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 ,MfJ
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 GILBERT EARLE, Esq. 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF 
 
 (jl<^ 
 
 ^y.^. 
 
 Biit when rcturn'd the youth?— the youth no more 
 Return'd exulting to his native shore; 
 Biit forty years were past, and then there came 
 A worn-out man. Crabbe. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR CHARLES KNIGHT, 
 
 pall-maLl east. 
 
 mdcccxxiv.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BV W. CLOWES, 
 
 Northumberland-court.
 
 
 ,<i^ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 The world always expects some apology for 
 auto-biography ; — and yet the expectation is as 
 much a conventional matter, as the understanding 
 between the hero of his own tale in a stage-coach, 
 and his listeners. If the subject of the narrative 
 disclose any leading movement of the great ma- 
 chine of the heart, and if the influence of that 
 movement on " human dealings"" be traced with any 
 thing like " a learned spirit," the distaste for egotism 
 vanishes in an instant, and we permit a man to talk 
 of himself, as of some science, or art, with which 
 he is deeply familiar. This, after all, is the test 
 to which such narrations must be subjected ; — the 
 only value which they possess is their truth. It 
 was this value which made a projector of perfecti- 
 
 A 2
 
 IV PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 bility * determine that, in his Utopia, every citizen 
 should deposit a record of his cxferience in the 
 national archives. He was in some measure riffht. 
 There are points in which the humblest and the 
 most obscure may have lived for example, or for 
 caution. 
 
 The Fragments of a Life which are now offered 
 to the world have this merit of truth, or they have 
 none at all. They were placed in my hands with 
 that feeling of reverence with which the relatives 
 of one that was beloved, and more particularly of 
 one that has been unhappy, are accustomed to 
 regard his memory. It is, perhaps, with too much 
 of deference to those feelings that these Fragments 
 are now published. They may interest many per- 
 sons, as they have interested their Editor, by their 
 force and simplicity. But then, the absence of 
 nearly all romantic incident, — the inartificial ' con- 
 duct of the plot,"* (to use a phrase derived from the 
 mimicry oi real life) — may disgust ordinary readers; 
 and send them from a history whose denouement is 
 on the first scene, to some tale of joy or sorrow, 
 
 * Mercier.
 
 PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR. V 
 
 where a scries of events, each of which increases in 
 importance, is worked up in a natural (quaere, un- 
 natural ?) progression^ from the cradle to the 
 grave. 
 
 The Life of Gilbert Earle is the life of a man 
 whose onset was wretched — made wretched by 
 one false step — and whose after-career was wholly 
 
 Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 which that one step induced. This may not be 
 the life which the Novelist would copy ; but it is 
 the life which w^e all see, and hear of, in every 
 gradation of society. 
 
 I am not quite sure that I am rendering a service 
 to mankind by publishing this book. It will have 
 the effect of striking upon the heart, — and, perhaps, 
 upon the heart whose hopes beat highest, — like the 
 kneU of departed joys. It proclaims, without in- 
 termission, the theme which one who has been 
 called the wisest of men incessantly proclaimed, 
 " Vanity of vanities — all is vanity." It puts 
 before the view a bold sketch of the painful suc- 
 cession of ills which are entailed upon mankind by 
 the physical change, and the moral inconstancy, —
 
 VI PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 the decay, the decrepitude, and the perishing of 
 all earthly things. It rings in our ears that ' this 
 is no abiding city.' It tells us, in every page, of 
 the heavy and the weary weight 
 
 Of all this unintelligible world. 
 
 Oh ! that the world could never thus show itself 
 to the young enthusiast, setting out on his career, 
 eager and buoyant in all bis golden dreams of love, 
 and friendship, and honour, and disinterestedness ; 
 — and, what is more, believing in the endurance of 
 all these ! Oh ! that this blight should never shrivel 
 his spring-blossoms ! — But there is a state of ex- 
 istence, and that comprehending a much wider 
 range, to which the remains of a withered man, like 
 my poor friend, may read a fitting lesson. It is the 
 life of insensibility, — of sensual indulgence, — of 
 blind confidence, — of bloated pride; — it is the life 
 of all those who have built their " house on the 
 sands." To such self-deceivers this record may be 
 useful. 
 
 I have read over the life of Mr. Earle, more 
 than once, with pleasure and perhaps improvement. 
 The circumstancct) which consigned the manuscript
 
 PREFACE, BY THE EDITOR. Vll 
 
 of my deceased friend to my charge may, in my 
 view, give such parts as I shall transcribe an 
 interest which they will not excite in others. Yet, 
 I cannot help thinking they may have some value. 
 I like to see the human mind in an undress. 
 Should one of the same taste take up these Frag- 
 ments, let him read on — I promise no amusement 
 to the lovers of the marvellous or the artificial. 
 
 It may be proper to add, that one of these Frag- 
 ments was published by me, in a periodical work, 
 in 1822, The impression it produced upon some 
 whose opinions I value, gave encouragement to the 
 collection of this volume. 
 
 May, 1824.
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 GILBEET EARLE, Esq. 
 
 FRAGMENT I. 
 
 ****** 
 
 JL FEEL that I have dwelled too lono- and mi- 
 nutely on these comparatively indifferent matters; — 
 but I have been influenced by that very indifference 
 itself. I have lingered and lingered among them, 
 " to put off," as the phrase goes, " the evil day as 
 long as possible." I have dallied with the earlier 
 and easier portion of my task, from sheer want of 
 courage to encounter the pain which I nmst suffer 
 in its progress. For even now, — even at this dis- 
 tance of years, — my hand trembles, and my breath 
 is painfidly drawn, as I approach this pan of my 
 story. But, if I pause upon these feelings, I may
 
 2 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 as well stop short where I am, — for I never shall 
 have the nerve to go farther. I must proceed with 
 my narrative at once, or I shall not be able to do 
 it at all. 
 
 It was, then, at this period that I first became 
 acquainted with her from whom my whole subse- 
 quent life has taken its colour. The first time I 
 ever saw her was at a party at ' 's, in the 
 
 October of this year. 
 
 Well — Oh, how well ! — I remember every cir- 
 cumstance of that evening; — how well, indeed, may 
 I remember them ! — The first time of beholding 
 her who afterwards becomes to us dearer than our 
 own souls, is always one of the land-marks of our 
 existence. We look back to it, after long years, 
 with the vivid and minute recollection of an event 
 of yesterday — and with all those associations of 
 tender and holy feeling Avhicli nothing but long 
 lapse of time can give. This is, I believe, in some 
 degree common to all men — how strong, then, 
 ought it to be in me ! 
 
 And so it u, indeed. For if the scene were 
 actually before my eyes, it could not be more present
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 
 
 to my mind than It is at this moment. The room 
 was very crowded ; it was a musical party, but I 
 chanced to arrive just at the termination of a song, 
 so tliat some short time passed in that general hum 
 of conversation which commonly intervenes between 
 the pieces of music at a concert. But, of a sudden, 
 there was an endeavour to obtaiii silence — some 
 one was going to sing. I was engaged in conver- 
 sation, and did not pay much attention to the pre- 
 lude, which was played on a harp. It was a simple 
 air, just played over, as it seemed, to give the key 
 to the singer, and to accord the instrument to the 
 voice ; — but, as I have said, I continued my con- 
 versation, heeding it but little. I happened to be 
 speaking on some subject that interested me; and I 
 continued talking earnestly, but, par bienseance, 
 in a low tone of voice, when the singer began. I 
 stopped instantly ; — the most perfect silence by this 
 time reigned in the room, and gave full effect to 
 the notes of a voice clearer, fuller, and far, fur, 
 more sweet, than any I had ever heard. The song 
 was of that style which may be termed pensive 
 gaiety ; — which may be supposed to speak the feel- 
 
 B 2
 
 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 ings of one naturally joyous and buoyant, but sad- 
 dened by the visitation of early sorrow. '1 he 
 singer gave — what is so rare — the Avords of the song 
 with the utmost distinctness ; and they were uttered 
 with a truth of feehng and expression whicli, added 
 to the wild, simple, and beautiful air to which they 
 were breathed, sank to my very soul. There was, 
 however, no parade of feeling — none of that dis- 
 played and spurious sensibility which so often 
 reigns in the atmosphere of ]:)lano-fortes. The song 
 was of a tender and regretful cast, and it was given 
 as if the singer understood and felt it — no more. I 
 stood motionless ;- — my ears were drinking in the 
 sweetest and most touching sounds I had ever heard, 
 and I scarcely allowed myself to breathe, lest I 
 might impede the slightest note reaching me. My 
 delight in music had always been something passion- 
 ate — not scientific, elaborate, complex, music, which 
 means nothing, and feels nothing, and makes nothing 
 understood and felt — but music such as this, where 
 Poetry and Sound join their sweetest and strongest 
 powers to enchant the senses, and enthrall the soul. 
 I was so engrossed while the song lasted, that I
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 5 
 
 never thouglit of the singer. I was standing in a 
 corner of the room, where I had been talking to 
 my friend, shut in, as it were, by a pillar; so that, 
 from the crowd of persons collected before me, I 
 could see no more than the top of the harp. But 
 of this I was scarcely aware, until the music had 
 ceased, and a long deep-drawn respiration had 
 relieved me from pleasure which had almost be- 
 come oppressive. Then, I began to desire to see 
 her from whose lips such sounds could flow, and 
 I strove to extricate myself from the crowd. I 
 was some little time accomplishing this — but when 
 I did, I came at once in full sight of a creature 
 of a beauty such as my eyes had never rested 
 upon before. She was seated by the side of the 
 harp, receiving the praises which were naturally 
 being dealt forth most lavishly. Her cheek Avas a 
 little flushed, and her eye glistened in a manner 
 which shewed that she Avas touched by the intoxi- 
 cation of success, and of the consciousness of the 
 keen admiration which she excited. But the ex- 
 pression of a glance which she now and then cast 
 on those who surrounded her, and a sort of shade
 
 6 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 which, at intervals, passed over the brightness of 
 her countenance, — sufficed to shew that though she 
 covild not but enjoy the homage paid her, yet she 
 fully knew how hollow and M^orthless it really was. 
 This was plain to me, as I gazed upon her face of 
 heavenly beauty; — and I was just then, as may be 
 supposed, in no mood to judge severely. No, — I 
 thought — I still think — those emotions of young 
 and womanly vanity far more than outweighed by 
 the countervailing feelings I have described. 
 " Succes de societe " are, beyond all things, likely 
 and able to make giddy a youthful brain, I be- 
 lieve there are few who would not have enjoyed 
 the incense as she did — I am sure there are few 
 who at such a moment would have felt its light 
 value, and have sighed for something far higher 
 and better than this. 
 
 How beautiful I thought Eleanor then — how 
 beautiful she really was ! — and that, too, of a 
 beauty exclusively, even strangely, individual. I 
 have, during the course of my life, seen some wo- 
 men who were her equals — one or two who, strictly, 
 perhaps, were her superiors, in beauty. But I
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 7 
 
 never, either before or since, knew any one, in the 
 least degree, like her. Her eye, especially, was 
 such as I never saw in any other person. It was 
 a full, beautiful blue eye, but with all — with more 
 than all — the fire and poAver of a dark one. I can 
 see it at this moment, beaming on me with the soft- 
 ness of tender affection — with the flashing of pas- 
 sionate love. I can see it bright with the fearful 
 brightness of agony — subdued in the melancholy 
 mildness of sorrow. — I can see it as it curdled and 
 froze in the coldness and dimness of deadi ! — Oh, 
 it is the human eye which bestows creating ex- 
 pression upon the human countenance ! — it is that 
 which gives the immaterial spirit to actual vision — 
 Avhich enables us to see the soul. Hence, in all 
 our recollections of one we have loved, it is the 
 look which is ever the most present — for that places 
 her before us, body and mind at once. Yes, I can 
 see her now — ^lier tall and rounded form, possessed 
 beyond all others of that grace of motion which 
 adds such charm to accuracy of shape, where it 
 exists,— and almost supplies its place to us, where 
 it does not ;— her face of more than earthly love-
 
 8 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 liness, with its bright, chistering hair, and its clear, 
 pale, pearl-like, complexion — varied on occasion 
 with a flush of rich blood, of a tint like that pre- 
 sented by the interstices of the fingers when held 
 against the sun ; — and, above all, the deep and 
 magical effect of her general image ; — all, all are 
 now before me in that full, lavish, hixuriance of 
 beauty which was hers when my eyes rested upon 
 her for the first time. 
 
 She was sitting, as I have said, by the side of 
 the harp ; which gave, as it were, token and remem- 
 brance of the exquisite sounds she had drawn from 
 it, and of those she had superadded. She had all 
 the advantages of dress : — the perfect and exquisite 
 whiteness of her skin was given to xiew — her full 
 and rounded arm was uncovered — and her bright 
 beautiful hair was fastened with a knot of diamonds. 
 I thought then she never could be so lovely as when 
 full dressed ; — I afterwards thought that in simple 
 unadornment she was more lovely still. But I 
 found the reality to be — (and in a truly beautiful 
 woman it always is so) — that the dress in which she 
 is before our eyes is that in which wc think she
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 
 
 looks the best. At night the brilhancy of dress 
 appears to us most suited to her beauty ; — in the 
 morning, we become converts to the plain white 
 gown, and that indescribable loveliness of com- 
 plexion, which a perfect, but still a healthy, pale- 
 ness possesses by daylight ; — and, when night re- 
 turns again, she again seems to eclipse her simpler 
 self, and we revert to our former creed. 
 
 To some people, perhaps, these minutia} of 
 merely personal reminiscence may appear trivial ; — 
 but, in despite of all that has been philosophized 
 about the wortlilessness and fragility of beauty, — 
 who, that has once felt its power, will deem it of light 
 regard ? — Wlio, that has ever loved a talented and 
 beautiful woman, has not experienced Avhat vast 
 additional effect loveliness of person gives to powers 
 of mind ? Old as I now am, and sad and suffering 
 as the greater part of my life has been, my blood 
 still rises, my lieart still swells, at tlie recollection 
 of the effect of this beauty upon me, in the days of 
 my burning youth. 
 
 It was thus, — in beauty and in briglitness — in 
 the niidit of music, and revelry and rejoicing —
 
 10 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 surrounded by crowding flatterers and friends, and 
 beaming with all the pride of gifted lovehness — it 
 was thus tliat I first saw Eleanor — thus was she 
 when we met : — I last saw her on the bed of death — 
 wasted and wan, and dying through, very weakness 
 and extinction, — her friends lost — her fame de- 
 stroyed — her heart broken, — in this manner I saw 
 her expire ; — it was thus we parted. 
 
 * *****
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ,. 11 
 
 FRAGMENT II. 
 
 * * * 
 
 It was about this time that I began to be assured 
 that Eleanor loved me. Those who have known 
 what the consciousness of being beloved is, can 
 imagine the sensations with which, in this instance, 
 it dawned and brightened upon me. Oh ! there is 
 no joy under heaven like the feeling of being loved ! 
 The gratifications of vanity — the triumphs of am- 
 bition — sink into nothing in comparison with this ; 
 or, rather, they are all included in it. When we 
 know that we are beloved by her whose affection 
 we prize beyond all earthly — almost beyond all, 
 desires; — when the sweet avowal still sounds in 
 our ears, and the delicious consciousness is burning 
 Avithin our hearts; — then, indeed, have ^wc reached 
 the summit — the very apex — of all human enjoy- 
 ment. Our gait is more buoyant — our port more 
 lofty — and we look, as it were, Avith a kind of
 
 12 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 pitying contempt upon all we meet. I mean lite- 
 rally what I say. — Any one who has thus loved 
 and been loved, must, in those moments of des- 
 perate joy, have often said to himself — " that man 
 is not loved as I am— that man does not pos- 
 sess her affections !" — With me these feehngs rose 
 to their utmost heiglit. She whom I esteemed the 
 most gifted and lovely being whom it had ever been 
 my lot to meet — she who for months had been 
 the very life-pulse of my heart, the vivifying breath 
 of my nostrils — she who had wound round every 
 fibre of affection, who had so long engrossed me 
 utterly, heart and mind, body and soul — she loved 
 me ! — Thrown intimately as I had been into her 
 society — inmated in the same dwelling — witnessing 
 the development of her (qualities and powers, as 
 reserve softened into friendship, and friendship 
 kindled into love; — living in constant intercourse 
 for months "with a creature like this, — how was it 
 possible that my afr'ection for her should not be 
 of that nature and degree which concentrate every 
 action, wish, feeling, and idea, upon one enthralling, 
 only object.^
 
 GILBERT EAIILE, ESQ. 13 
 
 She was indeed a Avoman, the possession of whose 
 affection might be cause for pride. In mind, as 
 well as in person, she differed from every other I 
 ever knew. Her intellect was of an order which 
 not only few women, but few human beings pos- 
 sess ; — and yet she was, in some things, subject to 
 all the weaknesses of her sex. Conscious of her 
 excessive beauty she could not fail to be ; but her 
 consciousness of it rose into what might be directly 
 termed vanity. Yet, vanity was not in her as in 
 others; far from being ridiculous, offensive,* and 
 degrading, it was so playfully acknowledged, so 
 gracefully confessed, that it became a question 
 whether it did not rather add to, than alloy, the 
 fascinations out of which it sprang. She Avas vain, 
 also, of her powers of mind. She prided herself 
 on the intellectual superiority which was so manifest 
 over nine-tenths of her associates. The shallow 
 ness, the emptiness, the affectations, — the paltry 
 jealousies and petty competitions, — of most of her 
 own age and sex, naturally created in her contempt 
 and aversion. These, joined to her personal gifts, 
 made her, as may be supposed, many enemies.
 
 14 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 But who that deserved to have friends, was ever 
 without enemies? We always find persons, who 
 are universally popular and well spoken of, to be 
 without qualities which excite envy — consequently, 
 Avhich merit admiration. They are not strikingly 
 bad, but neither are they eminently good; they 
 grovel in mediocrity. But, on the other hand, 
 those of shining gifts and qualities will be disliked 
 by many for their very merits. Those whom they 
 liave rivalled and outshone, or whom they may 
 liave slightingly treated, — join in ill offices and de- 
 traction. But they will be loved strongly by their 
 friends, for they deserve their affection. I never 
 should have a high opinion of any man, if no one 
 were warm in abuse of him. 
 
 It was thus with Eleanor; if she had strong- 
 enemies, no one was ever beloved by her friends 
 like her. There was a fascination about her which 
 none, on whom it was exercised, could resist. I 
 have known her win, in a time incredibly short, 
 even those who had been the most unfriendly to- 
 wards her, to feel and to confess that she, indeed, 
 was the most enchanting of created beings !
 
 GILBERT EAllLE, ESQ. 15 
 
 Her powers of mind were, as I have said, of a 
 truly uncommon order. She had had httle tuition, 
 yet her acquirements were of a nature and extent 
 rare in any one — still more rare in a woman. I 
 have often wondered, indeed, that, with so few ad- 
 vantages, her acquisitions shovild have been so great: 
 but it is one of the peculiar marks and gifts of 
 genius to thrive most strongly under circumstances 
 calculated, one would think, most to tend to its 
 repression. Of this, Eleanor was a striking in- 
 stance ; her very disadvantages had been rendered 
 beneficial. Being chiefly self-taught, she had not 
 wasted her time, and expended her intellect, upon 
 the fadaises which commonly make up so en- 
 grossing a share of a woman's education. She 
 had acquired the modern languages usually 
 learned by her sex ; but not, as is generally the 
 case, merely for the sake of the acquisition. She 
 had regarded them as means, not ends. She had 
 used them to admit her to the stores of thought 
 which are garnered in them — to enable her to 
 commune with mighty minds in all the freshness 
 of their original speech. She had directed her
 
 16 LIFE or THE LATE 
 
 attention, also, to studies little usual with wo- 
 men ; — studies of a grasp and extent for which, 
 in general, men arrogantly declare themselves 
 alone to be fitted, and from which women sub- 
 missively and indolently shrink. But Eleanor 
 exerted fearlessly the gifts which Heaven had 
 showered in sucli lavish bounty upon her. Brimmed 
 up and running over, her genius had sought new 
 channels in which to run forth ; — too full for its 
 banks, it had broken for itself a new course. 
 
 With a mind thus stored with knowledge, and, 
 what is better still, thus used to activity and exer- 
 tion, she was in intellect little like one of her age 
 and sex. And yet, at the same time, she eminently 
 possessed that indescribable womanly grace, which 
 softens, without impairing, mental vigour, — which 
 gives delicacy, without weakness, to masculine 
 knowledge. Neither was she at all wanting in what 
 are understood by ' female accomplishments f— • 
 she could beat on their own ground those whose 
 •whole pretensions rested on these things — whose 
 Avhole time had been devoted to their acquisition. 
 In the most delightful of all these ' accomplish-
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 17 
 
 ments,' — ^in music — her powers, both from nature 
 and cultivation, were indeed great. But it was 
 chiefly, perhaps, their ajjjjlicatioii which rendered 
 their effect so exquisite. Instead of the cold, unreal, 
 artist-like, exhibition, which music is made by so 
 many, her singing always appeared as spontaneous, 
 heart-springing, and natural, as speech. She would 
 mingle, also, in the gay and graceful follies of so- 
 ciety, with a fascination and a charm which made 
 her (if I may so speak,) Queen of its brilliant but- 
 terflies ; and which would lead one to suppose 
 that her heart craved for nothing more — that her 
 mind could soar no higher. And yet she was en- 
 dowed, as I have stated, with a brilliancy of wit, 
 a grasp of mind, and a solidity of judgment, which 
 even few men possess at all, and still fewer, till 
 they have reached double the age which she was 
 then. She had, indeed, to borrow the happy ex- 
 pression of a celebrated writer*, " la tete d'un 
 homme, le corps d'une femme, et le cceur d'un 
 ange." Truly may I add with him — " il ny' a 
 rien d'exaggerc dans cct eloge." 
 
 ♦ j\r. joiiv.
 
 18 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 It may be thought that I am painting with a 
 lover''s pencil — that I am heaping together qua- 
 lities and gifts which were never joined in one 
 person. But, No. The fervour of the imagination, 
 and the hot gush of the blood, are equally cooled 
 at my age ; and the years that have passed since 
 the time of which I now write, have necessarily 
 sobered and reahzed my judgment, even on this 
 engrossing point. Were it not, indeed, that a long 
 lapse of time has intervened, I could not write on 
 the subject at all. But those days and deeds seem 
 to me a former state of existence. They are mir- 
 rored at the bottom of my heart with the utmost 
 vividness, both of brightness and of gloom — with 
 all the intensity both of their desperate enjoyment, 
 and of their unspeakable anguish. But still, I 
 have since been so changed a man — my life had, 
 as I may say, so completely a new commencement 
 from that period, — that I look back to it more as a 
 departed spirit may be supposed to look back upon 
 its existence of this world, than as upon circum- 
 stances which actually took place under my eyes, 
 and really happened to myself.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 19 
 
 Still, I am aware that I am likely to be accused 
 of exaggeration for the way in which I have 
 spoken of Eleanor; — for, once or twice, in society, 
 when the conversation has chanced to turn upon 
 women, I have not been able to resist rapidly 
 sketching the picture which I have here given 
 more at length ; — and it has always been pro- 
 nounced a fancy-piece, not a portrait — or, at most, 
 to be, like the Venus of Phidias, composed of the 
 remembered beauties of many. " Where," it has 
 been said, " where does one meet a woman like 
 this?" — I grant that it is not common — I grant 
 that it is most rare — but still such women do exist. 
 Once in a life-time, perhaps, like the blooming of 
 the aloe, we do meet with such a being — as if it 
 were to convince us that the golden age of the 
 human race was not all a fable ; — as if it were to 
 prove to us that women might exist, worthy of 
 drawing down the children of heaven to commune 
 with them. 
 
 Such was the woman I loved — such was the 
 
 woman who loved me,— and I then thought the 
 
 possession of that love, happiness. It was hap- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 piness for the moment ; or rather enjoyment, 
 extreme enjoyment, — for real happiness it scarcely 
 could be called at any time. It was imbittered 
 by the consciousness of wrong ; — by the weight at 
 the heart of the eternal bar betwixt us ; — ^by the 
 deadly chill of the thought that she never could 
 be mine — or that, in being so, she must lose 
 herself for ever ! 
 
 If there be, among those who read these pages, 
 one who is at this moment balancing on the verge 
 of virtue, ere he topple over its edge for ever ; — if, 
 in plain words, there be among them one who 
 is on the point of effecting the undoing of the 
 woman he loves — I entreat, I conjure him here 
 for one moment to pause. And, as he shall answer 
 to his conscience at the day of death, to his God 
 at the day of judgment, let him advance no step 
 farther in his course. — Let him reflect for one 
 moment what he requires her to sacrifice for him, 
 and he will shudder at his own selfishness. To 
 give up friends, fame, fortune, peace of mind ; — 
 to change innocence into guilt — cliastity into un- 
 cleanncss; — to sink from an ol)jcct of veneration
 
 GILBERT EAELE, ESa. 21 
 
 and love into a scoff and a by-word — " a thing 
 that mothers warn their daughters from ;" — to 
 place herself out of the pale of all social inter- 
 course, of all friendly communion ; — and oh ! far, 
 far, above all, to throw guilt upon her immortal 
 soul ; — these are the things which he asks at her 
 hands — these are the sacrifices which he remorse- 
 lessly exacts! — And for what purpose does he act 
 thus ? — For happiness ? — Alas ! Let him be as- 
 sured, if not by his own reason, at least by the 
 warning of one who speaks from the cruellest 
 experience — let him be fully assured that he is 
 drawing upon himself the deepest and most dreadful 
 M/diappiness — the most utter and damning misery. 
 Let him ask himself whether he is prepared for 
 this — whether he is ready to plunge himself and 
 the woman of his love into deadly and remediless 
 guilt — to heap coals of burning fire upon his heart 
 and hers? — Let him ask himself whether he is 
 ready to do these things, for these assuredly are 
 the things which he was about to do. If he be not, 
 again I say let him pause — and oh ! let that pause 
 be final.
 
 22 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 But I argue thus when the lapse of years has 
 placed these things before me, as before one who 
 looks over the game, not who has staked his whole 
 soul upon its event. I know how very easy it is, 
 when we are not tempted, to preach resistance to 
 temptation — I know, alas ! still better, how difficult 
 that resistance is. And yet, many of these thoughts 
 and feelings were present to me even at that time. 
 I knew that the course which I was pursuing, 
 must lead to misery as well as to crime, yet I 
 never paused in my pursuit. This may appear 
 contradictory; but all who have ever been simi- 
 larly circumstanced know but too well how la- 
 mentably real it is. 
 
 It will probably havebeen observed that I have 
 hitherto shunned speaking of Eleanor's husband. 
 I have done this for two reasons ; — first, because 
 I wronged him, and I do not like to speak ill of 
 one whom I injured — well I could not speak of 
 him; — and secondly, because my personal know- 
 ledge of him was but sliglit ; for very shortly after 
 my first becoming acquainted with Eleanor, he was 
 sent to a distant part of the country, and I never
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 23 
 
 saw him after. In India, where hospitality is 
 unbounded, it was proper as well as natural that 
 she should pass her husband's absence in the house 
 of her friend. Of that house, alas ! I also was an 
 inmate. 
 
 But I must say a few words of Mr. . 
 
 He was not very much — ^not above ten years, at 
 least, — older than Eleanor; so that in age there 
 was no great disparity between them. But in every 
 thing else, the poles of the earth are not so opposite 
 as they were. He was one of those men who take a 
 sullen and obstinate pride in stupidity and ignorance: 
 — a morose savage, who loves to make a brutal sneer 
 at dehcacy, talent, and cultivation : — a fellow who, 
 drunken and dissolute himself, Avould fill the house 
 with his debauched companions, and then rail at 
 his wife for despising their society ; — who feeUng 
 himself scorned, resented it with the most virulent 
 and implacable hatred. Hate, in a man like this, 
 would naturally, and in fact did, shew itself in 
 every species of brutality; — I believe there is 
 none, short of manual violence, which he did not 
 evince towards Eleanor. This is an unsightly por-
 
 24 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 trait, but it is only too faithfully drawn. Having 
 once begun upon the subject, I cannot restrain 
 myself from speaking on it openly and warmly. 
 Warmly, for I almost feel myself injured; — for if 
 Eleanor could but have esteemed and respected 
 her husband, worlds would not have shaken her 
 faith to him, even though that respect and esteem 
 should have been unattended with affection. And 
 oh ! what unhappiness and guilt had then been 
 spared to me ! — But as it was, contempt and hatred 
 Avere equally mingled in her feelings towards him. 
 Such as I have described her, every quality was 
 the opposite of those of her husband. What, in- 
 deed, have genius, loveliness, and feeling, in com- 
 mon with ill-favour of person and utter brutality 
 of mind ? — It was as if Ariel had been wedded to 
 the earth-born Caliban. 
 
 Why, then, did she marry him ? — Alas ! at the 
 time she did marry him, she was so very a child 
 " she knew not what she did." Her youth was so 
 extreme that she was tempted to the sacrifice — (for 
 even then she considered it one) — by those allure- 
 ments which are such oply in childliood. To us^
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 25 
 
 the words of a poet than whom no one has painted 
 sorrow and guilt more powerfully, or tracked them 
 up to their original causes more accurately *, — 
 
 " She now M'as promised choice of daintiest food 
 And costly dress, that made her sovereia;-n g'ood." 
 
 Gracious heaven ! — what has that parent to an- 
 swer who could act thus towards his child ? And 
 yet how many there are, who, for ambition, or for 
 meaner interest, offer up such victims every day ? 
 How many do we see causing and enforcing the 
 misery of their child's whole life with the nominal 
 wish to make them happy ? — Happiness ! — Is it 
 happiness for an infant, wedded during the di'eam 
 of childhood, to awake in maturity and find herself 
 the slave of an idiot or a brute ? — Is it happiness 
 for a lovely and gifted woman to be forced to 
 link herself to doting age, or wealthy or titled 
 folly ? — Is it happiness for the heartstrings to be 
 uprooted from the object round which they had 
 grown firm, and then for the streaming wound to 
 be seared by an irrevocable union with another, in- 
 different, if not detested ? — Arc these things hap- 
 
 * Crabbe.
 
 ^ LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 piness ? — Who will say they are ? — And yet who 
 can deny that they are daily done under its name, 
 and professedly for its acconipUshment ? Let such 
 parents reflect upon the fate to which they have 
 given up their child, — upon the Avorse than Egyptian 
 bondage into which they have sold her— the thraldom 
 of the soul. Let them think upon the long, long 
 years of gradual martyrdom — the wasting of the 
 health, the languid sickening of the mind, the chronic 
 heart-break, (if I may be allowed the phrase), which 
 make up the measure of her destiny ; — that killing 
 a coups (Tepingles^ which is the most insupport- 
 able, because the most lasting, of torments. Let 
 them think, too, (and shudder as they think,) of 
 the reckoning to which they will be called. The 
 marring of their child\s hajopiness in this world is 
 already at their door; — and if she sink under the 
 temptations to which they have made it certain she 
 will be exposed, and for yielding to which they 
 have given her every cause and every palliation,— 
 then will her next-world's penalties be on their 
 heads likewise ! 
 
 It was from the circumstance of this early mar-
 
 GILBERT EAELEj EStt. 27 
 
 riage that Eleanor had, as I have mentioned, lacked 
 tuition. She was married so young that she was 
 at that time scarcely half-taught in any thing ; — 
 and after her marriage, such a husband was not 
 likely to put himself to much expense or trouble 
 to improve and expand her mind. On the con- 
 trary, he strove to repress it as much as possible to 
 the level of his own, and discountenanced rather 
 than gave aid to her progress. But such a mind 
 as hers could not be repressed ; — the attempt was 
 like throwing water upon a powerful fire, which 
 heightens that which it is unable to extinguish. 
 
 Eleanor had a child — an infant at this time a 
 few months old. How I loved that child] — In 
 despite of the feelings of hate which burned within 
 me towards its father, I doated on it with a love pass- 
 ing almost paternal affection itself. I saw in it its 
 mother only. I had always been fond of children 
 when they came to be able to prattle their first 
 ideas — to give to view the first buddings of hu- 
 man reason ; — but from infants I had ever felt a 
 peculiar aversion. There was something in the
 
 28 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 appearance of their skin, in the touch of their 
 flesh, Avhich to me was even repugnant. But her 
 child I would fondle in my arms for hours. That 
 smile, which, on the faces of other infants, has 
 seemed to me so unmeaning and vapid, was bright 
 and delicious when it lighted up the eyes, and 
 played around the lips, of this dear one. I used 
 to fancy that it knew and loved me — and was half 
 jealous and angry when the nurse came to take 
 it from me, and the child, as was natural, stretched 
 its arms with affection towards her. 
 
 One of the first open betokenings of my love for 
 Eleanor, was some verses I wrote to that child ; — 
 one of the first distinct avowals of hers for me, 
 was the manner in which she received them. They 
 are as follows : — I have no copy of them — I wrote 
 them hastily one evening with a pencil, and gave 
 them to her in the rough and only copy; — but 
 they are as fresh in my memory as Avhen they first 
 rose into my mind, in all the glow and gushing of 
 youthful poetry and early passion : —
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 29 
 
 I. 
 
