time. We 
 concede that in all probability there is a dis- 
 tinction between the exercise of the most 
 rational-looking instincts on the part of a lower 
 animal, and the most instinctive-looking reason 
 on the side of man ; but where the two classes 
 have so much in common in any one particular, 
 what we mean to show is, that in that particu- 
 lar it is more difficult than in others to pro- 
 nounce where the limit between conscious and 
 unconscious skill is to be drawn ; and that so 
 far, we have no pretension which other animals 
 may not dispute with us. It has been often 
 wondered, that a great genei-al is not in other 
 respects a man above the vulgar ; that he is 
 not a better speaker than others ; a better 
 wi'iter, or thinker, or possessed of greater 
 address ; in short, that he has no qualities but 
 such as are essential to him in his military 
 capacity. This again looks like a proof of the 
 mechanical nature of a general's ability. We 
 believe it may be said exclusively of military 
 talents, and of one or two others connected 
 with the mathematics, that they are the only 
 ones capable of attaining to greatness and 
 celebrity in their respective departments, with 
 a destitution of taste or knowledge in every 
 other. Every other great talent partakes more 
 or less of a sympathy with greatness in other 
 shapes. The fine arts have their harmonies 
 in common : wit implies a stock of ideas : the 
 legislator — (we do not mean the ordinary con- 
 ductors of govei-nment, for they, as one of 
 them said, require much less wisdom than the 
 world supposes ; and it may be added, impose 
 upon the vt'orld, somewhat in the same manner 
 as military leaders, by dint of the size and 
 potency of their operations) — the legislator 
 makes a profound study of all the wants of 
 mankind ; and poetry and philosophy show the 
 height at wliich they live, by " looking abroad 
 into universality." 
 
 Far be it from us to undervalue the use of 
 any science, especially in tiie hands of those 
 who are capable of so looking abroad, and see- 
 ing where it can advance the good of the com- 
 munity. The commonest genuine soldier has 
 a merit in his way, which we are far from 
 disesteeming. Without a portion of his forti- 
 tude, no man has a j)Ower to be useful. But 
 we are speaking of intellects capable of leading 
 society onwards, and not of instruments how- 
 ever respectable : and unfortunately (generally 
 speaking) the greatest soldiers are fit only to 
 
 be instruments, not leaders. Once in a way it 
 happens luckily that they suit the times they 
 live in. Washington is an instance : and yet 
 if ever great man looked like "a tool in the 
 hands of Pro-vidence," it was he. He appears 
 to have been always the same man, from first 
 to last, employed or unemployed, known or 
 unknown ; — the same steady, dry-looking, 
 determined person, cut and carved like a 
 piece of ebony, for the genius of the times to 
 rule Avith. Before the work was begiin, there he 
 was, a sort of born patriarchal stalF, governing 
 herds and slaves ; and when the work was over, 
 he was found in his old place, with the same 
 carved countenance and the same stiff inflexi- 
 bility, governing still. And his slates were 
 found with him. This is what a soldier ought 
 to be. Not indeed if the world were to advance 
 by their means, and theirs only ; but that is 
 impossible. Washington was only the sword 
 with which Franklin and the spirit of revolution 
 worked out their purposes ; and a sword should 
 be nothing but a sword. The moment soldiers 
 come to direct the intellect of their age, they 
 make a sorry business of it. Napoleon himself 
 did. Frederick did. Even Caesar failed. As 
 to Alfred the Great, he was not so much a 
 general fighting with generals, as a miiversal 
 genius warring with barbarism and adversity ; 
 and it took a load of sorrow to make even him 
 the demigod he was. 
 
 " Stand upon the ancient ways," says Bacon, 
 " and see what steps may be taken for progres- 
 sion." Look, for the same purpose (it may be 
 said) upon the rest of the animal creation, and 
 consider the qualities in which they have no 
 share with you. Of the others, you may well 
 doubt the greatness, considei'ed as movers, and 
 not instruments, towards progression. It is 
 among the remainder you must seek for the 
 advancement of your species. An insect can 
 be a provider of the necessaries of life, and he 
 can exercise power and organise violence. He 
 can be a builder ; he can be a soldier ; he can 
 be a king. But to all appearance, he is the 
 same as he was ever, and his works perish with 
 him. If insects have such and such an estab- 
 li.shment among them, we conceive they will 
 have it ahvays, unless men can alter it for 
 them. If they have no such establishment, 
 they appear of themselves incapable of admit- 
 ting it. It is men only that add and improve. 
 Men only can becpieath their souls for the 
 benefit of posterity, in the shape of arts and 
 books. Men only can philosophize, and reform, 
 and cast off old customs, and take steps for 
 laying the whole globe nearer to the sun of 
 wisdom and happiness : and in proportion as 
 you find them capable of so hoping and so 
 working, you recognise their superiority to 
 the brutes that perish. 
 
 r. -i
 
 84 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 XIV.— A WALK FROM DULWICH TO 
 BROCKHAM. 
 
 IN A LETTKR TO A FRIEND. 
 
 With an oi'ifiinal Circumslanre or two respecting Br. 
 Johnson. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 As other calls upon my pilgrimage iu this 
 world have internii>te(l those weekly voyages 
 of discovery into green laiu^s and rnstic houses 
 of entertainment which you and 1 had so agree- 
 ably commenced, I thought I could not do 
 better tlian make you partaker of my new 
 journey, as far as pen and pajjor could do it. 
 You are therefore to look upon yourself as 
 having resolved to take a walk of twenty or 
 thirty miles into Surrey without knowing any- 
 thing of tlie matter. You will have set out 
 with usafortniglit ago, and will be kind enough 
 to take your busts for ciiambermaids, and your 
 music (which is not so easy) for the voices of 
 stage-coachmen . 
 
 Illness, you know, does not hinder me from 
 walking ; neither does anxiety. On the con- 
 trary, the more I walk, the better and stouter 
 I become ; and I believe if everybody were to 
 regard the restlessness which anxiety creates, 
 as a signal from nature to get up and contend 
 with it in that manner, people would find the 
 benefit of it. This is more particularly the 
 case if they are lovers of Nature, as well as 
 pupils of her, and have an eye for the beauties 
 in which her visible world abounds ; and as I 
 may claim the merit of loving her heartily, and 
 even of tracing my sufferings (when I have 
 them) to her cause, the latter are never so great 
 but she repays me with some sense of sweet- 
 ness, and leaves me a certain property in the 
 delight of others, when I have little of my own. 
 
 " O that I had the wings of a dove !" said 
 the royal i)oet ; " then would I fly away and 
 be at rest." I believe there are few persons, 
 who having felt sorrow, and anticipating a 
 journey not exactly towards it, have not par- 
 taken of this sense of the desirability of remote- 
 ness. A great deal of what we love in poetry 
 is founded upon it ; nor do any feel it with 
 more passion, than those whose sense of duty 
 to their fellow-creatures will not allow them 
 to regard retirement as anything but a refresh- 
 ment between their tasks, and as a wealth of 
 which ail ought to i)artake. 
 
 But David sighed for remoteness, and not 
 for solitude. At least, if he did, the cares of 
 the moment must have greatly overbalanced 
 the habits of the poet. Neither doves nor 
 poets can very well do without a companion. 
 Be that as it may, the writer of tliis epistle, 
 who is a still greater lover of companionship 
 than poetry (and he cannot express his liking 
 more strongly) had not the misfortune, on the 
 present occasion, of being compelled to do 
 without it ; and as to remoteness, though his 
 pilgrimage was to extend little beyond twenty 
 
 miles, he had not the less sense of it on that 
 account. Remoteness is not how far you go in 
 point of ground, but liow far you feel yourself 
 from your common-places. Literal distance is 
 indeed necessary in some degree ; but the 
 quantity of it depends on imagination and 
 the nature of circumstances. The poet who 
 can take to his wings like a dove, and plunge 
 into tlie wood nearest him, is farther off, 
 millions of miles, in the retreat of his thouglits, 
 than the literalist, who must get to Joimny 
 Groat's in order to convince himself that he is 
 not in Edinburgh. 
 
