'■<'/Jd3AlNn-3V\v- •^c/Aavaaiii>^' '^c/Aavaaii-jiv^' 5r^ -^lllBRARYQ^ <5" v., ^^*— ^ ' *n; aweuniver% ^j:?13dnvsoi^ A^lOSANGElfj}> %a3AiNn-3WV^ ^ ^OFCAilFOi?^ o OS < DC ^lOSANCElfj^ O %J13AINa-3WV^ A^llIBRARYQ^ ^t-LlBRARYQc ^«!fOJnV3-JO'^ C3 OS ^ ^lOSANCElfj-^ ^"^ '%a3AlNn-3WV^ ^OFCAIIFO/?^^ ^OFCAllFOff^ ^^Aavaaii^^ ^C uJ ^ ^ ^(i/OJIlVJJO'f^ ^^WEUNIVERV^ vj^lOSANCElfx^ "^miNd-SWV ^ ^OF-CALIFO/?^ .\\^EUNIVER% ^1 'XL :i; .>:lOSANCElfj> - MMrff iii'ia 4 I > iBRARYQr^ ^llIBRARYOc- ^' ivaaiH^ ^OF-CAIIFO% \Wf-UNIVER% ^WEUNIVERS/A O "^/iaaAiNa-av^ ^lOSANGElfj-^ "^/^aiAiNrtmv wmWh f lONYSOl^ l)NIVER% <^lOS-ANCElfT> o o A^lllBRARYQ^ -,^l-UBRARYQ<- '^/^a3AiNnmv^ ^ojitvjjo^ '^ojitvdjo^ ^OF-CAIIFO/?^ aOFCAIIFO/?^;. %a3AiNn-3tf^ >&Aava8iH^ ^^omim^ RARY6Jc^ #IIBRARY6?/^ 0% ><0FCAIIF0/?^ AWEUNIVER% jo^ \^myi^'^ -^nwrnm^ .^WSANCElfj-^ %a3AiNn]WV^ ^^i Ivei ii^' aWEI)NIVER% o^lOSANCElfJVj ■^^ DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON WITH THE MAD PRANKS AND COMICAL CONCEITS OF MOTLEY AND ROBIN GOOD -FELLOW TO WHICH ARE ADDED NOTES FESTIVOUS ETC. AX.DI LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING 1852 i V Gentle Reader, ^N the days of " Merrie Eng- land IN the Olden Time " The Laureat of Little Britain and Uncle Timothy received your hearty welcome. The memory of that cordial greeting, and a pleasant hint at part- ing that you would be glad to see the Pair of Oddities again, have induced them to wait upon you with this their farewell offering, your candid and liberal reception of which will be another agreeable reminiscence to make happy their retirement. Wishing you all the good fortune that you can desire and deserve, they bid you, Gentle Reader ! Adieu ! G. D. Canonbury, March, 1852. CONTENTS. Pemockitus in Lokdon . TuE Stkaxgek-Guest . . Pasf: . . 299 NOTE. Page 83. For " The Lurtl Mayor reclining on an otto- man,"— read " I'uck, as The Lord Mayor, reclining; on an ottoman." Page 2U6. line 2 of note, omit Hampden. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Scene I. — A Street in Windsor. Enter Democritus} ROM the courts above a visitor Hither come I, an inquisitor Not in philosophic stole, But the dress of English Droll. For in that memorable year When Mercury turn'd auctioneer,* ' An Eleatic Philosopher, of Abdera in Thrace. Born 513; died 404, B. C. 2 In the " Sale of Philosophers," as described by Lucian, the heads of the different sects are brought to the hammer, Mercury being the auctioneer. Pythagoras fetches ten Minae, Diogenes, with his rags and cynicism, two obols — he may do for a house-dog ! Aristippus (the founder of the Cyrenaic sect) is too fine a gentleman for any body to venture on. Democritus and Heraclitus are alike unsale- able. Socrates, with whom Lucian seems to confound the Platonic philosophy, after being well ridiculed and abused, is bought by Dion, of Syracuse, for the large sum of two talents. Epicurus produces two Mina?. Chrysippus, the B '2 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Putting up for sale a number Of rare wits, like household lumber ! Many of the wisest sconces Did not fetch the price of dunce's, And for laugher's and for cryer's'^ There were neither bidders, buyers ! Knowing not in London town If for philosophic crown Up the market was or down. But believing that a Vice Always brings a liberal price ! Motley is the name I bear, Motley is the coat I wear. stoic, who gives some extraordinary specimens of his logic, and for whom there is a great competition, is knocked down for twelve Minae. A peripatetic, or double person, (exoteric and esoteric) with his physical knowledge, brings twenty Minse. Pyrrho, the sceptic, comes at last, who after having been disposed of, and in the hands of the buyer, is still in doubt whether he has been sold or not ! ^ A Philosopher of Ephesus, founder of a sect named after himself. Flourished from 500 to 425, b. C- * " Once more, Democritus, arise on earth, With cheerful wisdom and instructive mirth, See motley life in modern trappings dress'd. And feed with varied fools th' eternal jest." Dr. Johnson. * How the Sage was rewarded will be seen by the fol- lowing extract frf)m an autograph letter (in the possession of Uncle Timothy) written by the excellent and learned Elizabeth Carter to Miss Highmore, dated April 23, 1752. " I extremely honour the just indignation you express DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. O Invited/ I before had come, But that I should, abash'd and dumb, Have from your Sage^ received the shell He struck so wisely and so well I When in of Greece the early age I strutted, fretted on life's stage The character to me assign 'd Puzzled the Athenian mind. For in my brain the civic train Suspecting something not quite sane, Forced Hippocrates their fees on To set once more right my reason. Sitting in my quiet cottage,^ at the cold reception which has been given by a stupid, trifling, ungrateful world to the Rambler. You may conclude by my calling names in this courageous manner, that I am as zealous in the cause of this excellent paper as yourself. But we may both comfort ourselves that an author who has employed the noblest powers of genius and learning, the strongest force of understanding, the most beautiful ornaments of eloquence in the service of Virtue and Religion can never sink into oblivion, however he may be at present too little regarded." ® " Me, poor man ! my library Was dukedom large enough." Uncle Timothy had been thinking of the nest-like little domicile of Democritus when he wrote the following Wish. One of those neat quiet nooks That into a garden looks Give me for myself and books, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Not exactly in my dotage ! No shrewish wife,^ no stupid kin, And let it be Where resounds the huntsman's horn, Where wave fields of golden corn, And the birds sing to tli£ morn Right merrily ! Let, each tuneless pause to fill, Eipple nigh a murmviring rill. And, 0, music sweeter still ! From village spire Glittering with celestial rays. On returning holy-days Call me forth to prayer and praise A pealing choir ! Round the walls of my retreat, Pictured, let the poets meet, Whom to look upon is sweet. And fondly mark How, in each expressive face (Tinged by joy or sorrow's grace) We the mind immortal trace. That heavenly spark ! Charm'd by fancy, taught by truth, Ye were dear to me in sooth In the green leaf of my youth ! Now in the sear, Better known and understood. Ye are still more wise, more good Solacers of my solitude ! And doubly dear ! 7 " Who, having claw'd or cuddled into bondage The thing misnamed a husband — " Tobin. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. No duns without, no quacks within, I saw the learned leech elate Ye have made (it else had been A troubled sojourn !) life serene, And strew'd my path (not always green !) With fairest flow'rs, Immortal blossoms of the mind In beauty born, by taste refined, Garlands gloriously entwined, For lonely hours ! Freshen'd by the morning dews Let a friend who loves the Muse His well-temper'd wit infuse, And tell the time (Seated in my woodbine shade) When we two together stray'd Making vucal grove and glade With wizard rhyme ! And having struck the balance fair 'Twixt what we are, and what we were, And reckon'd how much cross and care Our path beset. With what strength (not ours) we've striven, Can we hope to be forgiven What we humbly owe to heaven If we forget ? The leaves of memory turning o'er. Loved, lost companions we deplore ; Yet we shall meet, to part no more ! Let that content 'Till nearer still the prospect grows Of the dark valley of repose, And in the arms of death we close A life well-spent. b DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Unlatch my little garden gate.^ Putting on his conjuring cap, In hopes my vagrant wits to trap ! From his pocket peep'd a packet Very like a certain jacket ! Giving his head a shake or two, And looking wise — as doctors do ! 0, let me still in heart be young! And still let tuneful be my tongue ! For I would not be one among The sordid old, Cumberers of the ground they tread ! To every social feeling dead, And but (with sorrow be it said) Alive to gold. ' And add to these retired Leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure. II Penseroso. The disciples of Epicurus were styled " Philosophers of the Garden" from that, which Epicurus had planted at Athens. Cimon embellished the groves of Academus with trees, walks, and fountains ; and Cicero enumerates a garden as one of the more suitable employments for old age. " I have measured, dug, and planted the large garden which I have at the gates of Babylon," said Cyrus, " and never, when my health permits, do I dine until I have labored in it two hours. If there is nothing to be done, I labor in my orchard." Atticus planted a garden after his own elegant taste, and Lucullus enjoyed the society of his friends and the delicious wine of Falernian in his splendid gardens. Sir William Temple gave orders for his heart to be enclosed in a silver casket, and placed under a sun-dial in that part of his garden, immediately opposite the window of his library. Pope and Cowper DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 7 All the while my bright brass basin ' Ogling at his solemn face in ! He began a drowsy discourse Recommending that and this course, "Which my retort cut sharply short, For I was in no humour for't ! Abruptly turning on his heel, delighted in their "trim gardens;" and John Kemble, in his rural retirement at Lausanne, was an ardent culti- vator of flowers. In the boyhood of Uncle Timothy many a time, on a half-holiday, was he the welcome bearer of the Viola Amoena, or Purple Heart's-ease, as presents from his dearly-beloved preceptor (a floricultural enthu- siast who commenced his delightful pursuit with a view- to amuse a depressed mind and reinvigorate a sickly body) to Siddons at her sweet cottage on the Harrow road. Her great and constant call for this beautiful flower every spring, to keep the purple bordering of her garden com- plete and perfect, induced the gardeners in the neighbour- hood to give the name of " Miss Heart's-ease " to her managing handmaid ! Her garden was remarkable in an- other respect. It was a garden of Evergreens, which, to- gether with a few deciduous shrubs, were of the most sombre, sable, and tragical cast, such as Box-trees, Fir, Privet, Phillyrea, Arbor Vitfe, Holly, Cypress, the Red Cedar, Laurel, Irish Ivy, Bay-tree, Arbutus Daphne or Spurge-Laurel, Cneorum Tricoccum or the " Widow- Wail," the branches and flowers of which, according to Pliny, were carried by the Roman matrons in their funeral processions : " Purpureos spar gam fiores" — Virgil. ' Democritus, in order to calculate the nature of things, was continually looking on a brass basin, by which practice he is said to have blinded himself. 8 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. He rang the city this quaint peal — " Give the laughing devil his due — The man's not mad, my friends, but You ! " ^^ — Tu Quoque ! fits the cap ? some few ! Tho' folly,'^ flaunting up and down This phantasmagorian town,^- Her antiquated coat has cast, I, in the present, see the past ; '" The world, the busy world ! and I Have never been first cousins — Why ? Because in neither word nor deed . The Woi'ld and I have once agreed. I'm humble, and the World is proud ; It loves, what I detest, a crowd; What it teaches men to prize. Pomp and riches, I despise. I, before a lucky dunce. Or a braggart, beggar once ! Cannot, like a lacquey, stand. Making congees, cap in hand ! Simple dress and simple diet And a cosey cup in quiet. With a lip contempt has curl'd, See, how laughs to scorn the World ! Let it laugh ! I'm in the vein At the World to laugh again — One in scorn and one in glee. Let's try which can merriest be ! Uncle Timothy. " "A Description of Folly. " Entring once into the seate of the braine, she obfijs- cateth the imagination, perverteth conceit, alienateth the DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 9 Than folly neither more, nor less, But only in a different dress ; Time has made her naught the wiser, As will find the fool that tries her I Patriotism holding league ^^ With ambition and intrigue — Worldly honesty" — whose check Is the halter round his neck ! mind, corrupteth reason, and so disturbeth and hindreth a man, that he can neither read, deliuer, nor act any thing as he should doe : but on the contrarie, with tur bulent conceptions, wavering and inconstant motions, bro ken sleepe, a sick braine, and an emptie soacked head like a withred cucumber, he vainely like a blind mill horse whirleth about a thousand fopperies, some no less lamen table than ridiculous." '^ " London ! the needy villain's general home. The common sewer of Paris and of Rome.'' In this picture we are forcibly reminded of Plutarch's description of the outlaws and fugitives that flocked to the Temple dedicated to the Asylaean God by Romulus and Remus. Their liberal Majesties welcomed all that came, and refused to deliver up the debtor to his creditor, and the murderer to the magistrate ! by which means the ris- ing city of Rome was soon peopled. '^ " Few men rise to power in a state, without a union of great and mean qualities." — Lord Bacon. '* "Honesty the best policy." — Antediluvian adage! Honesty is a ragged virtue, turned out of doors to beg or starve ! The march of progression (the "Rogue's March ? ") has kicked away this old-fashioned stumbling-block. In the general scramble for money, who can find time or afford to be honest ? Talk of physical malaria, of sul- phuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen (first cousin to the 10 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. ^' Worldly wisdom— craft and cunning, All out-witting and out-running ! Friendship/" — not the glow-worm spark That shines upon us in the dark, cholera ! ) Think of moral malaria ! Of stagnant cess- pools and pnblic ordure-pits ! What pool or pit, with its putrescent residua, so anti-odoriferous as the reeking ras- cality of Capel Court ? Think of the pestilential virus of such an intramural deposit as a Rail-Road Jobber! Yet this moral plague what shall stay ? Religion ? when every man's God is Gold ! Shame ? when the brass candle- stick, (like the schoolmaster,) is abroad, and not expected home again ! A " Board of Health ? " when all are alike infected ! Yet knaves, like shears, whose edges are so keen, Will cut themselves, as we have often seen. For want of Honesty to put between. In the singing days of Uncle Timothy this was his Democritusian Chant. I owe the World nothing — I'm not in it's debt — Ne'er has the World been my creditor yet — It's favor to me it has never unfurl'd, Yet stiU in good humour am I with the World. The World ne'er deceived me — with all its deceit ; The World never cheated me — tho' a great cheat ! I'd heard how its word it had twisted and twirl'd, So never put I any trust in the World ! A sweet smiling face and a pair of bright eyes I knew very well was the World in disguise ; And when I was offer'd a heart and a hand. That joke call'd a " Friend " I could quite understand ! Did pity, kind soul! come with me to condole, Impertinent pride I saw peep thro' her stole ! DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 11 But fair-weather's follower fervent, Fawning flattery's fellow-servant ! Ingrate's" smile — like cofl[in-plate Over rottenness in state I Then came, apropos, to my mind Bochefoiicault, And how one man feels for another man's woe ! Contented and gay let me laugh life away, With something to give, but with nothing to pay ; And when the last smile has my dying lip curl'd May I, sans a sigh, bid good b'ye to the World. '* " Keep up appearances, there lies the test, The world will give thee credit for the rest." Churchill, '« "Give mee that Bird," says Bishop Hall, "which will sing in winter, and seeke to my window in the hardest frost; there is no tryall of friendship but adversity." And again — " Give mee that love, and friendship^ which is betweene the vine, and the elme, whereby the elme is no whit worse, and the vine so much the better." Alex- ander being asked where he would lay his treasure ? an- swered " Apud Amicos." " " But be not concerned," wTites the Archbishop of Dublin to Doctor Swift, " ingrutitude is warranted by modern and ancient custom : and it is more honour for a man to have it asked, why he had not a suitable return to his merits, than why he was overpaid." Looking at the actors in this great Drama, (the glorious Revolution of 1688,) we have,— on the one hand a king, such as James's own acts have declared him, — on the other his nearest relatives, — sons-in-law professing towards him a devoted allegiance, daughters bound to him by every tie of filial gratitude ; (" Ingratitude ! thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou showest thee in a child. Than the sea-monster ! ") 12 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Temperance — sober from satiety 1 Plausible professing Piety — ^* Eyes devoutly raised to heaven, Hearts to earth entirely given ! Good intentions, that might pave Pandemonium ! — To his grave trusted counsellors, sworn to uphold his power, nobles and commanders paying him obsequious court, — friends loaded by him with benefits, — all combining to thrust him from his throne, and transfer their allegiance to another. If this be glorious to England, unswerving justice and unsul- lied honour may be no more recognized in the dealings of man with man : — let the law of heartless selfishness, that " the end will justify the means," be the adopted motto of politicians. 18 <' X)o you not think piety to be a more important qualification for the ministry than learning ? " once asked Mr. Wilberforce of an eminent prelate. " Certainly I do," he answered, " but they can cheat me as to their piety, but they can't as to their learning." . . . 19 a This tottered Colt which once had high desires, hath now low fortunes; his thoughts were wont to reach the starres, but now stumble at stones. He was his Fa- ther's dotage, and his Mam's darling. He did of late swim in gluttony, but now is pinched with poverty. He was wont to devise what to eat, and is now destitute of any food. He hath worn more upon his back than the gold (which procured passage for the ape into the castle) would defray. His drinking so many healths hath taken all health from him." — The Foot-Post of Dover with his Packet stuftfull of Strange and merry Petitions. 1616. Theophilus Gibber, having asked his father for the loan of a hundred pounds, received from him this reply : " When I was of your age I never spent any of my Father's mo- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. IS Dissipation,^® dancing, piping ! Hoary avarice,^" grasping, griping! Pomp, venality, and pride — -^ In their favor wind and tide, Passing, with averted eye. Slighted blighted poverty ! ^^ ney." " I can't say," replied the son, " but I'm sure you have spent many hundred pounds of my Father's money !" Diamond cut diamond ! . We hope CoUey cashed-up. . . ^ " To see a man roll himself up, like a snow-ball, from base beggary to right worshipful and right honour- able titles, unjustly to screw himself into honours and of- fices ; another to starve his genius, damn his soul, to ga- ther wealth, which he shall not enjoy, which his prodigal son melts and consumes in an instant." — Robert Burton. " " Besides, how many Villaines are advanc'd To such theatricall, and stagic-state Whilst Vertue lies obliviously entrane'd, Neglected, and disdain'd as out of date : Besides the multiplicitie of abuse That is in such mundanities mis-use." A Fig Fortune, 1596. 22 "In seeking virtue if thou find poverty, be not ashamed : the fault is none of thine. Thy honor, or dis- honor is purchased by thy own actions. Though virtue give a ragged livery, she gives a golden cognizance : if her service make thee poor, blush not. Thy poverty may disadvantage thee, but not dishonor thee." — Enchiridion, by Francis Quarles. 1681. " He whose naind Is virtuous, is alone of noble kind ; Though poor in fortune, of celestial race ; And he commits the crime who calls him base. Drifden. 14 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Base Detraction ^^ — ever first Of his friend to think the worst, Prompted by some merit great First to envy, then to hate ! ^ Vain Philosophy — in youth, Sinking, soaring after truth,-^ At the bottom of the hill, Baffled, and enquiring still I ^'■' Thearidas, being asked, as he ground his sword, if it were not sharp enough, said, " Not so sharp as slander." " There was something noble," said Alexander, " in hearing myself ill spoken of while I was doing well." People do not, as a general rule, lightly charge others with crimes of which they are themselves incapable, or of which they have a genuine horror. -'' We should look at superior abilities not with envy, but admiration, and a desire to imitate. — The world how- ever is not of this opinion. Its littleness would lower the gifted mind to its own level, its vanity would crush the excellence that wounds its self-love. If, in some adverse hour, Genius, too sorely tempted, "stoop, reluctant, to low arts of shame," how sternly will your worldly-wise wind-bags, flatulent with fury ! arraign the offender at their bar. A donkey eloquently discoursing over his thistles is not more musical ! From such mere syphons of victuals s,nd drink, fruges consumere nati! genius expects nor jus- tice nor sympathy. It appeals to nobler natures and to higher powers — It demands to be tried by its peers. Its glorious inspirations and fine sensibilities, its triumphs and its trials, its firmness and its failings, touched by a truthful yet tender hand, shall present a picture of min- trled lie;ht and shade at which the generous heart will throb with admiration, and melt with pity and forgive- ness ; since the shade that darkened was the dust of the world, but the light that illumined was " light from hea- ven ! " DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 15 Self — the plague-spot that infects All societies and sects, That opes to every vice the door, Corrupts of every heart the core ! Knowledge new — of which the sum is. Fools your fathers were, and dummies ! -" Law '" — in subtleties refined I Justice-^— deaf, as well as blind! " " What is Truth?" of Truth Incarnate Pilate ask'd — but answer none (For earth and sky will soon reply) Vouchsafed the Holy Heavenly One ! Appall'd Creation's funeral cry, The rushing wind, the darken'd sun, The thunder, and the opening grave To Pilate's question answer gave \— Uncle Timothy. ^ We laugh at the wisdom of our ancestors, and pos- terity (for whom we are attempting such great things !) will laugh at the wisdom of theirs. Our aspirations are as big as the genius that came out of the tin kettle in the Arabian Tale, and their realisation will be as small as that same genius when he was soldered up in the same kettle again ! " When I was a young man, being anxious to distin- guish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over, for I found that generally what was new wasyn/se."