 Sweet infant, smile again, — althoug-h 
 
 I may not claim that look of thine ; — 
 My soul, alas ! can never know 
 
 The touching- joy to call thee mine. 
 Yet, when I've seen that sinless smile, 
 I've felt my heart grow light the while ; 
 The evil passions of my breast 
 Have then been almost charmed to rest. 
 
 ir. 
 
 Oh ! may the beams of that full blue eye. 
 Which now repose so placidly, 
 Never flash forth the unhallowed fire 
 Of wrath — of hatred — envy — ire : 
 And may that calm, unsullied brow. 
 So clear, so pure, so stainless now. 
 Be always tiuis — nor ever bear 
 One trace of sorrow furrowed there! 
 
 III. 
 
 Oh ! how I covet that soft thrill 
 Of hallowed pleasure, which will fill 
 Thy mother's soul, wlien she shall trace 
 Nascent expression in thy face — 
 When first tliy kindling eye shall shew 
 Thy little heart hath learned to know 
 Thy mother; and thy smile revealing 
 Tlie earliest touch of tender feeling. 
 Shall add the power of dawning sense 
 To the charm of infant innocence I
 
 so I-IFE OF THE LATE 
 
 And, more than all, when thy tong-ue shall try 
 
 To lisp its first words falteringly ; 
 
 And syllable the sound most dear, 
 
 Most hallowed to a mother's ear — 
 
 Sweeter to her than the dying notes 
 
 Of music which over the water floats, 
 
 Or the heavenly strain when the winds a^ive tone 
 
 To the harp that speaks but by them alone. 
 
 Is there on earth an equal bliss? — 
 
 No ! there's none so perfect — so pure as this ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Yes ! dearest infant, smile ag-ain. 
 
 And stretch thy little arms towards me ;■ — 
 
 And fondly look on me, for then 
 I almost dream that thou must be 
 His, who thus loves thee doatingly ! — 
 
 Whose very heart of hearts caresses thee— 
 
 Whose soul's most fervent feeling blesses thee — 
 
 Who'd give that soul itself, if aught 
 Could make thee really his — but, no — 
 
 I must control that maddening thought — 
 Alas! it never ca« be so! 
 
 I may well remember these verses, — for, as I 
 have said, they caused the first explicit confession 
 of mutual affection between Eleanor and me. It 
 needs, indeed, but little to bring passion to the lips, 
 when it has reached its full ripeness in the heart.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 31 
 
 When the train is so perfectly laid, it requires but 
 one spark of fire to make it blaze forth. When 
 two persons have loved each other for some time- 
 when all then- actions, their whole manner, air, 
 and bearing, betray that love, though the tongue 
 may not have ratified the avowal, — the circum- 
 stance is very, very slight, which will bring it 
 openly into light and life. And yet we almost fear 
 to approach indirect terms, that subject which, in- 
 directly, has long been the only one thought and 
 spoken of. The dawning belief, and, at last, 
 complete conviction of being beloved, make the 
 tongue fearful to utter anything which might 
 mar or disturb a state of such enthralling bliss- 
 fulness. It is usually some chance — some word 
 dropped — or, more frequently, some casual event 
 or circumstance, which opens the sluices of the 
 heart, and lets forth its flood of fondness. The 
 looking together on something beautiful, appalling, 
 or sublime ; — Nature in her sweetness or her ter- 
 rors, — the moonlight sea, — a storm, — some po- 
 sition of mutual danger, — a passage of resistless 
 poetry, — or the sound of soul-swcUing music — aD
 
 32 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 these things are used to draw forth to the hps the 
 affection, not hidden, indeed, but still unconfessed. 
 But it was none of these with us. It was the 
 expression of my uncontrollable and overflowing 
 fondness for her child, that gave breath to our 
 fondness for each other. The feelings of a mother 
 were mingled with those of love, and added to 
 them their own redeeming purity and gentleness. 
 i , There was, in truth, vast difference between 
 Eleanor*'s affection for me and mine for her. I 
 loved as men love ; — not, indeed, without deep 
 sense of the value of a soul and mind like hers, — 
 but with all the violence also of guilty and impure 
 desire. She loved, not as most women do, but as 
 some women can love ; — Avith a fervour as great, 
 and a devotedness far greater than is ever felt by 
 man, and a purity and absence of sinful passion to 
 which he is an utter stranger. I am not going to 
 "babble of" platonics — I have lived too long in 
 the world, and seen too much of it, to talk about 
 those trumperies at this time of day : — but I do 
 say that there are some women — few, I grant, but 
 still some — whose affection, while it possesses all the
 
 GII.nERT EARLE, ESQ. ' 33 
 
 warmth usually confined to sexual love, remains 
 unstainedly free from its grosser impulse. 
 
 At the time of which I speak, however, I had 
 little knowledge of the extent to Avhich this can 
 exist in woman ; and I, therefore, wondered, as 
 well as grieved, at the slow progress of my suit 
 with Eleanor. The perfect and almost startling 
 candour of her manner ; — and the unreserved aban- 
 donment of her attachment towards me, had led me 
 to believe that her yielding would follow speedily 
 and of course. But, though she had passed what 
 would have been the Rubicon of all others, she 
 advanced no jot farther. To my unceasing virging, 
 her reply was unvarying and firm. She did not 
 affect to refrain from any feeling with regard to 
 her husband, — she spoke freely of the scorn and 
 hate in which she held him ; — she avowed as frankly 
 and fully her love for me, — but her determination 
 was not the less strong; to cast no guilt and shame 
 upon herself. She was proud — very proud ; — and 
 she shrank from the idea of doing- aug;ht which she 
 could not avow and justify in the face of the world. 
 The manner in which she used to speak to me on
 
 &4 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 this subject had the more force from its calm de- 
 cision and quiet firmness of tone. It appeared, in- 
 deed, hke that of one unchangeably fixed. 
 
 We were thus for some time on a footing which 
 is most rare to those in our situation. We lived 
 in all the familiarity of vmreserved affection, and 
 yet were wholly free from any deeper guilt. I say 
 this is most rare, — for, even when it does occur, it 
 cannot possibly be of long duration. It is against 
 our Nature — and whenever we wrestle with that, we 
 are certain to be Avorsted in the conflict. It were 
 wiser, indeed. 
 
 " ' ■ ' to make 
 
 Our bower upon some icy lake. 
 When thavvinaf suns begin to shine 
 Than trust " 
 
 to the still more treacherous and unstable support 
 of our Resolution, in circumstances such as these. 
 
 But, from the causes I have mentioned, the con- 
 tinuance of this species of intercourse was, in my 
 own instance, much longer than is usually the case. 
 We were, at this time, living in a wild district near 
 the sea'; from which rose steep and high cliffs that
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 35 
 
 swelled into mountains as tliey receded inward into 
 the country. Among these it was our constant ha- 
 bit to walk together, to enjoy that delicious evening 
 freshness, with which a tropical climate repays the 
 ^erce heats of the day. One evening, we had wan- 
 dered farther and longer than usual, till at last 
 Eleanor was fatigued ; and we sat down that she 
 might rest. 
 
 The spot where we were seated is as present to 
 me at this moment, as if it were before my actual 
 vision. It was by the side of a steep rocky path, 
 Avhich wound, in zig-zag lines, up the face of the 
 mountain. Before us, was a deep and narrow val- 
 ley — so narrow, indeed, that it might ahnost be 
 called a ravine— which separated the fellow moun^ 
 tain from that which we were on. In front of this 
 valley, a little to the right, was the sea — the mag- 
 nificent eternal sea ; — now spreading its boundless 
 exjianse of deep inky blue into the horizon, with an 
 unruffled surface, but a heavy, bulky, swell of the 
 body of its waters. I do not know that there is 
 any state in which the ocean is so solemn and im- 
 posing as in this. In a perfect calm, it is dreary 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and monotonous; — in a light breeze, it is dressed 
 in smiles and brightness ; — in a storm, it is awful, 
 fearful, terrible. But in the state I have described, 
 Ave gaze on it with a deep and oppressive sense of 
 its majesty and vastness, which it inspires at no 
 other time. In calm it loses the one, in tempest 
 the other — for the rage of the elements always nar- 
 rows the circle of our view. 
 
 The sun, too, was setting on it now. It was one 
 of those evenings in which the sun goes down al- 
 most to the horizon, shrouded and hidden by dense 
 clouds ; and then shines forth for a few moments 
 with that deep and lurid brightness which it sheds 
 at such times. The wide sea was tinged with a 
 dark shadowy tint of red, like that which is pro- 
 duced by looking through obscured glass at an 
 eclipse. Its full heaving acquired a sullen threat- 
 ening aspect from this blood-coloured hue, and 
 looked, if I may so say, like the face of a 
 guilty man brooding over fierce and revengeful 
 thoughts. The valley was in perfect gloom, as 
 well as the hill behind us, and three-fourths of that 
 opposite — but the summit of this last caught the
 
 GILPERT EARLE, ESft. 37 
 
 only ray of gold which the clouds permitted the sun 
 to shed, and shone in feeble and melancholy lustre, 
 as contrasted with the darkness, or the gloomy light, 
 which was spread over all else. 
 
 We had walked slowly up the difficult path, and 
 sat down here upon a fragment of the rock to gaze 
 on this beautiful and impressive scene. The seat 
 placed us close to each other ; — our limbs touched, 
 and I was forced to pass my arm round Eleanor to 
 support lier on the rock. Is there any one who 
 was ever thus placed, in such a scene, at such a sea- 
 son, and does not treasure in his heart's memory 
 the sensations of that hour ? Even when alone, 
 mountains — the vast sea— a frowning sun-set — oc- 
 casion a full deep awfulness which weighs on the 
 heart, and even on the physical breath. There is 
 a tightening of the breast, and a leaden oppression 
 of the nerves, which, nevertheless, cause a deep 
 moral sensation rather than bodily pain. The most 
 thoughtless pause in their thoughtlessness — the 
 most wicked are softened to repentance — the most 
 callous, for that moment, feel. Upon a heart warm 
 and ardent — untouched, at least untainted, by crime
 
 38 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 — it is needless to say Avhat the eiFect must be and 
 is. But when we are with one we love — whom we 
 dote on Avitli all the softness of the tenderest feel- 
 ing — whom we adore Avith all the fervour of burning 
 passion ; — when we feel the vital warmth of her 
 frame thrill through us ; — when her breath is min- 
 gled with ours — and we gaze into her very soul which 
 beams in her eyes with inexpressible affection and 
 abandonment — then, indeed, does the heart swell 
 with sensations which have no words to paint them 
 — ^but which need them the less, — as those who 
 have once felt them require no description, and to 
 none but those who have felt them could any de- 
 scription convey the feeblest shadow of vhat they 
 are. 
 
 We were thus placed : — my arm supported Elea- 
 nor on the narrow seat — her eyes mingled with mine. 
 We did not speak. There are some moments, and 
 this was one of them, when speech is wholly power- 
 less. Nay, more — when to speak would break, as it 
 were, the enthralling spell which is over us — would 
 destroy at once those air-built visions which, as in 
 the Eastern story, lap our silent spirits in Elysium,
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 39 
 
 Yes ! thus we felt, — as if the earth, and sky, and 
 sea, had vanished from before our eyes, and there 
 were only ourselves in the world ; as if we were 
 but one being — as if we had but one soul ! 
 
 But, alas ! there is no scene, however sublime — 
 there is no hour, however solemn, — which can long 
 suspend the headstrong wilfulness of Passion. I 
 took advantage of the softening and swelling of the 
 heart, which we then both felt, to return to my 
 ceaseless topic — to urge my usual suit. But the 
 heart of Eleanor was not like mine : that which 
 passed away lightly in me was by her far more 
 strongly felt. The holy sensations of that hour 
 outweighed its dangers, and spiritualized and made 
 pure even unlawful affections. 
 
 As I proceeded, though she continued to listen 
 attentively, she seemed to cease to hear ; — her eye 
 became fixed and unmeaning, and her whole form 
 grew motionless and stiffened. A sort of waking 
 stupor appeared to come over her ; — I strove to 
 rouse her, but in vain. " I shall be better pre- 
 sently," Avas her only answer, and she repeated 
 it to all I said. The continued, unvarying, and
 
 40 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 mechanical manner in which she repeated this sen- 
 tence, was more fearful even than if she had 
 been wholly speechless. I became alarmed to a 
 maddening degree. There she sat hke stone ; her 
 eyes fixed — ^her colour gone — her frame rigid. " I 
 shall be better presently," she repeated to every 
 thing I said to her, and even when I did not speak. 
 I Avas utterly, helplessly, at a loss. A fit, a swoon, 
 hysterics, I should have known how to succour 
 and relieve; but this unearthly statue-like suspen- 
 sion of animation, with the single exception of that 
 one echoing phrase, made me nerveless and helpless 
 as a child. There was no water on this stony moun- 
 tain, and I feared to leave her to fetch it. She re- 
 mained motionless. 
 
 At this moment, there came singing down the 
 path a little boy of, it might be, ten years old, in 
 ragged clothes, and with bare feet, but skipping 
 along at a merry pace, and carolling forth his ditty 
 with the gaiety and lightness of an innocent and 
 happy heart. The path brought him close to us ; 
 but, after looking at us for a moment with some 
 surprise, he proceeded on his way. As he passed,
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 41 
 
 I saw, to my infinite relief and joy, expression again 
 begin to spread over Eleanor's face. The tears 
 rose into her eyes, and at last began to flow freely. — 
 " I don't know why it is," said she, *' I was not 
 thinking of that child,— and yet the sight of his poor 
 little naked feet, tripping over the hard sharp 
 stones, brought tears to my eyes, as it Avere by in- 
 stinct." And she wept on, and I rejoiced, for the 
 tears relieved her. 
 
 I have often wondered at this since. I have 
 thought it strange that this merely physical sight 
 should produce tears in one who was in such a 
 death-hke state, and who had so much cause and 
 will to weep, but could not. Neither could she 
 ever account for it, more than in the few words 
 which she had employed when it happened — " I 
 saw his bare feet on the rough path, and I cried.'' 
 
 Eleanor continued to weep, and I did not endea- 
 vour to check her tears. I feared to renew the 
 unnatural and appalling state from which tlioy had 
 relieved her; and I determined to say no more on the 
 subject which had caused it. To my surprise, how- 
 ever, she began upon it herself. After the silence
 
 42 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 had lasted some time, she strove to dry up her tears, 
 and, turning to me, said in a voice, firm indeed, 
 but of a low, distinct, sustained intonation, Avhicli 
 carried with it something unearthly — •" If it will 
 give you happiness, it — it — it shall be as you wish, 
 —but — I could not live after it;" — and so saying 
 she sank upon my bosom, and began to weep unre- 
 strainedly. 
 
 Oh, God ! Avhat at that moment were to me all 
 the gratifications of passion ! — How weak, how piti- 
 ful seemed to me then the motives which had actu- 
 ated me all along ! — how cruel and remorseless did 
 it appear, to desire to sacrifice her happiness to my 
 OAvn— no not even that, — for happiness I knew it 
 could not cause even to myself. Here was this 
 lovely and gifted creature — whom I loved with a 
 love passing all human affection, — throwing herself 
 upon my feelings of mercy — yielding, but entreat- 
 ing to be spared. I do repeat that at that moment 
 all evil passions died within me. " No," I said in 
 my heart, " I will not sacrifice this dear one at the 
 shrine of selfish and impure indulgence. I will che- 
 rish her in mv inmost heart, but it shall be with the
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 43 
 
 purity of a brother's love, — though still with all the 
 deep and overflowing tenderness of my OAvn. I will 
 spare her— and, oh how blessed will the feeling be 
 hereafter that I have done this good deed, when the 
 temptation to a bad one was so fearfully strong — 
 that I have preferred lier happiness to my own en- 
 joyment — her innocence to my triumph !"" 
 
 I paused some moments while these thoughts 
 were passing through my mind, and then said to 
 Eleanor, " No, it shall not be, I never will urge it 
 again ;"— and, as I spoke, I stooped my face to 
 her's, and our lips met for the first time. They 
 then met in guiltlessness and purity ; — yes, purity ; 
 for the kiss which a mother imprints upon her new- 
 born infant's brow is not more free from unholy 
 passion, than was that in which my lips were pressed 
 to Eleanor*'s, then.
 
 44 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 FRAGMENT III. 
 
 •* 
 
 Alas ! how weak are our best and most earnestly 
 formed resolutions, against the power of Passion. 
 They are like characters traced on the sand of the 
 sea-shore, which the ever-returning wave washes 
 out in its advance. At the time that I thus pro- 
 mised to myself and to Eleanor, I meant that that 
 promise should be kept most religiously, — and for 
 some time I did keep it. But I did not take the one 
 only step which, in such cases, can be of the least 
 avail ; and this might of itself have shewn to me how 
 it would all end. In such matters, there is, indeed, 
 but one mode of safety and escape — to fly. All 
 else is the merest self-deception. These knots are 
 truly Gordian — they can never be untied, they must 
 be severed at one stroke. When affection has 
 reached the pitch Avhich mine then had, it is vitterly 
 vain to hope for its extinction, while the continuance
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 45 
 
 of intercourse supplies it with daily fuel. Wlille 
 that oil continues to feed the lamp, the flame will 
 never die; — it should be withheld totally and at 
 once. 
 
 And here let me once more entreat those who are 
 yet only in the distant draught of that cataract 
 M'hich dragged me down, to save themselves from 
 its vortex while their strength is still sufficient. I-et 
 those who are proceeding still hesitatingly on this 
 path of guilt and sorrow, stop short. They may be 
 assured that it is like that in the fable which led to 
 tlie lion's cave — those who have once reached its ex- 
 tremity never can return. Oh ! if they did but 
 know one half of the wretchedness that they are 
 heaping upon themselves, as well as upon the woman 
 diey love; — if they could but prophetically feel that 
 which in a time fearfully short they will feel; — if 
 they could for one moment be placed at that point 
 of time at which the heart exclaims — " And is this 
 what I have so long and so ardently looked to — 
 what I have waded through so much wickedness to 
 reach?" — then, indeed would they suddenly stop 
 with that sick shuddering which we feel at the
 
 46 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 inoment of preservation from great and narrowly 
 escaped danger. But when will example, however 
 dreadful, be of the same avail as personal expe- 
 rience ? 
 
 I continued some time faithful to the promise I 
 had so earnestly made ; but again I say that it is 
 utter self-deception to hope to remain in such cir- 
 cumstances, and to remain blameless. 
 
 " Whoever stands to parley with temptation 
 Parleys to be o'ercome " 
 
 By degrees, almost imperceptible even to myself, I 
 began to relajose into my former feelings. 
 
 *****
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESd. 47 
 
 FRAGMENT IV. 
 
 * 
 
 We were now married. — My heart's wildest wish 
 — my imagination's most extravagant hope — were 
 now realized. Our communion was now constant 
 and permitted; — our love was unreproved by man, 
 and sanctioned by heaven. She Avas mine — mine 
 before the face of the world, as well as on the 
 altar of our own hearts — mine by the ties of lawful 
 observance, as well as by those of irrepressible af- 
 fection. And were we happy? — Alas! none who 
 have been thus wedded will ask a question the an- 
 swer to which is so sadly certain. — Happiness never 
 can be reached through guilt. What would be 
 happiness under other circumstances ceases to be so 
 in these. The means have destroyed the end. If, 
 six months before, I had been asked what would 
 make me perfectly and transcendently happy, I 
 should have said without a pause— to be married to
 
 48 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 Eleanor. And now we were married — now she 
 was my wife — and happiness was fartlier from me 
 than ever. It was then before me — though beyond 
 my reach; — I was now past it, and it was irrecover- 
 able. 
 
 And she, what did she feel? She felt as all those 
 who are placed as she was, do and must feel — she 
 felt far more also. It is generally divorce which has 
 severed the chain of the first marriage, and there is 
 some consolation at least in the thought that, if it 
 had not been for that, the second union could never 
 have been formed. But here, where death had 
 given her freedom — when so short a further conti- 
 nuance in the path of virtue would have rendered it 
 the path of happiness also — here, indeed the pangs 
 of regret and self-reproach became doubly gnawing 
 and severe. Her husband had died before the story of 
 our'guilt and his wrong had reached him — but the 
 guilt remained undiminished — the Avrong continued 
 the same. She had sacrificed all for her love for 
 me — and one short month would have made the 
 sacrifice needless. She, the proudest of women, 
 liad lost fame, name, and station — she, whose qua-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 49 
 
 lities had raised her enemies who had been hsr scorn, 
 was become the object of their insolent reproacli or 
 still more insolent pity ; — -she, who had been the fond- 
 est of mothers, had abandoned her cliild; — she, who 
 had been the purest of human beings, was polluted 
 and fallen. And all this had been escaped, had her 
 resolution stood firm but one month more ; — had she 
 for that brief period continued to act up to her no- 
 bler self, she had gained blamelessly, and in honour, 
 that which the sacrifice of all she valued on earth 
 had failed to give her. 
 
 When the news of her husband''s death first 
 reached her, these reflections had upon her the most 
 violent effect. But when time had rolled on, — when, 
 after the intervention of a considerable period, we 
 were married, I had hoped that the agony of her mind 
 would soften down into resignation at least, if she 
 could not attain contentment, I knew that such 
 feelings as her's then were could not last. In some 
 persons, and on some occasions, severity of suffering 
 is condensed to a degree that necessarily shortens its 
 duration. The human mind— the human frame 
 — could not bear its loiig continuance. Those con- 
 
 E
 
 50 . LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 solations and condolences, also, which deep affection 
 alone can render, and deep affection can alone re- 
 ceive — that fulness and perfectness of sympathy 
 which a suffering heart finds in one which is truly 
 its fellow — every variation and shadow of feeling 
 being thoroughly u?iderstood, every gradation of 
 suffering being intensely felt for ; — all these — and 
 those who have been in affliction well know their va- 
 lue — all these were her's. But it was a long, a very 
 long, time before she became at all herself. And 
 when she did recover tranquillity, it was not the 
 healthful quiet of peacefulness — it was the deep so- 
 lemn settledness (if I may so speak) of fixed misery. 
 And now commenced a period to which, even at 
 this distance of time, I shudder to look back . It was 
 a term of little more than two years, but during which 
 I underwent an eternity of anguish. There are 
 many — especially in this country, where consump- 
 tive diseases are so awfully common — who have 
 witnessed and watched over one deai" to them de- 
 clining to the grave. There are many who have 
 seen the bloom of youth turn to the false and fatal 
 hectic of disease — Avho have beheld the beauties of
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 51 
 
 person betokening, and the gifts of mind hastening, 
 the progress of decay. I say " tlie gifts of mind 
 liastening" — for alas ! it is well known that, in such 
 cases, the more powerful and sensitive the mind, 
 the more it preys upon the feeble frame — the more 
 keen " the blade," the sooner it " wears out the 
 sheath." There are many, I say, who have devoted 
 themselves to this office of superlative pain and sor- 
 row — who have lived thus, as it were, in the sight 
 and the fellowship of death. But oh ! let me hope 
 that there are but few who can be placed in more 
 intimate comparison with myself. They may have 
 fruitlessly tended, and agonizedly lost, the sister 
 A\hom they have loved — the daughter whom they 
 have adored — the wife whom they have worshipped; 
 — but their affliction, severe as it was — their grief, 
 bitter as it might be — was not increased by self- 
 accusation — was not added to tenfold by remorse. 
 If I beheld the consuming advances of disease, I 
 knew that / liad caused them, — if I sliuddered at 
 her approaching death, I knew that it was inflicted 
 by me ! 
 
 At the first, the tokens of her malady were so 
 
 E2
 
 52 LIFE OF THE I.ATF 
 
 slight and gradual, that it was no marvel if I was 
 blind to them. Her cheek grew paler, but it never 
 had been ruddy — her form grew thinner, but it al- 
 ways had been slight. By degrees, however, the 
 usual signs became apparent, even to me. Even I — - 
 I who was interested to my very soul in the event, 
 and conseqviently was the last to see, the very last to 
 believe, the fate that was impending — even I could 
 shut my eyes to it no longer. But when I first sus- 
 pected the truth at all, the whole of it flashed across 
 me — " to be once in doubt Avas once to be resolved." 
 The moment I saw there was an^ danger, I mag- 
 nified it — or at least made it more instant than it 
 truly was. She had never been blinded to her situa^ 
 lion — she had felt the germ of death within her — 
 she knew that the sentence had gone forth, and 
 could not be recalled. 
 
 I did not at that time think it possible that any 
 thing could have increased my love for Eleanor — still 
 less did I think that any thing could have raised my 
 opinion of her heart and mind. And yet I never 
 knew her till now ; — I never knew to what extent 
 strength of mind could reach — I never knew what the
 
 GILBERT EARLK, ESQ. 53 
 
 heart could be — I never knew how two human bcinirs 
 could love eacli otlier. For a full vear before her 
 death, she saw tliatits approach was progressive and 
 certain; — her conduct during that time was, not what 
 might have been looked for from a weak and erring 
 Avoman — but what would have done honour to the 
 sternest philosopher of the Pagan time, or to the 
 sincerest, warmest, and devoutest Christian. It 
 Avas her religion, indeed — pure, and ardent as it 
 was — that supported me in that dreadful period. 
 For it is one of the attributes of Christianity, that 
 deep faith in its power, and strong cultivation of its 
 duties, do not alone benefit those by whom that faith 
 is held, that cultivation exercised, but are reflected 
 also upon all within their sphere of influence. The 
 religion of Eleanor was indeed Christian. It may be 
 said that it had not preserved her from guilt, 
 that it had not rescued her from evil. True ; — pas- 
 sion did burst be3ond its control, did act in defi- 
 ance of its dictates; — but if religion did not save lier 
 from sin, it at least enabled her to expiate and re- 
 pent it. Thus, it was not I who supported her in that 
 awful time ; it Avas she Avho sustained me — it Avas
 
 54 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 slie who soothed me from utter despair — who spoke 
 in consolation to my sinking spirit. She, who was 
 to die, was the consoler of him who was to live; — she, 
 Avho endured the suffering, compassionated and gave 
 pity to him who had caused it. I will not say, that 
 there was no reproach in word, deed, look, or ges- 
 ture — it were a cold iniworthy phrase if I were so 
 to speak : — No, — affection the fondest, the fullest, 
 the most ardent, the most unremitting, was all that 
 breathed from her lips — beamed in her eyes — spoke 
 in her actions. That love which sacrifices all thinccs 
 without a doubt, — which suffers all things without 
 a murmur, — which adds to joy and diminishes sor- 
 row, — which is overflowing] y grateful for kindness, 
 and is unreproachful even in ill requital ; — that love 
 which time adds to by habit and accumulation, in- 
 stead of lessening by coldness and satiety ; — that love, 
 in a word, which Avoman alone can feel on earth, 
 which man can never reach, and of which he is un- 
 deserving— that love she felt towards me to the last 
 in all its extremity and perfection. 
 
 Wliilc yet her strength permitted, she would 
 stroll forth with me to gaze on that beautiful nature
 
 GILBERT EAllLE, ESQ. 55 
 
 which she was so soon to leave — wliich she had al- 
 ways loved so much, and felt so strongly. Sunset — 
 the hour of the heart— used with her to be the sea- 
 son when she would look on the flushed and splendid 
 heavens, with those aspirations of the soul which 
 become deeper and more solemn as the time ap- 
 proaches when that soul will be freed from its 
 earthly nature, and will know those awful secrets 
 which are hidden from all humanity. She would 
 then gaze upon the skies, as if she would pierce 
 the azure firmament, and behold those dwellings 
 which Ave love to figure to ourselves as existing in 
 the regions of upper space. 
 
 We have prayed together at that hour; — and 
 what praying can equal that which is breathed in 
 communion with one we love ? There is a full deep 
 swelling of the heart — an high and sublime soaring 
 of the soul — that almost raise us above the level of 
 our nature, — which, at such times, seems to shake 
 itself free from its human infirmities, and to ascend 
 into a purer and more spiritual being. In other 
 prayer, the feelings are less fervent — the thoughts 
 less gushing — than when they are thus joined with
 
 56 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 those of one more dear to us than ourselves. But- 
 then, the sternness and solemnity of devotion are 
 softened and made ardent by the mingling of human 
 love, while they cleanse it from all earthly and 
 unholy feeling. 
 
 The last time we were ever out together, was on 
 an occasion of this kind ; — when the sky and the 
 earth seemed alike lighted up by the glories of the 
 setting sun. We paused opposite to it at that 
 time when its radiance sheds a brightness and 
 lively aspect over all within the horizon''s com- 
 pass. As the sun declines lower, there is an air 
 allied to sadness thrown over the landscape ; but 
 it was before this, that we stopped to gaze upon 
 its beauties and its s})lendour. It was a very little 
 way from the house — for she was too feeble to walk 
 far. Alas ! what a contrast she noAv was to the ra- 
 diant being which I have described. Her form was 
 wasted to a fearful thinness — to a degree of attenu- 
 ation, indeed, almost unnatural — yet it retained that 
 gracefulness of outline and of movement for which 
 it had always been so remarkable. But it was now 
 the grace of largour, not of elasticity and buoyant
 
 GILBEllT EARLE, ESQ. 57 
 
 3'oulh. The deep red spot burned in the centre of 
 her cheek — the rest of which, as well as her brow, 
 was of that clear transparent whiteness common to 
 her disease. Her eye— that eye whose expression I 
 have never seen equalled, and which remains so in- 
 tensely in my memory — her eye alone appeared 
 unchanged. Yet even this ivas changed. Its 
 brightness still remained, but it had an vmhealthful 
 glassiness superadded ; — and it was sunken within 
 its hollow, which took from the power of its glance, 
 and gave to it a more saddened expression. She 
 leaned heavily on my arm — but before we had got 
 far, she complained of fatigue, and I supported her 
 to a seat. We watched together the sun decline, 
 and finally sink below the hne of the horizon ; — we 
 saw the glowing and brilliant colours which he left 
 in his descent gradually deepen in the sky, till 
 all became shadoAv; while, on the other side, the 
 beauties which the heavens wear by night, grew, first 
 vaguely, and then by degrees more strongly, visi- 
 ble. The stars began to glitter one by one, and the 
 firmament became more distinctly and brightly blue.
 
 58 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 As the chill of the night came on, I pressed Eleanor 
 to go in — but she begged to stay to gaze for the 
 last time on the loveliness of night — " I know," 
 said she, " I never shall come out again — I am so 
 feeble I scarcely could get these few steps — I must 
 cease to attempt it altogether. Let me, then, stay, 
 that I may gaze on all that Nature has of soft, and 
 solemn, and enchanting— that the last time my eyes 
 rest on it may be with you. The evening of my 
 life has come — the night is fast approaching — let 
 me look on this emblem of the fate which is so near 
 me; — and, oh ! let me hope that after the agitations 
 of the day, and the shadows of the nightfall, I may 
 ■wake to the pure, solemn, beautiful serenity of a 
 state like this !" She bent her head upon my shoul- 
 der, and laid her cheek upon mine — it was hot 
 even unto burning ; — and the wasted and fleshless 
 fingers, which I held within my own, were dry and 
 parched. But her spirit was unfevered by the 
 body^s illness — and she prayed to heaven with me 
 that night — for the last time in that glorious and 
 holiest temple. Nature — with that calm resignation.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 59 
 
 that solemn and subdued, but yet assured, hope, 
 which are the best passports to the blessed immor- 
 tality for Avhich they implore. 
 
 Why do I dvvell on these scenes ? — Is it that I 
 dread approaching that of death itself ? On that, 
 indeed, I canjiot dwell. — Life ebbed away in gentle, 
 imperceptible, but sure gradations. Her mind had 
 ceased to suffer sometime before her death, on all 
 points but one — her child. She liad no cause for 
 anxiety concerning it, as regarded itself, — but yet 
 in the last days of her existence she longed to 
 have with her that being to whom she had given 
 birth — whom she had loved more tenderly, perhaps, 
 if not so fervently, — if not so passionately, more 
 purely, than any other upon earth. She would 
 speak of her child more and more often as her death 
 drew near, — the last word, indeed, Avhich she dis- 
 tinctly pronounced was her child's name ; — but 
 after articulation had ceased, her last look was given 
 to me — her last sigh was breathed upon my lips.
 
 60 LIFE OF THE L.\TE 
 
 FRAGMENT V. 
 
