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 THE 
 
 INDICATOR, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE COMPANION 
 
 A MISCELLANY FOR THE FIELDS AND THE FIRE-SIDE. 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 • - » • 
 
 • • • " 
 
 • • ? « « 9 • 
 
 • * * t"^ • • • t^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDcrcxr..
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Indicator, a scries of papers orig:inally pulilislied 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 sitch 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 written with the same view of inculcating a love of nature and imagination, and of 
 furnishing a sample of tlie 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 wth him, and both lielped him to see nmch 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, 
 

 
 V 'R 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 > — 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. DIFFICULTY OP FINDING A NAME FOR A WORK OP TinS KIND . . 1 
 
 II. A WORD ON TRANSLATION FROM THE POETS 2 
 
 IIL AUTUMNAL COMMENCEMENT OP FIRES— MANTEL-PIECES— APARTMENTS 
 
 FOR STUDY ib. 
 
 IV. ACONTIUS'S APPLE 3 
 
 V. GODIVA 4 
 
 VI. PLEASANT MEMORIES CONNECTED WITH VARIOUS PARTS OP THE METRO- 
 POLIS 5 
 
 VII. ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY 8 
 
 VIII. CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN OF FRANCE 9 
 
 IX. ON THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OP THE ANCIENTS 10 
 
 X. SOCIAL GENEALOGY 12 
 
 XI. ANGLING 13 
 
 XIL LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION 15 
 
 XIII. GILBERT! GILBERT! 16 
 
 XIV. FATAL MISTAKE OF NERVOUS DISORDERS FOR MADNESS . . . . 17 
 XV. MISTS AND FOGS 19 
 
 XVI. THE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS ... 21 
 
 XVII. MORE NEWS OF ULYSSES 22 
 
 XVIH. FAR COUNTRIES . 24 
 
 XIX. A TALE FOR A CHIMNEY CORNER 26 
 
 XX. THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN 30 
 
 XXL A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP 42 
 
 XXIL THE FAIR REVENGE 4
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXIII. SPIRIT OF THE ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY , . . .47 
 
 XXIV. GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS 49 
 
 XXV. THE OLD GENTLEMAN ...'.. 60 
 
 XXVn. DOLPHINS 52 
 
 XX\aiI. RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND ib. 
 
 XXIX. A CHAPTER ON HATS • ... 56 
 
 XXX. SEAMEN ON SHORE .59 
 
 XXXI. ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGINATION 62 
 
 XXXII. DEATHS OP, LITTLE CHILDREN .65 
 
 XXXIH. POETICAL ANOMALIES OF SHAPE 67 
 
 XXXIV. SPRING AND DAISIES . 68 
 
 XXXV. MAY-DAY 71 
 
 XXXVL SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTHDAY 74 
 
 XXXVII. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY 75 
 
 XXXVm. OF STICKS ...... 76 
 
 XXXIX. OF THE SIGHT OF SHOPS 79 
 
 XL. A NEARER VIEW OF SOME OF THE SHOPS 81
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Tliere is a. bird in the interior of Africa, whose habits would ratlier seem to belong to the interior of Fairy-land : 
 but they have been well authenticated. It indicates 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 hollow 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 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 tastetli tenderly.— Spenser. 
 
 I.— DIFFICULTY OF FINDING A NAME 
 FOR A WORK OF THIS KIND. 
 
 Never did gossips, when assembled to detei'- 
 mine the name of a new-boru child, whose 
 family was full of conflicting interests, experi- 
 ence a difficulty half so great, as that which 
 an author undergoes in settling the title for a 
 periodical work. In the former case, thei-e 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 jealousy 
 gradually give way. But these cliildren of the 
 brain have no godfather at hand : and yet 
 their single appellation is bound to compi'ise 
 as many public interests, as all the Christian 
 names of a Frencli 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 
 sometiiing in it equally intelligible to the man 
 of ]ilain understanding, and sur^msing for the 
 man of imagination : — in a word, it is to be 
 impossible. 
 
 How far we have succeeded in the attain- 
 ment of this hajjpy nonentity, we leave others 
 to judge. There is one good thing however 
 which the hunt after a title is sure to realise ; 
 — a great deal of despairing mirth. We were 
 visiting a friend the otiier night, who can do 
 anything for a book but give it a title ;. and 
 after many grave and ineflfectual attempts to 
 furnish one for tlie present, the company, after 
 the fashion of Rabelais, and with a chair- 
 shaking merriment which lie himself miglit 
 have joined in, fell to turning a hopeless thing 
 
 into a jest. It was like that exquisite picture 
 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 fourth turned on the toe, and down he fell. 
 
 With 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 INIan His Own Other Man's Wit ; — 
 Nonsense, To be continued. Others were 
 laughable by the mere force of contrast, as 
 the Crocodile, or Pleasing Comiianion ; — Chaos, 
 or the Agreeable Miscellany ; — the Fugitive 
 Guide ; — the Foot Soldier, or Flowers of Wit ; 
 — Bigotry, or the Cheerful Instructor ; — the 
 Polite Repositoiy of Abuse ; — Blood, being a 
 Collection of Light Essays. Otliers were sheer 
 ludicrousness and extravagance, as the Pleas- 
 ing Ancestor ; the Silent Companion ; the 
 Tart ; tlie Leg of Beef, by a Layman ; tlie 
 Ingenious Hatband ; the Boots of Bliss ; the 
 Occasional Diner ; the Tooth-ache ; Recollec- 
 tions of a Very Unpleasant Nature ; Thoughts 
 on Taking up a Pair of SnulFers ; Thoughts on 
 a Barouclie-box ; Thoughts on a Hill of Con- 
 siderable Eminence ; INIeditations on a Pleas- 
 ing Idea ; IMaterials for Drinking ; tlie Knocker, 
 No. I. ; — the Hippopotamus entered at Sta-
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tioners' Hall ; the Piano-forte of Paulus 
 ^milius ; the Seven Sleepers at Cards ; the 
 Arabian Nights on Horseback : — with an 
 infinite nnmlier of other mortal murders of 
 common sense, wliicli rose to "push us from 
 our stools," and which none but the wise or 
 good-natured Avould think of enjoying. 
 
 II._A WORD ON TRANSLATION FROM 
 THE POETS. 
 
 Intelligent men of no scholarship, 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 flowerin": Ijouo-h. 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 
 biief, yet 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-place 
 kind of poetry that flourished so widely among 
 us till of late years. Take the passage, for 
 instance, where tiie lovers in the Merchant 
 of Venice seat themselves on a bank by moon- 
 light :— 
 
 How sweet tlie moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
 Here will we 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 : — 
 
 With what a charm, the moon, serene and bright, 
 Lends on the bank its soft reflected light ! 
 Sit we, I pray ; and let us sweetly hear 
 The strains melodious with a raptured ear ; 
 For soft retreats, and niRlit's impressive hour, 
 To harmony impart diviuest power. 
 
 m.— AUTUMNAL COMMEXCEMENT 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. 
 TJie Englisli get together over their fires, as 
 the Italians do in their summer-shade. We 
 do not enjoy our sunshine as wo ought ; our 
 climate seems to render us almost unaware 
 that the weather is fine, when 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 comes, the dismayed inhabitant, 
 walking and shivering about with a little 
 brazier in liis hands, presents an awkward 
 image of insufliciency iind perplexity. A few 
 of our fogs, shutting up the sight of evei-ything 
 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 
 U.S, 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 
 JMontaigne, or Marcus Aurelius, or Moliere, 
 or Shakspeare who includes them all ? Or 
 shall we read an engraving from Ponssin or 
 Rapliael ? Or shall we sit Avith tilted chairs, 
 planting our wrists u})on 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 
 Avhat we say with the sincere, the good-in- 
 tentioned, and the good-natured ? 
 
 Ah — take care. 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 tlian ever he could — 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 him with the milk and honey of a 
 thousand pleasant 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 
 stuffed 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 inind of man ; — and underneath all, is the 
 bright and ever-springing fire, running tip 
 through them heavenwards, like hope through 
 materiality. We like to have any little 
 curiosity of the mantel-jjiece 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. 
 I'o have a iiuge 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, Avrote over the house he 
 huilt, " parra, sed apta mihi"- — small, but suited 
 to me. However, it is to be observed, that he 
 coxdd 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 
 Jlontaigne "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 has 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." {Cotton^ s Montahjne, 
 b. ?>, ch. 3.) 
 
 A great prospect we hold to be a very dis- 
 putable advantage, xipon 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 present purpose. He would have 
 the lamp in it seen ; thus letting others into a 
 sliare of his enjoyments, by the imagination of 
 them. 
 
 And let my lamp at midnight hour 
 Be seen in some liigh lonely tower, 
 Where I may oft oiitwatch the Bear 
 With thrice-great Hermes ; or imsphere 
 The Spirit of Plato, to unfold 
 What world or what vast 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 element fix all their happiness : 
 
 But purer spirits, purged and refined. 
 
 Shake off that clog of human frailty. Give me 
 
 Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does 
 
 Contain my books, the best companions, is 
 
 To me a glorious court, where hourly I 
 
 Converse with the old sages and pliilosophers ; 
 
 And sometimes for vaiiety I confer 
 
 Witli kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels ; 
 
 Calling their victories, if unjustly got, 
 
 Unto a strict account ; and in my fancy, 
 
 Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then 
 
 I'art with such constant pleasures, to embrace 
 
 Uncertain vanities / No, be it your care 
 
 To augment a heap of wealth : it shall be mine 
 
 To increase in knowledge. Lights there, for my study. 
 
 IV.— ACONTIUS'S APPLE. 
 
 AcoNTius was a youth of the island of Cea 
 (now Zia), who at the sacrifices 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 
 M'it 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 AKONTIfl TAMOTMAI. 
 
 By Dian, I will marry Acontius. 
 
 Or as a poet has written them : 
 
 Juro tibi sanctae per mystica sacra Dianfe, 
 
 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- 
 t£3enetus in his Epistles calls the apple nvSiiviov 
 fxrtXov, a Cretan apple, which is supposed to 
 mean a quince ; or as others think, an orange, 
 or a citron. But the a^iple was, is, and must 
 be, a true, unsophisticated apple. Nothing 
 else would have suited. " The apples, me- 
 thought," says Sir Philip Sydney of his heroine 
 in the Arcadia, " fell down from the trees to 
 do homage to the apples of her breast." The 
 idea seems to have originated with Theocritus 
 (Idyl. 27, v. 50, edit. Valckenaer), from whom 
 it was copied by the 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 Furioso, canto 7, st. 14) — 
 
 Bianca neve e il bel collo, e '1 petto latte : 
 H collo d tondo, il petto colmo e largo : 
 Due pome acerbe, e pur d' avorio fatte, 
 Vengono e 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 crisp young 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 dolci carole 
 
 Gli Araoretti senz' archi e senza faci : 
 
 Sedean pastori e ninfo 
 
 Meschiando a le parole 
 
 Vezzi e susurri, ed ai susurri i baci 
 
 Strettamente tenaci. 
 
 B 2
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 La verginella igniide 
 
 Stopria sue fresche rose 
 
 Ch' or tien dlI velo ascose, 
 
 E le pome del seno, acerbe e crude ; 
 
 E spesso o in fiume o in lago 
 
 Scherzar si vide con l' aniata il vago. 
 
 Then among streams and flowers, 
 
 The little Winged Powers 
 
 Went singing carols, without torch or how ; 
 
 The nymphs 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, 
 
 Which now a veil must liide, 
 
 Nor the crisp apples which her bosom bore : 
 
 And oftentimes in river or in lake, 
 
 The lover and his love their merry bath would take. 
 
 Honi 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 pocket- 
 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 the 
 eleven thousand virgins, — an "incredible 
 number," quoth 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 liusband, Leofric, are 
 mentioned in an old charter recorded by 
 another early historian. Tliat the story is 
 omitted by Hume and others, argues little 
 against it ; for the latt-cr are accustomed to 
 confound the most interesting anecdotes of 
 times and manners with something below the 
 dignity of history (a very absurd mistake) ; 
 and Hume, of whose philosophy better things 
 might have been expected, is notoriously less 
 philosophical in his liistory than in any otlier 
 of his works. A certain coldness of tempera- 
 ment, not unmixed with aristocratical pride, 
 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 his poetical 
 eyesight, saw better, when he meditated the 
 history of his native country. We do not 
 remember whether he relates the 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 thos^, 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 weight to 
 that of the 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 habit of inventing ; 
 and this piece of noble-heartedness we believe 
 to have been one of them. 
 
 Leofric, Earl of Leicester, was the lord of a 
 large feudal territory in the middle of England, 
 of whicli Coventry formed a part. He lived 
 in the time of Edward the Confessor ; and 
 was so eminently a feudal lord, that the here- 
 ditary greatness of his dominion apjjears to 
 have been singular even at that time, and to 
 have lasted with 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 Leofric or not, 
 does not appear, but Coventry was subject to 
 a very oppressive tollage, by which 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 description ; 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 the 
 petty 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 
 tlieir warlike habits. It was reserved for a 
 woman to anticipate ages of liberal opinion, 
 and to surjDass 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 
 up liis tax, provided she rode through the city 
 of Coventry, naked. She took him at his 
 word. One may imagine the astonishment of 
 a fierce unlettered chieftain, not untinged with 
 chivalry, 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 that was supposed fitting for 
 her 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 Dr. Johnson, among his other impatient accu- 
 sations of our great republican, chaiged liim with telling 
 unwarrantable stories in his history, he must have over- 
 looked this annoimcement ; 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 np 
 her design, he had sworn some religious oath 
 when he made his promise : but be this as it 
 may, he took every possible precaution to 
 secure her modesty from hurt. The people of 
 Coventry were ordered to keep witiiin doors, 
 to close up all their windows and outlets, and 
 not to give a glance into the streets upon pain 
 of death. Tlie 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 wrapping 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 
 conspicuous, 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 hei-self, 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 uuvulgar 
 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 
 
 From her small mean regard, recovered state and strength ; 
 
 I5y Leofric lier lord, yet in base bondage held, 
 
 Tlie people from her marts by toUage were expelled ; 
 
 AVIiose duchess which desired this tribute to release, 
 
 Their freedom often begged. The duke, to make her cease, 
 
 Told her, that if she would his lo.-s so far enforce. 
 
 His will was, she should ride stark naked upon a horse 
 
 By d.aylight through the street : which certainly he 
 
 thought 
 In her heroic breast so deeply would have wrought. 
 That in her former suit she would have left to deal. 
 But flidt vioxt princi'h/ dame, as one devoured with zeal. 
 Went on, and by that mean the city clearly freed. 
 
 * " Nuda," says Matthew of Westminster, " equum 
 ascendens, crines capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum 
 totum, prjcter crura eandidissinia, inde velavit." See 
 Selden's Notes to the Polt/olMon of Drayton : Song 13. It 
 is Selden from whom we learn, that Leofric was Earl of 
 
 VI.— PLEASANT MEMOIUES CONNECTED WITH 
 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 disti-esses 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 u])on 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 ^Marvell, the wit and patriot, 
 Avhose 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 ha})py 
 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 showed the white of the 
 stone steeple piercing up into a blue sky. So 
 much for St. Giles's, whose very name is a 
 nuisance with some. It is dangerous to speak 
 disrespectfully of old districts. Who would 
 siqipose that the Borough was the most classical 
 gi-ound in the metropolis ! And yet it is un- 
 doubtedly so. The Globe theatre was there, 
 of wjiich 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 Earl was bvuicd at Coventry, his Countess 
 most probably in the same tomb.
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 that he lived near it : it is certain that he 
 must have been much there. It is also certain, 
 that on the Borougli side of the river, then 
 and still called the Bank-side, in the same 
 lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some 
 say, with other ^participations more remarkable, 
 lived Beaumont and Fletcher. In the Borough 
 also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and INIas- 
 singer, in one grave ; in the same church, 
 under a monument and effigy, lies Chaucer's 
 contemporary, Gower ; and from an 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 Canterbury. 
 
 To return over the water, wlio would expect 
 anything poetical from East Smithfield ? Yet 
 there was born the most poetical even of 
 poets, Spenser. Pope was born within the 
 sound of Bow-bell, in a street no less anti- 
 poetical tlian Lombard-street. Gray was born 
 in Cornhill ; and JMilton 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 
 Bartholomew-close ; in Ilolborn, looking back 
 to Lincoln's-inn-Fields ; in Holborn, near Red 
 Lion-square ; in Scotland-yard ; in a house 
 looking to St. James's Park, now belonging to 
 an eminent writer on legislation,* and lately 
 occupied by a celebi-ated critic and metaphy- 
 sician ; t and he died in the Artillery- walk, 
 Bunliill-fields ; and was buried in St. Giles's, 
 Cripplegate. 
 
 Ben Jonson, who was born in " Hartshorn e- 
 lane, near Charing-cross," was at one time 
 " master" of a tlieatre in Barbican. He appears 
 also to have visited a tavern called the Sun 
 and Moon, in Aldersgate-street ; and is known 
 to have frequented, with Beaumont and others, 
 the famous one called tlie Mermaid, wliich 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-s<ame thing 
 They know they see, however absent, is 
 Here our best haymaker : forgive me this : 
 It is our country style : — In tliis warm shine 
 I lie, and dream of your full Mermaid wine. 
 
 Methinks the little wit I had, is lost, 
 
 Since 1 saw you ; for wit is like a rest 
 
 Held up at tennis, which men do tlie best 
 
 With the best eamesters. What things have we seen 
 
 Done at the Jlormaid ! Hard words that have been 
 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle ftanie, 
 
 As if that every one from whom they came 
 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 
 Of his dull life. Then, when there liath been thrown 
 
 Wit, able enough to justify the town 
 
 * Mr. Bentham. 
 
 t Mr. Hazlitt. 
 
 For three days past, — wit, that might warrant be 
 
 For the whole city to talk foolishly 
 
 Till that were cancelled, and when that was gone. 
 
 We left an air behind us, which alone 
 
 Was able to make the two next companies 
 
 Right witty ; — though but dowTiright 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 
 tlie cloisters of Christ's Hospital into St. Bar- 
 tholomew's. Aubrey gives it as a common 
 opinion, that at the time when Jonson'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 Avhich seems 
 old enough to have some of his illustrious 
 brick and mortar remaining. 
 
 LTnder the cloisters in Clirist'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 monasteiy 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, w^ho 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 France, with unrelenting fangs. 
 Who 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 hei"e also, not to mention a variety 
 of others, known in the literaiy world, were 
 bred two of the best and most deep-spirited 
 writers of the present day,^ whose visits to 
 the cloisters we well remember. 
 
 In a palace on the site of Hatton-Gardeii, 
 died John of Gaunt. Brook-house, at the 
 corner of the street of that name in Holborn, 
 was the residence of the celebrated Sir Fulke 
 Greville, Lord Brooke, the " friend of Sir 
 Philip Sidney." In the same street, died, by 
 a voluntary death of poison, that extraordinary 
 person, Thomas Cliatterton, — 
 
 The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 * It has since been unveiled, by an opening in Newgate- 
 street, t Coleridge and Lamb.
 
 MEMORIES OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 He was buried in the grave-yard of the work- 
 liouse 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 i No more 
 than Horace Walpole. In Gray's-inn lived, and 
 in Gray's-inn garden meditated, Lord Bacon. 
 In Southampton-row, Holborn, Cov>-per was fel- 
 low-clerk to an attorney with the future Lord 
 Chancellor Tliurlow. 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, part of the 
 ground was occupied by the celebrated theatre 
 built after the Restoration, at wliicli 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. .lohnson, who 
 resided also some time in the Temple. A list 
 of his numerous other residences is to be found 
 in Boswell." Congreve died in Surrey-street, 
 in tlie Strand, at his own house. At the corner 
 of Beaufort-buildings, was Lilly's, the per- 
 fumer, at whose house the T«rie*-Avas published. 
 In Maiden-lane, Covent-garden, Voltaire lodged 
 while in London, at the sign of tlie White 
 Peruke. Tavistock-street was then, we believe, 
 the Bond-street of the fashionable world ; as 
 Bow-street was before. The change of Bow- 
 I street from fashion to the police, with the 
 theatre still in attendance, reminds one of the 
 spirit of the Beggai's Ojyera. Button's Coffee- 
 house, the resort of tlie wits of Queen Anne's 
 time, was in Russell-street, near where the 
 Ilummums now stand ; and in the same street, 
 at tlie south-west corner of Bow-street, was the 
 tavern where Dryden held regal possession of 
 the arm-chair. The whole of Covent-garden 
 is classic ground, from its association with the 
 dramatic and other Avits of the times of Dryden 
 and Pope. Butler lived, perhaps died, in 
 Rose-street, and was buried in Covent-garden 
 churchyard ; where Peter Pindar the other 
 day followed him. In Leicester-square, on 
 the site of Miss Linwood's exhibition and 
 other 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 Hogarth. 
 Dryden lived and died in Gerrard-street, in a 
 house which looked backwards into the garden 
 of Leicester-house. Newton lived in St. Mar- 
 tiu's-street, on the soutii side of the square. 
 Steele lived in Bury-street, St. .James's : he 
 furnislies an ilhistrious precedent for the 
 loungers in St. James's-sti'eet, wliei-e ascandal- 
 
 * The Temple must have had many eminent inmates. 
 Anioup; tlieiii it is believed was Chaucer, who is alsd said, 
 upon the strcnRth of an old record, to have been fined two 
 shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet-street. 
 
 monger of those times delighted to detect 
 Isaac Bickerstaft" 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 More lived 
 at Chelsea. Addison lived and died inHolland- 
 house, Ken.sington, now the residence of the 
 accomplished nobleman who takes his title 
 from it. In Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, 
 lived Handel ; and in Bentinck-street, Man- 
 chester-square, Gibbon. We have omitted to 
 mention that De Foe kept a hosier's shop in 
 Cornhill ; and that on the site of the present 
 Southampton-buildings, Cliancery-lane, stood 
 the mansion of the 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 thing to us than the London 
 tavern, or the Crown and Anchor, or the 
 Hummnms, or White's, or What's-his-name's, 
 or any other of your contemporary and fleeting 
 tajis ? 
 
 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 
 that was agreeable in him. We never saw, 
 for instance, the gilt ball at the top of the 
 College of Physicians, t without thinking of 
 tliat 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 ^, 
 Where 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 oval 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. Clement'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 eveii the " combs " that hung " dangling 
 
 * It has lately disappeared, in the alterations occasioned 
 by the new London Bridge, 
 t In Warwick-lane, now a manufactory. 
 t The Old Bailey.
 
 8 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 in your face " at a shop which he describes, 
 and which was standing tUl the late improve- 
 ments took phice. The rest of the picture is 
 still alive. (Trirki, b. iii.) 
 
 Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand, 
 Whose straitened bounds encroach upon the Strand ; 
 Where tlie low pent-house bows the walker's head. 
 And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread ; 
 Where not a post protects the narrow space, 
 And strung in twines, combs dangle in thy face ; 
 Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care ; 
 Stand tirm, 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 to Theseus 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 such 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 — 
 
 After the school of Stratforde atte Bowe ; 
 For French of Paris was to her unknowe. 
 
 VII.— ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY. 
 
 If you are melancholy for the first time, jou 
 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. The body has a great 
 deal to do with these matters. The mind may 
 undoubtedly affect the body ; but tlie body 
 also affects tlie mind. There is a re-action 
 between them ; and by lessening it on either 
 side, you diminish tiie 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 clear and quick. Endeavour 
 therefore to put your blood in motion. Ex- 
 ercise is the best way to do it ; but you may 
 also help yourself, in moderation, with wine, or 
 other excitements. 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 up, by the natural 
 stimulus only, the help you have given your- 
 self by the artificial . 
 
 Regard the bad weather as somebody has 
 advised us to handle the nettle. In proportion 
 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. 
 
 Do not the less, however, on that account, take 
 all reasonable precaution and arms against it, 
 ■^your boots, &c. against wet feet, and your 
 great-coat or umbrella against the rain. It is 
 timidity and flight, 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 exei'cise, 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 liis means ; 
 and the poor man's diminution of them 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 gallantry. 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 
 imj»ortance is of so feeble and hollow a cast, 
 that it dare not move for fear of tumbling to 
 pieces. 
 
 A friend of ours, who knows as well as any 
 man how 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 INIethodistical 
 Sabbaths, but days of rest which pay true 
 homage to the Supreme 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 water ; 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 hiirtful by little and 
 little. And he quotes with admiration the 
 advice of Celsus : — that " a man do vary and 
 interchange contraries, bvit 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 shall 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 will 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 \ise it mode- 
 rately if i-equired, that it may not be too 
 strange to us when required most.) " If you 
 make it too familiar, it will have no extraordi- 
 nary effect when sickness cometli. 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- 
 lights ratlier than surfeit of them ; wonder 
 and admiration, and tlierefore novelties ; 
 studies that 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 Bosworth \ 
 by Richard the Third, while bearing the | 
 standard of the Duke of Richmond. Richard 
 dashed at the standard, and a])pears to have 
 been thrown from his horse by Sir William, 
 whose strength and courage however could not 
 save him from the angry desperation of the 
 king. 
 
 But Time, whose wheeles with variovis motion runne, 
 Repayes this service fully to his Sonne, 
 AVho marries Richmond's daughter, bom betweene 
 Two royal parents, and endowed a fjueene. 
 
 Sir John Beaumont's Bosworth 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 suffered to become his wife. 
 Royal females in most countries have certainly 
 none of the advantages of their rank, whatever 
 the males may have. Mary was destined to 
 taste the usual bitterness of their lot ; but 
 she 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 
 tournaments. The doings of Charles Brandon 
 that time were long remembered. The love 
 between him and the young queen was sus- 
 pected by the French court ; and he had just 
 seen her enter Paris in the midst of a gorgeous 
 procession, like Aurora come to marry Titho- 
 nns. Brandon dealt his chivalry about him 
 accordingly with such irresistible vigour, that 
 the dauphin, in a fit of jealousy, secretly in- 
 troduced into the contest a huge German, wlio 
 was thought to be of a strength incomj)arable. 
 But Brandon grappled with him, and with 
 seeming disdain and detection so pummelled 
 liim about the liead with tlic hilt of his sword, 
 that the blood burst through tiie 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 Ileroical Epistles, we 
 know not on what authority, tells ns, that on 
 one occasion during the combats, perhaps this 
 particular one, she could not help crying out, 
 " Hurt not my sweet Charles," or words to 
 that effect. He then pleasantly represents her 
 as doing away suspicion by falling to commen- 
 dations of the dauphin, and affecting not to 
 know who the conquering knight was ; — an 
 ignorance not very j)robable ; but the knights 
 sometimes disguised themselves purposely. 
 
 The old king did not long survive his fes- 
 tivities. He 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 royal widow was young, beautiful, 
 and rich : and it Avas 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 married her first love. Tlie queen, 
 says a homely but not mean poet (Warner, in 
 his Albion's England) 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 giipsse. 
 That seeuig this or that, at first 
 
 Or last, had likelyhood, 
 A man so much a manly man 
 
 AVere dastardly withstood. 
 Then kisses revelled on their lips, 
 
 To either's equal good. 
 
 Henry showed great 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 the 
 chivalrous Lord Herbert's Life of Henry the 
 Eiglith by us, which is most probably the au- 
 thority for the story ; and being a good thing, 
 it is omitted, as usual, by the historians) that 
 Cliarles 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-gold, 
 and with a motto on each half. One of tlie 
 mottos ran thus : — 
 
 Cloth of frize, be not 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 frize. 
 
 It is tills l)eautiful piece of sentiment wliich 
 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 Daimon (DEpmou) or Genius, the 
 Penates, and the Lares. The first was sup- 
 posed to be a spirit 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 the 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 Daemon, Genius, or Familiar Spirit, 
 who, as he was a good man, always advised 
 him to a good end. The Genius was thought 
 to paint ideas upon the mind in as lively a 
 manner as if in a looking-glass ; upoi^ which 
 we chose which of them to adopt. Spenser, 
 a deeply-learned as well as imaginative poet, 
 describes it in one of his most comjirehensive 
 though not most poetical stanzas, as 
 
 ■ That celestial Powre, to whom the care 
 
 Of life, and generation of all 
 That lives, pertaine in charge particulare ; 
 Who wondrous things concerning our welfare, 
 And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte foresee. 
 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 bee. 
 
 Therefore a God him sage antiquity 
 
 Did wisely make. — Faerie Queene, book ii. st. 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 Avanting. There is no doubt, how- 
 ever, that the Romans, who copied and in 
 general vulgarized the Greek mythology, took 
 their Genius from the Greek Daimon : and 
 as the Greek word has survived and taken 
 shape in the common word Dajmon, which by 
 scornful reference to the Heathen religion, 
 came at last to signify a Devil, so the Latin 
 word Genius, not having been used by the 
 translators of the Greek Testament, has sur- 
 vived with a better meaning, and is employed 
 to expi-ess 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 : — lie has a noble genius, a fine 
 genius, an original and peculiar genius. And 
 as the Romans, 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 adopted 
 
 J
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 11 
 
 the same use of the term into our poetical 
 phraseology. We speak also of the genius 
 or idiomatic peculiarity of a language. One of 
 tlie most curious and edifying uses of the 
 word Genius took place in the English trans- 
 lation of the French Arabian Nu/lits, which 
 speaks of our old friends the Gertie 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 comua- 
 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 Olympic 
 Games, touched witli pity at her fate and ad- 
 miration of lier 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 appalling presence. Its 
 sliape 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 wliicli 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 chose his favourite 
 saint. In fact they were only tlie higher gods 
 themselves, descending into a kind of house- 
 hold familiarity. They were the personifica- 
 tion of a j)articular Providence. The most 
 striking mention of the Penates which we 
 can call to mind is in one of Virgil's most 
 poetical passages. It is where they appear 
 to iEneas, to warn him from Crete, and an- 
 nounce his destined empire in Italy. (Lib. III. 
 v. 147.) 
 
 Nox erat, et terris animalia somnus habebat : 
 Effivfics sacra; divfim, Phrysiique Penates, 
 QiiOH ineciim a Troja, niediisriue ex ignibus iirbis 
 Extulerain, visi ante oculos a(I^tare Jacentis 
 In Kdinnis, niultd nianifesti hiniine, qua se 
 Plena per insertas funtkbat luna fenestras. 
 
 'Twas niRlit ; and sleep was on all living things. 
 T lay, and saw before my very eyes 
 Dread shapes of gods, and Phrygian deities. 
 The great Penates ; whom with reverent joy 
 I bore from out tbe heart of burning Troy. 
 
 Plainly I saw them, standing in the light 
 
 AVbich the moon poured into tbe room that night. 
 
 And again, after they had addressed him — 
 
 Nee sopor illud erat ; sed coram agnoscere vultus, 
 Velatasque comas, prxsentiaque ora videhar : 
 Turn gelidus toto manabat corpore sudor. 
 
 It was no dream : I saw them face to face. 
 Their hooded hair ; and felt them so before 
 My being, that I 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 
 witli good-natured grinning countenances, were 
 clothed in skins, and had little dogs at their 
 feet. Some writers make them the offspring 
 of the goddess IMania, who presided over the 
 spirits of the dead ; and siippose 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 sujjposition, the good or 
 benevolent spirits were called Familiar Lares, 
 and the evil or malignant ones Larva? and 
 Lemures. Thus Milton, in his awful Hymn 
 on the Nativity : — 
 
 In consecrated earth. 
 
 And on the holy hearth. 
 
 The Lars and Lemiires moan with midnight plaint. 
 
 In urns and altars round, 
 
 A drear and dying sound 
 
 Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint ; 
 
 And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
 
 While each Peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. 
 
 But Ovid tells a story of a gossiping nympli 
 Lara, who having told Juno of her husband's 
 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-places. 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck with the 
 resemblance between these lesser Household 
 Gods and some of tlie 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 houses. 
 
 Derrick, a poet of the Anacreontic order 
 in the time of Elizabeth, who was visited, 
 j)erhaps more than any other, excei)t Spenser, 
 with a sense of the pleasantest parts of the
 
 12 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ancient mytholojjy, has written some of his 
 lively little odesuponthe Lares. We have not 
 them by us at this moment, but we remember 
 one beginning, — 
 
 It was, and still my care is 
 To worship you, the Lares. 
 
 We take the opportunity of the Lar's being 
 mentioned in it, to indulge ourselves in a little 
 poem of Martial's, very charming for its sim- 
 plicity. It is an Epitaph on a child of the 
 name of Erotion. 
 
 Hie festinata requiescit Erotion umbra, 
 Crimine quam fati sesta peremit hiems. 
 
 Qiiisquis eris nostri post me regnator agelli, 
 Manibus exiguis annua justa dato. 
 
 Sic Lare perpetuu, sic turba sospite, solus 
 Flebilis in terra sit lapis iste tua. 
 
 THE EPITAPH OF EROTION. 
 
 Underneath tliis greedy stone 
 
 Lies little sweet Erotion ; 
 
 AVhom the fates, with hearts as cold, 
 
 Nipt away at six years old. 
 
 Thou, whoever thou may'st be, 
 
 Tliat 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 ; 
 
 But this tomb here be alone, 
 
 The only melancholy stone. 
 
 X.— SOCIAL GENEALOGY. 
 
 It is a curious and pleasant tiling 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. (T/'isf. 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 which Dryden frequented, merely to 
 look at him ; which he did, with great satis- 
 faction. Now such of us as have sliaken 
 hands with a living poet, might be able to 
 reckon up a series of connecting shakes, to tlie 
 very hand that wrote of Hamlet, and of Fal- 
 staff, and of Desdemona. 
 
 Witii some living poets, it is certain. There 
 is Thomas Moore, for instance, wlio knew 
 Sheridan. Slieridan 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 liave visited Milton. Milton is said to 
 have known Davenant ; and to have been saved 
 by liim from tlie revenge of the restored court, 
 in return for iiaving saved Davenant from the 
 revenge of the Commonwealtli. But if the 
 link between Dryden and Milton, and ^lilton 
 and Davenant, is somewhat apocryphal, or 
 rather dependent on tradition (for Richardson 
 
 the painter tells us the story from Pope, who 
 had it from Betterton the actor, one of Dave- 
 nant's company), it may be carried at once 
 from Dryden to Davenant, with whom he was 
 unquestionably intimate. Davenant then knew 
 Ilobbes, who knew Bacon, who knew Ben 
 Jonson, who was intimate with Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Camden, 
 Selden, Clarendon, Sydney, Raleigh, and per- 
 haps all the great men of Elizabeth's and 
 James's time, the greatest of them all undoubt- 
 edly. Thus have we a link of " beamy hands" 
 from our own times up to Shakspeare. 
 
 In this friendly genealogy we have omitted 
 the numerous side-branches or common friend- 
 ships. It may be mentioned, however, in ■ 
 order not to omit Spenser, that Davenant re- 
 sided some time in the family of Lord Brooke, 
 the friend of Sir Pliilijj Sidney. Spenser's 
 intimacy with Sidney is mentioned by himself 
 in a letter, still extant, to (labriel 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 liim the more 
 welcome. Of Johnson's friendshij) 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 tlie commencement of their friendship, 
 tliey sometimes wandered together about 
 London for want of a lodging — more likely 
 for SaA'age's want of it, and Johnson's fear of 
 offending him by offering a share of his own. 
 But we do not remember how tliis cii'cumstance 
 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. Mr. 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 Hyde-park Corner, where 
 they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to 
 a private room. Sir Richard then informed 
 him that he intended to jniblish a pamphlet, 
 and that he liad desired him to come thither 
 that he might write for him. They soon sat 
 down to the work. Sir Richard dictated, and 
 Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been 
 ordered was put upon the table. Savage was 
 surprised at the meanness of the entertain- 
 ment, and after some hesitation, ventured to 
 ask for Avine, which Sir .Ridiai'd, not without 
 reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then
 
 ANGLING. 
 
 la 
 
 finished their dinner, and proceeded in their 
 pamphlet, which they concluded in the after- 
 noon. 
 
 " Mr. 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 was without money, and that 
 the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner 
 could be paid for, and Savage was therefore 
 obliged to go and ofter 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, appears in the 
 letters and other works of the wits of tliat 
 time. Johnson supposes that it was his friendly 
 interfei'ence, which attempted to bring Pope 
 and Addison together after a jealous separa- 
 tion. Pope's friendship with Congreve 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 him a iiniversal favourite, had 
 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 ab.indoning th' ungrateful stage ; 
 Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense, 
 I live a rent-cliarge on his providence. 
 But ynu, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, 
 ■\Vli(im I foresee to better fortune born. 
 Be kind to my remains ; and O defend, 
 Against your judgment, your departed friend ! 
 Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue. 
 But shade those laurels which descend to you. 
 
 Congreve did so, with great tenderness. 
 
 Dryden is reported to have asked Milton's 
 permission to turn his Paradise Lost into a 
 rhyming tragedy, which he called the ^tate of 
 Iiinocerire, or the Fall of Man ; a work, such as 
 miglit 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 Shakspeare's Tempest, as it is now 
 perpetrated, in conjunction witli Davenant. 
 Tliey were great hands, but they should not 
 have touched the pure grandeur of Shakspeare. 
 The intimacy of Davenant with Ilobbes is to 
 be seen by their cori'espondonce jirefixed to 
 (iondibert. Ilobbes 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 tlie 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 
 .lonson, 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 : " Many 
 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 greater 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 our 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. 
 
 XI.— ANGLING. 
 
 The anglers are a race of men who puzzle 
 lis. 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, we can account 
 for the joyousness of that prince of puntei's, 
 who, having been seen in the same spot one 
 morning and evening, and asked whether he 
 had had any success, said No, but in the course 
 of the day he had had " a glorious nibble." 
 
 But the anglers boast of the innocence of 
 their pastime ; yet it puts fellow-ci-eatures to 
 the torture. They pique themselves on their 
 meditative faculties ; and yet their only excuse 
 is a want of thought. It is this that puzzles 
 ns. Old Isaac Walton, 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 saying, he "stops the breath" of a trout, 
 by plucking him up into an element too tliin 
 to res])ire, with a hook and a tortured ■norm 
 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 resjiect for a piece 
 of salmon ; to approach it, like the grace, with 
 his hat oft'. 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 imi)ale a certain worm 
 twice upon the hook, because it is lively, and 
 might get oft' ! All that can be said of such 
 an extraordinary inconsistency is, that having 
 been bred up in an opinion 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 
 o})posite side of the question, so as to become 
 almost, perhaps quite, insensible to it. And 
 angling does indeed seem the next thing to 
 dreaming. It disjienses 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, " Oli flesh, how 
 art thou fishified !" He looks like a pike, 
 dressed in broadcloth instead of butter. 
 
 The face of his pupil and iullower, or, as he 
 fondly called himself, son, Charles Cotton, a 
 
 poet and a man of wit, is more good-natured 
 and uneasy.* Cotton's pleasures had not been 
 confined to fishing. His sympathies indeed 
 had been a little superabundant, and left him, 
 perhaps, not so great a power of thinking as 
 he i)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 his 
 father (which looks as if the old gentleman 
 sometimes thought upon the subject too) 
 
 There whilst behind some bush we wait 
 
 The scaly people to betray. 
 We'll prove iljust, 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 innocence 
 of their sport. But they are both as rank 
 sophistications as can be ; sheer beggings of 
 the question. To kill fish outright is adift'erent 
 matter. Death is common to all ; and a trout, 
 speedily killed by a man, may suff'er 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 racked 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, than we have in giving. 
 
 AVhilst quiet we sit. 
 
 We conclude all things fit. 
 
 Acquiescing with hearty submission, &c. 
 
 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 Avith 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 prey ujion men, as the small had upon 
 fishes ; only the men luckily had not hooks 
 put into their jaws, and the sides of their 
 cheeks torn to i>ieces. 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 grave 
 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 late 
 editions of Walton.
 
 LUDICROUS EXAGGERATION. 
 
 15 
 
 human fish. Air is but a rarer fluid ; and at 
 present, in this November weather, a super- 
 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 banks of the river Lee, with the hook 
 through his ear. How he would go tij), roaring 
 and screaming, and thinking the devil had got 
 him ! 
 
 Other jo}-s 
 
 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 a 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 tliat 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. 
 
 Men 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, — 
 "threei)iled 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 himself; witness his 
 famous account of the men in buckram. Thus 
 he tells the Loid Cliief Justice, that he had 
 lost his voice " with singing of anthems ,-" and 
 he calls Bardolph's red nose " a perpetual 
 
 * I'orhaps the best thing to be said finally iibout angling 
 is, that not being able to determine whether fish feel it 
 very sensibly or otherwise, we ought to give them the 
 benefit rather than the disadvantage of the doubt, where 
 we can help it ; and our feelings the benefit, where we 
 cannot. 
 
 triumpli, 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 how 
 he goes heightening the account of his recruits 
 at every step : — " You would tliink I had a 
 hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately 
 come from swine-keeping, fi-om eating draff 
 and husks. — A mad fellow met me on the 
 Avay, 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 lejrs, 
 as if they had gyves on ; for indeed I had most 
 of them out of prison.- — 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 
 Avitliout 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 repeated 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 great anxiety, till he fouiid that peas I 
 were 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 comjiany. ' 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 par- 
 ticvdar reason, Doctor,' asked a gentleman 
 present, ' why you like peas so much, beyond 
 the usual one of their agreeable taste V — 'No, 
 Sir, none whatsoever: — none, I assure you' 
 (here Goldsmith showed a great wish to 
 impress this fact on his guests) : ' I never 
 heard any particular encomium or speech 
 about them from any one else : but tlicy carry 
 their own eloquence with them : tliey 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 strong emphasis on gi-een) ; 
 ' and you know, peas should be emphatically 
 green : — greenness 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, with your permission.' 
 Goldsmith then rose and rang the bell violently 
 for the cook, who came in ready booted and 
 spurred. 'Ha!' exclaimed Goldsmith, 'those 
 boots and spurs are your salvation, you knave. 
 Do you know. Sir, what 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, the guests being no less so : 
 — 'please Sir, why am I to take 'era to Ham- 
 mersmith ?' — 'Because, Sir,' (and here Gold- 
 smith looked round with triumphant antici- 
 pation) ' that is the way to render those j^eas 
 green.' " 
 
 There is a very humorous piece of exaggera- 
 tion in Butler's Remains, — a collection, by the 
 bye, well worthy of Hud'ibras, 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 Hudihras 
 is printed without this appendage. The piece 
 we allude to is a short description of Hol- 
 land : — • 
 
 A countn- that draws fifty foot of water, 
 In which men live as in the hold of nature ; 
 And when the sea does in upon them hreak, 
 And drowns a province, does but spring a leak. 
 
 ***** 
 
 That 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 be })ronounced to be either 
 the copy or tlie 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 the unwieldy monotony of his 
 character gave rise to much the same ludicrous 
 imagery in many of their fancies. Marvell's 
 wit has the advantage of Butler's, not in learn- 
 ing or multijilicity of contrasts (for nobody 
 ever beat 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 tilings to wait upon his levity. 
 
 He tlius 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 as was contributed 
 By English pilots, when they heaved the lead ; 
 Or what bj- the ocean's slow alluvion fell. 
 Of shipwrecked cockle and the muscle-shell. 
 ***** 
 
 Glad then, as miners who have found the ore, 
 Tliey, with mad labour,* fished the land to shore ; 
 And dived as desperately for each piece 
 Of earth, as if it had been of ambergreece ; 
 Collecting anxiously small loads of clay. 
 Less than what building swallows bear away ; 
 Or than those pills which sordid beetles rowl. 
 Transfusing into them their dimghill soul. 
 
 He goes on in a strain of exquisite hj-per- 
 bole : — 
 
 How did they rivet with gigantic piles 
 Thorough the centre their new-catched miles ; 
 And to the stake a slrtiiiglinri country bound. 
 Where barking waves still bait the forced ground ; 
 Building their wat'ry Babel 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 land had come 
 To shew them what's their jNIare Liberumf : 
 A dayly deluge over them does boil ; 
 The earth and water play at level-coyl ; 
 The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed. 
 And sat, not as at meat, but as a guest : 
 And oft the Tritons, and the Sea-nymphs, saw 
 AVhole shoals of Dutch served up for cabillau. 
 Or, as they over the new level ranged, 
 For pickled herrings, pickled Heeren changed. 
 Kature, 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 blinkard reigns. 
 So rules among the drowned he that drains. 
 Not who first sees the rising sun, commands ; 
 But who could first discern the rising lands ; 
 Who best could know to pump an earth so leak. 
 Him they theii' lord and country'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 
 appears that for a considerable part of his life 
 lie 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 
 pleasantness, 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 
 
 * Dryden 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.
 
 NERVOUS DISORDERS. 
 