— " A fine passage," remarks Dr. John- son, " that Goldsmith was fool enough to expunge " from his Vicar of Wakefield. . . . '^ " I know so much of that sort of people called lawyers, that I pity most heartily any one that is obliged to be con- cerned with them: if you are not already, I hope you will be soon safe out of their hands,"— JVie Earl of Ox- ford's Letter to Dr. Swft, July 15, 1730. "^ In the Olden Time Kings bestowed their bounty, and 16 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Charity^" — retiring soul ! , That hangs her lantern on a pole. administered justice in their own persons. An appeal to the sovereign was not made through an official go-between. The humblest subject might place in the royal hand his petition, and receive summary relief or redress. Kings walked, and rode abroad like other folks, without having their whereabouts watched by a court lord, and chronicled by a court newsman. If they did any thing moderately good, or said any thing immoderately bad, the doing and the saying were not blown by the trumpet of a penny-a- liner. It was no remarkable event for a prince to visit a peasant, to partake of his frugal fare, joke with the " Gudeman," make himself agreeable to his buxom wife and bonny daughters, and listen to their humble joys and sorrows. In those primitive days the King saw and heard for himself. He cut short the intricate and round- about road of the law, and made its sharp sword fall hea- vily on the wrong-doer. If justice was deaf and blind, the touch imperial soon restored her hearing and sight ; if lagging, it quickened her halting, hobbling pace ; and if her scales were out of order it was an " annoyance jury " with a vengeance ! His Majesty thought a hasty decision not so dangerous as a vexatious delay ; and if sometimes he proved a little " fast," the hearts of his suitors were not made sick by hope long deferred. Eoyalty (in this sense) has ceased to be a reality and a refuge. The Sovereign is a ceremony, to be approached through automaton files of gentlemen-pensioners with Fool's coats and gilt battle- axes ! and should the subject intrude his petition upon the " Presence " his presumption would be made a privy- council job ! Pleasant tales have been told how, in the Olden Time, princes, by accident or design, came in familiar contact with plebeians. Who has not read the story of the King and the Miller of Mansfield, and the nocturnal rambles of DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. ,17 Honor ^ — that blows out your brains, But pays his debts — the gambler's "' gains ! England's Merry Monarch ? The true secret of kingly popularity lies in a good-humonred condescension, that can temporally discrown the monarch without compromising him. The half-gracious smile and the stiff state-bow are highly picturesque ; but Charles tlie Second, before the morning dew was off the grass in St. James's Park, strid- ing among the trees, playing with his spaniels, and fling- ing corn to his ducks is, to our fancy, a far more agree- able exhibition. ^ Those who expend their charity on remote objects, but neglect their family, are said to " hang a lantern on a pole," which is seen afar, but gives no light below. . . . — Chinese Proverb. ^° Duelling was long an exclusive privilege. The aris- tocratical poltroon, if he could muster up resolution to be- come a locomotive target, was suddenly metamorphosed into a man of honor ! The law, by its silence, gave consent, and pistols popped with impunity. But the people gr^w jealous. They had bodies to be riddled as well as their betters ! Then the tclat of two rival tailors winsinff one another, a pugnacious apprentice introducing a few inches of cold steel between the recreant ribs of a tyrannical shop- walker, or a terrible tallow-chandler transfixing a brother Dip ! The temptation was too strong for plebeian resist- ance. One of a brace of belligerent linendrapers received his quietus from a pistol ball. Then (for the first time !) it was discovered that an affair of honor was an unlawful luxury, only because it had been contaminated by the vul- garians of Tottenham Court Road ! . . . . Our notions of Honor are widely different to those of the ancients. A Lacedfemonian tutor, being asked, What he would teach his disciple, replied, Honor: intimatino- that all precepts are contained in that. . . . ^' '• Though the Unvest orders of the Chinese are ccr- c 18 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. DuLNESs'^- — making war upon sense, Bubbles*' — blown with windy nonsense ! tainly very prone to gambling, this is a vice which is chiefly confined to them. So much infamy attaches to the practice in any official or respectable station, and the law in such cases is so severe, that the better classes are happily exempt from it." — The Chinese, by Sir T. F. Davis. ^^ The popular literature (trashy novels !) of the pre- sent day throws off all decent restraint, and gives elbow- room to the passions of the multitude. " Fire Low," said Cromwell to his soldiers, "and you will be sure to hit them ! " Its plots are hung upon Tyburn-Tree. It is the vade mecum of the thief and the buUy, a vocabulary of Newgate slang, a pocket-picking made easy. The most disgusting caricatures of human wickedness are pronounced masterpieces of a witty invention. Flash becomes house- hold words, and if now and then a dash of no-meaning sentimentality be thrown in to sweeten the unsavoury mess, it is hailed as pure pathos by the delicate sympathies of Petticoat Alley and Hockley -in-the-Hole ! An eltve of a forensic free-and-easy who, after an idle, dreary day, vents his accumulated spirits, and restores the moral equilibrium at the Coal-hole or Cider Cellar, is made the hero to point a moral and adorn a tale. " In the precious age we live in. Most people are so lewdly given. Coarse hempen trash is sooner read Than poems of a finer thread." " Surely what a man can write I can read ! " said Charles Lamb, who was a helluo lihrorum. As botanists allow no- thing to be weeds, he would admit nothing to be waste- paper ! " Niillus est imperitus Scriptor, qui Lectorem non in- veniut," says St. Jerome. What a comfort for scribblers ! Much of the (so-called) wit of the present day is begot by flatulence, born of fable, fed by folly, and nursed and maintained at the expense of virtue and the public. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 19 Woman's Love*^ — as warm as summer To the cash-replenish'd comer ! ^ ^^ K all Athens went mad about whistling like birds, all Europe (under the auspices of Peter the Hermit) went crazy about Crusades. The Mississippi, and the Tulip, mania (as lately as the year 1835, the bulb of a new tulip, called " The Citadel of Antwerp," was sold to M. Vander- ninck, of Amsterdam, for £640!) turned the wits of France and Holland. Scotland became " daft " about the Isthmus of Darien ; and the South Sea Bubble, Moonshine Compa- nies and Railroads to Ruin have been the " bee in the bonnet " of Merrie England ! All have paid dearly for their Whistle. ^* " But happy they ! the happiest of their kind ! Whom gentle stars unite, and in one fate Their Hearts, their Fortunes, and their Beings blend — " sings Thomson, and the gentle Cowper is no less enthu- siastic. " Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise, that hast survived the fall." Yet how happens it that these poetical apostrophisers of conjugal blessedness should be bachelors ? When " Thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part. And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart, This sure is bliss, if bliss on earth there be — " But what bliss can result from antagonistic tempers and tastes ; from society without sympathy, talk without con- verse, tenderness without ideas ? To ensure happiness there must be no petty jealousies, ^5 A French Painter, Nicholas Loir, in order to show how much love depends upon plenty, painted Venus warm- ing herself before a fire; and Ceres and Bacchus retiring to a distance. . . . 20 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Woman's Tongue'" — uncertain thing! Honied barb, or fiery sting I Are here as clever in their craft As when at fools, not with, I laugh'd,''" And Athens sent her learned leech To practise on me and to preach, the vulgar offspring of conscious inferiority too trem- blingly alive — no base-minded selfishness, incapable of intellectual enjoyment, and therefore obstructing it in others — no pitiful purse-pride — no spirit of contradiction, stinging itself with its own whimsies, and whipping others with the same nettles — no puritanism in Querpo, preached out of its senses, but not out of its iniquities — True happiness shall be found in the entire devotion and gene- rous sympathy that anticipates every wish, brightens every hope, crowns every joy, and charms away every sorrow ! Dr. Burnej-, to whom — as times go — was meted out more than his proper share of matrimonial felicity, draws the following beautiful picture of his first wife. " And with all her nice discernment, quickness of perception, and delicacy, she could submit, if occasion seemed to re- quire it, to such drudgery and toil as are suited to the meanest domestic, and that, with a liveliness and alacrity that, in general, are to be found in those only who have never known a better state. Yet with a strength of rea- son the most solid, and a capacity for literature the most intelligent, she never for a moment relinquished the female and amiable softness of her sex with which, above every other attribute, men are most charmed and captivated " . . No wonder then that it was with such difficulty he tore himself from her converse in the morning, and flew back to it with such celerity at night ..." Here" to adopt the eloquent language of Professor Richardson, " Love DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 21 And, for as yet had Rome to pour, Her legions on your barbarous shore. And yoke you captives to her car, And tame you into what you are ! ^^ In his wild woods the Briton ran, A naked, painted, savage man ! was the ruling passion ; but Love ratified by wedlock, gentle, constant, and refined." . . . It was a pretty conceit of the Philosopher, who, being asked, What was the best emblem oi the marriage- state? went to his closet, and drew the picture of two oxen in a yoke, with the following motto underneath, " Draw equal." ^ " The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall." Erigland's Helicon. 1600. Ladies, it has been said, are the very reverse of their mirrors— the latter reflecting without talking, and the former talkinuf without reflecting. ^ It was once remarlced to Lord Chesterfield, that man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter. " True," said the Peer, " and you may add perhaps, that he is the only creature that deserves to be laughed at ! " ^8 The ancient Briton, majestic even in his semi-barba- rism — the godlike Roman — the generous and valiant Celt — the hardy Pict and Scot — the Dane, and the noblest offspring of the great Scandinavian tribes, brave, adven- turous and energetic — the industrious and liberty-loving Saxon — and the ever glorious Norman, infusing the ele- ments of valor, intellect, and pow er into the blood of Eng- land have made us what we are. 22 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. So much mischief brew'd and brewing, What have been vour parsons''"' doing? Slow to preach,*' or slow to hear, They, or you, Sirs ? Both, I fear ! Or have they with a careless hand Held slack the reins of stern command. "^ Mudfog, a Character. God save the Church! May ev'ry surpliced knave Be known as thou art known — from whom, God save The Church ! that makes thee " Rev'rend ! ! "—makes thee, too, Peep o'er the timber that thou should'st peep through '. Hangs on thy back a gown, which, jest profane, Spoils tlie buffoon, but spares — rf/wrms the cane! — Pert without wit, bombastic without force, Dull without depth, and without humour, coarse; A slave, unmask'd — a bravo, 'neath thy hood ; Letting " I dare not," wait upon " I would ! " Living in fear of bailiffs, satire's rod. And all fears, but the right — the fear of God ! From friendship's social circle flung away Dishonor'd— like thy promises to pay ! Stand forth ! defiler of the sacred cloth. In all thy full-blown impudence and froth ! Put on thy coat of motley — giber stand ! The coxcomb on thy head, and in thy hand The bauble ; on thy lip a sorry jest, To which thy fav'rite tipple gives the zest — Stand forth, thy ribald " Reverend ! " Stand confest. Uncle Timothy. Mark the contrast! "Some of the meaner sort "of George Herbert's parish, says Walton, "who did so love and reverence him, that they would let their plough rest when his Saints-bell rung to prayers, that they might also DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. And let the steed ^^ which has most sway. That steed unruly ! run away ? Or have they metaphysic mud Stirr'd from the bottom of the flood ? *^ That shallow pool which makes pretence To something more than common sense ! offer their devotions to God with him ; and would then return back to their plough. And his most holy life was such, that it begot such reverence to God and to him, that they thought themselves the happier, when they carried Mr. Herbert's blessing back with them to their labour." '"' Diogenes struck the father when the son swore, be- cause he taught him no better. . . . *' Like a chariot is the soul Drawn by two horses to its goal. Black the one, the other white ; Evil, good; and wrong, and right. — Plato. *^ Not a more pernicious Quack exists than a " Popular Preacher ! " His sermons are of that mosaic, patchwork pattern for which the merest modicum of mind and me- mory will abundantly supply the scraps. He perplexes by his obscurity, astonishes by his high-flown bombast and extravagant figures of speech, and relieves the tedium of his turgid tautology by pioitomimica/ postures, the illus- trations of a faith far too " lively " for sober tastes. Speak- ing of one of these prpular pulpiteers. Lord Brougham said, " His style is so inflated that one of his sermons would fill the Great Nassau Balloon ! " " The shallowest pond, if turbid, has depth enough fur a goose to hide its head in." — ]V. S. Landor. " Dropping empty buckets into wells. And growing old in drawing nothing up." 24 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Or have they vainly tried to scan Mysteries never made for man,*' And then left off where they began ? O, folly rare ! foundation fair Of some rich temple to lay bare Just to show to curious eyes How deep that firm foundation lies ! ** Not by its root, but by its fruit The tree's just value we compute ; The faith wherein the virtues""^ shine, We know, like beauty,""* is divine ! *^ Loin de rien decider sur cet Etre Supreme, Gardens, en I'adorant, un silence profond : Sa nature est immense, et I'esprit s'y confond. Pour savoir ce qu'il est, il faut etre lui-meme. Anon. ^* It is not true that " where Mystery begins, Religion ends." There are mysteries belonging to religion which call for the exercise of faith — Reason shall never penetrate them. Religion is founded on reason and revelation — Reason, God's noblest gift, is the searcher after, and dis- coverer of Truth. But if Reason plunge a man into the intricacies of sceptical inquiry for the doubtful chance of «'<)nfirming his faith, it might with equal wisdom hazard another experiment, by casting him headlong from a pre- cipice to prove the existence of matter. . . . ■•^ Virtus in actione consistit. " Man is born happiest when his actions Are arguments and examples of his virtue." John Webiier. " What care I," says Seldon, " to see a man run after a Sermon, if he cozens and cheats as soon as he comes home?" DEMOCKITUS IN LONDON. 25 Greece, the seat of heroes, sages, Gods ! and gray with glorious ages I How sad the moral, how august That time has written in her dust ! Every moss-clad mouldering stone, Temple, tower, with grass o'ergrown, Crumbling column, ruin'd, rent, How profoundly eloquent ! Mute mournful monitors are they Of grandeur,^' beauty, and decay ! By pilgrims sought from every shore, " To live uprightly then is sure the best, To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest." Would that men would practise, what Puritans call, tlie " Pantheism " of Pope's Universal Prayer! ■•s All Beauty is of Gud. The Golden Gates of Day opening on the palmy East : the Night's pale Regent, and the countless stars ; the fruits of the earth, the flowers of the field; the valley, the mountain, the streamlet and the ocean ! Love and truth are of God, for they are beau- tiful in their purity and immutability ! Music is of God, for to its sacred voice sang the Morning Stars when they hymned his glory and his praise ! Wisdom is of God, for it is Beauty intellectual ; and Virtue, for it is Beauty moral. Penitence is of God, for it is the portal of hea- ven ! Conscience the soul's monitor, sorrow its chastener, Hope its comforter, and Peace its reward, are of God, for they are beautiful in their fidelity, patience, constancy and celestial quietude! Justice and Mercy are of God. for they are the Beauty of Holiness, and Holiness is God Himself in his Beatitude and Beauty. Uncle Timnthy. *'' The Parthenon is said to Lave cost a thousand talents. 26 DEMOCRITUS IX LONDON. No Shrine was ever worshipp'd more ! Beheld with throbbing heart, with eyes Of mingled rapture and surprise ! And mused upon in future years With sweet regret and quiet tears ! ^ Debased by sloth, unnerved by ease The countrymen of Pericles Live but the timid life of slaves, This was one of the factious charges brought by the poli- tical economists of Athens against Pericles. ^^ Those spots which have been the theatre of great events, or the abodes of eminent men we behold with thoughtful interest and remember with tenderness and regret. Something analogous to this, Milton has em- bodied in the language of Adam, when the angeUinforms him that the leaving the garden of Eden shall be the penalty of his disobedience. Adam, with melancholy feel- ing, anticipates the pleasure he should have enjoyed, in pointing out to his children the places which had been sanctified by the presence of their great Creator ! . . . *^ The best and wisest men of Athens have by their writings exercised more influence over all countries than their own, and over all ages than the age in which they lived. Thucydides wrote his history in exile ; in exile iEschylus sought refuge from the hatred of those who had heard the Agamemnon. The ashes of Themistocles were laid by stealth in the land which his genius had delivered. The bad measures of Pericles scarcely sus- tained him against the unpopularity to which his good measures exposed him, Plato thought the cause of poli- tical morality less desperate in the Syracuse of Dionysius than in the Athens of the Sophists. Half of each speech of Demosthenes is taken up with lamentations o\ er the utter neglect shown to all that had preceded it. Of all DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 27 Rot in ignominious graves ! A penance for their fathers' crimes,** A looking-glass for present times ! Amid the cloud that darkly roU'd O'er future worlds in days of old One god-like spirit,^" only one I Had glimpses of the rising sun. Greece, to whom was given the prize, tliose who have made the name of Athens dear and vene- rable, there were few who did not in persecution, humi- liation, envy, if not in greater injuries and worse suffer- ings, taste of the cup of Socrates. The only writer who can be said to have enjoyed universal and unbroken popu- larity, is as immoral as he is meretricious. The only public man who retained to his death the support and confidence of his countrymen was a fool, a sycophant, a peculator and a poltroon. . . . ^^ The Delphic Oracle was never so prophetic as when it responded to the question of Choerophon, that " Socrates was the wisest of men." He was, in his youth, working at his bench as a journeyman statuary, when the myste- rious voice of the familiar spirit which whispered to him through life called to him to devote himself to the instruc- tion of mankind ; and he flung down his tools, and became the missionary of truth and virtue. Fur forty years he chose a life of poverty, temperance, and severe self-denial. While all the other teachers grew rich with their fees, he alone would never accept one mina for proclaiming truth. Mean in apparel, pinched in coarse food, bare-footed, ve- nerated, almost worshipped, by the gi-eatest and most learned of his countrymen, did he daily move through Athens, the grand centre figure of mankind, the most divine man that God ever sent on earth to guide his fello\\ - mortals in the path of wisdom, purity, justice, and mercy ! 