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 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 22n<i JanJ. 1634. 
 
 Kobert Pye. 
 
 '6 " The Dutch Dwarf, Van Tromp, had the honor of 
 attending at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday Evening." 
 — Court Circular, Saturday, February 24, 1849.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 47 
 
 From your amaranthine bowers 
 Bouquets, for the victory's ours ! 
 
 PumpJcin Haunch of venison, hot and 
 
 smokinef ! 
 Cherry sauce, piquant, provoking I 
 And a bottle of the best 
 Make me, too, completely blest ! 
 
 Song, Mr. PumpJcin Plethoric. 
 In nectarine streams all purple beams 
 
 Let me lovingly lave my lip, 
 Then, for a spree, shall gallopade glee. 
 
 And toes trot out on a frolicksome trip ! 
 At every draught so merrily quaff 'd 
 
 Cupid Dan shall open his fire. 
 From some wicked eye an arrow let fly, 
 
 And turn his gas on higher and higher ! 
 
 Then, by the mass I let bumpers pass ; 
 
 Now for a bottle from Bacchus's bin ! 
 I long for a quiz at my festivous phiz 
 
 In the glass that I hold 'twixt my nose and my 
 chin I \_Exeunt. 
 
 Scene III. — The Long Walk, Windsor. 
 
 Enter Democritus. 
 
 Democritiis. 
 
 NOT by Motley Coat alone 
 I have found the Fool is known, 
 Seldom he abroad appears 
 Wearing his symbolic ears,
 
 48 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Girded with his dagger wooden, 
 
 And his coxcomb, bells, and hood on ! 
 
 Hence of laughter the loud burst. 
 
 As if / were Fool the First ! 
 
 The stupid stare from high and low, 
 
 And pointed finger as I go, 
 
 Quizzing my uncommon costume. 
 
 Past and primitive and posthume ! 
 
 Knowing what a favourite school 
 
 A royal court is to the Fool, 
 
 Where, slippery ground ! the idol crown'd 
 
 He loves to dance attendance round. 
 
 Thus professionally frock'd 
 
 At yon palace gate I knock 'd, 
 
 And discover'd in a second 
 
 I without my host had reckon'd. 
 
 Fools must there to gain admittance 
 
 Cry with Coat of Motley quittance ! 
 
 A liveried lacquey stopp'd my path, 
 
 And look'd at, leeringly, my lath ! 
 
 But served not so another sword 
 
 Whose Fool, by good luck ! was a Lord.'" 
 
 ''"' " He's a name only, and all good in him 
 He must derive from his great grandsire's ashes : 
 Tor had not their victorious acts bequeath'd 
 His titles to him, and wrote on his forehead, 
 * This is a Lord,' he had lived unobserved 
 By any man of mark, and died as one 
 Amongst the common rout." 
 
 The Custom of the Country. 
 Alas ! how many have the fortune without the feelings
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 49 
 
 Lo, a garter ! in a crack he 
 Bows it in, discerning lacquey! 
 Dangling from a privy pocket, 
 See, a Key I the gate ! unlock it ! 
 Mark, to a judicial jazey 
 "What judicious homage pays he ! 
 In the presence of a crozier 
 He's as supple as an osier ! 
 Ushering in a strawberry leaf 
 Down goes, bob ! his head of beef ! 
 And before a royal bubble 
 He is really nearly double I 
 My Lord Parvenu,^^ whose peerage 
 Makes rare quizzing for this queer age, 
 Full of new, grotesque gentilities, 
 In his ermine O, how ill at ease ! 
 And, a proper pair ! the pigmy 
 Past, both looking mighty big ! me, 
 Seeming each to say, " Your coat is 
 Very much beneath my notice ! " 
 Among the miscellaneous crowd 
 That in were so politely bow'd, 
 
 of a gentleman ; and how many the feehngs without the 
 fortune ! 
 
 ^^ The following lines were chalked by Cannino- on the 
 door of a rich /larvenu who had then recently been made 
 a peer — 
 
 " Bobby E, — lives here, 
 George the Third made him a peer, 
 And took the pen from behind his ear." 
 £
 
 50 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Not one Fool I must confess 
 
 Saw 1 in his proper dress, 
 
 From the beaver to the boot 
 
 All had put off Motley's suit ! 
 
 Did ever laughter break its fast 
 
 On a more risible repast ? 
 
 Make merrier meal upon the daws 
 
 And peacocks of the world's applause ? 
 
 — Day declines — how dark to one 
 
 From a world where sets no sun I 
 
 Yet how beautiful ! how bright, 
 
 In her darkness, is the night I 
 
 Centuries have roU'd away 
 
 Since I beheld yon lunar ray 
 
 Light up a dreaming world ! and heard, 
 
 As now I hear, my favourite bird.''* 
 
 Chantress, to my home on high 
 
 A similar plaisanterie has been recently perpetrated ! 
 " Give me rather a low fulness," says Bishop Hall, '• than 
 an empty advancement." 
 
 " Wee buy Titles of honour with gold, that our Pre- 
 decessors purchased with virtue." — Barnaby Rich. 1649. 
 
 " The favourite bird also of Sophocles and Tasso ; and 
 the subject of many an Arabic and Persian allegory. 
 PHny has eloquently described the effect of this bird's 
 note, and Izaac Walton says beautifully : — " He, that, at 
 midnight, when the labourer sleeps securely, shoidd hear, 
 as I have heard, the clear air, the sweet descant, the rising 
 and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, 
 might well be lifted above the earth, and say, ' Lord ! 
 what tnusic hast thou provided for thy saints in heaven, when 
 thou ajfordest bad men such music upon earth." How exqui-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 51 
 
 Could'st thou but take wings and fly ! 
 Such sweet songs should never die. . . 
 The Scene closes. 
 
 Scene IV. — Jlie Castle Tavern, Windsor. 
 
 Sir Peter Prolix and Mr. Pumpkin Pletlioric 
 at their dessert and wine. 
 
 Pumpkin. 
 
 I MY Lord Chief Joker,«» miss'd 
 5 Of your jinghng jest the gist, 
 Prithee let me cry, Sir Peter, 
 Encore to that merry metre ! 
 
 Sir. P. What exclaim'd the gallant Napier, 
 Proudly flourishing his rapier I 
 To the army and the navy, 
 When he conquered Scinde ? — " Peccavi ! " ^^ 
 
 sitely has Milton apostrophised the aerial music of the 
 nightingale in his 
 
 " Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly — " 
 The author of the " Seasons " would listen, hour after hour, 
 on a fine summer's evening, to hear the nightingales in 
 Richmond gardens. The nightingale, however melan- 
 choly as she has been represented, is, in fact, a cheerful 
 bird. Like the infant, in an , elegant Persian poem of 
 Sadi, she smiles and is happy, while all around her are 
 silent and sad, . . , 
 
 ** " Every man," said Dr. Johnson to Miss Bumey, 
 " has, some time in his life, an ambition to be a wag," . . 
 
 *' Another of Sir Peter's ! Why is a man always sure 
 to be in time when on a broken-winded horse ? — Because 
 Hours wait on Aurora (a roarer) !
 
 52 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Pumpkin. " Not one swallow makes a summer,' 
 Said old Sherry^- to his rummer — 
 I must have another rosy 
 Glass to make me warm and cosey. 
 Water never tempts me to it,^' 
 Sworn at Highg-ate, I eschew it 
 When there's claret in the cruet. 
 
 Enter Waiter. 
 
 Boy ! have you a vintage brighter, 
 Purer, more translucent, lighter, 
 Of a deeper, richer ruby, 
 Fit to swear your mistress true by ? 
 A mighty magnum introduce 
 Of that genial, genuine juice. {_Exit Waiter. 
 
 Sir P. Pumpkin, he who dreads to die 
 Don't deserve to live, say I ! 
 Intrepidity of soul 
 Soon rekindles, like hot coal ! 
 A puff revives the slumbering spark — 
 When I beheld in Windsor Park 
 
 *2 A friend remarked to Sheridan that hot drinks were 
 pernicious. " True," replied Sheridan, " hot tea, hot 
 coffee, — nay, possibly, hot punch when — very hot /" 
 
 *^ Brother Barnardina Palomo said, that if you put 
 your wine in water, you lose your wine ; and if not, you 
 lose yoursel ! . . 
 
 " A dire dilemma ! either way I'm sped." 
 
 ^* The title of Soldier is derived from Solidus, a piece of 
 money. The Roman Legions were paid. Hence the Vo- 
 lunteer, whose gallantry was gratuitous, was said to be
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 53 
 
 Colors flying', troops parading', 
 
 Heard the music, cannonading, 
 
 (As in my volunteering*^ davs, 
 
 When call'd the Compter's siege to raise, 
 
 I turn'd my back on shots and shells, 
 
 And bivouac'd at Bagnigge Wells I) 
 
 Dulce et decorum est 
 
 Thought I, as I thurapt my breast, 
 
 Pro — 'pon honor ! — patria mori — 
 
 How sweet and pleasant 
 
 To be shot like a pheasant — 
 
 Pumpkin. Always excepting the company pre- 
 sent ! — 
 
 Sir P. Con amore, 
 For honor and glory ! 
 
 Pumpkin. Sir Peter! Sir Peter! a very fine story 
 Over Johannisberg, after John Dory ! 
 Is not Peace's modern March ^^ meant — 
 
 Sir P. Pure's palaver, pens, and parchment! — 
 
 Pumpkin. For the — 
 
 Sir P. Revolution— Robber «5 
 
 ' no soldier ! " A gold Solidus, weighing sixty-seven grains, 
 having on the obverse a bust witli full face, and on the re- 
 verse a cross within a wreath, (from the Earl of Pembroke's 
 celebrated collection of rare and unique coins,) was sold 'oy 
 Messrs. Sotheby and Co. on the 31st July, 1848, for <£-59. 
 
 *» In imitation, probably, of the Irenophylakes of the 
 Greeks and the Feciales of the Romans, neither of which 
 sacred orders answered the intended purpose. 
 
 '•^ Like the Albanian, who takes the run of a Bulgarian 
 larder, and then with a cocked pistol demands a recom- 
 pense for the wear and tear of his teeth !
 
 54 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Fudge ! with his fraternal slobber, 
 Greasy jowl and frouzy whisker 
 Courting all Cockayne to kiss, cur I ^' 
 Bull's old-fashion'd arbitrator 
 Whizzing from the cannon's crater, 
 Nelson's broadsides,*** Arthui*'s thunder ! 
 Better makes the knave knock under.^' 
 
 Enter Waiter with Wine. 
 
 PumpJcin. Ha! Ganymede has made good speed, 
 Lusitania's grape indeed ! 
 Bottled up in all its beauty, 
 Full of years, yet fresh and fruity I 
 Star of Brunswick I Prince, and Issue, 
 Long and merry lives we wish you ! 
 
 Sings. 
 Here's to our Queen, in the true Hippocrene ! 
 
 Here's to His Highness her Spouse, and 
 The Progeny all of Crown, Sceptre, and Ball, 
 
 ^ Sir Peter calls the owners of these mendacious muz- 
 zles the feairi/stocracy of Kevolution ! 
 
 '* When the Victory passed under the stern of the Bu- 
 centaure at the Battle of Trafalgar, she poured into her 
 antagonist, from every gun of her broadside, her " cus- 
 tomary charge " of one round shot and a keg of five hun- 
 dred musket balls ! The Bucentaure struck her colours. 
 
 *9 " Perpetual war is bad," says Lord Kaimes, " because 
 it converts men into beasts of prey. Perpetual peace is 
 worse, because it converts them into beasts of burden." 
 
 " I condemne not just armes ; those are as necessary,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 55 
 
 And may they years live a thousand ! 
 Happy and free ! 
 With 'era may we, 
 Loyalists loving, those years live to see ! 
 
 Chorus. Pumpkin and Sir Peter. 
 Happy and free ! &c. 
 
 Sir P. Pupil not of Mars, but Mozart, 
 Thou, by thy round chin and nose, art, 
 To thy very marrow bone a 
 Son of Bacchus, not Bellona ! 
 Follow this Falernian fluid 
 Let a stave — 
 
 Pumpkin. Grinning ? grave ? 
 Droll or dismal? 
 
 Sir P. Droll, my druid ! 
 
 Song, Mr. Pumpkin Plethoric. 
 
 Sir Walter the Brave,^" the redoubtable Raleigh 
 Put under his nose a tobacco pipe daily, 
 
 as the unjust are hatefull ; even Michael and his Angels 
 fight ; and the style of God is the Lord of Hostes." 
 
 Bishop Hall. 
 
 3" This story is also told of Tarleton, (see his Jests, 1611.) 
 and Barnaby Rich, in his " Irish Hubbub," 1619, makes a 
 " certain Welchman " the hero of his merry tale. 
 
 " I remember a pretty jest of Tobacco, that was this. 
 A certain Welchman comming newly to London, and be- 
 holding one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, 
 and not knowing the manner of it, but perceiving him 
 vent smoake so fast, and supposing his inward parts to be
 
 56 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Finding life's sorrows his spirit that bow'd 
 
 Grew dimmer and dimmer when seen thro' a cloud I" 
 
 While puffing his pet he did not forget 
 
 To moisten his whistle and whiff with a wet, 
 
 And the Queen's Head^^ and Crown in Islington 
 
 town 
 Bore, for its brewing, the brightest renown. 
 
 on fire ; cried out Jhesn, Jhesii man, for the passion of Cod 
 hold, for by Cod's splud ty snowl's on fire, and having a bowle 
 of beere in his hand, threw it at the other's face to quench 
 his smoking nose." 
 
 " " Musicke, tobacco, sacke, and sleepe. 
 
 The tide of sorrow backward keep." 
 
 What you will. A Comedy by 
 John Marston, 1607. 
 
 " Happy Mortal ! he who knows 
 
 Pleasure which a Pipe bestows ; 
 
 Curling Eddies climb the room, 
 
 Wafting round a mild perfume." 
 
 The Oxford Sausage. 
 ^' The old Queen's Head at Islington was (for it is now 
 pulled down !) the finest specimen in the neighbourhood 
 of London of the domestic architecture, temp. Henry VII. 
 It consisted of three stories projecting over each other in 
 front, with bay-windows supported by brackets and figures 
 carved in wood. The entrance was in the centre, through 
 a quaint-looking porch, supported on each side by carya- 
 tides of oak, bearing Ionic scrolls. To the left hand was 
 the " Oak Parlour," Over the mantel-piece was a cor- 
 niced oak carving, in a chest-like form, of two panels, with 
 nail-head centres. The jambs of the fire-place were carya- 
 tides in bold relief, supporting the ends of the stone slab
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 57 
 
 Sir Walter had grown exceedingly prone 
 To pop, for a pipe, in that noddle his own ! 
 With a festivous few^'^ he bibo'd and blew, 
 PuflBng for twenty and tippling for two I 
 
 Quoth Walter the Brave to his half-witted knave 
 Who knew not the weed*^ wafted o'er by the 
 wave, 
 
 beneath the mantel. On this slab was carved, in two 
 compartments, the story of " Diana and Actseon." The 
 ceiling represented a shield, bearing the initials, " I. M." 
 in a glory, with cherubim, two heads of Roman Emperors, 
 with fish, flowers, and other figures, within wreathed bor- 
 ders, ornamented with bosses of acorns. 
 
 '^ In the times of Thomas Heywood, the poet, (1635), 
 the following were among the tippler's many titles : 
 
 " He is a good fellow — or A boon Companion — A mad 
 Greek — A true Trojan — A stiff Blade — One that is steel 
 to the back — A low-Country Soldier — One that will take 
 his rowse — One that will drink deep, though it be a mile 
 to the bottom — One that knows how the cards are dealt — 
 One that will be flush of all four — One that bears up stiff 
 — One whom the Brewer's horse hath bit— One that knows 
 of which side his bread is buttered — One that drinks upse- 
 freeze — One that lays down his ears and drinks — One that 
 drinks supernaculum — One that can sip off" his cyder." 
 
 ^* " That in Asia," says the celebrated traveller M. 
 PaUas, " and especially in China, the use of tobacco for 
 smoking is more ancient than the discovery of the New 
 World I scarcely entertain a doubt. Among the Chinese, 
 and among the Mongol Tribes who had the most inter- 
 course with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so 
 frequent, and become so indispensable a luxury — tho
 
 58 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 " Bring me ale some in, that Elinour Rumming, 
 " Right good, might have brew'd — nappy, sparkhng 
 and humming ! " 
 
 Then his pipe forth he drew and set lustily to 
 
 'Till his nostrils and mouth came the smoke curl- 
 ing thro' ! 
 
 Quicker and quicker the smoke curl'd, and thicker! 
 
 When Simon the Simple march'd in with the 
 liquor ! 
 
 " Fire ! fire ! fire ! " — Nor stopp'd to enquire 
 Anything further the terrified crier ! 
 But flung, in a crack, all the liquor, alack ! 
 Full in the Knight's face from the jolly Black 
 Jack! 85 
 
 tobacco-purse affixed to their belt, so necessary an article 
 of" dress — the form of the pipes, from which the Dutch 
 seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original ! — and, 
 lastly, the preparation of the yellow leaves, which are 
 merely rubbed to pieces and then put into the pipe, so 
 peculiar ; that we cannot possibly derive all this from Ame- 
 rica by way of Europe ; especially as India, where the 
 habit of smoking is not so general, intervenes between 
 Persia and China. May we not expect to find traces of 
 this custom, in the first account of the Voyages of the 
 Portuguese and Dutch to China ? " 
 
 9s li iJext for variety of drinking cups we have divers 
 and sundry sorts, some of glass, some of box, some of 
 maple, some of holly, &c., mazers, broad-mouthed dishes. 
 Noggins, Whiskins, Piggins, Crinzes, Ale-bowles, Court- 
 dishes, Tankards, Kannes, &c., from a pottle to a pint,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 39 
 
 Sir Walter up rose to slit the knave's nose 
 For soiling- and spoiling his countenance, clothes ; 
 O how the rogue roared when he saw the drawn sword, 
 And begg'd, on his knees, not to have his sconce 
 scored I 
 
 The Knight disabused, simple Simon excused, 
 The jack was replenish'd, the pipe was re-fused. 
 And, talking of smoke, in his parlour of oak 
 Mine Host, with the jorum, still serves up the joke! 
 
 O Jamie! King Jamie !^'' thy stupid crown'd head 
 
 Reposed to the last on a soft downy bed. 
 
 But Walter's red scafrold,^^ blush ! blush ! "Right 
 
 Divine," 
 Was glory's proud pillow, mean tyrant ! to thine. 
 
 from a pint to a gill ; other bottles we have of leather, 
 but they most used amongst the shepherds and harvest 
 people of the country ; small jacks we have in many Ale- 
 houses in the City and suburbs, tipt with silver, besides 
 great black-jacks, and bombards at the Court, which when 
 the Frenchmen first saw, they reported, at their return 
 into their country, that the Englishmen used to drink out 
 of their boots." — Heyiunod's Philpcothonista, 1635. 
 
 ^^ King James, lying sicke, one prayed in publicke that 
 hee might raigne as long as the Sun and Moone should 
 endure, and the Prince his Sonne after him. — The Booke 
 of Bulls. 1636. 
 
 ^ " The time of Sir Walter Raleigh's execution," ob- 
 serves Aubrey, " was contrived to be on my Lord Mayor's 
 day, that the pageants and fine shows might avocate and 
 draw away the people from beholding the tragedie of the
 
 60 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Sir p. Live to sing some racy relic on 
 Festive days, sweet Swan of Helicon !^^ 
 When the rosy god of wine 
 Makes our happy faces shine ! 
 A murrain on that organ player ! 
 
 \_A street organ is heard. 
 Gramercyl what a grind was there ! 
 Every melody he mangles 
 Is with music at right angles ! 
 Hai'k! his tuneable proboscis ^^ 
 (Could his back my cane but cross I) is 
 Going to give us, as a favor I 
 Some excruciating quaver 
 (To the love-and-murder muses 
 An annuity the noose is !) 
 
 gallantest worthie that England ever bred." . . — Aubrey's 
 MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, 
 
 A rare judicial mockery was the trial of Sir Walter 
 Raleigh ! The public prosecutor was the unprincipled and 
 ruffianly Attorney General Coke, who bullied the noble 
 patriot ; and the Judge was Popham the reformed High- 
 way-Robber ! 
 
 9^ " Recreation is intended to the minde, as whetting is 
 to the sithe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise 
 would grow dull, and blunt ; bee therefore that spends 
 his whole time in recreation, is ever whetting, never 
 mowing; his grasse may grow, and his steed starve; as 
 contrarily, he that alwaies toyles, and never recreates, 
 is ever mowing, never whetting ; labouring much to 
 little purpose : as good no sithe, as no edge." 
 
 Bishop Hall. 
 
 '8 Brathwait (see Whimzies) thus describes the accom-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 61 
 
 Telling how the tender passion 
 Tucks its tools up Tyburn fashion ! 
 
 The Musician's SoNG.^ 
 
 In the olden time his rueful rhyme a ballad-singing 
 clown 
 
 The streets of merry Abingdon was chanting up 
 and down, 
 
 But from the squires (no ballad buyers !) few far- 
 things did he finger, 
 
 For Puck had on their purses put a padlock, a 
 distringer ! 
 
 A tavern nigh just caught the eye of this poor 
 metre-monger, 
 
 plishments of a ballad-singer. " Now he counterfeits a 
 natural base, then a perpetual treble, and ends with a 
 counter -tenure. You shall heare him feigne an artfull 
 straine through the nose, purposely to insinuate into the 
 attention of the purer brother-hood." 
 
 ' " After he (Richard Corbet, Bishop of Oxford) was a 
 Doctor of Divinity we are told he sung ballads at the 
 High Cross at Abingdon : being at a tavern in that town, 
 a ballad singer came into that house, complaining that he 
 could not dispose of his stock; the doctor in a frolic took 
 off his gown, and assuming the ballad singer's leather 
 jacket, went out into the street, and soon drew a crowd of 
 admiring purchasers." — Chalmers. 
 
 This frolicsome divine is the author oi Poeiica Stromata, 
 or Collection of Sundrie Pieces in Poetry, 1648, in which 
 there are a rare superabundance of wit, and constitutional 
 hilarity.
 
 62 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 How long'd for flip his thirsty lip, how crew his crop 
 with hunger ! 
 
 How shiver'd, shook for ingle nook his bag of bones 
 and skin ! 
 
 And, ah ! how faint his tuneful plaint, " Sure Po- 
 verty's no sin ! " 
 
 No surly " Stand ! " no hostile hand him at the 
 
 porch opposed, 
 Not him before they barr'd the door, nor yet their 
 
 hearts they closed 1 
 But blazing coal, and wassail-bowl, and roasted crabs 
 
 and ale 
 Made glad a true and jolly crew, to whom he told 
 
 his tale. 
 
 A holy priest was at the feast, a doctor, (inter nos !) 
 
 Who many a time a ballad rhyme had trowl'd at 
 the High Cross ! 
 
 And risen gay at dawn of day with merry chanti- 
 cleer, 
 
 To wend to the wood with Robin Hood in the 
 spring-tyde of the year ! 
 
 " Thy lenten nose looks lachrymose, thy tatter'd 
 
 g-arments tell 
 Thou'rt not too rich in purse or breech ; the world 
 
 don't use thee well ! 
 Jack Frost's sharp gripe has crack'd thy pipe — 
 
 thou shalt not hie thee hence 
 Until a cup has cheer'd thee up, and thou hast 
 
 pouch'd some pence.
 
 DEMOCRITUS I>f 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— <Ae cant, 
 
 (Lazy latitude'" and low church, 
 
 Non conformity^** and no church 
 
 Are to me all A. B. C, 
 
 To each conundrum I've the key I) 
 
 19 '< I would desire you (the Clergy) to consider whether 
 some of those persons who are disgusted with the departure, 
 now too common, from the soberness and simplicity of our 
 devotional offices, and with exaggerated notions which are 
 insisted on as the authority of the priestly office, are not 
 too likely to take refuge, not in Low Church doctrine, as 
 the term is commonly understood, but in the boundless 
 expanse of Latitudinarlanmn —a. sea without a shore, and 
 with no pole-star to guide those who embark on it but the 
 uncertain light of human reason — I cannot but think that 
 we have more to apprehend from the theology of Germany 
 than that of Rome ; from that which deifies human reason 
 than from that which seeks to bind or stifle it." 
 
 The Bishop of Loiidan''s Charge at St. 
 Faid's. 2ud Xov. 1850. 
 
 " But as I do not doubt, that the Church of England has 
 a definite line of teaching, I hold it to be my duty to re- 
 press, as far as I am able, all teaching amongst her pastors 
 in my diocess, which departs from that line, whether on 
 the side of Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, or Popery." 
 
 The Biihop of Oxford to the People of 
 Wycombe. 2alh Nov. 1850. 
 
 Latitudinarianism, says good Bishop Ken, is the common 
 sewer of all heresies imaginable.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 147 
 
 From the platform, from the pulpit 
 Come and hear me to a full pit 
 (I've a rubric and a ritual, 
 Friends fanatical, to fit you all I) 
 Bully every art and science,-^ 
 Bid 'em, in a fury, fly hence ! 
 Ranting, and with relish relate 
 How I, in my zany zeal, hate 
 Steeple-houses,^- priest and prelate ! ^ 
 
 ^^ The objection of Non-conformists to the Government 
 Plan of Education in 1847 was the very same that the 5i/- 
 nod of Thurles in 1850 made to a similar plan of Education 
 for the Irish Catholics, — a necessity of opposition at the call 
 of a sacred pastoral duty that they owed to the spiritual health 
 of the people committed to their charge, 
 
 ^' In reply to those sectaries who maintain that there 
 is neither a natural, nor a necessary connexion between 
 science and religion, hear the dying testimony of Laplace. 
 '• Whatever you do, never part with religion ; never con- 
 sent to the overthrow of your reUgion. When you over- 
 throw that, you overthrow all good government, all civil 
 rights, all social happiness." 
 
 " Another objection I have had to encounter among our 
 Dissenting Friends is, that they have been inclined to ima- 
 gine that the teaching children a little of reading, writinf, 
 grammar, and geography, is inimical to religion ! " — Mr. 
 Cobden on National Education, Manchester, January 23, 1851. 
 
 ** " Steeple-Houses " was the scornful name by which 
 Churches were called in the Canting Dictionary of the 
 Conventicle. And in the Song of the " Mad Sectary,''' 
 which was sung in Guildhall, after dinner, to the tune of 
 " Tom-a-Bedlam" by " one of the city musicians, being at- 
 tired like a New-Budlamite, with apt action and audible
 
 148 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Down with painted altars ! ~^ oriel 
 Windows, popish and pictorial !^^ 
 Kick out liturgies and creeds,~'® 
 
 voice " (see Jordan's Pageant, entitled " London's Tri- 
 umphs," 1677), is the following characteristic allusion to 
 " Steeple-Houses.'" 
 
 " Next I turn'd Anabaptist, 
 And pray'd by the spirit,'; 
 To preach and print, 
 Make mouths and squint. 
 Was thought a mighty merit. 
 We slighted steeple-homes 
 Stables we met together in, 
 With yea and nay 
 We did betray 
 Our Presbyterian brethren." 
 -^ Selden, in his Preface to "De Synedriis et Prefec- 
 turis Juridicis Veterum Ebrseorum," speaking of the 
 divine right of excommunication claimed by different 
 churches, says, " This claim has not a few assertors as 
 well Romanists, as Nonromanist Episcopalians, and Pres- 
 byterians, which latter insist upon it much more positively, 
 and carry it much farther in their oun favour {l)-^ for after 
 having, in their manner, inveighed against this power in 
 pnpal and episcopal hands, they have, as it were, cut it into 
 shreds and portioned it out among themselves, with a vast 
 accession from that authority, which they so confidently 
 attribute to their own order. — Presbyters have the great- 
 est power of any Clergy in the World, and gull the Laity 
 
 most." 
 
 2* Ancient art attained its greatest splendour when em- 
 ployed in illustrating the mythology of the Gi'eeks and 
 Komans. The masterpieces of Christian art are still to 
 be found over Catholic altars. 
 
 ^5 •' The parsimony, no less than the fanaticism, of the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 149 
 
 (Pitchers crack'd and broken reeds !) 
 Preaching good and holy deeds.-^ 
 Off with surplice ! Romish raiment, 
 
 Reformers spared the ancient and beautiful painted win- 
 dows that still adorn our Sanctuaries. "As for our 
 churches, all images, shrines, tabernacles, rood-lofts, and 
 monuments of idolatry, are removed, taken downe, and 
 defaced : onlie the stories in the glass-windowes excepted, 
 which for want of sufficient store of new stuffe, and by rea- 
 son of extream charge that should grow by the alteration of 
 the same into white panes throughout the realme, are not 
 altogether abolished in most places at once, but by little 
 and little suffered to decaie, that white glasse may be pro- 
 vided and set up in their roomes." — Haerisok's Descrip- 
 tion of England, written about the year 1580, and prefixed 
 to the first volume of Holinshed. 
 
 25 Dr. Adam Clarke said that not only did the gran- 
 deur, devotion, and reverential humdity of the Litany lift 
 it far above every human form of prayer in the world, but 
 that one truly catholic supplication, " That it may please thee 
 to have mercy upon all men" made it inspired and divine. 
 
 " There is no Church without a Liturgy (says Selden) 
 nor indeed can there be conveniently, as there is no School 
 without a Gi-ammar. — Admit the Preacher prays by the 
 Spirit, yet that very Prayer is Common-prayer to the 
 People ; they are tied as much to his Words, as in saying 
 Almighty and most merciful Father: is it then unlawful in 
 the Minister, but not unlawful in the People ? 'Tis hoped 
 we may be cured of our extemporary Prayers, the same 
 way the Grocer's Boy is cured of eating Plums, when we 
 have had our Belly full of them.'' 
 
 ^ In Queen Elizabeth's time, when all the Abbies were 
 puUed down, all good Works defaced, then the Preachers 
 must cry up Justification by Paith, not by good Works. 
 — Seidell's Table-talk.
 
 150 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Not for this reforming day meant ! 
 Carnal cloth ! unlovely linen ! 
 Not to swaddle saint, but sin in ! 
 
 Now and then his vicar, sub, 
 Me doth an archbishop dub, 
 Then, ho ! ho ! Puck and Co. 
 Three grim Doctors all of a-row ! 
 Praemunire, in terrorem, 
 Grinning like a ghoul before 'em I 
 (Prcemunire ! Praemunire ! ~* 
 Of true faith the trial fiery ! 
 Written down in Harry's diary !)-^ 
 Play their solemn farce at Bow. 
 Is the good Archbishop shock'd ? 
 Doth he deem God's temple mock'd ? 
 Is his courage primed and cock'd 
 For resistance holy ? lock'd 
 He shall be in prison ! dock'd 
 Of his dignities — unfrock'd ! 
 
 ^^ King George the Third having seen one of his Court 
 Chaplains at the Play, expressed surprise and displeasure. 
 " Sire," replied the chaplain, " I am not ashamed at ap- 
 pearing at any place where our ' most religious and gra- 
 cious Sovereign' the Head of the Church thinks proper to be 
 present." . . . 
 
 ^ Sir Thomas More refused to render unto Csesar the 
 things that are God's, and resigned his head to the Protes- 
 tant axe. Archbishop Cranmer (who burnt a poor wretch 
 fur denymg the King's Supremacy) set up Henry VIII. 
 as the spiritual dictator of a Christian people !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 151 
 
 When (of law a slippery limb !) 
 
 My credit will no longer swim, 
 
 All the better at my tail if 
 
 Dangle doxy and a bailiS" ! 
 
 My ragged fortune to repair 
 
 Reformer furious up I flare, 
 
 Expectorate my Billingsgate, 
 
 At Common-Hall, on Church^" and State,'' 
 
 City classics that the clique 
 
 Better understand than Greek ! 
 
 With a penitential chuckle 
 
 Down to Jacks in office knuckle, 
 
 Dearly love they tools that truckle ! 
 
 Sinners whose conversion recent 
 
 Makes their dotage only decent ! 
 
 Thus I rise, and get rewarded. 
 
 Though its duty if the cord did, 
 
 My last dying speech, confession. 
 