 17 
 
 made liini archbishop ; and with equal sudden- 
 ness, though retaining his affability, the new 
 head of the English church put off all liis 
 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 clotliing, 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 nothing but ambition. We 
 suspect that 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 which enabled 
 him to set up so different a greatness against 
 his former one — shows, that his character 
 partook at least of as much 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 liis 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 
 Saracen prince. By degrees he obtained the 
 confidence of his master, and was admitted to 
 his company, wliere he met a personage who 
 became more attached to him. This was the 
 Emir's daughter. Whether by her means or 
 not does not appear, l)ut 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 the 
 metropolis. She then took to her other talis- 
 man, and went from street to street pronounc- 
 ing " Gilbert !" A crowd collected about her 
 wherever she went, asking of course a thou- 
 sand questions, and to all she had but one 
 answer — Gilbert ! Gilbert !— Siie found her 
 faith in it sufficient. Chance, or her dctf^rmi- 
 nation to go through every street, brought her 
 at last to the one, in which he wlio 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 are so often, in our 
 opinion, the cause of their appearance. It is 
 much to be wished that some physician, truly 
 so called, and })hilosophically 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 nervoiis or melancholy disorders, the 
 excess of which is so often confounded with 
 it. IMadness 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 foimd. 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 person, for instance, in a fit of 
 melancholy, may confess that he feels an incli- 
 nation to do some desperate or even cruel 
 thing. This is often treated at once as mad- 
 ness, instead of an excess of the kind just 
 mentioned ; and the person seeing he 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 
 c
 
 18 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tliere is madness, as the phrase is, "in the 
 family ;" and so whenever they feel illj or 
 meet with a misfortune, the thought will 
 prey upon their minds ; and this may lead to 
 catastrophes, with which they have really no 
 more to do than any other sick or nnfortimate 
 people. How many persons have committed 
 an extravagance 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 
 frio-htened : their friglit is manifested bevond 
 all necessity ; and the patients and their 
 family must suffer for it. They seem to think, 
 that no disorder can properly 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-beliaved 
 respectable sick gentleman. But this state of 
 things implies muscular weakness, or Aveak- 
 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 tiie very essence of what they misappre- 
 hend ; for it is fear, in all its various degrees 
 and modifications, wliicli 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 what ; — a 
 vague sense of terror, — an imjjulse, — an appre- 
 hension of ill, — dwelling upon some painful and 
 worrying thouglit. Now this suffering is in- 
 variably connected with a weak state of the 
 body in some respects, particularly of the 
 stomach. Hundreds will be found to have 
 felt it, if patients inquire ; but the mind is 
 sometimes afraid of acknowledging its ajjpre- 
 liensions, even to itself; and thus fear broods 
 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 uninfoi'ined man suffer- 
 ing great terrors. And tlie reason is, that he 
 knows how much bodily unhealthiness has to 
 do with it. The very words that frighten the 
 unknowing might teacli 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. Hypochondria 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 are allied. 
 
 It is curious that he who wrote the saying 
 (Dryden) \vas a very sound wit to the end of 
 liis life ; while his wife, who was of a weak 
 understanding, became insane. An excellent 
 Avriter (Wordsworth) has written an idle 
 couplet about the insanity of poets : 
 
 AVe poets enter on our pathwith 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. Tliere are very feAV instances of insane 
 ])oets, or of insane great understandings of any 
 sort. Bacon, Milton, NeAvton, Shakspeare, 
 CerA'^antes, &c. were all of minds as sound as 
 they Avere great. So it has been Avith 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 veiy doubtful 
 characters about it, and is sometimes made a 
 question. It may be pretty safely afiirmed, at 
 least, upon an examination of it, that had they 
 not been the clever men they Avere, it Avould 
 have been much Avorse and less equivocal. 
 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 Avas Aveak-bodied, 
 and beset by Methodists. Swift's body was 
 full of bad humours. He himself attributed 
 his disordered system to the effects of a sui-feit 
 of fruit on his stomach ; and in his last illness 
 he used to break out in enormous boils and 
 blisters. This Avas a A-iolent 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, i 
 and gradual helping of the bodily health, till j 
 the mind be capable of amusement (for it j 
 should never foolishly be told "not to think" i
 
 MISTS AND FOGS. 
 
 19 
 
 of melancholy things, without having some- 
 thing done for it to mend the hodily 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 there has often 
 been an end to that torment of one haunting 
 idea, which is indeed a great and venerable 
 suffering. 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 tliey 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 admii-ation 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 Avhere 
 it ought to be, in a heaven of health and calm- 
 ness. 
 
 XV.— MISTS AND FOGS. 
 
 Fogs and mists, being notliing but vapours 
 which the cold air will not suffer to evajiorate, 
 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 appear 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 through the 
 same airy heaps 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 thinking 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 wrapjjod round with cold wet 
 })ai)cr ; much less to flounder tlirougli gutters, 
 or run against posts. But the mind can often 
 help itself with agreeable images against dis- 
 agreeable ones ; or pitch itself round to tlie 
 
 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 tiie surround- 
 ing haze. We have even halted, of a dreary 
 autumnal evening, at that open part of the 
 Sti-and by St. Clement's, and seen the church, 
 which is a poor structure of itself, take an 
 aspect of ghastly grandeur from the dark 
 atmosphere ; looking like a tall white mass, 
 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 
 Nights. 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 Patro- 
 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, puts about his 
 head a halo of golden mist, streaming upwards 
 with fire. (Lib. xviii., v. 205.) He shouts 
 aloud under this preternatiiral diadem ; Mi- 
 nerva throws into his shout her own immortal 
 voice with a strange imnatural cry ; at which 
 the horses of the Trojan warriors run round 
 with their chariots, and twelve of tlieir noblest 
 captains perish in the crush. 
 
 A mist was the usual clothing of the gods, 
 when they descended to earth ; especially of 
 Apollo, whose brightness iiad double need of 
 mitigation. Homer, to heighten the dignity 
 of Ulysses, has finely given liim the same 
 covering, when he passes through the court of 
 Antinous, and suddenly appears before the 
 throne. This has been turned to happy account 
 Ity Virgil, and to a new and noble one by Milton. 
 Virgil makes iEneas issue suddenly from a 
 mist, at the moment when his friends tliiuk 
 him lost, and the beautiful queen of C'arthage 
 is wishing his presence. Milton, — but we will 
 give one or two of his minor iises of mists, by 
 Avay of making a climax of the one alluded to. 
 If Satan, for instance, goes lurlcing about 
 Paradise, it is "like a black mist low creep- 
 ing." If the angels on gtuird glide about it, 
 upon their gentler errand, it is like fairer 
 vapours : , 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 On the grround 
 Gliding meteorous, as evenins; mist 
 Risen from a river o'er the marisli Rlides, 
 And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel 
 Homeward returning.— (Par. Lost, B. xn. v. C28.) 
 
 Now behold one of his greatest imagina- 
 tions. The fallen demi-gods are assembled 
 in Pandtenionium, waiting the return of their 
 " great adventurer " from his " search of 
 worlds : " 
 
 He through the midst unmarked, 
 In show plebeian angel militant 
 Of lowest order, passed ; and from the door 
 Of that Plutonian hall, invisible. 
 Ascended his high throne ; which, under state 
 Of richest texture spread, at the upper end 
 ■\Vas placed in regal lustre. Down awhile 
 He sat, and round about him saw unseen. 
 At last — as from a cloud, his fulgent head 
 And shape star-bright appeared, or brighter ; clad 
 AVith what permissive glory since his fall 
 "Was left him, or false glitter. All amazed 
 At that 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 Khodius 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 rock, liolds up Ids illustrious 
 bow, which shoots a guiding light for them to 
 an island. 
 
 Spenser in a most romantic chapter of the 
 Faery Qiteetw (Book ii.), seems to have taken 
 the idea of a benighting from Apollonius, as 
 well as to have 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 with 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 suddeinly a grosse fog overspred 
 AVith his dull vapour all that desert has, 
 And heaven's chearefull face enveloped. 
 That all things one, and one as nothing was, 
 And this great universe seemed one confused mass. 
 
 Thereat they greatly were dismayd, ne wist 
 How to direct theyr way in darkness wide. 
 But feared to wander in that wastefull mist 
 For tombling into mischiefe unespyde : 
 Worse is the daunger hidden then descride. 
 Suddeinly an innumerable flight 
 Of liarmfuU fowles about them fluttering cride. 
 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 :is by nature men abhorre and hate ; 
 The ill-faced owle, deaths dreadful messengere : 
 The hoarso night-raven, truniji of dulefull drere ; 
 The letber-winged batt, dayos enimy : 
 The ruefuU stritch, still waiting on the here : 
 The whistler shrill, that whoso heares doth dy : 
 The hellish harpies, prophets of sad destiny : 
 
 All these, and all that else does horror breed. 
 About them flew, and fild their sayles with fear; 
 Yet stayd they not, but forward did proceed. 
 Whiles th' one did row, and th' other stifly steare. 
 
 Ovid has turned a mist to his usual account. 
 It is where Jupiter, to conceal his amour 
 with lo, throws a cloud over the vale of 
 Tempe. There is a picture of Jupiter and lo, 
 by Correggio, in which that great artist has 
 finely availed himself of the circumstance ; 
 the head of the father of gods and 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 are 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 ; the third is ghastly, 
 but of more doubtful merit : 
 
 Two Chiefs parted hy their King. — They sunk from the 
 king on either side, like two columns of morning mist, 
 when the sun rises between them on his glittering rocks. 
 Hark is their rolling on either side, each towards its reedy 
 pool. 
 
 A great Enemy. — I 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 the 
 marshy lake. It never rises on the green hill, lest the 
 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 hall, 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 with 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 {Purijatorio, c. ii. 
 V. 10). Dante and his guide A^irgil have just 
 left the infernal regions, and are lingering 
 on a solitary sea-shore in jiurgatory ; 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' esso '1 mare ancora, &e. 
 
 That solitary shore we still kept on. 
 
 Like men, who musing on their journey, stay 
 At rest in body, yet in heart are gone ; 
 
 When lo ! as at the early dawn of day, 
 
 Ked JIars looks deepenmg through the foggy beat, 
 Down in the west, far o'er the watery way ; 
 
 So did mine eyes behold (so may 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 :
 
 TKE SHOEMAKER OF VEYROS. 
 
 21 
 
 And by degrees, I saw I know not what 
 Of white about it ; and beneath the white 
 Another. Jly 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, " Down, 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 place ; 
 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, that 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 fell 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 heard 
 by the riders, " Here's a white leg, girls, for 
 the Master of Avis *." 
 
 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 the speech so dee])Iy, 
 tliat he contrived to have the fair speaker 
 brougiit to him in private ; and the conse- 
 quence was, that our lively natural son, and his 
 sprightly cliallenger, 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 the 
 young governor's house, and that it was her 
 own light behaviour tiiat subjected her to what 
 lie was assured she willingly consented to, he 
 took it so to heart, that at her return home, 
 she was driven by him from the house, with 
 every species of contumely and spurning. 
 After this, he never saw her more. And to 
 prove to tlie world and to himself, that his 
 sevei-ity was a matter of princijjle, and not a 
 mere indulgence of his own passions, 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; whicli 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 Bi-aganza, 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 Memorable. 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 
 with a retinue to Veyros ; 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 unknown 
 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 
 fatiier." No sooner had tiie 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 hand 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, he died ; and just before 
 his death he directed a tomb to be made for 
 liim, on which were sculptured the tools be- 
 longing to his ti-ade, with this epitaph : — 
 
 " This sepulchre Barbadon caused to be made, 
 (Being of Veyros, a shoemaker by his trade) 
 For himself and the rest of his 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 tlie 
 sepulchre of his fourth grandfatjier*;^ 
 
 * It appears by this, that the Don John of the tradition
 
 22 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 As for the daugliter, the conclusion of whose 
 story comes lagging in like a penitent, " she 
 continued," says the -writer, " after she was 
 delivered of that son, a very chaste and vir- 
 tuous woman ; and the king made her com- 
 niandress of Santos, a most honourable place, 
 and very plentiful ; to the which 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 tliere. And the religious 
 women of that place have liberty to marry 
 with the knights of their order, before they 
 enter into that holy profession." 
 
 Tlie 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 
 shoemakei', 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 tliis shoemaker is especially 
 worthy the noting, and deeply to be consi- 
 dered : for, besides, that it makes good our 
 assertion, it teaches the 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 from 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, grandmotlier 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 upon his grandchild. Old 
 I}arl)adon was a fine fellow too, after his 
 fashion. "We do not know how he reconciled 
 his unforgiving conduct with his Ciiristianity ; 
 but he had enough precedents on that point. 
 What we admire in him is, his showing that 
 he acted out of principle, and did not mistake 
 passion for it. His crepidarian sculj^tures 
 indeed are not so well ; but a little vanity may 
 be allowed to mingle with and soften such 
 edge-tools of self-denial, as he chose to handle. 
 His treatment of his daughter was ignorant, 
 and in wiser times would luive 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 Jolin the First, who was elected king of Portugal, and 
 became famous for his great rjualities; and that his son 
 by the alleged shoemaker's daughter was his successor, 
 Aljihonso 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 tlie wide world, thinking 
 of the evils she might be enduring, only to 
 give a greater zest of fancied pity to the 
 contentedness of his cruelty. He knew she 
 was well taken care of; and if she was not 
 to have the enjoyment of his society, he was 
 determined that it should be a very uncom- 
 fortable one to himself. He knew that she 
 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 oft" his destitutions against her 
 over-possession ; and took out the punishment 
 he gave her, in revenge upon himself. This 
 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 
 such 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 tlie 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 whenever 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 he, when he tells iis of that characteristic 
 death of Ulysses in one of the books of his 
 Inferno, we ought to receive the 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 tlie 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. 
 
 Tlie 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 wise ; nor are the best writers likely 
 to meddle with it. Thus Cervantes was 
 plagued with a spurious Qaixote ; and our 
 circulating libraries have the adventures of 
 Tom JoiMS in his Married State. The ancient 
 writers on the present subject, availing them- 
 selves of an obscure prophecy of Tiresias, who 
 tells Ulysses on his visit to hell, that liis 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 Telem'achus with him ; and 
 Iiere a singular arrangement takes place, 
 more after the fashion of a modern Catholic 
 dynasty, than an ancient heathen one : for 
 while (Edipus 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 ; the other 
 son at the same time making a suitable match 
 with his father's mistress, Circe. Telemachus 
 seems to have had the best of this 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 tliat when Ulysses returned from 
 Troy, lie divorced her for incontinence ; and 
 tliat she Hod, and passed her latter days in 
 Mantinea. Some even go so far as to say, that 
 her father Icarius had attempted to destroy 
 her wlion 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 
 with regard to princiiilo, 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 sufferings, 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 great 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 writers 
 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 full 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 Theban 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 
 others." They were suffering 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. 
 
 bourhood of Gaieta, before >SIneas had so 
 named it, neither the sweet company of my 
 son, nor pious affection of my old father, nor 
 the lony-owed love with which I ought to have 
 gladdened Penelope, could conquer the ardour 
 that 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 hark, and the small remaining crew by 
 Mhora I had not been left, I saw the two 
 shores on either side, as far as Sjjain and 
 Morocco ; 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 pillars, 
 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 virtue and know- 
 ledge. I so shai'pened 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. 
 The night now beheld all the stars of the 
 other pole ; 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 
 great 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 
 whirlwind 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 
 others, the ocean closed above our heads." 
 
 Tre volte il fe girar con tutte Y acque : 
 A la quarta levar la poppa in suso, 
 E la prora ire in giii, come altrui piacque, 
 Iniin ch '1 mar fu sopra nol richiuso. 
 
 AVhy ])oor Ulysses should find himself in 
 hell after his immersion, and be condemned to 
 a swathing of eternal fire, while St. Dominic, 
 who deluged Cliristianity with fire and blood, 
 is called a Cherubic Liglit, the Papist, not the 
 poet, must explain. He puts all the Pagans in 
 hell, because, however good some of them may 
 have been, they lived before Christ, and could 
 not worsliij) God properly — {dehitamente). But 
 he laments their state, and represents them as 
 suffei-ing a mitigated punishment : they only 
 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 sensibility ; 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 particular, 
 and the lastinguess 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. He would begin shrieking himself 
 in a few minutes ; aud think that he and all 
 heaven ought to pass away, rather than that 
 one such agony should continue. TertuUian 
 himself, when he longed to behold the enemies 
 of his faitli burning and liquefying, only meant, 
 without knowing it, that he was in an excessive 
 rage at not convincing everybody that read 
 him. 
 
 XVIII.— 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. The 
 infinity into which its flight carries it, might 
 indeed throw back upon it a too great sense of 
 insignificance, did not Beauty or floral Justice, 
 with its equal eye, look through that 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 
 tiling unknown for magnificent, tlian predeter- 
 mine it to be worthless. The gain is greater. 
 The instinct is more judicious. "When we 
 mention tlie 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 
 rolling 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 i)hilosophy 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, tlie 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 
 witli the philosophers. 
 
 It lni])])ened, curiously enough, that they 
 could not have selected for their panegyric a 
 nation apparently more contemptuous of others ; 
 or at least more self-satisfied and unimaginative. 
 The Chinese are cunning and ingenious ; and 
 have a great talent at bowing out ambassadors 
 who come to visit them. But 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 maslc of jjoliteness, they are 
 not slow to evince their contempt of other 
 nations, whenever any comparison is insinuated 
 with tlie subjects of tlie Brother of the Sun 
 and Moon. 'J'iie knowledge they respect in us 
 most is that of gun-making, and of the East- 
 Indian passage. When our countrymen showed 
 
 them a map of the earth, tiiey inquired for 
 China ; and on finding that it only made a 
 little liiece 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. The 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 ^lentor 
 in the Odyssey was di'awn 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 tlie Great King, till Xerxes came 
 over to teach it better, and betrayed the soft- 
 ness of their skidls. 
 
 It was the same with the Arabians, at the 
 time when they had the accomijlishments of 
 the world to themselves ; as we see by their 
 delightful tales. Everything shines with them 
 in the distance, like a sunset. What an ami- 
 able people are their Persians ! What a 
 wonderful place is the island of Serendib ! 
 You Avould 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 employed people 
 to travel : a great stretch of intellectual muni- 
 ficence for those times. About the same 
 period, Haroun al Raschid (M'liom our manhood 
 is startled to find almost a less real person 
 than we thought him, for his very reality) 
 wrote a letter to the Emperor of the West, 
 Charlemagne. Here is Arabian and Italian 
 romance, shaking liands in person. 
 
 The Crusades pierced into a new world of 
 remoteness. We do not know whether those 
 were much benefited, who took part in them ;
 
 26 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 but for the imaginative persons remaining at 
 home, the idea of going to Palestine must 
 have been like travelling into a supernatural 
 world. When the campaign itself had a good 
 effect, it must have been of a very fine and 
 highly-tempered description 
 had been 
 
 Chaucer's Knight 
 
 Sometime -with the lord of Palatie 
 
 Agen another hethen in Turkie : 
 
 And evermore lie had a sovereign price ; 
 
 And though that he was worthy, lie was wise, 
 
 And of his port as meek as is a mayde. 
 
 How like a return from the moon must have 
 been the re-appearance of such travellers as 
 Sir John ]\Iandevile, Marco Polo, and William 
 de Rubruquis, 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 his 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 they did not possess. Milton, 
 in one of those favourite passages of his, in 
 which he 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 habits, on the Appian road. 
 
 Or on the Emilian ; some from farthest south, 
 
 Syene, and where tlie shadow both way falls, 
 
 IMeroe, Nilotiek Isle ; and more to west. 
 
 The realm of Bocchus to tlie Black -moor sea ; 
 
 From the Asian kings, and Parthian among these ; 
 
 From India and the golden Chersonese, 
 
 jVnd 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 
 witli it of peace and quietness. Whatever 
 there may be at a distance, people feel as if 
 they should escape from tlie worry of their 
 local cares. " O 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 Irelande farre over the sea 
 There dwelt a bonny king. 
 
 Thomson, a Scotchman, speaking of the western 
 isles of Iiis own country, has that delicious 
 line, full of a dreary yet lulling jileasure ; — 
 
 As when a shepherd of the Hebrid isles, 
 Placed far amid the melancholy main. 
 
 In childhood, the total ignorance of the 
 woiid, 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 liecolleclions of 
 Christ's Hosjntal, says that he remember.'} when 
 some half-dozen of his school-fellows !5et off, 
 " without map, card, or compass, on a serious 
 expedition to find out Philip Quarll's Island." 
 We once encountered a set of boys as romantic. 
 It was at no greater distance than at the foot 
 of a hill near Hampstead ; 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 Ave : for while they peopled the 
 place with robbers and serpents, we were 
 peopling it with sy Ivans 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 natmal 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 frigliten 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. They Avhose attention can be gravely 
 aiTcsted 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 other species of composition. AVith 
 this opinion of such things, we may be allowed 
 to say, that we would imdertake 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, particulai-ly of blood and wounds. A 
 child has a reasonable resjiect 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 poring 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 jNIemento 
 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 specti-al nuns go about bleeding, Ave 
 think tliey ought in decency to have applied 
 to some ghost of a surgeon. His lattle 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 
 impleasant ideas they excite of human nature, 
 are as gross 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 gliost story, to be a good one, should unite, 
 as much as possible, objects such as they are 
 in life, with a preternatural spirit. And to be 
 a perfect one, — at least to add to the other 
 utility of excitement a moral utility,- — they 
 should imply sonu; great scntimeut,^some- 
 thing that comes out of the next world to 
 remind us of our duties in this ; or something 
 that helps to carry ou the idea of our humanity 
 into after-life, even when we least think wo 
 sliall 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 coimtenance 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 Avith their skulls. 
 It was taking his humanity with him into the 
 other world, not affecting to loAver the sense 
 of it by regarding it piecemeal or in the frame- 
 work. Burns, in his Tarn WShanter, shows the 
 dead in their coffins after the same fashion. 
 He does not lay bare to us their skeletons or 
 refuse, things Avith which Ave can connect no 
 sympathy or spiritual Avonder. 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. 
 
 Cofl&ns stood round like open presses, 
 Which 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 
 Avorld, Avith 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, Avithout the kindly introduc- 
 tion of death and change ; and the stranger 
 appals us in proportion. When the account 
 appeared the other day in the noAvspapers 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, 
 ncAvs 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, 
 That as the winde ran underneath his lode, 
 Whiles his long legs nigh raiight unto tlio ground : 
 Full large he was of limhe, and shoulders hrodc. 
 But of such subtile substance and unsound. 
 That like a ghost he seemed, Avhose grave-clothes were 
 unbound. 
 
 ]Mr. Coleridge, in that voyage of his to the 
 brink of all unutterable things, the Ancient 
 Mariner (avIucIi Avorks out hoAvever a fine sen- 
 timent), does not set mere ghosts or hobgobUns 
 to man the ship again, when its crew are dead ; 
 but re-animates, for a Avhile, the 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 
 Avorkmen, as if it Avere alive ; till a Avorm 
 gnawing through the prop, befalls down. — The 
 contrast of the appearance of humanity with
 
 28 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 something mortal or supernatural, is always 
 the more terrible in proportion as it is complete, 
 lu the pictures of the temptations of saints 
 and hermits, where the holy person is sur- 
 rounded, teazed, and enticed, with devils and 
 fantastic shapes, the most shocking pliantasni is 
 tliat of the beautiful woman. To return also to 
 the poem above-mentioned. The most appalling 
 personage in Mr. Coleridge's Ancknt JIarhier 
 is the Spectre- woman, who is called Life-in- 
 Death. He renders the most hideous abstrac- 
 tion more terrible than it could otherwise have 
 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 such eartliliness, 
 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 broad bright sun ; 
 AVhen that strange ship drove suddenly 
 Betwixt us and the sun. 
 
 And straight the sun was flecked with bars 
 (Heaven's Mother send us grace !) 
 As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd, 
 AVitli broad and burning face. 
 
 Alas ! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) 
 How fast she neers and neers ! 
 Are those 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 her 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 IS'ight-Mare Lite-in-Death was she, 
 AVho 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. 
 The groundwork of it is in Sandys' Commen- 
 tary ujjon Ovid, and quoted from Sabinus*. 
 
 A gentleman of Bavaria, of a noble family, 
 was so afflicted at the death of his wife, that 
 unable to bear the company of any other per- 
 son, he gave himself up to a solitaiy way of 
 living. This was tliernore remarkable in him, 
 as lie had been a man of jovial habits, fond of 
 his wine and visitors, and impatient of having 
 his numerous indulgences contradicted. But 
 in the same temper perhaps miglit be found 
 tlie cause of his sorrow ; for thougli he would 
 be impatient with his wife, as with others, yet 
 
 * The Saxon Latin poet, we presume, professor of Ijelles- 
 I 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 face 
 which she always turned upon his anger, might 
 have been a thing more easy for hiin to trespass 
 upon while living, than to forget, when dead and 
 gone. His very anger towards her, compared 
 with that towards others, was a relief to him. 
 It was rather a wish to refresh himself in the 
 balmy feeling of her patience, than to make 
 her unhappy herself, or to punish her, as some 
 would have done, for that virtuous contrast to 
 his own vice. 
 
 But wliether he bethought himself, after her 
 death, that this was a very selfish mode of 
 loving ; or whether as some thought, he had 
 weai'ied 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 which she had 
 caught a fever on tlie cold river during a night 
 of festivity ; he surprised even those who 
 thought that he loved her, by the extreme 
 bitterness of his grief. The very mention of 
 festivity, 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, Sir," 
 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. He was going to express some wonder, 
 when, he said, the modest though assured look 
 of tlie 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 he did there, but 
 what he wished. " Only to wish you all good 
 things," answered the stranger, who had now 
 come up, " and to give you this 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 tliere 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 CHIMNEY 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 yon. You will find me sitting in the 
 public walk, praying for you ; praymg, 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 with 
 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 the 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 i Did his earthly humours prevail 
 again, when 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 iipon 
 them. She had her veil down ; and his being 
 underwent a fierce but short convulsion as he 
 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. She was still sitting 
 in the same quiet posture, only he thought she 
 looked at him. Again he passed her. On his 
 second return, a grave and sweet courage came 
 upon him, and in an under but firm tone of in- 
 quiry, he said "Bertha?" — "I thought you 
 had forgotten me," said that well-known and 
 mellow voice, which he had seemed as far from 
 ever hearing again as earth is from heaven. 
 He took her hand, wliich grasped his in turn ; 
 and they walked home in silence together, 
 the arm, which was wound within his, giving 
 warmth for wai-mtli. 
 
 The neifilibours seemed to have a miracu- 
 lous want of wonder at the lady's re-appear- 
 ance. Sometliing was said about a mock- 
 funeral, and her having withdrawn from his 
 company for awhile; but visitors came as 
 
 before, and his wife returned to her' house- 
 hold affairs. It was only remarked that she 
 always looked pale and pensive. But she 
 was more kind to all, even than before ; and 
 her pensiveness seemed rather the residt of 
 some great internal thought, than of unhappi- 
 ness. 
 
 For a year or two, the Bavarian retained the 
 better temper which 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 ; j 
 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 srrief for her loss had been rather remorse 
 than aiFection, 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, that 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 uneasiness. 
 
 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 
 him 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, she 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 short 
 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 the only light in the 
 room. Yet she stood so far from it, as rather 
 to be in the middle of the room ; only the 
 face was towards the fire, and she seemed 
 looking upon it. They addressed her, but re- 
 ceived no answer. They stepped gently 
 towards her, and still received none. The 
 figure stood dumb and unmoved. At last, one 
 of them went round in front, and instantly fell 
 on the floor. 'I'lie figure was without body. 
 A hollow hood was left instead of a face.
 
 30 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 The clothes were standing upriglit by them- 
 selves. 
 
 That room was blocked up for ever, for the 
 clothes, if it miglit be so, to moulder away. It 
 was called the Room of the Lady's Figure. 
 The house, after the gentleman's death, was 
 long uniuliabited, and at length burnt by the 
 peasants in an insurrection. As for himself, 
 he died about nine months after, a gentle and 
 child-like penitent. He had never stirred 
 from the house since ; and nobody would ven- 
 ture to go near him, but a man wlio had the 
 reputation of being a reprobate. It was from 
 this 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 cliildren, 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, when 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.— THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 Having met in the Harleian Miscellany 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 readei'S, it has brought to mind 
 such a number of the ligiit-fingered gentry, liis 
 predecessors, that we almost feel hustled by 
 the tliouglits 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, whicli we 
 sliould liave made in this place. If tlie reader 
 siiould meet with any of tliat kind iiereafter, 
 upon the like Kubject,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 empliatically be said to steal trash ; but 
 
 lie tliat filches from hiin liis good things 
 
 Alas, we thought our subject would be running 
 away with us. We must keep firm. We 
 
 must put something heavier in our remarks, 
 as the little thin Grecian philosoplier used to 
 put lead in his pockets, lest the wind should 
 steal liim. 
 
 The more ruffianly crowd of thieves should 
 go first, as pioneers ; but they can hardly be 
 looked upon 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 famous son, for instance, of Vulcan 
 and IVledusa, whom Virgil calls the dire aspect 
 of lialf-human Cacus — Semihominis Caci facies 
 dira. (iEneid, b. viii. v. 194.) He was the 
 raw-head-and-bloody-bones of ancient fiible. 
 He lived in a cave by jNIount Aventine, breath- 
 ing out fiery smoke, and haunting king Evan- 
 der's highway like the Apollyon of Pilgrim's 
 Progress. 
 
 Semperqiie recenti 
 
 Ca?de tepebat Inimiis ; foiibiisque adfixa superbis 
 
 Ora viium tiisti pendebant pallida tabo. 
 
 The place about was ever in a plasli 
 
 Of steaming blood ; and o'er the insulting door 
 
 Hung pallid human heads, defaced with drearj- gore. 
 
 He stole some of the cows of Plercules, and 
 dragged them backwards into his cave to pre- 
 vent discovery ; biit the oxen happening to 
 low, the cows answered them ; and the demi- 
 god, detecting the 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 chi-istened 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 en\y 
 even of horse-dealers ; for in pretending to 
 return a capital horse which he had stolen, he 
 palmed upon the owners a sorry jade of an 
 ass ; Avhich 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 excliange an old lady 
 elaborately hideous ; yet the husband did not 
 find out the trick till lie had got off. 
 
 Autolycus himself, however, was outwitted 
 by Sisyphus, the son of ^olus. Autolycus 
 was in the habit of stealing his neighbours' 
 cattle, and altering the marks upon them. 
 Among others he stole some from Sisjqdius ; 
 but notwithstanding his usual precautions, he 
 was astonished to find the latter come and 
 pick 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 favoured him with his daughter's com- 
 pany for a time, a fashion not yet extinct in
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 31 
 
 some primitive countries ; and it was a re- 
 proach made against Ulysses, that Laertes was 
 only his ) )retended, and Sisyphus his real, 
 father. Sisyphus has the credit of being the 
 greatest Uuave of antiquity. His famous 
 imnishmeut 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 ancient s, that a man's ghost wandered in a 
 melanchol)' manner upon the banks of the 
 Styx, as loag as his corpse remained without 
 burial. Sii^yphus on his death-bed purposely 
 charged hi s wife to leave him nnburied ; and 
 then begg( 'd Pluto's permission to go back to 
 earth, on ids parole, merely to punish her for 
 so scandalous a neglect. Like the lawyer, 
 however, ■rt'ho 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 hijTi for the trick with setting him upon 
 this everlasting job. 
 
 The exploits of ^lercury himself, the god of 
 cunning, may be easily imagined to surpass 
 everythingachieved by profaner hands. Homer, 
 in til e hymn to his honour, has given a delight- 
 ful s.ccount of his prematurity in swindling. 
 He bad not been born many hours before he 
 stole Vulcan's tools. Mars' sword, and Jupiter's 
 scepfere. He beat Cupid in a wrestling bout 
 on tile 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 liis 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 laughing 
 when, in the midst of his threatenings, he 
 found liims;elf without his quiver. 
 
 The history of thieves is to be found either 
 in that of romance, or in the details of tlie 
 history of cities. The latter have not come 
 down to us from the ancient world, with some 
 exccjjtions in the comic writers, immaterial to 
 our present 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 
 conciueror was only the mightier thief of the 
 two. The story of the thieving architect in 
 Herodotus we will tell another time. V^e can 
 call to mind no other thieves in the Greek and 
 Latin writers (always excepting ])olitical ones) 
 except some paltry fellows who stole napkins 
 at dinner ; and tLie robbers in Apuleius, the 
 precursors of thosi' in Gil Bias. When we 
 come, however, to the times of the Arabians 
 and of chivalry, they abound in all their glory, 
 both great and small. Who among us does 
 not know by heart th e 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 groan- 
 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 interlo])ers in our English 
 family, the Danes ; as well as liollo the Norman, 
 and otiier 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 particular 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. 
 Tliey 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, Avho make such a figure, 
 between the gloomy and the gallant, in INIrs. 
 Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. 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 Boiardo 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 the theft is 
 really not such a caricature as in Boiardo and 
 his great follower. While Sancho is sitting 
 lumpishly asleep upon the back of his friend 
 Dapple, Gines de Passamonte, the famous thief, 
 conies 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, when Bru- 
 nello draws away his steed. Ariosto appears 
 to have thought this extravagance a hazardous 
 one, though he could not deny himself the 
 pleasure of repeating it ; for he has made 
 Sacripant blush, when called ujion to testify 
 how the horse was stolen 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 amusing 
 stories of thieves, all most probably foimded 
 on fact. We will give a specimen as we go, 
 by way of making this article the completer. 
 A doctor of laws in Bologna had become rich 
 enough, by scraping 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 that day for a particular object ; and 
 getting scent of the cup, they laid their heads 
 togetlier, to contrive how tliey miglit indulge 
 themselves in it instead. One of them 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 cup 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 liis dinner so much 
 better than ordinary, asks with an air of 
 wonder, where was the 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 liim where are 
 all those brother doctors, whom he said he 
 should bring with him. "What does the fool 
 mean?" said the testy old gentleman. "Mean !" 
 rejoined the wife — " what does this 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 sliall have to pay a 
 pretty sum for every mouthful you eat of it." 
 — " Why, it was your own doing, husband," 
 said the wife ; " 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 the good housewife. The old 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 witli 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 goldsmitli's, and knowing tliat 
 he who Ijrought the lamprey had been well 
 disguised, they began to ask one another, in 
 the jollity of their triumi)h, 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 and tell you that it was but a joke of 
 your old friend What's-his name." — "Castel- j 
 lani, I warrant me," said the wife, with a face 
 broad with delight. "The same," returned he : 
 — " master doctor says that Signor Castellani, 
 and the other gentlemen he spoke of^ are wait- i 
 ing for you at the Signer's house, 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 j 
 out of the house, and shall follow it myself 
 speedily." So saying, she gave him the fine 
 hot fish, with some sauce, between two dishes ; 
 and the knave, who felt already round the 
 corner with glee, slid it under his cloak, and 
 made the best of his way to his companion, who 
 lifted up his' hands and eyes at sight of him, 
 and asked twenty questions in a breath, and 
 chuckled, and slapped his thigh, and snapped 
 his fingers for joy, to think what 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 house 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 my 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 of 
 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 unthink- 
 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 epithet 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, tliat we should 
 otlierwise be obliged to compress our recollec- 
 tions of Spanish, French, and English thieves, 
 into a compass that would squeeze them into 
 the merest dry notices, we wiU postpone them 
 at once to our next number; and relate
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 33 
 
 another story from the same Italian novelist 
 that supplied our last*. Our author is Mas- 
 succio of Salerno, a novelist who disputes with 
 Bandello tiie 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 witli 
 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 their way to Sienna, where they arrive 
 during the preaching of St. Bernardin. One 
 of them attends a sermon with an air of con- 
 spicuous modesty and devotion, and afterwards 
 waits u])on 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 upon earth has reason, unless it be one 
 who will be the last to boast, like yourself, 
 holy fixther r' Here the saintly orator shook 
 his head. "I do not mean," resumed the 
 stranger, "to speak even of the 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 right 
 onward in my path, looking neither to the 
 right nor to the left ; and yet I have my 
 temptations. Reverend father, I have found 
 tliis 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 oif 
 than myself, 1 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 his 
 road to lioar 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 him 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 orif^nal edition fif the Iiulieator this article 
 was divided into three numbers. Perliaps it would have 
 been better had the division been retained ; but per- 
 plexities oecur in hastily correcting a work for a new 
 edition, which the 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 tlie road from IVIilan, 
 lying, miraculously as it were, upon a sunny 
 bank, open to the view of all, imder an olive- 
 tree, not far from a little fountain, the plea- 
 sant noise of which peradventure 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 fortli the proprietor. In his 
 next sermon, he accordingly dwelt with such 
 eloquence on the 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 
 thirteen 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 tiiis 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 nights 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 
 piece to his companion, who made all but a 
 prostration for it ; and liastened with the purse 
 out of the church. The other man's circum- 
 stances were then inquired into, and as he 
 was foxmd to liave almost as many children 
 as the purse-owner, and no possessions at all, 
 as he said, but his honesty, — all his children 
 being equally poor and jjious, — a considerable 
 subscription was raised for him ; so large 
 indeed, that on the appearance of a new 
 claimant next day, the pockets of the good 
 people were found empty. This was no other 
 than the Genoese merchant, who having turned 
 back on his road when he missed his purse, 
 did not stop till he came to Sienna, and heard 
 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. 
 
 were devils in disguise. The resident canon 
 had thought pretty nearly as much all along, 
 but had held his tongue, and now hoped it 
 would he a lesson to jieople not to listen to 
 everybody who could talk, especially to the 
 neglect of Saint Antonio's monastery. As to 
 the peoj)le themselves, they thought variously. 
 Most of them 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. He 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, and 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 jirotestations and bad weather, when 
 the husband called out from a back-room, 
 " Never mind there, never mind : — let her be 
 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 very 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 Caj)tain Rolando, with his sturdy height 
 and his whiskers, showing with a lighted torch 
 his treasure to the timid stri])ling, Gil Bias ? 
 Tlie most illusti-ious 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 might 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 the 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 account 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 with 
 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 Martin 
 took without weighing), they offered the Cid 
 a present of a fine red skin ; and upon Don 
 Martin'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 sharjjing rogues, however, that 
 abound in Spanish 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 absolute 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 i-esult of an abuse of plenty, or of some 
 other kind of jjrofligacy, or absolute ruin. But 
 it seems to be an understood thing, that to be 
 poor in Spain is to be in want of the com- 
 monest necessaries of life. If a ])Oor 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 prodigious sense 
 of punctuality and anticipation in all matters 
 relating to meals. Who ever thinks of Sancho, 
 and does not think of ten minutes before 
 luncheon ? Don Quixote, on the other hand, 
 counts it ungenteel and undignified to be 
 hungry. The cheat who flatters Gil Bias 
 
 * See Mr. Southey's excellent compilation entitled The 
 Chronicles of the Cid, book iii. sec. 21. The version at the 
 end of the book, attributed to Mr. Ilookham Frere, of a 
 passiifre out of the Puema del Cid, is the most native and 
 terse bit of translation vve ever met with. It rides along, 
 like the Cid himself on horseback, with an infinite mix- 
 ture of ardour and self-possession ; bending, when it 
 chooses, with grace, or bearing down everything with 
 mastery.
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 35 
 
 reckons himself entitled to be insultingly tri- 
 umplmnt, merely because lie has got a dinner 
 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 
 Tonnes. 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 first 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 thought of his mind 
 and every feeling of his affection coalesces 
 and tends to one point with a ventripetal 
 force. It Avas said of a contriving lady, that 
 she took her very 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, extraordinary, is the utmost aim of his 
 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 young 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 
 this climax of starvation. To overreach a 
 blind beggar might be thought easy. The 
 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 the 
 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 tiie mug, 
 filling it up with wax, and so tapping the can 
 with as much gentleness as possible, whenever 
 his thirst makes him ]}old. This stratagem 
 threw the blind man into despair. He " used 
 to swear and domineer," and wish both the 
 j)ot and its contents at the devil. The follow- 
 ing account of the result is a specinu>n of tlie 
 English translation of the work, which 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 su-eet, 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 
 cliurl, 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, ' Lazarillo ? 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 jjromise you, for my 
 part, I shall 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, the old man shook his head, and hold- 
 ing the stalk in his hand, ' Thou hast cheated 
 me, Lazarillo,' quoth he, ' for I could take my 
 oath, that thou hast taken three 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- 
 
 * The reader is to understand a common southern wine, 
 very cheap. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ing; and at the same time admired the just- 
 ness of his reasoning." Lazarillo at length 
 quitted the service of the old hard-hearted 
 miser, and revenged himself upon him at the 
 same time, in a very summary manner. They 
 were returning home one day on account of 
 bad weather, when they had to cross a kennel 
 which the rain had swelled to a little torrent. 
 The beggar 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 pillar on the other side, against wliich 
 he knew the blind old fellow would nearly 
 dash his brains out. " He was mightily 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 me 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 tlien 
 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, without ever touching the 
 water.' I had scarce done speaking, when 
 the old man, like a ram that's fighting, ran 
 three steps 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, 
 cunninnr master to the care of the mob that 
 was gathered about him, I made tlie 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 liouse 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 Avhich the miser kept his bread (a 
 sight, he says, like the opening of heaven), he 
 takes small jjieces out of three or four, in 
 imitation of a mouse ; which so convinces the 
 old hunks that the mice and i-ats have been at 
 them, that he is more liberal of the bread than 
 usual. He lets him have in particular "the 
 parings above the jiarts wliere he thought the 
 mice had been." Another of liis contrivances 
 is to palm off his pickings upon a serpent, 
 with which animal a neighbour told the priest 
 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 
 mouth (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 nigiit, as he lay breathing hard in 
 his sleep, tlie 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 hired by a lofty-looking hidalgo ; 
 and follows him home, eating a thousand good 
 things by anticipation. They pass through 
 the markets hoMever to no purpose. The 
 squire first goes to church too, and spends an 
 unconscionable time at mass. At length they 
 arrive at a dreary, ominous-looking house, and 
 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 
 \ipon. There is no other furniture in the 
 room, nor even in the neiglibouring 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 starched 
 body, reaching out his neck like a greyhound." 
 Lazarillo had not been a day in the house, 
 before lie found out liow 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 ai-t 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 putting 
 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 tipon him, that he is 
 forced to become provider for his master as 
 well as himself ; which he does by fairly going 
 out every day and begging ; the poor squire 
 winking at the indignity, though not without 
 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
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 37 
 
 some tripe given him by a butcher-woman. 
 On coming home with his treasure, he finds 
 the hidalgo imjiatiently 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 conijMssion 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 then 
 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 
 walks, ' 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 tlieir mouth be never so much 
 out of taste.' Faith, thought I to myself, with 
 sucli an empty belly as yours, my own mouth 
 would water at a great deal less. 
 
 " But finding he was come whpre 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 ? ' — ' Yes, sir,' said I, ' an ox-foot.' 
 — ' Ah ! then,' quoth he, Uhou 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 bones could hardly 
 escape. ' Oh ! the excellent bit,' did he cry, 
 'that this would be with a little garlic !' Ha ! 
 thought I to myself, how hastily thou eatest 
 it without sauce. ' Gad,' said the squire, ' I 
 have eaten this as heartily as if I had not 
 tasted a bit of victuals to-day :' which I did 
 very readily believe. 
 
 " He then called for the pitcher with the 
 water, which was as full as I had brought it 
 home ; so you may guess whether he had had 
 any. When his squireship had drank, ho 
 
 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 
 Sj)aniard, out of Quevedo. The Adventures, 
 by the way, of Lazarillo de Tornies, were 
 written in the sixteenth centuiy 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 jjerhaps ever felt the proud 
 but condescending pangs 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 Ave 
 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 robbi rs before- 
 mentioned, who are a picturesqut. 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 Obregon, 
 of which a translation appeared a little while 
 ago. We 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 Bell, 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 Rogues and Mirror of Vagabonds." 
 We do not know that he deserves these 
 appellations so much as some others ; but
 
 38 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tliey are to be looked upon as titular orna- 
 ments, common to the Spanish Klcptocracy. 
 He is extremely pleasant, especially in his 
 younger days. His mother, who is no better 
 than the progenitor of such a personage ought 
 to be, happens 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 xip a small cabbage as they went 
 through the market. The market - women 
 began pelting the king with rotten oranges 
 and turnip-tops ; upon which, having feathers 
 in his 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. 
 He did so, and the angry counsellor followed 
 after him with a knife in his hand, so that he 
 was 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 agi-eed. 
 The consequence was, that next day, when 
 the boys were at prayers, Paul, coming to 
 the Belief, and thinking that he was never 
 again to name Pontius Pilate, gravely said, 
 " Suffered imder Pontio de Auguirre ; " which 
 evidence of his horror of the scourge so inte- 
 rested the pedagogue, 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 yoimg 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 rapier, which was stiff 
 and well-pointed ; rims violently into the shop ; 
 and exclaiming, " You 're a dead man !" makes 
 a fierce lunge at the confectioner between the 
 body and arm. Down drops t];e man, half 
 dead with fear ; the others rush out. But 
 I what of the box of comfits ? " Where are the 
 I box of comfits, Paul ?" said tlie rogues : " we 
 do not see what you have done after all, except 
 frighten the fellow." — " Look here, my boys," 
 answered Paul. They looked, and at the end 
 of his rapier beheld, with shouts of laughter, 
 
 the vanquished box. He had marked it out 
 on the shelf ; and imder pretence of lunging 
 at the confectioner, pinked it away like a 
 muffin. 
 
 Upon turning to Quevedo, we find that the 
 story has grown 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 couple of stories related of 
 Ariosto and Tasso. The former was for a 
 short period governor of Grafagnana, a dis- 
 turbed district in the Apennines, which his 
 prudent and gentle policy brought back from 
 its disaffection. Among its other troiibles were 
 numerous bands of robbers, two of the names 
 of whose leaders, Domenico Maroco, and 
 Filippo Pacchione, have come down to pos- 
 terity. Ariosto, during the first days of his 
 government, was riding out with a small 
 retinue, when he had to pass through a number 
 of suspicious-looking ainned men. The two 
 parties had scarcely cleared each other, when 
 the chief of the strangers asked a servant, who 
 liappened to be at some distance behind the 
 others, who that person was. " 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 
 with some anxiety for the event. " I beg your 
 pardon. Sir," said he, " but I was not aware 
 that so great a person as the Signer Lodovico 
 Ariosto was passing near me. My name is 
 Filippo Pacchione ; and when I knew who it 
 was, I could not go on without returning to 
 pay the respect due to so illustrious a name." 
 