28 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Turn'J her back and closed her eyes To the bright celestial ray That glorifies your happier day ! Phoebus gilds the mountain tops Ere he shines upon the copse And his noon-tide glory throws On the humblest flower that blows ; Thus eternal truth we find Lights up first the lofty mind, Then, with unmitigated ray. On lowlier visions pours the day ! From the " Writing on the Wall," From a Greek and Roman Fall, Britain, give desert its due, Cato the Censor admired nothing more in Socrates, than his living in an easy and quiet manner with an ill-tem- pered wife and stupid children. " Socrates," says the Quarterlii Review, in a strain of noble enthusiasm, " no longer stands amongst us. Yet we could fancy what would result were he now to visit us. . . With that Silenic physiognomy, eccentric manner, indo- mitable resolution, captivating voice, homely humour, solemn earnestness, siege of questions ... in the groves and cloisters of our Universities, in our ecclesiastical and religious meetings, at the foot of the pulpits of our well- filled churches. How often, in a conversation, in a book, debate, speech, sermon, have we longed for the doors to open, and for the son of Sophroniscus to enter — how often, in the tempest of pamphlets, in the heat of angry discus- sions, in discourses that have darkened counsel by words without knowledge, during the theological controversies DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 29 What indemuity have you ? Yours the inconsistent tact is, Christian precept, pagan practice ; "^^ In proportion as is true Your religion, false are you I When on some peaceful prosperous land You've pour'd trade's greedy, ruthless band,^- Carved with the sword, and writ in flame The terrors of the Christian name ! And, to the music of deep groans, Whiten'd the soil with human bones ! You bid her sons^^ their gods abjure For one wise, holy, just, and pure ! — " Men of slaughter I men of plunder l^ of the past year, have we been tempted to exclaim, ' () for one hour of Socrates ! ' " *' Hostes hiimani generis, ^'■^ " It is a principle of the Chinese Government," says Dr. Morrison, " not to license what they condemn as immoral. I know they glory in the superiority, as to principle, of their own Government, and scorn the Chris- tian Governments that tolerate these vices, and convert them into a source of pecuniary advantage, or public re- venue." . . "I know enough of pdiiical economy to have perceived in the father of the British School {Adam Smith) that the ^vealth of nations is every thing in that school, and the morality and happiness of nations nothing." — Southey. 33 a Who better live than we, tho' less they know." '* What a noble response Mas that of the Athenians to the declaration of Aristides, "that the enterprise which 30 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. The poor heathen asks with wonder, Hath he lightnmg, hath he thunder ?"^^ Grecian arts you Britons borrow ; Grecian rehcs, day of sorrow ! Wresting from their native soil, You have made the plunderer's spoil. Would your intellectual march ^^ Uprear the column,^* bend the arch. Themistocles proposed, (burning the confederate fleet at Pagasee) was indeed the most advantageous in the world, but, at the same time, the most unjust." They com- manded him to lay aside all thoughts of it. 5° '< Deus patiens quia JEternus." — St. Augustin. In the lightning and the thunder, In the blast Sending the ship sinking under Ocean vast! In horrid war, in (what is worse), Wild anarchy, companion-curse ! In the pestilence that rides Ghastly, on the winds and tides, And torturing famine, spectre-twin ! A voice there is that cries to sin ! It hath broken silence, spoken — Thou hast heard From some fell form (plague, famine, storm) ! The warning word — Heard, but heeded not, made naught Of sounds with direst meaning fraught, Ungrateful Britain! and defied, DEMOCniTUS IN LONDON. 31 The never-dying foliage wreathe, And bid the senseless marble breathe? Fair Greece supplies each rich design, Hers the original divine ! Her poets ^^ long have been your theme. Your midnight study, morning dream ! Enthroned in majesty of thought Your youth have they sublimely taught!^" The Grove, Lyceum, and the Porch In thy presumption and thy pride, The Angel of Omnipotence that waits With destruction at thy gates! — Uncle Timdhu. " Seneca says of himself, " When I would solace myself with a fool, I reflect upon myself; and there I have him." This is the sage whom Plutarch extols beyond all the Greeks. " Know Thyself" is one of the many things that the " March of Intellect " has yet to learn .... ^* Democritus contended that men learnt music and architecture from birds, and weaving from spiders. *^ Alexander, when he was presented with that rich and costly casket of King Darius, and every man advised him what to put in it, he reserved it to keep Homer's Works, as the most precious jewel of human wit. Robert Burton. ^^ Not always has the pupil done honor to the instruc- tions of his master, and not unfrequently has the master been blamed for the mis-behaviour of his pupil. Seneca (see " Plutarch to Trajan ") is reproached, and his fame still suffers for the vices of Nero. The reputation of Quin- tilian is hurt by the ill conduct of his scholars, and even Socrates is accused of negligence in the education of Alci- biades. Plutarch and Trajan are illustrious exceptions. 32 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Lighted of eloquence your torch. And full many a noble band Bear impress of their master's hand !*^ Her philosophers of old ""^ Taught, 'tis said, but morals cold, The precepts of the master are reflected in the virtues of the prince. *' One Poet is the father of another. " Milton,'^ remarks Dryden, "was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr. Waller of Fairfax ; for we have our lineal descents and clans, as well as other families : Spencer more than once insinuates, that the soul of Chaucer was trans- fused into his bodj' ; and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknow- ledged to me, that Spenser was his original; and many besides myself have heard oiir famous Waller own, that he derived the harmony of his numbers from the Godfrey of Ihilloiiig, which was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax.''' From Homer (whom he greatly preferred to Virgil, the Grecian being " choleric and sanguine," the Boman "phleg- matic and melancholic") Dryden inherited " The full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine — " and it is beautiful to hear the glorious old bard, then sixty- eight ! though " a cripple in his limbs," truly saying, " By the mercy of God, I think myself as vigorous as ever in the faculties of my soul — What judgment I had, increases rather than diminishes ; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficidty is to choose or to reject." — Who was the poetical father of Shakespeare is yet a mystery. What happy age shall hail the advent of his Son ? Has he said, like his own Prospero? " I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 33 Reformer none could Athens boast To rule some new religion's roast Such as Smithfield, by your leave, a Roasting region ! taught Geneva — ^' Yet, unawed by fiery stake, And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book." ^^ The Academicians shall be regarded for their modesty of opinion and rational theology ; the Peripatetics for their natural science and logic ; the stoics for their belief of a particular providence, and their doctrine of fortitude ; (up to that subUme point, beyond which stoicism ceases to be a virtue !) the Epicureans for their refined idea of enjoy- ment, and the Pythagoreans for their instinctive tender- ness to the whole animal creation, of itself a religion to soften the cruelty of man ! . . ®^ The morning of October 27, 1553, broke over Geneva with the calm sweetness of autumn in that delightful country. In this beauty and repose of nature a man was seen tottering from the prison-gate to the council-chamber. He was in the summer of his days, but wasted to a skeleton, and his hair had become white in his chains. The eye fell on piles of oak wood, still in leaf, and a stake with a block and iron chains. The hour was come, and the man. A damp, smoky blaze, drifted heavily upwards ; a wild, agonizing shriek for mercy and of despair burst above through smoke and flame, piercing the ears of the crowd, who " fell back with a shudder ! " the sun shone brightly overhead ; the clock of St. Peter's tower struck twelve — and the soul of Servetus went to its own place ! Where was the fanatical and ferocious Frenchman who proclaimed himself a chosen minister, elect and precious, of the Prince of Peace ? Where was the High Priest of 34 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Was virtue loved for virtue's sake.^ Her august, heroic story ^^ Wins for Britons crowns of glory, Teaching, by its example high. How nobly men can live''^ and die l^^ Her lofty language to your own Has given an eloquence, a tone ; Her follies, added to the spoil. Have flourish'd in your fruitful soil ! the Geneva Inquisition, who, to his last hour gloried in the awful guilt of this appalling martyrdom ? — " Servetus," says M. Audin, " appeared before God, and Calvin closed the window, where he had come to seat himself to assist at the last agonies of his enemy." .... " I am able to assure you," wrote Calvin, jocosely, " that they have acted very humanely towards the guilty (viz. one of the reformer's heretics !) ; they hoist him up upon the stake, and cause him to lose the earth by suspending him, from the two arms." How quietly facetious is this tale of swino-ing: and torture ! No wonder that it was a com- mon saying in Geneva (a fact recorded even by Calvin's apologists, who have suppressed, and given a false colour- lag, as best suited their crooked purpose), " It were better to be with Beza in hell than with Calvin in heaven." But why in hell ? Not, we fain hope, for writing a few rather free pieces, (see his Poemata, 1548) which bringing scan- dal and reproach upon him, he suppressed in subsequent editions. If loose lyrics, be such a crying sin how wiU fare little Tom, alias Tom Little ? . . . " Ah, Tarn ! ah, Tam! thou'lt get thy fairin! In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin ! " ^* Most of the Orations of Demosthenes enforce this principle ; more particularly, that of the crown, that agai^ist Aristocrates, that /or the immunities, and the Philippics. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 35 All antiquity has taught, Every noble deed and thought Time has to your treasury brought — From ancient learning's page august With hand most reverent sweep the dust ! And from Academic bowers Cast the weeds, but spare the flowers.^* From the courts above a visitor, (Mr. Motley the inquisitor !) ^^ The Athenians were a politic as well as brave people ; and when Timagoras, who was sent by them as ambassa- dor to the King of Persia, had the imprudence to degrade his country by the act of prostration, he was condemned to die on his return. . . ^ When Zeno consulted the oracle in what manner he should live, the answer was, that he should inquire of the dead. — " Lives of great men all remind us We may make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us Foot- prints on the sands of time ! " ^7 Cato determined not to outlive his liberty ; Themis- tocles refused to survive his honor. The death of the Roman was noble ; that of the Athenian nobler still, 8^ Is fickle fortune cross or kind. Or foul or fair the wanton wind, From envious tongues and lowering looks I turn to my best friends my books. With leisure that no tedium knows, With health on every breeze that blows, How happy I to friends that fly That ne'er deceive, and ne'er can die ! 36 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. I the pabulum am after Looking that I live on — Laughter I What fresh folly rich and racy, Turning town and country crazy ! Does the Phcebus of to-day see ? Helter-skelter, in full cry. Hither flock the village fry ! Quidnuncs queer, whose daily diet Is rebellion, rapine, riot, With an appetite and swallow ®' Beating the Athenian hollow ! Enter Gaffer Grig, followed by the Town's-folk. \st Townsman. Neighbour ! neighbour ! What new mountain is in labour ? Is the earthquake coming down ? Is the comet's tail in town ? Here I am Slippery Sara Would I with fairy fancy stray, Forth lightly trips some frolic fay ! Or with stern truth commune aside, See, beck'ning, see my heavenly guide ! Would I a pensive hour beguile. Mirth meets me with his merry smile ! And melancholy stands apart To touch me when too light of heart ! And would I in the vista bright Keep heaven, my happy home ! in sight, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 37 Of the Lion and Lamb I And scarlet Dick Of Hampton-Wick, And Solomon Slim, And Gabv Grim, And Margery Glib, And Trimming Tib, And Mat the Miller and his rib ! All agog to hear the news That makes you shiver and shake in your shoes ! And, Goodman Grig, Disorders your wig ! Song, Gaffer Grig. The day is fast coming of doom. The Castle's astonish'd ! astounded ! From the Master of Horse to the Groom Answer Til not for a sound head I For suddenly came marching in, Surely the couple were crazy I Religion opes her page, and see, Withdraws the veil 'twixt heaven and me ! Friends ! and old familiar faces Fortune keep you in your places ! I pray that we may never part Till heaves with life's last throb my heart. Uncle Timothy. «' Pamphlet. "Believe it !— believe any thing; no swal- low like a true born Englishman's : a man in a quart bottle, or a victory, it's all one— down it goes."— The Upholsterer, by Arthur Murphy. Act 2. Scene 1. 38 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. O, such a riotous Chin ! O, such a roUicking Jazey ! The Porter rang for the Page, The Page rang the Exon his mate in, And the Exon rang, in a rage, The Stick Gold or Silver of State in I I from this deuce of a din Turn'd to the right about quick, Leaving the Jazey and Chin Strutting up stairs to the Stick ! Cliorus of Totvns-folJc. From Gunpowder, treason and brawl God save Queen Victoria ! We can't understand it at all ; A mighty mysterious story, ah ! \_Ejceunt. Dem. In of Bull the addled brain, There's a maggot got again ! Some new bee, depend upon it, Now is buzzing in his bonnet ! \JExit, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 39 Scene II. — A Chamber in Windsor Castle. A Lord in Waiting and a Gentleman Usher discovered. Usher. STRANGERS two your Lordship's leisure Wait— Lord. Whence corae they ? what's their plea- sure? Usher. From Bow-Bells — Lord. Bow-Bells ! by the by, Did you, Mr. Usher, spy In their foreheads, blazing high, One great goggling gooseberry eye ? Is not Bow a certain town, Topsy-turvy, upside down. Every man upon his crown ? Bow-Bells ! where the devil ! where is Bow ? — among the Pawnees, prairies ? Where the Rocky-mountain bear is ? Bristling on my head my hair is ! Admit the nondescripts, but mind, They leave their tomahawks behind ! I hope the cannibals have dined I \_Ex'it Usher. Re-enter Gentleman Usher, introducing Sir Peter Prolix and Mr. Pumpkin Plethoric. Usher. Sir Peter Prolix. Lord (aside). By this light, 40 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. A City Alderman and Knight ! Afoie gras With chapeau bras ! Usher. Pumpkin Plethoric, Esquire. {_Exit. Lord {aside). Rosy as a curtail Friar ! "What a bow-window the mutton's Built beneath his bright brass buttons ! Now and then must even crown'd heads Condescend to humor roundheads, And belted knights and garter'd earls ""^ The Royal Exchange, in ancient times, had its rivals, viz. — The New Exchange or Britain's Burse at Durham House, and the Middle Exchange (nearest to London) at Salisbury House. The citizens became jealous of these marts, and in a letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dud- ley Carleton, dated July 8, 1608, he writes, " the citizens, and especially the Exchange-men begin to grumble, fore- seeing that it will be very prejudicial, and mar their mar- ket, and thereupon have made a petition to the Lord Mayor to provide Ne quid detrimenti llepuhlica capiat.^' The proprietor, the Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Trea- surer, returned the petitioners a very laconic answer, that " Westminster being where he was born, and of his abode, he sees not but that he may seek to benefit it by all means he can," This " stately building so sodainely erected in the place of an olde, long stable, the outward wall whereof to the street side (i. e. the Strand) was very old and ruinate," the "upper shoppes" of which w^ere (Tuesday the 10 April 1609) "richly furnished with wares, and which " the next day after that, the King, Queene, the Prince, the Ladie Elizabeth, and the Duke of York, with many great Lords and chiefe Ladies" visited, and were there entertained with " pleasant speeches, gifts and in- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 41 To comrnon people cast their pearls ! The business of these obesities Gastronomical I guess it is ! Song, Sir Peter. One terrible night we saw such a sight ! The Lord of the Lions of London Our Burse,™ in a blaze ! our town in amaze ! Our trade, joro tempore, undone! genious devices, the King giving it the name of ' Britain's Burse,'" was ignominiously demolished in 1737 ! The Middle Exchange adjoined Great Salisbury House. " It consisted," says Brayley, " of a long room, extending from the Strand to the Thames, lined on each side with shops ; and at the end was a passage, with a handsome flight of steps leading to the river. It however obtained a bad name from the class of frequenters who patronised it, and the estate again reverting to the Earl of Salisbury, he puUed down the Exchange, together with the whole of Great Salisbury House too, and erected Cecil Street on its site, about the year 1696." . . . The following is extracted from the Minutes of the Joint Gresham Committee, 4th November, 1667 : — " King " Charles the Second came to the Royal Exchange on the " three and twenty th o{ October, anno 1667, and there fixed " the first pillar at the re-edifying thereof, which is that " standing on the west side of the north entrance. He " was entertained by the city and company with a chine " of beef, a grand dish of fowl, gammons of bacon, dried " tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c., and plenty of several! " sorts of wine. He gave <£20 in gold to the workmen. " The enterteynment was in a shedd, built and adorned on " purpose, upon the Scotish walke." . . . 42 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Now blessed reverse ! both business and burse Sick are no longer and sorry, For commerce again will be soon in her fane, The quintessence quite of a quarry I We post to-day to petition and pray The Crown, with sceptre and garter. Prancing in state with the cream-color'd eight, (And the more blue-ribbon'd the smarter!) With the Beef-eating chaps in their muffin caps, And the Guards in their helmets glist'ning, ^' The Guildhall Banquet on Lord Mayor's Day, 1850, was enlivened with much official tumbling. The vast re- fectory resounded with cheers and laughter as the minis- terial and judicial Joe Millers rang their satirical changes on Pope Pius and his Archbishop of Westminster. The following lyric, by the Laureat, (to the tune of " O, such a day,") arrived a little too late to be chanted in character (see " Tom Thumb") by the Lord * * * * Candlesticks with lighted wicks, Cardinal, and Crucifix, Pio Nono sends {pro bono!) with his papal BuU — That this, alas ! should come to pass — We're in a proper Pusey-">x.'" Of Pusey's ruses, heavy news ! is England's measure full. Soon here the Pope will (give him rope !) sit in pontiji- calibus, (His gouty toe John Bull, {grand sot!) devoutly ducking, shall he buss ?) More shocking still ! and have a grill of heretics (0 fie !) again, And bring us — what ? — a powder-plot, Guy's tinder-box, and Guy again ! DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 43 Will drive us poor cits fairly out of our wits By coming to honor the christ'ning. In pitiful plight for a feast and a sight Is each municipal member, He wants to go thro' a rehearsal or two Against the ninth of November ! '^ Lord (aside). That ever I should live, ha ! ha ! To hear an alderman sol fa. — Citizens, the Lord's Anointed Has commanded and appointed Altar, Chancel, (gracious powers!) strewn with fair and fragrant flowers — (In our noses every rose is Puseyite-perfume !) Anthems breathing (well-a-clay !) horrid, monkish, melody! (I'd rather now a Flemish frow hear warble " Buy a Broom /" Eome-ridden Denison, you don't deserve that benison. Reformation's toothy rations turtle soup and venison ! Pusey too, the same to you ! and all (God save Victoria!) Who say she's not (I'd have 'em shot !) the Church's upper story, ah ! O, Bishop Ullathorne (in the side of Bull a thorn !) Sent to fry us I post to Pius, varlet ! lead the van — (), Bishop Beverley (who thought to coax us cleverly I) Brush with Brother Brummagem as quickly as you can I Scarlet Tile, quit Britain's isle, or else (tile territorial To swallow up our " loving cup," our turbot and John Dory all !) Your owner will from Tower Hill to Pius at the Vatican Have soon to go to kiss his toe, if, minus head and hat, he can. 44 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. J, 73 Tom Thumb '^ to try his mimic power,' On royal ennui for an hour. Crowns, with high debate and discourse,'* Overdone, have taken this course. King Hal made much of mimes and mummers, His wag was Will, the famous Summers ; ^* It is a melancholy reflection that a tithe of what was lavished upon this "disgusting dwarf" (as "The Times" designated this Liliputian mountebank, in its eloquent la- ment on the death of Haydon) would have stood between genius and despair. Upon this sad subject we might pon- der tiU the mind " burst with thinking." To Sir Robert Peel belongs the deep consolation of having relieved Hay- don in his last extremity. The broken-hearted man ap- plied to a certain loosely -loquacious and " liberal "(!) Lord for pecimiary assistance, but in vain. The Prime Minister, harassed by the combined hostility of factious friends and place-hunting foes, found leisure for benevo- lence. He sent the applicant two hundred pounds, and received his dying benediction. It was only a few weeks before the death of Haydon that Uncle Timothy saw him in Paddington Church Yard reading the inscription (" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord ! ") on the tomb-stone of Siddons. To that friend he confided his many sorrows, and his mournful conviction that there was but one cure for them. " God ! — Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall leave behind me ? " he exclaimed, — Then, with a look and tone never to be forgotten, he added, " If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile. And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To teU my story," DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 45 Queen Bess, when sorrowful and sick, " Undurapish'd " was by Tarleton Dick I And Archee Armstrong^'' often burst The sides of good King Charles the First. These jesters of the ancient schools, Mark me, were " material " Fools, But a few paces from the grave of Siddons this once sensitive and too-finely-strung organisation " sleeps well ! " " Oh ! let him pass, he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer." '^ Very different were the " Merriments " of our English Tom Thumb, which " in the olde time have beene the only revivers of drousy age at midnight : old and young have with his tales chim'd mattens till the cocks crow in the morning ; batchelors and maides with his tales have com- passed the Christmas fire-blocke till the curfew bell rings candle out; the old shepheard and the young plow-boy, after their dayes labour, have carold out a Tale of Tom Thumbe to make them merry with : and who but little Tom hath made long nights seem short, and heavy toyles easie ? " — The Famous History of Tom Thumb. ''^ " Strain'd to the height. In that celestial colloquy sublime, Dazzled and spent^ sunk down, and sought repair." ^^ Archie came in gold most glorious to behold. Which made the people fall into laughter; Some men they stood by, when the Foole they did spie, Expecting many Lords to follow after." This was on the 11th of April, 1609, when King James I. accompanied by the Queen, the Prince, and a splendid retinue, gave the name of " Britain's Burse " to a rival Exchange at Durham House. . . Archee's annuity was 46 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Their quaint parlousness and patter Pregnant were with mind and matter, Their words were swords, their ready wit Shone brightest in their use of it ! Now this Merry-Andrew's greatest Merit is that he's the latest, Tho' judging from experience past, He is not Uke to be the last ! ''^ When the Imperial Presence from In state has strutted tiny Tom, I, your haterie de cuisine Will humbly lay before the Queen, And your dutiful petition For Her Majesty's commission. Touching this momentous measure You shall know the Sovereign's pleasure. \_Exit. Sir F*. . . . . Ye diplomatic spirits crown My head with laurels ! drop me down two shillings per day, as we learn from a very curious De- benture written in Latin, and now lying before us, of which the following is a translation, " To Archibald Armstrong^ for an Annuity, to wit at 2^ [ p . , -r>„i,^„+„^„ for the day for half a year ! r.io e u^ Debenture, endedatthefeastofthe Birth ^^^^ = ^ ^l of our Lord In the 1 0'^ year of the reign of King Charles.