 Would most aptly crown the session I 
 
 What d'ye lack ? what d'ye lack ? 
 
 ^ In L'Estrange's Reflections upon Poggius's Fable of 
 a Priest and Epiphany, part i. 364, is the following. 
 
 " Upon one occasion an Alderman (probably Pennington) 
 said, ' Mr. Speaker, there are so many clamours against 
 such and such of the Prelates, that we shall never be quiet 
 till we have no more Bishops.' Upon this Selden rose and 
 desired the House to observe, ' what grievous complaints 
 there were for high misdemeanours, against such and such 
 of the Aldermen ; and therefore, by parity of reason, it is 
 my humble motion that we have no more Aldermen.' " 
 
 ^' " Sedition " (exclaims Pamphlet, in Murphy's Farce
 
 152 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Pedler Puck has 'era all in his pack ! 
 
 "The People's" Chit, "the People's" Chat'^ 
 
 "The Family" This, "the Family" That, 
 
 Every pun cracked under the sun 
 
 Since Momus first opened his budget of fun ! 
 
 of " The Upholsterer") " is the only thing an author can 
 live by now. Time has been when I could turn a penny 
 by an earthquake ; or live upon a jail-distemper; or dine 
 upon a bloody murder ; but now that's all over ; nothing 
 will do now but roasting a minister ; or telling the people 
 that they are ruined ; the people of England are never so 
 happy as when you tell 'em they are ruined." 
 
 ^^ Had the finest productions of genius been written in 
 the present day, they would have dropped still-born from 
 the press. What chance would have stood " The Tra- 
 veller," " The Deserted Village," and Gray's " Elegy " 
 against the seductive pruriency of Thomas Little and Don 
 Juan? Or the "Minstrel" and the " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night" against the bewitching blasphemies of "Queen 
 Mab," and " Cain " ? How tame would have seemed the 
 " Vicar of Wakefield " and " Rasselas" after the excite- 
 ment of perusing "Paid Cliff"ord," "Jack Sheppard," and 
 Company ! Would the " Passions" and the " Ode to Even- 
 ing " have found a single admirer, the " Task " been en- 
 dured, or the " Spectator " reached its second number with 
 such a cloud of weekly caterers for its rivals ? Fancy 
 " As You Like It " and " Lear " submitted (for the Jirst 
 time !) to an audience reeking with the pleasantries and 
 pathos of modern playwrights, who smuggle their non- 
 sense, duty free, 
 " And shift their style much oftener than their clothes." 
 
 What Publisher, with the fear of Basinghall Street before 
 his eyes, would bestow paper and print on an editio princeps 
 of the " Fairie Queeii" ? Even the memorable modicum
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 153 
 
 Plays with plots,*' and plays with none. 
 Fustian tragedy, mountebank mummery, 
 Fine-drawn, filigree, flatulent flummery, 
 Histories, mysteries, sentiment,^^ smut, 
 The froth of the beer, and the dregs of the butt ! 
 
 doled out by Samuel Simmons for " Paradise Lost " would 
 be met by the "cold blank bookseller's rhyme-freezing 
 face " as far too great a risk for " The Roiv ! " Piety and 
 Truth, Gentleness and Beauty, delicate Wit and Humour, 
 have given place to stronger stimulants. 
 
 '* Intricacy of plot, wire-drawn intrigues, unexpected 
 turns, ludicrous situations, contretemps, and equivoque 
 belong to Comedy. However witty and humorous her 
 dialogue, she must do something more than talk. Her 
 characters must not be mere brilliant abstractions, firins: 
 off epigrams, pelting each other with puns, pointing, and 
 parrying bon mots, roasting each other with repartees, 
 but racy realities, frolicksome flesh and blood. The cour- 
 teous cold simper of gentility in the boxes, and the ap- 
 proving smile of criticism in the pit, will not carry her 
 through triumphantly without a genuine gallery roar. — 
 She must win the veto of the vulgar. The gods have a 
 keen perception of, and a high relish for humour. De- 
 raocritus Senior when he wanted to split his sides went 
 abroad into low life, and crowed accordingly ; and Demo- 
 critus Junior (honest Richard Burton !) walked to the 
 water-side, and diverted his melancholy with the broad" 
 fun of the bargemen. A dish of old-fashioned English 
 drollery, while it lays uncertain siege to fashion and fas- 
 tidiousness, takes plebeian intelligences by storm. 
 
 ^^ On the ancient stage gross vice was not whited and 
 painted to look like a sickly virtue. It was undisguised, 
 palpable, plain-spoken. A brazen warning— not a sophis- 
 ticated snare ! But now the case is altered. Our ears
 
 154 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 French (by the stench !) from the sewer of Sue- — 
 
 Knowledge is, nowadays, (who'll buy ? who ?) 
 
 As cheap as dirt, as plentiful too. 
 
 And awfuUv like it in hog'o and hue ! 
 
 What d'ye lack ? what d'ye lack ? 
 
 Intellect's brass with a fine gilt back ? 
 
 Pedler Puck has 'em all in his pack. 
 
 are grown delicate, and our hearts callous. We dare not 
 put in words what we daily put in practice. Hence vice 
 is so tampered with, mendacity is so mock-modest and 
 mealj'-mouthed, that we are puzzled to find out which is 
 addressing us, a saint, a seducer, a parson, or a pick- 
 pocket ! 
 
 A prim Parson once called upon David Garrick to so- 
 licit a subscription. "For what?" demanded David. 
 " A Famili/ Shakespeare," drawled the prim Parson. 
 " Spoil your own Bible, Sir," replied Roscius, " but let 
 ours alone ! " 
 
 Many years ago two officious " Reverends," (Messrs. 
 Bowdler and Pitman) published a pair of impertinences 
 which they called "Family'' Shahespeares ! Now what 
 young lady or young gentleman ever was, or ever will be 
 satisfied with a " Family " Shakespeare ? It but stimu- 
 lates curiosity to find out the omissions ; which, when dis- 
 covered, will not (for the trouble taken!) very soon be 
 forgotten. The verbal improprieties of Shakespeare will 
 be passed over without offence by all who can truly ap- 
 preciate his manifold and transcendent beauties. The pure 
 in heart they will not corrupt, the prurient they cannot. 
 
 When Alcibiades gave one pedagogue a box on the ear 
 because he had not Homer in his school, both ears should 
 he have boxed of the other pedagogue who told him that 
 he had — viz. a Homer — of his own correcting !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 155 
 
 In my sacerdotal smalls,^'' 
 
 Clerical coat, canonical castor, 
 A portly pillar of St. Paul's, 
 A rector plump, a rosy master, 
 RoU'd into one,^" 
 I bask in the sun ! 
 
 Tinted by Italian skies 
 
 Mr. Macready has recently published a " Family " 
 Pope, to suit, doubtless, the pure morals {My Fan, Peter .') 
 and delicate taste of the Green Room ! 
 
 " I have seen enough," (says Gifford) " of castrated 
 editions, to observe that little was gained by them on the 
 score of propriety ; since, when the author was reduced to 
 half his bulk, at the expense of his spirit and design, suffi- 
 cient remained to alarm the delicacy for which the sacri- 
 fice had been made." 
 
 ^^ Four fat livings rolled into one ! 
 Isn't our Canon a very great gun ? 
 More holy and hale^ with more joints to his tail 
 No priest can be found in the pluralist-pale. 
 
 Four fat livings rolled into one ! 
 
 Mother Church well may rejoice in her son ! 
 
 Hail! Master — Hail! Canon — (two joints of thy tail!) 
 
 And Hail ! rosy Rector — Archdeacon, all Hail ! 
 
 The Laureat. 
 
 " Though any other should preach and teach for me as 
 constantly and industriously as St. Augustine did, yet I 
 cannot think myself discharged by another man's pains- 
 taking." — Bernard Gilpin. 
 
 ^* A Pluralist alleged, in defence of non-residence, the 
 old maxim, " Qui facit -per alium facit per se." To which 
 Lord Chesterfield, who was present, replied, " Very well,
 
 156 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Glowing cheeks, bright laughing eyes, 
 
 Lips, that archly curling, show 
 
 Of fair teeth an ivory row, 
 
 Caper comic to a spinet 
 
 With more mirth than music in it ! 
 
 Song that makes its sad appeal 
 
 To the few with hearts to feel, 
 
 You have seen and heard implore 
 
 Liberal largess at your door. 
 
 Oft that Puck was Troubadour 
 
 Shall this chanson make you sure. 
 
 Ballad. 
 
 Where majestic mountains rise 
 To the blue unclouded skies, 
 And in sunny vales below 
 All the flowers of Eden blow ; 
 Where, to music, dance and song. 
 Every streamlet glides along, 
 There the home is, sweet Savoy ! 
 Of the merry Minstrel Boy. 
 
 I have wander'd far and wide, 
 
 Doctor, then you shall be saved by proxy, but damned in 
 person." .... 
 
 ^ " Thus when a Barber and a Collier fight. 
 The Barber beats the luckless Collier — white. 
 The dusty Collier heaves his ponderous sack, 
 And, big with vengeance, beats the Barber — black. 
 In comes the Brick-dust Man with grime o'erspread.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 157 
 
 Many a country's bounty tried, 
 And in freedom's happy land 
 Found at last a fostering hand I 
 Hearts to pity so inclined 
 Who shall out of Britain find ? 
 Who ? with gratitude and joy, 
 Asks the merry Minstrel Boy ! 
 
 When critics fight, and bark and bite. 
 In setting William Shakespeare right,^'' 
 Meanings, in their controversy. 
 Making, marring without mercy ! 
 When the would-be widow's lover 
 Sees her dying spouse recover; 
 When, out of pique to Jerry Sneak, 
 Death gives his wife another squeak I 
 When the worshippers of Wesley 
 (Does devotion in a dress lie ? 
 Is of piety the essence 
 In a perpendicular presence? 
 In frigidity, acidity, 
 Querulousness in its quiddity?) — 
 
 And beats the Collier and the Barber— red. 
 Black, red and white in various clouds are toss'd, 
 And in the dust they raise, the combatants are lost. ". , 
 
 " But your sweet Swan of Avon was no Lawyer, Sir," 
 exclaimed a verbal critic, who had " studied Shakespeare 
 at the inns of court," to Uncle Timothy (my Uncle had 
 been pursuing his favorite theme of the uni\'ersality of 
 Shakespeare's knowledge), " or he would never have made 
 suc-h a blunder as the following,
 
 158 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 When the Janizaries of John ^* 
 Mysterious ''Fly Sheets " light upon,-" 
 Proving, if or not it please 'em, 
 
 ' And their executors, the knavish crows, 
 Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.' 
 
 He should have written Administrators ! " 
 
 ^^ Horace Walpole, describing the personal appearance 
 of Pope John in the pulpit, says, " He is marvellously neat 
 and clean, and as great an actor as Garrick! " 
 
 •'^ Peeps behind the curtain of the Wesleyan Confer- 
 ence ! For the presumed authorship of these trenchant 
 tracts certain suspected preachers were summoned to ap- 
 pear before their spiritual senate, who put " a brotherly 
 question," affectionately inviting them to criminate them- 
 selves ! Some, time-serving and timid, confessed, and 
 were "admonished ; " but three would not be brow-beaten 
 into submission, and were expelled from the ministry. 
 
 Tho' vengeance is sped ye have nothing to dread, 
 The blessing of Heaven is over your head ; 
 With truth on your side and faith for your guide 
 The Lord will protect and the Lord will provide ! 
 
 Far better it were to be left to the care. 
 Like the prophet of old, to the birds of the air ! 
 Than receive from the hand of insulting command 
 The bread so dishonor'd by slavery's brand ! 
 
 Ye have cause to rejoice having raised such a voice 
 Applauding your zeal and approving your choice, 
 A voice that shall make your inquisitors quake, 
 And the " brotherly " bonds they had forged for ye 
 
 break. Uncle Timothy.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 139 
 
 Much their stable wants the besom I 
 When of knockers-out *' a knot 
 Are outplotted in their plot ; 
 
 *" A notable knock-out came off with great eclat some 
 short time since. The grand prize was a Folio Shakespeare 
 o/' 1623, which, after a little politic skirmishing among 
 the sham competitors, was knocked down for sixty-one 
 pounds, and knocked out for one hundred and ninety-one 
 pounds ! A dinner concluded the pleasant and profitable 
 day's sport, at which, it is said, was sung Uncle Timothy's 
 
 Knock-oct Garland. 
 
 Nicodemus Knock-out, bibliopolist stout, 
 
 In many a bellicose book-buying bout. 
 
 You'll know by his crow, cachinnation and clamor 
 
 That make merry music to Sotheby's hammer. 
 
 Nicodemus you'll know, when the breadth of his buttock 
 He squats, for rare lots ! near the pulpit of Puttick, 
 By his wide-awake wink, his auricular smile, 
 His cut-away coat and triangular tile ! 
 
 WTierever he goes, in poetry, prose, 
 Nothing escapes Nicodemus's nose ! 
 What a ferreter-out ! What a capital scout 
 Is, black-letter boy ! Nicodemus Knock-out ! 
 
 A fine "Widow Toye" or a " Wynkyn de Worde" 
 How lovingly ogles the wicked old bird ! 
 And when his eye cocks on a " Caxton,'" sly fox ! 
 Bold knockers-out all Nicodemus out-knocks ! 
 
 No knocking-out wight draws a bargain so tight 
 And gets such a profit, thrice cent, per cent. ! by't — 
 Push the bottle about — bumpers sparkle and spout — 
 Our brother unique Nicodemus Knock-out !
 
 160 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 When knaves *^ fall out, and honest men 
 Obtain their rights, but not till then ! 
 And rogues in their own traps are caught, 
 Robin has not roam'd for naught I 
 
 He to bear his mischief brings 
 
 " When Theeves fall out, it hath been often known, 
 True men by their contention get their own. 
 
 Sam. Rowlands. 
 
 Judas and Judy had three sons, 
 Jacke}', Jemmy, and Joe — 
 
 First in the pack 
 
 Of knaves was Jack, 
 Jem was second, and Joe was third, 
 Each to strut a broth of a bird 
 On his own dunghill, and crow ! 
 
 Judas was counting his gold dust, 
 
 After snuffling a hymn! 
 When death dropp'd in for his old dust — 
 
 Judy with Nick 
 
 For a time went tick, 
 
 She saved every ducat. 
 
 And then kick'd the bucket ! 
 
 All the thi-ee prigs 
 
 Were as merry as grigs ! 
 
 They parted the hag's 
 
 Rhino and rags ! 
 And sent their sisters her — empty bags ! 
 
 Jackey, Joey, and Jem. 
 
 Judas and Judy had three sons, 
 Jackey, Jemmy, and Joe — 
 Sly and dry
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 161 
 
 Not on sad and sacred things. 
 
 Who shall dare 
 
 Arraign despair ? 
 
 Make direst woe 
 
 A penal show ? ^ 
 Was madness made for mockery ? No I 
 
 Jemmy (0 fie !) 
 Snugly slipp'd 
 In the family crypt, 
 His cook-maid quean 
 From behind the scene 
 Came with her litter of cubs unclean, 
 And hook'd at a haul 
 Jem's money bags all ! 
 O, how black 
 Look'd Joey and Jack 
 To be done by a demirep so ! 
 
 Judas and Judy had three sons, 
 Jackey, Jemmy, and Joe — 
 Joey to Jackey 
 Turn'd toady and lackey — 
 " I shall touch his tin" 
 Said Joe, with a grin, 
 " So the sooner the better we shovel Jack in ! " 
 But Puck 
 Spoilt his luck, 
 And threw them the apple 
 Of discord to grapple ; 
 A thriftless throw 
 For juggling Joe 
 When Jack join'd Jem in the shades below. 
 
 The Laureat. 
 *^ How sternly has Shakespeare rebuked this presump- 
 tion ! 
 
 M
 
 162 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Often I, a farcing fellow ! 
 Play the pulpit Punchinello,*^ 
 Vapour in a gown and cassock, 
 Dance a hornpipe on a hassock ! 
 Now and then, to tickle the town, 
 Midas I strut in an Alderman's"" gown, 
 And with my judicial ears 
 Take my place among my peers ! 
 Clap on m}'^ cranium civic crown, 
 " Entertaining" Toga^^ try on. 
 
 And royally roU'd 
 
 In scarlet and gold, 
 
 " I tell thee, churlish priest, 
 A minist'ring angel shall my sister be. 
 When thou liest howling ! " 
 
 What " furred gown," in its obtuse officiousness, would 
 have dared to commit to prison the author of " The Task ? " 
 
 My dark hour is returning, 
 Alas ! there's no dissembling. 
 
 Again my brain is burning, 
 Again my heart is trembling. 
 
 Abroad I restless roam, 
 
 Yet know not where to wander, 
 My thoughts I would call home. 
 But, ! I dread to ponder — 
 Nor brain nor breast can hope for rest 
 But in the church-yard yonder ! 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 
 *^ The pulpit-pleasantries of Rowland Hill were endured 
 out of respect for the minister and regard for the man. In 
 his faith we forgot his fun. Rowland's light comedy, and 
 (sometimes) broad farce, ridiculed not doctrines, but deeds.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 163 
 
 Rampantly out-roar the Lion ! 
 But would I out-Bruin the Bear — 
 
 Pumpkin. This droll would make a parson swear ! 
 Mr. Mountebank (Rising from his seat.) 
 
 Puck. 3Ionfrere ! 
 
 I take, by Jupiter ! the Chair. 
 
 (Slijjs into the vacant seat.) 
 
 Enter Democritus as Beadle. 
 
 Duet. Democritus and Puck. 
 Dem. Punch and Jem Crow are both waiting below, 
 As soon as you can, Sir, an answer they crave. 
 
 He was no punster in polemics. As a Scholar and a Chris- 
 tian Gentleman, he venerated the Liturgy of the Church of 
 England for its Catholic spirit and heaven-inspired beauty 
 and holiness. He admired dissent, but not dissenters ; in 
 illustration of which he quoted Churchill's line, 
 " The laws I los'e, the lawyers I suspect." 
 The conceited, vituperative, vulgar sectary found no fa- 
 vor in his sight. His mantle has descended upon no one. 
 A Brummagem Rowland Hill is intolerable. 
 
 ''■' " God send you, Sir, a speedy infirmity, for the bet- 
 ter increasing your folly ! Sir Toby will be sworn that I 
 am no fox ; but he will not pass his word for two-pence 
 that you are no fool." Twelfth ISIight. 
 
 La-Writ. " Let him learn, let him learn ; 
 Time that trains chickens up, will teach him quickly. 
 
 Cler. Why, he's a judge, an old man! 
 
 Lu-Wrii. Never too old 
 To be a gentleman — " The Little French Lawyer. 
 
 •** When the Lord Mayor of London receives his royal 
 and noble guests at a City Feast he puts on his " Enter' 
 taiiiiii'r Gown."
 
 164 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Puck. Tell nigger Jem I've the treadmill for him I 
 Tell Mr. Punch he's an impudent knave ! 
 
 Dem. Little Tom Thumb for his ticket is come. 
 
 Puck. Rare sport for the court ! he shall caper 
 and spout ; 
 We'll serve, to a tittle, up Boney the Little ! 
 
 Boney the Great we have often served out, 
 
 Dem. The Giant will thank ye for one for a Yan- 
 kee. — ^^ 
 With Strong-wind's petition I bring the Great 
 Bear's — 
 Puck. Bid the Ojibbeway run with his rib away ! 
 Kick the American Giant down stairs ! 
 
 Dem. A ticket for 
 
 Puck. Eh? 
 
 Dem. Gog ! another for Magog ! 
 
 -"S The Laureat. The " Stars and Stripes" proclaim the 
 land 
 Where Liberty's tall tree grows ; 
 What mean the " Stars?" 
 
 Uncle Tim. I'm at a stand. 
 
 The Laureat. The " Stripes," then? 
 
 Uncle Tim. Ask the Negroes ! 
 
 " We talk a great deal of our national intelligence in 
 America" (says Fenimore Cooper) ; " but blocks are not 
 colder nor can have less real reverence for letters, arts, 
 or indeed cultivation of any kind, than the great bulk of
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 165 
 
 Puck. The sooner the better each right-about 
 wheels ! 
 My brain's like a feather, I cannot tell whether 
 I stand, noble Grand ! on my head or my heels. 
 
 The Scene closes. 
 
 Scene XIII. — A Tavern. Timothy Truckle 
 and Jacob Juniper discovered. 
 
 Timothy. 
 
 TO-MORROW, when from Titan's bed 
 Aurora rises blushing red ! 
 When, after snuffing out the moon. 
 The Sun Dan Phoebus rides his noon ; 
 Jacob, when our Bow-bells chime 
 The pleasant tune of pudding-time 
 To your daughters Dolly, Dinah, 
 Then proclaim we that Hegina, 
 
 the American people. In short let the truth be said, the 
 only country in which the writer has found his pursuits a 
 disadvantage, is his own ! " 
 
 The following picture (by the same hand) is amusing. 
 " He (the American) can surely smoke cigars, drink con- 
 gress water, discuss party politics, and fancy himself a 
 statesman, whittle, clean his nails in company and never 
 out of it ! swear things are good enough for him without 
 having known any other state of society, squander dol- 
 lars on discomfort, and refuse cents to elegance and conve- 
 nience, because he knows no better ; and call the obliquity
 
 166 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 With her court and consort, (Hsten !) 
 This bran new Exchange will christen 
 (Brick-and-mortary salmagundi !) 
 On the next ensuing Monday. 
 Pearson,'*''' mad wag ! Merewether,*^ 
 Laying their wise w^igs together ! 
 Have concocted martial law 
 To keep the citizens in awe ! 
 I their Corporation thunder 
 Pump, and you, the beadle under, 
 Must, with all submission due, 
 From me, first fiddle ! take your cue. 
 While this Pageant's on the stage 
 Every cockney in his cage 
 Shall, like the imprison'd starling, shout 
 " I can't get out ! I can't get out ! " 
 
 Jacob. Tim, my farthing rushlight dimmer 
 In your sun can only glimmer, 
 Seeing you imbibed at school 
 Grammar'*'' just like gooseberry-fool ! 
 
 of taste patriotism, without enjoying a walk in a wood by 
 the side of a murnauring rill." 
 
 " The facetious City Solicitor. 
 
 *» The learned Town Clerk. 
 
 ^9 " Learning," (says Bacon,) " taketh away the wild- 
 ness, bai-barism, and fierceness of men's minds; though a 
 little of it doth rather work a contrary effect." Pope, in 
 his oft-disputed but never-refuted axiom, " A little learn- 
 ing is a dangerous thing," (the cheap indoctrination of a 
 puffing pedagogue !) echoes the sentiment.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 167 
 
 Lonsf divisions and subtractions, 
 Airs polite and vulgar fractions. 
 My palavering pedagogue he 
 «* Preachee" did, but never " floggee !" 
 (Birch ^° for blockheads had than blarney- 
 Better been, that yawning yarn he 
 Spun the school-boys, cant and carney !) 
 Hence I took to British stingos 
 Rather than to foreign lingos. 
 And could never join or jump 
 With social parties round a pump ! 
 Such experiments hydraulic 
 Savouring cruelly of cholic, 
 To teetotallers and twanky 
 1 said " Gentlefolks, no thank'e ! " 
 I remember you a clerk 
 Shuffling after Shadrack Shark 
 That walking gibbet of a man 
 Whom never bankrupt bard outran ! 
 Deeming a dramatic stroller 
 
 50 On one end of the School-Koom of Wykeham's Col- 
 lege at Winchester, in uncial letters, are the following 
 orders, with significant symbols opposite. 
 
 Aut Disce (either learn). A mitre and crosier, as the 
 expected reward of learning. 
 
 Aut Discede (or depart). An inkhorn to sign, and a 
 sword to enforce expulsion. 
 
 Manet Sors Tertia Caidi (the third choice is to be flogged). 
 A Scourge. 
 
 Uncle Timothy and the Laureat, on a late visit to this 
 college, remarking how a Kobin Ked-breast hopped all
 
 168 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 More delectable, and droller, 
 You dodged about the playhouse doors, 
 Then danced a devil on all fours ! ^^ 
 How gaped the gallery gods and grinn'd 
 To see you frisk, you funny fiend ! 
 Filch to figure in at Fairlop 
 You from four legs did a pair lop I 
 At St. Bartlemy and Barnet 
 
 round with them through the beautiful cloisters, was told 
 that it was the " Chapel Robin," a name given to the little 
 bird from its regularly attending divine service ! This 
 anecdote was not lost upon Uncle Timothy. 
 
 Chirping on a window sill 
 When the snow falls fast and chill, 
 Or upon the bloomy spray 
 Singing through a summer day, 
 All the Robin Red-breast know, 
 He is free to come and go, 
 A mysterious, holy charm 
 Keeps his little head from harm ! 
 
 In my chUdhood I have heard 
 Thou wert God- Almighty's bird. 
 And with food thy path I strew'd 
 In the wintry season rude. 
 While, as from thy tuneful throat 
 Pour'd a soft thanksgiving note, 
 Methought I heard, in that sweet song, 
 A voice that dwelt the stars among: ! 
 
 'o 
 
 Say, what sympathetic spell 
 Hath for thee the Sabbath bell ? 
 Art a voice, that here, in praise, 
 Join'd the saints of other days,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 You were comedy incarnate I 
 
 Up and down the country strolling 
 
 (In the interval of drolling), 
 
 Yeovil, Yoxford, Yackura, Yarmouth 
 
 Heard you, as a tragic star,^- mouth ! ^^ 
 
 Like in an ivy-bush an owl, 
 
 You scowl'd the true Macready^* scowl, 
 
 And shaved your beard with water cold 
 
 169 
 
 Come to mourn how dim the flame 
 Bearing still devotion's name ? 
 But with altars, shrines o'erthrown 
 Quite in harmony and tone ! 
 
 *' He (Thos. Killigrew) would go to the Ked Bull, and 
 when the man cried to the boys, " Who wiU go and be a 
 Devil, and he shall see the play for nothing ? " then would 
 he go in, and be a Devil upon the stage, and so get to see 
 plays. . . . Pepys's Diary. 
 
 *^ In the days of the Drama's glory no such puffs were 
 put forth as " The eminent Tragedian," and " Those highly- 
 talented artistes." Neither did Mrs. Frail and Jeremy Did- 
 dler play their professional parts in private life to an 
 applauding public ! Would Pope have painted Betterton's 
 portrait, and Addison written the affecting account of his 
 funeral in Westminster Abbey, if the great actor had 
 brought scandal upon his eloquent art ? Modern players 
 have been puffed until they are fairly puffed out ! 
 
 *' A troublesome StroUer asked Tate Wilkinson whe- 
 ther he had any opening for him at his theatre. To which 
 Tate replied in his laconic way, " No! — You shall never 
 open your mouth on my stage as long as you live ! " 
 
 ** The sun of Siddons had gloriously set, and that of 
 John Kemble was majestically descending the horizon, 
 when Mr. Macready made his first appearance on the
 
 170 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Because John Kemble did of old ! 
 Having join'd a gipsy throng, 
 (Meals were short and miles were long !) 
 You with geese for playing fox 
 
 London Stage. The sublimity, grandeur, and depth of 
 Shakespeare's tragic creations the genius of Mr. Macready 
 has failed to realise; yet in Ion, Claude Mebwtte, Riche- 
 lieu, Virgiiiius, IVilliam Tell, Rob Roy, and Werner, it has 
 left criticism nothing to desire. Canning's Rule-of- 
 Three, 
 
 " Pitt is to Addington 
 As London is to Paddington — " 
 applies to Mr. Macready in relation {Mr. Phelps excepted) 
 to his present tragic contemporaries ; Tyros, whose nar- 
 row perceptions and stunted idiosyncracies cannot discover 
 that nature has qualified them for the stage in about the 
 same degree as she has the bear for the ball room. Let 
 us speak of his masterpiece. Werner, from the hand of 
 Lord Byron, is a picturesque and bold outline; Werner, 
 as represented by Mr. Macready, is that outline skilfully 
 filled up and highly finished. The lurid light that plays 
 about the character of this mysterious man, and but half 
 reveals its moody darkness, becomes more terrible and in- 
 tense in the histrionic interpi'etation, and much that is 
 only hinted at by the poet, is made palpable by the player. 
 In the earlier scenes, haggard misery and hereditary pride, 
 aristocratical remembrances and utter ruin, revengeful re- 
 solves and fierce despair, alternately tearing their ignoble 
 victim, are pictured by the actor with appalling foi'ce and 
 effect. And when adverse fate has seemingly done its 
 worst, and fortune takes a favourable turn, the character 
 of Werner rises not with his improved condition ; he is, 
 as represented by Mr. Macready, (and with consummate 
 propriety) the same little-minded, abject waverer, deriv- 
 ing no consolation from his reflections, and living in mor-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 171 
 
 Took a benefit in the stocks ! 
 Once again in London town, 
 In the mouth extremely down I 
 (At Covent Garden rogues in grain ^^ 
 
 bid dread of some new calamity. Has he, then, no re- 
 deeming qualities ? The player has been more charitable 
 than the poet. In the closet, Werner is all but irredeem- 
 able ; on the stage, there is something in his character to 
 palliate and to pity. He becomes, after many fearful 
 struggles, a robber. But be recoils from murder. The 
 thought of shedding blood chills his throbbing heart and 
 convulses his attenuated frame ! How finely does the 
 actor improve upon the conception of the poet where the 
 son's infamy is gradually revealed to the miserable father. 
 Though soul-subdued and prostrate at the fatal intelli- 
 gence, there is still (as depicted by the poet) neither dig- 
 nity nor sacredness in the parent's sorrow. But the actor, 
 by giving it a gentle elevation, a mournful spirituality, 
 not inconsistent with the character, moves our sympathy ; 
 and what seemed harsh and crude is touched with a gra- 
 cious humanity as judicious and just as it is benign and 
 beautiful. The heart-sickness and hopelessness of the 
 sufferer that finds no consolation within, the guilt that 
 sees its own evil deeds working retributive justice against 
 itself, the harrowing remorse, the grief, the cowardice, the 
 despair— this whirlwind of fury-passions that maddens, 
 and hurries on the doomed criminal to death — exhibits a 
 picture to which nothing on the modern stage can furnish 
 a parallel. It is the province of the player to illustrate 
 the poet's vigorous, eloquent, and majestic inspiration; 
 to reflect the various passions of the soul alternately swayed 
 by low desires, and refined and transfigured by truth and 
 virtue. — Uiicle Timothy. 
 
 •" The Cacotthes loquendi (Platform-Quackery in all its 
 flatulent verbosity !), distillations of emasculated slip-slop.
 
 172 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 The Elephant at Drury Lane, 
 Brorapton's,-^" and St. Bartle's players, 
 (jooseberry and Greenwich fairs 
 All at their last kick and pray'rs !) 
 In what theatre could you 
 Frisk on four legs or on two ? 
 Wizard of the Norwood breed, 
 Merry- Andrew run to seed, 
 
 and a loose, rambling, conventional mode of mouthing are 
 the three grand ingredients of Joint-Stock agitation elo- 
 quence. Such harangues would be unbearable even in 
 Boeotia. To tie up these wind-bags it would puzzle King 
 .^olus ! 
 
 *^ Risum teneatis, amici? 
 
 Was Grub-Street air to rhymers rare 
 
 In ancient times a tonic ? 
 A Brompton breeze as well agrees 
 
 With modern histrionic ! 
 
 There Covent-Garden-shepherdess 
 
 Cashiers her crook and kirtle, 
 And sports a spray, in bonnet gay. 
 
 Of Cranbourn- Alley myrtle ! 
 
 King Dick lays down his hump and crown, 
 
 Old Shylock casts his Jew-coat, 
 Cordelia wears a cotton gown. 
 
 And Caliban a blue coat ; 
 
 Lord Hamlet doffs his inky cloak, 
 
 His inky face Othello, 
 Cassio turns Teetotaller, 
 
 And Filch an honest fellow ! 
 
 In cosey trim cries Corporal Nym, 
 " Wine makes our spirits gay, light.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Bankrupt ward of capering Bruins, 
 Sometime rope-dancer in ruins, 
 Barn-door bantam on the scout, 
 Salamander quite burnt out. 
 Parcel-poet, not plethoric ! 
 You were now, " Alas, poor Yorick ! ' 
 Settled, sold up, ruin'd, roll'd up. 
 Never more your head to hold up ? 
 