 Almost any companion would do, if we could 
 not make our choice, provided it loved us and 
 was sincere. A horse is good company, if 
 you have no other ; a dog still better. I have 
 have often thought, that I could take a child 
 by the hand, and walk with it day after 
 day towards the north or the east, a straight 
 road, feeling as if it would lead into another 
 world, 
 
 " And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest." 
 
 But I should have to go back, to fetch some 
 grown friends. 
 
 Tliere were three of us on the present occa- 
 sion, grown and young. We began by taking 
 the Dulwich stage from a house in Fleet-street, 
 where a drunken man came into the tap, and 
 was very pious. He recited hymns ; asked 
 the landlady to shake hands with him ; was 
 for making a sofa of the counter, which she 
 prevented by thrusting his leg off with some 
 indignation ; and being hindered in this piece 
 of jollity, he sank on his knees to pray. 
 He was too good-natured for a Methodist ; 
 so had taken to stiff glasses of brandy-and- 
 water, 
 
 " To help him to support imeasy steps 
 Over the burning marie." 
 
 He said he had been " twice through the gates 
 of hell ;" and by his drinking, poor fellow, he 
 seemed to be setting out on his third adventure. 
 We called him Sin-had. By the way, when 
 you were a boy, did you not think that the 
 name of Sindbad was allegorical, and meant a 
 man who had sinned very badly ? Does not 
 every little boy think so ? One does not indeed, 
 at that time of life, know very well what to 
 make of the porter Hindbad, who rhymes to 
 him ; and I remember I was not pleased when 
 I came to find out that Hind and Sind were 
 component words, and meant Eastern and 
 Western. 
 
 The stage took us to the Greyhound at Dul- 
 wich, where, though we had come from another 
 village almost as far off from London on the 
 nortliern side, we felt as if we had newly got 
 into the country, and ate a hearty supjjcr 
 accordingly. This was a thing not usual with 
 us ; Init tiien everybody eats " in the country ;" 
 —there is "the air;" and besides, we had 
 eaten little dinner, and were merrier, and
 
 A WALK FROM DULWICH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 85 
 
 "remote." On looking out of our chamber 
 window in the morning, we remarked that the 
 situation of the inn was beautiful, even towards 
 the road, the place is so rich with trees ; and 
 returning to the room in which we had supped, 
 we found with pleasure that we had a window 
 there, presenting us with a peep into rich 
 meadows, where the haymakers were at work 
 in their white shirts. A sunny room, quiet, 
 our remote five miles, and a pleasant subject 
 (the Poetry of British Ladies) enabled the 
 editorial part of us to go comfortably to our 
 morning's task ; after which we left the inn to 
 proceed on our journey. "We had not seen 
 Dulwich for many years, and were surprised 
 to find it still so full of trees. It continues, at 
 least in the quarter through which we passed, 
 to deserve the recommendation given it by 
 
 Armstrong, of 
 
 Dulwich, yet unspoil'd by art.' 
 
 He would have added, had he lived, now 
 that art had come, even to make it better. It 
 was with real pain, that two lovers of painting 
 were obliged to coast the walls of the college 
 without seeing the gallery : but we have vowed 
 a pilgrimage very shortly to those remoter 
 places, there to be found ; to wit, the land- 
 scapes of Claude and Cuyp, and the houses of 
 Rembrandt ; and we shall make report of it, 
 to save our character. We know not whether 
 it was the sultriness of the day, with occasional 
 heavy clouds, but we thought the air of Dulwich 
 too warm, and pronounced it a place of sleepy 
 luxuriance. So it appeared to us that morning ; 
 beautiful, however, and " remote ; " and the 
 thought of old Allen, Shakspcare's playmate, 
 made it still more so. 
 
 I remember, in my boyhood, seeing Sir 
 Francis Bourgeois (the bequeather of the 
 Dulwich pictures) in company with JNIr. West, 
 in the latter's gallery in Newman-street. He 
 was in buckskins and boots, dandy dress of that 
 time, and appeared a lively, good-natured man, 
 with a pleasing countenance, probably because 
 he said something pleasant of myself ; he con- 
 firmed it with an oath, which startled, but did 
 not alter this opinion. Ever afterwards I had 
 an inclination to like his pictures, wliich I 
 believe were not very good ; and unfortunately, 
 with whatever gravity he might paint, his oath 
 and his buckskins would never allow me to 
 consider him a serious pei'son ; so that it some- 
 what surprised mo to hear that M. Desenfans 
 had bequeathed liim his gallery out of pure 
 regard ; and still more that Sir Francis, when 
 he died, had ordcied his own remains to be 
 gathered to those of his benefactor and 
 Madame Desenfans, and all tliree buried in 
 the society of the pictures they loved. For 
 the first time, I began to think that his pictures 
 must have contained more than was found in 
 them, and tliat I had done wrong (as it is 
 customary to do) to the gaiety of his manners. 
 
 If there was vanity in the bequest, as some 
 have thought, it was at least a vanity accom- 
 panied with touching ciixumstances and an 
 appearance of a very social taste ; and as most 
 people have their vanities, it might be as well 
 for tliem to think what sort of accompaniments 
 exalt or degrade theirs, or render them purely 
 dull and selfish. As to the Gallery's being 
 " out of the way," especially for students, I 
 am of a different opinion, and for two reasons : 
 first, that no gallery, whether in or out of the 
 way, can ever i)roduce great artists, nature, and 
 perhaps the very want of a gallery, always 
 settling that matter before galleries are thought 
 of ; and, second, because in going to see the 
 pictures in a beautiful country village, people 
 get out of their town common-places, and are 
 better prepared for tlie perception of other 
 beauties, and of the nature that makes them 
 all. Besides, there is probably something to 
 pay on a jaunt of this kind, and yet of a differ- 
 ent sort from payments at a door. There is 
 no illiberal demand at Dulwich for a liberal 
 pleasure ; but then " the inn " is inviting ; 
 people eat and drink, and get social ; and the 
 warmth which dinner and a glass diffuses, 
 helps them to rejoice doubly in the warmth of 
 the sunshine and the pictures, and in the fame 
 of the great and generous. 
 
 Leaving Dulwich for Noi'wood (where we 
 rejoiced to hear that some of our old friends 
 the Gipsies were still extant), we found the air 
 very refreshing as we ascended towards the 
 church of the latter village. It is one of the 
 dandy modern churches (for they deserve no 
 better name) standing on an open hill, as if to 
 be admired. It is pleasant to see churches 
 instead of Methodist chapels, because any 
 moderate religion has more of real Christianity 
 in it, than contumelious opinions of God and 
 the next world ; but there is a want of taste, 
 of every sort, in these new cliurches. They are 
 not picturesque, like the old ones ; they are 
 not humble ; they are not, what they are so 
 often miscalled, classical. A barn is a more 
 classical building than a church with a fan- 
 tastic steeple to it. In fact, a barn is of the 
 genuine classical shape, and only wants a stone 
 covering, and pillars about it, to become a 
 temple of Theseus. The classical sliape is the 
 shai)e of simple utility and beauty. Sometimes 
 we see it in the body of the modern church ; 
 but then a steeple must be put on it : the 
 artist must have something of his own ; and 
 having, in fact, nothing of his own, lie first puts 
 a l)it of a steeple, which he tliinks will not be 
 enougli, then another bit, and tlu-n another ; 
 adds another fantastic ornanu-nt here and 
 there to his building, by way of rim or " border, 
 like ;" and so, having put his pepper-box over 
 his j)illars, and his pillars over his pepper- 
 box, he pretends he has done a grand thing, 
 while he knows very well that lie has only been 
 perplexed, and a bricklayer.
 