 IMeetixg, after long absence, with those dear to 
 us, is said to be one of the highest enjoyments of 
 human existence. To mc it proved one of the sad- 
 dest moments of a sad hfe. Revisiting the scenes 
 of our childhood is also accounted a great, though 
 a melancholy, pleasure; — my return to them was 
 even more bitter than my departure had been. 
 During the long and dreary years which I had 
 passed in India, the thoughts of home had been the 
 food on which my soul had lived. The hope of 
 one day being restored to it — of being again united 
 to the dear ones who dwelt there — had supported 
 me under the martyrdom of the heart, which is 
 caused by long banishment. At length the time 
 was come to which I had looked unvaryingly, for 
 five and twenty years. I embarked for England ; 
 and, as our voyage lessened before us, my heart
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. Gl 
 
 expanded "whh the neai- accomplishment of long- 
 deferred hope. During the last week of the pas- 
 sage, I felt sickening impatience for the sight of 
 land. Our course had been rapid till ^yithin a few 
 days'* sail of England, when we met with baffling- 
 winds, which increased my eagerness to a painful 
 ])itch. I used to pace the deck during the first 
 watch with the officer until he was relieved, and 
 listen with engrossing interest to his stories of the 
 usual circumstances of approaching England — of 
 the chances of wind at the entrance of the channel — 
 of the pilot coming on board — of running up to the 
 Downs — of all the minutiae, in short, with which 
 the close of his different voyages had been varied. 
 Tliis man and his fellows looked happily forward 
 to reaching home ; but how different were their 
 feelings from mine ! They looked to the reciu'rence 
 of a periodical pleasure : I felt the condensed in- 
 tensity of long years of hope. 
 
 On the morning that we did make land, I was awak- 
 ened by my servant with the tidings that we were 
 close in shore. ]VIy cabin was on the seaward side of 
 the ship, so, as I looked from the port-hok*, I saw only
 
 62 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 tlie green waves dancing and glittering in the breeze 
 and sunshine of a summer morning : but the waves 
 were green — and I blessed the colour, as assuring 
 our nearness to land, and that land my own. I was 
 speedily dressed and on deck. We were running 
 rapidly up channel with a brisk Avesterly breeze — 
 and the OT'cen hills of the Devonshire coast stretched 
 away a-head and a-stern of us as far as the eye 
 could reach. It so happened that it was this very 
 part of the coast which I had seen last, when I was 
 leaving England nearly six-and-twenty years before. 
 My last look of my native country was at one of 
 these very hills, in the cold dull light of a Novem- 
 ber evening. I now saw it again in all the glory of 
 sunlight and of summer, and with the feeling of 
 return, instead of departiu'e, at my heart : and yet 
 with these causes, both physical and inward, for 
 joyous sensation, I question whether my feelings 
 were not less sad on the former occasion than now. 
 It was true I was then quitting my country — my 
 friends — my home — all those charities Avhich en- 
 twine til em selves with the heart-strings in a manner 
 never to be unravelled, and which caused mine to
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 63 
 
 strain almost to breakino- as I left them. But to 
 these pangs, many and bitter as they were, I had 
 that all-powerful antidote — the buoyancy of a youth- 
 ful spirit; — that false vision of early days, which, 
 like a Claude Lorraine glass, throws a warm tint of 
 richness and of pleasure over every scene, however 
 melancholy and unhopeful its reality may be. Now 
 my years of trial were past, and the moment was 
 come to which I had always looked for repayment 
 for all I underwent. But it found me changed, as 
 all men must be, by the lapse of years — and suffer- 
 ing, as it is to be hoped all do not suffer, under the 
 pain of bitter recollection. My heart was chilled 
 with the retrospect of an unhappy life — and my joy 
 for what was, Mas lost in my regret for what might 
 have been. I felt, too, what all men must feel 
 Avho pass the greater and better part of their life in 
 present pain for the hope of future happiness. I 
 felt that now, when it was at last within my grasp, 
 I had but few and declining years to enjoy it. 
 
 But this was only the foretaste of the pain my 
 return home was to cause me. I landed at South- 
 ampton, — and, without going to London, travelled
 
 64 I.IFE OF THE LATK 
 
 post across the country to my father's. It was in 
 the raontli of July, and at the close of the clay, as 
 my chaise wound slowly up the hill, from the top 
 of which I know I should see my father's house. 
 For the last few miles, the country had been be- 
 coming familiar to me, and I now recognized every 
 spot which we passed. I saw the wood where I 
 shot my first pheasant, and the cover where the 
 liounds met on the day I was first out hunting ; 
 and I recollected the pride of my young heart at 
 being allowed to mingle in the sports of grown men. 
 But even here there was change — even the face 
 of the country was not as I left it : how must, I 
 thought, the human faces which I loved, have al- 
 tered in the same period ! In the place of a wild 
 heath, of which the cover I have mentioned formed 
 part, there were ploughed fields, trim hedge-rows, 
 and a line of cottages which bore no mark of recent 
 erection. The cover itself was railed in, and seemed 
 kept as a preserve. All the fx-ee nature of the 
 scene was lost ; and, in my present mood, I thought 
 it ill exchanged, even for the smiling fertility which 
 occupied its place. When we reached the top of
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 65 
 
 the hill, the well-remembered scene of my childhood 
 burst upon my sight. In all the long and painful 
 years which had passed since I last looked on it, 
 that spot had remained green and fresh at the bot- 
 tom of a blighted heart — unefFaced by time — un- 
 changed by sorrow. As it burst at once upon me 
 now, my heart swelled with unutterable feelings — 
 I threw myself back in the carriage, and wept 
 aloud. — Who that has shed tears upon a like occa- 
 sion will deny them to be those of unequalled bit- 
 terness. 
 
 The chaise proceeded rapidly down the hill, and 
 passed through the village, which straggles to about 
 half a mile from the park-gate. We passed many 
 labourers returning from their work, and saw num- 
 berless loiterers, of all ages and both sexes, who 
 ran out at the sound of the wheels to see the car- 
 riage go by. But in not one of these people did I 
 recognise a known face : the young had been born 
 during my absence — and the old were changed be- 
 yond all remembrance. I was changed myself ; for 
 no eye now lighted up with the joy of recognition, or 
 beamed on me to welcome my retiuii. The woman
 
 66 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 who came out at tlie porter's lodge to open the 
 gates, looked into my outstretched face as at that 
 of a stranger; and as I passed into my father's 
 gates, I felt that I was an ahen among my kindred 
 — a stranger in my home. 
 
 It was now that I first felt the full force of the 
 change which had taken place in me, and in those 
 to whom I was returning; and I began to have 
 misgivings as to how I might appear to them, and 
 they to me. It is true that I had kept up a con- 
 stant intercourse with my family by letters — but 
 what are letters at a distance of thirteen thousand 
 miles, and during an absence of a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ? Can a letter set the writer before you, and 
 shew the silent work of time upon his person ? Can 
 a letter, however affectionate, equal those little daily 
 offices of kindness, which sink farther into the heart 
 than even the greatest acts of friendship — as the 
 continual dropping of water upon a stone makes the 
 deepest impression ? Can a letter convey the half- 
 Avord, the passing look of tenderness ? — or be unto 
 us a watcher in sickness — a consoler in sorrow — a 
 companion in enjoyment, — as he who wrote it would
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 67 
 
 have been ? Alas ! No ; —when absence exceeds a 
 certain time, and when, added to this, months of 
 distance intervene, letters may indeed 
 
 '• waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole," 
 
 but they will but feebly make known the daily life 
 and feehngs of correspondents to each other. They 
 are as unsubstantial and imperfect in comparison 
 with actual intercourse, as are the shadows of phy- 
 sical objects with the forms which cause them, 
 
 IVIy fears on this head were but too truly accom- 
 plished. When I drove up to the house, my sister 
 was waiting on the steps to receive me, and in a 
 moment I was in her arms. When, after some 
 time, we drew back to gaze upon each other ; there 
 was indeed cause for pain. We could not expect 
 that we should be unchanged : — we knew that Time 
 must have done his usual work ; — but still we Uved 
 in each other's recollection just as we had parted, 
 and the reality was scarcely the less sad from 
 its having been, in a great degree, foreseen. The 
 same smile, indeed — a smile never to be forgotten — 
 still played in my sister's eye and lip ; but the eye 
 
 F 2
 
 68 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 was sunken, and the lip grown thin, — and the smile 
 itself was sadder and more aged, like the frames 
 and hearts of both of us. The full, blooming 
 cheek was grown hollow and pale; and the luxuriant 
 and beautiful hair, for which my sister had been 
 remarkable, was entirely hidden — if, indeed, it 
 still remained — by the widow's cap, which she had 
 worn ever since her husband"'s death. This, and 
 the gown of dark grey, — which was likewise, I 
 found, her constant attire, — completed the contrast 
 with the light-hearted, brilliant, blooming, beauti- 
 ful girl whom I had left. For myself, I beheve I 
 was sufficiently changed also. My period of ab- 
 sence had been passed under a burning sun, and 
 my figure and my face bore ample marks of its cor- 
 roding influence. All the mental suffering, too, 
 which I had vmdei'gone had given aid to the work of 
 climate. I had left home a tall, florid, athletic boy of 
 eighteen : I returned a withered, worn-out man of 
 forty-five — thin even to leanness — and my whole 
 frame nerveless and relaxed. My cheek was of 
 that yellow, waxen colour, v/hicli long dwelling in 
 a burning climate gives— and my white hairs were
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESft. 69 
 
 fast outnumbering those which retained their origi- 
 nal darkness. My sister and I read in each other's 
 looks the shock we had mutually received, and we 
 walked silently together into the house. 
 
 Here I was to experience a meeting still more 
 bitter. I knew that my father had sunk almost 
 into second childhood ; but I had no expectation of 
 finding his imbecility so complete. He was seated 
 in an easy chair near the windoAv, which reached to 
 the ground, that he might enjoy the mild and 
 grateful warmth of a July sun-set. His limbs were 
 wrapped in flannels, and he was supported by pil- 
 lows on either side. His head shook tremulously — 
 his eye was vacantly fixed — and his jaAv drooped in 
 the extremity of dotage. This miserable wreck, 
 which humanity could scarcely look at without a 
 feeling of degradation, Avas all that remained of the 
 hale and handsome man whom I had quitted — it 
 was all that time and sorrow had spared of my 
 father !— Our entrance attracted his attention, and 
 he looked with surprise on the stranger ! — " Set a 
 chair for the gentleman," he muttered, almost me- 
 chanically ; " perhaps he would like to take some-
 
 70 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 thing after his journey."" My heart swelled almost 
 to bursting at this completion of my return home. 
 This was what I had looked to so fondly and so 
 long ; and now, what was it but bitterness and sor- 
 row ? My sister saw my distress ; and, going to my 
 father, tried to make him comprehend who I was. 
 " I am glad to see him," was the only answer which 
 could be got from him. He made it mechanically 
 — evidently totally unconscious of all which passed 
 before liim — his eye unmeaning — his words dream- 
 ingly spoken — and his whole aspect that of the last 
 flickerings of the flame of life before it sank out for 
 ever. 
 
 INIy father was shortly removed to his OAvn room, 
 and my sister and I were left to talk over old times 
 together. The room in which we sat was the li- 
 brary, and had undergone scarcely any change since 
 I had last seen it. My eye could recognise the 
 books in the very places in which I had left them : 
 — the heavily bound, red-edged folios were ranged 
 along the ground-row, untouched, most probably, 
 since my early thirst for books liad led me to ex- 
 plore them ; — and, in one corner of the highest shelf,
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 71 
 
 I saw a white-backed copy of Gulliver's Travels, 
 which I had nearly broken my neck in clambering 
 to reach. Most of the furniture was new ; but there 
 was still an old blue and white china jar, which I 
 had got into disgrace for cracking — and on which 
 was still to be seen the rivet which the housekeeper 
 had placed upon it at my entreaty. A large old-fa- 
 shioned back-gammon table, also, stood in one cor- 
 ner, which I well recollected as having been one of 
 the delights of my boyhood; — and the picture which 
 hung over the chimney — the only one in the room 
 —was, as it had always been, the portrait of an an- 
 cient worthy of our race, arrayed in the angular 
 stiffness — the large ruff — clocked stockings, and 
 be-rosed shoes, — of the court-dress of James the 
 First's time. These circumstances may appear 
 trifling ; — but I recollect they made strong impres- 
 sion upon me at the time, — and the task I have 
 undertaken of writing the narrative of my life is 
 naturally more a record of feelings than of events. 
 The long conversation I had with my sister, 
 tended in no degree to remove the sadness which 
 all these circumstances had caused. Her subdued
 
 72 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and melancholy manner shewed, that the hand of 
 sorrow had been upon her also — that all her feel- 
 ings were changed and saddened — except only her 
 affection for me. I made inquiry for all those who 
 were connected, in my recollection, with the dear 
 home to which I had returned. One answer served 
 for nearly all — " He is dead." Of all the servants 
 of the family — all the retainers, who are always so 
 numerous about a large country-house — who jjad 
 been my allies in my boyish sports, and who had so 
 fervently bidden God to bless my parting step — not 
 one remained to welcome my return. All the vil- 
 lagers, too, who had been most connected with " the 
 great house" — who had paid their court by making 
 their landlord's children share in the men-iment of 
 their harvest-home, and the joyousness of their 
 Christmas carol; — tliose, too, who had been my mo- 
 ther's ]:)ensioncrs, and to whom she had made us the 
 dispensers of her bounty, that she might train our 
 young hearts to the exalted pleasure of doing good ; 
 — all these, as I made inquiry for them one by one, 
 I was told had disappeared from the scene ; and, of 
 course, those who had risen up to fill their places
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 73 
 
 could feel no interest for me. My recollections of 
 home had not been confined to the physical scene 
 alone — they had naturally included the images of 
 those who dwelt there — and it now seemed almost a 
 mockery to be restored to the spot itself, and to find 
 that all who had peopled it in my heart, were 
 gone for ever. How bitter were my feehngs, as the 
 well-known quotation rose in my memory — " I 
 came to the place of my birth, and I said, ' the 
 friends of my youth where are they ?' — and an echo 
 answered — ' where are they ?' " — I recollected hav- 
 ing admired this as beautiful, when I first read it — 
 alas ! no one knows half its force who has not had 
 occasion to repeat it as I did. 
 
 When I was shewn to my bed-room, a new scene 
 of painful recollection presented itself. INIy sister 
 had had the same room prepared for me, Avhich I 
 had always slept in when I was a boy ; to which my 
 brother and I had been removed, when our going to 
 school made us considered too old for the nursery. 
 The room now contained only one bed, but every 
 thing else was strikingly the same as when I left it.
 
 74 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 The prints with which my mother had decorated the 
 walls, just before our first return from school — the 
 slielves which had held our little library — even one 
 or two of the mouldering school-books themselves — 
 all combined to call into the most vivid and painful 
 contrast my present and my former self. On the 
 wainscot of dark oak, I found, in a well-remembered 
 corner, the mis-shapen initials of my name, — which 
 I had cut with great labour, and had looked on as a 
 Avork of infinite skill. On each side the cliimney 
 hung the portraits of my brother and myself, painted 
 with the round cheeks, open neck, and flowing hair 
 of ten years old. Now one was in the grave — and 
 the other, at that moment, almost wished to be 
 there also. As I gazed on the rosy careless coun- 
 tenance which had once been my likeness, I scarcely 
 could think that it presented the same being. I 
 felt as the dead might be supposed to feel, if they 
 could behold their earthly form — so totally did a 
 gulf seem placed between my present nature and 
 that of the blooming boy on whom I looked. 
 
 It was, as I have said, the month of July, and
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 75 
 
 the full moon gave perfect light to the scene whicli 
 lay beneath the window. I threw it open, and 
 looked out upon that well-known, long-loved spot. 
 It was in itself one of great actual beauty — and I 
 dearly loved, and had long regretted it, which made 
 me think it doubly so. The tall towering oak, 
 Avhich so often had been the goal of our race, and 
 given its shadow to our gambols, was outlined on 
 the bright moon-lighted sky behind, in all the ma- 
 jesty of age, and the luxuriant leafiness of summer. 
 Farther on, the moon threw a line of ghttering light 
 upon the noble sheet of water which had been to me 
 the means of so much early enjoyment. There, I 
 used to sit for hours fishing on its bank— and there, 
 as my advancing years had caused me to take plea- 
 sure in the athletic exercises of youth, I had de- 
 lighted 
 
 «« . to cleave 
 
 " AVith pliant arm its glassy wave." 
 
 In the distance I could see among the trees the 
 blue slate of the cottage where the game-keeper lived, 
 who had been so great an ally of mine, and whose 
 dwelling had been so favourite a haunt. He also
 
 76 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 was dead — but he had survived most of his contem- 
 poraries, and in his last ilhiess, not long before 
 the time of which I write, he had expressed, my 
 sister told me, deep regret at not living to see master 
 Gilbert come home again. This, and numberless 
 other circumstances, connected with my boyish pur- 
 suits, rose in my heart as I gazed on the scene 
 which had witnessed them; and, as I closed the 
 window, I felt that there Avas one more drop of gall 
 added to the cup of bitterness which my return 
 home had proved. 
 
 Alas ! said I to myself, and is this the hour of 
 
 my return home — of my meeting wltli my friends ? 
 
 — I find my mother and my brother dead — my 
 
 father in a state which makes it to be wished that 
 
 lie were dead also — and my sister with a chilled 
 
 heart and a withered frame, which make my soul sink 
 
 with the contrast between what she was once, and 
 
 Avhat she is now. All those whose images are 
 
 indelibly connected in my mind with the abode of 
 
 my youth are swept a^ay — nothing but the spot 
 
 itself is left. It is as a skeleton to the human body 
 
 — the frame-work is still the same, but all which gave
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 77 
 
 to it life and beauty is withered and vanished. This, 
 I exclaimed with bitterness — this is the liappiness 
 of revisiting the scenes of childhood — these are the 
 joys of meeting !
 
 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 FRAGMENT VI. 
 
 * * 
 
 There are few things which strike with a more 
 painful chill upon the heart — at least upon my heart 
 — than the vnichangedness of physical objects, while 
 Time has dealt destruction and decay upon all 
 else. The scene which we contemplate with dimmed 
 eye and saddened mind, was offered in self-sameness 
 to our view when we were rife with all the nerve of 
 bodily, and all the joyousness of mental, youth. 
 The river glides on, murmuring to the air, and 
 glistening to the sun, as it min-mured and glis- 
 tened in our youth — in the youth of our fathers. 
 The tree which flourished in majesty in our child- 
 hood flourishes in majesty still, — for the days of a 
 man''s life work no visible change upon the grandeur 
 of vegetable age. Even the works of human hands 
 mock those who reared them; — they remain in 
 beauty and in strength, when the builder has
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 79 
 
 crumbled into dust : — the tenement of his own body 
 is the only one which he cannot repair. Human 
 frames shoot, ripen, and decay, — human hearts 
 bud, bloom, and wither, — but Nature and natural 
 things remain unchanged — at least, during the 
 time which suffices to work in us rise, maturity, and 
 final fall. And this does not apply solely to long 
 lapse of time. There are none, I am sure, who 
 have suffered any great and sudden calamity with- 
 out feehng with force the unchanged state of ex-, 
 ternal objects. There is even a sort of sensation 
 of surprise at seeing physical things as they were — 
 indifferent business proceeding as it did — when all 
 within us has been shattered, uprooted, and re- 
 versed. Every thing with us is so altered — every 
 thing with them is so painfully the same. 
 
 The latter of these causes of suffering it is now, 
 I thank God, many years since I experienced ; the 
 former I never felt to the very full till now. The 
 house, the grounds, the village, are, except in some 
 trifling particulars, unchanged since I left them — 
 the people, with some few exceptions also, are all 
 swept away. And those exceptions ! — alas ! they
 
 80 LIFE OF- THE LATE 
 
 shew more plainly the tokens of Time and Decay 
 even than the general change of peopling. On the 
 Sunday after my return, I went with my sister to 
 the village church— that church where my mother 
 had taught my little knees to bend in devotion, my 
 ahnost infant lips to syllable a prayer. As we 
 passed along the aisle to our pew, from outward 
 thino-s I might have thought that only the week 
 had elapsed since I had last been there; — the faces 
 on which I looked shewed that a generation had 
 passed away. There was however some change. 
 Over our seat was my brother's monument — oppo- 
 site to it my mother's! But, above all, I missed the 
 reverend and excellent old man who had been the 
 clergyman when I left home. He used almost to 
 seem to us part of the venerable building in which 
 he prayed. His long white hair, thinned on the 
 forehead and temples — ^liis meagre, but fine and 
 thoughtful, face — and his voice which, though 
 touched with age, still retained both silvery and 
 solemn tones when earnest in prayer, or impassioned 
 in exhortation— all his attributes and appearances 
 fitted him for that simple and sublime office — the
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 81 
 
 pastor of a country church. His place was now 
 suppHed by a young gentleman, who, as he passed 
 to the desk, displayed a Hoby boot from beneath 
 his surplice, — and whose Brutus head and starched 
 neckcloth were a contrast as opposite as might be 
 to the inistudied and patriarchal aspect of him to 
 whom he had succeeded. This young man per- 
 formed the service with decorum : he read sono- 
 rously and well ; and preached a sensible sermon 
 with propriety : but the tone of heart-gushing de- 
 votion — the austerity of stern reproof — the fervency 
 of glowing exhortation — the soft solemnity of con- 
 solation and encouragement — all these Avere want- 
 ing in him, — and these his predecessor to the full 
 possessed. 
 
 When the service was ended, I determined to look 
 over the tombstones in the church-yard. They 
 Avould be the truest chronicle of the changes which 
 time had wrought during my absence. I, there- 
 fore, walked on only sufficiently to allow the con- 
 gregation to disperse, — and then returned, while 
 my sister went homeward . 
 
 There is one tree — a yew-tree — in the corner of 
 
 G
 
 82 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 the church-yard. The old clergyman of whom I 
 have spoken used always to say that he would be 
 buried there — and there he is now buried. It used 
 to be a sort of melancholy jest whenever he spoke 
 of the spot which he had chosen for his long abode. 
 But there was an air of real piety, — a glistening 
 of the grave mild eye — an earnest intonation of the 
 finely sounded voice — which shewed that the levity 
 — if there were any — was that of placid and cheer- 
 ful looking-onward, not of irreverence or careless- 
 ness. This spot fronted the south, he used to say, 
 and the sun would shine, and the grass would grow 
 green, over his head. It also lay within sight of 
 the windows of the parsonage ; — and there, where 
 his life had passed in quiet happiness and humble 
 usefulness, — Avithin view of that dwelUng, would 
 he set up the staff of his eternal rest. 
 
 This anxiety concerning the place of burial is a 
 feeling for which I have never been able to account. 
 It is one which is very general, yet in which I, in 
 no degree, share : — that is, with reference to my- 
 self — foi-, in the case of those dear to us, Reason 
 loses her power, and Feeling alone is heard. As
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 
 
 83 
 
 far as regards myself, I am wholly and utterly care- 
 less of the mode or place of burial ; — it is to me a 
 matter of the most truly perfect indifference what 
 becomes of the carrion-like carcass when the in- 
 forming spirit is gone. But, with respect to those 
 we have loved in life, the feelings, as I have said, 
 gain mastery over the reason ; — we cannot bear 
 that what remains of them should not meet with all 
 reverence. There is, also, a gratification, — mourn- 
 ful, indeed, to the last degree, but not the less real, 
 pure, and lofty, — in visiting the grave of buried 
 love. While sorrow exists in its first intensity, we 
 cannot, it is true, bear thus to be brought into im- 
 mediate contact with the memorials of that by 
 which it has been caused; — but when time has 
 wrought its soothing work upon us — (and time 
 must soothe all grief, for the grief on which time 
 has not power can last but little, for it will kill — ) 
 when despair has subsided into sorrow, and sorrow 
 again has softened into sadness — then, indeed, to 
 visit and to mourn over the tomb of what we have 
 loved on earth, is food for the heart. But all this 
 
 has no connexion with anxiety for our own burial ; 
 
 G 2
 
 84) LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and it has always been to me matter of extreme 
 surprise to see tliat feeling so universal among all 
 classes and descriptions of men. The pious, desire 
 to lie in holy ground, — as if the spirit did not 
 answer for its own deeds in the flesh, or could be 
 freed from that responsibility by the sanctuary of 
 consecrated soil. The pure and simple-minded 
 wish for a country burial, — that they may lie among 
 the peaceful and gloi'ious works of God — and not 
 in those revolting charnels which speak of all the 
 worst things caused by great congregations of men. 
 Even persons, who are the farthest removed from 
 any thing which can be considered connected with 
 sentiment or romance, entertain this feeling in a 
 very strong degree. It is very generally known 
 
 that the late Lord C d, of whose life it is quite 
 
 unnecessary to speak, left in his will a request to 
 be buried in a certain spot in Switzerland, where, 
 under a tree on tlie banks of a beautiful lake, he 
 " had meditated on the mutability of all human 
 things." 
 
 The key to the prevalence of these feelings I 
 take to be the almost impossibility, in even the
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 85 
 
 most spiritualized minds, to shake off the ideas and 
 desires of humanity. Our only conceptions are 
 those which are grounded on what we see and ex- 
 perience in this world ; and we thus almost fancy 
 that what is gratifying and pleasurable to the phy- 
 sical body, will be so to the immaterial spirit. 
 Hence the " cold m-ave" — the " dark grave'"' — the 
 " silent grave*" — are the terms generally used to 
 create a melancholy feeling with respect to death 
 and inhumation. AVe know that coldness, dark- 
 ness, and silence are repugnant to our corporeal 
 frame — we know that green spots and sun-shiny 
 places are pleasant to it — we know that, in this state 
 of being:, Ave love to haunt scenes which circum- 
 stances have made dear to us, — and hence we carry 
 the same notions into spiritual life, and name as 
 places of burial those spots which would give plea- 
 sure to that body which so soon ceases to exist 
 after it is placed there. 
 
 I found the grave of the old clergyman in the 
 spot which I have described. It was marked only 
 by a single head-stone, now become moss-green, 
 and fallen aA\ry, from one side of it having sunken
 
 86 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 somewhat into the earth. There was on it this 
 plain inscription—" Sacred to the memory of the 
 Reverend ***** ******, forty years minister of 
 this Parish." — I could not help feeling a sensation 
 of minoled sorrow and anger that the tomb of one 
 who had been "forty years" the minister — the 
 pious, kind, benevolent, truly christian minister — 
 of the village, should bear such evident tokens of 
 indifference and neglect. Was there none among 
 the many whom he had loved, whom he had obliged, 
 whom he had served, to preserve the memorial of 
 his useful and beneficent life from this forlorn and 
 desecrated aspect ? — Had a few short years so 
 totally wiped out gratitude and affection from the 
 hearts of those Avho had loved him, that his very 
 existence should now seem to be forgotten ? — The 
 droppings from the branching yew had discoloured 
 the stone, and the unsound and frequently-stirred 
 earth in which it stood, had caused it to fall from 
 upright position. Was there no friendly hand 
 to prevent or cleanse away its stains ? — to preserve 
 or restore its stability ? But it is always thus in 
 English church-yards. The rank grass and un-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 87 
 
 sightly weeds are suffered to spring unchecked, — 
 giving token of that which the mind always strives 
 to hide from its consciousness — the foulness and 
 corruption below. The tomb-stones, which, per- 
 haps, recent affliction, or scrupulous decorum, has 
 embellished and made shapely, become, like that of 
 my poor old friend, worn and time-stained, un- 
 tended, unregarded, utterly forgotten. It is very 
 possible, and I believe it is the fact, that the English 
 do not grieve less or more shortly for friends who 
 die, than any other nation ; but it is certain that 
 the neglected, deserted, look of our places of burial 
 shews more strongly than any thing else that speedy 
 passing away of affection and remembrance which 
 it is vain to deny, and yet which it is so chillingly 
 painful to admit. 
 
 I passed on from this humble and deserted tomb 
 with a swelhng and saddened heart, — and I sought 
 out one, whicli, just before my leaving England, I 
 had seen receive its tenant. I knew the spot, and 
 therefore easUy discovered it — but had I not 
 known where to seek it, I scarcely should have 
 been able to find it otherwise. It was sunken
 
 88 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 deeply into the ground, wliich hid part of the in- 
 scription, the rest of which was ahnost equally 
 obliterated by time. It differed scarcely at all in 
 colour from the grass among which it lay rather 
 than stood, — and might, any where else, have been 
 taken for an unhewn stone. This was all that re- 
 mained to tell of one of the most interestino-and gifted 
 beings which it was ever my lot to meet — of almost 
 the deepest affliction that I ever witnessed. It 
 stands over the grave of a young man of the name 
 of Lyal, with whom I was at school ; — he Avas one 
 of most promising brilliancy of talent, and had 
 died at nineteen. I could just trace out, among 
 the short green and yellow moss which grows, like 
 a second surface, over an unheeded stone, the 
 words — " aged nineteen years." Ihere never was 
 a more simple, touching elegy, than these few 
 words — " aged nineteen years." What a tale do 
 they tell of crushed hope and blasted expectation 
 — of the broken-heartcdncss of parents and family, 
 and, it may be, of a still more vivid affection ! 
 And yet my sorrow over the grave of a young 
 person, more especially one of high talent and
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 89 
 
 warm feeling like this, is never unmixed — I always 
 call to mind the touching and true epitaph quoted, 
 or more probably composed, by INJadame de Stael 
 — " Ne me plaignez pas — si vous saviez combien 
 de peines ce tombeau m'a epargne ! '"* — How few, 
 indeed, are the chances such a person possesses of 
 happiness here — how many of misfortune ! 
 
 I was in the country when Lyal died ; and, 
 having been a school-fellow and a youthful friend, 
 I was asked to attend the funeral. It was an 
 office indeed of pain, but I did not hesitate to go. 
 A young man of such distinguished promise was 
 naturally the idol of his parents ; in dreadful ad- 
 dition, he was their only child ! Of the mother's 
 grief at the time I cannot speak, for, of course, 
 I saw it not ; but to use a homelv but most force- 
 ful phrase, " She never held up her head after- 
 wards." The father''s sorrow I did see, for he 
 would not be dissuaded from being himself the 
 chief-mourner: — ^lie said he was so in heart, and 
 he would be in form. 
 
 Alas ! what a morning Avas that ! Younof and 
 happy as I then Mas, the scene made an impression
 
 90 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 upon me, which long subsequent time, and deep 
 personal suffering, have been insufficient to efface. 
 When I arrived at the house, I was admitted by 
 a servant, whom I recognised as having been the 
 tutor and associate of poor Lyal in his field sports. 
 The man said nothing, but the unspeakable look 
 which he gave me as he shewed me to the room 
 where the company was assembled, was the very 
 epitome and essence of speecliless sorrow and affec- 
 tion. But on occasions like these, circumstances of 
 contrast add pain as much as those of parallel, — at 
 least it was so in this case. When I entered the room 
 where the mourners were, I could not but be forcibly 
 struck Avith the strong difference of expression on 
 the countenance of the servant and the friends 
 (friends !) of the deceased. There were about a 
 dozen persons present, who stood in detached 
 groups, talking, as I found, of the gossip of the 
 county, and the general news of the day. A young 
 man, who had been at school with Lyal and me, 
 came up to me as I entered, and, after saying, 
 " Poor fellow, who would have thought it !"" — ^in a 
 tone as if he considered it necessary to say some-
 
 GILBERT EARLEj ESQ. 91 
 
 thing on the subject which occasioned our meeting, 
 — began to discuss the merits of a new horse 
 which I had seen him on a few days before. The 
 wretched father was, I need scarcely say, not pre- 
 sent; his feeUngs would, I think, have imposed 
 some restraint upon these heartless profaners of the 
 name of friend. My heart sickened to see the 
 hollowness of what is called friendship. Splendour 
 of genius, warmth of feeling, beauty of person, — 
 all these, joined in one for whom they professed 
 interest, and cut off in the bloom of years, could 
 not for one short hour suspend the thoughts of 
 their shallow and frivolous pursuits, — even when 
 they were gathered, as I may say, around his 
 corpse ! Refreshments and wine, I recollect, were 
 handed round. This revolted me in an esjDCcial 
 manner. It is, I believe, usual at funerals, — yet it 
 is to me something even repugnant to have thus 
 the usual means of sustaining life brought into 
 such startling contrast with the emblems, the very 
 presence, of death . 
 
 These feelings were more strengthened than in- 
 terrupted by the entrance of the undertaker to
 
 92 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 furnish iis with scarves and hat-bands. He was a 
 busy, busthng animal, whose desouci look, and 
 mercenary simper, shewed plainly that all he did 
 was " in the way of business."" We have no right 
 to expect grief from an hireling; but there is some- 
 thing revolting in seeing the trappings of woe borne 
 by a being whose mind is engrossed by the paltry 
 pounds which he can make by their display. 
 
 Wilverham Cross is about five miles from the 
 house of LyaPs father ; and thither we proceeded in 
 mourning coaches, and, of course, at a foot's pace. 
 I never remember to have seen a day of greater 
 gloom. The earth was bound in one of the severest 
 frosts I have ever witnessed, — one of that kind and 
 degree which casts a shade of blackness over the 
 whole atmosphere. Even in our sorrow we are 
 physical beings ; and the slowness of our pace, and 
 the intense cold which I suffered, added, I confess, 
 to my sadness and depression. They, perhaps, 
 contributed also to make me feel still moi*e indignant 
 at the indifference of my companions. There were 
 three others in the coach with me, who, like myself, 
 had been early friends of him whom we were at-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 93 
 
 tendino; to the grave. From their conversation and 
 manners who would have thought that coach to be 
 a mourning one ! One of these young men was fond 
 of liunting, and hoped the frost might break up ; 
 another preferred skating, and wished it to con- 
 tinue. The third was an Oxonian, and occupied 
 three miles of our foot-pace journey with the detail 
 of a plan which a stage-coachman had communi- 
 cated to him of a new way of rough-shoeing horses 
 in a frost ! —And these were the mourners at the 
 burial of the young, the feehng, and the gifted ! 
 