 173 
 
 Ghost, fill a bumper to the brim, 
 You goblins hate the day-light ! 
 
 Moll Flaggon, Dan, Macbeth, my man, 
 
 The toast that I propose is 
 King Richard's rose and Bardolph''s nose — 
 
 Let's twine the rival roses ! " 
 
 Quoth Falstaff, " Bring a cup of sack, 
 No cockney champagne (gooseb'ry !) — 
 
 Drink, Harry Percy ! drink with Jack 
 Who shoidder'd thee at Shrewsb'ry ! 
 
 Dame Quickly, Desdemnna, Doll, 
 
 Sir Andrew and Sir Toby, 
 The Witches Three, a gladsome glee 
 
 To give dull care the go-by I " 
 
 Thus fly the hours in Brompton's bowers, 
 
 Thus drollery is out-droll'd ; 
 The wine, tho' brighter than the jokes. 
 
 Is still not half so old ! 
 
 Thus sally quips from laughing lips. 
 Thus wit out-wits his witty mate. 
 
 And Miller Joe, Chief Joker ! trips 
 The Drama's Lord legitunate. 
 
 The Laureat.
 
 174 
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 No such thing, Tim, no such thing, 
 
 Your bow had still another string ! 
 
 Thro' your vocal nose," and thorax 
 
 You held forth like many more hacks, 
 
 And your bray ^* the brainless " brethren " 
 
 Suck'd thro' their long ears of leather in I 
 
 Puzzling dogmas by the score 
 
 You but set on foot, to floor ! 
 
 As the skittles-playing clown 
 
 Puts them up to knock them down ! 
 
 Soon expanding to a " Deacon," 
 
 Cant you grew quite smug and sleek on, 
 
 Sang devoutly, sigh'd demurely, 
 
 Slumber'd in your pew securely, 
 
 " The Nose was the only organ admitted by the secta- 
 ries into their conventicles. It was the carnal vehicle of 
 puritanical psalmody. So popular became this harmo- 
 nious conductor, that even penny ballads were directed to 
 be droned through it. A " Psalm of Mercy, Jan. 26, 
 1660," bears the nasal injunction of " Si7ig it in the nose." 
 In "The Holy Sisters' Conspiracy," 4to. London, Jan. 
 1660-1, " Ursula reads and all the sisters sing through 
 the nose.'' 
 
 " One hearing a silenc'd Minister speake in the nose, askt 
 his companion standing by the reason of it. Foole said 
 the other, how shoukl he speake otherwise than in the 
 nose, when the Bishoppe hath stopp'd his mouth ? "—The 
 Bookenf Bulls. 1636. 
 
 '^ Robert Hall was once reproved by " Tabernacle Wilks" 
 for " talking nonsense " at a private party after having 
 just before preached an eloquent sermon. "Matthew" 
 (replied the profound theologian and brilliant orator) the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 175 
 
 Nodding your sympathizing head, 
 To every thing the parson said ! 
 In your Muggletonian face 
 Gravity ^^ was sign of grace, 
 Did you laugh, I do beHeve, 
 It was only in your sleeve ! 
 From all corners of your eyes 
 Ogling for the richest prize. 
 Every widow, every maid 
 In the balances you weigh'd 
 Under as they pass'd in rows 
 Your prognosticating nose ! 
 When, behold ! a " serious " maiden 
 Full of love, with lucre laden, 
 
 difference between us is this ; I talii my nonsense in the 
 
 parlour, thou talkest thine in the pulpit! " 
 
 ^5 " Gravity " (says Rochefbucault) " is a mysterious 
 carriage of the body invented to cover the defects of the 
 mind." " Gravity " (quoth Yorick) " is an errant scoun- 
 drel, and of the most dangerous kind too, because a sly 
 one ; and more honest well-meaning people are bubbled 
 out of their goods and money by it in one twelvemonth 
 than by pocket-picking and shop lifting in seven. The 
 very essence of gravity is design, and consequently, de- 
 ceit ; a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more 
 sense and knowledge than a man is worth." . " Gravit\' " 
 (says Shaftesbury) " is of the very essence of imposture." 
 Paley calls it a cloak for stupidity — " A man who is not 
 sometimes a fool is always one ! " . . . " Friend " said 
 Theophrastus to a person who had observed a profound 
 silence during an entertainment, " if you be a fool you act 
 the part of a wise man ; but if you be a wise man you 
 certainly play the fool."
 
 176 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 (Brother Snuffle, who intruded 
 Popp'd the question not as you did!) 
 Of conventicles the cream, 
 Got up your connubial steam ! 
 
 Tim. Jacob, when your weaker vessel's 
 Laid upon a pair of trestles, 
 And you've grunted all your grief out 
 Take my book and tear a leaf out I 
 Let those (luck's logic I) laugh that win, 
 Somebody must be taken in, 
 Cries my easy conscience,™ which is 
 Very like a Dutchman's breeches,''^ 
 Plenty large enough, and roomy, 
 Quite indeed a treasure to me ! 
 O'er the sick, with solemn face, 
 The dismal doctor grumbles grace, 
 Not forgetting, sly old fox I 
 
 *" Like Merciitio's " scratch," " 'tis not so deep as a 
 well, nor so wide as a church door ; but 'tis enough." 
 Archdeacon Paley when pressed to publish some opinions 
 which he held in opposition to his ecclesiastical superiors, 
 replied (notwithstanding his many rich and fat prefer- 
 ments !) " I cannot afford to have a conscience." 
 
 fi' " The great large abhominable breech ! " see The 
 Knaves of Spades and Diamonds, by Samuel Rowlands. In 
 the Middle Temple, an order was made in the 4th and 5th 
 of Philip and Mary, that none of that society should wear 
 great breeches in their hose, after the Dutch, Spanish, or 
 Almain fashion, &c. on pain of forfeiting 3s. 4d, ; and for 
 the second offence the offender to be expelled. . . 
 
 ^^ In reply to one of the circulars lately sent round by the 
 Bishop of Oxford to the different parishes in his diocess
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 177 
 
 Blessings on Pandora's box. 
 
 The attorney ne'er, rely on't, 
 
 Makes two mouthfuls of a client, 
 
 Any more than school-boy merry 
 
 Makes two nibbles of a cherry ! 
 
 Alas ! how many curates lean^^ 
 
 It takes to dine one rosv dean, 
 
 And how many deans to dish up 
 
 Banquet bilious for a bishop ! 
 
 Chuckling o'er his sinecure may 
 
 You the gourmand see, and gourmet,^^ 
 
 In satiety and sloth 
 
 Living on the public both ! 
 
 Not, a burning shame ! to mention 
 
 The state pauper with a pension,"* 
 
 Or in petticoat or breech 
 
 A rare lickspit and a leech ! 
 
 was this enquiry, " Does your officiating clergyman preach 
 the Gospel, and are his conversation and carriage consis- 
 tent therewith ? " To which a churchwarden, about four 
 miles from Wallingford, wrote in answer, " He preaches 
 the Gospel, but does not keep a Carriage." . . 
 
 '^ " To see an hirsute beggar's brat, that lately fed on 
 scraps, crept and whined, ci-ying to all, and for an old 
 jerkin ran of errands, now ruffle in silk and satten, bravely 
 mounted, jovial and polite, now scorn his old friends and 
 familiars, neglect his kindred, insult over his betters, do- 
 mineer over all." — Robert Burton. 
 
 ^* George the Third fancied he had done good service 
 to literature by pensioning Dr. Johnson ; yet when a mo- 
 derate addition to that pension was asked to enable him to 
 recruit his shattered health by foreign travel, the request, 
 
 N
 
 178 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 The scale descend, will matters mend 
 Opine you at the people's end ? 
 Treading see the commonalty 
 In the footsteps of the quality ; 
 Yes, Jacob Juniper ! I feel 
 You7' toe intruding on mi/ heel, 
 Toe of one that two a-penny, 
 Trims His Majesty the Many ! 
 A duck-legg'd little dog like you 
 Talk of " Fraternity," pooh ! pooh I 
 To me, a beadle six feet two ! 
 The world's turn'd topsy-turvy ! 
 
 Puck. True ! 
 
 Tim. Jacob ! 
 
 Jacob. Tim ! 
 
 Tim. A rig ! 
 
 Jacob. A riddle ! 
 
 Tim. List ! [Puck plays the Fiddle) 
 What is't ? 
 
 Jacob. Why, fool ! a fiddle ! 
 
 though urged with all the warmth of friendship by Lord 
 Thm'Jow, was refused! A beggarly per-centage on the 
 vast sums of England's money pocketed by 
 
 Gamblers, pimps, and demireps, 
 
 Pretty ballast for our ships ! 
 imported by the illustrious House of Hand-over (George 
 the First landed in England with a couple of German 
 mistresses, a couple of Turkish valets, and a Secretary 
 who belonged, it is said, to no country at all!) was too 
 princely a reward to add one humane appliance to the de- 
 clining years of the author of The Rambler !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 179 
 
 Trio, Timothy, Jacob, and Puck. 
 
 Tim. What, l' feggs ! bewitches my legs ? 
 Jacob. 'Tis, O Tim I that fiddle's trickery. 
 Tim. Every joint's at capering point ! 
 Every toe out-trips Terpsichore ! 
 
 Puch (joining in the dance). Dance the hey ! 
 figure away ! 
 Pirouette quick, ray prancing pup, again — 
 
 Chorus. Royal Exchanges every day 
 We don't burn down and then build up again ! 
 
 [^Exit Puck. 
 
 Tim. Stop, Jacob, stop I I pant for breath, 
 I'm almost fiddled, danced to death ! 
 If ever goblin plied a bow, 
 Tripp'd on supernatural toe, 
 With unearthly vigor chanted. 
 This was he — the house is haunted ! 
 
 Enter Host with a Bowl of Punch. 
 
 Jacob. Wafted by a fragrant gale 
 See ! our punch is in full sail — 
 Brother Boniface, all hail ! {_Exit Host. 
 
 Strong and spicy! \_Drinks. 
 
 Tim. Lawless liquor 
 
 Brew'd by Be'lzebub, Old Nick, or 
 Doctor Faustus I 
 
 Jacob. Megrims musty I 
 
 If your windpipe's dry and dusty 
 Try a sip, 'tis first-rate flip
 
 180 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Worthy of a beadle's lip ! 
 Try, my tulip ! — 
 
 Tim. Just one drip ! 
 
 [ Takes a deep dranglit. 
 Tipple for an emperor! — tip ! — 
 
 [ They fall asleep. 
 
 Enter Puck and Democritus. 
 Puck. This charm'd bowl the wits that wheedles 
 Of these two bibacious beadles 
 Shall, by its somnific powers, 
 Hold them captive for twelve hours. 
 While in a delirious trance 
 Fantastic furies round them dance, 
 Hobgoblins, of the bottle's birth, 
 In ghastly shapes of madness,^'^ mirth ! 
 While reel tapers, jug and jorum 
 In a phantom jig before 'em. 
 These two-legged, torpid trunks of state 
 To-morrow we will personate. 
 Ay, and publish to the lieges 
 London in a state of siege is ! 
 — Busy day has done its duty, 
 Night's enthroned in awful beauty ! 
 
 *' Beroaldus will have drunkards, afternoon-men, and 
 such as more than ordinarily delight in drink, to be mad. 
 The first pot quencheth thirst (so Panyasis the poet deter- 
 mines in Athenpeus) : secunda Gratiis, Horis, et Dionysio — 
 the second makes merry : the third for pleasure : quarta 
 
 ad insaniam, the fourth makes them mad. 
 
 Robert Burton,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 181 
 
 All her lustrous lamps divine 
 In their glittering orbits shine I 
 From thy realm, grim king of ghosts ! 
 Mute and stealing, spectral hosts 
 That could tell full many a tale 
 Walk in death's mysterious veil ! 
 Oath of silence they have ta'en, 
 Man may ask, but ask in vain 
 What wondrous secrets lie beyond 
 The vale of shadows ! none respond 
 To the inquirer ! ""^ — Now the breeze 
 Swells into solemn harmonies, 
 Hark I Hosannas rise around, 
 Every star a voice has found I 
 All Creation, in the calm, 
 Uplifts her high thanksgiving psalm 
 To the Eternal Dwelling-Place, 
 And in the darkness hides her face ! 
 Crime and gluttony and woe. 
 The ridiculous and low 
 Are not All this Key can show — ■ 
 
 Dem. Spirit ! 
 
 Puck. Follow ! time flies fast. 
 
 One Lock more — and That the last ! [_Exevnt. 
 
 66 a "VVell, 'tis no matter — 
 A very little time will clear up all, 
 And make us learn'd as you are, and as close.'' 
 
 Blair's Grave.
 
 182 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Scene XIV. — The Interior of Westminster Ab- 
 bey. Democritus and Puck discovered. 
 
 Puck. 
 
 NEVER Temple more august^'' 
 Rear'd its sacred spires to heaven 
 Where repentant, sinful dust 
 Humbly prays to be forgiven ! 
 
 Light celestial streams around, 
 
 And from every holy altar, 
 With a sweet and solemn sound, 
 
 Rises a mysterious psalter 
 As thro' walks of chiefs we glide 
 In their monumental pride; 
 Marble effigy, and pall, 
 
 ^ Whether we enter a Church as the sacred Temple of 
 the Deity, set apart for his most solemn worship ; whether 
 we view it, as the House appointed for all Living, to which 
 we must sooner or later retire ; — or whether, with a philo- 
 sophic mind, we hope to be animated, by contemplating 
 the tombs of the virtuous, to imitate their example, and 
 obtain the grateful reward of posterity ; all serve to ex- 
 ercise our rational faculties, and to " advance us in the 
 scale of thinking beings." 
 
 "8 St. George's Ensign, a Ked Cross on a white field, 
 was introduced by Joseph of Arimathea. In " The De- 
 bate betwene the Heraldes of Englande and Fraunce" 
 printed about 1550, it says, Joseph of Arimathea came to 
 Avalon now called Glastonbury, forty-five years after the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 183 
 
 Curtain dread ! that drops on all. 
 
 Death's thick-shaded frontier past, 
 Kings their crowns imperial cast, 
 Lowly pilgrims 1 at the gate 
 Of this sepulchre of state. 
 The knight who once in triumph bore 
 The Cross of Christ to Canaan's shore 
 His lance and panoply*^* lays down, 
 Assured his hope that Cross ^^ will crown ! 
 From perils of the land and wave 
 Beneath our footsteps sleep the brave ! 
 Patriots who saw senates shake 
 And tyrants tremble when they spake, 
 Poets whom the lyre made glorious 
 And o'er death and time victorious,™ 
 Firm confessors whom the wheel 
 But inspired with stronger zeal, 
 
 Nativity of our Lord, Arviragus then reigning over Britain, 
 and propagated Christianity ; and Leland in his " Asser- 
 tion of King Arthure" printed in 1582, not only mentions 
 it, but makes it appear from the Genealogy of that Prince, 
 that he was the tenth lineal descendant from Joseph. For 
 centuries has " St. George ! " been the war-cry of Britons. 
 " Advance your standards, draw your -willing swords; 
 Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully ; 
 The words " St. George, Richmond, and Victory ! " . . . 
 
 *' Death touched the sacrifice, His mortality, and con- 
 sumed it — touched His Godhead, and itself expired ! . . . 
 
 7° The soul shines brightest in adversity and sorrow ! 
 Never was there a more affecting proof of this than the 
 circumstances under which Rasselas was written. No pas-
 
 184 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Saints who fed the funeral pyre, 
 Souls of faith ! and lips of fire ! 
 With the martyr's glory crown'd, 
 Sanctify this sacred ground ! 
 Mingling with their hallow'd mould 
 Hands lie nerveless, lifeless, cold. 
 That sculptured with enchanting grace 
 The fairest form, the loveliest face, 
 That in their magic tints attired 
 What nature, fancy, faith inspired I^^ 
 
 sionate longing after literary fame, no ardently desired 
 luxury or pleasure, neither the sharp necessities of the pre- 
 sent, nor the anticipated wants of the future impelled the 
 poet to his task, A sacred duty (to defray the charges of his 
 mother's funeral) was the high incentive of his heaven- in- 
 spired heart ! Never did the poet's function assume a more 
 sublime aspect, nor a holier purpose awake his inspiration ! 
 What a paradise of good spirits was his lonely chamber ! 
 Of ministering angels assisting, encouraging, and crowning 
 his labors ! Where was the imputed meanness of poverty 
 at that august hour ? With such celestial visitants it was 
 an ennobling privilege to be poor! -Non omnis moriur! — 
 Poverty gave to mankind the Vanity of Human Wishes and 
 The Wanderer, and to their writers toilsome days and home- 
 less nights ! To poverty the world owes the Traveller and 
 the Vicar of Wakefield, but poverty drove their author to a 
 premature grave in disappointment and sorrow ! How even 
 keeps stern poverty the balance ! Non omnis moriar ! — Be- 
 yond the gates of death are the portals of immortality ! 
 
 Let the following extract of a letter (the address of which 
 is torn off) tell its melancholy tale ! " I know of no misery 
 but a gaol — I have seen it inevitable these three or four 
 weeks, and by heaven request it as a favour, as a favour 
 that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I have been years
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 1S5 
 
 The eye, the voice that every breath 
 Held, in charm'd wonder, hush'd as death ! 
 Their histrionic wreath resign'd, 
 Here, closed and silent, rest enshrined. 
 Minstrels ^^ who the chords once swept 
 Here the grave's dark sabbath kept, 
 Now, with seraphim enroU'd, 
 Hymns they chant to harps of gold ! 
 The brain enrich'd with various lore 
 (That busy brain I it throbs no more)''' 
 
 struggling with a wretched being, with all that contempt 
 which indigence brings with it, with all those strong pas- 
 sions which make contempt insupportable." 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith, 1759. 
 
 ^' So enamoured was Gainsborough of his beautiful art, 
 that on his death-bed he exclaimed, " We are aU going to 
 Heaven, and Vandyke will be of the party." . . . 
 
 ■'^ " I have heard it related," says Shield, in his Intro- 
 ducliou to Harmony, " that when Handel's servant used to 
 take him his chocolate of a morning, he has often stood in 
 silent astonishment, till it was cold, to see his master's tears 
 mixing with the ink, as he penned his divine notes, which 
 are, surely, as much the picture of a sublime mind as Mil- 
 ton's words." 
 
 '^ " Sure 'tis a curse which angry Fates impose, 
 To mortify man's arrogance, that those 
 Who're fashion'd of some better sort of clay, 
 Much sooner than the common herd decay." 
 
 " You desire to be remembered to him who sang of 
 ' Thalaba, the wild and wondrous song,' (writes Mrs. Sou- 
 they, formerly so well known and justly admired as Caro- 
 line Bowles, to Mrs. Sigourney, an American authoress). 
 " Alas ! my friend, the dull, cold ear of death is not more
 
 186 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Sleeps beneath this marble floor ! 
 
 All that lifts the living- clod 
 
 To the image of his God, 
 
 All that deifies his dust 
 
 This vast temple holds in trust ! 
 
 These were they whom gold could never 
 
 From their independence sever,^^ 
 
 Or poverty make mean, or scorn 
 
 Of their nobility inborn 
 
 Despoil, that star upon their brow 
 
 insensible than his, my clearest husband's, to all communi- 
 cations from the world without. Scarcely can I keep hold 
 of the last poor comfort of believing that he still knows me. 
 The almost complete unconsciousness has not been of more 
 than six months' standing, though more than two j'ears 
 have elapsed since he has written even his name. After 
 the death of his first wife, ' Edith,' — of his first love — who 
 was for several years insane, his health was terribly shaken. 
 Yet for the greater part of a year that he spent with me 
 in Hampshire, my former home, it seemed perfectly re- 
 established, and he used to say, ' It had surely pleased God 
 that the last years of his life should be happy,' But the 
 Almighty's will was otherwise. The cloud soon appeared 
 which was in no long time to overshadow all. In the black- 
 ness of its shadow we still live, and shall pass from under 
 it only to the portals of the grave. The last three years 
 have done upon me the work of twenty. The one sole 
 business of my life is that which, I verily believe, keeps 
 the life in me — the guardianship of my dear, helpless, un- 
 conscious husband." Feb. 7th, 1843. 
 
 ''* One Dr. Scott being commissioned by Lord North to 
 propose to Oliver Goldsmith a carte blanche if he would 
 write for the ministry, waited upon him in his " miserable 
 set of chambers in the Temple," but with what success let
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 187 
 
 The world to value knew not how V^ 
 These were they who walk'd the earth 
 Conscious of celestial birth, 
 Proved that glittering dross and dust 
 Do not every soul encrust,^^ 
 But that of their sacred sire 
 Some retain the heavenly fire ! 
 Did sad tears their errors mourn 
 While the mortal coil was borne, 
 Seraphs might have shed them all 
 
 the poet's sternly majestic answer tell ! " I can earn as much 
 as will supply my wants without writing for any party ; 
 the assistance, therefore, you offer is unnecessary to me." 
 
 "* Next to the sin and shame of suffering a great poet 
 to live and die in poverty, is the world's neglect of his oft- 
 spring. On the 5th of April 1750, Comus, preceded by an 
 Address written by Dr. Johnson and spoken by Garrick, 
 was acted at Drury-Lane Theatre for the Benefit of Mil- 
 ton's Grand-daughter, then old, infirm, and poor ! And 
 how did " rising ages hasten to be just ?" How responded 
 the "fair," the "wise," the " brave" of that liberal day 
 to the pathetic and eloquent appeal ? By a sum (after de- 
 ducting play-house charges) of about Sixty-seven pounds ! 
 and even in that were included a contribution from Ur. 
 Newton, and Twenty pounds from Jacob Tonson. 
 
 " Thus graced with humble virtue's native charms, 
 
 {Her Grandsire leaves her in Britannia's arms .'") 
 the immediate descendant of Milton was dismissed with 
 this penurious pittance to die, which she did soon after, in 
 an obscure lodging in Islington ! . . . . 
 
 's " The Angel grows up in divine knowledge," says 
 Miilovi Manovi; " the brute in savage ignorance; and the 
 son of man stands hesitating between the two."
 
 188 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 When, alas ! they wept the Fall. 
 Vanish'd life's brief, troubled dream, 
 Pass'd the valley, cross'd the stream, 
 As Guardian Angels they descend. 
 Still ministering to virtue's friend 
 Until eternity unite 
 ' Good spirits in the realms of light." 
 Solemn grandeur ! silent gloom ! 
 Handmaids of this reverend tomb, 
 Altho' beyond of death the power, 
 I feel this awe-inspiring hour ! 
 And thou, a Spirit too, I see 
 It has a mystic charm for thee ! 
 Slow dies away the dirge-like hymn. 
 The supernatural light grows dim. 
 The shadowy shrines and cloisters seem 
 The relics of a fading dream ! 
 
 " " Father Cardinal, I have heard you say, 
 
 That we shall see and know our friends in heaven." 
 
 A sublime consolation! if by " Friends" may be under- 
 stood those whom we have not seen, as well as those whom 
 we have. If the truth dare be spoken, how few (so-called ! ) 
 earthly friends desire to meet again after death has parted 
 them ! To a large majority sad will be their reminiscences, 
 even in a state of beatitude, if the past is to be remembered ! 
 But the friends with whom (though unseen) we held spi- 
 ritual converse it will be happiness to meet, in a better 
 world ! If to these be added those we saw and loved here ; 
 friends true from the first and to the last, heaven will be a 
 heaven indeed ! Sorrow then will be lost in sanctification, 
 and the remembrance of time made holy by the gratitude 
 of eternity !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 189 
 
 The moon is down, the stars are pale, 
 
 Hail ! congenial darkness, hail ! 
 
 Primseval shade ! our steps attend, 
 
 Of time the origin and end ! [_Ea:eunt. 
 
 Scene XV.— Guildhall. A merry Peal of 
 Bells. Time, Noon. 
 
 Enter Ballad- Singer. 
 The Ballad-Singer's Song. 
 
 HAT makes the merry heart more glad ? 
 
 Tuneful Bells I 
 And the sorrowful more sad ? 
 
 Tuneful bells I 
 What welcomes in the bridal day 
 When with flowers they strew the way ? 
 What calls the penitent to pray ? 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 
 w 
 
 What proclaims the feast, the show ? 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 Joy and sorrow, weal and woe ? 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 What salutes the smiling morn 
 When the noble heir is born, 
 Or some dear one has departed 
 Makes us still more broken-hearted ? 
 
 Tuneful bells !
 
 ]90 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDOX. 
 
 Mournful music are to me 
 
 Tuneful bells ! 
 Chime they e'er so merrily, 
 
 Toll they knells ! 
 One recalls with startling truth 
 Happy infancy, and youth ! 
 One, when weeping-, bending lowly, 
 1 beheld earth's bosom holy 
 Take my last friend ! — pealing slowly 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 
 I shall die alone, obscurely. 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 And lie where the orphan poor lie, 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! 
 Tho' no tomb my grave encumber, 
 Tho' among that nameless number, 
 I shall not less sweetly slumber, 
 
 Tuneful Bells ! lExit. 
 
 Enter Puck and Democritus as Beadles, fol- 
 lowed hy citizens and mob. 
 
 Puck. O Yes ! O Yes ! O Yes ! 
 
 Next Saint Monday (rogues uproarious ! 
 I had need the breath of Boreas, 
 Silence !), by my hat and cockade, 
 We the city bar and blockade ; 
 For the show upon our borders 
 Will be for the lower orders 
 (Revolution's raw material !)
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 191 
 
 Too imposing, too imperial. 
 
 By Jupiter Ammon ! 
 None shall warble " Pickled Salmon ! " 
 Periwinkles improvise, 
 Hot potatoes, mutton pies I 
 None the royal ear offend 
 
 With " All a-growing ! " 
 
 " All a-blowing ! " 
 " Knives to grind ! " or " Chairs to mend ! " 
 'Twixt Temple-Bar and Aldgate Pump, 
 Jem Crow, you are forbid to jump ! 
 Punch, if you presume to squeak, 
 You'll stand committed for a week, 
 And make vocal Brixton Hill, 
 As you migrate to the Mill I 
 Barrel-organs be it known 
 We've a concert of our own, 
 
 Dancing Bears 
 There's a ball at the mayor's ! 
 
 Dem. The Chairman and Quorum, 
 With bumpers before 'em. 
 From the Hall of the Mercers, their Sanctum- 
 Sanctorum ! 
 
 Wishing you a merry meeting. 
 
 Send this manifesto, greeting ! 
 
 Natty Sparks 
 
 Of Bevis-Marks, 
 Panyer Alley, Paul's Chain, 
 Pye-Corner, Petticoat Lane,
 
 192 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Moses, 
 Whose poetry just on a par with his prose is ! 
 Sells a suit of any hue 
 For (" JReady Money ! ") two pounds two. 
 " Phenomenon," says Mr. Moses, 
 " As plain as on my face my nose is ! " 
 And the word of Moses 
 As good as his clothes is ! 
 Run ! run ! 
 To Moses and Son, 
 Make a leg, 
 And a dashing suit unpeg. 
 If on Monday, with your tickets. 
 You expect to pass the wickets. 
 
 Chubby Venuses from Cheap, 
 
 Courteous dames from Candlewick, 
 Would you qualify to peep ? 
 
 To your mantua-makers quick 1 
 For the foreign fashions ding 'em, 
 (No admittance in a gingham !) 
 Belles from Bow the changes ring 'em ! 
 
 7' Alcibiades thus addressed the ambassadors from La- 
 cedfemon. " Men of Lacedsemon, what is it you are go- 
 ing to do ? Are not you apprised that the behaviour of 
 the senate is always candid and humane to those who ap- 
 ply to it, whereas the people are haughty and expect great 
 concessions ? " The inconstancy and ingratitude of " The 
 People " were exhibited when they hooted the Duke of 
 Wellington (Scotch Radicalism paid the like honors to Sir 
 Walter Scott !) durmg the Reform Bill mania. " The
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 193 
 
 Paris ! Paris ! 
 All the world before it carries. 
 
 \_Exeunt Puck and Democritus. 
 
 Grand Mob-Chorus, led by Un 3Iarchand de 
 Ragatons. ( Grise !) 
 
 Brother Britons ! hear you this ? 
 
 Is it not beyond a joke 
 Such a pickled rod to kiss ? 
 
 Such a pill to gulp, or choke ? 
 
 Cut the counter ! sink the shop ! 
 
 Beavers doff, and helmets don, 
 Forward ! Cits, shoulder spits I 
 
 Aprons off, and armour on ! 
 
 Should a red-coat give the word, 
 
 Do, as you have often done ; 
 Ere his single pop is heard. 
 
 Show the blade your backs, and run!™ 
 
 [^Exeunt Mob, singing "Hide 
 Britannia ! " 
 
 Manent two Citizens. 
 1st Cit. The Roman Chief™ his gods besought 
 
 People " wanted not the will but the courage to De Witt 
 their brave Defender! "The sensual multitude," says 
 Lamartine, " measure only with their eyes." The rabble 
 rout, like Circe's train, are hirsute, homed, hoofed and 
 tusked ! 
 '' Plutarch, speaking of the banishment of Themistocles 
 
 o
 
 194 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 To fall in battle bravely fought, 
 
 Not in ignominious squabble 
 
 With the locust-looking rabble I^" 
 
 " Rule Britannia ! " *^ requiem, zanies ! 
 
 Screech'd by you to Freedom's manes 
 
 by the Athenians, says, " that the ostracism, or ten years 
 hanishment, was not so much intended to punish this or 
 that great man, as to pacify and mitigate the fury of envy, 
 who delights in the disgrace of superior characters, and 
 loses a part of her rancour by their fall." It was the en- 
 vious, factious tribunes, backed by the Roman mob, that 
 banished Coriolanus. 
 
 '" The Lord deliver us from the " mutable, rank-scented 
 many!" Telturis imdile pondus — " Morbos reipub." (the 
 boils of the commonwealth) as Lycurgus, in Plutarch, 
 calls them. If we must fall, let it be under the single paw 
 of the monarch of the forest, not by the grovelling fangs 
 of the dogs of democracy, incarnations of ox-flesh and 
 alcohol ! Duty makes, license unmakes a man. The 
 most arbitrary measures against the people have been car- 
 ried by designing demagogues, wlio, like the crafty Menes- 
 theus the first of their gang ! with charlatan patriotism 
 and inherent duplicity, cajoled and exasperated them. 
 " In every age," says Macaulay, " the vilest specimens of 
 human nature are to be found among demagogues." Swift, 
 in defending his Yahoos, avows that, dearly as he loves 
 John, Wiiliam, and Thomas, when taken individually, man- 
 kind, taken in the lump, he abhors or despises. 
 
 Lord Strafford, being desired by the Lieutenant of the 
 Tower to get into a coach, that he might not be torn in 
 pieces by the infuriated rabble as he proceeded to the 
 block, replied, " I die to please the people, and I will die 
 their own way." 
 
 *' Little thought Thomson when he wrote these inspir-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 195 
 
 Quite enough to turn my brain is ! 
 And make my Lumber-Trooper's sword 
 Leap from its scabbard, by the Lord ! 
 
 2nd Cit. Last night's motion made, and muddled, 
 When in their hot hall ^^ were huddled 
 
 ing strains that they would be the rallying song of Britons 
 for all time ! Surrounded by the stormy barrier that 
 lashes her white cliffs, standing like a great sea-tower 
 among the billows, Britannia laughs to scorn foreign ag- 
 gression. 
 
 Long may "Rule Britannia ! " be our national chant! 
 We leave to France her Ca Ira, the Te Deum of the guil- 
 lotine ! 
 
 ** This warlike and festive fraternity have their differ- 
 ent Lodges ; one of which is held at a Public House in 
 Bride Lane, Fleet Street ; and another at the Falcon Ta- 
 vern, Fetter Lane. In these schools of eloquence the 
 Coger 
 
 " Shakes his empty head. 
 And deals out empires as he deals out thread," 
 
 with the true grimucierie and growl of a morbid pot-house 
 orator. It was on a memorable occasion that the Laureat 
 {though no Coger .') produced the following 
 
 Lumber-Tkooper's Garland. 
 