 8« 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 For a village, the old picturesque church is 
 the proper tliincr, with its tower and its trees, 
 as at Jleiulon and rineldey ; or its spire, as at 
 Beckenham. Classical beauty is one tiling, 
 Gothic or Saxon beauty is another ; quite as 
 genuine in its way, and in this instance more 
 suitable. It has i)een well observed, that what 
 is called classical architecture, though of older 
 date than the (Jothic, really does not look so 
 old — does not so well convey the sentiment of 
 antiquity ; that is to say, the ideal associations 
 of this world, liowever ancient, are far sur- 
 passed in the reach of ages by those of religion, 
 and the patriarchs and another world ; not to 
 mention, that we have been used to identify 
 them with the visible old age of our parents 
 and kindred ; and that Greek and Roman 
 architecture, in its smoothness and polish, has 
 an unfading look of youth. It might be 
 thought, that the erection of new churches on 
 the classical ])rinciple (taking it for granted 
 that, they remind us more of Greek and Roman 
 temples, than of their own absurdity) would 
 be favourable to the growth of liberality ; 
 that, at least, liberality would not be opposed 
 by it ; whereas the preservation of the old 
 style might tend to keep up old notions. "NVe 
 do not think so, except inasmuch as the old 
 notions would not be unfavourable to the new. 
 New opinions ought to bo made to grow as 
 kindly as possible out of old ones, and should 
 preserve all that they contain of the affec- 
 tionate and truly venerable. We could fancy 
 the most liberal doctrines preached five hun- 
 dred years hence in churches precisely like 
 those of our ancestors, and their old dust ready 
 to blossom into delight at the arrival of true 
 Christianity. But these new, fine, heartless- 
 looking, showy churches, neither one thing nor 
 the other, have, to our eyes, an appearance of 
 nothing but worldliness and a job. 
 
 We descended into Streatham by the lane 
 leading to the White Lion; the which noble 
 bea-st, regardant, looked at ns up the narrow 
 passage, as if intending to dispute rather than 
 in^^te our approach to the castle of his hospi- 
 table proprietor. On going nearer, we found 
 that the grimness of his aspect was purely in 
 our imaginations, the said lordly animal having, 
 in fact, a countenance singularly humane, and 
 very like a gentleman we knew once of the 
 name of Collins. 
 
 It not being within our plan to accept 
 Collins's invitation, we turned to the left, and 
 proceeded down the village, thinking of Dr. 
 Johnson. Seeing, however, an aged landlord 
 at the door, Ave stepped back to ask him if he 
 remembered the Doctor. He knew nothing of 
 him, nor even of Mr. Thrale, having come late, 
 he said, to those parts. Resuming our May, 
 we saw, at the end of the village, a decent- 
 looking old man, with a sharp eye and a hale 
 countenance, who, with an easy, self-satisfied 
 air. as if he liad worked enough in his time 
 
 and was no longer under the necessity of over- 
 troubling himself, sat indolently cracking stones 
 in the road. We asked him if A<; knew Dr. 
 Johnson ; and he said, with a jerk-up of his 
 eye, '■'Oh yes; — 1 knew him well enough." 
 Seating myself on one side of his trench of 
 stones, I proceeded to have that matter out 
 with Master Whatman (for such was the 
 name of my informant). His information did 
 not amount to much, but it contained one or 
 two points which I do not remember to have 
 met with, and every addition to our knowledge 
 of such a man is valuable. Nobody will think 
 it more so tlian yourself, who will certainly 
 i/cani over this part of my letter, and make 
 much of it. The following is the sum total of 
 what was related : — Johnson, he said, wore a 
 silk waistcoat embroidered with silver, and all 
 over snuff. The snuff he carried loose in his 
 waistcoat pocket, and would take a handful of 
 it out witli one hand, and help himself to it 
 with the other. He would sometimes have his 
 dinner brought out to him in the park, and set 
 on the ground ; and while he was waiting for 
 it, Avould lie idly, and cut the grass with a 
 knife. Ilis manners were very good-natured, 
 and sometimes so childish, that people would 
 have taken him for " an idiot, like." llis voice 
 was " low." — " Do you mean low in a gruff 
 sense?" — "No: it was rather feminine." — 
 " Then perhaps, in one sense of the word, it 
 was high ?"— « Yes, it was."—" And gentle ? " 
 — " Yes, very gentle !" — (This, of course, was 
 to people in general, and to the villagers. When 
 he dogmatised, it became what Lord Pembroke 
 called a « bow-wow." The late :Mr. Fuseli 
 told us the same thing of Johnson's voice ; we 
 mean, that it was ' high,' in contradistinction 
 to a bass voice.) To proceed with our village 
 historian. Our informant recurred several 
 times to the childish manners of Johnson, 
 saying that he often appeared " quite simple," 
 —"just like a child," — "almost foolish, like." 
 When he walked, he always seemed in a hurry. 
 His walk was " between a run and a shuffle." 
 Master Whatman was here painting a good 
 portrait. I have often suspected that the best 
 likeness of Johnson was a whole-length en- 
 graving of him, walking in Scotland, with that 
 joke of his underneath, about the stick that he 
 "lost in the isle of Mull. Boswell told him the 
 stick would be returned. "No, sir," replied 
 he ; " consider the value of such a 2'icce of timber 
 here." The manner of his walk in the picture 
 is precisely that described by the villager. 
 Whatman concluded, by giving his opinion of 
 Mrs. Thrale, which he did in exactly the fol- 
 lowing words :— " She gathered a good deal of 
 knowledge from him, but does not seem to 
 have turned it to much account." Wherever 
 you noAv go about the country, you recognise 
 the effects of that " Twopenny Trash," which 
 the illiberal affect to hold in such contempt, 
 and are really so afraid of. They have reason ,
 
 A WALK FROM DULWICH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 87 
 
 for people now canvass their pretensions in 
 good set terms, who would have said nothing 
 but "' Anan!" to a question thirty years back. 
 Not that Mr. Whatman discussed politics with 
 us. Let no magnanimous Quarterly Reviewer 
 try to get him turned out of a place on that 
 score. We are speaking of the peasantry at 
 large, and then, not merely of politics, but of 
 questions of all sorts interesting to humanity ; 
 which the very clowns now discuss by the 
 road-side, to an extent at wliich their former 
 leaders would not dare to discuss them. This 
 is one reason, among others, why knowledge 
 must go on victoriously. A real zeal for the 
 truth can discuss anything ; slavery can only 
 go the length of its chain. 
 
 In quitting Streatham, we met a lady on 
 horseback, accompanied by three curs and a 
 footman, which a milkman facetiously termed 
 a footman and " three outriders." Entering 
 Mitcham by the green where they play at 
 cricket, we noticed a pretty, moderate-sized 
 house, with the largest geraniums growing on 
 each side the door that we ever beheld in that 
 situation. Mitcham reminded me of its neigh- 
 bour, Merton, and of the days of my childhood ; 
 but we could not go out of our way to see it. 
 There was the little river Wandle, however, 
 turning a mill, and flowing between flowery 
 meadows. The mill was that of a copper 
 manufactory, at which the people work night 
 as well as day, one half taking the duties alter- 
 nately. The reason given for this is, that by 
 night, the river not being interrupted by other 
 demands upon it, works to better advantage. 
 The epithet of "flowery" applied to the district, 
 is no poetical licence. In the fields about 
 Mitcham they cultivate herbs for the apothe- 
 caries ; so that in the height of the season, you 
 walk as in the Elysian fields, 
 
 " In yellow meads of asphodel, 
 And amaranthine bowers." 
 