 A doubt is thrown on this story, or rather 
 on the particular person who gave occasion to 
 it, by the similarity of an adventure related of 
 Tasso. Both of them however are very pro- 
 bable, let the similarity be what it may ; for 
 both the poets had occasion to go through 
 disturbed districts ; robbers abounded in both 
 their times ; and the leaders being most pro- 
 bably men rather of desperate fortunes than 
 want of knowledge, were likely enough to seize 
 such opportunities of vindicating their better 
 habits, and showing a romantic politeness. The 
 enthusiasm too is quite in keeping with the 
 national character; and it is to be observed 
 that the particulars of Tasso's adventure are 
 different, though the spirit of it is the same. 
 He was journeying, it is said, in company with 
 others, for better security against the banditti
 
 THIEVES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 39 
 
 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 opinion 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 liearing 
 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 oft'er ; upon wliich 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 Schiller. 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 Robbers of Schiller an extra- 
 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 Avorthy 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 these politics, that the habit of attending to 
 them, though with the greatest good-will and 
 sincerity, will always be driving a man upon 
 thinking how his fellow-creatures are going on. 
 There is a pleasant, well-known 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 Mary ; but we 
 believe it was a ring. He was tried for sacri- 
 lege, and the case seemed clear against him, 
 when he puzzled his Catholic judges by in- 
 forming them, that the fact was, the Virgin 
 Mary liad (I'lren him that ring. Here was a 
 terrible dilemma. To dispute the possibility 
 or even probability of a gift from the Virgin 
 Mary, was to deny their religion : while, on 
 the other hand, to let the fellow escape on the 
 pretence, was to canonize impudence itself. 
 The worthy judges, in their perplexity, applied 
 to the king, who, under the guise of beluiving 
 delicately to tlieir faitli, was not sorry to have 
 such an opportunity of joking it. His nuijesty 
 tliereforo pronounced, witli becoming gravity, 
 tliat the allegation of the soldier could not but 
 have its due winglit with all Catliolic believi'rs ; 
 but that in future, it was forbidden any Prus- 
 
 sian subject, military or civil, to accept 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 
 Ali Bey, has been very fertile in robbers. And 
 no wonder : for a semi-bai'barous 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, wlio 
 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 
 Malays ; the still more infamous Algerines ; 
 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 Otuheitans ; 
 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 liis 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 he was a great ruffian, 
 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 his book ; 
 for he 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 with tears. But it may be said 
 for him, at any rate, that the world would not 
 have known the story but for himself: and if 
 such a disclosure be regarded by some as an 
 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. 
 
 ' ject of his book to give a plain unsophisticated 
 account of a human being's experiences ; and 
 that many persons of excellent repute would 
 have been found to have committed actions as 
 [ bad, had they given accounts of themselves as 
 candid. Dr. .Johnson was of opinion that all 
 children were thieves and liars : and somebody, 
 we believe a Scotcliman, answered a fond 
 speech about human nature, by exclaiming 
 that " human nature was a rosfue and a vaga- 
 bond, or so many laws would not have been 
 necessary to restrain it." We venture to diifer, 
 on this occasion, with both Englisliman and 
 Scotchman. Laws in particular, taking the 
 bad with the good, are quite as likely to have 
 made rogues, as restrained tliem. But we see, 
 at any rate, what has been suspected of more 
 orthodox persons than Rousseau ; to say no- 
 tliing 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 helpless 
 owners thousands of those fountains of health 
 and joy : and before he is abused, even for 
 worse things than the theft, let those whose 
 virtue consists in custom, think of this. 
 
 As we have mixed fictitious with real thieves 
 in this article, in a mannei", we fear, somewhat 
 uncritical (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 despatch 
 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 large an- 
 other time. The most prominent of the fabu- 
 lous thieves in England is that bellipotent and 
 immeasurable wag, FalstafF. If for a momen- 
 tary freak, he thought it villanous to steal, at 
 the next moment he thought it villanous not 
 to steal. 
 
 " Hal, I pr'ythee, trouble me no more with 
 vanity. I would to God thou and I 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. Henry. Thou didst well ; for ' Wisdom 
 cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.' 
 
 '^ Falstaff. 0, thou hast damnable iteration ; 
 and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou 
 hast done much harm upon me, Hal ; God for- 
 give thee for it ! Before I knew thee, Hal, 
 I 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 I do not, I 
 am a villain : I'll be damned for never a king's 
 son in Christendom. 
 
 " P. Henry. Where shall we take a purse 
 to-morrow, .Jack ? 
 
 "Fahtaff. Where thou wilt, lad; I'll make 
 one : an I do not, call me villain, and baffle 
 me." 
 
 We must take care how we speak of Mac- 
 heath, or we shall be getting political again. 
 Fielding's Jonathan Wild tlie Grre.at is also, in 
 this sense, " caviare to the multitude." But 
 we would say more if we liad 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 him. The only instance in 
 which the character of an absolute profligate 
 pickpocket was ever made comparatively wel- 
 come to our graver feelings, is in the extraor- 
 dinary story of " Manon VEscaut" 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 of 
 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 \'ices, 
 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-ship (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 very 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 rej^robate purlieu. The capabilities 
 of human nature are not compromised. The 
 virtue alone seems natural ; the guilt, as it so 
 often is, seems artificial, and the result of 
 some bad education or other circumstance. 
 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 are 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 belief in 
 (loodness in it ; a faith, the 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- 
 tiiy 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 treated. 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 thieves." He acted upon 
 a larger scale, or in opposition to a larger 
 injustice, to a Avhole political system. He 
 " shook the superflux " to the poor, and 
 " showed the heavens more just." However, 
 what we have to say of him, we miist keep 
 till the trees are in leaf again, and the green- 
 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 Semples, and other sneaking rogues, 
 who held on a tremulous career of iniquity, 
 betwixt 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 uji an 
 alibi. 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." Tlieir history disapjioints us 
 with its dryness. 
 
 All hail ! thou most attractive of scape- 
 graces ! thou most accomplished of gentlemen 
 of the road ! thou, worthy 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 him in the Harleian Miscellany, was 
 born at Domfront, in Normandy, in the year 
 \QA'S, of Pierre Du Vail, miller, and Marguerite 
 de la Roche, the fair daughter of a tailor. 
 Being a sprightly boy, he did not remain in 
 the country, but became servant to a person 
 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 
 highwaymen, he had the honour to be nann^d 
 first." " He took," says his l)iographer, " the 
 
 * Of Ivanhoe. 
 
 generous way of padding ; " that is to say, 
 he behaved with exemplary politeness to all 
 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 
 own, and in this posture he rides up to the 
 coach side. 'Sir,' says he to the person in 
 the coach, 'your lady plays excellently, and 
 I doubt not but that she dances as well ; 
 will you please to walk out of the coach, 
 and let me liave 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:' Avhich 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 repent 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 off advantageously, and make 
 him appear, as the phrase is, much a gentleman. 
 First, here was valour, that he and but four
 
 42 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 more durst assault a kniglit, a lady, a waiting- 
 gentlowoman, a lacquey, a groom that rid by 
 to open the gates, and tlie coachman, they 
 being six to five, odds at football ; and 
 besides, Du Yall liad much the worst cause, 
 and reason to believe, that whoever should 
 arrive, would range themselves on tlie enemy's 
 party. Then he showed his invention and 
 sagacity, tliat he could, sur le chumj), and, Avith- 
 out studying, make that advantage on the 
 lady's playing on the flageolet. 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) tliere being no 
 violins, Du 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 
 incomimrable 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 Du Vail 
 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 
 Hole-in-tlie-Wall in Chandos-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, who is a man of 
 wit, evidently has something of bitterness in 
 his railleries upon this point ; but he manages 
 them veiy pleasantly. He pretends that he is 
 an old bachelor, and has 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 tliat is hanged 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 liave 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 sheep into an English- 
 man. I am against tliat way of experiments ; 
 for, should we make ail Englishmen sheep, we 
 should soon be a prey to the iniee. 
 
 "I think I can propose the making that 
 experiment a more advantageous way. I 
 would have all gentlemen, M'ho have been a 
 full year or more out of France, be let blood 
 weekly, or often er, 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. Repeat this 
 operation toties 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 happi/ Memory of tlw Most 
 Renowned Du Vail," who 
 
 — Like a pious man, some years before 
 Th' arrival of his fatal hour, 
 IMade 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 hreijiloiis ; 
 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 Shak- 
 speare worth a whole volume of sermons 
 against thieving. The boy who belongs to 
 FalstafFs companions, and who begins to see 
 through the sliallowness of their cunning and 
 way of life, says that Bardolph 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 sle«p, the clothes at his ear, and the 
 wind moaning in some distant crevice. 
 
 " Blessings," exclaimed Sancho, " on him 
 that first invented sleep ! It -wraps 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 sleep. 
 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 
 tlie day is done. A gentle failure of the per- 
 ceptions comes creeping over one : — the spirit 
 of consciousness disengages itself more and 
 more, with slow and hushing degrees, like a 
 mother detaching her hand from that of her
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS ON SLEEP. 
 
 43 
 
 sleepingchild ; — themind seems to havea balmy 
 lid closing over it, like tlie 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 dai-kness 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 people 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 yoixr 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-ijlate 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 perhaps Nature's never- 
 failing relief, as swooning is upon the rack. 
 A person with jaundice in his blood shall lie 
 down and go to sleep at noon-day, when 
 another of a different complexion shall find 
 his eyes as uucloseable as a statue's, though he 
 has had no sleep for nights together. With- 
 out meaning to lessen the dignity of suffering, 
 which has quite enough to do with its Avaking 
 hours, it is this that may often account for the 
 profound sleeps enjoyed the night before 
 hazardous battles, executions, and otiier 
 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 througii 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 jjerson takes, before he 
 retires for the night, while lingering in his 
 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 
 
 and he gets into a 
 
 for so luxurious a moment 
 
 more legitimate posture, sitting sideways with 
 
 his head 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 ]\ositions 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 waki g 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 shave himself with an air of infinite 
 superiority ; in a word, he may show himself 
 grand and absurd upon the most trifling occa- 
 sions. But Sleep plays the petrifying magician. 
 He arrests the proudest lord as well as the 
 himiblest 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 pantomime should create 
 wilder laughter. The toy with the string 
 between its legs, is hardly a posture-master 
 more extravagant. Imagine a despot lifted 
 up to the gaze of his valets, with his eyes shut, 
 his mouth open, his left hand under his riglit 
 ear, his other twisted and lianging helplessly 
 before him like an idiot's, one knee lifted up, 
 and the 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 j and
 
 44 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 the poets have ti'eated liim with proper rever- 
 ence. According to the ancient mythologists, 
 he had even one of the Graces to wife. He 
 had a thousand sons, of whom the chief were 
 ^Morpheus, or the Shaper ; Icelos, or the 
 Likely ; Pliantasus, the Fancy ; and Pliobetor, 
 the Terror. His dwelling some writers place 
 in a dull and darkling part of the earth ; others, 
 with greater compliment, in heaven ; and others, 
 with another kind of propriety, by the sea- 
 shore. There is a good description of it in 
 Ovid ; hut in these abstracted tasks of poetry, 
 tlie 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 Queem (Canto I. st. 39), 
 sends a little spirit down to Morpheus to fetch 
 him a Dream : 
 
 He, making speeily way through spersed ayre, 
 And through the world of waters, wide and deepe, 
 To Morplieus' house dotli hastily rcpaire. 
 Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe 
 And low, where dawning day doth never pecpc, 
 His dwelling is. There, Tethys his wet bed 
 Doth ever wash ; .and Cynthia still doth steepe 
 In silver dew his ever-drouping head, 
 Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred. 
 
 And more to lull him in his slumber soft 
 A trickling streame from high rocke tumbling downe, 
 And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, 
 Mixed with a murmuring winde, much like the soune 
 Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune. 
 No other noise, nor people's troublous cryos, 
 As still are wont to annoy the walled towne, 
 Might there be heard ; but carelesse Quiet lyes, 
 Wrapt in eternall silence, far from enimyes. 
 
 Cliaucer has drawn the cave of the same 
 god with greater simplicity ; but nothing can 
 have a more deep and sullen effect than his 
 cliffs 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 tlie body" of the drowned king, to let 
 his wife know the fatal event by his appa- 
 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 tvvey. 
 There never yet grew come, ne gras, 
 Ne tree, ne nought that aught was. 
 Beast, ne man, ne naught else ; 
 Save that there were a few wells 
 Came running fro the cliffs adowne, 
 That made a deadly sleeping soune. 
 And runnen downe right by a cave, 
 That was under a rocky grave. 
 Amid the valley, wonder-deepe. 
 There these goddis lay asleepe, 
 Morpheus and Eclyinpasteirc, 
 That was the god of Slecpis heire, 
 That slept and did none other worke. 
 
 Where tlie 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 tlie poets ; they are so 
 numerous as well asbeautiful. We must content 
 ourselves with mentioning that our two most 
 favourite passages are one in the Philoetetes 
 of Sophocles, admirable for its contrast to a 
 
 scene of terrible 
 
 which it closes : and 
 
 agony, 
 
 the other the following address in Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's tragedy of Valentinian, the hero 
 of which is also a sufferer under bodily tor- 
 ment. He is in a chair, slumbering ; and 
 these most exquisite lines are gently sung 
 with music. 
 
 Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes. 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
 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, 
 Pass by his troubled senses ; sing his pain 
 Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain : 
 Into this prince, gently, oh gently slide. 
 And kiss him into slumbers, like a bride. 
 
 How earnest and prayer-like are these pauses ! 
 How lightly sprinkled, and yet how deeply 
 settling, Uke rain, the fancy ! How quiet, 
 affectionate, and perfect the conclusion ! 
 
 Sleep is most graceful in an infant ; soimdest, 
 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 AUnon^s England, to 
 which we referred in the article on Charles 
 Brandon and Mary Queen of France. 
 
 Aganippus, king of Ai-gos, dying without 
 heirs male, bequeathed his throne to his only 
 daughter, the beautiful and beloved Dapliles. 
 Tliis female succession was disj^leasing to a 
 nobleman who held large possessions 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 
 appearance to receive h's master's thanks 
 personally. A correspondence, hoKvever, 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 the young queen, when the two armies 
 came face to face. 
 
 But neither these subtle statesmen, nor the 
 ambitious young soklier Doracles, were aware 
 of the effects to be produced by a strong ]>er- 
 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 thi'one instead. At least they 
 speculated upon becoming each the favourite 
 minister, and held it a better thing to reigu 
 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 ])y her side, her 
 diademed hair flowing a little off into the 
 wind, Iier face paler than usual, but still tinted 
 withits 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 lieart than a traitor's, that the 
 royal charmer was secure. 
 
 The queen, during tlie conflict, remained 
 in a tent upon an eminence, to which the 
 younger leaders vied who should best spur \ip 
 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 coui-age or 
 military talent could entitle him to the throne, 
 he would have a right to it ; but the popu- 
 larity of Daphles sujiplied her cause with all 
 the ardour which a lax state of subjection on 
 the part of the more powerful nobles might 
 have denied it. When her troops charged, or 
 made any other voluntary movement, they 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 hammering 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 tlie 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 with 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 j)roud and handsome Dora- 
 cles, whom she now saw for tlie first time, 
 blushed deeply as ho cast a glance at his 
 female conqueror, and then stepped Iiaughtily 
 
 along, handling his gilded chains as if they 
 were an indifferent ornament. " I have con- 
 quered him," thought slie ; " it is a heavy 
 blow to so proud 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 
 oflices 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 mixtui-e 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 went 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 great 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 wliicli 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 her past and 
 virgin notions ot 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 tlie 
 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 Avill be 
 sufficiently saved by the name of your wife ; 
 and a substantial throne, with a return that 
 siiall nothing perplex or interfere witli thee, I 
 do now accordingly offer tliee, 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 they find me rejected." And 
 in getting out that hard word, her voice faltered 
 a little, and her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Doracles, with the best grace his lately-
 
 46 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 defeated spirit could assume, spoke in willing 
 terms of accejiting her offer. They left the 
 prison, and liis full pardon having been pro- 
 claimed, the courtiers, with feasts and enter- 
 tainments, \'iedwhoshould seem best to apiirove 
 their mistress's choice, for so they were quick 
 to understand it. Tlie late captive, who was 
 really as graceful and accomplished as a proud 
 
 ! spirit would let him be, received and returned 
 all tlieir attention in princely sort, and Daphles 
 was beginning to hope tliat he might turn a 
 glad eye upon her some day, when 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 leaguing ^^^th her enemies for another 
 struggle. 
 
 From that day gladness, though not kindness, 
 went out of the face of Daphles. She wrote 
 him a letter, without a word of reproach in it, 
 enough to bring back the remotest heart that 
 had the least spark of sympathy ; but he only 
 answered it in a spirit which sliowed that he 
 regarded the deepest love but as a wanton 
 trifle. That letter touched her kind wits. Slie 
 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 
 spirit, had summoned a meeting of the nobles, 
 at whicli she was to preside in the dress she 
 wore on tlie day of \'ictory, the sight of which, 
 it was thought, with the arguments which 
 they meant to use, would prevail uijon the 
 assembly to urge her to a revocation of the 
 bequest. Her 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 tlie 
 tlirone, instead of the sceptre ; and their hands 
 prepared to put the same laurel on her head 
 whicli 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 jncking 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 clieek against the 
 side of her sick chair, and shutting her eyes 
 quietly, so died. 
 
 The envoys from Argos went to the court of 
 Ciilydon, where Doraclesthen was, and bringing 
 him the diadem upon a black cushion, infoiined 
 him at once of the death of the queen, and her 
 nomination of him to the throne. He showed 
 little more than a ceremonious gravity at tlie 
 former news; but could ill contain his joy at 
 
 1 the latter, and set off instantly to take pos- 
 
 session. Among the other nobles who feasted 
 him, was one who, having been the companion 
 of the late king, had become like a second 
 father to his imhappy daughter. The new 
 prince observing the melancholy which he 
 scarcely affected to repress, and seeing him 
 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, " pray think me worthy of doing 
 honour to it, for he was a noble prince. Unveil 
 it, pray. 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 
 Avith a blooming beauty, in Avhich iinimal 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 liis 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. "Her 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 
 that these gentle creatures, Avomen, 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 
 chambei", promising to return it. 
 
 A whole year, 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, 
 Avhen he was not in council, in the room where 
 the picture hung. In truth, the image of the 
 once smiling Dapliles 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 upon him, 
 even in that gentle shape. Millions of times 
 did lie 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 hurry to his cheeks, and help to pull them 
 into a gaunt melancholy. But this is not a 
 repaj-ing 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 
 lay upon that blooming and smiling face, which 
 liad it been living, w'ould 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 my thology 
 in a poetical and fabulous shajie, we are apt 
 to have a false idea of the religious feeling of 
 the ancients. We are in the habit of supposing, 
 whatever we allow when we come to reason 
 upon the point, that they regarded their fables 
 in the same poetical light as ourselves ; tliat 
 they could not possibly put faith in Jupiter, 
 Neptune, and Pluto ; in the sacrifice of in- 
 nocent turtle-doves, the libation of wine, and 
 the notions about Tartarus and Ixion. 
 
 Undoubtedly 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 terror under his feet. 
 A sickly temperament appears to have made 
 him wish, rather than,be able, to carry his 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 lower world, go out through 
 tiu^ ivory gate, which was the passage of false 
 visions f. Ca;sar, 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 tliem 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 JEst-hylus and Euripides, the 
 two dramatists whose faith in the national religion was 
 most doubted, are said to have met witli strange and 
 violent desiths. The latter was torn to pieces by dogs, 
 and the former killed by a tortoise which an eagle let full 
 upon liis bald head, ih mi.it/ike /or a slone. These exits 
 from tlie scene look very like the retributive death-beds 
 which the bigots of all religions are so 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 genei-al, were strong upon points of faith. 
 The extension of the Greek philosojihy 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 tlie 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, was in bad taste — the defacing the statues 
 of Mercury — was followed with important con- 
 sequences. The history of Soci'ates 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 wrote a popidar 
 work full of mythological fables ; and Yirgil 
 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 should pique himself 
 on the 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 purposes. Did he now and then 
 lecture his poetical friends upon this point, 
 respecting their own appearances with the 
 world ? There is a curious ode of Horace 
 (Book I. Ode xxxiv.), in which he says, that he 
 finds himself compelled to give up his sceptical 
 notions, and to attend more to public worslii}), 
 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 
 think 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 divided into three general classes. 
 The great multitude believed anything ; the 
 very few disbelieved everything ; the philo- 
 sophers and poets entertained a refined natural 
 religion, which, while it pronounced upon 
 nothing, rejected what was e%'idently unworthy 
 of the spirit of the creation, and regarded the 
 popular deities as personifications of its various 
 workino-s. All these classes had their extra- 
 vagances, in proportion to their ignorance, or 
 viciousness, or metaphysical perplexity. The 
 multitude, whose notions were 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 thouglit 
 the whole goods of the universe a scramble 
 for the cunning and hyi)0critical. The over- 
 refining followers of Plato, endeavouring to
 
 48 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 pierce into tlie nature of things by the mere 
 effort of the will, arrived at conclusions visible 
 to none but their own yearning and impatient 
 eyes, and lost themselves in the ethereal dog- 
 matisms of riotinus and Porphyry. 
 
 The greatest pleasure arising to a modern 
 imagination from the ancient mythology, is in 
 a mingled sense of the old popular belief and 
 of the philosophical refinements upon it. We 
 take Apollo, and ^lercury, and Venus, as 
 shapes that existed in popular credulity, as 
 the greater fairies of the ancient world : and 
 we regard them, at the same tmie, 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, through 
 avenues of beautiful poetry, both ancient and 
 modern, is so entirely cheerful, that we are apt 
 to think it nmst have wanted gravity to mure 
 believing eyes. AVe 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 be from the metaphysical ; as 
 the eye of abeautiful woman is from the inward 
 speculations of a Brahmin ; or a lily at noon- 
 day tVoni the wide obscurity of night-time. 
 
 This supposition appears to be carried a 
 great deal too far. AVe will not inquire, in this 
 place, how far the masn 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, and 
 the opening of a more visible eternity, into 
 avoiding the whole subject, rather 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 pagans were 
 perhaps more impressed with a sense of the 
 invisible 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 difterence 
 between the two things, as between a populace 
 believing in fairies, and a populace not believ- 
 ing. The latter is in the high road to some- 
 thing Ijetter, 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 jiresiding nymj)h, who was 
 thanked for the draught of water. Every 
 
 house had its'protecting gods, whichhad blessed 
 tlie inmate's ancestors, and which would bless 
 him also, if he cultivated the 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 M'orship of a more graceful humanity, there 
 may be worships much worse as well as mucJi 
 better. And the divinest spirit that ever ap- 
 peared on earth has told us that the extension 
 of hunum sympathy embraces all that is re- 
 quired 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 gi-oves of the Eume- 
 nides ; or the fountain where Proserpine 
 vanished under 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 Deliihi : 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 ; biit to him it 
 was poetry, and religion, and beauty, and 
 gi'avity, and hushing awe, and a path as from 
 one world to another. 
 
 With similar feelings he would cross the 
 ocean, an element that naturally detaches the 
 mind from earth, and which 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, when the 
 winds were rising, and the sailors had made 
 their 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 through 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 world, precisely because there is a 
 deeper sense of the present ; of its varieties, 
 its benignities, its mystery. It Avas 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 planet 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 dreacled the symptom, as an evidence of 
 materialism, and of the planets being dry self-'
 
 GETTING UP ON COLD JMORNINGS. 
 
 49 
 
 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. 
 
 " The 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 : 
 ■\Ve have given our hearts away, a sordid boon I 
 This 8ea tliat bares her bosom to the moon ; 
 The Winds that will be howling at all hours. 
 And are upgathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
 For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; 
 It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
 A Pagan stickled 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 the sea. 
 Or hear old Triton blow bis wreathed horn." 
 
 XXIV.- 
 
 -GETTING UP ON COLD 
 MORNINGS. 
 
 Ax 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 the snow on the 
 house-tops, that Adam was not under the 
 necessity of shaving ; and that when Eve 
 walked out of her delicious bower, she did not 
 step upon ice three inches thick. 
 
 Some people say it is a very easy thing to 
 get up of a cold morning. You have only, 
 they tell you, to take the resolution ; and the 
 thing is done. This may be very true ; just 
 as a boy at school has only to take a flogging, 
 and the thing is over. But we have not at all 
 made up our minds upon it ; and we find it a 
 very pleasant exercise to discuss tlie 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 ? Wliy 
 M'ith tlie argument calmly at work in one's 
 head, and tiie clothes over one's shoulder. Oh 
 — it is a fine way of spending a sensible, 
 impartial half-hour. 
 
 If these people would bo more charitable, 
 they would get on with tlieir argument better. 
 But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert 
 so dogmatically, that one could wish to liave 
 them stand round one's bed of a bitter morn- 
 ing, and lie before tlieir faces. They ouglit to 
 hear both sides of the bed, the inside and out. 
 If tliey cannot entertain themselves with their 
 own thoughts for lialf an liour or so, it is not 
 the fault of those who can. 
 
 Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, 
 besides the greater or less ])rivileges 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 rejiresentations as the following. In 
 the first place, says the injured but calm 
 appealer, I have been wai'm 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 
 unnatura) to sucli a creature, that the poets, 
 refining upon the tortures of the damned, 
 make one of their greatest agonies consist in 
 being suddenly transported from heat to cold, 
 — from fire to ice. They are " haled" out of 
 tlieir " beds," says ^Milton, by " harpy-footed 
 furies," — fellows who come to call them. On 
 my first movement towards the anticipation of 
 getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets 
 and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the 
 room, are stone-cold. On opening my eyes, 
 the first thing that meets them is my own 
 breath rolling forth, as if in the open air, like 
 smoke out of a chimney. Think of this symp- 
 tom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see 
 the window all frozen over. Think of that. 
 Then the servant comes in. " It is very cold 
 this morning, is it not ?" — " Very cold, Sir." — 
 "Very cold indeed, isn't it ?" — "Very cold in- 
 deed, Sir."^ — " More than usually so, isn't it, 
 even for this weather ?" (Here the servant's 
 wit and good-nature are put to a considerable 
 test, and the inquirer lies on thorns for the 
 
 answer.) " Why, Sir I think it is." 
 
 (Good creature ! There is not a better, or 
 more truth-telling servant going.) " I must 
 rise, however — get me some warm water." — 
 Here comes a fine interval between the depar- 
 ture of the servant and the arrival of the hot 
 water ; during which, of course, it is of " no 
 use ?" to get up. The hot water comes. " Is 
 it quite hot ? " — " Yes, Sir." — " Perhaps too hot 
 for shaving : I must wait a little V — " No 
 Sir ; it will just do." (There is an over-nice 
 propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, 
 a little troublesome.) " Oh — the shirt — you 
 must air my clean shirt ; — linen gets very 
 damp this weather." — " Yes, Sir." Here an- 
 other delicious five minutes. A knock at the 
 door. " Oh, the shirt — very well. My stock- 
 ings — I think the stockings had better be aired 
 too." — " Very well. Sir." — Here another inter- 
 val. At length everything is ready, except 
 myself. I now, continues our incumbent (a 
 happy word, by the bye, for a country vicar) 
 — I now cannot help thinking a good deal — 
 who can ?^upon the unnecessary and villan- 
 ous custom of shaving: it is a thing so unmanly 
 (Iiere I nestle closer)— so effeminate (here I 
 recoil from an unlucky step into the colder 
 part of the bed.)— No wonder tliat the Queen 
 of France took part with the rebels against
 
 ' 50 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 that degenerate King, her husband, who first 
 affronted lior smooth visape with a face like 
 her own. The Emperor Julian never showed 
 the luxuriancy of his genius to better advan- 
 tage tlian in reviving the flowing beard. Look 
 at Cardinal Bembo's picture — at JNIichael 
 Angelo's — at Titian's — at Shakspeare's — at 
 Fletcher's — at Spenser's — at Chaucer's — at 
 Alfred's — at Plato's — I could name a great 
 man for every tick of my watch. — Look at the 
 Turks, a grave and otiose people. — Think of 
 Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan. — 
 Think of AVortley ]SIontague, the worthy son 
 of his mother, above the prejudice of his time 
 — Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is 
 ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their 
 dress and appearance are so much finer than 
 our own — Lastly, think of the razor itself — 
 how totally opposed to every sensation of bed 
 — how cold, how edgy, how hard ! how utterly 
 different from anything like the ■warm and 
 circling amplitude, Avliich 
 
 Sweetly recommends itself 
 Fnto our gentle senses. 
 
 Add to tliis, benumbed fingers, which may 
 hel])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, tiiat he has no merit in opposing it. 
 
 Tliomson the poet, who exclaims in his 
 Seasons — 
 
 Falsely luxm-ious ! Will not man awake ? 
 
 used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he 
 had no motive in getting up. He could imagine 
 the good of rising ; but then he could also 
 imagine the good of lying still ; and his 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 pence ; but this will not suf- 
 fice for a student. A proud man may say, 
 " What shall I think of myself, if I don't get 
 up ? " but the more humble one Avill be content 
 to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out 
 of respect to his kindly bed. The mechanical 
 man shall got up without any ado at all ; and 
 so shall the barometer. An ingenious lier in 
 bed will find hard matter of discussion even 
 on the score of health and longevity. He will 
 a.sk us for our proofs and precedents of the ill 
 effects of jlying later in cold weather ; and so- 
 phisticate mufh on the advantages of an even 
 temperature of body ; of the natural propensity 
 (pretty universal) to have one's way ; and of 
 the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep 
 all the winter. As to longevity, he will ask 
 whether the longest is of necessity the best ; 
 and wliether Holborn 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. We do iiqt 
 mention his precise age, which would be invi- 
 dious : — nor whether he wears his own hair or 
 a wig ; which would be wanting in universality. 
 If a wig, it is a compromise between the more 
 modern scratch and the departed glory of the 
 toupee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of 
 his favourite grandson, who used to get on the 
 chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, 
 ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hair- 
 dresser, hovering and breathing about him like 
 a second youth, takes care to give the bald 
 place as much powder as the covered ; in order 
 that he may convey to the sensorium wdthin a 
 pleasing indistinctness of idea respecting the 
 exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean 
 and neat ; and, in warm weather, is proud of 
 opening his waistcoat half-way down, and 
 letting so much of his frill be seen, in order to 
 show his hardiness as well as taste. His watch 
 and shirt-buttons are of the best ; and he does 
 not care if he has two rings on a finger. If his 
 watch ever failed him at the club or coffee- 
 house, he would take a walk every day to the 
 nearest clock of good character, purely to keep 
 it right. He has a cane at home, but seldom 
 uses it, on finding it out of fashion with his 
 elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for 
 gala days, which he lifts higher from his head 
 than the round one, when boAved 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 — 
 
 AVTien 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 books are 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 INIa- 
 gazine ; Sir John Sinclair on Longevity ; 
 several plays with jjortraits in character ; 
 Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of 
 George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amusements at 
 Bath-Easton, Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts ; 
 Junius as originally published ; a few 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 Joshua ; an engraved portrait 
 of the Marquis of Granby ; ditto of INI. le Comte 
 de Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney ;
 
 THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 
 
 51 
 
 a humorous piece after Penny ; and a portrait 
 of himself, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's 
 portrait is in his chambei", 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 pre\'iously. His china cups and 
 saucers have been broken since his wife's death, 
 all but one, which is religiously kept for his 
 use. He passes his morning in walking or 
 riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his 
 India bonds or some such money securities, 
 furthering some subscription set on foot by his 
 excellent friend Sir John, or cheapening a new 
 old print for his portfolio. He also hears of 
 the newspapers ; not caring to see them till 
 after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also 
 cheapen a fish or so ; the fishmonger soliciting 
 his doubting eye as he passes, with a profound 
 bow of recognition. He eats a pear before 
 dinner. 
 
 His dinner at the coffee-house is served up 
 to him at the accustomed hour, in the old 
 accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. 
 If William did not bringit,the fish would besure 
 to be stale, and the flesh new. He eats no tart ; 
 or if he ventures on a little, takes cheese with 
 it. You might as soon attempt to persuade 
 him out of his senses, as that cheese is not good 
 for digestion. He takes port ; and if he has 
 drunk more than usual, and in a more private 
 place, may be induced by some respectful in- 
 quiries respecting the old style of music, to sing 
 a song composed by ^Ir. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, 
 sucJi as — 
 
 or 
 
 Chloe, by that borrowed kiss, 
 
 Come, gentle god of soft repose, 
 
 or his wife's favourite ballad, beginnins- — 
 
 At Upton on the hill, 
 There lived a happy pair. 
 
 Of course, no such exjiloit 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 
 deliglit is the newspaper ; which he prepares 
 to read by wiping his spectacles, carefully ad- 
 justing tliem on his eyes, and drawing the can- 
 dle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt 
 liis ocular aim and the small type. He then 
 holds the paper at arm's length, and dropping 
 liis 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 susjiects 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 lias known for many y( ars ; 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 toj) 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 jjoor, 
 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 
 Avife on the cheek. The wife then says, " My 
 niece, Sir, from the country ;" and he kisses 
 the niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting 
 her lips at the joke, says, "My cousin Harriet, 
 Sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He " never 
 recollects such weather," excei)t during the 
 "Great Frost," or when he rode down with 
 " Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket." He grows
 
 52 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 young again in his little grand-cliildren, espe- 
 cially the one which he thinks most like him- 
 self ; wiiich is tlie handsomest. Yet he likes 
 best jierhaps the one most resembling liis wife ; 
 and will sit with him on his lap, holding his 
 hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour 
 togetlier. He plays most tricks with the 
 former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little 
 bovs in wueral who was the father of Zebedee's 
 children. If his grandsons are at school, he 
 often goes to see them ; and makes them blush 
 by telling the master or the upper-scholars, 
 that they are fine boys, and of a precocious 
 genius. He is much struck when an old 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 tliere is Mrs. Jones (the 
 housekeeper) — "*S7(e'lI talk." 
 
 XXVII. 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 this 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 liis 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 hoard a most cclestiall sound 
 Of dainty musicke, whicli did next ensue 
 Before tlie Spouse. That was Arion crowned: 
 Who, playing on his harp, unto him drew 
 The eares and hearts of all that goodly crew ; 
 That even yet the Dolphin, which him bore 
 Through the j-Kgcan seas fiom pirates' view, 
 Stood still by him astonished at his lore ; 
 And all the raging seas for joy forgot to roar. 
 
 So went he, playing on the watery plain. 
 
 Perhaps in no one particular thing or image, 
 have some great poets shown the different 
 characters of their genius more than in the use 
 of the Doljihin. Spenser, wlio of all his tribe 
 lived in a poetical world, and saw things as 
 clearly there as in a real one, has never shown 
 this nicety of realisation more than in tlic 
 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 the smooth charett of sad CjTnoent. 
 They were all taught by Triton to obey 
 To the long reins at her commandement : 
 As swift as swallows on the waves they went, 
 That their broad flaggy finnes no foam did reare, 
 Ne bubbling roundell they behind them sent. 
 The rest of other fishes drawen were. 
 Which with their finny oares the swelling sea did sheare. 
 
 Soon as they been arrived upon the brim 
 
 Of the Rich Strand, their charets they forlore ; 
 
 And let their teamed fishes softly swim 
 
 Along the margent of the foamy shore. 
 
 Lest they their finnes should bruise, and surbeat sore 
 
 Their tender feete upon the stony groiuid. 
 
 There are a couple of Dolphins like these, in 
 Raphael's Galatea. Dante, with his tendency 
 to see things in a dreary point 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. Hesays 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 would j^rong 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 
 superiority and playfulness. 
 
 His delights 
 Were dolphin-like ; and showed themselves above 
 The element he lived in. 
 
 XXVIII.— RONALD OF THE PERFECT 
 HAND. 
 
 [The following tale is founded on a Scottish tradition. 
 It was intended to he written in verse ; which will account 
 for its present appearance.] 
 
 The stern old shepherd of the aii'. 
 The spirit of the whistling hair, 
 The wind, has risen drearily 
 In the Northern evening sea, 
 And is piping long and loud 
 To many a heavy upcoming cloud, — 
 Upcoming heavy in many a row, 
 Like the unwieldy droves below 
 Of seals and horses of the sea. 
 That gather up as drearily, 
 And watch with solemn visaged eyes 
 Those mightier movers in the skies. 
 
 '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 
 Gave up the battle to the gale. 
 Four chiefs there are of special note, 
 Labouring in that earnest boat ;
 
 RONALD OP THE PERFECT HAND. 
 
 53 
 
 Four Orkney chiefs, that yesterday 
 
 Coming in tlieir pride away 
 
 From there smote Norwegian king. 
 
 Led their war-boats triumphing 
 
 Straight along the golden line 
 
 JVlade 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 wearily 
 Have drunk of toil two days at sea ; 
 Duth JMaruno, steady and dark, 
 Cormar, Soul of the Winged Bark ; 
 And bright Clan Alpin, who could leap 
 Like a torrent from steep to steep ; 
 And he, the greatest of that great band, 
 Kouald 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 down without an ending, 
 Like ghostly things that could not ccaso 
 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 downward eyelids meek, 
 
 And of lier 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, 
 
 AVith 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 llonuUl, who though all so brave. 
 
 Had often that hard day before 
 
 AVished himself well housed on shore, 
 
 Felt a bharp impatient start 
 
 Of home-sick wilfulness at heart, 
 
 And steering witli still firmer hand. 
 
 As if tlie bo.'it could feel command, 
 
 ThriU'd with a fierce and forward motion, 
 
 As though 'twould shoot it through the ocean. 
 
 " Some spirit," exclaimed Duth Maruno, 
 " must pursue us, and stubbornly ui'ge 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 iigure 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 tui-ned 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 manageaole, 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 them crept 
 forward, and felt for him through 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 roused up 
 the others ? Is he calling upon us, as he did 
 in the battle, when his followers shouted after 
 his call r' 
 
 It was the rocks of an isle beyond 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 ujion the 
 rocks. With great difiiculty they stemmed 
 tlieir way obliquely ; and at length were thrown 
 violently to shore, bruised, wounded, and half 
 inanimate. They remained on this desolate 
 island two days, during 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 the glad locks 
 of the maiden tired in the dance. Therefore 
 was he called the Perfect Hand ; and therefore 
 with great mourning was he mourned : yet 
 with none half as great as by his love, his 
 betrothed bride Moilena ; by her of the Beau- 
 tiful Voice ; who had latterly begun to be 
 called the Perfect Voice, because she was to 
 be matched with him of the Perfect 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 victo rious, 
 
 * The old name for the Orkneys.
 
 54 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 to the people of Inistore. Their swords had 
 conquered in Lochlin ; but most of the liands 
 that wielded them had never come back. 
 Tlieir warm pressure was felt no more. The 
 last which they had given their friends was 
 now to serve tiiem all their lives. " Never, 
 with all my yearning," said Moilena, " shall I 
 look upon 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 inter- 
 minable as her thoughts. 
 
 But winter had now passed away. The tears 
 of tiie sky at least were dried up. The sun 
 looked out kindly again ; and the spring had 
 scarcely re-appeared, when Inistore liad a 
 proud aud gladder day, from the arrival of the 
 young prince of Lochlin with his bride. It 
 was a bitter one to Aloilena, for the prince 
 came to thank Ronald for sparing his life in 
 the war, and had brought his lady to thank 
 him too. They thanked Moilena instead ; 
 and, proud in the midst of her unhappiness, of 
 being the representative of the Perfect Hand, 
 she lavished hundreds of smiles upon them 
 from Iier pale face. But she Avept 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 
 thought that her home was as much there as in 
 InLstore. 
 
 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 thitlier 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 tlie tempest. " We 
 cany," said they, "an acceptable present to 
 the gods. Odin, stay thy hand from the 
 slaughter of the obscure. Thor, put down the 
 mallet witli which thou beatest, like red hail, 
 on the skulls of thine enemies. Ye other 
 feasters in Vallialla, set down the skulls full of 
 mead, and pledge a health out of a new and 
 noljle one to the King of Gods and Men, that 
 the twilight of heaven may come late. We 
 bring an acceptable present : we bring Ronald 
 of tlie Perfect Hand." Thus tliey sang in the 
 boat, la])ouring all the while witli the winds 
 and waves, but surer now than ever of reach- 
 ing the shore. And tiiey did so by the first 
 light of the morning. WJien they came to tlie 
 circle of sacred stones, fi'om wiiich the island 
 took its name, tliey 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 offeix-d up to 
 your gods," said Ronald, " like a mau,_by the 
 
 sword ; and not like food, by the fire." " We 
 know all," answered the priests : " 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 tliis hand." Still they answered 
 nothing but " We know all : be thou silent." 
 Ronald could not help witnessing these pre- 
 parations for a new and imexpected death with 
 an emotion of terror ; but disdain and despair 
 were uiipermost. Once, and but once, his 
 cheek turned deadly pale in thinking of 
 Moilena. He shifted his posture resolutely, 
 and thought of the spirits of the dead whom 
 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 despatched 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. Wliat 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 purpose 
 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 diff"erent faith, that it was be- 
 lieved in Scotland as well as the continent, 
 tliat no human being could live there many 
 hours. Spirits, it was thought appeared in 
 terrible superhuman shapes, like the bloody 
 idols which the priests worshipped, and car- 
 ried the stranger off. 
 
 The wari'ior 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 part 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 
 the door, as he knew not whether bears might 
 not be among the inliabitants,he cast his eyes 
 upon the thinnest of the 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 despaii* of fear, he sud-
 
 RONALD OF THE PERFECT HAND. 
 
 5D 
 
 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 he hoped in 
 vain that some boat from Iiiistore 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 Avould fall dead asleep 
 with fatigue. 
 
 In this way he bore up against the violences of 
 the winter season, which had now passed. The 
 sun looked out with a melancholy smile upon 
 the moss and the poor grass, chequered here 
 and there with flowers almost as poor. There 
 was the buttercuj), 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 been 
 made wild and wilful by strange habits and 
 sickened blood ; and he thought 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 sufi^erings which the Scandinavian heroes 
 underwent from tlieir enemies with triumphant 
 songs. He knew that no such sufferings which 
 were fugitive, could equal the agonies of a 
 daily martyrdom of mind ; and ho cultivated 
 a certain humane pride of i^atience, in order to 
 bear tlunn. 
 
 His only hope of being delivered from the 
 
 island now depended on the Scandinavian 
 
 ])riests ; but it was a moot point whctlier they 
 
 I would respect him for surviving, or kill him on 
 
 that 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 with 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 spared 
 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 possessoi-s 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 deejDer 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 autimin came upon him like tlie 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 blowing 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 his 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 oj)ened and shut it, opened and 
 shut it again, turned it round, and looked at 
 its ribbed thinness and laid-open machinery ; 
 many thoughts came upon him, some which he 
 understood not, and some which lie recognised 
 but too well ; and a turbid violence seemed 
 rising at his heart, when tlie seal, his companion, 
 drew nigh, and began licking that weak memo- 
 rial of the Perfect Hand, A shower of self-
 
 oG 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 pitying tears fell upon the seal's face and the 
 hand tog;ether. 
 
 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 three times the 
 rocks and caverns echoed the word with a dim 
 sullenuess. 
 
 Recollecting himself, he would have risen 
 and answered ; but the sudden change of sen- 
 sations iiad done what all his suiFerings had not 
 been 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 Scandina\'ian habit, prostrate them- 
 selves at his feet, and address him in an un- 
 known language. But these are sent away by 
 anotlier, who remains with none but two youths. 
 Ronald has risen a little, and leans his back 
 against the rock. One of the youths 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 people supposed me," said Ronald, 
 looking 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. "Speak 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 wlio 
 held his ami round Iiis neck. " Who are these 
 fair youtlis r' said Ronald, half turning his 
 head to look in his supporter's face. " This is 
 the bride I spoke of," answered the prince, 
 " who insisted on sharing this voyage witii me, 
 and put on this dress to be the bolder in it." 
 " And wlio is the other ?" Tlie otlier, 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 ?" 
 AVith a quick and almost fierce tone, Ronald 
 cried out aloud, " I know the voice ;" and ho 
 would have fallen flat on tlie 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 JNIoilena, and the hands of all three. 
 Their discovery of him was easily explained. 
 The crews of the vessels, who had been afraid 
 to come 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 conld 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, and returned as you heard ; 
 and from that day forth many were the songs 
 in Inistore, upon the fortunes of the Perfect 
 Hand and the kindness of the Perfect Voice. 
 Nor were those forgotten who forgot not others. 
 
 XXIX.— A CHAPTER ON HATS. 
 
 We know not what will be thought of our 
 taste in so imjjortant a matter, but we must 
 confess we are not fond of a new hat. There 
 is a certain insolence about it : it seems to 
 value itself upon its finished appearance, and 
 to ijresume iqjon our liking before we are 
 acquainted witli it. In the fii-st place, it comes 
 home more like a marmot or some other living 
 creature, than a manufacture. 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 
 tliat, and Catharine t'other. We have the 
 difficult task, all the while, of looking easy, till 
 the ajiproving votes are pronounced ; our only 
 resource (which is also difficult) being to say 
 good things to all four ; or to clap the 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. Rut how imeasy 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, I'ain, a gale of wind, a fall, a squeeze, — 
 nothing affected it. It was a true friend, a 
 friend for all weathers. Its appearance oaly 
 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 ^vind, and it is not tight, it 
 may be blown off into the dirt : we may have 
 to scramble after it through dust or mud ; 
 just reaching it Avitli 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-faU, or toils 
 and scoldings next day! Ye, who have re-
 
 A CHAPTER ON HATS. 
 
 57 
 
 ceived your new hat and boots but an hoia- 
 before ye set out ; and then issue forth triumph- 
 antly, the charmer by your side ! She, 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 fiowing off 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 imj^ossible 
 notion of a coach ! The rain will continue ; 
 and alas ! 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 grace 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 upon the whole we do think 
 them the more graceful of the two. The best 
 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 Norellsfs Mwjazine. 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 nothina: ; so 
 that what with our close heads and our tierht 
 succmct mode of dress, we look as if we were 
 intended for nothing but to dart backwards 
 and forwards on mattei-s of business, with as 
 little hindrance to each other as possible. 
 