 Tib, my wife, cries, " Little Lubin, 
 Where the dickins, Sir, have you been ? " 
 — " I have with a jolly crew been, 
 
 Gallant, gay, good fellows all ! 
 Dr. Wade, our sable badger, 
 Call'd on every noisy cadger ; 
 From their jobs some city snobs 
 
 Stole away to Cogers^ Hall."
 
 196 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Fetter-Lane's Odd-Fellows, fuddled ! 
 And those pots and pipes nocturnal 
 Mystify your cranium, Colonel ! 
 To your fumigated fancy 
 Figure what no one else can see ! 
 Hence the goddess in extremis. 
 Like your valour, but a dream is ! 
 A most comical chimera 
 Of tobacco born and beer, ah ! 
 Why Freedom, from her firm-set rock, 
 Laughs at my Lord's heroics mock. 
 And for these braggadocios, bah ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 I've been drinking, I've been drinking. 
 Drowning care, despair, and thinking, 
 Tossing bumpers oif like winkin', 
 With the Coves of Cogem' Hall ! 
 
 For a " Crisis" now the roar is, 
 Dash my wig! we'll trick the Tories! 
 So good bye to A rlhurs glories. 
 
 Bully Bumptious beats 'em all ! 
 Corporal of that ancient number 
 Call'd the Trooj) of living Lumber, 
 Huffing, puffing, ragamuffin, 
 
 Railers, Tailors, Rogues and all ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 I've been drinking, I've been drinking. 
 Tossing bumpers off like winkin. 
 Glad to see the vessel sinking, 
 
 In the shoals of Cogers' Hall ! 
 Parson Flam, a pious sapling ! 
 With the Tory monster grappling.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 197 
 
 Has a still heartier " ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 When did the goddess ever moult 
 A feather ? To the red-hot bolt 
 From the cannon, many a time 
 She has opposed her front sublime ! 
 Freedom I 'twas her powerful charm 
 That warm'd the heart and nerved the arm 
 Of Abercrombie ! ^^ to its goal 
 That impeird the fiery soul 
 Of Acre's hero ! and that save 
 Nelson's ^* signals to the brave ! 
 On Corunna's fatal shore 
 
 Since we lost " the DeviPs chaplain" 
 
 Is to Cogers' all in all ; 
 What care we for riches, rank, or 
 King and Crown? — At Crown and Anchor 
 Suiiday next our parson's text 
 
 Is, " My boys let's have a brawl ! 
 
 Chorus. 
 " All who winking, blinking, drinking, 
 Are of my own way of thinking, 
 Mount your tiles, and march, my files, 
 Eank and file to Cogers' Hall /".... 
 
 ^3 The Warrior of antiquity who concealed his death- 
 wound till the battle was won, finds his parallel in a Bri- 
 tish Hero ! 
 
 " So, till the day was won, the Greek reno'mi'd. 
 With anguish wore the arrow in his wound ; 
 Then drew the shaft from out his tortured side. 
 Let gush the torrent of his blood, and dyed." 
 ^* "Remember me, Jack, in the day of battle!" ex- 
 claimed Nelson to one of his crew, Avhom (the poor fel-
 
 198 BEMOCRITUS IN LONDOX. 
 
 Her sigh bewail'd the gallant Moore, 
 And what burning tears she shed 
 On noble Howard's crimson bed, 
 When Ponsonby, when Picton bled ! ^^ 
 
 If the tears of angels flow 
 
 When " Robes and furr'd gowns " play the fool, 
 Wiser mortals here below 
 
 Follow quite a different rule ! 
 If Whimsiculo the Mayor is 
 Full of vanities, vagaries. 
 If gross Aldermen ape grandees, 
 Comraon-council-men turn dandies,^^ 
 There loud laughter through the land is ! 
 Worshipful Dogberries ! have done. 
 Or, faith, you'll kill the town with fun ! [^Exeunt. 
 
 low crying to him for mercy !) he saved from the lash. 
 And Jack did remember him. From that moment he be- 
 came a reformed man, and fought his way up to a pair of 
 epaulettes ! 
 
 Who would not be a Sexagenarian, exultingly asks Uncle 
 Timothy, to have seen Nelson? To have heard Pitt, 
 Fox, and Sheridan ? To have stood face to face with the 
 baffled Corsican on the deck of the Bellerophon ? These 
 bygones are among Uncle Timothy's great guns, and he 
 pities most profoundly your juveniles of forty who came 
 into this breathing world a day after the fair! This, 
 however, is but the bright side of the picture. Swift, 
 writing to Dr. Sheridan (London, Sept. 2, 1727), says, 
 " These are the perquisites of living long : the last act of 
 life is always a tragedy at best ; but it is a bitter aggra- 
 vation to have one's best friend go before one."
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 199 
 
 Scene XVI. — The Gardens of Buckingham 
 Palace. 
 
 Enter Minstrel. 
 
 The Minstrel's Song. 
 
 THE fragrant incense of the morn 
 On the freshening breeze is borne 
 As, with sweetly-solemn sound, 
 It scatters autumn's leaves around I 
 The air is vocal, to the skies 
 The merry birds, in chorus, rise, — 
 In their concert why are mute 
 The Minstrel's voice, his harp and lute ? 
 
 Norris of Bemerton, who died in 1711, has a beautiful 
 verse upon this subject : — 
 
 " But those who soonest take their flight. 
 
 Are the most exquisite and strong, 
 Like angeW visits short and bright, 
 
 Mortality's too weak to bear them long." 
 
 Robert Blair, author of the " Grave," borrowed his well- 
 known line from this verse, which line Campbell trans- 
 ferred almost verbatim to his " Pleasures of Hope." 
 
 '■* " Go, my boy, and if you fall, though distant, ex- 
 posed, and unwept by those that love you, the most pre- 
 cious tears are those with which heaven bedews the un- 
 buried head of soldiers." . . — Vicar of Wakefield. 
 
 *^ Mark the difference between a gentleman of the " last 
 edition," and the following picture of true gentility—
 
 200 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 For once could his romantic I'ede 
 ('Twas in the Olden Time indeed !) 
 Commend itself by tuneful arts 
 To gentle bosoms, manly hearts ! 
 The monarch oped his hall of state, 
 The peasant, too, his cottage gate, 
 To hear his merrie song and geste. 
 And give him largess, food and rest ! 
 
 Ah ! happy days — in vain I mourn — 
 The Minstrel ^^ long has pass'd the bourne ! 
 To none descend his magic lyi-e. 
 His tuneful voice and heavenly fire I 
 
 " O what an easie thing is't to discrie 
 
 The gentle bloud, however it be wrapt 
 
 In sad misfortune's foiile deformitie 
 
 And wretched sorrowes which have often hapt. 
 
 For howsoever it may grow mishapt, 
 
 That to all vertue it may seem unapt, 
 
 Yet it will shew some sparkes of gentle minde, 
 
 And at the last, breake forth in his owne proper kinde." 
 
 Ed. Spencer. 
 " The " Minstrelle, the Harper, the Glee-man or the 
 Jestour" were always welcome at kingly and baronial 
 haUs. 
 
 " In which stooden all withouten. 
 Full the castle all abouten. 
 Of all manner of minstrales. 
 And jestours, that tellen tales 
 Both of weeping and of game. 
 And of all that longeth into fame." 
 
 Chaucer^i 3rd Boke of Fame.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 201 
 
 Comfort cold, neglect unkind, 
 Hearts less warm, but more refined, 
 Hush'd his harp-strings, and for aye 
 Their thrilling music died away ! 
 
 Who shall mark the sacred mound 
 
 Where he sleeps his sleep profound ? 
 
 Traces none tradition gives. 
 
 But his sweet song for ever lives I 
 
 — This poor voice, these trembling wires, 
 
 Lady ! one fond hope inspires 
 
 That sorrow never more than now 
 
 May wound thy heart or cloud thy brow. \_Exit. 
 
 Enter Democritus in a court dress, and Puck. 
 
 Dem. Now have I, the courtier's brother, 
 Changed one Fool's coat for another ! 
 That I may presume to jostle 
 Fashion, folly's priest, apostle ! 
 And strut a Don among the Dons 
 Of this unblushing age of Bronze ! 
 Think you, with a little bluster, 
 I shall pass this motley muster ? 
 Not for lack of some assurance 
 Would I, Puck, forego endurance ! 
 
 Puck. Not a more vain-glorious varlet, 
 Fluttering in his gold and scarlet, 
 Ranks in Royalty's retinue ! 
 Every lass will wish to win you ! 
 If I catch you once Philand'ring,
 
 202 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Such a peal I'll rattle and ring 
 
 In your ears, Lothario gay ! 
 
 You hav'n't heard for many a day. 
 
 How would Jove the cloud-compelling, 
 
 Laugh while Motley's tale was telling! 
 
 Flowers by gay Anacreon wreathed, 
 
 Burning sighs by Sappho breathed I 
 
 Wags ye all are in Elysium, 
 
 Mortals mundane queerly quiz ye 'em ! 
 
 I, when no observer's nigh, 
 
 Mark the language of the eye, 
 
 Listen to the secret sigh, 
 
 Hear what scandal would insinuate. 
 
 Puck on which your faith to pin you hate ! 
 
 And then repay, with cent, per cent. 
 
 Every hint so kindly meant I 
 
 I, on tongue of tattling sister 
 
 Seal her story with a blister ! 
 
 8* " Num tu, qu?e tenuit dives Achremenes, 
 Aut pinguis Plirygiae M^'gdonais opes 
 Permutare velis crine Licymnife, 
 Plenas aut Arabum domos ? " — Horace. 
 
 ^^ Much mischief has been done by a whisper. A whis- 
 per may bring down an avalanche. When the enemy 
 veiled himself in a cloud, honest Ajax only prayed for 
 light! 
 
 " the light of heaven restore, 
 Grant me to see, and Ajax asks no more ; 
 If Greece must perish, we thy will obey, 
 But let her perish in the face of day."
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 203 
 
 Plant a Pelion of a pimple 
 
 On some dear bewitching dimple ! 
 
 Transfer to her nasal tip 
 
 The red rose-bud from her lip ! 
 
 Her long love-locks, Cupid's angle I ^^ 
 
 First uncurl, and then entangle ! 
 
 Or, to make her feel the smart 
 
 Of a bruised and broken heart, 
 
 I turn the tables and the tale, 
 
 Whisperings^ Miss herself is frail! 
 
 Dem. Ah ! Puck, but for that goblin sly, 
 That merry antic in your eye 
 Peeping, peering, laughing, leering, 
 This would oddly in my ear ring ! 
 What ! when vestals are so venal,^'' 
 Make a little flirting penal ? 
 Blooming cheeks of rosy hue. 
 Sparkling eyes of heavenly blue 
 
 ^^ The Crow upon the Walx,. 
 
 A pretty form and face, a sprightly air 
 
 Are willing to be won ! Of this new fancy 
 
 The Crow upon the Wall thus counts the cost. 
 
 — Your old familiar friends, the souvenirs 
 
 Of social, happy intellectual hours. 
 
 Shall to the right about, and in quick time. 
 
 To music matrimonial ! the White Sergeant 
 
 Giving the word of conjugal command ! 
 
 Your shelves their treasured lore (a bookworm makes 
 
 But half a Benedick !) ; your pictured walls, 
 
 Hung round with thoughts ! their beauty and their pride ; 
 
 Your cabinets their gems of ancient art
 
 204 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Are, in every meeting-, minster, 
 Brought to market by the spinster !^^ 
 Is the purse of eighty weighty ? 
 Then trips eighteen off with eighty ! '^ 
 
 (Clean sweeps a bride's new broom !) shall all resign. 
 Right pleasant will it be to have your looks 
 Watch'd by a pair of eyes as green as keen ! 
 Your very thoughts well sifted, once so free ! 
 How vastly kind the trouble to be saved 
 Of opening your own letters ! (for her dad 
 So did her dam before her, curious crone !) 
 And O how entertaining, with a frown, 
 To hear my lady read them upside down ! 
 Charming ! to saunter round from shop to shop, 
 Your hobby hook'd, fond hubby ! on your arm, 
 Drawing upon your purse at every pause, 
 And twitting you with what (provoking hint !) 
 By parsimonious pinching, " Pa" put in't. 
 Charming! to sit down daily to a dish 
 Of tedious tittle-tattle with your toy ! 
 To sigh o'er small complaints that never kill, 
 (How large they look tho' in the Doctor's bill !) 
 Complaints a temper sweet might quicldy cure, 
 And hurricanes hysterical endui'e ! 
 Then (curtain lecture over !) to be scared 
 By dreams domestic. Doctor ! Parson, Nurse ! 
 And Gossips in full shriek ! A household " Hail I " 
 To Master Johnny Newcome's advent shrill. 
 
 — Thus far the Crow. — And doth not in mine ear 
 
 The little link-boy Cupid laughing cry 
 
 Noli me tangere? My rosy fetters 
 
 Ijcave, if you're not a blockhead, to your betters ! 
 
 Your books, looks, friends, tastes, trinkets, time, your own.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 205 
 
 The young widow of Cornutus ^^ 
 
 Pairs with some soft son of Phitus ! 
 
 Of Mind what nymph the meaning knows ?^^ 
 
 'Tis not the small-talk of her beaux, 
 
 Let, merry bachelor ! let well alone. 
 Your Ladye-love or Liberty ? "Od's life, 
 Your liberty ! What want yoix with a wife ? 
 
 Uncle Timothy, 
 ^' Sophocles having been asked, whether he still en- 
 joyed the pleasure of love, replied, " I thank the gods that 
 I have escaped its wild and furious tyranny." 
 
 " Pray Mr. Quin," said a fine Lady, " did you ever 
 make love ? " " No, my Lady," replied Sir John Fal- 
 staff, who had taken a lesson of -<Esop's Frogs, and 
 Sterne's twenty-second sermon ! " I always buy it ready 
 made." . . . 
 
 ^* A clergyman having published the banns of marriage, 
 his clerk gave out the psalm commencing, " Mistaken souls 
 who dream of heaven ! " 
 
 s' " I think of Beauties," says James Howell in one of 
 his Familiar Letters, " as Philip King of Macedon thought 
 of Cities, there is none so inexpugnable, but an Ass laden 
 ■with Gold may conquer them." 
 
 Many doe match (as true as this is wine ) 
 
 With some Dunce, Clowne, or Gull, they care not who. 
 
 For no cause, but to be maintained fine, 
 
 And have their wills in what they please to doe. 
 
 Well met Gossip: Or 'Tis merrie when 
 Gossips meete. 1627. 
 ^* Poets, Philosophers, and Star-gazers should never 
 marry ! A Bachelor may invoke the tuneful daughters of 
 Ju])iter and Mnemosyne, and ogle the Pleiades ; but a Be- 
 nedick must renounce Poetry, pix, and stars !
 
 206 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Fine gems, fine flattery ,^^ fine clothes. 
 
 Tell me not of earthly love,^" 
 Evanescent and material ! 
 
 Newton, Locke, Gibbon, Hume, Harvey, Adam Smith, 
 Leibnitz, Bayle, Hobbes, Hampden, Sir Francis Drake, 
 Pitt, Michael Angelo, the three Caraccis, Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, Haydn, Handel, Pascal, Fenelon, Pope, Akenside, 
 Goldsmith, Gray, Gay, Collins, Thomson, and Cowper 
 all were bachelors ; as were, among the ancient philoso- 
 phers, Plato, Pythagoras, Democritus, and Diogenes. 
 The following were married men, but unhappy ones : — 
 Aristotle, Socrates, Pittacus, Periander, Euripides, and 
 Aristophanes ; and among the moderns, Boccacio, Dante, 
 Machiavelli, Milton, Wycherley, Steele, Addison, (poor 
 Addison ! Holland House owned him as a tenant, but he 
 was the brow-beaten slave of an ignorant, arrogant, heart- 
 less woman !) Dry den, Moliere, Racine, Sterne, Lords 
 Bacon and Byron. . . . 
 
 Seldom is a poet honoured by his own household. The 
 following exception is as rare as it is beautiful. — After a 
 few numbers of the Rambler were published, Dr. Johnson 
 showed several of them to his wife, in whose taste and 
 judgment he had great confidence : " I thought very well 
 of you before," said she, " but I did not imagine you 
 could have written any thing equal to this." — " Distant 
 praise," continues Boswell, " from whatever quarter, is 
 not so delightful as that of a wife whom a man loves and 
 esteems ; her approbation may be said to come home to 
 his bosom, and being so near its effect is most sensible and 
 permanent." , . . 
 
 •* " Avec les hommes I'amour enlre par les yeux, avec les 
 femmes pur les oreilles " (i. e. flattery !). 
 
 ^'^ Those that march under the Ensine of amorous Ve-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 207 
 
 When the flame, in bowers above, 
 Is immortal and ethereal ! 
 
 Tell me not of jealous scolds,' 
 
 97 
 
 nus are subject to many effeminate follies, as an idle head, 
 a dulled wit, a pale and wanny face, their thoughts still 
 silent, yet ahvayes at worke, their mind mute, yet never 
 in quiet, speaking faintly, behaving themselves fondly, 
 walking solitary, and using sickly jestures, ever exclaym- 
 ing on Cupid, but never remembring their own cowardice, 
 still crying " Fie on Love," when it were more meete to 
 correct the folly of their life. 
 
 " These are the Passions of a Lover, which entreth 
 through Idlenesse, is kindled by Desire, set on fire by Af- 
 fection, and if Perseverance heipe not, is utterly wasted 
 by Desperation." — Palmerin nf England, 1639. 
 
 *' To the complaint of a " mighty good sort of a woman " 
 that her husband was aU cheerfulness abroad, and all taci- 
 turnity at home, the Lmireat's response was the following 
 Lyric. 
 
 For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, 
 Tom took you with only Jive pounds in your purse ! 
 When you cried " I will," and the clerk cried " Amen ! " 
 Alas ! you were poor enough sure enough then. 
 
 " The eye of a lynx and the mind of a minx/' 
 Friends sigh'd as they cried, " Ah ! how little Tom thinks 
 What a bargain he's bought, what a tartar he's caught 
 That has been taught nothing, and will not be taught." 
 
 Still you look'd so kind, and Tom was so blind, 
 He thought he had married the girl to his mind. 
 In word and in deed a friend for his need 
 He hoped in your smile he could happily read.
 
 208 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Very wives ! domestic furies ! 
 When my ravish'd sight beholds 
 
 With stirring np strife, a shrew of a wife ! 
 You open'd the ball of your conjugal life ; 
 So crochetty you and grandiloquent grew, 
 That nothing to please you could Tom say or do. 
 
 When flow'd his discourse with fancy and force 
 You gloried in checking its eloquent course ; 
 Your only reply to his argument high 
 Was a withering flash from your emerald eye ! 
 
 For jealousy next you took for your text, 
 Attention to Tom made you terribly vext ! 
 Your small selfish soul, peeping out of her hole, 
 Look'd daggers^to all, but poor hubby — how droll ! 
 
 In pleasing your eye saw you not on his brow 
 An intellect high to which beauty would bow ? 
 But this. Madam Grand ! you could not understand, 
 Coming of such a Boeotian band ! 
 
 His sorrows from you no sympathy drew, 
 His joys no rejoicing, joys fleeting and few ! 
 And had he a hope that to earth might be given. 
 From home, to confide it, from home he was driven ! 
 
 If Tom had a friend who to wit might pretend. 
 Him sullenly you would to " Coventry " send ; 
 And, by the same rule, (let him be of " Pa's" school !) 
 I'feggs ! what a fuss you would make with a fool ! 
 
 Unreform'd, unrefined by the magic of mind 
 You sigh'd for the " Shop " you, alas ! left behind, 
 And to hear " Pa " again expound and explain 
 His sordid old saws of commercial Cockayne.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 209 
 
 Sweet-voiced,^^ soft-eyed, heavenly houris ! 
 
 You sigh'd for the farcical, fine-lady airs 
 Of that little back parlour up one pair of stairs ! 
 "Where Parish scan, mas- and bombast and bragr 
 Made tongues round the tea-table wantonly wag ! 
 
 For the holiday hop that threaten'd to drop 
 The drawing-room dancers down into the shop ! 
 And, while " Pa " was away at his pantile to pray. 
 For the Fly, on the sly ! and half-price to the play. 
 
 You should, Madam Pert ! a cockneyfied, curt 
 And queer counter-Cupid have pinn'd to your skirt, 
 Enough of the knave his credit to save 
 With your round party of money-grubs grave ! 
 
 You ought to have chosen a heart that was frozen. 
 And any face, faugh ! if it had but a nose on 1 
 A creature of twaddle, a noodle with noddle 
 Built after, for laughter ! your family model ! 
 
 To fetch or to carry, to go or to come, 
 
 To toddle or tarry, to talk or sit dumb, 
 
 To be what your " Pa " is, meek mute ! to your " Ma" 
 
 A hubby well harness'd and henpecked — Ha ! Ha ! 
 
 Some fine summer-day will poor Tom wend his way — 
 But whither?— Far oft" from your frowns, and for aye : 
 The generous few shall a tear drop (his due !) 
 But what a black blot would a tear be from You ! 
 
 "^ Shakespeare, who drew the female form and character 
 with such beauty, tenderness and truth, has not omitted, 
 in his catalogue of rare gifts, a gentle voice, Lear says of 
 Cordelia, 
 
 P
 
 210 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Exquisite intelligences I ^^ 
 
 Mind ennobling form and face 
 And to the enchanted senses 
 
 " Her voice was ever soft, 
 Gentle and low ; an excellent thing in woman." 
 
 In the full freedom and felicity of luxurious bachelor- 
 ship, what chants the Laureat ? 
 
 , Is the Lady's voice a rasper ? 
 Were she set in jewels, jasper, 
 And as beautiful as Hebe, 
 Mistress mine shall never she be ! 
 
 The following "petit chanson," warbled b_y his bride 
 elect, and opportunely overheard by him, put to flight a 
 whole covey of Cupids, and bound him fast to single bless- 
 edness. 
 
 The weather, good gracious ! is realh' audacious ! 
 
 Again see the rain how it pelts down and pours ; 
 What shall I do, eh ? here's another dull day ! 
 
 But, 0, la ! with Mama sit and sulk within doors. 
 
 Papa would p'r'aps say, " Upon such a dull day 
 
 Your mind, if inclined, might improve itself — " Bah ! 
 
 " In learning and study find pleasure — " lud ! he 
 Might guess how to dress is my study — Ha ! Ha ! 
 
 Of drawing, and music, and reading, I'm too sick ! 
 
 The look of a book only gives me the blues ! 
 On polkas and parties quite fix'd my fond heart is ; 
 On bouquets and beaux, satin slips, satin shoes ! 
 
 To-mori'ow will Hymen to me buckle Cymon, 
 Then after must (fiddlestick ! " honor, obey "') 
 
 Eat humble-pie hubby, or faith (there's the rub !) he 
 Shall sigh, and cry daUy '-Another duU day ! "
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 211 
 
 Beauty crowning mental grace ! 
 And tell me not of widows' caps/ 
 
 ®^ Smiling morn, and opening flower, 
 If the sun his radiance shower, 
 Thongli surpassing lovely, will 
 In his light look lovelier still ! 
 
 Youth and Beauty, witching pair ! 
 Though they be divinely fair, 
 "Will be fairer, by the mind 
 If transfigured and refined. 
 
 Gentle voice must gentle soul 
 First inspire, and then control ! 
 Tuneful harp but discord brings 
 If we rudely sweep the strings ! 
 
 Morn declines, and fades the flower, 
 Youth and Beauty have their hour ; 
 The Sun is day in heaven enshrined, 
 And Beauty's sunshine is the mind. 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 
 ' The Hindoo widow burns for one husband, and the 
 broken-hearted British Niobe for two ! The former is al- 
 lowed no second flame but what her kindred kindly kindle 
 for her; the latter Hymen's torch soon lights again to 
 church ! Much argument has been wasted on this side of 
 the water to bring Hindoo widows to our way of thinking, 
 but they continue obstinate and unconverted, not to marry, 
 but to burn ! This gives the single ladies of Hindostan a 
 double chance over the European, and binds the married 
 to pray for the longevity of their liege lords, if they 
 would not too prematurely be called over the coals. The 
 feminine gender is nut in very high request in the East.
 
 212 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Set as matrimonial traps ! 
 Of fond Niobes^ and buxom, 
 Trying their connubial luck, some 
 Twice, thrice, faugh ! for every man 
 They keep the Chinese Widow's fan ! ^ 
 Have I left my argent fields 
 For aught this dreary planet yields ? 
 Earth, one mighty grave-yard, one 
 Sepulchre moving round the sun ! 
 Have I left the bright, the vernal, 
 Bloom unfading, bliss supernal, 
 
 Some twenty years ago it was the custom of the Jahre- 
 jahs, a tribe of Guzerat, in India, to put their female infants 
 to death, so that if you asked one of their grandees how 
 many daughters His Highness happened to have, he would 
 say you were no gentleman, and wanted to affront him ! . 
 
 ^ " No moisture sooner dies than women's tears." 
 
 " It's no more pitty to see a woman weep, than to see a 
 goose goe bare- foot." — Old Proverb. 
 
 Nieiite jiiu tosto sesecca che hi grime. 
 
 " Intrigue " (says Steele) "is mere invention in men, 
 and instinct in women." 
 
 " What will not women do, when need inspires 
 Their wit, or love their inclination fires ? " 
 writes John Dryden ! 
 
 ^ See an agreeable tale concerning the Chinese philoso- 
 pher Chudug-tsze (the chief disciple of Laou-keu7i) and his 
 voung and beautiful wife, which has been translated into 
 French by Pere Dentrecolles, and from which Voltaire 
 borrowed ample materials for his Zadig 
 
 * The ancient name of London. . .
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 213 
 
 Skies unclouded and eternal, 
 For Augusta Trinobantum,'^ 
 But to have of quiz my quantum 9 
 Land of dissonance and discord ! 
 Mammon^ jarring that and this chord; 
 Where, by open fraud or stealth, 
 The busy vermin pick up wealth 
 Blacken'd with the smoke of hell. 
 Yet passing current quite as well I 
 Land of suffocating dens 
 Fill'd with faces not like men's ! 
 
 * "You know how much I dislike the spirit of tiude," 
 said Gray in one of his Letters to Walpole. Goldsmith, 
 otherwise so prophetic ! was mistaken when he poetically 
 predicted the "swift decay " of " Trade's proud empire." 
 The world is become one vast workshop ! . . . 
 
 Rem ; 
 
 Si possis, recte ; si non, quocumque modo rem. 
 
 " Trade's proud empire ! " 'Tis a tumour, 
 
 A gathering gross of every humour, 
 
 Of every meanness foul and foetid 
 
 Out to man by Mammon meted ! 
 
 " Trade's proud empire ! " What is Trade ? 
 
 The tricks by pettifoggers play'd 
 
 By which a man is marr'd or made ! 
 
 The dirty secrets of success. 
 
 Expedience, cunning, and address ! 
 
 The loop-holes at which knaves creep out 
 
 When jolter-headed juries doubt; 
 
 Counsel talking, ad cuptandum. 
 
 Twaddle to twelve fools at random ! 
 
 What the deuce has this carbuncle 
 
 To be proud of? asks " My Uncle."
 
 214 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Where we catch a ghastly glimpse 
 
 Of half-naked hags and imps ! 
 
 Where the bell's incessant boom 
 
 From his labor, from his loom 
 
 Calls the pauper to his tomb ! 
 
 His birth-place on the mountain's brow, 
 
 The fields o'er which he drove the plough. 
 
 Carolling some love-epistle 
 
 To the merry " Carman's Whistle ! " ^ 
 
 " This popular tune was a great favourite with Queen 
 Elizabeth : it is preserved in her Virginal Book, with har- 
 mony and variations by W. Byrd. Falstaff says of Jus- 
 tice Shallow that " he came ever in the rear-ward of the 
 fashion, and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswives 
 that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his 
 fancies or his good-nights." — " I dare not let him walk 
 alone, for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing 
 at supper, and in sermon times ! " Says Waspe, of his 
 young master, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, " If he 
 meet but a carman in the street, and I find him not talk to 
 keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes 
 over at night in his sleep " And John Playford exclaims 
 with simple truth, " Nay, the poor labouring beasts at 
 plow and cart are cheered by the sound of musick, though 
 it be but their manter's whistle." 
 
 "< " When the old farm-houses are down (and down 
 they must come in time), what a miserable thing the 
 country will be ! Those that are now erected are mere 
 painted shells, with a mistiness within, who is stuck up in 
 a place she calls a parlour, with, if she have children, the 
 " young ladies and gentlemen " about her ; some showy 
 chairs and a sofa (a sofa by all means!), half-a-dozen prints 
 in gilt frames hanging up ; some swinging book-shelves
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 215 
 
 The hospitable homestead,' where 
 The harvest feast,^ old Christmas fare 
 Made glad the honest son of toil,^ 
 And bound him to his native soil ! 
 The deepening glen, the opening glade, 
 The holly and the hawthorn shade, 
 The oak beneath whose clustering leaves 
 He join'd the dance on summer eves. 
 Neighbour crossing- hands with neighbour 
 
 o o o 
 
 with novels and tracts upon them ; a dinner brought in by 
 a girl that is perhaps better "educated" than she; two or 
 three nick-nacks to eat instead of a piece of bacon and a 
 pudding. The chiklren (which is the worst part of it) are 
 all too clever to work : they are all to be gentlefolks. Go 
 to the plough ! Good God ! What! " young gentlemen " 
 go to the plough ! " — Cobbett. 
 
 ^ " As we were returning to our inn, we happened to 
 meet some country people celebrating their Harvest Home ; 
 their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having be- 
 sides an image richly dressed, by which, perhaps they 
 would signify Ceres, this they keep moving about, while 
 men and women, man and maid servants, riding thi-ough 
 the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can, till they 
 arrive at the barn." . . . — Paul Hentzner. 1598. 
 
 ^ " Then, why should I give way to grief? 
 
 Come, strike up pipe and tabor ; 
 He that affecteth God in chief. 
 
 And as himself his neighbour, 
 May still enjoy a happy life. 
 
 Although he lives by labor.'" 
 
 This was the Song of Wither when at the age of seventy- 
 two, broken in fortune, and a prisoner in Newgate !
 
 '216 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 To the merry pipe and tabor I ^^ 
 
 The church where he his sabbaths " kept, 
 
 The graves where once his fathers slept, 
 
 And the hoped-for resting-place 
 
 Of himself and all his race ! 
 
 10 " Now I observed on the way, 
 
 How clownes were nothing nigh so gay, 
 
 And merry as th'were wont to be 
 
 In dayes of myrth and jollity, 
 
 When piper striking up would make them 
 
 Every one to legs betake them. 
 
 And all the harm to them sunk down, 
 
 Which settling now in head of clown. 
 
 Hatches discontentment there, 
 
 Which we all have cause to feare. 
 
 And to wish agen those dayes, 
 
 When in harmlesse sports and playes, 
 
 They feast dayes spent, and Sundayes even. 
 
 Never the farther by't from heaven, 
 
 They being then as godly too. 
 
 And more perhaps than they are now." 
 
 The Diariuin, or Journall. 1656. 
 
 Not on "Sundayes," facetious Master Fleckno ! — "For 
 the Seventh Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." • . 
 
 " Enact no laws against the open violation of the Sab- 
 bath, and it will cease to be the humble christian's day of 
 thanksgiving and of rest. Certain lax and liberal legisla- 
 tors affect squeamishness at interfering with the poor 
 man's "single holiiluif." Single Holiday! why Sunda}' is 
 but an undress rehearsal of St. Monday ! His Motley Ma- 
 jesty the Many, coute qui coute, finds money and leisure to 
 keep wassail on that saturnalian Saint's day ! The better 
 part of mankind who obey the divine law ought not to be 
 prejudiced in their worldly calling or too sharply tempted
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 217 
 
 The green,'^ the waterfall, the brook, 
 All blotted from fair nature's book ! 
 For what? alas! around thee look. 
 And, first, behold a patchwork pile, 
 A gimcrack, in the " ornee " style ! 
 
 by the bad example of the sordid and the profane who set 
 it at defiance by Sunday trading. It is guilty encourage- 
 ment to those that fear not God, and gross injustice to 
 those that do. We cannot make a man pious by act of 
 parliament any more than we can make him honest, but 
 as we punish him for breaking one holy law, why suffer 
 him with impunity to trample upon .another ? We may 
 not drive the churl to church, but we can compel him to 
 shut up his shop ; we cannot keep the drunkard from Sun- 
 day tippling, but we can withdraw the extra temptation of 
 the gin-palace. 
 