 Apothecaries' Hall, I understand, is entirely 
 supplied with this poetical part of medicine 
 from some acres of ground belonging to Major 
 Moor. A beautiful bed of poj)pies, as we 
 entered Morden, glowed in the setting sun, 
 like the dreams of Titian. It looked like a bed 
 for Proserpina — a glow of melancholy beauty, 
 containing a joy perhaps beyond joy. Poppies, 
 witii their dark ruby cups and crowned heads, 
 the more than wine colour of their sleepy silk, 
 and the funeral look of their anthers, seem to 
 have a meaning about them beyond other 
 flowers. They look as if they held a mystery 
 at tlieir hearts, like sleeping kings of Lethe, 
 
 The church of Mitcham has been rebuilt, if 
 I recollect riglitly, but in tiie proper old style. 
 Morden has a good old church, which tempted 
 us to look into the church-yard ; but a ricli 
 man who lives near it, and who did not choose 
 his house to be ap])roached on that side, had 
 locked up the gate, so that there was no i»ath 
 
 through it, except on Sundays. Can this be a 
 lawful exercise of power ? If peojile have a 
 right to call any path their own, I should think 
 it must be that which leads to the graves of 
 their fathers and mothers ; and next to their 
 right, such a path is the right of the traveller. 
 The traveller may be in some measure regarded 
 as a representative of wandering humanity. 
 He claims relationship with all whom he finds 
 attached to a place in idea. He and the dead 
 are at once in a place, and apart from it. 
 Setting aside this remoter sentiment, it is 
 surely an inconsiderate thing in any man to 
 shut up a church-yard from the villagers ; and 
 should these pages meet the eye of the person 
 in question, he is recommended to think better 
 of it. Possibly I may not know the whole of 
 the case, and on that account, though not that 
 only, I mention no names ; for the inhabitant 
 with whom I talked on tlie subject, and who 
 regarded it in the same light, added, with a 
 candour becoming his objections, that "the 
 gentleman was a very good-natured gentleman, 
 too, and kind to the poor." How his act of 
 power squares with his kindness, I do not 
 know. Very good-natured people are some- 
 times very fond of having their own way ; but 
 this is a mode of indulging it, which a truly 
 generous person, I should think, will, on refl.ec- 
 tion, be glad to give up. Such a man, I am 
 sure, can affbrd to concede a point, where 
 others, who do not deserve the character, will 
 try hard to retain every little proof of their 
 importance. 
 
 On the steps of the George Inn, at Morden, 
 the rustic inn of a hamlet, stood a personage 
 much grimmer than the White Lion of Strea- 
 tham ; looking, in fact, with his fiery eyes, his 
 beak, and his old mouth and chin, very like the 
 cock, or " grim leoun," of Chaucer. He was 
 tall and tiiin, with a flapped hat over his eyes, 
 and appeared as sulky jknd dissatisfied as if 
 he had quarrelled with the whole world, the 
 exciseman in particular. We asked him if he 
 could let us have some tea. He said, " Yes, 
 he believed so ;" and pointed with an indiflfer- 
 ent, or rather hostile air, to a room at the side, 
 which we entered. A buxom good-natured 
 girl, with a squint, that was bewitching after 
 the moral deformity of our friend's visage, 
 served us up tea ; and "tea, sir," as Johnson 
 might have said, "inspires placidity." The 
 room was adorned with some engravings after 
 Smirke, the subjects out of Shakspeare, which 
 never look so well, I think, as when thus 
 encountered on a journey. Shakspeare is in 
 the highway of life, with exquisite side-touches 
 of the remoteness of the poet ; and nobody 
 links all kindly togetiicr as he does. 
 
 We afterwards found in conversing with the 
 villager above-mentioned, that our host of the 
 George had got rich, and was preparing to quit 
 for a new house he iiad built, in which he meant 
 to turn gentleman farmer. Habit made him
 
 88 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 dislike to go ; pride and his wife (who vowed 
 slie would go wliethor ho did or not) rondi'i'cd 
 him unable to stay ; and so between liis gruilj^r- 
 ing the new-comer and the old rib, lie was in 
 as pretty a state of irritability as any success- 
 ful uou-succeedcr need be. People had been 
 galling liini all day, I suppose, with showing 
 how many pots of ale would be drunk under 
 the new tenant ; and our arrival crowned tlie 
 measure of his receii>ts and his wretchedness, 
 by intimating that "gentlefolks" intended to 
 come to tea. — Adieu, till next week. 
 
 We left Morden after tea, and proceeded 
 on our road for Epsom. The landscape con- 
 tinued flat but luxuriant. You are sure, 
 I believe, of trees in Surrey, cxccjit on the 
 downs ; and they are surrounded Mith wood, 
 and often have beautiful clumps of it. The 
 sun began to set a little after we had got be- 
 yond the Post-house ; and was the largest I 
 remember to have seen. It looked through 
 hedges of ehns and wild roses ; tlie mowers 
 were going liome ; and by degrees the land- 
 scape was bathed in a balmy twilight. Patient 
 and placid thouglit succeeded. It was an hour, 
 and a scene, in which one would suppose that 
 the weariest-laden pilgrim must feel his burden 
 easier. 
 
 About a mile from Ewell a post-chaise over- 
 took and i)assed us, tiie driver of which was 
 seated, and had taken up an eleemosynary girl 
 to sit with him. Postilions run along a road, 
 conscious of a pretty power in that way, and 
 able to select some fair one, to whom they gal- 
 lantly make a present of a ride. Not having 
 a fare of one sort, they make it up to them- 
 selves by taking another. You may be 
 pretty sure on these occasions, that there is 
 nobody " hid in their vacant interlunar" chaise. 
 So taking pity on my companions (for after I 
 am once tired, I seem as if I could go on, tired 
 for ever), I started and ran after the charioteer. 
 Some good-natured peasants (they all appear 
 such in tliis county) aided the shouts which I 
 sent after him. lie stopped; and the gallantry on 
 both sides was rewarded by tlic addition of two 
 females to his vehicle. We were soon through 
 Ewell, a pretty neat-looking place with a proper 
 old church, and a liandsome house opposite, new 
 but in the old style. The church has trees by 
 it, and thei-e was a moon over them. — At Ewell 
 was born the facetious Bislioj) Corbet, who when 
 a bald ma:i was brought before him to be con- 
 firm.ed,said to liis assistant," Some dust, Lushing- 
 ton:" — (to keep his hand from slipping.) 
 
 The night air struck cold on passing Ewell ; 
 and for the first time there was an appearance 
 of a bleak and barren country to the left. 
 This was Epsom Downs. They are the same 
 as the Banstead and Leatherhead downs, the 
 name varying with tlie neighbourhood. You 
 remember Banstead mutton i 
 
 " To Hounslow-heath I point, and Banntead down ; 
 Thence comee your mutton, and these chicks my own." 
 
 Poi>e seems to have lifted np his delicate nose 
 at Twickenham, and scented his dinner a dozen 
 miles oft". 
 