 This may give us a greater distaste to the 
 hat than it deserves ; 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 possilde, 
 with neither raiu uor dust, there may be a hot 
 
 sunshine ; and then the hat is too narrow to 
 shade us : no great evil, it is true ! but we 
 must have our pique out against the knave, 
 and turn him to the only account in our power : 
 — 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 union 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 ^liss 
 Thompsons. There is a formula for this occa- 
 sion ; and doubtless it is often used, to say 
 nothing of extempore effusions : but there are 
 wicked imaginations, who suspect that instead 
 of devouter whisperings, the commuuer 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 jiity 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 j)it 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 fas£ in a common boat ; or a 
 sail-line, or an inexperienced oar, may knock 
 the hat oft" ; and then fancy it tilting over the 
 water with the tide, soaked all the while beyond 
 redemption, and escaping from the tijjs of your 
 outstretched fingers, while you ought all to be 
 pulling the contrary way home. 
 
 But of all wrong 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 oft', where is its refuge ? W^ill 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 travellei-, who in his 
 fur-cap and infinite knowledge of highway 
 conveniences, has already beheld it witli con- 
 tempt 2 Or the old market-woman, whom 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 J In the morning 
 you suddenly miss your hat, and ask after it
 
 58 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 witli trepidation. The traveller smiles. They 
 all move their legs, but know nothing of it ; 
 till the market-woman 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 which I 
 took for a pan I've been a buying ; paid 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 sti-eet, 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 worsted 
 wonder. It is after the fashion of Catharine's 
 cap in the play : it seems as if 
 
 Moulded on a porringer ; 
 ■Why, 'tis a cockle, or a walnut-shell, 
 A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap ; 
 A custard coffin, a bauble. 
 
 But we may not add 
 
 I love thee well, in that thou likest it not ; 
 
 111 befall us, if we ever dislike anything about 
 thee, old nurse of our childhood ! llow 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 Jiand 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 un- 
 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 anci(>nt ; for a negro, who has nothing 
 else upon liim, sometimes finds it necessary to 
 guard off tlie sun with a hat of leaves or straw. 
 The Chinese, wiio carry their records farther 
 back than any other jjeople, ai'e a hatted race, 
 botii narrow-brimmed and broad. We are apt 
 to tliink of tlie Greeks as a bare-headed people ; 
 and thoy liked to 1)e 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, 'i'hey were large and flajiped, and 
 were sometimes fastened j-ound under the chin 
 like a lady's ])onnet. Tlie Eastern nations 
 generally wore turbans, and do still, with the 
 exception of the Pei-sians, who have exchanged 
 tlicm for large conical cajjs of felt. I'he 
 Romans copied the Greeks in their dress, as in 
 everything else ; but the poorer orders wore a 
 cap like their boasted Phrygian ancestors, 
 resembling the one whicii the reader may 
 see about the streets upon the bust of Ca- 
 nova's Paris. The others would put their 
 
 robes about their heads upon occasion, — after 
 the fashion of the 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. 
 The velvet cap which succeeded, appears to 
 have come from Italy, as seen in the portraits 
 of Raphael and Titian ; and it would jn'obably 
 have continued till the French times of Charles 
 the Second, for our ancestors up to that period 
 were great admirers of Italy, had not Philip 
 the Second of S])ain come over to marry our 
 Queen Mary. The 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 Avas 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 much 
 shade from the sun, and always playing with 
 and altering their dress, as a child does his 
 toy, first covered the brim with feathers, then 
 gave them a pinch in front ; then came pinches 
 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 willingly part with their habitual dignity. 
 An old beau or so would also retain it, in 
 memory of its victories when young. We 
 remember its going aAvay 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 estal)lishments depart 
 from all custom, is a cocked hat with the front 
 flap let down, and only a slight pinch remaining 
 behind. This is worn also by the judges, the 
 lawyers being of clerical extraction. Still 
 however the true cocked-hat lingers here and 
 tliere with a solitary old gentleman ; and 
 wherever it appears in such comi)any, begets 
 a certain retrospective reverence. There was 
 a something in its connexion with the high- 
 bred drawing-room times of the seventeenth 
 century ; in the gallant though quaint ardour 
 of its look ; and in its being lifted up in salu- 
 tations with that deliberate loftiness, the arm 
 ai-ching up in front and the hand slowly i-aising 
 it by the front angle with finger and thumb, — 
 that could not easily die. We remember, 
 when our steward at school, remarkable for 
 his inflexible air of precision and dignity, 
 left off his cocked-hat for a round one ; there
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 59 
 
 was, undoixbtedly, though we dared only lialf 
 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 liis original beaver ; nor appeared 
 Less than arch-steward ruined, and the excess 
 Of glory ohscured. 
 
 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, 
 unless 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 
 has 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, 
 liaving overtlirown a huge and insolent cham- 
 pion, who had challenged the whole court, was 
 desired by the king to ask him some favour. 
 lie 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 hisright. We have heard, 
 that on the last occasion, probably after a long 
 interval, some of tiie courtiers thought it might 
 as well have been dispensed with ; whicli 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 iuid gone, their covered heads were 
 only so many intense recognitions of the king's 
 dignity, which it was thought such a mighty 
 thing to resemT)le. A Quakei-'s hat is a more 
 formidable thing than a grandee's. 
 
 XXX.— 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 otlier 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- 
 queror taking-possession. 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, tlieir everything ; and in return he 
 will behave like a gentleman, and scatter his 
 ofold. 
 
 His first sensation on landing, is the strange 
 firmness of tlie earth, Avhich 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 
 gi'ow long, to be gathered into a heavy pigtail ; 
 but wlien full dressed, he prides himself on a 
 certain gentility of toe, on a white stocking 
 and a nattij 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 Ijeen 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 ^lonson 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-strings, 
 beer, ])randy, gin, buckles, knives, a watch 
 (two, if he has money enough), gowns and 
 handkerchiefs for Bet and his m other and sisters, 
 dozens of " Superfine Best IMen's Cotton Stock- 
 ings," dozens of "Superfine Best AVomen's 
 Cotton Ditto," best good Check for Shirts 
 (though lie has too miich already), infinite 
 needles and thread (to sew his trowsers with 
 some day), a ibotman's laced hat, Bear's Grease, 
 to make his bail- grow (by way of joke), several 
 sticks, all sorts of Jew articles, a flute (whicli 
 he can't play, and never intends), a leg of
 
 60 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 mutton, which lie carries somewhere to roast, 
 and for a piece of which the hmdlord of the 
 (S'/Jy makes him pay twice wliat lie gave for the 
 wliole ; in short, all that money can be spent 
 upon, which is everything but medicine gratis, 
 and this he would insist on paying for. He 
 would buy all the painted parrots on an Italian's 
 head, on purpose to break them, rather than 
 not spend his money. He has fiddles and a 
 dance at the Shiji, with oceans of flij) and grog ; 
 and gives the blind tiddler tobacco for sweet- 
 meats,aud half-a-crown for treading on his toe. 
 He asks the landlady, with a sigh, after lier 
 daughter Nanse, who lirst fired his heart with 
 her 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 playhouse with Bet ilonson, and a 
 great red handkerchief full of apples, ginger- 
 bread nuts, and fresh beef ; calls out for the 
 fiddlers and Hide Britannia ; pelts Tom Sikes 
 in the pit ; and compares Othello to the black 
 ship's cook in his white nightcap. When he 
 comes to London, he and some messmates take 
 a hackney-coach, full of Bet IMonsons and 
 tobacco-pipes, and go through the streets 
 smoking and lolling 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 the Chinese drink, and the Negurs 
 dance, and the monkeys pelt you with cocoa- 
 nuts ; and how King Domy would have built 
 liim a mud hut and made him a peer of the 
 realm, if he would have stopped with him, and 
 taught him to make trowsers. 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 foiirjience into her hand, and say- 
 ing out loud that 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 jiroud. When his sisters 
 comjflain 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 for his 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 yen'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, though 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 up the ship 
 at evening ; regretting that the fine moonlight 
 hinders the effect of the colour. A man, with 
 a bundle beneath his arm, accosts him in 
 an under-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 
 here, 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 tlie 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 cliaj^s as twelve guineas." — 
 " Twelve ijuineas I " 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. He 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 the 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, 
 lie thinks it is in derision, till his friend unde- 
 ceives him. He is introdticed to the lady ; and 
 ever afterwards, at first 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 ])arts, they tell him, that if all men 
 were like himself, they Avould trust the sex 
 again : — which, for aught we know, is the truth. 
 He has, indeed, what he thinks a very liberal 
 opinion of ladies in general ; judging them all, 
 in a manner, Avith the eye of a seaman's ex- 
 perience. Yet lie wiU believe nevertheless in
 
 SEAMEN ON SHORE. 
 
 61 
 
 the " true-love " of any given damsel whom 
 he seeks in the way of marriage, let him roam 
 as miich, 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 he 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 
 valualiles. 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 tlie world. He is generally modest in com- 
 pany, though liable to be irritated by what he 
 thinks ungentlemanly 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 partly, 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 unlike 
 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 
 he 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 overiiauling your log-book. 
 He makes more new acquaintances, and forgets 
 Ills old ones less, than any otlier man in the 
 busy world ; for he is so compelled to make 
 his home everywhere, remembers his native 
 one as such a place of enjoyment, has all his 
 friendly recollections so fixed upon his mind 
 at sea, and has so much to tell and to hear 
 when he 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 let the old ones 
 go. Half the secret of human intercourse is 
 to make allowance for each other. 
 
 When the Officer is superannuated or retires, 
 he becomes, if intelligent and inquiring, one 
 of the most agreeable old men in the world, 
 equally welcome to the silent for his 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 hatcliet, 
 or a present of feathers from an Otaheitan 
 beaiity. If not elevated by his acquirements 
 above some of his humbler tastes, he delights 
 in a corner-eupl)oard 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 
 SHiPMA?r, who is exactly of the same cast as 
 the modern sailor, — the same robustness, 
 courage, and rough-draMti virtue, doing its 
 duty, without being very nice in helping itself 
 to its recreations. There is the very dirk, the 
 complexion, the joUity, 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 picturesque, poetical, and compre- 
 hensive. In copying it out, we shall merely 
 alter the old spelling, where the words are 
 still modern. 
 
 A sliipman was there, wonned far by west ; 
 For aught I wot, he was of Dartemouth. 
 He rode opon a rouncie, as he couth *, 
 All in a gown of falding to the knee. 
 A dagger hanging by a lace had he. 
 About his neck, under his arm adown : 
 The hot summer had made his hew all bro-mi : 
 And certainly he was a good felaw. 
 Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw 
 From Bourdeaux ward, while that the chapman slep. 
 Of nice conscience took he no keep. 
 If that he fought and had the higher hand. 
 By water he sent 'em home to every land. 
 But of his craft, to reckon well his tides. 
 His streames and his strandes him besides, 
 His harborough, his moon, and his lode manage, 
 There was not such from Hull unto Carthage. 
 Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake ; 
 AVith many a tempest had his beard been shake. 
 He knew well all the havens, as they were, 
 From Gothland to the Cape de Finisterre, 
 And every creek in Briton and in Spain. 
 His barge ycleped v/as the Jlagdelain. 
 
 When about to tell his Tale, he tells his fellow- 
 travellers that he shall clink them so merry a 
 bell. 
 
 That it shall waken all this company : 
 But 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 who 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 the absence 
 of her good man on a journey. When the 
 latter returns, he applies to the cunning monk 
 for repayment, and is referred to the lady ; 
 who thus finds her mercenary behaviour out- 
 witted. 
 
 XXXI.— ON THE REALITIES OF IMAGI- 
 NATION. 
 
 There is not a more unthinking way of 
 talking, than to say sucii 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, 
 in the Vicar of Wakefield is 
 here : — " ^A^latever is, is." Whatever touches 
 us, whatever moves us, does touch and does 
 move us. We recognise the reality of it, as 
 we do that of a hand in the dai'k. We might 
 as well say that a sight which makes us laugh. 
 
 The logic of Closes 
 good 
 
 argument 
 
 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 tilings by their effects. Our percep- 
 tion constantly deceives us, in things with 
 which we suppose ourselves perfectly conver- 
 sant ; but our reception of their effect is a 
 different 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 agi'eed 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 siglit 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 themselves comjiclled 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 ijhilosophers have had recourse 
 to a doctrine of beams and radiant particles 
 flying from one sight to another. In fine, what 
 
 is contact itself, and why does it affect 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 
 tliem 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 
 removeable, 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 Avhether everything consist not 
 in what is called effect, it is sufficient for us 
 that the effect is real. Our sole business is to 
 remove tliose 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 apparent 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, are at least not of the same lasting or 
 l^revailing 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 metajdiysical ; rather sentient 
 
 Jjecause 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, than 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 there, but we find its light upon earth 
 also ; and we would lead humanity, if we could, 
 out of misery and coldness into the shine of 
 it. Pain might 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 noble ; not unnecessary pain inflicted 
 by or upon them, which it is absurd not to 
 remove. The 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 grudge 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 ground-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 jjlace haunted 
 with finer shajjcs. He has more servants to 
 come at his call, and administer to him with 
 full hands. Knowledge, sympathy, imagina- 
 tion, are all divining-rods, with wliich \u' dis- 
 covei'S treasure. Let a painter go thi'ougli the 
 grounds, and he will see not only the general 
 colours of green and brown, but their com- 
 binations and contrasts, and the modes in 
 wliicli they miglit again be combined and con- 
 trasted. He will also put figures in the laud- 
 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. Ho 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 bells. 
 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 Avill 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 send tribute into that 
 spot. 
 
 Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures 
 While the landskip round it measures ; 
 Russet lawns, and fallows grey, 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 
 IMountains, on whose 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. 
 Where 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 pojjular tune, take a 
 passage from the same poet less familiar to 
 cue's every-day recollections. It is in his Ar- 
 cadian Masque, which was performed by some 
 of the Derby family at their seat at Ilarefield 
 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 through your eyes ; 
 
 Of famous Arcady ye are, and sprung 
 
 Of that renowned flood, so often simg. 
 
 Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice 
 
 Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse ; 
 
 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, 
 
 M'as all in honour and devotion meant 
 
 To the great mistress of yon princely shrine. 
 
 Whom with low reverence I adore as mine ; 
 
 And with all helpful service will comply 
 
 To further tliis night's glad solemnity ; 
 
 And lead ye where ye may more near behold 
 
 What shallow-searching Fame hath left untold ; 
 
 AVhich I, full oft, amidst these shades alone. 
 
 Have saf to wonder at, and gaze upon : 
 
 For know, by lot from .Jove I am the Power 
 
 Of this fair wood, and live in oaken bower, 
 
 To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the gi-ove 
 
 In ringlets quaint and wanton windings wove :
 
 64 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 And all my plants I save from nightly ill 
 
 Of ndisonie winds, and blasting vapours chili ; 
 
 And from tlic boughs brush off the evil dew, 
 
 And Ileal the arms of tlnvarting thunder blue. 
 
 Or what the cross dire-looking planet smites, 
 
 Or hurtful worm with canker'd venom bites. 
 
 AVhcn evening grey doth rise, I fetch my round 
 
 Over the mount, and all this hallow'd ground ; 
 
 And early, ere the odonuis breath of morn 
 
 Awalics the slumbering leaves, or tassel'd horn 
 
 Pliakcs tlie high thicket, haste I all .about, 
 
 Number my ranks, and visit every sproiit 
 
 M'ith puissant words and murmurs made to bless. 
 
 But else, in deep of night, when drowsiness 
 
 Ilath locked up mortal sense, then listen I 
 
 To the celestial Syrens* harmony. 
 
 That sit upon the nine infolded spheres. 
 
 And sing to those that hold the vital shears, 
 
 And turn the adamantine spindle round. 
 
 On which the fate of gods and men is wound. 
 
 Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie. 
 
 To lull the daughters of Necessity, 
 
 And keep unsteady Nature to her law. 
 
 And the low world in measured motion dr.aw, 
 
 After tlie he.avenly tune, which none can hear 
 
 Of human mould, with gross unpurged e;u-. 
 
 " Jlilton's Genius of the Grove," says War- 
 ton, " being a spirit sent from Jove, and com- 
 missioned from heaven to exercise a preterna- 
 tural guardiansliip over tlie ' saplings tall,' to 
 avert every noxious influence, and 'to visit 
 every sprout with puissant Avords, and mur- 
 murs made to bless,' had the privilege, not 
 indulged to gross mortals, of hearing the 
 celestial s>Tens' 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 tlie 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 
 Alilton 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 the two ])urificrs of our sense, which rescue 
 us from the deafening 1)abble of common cares, 
 and enable us to hear all tlie affectionate 
 voices of earth and heaven. The starry orbs, 
 lapsing about in their smooth and sparkling 
 dance, sing to us. The 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 tlie finest haunts of the Muses, he cannot do better 
 than get Wartnn's Editinn n/tli.e Minrir I'nems of Millnn. 
 The principal notes have been transferred by Mr. Todd 
 to the sixth volume of his own valuable edition of Mi/ton's 
 Poetical Iforks ; but it J8 better to have a good thing 
 entire. 
 
 of nature, carolling in the air, like a careless 
 
 lass. 
 
 The gentle gales. 
 Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense 
 Native perfumes ; and whisper whence they stole 
 Those balmy spoils. — Paradise Lost, book iv. 
 
 The poets are called creators (ITojTjTaf, IMakers) 
 because with their magical words they bring 
 forth to our eyesight the abundant images and 
 beauties of creation. They put them there, 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, they exist to as much purpose as 
 anything else which touches us. If a passage 
 in King Lear brings the tears into our eyes, it is 
 real as the touch of a sorrowful hand. If the 
 flow of a song of Anacreon's intoxicates us, it 
 is as true to a pulse within us as the wine he 
 drank. We hear not tlieir 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 the 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 
 of nature, 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 difference in point of produc- 
 tiveness ! Between the plodding of a sexton 
 through a church-yard, and tiie walk of a Gray, 
 what a difference ! What a difference 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 covvslij) 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 him, 
 
 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 I'll be your servant, 
 "Whether 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 back and told us of its luxuriant 
 and gigantic vegetation ; of the myriads of 
 shooting lights, which revel at evening in the 
 soutliern sky ; and of that grand constellation, 
 at which Dante seems to have made so remark-
 
 DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 (',', 
 
 able a guess (Pttrr/atorio, cant, i., v.- 22). The 
 natural warmth 6f 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 jNIilton, by his Genius of the 
 Grove at Ilarefield, 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, whose 
 hand, he says, curls the ringlets of the grove, 
 and wlio 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 
 ]nythology, and now with the rural manners of 
 the time. 
 
 Tlinu 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 Pan 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 birtli, 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 Gamage, thou hast there, 
 
 That never fails to serve thee seasoned deer, 
 
 AVhen thou wouhlst 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 mares and horses breed : 
 
 Each bank doth yield thee conies; and thy tops 
 
 Fertile of wood. Ashore and Sydney copse. 
 
 To crown, — thy open table doth provide 
 
 The purple pheasant with the 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 Inter i)lum, 
 
 Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come : 
 
 The blushing apricot, and woolly peach, 
 
 ITang on thy walls, that every child may reach ; 
 
 And though thy walls lie of the country stone, 
 
 They're reared with no man's ruin, no man's groan ; 
 
 Tlicre's none that dwell abmit tliem wish them down ; 
 
 liut 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 hiing a capon, some a rural cake. 
 
 Some nuts, some apples ; some that think they make 
 
 * Sir Philip Sydney. 
 
 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. 
 
 Vavenant. 
 
 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 
 
 us, the air 
 
 nature, the grass brightens for 
 soothes us, we feel as we did in the daisied 
 hours of childliood. Its verdures, its sheep, its 
 hedge-row elms, — all these, and all else which 
 sight, and sotmd, 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 
 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. 
 
 XXXII.— DEATHS OF LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 A Grecian philosopher being asked why he 
 wept for the death of his 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, that 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 
 Ijitter and overwhelming ; but the soil on 
 which they pour, would be worse without 
 them. They refresh the fever of the soul— 
 the dry misery which parches the countenance 
 into furrows, and renders us liable to our most 
 terrible " flesh-quakes." 
 
 There 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
 
 66 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 bow- quietly and drily down, in order to let 
 them jiass over iis, as the traveller does the 
 wind of the desert. But -where we feel that 
 tears would relieve us, it is false pliilosophy to 
 deny ourselves at least that first refreshment ; 
 and it is always false consolation to tell people 
 that because they cannot help a thing, tliey are 
 not to mind it. The true way is, to let them 
 grapple with the unavoidable sorrow, and try 
 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 tlie loss of a little child ; but, 
 in general, parents should be no more advised 
 to repress 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 harsher 
 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 oi.posite 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. Tlie 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 pain. 
 So far from it, it is the existence of that grave 
 which doubles every charm of the spot ; which 
 links the pleasures of our childhood and man- 
 hood together ; which puts a hushing tender- 
 ness in tlie winds, and a ])atient joy upon the 
 landscape ; which .seems to unite heaven and 
 earth, mortality and immortality, the grass of 
 the tomb and tiie 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 wliat its tenant, througli 
 all her troubles, would have diffused. To 
 diffuse happiness and to enjoy it, is not only 
 carrying on her wishes, but realising lier hopes ; 
 and gaiety, freed from its onlyj)ollutions, 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 which we can associate 
 with tlieir 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 part of the benignity of Nature 
 that pain does not survive like pleasure, at any 
 time, much less where the caiise 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 pains 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 oft' the one with the other, 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 jjleasures, 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 imselfish, 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 iinselfish mind 
 (and ill-health, for instance, may draw it), we 
 should not quarrel with it if it contributed to 
 the general mass of comfort, and were of a 
 nature which general kindlinesscouldnotavoid. 
 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 
 something 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. AVe may get rid of 
 the worst earth, though not of earth itself.
 
 POETICAL ANO^NIALIES OF SHAPE. 
 
 67 
 
 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. We 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 who have lost an infant, are 
 never, as it were, without an infant child. 
 Tliey 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 such 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 that self- 
 created trouble, by enjoying the garden before 
 them, and not being ashamed 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 poetry and mythology 
 can reconcile us to shapes, or rather combi- 
 nations of shape, unlike anything in nature. 
 The dog-headed deities of tlie Egyptians were 
 doubtless not so monstrous in their eyes as in 
 
 * " I sighed," says old Captain Dalton, " when I envied 
 you the two boiinie children ; but I sigh not now to call 
 either the monk or the soldier mine own!" — Monastery, 
 vol. iii., p. 341. 
 
 ours. The Centaurs of the Greeks, as Ovid 
 has shown us, could be imagined possessing 
 beauty enough for a human love 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 humanity. Its 
 wings are not an alteration 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 tliey 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 Adtentures of 
 Peter Wllkins, 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, notwith- 
 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 sympathy of this 
 kind, it is of course necessary that the differ- 
 ence of form should consist in addition, and not 
 in alteration. But the un-angel-like texture 
 of the flying apparatus of fair Youwarkee 
 (such, if we remember, is her name) helps to 
 show us the main reason why we are able to 
 receive ])leasure from the histories of creatures 
 only half-human. The habit of reading 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 may have 
 killed all the Lapithae, and shown considerable 
 generalship to boot, without reconciling us to 
 the brute part of them ; but the brutality melts 
 away before the story of their two lovers in 
 Ovid. Drunkenness and rapine made beasts 
 of them ; — sentiment makes human beings. 
 Polyphemus in Homer is a sliocking monster, 
 not because he has only one eye, but because 
 he murders and eats our fellow-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 
 
 F 2
 
 (;8 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 pity. AVe blink the question of beauty, and 
 become one-eyed for liis sake. Nature seems 
 to do him an injustice in gifting him with 
 sympathies so liuman, and at tlie same time 
 preventing them from being answered ; and 
 we feel im]iaticntwith the all-beautiful Galatea, 
 if we tliink she ever sliowed 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 wliich they give the imagi- 
 nation, assist remotely to Itreak the 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 metaphysical optics, turned his glass, as 
 he no doubt often did, towards the inhabitants 
 of otlier 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 otlier, 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 tempered and equalised, has subsided ; 
 the genial rains, however thickly they may 
 come, do not saturate tlie ground, beyond the 
 power of the sun to dry it up again. There 
 are clear crystal mornings; noons of blue sky 
 and white cloud ; niglits, 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 beliind 
 her head, watched him with an enamoured 
 dumbness. 
 
 I'.ut tliis 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 honiedflowers, grappling with them 
 as tliey tremble. We liave not yet heard tlie 
 nightingale or the cuckoo ; but we can hear 
 them with our imagination, and enjoy them 
 tlirougli tlie content of those who have. 
 
 'I'lien the young green. This is tlie most apt 
 and perfect mark of tlie season, — the true issu- 
 ing forth of the Spring. The trees and bushes 
 are jjiitting 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 orcliards announce their riches, in 
 a shower of silver blossoms. The earth in 
 fertile woods is spread with 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, wlio never loved before ; 
 And those who always loved, now love the more *. 
 
 All our kindly impulses are apt to have 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 much 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 
 the heart : with joy, awakes gratitude and 
 nature ; and in our gratitude, we return, on its 
 own i^rinciple of participation, the love that 
 has been shown 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 
 overflowing, that we long to share them. 
 Shakspeare, in one of his sonnets, describes 
 himself as so identifying the beauties of the 
 Spring with the thoiigJit of his absent mistress, 
 that he says he forgot them in their own 
 character, and played with them only as with 
 lier shadow. See hoAv exquisitely lie 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 Avonderful mixture of 
 softness and strength in almost every one of 
 the lines. 
 
 * PervUjilium Veneris. — Parnell's tninslation.
 
 SPRING AND DAISIES. 
 
 (J'J 
 
 From you have I been absent in the spring, 
 
 When iiroiul-picd April, dressed in all his trim, 
 
 Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing ; 
 
 That heavy rtaturn laughed and leaped with him. 
 
 Yet not the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 
 
 Of ditt'erent flowers in odour and in hue. 
 
 Could make nie any summer's story tell, 
 
 Or from their proud lap pluclc them where they grew 
 
 Aor 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, he- 
 cause she was richer. Perdita, crowned with 
 flowers, in the Wintdr'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 cuekoo-buds of yellow hue, 
 Do paint the meadows ivUh dcliyht. 
 
 We owe a long debt of gratitude to the 
 daisy ; and we take this opportunity of dis- 
 charging a millionth jjart of it., If we undertook 
 to pay it all, we should have had to write such 
 a booiv, as is never very likely to be wi-itten, — 
 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 suljtlety of 
 words, to express even the vague joy of infancy, 
 such as our learned departures from natural 
 wisdom would find it more difhcult to put 
 totretlier, than criticism and comfort, or an old 
 palate and a young relish. — But knowledge 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, Avhen we can help. 
 
 We do not know the 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 what 
 the Greeks say to these things, because they 
 had a sentiment in their enjoyments. The 
 Latins called the daisy Bellis or IJellus, as 
 much as to say Nice One. With the Frencli 
 and Italians it has the same name as a Pearl, 
 —Marguerite, Margarita, or, by way of endear- 
 
 ment, Margheretina*. The same word was 
 the name of a woman, and occasioned infinite 
 intermixtures of compliment about pearls, 
 daisies, and fair mistresses. Ciiaucer, in his 
 beautiful poem of the Floicer and the Leaf, which 
 is evidently imitated from some French poetess, 
 says, 
 
 And at the lasto there began anon 
 
 A lady f(U' to sing right womanly 
 
 A bargarett 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 Margaret, 
 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 interesting 
 passage to this effect in his Le<jend 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 f but lite:}: 
 
 On bookes 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 1 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 ageiist the sunne spread. 
 
 When it upriseth early by the morrow. 
 
 That blissful sight softeneth all my sorrow. 
 
 So glad am I, when that I 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 
 sliall love it till his " heart dies :" and after- 
 wards, with a natural picture of his resting on 
 the grass, 
 
 A down full softeley I gan to sink. 
 And leaning on my elbow and my side, 
 The long day I shope || me for to abide 
 For nothing else, and 1 shall not lie. 
 But for to look upon the daisie ; 
 That well by reason men it call may 
 The daisie, or else the eye of day . 
 
 This etymology, which we have no doubt is 
 the real one, is repeated by B en Jonson, who 
 
 * This word is originally Greek,— Margaritas ; and as 
 the Franks probably brought it from Constantinople, per- 
 haps they brought its association with the daisy also. 
 
 t Bargaret, Bergerette, a little pastoral. 
 
 i Know but little. § Dawnoth. H Sliaped.
 
 70 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 I 
 
 takes occasion to spell the word " days-eyes ;" 
 adding, with his usual tendency to overdo a 
 matter of learning, 
 
 Days-ej-es, and tbe 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. 
 
 IMr. 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 the 
 pleasure of repeating. It is the more interest- 
 ing, inasmuch as it was written in prison, 
 where the freedom of the author's opinions had 
 thrown him*'. He is speaking of his Muse, or 
 Imagination. 
 
 Her divine skill taught me this ; 
 That from every tiling 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 rustelling ; 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spread 
 Shut, when Titan goes to bed ; 
 Or a shady 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 head impearling ; 
 Thou liv'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 ti) 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 knov.n, that Chaucer was four 
 years in prison, in his old age, on the same account. He 
 was a Wickliffite. — one of the precurs<^)rs of the Reforma- 
 tion. His prison, doubtless, was no dimiuisher of his love 
 of the daisy. 
 
 The freak is over ; 
 The fre.ak will vanish, and behold ! 
 A silver shield with boss of gold. 
 That spreads itself, some fairy bold 
 
 In fight to cover. 
 
 I see thee glittering from afar ; 
 And then thou art a pretty star, 
 Not quite so fair as many are 
 
 In heaven above thee ! 
 Yet like a star, with glittering crest, 
 Self-poised in air, thou seem 'st to rest; — 
 May 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 thee, 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 a share 
 
 Of thy meek nature. 
 
 Mr. Wordswortli 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 lace." 
 Not that we should care, if it had ; for home- 
 liness does not make ugliness ; but we appeal 
 to everybody, whether it is proper to say this 
 of la belle Mcmjuerite. 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 rejiosing : 
 
 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, 
 aimable swur da roi Kimjcup, 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 showers, and what drawbacks they are 
 upon going into the fields. — Not at all so, when 
 the spring is really confirmed, and tJie 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 
 tiiey Jiave been forgotten just this moment. 
 Besides, we are not likely tu 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, M'hich used to awaken 
 in the minds of our ancestors all the ideas of 
 youth, and verdure, 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 tlie 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 (lancing from the east, and leads with her 
 Tlie flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip, and tlie pale primrose. 
 
 Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire 
 
 Mirth, and youth, and warm desire: 
 
 AVoods and groves are of thy dressing; 
 
 Hill and dale, doth boast tliy 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 Empire, 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. Tlie 
 first consisted in going with others to gather 
 May, and in joining in sports and games after- 
 wards. On tiie 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 witli their booty about the rising 
 of the sun, and made their doors and windows 
 to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after 
 part of the day was chiefly spent in dancing 
 round a May-pole, which being placed in a 
 convenient part of the village, stood tiiere, as 
 it were, consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, 
 witliout the least violation oftered to it, in the 
 whole cii-cle 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 per])lexingly probable, have been found 
 for this word, that we have been surprised to miss among 
 them that of Bel-lemps, the Fine Time or .Season. Thus 
 Priiitcmps, the First Time, or Trime Season, is the 
 Spring. 
 
 Younge folke now flocken in — every where 
 To gather May-buskets * — and swelling brere ; 
 And home they ha.' ten — the postes to dight, 
 And all the kirk-pilours — eare day-light, 
 ■\Vith 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 
 
 Witli singing, and shouting, and jolly chere ; 
 
 Before them yode t a lustie tabrere J 
 
 That to the many a hornpipe played, 
 
 Whereto they dauncen eehe one with his mayd. 
 
 To see these folks make such jovisaunce, 
 
 Made my heart after the pipe to daunce. 
 
 Tho § to the greene wood they speeden hem all, 
 
 To fetchen liome May w. h their musicall ; 
 
 And home they bringen, 'n a loyall throne. 
 
 Crowned as king ; and his queen attone || 
 
 AVas 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 May-bush beaxe. 
 
 The day was passed in sociality and manly 
 sports ; — in archery, and running, and pitching 
 the bar, — in dancing, singing, playing music, 
 acting Robin Hood and his company, and 
 making a well-earned feast upon all the 
 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 the Maypols, where the jocund swains 
 
 Dance with the 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 tliis a garland interwove with roses. 
 
 To that a curved hook, or well-wrought scrip. 
 
 Gracing another witli 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 merrimentll. 
 
 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 the 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 
 tiie Mask. A certain flowery grace was 
 .sprinkled over all ; and the finest spirits of the 
 
 * Buskets— Boskets— Bushes— from BoscJietti, Hal. 
 
 t Yode, Went. t Tabrere, a Tabourer. 
 
 § Tfto, Then. II ^«oh«, At once— With him. 
 
 ^ Britannia's Pastorals, by William Browne. Song 
 the 4th. Browne, like his friend Wither, frniii whom we 
 quoted a passage last week, wanted strength and the 
 power of selection ; though not to such an extent. He is 
 liowever well worth reading by those who can expatiate 
 over a pastoral subject, like a nie;idowy tract of country ; 
 finding out the beautiful spots, and gratilitd, if not much 
 delighted, with the rest. His genius, whicli was by no 
 means destitute of the social part of passion, seems to 
 h.ive been turned almost wholly to description, by the 
 beauties of his native county Uevonsliire.
 
 ?2 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 time tUoiiglit they showed both their manliness 
 and wisdom, in knowing liow to raise the plea- 
 sures of the season to their height. Sir Philip 
 Sydney, the idea of wliom 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 were faire, his joyance innocent, 
 Sweet without soure. and honey without gall : 
 And ho himself seemed made for merriment. 
 Merrily masking both in howre and hall. 
 There was no pleasure nor delightfuU play, 
 When Abtrophel soever was away. 
 
 For he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet. 
 Amongst the shepheards in their shearing feast ; 
 As soraer's larke that with her song doth greet 
 The dawning day forth comming from the East. 
 And layes of love he also could compose ; 
 Thrice happie she, whom he to praise did choose. 
 
 Astropliel, st. 5. 
 
 Individual homage to the month of May 
 consisted in paying respect to it thougli alone, 
 and in plucking flowers and flowering boughs 
 to adorn apartments with. 
 
 This maiden, in a morn betime, 
 
 AVent forth when Jlay 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, tlie lovers of jjoetry 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 Theseide of Boccaccio, we cannot 
 say ; for wo never had the happiness of meet- 
 ing with that rare work. The Italians have 
 so neglected it, that they have not only never 
 given it a rifacimcnto or re-modelling, as in 
 the instance of iJoiardo's poem, but are almost 
 as much unacquainted witli it, we believe, as 
 foreign nations. Cliaucer thouglit it worth liis 
 wliiie to be both acquainted with it, and to 
 make otliers so ; and we may venture to say, 
 that we know of no Italian after Boccaccio's 
 age wlio was so likely to understand him to 
 the core, as liis I^nglisli admirer, Ariosto not 
 excepted. Still, from what we have seen of 
 Boccaccio's poetry, we can imagine the Theseide 
 to liave 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 
 so ; 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 yei'C by yere, and day by day. 
 Till it felle ones in a morowe of JMay, 
 That Emelie — 
 
 But we will alter the siielling where we can, 
 as in a former instance, merely to let the 
 reader see what a notion is in his way, if he 
 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, 
 That Emily, that fairer was to seen 
 Than is the lily upon his stalk green, 
 And fresher than the May with flowers new, 
 (For witli the rosy colour strove her hue ; 
 1 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 liave no sluggardy anight : 
 The season pricketh 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 Slay, and for to rise. 
 Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise: 
 Her yellow hair was braided in a tress, 
 Behind her back, a yarde * long I guess : 
 And in the garden, at the sun uprist, 
 She walketh up and down 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 knightes weren in prison, 
 Of which I tolde 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 morwening, 
 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 high t, 
 And eke the garden, full of blanches 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 befoi-e us, and Dryden's ver- 
 sion of it, that " the modern must yield the 
 l)alm to tlie ancient, in spite of the beauty of 
 his versification." We quote from memory, 
 but this is the 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 jiortrait. 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. ± The shining.
 
 IMAY-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 ! 
 
 The busy lark, the messenger of day, 
 Salewet.li * in her song the morrow gray ; 
 And fiery Phoebus riseth up so bright, 
 That all the orient, huighcth of the sight ; 
 And with liis strenies drieth in the grevesf 
 The silver droppes hanging in the leaves ; 
 And Arcite, that is in the court real t 
 With Theseus the squier principal, 
 Is risen, and looketh on the merry day ; 
 And for to do his observance to May, 
 IJememb'ring on the point of his desire, 
 lie on the courser, starting as the fire. 
 Is ridden to the fieldes him to play. 
 Out of the court, were it a mile or twaj' : 
 And to the grove, of which that I you told, 
 By aventure his way 'gan to hold. 
 To niaken him a garland of the greves. 
 Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves. 
 And Idud he sung against the sunny sheen : 
 *' O JMay, with all thy flowers and thy green, 
 Right welcome be thou, faire freshe Slay: 
 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 do^\Ti. 
 
 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 
 tirst 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 and dries the dews ; 
 
 When Arcite left his bed, resulv'd to pay 
 
 Observance to the month of merry May : 
 
 Forth on his fiery steed betimes he rode. 
 
 That scarcely prints the turf on which he trod : 
 
 At ease he seemed, and prancing o'er the jilains. 
 
 Turned only to the grove his horse's reins. 
 
 The grove 1 named before ; and, lighted there, 
 
 A woodbine garland sought 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, the groves green liveries wear, 
 
 If not the 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 blight, 
 
 Nor goats with vcnom'd teeth thy tendrils bite, 
 
 As thovi shalt guide my wandering steps to find 
 
 'J'he fragrant greens 1 seek, my brows to bind." 
 
 His vows address'd, within the grove he stray 'd. 
 
 IIow poor is this to Arcite's leaping from his 
 courser " with a lusty heart !" How inferior the 
 common-place of tlio" fiery steed," which need 
 not involve any actual notion in the writer's 
 
 mind, to the courser " starting as the fire ; " — 
 how inferior tlie turning his 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 
 xipon 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 ! Dryden's genius, for the 
 most jjart, wanted faith in nature. It was too 
 gross and sophisticate. There was as much 
 difference between him and his original, as be- 
 tween a hot noon in perukes at JSt. James's, 
 and one of Chaucer's lounges on the grass, of 
 a May-morning. 
 
 All this worship of j\Iay is over now. There 
 is no issuing forth, in glad companies, to gather 
 
 boughs ; no 
 
 adorning of houses with " the 
 
 * Saluteth. 
 
 t Groves. 
 
 Koyal. 
 
 flowery spoil ;" no songs, no dances, no village 
 sports and coronations, no coui'tly 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 arboscelli, o fresche erbette, 
 
 O piagge benedette ; o colli, o monti, 
 
 O valli, o fiumi, 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 agresti Pani, 
 
 O Satiri e Silvani, o Fauni e Driadi, 
 
 Naiadi ed Amadriadi, o Semidee, 
 
 Oreadi e Napee, — or siete 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, 
 
 Jlyrtles, 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 Sjlvans all. Dryads, and ye 
 
 That up the mountains be ; and ye beneath 
 
 In meadow or flowery heath, — ye are 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 the town ; then Avai'ice, and we have 
 ever since been mistaking the means for the 
 end. 
 
 Fortunately, it does not follow that we shall 
 continue to do so. Commerce, while it thinks it 
 is only exchanging commodities, is helping to 
 diffuse knowledge. All other gains,— -all 
 selfish and extravagant systems of acciuisition, 
 — tend to over-do themselves, and to topjilc 
 down by their own undiffused magnitiule. The 
 world, as it learns other things, may learn not 
 to confound tiie means with the end, or at least 
 (to speak more pliilosophically), a really poor 
 means with a really richer. The veriest 
 cricket-x)layer on a green has as suflicient a 
 quantity of excitement as a fundholder or a
 
 74 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 partisan ; and health, and spirits, and manliness 
 to boot. Knowledii^e may "O on ; must do so, 
 from necessity ; and should do so, for the ends 
 we speak of ; hut knowledge, so far from being 
 incompatible with simplicity of pleasures, is 
 the quickest to perceive its wealth. Chaucer 
 would lie for hours, looking at the daisies. 
 Scipio and Ladius could amuse themselves with 
 making ducks and drakes on the water. Epa- 
 ; miiiondas, 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 philosophers of his country walked 
 between heaven and earth in the collo([uial 
 j bowers of Academus ; and " the wisest heart 
 j 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 Alay, 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 j\Iay. 
 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 
 witli 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 the holiday lasses on the green 
 sward ; layest us to sleep among fairies in the 
 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 eai-th 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, restorest 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 como after them. 
 Tliy 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 gratitude and 
 
 affection, like those of relations whom we love. 
 He has said, in a line full of him, that 
 
 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, that 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, the 
 bust crowned with laurel, and the theatres 
 sparkle 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 considei'ate glass of 
 wine down his throat. The poorest ma}' call 
 him to mind, and drink his memoiy in honest 
 water. We had mechanically written Ziea/fA, 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 loo much like getting up an extem- 
 pore gesture, or i)ractising 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 
 tlie 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 
 their 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, 
 which 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, the involuntary self-degradation 
 wliich renders us incapable of enjoying what is 
 abased by our own familiarity of acquaintance- 
 ship. About the metropolis, therefore, there is 
 ])erhaps not a single rural sjiot, any more than 
 about Stratford-upon-Avon, which he has not
 
 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 ilermaid in 
 Corn hill, the Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, the 
 Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and other town 
 associations with Shakspeare, the reader who 
 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 country 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 afi^'ord 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, 
 tiie persons present may be called u])on for 
 scenes. Bat no stress need be laid on this 
 proposition, if they do not like to read out 
 aloud. The pleasure of the day should be as 
 much at liberty as possible ; and if the com- 
 pany prefer conversation, it will not be very 
 easy for them to touch upon any subject which 
 Shaksj^eare 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 
 suft-flomiuj A ton. 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 effect produced by everybody's bringing 
 some quotation afjplicable to him from his 
 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 Avorks, 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 Belle Dame Agnes Sorel, who was, however, 
 not Sans Mercy. The union of the imaginative 
 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 sympatliy, 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 wight. 
 
 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 ; 
 Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
 
 And her ejes 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 ; 
 She look'd at me as she did love, 
 And made sweet moan. 
 
 She found me roots of relish sweet, 
 And honey wild, and manna dew ; 
 
 And sure in language strange she said, 
 I love tliee true. 
 
 She took me to her elfin grot. 
 
 And there she gazed and sighed deep. 
 
 And there 1 sliut her wild sad eyes— 
 So kiss'd to sleep. 
 
 » The late Mr Keats. This beautiful little effusion is 
 reprinted in tlie Indicator, where it originally appeared, 
 because it is not to be found in the collected works of that 
 delightful i)oct.
 
 76 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 And tliere we slumber'd on the moss. 
 And tliere 1 dreani'd, ah woe betide, 
 
 The latest dream 1 ever dream'd 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 I saw i)ale kings, and princes too, 
 
 I'ale warriors, death-pale were they all; 
 
 Who cried, ■• La lielle Dame Saus Mercy 
 Hath thee in thrall ! " 
 
 I saw their starved lips in the gloom 
 
 With horrid warning gaped wide, 
 And I awoke and fonnd me here. 
 
 On the cold hill side. 
 
 And this is why I sojourn here, 
 
 .-\ lone and palely loitering. 
 Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake, 
 
 And no birds sing. 
 
 Caviare.* 
 
 XXXVIII. OF STICKS. 
 
 Ajioxg other comparative injuries which we 
 are accustomed to do to the characters of things 
 animate and inanimate, in order to gratify our 
 human vanity, sucli 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 which some 
 persons indulge themselves, of calling insipid 
 things and persons sticks. Such and such a one 
 is said to v\rite a stick ; and such another is 
 himself called a stick i—a poor stick, a mere 
 stick, a stick of a fellow. 
 
 "We protest 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 jilace, it is a very pleasant substance 
 to look at, the grain running round it in glossy 
 and shadowy rings. Then it is of primaeval 
 antiquity, handed down from scion to scion 
 through the most flourishing of genealogical 
 trees. In the third jdace, it is of Eastern 
 origin ; of a stock, which it is possible may 
 liave furnished llaroun Al Raschid with a 
 djereed, 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 Sardanajjalus with tarts, or Solomon 
 witli a simile for his mistress' lips, or Jacob 
 with a crook, or ]SIethusalem with shadow, or 
 Zoroaster with mathematical instruments, or 
 th(! builders of Babel with scaffolding. Lastly, 
 how do you know but that you may have eaten 
 clierries off this very stick ? for it was once 
 alive Avith sap, and rustling with foliage, and 
 powdered with blossoms, and red and laughing 
 witli fruit. "Where tlie leatliern tassel now 
 hangs, may have dangled a bunch of b(!rries ; 
 and instead of the brass ferule poking in the 
 
 * " Caviare to the multitude." — Hamlet. 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 tise of sticks in general is of the very 
 greatest antiquity- It is impossible to conceive 
 a state of society in which boughs 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 tlie 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 Avands 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 (notixeves Aa<iv), 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 the 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, which a friend has well defined to be 
 " a stick with two butt-ends." The originals of 
 all tliese, 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 Avhat was said of him in Europe, 
 was surrounded in state with a parcel of ragged 
 fellows with shilelahs 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 Xenojihon, Avliich 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 having tokl 
 liim, lie asked again, if he knew where virtue 
 and wisdom were to be had ; and this reducinjr 
 the young man to a nonphis, he said, " Follow 
 me, and learn ;" which Xenophon did, and l)e- 
 came the great man we have all heard of. The 
 fatherly story of Agesilaus, 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 liighcst 
 compliment which his countrymen thought 
 they could pay to the first Scipio, was to call 
 him a walking-stick ; for such is the sigjiifi- 
 cation of his name. It was given him for tlie 
 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 inflicted 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 Avell as the apo- 
 stolic divines and puritans, whoajjpear to have 
 cariied staves, because they read of them 
 among the patriarchs. Charles the First, when 
 at his trial, held out his stick to forljid the 
 Attorney-Generars jiroceeding. There is an 
 interesting little story connected with a stick, 
 whicii is related of Andrew Marvell's father, 
 (worthy of such a son,) and whicli, as it is 
 little known, we will rejx'at ; though it re- 
 spects the man more than the 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, liigh-hearted and cheerful, after vainly 
 trying to dissuade her from perils which he 
 nndei-stood better than she, resolved in his 
 gallantry to bear hercom])any. lleaccordingly 
 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 INIr. 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 fojiperies which 
 they converted into gi-avities, 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 sniiff-box justly 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 taA'ern- 
 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 :" whicli 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 tlie m orld, 
 with an air of almost hushing gentility : — " Sir, 
 I am extremely sorry — to be obliged to say, — 
 that you a]ipear to have a very eri-oneous notion 
 of the manners that become your situation in 
 life ; — and I am coni})elled Avith 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 extraordinary 
 conduct towards a gentleman, 1 shall be under 
 the necessity of. caning you." The other
 
 nr 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 treated the thing as a joke ; and to the delight of 
 the by-standers, received a vei-y grave drubbing. 
 