^ It is recorded 22nf LONDON. G3 •' Come sit thee down, my reverend gown," this holy doctor cry'd, " Thy sorry case will not disgrace, for this is Christ- mas tyde ! Ah ! cares he which is poor or rich whose Advent now we hail ? So thee I pledge to my goblet's edge, nor will good fellows fail 1 " His glass each took with kindly look in welcome to their cheer, " No Puritan," the singer said, "no Pharisee sits here ! " His heart rejoiced, his eye grew moist, his nose, too, in the light Of this carouse, out-blush'd the boughs with berries red and bright ! " Thy leather frock, thy ballad stock lend me," quoth the divine, " And I, poor knave ! will launch a stave with bet- ter luck than thine ; The peasant churls and village girls shall soon my pockets fill. While I sweet gentle Willy's wag Autolicus out- trill ! " His gown he slipp'd, away he tripp'd, and sang what once befell. In her despair, a maiden fair who loved, alas I too well : 64 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Soft tears he drew, and pennies too ! his next, a hvely strain, Made mirth abound, the laugh go round, and pen- nies fly again I They bid for more of lyric lore —his bunch had taken flight ! A L' Envoy them he chanted, '^Johnny Arm- strong's last Good Night" Then chirping ran to the ballad man, and made the pennies ring. And joyfully crew, " Be as rich as a Jew, and as happy too as a King ! " These Olden Times of ballad rhymes shall never more be seen, When if the wintry head was white, the heart, like spring, was green ! * The Bite noire of the worthy Knight. Socrates had his haunting demon ! 3 It is but repeating a remark of the ingenious Schlegel, that Shakespeare has not fallen into the vulgar error of painting his monks in knavish colors, to show his zeal for the new religion. His love of truth, and reverence for the guardians and depositaries of ancient learning forbade nim to repeat the common cant about ignorant and sloth- ful monks, while his enlarged humanity could walk by the light of his own faith without proscribing that of his ancestors. The monks introduced in Romeo and Juliet, in Much Ado about Nothing, and in Measure for Mea- sure, are employed in kind and beneficent offices. It was not necessary, because they had renounced the world for DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 65 Thou jocund priest, we hope at least, for all thy laughing leaven, That they who heard thee sing on earth now hear thee sing in heaven ! Sir P. Sinking in a soft siesta To be roused by such a guest — [Enter Musicia7i'] Ah I Goblin priest of Belial's brood,^ With bell, book, candle, sackcloth, hood ! What, fire and faggots ! come again To play fresh pranks in Pudding Lane ? Back to purgatory's oven. With horns, tail, and trotters cloven ! Mus. First a fool, and then a friar, Sometime jester, holy prior,'^ I, living, play'd my parts assign'd. And, dying, left my works behind — themselves, that they should retire to sullen seclusion, and, as regards doing good, renounce it for others. Besides we have reason to believe that Shakespeare regarded with no favorable eye the growing puritanism of the age, and its sanctimonious hypocrisy. Dr. Farmer points to a direct sarcasm against those precisians, " Who, for the penance which they do their tongues, Give ample license to their appetites — " in the Constable's account of Master Froth and the Clown : — " Precise villains they are, that I am sure of; and void of all profanation in the world, that good Christians ought to have." . . " The Fathers, Church Story, School- men," (says Selden) " all may pass for Popish Books, iiud if you take away them, what learning will you leave? F 66 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. What are they? ask the halt, the blind,* The sick, the helpless ! hence to school. And lesson learn of Friar and Fool ! O, what mumming, dancing, drumming, For six centuries hail'd the coming Of my Smithfield Saturnalia, Pomp grotesque and paraphernalia ! O, how laugh'd the City 'prentice, With delight non compos mentis ! To see march forth, in motley ranks. My giants,^ dwarfs, and mountebanks ! My porcine prodigies, in letters Not a bit behind their betters ! My hocus pocus sons of magic, My histrionics comic, tragic ! These Puritan Preachers, if they have any thing good, they have it out of Popish Books, tho' they will not ac- knowledge it, for fear of displeasing the people." . . . " It has been," says Dr. Johnson, " for many years, popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the Eomish Clergy ; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches, we may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by com- paring it with the fervid activity of those who suffer them to faU." ■» Father Rahere founded the Priory, Hospital, and Church of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, a. d. 1102. He is also the origin (without its abuses) of Bartholomew Fair * Giants are supposed to have existed on this planet. The ancient Greeks believed in them. Dr. Tytler, (vide Calcutta Mirror, March 23, 1820) states that in the bed of a river near Russun, he found the fossil remains of the first joint of a human finger twice the size of the joint of DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 67 How bumpkin gaped to see round whirl My Flying Cars ! my tumblers twirl I The blue flame thro' the nostrils curl Of my Fire-Kings I and my Bottle- Conjurer jump down his own throttle ! Age and youth in every booth, All that had a liquorish tooth Banquetted on dainty viand, Savory sausage,^ Farthing Pie, and Prime roast Pig ! ^ hot from the spit, Tempting, but ungodly bit ! How danced merrily mirth's many kin To the clinking of the canikin ! My penny ballads,^ a rare bunch I With lively portraitures of Punch, an ordinary man, whence the Doctor introduces an ergo that the subject must have been twelve feet high. . . . * Very different to those at the Roman Banquets, which were served upon gridirons of silver, with the rich gravy dripping through the bars upon a sauce of Syrian prunes and pomegranate berries ! . . . ' "A delicate show-pig, little Mistress, with shweet sauce, and crackling, like de bay-leaf i' de fire," cries Captain Whit to the Proctor's longing wife and her pu- ritanical party in Ben Jonson's Comedy of Bartholomew Fair. . . ' Aubrey mentions that his nurse could repeat the His- tory of England, from the Conquest to the time of Charles I. in Ballads. In Walton's Angler, Piscator having caught a chub, conducts Venator to an " honest alehouse where they would find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, twenty Ballads stuck about the wall," and the hostess " both cleanly and conveniently handsome." There they 68 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDO>f. And, in propria persona, Judy, his connubial crony ! To " Sellenger's " brisk, rattling' " Round," ' And " Packington's " old favorite " Pound," ^'' Were garnish to some goblin tale O'er roasted crabs and cakes and ale When winter, in his hoary dress, dine, and afterwards resume their sport, when Venator having caught a " gallant trout," mine hostess cooks it for their supper; then (joined by "brother Peter" and his friend) they have " a gentle touch at singing and drinking, but the last with moderation ; " they tell tales, or sing baUads, or make a catch," retire in good time to rest, and lie in sheets that smell of lavender ! Touching these " honest " alehouses of the olden time, what a meet- ing was that (" in the dangerous year 1655") between Walton and Bishop Sanderson " near to Little Britain," where the poor prelate, dressed in " sad-coloured clothes, and, God knows, far from costly, had been to buy a book which he then had in his hand." How (the two friends being loth to part !) they stood under a penthouse, " and immediately the wind rose, and the rain increased so much " that they I'epaired to a " cleanly house," and had " bread, cheese, ale, and a fire for " their ready money," and how much to the contentment of Izaac was their talk ! . Coleridge pronounced Pilgrim's Progress the next best book after the Bible. Uncle Timothy prefers to that high place the Book of Common Prayer, and puts (not irreverently,) Piscator on a par with the Pilgrim. When, vexed with " man's ingratitude," a hard thought has crossed his mind, the Angler, with his Aixadian beauty and cheerful piety, never failed to restore his spirit to its hopeful, happy tone, and make it at peace with the world. ^ A popular Country •Dance and Ballad tune. DEiMOCRlTUS IN LONDON. 69 Yet full of pleasant joyousness ! Gather'd round the blazino- inole Merry gossips, married, single ! Was St. Bartholomew his whims " To barter for capacious brims, And Mr. Mawworm's psalms and hymns ? For when did ever Simon Pure '» " Packington's Pound," says Whalley, " seems to have been at first a Country -Dance, — probably so styled from the inventor of it, — iu which the performers A\ere ' pounded'' or inclosed by each other." Nightingale, the Ballad-Singer, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, asks Cokes whether he shall sing his ballad to the tune of " Paggington's " (i. e. Packington's) " Pound." " The City Magnates have always been jealous of Bar- tholomew Fair, considering it, naturally enough ! as a formidable rival to their Lord Mayor's Show. During the Commonwealth, on a certain "August, foure and twentieth eve, being the day before the Apostolick Fayre." " Entring through Duck-lane at the Crowne, The soveraigne cit began to frowne. As if 't abated his renowne, the paint did so o'retop him, ' Downe with these dagons ! ' then quoth he, ' They out-brave my dayes regality ! ' Jove crop him ! ' rie have no puppet-playes," quoth he, 'The harmlesse-mirth displeaseth me.'" See an old ballad (no date) entitled " The Dao-onizino- of Bartholomew Fayre, caused through the Lord Maiors command for the battering doune the vanities of the Gen- tiles comprehended in Flag and Pole appertaynino- to Puppet-Play." .... 70 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Or crop-ear'd Jack,^- that saint demure! ^' (Grace, grimace, the greasy, godly ^^ Ne'er compounded were more oddly !) '^ See Hall's Loathsomnesse of Long Haire, 1653. Among the Harleian Manuscripts (No. 6396) is a Parody upon Carew's beautiful Song, " Ask me no more where Jove be- stows," called a Dialogue between Captain Long-haire and Alderman Short-haire, of which the following is a specimen. C. L. Ask me no more why I do waire My hair so far below myne eare : For the first man that e'er was made Did never know the Barber's trade. A. S. Ask me no more where all the day The foolish owle doth make her stay ; 'Tis in your locks, for, tak't from me. She thinks your haire an Ivy tree. C. L. Ask me no more why haire may be Th' expression of gentility ; 'Tis that which, being largely grown, Derives its pedigree from the Crown. '3 " That will not smell of sin, But seem as they were made of sanctity ! lleligion in their garments, and their hair Cut shorter than their eyebrows ! when the conscience Is vaster than the ocean, and devours More wretches than the covmters." . . — Beti Jonsou. "Nay," quoth the cock ; " but I beshrew us both, If I believe a saint upon his oath." — Dryden. There are moral virtues whose bloom will tolerate but very little breath. The more men talk about their virtue and their religion, the less they are likely to be believed. " Perpetual use of strong perfumes," (says Bishop Hall) " argues a guiltinesse of some un pleasing savour. The DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 71 With their sanctimonious visor Make this wicked world the wiser ? ^^ Sacrilegious and accurst, case is the same spiritually ; an over-glorious outside of Profession implyes some inward filthiness that would faine escape notice." '* " The holy page with horny fists was gall'd, And he was g-ifted most that loudest bawl'd." '* Williams, Bishop of Lincoln (temp. Charles I.) ask- ing Sir John Lambe " what sort of people these Puritans were ? " Sir John replied, " that to the world they seemed t(j be such as would not swear, wh — (?), or be drunk ; but they would lie, cozen, and deceive ; that they would fre- quently hear two sermons a-day, &c." Hume remarks, " that that sect was more averse to such irregularities as proceed from excess of gaiety and pleasure, than to those enormities which are most destructive to society." What says honest Izaac Walton ? " Of this party " (the Puritans) " there were many that were possessed of an high degree of spiritual wickedness ; I mean with an innate, restless, ra- dical pride and malice ; I mean not those lesser sins which are more visible and more properly carnal, and sins against a man's self, as gluttony, drunkenness, and the like — but sins of a higher nature, because more unlike to the nature of God, which is love, and mercy, and peace, and more like the devil, (who is no glutton, nor can be drunk, and yet is a devil) ; those wickednesses of malice and revenge, and opposition, and a complacence in working and behold- ing confusion. — Men whom pride and self-conceit had made to over-value their own wisdom and become pei'tina- cious, and to hold foolish and unmannerly disputes against those men which they ought to reverence, and those laws which they ought to obey." . . It was with the Puritan as with Paddy in the play, " 'Tisn't whether I tell a truth 72 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Tempting treason '" to its worst, They, thro' happy Britain prowling, Made her once a desert scowling, Hypocritical and howling ! ^'^ or a lie, but whether I tell a lie or a devil of a lie ! If I'm to get more kicks than coppers for telling the truth, of course I shall get more coppers than kicks for telling a lie ; so here goes for a thumper !".... '® The Scotch mercenaries, who had been brought into England to fight the battles of the rebellious Parliament, and the English army wei'e at this time (1647) crying out for their arrears of pay, which the sequestrations and compositions extorted from the royalists, the selling Irish lands, plundering the bishops' sees, &c. &c. were not suffi- cient to provide for without the excise tax, which, from its novelty and oppression, was particularly unpopular. The " bonny Blue-Caps " might therefore have marched home to their " gude oatmeale, long and short kale," as penniless as they marched from them, had not the lucky cir- cumstance of having King Charles in their keeping enabled them to make a bargain to deliver him up to the regicides. The price was fixed at two hundred thousand pounds, which is ludicrously recorded in an old ballad entitled '• The Poore Committee-Man's Accompt Avouched by Biitannicus." Aug. 26, 1647. This Britannicus was one Marchamont Nedham, or Needham, a Commonwealth pamphleteer, " a model of political prostitutes," as he has been very properly styled. He wrote " Mercurins Bri- tannicus,'' a Grub-Street republican weekly paper — after- wards " Mercu7-ius Pragmaticus," a royalist paper— and after that " Mercuvius Politicus," which was devoted to the protectorate ! This old ballad is exceedingly bitter against the northern marauders for their pride, " nastie pesti- lence," dissimulation and treason. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 73 Roll'd down Revolution's flood Her crown and sceptre, dripping blood ! On the red ruins of her throne Set up an idol of their own,^^ " And for the bnnny Blue-Cap, I we'll be so bold to tell him, Had he his gude King Charles againe, for siller he would sell him." '^ " Among wolves learn to howl,"— says the old pro- verb—Ay, and to steal too ! . . . . '* The " God-intoxicated man," as Thomas Carlyle calls him; or, according to the learned and witty Dr. South, and Thomas Jordan the City I'oet (much more rational authorities!) the "beggarly bankrupt fellow!" "The preaching, praying, perjured Oliver ! " Thomas Goodwin, Cromwell's favourite preacher, attended his death-bed. He believed that he had received intimation from the Spirit that Cromwell should recover ; and when his ex- pectation was not verified, on the Protector's death, he thus impiously addressed the Almighty, "Thou hast de- ceived us, and we are deceived." And another of Crom- well's disciples, Major-General Harrison, when about to pay the penalty of his treason, promised his dupes that he should rise again the third day, and his maid cleansed the house with much curiosity, expecting him the Tuesday, the day after his execution ! "If ever there was a spectacle to angels and to men, it was Cromwell in his last days, wandering from palace to palace — unable to retrace his path filled with blood and perfidy — wasting away, in the fever of the mind and the breaking down of the body— and haunted with the terrors of death." . . George Fox, the Quaker, meeting him riding in Hampton Court Park, "Je/t," (to use his own expressive language) as he drew near him, " a waft of death 74 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. And made her house of Sabbath rest For beasts a lair,'^ for owls a nest ! Witness altar, star-lit porch Sear'd and blacken'd by the torch I -" to go forth from him ! " And well he might ! for in a few days after the " Projector "(.'.') died The regicide Colonel Bond died a day or two before Cromwell, and it was universally reported that the Pro- tector was dead ; " No," said a gentleman, who knew bet- ter, " he has only given Bond to the Devil for his future appearance ! " '9 Poor Robin, in his " Merry Exploits," makes the fol- lowing sarcastic allusion to the Churches being turned into stables by the Puritans of Cromwell's time. " But lest he should take a surfeit with such ravishing delights," (viz. the Royal Exchange, Leadenhall, the Tower, and the Ships u-pon the Thames !) " his friends persuaded him to go to see the ancient Cathedral of St. Paul's, it being at that time made a horse guard by the soldiers ; which Poor Ro- bin beholding, ' What a blessed reformation,' quoth he, ' have we here ! for in our country we can scarce persuade men to go to church, but here come men and horses too! ' " This profanation was improved upon by the French Re- volutionists of 1793, who invaded the churches, dressed themselves in the sacerdotal vestments, violated the taber- nacles, and insulted God by sacrilegious parodies. In 1848 the disciples of Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just (" Vive ta liepubliqiie Democratiqiie et Sociule ! ") shot dead the Archbishop of Paris, who ventured on a mission of peace to them. . . 20 D'Isi-aeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, remarks that the Republicans of England, like those of France in the next century, were infected with a hatred of literature and the arts ; he asserts that the burning of the Records in the Tower was proposed, but that a speech from Sel- den battied the incendiaries. On another occasion he DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 73 Holy choirs where anthems peal'd,^^ Sparkhng shrines where pilgrims kneel'd, Roofless walls where ivy creeps, Tombs where mailed warrior sleeps,' 22 (Selden) defeated a proposition made to Parliament by Bradshaw to plunder the Universities. A " Visitation " was the cant word for Spoliation used by the Kegicides ! . Some say that some wliich colleges did found, Were wicked men ; I grant it may be so : But what are they which seek to pull them downs ? Are not these wicked builders, let me know ? How do times differ ? how are things discust ? For see their wicked do excell our just. Chrestoleres, Seven Bookes of Epigrames written by T. B. 1598. 