 At Epsom we supped and slept ; and finding 
 the inn comfortable, and liaving some work to 
 do, we stopped there a day or two. Do you 
 not like those solid, wainscotted rooms in old 
 houses, with seats in the windows, and no pre- 
 tension but to comfort ? They please me ex- 
 ceedingly. Their merits are complete, if the 
 houses are wide and low, and situate in a spot 
 at once woody and dry. Wood is not to be 
 expected in a high street ; but the house (the 
 King's Head) was of this description ; and ICp- 
 som itself is in a nest of trees. Next morning 
 on looking out of window, we found ourselves 
 in a proper country town, remarkably neat, 
 the houses not old enough to be ruinous, nor 
 yet to have been exchanged for new ones of 
 a London character. Opposite us was the 
 watch-house with the market-clock, and a 
 pond which is said to contain gold and silver 
 fish. How those delicate little creatures came 
 to inhabit a pond in the middle of a town I 
 cannot say. One fancies they must have been 
 put in by the fantastic hand of some fine lady 
 in the days of Charles the Second ; for this 
 part of the country is eminent in the annals of 
 gaiety. Charles used to come to the races liere ; 
 the palace of Nonesuch, wliich he gave to Lady 
 Castlemain, is a few miles oft' ; and here he 
 visited the gentry in the neighbourhood. At 
 Ashted Park, close by, and still in possessidn of 
 inheritors of the name of Howard by marriage, 
 he visited Sir Robert Howard, the brother- 
 in-law of Uryden, who proliably used to come 
 there also. They preserved there till not long 
 ago the table at which the king dined. 
 
 This Ashted is a lovely spot, — both jiark and 
 The village, or rather hamlet, is on 
 the road to Leatherhead ; so indeed is the 
 park ; but the mansion is out of sight ; and 
 near the mansion, and in the very thick of the 
 park and the trees, with the deer running about 
 it, is the village church, small, old, and pic- 
 turesque, — a little stone tower ; and the 
 churchyard, of ])roportionate dimensions, is 
 beside it. When I first saw it, lo(jkiiig with 
 its pointed windows through the trees, tlie sur- 
 prise was beautiful. The inside disappoints 
 you, not because it is so small, but because the 
 accommodations and the look of them are so 
 homely. The wood of the jiews resembles 
 that of an old kitchen dresser in colour ; the 
 lord of the manor's being not a whit better 
 than the rest. This is in good taste, con- 
 sidering the rest ; and Col. Howard, who has 
 the reputation of being a liberal man, probably 
 keeps the church just as he found it, without 
 thinking about the matter. At any rate, he 
 does not exalt himself, in a Christian assembly, 
 at the expense of his neighbours. But loving 
 old churches as I do, and looking forward to a 
 time when a Christianity still more worthy of 
 
 village
 
 A WALK FROM DULWIOH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 80 
 
 the name shall be preached in them, I could 
 not help -wishing that the inside were more 
 worthy of the out. A coat of shining walnut, 
 a painting at one end, and a small organ with 
 its dark wood and its golden-looking pipes at 
 the other, would make, at no great expense to 
 a wealthy man, a jewel of an interior, worthy 
 of the lovely spot in which the church is situ- 
 ate. One cannot help desiring something of 
 this kind the more, on account of what has 
 been done for other village-churches in the 
 neighbourhood, which I shall presently notice. 
 Epsom diurch, I believe, is among them ; the 
 outside unquestionably (I have not seen the 
 interior) ; and a spire has been added, which 
 makes a pretty addition to the scenery. The 
 only ornaments of Ashted church, besides two 
 or three monuments of the Howards, are the 
 family 'scutcheon, and that of his Sacred 
 Majesty Charles the Second ; which I suppose 
 was put up at the time of his restoration or 
 his visit, and has remained ever since, the 
 lion still looking lively and threatening. One 
 imagines the court coming to church, and the 
 whole place filled with perukes and courtiers, 
 with love-locks and rustling silks. Sir Robert 
 is in a state of exaltation. Dryden stands 
 near him, observant. Charles composes his 
 face to the sermon, upon which Buckingham 
 and Sedley are cracking almost unbearable 
 jokes behind their gloves ; and the poor village 
 maidens, gaping alternately at his Majesty's 
 sacred visage and the profane beauty of the 
 Countess of Castlemain, and then losing their 
 eyes among " a power " of cavaliers, " the 
 handsomest men as ever was," are in a way to 
 bring the hearts, thumping in their boddices, 
 to a fine market. I wonder how many descend- 
 ants there are of earls and marquises living 
 this minute at Epsom ! How much noble 
 blood ignobly occupied with dairies and 
 ploughs, and looking <jnles in the cheeks of 
 bumpkins. 
 
 Ashted Park has some fine walnut-trees 
 (Surrey is the great garden of walnuts) and 
 one of the noblest limes I ever saw. The park 
 is well kept, has a pretty lodge and game- 
 keeper's iiouse with roses at the d')ors ; and a 
 farm cottage, where the " gentlefolks " may 
 play at rustics. A lady of quality, in a bod- 
 dice, gives one somehow a pretty notion ; es- 
 pecially if she has a heart high enough really 
 to sympathise! with humility. A late Earl of 
 Exeter lived unknown for some time in a vil- 
 lage, under the name of Jones (was not that a 
 good name to seh'ct '.) and married a country 
 girl, whom he took to Burleigh House, and 
 then for the first time told her she was the 
 mistress of it and a Countess ! This is a ro- 
 mance of real life, whidi has been deservedly 
 envied. If I, instead of being a .shattojed 
 student, an old intellectual soldier, " not worth 
 a lady's eye," and forced to compose his frame 
 to abide the biddings of his resolution, were | 
 
 a young fellow in the bloom of life, and 
 equally clever and penniless, I cannot imagine 
 a fortune of which I should be prouder, and 
 which would give me a right to take a manlier 
 aspect in the eyes of love, than to owe every- 
 thing I had in the world, down to my very shoe- 
 strings, to a woman who should have played 
 over the same story with me, the sexes being 
 reversed ; who should say, " You took me for a 
 cottager, and I am a Countess ; and this is the 
 only deception yon will ever have to forgive 
 me." What a pleasure to strive after daily 
 excellence, in order to show one's gratitude to 
 such a woman ; to fight for her ; to suffer for 
 her ; to wear her name like a priceless jewel ; 
 to hold her hand in long sickness, and look in 
 her face when it had lost its beauty ; to say, 
 questioning, " You know how I love you f " 
 and for her to answer with such a face of truth, 
 that nothing but exceeding health could hinder 
 one from being faint mth adoring her. Alas ! 
 why are not all hearts that are capable of love, 
 rich in the knowledge how to show it ; which 
 would supersede the necessity of other riches ? 
 Or indeed, are not all hearts which are truly so 
 capable, gifted with the riches by the capacity '. 
 
 Forgive me this dream under the walnut- 
 trees of Ashted Park ; and let us return to 
 the colder loves of the age of Charles the Se- 
 cond. I thought to give you a good picture of 
 Epsom, by turning to Shadwell's comedy of 
 Epsom Wells ; but it contains nothing of any 
 sort except a sketch of a wittol or two, though 
 Sedley is said to have helped him in it, and 
 though (probably on that account) it was very 
 successful. 
 
 Pep>ys, however, will supply us with a scene 
 or two : — 
 
 " 2Gth, Lord's-day.— Up and to the Wells, 
 where a great store of citizens, which was the 
 greatest part of the company, though there 
 were some others of better quality. Thence 
 I walked to Mr. Minnes's house, and thence to 
 Durdan's, and walked within the court-yard 
 &c. to the bowling-green, where I have seen so 
 much mirth in my time ; but now no family in 
 it (my Lord Barkeley, whose it is, being with 
 his family at London). Then rode tlirough 
 Epsom, the whole town over, seeing the vari- 
 ous companies that were there walking ; which 
 is very pleasant, seeing how tlioy are without 
 knowing what to do, but only in the morning 
 to drink waters. But Lord ! to see how many 
 I met there of citizens, that I could not have 
 thought to have seen there ; that they had ever 
 had it in tiieir heads or purses to go down 
 there. We went ihrough Nonesuch Park to 
 the house, and there viewed as much as we 
 could of the outside, and looked through the 
 great gates, and found a noble court : and 
 altogether believe it to liave been a very noble 
 house, and a delicate parke about it, where 
 just now there was a doe killed for the king, 
 to carry up to court." — Vol. i. p. 241.
 