 " Froth. I got more by uttering halfe a Barrell in the 
 time of divine service than I could by a whole Barrell at 
 any other time, for my customers were glad to take any 
 thing for money, and thinke themselves much ingaged to 
 me ; but now the case is altered." 
 
 " Cooke. what will become of me ! I now thinke of 
 the lusty Surloines of roast Beefe which I with much po- 
 licy divided into an innumerable company of semy slices, 
 by which, with my provident wife, I used to make eight- 
 eene pence of what cost me but a groat, provided I sold it 
 in Service time.^'—The Lamentable Complitints of Aick Froth 
 the Tapster and Rulerost the Cooke, Co)tceriuiig the restraint 
 lately set forth against drinking, polling, and piping on the 
 Sabbath Day, and against selling meate. 1G41. 
 
 '* Sometimes againe, in the merrie month of May, I 
 betake myselfe to our Common-greene, where I behold Tib 
 and Tom, Jug and John, Dick and Uoll, Will and Moll, 
 ■dancing a measure about a Pole." — Thos, Nash.
 
 218 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 A garden, where, consumptive show ! 
 
 The flowers seem all ashamed to blow ! '^ 
 
 Where the lily and the rose 
 
 Droop their heads, their petals close, 
 
 Water'd by a copious flood 
 
 Of ochre, indigo, and mud ! 
 
 A paddock pauper-like and pimping, 
 
 Where a lean nag, log-bound, limping, 
 
 Snifl5ng from the pool pestiferous 
 
 Exhalations odoriferous ! 
 
 Returns, with sympathetic neigh. 
 
 His long-ear'd fellow-prisoner's bray ! 
 
 Their liberal Master ^^ next admire — 
 
 Not the old-fashion'd English Squire 
 
 Who never yet denied a bed 
 
 13 a jf Qq(J Almighty had been a Quaker he would have 
 made all the flowers of the field of the same colour !" . . . 
 
 Cobbett. 
 
 '^ Catullus saying to Philip the orator, " Bog, why do 
 you bark ? " was answered, " Because I see a thief ! " . . 
 
 '^ " Above all of your Yea and Nay 
 Man, take especial heed I pray." 
 
 The Diarium, or Journall. 1656. 
 
 '^ The old-fashioned village abounded in objects both 
 serious and mirthful. The ivy-mantled church, with its 
 gothic porch and curiously sculptured chancel ; the rural 
 church-yard, full of quaint records of life and death, of 
 earthly suffering and heavenly hope ; the apostolic, primi- 
 tive pastor, poor in this world's wealth, but rich in the 
 affections of his flock ; the daisy-dappled green ; the de- 
 cent almshouses with their trim little gardens ; the poor-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 219 
 
 To pillow the poor wanderer's head, 
 Or sent him forth unhoused, unfed — 
 But, let my laughing- lungs have play 
 Indignant scorn ! yon " Yea and Nay," ^' 
 Reserved, repulsive, square-built, squab, 
 Dew-lapp'd Adonis dress'd in drab ! 
 Mammon-worshipper the slyest. 
 Dogged disputant the dryest, 
 Frigid formalist the merest, 
 Fop fanatical the queerest, 
 Sober sensualist the sleekest. 
 Wolf in sheep's clothing the meekest ! 
 No welcome smiles his coming greet. 
 The peasant fears his frown to meet ! 
 The village^^ children look askance. 
 
 house ; (not, in those clays, a prison-looking, unsightly 
 edifice !) the stocks and the pound, for vagrants on two 
 legs and on four ! Then the village oddities ! The apo- 
 thecary and his piebald pad ; the lawyer, tinkering one 
 legal loop-hole and making two ! the barber ; (a peripa- 
 tetic gazette !) the schoolmistress, (spectacled, dreaded 
 dame!) and the pedagogue, of whose birch and ferule 
 the village urchins stood in fear ! Resplendent with 
 tarnished gold and true blue creaked the signs of the 
 " Rodney's Head," and the " Admiral Benbow." An 
 eai-nest of good entertainment were the bronzed cheeks, 
 flaring eyes and copper noses of those terrible old tars ! 
 The traveller enjoyed excellent cheer beneath the wide- 
 spreading ancient elms that shaded their once hospitable 
 portals, and a no less hearty welcome awaited him at the 
 ingle when the faggots blazed, and the nut-brown ale and 
 the merry song went round I Their busy Bonifaces how
 
 220 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 And turn from his ill-favour'd glance. 
 
 Thick clouds of " Devil's Dust " assail 
 
 His nose and mouth, a stifling gale I 
 
 And sweetly in his hearing peals, 
 
 From parallelogram Bastiles, 
 
 The music of the whistling wheels ! 
 
 Tall chimneys whence black columns rise, 
 
 Trade's sooty incense to the skies ! 
 
 A sable and unsightly team 
 
 Borne by bellowing blasts of steam, 
 
 And leafless woods and voiceless groves 
 
 Enchant his vision as he roves ! 
 
 For when he Dodona banish'd, 
 
 With the rural goddess, vanish'd 
 
 From their ancestral, sylvan realm 
 
 The stately oak and lofty elm ! 
 
 Where once the sparkling fountain play'd 
 
 good-humoured and rosy; their comely hostesses how 
 accommodating and courteous : their buxom barmaids how 
 simpering and obliging; their brace of boots how bon- 
 hommiehh and urbane! The Village in the olden time 
 was a well-ordei-ed community, delighting in social inter- 
 course, and kindly offices. It had its good-for-naughts, 
 but these were only a few dark spots in the bright land- 
 scape, now rooted up and obliterated for ever ! . . . . 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 
 " Non si tosto si fa un templo a Dio come il Diavolo ci 
 fabrica una capella appresso. — Italian Proverb. 
 
 " A demi-parson intoxicated with muddling theories, 
 a wolfish priest with the serpent's tongue, but the dragon's 
 tooth; an anythingarian in religion, an utilitarian in po- 
 litics; one whose modes of thinking are so tortuous, as to
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 221 
 
 In the honeysuckle shade, 
 And to the listening young and old 
 His tale the wounded veteran told, 
 And to some future Nelson gave 
 His early passion for the wave ! 
 Stands one of those misshapen piles 
 On which the devil laid the tiles,^^ 
 Where quack economist from town ^^ 
 (Too liberal to wear a gown !) 
 Drawls utilitarian text,^^ 
 And preaches this world, not the next. 
 As soon shall the good shepherd lead 
 His fold on flinty rocks to feed, 
 Forgetful of the flowery mead ! 
 As Hope shall bid the sinner hie 
 To starve on such vile husks, and die ! 
 Hope,^" a star upon the main 
 
 have been born, as Sydney Smith said, with a corkscrew in 
 his head. " Newgate never does much mischief to society. 
 No ! 'tis your fine-talking free-thinkers and refiners that 
 are to be feared, your atheistical charlatans ! Watch but 
 the vital parts, and the extremities will take care of them- 
 selves." 
 
 '3 "Your cold, naked utilitarian holds a sword that 
 bruises as well as cuts ; and your sneaking, trading aris- 
 tocrat, like the pickpocket who runs against you in a 
 crowd before he commits his theft, one that cuts as well as 
 bruises." — J. Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 ^^ Every hope that breathes salvation 
 Bid me recklessly resign ? 
 Take my last sweet consolation ? 
 Rob me of that Friend benign ?
 
 22*2 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 In the mariner's distress ! 
 A green spot on the desert plain, 
 
 A fountain in the wilderness ! 
 Thus Poverty's from first to last 
 By Mammon gripp'd and then held fast, 
 And, skin and bone, to its last groan 
 The unrelenting tyrant's own. 
 
 21 
 
 Him I pray to, 
 Him I say to 
 rATUER ! Thy Blessing on me and on mine. 
 
 When from darkness, stupefaction 
 
 I awake to deep despair 
 What shall soothe my wild distraction ? 
 Will He hear if Him I dare 
 Kneel and pray to, 
 Humbly say to, 
 Father of Mercies ! have pity, and spare ? 
 
 Sceptic cease, thou soul-deceiver ! 
 
 And no more my spirit try ; 
 
 To the hope of pardon leave her, 
 
 She would not for ever die — 
 
 Leave her to pray to. 
 
 Love, and obey too, 
 
 (Holy and happy !) her Father on High. 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 2' " For my own part " (says Plutarch in his Life of 
 Cato the Censor), " I would not sell even an old ox that 
 had laboured for me, much less would I remove for the 
 sake of a little money, a man grown old in my service, 
 from his usual place and diet : for to him, poor man ! it 
 would be as bad as banishment ; since he could be of no 
 more use to the buyer than he was to the seller." This 
 is worthy of him who adopted the nobler parts of the phi-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 223 
 
 And when death kindly enters in 
 The sHcing surgeon's,-~ bone and skin ! 
 Fix your home (a sad locality !) 
 In this world of stern reality -'^ 
 (With no moody, misanthropic 
 Smile I treat this mournful topic, 
 Life's dark economy I ^ that quite 
 
 losophy of Pythagoras, that Priest of Nature ! who (after 
 disputing in the Olympic contests) when the choice of his 
 title was left to him, modestly declined the appellation of 
 a wise man, and was contented only to be called a lover of 
 wisdom. 
 
 « See The "Anatomy Bill." 
 
 ** Turn to realities — don't be a fool ! 
 
 Trifle no more in the theorist's school ; 
 
 Dreamer, awake from the visions of youth. 
 
 To Life, that stern lesson ! that terrible truth ! 
 
 Rugged and steep is the way you've to tread, 
 The pitfall below, and the sword over head ! 
 Temptations to try you and arts to ensnare, 
 Delusions to cheat — Have a care ! have a cai-e ! 
 
 If content to be poor, and a feast is content, 
 (Pray what sort of feast was by moralist meant ?) 
 You may creep thro' the crowd, most ignobly secure ! 
 Amid the contempt that belongs to the poor ! 
 
 But if you aspire to mount a step higher 
 (Ah ! when was poor honesty known to stand fire ? 
 In Mammon's hot fray it soon melts away !) 
 Courage, not conscience, shall carry the day. 
 
 The Laureat. 
 "* One trouble follows another, 
 Every bane has its brother,
 
 224 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Subdues the laughing Abderite)-^ 
 Plenty you shall find to do 
 For yourself and neighbour too. 
 Mourn for sorrow-^ — ask not why 
 Life is but one long-drawn sigh ! 
 Folly let your lungs set crowing — 
 Marvel not they're always going ! 
 Gape at ingratitude-' — in vain 
 You'll try to shut your mouth again ! 
 Hark ! the loud trumpet's brazen lungs, 
 The shouts of thrice ten thousand tongues 
 
 Early and late 
 Man fights Avith his fate 
 Till death puts an end to the pother. 
 
 The Laurent. 
 See, too, the bright side of the picture ! " To complain, 
 indeed, that life has no joys, while there is a single crea- 
 ture whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our 
 councils, or enliven by our presence, is to lament the loss 
 of that which we possess, and is just as rational as to die 
 of thirst with the cup in our hands." — Fitzosborne^s Letters. 
 "^ While plays the sunshine on the stream. 
 How dark beneath its waters flow ! 
 Thus smiles will often lend their beam 
 
 To secret sorrow, silent woe ! — Uncle Timothy. 
 ^ Dr. Johnson remarks that life is not so much embit- 
 tered by great misfortunes, as by continual petty annoy- 
 ances. 
 
 " If mankind are unhappy," says Goldsmith, " it is of 
 little consequence what occasions the disquietude. Eeal 
 and imaginary evils are synonymous." 
 
 5' " IngratefuU v/ho is call'd, the worst of ill is spoken," 
 says Sir Thilip Sidney. " Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 225 
 
 Proclaim the Pageant ! and behold 
 The sun's bright face of burning gold ! 
 Forbidden at the pomp to peep, 
 The murky mists and vapours weep, 
 As before j'^on ball of fire, 
 Mizzling, drizzling, they retire ! 
 
 Did I rule this Saturnalia, 
 Your Magnifico the Mayor 
 Should cap, hood, and coxcomb wear, 
 
 Bladder, bauble, fit regalia ! 
 And the hobby-horse ~* bestride 
 
 fiend ! " is the anathema of Shakespeare. Sir John Ha- 
 rington is equally unsparing of his censure. 
 " Unthankfullnesse is that great sin. 
 
 Which made the devil and his angels fall : 
 Lost him and them the joyes that tliey were in, 
 And now in hell detaines them bound and thraU." 
 Michael Drayton thus apostrophises it. 
 " Thou hatefull monster base Ingratitude, 
 Soules mortall poyson, deadly killing wound : 
 DeceitfuU serpent seeking to delude, 
 Blacke loathsome ditch, where all desert is di'oun'd : 
 Vile pestilence, which all things doest confound. 
 At first created to no other end, 
 But to grieve those whom nothing could offend." 
 Milton indirectly satirises it. 
 
 " A grateful mind 
 Bj'' owing, owes not ; but still pays : at once 
 Indebted and discharged," 
 And Socrates puts his seal to its condemnation. 
 
 " The greatest of vices is ingratitude." . . 
 ^' In Sampson's play oiThe Vow-Breaker, 1636, a miller 
 
 Q
 
 226 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 My Lord Misrule was wont to ride 
 At once merry Christmas-tide!-^ 
 
 enacts the hobby-horse ; and being angry that the mayor is 
 to be his competitor, exclaims, "Let the major play the 
 hobby-horse among his brethren, and he will, I hope our 
 towne-lads cannot want a hobby-horse. Have I practis'd 
 my reines, my careeres, my pranckers, my ambles, my 
 false trotts, my smooth ambles, and Canterbury paces, 
 and shall master major put me besides the hobby-horse ? 
 Have I borrowed the forehorse bells, his plumes and 
 braveries, nay had his mane new shorne and fi-izl'd, and 
 shall the major put me besides the hobby-horse ? " 
 
 ^^ There are plants that flower in mid winter and lift 
 their heads above the snow; there are also duties that 
 lind their season at Christmas, and feelings that blossom 
 in the midst of nature's repose. 
 
 The earliest Christmas Carol known to have been written 
 in England is one in the Anglo-Norman composed in the 
 beginning of the 13th Century. It is preserved among 
 the Royal MSS. in the British Museum. 
 
 A merry Christmas ! A morose and melancholy one, 
 my masters, when Brothers Snort, Sneeze, and Snvffie, 
 mountebanks militant! held sway. Ghastly merriment, 
 under the scowl of those rancorous, cantankerous, anti- 
 christian curmudgeons ! What frolic or fancy could flou- 
 rish, what spirits, but evil ones, could trip under the 
 Upas Tree that then overshadowed England with its 
 deadly foliage ? What dance was danced, but the Dance 
 of Death ? A stagnant malaria of mind and body infected 
 the droning dupes of that dolorous day. 
 
 Treacherous, canting, lying, and ranting, 
 
 Brother cheating his brother ! 
 Holding in one hand a sword or a gun, and 
 
 " Hooks and Eyes " in the other !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 227 
 
 As the Pageant moves before us 
 
 I will play the part of Chorus, 
 
 Then to Olympus, and report 
 
 Its pomp to Jove and his high court. 
 
 If, perchance, his royal scolder 
 
 Heaven has made too hot to hold her. 
 
 The God's good humour 'twill restore, 
 
 And set the Mountain in a roar! \_Exeunt.
 
 Scene XVII. 
 
 THE PAGEANT. 
 
 Democritus as Chorus. 
 
 RUMPETS sounding, colors stream- 
 
 Veteran swords of victory gleaming, 
 Warriors, in their glittering corsair 
 
 Casques with tails of redhot horsehair I 
 
 In mihtary pomp and pride 
 
 Through yon tall Arch Triumphal ride! 
 
 Follow Exons, Ushers, Grooms, 
 
 Fine dress'd-out dolls for drawing-rooms ! 
 
 Chamberlains and Treasurers bold, 
 
 Valiant Silver Sticks and Gold, 
 
 Gaudy butterflies and vain beaus, 
 
 Woods of wands, of ribbons rainbows, 
 
 A dazzling firmament of stars, » 
 
 Guerdon meet of glorious scars. 
 
 As when Anglesey, in barter, 
 
 Lost a leg and won a garter ! 
 
 Maids of Honour, who as yet 
 
 Are to old Time not much in debt,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 229 
 
 Duennas, deeply in arrears, 
 In debt all over head and ears I 
 Dummies in the show to-day 
 With polite indifference play. 
 Yeomen^" of Herculean mould 
 In scarlet doublets dight with gold, 
 Such as bluff King Harry wore, 
 Burly Beef-eater of yore ! 
 Ever roving, ever ranging, 
 Chopping his poor wives and changing ! " 
 March in order, every man 
 With his good sword and partisan. 
 Moustached round the nose and lips 
 BouvERiE, BowATER, and Phipps, 
 And warHke Whims, 
 
 ^o The Yeomen of the Guard were instituted by Henry 
 VII. and their duties were to wait in the first room above 
 stairs, forty by day, and twenty by night ; to bring up 
 the dishes for His Majesty's table ; to deliver them to 
 the servers ; to attend the King's person on going abroad, 
 and on all occasions of solemnities. Six of them, called 
 " Yeomen-hangers," had the charge of removing the 
 tapestry from the royal apartments when the King 
 changed his residence, and two of them called " Yeomen- 
 bed-goers," had the same charge with respect to putting 
 up and taking down the royal beds. . . , 
 
 " King Henry the Eighth made proposals to the 
 Princess of Parma, who returned for an answer that she 
 duly appreciated the royal compliment, and if she had 
 had two heads, one of them should have been at His 
 Majesty's service, but having only one, she could not con- 
 veniently spare it.
 
 230 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Whims, who better loves a joke, 
 An Irish Bull or equivoque 
 Than psalms and hymns ! 
 Guard the chariot where, sedate. 
 Sit with the Sovereign tete a tete 
 Two automatons of state, 
 Just like patience (beating Job's !)^ 
 The Mistress of the royal Robes, 
 And, in full feather and full force. 
 The mighty Master of the Horse ! 
 Mr. Merriman of the show 
 
 '* A new version, by the Laureat, of an old Latin epi- 
 gram. 
 
 When Job was robb'd of all his riches 
 To his last pair of earthly breeches ! 
 With fiendish malice most refined, 
 The Devil left his Wife behind! 
 Coleridge puts feminine antiquity into three classes — 
 "' That dear old Woman ! "—(Frosty, but kindly !) 
 " That old Woman ! " — (A nipping, hard frost !) 
 " That old Bevii ! "—(A bitter, black frost !) AU dry 
 bones and wickedness ! . . . . 
 
 On a Window at the Sign of the Four Crosses on the 
 Road to West Chester. 
 
 Host ! would you paint your Crosses to the life, 
 Pull down your Sign, and then hang up your Wife ! 
 
 " " Of all the juice that the gods do produce. 
 Sack shall be preferred before 'em ; 
 It's sack that shall create us all, 
 Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, Viroruw. 
 
 We abandon ale, and beer that is stale, 
 Rosa solis and damnable hum ;
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 231 
 
 Whims convulses Phipps and Co. 
 And with his conundrums, quips, 
 Relaxes even royal lips 
 As he canters to and fro ! 
 
 Merry musical St. Martin 
 This proud Pageant plays a part in, 
 Waving, ringing from his steeple, 
 Banners, and bob-majors triple ! 
 Squirt the fountains liquor very 
 Different to the Sack^^ and Sherry 
 
 But we will crack, in the praise of sack, 
 Against omne quod exit in um. 
 
 This is the wine in former time 
 
 Each wisest of tlie magi 
 Was wont to carouse, and frolickly bouze, 
 
 Recumhans sub tegminefagi." 
 
 The Loyal Garland, 1686. 
 
 " If any so wise is 
 
 That Sack he despises. 
 Let him drink his small beer and be sober : 
 
 Whilst we drink Sack and sing, 
 
 As if it were spring. 
 He shall droop, like the trees in October." 
 
 The Kew Academy of Complements. 
 
 Falstaff is so rich a compound of various humours that 
 to take the whole length and breadth of him would re- 
 quire an essay of itself. In drawing this great original 
 Shakespeare has shown wonderful art. To excite mirth 
 from, and make agreeable the voluptuary, the drunkard, 
 and the braggadocio was a dangerous experiment. The 
 Tucca of Ben Jonson, and the Cacofogo of Fletcher are
 
 232 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Tippled by the fiery Trigon 
 Bardolph at Chepe's Conduit bygone — 
 Cistern from the sober city 
 Vanish'd, banish'd — more the pity I 
 Flags peep from the " Pepper Boxes," ^^ 
 The Northumbrian Lion cocks his 
 Tail, and " Pigtail Place's " ^^ Statue 
 Seems to ride full gallop at you. 
 
 disgusting pictures of mere cowardice and sensuality ; not 
 so the " fat Knight with the great pelly-doublet," his wit 
 is so delightfully redundant, his joke and repartee, his 
 " gipes, and knaveries and mocks" so prompt and racy, 
 that " we are ready to hug him, guts, lies, and all " — "We 
 cannot abate one tittle of this " sweet creature of bom- 
 bast," this comic world in one ! . . . . 
 
 His companions are admirably adapted to illustrate their 
 Master, and draw forth his humours. The malmsey- 
 nosed Bardolph his carbuncled-visaged cupbearer, whose 
 face is full of "bubukles, and whelks, and flames of fire" 
 
 — the bombastical, lack-linen " tame-cheater " Pistol, 
 with " a killing tongue and a quiet sword" — the taciturn 
 Corporal Nym, who " scorns to say his prayers, lest he 
 should be thought a coward " — the swaggering Poins, 
 Francis, the puny drawer, that " base-string of humility !" 
 
 — Hostess Quickly ("Dame Partlet, the hen!") — the 
 hungry, lean-faced Shallow " for all the world like a 
 fork'd raddish, with a head fantastically carved upon it, 
 with a knife" — Justice Silence, in his sober senses, a 
 figure of fatuity, but in his cups a special chanter of old 
 songs, and a right boon-companion — the pigmy page, 
 ("Sirrah, you giant!") — the muster-roll of ragged re- 
 cruits, (" most forcible Feeble " the woman's tailor, 
 Mouldy, Bull-Calf and Company !)— Doll Tear-Sheet the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 233 
 
 Bearing, from St. Giles's border, 
 Knights of its equestrian order. 
 
 To-day has loyalty a rout, 
 Turning houses inside out ! 
 Stuffs of every fashion, hue. 
 Rich embroidery, old and new, 
 Pictured arras, cloth of gold 
 
 termagant — the frolicksome Prince Hal ! Windsor's Merry 
 Wives, the bashful Master Slender — the choleric Welsh 
 Parson and the irascible French Quack, (the " Soul-curer 
 and the Body-curcr ! ") the bully -rock tapster Mine Host 
 of the Garter — the jealous Mr. Ford and " sweet Anne 
 Page," 
 
 Dame Quickly's description of Sir John's tranquil tran- 
 sit to " Arthur's Bosom " is beautifully earnest and true — 
 Bardolph's exclamation, " Would, I were with him, 
 wheresome'er he is," coarse though it be, is the ebullition 
 of kindly feeling that must not be too literally taken or too 
 harshly criticised — Burns has adopted it in a well known 
 epigram. — Uncle Timothy. 
 
 '* Intended for towers, and turreting the top of the 
 National Gallery; thus disfiguring the "finest site in 
 Europe " with the ugliest sight. 
 
 3s •' Pigtail Place! " so called after Wyatt's Equestrian 
 Statue of George HI. set up in its centre. 
 
 O, that good King Georgius Tertius, 
 
 Emulating noble Curtius, 
 
 Would into bottomless and big 
 
 Hibernian bog leap horse and wig ! 
 
 The Nemesis of taste might then 
 
 Be once more reconciled to men ! 
 
 The Laurcat.
 
 234 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 From the windows are unroll'd. 
 Like Birnam wood and Dunsinane 
 Is country come to town again ! 
 Every smoke-dyed wall is seen 
 In Dodona's livery green I 
 Sooty Tusculuras and towers 
 We can scarcely see for flowers ! ^® 
 Ne'er wore the Strand such gay attire 
 Since Robin^^ and his festive Friar^* 
 
 '•' " Ye may no see, for peeping flowers, the grasse." 
 
 George Peele. 
 " You scarce could see the grass for flowers." 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 ^^ If Robin Rood robbed the rich to give to the poor he 
 took a leaf out of the book of Alcibiades, who transferred 
 the gold and silver cups of Anytus the millionaire to 
 Thrasyllus the mendicant. 
 
 38 a Qf Tuck the merry friar, which many a sermon made, 
 In praise of Robin Hood, his outlaws and his trade." 
 Skelton, in his " goodly interlude of Magnificence " writ- 
 ten about the j'ear 1500, makes this mention. 
 " Another bade shave halfe my berde, 
 And boj's to the pylery gan me plucke. 
 And wolde have made me freer Tuck, 
 To preche out of the pylery hole." 
 In the Sloane MS. occurs the following remark. 
 " Though some say he (Tuck) was an other kynd of reli- 
 gious man, for that the order of fryers was not yet sprung 
 up." Now the Dominican friars came into England in 
 the year 1221, upwards of twenty years (according to 
 tradition) before the death of Robin Hood. 
 
 But whether Dominican or Cistercian (if he be " The 
 curtal frier of Fountains-dale," mentioned in one of the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 235 
 
 Led the Sylvan dance and choir 
 Round the Maypole,^^ blossoming 
 With the early flowers of spring I 
 Spring returns, in groves and dells 
 The hyacinth hangs its silver bells, 
 And Narcissus makes the bowers 
 Fragrant with his snow-white flowers, 
 But not to crown the floral scene 
 Return the woodland Xing'"* and Queen, 
 
 oldest Robin Hood songs, he must have belonged to the 
 latter order), let him be welcome ! 
 
 ^' In the Knight of the burning Pestle, a grocer's appren- 
 tice, tricked out in " scarves, feathers, and rings " as a 
 Lord of Mail, makes the following allusion, in his oration 
 from the conduit, to his " fellows in the Strand." 
 
 " London, to thee I do present the merry month of May, 
 Let each true subject be content to hear me what I say : 
 For from the top of conduit-head, as plainly may appear, 
 I will both tell my name to you, and wherefore I came here. 
 My name is Rafe, by due descent, though not ignoble I, 
 Yet far inferiour to the flock of gracious grocery. 
 And by the common counsel of my fellows in the Strand, 
 With gilded staff, and crossed skarfe, the May lord here I 
 stand." 
 " A Puritan Minister inveighing against Pastimes and 
 May-games, called the Towne May-pole the forbidden 
 Tree."— T/ie Booke of Bulls, 1636. 
 
 ''" The Burial of Robin Hood. 
 Thro' the dark wood's deep solitudes 
 
 The archers bear their forest-king ; 
 In silent grief the outlaw-chief 
 
 To his sepulchre they bring.
 
 236 
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 t 
 
 And foresters in Lincoln green 
 Merry band ! Merry band I ^^ 
 They, alas I have left the land. 
 
 London town, capacious hive 
 
 In a shroud the summer breeze 
 Bleach'd on woodbine, Robin bold 
 
 Death's sabbath keeps, and soundly sleeps 
 'Till time shall his last hour have told ! 
 
 Yon timid deer that stand at bay 
 Their ancient foe no more shall fly. 
 
 Nor Sherwood ring at dawn of day 
 Responsive to the hunter's cry ! 
 
 Nor see his rural banquet spread, 
 Nor hear his song, a joyous one ! 
 
 As listless laid beneath the shade 
 He caroll'd to the setting sun. 
 
 His merry horn that woke the morn 
 They raise aloft to his renown, 
 
 And livery sheen of Lincoln green. 
 And trusty bow and sylvan crown ! 
 
 Had the bower a fairer flower, 
 One more lovely than the rest, 
 
 It doth bloom upon his tomb, 
 It doth blossom on his breast ! 
 
 Had the shepherd swain a sigh. 
 
 Had the village maid a tear 
 Of a holier sympathy 
 
 Mournfully they mingle here ! 
 
 In the grove a lyre is heard, 
 
 How it thrills and melts the heart! 
 
 What hand unseen the strings hath stirr'd ? 
 What seraph play 'd the minstrel's part ?
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 237 
 
 Of busy bees ! is all alive. 
 
 Far as ever eye can see, 
 
 Roof and chimney, tower, and tree 
 
 Swarm with gazers to the top, 
 
 Every lamp-post bears a crop ! 
 
 Again it swells thro' woodland dells, 
 A solemn march, a dirge-like wail ! 
 
 And behold a harper old 
 Bids the forest-funeral hail ! 
 
 Winter snows and many woes 
 
 Have blanch'd his head and bent his form, 
 Yet doth his hand the chords command, 
 
 His heart, tho' withering, still is warm ! 
 
 Listen now, from every bough 
 
 Requiems rise ; hark ! torrent, breeze, 
 
 Join the sad song as pass along 
 Robin's mournful obsequies ! 
 
 And see beneath the greenwood tree 
 
 They pause — now slowly sinks the bier, 
 
 While prayer and plaintive minstrelsy 
 Plead for pardon — Jesu ! Hear. 
 
 Uncle Timothy, 
 
 ■•' If the song and the dance, the pipe and the tabor, 
 May-day garlands and Robin Hood are sinful, our ances- 
 tors were woeful sinners ! The trees shedding their bright 
 green, and the hedge-rows their white blossoms, the birds 
 making vocal the woods, and the streams answering to 
 their sweet music, the sun irradiating heaven and earth, 
 and nature rejoicing in the return of spring, announced 
 the presence of the Great Spirit in all his benignity and 
 beauty, and the people (gratitude we owe to God and 
 cheerfulness to man) thought it an appropriate offering to
 
 ^38 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Curiosity, all eyes I 
 Holds to-day its grand assize ! 
 Maninaion, when perchance he dozes, 
 Never niore than one eye closes, 
 But to-day he has, to copen, 
 Argus-like, a hundred open ! 
 From the attic to the basement 
 Every crevice, corner, casement, 
 He, for gold and silver pieces. 
 
 welcome this vernal season with floral festivity, to meet 
 lovely spring with light hearts and smUing faces, nor 
 could the painful preachments of prelate or puritan per- 
 suade them to the contrary. Latimer, in a strain of 
 ludicrous lamentation, bewails this unholy bewitchment — 
 The good bishop, journeying homeward from London, 
 and stumbling upon a country church, volunteered to 
 preach therein, it being a holiday. So with his " horse '' 
 and his " company," he proceeds to the church door 
 which, to his surprise, he finds " fast locked ! " " Sir," 
 cries a pleasure-taking parishioner to the astounded pre- 
 late, " this is a busy day with us, we cannot hear you ; it 
 is Robin Hood^s day. The parish ai'e gone abroad to 
 gather for llobin Hood; I pray you let them not." (See 
 Twelfth Sermon preached before Edward the Sixth.) The 
 sermon must succumb to the Saturnalia ! The rochet must 
 give place to llobin Hood. In " Hay any work fur Cooper,"" 
 is the following characteristic story. " There is a neigh- 
 bour of our's, an honest priest, who was sometimes (sim- 
 ple as he now stands) a Vice in a play, for want of a bet- 
 ter ; his name Gliberie of Hawstead in Essex, hee goes 
 much to the pulpit. On a time, I thinke it was the last 
 May, he went up with a full resolution, to doe his busi- 
 nesse with great commendations. But see the fortune of
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 239 
 
 Lets, to see the show, on leases ! 
 Holy Paul, to be in keeping. 
 Makes the public pay for peeping 
 From his shilling gallery gay. 
 Rising o'er the mouldering clay,*^ 
 Hollow cabinet of bone 
 Reason's abdicated throne ! 
 
 Trumpets, trombones, horns and hautboys, 
 
 it. A boy, in the church, hearing either the summer 
 Lord of his May-game, or Robin Hood with his morris dance, 
 going by church, out goes the boye. Good Gliberie, 
 though he were in the pulpit, yet had a mind to his old 
 companions abroad (a company of merry grigs you must 
 thinke them to be, as merry as a Vice upon a stage), see- 
 ino- the boy going out, finished his matter presently with 
 John of London's amen, saying, ' Ha ye faith, boy, are 
 they there ? Then ha with thee,' and so came down, and 
 among them he goes." 
 