 There are two eminent threats connected 
 with caning, in the history of Dr. Johnson. 
 One was from himself, when he was told that 
 Foote intended to mimic him on the stage. 
 He replied, that if" the dog" ventured to play 
 his tricks with him, he would step out of the 
 stage-box, chastise him before the audience, 
 and then throw himself upon their candour and 
 common sympathy. Foote desisted, as he had 
 good reason to do. The Doctor would have 
 read 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 ^lacpherson, 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 ilacpherson'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. \Yhen he was travelling in Scotland, 
 he lost a huge stick of his in the little treeless 
 island of SIull. Boswell told him he would 
 recover it : but the Doctor shook his head. 
 " No, no," said he ; " let anybody in ]\Iull 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-coaches, and are run away with by 
 John Pullen, in a style of infinite convenience. 
 The other sticks in use are for the most part 
 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 exj)ected from our i'.iter- 
 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 uot seen 
 it often. 
 
 Tliat sticks, however, are not to be despised 
 by the leisurely, any one who 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 his stick, who is accustomed 
 to carry one, and with what a diminished sense 
 of vigour and gi-acefulness 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 % 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 
 jialm ! 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 twigs 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, with 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 things to say, if he had a mind. 
 Sometimes he 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 the side of his 
 
 boot with it, which announces elegance 
 general 
 
 in 
 
 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 rogue !" 
 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 
 jellow 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 tliem 
 start back with winking eyes, it tlireatens 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 have 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 I-ondon 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 Niijhts, 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 which 
 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 up, in the person of the 
 young draper or jeweller, by that ancient ob- 
 jection ! How have we received the lady in 
 the veil, through which we saw nothnig but 
 her dark eyes and rosy cheeks ! How have 
 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 slept) in the Sultan's 
 garden at Schiraz with the fair Persian. 
 
 Jiut to return (as well as such enamoured 
 persons can) to our shops. We prefer the 
 country a million times over for walking m 
 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 
 tlien 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 are abroad, and 
 there happens to be a run of agreeable faces 
 that day. For whether it is fiincy 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 encoimter none but 
 the reverse. We do not merely speak of 
 handsome faces ; but of tliose 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 pardon ns, if we do 
 not find anything very attractive in his pre- 
 mises. So will his friend the shoemaker, who 
 is bound 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 remind 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 
 have casts in their eyes, a little too much on 
 one side even for the sidelong divinities of Mr. 
 Harlowe. 
 
 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- 
 insr enouoh to convert a window full of those 
 requisite nuisances into an agreeable spectacle. 
 It is true, a hatter, like some other tradesmen, 
 may be pleasanter himself, by reason of the 
 adversity of his situation. We cannot say 
 more for the m/c^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 the monotony of the windows ; only they 
 remind us but too well of tliese cruel neces- 
 sities to which they brought us. Tlie baker's 
 next ensuing is a very dull shoj), much in- 
 ferior to the gingerbread baker's, whose jmr- 
 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. Weown we have half a longingto break 
 tliem, and let in the light of nature upon 
 tlieir 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 disniallest reflections on 
 humanity. We 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 
 tlie imagination has not time to dwell on 
 
 any 
 one m particular. The ideas they suggest 
 must be obvious and on the surface. A grocer's 
 and tea-dealer's is a good thing. It tills the 
 mind instantly with a variety of pleasant tastes, 
 as the ladies in Italy on certain holidays pelt 
 the gentlemen with 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 undertaker walk- 
 ing merrily drunk by the side of a hearse, is a 
 liorrid object ; but an undertaker singing and 
 hammering in his sliop, is only rapping deatli 
 himself on the knuckles. The dead are not 
 there ; the altered fellow-creature is not there; 
 but only the living man, and the abstract idea 
 of death ; and lie may defy that as much as he 
 pleases. An apotliecary'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 peojtle talking together in the liglit of 
 one of them, and looking profoundly blue. 
 There are two good things in the Italian ware- 
 house, — its name and its olives ; but it is 
 chiefly built up of gout. Notliing can be got 
 out of a brazier's windows, except Ijy a thief: 
 but we understand that it is a good jjlace to 
 live at for those who cannot procure water- 
 falls. A music-shop with its windows full of 
 title-pages, is prcvokingly insipid to look at. 
 
 considering the quantity of slumbering en- 
 cliantment 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 autlior, with or witliout 
 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 liis destruction, 
 and he is killed in order to be plundered, he 
 has had the range of nature before he dies. 
 His has been tlie summer air, and the sunshine, 
 and the flowers ; and gentle ears have listened 
 to him, and gentle eyes have been upon him. 
 Let others eat his lioney that please, so that 
 he lias 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, we suppose, 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 coffee-house is a pleasant sight, 
 from its sociality ; not to mention the illus- 
 trious club memories of the times of Shakspeare 
 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 i^ride, and avarice, and all the 
 unsocial vices about i 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 lilve to hear, as we go along on Saturday 
 night, the applauding knocks on the table that 
 follow the song of " Lorely Nan" or " Brave 
 Captain Death" or " Tobacco is an Indian Weed" 
 or " Why, Soldiers, ichi/ ; " or " Saya Plato, trhy 
 should man be rain ; " 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 
 tlie virtuous leave off seduction and old port. 
 In tlie 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 boyhood, a lady from the AVest 
 Indies, of a very delicate and high-bred nature, 
 who could find nothing about our streets that 
 more excited her admiration tlian the butchers' 
 shops. She had no notion, from wliat 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 windoAvs. One 
 of the shops we like least is an angling reposi- 
 tory, with its rod for a sign, and a fisli 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, unless it has those reflecting- 
 glasses in which you see your face run ofi^ 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- 
 smitli's for the sturdy looks and thumpings of 
 the men, the swarthy colour, the fiery sparkles 
 and the thunder-breathing throat of the furnace. 
 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-builders 
 and water at the end. How used old Roberts of 
 Lambeth to gratify the aspiring modesty of our 
 school-coats, when he welcomed 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 
 diff"erence 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 puff's before the half-averted face of 
 the prettiest of accountants, especially with a 
 beggar watching and prapng 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 
 Avitness 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 ycle,)t shop- 
 ping ; and here, while 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 wlaom 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 us. AVe 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 dogs 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 glorj% spare our aching sight ! 
 
 Ye just-breeoh'd ages, crowd not on our soul ! 
 
 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 feather, 
 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 miicli 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 
 genume, 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, 
 whicli have their maturer beauties ; balls, 
 which possess the additional zest of the dan- 
 ger of breaking people's windows; — ropes, 
 good for swinging and skipping, especially the 
 long ones whicli others turn for you, wliile 
 you run in a masterly manner up and down, 
 or skij) in one spot witii an easy and endless 
 exactitude of toe, looking alternately at their 
 conscious faces ; — blood-allies, Avith which the 
 possessor of a crisp finger and thumb-knuckle 
 causes the smitten marbles to vanish out of 
 
 the ring ; kites, which must appear to more 
 vital birds a ghastly kind of fowl, with their 
 grim long white 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 bodkins 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 afi^ection. 
 We prefer good honest plump limbs of cotton 
 and saw-dust, dressed in baby-linen ; or even 
 our ancient young friends, with their staring 
 dotted eyes ; red varnished faces, triangular 
 noses, and Rosinante wooden limbs — not, it 
 must be confessed, excessively shapely or 
 feminine, but the reverse of fragile beauty, 
 and prepared 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. The pastry, less patronised by judicious 
 mothers, is only so much elegant indigestion : 
 yet it is not easy to forget the pleasure of 
 nibbling away the crust all round a raspberry 
 or currant tart, in order to enjoy the three or 
 four delicious semicircular bites at the 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 jileasant 
 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 
 W2'apped 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 ; the 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 the 
 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 wai'mth 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 tliat slice ; 
 
 But what has been, lias 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 
 agreeableness in a well-disposed fruiterer's 
 window. Here are the round pilcd-nj) oranges, 
 deepening almost into red, and heavy with 
 juice ; the aj)ple with its brown red cheek, as 
 if it had sle])t in the sun ; the i)ear, swelling 
 downwards ; tlironging grapes, like so many 
 tight little bags of wine ; the peach, whose 
 handsome leathern coat strips of}' 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, 
 
 Whatever 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 
 Kough, 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 " jNIadani 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 gieat Pan do awake, 
 
 That sleeping lies in a deep glade, 
 
 Under a broad beech's shade. 
 
 Fx-ETCHER's Faithful Shepherdess. 
 
 How the poets doiible every delight for us, 
 with their imagination and their music ! 
 
 In the windows of some of the sculptors' 
 shops, artificial fruit may be seen. It is a 
 better thing to put upon a mautel-i)icce than 
 many articles of greater fashion ; but it gives 
 an abominable sensation to one's imaginary 
 teeth. The incautious ejjicure wlio plunges 
 his teeth into "a painted Hiiow-haH"in Italy 
 (see Brydone's Tour in Sicily and Malta), can
 
 84 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 which are well worth 
 some small purchase. 
 
 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 these places, 
 
 getting a sight of by 
 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 Minerva, the still more arresting gentleness 
 of Venus, the budding compactness of Hebe, 
 the breathing inspiration of Apollo. Here 
 the Celestial Venus, naked in heart and body, 
 ties up her locks, her drapery hanging upon 
 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 INIercury, with his light limbs, seems just 
 to touch the ground, ready to give a start with 
 hisfoot and be off again. Bacchus, with his riper 
 cheek, and his tliicker hanging locks, appears 
 to be eyeing one of his nymijhs. 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 sinndnff throufrh 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 jiossesses an art more ac- 
 complished. Among the other divinities, we 
 
 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 ]\Iars, 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 Avas 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, ■«'ith a 
 lamji 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 plot of ground, surrounded 
 with an arcade and busts, that we owe 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 OF TART I.
 
 THE 
 
 INDICATOR, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE COMPANION 
 
 A MISCELLANY FOR THE FIELDS AND THE FIRE-SIDE. 
 
 BY LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 IN TWO PARTS. 
 PART II. 
 
 LONDON: 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXL.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, W'HITEFRIARS.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XLI. A WORD OR TWO MORE ON STICKS =1 
 
 XLII. THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES 2 
 
 XLHI. THE ITALIAN GIRL 4 
 
 XHV. A "NOW 7 
 
 XLV. THE HONOURABLE MR. ROBERT BOYLE 8 
 
 XLVI. SUPERFINE BREEDING 9 
 
 XLVII. SHAKING HANDS 10 
 
 XLVm. ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF LAUREL FROM VAUCLUSE . . . . ib. 
 
 XLIX. COACHES II 
 
 L. REMARKS UPON ANDREA DE BASSO'S ODE TO A DEAD BODY . . . 19 
 
 LI, THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE 21 
 
 LII. THE HA3IADRYAD 24 
 
 LIII. THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS 25 
 
 LIY. ON COMMENDATORY VERSES 28 
 
 LV. A WORD UPON INDEXES 31 
 
 LVI. AN OLD SCHOOL-BOOK .12 
 
 LVII. OF DREAMS 33 
 
 LVni. A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE OTHER EXTREME 37 
 
 LIX. RETURN OP AUTUMN 41 
 
 LX. THE MAID-SERVANT ib. 
 
 LXL THE OLD LADY ... . 43 
 
 LXII. PULCI 44 
 
 LXIII. MY BOOKS 4U 
 
 LXIV. BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c 55
 
 IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 CHAP. 
 I. 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Aaii. 
 
 IX. 
 X. 
 
 XI. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 PA8K 
 
 AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN • . 61 
 
 BAD WEATHER 63 
 
 FINE DAYS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 64 
 
 WALKS HOME BY NIGHT IN BAD A\T:ATHER— WATCHMEN . . . . 65 
 
 SECRET OP SOME EXISTING FASHIONS 67 
 
 RAIN OUT OF A CLEAR SKY 68 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS 69 
 
 THE TRUE STORY OF VERTUMNUS AND POMONA .' JO 
 
 ON THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF PIG-DRIVING 75 
 
 PANTOMIMES 76 
 
 CRUELTY TO CHILDREN 77 
 
 HOUSES ON FIRE ' 79 
 
 A BATTLE OF ANTS.— DESIRABLENESS OF DRAWING A DISTINCTION BE- 
 T\\^EN POWERS COMMON TO OTHER ANIMALS, AND THOSE PECULIAR 
 
 TO MAN ib. 
 
 A WALK FROM DULWICU TO BROCKHAM 84
 
 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 authenticated. It indicates 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 hollow 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 Linnaeus, otherwise called the Moroc, IJee 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. 
 
 XLI.— 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 ; e.specially since 
 it has become, among us men of sticks, the 
 description most approved. The present day, 
 which is one of mimicry, boasts scarcely any 
 protection except in the very stick I allude to ; 
 and yet, because it is so unpresuming 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, the highly 
 picturesque ' Ash Plant.' Its still and gentle- 
 manly colour ; its peculiar property of bending 
 i"ound the shoulders of a man, without breaking 
 (in the event of our using it that way) ; the 
 economy of tiie thing, as economy is the order 
 of the day (at h^ast in minor concerns) ; its being 
 the best substitute for the old-fashioned horse- 
 whip in a morning-ride, and now so generally 
 used in lieu of the long liunting-whip in the 
 sports of the chase ; answering every purpose 
 for gates, &c., without oftering any temptation 
 to do the work of a whipper-in ; — all this, and 
 much more, might be said of the neglected 
 Ground Ash." 
 
 [hart II.] 
 
 We must cry mercy on the estimable stick 
 here referred to, and indeed on several other 
 sorts of wood, imjustly 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 with playing a tune. 
 As the ancient poets wrote stories of gods 
 A-isiting 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 witii which it has snpi)lied 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 (J reek 
 name for it was Mclia, or the Honied ; from a 
 juice or manna which it drops, and which has 
 been much used in medicine and dyeing. Tliere 
 are, or were, about forty years back, when
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 Count Ginnani wrote his Hhtory of the JRarenna 
 Pine Forest, large ash woods in Tuscany, which 
 used to be tapped for those purposes. Yirgil 
 calls it the handsomest tree in the forest ; 
 Chaucer, " the hardie ashe';" and Spenser," the 
 ash for nothing ill." Tlie ground-ash flourishes 
 the better, the more it is cut and slashed ; — a 
 sort of improvement, which it sometimes be- 
 stows in return upon humankind. 
 
 XLII.— 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. The crew did not know where they were, 
 though they had often visited the island ; for 
 the trading towns lay in other quarters, and 
 they saw nothing before them but woods and 
 solitudes. They 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. 
 
 Tlius idling about and wondering, stretching 
 themselves now and then among the wild 
 thyme and grass, and now getting up to look 
 at some specially fertile place which another 
 called them to see, and which they thought 
 might be turned to fine trading purpose, they 
 came upon a mound covered with trees, which 
 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 had a large garden wall at the back, as 
 much covered with ivy as if it had been built 
 of it. Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an 
 unpruned thickness ; and neither at the back 
 nor front of the house were there any signs of 
 humanity. It was an ancient marble building, 
 where glass was not to be expected in tlie 
 windows ; 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 vitality of earth. 
 
 " Did you see ?" said one of the crew, turning 
 pale, and hastening to go. "See what?" said 
 the others. "What looked out of window." 
 They all turned their faces towards the house, 
 but saw nothing. Upon this they laughed at 
 tlieir companion, who persisted however Avith 
 great earnestness, and with gi-eat reluctance 
 at stopping, to say that 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, Signor 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 front 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 that 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 respect, 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 the 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 expedition he could contrive, wlien 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 cliivalrous, 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 ?" 
 
 "Hast thou not heard of me?" answered 
 the serpent in a voice whose singular human 
 slenderness 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 
 she spoke this word, she raised her crest, and 
 sparkled so Avith her fiery 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 
 sharp 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, hanging 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 tilings 
 on earth, wliich are and yet are not. Tliou 
 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 should be as I once was, happy 
 and human. Suffice it, that nothing can change 
 me but what I said." 
 
 " Why wert 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, though 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 Avas 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 mouth 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 word 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, that 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, " ye green and 
 happy woods, breathing like sleep ! O safe 
 and quiet population of these leafy places, 
 dying brief deaths ! O sea ! 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 ? O ye large-looking and grand 
 benignities of creation, is it that we are atoms 
 in a dream ; or that your largeness and benig- 
 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, under- 
 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 coiupier 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 the very hares take refuse in her 
 shadow." And shuddering and shutting his 
 eyes, he put his mouth out for her to meet ; 
 and he seemed to feel, in his blindness, that 
 dreadful mouth approaching ; and he made 
 the sign of the cross ; and he murmured in- 
 ternally the name of him who cast seven devils 
 out of Mary Magdalen, that afterwards anointed 
 his feet ; and in the midst of liis courageous 
 agony, he 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, 
 he dropped them upon two of the sweetest 
 that ever looked into the eye of man. — But 
 the hares fled ; for they had loved the serpent, 
 but knew not the beautiful human bein^. 
 
 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 
 Hippocras— that knightly liquor afterwards so 
 renowned, Avhich 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 his mirth, exjjressed 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."* 
 
 XLIIL— THE ITALIAN GIRL. 
 
 The sun was shining beautifully one summer 
 evening, as if he bade sparkling farewell to a 
 world ^vhich he had made happy. It seemed 
 also, by his looks, as if he promised to make 
 his appearance again to-mon-ow ; but there 
 was at times a deep breathing western wind, 
 and dark purple clouds came uj) here and 
 there, like gorgeous waiters at a funeral. The 
 children in a village 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 account of Tirante the White. 
 
 with the brightness of the moment, when they 
 saw a female a])proaching, 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 !" 
 tbey 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 with walking. But she raised it 
 speedily, and smiled with complacency on the 
 rude urciiins. 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. " eke hei raijazzi!" 
 said she, in a soft and almost inaudible voice ; 
 —"Che risi Ueti.'"f and she began to play. 
 She tried to sing too, but her voice failed her, 
 and she shook her head smilingly, saying 
 " Stanca ! 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, — ^fiss ? " 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 
 leditds poetam ilium celehfrrimiim, 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 ! 
 
 X Wearj" ! Weary ! 
 
 § Thanks: — too weary ! too weary ! 
 
 n Doubtless you read that celebrated poet Tasso.
 
 THE ITALIAN GIRL. 
 
 " oh^ronosco — U Tai:-so ;"* and she hung with 
 an accent of beautiful languor upon 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' ombrosi/ pianty 
 D'antica selva dal cavallo — what is it?" 
 
 The stranger repeated the words in a tone 
 of fondness, like those of au old friend : — 
 
 Intanto Erminia infra I'onibrose piante 
 D'antica selva dal cavallo e soorta ; 
 Ne piii governo il fren la man tremante, 
 E mezza qiiasi 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 a])plied 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 playing. 
 
 " 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 i)ointed towards the spot 
 where the churcii 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, "slie'U understand her: — lean upon 
 me, Miss ; " am^Jie repeated the last word 
 without his Tonner hesitation. 
 
 Only a few boys followed her to the door, 
 the rest having been awed away by tlie usher. 
 As soon as tiie stranger enterijcl the house and 
 saw an elderly lady who received her kindly, 
 she exclaimed " La Signora Madre," and fell 
 in a swoon at her feet . 
 
 She was taken to bed, and attended witli 
 the utmost care by her ho.stess, who would 
 not suffer her to talk till she had had a sleep. 
 She merely heard enougli to find out, that tlie 
 stranger had known iier son in Italy ; and she 
 was thrown into a painful state of suspicion 
 by the poor girl's eyes, wliicli followed her 
 about the room till tlie lady fairly came up 
 and closed them. 
 
 * Oh — I know — Tasso. 
 
 t Meantime in the old wood, the palfrey bore 
 l'>rniinia deeper into shade and shade ; 
 ller trembling hands could hold him in no more. 
 And she appeared betwi.\t alive and 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 
 upon 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 
 churcli 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 with respect and 
 admiration. The dying girl (for she evidently 
 Avas 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 jjlaying the guitar with 
 her neighbours ; and it was 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 ffet 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 
 wiiat 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 that arm i-ound my 
 waist for a week after : ay, almost as much 
 a.s if it had been there." 
 
 " And Ciiarles felt that you did," thought 
 his mother ; " for he never told me tlu- story." 
 
 " He begged my pardon," continued she, " as 
 I was hastening out of tiie room, and hojied I 
 should not construe his warmth into imperti- 
 nence. And to iicar him talk so to me, who
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 used to fear what he might think of myself ; 
 it made me stand in the passage, and lean my 
 head against the wall, and weep such bitter, 
 and yet such sweet tears ! — But he did not 
 hear them. No, Madam, he did not know, 
 indeed, how mueli I — how much I — " 
 
 " Loved him, child," interrupted ]\Irs. 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, her 
 tears flowing away, " tliis 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 abd many disagreeable 
 things to this country and tliis 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 thus : — 
 
 " ' 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 he is dying ; and he sometimes fears 
 that her sorrow will be greater than he could 
 wisli it to be. But marry one of your kind 
 counti-ymen, 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 trying and patience, deserve to be joined 
 with him in heaven, where there is no distinc- 
 tion of persons. My uncle was pleased to see 
 mo become a religious pilgrim ; but lie 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 me for doing what he 
 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 enough to pro- 
 cure me lodging. I lived on bread and water, 
 and used to weep hajij^y tears over it, because 
 I looked up to heaven and thought he might 
 see^me. I have sometimes, though not often. 
 
 met with small insults ; but if ever they 
 threatened to grow greater, I begged the 
 people to desist in the kindest way I could, 
 even smiling, and saying I would please them 
 if I had the heart ; which might be wrong, 
 but it seemed as if deep thoughts told me 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, T 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 
 Signer 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 would 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 prayer 
 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 anguisli, which nevertheless thou en- 
 ablest us to go through, look down, we beseech 
 thee, upon this thy young and innocent servant, 
 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. 
 
 XLIV.— A "NOW." 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF A HOT DAY. 
 
 Now the rosy- (and lazy-) fingered Aurora, 
 issuing from her saiFron house, calls up the 
 moist vapours to surround her, and goes veiled 
 with them as long as she can ; till Phoebus, 
 coming forth in his power, looks everything 
 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 beyond 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 unpowdered, and stop to wipe them 
 up hill, witii countenances tliat seem to expos- 
 tulate with 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 they make suckers of 
 leather, and bathe all day long in rivers and 
 ponds, and make miglity fishings for " tittle- 
 bats." Now the bee, as he hums along, seems 
 to be talking heavily of the lieat. Now doors 
 and brick-walls are burning to the hand ; and 
 a walled lane, with dust and broken ])ottles in 
 it, near a brick-field, is a^thing not to be thought 
 
 of. Now a green 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 tlian ever to 
 one another, in rooms, in door-ways, 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 oft", 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 people 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- 
 necked 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 clei-ks in office do nothing but 
 drink soda-water and spruce-beer, and read the 
 newspaper. 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 blacksnutlis 
 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 lapj)ets 
 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 tiiat of our numerous jirede- 
 cessors, who have left so large a debt of grati- 
 tude unpaid, to this very useful and ready 
 monosyllable—" Now." W"e arc sure that 
 tliere is not a didactic poet, ancient or modern, 
 who, if he possessed a decent share of can- 
 dour, would not be happy to own his obliga- 
 tions to that masterly conjunction, wliich pos- 
 sesses the very essence of wit, for it has the 
 art of bringing the most remote things toge-
 
 8 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 ther. And its generosity is in proportion to its 
 wit, for it always is most profuse of its aid 
 wliere it is most wanted. 
 
 We must enjoy a pleasant passage with the 
 reader on the subject of tliis " eternal Now " 
 in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the Womaii- 
 Hater. — Upon turning to it, we perceive that 
 our illustrious particle does not make quite so 
 great a tigure as we imagined ; but the wliole 
 passage is in so analogous a taste, and affords 
 such an agreeable specimen of the wit and 
 humour witli which fine poets could rally the 
 common-places of their art, that we cannot 
 help proceeding with it. Lazarello, a foolish 
 table-hunter, has requested an introduction to 
 tlie Duke of INIilan, who has had a fine lam- 
 prey presented him. Before tlie 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. 
 
 Cuuni {aside to the Duke). Let me entreat 
 your Grace to stay a little. 
 To know a gentleman, to whom yourself 
 Is much beholding. He 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? 
 
 Count {aside to Laz.). Lazarello, pluck up 
 tliy 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. 
 
 tW«(. 'Tis all one : thou shalt know him first, 
 
 Laz. Stay a little. If he should off'er 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 liim. 
 
 Count. Lazarello, the Duke stays. Wilt thou 
 lose this opportunity ? 
 
 Laz. IIow 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 ; 1)ut 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 tluis ;■ — " Thrice 
 tliree o'clock, so please my Sovereign ; " — or 
 til us : — 
 
 " Look how many Muses there do dwell 
 Upon the sweet banks of the learned well, 
 Andjustso manystrokes theclock hath struck;" 
 and so forth. And you must now and then 
 enter into a descriijtion. 
 
 Laz. I hope I shall do it. 
 
 Count. Come. — May it please your Grace to 
 take note of a gentleman, well seen, deeply 
 
 I'ead, 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.). Yery well. — Will your 
 Grace question him a little. 
 
 Duke. IIow old are you ? 
 
 Laz. Full eight-and-twenty several almanacks 
 Have been comi)iled, 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 
 Ilath much to do now ; now the tables all 
 
 Duke. 'Tis almost dinner-time ? 
 
 Laz. Your Grace doth apprehend me very 
 rightly. 
 
 XLV.— THE HONOURABLE MR. ROBERT 
 BOYLE. 
 
 The celebrated Robert Boyle, the 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 suff"ered ; 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 " LTpon 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. Tluis," says he, "men 
 wlio do wliat they should not, to obtain any 
 sensual desires," &c. &c. Not a thouglit comes 
 over him as to his own part in the business, 
 and what he ouglit to say of himself for teai-ing 
 the jaws and gills to indulge liis own appetite 
 for excitement. Take also the following : — 
 " Fifth Section — Reflection I. Killing a crow 
 (out of window) in a hog's trough, and inmie- 
 diately ti'acing tlie ensuing reflection with a 
 pen made of one of his (juills.- — Long and pa- 
 tiently did I M-ait for this unlucky crow, wal- 
 lowing in the sluttish trough (whose sides kept 
 him a great while out of the reach of my gun),
 
 SUPERFINE BREEDING. 
 
 9 
 
 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 tra"ic 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 deplore 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 Ave fall short of an enlargement of 
 thinking 2 
 
 XLVL— SUPERFINE BREEDING. 
 
 Thetje is an anecdote in AulusGellius (Noc- 
 tes Atticce, 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 tiie sense that was shown of them 
 proves them to have been very gravely re- 
 garded. 
 
 Claudia, the daughter of Appius Ca?cus, in 
 coming away from a public spectacle, was 
 much pressed and pushed about by the crowd; 
 upon which she thus vented her impatience :— 
 " What sliould I have suffered now, and how 
 much more siiould I have been squeezed and 
 knocked ab<nit, if my brother Publius Claudius 
 liad not liad his ships destroyed in battle, with 
 all that heaj) of men ? I slu)uld have been 
 absolutely jammed to death ! Would to hea- 
 ven my brother were alive again, and could go 
 with anotlier fleet to Sicily, and be the death 
 of tills host of [)eople, who plague and pester 
 one in this iiorrid manner * !" 
 
 * " Quid me nunc factum essct, quantnque arctius prcs- 
 sius(|uc conflic-tata csscm, si P. Claudius fiatcr mens 
 navali prjclio elassem navium cum ingcnti civiuni nuniero 
 non perdidisset ? certe quidem iiiajuro nunc cojiia populi 
 oppicbsa intercidisbem. Scd iitiuani, inquit, reviviscat 
 
 For these words, " so wicked and so uncivic," 
 says good old Gellius (tarn improba ac tam in- 
 civilia) tiie ^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 
 tlie 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 want 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 popular law, and for having kept the 
 commons as long as possible out of any share 
 in public honours and government. The vil- 
 lain Appius Claudius, whose story has been 
 made still more familiar to the public by the 
 tragedy of j\Ir. Knowles, was among its ances- 
 tors. Appius Caucus, or the Blind, the father 
 of Claudia, though he consti'ucted the cele- 
 brated Appian Way and otherwise benefited 
 the city, was a very unpopular man, wilful, 
 haughty, and lawless. He retained possession 
 of the Censorship beyond the limited period. 
 It is an instance perhaps of his unpopidarity, 
 as well as of the superstition of the times, that 
 having made a change in one of the priestly 
 offices, 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 efi"ect, how- 
 ever, upon Claudius the brother, whose rashness 
 furnislied the pious Romans with a similar 
 example to point at. Before an engagement 
 with the Cartliaginians, the Sacred Chickens 
 were consulted, and because they would not 
 peck and fm-nish him witli 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 
 ami the worst fought in the world ; but the 
 men were disjiirited l)y the Consul's irreverent 
 behaviour to the chickens ; and his impiety 
 slmred the disgrace with his folly. Livy re- 
 jireseiits him as an e])itome of all that was 
 bad in iiis fanuly; proud, stul)born,uuuun-ciful, 
 though full of faults himself, and wilful and 
 precipitate to a degree of nuidness. Tliis was 
 
 frater. aliamquo classcm in Sicili.am ducat, atquc istnm 
 nuiltitudiiuni pcrdituni cat, qua; nic male nunc niisuram 
 convcxavit."
 
 10 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 the battle, of which his sister wished to see a 
 repetition. It cost the Romans many ships 
 sunk, ninety-three taken, and according to the 
 historian, the miraculous loss of eight thousand 
 men killed and twenty thousand taken pri- 
 soners, while the Carthaginians lost not a ship 
 or a man. 
 
 XLVII.— 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 grip. 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 flattering to yourself ; and on 
 the appearance of somebody else (whose name, 
 it turned 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 shake 
 as close, as long, and as rejoicing, as if the 
 semi-unknown was a friend come home fi-om 
 the Deserts. 
 
 On the other hand, there would be a gentle- 
 man, 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 
 that 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 
 got 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 might 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 uj)on yourself. You did not know, 
 all the evening, whether you were not an ob- 
 ject of dislike to the person ; till, on the party's 
 breaking uj), you saw liim 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 the two, Ave 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 witiiout sjjleen), 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 1)est 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. 
 
 This manual shyness 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 this 
 particular instance of it would be 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 him, 
 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 wliich he put his friends 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, 
 who remained 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 tliough his manner became cold, his 
 consistency remained warm, and this gave him 
 a right to be as strange as he pleased. 
 
 XLVIII.— ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF 
 LAUREL FROM VAUCLUSE. 
 
 And this piece of laurel is from A'aucluse ! 
 Perhaps Petrarch, perhaps Laura sat under it ! 
 This is a true 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 the 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, iw deliciis 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. Hazlitt.
 
 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 be entwined in one. (Ses- 
 tina 2, canzone 17, sonetti 162, 163, 164, 207, 
 224, &c.) Perhaps it is of the very stock of 
 that bough, which he describes as supplying 
 Ids mistress with a leaning-stock, when she 
 sat in her favourite bower. 
 
 Giovane donna sotto un verde lauro 
 Vidi piu bianca e piii fredda che neve 
 Non percossa dal sol molti e molt' anni ; 
 E '1 suo parlar, e '1 bel viso, e le chiome, 
 Mi piacquer si, ch' i' I'ho a gli ocelli niiei, 
 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 both 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 with 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 
 
 1 old poetical region of Provence, consisting of a 
 
 1 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 great way 
 
 off, at Chabrieres, and he appears to have seen 
 
 her often in the very place. Ho ])aced along 
 
 the river ; he sat under the trees ; he climbed 
 
 the mountains ; but Love, he says, was ever 
 
 by his side, 
 
 Ragionando con mcco, ed io con lui. 
 lie 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 
 althougrli 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 cojiying 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 Avas crowned publicly, in the 
 Metropolis 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 Laura, 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 accounts— from all that he wrote, uttered, 
 and thought. One love, and one poet, sufficed 
 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 modern times ; and 
 perhaps will do so, as long as love renews the 
 world. 
 
 XLIX.— 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 ot " a 
 ride in a coacli." 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 
 liackney. . . . .», 
 
 It is true, that the carriage, as it is indiffer- 
 ently called (as if notliing less genteel could 
 carry any one) is a more decided thing tlian
 
 12 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 tlie chaise ; it may be swifter even than the 
 mail, leaves the stage at a still greater distance 
 in every respect, and (forgetting what it may 
 come to itself) darts by the poor old lumbering 
 hackney with immeasurable contempt. It 
 rolls with a ])rouder 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 with its own weight. The 
 footman, in the pride of his nonchalance, hold- 
 ing by the straps behind, and glancing down 
 sideways betwixt his 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 sujierfluity 
 of noise. The hammei'-cloth trembles through 
 all its fringe. The jjaint flashes in the sun. 
 We, contemptuous of everything less con- 
 venient, bow backwards and forwards with a 
 certain indiiferent air of gentility, infinitely 
 predominant. Suddenly, with a hajipy 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 l)y it. Its plent}^, 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, i)rovided men have enough to eat ; — 
 liired coaches, a reasonable number: — but 
 health and good-humour at all events. 
 
 Gigs and cun-icles are things less objection- 
 able, because they cannot Ik; so relied upon as 
 substitutes for exerci.se. 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 aliout us, instead of 
 keeping watch on a horse's head. We have no 
 relish even for vehicles of this description that 
 are not safe. Danger is a good thing 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 Tandem 
 written on our tombstone. 
 
 The i)rettiest of these vehicles is the curricle, 
 which is also the safest. There is something 
 worth looking at in the pair of horses, with 
 that sparkling 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. The 
 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. The handsomest mixture of danger 
 with dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was 
 the tall phaeton with its yellow wings. We 
 remember looking up to it with respect in our 
 childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for its 
 name, and partly for the sIioav 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 lound the streets of Rome, 
 with his horses jianting, 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 2)ost-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 liearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise 
 waiting only ujjon j'our own movements), even 
 the little contradictions to hoine-comfort, and 
 the expedients upon which they set us, all jjut 
 the animal spirits at work, and throw a novelty 
 over the road of life. If anything could grind 
 us young again, it woidd be the wheels of a 
 post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is the 
 perjjetual up-and-down movement of the 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 jjurpose, 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 burn, and in winter may splash ; 
 I love dirt and dust ; and 'tis always my pleasure 
 To take with me much of the soil that 1 measure."
 
 COACHES. 
 
 13 
 
 But Matthew thought better ; for Matthew thought right, 
 And hired a chariot so trim and so tight, 
 That extremes botli of winter and summer might pass ; 
 For one window was canvas, the other was glass. 
 
 " Draw up," quoth friend Matthew ; " Pull down," quoth 
 
 friend .John ; 
 " We shall bo 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, tlie sign of the Bull ; 
 Near a nymph 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 ? 
 AVhere is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue? 
 And where is the widow that dwelt here below ? 
 And the hostler tliat sang 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, I think : 
 And pray. Sir, what wine does the gentleman drink 't 
 
 " Why now let me die, Sir, or live upon trust, 
 
 If 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 tlie 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 the church-yard full many a year." 
 
 " Well ; peace to her ashes ! What 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 author, entitled the Secretart/, 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 wi-itten when he was Secretary of Embassy 
 at the Hague, where he seems to have edified 
 the Dutch with his insisting upon enjoying him- 
 self. The astonishment with which tlie good 
 Hollander and liis wife look up to him as lie 
 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 nymph on my right: 
 
 No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move, 
 
 Tliat on Sunday may hinder the softness of love ; 
 
 For licr, neither visits, nor parties at tea, 
 
 Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee : 
 
 This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, — 
 
 To good or ill-fortune the third 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, 
 
 VVliere people knew love, and were partial to verse ? 
 
 Since none can with justice my i)lcasurcs oppose. 
 
 In Holland half drowned in interest and prose ? 
 
 By Greece and past ages what need I be tried, 
 
 When the Hague and the present are both on my side? 
 
 And is it enough for the joys of the day. 
 
 To think what Anacrcon or Sappho would say ? 
 
 When good Vandergoes, and his provident vrow, 
 
 As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow. 
 
 That, search all the province, you'll find no man ddr is 
 
 So blest as the Englishen lieer Secretar' is. 
 
 If Prior had been living now, he 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 rapidity 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 driver, 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 iu 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 Avill 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 whi]). They stick 
 with their fork, th<^y 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 dittident 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 coacli. 
 We remember travelling in our youth, ujjon 
 the north road, witii an orthodox elderly gen- 
 tleman of venerable i)eruke, who talked much 
 with a grave-looking young man about univer- 
 
 * Mr. Shelley.
 
 14 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 sities, and won our inexperienced heart with a 
 notion that lie was deep in Horace and Virgil. 
 He was deeper in his wig. Towards evening, 
 as he seemed restless, we asked with much 
 diffidence whether a change, even for the worse, 
 might not relieve him ; for we were riding 
 backwards, and thought that all elderly people 
 disliked that way. He insinuated the very 
 objection ; so we recoiled from asking him 
 again. In a minute or two, however, he insisted 
 that we were uneasy ourselves, and that he 
 must relieve us for our own sake. We pro- 
 tested as hlially 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 
 tlie inn. 
 
 The greatest peculiarity attending a mail- 
 coach 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 
 — ail 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 the 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 shoes 
 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, 
 1 who has been eating our fowls and intercepting 
 I our toast, put on his night-cap in order to settle 
 I himself 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 Richard Blackmore 
 did, " to the rumbling of his coach's wheels." 
 
 The stage-coach is a great and unpretending 
 accommodation. It is a cheap substitute, not- 
 withstanding all its eighteen-penny and two- 
 and-si.xpenny 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, that 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 other circumstances. The 
 old and infirm are treated with reverence; 
 the ailing sympathised with ; the healthy con- 
 gratulated ; 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 woiild 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 another 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, gruftness, 
 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 the 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 pos- 
 session, and familiarity. His information chiefly 
 lies in the occupancy of houses on the road, 
 prize-fighters. Bow-street runners, and acci- 
 dents. He concludes that you know Dick 
 Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to relate some 
 of the 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-hand 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 bis
 
 COACHES. 
 
 15 
 
 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 i 
 and paternal look in the position of his corduroy 
 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 Robert? 
 Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart. 
 
 Is the quadrijugal virtue 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 quos curriculo colleijlsse 1 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, imto 
 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 
 
 manuscript poem,* in which they are related 
 with great nicety and sensitiveness. 
 
 Reader. What 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 manuscript 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 upun his errand sallies, 
 His 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 further said, 
 " Polluted Jarvey ! Ah, thou filthy hack ! 
 Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead. 
 Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack. 
 Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack ; 
 And evermore thy steps go clatter-elitter ; 
 Whose glass once up can never be got back, 
 Who 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 corn ! 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 imgallant 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, 
 School '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 w^ 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 own 
 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 worse. Fall in love, 
 and want to sit next your mistress. Or if aU 
 this will not do, fall in a cellar. 
 
 Ben .lonson, in a fit of indignation at the 
 niggardliness of James the First, exclaimed, 
 " He despises me, I supjjose, 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 patience, and hear 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 things 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 under 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 all 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 Avhen 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 
 weight on three tired legs in order to give 
 repose to the lame one I When it has blinkers 
 on, they 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 ci'eature as the bit to its mouth. 
 Once in half an liour 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 un- 
 necessary for them to compare notes. They 
 have that within them, which is beyond the 
 comparative. They no longer bend their heads 
 towards each 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, wlio 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 arc they thinking of, while 
 they stand motionless in the rain ? Do they 
 remember? Do tlicy dream? Do they still, 
 unperplexed as tlieir old blood is by too many 
 foods, receive a pleasure from the elements ; 
 a dull refreshment fi-om 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 who 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 racer ; 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 
 veiy fear admired as courage, and been sat 
 upon by valour as its chosen seat. 
 
 ITis ears up-prick'd ; his braided hanpting mane 
 Upon his eompass'd crest now stands on end ; 
 His nostrils drink the air ; and forth again. 
 As from a furnace, vapours doth he send ; 
 
 His eye, which scornfully glistens like fire, 
 Sliows 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 my strength is tried. 
 And thus I do to captivate the eye 
 Of the fair breeder that is standing by. 
 
 What recketh he his rider's angry stir. 
 His flattering holla, or his Stnml, I sayf 
 What 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 ! The least utterance of the 
 wretchedest voice makes him stop and become 
 a fixture. His 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. The same great poet who wrote the 
 triumphal verses for him and his loves, has 
 written their living epitaph : — 
 
 The poor jades 
 Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips. 
 The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes; 
 And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
 Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless. 
 
 A'. Henry oth. Act 4.
 
 COACHES. 
 
 17 
 
 There is a song called the High-meUled' Racer, 
 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 
 whicii 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 Rarer (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 
 cliildren : — to Voltaire in France, and Shak- 
 speai'e 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 neighboui-, 
 and his neighboiir 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 Ave can afford 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 V Oli — but some are always 
 at liand 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 anytliing. If they will 
 think at all, it will ])e a great gain. As to 
 effeminacy (if we must use that ungallant and 
 partial word, for want of a better) it is cruelty 
 
 [part II.] 
 
 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 Avhat they may both 
 become, a hackney, and its old sliamblers. 
 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. Tliey 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. 
 Tlie 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 grief 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 
 round many an insensible waist. Into thee the 
 friend or the lover has hurried, in a pas- 
 sion of tears, to lament his loss. In tliee he 
 has hastened to condole the dying or the 
 wretched. In thee the father, or mother, or 
 the older kinswoman, more patient in her 
 years, has taken tlie little child to the grave, 
 tlie liuman jewel that must be parted witli. 
 
 But joy appears in theeagain, like the look-in 
 of the sun-shine. If the lover has gone in tliee 
 unwillingly, lie has also gone willingly. How 
 many friends hast thou not carried to merry- 
 meetings ! How many young parties to the 
 play ! How many children, whose faces thou 
 hast turned in an instant from tiie extremity 
 of lachrymose weariness to that of staring 
 delight. Thou hast contained as many diflerent 
 passions in thee as a human heart ; and for the 
 
 J
 
 18 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 sake of the human heart, old body, thou art 
 venerable. Thou 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 toucliing for the gaiety. 
 
 We wish the hackney-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. This is partly to be attributed to tiie 
 life which has most probably put him into his 
 situation ; partly to his want of outside pas- 
 sengers to cultivate liis gentility ; and partly 
 to the disputable nature of his fare, wliich al- 
 ways leads him to be lying and cheating. The 
 waterman of the stand, Avho 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 Falstaft' reversed, the cause 
 of disagreeableness in others ; for he sets 
 people upon disputing with him in pettiness 
 and ill-temper. He 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 piit 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 waiv^e 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 temj^er ; or, above all, let her 
 get wLser, 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. He hates the boy for imposing 
 upon liim, and the boys for reminding iiim that 
 he has been imposed upon ; and he would will- 
 ingly twinge the cheeks of all nine. The cut 
 of his whip over the coacli is malignant. He 
 has a constant eye to the road behind him. 
 He 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 purpose. 
 He speculates on wliat he may get above his 
 fare, according to your manners or company ; 
 and knows how much to ask for drivinc: faster 
 or slower than usual. He does not like wet 
 weather so much as people suppose ; for he 
 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 lumj). 
 Lovers, late sup])er-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-chai'ge, 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 place, 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- he 
 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. Tlie coachman, who 
 recollects taking iip 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 the cornerofaroadintheway 
 from Westminster to Kennington,near a stone- 
 mason's. It was a severe winter, and we were 
 oiit on a holiday, thinking, perhaps, of the gal- 
 lant hardships to which tlie ancient soldiers 
 accustomed themselves, when we suddenly be- 
 held a group of liackney-coachmen, not, as 
 Siienser 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 tlie 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 Epaminondases ! 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 tlirough 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 wliere, 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. 
 
 L.— 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 
 incontestably very striking and even apiialling. 
 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, jiroud, and unthinking creature, 
 caught and fixed down in a wasting trap, — the 
 calling upon her to come forth, and see if any 
 will nowbewon intolierai-ms, — the taunts about 
 the immortal balm which she thoue-ht 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 imagnatioii to shuddering. 
 
 No wonder tliat sucli an address made a sen- 
 sation, even upon the gaiety of a southern city. 
 
 * The reader will gather the suhstance of it from what 
 follows. The ode is to be found in the sixth vohimc of 
 the Parnaso Ualiano. A translation lias 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 grave, 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, when 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 picture 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, that 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 them with the consequences of 
 refusal. They have threats enough. If they 
 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 suj)orstitious 
 and patronised such productions, tlio next ago 
 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, with the feelings of
 
 20 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 what we are ; to be different, and yet tlie same. 
 Hypocliondria 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, stopped 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 ; but it is 
 ourselves, modified by our present totalities and 
 sensation, that we do pitch there. What we 
 may be otherwise, 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 tlie life by which 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, which 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, which 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 
 80on 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 punisher, — 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 evident 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 gayei", would turn to their usual re- 
 tlections 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 tlie 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 Avrote his life, all those troubles 
 were afterwards brought uj)on him and his 
 kingdom. Be this as it may, and sujjposing
 
 THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 21 
 
 the Ferrarese beauty to have been an unfeeling 
 one, the poet was not aware, while triuni])hing 
 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 tlie 
 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 witli 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 I'ise to a 
 series of fugitive evils in this — granting 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. Wiien 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. 
 
