— 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-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 Lerniinia 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 ; 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 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 sigheoet ; 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. THE END. LONDON : BRADBUBV AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. In One Volume, with Portrait, Vignette, and Index, price 2'Js. cloth, THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF MARCUS TUI.LIUS CICERO THE LIFE OF CICERO. By Dr. Conyers Middleton. CICERO'S LETTERS TO SEVERAL OF HIS FRIENDS. Translated by William Mklmoth. CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS. Translated by Dr. IIeberden. In One Volume, price 9s. cloth, THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO BY CONYERS MIDDLETON, D.D. DRAMATIC LIBRARY. 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