 The merry-makings of Old England live only in the 
 memory of the past. The past ! for which the present 
 yields small compensation in the way of homely joys, pas- 
 toral delights and good fellowship ! 
 
 *' A venial offence in comparison with the enormities 
 perpetrated on this spot in ancient times ! (See a dedication 
 to Queen Elizabeth in the first edition of the Welsh Testament 
 printed in 1567), when " Paules Churche-yarde in the Citie 
 was occupied by makers of alabaster images to be set up in 
 Churches, and they of Paternoster Eowe earned their 
 living by makyng of Paternoster bedes only, they of Ave 
 Lane by sellyng Ave bedes, of Crede Lane by makyng of 
 Crede bedes, as also, &c. &c." . .
 
 240 
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Now or never ! bray and blow, boys ! 
 Salt-boxes and fiddle-scrapers 
 Make the people's teeth cut capers I 
 PufF, Pandeans ! ^^ pipers joint, 
 Puff your faces to a point I 
 Scotchmen vocal vengeance wreak 
 On your bagpipes, make 'em squeak ! 
 For see, in boots, perchance the pair 
 Erst worn by Jack the Giant-Slayer ! 
 Or Puss, when he abroad was seen 
 Perambulating en bottine ! 
 With a military march 
 Steps my Lord Mayor stiff and starch 
 Marshalled by a brandy face, 
 A parish porpoise, and a mace, 
 A tub upon ten gouty toes. 
 
 "* The polite Athenians, moved by the ridicule of Alci- 
 biades, discarded the pipe because it disordered the eco- 
 nomy of their featui'es ! 
 
 ^* " Corporations have no souls." . . Says Coke. Nnn 
 olet is their motto. 
 
 ■"^ Cato the Censor, jesting upon a very fat man, said, 
 " Of what service to his country can such a body be, which is 
 nothing but belly ? " 
 
 46 u wiio can deny but that Mr. IVIault can make a cup 
 of good liquor by the help of a good brewer, and when it 
 is made it must be sold ; I pray which of you all can live 
 without it ? Where else would you sop your toast and 
 nutmeg, and what would assuage the thirst of gammons 
 and red-herrings ? Were I to sutfer, lords, knights, and 
 esquires would want their March beer and October to 
 treat their tenants and their friends : bottle-ale and stout
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 241 
 
 A cock'd hat and a bottle nose ! 
 
 A beadle, as the saying goes. 
 
 His brother Aldermen behind 
 
 Their way unwieldy waddling wind, 
 
 Each a corpus sine pectore,^* 
 
 Pudding-cramm'd from the refectory I 
 
 In the Common -council fall, 
 
 Vegetable marrows all I ^^ 
 
 Florid specimens of feeding, 
 
 And a little brusque in breeding I 
 
 To whom is Barclay's brewing rare^^ 
 
 As water to the Polar Bear I 
 
 Whither with their wands of white 
 
 Wend they? to that far famed site" 
 
 (To recruit them for the brawl) 
 
 Where Ben Jonson^* and his "fellows" 
 
 would be wanted at Islington and Highgate to treat your 
 wives with : old women would want hot-pots of brandy 
 and ale, and the good-wife that lies in could have no cau- 
 dle." — The Whole Tryal and Indictment of Sir John Barley- 
 corn, Knight, 1709. 
 
 "7 The Banking House of Messrs. Child and Co. Temple- 
 Bar. 
 
 *^ Ben Jonson being one night at the Devil Tavern, a 
 country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loqua- 
 cious touching his land and tenements ; Ben, out of pa- 
 tience, exclaimed, " What signifies to us your dirt and 
 your clods ? Where you have one acre of land I have ten 
 acres of wit ! " " Have you so," retorted the countryman, 
 " good Mr. Wise-acre ?" " Why, how now, Ben," said 
 one of the party, " you seem to be quite stung ! " "I was 
 never so pricked by a hob-nail before," grumbled Ben. . . 
 
 R
 
 242 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Attic revel ! 
 
 Supp'dat "TheDevil"^^ 
 And sang " Old Mose^^ and burn the Bellows." 
 
 Unhorsed, uncovered, slow, sedate, 
 In his crimson velvet dress, 
 Golden Collar of S S,^^ 
 
 And pigtail pendent 
 With its satin rose resplendent I 
 
 Magnus the Great 
 
 « "October 12, 1710, Dined to-day with Dr. Garth 
 and Mr. Addison at the Devil Tavern by Temple-Bar, and 
 Garth treated." — {Swift's Journal to Stella.) There is a 
 ludicrous reference to this ancient hostelrie in an old song 
 describing the visit of James I. to the Cathedral of St. 
 Paul on Sunday 26 of March, 1620. 
 " The Maior layd downe his mace, and cry'd, ' God save 
 your Grace, 
 
 And keepe our King from all evill ! ' 
 With all my hart I then wist, the good mace had been in 
 my fist. 
 
 To ha' pawn'd it for supper at the Devill!" 
 
 April 22, 1661, (the day before his coronation) King 
 Charles II. going from the Tower to White-Hall, " Wad- 
 low the Vintner, at the Devil, in Fleet-Street, did lead a 
 fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white 
 doublets, &c. &c. — Pepys' Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 190. 
 
 It was at the Devil Tavern thatCibber's Birth-day Odes 
 were usually rehearsed before they were performed at 
 Court. Hence the following Epigram by a wit of those 
 times. 
 
 " When Laureates make Odes, Do you ask of what sort ? 
 Do you ask if they're good, or are evil ?
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 243 
 
 Presents the Queen his Sword of State 
 Made by the cutler to King Lud 
 Somewhat later than the Flood 
 
 At Vulcan's smithy I 
 
 Touching the hilt, 
 
 Superbly gilt ! 
 Her Majesty's reply is pithy, 
 " Good, My Lord Mayor, take it wi' thee !" 
 My Lord bows low his curly scalp, 
 (What an intellectual Alp !) 
 
 You may judge — From the Devil they come to the Court, 
 And go from the Court to the Devil." 
 *" This popular old song is inserted in Dr. Harington's 
 Collection from a publication temp. Charles I. 
 " Now we're met like jovial fellows, 
 
 Let us do as wise men tell us, 
 Sing Old Rose and burn the bellows; 
 Let us do as wise men tell us, 
 Sing, &c. 
 
 When the jowl with claret glows, 
 
 And wisdom shines upon the nose, 
 O then is time to sing Old Rose, 
 And burn, bum, the bellows, 
 The bellows, and bui-n, burn, the bellows, the bellows. 
 *' In that amusing gossip, " Notes and Queries," nothing 
 more queer is, than the choler touching this incomprehen- 
 sible collar ! The pondei-ous intellect of Master John Gough 
 Nichols has hammered hard and heavily at its mysterious 
 meaning, but it has stirred up the fog only to thicken it, 
 and the Collar of Esses is still a provoking puzzle ! 
 
 Uncle Timothy, in reply to Master John, proposes put- 
 ting an A before SS, which he thinks would solve the 
 riddle both of the collar and the choler.
 
 244 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Then re-crowns it with his cock'd hat, 
 Bestrides his steed, from Batty's stud, 
 A rollicking, frolicking bit of blood 
 Ready to gallop thro' fire and flood ! 
 And passes thro' the dingy gate 
 On which, in days of olden date, 
 Grinned ghastly many a trunkless pate 
 
 Monarchs set up to be mock'd at ! 
 
 Hark I the powder ; louder ! louder 
 Thicker ! quicker ! come the sho 
 Another flash I another crash ! 
 
 Saluting from the chimney pots — 
 Loyal Lumber-Troopers all, 
 (Rank and file from Cogers' Hall!) 
 If you play at this platooning 
 You will set the city swooning I 
 
 Rosinantes, two and two, 
 Back'd by bogtrotters in blue, 
 
 52 « Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights," 
 who come up to the non-depravity mark of Rousseau, 
 " Que I'etat de rejiexion est uii tlat contra nature et que 
 rhomme qui medite est un animal deprave.^' " Meditation," 
 says the Rambler, " elevates man to a reflective being." 
 
 When Rousseau was in England, Garrick paid him the 
 compliment of playing two characters on purpose to oblige 
 him : they were Lusignan and Lord Chalkstone ; and as 
 it was known that Rousseau was to be present, the theatre 
 was crowded to excess. Rousseau was highly gratified ; 
 but Mrs. Garrick complained that she never passed a more
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 245 
 
 Trusty knaves, for whispering tales 
 
 To fond, foolish Abigails, 
 
 Blarney from the Bay of Bantry, 
 
 For the freedom of the pantry ! 
 
 Lead the van; then, variorem 
 
 Vehicles with a nag before 'em 
 
 Of the Common-council Grandees,^^ 
 
 Where accommodation and ease 
 
 Are, with elegance, combined, 
 
 Lag, ad libitum, behind. 
 
 Follow next those rival stars, 
 
 The two Sheriffs' coxcomb cars, 
 
 Hunter's, with its groggy dragons 
 
 Glorified, supporting flagons ; 
 
 Sidney's, very much beholden 
 
 To three Girdlers' gridirons golden.^^ 
 
 Rolls along the rumbling stand 
 
 Of the Aldermanic band 
 
 Which their woi'ships, plain and plodding. 
 
 Journey to the land of Nod in 
 
 uncomfortable evening in her life, for the recluse philoso- 
 pher was so very anxious to display himself, and hung so 
 forward over the front of the box, that she was obliged to ^ 
 hold him by the skirt of his coat that he might not fall 
 over into the pit ! 
 
 ^3 The arms of the Girdlers' Company exhibit St. Law- 
 rence, the patron saint of that guikl, with his three golden 
 "•ridirons. St. Lawrence was a native of Huesca, in Ar- 
 ragon, and was broiled alive upon a gridiron in the reign 
 of the Emperor Valerian.
 
 246 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 When, perchance potations deep 
 Lull their dignities to sleep ! 
 And, of locomotive monsters 
 Last, the crowning gewgaw on stirs I 
 Where the painter and the builder, 
 And the carver and the gilder, 
 In artistical set-to, 
 All past doings did outdo ! 
 There you shall see in the fulness 
 Of mock-majesty and dulness 
 (Sword-bearer and Sermoniser 
 Each contributing his visor. 
 Proper persons, very proper ! 
 To play anti-bottle-stopper 
 To the kingly nose of copper !) 
 Civic Sovereigns on particular 
 
 54 '' When has there been such a spectacle, even so ab- 
 surd a spectacle, exhibited as that which was shown, 
 when the London Corporation took that great gingerbread 
 coach, and clothed themselves in that Bartholomew Fair 
 dress of theirs, and took a man with a fur cap with a long 
 sword in his hand, and all the other set of the parapher- 
 nalia of London, and went down to "Windsor to present 
 an address to the Queen, in order to put down Popish 
 Mummeries! If you want to see Mummeries, go and see 
 the Lord Mayor's Procession ! " — Mr. Cobden's Speech on the 
 Manchester Policy, 23 January, 1851. 
 
 " It was a custom in ancient times for the Lord Mayor 
 and Aldermen to hunt the hare once a year in Essex. 
 The foUowiug verses from an old song are descriptive of 
 the sport. 
 
 " Next once a year into Essex a Hunting they do go, 
 To see 'em pass along, O 'tis a most pretty show ;
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 247 
 
 Days when they become vehicular."* 
 
 Common-councilmen (the breed 
 Rightly he who runs may read !) 
 Peacock, Dixon, Godson, Gresham, 
 Their poor cattle how they thresh 'em I 
 Bedford, Bailey, Frodsham, Finnis, 
 Whip and spur their kicking Jennies ! 
 Never since those palmy times, 
 Recorded in old ballad I'hymes, 
 When to Essex rode the mayor ^^ 
 With his court to hunt the hare. 
 When huge Helluos were unhorsed, 
 And saddles from their steeds divorced, 
 Such a troop was seen, or read of, 
 Riding each his horse's head off! 
 
 Through Cheapside and Fenchurch-street, and so to Aldgate 
 Pump, 
 
 Each man with's Spurs in's Horse's sides, and his Back- 
 Sword cross his Rump. 
 
 " My Lord he takes a Staff in Hand, to beat the Bushes o'er, 
 I must confess it was a work he ne'er had done before ; 
 A Creature bounceth from a Bush, which made 'em all to 
 laugh, [Essex Calf. 
 
 My Lord he cry'd ' a Hare ! a Hare ! ' but it proved an 
 
 " And when they had done their Sport, they came to Lon- 
 don, where they dwell; 
 
 Their Faces all so torn and scratch'd, their Wives scarce 
 knew them well ; 
 
 For 'twas a very great Mercy so many 'scap'd alive, 
 
 For of Twenlq Saddles carried out, they brought again but 
 Five ! "
 
 248 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 The two City Marshals, each reining a roarer I 
 
 Cry, " If you mean, 
 
 In your gowns mazarine. 
 Gambados, to split not the sides of the Queen, 
 Cut not so many queer capers before her ! " 
 
 The gallant Sheriffs, horsemen good. 
 Turn out their toes as sheriffs should ! 
 What between the mane and bridle, 
 Neither pair of hands is idle ! 
 
 Sir Claudius the Beau, on his charger Adonis, 
 Bows to the beauties that grace the balconies, 
 
 Farncomb and Farebrother, 
 
 (Bobbing like their brother !) 
 
 Follow, with Key, 
 
 On Bucephali three I 
 Lucas and Wood, and Johnson and Carroll, 
 (Their coursers bestriding like Bacchus his barrel !) 
 Led by Sir Oracle, jog on together, 
 Quizzing his new Spanish beaver and feather I 
 
 The Common Crier, 
 
 Beddoime the Bold ! 
 Coerces a shver 
 
 Of twenty twice told ! 
 
 Sword-bearer Hick 
 
 A palfrey propels, 
 In his high Cap of Maintenance, 
 
 Minus the Bells !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 249 
 
 Hark I an Apollonian air 
 
 Proclaims the advent of The Mayor I 
 
 (Inspiration of a bard 
 
 Spinning doggrel by the yard, 
 
 Three of which, the hawkers roar, 
 
 You can buy for farthings four !) 
 
 By a brace of nightingales ^^ 
 
 With a chorus at their tails, 
 
 (Major, minor, sharp and flat) 
 To the tune of the '■'■Frog in an opera hat /" 
 CaprioUing, horse and rider 
 Both pufF'd up with equal pride are, 
 Bucephalus and Alexander 
 Greater never look'd nor grander I 
 
 In youth's spring-tide and beauty's pride 
 Behold the radiant. Royal Bride 
 Of Merrie England I merry still, 
 Tho' merrier once, for love's grown chill ! 
 On her open brow and queenly 
 Shines her triple crown serenely ! 
 Erin's jewel, Scotia's gem, 
 Clas Merdin's" regal diadem ! 
 
 *^ " I love strong-beer twice in tho year, that is sum- 
 mer and winter. Ballad-singers have the most honest 
 trade in the world for money : it also is an ancient and 
 honourable caUinor, for Homer also was one." — Nimble and 
 Quick, Pick and Chuse where yon itnll, n. d. 
 
 *' " Clas Merdin, ' the sea-defended green spot,' indi-
 
 250 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Fair daughter of a race august ! 
 
 All Thrones, but Thine, have lick'd the dust! 
 
 'Twas Thine, unmoved, erect, sublime, 
 
 That foil'd the fame-flush'd Gallic Mime,^^ 
 
 O'er the Usurper's head abhorr'd. 
 
 That broke, in scorn ! his charmed sword, 
 
 And chain'd him to a rock on high ^^ 
 
 To curse the juggling fiends, and die ! 
 
 Lady ! to thy native land. 
 
 At the altar of thy sires 
 Thou did'st give thy heart and hand, 
 
 While responsive, holy choirs 
 
 cated alike her fertility and natural protection." — The Na- 
 val History of Great Britain hy Sir Han-is Nicolas. 
 
 *' The Imperial Charlatan — Le Claquer de la Grande 
 Arm6e, as Bonaparte was called. A man plausible rather 
 than great, specious rather than penetrating, who had a 
 dire capacity for annihilating compunctions, and whose 
 principal instrument of governing was dissimulation. 
 
 ^^ In one of the gardens of Holland House is a bronze 
 bust of Napoleon, with a Greek inscription from the Odys- 
 sey, applying the situation of Ulysses to that of the Cor- 
 sican at St. Helena ! " In a far distant isle he remains 
 under the harsh surveillance of base men ! " " It has al- 
 ways been wonderful to me," says Walter Savage Landor, 
 " what sympathy any well-educated Englishman can have 
 with an ungenerous, ungentlemanly, unmanly Corsican." 
 The wonder wiU cease when " a well-educated English- 
 man " can deliberately charge, for the first time, without 
 the slightest ground for the cruel accusation, the virtuous
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 251 
 
 Joyful Hallelujahs peal'd 
 
 As the solemn vow was seal'd. 
 
 Thine are now the dews of youth, 
 
 The jubilation of the soul ; 
 Thine shall be this sterner truth, 
 
 As after years successive roll, 
 How well become that sacred vow 
 A pensive heart, a thoughtful brow. 
 
 Bright with glittering gold (mosaic !), 
 Stuck with cameos, (gems Hebraic, 
 O, for classical mythology 
 What a. parvenu apology!) 
 
 and unfortunate Marie Antoinette with infidelity to her 
 husband, as does the late Lord Holland, in a posthumous 
 gallimawfry of ribald scandal called " Foreign Eeminis- 
 cences," of which it is justly said, " The indecent anecdotes 
 are bad enough ; the asterisks are still worse ! " No fair repu- 
 tation is safe in the hands of this lordly libeller, and his 
 " excellent friend Dumont!" At Page 64 the exemplary 
 wife of the late Duke of York is described as the illegiti- 
 mate daughter of the Queen of Prussia by one Miiller 
 a musician ! But the truth will sometimes out ! Almost 
 at his last page the eulogist of this '-matchless and un- 
 approachable man" (Bonaparte!) testifies that he (his idol !) 
 "had very little regard for truth ! " One Reminiscence, 
 of which a certain " Sweet Remembrakcer " must have 
 often reminded him ! is unaccountably omitted by my Lord 
 in his catalogue. Did Charity begin at home? If it did, 
 it ended there !
 
 252 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Rejoicing in the reddest rose 
 That Cranbourn Alley's garden grows, 
 Rose that gives a blush suburban 
 To her fierce and fiery turban I 
 
 50 tc ^ blessed ignorant family this I have got into ! " 
 sotto voce, sighed the Laureat when he made his first bow- 
 to the Plalus of Porisoken, of whom the Beauty in the Bal- 
 cony is the head and front. Waste a day with the Platos 
 and you shall hear nothing but depreciating comparisons 
 tending to their own glorification and aggrandisement, 
 enlivened with a senile joke from the Methuselah of the 
 family (a beetle-browed, hard mammonite !) upon poor 
 parsons, poor poets, and all who are poverty-stricken ; 
 for, as Doctor Johnson said of Osborne, the Platos have no 
 sense of shame, but that of being poor ! Though a farcical 
 fierceness (the family feature !) is the "Beauty's" forte, 
 she now and then apes what her friends the Rumfungusses 
 and the Noodlecrafts sarcastically call " cutting the genteel 
 caper ! " viz. the ceremoniously serene ! but a right word 
 taken wrong, or a wrong word taken right, off she goes ! 
 and (like Peregrine Pickle's dressed-out gipsy girl at the 
 card table) makes a horrible hole in her good manners ! 
 "Come, Juliana, give us Jerry!" cried her cousins the 
 Goosegrigs at their Whitechapel merriments. And Ju- 
 liana grinned, gabbled and gesticulated a fac-simile so 
 comical, that it convulsed the Goosegrigs, who at once re- 
 cognised the Bonassus-like Adonis ! Yet after a pic-nic 
 party (" al-frisho ! ") at Ponders-End, when Jerry's gro- 
 tesque graces came out in fuU foi'ce ! and a tete-a-tete trip 
 with him to Turnham Green, he found favour in her sight, 
 
 " And such a day of jubilee, cajolery, 
 A day before was never seen so full of fun and 
 drollery " 
 as the day, when for better and for worse, she took Jerry
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 253 
 
 All fuss and flounce, all blonde and bounce, 
 Grotesquely gay by starts and fits, 
 
 Fringed and frill'd, double-distill'd I 
 In state the City Madam °° sits 
 
 and his purse! Every thing is bound to bend to the 
 " Beauty's " caprice. Is she redhot ? Out is poked the 
 fire (to the horror of shivering Jerry !) and open fly the 
 windows and doors ! Is her temperature down to zero ? 
 The parlour furnace is replenished, and Jerry is baked 
 alive like (in his oven !) Monsieur Chabert the Fire-King ! 
 All the pity that Jerry gets for his aches and pains is a 
 rueful recitation of her own. She has a set-off against 
 every sore. To Jerry's tormented tympanum she opposes 
 her hollow tooth, to his cholic her catarrh, and to his lazy 
 liver her lumbago! Mark her supercilious sneer, her in- 
 solent toss of the head, the bridling up of her superabun- 
 dant bust, when (speaking of some gentle heart whose ac- 
 complishments adverse fortune has made her daily bread) 
 she (ducking her double chin !) croaks contemptuously 
 " Only a Governess!" — forgetting (purse-proud vulgarian!) 
 how problematical her post in the parlour would have been 
 had the originators of her amiable being grubbed less and 
 given more ! In the " Beauty," pretension and parsimony 
 make a pleasant pair of oddities! No sooner are her 
 guests bowed out (her eyes have been upon every plate 
 and she can figure up to a frustrum the feats of every 
 knife and fork !) than down drops her extinguisher upon 
 the long sixes, and Jerry is left to ruminate by rushlight, 
 until a recitative from the third floor rouses him from his 
 reverie, when up jumps Jerry as if he had been galva- 
 nised ! 
 
 " Then for his night-cap calls, and thanks the powers 
 Which kindly gave him grace to keep good hours." 
 
 Her sighs are the breathings of idleness and ennui, her
 
 254 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON, 
 
 A star in front of Mercer's Hall, 
 The envy of the Ladies all ! 
 Who, most cruelly in eclipse, 
 Look armories, and bite their lips ! 
 Among- the chivalry of Cheap 
 That Jerry should his saddle keep 
 (On her bosom, when a wooer 
 Hangs his pretty present to her, 
 In the plenitude of pudden 
 Jerry's vacant face and wooden !) 
 Makes of Cheap the Venus very 
 Vain of her Adonis Jerry I "^ 
 
 The proud palace of Pomposo 
 
 tears the ichor of mortified vanity. To talk of learn- 
 ing in her presence is to libel her, to excel her is to in- 
 sult her. Had Jerry been a gentleman and a scholar, she 
 would have been jealous of those attractive charms ; but 
 Jerry being a booby born and bred, she has him all to 
 her selfish self, and a mouse in a trap lives as merril}' ! 
 Then to see her perform the farce, after a busy day's 
 bickering and backbiting, of reading " Something good ! " 
 (Dad's devout device!) before she goes to bed. That 
 ^'Something good '•" (" The Pleasant Art of Money Catching!") 
 being a prologue to something extra-provoking that the 
 " Beauty " has bottled up as a soother to Jerry's slumbers ! 
 Her orthography is beyond the reach of caricature ! She 
 will call for a tumbler of water out of the "pilfering " (fil- 
 tering) machine, and bid Jerry fill her a glass of " Bu- 
 cephalus!" (BuceUas). What she most admired among 
 the " curossities " at Cobham Park was the " Musselman ! " 
 (Mausoleum). A lioness at City Balls, she increases, by
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 255 
 
 Cuts a figure very so so ! 
 
 Site ignoble ! where stood bilboes ^~ 
 
 For refractory Cornhill beaus. 
 
 Bonnets jaded, satins faded, 
 
 Trudging east and west as they did ! 
 
 (A reunion of the Rump 
 
 Of Poppins Court and Aldgate Pump I) 
 
 Make the Palace of Pomposo 
 
 Dowdy look and doloroso ! 
 
 Chantry's art has done its part — 
 Here shall every British heart 
 Hail the Trophied Warrior,*^^ who 
 
 feathers and flounces, her cubits and circumference ; 
 prances a polka like a tame elephant, and moves a minuet 
 like a cathedral ! Bow baptises her a belle ; Jerry, a 
 Je:e-bel ! 
 
 «' " He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a 
 book ; his intellect is not replenished ; — he is only an ani- 
 mal — only sensible in the duller parts." . . . His brains 
 and bowels (to modernise honest Burton's homely phrase) 
 have changed places! — His finer feelings are obfuscated. . . 
 
 62 The Mansion-house " damned, I may say," (see Criti- 
 cal Review, &c. 36, 37, and Pennant) '• to everlasting fame," 
 stands on the site of Stocks-market, so called from a pair of 
 stocks erected in an open place near this spot, as early as 
 the year 1281. The stocks is a very ancient piece of pur- 
 n-atory. A pair, in which a skeleton was found, is among 
 the interesting relics discovered at Pompeii 
 
 63 When Camillus was nominated military tribune for 
 the sixth time he declined the office on the plea of his ad-
 
 256 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Made a mock of the Gallic Cock,^* 
 (All moonshine, moustache, cheeks and stock !) 
 And (saicve qui peut!) thrash'd him thro' 
 France, Spain, and Portugal too I 
 
 And made, like fleas. 
 
 His Brummagem Bees^^ 
 Skip across the Pyrenees I 
 
 And his Eagles flutter 
 
 Like crows in a gutter ! 
 
 Who lowered his Flag 
 
 The Tri-color rag I 
 
 Took the gloss 
 
 vanced age. But the people cried out, " They did not de- 
 sire him to fight either on horseback or on foot ; they only 
 wanted his counsel and his orders." 
 
 The splendid and immortal eulogy which Cicero pro- 
 nounced on Pompey, when, in the Manilian speech, he de- 
 clared him to possess the four great qualifications of a 
 commander — military science, valour, authority, and suc- 
 cess, applies with equal force and truth to Wellington. 
 
 s* The vane derived its name of " Weathercock " from 
 the figure of the bird sacred to -3ilsculapius, and the adop- 
 tion of it has been i-eferred to the device of the English to 
 ridicule their Gallic neighbours; Gallus signifying both 
 Cock and Frenchman ! Shakespeare makes Joan of Arc 
 say, 
 
 " Done like a Frenchman, turn and turn again." 
 Charles Lamb, hearing a Jack Tar call the French " gal- 
 lows rogues ! " drily remarked the fellow was not very far 
 from the truth ! . . . 
 
 ''■'' In the tomb of Childeric, the father of Clovis (dis- 
 covered in the year 1653), were found, among other curi-
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 257 
 
 From his gingerbread Cross ! 
 And put him terribly out of tune 
 On the Eighteenth day of June, 
 
 Diahle ! a day 
 
 When he ran away, 
 Following the nose of Marshal Ney I 
 
 At Waterloo : "^"^ 
 
 Who knocks ? 
 
 Colonel Cox ! 
 Leading his Artillery Troop *'^ 
 To guard the Queen and taste the soup ! 
 
 osities, more than three hundred liitle Bees of the purest 
 gold, their wings being inlaid with a red stone like cor- 
 nelian. Hence the appropriation of this emblem by Bo- 
 naparte. 
 
 ^^ Marshal Biron said, He liked not the English march 
 of the drum, because it was so slow. Sir Roger Williams, 
 a gallant soldier, answered, That slow as it was, yet it 
 had marched through all France ! An ominous twirl of a 
 monster-moustache, with a hoarse accompaniment of "mor- 
 bleus! " " ventrebleus ! " and every other blue, from indigo 
 up to the sky, gave terrific token of the rage of Ragout, 
 and the raciness of the reply ! 
 
 *' The Hon, Artillery Company is the most ancient 
 corps of Volunteers in the kingdom. Henry VHI. be- 
 stowed upon it special marks of favor. It garrisoned Til- 
 bury Eort when England was threatened by the Spanish 
 Armada. It played a conspicuous part in placing the 
 House of Brunswick on the throne, whence the Grenadier 
 Company was ordered by George I. to bear the name of 
 " Hanoverian Grenadiers." It saved the Bank of Eng- 
 
 S
 
 258 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 The Pageant halts. — Aghast, agape, 
 
 At the new monster's '^^ size and shape 
 
 (Tite's Trapezium !) Critics cry, " Humph I 
 
 Here's a prodigy I a triumph ! 
 
 Well, at portico and postern, 
 
 Taste may up its eyes and nose turn ! 
 
 Wonder how those blocks gigantic 
 
 Chance toss'd into forms so antic ! 
 
 For bricks and mortar only chance 
 
 Could couple in so droll a dance ! 
 
 Brobdignagian pillars, props 
 
 Shouldering Liliputian shops 
 
 Not too large to swing a cat in, 
 
 Not too small to take a flat in I 
 
 land from pillage during the mob-riots of 1780— and in 
 1804, when Napoleon formed his camp at Boulogne, it 
 mustered nearly 1400 good men and true in the field. 
 Men who (having the fear of Revolution, that grim com- 
 pendium of horrors ! before their eyes) resolved to assist 
 in repelling the would-be invaders. John Bull had not, 
 like the French Bantam, bowed down before a brazen cour- 
 tesan as the Goddess of Liberty ! Une loi, une foi, et un 
 roi was his motto. The mind and mettle of England were 
 enlisted on her side. The Crown was considered as the 
 majestic symbol of her constitutional monarchy, not the 
 Fool's Cap of a licentious rabble ! The guardian of her 
 freedom, her laws, her imperishable renown ! not the tinsel 
 toy of mock-sovereignty tossed from one puppet-despot to 
 another like a juggler's ball ! . . . . 
 
 One " damned spot " crimsons the escutcheon of this 
 Corps. During the civil war between Charles I. and his
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 239 
 
 Classic frieze the front enriching 
 Where sit cross-legg'd tailors stitching ! 
 Gresham, a colossal Mammon, 
 Hoisted up as high as Haman ! 
 And stout Sir Hugh, a watchman tall, 
 Mounting guard at a fiddle stall ! 
 O ! ( Si monumenticm quceris ? ) 
 What a funny Phoenix here is ! 
 When old London's razed and rotten, 
 Poor Sir Christopher forgotten I 
 How will some Boeotian Bruins 
 (Next to cotton mill in ruins !) 
 Worship every stone and stick of 
 This fine fabric ! bear a brick off! 
 Relic of what now October 
 
 Parliament, led forth by Major General Skippon (the in- 
 trepid Sturgeon of that time !) it rebelled against its King. 
 The said Skippon, at the general pulling down of plmj- 
 houses in 1648, was sent with a troop of horse, to assist the 
 levellers. 
 
 "The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor" (says Parkin's 
 Penny Post, May 31, 1737) " went to St. Paul's with Mu- 
 sick playing before him, and upon his return home, the 
 Hoti. Artillery Company saluted his Lordship on that occa- 
 sion, and were handsomely treated, afterwards they 
 marched to Moor Fields, and performed a fine Exercise in 
 Honour of the Day." 
 
 "^ The Exchange is what Euclid calls a trapezium, hav- 
 ing a gigantic portico at the little end, and a dwarf tower 
 at the big end ; it is externally a nest of shops, and inter- 
 nally a very narrow quadrangle containing a very large 
 statue. . . .
 
 260 BEMOCRITUS IN LONDON, 
 
 Christens in its senses sober I " 
 
 On its topmost tower 
 (The Grasshopper's bower I) ^' 
 Streams the herald of the free ™ 
 
 ^' Those were pictorial times when every citizen, (like 
 " mine Host of the Garter " and Grasshopper Gresham) was 
 known by his sign ! Old London was one vast school of 
 design, one prodigious picture gallery ! Every shopkeeper 
 was a patron of the brush ; palmy days for the Sign-post 
 trade ! which needed no " Art Union " puff. Our ances- 
 tors, with better taste, hung their daubs out of doors ! In 
 a rare volume printed in Queen Anne's time, and " illus- 
 trated with proper cuts," entitled " A Vade Mecumfor Malt- 
 Worms,^' some ancient and curious signs " in and about the 
 Cities of London and Westminster" are poetically de- 
 scribed ; and the following extract from " Pasquin's Night- 
 Cap," printed in 1612, shows that in those days a man was 
 as well known by his " Sign " as by his " Company." 
 