 LI.— THOUGHTS AND GUESSES ON 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 CONFUSION OF MODES OF BEING. 
 
 People undertake to settle wliat ideas they 
 shall have under such and such circumstances 
 of being, when it is nothing but their present 
 state of being that enables them to have those 
 ideas. 
 
 VARIETY OF THE COLOURS OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 There is reason to suppose, that our percep- 
 tions and sensations are more diifcreiit than we 
 imagine, even upon the most ordinary tilings, 
 such as visible objects in general, and the sense 
 of existence. We have enough in common, for 
 common intercourse ; but the details an^ dis- 
 similar, as we may perceive in the variety of 
 })alates. All peoj)le are agreed upon sweet 
 and sour ; but one man prefers sour to swec^t, 
 and aiiotlier this and that variety of sour and 
 
 sweet. "What then is the use of attempting to 
 make them agree V Why, we may try to make 
 tliem 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 tlieir stock of 
 ideas, though we cannot control the items of 
 the exj^enditure. 
 
 CANNOT. 
 
 " But what if we cannot do even this?" The 
 question is answered by experience. Whole 
 nations and ages have already been altered in 
 tlieir modes of thinking. Even if it were 
 otlierwise, 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 
 will. 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. The 
 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 sucli 
 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 th(! results tlieniselves 
 will be pleasureable or painful, according to 
 what they act upon. A man in health becomes
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 sickly ; he lias a fever, is light-headed, is 
 hypochondriacal. His ideas are deranged, or 
 re-arrange 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 different set of 
 perceptions and sensations. What we call 
 health of body and mind is the fittest state of 
 our composition iipon earth : but the state of 
 perception which is sickly to our state of exist- 
 ence may be healthy to another. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Of all impositions on tlie 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, tliat sometliing 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 lis 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 
 fresli and young feeling upon it, as in early 
 rising on a fine morning, whether in country or 
 town. Tlie 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-jjosses- 
 sion, in wliich a sick man must not despair of, 
 because he does not feel it the first morning. 
 But even this reform 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 unlioalthy mode of 
 life ; or one produces the otlier, 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, the better part of religion. If know- 
 
 ledge is supposed to be incompatible with it, 
 knowledge would sacrifice herself, if necessary, 
 to tlie 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 unhappinessexisted 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 without knowledge ; 
 another, with it. The former suffers and 
 does not know why. He is unhappy, and he 
 sees uuhappiness, 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 
 hiin perliaps, 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 game 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, 
 witli a bottle of wine at each end of it. Shak- 
 speare divided liis 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 heart" 
 was not so much out in this matter, as when 
 Jiis 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. The symphony is a little perturbed ; but 
 in what a sprightly manner the air sets off I 
 What purity ! What grace ! What 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. Nature 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 w^e must be 
 as we are, and seek excitement tlirongh the 
 same meaias, 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 which we agree 
 to call such, but much that is ranked under 
 the head of mere excitement, taking ho])e for 
 the ground of it, and action for the means. 
 But we have no right on that accoinit, to ab- 
 stain from endeavouring to bettor 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 st()]> ; 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 all 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 he can 
 sympathise with misery, and yet suffer infinite 
 misery to exist, i-ather 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- 
 fering,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 ns a bias, it becomes us on every ground, 
 both of ignorance and wisdom, to try. 
 
 DEGRADING 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 tyrant 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 Avliich they dare not own to them- 
 selves, and terror for the fate of those who are 
 not so lucky. The unfeeling l)igot is a mere 
 xmimaginative animal, -whose tiiouglitsare 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 
 Divine Providence," Walking about the deck
 
 24 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 at night to get rid of the chillness which would 
 occasionally visit our devotions to the starry 
 heavens and the sparkling sea, our foot came 
 in contact with something white, which was 
 lying gathered up in a heap. UiJon stooping 
 down, we found it to he a woman. The method- 
 ists had secured all the beds below, and were 
 not to be disturbed. 
 
 SUPERSTITION THE 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. 
 I'tut it does not follow, that we are to take for 
 granted the extremest 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 arms 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. 
 Suffering 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 deejier, out of a regret of virtue. Even in 
 envy may be discerned sometliing of an instinct 
 of justice, something of a wish to see fair jilay, 
 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, let us try. 
 
 ARTIFICE OF EXAGGERATED COMPLAINT. 
 
 Disappointment likes to make out bad to be 
 worse, in order to relieve the gnawing of its 
 actual Avound. 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 tliat witliout disquietude. The no- 
 velty of tlie sensation startles us. Montaigne, 
 like our modern beaux, was uneasy when he 
 did not feel himself braced up in liis clothing. 
 Prisoners have been known to wish to go back 
 to their prisons : invalids have missed the ac- 
 comjianimcnt 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. This is a good 
 thing, and shows the indestructible tendency 
 of nature to forego its troubles. Hut then re- 
 formers and innovators must arise upon that 
 very ground. To quarrel with them u])on a 
 principle of avowed spleen, is candid, and has 
 
 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 ad\dce ; 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. 
 
 HAPPINESS, HOW WE FOREGO IT. 
 
 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 i^rinciple 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 thing to fancy ! What a 
 beatitude to anticijiate ! Suppose, above all, 
 that there was no such tiling as love. Words 
 would be lost in anticipating that. " Eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard," Sec. 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. 
 
 LIL— THE HAMADRYAD*. 
 
 An Assyrian, of the name of Rhtecus, ob- 
 serving a fine old oak-tree ready to fall with 
 age, ordered it to be propped up. He was con- 
 tinuing 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. " Rhaecus," said she, " I am the 
 Nymph of the tree which you have saved from 
 ])erishiiig. 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 
 balmy 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 whispers, and 
 repay me with their honey and their thanks. 
 Ask what I can give you, Rhaecus, and you 
 shall liave it." 
 
 * See the Scholiast upon ApoUonius Rhodius, 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 the 
 Nynipli 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 Rhsecus as he 
 wished ; and said she would send a bee to 
 inform him of the liour of their meeting. 
 
 Who now was so delighted as Rhfecus ! 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 was 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. 
 
 Rhsecus 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 Nymph ; but his impatience seemed 
 to increase with his pride, and he gave the 
 poor insect such a brusli, as sent him away 
 crippled in botli his thiglis. 
 
 The bee returned to his mistress as well as 
 he could, and sliortly after was followed by his 
 joyous assailant, who came triumi)liing in the 
 success of his dice and liis gallantry. "I am 
 here," said the Plamadryad. Rhrocus looked 
 among the trees, but could see nobody. " I 
 am here," said a grave sweet voice, " right 
 before you." Rhsccus saw nothing. "Alas!" 
 said she, " Ehau-us,you cannot see me, nor will 
 you see me more. I had thouglit better of 
 your discernment and your kindness ; but you 
 were but gifted with a momentary siglit of me. 
 You will see nothing in future but common 
 things, and those sadly. You are struck blind 
 to everything else, 'llie liand that could strike 
 my bee with a lingering deatli, and prefer the 
 embracing of the dice-box to that of affec- 
 tionate Ijeauty, is not worthy of love and the 
 gi-een trees." 
 
 The wind sighed off to a distance, and 
 Rhsecus felt that he was alone. 
 
 LIII.—THE NURTURE OF TRIPTOLEMUS. 
 
 TuiPTOLEMUs was the son of Celeus, king 
 of Attica, by his wife Polymnia. During his 
 youth he felt such an ardour for knowledjre. 
 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 fi-om 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 
 liarj) ; his fine warm eyes looked staringly out 
 of tlieir 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 tlieir 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, Avitli her gigantic brows bent 
 over them, and surmounted witli a white fore- 
 head and a profusion of hair, looked here and 
 therewith an inteutness and adepth of yearning 
 indescribable. " Chairc, Dcmcter !" exclaimed 
 tlie king in a loud voice : — " Hail, creative 
 mother !" He raised tlie cry connnon at fes- 
 tivals, when they imagined a deity nuxnifesting 
 itself; and the priests poured out of their 
 dwellings, witii vestment and with incense, 
 which they held tremblingly aloft, turiung 
 down their pale faces from the gaze of the 
 passing goddess. 
 
 It was Ceres, looking for lier lost daughter 
 Proserpina. The eye of tlu> deity seemed to 
 have a greater severity in its earnestness, as
 
 2b' 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 she passed by tlie priests ; but at sight of a 
 chorus of youths and damsels, who dared to 
 lift up tlieir 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 her chamber, where she lay on the golden 
 bed usually assigned to her image. The 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 happier songs. Word was also given to 
 the city, that it should remit its fears and its 
 cares, and show all the happiness 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 return of a part of its gifts." 
 
 Such were the maxims which Ceres delighted 
 to utter during her abode at Eleusis, and which 
 afterwards formed the essence of her renowned 
 mysteries at that place. But the bigots, wlio 
 adopted and injured them, heard them witli 
 dismay ; for they were similar to what young 
 Triptolemus had uttei-ed in the aspirations of 
 his virtue. Tlie rest of the inhabitants gave 
 tliemselvesup to the joy, from which the 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 lieroism : 
 the young men souglit every den and fearful 
 place in tiie territory, to see if Proserpina was 
 tliere ; and the damsels vied who should give 
 them most kisses for their reward . " Oh 
 Dearest and Divinest IMother !" 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 
 daugliter, thy daugliter Proserpina, the dark, 
 the beautiful, the mother-loving ; whom some 
 god less geiun-ous tlian 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 whicli thou hast left wanting to us." 
 
 The goddess would weep at these twilight 
 hymns, consoling lierself for the absence of 
 Proserpina by tliinking how many daughters 
 she had made ha})i)y. 'J'rij)t()h'tinis shed weaker 
 tears at them in his secret bed, but they were 
 happier ones than before. " I shall die," 
 thought he, "merely from tlie bitter-sweet joy 
 of seeing the growth of a hapijiness wliich 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 ]iarents, " 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 ; but 
 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 jnit 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 thy task ; and gods work with instru- 
 ments. Thou hast not gone through all tliy 
 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 temple, 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. 
 
 as men expected. His health was restored, 
 liis 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 
 gi-ow 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 tlioughtful, 
 thoufrh nothing could be kinder in his manners 
 to evei-ybody, 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 temple 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 tliey 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 tlie goddess, "and thou knowest in tlie 
 
 very heart of thy knowledge, which is in the 
 
 sym])athy of it and the love. Thou seest 
 
 that difference is not difterenco, 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 wc 
 
 see, is. Tliou slialt prove it finally ; and this 
 
 is the last trial but one. Vision, conn' fortli." 
 
 A noise here took place, as of the entrance of 
 
 something exceedingly hurried and agonised, 
 
 but which remained fixed Avith 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." "0 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 siich 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 
 liarmonies, 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 thee 
 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 nuxny 
 things, retained, nevertheless, a certain mehyi- 
 clioly from his recollections, but it did not hin- 
 der him from sowing joy Avherever lie went. It 
 Incited him but the more to do so. Tlie success 
 of others stood him instead of his own. Ceres 
 gave him tlie first seeds of tlio corn that makes 
 broad, and sent liini in lier chariot round tlie 
 world, to teach nu'u 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. 
 
 LIV.— 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 write. There are multitudes of readers 
 whose society we can fancy ourselves enjoying, 
 though we liave never seen them ; but we are 
 more particularly apt to imagnie ourselves m 
 such and such company, according to the nature 
 of our articles. We are accustomed to say to 
 ourselves, if we happen to strike oif 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 H. — 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 following 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 underlook 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 easy Essays indicate a flow. 
 
 Dear Friend, of brain, wliich we may elsewhere seek ; 
 
 And to their pages I, and hundreds, owe, 
 
 That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week. 
 
 Such observation, wit, and sense, are shown, 
 
 We think the days of Bickeistaff return 'd ; 
 
 And that a portion of that oil you own. 
 
 In his undying midnight lamp which biu'n'd. 
 
 I would not liglitly bruise old Priscian's head. 
 
 Or wrong the rules of grammar 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, liave for the 
 most part shown to contemporary writers ; and 
 thence by a natural transition, of the generous 
 friendship thoy iiave manifested for each other. 
 Authors, like otlicr 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 tJie 
 humanity and tlie strength of genius. Wiiere 
 it is obscured, it is usually from sometliing 
 that has rendered it misantliropical. 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- 
 jjlies 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 tlie other day that Shakspeare had never 
 praised a contemporary author. We had me- 
 chanically given him credit for the manifes- 
 tation of every generosity under the sun ; and 
 we found the surprise aifect 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. What 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. 
 Hia 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 sliould 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 Pilgrim, 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 biograi^hers 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, the Lover's Com- 
 plaint. 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 would have to do much more 
 than disprove the authenticity of these poems, 
 before they made out Shakspeare to be a grudg-
 
 ON CO:\IMENDATORY VERSES. 
 
 29 
 
 ing author. They would have to undo the 
 modesty and kindliness of his other writings. 
 They woukl have to undo his universal charac- 
 ter for " gentleness," at a time when gentle 
 meant all that was nohle 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 un-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 
 1 those about him, we would sooner believe that 
 i sheer modesty had restrained his tongue, than 
 j 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 panegyrics 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 wiiich 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 distrust of 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 
 ai)plause ; 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 " scaling them of the tribe of Ben." 
 There was more in liiiii 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 Milton's riepbew Pliillips, in his Theatrum PiiHn- 
 mm. 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 formerly 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 hereaves ? 
 What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives? 
 When even there, where most thou praisest me, 
 For writing better, 1 must envy thee. 
 
 Observe the good effect which the use of the 
 word " religion " has here, though somewhat 
 ultra-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 Shepherdess ; 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 uppei-most 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 own. 
 
 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 nmte ; 
 
 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 1, agree 
 
 So ill, that but to do a right for thee, 
 
 I had not been persuaded to have hurl'd 
 
 Tliese 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 jiieces of conmiendatory 
 verse is Sir Walter Raleigh's upon the great
 
 30 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 poem of Spenser. He calls it " A Vision upon 
 the Faery Queen." 
 
 Jlethought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 
 Witliin that temple where the vestal flame 
 Was wont to burn : and passing by that way 
 To see that buried dust of living fame, 
 ANliose tomb fair Love, and fairer Virtue kept, 
 All suddenly I saw the Faery 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 him down on Laura's hearse. 
 Hereat the hardest 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. 
 
 This 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 tlie 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 graces were not seen. 
 
 The other mai-bles 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 rather 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 wotild. 
 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, lieginning, 
 
 ■\Mien 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 liow delighted we were 
 to find who Andrew ilarvell was, and that he 
 could be pleasant and lively as well as grave. 
 Spirited and worthy as tliis panegyric i.s, the 
 reader who is not thorouglily acquainted with 
 Marvell's history, does not know all its spirit 
 and worth. That true friend and excellent 
 patriot stuck to his old acquaintance, at a 
 I;eriod when canters and time-servers had 
 
 turned their backs upon hira, and when they 
 would have made the very knowledge of him, 
 which they had had the honour of sharing, the 
 ruin of those that put their desertion to the 
 blush. There is a noble burst of indignation 
 on this subject, in Marvell's prose works, 
 against a fellow of the name of Parker, who 
 succeeded in obtaining a bishopric. Parker 
 seems to have thought, that ^larvell would 
 have been afraid of acknowledging his old 
 acquaintance ; but so far from resembling the 
 bishop in that or any other particular, he not 
 only publicly proclaimed and gloried in the 
 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 gi-eat 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 he would never be a 
 jjoet), he also abused in a most unwarrantable 
 and otitrageous manner Sir Richard Steele, for 
 whose Tatler 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 cousciotisness, reserved for 
 the present times. But S\Wft'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 ISIrs. 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 he was afmid it con- 
 tained news of a friend's death. See how he 
 makes his very coarseness and irritability 
 contribute to a panegyric : — 
 
 A\lien Pope shall in one couplet fix 
 More tense 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 Garth 
 on his Dispensary, by a friend of the name of 
 Codrington. Codrington was one of those 
 happily-tempered spirits, who united the cha-
 
 A AVORD 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 honour about town," 
 
 The courtier's, scholar's, 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 POE.M. 
 
 Ask me not, friend, what I approve or hlame ; 
 Perhajjs 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 all 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 joj'. 
 
 The njTnph has Grafton's, Cecil's, Churchill's charms, 
 
 If with 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 hear 
 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 favourites, by inscribing 
 treatises with their names. It is thouglit a 
 strange thing in Xenophon tliat lie never 
 mentions Plato. The greater part of the mis- 
 cellaneous poetry of the Greeks is lost ; or we 
 should doubtless see numerous evidences of 
 t!ie intercourse of their authors. The Greek 
 poets of Sicily, Theocritus and ^Mosclius, are 
 affectionate in recording the merits of their 
 contemporaries. Varius and Gallus, two emi- 
 nent Roman poets, scarcely surviv<> ])ut in tbo 
 panegyrics of tlieir contein])oraries. Dante 
 notices his, and his predecessors. Petrarch and 
 Boccaccio publicly honoured, as they privately 
 
 loved one another. Tasso, the greatest 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 
 great 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, 
 Chaulieu, La Fare, D'Alembert, Voltaire, &c., 
 not excepting Boilean, 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. 
 
 LV.— A WORD UPON INDEXES. 
 
 Index-making has been held to be the 
 driest as well as lowest species of wi-iting. 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 scliool, 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 tlien the 
 names, though jjcrhaps loss unfitting, were not 
 so flattering ; as for instance, Halifax, Ham- 
 mond, Harte, Hughes, . We did not like 
 
 to come after Huglies. 
 
 We have just been looking at the indexes to 
 the Tatlerand Spectator, and never were more 
 forcibly struck witli the feeling we formerly 
 expressed about a man's Ix-iiig lietter pleased 
 with other writers tlian with liiinself. Our 
 index seemed the poorest and most second- 
 hand thing in tlie world after tlieirs ; but let 
 any one read theirs, and tlien call an index a 
 dry thing if he can. As th ere "is a soul of 
 * To the original edition of the Indicator.
 
 32 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 goodness in things e^al," 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. But as grapes, 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, — 
 
 " Bickerstaff, ^Ir. 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 is simplymoral and graceful ; 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 liimself, is often pithy 
 and amusing. Thus in Volume 2d, 
 
 "Anger is pleased with, and flatters itself, 01 8. 
 
 " Beasts inclined to avarice, 225. 
 
 " Children abandoned to the care and govern- 
 ment of their fathers, 613. 
 
 " Drunkenness, to a high and dead degree, 16. 
 
 "Joy, profound, has more severity than 
 gaiety in it. 
 
 " Monsters, are not so to God, 012. 
 
 "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 Historic of a Bristol ship stuck fast in 
 thedeepe Sea by Witchcraft ; for which twen tie- 
 five Witches were executed, ibid." 
 
 LVl.— AN OLD SCHOOL-BOOK. 
 
 There is a school-book by the egregious 
 •lohn 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 Pii-tus: 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 MaJe- 
 factonitn, is no more in his eyes than the making 
 of honey, or Mellificium. Shipwreck, being N'au- 
 fraijiiim, he holds in no graver light than a feast, 
 which is Conxirium; 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 Alonstrous People," cut as jaunty 
 a figure as his Adam and Eve, and seem to 
 pique themselves on their titles of Deformes 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." — 
 <)hl>(tmntem Canew, 6. The translation, observe, 
 is worthy of the original. Again : — 
 
 Woe to the mad 
 AVizards 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 
 rewaid with him. 
 
 V» dementibus 
 Magis et Lamiis, 
 qui CacodEemoni se dedunt 
 
 (inclusi Circulo,7- 
 eum advocantes 
 incantamentis) 
 cum eo colludunt 
 et a Deo deficiunt ! 
 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 the forbidden Tree, 4. 
 were condemned, (Five). 
 to misery and death, 
 with all their posterity, 
 and cast out of Paradise, 6. 
 
 Hi, seducti 
 a Diabolo sub specie 
 Serpentis, 3. 
 cum comederunt 
 de fructu vetitae Arboris, 4. 
 damnati sunt 5. 
 ad miseriam et mortem, 
 cum omni posteritate sua, 
 et ejecti e Paradiso, 6. 
 
 Opposite to this is the account of fish : — 
 
 Add Herrings, 7- 
 which are brought pickled, 
 and Plaice, 8. and Cod, 9. 
 which are brought dry ; 
 and the sea-monsters, Sft. 
 
 I Adde Haleces, 7. 
 qui salsi, 
 
 et Passeres, 8. cum Asellis, 9. 
 qui adferuntur arefacti ; 
 et 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 Bliss, 
 and the new Jerusalem, 5. 
 But the ^vicked 
 and the damned. 6. 
 with the Devils, 7 
 shall be thrust into Hell. 
 
 (No. 8.) 
 to be there tormented for 
 
 ever. 
 
 Ubi pii (justi) et Electi, 4. 
 
 intro'buntin vitam etemam. 
 
 in locum Beatitudinis. 
 
 et novam Hierosolymam, 5. 
 
 Inipii vero 
 
 et damnati, 6. 
 
 cum Cacodasmonibus, 7- 
 
 in Gehennam ,8. detrudentur, 
 ibi cruciandi sternum.
 
 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 
 cum mortuis 
 dMari, 9. in littora defertur. 
 
 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, ll. 
 
 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, 16. 
 
 are strapado'd, 17. 
 
 are 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 in 
 pieces with four Horses. 
 
 Malefici, 1. 
 
 producuntur 
 
 e Carcere, 3. 
 
 (ubi torqueri solent) 
 
 per Lictores, 2. 
 
 Quidam antequam supplicio 
 
 afficiantur eliguantur, 11. 
 
 aut plectuntur Manu, 12. 
 super cippum, 13. 
 aut Forcipibus, 14. uruntur. 
 Vita donati 
 
 constringunturNumellis, 16. 
 luxantur, 17- 
 imponuntur Equuleo, 18. 
 
 truncantur Auribus, 19. 
 
 CEedimtur Virgis, 20. 
 
 stigmate notantur, 
 
 relegantur, 
 
 damnantur 
 
 ad Triremes, 
 
 vel ad Carcerem perpetuam. 
 
 Perduelles discerpvmtur 
 quadrigis. 
 
 LVII.— OF DREAM.S. 
 
 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 with 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 primiim mobile, which is the 
 soul of everytliing. In the mean time, while 
 they go on witii 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 evoi-y- 
 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.] 
 
 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 medmm 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 brain, 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 writers, 
 we are of necessity dreamers ; for thinking 
 disposes the bodily faculties to be more than 
 usually affected by the causes that generally 
 produce dreaming. But 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 was not fond of the 
 wilder parts of the Arabian AHghts, 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 Montaigne 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 mind has been occupied with in 
 the course of the day, or even of mouths ; for 
 during our two years' confinement in prison, 
 we did not dream more than twice of our chief 
 subjects of refiection, the jirison itself not ex- 
 cepted.* The two dreams wei'e both connected 
 with the latter, and botii tlie same. We fancied 
 that we had slipped out of jail, and gone to 
 tlie theatre, where we were horrified by seeing 
 tiie faces of the whole audience unexpectedly 
 turned upon us. 
 
 * See a remarkable coincidence in the Essay on Dreams, 
 in Mr. Hazlitt's Plain Speaker.
 
 34 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 It is certain enough, however, that dreams 
 in general proceed from indigestion ; and it 
 appears nearly as much so, that they are more 
 or less strange according to the waking fancy 
 of the dreamer. 
 
 All dreams, as in old Galen I have read, 
 Are from repletion and complexion bred. 
 From rising fumes of indigested food. 
 And noxious humours that infect the blood. 
 —When choler overflows, then dreams are bred 
 Of flames, and all the family of red. 
 — Choler adust congeals the blood with fear. 
 Then black bulls toss us, and black devils tear. 
 In sanguine airy dreams aloft we bound. 
 With rheums oppress'd, we sink, in rivers drown'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; 
 W'hen 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 man dreams but what the boy believed ; 
 Sometimes we but rehearse a former play, .j 
 
 The night restores our actions done by day ; \ 
 
 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 tri\'ial degree of indi- 
 gestion will give rise to very fantastic dreams 
 in a fanciful mind ; while, on the other hand, 
 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." The 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 Charon's. 
 
 There is a passage in Lucian, which would 
 have made a good subject for those who painted 
 the temptations of the saints. It is a descrip- 
 tion of the City of Dreams, very lively and 
 crowded. We quote after Natalis Comes, not 
 having the True Histoiy 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 !-orts of somniculous plants, and the 
 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: 
 
 Where consort none other fowl. 
 Save tlie bat and sullen owl ; 
 Where flows Lethe without coil. 
 Softly, like a stream of oil. 
 
 Inner Temple Mask.) 
 
 There are two gates to the city : one of horn, 
 in which almost everything that can happen in 
 sleep is represented, as in a transparency ; the 
 other of ivory, in which the dreams are but 
 dimly shadowed. The principal temple is that 
 of Night ; and there are others, dedicated to 
 Truth and Falsehood, who have oracles. The 
 population consists of Dreams, who are of an 
 infinite variety of shape. Some are small and 
 slender ; others distorted, humped, and mon- 
 strous ; others proper and tall, with blooming 
 good-tempered faces. Others, again, have 
 terrible countenances, are winged, and seem 
 eternally threatening the city with some cala- 
 mity ; while others walk about in the pomp 
 and garniture of kings. If any mortal comes 
 into the jilace, 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 thinking another. 
 This is having a new advantage over us. 
 Only think of the mental reservation of a 
 Dream ! 
 
 If Lucian had divided his city into ranks 
 and denominations, he 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, who 
 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 
 pleasant, 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 wondei-ing 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 having 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 spring with 
 one's foot, so, and — oh ! it 's the easiest and
 
 OF DREAMS. 
 
 35 
 
 most obvious thing in the world. Ill 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 oppose 
 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 thescA-agaries, 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 wiiicli 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 head 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 
 merelyforlyingon their backs ; whiclishowshow 
 much it is concerned in a particular condition of 
 the frame. Sometimes it lies upon the chest like 
 a vital lump. Sometimes it comes in the gui.se 
 
 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 step. 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 prseternatural efl'ort, 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 Christahel, &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 Pains of Sleep. 
 
 Ere on my bed my limbs I lay. 
 
 It hath not been my use to pray 
 
 With moving lips on bended knees; 
 
 But 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, i 
 
 That I am weak, yet not unblest. 
 
 Since in me, round me, everywhere 
 
 Eternal Strength and Wisdom are. 
 
 But yester-night I pray'd aloud 
 
 In anguish and in agony. 
 
 Up-starting from the fiendish crowd 
 
 Of shapes and thoughts th.it 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 mix'd 
 
 On wild or hateful objects fix'd. 
 
 Fantastic passions ! niadd'ning brawl ' 
 
 And shame and terror over all ! 
 
 Deeds to be hid which were not hid. 
 
 Which all confused I could not know. 
 
 Whether I suft'er'd, or I did : 
 
 For all seem'd guilt, remorse or woe. 
 
 My own or others still the same. 
 
 Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame ! 
 
 So two nights passVl : the night's dismay 
 Sadden'd and stunn'd the coming day. 
 Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me 
 Distemper's worst calamity. 
 The third night, when my own loud scream 
 Had waked me from the fiendish dream, 
 n 2
 
 36 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, 
 
 1 wept as I had been a child ; 
 
 And having thus by tears subdued 
 
 3Iy anguish to a milder mood, 
 
 Sucli punishments, I said, were due 
 
 To natures deepliest stain'd with sin : 
 
 For aye entempcsting anew 
 
 Th' unfatliomable hell witliin 
 
 The horror of their deeds to view. 
 
 To know and loathe, yet wish to do ! 
 
 Such griefs with such men well agree. 
 
 But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ? 
 
 To be beloved is all I need, 
 
 And whom 1 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 wiiy we should have 
 any pains at all. It is enough for us, in our 
 attempt to diminish them, that there are more 
 pleasant than painful excitements in the world, 
 and that many pains are the causes of pleasure. 
 But what if tiiesp pains are for the same end ? 
 What if all this heaping and war of agonies 
 were owing to the author's liaving taken too 
 little exercise, or eaten a lieavier supper tlian 
 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 tiie particular offence, 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 subject 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 Kuhla 
 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. 
 Kubia Khan, whicli was meditated under the 
 effects of o]jium, 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 tliese 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 Kuhla 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 saw ; 
 It was an Abyssinian maid, 
 And on her dulcimer she play'd. 
 
 Singing of Mount Abora. 
 
 Could I revive within me 
 Her symphony and song, 
 To such a deep delight 'twould win me. 
 That with music loud and long 
 
 I would build that dome in air. 
 That sunny dome I those caves of ice ! 
 And all who heard should see them there. 
 And all should cry Beware, Beware, 
 His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
 Weave a circle round him thrice. 
 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 other 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 Milton'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 il soave mio fido 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 Ave 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- 
 'centures of a Lapdog, who blushing divinely, 
 had just uttered the words, " My Lord, 1 am 
 wholly yours," when she was awaked by the 
 jumping up of that officious httle puppy.
 
 A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE OTHER EXTREME. 
 
 37 
 
 LVIIL— A HUMAN ANIMAL, AND THE 
 OTHER EXTREME. 
 
 We met the other day M'ith 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 remember to have seen. The writer 
 does not give his authority for this particular 
 memoir, so that it was probably furnisiied 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, 
 tliat 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 tlie 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 1638, 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 
 
 freen cloth, and never all worth, when new, 
 ve 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 ti-ee. 
 " He kept all manner of sport hounds, that 
 run buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and 
 hawks, long and short-wing'd. Ho had all sorts 
 of nets for fisli ; he liad a walic in tlie New 
 Forest ; and in the manor of ("iirist Church : 
 this last supplied him with red deer, sea and 
 
 * Since writing this, we have discovered that the original 
 is in Ilutchins's Ilislory of Dorsetshire. Sec (iilpin's 
 Forest Scenery, or Drake's Shakspeare and 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 po])ular ; always 
 speaking kindly to tiie 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 
 brick,lay some terriers, and the choicest hounds 
 and spaniels. Seldom but two of the 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 migiit defend such 
 meat as he had no mind to jiart with to them. 
 
 " The windows, which were very large, served 
 for places to lay his arrows, cross-bows, stone- 
 bows, and other such lilve acoutreinents. The 
 corners of the room, full of the best chose 
 hunting and hawking poles. An oyster table 
 at the lower end ; wliich 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 tiiem. 
 
 " 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, wiiich 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 that 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 liouse 
 exactly observed. For lie never exceeded in 
 drink, or permitted it. 
 
 " On the other side was the door into an old 
 chapel, not used for devotion. Tiie pulpit, 
 as the safest place, whs never wanting of a 
 cold chine of beef, venison pasty, gammon of 
 bacon, or great api)le-pyc, witli tliick crust 
 extremely baked. His table cost him not much, 
 though it was good to eat at.
 
 38 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 "His sports supplied all but beef and mutton; 
 except Fridays, when he had the best of salt 
 fish (as well as other fish) he could get ; and 
 ■was the day his neighbours of best quality most 
 visited him. He never wanted a London pud- 
 ding, and always sung it in with ' My peart 
 lies therein-a.' He drank a glass or two of 
 wine at meals ; very often syrup of gilliflowers 
 in his sack ; and had always a tun glass witli- 
 out feet, stood by him, holding a pint of small 
 beer, which he often stirred with rosemary. 
 
 "He was well-natured,but soonangry; calling 
 his servants bastards and cuckoldy knaves ; 
 in one of which he often spoke truth to his own 
 knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of 
 the same man. He lived to be an hundred ; 
 never lost his eye-sight, but always wrote 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 
 his fish, now for his flesh, now fawning after 
 his uncouth fashion upon a pretty girl, and now 
 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. 
 
 BufiPon has a subtle answer to those who argue 
 for the rationality of bees. He says that tlie 
 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 wearing 
 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 l)lack, because it suits her com- 
 plexion, or is elegant at all times, or because 
 it is at once piquant and superior. 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 see that 
 
 his green suit was never worth five pounds ; 
 and nothing, we dare say, could have induced 
 him to let it mount up to that sum. He would 
 have had it grow on him, if he could, like a green 
 monkey. Tims again with his bowling-green. 
 It was not penuriousness that hindered liim 
 from altering it, but he had no more idea of 
 changing the place than the place itself. As 
 change of habit is frightful to some men, from 
 vivacity of aifection or imagination, and the 
 strangeness which theyanticipate 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 ferae natiirce, — 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 off" occasionally with 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, we 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 
 parlour. They might turn the lines of Chaucer 
 into an exclamation : — 
 
 What hawkis sitten on the perch above ! 
 What houndis liggen on the floor ado^vn ! 
 
 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 uj). The well-mouthed hounds begin 
 barking, the mastiff" bays, the terriers snap, the 
 hawks sidle and stare, the poultry gobble, the 
 cats growl and up with their backs. At last, 
 the Hastings 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 faitli, 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 with humanity in this ; 
 instance : — and third, that his proneness 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 hy 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 j)erhaps was partly 
 owing to his rank, which did not i-ender it 
 necessary to his importance to be emulous with 
 his bottle among the squires. As to some 
 grave questions connected with thepromiscuous 
 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 who 
 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 eveiy 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 sujjerficial, without sen- 
 timent, without choice, witliout a thousand 
 sensations of pleasure 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 preserves 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 course of his life, which many an 
 intellectual person might envy. His percep- 
 tions must have been of a vague sort, but 
 they were in all probability exquisitely clear 
 and imalloyed. He must have had all the 
 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 
 than ho did at fifteen, but as well. At a hun- 
 dred, he was truly an old boy, and no more 
 thought of putting on spectacles tlian an eagle. 
 Why should he ? His blood had run clear for 
 a century with exercise and natural living. He 
 had 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 turn his 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 Tatler under the name of Aspasia, — a 
 title which must have startled her a little. 
 But with the elegance of the paneg}Tic 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, with unaifected 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 owti 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 the 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 dcgi-ee ; 
 but the simplicity and humble thouglits of a 
 cottage are her more welcome entertainment. 
 Aspasia is a female philosopiier, who does not 
 only live up to the resignation of tlie most 
 retired lives of the ancient sagos, but also the 
 schemes and plans which tiiey thought beauti- 
 ful, though inimitable. This lady is the most 
 exact economist, witliout a])pearing busy ; the 
 most strictly virtuous, without tasting the 
 praise of it ; and shuns applause with as much
 
 40 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 industry as others do reproach. This character 
 is so particular, tliat it will be very easily fixed 
 on her only, by all that know her, but I dare 
 say she will be the last to find it out." — Tatler, 
 No.XLii.July 16, 1709. 
 
 Tliis character was written when Lady Eliza- 
 beth w^as twenty-eight*. She passed the rest 
 of her life agreeably to it, relieving families, 
 giving annuities, contributing to the mainte- 
 nance of schools and university-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 summary of her way of life in !Miss 
 Hays's Female Biography, — a work, by the way, 
 which contrives to be at once conventional and 
 libei'al, and ought to be in possession of all her 
 countrywomen. 
 
 Miss Hays infoi'ms us, that the close of this 
 excellent person'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 with a noble and sweet fortitude, described 
 in a very touching manner by another of her 
 biographei-s. " 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 such a sh/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, 
 17'^9, 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 acd body, and to everything that 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 happened 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 in attributed by the annotators to Congreve, — I 
 know not on what authoritj'. If I know anything of style, 
 I can swear it was Steele's. Tlie moral elegance and faith 
 of it, and the turn of the words, are all his. 
 
 from it I cannot tell, but this I can, that the 
 remembrance of it would now and then annoy 
 her spirit down into declining life." Miss Hays 
 concludes the memoir in the Female Biography 
 with informing us, that " she was fond of her 
 pen, and frequently employed herself in writ- 
 ing ; but, 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 the 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 specimen 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 Honourable 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 pleasing to 
 heaven, and made her a little too peremptory 
 against herself; but what hud 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 unfair and intolerable thing of her 
 to go on 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 spii-it 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 
 the less healthy state of her blood rendered 
 even a soul like hers liable to incursions of 
 melancholy to tke 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 
 tills 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 ])urpose upon 
 these assumptions, which are only good for 
 patience, not for action. WUliani Hastings
 
 RETURN OF AUTUMN. 
 
 41 
 
 was all bodily comfort ; Elizabeth Hastings 
 was all 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 conchision ? 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 our pleasure 
 should be founded in that of others. Those, 
 however, who hold rigid theories of morality 
 andyetpractise them not (which is much oftener 
 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 the 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. 
 
 LIX— 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 
 turni'd I'ound to the fire-place, our face ojjposite 
 a jjictured instead of a real landscape, and our 
 feet toasting upon a fender. 
 
 When some enjoyments go, others come. 
 The boys will now be gathering their nuts. 
 The trees will i)nt forth, in their l)ravely dying 
 leaves, all the colours of heaven and earth, 
 wliicli they have received from sun, and 
 rain, and soil. Nature, in her heaps of grain 
 and l)erries, will set bcfcre 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 cheapness is as good as dearness ; — a dis- 
 covery, we think, to wiiich 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 harvest's riches, which he 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 unadulterated shape, as grapes, 
 or sunshine, or well-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 
 hitroduced that was admired by the "immortal 
 Sliakspeare ! ! ! " 
 
 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 Signor Me- 
 canical Fello. 
 
 LX.— THE MAID-SERVANT* 
 
 Must be considered as young, or else she 
 has married tlio butcher, tlie butler, or her 
 cousin, or has otherwise settled into a cliaracter 
 distinct from her original one, so as to become 
 what is properly called the domestic. The 
 Maid-Servant^ in her apparel, is either slovenly 
 
 * In some respects, particularly of costume, this portrait 
 must be understood of originals existing twenty or thirty 
 years ago.
 
 42 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 and fine by turns, and dirty always ; or slie is 
 at all times neat and tight, and dressed ac- 
 cording to her station. In the latter case, her 
 ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuiF 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 jaimtily, 
 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 lier property, 
 such as a brass thimble, a pair 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 Sou theme's Oroonoko. 
 There is a piece of looking-glass in the Aviudow. 
 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 3Irs. Veal; the Story of 
 the Beautiful 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, tiie 
 other " a Trifle from INIargate ; " 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, tlie JIaid-servant sometimes 
 imitates her young mistress ; she puts her hair 
 in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally 
 contrives to be out of spirits. But her own 
 character and condition overcome all sophisti- 
 cations of this sort ; her shape, fortified by the 
 mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way ; 
 and exercise keeps her liealthy and cheerful. 
 From the same cause her temper is good ; 
 though she gets into little lieats when a stran- 
 ger is over saucy, or when she is told not to go 
 so 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." The tradesmen indeed, 
 with their compliments and arch looks, seldom 
 give her cause to complain. The milkman 
 bespeaks her good-humour for the day with 
 "Come, pretty maids:" — then follow the 
 butcher, the baker, the oilman, &c. all with 
 tiieir 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 oifice 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 thrust 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 
 part of her work is done by dinner-time ; and 
 nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest 
 to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of 
 it, when she calls it " a bit o' dinner." Thei-e 
 is the same sort of eloquence in her other 
 phrase, " a cup o' tea ; " but the old ones, and 
 the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea 
 in great houses, she goes with the other 
 servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my- 
 thoughts-like, and tells Mr. John to " have 
 done then ;" or if there is a ball given that 
 night, they throw open the doors, and make 
 use of the music up stairs to dance by. In 
 smaller houses, she receives the visits of her 
 aforesaid cousin ; and sits down alone, or with 
 a fellow maid-servant, to work ; talks of her 
 young master or mistress and Mr. Ivnns 
 (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 
 mere 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, wlien abroad, to be anything but 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 tlieir 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, tliinks 
 she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to 
 her, whatever is going forward, whether the play 
 or the music, or the waiting which makes others 
 impatient, or the munching of apples and 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 "Alexander 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 has been to Astley's and the Circus, 
 from M'liich she comes away, equally smitten 
 with the ridei-, and sore with laughing at the 
 clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure 
 she enjoys most. One of the completest of all 
 is the fair, where she walks through an endless 
 round of noise, and toys, and gallant appren- 
 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 .lohn 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 time as 
 he says he is ; or may she get home soon 
 enough and smiling enough to be as happy 
 again next time. 
 
 LXI.— 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 
 rustline: as she moves about the silence of her 
 room ; and she wears a nice cap with a lace 
 border, that comes under the chin. In a 
 placket at her side is an old enamelled watch, 
 unless it is locked up in a drawer of her toilet, 
 for fear of accidents. Her waist is ratiier 
 titrht and trim than otherwise, as she had a fine 
 one when young ; and she is not sorry if you 
 see a pair of her stockings on a table, that you 
 may be aware of the neatness of her leg and 
 foot. Contented with these and other evident 
 indications of a good shape, and letting her 
 young friends understand that she can afford to 
 obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and uses 
 them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, 
 
 and any heavier matter that is not likely to 
 come out with it, such as the change of a 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, andshej)herds 
 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 stiifled 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 witii 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 proper 
 colours ; the whole concluding witli an ABCand 
 numerals, and the name of the fair industrious, 
 expressing it to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1702." 
 Tlie 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 
 Spectator and Guardian, the Titrki!>h Spi/, a Bible 
 and Praiier Book, Yoiohi's Nii/ht Tliowjhts with a 
 piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs. Eowe's Devout 
 Bxercises of the Heart, Mrs. Glastfe's Cookerij, and 
 pei-haps Sir Charles Grandison, and Clarissa. 
 John Buncle is in the closet among the pickles 
 and preserves. The clock is on the landing- 
 place between the two room doors, where it 
 ticks audibly but quietly ; and the landing- 
 place, as well as the stairs, is carpeted to a 
 nicety. The house is most in character, and 
 properly coeval, if it is in a retired suburb, and 
 strongly built, with wainscot rather than paper 
 inside, and lockers in the windows. Before 
 the windows should be some quivering poplars. 
 Here the Old Lady receives a few quiet visitors 
 to tea, and perhaps an early game at cards : or 
 you may see her going out on the same kind ot 
 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. Slie thinks the young 
 women of the present day too forward, and the 
 men not respectful enough ; but hopes her 
 grandchildren will be better ; though she differs 
 with her daughter in several points respecting 
 their management. She sets little value on 
 the new accomplishments ; is a great though 
 delicate connoisseur in butcher's meat and all 
 sorts of housewifery ; and if you mention 
 waltzes, expatiates on tlie 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 church-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 INIr. Wilkes, 
 whom she describes as a sad, loose man, but 
 engaging. His plainness she tliinks 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- 
 berg ; and most probably for the last time of 
 all, to see the Princess Charlotte and Prince 
 
 Leopold. From this beatific vision she returned 
 with the same admiration as ever for the fine 
 comely appearance of the Duke of York and 
 the rest of the family, and great delight at 
 having had a near view of the Princess, whom 
 she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted 
 mittens, clasping them as passionately as she 
 can together, and calling her, in a transport of 
 mixed loyalty and self-love, a fine royal young 
 creature, and " Daughter of England." 
 
 LXII.— PULCI. 
 
 We present our readers with a prose abridg- 
 ment of the beginning of the Morgante 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 oi-acular or voiceful 
 part of his art, conversing almost exclusively 
 with the social feelings in their most familiar 
 language. 
 
 Luigi Pulci, the younger of three literary 
 brothers, v/as born the 15th of December (3d, 
 O.S.), 1431. His family was noble, and pro- 
 bably gave their name to the district of IMonte 
 Pulciano, famous for the supereminence of its 
 wine. It was a fit soil for him to grow in. He 
 liad an enviable lot, with nothing to interrupt 
 his vivacity ; passing his life in the shades of 
 ease and retirement, and " warbling his native 
 wood-notes wild," without fear of hawks from 
 above, or lurking reptiles from below. Am.ong 
 his principal friends were, Politian, Lorenzo de 
 Medici, and the latter's mother, Lucrezia Tor- 
 nabuona. He speaks affectionately of lier 
 memory at the close of his work. At Lorenzo's 
 table he was a constant guest ; and at this 
 table, where it is possible that the future pope, 
 Leo the Tenth, was present as a little boy, he 
 is said to have read, as he produced it, that 
 remarkable 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 there was much scepticism in those 
 days, as there always must be where there is 
 great vivacity of mind, with great demands 
 uj)on its credulity. But we must take care 
 how we pronounce upon the real spirit of 
 
 * Leo was bora in 1475, forty-four years after the birth 
 of Piiici ; so that, supposing the latter to have arrived at 
 anytliing lil^o length of days, he may have had the young 
 Father of the Faithful for an auditor.
 
 PULCI. 
 
 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 earthly 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 laughable 
 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 tiieir 
 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 
 heart. 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 tlie 
 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 ])art of 
 the style of Voltaire. The character of Mar- 
 gutte, who makes his appearance in Canto 18, 
 and carries this stylo to its height, is no less 
 remarkable as an anticipation of the most im- 
 pudent portraits of jirofessod worhUiness, and 
 seems to warrant the suspicions entertained 
 respecting the grosser sceptics of that age, 
 while it shows the light in which they were 
 
 regarded by the more refined. In Margutte's 
 panegyrics upon what he liked, appear to be 
 the seeds of Berni and his followers. One of 
 tlie best things to be said of the serious cha- 
 racters of Puici, 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 lilie yourself ; 
 whereas, in Ariosto, with all his humanity, the 
 knujhts 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 Parnaso Italiano, 
 with all his courtesies towards established 
 things, says, in distinguishing the efi^ect 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 Charles 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 
 Englisliman, 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 Name, 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 have Orlando for our 
 master ? I have tiiouglit 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 liis : and we have resolved not to be 
 governed by a boy. You began in Asj)ramont 
 to give him to understand how valiant he was, 
 and that he 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. Tlie truth is, lie has an eye upon 
 the crown. This, Ciiarles, is the worthy who 
 has deserved so much ! All your generals are
 
 46 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 afflicted at it. As for me, I shall repass those 
 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 should speak so, but much more that Charles 
 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 
 lier for Ganelloiae. 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 stej) 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 gi'eat mountain, 
 inhabited by three fierce giants, one of whom 
 was named Passamonte, another Alabastro, and 
 the third Jlorgante ; and these giants used to 
 disturb the abbey, by throwing things down 
 upon it from the mountain Avith 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 tlie 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 jjer- 
 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 regaled with 
 stones, which the giants rain upon us from the 
 mountain. These are our nice liits and relishes. 
 The fiercest of the giants, Alorgante, plucks up 
 jiines and other great trees by the roots, and 
 casts them on us." While they were talking 
 thus in the cemetery, there came astonCj whicli 
 seemed as if it would break Rondel's back. 
 " For God's sake, cavalier," said the abbot, 
 " come in, for the nutnna is fall uu;." " !My dear 
 al)bot," 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 present 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 would 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 mastino. 
 