2' The music of the Church should be broadly distin- guished from the music of the world. So spiritually ma- jestic, so serenely noble, so warmly devout ! The most art with the least ostentation. The Hallelujah, which is de- scribed by St. John in the Kevelations, to be the chant of the blessed angels ; (how electric is the solemn swell of the organ heaving forth these billows of triumphant sound !) the Gloria Patri ; the Trisagion, or, " Holy, Holy, Holy," from Isaiah vi., or as it was also used, and now is, in the Roman Church, " Sanctus Deus, Sanctus Fortis, Sanctus Immortalis ; " the jubilant and magnifi- cent Morning or Angelic Hymn, beginning with the words used by the Angels at the Nativity ; the Evening Hymn, beginning " Hail gladdening Light," preserved by St. Basil ; the Te Deum (beautifully expressive of praise and adoration !) and Luther's glorious Hymn, are masterpieces of ecclesiastical harmony. Calvin and Ivnox persecuted Music as a snare of the Evil One, and condemned it to perpetual degradation in their conventicles *' " I do love these ancient ruins. We never tread upon them but we set 76 DEMOORITUS IN LONDON. And pious memory sits and weeps ! Desecrated, rent asunder By — O, where was, Heaven ! thy thunder ? — Canting cut-throats, priests of pkmder I^"* Tears could not quench the burning brand,- Nor prayers compel the impious hand To leave to time his gentle duty 24 Our foot upon some reverend history : And, questionless, here in this open court. Which now lies naked to the injuries Of stormy weather, some men lie interr'd Lov'd the church so well, and gave so largely to 't, They thought it should have canopied their bones Till doom's-day." John Webster, 1623. 5^ The sacking of Basing House, the plunder and slaughter of its inhabitants were, according to Hugh Peters, " answers to the prayers, and trophies of the faith of some of God's servants." And John Knox has given what he calls "a merry narrative " of the murder of Cardinal Beatoim by the "ruffians of reformation." That Knox knew and applauded the scheme for the murder of David Rizzio " we fear," says Lord Mahon, " is proved by Mr. Tytler." No doubt it is! John found in the " Old Testament " certain injunctions to put idolaters to death ; hence he played the I'rotestant butcher among the Catholics with holy unction and ardor. A curious old Ballad entitled " Hugh Peters' last Will and Testament ; or the Haltering of the Divell." (Nov. 29, 1660) is preserved among the folio Broadsides, King's Pamphlets, Vol. 19. It thus refers to Goodwin's spiritual prophecy. . " Noll and the De'ele cop'd many a year. Till the date of 's indenture now grew near ; Sick, sick, sick, and the pains of hel Upon old Noll as a mortal fell : DEMOCRITUS IN LONDOK. 77 To touch them with sublimer beauty ! Eternal hope, and truth divine Had nor sanctuary nor shrine,^ And gentle charity, forth driven, Took back her homeward flight to heaven I — To school, to school Of Friar and Fool ! '•' Though his augurers told him he nere should dye, Yet there his prophet Goodwin did lye ; The dearest friends they say must part, So did Noll and the Divel with a heavy heart." ^* What learning, civilisation, or protection for help- less innocence would there have been in the middle ages had no monastic institutions existed ? Monasteries were " Cities of Refuge " to persecuted innocence and the falsely accused. If, as St. Augustin says, the Jews were the li- brarians of the old religion, the Monks, in the succeeding ages, were the librarians both of the old and the new. ^* " Let it simply be asked," says Washington, on tak- ing leave of public life, " where is the security for pro- perty, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice ? And let us with cau- tion indulge the supposition that morality can be main- tained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of relio-ious principle." ^ Stand upon the hill-side, and take a peep below — Four-and-twenty black coats all of a-row ! Each the " ReJ'armalion " cut, and yet alike are none : On greater contrariety never shone the sun ! 78 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. What you have received from heaven Freely give,^'' 'twas freely given ! Stand upon the hill-side, and listen to their brawl ; The furious fold how loud they scold, what naughty names they call ! " Rank Methodist!"—" Arminian '."—"Jack Presbyter!"— " Socinian ! " " Fat Pluralist with griping fist ! Old Mother Church's minion ! " Stand upon the hill-side — behold with what a leaven Of pious self-complacency each shows the way to heaven ! " M}^ path to bliss you cannot miss, the prospect lies before, " So you and I will enter by the Nonconformist-door." Stand upon the hill-side, and mark with what a fund Of promise points to Paradise the Pluralist rotund! " The wicket, true, to let us thro' must open very wide ; " The road is smooth to all, in sooth, who in their coaches ride ! " Stand upon the hill-side — no longer daggers drawn Are Low-Church and No Church with Lordly Sleeves of Lawn ; Say why the deuce this sudden truce ? how civil looks each sinner ! When fawners meet, the proverb says the devil goes to dinner ! Stand upon the hill-side^The brethren bellicose. Ah, woe betide ! have just espied yon Scarlet Hut and Hose ! They in the bright horizon Salvation's Symhol see, That every head may bow to, and bend may ev«ry knee Stand upon the hill side — in arrogant array The black-coated belligerents blaspheme, buffoon, and bray ; DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 79 And as you shall freely give, So shall you receive, and live ! . . . [E.vit. The Hat and Hose make all jocose ; but chiefl}^ at the Cross They shake their heads with bitter scorn, their ribald taunts they toss. Stand upon the hill-side — hark ! foremost of the pack, With leather lung and lying tongue bawls Presbyterian Jack ! To-day unlocks the devil Knox to prompt Jack's brazen ire, And in Satanic savagery the son outstrips the sire ! Stand upon the hill-side — i'fakins ! what a flood The Latitudinarian flings of foul fraternal mud ! And see a fierce/a;iatic, for tnie religion's sake ! Holds up his paw for gibbet-law, the thumb-screw, and the stake ! Stand upon the hill-side — with a plethoric groan, Brimful of soups, a Bishop stoops, and lifts a pond'rous stone Which, by your leave, he cannot heave — a little mudlark by Does, with a jerk, his dirty work, and makes the missile fly! Stand upon the hill-side — To hunt a brother down, Reformers say is this the way you win your heavenly crown ? Look up and view yon azure blue ye Christians but in name! Go put aside your passion, pride, and hide your heads for shame. Uncle Timothy. ^ The bounty of the rich is the chief, if not the only patrimony which God has assigned in this woi'ld to the poor. Aristotle, being reproached for giving alms to a bad man, answered, " I did not give it to the man, I gave 80 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Sir P. O, for the stocks ! the whipping-post ! To lay your ragamuffin ghost I Enter Postilion. Post. Chaise, your honors ! Pumpkin. Ha ! postihon, Now for music for the million ! Song, 3Ir. Pumpkin Plethoric. Better greased was never chin, Never body better lined, Warm without, and warm within, O, ye gods ! how I have dined. Drive to merry London town, Jockey I for the Mayor inquire, Set us at his mansion down, Ply the knocker ! pull the wire ! Dash along thro' thick and thin. Let your steeds outstrip the wind I Warm without, and warm within, O, ye gods I how I have dined. {^Exeunt Omnes. it to humanity." The History of Peru assures us, that the Incas, above all their titles, esteemed that the highest, which called them lovers of the poor . . . Yet what says that good Samaritan Joseph Hume ? " The tendency of charitable insiitulions is to increase the number of those who depend upon them for assistance, and to weaken the motives for prudence and economy in the lower classes." DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 81 Enter Host. I'm surrounded, I'm surrounded With confusion most confounded ! Hark I how my bottles, well-a-day I Are popping all their corks away ! How every bell with noisy chime To every knocker's keeping time ! See the room, chairs, tables, tapers, Round about me cutting capers To a jig that Hecat' pitches When at midnight dance the witches I Bully Boots, to show his breeding, Down the middle cook is leading ! While Waiter Will, i'feggs ! out-foots (To bouncing bar-maid buckled I) Boots I Windsor's wives pass merry lives, (Needs must when the devil drives !) Gods I some gallopading ghost is Frisking with my handsome hostess I What a shriek ! what a squeak I This is like a fairy freak Beldams, huddled round the blaze, Told the imps of ancient days I I'm surrounded! I'm surrounded With confusion most confounded I [Exit. 82 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Scene V. — The Mansion House. Enter Sir Peter Prolix, Mr. Pumpkin Plethoric, and Postilion. Time, Night. Sir P. AFTER not a pleasant drive Here we are again — alive ! Little thanks, my lad, are due To your horses, or to you. Whip and spur, gee up I gee ho ! Neck or nothing ! on they go — One a cob, and one a colt. Now they back, and now they bolt, Now they stumble, now they stop. Up they get, and down they drop I Staggers having done their worst To make the second like the first I Post. Remember, please your honors. — Sir P. Who? Post. The postilion — Sir P. So I do I Every socket, every sinew In my body — deuce is in you ! Every joint — you driving dog I Gives my memory a jog I Pumpkin. Your ramshackle team and tackle Creak have made my bones and crackle I DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 83 What warlock, wizard, did bewitch The hacks you did so smartly switch Over hedge and over ditch ? What invisible musician All the way, sans intermission, .(Like ten thousand jacks up-winding !) Kept his hurdy-gurdy grinding? Post. I've knocked up both the horses — Sir P. There ! — [ Gives him money. And now, my lad, knock up the Mayor ! The Scene closes. Scene VI. — A Chamber in the Mansion House. The Lord Mayor recliniyig on an ottoman. Enter Sir Peter Prolix and Mr. Pumpkin Plethoric. H Sir P. ARK ! how quickly can repose Make a bassoon of a Lord Mayor's nose ! Song, Sir Peter Prolix. Shake ! O shake off Somnus' power, Wake ! and break from your feather-bed bower, Dream no more of puddings and pies. Shut your mouth, and open your eyes. And lend us your ears for an hour ! 84 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Pumpkin. Never big-wigs,-* box'd in banco, Never Panza (sharp-set Sancho I) When the doctor talismanic Put him in a hungry panic, More unjolly look'd than Jupiter, Bending his black brow on you, Peter ! Lord M. Knight of Bow-Bells ! beware — Pumpkin Plethoric ! take care. And look how, like Hook,^^ you hoax London's Lord Mayor ! Song. Mr. PumpJcin Plethoric. A plague o' your Lordship ! why make such a pother ? "Worshipful Mayors, and aldermen too, To waddle and toddle from one feast to t'other Is all they are good for, and all they've to do ! '^ The Judicial wig, as a peg to hang jokes upon, has of late given place to the Cardinalitial hat. Let however wig and hat divide the crown. " The Wisdom " as the old song says, being in the one; the " Wisema7i," in the other, '9 Theodore Hook, assisted by a brother profligate and a playhouse punk, projected and perpetrated the famous Ber- ners Street Hoax in 1809, which reckoned among its many hundred dupes, a Prince of the Blood Eoyal, the Chairman of the East India Company , and the Lord Mayor of London ! It is sad to reflect that talents which, if worthily employed, might have earned for their possessor a fair fame, should have been prostituted to the low ambition of merely qua- lifying him for a practical joker and a table buffoon ! The Lords and Ladies who banqueted on his bon mots unkindly DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 85 Fresh from a cruise, We bring you rare news Well worth a Jew's eye, by Jingo ! a Jew's. Mirahile dictu, Ha ! ha ! we have trick 'd you — Sir Peter and I are the boys for a ruse ! Sir P. This morning, while some crowing cock Was vocalising seven o'clock, (Chanticleer's an early riser !) Pumpkin Plethoric and I, Sir, Business of importance brewing. Closeted, were up and doing. Plans completed to perfection, Confab over and refection, Soon our fiery coursers, lash'd By a liveried Phaeton, dash'd^" left their Jack Pudding to the tricks, shifts, and bitter reflections that beset ridiculously proud poverty ! Tricks and shifts which would have furnished fine food for the after-dinner jokes of the parvenu had they not been un- happily his own! Speaking of Tom Brown (a humorist that would have made a host of Hooks), Johnson says, " Brown was a man not deficient in literature, nor destitute of fancy, but he seems to have thought it the pinnacle of excellence to be a Merry Fellow, and therefore laid out his powers upon small jests or gross buffoonery, so that his performances have little intrinsic value." . . '" You have heard how Phaeton, Phcebus's hot-headed son, 86 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Without a trip, or tumble down Full gallop to fair Windsor town ! Bells loud bob and triple-majors, Recognising two old stagers I Rang from every tower and steeple, We were such important people ! The flag upon the Castle's summit Waved a welcome, every drum it Roll'd, the guns all prittled, prattled, And the cannons roar'd and rattled As we march'd thro' towers embattled ! ^^ Loy^d M. What provoked, Sir Peter Prolix, These your locomotive frolics? Sir P. My revered and royal Mistress I, to greet, had sported this dress ; (Claret-color'd coat and kerseys, For my humble homage hers is !) Girded sword on, mounted buckles, Drove the chariot of his sire, And would have set heaven, earth, on fire. But that Jupiter, to hinder Both from being one vast cinder Turn'd the Tyro into tinder, And into Po's pelhicid pool Down hurl'd him, hissing hot ! to cool. The Laureat. ^' Fancy's child Draw it mild ! — Ibid. '- " The commanding port, the chaste symmetry, and the magic form — for which not a tint was requisite, and DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 87 Frill'd and flounced my neck and knuckles — Yes, for her my occiput In these flowing locks I put ; (The Statue that enchants the world ^^ Boasts not a cranium better curl'dl) But (I in the deep Atlantic Wish'd the Showman and his Antic I) Barnum, that Janitor jocose To give the blue devils a dose ! Lord M. Quickly to the question come.^ Sir P. Had got the start of us, and Thumb ! Still a Lord the task of list'ning Undertook, to him the christ'ning I, with a respectful air, Introduced, and then my prayer That Her Majesty our Jubilee Would appoint a day to view Billy ! Lord M. In the land of Cakes (a country colouring would have been superfluous — of that unrivalled production of which the peerless grace, looking softer, though of marble, than the feathered snow ; and brightly radiant, though, like the sun, simply white, strike upon the mind rather than the eye, as an ideal representation of ethereal beauty." — Br. Bumey's description of Apollo Belvedere. ^^ " A tedious person," says Ben Jonson, " is one a man would leap a steeple from." — " Mon Dieu ! voyez Dumont ! II a dormi pendant deux sitcles! " cried Madame De Stael to Professor Drogg when he was preparing to begin a fresh Chapter in his drowsy Lecture. (A Doze of Two Ages !) 88 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Where the Doctor saw not one tree ! But where dropp'd in golden showers ^^ Choice perfumery, by the powers ! As thro' reeking wynds and closes He and Bozzy held their noses ! "Vowing that the fair Edina Out of all scents took the shine, ah !) To Lion's skin, his coat of mail. Red Sawney hangs the fox's tail ! Hence, for you that fragrant land Has labell'd in her large round hand ! City Solomon and Solon, My Lord Mayor a march you've stole on, You have improvised the prologue, Leaving him to go the whole hog. And to you and your abettor He remains a Rowland debtor ! First, to a head that holds a brain I shall commit the mise en scene. ^* " But to walk home at night is the most dangerous adventure, for then the chambermaids shower out the filth into the streets with such profusion, that a Scotchman might fancy himself at Edinburgh." — Robert Soutkey's Letter from Lisbon to Joseph Cuttle. 35 Words must be fitted to a Man's Slouth ; 'twas well said of the Fellow who was to make a Speech for my Lord Mayor, he desired to take measure of his Lordship's Mouth. Seidell's Table-talk. '^ The mock gravity and state with which this learned functionary presents the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs to the Cursitor Baron to perform their annual city farce of chop- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 89 Which must outshine the Pageants, yes, Of London to imperial Bess, When upon a city Progress Hither came the sceptred ogress ! Then our mouth -piece '^^ the Recorder,^^ Cudgelling his brains to order 1 Shall of putting make a point The nose of Cicero out of joint ! For the Abbot of Unreason, None but you my eye, Sir P's, on; You shall make us merry with Marrowy morsels full of pith ; Nothing better than a high jest Makes a hearty dinner c?*-gest" When of city lords and ladies There a monstrous grand parade is I To His Majesty the Mayor, Pumpkin, you shall be purveyor 1 Put petitions in our churches ping the sticks and counting the hobnails, and his pompous recitation of the burnished-up biography of these ephe- meral and inflated grandees are high burlesque. How the two Wigs contrive to keep their countenances during these ironical glorifications is a puzzle. When met augur augur wily- Brother leer'd at brother slyly ! When meets Cursitor Recorder Gravity gets out of order ! •^ Hence the ancient custom of introducing a Court Jeater at the King's table to set Royalty in a roar. . . 90 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. For the turtle bound to Birch's ! Let your banquet, not a comical Solecism gastronomical I In variety surpass All that was ever writ in Glasse ! ^* See that Bacchus pours in plenty Nectar for the cognoscenti, Supernaculum in sooth, Clear as crystal, strong as truth I Potato-brandy, log-wood-port Are only for the middling sort, Common-council men committees ^^ Who think the best wine is the City's I And in the gourmandising race Give naught the go-by but the grace ! I'll have the Guys of every Guild In the art and mystery drill'd Of etiquette, that courtly screen Betwixt a Quorum and a Queen ! Let Corporation Madam mind She leaves her city airs behind, (For those city airs and graces Easter Ball the proper place is !) Else will Royalty cry " These are 38 " The New Art of Cookery made plain and easy," by that culinary and courteous dame Hannah Glasse. . . 39 " Let me, as an old member give you, who are a young one, a little piece of advice. Never have any thing to do with the Corporation of the City of London. Its mem- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 91 Very cockneyfied and bi-zarre I " In prose or rhyme old Father Time I'll leave to tell the tale sublime How Magnus, mid his brethren all, Look'd like among the prophets Saul 1 How with rare majesty and grace He march'd behind the sword and mace, And Queen, Prince, Court, and all surprised With what his wit extemporised ! Our feast and show shall comme ilfaut Be — now good bye, Sirs, hon repos ! \_Exit. Pumpkin. Miracles will never cease, Foxes shall be turn'd to geese ! Quakers dance, that formal folk I a Clumsy reel or ponderous polka ! You, who give the thorogonimble To poor rogues that rig the thimble 1 Frighten petty knaves in grain With the rattling of your chain ! Dole them a collation hybrid, Between pump-water and dry bread I Luncheon lachrymose and lenten, Fit and proper to repent on ! You, so famed for deeds of arms bers are the greatest jobbers I have ever known in the whole course of my life." This was the advice that the Earl of Liverpool gave Lord Ellenborough when the latter noble- man, in a fit of youthful generosity, seemed not unwilling to attach himself to that apoplectic body, mental, corpo- real, and politic. 92 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. At Chalk and sundry other farms ! Doing, with the City Light Horse, Warlike wonders on your white horse ! You, Sir Peter, I'll be shot But I'm ashamed, if you are not I To let him look and talk us down, A fico for his cockney crown ! And not, Od's Triggers ! tickle him I Sir P. Toot I 'Twill be (daylight's coming soon) Better policy to shoot Not the Mayor — but the Moon I [JExeunt. Scene VII. — London Bridge. Enter Democritus. Democritus. TRICKSY spirit ! moonlight fay ! Melting in the mist away. Flitting by me, hovering nigh me, "Wherefore, frolic phantom I fly me ? If thou art a courteous sprite Keep me company to-night, While the stars above us shine Mingle sweet discourse with mine ; Merry 'tis when rides her noon Spirits meet beneath the moon I Puck. Ho ! ho ! ho ! Dem. That voice I know — DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 93 {Puck appears.)^'^ Robin's form, and Robin's crow I Special mischief I'll be bound Brings thee, Puck, from fairy ground. *" Robin Good-Fellow, or Puck, was (see " Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatorie, &c. 1588) "famozed in every old wives chronicle for his mad prankes." Anthony Munday, in his Comedy of" The Two Italian GentlemeJi,^' printed in 1584, styles him " Hob-goblin." In " Skialiheia or a Shu- dowe of Truth," 1598, he is thus introduced, " No ; let's esteeme opinion as she is, Fool's bawble, innovation's mistris, The Proteus, Robin-good-fellow of change." The fairy-father of Robin Good-Fellow was Oberon, to whom he is indebted for his Protean gifts, which, in " Ro- bin Good-Fellow, His mad Prankes, and Merry Jests, Full of Honest Mirth, and is a Fit Medicijie for Melancholy," 1639, are curiously enumerated. In Percy's '^ Reliques of Ancient Poetry" occurs the Bal- lad of " The Merry Prankes of Robin Goodfellow," and there is another production of a similar description, viz. a unique black letter history in verse, printed early in the seventeenth Century as a Chap-book, which shows whose son he was — how he carried himself — how he ran away from his mother — how he left his master the tailor — how Oberon told him he should be turned into what shape he could wish or desire — and how he proved the truth of his " mysterious skill," and played it off with whimsical effect upon those who deserved to be mischievously an- noyed by it Such was " Will the Wisp, " Robin Good-Fellow. Shakespeare adopted him, and put upon his head the crown of immortality ! 