 We quitted the carriages at the church-gate; 
 and here, for the first time, I saw the father. 
 He was leaning on the arm of a relation, and tot- 
 tered up the pathway, next after the coffin, into 
 the church. He held his handkerchief to his face, 
 and the hood of his mourning cloak was drawn 
 over his eyes ; yet I covdd distinguish the marble 
 whiteness of the cheek, and the quivering of 
 the muscles, which shewed but too plainly what 
 was passing within. A portion of the service 
 was performed in the church ; and this, perhaps, 
 was the most mournful part of the whole. It
 
 94 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 was on a week day, so that the church, wliich 
 was large, was empty with the exception of 
 ourselves. The piercing cold struck to the very 
 bones, from the effect of the stone-pavement of the 
 church, and its vast uninhabited space. The 
 measured and sonorous tones of the clergyman 
 echoed through the void of the large building with 
 a sadness and solemnity which went to the soul ; 
 and, at every pause of his voice, was heard the 
 father's deep sob of half-suppressed agony. At a 
 certain period in the service, we went out to the 
 grave. A few stragglers of the village had ga- 
 thered round it, to gaze on the finery of the funeral 
 show. Some few appeared to look on it with feel- 
 ing and compassion, but the greater part seemed 
 to regard it merely as a sight ; while others, with 
 gaping mouths and staring eyes, gave no clue by 
 which to trace, on their wooden countenances, what 
 ideas the solemnity might cause. There was one 
 woman with a wailing infant, which she was striving 
 to hush. Its cries attracted my notice ; — and the 
 commencement and the close of life being thus 
 brought into such immediate opposition caused.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. ' 95 
 
 perhaps, the deepest feehng which I experienced 
 during that melancholy day. 
 
 The sinking the coffin into the grave is the most 
 impressive part of the ceremony of burial. It is 
 then that the dead seem finally cut off from all 
 connexion with the world ; it is then that we lose 
 sight of them for ever ! At the moment that the 
 coffin sounded on the bottom of the grave, I looked 
 towards the father. His face at that moment is 
 indelibly graven on my memory ; but I cannot 
 embody its expression in words. It made me right 
 well understand why the painter of old evaded the 
 picturing of parental agony. Such visitations, in- 
 deed, are far beyond all painting, whether of the 
 pencil, or the pen. 
 
 These recollections crowded upon my mind as I 
 lingered over Lyal's grave ; — but, after a lime, I 
 remembered what was my chief purpose in thus 
 exploring the church-yai'd, and passed on to gather 
 from its records the memorials of the humble 
 friends of my boyhood and early youth. Alas ! 
 they were nearly all here : — one by one I lighted 
 upon almost all their names. I paused for a brief
 
 96 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 space over that of an old fanner ; wlio, In the 
 sturdy independence of an English yeoman, had 
 once beaten me ^hen I was a boy, for thrashing, 
 with the petulance and oppression of a school-boy, 
 one of his sons who had in some way given me 
 offence. I recollected going, brimming with in- 
 dignation, to complain to my mother of the inso- 
 lence of him, one of our tenants, in striking me, 
 who was a gentleman ! — but the only redress I 
 got from her was being made to learn by heart the 
 speech of Henry V. to the Lord Chief Justice. — I 
 know it to this hour. — The old man who had beaten 
 me had done it in fatherly wrath, and complete 
 justice — but he did not in the least bear malice, or 
 fail in respect to his landlord, whom he loved, — 
 for he came, the next day, up to the Court to apolo- 
 gize, — when I was made to beg his pardon, — and 
 we shook hands together. I question if any one 
 of the villagers bade me a more cordial farewell, 
 or regretted my departure more. — Poor fellow, 
 here he lay now ! 
 
 I found also the grave of one, whose age had 
 been nearer my own — being a young man when I
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 97 
 
 was a boy — w ho, as lie was the son of the gardener, 
 had been a good deal about the house, and had 
 initiated me into the mysteries of bat-fowling — • 
 chmbing the tall elms for rooks' nests — and many 
 other accomplishments of a similar sort. He was 
 one of the most active and bold fellows I ever saw. 
 I recollect his climbing a stupendous ash-tree, 
 which stands near the centre of the village — a sort 
 of trysting-tree, round which the villagers were 
 used to assemble on Sundays and on summer 
 evenings. This tree was accounted impossible to 
 climb — and there was a tradition in the villao-e 
 of a lad having been killed in making the attempt. 
 Its bole shot up, round and smooth, and far too 
 bulky to be clasped, to the height of about forty 
 feet, and there was a huge wart-like excrescence 
 Avhich it was considered impracticable to get be- 
 yond. As I stood beside the grave in which 
 mouldered the dust of this man, whom I had left 
 so vigorous in limb, and so instinct \nth animal 
 life, I called to mind this scene of his prowess 
 which, from emulation, had nearly caused me to 
 break my neck half a dozen times. It was on 
 
 H
 
 98 LIFE OP THE LATE 
 
 an evening in spring— just after the leaves had 
 budded, and before they were fully blown. There 
 had been rain in the day, and the surface of the 
 tree was consequently slippery, and therefore even 
 more difficult and dangerous than usual. Some 
 of the men, assembled on the bench which sur- 
 rounded its base, were remarking upon this, and 
 said to the man of whom I speak, that, climber as 
 he was, he could not climb that tree. " I'll try at 
 least," he said, and immediately pulled off his coat, 
 and, to the astonishment, almost horror, of us all, 
 beean to ascend the tree. Some endeavoured to 
 dissuade him, but he paid no attention to their 
 prudent counsels. On he went, sioarming, as the 
 phrase is for clambering up a tree where there ,are 
 no branches, by griping it with the arms and legs. 
 The length of boughless stem made the strength 
 and exertion of muscle necessary for the achieve- 
 ment prodigious. He surmounted the hump of the 
 tree much more easily than we expected, and he 
 got without accident to the highest bough Avhich 
 could support his weight — but, as he began to 
 descend, his foot slipped on the wet bark,— and he
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 99 
 
 fell. My heart— and I am sure that of all the 
 crowd, which by this time was great — leaped to my 
 throat — I expected he would be dashed to pieces. 
 But to our infinite relief as well as surprise, he 
 had not fallen ten feet — which, as the top of the 
 tree was spreading, was among boughs, — when he 
 caught hold of one of them, and swung himself 
 actively and lightly again upright. I now looked 
 upon his tomb, and I thought of the lines in that 
 most powerful, but neglected poem — The Grave; — • 
 which are suggested by that of the strong man : — 
 
 " Stren2:tli tool thou surly and less gentle boast 
 
 Of those that laugh loud at the village ring, 
 
 A fit of common sickness pulls thee down 
 
 With greater ease than e'er thou didst the stripling 
 
 That rashly dar'd thee to unequal fight ! 
 
 * * * , What now avail 
 
 The strong-built sinewy limbs, and well-spread shoulders? 
 
 * * * . See how the great Goliath, 
 
 Just like a child that braMd'd itself to rest, 
 
 Lies stilL •" 
 
 With respect the ' giant-like use'' of this ' giant\s 
 strength," — these fine lines are totally inapplicable ; 
 but, as regards its possession, they might have 
 been written for him.— Alas ! how changed was he 
 : ■ ■ ^ H 2
 
 100 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 now ! — yet I thought that I — I wlio lived, wlio 
 still existed in the same being, — was almost as to- 
 tally dissimilar from what I then was, as this poor 
 fellow, whose stalwart frame was wasted into its 
 original dust. His death had been characteristic 
 of his activity, his courage, and his generous 
 heart; — the legend on the head-stone (and I had 
 before heard it from my sister) told that he lost 
 his life in attempting to save some boys under whom 
 the ice had broken on tlie village pond. 
 
 At last I went to my mothefs tomb. It stood 
 in the church which v,as now oDened for evenino- 
 service, but to which no one Mas 3^et come. The 
 stone which marks the spot v/here she is laid, is, as 
 I have before mentioned, opposite our pew. It 
 is very simple, and bears only her maiden and 
 married name, and the date of her birth, her mar- 
 riage, and her death. Simple indeed is her epitaph, 
 but never was there a human being who merited 
 an higher elegy — Ikit those who deserve it the 
 most, need it the least. Her epitaph is engraven 
 on the hearts of those who loved her, and they 
 were all, lowly as well as high, by whom she was
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 101 
 
 surrounded. My mother -was indeed, a Moman 
 comme il y en a 2^gu. Gifted with great powers 
 of mind, and keen and ardent feelings, she at the 
 same time possessed a gay playfuhiess of manner, 
 and a considerate kindness for all arovnid her, that 
 made her the idol of the circle of which she was 
 the centre point. She had also, I do in truth 
 believe, the best heart that ever throbbed within a 
 human bosom. The milk of human kindness ex- 
 isted in her with brimming and overflowing fidl- 
 ness. Actively and personally benevolent, she 
 Avas "worshipped rather than beloved by the poor 
 around. She was not content with alms-giving — 
 but would seek out objects of pity, and console as 
 well as relieve them. The rich arc in general 
 little aware how much one kind word from them, or 
 even their mere presence, is felt by the suffering 
 poor. The sickness of a poor person is indeed the 
 most dreadful of all things. We know how ■wretched 
 it is, even when we arc surrounded with all the 
 appliances and comforts which wealth confers — 
 what must it then be Avithout any of them — 
 without medicine or m.cdical aid — without appro-
 
 10^ LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 priate, perhaps Avithout any, food — without suf- 
 ficient covering or perfect shelter — and (sad com- 
 pletion of wretchedness !) Avith the knowledge that 
 every day of illness is an increase to poverty 
 already biting and extreme These things my 
 mother knew full well — and there Avas not a sick 
 bed in the village, into the Avants of Avhich she did 
 not personally inquire — not one Avhich she did not, 
 in a greater or a less degree, personally tend, 
 succour, and support. Nor AA^as she indiscriminate 
 in her charity ; — she Avas not indeed one of those 
 scrupulously just persons AA'ho relieve suffering 
 AA^orth, but leave suffering error to perish ; — No, she 
 Avould relieve all in extremity, but deserving Avas 
 an indispensable passport to her permanent favour. 
 Her religion too, Avas, Avhat is alas ! so rare — Avarm, 
 practical, and ardent, but Avithout the slio-htest 
 tinge of intolerance or fanaticism — equally remote 
 from indifference on the one hand, and bigotry on 
 
 the other, I ahvays — as indeed, AA^ell I mifrht 
 
 adored my mother ; and one of the chief yearnings 
 which my heart had felt toAvards home, Avas the 
 hope of being re-united to her. In the period of
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. l03 
 
 my deepest distress, it was to her my heart turned, 
 and, from her letters of pure piety and extreme 
 and perfect affection, that it had found its chief 
 rehef. I had concealed from her, indeed — that 
 I might not cause her the severest and unnecessary 
 pain — the darker circumstances of my story. She 
 knew only that my wife had been snatched from 
 me in the fulness of her youth, and of our mutual 
 fondness — but she was ignorant of the events 
 which preceded our union. To being once more 
 restored to the society of such a mother, I had 
 always looked as the highest solace Avhich my heart 
 could ever know — and, as she died only a very few 
 years before I left India, her disappearance from 
 the scene of my dear home, was almost as cruel a 
 disappointment as it was a deep sorrow. 
 
 Alas ! how bitter was that sorrow now — now 
 that I gazed on the emblem and record of her 
 death ! — now that her being lost to me for ever was 
 told to my eyes in written characters, as well as to 
 my heart by deprivation ! — I remained I know 
 not how long on the spot ; — my past sorrows and 
 my present, mingled in one flood of uncontrollable
 
 104 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 emotion, which would ahiiost have burst my heart, 
 had it not at length found vent in tears. 
 
 I was awakened from my abstraction by the 
 sound of feet — I looked round, and saw that it was 
 produced by the clerk, who was come to prepare 
 for service. I turned hastily away, — and hurried 
 out by the small door in the chancel, that I might 
 shun his observation. 
 
 T^ n^ W w 7^
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 105 
 
 FRAGMENT VII 
 
 9P ^p ^5* tF ^ 
 
 I DO not believe there ever Avere two brothers, 
 so nearly of an age, such good friends as Frederick 
 and myself. There was only a year between us — 
 ^ve were sent at the same time to the same school 
 — Ave were similarly treated in every respect. And 
 yet these circumstances, wliich commonly heighten 
 emulation into rivalry, and impregnate that rivalry 
 with every species of jealous and envious feeling, 
 — served, in our case, only to render our union the 
 closer and more affectionate. We had our quarrels, 
 to be sure, like other boys, Avhether brothers or not ; 
 but they were not frequent, — they were always sud- 
 den and short-hved, — and never left the shadow of a 
 trace behind them. It v.'ould have required, indeed, 
 a most malice-bearing disposition to have fostered 
 the slightest feeling of ill-will against my brother. 
 Poor, poor, Frederick ! what a fine, gallant, joyous,
 
 106 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 generous spirit it was ! Such animation — such 
 fire — such irrepressible gaiety- — such inexhaustible 
 good-humour ! — I never knew any one Avho had 
 more of ' the salt of youth' in him — who possessed 
 to a greater degree that open, active, and elastic 
 air and manner which betoken a heart happy in 
 itself; and (if the expression be not paradoxical,) 
 desirous of removing unhappiness in all others, 
 yet scarcely anticipating or prepared to meet with 
 it in any. 
 
 It is usual to think that such constant and un- 
 clouded livehness cannot co-exist with keen or 
 strong feeling; — at least after the first years of 
 youth. Nor does it often. For, alas ! how few 
 are there who pass those years, without having done 
 or borne something which must operate as a blight 
 upon the constancy, at least, of that which is com- 
 monly understood by the term of " good spirits." 
 I say their * constancy ,"■ — for their occasional exis- 
 tence is perhaps more to be observed in those who 
 have undergone severe suffering, than in any other 
 description of persons ; — inasmuch as it is neces- 
 sary for them to use extraneous and unnatural ex-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 107 
 
 ertion as Avell to free themselves from present pain, 
 as to prevent their sinking into a state of irreclaim- 
 able despondency. But such spirits, when once 
 raised, do not continue to be forced. There is no 
 greater or more general mistake than to suppose 
 this — as all who can judge from experience full Avell 
 know. They are for the time real^ at least ; — not 
 so fresh or so natural as those which have sprung 
 spontaneously, — but still unfeigned. They are like 
 the excitation produced by wine— the effect, namely, 
 of a foreign stimukis, and which would not have 
 existed without that stimulus, — but yet, remaining 
 after its application has ceased. The excitation of 
 wine, also, tallies with the other characteristic which 
 I have mentioned as belonging to spirits originally 
 forced, — the being of a flushed and feverish nature, 
 in comparison Avith the healthful joyousness arising 
 from a happy heart. But, the true, the terrible, 
 difference between them, is in the revulsion which 
 follows the gaiety which has been forcibly raised. 
 To continue the parallel, it resembles the sick, 
 painful, depression of the morning after a night of 
 excess : —
 
 108 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 " Oil! tliinH not iny spirits are always as lig-lit 
 
 And as free from a pang- as they seem to you now ; 
 Nor expect that the lie.irt-beaming' smile of to-night 
 Will return ^vith to-morrow to brighten my brow !" 
 
 No ! it is that morrow, — (or ratlier that reaction 
 which the poet * has here meant the morrow to 
 typify) — whicli is the Ithuriel spear to the bright- 
 ness and gaiety we see glancing and flashing in 
 society. Follow those vrho have been the hghtcst 
 and the loudest — the most brilhant and most fluent 
 — follow them to their homes — to the silence of 
 night, and the solitude of their chamber, — and tell 
 me what proportion of them you find who carry 
 these spirits with them across tlieir threshold. 
 I have qualified tlie expression of ' to-morrow' in 
 the beautiful stanza I Iiave quoted above, for this 
 very reason ; — it is before the morrow, that the 
 change takes place. It is before the morrow that 
 the full bright tide ebbs, and leaves the barren 
 sand, or the foul slime, of llie heart, exposed. I 
 am sure there are many of those whose eyes glance 
 over these pages, who intimately feel, in llieir own 
 
 *M 
 
 oorc.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 109 
 
 instance, tlic truth of what I say. If there be any 
 one who reads this at the time I have cited, — let 
 liini ask liis heart tlie question. Let him look 
 back to wliat he appeared — to what he loas — an 
 hour ago. — Let him seize and analyze the feeling 
 with which he has just entered his own room. — He 
 win know the truth of the delineation in both its 
 points — in the temporary reality, in the sickening- 
 cessation. 
 
 It is, I should imagine, the great prevalence of 
 these appearances in society, that has given rise to 
 the opinion I have alluded to above — namely, that 
 those Avhose gaiety is constant and unchecked, can- 
 not have much feeling. But tliis, though often 
 true, is not so always. It is admitted that many 
 and many a young heart is, in origin, not happy 
 only, but gay, buoyant, lively, overflowing, — yet, 
 at the same time, warm and even sensitive. It is the 
 infrequency of such a heart surviving many years 
 of maturity without having its warmth and sen- 
 sitiveness so called into action, as to check and 
 even annul its happier attributes — it is the infre- 
 quency of a fate so blessed as this, that has given
 
 110 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 birth to the axiom I have been discussing. But 
 when a lot is so cast — when nothing does occur to 
 overcloud or to chill these beautiful and blissful 
 dispositions, — then, indeed, it is equally unjust 
 and false to beheve that this very brightness and 
 beauty are but the effects and the tokens of aU 
 that must deprive them of value and attraction. 
 On the contrary, — they, rather, are typical of a 
 heart brimming with the milk of human kindness, 
 which no adverse circumstance has soured or dried 
 up. Such persons, (and there never existed one 
 of whom it was more true than of my brother,) 
 such persons are gay because they are happy, — 
 and because they have constantly seen happiness 
 around them; — because they look upon the world 
 as upon one scene of enjoyment, — and, above all, 
 because they have never been undeceived in so 
 regarding it. So far from the gushing spirits of 
 such persons arising from want of heart, they, on 
 the contrary, give to it new brilliancy and grace. 
 They may be compared to happy events occurring 
 on a beautiful day of summer — when the bright 
 sun, and the blown flowers, and the full life of
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. Ill 
 
 all animated nature confer additional ornament on 
 intrinsic joy. 
 
 My brother was one of the strongest exemplifiac- 
 tions of this, for never was there more affectionate 
 a creature. In our earliest days of all, before we left 
 home for the first time, his warmth of good feeling 
 made him as much the favourite of the whole house, 
 as his ardent mirth and liveliness rendered him its 
 plaything and delight. Those were the happiest 
 days of my life, and I believe they are the same 
 with every man. His schooldays themselves are, 
 certainly, not to be compared to them. In the 
 whole world, I do believe, there is no state of 
 society so perfect as that of " a family" in Eng- 
 land. It has not been my lot, alas! to live much 
 in that species of intercourse; but the time which 
 I have passed in it has fully sufficed to shew me 
 how superior its pleasures are to the fiercer and 
 less sinless enjoyments of worldly life. In a family 
 where there are intellectual pursuits and open feel- 
 ings ; — where the children are made, to a great 
 degree, the companions and friends of the parents 
 — instead of being led to regard the society of
 
 112 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 those parents as formality and restraint ; — where 
 affection, varied and modified according to the age 
 and capabiUties of each, spreads, hke the sap in 
 the tree, from the stem, dn-ongh all die branches, 
 to the tenderest shoot ; — in such a family as this 
 — and in no country are they so many as in Eng- 
 land — is chosen, I do verily believe, the dwelling- 
 place of as nuich ha]ipiness as can dwell on earth. 
 Such a family was ours. Though we were reared 
 with much care as to mental advancement, — and 
 with strictness, even, as regarded morality and, 
 still more, religion, — yet there was a glow of kind- 
 liness and cordiality in the heads of that family, 
 which caused its pleasures, however innocent, never 
 to become insipid — Avhich prevented its duties from 
 ever being overspread with gloom. Too often in- 
 struction of all kinds is placed in the light of pu- 
 nishment — religious instruction in that of a severe 
 and unpleasant duty. But, with us, this was totally 
 avoided. I do not exactly mean to say, that we 
 regarded book" as pleasanter than play, or listening 
 to a lono; sermon as more agreeable than certain 
 other less didactic kinds of composition. But great
 
 filLBERT EAULE, ESQ. 11 
 
 O 
 
 part of our play ukls books — and au exclusion, on 
 Sunday, from the morning church, or the even- 
 ing family-prayer, would have been to us the most 
 severely felt of all privations. 
 
 It was, I believe, this mode of early bringing-up 
 which joined my brother^s heart and mine in such 
 fond and lasting friendship. He was Avith his 
 regiment at the time I went to India, — but while 
 the fleet lay Avind-bound at Portsmouth, I received 
 from him a letter of farewell, worthy indeed of his 
 noble and affectionate heart. He cited as a cir- 
 cumstance of strong additional regret our having 
 parted Avithout any idea of what a separation that 
 parting Avas to precede. My going to India was 
 suddenly determined upon, and, at the time he 
 joined his regiment we thought we should meet 
 again in the course of a year. 
 
 How well I recollect his going ! He Avas to set 
 off at daylight in the morning, and had taken leave 
 the night before. But I got up to see him off, and 
 drank a cup of coffee with him at his early break- 
 fast. He Avas in the highest possible spirits — 
 starting to join his regiment for the first time, 
 
 I
 
 114 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 with all the pride of an epaulette at eighteen, and 
 (as it was time of peace) with no very lengthened 
 prospect of separation from his friends. Nothing 
 can by possibility be more gloomy and wretched 
 than a breakfast of this kind by candlelight. 
 Uncomfortable in ourselves from having risen so 
 long before our usual hour, we perhaps doubly feel 
 its unpleasant and unnatural appearances. Every 
 thing looks comfortless, out of season, and out of 
 place. It is enough to sadden a light heart, or 
 doubly to depress a heavy one. But Frederick 
 saw and felt nothing of all this. He talked, and 
 whistled, and jested, and laughed — ^he was setting 
 off on a pleasant errand — there was no reason why 
 he should be sad, — and he ivas not. " God bless 
 you, old boy" — he said to me, as he wrung my 
 hand, and sprang into the chaise — " take care of 
 yourself— and take care of Oberon *, and have him 
 in high condition for me at Christmas. I will try 
 to get away] sooner if I can, but at latest you will 
 &ee me then." — — I never saw him afterwai'ds ! 
 
 * A favourite hunter.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 115 
 
 But, though we never met again, our feehngs 
 towards each other remained unaltered. In me, 
 placed as I was in a situation which gave me every 
 reason ceaselessly to revert to the friends whom I 
 had left, — this was to be expected. But with him 
 it was quite different. He was in the full swing 
 of an animated and active life ; — at one time with 
 his regiment — at another in town — at another at 
 Wilverham — always ardent, always enjoying, al- 
 ways happy. Then came his marriage — one of 
 unalloyed, unclouded joy in all respects : — But 
 nothing;, — no leno-th of time, no distraction of mind, 
 no variety of pursuits, — not even the full flood of 
 continued fortune, — could ever for an instant ren- 
 der him neglectful or unmindful of me. His letters 
 were always equally constant, equally affectionate, 
 and (what is perhaps more than either) equally 
 long. 
 
 Soon after my return, I had a most convincing 
 
 and touching proof of the continued prevalence of 
 
 this feeling. My sister gave to me to look over 
 
 a diary which Frederick had kept— if any thing so 
 
 irregular can be called by that name. Nothing, 
 
 :- 12
 
 116* LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 indeed, could be more characteristic than the man- 
 ner in which tlie entries had been made in this 
 journaL Sometimes, for a month or so, tliere 
 wovild be regular notices of every day ; — then 
 again a year might intervene without a word. 
 Under some dates there would be forty or fifty 
 pages written evidently at a sitting — and, perliaps, 
 on turning over the next leaf, you would find an 
 abstract and abbreviation such as this — 
 
 12th Dec. 179—1 ., , 
 
 ^ , -.^^ ^at Wilverham. 
 1st Feb. 179— S 
 
 It reminded me of the account-book of an Irish 
 baronet in one of Colman's plays : — " To the man 
 who sweeps the crossing in Bond-street — one shil- 
 ling''_-« To sundries, 7000/." But throughout the 
 Avhole of this most miscellaneous and desultory 
 mass, I constantly lighted upon my own name ; — 
 " Wrote to Gilbert" — " Received a letter from Gil- 
 bert" — were the beginnings, and probably tlie 
 causes, of several of the longest entries, full of the 
 warmest and most overflowing kindliness. The 
 reading those made at the period, and on the sub- 
 ject, of the great misfortune of my life, affected
 
 GILBERT EAllLE, ESQ. 117 
 
 me more strongly than any thing which liad hap- 
 pened to me since. Even tlie very last sentence 
 (an incomplete one) which he ever wrote, contains an 
 affectionate allusion to me. It was written in his 
 tent the night before he fell, and he probably was 
 called away in the middle of it on some business 
 relating; to the next day*. 
 
 But, on another score also, this journal touched 
 me deeply. I have said that it was kept, off and 
 on, during the course of several years ; — so that, by 
 turning over a few leaves, — or, at most, by passing 
 from one of the note-books to another, — I could trace 
 at once the changes which those years had operated 
 upon most of the individuals of m hom mention was 
 made. With respect to my brother himself, this 
 was a less melancholy task than it Avould have been 
 of almost any other man. His glowing disposition 
 never knew a chill ; — his life was a happy one, and it 
 was short. Hence, throughout these notes, em- 
 bracing a period of about twelve years, his tone 
 undergoes little variation beyond that of the matur- 
 
 * Colouel Eiirle was killed at Alcxaiidria. — Ed.
 
 J 18 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 ino- of mind, and the accumulation of knowledge, 
 Avhich naturally and necessarily take place in every 
 man between the ages of eighteen and thirty. But 
 with regard to those concerning whom he speaks 
 incidentally, the contrast occasioned by time is, of 
 course, apparent : more apparent, indeed, I have no 
 doubt, to one who, like myself, looked upon the 
 journal in the gross— than to the writer himself, who 
 formed its contents from time to time, in irregular 
 snatches, and on every possible variety of subject and 
 situation. It is more than probable that Frederick 
 never scanned his diary with this view ; — very likely, 
 indeed, he never had all its component parts toge- 
 ther at one time. For, the note-books in which it 
 was kept, were found, after his death, some at 
 Wilverham, some at my father's house in town, 
 some at his own — while only the two latest were 
 with him in Egypt. There were altogether eleven 
 of them — bought at different times, and in the most 
 different places, as was manifest from their variety of 
 size, description, and manufacture. He^ evidently, 
 never considered them at all as a regular record ; and 
 wrote in the most careless as well as the most desul-
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 119 
 
 tory manner. But to his surviving friends they 
 have been indeed precious, as displaying his unveiled 
 and unstudied thoughts and feelings during so many 
 years of his life. Unstudied, I mean, in expression, 
 — for, of all men, his heart was the most single, his 
 manner the most spontaneous and real. But still, 
 there always is some difference, even with the most 
 frank and open, between what is meant solely for 
 their own eyes, and that which must be seen by the 
 world. It is necessary, it is right — that it should 
 be so; — delicacy and consideration for others alike 
 demand it. Even those who really loved and es- 
 teemed each other quarrelled in the Palais de la 
 V trite. Neither is there, I think, any dissimulation 
 in this ; — any more than we can accuse a man of 
 hypocrisy, because he sits in his own room in his 
 morning gown and slippers, but puts on his coat 
 and cravat when he goes out. 
 
 Looking over poor Frederick''s journal has 
 thus shewn me the dessous des cartes of many a 
 circumstance, and many a person, to which the 
 white side would never give a clue. But I am 
 not going to make public that which he wrote M'ith
 
 120 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 all tlie abandonment and unreserve, arising from the 
 very idea that it would always remain private. No ; 
 — I consider those who give to the world the secret 
 and inmost thoughts and feelings of their deceased 
 friends, to be guilty of the worst and meanest 
 breach of confidence — inasmuch as there is no one 
 left to call them to account for it. 
 
 But I shall make two or three extracts from his 
 diary, on subjects where there is no such betrayal 
 of private feeling — inasmuch as there is now no sort 
 of reason why any Avord which I shall transcribe 
 should be concealed. I shall make public none of 
 those little secrecies of opinion and remark, to which 
 I have alluded. Mj quotations shall be of a nature 
 to which Frederick himself, if he were alive, would 
 not, I am confident, object. I am desirous of doing 
 this, that I may give an example of that comparison 
 and contrast of the same persons at different times, 
 which I liave stated to be among the chief causes 
 of the interest with which I have read my brother's 
 manuscript. I have culled the following extracts 
 upon this princi})lc, and Avith this vicAv. It will 
 be perceived that the style is familiar and cai*e-
 
 GILBEllT EARLE, ESCi. 121 
 
 less, and has undergone no verbal correction ; — for 
 I have thought it best to leave the whole in its ori- 
 ginal reality, even at the expense of the occasional 
 inelegancies and inaccuracies of expression which 
 haste and carelessness naturally produce. — I have, 
 therefore, not altered a word. 
 
 Of Mr. Dallas I myself knew but little— but I 
 did see him once or twice before I went abroad. 
 My brother became acquainted with him during 
 the year he was at Oxford, and once brought him 
 for a week to Wilverham. After I left England, 
 he became Frederick''s chief associate, and chosen 
 friend. The following is dated at the house of 
 Mr. D.'s father, in Norfolk. 
 
 " Kippleslone Park, Sept. 10, 1792. 
 
 " Yesterday, as we were coming home from 
 shooting, it was a very hot day, and we went to a 
 farm-house to make interest for a draught of home- 
 brewed. Dallas proposed it, saying, as he pointed 
 to a substantial cottage at a little distance, that he 
 could not only promise me a mug of admirable ale, 
 — but that he would shew mc the prettiest country
 
 122 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 lass within ten miles. He had discovered them 
 himself, he said, only a few days before, on a simi- 
 lar occasion, — and he had brought me this way, 
 half on purpose, that he might prosecute his ac- 
 quaintance with both. 
 
 " It was between four and five o'clock, and the 
 day had been extremely hot. The sun, however, 
 was now declining, — and as our path lay along the 
 eastern skirt of a wood, the cool deep shade of the 
 trees gave a refreshing and very grateful contrast 
 to the glowing and baked appearance of the open 
 field beyond. We walked gently along, enjoying 
 the change — for w^e had been out many hours. We 
 thus approached the cottage slowly, and were par- 
 tially concealed in our advance by the trees — the 
 house standing at the extremity of the wood. As 
 we drew n'-gh, I perceived a girl sitting, with her 
 work, on the bench Avhich is usually placed by the 
 side of cottage-doors. She was singing ; — Dallas 
 put his hand upon my arm to stop me, and said in a 
 low voice ' There she is !' 
 
 " I had thus means to survey her leisurely — and 
 I confess I was surprised. I had expected to see
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 123 
 
 a blowsy country-girl, with very red cheeks, and 
 still redder arms — whose beauty consisted in youth 
 and freshness, and buxom make, and perhaps a 
 bright pair of eyes . But this was a very different 
 creature. Her form was certainly round and full, 
 — and her cheek shone with a healthful bloom,—- 
 but she had none of the coarseness which is the 
 usual concomitant of rustic beauty. I cannot quite 
 say that the hand which plied the needle was the 
 whitest I have seen — (the long sleeve prevented my 
 judging of the arm), but the glimpse of the neck 
 which the crossed handkerchief permitted, betrayed 
 a texture and a colour of skin which many a fine lady 
 might envy as she puts on her pearl necklace. [Pa?- 
 parenthese, nothing is so trying and true a criterion 
 of the complexion as how it shews with pearls ; and 
 I strongly recommend no lady to wear them without 
 the fullest certainty that they assimilate, instead of 
 contrasting, Avith the skin on which they rest.] The 
 pretty cottager seemed to possess this most dehcate 
 ino-redient of female loveliness ; and the fine relief 
 which it furnished to the beautiful hair which was 
 clustered (somewhat artistement, I thought) from
 
 124 LIFE OF THK LATE 
 
 beneath her cap, added greatly to that absence of all 
 coarseness of appearance, of which I have spoken. 
 Her voice, too, was not what we should expect in 
 one of her degree ; — that is, her singing voice, — 
 for the sweetness of the natural organ knows no 
 limit of birth or station, while its application to mu- 
 sic is affected (independently of direct tuition) by a 
 famiharity with modulated sounds scarcely attain- 
 able in humble, or at least in rustic, life. But 
 maugre this my theory, they were certainly very 
 sweet notes, sung in a very simple yet expressive 
 manner, which I lieard yesterday, as we stood 
 gazing on that charming picture — a beautiful wo- 
 man, — made more charming, too, by her uncon- 
 sciousness of our gaze. I recollect Gilbert used 
 to say — and I always perfectly agreed with him — 
 that painters ought to contrive means to make their 
 studies for portraits when the objects were ignorant 
 that they were so doing. AVhen people sit regu- 
 larly for their picture, there is always a made-up 
 look — half primness, half pertness, all want of na- 
 ture ; — a heavy dull fixedness, or a theatrical as- 
 sumption of energy or thought, equally far from
 
 GILBERT F.ARLE, ESQ. 1 f^O 
 
 the real and unstrained expression of the fea- 
 tures. Now, if I were an artist, whenever I painted a 
 woman, whose beauty was such tliat I might have 
 done so from my own choice as well as from her 
 vanity, — I would steal upon her at some moment 
 like this — when, luiconscious of being observed, 
 her countenance was in its natural, and therefore 
 its most beautiful, state ; when, with the head bent 
 down over her work or her book, I might draw the 
 fine sweep of the neck, without the alloy of any 
 efforts at grace, — or, if I preferred the upraised 
 look of solitary thought, that I might catch the ex- 
 pression of the eye, without any false language 
 being; thrown into it. 
 