 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 skull ; 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 Father and the Word. 
 
 The Paladin went on, seeking for Alabastro, 
 the second giant ; who, when he saw him, 
 endeavoured to pluck up a gi-eat jjiece 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. 
 
 ]\Iorgante, the third giant, had a palace 
 made of earth, and boughs, and shingle-s, 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 had a bewildering dreara.
 
 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 Providence 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 Alahastro are already as cold 
 as a couple of pilasters." " Noble knight," 
 said Morgante, " do me no ill ; but if you are 
 a Christian, tell me in courtesy who you are." 
 " I will satisfy you of my faith," replied 
 Orlando : " 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 
 dreadful 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 Morgante. 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 practise 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 
 will ;" and he told him that he was Orlando. 
 
 " Blessed Jesus be thanked," said the giant, 
 " for I have always heai'd 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 ho, " are all agreed, that if those 
 who are glorified in heaven, were to feel pity 
 for their miserable kindred, who lie in such 
 horrn)le confusion in hell, their beatitude; 
 would come to nothing ; and this, you see, 
 would plainly be unjust on the part of God. 
 But such is the firmness of their faith, that 
 what appears good to him, appears good to 
 them. Do what lie may, they bold it to bo 
 done well, and that it is impossible for him to 
 err ; so that if their very fathers and motliers 
 are suffering 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 
 sm-e 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 
 off 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 sufier this giant to come 
 in r' And when the abbot saw the giant, he 
 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 INIorgante 
 showing the hands in proof of his faith, the 
 abbot thanked heaven with great contentment 
 of mind. 
 
 The abbot did much honour to IMorgante, 
 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 Avhich pleased him, and he 
 fastened it on. Now there was in the place a 
 great scarcity of water ; and Orlando said, like 
 his good brother, " Morgante, I wish you would 
 fetch us some water." " Command me as you 
 please," said he ; and placing a great tub upon 
 his shoulders, he went towards a spring at 
 which he had been accustomed to drink at the 
 foot of the mountain. Having reached the 
 spring, he suddenly heard a great noise in the 
 forest. He took an arrow from 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, Avithout giving liini 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 tiien placed the tub full of 
 water upon one shoulder and the two poi'kers 
 on tiie other, and returned to the abbey, which 
 was at some distance, without spilling a drop. 
 
 The monks were delighted to see the fresh 
 water, but still more to see tlie pork ; for there 
 is no animal to wlioni food conu'S amiss. They 
 let their breviaries tiierefore go to sleep awiiile, 
 and fell heartily to work, so that the cats and
 
 48 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 dogs had reason to lament the polish of the 
 bones. 
 
 " Now, why do we stay here, doing nothing?" 
 said Orlando, one day, to Morgante ; and he 
 shook hands with the abbot, and told him he 
 must take his leave. " I must go," said he, 
 " and make up 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 God, 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." 
 
 Wlien 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 inhabit. We are but poor men of the 
 cloister, better able to regale you with masses, 
 and orisons, and paternostei'S, than with dinners 
 and suppers. 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 tlie other hand, 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 within us ; for so much pertur- 
 bation had those giants cast about our place, 
 that the way to the Lord among us was blocked 
 up. 3Iay he wlio 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 read your Bible, and your virtue 
 has been the means of sliowing the giant the 
 way to heaven. Go in peace, and prosper, 
 whoever you may be. 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 Oi-- 
 lando, " that I will accept with jjleasure." 
 " Come and see," said the abbot ; and tliey 
 went into a room that was full of old armour. 
 Morgante examined everything, but could find 
 nothing large enough, except a rusty breast- 
 plate, wliicli fitted him marvellously. It had 
 belonged to an enormous giant, wlio was killed 
 there of old, by Milo of Angrante. There was 
 
 a painting on the wall, which told the whole 
 story : how the giant had laid cruel and long 
 siege to the abbey ; and how he had been over- 
 thrown at last by the great Milo. Orlando 
 seeing this, said within himself : — " Oh God ! 
 unto whom all things are known, how came 
 Milo here, who destroyed this giant ?" And 
 reading certain inscriptions which were there, 
 he could no longer keep a firm countenance, 
 but the tears ran down liis cheeks. 
 
 When the abbot saw Orlando weep, and his 
 brow redden, and the light of his eyes become 
 childlike, 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 chamber. You must know that I am of 
 high descent, though not through lawful wed- 
 lock. I believe I may say, I am nephew or 
 sister's son to no less a man than that Rinaldo, 
 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 IMilo 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, " My dear abbot and kinsman, 
 he before you is your Orlando." Upon this, 
 they ran for tenderness into each other's arms, 
 weeping on botli 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 lis, 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 aiTive 
 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 
 through 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 niglit do you 
 ride about, holding your sword, and sweating 
 oft both in sun and sliadow, 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 
 
 LXIII.— 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 aftbrd 
 me ; to wit, a table of high-piled books at my 
 back, my writing-desk on one side of me, some 
 shelves on 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 afforded 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 Dry- 
 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 Chapman's Homer. At the same 
 time I wondered how he could sit in that front 
 room of his with nothing but a few unfeeling 
 tables and chairs, or at best a few engravings 
 in trim frames, instead of putting a couple of 
 arm-chairs into the back-room witli 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 weathei-. If the wind 
 comes through a passage, I look about to see 
 how I can fence it oft' by a better disposition 
 of my moveables ; if a melancholy thought is 
 importunate, I give another glance &im\ 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, tliough 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 sunny 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 tlie country. 
 I remembered at the very Avorst, tliat one end 
 of my native hind was not nearer the other 
 than England is to Italy. 
 
 While writing this article I am in my study 
 again. Like tlie rooms in all houses in this 
 country which are not hovels, it is handsome 
 
 * This and the following paper was written (luring the 
 author's residence in Italy. The use of the first person 
 singular instead of plural, was involuntary. 
 [part II.] 
 
 and ornamented. On 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 aft'ectionately 
 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 eff'eminate, 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 sense 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 
 astoniskes 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 liljrary to study in, I 
 mean an immense apartment, with books all 
 in INIuseum 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 helj) yourself ; 
 the not knowing whether j'ou really ought to 
 trouble the messengers, much less the ijentleman 
 in black, or brown, whojs,perha])s, halfa trustee ; 
 Avitli a varietyof other jarrings between privacy 
 and publicity, prevent one's settling heartily to 
 work. Tl ley say "they manage these things 
 better in France ;" and I dare say they do ; 
 but I think I should feel still more distrait in 
 France, in spite of the benevolence of the servi- 
 tors, and the generous profusion of ))en, ink, and 
 paper. I should feel as if I were doing nothing 
 but interciianging amenities with polite writers. 
 
 A grand private library, which the master of
 
 50 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 the house also makes his study, never looks to 
 me like a real place of books, much less of 
 authorship. I cannot take kindly to it. It is 
 certainly not out of envy ; for three parts of 
 the books are generally trash, and I can seldom 
 think of the rest and the proprietor together. 
 It reminds me of a fine gentleman, of a collector, 
 of a patron, of Gil Bias and the IMarquis of 
 Marialva ; of anything but genius and comfort. 
 I have a particular hatred of a round table 
 (not the Round Table, for that was a dining 
 one) covered and irradiated with books, and 
 never met with one in the house of a clever 
 man but once. It is the reverse of Montaigne's 
 Round Tower. Instead of bringing the books 
 around you, they 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 Avell as the books of my friends. 
 I long to meddle, and dispose them after my 
 own notions. When 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 him. 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 philosopliy 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 Cliaucer at nine and two- 
 pence ; now a Montaigne or a Sir Thomas 
 Browne at two shillings ; now a .Teremy Tay- 
 lor ; a Spinoza ; an old English Dramatist, 
 Prior, and Sir Philip Sidney ; and the books 
 are " neat as imported." The very perusal of 
 the backs is a " discipline of humanity." There 
 Mr. Southey takes his place again with an old 
 Radical friend : there Jeremy Collier is at 
 peace with Dryden : there the lion, ]\Iartin 
 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 " high 
 fantastical " Duchess of Newcastle, with her 
 laurel on her head, is received with grave 
 honours, and not the less for declining to 
 trouble herself wilh the constitutions of her 
 maids. There is an approach to this in the 
 library of W. C. who also includes Italian 
 among his humanities. W. 11., I believe, has 
 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 who loves his volume enough to read 
 it across the fields, has his library in the com- 
 mon sitting-room, which is hospitable. 11. 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 three feet by four, with 
 an injunction that it was always to stand on 
 the tea-table. I remember borrowing a book 
 of H. R. which, having lost, I replaced with a 
 copy equally well bound. I am not sure I 
 should have been in such haste, even to return 
 thebook,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 v/aived 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 Montaigne,but because 
 I have been a meek son in the family of book- 
 losers. I may aflSrm, 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 
 squeaniishness 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 be done was for 
 anothei'. 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 books, 
 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 happy moments 
 over the stalls, as any literary apprentice boy 
 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 ]\Iilton, the 
 Arabian Nights, Theocritus, Ariosto, and such 
 old good-natured speculations as Plutai-ch's 
 Morals. For most of these I like a plain good 
 old binding, never mind liow 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 witli me as much as when I was a child : 
 and I think some books, such as Prior's Poems, 
 ought always to have portraits of the authors. 
 Prior's airy face with his cap on, is like having 
 his company. From early association, no 
 edition of jMilton pleases me so much, as that 
 in which there are pictures of the Devil with 
 brute ears, dressed like a Roman General : 
 nor of Bunyan, as the one containing the print 
 of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, with the 
 Devil whispering in Christian's ear, or old 
 Pope by the way side, and 
 
 " Vanity Fair, 
 AVith 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 Enfield's Speaker, the Looking- 
 Glass, or some sucli book ; and even of the 
 careless school-boy hats, and the prim sto- 
 macliers 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 Brhbh 
 Poets and Novelists 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 si'ch works as the Fai7'y Tales, 
 which Mr. Cooke did not publish. Besides, 
 they are too cramped, tliick, 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 groat deal of 
 matter, and a large type :" — for the type; was 
 really large for so small a volume. Shall 1 
 ever forget his Collins and his Gray, books at 
 once so "superbly ornamented" and so incon- 
 ceivably clieap? Sixpence could prociirt! niucli 
 before ; but never could it procure so mucli as 
 then, or was at once so mucli respected, and so 
 little cared for. His artist Kirk was tlie l)ost 
 artist, except Stothard, tiiat ever designed f(ir 
 periodical works ; and I will venture to add 
 (if his namcrigiitly announces his country) tiie 
 best artist Scotland ever produced, except 
 
 Wilkie, but he unfortunately had not enough 
 of his country in liim 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 ])layed 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." The 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 imder- 
 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 sympathy by its 
 map-like volumes, rolled upon cylinders. Our 
 imagination cannot take kindly to a yard of 
 wit, or to thirty inches of moral observation, 
 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, Pliny, 
 Horace, Julian, and ^Marcus Aurelius. Virgil, 
 too, must have been one ; and, after a fashion, 
 INIartial. May I confess, that the passage 
 which I recollect with tiie 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 
 ofi^ to some purpose : " Delectant dumi, non iiiipe- 
 dittnt foris ; peregrinantur, rusticantur," I am so 
 mucli of tliis opinion, that I do not care to be 
 anywhere witiiout liaving a book or books at 
 hand, and like Dr. Orkborne, in the novel of 
 Camilla, stuflP the coacii or post-ciiaise with 
 them whenever I travel. As books, however, 
 become ancient, the love of tliem becomes 
 more imequivocal 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. Tlie scholar, in Chaucer, who 
 would rather have 
 
 At his bcddos hcnd 
 A twenty bokt-s, cluthed. in black and red, 
 Of Aristotle and his philnsnpby, 
 Than robt'S rich, or fiddle, ur psaltrie,— 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 doubtless beat all our modern collectors in his 
 passion for reading ; but books must at least 
 exist, and have acquired an eminence, before 
 their lovers can make themselves known. 
 There must be a possession, also, to perfect 
 the communion ; and the mere contact is 
 much, even when our mistress speaks an 
 unknown language. Dante puts Homer, the 
 great ancient, in his Elysium, upon trust ; but 
 a few years afterwards. Homer, 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 God." 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 does not often happen. 
 He copied out, with his own precious hand, 
 the manuscripts he rescued from time, and 
 then produced 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 WTote 
 (for he did write some tiresome ones, in spite 
 of the gaiety of his Decameron), without think- 
 ing, that in that 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 they are called, 
 
 (Cui cieco a torto il cieco volgo appella — ) 
 
 or in the gay town days of Charles II., or a 
 little afterwards. In both times the portrait 
 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 scliolar walks forth to 
 meditate, his precious volume under liis arm. 
 In the other, I have a triumphant example of 
 the ])0wer 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 liis jolly 
 duodecimo with all the learning that he laughed 
 at ; and a new race of book poets come up, 
 w]io, 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 Frencli of their egotism, or at least to 
 share it witli them. Nature never pretended 
 to do as much. And here is the dift'erence 
 between the two ages, or between any two 
 ages in which genius and art jaredominate. 
 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 evidences of the importance of the 
 individuals, and j)roofs of our descent in the 
 new and imperishable aristocracy. This is 
 the reason wliy rank (witli few exceptions) is 
 so jealous of literature, and loves to appropri- 
 ate or withhold the honours of it, as if they 
 
 were so many toys and ribbons, like its own. 
 It has an instinct that the two pretensions are 
 incompatible. "When Montaigne (a real lover 
 of books) aftected the order of St. Michael, and 
 pleased himself with possessing that fugitive 
 little piece of importance, he did it because he 
 would pretend to be above nothing 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 praising and 
 loving all higher and lasting things, and by 
 placing 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 by 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 " tliorny queaches " of 
 Dutch and Gei-man names into the "vacant 
 interlunar caves " of appellations latinised or 
 translated. I think I see all their volumes 
 now, filling the shelves of a dozen German 
 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 
 Prcvstui'i'is Dcemoninn, was one of them, and had a 
 fancy wortliy 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 Aortte Aneurhmate 
 to bed with me ? How could I expect to walk 
 before the face of nature with the one ; to tire 
 my elbow properly with the other, before I 
 put out my candle, and turn round deliciously 
 on the right side ? Or how could I stick up
 
 MY BOOKS. 
 
 53 
 
 Coke upon Littleton against sometliing on the 
 dinner-table, and be divided between a fresh 
 paragraph and a monthful of salad ? 
 
 I take our four great English poets to have 
 all been fond of reading. jNIilton and Chaucer 
 proclaim themselves for hard sitters at books. 
 Spenser's reading is e^-ident 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 maukind ; 
 and any country town would be ^olitude 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 all 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 bookes 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 game none, 
 
 That fro my bookes makcth me to gone, 
 
 But it is seldome on the holy dale ; 
 
 Save certainly whan that the month of May 
 
 Is comen, and that I hear the foules sing, 
 
 And that the floures ginnen for to spring. 
 
 Farewell my booke and my devocion. 
 
 The 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, 
 Altliough thou mayst go in the daunse 
 Of hem, that him list not advance ; 
 Therefore as 1 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, 
 JVo of nothing else that God made. 
 And not only fro ferre countree, 
 But no tidings commen to thee, 
 Not of thy very neighbouris. 
 That dwi'Uen almost at thy dores ; 
 Thou hcarest 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 donibe as anie stone, 
 Thou sittcst 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 
 inactivity. " 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 exception. 
 Pope does not strike me as being a bookman ; 
 he was curious rather than enthusiastic ; more 
 nice than wise ; he dabbled in modern Latin 
 jjoetry, 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 iip 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 
 e:^pense 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 jjroceed 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 Kamblers, as there is in 
 going to church. Addison and Steele under- 
 took to regulate the minor morals of society, 
 and efiected 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 (,'rcbillon 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 himself: he had not health and spirits for 
 the literary voluptuousness he desired. Collins, 
 for the same reason, could not employ himself; 
 he was obliged to dream over Arabian tales, to 
 let the light of the supernatural world half in 
 upon his eyes. " He loved," as Johnson says, 
 (in that strain of music, inspired by tenderness,) 
 " fairies, genii, giants, and monsters ; he de- 
 lighted to rove through the meanders of en- 
 chantment, to gaze on the magnificence of 
 golden palaces, to repose by the Avaterfalls 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 Alilton. If his 
 friend Thomas Warton had had a little more 
 of his delicacy of organisation, the love of 
 books would almost have made him a poet. 
 His edition of the minor poems of Milton is a 
 wildei'ness of sweets. It is the only one in 
 which a true lover of the original can pardon 
 an 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 hinc glomerantur Oreades. 
 Hue ades, o forniose puer: tibi lilia plenis 
 Ecce ferunt nymphEB calathis : tibi Candida Nais 
 Pallentes violas et summa papavera oarpens, 
 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 fishermen, 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 heraldry and the .lewish doctors. His 
 T'otAe Talk is equally pithy and pleasant, and 
 truly worthy of tlie 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. Chapman 
 sat among his books, like an astrologer among 
 his spheres and altitudes. 
 
 How pleasant it is to reflect, that all these 
 
 lovers of books have themselves become books! 
 What better metamorphosis could Pythagoras 
 have desired ! How Ovid and Horace exulted 
 in anticipating theirs ! And how the world 
 have justified their exultation ! They had a 
 right to triumph over brass and marble. It is i 
 the only visible change which changes no j 
 farther ; which generates and yet is not de- I 
 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 citta, muoiono i regni, 
 
 E 1' uom d' esser mortal par che 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 
 veneralile, 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 Milton, can be 
 gathered together 
 
 The assembled souls of all that men held wise. 
 
 INIay 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, 
 Then 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. 
 But 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 such 
 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 
 
 LXIV.—BEES, BUTTERFLIES, &c. 
 
 WITH THE CONSIDERATION OF A CURIOUS ARGUMENT, 
 DRAWN FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HIVE. 
 
 Alexander said, that if he were not Alex- 
 ander, he should wish to be Diogenes. Reader, 
 wiiat sort of animal would you be, if you were 
 obliged to be one, and were not a man ? . 
 
 Irish Reader : — A woman. 
 
 Oh, ho ! The choice is judicious, but not to 
 tlie 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 pretty, 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. Tliey 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 bad 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 offish. It was the inconsiderate laugh 
 of Johnson, upon his mention of it, that pro- 
 duced that excellent retort on the Doctor's 
 grandiosity of style : " If you were to describe 
 little fish conversing, you would make them 
 talk like great whales." 
 
 How diff'erent 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 tliey stick for hours 
 together on a wall or a pane of glass, apparently 
 stupid and insensible ? What may not the 
 eagle see in the sky, beyond the capabilities of 
 our vision ? And on the other hand, what 
 jiossibilities of visible existence round about 
 them may they not realise ; what creatures not 
 cognisable by our senses ? There is reason to 
 
 believe in the existence of myriads of earthly 
 creatures, who are not conscious of the presence 
 of man. Why may not man be unconscious 
 of others, even at his side I There are minute 
 insects tliat evidently know nothing of tlie 
 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 
 what, 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 three per cents. ; 
 no, nor even of the Court Guide. 
 
 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 privilege 
 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 j 
 total absence from human cares, nobody has ; 
 painted animal enjoyment better than the most 
 luxurious of poets, Spenser, in the description 
 of his Butterfly. La Fontaine called himself 
 the Butterfly of Parnassus ; but we defy him 
 to have produced anything like the abundance 
 and continuity of the following iiicture, 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 iiere : 
 and Marino, another exuberant genius of the 
 south of Italy, is too apt to run the faults of 
 
 I 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- 
 
 j tures flutter across a garden, thinks how pretty 
 and sprightly 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 : — 
 
 Thus the fresh Clarion, being rcadie dight. 
 
 Unto his journey did himsclfe addrcssc. 
 And with good speed began to take liis flight 
 
 Over the fields, in hisfranke lusliiiesse ,- 
 And all the cliampaine o'er he soared light. 
 
 And all the countrcy wide he did pussrssc. 
 Feeding upon tlieir pleasures bounteouslie, 
 That none gainsaid, nor none did him envie.
 
 oG 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 The woods, the rivers, and the medowes greene, 
 AVith his aire-cutting wings he measured wide, 
 
 Tse did lie leave the moiintaines bare unseene, 
 Nor the raiikc (jrassie/ennes fldifjhts untride. 
 
 But none of these, however sweet they beene, 
 Mote please his fancie, nor him cause f abide: 
 
 His choicefuU sense with every change doth flit : 
 
 No common things may please a wavering wit. 
 
 To the gay gardins his unstaid desire 
 
 Him wholly carried, to refresh his sprights: 
 
 There lavish Nature, in her best attire, 
 
 Powres forth sweet odors and alluring sights ; 
 
 And Arte, with her contending, doth aspire 
 T'cxcell the naturall with made delights: 
 
 And all, that faire or pleasant may be found, 
 
 In riotous t'xcesse 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 fiowre and herbe there set in order ; 
 
 Now this, now that, he tasteth tenderly, 
 Yet none of tliem he rudely doth disorder, 
 
 Ne with his feete their silken leaves deface, 
 
 liut pastures on the pleasures of each place. , 
 
 And evermore, with most varietie. 
 
 And change of sweetness (for all change is sweet) 
 He casts his plutton sense to satisfie, 
 
 Now sucking of the 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 percheth on some branch thereby. 
 To weather him, and his mojst 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 raigning in the pride of May, 
 
 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-quiekening setuale, 
 
 Veyne-healing verven, and head-purging dill, 
 Sound savorie, and basil hartie-hale. 
 
 Fat ooleworts, and comforting perseline. 
 
 Cool lettuce, and refreshing rosmarine; 
 
 And whatso else of vertue good or ill 
 
 Grew in this gardin./f/cA'rf/rom/flr away. 
 
 Of every one he takes, and tastes at will. 
 And on their pleasures /7?-ee(/i7(/ doth prey. 
 
 Then when he hath both plaid, and fed at fill, 
 In the warrne sunnc he doth himselfe embay. 
 
 And there him rests in riotous s'iffisaunce 
 
 Of all his gladfulness, and kingly joyaunce. 
 
 Nothing, it might be supposed, cotild be said 
 after this : and yet the poet strikes tip a ques- 
 tion, in a tone liive a flourish of trumpets, after 
 this royal dinner : — 
 
 What more fe.licitic can fall to creature. 
 
 Than to enjoy delight ivith libertie 
 And to be lord of all the u-orkcs of Nature 9 
 
 To reignc in the aire from th' earth to highest skie, 
 To feed on flowers, and weedes of 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, should the time come 
 when they have nothing 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 we 
 are in the habit of doing ; and may be lords, if 
 not of " all tlie 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 the poet's eye, notwithstanding 
 his epical impartiality, when he talks thus of 
 the universal empire of his hero. 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 Avitli 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. 
 IMan 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 
 thing that breathes of conse(|uence 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, the 
 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 (IloiTjTi;?, 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 wi-itten, taken from 
 no mightier a sphere than one of his parlour 
 windows : — 
 
 " Untameable as flies." 
 
 Imagine the endeavour to tame a ftj ! 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, wliether he even sees you ; at least to 
 any j)urpose of recognitiou. 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 buttei"fly luxury, and 
 that the man does not mix with it. It is 
 not the definite, exclusive, and characteristic 
 thinof desiderated bv 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 antennse and 
 his feathers (for his wings are full of them), 
 and the way in which they modify, or become 
 affected by his enjo}Tnents. 
 
 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 sjtu- 
 pathy ; and hence arises a pleasant incongruity, 
 allied to other mixtures of truth and fiction. 
 One of the animals avIucIi a generous and soci- 
 able man would soonest become, is a dog. A 
 dog can liave a friend ; he has affections and 
 character, lie can enjoy equally the field and 
 the fireside ; he dreams, he caresses, he pro- 
 pitiates ; he offends, and is pardoned ; he stands 
 by you in adversity ; he is a good fellow. We 
 woidd sooner be a dog than many of his masters. 
 And yet what lover of dogs, or contemner of 
 his own species, or most trusting reader of 
 Ovid, could think with comfort of suddenly 
 falling on all-fours, and scampering about with 
 his nose to tlie ground ! Who would like to 
 lap when he was thirsty ; or, as Marvell pre- 
 ; tended his hungi-y poet did — 
 
 " With griesly tongue to dart the passing flies ? " 
 
 Swift might have fancied, when he wrote his 
 i Ilouhhynnms, that he could fain have been a 
 
 horse ; yet he was obliged to take human vir- 
 tues along with him, even to adorn his rebnkers 
 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 2 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 amlution 
 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 Mould 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 
 jacket, as he is carried about the streets, eager- 
 faced yet indifferent — 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. Sheep, 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 tlie hunts- 
 man, who is the devil. Fancy the being com- 
 pelled 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 burstiug ! 
 
 No, dear and grave, and at the same time 
 most sprightly and miscellaneous reader, one 
 would rather be a bird than a beast.* Birds 
 neitlier offend 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 i)lcasing cliar actoristics ; and 
 
 * Since writing 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 poetical dreams 
 — they fly. To be sure, in spite of what is said 
 of doves (who, by the way, are horribly 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 tliat, as if on 
 guard against an enemy ; but this, we suppose, 
 only takes place out of the nest, and in the 
 neigiibourhood of known adversaries. The 
 songs, the wings, tlie 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 
 personop, and gave them a whole Jjlay 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 aff^ect- 
 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 purposes 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 lias 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 
 qualities denoted by these epithets were not to be 
 found among ourselves. But above all, the bee 
 is the argument. Is not the honey-bee, we are 
 
 asked, a wise animal ? — We grant it. — " Doth 
 he not improve each passing hour ?" — 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 communities ? — There can be no doubt 
 of it. — Well, 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, that 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 diff"erent 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 
 manners and customs, with reference to their 
 adoption by his inferiors, who keep him in 
 hives. This naturally leads us to inquire, 
 whether we could not frame all our systems of 
 life after the same fashion. W^e 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 — vvhich 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 Avell as the House of Lords, the 
 Commons or Commonalty are nevertheless the 
 only persons besides the sovereign who would 
 exercise power ; and these Commons would be 
 the working classes ! 
 
 We shall show this more particularly, and 
 by some very curious examples, in a moment. 
 IVieantime 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 whether 
 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 dobut to feed and sleep. 
 We have just been doubting whether the 
 celebrated plirase, /nyes consumere natl, born to 
 consume the fruits of the earth, is in Juvenal's 
 Satires or Vin/U's Geornics,so like in this respect 
 are the aristocracy of the bee-hive and certain 
 consumers of titlies and taxes. At all events, 
 they are a body who live on the labour of 
 others. 
 
 " Armento ignavo, e che non vuol fatica." 
 
 But the likeness has been too often i-emarked 
 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-officio 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 facCi 
 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 whole 
 body to death, and kill them witii tl ',r 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 their rank. 
 Those, strange to tell ! are the ornaments of 
 the bee working-classes. Jt is thought, in 
 Ilivedom, 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 luiman conduct 
 by the example of this wise, industrious, and 
 monarchy-loving people. Marvellous changes 
 
 must be effected, 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 Nottingliam, except the 
 Duke of Newcastle ; and he trembling, lest 
 the Queen should send for him. The tailors, 
 bakers, carpenters, gardeners, &c. must all be 
 Mi's. Tailors and Mrs. 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 virgins, and 
 the legislators, of the country ! They must 
 make all we want, fight all our enemies, and 
 even get up a Queen for us, when 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 stuffed 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 jNIajesty 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. Imiirhuis, all our work- 
 ing people would be females, wearing swords, 
 never marrying,and occasionally makingqueens. 
 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 sleeping,and annually 
 liaving their throats cut. The bee-massacre 
 takes place in July, when accordingly all our 
 nobility and gentry would be out of town, 
 witli a vengeance ! The women would draw 
 their swords, and hunt and stab tliem all about 
 the west end, till Hrompton and Bayswater 
 would be choked with slain. 
 
 Thirdly, her Majesty the Queen would either 
 succeed to a quiet throne, or, if manufactured, 
 would have to oat a prodigious quantity of 
 jelly in her infancy : and so, after growing into
 
 60 
 
 THE INDICATOR. 
 
 proper sovereign condition, would issue forth, 
 and begin her 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 dismissing 
 him to his dulness, proceed to lie in of 12,000 
 little royal highnesses in the course of the 
 eight following weeks, with others too nume- 
 rous to mention ; all which princely genera- 
 tion, with little exception, would forthwith 
 give up their title, and divide themselves into 
 lords or working-women, as it happened ; and 
 so the story would go round to the end of the 
 chajiter, bustling, working, and massacreing. 
 And here ends the sage example of the Mon- 
 archy of the Bees. 
 
 "We 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. The drones, it is true, seem to have 
 no fancy for being massacred ; but we have no 
 reason to suppose that they, or any of the rest 
 concerned in this extraordinary instinct, are 
 aware of the matter beforehand ; and the 
 same is to be said of the 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 cheerfullest 
 objects that can be looked upon. Its life 
 jippears to be all enjoyment, so hisy and so 
 pleased."
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 ■ The first quality in a Companion is Truth." 
 
 Sir W. Temple. 
 
 I.— AN EARTH UPON HEAVEN. 
 
 Somebody, a little -while ago, wrote an 
 excellent article in the New ^Monthly ISIagazine 
 on " Persons one would wish to have known." 
 He should write another on " Persons one 
 could wish to have dined with." 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. AVhat 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 having 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 tlie 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 migiit 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 Iiis own notions of heaven. 
 Their accounts are all modified by the national 
 theology ; whereas the Apostle himself has 
 told us, that we can have no conception of the 
 blessings intended for us. " Eye hatli not 
 seen, nor ear heard," &c. After this, Dante's 
 shining 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 final 
 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 with 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 
 quenchiiig 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: — notliing sliall 
 persuade us, for the present, that Paradise 
 Mount, in any pretty village in England, has 
 not anotlier Paradise ]\[ount to corros])()nd, 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 c<)ni])lainiiig of tlie weather (we 
 mean, for its nut being perfectly blissful) three 
 hundred years hence, in some snug interlunar 
 sjjot, or periiaps in the moon itself, seeing tliat 
 it is our next visible neighbour, and shrewdly 
 suspected of being hill and dale.
 
 62 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 It appears to us, that for a certain term of 
 centuries, Heaven must consist of something of 
 tiiis kind. In a word, we cannot but persuade 
 ourselves, that to realise everything tliat we 
 have justly desired on earth, will be heaven ; 
 — we mean, for that period : and that after- 
 wards, if we behave ourselves in a proper 
 pre-angelical manner, we shall go to another 
 heaven, still better, where we 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 : — 
 
 Imprimis, — (not because friendship comes 
 before love in point 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 witliout 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 happy as we know its inha- 
 bitants will be), other friends will join us, 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, iipon the best authority, 
 that people are " neither married nor given 
 in marriage ; " so that there is nothing illegal 
 in the term. (By the way, 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 Houri, or 
 whatever shape of perfection you choose to 
 imagine her, and yet retaining the likeness of 
 the woman you loved best on earth ; in fact, 
 she herself, but completed ; 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-futiire 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 
 Avith us) ; but above all things, true ; oh, so 
 true, that 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 cou])le 
 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 we 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 
 Avi-ite us new ones ! Think of that. We would 
 have another Decameron : and Walter Scott 
 (for he will be there too ; — we mean to beg 
 Ilurae 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. 
 
 When Gainsborough died, he expired in a 
 painter'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 earthly 
 jnirsuits ; 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 IVIilky 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 enougii 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 the 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, damp, 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, the 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 ai'e good-tem- 
 pered. We trust we shall be read by hundreds 
 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 this rug! How bright and 
 generous the fire ! How charming the fair 
 makers of tlie tea! And how happy that they 
 have not to make it themselves, the drinkers 
 of it! Even the hackney-coacliman means to 
 get double as much as usual to-day, either by 
 cheating or being pathetic : and tiie old gen- 
 tleman is resolved to make amends for tiie 
 necessity of his morning drive, by another 
 pint of wine at dinner, and crumpets with his 
 tea. It is not by grumbling against the ele- 
 ments, that evil is to be done away ; but by 
 keeping one's-self in good heart with one's 
 
 fellow-creatures, 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 j)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 m nothing but plaguing 
 everybody as well as the grumbler. In almost 
 all cases, those wlio are in a state of pain 
 themselves, are in the fairest way for giving 
 it ; whereas, pleasui-e 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 imagination brought 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 tauglit 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 diminisliing 
 them. 
 
 But how, it may be said, are we to enjoy 
 ourselves with reflection, when our very i-eflec- 
 tion will teach us the quantity of suffering 
 that exists? How are we to be happy with 
 breakfasting and warming our hands, wiien so 
 many of our fellow-creatures are, at that 
 instant, cold and lumgry ? — It is no paradox 
 to answer, that the fact of our remembering 
 them, gives us a right to forget them : — we 
 mean, tliat "tiiere is a time for all things,"
 
 64 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 and that having done our duty at other times 
 in sympathising with pain, we have not only 
 a riglit, but it becomes our duty, to show the 
 happy privileges of virtue by sympathising 
 with pleasure. The best person in a holiday- 
 making party is bound to have the liveliest 
 face ; or if not that, a face too happy 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 happiness I 
 have contributed; — pain I have helped to 
 diminish ; I am sincere, and wish well to 
 everybody; and I think everybody woidd be 
 as good as I am, perhaps better, if society 
 were wise. Now society, I trust, is getting 
 Aviser; 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 S((ueamish 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 uj) 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 obsei've — • 
 Thomson himself does not say how cruel they 
 are ; or what a set of rascals to dance and be 
 merry in sjnte of their better knowledge. lie 
 says, 
 
 " Ah Utile think the gay, licentious prowd " — 
 
 and so they do. And so they will, till the 
 diffusion of thought, among all classes, flows, 
 of necessity, into their gay rooms and startled 
 elevations; and forces tliem to look out upon 
 the world, that they may not be lost by being 
 under the level. 
 
 We had intended a very merry paper this 
 
 week, to bespeak the favour of our new 
 readers : — 
 
 A very merry, dancing, drinkins. 
 Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking ' 
 
 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, Avere the pleasantest 
 people in the world till five in the morning. 
 
 III.— FINE DAYS IN JANUARY AND 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 We speak of those days, unexpected, 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 j-ear 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 
 poi)lar 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 shoji-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 ; fi-uiterers' shops look well, 
 swelling with full baskets ; pavements are 
 found to be dry; lap-dogs frisk under their 
 asthmas ; and old gentlemen issue forth, jieer- 
 ing up at the region of the north-east. 
 
 Then in the country, how emerald the green, 
 how ojien-looking the prospect ! Honeysuckles 
 (a name alone with a garden in it) are detected 
 in blossom; the hazel follows; the snowdrop 
 hangs its white 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. 
 
 65 
 
 our pajier, 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 : 
 
 ITe looketh, as it were, a grim leoun ; 
 And on his toes he roameth up and down ; 
 Him deigneth nut to set Iiis foot to ground ; 
 He clucketh wlicn he hath a corn yfound, 
 And to him runnen then his wives all. 
 
 Will the reader haA'e 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 poet throws 
 forth his sti'enuous music ; as fine, considered 
 as mere music and versification, as the descrip- 
 tion is pleasant and noble. 
 
 His comb was redder than the fine corall, 
 Embattled as it were a castle wall ; 
 His bill was black, and as the jet it shone ; 
 Like azure was liis leggds and his tone ; 
 His nailes whiter than the lilly flower. 
 And 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 
 sttidy 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 colour, 
 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 witii 
 that of any early and vigorous manifestation 
 of light and pleasure. He is not only the 
 " morning-star " of our poetry, as Denham 
 called him, but the morning itself, and a good 
 bit of the noon ; aiid we could as soon help 
 quoting him at the beginning of the year, as 
 we could help wishing to hear the cry of jirim- 
 roses, and thinking of the sweet faces that 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 
 who grow pleasanter and pleasanter till one in 
 the morning, we are great walkers home by 
 night ; and this has made us great acquaint- 
 ances of watchmen, moon-light, in/(d-\ight, 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 u.s, 
 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 becominsr 
 
 1 • • • 
 
 alive IS to enrich the stock of our enjoyments. 
 
 We confess there are points liable to ca%'il 
 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 jiiece 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 
 we must premise, that our walk leads us out of 
 town, and through streets and sulnirbs 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 tiiose comfortable people " 
 who, by the lights in their windows, are getting 
 into their warm beds, and saying to one another, 
 " J'ad thing to be out of doors to-night." 
 
 Supj)osing, then, tiiat we are in a reasonable 
 state of health and comfort in other respects, 
 we say that a walk home at night has its merits, 
 if you choose to meet with them. The worst 
 part of it is the setting out ; tlie closing of the 
 door upon the kind faces that i)art with you. 
 But their words and looks, on tiie other hand, 
 may set you well ofl". Wo have known a word 
 last us all the way home, and a look make a 
 dream of it. To a lover for instance no walk 
 can be bad. lie 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. He is 
 sensible neither to the pleasures nor pains of 
 walking. He treads on air ; and in the thick 
 of all that seems inclement, has an avenue of 
 light and velvet spread for him, like a sovereign 
 prince. 
 
 To resume, then, like men of this world. 
 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 appear- 
 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 suspended ; 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 tlie 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 tlie moment. 
 
 But we shall be getting too much into the 
 interior of tlie 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 there, amidst the 
 embers of some kitchen. A dog follows us. 
 Will nothing make liim "go along?" We 
 dodge him in vain ; we run ; we stand and 
 " hisli !" at him, accompanying the prohibition 
 with deliortatory gestures, and an imaginary 
 picking up of a stone. We turn again, and 
 there he is vexing our skirts. lie even forces 
 us into an angry doubt Avhether he will not 
 staiwe, 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 " hishing " 
 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 
 companion this 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 rej^robation. 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 gi-adually 
 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. We do not pity the 
 watchmen as we used. Old age often cares 
 little for regular sleep. They could not be 
 sleeping perhaps if they were in their beds ; 
 and certainly they would not be earning. 
 What sleep they get is perhaps sweeter in the 
 watch-box, — a forbidden sweet ; and they have 
 a sense of importance, and a claim on the 
 persons in-doors, which, together with the am- 
 plitude ofi 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 SOIME EXISTING FASHIONS. 
 
 67 
 
 men go ;" nor is he " a parish-man." The 
 cliiircl I wardens don't speak to him. If he put 
 himself ever so much in tlie way of " the great 
 plumber," he woidd not say, " llow 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 oftensively 
 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 1 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 iiuofficial 
 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 of grumbling ; 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 Avas 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. 
 lie 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 whole, he 
 Avas of that opinion. 
 
 Another was the Metallic Watchman, who 
 paced the same street towards Ilanover-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 IJedford- 
 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'clock," and crying 
 only the number of the hour. I know not 
 whether a recollection I have of his jjerform- 
 ance one night is entire matter of fact, or 
 whether any subsequent fancies of what 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 which numbers 
 Avere concerned, we Avere suddi^nly startled, 
 as if in solution of it, by a l)rief and tremen- 
 dous outcry of— OxE. This paragraph ought 
 
 to haA'e been at the bottom of the page, 
 and the Avord printed abruptly round the 
 corner. 
 
 A fourth Avatchman Avas a very singular 
 Ijhenomenon, a Reading/ Watchman. lie had a 
 book, Afliich he read by the light of his lantern ; 
 and instead of a pleasant, gave you a very un- 
 comfortable idea of him. It seemed cruel to 
 jiitch amidst so many discomforts and priva- 
 tions one Avlio had imagination enough to Avish 
 to be relieA'ed from them. Nothing but a 
 sluggish vacuity befits a watchman. 
 
 But the oddest of all was the Slidhu/ Watch- 
 man. Think of walking up a street in the 
 depth of a frosty winter, Avith long ice in the 
 gutters, and sleet over head, and then figure to 
 yourself a sort of bale of a man in Avliite 
 coming sliding toAvards you Avith a lantern in 
 one hand, and an innbrella 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 of a mei-ry thought, 
 and seemed to say, " Everything's in ima- 
 gination ;— here goes the Avliole Aveight of my 
 ofiice." 
 
 But Ave approach our home. How still the 
 trees ! How deliciously asleep tlie country ! 
 HoAv beautifully grim and nocturnal this Avooded 
 aA'enue of ascent, against the cold Avhite sky! 
 The watchmen and patroles, which the careful 
 citizens have planted in abundance Avithin a 
 mile of their doors, salute us Avith their " good 
 mornings ;" — not so Avelcome as we pretend ; 
 for Ave ought not to 1)e out so late ; and it is 
 one of the assumptions of these fatherly old 
 felloAvs to remind us of it. Some fowls, who 
 have made a strange roost in a tree, flutter as 
 Ave pass them ;— another pull up the hill, un- 
 yielding ; a feAv strides on a level ; and there is 
 the light in the AvindoAv, the eye of the Avarm 
 soul of the house,— one's home. IIoav par- 
 ticular, and yet how universal, is that Avord ; 
 and hoAV 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 people are fugitive, and such are, 
 for the most part, those that bring custom to 
 the 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 
 
 p 1
 
 68 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 the a<^ed. Even fiisliions, otherwise convenient, 
 as the trousers that have so long taken place 
 of smallclothes, often perhaps owe tlieir con- 
 tinuance to some general defect, which they 
 help to screen. The, old are glad to retain 
 them, and so be confounded with the young ; 
 and among the latter, there are more limbs 
 perhaps to which loose clotliing is acceptable, 
 than tight. JNIore legs and knees, we suspect, 
 rejoice in those cloaks, tlian would be proud to 
 acknowledge themselves in a shoe and stocking. 
 The pertinacity of certain male fashions during 
 the last twenty years, we think we can trace 
 to a particular source. If it be objected, that 
 the French partook of them, and that our 
 modes have generally come from that country, 
 we suspect that the old court in France had 
 more to do with them, than Napoleon's, which 
 was confessedly masculine and military. Tiie 
 old French in this country, and the old noblesse 
 in the other, wore bibs and trousers, Avhen the 
 Emperor went in a plain stock and delighted 
 to show his good leg. For this period, if for 
 this only, we are of opinion, tliat whether the 
 male fashions did or did not originate in France, 
 other circumstances have conspired to retain 
 them in both countries, for which the revolu- 
 tionary government cannot account. Mr. 
 Ilazlitt informs us in his Life of Napoleon, that 
 during the consulate, all the courtiers were 
 watching the head of the state to know whether 
 mankind were to wear their own hair or powder ; 
 and that Bonaparte luckily settled tlie 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 Avas a 
 fashion that suited all ages, and on that account 
 it has survived. But the bibs, and the trousers, 
 and the huge neckcloths, whence come they ? 
 How is it, at least, that they have been so long 
 retained ? Observe tliat polished old gentleman, 
 wlio 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 uj)on it, tiie 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 migiit in reason be 
 expected ; and forth issue the points of his shirt- 
 collar, and give them an investment at once 
 cherishing and spirited. Thirdly, he suspects 
 his waist to liave played him a trick of good 
 living, and surpassed the bounds of youth 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 the first 
 instance, and a padded set of lapels afterwards. 
 He liappens 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 that matter they will kiss it still, and be 
 transported too. The wrist-band looks forth, 
 and says, " Shall I lielp 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 the handsomest 
 in the world ; and how did they not dance ! 
 What conquests did they not achieve in the 
 time of hoop-petticoats and toupees ! And 
 long afterwards, were not Apollo and Hercules 
 found in them together, to the 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" The 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 William K. 
 
 VI.— RAIN OUT OF A CLEAR SKY. 
 
 In a work, De Varia Historia, written after 
 the manner of ^lian, 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 
 capturing no city. This made him fall to con- 
 sidering the oracle more particularly ; upon 
 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 this conclusion, he laid his head on the 
 lap of his wife, who had come Avith 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 that the tears fell 
 plentifully upon him, and awoke him. He 
 looked up, and seeing those showers out of her 
 eyes, hailed at last the oracle with joy, for his 
 wife's name was .ffithra, which signifies " a
 
 THE MOUNTAIN OF THE TWO LOVERS. 
 
 69 
 
 clear sky ;" and thus lie 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 ; buf 
 the mountain, though high enough to tax his 
 stout heart to the uttei-most, must have been 
 among the 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 peasantry 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. The young 
 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 whicli lie 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 fatiier, 
 pale, desirous, and dreading. She thought her 
 lover would succeed, but only because she 
 tliought him in every res])ect the noblest of 
 his sex, and that nothing was too much for his 
 strength and valour. (Jreat fears came over 
 her nevertheless. She knew not what might 
 happen, in the chances common 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 comingup 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 the first time, took up the lady. 
 
 The spectators rejoice to see the manner in 
 which he moves off, slow but secure, and as if 
 encouraging 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- 
 tors 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 his 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 
 victoriou.s. He resumes again ; he is half-way 
 between the middle and the top ; he rushes, 
 he stops, he staggers ; but lie 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 him. See ! he is almost at the 
 top ; he stops, he struggles, he moves side- 
 ways, taking very little stejis, 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 mi the 
 top ; and down he falls flat with his burden. 
 An enormous shout ! He has won : he has 
 won. Now lu! has a right to caress his mis- 
 tress, and she is caressing bim, for neither of 
 them gets u]). If he has fainted, it is with joy, 
 and it is in her arms. 
 