 9U 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 If the sign of the King's Head at I]psom is 
 still where it used to be, it aiii)euis, from an- 
 other jiassage, that we had merry ghosts next 
 door to us. 
 
 " 14th.— To Epsom, by eiglit o'clock, to the 
 "Well, where nuicli company. And to the 
 town, to the King's Head; and hear tliat my 
 Lord Buclvhurst and Is'elly are lodged at the 
 next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them; 
 and keep a merry house. Poor girl ! I j)ity 
 her; but more tlie loss of her at the king's 
 house. Here Tom Wilson came to jne, and 
 sat and talked an hour ; and 1 perceive he hath 
 been much acquainted with Dr. Fuller (Tom), 
 and Dr. Pierson, aJid several of the great 
 cavalier persons during tlie late troubles ; and 
 I was glad to hear him talk of tliem, which he 
 did very ingenuously, and very much of Dr. 
 Fuller's art of memory, which he did tell me 
 several instances of. By and bye he parted, 
 and I talked with two women that farmed the 
 v/ell at £12. per annum, of the lord of the 
 manor. Mr. Evelyn, with his lady, and also 
 my Lord George IJarkeley's lady, and their fine 
 daughter, that tlie king of France liked so well, 
 and did dance so rich in jewels before the king, 
 at the ball I was at, at our court last winter, 
 and also their son, a knight of the Bath, were at 
 church this morning. 1 walked upon the Downs, 
 ■where a flock of sheep was ; the most pleasant 
 and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. 
 We found a shepherd, and his little boy read- 
 ing, t'reo from any houses or sight of people, 
 the Bible to him ; and we took notice of his knit 
 woollen stockings, of two colours mixed." — Vol, 
 ii. p. 92. 
 
 This place was still in high condition at the 
 beginning of the next century, as appears from 
 Toland's account of it, quoted in the History of 
 Epsom, by an Inhabitant. After a " flowery," as 
 the writer justly calls it, but perhaps not un- 
 deserved account of the pleasures of the place, 
 outside as well as in, he says — 
 
 "The two rival bowling-greens are not to be 
 forgotten, on which all the company, after di- 
 verting themselves, in the morning, according 
 to their fancies, make a gallant appearance 
 every evening, especially on the Saturday and 
 Monday. Here are also rafiling-tables, with 
 music jjlaying most of the day ; and the nights 
 are generally crowned with dancing. All new- 
 comers are awakened out of their sleej) the 
 first morning, by the same music, which goes 
 to welcome them to Epsom. 
 
 " You would think yourself in some enchanted 
 camp, to see the peasants ride to every house, 
 with choicest fruits, herbs, and flowers ; with 
 all sorts of tame and wild fowl, the rarest fish 
 and venison; and with every kind of butcher's 
 meat, among which tlie Banstead Down mutton 
 is the most relishing dainty. 
 
 " Thus to see the fresh and artless damsels 
 of the plain, either accompanied by their 
 amorous swains or aged parents, striking their 
 
 bargains with the nice court and city ladies, 
 who, like queens in a tragedy, display all their 
 finery on benches before their doors (where 
 they hourly censure and are censured) ; and 
 to observe how the handsomest of each degree 
 equally admire, envy, ami cozen one another, 
 is to me one of the chief amusements of the 
 place. 
 
 " The ladies who are too lazy or stately, but 
 especially those who sit up late at cards, have 
 their provisions brought to their bedside, where 
 they conclude the bargain with the higler ; 
 and then (perhaps after a dish of chocolate) 
 take another nap until what they have thus 
 purchased is jirejiared for dinner. 
 
 " Within a mile and a half of Epsom, is the 
 place, and only the i)lace, where the splendid 
 mansion of Nonesuch lately stood. A great 
 part of it, however, stood in my own time, and 
 1 have spoken with those who saw it entire. 
 
 " But not to quit our Downs for any court, 
 the great number of gentlemen and ladies that 
 take the air every morning and evening on 
 horseback, and that range, either singly or in 
 separate companies, over every hill and dale, 
 is a most entertaining object. 
 
 " But whether you gently wander over my 
 favourite meadows, planted on all sides quite 
 to Woodcote Seat (in whose long grove I 
 oftenest converse with myself) ; or walk fur- 
 ther on to Ashted house and park ; or ride still 
 farther to Box-hill, that enchanting temple of 
 Nature ; or whether you lose yourself in the 
 aged yew-groves of Mickleham, or try your 
 patience in angling for trout about Leatherhead; 
 whether you go to some cricket-match, and 
 other sports of contending villagers, or choose 
 to breathe your horse at a race, and to follow 
 a pack of hounds at the proper season : whether, 
 I say, you delight in any one or every of these, 
 Epsom is the place you must like before all 
 others." 
 
 Congreve has a letter addressed " to Mrs. 
 Hunt at Epsom." This was Arabella Hunt, 
 the lady to whom he addressed an ode on her 
 singing, and with whom he appears to have 
 been in love. 
 
 Epsom has still its races ; but the Wells (not 
 far from Ashted Park), though retaining their 
 property, and giving a name to a medicine, 
 have long been out of fasiiion. Individuals, 
 however, 1 believe, still resort to them. Their 
 site is occupied by a farm-house, in which 
 lodgings are to be had. Close to Ashted Park 
 is that of Woodcote, formerly the residence of 
 the notorious Lord Baltimore, the last man of 
 quality in England who had a taste for abduc- 
 tion. Of late our aspirants after figure and 
 fortune seem to have been ambitiousof restoring 
 the practice from Ireland. It is tlieir mode of 
 conductmg the business of life. Abduction, 
 they think, " must be attended to." 
 
 From Woodcote Green, a pretty sequestered 
 spot, between this park and the town, rooks
 
 A WALK FROJI DULWICH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 91 
 
 are said to have been first taken to the Temple 
 Gardens, by Sir William Northey, secretary to 
 Queen Anne. How heightened is the pleasure 
 given you by the contemplation of a beautiful 
 spot, when you think it has been the means of 
 conferring a good elsewhere ! I would rather 
 live near a rookery, which had sent out a dozen 
 colonies, than have the solitary idea of them 
 complete. In solitude you crave after human 
 good ; and here a piece of it, however cheap in 
 the eyes of the scornful, has been conferred ; 
 for Sir William's colony flourish, it seems, in 
 the smoke of London. Hooks always appeared 
 to me the clergymen among birds ; grave, 
 black-coated, sententious ; with an eye to a 
 snug sylvan abode, and plenty of tithes. Their 
 clerkly character is now mixed up in my 
 imagination with something of the lawyer. 
 They and the If wyers' " studious bowers," as 
 Spenser calls the Temple, appear to suit one 
 another. Did you ever notice, by the way, 
 what a soft and pleasant sound there is in the 
 voices of the vouikj rooks — a sort of kindly 
 chuckle, like that of an infant being fed ? 
 