 " All this is a little high-flown, perhaps, to be 
 excited by a farmer's daughter sitting at her cot- 
 tage door, but certainly she did excite it; — 
 for I thought what a pretty picture she would 
 make — and that again brought up my ideas 
 concerning pictures in general. At last, we be- 
 gan to fear we should be observed thus skulking 
 behind the trees, so we advanced towards the vision 
 which had been the object of our contemplation.
 
 lOQ LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 She recognised Dallas — (Hang the fellow, I grudged 
 him his prior acquaintance), — and welcomed us 
 both with a very pleasing and graceful modesty of 
 manner , Real modesty it in truth seemed to be ; 
 — for, though certainly conscious of her beauty, 
 and of its natural attraction to the eyes of two young- 
 men — to say nothing of D.'s dropping a gentle hint 
 touching the early repetition of his accidental visit ; 
 — in despite, I say, of the gratified consciousness 
 unavoidable in a girl's mind, from these causes, — 
 her whole demeanour was marked by a quiet purity 
 equally far from prudishness and affectation. We 
 staid some time ; — indeed, my companion seemed 
 in no hurry to terminate his visit — so that I had full 
 leisure to contemplate her. She is certainly exceed- 
 ingly pretty — more than pretty. Her clear skin, 
 mantling on the cheek with the young blood of 
 health, and on the brow and neck transparently white 
 — her brilliant hair — and her general contour of fea- 
 ture, — I had seen as she sat at the door. But now I 
 observed the gracefulness of her form — her springy 
 and elastic gait — and, still more, the beauty of her 
 large eyes as they brightened into a smile, or sank
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ.. 127 
 
 bashfully down as she listened to what Dallas said 
 to her. As I looked at them both, I thought to 
 myself that it probably would be better for all par- 
 ties if their fathers' houses were in rather less near 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 " We staid so long that we were late for dinner ; 
 — and I thought D. told more lies than were quite 
 necessary concerning the cause of our detention. 
 He took the words out of my mouth with a depre- 
 cating look ; and, without the least compunction, 
 extended our circuit to double its real distance, and 
 unmercifully ran a thorn into the foot of his best 
 dog into the bargain. The farm-house, and its 
 comfortable cheer, and its pretty hostess, seenjed to 
 have vanished altogether from his memory, — and I 
 did not think it exactly my cue to refresh it. There 
 was dancing in the evening, and I had scarcely any 
 opportunity of speaking to him — so before I went 
 to bed, I Avent to his room to have some talk with 
 him touching our day''s adventure, and the issue 
 towards which it seemed to me to be tending. 
 
 " When I entered the room, I found him sitting 
 in his dressing gown writing. By the glance of 
 his eye, and the curl of his lip, I guessed the sub-
 
 128 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 ject of his labours. ' What,' said I, ' writing a 
 sonnet to pretty Susan's eye-brow P' ' Something 
 Uke it,' he answered; ' I have written only a couple 
 of stanzas, but you may see what I have done.' — 
 ' Susan,' I replied, taking the paper, ' is not a 
 name for poetry, unless it be a good homely bal- 
 lad, and you know she has not " black eyes," how- 
 ever fitted you may, in your modesty, consider 
 yourself to be her " sweet William."" ' The verses 
 were as follows: — 
 
 r. 
 
 I must confess that it is not unplcisaTit 
 
 To nie to gaze upon a lovel}' creature, 
 E'en thoug-li that lovely creature be a peasant; 
 
 Whose beauty joins complexion, form, and feature, 
 Whose hair is like the plumag^e of the pheasant. 
 
 And who, still more than all, has to complete her 
 Picture, the rose's richest tinge to streak 
 The smooth clear skiu of her transparent cheek. 
 
 II. 
 
 Something' like all this have I seen to day ; 
 
 A cheek which would be delicately fair. 
 And mio-iion hands whicli would be white, but (hey 
 
 Are tinged with labour's brown ; abundant hair, 
 Briglit as the fii'st beam of the dawning day 
 
 And then such eyes ! — a hazel dazzling pair. 
 Which shoot into the soul a flashing thought 
 Of— of— one knows not (at least says not) what.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 129 
 
 — * That parentliesis,' I said, ' is a saving clause ; 
 for not only you, but 7, know full intimately ' of 
 what' your ' flashing thoughts,' as you call them, 
 are. I wanted to say a word to you about this fair 
 damsel who keeps you poetizing at one o'clock in 
 the morning. What made you so very fabulous 
 in your apologies for our being late for dinner ? 
 If you had not stopped my mouth, I was going to 
 give a full and particular account of the cottage, 
 and the garden, and the Cheshire cheese, and the 
 foaming ale, — ending with a description and eulogy 
 of Mademoiselle Susan's beauty, which would have 
 found, I think, more favour with the male than the 
 female part of my auditory. Now, mine honest 
 friend, by your being so Avholly silent on so very 
 interesting a topic, I can't help suspecting that you 
 have deeper intentions in that quarter than I gave 
 you credit, or rather discredit, for. Come, come, 
 Dallas, just think for a moment what you are about. 
 You know I am the farthest in the world from 
 being prudish or straight-laced — but really the less 
 you go near that cottage the better. You can but 
 bring unhappiness on an innocent and very lovely 
 
 K
 
 130 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 creature, not to speak of her father and friends. If 
 you only flirt Avith the girl, you are, to say the very 
 least, vinsettling her mind, rendering her unfit 
 for her future lot in life, and that lot distasteful to 
 her ; — besides tampering with her feelings and af- 
 fections merely to gratify what is, under your fa- 
 vour, a very miserable vanity, and must be necessa- 
 rily a most transient one. If, as it would probably 
 end, to use the homely phrase ' you did worse,' 
 I need not say what ruin and wretchedness you 
 would bring on her and hers.' — D. assured me I 
 was regarding the matter far too seriously, and pro- 
 mised me to prosecute it no farther. I hope he will 
 not — but I can't help wishing that ' the cottage 
 near the wood' was a few miles farther off. I 
 wanted him, in order to put the whole thing out 
 of his head, to accompany me to-morrow; — but he 
 says he cannot leave home at this time, — as his 
 father expects some friends whom it is necessary he 
 should be here to meet." 
 
 The following was written, as will be seen by the 
 date, nearly three years afterwards.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ, 131 
 
 " London, June 16, 1795. 
 
 " I dined yesterday with Dallas at his villa near 
 Richmond. I had not before seen him since my 
 return from abroad. I arrived about an hour be- 
 fore dinner. D. received me most cordially, — when, 
 indeed, did he ever otherwise "i He took me round 
 the gardens, which are exceedingly beautifully si- 
 tuated, and kept in the highest order. They stretch 
 down to the river, with smooth- shaven turf, and 
 parterres of the most rare and rich flowers. I made 
 some observation on the peculiar beauty of these 
 last. ' Yes,' he said, * an old acquaintance of yours, 
 whom you will see by-and-bye, takes great pleasure 
 and interest in flowers, and is fond of collecting 
 them.' — As I looked round on the scarcest and 
 most expensive exotics which met the eye on every 
 side, I thought of the little cabbage-garden, with a 
 couple of rose bushes for its decoration ; — but I 
 said nothing. 
 
 " When we entered the house (which D. has 
 bought since his father's death) I could not help 
 being struck Avith the admirable taste which reigned 
 through every part of it. I have always thought 
 
 K 2
 
 132 LIFE OP THE LATE 
 
 these villas to smack more of luxury than any otiier 
 description of dwelling. In themselves evidently 
 superfluities — (for those who can afford to have 
 them at all, are nearly always lords of country halls 
 and town mansions) — they are commonly fitted up 
 widi a mixture of elegance and voluptuous richness 
 which we seldom find so exquisitely blended else- 
 where. Their size prevents the ideas of grandeur 
 or formal stateliness — and adds, perhaps, to the 
 luxurious (I must repeat the word) feeling of in- 
 dulgence and ease. The circumstance, also, of its 
 being nearly always, (it ought to be quite always)— 
 summer when we go to them — is another enhance- 
 ment of their beauties, — to say nothing of its being 
 hot, black, smoky, hrick-huilt London from which 
 we come to their bright fresh stream, and breath- 
 ing verdure. Ballast's may be considered an epi- 
 tome of the species. The clear sparkling water 
 gives life, — the high thick trees give shade, — and 
 the clustering flowers, a varied but undistinguish- 
 able condensation of every sweet scent, — to this ex- 
 quisite spot. The rooms are fitted up with all 
 the usual luxury, and far more than the usual taste.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 133 
 
 of a. petite maison. Every thing is appropriate to 
 the style and size of the place — nothing is gaudy, 
 nothing is too grand. Costly, to be sure, most 
 things must have been ; but costliness is the last 
 idea which occurs to you ; — all seems calculated to 
 woo the senses, and to win them without wooino- 
 lonfj. 
 
 " Three more friends of D.'s arrived one by one; 
 and at last Susan came in. She is a very different 
 person from when I saw her last. She was then a 
 beautiful girl — she is now an exceedingly fine wo- 
 man. She is, or seems to be, a little taller ; her 
 form is more fully developed, and her carriage freer 
 and more under self-command. But, indeed, if I 
 had met her any where else, I might have been in- 
 troduced to her as to Lady This, or Mrs. T'other, — 
 and never dreamed of the pretty, modest, country girl 
 whom I admired three years ago. Not that I at all 
 mean to say that there is the least mmodesty in her 
 manner or air — not the slightest ; — but she is totally 
 uncountr^-fied — she has nothing left of that touch of 
 the romantic in her appearance which she had ^hcn 
 I last saw her. One might have chosen her then
 
 134 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 for the heroine of a romance, or of a pretty, soft, 
 
 gentle, tale, such as would write, and 
 
 ladies and lady-like gentlemen admire. But now 
 she is very different. Dallas has spent a great deal 
 of money, and taken infinite pains, for her educa- 
 tion and improvement. Her manners are uncon- 
 strained and good ; and her whole appearance in no 
 way distinguishable from that of nine women out of 
 ten whom you meet at a rout, except perhaps by 
 a very suspicious superiority of beauty to almost 
 every one of them. 
 
 '' She sat at the head of the table at dinner ; and 
 did the honours as if she had never been accus- 
 tomed to an humbler board, or simpler fare. I 
 drank champagne with lier — and thought of the 
 bright frothing ale I had last pledged her in ! — She 
 was addressed as Mrs. Williams — an appellation 
 concocted, I believe, from D.'s christian name; — and 
 the guests, with the good taste and good feeling 
 which I have more than once seen exercised on such 
 occasions, paid her perhaps more deHcate and re- 
 spectful attention than if she had been possessed of 
 all the immunities and honours of the place she
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 135 
 
 occupied. Her own manners were, I have said, 
 remarkably good — equally free from stiff and sen- 
 sitive reserve on the one hand, and any thing 
 approaching to levity on the other. Still there is 
 always something — a certain conscious glance of the 
 eye, if no more, — from which I have never seen any 
 one placed in her unhappy situation totally free. I 
 thought in particular that she did not feci quite 
 easy when Dallas talked to me about going down to 
 Kipplestone, in the autumn, to shoot. 
 
 " In the evening she sang — pleasingly enough, 
 but to my mind not half so much so as when I 
 heard her upon the bench at her cottage door. She 
 accompanied herself by striking a few notes upon a 
 splendid guitar, which was lumg rovuid her neck by 
 a sky-blue scarf, — ^but it had not, in my eyes, half 
 the effect of the work and the needle which had oc- 
 cupied her hands then. She looked very beautiful 
 certainly — for few things are more becoming to a 
 woman than this — and if I had never seen her be- 
 fore I should have been much struck Avith her; — but 
 there was something which appeared to me unreal 
 and exotic in the whole business, as compared with
 
 136 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 the simple and natural peasant whom I remembered. 
 I muttered to myself, in the words of the ballad — 
 
 The lady she is g-ay and grand, 
 
 The lady is fair and young — ■ 
 She strikes tlie harp with a skilful hand. 
 
 And she sings Avith a tutored tongue^ 
 
 But the maiden is [was] younger and fairer still, 
 
 And her lay, in its sunple art. 
 Sheds o'er the senses a gentle thrill. 
 
 And sinks, thro' them, to the heart. 
 
 " The real difference is just this. To hear a coun- 
 try girl at a cottage-door, sing with taste, feeling, 
 and delicacy, as Avell as with a sweet voice, is some- 
 thing more than we expect from her station and ap- 
 pearance ; — there is a pleasing discrepancy between 
 the singer, and the song — an agreeable contrast 
 between what we look for and what we find. But 
 a fine lady singing equally Avell, or something bet- 
 ter, in a fine drawing-room, and accompanied on 
 a fine instrument, is quite common and in course ; 
 and as such excites no peculiar sensation or gratifi- 
 cation whatever. 
 
 " As to Dallas, I am glad, and I am not glad, that 
 he seems still quite taken up with her. I am not
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESd. 137 
 
 glad, as it will lead to a continuance of this entan- 
 glement, which estranges him from his friends, and 
 from the duties which every man with his advantages 
 owes to himself. But, on the other hand, if he were 
 to feel otherwise, it would cause him bitter strug- 
 gles and unavailing regrets, to say nothing of what 
 it would inflict upon one whom he has wronged too 
 much already." 
 
 Towards the end of the journal, I lighted upon 
 the following. With reference to what has gone 
 before, it speaks for itself ;— but it also speaks that 
 warmth and generosity of feeling, which I have 
 stated to have belonged to my poor brother in so 
 strong a degree,— and which he here displays with 
 that unconsciousness of then- not being quite a mat- 
 ter of course, which so often attends and betokens 
 
 them. 
 
 " London, Feb. 2, 1800. 
 
 " I was, last night, at the play, and when I came 
 
 out I found it was raining heavily. As is usual on 
 
 wet nights, it was impossible to get a coach. The 
 
 coachmen of London arc, in truth, swallow-like
 
 138 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 friends — they crowd round you when the sun shines, 
 and you don't want them ; and are absent or repul- 
 sive when it rains and you are in need of their aid. 
 And so it was in my case, last night; — for, after losing 
 as much time, and getting very nearly as wet, as I 
 should have done in going home, — I was at last 
 obhged to make the best of a bad business, and set 
 off in the midst of the rain. 
 
 "It was an exceedingly bad night, and I had no 
 umbrella, — 'So I naturally hurried on as fast as I 
 could. It was that unremitting, steady, soaking 
 rain, which, though less heavy than the pelting of 
 a storm shower, takes very little more time to wet 
 you through, — and affords no prospect or hope of 
 cessation. The streets of London wear a peculiar 
 and very desolate aspect on such a night as this, 
 after ten or eleven o'clock. During the earher part 
 of the evening, there is always a certain, and that a 
 considerable, number of passengers in the streets, let 
 the weather be what it may. I do believe that no- 
 thing short of an earthquake would keep a London 
 tradesman or mechanic at home, if his business called 
 him abroad. But, as the night advances, such pas-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 139 
 
 sengers become fewer and fewer ; and, at last, cease 
 altogether. Their quick active step — their gliding 
 and purpose-like motion — disappear from the scene, 
 and are replaced by figures of a very different de- 
 scription. By the time the theatres close, on a night 
 such as last night, all have sought shelter who have 
 any shelter to seek ; — none remain except the shi- 
 vering, starving beggar, and those of a calling more 
 abject and melancholy still. The effect of this 
 worse than deserted state of the streets is rendered 
 stronger by its contrast with the reflection of the 
 lamps vipon their wet and shining surface, — and the 
 quick and diamond-like sparkles occasioned by the 
 plash of the raindrops as they fall and break. There 
 is thus, at once, presented to the eye, an appear- 
 ance of brilliancy and light — of squalidness and 
 desolation. 
 
 " When I got to the entrance of St. MartinVcouil 
 — (where there is an arch-way which gives a few 
 yards' shelter) there was, as usual, a knot collected 
 of those abject and miserable beings to whom I have 
 already alluded. The line of ' the courts,' as it is 
 called, being the great footway thoroughfare be-
 
 140 LIFE OP THE LATE 
 
 tween the eastern and western parts of London, is 
 always much infested at night by creatures of this 
 wretched class. There is nothing which to a man 
 of the least feeling (even putting delicacy out of the 
 question) is so painful and revolting as the sight of 
 these unfortunates. When he recollects what has 
 been the original cause of such a termination, he 
 shudders and turns aside. But there are circum- 
 stances which add an increased appearance, at least, 
 of misery, even to these most miserable of all hu- 
 man objects. Severity of weather is one of the 
 chief of these. To behold a wretch, soaked and 
 dripping with rain and kennel-mud, and shivering 
 
 with the worst of cold, that arising from wet to 
 
 behold a wretch like this, assume the manners, as- 
 pect, and tone, of levity and sensual excitement, is a 
 contrast almost too shocking for our eyes and hearts 
 to look and think upon. 
 
 " As I pursued my way liomcward, I met several 
 of these imhappy creatures coming out of the door 
 of a spirit-shop in one of the courts. They were 
 shouting and laughing, with the sci-cam-likc laugh 
 of drunken recklessness and desperation. The fore-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 141 
 
 most of the group, who seemed the loudest and wildest 
 of them all, seized the skirt of my coat, as I was pass- 
 ing, and exclaimed in the common phrase, and sic- 
 kening accent, of her class—' Take me along with 
 you.' I drew my coat from her hold, and walked on 
 rapidly ; but she followed me, calling out fi-om time 
 to time in the lanfjuage of coarse and hardened vice. 
 After I had got some way, she caught hold of me 
 a second time, and I had some difficulty in shaking 
 her off. I saw that she was drunk, which added to 
 her boldness, and defiance of the consequences and 
 control which such people usually hold in dread. 
 When I again jiroceeded, she again followed — 
 saying " Ah, 1 know you, I know you very well — 
 and you know me, too, though you won't own me 
 now ; — you were glad enough to do so once !" — I 
 took no notice of this, as it is one of their common 
 exclamations ; — till, at last, she said, ' Yes, yes, I 
 know you very well, — Major Earle T I stopped 
 short at once, in extreme surprise. I had no idea 
 how such a person could have become possessed of 
 my name, and, of course, had very httle pleasure in 
 the discovery. I stopped and turned round to look
 
 142 LTFE 0¥ THE LATE 
 
 at her. She now attempted to run off, but I seized 
 her by the arm, determhied to be satisfied as to 
 who she was, and how she came to know me. We 
 were now in Leicester-square, — and I drew her 
 imder one of the lamps, — ^but she hung her head 
 down forcibly upon her breast, and pulled her bon- 
 net over her eyes. * Who are you T I asked, — 
 ' and how upon earth come you to know my name ?"* 
 She was silent — I repeated my question once or 
 twice — still no answer. — ' Who are you ?'' I said 
 again — ' I am determined to know who you are, 
 and how you know who I am, before I let go my 
 hold — who are you .?' — I felt he rtremble under my 
 hand, as in a voice which proved she was completely 
 sobered at once, she at last said, but still without 
 looking up — ' It is no wonder you don''t remember 
 me, Major Earle; who, indeed, could.? — and yet 
 you knew me well once.' — I still had no idea who 
 it was that spoke to me. — She continued in a yet 
 lower and more broken tone — ' Though Dallas is 
 dead, surely you have not forgotten him !' 
 
 *' Never, no never, in my life, did I experience a 
 more violent and sickening shock. Gracious lieaven !
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 
 
 143 
 
 and this was the creature whom I remembered in 
 her young purity and lovehness — whom I had so 
 often seen surrounded with all that luxury and 
 wealth could furnish for her pleasure — at whose 
 table, as I may call it, I had so often sat in the 
 midst of troops of admiring and flattering friends — 
 whom I had left, not four years since, the adored, 
 almost the idolized, object of affection to a man who 
 was one of the most feeling, generous, and noble of 
 created beings ! , 
 
 " I had striven, since my last return from abroad, 
 to obtain some tidings of poor, poor Susan; but in 
 vain. Dallas's death was so sudden that he left no will 
 — so she sank at once from splendid wealth to abso- 
 lute destitution ; — for his friends (no — his relations) 
 would do nothing for one on whom they had always 
 looked with dislike and fear. Would, oh would to 
 God! that I had been here. — She who had been 
 dear to Dallas should not have been treated thus. 
 
 " All this passed across my mind in one instant, — 
 as the poor wretch raised her face to the light, as she 
 spoke. Heavens ! what a face it was ! — her eyes 
 were bleared and red at the edges, and the balls
 
 14)4 LIFE OP THE LATE 
 
 were glazed witli recent drunkenness. She had, it is 
 true, recovered her senses ; but her eye still reeled, 
 and her breath still reeked, with the effects of that 
 poisonous debauchery. If there be, in the human 
 shape, one object more revolting, degrading, and 
 humiliating than another, it is that of a drunken 
 woinan ! — and it was now presented to my eyes in 
 the person of one whom I had kno^vn in all the 
 delicacy of female youth — who had been the first 
 and only love of my first and best friend. Her 
 cheek was fallen and hollowed, — and an unwhole- 
 some, sodden, paleness, which overspread the lower 
 part of it, was made almost hideous by the contrast 
 of a large blotch of coarse red paint which was plas- 
 tered upon each cheek bone. Of her figure I could 
 see nothing, — for she was wrapped to the throat in a 
 large shawl which fell over nearly her whole person, 
 in folds in which grease, dirt, and dripping wet 
 seemed to struggle for supremacy. I never beheld 
 a more pitiable being ! 
 
 " She was so much agitated by the sudden revul- 
 sion, both physical and mental, which she had un- 
 dergone, that for some time I thought she would
 
 GILBERT EAULE, ESQ. 145 
 
 have fallen upon tlie pavement where we stood. 
 She spoke with an agony almost amounting to in- 
 coherence, of what she had gone thx'ough — of her 
 present condition. She told me that she was re- 
 duced to the lowest pitch of distress, — that, (and I 
 fully believe it to be true) she had not for the last 
 six and thirty hours tasted any thing but gin ! 
 Good God ! and this is the state to which we re- 
 duce those who lavish upon us their whole affection 
 — who place in us their whole trust ! 
 
 " It was some time before I could at all compose 
 her ; and then she wanted me to leave her to her 
 fate — " to die," as she said, sinking upon a door- 
 stone — " to die here r — At last, after considerable 
 delay and difficulty, I procured a coach, and had 
 her conveyed to my house, I instantly sent for 
 medical aid, and had a bed prepared for her. Mr. S. 
 said that she had undergone so much, and was in 
 so debilitated a condition of frame, that he could 
 not yet say what hopes he could hold out of her 
 \dtimate recovery. This morning, I have had hei 
 removed to a lodging close to INIr. S.''s — who is
 
 146 
 
 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 really kind and active, as well as skilful. Poor, 
 poor, creature ! 
 
 " It is not ten years since I saw this woman, beau- 
 tiful, innocent, and happy — and, if it had not been 
 for an almost incalculable chance, she would last 
 night have perished in the streets V 
 
 February 20, 
 " S. has just been with me to inform me of poor 
 Susan's death." 
 
 * *****
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 147 
 
 FRAGMENT VIII. 
 
 * 
 
 Before we went to a public school, we were at a 
 small one, about ten miles from Wilverham. It 
 was kept by a clergyman ; and consisted of about 
 thirty boys, chiefly, like ourselves, the sons of the 
 gentlemen of the neighbourhood. I was not long in 
 the country before I determined to ride over and 
 see my old school and my old master ; who, I was 
 told was still alive, though he had some years be- 
 fore given up the school to his son. 
 
 How familiar was every step of the road ! My bro- 
 ther and I were always sent for on Saturday, and re- 
 turned on the Monday morning ; — and how well I re- 
 collect our different feelings, and our different pace, 
 according to the direction in >\ hich our ponies'* heads 
 were turned. I could still see myself flying along on 
 my little forester [grev, with along tail], on our Sa- 
 turday's journey, and trailing back at a foot's-pace on 
 
 L 2
 
 148 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 the morning of black :Monday. Justly, indeed, may 
 it be called so ;— for I question if (setting periods 
 of violent grief aside) there be any thing in after- 
 life more truly gloomy and wretched than the feel- 
 ings of a boy as he goes back to school . I have 
 always thought it mere affectation, or, at all events, 
 quite a fallacy, to talk of our school days as the 
 happiest of our lives. In happiness, what we be- 
 ieve to be, is. If we fancy ourselves happy or 
 unhappy, we are so. And where was ever the 
 schoolboy who thought himself happy at school ? 
 In the first place, he has always an insatiable 
 craving for manhood, quite incompatible with strong- 
 present enjoyment; — and moreover, a scliool-life, 
 in nearly every other respect, is any thing rather 
 than a state of happiness. The contrast between 
 
 e luxuries, the kindnesses, and the heart of home, 
 th 
 and the discipline, the privations, the scoffing, the 
 
 utter want of all softness and delicacy of feeling, 
 which are inevitable to a school — this contrast neither 
 is nor ought to be, undergone without strong sensa- 
 tions of depression and pain. I say it ought not, 
 for it is eminently calculated to check and deaden
 
 GTLRERT EARLE, ESQ. 149 
 
 those feelino;s which should be cherished the most — 
 and wliich are, at the same time, the most obnoxious 
 to the subsequent influences of the world, and the 
 most susceptible of their pernicious action. Almost 
 in proportion as a feeling is tender and amiable, it is 
 converted into a torment by the jeers and sarcasm to 
 whicli it is subjected. For example, every one who 
 has been at an English school, must remember the 
 ridicule which invariably awaited any manifestation 
 of his affection for his mother or his sisters, in par- 
 ticular. For my own part, I would rather, like 
 Ford, have trusted a thief to walk my favourite 
 horse, than any of my schoolfellows with one of my 
 mother's letters, or even Avith my sister^s Christian 
 name. I have said that the transition from home 
 to school never is experienced without pain; — for 
 how can any boy of the slightest sensibility of heart 
 not feci bitterly the contrast between the manner in 
 which he is loved and considered in the one, and 
 the contemptuous recklessness, or at best, the coarse 
 hard friendship, he meets with in the otlier ? I 
 recollect (so strong Avas this feeling in me), that 
 whenever we were sent to school in the carriage, as
 
 J50 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 was the case in bad weather, I used always, for the 
 first half of our journey, to long for it to break 
 down, that we might be obliged to return home 
 again ; and to lament when our near approach to 
 school rendered even the wish of an upset unavail- 
 ing. One day, I remember to have met the foot- 
 man of an old lady who lived in our neighbourhood, 
 and wishing to be him, because he was ?iot going to 
 school. I was struck with a very similar expression 
 of the same feeling, cai'ried a little farther, in a clever 
 and entertaining book, published some years back, in 
 which the hero, upon leaving home (where, by the 
 way, he was in love) for a considerable period, 
 wishes to be one of the turkeys which he sees feeding 
 near the park gate*. When he returns, however, 
 about two years after, he reflects that it is well he 
 was not taken at his word, as the turkeys were pro- 
 bably by that time all killed and eaten ; — and, in 
 hke manner, when I came home for the liolidays, 
 
 and old Mrs. G 's servant came to our house 
 
 behind her carriage, I was well contented tbat I 
 had not transmigrated into his form. 
 
 * "Thinks I to Myself."
 
 GILBERT EAKLE, ESQ. 151 
 
 But, in despite of the strong dislike which we all 
 have of school Avhile we are there, — it is very cer- 
 tain that it leaves a feeling of kindliness, almost of 
 affection, towards the place which we used to detest 
 so much, and even towards the master, whom we 
 
 loved little, if at all, better. S , where we were 
 
 at school, is a place of great picturesque beauty, 
 and is noted as such in the country round. The 
 church, which has a graceful and lofty spire, is of 
 great antiquity, and completely covered with ivy ; 
 and, just beyond the wall of the churchyard, stretches 
 a very extensive pool of water, which, being bor- 
 dered by tall and leafy trees, gives a character both 
 of pecuharity and beauty to the whole village. The 
 parsonage, which is also the school, is a house of old 
 stone, with three gables in front, and a large pear- 
 tree trained over the whole surface on that side. 
 And yet, pretty and even beautiful as the village 
 was, we not only none of us ever thought it so, but 
 we even wondered how it was possible that it could 
 be so considered by others. I remember, in parti- 
 cular, ouce casually meeting with a * View of S 
 
 Church,' in a set of prints taken from the di-awings
 
 152 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 of some picturesque tourist ; — and being amazed 
 how any body could be so blind as to single out 
 such a place for admiration. 
 
 How widely different were my feelings as I ap- 
 proached it now. It was in the middle of autumn, 
 and the rich coloui'ing of that season was spread 
 over its abundant trees. The little lake was rippled 
 by the brisk wind, and looked bright and glittering 
 in the sunshine. When I came Avithin a few hun- 
 dred yards of the house, I pulled up my horse, and 
 stopped to look around. In the agricultural parts 
 of the covmtry, these quiet villages of husbandmen 
 remain unchano;ed and unincreased for ases. The 
 labours of the village-mason are confined to keeping 
 the old dwellings in repair, — the erection of a new 
 one is a thing unthought of. It was thus that this 
 place was accurately the same as Avhen I last saw 
 it. There was the shop where Ave used to buy our 
 cakes and allicumpane, with its half-hatch door, 
 and some of its dainties displayed in the window, 
 just as of old. It was, in my time, kept by an old 
 widow, who was famous for the neatness of her 
 dress, especially the accurate plaiting of her snow-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 153 
 
 white cap — and for the admirable eel-pies which 
 she used to make on a Saturday, during the season. 
 The shop looked just the same as ever, — but there 
 was no possibility of her being alive, unless she had 
 been a second Countess of Desmond, — for she was 
 above seventy when I left school. A little farther 
 on, to the right, was the green, where we used to 
 go and play cricket on a half-holiday — (at common 
 times we were confined to the play-ground) ; — and 
 straight before me Avas the blacksmith's, which 
 used to be the rendezvous of all the knowinsr-ones 
 of the village, — to steal out to mix with whom had 
 ahvays been esteemed particularly the thing by the 
 boys. It is almost invariable in England for a 
 school-boy to be a bit of a jockey — at least to have 
 a fondness for horses, and to fancy that he knows 
 something about them. It was at the smithy we 
 indulged this taste, as the smith was a farrier 
 also — and horses, horse-dealers, hovse-men of all 
 kinds were wont to come thither. Perhaps Ave did 
 not enjoy it the less, from the place being strictly 
 forbidden. 
 
 These recollections all seem quite childish when
 
 154 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 they are put upon paper — but they are real ; — 
 they touched my heart at the time, and I now tell 
 of their having done so. It is strange, indeed, 
 how vivid the remembrances of childhood are, 
 while events which have occurred in more recent 
 life have faded entirely from the mind. The first 
 impressions are, in this case, indisputably the deep- 
 est and most lasting. 
 
 I had written the Doctor word of my coming, so 
 he expected me when I arrived at the house. When 
 I had left this school, more than thirty years be- 
 fore, he was a hearty and portly man, of about 
 five-and-forty — with a person a little inclined to be 
 round, and a nose a good deal inclining to be red, 
 and a periodical touch of the gout every autumn. 
 He had always, without being a drunkard, been 
 fond of his bottle ; — and had a lingering taste for 
 the chase, as was evinced by his giving us a holi- 
 day whenever the hounds met near the \'illage, and 
 his moiniting his grey horse (which was fast be- 
 coming white) and going to see them throw off, 
 and as much farther as he and his steed could 
 compass. He was, as a schoolmaster usually is.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 155 
 
 exceedingly fond of his joke, and used sometimes 
 to accompany the flagellations, which were by no 
 means infrequent, by jests which did not in the 
 least increase tlie very small desire to laugh which 
 the sufferer might at the moment be supposed to 
 entertain. In short, the Doctor was one of those 
 good-humoured and somewhat self-indulgent per- 
 sons, who, A\ ithout exciting any strong sentiment of 
 respect or esteem, seldom fail to leave one of kind- 
 liness — the livelier, perhaps, for the very absence 
 of the other feehngs I have named. 
 
 I found the Doctor seated in his ample easy 
 chair by the fire-side, with his legs up on a softlyr 
 stuffed stool, and his crutches lying beside him — 
 quite a martyr to the gout. As Falstaff says, his 
 had been " a decreasing leg, and an increasing 
 belly," since I had last seen him ; — he was now 
 unwieldy in bulk, and feeble in limb. His rotund 
 visage had become flabby and fallen ; and the red 
 tint of his nose had deepened into a confirmed 
 purple. He had on the facsimile of the large 
 full wig, at Avliich I had so often trembled. This 
 had evidently been newly powdered in expectation
 
 156 T-TFE OF THE LATE 
 
 of my visit ; -which, as well as the smallness of the 
 quantity of snuff on the neck-cloth and frill, proved 
 that his toilet had been lately made. 
 