 " First there is maister Peter at the Bell, 
 A linnen-draper and a wealthy man 5 
 And maister Thomas that doth stockings sell 5 
 And George the Grocer at the Fryitig-Pan ; 
 And maister Timothie the woUen-draper ; 
 And maister Salamon the leather-scraper ; 
 And maister Franke ye goldsmith at the Rose ; 
 And maister PhiUip with the fiery nose. 
 
 And maister Miles the mercer at the Harrow ; 
 And maister Nicke the silkman at the Plow ; 
 And maister Giles the salter at the Sparrow ; 
 And maister Dicke the vintner at the Cow ; 
 And Harry Haberdasher at the Home ; 
 And Oliver the dyer at the Thome ;
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 261 
 
 To every land and every sea ! 
 Beneath it gaudy banners flaunt, 
 On a gastronomic jaunt ! 
 
 Of Goldsmiths'''^ and Skinners, 
 
 Rare doors for their dinners ! 
 
 And Bernard, barber-surgeon at the Fiddle ; 
 And Moses, nierchant-tailor at the Needle .'" 
 
 "" Uncle Timothy and the Laureat. 
 
 Lau. He's afloat ! 
 Uncle. Who's afloat ? 
 
 Lau. De JoinviUe in his cockle-boat, 
 Steering, veering — 
 
 Uncle. Whither ? 
 
 Lau. Hither ! 
 
 Uncle. Rule Britannia ! 
 
 Lau. Heaven be with her ! 
 
 Uncle. Let him dare ! in the air 
 
 Back he'll soon be flying over; 
 
 His whiskers to Boulogne-sur-mer, 
 
 His boots to Calais, via Dover ! 
 
 His head mounting guard, 
 
 Feather'd and tarr'd. 
 On the " tall Bully " in Monument Yard ! 
 
 " In Settle's Pageant for 1698 entitled " Glory's Resur- 
 rection, being The Triumphs of London revived, for the 
 inauguration of the Right Honourable Sir Francis ChUd," 
 of the Goldsmith's Company, St. Dunstan is represented 
 sitting in the Goldsmith's Laboratory holding a pair of 
 Goldsmith's tongs in his right hand and a crozier in his 
 left, while under his feet crouches the DevU. After a 
 flourish of " melodious instruments " the Saint thus ad- 
 dresses the Mayor :
 
 262 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Or GiRDLERS and Grocers 
 Who to Roast Beef and Plum-Pudding never say 
 " No, Sirs I " 
 
 And now the new bells ring their first merry peal, 
 And the Aldermen's horses dance round in a reel. 
 
 Keeping- time 
 
 With their musical chime ! 
 Hark ! cannon replies to the band's martial sound, 
 As the Queen's satin slipper pi-ints lightly the 
 ground. 
 
 a' 
 
 Trumpeters, ^olus ne'er 
 
 Of cheeks puffed out two purpler pair ! 
 
 " The triumphs of this day, deserved so well, 
 When fame shall in recorded story tell. 
 Those oracles of truth — 
 
 Devil (interrupting him). Can you speak truth ? 
 
 St. Dunsian. Peace, snarling devil ! Thus I'll stop your 
 mouth ! {Catches him by the nose.) 
 Down to thy hell, there croak, thou fiend accurst. 
 See this great day, and, swell'd with envy, burst." 
 
 This favourite Legend had been before enacted in Jordan's 
 Pageant for Sir liobert Vyner, 1684, and in Taubman's, 
 composed for Sir John Shorter, 1687. Whenever a mem- 
 ber of the Goldsmith's Company was inaugurated Lord 
 Mayor of London the Devil was sure to be taken by the 
 nose. 
 
 '* Kichard Lambert Jones, Esq. Chairman of one Com- 
 mittee for rebuilding London Bridge, and of another for 
 erecting the New Ilo3'al Exchange. To the enlightened 
 and liberal taste of Mr. Jones the City of London owes
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 263 
 
 Sheriffs, primed with port and prog, 
 
 Who the fabled frog out-frog I 
 
 Twelve pick'd Aldermen and portly, 
 
 Greshams twelve, polite and courtly ! 
 
 TiTE, of plaster mighty master ! 
 
 Jones,"- and Aston,^^ Pollux ! Castor ! 
 
 And the Mayor, on bended knee, 
 
 Welcome the Pride of Kingdoms three 
 
 To Her Grace's royal chamber ''* 
 
 Roof 'd with gold and paved with amber ! 
 
 With cranio-verberative sound 
 
 Their foreheads nine times knock'd the ground, 
 
 Genuflexions jeopardising 
 
 Inexpressibles,"'^ in rising I 
 
 the Guildhall Library. He was also the means of enrich- 
 ino- it with the Autograph of Shakespeare, which he purchased 
 for One hundred and forty-five pounds ; — not too great a 
 sum for such a treasure ! Certain " fat and greasy citi- 
 zens " however grumbled at the cost ! A word in honour 
 of Sir Peter Laurie, who, when the Common Council re- 
 fused to subscribe to the national fund for the purchase of 
 Shakespeare's House at Stratford upon Avon, proposed that 
 the City of London should, at its own expense, erect a 
 statue of the Immortal, and give it place in the Council 
 Chamber ! Has this been done ? 
 
 7' The Master of the Mercers' Company. 
 ''* Camera Regis was a very ancient term for the City of 
 London. 
 
 75 The Dutch Embassy to China occurred in 1795, dur- 
 ing the era of sinalL-clothes, and before liberal principles 
 had been generally established in dress, as in other mat- 
 ters ; and those hapless Dutchmen were made, on the most
 
 264 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 All the live-long^ day preceding 
 Brushing up his ballad reading, 
 For garlands foraging, and fyttes, 
 The penny poesy of Pitts ! '^'^ 
 (Pitts who, ere he went to heaven, 
 Domiciled in Dials seven !) 
 Vainly each Parnassian frump " 
 Invoking ! his poetic burap 
 Refreshing with a furious thump ! 
 Tossing, turning, fuming, fretting. 
 Out of sorts completely getting, 
 On the very brink and border 
 Of despair was the Recorder I 
 Hearing that the Muse's Idol 
 On a visit was from Rydal, 
 Him he sought to beg or borrow 
 For the royal ear to-morrow 
 
 trivial occasions of ceremony, to perform their evolutions, 
 while the wicked mandarins stood by and laughed — and 
 who would not ? at what has been diplomatically styled 
 " the embarrassment of a Dutch-built stern in tight inex- 
 pressibles !".... 
 
 75 A modern publisher of penny -ballads, and worthy of 
 being named with Messrs. Thackeray and Passenger who 
 in ancient days dwelt in Duck Lane, and " befringed the 
 walls of Bedlam and Sobo " with love garlands and merri- 
 ments. 
 
 Apropos of ballad-poetry. The last of that lyrical tri- 
 umvirate to whom England owes a debt of gratitude for 
 their sea-songs — the last of the Three Dibdins finds rest 
 from bis labours in the tomb.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 265 
 
 Just a little doggrel dutiful 
 
 Full of the Sublime and Beautiful ! 
 
 On that calm brow amazement mute 
 
 Sat, when a voice like dulcet flute 
 
 From a fairy form that flutter'd 
 
 Round the poet's chamber, utter'd, 
 
 " Ere moons thrice twelve shall wax and wane, 
 
 Of sack butts three roll round again, 
 
 Thy afflatus shall explode 
 
 In one grand volcanic Ode 
 
 To a battle by a fighter 
 
 Most infuriate (for a mitre !), 
 
 Such as never sedgy Camus 
 
 Saw before, the ignoramus ! 
 
 Inflating lay and reverend lungs 
 
 With the wordy war of tongues, 
 
 Making echo with of cant a 
 
 Priestly peal the halls of Granta ! 
 
 We write this with regret — not but that poor Tom was 
 old (72 !) decrepit, and in straightened circumstances, all 
 of which tend to make life any thing but desirable — but 
 his was a familiar face that we remembered from boyhood 
 — we miss the sprightly saUy, the comic anecdote, the joy- 
 ous carol — his privileged corner is untenanted — his chair 
 is vacant. 
 
 '^ When the daughters of Jupiter were each of them 
 married to the Gods, the dowerless Nine were left to lead 
 apes. 
 
 Calliope longum coelebs cur vixit in aevum ? 
 Nempe nihil dotis, quod numeraret, erat.
 
 266 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Dar'st thou put (a second Settle !y^ 
 The Flying Horse upon his mettle, 
 Rein him like a Rosinante 
 For forensic strophe, ante, 
 Yoke his royal neck of thunder 
 To a City one day's wonder ? " ''^ 
 
 Whether to that bellman-bard 
 (Muse of Messrs. Moses, Minories f) 
 
 The man of law enclosed his card, 
 Darkly hinting what a dinner is ! 
 
 Whether that Whitechapel rhymester 
 
 Did his ready stumps betimes stir, 
 
 And in the functionary's flip 
 
 His sable beard devoutly dip, 
 
 Must not, by way of episode, 
 
 ''^ Elkanah Settle, a noted writer of political rhymes, 
 bombastic tragedies, City Pageants, and Bartholomew Fair 
 Drolls (in one of the latter he hissed in his o\nti Dragon !) 
 was born at Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, in 1648, was edu- 
 cated at Trinity College, Oxford, and died in the Charter- 
 House in 1722. He was the last of the Pageant-Poets to 
 the City of London, . In The Case is Altered, a Comedy 
 that has been attributed to Ben Jonson, Anthony Munday, 
 the Lord Mayor's panegyrist of that day, is introduced 
 under the euphonious name of Don Antonio Balladino. 
 
 " Onion. Balladino ! You are not Pageant-Poet to the city 
 
 of Milan, Sir, are you ? 
 " Ant. I supply the place, Sir, when a worse cannot be had. 
 
 Sir." 
 
 '" Voltaire says he does not address his works to the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 267 
 
 Detain us longer on the road. 
 
 '&^ 
 
 Lowly bows the jazey legal 
 To the smiling Presence regal. 
 Treble tries, and then contralto, 
 Cracks his voice with Q in alt, O ! 
 ^weetfalsetto, soft soprano, 
 And chromatic all cry, " Ah, no !" 
 Puck, who loves (I cry you mercy !) 
 Mischief positively per se, 
 Deeming it not infra dig. 
 To ventriloquise a wig, 
 Commands, con spirito, the song 
 To rattle merrily along ; 
 The Aldermen, some jolly score, all 
 Carollinsf as vicars choral ! 
 
 vulgar, who are mechanically employed all the week, and 
 on Sundays are intoxicated either with liquor or pleasure- 
 The " brilliant Frenchman " is but an echo of the Greek 
 Philosopher. 
 
 " Begone, ye blockheads ! " HeracUtus cries, 
 " And leave my labours to the learn'd and wise ; 
 By wit, by knowledge studious to be read, 
 I scorn the multitude alive or dead ! " 
 
 " I have observed," remarks Pope in his Postscript to the 
 Odyssey," that the loudest huzzas given to a great man 
 in triumph, proceed not from his friends, but the rabble ; 
 and as I have fancied it the same with the rabble of critics, 
 a desire to be distinguished from them has turned me to 
 the more moderate, and, I hope, more rational method."
 
 268 
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Song. — TTie Recorder. 
 
 Your Majesty, now 
 With my very best bow ! 
 Ere to good fare 
 
 We cry, " War, to the knife I " 
 Permit me, I pray, 
 Just to sol fa, and say, 
 'Tis the triple proud day 
 
 Of our Grasshopper's Hfe I 
 
 Elizabeth Tudor 
 
 ^ " No sooner did Apollo begin to appear in the eastern 
 horizon, but Poor Robin, shaking off melancholy sleep, 
 roused his companion to prepare themselves for their in- 
 tended perambulation ; and having armed himself with a pot 
 of nappy ale, they took their first walk to see the Royal Ex- 
 change, a most magnificent structure, built by Sir Thomas 
 Gresham."— r/je Merry Exploits of Poor Robin, The Merry 
 Saddler of Walden. n, d. 
 
 ^' Viz. St. Bartholomew (from the consecrated ground 
 of which were disinterred the bones of Miles Coverdale !) 
 and St. Benet Fink. The old church of St. Benet Fink 
 having been burnt down by the Fire of London, the one 
 just destroyed was built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1673, 
 The name of Benet or Benedict Fink is said to have arisen 
 from the dedication of the church to St. Benedict and from 
 its builder one Robert Fink or Finch, whose name is also 
 borne by the neighbouring lane. Its Altar Piece of carved 
 oak, including two oil paintings, produced recently at pub- 
 lic auction fifty guineas ; the carved Poor Box, with the
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 269 
 
 (The citizens woo'd her) 
 One morning up screw'd her 
 
 Hisrh courasre, and came 
 To lunch with our lessor, 
 And christen, God bless her I 
 This Mart's predecessor,^" 
 
 And you've done the same I 
 
 Chorus of Aldermen. Too ral lal, &c. 
 
 We've taken down churches,^^ 
 Pluck'd priests from their perches, 
 (Trade, left in the lurch, is 
 
 date of 1689 wrought on the lock, was sold for four gui- 
 neas ; one of the pews, having a carved oak screen, for 
 four pounds six shillings, and the beautiful carved oak 
 pulpit was knocked down for fifteen guineas ! . . The sa- 
 cred edifice had been unroofed before its profanation, pro- 
 bably from certain superstitious fears on the part of both 
 sellers and buyers ! But they were perfectly safe without 
 this precaution. 
 
 " When the loose mountain trembles from on high. 
 
 Shall gravitation cease, if you go by ? 
 
 Or some old temple, nodding to its fall, 
 
 For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall ? " 
 
 " Yet Consecration has this Power," (says Selden) " when 
 a Man has consecrated any thing to God, he cannot of 
 himself take it away.'' Of what value is the Bishop's 
 guarantee for the inviolability of the " House appointed 
 for all living? " The pauper burial-ground in Shoe Lane, 
 (where once reposed the dust of Chatterton) was chaffered 
 and cheapened to form Farringdon Market ! and the re-
 
 270 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Distressing and strange !) 
 Cupidity calls 
 " A has Bishops' Stalls 1 
 Down with St. Paul's 
 
 To rebuild an Exchange ! " 
 
 All Sunday contriving, 
 
 Nails knocking, screws driving, 
 
 Our hammer's loud clamour 
 
 Drown'd sermons and psalms I 
 " Keep Sabbath Day holy," 
 Exclaims Dr. Croly ; 
 Cries Mammon, " Pooh ! gammon ! 
 
 Confound your queer qualms ! " 
 Chorus. Too ral lal, &c. 
 
 We issued our firman, 
 
 And forth came a German*^ 
 
 (In rouge and gamboge 
 
 How his nondescripts grin !) 
 
 inains of that unfortunate genius were grubbed up and 
 scattered ! 
 
 Again— The Tomb and the Ashes of Alfred the Great 
 were sold by Public Auction on Thursday, April 11, 1850, 
 by order of the County Magistrates ! The site of the mag- 
 nificent Abbey that once enshrined them is desecrated by 
 the building of a Bridewell. 
 
 *^ Mr. Frederick Sang, who with genuine German sang 
 froid, pocketed Two thousand two hundred and forty pounds 
 for his " Encaustic Painting."
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 271 
 
 To paint like a toy-shop 
 This new-built decoy-shop, 
 Where soon to some tune 
 We'll take all the world in ! 
 
 We've cosmetics, corsets, 
 Of jigs many score sets. 
 Oil for the Brutus 
 
 And curls for the crop, 
 The last pretty sonnet, 
 The new Paris bonnet. 
 Polkas and Punch, 
 
 Penny pamphlets and pop ! 
 Chorus. Too ral lal, &c. 
 
 Our cash is well spent 
 If this feast give content 
 To Her Highness of Kent, 
 
 To your consort and court. 
 And if should find place 
 In Your Majesty's grace 
 Our Petit-pdtes, 
 
 Larded capons and port ! 
 
 Without more ado 
 Condescend to fall-to, 
 Gadzooks ! our French cooks 
 Are uncommonly clever — 
 Your post, my Lord Mayor, 
 Is behind the Queen's chair —
 
 272 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Vive la Heine cV Angleterre ! 
 
 Reign Victoria for ever ! 
 Chorus. Too ral lal, &c. 
 
 Air. — The Queen. 
 
 My Lord, and each worshipful Guild, 
 Long may you barter and build ! 
 I wish you your pockets well fill'd, 
 
 And so do the Prince and Mama — 
 
 But I fear that Sir Robert, Ah ! Ah ! 
 
 Has made a fina.nc'inlj'anx pas ! 
 And a hole in your money-bags drill'd;^^ 
 But shall this Burse (if not grill'd !) 
 Your gingerbread quickly regild, 
 
 And commerce bring back with eclat! 
 
 As folks, left and right, quizz'd the Temple of Tite 
 They, laughing, exclaim'd at the singular sight, 
 " The Queen should have sung the response of the 
 
 Crown 
 Not to MarlhrooTi, but to Down, derry, Down ! " 
 
 Seated at the banquet, see 
 Britain's Grace and Majesty! 
 And behind the throne of beauty 
 
 ^^ When Themistocles demanded supplies from the An- 
 drians he told them, '■' he brought two gods along with 
 him, Persuasion and Force." To whicli the hard-pinched 
 Islanders replied, " they had also two great gods on their
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 273 
 
 London's Lordship doing duty I 
 
 Giving, with Stentorian burst, 
 
 (The Second Toole out-Toole's the First ! «*) 
 
 The loyal toasts to be off-toss'd, 
 
 That civic noses, at some cost, 
 
 Have richly rubied and emboss'd ! 
 
 Hark ! a sudden sound symphonious 
 
 Makes the festive hall harmonious, 
 
 Ebenezer Shave, Esquire, 
 
 Of the Common-council choir, 
 
 Vainly vocal ! 's volunteering 
 
 Something worth the royal hearing. 
 
 Song. — Mr. Ebenezer Shave. 
 
 Money makes the mare to go ! without this golden 
 
 spur 
 The cunning jade will neither gallop, canter, trot, 
 
 nor stir I • 
 
 Whichever side we jog along, the shady or the 
 
 sunny, 
 The burden is of every song " Money ! Money ! 
 
 Money ! " 
 
 Up to shop and reap your crop, lest others rise and 
 reap it ; 
 
 side, Poverty and Despair, who forbad them to satisfy him." 
 5* The sometime Toast-Master at public dinners, but 
 now "at supper, not where he eats, but where he is 
 eaten ! " 
 
 T
 
 274 DEMOCKITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Money get by hook or crook, and when you've got 
 
 it, keep it ! 
 Better be in spirit poor than poor, alas ! in purse, 
 Peculation's bad enough, but poverty's far worse ! 
 Money 
 
 -Why this sudden pause ? 
 
 Why start the eyes, and gape the jaws. 
 
 Flush the cheeks with purple hectic 
 
 Of the singer apoplectic ? 
 
 Forced-meat ball, that savoury bolus ! 
 
 Doing battle with ^olus, 
 
 A fat turkey's wing, and truffle 
 
 Keeping up the windy scuffle ! 
 
 Scare the screech-owls, every wheezer ! 
 
 From the throat of Ebenezer. 
 
 That the mirth be not dirainish'd 
 
 Puck takes up the song unfinish'd. 
 
 Puck. 
 Since Money makes the mare to go, be it the golden 
 
 spur 
 To every good that man can on his fellow-man 
 
 confer ; *" 
 
 '* Of all luxuries happiness is the least costly. It is no 
 rare exotic from a distant land, but a plant of native 
 growth, breathing delicious odour and dropping celestial 
 balm. Its soil is the generous heart, its price making 
 others happy !
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 275 
 
 Earth's most precious jewel is soft pity's heavenly 
 
 light, 
 Which as far outshines the gem, as morning does 
 
 the night ! 
 
 Now comes on the crowning crisis ! 
 From the feast the Sovereign rises. 
 The cortege moves ; the nimble Mayor 
 Thro' the lobby, down the stair. 
 To the Centre of the Square **® 
 Trips as if he trod on air I 
 Proclaiming Heralds spare your lungs, 
 Brass trumpets hold your noisy tongues ! 
 Shrill fifes and tinkling cymbals cease, 
 
 " Hee is well," says Bishop Hall, " that is better for 
 others ; but hee is happy by whom others are better." 
 
 ** Where now stands a colossal caricature of Queen 
 Victoria at the trifling cost of One Thousand and fifty- 
 pounds ! . . . . 
 
 Pdck's Soliloqtjt. 
 
 Form unfeminine, protuberant, 
 
 Bust exorbitant, exuberant, 
 
 Gooseberry eyes, and {Lough! O, Lough !) 
 
 Cheeks ^olian in full putf ! 
 
 Head, a crown upon a bullet ! 
 
 Pert pug nose, Puck longs to pull it ! 
 
 Give the Amazonian negress 
 
 From that place of honour egress. 
 
 And to road-maker McAdani 
 
 March off the Hie Mulier Madam !
 
 '276 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Loud kettle-drums depart in peace ! 
 
 Let not the ambient air be stirr'd 
 
 With a whisper or a word I 
 
 For, with dignity inherent, 
 
 Ocean's Queen and Heaven's Vicegerent 
 
 Christens with the old cognomen **^ 
 
 (Lucky oracle and omen !) 
 
 This new patchwork pile plethoric, 
 
 Neither Norman, Gothic, Doric ! 
 
 And lest there should be any dearth 
 
 Of pleasant and conceited mirth, 
 
 A royal farce ^^ (perform'd at courts 
 
 With great applause!) concludes the sports, 
 
 In which my Lord plays (who but he I) 
 
 Sir William Magnus malgre lui ! 
 
 Beauty,®^ chivalry, and splendour 
 Escort forth the Faith's Defender 
 
 87 " Two or three Country people being at London, and 
 being brought by some of their friends to see the "Royall 
 Exchange, they, staring up, saw the Kings and Queenes 
 round about them, and wondring what they should bee, 
 asked one of their acquaintance which came along with 
 them, what those were ? Hee made answer, and told them, 
 that they were all the Kings and Queenes that had ever 
 beene in this land : Ay, sales the other, then I doe intend 
 to put off my hat with all speede, for feare I should be 
 suspected of Treason, being, as I thinke, in the Presence 
 Chamber." 
 
 *^ When an Attorney and a Solicitor- General once came 
 to kiss hands on their appointments, and George IV. had
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 277 
 
 From monotonies away, 
 
 Dish'd up for her every day ! 
 
 For flattery is the air she breathes, 
 
 Flowery garlands are but wreaths 
 
 Flung to favourites operatic, 
 
 Putting folks in fits ecstatic I 
 
 Folks to whom Italian airs 
 
 Are more familiar than their prayers ! 
 
 Vanities have no variety, 
 
 Splendour only is satiety, 
 
 Awkward graces, foolish faces, 
 
 Common people, common places, 
 
 Have lost their mirth-provoking power 
 
 To laugh away a listless hour ! 
 
 Merry bells and martial clangour 
 
 Little move luxurious languor 
 
 Feted, sated, left no leisure. 
 
 Not a moment's pause from pleasure ! 
 
 Pleasure, of which the vacant heart 
 
 seized a sword and given the accolade to the first, the se- 
 cond, who was proud of his ancestry, humbly begged to 
 be excused — " Keep still, man, keep still," exclaimed 
 the impartial monarch, " sauce for the goose is sauce for 
 the gander — I've served the other so ! " and the sword 
 was laid on unrelentingly. 
 
 ^ The reason, it is said, why the Turks marry a plu- 
 rality of wives is that the charms that concentrate in one 
 British Beauty they are obliged to look for in a dozen ! 
 Qui voult helle dame acquere, 
 Pre'gne visuige d'Angleterre. 
 
 Old French Proverb,
 
 273 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Feels happiness is not a part.^" 
 
 While westward roll the royal wheels 
 To loud huzzas and deafening peals ! 
 Each that not with feeding faint is 
 FHes to the imfinish'd dainties, 
 
 »» The Twin-Sisters. 
 Who art thou, unbidden guest, 
 And so simply, sweetly dress'd, 
 With that countenance serene. 
 With that modest form and mien ? 
 
 So much beauty, so much grace 
 Well deserve the highest place. 
 Thou to none shalt second be 
 In this goodly company. 
 
 " I have come," the stranger said, 
 Meekly bowing low her head, 
 " From my home in yonder dell 
 Where I with the humble dwell. 
 
 In the cottages around 
 I've the kindest welcome found, 
 But within the rich man's door 
 I have never pass'd before. 
 
 If to-day I make my stay 
 You'll not wish me soon away ! 
 And I have a sister, who 
 Will be gladly welcomed too ! 
 
 Wheresoever sojourn I 
 She is. like my shadow, by ; 
 Never we, in home or heart, 
 From each other dwell apart.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 279 
 
 Pours post-prandial bumpers higher, 
 " For which of us," they all enquire, 
 " Shall feast upon another Fire ? " ^^ 
 Gross money-grubbing sons of care 
 Soon settle down to " as you were ! " 
 To sell and buy,^- (man's calling high!) 
 
 See, she comes already ! see ! 
 In her white-robed majesty ! 
 Peace her path has always bent 
 In the footsteps of Content ! " 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 
 *' " For now the fierce unbridl'd flames presage 
 That we shall know the extent of their rage. 
 Begets a universal conflagration, 
 Greater than ever any generation 
 As yet ere knew, or heard of : Now it beats 
 A broad pathway into the spacious streets. 
 Roves up to Cornbill where with force they range, 
 UntOl they overthrow the Royal-Change, 
 That stately fabrick, and its Statues rare, 
 Spoil'd and consum'd reduc'd to ashes are, 
 But honouring Reverend Gresham's effigy, 
 Leaves him untoucht, and gently passeth by." 
 
 London's Lamentation to her Regardless Passengers, 
 By Samuel Wiseman, 1667. 
 
 9' What is man ? A Thing begotten 
 To beget till this world's rotten ! 
 Corn a creature of, or cotton. 
 
 Or tea, or tallow I 
 A mere machine whose heart and brain, 
 Whose " pickers" and whose " stealers" twain 
 The humble servants are of gain, 
 
 The God to hallow !
 
 280 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 To dream out life, then wake — to die !^^ 
 
 The languid moon's departing- rays 
 
 Shine dimly through the thickening haze, 
 
 Black mire and rain flood street and lane, 
 
 The City is itself again I 
 
 And o'er steeple, tower and hall 
 
 Dense fogs and darkness spread their pall I 
 
 The Scene closes. 
 
 A drudge, (if he would rise !) to creep. 
 
 And very little conscience keep ! 
 
 A drone, to eat, and drink, and sleep, 
 
 And die ! and — What ? 
 Why be remember'd only till 
 His greedy heir has proved his will 
 And paid his undertaker's bill — 
 
 And then forgot ! . . . 
 
 Quoth the Laureat. 
 
 ^^ Seneca says. Death falls heavy upon him who is too 
 much known to others and too little to himself : 
 " Illi mors gravis incubat 
 Qui, notus nimis omnibus, 
 Ignotus moritur sibi."
 
 Scene XVIII. — The Quadrangle of the Netv 
 Royal Exchange. 
 
 The Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Aldermen, and 
 Visitors discovered. 
 
 Enter Democritus as 3Iotley. 
 
 Democritus. 
 
 HE Pageant o'er, the Banquet sped, 
 And London's lordly Bishop fled,^* 
 For this one day shall Motley play 
 The part episcopal, and say, 
 
 ^* In the present troubled times of the Church, assailed 
 as she is by faction from without, and by contumacy from 
 within, the position of this great ornament of the Christian 
 Hierarchy has been, and continues to be, a most painful 
 and trying one. To preach discipline to a slipshod clergy 
 who wear their gowns loosely, to enjoin the due observance 
 of sacred rites that by culpable negligence have become 
 obsolete, is neither prelatical tyranny nor papistical inno- 
 vation. An insolent and refractory priest who beards his 
 Bishop is received with open arms by Infidels who hate 
 all Religion, and Sectaries whose hatred is especially aimed 
 at the Established Church. If the Zeal o/God^s House hath 
 not eaten up these sanctimonious revilers it hath devoured 
 (as Dryden said of Collier and his canting crew) some part 
 of their good-manners and civility. . . .
 
 282 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 If not out of time and place, 
 This apology for Grace ? 
 Are your coffers overcharged ? 
 Be your bounty then enlarged ! ®^ 
 
 ^^ The neutral character boasts that if he does no good, 
 he does no harm. No harm ? All the sins mentioned by 
 Our Saviour in his description of the Last Judgment, are 
 sins of Omission, 
 
 Long the ground encumbering 
 
 Thou a blank hast stood, 
 A nondescript, and numbering 
 
 Nor with the bad nor good — 
 Thou might'st have been (thus slumbering) 
 
 A block of stone or wood ! 
 
 Is this man's only mission, 
 
 Just to live and die ? 
 His being's sole condition ? 
 
 Alas ! for the reply 
 When one day thy petition 
 
 For pardon pleads on high. — Uncle Timothy. 
 
 ^ " Man, alas ! was cmly born 
 
 To tread a path of brier and thorn ! 
 To the flattering dreams of youth 
 Manhood teUs this blighting truth, 
 And to manhood wither'd age 
 Opens a still darker page 
 Of Life's weary pilgrimage ! " 
 Thus moody Melancholy cried, 
 And thus a gentle voice replied. 
 
 " Helpless man is not his own, 
 
 From his first to his last sigh 
 He, unseen, but not unknown. 
 
 Has a guardian ever nigh,
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 283 
 
 Do your riches overflow ? 
 Turn their stream to human woe ! 
 Emulate that glorious river, 
 Type of every Good the Giver ! ^® 
 
 One who does benignly shed 
 Boundless blessings on his head, 
 Blessings that should all his days 
 Turn his humble prayers to praise ! 
 
 Grandeur, in the skies that glow — 
 
 Beauty, in the flowers that blow — 
 
 Brightness, in the morning beams — 
 
 Music, in the woods and streams — 
 
 Plenty, in the golden ear — 
 
 And, throughout the varied year, 
 
 Hearing, motion, sense, and sight, 
 
 Air to breathe, and day and night 
 
 For labour, pastime, sweet repose 
 
 The sovereign balm for many woes ! 
 
 Are his — and, richer than the ore 
 
 That sparkles on Golconda's shore, 
 
 Eternal Truth, to soar away 
 
 To regions of celestial day ! 
 
 As they on Alpine heights who dwell 
 
 Feel not their mysterious spell. 
 
 Know not their altitude, nor see 
 
 Their grandeur, beauty, majesty; 
 
 Man, to whom the heavens unroll 
 
 Their bright prophetic wondrous scroll, 
 
 And with a paradise in view 
 
 That seers foretold, but never knew. 
 
 Still blindly creeps, when he might climb 
 
 Yon Cross-crown'd mountain's brow sublime ! 
 
 Say not in this transient scene 
 
 Rays of light and spots of green
 
 284 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Blessing, by its rich redundance, 
 Barren deserts with abundance I 
 
 The Scene closes. 
 
 Scene the Last. — Windsor Forest. 
 
 Enter Democritus in his ancient costume, 
 and Puck. 
 
 Democritus. 
 
 AGAIN in this embowering wood 
 We taste the sweets of solitude I 
 Courteous Spirit ! thanks to thee 
 For thy gaiety and glee ! 
 For thy sympathetic art 
 When sorrow play'd the scenic part, 
 
 Do not sometimes intervene ! 
 
 When evening drops her dusky veil 
 
 Sweetest sings the nightingale, 
 
 And when moonless is the ni^ht 
 
 The stars shine more intensely bright, 
 
 And when sorrow deepens round 
 
 Inward light does most abound." 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 ^' Humility is not humiliation — the one descends from 
 greatness, the other crouches to it — the one is the attribute 
 of kings, the other the penalty of slaves ! 
 
 " Who were below him 
 He used as creatures of another place ; 
 And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks, 
 Making them proud of his humility. 
 In their poor praise he humbled." . .
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 283 
 
 And when rose the vision higher, 
 Thanks for thy ethereal fire ! 
 Better pleased was never visitor 
 
 Than I, who had the rare good luck 
 (Mr. Motley the Inquisitor !) 
 