 At Woodcote Green is Durdans, the seat 
 mentioned in Pepys as belonging to Lord 
 Berkeley, now the residence of Sir Gilbert 
 Heathcote, and said to have been built (with 
 several other mansions) of the materials of 
 Nonesuch, when that palace waspuUeddown. It 
 is one of those solid country houses, wider than 
 tall, and of shining brick- work, that retain at 
 once a look of age and newness ; promise well 
 for domestic comfort ; and suit a good sub- 
 stantial garden. In coming upon it suddenly, 
 and looking at it through the great iron gates 
 and across a round plat of grass and flowers, it 
 seems a personification of the solid country 
 squire himself, not without elegance, sitting 
 Tinder his trees. When I looked at it, and 
 thought of the times of Charles II., I could not 
 help fancjing that it must have belonged to 
 the " Dame Durden " of the old glee, who had 
 such a loving household. 
 
 There is a beautiful walk from Woodcote 
 Green to Ashted, through the park, and then 
 (crossing the road) through fields and woody 
 lanes to Leatherhead ; but in going, we went 
 by the road. As we were leaving Epsom, a 
 girl was calling the bees to swarm, with a brass 
 pan. Larks accompanied us all the way. The 
 fields were full of clover ; there was an air on 
 our faces, the days being at once fine and gently 
 clouded ; and in passing through a lovely 
 country, we were conscious of going to a love- 
 lier. 
 
 A t Leatherhead begin the first local evidences 
 of hill and valley, with whidi the country is 
 now enriched. The modern way of spelling 
 the name of this town renders it a misnomer 
 and a dishonour, and has been justly resented 
 by the antiquarian taste of Mr. Dallaway the 
 vicar, who makes it a point, tliey say, to restore 
 the old spelling, Lethcred. I believe he sup- 
 
 poses it to come anagrammatically from the 
 Saxon name Ethelred ; a thing not at all im- 
 probable, transformations of that sort having 
 been common in old times. (See the annota- 
 tions on Chaucer and Hedi.) An Ethelred 
 perhaps had a seat at this place. Epsom, for- 
 merly written Ebshara and Ebbesham (Fuller 
 so writes it), is said to have been named from 
 Ebba, a Saxon princess, who had a palace 
 there. Ebba, I suppose, is the same as Emma, 
 cum gratia Mathews. 
 
 Leatherhead, like all the towns that let 
 lodgings during the races, is kept very neat 
 and nice ; and though not quite so woody as 
 Epsom, is in a beautiful country, and has to 
 boast of the river Mole. It has also a more 
 venerable church. Mr. Dallaway, like a proper 
 antiquary, has refreshed the interior, without 
 spoiling it. Over the main pew is preserved, 
 together Avith his helmet, an inscription in old 
 English letters, to the memory of " frendly 
 Robert Gardner," chief Serjeant of tlie'SSVWer," 
 in the year 1571. This was in the time of 
 Elizabeth. A jovial successor of his is also 
 recorded, to wit, " Richard Dalton, Esq., Ser- 
 jeant of the Wine Cellar to King Charles II." 
 But it is on the memory of the other sex that 
 Leatherhead church ought to pride itself. 
 Here are buried three sister Beauclercs, daugh- 
 ters of Lord Henry Beauclerc, who appear to 
 have been three quiet, benevolent old maids, 
 who followed one another quietly to the grave, 
 and had lived, doubtless, the admiration rather 
 than the envy of the village damsels. Here 
 also lies Miss Cholmondeley, another old maid, 
 but merry withal, and the delight of all that 
 knew her, who, by one of those frightful ac- 
 cidents that suddenly knock people's souls out, 
 and seem more frightful when they cut short 
 the career of the good-natured, was killed on 
 the spot, at the entrance of this village, by the 
 overturning of the Princess Charlotte's coach, 
 whom she was accompanying on a Aasit to 
 Norbury Park. A most aff"ectionate epitaph, 
 honourable to all parties, and recording her 
 special attachment to her married sister, is 
 inscribed to her memory by her brother-in- 
 law. Sir William Bellingham, I think. But 
 above all, " Here lies all that is mortal " (to use 
 the words of the tombstone) " of ^Irs. Eliza- 
 beth Rolfe," of Dover, in Kent, who departed 
 this life in the sixty-seventh year of her age, 
 and was " interred by her own desire at the side 
 of her beloved Cousin, Benefactress, and Friend, 
 Lady Catharine Thompson, with whom she 
 buried all worldly happiness. This temporary 
 separation," continues the ei)itaph, " no engage- 
 ments, no pursuits, could render less bitter to the 
 disconsolate Mrs. Rolfe, who from the hour she 
 lost her other self knew no pleasures but in the 
 hopes slio cherislied (on which point her eyes 
 were ever fixed) of joining her friend in the 
 region of unfading Felicity. Blessed with the 
 Power and Will to succour the distressed, she
 
 92 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 exercised both ; and in these exercises only 
 found a Ray of ll;ij>i)iness. Let the Kidi- 
 culers of Female Friendship read this honest 
 Inscription, whicii disdains to flatter." — A 
 record in another jiurt informs ns, that Mrs. 
 Rolfe gave tlie jiarish tlio interest of £400 
 annually in memory of the ahore, so long as the 
 parisli preserves tiie marble that announces 
 the gift, and the stone that covers her grave. 
 Talking witli the i)arisIi-clork, wlio was otlior- 
 wisea rigid and seemly parisli-dcrk, elderly and 
 withered, with a proper brown wig, he affected, 
 like a man of this world, to speak in disparage- 
 ment of tlie phrase " lier otlier self," which 
 somebody liad taught iiim to consider romantic, 
 and an exaggeration. This was being a little 
 too niucli of "tlie earth, earthy." The famous 
 parish-clerif of St. Andrews, one of tlie great 
 professors of humanity in the times of the 
 Deckars and Shakspeares, would have talked 
 in a different strain. There is some more of 
 the e])itaph, recommencing in a style some- 
 what "to seek," and after the meditative Bur- 
 leigh fashion, in the Critic ; but this does not 
 hinder the rest from being true, or Mrs. Rolfe 
 and my lady Thompson from being two genuine 
 human beings, and among the salt of the 
 earth. There is more friendship and virtue in 
 the world than the world has yet got wisdom 
 enough to know and be proud of ; and few 
 things would please me better than to travel 
 all over England, and fetch out the records 
 of it. 
 
 I must not omit to mention that Elinor 
 Rummyn, illustrious in the tap-room pages of 
 " Skelton, Laureate," kept a house in this vil- 
 lage ; and that Mr. Dallaway has emblazoned 
 the fact, for the benefit of antiquarian travel- 
 lers, in the shape of her portrait, with an 
 inscription upon it. The house is the Running 
 Horse, near the bridge. 
 
 The luxuriance of the country now increases 
 at every step towards Dorking, which is five 
 miles from Leatherhead. You walk through 
 a valley with hills on one side and wood all 
 about ; and on your right hand is the Mole, 
 running through fields and flowery hedges. 
 These hills are the turfy downs of Norbury 
 Park, the gate of which you soon arrive at. It 
 is modern, but in good retrospective taste, and 
 stands out into the road with one of those round 
 overhanging turrets, wliich seem held forth by 
 the old hand of hosi)itality. A little beyond, 
 you arrive at the lovely village of Mickleham, 
 email, sylvan, and embowered, ivith a little fat 
 church (for the epithet comes involuntarily at 
 the sight of it), as short and plump as the fattest 
 of its vicars may have been, with a dispro- 
 portionate bit of a spire on the top, a.s if he had 
 put on an extinguisher instead of a hat. The 
 inside has been renewed in the proper taste 
 as though Mr. Dallaway had had a hand in it; 
 and tliere is an organ, which is more than 
 Leatherhead can boast. The organist is the 
 
 son of the parish-clerk ; and when I asked his 
 
 sister, a modest, agreeable-looking girl, who 
 sliowed us the church, wlietlier he could not 
 favour us with a voluntary, she told me he was 
 mnl-'uKj haij! What do you say to that ? I think 
 til is is a j>iece of Germanhm for you. Her father 
 was a day-labourer, like the son, and had 
 become organist before him, out of a natural 
 love of music. I had fetched the girl from her 
 tea. A decent-looking young man was in tlie 
 room with her ; the door was open, exiiibiting 
 the homely comforts inside ; a cat slept before 
 it, on the cover of the garden well ; and there 
 was i)lenty of herbs and flowers, presenting 
 altogctiier the appearance of a cottage nest. I 
 will be bound that their musical refinements 
 are a great help to the enjoyment of all this; 
 and that a general lift in their tastes, instead 
 of serving to dissatisfy the poor, would have a 
 reverse effect, by increasing the sum of their 
 resources. It would, indeed, not help to blind 
 th(>m to whatever they might have reason to 
 ask or to complain of. Why should it ? But 
 it would refine them there also, and enable 
 them to obtain it more happily, through the 
 means of the diffusion of knowledge on all 
 sides. 
 