 'I'lie baron put spurs to his horse, the crowd 
 following him. Half-way he is obliged to dis- 
 mount ; tliey ascend the rest of the liill toge- 
 ther, the crowd silent and iuijipy, the baron 
 ready to burst with shame and impatience.
 
 70 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 They reach the top. The lovers are face to 
 face on the nfround, the lady clasping him with 
 both arms, liis Ivinjr on each side. 
 
 " Traitor!" exclaimed the baron, "thoii hast 
 practised this feat before, on purpose to deceive 
 me. Arise ! " " You cannot expect it, sir,' 
 said a worthy man, who Avas rich enough to 
 speak liis mind : " Samson himself might take 
 his rest after such a deed ! " 
 
 " Part them ! " said the baron. 
 
 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 shoiild 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 ! " 
 
 VIII.-THE TRUE STORY OF VERTUMNUS 
 AND POMONA. 
 
 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 before 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 tlie heaps of modern stories, which 
 are accounted ancient, and which have been 
 deprived of tlieir true apj^earance, 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 ICHO. He was the younger 
 brotlier of a respectable family in Hereford- 
 sliire ; and from his genius at turning himself 
 to a variety of sliapcs, came to be called, in 
 after-ages, by his classical name. In like 
 manner, Pomona, the lieroine of the story, 
 being the goddess of tliose parts, and singularly 
 fond of their scenery and productions, the 
 Latin poets, in after-ages, transfornu'd her ad- 
 ventures according to theii- fasliion, making 
 her a goddess of mythology, and giving her a 
 name after her beloved fruits. Her real name 
 
 was Miss Appleton. I shall therefore waive 
 that matter once for all ; and retaining only 
 the appellation which poetry has rendered so 
 pleasant, proceed with tlie true story. 
 
 Pomona was a beauty like her name, all 
 fruit and bloom. She was a ruddy brunette, 
 luxuriant without grossness ; and had a spring 
 in her step, 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 favourite 
 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 tblossoms, and now of red ; but her 
 favourite one was green, both coat andboddice, 
 from which her beautiful face looked forth 
 like a bud. To see her tending her trees in 
 her oi'chard, (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 off her 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. 
 The 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 tlie 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 Avas Payne, which afterwards 
 came to be called Pan. Pan, Payne (Paynim), 
 Pagan, a villager. The race was so numerous, 
 that country-gentlemen obtained the name of 
 Paynim in general, as distinguished from the 
 nobility ; a circumstance which has not es- 
 cajjed the learning of !Milton : 
 
 " Both Paynim and the Peers." 
 
 Silenus was Cy or Cymon 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 neighl)ourhood, 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 liad 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, tliough 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 of 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. Oil Cerintha ! I wish you were un- 
 married, 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 liere 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 tlian his horse ; and that I could pitch 
 him after my money." 
 
 Cerintha sympathised heart ily 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 liis OAvn, 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 
 young fellow of any vivacity who had not 
 been curious enougli to get a sight of her. He 
 had got a notion that she was proud. " She 
 may be handsome," thought he ; " but a hand- 
 some proud face is but a handsome ugly one 
 to my thinking, and I'll not venture my poverty 
 to her ill-liumour." Cerintlia had half made 
 up her mind to undeceive Iiim tlirough the 
 medium of Ins sister, wlio was an acquaintance 
 of hers ; but an accident did it for her. Ver- 
 tumnus was riding one day witli 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, wlien without turning 
 away his eyes, he clapj^ed 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. What a face ! 
 What eyes ! What a figure ! " 
 
 Pomona was observing her old gardener fill 
 a basket. From time to time he looked up 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 moutli, than 
 tiiere is folly enough to relish my fine com- 
 panions here." 
 
 Our hero returned home more thoughtful 
 than he came, rejDlying but at intervals to 
 the raillery of those with him, and then giv- 
 ing them pretty savage cuts, lie 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. lie only made 
 up his mind to set about paying his addresses 
 in a different 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 slie was, and 
 how poor her lover, and that nevertiick>ss he 
 did not care two-pence for her riches, if she 
 would but believe him. Tlie only delight of 
 riches would be to sliai'c them with her. " l»ut 
 then," said he, " how is she to take my word 
 for that ? " 
 
 On arriving at home he found his sister pre- 
 pared to tell him what he luid found out for 
 himself,— that Pomona was not proud. Un- 
 fortunately she added, that the beautiful 
 heiress had aciiuired a horror of younger bro- 
 tliers. "Ay," thouglit lie, "tliere it is. I 
 shall not get her, precisely because I have at 
 once the greatest need of her money and the 
 greatest contempt for it. Alas, yet not so I I
 
 72 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 have not contempt for anything that belongs to 
 her, even her money. How heartily could I ac- 
 cept it from her, if she knew me, and if she is as 
 generous as I take her to be ! How delightful 
 would it be to i)lant, 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 my jewels and my cabi- 
 nets, that I ought to be making her presents 
 of. I could tear :ny hair to think of it." 
 
 It happened, luckily or unluckily for our 
 hero, that he was the best amateur actor that 
 liad ever appeared. Better ton could not per- 
 form Hamlet better, nor Lacy a friar. 
 
 He disguised himself, and contrived to get 
 hired in his lady's household as a footman. It 
 was a difficult 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 the steps of 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, as to clap the door to with more velienience 
 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 the first time ; but the same 
 experience whicii might have enabled her to 
 detect him, led her, by a reasonable vanity, to 
 think tliat love had exalted her footman's 
 manners. This made her observe him with 
 some interest afterwards, and notice how good- 
 looking lu! was, and that his shape was Ijctter 
 than his clotlies : but he continued to act his 
 part so well, tliat she suspected nothing further, 
 yhe 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 liim , Now, when we please others, and they 
 show it, we wish to please them more : and it 
 turned out that James could play on the tiol di 
 i/amba. He played so well, that his mistress 
 must needs inquire " what musician they had 
 in the house." " James, madam." — A week or 
 two after, somebody was reading 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." 
 
 " Binge 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 the 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 suppose."
 
 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 she had had. " lie did not 
 come into the house for what I supposed." 
 felie did not know whether to be pleased or not 
 at this phrase. What did he mean by it ? 
 What did he think she supposed ? Upon the 
 Avhole, she found her mind occupied with the 
 man a little too much, and pi'oceeded to busy 
 herself with her orcliard. 
 
 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 gi'een-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 
 daugliters 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 ladyshij/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 speech ; but her good-nature was always 
 uj)permost, and she respected the privileges of 
 age. So, with a blushing face, not well know- 
 ing what to say, she mentioned something 
 about the old lady's three husbands, and said 
 she hardly knew wliether to pity her most for 
 losing so many friends, or to congratulate 
 tiie gentlemen on so cheerful a com^iauion. 
 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 augel, for cer- 
 tain," cried the gossip, and kissed her again. 
 Then perceiviug 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 speech. 
 
 "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. W^hy, 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 your 
 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 different in my time, you know ; and 
 Lord ! now to speak the plain fcnpter truth ; 
 what would the world come to, and Avhere 
 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 comjjany 
 with her ladyshij/s fatlier, because she brought 
 him a good estate, and made him the happiest 
 man on God's yeartli !" 
 
 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, witii tears in her 
 eyes, she begged her to stay and lake some tea, 
 and she would see her again before she went 
 away. " Ay, and that I will, and a thousand 
 thaidvs into the bargain fi-om one who has been 
 a mother herself, and can't hell) crying to see 
 my lady in tears. I could kiss 'em off, if 1 
 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 meanwliile siiowing an 
 eagerness to get her away, wliicli was a little 
 remarkable. In less than lialf an hour, there 
 was a knock at the parlour-door, and I'oniona
 
 74 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 saj^Ing, " Come in," the door was held again by 
 somebody for a few seconds, during which 
 there was a loud and apparently angry whisper 
 of voices. Our heroine, not without agitation, 
 heard the words, " No, no !" and " Yes," re- 
 peated with vehemence, and then, " I tell you 
 I must and wiU ; 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 that 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, thatunfortunate 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 under a 
 variety of pretences, and inasmuch as he has 
 violated the truth has deserved it. But one 
 truth he 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, imless 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 Avords, if they 
 displease you. You have nothing to do but to 
 bid me— leave you ; and when he quits this 
 apartment, Harry Vernon traubles 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 wliat 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, that 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 the 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 dare 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 liave been sure she loved him, 
 much less had the courage to tell him so, 
 till she had kno^vni him in his own candid 
 shape. 
 
 And this, and no other, is the true story of 
 Vertumnus and Pomona.
 
 THE GRACES AND ANXIETIES OF 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 profanum tuhjus, 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 
 Avhom 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 himiblest walks 
 of life ; we will add, nor in the muddiest. Tlie 
 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 onwai'd his 
 drove of unaccommodating eleres, down a street 
 in the suburbs. He was a born genius for a 
 manoeuvre. Had he originated in a higher 
 sphere, lie 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-lieaded wills, 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 liglitness of apprehension ; no cook's 
 pat up and proportion the side of a Jiasty with 
 a more final eye. The whales, quoth old Chap- 
 man, speaking of Neptune, 
 
 The whales exulted under him, and knewtheir 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 st()])ped ; 
 they turned an eye to all the little outlets of 
 escape ; but in vain. There they stuck (for 
 their very progi'ess was a sort of sticking), 
 cliarmed into the centre of his splierc 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 ^neas, 
 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 liaii])y 
 trepidation, hovering as he was on the borders 
 of triumph. The pig still required care. It 
 was evidently a i)ig with all the peculiar turn 
 of mind of his sj)ecies ; 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! 
 
 ] le's off' ! — Erasit ! ernpit ! 
 
 « {)),, 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 prophecy which the spectators felt to be 
 too true—" JleUl <jo up <tll manna- of streets ! " 
 
 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 that says he does not like a pantomime, 
 either says what lie does not think, or is not so 
 wise as he fancies himself. He should grow 
 young again, and get wiser. " The child," as 
 the poet says, " is father to the man ; " and in 
 this instance, he has a very degenerate offspring. 
 Yes : John Tomkins, aged 35, 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 metamorphoses, 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 uncle ; not to like 
 to see a thumj) in the face ; not to laugh ; not 
 to fancy ; not to like a lioliday ; not to know 
 the pleasui'e 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 gouty as 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 
 ou the origin of these popular entertainments. 
 It will be sufficient to observe, that among the 
 Italians, from Avhom 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 oiae 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 (colomlAna), 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 lias only to transfer the characters 
 to those of his own countrymen, to have a 
 lively sense of the eff"ect 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 scrajjcs he gets in, to 
 matters of jest and triumph. The old gentle- 
 man that pursues him, is a miser from some 
 manufacturing town, whose ward he has run 
 away with. Tlie Clown is a London cockney, 
 witii a prodigious eye to his own comfort and 
 muffins, — a LordMayor's fool, who loved "every- 
 
 thing that was good ; " and Columbine is the 
 boarding-scliool girl, ripe for running away 
 with, and making a dance of it all the 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 I'ise 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 spirits, are the thing. We sit among 
 the shining faces on all sides of us, and fancy 
 ourselves at this moment enjoying it. What 
 wliim ! 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, deini-masked, 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 head 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 upon 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 akeady 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 having lived upon twopence far- 
 thing. Not flnding 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 iSussex dumpling or so. Down
 
 CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 
 
 77 
 
 he sits, contriving a Inxurions seat, and inviting 
 himself with 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 the 
 rascal headlong. They rush forward accord- 
 ingly ; he slips from between them Avith a 
 " Hallo, I sa}' ;" 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 holds a great cask of a 
 snufF-box to each of their noses, to bring them 
 to ; and while they are sneezing and tearing 
 their souls out, jogs oflFat 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 ])lump rogue ! How she Avinds it hither 
 and thither with her trim waist, and her waxen 
 arms ! now Avith a hand against her side, 
 tripping it with no immodest insolence in a 
 hornpipe ; now xmdulating it in a waltz ; or 
 "caracoling" it, as Sir Thomas Urquhart Avould 
 say, in the saltatory style of the opera ; — but 
 ahvays Columbine ; alAA'ays the little dove who 
 is 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 fliglit, the moment Riches Avould 
 tear her from LoA'e. 
 
 But these introductions of the characters liy 
 themselves do not give a sufficient idea of the 
 great per\'ading spirit of the pantomime, Avhich 
 is motion ; motion for ever, and motion all at 
 once. Mr. .Tacoli Bryant, who saAv everything 
 in anything, and needed nothing but the taking 
 a word to pieces to proA-e that his boots and 
 the constellation Bootes were the same thing, 
 would liaA'e recognised in the word Pantomime 
 the Anglo-antediluvian compound, a I'ntit-u- 
 mhnes ! that is to say, a set of Mimes or Mimics, 
 all panting together. Or he Avoidd haA'e de- 
 tected the oljvious Anglo-Greek meaning of a 
 set of Mimes, expressing Pan, or J^very-thing, 
 by means of the Toe, — Pan-'J'oe-Mime. Be 
 this as it may, Pantomime is certainly a repre- 
 sentation of the A'ital ])rinci])le of all things, 
 from the dance of the planets doAvn to tliat of 
 Damon and Phillis. Everything in it keeps 
 moving; there is no more cessation tlian there 
 is in nature; and though Ave 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 CIoAvn, though Ave do not see 
 him, is jogging somewhere; — Pantaloon and 
 his serA'ant, like Saturn and his ring, are still 
 careering it behind their Mercury and A'enus ; 
 and A\'hen Harlequin and Columbine come in, 
 do we fancy they haA-e been resting behind the 
 scenes? The notion! Look at them: they 
 are CA-idently in full career : they have been, 
 as Avell as are, dancing ; and the music, which 
 ncA-er ceases Avhether they are visible or not, 
 tells us as much. 
 
 Let readers, of a solemn turn of mistake, 
 disagree Avith 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 A'anity in Avishing to be esteemed) ; 
 and in the case before us, they Avill sin against 
 the natural candour of their hearts by con- 
 demning an entertainment Avhich they enjoy, 
 because they think it a mark of sense to do so. 
 Let them know themseh-es to be wiser than 
 those who are really of that opinion. There 
 is nothing wiser than a cheei-ful pulse, and all 
 innocent things which tend to keep it so. The 
 crabbedest philosopher that ever lived (if he 
 Avas a philosopher, and crabbed against his 
 Avill) would have given thousands to feel as 
 they do ; and he would have knoAvn, that it 
 redounded to his honour and not to his disgrace, 
 to own it. 
 
 XT.- CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 
 
 Readebs of newspapers are constantly being 
 shocked with the unnatural conduct of i)arents 
 toAvards their children. Some are detected in 
 locking them up and half-starA^ng 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 Avay tliey 
 can think of, short of subjecting themselves to 
 the gallows. In most cases the tyranny is of 
 long duration before it is exposed. A Avhole 
 neiglibourhood are saddened by the cries of the 
 ])Oor victim, till they are obliged to rise up in 
 self-defence and bring the criminal to justice. 
 By tliis Ave may judge how many miseries are 
 taking place of Avliich people liaA'e no sus- 
 j)icion ; how nuiny wretches have crimes of 
 tliis sort, to account for the eA'il in their looks; 
 and how many others, more criminal because 
 more lying, go about in decent i-epute, Avliilo 
 some oppressed and feeble relative, awfully 
 I)atient, is aAvaiting in solitude the horror of 
 the returning knock at the door. 
 
 It is alleged by ofl'oiulers of this descrijition, 
 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 Wows," — Avhich never do. But 
 ■whence come the faults of children ? and how 
 were they suffered to grow to such a height ? 
 Really, — setting aside these monsters of unpa- 
 ternity, — parents are apt to demand a great 
 many virtues in their children, which they do 
 not themselves possess. The child, on the 
 mere strength of their will, and Avithout any 
 of their experience, is expected to have good 
 sense, good temper, and Heaven knows how 
 many other good qualities ; while the pai-ents 
 perhaps, notwithstanding all the lessons they 
 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 father and mother, or their fathers 
 and mothers, and kindred ; that it is further 
 modified and made what it is by education and 
 bi'inging 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 thenmires in like manner, — scourge 
 tlieir own flesh, and condemn themselves to a 
 'crust and a black hole. If a father were to 
 give his own sore legs a good flogging for in- 
 heriting ill-humours from his ancestors, he might 
 witJi 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 " that 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 they, as well as tiieir 
 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 8hown,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, — " (Jood 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 
 doomed 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 purem.alice 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 this jarring, 
 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 iipon him with every stroke of 
 the scourge : for why should he be wiser than 
 you ? Why should he be able to throw off 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 tyi-ants, 
 may yet become such, for want of reflection. 
 Vulgar offenders 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, which 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 union of dispassionate firm- 
 ness with habitual good-humour, which a child 
 never thinks of treating with disrespect. 
 
 We haveherebeenspeakingprincipallyofthe 
 behaviour of parents to little chilcfren. 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 
 l)arent, who has liad 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 hampered in a 
 calamity of this nature ; 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 no 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 
 soi't, 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 
 Avas 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 afl^ecting 
 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 higli to allow of jumping out of the win- 
 dows, ought to consider himself bound 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 the well- 
 being of his children in after-life, if in one 
 frightful moment, in the dead of night, with 
 liorror 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 whole 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 
 peojjle 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 trap-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 
 than that the means of escape should be at 
 hand, should be facile, and capal^le 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 ]\Ion- 
 days and Wednesdays, a whole metropolis, 
 piquing themselves on tlieir 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. 
 
 — ♦- 
 
 Xin.— A BATTLE OP ANTS.— DESIRABLENESS OF 
 DRAWING A DISTINCTION BETWEEN POWERS 
 COMMON TO OTHER ANIMALS, AND THOSE 
 PECULIAR TO MAN. 
 
 Taking up, the other day, a number of the 
 Edinbun/h Journal of Science, we met with the 
 following account of a battle of ants. It is 
 contained in the notice of a memoir by ^I. 
 Hanhart, who describes the battle as having 
 taken place between two species of these in- 
 sects, "one the /))-((n'(vt mfa, and the other a 
 little black ant, which he does not name (pro- 
 bably the f of asca)." In other respects, as the 
 reviewer observes, the subject is not new, the 
 celebrated Iluber having described a battle of 
 tliis kind before ; but as natural history lies 
 out of the way of many readers (tlioiigh calcu- 
 lated to please them all, if they are genuine 
 readers of anything), and as it has suggested 
 to us a few remarks wliich may further tlio 
 objects we have in writing, tlie account shall 
 be here repeated. 
 
 "M. Ilanliart saw tliese insects approach in 
 armies composed of their respective'swarms,
 
 80 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 and advancing towards each other in the great- 
 est order. The Formica riifa marched with 
 one in front, on a line from nine to twelve feet 
 in length, ilanked by several corps in square 
 masses, composed of from twenty to sixty in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 *' The second species (little blacks), forming 
 an army much more numerous, marched to 
 meet tlie enemy on a very extended line, and 
 from one to three individuals abreast. They 
 left a detachment at the foot of tlieir hillock to 
 defend it against any unlooked-for attack. The 
 rest of the army maix-lied to liattle, with its 
 riglit wing supported by a solid corps of sevei'al 
 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. Tliat 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 
 liostile 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, withoiit 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 tlight, and forced to 
 abandon their two hillocks and go off to esta- 
 blish themselves at some other jjoint with the 
 remains of tlieir army. 
 
 " The most interesting part of this exhibi- 
 tion, says 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 
 tlie little blacks without any resistance, rather 
 than abandon their precious charge. 
 
 "From the observations of M. Huber, it is 
 known that when an ant hillock is taken by 
 the enemy, the vanquislied are reduced to 
 slavery, and employed in the interior labours 
 of their habitation."— 5m«. Unir. Mai 1826. 
 
 There is no sort of reason, observe, to mis- 
 trust these accounts. The " lords of creation" 
 may be slow in admitting the approaches of 
 other animals to a common property in what 
 they consider eminently human and skilful ; 
 but ants, in some of tlieir habits, have a great 
 resemblance to bees ; and after what is now 
 universally known respecting the polity and 
 beliaviour of the bees, the doubt will rather 
 be, whetlier 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 xip three abreast, 
 leaving a detachment at the foot of their hillock 
 to defend against unlooked-for attack. There 
 are wings, right and left ; tliey halt ; they form 
 an army of reserve ; one side manoeuvres so 
 as to turn the other ; the hillock is taken by 
 assatilt ; the lines are broken ; and in fine, 
 after a" bloody battle" of three 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 
 upon 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 who do not reflect at all, 
 and who would be the first to resent laughter 
 against themselves. 
 
 What then do we do ? Are we to go into 
 a corner, and effeminately weep over the mi- 
 series of the formican, as well as the human, 
 race ? saying how short is tlie life of ant ! 
 and that Fonrmis 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 movinff throucfh the sunshine to sounds of 
 music, as if one moment of the very 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 
 themselves as well as the piiblic, enticing the 
 poor souls to be dressed up for tlie slaughter ? 
 a mass of supei-fluous human beings, cheated 
 to come together, in order, as Mr. Malthus 
 thinks, that the superfluity may be got rid of.
 
 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 
 beyond 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 rideincompany 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 without 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), the 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 
 eff^eminate hiding of our eyes. But the same 
 love of truth that disguises nothing, may hope 
 everything ; and it is this that shall carry the 
 world forward to benefits unthought of, if men 
 of genius once come to set it up as their guide 
 and standard. 
 
 Wliat we intended by our present article was 
 this : to suggest, whether we ought to value 
 ourselves on any custom or skill which we 
 possess in common with the lower animals ; or 
 whether we ought not rather to consider the 
 participation as an argument, that, iii that 
 respect, we have not yet got beyond tlie com- 
 monest instinct. If the military conduct of 
 the ants be not instinct (or whatsoever liunian 
 pride pleases to understand by that term), th(>n 
 are they in possession, so far, of luiman 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, we 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, war is not a thing we arrive 
 at after great improvement ; it is a thing we 
 begin with, before any ; and what we 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 our reasonings and analogies. If 
 we wish to degrade a man, we say he acts like 
 a brute ; — if, on the other hand, we would 
 vindicate any part of our conduct as especially 
 natural and proper, we say the very brutes do 
 it. Now, in one sense of the word, everything 
 is natural which takes place witlTin the whole 
 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 evident that we are 
 superior in proportion as we 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 we ought attentively 
 to consider in what points the resemblance is 
 to be found, and in what wo leave them mani- 
 festly behind. Creatures who differ from our- 
 selves may, it is true, have perceptions of 
 which we are incapable, perhaps nobler ones ; 
 but this is a mere assimiption :.we can only 
 reason from what we know ; and it is to be 
 presumed, that they are as inferior to us in all 
 which we reckon intellectual and capable of 
 advancement, as they are known to be so in 
 general by their subjection to our uses, by the 
 helps which vfe can afford them, by the mis- 
 takes they make, the points at which they 
 stop short, and tlie manner in wliich we can 
 put to flight their faculties, and whole myriads 
 of them. 
 
 What faculties then have beasts and insects 
 in common with us ? What can they do, that 
 we do also? — Let us see. Beavers can build 
 houses, and insects of various sorts can build 
 cells. Birdsalso construct themselvesdwcUing- 
 places suitable to tluMr nature. The orang- 
 outang can 1)0 taught to ])ut on olotlics; he can 
 sit up and take his wine at dinner; and tlie 
 squirrel can play his part in a dessert, as far 
 as the cracking of nuts. Animals, in general,
 
 82 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 love personal cleanliness, and eat no more than 
 is fit for them, but can be encouraged into 
 great sensuality. Bees have a monarchical 
 government : foxes understand trick and stra- 
 tagem ; so do hundreds of other animals, from 
 the dog down to the dungliill-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 mthoiit ; that is to say, by the help of man. 
 Seals will look on while 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. Huber, 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 
 antenna' ; 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. 
 
 Let 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, Inrds, 
 and insects. We are not to be ashamed of 
 anything we have in common with them, 
 merely because we so have it. On the con- 
 trary, we are to bo glad that any quality, useful 
 or noble, is so imiversal in the creation. But 
 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 whatever skill they possess in common 
 with us, there we are to begin to doubt whether 
 we have any reason to pique ourselves on our 
 display of it, and from that limit we are to 
 begin to consider what they do not possess. 
 
 We have often had a suspicion, that military 
 talent is greatly ovei'rated 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 lightning 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 
 Caesar 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 PJiilosojjhical 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 miglit 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 Magazine of Natural History for July, a work 
 lately set up. We beg leave to recommend this, and all 
 snnilar works, to the lovers of truth and inq\iiry 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 existence on 
 any one.
 
 MILITARY INSECTS. 
 
 83 
 
 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 power of 
 joining battle under 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 diilicult than in others to pro- 
 nounce where the limit between conscious and 
 imconscious 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 general is not in other 
 respects a man above the vulgar ; that he is 
 not a better speaker than others ; a better 
 writer, 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 government, for they, as one of 
 them said, require much less wisdom than the 
 world supposes ; and it may be added, impose 
 upon the world, somewhat in the same manner 
 as military leaders, by dint of the size and 
 potency of their operations) — the legislator 
 makes a ])rofound study of all the wants of 
 mankind ; and poetry and philosophy show the 
 height at which they live, by " looking abroad 
 into universality." 
 
 Far be it from us to imdervalue the iiae of 
 any science, especially in the liands 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 
 disesteem.ing. Without a ])ortion of his forti- 
 tude, no man has a power to be useful. J'.iit 
 we are speaking of intellects capal)le of leading 
 society onwards, and not of instruments iiow- 
 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 Providence," 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 with. Before the work was begun, there he 
 was, a sort of born patriarchal staff, 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 slares 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 Ca3sar failed. As 
 to Alfred the Great, he was not so much a 
 general fighting with generals, as a universal 
 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) ujion the rest of the animal creation, and 
 consider the qualities in Avhicli they have no 
 share with you. Of the others, you may well 
 doubt the greatness, considered 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- 
 lishment among them, we conceive they will 
 have it always, unless men can alter it for 
 them. If they have no such establishment, 
 they appear of themselves incajiablo of admit- 
 ting it. It is men only tiuit add and imi)rove. 
 Men only can becpu'ath their souls for tlie 
 benefit of posterity, in tlio shape of arts and 
 books. JVIeii only can philosophize, and reform, 
 and cast oft' old customs, and take stejis for 
 laying the whole globe nearer to the sun of 
 wisdom and happiness : and in jjroportion as 
 you find them capable of so hoping and so 
 working, you recognise their superiority to 
 the brutes that perish. 
 
 (3 3
 
 84 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 XIV.— A WALK FROM DULWICH TO 
 BROCKHAM. 
 
 IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 
 
 frith an original Circumstance or two respecting Br. 
 Johnson. 
 Dear Sir, 
 As other calls upon my pilgrimage in this 
 world have interrupted those weekly voyages 
 of discovery into green lanes and rustic houses 
 of entertainment which you and I had so agree- 
 ably commenced, I thought I could not do 
 better than make you partaker of my new 
 journey, as far as pen and paper 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 the matter. You will have set out 
 with us a fortnight ago, and will be kind enough 
 to take your busts for chambermaids, and your 
 music (which is not so easy) for the voices of 
 stage-coaclimen . 
 
 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 Avhich 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 (vvlien 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. 
 " that I had the wings of a dove !" said 
 the royal poet ; " 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 all ouglit to partake. 
 
 But David sighe<l for remoteness, and not 
 
 for solitude. At least, if Tie did, the cares of 
 
 the moment must have greatly overbalanced 
 
 the habits of the poet. Neither doves nor 
 
 poets can very well do Avithout a companion. 
 
 Be that as it may, the writer of this epistle, 
 
 I who is a still greater lover of companionship 
 
 ! than poetry (and he cannot express his liking 
 
 I more strongly) had not the misfortune, on the 
 
 : present occasion, of being compelled to do 
 
 i without it ; and as to remoteness, though his 
 
 j 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 how far you feel yourself 
 from your common-places. Literal distance is 
 indeed necessary in some degi-ee ; 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 the wood nearest him, is farther off, 
 millions of miles, in the retreat of his thoughts, 
 than the literalist, who must get to Johnny 
 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 anotiier 
 world, 
 
 " And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest." 
 
 But I should have to go back, to fetch some 
 grown friends. 
 
 There 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 uneasy 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-bad. 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 veiy well what to 
 make of the porter Hindhad, 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 
 northern side, we felt as if we had newly got 
 into the country, and ate a hearty supper 
 accordingly. This was a thing not usual with 
 us ; but then 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 Dulwicli 
 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, Shakspeare'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 Mr. 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, which I 
 believe were not very good ; and unfortunately, 
 with whatever gravity he might paint, his oatli 
 and his buckskins would never allow me to 
 consider him a serious person ; so that it some- 
 what surprised me to hear that M. Descnfans 
 had bequeathed him his gallery out of pure 
 regard : and still more that Sir Francis, when 
 he died, had ordered his own remains to i)e 
 gathered to those of his benefactor and 
 Madame Desenfans, and all three buried in 
 the society of the pictures tliey loved. For 
 the first time, I began to think that his pictures 
 must have contained more than was found in 
 them, and that 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 circumstances and an 
 ajipearance of a very social taste ; and as most 
 people have their vanities, it might be as well 
 for them 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 diiferent opinion, and for two reasons : 
 first, that no gallery, whether in or out of the 
 way, can ever produce gi'eat 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 the 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 Norwood (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 jjleasant 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 clnn-ches. 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. Tiie classical shape is the 
 shape of simple utility and beauty. Sometimes 
 we see it in the body of the modern church ; 
 but then a steeple must be ])ut on it : the 
 artist must have something of his own ; and 
 having, in fixct, nothinfi of his own, he first ]iuts 
 a ])it of a steeple, which he tliinUs will not be 
 enough, then aiiotlier bit, and then another ; 
 adds another fantastic ornament here and 
 there to his building, by way of rim or " border, 
 like ;" and so, having i)ut his pepper-box over 
 his i)illars, and his pillars over his pepper- 
 box, he jircteiids he has done a grand tiling, 
 •while he knows very well tliat he has only been 
 perplexed, and a bricklayer.
 
 86 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 For a village, the old picturesque cliurcli is 
 the proper thing, -witli its tower and its trees, 
 as at Hendon and Finchley ; or its spire, as at 
 Beckenham. Classical beauty is one thing, 
 Gothic or Saxon beauty is another ; quite as 
 genuine in its way, and in this instance more 
 suitable. It has been well observed, tliat what 
 is called classical architecture, though of older 
 date than the Gothic, 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, however 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 jirinciple (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. We 
 do not think so, except inasmuch as the old 
 notions would not be unfavovirable to the new. 
 New opinions ought to be 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 
 beast, regardant, looked at us up the narrow 
 passage, as if intending to dispute rather than 
 invite 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 tlie door, we stepped back to ask him if he 
 remembered the Doctor. He knew nothing of 
 him, nor even of Mr. Thrale, liaving come late, 
 he said, to those parts. Resuming our way, 
 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 had 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 he knew Dr. 
 Johnson ; and he said, with a jerk-up of his 
 eye, " Oh yes ; — I 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 than yourself, who will certainly 
 yearn 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 with 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, would lie idly, and cut the grass with a 
 knife. His manners were very good-natured, 
 and sometimes so childish, that people would 
 have taken him for " an idiot, like." His 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 peojile 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 ruti and a shufile." 
 Master Whatman was here painting a good 
 portrait. I have often suspected that the best 
 likeness of Johnson was a whole-length en- 
 gi-aving of him, walking in Scotland, with that 
 joke of his imderneath, about the stick that he 
 lost in the isle of ]\Iull. Boswell told him the 
 stick would be returned. "No, sir," replied 
 he ; "consider the. value of stick apiece of timber 
 here." The manner of his walk in the picture 
 is precisely that described by the ^^llager. 
 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 s^m to 
 have turned it to much account." Wherever 
 you now go about the country, you recognise 
 the effects of that " Twopenny Trash," which 
 the illiberal aft'ect 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 " Anau .'" to a question thirty years back. 
 Not that Mr. Whatman discussed politics with 
 ns. Let no magnanimous Quarterly Reviewer 
 try to get him turned out of a jjlace 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 which 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 tliree 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 Avay 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 tlie 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 poppies, as we 
 entered A[orden, glowed in the setting sun, 
 like the dreams of Titian. It looked like a bed 
 for Proserpina — a glow of melanclioly beauty, 
 containing a joy perhaps beyond joy. Poppies, 
 with their dark ruby cups and crowned heads, 
 the more tlian wine colour of tlieii- sleepy silk, 
 and tlie funeral look of their antliers, seem to 
 liave a meaning about them beyond other 
 flowers. They h)ok as if tliey held a mystery 
 at their hearts, like sleejiing kings of Lethe. 
 
 The cliurch of Mitcliani has been rebuilt, if 
 I recollect riglitlV, but in the proper okl style. 
 Morden has a good old ciiurch, wliicli tempted 
 us to look into the church-yard ; l)ut a rich 
 man who lives near it, and who did not choose 
 his house to be approaclied on tliat side, liad 
 locked up the gate, so that there was no patli 
 
 through it, except on Sundays. Can this be a 
 lawful exercise of power ? If people have a 
 right to call any path their own, I should think 
 it must be that wliich 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 ineonsiderate 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 wliole of 
 the case, and on that account, though not that 
 only, I mention no names ; for the inhabitant 
 with wliom I talked on the 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 reflec- 
 tion, be glad to give up. Such a man, I am 
 sure, can aff'oi'd 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 INIorden, 
 the rustic inn of a hamlet, stood a personage 
 much grimmer than the White Lion of Strea- 
 tham ; looking, in fact, with iiis fiery eyes, his 
 beak, and his old mouth and chin, very like tlie 
 cock, or " grim leoun," of Chaucer. lie was 
 tall and thin, with a flapped liat over his eyes, 
 and appeared as sulky and dissatisfied as if 
 lie had quarrelled Avitli the whole world, tiie 
 exciseman in particular. We asked him if he 
 could let us have some tea. He said, " Yes, 
 he believed so ;" and pointed witii an indifter- 
 ent, or ratlier 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 .Tohnson 
 might have said, "inspires placidity." The 
 room was adoi-iiod with some engravings after 
 Sniirke, the subjects out of yhakspeare, which 
 never look so well, I think, as when thus 
 encountered on a journey. Sliakspcare is in 
 the highway of life, with exquisite side-touches 
 of the remoteness of the ]>oet ; and nobody 
 links all kindly together as he does. 
 
 We afterwards found in ccmversing with the 
 villager above-mentioned, that our host of the 
 George; had got rich, and was jji-eparing toquit 
 for a new house he had Imilt, in wiiieh he ine:int 
 to turn gentleman fanner. Habit made him
 
 88 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 dislike to go ; pride and his wife (who vowed 
 she would go whether he did or not) rendered 
 him unable to stay ; and so between his grudg- 
 ing the new-comer and the old rib, he was in 
 as pretty a state of irritability as any success- 
 ful non-succeeder need be. People had been 
 galling him all day, I suppose, with showing 
 how many pots of ale Avould be drunk under 
 the new tenant ; and our arrival crowned the 
 measure of his receipts and his wretchedness, 
 by intimating that "gentlefolks" intended to 
 come to tea. — Adieu, till next week. 
 
 We left ISIorden 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, except on the 
 downs ; and they are surrounded with 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 elms and wild roses ; the mowers 
 were going home ; and by degrees the land- 
 scape was bathed in a balmy twilight. Patient 
 and placid thought 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 passed lis, the 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 this county) aided the shouts which I 
 sent after him. He stopped; andthegallantryon 
 botli sides was rewarded by the 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 
 l)ut in tlie old style. Tlie church has trees by 
 it, and there was a moon over them. — At Ewell 
 was born the facetious I3ishop Corbet, who when 
 a bald man was brought before him to be con- 
 firmed, said to liis assistant," Some dust, Lushmg- 
 ton :" — (to keep his liand from slipping.) 
 
 The night air struck cold on passing Ewell ; 
 and for the first time there was an appearance 
 of a bleak and baiTen country to the left. 
 This was Epsom Downs. They are the same 
 as the Banstead and Leatherhead downs, the 
 name varying with the neighbourhood. You 
 remember Banstead mutton ? 
 
 " To Hounslow-heath I point, and Banstead down ; 
 Thence comes your mutton, and tbcee chicks my own." 
 
 Pope seems to have lifted up his delicate nose 
 at Twickenham, and scented his dinner a dozen 
 miles off. 
 
 At Epsom we supped and slept ; and finding 
 the inn comfortable, and having some work to 
 do, we stopped there a day or ttvo. 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 Ep- 
 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 coimtry is eminent in the annals of 
 gaiety. Charles used to come to the races here ; 
 the palace of Nonesuch, Vhich he gave to Lady 
 Castlemain, is a few miles off ; and here he 
 visited the gentry in tlie neighbourhood. At 
 Ashted Park, close by, and stiU in possession of 
 inheritors of the name of Howard by marriage, 
 he visited Sir Robert Howard, the brother- 
 in-law of Dryden, who probably 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 park and 
 village. 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 jiroportionate dimensions, is 
 beside it. When I first saw it, looking with 
 its pointed windows through the trees, the 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 pews resembles 
 that of an old kitchen dresser in colour ; tlie 
 lord of tlie manor's being not a whit better 
 tlian 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 tound 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
 
 A WALK FROM DULWICH TO BROCKHAM. 
 
 89 
 
 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 gi-eat 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 church, 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 Aslited 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 tilled with perukes and courtiers, 
 with love-locks and rustling sil^s. 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 ai-e 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 li\'ing 
 this minute at Epsom ! How much noble 
 blood ignobly occupied with dairies and 
 ploughs, and looking gules 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 house with roses at the doors ; 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, imder the name of Jones (was not that a 
 good name to select ?) 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, which has been deservedly 
 envied. If I, instead of being a siiuttered 
 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 you 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 sufi'er 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 ? " 
 and for her to answer with such a face of truth, 
 that nothing but exceeding health could hinder 
 one from being faint with 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 imder 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; hut 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. 
 
 Pepys, 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 
 gi-eatest part of the company, though there 
 were some others of better quality. Thence 
 I walked to Air. Minnes's house, and theuce 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 noTamily in 
 it (my Lord Barkeley, whose it is, being with 
 his family at London). Then rode through 
 Epsom, the whole town over, seeing the vari- 
 ous companies that were there walking ; which 
 is very pleasant, seeing how they are without 
 knowing what to do, but only in the morning 
 to drink waters. Jhtt Lord ! to see how many 
 I met there of citizens, that I coukl not have 
 thought to have seen there ; tiuit tliey liad ever 
 had it in their heads or purses to go down 
 tliere. We went ilirough Nonesuch Park to 
 tiu; liousc, and tlicre viewed as much as we 
 could of the outside, and looki'd through the 
 great gates, and found a noble court : and 
 altogether believe it to have been a very noble 
 house, and a delicate parke about it, where 
 just now there was a doe killed for the kmg, 
 to carry up to court."— Vol. i. p. 241.
 
 90 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 If the sign of the King's Head at Epsom is 
 still where it used to be, it appears, from an- 
 other passage, that we had merry ghosts next 
 door to us. 
 
 " 14th. — To Epsom, by eight o'clock, to the 
 Well, where much company. And to the 
 town, to tlie King's Head ; and hear that my 
 Lord Buckhurst and Nelly are lodged at the 
 next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them; 
 and keep a merry house. Poor girl ! I pity 
 her; but more the loss of her at the king's 
 house. Here Tom Wilson came to me, and 
 sat and talked an hour ; and I perceive he hath 
 been much acquainted with Dr. Fuller (Tom), 
 and Dr. Pierson, and several of the great 
 cavalier persons during the late troubles ; and 
 I was glad to hear him talk of them, 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 
 well at £12. per annum, of the lord of the 
 manor. Mr. Evelyn, with his lady, and also 
 my Lord George Barkeley's lady, and their fine 
 daughter, that the 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 wintei', 
 and also their son, a knight of the Bath, were at 
 church this morning. I 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, free from any houses or sight of people, 
 the Bible to him ; and ice 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, accordmg 
 to their fancies, make a gallant appearance 
 every evening, especially on the Saturday and 
 Monday. Here are also raffling-tables, with 
 music playing most of the day ; and the nights 
 are generally crowned with dancing. All new- 
 comers are awakened out of their sleep 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, tlie rarest fi.sli 
 and venison; and with every kind of butchei's 
 meat, among which the 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, and 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 prepared for dinner. 
 
 " Within a mile and a half of Epsom, is the 
 place, and only the place, where the splendid 
 mansion of Nonesuch lately stood. A great 
 part of it, however, stood in my own time, and 
 I 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 jiark ; or ride still 
 farther to Box-hill, that enchanting temple of 
 Nature ; or whether you lose yourself in the 
 aged yew-groves of ^lickleham, 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 
 proi^erty, and giving a name to a medicine, 
 have long been out of fashion. Individuals, 
 however, I 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 Loi-d 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 ambitious of restoring 
 the practice from Ireland. It is their mode of 
 conducting 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 FROM 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 tlie 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. Rooks 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 iia my 
 imagination with something of the lawyer. 
 They and the lawyers' " 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 young 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, new 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 
 under his trees. When I looked at it, and 
 thought of the times of Charles II., I could not 
 help fancying 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 
 gild 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 which the country is 
 now enriched. The modern way of spelling 
 the name of this town renders it a misnomer 
 and a dishonour, and luis ])een justly rc^sented 
 by the anti(piarian taste of Mr. Dallaway the 
 vicar, who makes it a point, they say, to restore 
 the old spelling, Lethered, 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 Redi.) 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. INIr. Dallaway, like a proper 
 antiquary, has refreshed the interior, without 
 spoiling it. Over the main pew is preserved, 
 together with his helmet, an inscription in old 
 English letters, to the memory of " frendly 
 Robert Gardner," chief Serjeant of the" Seller," 
 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 Aliss Cholmondeley, another old maid, 
 but merry withal, and the delight of all tliat 
 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 visit to 
 Norbury Park. A most aflectionate epitaph, 
 honouralde to all parties, and recording her 
 special attachment to her married sister, is 
 inscribed to lier 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 Mrs. 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 
 ofherbeloved Cousin, Benefactress, and Friend, 
 Lady Catharine Thompson, >\ith whom she 
 buried all worldly hajipiness. This temporary 
 separation," continues tiie ei)itapli, " no engage- 
 ments, no pursuits, could render less bit ter to the 
 disconsolate Mrs. Kolfe, who from the hour she 
 lost her other self knew no pleasures but in the 
 hopes she cherished (on which point her eyes 
 were ever fixed) of joining li<'r friend in the 
 region of unfading Felicity. Hlessed with the 
 Power and Will to succour the distressed, she
 
 02 
 
 THE COMPANION. 
 
 exercised both ; and in these exercises only 
 found a Ray of Happiness. Let the Ridi- 
 culers of Female Friendship read this honest 
 Inscription, which disdains to flatter." — A 
 record in another part informs us, that Mrs. 
 Rolfe gave the parish the interest of £400 
 annually in niemory of the abore, so long as the 
 pai-ish preserves the marble that announces 
 the gift, and the stone that covers her grave. 
 Talking with the parish-clerk, who was other- 
 Avisea right and seemly parish-clerk, elderly and 
 withered, with a proper brown wig, he affected, 
 like a man of this world, to speak in disparage- 
 ment of the phrase " her other self," which 
 somebody had taught him to consider romantic, 
 and an exaggeration. This was being a little 
 too much of "the earth, earthy." The famous 
 parish-clerk of St. Andrews, one of the 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 epitaph, 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 tliat Mr. Dallaway has emblazoned 
 the fact, for the benefit of antiquarian travel- 
 lers, in the sliape 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 liills on one side and wood all 
 about ; and on your right hand is the ]\Iole, 
 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, which seem held forth by 
 the old hand of liospitality. A little beyond, 
 you arrive at the lovely village of Mickleham, 
 small, sylvan, and embowered, with a little fat 
 church (for the epithet comes involuntarily at 
 the sight of it), as short and plump as tlie fattest 
 of its vicars may have been, witli a dispro- 
 portionate bit of a spire on the top, as 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 there 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 
 showed us the church, whether he could not 
 favour us with a voluntary, she told me he was 
 making hay! What do you say to that ? I think 
 this is a piece of Germanistn 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 the 
 room Avith her ; the door was open, exhibiting 
 the homely comforts inside ; a cat slept before 
 it, on the cover of the garden well ; and there 
 was plenty of herbs and flowers, presenting 
 altogether 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 
 them 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, celebrated 
 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 
 himg 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. 
 Between Mickleham and Dorking, on the left 
 is tlie famous Box Hill, so called from the 
 trees that grow on it. Part of it presents 
 great bald pieces of chalk ; but on the side of 
 Mickleham it has one truly noble aspect, a 
 " verdurous Avail," Avhich looks the higher for 
 its being precipitous, and from its having some- 
 body's house at tlie foot of it — a Avhite little 
 mansion in a Avorld of green. Otherwise, the 
 size of this hill disappointed 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. He 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 toim 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 apijeared not so pleasant as 
 their countrymen in general, nor so healthy. 
 There are more King's and Duke's Heads in the 
 neighbourhood ; signs, which doubtless came 
 in with the Restoration. The Leg of Mutton is 
 the favourite hieroglyi^hic 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 fendeavours 
 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 ofl" 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 Avith 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 s})ots in the 
 neiglibourhood, 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 think, 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 puffed ; for puffing, thank God, 
 besides being a very unfit announcer of tnith, 
 has well-nigh cracked its cheeks. 
 
 Betchworth Castle is now in the possession 
 of Mr. 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, why 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 tliere by chance, 
 with the younger brother of a family whom I 
 had known in my childhood, and wlio are emi- 
 nent to this day for a certain mixtiire 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 joviality ! 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 witli the other day * ; which 
 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 sec Italy 
 once again, and hear with more accomplished 
 ears the sound of lier music. 
 
 • See " A Ramble among the Musicians in Germany," 
 a work full of gusto. 
 
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