94 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Truant ! what a contrast this To thy balray bowers of bliss ! Thine the fragrant breath of Flora Offering incense to Aurora; Mine a reeking fume, alas I Of impurity and gas ; Thine 'the woodland's velvet green ; Crooked are my ways, unclean. Not thro' leafy groves and valleys, But long lanes and dark blind alleys I In thy fairy home and free, Thine the gurgling melody Of the rivulet, as along It ripples, and the joyous song To pastoral pipe that shepherds sing Coming forth to meet the spring ! With a serenade of sadness. Shouts of hollow mirth, and madness, Of houseless wretches the shrill cry Shivering beneath a wintry sky, And wet with icy dews distill'd By the cold moon, my ear is fill'd — Mournful music ! with affright ^' When, in the course of ages, this magnificent Forest is laid low, the poet of future times shall behold in imagi- nation Heme's Oak, associated with Falstaff and fairy re- velry ! ^^ There never was a merry World since the Fairies left Dancing, and the Parson left Conjuring. The opinion of the latter kept Thieves in awe, and did as much good in a Country as a Justice of Peace. . — Seidell's Table-Tulk, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 95 Startlinor the silence of the nioht ! Say, are Oberon, Titania, Bitten with thy rambling mania? Puck. Beneath the ancient forest-tree*' That sweetly-flowing Avon's Swan Set his glorious mark upon, While the Regent of the nio-ht Bathed the heavens in liquid light, To fairy measures, on the green, From magic lutes and harps unseen, I left them tripping merrily I *^ In whatever shape appear Spirits from their shadowy sphere They, with cunning speech and guise, Cannot cheat my ears and eyes. Not of swash-buckler the swagger Wedded to a wooden dagger, Nor, to boot, that motley suit With the Fool's regalia to't, Nor the speech so gravely spoken Puck, ho ! ho I can play a joke on ! Spirit 1 erst of the Acropolis,*^ Of Minerva the Metropolis ! " The city of Solon, Socrates, and Demosthenes; of Phocion, Plato, and Euripides— with its majestic Citadel and Temple — its marble columns still standing around the sunny heights of Hymettus— its plain divided by a scanty stream, and gray with olive groves — and, in the distance, the azure expanse of the ^gean sea ! . " On reaching Par- nassus," Dr. Clarke exclaims, " it is necessary to forget all that has preceded— all the travels of my life— all I ever 95 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDOX. Who in marriage bonds allied "Wit, and wisdom heavenly bride ! Jests right jocund quaintly brought From the solemn depths of thought, And made philosophic lips Redolent of cranks and quips ! Spirit, erst of that fair land Where beauty, terror, hand in hand, Breathe the sublime on Tempe's vale,** And honey-crowned Hymettus, hail ! If, as I expect, thy visit To our city is to quiz it, A raree-show to be rehearsed Shall soon provoke thy merriest burst. As a prologue to the laughter In good store for thee hereafter. Puck, the organ-grinding ghost, imagined — all I ever saw! Asia — Egypt — the Isles — Italy — the Alps — whatever you will ! Greece surpasses all ! Stupendous in its ruins ! — awful in its mountains ! — captivating in its vales — bewitching in its climate. No- thing ever equalled it — no pen can describe it — no pencil can pour tray it ! " . . . ** Euripides has given a fine description of this cele- brated valley, this " festival for the eyes ! " ^lian describes its beauty, and Livy its sublimity. The latter assures ns that when the Eoman army was marching over one of the passes, the soldiers were thrilled with horror at the awful appearance of the rocks, and the thundering noise of the cataracts ! *^ " He shall make songs in the night." The painful affliction of one dearly loved has, to Uncle Timothy, re- alised this divine promise : — DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 97 Puck, the jockey driving post, Drove, but now, two London cits Nearly out of their small wits ! Never wights were, to the letter, Taken in, and shaken better ! By a dismal, diabolic Diapason given the cholic — O, for such another frolic I Her mute vigils darkness keeps. All this mighty city sleeps, Save, where on the bed of anguish. Sickness, sorrow, lie and languish, On the fiery wheels of pain Travelling home to dust again I Or to heaven the secret prayer Pleads, and finds acceptance there,** Or a brother's purse and life Calm, composed, relieved and blest, Suffering nature sink to rest ! He who soothed thy throbbing brow, He shall watch thy slumbers now ! Not when earth is rock'd and riven Comes the " still, small voice" from heaven, Not when awful thunders shake Doth it holy silence break, But within the chamber, where Faith uphfts her fervent prayer. To hush the sigh and dry the tear We its heavenly music hear ! Even now the " still, small voice " Bids my fainting heart rejoice, H 98 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Tempt the prowling felon's knife ! Not this broad majestic stream With a moan the silence mars, Reflecting the moon's silver beam, Refulsrent with ten thousand stars ! It rushes onward to the sea, Like time into eternity ! Trophied domes and clustering spires, Storied windows, stately halls, Altars worthy of the fires Of faith and freedom I darkness palls ; In the beautiful serene They are shadows dimly seen. Not a footstep ! not a breath ! Nothing- walks abroad — but Death I Hark ! those deep and solemn chimes, Every tongue is still — but Time's ! ""^ Motley, would'st thou hear and see What midnight's made of ? Here's the Key ! Tho' I cannot, like the imp. That lame devil with the limp I And, by that sweet smile, I see. Words of hope is whispering thee ! ''^ ^VTiat is Time ? The question never Has been answer'd — Some have said Time's a river tlowing ever From the Eternal Fountain-Head. What is Time ? A fleeting phantom — What is Time ? A creeping snail — DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 99 Unroof first and second floor, I can open every door; Show thee whatsoe'er appears Fit for laughter, and for tears ; What, for pleasure and surprise, On the glittering surface lies ; What beneath a lurid light Shadows to the shuddering sight; Every secret, every sin That darkness hides and bolt bars in ! Follow, and with step as light As becomes the vagrant sprite On his rambles for the night I [Exeunt. Scene VIII. — Gluttons Hall. Alderman Calipash, recumbent. Enter Puck and Democritus. Puck. THERE reclines, but not reposes, Repletion on his bed of roses ! His short breath how hard it labors, Harder than his poorest neighbour's I Time is, what ? A quibble — Quantum ! Let Time tersely tell his tale. I'm, to men, what pain and pleasure Please to make me — Swift or slow They my steady march's measure Reckon by their weal or woe. — Uncle Tinwthii. 100 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Aid. (in his sleep). Encore 1 encore ! fresh bumpers pour ! Mr. Deputy, one cheer more ! Dem. Hark ! the tempest speaks aloud, Its voice is in the thunder-cloud ! Around its path blue lightnings play With fearful radiance ! (Three Spirits appear J) Who are they Whose glassy eyes with horror glare Upon that restless sleeper there ? Tell me, thou mysterious fay I Puck. Famine, Sickness and Despair ! Famine. To my faint and feeble cry What hath been thy rude reply ? " Depart ! and" (darkly frowning) " Die !" Sickness. When my palsied, feverish frame To thy pity urged my claim. What thy harsh response ? The same ! Despair. When my haggard sisters twain Into fury lash'd my brain, What thy antidote ? The Chain ! Spirits. Crush thy fellow, he shall turn — Bruise his spirit, it shall burn — If his blessing reach the skies, His curse hath wings as swift to rise ! DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 101 Sickness. Prosperity is not the school To mend the heart, blind Fortune's fool I The robe of Charity the storm Stripp'd not from the gracious form That meekly wore it, in the ray Of pleasant sunshine's cast away ! Gold within the furnace tried From the flame comes forth refined ; If adversity''^ betide It shall purify the mind ; Teaching, by its stern appeal, Hearts of adamant to feel ! Some, when only skies are clear, See of love the heavenly form ; Dwellers in a darker sphere. We behold it in the storm ! Hath His face the Father hidden ? We have borne as He hath bidden ; Sorely tried and sorely chidden, In His holy sight are we One iota less than thee ? " The air is not fuller of Meteors, than man's life is of miseries : but as we find that it is not a clear sky, but the clouds that drop fatness, as the hoiy Text tells us, so ad- versity is far more fertile than prosperity; it useth to water and mollify the heart, which is the centre of all our affections, and makes it produce excellent fruit ; whereas the glaring Sunshine of a continual prosperity would enharden and dry it up, and so make it barren. . . Epistola: Ho-Eliane, 102 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. What art thou that He should shower Superfluity and power ? They are but a sacred trust, Items for thy reckoning hour ! This thy trial, and, proud dust ! Which shall, at the trumpet's sound, Thou, or we be wanting found ? [ The Spirits vanish. Dem. See, a mist is gathering round us, Some new potent spell has bound us ! Puck. One of that unhappy number Whom despair will not let slumber, For a deed of darkness done Dies ere sets to-morrow's sun ! Bolts and bars may not withstand Fairy key in fairy hand. Tlie Scene changes to a Prison, the Gaoler, the Chaplain and the Poacher discovered. Chap. Thou hast bound him in his chain,"*^ And the law approves thy zeal. ^' Lordly sport ! are these your gains, Prisous, penance, gibbets, chains, Of remorseful tears a flood ? Princely pastime ! bought with blood ! Uncle Timoihii. " Time has been," said Sir Walter Scott to Captain Basil Hall, '' when I did shoot a great deal, but somehow DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 103 Having its sad wages ta'en, Fast to fetter, not to feel ! To thy pillow, I will share This hard pallet with despair. Tho' I cannot hope to heal. Haply I may soothe the smart With a tender, calm appeal To his bleeding, broken heart ! Hush the tempest of the mind. Heavenly truth shall entrance find ! Doth our cottage need repair, We select some season fair, Not unroof it to the high And whistling winds and wintry sky I For the erring heart's reform Choose the sunshine, not the storm I Puck. Prisons, hark ! like holy spires, Entertain celestial choirs. Anthem. Heavenly Father ! heavenly Friend ! O, vouchsafe Thy Presence ! send I never very much liked it. I was never quite at ease when I had knocked down my black-cock, and going to pick him up, he cast back his dying eye with a look of reproach. I don't affect to be more squeamish than my neighbours, — but I am not ashamed to say, that no practice ever reconciled me fully to the cruelty of the affair." . . . 104 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Pardon, peace — and let the morn Rise on a Spirit newly born I Lively Faith appear in power, Hope illumine this dark hour ! Weeping Penitence atone, And Mercy make the work thy own. Dem. Sad inheritance ! thine was made Thy Parents' guilt, and thou hast paid (Foredoom'd, forsaken, and forlorn 1) The penalty of being born.^'* Puck. In the valley passing thro' Mists make dim the traveller's view, Tree or tower or rising ground The far-distant prospect bound. 49 It Never to have been born, the wise man first Would wish ; and next, as soon as born, to die." Posidippus. Death man's punishment for sin ? That frees ! Or Life 1 that bars him in. To the Question " Which is strongest, Life or Death ? " put by Alexander to one of the ten Gymnosoplmts ; " Life,'' answered the philosopher, "because it bears so many- evils." And to another Question, " How long is it good for a man to live ? " he received from the Indian Sage this reply : " As long as he does not prefer death to life." Doctor Johnson, from a constitutional malady, but more from a devout sense of his own unworthiness, contem- plated death with terror. It was not the mercy of God that he doubted, it was himself Yet when the long- dreaded hour at last drew nigh, the Great Spirit, whom DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 105 But if he the mountain dimb Then the landscape grows sublime ! All its beauteous objects meet In fair order at his feet ! Thus if the soul divinely soar, This mortal film obscures no more ; Thro' the bright portals of the sky A glorious future meets the eye ! Yet, as the eagle's loftiest flight Alone can reach the Alpine height, All others of the feather'd race But fluttering round its awful base ! The spirit of a purer fire, Of aspirations holier, higher, Can only, tho' but faintly, scan The wondrous ways of God to man ! Justice holds the scales of heaven/" he had so zealously and reverently served, benignantly sustained him, and his death was as calm and as grand as that of Socrates. What vast aifections and generous sym- pathies ; what a treasury of knowledge ; what a mighty intellect died with that noble heart and brain ! The clos- ing scene of Addison was the Christian's victory over the grave. *" In the mysterious dispensations of Providence it is hard to recognise the hand of divine justice. We behold the unworthy prosperous and happy, and the good bowed down by adversity and sorrow. We see youth and inno- cence condemned to an unequal warfare with the world, and the undeserving favourite of fortune pampered, and fawned upon from the cradle to the grave ! The life that is lovely drops in the summer of its days ; but that whicli 106 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. And that thou this truth may'st see Undefiled with earthly leaven. Again I turn my magic Key! ( The Scene changes to the Chamber of Death.) Dem. What means this sepulchral gloom, And that white-robed seraph bending O'er a form with beauty blending Death's mute eloquence? on her lips Life lingers, and her cheek has bloom. Happy Spirit! she would seem Passing, in a heavenly dream, From this eclipse ! Puck. On a night of storms, from far is concentrated in self drags through a long winter of apathy and avarice! Are these evidences of eternal jus- tice ? If we have no belief in a better world we shall say they are not. — If we have we shall acknowledge they are. " These dark and seemingly cruel dispensations of Pro- vidence " (says Sterne) " often make the best of human hearts complain. Who can paint the distress of an af- fectionate mother, — made a widow in a moment, weeping in bitterness over a numerous, helpless, and fatherless off- spring ! God ! these are thy chastisements, and require (hard task!) apious acquiescence." " Man" (sings Burns) " was made to mourn." In the same beautiful Letter (already quoted) from Elizabeth Carter to Miss Highmore, is the following. " Without the hope of some final explanation how per- plexing would be the present view of the World ! A con- fused scene of inexplicable action, a melancholy prospect, closing in Doubts and Darkness. It is in the persuasion DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 107 Never pilot polar star More intently watch'd, than she A gallant bark that o'er the deep (The winds and waves were hush'd to sleep !) Rode in silent majesty ! The declining lamp of day Dipp'd in western clouds his ray, And beneath the waters roU'd A vast sea of living gold ! In heaven's blue concave rose serene The full-orb 'd moon — still, still intent On that far point her eyes she bent Round which the stately vessel steer'd, A shadowy speck I then disappear'd. And not till darkly changed the scene, of a future state alone that, amidst all its perturbation, the mind can fly for repose ; there every difficulty va- nishes, and there it rests assured of finding the unfinished Scheme complete where ' there is a time for every pur- pose and for every wish.' " All will be well — then we shall know (A marvel, and a mystery here) Why vice flaunts in the foremost row, And virtue drudges in the rear. Why sympathies too finely strung Are the world's bitter spoi-t, and why The teeming brain and tuneful tongue At war with fortune live and die. Let it be our prayer that Heaven may subdue every un- lawful affection, and subordinate every lawful one. Uncle Timothy. 108 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. And deepest gloom and blackest night Shut ocean from her aching sight, Did she, pensive, leave the shore. In dreams to hear loud tempests roar, And see wild waves ingulph the wreck ! — That gallant bark return'd no more ! Time it was her heart should break.^^ One lost, loved one on his pillow Sleeps beneath the angry billow ! ^^ The Seraph's Song. Trial is over, and triumph is thine. In vain hath the grave for the victory striven ; See yonder bright star thro' death's dark valley shine, A lamp to thy path that shall light thee to heaven. How beauteous this holy tranquillity deep ! Not a charm from thy brow the Destroyer hath driven ; ^' The mournful privilege to die was desired by Moses the meekest, and by Job the most patient of men. Listen to the Holy Psalmist. " O that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be at rest." ** " Oh, love ! exquisite delusion ! Captivating error ! From the moment the lips find pleasure in that word, till they lose the power of pronouncing it, the charm, the in- conceivable charm remains. — Whether cherished by the sunbeams of hope, or chilled by the dews of disappoint- ment." " So fades a summer cloud away ; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ; DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 109 So sweetly they smile and so calmly they sleep Whose ransom is paid and whose sins are forgiven ! Pucli. As the dew before the day The mournful vision melts away ! Darkness, silence, sisters twin. Their deep caves retire within. The cold, grey light of morning steals, The world once more will be on wheels ! To the universal scramble All will take their daily amble ! All, save one — Repletion's Son — His inglorious race is run ! ^^ Dreaming of his midnight orgies, Gloating, glutton ! o'er his gorges, With a strong convulsive heave His harsh, selfish ^^ soul took leave ! Sable plumes and velvet pall. So gently shuts the eye of day ; So dies a wave along the shore." *' "Oh indignant Reader ! think not his Life useless to Mankind ! Providence connived at his execrable De- signs, to give to After-ages a conspicuous Proof and Ex- ample, of how small Estimation is Exorbitant Wealth in the Sight of God, by his bestowing it on the most unworthy of all Mortals. — Dr. ArbuthnoVs Epitaph on Francis Charlres. *'' Some there are who sow to reap. And for Self more dross to heap ; Some who only live to sow Harvests that for others grow ! Pope, writing to Ralph Allen in 1736, says, " I am now as busy planting for myself as I was lately in planting for no DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Mutes and mourners,^^ hirelings all ! In funeral pride shall slowly ride, But where will be the heavenly guide ? ^ ( The Scene changes to Windsor Forest.) What a landscape smiles around ! Looks it not enchanted ground ? Happy homestead, fruitful soil Paying back the peasant's toil ! Cheerful hamlet, playful steeds, another; and I thank God for every wet day and for every fog that gives me the head-ache, but prospers my works. They will outlive me, but I am pleased to think my trees will afford fruit and shade to others, when I shall want them no more. And it is no sort of grief to me that those others will not be things of my poor body ; but it is enough that they are creatures of the same species, and made by the same hand that made me ! " *5 It was the custom in Popish times to give bread and money to all manner of persons, without distinction, who came to assist at the funeral of a deceased neighbour ; and this in order to engage them to pray the more heartily for the soul of the defunct. Rich men's funerals are now otherwise managed. There is an abundance of persons on horse, a crowd of coaches and pretended mourners, a deal of pomp and pageantry almost without end ; all which does neither the poor nor themselves any good at all ; but rarely any dole, in which I think (though I am no papist) the money were far better bestowed." — Peck. *6 No star to steer by, at the helm No pilot o'er the watery realm, Heavy laden, tempest-tost. Shall his bark be saved or lost ? Uncle Timothy. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Ill Flocks and herds in flowery meads Disporting, and the hound the hare Pursuing to its secret lair I Welconie Windsor's proud alcoves, Forest, woodlands, glades and groves ! Winding river, on whose bright Calm, clear bosom lives in light The mirror'd landscape 1 by whose stream Sits musing on some thoughtful theme The pensive angler ! ^^ classic shore,^* *7 The Angler's Sokg. " Study to be quiet, "—Life Is not worth this toil and strife, Down the cool and shady side Of its streamlet calmly glide. Leave disputes to crabbed schools, Politics to faction's fools, High ambition to the bold, And wealth to him whose God is gold ! How beautifully morning breaks On the far-distant hills and lakes ! How, tinted by Aurora's hand. The lovely landscape does expand ! A southern breeze, a gentle beam Just curls and lights the limpid stream, Yon cowslip bank, sweet odour flings. And blithly, hark ! the blackbird sings. Come, and be the Angle plied, Carking care shall soon subside, And the day, ere set of sun, By tranquillity be won. 112 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. The Muses' favourite haunts of yore, And still where pure ennobHng thought Is to the young aspirant taught ! ■'^ Stern-brow'd Castle ! dauntless ! hoar ! In feudal grandeur that has frown' d For ages I and with memories crown'd Awe-inspiring and profound ! The bubbling stream is all alive ! Come, and with its myriads strive ; Quickly ! quickly ! scholar mine. Bait thy hook, and drop thy line. While tempts the finny tribe thy lure (The Angler's only guile, be sure !) Some Knightly Geste or Minstrel-Lay Shall charm till dies the golden day. A gallant trout that leap'd the Lea Shall our evening banquet be. And then a cheerful cup or two While glow the stars, and drops the dew. Our carols sung, our pillows press'd, To guardian powers we'll leave the rest. And making Heaven our grateful theme, Securely sleep, and sweetly dream ! And when is changed (life's journey trod) For Pilgrim's Staff the Angler's Rod, Peace, white-robed seraph ! shall attend Thro' death's dark vale her earthly friend. Uncle Timothif. " "Floi-eat Etona!" ^^ It is a vulgar error that Literature is incompatible with less intellectual pursuits. " Prior,'' writes Swift in his Journal to Stella, " hates his Commission of the Cus- toms because it spoils his wit. He says he dreams of no- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 113 Welcome yon bright orb I behold He tips its antique towers with gold ! Minaret and village spire Glow with his celestial fire I Temples for divinest duty, Types of holiness and beauty,®" Uprising in the solar ray, thing but cockets, and dockets, and drawbacks, and other jargon words of the Custom-House." This is affectation. Prior's was an easy and gentleman-like employment, with a very liberal remuneration. What a contrast to the ill- paid drudgery that broke the heart of Burns ! " Let po- etry be your staff, not your crutch," said Sir Walter Scott. As the sole means of providing for the day that is passing, Literature is indeed a painful calling ! its success depending more on public caprice than desert ; the popular idol being too often as worthless as he is ephemeral. Li- terature, without the healthful excitement of active em- ployment, produces bodily lassitude and mental depression. Was Cowley contented at his classic retii-ement at Chert- sey ? Was Shenstone happy at his lovely Leasowes ? Coleridge regretted that he had no pursuit but poetry and philosophy. The bustle of the world (not its turmoil and selfishness !) braces the mind after an interval of study, as the quiet of the closet strengthens it for renewed exer- tion. However men may affect to hold cheap the intellec- tual world, it is there only that the truly noble can enjoy communion with kindred spirits. But this high privilege demands some grosser sacrifices. To postpone a sensual pleasure is the first step towards its abandonment. We sow resignation, and we reap content. Difficulty is the condition of success. We must learn " To scorn delights, and live laborious days." ^ " Should the beauties of Architecture be nesrlected in 114 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Like pinnacles of flame are they ! Welcome too the babbhng hum Of busy men ! ^^ the distant drum The trumpet answering I and of morn The merry bells ! the huntsman's horn Thro' the hills and vales resounding ! And the stag majestic bounding ! And of birds the tuneful voices ; Nature smiles and man rejoices, Earth is paradise to view, Heaven one deep unclouded blue, A vast scroll serenely bright Writ in characters of light I As morning's bright and orient dews That gem the flowers, reflect their hues, Churches ? As monuments of piety, places of meeting for the holiest purposes, as places where the symbols of Christ's body and blood were given to the people, they should bear on their front such a stamp of beauty, that every one might say. Surely this is the House of God ! My opinion is, that it could not but be displeasing to the Almighty that so little should be expended for His service, and so much for worldly magnificence — even for the pageantry of a day .'"—The Bishop of London's Sermon at the re-opening of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, Sunday, January 5, 1851. *' Wherever light shines, there must be an eye to wel- come it ;~wherever air expands, there must be beings to breathe it ; wherever heat vivifies, there must be life to be revived. Every where is matter^every where is light — and every where must be life. Life animal to enjoy God's bounty; life intellectual to expound his wis':'om; and lii' m iral to love and to fear his name DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 115 From each scene my spirit borrows Something of its joys and sorrows ! Thus, oft-times, to temper folly, Come will pensive melancholy,^^ Re-enthroning in their shrine Golden thoughts and themes divine. Which, unto the wise and good, Make a heaven of solitude I^^ Part we, till another greeting Welcome in a merrier meeting. \_Exeunt. ^- " Les images du bonheur )ions plaisent, mais celles du malheur nous instntisent." — Paul et Virsfinie. ^' Scipio Africanus used to say, " that he never was less idle than when idle ; nor ever less alone than when alone." If ever solitude be the " nurse of woe" it is when we bring into it an unforgiving, restless, and repining spirit. A spirit for which the past has no grateful remembrances, the present no intellectual enjoyments, the future no lively hope ! . . " It is in solitude, in exile, and on the bed of death," says Pope, " that the noblest characters of anti- quity shone with the greatest splendor ; it was then they performed the greatest services ; for it was during those periods that they became useful examples to the rest of mankind." . . 116 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Scene XII.— Mercers Hall. The Master of the Mercer s Company, and the New Royal Exchange Committee at their des- sert and wine. Mr. PximpMn Plethoric in the Chair. Song, Mr. PumpMn Plethoric. JOLLY Queen Bess had an appetite stout, Her Majesty too was a great diner-out, Tiie court and the city, the country and town Found it no joke entertaining the Crown I" " " When the Queen," says Warton, " paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit to the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy-chamber by Mercury. Even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select transformations of Ovid's metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary : and the splendid iceing of an immense historic plum-cake, was embossed with a delicious basso- relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was co- vered with Tritons and Nereids : the pages of the family were converted into Wood-nymphs, who peeped from every bower : and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs."— And all this foolery for a whimsical woman in the post-meridian of her fading beauty ! . . 65 a The Queen " {In lionne femme avec le chapeau rouge ! as King James addressed her) " is on very good terms with you " (writes Sir Walter Raleigh to the Earl of Lei- cester) " and, thanks be God, well pacified, and you are ao-ain her ' Sweet Robin.' "... Her Majesty's manifesta- tions of wrath were not always dignified or even decent. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 117 With Robin, " sweet Robin l"^ and Burghley«« and Bacon Her mutton the Queen had alternately taken ; And fearing the cits might with jealousy burn, She promised to give Thomas Gresham^^ a turn ! A merchant was he of princely degree, With gold in his coffers and ships on the sea. So, gamesome and gay, on a Michaelmas day She rode, with his good things old gooseberry to play! "I do remember" (says Sir John Harrington) "she spit on Sir Mathew's fringed clothe, and said, ' The foole's wit was gone to ragges ! ' Heaven spare me from such gibing." And whenever Her Grace was about to perform some new act of tyranny, she gave her opinion throuo-h the medium of the preachers, which she called " tu7iing the pulpits ! " '^ Elizabeth had a fancy for nicknaming her familiars. Burghley was her "spirit;" Hatton her "eyelids;" Whitgift her "black husband;" Francis Bacon her "young Lord Chancellor;" Walsingham her "moon;" and she addressed Lord Mountjoy, then her deputy in Ireland, as " mistress kitchen-maid ! " — Cotton MS. Titus C. vii. fo. 123. w The " walks in Paules," (where Falstaff" bought Bar- dolph !) and the Royal Exchange were much resorted to by idlers in ancient days. Hayman, in his Qiwdlibets, 1628, has the following epigram to Sir Pierce Pennilesse : " Though little coin thy purseless pockets line, Yet with great company thou'rt taken up ; For often with Duke Humfray thou dost dine, And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup." 118 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Her silk (the fine girl's I) was powder'd with pearls,*** And crown'd was her wig, with its carroty curls ! Her fan was of feathers, her collar of gold ; She sparkled like Sheba's proud sovereign of old I Her ruif was of lace, and as to her face, Time had. made very free with Her Majesty's Gi'ace ! Her teeth had fall'n out and her cheeks had fall'n in While bringing together her nose and her chin I As Bow's merry bell hailed the pious Pucelle, Deep toll'd in her ear Mary's last dying knell ! Her pulse it beat quick and her heart it grew sick, And Essex, her pet, in his neck felt a crick I The halt and the blind, the crooked inclined. All who a hump had before or behind. Were put out of sight lest Her Majesty might Than her own royal self see a still greater fright ! *'' *^ Queen Elizabeth threatened to send Bishop Aylmer to heaven without a staff and a mantle if he preached any more against female vanity in dress ! . . . *^ A portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Mark Garrard in the Hampton Court Gallery represents her as a bedizened old beldame, gorgeous and ghastly ! Neither her picture, as a young girl, by Holbein ■, nor that, in middle age, by DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 119 Bareheaded and cropp'd, Sir Thomas he dropp'd On his dutiful knees when the cavalcade stopp'd, Sir Walter his gown for a carpet threw down, Her Grace gave a smile and her Favorite a frown ! The banquet was rare with the choicest of fare, The fish of the sea and the fowls of the air ; Old English Roast Beef was a lion let loose, But the lion of all was a Michaelmas Goose ! In spring it had been a gosling and green, But autumn had fatten'd it up for the Queen ! 'Twas barley and barm from Sir Thomas's farm, Stufif'd to a miracle ! done to a charm ! Quoth the Queen, '•'•Cock and Pie!'"^ we'll a merry- thought try — " Next off-hopp'd a leg, then two wings took a fly ! And she swore in plain prose the episcopal nose Her banquet should bring to an orthodox close ! In the silver tureen was no apple-sauce seen. And the ghost of the Goose look'd aghast at the Queen ! Zucchero (in the same gallery), justify the absurd flattery of her courtiers, and the ballad-mongers of her time. . . '"' A popular and profane adjuration of the time. See Henry IV. Part 2: The Merry Wives nf Windsor : Soliman and Perseda, 1399: Wily Beguiled, 1606: The Two angry Women of Abingdon, 1599: &c. &c. 120 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Then after a toast, just to keep down the roast ! Her Grace thus proclaim'd to her citizen host. " Now hear our command ! at the feast of St. Michael Let true loving lieges henceforth do the like all; In memory of this, be their banquet for aye A Royal Roast Goose upon Michaelmas day ! " Master. Let each member take his heeltap — Now a sparkling bottle we'll tap ! Charge — the Chair ! for festive gaiety Quite a pattern to the laity I Not forgetting — hip ! — {sub rosa) Placens uxor ! cara sposa. Pumpkin. Citizens 1 your art and mystery (Never root or branch of this tree May reforming hatchet sever, Live to eat and drink for ever ! And be never your digestive ^' It was a custom among the Romans to exhibit at their epicurean banquets a small image of a skeleton to remind them of the uncertainty of life, and to stimulate them to enjoy it. '^ The reason why (ourselves between) Mankind are all so jolly green ! Quoth The Lattreat. 73 a If you tell them" (i.e. the drunkards) " how in former ages their forefathers drank water, they swear water is the frogs' drink, and ordained only for the driving of mills, and carrying of boats." — Feacham's Seven Deadly Sins. 1634. DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 121 Organs out of order, restive !) Chiefly lies in making cheer For yourselves throughout the year, And passing round the " loving cup," An art to which you all are up ! No important motion passes At this board o'er empty glasses ; Legislation (hang your drops !) Always with the bottle stops ; Little doubt a bumper bright Puts things in the clearest light, Hence, half measures you dechne Both in politics and wine. Bacchanalians, in your glory. You need no memento mori"^^ To croak " Alas I all flesh is grass,'- So boys the bottle briskly pass ! " You are not the men, in sooth, In a well to fish^'^ for truth, When (in vino Veritas''^) ^■* The Virtue of Wine. Sir Thomas More, when Embassador to the Emperor from Henry the Eighth, on the morning he was to have his audience, knowing the virtue of wine, ordered his ser- vant to bring him a good large glass of sack, and having drank that, called for another. The servant with officious ignorance would have dissuaded him from it, but in vain ; the Embassador drank off the second, and demanded a third which he likewise drank off. Insisting on a fourth, he was overpersuaded by his servant and let it alone. So he went to his Audience. But returning home again he called for his servant, and threatening him with his cane, 122 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. You have got it in your glass ! Above Roman" fame and Grecian Is your banquet for repletion. How would Kitchiner "^ his eyes up Turn with rapture, could he rise up ! Turtle (every present man, Sir, Has for three good pints to answer, Percolating thro' his system, How the deuce could he resist 'em ?) More decidedly delicious " You rogue," said he, " what mischief have you done me ; I spoke so well to the Emperor on the inspiration of those three glasses that I drank, that he told me I was fit to govern three parts of the world : Now, you dog, if I had drunk the fourth glass, I had been fit to govern All the world!" ^^ Had the Chairman ever read the Fifth Satire of Ju- venal ? The dishes of the ancients outdid even the dainty promises made by Sir Epicure Mammon to inflame the supposed ambition of Doll. " We will eat mullets Soused in high country wines, sup pheasants' eggs, And have our cockles boil'd in silver shells." The following is a curious picture. " Richard the Second had in his kechj'n of Cokes, under- cokes, tume broches and other seruytures, thre hundred. Also of Ladyes, gentylwomen, chamberers, and launderers thre hundred. And many Bysshoppes and Clarkes of Sundry nacions, the Yomen and gromes aparayled in saten and damaske." " Of all gases," cries the citizen, " gas- tronomy for my money ! " This sentiment the Civic Majesty of York illus- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 123 Never palated Apicius I " Of your punch, that prime liqueur ! Bacchus must have been the brewer, 'Twould make a gentleman, I swear, Masticate son propre pere! In your sherry, pale and brown, A Duke might be content to drown ! Visitors would very far go Ere they match'd your chateau margaux I Your Rudesheiraer (luscious tears trated in his grand " Exhibition" Banquet given to Prince Albert, tiie Lord Mayor of London, and a muster of Mayors from all parts of England on the 25th October, 1850. One Dish, to which turtle, ortolans, and other rich denizens of sea and land had contributed, cost One hundred pounds .' "® Dr. Kitchiner was famous for his Saturday dinners, to which none but the learned in luxurious living were invited. On the chimney -glass in his refectory was posted the following notice, " Come at seven. Go at eleven." Colman (the Junior George !) once gave to the distich, by the clandestine interpolation of a little pronoun, quite an opposite meaning. Viz. "Go (it!) at eleven!" ''"' By the aid of Caelius Apicius de re Culinaria — Pla- tina, de tuenda valetudine— and Paulus ^gineta de facul- tatibus Alimentorum, Albano Torino interpret*, a good idea may be formed of the Italian Cookery of the middle ages, and a comparison of it with that of the ancient Greeks. . , 124 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. That flow'd for Charlemagne ''^ and his peers ! The nectar of a thousand years ! ) Exquisitely soft and sunny, Rivals Hybla for its honey ! Your port has got the beeswing in't, Your champagne the true opal tint, Your hock, bright, mellow ! tells the tun From which it rippled was A 1 ! That such feast should have a finis, Mercers, your lament and mine is ! ^* Charlemagne observing from the window of his pa- lace at Ingelheim, says an old legend, that the snow dis- appeared from the bluff above Rudesheim earlier than from any other of the neighbouring hills, caused the same to be planted with vines. And here are the progeny of these very vines to the present hour. ^' How charming is the description of the festive nights spent at Will's Coffee House, when the most famous wits of the time assembled round the particular chair of Dry- don (placed for him by the warm chimney corner in win- ter and near the cool balcony in summer !) to listen and to learn. " The discourse was neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and for the most part instruc- tive ; the raillery neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious upon the absent ; and the cups such only as raised the conversation of the night without disturbing the business of the morrow." ='' Hear the festivous Reformer! His distich has be- come a proverb in Germany. . . " Wer nicht liebt wein, weiber, und gesang, Der bleibt ein naar sein le benlang." Who loves not women, wine, and song Will be a fool his lifetime long ! . . DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 125 Old Simposiarchs I with brevity, Health I wish you and longevity ; Wit and wine,"^ when ruled by reason, Never can be out of season ; To the which (not Bacchi plenus !) Martin Luther ^'^ buckles Venus. Socrates,®^ of sages veriest, Was of merry men the merriest ; Judged by his facetious prose if, What a wag was Miller Joseph I ^- The Reformer of Wittenberg had an eye for beauty in nature and in art, and an ear for music and poetry. For his brother of Geneva the far-famed Lake and the glaciers of Savoy and Mont Blanc, that he looked upon from the window of his study had no charms ! . . ^' Plato says, harshly, " The outside of Socrates was that of a Satyr and buffoon." Socrates knew the value of mirth. " This " (see The Knight of the Burning Pestle) " is that keeps life and soul together, mirth ! This is the philosopher's stone that they write so much on, that keeps a man ever young." ^' How oddly persons and things become associated and synonymous! A Watch, in Colley Gibber's time, was called a " Tompion," after its modish maker. The " Eum- ford " stove derived its name from the mechanical Gount its inventor; the "Spencer,"' from the maccaroni whom it originally buttoned up ; the " Brutus," from the Ro- man conspirator; the "Cavendish Scratch," from the Patrician pate upon which it first perched : the " Tyburn Bob " from the locality of the triple tree ; the " Joliffe " hat, from a modern Nimrod of notoriety ; the " Brouo-ham " from an eccentric ex-Ghancellor ; and " Wellino-tons," (breeches and boots) from the warrior of Waterloo ! *' Bil- lingsgate" is a language peculiar to those polite purlieus. 126 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. To gladden every mother's son And give a fillip to our fun, That it flow a little faster, Something comic from the Master ! Song, The Master. Three Tooley Street Tailors presuming, pretending We have "Dog-Latin," and " St. Giles's Greek." " Dog- cheap,'' and "Cheap as dirt !" "Cymon " is a soubriquet for a too bashful lover, and " Pump '' for a Solomon upon whom every body imposes. " Jack Ketch " shall be the hangman for all time. We have " JEolian " harps ; "Pandean" pipes ; " St. Vitus's" dance; the " Scotch " fiddle; " Bacchana- lian" songs; " Pindaric *' odes ; " Ciceronian" eloquence ; " Hudibrastic " verse ; " Job's " patience ; " Job's " com- forter; " Hobson's " choice ; " Briareus's " hands ; "Mi- das's " ears ; " Argus's " eyes ; Eyes, '' wall," " gimlet," and " gooseberry ! " " Garagantua's " mouth ; " Bar- dolph's " nose ; noses, " brandy " and " bottle !" a " blind " alley; a "lame" story; a voice of " Stentor ; " and a dinner with " Duke Humphrey ! " Blacking, out of com- pliment to its compounders, is denominated " Day and Martin ; " which name has also been appropriately given to a particular sort of Port Wine. That sober liquid called " Adam's Ale " owes its patronymic to the First Man. We say a man has a " game" leg, " bird-hme " fingers, a " calf's " head, " pigeon " toes, " carroty " hair, and a "pot" belly! That he is as tall as a "steeple," as fat as a " pig," as tired as a " horse," as fierce as a " Hon," as silly as a " goose," as stiff as a "poker," as busy as b " bee," as drunk as a " fiddler," as sly as a " fox," as rude as a " bear," as mischievous as a "mon- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 1:27 The State, like an old pair of breeks, wanted mending, At the *' Thimble and Shears " (three cross-legged seers !) Drew up this address from the plebs to the peers. fVe, the people of England ! (three Tailors ! ) imprimis, key," as deaf as a " post," as blind as a " bat," as mute as a " mackerel," as mad as a " March hare," as wgly as " sin," as queer as " Dick's hatband," and as dead as a "wall ! " To be out of spirits is to be in for 'em — the " Blue Devils," to wit ! Every joke, good or bad, is a Joe Miller. Certain names were originally derived from lo- calities. Bottom (signifying a low ground or vaUey) gave rise to the Longbottoms, Sidebottoms, Ramsbottoms, and Shufflebottoms (shaw-fieldbottom). Higginbottom and Bombgarson are corruptions of the German Ickenbaum, an oak-tree, and of another word meaning tree-garden. The ancient Romans had their Plauti,Pandi, Vari, Scauri, and Tuditani, (the Splay-foots, the Bandy-legs, the In- knees, the Club-foots, and the Hammer-heads!) as we have our Crookshanks, Longshanks, Sheepshanks, Great- head, &c. The Fahii derived their name from being e.\- cellent bean-growers ; and the Pisones from their profi- ciency in the cultivation of peas. The Suilli boasted an illustrious swine-herd for their ancestor, the Bubulci a cow herd, and the Porci a hog-butcher ! Strabo is Mr. Squintum Naso (Ovid) Mr. Bignose, and the propraetor Publius Mr Snubnoie! Among the modern Italians occur the follow ing elegant names, Malatesta, chuckle-headed ; Boccani gras, black-muzzled! Porcina, a hog ; and Gozzi, chubby- chops! . . . 128 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Proclaim for equality now come the time is, Like Citizen Phil and his brave sans culottes, We mean to take measures for cutting your throats ! Our will shall be law, and our sovereign the people, A king's but a crown, and a church but a steeple! And when not a stone stands of altar and throne, What's ifouvs shall be tnine, Sirs, and what's mine, ray own ! The King and the Queen peeping thro' shall be seen Our " national window," a French guillotine ! At every lamp-post when TVe rule the roast. Shall some proud aristocrat give up the ghost ! " They bid mine host bring 'em (three Tailors from Tooley !) A bowl of hot punch, which he did — the more fool he!