 To find a Pylades in Puck. 
 Farewell, fantastic sprite ! farewell 
 Robin with the Protean spell ! 
 Merry mischief ! moonlight spark ! 
 Doors unlocking in the dark ! 
 O, could thy enchanted Key 
 Hearts but open ! men would see 
 Selfish bosoms, lock'd before, 
 All their hidden springs outpour ! 
 Had thy voice this powerful charm 
 To humble pride,°' revenge''* disarm, 
 
 ^' " Kneel not to me : 
 The power that I have on yoxt is to spare you ; 
 The malice towards you, to forgive you. Live, 
 And deal with others better." . . Shakespeare. 
 
 To * * *. 
 Let the Grave be neutral ground, 
 Anger yield to grief profound ; 
 Bending o'er this honour'd bier 
 Peace be with us, pardon, here ! 
 
 While our tears together blend, 
 I, the Father! thou, the Friend! 
 Let the Spirit, in her flight. 
 Reconcile us, reunite ! 
 
 I forgive thee all thy wrong, 
 Deeply felt and suffer'd long 
 
 . I
 
 286 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 To kindle in mankind the flame 
 Of virtue,^^ friendship,^ honest fame, 
 To plant amid the barren, frozen 
 
 In the sorrow Heaven hath sent, 
 Broken-hearted, I relent. — Uncle Timothy. 
 
 ^ To be virtuous the desire 
 Is a spark of virtue's fire ; 
 Fan the flame, 'twill soon burn higher! — Ibid. 
 
 ' Friendship never flourishes in greater vigour than in 
 the groves of Parnassus and by the streams of Helicon. 
 What shed a divine halo round the old age of Cicero, and 
 gave him a Pisgah-view of immortality ? Friendship ! 
 Rightly he judged that the soul susceptible of so high a 
 sentiment shall never die! How endearing is Spenser's 
 designation of " Gentle Willie" (and " Gentle Willie " 
 was one of the sorrowing band of poetical brothers who 
 threw garlands into Spenser's grave!), Ben Jonson's in- 
 scription on " Fancy's Child," and Milton's " melodious 
 tear " over Lycidas ! The friendship of Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, (" the Dio*;uri of our Zodiac!") as recorded 
 by Aubrey, is a touching romance. The same home, the 
 same purse sufliced for them— Would that in the tomb 
 they had not been divided! Right cordial was the friend- 
 ship between Addison and Steele, until \'ulgar politics 
 marred it, though, happily, but for a season ; and sorrow 
 never broke forth in more majestic strains than in TickeU's 
 sublime elegy upon the author of the Spectator. What 
 mournful tenderness breathes in every line of that eloijuent 
 address in which Pope recalls to Lord Oxford the mutual 
 happiness they enjoyed in the society of their " once-loved 
 Parnell!" — "There is nothing that is meritorious but 
 virtue and friendship, and indeed friendship itself is only 
 a part of virtue," is the testimony of the dying bard after 
 he had taken the last sacraments.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 287 
 
 One green spot select and chosen 
 Where, for, alas ! they roofless roam, 
 The Charities - might find a home I 
 
 " I fruitless mouru to him that cannot hear, 
 And weep the more, because I weep in vain," 
 is the funeral song of Gray at the early tomb of West. 
 Listen to that colossal and immortal mind who gave " ar- 
 dour to virtue and constancy to truth ! " 
 
 " Friendship, peculiar boon of heaven, 
 The noble mind's delight and pride, 
 
 To men and angels only given. 
 To all the lower world denied." 
 
 Behold the dying sage ! See how the mingled tears of 
 Burke and Reynolds tell their affection and their sorrow ! 
 Supremely happy was the author of the " Seasons " in the 
 friendship of Lord Lyttelton, and honest, manly James 
 Quin! The latter proved himself "no actor" when his 
 voice faltered with emotion as he spoke the lines that 
 pathetically recalled the merits and the memory of his 
 friend ! Friendship is a blessing that heaven has placed 
 within our reach to enhance our joys and to mitigate our 
 sorrows ; a green spot hedged in from the wild waste of 
 worldly cares 
 
 " Yet at the darken'd eye, the wither'd face, 
 Or hoary hair I never will repine : 
 
 But spare, O Time, whate'er of mental grace, 
 Of candour, love, or sympathy divine, 
 Whate'er of fancy's ray, or friendship's flame, is mine." 
 
 Uncle Timothy. 
 ' Miss Sellon the Superior of " The Sisters of Mercy " at 
 Devonport being summoned in February, 1849, to answer 
 before the Lord Bishop of Exeter for the high crime and 
 misdemeanor of being acquainted with Doctor Pusey, of 
 having permitted herself to be styled the " Lady Superior,"
 
 :?88 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 To-morrow's sun, in sooth to say, 
 Would shine upon the happiest. day 
 Since that bright morn which saw him rise 
 
 and of causing a Cross and Flowers to be occasionally placed 
 on a Comraunion-Table set up in the private Chapel or 
 Oratory of the Sisterhood, defended herself with great 
 dignity, to the confusion, if not shame, of her accusers. 
 " Lying and slandering" recoiled before the holy serenity, 
 the ii'resistible truth, the touching grandeur of her Apo- 
 logy ! and the Bishop, despising the anathema maranatha 
 of the miserable malcontents, pronounced upon the Sister- 
 hood his well-deserved and eloquent eulogium. 
 Mercy's gentle sisterhood! 
 Guardian angels ! spirits good ! 
 Forbear not, faint not, be not turn'd 
 From your high bent, tho' slander'd, spurn'd, 
 Taunted by evil tongues ! Fulfil, 
 In faith and hope, your Father's will. 
 Be Mercy's heavenly Sisters still ! — Uncle Timothy. 
 ^ " Life's a series of Farewells, 
 Each its mournful history tells, 
 Every page of which appears 
 Blotted and bedew'd with tears ! 
 So sang Uncle Timothy in the extremity of his sorrow. 
 " Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear ; 
 A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear." 
 But heaven had one happy day in store for him, and he 
 has thus gi-atefully recorded it. 
 
 The Stranger. 
 From his far-distant home he came 
 
 To bless once more our longing eyes, 
 In duty, tenderness, the same*" 
 
 But in life's sad experience wise.
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 289 
 
 On Eden's blissful Paradise ! 
 
 Puck. Ere part Philosopher^ and Fay 
 With pensive thoughts for many a day ! 
 
 From youth to manhood he had grown, 
 And in his dark, expressive face 
 
 The soul of honour brightly shone, 
 And high desert and mental grace. 
 
 Though early care was pictured there, 
 And many a peril, many a pain, 
 
 His image true we quickly knew. 
 And press'd him to our hearts again \ 
 
 And holy tears of gratitude 
 
 Upon his beating bosom shed 
 That the Great Giver of all Good 
 
 Had kept from harm his honour'd head. 
 
 With voice how tremulous and low 
 
 He falter'd " Father I " " Mother ! " We 
 
 Response found none, not even " Son ! " 
 But gazed with silent ecstacy ! 
 
 Then came sweet discourse to our aid ; 
 
 The well-known smile, to memory dear ! 
 Upon his pensive features play'd, 
 
 The smile that glisten'd through a tear. 
 
 Calm was the day of welcome's close, 
 The weary Stranger wanted rest. 
 
 Again his head in sweet repose 
 
 His happy boyhood's pillow press'd ! 
 
 And never to the Throne of Light 
 A hymn did love parental raise 
 
 U
 
 290 
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 (The sweetest music sadness brings 
 When we no longer hear the strings, 
 And happiest hours,^ alas ! we find 
 Will leave some fond regrets behind!) 
 Come and see ! Come and see ! 
 The evening star our lamp shall be, 
 As it leads along in light 
 
 Of purer joy than rose this night 
 In our united Song of Praise. 
 
 O ! if before the God of Day 
 
 Again the heavens had glorified 
 One Spirit could have pass'd away, 
 
 What bliss celestial to have died ! 
 
 * Mrs. Montague remarks " that the days of human life 
 that are passed without sorrow and without sin are neither 
 to be lamented when passing, nor regretted when passed." 
 Still regrets will linger ! 
 
 " For it so falls out, 
 That what we have we prize not to the worth 
 Whiles we enjoy it ; but, being lack'd and lost. 
 Why then we rack the value." 
 
 * What a book of sermons might be written upon texts 
 from Shakespeare ! With him knowledge is intuitive ; he 
 is not taught, but inspired. While he anatomises every 
 passion and evei'y motive, he is familiar with eveiy flower 
 and with every star. From " the poor beetle that we tread 
 upon," to its omnipotent Creator, nothing escapes his com- 
 prehensive humanity and devout reverence. He stoops to 
 the stricken deer and soars to principalities and powers, 
 deducing from each some practical truth, some sublime 
 moral for all intelligences and for all time. He has de- 
 scribed the " quality of mercy " in terms to which there
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 The choral host of heaven to-night, 
 The sparkling grot, the glittering throne, 
 The Queen and Court of Oberon ! 
 Haste we to the forest dingle 
 And in fairy worship mingle 
 At sweet Shakespeare's ^ sylvan shrine, 
 By good sprites 
 
 291 
 
 is no human parallel for verisimilitude and beauty, and 
 concentrated tlie attributes of the Saviour in woids fewer 
 and more expressive than ever spake holy seer or sage ! 
 Even deformity, " ugly and venomous," has its uses. The 
 toad's fabled jewel is a lesson from the stars ! We wonder 
 at his various learning and at its minute, sagacious, and 
 universal application. What sibyl opened to him the se- 
 crets of the human heart, the hidden springs of human ac- 
 tion ; revealed the mysterious sympathies that link in one 
 sensitive chain the physical and the intellectual nature ; 
 endued him with a prophet's spirit, and touched him with 
 a poet's fire ? By what rare combination of spiritualities 
 was formed this mighty magician ? Ere he lighted upon 
 our orb a few brilliant stars barely redeemed from Cim- 
 merian darkness the literature of his country ; but when 
 the sun of Shakespeare rose above the horizon in its wis- 
 dom, charity, tenderness and devotion, a blaze of glory 
 broke forth that shone as the perfect day, that still shines, 
 and that shall shine for ever ! Grown wiser, better, and 
 happier from his works, we recognise, in the v astness of 
 his genius, the celestial Giver, and acknowledge, with 
 gratitude, the inestimable gift. Of the Eternal nothing 
 is independent. Genius is but an emanation from the Di- 
 vine Mind benignantly vouchsafed to man, and for the 
 proper use of which he is deeply and awfully responsible. 
 At that retributive tribunal before which the loftiest and 
 the lowliest intellect must one day appear, even the glo-
 
 2'J2 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 On moonlight nights 
 
 Raised to their High-Priest divine I 
 
 rious efforts of Shakespeare's genius may be found to have 
 fallen short of the divine requirement. From this high 
 argument we retreat with humility. Shakespeare has 
 written enough for the instruction of mankind, and if man- 
 kind remain unimproved, it is not because the master has 
 failed to develope to their full extent his unbounded mental 
 resources, but that the soil in which dropped the immortal 
 seed was thankless and barren ! 
 
 Quod in terris boni operis sui fructum non percepisset. 
 Abi lector, et si publico commodo invigilare gaudes magis 
 quam tuo, hinc sume exemplum. 
 
 A gifted school was that contemporary with, and im- 
 mediately succeeding Shakespeare ! The virtuous, the 
 well-beloved, the modest Massinger, by common consent, 
 ranks next to his illustrious exemplar. His majesty and 
 grace, the ingenuity and skilful development of his plots, 
 the variety and truth of his nicely discriminated cha- 
 racters, and the singular energy and poetic beauty of his 
 diction, fully entitle him to that honour. Profound 
 learning, absolute command of language, vigour of con- 
 ception, analytic skill, and exact and elaborated art, place 
 Ben Jonson one step, and but one, below Massinger. 
 Beaumont is chiefly to be noted for his carefully-con- 
 structed fable, stateliness of style, critical acumen (which 
 made Ben Jonson defer to his judgment and revision), 
 and perfect knowledge of stage effect. Of the rich ore 
 of his literary partner he possessed a very moderate 
 share. Fletcher deserves all praise for his enchanting ten- 
 derness in depicting that passion, the course of which ne- 
 ver did run smooth ; for the sweetly-pensive tone, the pic- 
 turesque fancy, that pervade his many beautiful scenes ; 
 for the ease, gaiety, and brilliancy of his dialogue, and 
 that quick repartee, that " chase of wit," so delightful to
 
 DEMOCIIITUS IN LONDON. 293 
 
 Nature brings her offerings there, 
 
 an audience. Middleton, had he written nothing but his 
 tragi-comedy of The Witch, would have deserved a niche 
 in the Temple of Fame. Though his hags want the spi- 
 rituality of the Weird Sisters, they are still (more par- 
 ticularly if, as Steevens conjectures, they preceded Mac- 
 beth) wonderful creations. Yet is he not without an 
 easy, playful wit, a characteristic and cordial humour, 
 an urbanity very charming ; merits which those who 
 have read More Dissemblers beside Women, and A mad 
 World my Masters, will readily allow him. Decker (that 
 thorn in the tough side of " rare Ben ! ") who was asso- 
 ciated with Massinger, Middleton, Webster, Ford, and 
 llowley, may safely rest his fame upon Old Fortunatus and 
 Honest Whore, dramas displaying considerable ability as to 
 character, plot, and language ; and who that has read his 
 Satiro-mastii, in which, under the title of Young Horace he 
 cries quittance with Crispiuus, will deny him extraordinary 
 powers of wit and sarcasm ? disfigured though they be by 
 coarseness and ribaldry. Marston exhibited great know- 
 ledo-e of life, and skill in di-awing character, particularly 
 in The Insatiate Countess and The Malcontent ; in the latter 
 (which Langbaine calls " an honest general satire "), he 
 is sententious and sarcastic, stern and uncompromising. 
 From him vice and foUy receive no quarter. Heywood 
 (who in fecundity may compare with Lopez de Vega) has a 
 touching simplicity, a gentle pathos, of which A Womankilled 
 with Kindness is an excellent example. Old George Chap- 
 man, turgid and tedious as he occasionally is, has left two 
 noble specimens of his dramatic muse, in Bussy D'Amhois; 
 and the moody and melancholy Ford, to whom horror was 
 a familiar and a welcome guest, struck the chords of deso- 
 lation and despair with a master's hand ! Unearthly le- 
 gends, cloistered solitudes, ancient ruins, funeral bells, and
 
 294 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Garlands ever fresh and fair ! ° 
 Spring, the primrose bright with dew ; 
 
 oharnel-houses, were the subjects upon which his conge- 
 nial fancy loved to dwell. In this, and in the solemn and 
 majestic march of his metre, he bears a striking resem- 
 blance to Webster ; and it is difficult to decide which of 
 these two kindred spirits laboured most successfully iu 
 their eloquent art. 
 
 Vitloria Coroinbonn and The Duchess of Malfi are the mas- 
 terpieces of Webster. In them pity and terror reign su- 
 preme; though Appius and Virginia will find many ad- 
 mirers, for the simplicity, pathos, and tranquil beauty, 
 which constitute its peculiar charm. 
 
 If we search the ancient drama, we shall hardly find a 
 more consistent, a more powerfully -drawn character than 
 A^'ittoria Corombona. In that scene where she is ar- 
 raigned for the murder of her husband, she casts about 
 her electrical fire with the terrific energy of a sibyl. Bold, 
 from the consciousness of her surpassing beauty and ready 
 wit, she stands self-relying and intrepid in the presence of 
 lier accusers, and when hunted down by evidence the 
 must conclusive, she assumes the robe of innocence, and 
 aspires to the crown of martyrdom ! Her death is the 
 triumphant extinction of a haughty, fierce, and ardent 
 spirit. 
 
 The muse that dictated Viltoria Corombona comes forth 
 in The Duchess of Mulfi inspired with a sterner woe, and 
 breathing a deeper horror. On the very threshold of the 
 story we stand spell-bound ! The first thing that we ad- 
 mire iu this wonderful tragedy is the judicious construction 
 and completeness of the plot. Though incident follows 
 incident with startling rapidity, nothing is precipitated. 
 The mysterious march of events pursues its undeviating 
 course. It halts not to hold idle parley with hope, or 
 hollow truce with despair. Innocence has no power over
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Summer, flowers of every hue ; 
 Autumn, fruits ; and winter, holly — 
 
 295 
 
 fate to avert its inevitable doom. Endurance reaches its 
 limit. Not one pang more can it bear. Death, whose so- 
 lemn tread and sable shadow have long been heard and 
 seen in the distance, comes to the relief of too-severely tried 
 humanity, and the tortured spirit finds its rest at last. 
 
 Well does Mr. Gifford (speaking of these times) say, 
 "In poetry, painting, architecture, they have not since 
 been equalled ; in theology and moral philosophy, they 
 are not even now surpassed : and it ill becomes us, who 
 live in an age which can scarcely produce a Bartholomew- 
 fair farce, to arraign the taste of a period which produced 
 a cluster of writers, of whom the meanest would now be 
 esteemed a prodigy." — Uncle Timothy. 
 
 * The Romans decorated the monuments of their friends 
 with garlands of flowers. The Persians adopted this cus- 
 tom from the Medes, and the Greeks from the Persians ; 
 and Pythagoras introduced it into Italy. The tomb of 
 AchUles was decorated with amaranth, the tirn of Philo- 
 poemen with chaplets, the grave of Sophocles with roses 
 and ivy, and ivy and flowerets were planted near that of 
 Anacreon. Virgil adorns the body of Pallas with leaves 
 of arbutus and other funeral evergreens. In modern 
 Greece the Turks plant over graves the myrtle, and the 
 amarillis lutea. In Persia the basil is used • and in Tri- 
 poli the tombs are garlanded with roses and festoons of 
 Arabian jessamine, and flowers of orange and myrtle. In 
 England this delicate and beautiful rite has prevailed 
 from very early times. Shirley has an allusion to it in 
 his tragedy of the Traytor ; Milton, in Samson Agonistes 
 and Lycidas ; Beaumont and Fletcher in the Maid's Tra- 
 gedy; and Shakespeare in Hamlet, the Winter's Tale, 
 
 and Cymbeline 
 
 Smollett, in his imitation of TibuUus; Chatterton, in
 
 296 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 Honest mirth, sweet melancholy, 
 Pilgrims at his shrine appear. 
 And pity drops her holiest tear ! 
 
 There no mortal steps intrude, 
 Sacred is the solitude ! 
 Naught impure can entrance find. 
 All reflects his heavenly mind ! 
 Oft on summer nights serene 
 Is his gentle Spirit seen 
 Hovering round the fairy dell 
 Where his fancy loved to dwell ! 
 
 Haste, and on his altar now 
 
 Cast thy wreath, then pay thy vow. 
 
 Breezy mountains, crystal fountains, 
 And of paradise the flowers. 
 
 Frolic fancies, songs and dances, 
 In this fairy land are ours ! 
 
 Spirits brighter, footsteps lighter. 
 Tresses of more sparkling gold, 
 
 Livelier graces, lovelier faces. 
 Never yet did eyes behold ! 
 
 his dirge of " O sing unto my roundelay;" Gray, in the 
 omitted stanza of his Elegy, and Collins, in the dirge sung 
 over the grave of Fidele, also allude to this heavenly prac. 
 tice
 
 DEMOCRITUS IN LONDON. 
 
 297 
 
 Not thy own celestial sphere 
 Breathes sweeter music — Hark ! I hear 
 My tuneful Summons to appear ! 
 While beneath the moon's expanse 
 Nature sinks in solemn trance, 
 And the chantress of the night 
 Fills the groves with sad delight ! 
 While blest spirits from above ^ 
 Guard from peril those they love, 
 Whether on the land or deep 
 They in darkness watch or sleep, 
 We, upon the wings of wind. 
 Leave this weary world ^ behind. 
 
 T Plutarch (in enthusiasm a Platonist and in benevo- 
 lence a Pythagorean !) believed that the genius of Socrates 
 still vk'arned him of approaching danger, and taught him 
 to avoid it. 
 
 * " 'Tis an excellent world that we live in, 
 To lend, and to spend, or to give in; 
 But to borrow or beg, or get a man's own, 
 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST.
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST.i 
 
 'T was a sunny Sabbath morn, the 
 spring-time of the year, 
 The earth look'd green and beautiful, 
 the sky look'd bright and clear, 
 And softly blew the freshening breeze and sweetly 
 
 rose the lay 
 Of feather'd woodland choristers blithe as the new- 
 born day ! 
 
 > To * • * 
 
 Ere upon thy pillow thou 
 Shalt to-night compose thy brow 
 And to guardian saints commend 
 Parent, brother, sister, friend. 
 Let, once more, a lyre be heard 
 That of old thy bosom stirr'd. 
 
 Greet the Minstrel while thou may'st, 
 For he passeth on in haste, 
 Soon a higher, happier sphere 
 Will his solemn harpings hear !
 
 302 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 The village bells for matins rang, their soothing, 
 
 solemn sound 
 In every heart a glad response, a joyful echo found, 
 Their music in the olden time had summon'd sire 
 
 and son 
 While here they ran their earthlv race — and when 
 
 that race was run ! 
 
 It was a pleasant sight to see how met, with one 
 
 accord, 
 The old and young, the rich and poor, in peace, to 
 
 praise the Lord, 
 And how content and cheerfulness and serious 
 
 thought did seem 
 In every grateful heart to glow, in every eye to beam I 
 
 Among the Christian Worshippers who pray'd to 
 
 be forgiven, 
 To do their Father's will on earth and see his face 
 
 in heaven, 
 W^as one, a lonely wayfarer from some far-distant 
 
 land. 
 Whom time, stern monitor ! had touch'd, but with 
 
 a tender hand. 
 
 Deep thought in mournful majesty sat on his lofty 
 
 brow, 
 His cheek, if it had once been fair, was dark and 
 
 sunburnt now. 
 His stately form with tremor shook, his eyes were 
 
 dim with tears,
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST. SOS 
 
 Yet flash'd the intellectual fire of past and happier 
 years ! 
 
 But as he humbly bow'd his head and bent his knees 
 
 in prayer, 
 How vanish'd from his sight the world with all its 
 
 withering care ! 
 And when on wings of harmony hosannas rose 
 
 subUme, 
 He seem'd into eternity to have escaped from time I 
 
 The blessing by their Pastor given, the villagers 
 
 retire, 
 Age leans upon the arm of youth, the son supports 
 
 the sire, 
 Pensive along the churchyard-way their homeward 
 
 path they keep, 
 The path that once their fathers trod — where now 
 
 their fathers sleep ! 
 
 The knell of death toU'd heavily upon the startled 
 
 ear. 
 Another sheep has left the fold to sweetly slumber 
 
 here ! 
 The god of day a parting ray upon the coffin threw, 
 And loud the lark a carol sang as up to heaven he 
 
 flew I 
 
 But who is he with calm clear eye, and placid brow, 
 and cheek
 
 304 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 Just, putting forth its tender bloom ? In him does 
 
 sorrow speak 
 With mute, expressive eloquence ! His gaze is on 
 
 the ground 
 While they with turf so fresh and green build up 
 
 the rising mound. 
 
 " For whom flow fast those holy tears ? for father 
 
 weeps a son ? 
 The God of Truth shall guide thy youth, and let 
 
 His will be done! " 
 The Stranger said, and as he spake, and strove to 
 
 speak again, 
 A sudden, momentary pang shot through his heart 
 
 and brain ! 
 
 " For one whose grief," the youth replied, "a secret, 
 
 silent woe. 
 Nor respite gave him nor relief until it laid him 
 
 low — 
 Thou lookest like a comforter! " — the way he slowly 
 
 led. 
 And left to its dark loneliness and deep repose the 
 
 dead!
 
 A 
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 305 
 
 MOURNER sat in solitude.— The battle and 
 
 the storm 
 Of life, alas ! had all but wreck'd that once fair face 
 
 and form, 
 Yet shone there what time could not touch, what 
 
 grief could not eiface, 
 A mind serenely beautiful, a meek and lowly grace. 
 
 When in the darken 'd chamber's gloom the vision 
 
 met her view 
 Of one who many, many years had been a mourner 
 
 too ! 
 The youth to her inquiring look his sweet reply 
 
 address'd. 
 And soon their melancholy hearth received the 
 
 Stranger-guest. 
 
 With faltering tongue she, trembling, spake, with 
 
 broken voice and low, 
 And lifted up her hands in prayer and bow'd her 
 
 head in woe ! 
 " The bitter cup, like Marah's fount, my Father gave 
 
 may I, 
 With patience and humility, devoutly drink — and 
 
 die I 
 
 The grave ray early, only love has hidden from my 
 
 sight, 
 O, could I but as soundly sleep as he now sleeps, 
 
 to-night 1 
 
 X
 
 306 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 And rise with him, as he shall rise, on wings angelic 
 
 borne, 
 Never, never more to part, and never more to mourn! 
 
 The sorrow that consumed his heart I, too, have 
 
 borne, and bear ; 
 We had a Son, but he is lost ! or lives he ? and, 
 
 ah ! where ? 
 What friendly roof-tree shelters him ? still does he 
 
 to the slave 
 Exalt the name and sing the praise of Him who 
 
 walk'd the wave ? 
 
 .For early, in the Book of Life, on Sinai's Mount 
 
 he saw 
 The trembling prophet from his Sire receive His 
 
 holy Law, 
 And heard the deep-toned thunders roll, and earth 
 
 and heaven and hell 
 Of Calvary's great Mystery the awful tidings tell ! 
 
 And he communed with holy men and told them his 
 desire 
 
 To bear the Cross to heathen shores ; they fann'd 
 his youthful fire — 
 
 ' Obey,' they cried, ' the monitor, its inward whis- 
 perings are 
 
 Responses earnest to a voice above the morning star ! 
 
 Go forth, while life is in its spring, the messenger 
 of Truth
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 307 
 
 Which never falls with sweeter force than from the 
 
 lips of youth ! 
 And when thou shalt (the battle won) in death, thy 
 
 arms lay down, 
 Upon the Christian warrior's head will shine the 
 
 Conqueror's Crown I " 
 
 Now soon must boundless ocean bear to some wild 
 
 savage shore 
 Our early hope ! — He was resolved 1 — I heard the 
 
 torrent roar ! 
 Death in a thousand ghastly shapes rush'd madly 
 
 on my mind ! 
 In vain I strove against despair, I could not be 
 
 resisrn'd I 
 
 ' Regard me not, forego thy love, forget that I am 
 
 here ; ' 
 His father said, with quivering lip, and half sup- 
 
 press'd a tear I 
 ' But let thy filial piety a tender mother save, 
 Thy duty stand, for some few years, between her 
 
 and the grave ! 
 
 'Are there not sinful souls enough in Britain's wide 
 
 domain ? 
 The infidel, the hypocrite, the openly profane ! 
 That thou should'st give thy sympathies to heathen 
 
 men alone. 
 And bear the lamp to other lands that ought to light 
 
 thy own ? '
 
 308 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 T 
 
 HE silent day of parting came — we none could 
 
 bid farewell ! 
 For sad forebodings, like a cloud, upon our spirits 
 
 fell— 
 My son went forth, and with him went to Afric's 
 
 burning shore 
 This prayer, that once in secret breathed, was ne'er 
 
 forgotten more. 
 
 ' The solitary Bark that rolls along the pathless deep 
 With her freight of human souls may guardian 
 
 angels keep ! 
 And speed the heavenly messenger, ye spirits blest! 
 
 benign ! 
 Who, by the light of Bethlehem's Star, pursues his 
 
 course divine.' 
 
 Long, moonless nights of gricx repose succeeded 
 
 storms by day, 
 And lightnings, for the stars were not ! illumed the 
 
 watery way. 
 But mountain-wave and hurricane that head shall 
 
 never harm 
 On whom the Lord Omnipotent has spread his 
 
 heavenly charm ! 
 
 On one fair morn the land appear'd ; the orient orb 
 
 of day 
 Made lustrous with his sheeny light the mountains 
 
 and the bay,
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 309 
 
 Parch'd nature panted for the breeze, man scarcely 
 
 could respire, 
 The sparkling waters roll'd along in floods of liquid 
 
 fire I 
 
 The arid hills and yellow sands their swarthy tribes 
 
 display 'd, 
 Whose savage shouts and glittering spears distrust, 
 
 alarm betray'd, 
 But soon they met, in fellowship, the mission o'er 
 
 the wave 
 That never came to conquer worlds on this dark 
 
 side the grave ! 
 
 The listening heathen heard with awe the gracious 
 
 message sent, 
 And on its young expositor his eye, in wonder, 
 
 bent, 
 He saw, by faith, to fallen man his paradise restored, 
 He bound the Gospel to his heart, and trembled 
 
 and adored I 
 
 Dethroned and trodden in the dust were all his idols 
 
 grim, 
 And for the cry of war arose the morn and evening 
 
 hymn ! 
 He drank of the Redeemer's Cup and brake His 
 
 bread divine. 
 And shared in the immortal hope that warms your 
 
 hearts and mine.
 
 310 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 Fierce fever laid the preacher low upon a bed of pain, 
 It raged in every prostrate limb, it burn'd in every 
 
 vein ! 
 His weeping brethren prayed for him — how answer'd 
 
 was their prayer 
 A joyful host of the redeem'd shall 07ie bright day 
 
 declare ! 
 
 TEN winters since have pass'd away, again 'tis 
 lovely Spring ! 
 No tidings of the Wanderer its vernal breezes bring ! 
 Break I break ! my too-severely tried, my childless, 
 
 widow'd heart ; 
 Farewell ! delusive hope, farewell ! from this sad 
 hour we part. 
 
 For I shall never see him more ! His earthly race 
 is run, 
 
 He early bore the holy Cross, the Crown he early 
 won ! 
 
 And now, with full- voiced Cherubim, he sits en- 
 throned on high, 
 
 Or, gentle task ! to comfort me his spirit hovers 
 nigh. 
 
 Then should I from the realms of bliss his happy 
 
 soul recall ? 
 And bind it, from mere selfishness, again in mortal 
 
 thrall ?
 
 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 311 
 
 My Father ! be the sinful thought forgotten and 
 
 forgiven, 
 O, let him not descend to earth, but let me rise to 
 
 heaven I 
 
 And yet I would a little while delay ray parting 
 hour, 
 
 To see this beauteous bud unfold into a lovely 
 flower ! " 
 
 Then with a look of tenderness and with an accent 
 sweet, 
 
 She raised and kiss'd, with gracious tears, the strip- 
 ling at her feet. 
 
 " Thy father to my fostering care thy infancy con- 
 
 sign'd, 
 And he on whom the grave has closed inform'd thy 
 
 opening mind, 
 He led thee, with endearing art, thro' learning's 
 
 classic bowers. 
 And made fair wisdom's path of peace a pleasant 
 
 path of flowers ! 
 
 And should'st thou forth a Pilgrim go, when I am 
 in repose. 
 
 To srrace the Garden of the Lord and blossom like 
 the rose ! 
 
 No mother will be doom'd to mourn, to bring re- 
 pentance deep, 
 
 No happy home made desolate, o'er which to fondly 
 weep.
 
 312 THE STRANGER-GUEST. 
 
 And if thou, after years of care, anxiety and toil, 
 
 To mingle with thy kindred dust, should'st seek 
 thy native soil, 
 
 Tho' this loved roof, yon village spire may sad re- 
 membrance wake. 
 
 No sigh will heave for blighted hearts once left 
 behind to break I " 
 
 She paused — a deep convulsive sob was all the 
 youth's reply — 
 
 And then upon the Stranger fix'd her dark and 
 searching eye ; 
 
 Their glances met — o'er memory pass'd a dim 
 mysterious light — 
 
 A shadowy dream — again it pass'd across her ach- 
 ing sight — 
 
 " Speak ! speak !" she cried, but ere he spake, be- 
 hold the brightening beam 
 
 Flash'd into full reality ! no longer 'twas a dream ! 
 
 " Rejoice ! rejoice 1 our prayer is heard I my lost I 
 my only one I 
 
 Sing to the Lord Omnipotent ! — Great God 1 My 
 
 Son I My Son I 
 
 1: 
 
 
 C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOhS COURT .CHANCERY LANE.
 
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 UNIVERSITl OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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 AUG 2 3 
 
 1985
 
 
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