 He stretched out his hand to me with much 
 heartiness, and apologized for not rising to receive 
 me, with a diatribe against his old enemy for keep- 
 ing him tied by the leg. He looked on me, I per- 
 ceived, Avith some surprise — for he scarcely ex- 
 pected, from my age, to have seen a man so broken. 
 He contented himself, however, with a stock joke 
 or two about rupees, pagodas, and the liver — 
 curries, cayenne, and Particular Madeira. He then 
 returned to the days when my brother and I were 
 at his school, and spoke with a flash of real feeling 
 of the changes in our family since. " Ah ! ]Mr. 
 Earle," said he, " for I suppose I must no longer 
 call you, Gilbert, — times are sadly changed since 
 then. Your fatlicr. Sir, is almost the only one of 
 my contemporaries Avho remains, — and he, I am 
 told, is in a very bad state. The neighbourhood 
 is all new to me now ; — except those Avho were 
 under me here, I know none of them. And even 
 XTiany of my scholars have gone before me — Your
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 157 
 
 brother. Sir ! — Alas ! who would have thought I 
 should outlive so fine a young man as that — but he 
 Avas a soldier, and a bullet knows no respect of 
 persons — it hits the young and strong as readily as 
 the old and feeble. He was indeed a fine, gallant 
 young man, the colonel — and he fell, like one, in 
 the field of honour. Alas ! I talk of him as a 
 young man, but I suppose his sons must be nearly 
 grown up now."" I answered, they were at college. 
 " Think of that," he replied — " and I remember 
 their father not this high ! And you, Mr. Gilbert, 
 are a good deal changed since I first saw you in 
 this parlour ; — but that was not yesterday ; and, be- 
 sides, you have been a long time in a hot climate — 
 " sub curru niiuiuiu propiiiqui 
 
 S(tlis 
 
 as our friend Horace says — and no man can do 
 that without feeling it. One would scarcely think, 
 to look at us, that I was your father's senior at the 
 university. I believe, after all, the gout is a friend 
 as well as a foe — he is a disagreeable guest enough, 
 to be sure, but I often think that he keeps worse 
 ones away." A sudden and violent twinge seemed
 
 158 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 to make the Doctor doubt his hypothesis, ahifiost 
 before it was laid down. 
 
 I now begged to see the school ; — the old man 
 apologized for not being able to accompany me, — 
 but he rang the bell and desired the servant to 
 
 request Mr. , (his son,) to come to him. 
 
 Accordingly, a spruce, prim, stiff personage made 
 his appearance, dressed in a scrupulous suit of 
 black, rather worn at the elbows, but exceedingly 
 well brushed and orthodox. I remembered him 
 a tall gawky lad, a sort of half-assistant to his 
 father, and especially hated by the boys, from his 
 being in turn associate and petty tyrant, — play- 
 fellow and, as it was suspected, spy. 
 
 After we had been somewhat ceremoniously 
 presented to each other, and a few words of re- 
 cognition had passed, — he preceded me to the 
 school, which is a detached building, at the other 
 side of the yard. As we approached, I heard 
 that indescribable hum which always proceeds from 
 a full school — but when we entered, it ceased sud- 
 denly, as every head was i-aised from the book, to 
 look at * the strange gentleman.' The school was
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. l59 
 
 almost unchanged ; — the very forms had a physi- 
 ognomy so similar to those on which I had sat — 
 blotted with ink, and scrawled and carved with 
 initials and nondescript figures of all kinds — that 
 my imagination might well be allowed to believe 
 them the same. The lockers (as our phrase was,) 
 were indisputably the same ; — there was a mul- 
 titude of indescribable marks and tokens on them 
 which flashed upon my recollection in an instant. 
 The chief difference was in the costume of the boys. 
 The fashions of dress are fundamentally altered 
 since I was at school. The shoe-buckle, the knee- 
 breeches, the long hair, which formed the dan- 
 dyism of that day, are quite vanished — and though 
 the present mode is far more natural and graceful, 
 yet at that moment it seemed to me in disagreeable 
 contrast with the old locality. 
 
 While I was contemplating these things, I had 
 forgotten the usual boon which it is always expected 
 that a visitor should beg — a half-holiday. I Avas 
 reminded of it, by observing a pretty general whis- 
 pering among the boys, together with side-long 
 glances at me, which seemed to intimate an anxiety
 
 160 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 lest I should not be sufficiently aware of the 
 honoured custom. I immediately turned to Mr. 
 
 , and made my request aloud. Every eye in 
 
 the room flashed with delight, — and one or two of 
 the most eager boys half sprang from their seats in 
 anticipation. The master paused and looked im- 
 portant, and began to demur; — but I insisted 
 that, for auld lang syns, he should not deny me, 
 — and at last he yielded, with that bad grace with 
 which schoolmasters generally seem to think it 
 necessary to qualify the granting of a favour. The 
 moment the word was given, there was a general 
 rush by the boys, — and a most vociferous shouting 
 of " Thank-ye, Sir !— Thank-ye, Sir!" Each 
 sprang to his locker to put by his book — (a piece 
 of [regularity to Avhich the presence of the master 
 seemed to me to have a great deal to say,) and 
 in two minutes the school was cleared. 
 
 I now looked round me more attentively, and 
 the existence of other days seemed indeed recalled. 
 My formal friend by my side, was, it is true, but 
 a poor substitute for my jolly and rubicund old 
 master; but still he was what the painters call ' in
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 161 
 
 good keeping ^ witli the place. He ciid not seem 
 to enter very strongly into my feelings, or even 
 quite to vmderstand the eagerness of my excla- 
 mations — as, one by one, I recognised several objects 
 of old remembrance. The birch, that formidable 
 weapon of scholastic warfare, was still kept in pre- 
 cisely the same place, as when I vised to cast a 
 timid glance at it on a cold winter's morning, when 
 I had neglected to learn my Imes (repetition 
 lesson) over night. That place was one especially 
 adapted to the purpose, — being a cupboard of 
 open wire work, so that the rods were kept in 
 view, in terrorem, and yet were out of reach, that 
 the sentenced culprits might not pick the buds off 
 them, which, as every schoolboy well knows, causes 
 their strokes to be less severe. The slates huno; 
 round the room on the hat-pegs, i^ist as of old; 
 and, as of old also, I saw on several of them, 
 many figures besides those of arithmetic ; — sundry 
 sketches of the master, and games of Fox and 
 Geese, S^c, cut permanently in with a knife. I 
 went to the locker which had been mine for the 
 greater part of the time I was at school, but I 
 
 M
 
 162 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 found it fastened. Mr. , liowever, sent for 
 
 the boy to Avhom it belonged. He v/as a fine 
 open-faced little fellow about eleven years old ; and 
 seemed pleased and gratified at having the good 
 chance of beino- sino-led out from his fellows; as 
 schoolboys always are, let it be on what account it 
 may. When I had explained to him what I 
 wanted, he exclaimed — " What! Sir, were you at 
 school here ?" and cast upon me an involuntary 
 glance, which seemed to add, " Surely it must 
 have been before the deluge !" He opened the 
 locker, and in truth I could fancy it my own. A 
 new Virgil at the top sheMed the exact stage of 
 progress of my little friend, — and then came books 
 of all sizes, and of all degrees of dogs''-ears and 
 thumbing, — marbles, balls, whips, and even a bat, 
 all jumbled together in admirable confusion. Mr. 
 
 thought it incumbent upon him to reprimand 
 
 the boy for the " untidy" state of his treasures ; 
 and stigmatized the intrusion of the bat with some 
 vehemence. I recollected that the boy who had 
 had this locker before me was destined to be a 
 sailor, (he was now at the top of the list of post
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 163 
 
 captains,) and had carved a ship upon the inside of 
 the lid. This hd consisted of two boards, one of 
 "which had been renewed ; but there was still to be 
 seen the sternmost half of the vessel, with an im- 
 mense ensign flying, on Avhich, below the Union, 
 he had cut his name, and the date of the year — 
 " Thomas Bree, 1783.^— The jingle thus pro- 
 duced had always been familiar to my ear, from 
 the time of its being originally carved. It had 
 struck me as ludicrous ; and I used to go singing 
 it up and down after Bree, till he grew wearied 
 out, and thrashed mc for it. But still it had al- 
 ways remained, even up to this time, like one of 
 those snatches of song or of eloquence which we 
 have been accustomed to repeat in childhood, and 
 which we can never get out of our heads after- 
 wards. Here it was again ! 
 
 We next went up to the bed-rooms, — for I 
 wished to see my old one. The bed which I had 
 occupied stood in the same corner, with its white 
 curtains looped up, tent fashion. Here I had 
 slept for three years, from the time I Mas nine till 
 I was twelve years old. How light was my rest 
 
 M2
 
 164 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 then ! — how hglit was my heart ! I had even more 
 than the usual salt of youth in me, — I was more 
 gladsome even than my gladsome fellows, — and 
 when I laid my head upon that innocent pillow, 
 how little could I guess of the nights of sorrow, 
 and despair, and anguish which it would be my 
 lot in after years to pass ! The contrast of guilt 
 and purity, — of unhappiness and joy, — is always 
 more vividly strong when connected with the place 
 of our rest. During the day, the thovisand avocations 
 of business and society, to a certain extent, make 
 in these respects, all men for the time equal. But 
 when we retire to the solitude of our chamber, and 
 the silence of the night, then is it that the heart, no 
 longer aided by external circumstance, re-assumes its 
 real nature, more especially if that nature be one of 
 sorrow. How conmionly is the phrase ' the pillow,' 
 used for those hours of darkness, when the spirit com- 
 munes with itself — when our thoughts enter into our 
 own hearts with all the power of searching truth ! 
 The sleep of a sinless child, and that of youthful 
 innocence, have been themes to almost all poets, in 
 almost all ages ; — and why is the contemplation of
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESa. 165 
 
 purity in this state so delightful to them, but from 
 the pain and terrors of its contrast ? The pillow 
 of the fallen and remorseful man has, indeed, to 
 him no softness. The heavy sigh is then unre- 
 strained, the hot tear is then unchecked, — and the 
 heart heaves in unmitigated bitterness. It may 
 be thought by some that I exaggerate the picture 
 — Happy are those who can think so ! 
 
 My feelings crowded thick upon me as I gazed 
 on this well-remembered room, and I turned hastily 
 away, that my companion might not perceive them. 
 We descended to the play-ground. By this time 
 the boys had arranged their sports for the evening 
 — some Avere at fives, and some at football. 
 
 " 'Twas here, we shot the marble throug-h the ring — " 
 and here they were playing now. I used to be 
 very fond of this game ; — though I hope I never 
 was " a dunce at syntax," I certainly was " a dab 
 at taw."" — I had always a magnificent collection of 
 alleys^ of which I was as proud as Lord Stafford, 
 or Mr. Angerstein can be of their pictures ; and I 
 was glad to see that the taste had not passed away 
 from the school. I found my friend of the locker
 
 166 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 just beginning a game, — and I had some conver- 
 sation with him on the subject, in which he was 
 surprised to find me so well-skilled. As I talked 
 Avith the boy, I looked back to the time Avhen I 
 was just such another ; and I thought how little it 
 could have been foretold what my after-fate would 
 be. I have often reflected on this when I have 
 been surrounded with yovmg people. Lift the 
 veil, I have said, from before a few (in some cases 
 a very few) years, and what traces will you find of 
 the gaiety and young-heartedness which Ave see 
 now ? One will be shattered in spirit, and an- 
 other in frame ; — how few will there be who will 
 not, from their contrast with the present state, make 
 our " sorrow take new sadness from surprise."" 
 Nothing can be more true to nature thaii the fine 
 passage from which I quote this line ; it has always 
 remained green in my memory, because it has gone 
 to my heart : 
 
 " Minutely trace man's life; year after year, 
 7'liroug-h all his days let all his deeds appear. 
 And then, thoug-h some may in that life be strange, 
 Yet there appears no vast nor sudden change ;
 
 GILBEET EAULEj ESd. 167 
 
 The links that bind those various deeds are seen, 
 And no mysterious void is left between. 
 But let these biiidin<>- links be all destroyed. 
 All that through years he suffered or enjoyed: 
 Let that vast gap be made, and then behold — 
 This was the youth, and he is thus when old ; 
 Then we at onee the work of time survey, 
 And in an instant see a life's decay ; 
 Pain mix'd witli jiity in our bosoms rise, 
 And sorrow takes neiv sadness from surprise*." 
 
 It is exactly this feeling which has been so bitter 
 to me since my return home. If I had passed the 
 years of my absence here, the changes would have 
 been gradual, and I should have changed with 
 them — ^but now, both in myself, and in what I 
 see around me, the alteration flashes upon me at 
 once, sudden as M^ell as complete. Who could 
 have thought who had seen me when I was the age 
 
 '& 
 
 of the child with whom I was conversing — ^who 
 could have thought what I should be 7iow ? 
 
 I beheve the softening of my heart, as I spoke 
 with the boy, increased considerably the tip which 
 it was necessary for me to give him. 
 
 As I rode home, I pursued the same train of 
 
 ^ << 
 
 The Parting Hour."
 
 168 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 reflection, — and I found myself more than once 
 repeating aloud, 
 
 " This was the youth, and he is thus when old — " 
 Alas ! alas ! when was ever the line so applicable ?
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESa. 169 
 
 FRAGMENT IX. 
 
 * 
 
 * * * But Avhat right have I to cite with mur- 
 muring and sadness the changes and losses, which a 
 quarter of a century has produced, — when I thus 
 saw how much a tenth part of that period can effect ? 
 The work of Time, during the long, long years I 
 had been away, was as nothing when compared with 
 this. — But I must not anticipate ; — Void le fait. 
 
 A few years before I left India, a young man 
 had brought to me some very strong letters of re- 
 commendation from some of my connections in 
 England, whom I was most happy and desirous to 
 oblige. He had, in consequence, remained some 
 time under my roof; dviring which period, his fine 
 disposition and talents, his amiable heart, and his 
 winning fascination of manner, had created between 
 us a friendship very unlike any thing which usually 
 exists between men of such different ages as we
 
 ITO LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 were. He was above twenty years my junior, ■^ — and 
 yet our liaison was more like that of contempora- 
 ries than of two men of separate generations. This 
 may be considered the more strange on account of 
 the habits and temperament which I liave described 
 as being mine, from so very early a period of my 
 life — and I at first thought it so myself. But I 
 found that the buoyant animation and liveliness of 
 my young friend were of the greatest benefit to me ; 
 and, Avhile they gave relief to the usual gloomy 
 condition of my spirits and demeanour, they con- 
 currently diminished its unpleasantness to himself. 
 On the other hand, I had made a point of exerting 
 myself to render my house agreeable to him at first, 
 ■ — and, afterwards, he equally strove to prevent my 
 relapsing into my usual state. To effect this, he 
 so modified his youthful feelings and manner, as 
 to enliven without shocking the mind of a melan- 
 choly man. If he liad been less dehcate, consider- 
 ate, and (intuitively) skilful, — he probably would 
 have produced diametrically the contrary effect from 
 that which it was his endeavour to work. But, as 
 it was, during the time he was with me, I certainly
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ,. 171 
 
 Avas better at ease than I had been for years ; —and 
 when we parted, it was, as I have mentioned, with 
 sentiments of friendship very unusual to arise be- 
 tween two men in every point so dissimilar. The 
 very difference, however, of our ages, was, I sus- 
 pect, rather of advantage than detriment to the 
 
 feelings with which L regarded me. I had 
 
 more and better influence over him than a man of 
 his oAvn standing could ever have acquired — -while 
 there was none of tlie constraint and awkwardness 
 which young people usually experience in any 
 very constant intercourse Avith companions more 
 advanced in life. 
 
 It certainly would not be imagined, from what 
 I have said, that this young man could have any 
 connexion with the disappointments and pain which 
 attended my return to England — but so it was. 
 About a year and a half before I finally quitted 
 India, he was about to be married to a young and 
 charming person, to whom he was attached with 
 all the characteristic ardour of his disposition, — 
 and who, from the little I saw of her, appeared 
 equaUy to deserve and to repay his affection . I
 
 172 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 was to have been present at their marriage ; — but, 
 alas ! a few days before that on whicli it was to take 
 place, the poor girl was carried oft* by one of those 
 violent and rapid diseases w^hich are, in that country, 
 so common. In tropical climates too, decomposition 
 follows death so speedily, that interment is neces- 
 sarily almost immediate. She was accordingly to 
 be buried the morning after her decease; and I 
 Avent to assist and support L during the cere- 
 mony, at which, in despite of all I could urge, he 
 insisted on being present. 
 
 I found him in the room with the corpse. He was 
 sitting beside it when I entered ; but the moment 
 he beheld me, he ran towards me, fell uj^on my 
 neck, and wept — for the first time since the catas- 
 trophe had haj^pcned. He wept very long; but 
 at last he seemed, in some degree, relieved; — and, 
 raising himself, he took me by the hand, and led 
 me to the coffin. 
 
 The freshness of life had passed away — but even 
 now she was surpassingly beautiful. Cold, marble- 
 pale, and rigid, she looked like one of tlie beautiful 
 sculptures which are placed upon old tombs, in
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 1T3 
 
 effigy of those Avho sleep below. The face alone 
 was uncovered — long grave-clothes closely enve- 
 loped the whole frame to the neck— and a napkin 
 was over her brow. So smooth and softly white 
 was the flesh, that it could scarcely be distinguished 
 where the one ended, and the other began. From 
 beneath this, however, one long tress of hair escaped, 
 which, passing across the cheek, rested upon the 
 shroud. This struck me more than all, — for this 
 gave the contrast of life with the perfect deadliness 
 of all else. So still in the stillness of peace, — so 
 calm in the calmness of purity, — was this corpse of 
 loveliness and virtue, that one scarce could think 
 that the King of Terrors had claimed it for his ovm. 
 It looked, as I have said, more like the figure on a 
 pale sarcophagus — or perhaps, more like one in a 
 deep, a very deep sleep— than the soulless wreck of 
 passed humanity. But this one tress of bright hair, 
 shining on the white skin— like a fling of golden 
 sunlight upon snow — recalled the terrible truth at 
 once. The hair is the latest portion of the human 
 frame to betray the consequence of death. While 
 the eyes become glazed, and the nerves fixed, and
 
 174 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 the flesh grows colourless and icy cold, — the hah' is 
 the same that it was when it added so much beauty 
 to beautiful life — when it waved in the wind, or 
 gleamed in the sun, as the quick motion of youth 
 might influence. 
 
 Yes, she w^as, indeed, lovely ! — and what was this 
 loveliness now ? — almost already touched by that de- 
 cay from which, though we know it to be invariable, 
 our nature causes us to shrink so sickeningly ! Sad, 
 indeed, is it to gaze upon a face we love, beaming 
 in all the brightness of beautiful youth, and to 
 reflect that that flesh will moulder, and finally be- 
 come dust, — that those eyes will cease to be, and 
 nothing remain but an hideous and revolting bone, 
 undistinguishablc from that which formed the head 
 of the coarsest or most brutal. What then, must it 
 be to look upon a countenance thus beautiful, and 
 thus loved, Avhen this terrible and disgusting pro- 
 cess has nearly begun ? — but this is a part of the 
 subject too horrid to be dwelled upon. 
 
 There is, however, another idea, which has al- 
 ways risen Avithin me, with a revolted feeling, when 
 I have gazed on one thus about to be placed in the
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 175 
 
 grave. I mean all the preparation (I might almost 
 say decoi-ation) which the senseless clay has under- 
 gone, to be laid to its fellow-earth. Why that 
 livery of death — that uniform of the grave, va which 
 all are equally wrapped? The Ruling Passion 
 even of Narcissa is not strong after death; — we 
 then, surely, need no adornment. The dress in 
 which we chanced to be habited when the spirit 
 passed, might, one would think, suffice to decorate 
 the physical body which is left behind. But this 
 coffin, into which I looked, was, besides all this, 
 c[uilted throughout with satin ; and a pillow of the 
 same material supported the head, as if the fair 
 cheek could now taste its softness ! Alas, alas, how 
 paltry do these mockeries appear to us at such a 
 moment ! 
 
 I had ample time to gaze my fill, and to think of 
 
 all these things, and many more ; — for L placed 
 
 himself at the head of the coffin, and remained there, 
 with his head bowed in his hands upon its edge. 
 Low deep groans struggled from him at intervals — 
 and the cold sweat was clannny on his brow. At 
 lengdi they came to fasten down the coffin. I wanted
 
 176 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 him to go with me from the room, — but the pa- 
 roxysms of his despair were so terrible, when I 
 strove to draw him towards tlie door, that I 
 thought it better to desist. — He flung himself upon 
 the body, and fastened his lips upon hers — now 
 so damp and rigid. — There he lay, as if he would 
 have lain for ever; — at last, I gently raised him 
 up, and signed to the men to replace the lid. — 
 
 They did so at once. L gazed at them as if 
 
 he had been changed to stone ; — but when he 
 heard the grinding sound of the first screw, as it 
 was driven down into the wood, he uttered a loud 
 and terrible shriek, and fell senseless into my 
 arms. 
 
 I was afterwards glad that it was so — for all 
 was over before he came to himself. It was, in- 
 deed, several days before he left his bed. After 
 a short time I took him to my own house, — where 
 he staid nearly three months, recovering very 
 slowly. At the end of tliat period, he returned to 
 Europe for change of air, and of scene — whither, 
 as I have already mentioned, I myself followed in 
 the course of the following year.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 177 
 
 I had not been in England above three months, 
 wlicn I received a letter from him, to inform me 
 he was going to be married ! I can scarcely say 
 what a blow this gave me. The changes which I 
 had already seen, and suffered from seeing, were 
 those of inscrutable and uncontrollable nature ; — ■ 
 but this change was the work of unworthy feeble- 
 ness [and vacillation. And is this, then, the du- 
 ration of human love — of hmnan sorrow ? — Do 
 two short years suffice to root out from the heart 
 all that has grown there so long, and, one would 
 think, so deeply ? — Is love, then, a mockery, that 
 it vanishes so soon into air ? — Is grief a deceit, 
 that it so soon is converted into joy ? — Alas, alas ! it 
 is witnessing things like these that sours the milk of 
 humanity in our hearts — that stifles all yearnings of 
 kindliness towards our fellows, and makes us doubt- 
 ing and distrustful of them all. L was, how- 
 ever, (to do him justice) ashamed, — and he wrote to 
 me as though / were wronged, — as if apology were 
 due to me. And I was wronged, — an apology was 
 due to me. I was no way connected with her 
 whom he lost, — and grieved for her only for his 
 
 N
 
 178 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 sake. But to find the friend whom I loved and 
 esteemed tlms fickle and shallow, — to see hopes, 
 and affections, and sorrows, thus wiped from his 
 heart at once, as a schoolboy spunges from his 
 slate the sums of the past week, — to learn from 
 him, of all men, the lesson of how light are all 
 earthly loves — how speedily even the dearest and 
 deepest are forgotten — these are things which are 
 wrongs — these are things for which apology is 
 indeed due. 
 
 He said, the very violence of his grief caused 
 its comparatively short duration, — as the fiercest 
 fire is the most speedily burnt out. He talked of 
 the state of dreadful isolation and vacuity in 
 which he found himself, when he was first restored 
 to calmness of mind — of the besom d'aimer im- 
 planted within us all — of (what he pleases to term) 
 the well-known fact, that the most wounded hearts 
 are the pronest to love again. He then proceeded 
 to say that, just at that moment when his heart 
 most needed something to cling to, he met with 
 
 one uiho, &:c. He talked, in a word, in the v^ay 
 
 that a man always does, when he is about to
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 179 
 
 do a thing he knows to be wrong, and yet is 
 determined to do it — when he is lowered in his 
 own esteem, and is conscious that he shall be so in 
 that of his friend. He strove to deceive both him- 
 self and me. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that such grief as his was 
 could not last ; — it must have ceased, or he must 
 have died. But it should not have passed away 
 thus — like a storm in June, leaving every thing 
 gay and brilliant as before. It should have been 
 succeeded by that deep, inward feeling, which is 
 more calm than sorrow, less clouded than melan- 
 choly — which rests itself in holy fixedness upon its 
 loved cause, — and which is not only not fled from, 
 but is so cherished, that it would be punishment as 
 well as sacrilege, to seek to replace it by any 
 liffhter and more recent affection. 
 
 But, after all, why should I be angry with 
 
 L ? It is thus always ; — this, in very truth, 
 
 is " the way of the world." — Oh ! what a hollow, 
 heartless, evil-hearted world it is ! — Like the fabled 
 apples of the East, it is without, all bloom and 
 beauty — widiin, foulness and ashes. Its sun shines 
 
 N 2
 
 180 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and looks bright, that it may scorch your braui, 
 — its breezes blow, that they may chill you to the 
 bones. It is shallower than a summer stream, and 
 more rocky at bottom ; — colder than the winter's 
 ice — and, like it, faithless and fragile. The man 
 who trusts to it may be assured that he is leaning 
 upon a rotten staff, which will not only break 
 beneath his weight, but pierce him to the heart as 
 he falls. 
 
 Look around, and every Avhere, and at every 
 moment, we shall see a repetition of the conduct of 
 my fickle friend. We are like well-disciplined 
 troops in action — no sooner does one man fall, 
 than the ranks close up, and it could not be told 
 where he stood. It is but a fortnight ago that I 
 went with my nephew to the rejoicings wliich took 
 
 place upon young \s coming of age. Oxen 
 
 were roasted whole in the park — the ale flowed in 
 rivers — and the peasants danced gaily on the lawn. 
 Within, every thing was feasting, and revelry, and 
 brightness — the wails rang with music — the very 
 air breathed of mirth and happiness. As I gazed 
 upon the brilliant scene — women radiant with
 
 GILBERT EABLE, ESQ. 181 
 
 youth, and beauty, and showy dress, and flashing 
 jewels — and the " troops of friends" of the young 
 host — young like him, and buoyant with early 
 spirit, and present gaiety, and prospective hap- 
 piness — together with all the accompaniments of 
 such scenes — streaming lights, and music, and 
 wine, and pealing merriment — as I looked upon 
 these things, I say, I could not but call to mind, 
 that in that very room, not fifteen months before, 
 the father of the youthful heir had lain in state ; — 
 instead of branches of green leaves, and garlands 
 of bright flowers, the walls were hung throughout 
 with black — the only lights were the wax tapers of 
 the chamber of death — instead of loud mirth, there 
 were the tiptoe-tread and whispering of grief — for 
 light laughter there were deep sobs — in the place 
 of feasting, there were bitter tears. The tenants who 
 now made merry in their young landlord's honour, 
 then mourned for their old one's loss — the very 
 men who now pealed the rejoicing bells for the 
 one, then tolled the death-kncll of the other. — And 
 yet all these things seemed forgotten as utterly as 
 if they had never existed. No eye seemed less
 
 182 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 brio-ht — no brow more clouded — for the contrast 
 which was still so recent. — No shade of recollection 
 or regret passed over the brightness of those faces 
 of joy! 
 
 All, I am sure, have Avitnessed parallel scenes to 
 this. It is our custom, and, perhaps, a wise one, 
 to make our places of worship places of burial also. 
 The presence, as it were, of the dead, is likely be- 
 yond all else to lead to devotional feelings. — And 
 who has not seen a family surrounded by monu- 
 ments of their kindred — of those who Avere deeply 
 dear, and have been lately lost, — sitting with covmte- 
 nances as cold and unmoved as the marble records 
 on which they gazed; — who has not seen them, 
 even, step with as firm a tread upon the stone 
 which covered the remains of those they had loved, 
 as if they were still pacing on the high Avay ? 
 
 Who has not seen these things? — Who has not 
 beheld more speedy and more utter forgetful ness 
 even than tliis ? It seems as if it were a law of our 
 nature that every thing should decay mth rapidity, 
 even affection and regret. Are the characters of 
 love, then, traced upon sand — that the first wave
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 183 
 
 of worldly collision can wash tliem out? — Is there 
 no rock whereupon to found the edifice of friend- 
 ship, or of love ? To what purpose should we give 
 up our hearts to all the joys of fond intercourse — 
 the sweetness of fixed friendship — the delight of 
 deep love, — if, in very truth, they be all thus airy, 
 unsubstantial, and unreal? If we are to be for- 
 gotten before a second spring's grass has risen upon 
 oui graves — if Ave arc to forget, before the very 
 monument which tells our grief is completed, — it 
 is better to have no loves — no friendships — no ties 
 of kindred or of long remembrance — no gushings 
 of affection — no yearnings of the heart. Let us 
 say, at once, our connections are those of circum- 
 stance, of convenience, — at best, of light regard ; — 
 to gratify, perhaps, a gust of transient passion — 
 to indulge the fancy of one passing hour. But if 
 distance be placed between us — and, still more, if 
 death finally intervene— then all is gone, never to 
 return or to be remembered — aU is obliterated, as 
 though it had never been : we are (to use a homely, 
 but most forcibly-expressive, phrase) out of sight — 
 and therefore out of mind also.
 
 184 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 Oh ! God, and is it thus indeed ? The very 
 beasts of the field remember and sorrow for their 
 lost fellows ; and are we less human than they ? — 
 No ! — there are some hearts which can never 
 forget — some things which can never be forgotten. 
 No .'—there are some affections, over which Death 
 has no power — which Time itself is unable to cancel. 
 If I were to number the years which were given to 
 man in the early ages of the world, om feeling, at 
 least — one recollection would still burn at the 
 bottom of my soul. 
 
 *' That love where Death has set his seal"" — is to 
 me the deepest, as it is the holiest, of all. It is 
 without the impurity and earthly alloy of human 
 passion — yet more strong and more fervent than 
 any thing hut human passion can ever be. Violent 
 grief, as I have before said, must pass — and in 
 those who are, as I was, thrown by necessity into 
 the full current of worldly society, even deep me- 
 lancholy will be woi'n off also. But the soul-seated 
 remembrance which remains of the excess of that 
 affection which is at once the most vehement and 
 the softest — the tcndercst and the fiercest — of all
 
 t. 
 
 GILBERT EARLEj,,ESQ. 185 
 
 mortal feelings — Avhat can erase thatl The sun- 
 like heat and radiance of passion, though them- 
 selves no more, are mirrored, as in the moon, in 
 this pure memory. I look on these feelings no 
 longer as recollections — they are become 'part of 
 myself. And can I believe that these will ever 
 pass ? No ; when they cease to exist, it will be 
 when I cease to exist also. They are like writing 
 engraven by a diamond upon glass — it cannot be 
 destroyed unless the glass itself be broken.
 
 186 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 FRAGMENT X. 
 
 * 
 
 It was in the inontli of October that I was 
 obliged to go to London on business. I had, as I 
 beheve I have mentioned, travelled straight from 
 Southamptom, where I landed, to my father\s, — 
 witlioiit going to town at all. I was, therefore, 
 obliged to go to settle the affairs incident to my 
 return to England, — and I had postponed it thus 
 long, from the strong disinclination which I then 
 felt for exertion or business of any sort. But, at 
 last, it became necessary that I should put it off 
 no longer — so I went. 
 
 I had expected to find London greatly altered — 
 but it was more so even than I anticipated. Six-and- 
 twcnty years must always, and in all places, work 
 great clidnge, — but these six-and-twenty years had 
 done more, pcrliaps, tlian any period of similar 
 duration ever did before, or ever will again. I
 
 GILBErvT EAELE, ESQ. 187 
 
 liad left England in the early pai't of the French 
 Revolution ; — and the quarter of a century which 
 immediately succeeded is, I believe, unparalleled 
 in the history of the world, with respect to the 
 number, the extent, and the completeness of the 
 changes which marked its course. In London, 
 too, these changes were to be seen the most strongly. 
 and at once. Those wliich I had felt in my own 
 home — in the quiet country village of which I have 
 been speaking — were of a totally different cha- 
 racter; — more painful, but less surprising — more 
 sad, but less general and complete. The outward 
 aspect of every thing was there the same ; — there 
 was no strong, or even visible, difference in the 
 di'ess, the manners, or the habits of the people: — 
 It was, perhaps, even the feeling that every thing 
 seemed so much like Avhat I had left, while every 
 thing was so cruelly altered, that had Avelghed 
 upon my heart, with such severity of oppression ; 
 I mean, that the general mass betrayed no change, 
 while of the details scarcely one remained. 
 
 But in London the bearing, aspect, and physi- 
 ognomy of every thing and every body was new
 
 188 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and strange. It would have been impossible for 
 one to walk ten yards without being made strongly 
 sensible of the thorough change of all around, — 
 while, at Wilverham, (as I believe I have already 
 said,) I might, from any thing that struck upon 
 the eye at times, almost have mused myself into 
 the belief that my years of absence, and all that I 
 had done and borne during their course, were one 
 liideous drcam,~and that I still stood in youth, and 
 innocence, and peace of heart, in the beloved place 
 of my birth and earliest dwelling. 
 