— In riot and rumpus these radical railers Grew out of all compass — three Tooley Street Tailors ! " Let the following he recorded in honor of the Tai- lors! " There is a Proverb which has been of old, And many men have likevv^ise been so bold, To the discredit of the Ta lor's Trade, Nine Taiilors goe to make up a man, they said. But for their credit I'll unriddle it t'ye : A Draper once feU into povertie, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 129 Quoth Boniface, " Pardon ! I keep no Bear Garden." The Liberty Boys roar' d^^Ve don tear e afar de7i/ Cut and come again now is the popular strain." Cried mine host "You shall cut, but you sha'n't come again ! " Three Tailors are not worth powder and shot, But when you thrice three ^ shall together have got I'll first, nothing loth, tackle one of you, troth, Then run and fetch nine more, and I'll baste you BOTH."*** They prudently beat a rapid retreat These terrified Tailors, as white as a sheet ! Sing God save King George and his soldiers and sailors. And shout three times three for three Tooley Street Tailors I Enter a Beadle with letters. PumpJcin. More addresses, more additions, It rains, it pours, it hails petitions Nine Taylors joy n'd their Purses together then. To set him up, and make him a man agen." Grammatical Droltery, 1682. ** Charles Fox being made a Liveryman of the Mer- chant Tailors' Company, they, upon the ceremony of his inauguration, thought to make him tipsy. About two in* the morning, eighteen of the Court lying under the table, he politely took his leave, saying, " Gentlemen, I wish you both a good night !".... K 130 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Crying, like so many crickets, " Tickets for the Pageant ! Tickets ! " Simkins Seth of Savage Gardens, (Begging me ten thousand pardons !) Timkins (" Yours most truly ! ") Grigsby, (Can't he quiet selHng figs be ?) " Your devoted servant," Diggins, And (the foul fiend fetch 'em !) Figgins, Higgins, Spriggins, Wiggins, with Smuggs, and the everlasting Smith ! In these polite epistles keep Ringing the changes for a peep ! Every city son of Adam, Every Corporation Madam, Jew and Gentile, parson, layman, Parish clerk that snufiles " Amen ! " Infidel and true believer All have got this ticket fever 1 Enter Puck?^ Puck. Of the human face divine Up the staircase what a line ! This may be a rascal, but " tis a mad rascal. What an alphabet of faces he puts on ! " The Little French Lawyer. ^ Merry Tom of all Trades ; or A tri(;k to get money at every dead lift, Made known by Tom of all trades, that bravely could shift, DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 131 In the corridor and lobbies, On the very scent that Rob is I Mr. Chairman, for a ticket, I've contrived to thread the thicket. Puck's my name, and 3Iiching Mallecho, Which, (as classics less than calico You affect, and more the loom Than learning) I inform the room Means merry mischief in full bloom ! Never, of all sorts and sizes, Proteus put on more disguises Took so many forms and faces, Play'd so many airs and graces ! Tom-of-all-trades I ^"^ I am he, Nothing comes amiss to me; If it be successful knavery The effluvia's not unsavoury. Rather like a bunch of roses It to my commercial nose is ! But a fetid fume the affair has When 'tis wound up with a " Whereas /"*^ From one place to another about he did range, And at his own pleasure his trade he could change. Printed for I. Wright, I. Clarke, W. Thackeruii, and T. Passinger. . . N. D. circa 1670. *^ " I had rather be a little bob-wig citizen in good cre- dit,'" cries Young Philpot in Murphy's Farce of The Citi- zen " than a commissioner of the customs. Commission- er ! Tiie King has not so good a thing in hi^ gifr as a 132 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Special specs I have for sale On the river, on the rail 1 Steam, to send up shares, and after Them the steamer, rib and rafter ! Bond, for a financial fudge meant, Bought without, but bringing, judgment ! Line, whose terminus should be (For Directors !) Tyburn-Tree I Daily puff I from my rostrum Pill infallible and nostrum ; Sinners in a piteous panic Touching certain tours satanic, (Gluttons, hypocrites and misers Wonder not they dread to die, Sirs ! Crossing Styx to the attorney Is a very awful journey I) Millionaires, who worlds would give Over again their lives to live, (Length of days could riches buy, Nobody but the poor would die I) Saints,*** to creature comforts given, Very shy of going to heaven I Who rather in this vale of tears Would weep away a few more years. Commission of Bankruptcy !" — " It was when I was un- fortunate," said a white-washed wight to Uncle Timothy- •' You mean," replied my Uncle, " when your creditors were ! " *^ Who, when they read the Bible, pick out those parts DEMOCRITUS IN LONDOX. 133 Fi'om dark trips and beatific Respite seek in my specific ! Ills that flesh is heir to fly me, Influenza come and try me ! Gout, dyspepsia, asthma, ague, And blue devils, don't I plague you ? Locks of gray I turn to golden. Make a young face out of an olden, Change eyes, noses, and what various Carious teeth for teeth vicarious ! ^^ For teeth, as they are done by, do ; . First you cut them, then they cut you. Puck from Windsor to St. James's With the court to travel claims his Right and title, hence (the fame's his !) Pranks at Windsor Castle, Buckin'ham Palace have a spice of Puck in 'em I There am I, And the courtiers cry (The maids of Honor tittering by !) " My Lord of Misrule Is playing the Fool, Trying a trick On the silver stick, where men lived to a century ! They calculate on not being ]iaid 0^ until (like their Consols ! ) they are at par / *^ It appears, from the 8th Satire of Horace, that the Roman Ladies, hke the Englisli, were not unacquainted with the use of false teeth and false hair. 134 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Running his rigs On the ermine and wigs, Quizzing the reverend aprons all, And poking his fun at the sceptre and ball I " Me a Merry-Andrew you may See at fancy " Bed Costume."^ Figuring with fantastic groups. Antique stomachers and hoops, High-heel'd shoes and stockings roll'd, Rouge and diamonds, grease and gold ! Such as a la mode were reckon'd "•^ A galvanised Resurrection of Monmouth Street mas- querading. '' Let us take a peep into the Hanoverian Harem, The Schulenburg (the " Maypole ! ") and the Kielmanseek (the " Elephaiit and Castle!"), the one ridiculously thin, the other preposterously plump, were the accredited mistresses of George I. and were paraded by him in public. George II. lived openly with Lady Suffolk and Countess Walmo- den. Sir Robert Walpole lived openly with Miss Skerritt, whom he afterwards married, and was not one jot the less intimate, for aU that, with Bishops Gibson and Hoadley. An Archbishop of Canterbury was the envoy notoriously selected by Mr. Howard, to disengage his wife from the service of the Queen, and the embraces of the King. An Archbishop of York had lived openly with a succession of mistresses ; and one of his natural sons sat on the Epis- copal Bench. Walpole, and Pulteney, intriguers against the honour of other husbands, were careless of their own. Lady Bath was as gallant as she was beautiful. Lady Walpole was no less an intriguante. It is now thought DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 135 At the court of George the Second,^' Which to that of Louis,''^ Rowley.^^ P'r'aps might be accounted holy ! The ballet stopp'd, the curtain dropp'd, For midnight come, no hop is hopp'd, That Sovereign, subject, figurante may, Good christians ! all go home to pray, And holy keep the Sabbath day I Having souls, the which have most men But the Queen's poor penny-postmen ! '^^ I gossip in the sacred (!) dawn tolerably certain that the father of Horace Walpole was Lord Hervey's elder brother, Carr, Even the Calvinistic King William of Nassau, though he had a young and handsome wife (the GoneriL to her sister's Began J) kept a squinting mistress ! '^ One day when Madame de Maintenon, was looking at the carp in the water at Marly, her companion observed, " how languid the fish appeared." " They are like me," said Madame, " they regret their mud /" Alluding to her liason with Louis the fourteenth in his bigotry and do- tage .... ^' King Charles II. was nick-named " Old Rowley!" after a horse in the royal mews renowned for its ugliness and (craniologically speaking) " ■philoprogenitiveness." . . . '♦ The Penny-postman's Petition. Lord Clanricarde ! Lord Clanricarde ! Do not ride me to Old Nick hard ! Neither, Rowland, bind me soul and Body, as is slave in no land. I'm but a penny-postman, true. 136 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. At Lady Spree's ^^ " 7'eunion"^'' yawn, (Mon ami Lady Spree, Very brassy ! very passe Longing still to look a lassie Worthy that adust Adonis Who the Darby to her Joan is I) Yet soul ha^e I as well as you, A heart to pray, a voice to praise Which ought to be the Sabbath Day's. Lord Clanricarde, Rowland Hill, I humbly hope you never will (A sop for ]\Iammon !) take away The penny- postman's Sabbath Day ! Uncle Timothy. 5'' The Temple of Mylitte (Venus), in Babylon, was a place in which (according to Herodotus), every woman was once in her life obliged to relax her severity, that she might thenceforward be proof against all temptation. Doubtless the saloons of her ladyship are thrown open (though somewhat n^ore exclusively) for the same pious purpose ! One visit sufficed for the Babylonian Belle, but the British Beauty (so extra terrific are her temptations I) is often obliged to take one and twenty ! ^^ In the present age of affectation everything is called by a fine name. The Tradesman (whose word is one thing, and whose bond is another !) is a " purveyor;" his shop is a " mart," and his warehouse a " depoi." The compounder of fricassees and fricandaus (reeking with the " effect of gravy ! ") is an " artiste," by which new-fangled name are also known opera singers, figurantes, fiddlers, players, barbers, tailors, tumblers, and tooth drawers. A publican is a " licensed victualler," and his pandemonium a " gin palace." Selfishness is " individual considera- DEMOCRITUS tN LONDON. 137 Rank and fashion flocking thither For a little small-talk with her ! The Queen's command to dance or dinner Wakens prompt obedience in her, But the command of Heaven's High King Is a very different thing I^'' tions," and roguery " philosophical necessity." Doing evil that good may arise (serving the devil for God's sake !) is " expedience ; " and swearing black is white (in parlia- ment !) " political consistency ! " Society does not advance but "progress," conspirators do not plot, but "agitato." A gathering of " Hail ! Gossips well met," over the toast- rack and tea-kettle is a "soirte ; " and Moore's Melodies, the Polka, and the cheap thumping of a most economical pianoforte (that Trinity of female accomplishments !) are a " reunion." A Holborn-Hill hollyhock, transplanted to tlie bowers of Bloomsbury, asks (duck-dissecting !) if she may "assist" you to (jocose gentility!) a "walker," a " flyer " — or (refinement rarissimus !) a " bit of 6o-sum ! " This rage has infected even our localities. Grub Street (erst the Parnassus of Cockayne !) is metamorphosed into " Milton Street;" and Battle-Bridge, the region of dog- carts, dykes, dusthills, and demireps ! into " King's Cross." Let Intellect pursue its march and we shall no longer have Petticoat Lane, Sparrow Corner, and Hockley-in- the-Hole. ^' The nobility and gentry can no longer have wealth and security, than the populace have honesty and religion. But the fashions must be set above, fur the small will follow the great, and poverty will imitate riches. Many instances of this communicable corruption might be produced. Let us venture the ridicule of naming one : that of keeping holy the Sabbath Day, the sacred use of which aU ranks of people contribute to profane. We cannot but pity tha 138 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. I, hey presto ! Whig or Tory,'^ Turn my coat^^ and twist my story — Give me but the loaves and fishes, Bribery a savory dish is ! Send me to the right about, Then I strut reformer stout ! In the Liberal's masquerade, (Tartan trousers and a plaid !) Kidnap freedom — heavenly maid I Great cry and little wool, Poor Europa and the Bull ! In my meeting-going guise, Turning up the whites of my eyes Like William Penn (Mov-ed by the Sp^rrit !) when W^ith his Brummagem nick-nacks He bamboozled the poor blacks (Cunning Quaker I) Out of many, many an acre ; Giving for their title deeds Little bits of glass, and beads ! — lower class of mankind (to whom the actions of their supe- riors are but too apt to give law) that they have no better examples before their eyes. Hannah More says that Horace Walpole contended that the ten commandments were not meant for people of quality ! "* '' Hasn't a man two hands — {ambo dexter .')" cries Quid- nunc in Murphy's Farce of The Upholsterer — " to write for and against ?" '^ A trading politician being taunted with having twice DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 139 In my meeting-going guise, Turning up the whites of my eyes Like our fat friend When he William Penn out-Penn'd, From behind his double chin Took the Taunton lasses in, Robb'd them of a pretty handsome Sum, the rogue ! by way of ransom ! Preach'd (papistically zealous) Perjury to the Oxford Fellows ! At Exeter Hall I open the ball. With (simpering, whimpering!) "Gentle folks all, You that have tears prepare to spout — ^ Pocket-handkerchiefs out ! — British slaves need no compassion. Starved, and toiling early, late ; Slack's the color now in fashion. White has long been out of date ! " Does the crown to Windsor town^ Command a Thespian cart-load down turned his coat, replied, that one good turn deserves an- other. ' "A feeling heart " (says Mrs. Greville) " is certainly a right heart, nobody will contest that : but when a man chooses to walk about the world with a cambric handker- chief always in his hand, that he may always be ready to weep, either with man or beast, — he makes me sick." . . ■•^ The Prince of Denmark, " twice killed ! " The Mer- chant of Venice, and Julius Caesar " used up .'" (as yet the 140 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Manager Puck (to heighten the joke I) Dons Lord Hamlet's mky cloak, And has a trial with the Ghost Which can make ugly faces most ! ^ Which can grin a tragic passion In the best horse-collar fashion I " Box and Cos"* sets hardly more The Room of Rubens in a roar ! Having from my client Cain His last pilfer'd penny ta'en, I burnish up my brazen face, For fear it blush, unlikely case! In falsehood rank redip my tongue. Lest it shp, tho' glibly hung ! Season my Old Bailey bathos^ With a dash of Listen's pathos, principal Travesties in the Eubens Room !) have given the Queen some idea how Shakespeare can be dotine en spectacle ! 3 Certain caricaturists (barn-door Richards and Mac- helhs!) when they strut with the dignity of a Tragedy Giant, and roar as histily as if they were in Phalaris's brazen bull, jump to the comical conclusion that they are acting Shake- speare! Others ape "the natural style of acting," the charlatanry so successfully introduced and practised by Edmund Kean. We remember Sir Walter Scott, after sit- ting with exemplary patience through a scene of Edmund's "natural style" (poking "Cousin of Buckingham" in the ribs, twitching him by the sleeve, tapping him on the shoulder, and sundry similar eccentricities !) coolly exclaim- ing at the close, " The little fellow seems to have forgotten that Eichard was not a jwrter-swigger, hnt a Planiagenet .'" DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 141 Screw up my forensic fury, Drop a tear to judge and jury ! ^ When old Dives every ingot' By his sad besetting sin got, Hoping for a clear acquittal ! Gives to build a church or spital,^ (His last trick to cheat Old Nick ! The worms he leaves but bones to pick I) I, while Hades rings with laughter ! Guide his pen and shrive him after, Follow him as far as Styx In a mourning coach and six ! Cut in monumental stone His repulsive skin and bone ! And scrawl his hearse with venal verse,^ Which makes the matter ten times worse ! * When a certain orator had made, as he thought, a very moving harangue, he asked Catullus, " Have I ex- cited pity ? " " Yes," replied Catullus, " very great ! " * A Bartholomew-Fair piece of stage buft'oonery. * A certain shallow-brained, bombastical Barrister has been nicknamed Necessity — because Necessity has no Law ! '' Pabulum Aciierontis. " Fond fool ! six feet shall serve for all thy store, And he that cares for most shall find no more." Hall's Satires. ' We have read of a miser whose will was set aside on the plea of insanity because he had ordered twenty penny loaves to be distributed to the poor. * — " De mortuis nil nisi bonum," says Sterne, is "a non- sensical lullaby of some nurse, put into Latin by some 142 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Business bad, I mount my pad, And gallop the country round like mad ! Rat-tat ! open sesame ! Who's that ? Jemmy Jessamy 1 Come to look into every nook, And by hook or by crook to hash up a book ! An OUa-pod — anecdotes odd Of poor poets under the sod. Having got, to boil the pot. Of slip-slop gossip a lumping lot, I pack up my pack, harness my hack, pedant, to be chanted by some hypocrite to the end of the world — Who says so ? — neither reason nor scripture. — Inspired authors have done otherwise — and reason and common sense tell me, that if the characters of past ages and men are to be drawn at all, they are to be drawn like themselves ; that is, with their excellences, and with their foibles." — We are not bound to imitate the " poor devil of a painter," and " paint both our angels and our devils out of the same pot." — Charity to the dead is indeed com- mendable, but neither reason nor religion can require it to be exercised to the prejudice of the living. De mortuu nil nisi \'ERUM. Truth is as sacred as the grave. Uncle Timothy being requested to write an epitaph on ti sanctimonious old money-grub, extemporised the follow- ing couplet. If on this stone no Epitaph you read, " De mortuis nil " is the excuse to plead. 10 i; Now for poets," (writes Robert Burton) " sing they must in summer, and pine in the winter ; for there is no preferment for them." And he repeats a pleasant tale how Socrates, sitting with the fair Phjedrus under a plane- DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 143 Whip and spur with my budget back, Then hey for " Homes and Haunts" in a crack ! Lyre in limbo, in my grief ^^ Ogling visionary beef I For a mug of mum and chops I'll distil you honey drops ! Old Sylvanus, in his dotage," Grudging my poor pint of pottage, (Which the not too-liberal soul Does to his dunces ^- daily dole, Where, hot and thin ! ne'er enters in tree, on the banks of the river Ismenus, " about noon, when it was hot, and the grasshoppers made 3. noise," took that "sweet occasion" to tell him that "grasshoppers were once scholars, musicians, poets, &c. before the Muses were born, and lived without meat and drink, and for that cause were turned by Jupiter into grasshoppers." — And he quaintly adds, they " may be turned again, in Tithoni ci- cadas, aut Lyciorum ranas, for any reward I see they are like to have." .... " In the dulness of his latter days " Myself would take his sentiments on ink. Myself would take his sentiments on letters. On syllables, indeed, I'd ask his betters .'" Let him swab himself in his easy chair, and compose his spirits to a nap by reading one of the last numbers of the " Gents " Magazine ; but let him not sit in senile judgment and mistake coarseness for criticism. '2 " These are people Of such a clean discretion in their diet, Of such a moderate sustenance, that thej' sweat If they but smell hot meat. 144 . DE.MOCRITUS IN LONDON. Of solid beef the sinewy shin, But which well-diluted diet Keeps them lean and keen and quiet, And their wits from running riot !) Economically cruel, Doses me with hungry gruel ! ^^ Which detestable decoction Puts me up again to auction ! Who bids highest, and my body Takes the quickest out of quod he Shall among my lions sit In the full-dress box of wit ! Catch a sparrow, salt his tail ! Catch a critic like a whale ! Th' outward man may not surrender, 'Tis the inward one that's tender!" The Tub's Tenant for an honest Man sought Athens — But he non est ! You see their wardrobe, Though slender, competent. For shirts, I take it. They are things worn out of their remembrance." The Scornful Lady. '^ " Nine grits, and a gallon of water ! " Genuine Graji- tham. Old Proverb, '■» Like Subtle, " At Pie-Corner, Taking his meal of steam in, from Cook's stalls." '^ It's a hard winter when one wolf eats another. Old Proverb. "* " These (the Quakers) buy up corn when it is cheap, sell it again when it is dear, and are more thankful to God for a famine than ethers are for plentcousness. Painting and DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 145 With his lantern here in London Would his work be sooner done, done ? When, for speculation, sport, I visit Mark Lane, Capel Court,^^ Me to choose a pin it poses 'Twixt Corn,^^ Consols — Pure, and Moses ! When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug Of war — a proper Cornish hug I When benighted Scot his brother Each contrives to cheat the other ! When Jew meets Quaker 'Tis "pull Devil! puU Baker!" If you love to hear and see cant — (My last ruse, Sirs, is to re-cant," Solemn vows to break and barter To be written down a martyr ! Petted, as apostate^® knave is, sculpture they condemn ; they never dance, they never sino- ; music is as hateful to them as discord. They always look cool in hot weather, and warm in cold. Few of them are ugly, fewer handsome, none graceful. I do not re- member to have seen a person of dark complexion, or hair quite black, or very curly, in their confraternity. None of them are singularly pale, none red, none of diminutive stature, none remarkably tall. They have no priests among them, and constantly refuse to make oblations to the priests royal." .... W. S. Landor. '^ In the same sense as men retire from trade — Tire over again ! . . . . '* '' They got a villain, and we lost a fool." — Dryrlen. L 146 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. Shown up for a rara avis, " More like," cry knowing ones, nem. con., " A sheep in sables than a swan ! ") If you love to hear and see cant Of the newest fashion—