 The mansion of Norbury Park, formerly the 
 seat of Mr. Locke, who appears to have had a 
 deserved reputation for taste in the fine arts 
 (his daughter married an Angerstein), is situate 
 on a noble elevation upon the right of the vil- 
 lage of Mickleham.. Between the grounds and 
 the road, are glorious slopes and meadows, 
 superabundant in wood, and pierced by the 
 river Mole. In coming back we turned up a 
 path into them, to look at a farm that was to 
 be let. It belongs to a gentleman, celebi-ated 
 in the neighbourhood, and we believe else- 
 where, for his powers of " conversation ; " but 
 this we did not know at the time. He was ab- 
 sent, and had left his farm in the hands of his 
 steward, to be let for a certain time. The 
 house was a cottage, and furnished as becomes 
 a cottage ; but one room we thought would 
 make a delicious study. Probably it is one ; 
 for there were books and an easy-chair in it. 
 The window looked upon a close bit of 
 lawn, shut in with trees ; and round the walls 
 hung a set of prints from Raphael. This looked 
 as if the possessor had something to say for 
 himself. 
 
 We were now in the bosom of the scenery 
 for which this part of the country is celebrated, 
 ik'tween ^lickleham and Dorking, on the left 
 is the famous Box Hill, so called from the 
 trees that grow on it. Part of it presents 
 great bald jiieces of chalk ; but on the side of 
 MickleluvTn it has one truly noble aspect, a 
 " verdurous wall," which looks the higher for 
 its being precijntous, and from its having some- 
 body's house at the foot of it — a white little 
 mansion in a world of green. Otherwise, the 
 size of this hill disapi)ointed us. The river
 
 A WALK FROM DULWICH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 93 
 
 Mole runs at the foot of it. This river, so 
 called from taking part of its course under 
 ground, does not plunge into the earth at once 
 as most people suppose. So at least Dr. Aikin 
 informs us, for I did not look into the matter 
 myself. lie says it loses itself in the ground 
 at various points about the neighbourhood, and 
 rises again on the road to Leatherhead. I pro- 
 test against its being called " sullen," in spite 
 of what the poets have been pleased to call it 
 for hiding itself. It is a good and gentle stream, 
 flowing through luxuriant banks, and clear 
 enough where the soil is gravelly. It hides, 
 just as the nymph might hide ; and Drayton 
 gives it a good character, if I remember. 
 Unfortunately I have him not by me. 
 
 The toicn of Dorking disappointed us, espe- 
 cially one of us, who was a good deal there 
 when a child, and who found new London-look- 
 ing houses started up in the place of old friends. 
 The people also appeared not so pleasant as 
 their countrjTnen in general, nor so healthy. 
 There are more King's and Diiki^'s Heads in the 
 neighboui'hood ; signs, which doubtless came 
 in with the Restoration. The Leg of Mutton is 
 the favourite hierogh'phic about the Downs. 
 Dorking is famous for a breed of fowls with 
 six toes. I do not know whether they have 
 any faculty at counting their grain. We did 
 not see Leith Hill, which is the great station 
 for a prospect hereabouts, and upon which 
 Dennis the critic made a lumbering attempt 
 to be lively. You may see it in the two 
 volumes of letters belonging to N. He " blun- 
 ders round about a meaning," and endeavours 
 to act the part of an inspired Cicerone, with 
 oratorical " flashes in the pan." One or two of 
 his attempts to convey a particular impression 
 are very ludicrous. Just as you think you are 
 going to catch an idea, they slide oft' into hope- 
 less generality. Such at least is my impression 
 from what I remember. I regret that I could 
 not meet at Epsom or Leatherhead with a 
 Dorking Guide, which has been lately pub- 
 lished, and which, I believe, is a work of merit. 
 In the town itself I had not time to think of 
 it ; otherwise I might have had some better 
 information to give you regarding spots in the 
 neighbourhood, and persons who have added 
 to their interest. 
 
 One of these, however, I know. Turning 
 off" to the left for Brockham, we had to go 
 through Betchworth Park, formerly the seat 
 of Abraham Tucker, one of the most amiable 
 and truth-loving of philosophers. Mr. Hazlitt 
 
 made an abridgment of his principal work : 
 but original and abridgment are both out of 
 print. The latter, I should thinkj would sell 
 now, when the public begin to be tired of the 
 eternal jangling and insincerity of criticism, 
 and would fain hear what an honest observer 
 has to say. It would only require to be well 
 advertised, not pufted ; for puffing, thank God, 
 besides being a very unfit announcer of truth, 
 has well-nigh cracked its cheeks. 
 
 Betchworth Castle is now in the possession 
 of Sir. Barclay the brewer, a descendant, if I 
 mistake not, of the famous Barclay of Urie, 
 the Apologist of the Quakers. If this gentle- 
 man is the same as the one mentioned in Bos- 
 well's Life of Johnson, he is by nature as well 
 as descent worthy of occupying the abode of 
 a wise man. Or if he is not, wliy shouldn't he 
 be worthy after his fashion ? You remember 
 the urbane old bookworm, who conversing with 
 a young gentleman, more remarkable for gen- 
 tility than beauty, and understanding for the 
 first time that he had sisters, said, in a trans- 
 port of the gratuitous, " Doubtless very charm- 
 ing young ladies, sir." I will not take it for 
 granted, that all the Barclays are philosophers ; 
 but something of a superiority to the vulgar, 
 either in talents or the love of them, may be 
 more reasonably expected in this kind of 
 hereditary rank than the common one. 
 
 With Mr. Tucker and his chesnut groves I 
 ■will conclude, having in fact nothing to say of 
 Brockham, except that it was the boundary of 
 our walk. Yes ; I have one thing, and a plea- 
 sant one ; which is, that I met there by chance, 
 with the younger brother of a family whom I 
 had known in my childhood, and who are emi- 
 nent to this day for a certain mixture of reli- 
 gion and joviality, equally uncommon and 
 good-hearted. May old and young continue 
 not to know which shall live the longest. I do 
 not mean religion or joNnality ! but both in 
 their shape. 
 
 Believe me, dear sir, very truly yours. — Mine 
 is not so novel or luxurious a journey as the 
 one you treated us with the other day * ; wliich 
 I mention, because one journey always makes 
 me long for another ; and I hope not many 
 years will pass over your head before you give 
 us a second Ramble, in which I may see Italy 
 once again, and hear with more accomplished 
 ears the sound of her music. 
 
 » See " A Ramble among the Musicians in Germany,'' 
 a work full of gusto. 
 
 THE END.
 
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