 But no such visions could, for a moment, pass 
 over my mind, in the midst of the tliorough and 
 palpable changes of every thing which met my 
 view in London. If there had been nothing more 
 than the dress of the people, it would have been 
 sufficient to shew the lapse of time which had in- 
 tervened since I was among them last. In the 
 country, as I have noticed, years and years pass 
 aAvay without operating any visible difference in 
 the simple costume of its agricultural inhabitants. 
 The picture of a country labourer of the present 
 day might serve, without any apparent anachro^
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 189 
 
 nism, for that of his grandfather an hundred years 
 ago. With respect to Londoners, I need not say 
 how vast a difference exists. Let any one refer to 
 the portraits of even their o^\'n fathers, and they 
 will at once see the full force of the contrast. It 
 is true, that before the period of my quitting Eu- 
 rope, the violence of the old-fashioned modes had 
 passed away. The hoops and high heads had been 
 banished — and gentlemen no longer walked the 
 streets, in the morning, with silk stockings and 
 buckles, bag and sword. But yet I question whe- 
 ther a more total or striking opposition of costume 
 could be produced than that between the usual 
 di-ess of about the year 1790 — and that which has 
 prevailed since the peace. Gradations and changes 
 of fashion there are at times, — but in this period 
 there has been a complete revolution in dress. 
 When I had been last in London, what would 
 have been thought of a gentlemen if he had ap- 
 peared at a ball with short, unpowdered hair, and 
 trowsers 7 
 
 I may be deemed to give too much importance 
 to what is, after all, of such very slight moment, —
 
 190 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 but my chief endeavour throughout these desultory 
 pages has been to represent, as nearly as I could, 
 the impressions of my mind ; — and it is certain 
 that nothing more strongly brought home to it 
 at once the progress and operation of time, than 
 the completeness of the change of Avhich I have 
 been speaking. 
 
 The effect of outward objects of sense upon our 
 thoughts, feelings, and recollections, is too inti- 
 mately known to every man, for it to be necessary 
 for me to comment upon its strength and truth. 
 I say ' truth,' — for one flash of this kind, — whether 
 produced by the agency of sight, soimd, or smelly 
 is more sudden, forcible, and effectual, in bringing 
 back tlie memory of the mind to the almost present 
 existence of long-past days, — than all the thought 
 or reflection in the world. 
 
 The changes of outward objects, which struck 
 me so much, were not confined to this one item ; — 
 carriages, eqiii pages, public conveyances of all 
 kinds, especially — in a Avord, every thing relating 
 to the advance of what are commonly understood 
 by the term of ' the arts of life"" — were equally
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 191 
 
 unlike what I had remembered in their place. I 
 felt more as if I was entering, for the first time, a 
 foreign city — than revisiting the capital of my own 
 country which had once been known to me so well. 
 Let not those who can look back to a period not 
 only far prior to that of my leaving England, — 
 but, even before I was born — let not them accuse 
 me of affectation or hyperbole in what I have said. 
 If past changes have taken place, they have quietly 
 and gradually changed A\dth them, — instead of 
 which, I was absent altogether, from my youth 
 until now. What I have said of the effect of this 
 difference of position, with reference to moral gra- 
 dations, is equally, if not more, applicable to the 
 changes in visible objects. 
 
 But there were stronger differences even than 
 these, between the manner in whicli the work of 
 Time appeared to me in London, and at my father''s 
 house. In a metropolis, the changes are those of 
 a nation. The subjects of conversation and interest 
 are, in a great proportion, such as relate to the po- 
 litical Avelfare of a whole people, — or, at all events, 
 to matters of such general and public import and
 
 192 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 notoriety, as to be equally familiar to all. The ob- 
 soleteness of all those which had interested and 
 agitated the public mind, at the date of my leaving 
 London, was, in itself, a sufficient token of how much 
 every thing was altered since then. With respect 
 to my own family, it has been necessary to add 
 dates to bring home to indifferent persons the length 
 of time which 1 wished to indicate as having: 
 elapsed ; — but, it needs only to be stated, to feel at 
 once the interval between the points of time at 
 Avhich, respectively, the flight of the Royal Family 
 of France to Varennes, and the meetino; of the 
 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, could be matters of 
 present occurrence and interest. The former of 
 these events was almost the sole topic of public 
 conversation when I had last been in London — I 
 found every tongue busied with the latter upon 
 my return. 
 
 Neither is it with regard to political matters 
 alone that this observation holds good. It is their 
 being of public interest that brings them within 
 its scope. In London, especially, there is, perhaps, 
 more interest created by politics than by any other
 
 CILBERT EARLK, Esa. 193 
 
 subject of general conversation ; — but tlie current 
 literature, the favourite actors, and the most con- 
 spicuous fashionable people and gossip, — of the 
 day also — serve by their succession and contrast 
 to mark the different periods of intervening time. 
 
 I had, though I went abroad so early, lived a 
 good deal in London. My father was always there 
 during a certain number of months in the year ; 
 and I had had time thoroughly to taste and to 
 appreciate the advantages and pleasures of the 
 society I was leaving. If, in consequence, it cost 
 me the greater regret to be so completely cut off 
 from it, and plunged so suddenly into so very dif- 
 ferent a life, — I was now the more able to mark 
 the total clearance which had been made of the 
 prominent names in almost every walk of distinc- 
 tion or notoriety. There never was, I must repeat, 
 any period of similar duration, in the course of 
 which so complete and sweeping a change took 
 place. If I had left England, and returned to it, 
 ten years earlier, the difference would not have 
 been nearly so striking. The same eminent men 
 would, for the most part, have still occuj/ied the 
 
 o
 
 194 LTFE OF THE LATE 
 
 public stage, or only recently have left it. But, 
 as it Avas, the whole generation had vanished from 
 the earth, a new and strikingly distinct one had 
 risen in its place. To instance political life alone, — 
 where was Pitt ?— Fox .? — Burke? — Sheridan.? — 
 Windham ? Not only gone,— but already ranked 
 among the recollections of a past age. This was 
 not from mere lapse of time, — for, with the ex- 
 ception of Burke, none of these great men had 
 been dead for any considerable number of years, — 
 and Sheridan had survived till within little more 
 than two years of the time of which I speak. But 
 the total change of the spirit and character of the 
 times — the difference of the feelings, views, and 
 wishes of the public mind — ^Iiad already thrown 
 these, in fact, recent events, and the actors in them, 
 in the light of distant historical doings and persons. 
 The disappearance of all of them en masse had cer- 
 tainly hastened and increased this feeling; — but 
 that it is a true one, I Avill appeal to the individual 
 experience of every man who interests himself in 
 such subjects. Tlie secret history of George the 
 Second's reign seems, as wc read it, scarcely more
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 195 
 
 remote than that of the debates upon tlie Regency 
 Bill, or of the trial of AVarren Hastings. Half the 
 interest Avhich poor Sheridan inspired during the 
 last years of his decay, arose from his being re- 
 garded as the only survivor of a race of long- 
 departed greatness. 
 
 But in almost every thing else, I found the change 
 equally thorough and complete. I recollect having 
 been most anxious that my ship shoidd not sail be- 
 fore the publication of a new poem of Mr. Hayley''s, 
 which I was most desirous to be able to take Avith 
 me, — and which was sent to me at Portsmouth, still 
 wet from the press. I now found the whole literary 
 world discussing the merits of the Fourth Canto of 
 Childe Harold, the Heart of Mid-Lothian, and 
 Beppo ! Why, an absence of an hundred years 
 previous to the date of my departure could not 
 have afforded so strikinj^ and singular a contrast ! 
 — Dryden, Addison, Prior, Pope, had indeed been 
 dead for above a generation — but their deaths were 
 of the physical men, not of the poets. If one of 
 their contemporaries had arisen from his [almost] 
 century of sleep, and discussed the merits of their 
 
 o 2
 
 196 LIFE OF THE L\TE 
 
 AvriLinffs, — ho would not, by that circiinistaiice, have 
 betrayed die lengdi of his existence. But if I were 
 now to extol, or even seriously to mention, tlie 
 poetry of Merry, Mrs. Robinson, ]\Irs. Piozzi, or 
 even of Hayley himself, all first-rate names in my 
 day, — I should be looked upon with little less sur- 
 prise, and probably with much more contempt, 
 than were excited by the antiquated dresses, obso- 
 lete coins, and unintelligible allusions, of the Seven 
 Sleepers when they re-entered their native city. 
 
 But the changes among the professors of an- 
 other kindred, and perhaps still more popular art, 
 touched me the most nearly of all. It will readily 
 be seen that I allude to the stage. In these, the 
 characteristics which I have stated to belono; re- 
 spectively to personal and to public reminiscence, — 
 are, in great measure, conjoined. Political men 
 and authors, are, for the most part, very little 
 known to individuals personally. With regard to 
 authors, especially, this is the case. But even the 
 men distinguished in political life — whose mea- 
 sures are the theme of evcry-day discussion — 
 whose oratory is nightly to be heard, if we choose
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 197 
 
 to Avalk to Westminster to hear it, — even these men 
 are known to the vast majority of their contempo- 
 rariesj through no other medium than that of the 
 newspajiers, or of the speeches and pamphlets they 
 may choose themselves to publish. This particu- 
 larly in such a country as England, is most singu- 
 lar — but no one can deny it to be true. Few per- 
 sons, even among the educated classes, who are not 
 themselves in parliament, have any knowledge of 
 the voice, the manner, frequently not even of the 
 person, of oiu' most celebrated and eminent orators 
 and public men. But it is (from obvious causes) 
 not so in respect to actors. They embody and give 
 breath to the creations of the author, who perhaps 
 may be seated next to you, without your having 
 any knowledge of who he is. They appear before 
 you, night after night, till their faces, their tones, 
 their habitual manner and gestures, become so fami- 
 liar to you, that you at last almost feel surprise that 
 they do not know you as Avell as you know them. 
 Their names are equally in the public moutli and 
 ear as those of the other classes of men wliich I have 
 instanced above, — while their persons become allied
 
 198 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 to a feeling of lang-syne kindliness, to which they 
 never can give rise. 
 
 But I forget that I write in the tone, and with 
 the ideas, of a past age — and that nobody goes to 
 the play " night after night," now. The public 
 taste has taken a new direction, — should I be 
 much wrong in calhng it a new caprice ? In my 
 time, the strength of literary talent lay in the 
 drama. A successful writer for the stage rose at 
 once into estimation and repute. It was the field 
 for the greatest display and exertion of abihty ; — 
 it offered to them the highest reward. Accord- 
 ingly, those powers which, in later times, have 
 been turned into other channels — then almost all 
 flowed conjointly towards the stage. The theatre 
 was the focus of attraction, and resort, of all men 
 distinguished for literary tastes and talents. — Poets 
 and wits, and the amateurs and pretenders to wit 
 and poetry — congregated there. In a word, dra- 
 matic writing was then the fashionable literary 
 vent of the day, — and consequently carried with it 
 all those nameless and indescribable privileges and 
 charms, which fashion always, and fashion only,
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 199 
 
 gives. I need not say how utterly all this has now 
 passed away ; — but, perhaps, I ought to say how 
 sadly the contrast pressed upon me, on my return. 
 For otherwise, few of the present day would un- 
 derstand how any man could regret that so un- 
 fashionable an amusement as the theatre was no 
 longer the ton. I am not going to argue the 
 matter with them — I shall not enter into any dis- 
 cussion about the relative merits of die drama 
 and the opera, of sense and sound. Throughout 
 these recollections, I have avoided disputation, and 
 confined myself to feelings and to facts. 
 
 Thus, whether the change of which I have now 
 spoken is for the worse or the better, was to me 
 perfectly immaterial and indifferent. It had taken 
 place ; its effect upon me was painful and saddening 
 — that was quite enough. But surely there are few 
 who Avould not have felt similarly under similar 
 circumstances. When I last had been Avithin the 
 Avails of a theatre, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons were 
 in their zenith — in all the fulness of that unparal- 
 leled union of the personal beauty and mental 
 gifts so necessary, yet so rare, in their profession —
 
 "00 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 SO, Still more, extraordinary to be thus possessed, 
 and exerted, by two members of the same family, 
 in the same direction, and at the same time. They 
 were now both retired — still living, indeed, but 
 lost to the public ; from all but their own circle of 
 friends, they had passed away. Mrs. Jordan, too, 
 whom I had left full of the brightest and most 
 overflowing mirth, and laugh, and life, — and in- 
 spiring them to all, by the lavish scattering of her 
 resistless fascinations — .where was she ? — Dead, in 
 poverty, and in a foreign land ! — Wliere was 
 Dicky Suett, so grotesque and irresistible? — where 
 Parsons ? — Weston ? — Edwin ? — all passed — all 
 gone — all vanished — all dead I Even the houses 
 themselves had been destroyed. Where was Old 
 Drury? — Where was the other well-known the- 
 atre ? — How was I to recognise them in the vast 
 and stately structures which now stood upon their 
 site? — fine buildings, I believe and admit — but, 
 as playhouses, how unlike and how inferior to 
 those which I liad left ! 
 
 Upon looking over what I have said concerning
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 201 
 
 London, I am afraid I shall be thought to resem- 
 ble the old Marquis in Gil Bias, who said that 
 even peaches had grown smaller since the days of 
 his youth. But I am not, in justice, reproachable 
 with any folly of that kind. It is the change, not 
 the deterioration, of every thing I found, in com- 
 parison with every thing I had left, of which I 
 have been complaining. I am ready to believe 
 that that change has been improvement also — 
 but it is change still. To revert to the illustration 
 with which I began — a man may find in every 
 respect a superior city in the metropolis of a fo- 
 reign country to that of his own : — but v/hich does 
 his heart prefer ? The London to Avhich I re- 
 turned, was certainly superior to that which I had 
 left — but it was new, it was strange, it was not 
 what I had expected to find. It was like making 
 a new acquaintance — not meeting again with an 
 old friend. The former may intrinsically have 
 the most merit — but wc always love the latter the 
 
 best. 
 
 ******
 
 202 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 FRAGMENT XL 
 
 * # # * 
 
 It is strange to reflect upon the vast difference 
 with which we view the same objects in youth, and 
 in more advanced age. It is, perhaps, still more 
 strange to consider how many things we totally 
 overlook when we are happy and healthful, which 
 are, as it were by fatality, the very first which meet 
 our eyes and arrest our attention, when in sorrow, 
 sickness, and decline. For my own part, I have, 
 since my return, as a saddened and prematurely- 
 aged man, to that home which I had left young, 
 and strong, and tlioughtless, and happy,— often 
 striven to account for my having formerly been so 
 blind to the scenes of wretchedness and Avant, 
 Avhich obtrude themselves upon me every day. 
 Those in high station are always, I take it, igno- 
 rant of the extent of the misery which exists 
 around them. Some shrink, through the sensi-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ,. 203 
 
 tiveness of compassionate feelings, from bringing 
 home to their eyes and minds the immediate 
 reahty of that which they must sometimes partly 
 see, and perhaps more distinctly guess of. Others, 
 — and, I fear, the majority — are not over-zealous 
 to seek out suffering which it would be their duty 
 to relieve, — and, thence, are both sceptical and 
 tetchy when any thing occurs to force it, in some 
 degree, upon their notice. Perhaps, however, 
 they may be said rather to desire to be incre- 
 dulous, than to be so in fact — for, in that case, 
 they would be free from that angry soreness which 
 is almost always the attendant of that half-con- 
 scious paradoxical unbelief, which is more the 
 effect of the will than of the reason. 
 
 But these hypotheses are insufficient to account 
 for the imperfect knowledge which I now found 
 I had had of the misery existing under the very 
 shadow, as it were, of my own dwelling. For 
 my mother, (as I believe I have already stated,) 
 had always not only made us the ministers of her 
 relief to want, already known to her, — but also 
 had employed us to seek out, and to sift the
 
 204* LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 exigencies and the merits of the poor around. And 
 this, I believe, she did with a view to prevent 
 tliat cold and callous indifference, which I have 
 just reprobated, becoming grafted upon our young 
 dispositions. Such, I doubt not, was her motive 
 — and in my sister it has had its full effect. And 
 so, I am confident, it Avould have had in poor 
 Frederick, if he had lived to become master of his 
 estate. For myself, I was thrown so early in life 
 into a state of society so totally different, that I 
 cannot answer for how far I might have become 
 an exception to the heartless heedlessness of the 
 general rule. As it was, I found that I came 
 within it to a degree of which I little dreamed. 
 
 This was first brought immediately home to my 
 conviction, by some circumstances which attracted 
 my attention, towards the close of the year during 
 the summer of which I had returned to Wilvcr- 
 ham. It chanced to be a very severe winter — and 
 the manner in which this Avas felt by the poor in 
 our village, proved to me that I had indeed litde 
 knowledge of how much misery exists in the world 
 which the high and wealthy seldom see, and scarcely
 
 fiTLBERT EARLE, ESQ. 205 
 
 think of. Of coui'sc, it is of the poor, the very poor, I 
 speak, — for it is they alone who physically feel the 
 severities of our northern seasons. I know there 
 are many who shrink when the weather-cock points 
 from the East, — who affect to be living conjunc- 
 tions of the thermometer and barometer, feeling 
 inwardly and intensely every gradation of heat and 
 vicissitude of weather. But it is the very absence 
 of real suffering from the elements that causes this 
 affected, or, at any rate, trivial sensitiveness to their 
 minuter changes. When these victims of ideal 
 delicacy and imaginary illness do venture to go 
 forth, they are enveloped in a multiplicity of casings 
 Avhich preserve their bodies, like mummies, from 
 the least touch of the outward air ; and, at home, 
 they have all those means and inventions to create 
 heat and exclude cold which luxury has, of late 
 years, superadded to comfort. But the poor have 
 none of these ; — their coarse and insufficient cover- 
 ing has no winter increase, and their ill-built 
 dwellings — with their creviced w J' ^ broken case- 
 ments, and doors that do not close, — remain un-
 
 206 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 lieated by the miserable fire which is scarcely suffi- 
 cient to cook their scanty and unsavoury food. 
 
 Most of us, I think, are apt to be hard upon tlie 
 poor, and nearly all, as I have said, are too care- 
 less concerning them. We are earnest in preaching 
 to them content, and look little to what causes they 
 have for it. We strictly enforce their duties, — are 
 discountenancing and harsh towards their few re- 
 laxations and pleasures, — and if they sink into 
 misdoing, justice, severe and unpitying, is the ut- 
 most they have to expect. Whenever — and heaven 
 knows it is sufficiently rarely — the labouring man 
 indulges at the village wake, or the market-town fair, 
 are we not in haste to call him idle and dissolute .? 
 Do we not say, " He -complains of the hardness of 
 the times, why is he not at his work ? No wonder 
 he should be poor, if he spends his time in diver- 
 sion and debauchery ?" Alas ! should we call him, 
 who labours through the day, idle if he pause one 
 moment to wipe his throbbing brow ? Should we 
 be in haste to withhold the one honey-drop in a 
 full-measured cup of bitterness? Let us look at
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 207 
 
 the life of a country day-labourer in England, and 
 
 say whether it be one in which the duties are too 
 
 few, and the pleasures too many. As long as toil, 
 
 severe and continual, — and poverty, intense and 
 
 unremitting — are reckoned evils, so long must the 
 
 condition of our M^orking poor be considered one 
 
 which demands at our hands the utmost compassion 
 
 and forbearance. A poor man is a man still ; he 
 
 has the same impulses, appetites, and affections 
 
 that we have; — but to us they give enjoyment by 
 
 their indulgence, — to him suffering, by their denial 
 
 and restraint. It is said, for instance, that it is 
 
 worse than improvident for a labouring man to 
 
 marry, until he has acquired some probability of 
 
 being able to support his family, or at least has 
 
 laid by some small sum to set him afloat in the 
 
 world. In this case, marriage would be denied to 
 
 him altogether, — for, if he were to wait till he could 
 
 marry with prudence, he could never marry at all. 
 
 And are we to expect that a man is to lose his 
 
 nature because he is poor? The passions are 
 
 coarser, perhaps, in lowly bosoms than ours, but 
 
 they are not less strong. It has been much the
 
 208 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 fashion of Late to sneer at the loves of clowns and 
 country lasses, but I have known as deep instances 
 of attachment, — I have known affection as intense, 
 as fervent, and even as morally, though not per- 
 haps as socially, refined — in humble life, as ever 
 was felt in the highest. 
 
 If we go lower in the moral scale, and from 
 innocent suffering descend to guilt, still we find 
 almost as many causes to pity as to blame ; at all 
 events, we have strong reason to be thankful for our 
 own more happily-cast lot. For, the same impulses 
 which lead us into venial error, sink them into 
 serious crime ; — the same passions which cause in 
 us only moral misdoing, occasion in them offences 
 of deep guiltiness, visited by severe and ignomi- 
 nious penalty. Why is it that so many crimes are 
 committed among the lower orders of society, in 
 comparison with those in the richer ? — Because 
 they have such infinitely more temptation. A rich 
 man has around him the necessaries, the comforts, 
 the luxuries of life ; — what excuse has he to com- 
 mit those offences which, as directly injurious to 
 society, have been branded with shame, and made
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 209 
 
 liable to punislimeiit ? The poor man is starving-, 
 and he steals : — then the cry is raised of depravit}^, 
 and the necessity of severe example — and he is 
 hanged. Ought we not to bless that better fortune 
 which has placed us beyond the reach of tempta- 
 tions, under which, it is very probable, we also 
 might have fallen ? But the contrary is the case ; 
 whenever a man in the condition of a gentleman 
 commits an act which is visited by legal punish- 
 ment, all manner of pity is excited by his misfor- 
 tune, — all kinds of influence are exerted to procure 
 his pardon. The poor man who sinned, perhaps— 
 probably — in consequence of the extremity of 
 temptation, is punished, without a question or a 
 remark, a as matter of course,— while the gentle- 
 man, who has had comparatively no temptation, 
 meets with all consideration and leniency. 
 
 It is this very matter-of-course??(?^5 which ren- 
 ders us so blind, or, at least, so insensible, to the 
 sufferings of the poor. Many persons, who arc 
 naturally humane, think slightly of what is of such 
 every-day occurrence. But this every-day occur- 
 rence, which renders the compassion less, makes the 
 
 P
 
 210 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 suffering the more. That which is constant, and 
 to escape from which there is no hope, is surely 
 the severest to endure. The representation which 
 is given us of the punishment of another state is, 
 that it is unremitting and eternal. 
 
 There is also another class of persons who do 
 not pity the poor, because they have been taught 
 to consider them more worthy of envy. Their 
 ideas of poverty are a white cottage, woodbine, and 
 contentment, — brown bread, innocence, and clouted 
 cream. In the estimation of such persons, those 
 cares, anxieties, and passions, which create a storm 
 in our hearts, leave vnirippled the current of rural 
 life. Alas! they exist there equally, if no more ; 
 and to them are superadded evils of which these 
 dreamers of the golden age have no idea. The 
 mental inflictions of those in humble life are not a 
 Avhit fewer or less than those of higher station, and 
 their physical sufferings are exclusively their own. 
 But indeed physical sufferings always add increased 
 sharpness and intensity to those of the heart and 
 mind. 
 
 But I have wandered far from my original point,
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 211 
 
 which was, to give an account of a scene of poverty 
 which I witnessed, about this time, in our o^ti 
 village. On coming home one day, I found at the 
 gate a poor woman, who had come, she said, to beg 
 a Httle wine for her husband, who was ill. The 
 appearance of the woman herself was not a little 
 melancholy and painful. She appeared to be vinder 
 thirty; so it was not from age that the beauty 
 which she evidently once possessed had faded 
 almost entirely away. Her features had become 
 pinched and sharpened. I say had become^ for 
 nothing is more easy than to distinguish when this 
 appearance is natural, and when it is the effect of 
 later and severer causes. Her eye was sufficiently 
 bright, — but (if I may so speak) it looked queru- 
 lous and peevish, as if the spirit had become acrid 
 in strufffrlinir with evils which it was too sensitive to 
 bear meekly, and had too much strength to sink 
 under. Her cheek was pale, not from the pale- 
 ness of disease, but that dry whiteness which is 
 produced by the effects of want. The skin was 
 wrinkled, not with the furrows of age, but as if the 
 flesh had fallen away from beneath it, and it now 
 
 P 2
 
 212 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 hung loose upon the bone. Pier voice was much 
 what might be looked for from her person — sharp, 
 thin, and (somewhat doggedly) complaining. I 
 was much struck with her appearance, and the story 
 of extreme wretchedness which she told me ; and, 
 after giving orders for her to be supplied with wliat 
 she wanted, I determined to go myself the next 
 day to her husband's house, both to convince myself 
 of the truth of her statements, and to give that 
 personal aid of consolation and kindness, which is 
 one of the greatest which a rich man can bestow on 
 a poor one. If country gentlemen, and, still more, 
 if the wives of country-gentlemen, knew the de- 
 gree of good which they would do, merely by a 
 little personal inquiry and relief, I am very sure 
 that no selfish or falsely- sen si live feelings would 
 withhold them from visiting the sick-beds of the 
 poor. I have had occasion to see (especially in the 
 instance of my poor mother) the different estima- 
 tion in which the poor held those who were equally 
 charitable to them in strict essentials, because the 
 one visited them and the others did not. When a 
 person of rank speaks soothingly, and with the
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 213 
 
 expression of interest, to one in poverty and sick- 
 ness, he knows that all around him is not destitu- 
 tion and abandonment, — he sees that those whom 
 he is used to look up to with reverence and respect, 
 have some sympathy with what he feels— some 
 compassion for what he suffers; — and his eye re- 
 kindles, and his heart again grows warm, Avith the 
 gratification of one of the first wants which nature 
 has implanted within us — that of fellow-feeling 
 and condolence. As one of our greatest masters of 
 the heart has said, it is not " the bit and the sup" 
 alone, but the giving them Mith " the look o"'kind- 
 ness, which gars them digest sae weel," that is 
 among the foremost of the good deeds by which the 
 rich have it in their power to succour and to com- 
 fort the poor. 
 
 In sickness, Heaven knows, how much kindness 
 and comfort of all kinds are needed ! All of us 
 must, I am sure, have felt what very wretches 
 sickness makes us, even when we have every aid 
 and alleviation which money can buy, and which 
 " troops of friends " can tender or devise. What 
 must it then be in poverty ! When the poor man
 
 214 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 IS 
 
 what he considers to be but shghtly, but what 
 we should regard as being severely, ill,— he pain- 
 fully continues his labour — for he knows that with 
 the cessation of his labour his means of subsistence 
 cease also. We all know what lassitude and loath- 
 ing of exertion illness brings with it — what must it 
 be to be then exposed to the unpitying weather, 
 and to active bodily toil,~when fever makes the 
 head burning and dizzy, and die frame relaxed 
 and tottering, to continue long hours at labour ! 
 When he can hold out no longer, and is driven to 
 his bed in despair — what is his condition then? 
 His wages cease with his work, and at the time 
 when he needs comforts the most, he is obliged to 
 pinch with even more than usual severity. His 
 wants increase and his means diminish; — fuel to 
 procure tolerable warmth, — food, such as sickness 
 can alone tolerate, and without which it is addi- 
 tionally wretched, but which is far more costly than 
 his decreasing means can afford ; — all these things, 
 (to say nothing of direct medical charges), are 
 added sources of necessary expense, at a moment 
 when his wretchedly scanty pittance is entirely cut
 
 GILBERT EAllLE, ESQ. 215 
 
 off. The probable conseqvience is that he goes 
 without all — or at the best, that he procures them 
 in a miserably inadequate degree. Then, if his 
 illness lasts, he sees his wife and children hungering 
 before his eyes, — he himself suffers with the utmost 
 rapidity of increase, — and it is well if he do not 
 perish in this state of imutterable wretchedness, 
 leaving those who are still dearer to him than 
 himself to starve. 
 
 These feelings naturally rose with some vividness 
 in my mind, as I paced my way to the cottage of 
 the sick man. It is at the extremity of the village, 
 
 at the corner where the road turns off to S . 
 
 The situation is considerably exposed, for the wind 
 blows right over the heath, from the eastward, upon 
 those houses Avhich are too much up the hill to be 
 sheltered like the rest of the village. It was an 
 intensely hard frost, — bitterly cold, and accom- 
 panied by an easterly wind, which almost cut you 
 into two. When I entered the hut,— it can scarcely 
 be called cottage— a scene of wretchedness pre- 
 sented itself, such as, diough I have seen many, I 
 never witnessed before, and such as I devoutly
 
 216 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 trust I never may witness again. The man lay 
 extended upon the miserable bed, the ragged cover- 
 lid and blanket of which, of unspeakable filth, were 
 eked out with his own clothes, which were also 
 spread over him ; — the fire consisted of two sticks, 
 placed point to point, and the feeble heat that they 
 gave seemed to go up the yawning chimney, Avhich 
 admitted the freezing air. There were not any very 
 obvious rents or dilapidations in the walls, but the 
 cutting wind appeared to enter all around. I had 
 on my great coat and, of course, my hat, and yet I 
 never suffered more severely from cold in my life, 
 than during the ten minutes or quarter of an hour 
 that I remained in the cottage. The wife was 
 heatmg a little of the wine she had got the day 
 before — and there were four children, all quite 
 young, in different parts of the room, the only one 
 of which the house consisted. In one corner was 
 their bed — that is, there was some straw, which I 
 should not have thought good enough for my 
 pointers to lie on. The low prices had prevented 
 the farmers from thrashing out their corn, and con- 
 sequently there was a scarcity of straw. This is
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 217 
 
 most severely felt by the poor — for, alas ! it is little 
 known how many there are who, like these wretched 
 children, have no other bed. They all were with 
 naked feet, and their clothes seemed thin and 
 scanty. They had that look also, which, though 
 you do not know the age of the children, tells you 
 that they are undersized;— their skin was blue and 
 mottled, and their whole frames Avere pinched with 
 the cold. Each had a bit of the coarsest bread in 
 his hand, on which he had smeared the least morsel 
 of lard — and this was their dinner ! — The woman 
 seemed completely soured by poverty — she spoke 
 once or twice sharply to her husband, and harshly 
 to the children — and yet evidently restrained herself 
 on account of my presence. Notwithstanding this, 
 there was something about her which convinced me 
 that she was not naturally shrewish, but that it was 
 poverty and suffering which had made morose a 
 disposition originally kindly. 
 
 The sick man himself was an object of unmixed 
 compassion. He had been a fine manly fellow in 
 his person, and still was so in mind ; and bore his 
 giifferings, bitter as they were, Avith a steadiness and
 
 218 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 resignation of endurance, which might have done 
 honour to higher philosophy. He had received a 
 hurt in the harvest-season, which, without causing 
 any definite disease, had undermined and finally 
 destroyed his strength. He had struggled for a 
 long time, — longer, perhaps, than in prudence he 
 ought, — and he had now been confined to his bed 
 upwards of three ^veeks. Though want had ope- 
 rated so fearfully, his mind had revolted from 
 asking what he considered alms ; and, it was with 
 much reluctance that, the day before, he had per- 
 mitted his wife to beg a little wine, to relieve the 
 extremity of his Aveakness. Though not in my 
 father's employ, I had previously known the man 
 by sight ; but, I certainly should not have recog- 
 nised the strong stalwart fellow he had been, in the 
 
 emaciated wretch who lay before me. His hand 
 
 the hand of a mature labouring man — was as thin 
 and delicate as that of a girl of fifteen ; his cheeks 
 had literally formed a vacuum on each side between 
 the jaw and the cheek-bone, and his voice was husky, 
 and almost extinct. The dirt which his extreme 
 poverty rendered remediless, independently of its
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESd. 219 
 
 own disgusts and inconveniences, seemed to cause 
 him shame; he apologized, repeatedly, for the 
 annoyance which it must occasion me; and ap- 
 peared, while he suffered from so many causes, to 
 be ashamed only of that. 
 
 I asked him if he had had no medical advice. 
 
 He said he had — that he had sent for Mr. F , 
 
 who had been with him once, and had sent him 
 " some stuff," but that it had done him no good. 
 He added, that Mr. F asked him a few ques- 
 tions, but did not seem much to understand his 
 case; that he had w^anted him to examine his side, 
 (where his hurt had been,) but that he said there 
 was no occasion for it ; and, that he hurried aAvay, 
 promising to come back the next week, but that he 
 never had been there again. I confess I was a 
 little indignant with this fellow for his heartlessness 
 and inhumanitv, but I believe that such instances 
 of both frequently occur. ]\Iy sister told me of 
 one where she sent an apothecary a second time to 
 a poor girl who w^as dying of consumption, and he 
 almost frightened the little remaining life out of her 
 body, by scolding her for " her forwardness in
 
 220 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 making ladies write notes to liim, when he had 
 given her case full attention before," — though in 
 
 fact he had treated her much as F did the 
 
 poor fellow of whom I have been speaking. 
 ■ This poor man's case was like that of an hundred 
 others, but it appeared to me cruelly severe never- 
 theless. His utmost and never-ceasing labour could 
 procure only a shilling a-day, that is six shillings 
 a-wcek, and on this he had supported, — in extreme 
 penury, certainly, but still sujiported, — his wife 
 and increasing family. Let those who are inclined 
 to think harshly or with recklessness of the suffer- 
 ings of the poor, just reflect for a moment what it 
 is to support a family on six shillings a- week. 
 There is lodging, food, clothes, and fuel, to be pro- 
 cured out of a sum which Avith us would not pay 
 for one dinner. The consequence is, that they 
 have them all of the meanest kind, and in the scan- 
 tiest quantity. The common invocation of the 
 beggars in the street, though I know it to be only 
 by rote, has often touched me deeply, and ^^Tung 
 alms from me in despite of my better judgment, — ■ 
 *' You have never known what it is to w(int I"
 
 GILBERT EAIII,E, ESQ. 
 
 221 
 
 Alas ! what must it be, indeed, to be without those 
 things which we have enjoyed as of course, until, 
 like health, their value becomes disregarded, till we 
 are taught what it is to need them. Take even the 
 last necessity which I have named — fuel, — let us 
 conceive what it must be, in weather like that which 
 it then was, to be compelled to stint ourselves to the 
 narrowest point in this, if not to be entirely without 
 it. The chill of the hmbs sinks into the heart, and 
 our prospect never appears so gloomy and unhope- 
 ful, as when we are undergoing bodily suffering — 
 that of cold especially. The man whom I was 
 visiting had experienced all these wants to their 
 extremity — he had toiled with that unremitting 
 labour which is the only inheritance of the poor — 
 he had seen his family increasing around him in a 
 state little short of famine — he had seen his wife, 
 whom he had married in the full gush of early 
 affection, grow faded in person, and soured in 
 mind — he had seen all this, and yet he had kept on 
 with perseverance, if not with cheerfulness — with 
 unrepining at least, if not in contentment. But at 
 last, when illness became added to poverty, his
 
 S22 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 spirit, as he told iHe, sank within him at once ; as 
 the sturdy tree which had been unmoved by storms, 
 is felled to the earth by one stroke of lightning. 
 When he was laid on his bed, disabled by weak- 
 ness and disease, and beheld — the reverse of the 
 widow"'s cruse — his handful of sustenance s-rowino; 
 daily less ; — when he saw the scanty portion of his 
 children being progressively meted out with a more 
 niggard hand ; — when he saw his wife, whose heart 
 remained uninjured, however her temper might be 
 touched, stinting herself that those children mio-ht 
 
 want the less alas ! wxre not these thino-s 
 
 sufficient to sink the stoutest spirit into the utmost 
 depths of hopelessness and despair ? 
 
 Those persons who adopt the worst part of the 
 stoical philosophy, and steel themselves against 
 compassion, by denying the existence of pain (in 
 others), — always reply to cases like this — " Why 
 does he not go to the parish ?" Alas ! they, and 
 such as they, have succeeded but too much in 
 eradicating that fine spirit of independence, which 
 was the truest and noblest English quality — and 
 which was, more than all else, a stimulus to vir-
 
 GILBERT EAE.LE, ESQ. 223 
 
 tuous and honourable exertion; — why will they 
 sneer and carp at it- in the few instances in which 
 it still exists ? — Before I w^nt abroad I recollect 
 that an English peasant considered being on the 
 parish nearly as great a disgrace as being in gaol — 
 he would almost as soon have o^vned himself a felon 
 as a pauper. But this has nearly all vanished now — 
 and there are very few who do not take the parish 
 alms with equal, if not greater, readiness than the 
 stipend of independent labour. But there are some 
 who still nourish the old feeling on this score — and 
 this poor man was one of them. I do not mean to 
 say that he would rather have starved than applied 
 for parochial relief — but I do say that he would 
 have postponed it so long, that, in all probabihty, 
 he would have perished from the lateness of the 
 succour. 
 
 I, of course, had every assistance given to this 
 poor fellow, and he ultimately got about again ; 
 but the impression which the whole scene made 
 upon me was of no shght force, and I hope will not 
 be of short duration. It was in the middle of 
 December, and our Christmas party was already
 
 S24 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 assembled. There were many young people, friends 
 of my nephews, in the house — and I could not help 
 drawing and dwelling upon the contrast between 
 the rich and the poor man's home. In the group 
 before me, every thing was youthful, brilliant, 
 and happy ; — in that which I had just left Cold, 
 Darkness, and Hunger, were the daily guests, and 
 Sickness was now an added visitant ; — while the 
 one were enjoying all that this world gives to enjoy, 
 the others were suffering every infliction which 
 God has doomed his creatures to suffer ; — here 
 the crackling blaze of the Christmas fire was giving 
 warmth to the limbs, and gladness to the eyes; 
 there they were shivering in the severity of the 
 season ; — here they were feasting in the abundance 
 of luxury — there they were hungering unto death. 
 I would only wish, that, at that season of the 
 year, when the house of almost every rich man 
 throughout the land resounds with increased hos- 
 pitalities, — he would think upon the enduring poor. 
 Let him reflect, that to them it brings no new 
 comfort or enjoyment ; on the contrary, the cold 
 of the winter is added to the severities which they
 
 OILRERT EAULK, ESQ. 225 
 
 ab'eacly undergo. Their enjoyments are fewer, 
 rather than more — their wants are o-reater rather 
 than less — than at other times. Let the rich man 
 call these facts to mind— and let liim ask himself 
 whether any misery exists of his creating, or within 
 his pov\'er to relieve ; — whether his oppression, or 
 even his selfisli carelessness, has made one heart 
 sad at this period of accustomed gaiety — one fel- 
 low-creature suffering at this season of usual enjoy- 
 ment ; — let him ask himself whether he has, as far 
 as in him lies, fulfilled those purposes for which 
 Providence has put wealth into his hand — the dif- 
 fusing succour and kindly relief among the lowly, 
 the poor, the suffering, and the sick ; — let him 
 rigidly ask his heart these things, before he permits 
 himself to enjoy the pleasures and happinesses 
 which are clustered beneath his better-fortuned 
 roof. 
 
 ^ W ^ ^ ^
 
 226 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 FRAGMENT XII. 
 
 There has always been much said about periodical 
 seasons of festival — Christmas in particular. A 
 sentimental fondness is continually expressed for 
 old customs, and lamentations are as constantly 
 made on their progi*essively falling into disuse and 
 decay. I have always thought this a false feeling — 
 at least, that people thus cause themselves much 
 melancholy under the idea of creating pleasure. 
 Do not old customs speak of the speedy vanishing 
 of happiness, and the overcasting at noon of a bril- 
 hant morning ? Do they not tell of merry faces 
 and hearts having become wrinkled and withered, 
 and finally cold and crumbled in the grave ? Do 
 not periodical returns of feasting and revelry caU 
 into view the loss of those who once joined in them 
 with us, and the loss of what we ourselves were 
 then ? Do they not necessarily cause retrospection.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 2^*7 
 
 and can retrospection be happy ? If we look back 
 on what caused us former enjoyment, do we not 
 grieve at its being gone ? — and if the past be in 
 itself gloomy and saddening, are not its gloom and 
 sadness still present and real ? — 
 
 " Joy's Recollection is no longer joy 
 
 But Sorrow's Memory is a sorrow still." — 
 
 In the first days of bright youthfulness, when the 
 heart has acquired a force of enjoying beyond the 
 mere recklessness of childhood, and before it has 
 felt the astringent power of the cares, if not the 
 sorrows, of maturity — while the animal spirits still 
 rise with the gushings of the blood, like the sap in 
 a young tree, — but have more vividness and potency 
 than in the merely saphng days — then, indeed, old 
 customs, so as they be of merriment, are warmly 
 welcomed as causing present joy, with a total heed- 
 lessness of the knell which they sound over past 
 happiness. But a very few years make all this 
 pass away ; — and Christmas comes to be a season 
 of reminiscence rather than of enjoyment. We 
 begin to say " Oh ! how happy we used to be !" 
 " What a charming Christmas we passed such a 
 
 Q2
 
 228- LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 year" — or " How poor useil to enjoy this !" 
 
 Alas, how speedily does this catalogue increase ! — 
 the sharers and incrcasers of our former pleasure 
 become, when divided from ns by distance, or 
 finally lost by death, die causes of our present pain. 
 I have often remarked in a Christmas i)arty the 
 vivid and painful contrast between the manner in 
 which the very yoimg enjoy, and that in which 
 the mature and the old contemplate their enjoy- 
 ment, — a contrast far, far greater than that which 
 the difference of age, and consequently of feeling, 
 ordinarily and necessarily causes. The reason is 
 plain ; avc do not at common times reflect bitterly 
 on the griefs and losses which have happened to 
 us since the same period of a former or a distant 
 year — ^but the return of a stated season brings the 
 return of concomitant reflection ; — we think on 
 what those seasons used to be, on what they now 
 are, — and on all the pains and sorrows of the in- 
 tervening time ; — with these feelings in our hearts 
 we have before our eyes, gaiety and brightness, and 
 nuisic, and feasting, the light sound of youthful 
 voices, and the merry-tripping peal of youthful
 
 GILBERT EABLE, ESQ. 229 
 
 laughter ; — the contrast strikes us with bitterness, 
 and we are sad. 
 
 And it does not, as I have before said, need the 
 lapse of long time to give this contrast force. A 
 few years bring many changes — and often — oh, how 
 often ! — is the heart shrivelled and grown old while 
 the "brow" is still "brent," — and the hair still 
 dark and flowing. Christmas returns, and brings 
 with it revelry but not merriment ; we permit and 
 mix in the outward gaieties of custom, because the 
 season enjoins them, not because the heart is glad, 
 
 Christmas is indeed the time of old customs — 
 and these, independently of the causes of individual 
 sorrow and regretfulness, I have always, — at least 
 very long, — considered melancholy, and as such 
 have shunned. They are to me like those emblems 
 of death, which some ancient nation used to set on 
 high in the scene of festival — like a constant re- 
 peating of the injunction " Eat, drink, and be 
 merry, for to-morrow we die.^' They are the ves- 
 tiges of the carousals, and the mirth of former 
 ages, — of the customs of those Avhose very memory 
 on earth is passed. They are like ruins, which
 
 230 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 speak of humbled pride, and extinguished great- 
 ness — of hospitable hearths and strong and stately 
 towers now scenes of desolation and masses of decay 
 — in one word, they are the true and constant em- 
 blems of the s])eedy passing of all things human. Can 
 it be denied that this is true ? and if it be so, how 
 are such things calculated to create or to promote 
 mirth and joyousness ? I suppose I shall be told 
 of the " melancholy pleasure," which the contem- 
 plation of the past excites — but, without speaking 
 of the discrepancy which must exist between this 
 species of pleasure and any thing like gaiety or 
 mirth — I, at once, deny its existence. The very 
 tenn used to convey it shews that it is only a par- 
 ticular degree and kind of pain. Or if it be plea- 
 surable, it must be to the very happy — to whom 
 this peculiar species of pain will give gratification, 
 as an occasional discord in music increases the har- 
 mony. It is, indeed, only these who love to seek 
 instances and causes of factitious sorrow : — tragre- 
 dies — ^books of unliappiness and pathos — and oc- 
 currences of a painful nature. Those who have 
 really suffered fly from these things, and strive to
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 231 
 
 draw from their opposites a passing — though it be 
 only a passing — forgetfulness of all that is con- 
 nected with sorrow and distress : — 
 
 " The happy love excited feeling- — 
 
 The tear which fabled grief can bring ; — 
 But the breast whose ill can know no healing 
 Shrinks from all name of suffering."' 
 
 Christmas has connected with it yet another cause of 
 sadness;— it is the close of the year. — At the termi- 
 nation of one and the beginning of another of these 
 solemn divisions of time, the most reckless pause — 
 the most thoughtless think. One of the strongest 
 proofs of how very strongly this period affects the 
 mind, is that, notwithstanding that the multitude 
 of new-years which have risen one upon another 
 has made all that can be said upon the subject 
 trite and common, — ^yet, truisms as they are, all 
 that is said never fails to be deeply and solemnly 
 impressive. And is this season, which has been 
 finely said to " remind us of the progress of time, 
 and of our own progress towards eternity"" — is this 
 season well-fitted to give rise to light mu-th, or 
 boisterous festivity? — 'Is this season, which sets
 
 252 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 before us in reproachful array the misdoings 
 of past time, which speaks loudly the speedy 
 flitting of the present, and opens an unwritten 
 page of the doubtful future, to be filled with our 
 destinies and deeds— is this a season — are these 
 circumstances, — calculated to make the heart light, 
 and the spirits buoyant ? — Assuredly, No. — And 
 therefore, as I have said, it is only those Avhose 
 past is unclouded, whose present is happy, and 
 Avhose to-come is promising — that is, it is only the 
 very young — for Avhere are they of a ripe age who 
 can boast of these things? — who enjoy the festi- 
 vities of this season of all festivity. 
 
 It was very early in life that all enjoyment of 
 this kind ceased to me. I was only eighteen when 
 I left home, and the first Christmases which I 
 passed in my banishment — it may well be called 
 so — were naturally most painful. Christmas had 
 always been kept with all its gaieties at Wilverliam, 
 and the contrast was in consequence tlie more 
 bitter. Afterwards, it became to me a period of 
 still greater gloom and pain — for one Christmas 
 had occurred during the full tide of my passion
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 233 
 
 towards Eleanor, and had given rise to several 
 little occurrences which were points of intense re- 
 collection. But I did not know the full measure 
 of sadness it could yield, till this, the first Christ- 
 mas after my return home. 
 
 My father's state would naturally have pre- 
 cluded gaieties even at this time, — but he still re- 
 tained glimmerings of recollection, and was prompt 
 to remark, and almost furious in resenting, any 
 changes which appeared to be made on account of 
 his infirmities. — For, dvu'ing these periods of occa- 
 sional comparative strength, he was in part con- 
 scious of his usual imbecility, and, as I believe is 
 conmionly the case, was indignant at any token 
 of its being apparent to others. In former days, 
 he had always gloried in the proverbial gaiety of 
 the Christmas doings at his house, and had shared 
 in them with particular eagerness and pleasure ; — 
 for my father, though a most kind and warm- 
 hearted man, was not one of peculiarly sensitive 
 feelings, and his Avhole life had flowed in a stream 
 of unruffled happiness. He had, thence, no know- 
 ledge of those sensations I have been describing,—
 
 234 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 and would have wondered at, and blamed any one 
 who did not enjoy his Christmas festivities with 
 the same old-bred heartiness that he did himself. 
 My sister, therefore, since she had conducted the 
 establishment, had always kept up the outward 
 gaieties of the Christmas time, however little they 
 might be prompted by her own heart; — and just 
 at the period of my return, they were still gayer 
 than usual, from my brother's eldest son approach- 
 ing within two or three years of his coming of age, 
 —and it being deemed advisable on his account to 
 keep up what is called " a neighbourhood." 
 
 The house at Wilverham is ancient, and built 
 in the fashion of Elizabeth's time. The hall, es- 
 pecially, retains its original style. About two 
 thirds of it are paved with stone, and at the upper 
 end is the dais, or raised flooring of wood. At 
 the opposite end is a gallery, supported by richly 
 carved oaken pillars, leading to the principal bed- 
 chamber, and its suite of attached apartments, 
 which stand on a sort of entre sol by themselves. 
 From the centre of the ceiling, descends a curious 
 piece of carving in wood — circular, hollow, and con-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 
 
 235 
 
 structed of open work. This terminates in a point, 
 from which hangs the great lamp, or rather lan- 
 tern, formed of bronze and glass wrought in a 
 Gothic fashion. Two large casemented windows 
 occupy nearly the whole of one side, and opposite 
 to them is the wide-yawning fire-place, which is 
 fitted with dogs, instead of a grate. Over this and 
 corresponding to another facing it, and a third 
 over the dais, is a huge stag's-head in plaster of 
 Paris, with real antlers ; and on a label beneath the 
 centre one is inscribed the date of the building, 
 1594. This has remained in exactly the same 
 state since my earliest memory, — and was always, 
 during my youth, decorated in the same manner 
 every Christmas. It Avas exactly the same at this 
 time. Such as I have described it, it is well 
 adapted for rustic adornment. The stag's antlers 
 were twined with holly, glittering with its shining 
 leaves, and gay with its brilliant berries. A tem- 
 porary rail was passed across the hall at the edge 
 of the dais, to partition it oft' for dancing— and 
 this was covered with living boughs of every de- 
 scription of evergreen. A stupendous fire blazed.
 
 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 crackled and roared in die ample chimney — and 
 beneath the lantern hung the misletoe, under 
 which every woman in the house, young and old, 
 gentle and simple, Avas, according to ancient cus- 
 tom, to be kissed. 
 
 Such was the appearance which the old hall 
 presented to me on Christmas-eve. Such was, 
 point for point, the appearance which it had pre- 
 sented six-and-twentj Christmases before. It had 
 always been the custom for the musicians of the vil- 
 lage-church to come down to the house to sing their 
 Christmas carols, and a large round table Avas placed 
 for them before the fire in this hall. They came 
 as usual, — and, as usual also, we all went out after 
 dinner into the hall to hear them. My father in- 
 sisted on being removed thither with the rest, and 
 his great chair Avas accordingly wheeled to the 
 corner of the fire. The singing began ; — it could 
 not, any more than its accompr\niment, be con- 
 sidered very good in point of music; but one or 
 tAvo of those who played had some skill on their 
 instruments, and all the singers sang Avith an 
 eagerness and enjoyment, Avhich more than made
 
 GILBERT EARLF., ESQ. 237 
 
 lip for llieir deficiencies. Our group collected 
 round the fire, and encouraged by smiles and 
 praises the homely concert; — ^but I withdrew a 
 little on one side, and, shadowed from observation 
 bv one of the massy supports of the vast mantle- 
 piece, gazed on the scene with unrestrained feel- 
 ings. Mv father's fieure Avas one of the most 
 painful parts of it. He was enveloped in his close 
 woollen dress, and his warm cap covered his head ; 
 — but the face which appeared from beneath it ! — 
 I scarce could bear to look on it. It Avore that 
 expression which is, perhaps, the most painful 
 which belongs to dotage — that of imbecile and 
 drivelling gaiety. The face of deadly white was 
 flickered by a miserable smile, and the eye of glassi- 
 ness was striving to emit a sickly gleam of frozen 
 mirth. I could not bear it, and I directed my 
 attention to the musicians. All the faces seemed 
 new to me — the character of all was the same, but 
 the individual features were different. They were 
 men of stalwart forms, full red cheeks, and iron 
 voices, — and they carolled, as of yore, m illi rough 
 gaiety, — and (hank, as also of yore, frequent horns
 
 238 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 of the stout ale which was poured to them out of 
 the huge leathern vessels known in the country by 
 the name of black-jacks. I passed my eye round 
 the table to see if I could not find any of those 
 who had used to be seated at it in my time. — At 
 last I recognised one face. It was that of a man 
 who played on the bassoon, which circumstance 
 contributed — and truly it Avas needed — to recal 
 him to my recollection. I remembered a stout- 
 bodied fellow, with a shock black head of hair, 
 and a blue beard, the very epitome of sturdiness 
 and manhood. He was remarkable, also, for 
 puffing the whole strength of his Herculean hmgs 
 into his instrument, and sending forth from it 
 in consequence tones more powerful than pleasing. 
 The hair was now scanty, and that and the beard 
 were both white — and the full mottled cheeks were 
 sallow and sunken on the jaw.' — Even his playing 
 smacked strongly of age— it was feeble and irre- 
 gular ; and it appeared as if he retained his station 
 more from the influence of long service and recol- 
 lection than from present help or usefulness. At 
 the moment my eye lighted on him he was gazing
 
 GILBERT EARLEj ESQ, 239 
 
 on my father; — and my heart yearned towards 
 him for the feelings which his still expressive coun- 
 tenance plainly shewed. It was like — I mean no 
 irreverence by the comparison — the look wliich an 
 old dog casts on his disabled master, as he gazes 
 with his speaking eyes up on his face. It was 
 during the interval between two of the carols; and 
 the old man's bassoon had been let drop carelessly 
 across his arm, and rested there, hanging (as those 
 instruments do) from his button, unregarded and 
 forgotten. I could see him comparing the tottering 
 ruin, which my father's appearance presented, with 
 the full pride of strength and manliness which he 
 once displayed — and a tear which had been some 
 minutes gathering in the eye, was just rolling upon 
 the cheek, when his neighbour pulled him by the 
 arm, to remind him that another piece of music 
 was about to begin. 
 
 I took care to seek out this old man and speak 
 to him before he left the hall. He had heard of 
 my return, he said, but had feared that I had for- 
 gotten him. When I assured him how well I 
 remembered him, — and alluded to the days in
 
 240 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 which I had known hhn, the tears again sprang 
 to his eyes, and he grasped the liand ^\'hich I had 
 given to him, when I accosted liini, as he said, 
 "Ah! Sir, those were happv times indeed; — but 
 they are gone for ever now, Sir; — and there have 
 been sad changes since then : — Mr. Frederick, Sir, 
 and the good dear lady your mother, all gone! — 
 and the Scpiire so sadly brolani, — and you, Sir, 
 don^ look as you used to do ; — but you have been 
 a\s'ay many a long year, and have been a great, 
 great way off, as I've been told — I never thought 
 to see you come home again. Sir — ''"' the old man's 
 feelings warmed as he spoke, and, as he turned 
 away to hide his tears, he once more grasped my 
 hand, and exclaimed in a broken and hurried voice 
 — " God bless you. Master Gilbert, God bless 
 
 you I " 
 
 There M-as a large and lively party assembled for 
 the Christmas week. My nephew and his brother 
 had several of their friends with them, and there 
 were, besides my sister''s daughter, several young 
 girls in the house. On the following day, there- 
 fore, after we had been to church in the morning.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. O41 
 
 there Avas preparation going on for all sorts of gam- 
 bols. All « the old customs^' of the season were to 
 be observed, and there was much discussion con- 
 cerning many of these ancient rights. My poor mo- 
 ther, who was always the greatest promoter of that 
 which gave others pleasure, had been particularly 
 skiUed in these things ;-and how did the remem- 
 brance of her dweU within my heai't as they were in 
 turn spokeii of and arranged ! Her powers of ex- 
 citing [real enlivenment and gaiety were equalled 
 only by her gratification in making her house the 
 home of happy hearts and merry faces. Happy 
 hearts and merry faces were here now ; but they 
 served only to make me more unhappy, and more 
 sad. My sister and I almost shunned each other— 
 for we could distinguish the same feelings in both, 
 -and in this case, mutual confidence would have 
 been the heightening, instead of the alleviation, of 
 mutual pain. But her feelings were not nearly so 
 deep or so acute as mine ; in the first place, these 
 changes had occurred gradually before her eyes, 
 and I have abcady said more than once, iiow infinitely 
 
 R
 
 2-12 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 less painful that is, than for their effects to flash sud- 
 denly and at once upon the heart — 
 
 " When together we dwell, and together decay. 
 The change is less painful to view — 
 But oh ! it is mournful to meet and to say- 
 Was it thou that last hade me adieu ?" 
 
 — Besides this, she had not been so thoroughly 
 chilled by sorrow as I had — and above all, she was 
 repaid by sensations which probably surpass all 
 others — motherly pride and fondness. Her daughter 
 was a lovely girl of about sixteen — -just blooming 
 into the perfection of maidenly beauty ; — and her 
 liveliness of heart and manners, — ^her gifts and her 
 accomplishments — shone so distinguishedly among 
 the young and brilliant group by which she 
 was surrounded, that, with such a view before her, 
 no mother's heart could be, as mine was, all — or 
 nearly all — sadness. 
 
 The Christmas dinner was, as Christmas dinners 
 usually are, a profuse assemblage of periodical dain- 
 ties, — and many a periodical jest also was passed 
 upon them. The young people, however, of whom 
 the party was almost entirely composed, were anxious 
 for the evening revelries to begin, and we adjourned
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 243 
 
 eai'ly to the hall. — And now the sports commenced 
 — I was almost inclined to say with the frogs in the 
 fable — " sport to you, but death to me." — The first 
 were the saturnalia of the misletoe, and as " the 
 gentry"" were to join in all, the ladies passed under 
 the bough, and many a fair cheek glowed and 
 blushed as young hps touched them. The servants 
 then took their turn, with merriment more noisy, 
 and perhaps more heai'ty likewise. In this, also, my 
 mind looked back to my youth, and I remembered 
 the high jest which there always used to be, when I 
 was a boy, at my kissing under the misletoe a friend 
 and favourite of my childhood, who was the oldest 
 woman in the house. She was turned of eighty, 
 and at other times seldom emerged from the lower 
 regions of the offices, but on Christmas night she 
 always came, tricked out in her starched and ancient 
 finery, to be kissed by Master Gilbert. This poor 
 old woman had many pecuharities. She had lived 
 in the house from the time she was twelve yeai-s old, 
 and had passed through every office from that of 
 errand girl to the important one of upper-housemaid, 
 — till she settled down to a sinecure in the still-room 
 
 R 2
 
 244 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 ill lier old a£je — as a Avorn out liorse is turned out to 
 grass for life, as a reward for past service. She 
 always wore the dress which was the fashion when 
 she was about forty, and this made her look even 
 older than she was. With her strange and grotesque 
 image is connected in my mind all the nursery 
 stories of my childhood : — and these were not the 
 common-place Jack the Giant Killers, and Hop-o'- 
 my-thumbs, which have been the delight of all 
 children from time immemorial, — but were, nearly 
 all, events which she had, or fancied she had, witnes- 
 sed. I 'say fancied, for she was touched with the 
 incoherence of reason which sometnnes attends old 
 age ; and believed that she saw sights and heard 
 sounds, visible and audible to none else. In parti- 
 cular, she was firmly persuaded that she used to see 
 the spirit of my father's grandfather, — who had 
 been at the head of the family when she first came 
 to it, and had lived to an extreme old age. He 
 always went by the name of " the old squire" — and 
 she used to affirm that he met her in the long gal- 
 leries which run across the house, and smile upon 
 her and say a few words of encouragement when she
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 24-5 
 
 had been industrious, and look frowningly and with 
 severity when she had been idle. The last time, 
 she said, that she ever saw him was when my father 
 was about to pull down a room which had been 
 built by this old man, to make way for some im- 
 provements in the house which he had planned. — 
 The spirit, as old Martha said, looked with a coun- 
 tenance of anger such as she had never seen him 
 wear in life or death ; and bade her tell her master 
 that if he persisted in his purpose of destroying 
 Avhat he had built, deep and dire calamity would fall 
 upon all his house. The room was nevertheless de- 
 stroyed, and old Martha always believed that the 
 prophecy would be realized — Alas ! the event was. 
 These recollections may appear merely childish ; 
 but they are those of the heart, not of the reason — 
 and the scene which was passing before me was con- 
 nected with a circumstance relating to poor Martha, 
 which had always touched me extremely. I had 
 ever been her particular favourite, and she had been 
 remai-kably kind to me as a child ; — and though, as 
 she grew old, she seldom came above stairs, I used 
 often to go and visit her in her large leathern chair
 
 246 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 by the corner of the still-room fire. AVhen I left 
 home for India, I took leave of her, but she did not 
 at all understand the distance to which I was going, 
 or the length of time that I should be absent. When 
 therefore, Christmas night came round again, old 
 !Martha made herself fine as usual with all her anti- 
 quated gear, and came to the hall to receive from 
 me her annual kiss under the green bough. It was 
 Avith great difficulty that she was made to compre- 
 hend that I was far over the sea ; — when she did, 
 she broke out into the querulous and peevish grief 
 of old age, and instantly went back down stairs, 
 saying, that since Master Gilbert was gone, she 
 never would come up them again — she kept her 
 word ; — she sank rapidly into the extremity of de- 
 crepitude, and died not long after. 
 
 As the lamp shone down through the green leaves 
 and white berries, on a succession of spai'kling eyes, 
 and ripe red lips, I thought of old Martha's fur- 
 rowed face, and puckered mouth, as they used to 
 hght up and expand with the smile of true kindli- 
 ness and affection ; — and I thought of her coming to 
 seek for me, when she was never to see me again.
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 247 
 
 and her countenance of calm gladness changing into 
 inquietude, and from that into despair, " Poor old 
 Martha," I said in my heart, " you did but expe- 
 rience the common fate of all who ever loved me — 
 I was doomed to cause unhappiness to all of them !"** 
 
 The dancing next began ; — the music was placed 
 in the gallery, as it always used to be, and the old 
 hall rang with 
 
 *' Merry pipes, and mirth- resounding^ feet." 
 
 I looked upon the gay and glancing figures before 
 me, and I thought of those which had been as 
 bright in beauty and as instinct with life, when I 
 had mingled among them on that same dais, with 
 all that spirit which a light heart and a strong love 
 of music give to youthful dancing, — " Wliere are 
 they, what are they now .^" I exclaimed — " What 
 am I now myself.''" 
 
 Alas ! it is the property of sorrow to draw bitter- 
 ness from all things ! — When it sees fellow sorrow 
 by its side, it is pained by the parallel — when, as it 
 was then the case with me, all around is gaiety and 
 gladness, it is still more pained by the contrast. 
 
 When the dancing had ceased, and we were all
 
 S48 LIFE OF THE LATE 
 
 assembled at supper, the mirth grew still greater 
 and more loud. All the ancient customs of wassail 
 were practised, and gave zest and piquancy to the 
 existing revelry. At last one of the party trolled 
 forth a merry song, and he was followed by others. 
 After some time, a young girl of about seventeen 
 was earnestly asked to sing. I had particularly ob- 
 served her during the two days she had been in the 
 house ; not only on account of her delicate beauty, 
 but also from a certain shade of natural pensiveness 
 that had now yielded before the merry doings of the 
 season and the scene, — which gave to her, in my 
 eyes, an additional charm, equally interesting and 
 peculiar. She excused herself from singing, on 
 account of having no accompaniment, when one of 
 my nephews ran into the library, and returned with 
 a guitar, on which I had heard her play the pre- 
 ceding evening. She then said she would give us a 
 real old Christmas song ; and, after striking the first 
 notes of the air on the instrument, she began the 
 very song which day for day one and twenty years 
 before I had heard sung by Eleanor ! — It was 
 during the Christnuis following our first acquaint-
 
 GILBERT EARLE, ESQ. 249 
 
 ance, — and just when my affection for her was ac- 
 quiring that engrossing and overwhehning character 
 which afterwards so fatally distinguished it. I had 
 never heard it since, — and now it thrilled to the 
 very marrow in my bones. This was the comple- 
 tion of all, and it was more than I could bear. — 
 While all were hanging on the sweet tones of the 
 singer"'s voice, I stole from the room and hurried to 
 bury myself in my own. 
 
 Thus closed the first year after my return to my 
 native country, — to my father's house. And what a 
 year it was ! — It had witnessed the extinction of 
 the last hopes which ever rose within me ! After 
 the season of my deep despondency had passed, I 
 had always looked hither as to a haven in which I 
 should find, at the least, peace — and now I had 
 reached it, it was a bed of thorns ! Yes ! it did indeed 
 add new pangs to those which had so gnawed at my 
 heart — it heaped upon me fresh sorrow wliere I had 
 expected consolation. There is alas ! but owt? place
 
 250 LIFE OF THE LATE G. ExYRLE, ESQ. 
 
 where, under circumstances such as mine, repose is 
 to be hoped widi confidence ; — it is that where all 
 " the weary are at rest." The heart in which the 
 volcano of passion has once burned will be wasted 
 and sterile for ever. The gentle flowers of content- 
 ment and peace will not bloom upon that scorched 
 soil — nothing but the bitterest weeds will grow 
 there. I now found to what an extremity this was 
 the case with me. My sister seemed to have become 
 aAvare of it also — for when, in conformity -svith the 
 usage, she wished me "a happy new year" — her 
 tone and manner plainly betokened that she saw I 
 
 never could know another. 
 
 ****** 
 
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 KNIGHTs QUARTERLY MAGAZINE. Nos. I. II. 
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 the Life of Adam Blair — Fragments of a Roman Tale — ^The 
 Seven Sleepers; a Poetical Fragment— The Spring Shower — 
 
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 of Sir John Suckling— My First Folly— My Maiden Brief— On 
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 No. III. — The Editor. No. 2 Confessions of a Duellist — 
 
 Tlie hour of Love — Scenes from Athenian Revels, a Drama — 
 Songs of the Huguenots; 1. Moncontour, 2. Lry — On the 
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 of Vesuvius, 1819 — Extracts from Polybius — On Gusto — Ma- 
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 of Heathen Philosophy — Eros and Anteros, a Platonistic Ro- 
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 Dante — Recollections of Abraham Gentian, Esq. — What You 
 Will, No. 3. 
 
 No. IV. — The Editor, No. 3. — Regrets for stray Contributors 
 — Mr. Shee's Alasco — a Sick Man's Dream — Cheap popular 
 Literature — Rules for Toadying — Puffs — Play-houses. — Recol- 
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 Naseby-^The First Love of Henri Quatre — Shreds — Lemira of 
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 Long Parliament — The Lady Alice Lisle, Part II. — Some ac- 
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 and St. George in the Water, Part I. — The Troubadour, Canto 
 II. — A Looking-Glass for London — The Sixth, or Bosotian Order 
 of Architecture — What You Will. No 4. 
 
 No. V. will be published July 1. 
 
 M^
 
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